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[smjjames]

Either way, the republicans are going to have to decide which is worse, throwing the election to the democrats (they can always fight another day, right?) or having trump as the nominee and potentially president. Theres going to be some which have neither as the worst option because they are both the worst.

[mainiac]

The problem is that Cruz (almost certainly) wouldn't win in any states if he ran as a third party. All he is likely to do is give any state he seriously runs in to Clinton even if he focuses all his efforts on those 5.

Well the 5 states I picked were picked for reasons:
1) Cruz blew Trump out there or is expected to blow Trump out
2) They are considered safely republican (except maybe Texas)

Between these two it's very plausible to say that Cruz would be expected to win and not throw the state to Clinton, except maybe in Texas.

Now Texas is more of a difficult case.  It's not crazy to think that Clinton could carry Texas if Cruz and Trump split it.  But Trump might also face problems in Texas without Cruz in the race since he would alienate the hispanic population and motivate them to vote while having problems in the republican base with religious evangelicals.  Texas would be an easy win for Cruz but it might not be for Trump.  So it's hard to say whether Cruz running in Texas would make a Cruz/Trump victory more likely or less.

[lemon10]

I misunderstood just how red those states are. I checked the voting record in 2008, during which  the reddest state had just a 15% margin. A assumed that +10% of that would be a fair estimate of how they would act. I was completely wrong.
After looking at the 2000 election, the reddest state had a margin of nearly 40%.

Assuming a margin that large happened again it would indeed be possible for Cruz to snatch some of those states from Trump. You were completely correct.

[Shadowlord]

This election isn't likely to resemble either 2000 or 2008, though.

[lemon10]

It isn't going to resemble anything that has happened in a very long time, and as such its rather impossible for me to predict what will happen (although dark wizards like Nate Silver might be able to). At this stage nearly anything can happen, so I can't exactly rule anything out.

The best I can do is look at the past few elections (aka, 2000 and 2008 (as I figured that the elections with an incumbent running were significantly different)) and make broad generalizations about what could happen.

[smjjames]

Yeah, the best we can really do is look at past events and infer what might happen, but this year is unique all on its own for a ton of reasons, so, just about anything could happen.

Also, despite Cruz saying that he doesn't want to be VP, I could see a Trump/Cruz ticket coming out of the convention from some sort of deal. We'll also get to see those negotiating skills Trump is always boasting about.

[PTTG??]

An independent Trump run would probably give Hillary the presidency and Republicans the congress, since mainstream and outside republicans will go in to vote, and democrats are going to be lazy. Or, I suppose, Republicans will be disillusioned by the loss and Democrats invigorated by the potential win....

[RedKing]

Hard to say how "thwarted" Trump supporters would respond in local and state races. They might vote Republican because fuck liberals, they might vote Democrat because fuck those thieving Republicans, they might just stay home, or they might vote a slew of third-party candidates just to try and create havoc and register some kind of protest vote.

Three out of four of those aren't bad.



The more fascinating scenario is if Trump gets the nomination and the establishment runs their own third-party candidate to thwart Trump (as what Bill Kristol has called "Latter-Day Republicans"). GOP legislators would be under tremendous pressure at all levels to declare whether they're a "Trump Republican", an "Anti-Trump Republican" or a "Switzerland Republican". Which could lead to interesting results in smaller races.

Would a guy like Peter King (R-NY) face voter blowback for publicly opposing Trump, and what form would that blowback take?
Would they vote for a Democrat instead? (None have even filed to run yet)
Would Trump Republicans vote instead for some third-party guy, even a Green?
Would they just not vote at all in that race (which would give the Democrats a leg-up, but not as much as actually voting for the Dems)

Conversely, would legislators who hitch their horse to The Trumpwagon face a blowback from establishment Republican voters? I think this is less likely, because establishment voters are, by definition, more loyal to the party (though it would be these same establishment Republicans trying to sabotage their own party's nominee, so....yeah.)

[Shadowlord]

So Last Week Tonight's segment on youtube this week is about the Border Wall (and the existing border fence built by George W Bush). Worth watching, especially if you think the wall is a good idea. I'm not saying "you're dumb for thinking that," I'm saying he presents compelling evidence that it might be a bad idea.

[Strife26]

Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.

Now, I'm not saying that armored spearheads are the solution, but we *do* have about a billion mraps from Iraq that are pretty damn useless for anything other than for cops to use to intimidate people.

