Posts by Delaware Dem

Michael Tomasky says I have been right all along in my pronoucements that Ted Cruz will be the 2016 GOP Nominee.

Cue the scary-minor-key power chord: Ted Cruz is within the margin of error of Donald Trump in Iowa. It’s Trump 25, and Cruz 23, but as we will see further down, other numbers from the poll suggest that Cruz is well positioned to win what might now be a two-man race in the Hawkeye State. This is just awesome news. One can now begin to see how this may all be shaping up. I tweeted it last Friday. Trump becomes the crazy, not-really-electable, neo-fascist candidate—the choice of a good chunk of the base, but one the establishment can’t live with. Marco Rubio, the guy the establishment is most comfortable with, becomes the establishment candidate—but by definition that will make him unacceptable to a sizable chunk of the base. And so emerges Cruz—the “compromise” candidate! (That the scenario of Cruz as compromise candidate is not at all implausible is one stark measure of what Trump’s presence has done to the GOP.) Cruz is now running—and smartly, it must be said—what you might call the “Donnie Jr.” strategy. Be like Donald, but not as... Not as out there. Not as openly racist. Not as extreme. Differentiate where principle absolutely demands, as Cruz did on the question of religious ID cards for Muslim Americans, which Cruz ruled out as Trump did not. But basically, be the acceptable Trump.

Timothy Egan at The New York Times writes about Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the race for the Republican nomination:

Take him at his word — albeit, a worthless thing given his propensity for telling outright lies and not backing down when called on them — Donald Trump’s reign would be a police state. He has now outlined a series of measures that would make the United States an authoritarian nightmare. Trump is no longer entertaining, or diversionary. He’s a billionaire brute, his bluster getting more ominous by the day.

Several white supremacist terrorists shot 5 people at an ongoing Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis last night. According to a police report today, two suspects have been arrested. It is what Trump has started.

White supremacists are obviously already inclined towards hatred and violence, but in other ways they are just like anybody else. They’re suggestible. They can be incited. They can take cues from political leaders and feel as if those cues grant legitimacy to their beliefs and actions. So, when a Black Lives Matter protester gets beaten down and choked at a Trump rally and called a nigger and a monkey, and the candidate (who also happens to be leading in the polls) says that he probably deserved this treatment, it certainly seems like it could influence a few white supremacists to show up armed at a Black Lives Matter rally looking for trouble. Sending out racist tweets only strengthens this impression. It’s really a matter of leadership. Trump has chosen to be the leader of a group that has a lynch mob mentality. I don’t think there is any doubt that he’s been encouraging and condoning this kind of behavior, even if he hasn’t told anyone to start shooting people.

The great paradox: Americans hate government, want it do a lot, and they are satisfied with the job it is doing. Pew Research surveyed 35,071 Americans between June and September of 2014 and compiled information about their religious and political beliefs. A majority of the American public supports the government playing a major role in a wide range of areas and issues. And when asked about whether or not the government is doing a good job in each of those areas (rather than the more general question about overall trust in government), the ratings are relatively high. Of course there are some differences on how Democrats and Republicans rate government performance in these areas. Come inside to find out more.

Senator Tom Carper matched Governor Markell's approval rating of 61% in Morning Consult's job performance polling of all 100 U.S. Senators Delaware Tom Carper over the last few months. 22% disapprove of the CEO of Carperdyne Systems. Senator Coons has a lower rating, but still relatively high, at 58%. 23% disapprove.