I keep getting the feeling that Trump's campaign is disintegrating in front of him. He may have some money, but nothing like the big boys. And he is already starting to make excuses for his failure.
And if you can not convince the Koch's that you are good for America, I think it is hard to become a Conservative American President.
CNN Model Predicts Clinton Win
CNN Trump Fears Election may be Rigged
CNN Trump Fears Debates?
CNN Snubbed by Koch
CNN Kochs: No Anti-Clinton Ads
CNN Koch Frets
So is there any chance that Trump could:
- Learn Humility
- Feel the Need to Actually Learn about the Issues
- Focus on People Other than Himself
- Think More and Talk Less
I keep hoping so... But there is no sign of it happening anytime soon.
And if you can not convince the Koch's that you are good for America, I think it is hard to become a Conservative American President.
CNN Model Predicts Clinton Win
CNN Trump Fears Election may be Rigged
CNN Trump Fears Debates?
CNN Snubbed by Koch
CNN Kochs: No Anti-Clinton Ads
CNN Koch Frets
So is there any chance that Trump could:
- Learn Humility
- Feel the Need to Actually Learn about the Issues
- Focus on People Other than Himself
- Think More and Talk Less
I keep hoping so... But there is no sign of it happening anytime soon.
60 comments:
What if Trump could act normal for 2 months, would that be enough to win your vote?
There is something very wrong with Donald Trump
I can't say I disagree too much. Except for the strange last sentence copied below.
Maybe Kagan is a bit like Trump.
"One can hope it does not come to that. In all likelihood, his defects will destroy him before he reaches the White House. He will bring himself down, and he will bring the Republican Party and its leaders down with him. This would be a tragedy were it not that the party and its leaders, who chose him as their nominee and who now cover and shill for this troubled man, so richly deserve their fate."
Could he still get my vote, unlikely but maybe. Please remember that I fear big government more than I do one childish narcissist... The way Trump acts he would likely be impeached quickly... Whereas those tax, spending and new government departments tend to come and stay for decades...
it seems highly unlikely that the dems will win the house, so a vote for Hillary is a vote for 4 more years of gridlock.
has there been talk of impeaching Trump already or is that from your imagination.
The Constitution sets specific grounds for impeachment. They are “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” To be impeached and removed from office, the House and Senate must find that the official committed one of these acts.
I think the house is more likely to try to influence a president Trump than impeach him.
If Republicans wanted those qualities in a candidate they would have chosen someone else.
--Hiram
Very good, Hiram. The GOP apparently wanted an outsider, an AMERICA-firster, willing to put a finger in the eye of "the establishment" that has failed us on a grand scale and a to-heck-with-PC truth-teller.
Laurie,
Just my imagination. But given your dislike for the man, I assume you think he may commit at least one of those offenses.
Hiram,
Pure Democracy in action for better or worse. The Conservative voters spoke for better or worse. They wanted a candidate who had flaws like themselves. A candidate who feels anger and offense, and tells people what he is thinking. It seems they prefer outspokenness and genuine emotion over someone smiling as they slide the knife between their ribs.
Please remember that it is the Democrats who preach the importance of pure Democracy in the General Election, while using Super Delegates and other methods to ensure only the "Party Candidate" wins the Primary. That does seem somewhat hypocritical.
If not for those manipulations, maybe Bernie would be their candidate. Many Democrats loved his unrealistic promises also.
Jerry,
The challenge is how does this "Truth Teller" stop putting his own finger in his own eye?
"Please remember that it is the Democrats who preach the importance of pure Democracy in the General Election, while using Super Delegates and other methods to ensure only the "Party Candidate" wins the Primary. That does seem somewhat hypocritical."
Please provide me an example where Super Delegates overturned the will of the voters in a Democratic Presidential nomination process.
(I'm no fan of super delegates, but the notion that the primary is rigged is unsubstantiated B.S.)
So do you truly think that more Democratic citizens wanted Clinton than Bernie? Given her "unfavorable" status.
