2016 elections - because it's never too early

[garbon]

Apparently the Teump campaign is soliciting donations from Icelandic MPs: http://grapevine.is/news/2016/06/22/donald-trump-asking-icelandic-mps-for-donations/

Is that your doing Legbiter?

As that isn't allowed, I'm very confused on why they would do so? Some bizarro mistake?

[mongers]

If the UK votes Leave, that has to be a fillip for Trump, given it'll be a giant FU to a political establishment.

I don't know what you are on about but I'd wager brexit will mean nothing to the voting habits of the average American.

Maybe you and Yi will only work it out after the November election?

[garbon]

If the UK votes Leave, that has to be a fillip for Trump, given it'll be a giant FU to a political establishment.

I don't know what you are on about but I'd wager brexit will mean nothing to the voting habits of the average American.

Maybe you and Yi will only work it out after the November election?

Don't worry. I'm not spending any effort sorting out your inane thoughts.

[mongers]

If the UK votes Leave, that has to be a fillip for Trump, given it'll be a giant FU to a political establishment.

I don't know what you are on about but I'd wager brexit will mean nothing to the voting habits of the average American.

Maybe you and Yi will only work it out after the November election?

Don't worry. I'm not spending any effort sorting out your inane thoughts.

Excellent example of why you're not so popular as you'd like.

[Valmy]

Garbon will always be popular with me 

Anyway I get where you are coming from. The populist tide raises all insane boats.

But, as I said in the other thread, I am just glad the racism taints our flavor of populists. Makes me more optimistic about stopping them.

[garbon]

If the UK votes Leave, that has to be a fillip for Trump, given it'll be a giant FU to a political establishment.

I don't know what you are on about but I'd wager brexit will mean nothing to the voting habits of the average American.

Maybe you and Yi will only work it out after the November election?

Don't worry. I'm not spending any effort sorting out your inane thoughts.

Excellent example of why you're not so popular as you'd like.

Who said I am to be popular?

[mongers]

Anyway I get where you are coming from. The populist tide raises all insane boats.

But, as I said in the other thread, I am just glad the racism taints our flavor of populists. Makes me more optimistic about stopping them.

Oh I think our racist tendencies weren't too far below the surface, definitely heavy undertones of it with the likes of Farage's poster. 

[Legbiter]

A new Can't Stump is out; special guest apperance by Nigel Farage. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aZi1RXe9kY

[derspiess]

A new Can't Stump is out; special guest apperance by Nigel Farage. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aZi1RXe9kY

I had Coke Zero going through my nose when they played the East German national anthem to Merkel walking out.  Nice touch.

[garbon]

A new Can't Stump is out; special guest apperance by Nigel Farage. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aZi1RXe9kY

I had Coke Zero going through my nose when they played the East German national anthem to Merkel walking out.  Nice touch.

Is this something where you need to start from the beginning of the series to get it? Seemed like some odd sound effects played over some news clips.

[PRC]

A picture from Scotland:

[OttoVonBismarck]

Brexit won't have much of a direct impact on our election, as I wager it, but I think the West in general always has shared cultural tendencies. Obviously this effect is stronger in some areas and weaker in others, and varies quite a bit. But it is there. It's not just random chance that within the last 25 years much of the West has legalized same-sex marriage, just as one example.

The West in general has been aggressively pro-Free Trade, not just with each other but with very low-cost producer countries like China. This has been good for us in net, but has created losers along with the winners. Our societies differ in terms of how losers are treated, some have much stronger social safety nets and greater economic equality in general. But the fact is, people like being productive and like having pride and satisfaction in their work. A strong social safety net is better than nothing, but it's not a magic wand that makes an out of work coal miner, steelworker or etc feel great about living off a generous dole. Their fathers before them often had that same job and provided well for their family, and they've come up short.

