Tagged: John Kasich
O magnum mysterium
Muppies. Millennial Urban Professionals. The extremely online ones (i.e., writers for Jacobin/Splinternews type outfits) are buying brownstones in Bushwick from their trust funds.
Trump’s biggest feuds of 2019 were with reality and with his crippling paresis.
AOC risks damaging her brand the longer she associates with Bern’s losing campaign. For example, she’ll be held accountable for the misogyny and homophobia exuded by Bern’s online acolytes.
John Kasich say Democrats should avoid hard left candidates. The thing is, Bern and Warren aren’t hard left. They use the rhetoric of class struggle, but they are basically Right deviationists. Bourgeois socialists. Millionaires.
Bern’s online support is more left wing and, frankly, unhinged. But they’ll have no influence on policy.
Interestingly, support for the Vermont revolutionary is low among black voters and voters earning <50k
Bern appeals to the aristocracy of labor and those occupying intermediate class positions. Neither of these groups are particularly revolutionary. Lumpenproles remain with Trump.
Class struggle will continue as it has since 1848: predator capitalists on one side and xenophobic, economistic proles on the other side.
It is no surprise that Michael Moore prefers Trump over Biden. So does Walker Bragman.
Without a theory of needs, woke culture analysis remains superficial (i.e., idealist, bourgeois). It can nag from the sidelines, shame on Twitter, but will have no effect in reality.
White supremacists are as ubiquitous in the military today as heroin was during the Vietnam War era.
Fruitcake has a longer half-life than uranium.
Nowhere men
Bernie Sanders has explained the lack of success of his class-centric campaign on the fact that “poor people don’t vote.” Mr Sanders assumes poor people would vote for him.
When Mr Sanders complained that closed primaries were anti-democratic and a conspiracy to hurt his campaign, he failed to note that Ms Clinton has so far won 11 of the 18 open primaries.
When Mr Sanders says poor people don’t vote, he fails to account for his resounding losses across the south (the poorest region of the US).
The propensity to make excuses for electoral failure is not particular to Mr Sanders. When politicians are losing and their campaigns are in the final stages of viability, they tend to blame the process, blame the media, blame voters, blame anything and anyone, except themselves. Mr Sanders’ campaign has shifted from Romance (after the NH primary) to Tragedy (after Ohio and Florida), and now to Comedy (after New York).
Based on his campaign rallies, Mr Sanders knows that his core voting constituency is the comfortably well-off post-Occupy set, people more likely to be seen blogging on a MacBook Pro in Starbucks than waiting in long lines for unemployment insurance or WIC relief.
However, based on the results to date, his political revolution won’t be instagrammed after all.
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Mssrs Kasich and Cruz have agreed to work together to “Stop Trump.”
Imagine an episode of The Three Stooges in which Larry and Curly team up against Moe.
The Republican Convention will be like a scene from the Kingsman film.
Curtains
Running comments on Republican debate #4
Fox’s promotional film on Wisconsin didn’t mention Republican Senator Joe McCarthy.
Poor Scott Walker, this was supposed to be his big night.
On the minimum wage:
Trump says wages are too high. We’re losing. Suck it up workers.
Carson thinks $15 per hour wage is a high wage. Loud applause.
Rubio says America is great because it has poor people.
Rubio: “we need more welders and less philosophers.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
On jobs:
Canadian Senator Cruz says: Bold Tax Plan, Booming Growth, Remove Locusts, and Sound Money.
Jeb! is looking for a job too. Lower taxes. Repeal all environmental regulations. More pollution means high growth!
Fiorina: take our government back!
Krugerrand: move to a state with a Republican governor or a city with a Republican mayor.
Said with a straight face.
So far: Hillary bad, Obama bad, Democrats bad, taxes bad, government bad, clean water bad. Poor people good.
On immigration:
Trump: we need borders, we will have a wall, and it will be successful. They’ll have to go out, hopefully, they’ll get back. We’re going to be a country.
Kasich: deportation is not an adult argument.
He’s trying to lose!
Trump: Move them out! We have no choice!
Trump: I’ve made billions! Shut up Kasich, you punk!
Rubio: destroy government, kill the philosophers, and this new century will be a new American century.
This debate is no more informative than the other debates. They say the same things, sometimes louder, sometimes less coherently.
On taxes:
That’s it.
Time for an adult beverage and a reading of Plato’s Republic.
Winners: Everyone who watched the World Series of Poker Final Table.
Losers: Brain cells.
Rocky mountain low
Running thoughts on Republican Debate #3
Skipped the kid’s table debate in favor of an elective root canal.
The circus music has started up.
Everyone is running for a government position. Everyone hates the government. Contradiction?
