November 7, 2016

"Half of America Is About to Get Gut-Punched."

There's a good headline. From Bill Scher.
Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters, while congenitally skittish, are incredulous that an immigrant-bashing, misogynistic blowhard could even make this presidential race competitive, and are taking to the bank the poll lead Clinton has held essentially all year.

Republican Donald Trump’s superfans... believe America is on the verge of a “Brexit” moment, in which a silent nationalist majority outperforms the polls and humiliates the Establishment....

Neither side is going into Election Day expecting to lose. Whichever party ends up being shocked by the results will have a protracted, painful, but perhaps rejuvenating, period of soul-searching ahead.
It's going to be painful either way. Sometimes I stop and wonder which way will it be more painful, but it's not as though my deciding would get us to the less painful option. There will be pain, and we will never know what would have happened in the alternative reality.

And I'm maintaining my cruel neutrality to the end. So don't blame me. I may have voted for the loser.

166 comments:

ndspinelli said...

"I'm ready for my closeup now, Mr. DeMille."

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I think I need to get a Don't blame me, I voted for Negan bumper sticker.

tim in vermont said...

There will be no coming back from this election. I will vote for Trump. I have to. But there will be no coming back.

My name goes here. said...

"So don't blame me. I may have voted for the loser."

Oh, they are all losers. I will gladly vote for the loser that has an appreciation of the country for what it can be instead of an appreciation of this country for what they can take.

Brando said...

Whoever you voted for, the real loser is America.

I don't expect to be gut-punched because I'm expecting a lousy outcome either way. The plus side is you can't be disappointed that way.

madAsHell said...

Do dead voters get a gut punch as well??

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I will not be disappointed because I am going to write-in Mitt Romney.

Paul Snively said...

What Brando said. Only the true believers are in for a gut-punch. The rest of us (cruelly neutral realists?) are already experiencing indigestion. Just last night, I told a group of about eight friends at dinner, "it's going to be an interesting next decade or so." There wasn't a single voice of dissent.

mccullough said...

More like a humiliating kick in the crotch than a gut punch

Sebastian said...

"Neither side is going into Election Day expecting to lose." No. Rational GOPers expect to lose.

"Whichever party ends up being shocked by the results" The GOP will not be "shocked" by the results, having expected the clueless clown to get an epic beatdown.

"will have a protracted, painful, but perhaps rejuvenating, period of soul-searching ahead. It's going to be painful either way." No. There's no "either way." It will only be painful for the GOP. Its soul is divided, perhaps irreparably.

tim in vermont said...

Only the true believers are in for a gut-punch.

Well that's true, I once believed in democracy. We can see that that is gone now. Newsweek runs a cover "The Victims of Trump" Nobody could round up any drowned refugees from Hillary's adventure in North Africa for comment!

tim in vermont said...

Apparently, the watershed election was 2008, when we ushered in a completely corrupt administration. It wasn't apparent then, it is now.

YoungHegelian said...

"Painful" is just going to be the start of it.

We have a President who got up in public & asked illegal immigrants to vote. We have a Virginia governor who did this, a move clearly contrary to the spirit of the court ruling against his previous attempt & perhaps illegal in itself.

If Trump loses by a narrow margin, with Virginia going to HRC by a narrow margin & tilting the election, then I would not be surprised if Thursday goes down in the history books as the beginning of the second American Civil War.

I hope whoever loses, loses big, especially if it's Trump who loses. Sadly for the Republic, I doubt that's going to be the case.

wild chicken said...

As usual, Ann reflects my beings exactly. Either way there is going to be too much drama.

My flyover state is strong for Trump, so my vote doesn't matter, Thank God.

I shall cultivate my garden.

Carol

Paul Snively said...

mccullough: More like a humiliating kick in the crotch than a gut punch

Is that before or after many miles away, something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish loch?

wild chicken said...

...I mean, muh FEELINGS

Big Mike said...

I feel like a guy whose doctor took a biopsy and wants me to come in immediately for a consultation. I think tomorrow's news will be very bad for people who believe in concepts like integrity and who think Hillary Clinton's economic policies will be horrendous for the economy.

Nonapod said...

I see no reason to be hopeful. We're in for some dark times.

JPS said...

"Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters, while congenitally skittish,"

Yeah, I've noticed that about them.

Whoever wins tomorrow, I can be pissed off and full of dread for the future. Or I can consider all the flaws of the alternative and say, Well at least we escaped that.

How's that for cruel neutrality, Professor?

Matt Sablan said...

I'm just waiting so I know the exact brand of terrible we'll have to deal with for four years.

JPS said...

"Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters, while congenitally skittish,"

Yeah, I've noticed that about them.

Whoever wins tomorrow, I can be pissed off and full of dread for the future. Or I can consider all the flaws of the alternative and say, Well at least we escaped that.

How's that for cruel neutrality, Professor?

MadisonMan said...

I think Hillary will win. God Help us.

But yes, whoever is elected, we escaped a worse fate.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

"Neither side is going into Election Day expecting to lose."

Not sure this is really true. I don't think expectations of a victory are high for many of the red team voters.

bagoh20 said...

The fact that both candidates are negative on the approval scale should tell everyone that the results of the election prove nothing - no mandate, no clear message. The system just screwed up and gave us a very bad choice and someone had to win. That should be the simple understandingand lesson, but the next year of bullshit will be everything but that. Millions and millions of words pretending that something else happened. It didn't.

traditionalguy said...

This is nothing compared to a World Cup Soccer Final...which is also fixed as only the World Aristocrats of Wealth Flow can fix things.

Comey is the one who is on suicide watch... staring at the Cyanide pill that the Clinton Family sent over for him.

ALP said...

The Simpson's had this election covered in their Treehouse of Horror VII (1996). The alien Kang, inhabiting the body of Bob Dole, says: "It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!"

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

In our house, my partner is thrilled this is almost "over". Oh dear, I think, its just beginning.

Matt Sablan said...

It kind of is sad that our "best case" scenario is a Congress that aggressively checks and restrains either president we elect to keep that president's worst impulses from going too far. Which I guess leaves me with the unenviable task of deciding which president would be both less effective and more likely to enable Congress to gridlock them.

traditionalguy said...

I have Faith that God will pull this one out for Kellyanne Conway.

M Jordan said...

The false equivalencies in this election are driving me mad. I heard Frank Luntz and his group of dunces spewing it right and left last night ... or should I say, Left and left. Consider: Hillary has smeared Trump as a racist, a xenophobe, a misogynist, a bigot, a sexual predator, a liar, a person who made his business by inheriting it all then cheating, and on and on. Trump, on the other hand, has called Hillary crooked.

Or this: At a Trump rally a 70-year-old guy forearms a punk who, after screaming obscenities, is strutting out of the building with two middle-fingers upraised. This is violence condoned by Trump, they tell us. Meanwhile, Clinton supporters cause a riot in Chicago, egg a young woman in San Jose, slash tires, firebomb a Republican campaign headquarters and ... they're both guilty.

Or this: we're told they're both liars. Are they? Trump's "lies" are about his crowd sizes, his spin. Hillary's lies are in front of Congress under oath.

It's sickening really. It reminds me of the junior high school principal who, finding two kids slugging it out in the hall, clamps a hand on each shoulder and says, "I don't care who started it, you're both expelled."

Well, I care who started it. I am sick to death of the Soviet-style tactics of the left and of Hillary. I pray (literally) to God that this woman is defeated.

