No, Trump won't drop out, and it wouldn't matter if he did.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious here, but Donald Trump will never, ever drop out. Obviously, because he is Trump, his ego would not allow him to admit a mistake. But the Republican party members who fantasize about replacing him with another candidate are not grasping a bigger point: there are
a whole bunch of reasons why replacing Trump wouldn't save this election right now.

No, Mike Pence wouldn't win. Paul Ryan wouldn't win. Ted Cruz wouldn't win. Sarah Palin wouldn't win. Mitt Romney wouldn't win. Maybe some of those people could have hypothetically stood a small chance of winning if they had been the GOP candidate from the beginning, and had some time to campaign, but not now.

The die-hard Trump fans are real. They may not be a majority of the country. They may or may not even be a majority of the Republican party. But they are a substantial group -- let's wildly guess at least 30% of the party -- and they totally love what Trump is selling: putting women, uppity minorities, and scumbag liberals in their proper place. The outwardly more stable elements of the GOP, your George Wills and your William Kristols, they can wring their hands and pay all the lip service they want to how that's not really who they are. But that group of die-hards are the ones who Trump bragged wouldn't quit him even if he shot someone in broad daylight. I think that's true. I don't think it's true of all or even most Republicans, but enough of them.

So here's what happens if Trump is somehow forced to step down, or he just flips a table and stalks out on his own. He takes most of those people with him. Either way, they're going to loudly declare that the Republican party has been taken over by a bunch of pussies and cucks, and hey, screw that Mike Pence bastard anyway for throwing Trump under the bus, Pence can't run a country if he doesn't even respect Vladimir Putin.

This is the corner that the Republican party has painted themselves into. They've spent decades denouncing the concept of experts and intellectuals and fact checking. They've made everything out to be subjective, and all they have left to fill the vacuum is the cult of personality that created this monstrosity of a campaign in the first place.

I'm not telling people to get complacent. You should vote for Clinton, because she doesn't just need to win; she needs a landslide. Even if you're tepid on Clinton as a candidate from a personal point of view, it's important that this country firmly and unambiguously renounce the deplorables. Vote. Donate. Phone bank on election week. Don't just make Trump lose; humiliate him thoroughly for all time.

The next election will probably bring on more of the same. If the Republicans bury their heads in the sand and leave the primary process as it is, there are plenty of other Trumps waiting to take on the mantle. If the Republicans DO change their primary system, they'll piss off the deplorables and be left with a fairly pitiful token opposition without that boost. Either way, they'll lose again. Make it happen.

No, Trump won't drop out, and it wouldn't matter if he did.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious here, but Donald Trump will never, ever drop out. Obviously, because he is Trump, his ego would not allow him to admit a mistake. But the Republican party members who fantasize about replacing him with another candidate are not grasping a bigger point: there are
a whole bunch of reasons why replacing Trump wouldn't save this election right now.

No, Mike Pence wouldn't win. Paul Ryan wouldn't win. Ted Cruz wouldn't win. Sarah Palin wouldn't win. Mitt Romney wouldn't win. Maybe some of those people could have hypothetically stood a small chance of winning if they had been the GOP candidate from the beginning, and had some time to campaign, but not now.

The die-hard Trump fans are real. They may not be a majority of the country. They may or may not even be a majority of the Republican party. But they are a substantial group -- let's wildly guess at least 30% of the party -- and they totally love what Trump is selling: putting women, uppity minorities, and scumbag liberals in their proper place. The outwardly more stable elements of the GOP, your George Wills and your William Kristols, they can wring their hands and pay all the lip service they want to how that's not really who they are. But that group of die-hards are the ones who Trump bragged wouldn't quit him even if he shot someone in broad daylight. I think that's true. I don't think it's true of all or even most Republicans, but enough of them.

So here's what happens if Trump is somehow forced to step down, or he just flips a table and stalks out on his own. He takes most of those people with him. Either way, they're going to loudly declare that the Republican party has been taken over by a bunch of pussies and cucks, and hey, screw that Mike Pence bastard anyway for throwing Trump under the bus, Pence can't run a country if he doesn't even respect Vladimir Putin.

This is the corner that the Republican party has painted themselves into. They've spent decades denouncing the concept of experts and intellectuals and fact checking. They've made everything out to be subjective, and all they have left to fill the vacuum is the cult of personality that created this monstrosity of a campaign in the first place.

I'm not telling people to get complacent. You should vote for Clinton, because she doesn't just need to win; she needs a landslide. Even if you're tepid on Clinton as a candidate from a personal point of view, it's important that this country firmly and unambiguously renounce the deplorables. Vote. Donate. Phone bank on election week. Don't just make Trump lose; humiliate him thoroughly for all time.

The next election will probably bring on more of the same. If the Republicans bury their heads in the sand and leave the primary process as it is, there are plenty of other Trumps waiting to take on the mantle. If the Republicans DO change their primary system, they'll piss off the deplorables and be left with a fairly pitiful token opposition without that boost. Either way, they'll lose again. Make it happen.

Hey Democrats, chill out, we're winning

I don't have a lot of respect for the Republican party, but there is one thing I've always thought they were really good at: confident bluster.

In the 2012 election, polls consistently showed pretty consistently that Obama was going to win re-election. So this whole alternate reality sprung up around "unskewing the polls". Websites popped up dedicated to fudging the math and nitpicking the demographics of mainstream polls. They proved that Romney wasn't just going to win; he was going to win in a landslide. On election night, Karl Rove was sitting on Fox News stating with certainty that the math showed Romney winning easily.

...Moments before they called it for Obama.

Some ambivalent thoughts about democracy

I've been listening to the 538 election podcast talking about the Brexit vote while I wait for my son's band concert to start. Having some weirdly ambivalent thoughts about democracy.

