Robert Campbell

It will be Your Royal Highness on the first occasion, and Ma'am thereafter. Royalty does have its leaders. Robert

Michael, One trivial thing: Diana Mertz Brickell Hsieh is still Dr. Diana Hsieh. (You didn't know her when she was Ms. Brickell.) I was twisting her name around the way Roger (who did know her when she was Ms. Brickell) sometimes does. I can't help comparing you to a Christian missionary, or some other sort who believes in a Messiah and spreads the Good News on His account, because you and I don't seem to be operating by the same standards of evidence. In our exchanges over the past few weeks, your response to any point that is critical of Donald Trump in any respect has been to treat it as though it contained no evidence—or as though any evidence or argument that might be in it deserve no consideration. It's all "gotchas," or something only a member of the Establishment would even think mattered, or it's ruled out because it pre-dates Donald Trump's announcement of June 16, 2015 (any political history that pre-dates The Annunciation has been cleansed from the record, unless it pertains to the perfidies of the Bush clan, or of neocons). Or it just can't be right, because of the evidence available to your own two eyes. Even when the truth or falsity of what is being claimed is something I can't just see, and I reckon you can't either. Or it's proof that the person who would say such things can't see you, and can't see anyone else who supports the Trump campaign. Now what would a devout Christian, of any sort, particularly the kind not gifted in dialectic and suspicious of those who are, be likely to say in response to criticisms of Jesus? Contrast all of these reactions with my responses to criticisms of Ted Cruz, or of anyone else outside the Trump camp. Have any of them been like your reactions to criticisms of Donald Trump? (Even when I think Trump and crew are taking an Establishment line against someone, as in his curiously favorable remarks about Mitch McConnell, I go to some trouble to explain why I think so.) As for the moral standing of the man, Donald Trump appears to have attained perfection in your eyes, or to be so close a scrape from it that the difference hardly matters. He can't simply be a man of unusual courage, or great outspokenness, or unusual organizational skill, or extreme chutzpah, or off-the-charts ability to sell nearly anything, he has to be the entire antidote, packaged up into one human being, to everything ailing or rotten in our political system. In particular. he must, lest he fail to qualify for his saving mission, be entirely free of the vices customarily associated with politicians. And since Donald Trump has a long record of public statements on nearly every subject, many of which contradict the statements he is making now, he even gets his own era, beginning when he was called to his present mission, at the age of 68 (nothing he did of a political nature counts, if he did it before that date). If he is elected President, will there be a movement to replace 2015 in the old reckoning with NTE (New Trump Era) 1? Not being inclined to attribute moral perfection to anyone running to be President of the United States, including anyone I might consider voting for, I find your continued assertions about him bizarre—not to mention contrary to readily available evidence, in the form of some of the man's past deeds, many of his past and present sayings, and quite a few of his associations. A guy who hires Roger Stone and Paul Manafort is not free of any vice customarily associated with politicians. You don't keep one around you for years, or feel an urgent need for the services of the other, if your attention is entirely taken up with building magnificent things and offering them on the free market, leaving no headroom for the low machinations of the political class. I really have to wonder whether the jibes at Ted Cruz in particular—Rafael! the wannabe Savior!—aren't projection at work. For I can prefer Cruz without illusions, either about his moral perfection or his role as an agent of salvation. Can you prefer Trump in the same way? I don't know how many other Trump supporters you actually know. They vary, like everyone else, but from my own experience I can say that they are not all as you describe. Many of them don't want discussions of issues, as the Trump supporters here at OL generally don't. They tend to be incurious about Trump's actual views, actual plans, actual stands on, well, nearly anything. He will take care of it. He will clean it up. Whatever it is. We don't need to know now how he intends to do any of it, so why do you ask? Others are instantly actively hostile toward anyone who questions their guy, whether the hostility is expressed in peremptory putdowns, or in inane triumphalism. Your assertion that only those critical of Trump (could?) behave in these ways I see as part of a worshipful attitude. I surely don't think you should be barred from discussions with anyone, or that you are given over to thinking with your emotions, or whatever. I am saying that adopting special epistemological and moral standards, meant to apply uniquely to one and only one human being, is not merely unfair, but tends to get in the way of objective appraisal—in this case, of candidates for President. (The analogy to Dr. Hsieh is not about the institutional specifics of ARI, but about the worshipful attitude and special pleading that all there must adopt regarding Ayn Rand, plus occasionally one of her lieutenants.) As for anger, Donald Trump is, among other things, an actor. So the anger in his speeches and public performances could be simulated, and my assumption has to be that it usually is. The anger expressed by his followers, often directed at questionably identified targets, gives no impression of being simulated. And eating your own... how else could anyone describe what Donald Trump does, in pretty much every speech he's given since June 16 of last year? Stomping and re-stomping every Republican who opposes him, or endorses anyone who opposes him, with no sign of letting up. Would he take the high road for a couple of weeks after big wins in five states? Hell no, there are still Republicans to stomp. Anyone who defends such behavior is practicing the exact thing you claim to deplore. I've been rough on Obama and on Hillary Clinton, and so have other contributors here. Maybe because Obami don't hang out much at OL, and I haven't seen a Hillary supporter posting since I returned, you've gotten the impression that Trump is a unique target of mine? Trump's election will not herald the death of freedom in America. It's much harder than normal to say what it does herald, because cone of uncertainty around his actions is so much wider than usual. (You talk of peaceful trade, but Trump's shtick is all about how bad most trade is for us.) Hillary Clinton lies to us constantly. Yet she has a track record in the White House and in office that enables reasonably good predictions of what she will actually do. Donald Trump has been all over the place rhetorically, even in NTE1 and NTE 2, pretends to be all kinds of things to all kinds of people, has no track record in political office, and may not even believe key elements of his campaign speeches. He might be for everything you wish he's for, he might not be for any of it at all; he might be 100 places in between. But, no, he is not another Hitler or Stalin. A better model, I've suggested before, is Berlusconi, abroad, or Jesse and Ahhnold, at home. Most likely, in my estimate, he will be a very loud, fairly awful President, constantly bloviating about the changes he's making, and not really changing much of anything. He will have been elected after we suffered under a bad President and a truly terrible one, and when there was some small chance of getting someone better. Are you really sure that Donald Trump will be the President you want him to be? If you really are, perhaps the inestimable benefits of a Trump Presidency just outweigh any losses of friends or allies to aggressively proselytizing. Robert

