The Batshit Crazy Republicans Roundup

[Mal Shot First]

Everything plays into everybody's rhetoric.

Yo momma plays into everybody's rhetoric.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Damn it! I played right into your Yo Momma rhetoric!

[neglet]

Plus one of my earliest memories is of wandering off in a crowd of people in that mall when I was like 3 years old. I enjoyed it, my parents didn't so much.

For a moment I thought that read, "whacking off in a crowd" and I was thinking I had seriously misjudged Adam's character.

[Dalty]

That image now resolutely refuses to leave my head.

[Adam54]

Out of cruelty?

[Dalty]

No, just pure viciousness.

[Adam54]

Clinton kicked the crap out of him in the debate last night and it ultimately won't matter much.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Of course it won't matter. I already said this in response to one of Wook's posts on Facebook, but you shouldn't think for a second that Trump's abysmal debate performance will hurt him in any way or make his supporters think any less of him.

Seriously. Look at the results of these reader polls:

http://fortune.com/2016/09/26/president ... nton-poll/

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/26/po ... al-debate/

http://time.com/4506217/presidential-de ... mp-survey/

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/20 ... ntial.html

http://heavy.com/news/2016/09/poll-who- ... al-debate/

So far, this is the one-and-only reader poll I've encountered that didn't declare Trump the victor:

http://www.politicspa.com/reader-poll-h ... ump/78845/

What does the reader poll situation mean? Any number of things. One of the things it means is that Fox News thinks something's fishy:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09 ... inton.html

Granted, reader polls are useless and make no claims of being reflections of a broader reality. Still, you have a situation where the people who vote in these kinds of polls are passionate enough to declare Trump the debate's victor whether or not his performance was a traditionally solid debate performance.

Passion's probably what's going to get Trump elected. Trump's supporters are passionate about him, and they're passionate in their loathing of Clinton. Clinton's supporters are passionate in their loathing of Trump, but I'm not sure that all that many of them are passionate about Clinton.

More than three Alabama Facebook friends complained last night that the moderator was clearly pro-Clinton, was constantly interrupting Trump, and was letting Clinton speak way too long. Does this reflect reality? It doesn't seem to, from what little I heard going on in the background, but I wasn't present for most of the debate. Even so, it's very clear that the people complaining believed this utterly.

[Adam54]

That Fox link may well be the single dumbest thing I've ever read.

"Why did the media say Trump lost when the vast majority of conservative viewers who took part in unregulated polls in which you can vote more than once said he won?!"

[Dalty]

I fear that the dissatisfaction with politicians will carry him home. I also think that being a CEO is not the skill-set you need to be CinC.

[Adam54]

Not that you've ever believed in me, but I'm back up to 100% confidence he won't win.

Could it be my constant wavering in confidence which has kept you from ever believing in me?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Adam waffles more than John Kerry!

Hell, Adam waffles more than Waffle House!

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

More than three Alabama Facebook friends complained last night that the moderator was clearly pro-Clinton, was constantly interrupting Trump, and was letting Clinton speak way too long. Does this reflect reality? It doesn't seem to, from what little I heard going on in the background, but I wasn't present for most of the debate. Even so, it's very clear that the people complaining believed this utterly.

People on the right keep pointing out that Holt interrupted Trump forty-one times and only interrupted Clinton seven. People on the left keep pointing out that Trump interrupted Clinton and Holt fifty-five times. They also keep telling us how many times Trump sniffed. I'm sure people on the right are also telling us how many times Clinton coughed, since they've done that in the past, but I haven't seen anything on that this time around.

People on the right are also claiming (usually by linking to a Breitbart article that links to a Reddit page that doesn't seem to address the topic at hand) that Holt asked Trump fifteen unique questions while only asking Clinton two unique questions. They are also claiming that Holt was unfairly interrupting specifically to fact-check Trump and that Holt wasn't doing this with Clinton. People on the left claim that Clinton wasn't giving Holt any reason to have to interrupt her to fact-check her. People on the right claim this only seems true to those who have bought into the liberal lies being sold the the masses by the MSM. (They've stopped writing out "mainstream media," turns out. My first thought when seeing "MSM" was of a supplement my mother used to force-feed our German shepherd.)

I guess it would be easy to go to the tape and check all of these claims.

[Dalty]

Part of the issue is that these debates happen far too late in the electoral campaign to change many minds. They are watched largely by people who have already made up their minds and know what they think. They then fail to reach those whose indecision is a reflection of their disengagement in politics. Basically the audience is watching to see their pick confirm their bias.

[Adam54]

That's generally true, but there's actually a solid amount of people waffling between the two (or, far too often, between Clinton and Gary Johnson) who can still be persuaded one way or another.

Weird year.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

For these people to be waffling between Clinton and Johnson suggests that they weren't necessarily ideologically left-leaning voters to begin with.

