Another election day.

Lately there have been stories in the papers that Michigan (and much of the country) may be in for a literal long, hot summer, to go with the figurative one promised by the presidential campaign. Oh, how fun it’s going to be.

So vote wisely, Ohioans and Floridians and Illinoisans and whoever else I’m forgetting. And consider this: The enemy of your enemy is…well, he’s something. You can figure it out.

Another taxing Monday, so have just this one piece of bloggage, a dive into Ohio Trump country via the WashPost, where people are so dedicated they open ad hoc campaign offices, on their own dime. That should tell you something right there. This goes along with the Thomas Frank piece from last week, about trade policy. Here you go:

On a Friday a year ago, he might have been fixing a gutter. On this Friday, a day before the rally, he was setting up a phone bank in the former tanning salon in North Canton, becoming part of something that felt larger every day, more like an important, even historic, struggle.

Republican elites were flying to a fancy resort in Georgia for a strategy session on how to defeat Trump. Millions were being spent on negative ads. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney had just made a nationally televised speech calling Trump a bully and a con man.

It seemed to Ralph that the whole political world was mobilizing against Trump, and by extension, people like him — an everyman with an 11th-grade education, aching knees and chronic ailments requiring four prescriptions and a monthly IV infusion to keep him going.

All of it only affirmed Ralph’s instinct: that Trump was an outsider telling the truth about America’s decline. “He’s honest,” said Ralph. “And the truth hurts.”

“Hey, Ralph,” said a volunteer named Mike, arriving at the office to pick up signs. “You see what the Republicans are trying to do to us? It’s just sad. They will never get another vote from me.”

Gotta run, sorry. Have a better Tuesday than I did Monday.

Posted at 9:04 am in Current events |
 

26 responses to “Another election day.”

  1. Kirk said on March 15, 2016 at 9:23 am

    Fixing to go vote here in Ohio, but am torn about which party to declare. I normally vote in Democratic primaries, but it’s tempting to do my bit against Trump. Big question is whether I can actually cast a vote for a guy like Kasich, although I’ve voted for dipshit Republicans in primaries before, just so I could vote against bigger dipshit Republicans (like James Rhodes).

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  2. Icarus said on March 15, 2016 at 9:42 am

    @Kirk, is that just to send a message or does any Republican candidate still have a legitimate shot at beating Trumph?

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  3. Bitter Scribe said on March 15, 2016 at 10:38 am

    If by some catastrophe Trump does win everything, how long do you think it will be until those supporters of his start demanding, “Where’s the wall? Where are the better trade deals? How come ISIS is still around? How come we haven’t taken their oil yet? How come I still don’t have a good job?”

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  4. Kirk said on March 15, 2016 at 10:47 am

    If I were just sending a message, I’d have voted for Bernie. I think the chances that Trump will be stopped are low, but I decided that they’re not exhausted, so I held my nose and voted for Kasich.

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  5. Dexter said on March 15, 2016 at 10:48 am

    Trump’s wall… paid for by Mexico…good deal, because Trump makes good deals and we’ll be very happy, so vote for Trump, see? Happy, very happy….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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  6. Deborah said on March 15, 2016 at 11:44 am

    Gin and Tacos has a good post up about Trump supporters and violence http://www.ginandtacos.com/2016/03/13/is-there-a-doctor-on-the-plane/. I’ve been thinking about ideological purity lately and how destructive it is. The left is guilty of this too, not an equivalency because the right has been at it for decades and has banked on it. These protests at the Trumo rallies really worry me, something very bad is going to happen eventually. We need someone like a Ghandi or a Martin Luther King type preaching non-violence, and soon.

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  7. Deborah said on March 15, 2016 at 11:45 am

    I don’t know who Trumo is? I meant Trump obviously.