Chris Christie promises to create another traffic jam to prevent Ms Clinton from reaching her inauguration.
Rand Paul promises to make more irrelevant speeches in the Senate.
Kasich has had a lot of coffee. He’s en fuego, targeting Trump.
Donald Trump says Kasich was on the board of Lehman Brothers when it tanked. Lehman Brothers is the third rail of Republican economics.
The Canadian Senator (Ted Cruz) says he has hard numbers.
Carly Fiorina says she got a lot done at HP. So much that she was fired.
Hearing Marco Rubio dodge the question about his absentee rate in the Senate makes me thirsty.
Jeb! just destroyed Rubio. OMG he called him French!
Ted Cruz is choked up. He’s talking about Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.
Cruz cut off! The moderators are living dangerously.
In response to Christie’s comments about “entitlement programs,” Huckabee just called Christie a 400 pound man eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Republican Huckabee mentions Republican Bernie Madoff. Odd.
Pistols might spice up the debate.
Jeb! just said he would kiss a man. Did Jeb! just come out?
Rubio says liar liar Hillary’s pant suit is on fire!
Mr Trump says “Down with Super Pacs, up with Tupac!”
Mr Cruz would downsize the IRS by putting tax forms on postcards. Sounds like a Canadian idea.
Jeb! says he wants radical change. He wants radical change in his poll numbers.
Trump just got fact checked, from his own website. This might be a first.
Trump says Guns Guns Guns! More Guns! Stop the sickos!
Jeb! hates the federal government. He’s running to be the Executive of the Federal Government.
Christie from New Jersey is fine with dodgy gambling. Hello Sopranos vote!
The moderators could save time if a graphic “Hates Federal Government” were flashed over each candidate. Most of their answers circle back to this sentiment.
The big finish:
Rand Paul promises to talk for hours and hours on CSPAN tomorrow.
Chris Christie is fed up (obviously).
Canadian Cruz wants to destroy government.
Fired CEO Fiorina fantasizes about beating Clinton.
Surgeon Carson wants America to be great again.
Trump wants to win. He won a shorter debate. He’ll be a great President.
Rubio has a thirst for the American dream.
Jeb! has a proven record of success, except in this campaign.
Huckabee turns to apocalyptic imagery. As President, he’ll delay The Rapture.
Kasich wants stronger families, better neighbors. What this has to do with being President is unclear.
Winner: BMW. That was a nice looking Beamer in one of the commercials.
Losers: Everyone else.
Just another high
My running thoughts on the second grown up table Republican debate:
Re the kid’s table: Mr Jindal should run again once he reaches puberty.
Mr Trump’s hair is groomed to look like the wing of a fighter jet.
Very diverse audience in the Reagan Temple tonight.
Like Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, CNN’s Jake Tapper is eager to take Mr Trump down.
Rand Paul is Trump’s first punching bag of the evening.
Scott Walker decimated. Trump is a buffoon but he’s playing with fools.
Hopefully, there will be a question about Ms Fiorina and HP.
Jeb! has wandered into Trump’s cesspool.
Fiorina says not talking to Putin shows strength. Funny stuff.
Fortunately, Mr Cruz won’t be elected president.
Mr Huckabee makes the Iran deal a matter of the Apocalypse.
Mr Huckabee advocates lawlessness re the topic of Kim Davis.
Christie pandering. Well played, sir.
Re birthright citizenship, Mr Trump says “we have to take care of the baby for 85 years.” I guess those babies don’t grow up.
Finally, Fiorina has to explain away the HP disaster. Tangling with Trump: poor Fiorina.
The problem in that exchange for Fiorina is that she has a track record of failure. Trump has a track record of more success than failure. But it’s a nonsensical discussion on job creation because as Republicans have said to Obama over and over again: Presidents don’t create jobs.
Unlike Ms Fiorina, Mr Trump will talk to Mr Putin. Putin and Trump are both billionaires. They can talk about investment strategies and Swiss banks.
So Marco Rubio is a shirker (i.e., high absentee rate) in the Senate. Trump keeps bringing it.
Rubio floundering. He’s toast.
Jeb! says Peace Through Strength. It’s 1950 again.
Scott Walker says “I won’t back down.” Maybe Tom Petty should be President.
Mr Cruz thinks Chief Justice John Roberts is a liberal. I think Mr Cruz is a loon.
Mr Rubio says “radical terror cannot be solved by intellect.” To be fair, he has no experience with intellect.
Winners: Trump, Jeb!, Paul
Losers: Carson, Christie
Biggest Losers: Fiorina, Walker, Huckabee, Rubio, Kasich, Cruz
Et cetera 