Laslo Spatula said...

I'm Renfro Jeffries. Nazi And Proud Of It!.

There are two different Americas, trying to occupy the same land: you must understand that this cannot last. Cain will always try to kill Abel: you think somehow they will find a way to live together peacefully...?

The difference, people, is we can see this one coming. We have had thousands of years to know how this ends, unless we stop it, first. Sure, the Government-Media-Cosmopolitan Complex has its thumb on the scale, but thumbs can be cut off...

Mark my words: the new Reichstag fire will burn on Facebook...

You are on the wrong side of the barbed wire, friends. Helter Skelter is coming, and it's coming with Cattle Cars: don't say I didn't tell you.

I'm Renfro Jeffries, Nazi And Proud Of It!

I am Laslo.

YoungHegelian said...

I think one of the most important facts of this election was the Wikileaks emails. It gave documented evidence of just how incestuous & corrupt the coastal elites are.

Now, for the crew of this forum, who consist of mostly right-leaning political junkies, not much of this was news. We either knew or strongly suspected this from other sources. But, for other folks who, you know, have lives, and don't pay as much attention, what's in the Wikileaks will start to soak in over time. It'll show, in the malefactors own words, how prevalent corruption is in the Democratic Party. The leaks will take a while to work their way into public consciousness, but I think they will hobble the Clinton presidency after a year or so.

Unknown said...

The truly frightening thing is that all of the Trump supporters are saying things like they are voting for their lives, because Hillary wants them dead and camps and so forth.

The Hillary supporters? They say, "Meh. Who cares, I'm not going to the camps." And some of the more brave ones admit that that is one of the reasons they are voting for Hillary.

In other words, we are realistically looking at an election where one side is afraid for their lives if they lose, and the other side is basically saying, " you should be!"

--Vance

CJinPA said...

A Cold Civil War has been underway for sometime in the U.S.

Now that it's out in the open, where do we go from here? Can't put it back in the bottle.

Gusty Winds said...

I would like to congratulate our University Elites who have created a generation of graduates who can't find Syria on a map, but are fully indoctrinated and controlled by the shallow manipulation of identity politics.

You did it Madison. Woo hoo....!

Unknown said...

Here's the scary thing: Hillary won't care about reelection, because she is very sick. She's not going to make it 4 years, or if she does she won't be in any condition to run.

And she's a murderer, with a far leftist ideology. And a GOPe Congress that pretty much openly campaigned for her. They won't stop her; they both hate the Republican base.

So realistically, I think she'll just openly seize power after some pretext and start "cleansing" the nation. Why not, right? It's her lifelong goal, no one will stop her, and she won't live long enough to corrupt the population more. In fact, we see right here on Ann's sight how the Clinton party supporters really wouldn't care if trains of US citizens trundled west to Montana, and more illegal Muslims came in to replace them.

Paranoid? Not likely: Hillary is on record, after all, as saying US voters are her greatest enemy. Does anyone think she wouldn't commit genocide if she thought she could get away with it?

--Vance

AllenS said...

I'm voting for Trump. If he doesn't win, he doesn't win. I'm not going to go all oh woe is me.

Grow up.

Levi Starks said...

Hmmmm..
While I do have a preference, and will in fact vote, I refuse to allow myself to be emotionally played by either side.
As opposed to cruelly neutral, I think I'm going to be cruelly ambivalent. Neither candidate has the ability to accomplish more than a fraction of their party's platform. The quality of my life will continue to be, as it has been for the last 8 years, yea, my entire life a result of the choices I've made with the cards I was dealt at birth.

Unknown said...

I read this morning an apt description of America 5-10 years hence if Madam President becomes a reality: "Brazil with Muslims."

rhhardin said...

It's like when Hitler took over. He'd been a joke, but Germans began asking, okay, just how crazy is he?

eric said...

I think it's more like 60/40. But the rigged election makes it look like 50/50. Thanks to the Democrat bias of the media and pollsters, we have the perception that half the country, or more, supports Clinton.

I'm convinced, after reading a lot of wikileaks and watching James O'Keefe video that the country more closely reflects the Althouse commenters.

buwaya said...

Its been building for two years now - monthly gun-purchase records, each month beating the previous year, the guns piling up faster and faster.
On Wednesday one of two things will happen -
- the bottom will fall out of the firearms business with incredible speed, and I suspect many industry players will go broke, or;
- gun stores will be mobbed, beyond all previous experience, for months, and more guns will be sold in two-three months than in many previous years, limited only by manufacturing capacity.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

I'm voting for Trump (not the Libertarian as I usually do) because it's important for the message to be sent we are sick of the rigged game. If he wins I will dread the next four years of constant drama and dissention.

If Hillary wins I will weep for this great country but I'll be happy that the press and uniparty will do their best to suppress any scandals and corruption. Just like they did for Obama.

So we have that going for us.

Thorley Winston said...

I voted for Trump but expect Clinton to win and after she does to spend the next couple of months (starting at the election party I’ll be attending tomorrow night) listening to a lot of finger pointing between those who blame the Never Trumpers for costing Trump the election and those who believe that had Republicans picked any of the choices other than Trump, they would have won.



shiloh said...

"Sometimes I stop and wonder which way will it be more painful"

hmm

>

"I think Hillary will win. God Help us."

MM1

MM2

Keep hope alive!

Gusty Winds said...

So don't blame me. I may have voted for the loser.

If Hillary wins because college grads put her in office, campus feminists own her Presidency. There's no last minute neutrality.

The decades of effort will have paid off. Maybe not in the way you wanted, but it worked.

We're not talking about Margaret Thatcher here. The first female President will be one of the most corrupt ever elected. A woman who rode her husbands coattails to power, while self made women were trashed in her wake. How disappointing. No wonder you don't want to be blamed.

There's no basin and cloth to wash your hands even if you vote for Jill Stein to make yourself feel better.


Clayton Hennesey said...

In the context that Clinton will still be under FBI investigation on and after election day, "What laws might Hillary obey as President, and why?" remains a salient question.

Ah, we console ourselves, but there are checks and balances. Not only the aforementioned FBI, but the entire Department of Justice.

Achilles said...

Only the true believers are in for a gut-punch.

We have been taking gut punches for 30 years.

True believers, i.e. people who in the rule of law, are not optimistic. We know the oligarchs amoral and will do anything to maintain power. We know there are people willing to flush their soul down the toilet for some food stamps or free citizenship.

Either way the system will not remain standing.

Michael K said...

There will be no coming back from this election. I will vote for Trump. I have to. But there will be no coming back.

Agreed. We might as well elect Bernardine Dohrn president. Hillary has been a cold eyed leftist terrorist in waiting since her thesis on Alinsky.

Bill was the lovable rogue who just wanted to pretend he was Kennedy with all the pussy in the world available to him.

Hillary is Nurse Ratched with an attitude. The USSS says, "Good Morning Ma'am." She says, "Fuck you !"

If she wins, her only concern should be Indira Gandhi and what happened to her.

I'm making plans assuming the Fix is in. If Trump wins, I will be pleasantly surprised.

Bay Area Guy said...

"Half of America is going to feel gut-punched"

Maybe so. But folks have to separate their emotional reaction (when their favorite sports team loses), from the concrete reaction (when the Dems start wrecking the business you built).

I can put aside my emotional reaction if Hillary wins, and give her the respect she deserves as President elect of our great country.

But, I do fear that the Dem Machine has an agenda to do to the country what they've already done to the City of Detroit, the State of California, our health system, our borders and our universities in general.

