Consider William Jennings Bryan, who captured the Democratic presidential nomination 120 years ago in 1896. He made a name for himself as a journalist (both before and after serving as a member of the House of Representatives) and importantly as an orator who toured the country to speak to populist groups and agitate for the abandonment of the gold standard and the adoption of a silver-based currency. In his appeal to lowbrow tastes, his ability to turn politics into popular entertainment and his willingness to play to prejudice against judgment, Bryan was closer to a modern-day reality TV star than Trump is to Hitler.
To secure the nomination, Bryan applied the same rhetorical style that he had honed in prairie schoolhouses and southern convention halls – a popular forum that had been all but ignored by party elites, but through which he generated a “silent majority” that struck the establishment by surprise in 1896. Trump has no "Mein Kampf" equivalent, no brooding period of party-building and street-fighting thuggery. But like Bryan, he does have a long history of drawing audiences in the private sphere, an ear for the common tongue and an ability to paint complex problems in blindingly simple terms. Like Bryan, Trump is happy to play to paranoid impulses and vague conspiracies.
Among the most popular tools of the Bryan campaign were a series of ill-informed and wildly popular pamphlets featuring a young boy who lectured bankers on the intricacies of global finance. Witty, anti-Semitic and grossly simplistic, they reassured voters that there were solutions to America’s economic woes – solutions so clear that a child could see them. Like Trump, Bryan appealed to what he deemed to be common sense and warned his listeners that anyone preaching moderation only intended to keep the common man in the dark. Bryan’s affinity for religious imagery appears to have been grounded in something deeper than Trump’s clumsy efforts. When he opposed the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools (nearly 20 years after his first nomination), it was a sensational appeal to the masses but also a sincere application of Bryan’s faith. The differences between them are much more matters of substance than of style.
If the Republicans of 2016 go the direction Democrats went with Bryan in 1896, it could mean years of wandering in the wilderness. We might look toward such a proposition with hope that the polarized politics of the past fifteen years would at last be broken. But we should also be warned of a democratic deficit, in which the incentives to mobilize in support of Democratic politics would wither along with the possibility of real party competition.
I don't have an opinion one way or the other about that comparison, but concluding that the broken Republican Party would remain the only alternative to the Democratic hegemons for any length of time is a leap. Power abhors a vacuum, and the federal government contains a lot more power now than it did in Jennings' time. Our winner-take-all electoral system needs two viable opposing parties and will revert to that form quickly, one way or another. The relic Republicans will form a more reasonable conservative party, and it will be stronger without the lunatic factions that brought them down. If infighting keeps the conservatives from re-forming, then the Democratic Party will cleave into competing factions to provide the necessary competition.
The evangelicals and tea partiers and white-power can types wander in the wilderness forever; that's where they were before the Republicans embraced them, after all. I know I'm not the only one here who would welcome the return of a rational conservative party (although I may be the only liberal who feels that way).
Anyway...it's an interesting comparison but I don't believe it's possible for the Democrats to rule without viable opposition for any length of time.
Kraken wrote:I know I'm not the only one here who would welcome the return of a rational conservative party (although I may be the only liberal who feels that way).
As someone who wants to vote conservative, I've never voted for republican president or federal congress person and I haven't voted republican for Governor since Posthumous (who lost to Grandholm. What a travesty that was). It's very sad.
That said, in retrospect, Bush the Elder actually wouldn't have been so bad, had he not pulled us in to Desert Storm, and worse yet, bailed on the Kuwaitis after he took us there in the first place.
Kraken wrote:I
The evangelicals and tea partiers and white-power can types wander in the wilderness forever; that's where they were before the Republicans embraced them, after all. I know I'm not the only one here who would welcome the return of a rational conservative party (although I may be the only liberal who feels that way).
.
No you're not. Even Rachel Maddow wants a more rational conservative party.
Realizing that compromise is essential, and actually being willing to do it in the name of governing would be pretty nice too.
I can't imagine, even at my most inebriated, hearing a bouncer offering me an hour with a stripper for only $1,400 and thinking That sounds like a reasonable idea.-Two Sheds
Chaz wrote:Realizing that compromise is essential, and actually being willing to do it in the name of governing would be pretty nice too.
