Fun fact: In the RCP averages, McCain was actually leading Obama by 1 at this point, and Romney was never more than 5 down in 2012.
Team Dumpster Fire is already trailing Mrs. Indictment by 10, and getting worse by the day.
But hey, Reagan was behind by a lot early too, right? Right?
This Is Not 1980, And Donald Trump Is Not Ronald Reagan
Well, maybe he is. I think we all remember when Reagan bragged about all the happily married women he’d slept with.
And remember when Reagan dodged the draft with fake heel spurs, called George H.W. Bush a fake war hero, and suggested he would order the military to commit war crimes such as targeting the families of terrorists?
And who can forget that timeless moment when Reagan talked for several minutes about how ugly Geraldine Ferraro’s face was and then called James Baker a “p****y”?
I think that was just before The Gipper announced he would be neutral on Israel, that “Islam hates us” and that our Mideast policy would be “take the oil.”
The parallels are amazing, even eerie.
TRUMP 2016: HE’S LIKE REAGAN — WITH ELECTROLYTES!
Comments
10 responses to “Trends, Presidents, And Precedents”
Dave,
You are acting as if you will not need those Trump voter votes to defeat Hillary. That is an unwarranted assumption.
It is also a stupid move.
The people who like Trump are hurting. Think of coal miners who have suffered greatly from Obama/Clinton policies. The people displaced by free trade. The “smart money” expected a couple or three years of dislocation from their policies. It is now over 10 years. To the surprise of the “smart” set.
Workers in competition with illegal Mexicans is just one group.
This is not just a horse race. There are people involved.
If you don’t address their problems. Well HISTORY shows that the progression is. First the middle class complains – TEA Party. Then the lower class complains – Trump supporters. Then it gets ugly.
And currently the Trump supporters are in the – “never tell me the odds” mode. And Trump has been beating the odds. Which is why you and the rest of the proletariat haters are panicking.
Cruz is going to be very beatable in the general. “The anointed one” is not going to go over well in the general.
What you want to do is to figure out how to ATTRACT Tuump voters. Addition works better than subtraction in elections.
And if Cruz is such a Constitutionalist where is his agitation for a Drug Prohibition Amendment? That is a tell. He is no Constitutionalist.
On top of that Cruz has taken on “Silvardo” Bush as an advisor. One of the guys McCain rescued.
How do you propose attracting the Reagan Democrats – flocking to Trump – needed to beat Hillary?
You tell me Trump can’t win. And yet – he wins. The panic of the eGOP is proof enough that opponents of Trump think he can win the nomination.
Your attacks on Trump are all true. And yet Trump keeps rising in the polls and in delegate counts.
Could you please explain that?
Why is it his policies don’t seem to matter? You should look into it.
My wife – who voted for Obama twice – is a Trump supporter. How is that possible?
Is it as Scott Adams (Dilbert) suggest? Trump is playing a 3D game and you are stuck in flatland.
So why do I – a well educated person with a fairly good grasp of things – support Trump? He scares the oligarchs.
They need to be scared. The looting has gone on too long.
Dilbert on why reason doesn’t matter.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/141490448161/the-belgium-analogy
Simon, 7 years ago while I was researching and writing an article on Jewish suicides during the 3rd Reich, which you published here, I learned a lot about the rise of Hitler. None of us know what kind of leader Donald Trump will ultimately become should he get elected President, just as the German people didn’t have a clue as to what an Austrian painter and gifted orator would turn out to be.
Forget the people who are hurting (the German people were certainly hurting) and concentrate on the man and the similarities:
1. He likes to stage large rallies with thousands in attendance. There is entertainment, memorabilia such as shirts and hats, and rousing speeches.
2. He appeals to nationalism. The whole Making America Great Again spiel could be taken right out of a Hitler speech, just substitute America for Germany, and the American people for The Volk.
3. He condemns the past 15 years of Bush and then Obama as the latest cause of the peoples miseries. Hitler did the same in a radio address on Jan 31, 1933 the night after he was appointed Chancellor. It was his “Appeal To The German People” speech and marked the end of the Weimar Republic. I won’t quote it since it is very long, but he split the blame for the economic and social decline of Germany to the 14 prior year sell out by the Weimar leaders and the foreign bad deal of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler had identified at least two of his scapegoats.