I don't view Trump as being part of a destructive machine, as I view Hillary and the Dems. As a result, I do concretely believe that Hillary as leader of the Dem machine will make our country worse, and, eventually make my life worse.



shiloh said...

"There's no last minute neutrality."

Her foolish prediction notwithstanding, Althouse was all-in for Willard (4) years ago and looked like a fool.

So no, she's not gonna tell you she's voting for Hillary and she definitely is not making a prediction.

Lessons learned!


Rosalyn C. said...

I live in a Bernie Sanders enclave and all my friends are leftists/Democrats, dyed in the wool bleeding heart liberals. I support Trump.

One thing I've noticed through this political season is that my oldest friends and other locals I've engaged in conversation get completely hysterical and irrational, and unable to discuss the issues without getting abusive and insulting. Shockingly they feel justified in becoming rude. I sit back and watch them acting like idiots and wonder why I never saw this creepy side of them before?

All the arguments I've heard by my friends against Trump are complete fabrications and misrepresentations of his statements which have been fed to the public by the leftist media. The arguments against Clinton are the bare minimum reports of the corruption and wanton incompetence and poor judgement she has displayed, which are dismissed by references to corrupt administrations of the past.

If Trump wins, people will get over their distrust and disgust if and when he proves that his ideas are correct and he is competent. If Clinton wins, who knows? And vice versa, right?

Michael K said...

more guns will be sold in two-three months than in many previous years, limited only by manufacturing capacity.



And in California because a Hillary win will probably include a bunch of new regulations limiting ammunition purchases.

Ammunition stocks may be the new bull market.

shiloh said...

Re: guns ~ when gun sales spike, as a rule, it's gun owners buying more guns 'cause hey, one can never have enough guns.

Mark Nielsen said...

Hillary will win. The pain will be in seeing what we've lost, not in missing what we expected might happen. I'll miss the rule of law. I always thought it was kind of important.

I think odds are better than even that the republican party will fall apart. Not sure that I'll miss it. I guess it will depend on what takes its place.

Oso Negro said...

Constitutional conservatives already lost. A vote for Hillary or Trump is essentially a vote for the Big Boogie form of government. I suggest a Constitutional convention be held, with the following objectives:

1) Revise the 1st Amendment to eliminate any speech that is hateful or triggering.
2) Eliminate the 2nd Amendment
3) Add an amendment that gives people extra votes based on their skin color and gender identification. (helpful guide - really dark tranny negroes would get the most votes)
4) Eliminate the Congress
5) Eliminates the Supreme Court
6) Add an amendment that permits infanticide until the post-fetus smiles
7) Add a clause that declares climate change denying treason, punishable by death
8) Add an equality of life outcomes clause

Hmm....can anyone think of more?

damikesc said...

It's probably wise to not name who you vote for, Prof. No real good options here. One is measurably better than the other, IMO, but it's not the same as him being all that good an option.

Birkel said...

Althouse bored America a part in 2008. All downhill from there...

buwaya said...

The ownership rate trend for guns is controversial. It is battling surveys.
However, the rate of sales in itself seems to me a very useful objective metric for general social anxiety, and it has been building rapidly for years. I suspect it will explode through the roof in a few days.

khesanh0802 said...

Where there's life there's hope - but not much of either right now. Like Mick I dream of an avalanche of new and unidentified voters voting for Trump tomorrow. (He had over 5,000 fans at yesterday's stop in MN) I am afraid it is only a dream, but I will certainly cast my vote for him as I have sworn I would all along.

I wrote the Trump campaign today to thank Trump for exposing the state of our government in DC. He may be embarrassing, but I believe that the genie he has released will not be put back in the bottle. The Republican party as it was is dead. Some of the old hands may think they can revive it, but I think it has to find a new purpose and if that's as a populist party for a while so be it. Look at the electoral maps. A thin strip of blue surrounding an ocean of red. Even within the blue states there are large pockets of red. Someone, some time soon, is going to figure out an effective way to represent the masses who are being submerged by the coastal elites.

As for the myth that anyone but Trump could have beaten Hillary I say, once again - horse shit. Most of the candidates couldn't win their home states. Trump was the legitimate winner, I think he has run a great campaign against a determined and professional opponent with a lot of hinderance from his own side. I have been really impressed by the energy and perseverance that he has demonstrated. I think he is sincere in his belief that he can help the average man and woman to improve their lot. It will be a shame if he doesn't get the chance to prove what he can do, but - realistically - the map has been against him from the beginning.

Unknown said...

Bay Area Guy - unlike you I will not be able to bring myself to respect Hillary Clinton should she win tomorrow. To me hers would be an illegitimate Presidency. This is my measured reaction, not an emotional outburst a la a sports team loss. I travel a lot, to Europe and Asia, and I can sense what's coming. Hillary and Bill have both explicitly expressed their desire for open borders. As I quoted someone earlier - we will be on the path to become "Brazil with Muslims."

You know as well as I do the decline in the quality of life in the Bay Area. My own tribe (Indians) have contributed to it (the decline, I mean) in no small measure but the deluge was enabled by the Zuckerbergs and the Bill Gateses with their voracious appetite for cheap labor. And mind you, the Indians are the good immigrants.

Static Ping said...

There is little hope that the results of this election will be good. The results range is between short-term bad with some hope and utter disaster. I am not even sure where each candidate falls on that spectrum. My position is I can be disappointed but not happy.

For the record, the gut punch was in 2012.

Michael K said...

Shiloh is now an expert on guns. Amazing what a genius we have the good fortune to see dropping pearls of wisdom.

I guess that's what they are,.

hombre said...

If Hillary wins everybody gets gut punched. Democrats are just too amoral to care.

Unknown said...

This made my day.

https://twitter.com/kasie/status/795675491835478016

kasie: Workers along the road from Pittsburgh airport into town standing, watching and giving @HillaryClinton motorcade the finger

Michael K said...

I think he has run a great campaign against a determined and professional opponent with a lot of hinderance from his own side.

I agree. He has his personality defects but he has done an amazing job. I think he is a quick learner.

He has run not just against Hillary and her crime family but against the entire media.

Unknown said...

California is now for all intents and purposes a one-party state. When is Texas going to go that route? 2024? 2028? Those who think a mainstream conservative stands a chance in 2020 are living in a fool's paradise. By the time whites get to voting as a bloc it'll be too late. Trump is - was - the final act for America as we have know it.

shiloh said...

MK, the king of meaningless, ad nauseam anecdotal minutiae chimes in.

mockturtle said...

I voted for Trump and think he could win the popular vote and lose the electoral. In either case, the shit will hit the fan. The fan will be on high speed if Trump wins and on low speed if Hillary wins. I predict there will be a third party--a REAL third party--in the next four years.

buwaya said...

Well, Trump has certainly worked the hardest of any candidate I have heard of. The sheer frequency and crowd volume of his personal appearances are unique, unprecedented.
He has run his heart out.

Gusty Winds said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hombre said...

Bay Area Guy: "I can put aside my emotional reaction if Hillary wins, and give her the respect she deserves as President elect of our great country."

I am certain Hillary will be given the respect she deserves. The interesting question is: When will heretofore law abiding non-Democrats begin behaving like disgruntled Democrats in Baltimore, Ferguson, Madison, at Trump rallies, Republican headquarters, etc?

buwaya said...

