Since the Summer I have watched Donald Trump rise in the ranks as a “viable” GOP candidate…..many have found this sort of an enigma because he was written off by many pundits as nothing more than a “joke-ster”…….boy did they blow that analysis!
But if these same pundits had been on the street talking with people or even listening to them they would have quickly realized that the American people, from both sides of the spectrum, are fed up with the antics and the games being played by our elected representatives…
After much has been written about the phenom that is Trump….most still struggle with an adequate reason why he is doing so well in the polls as well as in the voting…..
While the US pundits struggle some of the rest of the world has been more accurate in their analyses on the Trump phenom…..maybe because they do not work under the same news filter as the American MSM…..
I have found some really excellent op-eds on this situation in an unlikely place…..AJE…..
………when I was in the United States, I asked a number of senior Republican Party figures about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidential nomination. All laughed out loud. It simply won’t happen, they told me. The Republican Party machine would take care of him.
I doubt if they are laughing now. On “Super Tuesday” this week Trump won seven out of eleven states. The likelihood of Trump challenging for the White House seems less of a joke by the week.
Source: Politics of disillusionment and the rise of Trump – Al Jazeera English
While I was researching this situation I ran across another op-ed that helps explain this turn of events….
Many American pundits try to explain it a way with all sorts of lame and purely speculative answers……but the truth is much simpler and not as biased as the MSM here in this country….
These same toads are also amazed at the rise of the Dems candidate Bernie Sanders and they have struggled with his successes also…..but that also can explain what these people keep missing…..what chaps their butts is that even without the proper reporting by the MSM Bernie keeps winning….that part I like!
Source: US elections: It’s the system, stupid – Al Jazeera English
I think it is an accurate analysis….disillusionment is the one cause that many have been overlooking for the past 6 months…..the problem is that feeling by the American voter could be disastrous for the country in the long run…..
Trying to create a buzz for the media some of Trump detractors are claiming that he will soon peak and they are throwing money at their prediction…..
Ted Cruz’s relatively strong performance in Saturday’s GOP contests has raised a host of questions about the Republican race going forward, much of them centering on Donald Trump. Some highlights:
- The New York Times details how anti-Trump groups are pouring millions into TV ads in key states amid “nascent signs that he may be peaking with voters.”
- NBC News lays out why Trump’s lead of 87 delegates is weaker than it appears.
- A post at Hot Air explains that a closer look at Saturday’s results shows that Trump didn’t under-perform at all; the key is that Cruz surged largely at the expense of Marco Rubio.
- One thing for sure: Trump is scrambling an Electoral College map that has been stable over the past four presidential elections. Politico digs in.
- On a similar note, the AP says that if Trump is the nominee, his path to a general election win “would be a GOP map unlike any in recent years.” Think working class, white voters in traditionally blue states.
- Cruz says multiple media outlets have told him they’ve got big exposés ready on Trump, but don’t plan to run them until June or July, reports Talking Points Memo.
- In the arena of Trump rivals, a Cruz super PAC is going after Rubio aggressively in the senator’s home state of Florida, hoping to secure a potentially campaign-crippling defeat, reports Politico.
Why not? The media create the Clinton front runner status….why not try to make Trump a loser and spend, spend, spend on the candidacy of Ted Cruz?
Personally, I think Trump can weather the barrage from the opponents….but if the media joins the pile on then he may have a hard uphill battle….but then it all depends on how gullible the American voter chooses to be.
As painful as it is for me to admit, I also was wrong about Trump. It’s not so much that I thought he was a joke who’d get nowhere. I knew he was a joke who’d get somewhere…just not THIS far THIS time.
1) Because I thought he had no interest in actually being President. This is the reason why I had a Trump Exemption from my (kept!) pledge of “No 2016 until 2016!” I wanted to mock him and figured 2016 in 2015 was my only chance (Lesson learned about paying ANY attention to joke candidates for shits & giggles.)
I thought it was just his attempt to generate publicity for the “Trump Brand”. I still think it was. But at some point, he discovered the demand for his product was so strong, he started taking it seriously. My estimation of the decline of American society was…vastly underestimated. (Woe be unto us all!)
2) I mistakenly thought the Republican establishment was still capable of something…anything…and that the inmates hadn’t completely taken over the asylum…yet. (I thought 2020 would be the year.)
It’s not just that they’re incapable of stopping an assclown like Trump. Trump is actually succeeding in a race where the “anti-establishment” vote was split. The overwhelming majority of Republican voters either want Trump….or another anti-establishment nutter, Teabagger Ted Cruz!!! Cruz is a fucking nutter “fringe” candidate in his own right. He’s one of the most hated Republicans in Washington, yet the guy is the clear #2 favourite to Trump. Now toss in Black Droopy Dog, a zombified Negro getting 10% of Republicans to vote for him instead of over a dozen establishment offerings. This is BEYOND pathetic.
The Republican establishment is so fucking limp, they can’t even crack the Top 4 in their own party’s Primaries. People say Ricky Ricardo Jr is the Establishment’s “last best hope…for survival” (intentional Babylon 5 reference) but he’s a fucking rookie who was only testing the water for next time….Better luck swimming back to Cuba Ricky, because you can’t even win in Florida!!! Of all the establishment candidates that were there, only K-suck is left. And he’s really only still there because he might squeak a victory out of Delegate-rich, Winner-take-all Ohio…the state where he’s the damn 2 term Governor! And even that’s not a given the way it should be.
