Political Irony

Europe has been experiencing far more radical Islamic terrorism lately (especially compared to the US – thanks Obama!), which makes it doubly amazing that London, England just elected a Muslim mayor in a landslide victory. This, despite the fact that Conservatives have won a number of electoral victories lately.

But the Conservatives miscalculated on this one. They attempted a dog whistle campaign attempting to paint him as sympathetic to Islamic extremists. Just before the vote, the Conservatives published an op-ed piece that was illustrated with a photo of a terrorist attack in London. But their racist attacks backfired on them. Even fellow Conservatives expressed shame and anger over their own party’s attacks during the mayoral race.

The new mayor, Sadiq Khan, was born in London to Pakistani immigrants, and went on to become a civil rights lawyer and in 2005, London’s first Muslim member of Parliament. He was elected mayor with the largest personal mandate of any politician in UK history. At his inauguration Khan pledged to be a mayor for people of all faiths and none, saying “I’m determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen, and to represent every single community and every single part of our city as a mayor for Londoners”.

We can only hope that racist politics can backfire in the US as well.

The Hillary Clinton campaign wasted no time after Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. She released an online campaign ad that is made up of video of other Republicans sharing their opinions of Trump.

Republican politicians are in a tight spot, especially ones who are up for reelection this year. Nearly all of them have publicly made disparaging remarks about Trump, and Clinton is going to make sure that nobody forgets what they said. If they pivot, they will be chastised at the polls for being two-faced political opportunists. But if they remain negative about Trump, they will be helping a fellow Republican lose.

The Washington Post has published an interesting article “Anti-Trump Republicans confront a dilemma: Are they ready to help elect Clinton?”. As the Party of No, the Republicans have often benefited from having someone they hate in the White House, and Clinton fits the bill. With Clinton as president, they would be on familiar terrain. The GOP would just keep doing what they have been doing during the Obama presidency, which (unfortunately) has worked for them. Dubya was bad enough for the Republican party, they can only imagine the hurt they will go through if Trump is president and uses the power of the White House to remake the Republican party.

A former aide to presidential candidate John McCain tweeted “The GOP is going to nominate for President a guy who reads the National Enquirer and thinks it’s on the level. I’m with her.”

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson of Red State said the likely option is to let Trump run and lose on his own. Of course, that strategy didn’t work all that well in the primary. But what’s the alternative? Erickson admits “There are a number of us who can’t bring ourselves to vote for him, and there’s more and more polling showing just how badly he would cause the Republicans to lose other races.” So many Republicans will spend their efforts (and their money) on down-ballot races, to limit the GOP losses.

Another alternative would be to launch a third-party candidate, but this option has two big problems. First, who would be the candidate? How are they going to find someone who wants to permanently end their political career? And second, that candidate would likely take votes away from Trump, and so would help Clinton even more.

And the future doesn’t look none too bright either. Even if Cruz didn’t win the nomination, he gained stature and power in the Republican party. He caused enough problems for the Republicans as a freshman senator, so they can imagine the havoc he will inflict going forward. And it seems like the only reason Ted Cruz dropped out was so he could run for president in four years.

UPDATE: Trump wasted no time to piss off the Republican Party. During a campaign rally speech in West Virginia last night, Trump told a crowd of 13,000 to not bother voting in Tuesday’s Republican primary:

What I want you to do is save your vote — you know, you don’t have to vote anymore. Save your vote for the general election, okay? Forget this one. The primary is gone. Save your vote for the general election in November, and we’re going to show you something, and then you’re going to show me something, okay? … The vote was supposed to be on Tuesday, but now I can say: Stay home but get twice as many people in November, right?

The problem is that there are a number of contested local races on Tuesday’s ballot, and those candidates were depending on a large turnout. Trump needs to make peace with the Republican Party if he is going to win the general election, but he sure didn’t help his case by telling Republican voters not to vote. But then, it always was just all about Trump.

UPDATE 2:

© Mike Ohman

I wish more presidential experts were like Macey Hensley. She is far more mature than her supposedly older counterparts.

I believe all presidents deserve respect, even ones you don’t like. And I say this as someone who moved to another country when George W Bush got reelected. But I still respected the office, and respected him as president. Besides, he and Laura are pretty funny in this video.

Bernie Sanders currently has 1,399 delegates (counting both pledged and superdelegates). The Democratic candidate needs 2,383 delegates in order to win at the convention. For Sanders, 2,383 minus 1,399 equals 984. Sanders needs 984 additional delegates.

If you add up all the available delegates in the remaining primaries, there are now a total of 933. Unfortunately for Sanders, 933 is less than 984.

As Politico puts it “it’s now mathematically impossible for him to reach the magic number for the Democratic nomination by winning the remaining pledged delegates alone.”

That’s right. Even if Sanders wins every single remaining pledged delegate (extremely unlikely, as Democratic primaries are all proportional), his only path to victory involves convincing a large number of superdelegates to change their minds and vote for him. That is also highly unlikely, and gives Sanders the hypocritical (albeit required) goal of winning over the superdelegates that he has repeatedly mocked as being undemocratic.

Last night, Sanders again claimed “I think that while the path is narrow — and I do not deny that for a moment — I think we can pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.”

Yes, that will be a political upset, but it won’t be great, coming at the expense of the democratic values that Sanders professes to love. Clinton leads in raw vote (she now has over 3 million more votes than Sanders in the primaries), in pledged delegates (she has 321 more pledged delegates than Sanders), not to mention a huge lead in superdelegates (520 to 39).

Sanders argues that the superdelegates should overrule the voters and switch their allegiance to him because he has a better chance of winning over Trump. Even if that were true (and prior to the convention, polls about hypothetical general election match-ups are notoriously unreliable), the reason why the superdelegates are so strongly in favor of Clinton is because they believe she has a better chance of winning against Trump. Even more importantly, they believe she will be better for the other Democratic races. Sanders has been good at raising money for himself, but he has done nothing for other candidates, while most of the money that gets raised at the expensive fundraising dinners that Clinton appears at (and Sanders mocks) will go to the Democratic party and not to Clinton’s campaign (because of the $2,700 limit on contributions to a candidate’s campaign).

The fight now is not about who will be the Democratic nominee for president. The bigger fight for the Democrats is about Congress. The Democrats need to take over the Senate and win as many seats in the House as possible in order to overcome GOP obstructionism and get anything done (let alone enacting any progressive legislation).

If internal bickering hands over the presidency to Trump along with a Republican Congress (which will then hand over the Supreme Court), it will be a very sad day for the Democrats, and Sanders should know that.

Liberal Redneck responds to the news that the American Family Association is calling for a boycott of Target because of their bathroom policy that allows transgendered people to use the restroom that matches their gender identity.

But now things are getting worse. Now the American Family Association is deliberately sending men dressed as women into women’s restrooms at Target.