Posted on 10/21/2016 5:04:16 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A few nights ago on Megyn Kelly’s program Chris Stirewalt made a clever comment that epitomized the blindness of political pros in government and the media to the stakes and significance of the 2016 presidential campaign. Noting Trump’s current unfavorable standing in the pre-election polls, Stirewalt concluded that this election is starting to look more and more like 1996 (or words to that effect).
What Stirewalt presumably meant was that he expects Hillary Clinton to prevail on Election Day 2016 by a margin similar to Bill Clinton’s margin of victory in 1996. She might, although I doubt it. But even if Hillary does prevail and equals Bill Clinton’s re-election margin down to a single vote, 2016 won’t be anything like 1996, except perhaps in the eyes of blinkered professionals like Stirewalt. That’s because at a distance of 20 years only political obsessives can remember who the Republican candidate was in 1996, and even fewer can remember the issues on which the election was contested. Donald Trump’s candidacy, in contrast, is a phenomenon that will be remembered and resonate with significance for decades, regardless of the outcome on Election Day. Whether Trump ever becomes president or not, his campaign has already served, with enormous success, as the platform of a loud cry of popular protest against elite rule of our political and cultural institutions. Even Trump’s personal flaws, by attracting so much concerted, nasty, and hyperbolical opposition from elites, have had the salutary effect of enticing the elite manipulators out of concealment and into the ugly glare of daylight....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Why the hell is this guy writing about 1996? All the pundit said was that the victory margin was going to be huge. There was no other comparison being drawn, so why write about one?
Stirewalt is a simp - where the hell did he come from?
Bob Dole rolled over by Labor Day. I don't think he was within 10 points of Clinton since. I don't think even Viagra would have helped his cause.
This is more like a 1980 election.
The general thrust of the meaning of the Trump campaign is accurate—and all the elites are in denial on that point.
I believe the “polls” are blatant propaganda, polling malpractice, and I believe Trump should win (even after Democrat fraudulent votes are manufactured), but it is not 100% guaranteed so the larger point is valid.
We are living in interesting times indeed, and I see many parallels with the pre Civil War period.
There was a meeting in the 1820s between John Quincy Adams and John Calhoun where the long term future of the country was discussed. It was a cordial discussion. Both men disagreed on the major issues of the time (representing different parts of the country) and they were trying to figure out if some sort of lasting compromise could be reached. They concluded it could not be—that the differences were too great and they both predicted that would be a Civil War at some point.
It took forty years after their meeting for the Civil War to start.
So maybe we have forty years left or maybe none or maybe somewhere in between.
I admit that I am not very good at predictions—so I won’t go there.
Conservatives need to fight asymmetricaly. Dog the MSM constantly and consistently. The “Bill is a Rapist” movement is brilliant. “Code Pink” for all its wackiness is an example.
Disrupt every media event: “Liberal Media Lies”, “Democrat Puppets”
Use Alinsky tactics against the Alinsky acolytes.
I agree with the “forty years” part of your assertion. IMHO, though, we have already burned through thirty-nine-and a half.
“Why the hell is this guy writing about 1996? All the pundit said was that the victory margin was going to be huge. There was no other comparison being drawn, so why write about one?”
As for me, I think that there are comparisons to a prior election...1980, to be exact.
“So maybe we have forty years left or maybe none or maybe somewhere in between.”
I saw a great meme yesterday, attributed to FReeper Travis McGee http://coldfury.com/2016/10/15/i-repeat-come-and-take-them/:
“If you have 18 guns, and Hillary’s new gun laws ban 12 of them, how many guns will you have?
18 guns.
Your move, Hillary.”
Prior to Dole for President, I still believed, but 1996 proved to me that the GOP wasn't in it to win it and I couldn't understand that. It just didn't make sense.
It's taken a while since then, election by election, to fully shake off any remaining misplaced faith and trust in GovCo and to see that our sham two party system is nothing but pay to play theater and that we're the ones being played.
The worst part was that a majority of my fellow Americans in the audience fully believed the show was real, and not just actors on the stage playing their parts.
Finally(!), in 2016 none other than Donald J. Trump yanked back the curtains and flipped on all the lights to reveal what's been hidden. Boom!
And those uniparty rats been squealing and scattering to get back out of the light ever since!
Best Election Ever!!!
Stirewalt is a never Trumpet.
That movie doesn't end well.
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