2016

Scott Hardie | December 20, 2015
What things are you looking forward to in 2016? These can be entertainment like movies or books, or news events like the presidential election, or personal events in your own life.

Samir Mehta | December 28, 2015
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | December 29, 2015
Entertainment: Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The X Files coming back. Fallout 4 expansions. The superhero traffic jam of Captain America: Civil War. Catching up on Netflix.

News events: The bursting of Donald Trump's bubble. The end of the marathon coverage of the presidential election that the news media thinks the world revolves around. Supreme Court decisions on abortion-provider access, affirmative action, consent to breathalyzer tests, and other issues that don't affect me directly but that still fascinate me.

Personal events: Preparing for an overdue move (merely across town) in January 2017. Spending time with new friends that I just made in a nearby city. Tackling some personal programming projects. Visits from family and perhaps a vacation in New York. It should be a good year.

Chris Lemler | December 29, 2015
I got to not jump to so many conclusions on things and try to see why things or done. Try to win more disc golf tourneys when i have the advantage. Keep working hard at my job and see if I can move up in the company

Erik Bates | December 29, 2015
[hidden by request]

Samir Mehta | December 29, 2015
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | December 30, 2015
Good personal initiatives all around. I wish you all the best of luck.

I kind of just want this endless Trump mania to be over. Either the forecasters are going to be right and he's going to fade fast after the first few primary losses and drop out, or they're going to be wrong and he's going to become the nominee, or perhaps the party will remain split until a brokered convention. Whichever of those scenarios happens, let's just get it over with already and move on. This presidential election feels like it has been going on for an eternity and we're still more than a month away from even a primary vote being cast.

Chris Lemler | December 30, 2015
Well I am really tired of trump at all cost. He has the money but he don't have the money to win the presidential election

Scott Hardie | December 30, 2015
Yes! I believe that everyone but his supporters is tired of him at this point.

Samir Mehta | December 30, 2015
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | January 3, 2016
As far as I know, most Trump supporters are Tea Party members. If you've known people in that group over the last few years, then chances are good that you know Trump supporters now. They feel marginalized in what they used to feel was "their" own country, and their feelings of impotence turn to anger and frustration, and they want a politician who speaks the way they feel. Trump is the inspiring culture warrior they've been waiting for.

This pains me to say, but Trump's candidacy makes me look back on my father unfavorably. My father, who passed away in 1997, was a Barry Goldwater Republican and an emphatic Dittohead. He believed in the "welfare queen" myth and made ugly racist comments about people we'd see on the street. If he could get over the trashiness of the Trump brand, I'm pretty sure that he'd be a devoted Trump follower if he were alive today, supportive of the more divisive, xenophobic, and exclusionary policies floated by Trump. It makes me sad to think these things. I have many Republican friends and family members and I'm content to disagree with them about our priorities and policies as a nation, but the Trump campaign has embraced an especially vile, nasty hatefulness that I just can't accept, and I fear that's exactly what would have attracted my father. I hope I'm wrong.

Erik Bates | January 4, 2016
[hidden by request]

Samir Mehta | January 4, 2016
[hidden by request]

Erik Bates | January 5, 2016
[hidden by request]

Samir Mehta | January 5, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | January 9, 2016
Ouch. Five Thirty Eight argues that Trump supporters are misinformed, not uninformed. That might be true of some (one Trump-supporting friend of mine likes to criticize everyone else as a "low information voter" while he frequently shares Alex Jones conspiracy theories), but that's still a tasteless and condescending way to put it. "Trump Voters: More Gullible Than Ignorant," it could have read.

Rubio is a big question mark to me, because he's been around so briefly and hasn't accomplished much yet. Some (relatively) young politicians get into lower office and immediately seek higher office, running on personality and policy instead of past performance. Is Rubio a Barack Obama, who turns out to have the wisdom and conscience to make prudent but unpopular choices? Or is he a John Edwards, who hides awful personal values behind a mask of youthful charisma? I might be able to grow to accept Rubio, but it hasn't happened yet. I wish I could say that being from Florida has given me any insight into him, but it hasn't.

