Tag: politics

Iowa: Cruz 28, Trump 24, Rubio 23

First, congratulations to Farmer Tom, who got the order correct. Second, and unexpectedly, the big news isn’t on the Republican side, but on the Democratic one, as Bernie Sanders shocked the Clinton campaign by effectively fighting Hillary to a draw.

Third, the real score is this: Cruz 8, Trump 7, Rubio 7, Carson 3. That’s how many delegates were awarded.

The only real surprise on the Republican side is that Rubio did much better than anyone expected, including the pollsters. While the media narrative is that Trump is done and dusted, they’ve been saying the exact same thing since last August, so that’s entirely irrelevant. Given that the headline two days ago was “Donald Trump reclaims lead in latest Iowa Poll”, it should be obvious that he was never the favorite in Iowa, and indeed, it looks rather like the GOP and the media colluded to try to make a result that would have been considered beyond Trump’s reach six months ago appear like a disappointing, campaign-destroying failure. As for the record turnout on the Republican side, I suspect it happened for much the same reason it did in the Hugos last year; to stop the interloper.

The only serious candidate who is done now is Jeb, and it appears the establishment will be lining up behind Rubio in his place. Jeb himself will probably follow suit after New Hampshire. I think Cruz will ultimately be the real GOPe candidate as he is the more formidable of the two Cubans. It’s now a three-man race; what would throw a real twist into it is if Trump can win Ben Carson’s support. Forget Trump-Cruz, the most politically effective combination would be Trump-Carson.

Think about it. Trump’s two main weaknesses with Republicans is religion and character. Besides being black, Carson’s two greatest strengths are religion and character. And Trump is already popular among blacks due to his big-man swagger, so if I’m Trump, I’m getting together with Carson and working out a deal to be announced after New Hampshire, but before South Carolina.

And if I can see it, I expect Trump can see it too.

Now onto New Hampshire, where it’s going to be interesting to see how the Iowa results affect the Democratic primary. Sanders is going to win, but how will it affect the race if he crushes Hillary there?

One last thing: say what you will about Trump, but he makes the campaign about 200 percent more interesting. I met him back in 1988 at the Republican convention in New Orleans and he’s very likable. What seems blustery and over-the-top on camera comes off as more expansive and charming in person. Wherever he is, there is a lot of laughter, and not all of it is obsequious. The man is genuinely funny. I mean, who else would end a concession speech like this?

“I don’t know who’s going to win between Bernie and Hillary. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Hillary, she’s got other problems, maybe bigger than the problems she’s got, in terms of nominations, but we’ve had so many different indications, and polls that we beat her, and we beat her easily. And we will go on to get the Republican nomination, and we will go on to easily beat Hillary, or Bernie, or whoever the hell they throw up there. Iowa, we love you. We thank you. You’re special. We will be back many, many times. In fact, I think I might come here and buy a farm, I love it.”

And that’s why the American public loves Trump and the establishment fears him. You just can’t be entirely sure he won’t actually go and do it.

A man ahead of his time

20 years ago, Sam Francis foresaw something akin to The Trumpening in America’s political future:

What if you dropped all this leftover 19th-century piety about the free market and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society — something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America — you simply promised to restore the Middle American core — the economic and cultural losers of globalization — to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?

That’s pretty much the advice that columnist Samuel Francis gave to Pat Buchanan in a 1996 essay, “From Household to Nation,” in Chronicles magazine. Samuel Francis was a paleo-conservative intellectual who died in 2005. Earlier in his career he helped Senator East of North Carolina oppose the Martin Luther King holiday. He wrote a white paper recommending the Reagan White House use its law enforcement powers to break up and harass left-wing groups. He was an intellectual disciple of James Burnham’s political realism, and Francis’ political analysis always had a residue of Burnham’s Marxist sociology about it. He argued that the political right needed to stop playing defense — the globalist left won the political and cultural war a long time ago — and should instead adopt the insurgent strategy of communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Francis eventually turned into a something resembling an all-out white nationalist, penning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan didn’t take Francis’ advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years later, “From Household to Nation,” reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.

