Donald Trump is fast becoming that thing he fears most: a loser. At this point it’s difficult to imagine a scenario by which he recovers. Of course that doesn’t mean Democrats should be complacent; and I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that Hillary will let up one bit. Still, it’s fun to watch Trump’s personal nightmare coming true. Losing publicly–and to a woman! Sad.
Last night The Washington Post published an op-ed by Maine Sen. Susan Collins explaining “Why I cannot support Trump.” Here’s the gist:
With the passage of time, I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize. But it was his attacks directed at people who could not respond on an equal footing — either because they do not share his power or stature or because professional responsibility precluded them from engaging at such a level — that revealed Mr. Trump as unworthy of being our president.
My conclusion about Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics. Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices by attacking ethnic and religious minorities. Three incidents in particular have led me to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president.
The first was his mocking of a reporter with disabilities, a shocking display that did not receive the scrutiny it deserved. I kept expecting Mr. Trump to apologize, at least privately, but he did not, instead denying that he had done what seemed undeniable to anyone who watched the video. At the time, I hoped that this was a terrible lapse, not a pattern of abuse.
The second was Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence that Gonzalo Curiel, a federal judge born and raised in Indiana, could not rule fairly in a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage. For Mr. Trump to insist that Judge Curiel would be biased because of his ethnicity demonstrated a profound lack of respect not only for the judge but also for our constitutional separation of powers, the very foundation of our form of government. Again, I waited in vain for Mr. Trump to retract his words.
Third was Donald Trump’s criticism of the grieving parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq. It is inconceivable that anyone, much less a presidential candidate, would attack two Gold Star parents. Rather than honoring their sacrifice and recognizing their pain, Mr. Trump disparaged the religion of the family of an American hero. And once again, he proved incapable of apologizing, of saying he was wrong.
I am also deeply concerned that Mr. Trump’s lack of self-restraint and his barrage of ill-informed comments would make an already perilous world even more so. It is reckless for a presidential candidate to publicly raise doubts about honoring treaty commitments with our allies. Mr. Trump’s tendency to lash out when challenged further escalates the possibility of disputes spinning dangerously out of control.
I had hoped that we would see a “new” Donald Trump as a general-election candidate — one who would focus on jobs and the economy, tone down his rhetoric, develop more thoughtful policies and, yes, apologize for ill-tempered rants. But the unpleasant reality that I have had to accept is that there will be no “new” Donald Trump, just the same candidate who will slash and burn and trample anything and anyone he perceives as being in his way or an easy scapegoat. Regrettably, his essential character appears to be fixed, and he seems incapable of change or growth.
Three months from now, with the 2016 presidential election in the rear-view mirror, we will look back and agree that the presidential election was over on Aug. 9th.
Of course, it is politically incorrect to say that the die is cast.
Journalistic neutrality allegedly forces us to say that the race isn’t over until November, and most media organizations prefer to hype the presidential contest to generate viewers and readers rather than explain why a photo finish is unlikely.
But a dispassionate examination of the data, combined with a cold-blooded look at the candidates, the campaigns and presidential elections, produces only one possible conclusion: Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump in November, and the margin isn’t likely to be as close as Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney.
Rothenberg on the polls:
Pre-convention polls showed the race competitive but with Clinton ahead by at least a few points in most cases. Post-convention polls show Clinton leading the race much more comfortably. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll puts Clinton’s margin at 9 points, while Fox News shows it at 10 and the Washington Post/ABC News survey finds the margin at 8 points.
These numbers could close a few points or jump around depending on the individual survey, but the race is already well-defined.
In four-way ballots, Clinton maintains her solid lead over Trump, while Libertarian Gary Johnson draws in the high single-digits or low double-digits. Green Party nominee Jill Stein generally draws in the low to middle single-digits. Relatively few voters are undecided. (See RealClearPolitics’ poll numbers here.)
State polls confirm the national surveys, with some normally Republican-leaning states up for grabs or leaning toward Clinton.
There’s much more at the link, and it’s all good for Clinton and very bad for Trump.
Girl reading, George Cochran Lambdin
Trump supporters are already doing what Romney supporters didn’t do until close to the election–claiming the polls are “skewed” against their candidate. Ed Kilgore at NY Magazine:
You may recall that, late in the campaign season in 2012, as polls began to show the presidential election slipping away from Mitt Romney, his supporters went into denial. First there was a noisy effort to claim the polls were “skewed” in Obama’s favor (most famously by Dean Chambers, who offered “unskewed polls” showing the Mittster cruising to victory). Then, at the very end, Republicans indulged in public-opinion mysticism, ignoring adverse polls and focusing on crowd sizes, yard-sign visibility, vague “mood of the country” assessments, and their own deeply perceptive guts.
