Open Mic for the week of 7/15/2024
How was everybody’s weekend?
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
I’ve heard of at least two people getting fired for social media stuff over the weekend.
I imagine that today, as the first business day back after a weekend of social media stuff, will have more reports of the same.Report
Axios has an anonymous report from a “senior House Democrat” that they have all resigned themselves to a second Trump term. AOC has the appropriate response: “If you’re a “senior Democrat” that feels this way, you should absolutely retire and make space for true leadership that refuses to resign themselves to fascism.
This kind of leadership is functionally useless to the American people. Retire.”Report
One thing that I wonder about is whether the “replace Biden at the convention” discourse will evaporate.
As far as I could tell, the “replace Biden at the convention” discourse arose from a position of “there is a chance to win the election but it calls for a high-risk/high-reward play” (a “jack move”, if you will).
If the discourse evaporates, I see that as an indicator that there is no longer the assumption that a high-risk move has a chance at a high reward.
So that’s how I will measure it.
I mean, AOC is making the correct play. You are now pot-committed and you have to assume that you can win and that means watching the turn and the river and, hey, maybe it’ll be runner-runner (ain’t nothin’ funner!).
And part of that is putting up the front that you can win. Part of that is a fearless optimism that looks at different things than the odds or the lay of the land.Report
I always thought Biden was down but not out and that there was plenty of polling even before Saturday that showed him as still having the best chance. It is moderate Democrats and rich-donor Democrats that seem to want him gone.Report
I’ve grown more and more appreciative of AOC as time goes by.
When she first appeared I was worried she might become one of those bomb throwing types that is only good for some headlines, but she has proved herself to be a hardworking team player.Report
AOC is the most responsible member of the squad. She is obviously more sympathetic to the Palestinians than Israel, which people know I have the opposite beliefs on, but unlike other Democratic politicians prone to this she also know to avoid the more ridiculous antics and obvious anti-Semitism in the Pro-Palestinian movement. She has really good reading the room and political instincts.Report
Our political press is utterly cynical and utterly credulous in ways which are astonishingly revealing: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/15/trump-convention-speech-rnc-milwaukee
“1. He can unify the party. His rival, Nikki Haley, is a late add to the convention, with a speaking slot on Tuesday. So fully unifying the party is plausible, if he and others show grace and class with his Republican skeptics. Imagine if she were named to the ticket or told on stage she would play a prominent role in his administration. As a sign of how bullish Republicans are, an ebullient Trump adviser told us yesterday: “Even the DeSantis people are fired up.”
2. He could unify America. Imagine he gave a speech featuring something he rarely shows: humility. Imagine him telling the nation that he has been too rough, too loose, too combative with his language — and now realizes words can have consequences, and promises to tone it down and bring new voices into the White House if he wins.
3. He could box out Democrats. Some of his friends are pushing him to promise RFK Jr. a role in his administration in exchange for an endorsement. If you combine Trump support + RFK support, you have a very different election. “Report
Cynicism is just a different form of credulity and gullibility.Report
The members of the cult of the savvy turn out to be not that savvy.Report
People who don’t believe anything “the government” states are some of the most gullible people in the world.Report
Federalist Hack dismisses Classified Documents case: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/us/politics/trump-document-case-dismissed.htmlReport
“The bullet missed? He’s gonna win. Time to show that I’m On The Team.”Report
I watched this video theorizing on the decline of the council estate in Great Britain over the weekend. Since housing and social housing are big themes on the Internet with the YIMBY vs. NIMBY war going on, I’d thought it would be interesting to watch. The TL/DW is this:
1. The switch from council estate built using traditional house designs and on a human scale to much more massive and harder to physically maintain Modernist housing estates. In the pre-War housing estates, you could have the tenants do a lot of the maintenance work since they were essentially small houses and apartments. This could not be done in the modernist housing estates.
2. The decline of social policing in the council estates. The pre-War council estates came with a big list of rules that the tenants had to follow in order to keep the place in good order and make sure everybody was being eusocial. The modernist housing estates did not have these rules but the tenants in the 1950s and 1960s were selected to be eusocial types. During the 1970s, the bodies administrating the housing estates began admitting much more marginalized people. Now these people needed housing but they weren’t exactly eusocial and the modernist designs gave them all sorts of places to make life hellish for everybody else. This made the council flats really bad places to live. The Left tends to be in denial about this part and the growth of asocial and anti-social behavior because the Anglophone Left does not like social policing and tends to romanticize these groups badly.
3. Laws making it easier for tenants to buy and sell council flats in the 1980s turned them into private property. The pre-war council flats turned into ordinary neighborhoods while the big council flats ended up in the hands of banks and other financial groups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCgueTf0W0Report
I’ve been thinking a lot about how fiction has damaged our psyches. I was part of the color tv generation, a little too young to have seen the first impact of television. You had three channels plus a UHF that only showed black-and-white movies. The channels went off the air at 2am. You’d watch a primetime show once a week, and there were no arcs. The soap operas had running story lines, and they could suck in housewives, but hardly anything ever happened.
The 1990’s saw deliberately-written arcs. A while afterwards, people started binging online. A person would watch a 13-hour season in two days, with plot twists, narrative shifts, unreliable narrators, dream sequences. We saw every possible human story, so we wanted impossible ones, and Marvel and anime stepped up for us. We started to forget what reality looks like. We forgot what genders we were. We demanded narrative complexity in our politics, and started to think we could guess the twist endings. We watched it all on the same devices as our action shows. Video games let us change the story lines we were living in, redo things we didn’t like.
I’m a fan of classical music, and I’ve seen how exposure to musical complexity changes a person’s standards. A child will like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; a jazz aficionado will be able to follow and enjoy even the most tenuous musicality. We get used to something, we may keep enjoying it but we crave something a little more complicated.
If this idea I’m mulling over is correct, I think we’re in real trouble.Report
I would almost certainly go in a different direction than you seem to be pointed here, but nevertheless I suspect you’re on to something interesting. I’d enjoy reading more of your thoughts on this subject as they develop, perhaps in the form of a guest post.Report
“A child will like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; a jazz aficionado will be able to follow and enjoy even the most tenuous musicality.”
yes, clearly no serious musician would ever consider “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” worthy of investigation or elaboration
“The 1990’s saw deliberately-written arcs…[w]e forgot what genders we were.”
sitting here in awe of the audacity of the argument that transgender culture is the result of television shows having a plot.Report
I’m nothing if not audacious.
There’s something there, though, about how we identify ourselves and how extended fiction, while extending our ability to identify with others, can steer us toward identifying as others and not identifying as ourselves. I also see some connection between conspiracy theories and fanfiction. And it’s become commonplace to refer to protesters as LARPers. Also, my name isn’t Pinky, but I’ve answered to it more than I’ve ever answered to Jack. I’m guessing or hoping or maybe secretly disappointed if your name isn’t DensityDuck. Identity is fragile.Report
Back before us Americans took over Black Mirror and turned it into pure exploitation I thought it had an interesting, and maybe relevant to your musings, underlying message about experiencing life and reality as it is, rather than via a strange digital facsimile. Of course there I go making my point by referencing silly genre fiction.Report
Sorry, I haven’t seen it.Report
JD Vance is Trump’s Veep pick. I consider this a kind of gift to Democrats.Report
Will four years finally make me stop thinking he’s the actor who played ADA Carver on Law & Order: Criminal Intent? We may find out!Report
There’s a certain symmetry to it. One guy who postures as being wealthier than he is. Another guy who postures as having been poorer than he was. But plenty of “economic anxiety.”Report
As for these pages, I’ma wait further for Andrew and Em on this. I feel like they’ve got the most perspective on Vance out of any the regular voices here.Report
If you removed the raw naked ambition and hypocrisy from the personage of JD Vance you’d be left with nothing but a puddle on the floor, as that is all the man is comprised of outside of the otherwise base minerals of the standard human body, plus his eye liner.Report
The most interesting thing to me is that there finally seems to be an “ism” emerging from Trump. For all the talk about Trumpism over the past 8 years, his policies have been a combination of gut instinct and accidental conservatism. But between this and the platform fight, he seems to be finally articulating a set of principles, something he didn’t need in 2016 and amazingly never got around to forming in 2020.Report
“Populism”.
The big misunderstanding of 2016 was that Hillary was fighting it as if it were left/right and Trump was fighting it as if it were populism/elitism and that was throwing everything off.
Biden, in 2020, had a great deal of populism to go with his leftism (remember the elevator lady at the NYT?) and so Trump’s populism was neutralized.
Can Biden pull off populism in 2024?Report
Which parts, exactly, of Trump’s policies, either enacted or proposed, are “populism”?
I’ll tell you if you like, but you won’t like it.Report
Economic protectionism, a much more isolationist foreign policy, and plugging up holes in the border through which undocumented indefinite visitors flow.Report
Now you just need to explain how protectionism, isolationism and a restrictive immigration policy benefit the people as opposed to the elites.Report
…is the argument that, therefore, since Free Trade is the right way to do things and since rising tides raise all boats that, therefore, Trump isn’t a populist?
If not, I don’t understand where you’re going with the whole “explain how that actually benefits the people” rather than something like “yes, that’s the nice way to describe populism but populism is better described with negative terms plus racism”.
I mean, I’m cribbing from Manuel Anselmi’s book “Populism: An Introduction” as a loosey-goosey starting point where he says:
That’s the first paragraph from the introduction of the book.
Do you have a source that I should read instead that explains populism better than Manuel Anselmi does?