Jon, The principles that Donald Trump laid out in his speech presumably do not resist being netted out. Could you tell us, briefly, what they are? Robert

Michael, You can see with your own two eyes that Donald Trump isn't sucking up to Mitch McConnell? How does one see this? Mitch McConnell says, to other Senators regarding Donald Trump, "drop him like a hot rock." Trump does not react with his customary rips against yet another loooooser, a hopeless establishmentarian who can't find his rear end in the dark with both hands, a guy who couldn't get elected dogcatcher, spiced with all kinds of unkind commentary on McConnell's physical being. Instead, nothing. Except when, as he did on several occasions prior to the "hot rock" remark, he cites McConnell ("a good man") against Ted Cruz. No part of this elicits even the mildest curiosity? You see that Donald Trump is against the establishment, therefore... (1) You further see that Mitch McConnell isn't part of the establishment. (2) You further see that actually he is, but he'll be unusually useful to Donald Trump even as Trump seeks to destroy McConnell's power base and just about everything McConnell says he stands for, so he's being spared. (3) You further see that Trump doesn't care whether Senate Republicans up for reelection run advertisements against him after he's been nominated to run for President. (4) You further see that it doesn't matter to Trump whether Chucky Schumer and Dick Durbin control the Senate unofficially or officially, come January 2017. Well, maybe not therefore anything. What you just see may be the sort of experience that has no implications. Somewhere there's a boundary between just seeing, and just seeing what you want to see. Robert

