Category Archives: Social Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Trump’s “Victory”

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I was thinking this last night as well. It’s not as strong as it looked:

We won’t know the exact numbers until Wednesday, but it looks as though Trump will, by some estimates, finish with somewhere in the neighborhood of 245 delegates. A week ago, that would have been a worst-case scenario for his Super Tuesday. It gets worse: Cruz won resounding victories in Texas and Oklahoma. He trails Trump in the delegate haul for the night by only about 60 delegates. And when you put together the not-Trump share, Rubio and Cruz (and Kasich) will top out around 320 delegates to Trump’s 245 (or so). He’s still falling way short of half the delegates.

There’s more evidence of Trump weakness if you look closely: Why did he lose Oklahoma? Because it’s the only state where the vote was restricted to actual Republicans. Which further bolsters the case that Trump is not leading a revolt from within the party, but staging a hostile takeover of it.

Yes. The RNC’s primary process is idiotic, in that it’s set up to allow non-Republicans select their nominee.

The single most shocking number from Super Tuesday might have been this poll showing voter awareness about various aspects of Trump: Only 27 percent had heard about his reluctance to denounce David Duke and the KKK; 20 percent about Trump University and the fraud lawsuit; 13 percent about the failure of Trump Mortgage.

At some point, those numbers will all be at 90 percent because someone will spend a lot of money putting ads about them all over television in battleground states. The only question is whether it will be conservatives or Hillary Clinton who expose voters to this information. Either way, it suggests that Trump still has the potential for downward mobility if conservative donors are serious about stopping him.

Of course, you can spend your life flyspecking trend lines. And Trump could continue to lose momentum over the next four weeks and still grind his way to the nomination. Winning is what matters.

But if you believe that stopping Trump matters too, then Super Tuesday offered evidence this goal is achievable.

We opened with Sly Stallone but we’ll close with Arnold and a great line Predator: “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” That’s true of Trumpism. Maybe Trump will be the nominee. That’s where you’d put your money if forced to bet on it. But it’s not a foregone conclusion. And if anything, Super Tuesday proved both Trump’s strength and his vulnerability.

Yes. It isn’t too late to stop him, but it would sure help if the non-Trumpers could coalesce. Kasich almost certainly gave Virginia to Trump.

[Late-morning update]

Aaaaand Carson is out. So, is Kasich cutting a deal with Trump, or staying in under the delusion that an Ohio win will somehow propel him to ultimate victory?

[Thursday-morning update]

The Trump tipping point. What strikes me about the Trump supporters is how utterly ideologically incoherent they are. Just like him. If you could go with either Trump or Sanders, you have no political principles, other than “the guy who will give me stuff I want.”

[Update Thursday afternoon]

Trump wants to make America great again. Like Denmark.

And the GOP establishment had it coming. No question about that.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Opposition To Trump

70 Comments

I’ve been saying for a while (at least on Twitter) that the problem with Trump isn’t that he will lose to Hillary, but that if he wins, he will be a truly terrible and completely unpredictable president. Lileks agrees, at length. The finale:

To vote for Trump is to validate; to vote for Trump is to participate. He is a crass, gutter-tongued, vulgar man whose self-regard blinds his ability to understand his own ignorance. A man who casually encourages the worst, enables the mediocre, and wafts aloft cartoon concepts of American greatness with gusts of flatulent banalities. It takes a certain kind of historical illiterate not to realize his facial postures are literally aping a second-rate Italian fascist.

Sorry for taking the long way; could have just linked and agreed. But the author’s points deserve interrogation. Short version: no. Long version: hell no. On the off chance history makes marks in a ledger: I will not support Trump if he is the nominee. I will not vote for him. The devil you know is still a devil, and worse yet: you don’t really know him at all.

I have no idea what Trump will do as president, on any issue at all, including immigration. If you think you know, you are deluding yourself.

