Comments

1. blf says

   August 17, 2016 at 10:13 am

   More clewlessness from teh trum-prat, Trump appeals to black voters in attempt to offset dismal polling (my added emboldening with The Grauniad’s edits in {curly braces}):

   […]
   Speaking at a [previously scheduled] rally on Tuesday night in the rural town of West Bend, 30 miles from Milwaukee, Trump, who has branded himself the law and order candidate, told an almost exclusively white audience that the rioting was “an assault on the right of all citizens to live in security and to live in peace” — and said black people were the biggest victims of violence in their neighborhoods.
   […]
   Trump said he was asking for “the vote of every African American citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different future”.

   “It is time for our society to address some honest and very difficult truths,” he said. The Democratic party has failed and betrayed the African American community.

   Recent analysis has indicated that Trump is polling at around 2% with the African American electorate — worse than almost every Republican candidate since 1948 — and is even behind the Green party nominee, Jill Stein, and libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, placing him fourth overall among black voters.
   […]
   Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society — a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent — share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee and many other places within our country, Trump said in a speech that was delivered using a teleprompter.

   The billionaire accused Clinton of preferring to protect the offender {rather} than the victim, suggested that a vote for her is a vote for another generation of poverty, high crime and lost opportunities. He argued that African Americans had been hurt worst by Clinton’s immigration policy.
   […]
   The Republican, who had earlier spent time meeting privately with law enforcement leaders in Milwaukee, proposed introducing more police into communities, appointing the best prosecutors and judges and pursuing strong enforcement of federal laws. [Notice the apparent lack of mention of public defenders, or of seriously investigating police shootings, or… –blf]

   This combative approach, nakedly opposed to the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as Clinton herself, is perhaps unlikely to draw many more black supporters. […]
   […]
   Trump’s appeals to African American voters received a lukewarm response inside the Washington County Fair Conference Center on Tuesday evening. Many attendees stayed silent throughout much of speech, with some growing visibly bored. The confederate battle flag […] was on sale outside of the rally.

   The Guardian spoke to a dozen rally attendees, all of whom were white, and all of whom lived within a 40-mile radius of the unrest in Milwaukee. Most expressed little if any sympathy for black residents of the city, one of America’s most racially segregated metropolitan areas.
   [… You can imagine the unbelievably racist comments made –blf]
   […]
   While Trump’s hardline law and order stance enjoys support among certain sectors of conservative law enforcement, he has also been criticised by a growing number of progressive reformists.

   Just hours before Trump’s speech on Tuesday, Ronal Serpas, the former New Orleans police chief and chairman of Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, issued a pre-emptive statement urging the Republican candidate to drop unfounded claims of a surge in crime.

   “Now more than ever it’s important to have level-headed conversations about crime and the vital relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve. Mr Trump’s recent claims that our country is experiencing a crime wave are highly misleading,” Serpas said.

   Omitted from the above excerpt, teh trum-prat ignored Mr Serpas and continued to lie, claiming violent crime is increasing.

2. Kengi says

   August 17, 2016 at 10:28 am

   Jeez, I really do hope Trump’s support has maxed out and this will just reinforce the catering to his base. I keep hearing the experts tell me Trump has no chance, but they are the same people who told me Trump had no chance of winning the GOP nomination.

   Given the poor state of our media (as had been highlighted so well recently by John Oliver) it’s not surprising an organization like Breitbart is able to be taken seriously by far too many people.

3. blf says

   August 17, 2016 at 11:01 am

   Kengi, As I understand it, there is one voter demographic where teh trum-prat leads Clinton, by a substantial margin, and where Clinton isn’t having much success: White males without a college degree. Awkwardly, that is also the largest voter demographic.

   He is doing so badly among some other voter demographics he is currently polling in fourth place, behind Clinton, the antivax Green, and even the loonytunian. E.g., see me@1, fourth amongst blacks, or this Salon article, fourth amongst 18–29 year olds (The GOP’s youth-vote disaster: Donald Trump’s nomination could hurt Republicans for years to come).

   In addition to the large voter demographic currently polling in favour of teh trum-prat, there are other problems, which include (not in any order): (1) Voter disenfranchisement; (2) Ensuring the sane voters vote… (3) …sanely (that is, for a viable non-thug)… (4) …including in the “down ballet” contests.

