Mainstream Media

In fairness, Trump’s polls nosedived after every debate with Clinton. They recovered between debates. The debates were fairly effective at showing Trump was an idiot. There were a lot of voters who didn’t pay attention to the debates or were swayed by other aspects of the campaign.

I think that’s right, and Trump was basically toast until Comey stepped in with his late October surprise.

Call me crazy but I wish that hadn’t happened.

You’re not crazy.

In fact I’d say Comey is the crazy one for not anticipating that.

And if he did anticipate that, fuck that guy with a rusty spoon. Actually that anyway, since he didn’t disclose what was going with Trump at the time either.

One thing Duncan Black (aka Atrios) harps on all the time is that Democrats have to give up on the idea of giving power to ‘moderate’ GOP ‘daddies’. Comey was there because Obama thought it would make him look moderate by appointing a Republican as FBI head. Just as he kept Robert Gates around to seem ‘serious’ on national security. Democrats should appoint Democrats.

Yes, fucking YES

Bart vs. Martin Prince, in other words.

Again, as was already pointed out, Trump’s polls suffered after the debates. He did not win them with zingers or anything. He lost them, in a fairly objective sense, in that the debates damaged his standing against Clinton.

It’s just that such an effect was not permanent, because peoples’ attention spans are short. And also, lots of folks just don’t watch those debates.

But it’s revisionist to suggest that Trump actually won the debates in any way.

In terms of the GOP primaries, it tended to be more about Trump’s performance just not mattering. His supporters during the GOP primary were basically the dumbest of the dumb. They were the trash of the GOP, and they didn’t actually watch the debates. If anything, maybe they watched highlights on Hannity. Trump’s performance was immateral, because he had the 30% of the GOP which was cultist trash.

The GOP primary debates were more about the OTHER guys shooting themselves in the nuts, sequentially. With things like Rubio going into robot mode and failing to answer a question, or other guys debasing themselves to try and get attention.

Trump dragged the GOP primary debates into the gutter, where everyone looked like trash, and you were basically left in a situation where only the Trump voters didn’t care that their guy looked like Trash.

I know but I must seize every opportunity to post that clip.

Who needs Fox? Step on up, Politico.
(Cropped headlines in one image, screw giving them any clicks.)

The disarray is over 9,000.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-betrayal-inside-the-bitter-rift-between-pelosi-and-schumer-over-border-bill/2019/06/28/26fbb3b8-99bf-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html

“But MUH WHITE GRIEVANCE!!1!”

The newspaper suggests that he was already being replaced, prior to his making that cartoon, and that it has nothing to do with the cartoon itself. I don’t believe they have made any statement about the cartoon being bad or anything.

maybe, he did have a book coming out, so maybe he deliberately chose his subject to force his employers hand

Wes Tyrell , President of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists , has issued a statement:

Cartoonist [Michael de Adder] was let go from his job drawing editorial cartoons for all the major New Brunswick newspapers 24 hours after his Donald Trump cartoon went viral on social media, a job he held for 17 years.

Although he has stated there was no reason given for his firing, the timing was no coincidence.

Michael told me once that not only were the J.D. Irving owned New Brunswick newspapers challenging to work for, but there were a series of taboo subjects he could not touch. One of these taboo subjects was Donald Trump.

The answer most definitely should be a hearty “fuck off.”

(There’s no reason in the world Dems need to woo Trump voters in 2020: all they need to win is slightly better turnout on their side and/or slightly worse GOP turnout. You’re not going to get better Dem turnout by caving to the GOP, and the best strategy for depressing GOP turnout is to let Trump do what comes naturally.)

We wont kill you. Hell, you can even keep voting and saying racist shit.
Also you’ll probably get healthcare and be able to sell your crops again.

I think that you’re making a common mistake that I see on this forum, in that you are supposing that there are liberal democrats, and then immediately to the right of them, are far right republicans.

In reality, there are a ton of folks who are far enough to the right that they don’t even consider themselves Democrats, but are far enough left that they don’t consider themselves Republicans either.

Appealing to THOSE folks isn’t the same as “caving to the GOP.”

If after all this they still think Trump is preferable I don’t know what I’d say to them. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a political consultant.

I have to admit I am getting really goddamn sick of concern-trolling in op-eds by ex-Republicans, though.

What are they offering voters who backed Trump in 2016?

This one is actually amazingly easy. Democrats are offering a habitable planet for their grandchildren to live on.