I was listening to a Cruz speech in AZ over the weekend. I think you are going to be disappointed. This group isn't interested in compromise.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
Chaz wrote:Realizing that compromise is essential, and actually being willing to do it in the name of governing would be pretty nice too.
I was listening to a Cruz speech in AZ over the weekend. I think you are going to be disappointed. This group isn't interested in compromise.
I'm under no illusions that most of the current Republican party, and definitely not the Tea Party subset, is even entertaining the notion of talking about compromise. If they did, they'd immediately get slammed by their own party for (ironically) compromising their conservative ideals.
I can't imagine, even at my most inebriated, hearing a bouncer offering me an hour with a stripper for only $1,400 and thinking That sounds like a reasonable idea.-Two Sheds
A bunch of lefties want the right to be less to the right.
'
Rational meaning if you want something for the common good then you have to pay for and/or regulate it. There can't be a disconnect between having social security and medicare and roads and the military and paying for them.
Why is it red states consistently take in more federal dollars than they contribute if they want no government spending while blue states living of the government tit consistently take in less money than they contribute?
The only way "the right" has been rational since Obama has taken office is that they are winning at game theory. They are takers while they portray themselves as victims of the takers. And they've consistently won the pork and the welfare with this approach.
Rip wrote:I must have missed the burn it down part of the campaigns.
Remember how we got here? Make America Great Again. Reversing course? Burning it to the ground is the means to an end. Just stop paying for police. Just stop paying for public education. Just stop paying for roads and street lights and social security and the military and the fire department and the DMV and the DNR and the EPA and the FDA and stop regulating corporate enterprise. Stop passing budgets all together. Just quit paying for everything and it all gets better. And you see how that's irrational... because tax is theft.
LordMortis wrote:Rational meaning if you want something for the common good then you have to pay for and/or regulate it.
I would settle for an understanding that you actually have to govern the country.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
Rip wrote:I must have missed the burn it down part of the campaigns.
Honestly, I haven't heard it this go round from the presidential candidates. At least, I don't recall it since Perry's last flame-out, and even then, it was a retread from 2012. I'm sure it's more prevalent in the down-ballot races, especially in the rabble-rousing House, but I have yet to do the research.
A bunch of lefties want the right to be less to the right.
'
Rational meaning if you want something for the common good then you have to pay for and/or regulate it. There can't be a disconnect between having social security and medicare and roads and the military and paying for them.
Why is it red states consistently take in more federal dollars than they contribute if they want no government spending while blue states living of the government tit consistently take in less money than they contribute?
The only way "the right" has been rational since Obama has taken office is that they are winning at game theory. They are takers while they portray themselves as victims of the takers. And they've consistently won the pork and the welfare with this approach.
Rip wrote:I must have missed the burn it down part of the campaigns.
Remember how we got here? Make America Great Again. Reversing course? Burning it to the ground is the means to an end. Just stop paying for police. Just stop paying for public education. Just stop paying for roads and street lights and social security and the military and the fire department and the DMV and the DNR and the EPA and the FDA and stop regulating corporate enterprise. Stop passing budgets all together. Just quit paying for everything and it all gets better. And you see how that's irrational... because tax is theft.
Isn't that how third world countries work? No infrastructure whatsoever. The super rich live it up in their compounds while everyone else wallows in sewage and squalor. Great!
See, what you do is give all the infrastructure to the rich people, then wait for it to trickle down to the poor people. So you build a road between two of the compounds, then allow the poor people to drive on that road too!
I can't imagine, even at my most inebriated, hearing a bouncer offering me an hour with a stripper for only $1,400 and thinking That sounds like a reasonable idea.-Two Sheds
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
...
Jeb Bush rallies were not like this. Covering a Jeb event meant freely mingling with 40 people sitting calmly on folding chairs. Covering a Trump event is like watching a 1970s Black Flag concert from inside a shark cage.
...
Where other candidates might have a dozen aides a journalist can develop as sources, along with donors and pollsters and ad-makers who’ll leak inside scoop, with Trump there’s none of that. Maybe you get some state-level operatives on the phone, but it doesn’t matter because they never know anything. “You don’t get sourced up like you normally would,” one reporter told me. “It all happens on the surface. You just try to interpret it.”
