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Newt Gingrich, Alex Jones and the other bricks in Trump’s Wall of Shame
By Dana Milbank, October 28, 2016
Donald Trump really is building a wall. But his supporters are going to pay for it.
“I want to show you something very special,” the candidate says in a video out Thursday. “I am dedicating this wall right here in Trump Tower to a select group. . . . They chipped in whenever and however they can.”
In a QVC-worthy pitch, Trump continues: “The wall has only space for 2,000 more supporters. Contribute today . . .”
It was an undignified position for a presidential candidate less than two weeks before the election, selling off naming rights to a Trump Tower wall for contributions of $49 or more. And the symbolism was unhelpful: Such walls of names bring to mind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and others that honor the fallen.
Come to think of it, that would be a perfect coda for Trump. The developer should build a Wall of Shame, honoring with a brick each of those who made possible this embarrassing moment in U.S. history. So many have “chipped in” to make Trump possible that the resulting wall would extend from El Paso to Tijuana before he runs out of honorees. Let’s consider a few likely names:
Newt Gingrich
The former House speaker “chipped in” this week by informing Fox News’s Megyn Kelly that she was “fascinated with sex” because she dared to ask the Trump surrogate about the many women who have accused the nominee of sexual misconduct.
Alex Jones
The radio host and Trump backer this week declared the existence of a “Jewish mafia in the United States. They run Uber, they run the health care, they’re going to scam you, they’re going to hurt you.” Trump, who as recently as December praised Jones’s “amazing” reputation, has been echoing Jones’s conspiracy ideas almost word for word on the campaign trail, as Brian Tashman of People For the American Way has documented, including the anti-Semitic trope that a “global power structure” and international banks are plotting “the destruction of U.S. sovereignty.”
Jason Chaffetz
Many Republican officeholders withdrew their support for Trump after hearing a tape of him boasting about assaulting women — but six have since re-endorsed him. The most craven may be this Utah congressman, who withdrew his support because of “my 15-year-old daughter.” On Wednesday, Chaffetz said he would vote for Trump — daughter or not.
Blake Farenthold
The Republican congressman from Texas earned a brick this month after he was asked by MSNBC what he would do if a tape emerged of Trump saying, “I really like to rape women.” Farenthold said he might support him anyway.
Kelly Ayotte
The Republican senator from New Hampshire earned a brick earlier this month, before Trump’s recorded talk about assaulting women surfaced, when she said she would “absolutely” tell children that Trump is a role model. (She soon recanted.)
Jerry Falwell Jr.
The Liberty University president, one of the first evangelical Christian leaders to support the thrice-married casino mogul, said he would back Trump even if the sexual-misconduct allegations were confirmed.
Reince Priebus
The GOP chairman gave the entire Republican Party to Trump, saying Trump’s primary rivals must “be on board” with him or face reprisals.
Rudy Giuliani
The man once admired as America’s mayor surrendered his sanity in support of Trump, making wild allegations about Hillary Clinton’s health and dismissing Trump’s boasts of sexual assault by saying men “talk like that.”
Donald Trump Jr.
The candidate’s scion should get a whole archway for welcoming the racist right to come aboard his father’s campaign: posting a white-supremacist meme on Instagram, at least twice retweeting white supremacists on Twitter and being interviewed by a white-supremacist on a radio show.
Sean Hannity
The Fox News host shed all journalistic pretense and became an appendage of the Trump campaign, endorsing Trump in a campaign video. His show has been a massive in-kind contribution that should buy him several bricks in the wall.
Many others have earned naming rights to Trump’s wall, among them: Ben Carson, for backing Trump even if he “doesn’t turn out to be such a great president”; anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, whose wholehearted embrace of Trump is leading to the sheriff’s likely defeat; evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, for saying Trump should be president but shouldn’t teach Sunday school; Chris Christie, for brazenly rewriting Trump’s history in the birther movement; Trump surrogate Al Baldasaro, who said Clinton should be killed in a firing line; and Ted Cruz, for finally endorsing Trump just before the sexual-assault boasts came out.
There are many more who have “chipped in” to Trump’s campaign their dignity, their principles and their hopes of future office. They thought a racist demagogue could take over the United States. Now each is just another brick in the wall.
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Saturday, October 29, 2016
Who started the DC/NYC sexual harassment-- Thomas or Trump?
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Woman accusing Clarence Thomas is just one of many alleged victims
It wasn’t just Anita Hill.
By Bryce Covert, October 28, 2016
This week, a new allegation against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas emerged. Moira Smith says that 19 years ago, when she was 23, Thomas groped her while she was helping set the table for a dinner event and told her she should sit “right next to” him. Her story was also corroborated by her friends of the time, who remembered her sharing that story with them.
But the allegation has some additional credence given the number of women who have alleged they experienced similar harassment from Thomas. And it’s not just from the most famous accuser, Anita Hill.
Hill came forward and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 while the committee was considering Thomas’s nomination to the bench. She described how when she worked under him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — the very agency in charge of dealing with sexual harassment claims —he pressured her to date him, made sexually explicit comments, and frequently talked about pornography at work. In perhaps the most famous anecdote, Hill alleges that he got up from a table where they were sitting together, went over to his desk to get a soda, and said, “Who has put pubic hair on my coke?”
It was a landmark moment in which the country wrestled with the realities of sexual harassment on a national stage for the first time. Sexual harassment complaints lodged with the EEOC rose 71 percent in the year after her testimony.
But less public were the other women who also wanted to testify against Thomas. The most well known was Angela Wright, now Angela Wright Shannon, who had worked for Thomas in the 80s at the EEOC. She claimed he had pressured her to date him, even showing up at her apartment one night. She also said he had asked her the size of her breasts and commented on other women’s bodies. While she said she wasn’t intimidated by him and at the time said she didn’t feel sexually harassed, today she describes his behavior as “really awkward.”
Wright has always insisted that she was ready and willing to testify, but the committee, under the leadership of its then chairman Joe Biden, decided not to call her.
She wasn’t the only one: Sukari Hardnett, who was a special assistant to Thomas in the mid-80s, wrote to the committee at the time that Thomas frequently called her into his office for meetings but then talked about his private life with women. “If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female” by him, she wrote. “Women know when there are sexual dimensions to the attention they are receiving. And there was never any doubt about that dimension in Clarence Thomas’s office.” She also never got the chance to testify.
Thomas, of course, was eventually confirmed and still serves on the court. And from that perch he has made things more difficult for women who bring workplace sexual harassment claims. He was the key fifth vote in the Vance v. Ball State University Supreme Court case in 2013, which redefined the word “supervisor” to drastically weaken it. Under current law, cases of sexual harassment by supervisors carry more weight and are easier to win than those by coworkers. But the Vance decision significantly narrowed who can be considered a supervisor.
It’s a decision that’s already had serious ramifications. Within a year, 43 sexual harassment cases were dismissed because of the stricter requirements, as ThinkProgress previously reported.
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Woman accusing Clarence Thomas is just one of many alleged victims
It wasn’t just Anita Hill.
By Bryce Covert, October 28, 2016
This week, a new allegation against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas emerged. Moira Smith says that 19 years ago, when she was 23, Thomas groped her while she was helping set the table for a dinner event and told her she should sit “right next to” him. Her story was also corroborated by her friends of the time, who remembered her sharing that story with them.
But the allegation has some additional credence given the number of women who have alleged they experienced similar harassment from Thomas. And it’s not just from the most famous accuser, Anita Hill.
Hill came forward and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 while the committee was considering Thomas’s nomination to the bench. She described how when she worked under him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — the very agency in charge of dealing with sexual harassment claims —he pressured her to date him, made sexually explicit comments, and frequently talked about pornography at work. In perhaps the most famous anecdote, Hill alleges that he got up from a table where they were sitting together, went over to his desk to get a soda, and said, “Who has put pubic hair on my coke?”
It was a landmark moment in which the country wrestled with the realities of sexual harassment on a national stage for the first time. Sexual harassment complaints lodged with the EEOC rose 71 percent in the year after her testimony.
But less public were the other women who also wanted to testify against Thomas. The most well known was Angela Wright, now Angela Wright Shannon, who had worked for Thomas in the 80s at the EEOC. She claimed he had pressured her to date him, even showing up at her apartment one night. She also said he had asked her the size of her breasts and commented on other women’s bodies. While she said she wasn’t intimidated by him and at the time said she didn’t feel sexually harassed, today she describes his behavior as “really awkward.”
Wright has always insisted that she was ready and willing to testify, but the committee, under the leadership of its then chairman Joe Biden, decided not to call her.
She wasn’t the only one: Sukari Hardnett, who was a special assistant to Thomas in the mid-80s, wrote to the committee at the time that Thomas frequently called her into his office for meetings but then talked about his private life with women. “If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female” by him, she wrote. “Women know when there are sexual dimensions to the attention they are receiving. And there was never any doubt about that dimension in Clarence Thomas’s office.” She also never got the chance to testify.
Thomas, of course, was eventually confirmed and still serves on the court. And from that perch he has made things more difficult for women who bring workplace sexual harassment claims. He was the key fifth vote in the Vance v. Ball State University Supreme Court case in 2013, which redefined the word “supervisor” to drastically weaken it. Under current law, cases of sexual harassment by supervisors carry more weight and are easier to win than those by coworkers. But the Vance decision significantly narrowed who can be considered a supervisor.
It’s a decision that’s already had serious ramifications. Within a year, 43 sexual harassment cases were dismissed because of the stricter requirements, as ThinkProgress previously reported.
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Friday, October 28, 2016
Wouldn't surprise me......
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"It all suggests a disturbing pattern: Trump feeling entitled to women’s bodies if he’s attracted to them, and feeling entitled to publicly humiliate them if they’ve somehow offended him." #Lyin'Donald is a real bas***d.
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A newly surfaced video shows Donald Trump grabbing and kissing a former Miss Universe onstage
A disturbing video from a 2011 corporate speech shows Donald Trump sexually humiliating a woman in front of thousands of people and going in for what appears to be a nonconsensual kiss, the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reports.
The woman is Jennifer Hawkins, the 2004 Miss Universe winner from Australia. In the video, Trump calls Hawkins onstage to join him after telling the audience his philosophy on using revenge to succeed in business: "Get even with people," he says. "If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe that."
Trump, it seems, had spent the previous day being angry with Hawkins because he thought she had slighted him by supposedly declining to introduce him at the event in Sydney. Onstage with Trump, Hawkins laughs apologetically and explains that it was a "miscommunication with my management," and that she "felt really bad."
Trump seems to accept this: "When she found out, she got in her car and she got her ass over here, and I love her," he says. But that doesn’t stop Trump from humiliating her anyway, in a bizarre, unsettling sequence of events.
First, he describes how he would have embarrassed Hawkins onstage, if she really had slighted him. "I was actually going to get up and tell you that Jennifer is a beautiful girl on the outside, but she’s not very bright," he says. "That wouldn’t have been true, but I would have said it anyway."
That part feels like an "I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!" insult strategy that Trump has used before, notably when he called Fox anchor Megyn Kelly a "bimbo" and then claimed he didn’t actually call her that.
Then Trump makes a sexual pun, and lingers on it until the audience gets it: "And you know what? She came tonight, she came — came, she came, she came." Once the audience finally laughs, Trump adds: "See, so they have the same filthy minds in Australia."
Finally, Trump abruptly grabs Hawkins around the waist and goes in for a kiss. She turns away and puts her arm between them, and the kiss lands on her cheek.
Hawkins has refused to comment on the sexual assault allegations against Trump, and she hasn’t said anything about this video yet either.
But the grab-and-kiss moment looks a lot like the unwanted sexual advances that several women have accused Trump of making, and what Trump himself bragged about doing in a leaked audio tape: "Just kiss. I don’t even wait," he said.
Trump’s modus operandi, according to his accusers, is to grab them and try to kiss them on the lips. Sometimes he lands the kiss, and sometimes he doesn’t — but he’s allegedly forceful enough that even if the women try to pull away, he’ll usually land a kiss on the cheek.
Cathy Heller told the Guardian's Molly Redden a story like this, from a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago:
And when Hillary Clinton brought that up this year at the first presidential debate, Trump responded by fat-shaming Machado again and telling people on Twitter to "check out" her nonexistent sex tape.
It all suggests a disturbing pattern: Trump feeling entitled to women’s bodies if he’s attracted to them, and feeling entitled to publicly humiliate them if they’ve somehow offended him.
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A newly surfaced video shows Donald Trump grabbing and kissing a former Miss Universe onstage
He sexually humiliates her in front of thousands.
By Emily Crockett, October 28, 2016A disturbing video from a 2011 corporate speech shows Donald Trump sexually humiliating a woman in front of thousands of people and going in for what appears to be a nonconsensual kiss, the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reports.
The woman is Jennifer Hawkins, the 2004 Miss Universe winner from Australia. In the video, Trump calls Hawkins onstage to join him after telling the audience his philosophy on using revenge to succeed in business: "Get even with people," he says. "If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe that."
Trump, it seems, had spent the previous day being angry with Hawkins because he thought she had slighted him by supposedly declining to introduce him at the event in Sydney. Onstage with Trump, Hawkins laughs apologetically and explains that it was a "miscommunication with my management," and that she "felt really bad."
Trump seems to accept this: "When she found out, she got in her car and she got her ass over here, and I love her," he says. But that doesn’t stop Trump from humiliating her anyway, in a bizarre, unsettling sequence of events.
First, he describes how he would have embarrassed Hawkins onstage, if she really had slighted him. "I was actually going to get up and tell you that Jennifer is a beautiful girl on the outside, but she’s not very bright," he says. "That wouldn’t have been true, but I would have said it anyway."
That part feels like an "I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!" insult strategy that Trump has used before, notably when he called Fox anchor Megyn Kelly a "bimbo" and then claimed he didn’t actually call her that.
Then Trump makes a sexual pun, and lingers on it until the audience gets it: "And you know what? She came tonight, she came — came, she came, she came." Once the audience finally laughs, Trump adds: "See, so they have the same filthy minds in Australia."
Finally, Trump abruptly grabs Hawkins around the waist and goes in for a kiss. She turns away and puts her arm between them, and the kiss lands on her cheek.
Hawkins has refused to comment on the sexual assault allegations against Trump, and she hasn’t said anything about this video yet either.
But the grab-and-kiss moment looks a lot like the unwanted sexual advances that several women have accused Trump of making, and what Trump himself bragged about doing in a leaked audio tape: "Just kiss. I don’t even wait," he said.
Trump’s modus operandi, according to his accusers, is to grab them and try to kiss them on the lips. Sometimes he lands the kiss, and sometimes he doesn’t — but he’s allegedly forceful enough that even if the women try to pull away, he’ll usually land a kiss on the cheek.
Cathy Heller told the Guardian's Molly Redden a story like this, from a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago:
"He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips," she claimed.This also isn’t the first time Trump has publicly humiliated a former Miss Universe. Alicia Machado says that Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping," and invited reporters to watch her working out as a way of publicly shaming her for gaining weight.
Alarmed, she said she leaned backwards to avoid him and almost lost her balance. "And he said, ‘Oh, come on.’ He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips." She turned her head, she claims, and Trump planted a kiss on the side of her mouth. "He kept me there for a little too long," Heller said. "And then he just walked away."
