Bernie Sanders Leads Hillary Clinton 44-37 In New Hampshire

New Hampshire, once rock-ribbed Republican state, now land of the white Hippies.

As a petty man once said of Hillary, with uncharacteristic charitability: Hillary Clinton is likeable enough.

Five months ago, Hillary had a 37-point lead over Sanders, 44/7, in a poll in this same FPU/BH series. That’s a 44-point swing in the gap in just five months, a stunning rebuke to Clinton, and much of that came in the last few weeks. Just last week, WMUR showed Sanders only back by six points, 42/36.

Now, I'm going to make an anti-Trump point right now. This is a bit speculative, so if you want to say I'm reaching, I won't argue.

But here's the thing:

When the Hillary Clinton email stuff broke yesterday, someone said, "If only Trump now keeps quiet and lets this be the news story for a few days."

Well, #BlackLivesMatter has been harassing Bernie Sanders. This is, as Trump would say, a fabulous thing, truly huge, to have one crucial cohort of the Democratic coalition (black activists) in an angry, bitter fight with another crucial cohort (white gentry liberals).

#BlackLivesMatter was ignoring Republicans to harass Democrats, and expose, possibly, the deep faultlines in the Democrat Party. These faultlines are concealed because the White Gentry Liberals control the party almost totally; Obama's the president, sure, but White Gentry Liberals' power over the party is secure.

Before you can have a rebellion, you must first be able to imagine a rebellion; and White Gentry Liberals' control over the party is so complete that few can actually imagine it.

A real black challenge this hegemony would be spectacular, and, who knows, perhaps even salutary. (Why should blacks be 2nd class citizens in the Democrat Party?)

What I fear here -- and this is just a fear, I have no idea if this will actually come to pass -- is that Trump, by calling out #BlackLivesMatter and offering to fight them, has gotten them interested in disrupting Republican events too.

I don't mind the disruption of Republican events so much as I mind the diversion of their hitherto-singleminded focus on destroying the cranky old socialist White Gentry Liberal (and thus creating a bit of a class struggle in the Democrat Party).

Some are promising to give the GOP renewed attention.

Some might claim that it's important to fight #BlackLivesMatter. Nonsense, I will say, for this reason: It is better for us to have the White Gentry Liberals battling #BlackLivesMatter. Let them pound each other for a good long time, let them experience the divisions and class-based strife the GOP is experiencing, and then we'll meet them, if needed, down the road.

I don't know if anything will come of this, but Trump missed an outstanding opportunity to shut up here. When the enemy is dousing himself with gasoline, you don't smother him to the ground.

posted by Ace at 01:45 PM

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