The Endless Facebook Trump Whaa Post

I pissed off a whole lot of people on Facebook over the last few days.

I figured I should post this one on my blog for posterity. Backstory. See the last blog post here? Originally I posted that opinion about how I could never vote for Trump on FB. That post blew up and got a few thousand comments over there. I ended up having like twenty simultaneous time consuming debates, and because of the way Facebook does it’s stupid subthreads, I found that I was responding to the same arguments over and over.

So yesterday morning I posted the first few lines of this FB post, making a crack about the prior mega thread. It too immediately began to spiral out of control, so rather than respond to the hundreds of similar comments over and over, I just started putting in edits replying once up top. It got really silly. This may look long, but keep in mind it was written in five minute blocks throughout an entire day as I took breaks from work. I should have thought of this years ago. 

 

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What the last two days have been like on the internet:

Me: I will never vote for Trump.
Trumpkins: Quit your whining butt hurt crybaby, you owe us your vote, so get in line!
Me: No
Trumpkins: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

That, times a thousand.

OR:

Me: I will never vote for Trump.
Sad Republican: Lesser of two evils! SCOTUS picks!
Me. Long winded response about how a short term victory to get an amoral statist into office in our name, will tarnish the conservative movement forever, and ensure authoritarian democrat socialism for a generation.
Sad Republican: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! (only spelled correctly, and arranged in coherent sentences)

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That was the original post. 

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EDIT TO ADD: And look down, already it begins again. I started responding down there, but you know what? Fuck those guys. They’ve proven over the last few months they’re too stupid to live anyway. Why waste time responding to bullshit individually, when I can just respond to all the tired bullshit up here once? It is like an industrial bullshit thresher!

WHAAAAAAAAA you might as well vote for Hillary.
Funny. You low information dipshits elected a democrat, so now it is the problem of life long conservatives that another different democrat will win because we won’t support your democrat?
But WHAAAAAAAAAAAA

EDIt 2:

WHAAAAAAA staying home is a vote for Hillary!
Nope.

WHAAAAAAAAA voting third party is a vote for Hillary!
Nope.

The best thing that ever happened for Hillary was you morons picking the one dude out of 15 she was the most likely to beat.

WHAAAAAAAA conservative SCOTUS!
You should have thought of that before you picked an amoral liberal to be your guy then, huh?

EDIT 3

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA Build a Wall!
Ain’t gonna happen. Sucker.

WHAAAAAAAAAAA! People like you should get out of America!
Try and make me. You’d better bring friends.

WHAAAAAAAA! u r teh suck i not can spell words gud America!
Well. Okay then. (check the other thread this one is surprisingly common)

EDIT 4

WHAAAAAAAA! McCain! Romney!
Yep. A big government asshole and a mushy moderate. Still voted for them because they were obviously better than Obama. Trump is Clinton in an Oompa Loompa costume. Trump makes Romney look like Reagan. Trump makes McCain look calm and rational.

WHAAAAAAA! RINO! Establishment!
So you ran an amoral statist who funds the establishment? That’ll show them.

EDIT 5: This responding once thing is fantastic! I should have thought of it years ago. 🙂

Sad Wishful Thinking Republican: WHAAAAA? IF he isn’t lying recently, and IF he surrounds himself with good people (who he has been insulting and lying about for months) and IF this malignant narcissist listens to advice and IF his clownish behavior is just an act and IF he doesn’t totally drag down the GOP and IF he doesn’t cost us the senate, then MAYBE he’ll be okay? WHAAAA?

Damn dude. That’s a lot of ifs. I want a pony.

EDIT 6: WHAA? Even though he’s been in favor of gun bans his whole life and helped anti gun politicans get elected in states he doesn’t even do business in as recently as 2014, And he’s either lying and made it to 68 before he realized what the 2nd Amendment was for, or he’s just really really slow. And he still bans concealed carry on his properties… But his son shoots 3gun competition, so maybe he’ll be okay on guns? WHAAA?

Good luck with that.

WHAAAAAAAAAAA! He has to fund the campaigns of liberal statists! Because that’s just good business! Sure, he overwhelmingly gave to liberals, and the only republicans he gave to were the establishment types we supposedly hate, but bribery is normal and good! EXTRA WHAAAAAAA!

You’re a fucking retard.

EDIT 7: (this one doesn’t get a WHAAA, because it is more of a SIGH) I’m not going to yell at you or demand you fall in line. Trump is evil. Hillary is worse. I have to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Can’t fault your reasoning. But for me and a lot of people? Trump is a bridge too far. We’ve had moderates and RINOs and held our nose and voted for them. But this isn’t a moderate or a RINO. This is an amoral statist authoritarian liberal, who got to where he was by being a huckster con appealing to anger and fear. He is a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He is an insult to the founders, a disgrace to our people, and in the unlikely event he wins, will probably go down in history as the man who ended any hope of small government or individual liberty in America.

I won’t have that stain on my soul.

EDIT 8: These are from the mega thread.

WHAAAAAAAAA Your bad language and hurtful words offend me! You should be more respectful and clean up your language! But Trump tells it like it is Keeping It Real!

Actually, that one is so stupid it shouldn’t get a whaa. It should get a baaaa. Sheep.

WHAAAAAAAA God has forsaken America, insert smug religious nonsense here! Now support my amoral serial adulturing pro abortion casino owner or God will smite thee!

As a religious man, all these years I thought those dumb stereotypes about idiotic hypocritical evangelicals were made up by smug liberals to mock Christians. It took Trump to show me the light. Praise the flaxen haired casino god!

EDIT 9: WHAAA! What could possibly persuade you to support Trump?

He nominates a fantastic VP and then has a stroke before November.

EDIT 10

WHAAAA! I’m poor. You are rich. My roof leaks and it is conservatives fault. I can’t afford health insurance because of Obamacare so I love the guy who supports single payer. Make America Great again! My run on paragraph complains about how unfair life is and you are being mean, then I’m going to complain about your religion and act surprised that in the year 2016 a grown up plays video games.

And the funny thing is, this particular dude opened by accusing me of having a “melt down”. 🙂

EDIT 11:

WHAAAAA! If you don’t vote for Trump you can’t complain!

Oh? Watch me.

WHA? Insert Tortured Chess Game Analogy-in check because of a horrible mistake, but where a desperate gamble can still pull out an ugly win, but closes with a vow to not make that mistake in the next game…

Artistic, except Trump is more Hungry Hungry Hippos speed than Chess. Also, you assume after this victory there will be another game to be had. Not if Trump drags the GOP down with him there isn’t. Both sides will be the same color after that. It will be all big government statism to the end.

You want to talk chess? Try thinking more than one move ahead. Trump win now. Authoritarian win forever.

WHAAAAAAA! You are my favorite writer but I want to have Trump babies and you called me low information so my feeling are hurt!

Good. That was what I was going for. Low information is being charitable. That suggests you are basically a decent person who fell for a con. The other possibility is that you saw through his populist rhetoric, but you actually do want an authoritarian strongman in control. Now that would be really insulting.

EDIT 12:

WHA-sniff. Pretentious literary criticism guy shows up and gets all snide and bitchy because I’m professional writer, then acts aloof.

Yep. I’m rich, popular, and successful. It’s awesome. You should try it some time.

WHAAAAA! No you’re the whining WHAAAA! Don’t say I’m upset or I’ll yell at you more! WHAAAA!

She said, totally oblivious that there is another thread on my page with 3000 posts about Trumpkins declaring any criticism of their false idol whining/crying/butthurt/meltdown. Because when you’ve got no coherent policy beyond slogans, you’ve got to meet criticism somehow!

WHA! Larry you were involved in shaking up this other small political thing involving a few thousand people! Why don’t you fix all the political problems in a country with 330 million people? WHA?

Yeah, dude, I’ll get right on that.

Scrolling through… A bunch more from sad republicans voting for the lesser evil. Yep. Feel your pain. Scroll up. No need to respond to those agaiin. Angry Trumpkins. Roger that.

Ooooh, a new one.

WHAAA! NO LABELS! You shouldn’t call people Trumpkins!”

Forgive me No Labels Police. Writing out Coalition of Authoritarians And Low Information Voters Motivated By Anger And Fear Who Are Now Fully Invested In A Cult of Personality That Will Allow No Dissent got a little long to keep typing.

Now back to work. I have to keep up earning lots of money so the GOP fundraisers will keep calling me. This time I can laugh at them.

EDIT 13: Went to lunch, took care of some NFA paperwork, on the drive listened to conservative talk radio show hosts tying themselves into knots trying to explain away Trump’s authoritarian or nonsensical positions.

Now I’m back. Let’s see what’s new in this thread.

WHAAAAA! No you’re the whiner! I’m not going WHAAA! I know you are but what am I! I don’t care what you think! WHAAAA!

That is indeed a very compelling argument from somebody who feels the need to post on a complete stranger’s Facebook page.

WHAAAAAA! The establishment was owned by Goldman Sachs and George Soros! Oh wait… Trump has only been the nominee for 48 hours and he’s already hired a Goldman Sachs partner and George Soros hedge fund manager to be his finance chief to tap into that sweet liberal establishment money… Uh… Never mind! YOU SOUND ANGRY! CRY SOME MORE! WHAAA!

Ooh, a question I missed from earlier. Which VP pick would make me likely to back a Trump ticket?

There’s a bunch, though I’m not sure who would want to hitch his horse to this dumpster fire, but you missed the important part of my statement, which would be the catastrophic stroke before November.

Lots of You Sound Angry. Well, yeah I’m angry. A plurality of half wits picked the most uniquely unsuited candidate in Republican history. Duh. But I’m also perfectly rational writing about it. We might be at the fall of the Roman Empire, but at least I live in Byzantium.

Flipping through comments the rest is pretty much more of the same. Wow, there are some real braniacs in Trump cheerleader camp. Having those guys as the new standard bearers and big thinkers will be awesome for you guys. You traded in Thomas Sowell for Sean Hannity.

Then lots of posts from the despondent republicans rationalizing having to vote for an authoritarian clown, because he might be better than the harpy.Truly, I feel for you guys. I get why you’re doing it. Just can’t in good conscience pull that lever myself. Have fun explaining, defending, or owning all of his terrible decisions until November though. 🙂

EDIT 14:

LOL! (they put LOL so you know when they are trying to be funny, otherwise it is really hard to tell) This Larry Correia guy obviously has a lot of free time on his hands!

Heh…
He he he
Ha ha ha ha HAW
BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA snort

Oh, wait…You’re serious?
Though that isn’t as dumb an assumption as the guy in the last thread who said I must be a welfare check cashing Obama lover. I can’t wait until I finally make it as a *real* writer and I can write one book like every five years, instead the 2 1/2 a year I do now. I’m doing these edits between breaks working on a real book. Each one takes a couple minutes. Comments like this make me think that most people write really, really slow. It must suck to be lame like that. Get faster, scrub.

WHAAA!!! Electing Hillary will start a war!
Posted simultaneously with
WHAAAA! We need to burn it all down!

Sheesh, make up your mind Trumpkins.

WHAAAAAAA! Trump lives rent free in your head! Shut up or you will be accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome! EXTRA HARD WHAAAAA!

Yeah… Because how crazy is it that a writer is writing about the biggest news story in the country right now, 48 hours after it happened? I’ll just toss that one in the Better Fall In Line pile.

The only derangement I’m seeing is people trying really hard to believe that Trump isn’t a liberal progressive. That’s like psychotic break level reasoning, but many here do seem to be pulling it off.