I think one of the most pressing problems in any society is making sure that minorities don't get stripped of their rights. This is a non trivial issue to solve. Appointed rulers (i.e. kings) tend to care about disempowered people very little. Entrenched ruling groups, like an established board of directors for a company, tend to empower people that they like personally, and in practice bring in more people who look and think like them.

But then again, mobs of people don't necessarily make informed decisions, and then they can STILL be indifferent to minority rights when voting. So for example, we have the 1964 civil rights act, which prevents anyone in the entire country from discriminating in various arenas. If it was put to a state by state vote, many states might explicitly give preferential treatment to straight white males. But we prevent them from doing that on purpose, because you shouldn't be able to vote away some people's rights.

I'm not British, so I don't have the most thorough understanding of Brexit. But the sense I get is that those who voted "Leave" are most generally the UK equivalent of Trump supporters -- i.e., cranky xenophobic nationalists. This is probably an oversimplification of both countries, but it's the rule of thumb I'm going with for now. I'm hearing that many Brits are experiencing buyer's remorse, having made a "protest vote" without really understanding the impact of the decision, and having ridiculed and dismissed "experts" such as economists, who universally said this vote would be bad news. In the US it seems like a popular stance to oppose "career politicians" and vote for outsiders who haven't held office before. Donald Trump is like the end game of this strategy.

In politics, as in other areas like science and medicine, I think there is definitely something to be said for weighting the input of experts differently than other people. Sure, power corrupts. But also, it would be great if judgement on a law was made more by people who have had time to study the law and understand the issue better.

But on the other hand, we go back to appointed rulers having likely biases against "commoners." So it's a tough thing to figure out a fair system.

2016 predictions

Yesterday was election day for a lot of things that didn't matter much. That means we're one year from picking a new president. I have some expectations for that election. This is almost certainly unwise, you should never put out a record of predicting the future in a way where you can be proven wrong later. But I think it's fun, and I think I have a pretty good track record for broad predictions in the last two presidential races. So here comes my prophecy for 2016. Succeed or fail, you can expect me to link back to this post one year from now.

This post is probably going to make some of my friends angry, so please bear in mind that (1) this is what I EXPECT will happen, not necessarily what I HOPE will happen; and (2) This is far from certain, and I am open to admitting how wrong I was, but I do have enough arrogance to say "I told you so" if I am right. Arguing in the comments will probably not be educational to me or any other participant, but I predict it will happen anyway. :)

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will be the only candidates in the race very soon. The national polls today show Clinton ahead of Sanders by roughly a factor of 2:1. That gap will shift around a little, he may get as close as 3:2 at some times, but after the day when a bunch of Southern states vote, it will be fairly clear he's not going to win. He will remain in the primary race until at least half the states have voted, but not much longer.

Sanders will accept defeat with relative grace, and will announce that he supports Clinton (with clearly stated reservations). He will probably be offered a cabinet position or even the VP spot. He won't necessarily accept. Many Sanders fans, on the other hand, will be very angry. They will declare that the system is rigged, and threaten not to vote for Clinton or anyone. Some of them will definitely follow through on this threat, although if Sanders does join the ticket then all bets are off.

Donald Trump will continue grabbing headlines for a while. He still be in the news all the damn time six months from now, because he's hilarious to talk about, but he won't be the candidate. After the first few states vote, there will be one or two very obvious choices for the most viable "anti-Trump candidate." Many other Republicans will finally start to drop out, and the remaining primary voters will coalesce around the anti-Trump. I have no idea who this candidate is right now, but I don't think it's Ben Carson. Wild guess: Marco Rubio has a shot. Don't hold me to that one.

Trump will call the eventual anti-Trump a loser in public many, many times, before that person becomes the official GOP candidate. Trump's concession speech will be incredibly petty. The Republican candidate will be more moderate than most of the candidates running today, and Republican voters in general will be really tepid in their support for him, but they'll grumble and go along with it anyway and pretend to like him.

Not-Trump nominee will try to fire up the base by saying and doing things that will alienate a lot of voters who aren't Republicans. He will especially be a complete dick to women, racial minorities, and non-Christians.

Clinton will have a lot of Barack Obama's campaign team on her staff. They will make very careful plans about which states they need to focus on in order to guarantee victory, and they will ask a lot of volunteers to help keep Democrats interested in the race. Republicans will constantly repeat that most people agree with them on all the issues, and that the polls which say otherwise are just the liberal media lying as usual.

Hillary will win the popular vote by a relatively small margin, but her strategists will ensure that she wins the electoral vote by a ridiculous number that is an obvious landslide. Republicans will say the election was stolen, and they'll also focus on the popular vote to say that Clinton has no mandate.

Gerrymandered districts will guarantee that Republicans keep the house, but it's a toss-up whether they keep the Senate. They will immediately begin discussing how to impeach Clinton before her term starts.

I have spoken. You are hereby invited to bookmark this post and dredge it up so you can make fun of me once I am proven wrong.

Trumpmania! and a grand unified theory of the Republican party

Well... it's been two years since I posted here. This blog is in a weird area of my attention, because these days I do so much small scale writing on Facebook and Twitter that I don't feel a strong need to write blogs very often; and when I do, The Atheist Experience blog gets most of my attention. But ya know, political season is almost upon us, and writing about politics is one niche that I think this blog definitely still fills.

Ed Brayton​ posted the following on Facebook:

"I will win is the Hispanic vote … I’ll create jobs, and I’ll get the Hispanic vote … the Hispanics love me." -- Donald Trump 

New poll: 81% of Hispanics have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared to 13% with a favorable view. 

Yep Don, they love you. Absolutely love you. That's what happens when you view the world through gaudy gold-plated glasses.