He could get on enough state ballots to play spoiler for a candidate that won in the convention over him; he's carrying a nuclear weapon in terms of the possibility of going third party and utterly destroying their chances of electing a Republican president. And we know what he thinks about nukes...

And this week, Paul Ryan's speaker's office released a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxH4uIswiA&feature=youtube_gdata_player that looks a lot like a campaign ad. A lot. This is the same guy that said "No way, I don't want the job" about Speaker of the House... and then ended up taking the job after being basically begged to take it. Sound familiar?

This sounds too good to be true. Is it an accurate quote? If so it should be on billboards across the nation.

edit: Snopes says it is false. Poe's Law at work.

It's official, Trump's the nominee.

Holy crap, America, what did you do? You know China is pointing at Donald Trump, saying "this is why democracy is a bad idea!"

I mean, it looks like he's going to lose. He polls terribly among everybody except Republicans, but November is still 6 months away. If there's a terrorist attack or another Clinton scandal, Trump could get lucky. And Clinton herself has strong unfavourable ratings. I don't understand the deep revulsion for Clinton - sure she's a calculating politician, but no more than most other politicians, and yet she's treated as if she's somewhere between toxic waste and Augusto Pinochet.

The question now is how many Republicans hate Trump so much that they'd rather abstain or vote for Clinton?

An interesting thought: why the media will start talking up Trump.

Because the entire media industry and the associated cottage industries of pundits and political consultants is built around reporting competitive elections. It's always "he said, she said", "two sides of the story". They have to assume that's true otherwise they have nothing to do or get paid for. "Uncharismatic centrist is obviously better than deranged buffoon" is not interesting enough to keep them going for 6 months so they'll try to cram Trump into the normal candidate template and report his offensive rants as though maybe he has a valid point so that there can be a "debate". They'll also pick at Clinton's flaws as though any of the things that are wrong with her are as bad as being a bigoted, gleefully ignorant nutjob. And slowly, the electorate will come to see Trump as, if not reasonable, then a competitive candidate against Clinton.

He'll still lose. Unless Trump miraculously wins over large numbers of women, Hispanics and blacks, the numbers don't work in his favour. But the margin's probably going to get closer.

Big surprise (sarcasm), Trump's butler is a raving, racist lunatic who should have been paid a visit by the Secret Service long ago.

Vicious bigotry aside, that is the worst abuse of exclamation points I have seen in a time.

Admittedly i might have missed stuff, due to being an outside observer to US politics.

But i kinda lack a narrative of her political career, something that she stands for.

I don't know of any issue, faction or agenda she made a stand for, even when it was at the moment not convenient for her. That means she does not have any followers who show any reciprocal loyality.

She does not seem to be able to transport the "don't worry, i'm gone fix it, don't bother about the details" attitude, that some people seem to have. I can't say why, because that usually does not work well with me, even when it comes from people, who are generally good at that sales pitch and i have not quite figured out, why it works for some people but not for most.

She did enter national politics as first lady, who did wield much power for the position (at least publically).
So people who like well ordered checked and balanced powers, see a person, who is willing to overstep the boundaries of an (inofficial) ceremonial office.
Traditionalists see it as overstepping a womans role.
Progressives see a woman who rode into politics on the cottails of her husband, rather then standing on her own.

Trump v Clinton. Unless Bernie successfully decides to be the new Nader and Hillary gets hit by a meteor (or both) then the election is effectively over; Clinton will be president next year. The compelling questions are whether the GOP will be able to keep the Senate and hence the ability to keep the Democrats from unpacking the Supreme Court (which is not likely), and will the GOP keep the House (likely). It's almost tempting to start a pool at work. Then once we've filled it with water, we can go swimming and forget politics (and work) for a while...

I never thought I would see diehard Republicans voting for anyone with the name Clinton but that is what it seems Trump is driving them to.

So far it's only the politicallly interested. The pattern could be the same that Italy had in Berlusconis haydays. A steady influx of former right block politicans into the left block, who broke with Berlusconi in disgust, but little effect at the actual elections.

You know how pundits have been saying that the only way Trump might be elected president is if the economy imploded or there was a terrorist attack? Well there was a terrorist attack.

Sure, it was the lowest-grade type of terrorist attack there is. A US-born lone, deranged, self-radicalized ISIS fanboy bought some guns and shot up a nightclub. But it's enough for Trump to start whipping up the paranoia and the conspiracy theories; this time he's insinuating that Obama plotted the attack because he's a seekrit Muslim.