Compare with the desultory, hands off Romney campaign that depended largely on TV ad buys. Romneys campaign - and I note that it was his campaign; I think Romney didn't have much personal input on the how and what of most of it, and didn't want to, and left it to the experts - depended on TV commercials to break through the media message wall. As we see it didn't work.

hombre said...

"Neither side is going into Election Day expecting to lose."

This is not correct. Most reluctant Trump supporters, that is, most Trump supporters, expect to lose.

$Billions in graft at stake guarantee that the grifters will not allow Trump to win.

campy said...

"I predict there will be a third party--a REAL third party--in the next four years."

I think you mean a second party. The gop stopped being a viable opposition long ago.

Unknown said...

News out that Hillary had her maid print off classified information for her. Of course, the maid was not cleared for it.

But hey, when you are Hillary, who cares? Laws are for the little people, and who cares what secrets you spill? It's only America that is harmed.

Besides, the left loves a traitor, right?

--Vance

Matt Sablan said...

"I am certain Hillary will be given the respect she deserves."

-- It's one of the good things about Republicans is that, in general, they'll play an even game in politics.

Which plays into what was posted next about Romney. Romney expected the other side to play fair. That's why he did so; you can see it during the debate when Crowley calls him out as wrong and he just backed off. He just assumed she was right and someone had given him bad information during debate prep. It never occurred to him the other side could collude and lie; he was a Boy Scout and expected everyone else to be Boy Scouts. His naive expectation of fair play cost him more than anything else.

Matt Sablan said...

"The gop stopped being a viable opposition long ago."

-- Only if you assume Congress should have no power compared to the President.

buwaya said...

Trump has run not just against the media but the assembled Powers That Be, in a way that Romney didn't. He has very little of the big money guys behind him, for good reasons.
This besides the unified media, educational system, Internet gatekeepers, large corporations, the bureaucracy and everything else that was not purely "grass roots".

It took an eccentric, super-humanly energetic billionaire to run such an independent campaign. This could not have been done by any honest man with less personal wherewithal, any such would have had to sell himself to even begin.

Browndog said...

Obama is milquetoast. A pansy. A pussy.

Sayeth Hillary...

He wanted to take the time to "turn the ship slowly". Kinda like Marx.

Marx was milquetoast. A pansy. A pussy.

Sayeth Stalin....

hombre said...

Trad Guy: "I have Faith that God will pull this one out for Kellyanne Conway."

I have faith that God will give us the President we deserve and that it's probably Hillary, which would explain why there is no reference to the US in biblical end time sagas.

Gusty Winds said...

Hillary has cancelled her planned firework display over the Hudson River.

Interesting. Either she's nervous and doesn't want Trump blowing them off, or she realizes not too many people are going to feel like her victory is a victory for America. Somebody must have told her it could be perceived as a bit too in your face.

hombre said...

Blogger Matthew Sablan said...
'"The gop stopped being a viable opposition long ago."

-- Only if you assume Congress should have no power compared to the President.'

Sadly, this no longer requires an assumption. Republicans in Congress are lickspittles to a Democrat President reduced to holding effete hearings to review Democrat corruption.

MadisonMan said...

An interesting ad crossed my Facebook feed for Russ -- it showed him, and Bernie, saying he (Russ) was needed for the Revolution.

Hillary who?

Will either Candidate have coat-tails? Or are all coat-tails anti-matter this year?

SukieTawdry said...

No gut-punch for me--I resigned myself to a Hillary victory long ago. The powers that be have all but guaranteed it. I'm actually fascinated by how one of the least-deserving (for a multitude of reasons) people in the history of the Republic keeps reaping rewards through the body politic and is on the cusp of reeling in the biggest reward it offers. I also contemplate how all this fits into God's plan. It's a conundrum. I do think Trump would be the less painful option and, who knows, he could actually pull it off. I also think the aftermath of a Trump victory would be the far more entertaining option.

I mailed my ballot last week and wrote in Gov. Walker so I voted for someone who lost long ago. Because in California the two top down-ballot vote-getters in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, go on to the general, my choices for Senate were Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. I left that one blank.

This country, and consequently the world, is in crisis and I have every faith Hillary will advance and exacerbate it. God save the Republic.

buwaya said...

"Kinda like Marx."

Marx hasn't got much to do with this. He was a theoretical fellow at best, but mostly an editorialist, a pundit, not a politician nor a revolutionary. These days a young Marx would be writing for Vox. Though he would actually be the best of that lot, he was a fine writer and a good journalist.

Its interesting how journalism has changed since those days. It used to be that journalism was a day job for serious writers, serious thinkers. Ortega y Gasset for instance, was Spain's leading columnist and pundit in his day. I have several volumes of his journalistic works, for which I don't think there are English translations. These are on my list for translating come my retirement, maybe, especially his treatment of the Moroccan war, written as a war correspondent in Melilla - "Annual".

mockturtle said...

Hombre said: I have faith that God will give us the President we deserve and that it's probably Hillary, which would explain why there is no reference to the US in biblical end time sagas. [My ephasis]

This is very true and I have to remind my daughters of this. We are but a flash in the pan of history. But I would love to see at least one last bright moment before we go down.

Achilles said...

RCP poll.">RCP poll showing Trump will win Florida among legal voters.

Go to the crosstabs. Trump is pulling 26% of black voters in this poll. 40% of Hispanics.

Trump would win 48 states if we only counted legal voters.

StephenFearby said...

From 538:

Who will win the Senate? Chance of winning control (Polls Only, as of about 1:15PM ESDST):

Democrats 45.9%
Republicans 54.1%

How the odds have changed (sice October 18):

Democrats 73.7
Republicans 26.3

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/senate/?ex_cid=2016-forecast#polls&odds

Although just a projection, still quite an enormous swing.


bleh said...

I'll be part of that half of America regardless of the result.

Patrick said...

No one who is paying attention should be shocked. Neither side can be confident at this point, unless they have tuned out any reports they don't wish to hear.

geoffb said...

"There will be pain, and we will never know what would have happened in the alternative reality."

I don't know exactly what will happen if Trump wins, though I can at least have hope for this experiment called the United States of America will continue.

With Hillary the future is a known quantity since it ie a return to a far older political order that existed since the dawn of civilization and only in the past couple hundred years has had true opposition. The one innovation Hillary's "Transnational Progressives" will bring is the old order will go worldwide.

Michael K said...

Most reluctant Trump supporters, that is, most Trump supporters, expect to lose.

$Billions in graft at stake guarantee that the grifters will not allow Trump to win.


I think this is probably the answer. The silly little lefty twerps think they did something important. This is the corporate state rolling along and those who wish to avoid being rolled over need to have a bolt hole. I'm working on mine.

Hillary is not right in the head although I have to give her credit for looking pretty normal since the 9/11 collapse.

The question is whether her abysmal judgement will get us into another war. She has a bad temper and no feel for real people, as some of the Wikileaks e-mails show.

She is the one who is dangerous. Not Trump who has made a lot of money by negotiating and dealing with power centers he does not control. The only job Bill Clinton gave Hillary she botched so badly he lost Congress.

We have a ruling class that can't design a web site.

Brando said...

"No one who is paying attention should be shocked. Neither side can be confident at this point, unless they have tuned out any reports they don't wish to hear."

