Trump won the Nevada caucuses handily. He got 46% of the vote with Rubio and Cruz running far behind with 24% and 21%. Carson and Kasich had 5% and 4%. And that’s all there is in the field. Now I know the conventional wisdom. Carson will drop out and give his votes to Cruz and Kasich will drop out and give his votes to Rubio. I don’t think that’s so clear, but even if true, all that would have done would have made Rubio and Cruz closer to each other and still left them far behind Trump in the fight to be the Republican presidential nominee.

The last great hope of the Republican establishment is that Trump has a ceiling and what needs to happen is for this race to get down to a one on one fight between Trump and literally anyone else and then we will see Trump’s downfall. But after one bit and another of establishment conventional wisdom has shown to be wrong, why do we believe this? Anyway, given that Rubio and Cruz seem to be running neck and neck, why would one of them drop out? But then there is the very important question of who drops out in the bid to be the presidential nominee.

The establishment is not clear about who they hate more: Trump or Cruz. So they are hoping that Cruz will drop out. According to what is looking more and more like simple wishful thinking, the presidential nominee will then be Rubio. But I see no reason why Cruz would drop out given that he has scads of money and and army of very committed volunteers. But if he drops out, his voters are not going to jump on the Good Ship Rubio. The very best the establishment could hope for would be that Rubio would get half of Cruz’s votes. Let’s look at that for a moment.

Forget Nevada, where Trump likely did better than he normally would. But if we did take it as typical, the Republican primary is over and Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. But look back to South Carolina, which gives Rubio a much better chance. Trump got 32.5% of the vote, and Rubio got 22.5%. Cruz got 22.3% of the vote. If Trump and Rubio split that, Trump would have 43.6% and Rubio would have 33.6. Even if you gave Rubio all of Bush’s and Kashic’s votes and gave Trump Carson’s vote, Trump would squeeze out a victory with 50.8% of the vote.

And I think I’m being way too generous to Rubio. I doubt there is much of an appetite on the part of Cruz voters for Rubio. If Hillary Clinton has a problem in terms of seeming authentic, Rubio has the problem in spades. But he’s coming at it from a position of weakness. That’s why I think it is much more likely that the Republican establishment would say that they can better live with a Cruz candidacy than a Trump one, and force Rubio out of the race. That, at least, seems like a plausible way to defeat Trump. Because we all know that Rubio will do whatever the establishment tells him to.

But this is what you get when a party has cobbled a coalition based upon lies. Trump has been brilliant in focusing in on what most motivates Republican voters: fear and anger. The establishment claims that they don’t like Trump because he’s a loose cannon. They like Rubio because they know that he will do as he is told. Well, that’s clear enough to me. And it’s clear enough to Republican voters. And that doesn’t make him very appealing as the party’s presidential nominee.

Each GOP Presidential Nominee Would Be Bad

There is something deeper, however. I wrote about this months ago: the real concern is that if Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, he won’t win in the general election. The main thing that the Republican establishment cares about is winning. But at this point, Donald Trump seems to be their best chance of winning. I can at least see him making a run for it against Clinton. Rubio is a joke. Imagine that there is a terrorist attack some time before the election, are the voters going to look to Rubio and think, “He’ll protect us!” The very idea is laughable. Rubio is not substantially more impressive as a candidate than Sarah Palin.

I hope that the Republican establishment gets what it wants and Marco Rubio is their presidential nominee. I will look forward to watching Clinton eating him alive and then cleaning her teeth with one of his smaller rib bones. But it looks like it is going to be Trump. Regardless, the Republicans are screwed. They can get a presidential candidate that they and most other people hate (Cruz), a candidate who is unpredictable (Trump), or their own inside man with all the gravitas of Mort in Madagascar.

Jonathan Chait wrote what is probably the best discussion of what the death of Antonin Scalia really means, Will the Supreme Court Just Disappear? The point is that the Supreme Court has power because we all accept that it has power. This is the truth of any kind of political power. It’s like money: a shared delusion. As Chait noted, “While the Republican blockade may lack any ­precedent, it, too, is probably well within the law.” It isn’t a matter of law. The Constitution is pretty vague about it. What really matters are norms.

