“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Trump’s Delusions of Competence
In general, you shouldn’t pay much attention to polls at this point, especially with Republicans unifying around Donald Trump while Bernie Sanders hasn’t conceded the inevitable. Still, I was struck by several recent polls showing Mr. Trump favored over Hillary Clinton on the question of who can best manage the economy.
This is pretty remarkable given the incoherence and wild irresponsibility of Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements. Granted, most voters probably don’t know anything about that, in part thanks to substance-free news coverage. But if voters don’t know anything about Mr. Trump’s policies, why their favorable impression of his economic management skills?
The answer, I suspect, is that voters see Mr. Trump as a hugely successful businessman, and they believe that business success translates into economic expertise. They are, however, probably wrong about the first, and definitely wrong about the second: Even genuinely brilliant businesspeople are often clueless about economic policy.
Christopher R. Barron: Is Bernie Sanders making a Trump presidency more likely?
On Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump was asked if he would be willing to debate Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump said that if Senator Sanders was willing to donate money to charity to do it, then Trump would be willing to debate him. Bernie Sanders – via his Twitter account – quickly accepted the offer. It’s still not clear if the debate will actually take place. But Trump and Bernie Sanders on a stage together would certainly be a spectacle for many reasons, not the least of which is that Sanders is arguably Trump’s most potent weapon against Hillary Clinton.
The Sanders-Clinton clash, which was once decidedly civil (Sanders even defended Clinton over her email scandal in an early Democratic debate) has now become white hot. Sanders’ chances of securing the Democratic nomination may still be remote, but his attacks against Clinton have become more and more intense. And the latest polls ahead of the important California primary show a serious narrowing of Clinton’s lead.
These attacks are working. And while they might not bring Sanders within striking distance of the nomination, they are making it easier for someone else to defeat Clinton – namely Trump.These attacks are working. And while they might not bring Sanders within striking distance of the nomination, they are making it easier for someone else to defeat Clinton – namely Trump.
Heather Digby Parton: Trump’s a walking time bomb: Don’t be fooled by his “victory,” he can implode his own campaign at any moment
Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination Thursday when a ragtag group of unbound delegates announced they were going to support him. All the networks ran with breaking news and trained their cameras on an empty podium for hours waiting for Trump to appear before the press and bak in his glory. It was a magical moment. True, everyone had known for weeks now that Trump was going to be the nominee since all of his rivals have dropped out of the race but why let that stand in the way of an opportunity to obsess over his every incoherent insult and rant? As they waited, the big topic of conversation among the TV chatterers was an interview by Howard Fineman with Trump’s campaign chairman and chief strategist Paul Manafort. And it was admittedly a doozy.
When I wrote about Manafort earlier I concentrated on his long history of working with slash and burn political consultants and foreign tyrants. He is uniquely qualified to head up Trump’s operation. But it’s been a while since he’s been involved in American politics and it was unclear if he had lost his touch. The interview with Fineman raises more questions about that than it answers.
Bill Moyers: Andrew Sullivan is blind: It’s elitists who helped give rise to America’s neo-fascist movement
British expatriate writer Andrew Sullivan recently returned to the public eye with a piece that has aroused considerable comment, some of it reasonably on point, and some bloviatingly incoherent.
What is all the fuss about? Sullivan, in critiquing the Donald Trump phenomenon and the political factors that gave rise to it, makes a few good points, but buries them under a ridiculous premise: The culprit responsible for Trump is too much democracy, and the cure is more elite control of the political process.
Sullivan gets everything backward. It is as if a safety inspector had gone aboard RMS Titanic, minutely examined her watertight hatches, boiler and steam turbine, and then declared her safe because he judged that the lack of lifeboats reduced the chances of capsizing from too much top weight.
Amanda Marcotte: Football culture grows up: Response to Baylor’s firing of Art Briles shows that justice finally more important than winning games
The story of Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, might be the perfect study in the contradictory attitudes about sexual assault in 21st century America.
On one hand, the situation at Baylor itself was like Lifetime movie cautionary tale, a hyper-patriarchal Baptist university where the only thing loved more than Jesus was football, and where rape victims were treated like gnats to be swatted away, lest they interfere with the glory of getting more touchdowns.
On the other hand, the story is one about how the culture has changed, making it easier than ever for rape victims to get attention to their cause and even a shot at often-elusive justice. And how the pressure from activists is pushing the larger male-dominated world of sports to get significantly better about listening to and advocating for victims of sexual assault.
For the events of Thursday — the firing of the Baylor Bears coach Art Briles and the demotion of Ken Starr — are a direct result of the way that anti-rape activist on campus are making it increasingly difficult for schools to ignore inconvenient rape victims.
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