Jon, If all that is anti-Trump is uninterested in truth, then anyone who is anti-Trump is ipso facto impossible to convert (unless Donald Trump has custom-designed some falsehoods for that specific purpose). And any statement by Donald Trump becomes immune to challenge, because a challenge is, well, anti-Trump. Whatever. The evident problem with Trump's statement quoted above is that keeping up the "cycle of hostility" might be Vladimir Putin's notion of what is best for Vladimir Putin. If Putin so views it, what next? Even though appeasement (Hillary's "reset") hasn't been working, Trump didn't rule it out. What kind of confrontation is he willing to engage in? What costs does he think are worth paying? Do you know what he thinks? For that matter, does he? Robert

Michael, I think what you are saying is that you actually can't identify the establishment, or any considerable manifestation of it—and mustn't be asked to. Your analogy to royalty makes no sense. For with regard to royalty I can and will say. Royalty had lots of visible exemplars (kings and queens and princes and such), who were known to all and emphatically wanted to be known by all as royalty. Royalty actually did have leaders. Royalty also had an elaborate set of rituals, prerogatives, and prohibitions, which could be identified with some effort (and which the generally recognized exemplars of royalty often proclaimed, in any case). Meanwhile, I can point to a Republican Party Establishment, which has leaders like Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and hangers-on, such a majority of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. I can even identify some of their rituals, prerogatives, and prohibitions (most of which are not exactly secret to begin with). But no, if I even attempt such identifications, of a Republican Party establishment or a Democratic party establishment or a mass-media establishment, or any other variety, large or small, local, national, or global, I merely prove that I myself am part of the establishment, willfully oblivious as to its true extent and nature—and seeking to make you just as oblivious. Whereas all you seem to need to know is that if Donald Trump is winning, the establishment is losing. And if anyone doesn't like any of this winning, he or she is assuredly part of the establishment that is losing. This does give us a definition: "establishment" = "non-Trump." Such a definition gives Donald Trump tremendous leverage over you. It isn't hard to see what it does for him. What does it do for you? Ann Coulter was once a sycophant of Mitt Romney, which made her "establishment," and now, with no discernible changes in her basic attitudes or rhetoric, her income or social position, she is a sycophant of Donald Trump, and therefore perfectly "nonestablishment." Mitch McConnell, let's say, is "establishment" until and unless Donald Trump finds a use for him, whereupon he is "nonestablishment." McConnell is the same guy all along, holding the same position of power, with the same (often bad) character traits and so on. Can you acknowledge, at least, how such a view of the establishment (it's everywhere, it's all the same but different members of it fight for position, the same person can go from establishment to nonestablishment at any time without warning, and you can't tell what they are but we know them when we see them) is not merely confusing to the uninitiated, but makes the continued winning of converts somewhat difficult? (We just see what you just don't see. Now, we will make you see it. Unless, somehow, we can't, which will be your fault. ) Your entire line of argument implies that anyone who disagrees with you concerning the virtues of Donald Trump, or of his unique saving mission, is part of the "elite establishment." So now, whether I was or wasn't before, I am a member of the establishment. And I am among those who must be overthrown. I'm inclined to ask the imperceptible leaders of the elite establishment to send one of their perceptible limousines for me, just once. And, before I become the silenced one, to ask for a perceptible guarantee of non-persecution. Robert

Trump's foreign policy speech was pretty bad, even by the standards of politicians' foreign policy speeches. Here is of the many reactions that will be discounted at this site: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/04/28/of-course-trump-supported-all-three-wars-he-condemned-in-foreign-policy-address-n2154633?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad= But there's one passage of particular interest in that speech: The source is here (I do not agree with the author about quite a few things, though we presumably share two premises, that Russia is an empire and Vladimir Putin wants to be an emperor): https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/trumps-flawed-foreign-policy/ Trump has already displayed what at best can be described as ambivalence about Putin. But then we find Trump hiring Paul Manafort, whose clients have notably included Viktor Yanukovych. On two different occasions, Yanukovych ruled Ukraine as Putin's puppet. Manafort was associated with him for at least 6 years. In 2010, Yanukovych was reelected (after being out of power for several years), and Manafort took credit for his victory. It did not end at all well. In 2014, Yanukovych was run out of Kiev, leaving behind a gilded palace that the opposition made sure was amply documented for posterity: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10656023/In-pictures-Inside-the-palace-Yanukovych-didnt-want-Ukraine-to-see.html?frame=2834874 Vladimir Putin must have figured, quite some time ago, that a President Trump will be easier to roll than President Obama was. If all of the Estonians pack up and leave, will Trump order the construction of a special wall to keep them out of the United States? Robert Campbell

