Hilzoy on how the Republicans got Donald Trump

by Doctor Science

Hilzoy, formerly of this establishment, has moved on from political blogging, but she's active on twitter. The other day she wrote a tweetstorm that's been storified as How the Republicans got Donald Trump. Excerpts:

@hilzoy GOP has for a long time been destroying trust in press, experts, basically everyone ppl don't know personally.

— hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 1, 2016

@hilzoy So their followers think politics is a matter of insane urgency, but have no one to help them get good info about what to do.

— hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 1, 2016

---

@hilzoy Which leaves field wide open to Trump: He can't be bought (ha ha), speaks his mind, etc., etc. One big signal of authenticity.

— hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 1, 2016

@hilzoy And by destroying trust in everyone who might speak against him, party has destroyed all paths back to sanity.

— hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 1, 2016

---

@hilzoy This is 1 reason (of many) why I never wanted to demonize GOP voters. They need a route back. Hard enough w/o encountering contempt.

— hilzoy (@hilzoy) March 1, 2016

-- but you should read the whole thing.

The next day, she added a bit more, including a link to Amanda Taub's long but excellent Vox article on the rise of American authoritarianism.

We can now all play Pretend Hilzoy Is Still Posting At Obsidian Wings, and discuss!

---

My take:

I am less inclined to blame the GOP as a political party for destroying their base's ability to trust. I think the role of Limbaugh/right-wing radio and FoxNews was critical. They created a right-wing information ecology large enough that people inside it could believe it contained the whole world, that there was nothing they had to go outside for.

The trouble is, right-wing media needs a *constantly* agitated audience, one that is afraid and/or outraged *all the time* -- so that they can be soothed by the news org. and its advertisers, of course. And GOP politicians -- and, what's worse, big-money donors -- are caught up in the bubble, too. The people who are supposed to be steering the party have become just as paranoid and agitated as "the base". They can't help the voters find the way out because they're stuck there, too.

I'm also less sure than hilzoy that there *is* "a way back" for GOP voters. This process has been going on for 20 years or more -- how can they get "back" to a psychic place they've never been? Especially given that a lot of their grief, as Taub's article discusses, comes from the fact that America's future is not going to look like the past.

My personal belief is that many things would improve if the RW media bubble could crack, but I don't see how that can happen. Breitbart.com really does make FoxNews look fair and balanced, and of course it's growing by leaps and bounds. How do we stop authoritarianism from being activated more and more, fear from being mongered, leading to the Dark Side?

The Orator by Magnus Zeller (1920).

Comments

[Snarki, child of Loki]

A better plan for the GOP is to secretly bribe/threaten 'electors' to cast their vote for someone other than Trump.

Hilarity ensues.

[wj]

I believe that, at least in some states, there is no provision for a party to change its nominee. The best they can do is move the VP candidate up.

Even that requires extraordinary circumstances. Maybe the death of their Presidential candidate. But possible not including the Presidential candidate quitting, or being convicted (let alone merely indicted) of a major crime. Not sure how either of those plays out.

We may be looking at interesting times indeed. Especially if both parties end up in similar situations with regard to their nominees.

[Countme-In]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495812/-Police-confirm-Trump-campaign-wanted-peaceful-black-students-kicked-out-of-rally

Trump's goons and the howling pigs at the Republican debate last night need to be placed in a position of saying Auf Wiedersehen to their Nazi balls:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Bqycjw_tw

See, I knew from 2010 and since when Republican armed paramilitary assassins were permitted to skulk without interdiction from law enforcement in the vicinity of Democratic townhall meetings during the Obamacare bullying, that Republican goons would feel no compunction about treating visitors to their rallies who they consider anti-American and subhuman like suspects to be bullied at will.

Smith and Wesson's stock is up big this week on blow-out quarterly earnings. It's a shame it's only Republican murderers getting ready for what is coming.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=SWHC&insttype=Stock

[Countme-In]

See, if the proper measures had been taken long ago against the designer jackbooted Republican filth terrorizing American democracy these past years, maybe things could have nipped in the bud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

Not shooting them in the their heads then in Miami-Dade as they disturbed the peace with violence just means it will have to be done later in a much larger and deadly catastrophe, because their numbers are legion now and all of them are armed.

[Countme-In]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/qotd-trump-voter.html

Hey lady, you know, Walmarts in Texas that feel just like China where everyone speaks Spanish also have a weapons department at your fingertips.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Count, you have a lot to answer for, for the things that you sometimes put in my head!

