Maybe Trump? Among Republican Foreign Policy Elites, Opposition Softens to Joining the New Administration

Following-up from earlier, "Trump Transition Team Planning First Months in Office."

This is quite interesting.

At the New York Times, "‘Never Trump’ Becomes ‘Maybe Trump’ in Foreign Policy Sphere":

WASHINGTON — Like no other part of the Republican establishment, the party’s foreign policy luminaries joined in opposition to the idea of a Donald J. Trump presidency.

Loyal Republicans who served in the two Bush administrations, they appeared on television and wrote op-eds blasting him. They aligned under a “Never Trump” banner and signed a letter saying they were “convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

For his part, President-elect Trump has maligned them as bumbling and myopic, architects of “a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war.”

The coming weeks will determine whether both sides decide they need each other.

On the establishment side, the opposition is now softening for some — driven either by a stated sense of patriotic duty to advise a new president with no foreign policy expertise, or a somewhat less noble motive to avoid years of being excluded from Washington power circles.

“Never Trump” has become “Maybe Trump.” But whether he would have them is another matter.

Since the election was resolved early Wednesday, there have been at least informal contacts between the two factions, according to several people in both camps who refused to be identified. One person who is helping Mr. Trump’s transition team said the group was already receiving résumés from former Republican officials, including some of the signers of two open letters this year excoriating Mr. Trump’s foreign policy views. At the same time, the transition team has also made unofficial overtures to some of the people who signed the two letters — one in March and the second in August.

For now, Mr. Trump is relying on a small circle of advisers to begin considering candidates for national security positions. General [Michael T.] Flynn openly disdains the views of many in the Republican national security establishment, especially those who served in senior positions during the George W. Bush administration. It was these people, he said during an interview shortly before the election, who helped push the United States into “too many conflicts that just seem too perpetual.”

“Mr. Trump, that’s what he wants to change,” he said...

More. (Keep reading especially for the discussion of Omarosa Manigault and the "blacklist" of those who opposed Trump during the campaign.)

I'm not worried about this, at all.

Frankly, I should avoid the Twitter feeds of leftist academics, who were among those arguing that Trump would never be elected. They were wrong, badly so. And I can guarantee you, as Trump looks more presidential by the day, the attractions of being in power again will become irresistible.

Here's What the Entire Leftist Media Establishment Got Wrong

Not a full-on mea culpa, but close. Very close.

At NBC News, "First Read: What We Got Wrong":

What we got wrong in the 2016 presidential election

If you believe in learning from your mistakes, here is everything we and plenty others seemed to get wrong in the general election:

That the poll numbers showing Donald Trump's percentage in the high 30s and low 40s couldn't grow;

That a seemingly stable race -- with Hillary Clinton holding a consistent lead -- wouldn't change at the end;

That the votes out of Urban America and its suburbs would overwhelm the votes out of Rural America;

That Clinton was the one expanding the political map versus Trump doing it;

That changing demographics assured Democratic success in presidential contests, unless the GOP made an explicit appeal to minority voters;

That the Obama coalition could be transferred to another Democrat;

That Trump couldn't win if he got a lower percentage of white voters than Mitt Romney did four years ago;

That the party's that's more united has the advantage in a presidential contest over the more divide party;

That the conventions and presidential debates actually mattered;

That a small band of partisans couldn't get away with trying to delegitimize the media;

And that a presidential candidate who demolished so many norms (not releasing tax returns, talking about jailing an opponent, threatening not to respect the election's outcome) would pay a price for them in the end.

Note this is just NBC, although my headline indicates "the entire leftist media establishment," which should be under indictment at this point. Sheesh.

RELATED: "Crystal Ball's Mea Culpa (VIDEO)."

Trump Transition Team Planning First Months in Office

There's some concern that top policy experts, former government officials, and military personnel, etc., won't serve in a Trump administration, and hence the transition is hampered by a dearth of qualified candidates. (And there's speculation that the Trump camp may have "blacklisted" potential foreign policy / national security recruits.) Indeed, word is that the transition team had yet to call the Pentagon by this afternoon (although I didn't save that tweet; I'll update with it later if I see it.).

In any case, all the academic foreign policy experts are buzzing about this, these of course being the same people who'd never serve in a Trump administration.

Actually things didn't seem so dire at this Wall Street Journal piece, from early today, "Donald Trump Transition Team Planning First Months in Office: Donald Trump’s transition team has had smaller staff than previous Republican nominees":

In his first days in office, Mr. Trump has said, he plans to announce he will reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement, and will withdraw consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He plans to order his commerce secretary to identify, and then remedy, all foreign trade “abuses that unfairly impact American workers.” He plans to lift restrictions on tapping energy reserves, approve the Keystone XL pipeline and cancel billions in payments to United Nations climate-change programs.

The New York businessman has vowed to cancel President Obama’s promise to protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, and start deporting as many as two million undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration “will focus on three to five structural reforms from day one, including controlling the southern border,” Mr. Gingrich said. “It will almost certainly include very dramatic civil-service reform to allow us to fire people who are incompetent or corrupt or breaking the law.”

Several of Mr. Trump’s early initiatives could likely be accomplished through executive orders and regulatory changes, which would make it easy for him to execute because he can bypass Congress. But he could also seek congressional input to foster a better relationship with lawmakers, and his senior staff will have to decide soon on what agenda to set.

Also:

The Trump transition team is working on two floors of an office tower about a block from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. The team working on appointments meets on the eighth floor.The group includes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the transition chairman; Rich Bagger, a former New Jersey state senator who was formerly Mr. Christie’s staff chief and is executive director of the transition; and former Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, the transition team’s principal domestic policy adviser.

On the seventh floor are offices of The five main policy teams are being overseen by Ron Nicol, a former Navy officer and longtimeadviser to the Boston Consulting Group. The economics team is headed by William Walton, the head of a private-equity firm, and David Malpass, who was chief economist at Bear Stearns and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York in 2010.

The national security team is headed by former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.). Retired Army Lt. Gen. J. Keith Kellogg heads the defense team, while former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is in charge of domestic issues. The management and budget team is headed by Ed Meese, who served as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, and Kay Coles James, who served in both Bush administrations.

A sixth team, run by Ado Machida, a former domestic policy aide to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, is devoted to reviewing President Barack Obama’s executive actions, as well as regulation overhauls and immigration. The immigration team is made up of staffers with ties to Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who has long called for tougher immigration laws, and includes a unit dedicated to figuring out how to build Mr. Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border...

Ed Meese! The dude's still hangin'!

And see, "Trump’s Transition Team Works to Form Cabinet: Jeb Hensarling, a foe of financial regulation is floated as a candidate for powerful Treasury secretary role, as process heats up."

Van Jones Discusses 'Whitelash' (VIDEO)

Leftists have lost their minds, and that's no joke.

Following-up from this morning, "Van Jones Not Taking It Well: "This was a white lash..." (VIDEO)."

Jones had to explain his comments, with the assumption (naturally) that racism and bigotry only inflict Republicans:

Emmy Rossum in New Episode of 'Shameless'

Here's some lovely Emmy Rossum to take your mind off the election fallout for a few minutes.

At WWTDD, "Emmy Rossum Still Doing Topless in 'Shameless'":

Quite under the radar, Emmy Rossum has bared her tits in sex scenes in Shameless now every single season of the long running show. This is in itself doesn't seem like much of an accomplshment until you imagine all the breathless People articles about Jennifer Aniston being super brave for being topless in her next film only to have that footage never exist or end up on the cutting room floor by order of Aniston. Very few successful actresses in Hollywood will allow themselves to be in recurring topless roles. Certainly not once they have the advantage of being leads in successful long running series giving them quite a bit of leverage...