Jon, You never previously confessed your abiding love of Mitch McConnell. Robert

Back to the East Coast for a minute. There's been nonstop Trump triumphalism since he won these 5 primaries (carrying every county, according to one report that I read). So it's worth recalling a couple of things: (1) Mitt Romney cleaned up in these same Republican primaries 4 years ago. (2) While Republican primaries have been drawing higher turnouts than 4 or 8 years ago, the Democrats have been holding their own contested primaries. Here are the totals (off the RCP front page, April 27—similar to what WSS displayed upthread. State Total Republican Total Democrat Pennsylvania 1,537,696 1,638,644 Maryland 418,750 814,522 Connecticut 208,817 322,485 Rhode Island 60,381 119,213 Delaware 67,807 92,609 Hillary got more votes than Trump in all five states; in Maryland, Hillary got more than all three Republicans put together. Bernie (who's laying off campaign workers) got more votes than Trump in Maryland, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Bernie won only Rhode Island—there he drew more votes than all three Republicans put together. The Republican nominee would certainly benefit from carrying Pennsylvania this fall. How likely is that to happen? (Adam has told us he thinks Donald Trump can carry New York, but it will be close.) Will he have a snowball's chance in hell, in the other 4? The delegates count toward the nomination, regardless. Indiana is a state that the Republican has to carry in the fall. It will be interesting to see what the primary turnout looks like there. Robert

Brant, Do you think Donald Trump has any interest in the Tea Party, other than how hard he can stomp it? Robert

