In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Last weekend, the Hillary campaign did something extremely controversial: It published an explainer devoted entirely to Pepe the frog. Pepe, a popular cartoon frog who first showed up in a web comic by Matt Furie back in 2005, has been embraced en masse by the wider internet, mutating over the last ten years into a zillion different forms that have invaded 4chan, Tumblr, Twitter, and dozens of other online venues.
The Clinton campaign’s explainer was about Pepe’s darkest, most recent iteration: Far-Right Pepe. For months, now, Pepe has been showing up online as a Trump supporter, a Nazi, a white nationalist, or sometimes Trump himself — in one popular version of the image, he’s even got Trump’s hair. This, the Clinton campaign explained, is a “horrifying” turn of events, a clear sign of Trump’s depravity, of the extent to which we have slid into alt-right, racist, anti-Semitic madness. “Pepe’s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the ‘alt-right,’” the explainer explained. “They’ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.”
For those of us who spend too much time on the internet and write about or otherwise engage with the alt-right, it may feel like this iteration of Pepe and his adherents are everywhere. (In particular because his visage is frequently used as a Twitter avatar by Trump’s most vocal and extreme supporters.) In reality, they constitute a fairly small slice over the overall population, their apparent numbers inflated by how active they are online. And there’s effectively no sign, with the sporadic exception here and there, they engage in any actual political activism that doesn’t involve slinging dank memes. For all anyone knows, many of them aren’t old enough to vote or don’t have any desire to; they certainly don’t act like people who plan on participating in the democratic process.
So how the hell did they gain so much notoriety the Hillary Clinton campaign felt a need to respond to their memes? What happened?
The author takes a broader view of the Alt-Right like Milo did in his article from May. Frankly, I think that the comments to the article where, purportedly, real Alt-Righter's share their thoughts, are more interesting than the article itself.
if we're going to go all intellectual and in-depth on pepe the frog, I was actually reminded of Umberto Eco when I saw the Hillary article
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a silver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
Combining Pepe the frog, Soros conspiracies and alt-right politics is the same kind of occult amalgam that Stonehenge and Augustine are. Pepe is fascist as hell
On September 19 2016 13:13 TheYango wrote: Honestly I just want to know how that conversation went down in the Clinton camp to write something about Pepe.
Like I just can't imagine that conversation in my head without it sounding insanely dumb.
I'll tell you exactly how it went. Some young, SJW staffer went to a superior and said, "Hey, I have a great idea for how we can tarnish Trump as being a white supremacist! See this frog? See all of the images being spread around the internet featuring this frog and Trump? Guilt by association, baby!"
Of course, the problems with that line of thinking are 1) no one knows what the hell the alt right is, so any attempt to pin it to Trump is doomed to fail, and 2) Trump is many things, but labeling him as a nazi or a white supremacist is a huge overreach. Now, neither of these concerns are problematic for our truly devout SJW friends (as should be obvious just by reading the comments of some people in this forum). And if I had to guess, the older crowd in the Clinton campaign probably chalked up their incredulity at the idea to the generational divide and, thus, placed a fair amount of trust in the judgment of whomever brought this idea to them.
On September 19 2016 13:20 Nyxisto wrote: if we're going to go all intellectual and in-depth on pepe the frog, I was actually reminded of Umberto Eco when I saw the Hillary article
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a silver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
Combining Pepe the frog, Soros conspiracies and alt-right politics is the same kind of occult amalgam that Stonehenge and Augustine are. Pepe is fascist as hell
The real Alt-Right nazis openly talk about using Pepe as a means of "mainstreaming nazism" by making nazism seem ridiculous, and therefore harmless. Their goal is to get society to a point where nazi ideas that are currently taboo can actually be discussed openly. I doubt that they'll get there -- particularly as it pertains to their most horrific ideas -- but it's an interesting strategy nonetheless.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
On September 19 2016 13:20 Nyxisto wrote: if we're going to go all intellectual and in-depth on pepe the frog, I was actually reminded of Umberto Eco when I saw the Hillary article
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a silver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
Combining Pepe the frog, Soros conspiracies and alt-right politics is the same kind of occult amalgam that Stonehenge and Augustine are. Pepe is fascist as hell
The real Alt-Right nazis openly talk about using Pepe as a means of "mainstreaming nazism" by making nazism seem ridiculous, and therefore harmless. Their goal is to get society to a point where nazi ideas that are currently taboo can actually be discussed openly. I doubt that they'll get there -- particularly as it pertains to their most horrific ideas -- but it's an interesting strategy nonetheless.
