The thing about elections is they test various theories about the direction of the country, the strategies of the party elites and the pet theories of the talking heads representing the ideological sides of the ruling class. In predictable elections like 2012, everyone can hedge enough to look like they have a bead on things, but 2016 is not one of those elections. No one really knows how things will turnout on Tuesday. That’s leaving all the so-called experts out on one limb or another, ready to have it sawed off by the voters.
The first camp that will probably plunge to the ground are those who have been saying Trump is outlandishly unacceptable. These are the the NeverTrump loons mostly, but there are some Progressive nutters in this group. These are the people that have been predicting a blowout for Clinton, even suggesting she will usher in a permanent realignment. After all, Trump’s pro-evil message and buffoonish style will be resoundingly rejected by the voters and that’s going to damage the Republican brand for a generation.
There’s not way to interpret the polling that says this will happen. The most likely scenario, as of this writing, is the slimmest of slim victories for Clinton. Even Nate Silver says she is one close state flipping away from defeat. If she is going to win, it is going to be the narrowest win possible and closer that what Obama did four years ago. At the minimum, it says the message was fine, but the campaign strategy was poorly executed and a slightly less eccentric messenger would have won.
The next group plunging to earth tomorrow will be those claiming that Trump’s message appeals only to white nationalists. This group should already be on the turf as it is clear that Trump is doing just as well as any Republican with blacks and Hispanics. There’s a lot of polling that suggests he is doing better than previous Republicans with both groups. The only thing that will keep this group of experts around after the election is they are shameless and facts simply don’t matter.
One branch over in the canopy are the TrueCons and Movement Conservatives that have been arguing that Trump is not conservative and only a real conservative can win against a Liberal Democrat. These are the folks debating the proper use of semicolons in the tax code. They need a Clinton landslide to avoid having their limb sawed off tomorrow. The weight of their own perfidy has caused many to plunge to the earth in the primary, but there are still some hanging on, going on about principled conservatism.
Then we have the amnesty crowd. This is going to be interesting to watch as they are almost as fanatical as the NeverTrump loons. A Trump loss will temp them to say amnesty is the only way to prevent this from happening again, but that’s going to be a tough sell. A Trump win takes the issue off the table. The only way these people can claim victory on Tuesday is if Trump losses and it is the result of losing states with heavy Hispanic populations. This is looking unlikely, but that’s their one hope.
Similarly, there have been those who have argued that immigration and amnesty are simply toxic issues. They are third rail issues. The solution is to ignore them or suck it up and pass amnesty so the issue is off the table for another generation. This is a popular cop-out with Republicans as it makes them look like they are reluctant to cave to Democratic pressure, but it keeps the Progressives from calling them racist. The results thus far make clear that this is ridiculous, but a Trump win should kill this one off for a generation.
My favorite election theory this cycle has been the howling from the political class about the need for a ground game. That means the need to hire thousands of their friends into do-nothing jobs for the campaigns. Trump has run a lean and mean campaign in the primary and the general. The political professionals hate him for it. If he wins, then we probably see a new style of electioneering modeled on what he did in 2016. A loss and we get a barrage of opinion from these people claiming they were right all along.
Then there is the Depressive Right’s argument that the country is lost due to demographics. These are the people who drink vinegar for breakfast. Because of immigration, there’s simply no way to win on anything other than a statist agenda. The electoral map has been rigged and the only way a Republican can compete is to out globalist the Democrats. The result will be a slow march toward the abyss as the country cracks up under the inevitable strains of multiculturalism, tribalism and globalist economics.
This is the one group with the best chance to be proved right tomorrow. Trump has his flaws, but his message is fundamentally pro-American, while Clinton is running an anti-American campaign. If that is not enough, Clinton is clearly the least moral and least honest politician any of us has seen in our lifetime. If the voters still reject Trump, then there is no reason to think there is a way to win an election on a pro-American, patriotic message. The people have quit on themselves and the country.
