Vote for the lizard, not the wizard

Here’s Wikipedia, reminding us of a time when GOP leaders denounced racists within their party:

Despite repudiation by the Republican Party,[52] Duke ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. In the primary, Duke finished second to former governor Edwin W. Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32 percent of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27 percent of the vote. Duke effectively killed Roemer’s bid for re-election. While Duke had a sizable core constituency of devoted supporters, many voted for him as a “protest vote” to register dissatisfaction with Louisiana’s establishment politicians. During the campaign, Duke said he was the spokesman for the “white majority”[53] and, according to The New York Times, “equated the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany with affirmative action programs in the United States.”[54]

The Christian Coalition of America, which exerted considerable impact on the Republican State Central Committee, was led in Louisiana by its national director and vice president, Billy McCormack, then the pastor of University Worship Center in Shreveport. The coalition was accused of having failed to investigate Duke in the early part of his political resurgence. By the time of the 1991 gubernatorial election, however, its leadership had withdrawn support from Duke.[55] Despite Duke’s status as the only Republican in the runoff, sitting Republican President George H.W. Bush opposed his candidacy and denounced him as charlatan and a racist.[54] White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu stated that “The President is absolutely opposed to the kind of racist statements that have come out of David Duke now and in the past.”[56]

The Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism rallied against the election of Duke as governor. Beth Rickey, a moderate member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee and a PhD student at Tulane University, began to follow Duke to record his speeches and expose what she saw as instances of racist and neo-Nazi remarks. For a time, Duke took Rickey to lunch, introduced her to his daughters, telephoned her late at night, and tried to convince her of his worldview: the Holocaust was a myth, notorious Auschwitz physician Josef Mengele was a medical genius, and that blacks and Jews were responsible for various social ills. Rickey released transcripts of their conversations to the press and also provided evidence establishing that Duke sold Nazi literature (including Mein Kampf) from his legislative office and attended neo-Nazi political gatherings while he held elective office.[57][58]

Between the primary and the runoff, called the “general election” under Louisiana election rules (in which all candidates run on one ballot, regardless of party), white supremacist organizations from around the country contributed to Duke’s campaign fund.[59][60]

Duke’s rise garnered national media attention. While he gained the backing of the quixotic former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, Duke won few serious endorsements in Louisiana. Celebrities and organizations donated thousands of dollars to former Governor Edwin Edwards‘ campaign. Referencing Edwards’ long-standing problem with accusations of corruption, popular bumper stickers read: “Vote for the Crook. It’s Important”,[61][62] and “Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard.” When a reporter asked Edwards what he needed to do to triumph over Duke, Edwards replied with a smile: “Stay alive.”

The runoff debate, held on November 6, 1991, received significant attention when journalist Norman Robinson questioned Duke. Robinson, who is African-American, told Duke that he was “scared” at the prospect of Duke winning the election because of his history of “diabolical, evil, vile” racist and antisemitic comments, some of which he read to Duke. He then pressed Duke for an apology and when Duke protested that Robinson was not being fair to him, Robinson replied that he didn’t think Duke was being honest. Jason Berry of the Los Angeles Times called it “startling TV” and the “catalyst” for the “overwhelming” turnout of black voters who helped Edwards defeat Duke.[63]

Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%), while Duke’s 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke nevertheless claimed victory, saying, “I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote,” a statistic confirmed by exit polls.

Today, things are very different:

Kasich said he couldn’t even see voting for the guy, though he was quick to add he wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, either.

I asked him why he thought Republican leaders in Washington continued to profess their support for Trump, even as they denounced his comments.

“Look, I think in either political party, there’s always a tug between party loyalty, being part of the team, and your conscience,” Kasich said. “And there’s a lot of people that are really torn. And I don’t want to excuse them. But human nature being what it is, there’s always a sense of ‘what’s my obligation to the team’ and ‘how does this affect the people I work with.’

“I think that’s why, to some degree, you’re seeing people run away. They won’t even talk to the press. Because they don’t know what to say.”

What about his own party loyalty?

“I’m a Republican,” he told me. “I’m going to travel for Republicans. I’m going to help the ticket in Ohio. But I’ve learned over the course of my career that I have to live with myself and with my family.”

In fact, the only Republicans who are truly loyal to their party are those who repudiate racists in their midst, and refuse to endorse them:

We may kindly remember a John Kasich or a Jeb Bush — guys who had the sense of self-worth to stand up and say they wanted no part of this particular crusade.

The rest will answer for whatever comes of this mess, and depending on the consequences, they may answer to the ages.

PS.  Good news for Trump; a recent poll shows him tied with Hillary.  Bad news; it’s in Utah, a state that Romney carried by 48% and even Bush carried by 46% (in 2004).

Every Mormon I’ve ever met is a nice person.  That’s not Trump’s constituency:

Then Trump railed, with no notes, and for roughly the next half hour, about Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Washington, Wall Street, politicians, economists and “nice people” of whom he had “had enough,” he said.

Trump would have really hated me back in 2008.  Before I got into blogging I was both a nice person and an economist.


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83 Responses to “Vote for the lizard, not the wizard”

  1. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 12:46

    Couldn’t you have shown the polls showing Trump tied with Hillary in Pennsylvania, or leading by a landslide in Dem-leaning Polish-and Italian heavy Luzerene County?

    Here’s Murray Rothbard, a true libertarian, unlike you, on David Duke’s 1991 candidacy:

    http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html

    Of course, David Duke is a Nazi and an all-around terrible person, so this piece was misguided in retrospect. Or was it? What if Duke had won? Would Louisiana have been more or less awesome than it actually was in the 1990s?

    “In fact, the only Republicans who are truly loyal to their party are those who repudiate racists in their midst, and refuse to endorse them:”

    -If both parties are committed to advancing the same values, why not just have one party?

    And Trump is not a racist (in fact, he was beautifully sensible in his Orlando attack speech, which I watched in full, just like I did with Clinton’s weak, cold, and scripted speech) yet, cucks in the GOP are still denouncing him for racism, mostly because they hate America.

    Make America Great Again!

  2. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 12:55

    BTW, Herman Cain on Trump:

    https://twitter.com/DBloom451/status/743145967331991552

  3. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 12:57

    Every improvisation you offer makes you look foolish. David Duke, then age 40, had spent his entire adult life as a professional agitator under both Klan and Nazi rubrics (with a side business writing sex manuals). He bears no resemblance in his occupation or interests to Donald Trump. The one thing this post does indicate is that open borders advocates are too crude to distinguish even grossly dissimilar adversaries.

  4. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    16. June 2016 at 13:00

    LOL at thinking any of us care what Herman Cain has to say about anything, least of all Donald Trump.

