Prelude to the Apocalypse

[quash]

This is the last bit of help I'm giving you. Anything past this is up to you to research on your own.

Don't even talk about economic illiteracy when Bernie said it doesn't make sense that loans with no collateral have higher interest rates than loans that do.

[Mischief Maker]

Anything past this is up to you to research on your own.

Hey, thanks for the tip! In my research it looks like I found the solution to most of my Trump fears! Most, not all...

[EmperorIng]

Y'all talking like that would scare me but the thought of a mass exodus of the dross of Hollywood and East Coast "intelligentsia" only makes me want Trump more. No more Rosie O'Donnell? No more Jon Stewart? George Lopez? Al Sharpton? Is this supposed to frighten me??? Where do I sign up?!?

Samuel L. Jackson would be a loss, I admit, but let's be honest; his best films are probably behind him. And he can always come back for work.

[quash]

Anything past this is up to you to research on your own.

Hey, thanks for the tip! In my research it looks like I found the solution to most of my Trump fears! Most, not all...

Why don't you go to Mexico instead? Surely they'll welcome you with open arms. There'll even be a wall to prevent those racist Americans from coming in!

[Mischief Maker]

The plot thickens. There are rumors that Hillary will get indicted by the FBI, but rather than go with anti-establishment Bernie, the DNC will trot out a Joe Biden/Elizabeth Warren ticket last minute.

Just rumors at the moment.

[Domino]

The plot thickens. There are rumors that Hillary will get indicted by the FBI, but rather than go with anti-establishment Bernie, the DNC will trot out a Joe Biden/Elizabeth Warren ticket last minute.

Just rumors at the moment.

If the rumors are true that is a disgrace. Now personally Sanders is more or less a political enemy of mine, but I would take the honestly of him over the smucks of Biden/Warren any day of the week.

Meanwhile my friend won a local election here in Jax, FL and she is flying up to Phila for the DNC Convention voting for Sanders. Or something like that.....

[BulletMagnet]

He was a junior senator in way over his head, not fully realizing just how much he was being taken advantage of at the time.

I technically agree on this point, but almost certainly in a completely different way than you intended; as I've said elsewhere, if Nancy Pelosi had gotten in front of the cameras in 2006 and said her party's job, full stop, was simply to oppose every single thing Bush did, she'd have been shot dead within the hour and the bullet enshrined in the National Archives, but when Mitch McConnell did the same thing Uncle Barry took everyone on an extended field trip to Compromise or Capitulate Land in an attempt to make nice...and was still shouted down as a "tyrant" at every turn. On that front I wish he'd gotten the message a lot sooner, and acted accordingly.

Furthermore, he has proven that he is beyond a shadow of a doubt the greatest political strategist in the history of democracy. He has defied every expectation and come out ahead of everyone.

Too bad about the whole "none of his proposals make any earthly sense" thing...but hey, he polls well and makes the advertisers happy, so we're all good!

Again with this romanticizing of so-called "reason".

Sorry dude, not everything magically transforms into an "opinion" the second it becomes inconvenient; some things are provably true or false. "Tax cuts for the rich increases revenue" is one of them; "Socialized medicine is always inferior to privatized care" is another, and "In-person voter fraud is a widespread problem" is yet another. The list, need I say it, goes on, and in some cases actually informs political opinions...but I guess that sort of approach just makes somebody a slave to Skynet, huh?

You can't tell me that appearance doesn't or shouldn't matter in politics, when all the history in the world suggests otherwise.

"Doesn't", no. "Shouldn't"? At the very least, it should matter a whole lot less than it does; hell, your side of the fence was gnashing its teeth eight years ago about how tragic it was that America was being taken in by the devilish charms of the young smooth talker over the age and experience of a long-serving Senator and war veteran (who, as it turns out, also had terrible ideas [for all your harping on Hillary's hawkishness, I would hope you also remember "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"], but again, what does that matter?).

That still doesn't change the media's overall left-leaning bias in any way, shape or form, for the record.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea who actually owns most media outlets, and who sponsors most of its content? Any idea at all?

He knows that it's going to be negotiated and that it's going to be different from what he has put out. Basically, we can't actually speculate on this yet because it may end up being turned into something else entirely or simply shot down as is.