How we should see Free Trade! as a better option for *TRUE* populists, given what rising tides do to all boats?Report
You’re not making any sort of actual argument here.
Like, most economists agree that free trade does in fact create broad based wealth that redounds to the benefit of the working poor.
In fact, your very own example of Brexit has caused economic hardship for the working class of Britain while turning London into a haven for Russian oligarchs.
Do you have any argument to refute this, or are you conceding the point?
Not to mention you haven’t even bothered to explain why isolationism has anything whatsoever to do with elites versus working class interests.
I mean, all you’re doing here so far is tossing out some random positions that you like then shoehorning them into a box called “populism”.Report
I’m not understanding the argument, I guess.
You wanted to know which policies were populist.
I said which policies were populist.
You wanted to know how these policies would actually help people because, I guess, they’re not really populist if they don’t work in real life?
Is that the argument?Report
I’m asking you to support your assertion that these policies are populist.
You can explain it any way you want.Report
Can I appeal to academic books? If so, I’ll appeal to Manuel Anselmi’s book on the topic.
Do academic writings count as “support”?
If not, please explain what might and I’ll see if I can’t find something else for you to dismiss.Report
3 comments in, and so far you are dissembling trying to avoid answering the question.
You haven’t made even a single argument in support of your assertions.
Even your own quotation from the book doesn’t support your assertion.Report
It’s a book that described Trump’s election (and Brexit, for that matter) as Populist.
It did so in the opening sentence of the opening paragraph of the introduction to the book on Populism.
I’m not asking you if you see the opening sentence to the opening paragraph to the introduction of a book discussing populism in the wake of Trump’s election as evidence of Trump’s policies being populist.
I’m asking you if I can appeal to academic books.
If so, I can find you passages from the book that are not the opening sentence to the opening paragraph to the introduction to the book that discuss populism at more length.
However, if you say “you know what? Academic books aren’t sufficient”, then I will know not to bother.
I’m not avoiding answering the question.
I’m trying to establish where the goalposts are before I do, lest I find out that, whoopsie, they’re not where I thought they were.
I mean… jeez. We’ve already shifted from “what policies of Trump’s are actually populist?” to “but those, in practice, harm the people they claim to help!” (which is a different topic altogether).
Maybe “academic” is the wrong direction.
If you don’t like helvetica, here’s some comic sans.
What’s the #1 example of Populism?
Donald Trump.
It doesn’t mention policies at all, though. It just talks about his communication style.
To be honest, I’m more interested in hearing what “protectionism, isolationism and a restrictive immigration policy” are policies of if “populist” isn’t the best term to describe them.Report
#4, still nothing.Report
Chip, I don’t even know what you’re asking for at this point.
Examples of Donald Trump’s policies that are populist?
I answered that. To use your paraphrase: protectionism, isolationism and a restrictive immigration policy.
If you want to change the subject to how these policies are bad, that’s fine, but I’d just like to hammer down that they are, in fact, populist first.
Are they populist? If they aren’t, I’ll cheerfully concede that I can’t give sufficient examples of populist policies of Donald Trump to you.
If you’ve already acknowledged that they are populist but want to discuss how these policies are bad, please tell me and I’ll pivot to that. Or, at least, tell you that I’m not interested in discussing that.Report
#5
In what way are these policies populist?
You get to define populism any way you want, set the goalposts anywhere you want.
Just, y’know, make some sort of argument other than just repeating the assertion.Report
Oh! Okay.
Populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.”
“Protectionism” is a policy designed to prioritize local industries over other (“foreign”) industries.
“Isolationism” is a policy that takes stuff like “caring about other (“foreign”) conflicts off of the table. “We’re not going to take your money and send it overseas to prolong a fight that you don’t care about.”
As for immigration restriction, I’ll ask if you are serious about asking how immigration restriction is populist.Report
So in order to be populist, it doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t actually beneficial, but rather, that it be appealing to people who are resentful of some group called the elite.
Is that a fair description?Report
It probably always has been. See H.L. Mencken, George Wallace, and What’s the Matter With Kansas for example.Report
I keep thinking that “Oh, Chip has heard of Populism before” when getting into these discussions and then realizing “ooooh… maybe he hasn’t” when I read comments like this one.
I could recommend an academic book to you, if you want one.
If you want something a little more “four color”, I have a website that I can link you to and it’ll catch you up as well.Report
So was I correct or incorrect in saying that populism isn’t intended to actually be beneficial, but is meant to appeal to resentment?Report
Oh, you want to discuss whether populism is actually good?
Yeah. I’m not interested in discussing that.
I’m pleased we hammered out the answer to your original questions, though.
Lemme know if you want to know more about populism. I think it’ll be important information over the next four years.
I’ll repeat my original point, now that we’ve hammered down what populism is:
The big misunderstanding of 2016 was that Hillary was fighting it as if it were left/right and Trump was fighting it as if it were populism/elitism and that was throwing everything off.Report
This just demonstrates what I’ve been saying for a long time, that populism/ Trumpism is really just rooted in resentment and grievance.
For the record, I have the same opinion when it is used as a tool of the left.
Populism is the practice of drawing a boundary inside of which is a group of persons called “The People”.
And anyone outside the boundary is a group of people called “The Elite”.
That vey act is illiberal and reactionary since it refutes the premise that all people are equal and entitled to fair play and respect.
So yeah, Trump is populist.Report
the premise that all people are equal and entitled to fair play and respect.
You’d think that a party that ran on this sort of thing would have a huge leg up.Report
Why would you think that, given humanity’s flawed and sinful nature?Report
Fair enough.
If there’s no advantage to it, I can totally see why a political party would abandon it, now that I see it reframed.Report
Sometimes, you have to do the right thing even when there is no advantage to it. Sometimes that even works.Report
The Democrats should really run with the whole “all people are equal and entitled to fair play and respect” thing.
There’s a real opportunity there.Report
They have. It has hurt them since 1964, maybe even 1948, and still they persist.Report
Are you familiar with their “DEI” initiative? If it had better advertising, it could really push the whole “fair play and respect” thing.
Maybe they should get college students involved with it on some level. Create some good soundbites.Report
Now you’re just being silly. Or proving my point. Or both.Report
Eh. I’d say that the whole “fair play and respect” thing has sort of been up for grabs for a while.
You’ve got the DEI party over here and, now, the populism party over there.Report
Well, yes, you would say that.Report
“Sometimes, you have to do the right thing even when there is no advantage to it.”
in the thread about the assassination attempt you’re telling me that the cop taking cover instead of assaulting the shooter was the right move because there’s no expectation for him to put his life on the lineReport
Try reading better. (Yes, JB, you can cover that square.) There’s a big difference between putting your life at risk by doing something that can reasonably be expected to save lives and getting yourself shot for no good purpose. The cop who didn’t try some comic book superhero move that wouldn’t have worked and would have likely gotten him killed did the right thing. Unless you think getting shot is, itself, a moral imperative. Do you really have trouble understanding this?Report
Why would you think so?
Like, in all the examples in history of where populism has come to power, has there ever been an example of populism which stressed equality and fair play?
Given his slogan- “I Am Your retribution”- Is there any reason to think that the 70 million or so followers of Trump/ Vance are even remotely interested in equality and fair play?Report
To be fairer to populism than it perhaps deserves, populists are not wrong that certain elites are taking advantage of them in tangible ways. But they are often wrong about which elites are screwing them and how. And their proposed solutions are often wrongheaded when aimed at real problems and mean-spirited when aimed at fake problems. But not always. The turn of the century American populists were rejected, probably rightly, but the sounder parts of their program were co-opted by the Progressives and the New Deal.Report
You can see it even here, where Trump, Vance, Musk, all fabulously rich and powerful people, are “The People”, while LeeEsq, immigration lawyer, is a member of The Elite who will, come the revolution, be made to pay.
The Wilhoit Principle isn’t a smear- its what Trumpists themselves say.Report
There have been many politicians going way further back than Vance and Trump that have touted those 3 as being good for the working man. It wasn’t true then and it still isn’t true today, but that doesn’t mean the working man won’t fall for someone touting them.Report
To the extent that populism is about appearances, and one candidate has become Teddy Roosevelt and the other looks like Teddy Roosevelt *now*, it’s likely impossible.Report
I am starting to hate this word but I think it’s vibes. Or at minimum the sources of the big money support coming in suggests to me they don’t believe he’ll actually do anything to rain on their parade. Or maybe they assume he is for sale.Report
they assume he is for sale.
Winner winner, chicken dinner.Report
Populism is probably the neoliberalism of our current four year cycle.Report
The take that Populism is a response to the elites failing is one that makes sense to me.
Trump is a rhyme.Report
Where “Elites” just means “People I don’t like.”Report
If I didn’t know what “Populism” was, I would probably think the same thing.Report
For those who are not so cocksure that they know what “populism” means, here is a thoughtful review of the subject:
https://journals.openedition.org/ideas/6472Report
I linked to Manuel Anselmi’s book “Populism: An Introduction” above as well as the Helpful Professor website.
This is great, though. Thanks for additional resources.
Hey, reading it, it specifically mentions Donald Trump too!Report
For those who’d prefer a lighter take on the subject, there is P.J. O’Rourke:
https://journals.openedition.org/ideas/6472Report
That’s the same link as before.Report
Oops:
https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-populism-problem#Report
I’ve never seen anyone use the word when it didn’t just mean “Here’s a group I will call the People, and here’s another group I will call the Elite” where both words are essentially arbitrary and synonymous with Ingroup/ Outgroup, “People I Like,/ People I Don’t Like”.
