It’s good to see, finally. The rats are trying to desert the sinking ship, but don’t let them — and it’s not as if they can. It’s only about a month until the election. Deadlines to put names on the ballot have passed; no matter what the other Republicans do, come November, people will go into their voting booths and Trump’s name will be there, even if every other Republican in the country has repudiated him. He will get many votes from angry white people. All that has changed is that the size of his defeat will probably be larger (although we might also get surprised: this much controversy is probably going to increase the turnout, especially among the racist/sexist/white nationalist electorate).
But it’s also too late for the Republican leadership to untangle themselves from the hideous Trump. They endorsed him. They marched out and made their little speeches approving of the man — even Ted Cruz, who told everyone to vote their conscience at the Republican convention, swallowed his pride and got on board the Trump Train. None of these people should be allowed to escape public censure.
It’s particularly galling because we all knew all along that Trump was a racist, sexist, loud-mouthed hateful boor. He declared that Mexicans were racists and that a judge of Mexican descent couldn’t be trusted; they waffled. He announced that he had a plan to deport Muslims, and he took on a running mate who wanted to bar all Syrian refugees; well, that’s all right then. He proposes shutting down Planned Parenthood and bringing in judges who will overthrow Roe v. Wade, and Pence tried to pass a law requiring formal funerals for aborted fetuses; no problem. Trump wants to end marriage equality, and Pence claims tolerance for gay rights will lead to societal collapse; that’s fine, they agree. He calls women pigs, ugly, fat, and mocks them for blood coming out of their wherever; he’s just speaking his mind. He builds a following of openly racist white nationalists, he foments violence at his rallies; Dick Cheney approves this message.
Everyone knew this. These were not secretive attitudes. He was utterly brazen. We also knew that he was incompetent, had a feeble attention span, was anticipating -science, and was totally unqualified for the job, but those are basically the prerequisites for being a Republican nowadays, so we can’t fault them for overlooking that, but the naked hatred was inescapably obvious, and one thing I’ll say for the Republicans, they usually try to keep their hatred discreetly clothed.
So what suddenly turned everyone against Trump? He said lewd things about a white woman. That is unforgivable. Paul Ryan revealed the real problem. Trump was not chivalrous.
Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.
Fuck you, Paul Ryan. No. Women don’t need you to be their champion, and reverence is not what they are looking for: fairness and equality are. Especially when your version of “reverence” involves supporting a vulgar bigot who doesn’t trust women with their own bodies.
I’ll believe Republicans are sincere in the repudiation of Donald Trump when they also repudiate all the policies and ideas Trump represented. But until then, bury the lot of them in the dung heap of history.
New entertainment: look up all the people and groups who endorsed Trump before this, when he was a known racist and perpetrator of harassment and sexual assault and were undeterred by his history. For example, here’s a page of Scholars and Writers for America, a long list of very serious very intellectual wankers who think…
Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald J. Trump is the candidate most likely to restore the promise of America, and we urge you to support him as we do.
Where, apparently, the promise of America is to support slavery and not allow women to vote.
“Scholars and Writers for America” kinda sounds like “Truth in Science”, I thought, so I looked at their list of names. I recognized a few. Looks like I was right.
So much for the presidency. But Republicans are expected to do pretty well in the Congressional elections and also in state elections. I am sorry to say that, and I would be glad to be wrong.
Ted Cruz…For a time that idiot at least stood on one decent principle by refusing to endorse Trump, citing what he said about his father and his wife. But he sold out anyway on a bet that he did not have to take.
Scanning the list for names I recognize.
George Gilder: I recall this name from the ID debate. Boston Globe, July 27, 2005
Callista Gingrich (wife #3)
Newt Gingrich – Most famous for shutting down the government, and for pursuing impeachment of Bill Clinton for getting a blow job while carrying on affair of his own
David Horowitz
Julie Ponzi – haven’t actually heard of her, but I suspect she has a scheme
Alfred Regnery – Isn’t his name associated with a really really bad study on gay marriage?
Peter Thiel – whose idea for a libertarian island paradise never came to fruition
—
That’s about it. Not a single signatory who I have heard of and actually respect.
@ 3 Reginald
I recognize 2 .
