Election 2016

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 2:18 am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... explained/

Late last week, a neologism was born. Twitter was the incubator. "Cuckservative," a portmanteau of "conservative" and "cuckold" (i.e. a man whose wife has cheated on him) burned up Twitter as fans of Donald Trump's politicking warred with the movement conservatives who opposed it.

RedState.com's Erick Erickson, the Daily Caller's Matt Lewis, and the team at the well-read conservative blog Ace of Spades were among the critics suddenly deluged with accusations of cuckservatism.

Below, we explain.

What is "cuckservatism?"

I'll defer to Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute.

"#Cuckservative” is a full-scale revolt, by Identitarians and what I’ve called the 'alt Right,' against the Republican Party and conservative movement," Spencer explained in an e-mail. "The 'cuck' slur is vulgar, yes, but then piercingly accurate. It is the cuckold who, whether knowingly or unknowingly, loses control of his future. This is an apt psychological portrait of white 'conservatives,' whose only identity is comprised of vague, abstract 'values,' and who are participating in the displacement of European Americans — their own children.

WARNING: The links are to white supremacist websites, if that wasn't obvious enough in context.

That said, the cuckservative phenomenon is genuinely worrying. I had thought that Trump's natural constituency were a bunch of cranky-ass movement conservatives, the same dolts who inflated Santorum and Cain and Gingrich in the last election. But apparently, it's showing that Trump has the genuine if conditional backing of actual American white supremacists. I mean, that's kind of a given, but not only are they're really into the guy but their critiques of the cuckservatives are rather shockingly coherent. I mean, I was expecting some sort of bleating 'dey took our jaerbs!' primal scream of rage as is usually the case when American right-wingers whine about squishes, but it's surprisingly... literate. WARNING: Those links are to unapologetic white nationalists/fascists. I take no responsibility for any mental damage incurred from reading their drivel.

It's like watching Gx1080 and Elennsar lay into tzor and I. Am. Loving it. While also being rather frightened by it. EDIT: Seriously, have you looked at the comment sections of some of these sites, especially those in websites that are establishment conservative? It's like Stormfront did a DBZ fusion dance with Steve Sailer.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:31 am

You should probably tag links immediately after providing them when they're to stuff people might not want to go to. White Supremacist sites are probably right up there with NSFW sites as things people will want to know they're being directed to before clicking. Especially if you're trying to provide context to some occult political slander term. I seriously hadn't heard the term cuckservative until your posts, and had only the faintest idea of what the hell it meant.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:13 pm

One more for the clown car: http://nypost.com/2015/07/29/ex-virgini ... candidate/

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 8:06 pm

Ancient History wrote:One more for the clown car: http://nypost.com/2015/07/29/ex-virgini ... candidate/

So at first glance I thought this was going to be Bob Mcdonnell and I was like...wait...noooooo...

But then I remembered that Scott Walker and Chris Christie are already in the race, and I was like...yeah alright...sure.

Turns out it's not Bob Mcdonnell though.

Republican primary debates start on August 6. I'm going to watch that shit like it's Hee Haw.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:14 am

Hiram McDaniels wrote:
Republican primary debates start on August 6. I'm going to watch that shit like it's Hee Haw.

Oh god. Now I can't stop picturing THAT.

You have the candidates who drop out because of funding.

And then you have the ones who drop out because of scandal and misfortune, and how they always says they were done wrong.

I would watch it...

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 1:46 am

I wonder if Indiana's guvnor mike pence is just waiting to court someone as a VP pick. He does have an incredible record of being a tea party governor who didn't turn the state into a ruined piece of shit, yet. I wonder if his national attention with his Defense of Bigotry Law neutered presidential ambitions some.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 6:18 am

Trump has a relatively even share of voters who describe themselves as teabaggers, or movement conservatives, or racists, or republican moderates, or whatever other arbitrary groups you want to talk about within the republican primary voters. The simple fact is that the republican party's leadership and their electoral base in 2012 both overwhelmingly chose a known pathological liar to be their standard bearer. Donald Trump is a rich sociopath, and that is exactly what conservatives look for in a leader. He doesn't represent any particular weird fringe group of the party (like how Huckabee waves the flag for the evangelical kid diddlers), he's just the personal embodiment of exactly what the conservatives actually want. A rich asshole who insults people at the drop of a hat and throws his weight around starting fights with people with less power than he has for no reason.

