the conservative military historian Max Boot tweeted: “Trump is a fascist. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it.”
Trump uses many of the fascist’s tools: a contempt for facts, spreading a pervasive sense of fear and overwhelming crisis, portraying his backers as victims, assigning blame to foreign or alien actors and suggesting only his powerful personality can transcend the crisis. He endorsed the violence done to a dissenter at one of his rallies, and he now floats the idea of making entry to the United States contingent on religion. …
Trump’s campaign has grown ever darker. Last week, I wrote that it’s necessary to call Trump the racist, bigot and demagogue that he is. His supporters’ reaction to my column confirmed that he’s appealing to the ugliest impulses: My inbox filled with anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-black and, particularly, anti-Muslim invective (“bunch of scum ball Mos-slimes”). The next day Trump gave a speech to a Jewish group and portrayed them as money-obsessed “negotiators.” …
“This is not conservatism,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) said.
“On some great and glorious day,” the American journalist HL Mencken once wrote, “the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” At the time, in 1920, he was facing the daunting prospect of Warren Harding – “a hollow-headed mediocrity”, Mencken called him – becoming America’s dumbest president. A few months later, Harding won by a landslide.
The quotation regained popularity as a kind of prophesy in the time of George W Bush…
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, is gaining steam against top Republican rivals, according to a national Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
In a hypothetical matchup against the current GOP front-runner, business mogul Donald Trump, Sanders takes 49 percent of the vote to Trump’s 41 percent. Against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sanders leads 44 percent to 43 percent. He also beats Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by 10 percentage points and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson by 6 points.
Fifty-nine percent of voters also say Sanders is honest and trustworthy — placing him well above former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, and above all top Republican candidates tested in the poll.
Clinton, for her part, has also gained some ground in the race, spelling good news for Democrats overall. She is now performing better against top Republican rivals compared to one month ago, when she was just slightly ahead of Trump and losing against all other Republicans in a Quinnipiac poll. In this latest poll, Sanders performs equally well as Clinton against Republicans or better.
In the Democratic primary, Clinton continues to lead with 60 percent of the vote to Sanders’ 30 percent. Her lead has widened by 12 points since an October Quinnipiac poll.
At the request of The Associated Press, eight climate and biological scientists graded for scientific accuracy what a dozen top candidates said in debates, interviews and tweets, using a 0 to 100 scale. …
Below Clinton’s 94 were O’Malley with 91; Sanders, 87; Bush, 64; Christie, 54; Ohio Gov. John Kasich, 47; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, 38; Fiorina, 28; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 21; businessman Donald Trump, 15; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, 13; and Cruz with 6.
Fred: I trust Bernie. He hasn’t waivered on these issues in forty years. Hillary is all over the place. And she’s taking money from billionaires and big banks.
Linda: But Bernie can’t be elected president. Americans will never elect a 74-year-old Jewish socialist. Hillary can be elected. And we can’t risk this election. If any of these Republicans is elected we’re all f*cked.
Fred: Bernie can be elected. Polls don’t measure enthusiasm. And it’s enthusiasm that gets people to the voting booths — and is turning Bernie’s candidacy into a national movement to take back our economy and reclaim our democracy.
Linda: Movement shmovement. “Occupy” was supposed to be a movement, too. Your movements are bullshit. Politics is about discipline and organization. That’s Hillary.
Fred: People don’t trust Hillary. They don’t like her. They won’t vote for her.
Linda: They will if her opponent is Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, or any of the other right-wing fanatics Republicans nominate.
Fred: What good will it do to elect a president whose principles shift like a weathervane?
Linda: What good will it do to have a nominee who can’t get elected?
I remember when I decided to support Barack Obama. It was in January of 2008. Whatever else I may have heard or read, one commercial won me over. Absurd? Sure, but that one commercial made me write the biggest check I have ever sent any cause. ONE commercial can make a difference. One donation — of any size — CAN make a difference. Together, WE can elect Bernie Sanders President of the United States in 2016. Don’t believe the naysayers. Vote for real change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is spending $2 million on his first television ad campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, casting himself as a longtime fighter against injustice and inequality.
The ad traces Sanders’ humble upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, and notes that he attended Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963.
It tells viewers about his work as the mayor of a Vermont city and in Congress and says he’s now “taking on Wall Street and a corrupt political system.”
It points to the 1 million contributors to his campaign and shows footage of his large rallies around the nation.
It’s his first ad of his campaign to challenge front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
As CNNput it, “The ad buy is a significant step for a campaign that started with a shoestring budget, though now the democratic socialist has a strong fundraising operation.”
The GOP finds itself trapped in a marriage that has not only gone bad but is coming apart in full public view. After five decades of shrewd strategy, the Republican coalition Richard Nixon put together in 1968 — welcoming the segregationist white South into the Party of Lincoln — is now devouring itself in ugly, spiteful recriminations. …
At the heart of this intramural conflict is the fact that society has changed dramatically in recent decades, but the GOP has refused to change with it. Americans are rapidly shifting toward more tolerant understandings of personal behavior and social values, but the Republican Party sticks with retrograde social taboos and hard-edged prejudices about race, gender, sexual freedom, immigration, and religion. Plus, it wants to do away with big government (or so it claims).
The party establishment, including business and financial leaders, seems to realize that Republicans need to moderate their outdated posture on social issues. But they can’t persuade their own base — especially Republicans in the white South — to change. …
Nixon’s “Southern strategy” was cynical, of course, but it was an effective electoral ploy. Now, however, it is beginning to look like a deal with the devil.