Tag: 2016 republican campaign
When Trump Throws Post-Election Dung, How Will His Fans Respond?

When Trump Throws Post-Election Dung, How Will His Fans Respond?

So now the big crybaby says he’s losing because his opponent is crooked and the referees are blind. It’s straight out of the WWE “Wrestlemania” playbook. It’s not for nothing that Donald J. Trump was inducted into the professional wrestling Hall of Fame, as I’ve noted before.

It’s all there: the boasting, the strutting, the racialized taunts, and the simulated mayhem naïve observers sometimes mistake for real. But it’s all make-believe, and deep down nearly all WWE fans know it. I expect most Trump supporters do too. Having failed miserably in his televised debates with Hillary Clinton—if he hadn’t been so outclassed, it’d be tempting to say he choked—Trump now claims that the entire U.S. political system is corrupt.

“The election is being rigged by corrupt people pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president,” the GOP candidate whined. “We can’t let them get away with this, folks….Remember this, it’s a rigged election….It’s a rigged election…It’s a rigged election.”

No, Donald, you’re just a big loser. Possibly one of the biggest losers in the history of American politics. “A third-rate con man who wilted under pressure and was finally incinerated in a fireball of his own stupidity” is how Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi puts it.

From a purely psychological perspective, it’ll be interesting to watch how Trump copes with his seemingly inevitable defeat. Beaten by a woman, no less, which to a man with the psychological makeup of an adolescent chimpanzee—all chest-beating and ritualized threat displays—is doubly worse.  

Among the great apes, it’s common for a humiliated combatant to defecate in his hand and fling it at his rival.

But I digress. The big question is how Trump’s impassioned supporters will respond to his dung throwing. “Election officials brace for fallout from Trump’s claims of a ‘rigged’ vote,” the Washington Post warns. The Boston Globe cautions that “Warnings of conspiracy stoke anger among Trump faithful.”

Globe reporters definitely found a few real humdingers among the crowd at a Trump rally in Cincinnati. There was Joe, a 39 year old first-time voter who fears Sharia law but apparently dozed through eighth-grade civics. “This is my prediction,” Joe said. “Trump is going to win the popular vote by a landslide, and the Electoral College will elect Hillary, because of all the corruption.”

Then there was Steve, a 61 year-old carpenter planning to heed Trump’s call to monitor suspect precincts. “I’ll look for …well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them…I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

Also Dan, a 50 year-old contractor who anticipates the worst:

“If [Hillary Clinton’s] in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot….We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take.  I would do whatever I can for my country.”

As I say, this is your basic pro-wrestling crowd. They’re mostly there for the spectacle–blowing off steam.

So my predictions are as follows: Joe won’t vote this time either. Why bother if it’s fixed?

Steve’s enthusiasm for racial profiling will fade after election officials inform him that harassing voters is a federal crime.

As for Dan, I’m guessing that the 50 year-old revolutionary’s zeal for a “Second Amendment solution” will vanish after the Secret Service knocks on his door. He’d probably been drinking.

Multiply those three by millions. Look, we’ve been hearing semi-hysterical rhetoric from Cow State white folks for many years. If it’s not the Tea Party, it’s the End Times delusions of the Left Behind novels. Only last year, a substantial proportion of Texans persuaded themselves that U.S. Army maneuvers code named “Jade Helm” constituted the opening wedge of an Obama-sponsored invasion.

Empty Walmart stores would serve as barracks for foreign soldiers; hundreds of miles of secret tunnels were being dug to help ISIS fighters infiltrate. Christian patriots would be imprisoned in FEMA re-education camps. Texas Gov. Greg Abbot promised vigilance. Sen. Ted Cruz made sympathetic noises.

And then? Nothing happened.

So this year’s mass hallucination is Donald J. Trump. Well, it says here that none of these dread outcomes are likely to happen. In Arkansas, where I live, Trump will probably win by twenty points. Obama Derangement Syndrome has turned the state deep red. So what happens after Hillary Clinton’s declared the winner come November 9?

Well, the Arkansas-LSU game in Fayetteville three days later. Don’t bother us, we’re busy.

Sometimes I think the only thing in American life as predictable as Cow State paranoia is Blue State intellectuals taking it far too seriously.

Wealthy Republicans Campaign For Hillary Clinton, Reject Trump

Wealthy Republicans Campaign For Hillary Clinton, Reject Trump

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Groups of wealthy Republicans unhappy with Donald Trump have been privately courting prominent peers to join them in backing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential bid, several people involved in the effort told Reuters.