Cruz is a smug asshole who thinks winning an argument is the same thing as being right. If Trump wasn't running, Cruz would be the villain of this race, getting all of the negative publicity.

Scott Hardie | January 10, 2016
Are Kasich, Bush, Fiorina, and Christie that electable? They are the most palatable to moderates and liberals, but they would enjoy tepid support from their own base, especially the far right, who keep growing in size and influence. Then again, Romney was distinctly unpopular with the far right and he got respectable turnout nationally, so perhaps I'm overthinking it. If three of the four "electable" candidates would drop out and combine their supporters around the fourth, that person might finally have some traction, but even in that scenario it might be too little too late.

As of now, do you have any predictions who will be the Republican nominee? I would bet on Cruz, who seems poised to win Iowa in a few weeks and most of the Super Tuesday contests a few weeks after that. He has very cannily presented himself as all things to all people, and has the hardiest coalition of different bases behind him. But there's still plenty of time for someone else to surge ahead.

Samir Mehta | January 10, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | January 18, 2016
I like your analysis, Samir. This has been an upside-down, unpredictable election so far, so we'll see what happens.

I appreciated this satirical take on Trump as classroom bully. It sums up many of his ugliest qualities.

Steve Dunn | January 24, 2016
How do you start a new discussion thread?

Samir Mehta | January 24, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | February 2, 2016
At last Iowa can go back into hibernation. I have friends there who despite election season and I don't blame them. It seems like a nightmare.

Martin O'Malley has done well in his real campaign, setting himself up to run for president again in 2020/2024. At least now he can stop pretending he has the tiniest chance of winning in 2016.

Speaking of tiny chances, people are making a big deal about Hillary Clinton winning 6 out of 6 coin tosses, as if that's so impossible that it's somehow proof by itself that the outcome was rigged. It's only a 1 in 64 chance, people; it's certainly possible. Have you ever rolled a pair of dice and gotten snake-eyes? That has a 1 in 36 chance, and it has probably happened to you many times. What would be the odds that Clinton's people rigged a coin toss that was publicly viewed and recorded, where the consequences of getting caught would involve significant penalties and lost support? Clinton's corrupt in plenty of ways; this ain't it. (The question raised by this story should be, why in the hell are we still using coin tosses to award delegates?)

I'm relieved to see Trump taken down a notch. (Sad!) I'm sick of him and the ugliness that he brought to the national conversation. This failure to live up to his sky-high polls should be the beginning of his downfall, not that the media are going to stop reporting every hateful thing he says whether he's still running or not. Some of my friends are Trump supporters and they remain sure today that he'll be the next president. They and I can't both be right.

There remain too many moderates in the GOP race, dragging each other down. I gained respect for Lindsey Graham in late December, when he saw that he had no chance and could do the most good by dropping out and passing his support to other moderate candidates, soon endorsing Jeb Bush. Now is the time for the others to drop out and coalesce support behind one of their own, the better to stop a fringe candidate from surging.

Scott Hardie | February 22, 2016
Three weeks change a lot: Trump won the next few states after Iowa, and he's projected to win most of the upcoming states too. Betting markets and some analysts have him at 50% likelihood to win the nomination; I would currently put him at more like 80% likelihood, and gaining 3-4% each week. The Republican party establishment may not want him whatsoever, and may view him as something like a foreign invader, but they have utterly failed to fight back against him and they deserve him.

Time points out that Trump hasn't criticized Rubio yet. They speculate that Trump's just biding his time, focusing on more pressing threats (Cruz) or more personal targets (Bush), and will deal with Rubio later. I wonder if he's sparing Rubio so that he can make Rubio his VP nominee. It would, after all, help him a little bit with a large demographic that he has alienated. And if Clinton makes the widely predicted choice of Julian Castro for her VP nominee, Rubio would more than neutralize Castro.