Asking policy questions is like throwing a rock down a bottomless well. “If I have a question about women’s issues, or Hispanic issues,” said one reporter, “it’s not like they point me to specific press liaisons who handle those. There aren’t any such people.” Most policy queries simply go unanswered. When a response does come back, it’s rarely sufficient. “There’s no point anyway,” said another reporter. “You might get a response to a question about immigration policy, but the next day on TV, Trump will contradict it.”
...
“We used to fact-check everything, every day,” another reporter told me, “but it gets hard to keep up.” For a writer filing on deadline an hour after a rally ends, there’s not enough time to thoroughly fact-check the dozens of fabrications that spilled from the stage. It’s also hard to know who the fact-checking is for. At this point, anyone who hates Trump has ample evidence he’s a liar. And anyone who loves Trump doesn’t care.
At this point, anyone who hates Trump has ample evidence he’s a liar. And anyone who loves Trump doesn’t care.
This is what both fascinates and discourages me. I've come to accept a moderate amount of truth twisting on the campaign trail, but oftentimes Trump just makes shit up out of whole cloth. If he gets called on it, he simply announces to the press that everyone has already started apologizing to him for doubting his word...and then tells the interviewer he's got an incredible brain. It's absolutely astounding to me.
Papadopoulos, a 2009 graduate of DePaul University, directs an international energy center at the London Center of International Law Practice. He previously advised the presidential campaign of Ben Carson and worked as a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has had meetings with the president of Cyprus and the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. He obtained a masters’s degree from the University of London in 2010.
On his LinkedIn page, Papadopolous lists among his awards and honors that he was U.S. Representative at the 2012 Geneva International Model United Nations.
Is this why Trump doesn't see the value of NATO? No wonder Trump has Putin's endorsement.
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
...
Jeb Bush rallies were not like this. Covering a Jeb event meant freely mingling with 40 people sitting calmly on folding chairs. Covering a Trump event is like watching a 1970s Black Flag concert from inside a shark cage.
...
Where other candidates might have a dozen aides a journalist can develop as sources, along with donors and pollsters and ad-makers who’ll leak inside scoop, with Trump there’s none of that. Maybe you get some state-level operatives on the phone, but it doesn’t matter because they never know anything. “You don’t get sourced up like you normally would,” one reporter told me. “It all happens on the surface. You just try to interpret it.”
Asking policy questions is like throwing a rock down a bottomless well. “If I have a question about women’s issues, or Hispanic issues,” said one reporter, “it’s not like they point me to specific press liaisons who handle those. There aren’t any such people.” Most policy queries simply go unanswered. When a response does come back, it’s rarely sufficient. “There’s no point anyway,” said another reporter. “You might get a response to a question about immigration policy, but the next day on TV, Trump will contradict it.”
...
“We used to fact-check everything, every day,” another reporter told me, “but it gets hard to keep up.” For a writer filing on deadline an hour after a rally ends, there’s not enough time to thoroughly fact-check the dozens of fabrications that spilled from the stage. It’s also hard to know who the fact-checking is for. At this point, anyone who hates Trump has ample evidence he’s a liar. And anyone who loves Trump doesn’t care.
The whole thing is worth the read.
Sounds like the only way to win with the media, kinda just ignore them and take it to the people. The media is just going to print whatever they want to print anyway so why not shut them out.
...
Jeb Bush rallies were not like this. Covering a Jeb event meant freely mingling with 40 people sitting calmly on folding chairs. Covering a Trump event is like watching a 1970s Black Flag concert from inside a shark cage.
...
Where other candidates might have a dozen aides a journalist can develop as sources, along with donors and pollsters and ad-makers who’ll leak inside scoop, with Trump there’s none of that. Maybe you get some state-level operatives on the phone, but it doesn’t matter because they never know anything. “You don’t get sourced up like you normally would,” one reporter told me. “It all happens on the surface. You just try to interpret it.”
Asking policy questions is like throwing a rock down a bottomless well. “If I have a question about women’s issues, or Hispanic issues,” said one reporter, “it’s not like they point me to specific press liaisons who handle those. There aren’t any such people.” Most policy queries simply go unanswered. When a response does come back, it’s rarely sufficient. “There’s no point anyway,” said another reporter. “You might get a response to a question about immigration policy, but the next day on TV, Trump will contradict it.”
...
