Re: Trump's Faction

Whoa, Easy. Patriotism? Trump is running a campaign based on patriotism?

I dunno....

Patriotism evokes to me a dignity that befits the object of patriotism: America as founded by the Founding Fathers. It evokes their sacrifice in a noble cause, a cause that held the world spell bound and continues to do so, a sacrifice that at the time it was made held no guarantee of success - quite the opposite. A revolt against arguably the most powerful sea-faring nation in the world and an army that in a few years would topple the great Napoleon?

Our Founders rolled the dice, embraced a truly profound cusp, and with boundless courage enacted one of the greatest moments in history - and defined forever, for me at least, what true patriotism is.

I revere our heritage, and have a hard time getting my head around your equation of the Trump campaign with American patriotism.

In short, I got cognitive dissonance here, Easy; can you help me?

Trump's Faction*

Indiana has spoken and Ted Cruz has suspended his campaign. Barring an awesome surge by John 'The Postman' Kasich, Donald Trump will take the GOP prize, for better or worse.

According to some, it will be the worser part: a northeastern liberal with a Dear Leader complex rivaling the Kims of North Korea, will become the new face of the party of Lincoln.

Well. As one who cannot be accused of being a Trumpster, I am here to advise everyone to calm down. The Trump Faction is not something new in Republican politics, nor is it unconservative. It is instead a strand within conservatism that has largely been abandoned by Republicans over the last decade.

The strand can be broadly categorized as patriotism, a positive pride in America, it's founding and its continuing importance in the world. It is a muscular loyalty to ''My Country 'tis of Thee'', the sense of triumph in ''USA, USA, USA'', and a basket of little reflexive social norms like the requirement that politicians must wear flag lapel pins.

This patriotic strand of Republicanism is so strong that it fairly leaps off the pages of some reputable social science studies, which indicate that any association with things like the flag or 4th of July parades will significantly influence people to vote Republican. Clearly, patriotism is not just a strand of Republicanism, but the strongest, most durable brand it has among the people at large.

What would cause the Republicans to abandon such a positive brand? Democrats, in general, and President Obama, in particular: there has been a fullscale assault on American patriotism from the Left, arguably beginning when Barack Obama tried to go without a flag lapel pin in the 2008 primaries. He failed to pull it off, but the Democrat's continued the fight nevertheless in the ensuing years, branding, ceaselessly branding, every display of patriotism as nationalism, Naziism, and/or xenophobia.They have been so successful that in many instances the display of the flag itself has been banned as some sort of Hate crime.

And thru all of this, the Republicans have been silent, acquiescent, as they have been on so many other Obama agenda items, unwilling to engage and fight for this most basic of American societal values: loyalty to this Country. Thus, the opening for Trump: to pick up on a major inflection of the body politic that crosses all traditional interest groups, men, women, blacks, conservative, liberal, young, old, middle, etc, etc, et al.

So, Trump is not some nascent demagogue, tapping the populist anger of a mob; he's just an opportunist, feeding the patriotic fervor of a people starved by their 'leaders.'

So, what to do? Stick to our principles and be loudly and unapologeticaly American, and we can both steer a Trump Presidency through the gate of liberty and limited government, and bring the people back to an America we can all be proud of once again.

And don't give up, don't ever give up.

*For a similar but not identical take, see also -Trump’s Faction by Henry Olsen, National Review Online.

Re: AstroTurf

Me, a Trumpster? Not even close, although I am not a #NeverTrump guy either. For my money, Trump would be infinitely better than Hillary. For that matter, so would Simon Cowell, Kim Kardashian, and Jeffrey Dahmer. At least the latter would be upfront about his cannibalism of the body politic.

 #NeverDemocrat.

Re: AstoTurf

Well said, Easy, an epic blog. The fact that the Democrats publicly support such anti democratic mob intimidation as they do is a stunning development in the political culture. As you note, they've always used such tactics, but always sub rosa, publicly affirming the opposite.

I am still trying to understand what has changed in the culture that makes the Democrats think they will not experience electoral backlash. They just don't seem to fear voters anymore.

But that is a quetion for another day. Much more important at the moment is, are you a Trumpster now, Easy? That would truly be a stunning political development.

AstroTurf

The political silly season continues, in its default mode of high dudgeon. The target is, of course, that human lightning rod, Donald Trump. Apparently, he is fomenting violence against peaceful protesters, dutifully pursuing their All American 1st Amendment rights to free speech. The Donald just will not abide such behavior at his rallies, and has even gone so far as to promise to pay legal fees for any supporter who will take these Norman Rockwell types out.