And the Naked Trump photo. YOU MONSTER. WHAT HAS BEEN SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN!

EDIT 15:

WHAAAA but liberal celebrities say they’ll leave the country if Trump wins!

Nobody is actually leaving. Liberals, like Trump, lie a lot.

WHAAAAAA! 25% of federal employees will quit if Trump leaves.

Nobody is actually quitting. Federal employees, like Trump, lie a lot.

WHAAAAAAA! This is TOO LONG!

But written in five minute blocks spread out over a long work day made it hilarious. 🙂

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This part was hanging at the bottom the whole time

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I do believe that covers it. I’ll come back periodically to see what fresh forms of bullshit these mealy mouthed motherfuckers have brought up to try and persuade us to vote for their amoral statist over the other amoral statist.

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FINAL EDIT – Oh man, that was fun. For anybody reading this whole thing, it started early this morning. About every hour or so I’d tune back in, read the new stuff, and comment once. I wish I would have thought of this years ago!

I had a mega thread the other day, but with FB’s ridiculous subthread comment system, I realized I was having 20 simultaneous arguments, and repeating myself because it was all the same thing over and over. This was way cooler, and with the added benefit of not having to listen to pedantic twats playing the childish Get The Last Word In game

I Am Heteromediocrity.
On the Election

189 thoughts on “The Endless Facebook Trump Whaa Post”

  1. “EDIT 7: (this one doesn’t get a WHAAA, because it is more of a SIGH) I’m not going to yell at you or demand you fall in line. Trump is evil. Hillary is worse. I have to vote for the lesser of two evils.

    Can’t fault your reasoning. But for me and a lot of people? Trump is a bridge too far. We’ve had moderates and RINOs and held our nose and voted for them. But this isn’t a moderate or a RINO. This is an amoral statist authoritarian liberal, who got to where he was by being a huckster con appealing to anger and fear. He is a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He is an insult to the founders, a disgrace to our people, and in the unlikely event he wins, will probably go down in history as the man who ended any hope of small government or individual liberty in America.”

    Can you explain your reasoning on this Larry? How can Trump drag down the republican party, conservatism, or small governmentism? Like I said before how you vote is between you and you, but I cant help thinking this seems a bit extreme.

    1. How? Simple.

      Fish rots from the head.

      You want to make cronyist, big government, authoritarian, populist the new standard bearer for the party? And you don’t think that is going to have negative effects downstream? If they were dumb enough to put a conservative republican in charge of the DNC, would that not have influence upon the DNC? Obviously. But then again, they aren’t stupid enough to do something that suicidal.

      And Conservatism in general?

      Because in the minds of the people, it will have become absolutely indistinguishable from the opposition. Because for four years, it will have been. So if you’re going to get a democrat anyway, might as well vote for the democrat. They’re better at it.

      And not to mention that purely from a logistical stand point, Trump is so unpopular, with so many negatives, that he will probably cost republicans downstream.

      And if you think there is no functional difference between democrats and republicans in lower offices across the nation, you are wrong.

      And see? This is answering one question. And it took me a whole minute of my day to type a response. Multiply that by a thousand. Yep. This is why I’m just going to answer political crap once up top and let you guys fight it out down here without me. 🙂

      1. Larry,

        Many working folks don’t see the difference between a D and R behind the name. They know that DC and both parties leaderships have been failing them for the last 3 decades. Being mostly powerless, they are just stocking up for Armageddon/SHTF.

        Trump being the “R” choice is the fault of the piss poor leadership in this country. If the RNC had it’s ordure in order, this would have never happen. But they are corrupt and evil too. They have done nothing positive , while the middle class decays. The party hasn’t been truly “conservative” in years.

        And in my city and county, there’s a lower level corruption among those Republicans. DWI’s of officials and rich disappear, big donors have much lower property taxes, public contracts have enormous overruns, slum lords break the law, and everyone is afraid to risk their neck speaking up. Probably wouldn’t matter if the Democrats were in power. The system is broke.

        I don’t know if I want to live thru the “Crazy Years” with the rest of the irrational primates or have Mother Nature reboot the damn planet and try again

        1. You are preaching to the choir about it being broke. But the solution isn’t to do something worse and hope for the best.

      2. No worries Larry, Personally I think your going a bit overboard, but its your choice. Now stop answering these questions and get the next MH book out wontya?

        1. Like all of the anti-Trump conservatives, Larry is going overboard. He’s being emotional and that’s affecting his reason. His arguments are weak and hyperbolic (the “WAAA” at the beginning of each one should give that away). Here are just a few ways that he has employed poor reasoning in defense of his emotionally-based argument.

          First, Trump is not a conservative. He doesn’t claim to be. He can’t “tarnish the conservative movement” because he isn’t part of it. He’s running for the Republican nomination, not the Conservative nomination. He’s a pragmatic populist and a nationalist. Conservatives won’t be defined by him. Oddly enough, conservatives have been pretty damned useless for decades, so I’m not really sure how they could get much worse of a rap. The only reason Trump is doing as well as he’s doing is because conservatives dropped the ball so many times that no one trusts them with it any more.

          Second, Hillary actually does support democratic socialist authoritarianism whereas Trump does not (in word, at least). So if ending up in a democratic, socialist authoritarian state is your biggest concern, you should be supporting Trump over Hillary. Arguing that he’s lying right now about his anti-democratic socialist position is speculation. He might be, but Hillary is openly endorsing those things, so she is observably worse.

          Third, Trump is neither a liberal nor a democrat and repeatedly calling him one won’t magically make him one. His positions on economic protection, foreign policy, immigration, abortion, healthcare, gun rights, and others are right-of-center and align largely with various parts of the Republican camp. Again, you can speculate that he’s lying, but it’s still just speculation and carries less weight than someone who openly opposes those positions (i.e. Hillary).

          Fourth, arguing that Reps and Dems are different at the local level doesn’t change the fact that they are close to the same at the Federal level. We already have a Republican party that is full of cronyist big-government statists. A Trump presidency can’t possibly be the cause of that since it has already happened.

          Fifth, and possibly the most striking… Trump doesn’t support a single-payer heathcare system, and much like repeatedly calling him a democrat, repeatedly saying that he does won’t magically make it so. He has stated in the past that he’d support some kind of safety net (a la Medicare), but he has made it clear that he supports a free-market system on the whole. Now, do I support his safety net plan? Nope. Is it a “single payer system”? Also nope. The reason this anti-Trump screed is so striking (when coming from those who were formerly the Republican faithful, like Larry), is because the last guy who the Republicans tossed into the ring IMPLEMENTED SINGLE PAYER in his own state as governor. This is one of the tells that the anti-Trump hatred is emotion and not reason. When they can’t tolerate the idea of voting for someone who supposedly supports single-payer (even when he doesn’t) and yet had no problem voting for someone who implemented a single payer system, then you know they’re just rationalizing their emotional dislike for Trump to make it sound like it’s a well-reasoned argument.

          If he still voted for a “big government asshole and a mushy moderate” because they were better than Obama then he should be doing the same here. Trump is observably better than Hillary. Anyone who can’t see that isn’t thinking clearly.

          As John C. Wright so astutely pointed on recently on his blog, the entire concept of a “party” is predicated upon the idea that the party will fall in line once the decision of a nominee has been made. For decades, Republicans were expected to get in line behind terrible candidates, but they did, and they even argued that those who didn’t were ensuring victory for the other team. Now that someone has been nominated who rubs many conservatives the wrong way, they are abandoning the concept of a party and playing every-man-for-himself. It’s like a child who doesn’t like the way the game is going so he takes his ball and his bat and runs home.

          WATYF

          1. Well that was a lot of bullshit, and the fact I’m typing another response just shows why it is more efficient to type this stuff once up top.

            I’m perfectly calm. Why is it that all criticism of Trump is whining/butthurt/irrational/angry/emotional? On the contrary, it is liberating not having to perform mental gymnastics to justify voting for a progressive.

            1. Trump is will be the standard bearer for the GOP, which–though flawed–has been the opposition party to statist authoritarians. It doesn’t matter what he calls himself this week, it is what he is seen as in the minds of the voters. And since the media knows that conservatives have been the thing standing between them and statist utopia, he will be branded as one in their minds. Look around. They’re already doing it.

            2. You said yourself, “in word at least”. Yes. I am speculating. As you are. My speculation is based upon his actions and words from his entire life. Yours is based upon what he has said over the last year, after admitting he is a populist, who will be definition say whatever he needs to say.

            3. Again, you cite his positions from the last year. See #2. So calling him a liberal progressive? He was clearly one most of his life. And whenever he lets the curtains down, he is still a big government authoritarian.

            4. You are just plain wrong, and if you can’t see a difference between them at the federal level, it is because you are the one letting your emotions get in the way. You are trying to say that Mike Lee is the same as Chuck Schumer, so to show Lindsey Graham what’s up you’re running the guy who funded Chuck Schumer. Brilliant.

            5. He has in the past repeatedly, and even recently has made statements to the effect that he still does, though it is hard to interpret the rambling nonsense that falls out whenever he opens his mouth. It isn’t like the dude is exactly clear in his communications. And yep, healthcare was Romney’s albatross, but it didn’t exist in a vacuum. If you gave them both report cards, Romney was a mediocre student and Trump is in the corner eating glue. So Romney’s two worst positions are the same as Trump’s his whole life, only Trump is worse everywhere else.

          2. Quick note on Romney: Yeah, sure, he implemented single-payer in Massachusetts. He also had to deal with a legislature that was 90%…wait for it…Democrat.
            Yeah.
            So I would recommend cutting him some slack on that one. At that point, all he could do would be to try and mitigate the damage.

          3. So many problems with this, but I’ll address just a few.
            1) Yes, conservatives will get tagged with all of Trump’s baggage, since we’ve tried to make a home in the GOP. Surely you’ve seen how “civil rights leaders” among the Dems have tried to portray us as essentially the KKK for Goldwater’s principled stand against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even though it enjoyed more GOP support than Dem Party support, and even though conservatives like Goldwater had forcefully supported previous bills that required GOVERNMENTS to treat blacks equally, they have changed facts to suit their story and enjoyed 90% of the black vote since the late 60’s because of it.
            2) How can you claim such certainty about Trump’s positions and describe any of them as “right of center”? A major problem with Trump as a candidate is that he’s on every side of every issue – usually contradicting himself in consecutive interviews and often in the same sentence! He’s pro-life, really? Which pro-life groups has he supported? Which candidates has he supported for their strong record to limit abortion? Which has he described as “doing great work” the way he described Planned Parenthood?
            3) Anyone who is promising to implement high tariffs or to punish US companies moving jobs to places where there is a friendlier regulatory environment is not “right of center”. That’s primetime, grade-A, Liberal Democrat Leftist authoritarianism.
            4) Of course Trump supports single payer – he keeps saying so! Sure, he might once in a while channel Ben Carson’s advice to talk about “patient-centered, market-based solutions” but he’s talked relentlessly in debates and interviews about how “the government will pay for it”. At BEST, you must admit that you can’t be certain what he intends. More likely, he’s every bit the statist he sounds like, and those off-the-cuff comments are coming from his core beliefs.

            Finally, this is an American election. The onus is on the candidate to sell himself and his policies, not on the voter to knuckle his forehead and do what he’s told. Donald didn’t win my vote in the primary, and needs to sell me for the general. My issues are similar to those Larry lays out: he has little policy depth or apparent interest in learning, when he cites a policy preference it’s often indistinguishable from Clinton’s, he’s inconsistent/contradictory, he’s untrustworthy, and he acts like a d-bag.