Dear God was I hoping you'd bring his pitiful "it'll be negotiated" excuse up, for two reasons:

First and foremost, Trump's entire campaign is built on the idea that his sheer magnificence and unparalleled desire to Make America Great will propel him over and above the usual fray and allow him to defy any and all of the normal rules; whatever the problem that's plagued the country for decades if not centuries, he'll just pull some incredible "deal" out of his back pocket that no other schmuck could ever have come up with, and make everything wonderful in record time! So what's the deal with him suddenly planting his feet firmly on the ground and essentially passing the buck to the usual suspects if his numbers turn out to be contradictory garbage after even a cursory glance? What happened to "screw all of those losers, I can and will do better"?

Just in case you haven't made the mental connection, this is exactly the same shit he pulled with Trump University: when it launched, he was all over it, his face was everywhere, my courses will change your life, you will be amazed, you will witness greatness, tell 'em The Donald sent ya. When it was inevitably revealed that the whole thing was a brazen scam, suddenly it became "It was just a licensing deal, I barely touched it, I don't know who was teaching it, I just know the BBB rated it well at one point, that's it". Once again, for all of his and his followers' rants about Personal Responsibility and Rugged Individualism, Trump's real talent, as also evidenced by the multiple bankruptcies in which he managed to lose no money of his own (and his blaming of everything bad that's happened to white men on Political Correctness and Reverse Racism/Sexism), is dropping something as soon as it becomes obvious that he's screwed the pooch, and leave someone else holding the bag. Why you or anyone else would be so firmly convinced that something different is happening this time is, frankly, beyond me.

On a related note, when Trump doesn't merely "clarify" his positions on a handful of issues, but performs an unending, almost random series of 180-degree turns (and sometimes back again from there) on almost every single portion of his platform, he's either "evolving" or just saying what he needs to say now, but will totally do everything right in the end...everyone else, of course, is pandering and lacking in principles. I'd love to hear you attempt to illuminate the distinction, aside from the obvious. And no, "they're politicians, he isn't!" doesn't count.

"We came, we saw, he died" is so much better.

I did recently mention that his foreign policy stance can be summed up as "piss everyone off and spread more nukes around", right? Your non-response isn't even a proper non-response.

Hillary literally wants to stage a full invasion of Syria to instate a puppet government that would act solely in the interests of the US so as to antagonize Russia and prepare for a war in Iran.

Considering that she's running largely on Obama's legacy, including the Iran deal, even if she really really wants to do it methinks she'll find plenty of excuses to hold back...and again, she knows that a big chunk of her party is to her left on this, and can be cowed into executing their will instead of her own personal ambitions (oh, sorry, " is overly poll-driven and lacks guiding principles. And I don't care for her laugh").

I hope the remaining Bernouts think long and hard about whether they're going to vote for the biggest neocon in this race or the guy who wants to fix many of the same issues their candidate did.

Okay, this one I want to hear - let's start with "the minimum wage is too high", and go from there.

This is the last bit of help I'm giving you. Anything past this is up to you to research on your own.

Wasn't it the righties who constantly assailed Obama for "debasing the dollar" and "printing money to wallpaper over his problems", even when he was actually doing no such thing (yup, that runaway inflation will hit aaany day now)? Now they've got a presidential candidate who's openly proposing doing literally that (and nearly every economist predicts that if it ever happened the biggest side effect would be - you guessed it - runaway inflation!), and nah, it wouldn't be that bad to tell the world that America doesn't give a damn about paying its bills? Give me a freaking break, man.

The plot thickens. There are rumors that Hillary will get indicted by the FBI, but rather than go with anti-establishment Bernie, the DNC will trot out a Joe Biden/Elizabeth Warren ticket last minute.

Anything's possible, I suppose, but off the cuff this sounds more like a Breitbart fever dream; heaven knows Warren has the most street cred to lose if things were to threaten to go in this direction.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_da ... ent-charts
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/c806

Meanwhile, in the media:

"Boy, now that we've got the candidates we wanted, let's dredge up some ancient shit about Trump!"

Breaking news then: Thirty years ago, Trump called people pretending to be a guy who really liked Donald Trump! Yeah, that's cute and even a little embarrassing, but is it super important? Well...

Maybe one of these days they'll get it right.