And when Hillary Clinton brought that up this year at the first presidential debate, Trump responded by fat-shaming Machado again and telling people on Twitter to "check out" her nonexistent sex tape.
It all suggests a disturbing pattern: Trump feeling entitled to women’s bodies if he’s attracted to them, and feeling entitled to publicly humiliate them if they’ve somehow offended him.
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"But even though the story is obviously, comically, wrong, it won’t die. ... its longevity points to a troubling development in our media environment."
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How social media creates angry, poorly informed partisans
By Timothy B. Lee, October 26, 2016
A while back, hackers linked to the Russian government stole a cache of emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and furnished them to WikiLeaks. One of those emails has generated a lot of interest in conservative circles because — conservatives say — it shows that polls are being systematically biased in Clinton’s favor.
In the email, Thomas Matzzie, a Democratic operative, asked advisers at a progressive group called the Atlas Project to “recommend oversamples for our polling.” Bloggers like Zero Hedge and Gateway Pundit pounced on this as evidence that the Clinton campaign was working with mainstream media organizations to rig public polls in Clinton’s favor.
That would be a big story if it were true. But as I’ll explain below, it’s not — people were misinterpreting a banal discussion about Democrats’ internal polling.
But even though the story is obviously, comically, wrong, it won’t die. It’s been circulating for days among conservative blogs and social media accounts since it became public. And its longevity points to a troubling development in our media environment.
Social media sites like Facebook have democratized the media landscape, allowing anyone to create and distribute content to their friends and family. There are a lot of good things about this, but it’s also proving to have a serious downside: Without the quality filters traditionally supplied by mainstream media outlets, there’s a lot more room for total nonsense to circulate widely.
The increasing polarization of news through social media allows liberals and conservatives to live in different versions of reality. And that’s making it harder and harder for our democratic system to function.
Why nonsense stories spread so quickly on social media
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump has a thorough debunking of the conspiracy theory about “oversampling.” But to summarize, there are at least three reasons experienced reporters knew the story made no sense:
On the other hand, if you’re an ordinary Trump supporter scrolling through your Facebook feed, none of this would necessarily be obvious. In that case, you’ve probably never heard of oversampling, you don’t know that campaigns run internal polls, and you might not notice that the email was from 2008 rather than 2016. And so if someone shares a Facebook post arguing that the email shows the Clinton campaign is rigging public polls — and that this explains why Trump is behind in the polls even though most of your friends support Trump — you’re going to be inclined to believe it. And you might even share it with your friends.
So this conspiracy theory has rocketed around the conservative internet, passing from one conservative Facebook user to another. Its spread has been amplified by aggregators like Matt Drudge, who is happy to direct viewers to juicy stories without worrying too much about whether they’re true.
Social media distorts how partisans understand the world
This isn’t just the fault of online media. Even before the advent of Facebook and Twitter, partisan media platforms like talk radio and Fox News sometimes promoted conspiratorial stories with little evidence to back them up. But it’s a problem that social media is now making much worse.
The Washington Post and other mainstream media organizations have written stories explaining why the “oversampling” conspiracy theory is wrong. But because these stories challenge conservatives’ biases instead of confirming them, they’re much less likely to get traction among conservatives on social media.
The key thing to note about this process is that it’s not apparent to the average Facebook user. When people opened a traditional newspaper, they got a representative sample of the previous day’s news. They also got stories that had been written by professional reporters who had at least a passing familiarity with the stories they were writing about. So obvious nonsense like this rigged polling story wouldn’t have shown up in the news.
The Facebook newsfeed isn’t like that. It’s a sampling of stories heavily skewed toward the kinds of stories your friends and family like to share. And many stories are produced by amateurs with no real expertise in the topics they write about. So stories that are inaccurate but confirm people’s biases (like “the Clinton campaign and the mainstream media are conspiring to rig the polls”) are more likely to show up in people’s Facebook feeds than stories that reach an accurate but banal conclusion on the same subject.
The result: Partisans can feel like they’re very well informed on a particular subject because they’ve read dozens of stories about it. What they often don’t realize is that thanks to social media’s filter bubble, they’re only hearing stories from one side — and that these one-sided stories may all be based on the same mistaken reasoning or may all be ignoring the same inconvenient evidence.
Social media misinforms people across the political spectrum
So far I’ve focused on a particular conspiracy theory that’s in vogue among Trump supporters. But a similar dynamic can be found on the political left. When I last wrote about this topic back in March, I described how supporters of Bernie Sanders had found themselves trapped in a similar kind of filter bubble.
Reddit is a popular news aggregator in which users vote about which stories to promote to the front page. And by March of this year, the politics section of the site had become dominated by Bernie Sanders supporters. As a result, if you relied on Reddit for your political news this spring, you basically only saw stories that praised Sanders and criticized Clinton and the Republican candidates:
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The front page of Reddit’s /r/politics section in March 2016.
Sanders supporters didn’t just read a lot of pro-Sanders opinion pieces — they wound up living in a different factual universe. As Clinton consolidated her lead in the primary campaign, Sanders fans concocted increasingly far-fetched theories to explain why he could still win. And as it became clear he couldn’t win, Reddit and other social media helped to convince many Bernie fans that the Clinton campaign had stolen the election.
That wasn’t true. The Democratic primary process is complex and probably has room for improvement, but the basic fact was that Clinton won the race because she had more supporters.
Conspiratorial thinking has been less common among Clinton supporters, but they shouldn’t be too smug about it. If the campaign had turned out differently — if Sanders had won the primary or Clinton were currently trailing Trump in the polls — we likely would have seen the same kind of anger and paranoia among Clinton’s most hardcore supporters.
Filter bubbles are a long-term danger to our political system
In the short run, this isn’t a big problem. Most likely, Hillary Clinton will win the election in two weeks, and Trump supporters will grumble about it but won’t try to defy the will of the voters. The toxic environment of the 2016 campaign will make it harder for Clinton to compromise with congressional Republicans, but the country is likely to muddle through the next four years.
The problem is that this probably isn’t a one-time problem. If anything, it’s likely to get even worse in future elections. The same technological forces that embittered both Sanders and Trump supporters against Clinton are likely to do the same thing to future presidential candidates. Many Democrats will convince themselves that the Republican nominee poses a mortal threat to the republic, and vice versa.
In a decisive election like we’re likely to see in 2016, this won’t matter, since the numbers don’t lie. But in a close election, it can matter a lot. The 2000 election was bitter enough already. Imagine how much worse it would be if we had an equally close election in today’s much more polarized political environment — and with an evenly split Supreme Court.
All democracies require a certain amount of compromise to function well. Our system, with its elaborate system of checks and balances, requires more compromise than most. And compromise requires that people trust that those on the other side of the political aisle are as committed to following the rules as they are.
But the internet — and social media in particular — is destroying that trust by filling people’s heads with prejudicial nonsense. If we don’t find ways to help people find more reliable information, it’s going to cause big problems in the long run.
Correction: I originally said the “oversampling” controversy was about polls conducted for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 primary campaign. In fact, according to Tom Matzzie, the polls were conducted by an independent Democratic group. “Our group included both Clinton supporters and Obama supporters,” Matzzie says. “Our goal was to stop the Republican nominee regardless of who the Democrat was. “
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How social media creates angry, poorly informed partisans
By Timothy B. Lee, October 26, 2016
A while back, hackers linked to the Russian government stole a cache of emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and furnished them to WikiLeaks. One of those emails has generated a lot of interest in conservative circles because — conservatives say — it shows that polls are being systematically biased in Clinton’s favor.
In the email, Thomas Matzzie, a Democratic operative, asked advisers at a progressive group called the Atlas Project to “recommend oversamples for our polling.” Bloggers like Zero Hedge and Gateway Pundit pounced on this as evidence that the Clinton campaign was working with mainstream media organizations to rig public polls in Clinton’s favor.
That would be a big story if it were true. But as I’ll explain below, it’s not — people were misinterpreting a banal discussion about Democrats’ internal polling.
But even though the story is obviously, comically, wrong, it won’t die. It’s been circulating for days among conservative blogs and social media accounts since it became public. And its longevity points to a troubling development in our media environment.
Social media sites like Facebook have democratized the media landscape, allowing anyone to create and distribute content to their friends and family. There are a lot of good things about this, but it’s also proving to have a serious downside: Without the quality filters traditionally supplied by mainstream media outlets, there’s a lot more room for total nonsense to circulate widely.
The increasing polarization of news through social media allows liberals and conservatives to live in different versions of reality. And that’s making it harder and harder for our democratic system to function.
Why nonsense stories spread so quickly on social media
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump has a thorough debunking of the conspiracy theory about “oversampling.” But to summarize, there are at least three reasons experienced reporters knew the story made no sense:
- Oversampling isn’t a nefarious tactic for manipulating poll results. It’s a standard technique for collecting extra data about a particular group (Hispanics or millennials, for example) to enable more detailed analysis of that group. Pollsters automatically re-weight the members of the oversampled group to ensure the overall result isn’t skewed.
- The email was about internal polls being conducted by Democrats to guide campaign strategy. They weren’t intended for release to the public. Manipulating these polls would have only hurt Democrats.
- The email was written in January 2008. So if there were a conspiracy to rig polls in favor of Democrats, it would have shown up in poll results in the 2008 and 2012 general elections. Yet that didn’t happen. Polling averages got the final margin almost exactly in 2008 (missing by only 0.3 percent in the RealClearPolitics average), and in 2012 they actually underestimated Obama’s final margin by about 3 points.
On the other hand, if you’re an ordinary Trump supporter scrolling through your Facebook feed, none of this would necessarily be obvious. In that case, you’ve probably never heard of oversampling, you don’t know that campaigns run internal polls, and you might not notice that the email was from 2008 rather than 2016. And so if someone shares a Facebook post arguing that the email shows the Clinton campaign is rigging public polls — and that this explains why Trump is behind in the polls even though most of your friends support Trump — you’re going to be inclined to believe it. And you might even share it with your friends.
So this conspiracy theory has rocketed around the conservative internet, passing from one conservative Facebook user to another. Its spread has been amplified by aggregators like Matt Drudge, who is happy to direct viewers to juicy stories without worrying too much about whether they’re true.
Social media distorts how partisans understand the world
This isn’t just the fault of online media. Even before the advent of Facebook and Twitter, partisan media platforms like talk radio and Fox News sometimes promoted conspiratorial stories with little evidence to back them up. But it’s a problem that social media is now making much worse.
The Washington Post and other mainstream media organizations have written stories explaining why the “oversampling” conspiracy theory is wrong. But because these stories challenge conservatives’ biases instead of confirming them, they’re much less likely to get traction among conservatives on social media.
The key thing to note about this process is that it’s not apparent to the average Facebook user. When people opened a traditional newspaper, they got a representative sample of the previous day’s news. They also got stories that had been written by professional reporters who had at least a passing familiarity with the stories they were writing about. So obvious nonsense like this rigged polling story wouldn’t have shown up in the news.
The Facebook newsfeed isn’t like that. It’s a sampling of stories heavily skewed toward the kinds of stories your friends and family like to share. And many stories are produced by amateurs with no real expertise in the topics they write about. So stories that are inaccurate but confirm people’s biases (like “the Clinton campaign and the mainstream media are conspiring to rig the polls”) are more likely to show up in people’s Facebook feeds than stories that reach an accurate but banal conclusion on the same subject.
The result: Partisans can feel like they’re very well informed on a particular subject because they’ve read dozens of stories about it. What they often don’t realize is that thanks to social media’s filter bubble, they’re only hearing stories from one side — and that these one-sided stories may all be based on the same mistaken reasoning or may all be ignoring the same inconvenient evidence.
Social media misinforms people across the political spectrum
So far I’ve focused on a particular conspiracy theory that’s in vogue among Trump supporters. But a similar dynamic can be found on the political left. When I last wrote about this topic back in March, I described how supporters of Bernie Sanders had found themselves trapped in a similar kind of filter bubble.
Reddit is a popular news aggregator in which users vote about which stories to promote to the front page. And by March of this year, the politics section of the site had become dominated by Bernie Sanders supporters. As a result, if you relied on Reddit for your political news this spring, you basically only saw stories that praised Sanders and criticized Clinton and the Republican candidates:
The front page of Reddit’s /r/politics section in March 2016.
Sanders supporters didn’t just read a lot of pro-Sanders opinion pieces — they wound up living in a different factual universe. As Clinton consolidated her lead in the primary campaign, Sanders fans concocted increasingly far-fetched theories to explain why he could still win. And as it became clear he couldn’t win, Reddit and other social media helped to convince many Bernie fans that the Clinton campaign had stolen the election.
That wasn’t true. The Democratic primary process is complex and probably has room for improvement, but the basic fact was that Clinton won the race because she had more supporters.
Conspiratorial thinking has been less common among Clinton supporters, but they shouldn’t be too smug about it. If the campaign had turned out differently — if Sanders had won the primary or Clinton were currently trailing Trump in the polls — we likely would have seen the same kind of anger and paranoia among Clinton’s most hardcore supporters.
Filter bubbles are a long-term danger to our political system
In the short run, this isn’t a big problem. Most likely, Hillary Clinton will win the election in two weeks, and Trump supporters will grumble about it but won’t try to defy the will of the voters. The toxic environment of the 2016 campaign will make it harder for Clinton to compromise with congressional Republicans, but the country is likely to muddle through the next four years.
The problem is that this probably isn’t a one-time problem. If anything, it’s likely to get even worse in future elections. The same technological forces that embittered both Sanders and Trump supporters against Clinton are likely to do the same thing to future presidential candidates. Many Democrats will convince themselves that the Republican nominee poses a mortal threat to the republic, and vice versa.
In a decisive election like we’re likely to see in 2016, this won’t matter, since the numbers don’t lie. But in a close election, it can matter a lot. The 2000 election was bitter enough already. Imagine how much worse it would be if we had an equally close election in today’s much more polarized political environment — and with an evenly split Supreme Court.
All democracies require a certain amount of compromise to function well. Our system, with its elaborate system of checks and balances, requires more compromise than most. And compromise requires that people trust that those on the other side of the political aisle are as committed to following the rules as they are.
But the internet — and social media in particular — is destroying that trust by filling people’s heads with prejudicial nonsense. If we don’t find ways to help people find more reliable information, it’s going to cause big problems in the long run.
Correction: I originally said the “oversampling” controversy was about polls conducted for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 primary campaign. In fact, according to Tom Matzzie, the polls were conducted by an independent Democratic group. “Our group included both Clinton supporters and Obama supporters,” Matzzie says. “Our goal was to stop the Republican nominee regardless of who the Democrat was. “
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"'How can we expect our kids not to bully when a person who is running for president bullies?'"
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COMMENTS:
* Her son was a brave and compassionate young man who handled his illness with such grace. Trump is not worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Ryan. Ever
* Trump would claim he built the Eiffel Tower, painted the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, or Sculpted the Statue of David if he only could. Never has there been a bigger liar than Trump. He'd steal credit from a blind man if it would give him noteriety as a man with insight, something he hasn't got nor will ever have.
* Trump is a narcissistic pathological liar who feeds on those who prop him up. My son's middle name is Ryan...after Ryan White..I admired Ryan's courage and strength while battling this terrible disease...for trump to pounce on that and say that he paid for his treatment is despicable..just one more thing this man tries to take credit for when he did nothing.