It was easy to make fun of all this wishful thinking, but it was understandable given the timing. That Donald Trump’s supporters are already manifesting the same fingers-in-the-ears la-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you self-deception three months before Election Day is harder to accept.
But it’s happening. Trump himself has a habit of criticizing individual polls he doesn’t like. Some of his fans are getting more systematic about it. Radio-talk-show host Bill Mitchell offered this Zen-like observation on Twitter: “Imagine polls don’t exist. Show me evidence Hillary is winning?”
How can Trump be getting those huge crowds if he’s losing, huh? All Hillary is doing is going around the country talking to voters about issues. She can’t possibly be beating Donald Trump. But she is.
…the unskewers are back, again insisting that pollsters are “using” more Democrats than they should, and that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans should be equal, or that there should be more Republicans. They point to surveys like the recent one from ABC News and The Washington Post, in which 33 percent of registered voters identified as Democrats compared to 27 percent as Republicans. That poll found Hillary Clinton ahead by 8 percentage points.
But let’s say this plainly: The polls are not “skewed.” They weren’t in 2012, and they aren’t now.
The basic premise of the unskewers is wrong. Most pollsters don’t weight their results by party self-identification, which polls get by asking a question like “generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a….” Party identification is an attitude, not a demographic. There isn’t some national number from the government that tells us how many Democrats and Republicans there are in the country. Some states collect party registration data, but many states do not. Moreover, party registration is not the same thing as party identification. In a state like Kentucky, for example, there are a lot more registered Democrats than registered Republicans, but more voters identified as Republican in the 2014 election exit polls.
A person’s party identification can shift, and therefore the overall balance between parties does too. Democrats have typically had an advantage in self-identification — a 4 percentage point edge in 2000, a 7-point advantage in 2008 and a 6-point edge in 2012, according to exit polls — but they had no advantage in the 2004 election. Since 1952, however, almost every presidential election has featured a Democratic advantage in party identification.
Woman reading with mother-in-law’s tongue
Enten explains much more at the link, but here’s the point:
People…should stick to reality. Right now, Clinton is leading in almost every single national poll. She leads in both our polls-plus and polls-only forecasts. That doesn’t mean she will win. The polls have been off before, but no one knows by how much beforehand, or in which direction they’ll miss. For all their imperfection, the polls are a far better indicator than the conspiracy theories made up to convince people that Trump is ahead.
Hillary Clinton is going to be our next President–the first woman ever to hold the highest office in the land. It’s happening Sky Dancers. All we have to do is get through the next three months of media misogyny. We will overcome!
I’m slogging through so much paperwork at the moment that I don’t think I will come up for air. Let me just say that in my current state of affairs I am very fond of Dodd Frank. It seems, however, that the Donald wants a moratorium on financial regulation. I wonder how well that will go over with any one who supports him that’s not a member of StormFront and in it for the Hate-a-thon.
Donald Trump will propose a temporary moratorium on new financial regulations in an economic speech Monday in Detroit in an effort to draw a stark contrast with the domestic policies of Hillary Clinton, who he says “punishes” the American economy.
The Republican presidential nominee’s speech will focus on providing regulatory relief for small businesses, according to senior campaign aides familiar with its contents. More broadly, Trump will say he will not propose any new financial regulations until the economy shows “significant growth,” the aides said. Trump has previously said he would repeal and replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Trump will also propose a repeal of the estate tax, sometimes called the “death tax.” Under current law, the 40 percent tax applies only to estates larger than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples.
For U.S. businesses, Trump will propose a tax rate of 15 percent and suggest strengthening intellectual-property protections. He’s expected to call for three income-tax brackets, down from the current seven. He’ll call for the elimination of special tax treatment for carried-interest income at private-equity firms and other investment firms—the latter of which is a proposal his Democratic rival also supports.
Carried interest, which is a portion of investment gains paid to certain investment managers, is currently taxed like capital gains—at rates that can be as low as 23.8 percent. Trump proposes to tax them as ordinary income, but for members of partnerships, that could actually mean a rate cut to 15 percent.
This is definitely not a left or right wing populist position and is probably geared to getting to small business owners and other business interests. Donald Trump’s support continues to weaken and continues to concentrate itself in a few demographics; mostly white. Polls show that the Trump convention was a disaster. This is some analysis from Philip Bump on a new Post-ABC poll.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday includes data that gives a bit more insight into just how Trump managed to make his position worse.
