April 22, 2016

Which Democrats could Trump include in his administration?

From the very beginning, Trump has said that he's always gotten along with everybody -- he's donated to Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, everybody. He's deplored how polarized the country has become, where Democrats and Republicans both think the other side is not merely an opponent in an electoral contest, but the evil enemy. And he's repeatedly assured us that he's going to be a unifier, and that he's going to unite the country, so that members of the two parties won't be totally alienated from each other.

None of the other Republicans have campaigned with this message, either now or any time in recent memory. Their goal is instead to unite the Republican party, and to wage war against the evil enemy in the general election, whether or not they win (they usually don't).

Since Trump has placed unity of the nation over unity of one of its parties, it stands to reason that he'll make "getting along with Democrats" a theme of his general campaign. Not the Democrat Establishment, of course, but the good Democrats, the ones who want to make America great again. Trump will further marginalize Crooked Hillary by declaring that she can keep the bad Democrats -- the SJW crowd and the Wall Street lobbyists -- and because Trump is not riding on the backs of a wacko culture war group itself (unlike Cruz would be doing), she won't be able to respond by marginalizing him and his supporters.

Openly courting the "honest Democrats," along with those who normally wouldn't be voting at all, avoids the moronic strategy that the Republicans have been losing with for 25 years -- "hammering the swing voters". Nobody can be on the fence between Trump and Crooked Hillary, so anyone who is, must have no principles or goals or intuition. They're going to flip a coin on election day, so why waste so much time, money, and effort trying to budge them?

Courting honest Democrats by defending most aspects of Planned Parenthood, keeping Social Security as is, blasting George W. Bush's entire legacy, and so on and so forth -- that's how you win an election. Convert those who would normally be on the other side, and get more people off of the sidelines and into the arena. Unlike unmovable swing voters, these folks have clearly defined things they care about, and if you give them reason to believe you'd do well for those things, you're in the running.

Best of all -- they're way more than 3% of the population. Convert them, and you win in a landslide. Not just barely winning if you manage to convince every single swing voter.

This doesn't require tons of time, money, and effort -- only a shift in the policies that your party would normally be advocating (and losing with). Only blind adherence to a failed ideology (GOP conservatism today, or Dem liberalism in the '70s and '80s), prevents candidates from simply changing their platform in order to broaden their appeal and actually win control of the government.

Still, persuading members of the other party that you're going to do better for their interests than the candidate of their usual party, is going to be a tough sell. They'll want unfakeable signals of good faith. Trump already has established his long past of relating well with Democrats and Republicans, not only personally but politically. What can he do, though, as a promise about the future?

He could name honest Democrats as members of his Cabinet, and as heads of other important federal agencies. (He's said his Supreme Court picks will be fairly conservative, so that would probably exclude any Dems.) There aren't many Dems who would overlap with his plan entirely, but maybe on one or two aspects -- in which case, assign them to the head of the relevant agency, where they couldn't compromise his plan in the domains where they don't agree.

They would not be tokens, an empty symbol of bipartisanship, but one of the best people for that job. Probably the best person to begin busting up Wall Street banks is not a Republican. And probably the best person to deport illegals and anchor babies is not a Democrat. But it's OK if some jobs will be best done by Dems and others by Repubs.

"Here's the story, folks: I only hire the best people, it has nothing to do with what party they belong to. And if it turns out they're not doing the best job, I'm gonna say -- YOU'RE FIRRRED!"

Poaching the best Democrats ahead of the election will not only persuade the voters that he's already President, it will be an unfakeable sign of good faith to the would-be Hillary voters that he's serious about wanting everybody, regardless of party, to join his team for the greater good of the nation.

So, who are some of the good Democrats that Trump could appoint to one post or another? They wouldn't have to be currently serving, of course. I know even less about them than I do about the universe of Republicans he is recruiting from. But they've got to be there somewhere.

Related: a few earlier posts here and here about what role Bernie could play in a Trump administration, and how it could help in the general election.


  1. How about Jim Webb, former secretary of navy for Reagan administration and Dem senator, for secretary of defense?

  2. Yea, this articlr is begging for Jim Webb, begging for it. A Democrat who was proud to be a redneck and hate hippies, is not OK with mindlessly sending his brothers on expeditions, and even "did not rule out voting Trump" but will not vote the Lesbian

  3. Main qualification for Sec of Defense is were they deluded / retarded / shilling about the Iraq War.

    Webb was against the Iraq War from the beginning, saying plainly there was no real point and we'd have no way of getting out in a good way, in addition to screwing up the Middle East even further. He was even skeptical of the Gulf War.

    I wonder if Trump put up some money to get Webb in the Dem race -- just long enough for him to be a familiar name, face, and persona, when he's brought back in for the final act of Trump's campaign. "Even I, a former candidate for the Democrats..."