I’ve discussed the broader issue here many times. A couple of years ago, I wrote, Boehner’s Paradox of Power. There I discussed how John Boehner only had power as Speaker of the House as long as he didn’t use it. The moment he actually managed the House as he thought was right, he would be thrown out. And this is a situation that supposedly powerful people have always faced. Sure, Boehner could in theory have allowed the Debt Ceiling to be raised, but he couldn’t do it practically, so his power was thus theoretical and not practical.

Look at my discussion of Marbury v Madison. That was the case where the Supreme Court proclaimed itself as the institution that defined what the Constitution meant. Regardless of that, it was the result of the Court avoiding a confrontation with the executive branch where it would be shown to be powerless. And the truth was then as it still is that the Court has no way to enforce its decisions. It is only because the rest of the nation abides by the norm that the Supreme Court defines what the law is. Norms are a very powerful thing.

Think about it on the microscale. I think the vast majority of people are like me. I wouldn’t break into my next door neighbor’s house. And the reason is because I know it is wrong. My reason is not that I will get caught and go to jail. And this is the reason society is able to get along. We don’t need to resolve every issue by what the law says. We are socialized. We know the way that people are supposed to behave and that is how we behave.

This is also true of institutions. This is the basis of Kissinger on Revolutionary Power. They do not abide by norms because they see the system itself as invalid. And this is what we’ve seen with the Republicans over the past four decades — but most especially since Obama took office. There is no consideration for the way that things have been done in the past. If there is no legal document that says it cannot be done, the Republicans will do it if it is to their advantage.

Changing Norms for Not Replacing Scalia

Right now, the Republicans are making the argument that the president should not be allowed to appoint a new justice in his last year in office. This is clearly just an ad hoc norm they’ve devised that has no precedent. And if Scalia had died at the beginning of 2013 (the first year of Obama’s second term), they would have come up with a different ad hoc reason for why they should have filibustered for the next two years and then refused to allow any other appointment during the next two. And if Clinton is president next year, they will come up with another reason why it simply isn’t acceptable for a Democratic president to appoint a replacement to Scalia.

It is this total lack of respect for norms that most concerns me about the United States as a going concern. It would have been different in the 1960s, because everyone would be getting pretty much the same news. But roughly half the nation will be hearing nothing but apologetics about how whatever new norm the Republicans are destroying is totally right and just. And if the new norm is that presidents don’t get to place justices on the Supreme Court, why even accept the power of the Supreme Court? It is just one of our norms after all.

As Ian Millhiser pointed out in his discussion of the effects of Scalia’s death, a divided Court will mean that the law of the land will depend upon where you live. In a sense, it will be the Confederates getting what they wanted. All those nutcases who want to secede from the Union will get what they’ve so long wanted: the Dis-United States of America. They always knew they weren’t going to control New York and California, just as they knew they wouldn’t control France or Japan. But those glorious states under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will be able to return to the “true” America of the 1830.

Antonin Scalia’s death could succeed where the treason of Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee failed.

Marco Rubio defied expectations by ending strong and beating out Ted Cruz for second place in South Carolina — just ten percentage points behind Donald Trump. This is a big deal, because if Rubio had come in third place, he would have received no delegates. Instead, because he finished in second place, he received no delegates. You see, South Carolina is a winner-take-all state. So Donald Trump, who got 32.5% of the vote, ended up with all 50 delegates. But Rubio’s strong second place finish (beating Cruz by 0.2 percentage points) will doubtless make many Republican establishment types thrilled that their boy still has a shot at the big kahuna.

