Tag: politics

A five-state race

All right, let’s break down the Republican math, since the mainstream media appears determined to avoid analyzing the numbers in any manner that is even remotely relevant to future events. I’m using a corrected and updated version of the spreadsheet created by a reader here, Frank B. Luke. According to the latest reports on CNN, Trump has 385 delegates and Cruz has 298.

There are the following delegates up for grabs in the next 10 days. The next seven “states” are proportional:

23 PR
19 HI
32 ID
59 MI
40 MS
69 IL
19 DC

271 total

Let’s be conservative and give both Trump and Cruz a minimum of 40 percent of the delegates apiece, or 108. (On Saturday, the day of his big “loss” to Cruz, Cruz took 57 percent and Trump took 44 percent). Now the score is: Trump 493 and Cruz 406. Next comes the big showdown on March 15, winner-takes-all for three states and one territory.

52 MO
99 FL
66 OH
09 (Northern Marianas)

If Trump takes all four, which is currently more likely than not, thhis minimum expected delegate count to 719. Trump will then only need 518 more, 193 of which he can expect to get in a worst-case proportional distribution. (Remember, he can reasonably anticipate more than 108 we assigned him from the 271 available proportional-state delegates; based on the polls, 162 would be a more reasonable estimate.) So, that means to clinch the nomination, he will need somewhere between 271 and 325 delegates from the 606 that remain in the winner-takes-all states, 172 of which are in California.

TL;DR: If Trump wins Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California, plus one state from the following list (Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin), he wins the nomination. Period. Nothing else matters.

This is why Cruz should spend the week telling his supporters to vote for Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio. But he won’t, because his so-called strategists are far more concerned with what they call optics than they are about actual tactics.

It should be amusing to see how many pundits and analysts suddenly start talking about the significance of the difference between winner-takes-all and proportional states without ever mentioning the source. Because despite all of their endless opining, none of them have bothered to work any of this out.

Perception vs perspective

The anti-Trumpkins are strutting around the Internet and bellowing about how Ted Cruz blew away Donald Trump in the two states he won and narrowly lost to Trump in the two states Trump won. And that’s true, if you’re dumb enough to look only at the reported percentages rather than the actual numbers involved.

In Kansas and Maine, Cruz beat Trump by 18,145 and 2,480 votes, respectively. In Kentucky and Louisiana, Trump beat Cruz by 10,866 and 9,781 votes. So, Cruz actually lost to Trump on the overall vote count by a grand total of 22 votes, which is a) a dead heat and b) as irrelevant as who won what state.

On the delegate side, Cruz took 64 delegates to Trump’s 49. This, too, changed nothing, because Trump’s ability to reach the required number of delegates before the convention is going to be solely determined by the 391 delegates awarded by the winner-takes-all states so long as he can take 30 percent or more of the distribute-delegate states. Since he took 49 of the 112 delegates allocated yesterday, or 44 percent, Trump remains ahead of the game; the only real significance of Saturday was the implosion of Rubio.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a great night for Cruz, but it was a great night because it showed he is the only alternative to Trump, not because it demonstrated that his popularity had exploded or that he could actually beat Trump. The key result for him on Saturday was Rubio’s demise, who really should drop out of the race on Monday, and presumably, endorse Cruz before getting humiliated in his home state, virtually ensuring Trump’s nomination, and becoming entirely irrelevant.

Since Florida (99) and Ohio (66) account for nearly half of the remaining winner-takes-all delegates, Cruz has to prevent Trump from winning at least one of those states on March 15th. If Trump wins both, it will be extremely difficult to prevent him from collecting the additional 694 delegates he needs even if Cruz wins all of the proportional-distribution states.

The dilemma for Cruz is that if Rubio and Kasich drop out, it increases his slim chance of beating Trump in one of the two critical states. But if they stay in, they will continue to reduce the amount of proportional delegates that Trump collects. Cruz already knows he isn’t likely to get enough delegates himself, so his winning strategy is to try to stop Trump, not to try to win himself.

Game theory says that Cruz needs to get Rubio and Kasich out of the race and get their endorsements right now so they can campaign for him and help him poach either Florida or Ohio. Whether they are in or out, Trump is going to surpass the 30 percent threshold in the proportional states. Since Cruz was at 21 percent in Ohio and 12 percent in Florida, the key to the nomination is Kasich, not Rubio. And presumably, Kasich knows this, which is why he has stayed in the race up until now.