And yes this goes for the left variation as well.Report
Does your “I’ve never seen anyone…” include CJ’s link above?Report
OK since you know what “Elites” mean, give us a couple examples of who you mean when you say “elites failing”.Report
In this particular case, I’d be okay with something vaguely around the neoconservative/neoliberal consensus that was pretty much in charge of Washington for decades prior to Trump’s election.Report
OK so are Trumps natsec team not “elite”?Report
I’m pretty sure that they are “elite”. Even John Bolton.Report
Right, which is my point.
“Elites failed us” is a meaningless statement since there are elites to be found on all sides of that issue, some of whom failed and some who didn’t.
And further, there are vast swaths of non-elite people who also supported the neocons.
You’re just condemning a certain subset of elites as being somehow detached from The People, when in fact, the neocon position was wildly popular,even with the most humble of The People.
Framing the neocon failure in terms of “populism”, Elites Vs. People, is just an example of what I mean, where the terms are just proxy for “People I like/ People I don’t Like”.Report
It was wildly popular until it was seen as having been a failure.
This ties into the whole “Populism is a response to the elites failing” thing comes into play.
“BUT THEY SUPPORTED THE ELITES!”
Yeah. They, apparently, have stopped supporting them.
“BUT THEY USED TO SUPPORT THEM!”
“Yes, they did.”
Feel free to yell “Q.E.D.” without reading CJ’s link either.Report
Again, Elite/non-Elite has nothing to do with the failure and is nonsensical.
I might as well say “The Republican Party failed us” or “Government officials with blue ties failed us”.Report
Lots of political types claim the mantle of populism. Trying to fit what any particular bunch is getting up to against a Platonic form of Populism is a fool’s errand. One can look at what the current “populists” are doing and saying and matching it up with the wide variety of historical examples of what people who have claimed to be populists have done and said. Specific policies are rarely the point. Turn of the century rural populists, for example, hated tariffs because they made it harder to sell agricultural products, while urban industrial populists favored them because they thought they would help them keep their jobs. They all hated elite bankers and financiers, and though they got some of what they wanted in the way of banking reforms, the financial system remained, as it inevitably would, largely in the hands of “elites.” So they still hate them. Common to all who claimed to be populists was the belief that they (ignoring their own elite backers) were The People and everyone else was an out-of-touch or even actively hostile elite and the cultural resentment that inspired. (How much of William Jennings Bryans’ support came from people who gave a damn about free silver, if they thought they understood it, as opposed to people who just wanted to stick their thumbs in the eyes of well-off or cultured urbanites?) “Elite failure” is not so much wrong as it is uninformative. Everything, ultimately, is run by elites — it can hardly be otherwise — and resentment is not necessarily based on anything that can objectively be described as failure. Sometimes, quite the opposite.
I should point out that long ago, when George Wallace and several other like-minded folks made populist noises, William Safire wrote that these people weren’t “populists,” but “popularists.” Safire himself seemed to think that there was a thing properly called “populism” that, somehow, had something to do with the actual interests of the people the”popularists” were wooing with boob-bait, which may have been a mistake, but he wasn’t wrong about the “popularists.”Report
Yes to all this, and what I have come to realize is that even in the classic vernacular meaning, lets say, working class people versus Wall Street bankers, “populism” is still a malign and illiberal idea which needs to become as dirty as “fascist”.
This is because it separates the Wall Street bankers apart from the citizenry and makes them a special class of Outgroup.
At first blush it seems hard to sympathize with them, but this is where most of the leftist revolutionaries went off the rails.
Liberals may scorn Elon Musk and want him to pay more in taxes, but liberalism demands that he be treated with all the rights and respect that we offer everyone else.
This is where Trump/Vance are both reactionaries and populists because as we can see in Project 2025, they envision an America where there is not a citizenry imbued with rights, but merely Ingroup/Outgroups who have privileges which can be conferred or revoked at the whim of the Dear Leader.Report
Dude’s got a beard.
Let’s see if he shaves.Report
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve seen it posted that MSNBC pulled Morning Joe today out of fear of unprofessional comments.Report
“I’ve seen it posted…”
Well, OK then.Report
I dare say the RNC going up against the MLB All-Star Game/HR Derby may not have been the wisest? Then again… does Trump speak Wednesday? That’s the rare sports-free day on the calendar. So maybe somewhat wise?Report
They deliberately opened with that Star Spangled Banner to force conservatives and moderates to change the channel.Report
Huh?Report
People are calling it worse than Fergie’s.
The All-Star Game locked their twitter account because of it.Report
Oh, that. We were just trying to figure out who she was.Report
Dang. I did not see this coming.
Best of luck to her.Report
Do you think it was wise for the GOP to schedule the first two days of the RNC opposite the MLB All-Star break?Report
Maybe the guys who organized the convention thought that the assassination would succeed and they’d need more time before the election?Report
Or you could answer the question.Report
Lemme think about it. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between rabid MLB fans who need to watch the All-Star game and the rabid Republicans who need to watch the convention. Does the All-Star game still determine who has home field advantage? Lemme google… no. It does not.
So does the All-Star game mean anything? Maybe you’ll see some dingers.
I did some light research and found that the All-Star game is pretty much almost always somewhere between the 8th and the 17th. There are exceptions but not a lot.
The Republican Convention, on the other hand, jumps all around. August and even *SEPTEMBER*. I have no idea why they did it this early. It strikes me as being an outlier.
That said: We live in the age of the internet now. If you absolutely positively must watch Amber Rose give a speech at the RNC, well… sigh… you can.
PBS has you covered and you can watch all 8 freakin’ hours of night one at your leisure.
Or spend 3 minutes with a youtube of the highlights.
The All-Star game is likely to have 3 minutes of highlights, if you’re lucky. Probably 2.
And the games take place on nights 1 and 2, not nights 3 and 4, and nights 3 and 4 are the ones that tend to be loaded.
So… I’d say that my criticism is probably closer to “why July and not August” and so I think it’s not the absolute bestest move they could have made to put it in July, I’m not sure that they’re losing a whole lot more by putting it next to the All-Star game than they’d lose if they had it next week.
I mean, I think that they should have had it in August, maybe. Don’t wanna peak too soon.
But that thought has nothing to do with MLB.Report
Ratings for MLB’s All-Star Game have been in steady decline for awhile. I imagine holding the convention now is preferable to going up against a full slate of regular season MLB games as well as preseason NFL football.
“This season’s Midsummer Classic averaged a record-low 3.9 rating and 7.01 million viewers, down 7% from last year’s record-lows of 4.21 and 7.51 million, according to Sports Media Watch. The MLB All-Star Game has now set a record-low in ratings with five of the past seven games (2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023).Jul 12, 2023”Report
“Or you could answer the question.”
(He did answer the question.)Report
Unless the arrow of time reverses direction, there’s no way Kazzy could have known when he posted that JB would actually answer the question, and every reason to think, off past form, that he wouldn’t. Congratulations are in order for getting a straight answer for once.Report
(He did answer the question.)Report
As the lawyers say, objection, non-responsive.Report
20 minutes after I said that…Report
Oh wait… you thought THAT was an answer? Please explain…Report
He answered your question.
Oh, you didn’t like how he did that? Well, you didn’t ask for an answer you liked, now, did you?Report
The first answer was a funny joke in response to a question that I thought had an obvious answer: The fact that the All-Star Game was on at the same time as the first two nights of the Republican Convention doesn’t really matter.
I enjoyed writing my second, longer, answer that wrapped up with “I mean, I think that they should have had it in August, maybe. Don’t wanna peak too soon.”
And I think it’s dumb that the argument is over whether or not I answered than the contents of the answer.Report
No, it’s the usual thing where they keep insisting that them being too stupid to understand your posts means you didn’t answer the question.
These are guys who don’t understand what it meant that when they were in grade school they would rather go hungry than eat sandwiches with the crusts still on.Report
The first headlines and pictures I saw were a bit vague, and I just presumed that the Hawk Tuah woman had been allowed to embarrass herself.Report
I was wrong! He speaks Thursday. Also a sports-free day.Report
Well the pledges for unity did not last long, Johnson went on the attack and blamed it on the teleprompter loading his old scriptReport
Projection isn’t just something that happens at the movie theater.Report
Heh. You would think a guy who’d risen to high office would be able to speak off the cuff.Report
I will never understand why people giving speeches like that do not have notecards with the bare basics on them.
Honestly, they should have the entire script printed out and laying there, but reading off a script can look bad. I get that, despite the fact we should all understand that is literally what they are doing with teleprompters.
But no one’s going to begrudge someone who goes ‘Oh, and my teleprompter just cut out, so you’re getting me off the cuff, let me make sure I don’t forget anything’ and pulls some index cards out of his pocket and glances at them occasionally.
I had debate class way back in high school, and while it didn’t teach anything about debate (seriously), one of the things it did teach was how to prepare to give speeches. I can sit down, write a short speech, and then, most important, write down keywords on notecards to remind me how to move forward in the speech, the points I have to cover, how to transition between things, etc.
Or, in this day and age, just use a cell phone. Hell, when I’m running a TTRPG, I do basically the same thing ‘Here are the words that indicate the things I need to say at this part of things’.
And that was a dumb high school elective in 1995 or whenever. Surely current pols have had more training.