Food for Thought
Maybe "rigged" is too strong of term... Maybe "system biased" is more accurate.
Maybe this is the "Elitism" that Paul has been preaching about lately.
If I was the Democrats, I am not sure I would be excited to have their constituents have free rein to choose the candidate.
I mean look what the GOP got for having a very open system and too many moderates splitting the votes.
"So do you truly think that more Democratic citizens wanted Clinton than Bernie? "
Yeah, I do. Hillary won 34 of the 57 contests. In primary states, she beat Bernie by 12 points (55-43). She won 54% of the pledged delegates.
Only one of the 10 reasons the primary was "rigged" from your link have any validity, and that's the debate schedule (which, of course, was announced before Sanders even entered the race so he knew the score going into things).
A lot of resignations for doing nothing wrong... FOX News More DNC Resignations
"A lot of resignations for doing nothing wrong."
They did plenty of things wrong. Rigging the primary just wasn't one of them.
Can you point to a specific action the DNC took that "rigged" the primary?
And talking about the appearance of "conflict of interest" or "golden parachute".
Clinton Hires DNC Chair
Sean, Sorry, I have not the time nor the interest to look into it. I think that too many questionable activities occur around Clinton to just be coincidence. This is why so many people are unsure about her.
With her and Bill in the mix... Who needs to watch "House of Cards"?
More HOC Less VEEP
"Sorry, I have not the time nor the interest to look into it."
Then maybe you ought to stop insinuating that something nefarious happened. That's not in alignment with what you claim are your guiding principles.
I am not sure if it was nefarious, I just think their system was biased.
Even you must agree that the "Super Delegates" seem pretty anti-Democratic.
Especially from the group that rebels against the idea of Voter ID laws.
Just curious... Could anyone just show up and vote in the Democratic Primary or did they have to prove something first?
From MP America Not Ready For Positive
"Bernie Positive? I must have missed that when I listened to him speak. Usually it seemed he was complaining about the greedy rich, the exploiting banks, expensive healthcare, expensive college, etc, etc. He reminded me a lot of Trump saying "Believe Me"." G2A
"Think maybe you did. Bernie seemed positive in his idealistic vision of some sort of American socialism, at least I thought so. Of course, he did trash very many status quo elements of both parties. How quickly we are supposed to not remember his anti-HRC establishment rhetoric now adjusted for "conventional" Democrats. Ha!
How's this for a silly conspiracy postulation? The DNC knew it could not place HRC in jeopardy by having her rail about all those "Leftist" dreams denied by both parties. She had to market to the middle section of line-straddlers and very moderate Republicans. So, Bernie was welcomed into the race, just so he could be the messenger of all that. I smirked regularly at the cable touts who truly tried to make us believe Bernie was
making her move Left. Sure, whatever.
Now Bernie has given a last pubic appearance to show us all is well under the Blue Big Top, if not completely to his personal liking. But, that's OK. Just another juggler in the true "Greatest Show on Earth."
"Feel the Bern," indeed.
Rock & Rail is not dead...August rhetoric is on the cusp.
" Jim
"Conspiracy. Now that is a Conspiracy Theory I can get behind. Everybody wins in the DNC, and only the far far Lefters are left frustrated.
I mean Bernie gets a lot more visibility than ever before in his career.
The DNC Chair gets a position on Hilary's staff and maybe a National position if HRC wins
Hilary gets the nomination and most Liberals behind her...
Brilliant !!! " G2A
"The challenge is how does this "Truth Teller" stop putting his own finger in his own eye?"-- John
The challenge is how to stop Democrats in the media from demonizing, distorting, lying, using the double standard, and faux outrage. They're shameless, and Trump is just their latest victim.
"The challenge is how to stop Democrats in the media from demonizing, distorting, lying, using the double standard, and faux outrage."
What's good for the goose...and all that.
Joel
"I just think their system was biased."