At the risk of committing a micro-aggression, I say balderdash. It's true that Trump's rhetoric exceeds the bounds of normal political speech, but that's because Trump is not engaging in political speech. He riffs in the common tongue, utilizing the kind of language you chair warriors use every day watching TV news. ''Look at those jerks ... Somebody ought to punch him in the nose ... Get 'em out a here!''  And Trump gets away with it; and the fact that he does is a large part of his attraction.

On this scale, the Trump scale, he is entirely within the bounds of acceptable speech. Because what his supporters hear is a guy mouthing off, blowing off steam, and they like it. But they do not take it literally as a license to assault a protester.

And the proof of this is clear for all to see. Trump has been assembling crowds upwards of 25-30,000 for months and months, and in all that time we have exactly one Trumpster who has actually attacked anyone. One. Per capita, that is a record of non violence that easily exceeds any confab of Democrats, Black Lives Matter, or even the Vatican Council of the Catholic Church.

What's really going on at these Trump rallies is that the Democrats are out of the closet and all in on the tactics of thuggery as a tool to crush political opponents. Democrats have a long history of these tactics, dating back to the KKK and voter suppression of Blacks for 100 years or more, but also more recently (and currently) with the deployment of Union thugs to tidy up voting habits in certain strategic regions of the country. But it was the advent of the radical student left in the McGovern campaign of 1972 that brought a whole new swath of shock troops into the Democrat orbit, together with a new public 'cover' for baldfaced intimidation: civil rights disobedience and protest.

The cover is, of course, a farce, which would be easily identified as such in any other cultural moment that pretends to honesty. However, these days the national media follows the Democrat party line no matter the circumstances.

These groups are not grassroots, but pure AstroTurf. Black Lives Matter is a transparent racist movement, with liberal elements of anarchy, cop hatred, and old fashioned theft and looting sprinkled throughout, and there is nothing about its 'demonstrations' that can be tied to a real  concern with civil rights for anyone. It wields the power of the mob, but a mob not spontaneously combusted, but one put together with the help of paid apparatchiks who have all the authentic passion for a cause of a used car salesman.

It's time for Republicans to come out of the closet as well and to call these 'demonstrations' for what they are. For some reason (intimidation? rank cowardice? plain stupidity?), the Repubs have gone along with the 'civil rights' meme of the Democrats. The time is now to speak plainly and honestly about what these groups really are all about: thuggery and intimidation and anarchy and vandalism and power, specifically Democrat power. They are anti-1st Amendment, anti-American culture, and anti-America.

The Republic stands at the brink. If not now, when? If not Republicans, who?

To Save the Republic

We've seen bombs and fire-fights in Boston, mass slaughter of children in schools, and (another) month of murderous mayhem in Chicago. So it's nice to know our stalwart police force is upping their game to secure our safety. From Fox News, we learn that last week the police put an 8th grader in jail - IN JAIL - on criminal charges - CRIMINAL CHARGES - for wearing a politically incorrect, but nevertheless legal, T-shirt to school.

Now, we know that if he had worn a T-shirt with a picture of a racist sadistic psycho like Che Guevara, or of bomb-throwing environmentalists, or even of cop-killers (sans, of course, images of the guns and bombs these people routinely employ), he would have been okay with the school district. But instead he chose a rather routine political message from the largest gun safety training organization in the United States in the world.

Ah, the naivete of youth. 

Should Gays be Allowed to Marry?

Sigh. The answer is yes. But that is like asking should people be allowed to join book clubs or should people be allowed to go fishing or should people be allowed to spend time at the seashore or should people be allowed to watch soap operas or should.....Again I say, sigh.

This is public debate these days, in which fundamental facts are breezed right over in favor of partisan induced strawmen fighting demagogic stereotypes, all on the front pages of the 'news,' echoing the zip zap opinions of the blogosphere. The question of whether Gays should be allowed to marry is a non-question, a rhetorical tic giving the appearance of a controversy where none exists. A lot of sound and fury, signifying.....nothing.

You want the fundamental facts? Gays have the absolute right to marry right now, today, in every state of the Union. There are no laws preventing them from standing up in a Church, reciting vows, celebrating with their friends, and shacking up in the house of their choice. Compare, for instance, the Gay situation with polygamy. There are laws against polygamy, and sometimes those laws are even enforced. Not so with Gays.

