(no subject)

[randomness]

Long and informative piece on the Koch brothers pulling back from this year's presidential race.

Koch allies say the brothers took tremendous interest in Bernie Sanders’ unlikely success — particularly his resonance with young voters who represent the future of the electorate — and drew stark conclusions about their own efforts. “Dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into elections doesn’t persuade enough people to achieve lasting change,” one Koch confidante says. “To achieve lasting change, the effort has to begin much earlier.”

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Trump is not an evangelical and his record on Second Amendment issues--near and dear to the hearts of many conservatives--is sketchy at best. (There's a saying that "If a conservative is a single-issue voter, then that issue is the right to own a gun.") He's given money to anti-gun Democratic politicians in the past, and has voiced support in the past for an assault-weapons ban. He's now trying to palm himself off as a pro-2A candidate and it's not flying.

I've seen some allegations on Facebook (where, quelle surprise, the political feed leans so far to the left it's ready to fall over) that Trump's campaign is out of money; however, as the presumptive nominee, he's going to have access to the RNC's warchest.

Trump/Putin certainly makes for an interesting conspiracy theory, but I have no idea why Pooty-Poot would really profit from a Trump presidency.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Trump/Putin certainly makes for an interesting conspiracy theory, but I have no idea why Pooty-Poot would really profit from a Trump presidency.

Trump seems to like Putin's style, and Putin is returning the favor. IMHO, Trump gives Putin what he craves, the attention due to being the leader of a superpower. (Whereas the last presidents have treated Putin as the fundamentally insignificant nuisance he is.)

A recent analysis I've seen suggests that the parties are realigning on a nationalist vs. cosmopolitan axis. If that really happens, a lot of conservatives will be aligned with Trump not because of 2^ndA or religion, but because he's the nationalist.

OTOH, I do expect, once Clinton can turn her full attention on Trump, that she will commission lots of dissident voices in the conservative community to peel off any parts that aren't firmly attached to Trump's nativist-nationalist core appeal.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I've also seen pundits suggest that Putin likes Trump because he thinks he could hornswoggle a lot out of Trump.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I've seen that as well. Seems plausible.