Let's inject some facts into the situation here, because you're just proving you're a hack by throwing out nonsense like this. For much of 2007 (and for many into 2008 until Obama won Iowa), people thought that Hillary Clinton -- the establishment candidate -- was the inevitable Democratic nominee. Yet, she lost -- even though superdelegates represented fully 1/5 of the total delegate pool.
In 2016, superdelegates were reduced to 1/7 of the delegate pool, which reduced whatever "built-in" advantage Clinton may have had. The reality is that Bernie Sanders just couldn't garner enough support to win.
"Could anyone just show up and vote in the Democratic Primary or did they have to prove something first?"
Primaries are subject to the voting rules of whatever state they are in. Caucuses are subject to rules set up by the state party.
"Now that is a Conspiracy Theory I can get behind."
Why would it be in the Democrats' interest to build up a guy who's not a member of the party? If they wanted to build up a liberal counter-weight to Hillary for the purposes of the campaign, there's any number of actual liberal Democrats that they could have used to do the job.
But feel free to continue throwing excrement against the wall to see if it sticks.
A Hack... Well I never... :-)
About Super Delegates
"The Democratic Party established the superdelegate system partly in response to the nomination of George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The nominations were unpopular among the party elite because McGovern took only one state and had only 37.5 percent of the popular vote, and Carter was see as too inexperienced.
So the party created superdelegates in 1984 as a way to prevent the future nominations of candidates considered by its elite members to be unelectable. Superdelegates are designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates.
They also give power to people who have a vested interested in party policies: elected leaders. Because the primary and caucus voters do not have to be active members of the party, the superdelegate system has been called a safety valve."
Apparently even the DNC thinks the Masses can not be fully trusted to make the best call.
Actually that was Jim's idea. I just thought it was intriguing.
Now I accept that there is wheeling and dealing, back room deals, and other unsavory things in GOP politics...
Why are you so determined to believe that the Democratic politicians and systems are above this?
Do you truly believe that those folks are in politics because they are self sacrificing public servants? People who are not interested in power, money and influence?
Really? Now I am naive, but that seems a stretch even for me.
Jerry,
An effective politician knows how to say things so they are hard to twist and misconstrue. Trump is either doing this:
- on purpose to keep his name in the news
- because he truly has a psychological disorder
- he simply has no clue...
I am not sure which is worse.
If I accept your ontology, which I do not necessarily, I would say he says deliberately truthful things in a provocative way to keep his name in the news. Audiences love it because they know how biased and truth-averse the media are. Those NOT in the audiences can be persuaded by the usual media distortions and biased "reporting." What Trump needs to do be an "effective politician" is to somehow get the truth out over and around the "media filter" without having to back away from the things he never said.
"Why are you so determined to believe that the Democratic politicians and systems are above this?"
I don't believe that. I've scolded Tom Bakk on literally dozens of occasions for engaging in that sort of nonsense at a state level.
But, one cannot merely assume that bad things are happening. One needs to establish via actual evidence that the things you allege are occurring.
"Apparently even the DNC thinks the Masses can not be fully trusted to make the best call."
Since the inception of superdelegates, the candidate who has won the most pledged delegates has always won the nomination. Never have the superdelegates told the masses to "stick it".
So your conspiracy mongering is without merit.
So here is the Transcipt of Trump Interview.
Not sure why Trump avoided the question and pivoted to the Mother. No filtering here.
"STEPHANOPOULOS: He said you wouldn't have let his son in America.
TRUMP: He doesn't know -- he doesn't know that.
I saw him. He was, you know, very emotional. And probably looked like -- a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably -- maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me, but plenty of people have written that.
She was extremely quiet and looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that.
And personally, I watched him. I wish him the best of luck, George."
Sean,
The concept is pretty clear. Whether they have an intended or unintended consequence I think is unknown.
"So the party created superdelegates in 1984 as a way to prevent the future nominations of candidates considered by its elite members to be unelectable. Superdelegates are designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates."