In a bizarre way, this reminds me of how advertising has evolved over the last decade. One of the major marketing strategies in vogue is highlighting the intrinsically artificial nature of the medium through absurdist or intentionally awkward humor a la Adult Swim. Those commercials don't try to convince you that there is a tenable connection between their aspirational images and the real world; in fact, they deliberately mock themselves. I suppose it's meant to be endearing to Millennials, who are aware of the commercial manipulations of advertising, in a twisted way. It lets them feel superior by agreeing with the implications (but without denying the authority of ads) and draws them by sheer emotion. Via making ads "harmless", you secretly make them more effective.
In short, it might work. Self-ridicule and disassociation can remove the stigma from an idea even if it's repulsive.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
Your first couple points (about charisma) are correct, but I think the booing helped (maybe that's just me). Because you are right that his statement could have been spun into some sort of tacit support for Trump, had they wanted it to be. Newt spoke next and tried to do that exact thing.
However, as you originally said, it's pretty obvious that by attacking Hillary throughout the whole speech and then trying to dramatically (not half-hardheartedly) work up to "vote your conscience" was undoubtedly a swipe at Trump. Indeed, Trump took it that way.
It certainly did not turn out as planned, but it will work just fine so long as Trump doesn't win. Cruz was pigeonholed as an evangelical fringe candidate (and he is on a fringe), but Cruz knows how to, and did, incorporate more "populist" ideas-- just not Trump ones, or in Trumpian ways. He certainly didn't run as "elect a Christian," though I suppose if that's what supporting religious liberty means, then so be it. Also, some of his preachy tones might have contributed to that. But he wasn't Huckabee status, for instance.
edit: and Danglars is right about the substance. I just wanted to clear up some of these optical issues, if you will, because there seems to be a lot of confusion about them.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
Transcript's out there and I can't see "looks petty" beyond "isn't full Reagan speechwriting AND we were all listening for the nonendorsement bar all." I wouldn't put it before any of the seventeen candidates to give the speech of a lifetime or be condemned as petty. I didn't bring that up to compare the quality of speeches, simply the substance of them. Just like 1976, he didn't promote the candidate but promoted the uniting characteristics of the party. I can't mentally will someone more charisma (first) home run speeches (second) any more than persuading the Trump campaign to not rally the supporters to boo (third). The substance of the criticism, however, is lacking both from historical perspective and by merits.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
Transcript's out there and I can't see "looks petty" beyond "isn't full Reagan speechwriting AND we were all listening for the nonendorsement bar all." I wouldn't put it before any of the seventeen candidates to give the speech of a lifetime or be condemned as petty. I didn't bring that up to compare the quality of speeches, simply the substance of them. Just like 1976, he didn't promote the candidate but promoted the uniting characteristics of the party. I can't mentally will someone more charisma (first) home run speeches (second) any more than persuading the Trump campaign to not rally the supporters to boo (third). The substance of the criticism, however, is lacking both from historical perspective and by merits.
The one line that's pretty obviously petty is "I appreciate the enthusiasm from the New York delegation." I don't know if it was really New York's delegation shouting it or if Cruz is just being ironic, but either way, in the context of his previous "New York values" blunder he might as well have said "go fuck yourself" with that line in his speech.
As it were, the endorsement, or lack of it, was really at the core of what actually was on people's mind that day. It's what made the news. It's not a surprise and a generic speech really doesn't change that that really was obviously what people would be thinking of. As it were, Cruz made a gambit and did so in a way that I do not expect to benefit him in the future.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
Your first couple points (about charisma) are correct, but I think the booing helped (maybe that's just me). Because you are right that his statement could have been spun into some sort of tacit support for Trump, had they wanted it to be. Newt spoke next and tried to do that exact thing.
However, as you originally said, it's pretty obvious that by attacking Hillary throughout the whole speech and then trying to dramatically (not half-hardheartedly) work up to "vote your conscience" was undoubtedly a swipe at Trump. Indeed, Trump took it that way.
It certainly did not turn out as planned, but it will work just fine so long as Trump doesn't win. Cruz was pigeonholed as an evangelical fringe candidate (and he is on a fringe), but Cruz knows how to, and did, incorporate more "populist" ideas-- just not Trump ones, or in Trumpian ways. He certainly didn't run as "elect a Christian," though I suppose if that's what supporting religious liberty means, then so be it. Also, some of his preachy tones might have contributed to that. But he wasn't Huckabee status, for instance.
edit: and Danglars is right about the substance. I just wanted to clear up some of these optical issues, if you will, because there seems to be a lot of confusion about them.
