● NPR, never a friend of the right, referred to the Handful of Chick's March as "tens of thousands of women marching on the anniversary of Trump's election." Tens of thousands. Not even hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands. Last time it was supposedly five million. >100,000/5,000,000 = >0.02... that's a 98% drop in attendance. In the midst of the supposed harassment scandal of the eon, the moment women rise up and somethingsomething pose naked without needing to think men are looking at them, the Chick March lost 98% of its supporters. That's an NFL game with 1,200 spectators... a basketball game with 300... only 20 million served at McDonalds... a large Starbucks cup with only 0.4 ounces... two pennies on a dollar. TOTAL FAILURE!
● The left is LOSING THEIR MINDS over the economic news. Pimp-dresser and former drug dealer Jay-Z seems to think the lowest unemployment rate among blacks in history is a random thing and should be dismissed. He also cried when he heard Trump call all those shitholes shitholes. Pelosi and Wassername-Schulz ("I know nusssing!") both are crapping upon the $1,000 bonuses millions of people are getting because these millionaires think a $1,000 doesn't mean anything to most people. Talk about out of touch! Half on the left are denying reality, claiming there is no great economy in progress. The other half are trying to credit Obama.
Think about that. Obama had eight years to start the economic car and couldn't get the engine to turn over. He tried bailouts, tax hikes and all kinds of stupidity. None of it worked over eight years. His economic record was historically bad! Now, a year after he's long gone and after Trump's plan took over, Trump hits the gas and the economy takes off... and they think Obama deserve credit? Sorry, no sale.
● Apparently, proposing a path to citizenship for more people than Obama proposed is "a racist ransom note." I don't think the left will ever let Trump cut a deal to stop the deportations of the Dreamers because that will cut out yet another one of their appeals to fear. I can imagine Pelosi: "We lost the f*ggots out of our cult, I'm not losing the 'sp*cs too! Every percentage point is sacred!" And yeah, I think she's racist... most of the Democrats seem to be.
● There's a lot of talk about a 16% gender gap with women opposing Trump at 16% more than men support him. The left thinks this means they will win the midterms. BUT... (1) House races are local affairs for the most part, (2) in the Senate, the Democrats are defending 10 seats in states Trump carried, (3) the gender gap is less for the GOP (12%) than Trump, and (4) that gender gap is actually similar to gender gaps of the past.
I also doubt that woman and the left are as enthused as the MSM wants to claim. Police shootings no longer turn out crowds of blacks. The Handful of Chicks March was a dismal failure. The gays are off clubbing. Hispanics may turn out but they are generally unreliable as voters. There is no Muslim issue in the news... the Trump death camps never opened. White men and working class women must be feeling pretty Republican at the moment, now that they have jobs and are getting bonuses and everything seems to be getting better, and I'm sensing more and more Republicans/Independents becoming comfortable with Trump because of (1) his economic performance, (2) his foreign policy, which has calmed the world, (3) his adopting a calmer tone of late, and (4) the overreach and insanity of his opponents causing people to tune them out.
● Polls are showing that having two secret-lovers/rabid-anti-Trumps on the FBI team investigating Trump and exonerating Hillary was a bad idea. The FBI's credibility is crashing right now and people are dismissing the investigation. Win for Trump.
● So the flu is going to kill 50,000 people. 40 down, 49,960 to go. Call me unimpressed.
● The State of the Union looks like a disaster in the making for the left. Trump will apparently make an appeal for unity and then half a dozen leftists are going to outbid each other to spew hate. Not only is it a bad idea to appear insane, but it's even stupider to have six or seven people competing for a response. Even stupider, several of these will be celebrities... who refuse to recognize the fact that the public hates them when they go political. (See, e.g. Georgia special election). This should further help Trump to cement his new-found "calm and rational" image. Sounds like a win for Trump coming up.
● Finally, the founder of IKEA has died. Good luck putting together his coffin.
20 comments:
Talk radio Obama has and will continue to play out broadly the same way Obama did.
