The voters’ mutiny
Trump is at it again:
A visibly agitated Donald Trump on Thursday delivered a rambling response to recent allegations of sexual harassment and assault made against him by several women. In a nearly hour-long speech, he attacked the credibility of the women making the accusations, and then veered off into descriptions of a massive global conspiracy against him and his presidential campaign.
At times, Trump’s angry rant carried more than a whiff of paranoia.
Fortunately, I was able to find video of Trump’s speech:
“The central base of world political power is right here in America, and it is our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people,” he claimed. “Their financial resources are virtually unlimited. Their political resources are unlimited. Their media resources are unmatched. And most importantly the depths of their immorality is absolutely unlimited.”
That’s a pretty big conspiracy, and who’s behind it?
Trump left no doubt as to who he believes is pulling the strings of this shadowy cabal: his Democratic challenger for the presidency and her husband, former president Bill Clinton.
“The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure,” he said. “We’ve seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of US sovereignty.”
So this vast conspiracy with “unlimited resources” was not able to stop another shadowy global conspiracy from one Wikileaks revelation after another. Nor was the all-powerful conspiracy able to stop a community organizer from Chicago from defeating it in the 2008 primaries.
“The Clintons are criminals, remember that, they’re criminals,” Trump said. “This is well documented and the establishment that protects them is engaged in a massive cover-up of widespread criminal activity at the State Department, at the Clinton Foundation in order to keep the Clintons in power…. Never in history have we seen such a cover-up as this.”
No never, as even Fox News can’t find it. Even worse, dozens of GOP Senators and Congressman are joining the conspiracy, probably bribed by the Clinton Foundation. Poor Donald doesn’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to compete with these people.
Take deep breath, Donald:
As it went on, Trump’s speech became increasingly apocalyptic in tone.
“This election will determine whether we’re a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system — and our system is rigged,” he said. “This is reality, you know it, I know it, they know it and pretty much the whole world knows it. The establishment and their media enablers wield control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed. They will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and your family.”
Even worse, those who pull all the strings (the Clintons), never have to face a long string of women who claim they’ve been abused, because they control everything.
He added, “[T]heir agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy. For them, it’s a war. And for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation, believe me, and this will be our last chance to save it.”
Wait, I thought the Civil War was the last chance. We have another last chance?
“These vicious claims about me, of inappropriate conduct with women, are totally and absolutely false,” he said. “And the Clintons know it and they know it very well.
And how would the Clinton’s know that . . . unless they put these women up to it?
The Republican nominee also spent considerable time casting himself in the role of willing martyr for his supporters. Suggesting that negative news stories about him are all false, he said they were, nevertheless, “hurtful.”
So the guy who mocked all the other GOP candidates, and their wives and dads, is suddenly a softie, worried about “hurtful” feelings. Maybe we can shut down the 1st amendment after Trump gets his new libel laws passed and make the White House a “safe space” for him and that piece of . . . er, and his children.
“I never knew that it would be this vile, that it would be this bad, that it would be this vicious,” he said. “Nevertheless, I take all of these slings and arrows gladly for you. I take them for our movement so that we can have our country back.”
Now I feel a certain affinity for the Donald. Like him, I accept thousands of slings and arrows from alt-rightists and Austrians in my comment section, in my lonely and brave fight for NGDP targeting. (I like that “slings and arrows” metaphor, is that from an old Dylan song? “How does it feel to accept the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or something like that.)
HT: Scott Freelander, who is an important cog in this vast global conspiracy.
PS. Recall Hillary and her vast right-wing conspiracy? Here’s how politics work in a two-party system. Two vast conspiracies form (with animal mascots), and they fight it out, in search of power. Apparently Trump didn’t even know that fact before entering the race. What a naif!
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14. October 2016 at 12:44
“I like that “slings and arrows” metaphor, is that from an old Dylan song?”
-Billy Shakespeare, Hamlet
Trump is losing by four points. It seems a tough road for him to the presidency. I don’t know if he’ll make it, but it looks increasingly likely that Clinton will win. He won the second debate, but that’s because Clinton put on a weak performance. He really should have won the first debate, as that was the most important.
14. October 2016 at 12:51
Umm he is down by a minimum of 6 points and loosing in every swing state save maybe Iowa. He has a tiny chance of winning which is why he is pivoting to conspiracy theories wild even on a Trumpian sense and already setting the stage for how he was cheated.
It is looking more likely that he looses even Utah than he wins this thing. Even he knows it.
14. October 2016 at 12:57
“Umm he is down by a minimum of 6 points”
1. It’s easier for Trump to win the electoral college than it is for him to win the popular vote. It’s certainly possible Trump is down by 6 points. 8? Nope.