        1. That only would work if you are assuming they are still human and not some nightmarish creature in human skin. Fire is the only way to be sure

          1. If they were Selkies from Last Guardian of Everness it would explain a lot.

        2. We really ought to have a “No Confidence” option that denies the nominees power and tells the parties to go back to the drawing board.

      3. Yep. GOP is set up to resist the Democrat in the White House. It is not set up to resist a Democrat who is the head of the GOP. Trump would hollow us out. When Hillary proposes Assault Weapons Ban 2.0 (no sunset clause) it has a chance of being stopped because what’s left of the GOP after the Nov downballot slaughter will push back.

        When Trump pushes it through, Democrats AND half of the GOP will back it. Because party loyalty, wah!

    2. Larry answered, but since I agree with him and he didn’t add this, I’ll supplement. Trump will drag down conservatism and small governmentism because Trump doesn’t understand conservatism. His positions are caricatures of right wing positions. When called on them he walks them back. He makes us look like the racist sexist bigot homophobes liberals have made us out to be because that’s what he thinks in his heart of hearts we ARE. He can’t make our arguments because he doesn’t know them. So he damages the movement because he proves every cartoonish strawman argument any blowhard liberal jackass has ever made right. That wall will never be built and he’s poisoned the debate about it. The “Syrian immigrants” are going to be settled en masse in this country because our great orange standard bearer has made it impossible for any realistic debate of principles to be heard–and it was already hard enough to make it past the media echo chamber. I still find it hard to believe he’s not actually a Democrat plant. On election day 2017 either Hillary is going to rip off her mask and announce she’s Kodos, or Trump is going to announce that he was a Democrat the whole time. You suckers.

  2. I’ll admit that I haven’t read your Facebook thread, so maybe you didn’t get this particular type, but I’ve run into a lot of Trumpkins who’s argument seems to boil down to (Jeb) Bush Derangement Syndrome:

    “Trump is the one who saved us from Jeb Bush. If Trump hadn’t been there, Bush would have been the nominee. We all know that if you aren’t a passionate Trump supporter, it’s because you were in the tank for Jeb Bush Jeb Bush Jeb Bush Jeb Bush.”

    Trying to point out to these people that Bush was one in a large field of candidates who was never polling particularly well never seems to get through the crazy.

    1. Most of the Trump supporters I know are tired of the DC bullshit and just want to see the system burn. A few are truly positive. ?!? 🙁

    2. Trump supporters have this odd mixture of Manichean dualism–there is the Pure Good of Trump and the Pure Evil of Jeb/Cruz/Hillary/bogeyman of the month–and amoral power worship, where WINNING!! is the only good, and any and all means are justified.

      Meanwhile, my slogan for Election 2016:
      “Well, the choices are, it seems, to submit to Sauron, or to yourself. I will take neither. Have you others to offer?”
      Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Lord of the Rings: One Volume (p. 260). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

    3. The problem with burning it down is that fires have a tendency to spread out of control.

    4. No, it’s because people like me believe that we would have had either Jindal or Walker to vote for (with a Carson VP) if the Republican money men and national party leaders hadn’t thrown their weight on the scale for JEB!

      Aaaand.. (this is where it gets tricky) if the various punditry and conservative media had not sat around with their thump up their butts playing tiddlywinks. Had National Review, FOX, anyone on Twitter and Facebook responded with #NeverJEB! And picked one of the anti-establishment conservatives and rallied behind him…. we wouldn’t be stuck with Trump.

      It’s been a clusterfuck of epic proportions across the board, due in large part to the wilful blindness and parochialism and collusion by everyone who should have known better. We only got Cruz, a nearly-unelectable shrill-voiced ferret face, (the which I have not said until now because I still held out hope he’d game a win) but a principled small government conservative nonetheless BECAUSE the same clueless wonders who undermined the Tea Party movement, he was all the had left to beat off Trump.

      But try to explain that clearly on the idiot’s playground that is the Twit, and the corrupt khreppehole that is FaceBook in 140 characters or less.

      Not that I care anymore, but you’re playing Straw Trumpkin here and we still need to beat him down the road (if he wins) OR Hilary.

      Get out and vote the down ticket and don’t spoil your ballot.

      1. I think we lost out on promising candidates like Walker, Jindal or Perry in part because the press decided that Trump vindicated all their stereotypes about Republicans and so kept pumping oxygen into the fire.

        1. But that is the fire Reagan set. The government can’t do anything fire. Makes impossible to govern. It’s even worse. It’s the government can’t do anything fire except the Military government can’t do anything wrong and needs to be a roaring blazed around the world fire.

          You can’t blame this on the media. This is the Republican base.

          1. “This is the fire Reagan set”

            (Buzzer) Wrong again, as per usual. Reagan didn’t say anything people weren’t already thinking in 1980s.

          2. George Kirby, if you have been suffering from Reagan Derangement for all 36 years since he first ran for President, I could almost feel sorry for you, but I don’t. Your hatred of everything America was built on and clear desire to see our nation brought down by the scum in the Democratic Party that is even worse than the scum in the Republican Party disqualifies you from any sympathy.

            If you really believe what you keep spouting on this page, you should really study some real history and documentation on America, especially the past 50 years the actual text of the US Constitution. If you don’t believe it and are deliberately spouting your lies and misinformation, then, you are nothing but another traitor to America, along with 99% of our politicians who have time and again foresworn their oath of office.

          3. What is it with conservatives and traitors to the country BS. Every time somebody doesn’t agree with them and have no argument, they jump and down and yell traitor to the country. There is this weird local talk radio host doing this very thing all last week. All the “Never Trump” people are traitors. Mark Levin does that same schtick. Last week he did a whole bit on the Rosenbergs and then claimed other people were traitors just like the Rosenbergs. I don’t even know what people. Somebody is always a traitor on Levin’s show.

            It’s OK with me if yelling traitor makes people feel better but I do find find it odd.

          4. Given that you think Reagan was a worse President than Buchanan, I’m really not sure if that appellation is unfair.

          5. You support the elected Democratic Party politicians who are actively trying to undermine the Constitution. They took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

            If you and your fellow Democrats were trying to change the Constitution through Amendments, then you would not be traitors, but you are not going about change in that manner. You know that your ideas would never managed be ratified as Amendments so your party politicians go about it through laws you know are unconstitutional and the use of judicial legislation by activist judges to support and maintain those laws.

            That make them traitors, and while it may not make you a traitor under the law, it makes you a traitor in spirit.

            Trump is a Democrat that registered Republican so he could give Killary an easy win, who is pandering a bunch of frustrated fools that believe his lies, and if he were ever to hold office would certainly betray his oath like the rest of the Democrats.

            Unfortunately 99% of the elected Republican politicians in the past hundred years are guilty of the same types of Treason as the Democrats, which explains why the frustrated fools are grasping at the lies and bullshit Trump is spewing in the vain hope of something different.

          6. OK – still find it odd.

            That’s the other thing. In recent days conservatives have started yelling “constitution” but I have yet to find one that has read and understands it. For that matter I have not met one that knows what a constitution is. They think it is a statue.

            This is fairly recent because prior to this conservatives use to hate the phrase “constitution” because it meant expansion of rights. So a few years back “constitutional rights” was said as sort of a slur.

          7. George, under what rock have you been hiding, and what have you been smoking, because I want some.
            Good night, it’s like you didn’t notice the Democrats switch from “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” to “Dissent is RACIST!” practically on a dime. It’s called partisanship, and it’s inherent in the system.

          8. I’m NOT a conservative. I never have been. The only political label that fits me is a Constitutionalist. No matter what party platform it comes from, I do not believe any law, agency or policy should be allowed that violates the strictures of the Constitution. If you don’t like the current strictures, change them through the Amendment process, that is what it’s for.

            The current POS Obaka has said only one thing I have ever agreed with. “The Constitution is a document of negative liberties.” He’s right. The Constitution exists to restrict the power and the overreach of the government. Especially narcissistic presidents like him.

          9. Well, that’s just really stupid since you are posting in a board where I’ve been talking about it for years. And our candidate who just lost had memorized it.

  3. this is a bit random but every time you started a paragraph with Waaah, all I could hear were warhammer orks.

    1. What are the deities they worship again? I think there is a new nickname for Trump and his VP in there. I jest but its something to blow off steam.

        1. That’s their names. Ah, but the names would be perfect. What is a little Ork heresy for good fun.

    2. I started hearing Wario (or Waluigi? Obviously I haven’t played MarioKart in far too long…) about halfway through.

    3. Totally with you Leah.!

      I’ve been playing the new Battle Fleet: Gothic Armada, and their ships do a “WAAAAGH” attack at times, special ability. Startles me every time.

      I hear it every time I read the above post. Heck I bet Larry could do a good version of it.

      About 3 seconds in. I think I’ve got the right URL for that.

      https://youtu.be/JXCLtD5batc?t=3

  4. While I know there are some Trump supporters that are, well, civil. You wouldn’t know it if you frequent social media often. Seriously, though, a large portion of the ones you find on the internet are horrible. Grant it, a decent portion I met in person also have certain negative traits.

    Side note: is it just me or do a lot of the ones that are unpleasant to interact with project onto the person they are debating with?

    1. Welcome to the Internet.
      More seriously, projection is one of the most common maladies among online debaters, or debaters anywhere.

      1. I meant to imply that they seem to do it more often and are in general more unpleasant. The odd part is for some they seem to be perfectly rational people, but when Trump comes up they seem to change for the worse. I noticed this with people I interact with in person, as well. It is concerning.

    2. Certain bloggers – Neoneocon is one, and I think Sarah Hoyt is another – have noted that there’s some odd stuff going on with some of the people who’ve been posting on blogs in support of Trump. Basically, it appears that there’s at least some evidence that there’s some sort of online astro-turfing involved with some of the more overbearing types who’ve been posting in support of Trump.

      Ace, over at Ace of Spades HQ, had some bannings just because the comments section was getting so toxic with the fighting (in fairness, Ace *also* banned some individuals who were speaking out against Trump because those individuals also crossed the line).

      1. While I am not a blogger, I have noticed it too. People post something anti-trump and all of a sudden you have a bunch of pro trump commenters show up who never left a comment on a post there vigorously defending Trump. I also noticed that on twitter, some oddities as well such as pro trump defenders who seemingly have very high numbers of followers, but very low numbers of tweets and likes of their stuff. I only started using twitter about 3 months and make on average of maybe two tweets a day. As expected with such a low twitter use I only have about 10 followers, but even at that rate the number of tweets and likes my tweets dwarf some of those pro trump accounts, and yet they have 300 or more followers.

        It would not surprise me if Facebook is seeing something similar, though Besides firearms I don’t follow anything really political, so I can’t quite tell.

        1. It’s not surprising. Many Trump supporters appear to be culture war / anti-SJW sorts who are either coming from the leftward side and so are comfortable, or at least familiar with Alinski rules, or are alt-fighters determined to use social media to fight effectively.

          We’re fighting over-lapping but not congruent battles against a common foe.

          They clearly believe this is effective based on progressive tactics in the past.

          We’ll see.

        2. Ya, went to NRO’s comment section recently. They are flooding the place, angry or annoyed that the NRO is not backing Trump. It is odd seeing comments for articles or posts that are just pointing Trump’s flaws being decried as hit pieces, despite the fact that they seem to be factual. Well at the very least the supporters can’t provide evidence to refute the points of the article or post.