A couple of incidents should remind everyone that Donald Trump is not really opposed to the Republican Party Establishment. He's opposed to what he calls the Establishment. But all that means to him is, "whoever's not with Donald Trump." The John Boehner remark, about Cruz being "Lucifer in the flesh" is the smaller of the two. Boehner also boasted of playing golf with the Donald, and exchanging texts with him, and said he'd vote for him (and not, of course, for Lucifer). But Boehner is out of office, after being pushed out as Speaker of the House. His potential utility either to a Trump campaign or to a Trump administration is nonzero, but not very high. Still, there's the little matter of a Trump donation (August 19, 2012) of $100,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, run by Norm Coleman and Vin Weber (ex-Senator and ex-Congressman from Minnesota, hate the Tea Party, love doing what Democrats want done when they want it done), joined at the hip to John Boehner, and actively opposed to Tea Party candidates. That was when Boehner was at the height of his power. A much bigger deal is Trump's now-evident policy of sucking up to Mitch McConnell. McConnell is far worse than Boehner was, and with any justice should have been pushed out first. I suppose some went easier on him because he only became Majority Leader in 2015, while Boehner had been Speaker since 2011. But it really came down to the likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker (add your favorites to the list) exerting more clout in the Senate than Hal Rogers and Bill Shuster and Charlie Dent and Peter King (again, add your favorites) exert in the House. The only way McConnell could have prevented Senate Democrats from obstructing appropriation bills, forcing the now-customary dilemma of Cromnibus or "government shutdown," would have been by holding their feet to the fire, calling the Senate into session over and over, holding votes over and over, till they got sick of it. (Of course, this would have made life temporarily, moderately inconvenient for Republican Senators.) A little bit of counternuking (after Harry Reid had already partly nuked the filibuster) wouldn't have hurt, either, and would have served the Democrats right. You know, like abolishing the filibuster on appropriation bills. Let's not even get into Obama's Iran deal, which McConnell could have insisted was a treaty. In fact, as leader of the Senate it was his job to insist it was a treaty. Nope, Bill Clinton's most effective countermeasure against Republican Congresses remains intact, to be wielded by every future Democrat in the White House. More widely, McConnell has been so ineffectual that Harry Reid is basically still in charge of the Senate. The only thing McConnell's shown any zest for is stomping anyone who might upset business as usual (Cruz called him out as a liar over his false assurances regarding an attempt to renew the charter on the Export-Import Bank, which McConnell had said he would block). In fact, McConnell's derelictions made Boehner's life much harder for him, before Boehner was pushed out, and will do the same for any Republican Speaker while McConnell is still pretending to run the Senate. Anywhere you read or hear a defense of McConnell's conduct as Senate Majority Leader, you know it's coming from an apologist for the Republican Establishment. National Review runs a lot of apologetics for McConnell. Commentary runs apologetics for McConnell. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said it was against the Export-Import bank, but it was for McConnell. In the end, Boehner and his Establishment crew banded together with McConnell and his, votes from Democrats did the rest, and Ex-Im was renewed. Oh, the faint moan went up from the WSJ, it's too bad Ex-Im is back, but that has to be the fault of Ted Cruz and the Freedom Caucus. The WSJ will probably still be defending McConnell when he's left office. So Donald Trump wants McConnell out of there in the worst possible way, right? So Donald Trump has realized you could get a better Majority Leader than Mitch McConnell by random selection from the other Republican Senators? No he doesn't. No, he hasn't. The excerpt from Trump's speech in Rhode Island that I posted here, completely ignored by the Trump supporters, showed him mounting the exact kind of attack on Ted Cruz that Mitch McConnell would. You might have had to infer it there. You don't have to infer it from other things he's saying. In Indiana, Trump's now amplified a little: "the top man, Mitch McConnell, who is actually a good man, he calls him a liar. You don't do things that way." This is not just seizing on anything, absolutely anything, that Trump can use to re-stomp an opponent. In fact, Trump has taken McConnell's side against Cruz on several previous occasions during the campaign. And their ties go back farther. We can see this in at least two ways. First, Trump has given money to an organization McConnell started, with the specific aim of blocking Tea Party challenges either to McConnell himself, or to any other Establishment Republican Senator. Some here might remember when McConnell was overheard on a conference call, saying of any Tea Party or other group that was trying to replace sitting Republican Senators, "we have to punch them in the nose." Donald Trump helped him deliver that punch. $60,000 worth of reinforcement behind that punch. (In case nothing is really awful without a Bush connection, Karl Rove was also involved.) http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/is_trump_a_mcconnellrove_establishment_tool.html https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/menage-a-establishment-the-trump-boehner-mcconnell-love-triangle Note: I don't buy theories that the present Trump campaign was purposely dialed up by the Republican Establishment. But here's an amazing turn of events. Against anyone who has crossed him, Trump pursues revenge. Repeatedly, relentlessly, à l'outrance, even when it detracts from his current goal. So what was McConnell doing, at the end of February? Telling Republican Senators they had his blessing to run ads against Donald Trump, to help their chances of being reelected. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/mitch-mcconnell-republicans-will-drop-trump-like-a-hot-rock-if-he-wins-the-nomination/ And it hasn't been thunderbolt after anvil drop after death ray from Donald Trump? He isn't running against Mitch McConnell every day? The guy who said to drop him like a hot rock? Nope, backing him up. There isn't even the customary demand that McConnell come crawling to Trump Tower for a small chance at forgiveness. If anything, Donald Trump is sucking up to Mitch McConnell. Sorry, folks. Donald Trump is not fighting against the Republican Establishment. He's fighting for it. PS. Two House committee chairmen have now endorsed Trump. The one from Jeff Miller may not be deserved, but it's worth touting. The endorsement from Bill Shuster? Again, one is not supposed to keep track of such things, because history began when the New Trump Era was proclaimed, in what is now NTE 1 but we used to call 2015. Still, for those who ask the wrong questions, Bill Shuster is the son of the inimitable Bud Shuster, whose Congressional seat he practically inherited. The Shuster Dynasty has basically worked like this: We're here in Congress to make sure Altoona, Pennsylvania gets the finest Federal highway projects that the suckers' taxpayers' money can buy. You want a nice transportation project for your district, you'll have to make it worth our while. Even better, Shuster, who has been dating a transportation lobbyist, just fended off a Tea Party challenger... So who will be next onto the "anti-Establishment" Trump Train? Hal Rogers (the Appropriations Committee chairman neither Boehner nor Ryan would get rid of)? http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/278008-transportation-chairman-endorses-donald-trump