So, marry already. What, some churches won't let you marry under their auspices? Well, some churches won't let me marry under their auspices either (can you say Catholic Church?). No worries; find another church, or start your own, both of which are entirely legal also in these United States.

We've dealt with this issue before, here and here, and I hate to repeat myself. But in these times, in these dark days of public debate, these things need repeating.

So I repeat, sigh.

The Election

Sonofagun, to put it in its mildest form. It appears Romney was right about the 47%. In the clearest electoral choice in almost two generations, the citizens chose an entitlement society - even in the face of the economic malaise and fiscal disaster it (always) produces. I thought 47% was way too high a percentage; needless to say, I was wrong.

But right as he was about that, Romney and his team were wrong on just about everything else: messaging, campaign themes, and tactics. The constant harping on the economy to the exclusion of national defense and cultural issues proved devastating for the one thing Romney had under his control: getting out his base. Coupled with a pitiful GOTV effort, Romney failed to get as many votes as John McCain (!!) If he had, he would have won, because Obama lost nearly 10 million votes since 2008. (Update: It appears Romney did slightly exceed McCain's totals, and Obama lost only 7 million votes. But the analysis is still the same - in this red-hot election year, Romney should have exceeded McCain's totals by a good margin. If he had done so, the President's failure to turn out his own voters would have given Romney the win).

But Romney didn't win, and neither did we. And neither, I fear, did America.

But keep in mind that things looked dire for the Republic before, after the electoral victories of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. And our principles endured. So keep the faith, especially now when faith in things unseen is all we seem to have.

Re: Goosing the Polls

Conspiracy, Ezra? No, not as such. There is certainly a cultural bias going on, deeply rooted enough that many pollsters aren't even aware of their prejudice.

But even that is too strong. The science of polling is just like any other science - there is an art to the practice which, if done correctly, will sift the data into wise conclusions, and if done incorrectly, will produce drivel. In general, the art involves the selection of appropriate methodological assumptions.

Most on our side have noticed, for instance, how the pollsters weight their data in accordance with their assumption about the electoral mix on November 6. If you poll 1,000 citizens, you might find that your sample contains 70% Republicans and 30% Democrats. Clearly, this raw data will not reflect the actual electorate on voting day, so if this sample is to yield any meaningful results, it must be re-weighted to approximate reasonable expectations. 

The key is the term "reasonable." Good scientists can differ, and each can make a good case for his position.  Many pollsters have assumed the race in 2012 will reflect the electoral weighting seen in 2008, others have chosen 2004 as the model, and some (mainly the outliers) have assumed an electorate that appeared in the 2010 bi-elections. I myself prefer something closer to the 2010 elections, but recognize that such a choice would be a bit dicey for any reputable pollster. It was not a Presidential election and historically the correlation is not that close between bi-elections and those involving the President.

And there are myriad different electorate assumptions in any sub-group polled, e.g. women v. men voters, black v. white, hispanic turnout, and etc. Good pollsters will have models that deal with all these demographic groups and more, and each model will tend to push the results in one direction or the other.

But given all of this, there is still a problem: given the number of polls (and this election has seen an extraordinary amount of polling information) you would think that the average would cancel everything out and give us a fairly representative forecast. But they don't; the averages, as you note, uniformly and consistently show a tight race, at best a toss-up for Romney. Why should this be if he will win as decisively as I predict?

The answer is David Axlerod. All politicians and campaigns spin the news media to support their candidate. But Axlerod has introduced something new into Presidential politics: he has been assiduously spinning the pollsters to insure their results will mesh with a story of an overwhelming tide of support for Obama that will swamp Romney. He has been so effective at this that even those pollsters he has not contacted have tended to follow the herd and adopt assumptions favorable to Obama. In one reported case, it seems he even invoked the heavy hand of the Justice Department to get Gallup to change its methodology - which it did, suddenly tilting its polls towards Obama after previous polls had shown Romney surging ahead.

Why this man has such credibility, I don't know, but he does. Fortunately, not even his Justice Department can intrude into the privacy of the voting booth, so November 6 should finally give us an accurate poll, and a Romney/Ryan win.

Re: Goosing the Polls

Okay, Chase, you're officially out on a limb. But what is the reason that all the polls have the race so tight? Is it possible that all the pollsters are in the tank for Obama? Is the conspiracy really that big?