Shandling, Cringeworthy, Not My Universe

Garry Shandling, father of all that is cringeworthy - The Washington Post:



Sometime in the '80s I pretty much quite watching TV other than Star Trek Next Generation, Football, and the occasional odd show. "Miami Vice" was one of the last shows I watched "most of".



I do recall Garry Shandling as a name, but I'm sure I never saw one of his shows. I've probably seen like "20" Seinfeld's, so I know what that is. Most of the names listed in the column -- never, and apparently I missed a whole genre of comedy.

Works of comedy are now often judged on their “cringeworthiness,” which is a shorthand way of describing an exact combination of hubris and humiliation, in situations that are once absurd and yet universal. Its ingredients include neurosis, self-absorption and the certitude that hell really is other people. It involves being a kind of loser, but never a clown.

I'm reminded of one of the few Seinfeld's I recall (other than "Festivus") about "spongeworthy". Once sex is reduced to an amoral "social activity" like going to a movie or sporting event, devoid of other meaning, then a prospective participant can be "rated" by an a priori metric -- in this case, relative to using up a contraceptive sponge.



That made me cringe -- but it didn't make me laugh. I'm not certain if that means I "got it" or did not get it.  As I said, I've missed a genre of "comedy"

... let’s just say it, in 2016 Lucy would have to accidentally defecate in her pants through some preventable fault of her own,because that’s universally cringeworthy and that’s what happens (all the time) in Judd Apatow’s world or Amy Schumer’s, or Kristen Wiig’s, Seth Rogen’s and all the rest. They all owe Garry Shandling. In particular, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The Comeback,” “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Veep” — their debt to Shandling is notable.

I'm not sorry I missed it. It does help me understand how we got the Clintons, BO, Trump, etc, but I don't really see where that can be of any assistance. In a meaningless world, people will come up with things that take up their time between birth and death. The vast bulk will not "have the time" to take in a Good Friday service, but would rather be "occupied" by something from the paragraph above.



What surprises me more is that people are aware of all this and STILL don't understand why we have things like mass shootings, rising suicide, substance abuse, etc.



"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".



Christ died for ALL, and he asks us to love ALL! Somehow "cringeworthy" falls far short of the emotion of sadness, guilt, false hubris, utter inability to understand, embarrassment, despair, emptiness, ... that putting such a column and the fact of Good Friday together stirs in my soul.

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Rockefeller Republicans Vs The Unwashed

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433163/two-gops-resentment-republicans-aspiration-republicans

The linked column splits the Republican party into two parts -- the "Aspirational Republicans" -- Reagan, Buckley ... positive, sensible, educated, successful, urbane,  ... the good guys".

Then we have the the "Resentment Republicans" -- TRUMP! ... racist, mean, angry, poorly educated, anti-trade, anti-wealth ... dark, evil, losers.

Simple.

Somewhere post-Reagan, the Rockefeller "Country Club, Ivy League, Brooks Brothers, Blue Bloods" took over the command bridge of the party, decided to re-write history as if they had liked Reagan, and decided that making nice with the 98% of the government bureaucracy that is Democrat, and making sure that they were living the top-shelf lifestyle was a lot more important that any "principles", let alone IDEAS!

So we have columns like the linked ... let's jettison something like 30-40% of the Republican party, along with what? 10, 20, maybe 30% of the Democrat party that were once "Reagan Republicans" ... Blue Collar (that's "poorly educated" to Williamson).

National Review and the proud "establishment" simply doesn't want them. They are not "their kind of people" -- which is odd, because Williamson has done some excellent reporting on how those poorly educated whites are dying in droves. Does he want them to become "house crackers" like the Democrat party treats blacks?

Republicans should shed lots of tears in print for their plight like the Democrats do when a black youth is killed by the cops, but turn a blind eye as 6K gun each other down in cold blood every year. Is the Republican party to be a party that follows suit by lamenting that poor whites are dying of drugs, alcohol and suicide, but then laugh heartily about them as in: "When somebody makes a buck— or a few more bucks than they have — they see conspiracy, favoritism, the hand of the wily Oriental, the sweaty Mexican, or the nefarious Jewish banker at work, depending on how far down that sorry road they’ve gone." 