Then there is the Sailer theory of recent elections, which is that the GOP has been shedding white voters and therefore their prospects have dimmed. Those white voters are not voting for the other party in great numbers. Instead, they stay home, dropping out of the system. If the data from the primary is correct and Trump is pulling those forgotten voters back in, then this validates Sailer’s thesis. This may not be obvious for a while after the election, but this election will be a good test case.
This brings up another theory, one that is quietly being discussed in Progressive circles. You can make an argument that someone lacking Clinton’s ugly corruption and even uglier personality would be headed for a landslide right now. After all, the least appealing candidate in human history is one state from winning the election. Imagine if she did not have the sex appeal of a pit viper. The point being, even a narrow loss will seem to prove that post-Americanism is a winner or at least a potential winner, with the right candidate.
Time will tell.
I don’t have high expectation for Trump, but if he wins, I’m going to take such joy in libtards everywhere drowning in tears and hopefully a few of them will off themselves. I want them to feel what others felt when this Kenyan Gay Muslim Mulatto was elected. It also gives me joy that Trump has shown the Republican party as an establishment whores not interested in the well being of the average American citizen.
And today Ezra Klein discovered the “Frightening Weakness in American Democracy” . . . voters.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/7/13532178/donald-trump-american-democracy-weakness
I submit Ezra Klein as Exhibit A to support the thesis that the first act of successful revolutionaries throughout history is to execute the oppositions (pseudo) intellectuals and journalists.
The sad thing is that the Republican party is likely to follow his advice.
WA, OR and CO have mail-in ballots so we won’t know until Friday how they went. This is so the Dems have plenty of time to “find” enough votes to put them over the top.
Only in CO WA and OR are going for Hillary, even if every police officer in the State needs to find a ballot box in his trunk.
These nevertrumpers just crack me up:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/never-trump-a-final-word/article/2005275
What they don’t realize is that people might actually have some respect for them if they just came out and admitted who they are for. But they can’t…because if they did, whatever meager coalition nevertrump consists of would collapse.
Whether Trump wins or loses, the fallout will leave the NeverTrumpers more irrelevant than they were before. I hope they’ve saved some money and paid off their mortgages because they will be of little use to anybody after tomorrow.
For example, who will be willing to pay for David French’s wisdom once Trump is in office or out of it? Now that he’s unmasked himself, how many people will pay attention to George Will’s sonorous bloviating? Will the sugar daddies keep funding National Review or The Weekly Standard after those publications have spent a year and a half trashing much of their dwindling readership? To keep readers, they’ve got a lot of reinventing to do and there isn’t much evidence that they are self aware enough to pull it off.
They don’t have to keep readers. Those guys all live off of the donors. The annual subscription haul wouldn’t cover payroll for a month.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/weeklystandard.com
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nationalreview.com
Did you notice a trend here?
And I forgot to add http://www.michaelfmartin.com/james-comey-makes-the-fbi-a-laughing-stock-and-the-gloves-will-come-off/
They can all have their theories, but trying to keep up with the events day by day in this election is impossible. What used to happen in a month long news cycle, now happens in a day. I just took a close look at the last 24 hours with Comey making the FBI and bad joke and WikiLeaks attacking Hillary with a fresh batch of DNC emails to reignite the Sanders voters hatred of Hillary.
The Comey business is certainly curious, more for what it didn’t say than what it rather cryptically did.
Here’s the meat of yesterday’s letter (which, based on the bulk of the commentary, few bothered to read):
“I write to supplement my October 28, 2016 letter that notified you the FBI would be taking additional investigative steps with respect to former Secretary of State Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation. During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.
Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/06/read-full-text-comeys-letter-new-clinton-emails/93398304/
This strikes me as a pretty limited, yet fairly damning statement. While not explicitly stating so, there is a strong inference that classified information was found on the Weiner laptop. The reason the review could be conducted so quickly was that it was restricted to “communications to or from” Clinton while SoS (2009-2013). The review concluded that Clinton had not committed out and out espionage by deliberately sending classified email to interested parties outside of her inner circle (Comey’s standard for “intent” that he established contrary to the actual statute back in July), but that Clinton was again “grossly negligent” in the handling of that information.