Before the conventions, the plurality of support each candidate received was thanks to people who wanted to vote against the alternative. In other words, most people who said they were backing Hillary Clinton were backing her because they wanted to see Trump lose, and vice versa.
After the conventions, though, that changed: A slight plurality of Clinton supporters now back her because they want her to be the president. Trump’s position improved slightly — but the percentage of support he gets from people who are doing so out of enthusiasm for his candidacy is still lower than the percent who said that about Clinton before the conventions began. Before the conventions, 57 percent of those who backed Trump did so because they opposed Clinton; after the conventions, that figure was 56 percent.
Hillary Clinton has taken a double digit lead over Donald Trump according to the latest Monmouth University Poll . This compares to the slim two point lead she held among likely voters just before the two major parties held their conventions. Both candidates remain unpopular, but the Democrat has a growing advantage on being seen as more temperamentally suited for the presidency. Still, Clinton’s email use remains a problem for her, while voters are divided on the impact of Trump’s attitude toward Russia. The poll also found that voters are less optimistic and enthusiastic about the 2016 election than they were one year ago.
Currently, 46% of registered voters support Clinton and 34% back Trump, with 7% supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson, and 2% backing Jill Stein of the Green Party. Support among likely voters stands at 50% Clinton, 37% Trump, 7% Johnson, and 2% Stein. In a poll taken days before the Republican convention in mid-July, Clinton held a narrow 43% to 40% lead among registered voters and a 45% to 43% lead among likely voters.
Clinton has solidified support among her partisan base since the conventions while Trump struggles to lock in his. More than 9-in-10 Democrats (92%) say they will vote for Clinton, up from 88% in July and 85% in June. Just 79% of Republicans are backing Trump, which is virtually unchanged from prior polls (81% in July and 79% in June).
Independents are divided between Trump (32%) and Clinton (30%). In the Monmouth poll taken before the two parties’ conventions Trump held a 40% to 31% lead among this group. Johnson the Libertarian has picked up independent voter support in the past month, now at 16% (up from 9%) with this group, while the Green Party’s Stein has remained stable at 4% (compared to 3% last month).
Importantly, Clinton continues to maintain a lead in the swing states – ten states that were decided by less than seven points in the 2012 election. She holds a 42% to 34% edge over Trump in these states, which is similar to her 46% to 39% swing state lead last month.
“The dust is starting to settle on the tag-team conventions, with the net advantage going to Clinton,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
These polls should give a big raspberry to the press that are trying to tear her down. But they don’t give a bit of pause as BB indicated on Saturday. I’m getting weary too of the constant harping on her lack of personal characteristics that appear more often in right wing rags than in polls outside die hard Republicans.
In 2015 – in stark contrast to 1990 – teen gun-related deaths totaled 57, while teen murder arrests numbered 65. Overall in California, the crime rate among teenagers has dropped by 80 percent since 1980 – at the same time immigration has fueled a growing, more racially diverse young population, now 72 percent of color. The school dropout rate has also nosedived, as have births by teen and young-adult mothers. College enrollment and graduation rates have soared. These trends, moreover, are not unique to California. They’re happening nationally.
The flip side of young Americans’ astonishing behavioral turnaround is an equivalently dramatic decline among older Whites. In California, for example, the number of arrests among people over 40 in 2015 was nearly double the number of arrests among Black and Hispanic teens. Nationally, in a shocking reversal of past patterns, a middle-aged White is at greater risk today of violent death (by suicide, accident, or murder, and especially from guns or illicit drugs) than an African American teenager or young adult.
These stunning reversals of fortune among the generations could help explain one of the central mysteries of this year’s election cycle: why two such starkly divergent views of America – Republican Donald Trump’s grim vision of an apocalyptically degenerated America and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s sunny affirmation of a diversifying country’s bright future – are finding equal resonance. The short answer is that both portraits reflect equally valid truths about Americans’ experience today – depending on who and how old you are. While Democrats’ younger, more diverse constituencies are experiencing dramatic improvements in their personal security and behavioral well-being, Trump’s older White demographic is suffering rising drug abuse, crime, incarceration, suicide, gun fatality, and disarray.
These divergent realities, however, have also led to an extraordinary level of mutual incomprehension, as even sophisticated insiders in both parties and in the media seem largely ignorant of the underlying statistical facts. Hence, progressives dismiss the rage of Trump’s supporters as artifacts of mere racial prejudice and bigotry, without seeing that the anger is rooted in the very real personal insecurity middle-aged Whites are living with. And conservatives mistakenly impute to darker-skinned young people the growing chaos they may be feeling without understanding that a huge, multi-ethnic generation of young voters has perfectly sound reasons for feeling confident and optimistic.