Keep reading.

Crystal Ball's Mea Culpa (VIDEO)

Following-up from Tuesday morning, "Crystal Ball's Final Projection: Clinton 322, Trump 216."

Larry Sabato and Co. screwed up big time, totally botching their election projections.

The good professor appeared on Fox & Friends yesterday morning, confessing that "we blew it."

Watch, "Donald Trump Elected President - Larry Sabato on Polls: We Were Wrong - Fox & Friends."

And at Crystal Ball, "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa":

We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win. We didn’t believe it, and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball is shattered. We’ll pick up the pieces starting next week as we try to unpack what happened in this election, where there was so much dramatic change from just four years ago.

We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself, and we apologize to our readers for our errors.

I'm interested in this "hidden Trump vote," which leftist outlets pooh poohed. But there must have been one, since Trump ran the table, against almost all the poll predictions.

But see my yesterday entry, "How Could the Polling Be So Wrong?"

Two Americas

At LAT, "Clinton and Trump supporters come from two Americas":

Samantha Miller, a 47-year-old paralegal, stood in the back of a rally in Virginia Beach last month, worried that America had become preoccupied with going “to third-world countries” to fight wars and aid others and needed to “take care of ourself” first.

“No one is here to help us,” she said.

Trump seized on that anxiety with nostalgia for a version of a post-World War II America, when overseas victories and the path to economic security for working-class whites were more clear-cut than they are in a modern world, with messy foreign clashes and fewer paths to economic prosperity for those without a college education.

He said repeatedly that his election represented a “last chance” to reclaim past greatness, and declared in his acceptance speech: “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

RTWT.

Van Jones Not Taking It Well: "This was a white lash..." (VIDEO)

From CNN's election night coverage, a Van Jones meltdown:



Also, at AoSHQ, "Early Night For Me."

Here's Why Trump Won

A great post from AoSHQ, "One Anecdote That Helps Explain the 'Rage' Our Liberal Masters Don't Understand."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Congratulates Donald Trump

I love Netanyahu.

And I love Donald Trump.

It's morning in America.

President-elect Trump, my friend: Congratulations on being elected President of the United States of America. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/mGqS8cYpws

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) November 9, 2016

Tania Gail Rocks the Vote!

Heh.

On Twitter:

I voted! #Feelthebern pic.twitter.com/FB7mBQAhGC

— Tania Gail (@TaniaGailPhotos) November 8, 2016

Protesting Democracy

At Instapundit:

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Virginia University Offers ‘Healing Space’ for Distraught #NeverTrump Students.

Related: “This chick’s unbelievable meltdown because Trump won is a perfect capper on the day’s election blogs.”

More.

Earlier: "From New York to Seattle: Protests Across the U.S. (VIDEO)."

Young Progressives Shocked to Find Out That Old White People Vote Republican

Heh.

See the inimitable Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "Exit Polls: Hillary Clinton Defeated by Homophobic White Racist Patriarchy."

How Donald Trump Put Together Such a Strong Showing

At LAT:

The polls, prediction markets and political experts all counted on a win for Hillary Clinton, whether they simply acknowledged Democrats’ many paths to the White House or predicted a sweeping victory that would shift the electoral map.

Donald Trump and the thousands of people at his rallies were just as certain those same experts — the very establishment they were running against — were all wrong.

There was too much appetite for change, Trump and his supporters said. Clinton, in public life for four decades, was too polarizing to capture a divided nation by acclamation, they insisted. The media had become too disconnected to detect the signals, they warned.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign,” Trump said in accepting victory early Wednesday after Clinton called to concede, “but rather an incredible and great movement.”

The nature of the race may have come as a surprise to political analysts from both parties, but the signs were there all along. Trump’s defiance of political convention began on the the day he announced his presidential campaign and never stopped.

Trump spoke often of the June referendum in Britain, where a majority voted to leave the European Union. “Brexit times five!” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania. But while a popular notion has taken hold that the polls did not predict that vote, that is not true; several predicted the outcome but were ignored by the betting markets and pundits who played up their preferred outcome.

The similarities were clear. Both movements were fueled by working-class whites, who felt left behind amid cultural and economic changes.

Experts warned of dire consequences, to the economy and to national standing, if voters in Britain chose to leave Europe or voters in the U.S. chose Trump. The same experts were sure that voters would follow their lead.

Yet these voters scoffed at those elites as they raged against globalization and immigration, deciding it was worth the gamble to disrupt a system they saw as corrupt.

“He has stood up for the people that don’t have a say,” said Tammy Tavalsky, a 50-year-old who owns a printing company with her husband and attended an especially raucous rally in Johnstown, Pa...

More.

From New York to Seattle: Protests Across the U.S. (VIDEO)

Los Angeles too.

At LAT, "Trump win sparks student walkouts and angry protests across California."

And at BuzzFeed, "Protests Spark In US Cities After Shocking Trump Victory."

More, at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "5 wounded, 1 critically, in downtown Seattle shooting."

Donald Trump's 'Fascist Win'

Following-up, "David Remnick: 'An American Tragedy'."

Here's another leftist screed, from Sarah Kendzior, at Toronto's Globe and Mail, "A fascist’s win, America’s moral loss":

For over a year, after it became clear to me that Donald Trump had a real chance at victory, I have lived life in retrospect. “Be thankful for the present,” I tweeted on Nov. 26, 2015. “We may spend next Thanksgiving in a post-Trump victory. Be thankful for the present, and fight the future.”

As his popularity rose, and his threats became more inflammatory, his policies more alarming, I warned that he could really win. I warned of the hardship in my part of the country – an economic pain, it should be noted, that is not unique to whites, but shared by non-whites who still managed to not vote for a fascist. I warned that most of the U.S. never truly recovered from the recession, and that the denial of this reality can lead to the embrace of a populist demagogue who lies about numbers in a way that feels true. I warned, and eventually begged, a financially desperate and morally bankrupt media to stop promoting Mr. Trump, stop cowering to Mr. Trump, and protect the public from his persecutory plans.

I begged because the hardest hit will be those who are already the most vulnerable – blacks, Latinos, Muslims, immigrants. I begged because the historic victims of brutality are likely to become the future victims of an even worse brutality, one abetted not by a white supremacist movement lurking in the shadows, but dominating at centre stage.

I asked people to see the worst in our country so that we could preserve the best of it. American exceptionalism was never real. It was a myth of hubris, and a deep denial of the past. We are a country founded on slave labour and stolen land. We are a country where white mobs lynched blacks for entertainment, and white parents told their children to gather around and cheer.

Children are taught in school that these injustices are exceptions, but they are the rule. The willful blindness to injustice is the real American exceptionalism. We deny our worst instincts. And now we may have elected them.

The sheer number of Americans who voted for a cruel, vengeful bigot who has repeatedly threatened masses of the population means that we, as a country, have lost. When he is president, the depths of that loss will be counted in money and in bodies, as markets crash and violence – sanctioned and unsanctioned – erupts.

But the moral loss cuts deeper. In every tragedy there is a before and an after, and we have been living in the after since Mr. Trump launched his campaign with threats against Mexicans and people rationalized it or laughed it off. His campaign should have ended when it began, but instead the media made his bigotry lucrative, with every revelation of his corruption, brutality and ignorance marketed as tabloid fodder, condoned by the Republican party and by much of the public.

