Recovering from denaili9sm is much like recovering from $cientology.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/it-was-like-a-cult-leaving-the-world-of-online-conspiracy-theories

Trump losing to Hillary is best for the Republicans, not because “Hillary is evil Republican blah blah” but because they would have an excuse for losing. Down-ticket people can distance themselves from him without losing any support. That’s because he is not taken seriously by the mainstream, and many of his supporters– yes, like many Bernie supporters– were not going to be voting in any event. “It’s just crazy Trump, Republican values have not been rejected.”

Cruz losing to Hillary is much more telling because it contrasts Hillary’s moderate-liberal platform against whatever right-wing craziness Cruz puts out. If down-ticket Republicans distance themselves from Cruz, they alienate an actual reliable voting demographic, which is religionists.

And I don’t think the “savior” scenario is off the table yet. I still don’t see how losing that group that wasn’t going to vote anyway really hurts them if they are going to lose the Presidency anyway. Cruz can be VP, if necessary; he can do well as attack-dog.

Ted Cruz, with Lyin’ Ryan as his veep, and Sam Brownback (recently emerged from the smoldering ruins of Kansas) installed as the Secretary of the Treasury…

Reads like a really bad B-grade horror movie, only you can’t get out of the theater!

“Trumped-Up Productions” brings you “Night of the Living Dead”, where White House “Resident Evil” brings about a global economic wasteland “28 Weeks Later”…

dean: One wonders how much progress the right would have made hitting her on her actual weak spots instead of the trumped up charges. I’m glad they aren’t smart enough to do that.

The hell they aren’t that smart: they know that doing so would be to attack their own candidates.

This morning I see in the news that a CNN news anchor has insisted there is no evidence that giving the Clintons over US$138,000,000 personally (speeches, gifts) has caused them to act in favor of the givers; apparently there is also no evidence that the many hundreds of millions of dollars corporations have given to her election campaigns has swayed Ms Clinton’s behavior in any way over the years.

Which now makes me wonder: if the corporations that are throwing millions and millions of dollars at her are not getting anything in return, why do they keep doing it?

Brainstorms: “That’s possibly because, speaking of actual weak spots, they kinda sorta have their hands full at the moment, and are too pre-occupied with discrediting their own party’s candidates.”

If the Republican Party attacked Ms Clinton’s actual behavior, they would sound like Sanders.

I see in the news that the Chicago Board of Elections has completed its audit and found one precinct’s counts were originally changed by removing 21 Sanders votes and adding 49 Clinton votes. The BoE audit concluded it doesn’t matter.

The most plausible alternative to Trump at this point is Ted Cruz, who in most respects would be even worse as President than Trump

More than agree – I think he’d be worse than Trump in every respect. I also agree about how unliked Cruz is: even my loony brother-in-law, who still believes President Obama stole his elections and is bringing millions of terrorists here, describes Cruz as “That little prick.” and “Wouldn’t vote for the first time in my life if he were the nominee.”

Is a Trump nomination a good thing or a bad thing?

The most plausible alternative to Trump at this point is Ted Cruz, who in most respects would be even worse as President than Trump. Fortunately for the world’s non-Republicans, Cruz has been even better than Trump at burning bridges. Nobody, apart from his parents and possibly his wife, actually likes Cruz. Cruz would win the hardcore evangelical right, but how much beyond that isn’t clear. Trump does have appeal in other circles, but some of the religious right hate him so much that Utah might be in play in a Trump vs. Clinton general election (I think that’s optimistic, but the Republicans would have to spend money in Utah, and maybe the Democrats could pick up a House seat in the Salt Lake area).

My own longstanding view is that both Sanders and Clinton are flawed*, but that both are far superior to any Republican. I believe that Trump has inflicted so much damage on himself, and has alienated so many voters and Republican donors, that either Democrat could beat him. My hope is that the Democratic race doesn’t get any nastier than it already is, that everyone will understand what’s at stake, and that Clinton and Sanders supporters will unite around the nominee.

*An example:
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/17/11439472/clinton-sanders-climate-exchange