I’m not sure it’s an intergenerational disconnect on this particular factor but let me hear what you think. I’m still think it’s mostly an old white male thing–with a few women that benefited from that–at the center and that it’s mostly cultural and economic.
So, this is a short thread but it should be enough to get us started on a discussion!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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For the first time since she announced her candidacy for POTUS, the media spend two days noticing that Hillary Clinton is winning in the national and state polls and with many experts–including Republicans–who know what it takes to be President and Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces. That ended yesterday after Hillary answered questions from “journalists” at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Two of the “journalists” asked about her emails and about why everyone supposedly hates her.
In Friday’s press questioning, the trouble began when she was asked her first question about her private email server and recent statements about that server which independent fact checkers have labeled as categoricallyuntrue. Clinton’s responses here—and her previous responses to questions about the truthfulness of past statements—are so overly legalistic and convoluted that they are difficult to even explain. But here’s a shot.
Last month, Fox News’ Chris Wallace asserted to Clinton that FBI Director James Comey said her public statements about which documents on her private email server were classified and which were not were untrue. In actuality, Comey declined to address the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness of those statements in Congressional testimony on the matter. But in announcing his investigation into her server—which cleared Clinton of any wrongdoing—Comey implied that she had either misled the American public about her poor handling of material she should have known was classified information, or been incompetent in doing so. “Even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it,” he said. Clinton had previously claimed: “I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time. I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified.”
In response to Wallace’s question claiming that Comey had said she was not telling the truth, Clinton said this: “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
painting by Gerrit Albertus Beneker
But the “fact checkers” say she’s lying. And of course this is so much more important than the idea of Donald Trump having access to the nuclear codes or that he is likely being manipulated by Vladimir Putin. It makes no difference to the media that Hillary did nothing criminal, that she will not be indicted, and never was even in danger of being indicted. Her emails are the only “issue” that matters to those in the DC media bubble. Read the rest of the article at the link if you are interested in intense parsing of every word that comes out of Hillary’s mouth.
At least Pierce admits that most voters don’t give a flying fuck about her emails. They voted for her by the millions in the primaries and she is way ahead in the polls. This should be a dead issue. But it will never die. Pierce also draws attention to another question that Hillary was forced to answer yesterday–in so many words, “why does everyone hate you?”
…she sat for questions, which is the closest she’s come to an actual press conference in over 200 days, something that’s been the topic of insufferable whining from our elite political press. Said whining was represented ably by Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post, who prefaced his question by being fairly snotty.
“We encourage you to do this more often with reporters across the country, especially those news organizations that travel the country with you wherever you go.”
Tough guy.
Pierce left out O’Keefe’s actual question which was a demand for her to answer why people think she’s so untrustworthy, and how can she possibly lead the nation when that’s the case. Gee, I wonder why Hillary chooses not to give press conferences?!
But Pierce has no mercy on Clinton for her response the the email question. He quotes part of her answer and then writes:
That is not within an area code of satisfactory.
Hell, it’s barely in the neighborhood of English. It is legalistic gobbledegook. You can turn an ankle trying to get from premise to conclusion in that tangled thicket of weaselspeak. It ought not to matter at this point, and it never has mattered all that much to me, but, Lord above, if HRC and her people ever wonder why her trust numbers are so abysmal, they ought to read back her answer to that question.
That’s the way you talk when the mule you sold somebody died on the way home.
Remember, folks, we are talking about emails after it has become clear that Hillary did nothing different from previous Secretaries of State and thousands of other government officials whose emails have not been examined. Furthermore we’re talking about it after the case has already been decided in Hillary’s favor. Finally, James Comey (a Republican) is not the final arbiter on what is or should be classified, and he went against DOJ rules when he spoke publicly about the case.
When Hillary Clinton told her audience at a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday “Here’s what I believe,” she punctuated those words with not just a vocal flourish but a physical one. Up went her hand, placed over her heart.
It’s a gesture unfamiliar from her past campaigns, but it’s a favorite this time around. In Columbus, Ohio, and Omaha, Mrs. Clinton spoke of her late father, and up went her hand, placed over her heart.
At the Democratic National Convention, when she took the stage to wild applause, she cued the audience on how grateful, moved and humbled she felt by putting her hand to her heart, once, twice, then a third and fourth time.
It’s a subliminal message of sincerity that some language experts consider contrived.
