Unofficial Apolyton Predicts

[Thoth]

Y'all need to start thinking about organising a general strike until both parties pick better candidates.

[Elok]

I'm partway through Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone right now. It's from 2000, so a bit dated, but striking and obviously well-researched. His general thesis is that American "social capital" is collapsing; we've simply stopped participating in churches, clubs, unions, groups, associations . . . and political parties. This failure is often disguised by the apparent growth of such groups on paper, but they are generally professionally staffed these days, and "membership" consists of sending a donation once a year rather than volunteering for local leadership. There's no actual bond with, or significant personal investment in, the group.

I think something similar is at work in this election; the party establishments have come to represent a handful of professional wonks who take money from a large body of peons and then make all the decisions for them. Hillary has successfully subjugated an attempt to overthrow this established order, while Trump smashed through the GOP's best efforts because they had no pre-crowned favorite and nobody took him seriously until it was too late. Which may be why he's harder to sink; for all that he's a nut with strong fascist tendencies, his movement itself is more authentically democratic in its roots than hers is.

But really, I don't entirely know why he's a political Highlander. Part of it is probably progressive cluelessness a la Giancarlo: "What the American people really want is more of the same, and if they don't, we'll scold and shame them until they agree!" And part of it is almost certainly No Girls Allowed. But there's some sort of mystery ingredient at work here that I can't detect.

[KrazyHorse]

Read Charles Murphy's "Coming Apart: The State of White America" next. Or "Men Without Work". The white working class family is essentially dead, and it's happened in about a generation (maybe two). The result is Trumpism...

[kentonio]

Your point about progressive cluelessness is a good one Elok. For a lot of cycles now, an ever increasing number of working poor/lower middle class people have just been cut out of politics. They have to choose between a party that wants to cut taxes to give to the rich while simultaneously cutting any help to normal people, or a party that has put social equality front and center yet seems to have forgotten that income equality might also be a thing.

Even if people aren't economically struggling, they largely don't feel represented by these corporate behemoths, even if they do share some of their ideology. Love gay marriage and want to fight racism? Super, oh but you also get to vote for wars, a growth in the surveillance and police state and trade policies that corporations trip over themselves to support. Love low taxes and limited government spending? Great, you also get to vote for rampant racism, wars, a growth in the surveillance and police state and trade policies that corporations trip over themselves to support.

This election seems like the breaking point. Even here where we have people from basically all across the political spectrum, does anyone (other than Giancarlo) actually feel any affinity for, or even like either of the candidates?

[Jon Miller]

Imran.

JM

[Aeson]

I'd suppose if we had some women who post here we'd get at least a few who are excited for Hillary. I've got many on my Facebook feed. (As well as a lot who think she's the devil.)

[MJW]

To Elok:

Jeb Bush was the pre-crowned favorite but the crashed and burned. Rubio was the backup but then he "glitched out". After that happened the only way that Trump could be stopped would be for everyone else other than Cruz to drop right away but that didn't happen.

The elections got nationalized after gay marriage and the Blue Dogs dying a horrible death after that. This was merely the last straw. The vast majority of voters are now straight--ticket so a ham sandwich would only lose 40%-60%. To keep it "close" (within 10%) Trump only has to cobble together 5% more votes. That's child's play against Clinton. There's a reason why people consider Obama beating Romney by ~7% a blowout.

[Aeson]

I think Trumpism (as a major factor) is an aberration if Trump doesn't get elected, and even if he does get elected the movement can only last a couple election cycles without major modifications. Demographics are moving against Trumpism. Trump was going after a part of the R base that the rest of the 16 candidates were taking for granted. He's a wildly entertaining *******, which gave him immense media coverage. R v D is still the major factor here, as being on one or the other's ticket basically guarantees low 40's. Hillary also has historically bad like-ability, which means low 40's is enough for a detestable platform (even to large parts of it's own party) to be competitive. Against even a boring candidate like Gore or Kerry who would get mid to upper 40's support Trump wouldn't have had a chance.

R's will throw the Trump base a bone for a few election cycles, but they'll become ever increasingly irrelevant.

[Giancarlo]

Except Hillary is now scoring a lot better than that.

You guys took several failed swipes at me. Most which are totally false. Income equality and economic issues are front and center for me. If you paid attention, democrats now have an advantage of that front. That debate performance showed why. Look at the numbers now. Its too little, too late for Trump.

He is slumping in various states and some he needs to win to even have a ****ing shot at anything. And she has numbers in the upper 40s and lower 50s in many polls and in national polling. The situation has changed dramatically. Meanwhile he has slumped to the lower 40s to upper 30s. Look it up! And this time he isn't bouncing back.

