(04-04-2016 08:36 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote: I think all Trump needs to do is win either one of these. If he wins both, he probably gets to 1237, which would be ideal. But even if wins just one of the two he'll be close enough that he'll be the nominee.
(04-04-2016 08:58 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:(04-04-2016 08:36 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote: I think all Trump needs to do is win either one of these. If he wins both, he probably gets to 1237, which would be ideal. But even if wins just one of the two he'll be close enough that he'll be the nominee.
I read an article today about how Ted Cruz is quietly recruiting delegates and amassing a strong ground game. As a result, many of Trump's Arizona delegates will go to Cruz. I definitely need to do more research as to how the overall convention process works but what should I make of Cruz trying to snipe Trump's delegates?
(04-04-2016 08:58 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:(04-04-2016 08:36 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote: I think all Trump needs to do is win either one of these. If he wins both, he probably gets to 1237, which would be ideal. But even if wins just one of the two he'll be close enough that he'll be the nominee.
I read an article today about how Ted Cruz is quietly recruiting delegates and amassing a strong ground game. As a result, many of Trump's Arizona delegates will go to Cruz. I definitely need to do more research as to how the overall convention process works but what should I make of Cruz trying to snipe Trump's delegates?
(04-04-2016 02:03 PM)Nemausus Wrote: I don't think this has been posted yet.
Trump has posted a video called "Trump Effect" to his Facebook page and a teaser on his Instagram.
It's basically a movie trailer for his campaign and presidency.
HIGH ENERGY TRAILER STARTS NOW
(04-04-2016 09:09 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:(04-04-2016 08:58 PM)MiscBrah Wrote:(04-04-2016 08:36 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote: I think all Trump needs to do is win either one of these. If he wins both, he probably gets to 1237, which would be ideal. But even if wins just one of the two he'll be close enough that he'll be the nominee.
I read an article today about how Ted Cruz is quietly recruiting delegates and amassing a strong ground game. As a result, many of Trump's Arizona delegates will go to Cruz. I definitely need to do more research as to how the overall convention process works but what should I make of Cruz trying to snipe Trump's delegates?
The key thing to understand is that the identity of the delegates does not matter for the first ballot in a convention (because they are bound) but it matters a lot for the later ballots (second and so on) because the delegates then become unbound and can vote for anyone.
Cruz is not exactly "stealing" Trump's delegates, because there isn't exactly such a thing as "Trump's delegates". The delegates from each state for the RNC are chosen in state delegate conventions. What Cruz has been doing with his superior organization and ground game is filling the delegate slates with people that are loyal or at least favorable to him.
None of this changes the number of bound delegates from each state, which is what the primaries are about. All of these remain the same. If Trump wins 1237 bound delegates, he is still the nominee. If he gets very close to that number, he will also very likely be the nominee.
Where the actual sympathies of the delegates come into play is if there is a contested convention that goes to a second ballot (or more). At that point, the delegates are no longer bound, ie they can vote for whomever they want. And the implication of what Cruz is doing is that many -- perhaps most -- of the delegates who were bound to Trump on the first ballot will turn around and vote for Cruz (or others) on the second and later ballots.
What this means is that Trump has little margin for error. If the convention is truly contested, and he doesn't win it on the first ballot, he won't be the nominee. He really needs to get close enough to 1237 to prevent the convention from being contested at all. If the convention is not contested then the identity of the delegates doesn't matter.
Quote:If the GOP does not pull some stunt at the convention, replacing Trump with Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan or any other mainstream conservative, I will vote for Trump in the general election.
[...]
If Trump were not running for president, I would not be voting. I will not vote for any other office in either the Indiana primary on May 3 or in the general election. I consider voting to be an inherently violent and immoral act.
So why am I voting now, and why for Trump?
Trump and the alt-right
[...]
In any case, "libertarian" was a term of convenience, which to my more D-party-leaning friends — and I suspect to all such types, friends or not — meant that I wasn't some culture warrior on abortion but I had right-wing beliefs to some extent.
[...]
Trump and the alt-right have much in common: right-wing anti-globalism, nationalist populism, border controls, trade policy that works in the interest of the domestic working class and not against it, taxation of the obscenely wealthy, and, yes, a rather confrontational attitude about it all. Notably, the alt-right and Trump both seem to understand that culture war issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and so on are counterproductive. They exist for the conservative establishment to use as pander material to fire up the base. Safe, easily digestible solids. Never mind that these are issues that will never go anywhere and alienate vast numbers of otherwise sympathetic voters — the slim slice of the electorate with whom you can gain a few percentage points if you speak in tongues think they're swell.
My two reasons for supporting Trump
There are fundamentally two different reasons why I want to vote for Trump.
[...]
As I see it, the two most obvious causes of wage stagnation, particularly at the lower ends of income, are outsourcing and flooding the market with labor. In this case, labor that by virtue of being illegal circumvents minimum wage laws and virtually all worker protection laws. Not to mention the absurdity of essentially placing American workers in a position of having to live eight to a shipping container and only being able to afford fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if they "want to compete on a global level."