There are still a lot of loose ends here: did agents find additional classified into beyond the items known and discussed back in July? How did this info end up on Weiner’s laptop? Was the laptop compromised? What is Huma Abedin’s role in the information being on the laptop and any possible distribution of that information? Does any of the information relate to any ongoing investigation of the Clinton Foundation?
Weinergate is far from over.
“did agents find additional classified into beyond the items known and discussed back in July?”
If the number of emails reported is accurate, 650,000, then I’d say yes. It amounted to many hundreds of thousands more than what was known and discussed earlier. It also appears to me that this is evidence of espionage. That many emails, most likely from the State Department, would seem to be bundled for a purpose.
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I am not afraid of legal Latin American immigration. I challenge anybody to explain to me what the difference is between someone of so-called Hispanic origin and European immigrants from Southern Europe. I don’t see much of a difference in culture, religion or even skin color. Their Spanish influence makes them culturally very similar to Southern Europeans and there are Greeks and Italians that are every bit as dark as some Latin Americans.
In other words, they are white. Or at least close enough. Maybe not Anglo-Saxon white, but then again we don’t have to worry about Sharia Law and suicide bombers either.
What I am afraid of is bilingualism and the left using the Hispanic identity to create another minority and to use it as another wedge between Americans. I am also afraid of disproportionate immigration when it comes to other alien cultures and religions for the same reason — the potential for division. But I am not afraid of Hispanics and Latin Americans whatsoever.
Right on, but we really don’t want or need no La Raza crap.
Agreed.
No. If you were talking Argentina I would agree they are closer to Spain or Europe. But we are talking about the millions of Mexicans and Central Americans who have flooded into the US, who are mostly decedents of Aztecs and Mayans, and they are NOT culturally similar.
Their culture does not value individual rights, property rights and is collectivist rather than individualistic. Yes, they don’t blow up people for religious reasons, but they do make up a disproportionate amount of the US prison population, are importing their ultraviolent drug wars, and do not assimilate. Which is why we have Spanish TV, Spanish radio and “Press 2 for Spanish”. (I don’t know how many times I have watched TV news where they interview some immigrant who has been in the US for THIRTY YEARS and they don’t speak English). In short they don’t care about this country except what they can take from it (or send back as cash across the border).
And as been pointed out multiple times, the republican dream that they would vote along with their Catholic faith has been a fantasy. Catholic Latins will gladly support abortion and gay “marriage” as long as they get handouts from the left.
You sir have a firm grasp on our present and future mestizo problems. They vote Dem and their bambinos will vote Dem because they feel the Gob’ment is there to provide for them. The numbers for welfare usage and other forms of public assistance indicate the problem is getting worse. As with most pathologies not every member of this particular group indulges, but a huge portion of the total does. Immigration is a huge net loss to our country.
Argentinians are more like the European city folk and maybe even the bougeouis. And with all the German ex-pats down there, maybe even more similar to NORTHERN EUROPEANS.
The Mestizos are quite similar to the European farmer immigrant of yore, one-half step up from a peasant. These are the people who came and worked in all those coal mines, steel mills and railroads. (My paternal grandfather was engaged in two of those three professions at one time or another until he saved up enough money to go back to his village and become the local land baron.) Remember John Belushi making fun of Greek restaurants in Saturday Night Live? And did you watch the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding?” If you pull out Godfather II, they are also the Sicilian peasants you see in the flashback scenes. Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans and Mexicans not too dissimilar in my first-hand opinion.
If you pull out some history from the early part of the 20th century, you will find that many of those Europeans were also famous for living 8 to an apartment until what they were able to save up their money. Lots of similarities.
I’m a northwestern European and I can assure you that your impression of Argentina and its Germans, leaving aside Bariloche, Buenos Aires and Villa General Belgrano (home of the Graf Spee gang), is inaccurate. You’re right about one thing though: plenty of bourgeois types in Argentina.
“In other words, they are white.”
I live in South America and I beg to differ. The “criollo” might well be described as “off-white”, but the “cholo” is more an Amerind than a Euro-variant. The cultural divide between the two groups is very wide. Meso-America has an abundant supply of cholos who want to head north, but trust me, you don’t want them there. South America has its fair share of cholos, some countries more than others, but they’re controlled to a degree not found further north.