          Bringing up stats about Trump’s probability to win also seems to be problematic or irrelevant because they are wrong for whatever reason. Reminds me of my friend who supports Sanders that does not believe any statement with statistical support because reasons (inconvenient).

      2. One of the somewhat-regular commenters at Instapundit, Tempo##### (can’t remember what the numbers in his handle are), at one point said, “If the GOP steals the nomination from Trump, I’m probably going to vote for the Democrat in protest.” Now, whenever I see him comment, I say, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who said he was planning to vote for the Democrat? Why, yes. Yes, you are. So tell me again what a principled conservative voter you are.”

        I had actually been suspecting him of being a “moby” before that comment of his, but that one confirmed it for me.

      3. Considering how so many Trump supporters act as if the coronation of King Donald is a sure thing, you have to wonder why they’re so upset that some people refuse to back him. If he’s such an unstoppable juggernaut, it shouldn’t matter, should it?

      4. Patrick Ruffini claimed that certain pro-Trump twitter posters appeared to be general ad sock puppets for hire.

        Others have alleged wording that implies their native language isn’t English.

        The picture is either East European hackers running a bot net for hire, or Russian ones doing it for a political end.

  5. That ‘no labels’ crap is so stupid as to need about three hours and a dry erase board in order for me to show how language and words work by identifying items, people, places, and ideals with, you know, words (labels). But apparently words is bad.

  6. Not voting for a guy who is on “your team” (NB: the ” ” ) because he’s a total jerk? To me that seems like a very good attitude.

  7. How can he not build a wall if he’s elected? Even if he didn’t mean it the first time he said it, he’s now repeated it so many times, and made it so central to his campaign, that he’d lose all his supporters in a second-term election.

    1. Easy. He’ll make deals and just not do it. By the time four years pass, there will be other things for people to be angry about. And then he’ll run against another democrat and everybody will say get in line or else, lesser of two evils.

    2. The same way he’s said that despite his tax plan, taxes could go up. His plan wasn’t “a tax plan” it was “the start of negotiations”. Some of it won’t survive the negotiation process.

      While this is invariably true, signaling this early in the process is a very bad sign and puts you in a very weak negotiating position.

      The same will happen with the wall: “We have to negotiate and you don’t get everything you want because the other party also has to vote for it too.”

      And that’s assuming that environmental impact assessment doesn’t take a decade. BTW, how’s the Keystone XL Pipeline coming along?

  8. Hello Larry, I’m just as dismayed as you a the current state of affairs. I can see you have been paying much more attention than me during all these years (I mostly devote my time to work, family, and playing the accordion). What books should I read to get my bearings on this mess? Preferably something written in the last 100 years or so, I tried reading Publius but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  9. Do Not Understand the “But, but, but…SCOTUS picks!!” argument with Trump. What evidence does anyone who supports Trump have that he’s going to pick even moderate justices? Does any conservative or even Libertarian believe that a moderate is what the SCOTUS needs?? Because lemme ask ya, how is John “It’s A Tax” Roberts working out?

    I mean, any argument FOR Trump can be objectively labeled as “wishcasting” since there’s not one iota of proof or evidence that he’s going to do anything remotely conservative should he be so lucky as to win.

    He’s even more a blank slate than Obama. How did that work out?

    1. Re: Judicial “moderates”: these are the judges who believe that it’s only sometimes acceptable to throw out the text of the Constitution and declare their own personal beliefs to be the immutable law of the land.

      On judges, I’m very much a “strict Constitutionalist or bust” kind of girl.

    2. Maybe he should name one or two people he’d nominate for the Court. If one of them is Andrew Napolitano it might even convince me to vote for him.

  10. Not sure why some people think Trump is special because I and many other conservatives won’t vote for him. I wasn’t going to vote for most of the other R candidates either.

    Trump is a snowflake, but he’s not a special one.

  11. We got to Trump because of the establishment blowing off the concerns of the “wild-eyed conservative base”… Like, the Tea Party, and everyone who voted for a Republican Party that promised to do something about the BS in Washington. We gave them the numbers, and they did… Nothing. After watching Boehner stab Cruz in the back, and the whole host of others working with him, I’m pretty much done with the Republicans. Period. Cruz was the least bad candidate, and they decided they didn’t want him because he was too likely to break their rice bowls. By following the Constitution. Awww… Look at the cute little oligarch, isn’t he precious? We’ll be holding “Vigilance Committee” trials in Washington, DC, before long, and these jackasses are going to be the ones on trial, and the ones decorating the lamp posts and cherry trees along the Mall.

    So, tell me again how we work from “within” to fix these people? How we can work with the leaders of the GOP to address our concerns? Yeah, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you… A third time ain’t happening. Want to know why I’m voting for Hillary or Trump? Because I want to see the world these jackasses live in burn the way they’ve burned mine.

    The Republican Party deserves to be broken, needs to be broken, and must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt. We put our faith in these assholes like Boehner and Hastert, and lo and behold, what do we find? They’re golf buddies with the other side, and they’re pederasts that paid blackmail money. Ever wonder why nothing seemed to get done on Hastert’s watch? Yeah… Lights are coming on, for me. I just wonder what Gingrich had in his closet that they used to blackmail him into ignoring all the serious malfeasance and outright treason in the Clinton administration, and then go after him for trivialities?

    These people are traitors, all of them. I’m done with them, right now, and forever. In 2000, Al Gore’s minions worked to disenfranchise the service vote in Florida, and that finished the Democratic Party for me, when nobody even raised the slightest objection to taking that approach. Now, the Republicans have done the same, and I’m thinking that from here on out, I might as well just vote for the politician most likely to do the most damage to the system. It’s fairly obvious that none of these assholes have the slightest concern about things I care about, so why not blow the whole damn thing up?

    The Cruz concession was probably the last sigh of any chance for a reasonable outcome that didn’t involve the utter destruction of the current “system”, if we can dignify it as such. Now that they’ve made that very unlikely, well… We are going to see the fires burn. The Republican Convention should be interesting. My guess is that Cleveland is going to be immolated, and the left is going to be doing their best to ensure that chaos reigns, which will likely thrust Trump into the office over the objections of anyone with a lick of common sense and a distrust for used car salesmen.

    And, you can thank the long run of GOP party hacks who created this situation by ignoring the voters. Everyone I know who thought that there was a chance of reform, and whose hopes were dashed in ’08 and ’12 has now reached a point where it is exceedingly likely that they’re going to vote Trump, just to watch the world burn.

    Self-inflicted wounds, the lot of them.

    1. To quote my uncle, “The system needs an enema…”

      Republicans got handed a golden opportunity after Bill Clinton left office and wasted it feeding at the trough with their buddies. They didn’t even try to secure borders after 9/11, too many business buddies making money on the people invasion.

      1. Exactly. I’ve got no illusions about Trump, at all, but right now? I’m thinking the smart move would be to vote for the candidate that’s going to do the most damage in the shortest time, so as just get this crap over with. I don’t know if I’ll feel that on Election Day, and I will probably change my mind, but right now…?

        After watching that smarmy piece of shit Boehner talk about Cruz the way he did, and hear how he’s been “working with” the Democrats? It’s past time to break all these people’s rice bowls, blow up the system, and start over. Because what we’re doing, being polite and civilized about not wanting to go the direction these people are taking us isn’t working. We tried being polite, and working within the system, and where did that get us? Here.

        The Republican Party is as complicit in what America has turned into as the Democrats are, perhaps even more so. At this point, there’s no real effective distance between the effect of what they’re doing, just a choice of rates at which they move.

  12. Trump says he doesn’t need us to win but Trumpzis are are sdtroking out threatening us tonfall in line. One of these things is not like the other.

    1. The followers can be more fervent that the head of the movement, at times. I know Trump scares me more in his most vocal online followers than in himself.

      But let’s see if Trump keeps up with “I don’t need you” after a month or two. If he does, I may have to rethink one of my counterarguments against John Wright–rather than breaking the power of the Press, Trump is their creature and will cave once they really turn on him. If he can withstand the pressure to bring in the base, though, he may even be able to withstand the media. I doubt it, though; it’s seduced and destroyed far better men than him …

  13. You forgot the wacko old bat Killary voter, whose hubby is the only property owner in the whole county. She was a great laugh.

    1. But that was about a thousand years after the Roman Empire moved there, so it’s not a bad example. Nothing lasts forever, sadly.

  14. I’m amused at the “You voted for McCain and Romney so you MUST vote for Trump” claim. Even with your points about neither of those two (combined) being nowhere near as bad as Trump it’s almost as if they never heard of:

    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
    …Trump(y is MAGIC) would be THREE times.

    So… no.

    If that metaphor doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps something more contemporary:

    The running gag in the Peanuts comic strip where Charlie Brown would try to kick the football held ever-so-helpfully by Lucy.

    Again… no.

    1. Some bought the Magic Beans that Trump was selling early on. Others are in the denial stage of grief and are lashing out looking for something to latch onto, that is can’t be that bad and here people like Larry and I are pointing out that yeah it is that bad so you get those responses you saw in the post. Just remember the story of Cassandra, she wasn’t hated for being wrong, she was hated for being right and the ones that failed to listen then blamed her for the consequences of their own actions. Things are going to get worse well before the election as Trump continues to slip back to his Liberal roots (he already did on 4 issues in less than 24 hrs of securing the nomination). The more he shows his true colors the more shrill they will get.

  15. Well it’s been that kind of game hasn’t it? There’s a lot of people been hurt by both parties and there’s only three bad options.

    But from where I’m sitting – you’re the one that’s whining . Your choice at this stage Larry, is simple: get on board with the team or get out. Your bitching and whining serves only yourself and possibly Hillary but it won’t change anything.

    The productive middle class working white man has been mocked, ridiculed, discriminated against, marginalized, labelled, stereotyped, discriminated against, guilt tripped – the only thing that they haven’t done is soak him in gas and light him off…yet.

    Don’t be surprised, big fella, if your snark and contempt doesn’t roll off like water off the back of a duck. Trump is their candidate and you can deal with it as you see fit.

    1. Yep, we’ve been “mocked, ridiculed, discriminated against, marginalized, labelled, stereotyped, discriminated against, guilt tripped”, and now many of the rest you are being mocked and played for imbeciles by an orange baboon.

      Before Trump announced his candidacy, he had a closed door session with the Billary pair. If this election reaches the point where he looks he wins, he will drop out or do something so moronic it will be certain to tank his own campaign. From the beginning, I’ve been convinced that the only reason he was running was to screw up the election and make sure Killary had an easy target in the general. Trump was the LAST person that expected he would be so wildly popular with his buffoonery that he would actually get nomination.

      Now, Trump is laughing out his ass at all the fools slavishly licking his spittle spatter as he panders to them with random promises he knows he will never fulfill, since he never intends to be President.

      1. Errrr…we’re all laughing.

        Trump will win by a landslide. You heard it here first!

        Look, boys – I know we aren’t going to agree. But it is what it is. Some idiot is yapping about orange baboons, completely oblivious to the black one currently in the Oval Office.

        This nation loves monkeys. Cruz, like all the other previous repub candidates – is a gentleman. If you run a guy like like that against a thieving, cheating shrew like Hillary, he will lose like a gentleman too. Another petulant moron is whining about ‘ rule of law’

        Really..