Michael, Telling people who are not receiving your message that they must be hurting is what a certain kind of Christian missionary does. This might happen when, politely indicating your lack of interest in the offering, you’ve handed back the pamphlet with the crude cartoons of a disordered life with Ego on the throne and of a harmonious life with Jesus in charge. The reaction is not empathic; it isn't a response to anything that the missionary has actually noticed about you. It’s purest top-down reasoning. What other motive, besides an unacknowledged spiritual deficiency, could there ever be not to accept the message? I'm making the comparison with missionaries, because his followers really do seem to be envisioning Donald Trump as a Messiah. Where they see a savior, I see a guy who knows how to sell things on TV, who has charisma (albeit the sort that leaves me completely cold), who can give his pitch all day long and knows how to keep the words flowing with scarcely a hesitation pause. He doesn't have much of a program, and his followers find that a good thing, not a bad one. He has no discernible principles, and they love him for that too. Of course, he's not shouting and employing his gestural repertoire on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, he seems to be encouraging his audience to get revenge. It's frequently not clear on whom, but that doesn't appear to matter. If we take the man’s words literally (something his followers strongly discourage), we might infer that, more than any other extant human being, Xi Jinping is the author of Americans’ present woes. Whether you are out of work, or you aren’t but your part of the country is seeing factories close, or you're worried about terrorist attacks, or just tired of expensive, crrappy services from governmental monopolies, or you have Bush fatigue, or you have Obama fatigue, or you wish Mitch McConnell would follow John Boehner into retirement, or the LIRR is going putt-putt-putt-putt-putt again on your ride to work, what’s diminishing every aspect of America is CHIIiina. Of course, the maximum ruler of CHIIiina lives 12,000 miles away, well protected by a major military establishment. Those trade concessions on which Trump insists, he will not be able to compel the Chinese power structure to yield up. (And, unless Trump goes so far as to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization, the WTO isn't going to be siding with Trump on much of anything he's demanding.) But there are people closer by, easier to reach, much easier to humiliate, discredit, defeat than Xi Jinping (or Shinzo Abe or Enrique Peña Nieto or even Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi). For Trump, these are the vast crew that has enabled CHIIiina and other predatory foreign powers—or submitted to them, usually upon payment by (unnamed) special interests. A lot of them are Republicans, and some of them have actually run against Donald Trump (or endorsed someone who has run against him). Their actual character, their actual performance? Irrelevant. Donald Trump sees them as standing in his way. So he has formed an instant desire for revenge, and he has no intention of ever letting go of it. He'll never stop belittling them, calling them looooosers, demanding they beg his forgiveness. (I doubt that, if nominated, he will be able to restrain himself from daily rips at his former Republican rivals and their supporters, even though his attention will be supposed to be fully riveted on the Democrat.) His followers take his example to heart. Whatever it is that they want revenge for (they have different grievances, and none, we may be fairly sure, actually share Trump’s own), they can take it out on any of the targets that Trump has provided for them. It doesn't matter who Ted Cruz is, who Scott Walker is, who John Kasich is, who anyone named Bush is, who Mitt Romney is, who Mitch McConnell is, who anyone is, what any of them have done, what any of them haven't done, all he has to do is point the finger at them, and.... REVENGE!!!! This is what makes the Trump campaign so effective at driving people apart. For if you are not with Trump, you are accorded a brief grace period to view the proofs of sanctity. And if they do not suffice for you, you become part of the Establishment (in other words, all that is non-Trump). And, in your turn, you become a fit target for … REVENGE!!!! Such social dynamics end one of two ways. Trumpism sweeps away all remaining opposition, because otherwise … REVENGE!!!! OK, a lot of the former opposition is not converted. It’s now merely keeping quiet. (But who cares? They all deserved to be silenced, anyway.) Or it runs up against resistance. Resistance actually fortified, dug in by all those calls for REVENGE!!! This is how the Trump campaign makes enemies out of friends. Am I disconcerted by your decision to jump on the Trump Train? Not nearly as much as I was, quite a few years ago, by Dr. Brickell Mertz Brickell’s decision to cross the into Castle Irvine, before they hauled it the drawbridge. But I do get the feeling that, after one crosses over into Trump Ground, it will be as when one crosses over into St. Leonard’s. The call will soon come down to denounce one’s former companions in iniquity. And that hurts. On the other hand, affiliation with the Ayn Rand Institute turned out to be its own punishment. Consider how the prospect of locking up the nomination isn’t making Donald Trump and his cheerleaders more thoughtful, but pushing them to new heights of hypocrisy and incoherency, I’m inclined to think the same about passing over into Trump ground. Robert

