Tuesday Open Thread [8.2.16]

Filed in National by on August 2, 2016

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–NBC News/SM–Clinton 50, Trump 42
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–Economist/YouGov–Clinton 41, Trump 36, Johnson 8, Stein 4
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–CBS News–Clinton 47, Trump 41
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–CNN/ORC–Clinton 52, Trump 43
OKLAHOMA–PRESIDENT–Sooner Poll–Trump 53, Clinton 29, Johnson 7
PENNSYLVANIA–PRESIDENT–PPP–Clinton 49, Trump 45
GEORGIA–PRESIDENT–WSB-TV/Landmark–Trump 45, Clinton 45, Johnson 4, Stein 1
UTAH–PRESIDENT–Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune–Clinton 36, Trump 35

Conservative writer Max Boot says the Stupid Party is now actually stupid: “In a way, the joke’s on the Republican Party: After decades of masquerading as the ‘stupid party,’ that’s what it has become. But if an unapologetic ignoramus wins the presidency, the consequences will be no laughing matter.”

“Even if we can avoid the calamity of a Trump presidency, however, the G.O.P. still has a lot of soul-searching to do. Mr. Trump is as much a symptom as a cause of the party’s anti-intellectual drift. The party needs to rethink its growing anti-intellectual bias and its reflexive aversion to elites. Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.”


Ryan Cooper’s take at The Week on the whole Trump’s Wrath of Khan affair:

Literally nothing in American politics is more universally valorized than soldiers who have died in combat. It’s hard to imagine a more pointless and politically damaging fight for Trump to pick.

Trump, for all his facility with manipulating the media, is at bottom an impulsive and profoundly ignorant racist bully. But the reaction from establishment Republicans is equally damning. With a few exceptions, they have squirmed and rationalized past Trump’s comments. It’s a portrait of a party in utter moral and intellectual freefall. […]

[No Republican leaders have] rescinded their endorsement. The reason is obvious: Many Republican voters are fine with bigotry. They support Trump’s big wall to keep out Latinos. They support his Muslim ban. Ninety percent of Republicans want Trump to win. He is now the party’s center of gravity.

Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) told the Syracuse Post Standard that he will vote for Hillary Clinton for president because Donald Trump is “unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country.” Hanna said it’s unthinkable that anyone would criticize Gold Star parents: “I saw that and felt incensed. I was stunned by the callousness of his comments.” He added: “I think Trump is a national embarrassment. Is he really the guy you want to have the nuclear codes?”

A new Gallup poll finds more Americans are less likely to vote for Donald Trump as a result of the Republican convention, 51% to 36%. “Gallup has asked this question about Democratic and Republican national conventions since 1984…The 2016 Republican convention is the first after which a greater percentage of Americans have said they are ‘less likely’ rather than ‘more likely’ to vote for the party’s presidential nominee.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign told the Huffington Post that it is looking for a progressive replacement to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to chair the Democratic National Committee, reflecting the party’s attempts to unify with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Hillary knows which side of her bread is buttered. I think progressives should take a little bit of heart from this, but of course, let’s see how this goes.

Jonathan Chait says Republicans have chosen racism: “Even though Trump has sprung naturally from the conservative fertile soil of racism, anti-intellectualism, and authoritarianism, his nomination is truly a sea change. No successful candidate before him has identified himself so tightly with white-identity politics. His place at the top of the ticket, and potentially as head of state, has presented fellow Republicans with an agonizing dilemma. To be sure, their choice is not comfortable. Those Republicans who have distanced themselves from the nominee, even in carefully measured increments, have endured fierce blowback from their own voters and even donors… In a party rife with racism, anti-racism is hardly considered an acceptable basis for partisan disloyalty.”

“What most Republican elites have always wanted is to lead a party that appeals to a majority of the country on the basis of abstract small-government, patriotic themes. Trump has revealed that this is a hopeless fantasy, and what they can lead instead is a party of racists. And they have decided, nearly every one of them, that they will take it.”

Nate Silver: “Initial polls conducted after the Democratic National Convention suggest that Hillary Clinton has received a convention bounce. In fact, it appears likely that Clinton’s bounce will exceed Donald Trump’s, which measured at 3 to 4 percentage points. Thus, Clinton will potentially exit the conventions in a stronger position than she entered them, perhaps also making up for some of the ground she lost to Trump earlier in July.”

Sam Wang: “I have seen some sniffy comments in the news that Hillary Clinton’s post-convention bounce is smaller than Bill Clinton’s bounce in 1992. However, by current standards, Hillary Clinton’s bounce is large.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars blasted Donald Trump for his comments about Ghazala Khan, the mother of a fallen Muslim Army captain, calling the Republican nominee “out-of-bounds,” Politico reports.

Said VFW leader Brian Duffy: “Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression. There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed. Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by all Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”

That needs to be an ad.

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  1. nemski says:
    August 2, 2016 at 8:50 am

    Bret Stephens writes:

    “Huey Long, Charles Coughlin, Alger Hiss, Joe McCarthy and Bull Connor are the foul names of America’s 20th century, and always will be. And those who supported and excused them will always be tainted by association. This is where Republicans now find themselves with their presidential nominee.

    Of all of Donald Trump’s vile irruptions—about Sen. John McCain’s military record, or reporter Serge Kovaleski’s physical handicap, or Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s judicial fitness—his casual smear of Ghazala Khan is perhaps the vilest.”

    This isn’t simply because Mrs. Khan is a bereaved mother. Bereavement alone does not place someone above criticism…nor is it because Mrs. Khan’s son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died heroically to protect his troops in Iraq…No: What makes Mr. Trump’s remarks so foul is their undisguised sadism.

    He took a woman too heartbroken and anxious to speak of her dead son before an audience of millions and painted a target on her. He treated her silence as evidence that she was either a dolt or a stooge.

    He degraded her…in this comment there was the full unmasking of Mr. Trump, in case he needed further unmasking. He has, as Humayun’s father Khizr put it, a “black soul.” His problem isn’t a lack of normal propriety but the absence of basic human decency. He is morally unfit for any office, high or low.”

  2. anonymous says:
    August 2, 2016 at 9:20 am

    Huey Long is not one of the foul names of the 20th century unless you’re a right-wing asshole writing for a nest of right-wing assholes, the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

    Also, Eugene Robinson today raises the point that’s been nagging me for a while — Donald Trump might be a high-functioning psychotic.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-donald-trump-just-plain-crazy/2016/08/01/cd171e86-581d-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html

  3. jason330 says:
    August 2, 2016 at 10:16 am

    Thanks for that Robinson link. I liked this comment under the piece:

    Why doesn’t someone in the Trump camp tell him to knock it off? For the same reason Howard Hughes was surrounded by people who didn’t dare try to clip his 2 inch nails.

  4. mouse says:
    August 2, 2016 at 10:19 am

    The Kingfish

  5. mouse says:
    August 2, 2016 at 10:30 am

    The Shadow explains a lot

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-smaldino/carl-jung-and-donald-trum_b_9320554.html

  6. anonymous says:
    August 2, 2016 at 11:11 am

    @mouse: Yeah, Brett Stephens, America’s Most Overrated Pundit, shits himself when he thinks about the Kingfish’s proposed tax on wealth.

  7. El Somnambulo says:
    August 2, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    Speaking of the Kingfish:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmFQu_8u1TU

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