If I’m Trump, I’m making a deal with Kasich to get his endorsement and strike for the kill. Anything short of VP should be on the table. If I’m Kasich, I’m getting out of the race before Wednesday and cashing in at my peak value. And if I’m Cruz, I’m arranging for a quiet telephone call with Trump to see if what he’s willing to offer in exchange for an endorsement. There is a three-way Prisoner’s Dilemma here, as the first candidate to endorse Trump is the one who is the most valuable to him. Alternatively, Cruz should tell his supporters to vote Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio.

On a side note, it’s interesting how this campaign has been largely consistent with the socio-sexual interpretation of the candidates from the start. It’s down to Sigma against Alpha, and the outcome will largely depend upon whom can do a better job of assembling popular support versus working the system. The situation appears to strongly favor the Alpha, but it is always dangerous to expect a Sigma to do the obvious or to count him out.

I am nagged by one serious doubt concerning what I’ve been told about Ted Cruz, and it’s not related to the obvious one concerning the extent to which he is the Goldman Sachs-preferred, CFR-approved candidate. If, as we are told, the establishment hates him so much more than Trump, why has Cruz been overperforming so dramatically in the states where the GOPe has more influence in the process.

I expect that we will soon learn whether Cruz fans have been telling the truth about whether the Republican establishment prefers him to Trump or not. If Fox and various GOP figures immediately begin fawning all over Cruz once Rubio withdraws, we will know they were, at the very least, incorrect.

Semi-super Saturday results

This is an open thread to discuss the results of the Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine primaries. Decision Desk has the live results.

Looks like a split. Cruz takes Maine and Kansas, Trump takes Kentucky and Louisiana. Rubio didn’t even make it to Florida.

One would think the GOPe would learn something from the repeated failure of their anointed ones. After Bush, Dole, Bush, Mcain, and Romney, they don’t have much in the way of either support or respect any longer.

Ever seen Deliverance, Mr. Beck?

“I don’t know what I would have done if I was sitting in Cruz or
Rubio’s shoes. I can’t say it that way. If I were on the
stage, I would have said, ‘have you been listening to him tonight? Have
you been listening to what I say about him? I believe these things. If I was close enough and had a knife, the stabbing just wouldn’t stop.”
– Glenn Beck

Dear Mr. Beck,

Have you ever seen Deliverance? Yeah, that’s your fat piggy ass for the rest of your life if you try to stab Mr. Trump.

Sincerely,
America

The message and the harbinger

Trump is merely one harbinger of nationalism rising across the West in response to the traitorous globalist elite:

This side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump tends to be portrayed as something of a unique event. He’s broken every rule, slaughtered every sacred cow, and defied every political prediction: He’s stronger than ever. To explain him, many American commentators, particularly his critics, have suggested that the Republican presidential contender has latched onto some specific quirk in America’s national psyche, or identified an inherent weakness in the U.S. political system or failing on the part of its current political parties….

But from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Donald Trump story looks very different. From the perspective of many anxious op-ed writers in Western Europe, Trump isn’t an anomaly. Instead, he’s part of a dramatic populist surge occurring across Western democracies at the moment, on both the political left and the right.

“From Spain to Sweden to Poland, populist protest parties are spreading,” wrote Josef Joffe last month in the German newspaper Die Zeit. All that differs is the terminology: “In America the ‘mainstream media’ is the enemy. Here it is [called] the ‘Lügenpresse [lying press].’ Here they rage against ‘those at the top,’ there against the ‘elites.’”

“In nearly every European country they are on the move now, the little Trumps,” declared Evelyn Roll in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, warning against the dangers of nationalism.

“We have Marine Le Pen. They have Trump,” agreed Le Monde’s Alain Frachon. Le Pen, who heads France’s Front National, often draws these comparisons, given her similar nationalist and anti-immigration posture. But others point to Viktor Orban in Hungary or the politicians in Germany’s “Alternative for Germany” party, a group opposed to immigration and the European Union that is expected to gain ground in the next election.

Of course, not every European observer is anxious as a result of these developments. My concern is that they are too little, too late, and that the allied elites will be able to use the anti-democratic rules of representative democracy to stifle the nationalist rise.

Because, as I have repeatedly warned, if the nationalists can’t succeed through the rules of representative democracy, the ultranationalists are going to succeed through force. Because open nationalist dictatorships in the interests of the nations will be vastly preferred by the various publics to hidden globalist dictatorship in the interests of the international elite.

And if the nationalists are stopped, that is the choice that will be presented to the nations of the West.

The death of conservatism

Mike Cernovich explains how the pro-American mask has been stripped away from the globalists formerly known as conservatives:

Nationalism v. Globalism: The Death of Conservatism.

