2016 Election « Black Man Thinkin'

America Finally Won An Election

Tags: 2016 Election, Donald Trump, Mainstream Media, Political Establishment, Trump Can't Win, Why Did Trump win?

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Published on: November 12, 2016

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdoLcdMJBUY[/youtube]
The nation was told not to expect this.

From the moment Americans found a 2016 presidential candidate through whom they could speak, they were called racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, or all of the above…

Oh, you thought those were representations of Donald Trump? You poor soul.

Virtually every event, good or bad, of Trump’s adult life appeared in one or more sections of the New York Times; in that more than four decades, the Times and other media outlets put no nasty labels on Trump. It wasn’t until this, his second presidential run – after multiple fits and starts, that the press determined to supplement his name with colorful adjectives, and it did not take long…

When the press and his opponents believed Trump unserious, he was merely an entertainer out of his depth. When he got off to an underwhelming start in the primaries, he was a joke, a flash in the pan. But when it became apparent that his popularity was durable, that it was not based on political party or ideology, and that the press did not control him, that’s when the nasty names came out.

Trump did not carry the press’ and political elites’ well-massaged messages – biased special interest concerns, backed by deceptive opinion polling – to Americans; he brought an uncompromising and politically incorrect American message to them. He spoke to the despised press and the detested political elites the way many Americans speak of them in their homes or with friends. Consequently, their response to Trump’s open abuse of them – the condescension, the name-calling – was not directed at Trump; it came through Trump…aimed at the American people.

They were dissin’ Trump, but they were gunnin’ for you.

The press’ and the political establishment’s prolonged thermonuclear attack on Donald Trump was enough to make Hiroshima look like a bottle-rocket, yet it was not enough to separate the American people – you – from supporting someone who spoke, not as a Democrat or a Republican, not as a liberal or a conservative, and neither as a special interest group advocate, but as an American man giving voice to what Americans have consistently throughout the Obama years, and even longer: “the country is on the wrong track – and you guys in the press and in D.C. won’t tell the truth about why and, more importantly, won’t do a thing about what we know is wrong.”

Americans knew sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants were wrong-headed since Los Angeles implemented Special Order 40 in 1979, forbidding its police department from seeking to determine anyone’s immigration status, or arresting or booking anyone for violations of U.S. immigration law. Despite that knowledge, the number of U.S. sanctuary cities grew to more than 300, illegal immigrants became more and disproportionately criminal, press reporting sympathized with the “plight” of alien criminals than with their citizen victims, and the American government refused to act on behalf of the American people.

Americans knew the “giant sucking sound” of which Ross Perot spoke, during the 1992 presidential campaign, became a painful reality after Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law the following year. They knew of the manufacturing jobs that had left the country. And they knew the Trans Pacific Partnership would make matters worse. Despite this, the mainstream press said little about the deal, and Barack Obama praised the agreement, despite strong trade union opposition.

Americans knew race relations were not how the black and brown race-baiters portrayed them; after all, a racist country could not elect, and then RE-ELECT, elect Barack Obama. In fact, Obama received most of his votes – both times – from whites. Despite that, America learned that Obama and his wife harbor racial animosity. They learned that only #BlackLivesMatter, and that to say otherwise, was a societal and political sin. In spite of this emotional bullying, Americans also recognized that black self-genocide – in U.S. streets and at abortion “clinics” – occurs at rates that make the efforts Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis – COMBINED – almost forgettable.

Americans know the U.S. financial and economic outlook is horrific. They know the national debt has doubled since Obama took office, but some in the press deceitfully say Obama has cut the national debt. Americans know that more than 100 million working-age Americans do not have jobs, but some in the press parrot the administration’s deceptive messages on unemployment without scrutinizing the numbers. They know that the economy has not grown even 3% per year in the last decade, an unprecedented occurrence in American history, yet members of the press repeated Obama’s claims of a strong economy and record growth. Americans know the record stock market levels do not indicate economic strength. Nevertheless, media members were all too pleased to tout market price levels to the millions receiving no benefit from rising financial markets.

Americans know that Obamacare is a trainwreck within a grease fire. They know Obama lied about the ability to keeping your current doctor and health insurance plan, about family health insurance cost savings. They know claims that Obamacare helps the economy are false. Yet, the press continues to tout the benefits for the few, at the expense of the many.

