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The Turn of the Election Season
Jun. 18th, 2016 02:32 pmI am tired, busy, etc. I miss winter already.
It seems that the primary election season, more brutal than 2008, is finally (all but) over. (At least, I hope that e.g the weekend of July 18 isn't too interesting.) Sanders supporters, so full of predictions that Sanders would definitely win California but maybe not by enough, proved too full of wishful thinking even at that. Now we are in the extreme bitterness phase, with talk of stolen elections and pointed unimaginativeness about what obstacles their favored candidate might have faced in the general election had he prevailed. There's nothing more painful than a narrow loss. But I hope Sanders supporters will not forget that there are more elected positions than President. If they can still succeed in getting the sort of Congress that would pass the sort of policy they favor, what's Hillary Clinton going to do, veto it?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, there's lots of (albeit sometimes very reluctant) falling in line behind perspective nominee Donald Trump. There's still some rumbling about replacing Trump at convention. But with the "contested convention" option out of that way, this only leaves "blatant shenanigans". I see how that might be technically possible if Trump's delegate selection was so poor that there's a majority of Cruz delegates once you count Trump delegates that are secret Cruz supporters. If you have a majority of the delegates (most especially a majority of the rules committee), you can do whatever you want. But Trump's had a few uncontested primaries with nothing to focus on but delegate selection, so his collection of delegates can't be that bad at this point, can they? Plus that route would be even more suicidal for the GOP than the other available alternatives.
Not to say that the DNC is in any better shape. This election we'll find out whether it's worse for an American political party to have an outsider populist candidate win their presidential primary or almost win.
The recent massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando seems to have pushed all sorts of politics into overdrive, with Trump really, really doubling down on his anti-Muslim rhetoric. (The immediate aftermath of some terrible crime is really not the best time for making good political decisions, but I see why people who feel they are politically thwarted feel that they need to capitalize on the moment. It should go without saying that people whose politics I agree with are right to put political pragmatism ahead of concerns about propriety or rash action, and people whose politics I disagree with are "politicizing tragedy" out of sheer bloody-minded opportunism.) Obama's cogent response to this of course did not get as much media attention as Trump's trumpery, but he's right to point out that mere repetition of the phrase "radical Islamic terror" 1) doesn't really help fight terrorists 2) plays into the ISIS narrative that this is a war against Islam in general and that they represent Islam in general 3) makes Muslims worry that it's prelude to a government crackdown on Muslims in general, especially when a major party's presidential candidate is overtly in support of just that.
It seems that the primary election season, more brutal than 2008, is finally (all but) over. (At least, I hope that e.g the weekend of July 18 isn't too interesting.) Sanders supporters, so full of predictions that Sanders would definitely win California but maybe not by enough, proved too full of wishful thinking even at that. Now we are in the extreme bitterness phase, with talk of stolen elections and pointed unimaginativeness about what obstacles their favored candidate might have faced in the general election had he prevailed. There's nothing more painful than a narrow loss. But I hope Sanders supporters will not forget that there are more elected positions than President. If they can still succeed in getting the sort of Congress that would pass the sort of policy they favor, what's Hillary Clinton going to do, veto it?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, there's lots of (albeit sometimes very reluctant) falling in line behind perspective nominee Donald Trump. There's still some rumbling about replacing Trump at convention. But with the "contested convention" option out of that way, this only leaves "blatant shenanigans". I see how that might be technically possible if Trump's delegate selection was so poor that there's a majority of Cruz delegates once you count Trump delegates that are secret Cruz supporters. If you have a majority of the delegates (most especially a majority of the rules committee), you can do whatever you want. But Trump's had a few uncontested primaries with nothing to focus on but delegate selection, so his collection of delegates can't be that bad at this point, can they? Plus that route would be even more suicidal for the GOP than the other available alternatives.
Not to say that the DNC is in any better shape. This election we'll find out whether it's worse for an American political party to have an outsider populist candidate win their presidential primary or almost win.
The recent massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando seems to have pushed all sorts of politics into overdrive, with Trump really, really doubling down on his anti-Muslim rhetoric. (The immediate aftermath of some terrible crime is really not the best time for making good political decisions, but I see why people who feel they are politically thwarted feel that they need to capitalize on the moment. It should go without saying that people whose politics I agree with are right to put political pragmatism ahead of concerns about propriety or rash action, and people whose politics I disagree with are "politicizing tragedy" out of sheer bloody-minded opportunism.) Obama's cogent response to this of course did not get as much media attention as Trump's trumpery, but he's right to point out that mere repetition of the phrase "radical Islamic terror" 1) doesn't really help fight terrorists 2) plays into the ISIS narrative that this is a war against Islam in general and that they represent Islam in general 3) makes Muslims worry that it's prelude to a government crackdown on Muslims in general, especially when a major party's presidential candidate is overtly in support of just that.