Well, if we're going to broach the subject of taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions, Ugh needs called onto the carpet, too.

Three days (and counting!) of mental anguish, emotional distress, and the utter inability to get the dulcet tones of Phil Collins out of my poor, miserable head.

[Ugh]

It's a land of confusion, NV.

[Countme-In]

The Hell's Angels and the entire Bundy clan, including Ted, feel slighted:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_03/cleveland_needs_a_lot_of_riot059823.php

It won't be enough.

I doubt the thug in uniform who murdered Tamir Rice is going to be nearly as trigger happy enforcing the law against his own kind, but a body can hope.

[cleek]

"After seven years of the cool, weak and endlessly nuanced 'no drama Obama,' voters are looking for a strong leader who speaks in short, declarative sentences," -- Dummy Jindal

Jindal is a moron with a tiny penis.

can i lead now?

[Ugh]

What a shitshow:

Like I said last night, #NeverTrump is really #EventuallyTrump. In a Kentucky radio interview today, Marco Rubio is forced to admit that #NeverTrump actually only applies for the primaries. Audio here.

[cleek]

much conviction. so resolute.

ooh. that's shiny.

[wj]

I wonder what someone speaking in short, pithy sentences and words of few syllables would say about Jindal. Probably nothing he would want to hear.

[Countme-In]

Obama's sentences are thousands of pages long.

No one has read them. We don't know what's in them.

But we know what we don't like, and whatever it is that is in those sentences sounds Muslim, Communist, and Ebonic to us.

Our sentences will fit on a postcard and we'll issue one a year and the rest of you can just check the box that says "I agree, or else!"

It will be a short, declarative sentence like Miss Bendusover taught us in the second grade.

It will read: "F*ck you."

[Countme-In]

I love that Rubio is selling #NeverTrump "merchandise", but only for a short time.

Get 'em while they are hot and while we mean it, because come July 22, (quick, show em the new bunting) the new models will be go on sale that read #Trump/Rubio Forever.

MY God, we are a Vaseline-coated grift from sea to rising sea. America is a smiling huckster ringing the world's doorbell and when you open the door, his red, white, and blue coat falls open to reveal the suicide vest.

#Tippiecanoe and Tyler Too

#Tippiecanoe ... Tyler, Not So Much

#Tippie Who?

http://torontoist.com/2011/10/ford-releases-new-campaign-slogans-in-wake-of-swearing-controversy/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29295/11-presidential-campaign-slogans-went-beyond-buzzwords

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I strongly suspect that #NeverTrump swag will come in handy this Fall.

And there will be YOOOGE demand for it on ebay, by GOPers, after November.

[Countme-In]

The Clinton campaign might be able to pick up the sizable inventory of #NeverTrump swag real cheap after July 22 and do helicopter drops all the way to November.

In fact, if they don't, I'll be very disappointed in their imaginations, not that I'm not already.

[Countme-In]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495737/-Republican-says-Obamacare-saved-his-life-Thank-you-for-serving-me-even-when-I-didn-t-vote-for-you

Then he said, "Hey, early April Fools, kids. Looking back on the whole ordeal, I'd much rather have died writhing in agony with no painkillers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills for my family than to have paid those high deductibles. I'm ashamed to admit that I've been hoodwinked into being a Socialist, so if you'll excuse me, as a freedom-loving vermin a8shole Republican, I'm going to now shoot myself in the head and cavort with 77 celestial virgins who died of the clap after Planned Parenthood was defunded.

See the suicide video at #ForeverTrump

[Countme-In]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495845/-Texas-Republicans-find-craziest-person-in-state-want-to-put-her-in-charge-of-school-textbooks

I can't top that.

Time to move the school shootings up a level into State Board of Education meetings.

[russell]

see me run. run, me, run!

me run good. you vote me.

[hairshirthedonist]

I can't really explain this, but I invented a new expression after reading that last link: all the panther piss in Texas, as in, "I wouldn't [blank] for all the panther piss in Texas!"

Carry on.

[Ugh]

"That there may have been dinosaurs on Noah’s ark, and the reason there are no dinosaurs now is that Noah only brought baby dinosaurs that starved to death when he let them loose back on land."

Well, duh.

[Countme-In]

The RNC has warehouses full of #AllUpInThereWithCruz and #StuckWithRubio ... JeezIsThatIt?!$!?? swag ready to go if the #NeverTrump gambit fizzles.

