Tag: politics

It’s called “rhetoric”

Thomas Friedman needs a copy of SJWs Always Lie:

Donald Trump is a walking political science course. His meteoric rise is lesson No. 1 on leadership: Most voters do not listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs. If a leader can connect with them on a gut level, their response is: “Don’t bother me with the details. I trust your instincts.” If a leader can’t connect on a gut level, he or she can’t show them enough particulars. They’ll just keep asking, “Can you show me the details one more time?”

Trump’s Republican rivals keep thinking that if they just point out a few more details about him, voters will drop The Donald and turn to one of them instead. But you can’t talk voters out of something that they haven’t been talked into.

Many have come to Trump out of a gut feeling that this is a guy who knows their pain, even if he really doesn’t. Many of his supporters are from the #middleagewhitemalesmatter movement, for whom the current age of acceleration has not been kind and for whom Trump’s rallies are their way of saying “Can you hear me now?” and of sticking it to all the people who exploited their pain but left them behind, particularly traditional Republican elites. They are not interested in Trump’s details. They like his gut.

Scott Adams calls Trump a Master Persuader. That’s hypnotist jargon for being a master of rhetoric. Donald Trump speaks to the emotions more effectively than the other candidates, most of whom are also speaking in rhetoric, albeit less effective rhetoric.

That’s why them suddenly switching to dialectic – or sometimes, pseudo-dialectic – is so off-putting. In essence, Trump’s critics are losing the argument in English, so they’re abruptly switching to Chinese to try to convince English-speakers to change their mind. It should be no surprise to anyone who has read and understood either Rhetoric or SJWAL that this has not been effective for them.

Three of four

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the proportional states are not terribly significant except in that they are a harbinger of the very important winner-takes-all states:

MI: Trump 36.5, Cruz 24.9, Kasich 24.2
MS: Trump 47.3, Cruz 36.7
HI: Trump 45.5, Cruz 32.2
ID: Cruz 45.0, Trump 28.1

So, Trump significantly exceeded the 30 percent of the delegates he needed to take in all four states. And each state in which he outperforms that percentage reduces the percentage he needs in the other proportional states. More importantly, the feeble showing of Kasich in Michigan despite all the predictions of how he was rapidly closing in on Trump indicates that Trump is going to win both Ohio and Florida in six days.

And that should be enough to guarantee him the nomination. Especially if he picks up Missouri as well.

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz’s campaign is at it again:

Marco Rubio’s campaign accused Ted Cruz’s camp of “dirty tricks” Tuesday, after Cruz supporters in Hawaii blasted out an email suggesting the Florida senator was about to drop out of the race. The email, sent by “Ted Cruz Hawaii,” cites a disputed CNN report claiming some Rubio advisers have told him to drop out of the 2016 race before Florida’s primary next week, fearing he could be humiliated by a defeat in his home state.

At this point, it makes no difference if Rubio drops out or not. Trump is going to crush both him and Cruz in Florida.

For the record

Trump has no chance in Ohio, will lose Florida though Cruz trying to help him. God willing, he is done on March 16th. Rubio-Kasich
– Louise Mensch

I no longer do political predictions, I content myself with more reliable things such as electoral math. But I do find it very strange to hear that Donald Trump “has no chance in Ohio” considering that he is still leading Kasich in the most recent polls there.

Today’s votes in Hawaii, Idaho, and Michigan are largely irrelevant. As long as Trump gets at least 30 percent of the delegates, he’s fine. The only relevance they have at this point is to the extent they indicate the results in Florida, Ohio, and Missouri, as Trump needs to take two of the three winner-takes-all states.

And just because it’s funny:

They made him inevitable

Finally, a conservative who gets it. Does Donald Trump scare you? Good, he should. And if the GOPe manages to stop him, you’re going to like who comes next even less.

This election is the Republican Altamont, where conservatives got knifed by the Hell’s Angels. It’s our own fault too – the GOP teased its base, looked down upon it, lied to it, and when it turned out it wasn’t playing games and pulled a blade the establishment wasn’t ready.

I spent the last few days at CPAC, surrounded by conservatives, and there was a clear preference for focusing on the symptom – Donald Trump and his myriad failings – rather than the disease. Our problem is not this digitally-challenged, bizarrely phallocentric clown; it’s our failure to represent the people left behind as we got ahead.

Donald Trump is the fault of the GOP elite, including movement conservatives, who failed to listen, who failed to follow through, who thought we were meant to lead the benighted past their narrow self-interests and unseemly prejudices to a wonderful new world reflecting our benevolent self-interests and elite prejudices. Funny how the conservative, globalized utopia we sought to impose always worked out really well for us. Except those left behind aren’t laughing.

Trumpism isn’t merely about unfocused anger – it would be super-convenient to write this off as a temper tantrum that will soon blow over and allow us to get back to the business as usual of ignoring the pleas (which are now demands) to stop the immigration disaster, to address the fallout of free trade, and to stop the useless sacrifice of our sons and daughters in wars we’re too damn gutless to win. But it isn’t. Again and again Republicans promised to solve these problems and yet every single time they’ve lied. Rubio got elected in Florida promising to oppose amnesty then not only fails to do so but stands up with the Democrats and did the exact opposite. And we’re surprised a candidate comes along and points that out?

These folks have been asking us for help, and what was our response?
Shut up, stupid racists. Well, they finally found someone who is taking
their side. His name is Donald Trump, and we made him possible. Hell, we
made him inevitable.

Admitting the problem is the first step towards solving it. Of course, cuckservatives and neocons and conservatives being what they are, they’ll probably just call him a racist Nazi Trumpkin and refuse to listen to anything he has to say.

That’s one way to shut him down

Apparently Marco Rubio didn’t know when to quit, so the GOPe decided to call time on his campaign in order to clear the way for Ted Cruz in Florida:

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has carried on at least two extramarital affairs since he entered politics.

GotNews.com can confirm through lobbyist sources in DC and Tallahassee that at least one DC-based lobbyist has had an extramarital affair with the first-term U.S. Senator. Still another Florida-based lobbyist has been IDed as carrying on an affair.

The first woman was Amber Stoner, a 36-year-old woman who worked for Rubio when he was head of the Florida Republican Party…. The second woman is Dana Hudson, a blonde lobbyist based in the Beltway.

If there are similar revelations about John Kasich, or if he quits the race before Friday, that should suffice to confirm that the GOPe has been doing the math and they know they have to stop Trump in Florida and Ohio or they’re done.

Assuming this is indeed her, doesn’t Miss Hudson look rather like the taller half of Garfunkel and Oates?

Let that be a lesson to all you young would-be politicians out there. When the elders of the party take you out for dinner, and suggest that maybe it is time for you to consider getting out of the race for the good of the party, that’s just their way of being polite. What they really mean is that it is time to get out of the race… if you’re smart enough know what is good for you.

Seriously, does no one watch The Godfather anymore?

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