Political elites and the press spent the 2016 campaign, and the entire Obama administration, telling Americans that opposing the progressive agenda of Obama and the left was “deplorable” behavior, then offering a left-handed apology for a right-handed pimp slap. They told Americans that any unwillingness to accept (illegal) immigrants is hateful; that reluctance to embrace North African refugees is Islamophobia, even though Muslim terrorists travel with them, wreaking havoc throughout Western Europe; that rejecting black hypocrisy was racist, and wanting a sealed southern border was xenophobic; that a doubled national debt and record joblessness was not a problem…

In response, Americans lied to pollsters, voted with their feet at political rallies – despite being attacked for their candidate preference – and gave themselves a decisive Electoral College victory for Donald Trump to claim on their behalf.

Trump’s election astounded House Speaker Paul Ryan:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OITwX2Sp9vo[/youtube]
And Paul Ryan was wrong. Donald Trump did not hear a voice in the country that no one else heard; after all, more than 60 million people voted for Trump. He chose to hear and voice the American people’s concerns, rather than share D.C. Republican values:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeUzmWDi72A[/youtube]
…the same values which betrayed the will of the electorate in both 2010 and 2014.

Finally, Americans were told their choice for president could never be, by:
• The press,
• Former and Current Elected Republicans,
• The outgoing president…

Obama even mocked the idea that the poeple’s choice would occupy the office they desired for him:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvgnOqcCYCM[/youtube]
Nevertheless, after getting lying lips in 1988, an impeached president in 1996, Supreme Court confusion in 2000, and the no contests of 2008 & 2012, the America nation won a general election, and did so in the person of Donald J. Trump…

Mr. Obama might want to pick up that smartphone.

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And Then There Was…A Problem for the Parties

by Black Man Thinkin'

Categories: ... 'bout Politics

Tags: 2016 Election, Bernie Sanders, Clinton, Democrat Party, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Republican Party, Trump

Comments: 3 Comments

Published on: May 8, 2016

A picture of America’s modern presidential campaign model. Candidates seek to:

• Segment the electorate into as many groups as practical, particularly at the state level,
• Empathize with sympathetic groups to create the illusion of a supportive coalition,
• Ignore conflicting interests within their coalition, speaking only of common goals,
• Hurry to the primary/caucus before tensions in the coalition become unmanageable,
• Repeat, in each state, adding/deleting groups as necessary to secure enough delegates,
• Discard nationally unappealing or “extreme” groups at the convention, and
• Craft a party message that:

– Slights true believers,
– Dupes fence-sitters,
– Placates the disaffected, and
– Appeals to voters not in the party.

Call it a “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy, a key feature of which is, no matter the general election result, the nominee has a reasonable answer for those offended by his campaign positions: “Compromise”.

Winners laud compromise positions, even dishonest ones, as a key to victory, reminding tweaked supporters that winning is more important than “getting everything our way”. Victory soothes wounded supporters with ignored interests, and winning serves to keep all party supporters in line for the next run.

Losers curse compromise positions for their defeat. Instead of cooling supporter anger, they flagellate themselves for not listening to their “base”, and pledge greater ideological purity in future campaigns if supporters will “hang in there” with them.

And, no matter which “compromise” justification they receive, voters return to their places and further segment themselves, with each group seeking golden tickets – which do not exist – for their political concerns at the next quadrennial kabuki dance.

Rinse and repeat…every four years.

“Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” trails only the National Football League in popularity, and is now so lucrative that partisan “journalists” enjoy a celebrity that eluded the Walter Cronkites and David Brinkleys, who earned respect by their unbiased – or at least less biased – reporting. It created television networks of highly paid talking heads, possessed of little to no journalistic ability or integrity, building their following and influence through with bias and air time. They, along with officeholders, candidates, and party officials work together to keep the nation divided and controlled by “conventional political wisdom”.

Consequently, parties and voters never quite align, making for increasingly dysfunctional federal governance. This creates greater political volatility, giving the talking heads more items about which to craft and apply their (in-) famous “talking points”. Government grows, individual liberties shrink, and almost everyone who helps Divide the nation, Destroy the nation, and then Cobble Together enough of the nation for an another round of division and destruction, manages to get paid.

Then the ground shifted. It began after the 2008 election.

A nation at war saw too little return on more than 7 years of blood and treasure invested abroad. Fiscal responsibility gave way to deficits, the resumption of unsustainable debt growth, and an economy in acute distress. Jobs were lost, homes foreclosed upon, and moneyed institutions that mismanaged funds received billions from the federal treasury. The nation needed a change.

And “Change” was promised, using the “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy. An unknown candidate told voters what they wanted to hear and, protectively cloaked in the historical significance of skin color, rode into the White House. Yet, this time, this president could not Cobble Together enough goodwill to compensate for the lies he did, and would, tell an already divided nation.

In its first midterm electoral opportunity, voters removed the president’s party from the majority in the House of Representatives, seeking balance. But the new majority were no more truthful than the president voters elected them to oppose; they failed to do the voters’ will. Then, in the next presidential election, “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” gave voters a presidential challenger who varied from the distrusted president in little more than complexion; it failed to produce a distinction between presidential candidates that voters saw as a difference.

