I couldn't disagree more. He thinks that we have to dump Trump to save our democracy. If our democracy were in such great shape prior to Trump his rise never would have happened.
"The American news media love Donald Trump. He gets them ratings. If they show him waving his arms and ranting, they get viewers. They therefore pretend that Trump is a serious candidate because putting him on the airwaves making moronic and offensive comments is entertaining. But presidential elections are not Reality TV. This is self-governance. And just as money is now making a mockery of American democracy, the news media's obsession with ratings is now making a mockery of American politics."
"So, here's the question. Is Donald Trump is serious candidate for president? The obvious answer is, or appears to be, "yes." After all, he leads all of the other Republican candidates in the polls. So he must be a serious candidate for president. But let's take a closer look."
"Donald Trump leads all Republican candidates with roughly 22 percent of Republicans supporting him. But only 25 percent of Americans now identify as Republicans, the lowest number, by the way, in more than a quarter-of-a-century. So what does that tell us? Well, Trump is the favorite of 22 percent of 25 percent of all Americans. Let's see, that comes out to 5.5 percent of all Americans. That means that just over 1 in 20 Americans supports Donald Trump for president."
"That's not really very impressive. For the sake of comparison, it's worth noting that while 5.5 percent of Americans believe Trump should be president, 18 percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth, 23 percent of Americans believe they've seen a ghost, 10 percent of Americans believe that President Obama is a secret Muslim, 22 percent of Americans believe that President George W. Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks and 10 percent of Americans believe that the moon landing was faked. Gee, that 5.5 percent number doesn't look so good now, does it?"
"But, of course, it's not that simple. After all, Donald Trump is leading the Republican field of seventeen competitors. That's pretty impressive. But keep in mind that the other sixteen candidates are dividing up what we might reasonably think to be the "sane" part of the Republican Party. Imagine if there were seventeen candidates and sixteen of them believed that the earth revolves around the sun and only one of them maintained that the sun revolves around the earth. In a poll, the sixteen would divide the 82 percent of the voters who believed the earth revolves around the sun (an average of 5 percent each) and the idiot would get 18 percent. That's pretty much what's happening now in the Republican Party. But no one in the media wants to speak the truth, because that would turn politics into politics instead of a circus."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/dump-the-trump_b_7945372.html
Wow. Where to begin? This really needs to be unpacked. First of all what does he mean by dumping Trump? Are we supposed to not allow him to run for President in the GOP? That would a rather interesting way of saving democracy-doing something totally undemocratic.
We've decided you aren't a serious candidate for President no matter what the polls say and will ask that you now return to your seat.
Stone certainly is pretty urgent in insisting that Trump is just the marginalized preference of a couple of nuts-apparently 1/4 of the Republican party. Stone himself sounds pretty presumptuous. The truth is that Trump's dominance is rather shocking:
"Donald Trump’s rise to a position of total dominance in the Republican presidential field has been accompanied by a dismissive snort from Beltway mandarins that Trump is merely a “fringe” candidate. The idea, in essence, is that Trump has a strong but narrow appeal to a group of mouth-breathing xenophobes and practically nobody else." "But a new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes this claim. Trump not only laps the competition—he has twice the support of the second-place candidate, Jeb Bush (21 percent to 10 percent)—but he also leads among every demographic subgroup, but one (self-identified “moderates”)."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-gops-party-and-they-can-mess-up.html
So what stage off grief over Trump is he? He still has a long way to go, stuck on Stage Two: denial.
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/4/9094441/donald-trump-2016
If Trump at 25% represents flat earthers, what does the allegedly serious Marco Rubio at 3% represent?
And the question begs: what makes someone who votes for somebody-anybody-else in the primary sane? What makes someone voting for Rubio sane? What makes someone voting for Rand Paul or Ted Cruz sane? Especially as many people who support Cruz or Paul also think the President is a secret Muslim.
What makes the small number of people voting for Chris Christie sane? What makes voting for Jeb Bush or Scott Walker the measure of sanity? I'd love to hear what it is.
The dirty little secret of Trump and this is why the GOP is so rocked by his candidacy is that he just tells the truth about what the party stands for. On the level of substance there's no difference between him and Jeb! on immigration. His positions substantively aren't any worse than the rest of the GOP field.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/style-substance-and-the-donald/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
His very candidacy highlights this fact. So Stone couldn't be more wrong and his whole attitude is strikingly anti-democratic. The Very Serious People are getting very frustrated and desperate.
