All posts for the month March, 2016

Trump voters want to live in predominantly white neighborhoods

The other day, Texas Senator Ted Cruz won a very wide victory in the Republican caucuses in the state of Utah, dealing a heavy defeat to loudmouth landlord Donald Trump. Most Utahns, including the vast majority of the state’s Republicans, are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons. Many commentators have tried to find in this result some aspect of Mormonism that makes Mr Trump’s anti-immigration message unappealing, speculating that the LDS movement’s nineteenth century experience as an unpopular religious minority has sensitized its members to Mr Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Some observers have placed a very different interpretation on the Utah results. So, Rod Dreher quotes at length from a correspondent who argues that Mr Trump attracts votes from people who either live in predominantly white neighborhoods and are worried that their lives will become less pleasant if those neighborhoods become largely nonwhite, or who live in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods and believe that their lives would be more pleasant if they lived in predominantly white neighborhoods. Since Utah is more than 90% white, predominantly white neighborhoods are not particularly scarce in the state, and so these concerns are not the powerful vote drivers they are among downwardly mobile whites in the South and in urban areas.

by acilius on March 25, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Campaign 2016
Tagged

Posted by acilius on March 25, 2016

https://losthunderlads.com/2016/03/25/trump-voters-want-to-live-in-predominantly-white-neighborhoods/

Ross Pearsall’s “Super-Team Family” is pretty great

Strangely, I have neglected to post anything here about one of my favorite things on the internet, Ross Pearsall’s “Super-Team Family” (a.k.a. “Brave and Bold: Lost Issues.”)  Every day, Mr Pearsall presents a cover for a comic book that would feature two or more characters who, for whatever reason, have never been teamed up by their copyright holders. Here are some of my favorites:

Snoopy vs Enemy Ace:

663

Superman and Popeye (notice Supey is reading the comic above):

1124

Serious comic fans will remember that Superman had a Popeye-like frenemy named Captain Strong whom he encountered on three occasions.

Batman vs the Legion of Super-Pets:

batman_superpets_thumb5b55d

Mr Pearsall often laments the hyper-serious tone of today’s DC Comics, and contrasts it with the light-hearted approach represented by the Legion of Super-Pets.

Batman and Scott McCloud (the author of Understanding Comics, and creator of Zot!):

batmanandscottmccloud

Batman and Madman:

batmanandmadman

Green Lantern and Green Lama:

1433

Maybe the next pairing will be Green Finch and Linnet Bird. Anyway, I first heard of the Green Lama, a.k.a. Jethro Dumont, many years ago, but had never seen him before this cover. I love “Jethro Dumont” as the name of a superhero’s alter ego.

The Thing and the Beatles:

thingandthebeatles

I always like it when Mr Pearsall pairs a comic book superhero with a real person, as Batman with Scott McCloud above or Wonder Woman with the Beatles here.

The Rocketeer and Airboy:

427

Wonder Woman and Asterix:

289

Wonder Woman and Miss America:

776

Something I’ve suggested is Wonder Woman vs Bob Hope- there was a Bob Hope comic book that ran from 1950 to 1968 that depicted Hope as a serial sexual harasser, so the cover would show Wonder Woman holding him in the Lasso of Truth and sternly forcing him to admit the wickedness of his lecherous ways. Guess I’ll have to draw that one myself…

Star Trek and Duck Dodgers:

546

It’s good to see the often-forgotten animated Star Trek series used in these covers.

Captain Kirk on the Planet of the Apes:

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I’ve always loved Star Trek and liked Planet of the Apes, so this pairing makes me smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

by acilius on March 22, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Comics
Tagged

Posted by acilius on March 22, 2016

https://losthunderlads.com/2016/03/22/ross-pearsalls-super-team-family-is-pretty-great/

Who will pick up the pieces of the Republican Party after Trump’s defeat?

It seems pretty obvious to me, at this point, that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee and that each of the other candidates is trying to position himself to be the man who leads the Republican Party out of the wilderness that will follow the defeat Mr Trump will suffer at the hands of Hillary Clinton.

I’ve been tweeting at various people about this.  For example:

and:

and:

and:

Ted Cruz hasn’t done significantly better so far than did Rick Santorum in 2012 or any better than Mike Huckabee in 2008, neither of whom emerged as the heir apparent for the next cycle. So his continued presence represents a hope that Republican voters will be slower to coalesce around Mr Trump than they were to coalesce around Mitt Romney in 2012, John McCain in 2008, George W Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996, or George H. W. Bush in 1988, and that he will be able to win some of the states that won’t vote for him. That seems a forlorn hope, since Mr Cruz has drawn almost all of his support from evangelicals, and in no remaining state are there enough of them to put him over the top. His current standing would not seem likely to entrench Mr Cruz even as leader of the far-right counter-establishment, let alone as nominee-in-waiting for the 2020 election.

John Kasich also has to hope that states keep voting against Mr Trump, and if they do he can plausibly hope to be the beneficiary of that opposition. But, there is really no reason to suppose that Mr Trump’s support on the remaining primaries and caucuses will spike any less dramatically than did Mr Romney’s in 2012. If Mr Kasich’s bid ends with him having lost every state but the one where he is governor, he’ll be a punchline, then a trivia question, then a lecturer at the Kennedy School.

Many diehard anti-Trump Republicans have been touting House speaker Paul Ryan as a potential nominee if the Republican convention does not produce a first-ballot winner. Unlikely as that scenario is, a couple of weeks of discussion of it may be enough to qualify Mr Ryan as this cycle’s runner-up, and therefore as the de facto leader of the opposition to the Hillary Clinton administration.

by acilius on March 18, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Campaign 2016

Posted by acilius on March 18, 2016

https://losthunderlads.com/2016/03/18/who-will-pick-up-the-pieces-of-the-republicab-party-after-trumps-defeat/