Cruz is hoping that Trump doesn't win so his gambit works out. The problem is that the Trump Republicans aren't going away any time soon and the party would do well to admit that that is the case. And Cruz was definitely the "religious values" candidate this time around - not as blatantly as some of the others but he represented that faction. Well that faction is ever shrinking and Cruz is not particularly liked by his fellow Senators, and also he didn't do so well with an important part of the base, so I don't think this will work out well for him.
On September 19 2016 06:05 LegalLord wrote: I am strongly of the opinion that Ted Cruz' speech at the RNC is going to be bad for his career. He's hoping to weather the Trump storm and go back to business as usual for next election cycle. But Trump didn't win for no reason, and the factors that made him popular will still exist next time around.
You sound like you're making the argument that the party is going one direction and Cruz is going another. That's really not tied to a speech.
He came to the convention and made one hell of a gambit by pretty much implicitly denouncing the party nominee. He didn't explicitly do it but everyone knows that that's what he meant to do. He does that in the hopes that after Trump loses, the party will return to where it was and he'll be lauded for being one of the brave anti-Trump skeptics. Well it's not going to work like that - Trump won because a lot of the party supports him, and Cruz is going to be seen as a mutineer of the party for the next cycle. So he's going to be, at best, a safe Senator that everyone hates.
I liked that speech and was half surprised at the big media coverage on the rest. Good job talking about American freedoms, good criticism of Obama and Hillary. Now for a guy whose wife was criticized on her looks, conspiracy on the father, birtherism round two ... voting your conscience was about as far as support could be expected to go. That's just where conservatives still remain now, conscience demands Hillary not be elected president. So the speech for me wasn't all that big a deal. Reagan himself didn't endorse Ford in Reagan's losing primary campaign (Manafort funny enough working for the Ford campaign back then). I keep going back to it because I wonder what I missed, and every time it looks as manufactured as the Trump campaign allowing him on stage and orchestrating the boos afterwards. Simultaneously, it was too unremarkable to be "lauded as a brave anti-Trump skeptics" by anybody but the craziest of fans. Cruz before, during, and after the campaign is so static a portrayal to be plain to me he has no need for crazy hopes and plays that focus around Trump. He was a conservative and has an agenda in line with it, and continues to back the same issues.
I'm still open on where the party goes from here. Trump trade policy sickens me but it's found support. xDaunt has some persuasive arguments on republican virtue and the pandering to a new base strategy. If you're not a minority or LGBT (some would add 'or a woman' here), the dems aren't interested in crafting policy to gain your vote. Trump swoops in blaming the economy on China and doesn't call your immigration views racist and your foreign policy views Islamophobic. He throws a couple useful bones to conservatives like Pence, secure the border, cut taxes, and he's locked in that vote to go after a liberal stimulus (Double Hillary's!) & entitlement program. I just don't know how much Trumpism or new identity politics/pandering will settle into the party. We might get to see what issues Trump fights on after election if Hillary keeps fumbling around for campaign direction.
Well Cruz differed from Reagan in a lot of ways, none of them flattering. First of all, Reagan was a damn sight more charismatic and the speech he gave was considered to be one of his best. Second, Reagan's was more or less impromptu while Cruz' was not. Third, the scenery was pretty shitty for Cruz - people were shouting "endorse Trump" the whole time so it makes it look pretty bad to end with something as half-hearted as "vote your conscience." Fourth, that phrase is just so terribly weak in promoting Trump that I think it's pretty clear that Cruz meant for it to be interpreted some other way. Reagan, while not endorsing, had more positive things to say in his speech, and Cruz just looks petty in his own speech. While yes, Trump was savage in his attacks on Cruz and really quite a jerk, Cruz did badly on the stage there.
It is indeed tough to see where the party goes. Probably for some years they will try to maintain the status quo and see if they can maintain without changing. Some of Trump's proposals (e.g. trade, nonintervention) and a generally more pro-labor approach would probably carve out a decent coalition. As xDaunt puts it, the Democratic Party is really becoming the "identity politics party" to far too large an extent and there needs to be a good counterbalance. But I am quite sure that the party won't move in the direction of becoming more evangelical, and in that sense Cruz has nowhere to go but down.
Your first couple points (about charisma) are correct, but I think the booing helped (maybe that's just me). Because you are right that his statement could have been spun into some sort of tacit support for Trump, had they wanted it to be. Newt spoke next and tried to do that exact thing.