But one of the things that is important is, if you’re going to give speeches like that, you have to _know stuff_. The cards are for triggering memories, telling you where the speech goes next, not telling you everything.
But politicians don’t use those, and that’s probably because they can’t. Because _they do not know things_.
At some point politicians devolved into actors who do not need to actually understand things that are going on. They have speechwriters to make them make speeches, and they have either policy wonks or lobbyists to hand them policy ideas. All they have to be able to do is speak well and maybe memorize a few ‘off-the-cuff’ responses to questions shouted at them.
So when they do not have a speech, they cannot invent one, not even from notecards.
And yeah, I’m talking about a huge chunk of both parties, including Biden…but weirdly not Trump, mostly because he will actually speak extemporaneously…he’s just really dumb and says dumb rambly things.Report
I never saw Anchorman but the “I am Ron Burgundy?” scene keeps popping up more and more over the last year. I must have seen it linked a dozen times.
It strikes me as such a silly and stupid joke (said appreciatively while laughing and wiping away a tear) that, of course, has no basis in reality.
And it is with slowly dawning horror that I realize that maybe it’s accurate.
Maybe it’s accurate.Report
I mean, it almost sounds like something that would happen in a over-the-top comedy: A tragedy happens, and some completely robotic candidate gets up and reads the old teleprompter.
In the comedy, the old speech would have been more on point, like making several explicit references to gun rights and second amendment remedies and somehow even mentioning Trump’s ears, while everyone in the control room got increasingly horrified.
Here, it was less funny, it was just the exact same sort of divisive speech he always gives. It’s just funny because it happened after the Republicans were pretending the rhetoric was something Democratic were raising, completely undermining all those claims.
And even blaming it on ‘the old speech’ doesn’t really fix that. So, uh, that’s the sort of speeches that you were giving before and intended to give? Hmm.
But anyway, it does raise questions of ‘Does Mike Johnson literally not understand words he is speaking?’
At some point, we do need to admit that politicians are basically just charismatic dumbasses who sometimes do have good ideas, or bad ideas that others think are good, but they are functionally a _product_. They don’t speak for themselves, they don’t write laws for themselves, they are sorta people inhabiting roles and reading lines.
This isn’t to say it doesn’t matter who they are, I’m not saying they don’t make decisions, just…they are performance pieces that also sign pieces of paper. And _some_ of them have ideas about how to run things, and tell the people who write those pieces of paper what sort of thing they want written on them, but that is essentially all. (Others just do whatever the donors and lobbyists tell them.)Report
In a different OT thread, someone noted that some see invoking Orwell as a cliché. It is that, I guess, but I think of invoking him as usually being just gauche.
Orwell was concerned about (among other things) how political propaganda warped language and thus reduced our ability to communicate clearly. To imply that any major political group has angelically foregone the use of propaganda, and thus would evade censure from Orwell, is naïve. Beyond even that, I would be surprised to find a *person* (much less a group) who has been politically engaged for a long enough time and has not uttered something Orwell would dissect with disapproval. I’m certainly not that person!
As I see it, the best use of Orwell is as a check on ourselves and our own behavior, rather than as a scourge to flail at others.Report
Most people who talk about Orwell are talking about Meme Orwell, which is “about evil badguys who, like, control information, and stuff, and how that’s bad”.
A lot of people don’t recognize that Orwell didn’t have much use for liberals, either; he was much more of a hard-Left bothsides-er than people are really aware of.Report
I wonder whether someone has ever done a study of American folk knowledge of George Orwell’s philosophy. So many Americans have read “1984” and/or “Animal Farm” and a smaller but still large number have heard his philosophy being discussed through various partisan filters. When people invoke the name “George Orwell” or the word “Orwellian”, what do they mean by it?Report
Welp. We’ve got our first Dixie Chicks celebrity moment.
Tenacious D is on tour in Australia. Not Jack Black had a birthday while down there and they brought out a cake and said “make a wish!” and he joked “don’t miss next time”.
Lolol, etc.
Well. Some people just don’t have a sense of humor. Some Australian senator considered this calling for an assassination of a foreign head of state, a whole bunch of humorless scolds in the US did what humorless scolds do and just started screaming “HOW DARE YOU?” like they didn’t just finish making fun of that environmentalist chick saying the same thing, and Jack Black has cancelled the rest of the Tenacious D tour (I saw someone argue that Black didn’t cancel it as much as the future venues explained that they were cancelling it on his behalf).
Kyle Gass (oh, *THAT’S* his name) has since apologized, Jack Black has since apologized, everybody’s apologizing.
Here’s a Donald Trump impersonator singing Landslide:
Report
Trump is not going to win in a landslide but thanks for trolling.Report
I was making fun of the Dixie Chicks, Saul. They did Landslide as one of their “comeback” songs after the whole “incident” thing where one of them made a funny joke at a concert.
Report
It’s a nice cover of the by-now much-covered song. Maybe a bit over-produced. They did a fine job of keeping their trademark harmonies.
I might wish that they picked something a bit more recent to cover. Lisa Loeb’s “Stay,” perhaps, or better yet something originally done by a male artist, to give the song a very different spin. Do you think they could do credit to “Wonderwall?”Report
Sadly, one of them (the brunette?) passed in 2023 in a car accident.
They came out with the cover in 2002 (hit the Top Ten and everything). It was during this concert tour that Natalie made the funny joke and then the song dropped off the charts entirely.
Which would have put it a mere 8 years after Lisa Loeb’s “Stay”.
Cindi Lauper’s “Time after Time”, maybe?Report
Well, now you know how well I follow The Chicks, which is not at all. Sorry to hear of the death.Report
Jaybird, it was a former member of the group who died, not one of the current three.Report
OH!!!
Well, they should still cover “Time after Time”.Report
This is what I’ve had to remind my fellow liberals.
We may win in November or we may lose, but no matter which way it goes, it will be a narrow margin.
Meaning that no matter who gets sworn in next January, about half the country will be in opposition.
The strength of the Trumpists is that grievance and resentment always plays well, but the weakness is that it never plays well with those who aren’t already aggrieved and resentful. This is why over the course of 8 years his support hasn’t increased or decreased much at all.
Another strength/ weakness is that resentment doesn’t allow for the making of alliances with the Outgroup.
And in this particular political moment the Outgroups (queer people, trans people, nonwhite people, uppity women) are the Outgroup by virtue of things that can’t change even if they wanted to.
Another strength/ weakness is that Trumpism can’t “live and let live”; It insists on seeking out the Outgroup and inflicting punishment on them.
Which means that if you are a member of the Outgroup, you can’t join the Trump camp and you can’t simply abstain from involvement so you have no choice but to resist.Report
Okay. Jack Black has announced not only that the tour is over, but he’s suspended all future Tenacious D plans (and Kyle Gass’s agent has dropped him).
I’ve seen a bunch of people yelling “what the heck?” at Jack Black over this and pointing out that his School of Rock character would *NEVER* do this. Others point out that Kung Fu Panda 4 made half a billion and so there’s a Kung Fu Panda 5 on the table and why in the hell would you risk that?
We’re having the “Cancel Culture” conversations all over again. Sigh.Report
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-no-poll-boost-after-assassination-attempt-us-election-1925680
It looks like there is no assassination attempt bounce for Trump. Maybe too early to tell but this feels right to me. The whole thing actually feels like a weird non-event except among the most adamant Trump supporters. I’ve read people in red areas even talking about it being undiscussed.Report
The RNC being immediately following means whatever good will Trump would get from the shooting immediately gets washed by a week straight of hardcore political coverage, and frankly that night one lineup was a big bag of nope for non-MAGA voters. The Vance pick is going to be a drag for suburbs, women, and several other demos. The assassination attempt is a big part of Trump lore now, but if you aren’t big on Trump lore it probably won’t have a lot of “hearts and minds” changing.
I was talking to someone yesterday about how everything that could possibly go right for Trump is going right for Trump, but it is July. You want everything going your way in late Sept/Oct, not have your high point in July. More and more polling showing that despite the Biden wall-to-wall bad coverage and now the shooting Trump’s polling ceiling is starting to move from cliche to immutable law of the universe. He is still favorite to win this election, but far from over, and frankly – as one Republican operative was talking to me about over the weekend – there is a huge over confidence trap waiting to test the Trump campaign that has never run as a favorite. Some GOP folks are taking the Vance pick (brings nothing politically, abrasive, ran far behind Trump in a relatively safe state in his own election) as such a confidence thing. We will seeReport
What percentage of people do you think follow hardcore convention news in July?Report
In the past, enough did for there to be a “convention bump”.Report
I think a lot of the polling shows a statistical dead heat/anybody’s game. The best thing going for Trump right now is the anti-Trump meltdown over Biden’s debate performance which seems to show no signs of abatting despite the fact that Biden has been perfectly fine since then. My theory and it is mine is that a lot of center-left writers were never keen on Biden to begin with and now the bees are firmly in their bonnetsReport
The New 538 is the Sam Wang of Nate Silvers.Report
is this the Bargaining phase?Report
I think we’re still seeing denial.Report
The identity of the shooter didn’t play into generating any kind of political firestorm nor did any leftists or Dems of any significance say something idiotic on the matter, so it deprived the subject of oxygen. It’s easy to forget that a lot of Presidents have had some loon take a shot at them with varying levels of success.Report
Occasionally, reality asserts itself.Report
I mean, it really should, but the right managed to muddle that enough, and somehow half a dozen ex-classmates of his going ‘Uh, yeah, the guy was extremely conservative, like, actually had it overtly as a personality’ and being a registered Republicans has been somehow drowned out by a single unexplained political donation to get out votes, which could just be him Never Trumping.