    The ‘hate America’ thing is priceless too. Has anyone who doesn’t like Trump ever read a comment like that and thought “hmmm, if I don’t vote for Trump I hate America….but I don’t hate America….so I guess I’d better support him!”

  5. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 13:05

    What if Duke had won? Would Louisiana have been more or less awesome than it actually was in the 1990s?

    Duke had no history of running anything other than a donation collecting machine. The branch of the Klan he ran had all of 3,000 members, coast to coast. He had no employment history.

    Duke was a disgusting flash in the pan you sometimes see in American politics. His only real success was winning a seat (held for one term) in the Louisiana legislature. See Pat Buchanan on this mess. Duke scored 3d place in a jungle primary held in a suburban district in Jefferson Parish and then a mess of national Republicans make ads for his opponents. Buchanan’s take was that if you’re condescending to people, they flip you the bird. And they did.

    If Louisiana had a sensible electoral system (say, ordinal balloting), Duke might have received a bloc of votes, been superceded on subsequent tabulations, and then been forgotten. He did as well as he did because the Republican vote was split 3 ways in the first instance and Edwards is such a rogue that many Republicans would have voted for Darth Vader rather than cast a ballot for him. A perfect storm.

  6. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 13:26

    BTW, Scott, you know The Donald condemned David Duke’s gubernatorial candidacy very harshly back when it actually occurred? Trump is not a fan of hate-preachers.

  7. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 13:29

    Has anyone who doesn’t like Trump ever read a comment like that and thought “hmmm, if I don’t vote for Trump I hate America….but I don’t hate America….so I guess I’d better support him!”

    -Has anyone who doesn’t like Clinton ever read a comment saying “Trump’s a racist!” and thought “hmm, if I vote for Trump, I’m voting for a racist…. but I don’t like racists….so I guess I’d better support Clinton!”.

  8. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 14:51

    Fortunately, Trump has started cratering in polls. Hopefully, the polls are accurate and the trend continues so that he loses by a historic margin so that he and the trash that follows him will all be swept away.

  9. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 15:06

    Fortunately, Trump has started cratering in polls.

    The latest RCP set shows him about 5 points behind. I take it reading comprehension is an issue with you.

  10. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. June 2016 at 15:34

    Some people say it was racist when George Bush jr. campaigned on the campus of Bob Jones University, an institution that then banned interracial dating. The Bushies defended the campaign stop, saying they were appealing to their base.

    When did the national GOP ever not deploy the “Southern Strategy”? 1956?

    The Donks with their PC-histrionics and identity politics are hardly more appealing.

    Trump still strikes me as a downmarket Ronald Reagan. Think Target, not Macy’s. But a lot of the merchandise is the same.

    But perhaps Trump won’t appoint an AG (Edwin Meese) whose most fervent mission was…fighting pornography.

  11. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 15:46

    The Donks with their PC-histrionics and identity politics are hardly more appealing.

    Explain to me how giving a standard-issue stump speech on a campus some reporter does not approve of is akin to the grievance-mongering fraud in Ferguson, Mo.

    When did the national GOP ever not deploy the “Southern Strategy”?

    Q When did partisan Democrats ever forego political cant terms? A Never, because most of them are incapable of uttering an honest word. Again, you can look at a sample of Richard Nixon’s ads here

    http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/

    The notion Nixon was some sort of smooth-talking Theodore Bilbo is an utter fraud.

  12. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 15:58

    Art,

    You bigots invest in more wishful thinking than I thought.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

    The trend is obvious. Clinton’s lead seems to be growing. Worse for Trump, Obama’s approval rate has been slowly rising, while almost 70% polled say the country’s moving in the wrong direction. Taken at face value, who do you think people will blame?

    Always have to be careful interpreting polls, but signs are starting to point to a possible route of Republicans this election year.

  13. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 16:01

    “Explain to me how giving a standard-issue stump speech on a campus some reporter does not approve of is akin to the grievance-mongering fraud in Ferguson, Mo.”

    You are a truly sick person Art. The idea that people in places like Ferguson don’t have a tremendous amount to grieve about is insane. You’re inhuman(Or all too human?), and you make me want to vomit.

  14. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    16. June 2016 at 16:14

    Sumner: “Before I got into blogging I was both a nice person and an economist.” – what happened? Go back. Stop this blog, nobody who is anybody besides me reads it. It’s never too late to change.

  15. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. June 2016 at 16:32

    Harding, Are the people of Luzerene County not smart, or not nice?

    Art, It doesn’t matter whether you think Trump’s a racist or not. What matters is that GOP leaders think he’s a racist, and they are endorsing him anyway. Your argument is with Paul Ryan, not me.

    Harding, You said:

    “you know The Donald condemned David Duke’s gubernatorial candidacy very harshly back when it actually occurred? Trump is not a fan of hate-preachers.”

    Actually, Trump said he’s never heard of the guy.

    Ray, I can’t quit until I’ve taught you what an AS/AD graph looks like. Are you working on it? I suggest Mankiw’s textbook.

  16. Gravatar of Lorenzo from Oz Lorenzo from Oz
    16. June 2016 at 16:33

    I wonder if some of the support for The Donald is folk hiding from what an opportunity is going begging.
    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/trump-718906-gop-political.html

    Though I also wonder if any “nice” candidate would stand up effectively against the moralised aggression/weaponised morality that is so much of mainstream news/progressive commentary/humanities academe etc nowadays.

  17. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 17:23

    You are a truly sick person Art. The idea that people in places like Ferguson don’t have a tremendous amount to grieve about is insane. You’re inhuman(Or all too human?), and you make me want to vomit.

    It was a working class suburb of no special distinction bar one, which was that about 2/3 of the population was black, homeowners and renters alike. Normal range crime rates, commercial blocks a tad shabby, speed trap on the Interstate running through it. If it has something to grieve about, it’s all the property destruction and the ruin to local property values courtesy the sorosphere rent-a-crowd conjoined to Gov. Nixon’s otiose policy. None of this is esoteric information, Scott. You don’t know much because you’re only listening to the voices in your head.

  18. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 17:25

    The trend is obvious. Clinton’s lead seems to be growing.

    If it helps you feel better, go with that.

  19. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    16. June 2016 at 17:31

    Art, It doesn’t matter whether you think Trump’s a racist or not. What matters is that GOP leaders think he’s a racist, and they are endorsing him anyway. Your argument is with Paul Ryan, not me.

    You mean truth doesn’t matter.

    Ryan owes his position to Capitol Hill caucus politics, as does AM McConnell. RM Kaus has been writing on his political history and that of his pal Vin Weber. They’re both advocates of open borders, a position which has no resonance with ordinary Republican voters. By the way, Eric Cantor used to be the House Majority Leader.