I warned that his behaviour resembled that of the dictators in authoritarian regimes that I have studied for over a decade. I wrote that the motto of dictatorship is, “It can’t happen here.”

It can happen here. So I began living life in retrospect, treasuring small moments: the last Christmas, the last first day of school, the last changing of the seasons. It felt fragile then, and it feels broken now...

More.

At this point it's like an apocalyptic pathology. It's just an election. There'll be another one in four years. Get ready for it. Mobilize. Protest. Do whatever. The world's not coming to an end. It's not pleasant? Sure, I get it. How do you think the last 8 years have been? Start a blog like I did. Get active. But for crying out loud stop with the end-of-the-world whining.

Sheesh.

Donald Trump's Mandate for Change

CNN's awesome exit polling showed that 83 percent thought Donald Trump was the candidate most likely to "bring change."

And political scientists, Larry Sabato in particular, spoke about a possible Trump victory signaling the electorate's demands for change --- and thus, 2016 was a change election.

See the Wall Street Journal for more on that, "Donald Trump Captured Desire for Change":

Donald Trump Captured Desire for Change https://t.co/zxD8cMjaEv #MAGA #TrumpTrain #Election2016 #ElectionNight

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 9, 2016

Win or lose, this was always going to be the campaign of Donald Trump, candidate, strategist and sole star.

He ran a campaign that was frequently unscripted, controversial and off-message. It was a style that shocked the establishment and appalled many in his own Republican party. Yet, it endeared him to millions of fiercely loyal followers, and they turned out with passion.

That’s because the billionaire businessman, with his brash talk and celebrity zeitgeist, tapped into a yearning for change among a significant swath of the American public. That change message was the most powerful force of 2016.

The Republican nominee, in an interview in the final hours before election day, said he was most gratified that his message of change resonated across the country. “Nobody understood the message but me. The elites never got it,” Mr. Trump said. “The American public did.”

His populist campaign overwhelmed his Republican foes and finally his more experienced and better-funded Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. The self-styled “outsider” who challenged the political establishment and mainstream media will take over a deeply divided country that he brought into sharp contrast in his successful bid for the White House.

“I’m going to celebrate for about an hour,” Mr. Trump said in the interview ahead of the vote. “Then I’ll get up Wednesday morning and start working so hard immediately. Saving the United States is so important.”

Even though Mr. Trump proved to be a flawed messenger who often spent long stretches on defense talking about himself, his message consistently hit his change mantra.

“Donald had the right message and the unique ability to drive that message to the average American,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, an early Trump supporter. “His ups and downs came because he wasn’t the normal smooth politician, but he stayed the course to become a better candidate who looked more presidential every day.”

In winning the presidency, Mr. Trump imposes a significant makeover of the Republican party into more of a populist, America-first bastion. As the GOP standard-bearer, he was a kind of one-man wrecking ball whose positions on immigration, trade and keeping jobs at home prevailed over the party’s historic emphasis on social conservatism, free markets and small government.

Mr. Trump, in the interview, said the GOP should accept his policy changes and his new Republican converts. “We’ve brought millions and millions of people into the party…the forgotten men and women of America, who really built the country in a true sense,” he said.

From start to its finish, Mr. Trump seldom mentioned the word “Republican.” Indeed, his GOP challengers during the primaries attempted to paint him as a Democrat in Republican clothing. Mr. Trump preferred to characterize his campaign another way: “This is a movement, folks, like they’ve never seen before,” he repeatedly told crowds.

At the same time, his closest advisers weren’t traditional Republicans. Stephen Bannon, who took a leave as the chairman of Breitbart News to join the campaign as chief executive in August, is an arch conservative who made films about the rise of the tea party and advised Sarah Palin. He urged the candidate to give full voice to the populist and nationalist message that appeals to his base.

Jared Kushner, a successful real-estate developer, is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka. They are fixtures on Manhattan’s mostly liberal social scene. He quietly set up key headquarters functions including social media, data, scheduling, policy and online fundraising. He served as the intermediary in dealings with GOP factions including the Republican National Committee, wealthy donors and foreign leaders.

As the race tightened in the campaign’s final days, Mr. Trump finally appealed to more traditional Republicans by sticking to his prepared remarks on a teleprompter on the GOP favorite topics of Obamacare and Clinton corruption. He succeeded in “bringing home” some GOP lawmakers to support him publicly, even as some, including former presidents and some rivals, refused to unify behind him...

Still more.

Italian Model Claudia Romani Gets Political on Election Day

Well, practically the whole world is against Donald Trump, so throwing in a bodacious Italian bikini model can't do too much more damage, heh.

At WWTDD, "Foreign Models Call the Election":

There are no more prescient pollsters in this world than hungry vaguely international models. They can read the prevailing winds like Frank Luntz with a magical vagina. Does that dude have real money or is that Lambo rented? Will ten thousand drachma pay my rent? Why is there no exchange rate for former European Union currencies?

My beautiful #dumptrump outfits collection 😂😂😂💃💃💃 pic.twitter.com/KSAKMm8fUj

— Claudia Romani (@ClaudiaRomani) November 8, 2016

David Remnick: 'An American Tragedy'

I've been reading leftist responses to Donald Trump's "stunning" election triumph last night ("stunning" is by far the most frequently used adjective describing the results). I even tweeted earlier:

Did conservatives look this downcast and depressed after Obama's victories? It looks like mass death on the left today, everywhere. #MAGA

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 9, 2016

I'm still taking it all in, but David Remnick's piece, at the New Yorker, is so over-the-top you'd think we're facing the biblical apocalypse (but then, Trump is the apocalypse for the revolting progs, which makes his election that much more satisfying).

Here's the first couple of paragraphs, but read the whole thing (via Memeorandum):

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. The African-American Other. The Hispanic Other. The female Other. The Jewish and Muslim Other. The most hopeful way to look at this grievous event—and it’s a stretch—is that this election and the years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve...

Donald Trump's Victory Speech (VIDEO)

Here's Donald Trump from last night, his remarks of which I stayed up to watch.

I'll post Hillary's concession speech this afternoon. It's on right now, live, as this post goes up.

A Postmortem for Identity Politics

From Michelle Malkin, at Conservative Review:

My obituary for Obama left-wing identity politics -- & a tribute to Trump's DIVERSE coalition==>https://t.co/WJQwDiU8Lq

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) November 9, 2016

Hit Hard: Rachel Maddow and MSNBC

I briefly flipped over to MSNBC, but it was too freakin' boring.

And CNN had John King doing the magic wall all night, with the micro-analyses of the county-level results. Also not my cup of tea.

Frankly, Fox News was very refreshing. I even enjoyed Karl Rove. And Megyn Kelly was magnanimous, even appearing to kiss up to Donald Trump.

What a night.

In any case, at Twitchy, "MELTDOWN of the night: Rachel Maddow is losing it as Trump wins Ohio, N.C. and it’s hilarious; Update."

I'm speechless #ElectionNight https://t.co/UANsIHoNKK

— FREDDY (@FreddyAmazin) November 9, 2016

Leftists Absolutely Crushed at Donald Trump's Election Victory

Crestfallen. Crushed. Emotionally devastated.

How else can you describe leftists, other than delectable, heh?