* Trump is a ghoul who plies in the trading of tragedy and horror to enrich his ego and bank account. Meeting with Ryan got him a few more clicks on the fame clock and made him feel good about himself. Nothing more. Vile Trump.
* He was too busy buying yachts and gold fixtures, and pictures of himself, to help this child. Disgraceful. How can anyone who claims to be Christian (or even just a good and decent person) vote for this man??!!
* It's going to be really uncomfortable when he calls Mrs. White a liar...you know he can't help himself...
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Donald Trump Never Paid For Ryan White’s HIV Treatment, His Mom Says
“How can we expect our kids not to bully when a person who is running for president bullies?”
By Laura Barron-Lopez, October 25, 2016
The mother of Ryan White disputed claims on Monday that Donald Trump paid for her son’s medical treatment and warned that the GOP presidential nominee’s bullying ways are setting a bad example for children.
White contracted HIV at the age of 13 when receiving a tainted blood treatment for his hemophilia. He gained national attention while fighting the stigma that came with the disease at the time, and became the face of public education about HIV. White died in 1990.
His mother, Jeanne White-Ginder, continues to share her son’s story and speak against bullying ― something he faced when trying to attend school after he contracted HIV.
In an interview with the Indianapolis Star, White-Ginder said Trump never paid for Ryan’s treatment ― a rumor that has circulated for years.
White-Ginder has met Trump multiple times, once briefly when he came to her home after her son died. “Donald was here maybe five minutes and then left,” she said.
White-Ginder added that she doesn’t like the way Trump conducts himself.
“Not respecting women, making fun of the handicapped — that really concerns me,” she said. “How can we expect our kids not to bully when a person who is running for president bullies?”
She supports a number of the things Trump has said he would do as president, but continues to express concern about his behavior.
“Kids are going to grow up and think it’s OK to say the things he does,” she said. “It’s wrong, it’s bullying, and it’s what we’re trying so hard to stop. We need to teach our kids to be respectful to everybody.”
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COMMENTS:
* Her son was a brave and compassionate young man who handled his illness with such grace. Trump is not worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Ryan. Ever
* Trump would claim he built the Eiffel Tower, painted the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, or Sculpted the Statue of David if he only could. Never has there been a bigger liar than Trump. He'd steal credit from a blind man if it would give him noteriety as a man with insight, something he hasn't got nor will ever have.
* Trump is a narcissistic pathological liar who feeds on those who prop him up. My son's middle name is Ryan...after Ryan White..I admired Ryan's courage and strength while battling this terrible disease...for trump to pounce on that and say that he paid for his treatment is despicable..just one more thing this man tries to take credit for when he did nothing.
* Trump is a ghoul who plies in the trading of tragedy and horror to enrich his ego and bank account. Meeting with Ryan got him a few more clicks on the fame clock and made him feel good about himself. Nothing more. Vile Trump.
* He was too busy buying yachts and gold fixtures, and pictures of himself, to help this child. Disgraceful. How can anyone who claims to be Christian (or even just a good and decent person) vote for this man??!!
* It's going to be really uncomfortable when he calls Mrs. White a liar...you know he can't help himself...
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump Never Paid For Ryan White’s HIV Treatment, His Mom Says
“How can we expect our kids not to bully when a person who is running for president bullies?”
By Laura Barron-Lopez, October 25, 2016
The mother of Ryan White disputed claims on Monday that Donald Trump paid for her son’s medical treatment and warned that the GOP presidential nominee’s bullying ways are setting a bad example for children.
White contracted HIV at the age of 13 when receiving a tainted blood treatment for his hemophilia. He gained national attention while fighting the stigma that came with the disease at the time, and became the face of public education about HIV. White died in 1990.
His mother, Jeanne White-Ginder, continues to share her son’s story and speak against bullying ― something he faced when trying to attend school after he contracted HIV.
In an interview with the Indianapolis Star, White-Ginder said Trump never paid for Ryan’s treatment ― a rumor that has circulated for years.
White-Ginder has met Trump multiple times, once briefly when he came to her home after her son died. “Donald was here maybe five minutes and then left,” she said.
White-Ginder added that she doesn’t like the way Trump conducts himself.
“Not respecting women, making fun of the handicapped — that really concerns me,” she said. “How can we expect our kids not to bully when a person who is running for president bullies?”
She supports a number of the things Trump has said he would do as president, but continues to express concern about his behavior.
“Kids are going to grow up and think it’s OK to say the things he does,” she said. “It’s wrong, it’s bullying, and it’s what we’re trying so hard to stop. We need to teach our kids to be respectful to everybody.”
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"'Trump is undermining our faith in democracy itself by making irresponsible claims the election could be rigged through voter impersonation fraud ...'"
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Indiana: a perfect storm for voter fraud debate
By Ariane de Vogue, October 26, 2016
In the final weeks of the campaign as Donald Trump fuels questions concerning voting irregularities, a case in Indiana -- the home turf of the GOP running mate Mike Pence -- perfectly frames the current debate on voter fraud.
On the one side of the controversy are those who say they are working to protect the integrity of the election. On the other side are their opponents who allege that some of those efforts are really a veiled attempt to restrict the vote.
The issue in Indiana is Patriot Majority USA, a liberal group that runs the Indiana Voter Registration Program, which calls itself the largest voter registration program of African-Americans in the state. It says it submitted some 40,000 registration forms this year — until Republican officials stepped in.
"We were succeeding in registering tens of thousands of voters," said the group's president, Craig Varoga.
In early October, the Indiana State Police announced that it had expanded an earlier probe involving the group investigating forms that had missing, incomplete and incorrect information. Although the investigation started out in only a handful of counties, it expended to cover 56 of them. Police also obtained and executed a search warrant for the Indianapolis offices of the Indiana Voter Registration Project.
Pence brought up the issue while on the campaign trail in New Mexico last week.
"Voter fraud?" Pence said, "we've got that in Indiana."
Last week, Secretary of State Connie Lawson alerted the media that her office received number of calls from voters who had voted in the May 3 primary, but found that their date of birth or first name had been changed when they went back to check their registration.
"We looked onto the Statewide Voter Registration System and noticed that there had been an unusually high number of date of birth and first name changes," the secretary of state's office told CNN last week. There are only three ways to make changes to voter registration records in the state: (1) on paper forms submitted to the county election office; (2) on paper forms submitted to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and later sent to the county election office; or (3) online at Indianavoters.com. The secretary of state's office found that the thousands of changes in this case were made in all three ways, but officials do not believe the registration system was hacked.
"We believe this may be a case of voter fraud and have turned our findings over to the State Police, who are currently conducting an investigation into alleged voter fraud," she said.
State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said Lawson's information was "consistent" with its ongoing investigation.
"Let me be clear: Among the highest priorities of the Indiana State Police is ensuring the integrity of this election," Carter said in a statement.
The results of the investigation are unlikely to be completed before Election Day, Carter said.
Varoga and Indiana Democrats believe the actions by Carter and Lawson are politically motivated.
William Groth, who has represented Democrats in various election related issues, questions whether Carter, a Pence nominee, and Lawson, a Republican with ties to Pence, might be playing politics. "My suspicion is that this is all being ginned up by Mike Pence to support some of his running mates' claims that the system is rigged," he said.
Lawson addressed such accusations in a statement. "For anyone to suggest I am playing politics with voter registration is absurd," she said.
In an interview with WIBC Tuesday, Carter defended the investigation, noting it started with a case in Hendricks County, not from the secretary of state's office. "This will not be driven by politics. It will be driven by process and what we are expected to do legally and that's exactly what we'll do," he said.
Carter said he hasn't spoken to Pence about the probe.
"I wish people knew Mike Pence like me," Carter said. "The thought that he would come to me and make this dark, shady deal to do something that he knew was wrong is as unconscionable as anything I've ever heard in my entire adult life. I have not talked to Mike Pence about this...and I'm going to be very frank with you: the notion that he would try and influence this is crazy."
Varoga doesn't see things the same way. Patriot Majority launched a statewide campaign to raise awareness of what it called a "partisan effort to disenfranchise 45,000 new Hoosier voters, most of whom are African-American."
"This Republican effort to suppress the vote is a violation of civil rights, but it is also a dangerous and cynical move that undermines law-enforcement's relations with its own citizens," he said in a statement.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert of University of California-Irvine, stresses that in general even if there is voter registration fraud, that doesn't translate to in-person fraud at the polls.
In a recent blog post, he summed it up: "I never say voter fraud is non -existent," he said and noted that it happens occasionally with absentee ballots and that action needs to be taken to clean up voter registration rolls.
"What is extremely rare and has not affected any election we know of since the 1980's is impersonation fraud," he said.
Hasen is critical of Trump statements on the campaign trail.
"Trump is undermining our faith in democracy itself by making irresponsible claims the election could be rigged through voter impersonation fraud and urging his followers, untrained to go to polls in 'certain areas' to ferret out voter fraud," Hasen said.
Like others, Hasen is taking a wait-and-see approach on the Indiana case until Carter's investigation is complete.
"It's a puzzling case," said Marjorie Hersey, a professor at Indiana University.
"By law, any groups that register voters are required to turn in all the registrations they receive, to make sure that they don't decide to turn in only the forms of prospective voters who favor their party," she said.
It's not infrequent for a state to receive a number of inaccurate registration forms, Hersey said. She is worried that voters might hear allegations of voter fraud and be under the impression that "the old-time, cigar-chomping city 'bosses' that held power in many cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s are still alive and well."
"Once people get a colorful image in their minds, it's not easy to convince them of the reality of today's elections," she said.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Indiana: a perfect storm for voter fraud debate
By Ariane de Vogue, October 26, 2016
In the final weeks of the campaign as Donald Trump fuels questions concerning voting irregularities, a case in Indiana -- the home turf of the GOP running mate Mike Pence -- perfectly frames the current debate on voter fraud.
On the one side of the controversy are those who say they are working to protect the integrity of the election. On the other side are their opponents who allege that some of those efforts are really a veiled attempt to restrict the vote.
The issue in Indiana is Patriot Majority USA, a liberal group that runs the Indiana Voter Registration Program, which calls itself the largest voter registration program of African-Americans in the state. It says it submitted some 40,000 registration forms this year — until Republican officials stepped in.
"We were succeeding in registering tens of thousands of voters," said the group's president, Craig Varoga.
In early October, the Indiana State Police announced that it had expanded an earlier probe involving the group investigating forms that had missing, incomplete and incorrect information. Although the investigation started out in only a handful of counties, it expended to cover 56 of them. Police also obtained and executed a search warrant for the Indianapolis offices of the Indiana Voter Registration Project.
Pence brought up the issue while on the campaign trail in New Mexico last week.
"Voter fraud?" Pence said, "we've got that in Indiana."
Last week, Secretary of State Connie Lawson alerted the media that her office received number of calls from voters who had voted in the May 3 primary, but found that their date of birth or first name had been changed when they went back to check their registration.
"We looked onto the Statewide Voter Registration System and noticed that there had been an unusually high number of date of birth and first name changes," the secretary of state's office told CNN last week. There are only three ways to make changes to voter registration records in the state: (1) on paper forms submitted to the county election office; (2) on paper forms submitted to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and later sent to the county election office; or (3) online at Indianavoters.com. The secretary of state's office found that the thousands of changes in this case were made in all three ways, but officials do not believe the registration system was hacked.
"We believe this may be a case of voter fraud and have turned our findings over to the State Police, who are currently conducting an investigation into alleged voter fraud," she said.
State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said Lawson's information was "consistent" with its ongoing investigation.
"Let me be clear: Among the highest priorities of the Indiana State Police is ensuring the integrity of this election," Carter said in a statement.
The results of the investigation are unlikely to be completed before Election Day, Carter said.
Varoga and Indiana Democrats believe the actions by Carter and Lawson are politically motivated.
William Groth, who has represented Democrats in various election related issues, questions whether Carter, a Pence nominee, and Lawson, a Republican with ties to Pence, might be playing politics. "My suspicion is that this is all being ginned up by Mike Pence to support some of his running mates' claims that the system is rigged," he said.
Lawson addressed such accusations in a statement. "For anyone to suggest I am playing politics with voter registration is absurd," she said.
In an interview with WIBC Tuesday, Carter defended the investigation, noting it started with a case in Hendricks County, not from the secretary of state's office. "This will not be driven by politics. It will be driven by process and what we are expected to do legally and that's exactly what we'll do," he said.
Carter said he hasn't spoken to Pence about the probe.
"I wish people knew Mike Pence like me," Carter said. "The thought that he would come to me and make this dark, shady deal to do something that he knew was wrong is as unconscionable as anything I've ever heard in my entire adult life. I have not talked to Mike Pence about this...and I'm going to be very frank with you: the notion that he would try and influence this is crazy."
Varoga doesn't see things the same way. Patriot Majority launched a statewide campaign to raise awareness of what it called a "partisan effort to disenfranchise 45,000 new Hoosier voters, most of whom are African-American."
"This Republican effort to suppress the vote is a violation of civil rights, but it is also a dangerous and cynical move that undermines law-enforcement's relations with its own citizens," he said in a statement.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert of University of California-Irvine, stresses that in general even if there is voter registration fraud, that doesn't translate to in-person fraud at the polls.
In a recent blog post, he summed it up: "I never say voter fraud is non -existent," he said and noted that it happens occasionally with absentee ballots and that action needs to be taken to clean up voter registration rolls.
"What is extremely rare and has not affected any election we know of since the 1980's is impersonation fraud," he said.
Hasen is critical of Trump statements on the campaign trail.
"Trump is undermining our faith in democracy itself by making irresponsible claims the election could be rigged through voter impersonation fraud and urging his followers, untrained to go to polls in 'certain areas' to ferret out voter fraud," Hasen said.
Like others, Hasen is taking a wait-and-see approach on the Indiana case until Carter's investigation is complete.
"It's a puzzling case," said Marjorie Hersey, a professor at Indiana University.
"By law, any groups that register voters are required to turn in all the registrations they receive, to make sure that they don't decide to turn in only the forms of prospective voters who favor their party," she said.
It's not infrequent for a state to receive a number of inaccurate registration forms, Hersey said. She is worried that voters might hear allegations of voter fraud and be under the impression that "the old-time, cigar-chomping city 'bosses' that held power in many cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s are still alive and well."
"Once people get a colorful image in their minds, it's not easy to convince them of the reality of today's elections," she said.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Those are the only kind of friends you have, #Lyin'Donald.
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Typical low-blow against a Democrat from a Republican.
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An Illinois GOP senator sniped at his Democratic opponent's heritage during a debate
By Louise Liu, October 27, 2016
Republican Sen. Mark Kirk sniped at his Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth by questioning her family's heritage.
Duckworth was sharing a story about her family's military service record during an Illinois debate Thursday night.
"My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution," Duckworth said. "I’ve bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound. Because people are quick to sound the drums of war, and I want to be there to say this is what it costs, this is what you’re asking us to do."
"And if that's the case, I'll go. It's the families like mine that bleed first," Duckworth continued. "But let's make sure that the American people understand what we are engaging in and let's hold our allies accountable because we can't do it all."
Kirk rebutted, "I’d forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
Awkward silence followed his rebuttal — Duckworth didn't respond to Kirk — and the moderator moved onto the next question.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly bashed Kirk for his comments, saying his attack on Duckworth's family was "offensive, wrong and racist."
Duckworth's mother is Thai, but her family on her father's side has roots in America.
