Wingnut Dreams

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Let’s try to overlook the obvious social-psychological issues and basic stupidity of these people and discuss What This Means for the election itself:

“I am a Trump lady. I love Trump. He’s a real man,” said Carol Simone, 69. “He’s going to make us be good again.”

Watching the second presidential debate at Chickie’s and Pete’s in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, Simone wore two “Trump-Pence” stickers, one on her black vest, another on her straw cowboy hat.

“We desperately need him,” she said. “We need him to build a wall to keep Isis out.” …

… The crowd got louder as the debate progressed. Whenever Clinton began talking there were boos and jeers and shouts, usually of “Benghazi” or “emails”, but sometimes just swear words.

Cruciata, the man who used to do sweaters, was among the most vocal.

At one point Trump said “everything” Clinton had done related to foreign policy had been “a disaster”.

“Everything! Everything!” Cruciata shouted. “Even marrying Bill!”

Trump carried on criticizing Clinton.

“You’re gonna cry tonight!” Cruciata shouted.

Clinton, responding to Trump on foreign policy, said she would not send American troops to Syria.

“You should go yourself!” Cruciata shouted. “And get killed!”

Smith gave him a high-five.

Finally, Trump and Clinton were let go by the debate moderators. Cruciata, through an impressive range of insults, looked spent. Simone, in her words “a little bit drunk”, made for the exit. Smith, after many fist pumps into the air, sounded hoarse.

“He opened a can of whoop-ass on her,” he said. He added that he didn’t believe in polls, but that Trump may have won some new voters by “sticking to the issues”.

I asked Smith what his favourite moment was.

“There were so many,” he said. He thought for a second.

“Oh! When he said she should go to jail.”

These are highlights from a story in the Guardian about a debate-viewing party in a bar in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. We’re basically looking at people who have been marinated in Faux News propaganda for many years, and for them I suspect this debate was a fantasy come true. Here was God Emperor Trump bullying the Demon Queen Hillary and uploading “the whole oppo file on Bill.” It must have been like seeing Captain America finally crushing Red Skull.

However, I think for most people Trump grossly overplayed his hand. His insistence on remaining behind her in the camera frame so he could loom over her and scowl was just creepy, and I can’t imagine it endeared him to anybody who wasn’t already in his camp.

Still, I was a bit surprised that post-debate polls overwhelmingly favored Clinton. I would have expected it to have been even. Clinton didn’t own him this time, but was on the defensive. He told lies so fast there was no time to challenge one before he was spewing out the next one.

However, I don’t think Clinton made any mistakes. I don’t expect this debate to cost her anything, which in effect means she won it. She’s ahead; he needed to broaden his support to stay competitive, and I can’t imagine he did.

His threat to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he is elected is the most talked-about single moment in the debate today. Right-wing media loved it. In their fevered imaginations they’ve even added a line he didn’t say, that she would fear him as president. Wingnuts loved it. Most people were appalled, because they recognized that this is was dictators do.

Bottom line: The Right’s ultimate dream is to make the U.S. a right-wing dictatorship in which the civil liberties guaranteed us by the Constitution they claim to worship could be wiped out on the whims of their God Emperor. They want a Strong Man to come and save them from everything they hate and fear, which is pretty much most of the world. This is what the Republican Party has devolved into.

14 thoughts on “Wingnut Dreams”

  1. Well, this is one of those big, big moments.

    The Republicans have done a lot that’s so out of the mainstream that it should have been one of those (needle-on-the-record scratch) “Wait, WHAT?!?!”

    This goes beyond most of that. Both the media, and the Republican leadership, should be getting it through their thick skulls that you do not get to use the power of law enforcement as your private attack dogs, ever. So much in the Bill of Rights was set up precisely to avoid this kind of thing.

    I think there’s a chance. I’m hoping that the Republican mainstream ends up caught in the classic bind – support Trump, lose people who are horrified by “go up and grab… because you can, you’re a star!”; don’t support Trump, lose Trump voters. If they take a hard enough hit, this could finally cause them to stop playing so fast and loose with the truth and sacrificing all sense of honor and decency.