Bill McGowan, a communications coach and chief executive of Clarity Media Group, calls the hand-on-heart motion “the gesture du jour.” He said he has noticed that other politicians have adopted the habit, and he doesn’t think it’s entirely artless.
“Voters are more and more wise to the fact that speeches are carefully constructed and vetted, yet at the same time there is so much demand for a higher level of authenticity,” Mr. McGowan said. “Candidates are looking for anything that makes them seem like they are speaking genuinely from the heart, and not from a thoroughly vetted key message document.”
Oh my God! Putting her hand on her heart? She’s the Devil! Has anyone ever written an article like this about Donald Trump’s hand gestures?
I wish I could stop caring so much about the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton, but I can’t. I hate what they are doing to her. Anyway here are some antidotes to the media hatred.
Peter Daou also posted a stunning and insulting CNN interview with Hillary in 1996 that shows how far back the media harassment of her goes.
In his piece on the video, Daou quotes Melissa McEwan:
The thing we have to understand about these interviews is that they’re not about trying to establish facts about Hillary’s fundamental truthfulness or integrity. They’re about an attempt to hurt her on camera and capture her pain. The persistent exploration of negative feelings toward Hillary is about shaming her, about replicating the visceral responses many people have to women seeking power.
In the past week, like every week before it, the national media have worked overtime to convince the public that Hillary is a liar, continuing their interminable obsession with her State Dept. emails. Even while she’s leading her unhinged opponent by wide margins, they continue to characterize her as a loser….
Now we get this inane and insulting piece from the New York Times rehashing the stale “Hillary is inauthentic” narrative….
Got it? She’s “contrived.” According to our national media, nothing Hillary says or does is real. She’s just a cold, robotic, scheming, lying ambition machine.
• CALCULATING (Scheming, crafty, manipulative)
• SECRETIVE (Suspicious, paranoid, uncommunicative) • POLARIZING(Divisive, alienating) • UNTRUSTWORTHY (Corrupt, deceitful, dishonest, unethical)
• OVER-AMBITIOUS (Will do or say anything to win)
• INAUTHENTIC (Disingenuous, fake, unlikable, insincere)
• INHUMAN (Machine-like, robotic, abnormal, cold)
• OVER-CONFIDENT (Inevitable, defiant, imperious, regal)
• OLD (Out of touch, represents the past)
Now think about the profoundly misplaced priorities of the NY Times (and other major media outlets) whose singular mission is to mangle Hillary’s public image even as we face the possibility of a Trump presidency.
It boggles the mind.
Exactly what do there “journalists” want Hillary to do? Would they be satisfied if she got down on her knees on stage and cried for mercy? I doubt it. Do they want her to withdraw from the race for POTUS and cede the presidency to Donald Trump? Do they want her to be flogged in the the public square and then tarred and feathered? I honestly don’t think anything would satisfy them.
Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
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Things keep getting stranger and stranger on the U.S. Political front. I guess that’s what you get when one of the candidates likely has a severe personality disorder.
On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.
Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.
I spent four years working with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room. In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.
I also saw the secretary’s commitment to our nation’s security; her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and, most important, her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all — whether to put young American women and men in harm’s way.
Mrs. Clinton was an early advocate of the raid that brought Bin Laden to justice, in opposition to some of her most important colleagues on the National Security Council. During the early debates about how we should respond to the Syrian civil war, she was a strong proponent of a more aggressive approach, one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold in Syria.
I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room. In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”
In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has no experience on national security. Even more important, the character traits he has exhibited during the primary season suggest he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.
Of course we all try to protect our own dignity and command respect. But Trump’s hypersensitivity and unedited, untempered Pavlovian responses are, shall we say, unusual in both ferocity and predictability.
This is beyond narcissism. I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully. I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.
Most politicians seek approval. But Trump lives for the adoration. He doesn’t even try to hide it, boasting incessantly about his crowds, his standing ovations, his TV ratings, his poll numbers, his primary victories. The latter are most prized because they offer empirical evidence of how loved and admired he is.
Prized also because, in our politics, success is self-validating. A candidacy that started out as a joke, as a self-aggrandizing exercise in xenophobia, struck a chord in a certain constituency and took off. The joke was on those who believed that he was not a serious man and therefore would not be taken seriously. They — myself emphatically included — were wrong.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has surged to a 15-point lead over reeling, gaffe-plagued Republican Donald Trump, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
Clinton made strong gains with two constituencies crucial to a Republican victory – whites and men – while scoring important gains among fellow Democrats, the poll found.