Watch the exchange below:
An Illinois GOP senator sniped at his Democratic opponent's heritage during a debate
By Louise Liu, October 27, 2016
Republican Sen. Mark Kirk sniped at his Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth by questioning her family's heritage.
Duckworth was sharing a story about her family's military service record during an Illinois debate Thursday night.
"My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution," Duckworth said. "I’ve bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound. Because people are quick to sound the drums of war, and I want to be there to say this is what it costs, this is what you’re asking us to do."
"And if that's the case, I'll go. It's the families like mine that bleed first," Duckworth continued. "But let's make sure that the American people understand what we are engaging in and let's hold our allies accountable because we can't do it all."
Kirk rebutted, "I’d forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
Awkward silence followed his rebuttal — Duckworth didn't respond to Kirk — and the moderator moved onto the next question.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly bashed Kirk for his comments, saying his attack on Duckworth's family was "offensive, wrong and racist."
Duckworth's mother is Thai, but her family on her father's side has roots in America.
Watch the exchange below:
Watch Tammy Duckworth discuss her family's #military service in #ILSen debate....................................................................................................................................................................
Then @MarkKirk's racist "rebuttal." pic.twitter.com/RbcSlxzJUM
— Memeographs (@memeographs) October 28, 2016
"What went around would be coming around and around and around in the form of empty hotel rooms and law suits and all the other pain that will be starting for real after the election. when he marches on into Loserland."
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Donald Trump’s March to Loserland Is Only Beginning
The name that he valued at $3 billion as recently as a year ago is one that residents and property owners are trying to escape from now.
By Michael Daly, October 26, 2016
Donald Trump’s march to Loserland is only just beginning.
His real pain starts the day after Election Day.
As they say in his native Queens, what goes around comes around.
And come it will. Accelerated business losses. A continent-wide clamoring to remove his miasmic moniker from buildings. Multiple looming lawsuits, two of them fraud actions arising from Trump University, one of those before federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego, whom he suggested was biased because of his ethnicity.
Trump will also face revelatory depositions should he follow through on threats to sue the dozen-plus women who have recently accused him of sexual transgressions. He might remember his deposition during his 1990 divorce from Ivana, when he is said to have taken the Fifth Amendment 97 times, largely in response to questions about other women. And, unlike matrimonial cases in New York, civil cases are public record.
Most hurtful of all will be the irrecoverable depreciation of the name that he valued at $3 billion as recently as a year ago.
The name that appears on the ballot as the Republican candidate for President of the United States will continue to signify intolerance, sexual assault and lies, lies, lies to people who previously associated it with wealth and celebrity and, at worst, vulgarity.
Already, tenants and developers and local politicians are agitating to have TRUMP removed from buildings in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Vancouver. An online petition is circulating to have the name excised from a row of Trump-branded apartment buildings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. One signatory, Geoffrey Newman, added a comment that he and his family “are embarrassed each time we enter the building.” Another, Erin Kelly wrote:
“As mayor, I’m proud that Vancouver is known throughout the world for our steadfast commitment to diversity, equality and freedom from discrimination and hatred,” Robertson wrote. “In contrast, Donald Trump’s hateful positions and commentary remind us all of much darker times in our world’s past—and it is incumbent on all of us to forcefully challenge hatred in all of the ways it confronts us.”
The developer, Holborn, declined, saying it is “not in any way involved in US politics,” as if this were just politics. The company went ahead and installed TRUMP in outsized chrome letters, but immediately covered it with tarps—purportedly to protect it from being scratched during the finishing up—and kept it hidden as the opening was delayed from late summer to fall and now to January. A spokesman for the firm was quoting insisting that the timing had nothing to do with the American election.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
In New Jersey, the company run by Trump’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has failed to respond to repeated inquiries from the Daily Beast as to whether it intends to put TRUMP on the front of a Trump-branded building it has nearly completed. The 50-story tower in Jersey City was built partly with $50 million from Chinese investors taking advantage of a program that gives visas with very little screening to foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in an American project.
An adjoining sister tower was completed in 2008 and has TRUMP PLAZA in big brass letters on the steel awning above the entrance. The entrance to the new tower is only now being completed. Ironworkers from Local 11 have installed a big steel awning, but not so much as a T as of yet. A bricklayer at the site said on Wednesday afternoon that the name would be installed at the very end, if it is at all.
“The grand finale,” he laughed.
Jersey City is where Trump says thousands of Muslims cheered on 9/11. Mayor Steven Fulop and some city council members have suggested they would be happy to see TRUMP removed from the older tower. They would hardly welcome seeing it on the new.
“Trump needs to understand that Jersey City will not be part of his hate campaign which is really the foundation of his candidacy,” Fulop said.
If TRUMP does go up on the new tower, it will likely only be because Jared Kushner is Ivanka Trump’s husband. The five letters would certainly make no monetary sense at a time when investors in buildings that have licensing deals with Trump are said to be offering him more than the contracted fee if he agrees to take down his business-blighting name. Down comes TRUMP and up goes the building’s value.
Anyone contemplating an association with TRUMP has to consider the new demographics. Foursquare has calculated that foot traffic at Trump- branded properties is down 16 per cent since he entered the race. The travel site Hipmunk reports that bookings at Trump hotels are down 58 per cent over last year. The market research firm Skift conducted a survey in May where 57 per cent of the respondents indicated they were less likely to stay in a Trump hotel as a result of his campaign. Only 23 per cent of the respondents said they were more likely, around the same number who said they were aware Trump was in the hotel business.
Perhaps the only good business news for Trump of late is the Skift survey found that 30.6 per cent of males in the south were more likely to stay in a Trump-branded hotel. But the overall majority in the south reported they were less likely to patronize a Trump spot.
In the west, 72.7 per cent of women were less likely to patronize the Trump brand, and this was before the surfacing of the recording in which he bragged about committing sexual assault with impunity. Young people across the country were negative, including 67.2 per cent of those 25-34 and 59.5 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds.
And, Skift says, the higher the income, the less likely folks would be to check-in.
The newly opened Trump International Hotel and Tower in Washington, DC slashed its original price from $575 a night to $404 before it even officially opened. The hotel is not fully booked even on Election Day, though Trump is gouging his supporters with a one-shot price boost to $604.
No wonder Trump has decided to inaugurate a new hotel brand—SCION—so as to move down market, or, as his scion Ivanka put it on Wednesday, “beyond 5 Star and luxury.” The Donald filed a trademark application in February to reserve this new name for “Hotel management for others… rendered in business establishments, office buildings, hotels, residential complexes and homes.”
His company, the Trump Organization, insisted in a statement that the new branding was not in response to the growing negatives: “We wanted a name that would be a nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses, including Trump Hotels, while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands.”
Trump also apparently intends to venture from luxury to “lifestyle” in his future real estate endeavors. He filed an expanded trademark application in July to reserve SCION for “Real estate services, namely, listing, leasing, brokerage, financing, renting and managing commercial, residential, retail, parking and hotel properties and destination resorts.”
But SCION will still be associated with Trump. And that will become an even greater liability should white supremacists such as he had refused to renounce go on to commit violence in his name.
An avowed Trump supporter—Curtis Allen—was among the three self-professed “Crusaders” arrested earlier this month for allegedly planning to detonate car bombs at a Kansans [sic] apartment complex largely occupied by Somali refugees. Federal agents who thwarted the plot say the attack was scheduled for the day after the election.
And there are many more extremists where those three came from. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of identified militia groups rose 37 perc cent in 2015.
Trump is already the subject of a federal law suit filed by three protesters who say they were physically assaulted and subjected to racial slurs after Trump commanded followers to “get them out of here!’ at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky in March.
“Each time he said ‘get them out,’ Trump intended for his supporters to use unwanted, harmful physical violence to remove protesters,” the suit charges.
The suit says that one of the protesters, 21-year-old college student Kashiya Nwanguma, was subjected to both the N-word and the C-word by Trump supporters at the rally. The suit charges that one of the alleged assailants, Matthew Heimbach, has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “the face of a new generation of white nationalists,” whose racial views include “separation or mongrelization.”
In moving to dismiss the case, Heimbach and Trump denied the allegations. Trump argued that he was simply exercising his constitutional right to free speech in saying, “Get them out!” The judge was not convinced and declined to toss the case.
Also in the courts is a suit brought by a photographer named David Kittos, who claims that the Trump campaign failed to get permission to use his photograph of a bowl of Skittles in a tweet by Donald Trump, Jr.
“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told just three would kill you, would you take a handful?” the tweet famously inquired. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”
The law suit notes, “The unauthorized use of the Photograph is reprehensibly offensive to Plaintiff as he is a refugee of the Republic of Cyprus who was forced to flee his home at the age of six years old.”
Trump may face unrelated legal action arising from disclosure forms he filed with the Federal Election Commission, stating that his golf courses in Scotland made $26 million last year. Other disclosure forms he was required to file in Scotland indicate that he in fact lost $3 million.
Trump will remain really rich, with a fortune that Forbes puts at $3.7 billion despite what the magazine estimates to be a $800 million loss in the value of his real-estate holdings over the past year. Forbes did not join Trump in placing a value on his name, which by any true reckoning has depreciated in recent months faster than even his casinos did back in the days of bankruptcy.
A measure of the premium he places on his name came back in 2012, after Chris Puchowicz of Connecticut purchased the domain name Tump.org [sic] at public auction for $1,272. Puchowisc soon after received a missive on from a Trump lawyer on TRUMP letterhead via express mail charging him with “trademark infringement and cyber piracy.”
“The Trump name is internationally known and famous as a result of Mr. Trump’s long, extensive, and high profile business activities,” the letter said. “Unauthorized use of the Trump name will inevitably cause confusion in the public’s mind and dilute and tarnish the value of the Trump mark.”
Puchowisc reported this week in an email to the Daily Beast that he had refused to be intimated [sic].
“I find it funny that Trump and his employees didn’t have the common sense to participate in the public auction, but days after tried to bully me so they could get the domain for free after I paid for it,” he wrote. “Lack of common sense and bullying/scare tactics. Pretty much sums his campaign up as well.”
Puchowisc added, “Not too long later the domain Trump.tv went up for public auction and I purchased it as well and it now forwards to Trump.org.”
His $251 purchase of trump.tv is of note because of rumors in recent days that Trump plans to start his own television network after the election. Trump TV might be a hit among southern males of modest income, but would likely go the way of similar right-wing ventures such as the short-lived Sarah Palin Channel.
Trump’s best model for a possible media success might be Right Side Broadcasting, an internet venture that has been carrying his rallies live. That includes the one this week in Sanford, Florida, the same town where Trayvon Martin was shot death while armed with nothing more deadly than the bag of Skittles he had just bought at a convenience store.
At least Trump had the sense in Sanford not to repeat the analogy between Skittles and Syrian refugees. He did offer some lame imitations of President Obama. And he became even more vitriolic than usual about the media, pointing to a bank of cameras such as have had the temerity to record what he has said and done during the campaign.
“Just about the biggest part of the crooked establishment are those people right back there with the phony cameras,” Trump told the cheering crowd about folks who have helped give him the equivalent of untold millions in free advertising. “They’re a bunch of phony low lifes.”
Perhaps Trump is all the more bitter about his present dealings with the media because he was given a pass for so many years. He was fined $250,000 in 1999 for violating New York State lobbying laws by enlisting his crony Roger Stone to set up the fugazy New York Institute for Law and Society and advertise in newspapers against a plan by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to open a casino in the Catskills. Trump feared it might siphon business from his faltering casinos in Atlantic City.
“Increased crime, broken families, bankruptcies and, in the case of the Mohawks, violence,” one ad warned.
Mohawk ironworkers played a legendary role in building the New York skyline. But Trump’s shameful smear of these heroic Native Americans was forgotten by 2004, when the first episode of The Apprentice began with a swooping panorama of the Manhattan skyscrapers Mohawks helped building at considerable risk, sometimes with fatal result.
The intro to The Apprentice also to prominently featured the State of Liberty even as Trump perpetuated the birther fiction against President Obama. Reality continued to have little to do with Reality TV as the show persisted in presenting Trump as a worthy role model for those who aspire to riches and success.
And that suspension of the actual in favor [of] the image persisted as he became the Republican nominee for president. He was allowed to call an April event a “homecoming rally” even though it was held in a Long Island suburb rather than in New York City with its mix of immigrants and people of color. He was Teflon Trump and it appeared he might even defeat the opponent he calls Crooked Hillary, but is in truth closer to being Concocted Hillary.
Then came the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump’s talk ventured beyond the politically incorrect to sex crimes. There had bene relatively little media attention when tens of thousands of decent working folks booed The Donald when stepped onto a balcony of Trump Tower to watch Pope Francis arrive at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the papal New York visit in the fall of 2015. But it became a big story when a couple of folks in boiled shirts and evening gowns booed him at an archdiocese charity dinner last week.
On Wednesday, he almost could have been Teflon Trump again at the official opening of his new hotel in the new Washington, D.C. Ivanka addressed the gathering in the Presidential Ballroom and she seemed not at all like the daughter of an alleged groper. She mentioned that another Trump hotel would be opening soon in Vancouver, her tone spritely, as if there were no accompanying controversy. She then introduced her father, harkening back to the ground breaking for the Washington hotel.
“Two years ago, when he promised the city of D.C. that Trump would be coming to Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016, we had no idea what we were foreshadowing,’ she said.
True that.
Daddy Trump then took the microphone, describing the hotel as the “most coveted piece of real estate in Washington other than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“We’re very proud of our company, but it seems pretty insignificant compared to what we’re doing now,” he said. “As soon as we’ve finished cutting the ribbon, I’m off to North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida, where I hear we’re doing very well.”
Then, he praised Newt Gingrich for an interview in which the former Speaker of the House angrily called Megyn Kelly sex-obsessed because she was not ready to shrug off allegations of sex assault by the Republican presidential candidate. The moment came to cut the ribbon, which was big and red and of course stamped repeatedly with TRUMP. Trump and his wife, Melania, and his scions each held a golden pair of scissors.
“Many, many years of luck and happiness and everything else,” he intoned. “One, two, three…”
There were cheers as if it were a great beginning and the name Trump still attracted more people than it repulsed. The election was less than two weeks away and by all indications this hotel was the closet Trump would be coming to the White House.
What went around would be coming around and around and around in the form of empty hotel rooms and law suits and all the other pain that will be starting for real after the election. when he marches on into Loserland.
That is, unless America comes up the biggest loser of all.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Donald Trump’s March to Loserland Is Only Beginning
The name that he valued at $3 billion as recently as a year ago is one that residents and property owners are trying to escape from now.
By Michael Daly, October 26, 2016
Donald Trump’s march to Loserland is only just beginning.
His real pain starts the day after Election Day.
As they say in his native Queens, what goes around comes around.
And come it will. Accelerated business losses. A continent-wide clamoring to remove his miasmic moniker from buildings. Multiple looming lawsuits, two of them fraud actions arising from Trump University, one of those before federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego, whom he suggested was biased because of his ethnicity.
Trump will also face revelatory depositions should he follow through on threats to sue the dozen-plus women who have recently accused him of sexual transgressions. He might remember his deposition during his 1990 divorce from Ivana, when he is said to have taken the Fifth Amendment 97 times, largely in response to questions about other women. And, unlike matrimonial cases in New York, civil cases are public record.