At the Los Angeles Times, and below at Twitchy:

"When reality sets in." What a piece by @mattdpearce. https://t.co/14zoqt9ww5 pic.twitter.com/TQ1k59wpnx

— Laura J. Nelson (@laura_nelson) November 9, 2016

SCHADENFREUDE: Check out these pitiful photos, video of supporters at Hillary Clinton Headquarters https://t.co/p8OOxHzqiX

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 9, 2016

Hillary Clinton supporters are crying at Clinton Headquarters #ElectionNight #Election2016 pic.twitter.com/HxdMuJGMTE

— An0maly (@An0malyMusic) November 9, 2016

Today's Front Page at the Los Angeles Times

I'll be absorbing the news all day, looking for the best stories to post to the blog.

Thanks for reading.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump wins presidency in stunning upset, vows America will 'no longer settle for anything less than the best'."

The front page of tomorrow's Los Angeles Times. pic.twitter.com/Ma9lemwqya

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) November 9, 2016

Morning in America

It really feels like it.

From lamblock, on Twitter:

It's morning again in America.

— #JeSuisJuive (@lamblock) November 9, 2016

A Nation Divided: Rage and Suspicion Reign as Americans, Painfully Split, Cast Their Votes

Well, I can't disagree about a nation divided.

I'm just cracking up now that the shoe's on the other foot, so to speak.

Progs told us to get in line once Obama was elected. You were racist if you opposed him. You were un-American.

Maybe all these leftists will move to Canada after all.

At the New York Times.

How Could the Polling Be So Wrong?

Folks, I'm still absorbing this stunning repudiation of the progressive establishment, and honestly, I believed the polling predicting a Clinton victory last night in the Electoral College.

So, I have as many questions as anyone else.

Look for a lot of blogging on that over these next few days.

Meanwhile, at Politico:

How could the polling be so wrong? https://t.co/U3CHmtklo5 | Getty pic.twitter.com/lFhzDZ7LS1

— POLITICO (@politico) November 9, 2016

Theodore White's 'Making of the President' Series

I took my first political science class in 1986.

The professor, Mr. McDonald at Saddleback College, was into the old machine-style urban politics of the turn of the 20th century. I remember him talking about that all the time. I also remember him giving us a reading assignment for the semester, where we had to read two books of political journalism and write reports.

I read Theodore H. White's, The Making of the President, 1960, and Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon.

In his presidential election series, White also wrote The Making of the President, 1964, The Making of the President, 1968, and The Making of the President, 1972.

Breach of Faith is out of print, but all the books in the president's series are available. They're unsurpassed in presidential election journalism, and given the nostalgia of the 2016 election, I'm sure some of my readers might enjoy Teddy White.

I haven't read Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes: The Way to the White House. It's been on my list for a while. From what I hear it's a magisterial tome in the style of the Teddy White series.

In any case, more blogging tonight. I should be home sometime after 5:00pm.

Have a wonderful day.

Crystal Ball's Final Projection: Clinton 322, Trump 216

At Sabato's Crystal Ball, "Our Final 2016 Picks: Clinton 322, Trump 216; 50-50 Senate; GOP holds House":

The Crystal Ball's final presidential map. Toughest calls were FL, NC, OH. Clinton 322, Trump 216. https://t.co/KW5wKGQ9nn pic.twitter.com/I5Ez48RG04

— Geoffrey Skelley (@geoffreyvs) November 7, 2016

Despite some wobbles along the way, we’ve favored Hillary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States ever since we did our first handicapping of the Clinton vs. Donald Trump matchup back in late March. The edge we had for her back then has eroded a little bit at the end — we had her as high as 352 electoral votes, and in the final tally we have her down to 322, with 216 for Trump. If this is how it turns out, Trump will fare 10 electoral votes better than Mitt Romney, and Clinton will do 10 electoral votes worse than Barack Obama in 2012 — 11 or 12 if rogue Washington electors follow through on their threat to refuse to vote for Clinton (but we can’t assume that at this time).

The two closest states here are North Carolina and Ohio. For a long time, it appeared that Florida was a shakier state for Clinton than the Tar Heel State, but our sources indicate that the Sunshine State looks somewhat brighter for her now, although both should be tight. Meanwhile, Ohio may be a real Toss-up state. Buckeye history and demography point to Trump, but Clinton’s ground operation could come through for her in the end. If Ohio does vote for Trump while he is losing the White House, it will be just the third time in 31 elections that Ohio will have voted for the loser. We’re picking that to happen, but if Clinton gets any benefit out of James Comey’s final (?) intervention into campaign 2016, it may be that it generates a tiny bounce that allows her to leapfrog Trump in the Buckeye State. Arizona and Iowa seem like heavier lifts for Clinton but her campaign still holds out hope in both. Ultimately, we think North Carolina and Ohio are the hardest calls in the Electoral College, so we think it makes the most sense to just split them.

The buzz in the final days has been about a late Trump play in Michigan. He will likely eat into traditional Democratic margins there, but remember that Barack Obama won the state by nearly 10 points in 2012 (450,000 votes). Trump’s climb there is steep, but out of an abundance of caution we’re moving the state from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. We’re doing the same thing in New Hampshire, where some polls were close last week (although many operatives do not believe the state is tied), and Pennsylvania, two states (like Michigan) that have very little early voting. Clinton is focusing on these states at the end, too, and with good reason. If Trump pulls an upset, it’ll probably be because he narrowly fought off Clinton in Florida and North Carolina and managed to spring a shocker or two in the Rust Belt.

Florida may tell us a lot about whether we’re going to have a long night or a short one. About two-thirds of voters will likely have cast their ballots early, so the vote count should not take that long. If Clinton wins the state by two or three points and is declared the victor early on, it’ll be hard to find a plausible path to Trump victory. If Trump captures the state, though, then we’ll have to see if her firewall states, like the aforementioned states of Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, as well as Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, come through for her.

In the prognostication business, what you predict at the end — when the drift of the year is usually fairly clear — is less significant than what you predict months before, at a time when the future is foggy. Starting in March, we have released a total of 17 Electoral College maps in the Clinton-Trump race. Not even on Clinton’s worst campaign days did we ever have her below 270 electoral votes...

Keep reading for the rest of the picks.

They're really good over there at Crystal Ball, and frankly I've been looking at the final polls this week and it all seems just too tight for Trump. I'm going to be sad, but I don't think he's going to pull it out.

But, we won't know until the people cast their ballots, so check back tonight.

PREVIOUSLY: "Donald Trump’s Narrow Path."

Democratic Socialism is Still Socialism

It's the hilarious Steven Crowder, for Prager University:

The 'Unskewed Polls' of 2016

We've seen this movie before.

Back in 2012, a bunch of conservatives became fixated on some obscure website called "Unskewed Polls," which adjusted that year's election polling correcting for partisan composition, and so forth.

The results were spectacularly wrong. That is, most of the polling in 2012 was accurate. Indeed, Gallup quit doing presidential horse race polling this year because it botched its surveys four years ago, especially its prediction of Romney winning the popular vote.

I'm not going down that rabbit hole again.

I've already scheduled a post for tomorrow morning, linking Sabato's Crystal Ball, which has Hillary Clinton winning with 322 electors. Perhaps she won't do that well. It's just that based on current polling, Donald Trump falls well short of the 270 electors needed to pull off an upset.

He'd need to win Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Ohio to get 269, according to the Wall Street Journal. He'd need to pick up one more state to go over the top, perhaps Colorado.

 We'll see, in any case.

Meanwhile, here's this year's "Unskewed Polls," at Gateway Pundit (don't get too excited).

