Saturday Open Thread [3.12.16]
Florida—WTSP/Mason-Dixon–Trump 36, Rubio 30, Cruz 17, Kasich 8
Florida—WTSP/Mason-Dixon–Clinton 68, Sanders 23
Illinois—WeAskAmerica–Trump 33, Cruz 20, Kasich 18, Rubio 11
Illinois—WeAskAmerica–Clinton 62, Sanders 25
North Carolina—High Point University–Trump 48, Cruz 28, Kasich 12. Rubio 8
North Carolina—High Point University–Clinton 58, Sanders 34
Missouri—Fort Hays St. University–Trump 36, Cruz 29, Rubio 9, Kasich 8
Missouri—Fort Hays St. University–Clinton 47, Sanders 40
Maryland—Baltimore Sun–Trump 34, Cruz 25, Kasich 18, Rubio 14
Maryland—Baltimore Sun–Clinton 61, Sanders 28
Barack Obama has selected three top candidates to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: Paul Watford, Sri Srinivasan and Merrick Garland. Garland is 63 and I think too old. Paul Watford is from the Ninth Circuit, and is an African American and 48 years old. And Sri Srinivasan is 49 years old, and would be the first Hindu and Asian American on the court.
A Republican in 2016.
If you are a Republican and you do not like this, you have two choices: Stay in your party and forever associate yourself with Trumpnazism, or leave your party to start anew. Make it now.
I’m not really in the mood to write about Trump at the moment. If the Republicans cannot, we will rise up and crush his movement in November. Yes, if we are organized and motivated to vote for the Democrat, we all will win easily, no matter the self doubt of others. Trump is baked in as a violent racist Nazi in the minds of all Americans. He gets the support of like minded violent racists Nazis. He cannot pivot to the center.
We will crush him, but the damage he’s doing is going to be lasting.
No, the KKK is not and has not ever been a leftist organization.
Elspeth Reeve says that Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s dream opponent:
It’s surprising how explicitly the 2016 election has been about genitals. Republican presidential candidates have often been fixated on manhood, but just like with other themes of conservative politics of the last few decades, subtlety has gone out the window. I used to joke that Donald Trump would eventually expose himself on stage, but then he bragged about his penis size in a Fox News debate and it wasn’t a joke anymore. Too obvious. Yet if there’s not an enormous upset in the next month, this will get only more extreme in the general election. Trump vs. Clinton will be the boys vs. girls election: penises vs. vaginas.
Hillary Clinton had planned to put gender at the center of her 2016 campaign long before Trump was a conceivable Republican opponent. In the first Democratic debate, when Trump had been leading polls but was still considered a long shot for the nomination, Clinton said, “Yes, finally, fathers will be able to say to their daughters, you, too, can grow up to be president.” But now she has drawn her dream opponent in Trump. Her message will be pretty simple: Why does it matter if we have a female president? Because there are men like Donald Trump in the world.
[…] It’s hard to imagine how Trump will combat this narrative. Picture a Trump vs. Hillary debate. What makes Trump so thrilling on stage is the way he picks on guys like Rubio and Ted Cruz with schoolyard taunts. It’s funny to see powerful, pompous men deflated by being called sissies, and the insult has a kernel of truth, since they do talk for a living. But what are the classic schoolyard taunts against girls? Ugly, bossy, bitchy, slut—these would not be refreshing “emperor has no clothes” insults, but more of the same sexist garbage women hear all the time. Trump called one-time Republican foe Carly Fiorina ugly in a Rolling Stone article, and when he had to share a debate stage with her, he just awkwardly said she was beautiful. If Trump used an insult like that against Clinton, he wouldn’t seem like a rude truth-teller, but another gross old man who can’t handle working with women as equals.
We no longer have to speculate whether fascism, in Sinclair Lewis’ famous words, would come to America wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. We already know what its beginnings look like in the form of Trump rallies, which are carrying an increasingly violent, overtly racist, authoritarian aura strongly reminiscent of the 1930s in Germany or Italy.