However, as you originally said, it's pretty obvious that by attacking Hillary throughout the whole speech and then trying to dramatically (not half-hardheartedly) work up to "vote your conscience" was undoubtedly a swipe at Trump. Indeed, Trump took it that way.
It certainly did not turn out as planned, but it will work just fine so long as Trump doesn't win. Cruz was pigeonholed as an evangelical fringe candidate (and he is on a fringe), but Cruz knows how to, and did, incorporate more "populist" ideas-- just not Trump ones, or in Trumpian ways. He certainly didn't run as "elect a Christian," though I suppose if that's what supporting religious liberty means, then so be it. Also, some of his preachy tones might have contributed to that. But he wasn't Huckabee status, for instance.
edit: and Danglars is right about the substance. I just wanted to clear up some of these optical issues, if you will, because there seems to be a lot of confusion about them.
Cruz is hoping that Trump doesn't win so his gambit works out. The problem is that the Trump Republicans aren't going away any time soon and the party would do well to admit that that is the case. And Cruz was definitely the "religious values" candidate this time around - not as blatantly as some of the others but he represented that faction. Well that faction is ever shrinking and Cruz is not particularly liked by his fellow Senators, and also he didn't do so well with an important part of the base, so I don't think this will work out well for him.
Hope is a strong word
I take heart in the failure of the Trumpy state and local level candidates that failed. now that may be because they were just awful candidates, but still. I don't know who could fill that void next time around; Walker and Ryan won't. And after 4 years of Clinton...Cruz isn't going to be primaried or have low approval ratings after two years of Clinton in office.
I think it was a politico reporter who remarked that Cruz was seen as this kind of "well, every time there is THAT Evangelical in the GOP primary" person, but that it wasn't congruent with how he ran. We'll see. At this point I'm just fascinated from the political point of view. If Cruz is already thinking of running again, then there is no way he doesn't adjust strategy, but at the same time one twitter pundit might have put it perfectly on the night of his speech-- "This is a stirring tribute to the party that exists in Ted’s head." We shall see which bet proves correct.
xDaunt's calculus about using the left's "appeal to group x" approach may work, but I hate it, and so hope to see something else come along.
Since we are talking about GOP candidates who failed to endorse Trump, I thought I'd mention this. Pretty good, I had no idea Kasich was this angry, lol
Last weekend, the Hillary campaign did something extremely controversial: It published an explainer devoted entirely to Pepe the frog. Pepe, a popular cartoon frog who first showed up in a web comic by Matt Furie back in 2005, has been embraced en masse by the wider internet, mutating over the last ten years into a zillion different forms that have invaded 4chan, Tumblr, Twitter, and dozens of other online venues.
The Clinton campaign’s explainer was about Pepe’s darkest, most recent iteration: Far-Right Pepe. For months, now, Pepe has been showing up online as a Trump supporter, a Nazi, a white nationalist, or sometimes Trump himself — in one popular version of the image, he’s even got Trump’s hair. This, the Clinton campaign explained, is a “horrifying” turn of events, a clear sign of Trump’s depravity, of the extent to which we have slid into alt-right, racist, anti-Semitic madness. “Pepe’s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the ‘alt-right,’” the explainer explained. “They’ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.”
For those of us who spend too much time on the internet and write about or otherwise engage with the alt-right, it may feel like this iteration of Pepe and his adherents are everywhere. (In particular because his visage is frequently used as a Twitter avatar by Trump’s most vocal and extreme supporters.) In reality, they constitute a fairly small slice over the overall population, their apparent numbers inflated by how active they are online. And there’s effectively no sign, with the sporadic exception here and there, they engage in any actual political activism that doesn’t involve slinging dank memes. For all anyone knows, many of them aren’t old enough to vote or don’t have any desire to; they certainly don’t act like people who plan on participating in the democratic process.
So how the hell did they gain so much notoriety the Hillary Clinton campaign felt a need to respond to their memes? What happened?
The author takes a broader view of the Alt-Right like Milo did in his article from May. Frankly, I think that the comments to the article where, purportedly, real Alt-Righter's share their thoughts, are more interesting than the article itself.
The writer does understand how some journalists and the Hillary campaign got trolled. That page on her campaign website is still up! The Deplorables starring Sylvester Stallone I mean Trump. Problematic to the core.