Also #HowdyHueyLong, #TheNew4H -HitlerHeidrichHimmlerHess!, and #TakeYourBestShotSuckers! coffee cups, key chains, bumper stickers, and designer SK-47s ready to go if they decide to go full fascist BEFORE the election instead of keeping things on the down low like they are now.

[Countme-In]

Here's what short, declarative sentences look like:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/03/04/i-give-you-all-ive-got-to-give-rings-and-pearls-and-all/

What part of "Fuck You" don't we get?

These are the ravages of Grover Norquist's Americans For Tax Reform movement at the state and local level, where they now reside, pending a return to running the Federal Government into the ground.

The short, declarative sentence of a baby with its head held under in the bathtub: "Glug ..."

[Countme-In]

The SK-47 referred to above is an AK-47 with the automatic swimming pool clip attached.

[Countme-In]

Maybe rewatch Dylan Ratigan's epic rant:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/strip-mining-human-landscape-by.html

[Donald Johnson]

Digby linked to this--

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/03/secret-donald-trump-voters-speak-out

The lefty Trump voters interest me-- it's basically a middle finger to the establishment vote, which I understand. Too risky and self destructive, of course. I think they are being stupid in the extreme, but I understand the temptation.

The one person who really made my head explode supports the BDS movement against Israel, but also supports Trump's call to keep Muslims out. Sometimes I think the reason we stereotype supporters of a candidate is because when you start looking at people as individuals, the results are often too weird to process.

[russell]

I have to say that I'm somewhat gobsmacked by folks who say 'Trump could be like Hitler', and follow with 'let him have his four years'.

WTF?

What the emails cited in the Guardian piece remind me of, exactly, are all the folks ca. 1980 explaining why they were breaking with their own personal histories to vote for Reagan.

[Countme-In]

Donald Johnson's link is interesting. I cop to having some affection for the folks in there who believe Trump (the rest of the Republican candidates, too) will heighten the contradictions.

However:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews

I think I'll make up a quote from Naumann, the German Jew highlighted therein.

"Nothing works right in Germany. Fools are in charge. My fellow Jews must assimilate and the Nazi Party will get use to us. Have you ridden a train lately? My Gott! Herr Hitler will get them running on time, and furthermore, the trains that now run from Berlin into Eastern Europe will be returning empty, as it should be, without those damned Polish Zionists filling them up! What this country needs is a good one-way train ticket."

[Countme-In]

Cliven Bundy, Nominee for Secretary of the Interior under whichever Republican President he votes for, and his cows:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/03/05/balloon-juice-bunker-standoff-update-wont-someone-think-of-the-cows/

Yeah, he's a cattleman, alright.

[Frank Shannon]

Strangely timely: http://exiledonline.com/reagan%E2%80%99s-cheshire-snarl/

[Barry]

Marty: "(Net immigration has been negative for 7 years, odd that those stats changed so dramatically in Obamas first year of releasing them, but heck I'll give it to Drum)."

Well, we now know that Mart is in the 1%, because the Great Financial Crash was beneath his notice.

[Countme-In]

I liked Dolan's article.

He's had the honor of being fired for his views from plenty of teaching positions in dangerous places:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dolan_%28writer%29

[Frank Shannon]

Yeah he's pretty cool. I miss him behind the paywall.

[Countme-In]

"Well, we now know that Mart is in the 1%, because the Great Financial Crash was beneath his notice."

Barack Obama, and John McCain, were accorded the honor in September of 2008, as mere candidates, before either of them was elected, or not, by the American people -- they weren't even lame duck Presidents, let alone President yet -- of an invite to sit in on the meetings regarding the cascading financial crash by President Bush's White House.

But, now that Obama has been and is still elected President, his voice is shushed by the Republican Congress on all other of the country's business.

[Ugh]

Trump or Cruz. The GOP dream team.

[wj]

Nightmares are dreams, too.

[Older]

Frank Shannon: Have you read "Crooked" by Austin Grossman?

[Frank Shannon]

Nope I really liked "Soon I Will be Invincible" though so I might pick it up.

[liberal japonicus]

Hilzoy's notion that a road back needs to be created is a tribute to her humanity, but in practice, we could build a 16 lane superhighway back to sanity, and it would not make one whit of difference.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trumps-ability-to-attract-evangelical-voters-confounds-analysts/

About Trump and evangelical voters. In order to work with people, you have to believe that they are going to be consistent about what they say and do. The above proves that this doesn't obtain with any on the religious right.