And the worst part of all is that I now give Trump a 50% chance at beating (Super-Delegate coroneted) Hillary. Six months ago, I wouldn’t have given ANY Republican a better chance than 45%. Not even Raygun’s re-animated corpse.
Ya see….it was more interesting than we all thought it would be….the GOP seems to be trying to scuttle the Trump candidacy…..that is getting interesting in itself….
I lost a long, rambling, history lesson on Canadian political conventions (especially 1968’s which might bear a strong resemblance to the 2016 Republican one) to cyberspace….So this will have to do…unless the NSA wants to post the copy of it they made!
You Americans haven’t had a “delegated convention” (a convention where the delegates actually determine shit) since the 1968 Democrat Convention…which was a lot of fun I hear. Instead, you now have candidate “infomercials” which are completely meaningless and (minus a speech or two) utterly unwatchable.
In Canada, (up until recently) ALL our conventions were decided on the convention floor. It’s political theatre at it’s BEST! Candidates covered in flop-sweat giving speeches desperately trying to convince Delegates to vote for them. Strong-arming of candidates right out in the open. Policy battles. Shady backroom deals. Bribery. The odd fist-fight over ballots. You name it! Everything short of gunplay has happened at Canadian Conventions. A Delegated Convention is hardcore porn for political sluts!
I can only hope the Republican Convention becomes a Delegated Convention. You will LOVE it!
Actually the 1964 GOP convention was a more interesting one….they nominated Goldwater and it was a bust….
Not that I was there at….The Cow Palace (I LOVE that arena’s name!)… but the 1964 Republican Convention was a mostly Delegated Convention. Most states didn’t have recognizable Primaries yet, which is kind of neat. However, Goldwater had the most declared Delegates and won that thing in a landslide on the 1st ballot. So, while few knew it for certain, the outcome was never actually up for grabs. Bitterness, but not much drama, or intrigue. The Republicans just collectively decided to go crazy that year. (Call it a “test drive” of a prototype model.)
The 1968 Democrat Convention had WAAAAY more action on the floor, outside the convention hall and even in the courtroom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Seven And the winner of the race wasn’t even on the ballot in any Primary. That’s one surprise, controversial, ending alright!!! (It was like The Sopranos, only with more sex, violence & criminal activity!)
But the 68 convention I was actually referring to because of possible similarities to a 2016 Republican convention was the 68 Liberal Party of Canuckistan Convention. The winner became PM immediately, so the stakes were as high as it got. The gloves were off! (And of course it was held in a hockey arena!)
Similarities:
1) The clear front-runner going in was a VERY charismatic upstart with a “huuuge” ego. Only a few years earlier, he was a member of another party. But he didn’t quite have enough Delegates to clinch it. His name was Tru….deau 😉
2) The party Establishment was absolutely DESPERATE to stop him. To them, he was an outsider who was “too flamboyant”, “too radical” and “a complete asshole with no respect for the way politics is done”. This convention was meant to be the establishment’s Alamo. Their fight to the death. And it was!
The Highlights:
– The opening speech was given by future well known Holocaust denier, Ernst Zundel.
– Controversy over “hanging chads” on punch card ballots.
– There were dozens of secret deals, back-stabbings, mysterious candidate dropouts & mysterious refusals to drop out. Few moves made obvious sense.
– It lasted a tense, exhausting, 4 ballots. It ran so long, it even delayed the Saturday Night Hockey broadcast. (Gasp!) The winner was so drained, all he could say was “It’s over. You can all go watch the game now.”
My favourite part was when the Establishment’s leading hope (Paul “Hellya” Hellyer) gave “the worst speech of my life”. He lost dozens of Delegates overnight and, after the 2nd ballot, found himself in a tie for 2nd. There was a huddle in the arena seats with his chain-smoking advisors. One of them, (a woman of all things!) Judy LaMarsh was SO desperate to stop Trudeau, on the verge of tears, she berated her candidate until he was left almost speechless.
“Paul, you’ve got to go to [Robert] Winters. Don’t let that bastard win it, Paul – he isn’t even a Liberal.”
Now, the official version of the quote overlooks numerous f-bombs. There were also several accusations of “faggotry” in that huddle. Oh, and did I mention they were on live TV with over half the nation watching, including anyone in the convention arena with access to a TV? Unfortunately, Canadian History matters so little in modern Canada, I couldn’t find the clip despite days of trying. But I saw it once 20 years ago and it was unforgettable!
But Hellyer didn’t listen to LaMarsh. Just like all the other anti-Trudeau candidates, he stayed in thinking he could win until it was too late. He dropped further behind and kept the Anti-Tru…deau split vote 4 ways. They had the votes to stop him, but they couldn’t get their act together.
How it ended:
Mysteriously, the last place anti-Trudeau candidate with absolutely NO chance stayed in on the final ballot, thus handing Trudeau the victory. Coincidentally, that candidate succeeded Trudeau as PM when he finally retired.
The forgotten story is that the establishment got murdered… worse than the folks at the Alamo. Not ONE establishment candidate, or operative, lived on. The “egotistical outsider” cleaned house and installed his own establishment that would dominate the party for several decades.
Perhaps the Republican establishment will learn something from Canadian history (HAHAHA!)
The GOP learns nothing from history….they will re-write it….chuq
I find it amazing that the American People are still letting themselves be led by the nose by Main Stream Media.
It is easy to believe…..stupid does as stupid is…..