  20. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 17:33

    I say again, I haven’t been exposed to the campus PCers that I hear and read so much about, but I see tremendous hyperbole in statements about liberals in these comment sections. You would think Joseph Stalin were leading the progressive movement based on some of these comments and it’s ludicrous.

    It’s leading me to believe that many conservatives and some wingnut libertarians are even more detached from reality than I thought. There’s a true sickness in the culture right now, when people go on and on about “identity politics”, and talk as if Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats are literally evil and out to destroy the country, if not all of western civilization. It’s a true cultural and political sickness, when instead of simply disagreeing with them on issues in a civil manner, stupid, loonie conspiracy theories dominate the narratives that circulate.

    And yes, I realize I’m being less than civil now, but these comments aren’t directed toward the reasonable people who disagree, but to the truly troubled people who try to demonize everything leftist.

  21. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    16. June 2016 at 18:14

    Trump is now at 20% in the betting markets, his lowest so far. Clinton is at roughly 75%.

    The only issue for me is that this lunatic still is at 20%.

    For Scott Freedlander:
    You might want to check out heterodoxacademy.org for non-lunatic criticisms of campus PC culture.

  22. Gravatar of Anand Anand
    16. June 2016 at 18:15

    Scott Freelander*, sorry. Gah, for an edit function.

  23. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. June 2016 at 18:40

    Art Beco:

    But the most serious question is:

    Who will pick SpongeBob SquarePants as their veep in 2016?

    Billary or Mr. T?

  24. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 18:52

    “It’s a true cultural and political sickness, when instead of simply disagreeing with them on issues in a civil manner, stupid, loonie conspiracy theories dominate the narratives that circulate.”

    -See Bryan Caplan on the evil of politicians. Which conspiracy theories are you talking about? How are they stupid or loony? Are they any loonier than what the entire liberal media called GWB back in 2008?

    Support for Trump’s Muslim ban has spiked.

    “Harding, Are the people of Luzerene County not smart, or not nice?”

    -Trump looks like some kind of Al Smith in terms of his constituency in the Northeast (Luzerne County was one of the few PA counties won by Smith):

    https://goo.gl/nAQRI2

    He performed very well in the Rhode Island primary, one of the few states Al Smith won (and began to convert to the Donks). Obviously, Trump won’t win Rhode Island. But he will overperform there.

    Probably “not nice”. Both Blacks and Hispanics are, on average, less intelligent than Italians and Poles.

    “It doesn’t matter whether you think Trump’s a racist or not. What matters is that GOP leaders think he’s a racist, and they are endorsing him anyway.”

    -These people are losers. Either they should fall in line or get out of the party.

  25. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 19:06

    “Probably “not nice”. Both Blacks and Hispanics are, on average, less intelligent than Italians and Poles.”

    The good thing about these Trump supporters is they don’t realize how nuts they are, so they just let it all out. They just reinforce the idea that Trump is really only winning over bigots of all stripes, and various other loons.

  26. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    16. June 2016 at 19:07

    Well, Trump’s also winning over plenty of morons.

  27. Gravatar of Steve F Steve F
    16. June 2016 at 19:26

    It’s easy to follow the bobblehead narrative. It’s hard to continually reassess prejudices.

  28. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    16. June 2016 at 19:39

    “The good thing about these Trump supporters is they don’t realize how nuts they are”

    The good thing about libertarian SJWs for Hillary is that they don’t realize how ignorant they are:

    https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html

    “They just reinforce the idea that Trump is really only winning over bigots of all stripes, and various other loons.”

    -Northeastern Polish, Irish, French, and Italian Americans are mostly bigots and loons?

  29. Gravatar of Daniel Daniel
    17. June 2016 at 01:12

    Has anybody even considered not acknowledging the accusation of racism ?

    When slavery was the norm, you had psychiatrists making up stuff like “drapetomania” (look it up).

    Nowadays, you accuse people of racism/sexism/homophobia/islamophobia.

    Because, as we all know, blacks/women/gays/muslims are HOLY.

    Unlike straight white men, who are the scum of the earth and should be exterminated.

  30. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    17. June 2016 at 03:53

    @Scott Sumner- I know what an AD/AS curve looks like: AS slopes down with output increasing. Your AS curve was a vertical line, implying a totally inelastic supply curve, which is totally unrealistic. Time to quit.

    And will Sumner quit blogging if Trump wins? Make a vow, please? We can’t stand you but we keep coming back here for your pearls of wiz-dumb. Please put us out of our misery and stop blogging.

  31. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 04:51

    Probably “not nice”. Both Blacks and Hispanics are, on average, less intelligent than Italians and Poles.

    It would be more precise to say that blacks and hispanic subsets have lower scores on standardized tests, of a durability not altogether clear and for reasons not altogether clear.

    -These people are losers. Either they should fall in line or get out of the party.

    We have a strict two-party system in this country. Each of the parties is an omnibus. They have nowhere to go unless they were poseurs to begin with, like the Mercatus crew. The problem you have is that the Capitol Hill – RNC – K Street nexus is not showing signs of reflecting on the ways they’ve failed in a mission to represent and advance the interests of their base. K Street cannot without extinguishing themselves. Cadging bon bons for paying customers is what they do. I don’t think either the Tea Party or the Trump phenomenon or the Palin phenomenon have been optimal responses to chronic problems in the political order, merely what there is at this time.

    You look at Ryan in particular and you realize the degree to which their frames of reference are derived from higher education and adapted to the purposes of their enemies, or people we’ve been assuming are their enemies. (Critics of the Republican inner ring like Robert Stacy McCain have maintained they’re a bunch of rent-seekers who despise their electorate). ‘Sexist’ is a cant-term which was always a rhetorical improvisation; it never had any fixed meaning. ‘Misogynist’ once had a fixed meaning, but its common use in political discourse is nonsense, especially as applied to Trump. ‘Racist’ was a passably useful catch-all for a set of attitudes modal in the country prior to 1955, but now it’s just a rhetorical thrust indicating the SJW in question has nothing to say or is losing the argument. The term is properly applied to a character like Jared Taylor and certainly to his acolytes (who loathe blacks, by and large), but these people have no influence anywhere. The only places they possibly could have an influence would be a small business run by one of their number. The megaphone holders make a big to do about unimportant people numbered in the 3 digits (Fred Phelps’ acolytes) or low four digits (skinheads ca. 1992; Aryan Nations / Christian Identity ca. 1986, the Klan remnant ca. 1977); it’s all a freak show / look-squirrel enterprise. “Homophobe” is an insipid neologism; it’s not a nonsense term, but it is an effort on the part of SJWs and fancy people to pathologize a normal human aversion to sodomy, to men who behave like teenage girls, and to ugly women with bad haircuts wrapped in acres of plaid flannel.