[BulletMagnet]

Yeah, that's cute and even a little embarrassing, but is it super important? Well...

I find it more notable that despite having admitted under oath in court that he was posing as his own publicist, he and his campaign continue to flat-out deny it ever happened, and this is nowhere near the first time they've attempted to similarly will an inconvenient matter of factual record out of existence. Granted, as with everything else this will have absolutely no effect on his base (which says as much about them as it does about him), though I'm personally most curious about why he's fighting so hard against releasing his tax returns.

[Mischief Maker]

though I'm personally most curious about why he's fighting so hard against releasing his tax returns.

Probably because he's not even worth a billion. He's done his damnedest to build up a reputation as Richie Rich over the 80s and 90s and now makes his money by renting out his name to other people's shady construction projects to give them an artificial veneer of successfulness. Once that reputation is proven to be false, the gravy train stops for Donald, because no investor in their right mind is going to float him the money for a construction project ever again after his fourth bankruptcy. When Comedy Central did their roast of Trump and asked him what's the one subject off limits, he said anything to do with how much money he actually has.

[Ed Oscuro]

I admit you've got a good point there, BM. Trump does seem to have a knack for not fending off old news in a common-sense way.

[BryanM]

You know how we wondered if Trump was a Clinton gambit at the start of all of this?

What if we got it all wrong and the opposite is true? That Hillary is actually a plant of Donald Trump?



And of course here is Anderson Cooper suffering a bizarre case of amnesia when his paycheck is on the line. Funny how that works.

[Mischief Maker]

And of course here is Anderson Cooper suffering a bizarre case of amnesia when his paycheck is on the line. Funny how that works.

Seriously, dude? You think she should have thrown the case?

[EmperorIng]

Maybe one of these days they'll get it right.

I like the links; I find it hard to think that anyone buys the constant "things are getting better" propaganda out of DC that we have heard for nearly 10 years now. But here we are, people keep parroting the stuff, and low-energy journos like Slate and Hill keep saying things have never been better (except for evil racist Republicans, at least according to Slate).

I don't think "they" will ever get it right. It's too tantalizing to assign 3 dozen journalists to dig up fluff stories on Trump and pat everyone on the back. Politico even ran an amusing "trump wins" fanfiction as one of its headliner stories.

I can only imagine that the net result will be continuous free media coverage that works in The Donald's favor over the next few months. Think of the ratings of the Republican Convention in July. It's gunna be H[Y]UUUUUGE. Everyone's going to watch it. Do you think people will tune in to Crooked Hillary's no-stamina, boring, all-talk no-action speech? Ha.

Seriously, dude? You think she should have thrown the case?

I think you're missing the larger point of CNN conveniently trying to shut down news/views (that itself reported) that would be construed negatively towards HR Clinton.

On the subject of money: if you sold everything Trump owned, or owned stock in, you'd probably be closer to that 10-billion mark. However, in terms of readily available cash, it is much less than that. No one would just have that much money sitting around doing nothing. That's why he said that he'd sell a building or something to raise quick money if he wanted to, or something lol.

[Ed Oscuro]

"The people don't know how good they have it" is the oldest trick in the book, but is it always wrong? LBJ's push to convince blacks they had it better than they did was probably really aimed at trying to keep Republicans from dismantling the Great Society programs - which they did anyway, and a lot of good that did. But yeah, I would agree this looks like an "us vs. them" issue. I wouldn't jump to pin the blame on the Obama Administration, though.

From that same economist there's a very interesting history of the cost of living index, and how politicians ruined it:
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-4 ... easurement

Neither of the political parties come off well, but the Republicans certainly weren't the hero that time.

Also, my second link explicitly asks whether the election is influencing the economy. For goodness sake, only 1/3 of voters in a recent poll believe they're better off living today than in the 1960s. So, erm, yeah, the economy isn't great but I think there may be some degree of people taking some things for granted. They don't know how good they have it, after all.

[BulletMagnet]

On the subject of money: if you sold everything Trump owned, or owned stock in, you'd probably be closer to that 10-billion mark. However, in terms of readily available cash, it is much less than that. No one would just have that much money sitting around doing nothing. That's why he said that he'd sell a building or something to raise quick money if he wanted to, or something lol.

