Yesterday’s upset in Michigan has the FiveThirtyEight crew reeling. The polls said that Hillary Clinton would take Michigan by at least 20 percentage points, if not 30. But she lost. The algorithm gods were wrong. I dare say Nate Silver and crew have never been off by that much. “Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history,” said one.
And I must say I was surprised, too. During the two Michigan pre-primary debates/town halls/whatever, Hillary Clinton had attempted the Karl Rovian trick of saying Sanders had voted against the auto bailout bill, leaving out the part about it being part of the TARP bill. Clinton did carry Flint and Detroit, but, glory be, the rest of electorate didn’t fall for it.
It’s possible Michigan was a fluke. It’s also possible that what happened in Michigan could happen in Ohio and Illinois next week. If the Dem establishment were smart — and I don’t think they are that smart, frankly — they would be paying attention to what Sanders supporters want, and taking it seriously.
I like what D.D. Guttenplan wrote in The Nation:
…what Michigan shows is that Bernie’s voters are every bit as important to a Democratic victory as Hillary’s. Especially if, as the Michigan results also suggest, those voters include an increasing number of African-American voters. Perhaps instead of telling Sanders voters to “get in line†behind the inevitable nominee, Clinton supporters should tell their candidate to stop telling lies.
We’ve all read thousands of words about how Bernie needs to respect Hillary, and how the Bernie Bros need to lay off Hillary supporters (much of which I agree with). And as the veteran broadcaster Salim Muwakkil pointed out recently on Facebook, Sanders needs to keep listening and learning to correct his racial blindspots—“and his supporters must not rush to keep [those] blinders intact.â€
But we also need to say clearly that the Hillary supporters need to stop denigrating Bernie as a racist or sexist when he clearly isn’t, stop condescending to his supporters for wanting fundamental, rather than cosmetic, change to our rigged economy and corrupt politics, and stop using the kind of underhanded, Nixonian tactics that seem designed to keep Sanders voters home in November.
Meanwhile, as Sanders pulled off what was arguably a historic upset, the cable news networks were glued to Donald Trump’s utterly surreal victory speech. In a way I don’t blame them; it was so bizarre it was hard to not watch. Here’s just a bit:
And Mitt got up — and he really shouldn’t have done it, it wasn’t becoming, honestly — and he talked about the water company. Well, there’s…
Trump steaks — where are the steaks? Do we have steaks? We have Trump steaks. He said the steak company, and we have Trump steaks. And by the way,…
We have Trump Magazine. Let me see the magazine. He said Trump Magazine is out. I said, it is? I thought I read one two days ago. This comes out and it’s called The Jewel of Palm Beach and we…
So — and the airline, by the way, I sold the airline. You know, he said Trump Airline. Well, I sold the airline and I actually made a great deal,…
And by the way, Trump University, it’s — we’re holding it. When I win the lawsuit, which I’ll win, the — they did an ad — Rubio did an ad…
And I’m — I just want to explain. I — and the United States should be this — I don’t settle lawsuits, very rare, because once you settle lawsuits,…
So when I saw the different things — and by the way, the winery, you see the wine, because he mentioned Trump vodka, it’s the largest winery on the…
And so I just want to — so I want to put that to rest. So you have the water, you have the steaks, you have the airline that I sold. I mean, what’s…
That’s copied directly from the CSPAN transcript. He went on like that for nearly an hour.
I hope this is the first of a long line of upsets. Awww, what the heck, …one more time guys…
https://youtu.be/NwKXs28OjuQ
Three comments:
Bernie and the Donald both understand at least one thing the Establishment refuses to acknowledge: Free Trade pacts totally screw over the 99%.
Donald’s soliloquy really suggests he has a lot of concerns about the size of his… fingers. Clinton could probably get him to bust an aneurysm by just suggesting Bill has bigger fingers.
I have no clue what’s going on here and neither does Nate(!?!). Will Trump inspire legions of drooling followers and score the upset of the Century in the general election? Or will he inspire hoards of independents and Brooksian Republicans to cross over and back (presumably?) Clinton?
Trump gets weirder and weirder. I remember when offering raw meat to your audience was just a metaphor.
Here is what probably happened: The 2008 D primary was a screwed up mess, because the state tried to move it to earlier and the Party said NO. Obama did not enter it, HRC did, but the turnout demographics were all screwed up. Apparently all the pollsters took that data as their baseline for this primary—hello, stoopid!—which led them to a classic GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage Out).
What does this mean going forward? A lot of different things. It means HRC’s lead in Ohio is probably legitimate (of course, the effect of this loss will make some difference), but her lead in Florida, which had a similar kerfuffle in 2008, might be dicey. And of course, all the pollsters will be working overtime to fix and adjust things.
There’s an article about this online someplace, I think at WaPo. Yeah:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/09/why-were-the-polls-in-michigan-so-far-off/?postshare=7581457549213223&tid=ss_fb-bottom
Steve M, at his great blog, nomoremisterniceblog, says that Bernie’s victory may be because the Dem’s supporting Hillary knew she a huge lead in the state, heeded the GOP’s warnings about Trump, and switched parties from voting for her, and instead, voting for an alternative – Kasich.
Yes, that may be nuts.