It might be possible that people dying in droves might support someone like Trump vs compliantly feel shamed by somebody like Williamson. 

It seems completely clear at this point that the Rockefeller Republicans primarily "aspire" to canapés and cocktails at the Hildebeast inauguration parties! 

Newt On Trump, A Little Reality

Newt Gingrich discusses the merits of Donald Trump.:

It's very much worth just going off and reading this -- it is entertaining and insightful. I've always liked Newt relative to his intellectual grounding and quick wit. Yes, yes, I realize he is far from a moral paragon especially relative to women. King David actually wasn't either, and he was a "man after God's own heart" (I Samuel 13:14).

I especially like this exchange:

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about a possible president here.You are talking about a guy who was smart enough to build Trump Towers, build lots of hotels, build lots of casinos, and own the Miss Universe contest. He is not stupid. For many people, that seems to be inconceivable because they have a university Ph.D. theory of being smart.

Didn’t you write your Ph.D. thesis on the Belgian Congo?


I did, and I wrote my master’s thesis on Japanese and Russian railroad construction in the 19th century.

So why are you bashing people with Ph.D.s?


Because I have been in the real world, doing real things, and I understand the limitations of academic knowledge. I think it’s greatly overrated.

Look, you read a lot of books about how the world works, you are an educated person, you care about policy. When you hear Trump address subjects like NATO, it doesn’t worry you—


No. I read what he said about NATO, and I think it has been grossly taken out of context. What he said about NATO was the Bush–Rumsfeld position, which is that the Europeans ought to pick up more of the slack.

I'm a country bumpkin from Northern Wisconsin, but I consistently find people trying to show that they are intelligent by how well they can parrot "the standard narrative".  Really? If it is the "standard narrative" isn't it by definition something that is understood by those of "average intelligence",  if not less than average? As Paul Harvey used to say, what's "The rest of the story?!".

I want to get back to what Trump is doing, and we both know he is playing on impulses
—No, no we don’t. 

We don’t?
What we know is that Trump has had the nerve to raise questions in a clear language because he represents the millions of Americans who are sick and tired of being told that they have to be guilt-ridden and keep their mouth shut. 

So why are Trump’s negatives so high, if he is giving a voice to the masses?Look, Trump has been campaigning in a Republican primary with harsh language and has been routinely attacked by the elite media as much as they can. Reagan went through the same cycle. Do you know how many points Reagan was behind Carter in March? 

It was double digits, right?Twenty-five. Not just double digits. Twenty-five points. So if you had talked to me in March of 1980, you would have said, “How can I support this crazy right-winger who makes movies with chimpanzees and is 25 points behind Carter?” And I would have said, “Because I think he can win.” Which, by the way, he did. 

Is there really nothing that worries you about this guy? The way he deals with reporters, his campaign manager, etc.? You are not at all worried he has authoritarian tendencies?
No. No. [Laughs.] Which part of that is supposed to bother me?

We ALL have very selective memories -- Moose memories are just less selective because we don't have the intellectual capacity to do as good a selection as others -- and even worse, we tend to not want to just remember what everyone else does.

Reagan was WAY behind -- NPR was CERTAIN he could not win right up to 5:30 or 6PM Central on election day when I was driving home from work listening and NBC called the election for Reagan. Listening to NPR you would have thought that Christ had just returned and informed them that killing babies in a mothers womb was a sin!

Just as they likely would then, they referred to a "poll of their listeners" taken that day that they were POSITIVE was "representative" that showed Carter winning with 75% of the vote, so they were able to completely discount the "obviously wrong" NBC call! As people at CBS HQ in New York commented, "It couldn't be true, we don't  know ANYONE that voted for Reagan"!!

That is the sort of brilliance that a PHD will give you if you are not careful.

Oh ... the MSM didn't enjoy it very much when Newt was elected Speaker of the House. Try to even imagine a major US media source attacking BO before he even took office at this level!

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Slick Willie Tries Truth, The Awful Legacy of Last Eight Years

Bill Clinton Trashes Obama: 'Awful Legacy of the Last Eight Years' | The Weekly Standard:

I assume that Slick will indicate that he "misspoke" here ... kinda like when he "Never had sex with that woman ... Hillary ... oh wait, Monica ..."