Trump’s rise has been met with cries that he is not a “true conservative.” The once-prestigious National Review devoted an entire issue crying about Trump. Called Against Trump, the issue brought in attacks from pro-war neocons and even the mentally-unstable Glen Beck.

What attacks on Trump failed to do was define conservatism. No one has been able to explain why waging wars on foreign soils or increasing federal spending more than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson, as George w. Bush did, was conservative. No one has explained how socialized medicine, which Mitt Roney enacted as government of Massachusetts, is conservative.

Question begging aside, Trump is not a “true conservative,” and in fact conservatism in the U.S. is dead.

Trump is a nationalist, which is a loaded term worthy of definition.

Nationalism derives from the root nation. A nationalist puts the interests of his own country, and by extension countrymen, above the interests of other nations. A nationalist puts America first. Nationalists will work with other countries, but only when in the best interest of the United States.

You’d think that the President of the United States would by definition be a nationalist. Nation is in the title of the job description. Yet mainstream conservatives have drifted away from nationalism and towards globalism.

To a globalist, Americans are no different from a Nigerian. If someone in a foreign land is able to do a job much cheaper than an American worker, then those jobs should be offshored. Americans, according to globalists, do not deserve to exist as an identity.

Globalists thus favor open borders, even though increased immigration lowers the wages of native-born Americans while increasing crimes. Marco Rubio, the darling of conservative elites, even sought to open America’s borders.

As part of the Gang of 8 (so named because 8 United State senators joined forces to bring a new world order to the U.S.), Rubio also sought to increase the number of migrants from Syria by millions. That the migrants from Syrian tend to be overwhelmingly men of prime-fighting age means nothing to Rubio or other globalists. America has no right to exist as a nation under the globalist worldview.

Trump rejected globalism with a powerful statement: Build the Wall. By building a wall, Trump meant the U.S. must erect a border between the United States and Mexico, as illegal immigrants, including drug dealers and even Islamic terrorists, poured across in the tens-of-millions. Building a wall is a powerful representation of nationalism.

“A nation cannot exist without a border,” Trump declared. A nation is it borders because a nation is its people. When you allow people who hate American values like freedom of speech, free enterprise, and tolerance for religion, you change the nation for the worse.

Mainstream conservatives, again, are globalists. They believe Americans do not have a right to exist as a people, and that America does not have the right to exist as a nation. Some my call that statement extreme, but if you do not define your borders or control who comes to America, as they do in Israel, how can you claim to be pro-America?

There is more, considerably more, there. A fair amount of it will be familiar to you if you have read Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America, but Mike puts his uniquely energetic spin on the matter. Read the whole thing.

And then ask yourself, how can any American, real or propositional, claim to be conservative when he actively opposes the conservation of America?

Correcting a misstep

Donald Trump obviously understood that his supporters did not like his reply to Megyn Kelly on highly-skilled immigration, which they took to be a flip-flop on the H-1B visa program. He immediately clarified his position after the debate:

March 04, 2016
Donald J. Trump Position on Visas

“Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”

That is about as clear as it gets. Whether you support Trump or not, the fact that he might have slipped up once when under attack from three sides is not indicative of his true position on immigration. Especially when there is sleight of hand involved in the question, substituting “H1-B visas” for “highly-skilled immigration”.

Trump’s general principle on immigrant labor remains clear: he does not support importing foreign workers to lower the wages of American jobs.

11th debate, 11th hour

It’s all but over for the Republican campaigns:

Republicans gather for their eleventh debate on Thursday amid growing consternation from those in the GOP establishment that Donald Trump is unstoppable.

In the hours since Trump’s Super Tuesday romp, Republicans have intensified their push to defeat him, with GOP groups digging into their bank accounts for an air assault in Florida. Top operatives are laying groundwork for primaries on March 15, perhaps the last chance to defeat the billionaire mogul. And Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, under growing duress, are getting ready to deliver harsh attacks on the front-runner in Thursday’s primetime debate in Detroit.

The flurry of activity underscores what many concede is a central reality: The window for halting Trump may soon be closed for good.

“Trump is the presumptive nominee,” said Christian Ferry, who served as Lindsey Graham’s campaign manager. “I think anyone who cannot see that today needs to start working through the stages of grief.”

Operation Mitt was a bust today, so it should be interesting to see if an overstressed Rubiot implodes on stage. This is an open thread for live-commenting the debate, if you are so inclined.

Is Romney criticizing Trump or campaigning for him?

I don’t know about you, but I suspect Trump’s numbers are going to go up in reaction to Romney’s much-ballyhooed attack on him:

“Here’s what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” Romney said. “His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.”
 