See, "Here’s Why THE POLLS ARE WRONG=> Trump Will WIN IN A LANDSLIDE! (POLLS)."




I'd love for tomorrow map to turn out like this, although I'm realistic.

I mean, c'mon, they've even got Trump winning the Keystone State. I'm just a wee bit skeptical.

Donald Trump’s Narrow Path

I really don't see an Electoral College path, but that's me.

He's going to need to sweep up all the states Mitt Romney won in 2012, and then take back a few that Obama won, like Iowa and Colorado, not to mention Florida and Ohio.

At WSJ, "Donald Trump’s Path to Victory Is Narrow":

PHILADELPHIA — After months of campaigning, the presidential race has come down to this: Democrat Hillary Clinton has several apparent paths to the White House, while Republican Donald Trump must all-but sweep the battlegrounds where the race has centered, and will likely need at least one Democratic-leaning state, too.

For Mrs. Clinton, victory would require her winning one or two of the most contested states, if she can hold on to those that have long favored Democratic nominees. Mr. Trump has said he has a shot at those Democratic-leaning states, which include Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico. Yet polls in each show Mrs. Clinton ahead.

Nationally, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sunday found Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump by 4 points among likely voters as the two nominees head into their final day of campaigning before Tuesday’s election.

For Mr. Trump to win, he must finish ahead of Mrs. Clinton in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio and, in most calculations, North Carolina, analysts from both parties said. His path to victory, far narrower than Mrs. Clinton’s, also likely requires a win in at least one state that has long been in the Democratic column.

“He has to run the table,” said Russ Schriefer, a strategist for Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.

Mr. Trump’s chances are dim unless he can wrest away a state such as Michigan or Pennsylvania, where he campaigned Sunday, places that haven’t voted Republican in presidential races since 1988. Looking to shore up Mrs. Clinton’s base, her campaign added stops in both states Monday and began TV ads in Michigan, where polls have shown the race tightening.

Mr. Trump on Sunday followed a campaign schedule that outlined a possible path to victory—cutting through Midwestern and mid-Atlantic states, regions rich in the working-class, white voters who help form his base of support. He campaigned in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania, each of which has a largely white voter pool that could boost his chances.

He also appeared in Virginia, a state where the Clinton campaign is so confident that Mrs. Clinton last campaigned there in July.

Democrats begin with an advantage in the hunt for the 270 Electoral College votes required to win. In every election since 2000, they have won states that account for 242 electoral votes; Republicans have won states that total 179 in the same period. The GOP, however, gets to a starting tally of 190 by adding Indiana, which backed Barack Obama in 2008 but has since shifted reliably Republican.

“The map naturally has a blue tilt to it simply because there’s a history of these states voting Democratic,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican strategist and pollster. “Simply because of that, she starts on our 40-yard line.”

Mr. Trump is testing the proposition that a Republican can win with an economic message in the industrial Midwest, where states remain largely white.

“We’re going into what they used to call Democrat strongholds where we’re now either tied or ahead,” Mr. Trump said at a rally Saturday. “We’re doing well in places that they don’t believe.”

Beyond his Midwest strategy, Mr. Trump could also win by carrying a large set of battleground states where polls show him within striking distance or ahead: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. That combination of victories would produce a 269-269 Electoral College tie...

Well, that's all we need, an Electoral College tie. The election would go to the House, where Trump would likely win. Talk about Democrats blowing through the roof. It'll be worse than 2000.

But keep reading.

Rhian Sugden Frolicking on the Beach

She's so sweet.

At Page 3, "Rhian Sugden pours curves into gorgeous red bikini for birthday beach holiday: The glamour model celebrated her 30th birthday with fiance Oliver Mellor."

Can you guess which of our #Page3 princesses we spotted frolicking on the beach? https://t.co/NULv6uwvUz pic.twitter.com/GTT08a9Y4g

— Page 3 (@Page3) November 7, 2016

Top Products: Bose QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones, Black

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Deal of the Day: The Hunger Games: Complete 4 Film Collection (Blu-ray and Digital HD)

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BONUS: Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes: The Way to the White House. Also, Theodore White, The Making of the President 1960.

In the Sunset of the Baby Boomers' Generation, Election Reawakens an Old Divide

I'm a boomer, born on the tail end of the generation, in the early 1960s.

At the New York Times:

8 years after Obama lamented "psychodrama of the baby boom generation" & 12 years after litigating Bush, Kerry, Nam!https://t.co/U4ZrD0vpWO

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) November 7, 2016

They came of age in the 1960s and ’70s, in the traumatic aftermath of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They fought and protested a war together, argued over Nixon and Kissinger together, laughed at Archie Bunker together. As children, they practiced air-raid drills; as adults, they cheered the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the 1990s, they saw one of their own become president, watching him gain glory as one of the most gifted politicians of his time, but also infamy as one of its most self-indulgent — a poster child for the Me Generation.

They are of course the baby boomers, the collective offspring of the most fertile period in American history. At 75 million strong, they have been the most dominant force in American life for three decades, and one of its most maligned. Enlightened but self-centered, introspective but reckless, they are known among the cohorts that followed them — and even to some boomers themselves — as the generation that failed to live up to its lofty ideals, but still held fast to its sense of superiority.

If Bill Clinton was their white-haired id, Hillary Clinton is their superego in a pantsuit. A second Clinton presidency could represent a last hurrah for the baby boomers. But it could also offer a shot at a kind of generational redemption.

“There is a kind of do-over quality to it,” said Landon Y. Jones, the author of the 1980 book “Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation.” “This is their last chance to get it right.”

A shared history binds the boomers — as do, broadly speaking, some shared traits. Their parents suffered through the Depression and World War II before rearing them in the most prosperous society the world had ever seen. Inevitably, perhaps, they were guided by two polestars: responsibility and entitlement.

Those dueling impulses powered the rise of both Clintons: one impulse galvanizing supporters who deeply admired their commitment to public service, the other galling critics who saw them as playing by their own rules...

Well, if the Clintons are going to be representative of the boomers, I think it's time to pass the baton.

Frankly, even Obama's a better representative, at least in terms of family values. He does seem like he's kept and raised a nice family, which is not true for the Clintons.

The Cyberwarfare Election

I was already thinking about this, as I was considering how I was going to analyze the 2016 election in my upcoming classes.

It's not just cyberwarfare as a political issue, but also a factor impinging directly on the campaigns, such as all the WikiLeaks revelations and accusations of Russian political influence.

In any case, the New York Times, "Under the Din of the Presidential Race Lies a Once and Future Threat: Cyberwarfare":

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The 2016 presidential race will be remembered for many ugly moments, but the most lasting historical marker may be one that neither voters nor American intelligence agencies saw coming: It is the first time that a foreign power has unleashed cyberweapons to disrupt, or perhaps influence, a United States election.

And there is a foreboding sense that, in elections to come, there is no turning back.

The steady drumbeat of allegations of Russian troublemaking — leaks from stolen emails and probes of election-system defenses — has continued through the campaign’s last days. These intrusions, current and former administration officials agree, will embolden other American adversaries, which have been given a vivid demonstration that, when used with some subtlety, their growing digital arsenals can be particularly damaging in the frenzy of a democratic election.

“Most of the biggest stories of this election cycle have had a cybercomponent to them — or the use of information warfare techniques that the Russians, in particular, honed over decades,” said David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of Foreign Policy, who has written two histories of the National Security Council. “From stolen emails, to WikiLeaks, to the hacking of the N.S.A.’s tools, and even the debate about how much of this the Russians are responsible for, it’s dominated in a way that we haven’t seen in any prior election.”