John Lott famous gun researcher who lost his survey and had his own sock puppet.
Fred Singer well-known climate denier
Sounds like a round-up of the usual suspects.
Lott and Regner — but where’s Wakefield?
what is this ant-science that you mention Trump is into.
Trump is not a myrmecologist.
@Reginald Selkirk:
You’re thinking of Mark Regnerus.
If Bill Clinton is able to rape women, Donald Trump should be allowed to talk about grabbing some snatch. The celebration of the beauty of women transcending political affiliation.
OK, thanks. Then i guess I haven’t heard of Alfred Regnery at all.
@9 thing3
You know, you’d almost be funny if people didn’t actually think that.
Thank you, PZ! I knew I could count on you to say exactly what I was thinking re Paul Ryan! When I heard what that mealy-mouthed groveler said, my reaction was, “Fuck you, Paul Ryan! I am not a goddess–I am a human being!”
Thing3, the thing with Monica Lewinsky was consensual. Anyway, neither one of them should be able to do either of those things.
Owlmirror (#7)
He knows a thing or two about digging holes though.
@asclepias: Lewinsky is not the woman Bill Clinton is accused of having raped.
Her name is Juanita Broaddrick.
Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones claimed sexual assault and harassment by Bill Clinton.
Owmirror@8, thanks for the correction!
Here’s how Paul Ryan reveres women. He’s cast 59 anti-choice votes on reproductive rights and supports a ban on abortion even if the life of the mother is at risk. Ryan voted to ban abortion coverage from being included in the state health insurance exchanges and has compared Roe to the Dred Scott decision.
He would defund Planned Parenthood. He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ryan voted to cut off Title X family planning programs. He voted against the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act. He co-sponsored a federal personhood bill. That bill declared a fertilized egg that hasn’t even resulted in a pregnancy to be the equivalent of a living person, with all of the rights of federal law.
Good luck with Paul Ryan as your champion.
I was gonna say isn’t “championing and revering” objectifying? Does Ryan not actually know what words mean?
By definition, women are the objects of the sentences he would be structuring there. He isn’t giving them an active verb in that sentence. He’s saying “one should champion and revere women” without accounting for the possibility that some ones are women to begin with, since “women should champion and revere women” is clearly off.
so… yeah.
Text message from my wife on reading Ryan last night: “Women don’t need to be revered or championed. It’s spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”
Lots of people have called out Ryan on this. He, of course, is just being a typical Catholic and equating all women with their Virgin Mary myth, one of the finest examples of paganism still in existence. Meanwhile, still abusing the autonomy and rights of women, mainly because of his fetus fetish.
Absolutely none of them. The whole lot is repugnant.
Owlmirror, you have convinced me. If I see the name Bill Clinton on my ballot, I am totally not voting for that guy.
Concourse lists the Rethugs against Trump:
{one of the clingers named, was bolded by yours truly} WHA ?!?!
I would have thought McCain to be first off the TrumpTitanic given how Drumph insulted him by literally calling him a “a failure, not the kind of vet worth providing care for”. The insult got many vets to jump ship, why not McCain???!?!?!?!?!
Seems the TrumpTitanic is keeping their (too few) lifeboats locked up, to protect them from being used, which would reduce their market value.
No doubt the Republicans are in disarray.
But what if Trump wins anyway?
What we see as a bug, they see as a feature. And nothing about Trump’s many negatives has hurt his candidacy all that much.
I’m still not convinced Trump won’t win. I hope every Clinton voter casts their vote and doesn’t risk a Trump presidency. Now that Trump has come this far, nothing would surprise me any more.
“Baron” Conrad Black is one of those listed “Scholars and Writers”. I’m surprised he didn’t use his antiquated title. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to let people know he’s not an American citizen so can’t vote in the election.
For the last couple of years my wife has been describing the disarray within the Republican party as the equivalent of Sea Start Wasting Disease. She keeps waiting for the various arms to crawl away and die…
Teddy didn’t just swallow his pride, he swallowed his dignity there. Trump personally insulted his family, and after a brief flash of defiance is now grovelling for benevolence from the alpha.
It’s just as pathetic as Jeb’s “Please clap” moment.