A State of the Union where the president calls for bipartisan support to get things done and the opposition swears to oppose everything is slightly less rare than days that end in 'y'. Trump's immigration proposal is quite reasonable (some would say generous), but reasonable doesn't win elections for either side.
As I stated a few weeks ago the only thing that stopped the talk radio wing from going after Trump on immigration (remember he talked about love) was the fact nothing happened and he called Africa a shithole. The talk radio wing won't completely turn on him but like with the hard left and Obama, turnout will lessen and criticism will cease to be taboo.
Opposition is expected, the only crime is bipartisanship. The wave that washed in with wash out. Inevitably the majority of those deemed insufficiently fervid in their opposition will be cleansed. That is just the way of modern politics.
As I stated since he won office, the public knew about Trump being enamored with Putin when they voted him into office (like they knew about his sex life). Neither issue will damage him no matter what emerges.
2017 wasn't a good year for Republicans in an electoral sense and unusually high turnouts of women and blacks are part of the reason why. Trump likes picking fights and local politicians and aspiring politicians (most notably Moore) are following in his footsteps which helps drive up opposition turnout in the same way Obama's highhandedness helped drive opposition turnout.
Anthony,
1. I don't see how 2017 can reasonably be considered a bad year for Republicans since they didn't lose a race, other than a couple state-level races until December 2017, when they beat Roy Moore -- the softest Republican target ever.
Given historical trends and Trump's unpopularity and all these "movements" supposedly exciting people on the left, it should have been a banner year for Democrats, especially as they poured tons of money and attention into every special election. And yet, they lost almost everything in an embarrassing manner. Even their own people admitted the year was largely a disaster.
2. As for Putin, no one is talking about Putin or Trump's supposed love for Putin. The "Russian" issue has been reduced to a legal technicality which makes no common sense to the public. And now it's turned into a question of a biased FBI.
3. As for winning, Presidential elections are still decided in the middle. When 120 million turn out, the 2-3 million partisans get swamped.
Andrew,
Your NPR opener put me in mind of something I heard this morning. They are so preoccupied with Trump at over there that they framed a story about the African Union meeting as the first time African leaders met since he made derogatory comments about the continent.
Put aside the dispute—Trump probably did say something like it—I thought the comments were about Haiti. Or Central and South America. Or Asia. At this point, Trump's detractors are basically saying "I know what he meant because I know which countries are the sh!tholes."
Anyway, according to NPR, the AU chair "clearly referenced Trump" when he referred to "national selfishness" and "xenophobia." Talk about confirmation bias! Anyone with passing knowledge of African current events and recent history knows that nationalism and xenophobia have been obstacles to peace, much less development, in Africa for decades.
I find the whole thing amusing because, otherwise, I'd be depressed.
tryanmax, Isn't that funny, that they know exactly who Trump was talking about even though he never said. I guess they see them the same way! LOL!
It's funny how liberals give themselves away when they lose focus and start talking about other issues.
The Grammy awards fell by 30% from last year. Down from 26 million to 17 million. There wasn't even a competitive television event like a football game. So that's bad. I suspect that's because people knew they would go heavily political and people didn't want to see that.
And yet, these same people want to become the face of the anti-Trump movement. LOL!
1) The Republicans did well early 2017 but poorly late 2017. That is why I said not good as opposed to bad.
Breitbart, who Trump regularly praises due to its thus far staunch supporg, has the same stance.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/24/hold-2017-the-year-in-resistance/
2) Russia isn't an issue for the public. Glad we agree.
3) As for presidential races being decided by the middle, sure. That doesn't change the fact that the last two presidents have been big talking purists (the most liberal senator in the country and a conspiracy loving reality tv star) with no record of responsibility.
This just in...
According to a "Professor" at Michigan State, which I'm told is actually a college and not just a sports factory, honkeys doing Yoga promotes white supremacy because (1) it is cultural appropriation of Indian religion and (2) classes are so expensive that it excludes the poor, brown women to whom Yoga belongs.