Occasional honesty -- even if retracted later is a wonderful thing to see in our screwed up country these days!

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Getting Small, Trump, BO, Hildebeast

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/trump-slightly-smaller-not-large/474900/

Can people write and read such articles and not see the obvious??

1. Trump has a Clinton-sized victim’s complex -- OK. How about BO? How many times have we heard him complain about Fox News, Talk Radio, Tea Party, racial animus, etc. W really was a victim of constant media pounding -- I'm just not sure I ever heard him say it 
2. President Trump would seek to shield himself against criticism -- Uh, yeah? How about Hildebeasts "vast right wing conspiracy"? BO has brought up "the fairness doctrine" more that once. Have we EVER had a President that DID NOT seek to shield themselves from criticism? Maybe Reagan, but I'm sure he didn't love it either! 
3. Trump’s policies are neither left nor right—nor even center -- and that is a BAD thing? I thought that the media was all bent our of shape about "ideology"? Sanders is clearly a populist, is THAT bad? 
4. Racial issues are a blind spot—at best -- This is based on Trumps unwillingness to buy into the "Black Lives Matter" narrative of racially biased policing. According to WSJ "Black officers make up just 12% of all local police officers, the survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics showed. The overall U.S. black population is 13.2%, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau." Wow, they are under-represented in police forces by a whopping 1.2%. I understand that the D candidates have no choice but to parrot the BLM narrative, but seriously? We are ALL suppose to? 
5. Trump struggles with the truth -- and? Are they buying that Hildebeast has never told a lie? Did BO both end the war in Iraq and NOT end the war in Iraq? If we like our country, will Trump let us keep it? Can anyone write on something like this directed at a single politician and ever be believed again? I don't think so. 
6. Trump may be the most insecure person in politics, which is saying something -- Do they have a meter or something? You mean less secure than Hillary named after Sir Edmund who climbed Mt Everest after she was born? Who landed in Bosnia under sniper fire (she didn't), who tried to join the Marines (she didn't) who was hounded by "the vast right wing conspiracy"? ... or BO, the man with no history prior to Harvard. With "composite white girlfriends", who wrote two auto-biographies prior to turning 50 ...  How exactly does one rate insecurity, "struggles with the truth", narcissism, etc in our leaders? Absolutely BO and Hildebeast are world class schmucks, but we have gotten the time to get to know them WAY better than we would have liked. 

So the Atlantic comes to the conclusion that Trump is a "small man" -- with a thinly veiled reference to his penis size. Classy. We may yet survive BO -- pretty much the definition of a clinically narcissistic limp wristed wuss. I understand that the Atlantic is just a partisan rag, but REALLY? They seriously think that ANYONE compares Hildebeast, the wicked witch of the west without the good looks to be in any way a "larger person"? She fails the "person" part for Gods sake!  Have you ever seen her try to fake a humanoid emotion? It is a sad spectacle! 

We are a small small nation with a microscopic media outlook. 

My White Male Privilege (WMP)

Got in a discussion today with some other "Privileged White Males", and we decided that we DID have ONE rather large privilege.

We are the only remaining group in America that is not absolutely expected to think a specific way about politics. We are allowed to have some diversity of thought.

Nobody is going to tell us "There is a special place in Hell for white males who fail to help another white male" as Madeline Albright said about women and Hillary.

We aren't like blacks or hispanics who are expected to be universally Democrat or not be "REALLY members of their own race".

I'm being incomplete I know -- Indian (both Native and from India) and various orientals are not so pigeonholed, but they are small enough groups that "The Party" really doesn't care about them.

I also realize that for even a white male to hold a position as anti-social and intellectually unpopular as "Republican" or "Christian", or "Conservative" can easily prevent promotion at work, cause the loss of employment, or other things, but the fact remains that we are not considered "traitors to our own kind" for leaving the sanctity of "The Party" thought reservation!

Belgium Is A Failed State

Belgium is a failed state – POLITICO:



I got to listen to a lot of NPR driving to and from Barron WI today. Belgium, the location of NATO HQ the head of the European Union is a "failed state".



Why?