Michael, Did the presence of a Barbour family member on McDaniel's team make him an Establishment plant? You've refused to say. Here's what you're effectively saying your thinking consists of: Whatever Cruz says is worthless, because Cruz is saying it. Whatever Trump says can be ignored, because Trump's true essence escapes any formulation in words. Not even in his own. The words of both are discounted, nearly to zero in some cases. But the effects of the discounting are differential: Cruz is always far worse than anyone could have suspected. Trump is always far better than anyone could have suspected. I don't doubt that many others think the same way. But this is a big country. Your faction can number in the millions, and be outnumbered by another with lots more millions. Obama led Romney by more than 10% just once after March 1, 2012. That's where Hillary is against Donald, right now. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-trump-cant-win/article/2588132 Robert

Michael, You took Glenn Beck way too seriously to begin with. Robert

Michael, I had to think long and hard what to say in response. And I'm going to do this in two parts. (The section about hurting will come later.) Now, after Donald Trump has cleaned up in 5 Eastern states and the triumphalism is in a mad crescendo, seems as good a time as any. What you mean by "an environment has been engineered," I don't comprehend. It's one of those mistakes-were-made constructions. Not an agent, not a human being in sight. Who engineered this environment? How did they do it? The engineers are those faceless beings who engineered (whatever that amounted to, in more concrete terms). They have bosses, again unnamed, who boss them. As for silent complicity, I was not aware that you were in a line of work in which it would be dangerous to utter political opinions of a certain kind. Nor that anyone was keeping you quiet (are you telling me you had to discover Donald Trump, 2015-2016 edition, to find your voice on your own site?). Why would you need Donald Trump to rouse you from your slumbers? It doesn't matter all that much what the New York Times does, or what NBC does, or what Fox News does. If you want to inform yourself, in this time and place, it isn't hard. I'm not questioning the instrumental rationality of remaining low-information (the one vote I will cast in November will be in a deep red county in a red state, which the Republican nominee, no matter who, is just about sure to carry; the one vote you will cast in November will be in a deep blue area of a blue state that the Democrat will have a lock on). Just saying the obvious: that if it's important to you to find out what's going on, you will. That was as true in 1999 or 2007 or 2011 as it is today. Some people might want to stop you, but this doesn't mean that they can. And if you weren't paying attention till Donald issued the call to arms, there's a good chance you won't recognize the existence of valid or reliable sources of political information, besides the candidate and those who in 2016 are among his more prominent supporters. It's as though neither Donald Trump nor his present champions even had a politically relevant history, before July 2015. Worse yet, anyone who was paying attention, politically, before The Donald launched his latest campaign becomes suspect. For surely only operatives of the Establishment had any motive to do so. Robert

WSS, The ad would have been more effective if they'd kept Hillary out of it. An uncharitable viewer might think the same lesson applies to her. Trump vs. Clinton: one of the unelectable must win. Robert

Now there's no question about your failing to see all of them.