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  8. chuckie said on March 15, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    So I suppose there’s two ways to explain Trump’s appeal. First, the Repubs, in thrall to their right wing, and with the strategy of keeping the Dumbo Demographic ginned up and outraged about everything, have created a Frankenstein monster that Trump has exploited better than the rest of the field has. Second, when you mention people with eleventh-grade or worse education, people who have to scratch around for just about all they have, then it becomes clear that those who had no voice before are beginning to pipe up. And it’s obviously not pretty, but solutions are within reach. A good start would be to FULLY explain things like the events in Ferguson, which gave rise to Black Lives Matter, a movement based on the lie that Michael Brown ran from the cop with his hands up. The real story in Ferguson is a good bit more complicated than that, mostly having to do with the authorities in Ferguson preying on the population of the town to raise revenue. That, I’m sure, gave rise to Michael Brown’s resentment and acting out by fighting with the cop. The people of the town, 70% of which is black, had almost no representation in town government. Blacks weren’t excluded from voting or running for office there, they just didn’t care enough to participate. So the result is rioting and unrest, which average Joe looks at and says “Look at those people, glad I don’t have to live around them”. What I seem to be getting at here, for one thing, is that politicians, on both sides, need to step forward and be honest. Pipe dream, maybe? Hope I’ve helped….

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  9. FDChief said on March 15, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    Sadly, regardless of what happens in November these people like Ralph will remain with us, like the scent of dogshit on your shoe long after you scrape it off. Their angry ignorance will force the GOP into ever more ridiculous positions. Border walls, seriously? Deporting 11 million people? “Rebuilding” the world’s most powerful armed force? Lists of muslims? Banning mosques?

    Great. Just what we needed; a Know-Nothing Party for the 21st Century.

    What’s almost as sad is that Ralph has a “sane” alternative; Sanders. All the populism, 100% less racism, homophobia, misogyny, ridiculous nonsense, boasting, and lies. What would have really made that Post piece interesting would have been if the writer had asked ol’ Ralph why he picked Trump over Sanders. I’ll betcha you’d get a whole bunch of argle-bargle that, decoded, would have been “Well, I don’t want to sit with the nigras, lesbos, faggots, and spics.”

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  10. Heather said on March 15, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    I think this Slate article
    offers a convincing explanation for the Rise of Trump.

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  11. alex said on March 15, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Chuckie, one of the things I’ve noticed is that stories like Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin or Tamir Rice aren’t really anything new. Black people have always gotten a raw deals from law enforcement and such abuses would go unpunished even despite a fair amount of media coverage. They still do. But what’s different now is the phenomenon of right-wing media picking up such stories, creating distorted narratives around them and serving them up as fodder for a racist cheering section. This, I believe, is what has directly given rise to Black Lives Matter. And the Trayvon Martin story was the catalyst, not Michael Brown.

    I don’t know how you fully explain any of those events to the “dumbo demographic” when they are living inside their own self-selected media bubble. Unless, of course, we find a way to disallow freedom of speech as a defense for promulgating misleading information.

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  12. Icarus said on March 15, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    “The GOP has been a sloppy drunk for years, and this year it’s sprawled on the couch, shitting its own pants and moaning horribly. And whether or not everyone else thinks that this is what the GOP deserves, from a moral point of view you have to take its keys and keep it from getting on the road and possibly killing others as it swerves through traffic.”

    http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/03/15/hell-yes-im-voting-for-kasich-today/

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  13. Jean S said on March 15, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    What Scalzi said.

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  14. Kirk said on March 15, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    Deborah@6: I figure I was more effective casting my vote against Trump than I would have been going to a Trump rally to try to pick a fight.

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  15. brian stouder said on March 15, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    I was going to give Uncle Rush 5 minutes on the way to lunch, and I think I bailed sometime around 3 minutes.

    Ol’ Oxy-Rush was doing his ‘acidic laughter’ (pun intended) schtick, with regard to (wait for it) how self-absorbed John Kasich is…!!

    It looks like Rush the Hyena is looking to take credit for the (supposed) Trump nomination, and therefore original ownership of the Great Lost Cause.