The Government Party (most of the factions you’ve identified above) will spin it in whatever way they need to in order to preserve their power base. A Trump win? Well, he’s not a conservative anyway, and so that means bigger government and more military adventurism in the middle east. A Trump loss? Hey, same result!
Even the open borders types would spin a Trump win as actually a victory for themselves. You see, Trump was making all that stuff up anyway, so nothing will change, and they can continue to co-opt the courts, DOJ, etc. to ensure Trump gets nowhere should he in fact turn out to have been serious.
The basic realignment is Government Party vs. American Party. That realignment is going to continue after Tuesday. The GOP is not going to suddenly get religion, and decide to be an opposition party. There’s going to be a lot of bad blood between them and those who told them to GFY which will not go away after the results are determined. In fact, I suspect they will harden their positions (both sides) as the ugly divorce in the GOP that started after the 2014 mid-terms continues apace.
it’s Plebes versus the Patricians. For a long time, many Plebes thought they were Patrician, but many are waking up to their reality.
A plebe with a $10 million net worth is still a plebe. (e.g. Trump) A patrician with a $300,000 net worth and a $100,000 a year job is still a patrician.
As a Brit the outcome of the election on the 8th shouldn’t bother me that much: we have our own problems and while America’s standing in the world matters hugely, I don’t get to vote in any shape or form. I just hope that many millions of decent, law-abiding Americans do not let us all down and vote for the right result.
Perhaps that’s why I am worried. I used to argue, naively, that corruption wasn’t what the west did. Our ideals weren’t from a banana republic. But what we will be seeing here, should Clinton win, is the triumph of deceit. It hurts me that in the end, the west turned out to be no better than Poohistan or Sickaguay or the People’s Republic of North Diktat could manage. Maybe however it is time that we came to realise that the whole shoddy game has to end, and although painful the process of decay it is better now than later.
One thing I do believe however is that if Trump wins, then he will be surely blamed for every tiny thing the MSM can pin on him, irrespective of the glaringly obvious truth. I expect as winner he would even get blamed that the Clintons were so corrupt and Obama so useless.
If the hag wins, she will be exempt from the social disaster that Obama started. So every BLM riot, every Muzzie act of extremism, every price rise in Obamacare will wash off her like rain on a duck’s back. For Trump, it will be the opposite.
Good luck America. We need you to stand strong.
Our ideals were not those of a banana republic. The problem is we get worn down and outnumbered. I have said for some time, to anyone who would listen, that morality, that do unto others thing, obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics: without the continual input of energy a system winds down. So we have come to this.
First we decided, corporately, individual charity wasn’t enough; government charity should help the poor and downtrodden. Then we decided that had to happen to an ever expanding group of poor and downtrodden. Then government must solve the economic decline problems even if that meant government debt. All along the way many of us told ourselves all of this was free, even though we knew there is no such thing. The amount that came out of any one pocket was small. Worse, we didn’t see it come out because it came out of that check before we got it. It was easy to be comfortable with the whole thing. It could always happen to you, right? Finally we decided to accept behavior from public officials that we wouldn’t tolerate from family because, hey, they are on the right side, the side that does good.
Little by little, fighting the good fight against the wrong gets overwhelming. Not that those of us who care quit; it’s just those who don’t care keep getting to be a larger and larger group. So here we are.
We are taught to “care” in some abstract way that involves turning the task over to others, and paying those others obscenely well to “care” in our stead. That is how you get the Clinton Foundation that spends less than 6% of their budget on charity work in 2014. The leadership profits both financially and in the maintenance of their hegemony over the rest of us by our “not caring” in any direct way, but by “caring” in an indirect and painless fashion. So it is encouraged.
The problem is, too many of us restrict our generosity to those we believe are needy and deserving, cancer patients, storm victims, injured firefighters, and the like. Meanwhile we refuse to show our compassion to the heroin-addicted pederast, or the gang-banger who was paralyzed crashing his getaway-mobile. And not a cent for LGBTQRST slam poetry workshops. So our betters decide to step in and assure that these deservedly poor are also included at the public trough.