        In case that Einstein hasn’t noticed, Hillary has a rap sheet a mile long that starts with murder 1 and goes down from there. rule of law? As our esteemed host once said to his detractors – and I quote verbatim – “Shut up already. You’re friggin children…”

        Whatever. If we are going to hang separately at least I will have the pleasure of watching you swing first. Stock up on Cheetos and popcorn for election night,kids, and snark away! For you are the new American patriot!

        1. Yeah, I’ve noticed. So your solution for dealing with the snake gnawing at Yggdrasil is to introduce another snake? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
          The only positive thing that can be said about a Trump presidency is that he might bring things to a head quickly enough that the explosion will only take the form of rioting rather than full-blown civil war.

        2. Trump won less than 40% of less than 1/3 of the American voting public. Where do you see this landslide coming from?

    2. And the rule of law. It also serves that.
      When it’s all burned down, SOMEONE needs to be able to say that they didn’t set fire to the forest.

      1. Congress and the courts have so perverted the “rule of law” that they’re little better than the local warlord saying “because I say so.”

        They make the laws, interpret them as they please, and simply ignore them when convenient.

        Very much like the British colonial government did when they were in charge.

    3. “Your bitching and whining serves only yourself and possibly Hillary but it won’t change anything” Yea but your supporting of Trump is only going to strengthen the democrats. Trump Is the perfect GOP candidate for the Democrats. Politically he completely indistinguishable from Hillary. If he somehow managed to get elected he’d do all the exact same things Hillary would, except because is a “Republican” those wishy washy Rinos that you despise so much will have no issue going right along with it with zero resistance. Next Mass shooting, say hello to gun control you’re getting it under Trump while with Hillary the republicans will far more likely stop it. Meanwhile continuous retardedness spills out of his mouth finally giving the liberal media the perfect stereotype of how stupid conservatives are to point at, instead of just implying it. Independents won’t touch the republican party for high office for the next decade 12-20 years, and any hope of there ever being a conservative president.

    4. So the Dems and SJWs have “mocked, ridiculed, discriminated against, marginalized, labelled, stereotyped, discriminated against, guilt tripped” us so we need to elect the Dem disguised as a Republican? Yeah, that’ll show ’em.

      Get on board or what? You’ll make sure those of us who are Not of the Body are “mocked, ridiculed, discriminated against, marginalized, labelled, stereotyped, discriminated against, guilt tripped” etc., etc.?

    5. The productive middle class man just voted for the guy who screws his middle class contractors. Starting to think some mockery is warranted.

    6. Okay, let’s see… Any criticism of the chosen one is whining/crying/emotional/butthurt- now insert some stuff about how picked on you are by society, demand for conformity, or get out.

      Yep. Never saw that before.

  16. Oddly enough, the one thing that soured me for good on Trump was his inability, on two occasions, to describe what the nuclear triad consisted of. The first time, okay, maybe he got ambushed a little bit and just brain-farted. The second time? same question from the same interviewer (Hugh Hewitt)? That’s just UNSAT. Q-3, as they say in the flying world. I’ll never vote for someone that lazy and/or stupid.

    Kudos to Larry for calling out the mouth-breathers who are running around the internetz like a battalion of trunk-monkeys.

  17. I’ve thought of one reform that would fix the problem. The trouble is that it will take a ConCon to get it enacted:

    Abolish the electoral college, and abolish all primary elections for President and VP. Have only the general election, with all candidates included — but use Instant Runoff voting (AKA the Australian preferential ballot) so that no matter how many candidates there are, somebody winds up with a majority anyway.

    What this accomplishes is two-fold: (1) it destroys the party machines, and (2) it enables voters to vote for the minor party of their choice without “wasting their votes” (since under the Instant Runoff system, each round the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated and his/her votes reallocated to each voter’s next preference).

    1. If you do that, NY, MA, Chicago and CA run the country forever. Every agricultural state with a college town will find its rural vote swamped by the urban concentration. It’s a license for disenfranchisement. The Founding Fathers did not institute a simple mob democracy for excellent reasons.

      1. Plus, if there’s ever a close vote, then be prepared for Florida 2000 on a *nationwide* scale. If you thought Florida was bad in 2000, just wait until every single vote cast across the entire country has to be recounted, challenged, recounted again, challenged again, etc…

        It would be a national nightmare.

      2. I’d like to see more states adopt allocation by congressional district–it might diminish the power of urban centers.

  18. After 19 years of being a registered Republican, I’ve finally gone from a lower-case l libertarian to upper-case L… I give up, they’re not worth saving and I’m not wasting any more time trying.

  19. Well Larry i agree with almost everything Trump you wrote except one small bit… you give the guy credit by thinking he has an agenda (whatever that might be, apart from satisfying the powerhunger)

    I believe he is just a trigger-happy idiot (lowest iq ever for a presidential candidate by far) that has learned to adapt to the general demand (which would explain why he has changed his stance on an issue at least 20 times until now)..

    Usually As an expert in some matter you would look for that quality in a presidential candidate so you can influence him down the road, but only if the said candidate knows his limitations.. Trump is dangerous because he is delusional about his own qualities and as an egomaniac, when elected he would believe himself just a small step down from godhood

  20. Only one small area of disagreement.

    For: “WHAAAA but liberal celebrities say they’ll leave the country if Trump wins!” my response would be “promises, promises, don’t let the door hit you in the butt.”

    For “WHAAAAAA! 25% of federal employees will quit if Trump leaves.” That would be a feature, not a bug. And again, “promises, promises, don’t let the door hit you in the butt.”

    1. Which is why Larry’s counterpoint to both of those was, “Yes, that would sure be nice, but they’re lying. They aren’t going to leave/quit if Trump wins.”

      Seriously: if I actually thought that 25% of federal employees would quit if Trump wins, that would turn me from a Never-Trump voter into a Trump voter immediately. No matter how much damage he does to the country (and it would be a lot) as President, it would be less bad than the benefit we’d get by reducing the number of bureaucrats by 25% in one shot.

      But since I agree with Larry that the people who say “If Trump wins, I’m going to quit my cushy federal job” are lying, that still leaves me in the “My conscience won’t allow me to vote for Trump” camp.

      1. It would be tempting, but the Federal Aristocrat class is about as trustworthy as Trump. I.e., I can trust them about as far as I can throw them.

      2. I’m sure we all remember how Alec Baldwin left for Canada the day after Bush’s inauguration and didn’t set foot in the US again for 8 years.

  21. Hey Larry,

    I enjoyed your panels at LTUE this year (and last year). Especially that first early morning panel on Writing a War: Political Unrest, and the Friday “It’s a Book, Not a Baby” panel. Any panel with you, Michealbrent Collings, John Brown, or Peter Orullian on it is definitely worth the price of admission.

    Romney announced today that he’s considering an independent run. If he does that, do you think there’s any chance of Bernie Sanders doing the same thing and having an open race this year instead of the same old two party crap?

    Also, if the results of 2012 proved anything, it’s that even with a full tradcon turnout, the GOP can’t win the general election with its current demographics. Given that tradcons are now the second largest faction of the GOP (behind Trump supporters (White working class Democrats sick of Political Correctness, and assorted Independents ), do you think tradcons will stay with the GOP in the next election cycle, or will we see the rise of another political party in America?

    Anyway, I’ve got a bag of popcorn ready this election cycle. I expect a total clown fiesta. 2016: No Matter Who Wins, We Lose!

    1. I don’t think Romney is going to run. I’d be surprised, but this is a really weird year.

      I’d say that you are mistaken on your results of 2012 part though. In reality Romney lost the Electoral College by something like 600k votes spread over four swing states. Statistically speaking that’s a nail biter. With as weak a candidate as Hillary is, this was the GOP’s race to lose, which was why they picked the one guy she was the most likely to defeat.

  22. It’s funny that the perception on the principled left is similar – we get a free-trade chickenhawk republican hag vs a free-trade jingoistic republican clown. And that e.g. Bill was DINO – a socialist who signs NAFTA or ends welfare, really (disclaimer, I don’t like wellfare either)? Republican candidates on the other hand have been moving steadily to the right over the decades on everything from taxation to war.

    On Trump, I think the main thing that happened here is this – for at least a few decades, the far-right would have been behind, if in addition to the usual suspects like the evangelicals, the elderly and the flyover states suburbanites (plus their share of moderates), they didn’t have one core demographic – the working class, semi-religious angry mostly-white mostly-men – let’s call them hicks (they are not all hicks and by far not all hicks are in this group, but I need a shorthand). In truth, the hicks never cared about conservative anything on any deep level, but they are usually unhappy with their poor economic condition, and they have the 3rd world mentality with regard to anything they cannot understand, be it complicated, new, or foreign. So, this is almost perfect for Republicans – the existing hawkish and anti-immigration policies (us vs. them) and social conservatism gets them halfway, and then they combine the distrust of the government, and the economic woes, to make vague promises about how lowering taxes will usher us in the libertarian paradise; the hicks don’t understand the economy anyway, and it’s a simple, logical-sounding and pleasant-to-hear (lower taxes!) message.
    The problem is that a much better message always existed for this demographic out there, and that is the populist message. In European multi-party democracies, it’s applied to a degree, and with success lately, by a bunch of parties from UKIP and VB to Le Pen, but it has never been applied earnestly in the US in recent years. Trump does it almost perfectly; he sorta fails on social conservatism but apparently it doesn’t matter as much for hicks as the hate and the economy. Were US a multi-party democracy, he would have had his own MAGA party with 10, 12, 20% seats in congress depending on the mood of the public that year. But multi-party it isn’t – he only has two outlets, and one of them happens to control his hicks and align halfway with his message; so he comes for the hicks! This is where the conservative economic message is abandoned – either hicks have realized that the trickle-down prophets have been swindling them all along (seems unlikely), or a simpler populist lie just resonates better than a slightly more tenuous libertarian lie. It’s not about Trump being an evil liberal – it’s just about the evolution of ideas in a particular environment, namely a large part of the GOP base.
    I think this could be the greatest thing to happen to the two-party system since Theodore Roosevelt; peeling the hicks off the Republican economic dogma would be great. Unfortunately, the hicks have short attention span – I suspect that, as soon as Trump is done one way or the other, the GOP will shake itself off and it will be business as usual.
    I also think you are wrong about the damage to GOP if Trump wins – he has short attention spans and no real policy views. Obama, a much more idealogical and determined president, couldn’t do much either with or without congress and senate; the Trump wouldn’t even want to do anything, so the typical GOP far-right will run the show from policies to SCOTUS nominees. It actually presents a unique opportunity, you can do all kinds of crazy stuff like cancel Obamacare, go back on gay marriage, invade Iran, whatever the conservatives are up to, then blame it all on Trump as you oust him.

  23. Going through the list of WHAAA I really can’t fault your reasoning, Larry. It might be better if Hitlery wins and destroys the DemocRat party.

    If Trump wins, you can pretty much expect the result to be the same, except then it’s the Republican Party getting destroyed. Although, given they are the Party Of Stupid these days, that might not be the worst thing either.

    As a Canadian I can say that, I won’t have to live through it. Besides, if the American dollar tanks I can get cheap ammunition again. .338 boat tails are like a buck each here. The bullet, not the whole cartridge.

    1. I disagree with Hillary being elected destroying the democrat party. At most if we are really lucky it would be some slight damage to the Democrat party in reality it would pretty much business as usual. She has has a number of things going for her, first she’s a Democrat, and as long as a democrat says the right things liberals tend not to care about corruption. (the number of democrats charged with corruption is greater than the number of republicans by a good margin) Second most of the media is liberal, who will do there damn best to protect the democrats by either minimally reporting on any thing bad if they do at all. Third she is a woman, which gives the left a great shield to block most criticism. Any body that’s opposed to her actions, they simply will shout sexist until you STFU. It would take her doing something like all Democrats agreeing to a bombing campaign specifically to wipe out all of middle eastern orphanages, to potentially destroy the democrat party, and even than I would not put it a sure thing.