Clinton not only went up, but Trump also went down. Clinton now has a 48-33 percent lead, a huge turnaround from her narrow 42-39 advantage last month.
The findings are particularly significant because the poll was taken after both political conventions ended and as Trump engaged in a war of words with the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in an explosion in Iraq 12 years ago while trying to rescue other soldiers.
In this latest poll, Clinton enjoys a significant advantage among women (51 percent to Trump’s 35 percent), African Americans (91 percent to 1 percent), all non-white voters (69 percent to 17 percent), young voters (46 percent to 34 percent), and white voters with a college degree (47 percent to 40 percent).
Trump leads among white voters (45 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent), seniors (46 percent to 43 percent), independents (36 percent to 32 percent) and white voters without a college degree (49 percent to 36 percent).
The two candidates are running nearly even among men, at 43 percent for Clinton and 42 percent for Trump.
As Charles Blow put it yesterday, the one demographic she seems to lose are fragile white men and mostly those without college educations. How fragile are these guys anyway?
These are the voters keeping Trump’s candidacy alive.
He appeals to a regressive, patriarchal American whiteness in which white men prospered, in part because racial and ethnic minorities, to say nothing of women as a whole, were undervalued and underpaid, if not excluded altogether.
White men reigned supreme in the idealized history, and all was good with the world. (It is curious that Trump never specifies a period when America was great in his view. Did it overlap with the women’s rights, civil rights or gay rights movements? For whom was it great?)
Trump’s wall is not practical, but it is metaphor. Trump’s Muslim ban is not feasible, but it is metaphor. Trump’s huge deportation plan isn’t workable, but it is metaphor.
There is a portion of the population that feels threatened by unrelenting change — immigration, globalization, terrorism, multiculturalism — and those people want someone to, metaphorically at least, build a wall around their cultural heritage, which they conflate in equal measure with American heritage.
In their minds, whether explicitly or implicitly, America is white, Christian, straight and male-dominated. If you support Trump, you are on some level supporting his bigotry and racism. You don’t get to have a puppy and not pick up the poop.
And acceptance of racism is an act of racism. You are convicted by your complicity.
The white male agita has become worse this week and I’ve seen and heard angst about Clinton from that same demographic since the focus has been high on the historic nature of the nomination.
We’ve been having conversations about if white men really have that many mommy issues here. See Samantha B and Amanda Marcotte for that too. It’s more like one group having a national temper tantrum more than anything else. The complaints are openly delusional and patently false. It’s a weird siege mentality.
Here’s a few things you may want to check out:
First, this is how a real man handles a crying baby.
Some believe that many of those who support Donald Trump do so because of ignorance — basically they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand. When Trump tells them that crime is skyrocketing in the United States, or that the economy is the worst it’s ever been, they simply take his word for it.
The seemingly obvious solution would be to try to reach those people through political ads, expert opinions, and logical arguments that educate with facts. Except none of those things seem to be swaying any Trump supporters from his side, despite great efforts to deliver this information to them directly.
The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden.
My hope is that your actions and words do not continue to erode our civil discourse. I pray that good people in this country continue to be shocked by your rhetoric because that means they agree that your words and actions have no place in society, much less in the Oval Office.
You have stated that all press is good press. It’s an interesting strategy that has thus far worked for you. But this, the memory of our fallen soldiers, their families, former POWs, and the proud recipients of the Purple Heart honor. This is not the position from which you should be getting your press. This is off-limits.
Please remember that the people you are speaking about, our brave men and women of the armed forces make up less than 1% of the population. However, if you become commander in chief, they will be the people who are going to fight for you regardless of personal politics. These are the people who will defend you. These are their families you are talking about. These are not the people you want to continue to carry out your petty grievances and personal attacks with.
I respectfully suggest you get a primer on the word sacrifice, as well as a lesson in human decency.
You may have noticed I’m a little absent here recently. I’m going through some enormous challenges in my life right now. The University where I have worked for the last five years has changed some rules and created a situation where I cannot teach. The result has been an enormous strain on my finances and right now, I’m fighting to keep my home. I’m also finding out how challenging it is for a 60 year old woman to be taken seriously as a job candidate any where. My life has pretty much gone into a free fall over the last six months with freak things happening to my car and house and this. The anxiety is really causing me severe health problems and of course, I’ve lost my health insurance too. Anyway, be good to each other and appreciate all that you have today. Every thing is so fragile and impermanent.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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I hardly know where to begin this morning. Yesterday was one of the strangest days I’ve experienced in my 56 years of following politics. The day began with multiple reports that the Trump campaign was melting down, that campaign staffers are “suicidal,” that campaign manager Paul Manafort has given up and is “mailing it in” because Trump doesn’t listen to advice from anyone. RNC Chair Reince Priebus was reported to be “apoplectic” over Trump’s attacks on the Kahn family and especially his refusal to support GOP Candidates Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Kelly Ayotte.