Now the problem Trump has is that he is an unelectable buffoon. People understand that. He is obviously unqualified, and lacks the deep political connections that allow other obviously unqualified people (like Jeb! Bush) to be contenders. He can't make the argument that he may be functionally retarded but he's really just a stand-in for a vast conspiracy of cronyism that will put a network of conservative policy wonks in charge of dismantling running the state. Trump's whole reason for existence is that he's the rich, powerful, and spiteful micromanaging egomaniac that the conservatives imagine a "strong" to be.

So while Trump completely dominates the field of 17, it's hard to imagine him besting a field of two. He loses almost every state to Hillary Clinton in head to head polling at the moment, and it's hard to see that dial moving all that much. But unless and until the Republicans can unite behind an "anyone but Donald Trump" candidate, he's going to be in the lead. Which means we could seriously get to the republican convention with a hung group of delegates and then a contested convention that ends up spitting out Walker in a backroom deal that makes no one happy.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 7:51 am

So basically the same as Kitten Mittens at the last election, where they ended up choosing him out of desperation that they had nobody better or more electable?

Is there a chance that, when this happens, Trump will decide to run for president with his own Republican party - with blackjack and hookers - and in doing so split the "crazy right wing" voter base and completely set fire to the chances of a non-Democrat president?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:53 am

He's threatened to run as a third-party.

So we'd seriously be repeating elections from a hundred years ago, where Teddy Roosevelt ran the Bull Moose Party and split the Republican party and that got Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, elected.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:04 am

No, we'd be repeating the election with Perot, Clinton, and Bush in '92. Fuck me.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 2:42 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Cuckservative is the best thing ever. Not only is it an incredibly douchey word but it's like a long-overdue helping of karma to the establishment wing from the proto-fascists. That's right, American conservatives; suck that invective you flung out all these years right down.

From about one year ago the insult "cuck" exploded in popularity on /b/ /pol/ the nasty underbelly of the *chans. I just checked google trends and this wasn't just a hunch.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 6:24 pm

I tend to side with 538 here. Trump won't get the nomination or even get close. He's way ahead now because he's very different from the other 16 guys and not fighting them for the same votes, but his unfavorables are huge. Most Republicans who aren't already in the 20% supporting him hate him. When Jindal drops out, his 3% isn't going to to go to Trump, it's going to Jeb or Walker. Santorum's people aren't going for Trump either. Etc. Etc. Trump will probably never break 30%.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 6:42 pm

We'll see what happens. While I agree that Trump is far from the best (or even an adequate) standard-bearer for the cause of increasingly unsublimated elderly WASP revanchism, he's the only one willing to pick up the flag at all. And as much as the establishment and even leftists think that the conservative base is more-or-less okay with corporate bootlicking, Israel fellatio, spinning their wheels on abortion, government spending cuts, wealthy-targeted tax cuts, and a slow surrender to the march of gay rights one of the things I've been surprised about after researching the cuckservative meme is that a surprisingly large portion of the GOP base is aware that they're being exploited and that they're very much not happy about being forced to endure these things for the greater good; they tolerate it the same way leftist Democrats tolerate, say, Obama failing to go on a tear against bankstahs and drone deployment.

If Trump comes out swinging for full-on white-centered white populism, I bet he'll be a lot more resilient than people are predicting. Certainly not enough to win, but definitely enough to be the next kingmaker or even Ross Perot.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 6:55 pm

The one thing that Fivethirtyeight might be underestimating is the polarization of the anti-establishment/anti-moderate crowd. The Huckabee/Santorum/Cruz/Perry/Carson voters are going to coalesce around one candidate at some point and it's very possible that it won't be an establishment candidate.