It has been my observation that in this declining age, fighting wrong becomes a vague comic book reference. Average people are not equipped to even recognize when evil is having its way. I’ve been focused on this for awhile.
http://bagsallpacked.blogspot.com/2016/11/bullies-and-conmen.html
That’s a fairly accurate account of what has happened, but it leaves out the influence of the media, the unions, the educational establishment and teacher’s unions. If any of these had done their job we would probably all be in a better place. We really have been betrayed by some elements of society and they need to be brought to account. Outing them as individuals would be more constructive than passively accepting our victimization .
Re: “But what we will be seeing here, should Clinton win, is the triumph of deceit. It hurts me that in the end, the west turned out to be no better than Poohistan or Sickaguay or the People’s Republic of North Diktat could manage.”
Corruption has always existed; the difference between then and now (American in 1940 versus today) is that the corruptocrats of today are also traitors.
During WWII, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the F.B.I. communicated in secret with the NY City mafia. It turns out that the Roosevelt Administration had a keen interest in keeping the docks running smoothly on the eastern seaboard – especially in NYC. Mob boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano reached a quid prop quo with the spies and spooks and the FBI – assurances that there would be no problems from the longshoreman’s union and that the docks would remain open and functioning smoothly. In return, he received assurances in return – i.e., probably immunity, money or favors owed.
In other words, the guys in the mob may have been criminals and thugs, but they were patriotic criminals and thugs – contrast that with today’s corrupt political class, who have turned traitor against their own country and profit handsomely from it.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” – Marcus Cicero
Keep in mind that the Democratic party can no longer have an open election for their candidate. Even that bit of theater is tightly controlled. I look for the Repubs to try and add super delegates too, to prevent another Trump type candidate from getting the nomination.
Remember how they said Trump was poison to the down ticket races? That’s is being shown to be a lie. If Hillary had this in the bag, she’d be campaigning for the down ticket races.
the GOP can add whatever they like…except voters.
Not sure why you think a Clinton victory is most likely. By any rational reading of the Real Clear Politics statistics the electoral count this morning is:
Trump: 241
Clinton: 203
Toss Up: 94
Trump has a broad path to victory by taking any of the following combinations of the tossup states:
FL (29)
PA (20) + VA (13)
PA (20) + MI (16)
PA (20) + CO (9)
MI (16) + CO (9) + NM (5)
The last combination is key. Trump can lose FL, VA, and PA and still win the election. This election can be decided in flyover country. (The experience here in CO suggests that Steve Sailer is correct–Trump is drawing huge crowds at his rallies, mostly white.)
RCP’s use of historical averages biases their electoral map count. Less than a month ago RCP had Clinton at 273 electoral votes. This morning RCP scores Clinton at 203. She’s lost 70 electoral votes in the last month. Further, RCP the following states listed as tossup even though Trump is clearly leading in the polls: NC, ME2, OH, GA, IA, AZ, NV.
My prediction is that, absent massive voter fraud in Broward County, Trump will take Florida and cruise to a victory. If the recent reports of the voter fraud operation in Broward County prove true then we may be looking at a contested election.
I have it at 260 Trump as of now. Romney states (including NC) + Ohio + Florida + Iowa + Maine CD-2
With all the states in play, I am very optimistic that we will get the 10 more electoral votes needed to make Trump president.
The sex appeal of a pit viper. Z, you nailed it again.
No need even for invoking of a snake. ” sex appeal of Hillary Clinton” says it all.
We are doomed.
(Just in case you forgot that part… 🙂 )
If Hillary “wins” from the vote being rigged, this won’t be a fake result. It’s proof that the destruction of the American spirit began lo these hundred years by the occupied media has been total. Try stealing the vote from an aware and interested people. Without such a people, what even is voting?
America can’t lose this election. This election can only prove that either there is still such a thing as America or there isn’t.
But what is your prediction Z, in terms of electoral votes, or just who wins?
Severian believes “The fix is in. Hillary wins on Tuesday.”, so does Assange.
