Tim_N
3222
As an outside observer I would instead suggest placing an immediate ban from entering the United States any individual that still supports Trump after his new proposal. However, there’s a chance some of them would be stuck in Australia so please don’t.
ShivaX
3223
Considering the “fringe” has well over 50% of the support tied up between them…
At what point does one become the mainstream, I wonder? Or when does “fringe” stop? I would think anything past 10%, certainly anything past 25%.
Please, God. There’s little I ask for, but just this once: let him be a troll. And don’t let cats or dogs die. And peace in the Middle East would be nice. Oh, and I could use a million dollars. And Half-Life 3. (figured I’d go all in while I had the chance)
ShivaX
3225
Amazingly, Cruz and Carson had nothing to say. Oh wait. I’d say there was hope for the GOP, but Rubio was fairly soft in his condemnation and he’s the highest polling sane person. Which means we still need to court the crazies.
Don’t click on those Twitter links btw. Unless you want to see the worst of humanity begging to be taken into fascism.
Timex
3226
Make no mistake, it’s an embarrassment, but not until he’s the nominee am I willing to believe that this is what the GOP has truly become.
At this point, in willing to believe that the polls are simply way screwed up.
Because congress is so good at figuring things out and getting things done.
That Chris Hedges’ piece I quoted from a few days ago. . .like I said, the tone was too strident, but he wasn’t wrong writing that the establishment of the party is in deep shit and scrambling how best to scuttle Trump getting the nomination without pissing him off and having him Ross Perot them next year, that a creature like Trump is exactly what they have been asking for over the years. You can’t constantly pander to the lowest intellectual denominator, constantly play on the fears of low-information, superstitious people without negative consequences for both the party and the country itself.
As Mike Lofgren wrote in his book (the 28-year Republican staffer), the modern GOP of today more closely resembles an apocalyptic cult than a political body interested in actual governance.
Timex
3229
You’re totally right, you reap what you sow. On some level, I want to see it just self destruct and have it all burn down, and get a new party out of the ashes.
EDIT: I hope if this isn’t Trump’s Waterloo, it’s certainly his Leipzig. There are going to be people stand with you when you say let’s slow down/stop refugee resettlement; many/most of those same folks aren’t when you talk about not allowing U.S. citizens to return to the country. Perhaps he comes up with some magic spin that makes that seem OK but I would expect his front runner status to start to falter on the back of those comments.
ShivaX
3231
If we’ve learned anything, it would be because Trump wasn’t conservative enough. He has liberal ideas and if he got the nomination and lost, it would be because of those liberal ideas.
And as far as the crazy factor as of the moment:
Trump 29.5%
Carson 15.8%
Cruz 14.8%
That’s 60.1% crazy. I’m not sure you can call that the fringe. It’s a majority.
Could it be that the sane Republicans have just given up on the polls?
ShivaX
3233
I think most of them gave up on the party a while ago, which is why so much of it is loonies now.
The sane Republicans got locked in the trunk of the clown car when they gave the talk radio Republicans a ride to the voting booth.
JD
3235
That cuckoo statement on keeping muslims from (re-)entering the US has overshadowed this second Monday gem.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just said the US should consider “closing up” the internet to curb radical extremism. Trump, a man that routinely claims everyone in charge of the US is stupid, believes that as president he could just call up Bill Gates to help him shut off the internet. […]
“We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet,” Trump said. “We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”
Pod
3237
There’s a video here, fyi http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35035190
ps: Isn’t there an international law that says you can’t make someone a non-citizen of any country, or something? Does everyone have to live in an Airport, like Tom Hanks?
‘‘I. Don’t. Care’: Trump brushes off horrified reaction to his Muslim ban’:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/08/i-dont-care-donald-trump-brushes-off-horrified-reaction-to-his-muslim-ban
nice messages from the next President of the usa (likely). It really is a perfect snap-shot of how extreme-right america has become (and it is not the only place), in that it is the leader where others follow.
When I was young, when Ted Kennedy was a viable force in presidential politics, and I was living in the deep South, people would say, with what I’m sure they felt was real conviction, that if Kennedy was elected they’d move to Switzerland or someplace like that. The feeling was deeply held that Kennedy’s views were anathema to American values, and that he’d hand the country over to the Reds because, well, reasons. It was silly, sillier even than calling Obama a socialist (hell, they called Bill Clinton a socialist, too).
Today, though, anyone who said they’d expatriate themselves if Trump was elected…yeah, I’d actually say that was a rational response…
Timex
3240
Again though, if groups like 538 are to be believed, it may be that most of those polls are simply trash at this point.
I’m sure it is slowly becoming a horrifying realization, even to many died in the wool Republicans, what is going down. But really when you let your media radicalise your electorate as has been going down in the usa for a good long while now, it is entirely to be expected. There may not be an easy way back from that, as has historically been seen in europe (i.e. ‘your’ all fascists now).