Krauthammer has a tedious piece about how evangelical voters are going to Trump because they want to be 'protected', which may or may not be true (but you are not going to lose very often betting against what Krauthammer says), but this is absolutely right

A more scripturally, spiritually flawed man than Trump would be hard to find. As several anti-Trump evangelical voices have argued, Christian witness cannot possibly support a thrice-married man with such an impressive list of the seven deadly sins.

The idea that the principles of the religious right are things that need to be acknowledged is just another one of those pieces of wisdom that has no basis in fact. A pity it took a person like Trump to show that was the case.

[Frank Shannon]

Wow that "The idea that the principles of the religious right are things that need to be acknowledged is just another one of those pieces of wisdom that has no basis in fact. A pity it took a person like Trump to show that was the case." is amazing. I'm going to have to steal that at some point.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Shorter:

Trump showed that the GOP core values are racism and xenophobia. The other stuff (taxes, small government, anti-abortion, christianity)? Optional.

[Countme-In]

"Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her."

I think with conservative Evangelicals, the problem is not that they can't find a guy who is without sin (after all, without sin, where would they be, and besides it was probably Strom Thurmond or Jimmy Swaggart ... rhymes with Dagny Taggart ... who got HER in trouble in the first place?) but rather that the taxes on stones and the throwing hereof ... usually at HER, and whomever else can be identified as the Other ... are prohibitive.

And we know who's fault that is.

The Republican Party's Chamber of Commerce/Ayn Rand tax-hating base needs the religious right vote to put them over the top. The 49% require that extra bit of hate to get them to the promised land.

As Mitt Romney told us, and Donald Trump took to heart as the key to winning.

Ted Cruz is a whole nother sort of BalRog.

Get rid of the taxes on stones and behold the spectacle of the Others being stoned tax-free ... what an incentive ... in the streets and they are well on their way to ridding themselves of the estate taxes, corporate taxes, Obamacare taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes too.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Count, you're in CO, correct?
Don't they have a tax on getting stoned?

[Countme-In]

Yes, but we had to approve an Amendment last November to allow the State to keep the $66 million collected on marijuana taxes.

Otherwise, jailbird Doug Bruce's Tabor Amendment would have made them give it all back.

Stoned Republicans from all over the country fly here in private jets and load up on weed.

Which contradicts Ronald Reagan's dictum that if you want less of something, tax it.

Despite Nancy's googly-eyes toward her husband.

I don't partake, though I wouldn't mind dropping a hit of acid during the next Republican debate to see if the hilarity is heightened.

[wj]

Count, that sounds like a recipe for a bad trip.

[ral]

Loudon Wainwright III's Acid Song.

[Marty]

Well, the Republicans in Massachusetts don't think its a good idea.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2016/03/07/massachusetts-most-powerful-politicians-come-out-against-legal-marijuana/rgAplO09KIBIfrqNQknF7O/story.html

[Countme-In]

Better drag the swimming pool. I'm sure she had water in her lungs:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/lana-rae-meisner-eagles-accidental-shooting-death

The perp in this other thing was sitting in his car earlier. I sure hope we get rid of cars, too

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tim-remington-shot-after-praying-cruz-rally

[Countme-In]

Corporations, who are the better sort of people, are not going to stand for wages finally starting to rise for the rest of humankind:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/goldman-sachs-ready-labor-crush-193412094.html

The wait for rising incomes might be over, and that's a big problem for those whose incomes have been rising since forever: among them the lucky Goldman Sachs guy who is making the forecast.

All of those angry Trumpeters, Cruzifiers, and Ruboneoutios who are mad that their standard of living has been falling aren't going to like it when their incomes finally start to rise under Obama, after being deliberately hobbled these many years by the economic austerity forced down their throats by the very people they are campaigning for.

Expect drastic action -- sharply rising interest rates, doubling down on anti-Union legislation, massive layoffs, and renewed efforts to off-load American jobs into the ether -- if the Republicans take the White House.

Rising wages will not be taken lying down at the expense of corporate productivity.

And to the extent that rising wages mean a higher tax collection by the government and resulting lower deficits, that will be nipped in the bud too.

[Ugh]

Trump! Does Rubes now drop out and endorse Cruz in an attempt to throw FL to him? Same for Kasich in Ohio? More importantly, make Trump go one on one with Cruz in Thursday's debate. Whee!

[Countme-In]

I applaud this rare instance of bipartisanship:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/suspect-in-idaho-pastor-shooting-arrested-dc

[Ugh]

Rubes! Zero delegates - same as me! Well done Marco, well done.

[Ugh]

Trump! Now featuring actual Brownshirts at his events...