Business, Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Flint Crisis

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It’s not just a water crisis. Like many cities, Flint is the culmination of decades of Democrat malgovernance. It’s a few days old, but Shikha Dalmia has been on the case:

…IMHO, if liberals were truly interested in helping Flint residents rather than simply sacrificing them to the altar of the God of Beneficent Government, they should approach private philanthropists for donations to buy out the houses of Flint’s residents and let them flee to better climes where jobs are more plentiful and the government less intrusive. (Houston, anyone?) Giving each Flint resident $10,000—or $40,000 to a family of four—will require about $4 billion, which is hardly beyond the means of the wealthy trinity of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg. And surely there are others whose help liberals will allow Flint victims to accept!

And what about the city of Flint? Indeed, if liberals were really as caring as they claim to be, they would shift their focus from saving geographical areas to saving living, breathing human beings.

But if they really, really want to do something about it, they should hand it to private developers to turn it into a giant landfill to bury liberal good intentions.

Reminder: they may be good intentions (though I think it’s more about power and corruption), but there is little “liberal” about this.

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Twitter’s War On The Right

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Ed Driscoll has a roundup of links. Ken White (no fan of Stacy’s) is enraged. And more from Allum Bokhari.

I find it outrageous that Twitter has put Anita Sarkeesian (among others) in charge of policing speech. I won’t be surprised if I get suspended at some point.

As I’ve been tweeting occasionally as Twitter seems to be determined to reinvent itself into irrelevance, they are opening up a market opportunity for a social medium that allows everyone short posts of 140 characters, shown in chronological order.

[Early afternoon update]

From the Harvard Business Review, why Twitter is losing users:

Abuse has become something like a systematized feature of life as we know it, in this age of discontent — and maybe that’s why it is an age of discontent. We expect to be mistreated by our bosses, ripped off by contracts we can’t read, swindled by fine print and hidden clauses, deceived by our politicians, and misrepresented by our representatives… and now, on the medium where we spend the majority of our waking lives, heckled and bullied by complete strangers.

In turn, we internalize the lessons of abuse, becoming little abusers ourselves. We expect to have to mistreat our customers, exploit our communities, bully our peers, cut corners, manipulate our colleagues, bail on our obligations, package the lowest common denominator at the highest possible price as a miracle-in-a-can… not just if we want to get ahead, but merely to anxiously tread water. And though it takes different forms, abuse is essentially what’s being piped through the tubes of the internet, or through the headquarters of VW, and into the water of Flint, Michigan.

The tech industry turns a blind eye to it. Courts excuse it. And abuse stops being the exception, and becomes the rule. We grow accustomed not just to the abuse itself, but to the fact that nothing’s going to be done about it. It’s treated as a customer service problem, or a PR crisis, not a core business issue.

Note that nowhere in this word salad is what constitutes “abuse” actually described. Which is what allows the Social Justice League to shut down dissent.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related: Rutgers students melt down after hearing a conservative speak.

Business, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Middle Finger Of God

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Some worthy thoughts on mendacious politicians, the Clintons (but I repeat myself), and Donald Trump:

I’ve talked enough about the virtue of politeness and persuasion in politics. But how about a little disdain for unrestrained political carelessness? Trump’s total lack of ideological or intellectual rigor and consistency is making fools of people who once claimed they cared about such things.

Trump’s schtick as a sprinkler system of insults is getting everyone dirty. He throws mud on anything and anyone in his way. But that muck washes off quite easily. What stains down to the soul is the eagerness to apologize for, or even celebrate, the filth. In his professional life, Trump has left a trail of wreckage. His own James McDougals are strewn about like victims after a tornado. And his defenders celebrate this as proof he’s a great businessman.

Now the F6 is heading for Washington. His fans remind me of the naïve fools in Independence Day who welcome the aliens with cheers and handmade signs on rooftops, incapable of fathoming that they will be greeted with a death ray. The analogy breaks down because the dupes on the roof didn’t pave the way for the invaders. Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters have been crucial in bringing the Middle Finger of God to our doorsteps.

It is an amazing phenomenon.