Also she is another "university twit" and also not a man also.

I think so.

-Jon Stewart

Yes, sorry, didn't think it needed a /snark tag.

Trump is actually a cynical opportunist taking advantage of a degenerating culture energized only by rage. Ordinary citizens' hope sparked by a bully who brags about lusting for his daughter before audiences who support things like promise rings and abstinence for their own girls. How he must despise his admirers, knowing their values yet talking to them like that, and getting applause in return. Imagine his contempt for them, and yet they deserve it, so it's hard for me to really blame him for seizing his moment, like every charismatic sociopath in history has done when an empire really starts to break into avalanche. Trump's supporters are a demographic in its death throes, the way dying people behave when they can no longer think straight and grasp at anything that might keep them alive, if only for a little while.

It's terrible to watch people lose their dignity. The whole thing bums me out.

(Oh, sorry for the thread derail.)

You're right there. That's why Bernie is hot. Check this out.

Their base's current choice is a chapter 11 specialist who used to dress up like an army man at a boarding school where he says he "always felt" that he was "in the military." Evidently he wasn't captured enough by the military to actually serve in it. Right now he serves another purpose, his own, by serving up racial tension and class envy with healthy portions of misogynist tripe. A couple days ago in Dallas, as he got enthusiastic applause for his nativist scapegoating of 'forners, his supporters showed their true colors clashing with anti-Trump protesters in 60's era-like scenes reminiscent of those times his base longs for. Those times when blacks couldn't vote , got hung from trees and hippies got hit by water cannons.

Republicans don't make mistakes, but do they make fascists? The only element missing is a leader good enough for those who hate being looked down upon to look up to. Maybe they've found their man. Unlike like so many of his fellow GOP presidential candidates he's not a transmitter. Instead he might be the real thing. Acknowledging Godwin's Law there are times when the question is relevant - if it quacks and waddles like a fascist, is it one?

Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (New York: Knopf, 1965)

George Johnson, “Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics” (Los Angeles: Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin, 1983)

Frank P. Mintz, “The Liberty Lobby and the American Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture” (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985).

Yeah, I was about to say if you want to talk Presidential politics, start a new thread.

I don't think Sanders could win a general election. Is the thinking he could, or if not, what's the end game?

Democrats seemed to have this election for the taking, but they are quickly getting divisive in the primary, which could cost them the general.