[Nigel]

"Unite behind a man you don't believe in, it's a lie..."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LiG0AE8zdTU

Change a couple of names, make it person rather than man... and lose the cigarette.
Otherwise, not a bad ad for 2016.

[ral]

The Trump-Berlusconi Syndrome

[Countme-In]

Maybe she's calling out her own little subhuman punkass brat gets who are banned from the party circuit up in far east Russia:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sarah-palin-trump-protesters-thuggery

[Countme-In]

Just a little more violence, Ann? Here's to much more violence:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/272864-coulter-id-like-to-see-a-little-more-violence-from-trump

After all, unless Trump himself actually shoots and kills someone in the street, cold-blooded killer Ted Cruz and the rest of this sorry-assed murderous disgrace of a political party will back and vote for Trump in November.

Short of that, hey, Trump is a genius with the biggest photo-shopped dick among em. And he has no limits. I mean, Trump believes he's a god among men. Cruz believes he's God incarnate.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/cruz-hell-support-trump-shoots-37635389

So really, what's the downside for them of massive mob violence now... the stinking pigs?

I mean, maybe a ton of dead people leading up to the election will take the edge off the murders of 15 million folks on Obamacare and Medicaid AFTER the election next January, and that's just the first day, as they've promised.

Have you listened to these howling subhuman Republican dogs bellowing for people without medical insurance to die in the streets?

A lot of armed white racists, probably some of them on Obamacare, have been wound up and are ready to kill:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/03/how_donald_trump_happened_racism_against_barack_obama.single.html

Here's one of their own they could go after. See, the Republican Party elite wants their own political base dead and decimated. They've had nothing but contempt for them, all these years, except as a brownshirted paramilitary force to channel their racism and hatred for the poor.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/12/national-review-writer-working-class-communities-deserve-to-die/

Here's a plan. Leaflet all-white thug Trump rallies with right-winger Williamson's plan, in his own words, for their demise. Give them the addresses of Williamson's home and the National Review offices and off they'll go, ready to tear that f*ck to shreds in his front yard.

Maybe Trump himself will read the juicy bits from Williamson's Republican editorial to his assembled slavering, torch-carrying murderous followers from the stage.

What this country needs a good old-fashioned lynch mob.

The only hope between now and November is Republican-on-Republican violence. At least then we'll get a chance take a good look at it, in slow-mo, so you can see with your own two eyes what an armed population of aggrieved, nativist, racist Republican filth, whipped into a frenzy by forty years of f*cking Republican hate will do to the rest of us once they steal our government and are united in their hate.... for us.

What are you gonna do, put up your hands, and whine: "But I'm a moderate conservative! I voted for Ronald Reagan!"

These monsters don't give a sh*t about that.

Many of Trump's attack dogs will go straight to Cruz's campaign if the latter wins the nomination.

They aren't going away.

And if the Democrats win the Presidency and make any inroads at all in Congress, the right has expended its rhetorical ammo.

It'll be straight to killing violence for them.

There is no Republican wilderness to retreat to. There is no regrouping. There will be no soul searching among the wiser, cooler heads in the monstrosity called the Republican Party, because there are none anyone wants to listen to, about how to widen their appeal, not after this display of savage, racist, nativist, Randian insanity, because there is no soul to find.

There is only a bigger, more bloodthirsty soulless monster at the back of the Republican cave.

[Countme-In]

Anyone love em some capitalism?

Here's some, exactly as we've been experiencing since 1980:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/heres-how-donald-trump-treats-little-people

[Countme-In]

If you read Schachtel's "I'm so shocked that I must, to preserve my journalistic integrity, resign from this den of prevaricators," resignation comments, let me translate for you, 'I joined this rat's nest because I wanted it to serve, not as a journalistic enterprise, but as an unaffiliated media SuperPac for whomever the Republican Nominee for President is and for every other office of importance, including dogcatcher in November against the Democrat Party. Really, I refuse to put Trump's dick in my mouth in this fashion. Andrew Breitbart's dick in my mouth is plenty enough for me."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/breitbart-resign-trump-propaganda

And:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/our-principles-pac-ad-trump-women

Another translation is required: "Look", the subtext of the ad says, "we can't have a President who says flat out that women should be treated like shit. However, after the Republican nomination is secured by someone other than Trump, then we will renew our commitment to treating that bitch Hillary Clinton like a piece of shit and then instituting policies that do the same for all other women."

Small print:

"If Trump secures the nomination, there is no Plan B. Women will officially be treated like shit by the Party as a whole."