The magnitude of this shift has gone largely unrecognized in the cacophony of a campaign dominated by charges of groping and pay-for-play access. Yet the lessons have ranged from the intensely personal to the geostrategic...

Keep reading.

Why America Can't Make Up Its Mind Three Days Before the Election

From Salena Zito, at the New York Post:

I drove 2000 miles on the back roads-from Appalachia to the Rockies.
Meet the other America https://t.co/tgqSybd3uJ pic.twitter.com/WA75u99dZc

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) November 7, 2016

Deal of the Day: Char-Broil The Big Easy TRU-Infrared Oil-Less Turkey Fryer

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BONUS: Robert S. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War. (I'm still plugging away on this book, and it's worth it!)

Clinton, Trump in Dead Heat for Florida and Ohio, at CBS News Battleground Tracker (VIDEO)

It's Anthony Salvanto, who've I've come to like a lot, for Face the Nation:

Watch, "CBS News Battleground Tracker: Trump, Clinton in Dead Heat in Ohio, Florida."

On election night, it's a bad sign for the Democrats if Hillary's not ahead in states as the polls close. If they're too close to call, that's going to be a good sign for the Republicans.

I'll probably get home around 5:30pm or so, depending on whether there's a line at my polling place, and there's never been one this last few years. Hence, when I turn on the television, it's possible the networks could be projecting a Hillary Clinton electoral college victory. The nets pretty much called it for Obama by 6:00pm on the West Coast in 2012, and I was surprised, since everyone was talking about how it was going to be a long night.

Well, it's possible we'll have a long night this year, and I hope so.

More later.

J.D. Vance and Arlie Russell Hochschild Have Arrived

My books came yesterday.

Here, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, and Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

There's a combined review of the books at the New Republic, "Red-State Blues: Why do people support Trump and the Tea Party? A native son and a sociologist search for answers."

And thanks to everyone's who's been shopping through my Amazon links.

As you can see, I invest my associate's fees right back into more books!

Hillary Would Complete Obama's Fundamental Transformation of America

I've been saying this for a while.

From John Fonte, at the Claremont Review, "Transformers":

Four Years of Hillary

Hillary Clinton will consolidate and expand Obama’s “fundamental transformation.” America will see both an increase in power for the administrative state, which will breech the parchment barriers of the separation of powers and federalism, and the relentless advance of identity politics, which undermines our traditional civic morality centered on the concept of individual American citizenship.

Since we are perhaps the most litigious society in the world, any Clinton-Trump political comparison must consider how each will treat the interpretation and enforcement of the law. Besides appointments to a sharply divided Supreme Court, the next president will appoint scores of lower court judges and U.S. attorneys, the Attorney General, and lawyers in the Justice Department and throughout the federal agencies. There is every reason to expect that the Clinton Legal Behemoth will push the legal envelope with a vengeance on: Obamacare; climate change; green energy; guns; coal; international law; housing; education; immigration; gender, racial, ethnic, and linguistic disparities; and, of course, expanding the administrative state’s scope and power to the detriment of the separation of powers and federalism. One could well imagine a legal Blitzkrieg against political critics like Dinesh D’Souza, sheriffs who enforce immigration law like Joe Arpaio, climate skeptics, conservative activists, fossil-fuel industry executives, Christians, purveyors of alleged “hate speech,” and perceived enemies of social justice and ethnic/gender equity.

Hadley Arkes writes that Obama “has made a nullity of Congress and the separation of powers. And an administration of the Left will only confirm and entrench these changes.” Under Hillary Clinton, “We can expect a campaign to force religious schools to incorporate abortion in their medical plans and have outreach to LGBT groups. And we can expect new judges in the lower courts to support this war on the religious.”

Clinton’s immigration-integration-diversity agenda will create a new regime and, in many ways, a new people. She has promised even less enforcement than Obama, both at the border and in the interior. Word would get out, certainly in Central America, that any youth able to reach the US border can claim refugee status and then eventually bring his parents. Clinton has also promised to exceed Obama actions on executive amnesty. If she is temporarily blocked by the courts she will, after enough appointments, ultimately get the judges who will approve her actions.

In tandem with Clinton’s promise to increase Syrian refugees by over 500%, the Obama administration recently announced that it seeks to add a new ethnic-racial category to the U.S. Census: “Middle Eastern and North African people.” Doing so would provide “protected status” to many American Muslims, giving them affirmative action preferences and the legal privileges of a “marginalized” group. According to data from DHS there has been a 29% increase under Obama in green cards given to immigrants from Muslim majority nations.

Clinton has promised new “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation in her first 100 days. Republican Congressional leaders eager to “get things done,” not “appear obstructionist”, and “get immigration off the table” might well facilitate this goal by permitting a “conscience vote” in the House, where a unanimous Democratic minority will find enough Republicans to form a majority, and consideration under simple regular order in the Senate. A bill close to the Gang of Eight legislation would mean issuing about 13 million new green cards in Hillary’s first term to overwhelmingly low-skilled, non-English speaking immigrants … who will, of course, vote Democratic. This, in turn, will only accelerate ongoing family chain migration and continuing illegal immigration. As in the Gang of Eight bill, all enforcement provisions will be subject to waivers by Clinton’s DHS Secretary. (There were over 1,000 such waivers in the original Gang of Eight bill.) The massive importation of millions of new low-skilled, non-English speaking, immigrants, of course, cannot be reversed in the election of 2020.

Yet some Republicans seem more concerned about Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct decades ago than Clinton’s endorsement of “open borders” in a speech to foreign bankers on May 16, 2013. Most importantly, this deliberate policy of open borders and mass immigration will be accompanied by an official anti-assimilation policy as the new federal government “integration” strategy, inaugurated by Obama, urges new immigrants to maintain their native languages and cultures, instead of prioritizing English and assimilating into the American way of life...

Read the whole thing.

That piece is a keeper.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies." (It's not posted yet.)



Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup..."

Cartoon Credit: A.F. Branco, "See No Evil."

Hillary Clinton Seems Unfazed by Criticism of Alicia Machado

Pfft.

I ignored this controversy from a few weeks back, but Heat Street's running with an update, posting near-topless photos of this woman Alicia Machado.

Here, "Clinton's campaign seems unfazed by criticism of her surrogate Alicia Machado."

And at Egotastic!, "Alicia Machado Playboy Pictures for the Venezuelan In All of Us."

A political Rule 5, for the last weekend before election day.

What a year and a half it's been. Sheesh.

Feminist Jessica Valenti Knows How She's Gonna Vote

Heh.

On Twitter:

I know what finger I'm voting with! Thanks so much to Stephanie Tamez at @savedtattoo for the beautiful work. pic.twitter.com/KrG8yRgHlc

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) October 27, 2016

And ICYMI, see Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "Bad Habits: Cocaine and Feminism."

What Happens After Tuesday? The Mood is Bleak

From Cathleen Decker, at the Los Angeles Times, "What happens after Tuesday? Dismayed voters weigh in on the future of a divided nation":

The uncivil war of rhetoric and resentments is ending, but few have any idea how to bind the nation's wounds. https://t.co/Jqrc1RdvxC

— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) November 6, 2016

The presidential campaign eight years ago is forever wrapped in the soaring and optimistic Obama slogan: “Change we can believe in.” This one’s imagery is the detritus of FBI investigations, a candidate’s vulgarities, accusations of dishonesty, racial dog whistles, misogynist insults.