I really came to like Bush during this campaign, surprising myself, since I disliked him quite a bit as governor. I remain opposed to his policies, but as a man, he had the character and qualities that I desire in a president. Slate's appreciation of him is exactly how I feel.

Samir Mehta | February 22, 2016
[hidden by request]

Erik Bates | February 22, 2016
[hidden by request]

Samir Mehta | February 22, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | February 23, 2016
Erik, an island in Canada is already welcoming Trump-fearing Americans. They want us.

Definitely, Samir: Trump has been so hugely successful that his strategy of being as outrageous and offensive as possible, while staying just barely within the realm of electability, will be replicated by lots of other candidates and campaigns in the years to come, to my considerable dread. The thing is, Trump is masterful at it. He knows exactly how to hit those notes without seeming like he means to, a skill that will be lacking in many of his imitators. Notice how he disowns the insults even as they leave his lips: He says things like "people are saying [Ted Cruz is a jerk / Jeb Bush is a mama's boy], I personally am not saying it, but lots of people are saying it." Trump would not be half as successful if he were not so slick.

I don't understand a lot of the arguments in favor of Trump. Let me break down a few:

"He funded his own campaign. He cannot be bought! He is immune to special interest money."
One, just because he's not working for the special interests, does not mean that he's working for you the voter. Trump works for Trump. And two, the man obviously loves money. Wouldn't the fact that he's funding out of his own pocket make him more susceptible to taking donors' money than a candidate running a traditional campaign? He has incentive to get that money back in his pocket.

"He tells it like it is! He speaks his mind."
How is this beneficial if the things on his mind are awful? Find me the nearest KKK leader and I'm sure he means what he says too, but I would never vote for him for office. The things that Trump says are not far removed.

"He's a rich man who has built a very successful business. He'll make ordinary Americans better off."
Trump has gotten rich by screwing ordinary Americans. He uses eminent domain to seize property, outsources jobs overseas, invests in foreign businesses, and sues ordinary people for daring to criticize him. You're hiring a fox to guard the henhouse.

"Trump's a dealmaker. He brings people to the table and compels them to make agreements favorable to him."
He does not have magical powers of negotiation; that is his own mythmaking. He's been lying for many years about his ability to make deals. He is a fraud.

Samir Mehta | February 23, 2016
Also, the self funding is a myth. He has taken and used considerable donations. Also, is financial success was unduly influenced by inheritance. I buy none of his nonsense. Sad that others do.

Samir Mehta | February 24, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | February 27, 2016
I don't know if voters actually cared about the flip-flops. It's an easy and often lazy attack line for politicians to use against one another, and the news media will play along for an easy story, but it hardly seems damning to us regular folks. Personally, I've often considered "flip-flopping" to be attractive: A politician learned new information that changed their mind on an issue, and they were willing to say so publicly and risk being called out for flip-flopping. That's prudent, wise, and brave. Being stuck forever in the same mindset, and refusing to change one's mind despite new information or changing times, makes one an ideologue and a poor public servant. Being too afraid of criticism or too desperate for votes to stand up for one's true beliefs makes one a coward.

I'm not quick to praise Clinton, but I don't accept the attack line that she used to be against gay marriage and now she's for it. She came a little bit later to that cause than the rest of her party, but you know what? So did the rest of America. When most Americans opposed gay marriage, so did she. When most Americans came around to support gay marriage, so did she. It's possible that she's being a devious politician and only taking the position that people want, but it's also possible that she is just another of the tens of millions of Americans whose minds have changed in recent years.

Meanwhile, wonderful news: Trump promises to change libel laws so that public figures who don't like their press coverage can sue the media outlets. This is definitely a good thing, and not at all an ominous sign of the abuses of power that a President Trump would pursue.