Just among the people I know personally--who run the gamut from proud Trump supporters to reluctant Trump supporters to third party supporters to proud Hillary supporters to reluctant Hillary supporters--none of them is confident of anything in this outcome. The polls have been close enough that any common polling error (missing new white voters, estimating Hispanic turnout) could mean enough of a swing that we can all be surprised tomorrow. The feeling is tension, not confidence. I'm curious how people like Mick Jagger can be so certain of a Trump landslide when their only evidence is "he fills up venues for his rallies" as if that indicates how over 100 million people will be voting (if it did, ask President McGovern--he filled venues all over the place in '72 while the country quietly voted to re-elect Nixon).

Steven Wilson said...

No matter who wins, I will (metaphorically) cry for the country and lament what could have been.
But if Trump wins, I will laugh first, literally, not just figuratively.

Achilles said...

Michael K said...

The question is whether her abysmal judgement will get us into another war. She has a bad temper and no feel for real people, as some of the Wikileaks e-mails show.

How many real press conferences did Obama have? Hillary will have 0 + that many fewer.

Assange nailed it when he said the entire ruling class is behind her and the first industry group he named was Arms Manufacturers. We are in 5 wars now. They will escalate massively if Hillary is elected.

Big Mike said...

Althouse was all-in for Willard (4) years ago and looked like a fool.

@shiloh, well to me the people who look like fools are the people who believed that Obama would care enough about Obamacare to make it work. Four (4) years later we see that he didn't and it isn't. People who look like fools are the ones who continued four (4) years ago to believe in "smart diplomacy" would stabilize the Middle East. Four (4) years later, it's clear that smart diplomacy, wasn't and isn't. People who look like fools are the people who thought that Obama's economic policies would eventually bear fruit. Four (4) years later, those of us who thought he was an economic illiterate seem to have been proved correct.

So there is that.

viejo loco said...

H.L. Mencken must either be rolling over in his grave, or laughing hysterically.

holdfast said...

Given his age, Trump has been an amazingly determined and relentless campaigner. But he's also made so many unforced errors and gaffes. And yet I wonder how much all of that sh*t really matters - does the crap and noise just cancel itself out? I.e. if tomorrow's election were between a generic Democrat and a generic Republican, would the polls really be any different? Did Trump pull in a few more working class white but balance them by pushing out educated whites?

And no matter who wins, the reality is that that person simply cannot fulfill all or even most of their promises.

Michael K said...

" the reality is that that person simply cannot fulfill all or even most of their promises."

I fully expect a crash in the next four years, no matter who wins. I thought Romney was the last chance for a soft landing in 2012. I think it is too late now.

That being the case, I can look at Hillary taking the poisoned chalice with some equanimity. Trump might do better to avoid the worst and he is not a "conventional Republican" so the party might not get blamed as Bush was for Clinton's mistakes.

I still hate to see the evil that Hillary represents rewarded with election.

We will see.

Bob Loblaw said...

"will have a protracted, painful, but perhaps rejuvenating, period of soul-searching ahead. It's going to be painful either way." No. There's no "either way." It will only be painful for the GOP. Its soul is divided, perhaps irreparably.

You realize if this doesn't come to pass you'll never be able to comment here without being reminded. And jeered.

mockturtle said...

H.L. Mencken must either be rolling over in his grave, or laughing hysterically.

Or just burning.

Bilwick said...

"'H.L. Mencken must either be rolling over in his grave, or laughing hysterically.'"

"Or just burning."

Given how stupid Yahweh is (based on the Old Testament), sending someone to Hell for using the ability to think He gave us would be just like the crazy sadistic old deity.

tcrosse said...

No gloating from the winning side, please. Whoever wins will have done so by being the second most despised person in America, and beating the first. Whoopee.

rcocean said...

Sucker punched? Not really. A year ago everyone was forecasting Hillary v. Jeb. IOW, a meaningless choice between 2 members of the Republicrat party.

Even if Trump loses, at least we had a chance to elect someone who would start to drain the swamp.

rcocean said...

"California is now for all intents and purposes a one-party state. When is Texas going to go that route? 2024? 2028? Those who think a mainstream conservative stands a chance in 2020 are living in a fool's paradise. By the time whites get to voting as a bloc it'll be too late. Trump is - was - the final act for America as we have know it."

Exactly. I noticed that both former Repub. Governor Arnold S. and Repub senate candidate Meg Whitman have endorsed Hillary. That's how "blue" California is. The USA is headed down the same path unless they select trump. It'll be funny to see #Nevertrumpers# screams of outrage when Hillary increases their beloved capital gains tax.

Bruce Hayden said...

As for gun purchases - enough worried that I am making a purchase that I had scheduled for the first of the year. They set a record at the FFL yesterday, and may be doing so today too. Was only supposed to be an hour wait, and is nearing two right now. Three firearms stacked up behind me when I left for lunch. A lot of very worried people right now.

buwaya said...

" They set a record at the FFL yesterday,"

If Hilary wins, imagine Wednesday. Or this Saturday.

shiloh said...

"No gloating from the winning side, please."

No more than usual.

ok, as last go around had more fun than humans should be allowed.

Can 2016 compete with 2012 election night thread? ie 1,609 posts

Hey, it's Trump so let's go for 2,000 er yuuuuuge !!!

chickelit said...

It''s probably worth asking what sort of social media gerrymandering got us into this mess.

jrapdx said...

Many have commented that Trump supporters expect Trump to lose. I suppose they say this because they want Trump to lose.

Throughout the campaigns I have never heard anybody give a single reason to vote for Clinton, all they ever talked about were the negative (if fictional) things about Trump prompting a vote against him.

So it's not that they want Clinton to win, just that Trump should lose. I have been a Trump supporter for more than a year, and having observed events closely the whole time, I fully anticipate Trump will win. There are no sure things in the real world, at least the world of elections, but an ear to the ground points to a Trump victory.

We'll see tomorrow, right about 36 hours from now, give or take a couple of hours.

tim maguire said...

Hillary fans have demonized Trump to justify their own support for the "problematic" (ahem) Clinton. If Trump wins, most of them will notice that not much has changed and will live with it. Some diehards will insist that he really did start WWIII and lined the wall with the heads of muslims.

If Hillary wins, not much will change in the short term. Same old same old, decline and dysfunction. My opposition to her comes from a confidence that somewhere out there is a point of no return and she represents a giant leap towards it. Trump, being so far outside the established system, is much less likely to create non-recoverable problems.

buwaya said...

Just a general observation -
I was hunting a copy of a Drew Middleton book, and I ran across this -

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/judd/1947/10/britain.htm

Judd (actually Staley Plastrik, later editor of Dissent) was a sort-of Trotskyist.

He is writing on the nature of the British malaise of 1947 - way too much of this seems to apply to the general culture of the West at this time -

"Nature of the Crisis"
...
"A widespread and prevalent mood of discouragement, apathy and lack of energetic optimism as to the future possibility of their nation"
'''
"The apparent helplessness and decay of the English ruling class"
...
"A reported, and well-founded, drying up in inventive powers, originality, cultural contributions, etc., among the intellectuals and other elements in the population."
...
"The rapid and expanding bureaucratization of all forms of social and economic life"

All very familiar, no?

(Trots hated the bureaucracy, or some did anyway.)

Meade said...

"And I'm maintaining my cruel neutrality to the end. So don't blame me. I may have voted for the loser."

If Trump loses tomorrow, there will be one and only one person for us to fairly blame: Donald J. Trump.

Big Mike said...

@Meade, alas, all too true.

Unknown said...

Meade: How, though, is any Republican supposed to win with today's leftist media? Romney was Hitler incarnate; and they were pretending to be neutral last time. This time, it's all in, because Hillary's such a horrible candidate.

