Why Shaun King Thinks Trump Will Beat Clinton
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Writer Shaun King
by Gaius Publius
I'm looking ahead to the next stages of this unfolding drama, and setting up another installment in that series (Look Ahead part one here, Look Ahead part two here). This is not part three, which will consider the question of who beats who in the general election. But this is preliminary to it.
These are Shaun King's thoughts on the "who beats who" (I know, whom) question. For King, Trump easily trumps Clinton. After an introduction, he gives his reasons. Some I'll quote in full, for others I'll just give a taste of his thinking. It's a good read all the way through.
King (bolded emphasis mine):
Bernie Sanders would be Donald Trump's worst nightmare; Hillary, not so muchKing's arguments come down to:
[...]
1. Like Donald's other fallen foes, Hillary Clinton represents the political establishment.
This narrative is strong and served as the primary crutch of Donald's strategy to defeat an enormous, well-funded Republican field. Americans are incredibly frustrated with our government and Donald used this very real sentiment to position himself as the anti-establishment candidate. Call it nonsensical, but this position, which Donald will hold against Hillary, is what President Obama used to defeat her in 2008, is what George W. Bush used to defeat Al Gore in 2000, and was even what Bill Clinton used to defeat George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Hillary Clinton is as establishment as establishment gets. The machine is behind her. Her campaign against Bernie Sanders has only advanced this sentiment.
Donald Trump simply could not use this angle against Bernie Sanders.
2. Hillary's millions of dollars worth of paid speeches to banks, lobbyists and billionaires cede a certain moral high ground to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is a filthy rich fat cat. He's gaudy and cartoonish with his wealth. He openly admits that he hires foreign workers for cheap jobs and abuses tax loopholes. He is the poster child for everything that Bernie Sanders has railed against — not just in this campaign, but for his entire life in public service.
Hillary Clinton will not really be able to say much about this, though, because Donald's biggest liability is also an enormous liability for her. What's worse, being Scrooge McDuck, or getting paid to speak to a room full of Scrooge McDucks over and over and over again and refusing to release the transcripts of what you said to them? She and Bill rented a home in the Hamptons for $50,000 per week. They've made $230 million since Bill left office. Hillary made more money in 12 speeches to big banks than most American's will make in their lifetime.
Bernie Sanders is a career public servant and will be so until the day he dies. His entire life stands in stark contrast to the outrageous opulence of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The thought that this angle will basically be off the table if the campaign is between Donald and Hillary is simply dumb.
3. Independent and new voters are flocking to Bernie Sanders and even to Donald Trump, but not to Hillary Clinton.
Bernie Sanders is the longest standing Independent in the history of the United States Congress. Consequently, independent voters have flocked to his campaign en masse. When they are allowed to vote in primaries, like they did on Tuesday in Indiana, he wins. They have been absolutely essential to his wins in 18 different states thus far. With only 29% of Americans identifying as Democrats and 26% as Republicans, the largest voting bloc is independents.[...]
I believe many independent voters will stay at home if Bernie Sanders isn't a candidate. It will be up to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party to win them over, but they've expressed very little interest in such a thing thus far. Many more conservative independents will indeed vote for Trump.
4. Hillary's reliance on millions of dollars from SuperPACs is a real problem.
Zero percent of Bernie's campaign funds come from SuperPACs [almost right]. Four percent of Donald's campaign funds come from SuperPACs.
Hillary? More than seven times that amount. An astounding 30% of her campaign funds come from SuperPACs. Donald Trump could feasibly decide he isn't taking a dime from them and put Hillary in a position to defend her reliance on them.
This would never be an issue for Bernie Sanders. It is his rejection of SuperPAC money that has actually won over millions of his voters. For them, this issue is everything. The idea of supporting the candidate who relies so heavily on this type of money nauseates many. Donald Trump will be able to get on the mic and tell supporters that he just isn't influenced by outside money and they'll believe him.
5. Young voters are crazy about Bernie Sanders and just don't care [about] Hillary Clinton.
By young, we don't just mean teenagers. Voters under 25, voters under 35, even voters under 45 all support Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. The younger voter, the bigger the margin. In some age groups he's beating her by 85%-15%. [...]
- "Change" candidate beats Establishment candidate.
- Clinton is too vulnerable on speech money and content.
- Trump competes better for independent voters.
- Clinton has vulnerable ties to big money and Super PACs.
- Clinton won't attract enough young and first-time voters.
King's close:
This race isn't new anymore. People know enough about Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to make an informed decision. I believe these polls are accurate. The team at FiveThirtyEight stated that they believe the polls between Trump and Clinton will continue to narrow.Again, what do you think? Can Clinton beat Trump? Can she beat him easily? Try to picture that. And while you're at it, try to picture the debates? How would you debate Donald Trump? If you were Trump, how would you debate Hillary Clinton?
We can all agree that Trump must be stopped, but this much is clear - Hillary Clinton is not the best opponent to stop him.
(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. This is the final part of the run. If you'd like to help out, go here. If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!)
GP
Labels: 2016 presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Gaius Publius, Hillary Clinton, Trump, Wall Street
posted by Gaius Publius @ 10:00 AM
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7 Comments:
No one is going to beat the one party candidate. She has the backing of the Establishment, period.
Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed. The Democratic National Collective will triangulate all enemies of The Deep State.
Resistance is futile.
Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed. The Democratic National Collective will triangulate all enemies of The Deep State.
Resistance is futile.
"No one is going to beat the one party candidate. She has the backing of the Establishment, period."
On it's face, this is an accurate comment. However, the "Establishment" isn't monolithic.
Hillary does represent the investor class, the meritocracy revealed by Thomas Frank in his latest work Listen Liberal. She does not, however, represent those who are deluded "self-made men" of power and wealth or those who pretend that they are. Drumpf is their man, and the media can't do enough for him in providing an incredible amount of free air time.
Of the two, Drumpf has the edge, for the vast majority of Americans are blindly captive to mass media. Television alone ensured that Drumpf had no meaningful opposition, for the entire GOP slate would never get past any audition for a slot on the most amateur production. Drumpf starred in a series for many years, and knows all the angles and tricks of the media pros.
Hillary's only real advantage over Drumpf is Bill. Like him or not, he knows how to work a crowd. She would be wise to hear what he tells her in this regard, for her efforts at working a crowd show some serious ineptitude. Drumpf seeks to divide his audience from The Other and make them feel special, while Bill always draws The Other in by making them feel included, and always is at least partially successful. Hillary tends to shout "Look at how wonderful I am" and turns people off.
So the choices (as far as all "only 2 parties to vote for" people are concerned) have been made, and we serfs get to select which face of the corporatocracy gets to rule. I feel like I have been transported into the world of Idiocracy !
I will vote for Bernie Sanders unless he formally withdraws. Then, if he does withdraw, I will vote for Dr. Jill Stein. I won't legitimize the takeover of the USA by corporatist fascism with my vote.
I think Trump will beat Hillary for all the reasons Shaun listed. Additionally, Hillary is not a very good campaigner. Plus, her email problem will get larger. Even if she isn't charged with a crime, Trump will claim she's a crook, but Obama's two tiered justice system let her off.
Trump will clean her clock.
While it is true that $hillbillary will be the chosen of the money, largely. Those people aren't enough to elect anyone.
Yes, clearly at this point, there are plenty of greedy and hateful who will vote drumpf without any further thought.
Yes, clearly at this point, there are the half of the D electorate who have and likely will vote for $hillbillary without any further thought, though one wonders how they could be so effing stupid. But, clearly they are.
The question is how many of the 10s of millions of Bernie voters will ram their melons back up their sphincters and vote for $hillbillary without any further thought (or simply out of fear of the greater evil).
And since $hillbillary *IS* a corrupt warmongering lying crook and an ineffective campaigner, one wonders how many on the fence might be swayed by the coming negative attacks from drumpf and the media.
WRT $hillbillary's vulnerabilities... well, there is a lot of there there to be exploited. And her voters are the ones more likely to still be somewhat sentient... while herr drumpf is probably invulnerable to attacks since his voters are dormant between the ears.
I would not be at all surprised if herr drumpf carries a similar electoral majority to obamanation... in spite of how much money the money squanders on supporting $hillbillary. I would not be surprised to see a reaganesque landslide in November.
What might make it a lock? Well, the economy could take a dive; banks could seize up over one of their several active fraud schemes (like libor or the like) since dodd frank did nothing to prevent such; jobs could tank; zika could start affecting white babies; isis could strike again -- in the us would be most effective; nonwhites could start rioting over getting arbitrarily killed; a muslim could get caught shoplifting food in some Podunk Midwest town...
All these things would reflect very badly on the establishment, of which obamanation and $hillbillary are contiguous parts.
$hillbillary is a corrupt warmonger and has taken bribes in public from banks and many other sources for which she has then performed favors and/or WILL preform favors. She was instrumental in creating pointless (but profitable -- for her corporate sponsors) humanitarian crises in Honduras, Syria and Libya et al. She supported, iteratively, the same pointless but profitable horrors in Iraq (Pakistan, yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia...) and literally demanded obamanation bomb Iran -- all to serve her donors.
All this is public record and is known by all her voters, who must somehow be convinced to forget all of this in order to vote for her in November.
If only 10% if "her" voters can be reminded just how despicable a candidate (not to mention an effing DEMOCRAT) she is so as to discourage their voting "for" her... then drumpf wins.
Drumpf and the R fear/hate/greed mongering pr teams certainly know this. This will, therefore, be a scorched earth campaign by the right in order to do just this -- remind enough lefty voters that $hillbillary is, LITERALLY, the devil, albeit one with a vagina. Very doable.
Drumpf's voters are mostly already locked in. There are those who worship wealth; who hate; who fear everything and who just cannot stomach ANY woman. Then there will be the religious xenophobes who will keep the faith with their church (republicanism) no matter how horrible it is.
As drumpf has shown (and openly boasted about), he is impervious to all reasoned attacks. He's Teflon on Kevlar, coated in Vaseline. He cannot be touched by any attacks. $hillbillary has no ammo to make any impact.
So, after the earth is scorched and Bernie's voters won't support her and enough of her current supporters will be made to realize just how horrible she is (and has been for decades), drumpf wins... likely in a landslide... with a record low D turnout.
Will the Ds be destroyed? Gawd, I hope so.
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