Samir Mehta | February 27, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | February 27, 2016
What's a more impossible undertaking, pushing through a constitutional amendment, or constructing a wall spanning the entire southern U.S. border that's completely financed by Mexico?

Trump's no idiot. I'm sure he has a long-term plan for how to weasel out of his fantastical promises about the wall. I look forward to seeing how he does it, if he gets elected.

Samir Mehta | February 27, 2016
[hidden by request]

Aaron Shurtleff | February 27, 2016
Did I see right? Did Raven Symone say she would leave the country if a Republican gets nominated?

Can that...happen? I mean a Republican has to be nominated, right?

(Yes, I assume she meant elected.)

Scott Hardie | February 28, 2016
I heard the same, and assumed the same. I have a feeling it would have made news even without her using the wrong term, because certain people happen to be routine targets for media mockery whenever they say something ill-considered, and she's one of them.

Scott Hardie | March 15, 2016
I'm getting tired of hearing that it's my civic duty to vote tomorrow, mostly from Facebook friends who keep inviting me to "vote for Bernie" events. Tomorrow is a primary in Florida, not the general election. Even if you consider voting a civic duty, choosing a party nominee is not the same thing, especially for people like me who are neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican and who live in a state where you must be one or the other to participate. (I wish I was a registered Republican for once, because that's the race where I'd really prefer to have a say.)

Samir Mehta | March 15, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | March 15, 2016
One friend who has been pro-Trump almost since the beginning has said he's now more pro-Trump than ever. That was Sunday night, after the ugliness of the weekend. This friend is a college graduate, has a high-earning career, and is black, so he's statistically atypical among Trump supporters.

Samir Mehta | March 15, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | March 19, 2016
I'm no Trump fan, but Trump doesn't deserve doxxing. I'm as disappointed in my liberal friends for cheering this news (two wrongs don't make a right) as I am in the hackers for pretending like they have moral high ground (exposing someone else's secrets while staying anonymous themselves is hypocritical and cowardly). That said, I am at least curious to know if Trump's not as rich as he claims.

Samir Mehta | March 19, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | March 20, 2016
There's a twist in the story of the Trump doxxing. Let me unpack it:

- Anonymous didn't actually release new/secret information. They only released information that had already been online for years and claimed it was new.

- Once they announced that they had doxxed him, the campaign issued a statement critical of it, and the FBI and Secret Service opened an investigation.

- Anonymous claims that they fooled the campaign into reacting to leaked information that wasn't new at all.

- Anonymous also claims that they did this to prove that we are living in a fascist state where the FBI and Secret Service would seek arrests for exposing information that is already public, without investigating first.

Anonymous is so full of shit. They couldn't hack Trump's actual info, but they already "declared war" on him, so they pull this stunt instead ("risking our credibility" indeed). The reactions of the campaign and the FBI and Secret Service are totally normal and would have happened no matter which candidate it was, even super-left Bernie Sanders, so this says nothing about Trump himself. No actual arrests took place, just like no actual hacking too place, so any claims about a hypothetical "police state" hold as much water as any boasts about hypothetical "hacking" that, again, Anonymous has failed to pull off. For people who insist on hiding their identity, they sure do love attention.

I want the myth of Anonymous being brilliant and heroic to implode so badly.

Samir Mehta | March 21, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | March 21, 2016
Yes. I always try to keep in mind that what one jackass does in the name of Anonymous doesn't reflect what the rest of them think. But this story is gaining traction, judging from how many of my anti-Trump liberal friends are cheering about it, and I can't help but find it ridiculous. Anonymous has me rooting for Trump on this one.

But of course, I still find Trump deeply troubling in many other ways. Take his abuse of the press for one.