If that's the case, then what's the problem? Release your tax returns, and simultaneously explain that most of your assets are elsewhere (and, in most cases, taxed very lightly if at all); heck, why not send out an official breakdown of everything (doesn't even have to be super-detailed, just make all the numbers add up) and put the whole "how much is he really worth" debate to bed once and for all? Why is this the one thing he refuses to open up his big mouth about (likely hint may be found in preceding parentheses)?

"The people don't know how good they have it" is the oldest trick in the book, but is it always wrong?

I'd pin a good portion of the problem on the fact that "it could have been a lot worse" isn't the sort of thing to get people feeling hyped up, let alone grateful, no matter how strongly the record supports that sentiment; boy, do we feel stupid for not going Full Austerity like half of Europe, eh?

[quash]

You know how we wondered if Trump was a Clinton gambit at the start of all of this?

What if we got it all wrong and the opposite is true? That Hillary is actually a plant of Donald Trump?

At this point, I'm amazed more people aren't accusing Bernie of being a plant for the purpose of raising funds for the DNC.

[quash]

Too bad about the whole "none of his proposals make any earthly sense" thing...but hey, he polls well and makes the advertisers happy, so we're all good!

The point here is that he by all accounts should have never made it this far, yet he clearly had a plan to do so the entire time. He understands politicians better than they understand themselves, so who's to say that he wouldn't use this skill of his once he's elected?

Sorry dude, not everything magically transforms into an "opinion" the second it becomes inconvenient; some things are provably true or false.

Good thing none of the examples you gave are!

"Tax cuts for the rich increases revenue"

A tenet of economic theory, my friend. One that I even mostly agree with, but a theory nonetheless. You could pretty easily create an economic model in a vacuum where this would be true, albeit it would be one without things such as outsourcing and a global economy.

"Socialized medicine is always inferior to privatized care"

I don't think anyone is going to say that one is always inferior to the other, moreso that one is more capable of serving more people better most of the time.

"In-person voter fraud is a widespread problem"

This is one of those things, much like illegal immigration, where we're left to trust statistics that probably don't cover the entire scope of the issue, either out of negligence, support of an agenda, or whatever other reasons.

but I guess that sort of approach just makes somebody a slave to Skynet, huh?

"Doesn't", no. "Shouldn't"? At the very least, it should matter a whole lot less than it does

It's funny how you still fail to get my point after all the devil's advocate I've been playing. I'm sure others have picked up on it by now and are probably laughing at how daft you sound in responding to it.

No more beating around the bush, okay? Politics is appearance. You just happen to dislike Trump's appearance and have a strong preference for the appearance of being reasonable.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea who actually owns most media outlets, and who sponsors most of its content? Any idea at all?

As the good Bryan pointed out, this is more or less irrelevant, as they stick to airing that which sells.

First and foremost, Trump's entire campaign is built on the idea that his sheer magnificence and unparalleled desire to Make America Great will propel him over and above the usual fray and allow him to defy any and all of the normal rules; whatever the problem that's plagued the country for decades if not centuries, he'll just pull some incredible "deal" out of his back pocket that no other schmuck could ever have come up with, and make everything wonderful in record time! So what's the deal with him suddenly planting his feet firmly on the ground and essentially passing the buck to the usual suspects if his numbers turn out to be contradictory garbage after even a cursory glance? What happened to "screw all of those losers, I can and will do better"?

You'll have to give a specific example here, because if you're talking about his tax proposal he is doing something very simple: overselling the cuts so they can be brought to a level where he wants them/thinks they will pass. Don't have to be a card carrying member of the dealmaker's association to figure this out.

as also evidenced by the multiple bankruptcies in which he managed to lose no money of his own

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... kruptcies/

He funded the construction of the $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, which opened in 1990. By 1991, the casino was nearly $3 billion in debt, while Trump had racked up nearly $900 million in personal liabilities, so the business decided to file for Chapter 11 reorganization, according to the New York Times. As a result, Trump gave up half his personal stake in the casino and sold his yacht and airline, according to the Washington Post.

We do all know there's a difference between filing personal bankruptcy and business bankruptcy, right? How the latter is actually a way to keep a business running while it re-situates its finances instead of immediately closing and putting people out of a job immediately?