[mainiac]

Conversely, would legislators who hitch their horse to The Trumpwagon face a blowback from establishment Republican voters? I think this is less likely, because establishment voters are, by definition, more loyal to the party (though it would be these same establishment Republicans trying to sabotage their own party's nominee, so....yeah.)

I dont think establishment means loyal, I think it means historically catered to.  I'm a pretty establishment democrat but that doesn't mean I'd be happy if the democrats elected someone really weird like Larouche.  If it was a choice between Trump and Larouche, I'd probably vote for Jill Stein.  If it was a choice between Jeb! and Larouche I'd probably vote Jeb! (or protest vote Stein if it's a blowout).  I think establishment means someone whose views align pretty closely with what the party usually does.  Even if Ted Cruz and John Huntsmen represent opposite wings of the party, party priorities have influence on these candidates so the establishment has at least a little stake in the candidates.  Someone like Trump who tells the party and it's agenda to piss off doesn't have that implicit bargain with the establishment.

[PTTG??]

People Ask me why I say Democrats are the same as Republicans.

Spoiler: Specifically (click to show/hide)

PPI is a centrist Democratic think tank that, while not formally affiliated with the Clinton campaign, is effectively an organ of the party establishment; it bills itself as “the original ‘idea mill’ for President Bill Clinton’s New Democrats.” Its new report was widely interpreted as a bid by centrists to show they could compete with Sanders on big economic ideas.

So what were those big ideas? In addition to free trade (including ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Sanders and now Clinton oppose), there was a grab bag of fairly familiar progressive policies: infrastructure spending, paid family leave, improved workforce training. The handful of bolder proposals seemed unlikely to inspire popular passion: Rather than make college free as Sanders wants to, for example, PPI would encourage colleges to offer cheaper three-year degrees. PPI also wants less regulation, lower corporate tax rates and a shift away from taxing income and toward taxing spending. None of those proposals are necessarily bad as economic policy, but in a year of insurgency they seem like strange politics.

So here's some cake for everybody, the paid family leave and infrastructure spending that might bring us closer to having the government services that the rest of the world expects. The rest of it is pure corporate welfare. Free training for future employees, cheaper, younger employees with limited degrees to lock them into specific career tracks, less fucking regulation because if there's one thing that 2008 taught us, it's that unregulated businesses do only good things for the economy, lower corporate tax rates for campaign donors, and then there's this bullshit: "a shift away from taxing income and toward taxing spending."

Can we take a look at that? This is a pro-poverty measure. The only reason you could possibly support this is if you want to make rich people (who spend a very low portion of their wealth) richer, and make poor people (who spend everything they get and still don't have enough money) poorer.

This is the Democratic policy group! This is the LIBERAL party! Frankly, this is more worrisome to me than Trump, because this is the ideological opposite of the conservative movement, as far as America is concerned. The most liberal possible viewpoint is that we need to help corporations at the expense of everything else. Remind me again how this is supposed to be different?

[mainiac]

The PPI is an organization that has probably outlived it's usefulness.  It still did give us the earned income tax credit back in the day.

[RedKing]

Your core mistake is assuming that the Democrats are a "liberal" party. Liberal by US standards, perhaps, but certainly well to the right of most of the major "liberal" parties in Europe and elsewhere when it comes to economic policy. Hell, they're to the right of many European conservative parties on economic issues.

As a nation, we've been scared off of any substantial shifts to the Left for decades because Socialism became a dirty word. But we've apparently made our peace with Fascism, because a disturbingly large number of people are totes okay with a hard shift to the Right.

[Shadowlord]

This is the Democratic policy group! This is the LIBERAL party! Frankly, this is more worrisome to me than Trump, because this is the ideological opposite of the conservative movement, as far as America is concerned. The most liberal possible viewpoint is that we need to help corporations at the expense of everything else. Remind me again how this is supposed to be different?

You're conflating everyone in the democratic party with the "centrists." There's a range of opinions in the democratic party - President Obama is more liberal/progressive, for example, Bill Clinton was more "centrist," but the "centrists" today are more like the Republicans of the 90s. Or maybe the 70s.

The way I see it, the Republicans have been stampeding towards a cliff for 15-20 years*, and the Democratic "centrists" have been so determined to stay in the "center" that they've been chasing after them.

* And Trump is trying to take them over the cliff, while promising that his greatness will make them grow wings and soar. (Also they've shifted a lot since the 70s, too, from what I've read, but I didn't observe that first-hand - of course, that also means it's not as likely to be misremembered, presumably)

(What RedKing about the US parties being more conservative than other Western democracies is also true, but you can also compare it to places like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc, and we're more liberal compared to them)