It’s really this thing. Everyone said ‘That’s not acceptable’, and it died down.
It would have been an interesting hypothetical if it had happened to Biden. Would the right have been capable of doing the same? They couldn’t seem to when Paul Pelosi was attacked.
Interesting fact that the media hasn’t really mentioned: Politician assassinations have a lot of motives, but…you kill people for what they have done, or are trying to do, not what they you imagine they will do. Thus, shooting at political _candidates_ is incredibly rare. In fact, it’s only happened a few times in US history:
RFK was assassinated, but he was assassinated for supplying fighter jets to Israel, while he was attorney general, by a Palestinian-Jordonian on the opposite side of that war. It wasn’t really any sort of US policy disagreement, it was straight-up a wartime assassination, even if we don’t seem to remember it that way in the history books. And it was for things already happening, a thing he did as AG, not things he might do in the future as president.
George Wallace was shot at by someone who _wanted_ assassinate Nixon, who was campaigning for his second term, but found it impossible, so settled for Wallace. And he, extremely clearly, had no political motive at all, because you don’t plan to assassinate the current Republicans president and then settle for a Democratic candidate…in fact, he made that all explicit in his writing. (He is, perhaps, the most singular example of someone who just did it for publicity.)
And the guy who shot at Teddy Roosevelt was literally deranged and ordered to do so by the ghost of the recently assassinated William McKinley, who told him that Roosevelt was behind that. (The ghost was wrong.)
No one actually tries to kill presidential candidates to keep them from being elected. And they certainly don’t do it for domestic policy reasons. Presidents, yes, presidential candidates, no. I know we find that logical, think it must happen, but it’s not actually something that has happened once.
So the ‘Someone is trying to kill Trump to keep him from being elected’ was a somewhat dumb assumption to start with. I say that having made that assumption also, but it’s not why things happen.
This guy wasn’t worried about what Trump would do, he was pissed about something Trump already had done.
And when you combine that with the fact he was fairly conservative, it’s pretty easy to figure it out: Trump betrayed and hijacked conservativism.Report
Hmm I mean it is plausible, Dave, but I have my doubts. If the guy had a coherent agenda/grievance I would expect he’d have left a manifesto of other document enumerating them. That he didn’t suggest that he either honestly didn’t consider that the Secret Service would kill him or that he didn’t have coherent grievances which, to my mind, strongly suggests the simpler suggestion that he was a deranged gun wielding nut.
Personally, I think the general rule should be that a person taking a run at a President/Presidential Candidate should be assumed to be a pathetic, incoherent nutcase until affirmatively proven otherwise.Report
They hacked into his phone, the FBI says.
If so, that means that they have access to his Discord accounts.
I find myself wondering if this’ll be another Las Vegas shooting kinda thing. “Golly! We can’t find *ANYTHING*!”Report
I am confused, why do you think we don’t know the motives of the Las Vegas shooter.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/us/las-vegas-2017-shooting-stephen-paddock-fbi-documents/index.html
It sounds like he was someone angry at life and angry at Las Vegas.
Is there some conspiracy theory here I’m unaware of?
Also, I don’t know why you mentioned Discord accounts. Do we know he had one? Or did anything with it?Report
Conspiracy theory of the shooting at Las Vegas?
I’m surprised that you haven’t heard of any. Here’s one that I found after about 30 seconds of searching.
As for Discord… he was 20. I’m assuming that his social media was chatrooms. Maybe Reddit, but that probably would have surfaced by now.Report
looking forward to Chip and Phil and Dave insisting that this means you believe all the Las Vegas Shooter conspiracy theories are real and trueReport
No, I knew there were conspiracy theories it was a false flag to get gun control. Heck, I don’t even know if I ‘knew’ about those or just knew automatically that such conspiracy theories would exist. It exists for every shooting.
I was just confused about the mention of _motives_, like there was evidence that the shooter was trying to do something specific and that was being covered up.
Same with the Reddit thing, I was just thinking you knew something specific there.
I don’t know if Discord is the correct place for ‘deranged shooters’…what’s the new 4chan? Is it Reddit, it could be Reddit, are there 4chan-y areas of Reddit?
Also, I don’t think Discord technically counts as social media? It’s a chatroom, sure, but social media is where you…hmmm. I think it doesn’t count because you can’t, just, post things in public. You can’t find people, you can’t talk to the world at large. It’s missing all the tools that link random people together, which I think is an important part of social media.
And Reddit doesn’t count as social media, I am more sure of that. That is just a forum.
I don’t know, though, I don’t know anything anymore.Report
Let me come back to this to say: Yes. I’ve said this somewhere else, but let me set the record straight and say I was wrong here.
This person is apparently someone who…wanted publicity, and presumably realized: We know the names of presidential and presidential candidate assassins a lot better than the names of school shooters. And decided to make a name for himself this way.
So, it doesn’t actually matter where he was politically, he was just the ISO standard ‘deranged young white man with access to firearms who decided to kill people because [insert stupid reason here]’.Report
Trump assassination attempt merch!
https://proudpatriots.com/pages/trump-stand-strong-trading-cardReport
Did they get the rights to that picture? Never mind. I’m sure they didn’t.Report
Heh commemorate this deeply serious and somber moment in American history by buying some tacky memorabilia.Report
I checked out ordering 1 card. $42 all in!Report
What could be more American than that?Report
There is a growing bruhaha over Marvel Studio’s decision to change an Israeli superhero/Mossad agent named Sabra into a Russian Jew. Now from a business perspective I get why Marvel Studios did this. They want to sell tickets and even without the Israel-Hamas War, an Israeli superhero/Mossad agent would guarantee many countries will not screen this movie. Having a hot Israeli superheroine is fine when dealing with a bunch of comic book nerds but not for a global audience that contains a lot of people that don’t like Israel or Jews really.
What I don’t understand is why Marvel has gone about this in the most boneheaded and obvious way possible. There is going to be no one fooled or pleased by this change regardless of whether they are more sympathetic to Israelis or Palestinians. The people sympathetic towards Israel would see the obvious political motivations and cowardice for the change. The Pro-Palestinian people will know where Sabra comes from and since many don’t like Jews would argue that only making the Israeli superhero, a supervillain will please them. They will argue for a Palestinian superhero and an Israeli supervillain as what is just and right.Report
There was this weird phenomenon where customers for a particular product stopped buying it (or slowed down) and the blame for the product making fewer sales than expected was blamed on the audience.
Marvel was among the corporations that played this particular game.
The producers are still ponying up the cash… why not? Hey. Make a product that isn’t appealing to the existing audience and hope for other people to fill the void. When the existing audience *AND* the new audience doesn’t show up in decent numbers, blame the existing audience.
Oh, you’re not interested in Sabra anymore, Lee? Thin skin? Do you *HATE* it when comics actually cater to someone who isn’t a white male? Are you really upset about this or are you upset that Sabra’s uniform doesn’t show enough leg?
See? It’s easy. And if the producers keep ponying up the cash… who cares?Report
Jaybird, this isn’t what I wrote and you know it.Report
Forgive me. I wasn’t accusing you of being upset that you don’t get to see more of Sabra’s thigh.
I was going through the playbook of how people who shrug and go on to spend their money someplace else will be treated.
Seriously: We’ve seen this playbook how many times over the last few years?
If the producers keep ponying up the cash, what incentive do they have to change *ANYTHING*?
May I assume that you’re not going to buy the product?
(You may safely assume that I will not be buying the product.)Report
I don’t know if Sabra is that well-known.
(Have we had this conversation before?)Report
She isn’t well known.Report
So they’re not going to alienate many people with that decision. They’ll maybe even get (or expect) praise for having a Jewish hero. But the movie will still lose money, because the industry never made it back after covid (for a few reasons, covid and non-covid).Report
There’s a bunch of people in the middle who don’t know and don’t care.
There’s two other groups, though. Smaller groups…
One will scream about how dare they include Sabra when there is an ongoing genocide in Gaza and can we get the actors on the record giving their opinion of the controversy?
And the other will be irritated by how they changed Sabra from her origin (even if they’ve never opened a comic book) and they’ll see the argument over the silly superhero movie existing despite the ongoing happenings in the Middle East and they’ll shrug and not go (when, maybe, they might have caught a matinee).
Now, of course, “Brave New World” might do very well and prove me wrong and all that…
But I expect Deadpool & Wolverine to be the last superhero movie to make a mint.
We will, instead, be treated to arguments about how audiences just didn’t like the idea of a Black Captain America.Report
I’m always amused by my misreading of things, including your comment that they might have caught a manatee.Report
The New Yorker has a new article out called “What Happened to San Francisco, Really?“.
It assumes as fact that something has happened to San Francisco.
Nine years ago, when HBO premièred the series “Silicon Valley,” a deadpan comedy lampooning the Bay Area’s life-style blandishments and hapless global power, the city seemed to exist in a helium balloon, floating ever upward. Now the same place is viewed as an emblem of American collapse.
The phrase “doom loop” does appear in the story.Report
The epitome of “what happened to San Francisco” was when an illegal immigrant who’d been deported four times stole a gun out of an unlocked police car and used it to shoot a tourist dead and didn’t get convicted of a single crime other than “unlawful possession of a firearm” (and that got overturned on appeal.)