They say they are seeking money and endorsements from other Republicans disillusioned by Trump, their party’s candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election. Some have received encouragement from Clinton and members of her campaign staff.

“I made the decision that I wouldn’t be able to look at my grandkids if I voted for Trump,” said Dan Webb, a former federal prosecutor and a self-described “Republican for decades” working to win over prominent Republican business people in Chicago.

Trump, a New York developer making his first run at public office, has made traditional Republican donors uneasy with inflammatory statements about women, Mexicans, Muslims and war veterans, among others.

Big-name Wall Street donors can make a difference for Clinton. They could inject big money into a campaign. They might influence moderate Republicans to switch sides. Their support of Clinton challenges Trump’s assertion that his business successes make him a better candidate for president.

With the political conventions barely over, the Republican effort to fundraise for Clinton is at an early stage. Some of the groups have yet to receive contributions because they must still file paperwork under campaign finance rules.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined comment for this story. Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson said business leaders are supporting Clinton because of her economic plan and because Trump “cannot be trusted.”

WARY OF TRUMP

Groups formed to support Clinton include Republicans for Her 2016, run by Republican lobbyist Craig Snyder; a grassroots organization called R4C16, led by John Stubbs and Ricardo Reyes, officials in former President George W. Bush’s administration; and the Republican Women for Hillary group co-led by Jennifer Pierotti Lim, an official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The first two groups are acting independently of Clinton’s own effort. The third is acting in concert with her campaign.

“We wanted to go out there and be the voice for Republicans who were feeling wary about Trump and weird about publicly endorsing Hillary,” said Pierotti Lim, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention at the Clinton team’s invitation.

Webb, a partner at law firm Winston & Strawn, said he began his outreach after being approached by billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker and longtime Clinton associate Lanny Davis. Pritzker and Davis could not be reached for comment.

On Wednesday, billionaire hedge fund manager Seth Klarman said he would work to get Clinton elected because of comments by Trump he found “shockingly unacceptable.” Although Klarman, who is the president and chief executive of The Baupost Group, is a registered independent, a review of filings shows his political giving has largely benefited Republicans over the years, including some of Trump’s rivals in the state-by-state nominating contests this year.

(Read the story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-klarman-idUSKCN10E2TR)

WHITMAN, BLOOMBERG BACK CLINTON

Spearheading in part the Clinton effort to woo Republicans on Wall Street is Democratic strategist Leslie Dach, a former Walmart executive and aide to Bill Clinton, sources close to the Clinton campaign said.

People familiar with the Clinton drive say the Democratic nominee herself has spoken to Republican business leaders, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chief Executive Meg Whitman, who endorsed Clinton on Tuesday.

Clinton deputies courted former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ahead of a rousing speech he gave at last month’s Democratic National Convention that urged Wall Street to support her.

Whether Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire media mogul and an erstwhile Republican, will play a role in courting other Republican business leaders has yet to be determined, a source close to the discussions said.

While some major donors are hesitant to back Trump, the candidate over the last month has pulled in millions of dollars in small-money donations to boost total contributions to more than $80 million for Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party, nearly matching Clinton’s $90 million haul during the same period.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan, Lawrence Delevingne and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston; Writing by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Howard Goller)

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton makes a speech during a campaign stop in Lynwood, California, United States June 6, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake.

Christie To Head Trump Transition Team

Christie To Head Trump Transition Team

After devoting considerable time to bashing the Republican frontrunner during his presidential run, Chris Christie has been tasked with heading Donald Trump’s transition team should Trump win the November general election.

But the press release announcing Christie’s appointment might be the only change to the Trump campaign. While a transition team does now exist on paper, the team doesn’t even have an official press contact. Instead, all queries are instructed to be sent to the New Jersey governor’s director of communications — quite possibly a violation of federal and state law prohibiting the use of public funds for use in campaigns.

The New Jersey Governor’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this issue, but according to Gawker, a Christie spokesperson was “trying to figure that out ourselves.”

Using the governor’s communication’s director as the press contact for the transition team may be in violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents using “official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election or nomination for office.”

Or there’s New Jersey state ethics law, which similarly states, “No employee in the career or senior executive service shall directly or indirectly use or seek to use his or her position to control or affect the political action of another person or engage in political activity during working hours.”

The mix-up further perpetuates the disregard with which Christie has led his state, of whose citizens only 26 percent hold positive views of their governor.