      1. I think Hillary will do fine. I actually think she will do better than Bernie because I think she might be more likely to get things passed. There is hope that Democrats get the Senate back and it is thought Trump helps with that.

        That still leaves the House. It is going to take a lot of Demographic change before Democrats can take back the house and reverse the Gerrymandering. That’s going to involve taking back some Governorships.

        I don’t think we get a functioning government in my lifetime.

        The reason the media is biased is because reality has a well known liberal bias.

        1. “I don’t think we get a functioning government in my lifetime.”

          Given that your definition of “functional” seems to be “supports leftist identitarianism”, from your lips to God’s ears.

          “The reason the media is biased is because reality has a well known liberal bias.”

          (Buzzer) Wrong, as you are about so many things. The reason the media is biased is because they know nothing about anything but journalism, which is a different animal from reporting.
          I recommend looking up the “Gell-Mann amnesia” and “Dunning-Kruger” effects.

          1. Right you are. It has been downhill since Reagan – maybe the worse president in history. The ship is turning but it is slow. Still, I might last long enough to see Georgia blue and Texas purple. Wouldn’t that be something.

          2. Now, see, I know you’re a troll. Anyone who doesn’t put James Buchanan in the top spot isn’t a serious thinker–he’s a partisan hack with delusions of grandeur.
            But, then again, we knew that already.
            Sorry, buddy, but if you get what you want, in a few short years my grandchildren will be fighting off the hordes of urbanites who’ve managed to run out of food. And this country will be deep, deep red for the rest of their days.

        2. “I don’t think we get a functioning government in my lifetime.”

          That’s because what you think of as a “functioning government” is the whole population being spoon fed with free cheese from cradle to grave. That’s a physical impossibility, it -can’t- happen.

          What you socialists don’t understand is that every time you get what you want, like Obama Care, women in combat, gender-fluid bathrooms, what’s actually happening is that the Universal Spring of Consequence is getting compressed another notch. When that spring finally pops, as it inevitably does, you get Syria. Revolutionary France. Russia in 1917.

          Hillary is going to inherit the destruction already wrought by Obama. Then she’s going to be pedal to the metal destroying even more. At some point she hits the wall, probably gun control at a wild guess, but could be a carbon tax, or something as dumb as allowing self-driving trucks on the road.

          Or Trump will, because he’s the same type of goof she is. I’d sooner see her hit the wall, because she takes guys like you with her, George.

      2. Hillary was SecState for Obama for four years before their combined screw ups meant she had to go. Obama’s screw ups finally overcame the ‘new car smell’, and would’ve made this election a gimme with anyone but Trump. Hillary gives us a good opportunity to elect Pat Buckman on a third party ticket in 2020.

  24. Larry, you ROCK! I’m almost tempted to get a Facebook or Twitter account just to read your smack-downs of idiots. But instead, I’ll just keep reading your blog, waiting for your next book so I can throw money at it (I always buy both the audiobook and the e-book versions).

    Thank you for making me smile during a depressing time.

  25. For me, Trumpkin is the brave, honest dwarf hero from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. While I’m sure Jack is currently enjoying Aslan’s Country and doesn’t care, might I suggest “Trumpoid” or “Trumplet”? 🙂

  26. Larry, your depiction of these jerks is excellent.

    I’ve got a stack of your books; I’ll keep buying them.

    The cementers you’ve so succinctly trashed remind me of a line my old College Roomie used:

    “Smells like fish; tastes like Lamb”

  27. I haven’t read the thread, but Trump isn’t a conservative. He’s alt-right. The alt-right originates in the international urban culture that inspired Stuff White People Like (I call this the ‘unCulture’).

    Both the Democratic and Republican candidates are unCulture this time around. Finding a non-authoritarian politician in the unCulture is like trying to find a unicorn in the New York subway.

  28. “25% of federal employees will quit…” Leave it to you to find the silver lining.

  29. I am not necessarily hostile to Larry’s position on voting for Trump, and his rage at the current situation is also my rage. For the first time in decades we had the chance at a candidate who practically worships the Constitution, and it was $%^&ed up due to the power of stupid people in large numbers. I really thought that Cruz would be able to pull it off, in the end.

    However for me, it comes down to one simple thing. While Trump may in fact turn out to be just as bad, Hillary Clinton must never again be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. Our service members must not be once again subject to the same disdain for the military that the Clintons brought the last time they occupied the White House, and the woman who abandoned a US ambassador and those who had come to his aid, must not become the commander in chief of the military. The woman who compromised many of our gravest secrets in the process of attempting to evade the normal standards of accountability for a civil servant, must never be given ultimate responsibility for the national security.

    Yes, Trump is an amoral, self-serving douchebag who is likely to turn around and $#%^ us in the end on any number of issues. Still, given a choice between amoral and pure evil, I will choose amoral every time. I will not allow Hillary Clinton to become POTUS through my inaction, no matter how much I dislike the alternative, or how upset I may currently be with some of those who are nominally on “my” side.

    1. The only problem with your outlook is that Trump and Shrillary are two sides of the same coin. Shrillary isn’t really evil; she is just looking out for herself. Her wants and desires trump everything else (SWIDT?); nothing else matters. She doesn’t care about the country, the American people, the democratic party, or other politicians (unless she gets something from them, and then she only cares as long as she benefits). She’s in it for Shrillary. Laws don’t apply to her (she’s above them), and anything she does is fine as long as she benefits.

      Trump is exactly the same. He’s in it for Trump. He also doesn’t care about the country, the people, or anything else. He supports the military as long as he gets a cut from the defense contractors. He’s the ultimate crony capitalist — the only thing that matters to him is that he gets something out of the deal.

      To me, the truly evil ones are the media asswipes that are sabotaging the country by spoon-feeding slanted stories to the LIVs (low-information voters). Cruz should have been a slam-dunk to anyone who actually cares about the country and the Constitution. But instead, the LIVs are voting for who they think will give them the most free stuff (not realizing that they will be paying for the “free stuff” for the rest of their lives).

      We are in the decline of the country. Personally, I think this sucks. I spent nearly 20 years in the military defending this country (I took an early retirement during the last Clinton presidency because he was trying so hard to ruin the military), and now I have to watch while the LIVs vote themselves bread and circuses.

      Trump or Clinton — there is no real choice there. The only difference is that one has already shown how bad they are in government service.

      1. That’s my point right there. Hillary has already done those things. Nobody who has done what she has done should be allowed to sit in the big chair. I’m sure Trump will do things that I don’t like, but he’s not actively anti-American. He’s just, as Larry put it so succinctly, amoral. Hillary is an evil, deceitful, traitorous bitch who already has the blood of too many good Americans on her hands.

        1. My choices are Hillary or Bernie. I like Bernie for policy but I like Hillary for the election. I am looking forward to the first woman president. When you say she should be allowed to sit in the chair, allowed by whom?

          It may be that the Donald is allowed to sit in the chair. If he is so allowed, he was the best of the 18. Democrats can make a deal with the Donald. Yes I know he is nutty, but still like he says on Minimum Wage – he isn’t the normal Republican.

          But I don’t think it comes to that. The betting markets have long odds on Donald. We will know more when Nate Silver starts modeling the election but that won’t be for awhile.

          1. Ladies and gentlemen, observe, if you will, the true reason why George Kirby is down with the Donald. He, too, is an identitarian, and he sees in Trumps rise the destruction of any opposition to leftist identitarianism besides rightist identitarianism.
            Or, in other words, he’s a fool, but we knew that already.

    2. Trump may be evil enough that he is jobbing for Hillary now. If he can go a month without saying something unnecessary that alienates a constituency he needs, there would be evidence against that idea. As it is, he seems to be trying to provoke a reaction that would justify him taking his marbles and going home in a hissy fit.

  30. I think you are being much too harsh on The Donald. He’s working very hard to unite the party. I mean, when was the last time Santorum, Graham, and Ryan agreed on anything? But the nausea inherent in contemplating pulling the lever for Agent Orange brought us all together. Unity!

  31. In some ways I agree with Larry but I have different reason.

    If I had to get a Republican President, Trump was the best of the lot. Democrats can make a deal with Trump. Consider the minimum wage. And I suspect he will be a bigger dove than Hillary.

    There are other things I like about Trump. The most tiresome of all voters is the Christofascist that want law to give their superstitions the force of law. They were oh so principled. Now that have someone who has fantasies about his daughter, whose wife we have all seen naked, and pals around with Howard Stern and talks about his wife’s poop. This is a guy who had so much sex he compares it to his own personal Vietnam. What I like about Trump is he proved that the evangelicals were just blowing smoke. Next time they express moral out rage maybe more us can just laugh and make fun.

    Supreme Court? Sure. He would love to nominate the Supreme Court for the conservatives and ensure he can use imminent domain to get property for his casino.

    Entertaining though. Who else would accuse Ted Cruz’s dad of being involved with Lee Harvey Oswald.

    When I think of a Trump supporter I am reminded of that line from “Roar”. “I stood for nothing. So I fell for everything.”

    But it could be worse. Christofascist could have given us Ted Cruz.

    I think Hillary beats Trump like a drum to quote Lindsey Graham and thank god for that.

    I want to think all the Republicans who voted for Trump. It’s going to be fun.

    1. How to tell you don’t need to take someone seriously: They use the term “Christofascist” unironically.

    2. “Supreme Court? Sure. He would love to nominate the Supreme Court for the conservatives and ensure he can use imminent domain to get property for his casino.”

      Quick history lesson, not for you but for anyone who might read this and think what you said bears any resemblance to fact:

      What’s the most famous supreme court decisions on using eminent domain (note spelling BTW) for “economic development purposes”? Kelo v New London, a 5-4 decision where the court ruled that the government could use eminent domain on land that would then be sold to another private owner. In other words, Trump’s idea of a brilliant decision.

      Who were the judges on the majority in that opinion? Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

      What is the ideology of those five judges? One “moderate” and four liberals.

      Who were the judges who believed the government had no right to take private land for such a purpose? Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.

      What is the ideology of those four judges? One “moderate” and three conservative, including two “radical” conservatives.

      So overall, the moral of our story is that conservative judges are far less likely to allow the government to take property for crony capitalist purpose than liberal judges are. This concludes today’s lesson.

      You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

        1. Except she didn’t, but we already knew that you are a man capable of infinite self-delusion.

          1. No she did – your candidate that was going to self fund, but now isn’t, didn’t want anything to do with minimum wage but now will, isn’t going to nominate Lying Ted like some conservatives have suggested. His interest is the other way. Trump agrees 100% with the decision. He said so. Here you go:

            http://www.nationalreview.com/article/265171/donald-trump-and-eminent-domain-robert-verbruggen

            Now to give credit where credit is due, I didn’t think this up all by myself. Credit goes to that constitutional scholar and right wing talk show host extraordinaire, Mark Levin last week.

            http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/10/06/trump-eminent-domain-even-for-private-projects-is-wonderful-thing-youre-not-taking-property/

            “Not own facts and all that.”

          2. Except she did. Trump is on record of being 100% for Kilo.

            BTW – I didn’t come up with that Supreme Court argument. That was courtesy of Mark Levin. It’s been fun listening to him sputter this last week.