In the 2014 midterm election, despite the president successfully blaming his opposition for a government shutdown a year earlier, voters gave his opposition its largest House majority since the 1920’s and a Senate majority. Still, federal governance did not change. In fact, the more numerous the voters made the president’s opposition, the less they actually opposed the president. Another “change” was needed; GOP voters had exposed, and begun to reject, the “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy.

So, enter a man who fancied himself presidential material for decades and who, in 2011, polled ahead of the eventual 2012 GOP nominee, to seek a major party nomination. The practitioners and protectors of “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” were incredulous. Among their assertions:

• Trump won’t run,
• Trump will drop out,
• Trump can only get 35% of the vote, and
• Trump can’t win the GOP nomination.

They were incorrect, and not just about the GOP race.

Before the Democrat primaries started, most gave socialist Bernie Sanders no chance to win Democrat nomination. Yet he’s won 19 of 45 primary contests, including 9 of the last 14. Now, the pundits appear befuddled about Sanders, as many Democrats reject Hillary Clinton; Democrat voters also exposed and rejected the “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy.

So, what took the finger of parties and pundits off the electorate’s pulse? Simply put, voters have a different heartbeat now, and stopped accepting the candidates that parties and pundits pushed upon them. So, a longtime Democrat party member cannot easily defeat a non-Democrat, and GOP voters reject GOP 8 governors (3 current), and GOP 5 Senators (4 current) to favor a real estate developer who’s never held public office. And the change impacts more than the current nominating campaign.

Since 2009, Democrats have hemorrhaged officeholders, at the federal (net 69 House, and 13 Senate, seats lost) and state (net 9 governor’s mansions lost, net 900+ state legislative seats, and 28 legislative majorities lost) levels. The nation is purging Democrats from power, and the party’s national footprint is shrinking.

Republicans undergo a different purge – a forced leadership change. Eric Cantor became the first sitting House Majority leader to lose a primary election; John Boehner the first House Speaker to resign because his party preferred him gone. Now Boehner’s successor wears the “sellout” label for his stances on immigration, trade, and the recent budget. He opposes voters, and an increasing number of party officeholders, by not supporting Trump, even as he faces a primary challenge at home. Ryan could go the way of Cantor.

Voter rejection of “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” challenges both parties. Democrats face an existential threat; they must stop the bleeding. In addition to the Obama era losses, Democrats are switching parties during the primaries: 20,000 in Massachusetts, 60,000 in Virginia, smaller numbers in other states, and 1 in 5 Democrats say they would vote Trump in November. If they cannot revise their message, and especially if they fail in November, they risk marginalization and political insignificance.

The Republican challenge is simpler: they must either find the courage to complete their ideological purge, or yield to being a right-leaning national party with left-leaning D.C. leaders. If the leadership purge fails, the party will splinter, with each faction having less influence during the turmoil of transition.

However, should voters recognize how supportive the current major political parties are of the corruption that is the current federal government, they may decide not to take on party challenges, and instead #AlterOrAbolish the monster that resides on the Potomac River.

It’s Not About Trump; Their Issue is with YOU!

by Black Man Thinkin'

Categories: ... 'bout Politics

Tags: 2016 Election, Donald Trump, exit polling, GOP establishment, GOP voter anger, Hillary Clinton, John Boehner, John McCain, Kevin McCarthy, marco rubio, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: March 6, 2016

My “pen” is largely silent during the 2016 presidential campaign and I would prefer it remain so; few things distract more from, while doing less to meet, this nation’s challenges than the two-year kabuki dance of those seeking the presidency. However, something so brazenly foul now occurs that it compels me to comment.

Donald Trump’s tour de force, seeking a major presidential party nomination, is shocking…to everyone except Trump. When he opted out of the 2012 campaign, Trump declared:

This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country.

I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and, ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.

Five years later, Trump looks prophetic, as he closes on the Republican Party Presidential Nomination. He also looks every bit the target, as the number, and intensity, of his critics mount, even as he succeeds.

This is no reference to Trump’s critics within the electorate; every presidential candidate has “enemy” voters. But Trump’s most ardent enemies are neither Republican voters nor Democrat…anyone. Rather, they are Republican elected officials and operatives who attack him publicly, personally, relentlessly, and almost as a matter of party honor. Some declare that a Trump presidency would destroy the party, and one of Trump’s rivals (at least temporarily) abandoned his effort either to win the nomination or to have a national political future by transforming his campaign into a kamikaze mission against the Donald.