  32. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 04:59

    -Northeastern Polish, Irish, French, and Italian Americans are mostly bigots and loons?

    How long you lived here, Harding? Two sets of dicourse (the sophistry defending what’s called ‘constitutional law’ nowadays and the partisan Democrat babble about the ‘Southern Strategy’) incorporate the assumption that the opposition have the status of minors, and should have no influence over the direction of public policy. An elaboration on all facets of this can be found in Thos. Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed. You’ll notice the Mercatus crew never says anything about the behavior of the legal profession or governance problems in higher education, because they do not see any problems at all.

  33. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    17. June 2016 at 05:57

    Art, You said:

    “You mean truth doesn’t matter.”

    It’s not true that Ryan regards Trump as a racist?

    You said:

    “You’ll notice the Mercatus crew never says anything about the behavior of the legal profession or governance problems in higher education, because they do not see any problems at all.”

    If only you knew how idiotic that statement was. I despise the legal profession and university governance. I’ve called for radical tort law reform and and end to tenure. I despise campus PCism, and have said so. I’d like to see a reduction in public subsidies for higher education.

    Ray, You said:

    “Your AS curve was a vertical line”

    Actually there was no AS/AD diagram in the post you commented on. You don’t even know what an AS/AD graph looks like.

    You said:

    “And will Sumner quit blogging if Trump wins?”

    Stop? That’s just when it starts getting fun. Hillary would be boring.

    Harding, You do realize that your posts merely confirm my claims about Trump supporters, don’t you?

  34. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 06:23

    If only you knew how idiotic that statement was. I despise the legal profession and university governance. I’ve called for radical tort law reform and and end to tenure. I despise campus PCism, and have said so. I’d like to see a reduction in public subsidies for higher education.

    By your own admission, you do not address the salient problem, which is the role the legal profession has arrogated to itself in the political process. Your pseudo-critique of campus culture has been dealt with by your critics here. Soi-disant libertarians have nothing special to say about tenure, a matter addressed with greater vigor by figures such as Thos Sowell and Camille Paglia. As far as I can recall, the only notables who took up the question of whether the degree architecture makes any sense at all were James Fallows and Allan Bloom a generation ago, and it was only incidental to Bloom’s writings. As for the rest of the Mercatus crew, Tyler Cowen is explicit that he never comments on these matters and Alex Tabarrok trafficks in nonsense memes about the police.

  35. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    17. June 2016 at 07:06

    WSJ deputy editor and long time harsh Hillary critic is badgered by delusional Hugh Hewitt into choosing Trump in a “binary choice”… but he resists, saying that in contrast to Trump, Hillary is a “survivable event”:
    http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/john-mccain-says-obama-s-policies-directly-responsible-orlando-n593951

    Do the right thing: vote survival.

  36. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    17. June 2016 at 07:07

    Wrong link: here it is:
    http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/06/17/wsj-deputy-editor-hillary-clinton…-survivable-event.-im-sure-donald-trump./

  37. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    17. June 2016 at 08:00

    Lorenzo, the OC Register piece by Joel Kotkin is essentially the same argument made by Joseph Epstein in the WSJ a few days ago.

    However, the country did manage to survive Woodrow Wilson, who was a much more egregious racist than Trump. Wilson’s eugenicist beliefs, as well as those of prominent economists–including the founder of the AEA and several of its first presidents, prominently; Irving Fisher–can be read about in Thomas C. Leonard’s new ‘Illiberal Reformers’

    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10572.html

    One of the more amusing ironies is that policies like high minimum (and ‘living’) wages were promoted by economists who were worried about ‘race suicide’. Their objective was to isolate the ‘inferior races’ by rendering them unemployable in the USA.

    The more benign economists wanted public charity to provide for them, after they were rounded up and put into concentration camps and sterilized. Some even darker consequences were bandied about. The origin of these ideas came from American graduate students who’d studied in Germany.

    At least they understood the consequences of wage floors.

  38. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    17. June 2016 at 08:07

    Or, if you don’t want to buy Leonard’s book, he has several papers from which he compiled it, up on his website;

    http://scholar.princeton.edu/tleonard/research

    From 2009, EXCLUDING UNFIT WORKERS:SOCIAL CONTROL VERSUS SOCIAL
    JUSTICE IN THE AGE OF ECONOMIC REFORM

    ‘…we discuss the origins and development of a progressive economic ideology that favored, indeed demanded, the exclusion of various so-called “defective” groups from the American labor market. Xenophobia, race prejudice, and sexism certainly were not new to the United States in the Progressive Era. What was new was, first, the idea that protecting deserving workers required the social control of undeserving workers, enough so that labor-legislation advocates defended the exclusion of unfit workers not as an ostensibly necessary evil, but as a positive social benefit. Second, the
    exclusion of undesirables acquired a new scientific legitimacy: the Progressive Era marked not only the advent of the welfare state but also an extraordinary vogue for race thinking and for eugenics, the social control of human breeding. The new science of eugenics biologized the established discourses of bigotry and nativism, remaking undesirables into the hereditarily unfit and elevating
    exclusion to a matter of national and racial health. And the new sciences of society, especially economics, showed how unfit workers wrongly lowered the wages and employment of racially superior groups.’

  39. Gravatar of Jim S. Jim S.
    17. June 2016 at 08:09

    The Balkinization blog (balkin.blogspot.com) has a post I find relevant to Trumpism and the Republican Party. Quoting part of it below:
    “Country-club Republicans needed to convince others and themselves that they were not merely providing a veneer of respectability for the most bigoted forces in American politics.
    Donald Trump’s success in gaining the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency stripped the veneer off of Republican respectability. Trump demonstrated that a substantial proportion of the Republican electorate was motivated by desires to keep persons of color, women, and non-Judeo-Christians in their place. Those Republicans preferred a candidate who “told it like it is” to candidates who used such phrases as “limited government,” “right to life,” and “the rights of small businesses” which could be interpreted one way by the more elite wing of the party and a different way by the mass base. In short, what Trump exposes is that, whatever the personal beliefs of the Romneys, Bushes, and Kasichs of the world, they have been leading a deeply racist coalition.”

    I expect Trump to loose big in the fall, but the only way H. Clinton will not be a one term President is for the Republicans not to draw the right lessons from this election cycle. Given that Trump only has a one in five chance to win, I would think the smart move for Republican politicians would be to repudiate Trump now and position themselves for 2018 and beyond.