To simplify Francis’ theory: There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite. These Middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia and increased competition from immigrants. Most of them feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees Middle Americans as loathsome white bigots. But they are also threatened by conservatives who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment too.

I myself have been writing about America’s bi-factional ruling party for more than twelve years, but only recently has it seemed that people are beginning to wake up to the fact that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are genuinely on the side of the average white Americans who comprise the genuine American nation.

Sooner or later, all politics inevitably becomes tribal, because the only scenario in which so-called post-tribal politics is possible is in a formerly homogeneous nation that is in the early stages of becoming heterogeneous. In other words, there is no such thing as “post-tribal” politics, there is only pre-tribal politics.

And tribal politics is the larval form of war.

Trump takes the lead

Apparently blowing off the final debate like a boss was the right thing to do in the Iowa voters’ eyes. If, that is, the media has gotten the final pre-caucus poll more or less right:

Donald Trump has overtaken Ted Cruz in the final days before Iowa’s caucuses, with the fate of the race closely tied to the size of Monday evening’s turnout, especially among evangelical voters and those attending for the first time, a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows.

The findings before the first ballots are cast in the 2016 presidential nomination race shows Trump with the support of 28 percent of likely caucus-goers, followed by 23 percent for the Texas senator and 15 percent for U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

The billionaire real estate mogul leads Cruz among those who say they definitely plan to attend, 30 percent to 26 percent. With the less committed—those who say they’ll probably attend—Trump also beats Cruz, 27 percent to 21 percent.

“Trump is leading with both the inner core of the caucus universe and the fringe—that’s what any candidate would want,” said longtime Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey for the news organizations.

If Trump does even better than indicated, we’ll know that the poll organizations were playing games and trying to suppress Trump’s numbers; in the UK, ALL the polls were “corrected” at the very end in order to try to make themselves look less hopelessly wrong in comparison with the actual vote.

So, this “late move” may be nothing more than the media bringing the polls more in line with the expected result.

That doesn’t mean Trump will win Iowa. We have, after all, been repeatedly informed by those on the ground that he will not do so. So, like everyone else, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Democratic race is more interesting than anyone would have thought; Hillary Clinton is simply a terrible candidate who can’t win an even remotely competitive election. Even liberal voters dislike her because she is a terrible, dishonest person, even as politicians go. If she didn’t have the entire weight of the bifactional establishment behind her – note how even establishment Republicans have said they would back her over Trump – she would have numbers that made Carly Fiorina’s look good.

How Fox can convince Donald Trump

To show up for the Republican debate on their news channel:

Donald Trump will widen a rupture between his supporters and the Republican Party establishment on Thursday when he boycotts a presidential debate in a snub to Fox News only days before the 2016 election season starts in earnest.

The billionaire front-runner for the Republican nomination will instead host his own event in Iowa during the Fox News debate, likely damaging prime time TV ratings of the most powerful media force in Republican politics.

Trump withdrew from the encounter in a spat with network anchor Megyn Kelly who he accuses of treating him unfairly.

“The ‘debate’ tonight will be a total disaster,” Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday morning. “Low ratings with advertisers and advertising rates dropping like a rock. I hate to see this.”

At this point, this is the only way Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch could convince Trump to show up for the Fox event:

Like. A. Boss.

Trump has Fox and O’Reilly reduced to the state of a teenage girl begging the boyfriend who just dumped her to please, please, please just consider taking her back:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate.

He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.

Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first GOP debate in August.

“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”

Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.

Trump is instead holding a rally in Des Moines at the same time as the Republican debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans.

In the contentious interview with O’Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor’s attempts to convince him that he’s making a grave error by skipping the debate.

“I believe personally that you want to improve the country,” O’Reilly said. “By doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others … that is true.

“You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have sixty seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.”