2. A lot of those polls are, as Andrew Gelman demonstrated, a result of sampling bias (see his paper on the Mythical Swing Voter.
I think Trump will win Ohio. New Hampshire? Who knows? It’s very White and the Dems have a lot of room to fall, just like in Iowa.
14. October 2016 at 12:58
The states I’m increasingly worried about are Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, and Florida.
14. October 2016 at 13:04
It used to be silly and paranoid to compare Trump to Hitler. He wasn’t really like that. But now that he’s toast and he knows it he is going full demagogue retard.
Look at the quotes Sumner posted above and replace ‘Clintons’ with ‘Jews’ and tell me you don’t hear someone yelling in German to adoring throngs.
14. October 2016 at 13:08
A state by state look makes this look even harder for trump. If he looses PA, VA, CO, WI, NH…. It’s over. Even if he pulls off the unlikely and wins OH, NC, FL, NV and IA, he still looses.
He has to sweep OH, FL, NC, IA, NH or OH, FL, NC, CO, and IA.
Highly unlikely. This thing is over.
14. October 2016 at 13:12
“Facts don’t care about your feelings” – Ben Shapiro
14. October 2016 at 13:17
Actually I misadded. My first parlay of OH, FL, NC, IA, and NH wouldn’t even seal the deal for trump. Point is he has to run the table on a lot of states he is down in to win. Highly unlikely. He knows it, that’s why he is already making excuses for why he didn’t win.
14. October 2016 at 13:20
If Trump is a cokehead as some have asserted, his paranoia and delusions would fit the bill. Remember all the things he claimed he saw in the Iran video that never happened?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/05/9-things-donald-trump-invented-in-just-300-spoken-words-about-that-fictional-u-s-iran-cash-video/
14. October 2016 at 13:58
Weekend Reading: Janet!
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/10/weekend-reading-janet.html
14. October 2016 at 13:58
““I like that “slings and arrows” metaphor, is that from an old Dylan song?”
-Billy Shakespeare, Hamlet”
Wow, good thing we have a Shakespeare scholar in the house. I could have sworn it was a Bob Dylan line myself!
14. October 2016 at 14:14
According to who? Drudge’s online poll? Breitbarts? The most credible thing you could say is he did pretty well with Lunz’s focus group, and he impressed the media pundits (even the #NeverTrump crowd mostly said he was the narrow winner from what I could tell). But CNN’s poll about the debate and the few other credible polls out there mostly said he lost.
http://lastmenandovermen.com/beltway-media-really-bad-telling-won-debates/
That and 538 still had Clinton climbing in her chances to win days later (I assume due to new polls which included polling after the 2nd debate)
14. October 2016 at 14:40
“But CNN’s poll about the debate”
-Which had more pre-debate Clinton supporters than people who said Clinton won the debate.
“and the few other credible polls out there”
-Which ones?
“mostly said he lost.”
-All polls show Trump beat the audience’s expectations. By my evaluation, Clinton clearly won the first debate, and Trump clearly won the second, due to Clinton’s weak performance.
For Trump to win, he would have to climb about .5% in national polls every two days. Doable for a Master Persuader, but something never before seen from Trump in this campaign.
14. October 2016 at 14:44
If I were Trump, here’s what I would do:
*Emphasize the superiority of my foreign policy to Clinton’s and Pence’s.
*Emphasize the risk of nuclear war under a Clinton presidency.
*Emphasize Her incompetence.
*Emphasize Her mishandling of classified information.
*Focus on a message of national unity and majoritarianism against the Beltway elite.
*Emphasize how his presidency will benefit YOU.
*Say “nothing to fear but fear itself” about his presidency.
So far, I have not seen Trump doing much of this. Last time I felt the way I’m feeling now, the North Carolina speech in mid-August (the “pivot”) fixed my worries. Now, I’m not seeing Trump realizing what his problems are and how to solve them. Sad!
14. October 2016 at 14:47
Also
*Emphasize Her inability to work with Congress.
*Emphasize his ability to work with Congress. Point to GOP endorsements. Say he’ll make great deals with Paul Ryan.
14. October 2016 at 14:59
That gives her a great lead into this (from yesterday):
http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/10/13/trump-cant-be-trusted-with-our-nuclear-codes/
Scott, did you read this George Will column from Tuesday? It’s pretty good:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/10/11/trump039s_vile_candidacy_is_chemotherapy_for_republicans_393260.html
14. October 2016 at 15:01
Bob Dylan Fan, Yes, I thought people would understand I was being sarcastic.
Thanks Travis, I’ll do a post.
E. Harding, You said,
“If I were Trump”
That’s the problem, Trump is Trump.
14. October 2016 at 15:03
Tom, Good find on the nuke codes.
I actually quoted from the Will piece in a recent post.