“I’ll have to be very careful here,” Scarborough said slowly. “Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on international level went to advise Donald Trump, and three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked, at one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’ That’s one of the reasons why he just doesn’t have foreign policy experts around him.”
Scarborough, previously a Republican congressman from Florida, clearly startled his colleagues with this story. “Trump,” asked a nonplussed Mike Barnicle. “Trump asked three times?” “Three times, in an hour briefing,” confirmed Scarborough. “Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”
On the same program General Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and NSA, explained why he can’t vote for Trump. Think Progress:
Hayden also expressed concern about “how erratic” Trump is.
“I can argue about this position or that position — I do that with the current president,” Hayden said. “But he’s inconsistent. And when you’re the head of a global super power, inconsistency, unpredictability, those are dangerous things. They frighten your friends and they tempt your enemies. And so, I would be very concerned.”
Asked which people in the national security community are advising Trump, Hayden said, “No one.” And in response to a question about what steps might stand in the way of Trump using nukes if he’s elected president, Hayden said, “The system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision.”
During the course of the day yesterday, news outlets reported that an effort was under way to stage an “intervention” to convince Trump that he has been damaging his campaign with his attacks on a gold star family and on fellow Republicans and that he needs to focus on Hillary Clinton as well as broadening his appeal to voters outside his crazy base. The “intervention” team was supposed to consist of Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and Reince Pribus.
Donald Trump is not having any sort of “intervention” with the likes of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Giuliani said Thursday, pointing to Gingrich as the source of the term.
“So first of all I find the word intervention completely out of line,” Giuliani said during a discussion on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”
Giuliani then singled out Gingrich specifically.
“That word, I think, honestly I love him dearly, but I think that word was used by Newt in a memo that got around,” Giuliani said. ” What a ridiculous word. An intervention is for a drug addict and it’s for someone who’s an alcoholic and I’ve had to do them with people at times. There’s nothing wrong with them, if that’s the case. Donald Trump doesn’t drink or smoke, by the way. We don’t have that problem.”
NBC News first reported Wednesday that the trio close to Trump were hoping to push the GOP nominee into a reset of his campaign after a calamitous week that led to a subsequent drop in the polls and high-profile Republicans defecting to Hillary Clinton.
All of this is happening just a little over two weeks after Trump accepted the GOP nomination! And on Tuesday, much of the public discussion was about Trump’s mental health, capped off by a discussion with clinical psychologist George Simon on MSNBC’s The Last Word, in which it was decided that Trump probably has a personality disorder. Simon calls it “character disturbance.” Whatever is wrong with Trump, many more people in the media and public office are beginning to notice and express concern.
Republican donors weren’t expecting a traditional campaign from Donald Trump, but they weren’t expecting the level of this week’s implosion either.
“I don’t know what he’s doing — trying to commit suicide?” said Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota-based top donor to a pro-Trump super PAC. Hubbard has been trying to get other Republican donors, including Charles and David Koch, on board with Donald Trump for months.
But he said Trump’s recent comments, in particular those about the parents of a Muslim American soldier who died in the Iraq War, were “just nonsense,” adding that he sent Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus a note pleading with him to do something. “The whole world is laughing at that. It’s just very frustrating.”
Although Trump’s campaign and the RNC announced raising $80 million in July, the candidate’s rolling implosion has been felt. He’s continued to engage in attacks on the Khan family, refused to endorse Paul Ryan and John McCain, and suggested Russia should hack Hillary Clinton’s email. A high-profile Republican — Meg Whitman — has said she will not only donate to Clinton, but encourage friends to do so as well.
Prospective donors are now having second thoughts about getting involved, while those who convinced themselves to get behind Trump, like Hubbard, are at their wits’ end over the presidential nominee’s behavior.
Reports on other concerned Republican donors at the link.
Amid a pileup of self-made political disruptions, mounting Republican defections and internal staff exasperation, Donald Trump is proving himself to be a candidate running a presidential race all by his lonesome.
With little regard for the GOP’s future, he continues to antagonize its most prominent elected officials. With an uncontrollable proclivity for tumbling into a tangent on any given target – no matter the time, relevance or risk – he regularly relinquishes control of a media message. Having no capacity to absorb even the slightest political attack, he is constantly lured into petty fights that place him on the wrong side of public opinion. And with little reverence for seasoned political advice, he alienates even those who want to see him recover and succeed.