“We used to fact-check everything, every day,” another reporter told me, “but it gets hard to keep up.” For a writer filing on deadline an hour after a rally ends, there’s not enough time to thoroughly fact-check the dozens of fabrications that spilled from the stage. It’s also hard to know who the fact-checking is for. At this point, anyone who hates Trump has ample evidence he’s a liar. And anyone who loves Trump doesn’t care.
The whole thing is worth the read.
Sounds like the only way to win with the media, kinda just ignore them and take it to the people. The media is just going to print whatever they want to print anyway so why not shut them out.
The people are also still waiting to hear specifics on policy for women's issues, immigration, and whether or not the Wall will come with its own Night's Watch and if so, do multi-ethnics get to join or is it only whites who get to take the black?
"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on." -Terry Pratchett, The Truth "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to those who think they've found it." -Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
Speaking with the hosts of Today, Trump used the occasion to beat his usual horses, arguing mostly for stricter borders. “I’d be not allowing certain people into this country without absolute perfect documentation. We’re allowing thousands of people already, Matt, to come into our country.”
“Waterboarding—if it was up to me, and if we change the laws, or have the laws, waterboarding would be fine,” Trump said when asked what he would do to get information from Salah Abdeslam, the suspected Paris terrorist attacker who was captured in Belgium last week. “If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people,” he added.
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.
...
Jeb Bush rallies were not like this. Covering a Jeb event meant freely mingling with 40 people sitting calmly on folding chairs. Covering a Trump event is like watching a 1970s Black Flag concert from inside a shark cage.
...
Where other candidates might have a dozen aides a journalist can develop as sources, along with donors and pollsters and ad-makers who’ll leak inside scoop, with Trump there’s none of that. Maybe you get some state-level operatives on the phone, but it doesn’t matter because they never know anything. “You don’t get sourced up like you normally would,” one reporter told me. “It all happens on the surface. You just try to interpret it.”
Asking policy questions is like throwing a rock down a bottomless well. “If I have a question about women’s issues, or Hispanic issues,” said one reporter, “it’s not like they point me to specific press liaisons who handle those. There aren’t any such people.” Most policy queries simply go unanswered. When a response does come back, it’s rarely sufficient. “There’s no point anyway,” said another reporter. “You might get a response to a question about immigration policy, but the next day on TV, Trump will contradict it.”
...
“We used to fact-check everything, every day,” another reporter told me, “but it gets hard to keep up.” For a writer filing on deadline an hour after a rally ends, there’s not enough time to thoroughly fact-check the dozens of fabrications that spilled from the stage. It’s also hard to know who the fact-checking is for. At this point, anyone who hates Trump has ample evidence he’s a liar. And anyone who loves Trump doesn’t care.
The whole thing is worth the read.
Sounds like the only way to win with the media, kinda just ignore them and take it to the people. The media is just going to print whatever they want to print anyway so why not shut them out.
The people are also still waiting to hear specifics on policy for women's issues, immigration, and whether or not the Wall will come with its own Night's Watch and if so, do multi-ethnics get to join or is it only whites who get to take the black?
The illegals they nab trying to circumvent The Wall will be conscripted.
raydude wrote:
The people are also still waiting to hear specifics on policy for women's issues, immigration, and whether or not the Wall will come with its own Night's Watch and if so, do multi-ethnics get to join or is it only whites who get to take the black?
There will be no multi-ethnics. Under the auspices of a government jobs program, non-whites will be dispatched to tuck point the Mexican side of the wall. When they attempt to return, the elevator bringing them back to the top of the wall will have been completely sealed off. Then the Night's Watch will dump pails of Trump's excrement on them until they disperse.
em2nought wrote:
Sounds like the only way to win with the media, kinda just ignore them and take it to the people. The media is just going to print whatever they want to print anyway so why not shut them out.
No one is supposed to "win" with the media. When someone does, that's not really the media.
raydude wrote:
The people are also still waiting to hear specifics on policy for women's issues, immigration, and whether or not the Wall will come with its own Night's Watch and if so, do multi-ethnics get to join or is it only whites who get to take the black?
There will be no multi-ethnics. Under the auspices of a government jobs program, non-whites will be dispatched to tuck point the Mexican side of the wall. When they attempt to return, the elevator bringing them back to the top of the wall will have been completely sealed off. Then the Night's Watch will dump pails of Trump's excrement on them until they disperse.