14. October 2016 at 15:25
Well, I should have said “poll” because other than CNN, this is the only other one I’m aware of:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/clinton-trump-debate-poll-229581
Sure, perhaps Trump did better than expected (expected by whom? Pundits?), but other than Frank Lunz’s small group, it looks like the public polling still gives it to Clinton. I agree the pundits seemed more impressed with Trump than the polls though.
14. October 2016 at 15:44
The great minds of history devoted their time to academic study and production and did not get distracted day after day with petty political squabblings and power struggles.
This blog has gone from fringe to useless.
14. October 2016 at 16:26
Tom Brown,
Luntz doesn’t know how to lead a focus group. If you actually watch him in action, he leads with his questions, etc. It’s junk.
14. October 2016 at 17:47
Trump is a lunatic.
And yet, are not enfevered globalists in charge of U.S. foreign policy-military spending?
The U.S. will $24 trillion dollars on “national security” from the Bush jr. days to Obama and through whoever is our president for the next 8 years. About $1 trillion a year, if you include Department of Defense, VA, the black budget, and prorated debt payments.
But Trump’s plans to spend $600+ billion on infrastructure are ridiculed.
U.S. orthodox thinking is founded in innumeracy.
14. October 2016 at 20:01
“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America”.
Said Barack Obama in his first inaugural speech. How many Presidents quoted Dylan in inaugural speeches?
14. October 2016 at 20:24
We finally have fresh polling data from Utah, in two polls conducted after the “grab them” tape but before the second debate, and they do not look good for Trump.
They are Trump+2 and Trump+7 respectively. Not terrible, but gone are the Trump+30 numbers from just a few weeks prior. His lead there appears to be evaporating, making Utah look more like a swing state than a solid red state.
But the more worrying thing for Trump in the Utah polling is that Utah is becoming a legitimate 3-way or 4-way race. Some guy named McMullin got 20%+ in both polls, more than double a couple of weeks ago. And Johnson has been comfortably outperforming his national averages there too. I struggle to imagine that Trump’s stock will rise relative to McMullin’s in the next few weeks.
Trump is still likely to win Utah (85% at 538, 60% in the markets), but the times they are a-changin’…
14. October 2016 at 22:39
The last time an independent candidate polled over 25% in Utah:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Utah,_1992
In the caucuses, Trump got 26434 votes. Clinton got 16162. So I’m not even remotely worried about Trump losing Utah.
15. October 2016 at 02:55
Yawn. This Trump bashing is about as relevant as Ross Perot. It’s over, as Student says.
When will we get back to real kooky stuff, like the belief monetarism matters, when Ben Bernanke’s 2002 FAVAR paper says it hardly does (3.2% effect), and Baxter & Stockman’s 1989 paper says nominal changes in Fx markets don’t change real variables? Now THAT’S bat shii te crazy.
15. October 2016 at 04:06
If all is well why is it the two leading presidential contenders for president of the USA are a criminal and a 70 year old man who has the maturity of a 14 year old?
If there is not a conspiracy what is it? No way can people and government screw up as badly as the Federal government has done simply due to incompetence.
The way I see it, a few of the elite / media / politicians aspire for a better world for all humanity, most are simply in it for themselves, and a select few, in the words of Batman’s Alfred Pennyworth, “want to watch the world burn.” And why? Because the most devilish people know this truth: The easiest way to control people is to create chaos and perpetually distract them from noble pursuits.
15. October 2016 at 04:22
If groping women is a huge disqualifier, isn’t the scandal happening backward, with the claims of being groped coming after the damming video? I don’t claim to know what the truth is, just pointing out that the sequence of events is odd.
15. October 2016 at 06:40
I found a second video of Trump’s speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo
Colonel Sanders!
15. October 2016 at 08:06
Dan W.
endless repetition of these silly memes doesn’t make them any more meaningful.
Politicians are people too, if you ever met one you might find out they’re surprisingly smart and passionate about their cause and accept a lot of personal grief over it. Most politicians never end up in a position of great power anyway, they just grind on and on in thankless jobs under constant public exposure and need to make endless painful compromises just to get anything to work at all.
The “elites” that people are vaguely incensed about, I don’t even know who that’s supposed to be. Academics? Intellectual elite maybe, but ultimately powerless, and underpaid. Politicians? Easy come easy go. Few end up moving anything. Business? Mostly a very tough job and few business people end up with rock star status a la Branson or Thiel. Ditto for finance, much hated by the “common man” but very few end up a Buffett or Soros, all others still work 80 hour weeks for much less money or fame.