    But I think John Cole predicted Peak Wingnut 8 years ago and was appalled to find out that we still can’t be sure we’ve seen it.

  3. They should look at the Philipines to get an understanding of the kind of horror that could be unleashed by Donald Trump. It’s the same dynamic as the inquisition. The accusation is the conviction and the penalty is death. The law of the jungle.

  4. And yet, Republicans will still control Congress no matter what, as they have since 1994 when they figured out that all that was needed to exert control was 41 votes in the Senate.

    Unless and until someone with media exposure points out the Republican methodology, and the public listens, we will be forced to repeat history…

    Enough programs are in place or have been gutted for a long-lasting effect that will outlive this cancer known as Republicanism for a good, long time.

  5. ““I am a CHUMP.! I love CHUMP! He’s a “MORAN!!!”” said Carol Simone, 69. “He’s going to make us be good again (what the fuck happened to GREAT, I lady). I love CHUMP Trump. He’s a real man,” said Carol Simone, 69. “He’s going to make us be good again.’
    Ditto – pm “Great!!!

  7. The media couldn’t resist indulging in a little “both sidedness” in many of the headlines implying that the candidates were equally nasty to each other, which was hardly the case. Clinton laid down the “they go low, you go high” standard early on, and stuck to it. A little too much, IMO.

    Trump wasn’t as bad as he was in the first debate, but he was still Trump, which in itself is bad. Hillary I thought missed some opportunities to lower the boom, while still going “high.” Asking people to “go to my website” — meh, but why not point out how ignorant Trump is by assuming that a single senator has the power to change laws single-handedly?

    Still though, I’d say she won the night by not taking the bait and giving Pumpkinhead enough room to show voters outside of his camp that he is truly unhinged and unfit to be president.

  8. One other thing: Trump bringing those women on just served to keep the focus on the tape, his non-apology and overshadowed the release of Clinton’s speech transcripts.

    But he’s a HYUUUGE genius!!

  9. Oh yeah, Trump is a real man, just watch his behavior, trying to throw HRC off balance by walking around behind her while she was talking. And that expression! I almost thought he was going to attack her. It gave me the willies. And I finally deduced that his sniffing is breathing. He obviously isn’t a deep breather and that was his way of getting just enough air to continue his diatribe. If he does manage to get elected, I will be convinced God is punishing us.

  10. You got a few categories of Trump voters with plenty of overlap. Some Trump voters hate the Clintons and will do anything to prevent them from having power. Anything. Some Trump voters are evangelical nuts bright enough to see Roe v Wade ascending and state efforts to reverse women’s rights at risk if Clinton wins. Some are narrow bigots who see the natural order of white male dominance threatened by liberal rule.
    None of these groups like Trump, but they are terrified of what equality means. Rule by the majority frightens them because, they aren’t the majority. Equal rights for women threatens their view of penis rule. Equal rights for racial minorities and for Muslims undermines the age-old device of having a sacrificial lamb, a group to blame and make the object of your rage.

    Trump support will bottom out someplace between 35 to 45% of registered voters. What that means is that the nation needs a lot of mental health programs.

  11. Trump isn’t going to get elected! It’s all over but the shout. At this point Hillary could probably go out and club a baby seal in the middle of Times Square and she’d still get elected.
    No, seriously… The knowledge that Trump is unfit for the office of the presidency has already permeated the american psyche. And the number of those people who will disregard that truth for whatever reason will never be sufficient to put him into the White House.
    The handwriting is on the wall… and in so many words Paulie Ryan on behalf of the repuglican party has already conceded the presidential contest to Hillary Clinton..and rightfully so. And Reince really fucked the GOP when he made his Faustian bargain with Trump. “I got him to make the pledge”

  12. grannyeagle… I think all the hot air that Trump has been pushing through his nasal passages has seared his mucus membranes resulting in that sniffing sound.

  14. I did not watch the show, but from what I’ve seen and read have had just one thought: This could be the moment when our country speaks as one to the republican sickos and says “Back off, mother f**ker,”

    They could not have chosen a better standard-bearer.

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