Voting for the “reasonable”-seeming non-rabid Honey Badger, Kasich, is stupid since he seems ok to many Independents, and seeming to be normal despite being a lesser sociopath to the rest of the psychpaths.
Me?
I’d have either stuck to one of the Dem’s, or voted for that wanabeie “Christian” American Ayatollah, Teddy Cruz-ader.
To get to know him, is to get to loathe him!
Except of course, for the Evangelical “Christians.”
In the reality TV that runs in my head I want to see Cruz or Rubio in one of the debates tell Trump they are wearing one of his ties. And grin. The Trump clothing line with one of the big department stores folded a while back. I’d love to have the non-Trump flip back the tie to read a label and say “Made in China” because that’s where the entire clothing line was manufactured and ask, “If you put your NAME on something, your BRAND, why didn’t you insist as a condition that it be American made?” It’s my understanding that the hats which carry the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again” are from China, at least the first batches.
Doug.. That department store that carried Trumps ties was Macy’s. They dropped his line of merchandise right after he came out with his first bigoted statement. The purple tie that he wears quite often is from the Trump collection and it retailed at Macy’s for $80.00 dollars.
it’s really late here, so perhaps I missed it because I’m sleepy, but no one mentioned that Michigan was an open primary. I think this could have had an effect.
“(T)he hats which carry the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again†are from China”
Low, these many years ago, when I first moved to our area, there were still a few cotton mills open. I was surprised to see a T-shirt with our town’s name on it. Mostly, it surprised me that anyone would find a reason to remember, let alone advertise a visit here. (It’s not a bad place, just a bit colorless.) I was even more surprised to find that despite the faltering cotton mills, the shirt was, of course, made in China.
At the expense of detail and clarity, I’ll try to forego being my usual rambling and present few interlocking cocktail hour thoughts, that coincidentally, seem to be sprouting on the internet.
The Right has has used the term “socialist” to describe any policy that they oppose, especially those which benefit those of us in the common rabble, most importantly, young financially insecure people. So, for younger folks, the term is not off-putting, evidently, just the opposite.
We are entering the “third machine age,” which is a leap of technology that will transform the means of production, society and human relations. There will simply be little work left for us to do. As always, the most vulnerable fall first and the rest of us move towards vulnerability and insecurity. This raises a few very basic questions about our political system and our economy, but the most simple is, whether the economy is the master or the slave.
Finally, planned economies have failed in the past because of their inability to predict and meet demand. The “market” had a superior ability to conform to, and meet demand. (I think this is related to an effect know as the “wisdom of the crowd,” but that’s for another day.) But, now, the market is predicting demand through the analysis of oceans of highly detailed information, gathered every time you click your mouse or use your credit card. So, would the market still be superior in this regard, given that the same information and methods of analysis would be available to the entities charged with planning the economy? Those entities, would most likely be some vehicle of artificial intelligence, rather than an army of bureaucrats laboring with minuscule amounts of information. That’s just another instance where human error would be weeded out in favor of less fallible circuitry.
At one time Capitalism might have been the most efficient way to organize production and support society. But, in our current situation, that may no longer be true. In fact, one leg of the fork in the road may lead to a collective, “socialist” society while the other leads to Feudalism V 2.0.
Maybe I shouldn’t have had that second glass of absinthe.
Lynne,
I didn’t specifically mention it, but that was what my word-turd was about
Doug–from your keyboard to God’s inbox! If one of the other candidates is going to get hold of a Trump tie and show the label, tonight is the last opportunity to make it make a difference.
My understanding is that the baseball caps distributed the Trump campaign were made in the USA, and that several knock-offs were made in China. Having a malevolent intelligence makes you malevolent, but does not deprive you of every vestige of intelligence; he knows very well that he cannot afford to set himself up for exposure when he can still turn a profit by having $25 caps made in the USA.
The Right has has used the term “socialist†to describe any policy that they oppose,
Here’s an interesting movie that give some insight into the history of the propaganda that still has a hold on the Right…It’s worth a watch just for the educational value. The terminology has changed but the underlying premise still remains the same. Using “niggers” as dupes to advance their cause and achieve their goals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Gi_YuE9yw&list=PLE1CA9A2109F41CE1
Give it a watch if you can find the time.. and notice the Battle Hymn of the Republic playing ever so faintly in the closing scene.
Thanks Swami. I checked the link and I remember seeing that film when I was a kid. It’ll be interesting to see it again after so many years. Of course “A Face in the Crowd” is another classic.
I said this before, but, Adam Curtis’ “Century of the Self” is a must see if you want to get into the nuts and bolts of propaganda. But, it’s in six episodes, so that’s a pretty big chunk of your life.
But, it’s in six episodes, so that’s a pretty big chunk of your life.
Not when you’re a guy like me who doesn’t have a life…. 🙂 My glory days are over.. I’ve been relegated to the has been bin.
Swami, I know that “the paths of glory …” But, you seem to have gathered some wisdom, and most of us are in the same boat, age-wise. Adam Curtis has made some very interesting documentaries, most on youtube. He takes a little getting used to, but, very thought provoking once you do.
As an old sod sitting by the cyber fire, I just want to keep my brain alive. The glory days are gone, but, the warm and quiet evenings with our soulmates might just go on forever.
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