Jay Carlson

Comment Threads

• ilya187 commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  the only Republican candidate who's still polling high enough to challenge The Donald is Senator Ted Cruz, who the GOP elders view as even crazier than Trump. I'm not sure they're wrong. I would say they are entirely right. I am pretty sure most of Trump's crazy is an act; he consciously models his public persona on Alec Baldwin's portrayal of the "Type A to 11" salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross. Whereas Cruz really believes all this Revelation horseshit....
• Greg. Tingey commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  What you really mean is: I am pretty sure most of Trump's crazy is an act ... I HOPE. Um....
• Gerald Fnord commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  I heard an interview with a few bikers deeply into Trump, and (though it might trigger the Godwin Alarms) I'm afraid I thought of the S.A.: deeply disaffected men who've found someone they're sure won't 'screw them like all the others' and who enjoy a bit of violence if they have the numbers. "The Iron Dream"'s Knights of Bushido, anyone?...
• Heteromeles commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  The sad part is that they're both acting crazy: Remember that Cruz went to Harvard Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court. The even sadder part is that, if either of them gets elected, their base will hold their feet to the fire to try to get them to enact Teh Crazy. Look at what happened to Speaker Boehner. I suspect that the huge mistake they're both making is in thinking that they can use this force without ending up getting used by it. It's worth remembering two things. One is that Imperial Japan went down this route, starting...
• Gerald Fnord commented on The paranoid style in 2016
  I know a not particularly radical leftist who nonetheless has unsisted that liberals should arm ourselves, both to put a countervailing fear in play and, more fundamentally, to gain respect from other Americans. I counter that employing the method of the opponent were both a form of loss in itself and liable to be done much less well than by them...and point to the deadly force used on armed leftists in our country to an extent unknown by the Klan, the Minutemen, and (see below) the Posse Comitatus and the current rebels. Yes, there have been well-publicised shoot-outs and other...