Oh and limited government spending and low taxes? Since when did Trump ever advocate for that? And you think this is all about gay marriage?

Not so clueless now am I huh? Keep it classy!

*facepalm*

[Dinner]

Your point about progressive cluelessness is a good one Elok. For a lot of cycles now, an ever increasing number of working poor/lower middle class people have just been cut out of politics. They have to choose between a party that wants to cut taxes to give to the rich while simultaneously cutting any help to normal people, or a party that has put social equality front and center yet seems to have forgotten that income equality might also be a thing.

Even if people aren't economically struggling, they largely don't feel represented by these corporate behemoths, even if they do share some of their ideology. Love gay marriage and want to fight racism? Super, oh but you also get to vote for wars, a growth in the surveillance and police state and trade policies that corporations trip over themselves to support. Love low taxes and limited government spending? Great, you also get to vote for rampant racism, wars, a growth in the surveillance and police state and trade policies that corporations trip over themselves to support.

This election seems like the breaking point. Even here where we have people from basically all across the political spectrum, does anyone (other than Giancarlo) actually feel any affinity for, or even like either of the candidates?

We have our anwser right here, folks. Sadly, the progressives don't seem to get it any more than tge conservatives do.

[Giancarlo]

We have our anwser right here, folks. Sadly, the progressives don't seem to get it any more than tge conservatives do.

Oh we get it and are far more in touch with economic issues than Trump ever will be.

Who are the ones that tackle economic issues and want to raise minimum wage? How about deal with rising living costs? Progressives.

Trump thinks people get paid too much (except himself of course). Polls reflect people now seeing through his bull****.

[Aeson]

Except Hillary is now scoring a lot better than that.

Hillary's polling average has dipped into the 43s and 44s at times, while Trump's polling average has occassionaly broken 45. So a Hillary slump and Trump peak is what it would take for Trump to win. Thus Hillary's general unlikeability and scandals have made what should have been an easy blowout into a possible loss. Whether or not it will be close in November we don't know yet, but we know that Trump's ceiling is at least high enough to compete with Hillary's floor.

[Giancarlo]

Hillary's polling average has dipped into the 43s and 44s at times, while Trump's polling average has occassionaly broken 45. So a Hillary slump and Trump peak is what it would take for Trump to win. Thus Hillary's general unlikeability and scandals have made what should have been an easy blowout into a possible loss. Whether or not it will be close in November we don't know yet, but we know that Trump's ceiling is at least high enough to compete with Hillary's floor.

Huh?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

Not seeing that. That's also distorting statistics. Hillary has been up in the upper 40s/lower 50s for quite some time now. And what scandals?

No, sorry. You're going by the assumption the one outlier is correct and that's quite wrong. Did I forget to mention the LA Times poll has a margin of error nearly 5%?

His ceiling clearly is not enough to compete with Hillary's floor. And even when Hillary may dip in the mid 40s in some polls, he falls in the mid to upper 30s because of Gary "What's Aleppo?" Johnson.

Even when she did score a 44% on a poll a few weeks ago, Trump was at 38%. But generally for the past two weeks (and perhaps nearly a month) she has held firm at 47-51% depending on the poll questioned. This is suggesting stabilization. It's getting to be too late in the game to change it. And when Trump hit that ceiling of 45% you mentioned, Hillary was at 51%.

By the way, the **** is hitting the fan and I called this one weeks ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/us/politics/trump-foundation-money.html?_r=0

This is the precursor to something much larger. You think they'll make a big deal about a permit when that would just be a fine?

Trump scandals could potentially explode into an indictment. From what I've heard the Trump foundation could be a racketeering/money laundering front. Plus they may announce something with the financial fraud committed at Trump University. Indictment before the election? It's possible. This could be the October surprise.

Edit: BTW, it's not even national polling Trump has to worry about - some **** numbers came up from Colorado, Virginia and Florida recently for him.

[Lorizael]

Not so clueless now am I huh? Keep it classy!

Given how volatile the polls have been this election, maybe let's wait until after the election before we figure out who needs to eat crow.

[Aeson]

Gian,



The reality is that as horrible a candidate as Trump is, Hillary is bad enough that the election isn't a foregone conclusion. Most of the time Hillary should win, but if there is a bad news cycle for her near the election it could actually go to Trump. The polling average tends to be +/- 4% to the actual voting results this time of year, which means even now (at ~3%) they're still in the margin of error.