    Really, what other purpose did that mini-candidacy serve to him or to the Dems (bosses or voters)?

    If not money, at least the promise of a Cabinet position if he made the initial appearance to make himself known and begin chipping away Dems for Trump.

  4. Well... http://nypost.com/2015/10/20/jim-webbs-pac-paid-his-wife-and-daughter-tens-of-thousands/ OT: I heard his book on the Scots-Irish is really good.

  5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-fallible-mind/201601/why-ted-cruz-s-facial-expression-makes-me-uneasy

    Dude's a sociopath. God forbid a "respectable" person engage in the "judgement" that a craven hack has no scruples. Cruz is an impetuous greedy SOB, too. Marrying to be respectable and get to the top and then cheating on this woman who evidently loves him.

    Joining the Bushes only to get bitter that the elites wouldn't you cut to the front of the line. Commencing a Texas cowboy crusader phase (his parents aren't Texans, he was born in Canada and grad. from two Ivy League schools) and affecting a messiah/martyr persona. "They don't like my principles and goals, they held me back".

    Duping Texas apocalyptarians into supporting your career that led to being a Texas Senator. And totally betraying you opportunism by allying with legions of GOP hacks to make up lost ground as your pres. campaign faltered and voter animosity grew. Let's not forget the shameless copycatting of Trump's Trade/immigration bread and butter, from a guy who wrote a free trade op-ed piece with uber rino hack Paul Ryan.

    Yet it's Trump who is the flip flopper who fails the credibility test, right? While the cultural nerds get bent out of shape regarding abortion, guns, declining religion, or whatever, they miss the monstrous failure of economic/labor policies of the last 30 years. Ted Cruz wasn't gonna remind anyone, either, not until Trump shined a light on it.

  6. Webb is obvious. Also WV Sen. Manchin. Is Gen. Petraus a democrat?

  7. I read about Manchin being one of the few Dems against amnesty, but they made it sound like he waffled. Numbers USA gives him a B-, which is about as good as a Dem can be right now, but not exactly a ringing endorsement.

    Maybe if he defected, he'd feel safer about going against immigration?

    So far we have two Appalachian Democrats, i.e. old-schoolers who still think the Dems stand for the New Deal. But it's a good start.

    1. Petraeus is a Republican so he doesn't count. Manchin voted to defund the executive amnesty, but voted for the gang of 8 bill.

  8. More reason for Trump to recruit from disaffected Dems http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/charles-koch-its-possible-clinton-would-make-a-better-president/ar-BBsbCKA?li=BBnb7Kz&OCID=DELLDHP

  9. Heads up for tomorrow's primaries:

    Connecticut (28 delegates) - 50% or more for statewide delegates (13). Congressional delegates are awarded to the winner of each congressional district (5 districts worth 15 delegates). Trump ought to get a sweep here.

    Delaware - Winner take all (16 delegates). Self-explanatory.

    Rhode Island (19 delegates) - Proportional with 10% threshold. Not much to gain here and Trump isn't gonna get 80%+ for a sweep.

    Maryland (28 delegates) - Winner of pop. vote gets all statewide delegates (14). Congressional district winners get 3 delegates for each district (8 districts worth 24 delegates). This is a state in which voters elect delegates for whom candidate preference can be declared but is not mandatory. Don't expect party hack elitist Cruz delegates to state their preference in a state that is hostile to Cruz. Trump is making Trump friendly delegates known but many voters likely haven't gotten the memo (it's not like the media is telling prospective voters to check out Trump approved voting instructions).

    Pennsylvania (71 delegates) - Things get interesting here. The pop. vote winner is entitled to 14 "bound" delegates (e.g. they must vote for Trump on 1st ballot). The remaining delegates representing the congress. districts however are not obligated to vote for the winner. Hopefully there's enough integrity and populism to thwart any anti-Trump shenanigans (which are going to diminish if Trump goes big in the last few contests). Keep in mind that the unbound delegates are not going to be shown in any candidate's delegate haul. So Trump could rout the others in Pennsylvania, and his delegate count overall won't get a big bump.

    Hopefully that clears thing up a little. It's a headache keeping track of the rules but the one good thing about every state being unique is that it makes it harder for the party big wigs to control things. The Democrat system is much more consistent, arguably for the worse, and let's not forget the super delegate system that makes outsider candidates worthless.

  10. Indiana's polling is much more cucked than the majority of the South and Northeast. Trump will win but likely not by a whole lot. The midwest is just not as thrilled about Trump.

    Trump's % in the Midwest, from best to worse:

    Missouri (41%). Trump's best performance in the plains/Midwest by far, albeit Missouri is quasi southern. Strange that he didn't do better in nearby Arkansas.

