Posted on 12/28/2015 3:33:20 PM PST by Kaslin
Preposterous. They’re nothing alike. Sanders is an unorthodox Democrat who supports universal health care and trade protectionism but also tighter borders and stronger gun rights than most liberals do. Trump, on the other hand, is … wait a sec. Hmmm.
Where was I going with this again?
The strangest thing: I've met a number of Trump rally attendees who say their top two are Trump and Sanders. Seriously. Or in reverse.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) December 28, 2015
We’re in a weird place when Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz are both competing to be the second choice of another guy’s base, but that’s the Trump blue-collar coalition for you. Someone should poll his supporters on a straight up “Sanders versus Cruz” hypothetical and see how they shake out. Most of the economic revanchists among them will go for Sanders, I’d bet, while most of the cultural revanchists will go to Cruz, but what the proportions are between those two is anyone’s guess. If you believe that immigration policy is the prime mover behind Trumpmania then Cruz should win in a walk: Although Sanders has flirted with tougher borders to boost wages for American workers, lately he’s tried to get right with the left by promising to legalize virtually all illegals via kingly decree. Cruz is much closer to Trump’s position on the border. What Cruz lacks is the personal charisma that animates Trump’s cult of personality. Sanders doesn’t have the strong man/national savior vibe that Trump is cultivating but he’s got his own thing going with big rallies, “feeling the Bern,” and so on. If you’re a working-class voter who feels empowered by becoming part of a discrete “movement,” Sanders is a more obvious fallback than Cruz.
Pay attention to what he says in the clip below about Trump having once claimed that wages are too high. Trump was outrageously outraged:
.@BernieSanders-who blew his campaign when he gave Hillary a pass on her e-mail crime, said that I feel wages in America are too high. Lie!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2015
This morning he doubled down. Not only aren’t wages too high, they’re too damned low:
Wages in are country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders.We need smart and strong leadership now!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2015
Minor problem: He has said, repeatedly, that wages are too high. If American industry’s going to stay competitive with foreign industry, labor costs (and taxes!) will need to be cut. Trump and his supporters will tell you that when he said wages are too high he meant the minimum wage, but I’ve never understood that logic. So Trump, the great blue-collar hope, thinks people who earn the least should take a pay cut while people who make more deserve a raise? If the goal is to make American labor cheaper in the interests of competition, why shouldn’t we all take a pay cut? I think the difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 on wages is easily explained: At some point he realized that his base is overwhelmingly working-class and that grumbling about high wages makes him sound like Mitt Romney. Romney was the rich guy who was so tone-deaf to kitchen-table concerns that he aimed the 2012 GOP convention at entrepreneurs rather than wage-earners by making Obama’s “you didn’t build that!” idiocy a central theme. Trump’s supposed to be the rich guy who “gets it,” and step one in getting it is declaring that wages are too low. Problem solved. He’ll be forgiven for his earlier mistake, of course.
In lieu of an exit question, here’s a taste of the economic genius that’s driving Berniemania from this past weekend. Anyone want to revisit freshman economics and explain to him why interest rates differ in these two cases?
You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 26, 2015
Sanders: Trump has turned fear into anger against Muslims and Mexicans
Let’s face it, you’re a flake.
What a joke.
You couldn’t appeal to a half-blind Bolshevik.
Bernie makes his appeal to Trump voters. Trump voters fall to the ground laughing so hard they pee their pants.
Only the ones who know nothing about economics.
Bernie defines ignorance.
This article makes a lot of good points. It exposes the facts surrounding Trump’s statements that wages are too high. Trump supporters say that he is talking about the minimum wage. So, folks making minimum wage need their pay cut?
Coo-Coo! Coo-Coo!
Well when you get as old as Bernie, you lose brain cells, apparently this is what is happening....
Lots of folks seem to happy with that as long as they can receive the fruits of others peoples labor.
He’s right. About a third of GOP primary voters are Dems, btw, which makes it even more likely. Both of the candidates run on gievances, vague plans and bluster.
Frankly, I think this is how the media wants it. I never understood how Trump got away with saying that American wages were too high - which he did indeed say, when talking about outsourcing and also about immigration - and the media reported it but then dropped it when he started blustering and then claimed that he meant the minimum wage was too high. Huh?
They’d like Trump to be the candidate because his unfavorables are enormous, and that’s the only way Hillary is going to win. As for Bernie, he’s probably just a bit of self-expression on the part of union workers, but the Dems will vote for Hillary, especially now that Bill is surfacing.
Don’t blame this on his age. He was this way decades ago. He should know better by now.
This is their second best canidate?
God, we are so screwed
Freegards
LEX
Sanders “can can appeal to Trump’s voters.”
Forget it - he won’t appeal from THIS Trump’s voters
LOLOL!!!
Bernie couldn’t be less appealing if he put on a dress, lipstick, and green eyeshadow.
“Bernie Sanders: Let’s face it, I can appeal to Trump’s voters”
Yeah, right. Sure you can, you delusional old commie ...
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