Pretty much everything since then has been variations on that theme.Report
Two messages:
One:
“My message to you all is to be vigilant here,” Hunt said, noting assault-style rifles are responsible for a small fraction of U.S. homicides. “They cannot go after our AR-15s. The second we allow them to infringe on that, we are letting the fox in the henhouse.”
…
Guns were allowed within walking distance of the RNC convention. A short-lived effort at City Hall to ban firearms within the security footprint failed because local governments such as Milwaukee are precluded under state law from enacting gun regulations more stringent than the state’s. Wisconsin allows both concealed carry and open carry.
Two:
Armed man in ski mask arrested while approaching Republican National Convention perimeter in Milwaukee
Man had AK-47 pistol, ski mask, tactical bag and full magazine
Republicans: “Everyone should have guns, always and everywhere because the police can’t save you!”
Also Republicans: “That man has a gun- ARREST HIM!”Report
#BoycottStarbucks is trending on Twitter, again. Apparently, they’re sponsoring the RNC.
So if you didn’t boycott them over the Genocide in Gaza, you can boycott them for this.
I, personally, think that all of Starbucks tastes burned. That’s why I enjoy Diet Pepsi in the mornings to get my morning caffeine. Or Pepsi Zero Sugar. I don’t know what Pepsico’s politics are, though. But #boycottpepsi isn’t trending and #boycottstarbucks is.Report
“Hey, guys, we’re freaking out the normies!”
Trump campaign edits GOP convention speeches to tone down political rhetoric
The speeches have tended toward MAGA decaf, steering clear of topics like the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6 riots as Trump pushes a theme of unity.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-campaign-edits-gop-convention-speeches-tone-political-rhetoric-rcna162394Report
Courtesy Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice:
Dorothy Thompson back in 1941 pegged J.D. Vance:
He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him—he despises, for instance, Mr. B—because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.
Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language—though they have never met him.
There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal—a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Na.zi regimeReport
That also sounds like the last 39-year-old to be nominated by the Republicans for vice-president in order to be an unchained, frothing attack dog.Report
Not to give *TOO* much advice to the pinkos out there but “JD Vance is Dan Quayle 2024!” is probably a more devastating attack that will resonate with more folks than “JD Vance is a Nazi!”Report
Dan Quayle was 41 years old in 1988. Go back further.Report
See? Now you’re asking me to do homework.
This is bullshit. Yeah, lots of luck with attacking JD Vance.
Point out how Trump would never take someone in an interracial marriage as his VP. Run with the whole “Nazi” thing.
See if I care.Report
Nixon was Eisenhower’s VP at age 40.
Eisenhower… isn’t that a *GERMAN* name? Has anyone looked into what this guy was doing during WWII?
And the only VP younger than that was John C. Breckenridge who was VP at the fresh-faced age of 36. Man. That would have been 2009 for me. Holy cow! What year was *THIS* for this guy?
OMG HE WAS BUCHANANAN’S VP!!!
Which would make him the 2nd worst VP in history, after Vance.Report
Nixon was 39 when nominated, as Vance is. If Trump is re-elected, then Vance will be 40 at his swearing-in, as Nixon also was.Report
I can’t speak for Chip, but for my part, I don’t see Vance as a Nazi. The essay that Chip quoted from was primarily about types of people. Nazis are mentioned in it because they were the threat of that time, but it’s not about Nazis. It’s about what kinds of people would and would not collaborate with an authoritarian regime that had overthrown a democracy.Report
The essay is called “Who Goes Nazi“, Steve.Report
Yes, it is called “Who Goes Nazi” because Nazis were the threat of that time. The reason why people still read the essay 79 years after the fall of the Nazi regime is that the insights of the article remain relevant even though the Nazis are long gone.Report
Exactly.
There are in fact all different types, but they all work with or collaborate with the authoritarian regime for different purposes.
Nick Fuentes is attacking nonwhite people like Usha Vance, and Jack Prosobiec is attacking gay people like Peter Thiel, but in the end they will all support the regime against democracy.
In the mass deportation scheme, certain businesses will be granted the privilege of hiring undocumented immigrants depending on their connections and payoffs, while the mom & pops will feel the iron fist.Report
Nick Fuentes has announced that he’s not supporting Trump.
In the mass deportation scheme, certain businesses will be granted the privilege of hiring undocumented immigrants depending on their connections and payoffs, while the mom & pops will feel the iron fist.
(how is that different from today?)Report
Like I was mentioning, Fuentes may not “back” Trump, but he and his followers will eagerly cooperate with the regime.
And notice how no one anywhere really seems to have anything positive to say about Trump?
Like even here, all you can muster is “well the entire system is corrupt”.
This is why all sorts of different types “Go Na.zi”.
Even though they all have disparate interests what binds them together is grievance and resentment, or greed and cowardice, but in all cases a shoulder shrugging nihilism.
That’s actually what gives me cause for optimism.
The most dangerous thing is an idea that catches fire and gives people hope.
Even if deluded, the early fascists and communists has ideas that went viral and inspired millions of people.
Trumpism can’t do that. It doesn’t have any vision other than “Come the revolution our enemies will be driven before us”.
And even then, it will obviously fail.
In 2028, the people Nick Fuentes hates will still be here. Millions of undocumented immigrants will still be here hard at work. Gay and trans people will still be here living their lives in defiance of Ms. Alito.
The culture that is envisioned in Project 2025 doesn’t have much support even among Republicans which is why they are frantically trying to run away from it.
The reason the Trumpists have to resort to coercion is why they are losing because as you might say, the dog won’t eat the food.Report
It’s weird. You can have Trump pick JD Vance as VP and you see it as evidence for how Trump and his ilk hate people like JD Vance. People like Nick Fuentes comes out and says that he doesn’t back Trump and you see it as evidence of how much Fuentes and his ilk support Trump.
This is seriously “eating crackers like she owns the place” energy.Report
I never said anything of the sort but I can see why you would want to think I did.Report
Well, the more I read about JD Vance and his ilk, the more that I see that he’s got his own version of Soros backing him.
The Fuentes folks don’t like Trump and don’t support him anymore.
Personally, I see that as a mark in Trump’s favor.
(Admittedly, I am also not particularly opposed to Vance’s Soros.)Report
Chip, have you ever read Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”?Report
There was a guy out there that said “hey, I wonder if any funds out there shorted a suspicious amount of $DJT stock the week before the attempted assassination” and, as it turns out, there was one.
After some light investigation, the fund announced that the short was made in error.
Report
Aaaaaand Hulk Hogan is apparently introducing Trump tonight?
What year is it?Report
Hulk Hogan, the former Governor of Minnesota?
Oh wait, wrong guy. Now I want to know why Jesse Ventura isn’t doing it?Report
The DNC has an opportunity and I am not even kidding.Report
Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho?Report
Jesse Ventura hates Hogan. He hates Hogan even more than *I* do.
That’s a *LOT*.
Sure, Jesse is now someone who votes 3rd Party only and was considering running on the Green ticket but, if the DNC asks nicely, pays for airfare and a steak dinner, Ventura will get up there and scream about the evils of Hogan and Trump for 7 minutes using charisma, vitriol, and humor.
He won’t even have to talk about Biden or Harris or any Dem. Just Trump and Hogan.Report
Jesse Ventura, the author of “DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government” and “63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read”, is apparently living off the grid in Mexico because drones are trying to kill him.Report
Honestly not sure if that’s left or right coded anymore.Report
I think he’s off the horseshoe, if you know what I mean.Report
Man in Black #1 : Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter Jr., thought he saw a UFO once. But it’s been proven he only saw the planet Venus.
Roky Crikenson : I’m a Republican.
Man in Black #1 : Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus.Report
The fact that I immediately got this reference makes me feel the need to lie down.Report
Joke I just saw: “We need someone with experience at beating Kamala!”Report
Hogan came out to “Real American”.
He gave a wrestling promo.
He ripped off his shirt.
He yelled “WHATCHA GONNA DO?”
He tore the building down.
sighReport
Apparently last night Vance gave a speech about all the terrible things “Joe Biden and the Elites” *has done, and one was that he supported the Iraq war, which earned a chorus of boos.
Kevin Drum helpfully points out that the Iraq war was supported by not just the republican establishment, but 70% of the party base.
At this point I think history textbooks in schools in Republican states will just have a blurry patch where GWB’s photo used to be.
*I call dibs on the band nameReport
I understand that Vance’s speech didn’t mention Reagan even once.
If Trump doesn’t mention Reagan… this’ll be the first convention in how long that Reagan wasn’t even mentioned by the VP nominee or Presidential nominee since… when? 1972? (I just checked, Ford gave Reagan a nod in the 1976 one.)Report
When grievance and resentment is all you got, even history cannot stand against it.Report
Jacqui Heinrich at Fox News reports:
It was Steam, not discord.
Steam? Freakin’ *STEAM*?Report
tired: so out-of-touch he posts on Tumblr in 2024
wired: so out-of-touch he posts on Steam in 2024
inspired: so out-of-touch he posts on the GameFAQs message boards in 2024Report
Scratch that. Steam Account was a fake.
Whew. Seriously, the Steam Boards are silly. Appropriate for checking to see whether a particular problem has been patched or whether a particular gun has been nerfed but it’s a positively painful interface.Report
From the “Least Surprising News Possible” department:
J.D. Vance Left His Venmo Public. Here’s What It Shows
The Republican VP nominee’s Venmo network reveals connections ranging from the architects of Project 2025 to enemies of Donald Trump—and the populist’s close ties to the very elites he rails against.Report
More “Things Which Were Widely Predicted” files:
Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, U.S. says
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S. repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, alleging a shocking litany of offenses that took place as the company amassed billions of dollars in government contracts.