Just vote Trump tomorrow. Trump represents the greatest threat to the cabal that runs this country since Tail Gunner Joe, and they will do anything to stop him. The media will run endless phony polls showing that Trump can’t win, the pundits will report bogus “early results” tomorrow before the western polls close in order to depress turnout, there will be hysterical reports of Trumpsters giving up, throwing in the towel, there will be endless defeatist tweets about early voting results (which historically mean nothing). Ignore it all, just go out and vote Trump. I have no idea if it’s “too late” or if the fix is in, and neither does anybody else, but I know that it’s certainly hopeless if we stop fighting. I can remember when the Left told us that the USSR was unbeatable, too, and they kept saying it right up until the bastards folded.
Nothing is written. Vote Trump tomorrow.
Trump did five rallies yesterday, in different states. He’s scheduled for 5 more today. He’s 70. I have never seen anyone run harder. Get out there and give him your vote. He deserves it.
The vigor and the rhetorical discipline on Trump’s part in recent weeks has been so impressive. To the extent his traitorousness to his economic class is genuine, it is something to witness. He will go out a winner in this campaign, no matter how the vote turns out. He will be cheered in any crowded room he walks into. The Viper will hide out, she would not dare enter a crowded room that was not vetted.
When I hear his speeches they are truly Churchillian. Gives me goose bumps. Who would have imagined.
It is hard to predict a fixed fight. But, my guess is we could see the Trumpslide States that should never be in question are in question. New poll of New Mexico, for example, has the state a toss-up and it is a big poll. The trend they are reporting is the Goofy Weed Man vote is going to Trump. If that is the case in NM, then it is happening all over. I will not be shocked if some of the Cankle voted goes for Based Yenta.
That said, Clinton winning close is still a strong play because of the massive vote fraud we see in every election. Philly will have an 800% turnout. Detroit could have a 1000% turnout this time.
And the media will tell us with a straight face that there is nothing wrong with that. And then they will tell us that they are impartial. And then they will “tut-tut” our low opinion of them. And then they will go bankrupt.
Dutch, from your lips to God’s ear.
Even if Trump wins, we might be past the demographic tipping point. Assuming, fantastically, that he turns off all immigration on Day One, what of the children of those already here, plus the Boomers, Milennials, and other SWPLs? Very possible that Trump could win and still be nothing more than a dead cat bounce.
Now if you’ll excuse me, my vinegar is getting cold.
Right, right, right, right, and right. Add the massive conformity imposed by 1-12 education and control of the home pages of common browsers. A Trump win is but a final amusement, the cigarette before the execution. I take oil with my vinegar.
Bless the Donald, however. He can’t have begun this other than as a lark, and when he was sent to the front of the class after a few magic words, he discovered his path in the silenced minority of conservative voters. He must have been a businessman at one time. May he hire a cabinet full of bankruptcy judges.
“even a narrow loss will seem to prove that post-Americanism is a winner.” My contention for some time has been that post-Americanism is indeed a winner, God help us. Every Dem candidate since at least Al Gore has openly loathed the country he wanted to be president of. The fact that half the country either can’t see this, doesn’t care, or of course both is gibbering lunacy. Since we’re way past Godwin this election…. this is like Hitler running to be Prime Minister of Israel. The top and the bottom against the middle — Cultural Marxism and gibsmedats vs. people who actually like their country and care about something other than temporary goodfeelz. It’s why I keep saying that the rise of a real jackboots-and-armbands Fascist party is inevitable; given Cultural Marxism, gibs, and the impossibility of getting rid of either, Fascism is the only effective way for the middle to fight back.
Maybe the middle class doesn’t fight back, but just disappears into the cracks. Maybe the human condition is a small upper class and a big, despondent lower class. Maybe the last few centuries have been an aberration in the march of humanity. I hope not.
A surprising large number of people in this country are quite glad to play the role of serfs or slaves, though they would vehemently deny such a characterization or label for their conduct. As long as they have minimal creature comforts (think all sorts of consumer goods and other markers of economic well-being offered to the general public) and a social ideology that tells them they are an equal part of a greater whole (despite obvious indicia otherwise), they will gladly allow their “betters” to run things and force social changes on the country that many of them in fact do NOT support in their own hearts. But they go along because they don’t want to be isolated from mainstream society. Besides supporting the other side will require breaking a habit, something that is never easy for adults to do.
