Donald Trump the sore loser and Hillary Clinton the despised crook: What I’m reading, April 13, 2016 (updated)

Updated for a story on Bernie Sanders supporters’ frustration with the Democratic Party primary system.


The Horse Race

For those who think Hillary Clinton is good enough (figure 1):

Mr. Fish, April 13, 2016, Truthout, fair use.
Fig. 1. Mr. Fish, April 13, 2016, Truthout, fair use.

Simon Head, “Clinton and Goldman: Why It Matters,” New York Review of Books, April 12, 2016, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/12/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-why-it-matters/

Niall Stanage and Amie Parnes, “Clinton’s dismal approval ratings prompt Dem fears,” Hill, April 13, 2016, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/276078-clintons-dismal-approval-ratings-prompt-dem-fears


Donald Trump

The New York Times weighs Donald Trump’s failure of organization in the delegate selection process heavily.[1] But more than that, Trump sounds to me like a lousy loser when he blames anyone but himself for his increasingly likely failure to win enough delegates to win the Republican nomination on the first round of voting, when delegates are bound to the candidates they were elected to vote for.[2] However, despite the winner/loser dichotomy that Trump uses to build his reputation, there is a mitigating aspect: “His effort to sow doubt about the system plays into the suspicions and anxieties that many of his most ardent backers have about a political process they believe has intentionally disenfranchised them.”[3] The Times is not wrong here; these “suspicions and anxieties” are the culmination of functionalist conservative exploitation of authoritarian populist resentment, as described by Thomas Frank.[4]

Jeremy W. Peters and Jonathan Martin, “Donald Trump, Losing Ground, Tries to Blame the System,” New York Times, April 12, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/politics/donald-trump-losing-ground-tries-to-blame-the-system.html


Oil prices

Bill Spindle, “Weak Oil Prices Curbing Production,” Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/crude-rises-on-signs-of-output-cuts-1460505118


Bernie Sanders

Daniel Strauss, “Bernie’s backers rage against Democratic machine,” Politico, April 13, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-supporters-democrats-221842


Footnotes

  1. [1]Jeremy W. Peters and Jonathan Martin, “Donald Trump, Losing Ground, Tries to Blame the System,” New York Times, April 12, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/politics/donald-trump-losing-ground-tries-to-blame-the-system.html
  2. [2]Eli Stokols and Kyle Cheney, “Trump’s Saturday delegate disaster,” Politico, April 9, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/donald-trump-colorado-south-carolina-delegates-221762
  3. [3]Jeremy W. Peters and Jonathan Martin, “Donald Trump, Losing Ground, Tries to Blame the System,” New York Times, April 12, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/politics/donald-trump-losing-ground-tries-to-blame-the-system.html
  4. [4]Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas? (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

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