Most hurtful of all will be the irrecoverable depreciation of the name that he valued at $3 billion as recently as a year ago.
The name that appears on the ballot as the Republican candidate for President of the United States will continue to signify intolerance, sexual assault and lies, lies, lies to people who previously associated it with wealth and celebrity and, at worst, vulgarity.
Already, tenants and developers and local politicians are agitating to have TRUMP removed from buildings in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Vancouver. An online petition is circulating to have the name excised from a row of Trump-branded apartment buildings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. One signatory, Geoffrey Newman, added a comment that he and his family “are embarrassed each time we enter the building.” Another, Erin Kelly wrote:
“Let my signature here serve to clarify that in no way, shape, or form should my residence on RSB be construed as condoning a single thought, word, or action on the part of the shortfingered vulgarian whose name in huge brass letters still besmirches my building despite his complete non-involvement in its ownership or management.”Up in Canada, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has written to the developer of the new Trump International Hotel and Tower there, asking that the name lose the Trump..
“As mayor, I’m proud that Vancouver is known throughout the world for our steadfast commitment to diversity, equality and freedom from discrimination and hatred,” Robertson wrote. “In contrast, Donald Trump’s hateful positions and commentary remind us all of much darker times in our world’s past—and it is incumbent on all of us to forcefully challenge hatred in all of the ways it confronts us.”
The developer, Holborn, declined, saying it is “not in any way involved in US politics,” as if this were just politics. The company went ahead and installed TRUMP in outsized chrome letters, but immediately covered it with tarps—purportedly to protect it from being scratched during the finishing up—and kept it hidden as the opening was delayed from late summer to fall and now to January. A spokesman for the firm was quoting insisting that the timing had nothing to do with the American election.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
In New Jersey, the company run by Trump’s own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has failed to respond to repeated inquiries from the Daily Beast as to whether it intends to put TRUMP on the front of a Trump-branded building it has nearly completed. The 50-story tower in Jersey City was built partly with $50 million from Chinese investors taking advantage of a program that gives visas with very little screening to foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in an American project.
An adjoining sister tower was completed in 2008 and has TRUMP PLAZA in big brass letters on the steel awning above the entrance. The entrance to the new tower is only now being completed. Ironworkers from Local 11 have installed a big steel awning, but not so much as a T as of yet. A bricklayer at the site said on Wednesday afternoon that the name would be installed at the very end, if it is at all.
“The grand finale,” he laughed.
Jersey City is where Trump says thousands of Muslims cheered on 9/11. Mayor Steven Fulop and some city council members have suggested they would be happy to see TRUMP removed from the older tower. They would hardly welcome seeing it on the new.
“Trump needs to understand that Jersey City will not be part of his hate campaign which is really the foundation of his candidacy,” Fulop said.
If TRUMP does go up on the new tower, it will likely only be because Jared Kushner is Ivanka Trump’s husband. The five letters would certainly make no monetary sense at a time when investors in buildings that have licensing deals with Trump are said to be offering him more than the contracted fee if he agrees to take down his business-blighting name. Down comes TRUMP and up goes the building’s value.
Anyone contemplating an association with TRUMP has to consider the new demographics. Foursquare has calculated that foot traffic at Trump- branded properties is down 16 per cent since he entered the race. The travel site Hipmunk reports that bookings at Trump hotels are down 58 per cent over last year. The market research firm Skift conducted a survey in May where 57 per cent of the respondents indicated they were less likely to stay in a Trump hotel as a result of his campaign. Only 23 per cent of the respondents said they were more likely, around the same number who said they were aware Trump was in the hotel business.
Perhaps the only good business news for Trump of late is the Skift survey found that 30.6 per cent of males in the south were more likely to stay in a Trump-branded hotel. But the overall majority in the south reported they were less likely to patronize a Trump spot.
In the west, 72.7 per cent of women were less likely to patronize the Trump brand, and this was before the surfacing of the recording in which he bragged about committing sexual assault with impunity. Young people across the country were negative, including 67.2 per cent of those 25-34 and 59.5 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds.
And, Skift says, the higher the income, the less likely folks would be to check-in.
The newly opened Trump International Hotel and Tower in Washington, DC slashed its original price from $575 a night to $404 before it even officially opened. The hotel is not fully booked even on Election Day, though Trump is gouging his supporters with a one-shot price boost to $604.
No wonder Trump has decided to inaugurate a new hotel brand—SCION—so as to move down market, or, as his scion Ivanka put it on Wednesday, “beyond 5 Star and luxury.” The Donald filed a trademark application in February to reserve this new name for “Hotel management for others… rendered in business establishments, office buildings, hotels, residential complexes and homes.”
His company, the Trump Organization, insisted in a statement that the new branding was not in response to the growing negatives: “We wanted a name that would be a nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses, including Trump Hotels, while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands.”
Trump also apparently intends to venture from luxury to “lifestyle” in his future real estate endeavors. He filed an expanded trademark application in July to reserve SCION for “Real estate services, namely, listing, leasing, brokerage, financing, renting and managing commercial, residential, retail, parking and hotel properties and destination resorts.”
But SCION will still be associated with Trump. And that will become an even greater liability should white supremacists such as he had refused to renounce go on to commit violence in his name.
An avowed Trump supporter—Curtis Allen—was among the three self-professed “Crusaders” arrested earlier this month for allegedly planning to detonate car bombs at a Kansans [sic] apartment complex largely occupied by Somali refugees. Federal agents who thwarted the plot say the attack was scheduled for the day after the election.
And there are many more extremists where those three came from. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of identified militia groups rose 37 perc cent in 2015.
Trump is already the subject of a federal law suit filed by three protesters who say they were physically assaulted and subjected to racial slurs after Trump commanded followers to “get them out of here!’ at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky in March.
“Each time he said ‘get them out,’ Trump intended for his supporters to use unwanted, harmful physical violence to remove protesters,” the suit charges.
The suit says that one of the protesters, 21-year-old college student Kashiya Nwanguma, was subjected to both the N-word and the C-word by Trump supporters at the rally. The suit charges that one of the alleged assailants, Matthew Heimbach, has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “the face of a new generation of white nationalists,” whose racial views include “separation or mongrelization.”
In moving to dismiss the case, Heimbach and Trump denied the allegations. Trump argued that he was simply exercising his constitutional right to free speech in saying, “Get them out!” The judge was not convinced and declined to toss the case.
Also in the courts is a suit brought by a photographer named David Kittos, who claims that the Trump campaign failed to get permission to use his photograph of a bowl of Skittles in a tweet by Donald Trump, Jr.
“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told just three would kill you, would you take a handful?” the tweet famously inquired. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”
The law suit notes, “The unauthorized use of the Photograph is reprehensibly offensive to Plaintiff as he is a refugee of the Republic of Cyprus who was forced to flee his home at the age of six years old.”
Trump may face unrelated legal action arising from disclosure forms he filed with the Federal Election Commission, stating that his golf courses in Scotland made $26 million last year. Other disclosure forms he was required to file in Scotland indicate that he in fact lost $3 million.
Trump will remain really rich, with a fortune that Forbes puts at $3.7 billion despite what the magazine estimates to be a $800 million loss in the value of his real-estate holdings over the past year. Forbes did not join Trump in placing a value on his name, which by any true reckoning has depreciated in recent months faster than even his casinos did back in the days of bankruptcy.
A measure of the premium he places on his name came back in 2012, after Chris Puchowicz of Connecticut purchased the domain name Tump.org [sic] at public auction for $1,272. Puchowisc soon after received a missive on from a Trump lawyer on TRUMP letterhead via express mail charging him with “trademark infringement and cyber piracy.”
“The Trump name is internationally known and famous as a result of Mr. Trump’s long, extensive, and high profile business activities,” the letter said. “Unauthorized use of the Trump name will inevitably cause confusion in the public’s mind and dilute and tarnish the value of the Trump mark.”
Puchowisc reported this week in an email to the Daily Beast that he had refused to be intimated [sic].
“I find it funny that Trump and his employees didn’t have the common sense to participate in the public auction, but days after tried to bully me so they could get the domain for free after I paid for it,” he wrote. “Lack of common sense and bullying/scare tactics. Pretty much sums his campaign up as well.”
Puchowisc added, “Not too long later the domain Trump.tv went up for public auction and I purchased it as well and it now forwards to Trump.org.”
His $251 purchase of trump.tv is of note because of rumors in recent days that Trump plans to start his own television network after the election. Trump TV might be a hit among southern males of modest income, but would likely go the way of similar right-wing ventures such as the short-lived Sarah Palin Channel.
Trump’s best model for a possible media success might be Right Side Broadcasting, an internet venture that has been carrying his rallies live. That includes the one this week in Sanford, Florida, the same town where Trayvon Martin was shot death while armed with nothing more deadly than the bag of Skittles he had just bought at a convenience store.
At least Trump had the sense in Sanford not to repeat the analogy between Skittles and Syrian refugees. He did offer some lame imitations of President Obama. And he became even more vitriolic than usual about the media, pointing to a bank of cameras such as have had the temerity to record what he has said and done during the campaign.
“Just about the biggest part of the crooked establishment are those people right back there with the phony cameras,” Trump told the cheering crowd about folks who have helped give him the equivalent of untold millions in free advertising. “They’re a bunch of phony low lifes.”
Perhaps Trump is all the more bitter about his present dealings with the media because he was given a pass for so many years. He was fined $250,000 in 1999 for violating New York State lobbying laws by enlisting his crony Roger Stone to set up the fugazy New York Institute for Law and Society and advertise in newspapers against a plan by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to open a casino in the Catskills. Trump feared it might siphon business from his faltering casinos in Atlantic City.
“Increased crime, broken families, bankruptcies and, in the case of the Mohawks, violence,” one ad warned.
Mohawk ironworkers played a legendary role in building the New York skyline. But Trump’s shameful smear of these heroic Native Americans was forgotten by 2004, when the first episode of The Apprentice began with a swooping panorama of the Manhattan skyscrapers Mohawks helped building at considerable risk, sometimes with fatal result.
The intro to The Apprentice also to prominently featured the State of Liberty even as Trump perpetuated the birther fiction against President Obama. Reality continued to have little to do with Reality TV as the show persisted in presenting Trump as a worthy role model for those who aspire to riches and success.
And that suspension of the actual in favor [of] the image persisted as he became the Republican nominee for president. He was allowed to call an April event a “homecoming rally” even though it was held in a Long Island suburb rather than in New York City with its mix of immigrants and people of color. He was Teflon Trump and it appeared he might even defeat the opponent he calls Crooked Hillary, but is in truth closer to being Concocted Hillary.
Then came the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump’s talk ventured beyond the politically incorrect to sex crimes. There had bene relatively little media attention when tens of thousands of decent working folks booed The Donald when stepped onto a balcony of Trump Tower to watch Pope Francis arrive at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the papal New York visit in the fall of 2015. But it became a big story when a couple of folks in boiled shirts and evening gowns booed him at an archdiocese charity dinner last week.
On Wednesday, he almost could have been Teflon Trump again at the official opening of his new hotel in the new Washington, D.C. Ivanka addressed the gathering in the Presidential Ballroom and she seemed not at all like the daughter of an alleged groper. She mentioned that another Trump hotel would be opening soon in Vancouver, her tone spritely, as if there were no accompanying controversy. She then introduced her father, harkening back to the ground breaking for the Washington hotel.
“Two years ago, when he promised the city of D.C. that Trump would be coming to Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016, we had no idea what we were foreshadowing,’ she said.
True that.
Daddy Trump then took the microphone, describing the hotel as the “most coveted piece of real estate in Washington other than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“We’re very proud of our company, but it seems pretty insignificant compared to what we’re doing now,” he said. “As soon as we’ve finished cutting the ribbon, I’m off to North Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida, where I hear we’re doing very well.”
Then, he praised Newt Gingrich for an interview in which the former Speaker of the House angrily called Megyn Kelly sex-obsessed because she was not ready to shrug off allegations of sex assault by the Republican presidential candidate. The moment came to cut the ribbon, which was big and red and of course stamped repeatedly with TRUMP. Trump and his wife, Melania, and his scions each held a golden pair of scissors.
“Many, many years of luck and happiness and everything else,” he intoned. “One, two, three…”
There were cheers as if it were a great beginning and the name Trump still attracted more people than it repulsed. The election was less than two weeks away and by all indications this hotel was the closet Trump would be coming to the White House.
What went around would be coming around and around and around in the form of empty hotel rooms and law suits and all the other pain that will be starting for real after the election. when he marches on into Loserland.
That is, unless America comes up the biggest loser of all.
...................................................................................................................................................................
"... the debt is meaningless. It's just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. ... It's time we stop fretting over this."
...................................................................................................................................................................
The National Debt: Why Fret Over Something That Doesn't Exist?
By Mike Norman, October 25, 2016
The public is lied to when it comes to the so-called national debt. They're clueless about it, as are most, if not all, of our lawmakers.
First off, there is no debt. The debt is dollars. The government spent $20 trillion more than it took away in taxes over the last 240 years, and those dollars, held by the non-government, comprise a big portion of the non-government's wealth. Nothing is "owed." It's owned, by us, the people.
Second, there is nothing to pay back. The money was paid, ended up in someone's bank account and now it's being held in the form of Treasuries. What's a Treasury? A Treasury is a dollar, the only difference being it's a dollar with a term (duration) and a coupon (interest payment). Why would people hold dollars in the form of Treasuries? To earn some interest, that's all. It's like saying, why would you put your money in a savings account as opposed to a checking account? Same reason, to earn interest. If you want it back in your checking account, you tell your bank and it switches it back from your savings account to your checking account.
That's how it works with the government, too. It "pays back" holders of Treasuries all the time. That's called a redemption and when Treasuries are redeemed the government simply instructs its bank, the Fed, to take back the securities and credit the individual's (or firm's or foreign government's or whomever's) bank account and, voila, it happens. Paid back. In fact, it happens so regularly and on such a big scale that it will totally blow your mind.
I am about to give you some numbers. Mind you, these are not numbers I made up or to which had some kind of top-secret access. Nor is this inside information that I am exposing. Rather, these are publicly available figures that you can get -- free -- right off the U.S. Treasury Department's website.
The resource is called the Daily Treasury Statement and it's really a fascinating document. It is posted daily on the Treasury's website and it's literally like looking at the checkbook of the federal government. Just like your checkbook, it has all the deposits and all the withdrawals, among other things. You can see everything. Every line item of spending (withdrawals) and every item of revenue (deposits) that runs through the government's accounts daily, monthly and yearly.
On this document there is a table -- Table III-A -- that gives all the redemptions of bills, notes, bonds and other securities the government redeems (pays back) every day, month and year.
If you go to the last statement of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, and you scroll down to that table I just gave you, Table III-A, you will see the government redeemed (paid back) $94.2 trillion in one year! I put a screenshot below.
Please note: All figures on the daily Treasury statement are in millions, so don't come back to me and say it was only $94.2 million. It's $94.2 million million. That's $94.2 trillion. See the image below.
Daily Treasury Statement
View Chart » View in New Window »
Ninety-four point two trillion! In a single year. And nobody knew about this. Furthermore, the world didn't fall apart, the dollar didn't collapse, interest rates didn't spike, we had no inflation and everything was fine.
There is the proof, right in front of our noses, that the debt is meaningless. It's just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. Keystrokes. It's time we stop fretting over this. People need to educate themselves about what this debt is and how they are being manipulated and propagandized about it.