Bob, Michael hasn't yet learned the difference between winning the nomination and winning the general election. Barry Goldwater isn't around any more to tell him how they're different. Neither is Jerry Ford. But Bob Dole is (I won't count Bush Sr. because his nomination for a 2nd term wasn't seriously contested). So are John McCain and Mitt Romney. Oh, but they are (or were) all loooosers. Can't be relevant to the Trumpian trajectory, then. Robert

I know Merlin, and probably some others, addressed this issue much earlier on the thread, and gave up. But here is Donald Trump on one (OK, two) of his favorite themes: Michael has denied that devaluing a currency is the same as currency manipulation. He should tell his candidate that. If devaluing a currency is ipso facto proof of hostile intent agains the United States, not to mention the highest-yield weapon against the US economy, why is Trump confining these rants to CHIIiinaa (occasionally, suffering flashbacks to the 1980s, he throws in Japan, with those container ships full of cars lying in wait off California). The Canadian dollar is down against the US dollar, over the past few years. Why not launch a trade war against Canada? (Sorry, WSS, sacrifices have to be made.) The British pound is down against the US dollar. Why not a trade war against Britain? The European Central Bank is trying to push the euro down against the dollar (actually it's announced that his is its intent). Only partial success so far, but if they meet their target, I guess it's trade war time, against the whole euro zone. The Oz dollar is down, too, come to think of it. Robert

There's a phrase I think we're going to be hearing, over the next year. How long we'll hear it depends on how far Donald Trump gets. A cold day in hell. It'll be a cold day in hell before Ted Cruz works with or for Donald Trump, on anything. When your opponent, the people's champion against the Establishment, once again joins forces with Mitch McConnell against you: Sure, there will be plenty Senator Ted Cruz can do for President Donald Trump.... on A cold day in hell. We might hear the same from John Kasich, in a little while. We'll hear it from a lot of other folks. How many voters, come early November, will be saying A cold day in hell? Robert

OK, here's a clip. It's from yesterday morning, so Trump still has 13 days to find his Cloak of Presidentiality and put it on. But I'd say the smart money has to be on Fuhgeddaboudit. Michael, you'll want to skip this, because it's more about mere words, all of which Donald Trump seems to rely on, but none of which truly matter. Robert http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/04/25/trump_cruz_a_failed_senator_filibuster_was_a_waste_of_time_pain_in_the_ass.html

Michael, I recommend cutting down on the Alex Jones. Robert

Michael, What were you saying about time travel, just a few posts ago? Now you want to pit Trump 2016 (amid high primary and caucus turnout) vs. Romney 2012 (amid low primary and caucus turnout). Oops, Trump did run against Romney in 2012 (I know, only Establishment types pay any attention to how things went in 2012). How quickly did he drop out? And, yeah, Trump has something to do with higher turnout. But then you want to annex all the people who have turned out this year to oppose Trump to all of those who turned out to support him. I think you really are failing to see most of the electorate. For if everyone you can see is exactly like yourself, you would have to see yourself as part of a majority. Robert

Michael, If it was a counterpunch, why didn't you boast about it when the story ran? Robert

Michael, You can do better than this. I could put in 20-point that Cruz truly respects the constitution. I'm not completely sure Donald Trump has heard of that document, though he's recently learned to repeat the phrase "2nd amendment." The socially conservative part of Cruz, I expect you know I can do without. Glutinous religiosity, photo ops with Kim Davis, "bathroom bill" soapboxing... You could probably do without Trump's sporadic efforts at social conservatism, but we all know they're phony. (High principle again, wink wink?) Robert