Romney lambasted Trump on foreign policy, casting him as “very, very not-smart” in his comments about allowing ISIS to take out Syria’s leadership and for proposing the slaughter of the families of terrorists.

“Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less-than-noble purposes. He creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for the killing of innocent children and family members of terrorists.”

This strikes me as more than a little akin to throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. What’s he going to do next, accuse Trump of liking apple pie, marrying hot women, and wanting to keep America too American?

Mike Cernovich will no doubt note that by saying Trump “gets a free ride to the White House”, Romney has made the mistake of assuming the sale.

Meanwhile the Mexicans are campaigning for Trump too, it seems:

In a televised interview late on Wednesday, Finance Minister Luis Videgaray categorically rejected the proposal.

“Under no circumstance will Mexico pay for the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing,” he said. “Building a wall between Mexico and the United States is a terrible idea. It is an idea based on ignorance and has no foundation in the reality of North American integration.”

Yes, I’m sure that will convince many Americans not to vote for Trump. If they keep this up, Trump is going to win in a landslide after promising to nuke Mexico City and deport all of the contributors to National Review. What are they going to do next, roll out George W. Bush to attack him?

An enemy of the Alt Right

The Littlest Chickenhawk declares himself in the Jewish Journal. It’s a pretty good article, but perhaps revealed more than he intended.

Even the revolt against political correctness wouldn’t be enough to put Trump in position to break apart the Republican Party, however. Republicans have railed against political correctness for years — Trump isn’t anything new in that, although he’s certainly more vulgar and blunt than others. No, what truly separates Trump from the rest of the Republican crowd is that he’s a European-style nationalist.

Republicans are American exceptionalists. We believe that America is a unique place in human history, founded upon a unique philosophy of government and liberty. That’s why we’re special and why we have succeeded. In his own way, Trump believes in American exceptionalism much like Barack Obama does — as a term to describe parochial patriotism. Obama infamously remarked in 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Obama meant that dismissively — American exceptionalism is just something we do because we’re American, not because we’re actually special. But Trump means it proudly. His nationalism is a reaction to Obama’s anti-nationalism. It says: “Barack Obama may think America isn’t worthy of special protection because we’re not special. Well, we’re America, damn it, even if we don’t know what makes us special.” According to Trump, we ought to operate off of the assumption that Americans deserve better lives not because they live out better principles or represent a better system, but because they’re here.

This sort of nationalism resembles far more the right-wing parties of Europe than the historical Republican Party. The Republican Party has stood for embrace of anyone who will embrace American values; extreme European right-wing parties tend to embrace people out of ethnic allegiance rather than ideological allegiance. Trump uncomfortably straddles that divide. His talk about limiting immigration has little to do with embrace of American values and much more to do with “protecting” Americans from foreigners — even highly educated foreigners willing to work in the United States without taking benefits from the tax system. It’s one thing to object to an influx of people who disagree with basic constitutional values. But Trump doesn’t care about basic constitutional values. He simply opposes people coming in who aren’t us. There’s a reason so many of his supporters occupy the #altright portion of the Internet, which traffics in anti-Semitism and racism.

It’s not an accident that Ben Shapiro sounded like an SJW when he said that racists should be hunted down and their careers destroyed. Shapiro is no friend to the right. He’s as cuckservative and anti-right as anyone at National Review. He’s not stupid, and he’s not on our side. At the end of the day, he’ll line up with the globalists in the bifactional ruling party and against the American nationalists.

I never thought much about his columns at WorldNetDaily back when we were both writing for them; my readership there was literally ten times his own. But they were harmless, little more than parroting whatever the received wisdom of the conservative movement happened to be at the time. If they weren’t the best columns there, they weren’t the worst either. I was mildly amused when they were picked up by Creators Syndicate for syndication.

Since then, Shapiro has observably raised his game. He’s not bad, either in print or on television. But he isn’t genuinely of the right at all. He’s actually part of the Fake Right, the Neoconservatives, the self-appointed heirs to William F. Buckley, who have appointed themselves Republican “opinion leaders” in order to keep the respectable right from departing too far from what they deem to be acceptable. If he is correct, and the Republican Party is dying, he’s not going to join the American nationalist successor party.

An ally does not attack you. An ally praises your good points and remains silent in public about what he perceives as your defects. An ally always looks to benefit you rather than harm you. An ally comes to your defense even when he believes you are wrong. An ally takes shots for you that he knows he can withstand more readily than you.

And that is how we know that Ben Shapiro, for all his legitimate merits, is neither a friend nor an ally of the Alt Right.