Trump's gameplan is probably to outlast those third-stringers and grab their votes. I don't think it'll be enough to win him the nomination (especially since some of those fringe candidates have proven to be willing to campaign for a while after being conclusively disavowed) but it's a possible, if not probable path to victory for trump.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 7:16 pm

I am not comfortable making guesses about who the Republican base will support, because every time you poll Republican voters on policy issues the answer ends up being "a Democrat." Republicans are for ending tax cuts on the wealthy. Republicans are for the legalization of gay marriage. Republicans are for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants living within the country. Republicans are for background checks on all gun sales. The only Republican policies that consistently poll well with Republicans are "more Christianity, less welfare." On that basis, you would expect Cruz, Huckabee, or Santorum, but that sure as fuck isn't going to happen.

I'm beginning to suspect the reason the Republican voters ultimately decide on "moderate" candidates (who aren't really moderate and who won't really do any of the things Republican voters want them to do) is because they actually want a centre-left Democrat, but they can't actually vote for a centre-left Democrat because blue is the wrong color.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:27 pm

I think everyone is underestimating Trump's ability to get the Republican nomination. I've seen a lot of Trump support from the Republican end of things and it doesn't have anything to do with policies or shit like that, it has to do with how he presents himself. Republicans want Trump because they think he's successful (they don't even know he inherited tremendous sums of money) and think his volume/rudeness means he's smart.

Even a cursory look shows that Trump is a shitty businessman (good at abusing laws and getting people to throw money at him, though), but Trump is a genuinely good entertainer, even if you don't like his stuff, who knows how to do media. If he wanted to win the Republican nomination I think he could. Jeb! is a garbage politician tied to a family of garbage politicians, Walker busts unions and almost got recalled in his own fucking state, all the other Republicans don't matter, so what is Trump even up against?

I'm not saying Trump is a good candidate, but he is better at this game than the other guys. I think Trump has to take himself out of the race; I don't think the Republican establishment can stop him outside of all the other candidates throwing themselves behind Jeb! or Walker.

Edit for Bernie vs Hillary on minorities:

Bernie marched on Washington. He protested segregated housing over 50 years ago. Since then he has a perfect record supporting civil rights and human rights. At the time he was protesting segregated housing Hillary Clinton was campaigning for Barry Goldwater.

Bernie Sanders voted against the Defense of Marriage act in 1996, a bill that Bill Clinton signed. He was a strong supporter when Vermont became the first state to legalize gay civil unions in 2000. He has spoken out for gay rights for more than 40 years. Hillary Clinton made a speech against gay marriage as recently as 2004. She changed her stance and became a supporter in 2013.

Hillary has changed her mind on civil rights whereas Sanders has gotten it right from the start. People might not know this, but he is a much better candidate for minorities. He's a better candidate for fucking everyone. The only reason Sanders is considered weak with minorities is he's a shitty marketer.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:43 pm

Trump getting the nomination requires a much stronger belief in the democratic process than most Republicans seem willing to admit; we make light of the fact that the GOP is mostly rudderless because their leadership are toothless and ineffective, but the general fact always seems to be that there are backroom deals to be made and politicians with enough sway at the conventions to make them.

Republican candidates veer hard right during the primary race to appeal to the base, because if they can get enough delegates to win the initial vote, then they're home free; and if they can't, but can at least get enough to hang the vote, then they're in the running and can trade horses and exact promises and otherwise influence the convention.

The Donald doesn't have any juice when it comes to the actual delegates at the convention, so even if he was twice as popular as he currently is, he's not going to get enough votes to win the nomination. Jeb! is the presumptive nominee, because he can outspend the rest and make enough deals to get the votes he needs for the nomination; at best, the others are running for veep, or a plank in the party platform.

This is part of the reason the GOP higher-ups fear Trump pulling a Ross Perot and running as a third party candidate - because the nominee is going to moderate to the left, and the third-party guy can split the party on the right. And as we saw in 2012, the GOP doesn't have enough base to support two candidates - they couldn't even elect Romney on the "turn out the base/appeal to white people" vote - and the demographics aren't even as favorable as they were in 2012.