Well, you can go read the whole sorry tale, but basically:

1. Socialism 
2. Political patronage and corruption 
3. Fractionalism -- especially in law enforcement 

But that masks deeper structural problems with Belgium’s taxation. The taxes (including social security) on labor have been so high that they encouraged evasion and the development of a sizeable black economy.

Oddly, when you have a corrupt socialist government, you get a huge number of poor who depend on the government, and a small number of rich who get special favors (like they pay their local version of Hildebeast $250K a shot to come talk to them), and the folks that try to work hard keep their noses clean get screwed.  I sure hope that sounds familiar!



I wonder what other "failed states" we could identify? The "Dictator Summit" in Cuba seemed to be going swimmingly today -- I'm guessing the limp wristed dictator isn't faring all that well.





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Mille Lacs, Government In Action

Mille Lacs walleye season catch-and-release only in 2016 - Story | KMSP:

Mille Lacs, once the "Walleye Factory" will be catch and release only in 2016 with the use of live bait disallowed.

Back in 2006 I did a blog on how great a time it was fishing there, and recalling 2003 when I caught a 27", 28", 27" walleyes on consecutive days along with a good number of other walleyes over 20".

We used to fish over in NW WI before the indians started spearing and netting and those fisheries were destroyed. They started the same thing on Mille Lacs and of course ASSURED everyone that it was going to be "managed" and suitably maligned anyone who protested as "racists".

So Mille Lacs now has the same designation as Dallas-Fort Worth airport. DFW

Government is the fecal Midas -- what it touches turns to shit.

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BO's Limp Wrist @ Dictator Summit

Obama goes limp | Power Line:



Just go over and watch the video. At the meeting of the dictators, BO goes limp.



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PLEASE READ! ... The Reason for God, Belief in the Age of Skepticism

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594483493/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=53943455438&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7298185130422206397&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7vqca73v59_b

This book, by Timothy Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan may save a lot of souls, and possibly even provide a downpayment on saving America and Western civilization. It truly is THAT GOOD!

I tend to write direct and often "in your face". Quiet, reasoned, caring conversational style is not my natural mode in writing -- but I **DO** understand that it is important, and I **DO** very much respect it when I see it. Keller very much has that, plus he has an extremely well stocked brain coupled with the gift of writing both well and compactly with enough personal anecdotes to make this book more reachable than many of similar depth of content.

In part 1, called "the leap of doubt", he covers a series of objections to God with great insight and hard philosophical backing. They are:

1. There can't be just one true religion. 
2. How could a good God allow suffering? 
3. Christianity is a straightjacket
4. The church is responsible for so much injustice. 
5. How can a loving God send people to Hell? 
6. Science has disproved Christianity
7. You can't take the Bible literally. 

In an "intermission" between parts 1 and 2 he discusses the various arguments for and against -- "Strong Rationalism" -- essentially "proof of God", which is no more doable than proving our own existence. We then arrive at "critical rationality", the idea of "best fit". Evolution can't be "proven" in a strong rationalism sense given the time scales involved, yet most scientists find it compelling. 

"The view that there is a God, [Richard Swinburne] says leads us to expect the things that we observe -- that there is a universe at all, that scientific laws operate in it, that it contains human beings with consciousness and with an indelible moral sense. The theory there is no God he argues does not lead us to expect any of these things. Therefore, a belief in God provides a better empirical fit ..."

He then moves to Part 2, The Reasons for Faith

8. The clues of God.
9. The knowledge of God
10. The problem of sin
11. Religion and the Gospel 
12. The true story of the Cross
13. The reality of the Resurrection
14. The Dance of God 

At the end of chapter 9, which is basically my old belief that if you look in your heart, you already know there is a God, he summarizes: 

If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists then that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world as devised and the real world (and God) your heart knows exists. This leads us to a crucial questions. If a premise ("there is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ("Napalming babies is culturally relative") then why not change the premise? 

As frequent readers know, Nietzsche and a lot of other lesser philosophers have decided long ago that "God is dead, so power = morality" (might=right)".  The baby of morality goes out with the bathwater of God, and the world ends up arguing in strange gibberish that has been known to be gibberish since the Greeks. It seems to be getting clearer every day that our civilization is dying rapidly without God.