Yeah, that’s the thing, Bill. By walking away, Donald Trump IS persuading people that he is a strong leader, one who isn’t beholden to the media. Walking away is Alpha. Supplication, especially to a woman, is Delta-Gamma.

Just the fact that Trump is willing to publicly dismiss the overrated Kelly as being “highly overrated” should be enough reason to consider voting for the man. Not even Reagan was that bold in dismissing the media or the progressive sex.

Why show when there is nothing to gain?

Mike Cernovich explains why Trump has picked a showdown with Fox over the debate:

Donald Trump isn’t going to show up to the GOP debate, and the same idiots who never saw his rise are losing their minds. As one of only two people who saw Trump’s rise and predicted it, let me explain what Trump is doing.

Would you give your business competitors millions of potential customers?

Before Donald Trump ran for office, the Republican debates were snooze fests. A few people who were bored watched them.

Because of Donald Trump the GOP debates have drawn huge crowds. The latest debate had 13.5 million viewers, a record number.

Those millions of people watch the debate for one reason – Trump.

No one cares about crusty Cruz, sweaty Rubio, or sleepy-eye Jeb Bush.

When Trump shows up, his competitors have a chance to impression millions of people who otherwise wouldn’t care about them.

Trump has built up the personal brands of parasites and losers. He’s given them enough corporate welfare.

Trump did the last debates to prove a point – that he can win them.
Trump has proven his point. He won every debate.

He has nothing to gain by giving ratings to dishonest FoxNews and to share his millions of fans with the other candidates.

I could care less about the debates. But at this point, I sincerely hope Mike is right, that Trump doesn’t show up, and the ratings tank. I have to admit, it would not have occurred to me to find an excuse to blow it off and thereby take the wind out of everyone else’s sails so effortlessly.

As Scott Adams points out, once more, all they’re talking about is Trump. Once more, the only candidate’s actions that matter are Trump’s.

Trump takes on Fox

Naturally, all of the talking heads who feed at the breasts of Mother Media will angrily denounce Trump’s decision not to play along with the enemy and declare his campaign to be self-torpedoed and dead. But it’s foolish to use conventional measures to judge the effectiveness of a distinctly non-conventional campaign:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump abruptly announced here Tuesday that he would not participate in Thursday’s scheduled debate, escalating his off-and-on feud with Fox News Channel and throwing the GOP campaign into turmoil.

Trump’s assertion, which his campaign manager insisted was irreversible, came less than one week before the kickoff Iowa caucuses. He once again defied the conventional rules of politics, and used his power and prominence to shape the campaign agenda and conversation.

So far, Trump’s untraditional moves have only expanded his support, but his threatened boycott leaves him open to criticism that for all his tough talk he is ducking face-to-face confrontations with his opponents and scrutiny from the Fox moderators.

Given Trump’s past flirtations with boycotting Fox, many will doubt his declaration until they see the other candidates take the debate stage on Thursday night without him.

The Republican debates have become must-see television, in part because of the allure of Trump’s star power and unpredictable candidacy. But he said Tuesday that he thinks Fox and other television networks have been taking advantage of him by selling advertisements for their debates at a high premium…

The debate is scheduled to be in Des Moines on Thursday, and Trump said he would instead host a competing event in the state designed to raise money for wounded veterans.

It would be an unprecedented move if Trump withdrew from the debate at such a consequential moment on the primary calendar.

The media narrative is already stupid; the idea that this is a cowardly move is almost blitheringly out-of-touch; taking on the media directly in this way is far more bold and confrontational than simply showing up on stage again and subjecting oneself to the ridiculous posturing of the moderators.

Trump is actively breaking the power of the institutions and showing them to be paper tigers. Regardless of what his real intentions are, Trump’s high-risk, high-reward actions are marvelous theater and serve as an inspiring example. De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace….

Who but Donald Trump can win a debate by refusing to show up for it?