Any campaign belongs to its times, and this one fits squarely into a worldwide dislocation of the masses from the elites — those of governments, businesses, religions, media. In Great Britain, those sentiments led to the vote to leave the European Union. Here, it has helped to fuel Trump’s rise and limit Clinton’s success.

In an October tracking poll by SurveyMonkey, 50% of Americans said that the country was more divided now than ever before and that the splits would persist “far into the future.” Another 30% agreed that America was more divided than ever, but said the nation could knit itself together in the near future.

That left fewer than 1 in 5 people to assert that the country hadn’t actually sunk to its most divided state.

A cycle of distrust has bred pessimism, no matter the improving unemployment rate or other favorable statistics.

“Even when the news is good, people don’t trust it,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor and political scientist who has studied the national mood. The randomness of threatening events — whether economic collapse or terrorism —  also “makes people jittery,” he said.

That sense of pessimism and dislocation is particularly strong among America’s shrinking white majority.

“Whites are feeling like the earth is moving beneath their feet. Whether it’s an African American president or immigrants, they feel the meaning of America is changing for them,” he said. “And it’s heaped onto the other insecurities.”

All of that can be found in the campaign...

RTWT.

The Death of Elitism

From Salena Zito, at the Washington Examiner":

Somewhere off U.S. 62 between Sharon, Pa., and Masory, Ohio, a sign reads, "You had your chance, it's our turn now."

That homemade sign, located in the fault line of this election in the Mahoning Valley between Ohio and Pennsylvania, in all its simplicity found a way to capture the essence of this presidential cycle.

In fact, it offered more insight into the discord between the American electorate and the governing elite than any pundit has been able to explain, let alone comprehend.

In short, the biggest takeaway from this election no matter who wins is that we have witnessed the end of elitism.

And the power of elites to persuade us has evaporated.

The public no longer has faith in big banks or big companies or big government. People cannot trust the banks because they create sham accounts to meet sales targets, or trust technology companies because they make shoddy cell phone equipment that blows up in our hands only to be replaced with another shoddy phone that blows up in our hands.

And the governing class has failed us miserably, from wars in the Middle East that never end, to a healthcare bill that erodes our income to the politicization of the once trustworthy institutions of the Pentagon, NASA and the Justice Department.

To them, the system is genuinely rigged, and the divide between the Ivy League educated and the state or trade school educated, between the haves and the have-nots, has become so deep that there is no bridge long or sturdy enough to connect them.

It is that very thing that explains why so many Americans are attracted to the deeply flawed candidacy of Donald Trump...

Keep reading.

Paul Rahe: 'How I Might Be Wrong' in Attacking the Never Trumpers

At Ricochet, "How I Might Be Wrong."

He's had second thoughts in light of Trump's foreign policy, and he cites Jeremy Rabkin and John Yoo, at the Los Angeles Times, in August, "Filling Supreme Court vacancies isn't a good enough reason to vote for Trump."

Hat Tip: Instapundit.

Great 'Hacksaw Ridge' Review from David Edelstein

I've read at least three reviews of the movie, but Edelstein seems to cut closest to the essence.

At Vulture, "'Hacksaw Ridge' Is a Massive Achievement for Mel Gibson":

Say what you will about Mad Mel Gibson, he’s a driven, febrile artist, and there isn’t a second in his war film Hacksaw Ridge — not even the ones that should register as clichés — that doesn’t burn with his peculiar intensity. He has chosen exactly the right subject for himself. His hero is the Virginia-born Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), the first “conscientious objector” to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor based on lives he saved as a medic during the spring 1945 battle for Okinawa, one of the most hellish in the entire Pacific campaign. Doss had no problem with serving in the military. He longed to serve. But in insisting that, as a Seventh-day Adventist, he couldn’t carry a weapon, he flouted the central tenet of military cohesion: You protect your fellow soldiers and they protect you. He had to put himself in the middle of the inferno before the Army understood the nature of the protection he offered.

It’s the right subject for Gibson because violence is central to his work. The formula for the action films in which he starred was Make Mel Mad: hurt him, hurt his ­women, hurt his kids, and stand back. What’s clearer now is that violence — done by him and to him — is a form of self-obliteration. He is, for whatever reason, a man so brimming with self-disgust that he embraces violence as the straightest path to transcendence...

Keep reading. Also, "Mel Gibson's 'Hacksaw Ridge': Sadism and Pacifism Go to War (VIDEO)," and "Mel Gibson's a Different Person Now."

Donald Trump and the End of American Exceptionalism

Blah, blah, blah.

Here's yet another leftist screed warning about the dangers of Donald Trump and Trumpism. These screeds have been polluting the web with an increasing frequency this last few weeks. That's how frightened the political class has become.

From Jelani Cobb, at the New Yorker:

In the sixteen months since he declared his candidacy, Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign has elicited comparisons to those of George Wallace and Barry Goldwater, to the hallucinatory paranoia of Joseph McCarthy, to the fascist preoccupations of Charles Lindbergh, and to lesser lights of American demagoguery like Father Coughlin and the Know-Nothings of the nineteenth century.

The unifying theme among these figures, beyond their disdain for democracy, was their common residence in the loser’s aisle of American history. McCarthy’s conspiratorial manipulation of the public eventually earned him the enmity of both Republicans and Democrats and a vote in the Senate to censure him. Wallace carried just five states and garnered thirteen per cent of the popular vote. Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson by sixteen million popular votes, winning just fifty-two Electoral College votes to Johnson’s four hundred and eighty-six. Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 classic “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” charted the lunatic genealogy of fringe movements dating back to the early years of the Republic, but the more sanguine assessment of that lineage is that few of these movements—anti-Catholicism, anti-Freemasonry, or Know-Nothingism, for instance—managed to sustain themselves in the long term or to fully inhabit the political mainstream.

Goldwater is heralded as the father of modern conservatism, but he could occupy that niche only because successive generations of his heirs refined and streamlined his message, buffing away the elements that the public saw as extremist. The modern Republican Party staked its claim on conservatism, not on Goldwaterism.

All this points to yet another reason why Trump represents a unique danger in American politics. Trumpism does not seek simply to make a point and pass on its genes to more politically palatable heirs, nor is it readily apparent why he would need to settle for this. When George Will announced his departure from the G.O.P., last summer, he offered a modified version of Ronald Reagan’s quote about leaving the Democrats—“I didn’t leave the Party; the Party left me.” But a kind of converse narrative applies to Trump; he didn’t join the Republican Party so much as its most febrile elements joined him. Trump is partly a product of forces that the G.O.P. created by pandering to a base whose dilated pupils the Party mistook for gullibility, not abject, irrational fear that would send those voters scurrying to the nearest authoritarian savior they could find. The error was in thinking that this populace, mainlining Glenn Beck and Alex Jones theories and pondering how the Minutemen would have fought Sharia law, could be controlled. (For evidence to the contrary, the Party needed look no further than the premature political demise of Eric Cantor.) The old adage warns that one should beware of puppets that begin pulling their own strings.

