Skip to content

RINOcracy

Special Bulletin. Stupor Tuesday.

The results of the Super Tuesday balloting may not have been all that surprising, but on the Republican side they were grimly depressing. The nightmare of Donald Trump continues to unfold as a major portion of the Republican base remains in a Trump-induced stupor, unreachable by fact or logic. The New York Times is no friend of the Republican Party, but in its Wednesday editorial we think they had it about right: “The Republicans seem to be reeling, unable or unwilling to comprehend that a shady, bombastic liar is hardening the image of their party as a symbol of intolerance and division.”

If Trump emerges as the Republican nominee, as now seems likely, the consequences are hard to imagine, but among them may well be the end of the Republican Party. When we founded RINOcracy.com three years ago, our motto was “RINOs, let us unite and put our hides on the line to save our party from itself!” At the time, we looked at saving the Republican Party as a daunting task to which we could make only a minor contribution at best. But it is now questionable whether saving the party remains a rational objective or whether it now belongs in a form of political hospice.Read More »Special Bulletin. Stupor Tuesday.

Special Bulletin: Finding Common Political Ground on Poverty – The New York Times

We were not planning to post anything until our return toward the end of the month. But this morning I ran across a very interesting article in The New York Times that I wanted to share with readers of RINOcracy.com who might not have seen it.
The article describes a report by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institute that combines liberal and conservative thinking to arrive at specific proposals to reduce poverty and inequality. (A link to the full report is included in the article.) Apart from the merits of specific proposals, the report appears to reflect the kind of creative thinking and willingness to compromise that we so badly need.
*   *   *   *

Finding Common Political Ground on Poverty

Supporters of a $15 minimum wage at a gathering in November in Manhattan. A group of liberal and conservative economists produced a plan on alleviating poverty. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

Supporters of a $15 minimum wage at a gathering in November in Manhattan. A group of liberal and conservative economists produced a plan on alleviating poverty. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

If you have been paying any attention to America’s paralyzed politics, you are not going to believe this.

Read More »Special Bulletin: Finding Common Political Ground on Poverty – The New York Times

Special Bulletin. The New York Times Endorsements and the Iowa Caucuses

On January 31, The New York Times published endorsements of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president and John Kasich for the Republican nomination.  The Clinton endorsement was ringing and enthusiastic while that of Kasich was a bit grudging and in the “best of a bad lot” genre. Predictably, neither endorsement had any perceptible effect in Iowa, although Clinton’s “victory” over Bernie Sanders was so tiny that one cannot exclude the possibility that the endorsement could have tipped the balance. On the Republican side, Kasich finished well toward the bottom and, to the extent that Republican voters noticed the Times editorial at all, any endorsement from that source might well have counted more as a negative than a positive. (The last Republican endorsed by The New York Times in a general election was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.)Read More »Special Bulletin. The New York Times Endorsements and the Iowa Caucuses

Blog No. 92. The Bloomberg Toe and the Clinton and Sanders Pas De Deux

Blog 92 Bloomberg toeMichael Bloomberg recently put a toe in the political waters by letting it be known that he was considering a race for president in 2016 as an Independent. According to a story in The New York Times, Bloomberg is unhappy with a possible choice of candidates between Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee, and Bernie Sanders the Democratic opponent.Read More »Blog No. 92. The Bloomberg Toe and the Clinton and Sanders Pas De Deux

Blog No. 91. Donald, Sarah and the Weimar Republic

PIC Trump and Palin 2 cards v3The news of Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump seemed quite unsurprising, almost inevitable.  It immediately brought to mind an expression I heard long ago from a fellow soldier at Fort Benning. From time to time, Tom would remark with mild derision, “What a pair to draw to.” I have no recollection of the particular persons or things that inspired the comment, but a quick look on Google renewed my understanding of what he meant. As one writer put it:

One memory I have of my father is a saying he would use whenever we would encounter two people–usually two men, but sometimes a couple–who looked as if they were up to no good. My father, an inveterate poker player, would indicate with a nod and say, “There’s a pair to draw to.”