Southwest Key Programs Inc. employees, including supervisors, raped, touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed this week. At least two employees have been charged since 2020.
https://apnews.com/article/migrant-children-provider-lawsuit-0bfd45735aa6d41a4233abe6059f0e1f
This was all perfectly predictable and I recall mentioning it myself. Wherever you have women or children without power, overseen by men who do have power, there will be sexual abuses, guaranteed every time.
This will only become turbocharged by a Trump administration which sees immigrants as vermin who are not entitled to human rights or respect.Report
Apparently a angry incoherent old man rambled on last night shaking his fist at
cloudsWetbacks.In other news, Joe Biden is home recovering from Covid.
Man, this is wild:
Despite the call for unity, Trump soon referred to “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” repeatedly cited false allegations of stolen elections, called for the firing of the head of the United Auto Workers, cited the “China virus” and the “invasion” at the Southern border. He called a Democratic senator a “total lightweight.” He even repeated a puzzling allusion to “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” from “The Silence of the Lambs,” which he’s used before.Report
This is the part of the speech that I saw people praising the most.
The assassination story.Report
I heard that he wants to bring back Operation Wetback.
I didn’t watch, so can someone here confirm that?Report
Let’s just run with it. “Trump wants to deport all of the illegal immigrants!”
Scream that from the rooftops.
“Think of the landlords! Think of the people who employ the cheap labor!”Report
I think its refreshing that we have dropped the pretense of “We simply want to regulate immigration!” to “Damn right we want cattle cars and concentration camps!’
Combined with the stories of the routine sexual abuse of children by the immigration forces, I don’t think this is as popular as you might think.Report
I wouldn’t open the door to conflating deportation with concentration camps.
It might minimize stuff you don’t want minimized.
As for the last part… it’s kind of 2024? I’m not sure that you’re deft enough to navigate that.Report
Chip: “Wow, those plans for mass deportations sound like ethnic cleansing.”
MAGAs: “Hey, you know, you’re right!” Thanks!”Report
“You mean the people who got here last year in the caravan from Central America are all Central Americans?”
“No, some of them are from China, India, and the Middle East. But all of them are *BROWN*! That makes it Ethnic Cleansing!”
“Wait. It does?”
“Educate yourself.”Report
You can educate yourself by listening to conservatives talk about Vance’s wife.
Should I post the video of Nick Fuentes talking about her, here at OT?
Would you like to do it?Report
I’ve heard conservatives say some jaw-dropping things about Usha Vance.
I’ve heard conservatives argue against these jaw-dropping things.
I’ve seen liberals say some jaw-dropping things about Usha Vance.
I’ve seen liberals argue against these jaw-dropping things.
Which would you say are most representative of conservativism and which would you say are most representative of liberalism?
If you don’t consider Trumpism particularly conservative or liberal, do you see the pick of Vance as particularly Trumpist?Report
Which liberals are saying racist things about Usha Vance?
And in case you are confused, there is no contradiction between Trump picking Vance, and Trumpism regarding Usha Vance and any nonwhite person as a second class citizen.Report
Just ones saying stuff like “If they institute Project 2025, Usha Vance will be deported!”
But you’ll probably say something like “that’s just some rando on the internet, it’s not anyone important” or something like that.
Do you want me to find a link to some Democrat saying such a thing?Report
That’s your idea of a “jaw dropping” comment?
Usha Vance won’t be deported, but a bunch of powerless anonymous nonwhite people just like her will be refused visas or asylum or entry.
For the same reason that Republicans hate gay people but love Peter Thiel.
Because in the Republican world, there are no such things as “rights” which are enjoyed by everyone.
There are only privileges which can be revoked at a whim.
Usha and Thiel are the “good ones” which just means they provide some powerful person with some sort of benefit, and in receipt are given the privilege of being accepted.Report
Usha Vance won’t be deported, but a bunch of powerless anonymous nonwhite people just like her will be refused visas or asylum or entry.
And now we’re discussing immigration rather than deportation.
What will we be discussing tomorrow?Report
Wow, SOMONE is looking to become a blurry spot on the history pictures!
Larry Hogan, disloyal Party member:
Project 2025 shreds American values
This 900-page proposal from the Heritage Foundation was published last year — with the input of many former Trump administration officials and those with close ties to the former president — to serve as a blueprint for a future administration. To call many of these ideas “radical” is a disservice. In truth, Project 2025 takes many of the principles that have made this nation great and shreds them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/19/larry-hogan-project-2025-trump-abortion/Report
We shouldn’t lose track of this:
From Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
A Russian missile strike on Mykolaiv hit a children’s playground near an ordinary residential house. Currently, five people are reported injured, and three people were killed, including a child. My deepest condolences to the families and friends who have lost their loved ones.
This is in addition to their other routine war crimes.
In case anyone forgot, The Republicans are on the side of the Russians here.Report
So Trump finally had a doctor release info on his wound. Not his primary care physician or the doctors that treated him in Pennsylvania. Former White House physician and sitting Congressman Ronny Jackson, who Trump helped get elected.
I’m sure this will fully satisfy any outstanding questions and put the matter to rest once and for all.
https://x.com/RonnyJacksonTX/status/1814743055338967055Report
Here’s a hypothetical question for you:
You are a doctor who treated Trump when he came in with an injured ear. You fixed him up and bandaged him and sent him on his way.
You are asked to give your name and speak to the cameras of a news program and say “yeah, I treated him, he had auricular perforation syndrome caused by some sort of flying projectile.”
Do you think that you will get phonecalls from anonymous strangers for the next month? Your spouse? Your kids?Report
I think the only way they’d face harassment was if they contradicted something Trump said and Trump publicly called them a liar.Report
Well, let’s see if Ronny Jackson is facing anything in his twitter replies…
Okay, I checked.
Non-zero.Report
He doesn’t exactly fit in the posed hypothetical scenario, either.Report
Well, we’re now in a place where a doctor who claims to have treated Trump’s ear has said that Trump was shot.
And that’s not good enough.
I find it quite plausible that a doctor in PA who says “Yeah, I work at Our Lady Of Auricular Perforation and I am the doctor who stitched up Trump and he sure had a perforated ear” would get the whole “prove you were there that day!”, “where did you get your degree, anyway?”, and so on treatment.
“99% of the people who read that report are just going to nod and say something about just wanting to be sure!”
“I agree with that.”Report
You find Ronny Jackson wholly credible, I do not.
Let’s agree to disagree.Report
No. I’m just noticing the ladder we’re climbing.
“How do we know he was shot?”
“Here is photographic evidence.”
“Has a doctor chimed in?”
“Here’s a doctor.”
“I mean a *REAL* doctor!”
I’d be more than happy enough to weigh evidence that Trump was shot against reasons to be skeptical that he was shot.
Maybe we could list them and put them on the scale. See which side tips.Report
If someone wants to rest their entire case on the assertions of Ronny Jackson, I’m fine with that.
We can all just draw our own conclusions without any further discussion.Report
What if they also rest their case on photographic evidence?Report
Based on available evidence Occam’s razor says Trump got winged by a pot shot taken by the kind of pathetic dude looking to die in infamy we’ve seen emerge into the news cycle far too frequently. He was enabled in significant part by the fact that the secret service is apparently very stupid, or at least the detail that day was very stupid.
Maybe one day there will be evidence to support another conclusion. But for the moment there is no benefit to pulling on this string.Report
For the record, I agree with this.
Occam’s Razor also suggests that lying, even when not necessary, about everything all the time, is just part of Trump’s character and is his default position.Report
Do the arguments that Trump was shot rely on Trump’s testimony?Report
I never said that.
I’m just saying he lies constantly, about everything even when he doesn’t have to.
Am I wrong?Report
I asked you a question. I didn’t say “Chip, you made a statement.”Report
No disagreement on that from me.Report
For clarity: do you believe there’s a conspiracy?
ETA: What outstanding questions do you have?Report
Trump has a history of obfuscation when it comes to his health. In 2015, he dictated the letter that Dr. Bornstein signed in 2015, which said Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”. In 2019, he made an unexpected trip to Walter Reed that his staff said was a routine checkup, except nobody knew about it, including the staff at Walter Reed. There were even reports that his stint with COVID got really bad, but that was never officially acknowledged.
Is he hiding anything? I have no idea. But it strikes me as odd that a billionaire and candidate for President is receiving daily treatment from a sitting member of Congress who doesn’t have an active medical license (except on military bases) rather than a legitimate medial professional. He’s a notorious cheapskate, so maybe he’s just saving money. Or maybe he trusts Ronnie from their time together in the White House (where Jackson allegedly earned the name “Candyman” for handing out prescription meds like candy).Report
The guy who was shot in the ear is wearing a bandage on his ear. The best version we’ve ever seen of Biden can’t walk or form sentences. It’s weird to me that the former makes you suspicious.Report
Trump’s campaign is now entirely in the hands of people who couldn’t tell the difference between a luxury hotel and a landscaping company. Do you think they’re really capable of keeping what you’re proposing under wraps?Report
Well, there are two kinds of Trump Assassination Attempt Truthers (or TAATs).