3. Trump also blames outside sources for our troubles. The Mexican illegal invaders are the prime target. But he also singles out the Chinese. Hitler of course had the Jews, Gypsies, and Homosexuals.
4. Trump has yet to gain a majority of votes within the Republican Party. Just as with Hitler, he only has a plurality of a minority party. As Hitler stole into office, Trump is threatening riots if he is not the nominee.
5. Trump is usually vague about specific proposals, and when not like the deportation of illegals, he often changes his policies to fit the audience. Hitler was less vague but certainly never told the German people he was planning to invade Poland, probably because that evolved after he gained total control.
6. Trump wants to rebuild the military, as did Hitler.
7. Trump threatens his enemies and lets his followers rough them up, as did Hitler.
8. Trump…well, you get the point.
And the point is that Donald Trump has more than a strong authoritarian streak in him. What he would do under crisis circumstances is anyone’s guess. I’m not willing to take the chance. I’ll go with the devil I know, or sit out the election and hope he falls flat on his ass.
Simon — Trump has already lost the WH, SCOTUS, and Senate for the GOP this cycle. If he is the nominee, they will lose the House too. If he is not, he will tell his low-information supporters they were cheated and few will show up in November. At this point that’s the lesser of evils.
Worst of all would be if Trump somehow won. Trump’s ridiculous con is transparent to anyone paying attention. Cruz may not be a perfect or even a very good candidate, but he’s not totally unprincipled like Donald. If you know history, you should know what happens when unscrupulous men like Donald are allowed into power — and the establishment may suck, but just because Dad had a few glasses of wine with dinner doesn’t mean we should ask the cat to drive the family home.
But hey, if people want to, they can support a draft-dodging, war-hero-mocking, war-crime-ordering, violence-encouraging, KKK-winking, eminent-domain-abusing, amnesty-promising, wife-cheating, four-time-bankrupting, Planned-Parenthood-supporting, Democrat-donating, Trump-Network-failed-pyramid-scheme-running, women’s-face-insulting, Muslim-citizen-banning, Trump-University-ripoff-running, cocaine-hoovering, tax-return-hiding, charity-cheapskating, legal-and-illegal-immigrant-hiring, short-fingered, 15-points-behind-Hillary-Clinton-running con man who’s going to sell them out the second it’s convenient, just like he does everyone else, from customers to investors to wives to Breitbart reporters to candidates who endorsed him.
Just don’t expect the rest of us to put on blinders and play along.
Frank,
All your points are good. The one thing you leave out is that they ALL are authoritarians. Rand Paul was our last hope.
The Republic is gone. Maybe long gone.
So why do I like Trump? He seems to be scaring the oligarchs currently in power.
Dave,
I’m not so sure Trump will be bad for the down ballot races. It is a long way to election time.
Cruz is no Constitutionalist. The tell is that he doesn’t say a thing about the missing Drug Prohibition Amendment. I’d vote for him over Hillary. But I have no illusions. He will support the Constitution where it is convenient for his agenda. Where it is not he will ignore it.
I’m also troubled by his Dominionist tendencies.
In any case Trump has some significant support among Libertarians (the Party). I’m going to do a post on that.
Ronald Reagan was the most libertarian President we have had in my lifetime. At least if you listen to his speeches.
But he also foisted on us an intensification of Drug Prohibition and buried to the best of his ability the studies that showed cannabis may be useful as an anti-cancer agent. He may have needed to do that to fight the Cold War. But the price was very high.
America is an Empire. Probably better than a Russian Empire or A Chinese Empire. But it is very hard on vast swaths of the American population.
And we are currently confronted with Islam – which misses its old Empire.
Trump is the only candidate who has had an unkind word for the Saudis. About time some one said that out loud.
We are at the bottom of a Kondratieff Cycle. If the last bottom is any indication – this phase of the cycle brings in authoritarians to the political arena. Everywhere.
It is also a transition time – the ins fighting the outs.
So Hitler? Well Obama fills that bill quite nicely. He promised peace and gave us war. He promised prosperity and gave us a continuation of misery.
Economically we have been making the same mistakes that got us in trouble in 2008. With the addition of a $trillion in student debt. That debt is delaying household formation and reducing the birth rate.
trump wins arizona! not long now.
Who are the fascists?
https://reason.com/blog/2016/03/22/at-emory-university-writing-trump-2016-o#comment_6001799