The review could go on forever -- the book is a treasure trove of understanding what the COSTS are for creating a God in our own image. How God is the sworn enemy of the smug -- both the smug because they believe that they "do a better job" of following rules, being successful, etc, AND of the smug that "have a more open and sophisticated mind than the unwashed masses". Christ came to comfort the "poor in spirit" (comfortable), and more-so to  make the comfortable UNcomfortable ! ... no matter what it is in this world that they believe is to their comfort other than serving the REAL Christ, not one of their imagination.

He makes it clear that ONLY in giving our WHOLE life to Christ is there a way out of our broken state.

"It is only Grace that frees us from the slavery of self that lurks even in the middle of morality and religion. Grace is only a threat to the illusion that we are free, autonomous selves, living lives as we choose". 

He quotes a lot of CS Lewis, who I love, he also is high on Jonathan Edwards who is now on my reading list. There are others. This book is a TREASURE to anyone who seeks God and restoration of our broken nation and world! I can't recommend it highly enough!!!

I'll close with this quote from Lewis on love that is oh so true:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

I Don't Care About BO Nominations

The Supreme Court and the Hypocrisy of the Left | Power Line:

I haven't written about the BO nomination of Garland for SCOTUS because I could care less about anything BO does anymore, and I hope the Republicans can manage to play hardball politics for a change. Would I have played it this way? No, but they did, so now they better follow through!

I did learn one thing from the linked PL column:

Let’s not forget that Bork had been approved unanimously by the Senate for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. So much for that Garland talking point.

We are WAY into the age of incivility and NO RULES! The Bork nomination was a great milepost on the slide to destruction. The fact is, if you are partnered with a bad actor and want to survive, you HAVE to play "Tit for Tat" according to game theory and the Bible ("an eye for an eye") as the article mentions.

It's not a bad column, but I really don't care much about BO or Democrats at this point of the after America experience. Let the dictators talk in Cuba. Sounds like BO came out looking limp wristed in the dictator summit as well.

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Foreign Affairs, Clash of Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations? | Foreign Affairs:

A little historical context, like a Montgomery martini, VERY dry -- and in this case old. The article I pulled this from in '93. Some of the points that I'm interested in:

"It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."

Remember, this is '93 -- the USSR is just gone, the first Gulf War was 1991, and appeared very economic / Arab on Arab (Iraq invaded Kuwait). The next paragraph covers the

In 1793, as R. R. Palmer put it, "the wars of kings were over; the wars of peoples had begun." This nineteenth-century pattern lasted until the end of World War I. Then, as a result of the Russian Revolution and the reaction against it, the conflict of nations yielded to the conflict of ideologies, first among communism, fascism-Nazism and liberal democracy, and then between communism and liberal democracy.

Everyone thought that the world was going to go into a "golden age" as science replaced religion, but as the 20th century wore on with it's two world wars, Korea, Mao killing millions in China, Vietnam, Pol Pot killing millions in Cambodia,  and scores of regional bloodbaths, religion started to look better than it once id.

The "unsecularization of the world," George Weigel has remarked, "is one of the dominant social facts of life in the late twentieth century." The revival of religion, "la revanche de Dieu," as Gilles Kepel labeled it, provides a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.

I'd argue that in the West -- Europe and the US, religion has NOT recovered and along with it's continued decline, any sense of culture or "civilization" has declined with it. The cultures are less damaged in Europe, but in the US, the culture is on life support at best.

Fifth, cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones. In the former Soviet Union, communists can become democrats, the rich can become poor and the poor rich, but Russians cannot become Estonians and Azeris cannot become Armenians. In class and ideological conflicts, the key question was "Which side are you on?" and people could and did choose sides and change sides. In conflicts between civilizations, the question is "What are you?" That is a given that cannot be changed. And as we know, from Bosnia to the Caucasus to the Sudan, the wrong answer to that question can mean a bullet in the head. Even more than ethnicity, religion discriminates sharply and exclusively among people. A person can be half-French and half-Arab and simultaneously even a citizen of two countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim.

So the US is essentially unarmed in this conflict, because there is no longer any answer to "What are you". ... "black", "Christian", "progressive", etc, but NOT "American". Other than at Trump rallies, there really aren't any people very excited about "America" -- let alone rallying around it. No, it is all about "special interests" and "voting blocks" ... women, minorities, elderly, gays, the unemployed, single mothers, etc, etc ... "Americans"? You mean the "Trumpkins"???

Civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating these civilizations from one another.

So as early as '93, there wasn't enough "American civilization" to recognize -- and there is a LOT less now! I'd argue that we are already not "playing" in this clash, but rather just LOSING.

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Geezer Votes Matter

http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-older-people-do-better-than-those-of-working-age-1458498054?mod=e2fb

Watching the economic crackup of the grand Ponzi Scheme of FICA and all the other "buy people's votes with promises of better benefits when they are dead" debacle is as unexpected as hearing about a drunk getting another DUI, the government running a deficit, or the sun rising in the morning.

“It’s a perfect storm of sudden increases in longevity, combined with the global financial crisis, combined with the greater voting power of older generations,” said Liz Emerson, co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation, a London-based think tank that argues the political clout of seniors—an age group with high voting turnout—has damaged the interests of the young.

We have seen this coming for at least 40 years -- really since it was created in the 1930's. 2/3 of people were supposed to die before they got benefits, the population was supposed to always grow (more people paying in) and the economy was always supposed to grow. All three of the assumptions are wrong now -- the first HUGELY, the send significantly, and the third sometimes a little true, but WAY slower than would have been imagined.

But the old vote -- so like blacks, their VOTES matter!

“We are redistributing income within the family,” said Frank Field,who heads a British parliamentary panel that in January announced an inquiry into the issue of intergenerational fairness. “It isn’t fair and it isn’t sustainable.”

Except popular government is NEVER about "fairness" -- it is either about voting for things that cause the economy to expand which some people want because they think they will succeed and do better than others, OR, it is about dominant political parties buying votes to gain more and more power with no concern for anything other than the vote buyers winning.

The fact that BOTH the right establishment and the left establishment hate Cruz the worst and Trump the 2nd worst shows what the vote buyers on  BOTH sides are thinking!

Bernie Write

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/writing-in-sanders-clinton-democratic-nominee_b_9514188.html

Places like HuffPo are giving moonbats space to make the case for writing in BS if Hildebeast gets the nomination (a near certainly).

Their big "reason" to the extent moonbats deal in such is that "Hildebeast is a warmonger".

With subsidiary reasons like "she might get indicted", "she isn't good for the poor" ... and Trump is no worse and possibly better than Hildebeast.

It's a crazy election!

Rubio Reagan Ruse

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-rubio-and-reagan-20160315-story.html

I suppose most left wingers will find this to ring of something like "fact".

Despite being modeled on the positive side of the Reagan legacy, Rubio’s candidacy failed for two crucial reasons. First, he does not have the star power that Reagan had among conservatives. (This year’s celebrity candidate is Trump.) Second, a big share of voters in the 2016 Republican primaries do not want a smiling guy with an uplifting, inclusive message — they want someone as angry as they are; someone who will build walls, ban refugees, deport Mexicans, beat up on the media and take America back to a time when gays and minorities knew their proper place in the social pecking order. And if they feel like punching out a protester, they want a guy who says to go ahead and take a swing.

The BIG reason that Rubio lost was that he was snookered into (or maybe mistakenly volunteered, who knows) the "Gang of Eight" that displayed all the worst of the cynicism and corruption of Washington in an attempt to pick up more hispanic votes. The "gang attack" was thankfully repelled, and Rubio was toast with conservatives. Had Rubio not been part of the "gang activity" on immigration, it is likely that he would at least be in the Cruz position now, and quite possibly the frontrunner.

After the establishment winner candidate, W, followed by two even more "inside the beltway" compromisers who lost, the Republican voters wanted something different -- so the "outsiders", Trump and Cruz are in the lead and the establishment is still using Kasich to threaten civil war.

Reagan was ALSO an outsider. The establishment wanted HW Bush, and Reagan was considered DANGEROUS in 1980 -- he was a Panama Canal crackpot, anti-Soviet out of touch cold warrior likely to get us all killed, and his economics were "voodoo economics" as reviewed by HW Bush himself. How quickly the left wing memory fails them!

Naturally the LA Times wants to helpfully paint Republican voters and candidates in as negative a light as they possibly can, but it would be nice if they found something that had at least the remotest smell of truth to do it with!