  40. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    17. June 2016 at 08:41

    @ssumner

    “Maybe just as bad, but perhaps it would have ended up more like China. We simply don’t know.”

    -The Kim leadership would have remained the same. In real life, they had plenty of opportunities to open up and end their stupid economic policies. They have consistently declined.

    Also, in what universe did America “mostly stay out” in Syria?:

    http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/06/know-nothing-diplomats-prepare-for-hillarys-war-on-syria.html

    And things were actually pretty good in Iraq between December 2008 and March 2013. Does your memory not even extend back over three years, Scott?

    Tyler Cowen (well-read, but pretty much the opposite of “wise”) would be a disaster. Scott Alexander (well-read and with a reasonable amount of inconsistently applied wisdom) would be too wishy-washy. I want you, Moldbug, or Eliezer Yudkowsky.

    I think the U.S. never had any significant influence in Egypt, but controlled what happened to every square inch of Syria from mid-2012 to Fall 2015 and to every square inch of Iraq from Summer 2014 to Summer 2015 (or maybe even to today).

    The U.S. also had very little influence on what happened in the USSR in the late 1980s.

    @Art

    “How long you lived here, Harding?”

    -At least a dozen years. 🙂

    Sowell is usually a decent writer. His IQ is surely above 130.

    @Jim

    “I expect Trump to loose big in the fall”

    -Why? There are good reasons for believing Trump will win.

  41. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 08:42

    The Balkinization blog (balkin.blogspot.com) has a post I find relevant to Trumpism and the Republican Party.

    The statement is not quite as indicative of the confusion of class-delimited tastes with policy viewpoints as was Charles Fried’s attacks on Sarah Palin 8 years ago, but it still fits in that pigeonhole.

    The most troublesome elements in American society are not drawn from the wage-earning strata. The legal profession, the academy, the mental health trade, the social work industry: these people are making the world worse. They fancy they’re the only people whose views should matter.

  42. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    17. June 2016 at 08:43

    More from Thomas Leonard;

    http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/unfit.pdf

    ———-quote———–
    Progressive Era reform economists argued that a worker’s standard of
    living, not his productivity, determined market wages. Making wages a function of living standards opened the door to the eugenic claim that immigrant groups were hereditarily predisposed to low standards of living. Economist-turned sociologist Edward A. Ross, for example, argued that “the coolie, though he cannot outdo the American, can underlive him.”12 “Native” workers were more productive, claimed Ross, but because Chinese immigrants were racially disposed to work for lower wages, they displaced the “native” workers, the Anglo-Saxon race disposed to “American” wages.13

    In Races and Immigrants, labor economist John R. Commons argued that
    “[t]he Jewish sweatshop is the tragic penalty paid by that ambitious race.”14 For Commons, when inferior races were allowed to work, their economic competition not only lowered wages, it also biologically selected for the unfit races. “[C]ompetition has no respect for superior races,” said Commons; “[t]he race with lowest necessities displaces others.”15 Because race, not productivity,
    determined living standards, Commons could populate his low-wage-races category with the industrious and lazy alike. African Americans, he said, were “indolent and fickle,” which explained why slavery was defensible, even necessary: “The negro could not possibly have found a place in American industry had he come as a free man . . . . [I]f such races are to adopt that industrious life which is second nature to races of the temperate zones, it is only
    through some form of compulsion.”16 Few groups escaped the reformers’ low-wage-race indictment.

    Labor leader Eugene Debs said in 1891 of Italian immigrant workers, “‘The Dago . . . lives far more like a savage or a wild be[a]st than the Chinese’ and therefore can ‘underbid the American workingman.’”17

    Wharton School reformer Scott Nearing volunteered that if “[a]n employer has a Scotchman working for him at $3 a day [and] [a]n equally efficient Lithuanian offers to do the same work for $2 . . . the work is given to the lowest bidder.”18 Paul Kellogg, editor of The Survey, one of the most influential organs of progressive ideas, defended legislation “to exclude [Angelo] Lucca and [Alexis] Spivak and other ‘greeners’ from our congregate industries, which beckon to them now.”19

    When U.S. labor reformers studied legislation in countries more precocious with respect to labor reform, they favorably commented on the eugenic efficacy of labor laws in excluding the low-wage races from work. Harvard’s Arthur Holcombe, a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission, referred approvingly to the intent of the minimum-wage law in Victoria, Australia, to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the insidious competition of colored races, particularly of the Chinese.”20

    For labor reformers, the threat of the low-wage immigrant races was twofold. The low-wage races threatened American wage levels, and their putatively greater fertility also threatened the health and viability of the Anglo-Saxon race. The latter claim was known as “race suicide,” a term for the idea that persons of inferior stock outbreed their biological betters. Races compete, argued race-suicide theorists, and racial competition is subject to a kind of
    Gresham’s law.

    “Race suicide” was coined by Edward A. Ross, who bemoaned that “[t]he higher race quietly and unmurmuringly eliminates itself rather than endure individually the bitter competition it has failed to ward off by collective action.”21 Ross’s theory was that the “native” Anglo-Saxon stock was biologically well adapted to rural, traditional life but less well suited to the new urban, industrial milieu of capitalism.22 Thus could the inferior immigrant races,
    “beaten members of beaten breeds,” outbreed the superior Anglo-Saxon race.23

    New immigrant stock, while racially inferior, was, said Ross, better adapted to the conditions of industrial capitalism.24 Ross’s coinage gained enough currency to be used frequently by President Theodore Roosevelt, who called race suicide the “greatest problem of civilization.”25
    ———–endquote————

  43. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    17. June 2016 at 08:48

    Scott Freelander,

    “…many conservatives and some wingnut libertarians are even more detached from reality than I thought. There’s a true sickness in the culture right now, when people go on and on about “identity politics”, and talk as if Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats are literally evil and out to destroy the country, if not all of western civilization. It’s a true cultural and political sickness, when instead of simply disagreeing with them on issues in a civil manner, stupid, loonie conspiracy theories dominate the narratives that circulate.”

    +1

  44. Gravatar of Randomize Randomize
    17. June 2016 at 08:57

    This was the first time I read through the comments on a Trump Post. They did not disappoint.

  45. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    17. June 2016 at 09:24

    “It’s a true cultural and political sickness, when instead of simply disagreeing with them on issues in a civil manner, stupid, loonie conspiracy theories dominate the narratives that circulate.”

    -People, this stuff was much worse coming from the Left during the 2nd term of GWB. Do you guys even have memories lasting for more than three years?

  46. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 09:39

    and talk as if Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats are literally evil and out to destroy the country, if not all of western civilization.