None of the Republican candidates would have survived; heck I can't think of any that would have fought. Cruz, maybe. Trump's put up a heck of a fight, more than I honestly expected.

Make no mistake, if it had been Cruz, the same NeverTrumpers would be bellowing about Cruz and some sort of Christian fascist movement. Jeb would have conceded at the convention, saying how we should all vote for that nice woman Hillary.

Walker would have been crucified too.

--Vance

Meade said...

If Clinton loses, I will blame the decades-long selling out of the private-sector middle class through unregulated unlawful undemocratic immigration and trade policy that has been detrimental to working-class Americans.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Meade: If Trump loses tomorrow, there will be one and only one person for us to fairly blame: Donald J. Trump.

So you two are voting for him! That's great. With the support of Meadehouse how can he lose?

campy said...

With the support of Meadehouse how can he lose?

Very easily.

Meade said...

"Walker would have been crucified too."

Not on anything like the cross of crazy that DJT has managed to repeatedly climb up and firmly nail himself to.

Unknown said...

Meade - if Trump loses, yes, he has to share in the blame. But I wouldn't lay it all at his door. He made many unforced errors and to come unprepared for that first debate was inexcusable. Still, the fact that he's so competitive on the eve of the election is in itself an astonishing phenomenon. Look at the orchestrated opposition arrayed against him. All of the media, all the corporations, Wall Street - in short the entire power structure of the United States is united against him, including his own party's poohbahs. To me the real story is that he is standing at all, within touching distance of the Presidency. He just might pull it off.

Meade said...

campy said...
With the support of Meadehouse how can he lose?

Very easily.

LOL.

Meade said...

"Still, the fact that he's so competitive on the eve of the election is in itself an astonishing phenomenon."

Only if one ignores the obvious dishonesty, crookedness, and vile character of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the heart-breaking willingness of millions of American voters to sell out the American project of self government by free people.

chickelit said...

Meade wrote: "If Trump loses tomorrow, there will be one and only one person for us to fairly blame: Donald J. Trump."

The corollary is that if Trump wins, we can only credit him.

Clayton Hennesey said...

If Trump loses tomorrow, there will be one and only one person for us to fairly blame: Donald J. Trump.

What a remarkable statement. It immediate prompts a number of questions:

Is this candidate-solely-responsible for his campaign results unique to Trump? If so, why?

If not, which, if not all, other political candidates does it also apply to?

If they do not share responsibility for the outcome, what, then, are the roles of campaigns (excluding the candidate), surrogates, supporters, and voters in the electoral process?

For example, according to Meade's claim, John Kasich, Republican governor, former presidential candidate, co-signor of a presidential candidate pledge, and now Mitt Romney-write-in voter actually cannot fairly be held to account for anyhthing with respect to the outcome for Donald Trump tomorrow.

It seems to me this statement veers off so widely from observable objective reality that it can only be reasonably viewed as a subjective psychological consolation, nothing more, a sub-species of the "clean hands" syndrome D. C. McAllister references.

In this type of universe, the voter and all others but the candidate himself remains clean and pristine of any possible moral or other responsibility. I visualize raccoons at the stream, scrubbing, scrubbing, out, damned spot!

tcrosse said...

As Madison goes, so goes Middleton.

boycat said...

Trump could "win" by a fairly substantial margin but still have it stolen from him.

Big Mike said...

@chicklit, not hardly likely. If he wins tomorrow most of the credit goes to the Democrats who nominated Hillary Clinton.

traditionalguy said...

A local boy made good was interviewed on Fox just now. He explained Trump is indispensable to ending the Regulatory death sentences placed on starting new American businesses. He started his business with two other men in 1979 here in a Depot that sold home repair products.

Bernie also said that he attended a Trump rally, but most of the crowd waited for hours but never got inside. Bernie got in by going to the special area set aside for the Veterans. And by the end of Trump's message all those tough men were crying.

And how is that being a clown despised by the upper caste edu.people?

mockturtle said...

I notice that Michael Moore called Trump a 'part-time clown'. This, when he, himself, is a full-time clown.

HT said...

And I'm maintaining my cruel neutrality to the end. So don't blame me. I may have voted for the loser.

Have you already voted? Or is that comment just insulation against blog blame?

Sometimes you wonder which way will be more painful? That would heavily depend on where you stand now. If like most of your commenters you are a Hillary hater, and are voting for Trump, and Hillary wins, it will be more painful than if you reluctantly voted for Hillary or voted for one of the others who are not Trump. Who the hell knows.

For me, if Hillary wins, the feeling will be stale dread and a little trepidation, flavored with a little relief. It will be kind of cool that she's a woman, but really, other countries have been electing women for much longer, decades, so it's not such a big deal.

If Trump wins, I am bracing myself for the unknown. (That "stay on message, Donald" thing he said to himself was endearing, the first time I'd felt that way about him. Just think if he'd shown more humility, how many more Democratic votes he'd have gotten.)

Big Mike said...

@Clayton Hennesssy, take it from someone who has been on and off active in state and local politics, Trump has introduced some very real campaign innovations, but he has had a lot of unforced errors.

Errors:
It is reliably reported that he forbade his staff from doing "oppo" research on himself to look for ways he could be attacked. If he had let his staff do the research he might have been better prepared for the Billy Bush tape.

He reached way down to counterattack Khizr Khan and Alicia Machado himself. That's what surrogates are for, and if he had waited a day or two to respond, he (his surrogates) would have good points to respond with. For instance Khizr Khan had made money bringing Muslim immigrants into the country. A proper vetting of those immigrants would have taken money out of Khan's pocket. And Machado seems to have been involved with an attempted assassination of a judge.

He never developed a ground game, relying instead of the RNC's on-the-ground get out the vote (GOTV) operations. Generally that's a mistake.

He indulged in personal attacks against his opponents, which made it hard to do a "kiss and make up" after the nomination was sewn up. Thanks to his opponent being who she is and what she is, he got a lot more help from his former opponents that he had a right to expect. I might add that he was lucky in that Hillary Clinton and her staff did not take notes when Carly Fiorina was setting Trump in his place during the early debates.

Corey Lewandowski. 'Nuff said.

And there were others...

On the positive side:
He seems to have correctly reasoned that it's largely a waste of time to do big ad buys during the period between the convention and Labor Day. Waiting until September and October to do his push worked for him.

Campaigning for Black votes.

His two minute final commercial. Franken can call it anti-Semitic, but he's wasting his breath. That commercial hits all the right notes.

Trump learns. If the Trump we are seeing at the end of the campaign was in place in August, he'd be winning by a landslide and helping to pull Ron Johnson and Ayotte and Toomey and Heck across the finish line.

Kellyanne Conway. 'Nuff said.

Michael K said...

"I fully anticipate Trump will win."

I hope so but fear the election will be stolen by that vote fraud the Democrats keep searching for and not finding.

After all, it worked in 1960.

"He started his business with two other men in 1979 here in a Depot that sold home repair products. "

The "Conservative intellectuals" who have never started anything or paid anyone a salary except for domestic servants, are dismissive of Trump's crudities. I know a lot of educated people who are on board as the last hope for the country.

Howard said...

I call Bullshit. Half of the country is holding their nose, so it's already bad no matter what. It's only a gut punch for the bitter clingers and the red diaper doper babies.

JackWayne said...