If Trump wins, I expect some modest improvement. If the other one wins I don’t see how it can get much worse politically. The Bubble People have been on this course at least since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson and we are now seeing the final flowering. The nice thing is that they will not have a steady-state system to manipulate. The whole thing is deforming and collapsing.
My own sense is there won’t be the needed uprising. Look at Venezuela. The excitable Latins down there are just putting up with the crap. The Swedes are another example of people who seem prepared or even eager to go quietly.
I hope, hope, hope I’m wrong.
That’s where you’d better hope the SJWs are right and we’re all horribly, horribly racist — FedGov is going to have to cut services, and when it cuts off the ghetto gibs, riots ensue. Horrible, horrible racists will not allow that to continue…. Swedes would. I’ve been around hardcore Lefties all day, every day, for a long time. I know how horribly, horribly racist they all-but-openly are, which is why I keep saying that today’s bicurious blue-haired vegan slam poet is tomorrow’s obergruppenfuhrer. When it comes to real reductions in standard of living — as it must, and soon — your good Lefty, who has no problem with abortion remember, will find all kinds of reasons to go Amritsar on our inner cities.
” Look at Venezuela. The excitable Latins down there are just putting up with the crap”.
Very salient point. Granted, the gov has control of the military to a great extent, but given the conditions in Venezuela now… Yet there is no indicator that open rebellion is about to break out. It’s hard to imagine the marshmallow-men of middle class consumers in the USA arising from their couches to take to the hills and resist tyranny.
How about the RPers who recognize the Trump/Witch split between men/women and shake their heads in sadness over what’s been lost?
Win, lose, or draw, this is the last election that will ever matter.
Soon, in about a decade, maybe less, it is going to be war.
Prepare.
Put HilLIARy in the POTUS chair and it will be much sooner. The Left seems to think they can survive nuclear war with Russia.
They are very wrong.
The last point – that a Progressive could win if not saddled with Hillary’s reputation for corruption and incompetence – is interesting. It begs the question – can a Progressive rise to the top without being an obviously corrupt and / or incompetent hypocrite? I have my doubts. I can’t think of one off the top of my head.
My preferred model of the Left is of a political cult that has seized control of the state. Iran is a good example. Syria was a better example until recently, but maybe that is the future. When a self-defined minority rules a society, it must use every weapon at its disposal in order to mitigate their numerical disadvantage. What we are re-learning is what the Soviets and Fascist knew. You have to control the information above all us. If not for alternative media and hackers, Hillary Clinton would have been sold to us the model for all females.
And if she wins, expect to see an all out, no holds barred war on anything that is not “Pravda”. The DDOS attack on Wikileaks today is no accident.
It does not get a lot of discussion, but there is an alt-left out there. They called Trump a buffoon, but Sanders is a complete clown and he gained 40% of the primary vote. Many Progressives are uneasy with open border and even more are hostile to globalism and the embrace if Wall Street. Everyone just assumed we get a civil war on the Right, but a Trump win could very well set off a civil war on the Left.
Yep – old school commies and the like. There are always cells of them on campus. As you point out, mainstream Dems were anti-immigration well into the 80s — it hurt the American worker — and “no war but class war” has been a Lefty mantra from the get go. I don’t read Mother Jones anymore, but that’s where they used to hang out, still calling each other “comrade” and longing for the glory days of Haymarket Square.
We used to get the old Spartacist Youth League types on campus. Most seemed to be the kids of the Red Diaper babies that still infested the south side of Chicago. They would come to Evanston and try to stir up shit. Guess it was better alternative to their home turf where “Leroy” might tell you to get off his drug corner and bust a cap on you to drive the point home.
The problem with this theory is that the alt-left isn’t armed or trained, and the alt-right is….remember what happened in Germany 1919, Rosa Luxembourg does….
Great observation.