"The American news media love Donald Trump. He gets them ratings. If they show him waving his arms and ranting, they get viewers. They therefore pretend that Trump is a serious candidate because putting him on the airwaves making moronic and offensive comments is entertaining. But presidential elections are not Reality TV. This is self-governance. And just as money is now making a mockery of American democracy, the news media's obsession with ratings is now making a mockery of American politics."
"So, here's the question. Is Donald Trump is serious candidate for president? The obvious answer is, or appears to be, "yes." After all, he leads all of the other Republican candidates in the polls. So he must be a serious candidate for president. But let's take a closer look."
"Donald Trump leads all Republican candidates with roughly 22 percent of Republicans supporting him. But only 25 percent of Americans now identify as Republicans, the lowest number, by the way, in more than a quarter-of-a-century. So what does that tell us? Well, Trump is the favorite of 22 percent of 25 percent of all Americans. Let's see, that comes out to 5.5 percent of all Americans. That means that just over 1 in 20 Americans supports Donald Trump for president."
"That's not really very impressive. For the sake of comparison, it's worth noting that while 5.5 percent of Americans believe Trump should be president, 18 percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth, 23 percent of Americans believe they've seen a ghost, 10 percent of Americans believe that President Obama is a secret Muslim, 22 percent of Americans believe that President George W. Bush knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks and 10 percent of Americans believe that the moon landing was faked. Gee, that 5.5 percent number doesn't look so good now, does it?"
"But, of course, it's not that simple. After all, Donald Trump is leading the Republican field of seventeen competitors. That's pretty impressive. But keep in mind that the other sixteen candidates are dividing up what we might reasonably think to be the "sane" part of the Republican Party. Imagine if there were seventeen candidates and sixteen of them believed that the earth revolves around the sun and only one of them maintained that the sun revolves around the earth. In a poll, the sixteen would divide the 82 percent of the voters who believed the earth revolves around the sun (an average of 5 percent each) and the idiot would get 18 percent. That's pretty much what's happening now in the Republican Party. But no one in the media wants to speak the truth, because that would turn politics into politics instead of a circus."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/dump-the-trump_b_7945372.html
Wow. Where to begin? This really needs to be unpacked. First of all what does he mean by dumping Trump? Are we supposed to not allow him to run for President in the GOP? That would a rather interesting way of saving democracy-doing something totally undemocratic.
We've decided you aren't a serious candidate for President no matter what the polls say and will ask that you now return to your seat.
Stone certainly is pretty urgent in insisting that Trump is just the marginalized preference of a couple of nuts-apparently 1/4 of the Republican party. Stone himself sounds pretty presumptuous. The truth is that Trump's dominance is rather shocking:
"Donald Trump’s rise to a position of total dominance in the Republican presidential field has been accompanied by a dismissive snort from Beltway mandarins that Trump is merely a “fringe” candidate. The idea, in essence, is that Trump has a strong but narrow appeal to a group of mouth-breathing xenophobes and practically nobody else." "But a new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes this claim. Trump not only laps the competition—he has twice the support of the second-place candidate, Jeb Bush (21 percent to 10 percent)—but he also leads among every demographic subgroup, but one (self-identified “moderates”)."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-gops-party-and-they-can-mess-up.html
So what stage off grief over Trump is he? He still has a long way to go, stuck on Stage Two: denial.
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/4/9094441/donald-trump-2016
If Trump at 25% represents flat earthers, what does the allegedly serious Marco Rubio at 3% represent?
And the question begs: what makes someone who votes for somebody-anybody-else in the primary sane? What makes someone voting for Rubio sane? What makes someone voting for Rand Paul or Ted Cruz sane? Especially as many people who support Cruz or Paul also think the President is a secret Muslim.
What makes the small number of people voting for Chris Christie sane? What makes voting for Jeb Bush or Scott Walker the measure of sanity? I'd love to hear what it is.
The dirty little secret of Trump and this is why the GOP is so rocked by his candidacy is that he just tells the truth about what the party stands for. On the level of substance there's no difference between him and Jeb! on immigration. His positions substantively aren't any worse than the rest of the GOP field.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/style-substance-and-the-donald/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
His very candidacy highlights this fact. So Stone couldn't be more wrong and his whole attitude is strikingly anti-democratic. The Very Serious People are getting very frustrated and desperate.
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