Those comparisons were once the province of liberal activists or traffic-seeking headline writers. No longer. The incipient racist violence has reached such a fever pitch that a Trump rally in Chicago had to be canceled entirely. It’s one thing to talk in theoretical or strictly political terms about Trump’s authoritarian behavior, his effect on the Republican Party generally or the potential feasibility of Trump’s policy proposals. But the influence of Trumpism on the country is already so obviously toxic and dangerous that it must be called out and mitigated before people start getting seriously hurt or killed.
That’s just the basic decency aspect. Politically, the Republican Party knows that it has to do something to separate itself from the wildfire of racially charged violence or else lose the votes of every minority constituency for a generation. It’s not just for temporary personal advantage that the other GOP presidential candidates are calling on Trump to act to mitigate the rabid passions of his flock. Those who still have careers to make in Republican politics know that this a point of no return for the entire party and every connected to it.
But try as they might, they will not be able to escape from Trumpism.
The Libertarian Party is the the only real choice for change. The GOP and Democrats are two sides of the same old coin.
It looks like Cruz, Kaisch and Rubes are ready to buy into the unfortunately named, Romney Plan. Trump support should collapse after this, but I doubt it will.
Is thie really the point of no return for the GOP? If so, after Chicago, I want to do a post called questions for Charlie Copleland who has stated that Delaware Republicans will fall in line and vote for Trump is he gets he nomination.
If anyone wants to help me out by putting questions here, I’d be eager to get them.
Question for Charlie: Donald Trump says “Well I hope that my tone is not that of causing violence.” Charlie, do you think it’s Trump’s tone or words that’s causing violence?
Here’s mine:
Do you agree with John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump that violent attacks against protesters are Obama’s fault?
I suspect the GOP will fall behind the story that Trump-rally violence is caused by leftists. Grilling Charlie Copeland won’t help. All Charlie wants to hear is that Trump will repeal the estate tax.
Is the reason Republicans can’t take down Trump because they agree with everything he stands for – just not how he says it?
While reasonable people reason, last night in Chicago shows that other people are moving well beyond talking. Want a chill? Read Breitbart, where some people back Trump instead of the site’s own reporter, and some write openly of defending America against the raging leftist hordes.
They are agitating for violence, and there are liberals willing to engage them.
Or maybe it’s just Chicago. Maybe 1968 would have gone better if the convention had been somewhere else.
On another thread, a learned person asserted that “enough anecdotes make data” was absurd.
What is polling but a lot of anecdotal answers to a controlled question? It is only collated as it is (weighted, etc.) to lessen the workload; theoretically if enough people were surveyed that would be unnecessary.
Isn’t an election an accumulation of single datums into a “result”?
A more important example: Blue-on-black violence. At some point all those “isolated incidents” add up to something, don’t they?
So I again maintain that enough anecdotes, organized, do turn into data, despite the popularity of the cliche that avers otherwise. Feel free to disprove.
Shame on the leftist hoodlums in Chicago for assaulting free political speech by violently stopping a Trump rally. This is tyranny on display. We, the People, will not tolerate it. The fact that it happened is wrong. The fact that powerful left wing groups like Moveon.org issued congratulations to the protesters is worse.
Sanders needs to condemn this or look like a socialist strong man like Chavez because it was his signs being waved. I would be shocked if he had anything to do with it. The point is that this is common with socialism. In Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, we see that the resentment socialism breeds naturally leads to strong arm tactics or worse. If Sanders wants to lead a Danish style socialist movement, it will not happen by accident. He has to nip the radicalism in the bud. This is the moment that will tell us if Senator Sanders is the man who we believe him to be. He is admired even by his critics. Is that justified?
Today, we should all #IstandwithTrump. He is not the one we should fear. It is the career criminal, national security threat, on the foreign payroll, Hillary Clinton and Socialist strongman Sanders that we should fear.
Hahahaha. David, do you use your left or right arm to salute your Nazi hero, mein Fuhrer Trump.
So much for the right to protest, David. Just admit that you don’t like the Constitution. And you might want to look at all those videos of Trump supporters pushing and hitting protesters.