4. lorn says

   August 17, 2016 at 1:03 pm

   His campaign failing Trump does what Trump does, he doubles down and tries to find people more like himself. He thinks of himself as a winner so the more hard-core Trumpiness they project the better. Because everyone loves Trump. To know him is to love him. If you don’t love him it is, obviously, because you don’t know enough about him.

   The simple fact that Trump is the root of the problem for the Trump campaign. Instead of surrounding himself with people less like himself, to act as buffers and smooth things out with voters he needs, he goes the other way. In his mind it isn’t working because they don’t see the unvarnished Trump.

   Paul Krugman called it, the form of failure will be a derp spiral:

   http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/paul-krugman-predicts-a-derp-spiral-when-trump-realizes-hes-likely-to-lose/

   What worries me is that Trump’s assumption that he is a “winner”, and the right medicine for what ails the US, cuts very close to a Messiah complex. Assuming he is what we need, and that everyone who gets to know him will learn to love him, he is set up to assume that cheating and extra-constitutional means are justified, and something he can get away with. That once in office we will all see that a trump presidency is for the best and the minor unpleasantness of his forcing the issue will be quickly forgotten. What with the endless waves of prosperity and delight that are the natural consequence of Trump being in power.

   This is the delusion of stalkers and malignant ex-husbands. That the fit is so perfect that the outcome will be paradise and all the violence of forcing the relationship will quickly be forgiven. If they can just get close enough for long enough for their victim to fully appreciate how perfect they are for each other.

   Derp spiral it is.

   But please, pretty please, save us the violence of trying to get Trump into office through extraordinary means in an attempt to get us all to fall in love with him. That sort of thing never ends well.

   On the up side, the nightmare of Trump stalking America is going to make “No-drama Obama” look great. He will be remembered fondly.

   Can he run again in four years?

5. blf says

   August 17, 2016 at 1:42 pm

   lorn@4, “Can he run again in four years?”
   I’m not sure who you mean by he: If President Obama, no; If teh trum-prat, yes, albeit I’d rather hope his frauds and scams have caught up with him by then and he’s been convicted and in prison (which does not, as far as I know, prevent him from trying to run again).

   Somewhat related to your opening point about teh trum-prat deluding himself that he’s always correct, Trump’s ‘deeply un-American’ stance on immigration prompts legal concerns:

   Experts warn Republican nominee’s plan to restrict immigration on the basis of ideology is impractical and could be unconstitutional

   A quarter century after the end of the cold war, Donald Trump has proposed restoring ideological tests for immigrants, a move that legal experts say raises a tangle of practical and even constitutional concerns.

   In a speech on Monday devoid of policy details or specifics, the Republican nominee called for the extreme vetting of immigrants, including a screening process to root out applicants who do not uphold “American values”.

   Laurence Tribe, a liberal constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said Trump’s proposal was “a nonstarter”.

   “The proposal{…} is very deeply un-American, is probably unconstitutional, would almost certainly fail in Congress and is another example of Trump having no idea what he’s talking about,” he said.
   […]

   And, Trump has made it clear exactly who should be barred from the US: himself:

   He said those who do not believe in our constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred should be turned back at the border. Remind you of anybody?

   […] Trump, who is known to have expressed bigoted and hateful opinions about Mexicans and Muslims, and who has repeatedly demonstrated a tenuous grasp of the constitution, already resides in the United States, I assume he will opt for Mitt Romney-style self-deportation.
   […]
   Trump is proposing that the freedoms of immigrants, and especially Muslims, entering this country be curtailed to the point that they cannot hold “hostile attitudes”. But who is to decide when an attitude is hostile enough to warrant exclusion? Do we really expect the authorities to patrol not only our borders but also our thoughts? Does Donald Trump, of all people, not realize that you might say contradictory things about any given topic just to get ahead?
   […]

6. cubist says

   August 17, 2016 at 4:43 pm

   “peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society”.

   Hm.

   “peddling” the fucking “narrative”.

   There are none so blind as those who drive 75 miles out of their way to find the last store selling Krazy Glue so they can deliberately glue their eyes shut.