Fear and fascination

Having successfully circumvented and stared down the American imperialists in both Crimea and Syria, The Saker suspects Vladimir Putin is about to purge Russia’s 5th column:

One of the possible signs of a purge to come is the fact that the Russian media, both the blogosphere and the big corporate media, is now very critical of the economic policies of the government of Prime Minister Medvedev. Most Russian economists agree that the real reason for the current economic crisis in Russia is not the falling price of oil or, even less so, the western sanctions, but the misguided decisions of the Russian Central Bank (such as floating the Ruble or keeping the interest rates high) and the lack of governmental action to support a real reform and development of the Russian economy. What is especially interesting is that vocal opponents of the current 5th column now get plenty of air time in the Russian media, including state owned VGTRK. Leading opponents of the current economic policies, such as Sergei Glazev, Mikhail Deliagin or Mikhail Khazin are now interviewed at length and given all the time needed to absolutely blast the economic policies of the Medvedev government. And yet, Putin is still taking no visible action. In fact, in his latest yearly address he as even praised the work of the Russian Central Bank. So what is going on here?

First, and to those exposed to the western propaganda, this might be difficult to imagine, but Putin is constrained simply by the rule of law. He cannot just send some special forces and have all these folks arrested on some kind of charge of corruption, malfeasance or sabotage. Many in Russia very much regret that, but this is fact of life.

In theory, Putin could simply fire the entire (or part) of the government and appoint a different Governor to the Central Bank. But the problem with that is that it would trigger an extremely violent reaction from the West. Mikhail Deliagin recently declared that if Putin did this, the West’s reaction would be even more violent than after the Crimean reunification with Russia. Is he right? Maybe. But I personally believe that Putin is not only concerned about the reaction of the West, but also from the Russian elites, particularly those well off, who generally already intensely dislike Putin and who would see such a purge as an attack on their personal and vital interests. The combination of US subversion and local big money definitely has the ability to create some kind of crisis in Russia. This is, I think, by far the biggest threat Putin his facing. But here also we can observe a paradoxical dynamic:

One one hand, Russia and the West have been in an open confrontation ever since Russian prevented the USA from attacking Syria. The Ukrainian crisis only made things worse. Add to this the dropped prices on oil and the western sanctions and you could say that Putin now, more then ever, needs to avoid anything which could make the crisis even worse.

But on the other hand, this argument can be flipped around by saying that considering how bad the tensions already are and considering that the West has already done all it can to harm Russia, is this not the perfect time to finally clean house and get right of the 5th column? Really – how much worse can things really get?

Only Putin knows the answer to this simply because only he has all the facts. All we can do is observe that the popular discontent with the “economic block” of the government and with the Central Bank is most definitely growing and growing fast, and that the Kremlin is doing nothing to inhibit or suppress such feelings. We can also notice that while most Russians are angry, disgusted and frustrated with the economic policies of the Medvedev government, Putin’s personal popularity is still sky high in spite of the fact that the Russian economy most definitely took a hit, even if it was much smaller than what the AngloZionist Empire had hoped for.

My strictly personal explanation for what is happening is this: Putin is deliberately letting things get worse because he knows that the popular anger will not be directed at him, but only at his enemies.

Vladimir Putin is a patient man, but he is also capable of acting very quickly when he senses an opportunity. And the global economic crisis combined with the European migrant crisis is going to permit him to act without fear of a coherent and effective response, particularly in light of the way in which the Trump insurgency has them far more concerned about their control over the seat of their power than about the fate of their vassals in Russia.

For five decades, the imperialist trump card has been the economy. Play along and get rich, refuse to play along and get replaced by someone else who will get rich. But the credit boom ended in 2008 and the game of musical chairs began. The imperialists are now half-occupied with making sure they have a seat; there is no room at the table for new players.

The game has changed. How the new game will take shape is, as yet, unknown, but I am certain the attempt to keep it going by banning cash and exerting total financial control will not only fail, it may take down those authorities who turn to it.

Forget “interesting”. These are frightening, but absolutely fascinating times. These are the interesting parts of history.