          3. Except she didn’t. He wouldn’t be nominating a conservative, he’d be nominating a collectivist authoritarian like yourself.

  32. Larry, here’s my issue with the whole thing: Trump is arguably more conservative than about 75% of the candidates that have run in the Republican primaries over the last several cycles. McCain? Kasich? Hell, aside from being an active Mormon, I can’t even in good conscience refer to Romney as any kind of conservative.

    Cruz is the ONLY one to have run on an actual conservative platform since freaking Reagan. The few others who ran on a semi-conservative platform were actually just Libertarians who maybe advocated against late-term abortion.

    But, for some reason, Trump is worse than all of those guys? That just doesn’t track. Heck, he’s at least willing to say the things that need to be said about immigration. So why do you find him so much worse?

    1. Trump more conservative than McLame or Kasich? Spoken like someone who is totally unfamiliar with Trump’s political leanings prior to the last year. If you do a little research, instead of relying on the LSM, you’ll find out that Trump was a democrat, supported democrats, supported liberal democrat talking points (like gun control), and was best buds with liberal democrats. I don’t remember McLame, Romney, or Kasich donating to liberal democrats recently.

    2. “Trump is arguably more conservative than about 75% of the candidates that have run in the Republican primaries over the last several cycles.”

      That is utter, complete nonsense.
      The fact that you believe it is a tribute to humanity’s infinite capacity for self-deception.

      1. No, you simply aren’t paying attention to the politics of candidates. The very notion that the Republican party is conservative is a farce, and has been for most of this century. Look at how they’ve voted. Look at what they do, not what they say. The only difference is that Trump is openly not-conservative, rather than faking it

        1. More conservative than, say, Pataki? I could believe that.
          More conservative than McCain? That’s pretty debatable, but we could have a discussion about it.
          More conservative than Romney? Yeah, we’re done here.

        2. Guilders – I’m not saying he’s more conservative than Romney. At that point you’re arguing over degrees of not-conservative. Which is my original point. The Republican party is a moderate party supported by conservatives for lack of options, and has been since… I dunno, probably Eisenhower. And mostly before Eisenhower. Heck, the fact that Ike is my second-best example for a conservative president in the 1900’s should be proof enough.

          1. Coolidge and Reagan don’t make the cut, apparently, and neither do H.W. or W? I get Roosevelt, Ford, Taft, and Nixon, being less conservative than Eisenhower, but at the very most he slides in third, and possibly fourth.

          2. Reagan and Bush 1 both signed gun bans, and GWB said he would sign an AWB renewal if congress passed it. People always seem to forget about all that.

          3. NCLB, two foreign wars, more land area added to the federal preserve than any president before him, massive expansion of the federal budget, no actions on immigration, etc. – And yet you want to call W a conservative? This is what I mean about actions rather than words. I rather like what I have heard about W as an individual, but as a politician he is very solidly a moderate. And he has also repeatedly, and publicly, referred to Bill Clinton as a “good friend”.

            You have to understand that the people who are born into the historical ruling families of the country simply do not see the world like the average American. They don’t think of politics the way most of us do.

            And I said that Reagan was a conservative. That’s why Eisenhower was #2. You are correct about Coolidge – he probably beats both of them, but I wasn’t thinking of him at the time. But the point remains – the Republican party is not conservative, and never has been. I’m done defending that notion. And I’m curious how anyone can look at Trump’s espoused views and think he’s any worse than the rest of the pack… sure, he might be insincere; he might be talking out both sides of his mouth; that puts him on par with pretty much everyone else.

          4. Walker, if you’ll recall, broke the public employee unions in Wisconsin and has attracted the ire of Democrats across the land; Jindal pushed school choice, and hard; I could go on, but you get my point.

    3. Anybody who has read this blog knows I hate John McCain. He’s a big government solves everything, naive enough to think democrats will approve of him if he’s nice, jackass, who spent most of his time fighting against more conservative small government republicans. BUT- Still more conservative than Trump. And that’s saying something.

      McCain Vs. Obama? Still a big difference.

      Romney was a mushy moderate squish who was basically a decent human being. You will note that most of the time I talked about him on this board it was to describe him as Electable in Massachusetts. His record was actually pretty good except for two big things, guns and healthcare.

      Romney vs. Obama. Still a big difference.

      Trump makes Romney look like Reagan. Trump makes McCain look principled, reasoned, and rational. I shouldn’t need to list it all again if you’ve been paying a lick of attention. Make an itemized list of topics they suck on. Trump’s is longer. And not just that, but fundamentally deeper. That’s policy. On character? Far worse.

      Trump vs. Clinton. Clinton is worse, but Trump as standard bearer makes it so that there is no opposition party to authoritarian statism in the US for the rest of our lives.

      He’s willing to SAY things… Yeah. That’s the problem with populists. They’ll say anything. Notice that he’s been in favor or against damned near everything, so no matter what you want, he’ll say it. The problem is what he’ll do, and what it will cost our country.

      During the campaign his supporters kept telling me to look at his detailed policy proposals on his page to see that he’s totally legit. Okay. I did. I went through them in detail. They were 25% no brainer smart thing to do, 50% wishful thinking, and the last 25% unicorns. But it didn’t matter, because already this week he’s walking them back. He already tossed his tax plan and has gone with something diametrically opposed.

  33. Larry – you can vote for whomever you wish. Based on reading monsterhunternation for 2 years, you are an informed voter. I did not think either Obama or McCain were qualified to be President in 2008 and voted Libertarian for President for the first time. Right now, I’m leaning strongly in that direction again.

    Republican primary voters for candidates other than Trump in the primary cannot be blamed for this debacle. Can’t blame me for Trump winning Alabama. I did not vote for him. Thanks for putting MHI in Alabama. Sorry you were treated rudely by some as a Mormon Missionary here.

    As amusing as this is, I would rather buy your well-written books. You also may be losing some income by ranting about Trump. Or maybe not. Who knows? Some people say any publicity is good publicity – but I doubt if they are right.

    1. “I did not think either Obama or McCain were qualified to be President in 2008 and voted Libertarian for President for the first time.”

      I agree with you that neither candidate would have made a good president, but McCain would undoubtedly have been a better president than Obama. Hell, if this was 2008 or 2012 and Trump was running against Obama, then even he would have been a better choice (although virtually anybody would have been, so that’s not saying much).

    2. Sure. I might be losing money for voicing my political opinions. I don’t care, because I’m not a chickenshit. 🙂

      That’s the reason that most conservative authors and entertainers keep their mouth shut, which is why those industries seem so monolithically liberal. I’ll say what I think about them, and I’d be a hypocrite not to speak freely about my own side.

    3. “You also may be losing some income by ranting about Trump. Or maybe not. Who knows? Some people say any publicity is good publicity – but I doubt if they are right.”

      It worked on me. I only found out about MHI because of the political uproar, and thought to myself “anyone who infuriates this many leftists must be doing *something* right.”

  34. I gotta say, at this point, it is very liberating to know that I’m in a state that will go for Hillary even if she is wearing a orange jumpsuit a month from the general election.

    Washington is a all-or-nothing state in the general for the Electoral College, and there are enough full-on communists in King and Pierce counties to elect Joseph Stalin with every other county going for Ayn Rand. Seattle people wonder why I have a strict policy of not entering Seattle without a .45 and a couple spare magazines, wishing I had an orbiting AC-130. I wonder what the hell they’re smoking that they don’t link the results of their votes with the results on their streets.

    So, while I am strongly #NeverTrump, my #NeverHillary goes back to the nineties when I was an ROTC cadet and then a snot-nosed butter bar. Hillary burned her bridges with me and every other military person back then and has done NOTHING to rebuild them. In fact, she has done her best in the years hence to cluster bomb the remains of those bridges. So, if I were in a state where Trump vs Hillary was in doubt, I would seriously have to be thinking voting Trump, if for no other reason than to stand up for my brothers and sisters in arms, past, present and future, who have been treated with absolute contempt and disdain by that walking piece of garbage in a pant-suit. This is absolutely independent of the disregard that her husband showed for the military community.

    I know Trump is not remotely a conservative. He’s not remotely a libertarian. He’s a populist, and he’s tapping in with extreme media savvy on the population that has been screwed over by the not-conservative, not-libertarian GOP establishment and those that can’t stand Hillary and hoping to make 50%+1 in enough states with the right number of electoral college votes to win. I couldn’t tell you what policies he’ll stick with because he’s all over the damned place. There’s no underlying ideology I can point to that guides his policy except the Kennedy school of politics: 1) Get elected 2) Don’t do anything that prevents rule #1.

    So, my wife and I are voting for Gary Johnson. He’s not going to win, but since we know with absolute certainty that our state’s electoral votes are going to a Democrat, we can feel free to vote our consciences.

    Here’s my hopes come January 20, 2017:
    1) Hillary gets elected, but the Senate stays in Republican hands, and she is delivered Articles of Impeachment for her reckless disregard for the protection of national security information the second her hand comes off the book that has ‘Holy Bible’ printed on it but the pages within are blank. her VP pick becomes president within 48 hours, and I hope she picked Jim Webb to try to pull in votes from the right.
    2) Trump gets elected, and both the Democrats and Congressional Republicans hate him so much that they start rolling back the egregious yields of power to the Executive that they have made over the past eighty years. Neither party is likely to curtail the power of the Presidency while they think they have a shot of getting ahold of those powers, either now or in the next term. I think God-Emperor Trump is the right guy to awaken their suppressed libertarian tendencies, if nothing else than in pure self-defense. I am assuming here that Trump will do everything he says, and take advantage of all the Obama precedents to do whatever he wants and stall Congressional lawsuits until the past end of his term.
    3) Neither candidate gets the number of votes in the Electoral College necessary to win the presidency outright, and the vote goes to the House of Representatives. Whoever it is that wins at that point, they have to govern with full knowledge that they don’t have a mandate. That’d be impossible for Hillary or Trump, but I don’t think it would be impossible for Cruz.
    4) Gary Johnson wins, and half the bureaucrats in the federal government get sent to prison for conspiracy to deprive civil rights under color of law. Also, his cabinet is made up entirely of unicorns and leprechauns wielding swords that glow blue in the presence of lawyers.

    1. Your Hillary Jump Suit BS (1) is going the way of the explosive Michelle Obama video and the Barack real estate deal BS. It’s going nowhere. It is just the irrational nuttery of right wing radio conspiracy.

      Your third party hope (3) actually scares me. It could work. William Kristol seems to be working to draft Romney in a third party attempt. I think Romney is a horrible choice for President but he doesn’t come off as a kook. I would have to look harder at a map to see if the electoral math works. Still, I am glad Romney has not warmed up to the idea.

      In a straight up election Hillary is going to walk all over Trump. I wonder if he will dare to get on a debate stage with her.

        1. No… I am have just seen this picture before. But you are welcome to your conspiracy theories. Everyone has to believe in something. I will come back after the election and make fun of you just like I called up the local conservative talk shows and made fun of them after the Romney Landslide didn’t happen. See you in November.

          I will that is, unless something changes. I don’t really think this 3rd party stuff is going anywhere either so I don’t think it will.

          1. Now, you see, unlike him I don’t think Clinton’s going to be indicted, although she should be. Because I understand that while I believe in laws rather than men, it is people like you who run the government.
            I will, however, roundly mock you when you get everything you want and it turns to ashes in your mouth.

          2. Probably why Rafael Cruz isn’t being investigated. Said the Donald…

            “You know, his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being — you know, shot,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” Tuesday. “I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this?”