On a related note, when Trump doesn't merely "clarify" his positions on a handful of issues, but performs an unending, almost random series of 180-degree turns (and sometimes back again from there) on almost every single portion of his platform, he's either "evolving" or just saying what he needs to say now, but will totally do everything right in the end...everyone else, of course, is pandering and lacking in principles. I'd love to hear you attempt to illuminate the distinction, aside from the obvious. And no, "they're politicians, he isn't!" doesn't count.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI

Stones, glass houses, etc. Trump is far from perfect, but he has the right idea on the most important issues and isn't a gloablist shill hellbent on starting WW3.

I did recently mention that his foreign policy stance can be summed up as "piss everyone off and spread more nukes around", right? Your non-response isn't even a proper non-response.

I already gave you a real response, you're just sticking to a tired talking point that is simply untrue.

Cooperating with Russia to restore sovereignty to Syria = telling everyone to fuck off? This is literally the opposite of interventionism.

Considering that she's running largely on Obama's legacy, including the Iran deal, even if she really really wants to do it methinks she'll find plenty of excuses to hold back...and again, she knows that a big chunk of her party is to her left on this, and can be cowed into executing their will instead of her own personal ambitions

This is seriously concerning. You seem to think that Hillary can be guilt-tripped by her party when her party is literally the reason she is the candidate. Unless you can provide any evidence to the contrary, you have to see this as Hillary having the party under more or less complete control.

Okay, this one I want to hear - let's start with "the minimum wage is too high", and go from there.

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/0 ... on/422907/
http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/h1b-visas ... -primer/5/

Ignore the pundit talk as best as you can, but there you go.

Wasn't it the righties who constantly assailed Obama for "debasing the dollar" and "printing money to wallpaper over his problems", even when he was actually doing no such thing (yup, that runaway inflation will hit aaany day now)? Now they've got a presidential candidate who's openly proposing doing literally that (and nearly every economist predicts that if it ever happened the biggest side effect would be - you guessed it - runaway inflation!), and nah, it wouldn't be that bad to tell the world that America doesn't give a damn about paying its bills? Give me a freaking break, man.

Newsflash: I'm not a Republican, and neither are many Trump supporters. Even a good portion of Republicans were tired of neocon bickering and nonsense. A guy like Trump doesn't get a free ride to the White House overnight, a lot of things have led up to this point. The combined incompetence of both parties nearly leading to a budget crisis surely was a tipping point for many.

[Ed Oscuro]

"The people don't know how good they have it" is the oldest trick in the book, but is it always wrong?

I'd pin a good portion of the problem on the fact that "it could have been a lot worse" isn't the sort of thing to get people feeling hyped up, let alone grateful, no matter how strongly the record supports that sentiment; boy, do we feel stupid for not going Full Austerity like half of Europe, eh?

Well, the problem is also that the strategy never worked. But in the '60s you could tell a bunch of non-black people that blacks had never had it so good, and that might pass; but today, I think that'd be a harder sell. On the other hand, I suppose the entire nature of today's anti-welfare sentiment and laws makes it clear that you don't need any statistics to sell a hardened belief.

[BryanM]

"What's the difference between your wall and his?"
".... His wall is bigger than mine was."

2 months, one week left for the FBI to prevent the oncoming Trumpreich. Will republican James Comey do the right thing, or screw over america?

Hillary's wall

It's actually more like a fence. If you ever saw the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on it, you'd be familiar with its shortcomings:

* The "jobs" it was supposed to create went to illegal underpaid labor; the contractor pocketed a ton of the money.
* The fence doesn't do anything. It's actually faster to just cut through the 1 cm tin sheet with gardening clippers than dig or jump over it.

Like most racist things, it's based more on stupidity and fear of being outbred by penis size than actual function or appreciation of the female bosom.

[Bitter Almonds]

I'm not voting for either of these shitheads. I'll vote for Bernie on the California primary and then vote for a third party on the presidential election. Fuck 'em, everything the establishment has done lined things up quite nicely. If we would get rid of:

- Closed primaries
- "Super delegate" crony bullshit
- "Super PACs"

We, as a nation, would have a better say as to who we want to represent us all the way to the top.

The way it is now, it's strictly to discourage citizens from voting and to leave it all to the few who are wealthy and in power.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yesterday's "news" feed had me shaking my head.