You can't make this sh*t up. You really can't.
Anthony,
1. Awful sports teams often win a game or two at the end of the season and declare that they have turned things around. It's never true. It's not true here.
In this case, the Democrats spent 2017 looking for a sign that things were turning around -- going so far down as the Mayoral level (Omaha). They lost election after election in embarrassing fashion. Even in blue Virginia, where they held the Governor's mansion (the GOP ran a religious nut), they couldn't win the statehouse. At the end of the year, they won one surprise in Oklahoma, which I didn't follow to see why that happened, and the Roy Moore race.
The Democrats jumped up and down touting the Moore loss as having broader meaning. It doesn't. The problem is that you aren't going to find many other Roy Moores on the ballot. He's a cross between Jim Jones and a pedophile. That's kind of a rare combo to make it through the primaries. And he almost won!
So saying that the GOP did poorly is just not accurate, not given the historical trends that incumbent parties get crushed, not given Trump's unpopularity, the unreliability of Trump's core supporters, and the apparent turn-out driving force of the anti-Trump hate. The Democrats MASSIVELY under-performed.
Even now, they can't pick a leader or a strategy.
As for Breitbart, I don't consider them a reliable source for news or analysis.
2. Agreed on Russia.
3. I think you need to factor in why they got elected because you can't really equate Obama and Trump.
Obama was seen in 2008 as a moderate black man who would end the racism industry. The middle elected him. When he didn't do as promised, he lost 9 million votes. The problem was that Mitt Romney did nothing to win those people over, so they stayed home and he lost. Obama basically squeaked by with appeals to blacks, gays, Hispanics and women as Romney verbally masturbated.
Trump, on the other hand, won because Hillary was despised by middle America (also, blacks didn't turn out for her and women assumed she had it in the bag and didn't turn out -- this hurt her at the edges). She basically imploded. She then made the mistake of running a very pro-elitist campaign at a time of increased populism. Trump then did the smart thing of presenting himself as a middle finger to the elites, but came with the supposed assurance of being a billionaire ("how bad can he be?"). He also ran in a very different direction in the last few weeks of the campaign, letting out the word that he would become more reliable/statesman-like than he had been. Basically, he assured the middle he would not be nuts... and the Democrats way overplayed their attempt to make him seem anti-woman and racist.
On the grammy's, it is such a shame. Oscars, ssports used to be a place to escape real life. By politicizing them (always from the left) they alienate half the potential audience. Sad part is, you cannot be in entertainment if you dare have different politics. The heads of the corporations don't care. Nice to see "Andy's Office" McCabe added to the list who are out.I laughed when I heard a leftist tweet that honest career people are being forced out by political Trump. We are through the rabbit hole on this. Politics is to the point basic facts can be spun so differently
1) I agree the Dems have crappy leadership (and for that matter policies).
With all due respect to the Contract for America subsequent events have shown leadership and/or coherence isn't critical. One just has to not be the other guy.
3) Obama's appeal was big talk and no record of responsibility his promises could be measured against. He came in, failed to vote for an eventually unpopular war that initially had broad bipartisan support and promised to end wars via soothing talk.
His agenda across the board was what one would expect of a liberal academic/ideologue. Such types normally don't get far because they are sneered at as effete and out of touch.
The fact he was black confused his opposition and caused them to offer up messages which conflicted with wimpy academic. 'He's secretly an angry black guy/Muslim who will institute reparations/shariah law!'. He did nothing for special for blacks, nothing for Muslims and was harder on illegals than any president before him. Still, he was a liberal and his policies failed. Also, he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut so the same tongue that got him into office made him enemies needlessly.
Trump is a guy find of big talk and who had no record of responsibility his talk could be measured against.
His agenda across the board was a populist/talk radio agenda. Like with Obama his personal status (a billionaire) deflected some alarm and inspired some faith though like I've said before (even when I thought he would lose) I think he owes his narrow win to the spate of bad publicity Hillary had right before the election. Whoever got the most coverage was behind in polls. I usually point towards the classified emails popping up in a child sexting investigation, but there was also that fall...