Trump, in his own words, has actively called upon his supporters to be violent with Constitutionally protected protesters – even saying he’d pay their legal bills if they attack a protester.
Spin all you want. Trump incited violence.
Not only did Trump incite violence, he incited racial violence. David, just how are you a Trump supporter? I mean, I get it that you are a Republican. But support Ted Cruz. He is a religious fanatic just like you. It is a natural fit. But no, you support the racist Trump. He hates you, David, simply because of who you are. And he is inciting racist violence against minorities simply because of who they are. And yet you support him. It boggles my mind.
Mr. Trump’s opponents, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich, condemned the disruptions, but said Mr. Trump was responsible for the tenor of his rallies. Mr. Cruz said Mr. Trump “affirmatively encourages violence.”
That’s from the NYTimes this AM. And they are all correct — Trump is responsible for the tenor of his rallies. And it is Trump’s rallies where people of color are routinely assaulted and manhandled. Not the “leftists”. Even more, I can’t believe that Cruz said something I agree with — Trump does affirmatively encourage violence. And good for the people of Chicago for shutting him down.
Wrong, I am not a Trump supporter, but I am a liberty supporter. This is an assault on liberty not Trump.
Is it hard to always be so wrong, David? Trump is reaping what he sowed. Hell, he’s not even really denying it. Now he’s calling the protesters thugs. Nice party you have there, David.
This is not a liberty issue. This is not a free speech issue. If you think it is, then I guess that means you are one of those idiots who thinks the First Amendment protects all speech everywhere from any consequence. And if you do think that, you know nothing about the Constitution. Go reread the First Amendment and find that the only thing prohibited is Congress making any law abridging the freedom of speech, … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
The Fuhrer’s speech is not protected. It is hate speech. He is calling for the elimination of minorities. He is inciting violence, which is also not protected. His rallies are not peaceful. He calls for violence against any protester present, and his supporters oblige him.
David, you support fascism now. You are a Nazi.
It absolutely is a free speech issue. Both sides have the right to it. The only evidence of violence so far has come from the right, but it will not stop there. Both sides will engage in it, each blaming the other.
A key feature for a would-be fascist leader is the ability to turn what you have sowed into a weapon. A tidy way to do it is to claim that you have to put down violence. A summer of such violence will put the people more in the mood for a strong man.
Those who claim to care about the country should first of all preach non-violence. I have yet to hear Trump or his supporters do that.
Sorry, David. Scales tip toward the left.
I was a little sympathetic to Dave’s statement on another thread that protesting Trump only helped him. I’m glad a held my tongue because I think events show that protesting Trump is not only appropriate – it s vital.
” If you are a Republican and you do not like this, you have two choices: Stay in your party and forever associate yourself with Trumpnazism, or leave your party to start anew.”
All Republicans will vote for Trump if he is the nominee. He is only saying out loud what they’ve All been saying in whispers.
I’m going to hate myself for responding to this, because it is by definition responding to a troll.
This is what was said above: On another thread, a learned person asserted that “enough anecdotes make data” was absurd.
The original statement by the troll was slightly different: At some point, hundreds of quoted anecdotes do indeed become data.
This is followed by the rhetorical question: What is polling but a lot of anecdotal answers to a controlled question?
This question demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is, in research terms, either something like “casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis” or “information passed along by word-of-mouth but not documented scientifically.” A poll is nothing of the sort. The respondents are selected scientifically to be demographically representative of a specific response group. They are further asked qualifying questions to verify they belong in such a group, and to more precisely position their standing in such a group. They are then asked questions designed by the pollster, and must choose their responses from a Likert scale of responses designed by the pollster. At no point are they allowed to present anecdotal evidence of their own experiences. The essence of polling is controlled scientific analysis. To suggest that polls (or counting the votes in elections ) are somehow collections of anecdotal evidence is to misunderstand the meaning of the term “anecdotal evidence” is surely as saying, “Well, evolution is just a theory so it’s all opinion, anyway” is to misunderstand the use of the term “theory.”