That’s the term coined by Joe Bernstein, the BuzzFeed reporter who explained late last year that 4chan, 8chan, and other anonymous and pseudonymous online communities traditionally peopled mostly (but by no means entirely) by frustrated young white men appear to be in the midst of a reactionary upheaval geared at fighting back against the culture of inclusion and diversity that has — in their view — infected mainstream life.
the threatened white men of the internet
Pretty funny storyline. Bernstein sounds like a winner.
The Chanterculture predates the rise of Trump by years (Gamergate was obviously a big moment for it)
Is this kind of throwaway line obligatory these days? Gamergate was a big moment for chan-culture worthy of citation?
It’s not an accident that 4chan’s harassment campaigns have, according to the researcher Whitney Phillips, disproportionately targeted women and people of color.
Apparently to fight back against being duped by trolls, the solution is to cite Hate Crimes in Cyberspace to claim "an insidious logic of victim-blaming that is still used today to excuse cyberharassment and stalking that disproportionately affect women and minorities." Welcome to the easiest trolling targets: If it's terrorism, food poisoning, or global apocalypse, the real news story is that women and minorities are hardest hit.
Nuzzi’s piece itself, for example, reported on staunchly normie journalists who were unfamiliar with Pepe and subsequently misinterpreted the meme itself as being primarily a vehicle for racist, pro-Trump sentiments — in January, Jay Nordlinger asked about it on Twitter, and Politico’s Ben White did the same in May. This was lulz-catnip for the trolls. As soon as Nordlinger and White tweeted out these queries, they were met with replies, some of them featuring Nazi imagery, by Twitter accounts trying to play up the association between Pepe and racist Trump support. This reinforced the notion that something particularly new and sinister was going on, when in reality this was just another normal, stupid, offensive iteration of a meme — an iteration geared much more at provoking outrage than as any sort of coherent or meaningful political statement. Some significant portion of the people trumping up the Trump connection to Nordlinger and White aren’t actual Trump supporters or white nationalists in any sense but their adopted online persona. Rather, they got involved for one thing and one thing only: lulz, lulz, lulz.
This is the most misinformed piece of journalism I have seen in awhile. First of all, internet trolls didn't win the 2016 presidential election. There are very, very few people out of the 125M voters who actually read 4chan et al. Very few. Clearly, the author of this article, and probably his friends, is one of them so he thinks "everyone" must be reading it. Secondly, if you do actually read 4chan et al, then you know that it is made up of primarily young guys in the teens and early twenties who are not really bent on any political opinion and more out to just cause problems...because they think it is funny.
They are barely past puberty and think it's lulz to piss people off. They don't really care who the people are, just that they are pissed. Seeing that liberals are the most sensitive, they are the easiest target. But they will go after whoever they think they can get the most attention from. Again, their purpose is to piss people off, not send some political message.
The author of this article makes it sound like 4chan et al is made up of middle aged white men angry about their lot in life so they are clinging to Trump as their saviour. I would bet less than 10% of the users on those boards are over the age of 35. These are kids with a lot of spare time on their hands who think it is funny to pull pranks on other people.
And the whole Pepe thing is being twisted into some white supremacist nonsense from the Clinton campaign. It was like when Clinton started loosing to Obama so they floated the "born in Kenya" story. Clinton needs to move on to something of more substance. She needs to give people a reason to vote for her, not a reason to vote against Trump. That's why she lost to Obama. She didn't give anyone a reason to vote for her. She spent her time trying to convince people to not vote for Obama. Obama gave people a reason to vote for him..and he won. I see she didn't learn any meaningful lessons from the last time she ran.
The funniest part about all this is that you're truly shocked. You genuinely didn't see this coming. People were warning about the impending cultural backlash against PC hysteria since the 1980's... but it never seemed to come. Well, here it is. Whenever there's a strict cultural imperative that demands total obedience and rests on nothing more than ideological garbage, the subculture that rises up against it will eventually get strident and given enough time, they will eventually win. Did you think you could tell people that 'diversity' was really a good thing, in spite of every single thing that they could observe in front of their eyes? Did you think that you could tell people that 'multiculturalism' was a benefit, in spite of every single thing they could observe? Did you think that by saying 'racist' and 'ignorant', that was enough to negate the obvious facts? Did you think that some coalition of naive cat ladies and delusional academics was enough to keep that ship afloat? This is what happens when a social theory crumbles. Actually, this is the beginning. Stay tuned. Just wait until the demographic time-bomb finally explodes and all those poor, oppressed 'equals' start enacting policies to 'get their fair share' in more aggressive ways. You think Trump and Twitter trolls teasing neurotic internet Jews are extreme? I'm glad I'm too old and won't live to see when that day eventually comes.