Anyway Trump has governed well (much better policies than Obama) but he hasn't governed as a populist and like Obama has failed to make tough problems like North Korea or the War on Terror vanish. And like Obama he doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut and he is of course a much bigger user of social media.
The takeaway I get from the yoga story is that, according to an expert professor, brown women are poor.
The takeaway from the yoga story is...segregation. The left is determined to move us back into a cultural segregation where we are not allowed to eat/read/see/experience/or relate to any other cultural/racial/religious of which we have not been official assigned.
I’ve been very cautious around the word “populism” for a long time. In fact, the last (and first) time I spoke at any length about it was in 2012 on the old site (I checked). Not until late 2016 did I attach any further opinions to the word on Twitter, and I can’t stand by all of them, ill-informed as they were. What I feel comfortable saying about the subject now is this: people appear to variously call the same political phenomenon either “democracy” or “populism” depending on whether or not one likes the outcome.
I remain dubious of unfettered populism just as I am dubious of unfettered democracy. (Two wolves and a sheep and all that.) That said, our political tradition is steeped in benign populism. The preamble of our Constitution opens, “We the People” while Lincoln’s most famous speech ends declaring “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” To the extent that Trump is a populist, it’s in the same vein as every other US politician who appealed to the working and middle classes.
Beyond that, Trump’s populist bona fides are questionable. Rather than parse, I’ll just point out that he’s not popular. I realize that popularity is not usually included in definitions of populism, but if one considers the usual definition—appealing to ordinary people and extolling common rights and values—an unpopular populist should cause pause. If a supposed isn’t popular, it’s a sure sign that the label is being used for its pejorative qualities rather than for accuracy.
Oh my! LOL! The left is now worried that the economy might overheat. And here I thought the economy was crap?
Bev, I think you're right I think the left wants segregation so that (1) these people don't Americanize, (2) their fear of being strangers in a strange land never goes away, and (3) they can always blame racism for (their own acts) keeping people separate.
tryanmax, I would disagree a bit. I don't think being popular is what makes you a populist. I think it comes from appealing to conventional wisdoms that run wild in the populace, but not in the elite. Trump does that.
The thing is that America is split. On one side you have:
Elitists -- college type liberals/students, RINOs
Blacks
Single women
Other minorities
White Trash
On the other side, you have:
Middle class white families
Political conservatives -- Neocons, Religious Right
And then you have the free floating populists who aren't married to either side... white working class + paranoids.
What Trump has done is appeal to this last group and the white middle class. It got him what he needed in key states.
Andrew, I grant that being popular doesn't define a populist. The case I'm making is that it's very unlikely that a populist leader isn't popular, owing to what constitutes populism. This, in turn, goes to my point that, in common usage, "populist" more often than not is just shorthand for "bad democracy" or, more pointedly, "the people who out-vote my people, and I hate them."
Furthermore, so much of what constitutes democracy is populist in nature. I've seen populism called democracy's shadow; basically calling it "bad democracy" while actually meaning it. The ultimate point being, I'm going to need more than some broad-based ovations coupled to sneers at the elite before I can regard anyone as a populist.
Is anyone here brave enough to watch the SOTU speech tonight? I am too afraid to watch...
Bev, From what I've heard, it's going to be a great speech... but I can't stand his voice. And there is no way I'm watching any of the 1.4 million Democratic/Hollywood replies.
tryanmax, I do see your point. But I think there genuinely is a populism, and I think it means:
"opposition to 'the elite' in the name of a supposed 'common sense' which advocates official violence against the favored class in the name of equality."
So it's kind of a mashup of communism and libertarianism all premised on spite...
"THEY been taking our stuff, let's take everything they have, toss them in a death camp, and then blossom in an anarchistic freedom where everyone shares everything."
Nonsense really, but compelling because of the enemies list.
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