(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

[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.