I don't know what people are worried about. If Trump wins he will be hemmed in by all the pieces of the Ruling Class. If Hillary wins, don't get upset. Go look at an electoral map. What you will see is pinpricks of blue surrounded by a sea of red. Looks like a perfect siege war to me.

Anonymous said...

All y'all "oh oh oh woe is us" moaners really are a bunch of old women. As if it's these two candidates, and not the times that produced them, that matter. Jesus. For people who are always banging on about how much you care about our constitutional republic, you seem to have precious little understanding that it is, and always has been, something that has to be fought for over and over, and that this fight might sometimes involve more than helping some dipshit "moderate", "conservative" globalist rent-boy into the White House.

I'm not down. Nil desperandum! Downright jaunty when the sun is out and the birds are singing, as a matter of fact. Not because I think things are going to turn out peachy. Things may get bad, really bad. (All over. We're not alone.) But because, regardless of who carries the day tomorrow, I think the fight is on. And I never thought I'd live to see that.

Big Mike said...

And by "worked for him" I note that the final RealClearPolitics.com pre-election "no toss ups" poll shows Clinton with 272 and Trump with 266. It gives New Hampshire to Clinton, which may be a mistake -- Clinton's poll average is only a smidgen above a half a percentage point and that's due to a University of New Hampshire poll that appears to be a wild outlier. If Trump wins the states where he is ahead plus New Hampshire then it's Trump 270 versus Clinton 268 and game over. Or Trump might win Pennsylvania and not need New Hampshire -- the final poll there puts him ahead by a nose. He's closing fast, mostly at the expense of Gary Johnson, but he may run out of time.

BTW, Trump will not win Virginia. Gov. McAuliffe just pardoned and restored voting rights to 60,000 felons (that's not a typo -- there are four zeroes after the six), with the open expectation that they will vote for Hillary. Whether the communities these felons are returning to want them back doesn't seem to have been part of McAuliffe's calculus.

mockturtle said...

I think the fight is on. And I never thought I'd live to see that.

Amen and amen, Anglelyne!

Clayton Hennesey said...

@Big Mike,

My comment was quite obviously not that Trump was a perfect candidate but rather that, to assume for the moment your biography as true, as creatures of political hives presidential candidates are the farthest things possible from solo actors.

I'll turn my comment around from Meade and apply it to myself. As someone who has already voted early for Trump, I now own a Clayton-sized share of his "grab 'em by the pussy" comment as well as equally-sized shares of everything else attached to Trump, good and bad. Moreover, to the extent somewhere along the line I managed to convince someone not yet inclined to vote for Trump I helped him, and to the same extent I hurt him where I turned someone away from him instead.

But in all these things I am no raccoon: my hands are politically dirty up to the shoulders. This is the feature of the democracy and representative constitutional republic in contract to the dictatorship. In the dictatorship, all the raccoons' hands are clean of necessity.

jrapdx said...

Jack Wayne wrote: "I don't know what people are worried about. If Trump wins he will be hemmed in by all the pieces of the Ruling Class."

Maybe. Underestimating Trump has been endemic in the media and among commenters since Trump announced he was running. Sure, he hasn't been the smoothest political operator we've ever seen, but he's been pretty effective considering the enormous efforts that have been made to undermine his campaign. And probably relations with Congress won't be anywhere near as bad as he's experienced dealing with the biased news media.

Trump is a shrewd strategist, he has a knack for working the angles, he knows how to "win", though it appears, not just for the sake of winning. My hunch is when he has a clear sense of what he wants to achieve, he's sharply focused, keeps his eye on the prize and more likely than not will succeed in getting there.

Michael K said...

Underestimating Trump has been endemic in the media and among commenters since Trump announced he was running.

I agree and am not ready to say yea or nay until tomorrow night and, given the propensity of Democrats to cheat, maybe Wednesday. One problem is that the longer it goes on, the more chance to cheat.

SukieTawdry said...

BTW, Trump will not win Virginia. Gov. McAuliffe just pardoned and restored voting rights to 60,000 felons (that's not a typo -- there are four zeroes after the six), with the open expectation that they will vote for Hillary. Whether the communities these felons are returning to want them back doesn't seem to have been part of McAuliffe's calculus.

People are saying the method he used to grant this mass re-infranchisement is illegal. By Virginia law, each case must be considered individually. McAuliffe used an autopen to sign the thousands of documents without a case-by-case review. If Virginia's electoral votes become pivotal to a Clinton victory and the margin of victory is less than 60,000 votes, I think we can expect this to become an issue. (It should be made an issue in any event, if you ask me.)

SukieTawdry said...

I'm watching a documentary about the 1960 Wisconsin primary between Humphrey and Kennedy. It all seems so civilized.

Simon said...

I actually take a great deal of comfort from the fact that whoever loses, a great number of detestable people will be in enormous pain on Wednesday morning.

Big Mike said...

@Clayton, I'm not voting for Trump tomorrow. I'm voting for the person most likely to beat Hillary. I have no more sense owning a share of his "grab 'em by the pussy" comment than I have a sense of owning a share of George W. Bush's fighter pilot skills.

Clayton Hennesey said...

I congratulate you on your superior hygiene, Big Mike.

Matt Sablan said...

"I think we can expect this to become an issue. (It should be made an issue in any event, if you ask me.)"

-- Once the vote is cast, there is no way to tell which ballot is which. The time to contest those people voting is BEFORE they vote. Once they do, it is too late.

Honestly? I think felons, once released, SHOULD get their voting rights back. But the way this was done is clearly not done in good faith.

mockturtle said...

SukieTawdry comments: I'm watching a documentary about the 1960 Wisconsin primary between Humphrey and Kennedy. It all seems so civilized.

Civilized, yes. Corrupt, you bet. I watched Advise and Consent today. Same thing. Corrupt but very civil.

mockturtle said...

Remember the old westerns--or even horror movies a la Vincent Price--where the courtly villain shows only the finest manners while the hero is frequently the rude name-caller?

buwaya said...

Napoleon called his very slick and clever foreign minister Talleyrand "shit in a silk stocking". M. Talleyrand was of course incredibly corrupt. He was one of those who got out of the whole period in wealth and safety though.

narciso said...

we're quite close to the vision charles mccarry sketched in better angels, nearly forty years ago, he was prescient with the suicide bombers, but also a world where the media pilloried the republican candidate practically into unperson hood, whereas the democrats having fouled up catastrophically in the middle east, fumble to rig the election,

Anonymous said...

Interesting Times. No Matter who loses, Mr. T. wins. The establishments of both parties are gone, butned to the ground. Not another penny for the farm teams that a training grounds for the corruption required for last centuries' governance. The GoP had an opportunity to surrender to the hostile takeover o the Taxed enough already crowd, now they are Going to find they created something worse. An Andrew Jackson who's going to burn everyone's house down. Good riddance.

vYou know the tragedy is about to play out when you start to feel the pain of one of the artists. My heart goes out to Ms. C. humbled and shamed by men at every turn in her life. Such a pity to deny her a little bit of happiness. Looking for love in all the wrong places. And even the little happiness she had must have been sour even though she was protected at every turn and her beards that were so supportive, Bill tried, as did Anthony and Vince, a smart and driven person deserving of love, yet none would share. Where she knew she was headed down this path but could not stop. The classic definition of a Greek Tragedy, continuing to do something that you know will come to a bad end. Sleeping with your mother? This will not end well. Wanting with all her soul to help people in ways she thought could only be achieved through government rather than markets, as she learned at the altars of the false gods, the corrupt revolutionaries at her universities, wanting desperately to be with the cool kids, then wanting to win big at politics before gay liberation and the soul devouring humiliation of having to use men to climb the ladder rather than find a path on her own. She could have been her own Trump or Soros or Icahn, or even a Walton, business that only succeeded because they rewarded merit, rather than caste, bringing affordable goods to the least of us, far more good for the least of us than any government could deliver, had her professors not led her down this path to this failure, and now it’s too late and her body is failing her, no more chances, no time left, only regrets, and the vultures are circling and she can see if not feel their bites. I weep. Call this an exercise in the Scott ott style of de-hypnotizing – when all else fails write the movie story line, and that will be closer to the truth. Worse then all this she got in bed with the Bullies. The democratic party, even worse they are Stupid Bullies. Per Scott Ott.