The announcement also raises questions about the Trump campaign’s knowledge of election law: Doesn’t Hope Hicks, Trump’s inexperienced press secretary, know not to direct campaign questions to state employees?

As chairman of the transition team, Christie will be tasked with setting up an administrative bedrock for the Trump administration, searching for domestic and foreign policy experts to provide some organizational structure to what would surely be a disastrous presidency. The announcement is only the latest in a bizarre series of twists and turns that saw Christie insult and attack the New York businessman only to emerge a few weeks later to endorse him as president.

When President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he formed his transition team the day after being elected. Announcing the creation of a transition team so far in advance of the Republican convention has the same potential to look as premature as Ted Cruz announcing Carly Fiorina as his running mate — then again, Christie’s probably thankful for the head start.

“Governor Christie is an extremely knowledgeable and loyal person with the tools and resources to put together an unparalleled Transition Team, one that will be prepared to take over the White House when we win in November,” Trump said in the announcement. “I am grateful to Governor Christie for his contributions to this movement.”

In response, Christie said, “I am honored by the confidence being placed in me by Mr. Trump and look forward to putting together a first rate team to assemble an administration to help best serve the President-elect and the nation.”

New Jersey’s governor once described Trump as lacking the temperament to be a president. For his part, Trump’s transition team is now chaired by a man who he once called “a little boy.”

Photo: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives with Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) at a campaign rally at Winner Aviation in Youngstown, Ohio March 14, 2016.  REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

Some #NeverTrumpers Have Already Committed To Voting For Hillary Clinton

Some #NeverTrumpers Have Already Committed To Voting For Hillary Clinton

Some of the most principled members of the conservative movement woke up Wednesday morning to an unrecognizable party — what had been an organization advocating fiscal and social conservatism has turned into something else entirely: a cult of personality. Populists. Know Nothings.

The new reality facing #NeverTrump Republicans became even more apparent following campaign suspension announcements of Ted Cruz and John Kasich. The Texas senator shut down his campaign before the votes had even been fully counted in Indiana. John Kasich waited until this afternoon. With no one left to lead the anti-Trump movement in the presidential nomination race, some Republicans have done the unthinkable — pledge to support Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

The social media statuses and official announcements came flooding in last night as soon as it became clear that Trump had won the Indiana primary, effectively guaranteeing that he would be the Republican nominee.

“If it’s a competitive election, I probably will be compelled to vote for Hillary,” said Leon Wolf, editor of Red State, a conservative digital news site, to The Daily Beast. ” I wouldn’t go to bed every night worrying about a mushroom cloud opening up somewhere in the world because of some insane thing Trump had done.”

Fellow Red State editor Ben Howe simply tweeted:

Former John McCain advisor Mark Salter also tweeted:

The Clinton campaign is already capitalizing on Trump’s victory, sending out a campaign email with an exhaustive list of conservatives and Republicans who have said they would never vote for Trump. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, one of the most prominent voices of the #NeverTrump movement, said in a Facebook post, “Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. … I can’t support Donald Trump.”

Trump’s victory in Indiana only solidified already existing conservative opposition to his candidacy. In March, former New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman said, “While I certainly don’t want four more years of another Clinton administration or more years of the Obama administration, I would take that over the kind of damage I think Donald Trump could do to this country, to its reputation, to the people of this country.”

David Bernstein, a professor at George Mason University, wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post, “I’d rather Hillary Clinton win. I’d rather (and I never thought I’d say this) Barack Obama serve a third term. I’d even rather Bernie Sanders win, though if it came down to Sanders vs. Trump it might be time to form a breakaway republic. If Trump wins the nomination, I will actively seek to prevent him from becoming president.”

Even in the realm of international affairs, Trump’s promise to commit war crimes and “bomb the shit out of” America’s enemies has turned away even the most ardent neocons. “She [Clinton] would be vastly preferable to Trump,” said Max Boot, a conservative foreign policy analyst, to Vox. Boot had previously advised the McCain, Romney and Rubio campaigns on foreign policy.

The list goes on. But the reality is that while Trump may have a mandate from the 10.6 million people who have voted for him in Republican primaries, he has earned a lot of powerful enemies in his usurping of establishment power in the party. In heralding the start of a new, post-Reagan Republican Party, Trump’s army has spurred an exodus of its old guard. And while these are the last people to support a Clinton presidency, their seeming willingness to cross party lines shows just how desperate a place Donald Trump’s America would be.

Photo: Donald Trump talks to supporters during a campaign rally at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa. REUTERS/Steve Nesius