There is a very good article on wikipedia that anyone can access to get a primer on the question of what constitutes anecdotal evidence and what its limitations are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
Then this: A more important example: Blue-on-black violence. At some point all those “isolated incidents” add up to something, don’t they? Not that “isolated incidents” is not a synonym for “anecdotally reported incidents.”
No, they don’t. They represent pieces of qualitative, anecdotal evidence that may interest a researcher in conducting scientific analysis to determine if those anecdotes are representational rather than exceptional; if those anecdotes suffer from confirmation bias; if those anecdotes can be correlated to scientifically collected statistical and other factual data. Anecdotes themselves do not add up to scientific conclusions because the information within anecdotes is rarely falsifiable, almost never controlled for anything, and is usually reported third-person.
Anecdotes may stimulate interest in doing research; by themselves they are never more than casually generated, unverified stories often told at second or third or ninth hand. Ironically, the fact that some anecdotes are accurate insofar as they go in narrating an observed event has nothing to do with the overall validity of anecdotes as evidence.
Thousands of people–probably millions–have provided anecdotal evidence for the existence of specific psychic powers like telepathy or telekinesis or even visitations from the spirits of the dead over the centuries; not a single one of these anecdotally claimed powers or events has ever been validated by scientific research, and the persistence of anecdotal stories about them doesn’t do squat to prove them.
On the other hand, blue-on-black violence has been systematically and scientifically studied and has been documented to exist not based on anecdote but upon verified objective reports and statistical evidence.
There. You insisted on being disproved, and now you have been.
Hillary’s support will skyrocket once she’s indicted.
@ aaa “So I again maintain that enough anecdotes, organized, do turn into data, despite the popularity of the cliche that avers otherwise. Feel free to disprove.”
@SN “I’m going to hate myself for responding to this, because it is by definition responding to a troll.”
Yea. Me too, but perchance your explanation went way over his head…
Lets say you have a friend who like to video people flipping coins, and every time he sees it comes up heads, he gets excited and sends you a copy of that “anecdote”.
Now you’ve got all these anecdotal videos of coins coming up heads… You’re got dozens of them… Now surely you have some real data there that can be used to say something about the probability of coins coming up heads… right???
“Constitutionally protected protestors”??? Bernie and Hillary supporters have a right to protest all they want outside but once they come inside that is a different story. The building is Trump property for the night and anybody can be removed who is causing a disturbance. The only people I saw throwing punches and waving the middle finger were the Bernie and Hillary supporters. Once you have been asked to leave and refuse then people have no choice but to remove you by any means necessary.
When you send out the call for violence, don’t be surprised when somebody answers.
“Is it hard to always be so wrong, David? Trump is reaping what he sowed. ”
I suggest that Trump isn’t reaping anything. Everyone knows the character of the Trump supporters. They are living up to expectations. But what is Trump reaping? Well he is dominating the news cycle. It’s Trump TV all day every day and he didnt pay a dime for it.
I’m not sure he shouldnt be named Teflon Trump, but you notice, he slithers out of everything? He says anything he wants; never really apologizes for anything; denies everything. Please tell me everyone notices. Now even the GOP candidates are starting to pick on him. Oh wait, they already did that and nada.
Remember Edwin Edwards (LA) who famously said to reporters “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”
Well Trump, trumped that with his “I could stand in the middle of 5th ave, shoot somebody & I wouldn’t lose any voters, it is incredible.”
Trump is like something you keep flushing in the toilet but it just won’t flush down. And I believe most anti Trump people continue to underestimate him – to your everlasting sorrow.
I’m hoping that Clinton is going to save us all, but I honestly am not sure even she can do it.
Donald Trump’s ideology of violence
All the times Trump has called for violence at his rallies
@stat “The building is Trump property for the night…”
Pure BS. If Trump wants a building for a night, he should rent one.
Hat’s off:
Quote of the day you may have missed in your skim down.
“Trump is like something you keep flushing in the toilet but it just won’t flush down. “