At the beginning of the primaries it was openly communicated that Clinton had most of the super delegates and Bernie's chances of winning were miniscule. I don't think any of us are able to say how this system swayed primary voters.
It is rare, but I think I agree with Eric.
"At the beginning of the primaries it was openly communicated that Clinton had most of the super delegates and Bernie's chances of winning were miniscule. I don't think any of us are able to say how this system swayed primary voters."
Superdelegates change their position based on where the votes go. In 2008, Clinton at one point had over a 2:1 lead in superdelegates relative to Obama. By the convention, that ratio had reversed.
If Bernie Sanders would have achieved a majority in pledged delegates, the superdelegates would have followed.
I agree that super-delegates will switch if:
- they think that politician is aligned with their wishes and
- they think the candidate has a better chance of winning the election
However if these are not the case, it sounds like they don't need to change to match the will of the people. They function somewhat like the electoral college.
A tool to protect us citizens from ourselves.
Are they required to change? No. But if they don't, they run into the same problem the #NeverTrump people did: if you overturn the will of your voters, you split the party and not only risk losing the Presidency, but a whole bunch of downballot races, too. That's why Paul Ryan and the others tut-tut when Trump says something stupid, but they never get to the point of saying they won't vote for him.
I think the GOP problem was they had TOO MANY candidates to start with... With the moderate vote split so many ways, Trump had it easy getting momentum.
I have to disagree with you. Trump wasn't the only conservative or the only moderate, or even the only "outsider." I believe he won because he had the best relationship to the [anti-establishment, "stupid"] times and was "articulate" enough to convey that to the masses. Like I always say, the winner is likely to be the one that connects common sense to common knowledge. That he uses common language both helps and hurts, depending on "demographics," which I don't believe enters his thinking at all.
"...which I don't believe enters his thinking at all."
He speaks as if nothing much enters his thinking...ever.
Joel
Good point, Joel, but I believe it a bit more accurate to say too /much/ enters his thinking, and he doesn't have any sort of PC filter governing which of the many ideas come out of his mouth. He's actually better than Obama, off-the-cuff, but has a far more difficult time sticking to prepared remarks.
And what I apparently failed to make clear is that I don't think Trump thinks in terms of demographics, and treats everybody more or less equally. Badly, perhaps, but equally. :-)
"Good point, Joel, but I believe it a bit more accurate to say too /much/ enters his thinking, and he doesn't have any sort of PC filter governing which of the many ideas come out of his mouth."
So, he's a child. Glad we agree on something.
Joel
You don't understand, and I guess I wouldn't expect you to. You want to attribute dis-likeable motivations to the man that just do not jibe with my (apparently longer) views of human nature. Trump is used to being the boss, to be able to speak quickly and honestly what he believes and then accept the reaction. That's usually in one-on-one or small groups, and by all accounts Trump does actually listen and even seeks out contrary opinions. He hasn't really been able to do that with 20,000 people. He enjoys it, but his enthusiasm for the crowd response gets in the way of stopping him from saying what is easily twisted by the Democrats and the media. And of course if they can't twist his words, they'll just make @#$%^ up. Faced with an important decision or the need to use measured formal verbiage, he's quite good (an adult, to your point).
Here's an interesting question: what would happen to the Trump campaign if the media decided to actually objectively report the issues of substance of both campaigns? Could Trump win in a landslide?
What "substance" is there in Donald Trump's campaign, exactly? He's only offered undetailed sketches of what his policies would actually look like on most issues, and where he has gone into greater detail -- like his fanciful, deficit-busting tax plan -- it's a disaster.
Good question, Sean. He has produced a list of SCOTUS appointees that a lot of people like. He has put forward a detailed economic plan that a lot of people like, and that a lot of people dislike, depending on their political leanings. Hillary Clinton has also produced an economic plan that looks like the "full Bernie" to me, but that other people will no doubt like. I cannot see how anybody can draw the rational (unbiased, that is) conclusion that one is better than the other and the media is certainly not going to tell us. Disaster is in the eye of the beholder.