In the metaphor of poker, of course, the pair to which he was referring would have to be seen as a low pair, deuces or treys. Fours, fives. So in fact they were not a pair to draw to at all. It would be best just to fold before the draw and sit this hand out. But also there was the implication that trouble was just around the corner and was being drawn to the energy of the pair even at the moment, and if we wanted to wait around we probably could see it arrive.

Read More »Blog No. 91. Donald, Sarah and the Weimar Republic

Blog No. 88. Teflon Don: Did He Really Say That?

Through some magical power, Donald Trump has managed to enter a fact-free zone that can only be the envy of his competitors. Unlike the statements of the other candidates, Trump’s are not scrutinized for accuracy, and indeed they are generally assumed to be unprovable or flatly wrong. No, Trump’s pronouncements are assessed primarily on the degree unpleasantness with which they are delivered. (We imagine a campaign logo: “The Surly Bird Gets the Worm.”) He appears to have succeeded John Gotti to the title of the Teflon Don.

Other candidates have attempted to pick him up on this or that fact, and Glenn Kessler has depleted his inventory of Pinocchios in making multiple awards to the Donald. But no one, so far as we know, has made a comprehensive review of Trump’s claims and observations, even within the limits of a single debate. We though it might be a useful experiment applied to the Fifth Debate. Confined to that debate the experiment is obviously limited and will omit any number of his more noxious expostulations. Nevertheless, one has to start somewhere. What follows is the entirety of what Trump had to say at the Fifth Republican Debate, omitting only various personal comments directed at other candidates or the moderators. We have supplied headings and questions and comments in bold.Read More »Blog No. 88. Teflon Don: Did He Really Say That?

Special Bulletin. Donald Trump: Again and Still and What to Do?

The New York Times on December 2 carried yet another story of Republican leadership fretting about Donald Trump, “Wary of Donald Trump, G.O.P. Leaders Are Caught in a Standoff.” The article quoted among others, Senator Lindsey Graham on the effect of a Trump nomination. As a candidate himself, and one who is trailing Trump by a wide margin in the polls, Graham is not exactly a disinterested observer. Yet his succinct precis bears repeating:

“It would be an utter, complete and total disaster,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, himself a presidential candidate who has tangled with Mr. Trump, said of his rival’s effect on lower-tier Republican candidates. “If you’re a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot, you’re going to have a hard time being president of the United States, and you’re going to do irreparable damage to the party.”

Read More »Special Bulletin. Donald Trump: Again and Still and What to Do?

Special Bulletin. What’s the Matter With the Moderates?

Let’s begin by admitting that there are those who would say that “Republican Moderate” is an oxymoron or perhaps an anachronism. Or that  Republican Moderate is just a polite term for RINO. We will not pause to define Republican Moderate, or identify who, in general, would qualify for that description. We will admit that there are fewer than we would wish and we also note that the related species, Liberal Republican, is truly extinct: we are unlikely ever again to  see the likes of, say, Jack Javits, Ed Brooke or Nelson Rockefeller.Read More »Special Bulletin. What’s the Matter With the Moderates?

Blog No. 72. The August Debate and the RINOcracy.com Ten

As most readers of RINOcracy.com may have noticed, the media have already begun to speculate on who will participate in the first debate among Republican Presidential candidates in August. (We use the term “debate” loosely because in their current form such events bear little resemblance to traditional debates and are more in the nature of forums, or verbal free-for-alls.) The speculation is prompted by the fact that the sponsor of the debate, Fox News, has decided that only the ten contenders ranking highest in opinion polls will be invited to the party.

The Fox rule is not irrational by any means. It seems reasonable to have some limitation if the proceedings are to be at all coherent and within the patience of the audience. CNN has announced that it will hold a second-tier debate on the same evening for those who are excluded from the Fox event but are polling at least 1%. It is not clear, however, which if any of the candidates will be attracted to what some have dubbed the “kids’ table.” In any case, it is clear that Fox’s main event will involve several candidates for whom RINOcracy.com has little enthusiasm and omit others from whom we would like to hear. So we thought it might be of interest to identify our own list of preferred candidates with a brief comment as to why each was included. As to those who are not on our list, we shall, for the moment, observe Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment” not to speak ill of other Republicans. (We do not promise to be so obedient over the next 17 months leading up to the election.)RINOcracy10Read More »Blog No. 72. The August Debate and the RINOcracy.com Ten