Trump is a party of one – a candidate embarking on his quixotic and increasingly improbable quest for the presidency without a compass or a map, without a front-line defense shield or significant reinforcements, and always and forever without any regrets.
Even the Lone Ranger rode a horse named Silver; Trump seems quite content to traipse ahead on his own two feet.
And check this out:
When Trump landed in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday – a state in which he has yet to open a campaign office – he huddled backstage with Will Estrada, chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, for advice on how to carry the crucial area.
“George, these people here in Virginia know what we need to do to win Virginia,” Trump told his advance aide, George Gigicos, according to Estrada’s recollection posted on his personal Facebook page.
But Trump also unleashed another line that reverberated with those in the setting, U.S. News has learned: “Don’t listen to New York.”
The message conveyed was that going forward, Trump wanted local leadership to make the decisions on where to hold events and how to stage them – not the suits at high command in Trump Tower.
According to Catanese the only people Trump might listen to are his children and his son-in-law Jared Kushner; but it’s not clear he’ll listen to them if they try to interfere with his own ego-driven decisions.
I showed great self-restraint yesterday by not posting the latest poll numbers, but today is Wednesday, which is officially the middle of the week. So here’s the latest from Pollster, based entirely on post-convention polls:
Hillary Clinton’s convention bounce will almost certainly fade a bit by next week, but even if it does she’ll remain 4 to 5 points ahead of Trump. This is roughly the same as her lead before the conventions, which suggests that this year’s four-day infomercials probably had no net effect at all.
A spate of new polling shows that the initial evidence of a significant post-convention bounce for Hillary Clinton is looking like it COULD become a sturdy lead for the Democratic nominee. A new Franklin and Marshall College poll of Pennsylvania shows Clinton with an 11 point lead over Trump, 49 percent to 38 percent. A Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll of Michigan voters finds a nine point lead for the former secretary of state, 41 percent to 32 percent. And a freshWBUR/MassINC poll this morning shows Clinton opening up a 15 point lead over the GOP nominee in New Hampshire, 47 percent to 32 percent. Add that to national polls this week from NBC News|SurveyMonkey (Clinton +8), CNN/ORC(Clinton +9) and FOX News (Clinton +10). Bottom line: Trump couldn’t have picked a worse week to have a DISASTROUS week. Clinton was already in the midst of a convention bump, and Trump exacerbated it with his series of unforced errors and unnecessary fights. The next question: How does the Trump campaign react in the next week, when even more national and state polls are likely to show a similar gap between the two candidates?
Clinton is now far ahead of Trump in Michigan, according to The Detroit News.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Republican Donald Trump in Michigan as 3-in-5 likely voters say the New York businessman is not qualified to be president, according to a new poll conducted for The Detroit News and WDIV-TV.
Clinton led Trump 41 percent to 32 percent in the statewide survey of 600 likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday following Clinton’s formal nomination at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
The poll contains many troubling signs for Trump’s White House campaign, including a “shocking” lead for Clinton in the Republican strongholds of west and southwest Michigan, pollster Richard Czuba said.
Sixty-one percent of likely general election voters said Trump is ill-prepared to be the nation’s commander-in-chief. The figure grows to 67 percent among women, a group with whom Trump performs poorly. Clinton has a commanding 21-percentage-point lead among female voters.
In New Hampshire, where Hillary is now leading Trump by 15 points, GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte has fallen 10 points behind Democrat Maggie Hassan! That is huge. Obviously, we can’t get overconfident, but I really don’t believe Trump is capable of suddenly becoming a sane, reasonable candidate who can at least fake acting presidential.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a tremendous Thursday!
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
I’m slogging through so much paperwork at the moment that I don’t think I will come up for air. Let me just say that in my current state of affairs I am very fond of Dodd Frank. It seems, however, that the Donald wants a moratorium on financial regulation. I wonder how well that will go over with any one who supports 
This is definitely not a left or right wing populist position and is probably geared to getting to small business owners and other business interests. Donald Trump’s support continues to weaken and continues to concentrate itself in a few demographics; mostly white. 
Saturday. I’m getting weary too of the constant harping on her lack of personal characteristics that appear more often in right wing rags than in polls outside die hard Republicans.
Things keep getting stranger and stranger on the U.S. Political front. I guess that’s what you get when one of the candidates likely has a severe personality disorder.
As Boston Boomer posted yesterday,
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