And I will say this: Trump is more Jack Kennedy than Hillary is.
"I cannot see how anybody can draw the rational (unbiased, that is) conclusion that one is better than the other..."
One is better than the other because Republican economic policies have utterly failed us for 30+ years. As one great American once said, "Fool me once..."
Joel
Joel, I think you're seeing the world through liberal beer-goggles. Obama has doubled the debt, and will be the first president in the last century to NOT have a fiscal quarter above 3% economic growth. We haven't had this low level of labor force participation since the 70s. Now, care to rephrase that?
"Now, care to rephrase that?"
Sure. Congress has the responsibility to draft pass the budget and laws of the land...placing the responsibility for the debt at the feet of those who control Congress.
Joel
Labor force participation rate peaked in the Clinton Administration. Where were all you GOPers complaining about its decline during the Bush Administration? And given this country's demographic trends, having President McCain or President Romney instead would have done nothing to stem the tide.
There are an awful lot of "D's" in this history chart...
http://www.dflorig.com/partycontrol.htm
and quite a few "*" marking divided government. But for the first two years of Obama's term, Democrats controlled everything and rather than balance the budget, the deficit quadrupled. Since then, every attempt by the Republican Congress to contain the budget has been met by complete refusal by the Democrats in the Senate, voting in lockstep, and with Obama's hyper-partisan refusal to compromise on anything. I'm still annoyed at the lack of spine shown by Republicans and think they should have shut the government down and kept it shut (only about 30% would have been effected and there would have been no default) until spending was reduced. But I understand the terrible political price the Democrats were charging (along with your kids' credit cards).
Sean, not having the numbers in front of me, did the decline simply continue during Obama, or did the rate of decline change? I'm not sure demographics is entirely the cause. There is no question that the official unemployment numbers spiked, well beyond what was promised if Obama's "stimulus" passed, and stayed well above those promises for years. And the official unemployment rate, of course, doesn't measure those who want jobs but have given up looking, or those who are underemployed.
Studies by the CBO and the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia have pegged betweenn 50% and 65% of the decline in LFPR during the Obama Administration to demographic factors, with the rest coming from other factors, including a weaker-than-normal recovery, increased numbers of students in college, and higher rates of people on disability.
"There is no question that the official unemployment numbers spiked, well beyond what was promised if Obama's "stimulus" passed, and stayed well above those promises for years. "
It's worth pointing out (yet again!) here that the Obama stimulus saved the number of jobs it was projected to, but the reason the unemployment rate projections were not met was because the economy was in far worse shape than they thought. At the time the stimulus was passed, the official government projection for GDP in Q4 2008 was -3.1%. The final number turned out to be -8.9% -- almost three time worse than believed.
"...other factors, including a weaker-than-normal recovery, increased numbers of students in college, and higher rates of people on disability."
OK, can I blame Obama for the slowest recovery in the post-war? For the number of people "on disability" because they cannot find jobs? For the number of students in college because of "easy" government-funded student loans and inability to find work?
"For the number of students in college..."
What an odd idea that this is a bad thing and something to blame someone for.
Joel
Why? Telling people the route to a good job is to go $100,000 in debt to a government "bank," and then find that there are no good jobs for you, is a good thing? Since when?
For generations, going to college was seen as something important for bettering your position in life and for advancing human understanding.
This is where the Republican dumbing-down of America has brought us; Republicans such as you now say that going to college isn't something to strive for.
Republican philosophy is bankrupt.
Joel
Wow. It is amazing how liberal philosophy can supersede reality. Some would call that delusional. America wasn't dumbed down by Republicans-- they routinely score higher on political knowledge-- but the teachers unions and liberal college professors have succeeded to the point where the most basic knowledge is a mystery to people. http://collegestats.org/2012/07/25-american-history-facts-most-students-dont-know/
And it is a fact that college graduates are finding a hard time finding jobs, and are carrying greater student load debt. Why is it necessary to deny that reality just to defend the government "leaders" responsible for it?
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