Honest to God, I have no idea how to interpret this one. The R2 of the data is simply all over the place, both in aggregate and anecdote. For example, with Romney or McCain, I never would have overhead two SEIU janitorial workers outside my office in NY discussing the need to get out and vote for a Republican, but it happened this time. Nor the elaborate “signaling” rituals when politics came up where folks you never would have thought would vote for a Republican try to figure out if you are on the same side. Nor the rabid attacks by the the Left on anyone that refuses to get on the Hillary train. My spouse was victim of two of these for having the temerity to suggest she couldn’t vote for either in a public forum. Even explaining to the feminists there that as past sexual assault victim the thought of voting for the enabling spouse of serial assaulter carried no weight in the argument. Things are simply wacky.
The last point is the most interesting. The Progressives making that argument assume that they actually have winning ideas, when in fact what they have is simply a machine whose parts are made up of specific groups with material interests. As such, organizing to win with such a thing requires expertise at apportioning the material benefits among those interests by people who best understand how to do so, and that means keeping rather corrupt people at the head of their party.
I don’t mean to denigrate America or her exceptional greatness in saying this, but to a certain extent both parties do this. The ideological wings of the parties exist mainly as cover for material interest and the various ideologies compete for a special place at the altar set aside for this purpose.
The great interest now in what is going on in the republican party is happening because its high priests have fallen into the habit of worshiping false gods and began attempts to force those who adhered to the old religion to do so. They and Elijah got together in August and asked God to light their respective sacrifices and Elijah’s is the one in flames, while his opponents hopes for the future are as well.
Speaking of the Old Testament, I would suggest going Old testament on a bunch of our former high priests.
MAGA
The Progressives only win because they cheat, lie, insinuate and brain wash. The media has colluded to the point of no return in this cycle. If Hillary wins, what next? The will have pulled off the biggest “coup” ever. And they’ll not fully understand what they’d done. I pray that Trump wins, because at least the system is again him and will keep him in check. Her… not so much. A watershed election for the country.
Progressivism has always sold the same bill of goods, the same way since it’s inception. The interesting question is what is different in this time around. Personally, I think it lies somewhere in the junction of Trump’s approach to the campaign, plus the never before seen sordid details of how the Clintons operate, plus the likelihood that the fiscal bribery game has run its course. Trump may not go away after this, his adherents can’t unsee what has been revealed and a “business as usual” approach to fiscal policy will end in disaster. Should Hillary be elected, we may see an increasing segment of the population taking a “je refuse” stance towards a Clinton administration and Washington in general. You see that with the states now telling the Feds to “go fuck” on refugee resettlement. States that go overwhelmingly for Trump may feel empowered to do this with other Federal policies (read: Obamacare). If you study revolutions, the State can only suppress so many points of dissent before it becomes overwhelmed. I fear we are headed down that path.
I’d love to see Trump sue the media and various liberal pundits for slander, fraud and downright lying about everything. Surely lying in public to this extent should be treated like taking a dump in public,
I’d love to see them RICO’ed. There was collusion between themselves and between the Democrat Party to interfere in an election. Even if the government loses, at least they will be put on notice.
It would be nice if real justice could be had but truth is only ones winning are the lawyers (yeech!) cleaning up with fees.
The progressives “winning ideas” are built on a foundation made of sand – or more specifically: The Fed and deficit spending.
That time is coming to an end. Thinking that Trump can get in and clean the whole mess up might be a bridge too far at this historical juncture , but I believe what will go down on the next President’s watch will call the whole entire liberal structure of things that has been created on that foundation of funny money into question.
Because of that – I do think that Killary might be the better *strategic* choice for long term success. Otherwise the revolution this country needs to have might get killed in the crib when the lefties blame the shit show that is sure to happen – on Trump. What follows after that might make a Killary presidency look good by comparison.
They will blame it on the Republicans, even if Trump loses. We have people living in tents in the street in many major cities in this country. Have you seen any stories about it? Do you think you will see lots of stories about it if Trump wins?
That’s what makes tomorrow so exciting/stressful — we are going to learn who we are as a country! after 8 years under dr obama’s care, the bandages are finally coming off.