Following on from Raven (#22):
Indeed. Being on the near side of the Atlantic* I can’t help thinking about the Brexit debacle whenever Trump and his awfulness come up. Opponents often characterised the Leave campaign as a bunch of xenophobic lies. They won, by the skin of their teeth but still they won and things over here are going to be ‘very interesting’ for years to come.
So forgive me if I remain pessimistic and won’t hope that the latest scandal, which may have marginally more impact than all the previous ones, will improve matters all that much. Time was that “Trump would never get the nomination,”** and today we’re here:
At this stage I shan’t settle for anything less than the official announcment that Trump has lost the election. No assumptions in the meantime.
*What with you lot being in the New World and all..
**A step up from what used to be, “He always says he’ll run but he never actually does”, if memory serves.
YES. This is a reason I keep saying you must not mark your ballet for any
republicationthug, since to be a thug candidate is to agree with the ideas and policies and positions of the thugs’s platform — thugs are authoritarians and do not tolerate dissent (unless the bribe is large enough) — that is, simply repudiating teh trum-prat is insufficent. Resign from the thugs! Only then is it possible to believe “you” might be sincere.And mark your ballot for a vivable non-thug, in every position. A vote for a thug is a vote in support of teh trum-prat, in support of the thugs’s platform. Use a clothespin on the nose if necessary, but don’t mark the ballot for any thug, or any non-viable non-thug.
komarov@27:
The difference between then and now is that then it was months to the convention with thin polling and lots of candidates; now it’s weeks to the general election with pretty extensive polling and just two candidates.
This certainly needs to be taken advantage with out letting it reduce efforts going forward. I’m thinking about how to best approach it on facebook with my family. I think I’ll start with a passive approach bluntly noting that we can now add sexual assault to Trump’s list of shitty human characteristics, and follow that up some general observations about how the set influences how he interacts with different kinds of and people in general. Then I’ll start in on some of the posts trying to draw moral equivalence in order to change the subject.
As despicable as this is at least it useful for looking at how people try to avoid politically inconvenient things that are objectively terrible to them. The fact that so many of Trump’s other statements, behaviors and beliefs are also objectively terrible matters, but in case the usefulness is in shoring up that bad reputation that was not an object to them until now.
Are all “[Something] for America” groups astroturf producers for conservative causes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a nonprofit group that used that naming pattern that wasn’t just an arm of the Republican party.
As for this group, it appears it’s only a few weeks old, and probably only created to endorse Trump:
Domain Name: SCHOLARSANDWRITERSFORAMERICA.ORG
Creation Date: 2016-09-24T19:34:19Z
Who will turn up to tomorrow’s debate. Donald beat the taxman Trump, Donald sex tape Trump or Putin’s Poodle?
I suggest that people who say “I cannot vote for Clinton” simply DON’T vote.
I’m sure the GOP leadership are almost ready to unveil their new strategy for dealing with the shrieking man-baby: Blame it on the media, liberals, women, blacks, Hispanics and Muslims.
You know, their strategy for dealing with every problem that rich white men imagine in their head-movies.
LOL @ Paul Ryan’s comment. Trump has ruined the party and they’re still not getting it. The Republicans, including Paul Ryan, agree with each and every statement of Trump’s, including his vile misogyny.
ashley, #33
And they want us to believe it’s not because she’s a woman. Laugh.
And they love writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about the evils of Hillary
thing3, #9
I didn’t realized Hillary transferred her candidacy to her husband.
Oh, you were trying to derail. Sorry.
I know everyone was dying to get into a conversation with him, but thing3 has been banned. Sorry.
Sad — I wouldn’t say Trump ruined the Republican party. It was already a disaster which is one reason he got the nod. But, he’s certainly the result of the party’s desolation, its masked agenda of bigotry, its greed, and its arrogance. They got what they wanted. They deserve every shameful moment of it.
John McCain has withdrawn his endorsement of Trump in a strongly worded statement that includes condemning Trump over his statements about the Central Park 5.
I want to say that at this juncture it is impossible for Trump to win, that there is now way any electorate could be stupid enough to make such an incredibly idiotic decision as electing this repugnant bigot. Unfortunately, I am a Brit, so I know first hand that electorates can and do make such stupid decisions with ease, even when every every rational argument points the other way.