My bet is the Donald is going to run with this thing until it starts costing him money or until the Koch Bros. cut him in on some serious real estate deal.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:21 pm

The thing about Trump that makes me nervous is that I've seen too many people mistake his bloviating trash talk as honesty. Since when does being rude mean you're telling the truth?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:38 pm

Since season 1, episode 1 of House. More seriously though, directness and mild use of expletives are generally associated with honesty in American cultures - and there's reasons to believe that in some populations (i.e. hard-right conservatives) there's an even greater association with honesty with his behavior.

Consider that everyone, when they hear something, for a moment believes it - the belief is often quickly discarded if you know what you've just heard is false, or if you don't trust the person, but everybody has that split second where they buy it. People who are already disposed to that viewpoint hang on longer, because it reaffirms what they want to be true - and the GOP culture over the past several years or decades shows there is a strong bias towards that kind of behavior among conservatives.

On top of that, conservatives tend to be innately distrustful of authority figures, particularly those they see as part of entrenched institutions they don't trust (i.e. established politicians or "Beltway Insiders" and intellectuals or "liberal academics"). The fact that a lot of their politicians are highly educated folks who went to ivy league schools is a downside to them; look at how hard people like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney went to shed some of their "elite" image and appear as more regular folk - unsuccessfully in RMoney's case, but then he is a robot from the future sent to kill us all. So the fact that Trump is getting bad press from the GOP and media probably fuels his status as an underdog outsider, and saying shit that has the "liberal media" poo-pooing it must mean he's doing something right, damn all this "political correctness."

It really is that nasty and, ultimately, stupid. Conservatives will gladly vote against their own best interests because of a cultural distrust of the other - be that female, Democrat, black, etc. - and their loyalty to individual politicos can be very fickle if they bring out the No True Scotsman arguments. So, trash-talking other candidates to make them look like RINOs works.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 10:13 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I think everyone is underestimating Trump's ability to get the Republican nomination. I've seen a lot of Trump support from the Republican end of things and it doesn't have anything to do with policies or shit like that, it has to do with how he presents himself. Republicans want Trump because they think he's successful (they don't even know he inherited tremendous sums of money) and think his volume/rudeness means he's smart.

You have to remember that presidential nominations are not straight popular votes.

The Democrats have ~80% delegates and ~20% superdelegates. Delegates are assigned to candidates based on the popular vote; superdelegates are members of the party establishment and can vote for whoever the fuck they want for any reason they want.

Republicans have ~72% pledged delegates and 28% unpledged delegates. Pledged delegates are assigned to candidates based on the popular vote; unpledged delegates are members of the party establishment and can vote for whoever the fuck they want for any reason they want.

If you believe Donald Trump is making a serious attempt for presidency, then his threat to run independently is about forcing the unpledged delegates to respect the results of the popular vote (or else he will ruin the party in the general). If you believe Donald Trump is only trying to make money off of this, then his threat to run independently is about extorting money from the machinery behind the Republican party (or else he will ruin the party in the general). But in terms of actually winning the nomination, Donald Trump is behind 28% with 0% of precincts reporting. To win without establishment support, he'd need to split the primary popular vote 70-30.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:People might not know this, but he is a much better candidate for minorities. He's a better candidate for fucking everyone. The only reason Sanders is considered weak with minorities is he's a shitty marketer.

No one's said that Bernie Sanders hasn't been on the right side of civil rights issues his entire career; they're saying exactly what you're saying, which is that he has no significant political presence among minority communities despite his voting record.

Clinton really is just another centrist meh like Obama who talks the populist talk to get elected and then gives us shit like the TPP, bringing us one step closer to a world run by Shadowrun-esque megacorporations (just without all the fun stuff like magic and virtual reality and brown elf nipples). It's better than what the Republicans are offering, but Sanders is an actual honest-to-god liberal candidate, and that's amazing. But he doesn't have minority cred because unlike Hillary he hasn't been grooming himself to run for presidency for-fucking-ever, so odds of him winning the primary are skun and even if he did it would make a Republican win of the general all the more likely.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:49 pm

DSMatticus wrote:so odds of him winning the primary are skun and even if he did it would make a Republican win of the general all the more likely.