The debt is not a bad thing, it is an asset of the non-government; however, ignorant, cynical, corrupt, dogmatic and self-serving groups like the Pete Peterson Foundation and organizations like Fix the Debt are in the business of keeping Americans misinformed and getting them to act against their own interests. These groups are bad and need to be stopped.
There is no debt! Please share.
...................................................................................................................................................................
The National Debt: Why Fret Over Something That Doesn't Exist?
By Mike Norman, October 25, 2016
The public is lied to when it comes to the so-called national debt. They're clueless about it, as are most, if not all, of our lawmakers.
First off, there is no debt. The debt is dollars. The government spent $20 trillion more than it took away in taxes over the last 240 years, and those dollars, held by the non-government, comprise a big portion of the non-government's wealth. Nothing is "owed." It's owned, by us, the people.
Second, there is nothing to pay back. The money was paid, ended up in someone's bank account and now it's being held in the form of Treasuries. What's a Treasury? A Treasury is a dollar, the only difference being it's a dollar with a term (duration) and a coupon (interest payment). Why would people hold dollars in the form of Treasuries? To earn some interest, that's all. It's like saying, why would you put your money in a savings account as opposed to a checking account? Same reason, to earn interest. If you want it back in your checking account, you tell your bank and it switches it back from your savings account to your checking account.
That's how it works with the government, too. It "pays back" holders of Treasuries all the time. That's called a redemption and when Treasuries are redeemed the government simply instructs its bank, the Fed, to take back the securities and credit the individual's (or firm's or foreign government's or whomever's) bank account and, voila, it happens. Paid back. In fact, it happens so regularly and on such a big scale that it will totally blow your mind.
I am about to give you some numbers. Mind you, these are not numbers I made up or to which had some kind of top-secret access. Nor is this inside information that I am exposing. Rather, these are publicly available figures that you can get -- free -- right off the U.S. Treasury Department's website.
The resource is called the Daily Treasury Statement and it's really a fascinating document. It is posted daily on the Treasury's website and it's literally like looking at the checkbook of the federal government. Just like your checkbook, it has all the deposits and all the withdrawals, among other things. You can see everything. Every line item of spending (withdrawals) and every item of revenue (deposits) that runs through the government's accounts daily, monthly and yearly.
On this document there is a table -- Table III-A -- that gives all the redemptions of bills, notes, bonds and other securities the government redeems (pays back) every day, month and year.
If you go to the last statement of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, and you scroll down to that table I just gave you, Table III-A, you will see the government redeemed (paid back) $94.2 trillion in one year! I put a screenshot below.
Please note: All figures on the daily Treasury statement are in millions, so don't come back to me and say it was only $94.2 million. It's $94.2 million million. That's $94.2 trillion. See the image below.
Daily Treasury Statement
View Chart » View in New Window »
Ninety-four point two trillion! In a single year. And nobody knew about this. Furthermore, the world didn't fall apart, the dollar didn't collapse, interest rates didn't spike, we had no inflation and everything was fine.
There is the proof, right in front of our noses, that the debt is meaningless. It's just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. Keystrokes. It's time we stop fretting over this. People need to educate themselves about what this debt is and how they are being manipulated and propagandized about it.
The debt is not a bad thing, it is an asset of the non-government; however, ignorant, cynical, corrupt, dogmatic and self-serving groups like the Pete Peterson Foundation and organizations like Fix the Debt are in the business of keeping Americans misinformed and getting them to act against their own interests. These groups are bad and need to be stopped.
There is no debt! Please share.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
We know better, however. We know it's all #TruthlessTrump's fault.
.....................................................................................................................................
#Lyin'Donald at his worst.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump Cites Police, Military, ICE Endorsements That Didn't Happen
By Amanda Sakuma, October 26, 2016
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump frequently touts his support among law enforcement and military figures.
On Monday, he told News4Jax that the United States military "conceptually" endorsed him and that "virtually every police department" in the country backed his bid for the presidency. During last week's third debate, Trump said his hardline stance on immigration and pledge to build a border wall had earned him an endorsement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But none of that is true.
Federal agencies are barred by law from endorsing candidates in political elections. Under the Hatch Act, only the president, vice president and high-ranking administration officials are allowed to dip their toe in partisan waters.
The Department of Defense, meanwhile, has its own set of guidelines that tightly restricts any active duty military or civilian personnel from publicly choosing political sides.
The same applies to Trump's repeated claims about ICE, the agency tasked with deporting undocumented immigrants. Trump has doubled down during campaign rallies and onstage at debates by saying that ICE endorsed him.
But the agency has not endorsed any candidate, nor is it able to. Instead the union representing ICE employees, National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, gave the Republican nominee its backing. And it represents just a quarter of the more than 20,000 employees that work at the agency.
Trump did receive an endorsement from more than 88 retired military figures last month. His list of supporters included top military brass and Medal of Honor recipients, including Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, a former Army green beret and Holocaust survivor, and Vietnam veteran Rear Admiral Charles Williams.
However, Trump's support from military quarters pales in comparison to what some Republican predecessors received when they ran for the Oval Office.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee who lost in 2012, received a sweeping endorsement from 500 retired generals and admirals. The veterans banded together to release a full-page ad in the Washington Times highlighting their support.
Trump has also overstated his standing with local police departments. He has picked up endorsements from the federal police union, the Fraternal Order of Police.
But the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in New York, the largest police union in the country with 23,000 members, has remained on the sidelines this election and has yet to back a candidate.
Police departments as a whole do not typically endorse candidates in elections. Though that has not stopped Trump from saying they do.
After a meeting with first responders and law enforcement officials in northern Florida on Monday, Trump later boasted on Twitter that he was honored for being endorsed by the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump Cites Police, Military, ICE Endorsements That Didn't Happen
By Amanda Sakuma, October 26, 2016
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump frequently touts his support among law enforcement and military figures.
On Monday, he told News4Jax that the United States military "conceptually" endorsed him and that "virtually every police department" in the country backed his bid for the presidency. During last week's third debate, Trump said his hardline stance on immigration and pledge to build a border wall had earned him an endorsement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But none of that is true.
Federal agencies are barred by law from endorsing candidates in political elections. Under the Hatch Act, only the president, vice president and high-ranking administration officials are allowed to dip their toe in partisan waters.
The Department of Defense, meanwhile, has its own set of guidelines that tightly restricts any active duty military or civilian personnel from publicly choosing political sides.
The same applies to Trump's repeated claims about ICE, the agency tasked with deporting undocumented immigrants. Trump has doubled down during campaign rallies and onstage at debates by saying that ICE endorsed him.
But the agency has not endorsed any candidate, nor is it able to. Instead the union representing ICE employees, National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, gave the Republican nominee its backing. And it represents just a quarter of the more than 20,000 employees that work at the agency.
Trump did receive an endorsement from more than 88 retired military figures last month. His list of supporters included top military brass and Medal of Honor recipients, including Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, a former Army green beret and Holocaust survivor, and Vietnam veteran Rear Admiral Charles Williams.
However, Trump's support from military quarters pales in comparison to what some Republican predecessors received when they ran for the Oval Office.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee who lost in 2012, received a sweeping endorsement from 500 retired generals and admirals. The veterans banded together to release a full-page ad in the Washington Times highlighting their support.
Trump has also overstated his standing with local police departments. He has picked up endorsements from the federal police union, the Fraternal Order of Police.
But the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in New York, the largest police union in the country with 23,000 members, has remained on the sidelines this election and has yet to back a candidate.
Police departments as a whole do not typically endorse candidates in elections. Though that has not stopped Trump from saying they do.
After a meeting with first responders and law enforcement officials in northern Florida on Monday, Trump later boasted on Twitter that he was honored for being endorsed by the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrumpBut the department did no such thing. The sheriff's office took to both Facebook and Twitter to make clear that despite Trump's comment, they have "NOT made any official endorsement."
Honored to receive an endorsement from @SJSOPIO - thank you! Together, we are going to MAKE AMERICA SAFE & GREAT AGAIN!#LESM #MAGA
11:30 AM - 24 Oct 2016 · St Augustine, FL, United States
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"This isn't Trump v. Clinton but Trump v. Democracy. And the way to degrade the threat is to defeat Trump, convincingly." Not just "convincingly", but resoundingly!
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump can't just be defeated. He must be humiliated.
By Dana Milbank, October 26, 2016
Donald Trump is running against democracy itself.
Here, in the land of Barry Goldwater, democracy is fighting back.
Only once since 1948 has Arizona gone Democratic in a presidential election, and that was the Ross Perot-skewed 1996 contest. But Trump's manifold charms — most recently his threat to ignore the results of the election — have given Hillary Clinton a 5-point lead in this red state, according to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll. Disgust with Trump sent thousands of white, black and brown Arizonans on Thursday afternoon into the Phoenix Convention Center (where Trump weeks ago pledged mass deportation of illegal immigrants) to hear Michelle Obama denounce Trump's assault on the democratic process.
"We are fortunate to live in a country where the voters decide our elections," the first lady said. "The voters decide who wins and loses. Period. End of story. And when a presidential candidate threatens to ignore our voices and reject the outcome of this election, he is threatening the very idea of America itself, and we cannot stand for that. We do not keep American democracy 'in suspense.'"
The crowd roared its approval.
Obama's speech is part of a push by the Clinton campaign to expand the electoral battleground into reliably Republican states such as Texas, Georgia, Utah, Alaska and, particularly, Arizona, that have been put into play by Trump's outrages. The Clinton campaign, which already has 32 offices and 160 staffers in Arizona, announced last week that it is spending another $2 million here and dispatched Bernie Sanders, Chelsea Clinton and the first lady to campaign in the state.
As a matter of math, Arizona is irrelevant: If Clinton is doing well enough to win here, she will already have locked up the election elsewhere. But if Trump is to be denied in his bid to subvert democratic institutions by claiming a rigged election, he needs to be defeated resoundingly, removing all doubt. Clinton needs to run up the score.
The need to deal Trump a humiliating defeat has a sociological basis in the "degradation ceremony" in which the perpetrator (Trump) is held by denouncers (officeholders and others in positions of influence) to be morally unacceptable, and witnesses (the public) agree that the perpetrator is no longer held in good standing.
Psychologist Wynn Schwartz, who teaches at Harvard Medical School, explained to me that what's needed to have a successful degradation of Trump is an epic defeat. "If it is lopsided enough," he said, "you don't have critical masses of people who feel disenfranchised" or "who feel justified in saying that it was stolen."
But if Clinton's victory is narrow, the degradation ceremony fails, because a large chunk of the population feels swindled and remains loyal to Trump.
Trump's recent actions suggest that he will attempt to defy the degradation ceremony that a loss typically confers. Hence the importance of a landslide.
Arizona would offer an ideal rebuke. Carolyn Goldwater Ross, granddaughter of the conservative icon, introduced Obama on Thursday by saying, "I come from a long line of Republicans and I've stayed independent. ... But this time it's different." She submitted that Trump violates her grandfather's "basic values."
Apparently, many Arizonans agree. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigrant icon and Trump backer, is trailing his Democratic opponent by 15 points in polling by the Republic. The newspaper endorsed Clinton, its first embrace of a Democrat for president in its 126-year history. Arizona's junior Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is an outspoken Trump critic, its senior Republican Sen. John McCain has been attacked by Trump, and former Republican Attorney General Grant Woods has endorsed Clinton.
A growing Latino population has the state trending gradually Democratic, but not enough to put Arizona in play in 2016 in ordinary circumstances. That's all about Trump.
"Trump accelerated what's happening anyway," Moises Mejia, a Mexican-born engineer at Thursday's rally, told me. Mejia, who took one of his sons out of school to attend the rally, said he comes from a Republican family and agrees "with the Republicans' principles, but they've taken it so far they've lost a lot of us in the middle."
The first lady, in her fiery speech, reached out to Republicans offended by Trump's disregard for democratic process. "Our democracy is revered around the world, and free elections are the best way on earth to choose our leaders," she said. "This is how we elected John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, two George Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama."
That's right. This isn't Trump v. Clinton but Trump v. Democracy. And the way to degrade the threat is to defeat Trump, convincingly.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump can't just be defeated. He must be humiliated.
By Dana Milbank, October 26, 2016
Donald Trump is running against democracy itself.
Here, in the land of Barry Goldwater, democracy is fighting back.
Only once since 1948 has Arizona gone Democratic in a presidential election, and that was the Ross Perot-skewed 1996 contest. But Trump's manifold charms — most recently his threat to ignore the results of the election — have given Hillary Clinton a 5-point lead in this red state, according to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll. Disgust with Trump sent thousands of white, black and brown Arizonans on Thursday afternoon into the Phoenix Convention Center (where Trump weeks ago pledged mass deportation of illegal immigrants) to hear Michelle Obama denounce Trump's assault on the democratic process.
"We are fortunate to live in a country where the voters decide our elections," the first lady said. "The voters decide who wins and loses. Period. End of story. And when a presidential candidate threatens to ignore our voices and reject the outcome of this election, he is threatening the very idea of America itself, and we cannot stand for that. We do not keep American democracy 'in suspense.'"
The crowd roared its approval.
Obama's speech is part of a push by the Clinton campaign to expand the electoral battleground into reliably Republican states such as Texas, Georgia, Utah, Alaska and, particularly, Arizona, that have been put into play by Trump's outrages. The Clinton campaign, which already has 32 offices and 160 staffers in Arizona, announced last week that it is spending another $2 million here and dispatched Bernie Sanders, Chelsea Clinton and the first lady to campaign in the state.
As a matter of math, Arizona is irrelevant: If Clinton is doing well enough to win here, she will already have locked up the election elsewhere. But if Trump is to be denied in his bid to subvert democratic institutions by claiming a rigged election, he needs to be defeated resoundingly, removing all doubt. Clinton needs to run up the score.
The need to deal Trump a humiliating defeat has a sociological basis in the "degradation ceremony" in which the perpetrator (Trump) is held by denouncers (officeholders and others in positions of influence) to be morally unacceptable, and witnesses (the public) agree that the perpetrator is no longer held in good standing.
Psychologist Wynn Schwartz, who teaches at Harvard Medical School, explained to me that what's needed to have a successful degradation of Trump is an epic defeat. "If it is lopsided enough," he said, "you don't have critical masses of people who feel disenfranchised" or "who feel justified in saying that it was stolen."
But if Clinton's victory is narrow, the degradation ceremony fails, because a large chunk of the population feels swindled and remains loyal to Trump.
Trump's recent actions suggest that he will attempt to defy the degradation ceremony that a loss typically confers. Hence the importance of a landslide.
Arizona would offer an ideal rebuke. Carolyn Goldwater Ross, granddaughter of the conservative icon, introduced Obama on Thursday by saying, "I come from a long line of Republicans and I've stayed independent. ... But this time it's different." She submitted that Trump violates her grandfather's "basic values."
Apparently, many Arizonans agree. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigrant icon and Trump backer, is trailing his Democratic opponent by 15 points in polling by the Republic. The newspaper endorsed Clinton, its first embrace of a Democrat for president in its 126-year history. Arizona's junior Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is an outspoken Trump critic, its senior Republican Sen. John McCain has been attacked by Trump, and former Republican Attorney General Grant Woods has endorsed Clinton.