The only thought-terminating cliché more infuriating than "doing the jobs Americans won't" is "that's not who we are." Anytime you hear a politician say immigrants are "doing the jobs Americans won't," replace it in your mind with the truth: "doing the jobs we don't want to pay Americans a living wage to do."
By no means is this limited to the unskilled and semi-skilled labor markets. The H-1B visa program is nothing more than a massive loophole big business exploits to import cheap labor — little more than modern indentured servants — to replace more expensive domestic skilled labor. This election cycle has been very bizarre, and one of the most bizarre elements in it is seeing the left — which still deludes itself that it is on the side of working families — argue on the same side as big business on the issue of cheap labor.
[...]
The larger answer to the question of why I'm voting for Trump, one that has nothing to do with policy at all, is that of Trump as a weapon. I am more motivated to vote for him as punishment against the GOP establishment than anything else. It is my sincere wish that he destroys the party. Earlier in the primary, when it wasn't clear he was going to win, if all he accomplished was mortally wounding the GOP, he would have done his job. He is well beyond that now, and he has a chance at drastically altering the political landscape.
Aside from his appeal to Rust Belt states on issues of labor, which the GOP has largely ignored in the past in favor of much safer culture war issues, Trump has a realistic shot of breaking the left's stranglehold on the black vote. Black voters are starting to see that they are hurt more than any other demographic group by outsourcing and illegal immigration, and that the left is in the active process of displacing them as a voting bloc and replacing them with the post-1965 immigrant vote.
[...]
The GOP needs to be destroyed, because it is currently the party of no one. What I mean by this is that it is not representative of its alleged constituents, and instead it represents its own donor class and only its own donor class. Look at the outrage directed not only at Trump but at the dumb, cruel, entitled, tunnel-vision people who vote for him by the donor mouthpieces like the National Review and the Weekly Standard. It is largely a party of convenience in opposition to the Democrats.
If it is conservative, what has it conserved? I am not asking rhetorically. Has the GOP done anything significant that its constituents have actually wanted (and not simply told by the donor class that they should want) since, and including, the Eisenhower administration? People can only be ignored for so long, and the party elites can only live in their little bubbles for so long before a candidate like Trump emerges.
It is this very fact that proves it can't be reformed and must be destroyed — it is a party that steadfastly refuses to even listen to its own members, and there is simply too much money at the top to fight effectively. The only two hills the GOP is willing to die on are the following: tax cuts for the rich and unending wars in the Middle East, mostly to our own detriment.
The party wins elections pandering to culture war issues that mostly aren't even executive branch issues at all. If a candidate like Trump never came along, at some point that would have run out (and, after the Romney disaster, arguably already had), and the party would be a permanent minority party.
I like that Trump is confrontational. His success depends on it, I would say.
If anything, Trump is not a clown; he's the most serious candidate, Democrat or Republican, in decades. He is talking about actual issues that are on everyday people's minds. Whether or not over the span of several administrations an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine works out perfectly to deliver a Supreme Court capable of overturning Roe v. Wade is not something on normal people's minds when they vote. Things like an actual border and border enforcement, a meaningful definition of "citizen," and not seeing their jobs go overseas are.
Trump tapped into the dead obvious, but it took a certain amount of courage to do so, as these issues are taboo, and the heat he is getting for it on all sides demonstrates that. Any other candidate would crumble, meekly apologize, and slink off into the night, never to be seen again. Trump got the other end of the equation right too: Never back down, never apologize.
As for what I would like to see in place of the GOP, I think framing things in terms of liberal/conservative is a system on its way out. The future, not just in America but effectively around the globe, will be defined by globalists and anti-globalists. The neocons can return home to the Democratic Party (being a mutant strain of Trotskyists that went "right wing"), and the few Democrats still under the delusion that they are members of a party that gives a damn about labor can join up with the anti-globalists. And that's the future of American partisan politics — an explicitly anti-globalist party versus a globalist party of transnational elites. I stress that the hegemon absolutely has the right to say it does not want to be the hegemon anymore.
Trump is running an anti-fragile — in the Nassim Nicholas Taleb sense of the term — campaign. This is something that neither the GOP nor the Democrats seem to understand. The more you attack him, the stronger he gets. The usual picayune nonsense that normally derails campaigns does not and will not work on Trump's.
Look at the events of Chicago. The professional left thought that political violence would surely bring down his campaign. What did Trump do? He did not apologize, and instead went on the offensive. And what was the result with his supporters? On March 15, he made anime real. He swept all states, including Illinois, save one where he lost to a popular sitting governor by a few points.
What it's like to be a Trump supporter on a university campus
So what is it like being a Trump supporter in academia? I should first stipulate that I don't treat politics like it's a team sport. I don't wear Make America Great Again hats, I don't have a Trump bumper sticker, I don't informally campaign for him in any way in casual conversation, and so on. There is nothing about me that would lead anyone to believe I am a Trump voter. I look and act like any other member of my cohort.
Media is a big field. There are people in my cohort who approach it as a social science, and those like me who approach it as a humanity. I don't pretend to know the other side of the coin as well as they do, but there is theory from that methodological perspective I find useful here.