    Hellary is about the most unscrupulous person to compete vigorously for the office of President since Aaron Burr. She has only one competitor in the megalomania sweepstakes, and that would be Joseph P. Kennedy, who had to use his dissolute son as a decoy. As for BO, he’s a transmission belt, who likely hasn’t had an original observation in 30 years, if ever. He offers no critical assessment of the kultursmog he breathed over all that time. The whole Iran fiasco is a function of making use of frames of reference which date from his late adolescence. Iran, Cuba, the inane gun control discourse, the Eye of Sauron on Ferguson, Mo., etc. It’s all back issues of The Nation stewed through Democratic Party PR specialists.

  47. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    17. June 2016 at 15:05

    Sumner asked:

    “It’s not true that Ryan regards Trump as a racist?

    According to your worldview that depends. That depends on whether or not most people believe it. If they do not, then your Rortyian gobbledygook tells us that no, it is not true.

    Have you surveyed everyone for their beliefs regarding this matter? I mean, certainly you are not going by your own mind on this and thus contradict your own professed demands on others by claiming it is true.

    Hahahaha

  48. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    17. June 2016 at 15:10

    Sumner wrote:

    “Harding, You do realize that your posts merely confirm my claims about Trump supporters, don’t you?”

    Your claims are not credible. Confirming non-credibke claims doesn’t make those bigoted claims true.

  49. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    17. June 2016 at 15:53

    “-People, this stuff was much worse coming from the Left during the 2nd term of GWB. Do you guys even have memories lasting for more than three years?”

    Really Harding? What did most liberals say that was worse than what Trump said about W.? He said that W. lied about WMD in Iraq. Did most liberals adopt conspiracy theories about Bush, or did they just say he seemed very stupid. I merely thought he was stupid, not evil.

  50. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    17. June 2016 at 16:45

    I merely thought he was stupid, not evil.

    Vanity is characteristic of partisan Democrats.

    That aside, your alternative to the ‘stupid’ Mr. Bush is BO, an affirmative action baby without one professional accomplishment to his name; Joseph Biden, the national clown; John Kerry, a 3d rate Boston lawyer whose academic record was a low grade embarrassment; Albert Gore, a lapsed newspaper reporter, legacy pol, and serial grad school drop out who finished in the bottom 20% of his college class.

  51. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    17. June 2016 at 18:19

    He follows the markets instead of leading the markets

    and, other than oil -where’s there inflation?

    -Donald J. Trump on the Fed, January 2008

    https://economicsophisms.com/2016/06/17/trump-on-the-economy-bernanke/

    Make this guy President and give him the Nobel Peace Prize!

  52. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    18. June 2016 at 07:36

    I agree there is a good case for voting for the lizard over the wizard. But linking names like Roehmer, Duke and Mengele to the Wizard is idiotic. Trump may or may not be close to worthy but he is not evil. With the Lizard, my opinion is we get a more known outcome—- a move even more left punctuated by random doses of mideast bombing. I admit to not knowing what we get with Trump. My guess is the traditional republican party will keep him willingly in line. I prefer that guess versus my view of the lizard’s world. No I dont think he is a more risky guy on the Nuke. I believe Hillary is. Like all political pundits it is my view, which like body parts, everyone has.

  53. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. June 2016 at 19:01

    Trumpistas: here’s a few more names for your enemies list of scum bucket underhanded cowardly democracy destroying #NeverTrumper traitors who desperately hate America, freedom and the will of the GOP voters with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns:

    Kendal Unruh (Ted Cruz delegate leading the charge with the effort to convincee delegates to take part in the latest scheme to disenfranchise GOP voters)
    Ted Cruz
    Sarah Flores (Carly Fiorina campaign staffer)
    Carly Fiorina
    Rick Wilson
    The Koch Brothers
    http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/18/nevertrump-seeks-conscience-clause-rule-change-last-ditch-effort-stop-trump/

    Never forgive and never forget! Urge Trump to strip all of them (and the others) and their families of their citizenships and deport them to Gitmo as traitors for interrogation and waterboarding.

  54. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. June 2016 at 19:02

    …once Trump becomes president that is. That should be day 1 of the Trump administration.

  55. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    18. June 2016 at 19:09

    Don’t let Kendal Unruh and the other Ted Cruz delegates backstabbing schemes succeed and ignore your votes and hand the nomination to someone who didn’t earn it (i.e. someone other than Trump… most likely Cruz).

  56. Gravatar of engineer engineer
    19. June 2016 at 04:30

    “Urge Trump to strip all of them (and the others) and their families of their citizenships and deport them to Gitmo as traitors for interrogation and waterboarding.”

    C’mon Tom…everyone knows that these guys were in on the JFK assassination. The real mystery is why nobody is talking about this..(other than the national inquirer). Not to mention the 5 women that Cruz had affairs with…We just need to get David Pecker in charge of Gitmo and the war on Terrorism and then we will get some real results….

    Johnson/Weld …the only rational choice….

  57. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    19. June 2016 at 07:01

    Johnson/Weld …the only rational choice….

    If you want to strike poses in favor of Nazi wedding cakes.

  58. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    19. June 2016 at 12:22

    Patrick, Yes, progressivism definitely has a dark side. My daughter just did her junior thesis on the dark side of early 20th century progressivism.

    Jim, You said:

    “Given that Trump only has a one in five chance to win, I would think the smart move for Republican politicians would be to repudiate Trump now and position themselves for 2018 and beyond.”

    I agree.

    Harding, You asked:

    “Also, in what universe did America “mostly stay out” in Syria?:”

    This one, obviously. We went into Iraq, it’s right next door. Not Syria. You might want to read a newspaper occasionally.

    Scott, You asked:

    “Did most liberals adopt conspiracy theories about Bush, or did they just say he seemed very stupid. I merely thought he was stupid, not evil.”

    Actually, polls show that many Dems thought he was behind 9/11. I’d say that’s a pretty wacky theory. The difference is that the GOP is about to nominate a conspiracy nut for President.

  59. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    19. June 2016 at 13:01

    “If you want to strike poses in favor of Nazi wedding cakes.”

    Yeah, ban all Nazi related movies too. That Spielberg, mentioning Nazis. How dare free speech be exercised in ways that you don’t like.

  60. Gravatar of Cliff Cliff
    20. June 2016 at 07:12

    “…many conservatives and some wingnut libertarians are even more detached from reality than I thought. There’s a true sickness in the culture right now, when people go on and on about “identity politics”, and talk as if Obama, Hillary, and other Democrats are literally evil and out to destroy the country, if not all of western civilization. It’s a true cultural and political sickness, when instead of simply disagreeing with them on issues in a civil manner, stupid, loonie conspiracy theories dominate the narratives that circulate.”