A growing Latino population has the state trending gradually Democratic, but not enough to put Arizona in play in 2016 in ordinary circumstances. That's all about Trump.
"Trump accelerated what's happening anyway," Moises Mejia, a Mexican-born engineer at Thursday's rally, told me. Mejia, who took one of his sons out of school to attend the rally, said he comes from a Republican family and agrees "with the Republicans' principles, but they've taken it so far they've lost a lot of us in the middle."
The first lady, in her fiery speech, reached out to Republicans offended by Trump's disregard for democratic process. "Our democracy is revered around the world, and free elections are the best way on earth to choose our leaders," she said. "This is how we elected John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, two George Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama."
That's right. This isn't Trump v. Clinton but Trump v. Democracy. And the way to degrade the threat is to defeat Trump, convincingly.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Read This First! "In nearly every individual thing Trump says to you he is lying, distorting, rationalizing, contorting, blaming, and self-martyring."
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If You’re Thinking of Voting for Donald Trump, Read This First
Keith Olbermann understands your frustrations, but wants you to know something before you pull that lever.
By Keith Olbermann, October 25, 10`6
On November 8th we will stage the most important presidential election since the Civil War.
Two weeks from that election and one candidate has spent the last several days insisting there is already voter fraud happening at polling places that don't exist yet. Two weeks from an election that one candidate says is rigged—unless he wins—because of voter fraud, even though voter fraud has happened only 31 times in the last one billion votes cast in this country.
Two weeks until that election and the leaders of one party are still chained, of their own volition, to the captain of the Titanic. Two weeks until that election and their candidate has shown himself, more and more, hour by hour, day by day, to be manifestly unstable, sexually criminal, deranged, bigoted, and despotic.
Yet—to paraphrase Winston Churchill—these so-called leaders have been given the choice between shame, and loss-of-office. They have chosen shame. They will get loss-of-office… later.
But it is not to them I want to speak now, two weeks before the election. It is to those who will vote for Trump. More importantly it is to those who may vote for Trump. To those who, bluntly, can still hear me.
If you're thinking of voting for Donald Trump, I'm sorry this country and your life in it are not what you thought they would be, nor what you thought was promised to you. I'm sorry that you think you have been denied something by Americans who don't look like you or pray like you. I would remind you that when your grandfather or great-grandfather or whoever came here—and whenever they came here—they were blamed, identically, because they were Catholic or Italian or Irish or just foreign.
I don't doubt you have grievances, nor that our system of government has been so overcome by the political industry that you see no chance that you will get what you really want. I have felt that way, too, nearly every day of my adult life.
But I'm not here to agree or disagree with your grievances. I'm here to urge you to recognize that what you see as your solution will in fact end with your slavery.
Because… You know this man. You have always known this man.
Voting for Donald Trump is like not getting the car you want, so you instead take the car you have—and you drive it into a wall. While you are in it. While your family is in it. While your country is in it.
This election is not a question of policy or political correctness or rebellion against the machine. This is sanity versus insanity, and freedom versus a police state. This man is crazy.
We have indications that he [has been] violent against women, he has been violent since he was a child, he hates and disparages people based on how they look or where their parents are from. And anyone and anything who goes against him, is not treated the way you would treat them, or it. He does not move on. He does not work harder. He does not find another way. He says it's fixed, it's a plot, it's a lie, it's the fault of Mexicans, it means war. He has uncontrollable anger.
And you want to give him nuclear weapons?
You know this man. You have always known this man.
He is the lying used car salesman across town. He is the contractor who puts a hole in your wall then vanishes. He is the fast-talking huckster on the late-night television commercial. He is the husband or the wife or the girlfriend or the boyfriend who promised you forever and ran off with your heart and your money—and your life.
You may not like Hillary Clinton or her policies or anything about her, but if she's elected, you will have four years to find a presidential candidate of your own whose true goal is not to rob you blind, and four years from now you will still have a presidential election and a vote—and a country.
Trump will give nothing to you but shame and regret and shackles. He will take, and he will keep, whatever he can get his hands on. It is the story of his life—He boasts about it. He says giving employees a paycheck is the equivalent of your neighbor sacrificing their son in the war. You really think he will give you anything? You really think he will give you a better job? More money?
From women to business he is grab first and ask questions later and you know that. And in the rubble—the rubble of your life in a political-science-fiction-nightmare version of a fascist America made real—this will be on your conscience. It will be your fault, not his. He is merely the con man who is fattening you up for the kill. He ends his appearances with the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want." He is telling you in advance. How much more warning does he have to give you?
You know this man. You have always known this man.
There has been a lot of time wasted on trying to understand the nature of the strategy Donald Trump has used since his profile as a potential serial sexual criminal began to emerge in early October. Well, there is no strategy. This is the point. This is not strategy—this is him.
He has been acting in this campaign—especially in the last two weeks—as if he has already been elected, already is president, and that the rest of us are just annoying him by asking him about these harrowing tapes and accusations. He behaves as if we are being rude to him by not simply agreeing with him and praising his countless amazing skills and wonderful accomplishments and vast piles of money—as if on your deathbed or after it, the question you will ask—or that you will be asked—is: "how much money did you make?"
Donald Trump is defending himself by claiming that his victims were too unattractive to attack—not as some kind of political strategy; not as some kind of clever answer. He is doing this because that is who he is and that is what he expects to be able to do as president.
The presidency would be the same as his current life—70 years of hedonism and selfishness and abuse—except backed up by the power of the presidency and the military. He has been the dictator in his life—and now he intends to become the dictator in your life.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
You have seen him, and you have seen him recently. He is Bill Cosby. He is O.J. Simpson. He is Bernie Madoff. In nearly every individual thing Trump says to you he is lying, distorting, rationalizing, contorting, blaming, and self-martyring. But in one sense he is the most truthful candidate we have ever had. The awful, dishonest, egomaniacal, dangerous, hateful candidate he shows the world—that is really him.
He is not putting on an act. He is not hiding anything more than details. He is—every day—showing you his soul. The monster you see is the monster you will get—only this monster will now have the power to issue executive orders and pull that funny guy Jose you know who works at the restaurant or on that farm, out of his house and throw him into a detention camp, and if you protest, he'll have the power to throw you in the detention camp alongside Jose.
Elect him and you will spend the rest of your lives trying to un-do your vote. You already know this man promised to honor the outcome of this election if he loses—and then said he was backing out of that promise. You have already heard him spend hours explaining that if he loses it will not be because he and you have been rejected—it will be because he and you have been defrauded.
What makes you think he believes in the things about this country that you love? That you have believed in and depended on and taken for granted since you were a kid? What makes you think he would not say, in his inaugural address, "the people have spoken—so there is no need for any more elections"? Why on earth would you think that having gotten you to give him your vote, your money, and your freedom—that he would ever again bother to ask you what you want? Why would he listen to you? Why would he do anything for you? Who would make him?
If you want to vote for him because nobody pushes him around—what are you going to do when he does something you don't like? What makes you think that if you dare to raise a complaint, that he would not treat you as he has treated those who during the campaign have opposed him or criticized him or merely pointed out what he has said?
You cheer now when the reporters at his rallies are booed and threatened; you high-five when somebody sucker-punches a protestor. How do you think President Trump will treat you if you feel like he's broken his promise to you? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not jump when he says jump? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not applaud when he says applaud? He has already shown you how.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
You know that this is the kind of man which oppressed people around the world have spent their lives trying to escape from, and have lost their lives staging revolutions against. Elect him and you are signing the death warrant to your own freedoms. But even if you think he's going to lose but you must vote for him anyway—in protest—you will have still opened Pandora's Box. Because this might be the most skilled and dangerous con man ever to rise up to try to cheat us out of the democracy you and I cherish.
But he might not be. The next one may be far worse, and far more skilled. And whichever is the case, he certainly will not be the last of the con men. And when the first one finally soft-sells enough of your friends to gain that sacred office of the presidency, you—as much as I—will be at his mercy. If Trump merely "does well" while losing this election it will be open season for demagogues and fascists and white supremacists to try to take over this country. Your country. You have already seen it diagrammed for you. Donald Trump has shown his math. He has gotten this far—gotten to within two weeks of the presidency—based on summoning hate and fear and directing it towards a group—Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Liberals, Reporters. It doesn't matter which group and nothing guarantees that the next time, it won't be your group.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
And among all the things you know about this man—out of all that has gone on since Trump started it in June of last year—one statement he made should jump out and grab you by the throat. And it should ask you, very softly but very firmly, why would you ever, ever, consider turning over this country to this man—why would you ever, ever, consider encouraging his type just by giving him your vote.
When the woman on the plane 35 years ago, Jessica Leeds, accused him of groping her, he tried to defend himself, not by getting a believable witness, not by proving he wasn't on the flight, not by the way you would defend yourself against such a charge if it were not true and your whole life was at risk because somebody had slandered you. No. Trump said you should know he didn't do it because, "believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you."
"She would not be my first choice."
So, ask yourself one question before you vote for this man. Who would be his first choice? Your daughter?
...................................................................................................................................................................
If You’re Thinking of Voting for Donald Trump, Read This First
Keith Olbermann understands your frustrations, but wants you to know something before you pull that lever.
By Keith Olbermann, October 25, 10`6
On November 8th we will stage the most important presidential election since the Civil War.
Two weeks from that election and one candidate has spent the last several days insisting there is already voter fraud happening at polling places that don't exist yet. Two weeks from an election that one candidate says is rigged—unless he wins—because of voter fraud, even though voter fraud has happened only 31 times in the last one billion votes cast in this country.
Two weeks until that election and the leaders of one party are still chained, of their own volition, to the captain of the Titanic. Two weeks until that election and their candidate has shown himself, more and more, hour by hour, day by day, to be manifestly unstable, sexually criminal, deranged, bigoted, and despotic.
Yet—to paraphrase Winston Churchill—these so-called leaders have been given the choice between shame, and loss-of-office. They have chosen shame. They will get loss-of-office… later.
But it is not to them I want to speak now, two weeks before the election. It is to those who will vote for Trump. More importantly it is to those who may vote for Trump. To those who, bluntly, can still hear me.
If you're thinking of voting for Donald Trump, I'm sorry this country and your life in it are not what you thought they would be, nor what you thought was promised to you. I'm sorry that you think you have been denied something by Americans who don't look like you or pray like you. I would remind you that when your grandfather or great-grandfather or whoever came here—and whenever they came here—they were blamed, identically, because they were Catholic or Italian or Irish or just foreign.
I don't doubt you have grievances, nor that our system of government has been so overcome by the political industry that you see no chance that you will get what you really want. I have felt that way, too, nearly every day of my adult life.
But I'm not here to agree or disagree with your grievances. I'm here to urge you to recognize that what you see as your solution will in fact end with your slavery.
Because… You know this man. You have always known this man.
Voting for Donald Trump is like not getting the car you want, so you instead take the car you have—and you drive it into a wall. While you are in it. While your family is in it. While your country is in it.
This election is not a question of policy or political correctness or rebellion against the machine. This is sanity versus insanity, and freedom versus a police state. This man is crazy.
We have indications that he [has been] violent against women, he has been violent since he was a child, he hates and disparages people based on how they look or where their parents are from. And anyone and anything who goes against him, is not treated the way you would treat them, or it. He does not move on. He does not work harder. He does not find another way. He says it's fixed, it's a plot, it's a lie, it's the fault of Mexicans, it means war. He has uncontrollable anger.
And you want to give him nuclear weapons?
You know this man. You have always known this man.
He is the lying used car salesman across town. He is the contractor who puts a hole in your wall then vanishes. He is the fast-talking huckster on the late-night television commercial. He is the husband or the wife or the girlfriend or the boyfriend who promised you forever and ran off with your heart and your money—and your life.
You may not like Hillary Clinton or her policies or anything about her, but if she's elected, you will have four years to find a presidential candidate of your own whose true goal is not to rob you blind, and four years from now you will still have a presidential election and a vote—and a country.
Trump will give nothing to you but shame and regret and shackles. He will take, and he will keep, whatever he can get his hands on. It is the story of his life—He boasts about it. He says giving employees a paycheck is the equivalent of your neighbor sacrificing their son in the war. You really think he will give you anything? You really think he will give you a better job? More money?
From women to business he is grab first and ask questions later and you know that. And in the rubble—the rubble of your life in a political-science-fiction-nightmare version of a fascist America made real—this will be on your conscience. It will be your fault, not his. He is merely the con man who is fattening you up for the kill. He ends his appearances with the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want." He is telling you in advance. How much more warning does he have to give you?
You know this man. You have always known this man.
There has been a lot of time wasted on trying to understand the nature of the strategy Donald Trump has used since his profile as a potential serial sexual criminal began to emerge in early October. Well, there is no strategy. This is the point. This is not strategy—this is him.
He has been acting in this campaign—especially in the last two weeks—as if he has already been elected, already is president, and that the rest of us are just annoying him by asking him about these harrowing tapes and accusations. He behaves as if we are being rude to him by not simply agreeing with him and praising his countless amazing skills and wonderful accomplishments and vast piles of money—as if on your deathbed or after it, the question you will ask—or that you will be asked—is: "how much money did you make?"
Donald Trump is defending himself by claiming that his victims were too unattractive to attack—not as some kind of political strategy; not as some kind of clever answer. He is doing this because that is who he is and that is what he expects to be able to do as president.
The presidency would be the same as his current life—70 years of hedonism and selfishness and abuse—except backed up by the power of the presidency and the military. He has been the dictator in his life—and now he intends to become the dictator in your life.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
You have seen him, and you have seen him recently. He is Bill Cosby. He is O.J. Simpson. He is Bernie Madoff. In nearly every individual thing Trump says to you he is lying, distorting, rationalizing, contorting, blaming, and self-martyring. But in one sense he is the most truthful candidate we have ever had. The awful, dishonest, egomaniacal, dangerous, hateful candidate he shows the world—that is really him.
He is not putting on an act. He is not hiding anything more than details. He is—every day—showing you his soul. The monster you see is the monster you will get—only this monster will now have the power to issue executive orders and pull that funny guy Jose you know who works at the restaurant or on that farm, out of his house and throw him into a detention camp, and if you protest, he'll have the power to throw you in the detention camp alongside Jose.
Elect him and you will spend the rest of your lives trying to un-do your vote. You already know this man promised to honor the outcome of this election if he loses—and then said he was backing out of that promise. You have already heard him spend hours explaining that if he loses it will not be because he and you have been rejected—it will be because he and you have been defrauded.
What makes you think he believes in the things about this country that you love? That you have believed in and depended on and taken for granted since you were a kid? What makes you think he would not say, in his inaugural address, "the people have spoken—so there is no need for any more elections"? Why on earth would you think that having gotten you to give him your vote, your money, and your freedom—that he would ever again bother to ask you what you want? Why would he listen to you? Why would he do anything for you? Who would make him?
If you want to vote for him because nobody pushes him around—what are you going to do when he does something you don't like? What makes you think that if you dare to raise a complaint, that he would not treat you as he has treated those who during the campaign have opposed him or criticized him or merely pointed out what he has said?