In this light, Trump represents a kind of return to the old-time religion, a fundamentalism that rejects the effete nature of dog-whistle politics the way the religious right defined itself by rejecting the watery tenets of liberal Christianity. Implicit within dog-whistling is enough respect for democratic norms and those outside one’s base to speak to that base in terms that the mass populace can’t readily decipher. Here, plausible deniability is at least a recognition that there are people with interests different from one’s own and that their influence, if not their interests or humanity, warrants a certain degree of respect. Trump is doing the opposite of this. He is an exhorter in a midsummer tent revival: direct, literal, and speaking at a decibel that makes it impossible to misunderstand his intentions. The end result of Trump’s evangelism is that a xenophobic, racist, misogynistic, serially mendacious narcissist is poised to pull in somewhere north of fifty million votes in the midst of the most bitterly contentious election in modern American history. The easy analysis holds that Trump’s jihad against decency has wrecked the Republican Party, but the damage is far more extensive than this...

The main problem here is its incompleteness. Cobb completely omits the Democrat Party from any responsibility for the rise of Trumpism. But as anyone with half a brain knows, the radicalization of the Democrats since at least the Iraq war has unleashed ideological forces that just now seem to have spun out of control, mainly because Trump is unfiltered (in his professed disdain for political correctness, and so forth). Also, Cobb forgets that the culture itself has changed since the the days of both Goldwater and Reagan. Social media has only accelerated a coarsening of American life that's seeped into politics like a cancer. Trumpism won't go away because Obamism isn't going away. Polls show that partisans on both sides have increased in strength and there's precious little incentive to cooperate with the opponent. Fractured, polarized politics lets out the worst. If Cobb were honest he'd at least concede that forces across the ideological spectrum are responsible for where we are today, and his failure ---- along with those of his political class ---- will ensure that these same forces of a long shelf life.

But keep reading.

And see also, "Social Media Enables Prejudice to Slip Back Into the Mainstream."

Welcome to Friday's 'The Crap We Missed' Featuring Ariel Winter Braless

At the Superficial, "The Crap We Missed – Friday 11.4.16."

Hat Tip: Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

Social Media Enables Prejudice to Slip Back Into the Mainstream

Blah, blah, blah.

Everybody's prejudiced about something. It's human nature.

I mean, Hillary Clinton slammed Bernie Sanders' supporters as a "basket of losers," and I don't see leftists getting all uptight about that.

See? Prejudices.

But check Edward Luce, at FT, "The age of vitriol: Edward Luce on US politics and social media":

Age of vitriol. I talk to co-founder of alt-right, @RichardBSpencer & his antidotes - @juliaioffe and @LibyaLiberty https://t.co/3hJS28wGSS

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) November 4, 2016

I was first alerted to Richard B Spencer by a horrific Twitter post. The tweet in question showed the ubiquitous photo of a Syrian boy, face covered in blood and dust, with the tagline: “Hey, let’s start WWIII for this f***king kid!” Like most people who saw it, I was offended. That, of course, was the point. Unlike many of his peers, Spencer tweets under his real name. He then revels in the outrage.

Provocation is the goal of the so-called alt-right — the amorphous world of rightwing extremist groups that have thrived in the age of Donald Trump. Memes, such as the one of the Syrian boy, are their weapon. Notoriety is their oxygen. The past year or two have been a field day. “No matter what happens, I will be profoundly grateful to Trump for the rest of my life,” says Spencer.

After what seems like the worst-tempered US election ever, America will at last make its decision on Tuesday. History may look back on 2016 as the year when the US finally chose a woman to lead it, or when the postwar US-global order started to break up. Others will remember it as the election when a rank outsider — a reality-TV star, no less — stormed the citadel and changed the way the game was played.

For my part, having lived in America on and off since the end of the past century, this is the year when democracy’s sense of restraint seemed to vanish. The glue of mutual respect that is so vital to any free society came unstuck. People no longer bother trying to persuade each other. They simply shove their views — or the mere fact of their identity — in your face. Or else they just insult you. The more retweets the better.

For all its pluses, social media has drowned politics in vitriol. New technology has opened up a galaxy of thought once confined to libraries, but it has also enabled ancient prejudices to seep back into the mainstream — anti-Semitism, for example, and hatred of women. In the past few months, the Twitter hashtags #whitegenocide (the view that whites are endangered by multiculturalism) and #repealthe19th (the US constitution’s 19th amendment gave women the right to vote) have trended heavily.

Obnoxiousness has infected all sides of the spectrum but the right has learnt how to play the game better. Partly because it is rebelling against political correctness, it works with fewer boundaries, or none at all. The level of trust between electors and elected has been falling for years. In 2016 the electorate has begun to turn viciously on itself. Is this a blip or a permanent shift? The future of free society may depend on the answer. Democracy cannot prosper for long in a swamp of mutual dislike...

Dramatic much Mr. Luce?

There's more to life than social media. My solution to ugliness and rancor is the be nice. I say hello to everyone, especially at my school. I catch my students off guard when I remember their names and say hello to them outside on the walkways. They really like that, although most don't tell you because they're shy and often don't have many social skills, partially because they spend so much time staring down at an electronic screen.

A solution of course is to get people to interact with each, and to double-down and decency and respect. It's as simple as holding a door for someone, or letting someone pass in front of you (without cutting them off, which is something that happens to me a lot, and that's before social media came along; society's been coarsening for some time).

More at the link.

New WikiLeaks Podesta Emails Spark Accusations of Democrat Party Satanism

I saw some weird tweets earlier today with some strange pictures with a woman holding a bloody animal skull, featured alongside Hillary Clinton's "I'm with Her" logo. I didn't think much of it, other than it looked a little, er, unusual.

Well, now I see what the fuss was.

See the Guardian U.K., "Marina Abramović mention in Podesta emails sparks accusations of satanism."

Marina Abramović mention in Podesta emails sparks accusations of satanism https://t.co/dVndszCX0H

— Guardian US (@GuardianUS) November 4, 2016

Hmm, bizarre seems too mild here.

But see Katie Pavlich, at Town Hall, "No, John Podesta's Spirit Cooking Dinner Wasn't About Devil Worship":

Calm the hell down everyone, "Spirit Cooking" is name of a MoMA featured cookbook, not about Satan https://t.co/wQLNJ4z8Qz

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) November 4, 2016

@KatiePavlich The editor's note on this is one of my favorite things of the year. #deepregrets

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 4, 2016

Oh 2016. Thank goodness you'll soon be over.

The internet is in a panic today over an email published by Wikileaks and belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The email shows Podesta's brother, Tony Podesta, forwarding an email to John Podesta asking if he can come to a dinner. The dinner is described in the forwarded portion of the email, which is an email from artist Marina Abramovic to Tony Podesta expressing excitement over hosting a "Spirit Cooking" dinner at her home.

Because of the "Spirit Cooking" reference, a number of right-wing websites have rushed to condemn Podesta as a cult involved, blood sucking, hair eating devil worshipper. Twitter is ablaze with satanic images.

First off, we have no proof Podesta did or did not attend the dinner. Second, this dinner was about a "cookbook" and weird art, not devil worship.

Marina Abramovic is an artist (a strange, extreme artist) and published a "cookbook" called Spirit Cooking in 1996. The "cookbook" was featured at New York City's MoMa art museum. She was hosting a dinner at her home promoting the "cookbook" and invited the Podestas....

The dinner likely included a real dinner and Abramovic giving a presentation of her "art." Watch at your own risk here.

Abramovic is into "art" that involves bodily fluids, but that doesn't mean John Podesta is and again, there isn't proof he attended the dinner.

Everyone needs to calm down the hell down, pun intended.

This post has been updated with additional information for clarifying purposes. The "cookbook" is recipes of thoughts, not traditional food recipes. The author deeply regrets ever diving into this topic.