    How bizarre! All the rhetoric seems to me the exact opposite, about how “Repugs” are literally evil and trying to destroy the country, etc. Just consider this post, charges of racism flying around and why? Everyone’s a racist, bigot, misogynist, etc. etc. all day long to the left. You never hear reasoned discourse when it comes to Trump.

    I’m almost certainly not voting for Trump. But I seriously considered it when everyone started getting so ridiculous trying to smear him with all these labels. The worst is the masturbatory fantasy where he’s a terrible businessman. That’s really stupid.

  61. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    20. June 2016 at 11:50

    These head-in-sand, virtue-signaling libertarian economists who oppose Trump are in effect supporting child rape through mass Muslim immigration. They are anti-civilization, de facto anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-foodie, anti-dog.

    https://economicsophisms.com/2016/06/20/unpleasant-things-happen/

  62. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    20. June 2016 at 17:33

    @Justin, regarding child rape: there are still Catholic priests in my city, and many others around the country. What do you propose we do about that? And are you suggesting that less child rape happens if Muslims are in Afghanistan than if they’re in Los Angeles? How does being in Los Angels cause them to rape children less? At least child rape in the US is illegal. Is it child rape you’re really worried about, or where the child rape happens? Utilitarians are more concerned about the rape itself rather than where it happens.

  63. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 00:13

    Scott, over at TheResurgent I found conservative commentator Erick Erickson’s tone of exasperation here to be delicious:
    [http://theresurgent.com/donald-trumps-gold-plated-con-just-got-hillary-clinton-elected/]

    “Donald Trump sold a bunch of angry people a bill of goods and took them for all they were worth, which apparently was not much. Now he is going to face Hillary Clinton who has $42 million to his $1.2 million.

    Well done, Republicans. Well done. If you nominate Donald Trump in Cleveland you’ll be handing Hillary Clinton the Presidency. I told you so.

    If you want a sense of just how ridiculous this farce is, Donald Trump paid $35,000 to “Draper Sterling”, a fictitious ad agency. Seriously. He also paid more that $400,000 to rent his own Mar-a-Lago, which was more than his whole payroll. He reimbursed his children’s travel for the campaign. He paid himself a salary. The data is ridiculous and embarrassing. He spent $737,000 at Trump owned businesses.

    The GOP is so screwed and it has only itself to blame.”

    …But I think Erickson is being way too hard on the GOP (as a collection of party insiders, staffers and apparatchiks). After all, there’s plenty of blame to go around: for example there’s Ann Coulter, Fox News, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Jim DeMint, Heritage Action, Sheldon Adelson, Rick Santelli (and other assorted dregs & remnants of the so-called “Tea Party”), David Horowitz, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Dick Cheney, Grover Norquist, “company man” Hugh Hewitt, Jan Brewer, Phil Robertson (and family), Duncan Hunter, Howie Carr, Chris Christie, Breitbart, Jeff Sessions, The Drudge Report, World Net Daily, talk radio, Ted Nugent, Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Bill O’Reilly, Jerry Falwell Jr., Bryan Fischer, Bill Donahue, Franklin Graham, and a majority of so-called evangelical and “prosperity-gospel” Christian leaders (God bless them, every one)…

    …but, of course, MOST important of all, by far, have been the millioins and millions of brain-dead, xenophobic, self-pitying conspiracy-theory-believing, “safe-space” craving, angry, paranoid, deluded, put-upon, ignorant fruitcake chumps known as the GOP base.

    How does it feel to be taken for fools chumpos? Lol.

    It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. =)

    And where were people like Erickson, Rick Wilson, Bill Kristol, Mark Levin, RedState and Romney back when Trump was spewing his noxious birther BS at length back in 2012? Where was Ted Cruz just last year? As I recall they mostly chose to look the other way or give a silent nod and a wink. And they continued to look the other way as the alt-right and conspiracy lunacy festered, probably because they thought it benefited their interests. So I don’t have a lot of pity for that lot either, but their bellyaching now sure is sweet to listen to.

  64. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    21. June 2016 at 04:58

    @Justin, regarding child rape: there are still Catholic priests in my city, and many others around the country. What do you propose we do about that?

    Nothing. There were accusations of ‘sexual abuse’ lodged against about 4,500 priests over a period of 50-odd years. See Prof. Philip Jenkins on this subject. That an accusation is credible does not mean it will stand up in court. There’s a reason only a small minority of these cases were ever subject to criminal prosecution: the complaints were made to chanceries decades after the fact (25 year delays were quite normal), the accusers seldom went to law enforcement, prosecution was time-barred, and the evidentiary basis was thin.

    While we’re at it, ‘sexual abuse’ refers to genital touching (which is what Dennis Hastert has been accused of; the accusations of sexual seduction are hearsay offered by a woman who clearly loathes him). Sexual seduction was decidedly atypical and forcible rape rare.

  65. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    21. June 2016 at 06:04

    Scott, over at TheResurgent I found conservative commentator Erick Erickson’s tone of exasperation here to be delicious

    Did you ever read a word by Erickson prior to the last 12 months? What’s interesting about him? The Daily Telegraph puts him on a list of ‘influential conservatives’, right in front of Victor Davis Hanson (retired classics professor, who actually is interesting) and right behind a Chris Ruddy (never heard of him). I should take an interest in his views just why?

  66. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    21. June 2016 at 06:11

    Tom, Love that Draper Sterling ad agency. Tell me more!

  67. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 09:50

    Scott, all I know is that blurb from Erickson, but it looks like Vanity Fair did a piece on it (among others):

    “Among the odd assortment of vendors listed on Trump’s F.E.C. filing, perhaps the strangest expenditure is for an advertising firm called Draper Sterling—an apparent reference to the fictional Mad Men ad agency—which received $35,000 in late April for “web advertising.” According to its limited-liability-company registration application, Draper Sterling LLC was formed as a consulting business in December 2015, and was registered with the state of New Hampshire in March 2016. The company is registered to Jon Adkins, the co-founder of Dynamic Solutions, a scientific consulting firm, and more recently, XenoTherapeutics, an “early stage medical device and research company,” according to his LinkedIn. Reached by telephone, a man who identified himself as Adkins declined to comment on what Trump’s $35,000 went towards.”