Achilles said...

Blogger Big Mike said...
@Clayton, I'm not voting for Trump tomorrow. I'm voting for the person most likely to beat Hillary. I have no more sense owning a share of his "grab 'em by the pussy" comment than I have a sense of owning a share of George W. Bush's fighter pilot skills.

I am sure W. Never ever in any private discussion ever said anything like that. DUI's don't count either. I have a bridge for sale too if you are interested.

But W with a republican house and senate he did organize and pass Medicaid part B. He also hung us veterans out to dry. And let us remember who the bush clan is backing in this election.

Big Mike said...

@Achilles, the F102 was a notoriously difficult aircraft to fly, with the highest accident rate I am aware of since the dawn of the jet age.

The point I was making was better written by Mark Krikorian over in the National Review Online. He writes that today is the only jury Hillary Clinton will ever face. If she wins today the House will not be bothered to impeach unless 2018 gets the Senate to 67 or more (preferably more) Republicans. I'm bothered by her open contempt for the rule of law. Voting for Trump is the cost of telling the establishment (of both parties!) that the law binds them every bit as much as it binds me and my neighbors. And he might not make a bad President of the United Stated. He has shown a capacity to learn and grow during the campaign. Hillary, by contrast, only gets more imperious, more paranoid, and less less technology-aware.

Big Mike said...

BTW, I got to Krikorian's piece via a link provided by Sarah Hoyt posting on Instapundit. Sarah is a fine writer of SciFi and fantasy, but I have an especially weak spot for her mysteries set in the milieu of TheThree Musketeers and starring the characters Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan created by Dumas. One can buy her books via the Althouse Amazon Portal.

Matt Sablan said...

"He writes that today is the only jury Hillary Clinton will ever face."

-- I'm walking to vote in a minute, and that's really the only thing that might even sway me to vote Trump. I've heard about people who have lost their jobs and faced legal trouble for leaving secret documents on their desk in a locked room in the Pentagon instead of in the safe, and this person gets to email secret documents to someone she was literally told she could not hire because he was a security risk and her maid, and... nothing?

Her campaign can hire people to disrupt other campaigns, exploiting the mentally ill to literally attack her opponents and inspire violence, and... nothing?

She can strip the media of whatever pretense of integrity they had, and we can watch as they conspire to prop her up against her opponents while tearing those same opponents down at her beck and call, and we think she can be effectively checked by the Fourth Estate that has already basically said: "You're the boss, who do you need us to destroy for you?"

Trump will be a disaster, but he'll be a disaster that the establishment, media, Congress and country will work to thwart, steady and steer in a better direction. Clinton will be a disaster that no one will dare cross and will work with in secret to further her power at the hopes of getting some scrap of the residual power/profits.

That's... a really compelling argument to vote Trump over Clinton. There's never going to be a reckoning politically or judicially for her if she's elected, even if we somehow got 70+ Senators. Every lever of power in the government, media and pseudo-government would exert itself to protect her, as we've already seen.

Mark said...

Republicans can never admit loss, it seems.

So many already claiming that the only way Hillary wins is by cheating, that nominating Mr Pussy Grabber Hothead who needs his Twitter access taken away by staff has nothing to do with it.

Unwilling to accept any responsibility for their loss. Sorta like they deny being racist and sexist.

It's not Trump's stupid ideas that they think lost the election, not his FU to Hispanics, nor his mocking rap music, or statement about women - all they mention is the other side cheating?

Enjoy the future, dinosaurs.

Bad Lieutenant said...

That's right, Matt, this is your only chance to tell Hillary Clinton something she will hear. She will never account to anyone ever again. Re-election will be a formality, a joke. Recycling Hitler just one more time, the winner will never be asked if she told the truth.

Please vote for Trump and show her that what she did was not all right.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Mark, for Romney, McCain, Dole, Bush, Reagan, and every other Republican since Lincoln, if it wasn't those, you'd have other epithets. You called Lincoln an ape, "the original gorilla," and you tried it on Bush again already. So I guess the cycle is repeating, the candle is guttering.

I guess you're pretty confident that your Chernobyl of a candidate is going to win (or you fake it well), so enjoy it while it lasts. While she lasts. Drudge has more video of her collapsing again on the tarmac at an airport.

If we can never admit loss, you can never admit being wrong.

Rusty said...

Mark said...
"Republicans can never admit loss, it seems.

So many already claiming that the only way Hillary wins is by cheating,"

Where have you been?
Our esteemed president has been encouraging illegals to vote. He has even assured them that there will be no repercussions.
You know vote fraud is a felony, right?
So Yeah, Mark. Your side cheats. From my experience it's part of your electoral process.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Ahhhhh! Struck my blow for freedom. Chruck, you'll be glad to know I voted Conservative down the line including for your choice of candidate in the presidential election and everywhere else except for the Conservatives had nominated a Democrat and then I voted Republican. All the other conservative candidates were Republican . I did not vote for anyone who had both the Republican and the Democratic nominations . So I did not vote for any Democrats. So, party unity, right?

Goodbye Clintons, kayn aynhoreh, hello Brave New World, gulp. God be with us!

damikesc said...

Not on anything like the cross of crazy that DJT has managed to repeatedly climb up and firmly nail himself to.

I have no hope for that.

Look what they did to Romney, a good and thoroughly decent man.


But W with a republican house and senate he did organize and pass Medicaid part B. He also hung us veterans out to dry. And let us remember who the bush clan is backing in this election.


Yeah, the family should go ahead and retire all of the members from future political consideration. The family name is dead.

It was dead long ago. Supporters won't support somebody who won't fight back and defend themselves. They won't stand by losers forever.

MarkJ said...

"Enjoy the future, dinosaurs."

How charmingly fascist and eliminationist of you to say so.

By the way, dinosaurs are still around. Maybe you've heard of them? They're now called "birds."

Remorse said...

"Our esteemed president has been encouraging illegals to vote."

How many of you knuckleheads believe this is true?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Weird how we don't hear too much about "big money in politics" this year, huh?
Oh, unrelated: Hillary has outspent Trump by about 2-1. If you add up 3rd party groups it might be closer to 3-1.

But anyway, as I was saying, isn't it funny how the Media all decided that money in politics isn't that big of a problem this election cycle?

RebeccaH said...

I think a lot of Trump voters are prepared for the possibility of the Clinton Machine running roughshod over the election and winning. I know I am. So, it will be less of a gut punch and more of a sigh of despair for a lot of us.

Rusty said...

Blogger Remorse said...
"Our esteemed president has been encouraging illegals to vote."

How many of you knuckleheads believe this is true?

Because he said it in a speech, knucklehead.