This whole episode symbolizes how the (current) winners of the culture wars lord their victory over others and inspire backlash. Humor drifts to the sacred cows, and leftists hold more of those dear and occupy more media space than last decade's religious right.
This is certainly the most meme-worthy presidential election in history. Something to laugh about in anticipation of the unimpressive mediocrity and/or complete trainwreck we will have to look forward to for the next four years.
I strongly suspect this will be the most girdlocked congress of our life time. I'm assuming Trump is going to win, and if he does he's not popular with either the Republican base or the Democratic base.
Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, and one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the last decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton — develop formidable fundraising operations, $5, $10 and $20 at a time.
Trump has only been actively soliciting cash for a few months, but when he reveals his campaign’s financials later this week they will show he has crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors of the last two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — during the entirety of their campaigns.
All told, Trump is approaching, and has possibly already passed, $100 million from donors who have given less than $200, according to an analysis of available Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign’s public statements and people familiar with his fundraising operation. It is a threshold no previous Republican has ever achieved in a single campaign. And Trump has done so less than three months after signing his first email solicitation for donors on June 21 — a staggering speed to collect such a vast sum.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a senior Republican operative who has worked closely with the campaign’s small-dollar fundraising operation. “He’s the Republican Obama in terms of online fundraising.”
Clinton counted 2.3 million donors as of the end of August, the result of decades of campaigning, a previous presidential bid and allies who painstakingly built her an email file of supporters even before she formally announced her second run. But Trump had zoomed to 2.1 million donors in the last three months alone, his campaign has said.
The question now is what the gusher means for the GOP. The Republican National Committee, through a deal struck with Trump in May, is getting 20 percent of the proceeds from its small-donor operation for Trump plus access to this invaluable new donor and email file. But can Trump’s candidacy help close the Republican Party’s small-donor divide in one fell swoop? Will these donors — 2.1 million and counting — give to other Republicans? Will they drag the Republican Party in Trump’s direction for years to come? Or, if he loses, will they simply vanish?
Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, and one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the last decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton — develop formidable fundraising operations, $5, $10 and $20 at a time.
Trump has only been actively soliciting cash for a few months, but when he reveals his campaign’s financials later this week they will show he has crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors of the last two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — during the entirety of their campaigns.
All told, Trump is approaching, and has possibly already passed, $100 million from donors who have given less than $200, according to an analysis of available Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign’s public statements and people familiar with his fundraising operation. It is a threshold no previous Republican has ever achieved in a single campaign. And Trump has done so less than three months after signing his first email solicitation for donors on June 21 — a staggering speed to collect such a vast sum.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a senior Republican operative who has worked closely with the campaign’s small-dollar fundraising operation. “He’s the Republican Obama in terms of online fundraising.”
Clinton counted 2.3 million donors as of the end of August, the result of decades of campaigning, a previous presidential bid and allies who painstakingly built her an email file of supporters even before she formally announced her second run. But Trump had zoomed to 2.1 million donors in the last three months alone, his campaign has said.
The question now is what the gusher means for the GOP. The Republican National Committee, through a deal struck with Trump in May, is getting 20 percent of the proceeds from its small-donor operation for Trump plus access to this invaluable new donor and email file. But can Trump’s candidacy help close the Republican Party’s small-donor divide in one fell swoop? Will these donors — 2.1 million and counting — give to other Republicans? Will they drag the Republican Party in Trump’s direction for years to come? Or, if he loses, will they simply vanish?
Pretty interesting. If Trump is managing to pull an Obama and keep up with Hillary's funding through small donors instead of big fundraisers, I think that is a pretty bad sign for Hillary. Wasn't her whole point over the summer to build up a giant warchest for the rest of the campaign. If that warchest is only the same size as Trump's, and in addition he just spent the summer on the road meeting the people, that is not a good sign.
As for what it means for the RNC in general, who knows?
Either way, have to wait for the FEC numbers to know how much of this is true.
Strange Clinton video doing the rounds of a speech in North Carolina. Why is Clinton and the podium glitching out but the flag background is unaffected? Why does Clinton wave to audience members behind the flag at the end of the video? This is very peculiar.Watch the video especially the last 3 minutes.
On September 19 2016 20:00 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Strange Clinton video doing the rounds of a speech in North Carolina. Why is Clinton and the podium glitching out but the flag background is unaffected? Why does Clinton wave to audience members behind the flag at the end of the video? This is very peculiar.Watch the video especially the last 3 minutes.
EPT