And finally the greatest meme of all. The Clintons’ all encompassing “criminal” conspiracy etc etc. The presumption of innocence: Not convicted in a court of law means, they’re not criminals. It’s as simple as that. Calling them criminals is legally libel. And it’s not for lack of trying to get them convicted, half the country, that’s 150 million people, hates them and tried to get something to stick to them for nearly 40 years. So far, no conviction in a court of law. I have to conclude that the Clintons are exceptionally clean people.
15. October 2016 at 08:59
Dan, Yes, there are conspiracies, they are called “political parties”.
15. October 2016 at 17:36
Oh mbka, by your logic Al Capone’s only criminal activity was tax evasion. By the way, why is it legal to bribe a politician? Goldman Sachs certainly wasn’t paying Hillary Clinton all that money because she was saying something they didn’t know. A federal contractor can’t give a $15 gift to a civilian worker but a bank can give $250 grand to a politician! The political system allows this because politicians are corrupt and they like to be bribed.
15. October 2016 at 19:04
Dan W.,
you can’t have the rule of law working by “come on!”. And Al Capone was convicted in the end. Exactly which other crimes he committed besides the tax evasion is technically unknown and we have to call him “alleged” mob boss. It’s the price you pay for the rule of law and the presumption of innocence. By gut feeling I would not have proposed him for President, nor Clinton, nor Trump of course. BTW Trump looks a lot more like Al Capone than Clinton if I had to go down that route, including the tax thingy.
Your gift example is also a non sequitur. Payment for a speech is payment for a service, not a gift on top. Politicians don’t usually make money while holding office either, indeed are forbidden from doing so. The speech circuit comes after they leave office.
And finally, the biggest problem with populism shows in your last sentence. A sweeping generalization, no proof offered, but it sure sounds you know how the world works.
If I had to offer a guess I’d say in a typical Western democracy, few politicians are corrupt in the narrow sense (taking money personally to misuse the political system on behalf of others, or stealing it outright from the state apparatus). I’d guess that most politicians are constantly worried that ordinary private transactions while in office may be used by their opponents as material to insinuate corruption.
16. October 2016 at 04:42
mbka, what about the Clinton’s financial transactions is ordinary? Their dealings are in fact extraordinary. They demonstrate a novelty of cheating that astonishes anyone who actually examines what they have done. Sure, Whitewater was a two-bit real estate scandal, for which many associated with the Clintons were convicted or went to prison to avoid testifying! Fancy that! The Clintons were not “criminals” but all their partners were! When it came to choosing friends either the Clintons chose badly or so did their friends. What do you think?
How about insider trading? Hillary pocketed 100 grand trading hog futures, all while making cookies in the kitchen. Who knew making money in commodities trading was so easy a parent could make six-sigma returns doing it as a part-time hobby.
Of course the Clintons are not unique in being corrupt. And of course many politicians are not intentionally corrupt. But the Clintons are deliberate in what they do and what they do is break the law and then rely on friends and political favors to have their illegalities excused.
16. October 2016 at 05:05
“The factor that makes the cattle futures scandal relevant is that Hillary Clinton received her trading advice from Tyson Food’s outside counsel. Tyson was a major agricultural producer in Arkansas and had numerous issues that Attorney General and later Governor Bill Clinton could affect…. To quote the company’s former chairman: politics is “a series of unsentimental transactions between those who need votes and those who have money.””
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/02/02/Why-37-Year-Old-Clinton-Financial-Scandal-Still-Relevant
She is the same Hillary Clinton she has always been. There is no dispute she has a price. The only question is what it is and who is willing to pay.
p.s. There is a correction to the previous post. Hillary was not a parent at the time she realized here trading profits. She was however employed at the Rose Law Firm and supposedly fully engaged in legal and political work, with little time to ascertain the daily movements of commodity prices.
16. October 2016 at 07:13
Dan W,
hordes of lawyers have been hounded after the Clintons for 40 years. Convictions, none. So, their detractors’ cases were presumably not solid. Rule of law and presumption of innocence means, they’re not criminals, though some people may not like their style. I’m of a split opinion myself. I really don’t like Hillary’s style and personality very much. Bill, much better, much more approachable, though definitely flawed as well. At the end of the day they’re politicians, you don’t elect them because they’re nice. You elect them because you expect them to be effective. Note the fact that many people went to jail for them means that they inspire extraordinary loyalty. Everything else is just media chatter.
16. October 2016 at 07:24
@Harding, here’s a 3rd poll (ABC) showing HRC won the 2nd debate:
http://lastmenandovermen.com/yet-another-poll-shows-hillary-won-second-debate/
16. October 2016 at 07:57
Where is Morgan and his “bikinis” comment? I miss that guy.
Until Trump hits 1%, I won’t rest easy.
http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner
I agree with E. Harding that _IF_ Trump could get on message, this thing could get close. That’s possibly the biggest “if” I’ve ever used.