To the Mattresses

I know this is going to break your heart, but the Serta mattress company is dumping the Donald Trump mattress. The Donald has already been dumped by Univision, Macy’s and NBC. Bill de Blasio, el alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York, says the city is reconsidering its business relationships with Trump, including a new golf course in the Bronx.

Naturally, the Donald is surging in the polls. God bless America.

Charles Pierce, yesterday:

It has been an article of faith in this shebeen almost since we opened it in 2011 that there is no actual Republican party in any real sense any more. Ever since the Supreme Court legalized influence-peddling in its Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, there only has been a loosely held group of independent franchises who are doing business for themselves under the Republican Party brand. This is why the suits belonging to obvious anagram Reince Preibus are so very empty.

So far, it seems to me the 2016 GOP nomination competition will go the way of the 2012 circus, in which one clown candidate after another took the lead and then lost it as soon as voters  — and backers — started to actually look at him. This may be happening to Scott Walker already.

Although lots of political reporters have already written off the Jeb Bush campaign, right now it appears Jeb is the new Mittens. Maybe nobody really likes him, but at least he can be cleaned up and made to look respectable.

On the other side of the fence, Bernie Sanders also is surging, sort of. Hillary Clinton is still way ahead of everybody, but Sanders has cut her lead. Joan Walsh:

But the rise of Sanders, alongside that of the GOP’s surging star, blustering racist Donald Trump, also shows the media the difference between the ideological moorings of the folks who make up the Democratic and Republican base. The Democrats have a lot of lefties, FDR Democrats, folks who want single payer health insurance, people who think we can learn from Western Europe not stigmatize it — and yes, Sanders excites them. On the GOP side, there is a loud, large, angry segment of the GOP base that’s frankly xenophobic, nativist, even racist. Trump speaks to them.

I do disagree with Walsh that news media are creating the Sanders surge out of “deranged Clinton hate.” Before this week the media wasn’t taking Sanders seriously as a candidate. It’s also been news media that’s largely responsible for the mantle of inevitability wrapped around HRC.

From what I’ve seen, Clinton backers are certain she’s the only one who can beat Republican candidate X. It’s been my observation that this is the most frequent reason they give for supporting her. It’s also been my observation that those who prefer Sanders are more likely to point to the issues he’s talking about as a reason to support him, although there’s some Clinton bashing, too.

But though Bernie himself is unlikely to be nominated, IMO he represents the party’s future. If it has a future. The Dems have been something like a loosely held group of independent franchises since the 1970s, albeit much less lucrative franchises than their Republican counterparts. My concern is that the young folks won’t turn out for HRC, and/or that eight years of an HRC Administration will persuade the Millennials and whomever come after them that party politics serve no purpose that helps them. They’re pretty much certain of that now, from what I see.