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who may or may not have been affiliated with the actual Nazi Party (and, yes, given the casual nature with which "Nazi" is thrown at the Trump campaign, the qualifier "actual" is necessary here), developed what she eventually called the spiral of silence. In short, if you don't see or feel your beliefs or attitudes reflected anywhere, you will assume you are in the minority and keep quiet, and this will form a negative feedback loop. You may not actually be in the minority, but because everyone like you also keeps quiet, it's only reasonable you'd believe this.
I know where I am. That is to say I know I am on enemy soil. I know I am indeed the minority, and for those of us on the bottom of the spiral of silence, free speech has never been "free" in any practical sense of the term.
It is assumed that when you get to this level in the academy, you are a leftist. Right-of-center thought of any kind is casually laughed at, dismissed, and crudely represented. Let me be clear: If Trump never entered the race and Jeb Bush were the nominee, my colleagues in the academy would be calling Bush a heartless Nazi and saying that anyone who voted for him was a fool who didn't know better come the general election.
[...]
When people in academia find out I'm a Trump supporter, there are two general reactions: laughter combined with sincere disbelief, or a facial contortion that says their amygdalae are about to strain because they can't process that someone who isn't dragging his knuckles just said that. Most people are kind, though. They either earnestly try to understand or they simply let me be without needing to publicly fight with me about it (though I suspect their private thoughts are less kind).
These people know me, and know I'm not some sort of monster. I don't fit the caricature of a Trump voter, and so be it. They're also intelligent people, and that likely has something to do with it, as I get far more hostility from those outside academia than from those within.
With that said, I know I can't really speak my mind without facing consequences at some point, unlike those on the left, who can openly say things up to and including committing democide against perceived political and, increasingly, racial enemies with no consequences. Some friends of mine are even convinced that by writing this article, I may be damning myself to a future of unemployment.
Aside from potentially damning myself out of a job, I have not faced any demonstrable consequences for my support for Trump. I am convinced that these sorts of tough-guy moments from the opposition only happen on the internet. Sure, I might not get invited to all the parties, but that's hardly going to stop me.
All in all, I don't live in fear of something like what happened at Emory happening to me. I go to a big state school; I'm not lucky enough to experience such joys of elite private institutions. If all I have to put up with is people mentioning Trump and rolling their eyes, not knowing there is an enemy in the room while doing so, I can manage.
(04-04-2016 09:58 PM)Libertas Wrote: Wisconsin is going to be a good test of the general election, even though Florida was a better one and New York will also be a better one.
On the one hand you have a state that's sort of straddling the rust belt and has been hit hard with globalization. On the other you have a very united globalist establishment and a lot of controlled opposition in the cuckservative talk radio. Some of the bigwigs are there like Ryan and Walker. You're looking at a preview, even if an imperfect one, of the kind of opposition Trump will face in the general election.
Wisconsin however, aside from some Somali rapeyougee problems, is relatively unenriched.
(04-05-2016 02:19 AM)Patriarch Wrote:(04-04-2016 09:58 PM)Libertas Wrote: Wisconsin is going to be a good test of the general election, even though Florida was a better one and New York will also be a better one.
On the one hand you have a state that's sort of straddling the rust belt and has been hit hard with globalization. On the other you have a very united globalist establishment and a lot of controlled opposition in the cuckservative talk radio. Some of the bigwigs are there like Ryan and Walker. You're looking at a preview, even if an imperfect one, of the kind of opposition Trump will face in the general election.
Wisconsin however, aside from some Somali rapeyougee problems, is relatively unenriched.
What I'm most curious about is, will Wisconsin vote like Michigan and Illinois, or will it vote like Minnesota and Iowa?
It's sort of like a Missouri-esque state, in that Missouri sat on the border of Trump's and Cruz' strongholds of the Southeast and Midwest, and Wisconsin sits between the upper Midwest and the Rust Belt. I think it's going to be very close.
Quote:Cruz is not exactly "stealing" Trump's delegates, because there isn't exactly such a thing as "Trump's delegates". The delegates from each state for the RNC are chosen in state delegate conventions. What Cruz has been doing with his superior organization and ground game is filling the delegate slates with people that are loyal or at least favorable to him.
(04-05-2016 12:24 AM)cubanlinx Wrote: If the election were held today, Trump would lose in a landslide to both former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Beyond that, GOP insiders are afraid he'd take Republican control of Congress, a number of governorships and a goodly chunk of the state legislative chambers now led by the GOP with him.
(04-05-2016 12:24 AM)cubanlinx Wrote: As a class, the experts who are supposed to know how to handle things are baffled by how the election has gone thus far. They can't figure out why Trump has done so well, why Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has emerged as really the last man standing against him and why the candidates who were better representatives of the party as they understand it to be – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and even Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who remains in the race despite the mathematically impossibility of winning on the first ballot – didn't fare better.
(04-05-2016 08:44 PM)big poppa Wrote: What the hell goes through the heads of the morons who actually go out and cast a vote for Kasich?
"Oh please, our GOP overlords, please determine who will lead us.. Only you have such wisdom to choose our nominee!"
![[Image: 3328014-theoden+bespelled.jpg]](http://static4.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11111/111118417/3328014-theoden+bespelled.jpg)