PREDICTION

PREDICTION

The next president of the United States will be a Democrat, and for that the Democrats can thank Donald Trump. No matter how the political campaigns go over the next 11 months, Trump will play a major role in the Republican camp, and whatever the outcome for the GOP, the Democrats will come out ahead on Election Day.

Even though he has been held a strong lead in national polls for months, the Republican leadership is desperate to push him out of first place, resorting to a brokered convention if necessary. If the convention opens with Trump holding a plurality of the votes, the electors representing those ballots will be legally bound to vote for him on the first ballot only. On subsequent ballots the electors can vote for anyone they want. The situation opens itself up to three possible scenarios, all of which would lead to a Democratic victory in the general election.

SCENARIO ONE

Trump arrives at the convention with a majority of votes or is able to overcome opposition at the convention and become the Republican candidate. His support comes primarily from older white males with limited education. Twenty-six percent of Republicans have negative feelings about him. Many GOP leaders have said that Trump does not represent Republican or even American values. Most of them, no doubt, like Paul Ryan, will hold their noses and vote for him. However, the Donald will not gather enthusiastic support from the Republican party.

The reality show star cannot expect much support outside of his core followers. He has insulted each of his rivals for the Republican nomination. He has alienated huge groups with his put-downs and gratuitous insults. Fifty-nine percent of the American public has negative feelings about him. If he runs, the Democratic candidate will win the election and possibly win both the House and the Senate at the same time.

SCENARIO TWO

The Republican establishment is able to deny Trump the nomination. In revenge he runs as third-party candidate. In such a case Trump would get votes from people who would otherwise vote for the Republican candidate. Result: a win for the Democrats.

SCENARIO THREE

Trump does not win the nomination and for whatever reasons decides not to run as a third-party candidate. He has been in the leading position for so long that his core followers will still feel that he has been cheated of his rightful prize. Those mendacious Washington politicians, along with the lamestream media swindled the Donald. His core will not then vote for Democrats. Heaven forbid! They will just stay home on Election Day and throw the election to the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she is.

WHO IS THIS?

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Do you recognize the person being described here? Are you sure? No, it is not that crude loudmouth who has been going around insulting everyone with apparent impunity. It is the psychological profile drawn up by the OSS of Adolf Hitler.

And yet ignorant people continue to support this man. He is still leading in the polls of candidates for the Republican nomination. I am beginning to worry.

WHAT CAN YOU BELIEVE?

Breitbart News reported that eight Syrians were apprehended as they tried to cross the border from Mexico into Texas. It was enough for Texas Governor Greg Abbot to vow to prevent any Syrian refugees from entering into Texas. Donald Trump speculated that the Syrians might be members of ISIS. The attempted infiltration showed the need to build a “big, beautiful wall,” Trump added. People who read “news” article like this are likely to picture eight terrorists trying to sneak into America where they can create carnage like that which happened in Paris. We can almost see eight young Middle Eastern men like those who killed 129 people in France.

Part of any news story is what is omitted. What the Breitbart report omitted is that these eight Syrians were made up of two families, two men, two women, and four children. To say that they were apprehended suggests that they were caught trying to sneak across the border. In fact they were not “caught.” They presented themselves to border agents as they sought asylum in the United States.

Did Breitbart leave these things out because he was ignorant of the facts, or did he deliberately leave them out to distort what really happened? 

CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ?

About a third of the seats were empty when Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders stopped to give a lunchtime talk to seniors here [Manchester, NH] during a swing through the state.

This is from an article in the Boston Globe. It doesn’t look good for Bernie. A few months ago he drew an audience of 10,000 in Portland, ME.

However, at the same time the Burlington Free Press ran an article under this headline: Overflow crowd lines up to hear Bernie Sanders in N.H. This article was also picked up by USA TODAY.

What are you supposed to believe? While some “news” media purposely distort or even misrepresent news item, as far as I know, The Boston Globe and USA TODAY are pretty straightforward. So which one of these articles is true?

The fact is, both articles are true, but they describe events in a different context. The Globe article tells us that the senator was speaking to a bunch of seniors, but it never specifies more. Presumably it was some kind of senior center in Manchester, NH. In the room where Bernie spoke, a group of seniors were playing cards. They didn’t come to hear a presidential candidate. They came to play cards. The event was part of a two-day swing through New Hampshire. By itself it was not a big deal.

The overflow crowd was in another New Hampshire town, Warner. In Warner, Sanders spoke in the town hall. Evidently it had been talked up more than the event in Manchester had. There was not enough room in the building for everyone to get in. After Bernie spoke to the audience inside the building, he came out and spoke to the overflow crowd. 

So, is Bernie’s support falling, or is it surging? You can’t tell from these articles, especially the Globe article. Except to say that he senator spoke to a group of seniors, it does not say where. One-third of the seats were empty. How many were full? What was the capacity of the room where he spoke? How well was the speech publicized ahead of time? The article says that Bernie "stopped to give a lunchtime talk." The wording suggests that the event might have been impromptu.

The US TODAY article, on the other hand, tells us that the event was in a town hall in a small New Hampshire town (population 2800). Having grown up in a small town in New Hampshire, I know that the town hall could not hold more than a couple of hundred. We do not know how many people the place where Bernie spoke in Manchester could hold.


Before we can draw valid conclusions about these speeches in the Granite State, we need to know more facts than we are given in these two news articles.

NEW ASSAULT WEAPON

A 14-year old girl in Henrico County, VA, could be charged with assault and battery after she threw a baby carrot at her middle school teacher. School authorities charge that the girl used the baby carrot as a weapon in an assault on the teacher.

Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said if someone tried to assault him with a baby carrot, he would not just stand there and take it. He would urge the miscreant to throw the baby carrot at someone else, Hillary or Donald perhaps.

Congressman Gerald X Pettybone meanwhile urged legislation requiring all baby carrots to be registered with the proper authorities.

SECRET REPUBLICAN STRATEGY

    For the past month or so Donald Trump has surged to the top of the polls for the Republican nomination. It is clear to thinking people that the Donald is terribly unqualified to be President of the United States. He is a racist, a mysoginist, a narcissist, and a bully. He doesn’t have any policy proposals. What he says about issues is clearly off the cuff rather than carefully reasoned. He has insulted many individuals and groups of people. He said that McCain is not a hero, just someone who happened to get captured, even though McCain was captured because his plane was shot down, and he refused to get out of “Hotel Hanoi,” where he had been tortured, when he had a chance. How can anyone think Donald Trump could be President of the United States?

    The secret is: Of course Trump could not be President. However, most of the other Republican candidates are not credible presidential material either. Carly Fiorina laid off tens of thousands when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard and eventually fired from her job, but at least she didn’t go bankrupt three times, like Trump. Some of the “facts” that she rattled off in the debates weren’t exactly accurate, but at least she prepared for the debates rather than making off-the-cuff remarks. In her campaign for the Senate, she made fun of her opponent’s hair. Jeb Bush may not seem to have a lot of energy or be the brightest bulb in the pack, but at least he seems to be a compassionate, reasonable man. Scott Walker may be the least qualified, but even he wouldn’t be as bad as Trump. Walker has shown more good sense than he usually does by dropping out of the race. Ted Cruz wants to try to shut down the government again, but at least he isn’t calling Mexicans murderers and rapists.

    None of these Republican candidates look very good if you take a careful look at them, but at least you can say of any of them, at least they aren’t as unqualified as Donald Trump.

Don't Quote Me  Chris Cristie