[Adam54]

Nah. They're both fairly socially liberal.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Libertarianism seeks to give the individual liberty, but it favors those with money and connections and it tends to reject as societally beneficial notions of social security, federally backed aid, and nationwide, non-private development and regulatory agencies. It also suggests that those in a libertarian society will still receive aid despite the lack of federal/nationwide support thanks to the benevolence of these moneyed and connected people--with the understanding that these moneyed and connected people, being more or less financial free agents of free will, get to decide who gets what sort of help. Libertarianism is also pretty suggestive of the idea of the superiority of a states' rights-like approach, but the more the ideology gets teased out, the more it seems that even the states' rights-like approach is too "big government" for its tastes.

So libertarianism has the potential to be socially liberal-ish for the idividual--assuming that the individual can afford social liberties/appeal successfully to someone who can afford social liberties, and assuming also that someone who can afford even more social liberties won't feel any desire to get in the way.

"Get in the way" can mean a number of things, but on a purely financial level, I just mean that the person of greater means may have the means to outbid the person of lesser means for a desired commodity. There are proposed protections to keep this kind of thing from happening, but true libertarianism has never been tried on an social organism as big as the United States, and there's no guarantee that the implementation of it on a larger scale wouldn't lead to constant conflicts of interests among the wealthy and powerful that might, itself, lead to a bunch of insular, uneven, and fractured mini states. (To be fair, there's no guaranteeing that the implementation of any specific kind of government wouldn't lead to any number of different sorts of things. Also, it's not like the country isn't already sort of like this. Also, don't trust that a libertarian would consider my above characterization of libertarianism accurate or in any way complete.)

Maybe Johnson's abandoned a lot of the generic libertarian notions--both as I see them and as they are. I'm doubtful he has, though, because the libertarians as a whole are pretty resolute (more so, I feel, than stock Republicans and stock Democrats) about what they want in a candidate.

Clinton's somewhat liberal when it comes to women's rights, minority rights, healthcare, and gun laws, but I take it some on the left still have a problem with what they believe to be a spotty record on overseas military engagement, gay marriage/gay rights, TPP, bank bailouts, and even older stuff like Tipper Gore's PMRC push in the eighties. Others point out that Clinton should be allowed to have evolving ideas on issues. Still others worry that what appears to be evolving ideas could instead be opportunism, and they worry furthermore that she will revert back to her old stances on some of these things if there's ever another sea change. Still others counter that the possibility of her reversion or about-face on any handful of issues should be dismissed in light of threat like the one Trump poses.

There's also the history of corporate ties. Some on the left see them as a problem, and some don't. Some have problems with some of the specific ties and either don't have problems with or are supportive of other ties. It's pointed out, and fairly, that a corporation can be liberal and that supporting one need not necessarily be a conservative act. It's also pointed out that it's pretty typical for a Big Two politician to have corporate ties and that it is unfair to hold it against Clinton more aggressively than one might hold it against X Big Two politician.

Clinton's not as liberal as Elizabeth Warren or Ed Markey, perhaps, but I think her Senate voting record put her to the left of Kerry and Obama. There are charts for this sort of thing. I'm working with an old memory that I developed while looking at such a chart. I'd be interested to revisit the old chart and see some new ones.

Anyway, I guess "fairly liberal" sort of works when speaking of Clinton and Johnson, but many would quibble over the intensity of meaning behind "fairly."

[Dalty]

That Trump / Blind Trust stuff was comical on LWT.

[Scotia]

So, I'm reading all kinds of stuff from the right about how Trump was a classy guy by not bringing up Bill's history of banging strange. Wtf?

Umm, do voters realize that in essence by acknowledging that it wasn't brought up.....brings it up? Trump loves to do this kind of crap. He did it when he urged the 2nd amendment folks to murder the women.

[Dalty]

The more I see the more I am liking Hilary as in thinking she is somebody the world can work with - and I was no fan before.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Is "banging strange" a thing people say? It's new to me. I like it.

Also, it's sort of dumb to applaud a guy for not bringing up a thing he shouldn't have brought up, anyway. ("It sure was classy of Clara not to bring up Samantha's back alley coat hanger abortion!")

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Clinton's far and away the better choice for international relations. Inevitable comparisons to Merkel will be drawn, of course, for better and/or worse. Because they're both menopausal women with similar hair and a similar fashion sense, and because people are sexist.

[Scotia]

Is "banging strange" a thing people say? It's new to me. I like it.

Also, it's sort of dumb to applaud a guy for not bringing up a thing he shouldn't have brought up, anyway. ("It sure was classy of Clara not to bring up Samantha's back alley coat hanger abortion!")

I could swear I heard it said on these boards. For sure.

Also, Trump's handlers have to start thinking strategically. What purpose would be accomplished if Monica was brought into the equation? If Repubs seriously want a female vote in this election then it's best to let that dog lie. Bill cheated on Hillary right? Bringing that old stuff up would create sympathy for the Democrat nominee I would think.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It's very possible it was something said on these boards.

It's similarly in the Democrats' best interests to suggest strongly that the Republicans are seriously considering going there.