    These semi-traitorous (if not outright traitorous) folks love nothing so much as romantic “lost causes” – which can always maintain a (cartoonish) beauty and virtue, made all the more perfect for never having to actually perform in the real world

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  16. Sherri said on March 15, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    I fear that the obvious danger that Trump presents is obscuring the danger that Cruz presents. Trump knows nothing and says outlandish things and is an embarrassment; who knows what he actually is. I’m sure it’s nothing good, but what he says is so divorced from any reality that it’s impossible to tell. Cruz, on the other hand, says exactly what he means and means exactly what he says, in great detail.

    Kasich only looks sane and moderate compared to those two.

    The National Review (I won’t link to it) has now made it clear what the conservative “intellectuals” think of Trump supporters like those bassett called out in Clay County, TN: if you’re poor, it’s your own fault, and places like yours should die.

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  17. David C. said on March 15, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    This is the sort of thing that’s so crazy I thought it might be an urban legend in the making. It seems to be legit though.

    http://www.dailydot.com/politics/donald-trump-volunteer-contract-nda-non-disparagement-clause/

    Donald Trump’s campaign requires volunteers to sign a contract that forbids them from criticizing the Republican presidential front-runner, his family members, any Trump businesses or products, or his campaign. The six-page contract, reviewed in full by the Daily Dot, theoretically lasts for the entirety of a volunteer’s life.

    It might be fun to sign up as a volunteer spend a day watching the crazy and sending a letter to the editor of the local daily disappointment saying you were a volunteer, but on sober reflection you find Graydon Carter to be correct. Then wait for the breach of contract suit. Somehow, I think an introverted, dyslexic, sometimes stutterer when nervous, like me could argue this one in court myself.

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  18. Deborah said on March 15, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    I just surfed through my Facebook newsfeed and seriously about every post was about Trump. This is getting to be beyond ridiculous. How is this going to end?

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  19. Julie Robinson said on March 15, 2016 at 8:58 pm

    Rubio’s out, looks like it’s over for Bernie too. The only report so far from my exhausted kids is that over 50 people were turned away from their precinct because they hadn’t declared a party 29 days in advance. But other parts of greater Orlando ran out of ballots. Yikes.

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  20. MichaelG said on March 15, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    Boy, do I ever agree with Sherri on this one. Cruz (crazy as a shit house rat as he may be) scares the crap out of me. What a lizard.

    Trumps wins FL and NC and Kasich appears to win Ohio. With, it seems, a lot of help from cross voters.

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  21. Deborah said on March 15, 2016 at 9:15 pm

    Cruz is the biggest creep in my mind too. But I think he’ll be easier for Hilary to beat.

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  22. Sherri said on March 15, 2016 at 9:27 pm

    Wonder if the Stop Trump effect hurt Sanders in Ohio, or if Michigan was just a fluke? Ohio being an open primary, did Dems cross over to vote for Kasich? Seems more likely to me that Hillary supporters would do that than Bernie supporters, given that Bernie needed to do well in Ohio to maintain an illusion of a chance.

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  23. Suzanne said on March 15, 2016 at 10:17 pm

    So Trump has won in FL, IL, & NC. Amazing.

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  24. adrianne said on March 15, 2016 at 10:47 pm

    I’m at the point now that I want a) Trump to be the GOP nominee so he can be humiliated – by a woman! – in November and b) the Republicans to completely fall apart after this travesty of a political campaign.

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  25. St Bitch said on March 16, 2016 at 12:46 am

    Hillary get your broom…you’ve got a sweep!

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  26. Dexter said on March 16, 2016 at 3:12 am

    Bad day for Jewish candidate; he never had that big push Obama had to be the first Black President. However, at least Bernie wasn’t dragged down just because he is Jewish. TV talkers on certain stations kept saying he wasn’t fit because Bernie is a Socialist, never explaining that does not mean he is a communist, an d never explaining the tenets of Social Democracy.

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