There’s a theory for all this. Jeb Bush just dropped out of the race. If you hadn’t heard that, don’t be ashamed. Within 12 hours of his announcement, it wasn’t even listed on the front page of Google News. For months, the only real question was when he would drop out, not if. According to the theory, as people drop out, Rubio will get more and more votes, eventually pushing Cruz out of the way and finally eclipsing Trump.To the Republican establishment, all those Bush votes will go to Marco Rubio. But that’s not true. The Republican base doesn’t make that much sense. Anyway, when Ben Carson drops out a lot of his votes will go to Ted Cruz. And the rest will go to Donald Trump. So it isn’t a great theory, but it’s at least a theory.

A big issue here is that Rubio has largely been given a pass. He was attacked by Christie and failed. Then he was attacked by Cruz and failed. But he’s never been attacked by the real big kahuna: Donald Trump. It will be very interesting to see how the world’s least liked Eagle Scout deals with Trump and Cruz hammering on him at the next debate. I’m thinking something like, “Can I have a bottle of water? Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. Can I have a bottle of water? Let’s dispel…”

Marco Rubio Isn’t a Good Candidate

This gets to something that I’ve been thinking for a long time now. The Republican establishment thinks that Rubio is their best chance in the general election. But they seem to think this because he takes orders well. I don’t see it at all. Imagine for a moment, a general election debate between Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. Even people who hate Clinton have to admit that when she’s up there on stage, she commands it. If nothing else, she seems competent. You might not like what she would do as president, but there is no doubt at all that she could do the job.

And next to her would be little ol’ Marco Rubio. He’d be all prepared just like any high school student on the debate club. The distinction would be horrifying for conservatives because they would have to admit that all their belief in authority and strength should make them support Clinton. Because Rubio is a wimp. What’s more, if Clinton is a self-serving politician willing to say anything to become president, then Rubio would join ISIS if it gave him a better chance of becoming president.

It’s been fascinating to watch the Republican nomination thus far. When it all started, we were told what a deep bench the Republicans had. (Am I wrong, or is this something that is said every election — and never about Democrats?) But in the end, there were only two people who were actually good candidates: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. And they are both hated by the establishment. Interestingly, they are also both hated by the American people. But if either of them ran against Hillary Clinton, you can imagine an actual fight. If Marco Rubio runs, it is going to be a slaughter. I’m thinking the Republican establishment better start praying that their theory for Rubio’s success is wrong.

There are big happenings down in southern California. The Los Angeles Rams are demanding the local area people build them the City of Champions Stadium. Oh my! Here we go again. A big sports team owned by billionaires is demanding that the people pay for their luxury accommodations and acting like it is a grand favor. Oh the money that the team will bring in! Oh the jobs that will be created! A city would have to be a fool to pass up such a great opportunity!

We know about this con from David Cay Johnson’s wonderful book, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill). These deals never make monetary sense. Localities spend a whole lot more than they get back. The local economy is not improved. It works like this. They build a big stadium. They build a big parking lot. People drive to the stadium. They spend money at the stadium. And then they drive home. Stadiums are often surrounded by squalor. But they do create jobs inside the stadium, right? Well, a little bit.

But remember: this is a zero sum game. Teams roam around from town to town looking for the best deal. So the jobs are going to be created somewhere. These are not new jobs. So the teams will go where the taxes are low, where the locality will pay for their stadiums, and where the minimum wage is low. Hooray! It’s the perfect environment for the billionaire who doesn’t feel that he is getting enough attention.

Michael Hiltzik wrote a good article last week, The Truth About Football Stadiums: Those Supposed Great New Jobs Are Bogus. In proposing the new stadium, its proponents claimed that it would created “10,465 full- and part-time jobs.” It sounds impressive, but those last three words create a semantic loophole so large you could push Aristotle’s Organon through it.

Most of the article deals with the fact that even those who get to work at stadiums are usually screwed out of their pay. For example, they aren’t able to park near the game, so by contract, they must take shuttles, but are not paid for this part of their jobs that clearly (and legally) should be paid. And the pay? Well, we don’t know if workers at the City of Champions Stadium will be paid beyond the going rate, but at this year’s Super Bowl, a typical worker was paid just $12.25 per hour. For one day. Think about that: one day!

