George Saunders identifies Trump’s comedic appeal

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 0 Comment

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I strongly oppose Donald Trump as a candidate for President of the United States and probably also as a person, but I kind of like him. I don’t think he is good. I wouldn’t want to hang out with him. But I like reading about him in a magazine or watching him on video, the way I like watching Eric Cartman.

He’s not quite a rascal. A rascal doesn’t pander. For a while I thought he was some sort of dickens, deepening our affection by continually testing its limits. He sure works the same cute audacity. But a dickens is a fundamentally submissive character, challenging us to make even his rebellion an expression of our love. Trump doesn’t want to be loved. He wants to be envied, maybe, or finally respected. He wants people to believe he would make a great president, even as his boasting implies he’s not so sure himself. He’s winking, but he still thinks we might believe him.

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Both major parties poll below 50% favorability

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 1 Comment
I love you. I cannot concentrate on my work in polling for thoughts of you. Please tell me if your feelings toward me are very favorable, mostly..."

“I love you so much I can hardly concentrate on my work at the polling firm. Please, tell me if your feelings toward me are very favorable, mostly…”

Good news for Democrats! The Republican Party has registered its lowest favorability rating in the history of the Bloomberg Politics poll, a venerable institution that dates back to the America of 2009. Basically, the GOP is as unpopular as it’s been since George W. Bush left office. But sic transit gloria, you guys, because no sooner is this laurel heaped upon the brow of Democrats than their feet are heaped with poop.

Just over half of respondents to this poll found the Democratic Party “mostly unfavorable” or “very unfavorable.” That’s about a one percent improvement from 2009, with some peregrinations in between. The astute reader may observe that the two parties’ respective peregrinations kind of resemble each other, as though they were variations on the same line. Probably, any poll like this should also include the question “how do you feel about political parties?” for perspective.

But probably we shouldn’t pay attention to polls at all. It’s hard to argue the boys at Bloomberg really captured the geist of the zeit when 55% of respondents said they’re better off than there were in 2009, but only 23% said the country was on the right track. Maybe Rush Limbaugh is right, and the country really is filling up with guilty millionaires. Or maybe you can’t learn anything substantive by calling one thousand arbitrary yahoos. There is at least one good band name in this paragraph. You can read the Bloomberg story here.

Clinton says “radical Islamism,” dealing blow to ISIS and victory to Trump

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 2 Comments
Donald Trump politely rejects Bill Clinton's offer.

Donald Trump politely rejects Bill Clinton’s offer.

In discussing the most deadly mass shooting in American history, which I guess we’ve decided to call terrorism and not gun violence, Hillary Clinton used the phrase “radical Islamism.” She used it a lot, mostly to explain why it wasn’t a big deal that she was saying it now. Quote:

[T]o me, radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I’m happy to say either, but that’s not the point. I have clearly said many, many times we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism or radical Islamism, whatever you call it. It’s the same.

Calling terrorism “radical Islamism” is so much the same that she offered nearly the exact same reasons it’s not a big deal to two different morning shows. Meanwhile, after Donald Trump had congratulated himself on predicting something like the Orlando massacre, he taunted Hillary for deciding to talk like him:

So good news, voters: our lesser evil now resembles the greater that little bit more. Fretting after the jump.

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Gary Johnson inexplicably polling 10%

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 1 Comment

I...[coughs]...I would like to live in a perpetual war of all against all.

I…[coughs]…I would like to live in a war of all against all.

Brush off your papasan chair. You’ll want to be sitting down when you learn that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is polling at 10% against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Did your socks fly clear across the dorm room, knocking over your bong and short-circuiting your stereo, which lurched into Sublime? That’s because Gary Fuckin’ Johnson, the man who knows there shouldn’t even be a government, is polling better than any third-party candidate since Ross Perot. So reports FiveThirtyEight with this baffling lede:

Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name. At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Yes, Gary Johnson’s name is so ordinary as to thwart the expression “become a household name.” Maybe we should rewrite that sentence. Regardless, the takeaway here is that 10% of voters are now sophomore geography majors.

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Ways to lose to Trump: Call him poor

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 1 Comment
The 2016 presidential candidates and their spouses hang out at a wedding.

The 2016 presidential candidates and their spouses at a wedding in 2005.

Who says Hillary Clinton isn’t the best candidate to address wealth inequality? Racists and bros, mostly—the rest of us know better. Here’s the presumptive Democratic nominee telling the New York Times that she’s open to considering Mark Cuban or another successful businessperson as her vice president:

“Businesspeople, especially successful businesspeople, who are really successful — as opposed to pretend successful — I think, have a lot to offer,” said Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign has begun taunting Mr. Trump with a #PoorDonald hashtag on Twitter, suggesting that he is not nearly as wealthy as he claims. Mr. Trump has cited an audit by the Internal Revenue Service as his reason for keeping his tax returns private.

Clinton supporters on Twitter have begun circulating the claim that Donald Trump is not a multi-billionaire, as he says, and that his net worth is actually less than $100 million. That would put him below the Clintons’ estimated worth of $110 million, nearly all of which they made after Bill became president. Surely, voters will flock to Hillary once they start thinking of her as the richer candidate.

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