Dana Milbank: Does Bernie want to be another Nader? Bernie is attacking the Democratic establishment. Oh no!
Later in the day, polling puts Trump ahead of Hillary, Bernie ahead of Trump.

[Bitter Almonds]

What do you expect from media that's owned by rich people? The owners see Bernie as a real threat to the status quo, so the message is to ignore or downplay his popularity with U.S. citizens.

[BryanM]

If we would get rid of:

- "Super PACs"

Citizen's United didn't really change anything at all, it merely streamlined and simplified the process so you can donate to one PAC instead of a few dozen. Obama and other republicrats like to invoke it as the end-all, be-all of corruption, so they can pretend to be against corruption. If it ever came to pass, it would be much less of an accomplishment than installing Obamacare.

This vid is the basic primer on the matter. It's been this way since roughly Jimmy Carter's days. Hence why Nixon was our last liberal president.

Real reform comes down to a couple basic problems:

* The donation limit is $2,700. Who the fuck do you know can afford to give that much on a politician?
* There's like 500 slots in congress. Who the fuck do you know can afford to give $1,350,000 every couple years on a hope and prayer?
* Congress critters getting hyooge paying "jobs" after leaving congress. Such as Howard Dean and Barney Frank.

There has to be a draconian absolute donation cap, and public financing to multiply small donations into something actually worthwhile.

Oh, but Donald Trump will save us by moving us into a system where billionaires start just running themselves as candidates to reach for even narrower, more niche robbery of the public treasury. It's going to be glorious, like epic massive kaiju battles. Trust me.

It's going to be huge.

[BryanM]

Hillary Clinton to Join Cast of All-Female 'Ghostbusters' on 'Ellen'

I always think to myself "ok, nothing in life can really disappoint me too much from here on out. If I've lost interest in boobs, I'm pretty much completely dead inside anyway."

Then life. Finds a way.

And then there’s “The Angry Video Game Nerd,“ a misogynistic web show whose sycophantic Wikipedia entry made me pine for hemlock in my coffee.

[BulletMagnet]

Before I knuckle down for a lengthier response, two quicker questions for Trump supporters:

One, when you (on top of everything else) take into account the nonsense mentioned in this article (have a particularly close look at the item concerning his NY golf club, about 3/4 down the page), tell me again why anyone should trust his word and/or judgement on taxes, economics, or simply anything involving hard numbers?

Two, could someone please tell me how I'm supposed to interpret this tweet?

[Specineff]

^^ Personal Reality Distortion Field. You know, it's different because it's Trump!

[BryanM]

(To be honest I'm super confused why the heck anyone cares to mull over republican policy positions.)

(I mean, c'mon. They're all identical. Trump is just another generic republican. Running on the generic republican platform.)

(Sure, you can move the needle 1 to 3 points from differences in charisma and how well you can fake being mildly liberal.)

(But at the end of the day it's an absurd position to take. Tax cuts for the rich and spend all our money on wars. Same story, different year.)

(So what I'm getting at is it's completely irrelevant what the republican candidate says or does. It's like evaluating different flavors of turd sandwiches: either you like turd sandwiches or you don't, there's not a lot of middle ground there. (And really, is someone who's not a connoisseur of turdwiches truly qualified to evaluate their differences in quality? I think not.) )

(At the end of the day, the democrats are playing a game of solitaire: do they reject corruption and go back to the new deal, or do they continue to make turd sandwiches viable candidates for political office?)

(Although I will commend)

(the republican voters for selecting a much less bad turd sandwich than average.)

(Ted Cruz would be the republican nominee if Trump didn't run. I hope all you anti-Trumpers reflect on that and realize we are rather blessed in that regard.)

(So. You see.)

(Trump.)

(He's a real American hero dude.)

(He saved us from Ted Cruz.)

(And you know in your heart, that is something that would have been impossible for Clinton to do.)

[Acid King]

Well, he has Brujeria's support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dliVvMbWB4o

[Mischief Maker]

(Ted Cruz would be the republican nominee if Trump didn't run. I hope all you anti-Trumpers reflect on that and realize we are rather blessed in that regard.)

Nah, it would be Jeb Bush in the absence of Trump. Cruz was just the most resilient in the face of Trump's heckling because he burrowed deep into the religious right and used them as a meat shield.