I don't think Sanders' chance of winning the primary is very high, but if he does win I think that he could easily beat the Republican. One reason is that demographics very highly favor the Democratic Party right now. After all, Obama won by 4% in an election with high unemployment and the racial minority + millenial share of the vote grows by about 3% every election since 2000. Unless Sanders really steps in it or there's a catastrophic foreign policy blunder/scandal/economic implosion Sanders, Clinton, or any Democratic Party hack could easily win 2016 just by being 'Not A Republican'.

The other reason why I think Sanders specifically could easily beat the Republican Party in the general election is that if he actually succeeded in tearing down probably the strongest non-incumbent since Eisenhower that means that there is some real anger/excitement/anxiety/whatever in the Democratic base. Sanders only wins if Clinton or Obama really steps in it or if Democrats are a lot more pissed-off than the establishment is fronting -- and again, if Democrats, who right now have a natural majority, are pissed off enough to take down Clinton then they can easily shove Sanders past the finish line.

The establishment might be right, but after they made the IMO very large mistake in predicting that Trump taking a hatchet to McCain's honor would cause him to collapse I don't put much stock into their judgment.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:10 am

DSMatticus wrote: Clinton really is just another centrist meh like Obama who talks the populist talk to get elected and then gives us shit like the TPP, bringing us one step closer to a world run by Shadowrun-esque megacorporations (just without all the fun stuff like magic and virtual reality and brown elf nipples). It's better than what the Republicans are offering, but Sanders is an actual honest-to-god liberal candidate, and that's amazing. But he doesn't have minority cred because unlike Hillary he hasn't been grooming himself to run for presidency for-fucking-ever, so odds of him winning the primary are skun and even if he did it would make a Republican win of the general all the more likely.

Really, I don't actually want Hillary. I just want Bill back.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 7:09 am

Lago,

Sanders loses or runs even with most of the GOP candidates in current head to head polls. Polls don't matter at this point, but at the same time I'm not sure what trick you think he has up his sleeve that will give him an easy win. He certainly could win; the more people know about him, the more they will like him. The Republican candidates will presumably self-sabotage a whole bunch to win the primary and then throw in a few more unforced errors in the general. But they have money, turnout, and voter suppression to tilt things their way. Sanders is a likely winner, but Hilary is a near-guaranteed winner.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 7:37 am

I feel like the trick up Sanders' sleeve is "being the democratic candidate and therefore automatically less crazy than the opposition."

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:16 am

DSM wrote:I am not comfortable making guesses about who the Republican base will support, because every time you poll Republican voters on policy issues the answer ends up being "a Democrat." Republicans are for ending tax cuts on the wealthy. Republicans are for the legalization of gay marriage. Republicans are for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants living within the country. Republicans are for background checks on all gun sales.

That's pretty close to true.

June 8th, CNN poll wrote:59% of Republicans under age 50 believe that same-sex couples do have a constitutional right to marry, while 36% of Republicans and right-leaning respondents age 50 or older do.

Note that there are a considerable number of Republicans under the age of 50 who believe that gays do have a constitutional right to marry, but also want a constitutional amendment to change that. Still, the basic issue is that support for actual Republican policies among actual registered Republicans is pretty tepid. For some Republican policies, it's downright absurd:

July 3rd Quinnipiac poll wrote:86 percent of Republicans support background checks prior to all gun sales

You read that right. The Republican party has an ironclad platform to support an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that six out of seven of their own members think is dangerous and insane. The fact that they keep turning up to vote for these shit weasels tells you that tribalism and the push of political money is very strong. Opposition to universal background checks is almost twice as high among Republicans than it is among the general population of gun owners, but that is because support for universal background checks among all gun owners is 92%. The position that Republican orthodoxy demands of its elected officials is extremely fringe even within their own party.

The Koch brothers are planning to spend nine hundred million dollars to influence the 2016 election. And so it is that they get to set the Republican party's priorities and the Republican base doesn't get to say shit. And that's basically been true for a long time. But while the traditional claim is that the electorate is much crazier than the establishment, actually the reverse is true. The people who turn out for team red are by a huge majority much more reasonable and less insane than Rand Paul or Marco Rubio, let alone the more fire breathing christian fascists like Ted Cruz.

-Username17