However, even as some GOP’ers call for “All Hands on Deck” against Trump”, he is likely not their target at all…

For this differs from earlier “stop the outsider” efforts. Democrats acquiesced and welcomed “outsider” Jimmy Carter into their national fold – after determining no one could beat him – in 1976; Republicans similarly warmed to Ronald Reagan’s “inevitability”, four years later. However, resistance to Trump increases the closer he comes to the nomination, with major players openly declaring non-support of the party should Trump prevail.

The GOP has used their vaunted “deep bench” of “establishment-friendly” candidates, not as attackers of the opposition party, but as damsels tied to the tracks, hoping to derail the Trump Train. One should wonder why the GOP spends more time trying to change the mind of its base, than it spends countering the Democrat message.

And wonder also whose drug-induced state concocted this…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IVbBoFVWms[/youtube]

Romney’s curious “address” – neither to announce his own candidacy nor supporting another’s – is part of an anti-Trump effort that includes plans to block any Trump nomination at the party’s convention. Interestingly, John McCain is in on the plot, declaring Trump unfit for the presidency… And those who doubt the GOP establishment’s hand in this likely still believe they can keep their preferred health plan and doctor. Again, one should wonder why.

Those willing to consider more than the current election cycle may recognize that these recent antics are part of Republican Party behavior that, for (at least) the last 7 years, demonstrates, strikingly, the party’s disdainful view of, and resultant estrangement from, those who support its stated principles. Consider the following:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXudI0ibo-k[/youtube]

Romney’s Trump attack echoes Democrat Party attacks on Romney from four years ago, and Romney’s 2016 Trump condemnation is a 180° departure from his praise of the Donald in 2012:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlD4hwzGhdY[/youtube]

Though the nation rejected these men, who kept the GOP from occupying the White House, the GOP welcomes, even encourages, their denigration of their current front-runner. Curious indeed.

• Marco Rubio’s only primary win occurred in liberal Minnesota; he appears unlikely to win the March 15 primary in his home state of Florida. Yet, the party supports him, though voters snubbed him in 24 of 25 contests. Again, curious indeed.

• And when Super Tuesday exit polling showed Trump the victor but not the desired nominee, the party did not challenge that cognitive dissonance by reminding the press, and others, that 9 of the 11 Super Tuesday states held open primaries in which non-Republicans could vote, that Democrats encouraged their members to take part in Republican primaries?

The party did not challenge characterizations of those exit polls as voter discontent, even as Republican voter turnout hit record levels, with high enthusiasm, as even more disrespectful of their voters than of their candidate field…because they are not willing to defend their voters…

Because the party is unhappy with them.

They are unhappy that voters, beginning with the 2010 election and in response to the Obama agenda, sent conservatives to Congress; that these conservatives are not “go along to get along” people and proved so unwilling to put party before principle that it drove John Boehner into retirement. They are unhappy that Virginia voters made Eric Cantor the first sitting House Majority Leader to ever lose a primary election. Unhappy that Kevin McCarthy’s tacit admission that establishment Republicans valued the Benghazi hearings more as a way to damage Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers than to show the truth about why four Americans died, ostensibly cost him the Speakership.

Washington, D.C. establishment Republicans are losing control of their voters, and they are unhappy about that. Unhappy about a trend, since the 2010 midterm elections, that sees voters increasingly imposing their will upon the politicians’ best-laid plans. Against this backdrop, Trump is not a problem for the GOP as much as he is symptomatic of the voter problem they already have.

Consequently, stopping Trump is not about Trump at all; it is about regaining control of their constituency – YOU. A constituency at odds with them over Obamacare, joblessness, illegal immigration, the homosexual agenda, taxes, and deficits/debt; a constituency that is close to recalling that D.C. has no power save that which they authorize. A constituency that has already felled trees within the establishment, and which must be corralled before they clear more dead wood from the nation’s capitol.

D.C. Republicans cannot regain voter control without a presidential candidate that the party establishment can control (this is why they find Rubio appealing). Trump owes them nothing and needs nothing from them; he is, inarguably, not a man given to another’s control. Should he partner with an increasingly uncontrolled voter base, then everything establishment Republicans have built for themselves, via the federal government, is at risk.

By the way, Democrats do not rest easy about the GOP turmoil. Non D.C. Republicans currently occupy 31 of the nation’s 50 governor’s mansions, and control 67 of its 99 state legislative bodies, both significant increases since Obama’s 2009 inauguration. If the D.C. Republicans cannot get their constituents back in line, and Democrat voters tire of seeing neither their party nor their views represented, then the elephants trumpeting against left-leaning D.C. Republicans will seem mild, compared to the mule kick the left could receive from disgruntled Democrats.

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