Posted on 09/29/2015 10:48:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A lot of Republicans are hoping Donald Trump will go away, and here’s why he won’t: The Thirders aren’t going away, either.
Understand, the Thirders aren’t a lot of us — just a third — but being the life force of the Republican Party, they are enough to run it. That’s a takeaway from the announced retirement of Speaker John Boehner. He is conceding the House to the forces of GOP wackery.
We used to know the Thirders as Birthers, but we’ve come to see that they have, um, diversified.
The term “Thirders” is my own. It came from polls that show a solid core of right-wingers resistant to any factual assault — polls consistently showing that one-third of Americans don’t believe President Obama was born here, and polls showing that about a third of Americans believe him to be a Muslim.
Anything they can believe about the man, the Thirders will rationalize. Did you hear about the poll showing that one-third of Louisiana Republicans blamed Obama for the poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina — three years before he became president? Did you hear that three years into implementation, a sizable portion of Republicans still believes “death panels” are built into the Affordable Care Act?
Did you hear that Obama will abolish the 22nd Amendment to make himself president for life? I hear this from Thirders who believe it. It would be a trick, considering what it takes to amend the Constitution, but Thirders know Obama is planning it.
It should be no surprise that Donald Trump, the Thirder with the most hair and most money, is leading in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
It should be no surprise that Ben Carson also is doing well among the Thirders, and Ted Cruz still thinks he can secure their heart.
George Will is not a Thirder. He writes that, with his anti-immigrant appeals, Trump wishes to “turn America into a police state in order to facilitate ethnic cleansing.” Yikes.
Charles Krauthammer is not a Thirder. He calls Carson’s assertion that a Muslim should not be president not only contrary to the First Amendment but “morally outrageous.”
All of this is to point out the mathematical truth that these candidates’ popularity is based on the heartbeat of a fringe of America’s fringe.
Let’s do the Thirder math: If we assume, as polls show, that Republicans and those who lean that way are about 45 percent of voters — and if Trump and Carson are supported by roughly 20 percent of them apiece (new CNN poll) — that means that they are supported by 9 percent apiece of all of us. If 11 percent of Republicans fall for Carly Fiorina’s increasingly fact-challenged claims, that’s about 5 percent of us. If Cruz is supported by 5 percent of Republicans, that represents 2.25 percent of us.
Is Marco Rubio a Thirder? He made quite a play the other day. He implied that women get abortions for a piece of the profit alleged to Planned Parenthood from the sale of fetal tissue. That claim — illegal profiteering — is one that rafts of investigations and investigators have failed to prove.
Let’s say such irresponsible claims are a reason why Rubio now has 11 percent support among Republicans, having gained Thirder street cred. That’s, once again, 5 percent of us.
Add the cumulative support of Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Rubio and Cruz, and you’ve got — what did I say? — just about one third of Americans, spectacularly resistant to anything approaching reality, and ready to vote that way.
This writer stuffs straw men and tosses the out there to make us feel shame. That is a fraudulent tactic, well used by Obama and Debbie Schultz. That disqualifies the writer from any serious consideration.
Here here. Better said and quoted than I have read in a long time. Good show.
A friend of mine sent me that video of Cruz last night. It is indeed worth a person's time to watch it as he explains just how out of touch and corrupt the Republicans and Congress have become. God Bless and keep Senator Ted Cruz safe.
CGato
If you take one third away, you are left with two turds.
That explains the smell around D.C.
Thanks fully, I’m not a 2/3’der.
Snarky liberal from Austin. Cold Anger will be sending him back to his room.
“Thirder”
There are some people who cannot feel comfortable about the world unless they have categorized everything and everyone into nice neat partitions. They are compelled by their psychosis to allocate individuals into groups to which they can apply a nice neat label. In this case the term ‘Birther’ is the label they applied to individuals who blasphemed their Obama deity. The new term is ‘Thirder’. This is the label they apply to anyone who tries to interfere with the agenda of the RepubliCrat alliance. This is the alliance, as articulately spotlighted by Ted Cruz, that animates over the cliff the movement of American culture, borders and language (hat tip to the savage).
This helps them to dehumanize the objects of their categorizations. Having already identified these groups as ‘enemies’ they’ve been conditioned to ‘punish’, there will not be a lot of pity or remorse when they unleash the forces of government against a ‘Thirder’ or a ‘Birther’.
Those dang Thirders ... Are they back AGAIN? lol
America’s 2nd Revolution!
He can put his label back up the pipe it dropped out of.
Austin is a very strange part of Texas. “Keep Austin Weird” is a popular slogan there.
John Adams in a letter expressed that "one third of the Americans were for the Revolution, another third were against it, and a final third were neutral or indifferent to the whole affair."
Another ignorant bigot’s screed from a Leftist who know less then nothing about the GOP. Rather then mindlessly regurgitate the talking points sent him by the DNC, this author should get out and actually MEET the people he claims to be writing about.
Austin American Spaceman: local rag
This is Austin, the liberal armpit of Texas.
It has its deranged liberals.
Fortunately, all they can do is write stupid pieces like this that sound profound.
Must be Common Core math.
If you had up the support of the three leading candidates at 26% 22% and 14% - that’s already 60% of GOP primary voters.
Hardly a third of the GOP.
John Young can’t even do basic political arithmetic. Fail.
Thirders? Birthers? Could be that real element, The Silent Majority, is making its self heard. Both Will and Krauthammer having put their “establishment noses” in the air are imho, looking a little silly now with their outrageous pronouncements.
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