            “Right prior to his being shot and nobody even brings it up. I mean, they don’t even talk about that. That was reported and nobody talks about it.”

            “I mean what was he doing with – what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death, I mean, before the shooting? It’s horrible…”

          3. Partisan hackery at its finest–equating the rantings of a man who knows nothing with well-documented evidence of wrong-doing.
            There’s more hackery coming from you than there is at a cyberpunk convention.

          4. Trump is citing evidence he (most likely) had placed in the National Enquirer. His argument is pretty much self-impeaching. The only way Cruz Sr. would’ve been involved with Oswald in shooting Kennedy would be if Cruz Sr. were an undercover operative from Cuban intelligence. Any plot wider than Oswald would’ve involved the Soviets. Cruz Sr., going by Cruz, isn’t credible as a secret communist.

            If you believe that, than you believe that Trump’s grandfather helped shoot Teddy R., and his great grandfather helped Booth plan to assassinate Lincoln.

            I might as well ask why George Kirby isn’t being investigated for his plan to massacre tens of minorities. As is well known, he is a white supremacist, nostalgic and apologetic for the Wilson administration era massacres. He has so far had to be satisfied by last year’s burning of minority neighborhoods, but Kirby is really looking forward to the free hand Clinton or Sanders would offer him.

            I have more grounds to say that then Trump does, and more to gain from saying that then Trump did after Indiana.

            tl;dr Crab Feces

          5. Not me spouting foolishness about Hillary in a orange jump suit or Cruz paling around with Oswald. Really – most of the tinfoil hat stuff comes from your side.

          6. George Kirby: A man who thinks Donald Trump is on my side, and has managed to forget the 9/11 Truthers, Dennis Kucinich, AND the “Muslim Internment Camps.”

    2. “I wonder what the hell they’re smoking”

      Seattle’s Best Marijuana, probably.

      No doubt they started well before it was actually legal.

  35. He nominates a fantastic VP and then has a stroke before November.

    While that would undoubtedly be optimal (the stroke being terminal of course), how about a great VP pick with a pledge to not seek re-election in 2020? Yes, yes, “Pledge? What the hell does a pledge from this guy actually mean?” Not much. So I’ll ask you to follow me into alter-land, a place where there exists some mechanism that would really prevent Trump-2020. Would you be willing to pull the trigger (heh) vote for Trump in this case?

  36. I hope your mountain is ready for your occupation by November. Someone deserves a chance to make it.

  37. Anyone else looking at Clinton, Sanders, and Trump and wondering how that happened? It not like there was a Coup d’état or anything. No matter where we go from there the electorate chose this. Being half black I’m not down for everything the founding fathers did when creating a new government but I see now why we are a Republic rather than a Democracy people are stupid.

  38. I agree with you whole hearty, Larry. I gave up voting for the lesser of two evils years ago. Because that is how serious I take voting–If not , then it’s a just game where everyone shrugs and winks knowingly at each other, acknowledging it really doesn’t matter, having as much effect as Pilate washing his hands and then walking away and letting the mob have it’s way. Voting is consent to have someone in power make decisions over your life. It is akin to a loyalty oath. It is an act of trust, and I don’t trust Trump. But go ahead, pretend that you can game the system run by experienced con artists by voting for the lesser evil and somehow believe you can shape his will because he now owes you for voting for him. He or anyone else won’t remember or honor his obligation to you, because now he is in power he doesn’t have too. Trump has done a bait and switch on his positions for years, and now you expect him to somehow be any different?

  39. Well said, Larry. I came over here from ScifiWright, where JC was arguing with one individual who made a lot of the same points as you. They referring to JC and you holding differing opinions, so I came to have a look. I like JCW a lot, so sad to see he’s fallen in line with Trump, but oh well.

    Anyway, it’s encouraging to see there are some other conservatives sticking to their guns. There’s going to be a lot of continuing pressure on us.

    1. John is a good dude. If I agreed with my friends about everything I would be very worried. 🙂

    2. Unfortunately, when JC Wright has decided that he Knows The Truth about something, evidence and reason go out the window. His vaunted “logic” then becomes nothing more than a sophist’s tool to promote his pre-decided view.

      1. Disagree; he will refuse to have his premises changed. He’s generally thoroughly logical, it’s just that his premises do not comport with reality.

  40. At the risk of getting a Whaaaa:

    I have a hard time believing Trump will get ANYTHING he wants thru Congress, since both the Republicans and Democrats hate him. Hillary, on the other hand, will get everything she asks for, with support of all the Democrats and half the Republicans. If Trump tries to get things thru via Executive Order he’ll be impeached, unlike the first black President or the (presumptive) first woman President. Politicians being prevented from accomplishing their goals is a good thing.

    Perhaps a thin strand to hang a vote on, and I’m tempted to stay home, but….

    1. I can understand looking for hope, but the same big government types that Trump supposedly hates was ready to fall in line because he’d make deals. It turned out he was golf/text buddies with John Boehner and nobody batted an eye. McCain has already endorsed him.

      I think one big issue here is that when people talk about “the establishment” like it is this one monolithic thing, and not a bunch of squabbling power hungry politicians. Don’t worry. There are plenty of republicans who will go along with Trump if he wins because he’s on the same team, and anything that massively expands government power, the dems won’t fight much either.

    2. If Trump couldn’t get the government to do anything, that would be a good thing. But I don’t think it will happen.

    1. A guilt trip implies that I in any way feel guilty. There is no guilt in refusing to support a populist demagogue.

      All that stuff about fighting political correctness? Trump isn’t stupid. He has seen some problems unaddressed, and capitalized on that. He told a bunch of decent people that he’s going to fix things, but he’s not. Like all populists he cares about empowering himself. The same people he’s railed against one day, he’s golfing with the next. He doesn’t feel your pain any more than Bill Clinton did. f

      So to fight a bunch of shrews, you hired a poisonous snake. Don’t be shocked when you get bit.

      1. I won’t be surprised if I get bitten, but with the Republican establishment, I *know* I’ll get bitten. Bush 1’s taxes and import ban, Bush 2 letting Greenspan keep lowering rates far below what was sane and ignoring the looming mortgage crisis — then putting in Helicopter Ben to bail out Wall Street (TARP was passed under Bush, remember) while screwing savers. Followed by Republicans gaining control of Congress . . . and doing nothing to slow or stop Obama, because they were terrified of being called meanies and racists by the press.

        Trump *might* screw us. The Republican establishment WILL screw us. I’ll take a risk over the certainty.

  41. You’re assuming it will be Trump vs Clinton. That does seem likely, but Sanders is not completely out yet. If it ends up being Trump vs Sanders I definitely choose Trump.

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
    -C. S. Lewis

    1. Sanders doesn’t have a chance. He never did. He isn’t doing too badly in the primaries, but the Dems have their “superdelegate” system to make sure that no one can get the nomination without the support of the party establishment. What killed Hillary the last time wasn’t so much primary losses as it was the superdelegates jumping ship. That doesn’t show any signs of happening this time.

      1. You are likely correct, but it is too early to be certain. If Clinton proves to be too politically toxic (due to the e-mails, etc) she could loose the support of the superdelegates.

  42. One thing that comes to mind is that, this years election cycle will be really entertaining. Kind of like watching a bonfire of the vanities maybe. But made from people. The political adds and screaming matches that may result will certainly be… different.

    Feels more like “Interesting times” as in the curse.

  43. Any suggestions for a 3rd party? Some of us longtime Democrat voter types are equally disgusted with the “choice” we look like having in November and cannot stomach either Trump or Clinton. Preferences: believing the 2nd Amendment is kind of important, that light taxes on a thriving economy is more effective than high (or highly targeted) taxes on a stagnant one, and that while most social and medical decisions by individuals are none of the government’s business in either direction, too little government presence can lead to as many problems as too much.

    1. You’d probably like the Libertarian Gary Johnson (they don’t have an official nominee yet, but he’s the front-runner). He’s irritatingly lefty from a social standpoint, limited government from a fiscal and economic standpoint, seems to respect the constitution, and will probably get my grudging stamp of approval come November.

  44. bridge on the river Kwai conservatives…..put the Republican Party over stopping Hilary much like Alec Guinness put his pow camp prisoners over defeating the Japanese…watch the last 5 minutes of that movie again….when Alec Guinness realizes what he has done in helping Hilary…errrr…the Japanese commander, build the bridge.

  45. I’ve had to hold my nose since Reagan, and I really despised McCain and Romney. I don’t understand all the “over the top” criticism of Trump, he’s been in the spotlight for decades, and if he really was a monster, how come his kids are so great? I wanted Cruz, I even sent him money, but he couldn’t close the deal, and his Constitutionalist Principles sadly got tossed aside at the end. I’m curious to see if I’ll get a wall, and Muslims get kept out. So I’ll be voting for Trump hoping his choices of subordinates continues to impress me.

  46. > Fuck those guys. They’ve proven over the last few months they’re too stupid to live anyway.

    Larry, vote for whomever you want. But kindly don’t insult the intelligence of 40% of the Republican base.

    > The best thing that ever happened for Hillary was you morons picking the one dude out of 15 she was the most likely to beat.

    Again with the “morons”? Insulting the base is a great way for you to show just why the Republican establishment’s candidates lost. “Vote for us … again … we’ll ignore you … again.”

    > You low information dipshits elected a democrat,

    Trump scored highest among educated voters. Trump scored highest among the voters who vetted candidates based on their stated positions. The least-educated voters went for Hillary. The voters who cared least about candidates’ positions went for Hillary.

    > You should have thought of that before you picked an amoral liberal to be your guy then, huh?

    He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink, he hasn’t used drugs. Sounds pretty Mormon-ish to me!

    > A big government asshole and a mushy moderate. Still voted for them because they were obviously better than Obama.

    So is Clinton better than Trump in your opinion? Which candidate has worked hard to take away your RKBA? Which candidate’s official position statements are that gun ownership is a right?

    > [Wall] Ain’t gonna happen. Sucker.

    So? Trump can direct ICE to stop pussyfooting around and to deport illegals. Trump can refuse to sign H1-B extensions and expansions. Trump is the ONLY candidate who has taken any strong position against illegal immigration and H1-B.

    > Watch me [complain].

    Feel free. You have the right to throw all the tantrums you want. But I’ll just mention that you managed to lose the Sad Puppies “election” quite handily, and the choices of yours that I eagerly read, expecting something better than “Dinosaur” and death-by-climate-change, were not award-winning choices. All Cruz or Bush 3 were going to do was lose again; nobody wants another Bush, and nobody wants a candidate who thinks that banning dildos is a politically important act. Kasich voted for the 1994 AWB, and openly stated that he wanted another one. Fiorina sank HP and offshored countless jobs, both great qualifications (sarcasm there, just to let you know). Rubio is hated in his own state, and the Floridians whose comments I read all stated that the only reason he did as well as he did nationally was because the voters didn’t know what he was really like.

    One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

    You go ahead and belittle us. We’re at least going to try something else, instead of letting the Republican establishment screw us again. All they know how to do is lose elections and fail at blocking Obama.

  47. Thank you for posting and articulating what I have been having an issue with Trump about. Like yall I just can’t vote for Trump and being a disabled Gulf War Vet I utterly despise all of the Clintons. Have you taken a look at Austin Petersen? He is a Libertarian Candidate who is very much a Constitutionalist and conservative on many issues. http://austinpetersen2016.com/
    Would this be a viable option or do you have any better recommendations?

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