Things are obviously different for baseball and basketball, but for football, there are a total of 8 games regular season played at any given stadium. Sure, there are occasionally other events, but they wouldn’t employ as many people and anyway, how many people are we talking about? Well, at Levi’s Stadium, there are a total of roughly 4,500 people employed on any day when the San Francisco 49ers are playing there. As Hiltzik noted: “mostly low-wage cooks, waiters, janitors, security guards, parking attendants, and ticket takers.” As for the high wage jobs, “Permanent stadium jobs in departments such as marketing and sales number only about 60.”

Where does the 10,465 number come from? It’s just a fantasy. But then it all is. Football (or any other form of entertainment) is a fungible — easily replaced by another commodity. Sure, if football were taken away, people would miss it. But they would find other ways to entertain themselves. I have a lot of ideas for how to improve professional sports. But the first step we should take should be one we make for all businesses. No locality in the United States should be allowed to give any business any incentive whatsoever. It is unfair. It gives billionaires advantages that the rest of us have to pay for. It’s an outrage.

It looks like this election is going to be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In general, I’ve thought that Bernie Sanders would have been the better candidate against Trump. Now I don’t especially think that. For one thing, I’ve noted of late that Sanders doesn’t have the greatest campaign. He is right to say that he’s just the figurehead of a movement. And that movement is made up of people like me — people who feel the the Democratic Party has moved way too far to the right. And in that way, Sanders is a supporter of me, not the other way around.

But now, I’m thinking that Hillary Clinton really will be hard for any Republican to beat. I was very impressed with both Clinton and Sanders Thursday night. But I have to admit, every time I see Clinton she makes me think what I thought of Bill Clinton: there’s someone who the American people can think of as a president. She’s extremely good at all this. She walks a fine line that wouldn’t be necessary if she weren’t a woman, and she does it brilliantly. As I’ve stated from the beginning, she’s not my first choice, but she’s a fine choice.

Meanwhile, last week, BuzzFeed reported, In 2002, Donald Trump Said He Supported Invading Iraq. In September 2002, Howard Stern asked if he was in favor of the Iraq War, and Trump said, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.” This isn’t a surprise at all. The vast majority of people supported the war at that time. What’s more, a vast number of people today who did support the war back then claim that they didn’t. And you can say a lot of things about Trump, but the truth is that he is a typical American:

I don’t think this is much going to hurt Donald Trump in the Republican primary. Nothing seems to hurt him in the Republican primary. But the opposition research on Donald Trump has to be so ridiculously extensive that he would be dead meat in the general election if he weren’t already deeply disliked. I understand that he was deeply disliked in the Republican Party before he started winning. But the truth is that he is still still deeply disliked in the Republican Party. Of course, they will all fall in line behind him eventually. But the only reason he is popular is because he willing to be deeply offensive to the one demographic group that the Republicans absolutely must get 30% to 40% of the vote from : Latinos.

So I have to provide my standard disclaimer: if the economy tanks, the Republicans have a really good shot at giving the Republicans the White House. But barring that, I don’t see them winning the election. Their only hope on that front would be to make this election on national security. (That would be ridiculous given how safe we are here at home, but stranger things have happened.) On that front, Bernie Sanders might be vulnerable. But Clinton wouldn’t be. If this is a national security election, Clinton is the best candidate there is. (That’s one of my biggest concerns about her!)

So the election is shaping up to be one that the Democrats win by default. If they don’t, it is because they screwed it up. But assuming Clinton is the candidate, I just want to say a word to my fellow Sanders supporters: you have to vote for Clinton. There never was going to be a political revolution. If you want to see real change in this country, then you have to fight for it, not this election cycle, but for the next four, five, six election cycles. Imagine how different things would have been in young people showed up at the polls in 2010 and Obama had had another two, four, or six years with a Democratic Congress? Whether Clinton or Sanders, or even Trump or Cruz, wins on 8 November 2016, the work doesn’t stop. It continues on and on until some things like universal healthcare and guaranteed income are truly taken for granted.