You cheer now when the reporters at his rallies are booed and threatened; you high-five when somebody sucker-punches a protestor. How do you think President Trump will treat you if you feel like he's broken his promise to you? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not jump when he says jump? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not applaud when he says applaud? He has already shown you how.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
You know that this is the kind of man which oppressed people around the world have spent their lives trying to escape from, and have lost their lives staging revolutions against. Elect him and you are signing the death warrant to your own freedoms. But even if you think he's going to lose but you must vote for him anyway—in protest—you will have still opened Pandora's Box. Because this might be the most skilled and dangerous con man ever to rise up to try to cheat us out of the democracy you and I cherish.
But he might not be. The next one may be far worse, and far more skilled. And whichever is the case, he certainly will not be the last of the con men. And when the first one finally soft-sells enough of your friends to gain that sacred office of the presidency, you—as much as I—will be at his mercy. If Trump merely "does well" while losing this election it will be open season for demagogues and fascists and white supremacists to try to take over this country. Your country. You have already seen it diagrammed for you. Donald Trump has shown his math. He has gotten this far—gotten to within two weeks of the presidency—based on summoning hate and fear and directing it towards a group—Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Liberals, Reporters. It doesn't matter which group and nothing guarantees that the next time, it won't be your group.
You know this man. You have always known this man.
And among all the things you know about this man—out of all that has gone on since Trump started it in June of last year—one statement he made should jump out and grab you by the throat. And it should ask you, very softly but very firmly, why would you ever, ever, consider turning over this country to this man—why would you ever, ever, consider encouraging his type just by giving him your vote.
When the woman on the plane 35 years ago, Jessica Leeds, accused him of groping her, he tried to defend himself, not by getting a believable witness, not by proving he wasn't on the flight, not by the way you would defend yourself against such a charge if it were not true and your whole life was at risk because somebody had slandered you. No. Trump said you should know he didn't do it because, "believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you."
"She would not be my first choice."
So, ask yourself one question before you vote for this man. Who would be his first choice? Your daughter?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Sorry, but we don't want to understand.
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"Ryan, despite the mythology that surrounds his charmed career, is bad at politics. He is bad at math. His ideas are bad. And people hate those ideas."
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Trump’s greatest service to America may be ending Paul Ryan’s career
Despite the mythology that surrounds him, Paul Ryan is bad at politics.
By Ian Millhiser, October 24, 2016
Paul Ryan, Scourge of the Elderly, Uniter of the Republican Clans, Wielder of the Magic Asterisk, Philosopher Prince, Student Who Failed Arithmetic, was supposed to be the GOP’s conquering hero. He is the architect of the Republican Budget, a general so beloved he persuaded 235 elected lawmakers to fall in line — marching together behind legislation that would phase out Medicare.
Though Ryan was, ostensibly, second fiddle to Mitt Romney, the GOP’s most influential minds spoke of the blue-eyed congressman as the One True King. According to Republican Überlobbyist Grover Norquist, the country needs only to “pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” because that president’s one job would be signing “legislation that has already been prepared” — Paul Ryan’s legislation.
Ryan was the agenda setter. The mastermind. The man with the plan to unravel the New Deal and nuke the Great Society from orbit.
And then, the GOP’s rank-and-file got other ideas:
There are, of course, many factors that contributed to Ryan’s collapse. His gutless response to Trump’s racism and sexism is certainly one of them. Ryan, who continues to endorse Trump even as he refuses to be seen with his party’s standard bearer, is the Aaron Burr of the 2016 election. He waited to see which way the wind would blow. And he is now alone, at home neither with the Trump loyalists nor with the Never Trumpers.
Lest there be any doubt, there is also a far more deep-seated reason why Ryan is in free-fall. Ryan, despite the mythology that surrounds his charmed career, is bad at politics. He is bad at math. His ideas are bad. And people hate those ideas.
Paul Ryan misunderstood the fundamental grievances that glue his party together. He allowed existing fissures to become chasms. And, in doing so, he paved the way for Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP.
An uneasy balance
Movement conservatism is a three-legged stool, propped up by skepticism of economic regulation and welfare, an aggressive foreign policy, and cultural conservatism. For most of the last several decades, this package of ideas enabled the GOP to form a coalition of groups with seemingly disparate interests. Wealthy businessmen and women gravitate towards the party’s economic libertarianism and its passion for upper-income tax cuts. Hawks admire the belligerent interventionism that defined the second Bush administration.
Meanwhile, cultural conservatism appealed to a wide range of voters who, at least on the surface, had little to gain from the GOP’s economic agenda. Religious conservatives saw the Republican Party as a vehicle to preserve Christianity’s primacy and to transform their discomfort with homosexuality into policy. Other voters, with a more inchoate sense that America is changing and that they no longer feel quite at home in their own country, also took comfort in the GOP’s appeals to tradition. And yes, some of these voters are driven largely by racism.
For decades, this Republican coalition proved remarkably stable, but trade-offs were always necessary to hold it together. George W. Bush provided lavish tax cuts to the wealthy, but he also expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs for seniors — a decision that did not sit well with the party’s libertarian faction. Bush pandered to religious conservatives with his proposed amendment banning same-sex marriages, but he also angered his party’s nativist faction by supporting an immigration bill similar to the reforms now supported by President Obama.
Bush understood something that Paul Ryan does not. There are lines that some members of the Republican coalition will not cross, even as other factions would gleefully barrel over them. Bush also understood that a single-minded focus on the interests of one faction will eventually turn off the others.
The deserving and the undeserving
“Every two weeks, I’d get a small paycheck and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted by my wages,” conservative author J.D. Vance writes in his runaway bestseller Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. “At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else.”
It’s a common complaint, familiar to anyone who remembers Ronald Reagan’s scare stories about “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs and living large at the taxpayers’ expense. As Herbert Spencer, a seminal figure in the development of modern-day economic libertarianism, wrote in 1897, charity must be tailored to restrict “that given to the unworthy.” For as long as there has been largesse, people have resented those who supposedly take advantage of such largesse.
Yet, while resentment of welfare recipients deemed unworthy runs deep in the white enclaves that house Donald Trump’s base, that does not mean that culturally conservative voters oppose all government spending. As Matt Yglesias explains, among white people “ethnocentrism correlates with stinginess” with respect to “programs targeted at the poor.” Thus, as a white voter slips deeper into racial resentments, they are more likely to oppose welfare programs that primarily benefit the least fortunate.
Just as significantly, however, “when it comes to programs targeted at the elderly, ethnocentrism correlates with generosity.”
Setting aside his failed effort to privatize Social Security, George W. Bush understood that the portion of the Republican base most likely to rally behind a candidate like Trump is also quite pleased with programs like Medicare. It explains why he signed Medicare Part D into law.
At some level, Mitt Romney’s campaign understood this political reality as well. Just watch this ad, where it accuses President Obama of cutting Medicare spending to pay for “a massive new government program that’s not for YOU.”
Indeed, while the last several decades of American politics have largely been a fight between movement conservatism and Rooseveltian liberalism, a different kind of politics — openly racist while simultaneously generous to voters in the in-group — was a major player in U.S. elections for many years. Southern racists ranging from “Pitckfork” Ben Tillman to Jimmy Byrnes to George Wallace promised a mixture of government largesse for white people and oppression for African-Americans. As civil rights leader Julian Bond once said of Wallace, “he confuses me because he’s a liberal on a great many questions, exception race.”
The spirit of George Wallace lives today in Donald Trump, whose explicit racism is paired with far less enthusiasm for tearing up the American safety net than many of Trump’s fellow Republicans. Paul Ryan, by contrast, hung his career on a proposal to repeal and replace Medicare with a voucher system that provides inferior benefits to seniors at a higher price. This proposal is wildly unpopular. Even self-identified Republicans prefer Medicare to Ryan’s vouchers by a 2 to 1 margin.
Indeed, Ryan’s full budget package, which also includes cuts to programs like Medicaid and Food Stamps that ethnocentric whites may be more inclined to support that his voucher program, is so unpopular that only a minority of Republican donors support it. Ryan’s base is limited to the wealthiest of these donors:
So let’s dispel with this fiction that Paul Ryan knows what he’s doing. Ryan rallied his party behind a wildly unpopular agenda. He did so at the very moment that the GOP’s white nationalist faction was on the rise. And his signature proposal is especially likely to pique that faction’s legitimate desire to protect its own economic safety net.
If the polls are correct, it now appears that Ryan has wound up with the smaller piece of the Republican pie. That’s not a happy position for him if he wants to remain speaker — or even if he wants to remain relevant as a thought leader within the GOP.
The GOP’s alliance between Wallace ethnocentrists and movement conservatives was never inevitable. And now it may be falling apart thanks to Ryan’s miscalculation.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Trump’s greatest service to America may be ending Paul Ryan’s career
Despite the mythology that surrounds him, Paul Ryan is bad at politics.
By Ian Millhiser, October 24, 2016
Paul Ryan, Scourge of the Elderly, Uniter of the Republican Clans, Wielder of the Magic Asterisk, Philosopher Prince, Student Who Failed Arithmetic, was supposed to be the GOP’s conquering hero. He is the architect of the Republican Budget, a general so beloved he persuaded 235 elected lawmakers to fall in line — marching together behind legislation that would phase out Medicare.
Though Ryan was, ostensibly, second fiddle to Mitt Romney, the GOP’s most influential minds spoke of the blue-eyed congressman as the One True King. According to Republican Überlobbyist Grover Norquist, the country needs only to “pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” because that president’s one job would be signing “legislation that has already been prepared” — Paul Ryan’s legislation.
Ryan was the agenda setter. The mastermind. The man with the plan to unravel the New Deal and nuke the Great Society from orbit.
And then, the GOP’s rank-and-file got other ideas:
Ali Vitali ✔ @alivitaliAccording to one recent poll, 58 percent of Republican primary voters view Ryan at least somewhat unfavorably. Though the Speaker has an almost mystic ability to seduce GOP elites and inside-the-beltway reporters with those dreamy blue eyes, he has lost the confidence of his party’s voters.
Bloomberg poll of GOP voters on whose view matches your view of what the GOP should stand for?
Trump 51%
Ryan 33%
7:56 AM - 20 Oct 2016 · Westerville, OH, United States
There are, of course, many factors that contributed to Ryan’s collapse. His gutless response to Trump’s racism and sexism is certainly one of them. Ryan, who continues to endorse Trump even as he refuses to be seen with his party’s standard bearer, is the Aaron Burr of the 2016 election. He waited to see which way the wind would blow. And he is now alone, at home neither with the Trump loyalists nor with the Never Trumpers.
Lest there be any doubt, there is also a far more deep-seated reason why Ryan is in free-fall. Ryan, despite the mythology that surrounds his charmed career, is bad at politics. He is bad at math. His ideas are bad. And people hate those ideas.
Paul Ryan misunderstood the fundamental grievances that glue his party together. He allowed existing fissures to become chasms. And, in doing so, he paved the way for Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP.
An uneasy balance
Movement conservatism is a three-legged stool, propped up by skepticism of economic regulation and welfare, an aggressive foreign policy, and cultural conservatism. For most of the last several decades, this package of ideas enabled the GOP to form a coalition of groups with seemingly disparate interests. Wealthy businessmen and women gravitate towards the party’s economic libertarianism and its passion for upper-income tax cuts. Hawks admire the belligerent interventionism that defined the second Bush administration.
Meanwhile, cultural conservatism appealed to a wide range of voters who, at least on the surface, had little to gain from the GOP’s economic agenda. Religious conservatives saw the Republican Party as a vehicle to preserve Christianity’s primacy and to transform their discomfort with homosexuality into policy. Other voters, with a more inchoate sense that America is changing and that they no longer feel quite at home in their own country, also took comfort in the GOP’s appeals to tradition. And yes, some of these voters are driven largely by racism.
For decades, this Republican coalition proved remarkably stable, but trade-offs were always necessary to hold it together. George W. Bush provided lavish tax cuts to the wealthy, but he also expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs for seniors — a decision that did not sit well with the party’s libertarian faction. Bush pandered to religious conservatives with his proposed amendment banning same-sex marriages, but he also angered his party’s nativist faction by supporting an immigration bill similar to the reforms now supported by President Obama.
Bush understood something that Paul Ryan does not. There are lines that some members of the Republican coalition will not cross, even as other factions would gleefully barrel over them. Bush also understood that a single-minded focus on the interests of one faction will eventually turn off the others.
The deserving and the undeserving
“Every two weeks, I’d get a small paycheck and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted by my wages,” conservative author J.D. Vance writes in his runaway bestseller Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. “At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else.”
It’s a common complaint, familiar to anyone who remembers Ronald Reagan’s scare stories about “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs and living large at the taxpayers’ expense. As Herbert Spencer, a seminal figure in the development of modern-day economic libertarianism, wrote in 1897, charity must be tailored to restrict “that given to the unworthy.” For as long as there has been largesse, people have resented those who supposedly take advantage of such largesse.
Yet, while resentment of welfare recipients deemed unworthy runs deep in the white enclaves that house Donald Trump’s base, that does not mean that culturally conservative voters oppose all government spending. As Matt Yglesias explains, among white people “ethnocentrism correlates with stinginess” with respect to “programs targeted at the poor.” Thus, as a white voter slips deeper into racial resentments, they are more likely to oppose welfare programs that primarily benefit the least fortunate.
Just as significantly, however, “when it comes to programs targeted at the elderly, ethnocentrism correlates with generosity.”
Setting aside his failed effort to privatize Social Security, George W. Bush understood that the portion of the Republican base most likely to rally behind a candidate like Trump is also quite pleased with programs like Medicare. It explains why he signed Medicare Part D into law.
At some level, Mitt Romney’s campaign understood this political reality as well. Just watch this ad, where it accuses President Obama of cutting Medicare spending to pay for “a massive new government program that’s not for YOU.”
Indeed, while the last several decades of American politics have largely been a fight between movement conservatism and Rooseveltian liberalism, a different kind of politics — openly racist while simultaneously generous to voters in the in-group — was a major player in U.S. elections for many years. Southern racists ranging from “Pitckfork” Ben Tillman to Jimmy Byrnes to George Wallace promised a mixture of government largesse for white people and oppression for African-Americans. As civil rights leader Julian Bond once said of Wallace, “he confuses me because he’s a liberal on a great many questions, exception race.”
The spirit of George Wallace lives today in Donald Trump, whose explicit racism is paired with far less enthusiasm for tearing up the American safety net than many of Trump’s fellow Republicans. Paul Ryan, by contrast, hung his career on a proposal to repeal and replace Medicare with a voucher system that provides inferior benefits to seniors at a higher price. This proposal is wildly unpopular. Even self-identified Republicans prefer Medicare to Ryan’s vouchers by a 2 to 1 margin.
Indeed, Ryan’s full budget package, which also includes cuts to programs like Medicaid and Food Stamps that ethnocentric whites may be more inclined to support that his voucher program, is so unpopular that only a minority of Republican donors support it. Ryan’s base is limited to the wealthiest of these donors:
So let’s dispel with this fiction that Paul Ryan knows what he’s doing. Ryan rallied his party behind a wildly unpopular agenda. He did so at the very moment that the GOP’s white nationalist faction was on the rise. And his signature proposal is especially likely to pique that faction’s legitimate desire to protect its own economic safety net.
If the polls are correct, it now appears that Ryan has wound up with the smaller piece of the Republican pie. That’s not a happy position for him if he wants to remain speaker — or even if he wants to remain relevant as a thought leader within the GOP.
The GOP’s alliance between Wallace ethnocentrists and movement conservatives was never inevitable. And now it may be falling apart thanks to Ryan’s miscalculation.
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