That plight, in similar forms, exists on both sides of the Atlantic, and I think it is absolutely a major part of the rise of nativism, on both sides of the Atlantic. There are also parallels in that most observers felt Britain would go with the side that had facts, logic, and general societal conservatism for the status quo on its side. Polling showed mixed results (which you'd expect with a final result of 52-48), but on the day of Farage himself all but conceded and most said the most recent polling available showed a Remain win. That was not to be. It'll be a long time I think before we can have the best analysis of the data, but there are reports that Leave always polled stronger in online polls than other forms. Some have speculated that is because Leave supporters faced a withering period of assault from the mainstream media and other elites, called stupid, Little Englanders, xenophobes, sometimes racists. It made it so maybe they were a little less willing to be honest with a phone pollster.

It's entirely possible we have such a situation ongoing here, for every boisterous Trump supporter who goes to the rallies, how many are quietly nodding their head? Maybe they work in a field that is more liberal, or are a little more educated and have more exposure to liberals in their social group, and they don't want to be seen as the knuckle-dragging, unfashionable, uncouth brutes that swill Old Milwaukee, rub their guns in feverishly glee and dream of Trump and his wall and the Trumpgruppen rounding up illegal Mexicans for summary deportation.

Brexit makes me feel like Trump "could "have a little more built in support than maybe we're believing--also be worried that all polls between Trump and Hillary show a lot of undecideds. There's a ton of polls out there with only 80% decided, 20% undecided. Popular wisdom on Brexit was the undecideds always break for the reasonable status quo. But that wasn't true in Britain, in part perhaps because Brexit saw a surge in voting among working class Brits who don't often vote and who had a "low level" of euroskepticism for ages. Not enough to bother voting in general elections, but with a strong Leave campaign, well, it was their time to make it to the polling station from the barstool.

Something frequently demonstrated in the primary, through actual numbers and tons of interviews and news reports, is that Trump has seen huge support among white blue collar men who have been somewhat non-participants in the political process. Primary elections are always lower turnout than general, so this effect could and likely will be magnified in the general. People forget how white America still is, and to be frank, disengaged whites who almost never vote, if they come out in enough numbers that Trump gets say 5-6% more of the white vote than Romney did, and the electoral map is going to look very, very scary. Particularly if Trump manages to somehow stop running his campaign like a category 5 trash fire and gets some professional organization in there. Hillary is remarkably unlikeable, and while Donald is even moreso, I think there's genuine risks something real ugly could happen in the debates. There's a huge part of the country that wants to see Hillary get her comeuppance, and some of that is based in sexism mixed with old school anti-Clintonism and 30 years of Republican attack ads. The Clintons largely weather all of those, but they accrued scars from all of them as well. I could easily see a loud mouthed, inane Trump, the sort of candidate wholly lacking in civility, common decency, and basic respect the likes of which Hillary has never seen, eliciting Hillary to lash out--say something very very stupid, a debilitating zinger against Donald, but perhaps one that lets slip some insult, some dig, at white working people.

Hillary is a great politician, but not a perfect one, and she has so many accrued scars she is a "weaker" candidate than the Dems nominated in 2008/12, or 92/96, and possibly she's weaker even than Kerry--who lost in part because W and his crew were highly effective, and nasty, campaigners. How many votes did Hillary lose in the rust belt when she uttered the words that "she's going to shut down the coal mines"? And that was in a much less high-pressure situation than a debate.

My money would be on Trump imploding (even more than he has) in debates or during the general campaign, but Hillary isn't immune from it. You have something like that happen, or perhaps some economic shock or further acts of terrorism, some military crisis overseas, add that to the "quiet" Trump supporters, and the scale only needs to be touched lightly at a few places to put Trump in the white house.

It's a two party, first past the post election, so both sides always have a very genuine shot of winning.

[Jacob]

Cogent analysis OvB, I pretty much concur across the board.

[Zanza]

I think what you describe is a trend across the entire Western world just with slightly different expressions. It becomes dangerous when mainstream parties give a forum to these movements...

[Phillip V]

Clinton's lead steadily grows over Trump nationally and battleground states.  (example: Florida)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/elections/