    Illinois (39%).
    Michigan (37%)
    Ohio (36%). Who's to say how it would've gone without Kasich? We'll never know.
    Wisconsin (35%). Rust-belt but also Lutheranized Very liberal, befitting the Nice White People who live there.

    That's the rust-belt. Onto the plains....

    Iowa (24%). Too nice to go Trump.
    Kansas (23%) Cuckoo Jesus-ville
    Minnesota (21%). Hasn't gone GOP in the general election in like 40 years or something.

    Presumably Missouri must have a bunch more earnest ass kickers, or somethin'. It's a pretty striking outlier given the holier than thou states above it and the gun toting Cruzer states below.

    Also, Trump hasn't necessarily dominated every Eastern state. He got low 30's in South Carolina and Vermont, and didn't do much better in Virginia or New Hampshire.

  11. SC, VT, VA, and NH were all early primaries with 10+ opponents to chip away at Trump's numbers. Some percentage of the voters for all his opponents would have gone to Trump if they had not been in the race.

    MA, an early New England state, would have gone over 60% like its surrounding states will tomorrow. But with so many opponents, it was chipped away to 49%.

    IN is at 40% Trump now, probably higher after Coach Bobby Knight stumps for him. Not very different from what he scored elsewhere in the Midwest. And there's no mega-machine in IN like there was in WI, and Kasich is no longer a favorite son. He'll do fine in the Hoosier state.

  12. Missouri is Great Plains, Appalachia and Rust Belt combined.

  13. The Ozarks are more of an Appalachian diaspora. They cucked hard for Cruz, while Appalachians in their homeland give Trump handy wins (watch again today in Pennsylvania).

  14. I saw someone defending the caucus heavy Western states that went Cruz. They said that Trump couldn't get a fair shake in caucuses. But isn't Nevada (46%) a caucus state? So is Kentucky (which voted early too) and Trump got 36% there.

    While open primaries are probably to the advantage of Trump (not that it made that much of difference in Wisconsin), the precise nature of the procedure doesn't really matter that much. It's mostly demographics, culture, and time of settlement that determine cuckedness.

    Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Minnesota etc. are all later settled places with some combo of nordic types, ammo stockpilers, or evangelical/Mormon wahoos. And little to no concern regarding immigrants and bringing jobs back.

    There's also home-turf bias to take into account. Trump still got into the mid 30's in Texas in spite of Cruz, probably because Trump's sincere and strong anti-immigration rhetoric plays well with the non-wussy whites there. Trump did very well with similar types of gung-ho whites in Arizona.

    California's ongoing demographics fiasco will push lots of whites to go for Trump. Who knows, maybe even some blacks and Mexicans are tired of the dystopia and want to get involved in cleaning it up. They'll have more respect for Trump than the typical GOPer, simply because he isn't yet another tiring dynasty successor or slick career politician/lawyer. Or a "respectable" corporate raider (Mitt Romney).

    Besides SWPL douches and globalist/corporate rulers, who really wants to have such swarms of people flooding America anyway? If the media did it's damn job and reported the facts of the crisis (e.g. vast numbers of illegals carrying infectious diseases, soaking social services, straining schools, stealing/raping/drug dealing/drunk driving rates etc.) I have no doubt that far more Americans would be even more alarmed.

    I mentioned TB carriers to my dad and he seemed genuinely unsettled. With Diversity as are idol, many people have been guilt tripped into never even considering undeniable risks and flaws of our immigration policies. The elites and their media/academic/corporate lap dogs are awash in the bloodshed they've inflicted on us. We can't let 'em get away with it forever.

    Of course, there's always the sentimental pull of "America is the land of opportunity, why should we deny it to so many?"

  15. Texas only went 27% for Trump, not in the 30s (you might be looking at the percent of delegates he got).

    For voters in the Cuck Belt, government seems so far away as to not be real, and therefore to not require real people to get a real job done once they get there.

    They want to participate as audience members of someone who's openly just putting on an act as a persona -- Ted Cruz, outsider rebel Constitutionalist, complete with that risible tatted-up photo of him.

    Trump isn't an act. He's plainly telling it like it is, and to an audience expecting an act, he's breaking the fourth wall or not being a good showman by getting into character. Borrring.

  16. By government being "far away," I don't mean physically, necessarily. They could be physically closer to a power center, but have an apocalyptic mindset where worldly government has no influence or even relevance in the great big showdown to come.



    And yet, despite the millstone of 16 opponents being winnowed slowly, Trump will surpass George W. Bush and become the record holder for largest number of votes cast in a GOP primary. I'd hate to be a member of #NeverTrump or Laissez-faire Republicanism when that threshold is reached.