Samir Mehta | March 21, 2016
[hidden by request]

Samir Mehta | May 5, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | August 7, 2016
I understand the ignorant racist support for Trump. I recently overheard a stranger (a middle-aged white guy) talking about wanting to see the new Dinesh D'Souza movie that's out, and how he thinks it will help Trump win. Actual quote: "People just don't know history. They think slavery ended, but it's still around. Have you ever been to the ghetto? Those people don't even speak American. It's just 'jibba jabba, jibba jabba' with them." If I didn't know several Trump supporters who were decent and intelligent people, this racist jerk is how I would imagine most or all Trump supporters.

What I can't understand, or maybe just won't allow myself to understand, is the burn-it-all-down, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may ambivalence toward a possible Trump presidency. I was talking with an acquaintance who has been stationed all over the world in government-intelligence jobs and who should know better, who very much agreed with Trump's isolationism and didn't care that Trump wanted us to shirk our obligations to foreign peacekeeping treaties. I asked, with the European Union possibly breaking down further in the next few years thanks to the success of Brexit, isn't American commitment to NATO the best chance the world has of stopping Putin from invading and conquering former Soviet countries? He said, "Who cares? Let Putin have eastern Europe if he wants it so badly!" I asked, wouldn't that likely result in a massive ground war in which millions of people would die, and a nuke might possibly be used? He stuck with his position: "It's not our problem." I was flabbergasted. It's one thing to support Trump out of ignorance. It's another to know the evil that his election could unleash in the world and not to care.

Scott Hardie | September 3, 2016
"If you don't do something about [immigration], you're going to have taco trucks on every corner," said one of Trump's surrogates this week. Is it me, or is this the point where the racism became overt? It used to be couched in negative terms, like the immigrants coming in from Mexico were rapists and drug dealers and killers, so logically, who could object to stopping illegal immigration? But the hypothetical taco-truck owners described here would be responsible, hard-working, small business owners. And it's not like they would be displacing the American-owned food-trucks that are (not) currently on every corner; there's tons of room for growth in that particular industry. Literally the only objection to this scenario would be to the presence of many more Latino people in this country, which is, well, racist. There isn't another word for it. If you say that this influx of immigrants would displace American culture or change American values, you're saying that they would displace white culture or change white values, because once they're living here and working here, they would be American themselves. The only thing different about them would be their Latinness. Am I wrong?

Lori Lancaster | September 29, 2016
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | October 1, 2016
Excellent points, especially about fear of being treated like a minority.

People fight over which words to use. "Wetback" used to be the common term for immigrants from Central and South America, but it came to have very negative connotations, so the left pressed for the neutral term "illegal immigrant" instead. Now that term is the one considered negative, and there's a campaign to say "undocumented immigrant" instead, because there's way too much emphasis on the "illegal" part. I'm tired of hearing the phrase "what part of illegal don't you understand?" with regards to immigration, as though the legality of it is the only thing that matters. I'm not an expert on immigration law, but since when should the law guide our morality instead of the other way around? Whether or not a person has gone through every proper legal channel should matter much less than whether they're a decent human being contributing to our economy and our culture.

Kelly has said from the beginning that she's much less scared of Trump than she is of Trump supporters. He's one shitty human being who can say whatever he wants. The fact that millions of people agree with the shitty, cruel things he says is alarming. They do want mass deportation, and I don't think "illegal" has much to do with it -- I think many of them would be relieved to see many Mexican-American U.S. citizens deported.

After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the Republican Party organized a post-mortem and concluded that it needed to stand for things again. It had spent too long simply opposing Obama and liberalism instead of standing up for something specific, like fiscal conservatism or limited goverment or personal liberty or even family values. But it didn't get its act together quickly enough, and in the absence of that unified cause, Trump's candidacy seems to have forced the matter, exciting many disaffected white voters on the matter of race and immigration, in a way that horrifies other conservatives who vote Republican for other reasons or who want not to lose badly on Election Day. The party will recover from this and the country will recover from this, but it's still a dark season in recent American history when so many people can come together over a cause so vile and un-American.