    Here’s the piece (sorry about the [] but anything I post with a link recently has been disappearing for good):

    [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-fec-filing-mysterious-details]

  68. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 09:50

    I’ll try the link by its self here:
    http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-fec-filing-mysterious-details

  69. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 09:53

    Best Trump related article illustration yet:
    http://theresurgent.com/donald-trump-is-full-of-st/

  70. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 10:09

    Ben Carson reveals the reason for poor fundraising results in the Trump campaign:
    http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/06/21/totally-insulting-ben-carson-suggests-voters-dont-know-donate/

    Common Trumpsters! Don’t be worried about fraud, just dig in your wallets and donate? Don’t you want your names recorded as a matter of public record for having donated to the Trump campaign forever??? Or, as Leon Wolf (editor at RedState) says:

    “Disaster is looming over the horizon for this campaign. Anyone who donates to Trump will have their name listed on his donor registry forever and ever, and by now no one wants that on their permanent record.”

    Common Trumpettes! Are you gonna sit there and let RedState get away with that slander, or are you going to step up and cash in your 401ks right now and make America Great Again by investing in a totally-not-a-scam operation known as the Trump campaign??? If it’s a problem of not knowing how to use the “Donate” button on Trump’s website, I’m sure Ben Carson can help you with that. Don’t be concerned that Trump is paying himself and his family from those donations, or that his expenditure reports are filled with expenditures at his own hotels and companies (I sure hope he got a good deal at least!). This is hilarious:

    “Then there is the fact that, for some reason, Trump has been paying himself a substantial amount in payroll – in spite of the fact that he claims to be one of the wealthiest men on earth and does not need for his campaign to pay him a living salary, they have been doing it anyway. From the FEC report:”
    http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/06/21/trumps-dead-broke-campaign-paying-trumps-companies-lot-money/
    “This goes on and on, but clearly Trump is regularly taking money out of his campaign and paying it to himself as payroll.

    If you’re a potential Trump donor and the RNC comes to you asking for a donation, because the campaign is in bad shape, you’d have to ask yourself at this point why you would donate to a campaign that spends about half as much as it takes in enriching Trump and his companies.”

  71. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 10:32

    “People got mad at Erick [Erickson] for saying the Trump campaign was a vehicle for people who have failed in life to feel like they are winners.”

    That also sounds like the premise behind Trump University.

  72. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    21. June 2016 at 10:45

    That also sounds like the premise behind Trump University.</i

    Someone more concise than you tend to be would just make the shape of the letter 'L' on top of their head. (But I have it on the authority of the moderator that I'm the moron).

  73. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    21. June 2016 at 13:39

    @Tom Brown

    “Is it child rape you’re really worried about, or where the child rape happens?”

    It’s “who” and “where” that matter more to me. I’m not insane, so I care more about American children than Afghani children. I wish we could change Afghanistan but you know, I think we’ve proven we’re not up to that task.

    I’m not a utilitarian because a universal utilitarian strategy isn’t a viable equilibrium. Utilitarians always loose to tribalists in the long run.

  74. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    21. June 2016 at 13:42

    @Tom Brown

    On the Roman-Catholic thing 1. the abuse was blown out of proportion by the antichristian media 2. There’s still a child rape issue with Muslims, answer my point about Sweden and the UK 3. The Catholic church should be reunited with the Orthodox church, then priests could marry and you wouldn’t have a selection problem with the clergy.

  75. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    21. June 2016 at 14:13

    3. The Catholic church should be reunited with the Orthodox church, then priests could marry and you wouldn’t have a selection problem with the clergy.

    Priest can never marry in Orthodoxy or in the Catholic Church. Eastern Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) will ordain married men. Bishops, however, are celibates (and, IIRC, generally monastics in Orthodoxy).

    You don’t have a problem if you’re screening is effective and your disciplinary system is effective. The pederasty problem (keeping in mind the victims were typically adolescents) was characteristic of priests ordained between 1930 and 1990, with the most troublesome cohort being the 1970 ordinands. Also, it tended to be local to countries which had a large mass of Irish clergy. This was a problem with vectors operating in that run of years. You gain nothing nowadays changing a discipline which dates back to apostolic times (though honored in the breach for a long time).

  76. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    21. June 2016 at 14:17

    1. the abuse was blown out of proportion by the antichristian media

    Not precisely. The details got lost in the telling and the details were crucial to understanding the contours of the problem. Irritated lay Catholics were if anything more troublesome in these discussions than the secular media. Gov. Keating also engaged in sensationalizing behavior which clouded public understanding, as did Thomas Doyle. As did Leon Podles.

  77. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 17:25

    “But I have it on the authority of the moderator that I’m the moron”

    Scott’s always been good at identifying those.

  78. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    21. June 2016 at 17:31

    Justin, you write:

    It’s “who” and “where” that matter more to me.

    Can you point me to the academic studies that demonstrate how an increase in the Muslim immigration rate causes an increase in the rate of rape in the children of non-immigrate families? Thanks.

  79. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    22. June 2016 at 05:00

    “Trump Makes Top Ten of Biggest Threats to the Global Economy.’

    “Who says he’s not a winner? The Economist has him at number three out of ten.”

    “For comparison, the possibility of a Brexit-they vote tomorrow-is ranked at eighth, and even a Grexit is just fifth.”

    “Number four-in other words the thing that the Economist considers to be a slightly less dangerous-is the EU fracturing.”

    “So the fracturing of the European Union, a 60 year project is less of a threat to the global economy than a Trump Presidency.”

    http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/06/trump-makes-top-ten-of-biggest-threats.html

  80. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    22. June 2016 at 07:44

    “So the fracturing of the European Union, a 60 year project is less of a threat to the global economy than a Trump Presidency.”

    Neither is a threat, except to the socio-political projects of the sort of people who own, edit, and write for The Economist.

  81. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    22. June 2016 at 08:04

    An agreeable polemic in favor of Brexit.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436853/brexit-vote-restore-british-democracy-vote-leave

    Telling in particular are the sources of argument Cameron is drawing on.

    That 3 of the last 5 Tory leaders want to continued being ruled by apparatchiks in Brussels is an indication that the Conservative Party needs to cleave. The twit faction can merge with the Nick Clegg rump and the patriots can merge with UKIP.

  82. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    22. June 2016 at 13:11

    A possible Trump running mate???
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/06/22/tennessee-congressional-candidate-make-america-white-again/86248816/

  83. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    23. June 2016 at 17:43

    Scott, I’m guessing you’re probably sick of this thread by now, but I just found this mini-documentary today that is worth seeing. It’s just 15 minutes long and comes from HBO Sports. The subject is Trump and his Scottish golf course and the empty promises he made regarding it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-gb2Fnhz5o

    I have a friend from Scotland here in Santa Barbara who’s aunt in Scotland had a run in with Trump over his golf course. He offered to buy her property, but didn’t offer much. She rejected the offer, and he made several more, but none were very good. Eventually he sent her a threatening letter telling her what happened to somebody who didn’t sell to Trump here in the states. She never did sell.

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