The Save the Day campaign put it well.
Someone should have told the republicans that you jump ship before the ship sinks not after it is resting on the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
I anticipate that at least one woman will come forward before the election and file sexual assault charges against Donald Trump. Republicans who are ditching him are perhaps anticipating the same thing. But I have been wrong before. Once.
One of the facets of a two-party system is that it doesn’t matter how much disarray one party finds themselves in if the other party doesn’t press the advantage.
In 2008, the Republicans had effectively self-immolated after the disaster of Bush’s regime. If the Democrats were willing to exploit that advantage, they could have dissolved the Republican Party. Instead, they went out of their way to rebuild the Republican Party by refusing to advance their agenda without Republican approval. After two years of the do-nothing Democrats, the Republicans had put a fresh face forward and were ready to pander to a public that now considered both parties more or less equally to blame for the country’s dire straits.
In 2016, enough people were sick of the neoconservative establishment that lets the country suffer for the benefit of the rich that the Republican leadership found themselves usurped by slick populist Trump who proceeded to act like the spoiled toddler that he is while the party as a whole struggles between the Scylla of endorsing him anyway and the Charybdis of shattering the party, leaving them in disarray. If the Democrats were willing to exploit that advantage, the Democrats could take control essentially uncontested. Instead, they bent over backwards to give Trump a fighting chance by nominating a neoconservative establishment hack who represents the very thing that drives Trump’s popularity.
How low can the Republicans sink? As low as the Democrats allow them to. They could get away with Bush because the Democrats nominated a Reagan; they might get away with Trump because the Democrats nominated a Bush.
@20, brucegee1962:
Exactly. There are plenty of good reasons to criticize Hillary Clinton; there’s no need to resort to bullshit ones.
It’s not like anybody here voted for Bill Clinton, so what relevance does he have?
@28, blf:
Exactly. Parties are interconnected; every Republican supports the Republican Party by virtue of their membership, and the Republican Party supports its members. As such, every Republican bears some responsibility for Trump’s actions.
Meanwhile, Obama isn’t even responsible for his own actions because he’s a Democrat so rules don’t apply to him.
@33 ashley:
Why?
Say what? I did!
I don’t get the hate for Paul Ryan. Women are to be adored and warmed, with us men cradling their tiny heads in our arms while we whisper reassurances about their looks and kiss them softly on their foreheads, patting their shoulders as we do so; gently, but with a comforting firmness. Not objectified, or left alone all day in the yard.
Jake Harban, #43
You can say “I cannot vote for Clinton” and still vote for Clinton.
[Trump] “was anticipating -science” How Rocky Horror of him. An-tici-(say it, say it!)-pation. SCIENCE!
McCain’s statement was actually pretty good – talks about the Central Park 5 and Trump’s other shitbaggery as well as the most recent revelations, and calls those out as about sexual assault, rather than focusing on “lewdness”, and no bullshit about “as a father/husband”
grasshopper
He’s already facing trial for the rape of a 13-year-old; I’d assume that the vast majority of those dropping support of him are doing so because it’s become clear he’s going to lose.
A number of people have noted that Ted Cruz was vociferous in his condemnation of Trump, but ended up supporting his campaign anyway. While this is indeed very hypocritical, it’s something that the US electoral system practically requires of presidential candidates. The cost of running even a campaign for the party nomination is astronomically high, and most candidates end up running up huge debts to do so. These can take decades to pay off.
Except now they can’t exactly do fundraisers or call on wealthy donors to help them out, because who wants to donate money to pay off debts from a failed campaign? So they pretty much have to make a faustian bargain with the eventual nominee and hope that their still-viable campaign takes on the debts too. Traditionally this has also meant that if their party’s campaign is not successful they will at least still be in good standing with the party leadership and thus able to take advantage of further fundraising down the line.
Previously:
Currently:
*shakes head sadly*
Trump is not expecting science.
@50, Owlmirror:
>Trump is not expecting science.
NOBODY expects science! Its chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear…
Note to the Republicans:
Don’t act like you didn’t see it coming. This is exactly what you wanted. Now quit whining drink that cup to the bottom.