How much money do you want to bet that we'll see Trump's poll numbers go up due to this? I keep waiting for the US to hit Peak Racist but it hasn't yet. Where is the ceiling?

The problem with this terrorist attack is that it's too right wing American, and not Islamist enough, for that to happen. Shooting up a homosexual nightclub is obviously the kind of thing someone like a militia member or Klansman would do; but equally obviously not an attack that external Islamists would see as useful to their goals. No, all this is likely to do is reinforce already existing domestic narratives; folks will talk about guns and hatred and weasel and deny and point fingers, but they really won't buy into the idea that this was an external attack unless doing so feeds their already existing domestic agenda. Folks already in Trump's camp will stay there, folks opposed will stay there, the rest are almost certainly going to blow it off.

You know, I hope you're right but so far I haven't had a good track record believing in the intelligence of the American electorate. 8 years ago I thought the "Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim" theory was too absurd to have any legs; now 40% of Republicans believe he's a Muslim and about a fifth to a quarter of them think he was foreign-born.

Just going off the mere fact that the shooter was of Afghan descent, Trump's going full on "Ban The Muslims!!!!!!!!"

He shot up a gay nightclub? Stoopid lib'ruls won't admit that MUSLIMS are more homophobic than white people! Ban the Muslims!
He was born here? WELL YOU LET HIS PARENTS IN! Ban the Muslims!
Shooter himself was probably gay and confused? No matter how much he hated himself, if he wasn't MUSLIM he wouldn't have turned to terrorism! Ban the Muslims!
Gun control? The problem isn't guns, the problem was that he was a MUSLIM! Ban the Muslims!

And on. And on. And on.
Emotion overrides facts. Trump speaks directly to the lizard brain.
People who already hate Trump are going to keep hating Trump. But can he trigger enough fear in right-leaning voters who were iffy about him to throw their weight behind Anyone But Clinton Because Terrorists? Benghazi!

No, I don't think he can beat Clinton; his numbers among women and ethnic minorities are too abysmal. But we might still have a way to go before we hit Peak Racist.

On the other hand, believing that Obama is a Muslim is a 94% accurate predictor of Trump support, and an even better indicator of mindless tribal bias. These folks can be safely ignored from the point of view of people changing their minds because of this (or almost anything else). The rest of the American voters will be applying a different metric to all of this; mostly that it couldn't have been them.

For better or worse, the reaction to a terror attack is keyed to how much the viewer identifies with the victim. Anyone could have been on one of the flights that took out the World Trade Center or (if in NYC) in the WTC themselves; and in the aftermath many felt threatened. A popular nightclub for the LGBT crowd? Not so much. Since most folks don't feel threatened by it they won't be moved by it; and will all fall back on their previous preconceptions.

In passing: Trump did not denounce, nor will he or any official Republican ever denounce, homophobia. It would alienate too much of their base.

Nah, of course he's not going to openly denounce homophobia or say anything in support of gay people. I'd just expect the far right to jump up and down going "See? See? It's the liberals' fault for being tolerant towards Islamists who are incompatible with (unspecified) American values!" That's why they're playing up the "terrorist" angle and playing down the "hate crime" angle. Plus they're always willing to appropriate the language of tolerance and pluralism whenever useful.


I'm not convinced; this time it might've been a gay club but last time it was a stadium. Time before that it was a shopping mall. Or a school. Or a cinema. Or an office park. There's been so many mass shootings that nobody would ever think that it couldn't happen to them, and any time the shooter is Muslim it's going to trigger the terrorist narrative. And the fact that it was a domestically-born, self-radicalized, mentally unstable whackjob doesn't help. Among the paranoid it only increases the suspicion that any Muslim no matter how normal, no matter how Americanized, no matter how many generations their family has been there, cannot be trusted.

How many paranoid people are there? I don't know. Best case scenario, they're already in the Trump camp and have nowhere crazier to go. However, it's authoritarian personalities who tend towards paranoia; the religious right tends to be chock full of those types (who raise their kids like they're in boot camp); and the religious right strongly preferred Cruz over Trump because Trump wasn't churchy enough and also said some wrong things about abortion. There might still be some barrel for Trump to scrape, is what I'm saying.