The first is the kind who believes that Trump wasn’t shot at all. Instead, he used a blood capsule and/or bladed a little using the tricks that he learned when he was working with the WWE. They admit that people got shot and one even died at the rally, but that was just a small sacrifice that Trump was willing to make in order to get the clout that comes from standing up and throwing his fist in the air. On top of that, if the truth came out that Trump faked his assassination attempt and killed one of his supporters to do it, that would *TOTALLY* ruin Trump’s chances in the coming election. Sure, many people would still vote for him because they’d be in denial, but enough would tip the scales back so that Biden or Harris or whomever would win in a landslide. This is why it is important for the Truth to come out.
The second kind of TAAT is more of a shrapnel guy. Oh, the sniper was real. A *REAL REPUBLICAN*, that is. And the argument is *NOT* that he wasn’t trying to shoot Trump. The argument is that he tried to shoot Trump, missed, but hit something, probably a teleprompter screen, and the glass from the teleprompter screen cut Trump’s ear *NOT* a bullet. So, yes, Trump was getting shot at but he didn’t get grazed by a bullet. He only got grazed by some teleprompter glass. And while this does sound a little far-fetched, it’s something that could be cleared up with a simple interview with a doctor who treated Trump that day who would say “yes it was a bullet” or “no comment” and then we’d know. It’s kind of suspicious that they haven’t had anyone say anything in an official capacity is all I’m saying.
We probably all agree that the former is *NUTSO*. Like, #BlueAnon nutso. The latter is less nuts and is well within socially acceptable tolerances.
But less nuts is still nuts.Report
Outside of the extremely on-line, how many people are invested in the bullet v. shrapnel dispute, such as it is? Obviously, Trump was shot at and narrowly escaped at least serious injury and probably death. I’d guess that for most people of most political persuasions the question of bullet v. shrapnel is simply a matter of getting it right, and that transparency, which has never been Trump’s strong suit on health related issues (or much else), is the best way to get to the answer, whatever it is.
But rando conspiracists are more fun.Report
Do you think that Trump was shot?Report
Posters not named Jaybird seem to be entertaining the idea in these very comments.Report
1. Jaybird: I have no opinion on whether it was a bullet or shrapnel, and I don’t think it matters. He was shot at, and I don’t think any sane person denies that. I’m perfectly willing to wait and see whether he was hit by a bullet or by shrapnel, but it won’t mean anything to me except getting the question right for the sake of getting it right.
2. InMD: As I said, the extremely on-line seem to care. I see no evidence that anyone else does.Report
“Wait and see”
What evidence are you still waiting on, if not photographs and video footage of the shooting as it was occurring?Report
You’re assuming that I’m waiting for some specific evidence for the purpose of developing an opinion about bullet v. shrapnel. I feel no obligation to develop such an opinion, for reasons that I think anyone who can read, or think, can understand. I expect that, eventually, there will be solid evidence one way or the other. Then I won’t have an opinion; I’ll know. In the meantime, I see no value in having an opinion on something that doesn’t matter to me.
Or is that concept hard for you to grasp?Report
What would this solid evidence look like, if not photographs and video footage of the shooting as it was occurring?Report
You still don’t get it, do you? I could make a laundry list of the many kinds of things that would seal the deal, but why should I do that? More evidence is likely to come out, including things on my hypothetical laundry list, but I’m not trying to predict on Sunday what we will probably know by Wednesday, or soon thereafter. I have often railed against the urge to have opinions for the sake of having opinions. Maybe you can try to explain why I should go to the trouble of having an opinion on this, but I doubt it will be convincing.Report
I hear you say that you could make a list but I’m not asking for a laundry list. I’m cool with getting just one example of evidence that would seal the deal for you.
I mean, if photographs and video footage of the shooting as it was occurring aren’t sufficient.Report
You still haven’t given me a reason that I should do this work. But I’m cool with your constitutional inability to understand why someone wouldn’t want to bother developing an opinion on Sunday when it will probably be a matter of fact, not opinion, on Wednesday.
People who think their hot take opinions are a big deal don’t seem to grasp that not everyone else feels that way.Report
You still haven’t given me a reason that I should do this work.
It didn’t strike me as “work” when I asked.
I figured you’d have an example at your fingertips.Report
Indeed I do. But you have no claim on my labor or to demand that I tell you what might, hypothetically, cause me to have an opinion I don’t have, or, at present, care to develop. And you still haven’t given me a reason that I should.
Some years ago, I was defending the deposition of a doctor in a case brought by a former department chair. My client had been told by, let’s call him Smith, that the former chair was antisemitic, and, when asked, said so. The lawyer then asked my client (who was Jewish) whether he believed Smith. He said he registered what Smith said, but never formed an opinion on whether the former chair was antisemitic. The lawyer seemed to have trouble understanding the answer and asked a lot of questions. As he got increasingly frustrated, my client told him that he didn’t reach opinions lightly and felt no obligation to form them until he had enough to go on, which he couldn’t specify in advance. The lawyer seemed incapable of understanding this.
I guess there are other people in the same boat.Report
And you see that as the best comparison to photographs and video footage of the shooting as it was occurring?Report
What makes you think I claimed that it was a comparison to something I wasn’t talking about?
And you still haven’t explained why I need to form an opinion RIGHT NOW.Report
As someone who is the second type, I will point out that it such a thing shouldn’t actually matter. Someone tried to kill him. They missed. It doesn’t really matter how close.
But ‘I got hurt by a bullet instead of shrapnel’ is exactly the sort of thing Trump would lie about, and despite what you try to imply, it actually is sorta weird we never got any information about that…until now, from the doctor that literally no one took seriously.
But I don’t think that’s a lie. This is the worst possible doctor to make that statement, but I don’t think he’s lying, mostly because he’s too detailed. (As opposed to his lies before, which were nonsense about Trump being in Super-Duper Amazing Health.)
Also, while the shooter does appear to be conservative, it’s starting to look less like he’s a Never Trumper and more like he’s just a ‘I want to shoot an important politician and be famous’ guy.
It is possible, though, that heated political rhetoric sorta made it be ‘an assassination’ instead of ‘a random school shooting’, which is the traditional way that ‘I just want to be famous’ shootings have gone. Tree of liberty, blood of patriots, etc. And he’s right, we do actually know the names of assassins better than school shooters.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens if any politicians actually realize that. It’s one thing when lunatics use the giant waterfall of guns pouring into this country to kill a bunch of kids, who cares about kids, but it’s another thing if they start using them to kill politicians.Report
Weirder still that two weeks later he is being routinely photographed with no evidence of any wound to his ear.Report
So I assume everyone has seen at least the headline, of Aaron Sorkin giving advice to the Democrats.
Here’s the
money shotpunchline:But there’s something the Democrats can do that would not just put a lump in people’s throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrifice. So here’s my pitch to the writers’ room: The Democratic Party should pick a Republican.
At their convention next month, the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney.
Its silly and absurd, but what is not silly and is disconcerting is what it inadvertently reveals about the media outlet that published it.
They feel free to give advice to the Democratic Party about how to save democracy.
That is, they accept the premise that the Republican party is a fascist threat to democracy, and they purport to want to avoid this fate.
Yet, they just can’t bring themselves to say it directly, and moreover, they refuse to offer any advice to the Republicans on how to avoid nominating and supporting a fascist.
Its this sort of detached view of democracy, where they are somehow on another planet peering at America through a telescope and have no skin in the game, that the newsroom is not filled with American citizens all of whom will be living under a fascist regime.
Exhibit A:
WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years for espionage by Russian court in case denounced by US as a sham
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/media/evan-gershkovich-espionage-trial-verdict-intl/index.html
Is that headline true? Was the case denounced “by the US” as a sham?
No, it was not. That is, the case was denounced by some Americans as a sham, but can you guess what portion of Americans did NOT denounce it as a sham?
In fact, Trump, Vance, and the Republican Party have chosen to remain silent on the case, refusing to criticize the Russian government or call it a sham.
The publishers, editors, and reporters who work for major American news media are watching this case, and can see clearly the sort of America that lies in store them if Russia’s favored candidate wins.
But so far, they mostly appear cowed into silence.Report
How I would script this moment for Republicans:
Jolted by the near-assassination of Trump and by Biden withdrawal, Republicans in their appeal to avoid-Democrat-win-at-all-costs unity, come together and nominate …Hillary Clinton.Report
Hell, why not Al Gore? He’s younger than Trump or Biden and only slightly older than Clinton.Report
I have some thoughts about what Aaron Sorkin and George Clooney can do with themselves when this is all over but for right now what they’d better goddamn well be doing with their victory lap is raising money from all their wealthy friends for the Harris ’24 campaign and they are welcome to shut the F up about it when it turns out Harris polls EXACTLY THE SAME WAY BIDEN DID.Report
The less the Democrats listen to Hollywood the better. But I think it’s fair to say we have a very good idea of Biden’s ceiling at this point. We don’t for Harris (or another person in the very, very unlikely event they go that direction). At minimum this opens a new avenue of attack against Trump, namely that he is old and senile, which Biden had no ability to deploy.Report
Yeah, the ‘Look, when our guy got old and unable to do the job, he dropped out. But you stayed in while you keep rambling about batteries electrocuting people and other such gibberish.’ attack vector.Report
That’s not really the question, though. It doesn’t matter what the polling is now, the question was: What happens when Biden is unable to continue to campaign later in this year? At this point, his appearances were actual _negatives_, he was actively losing ground, _and_ getting worse in how he does publicly…and then he got Covid.
Harris can actually get out there and campaign, right now. Be active and do that. For several months. Move things up.
And, hilariously, the Republicans just undermined one of their own attacks against her, because it’s damn hard to call her inexperienced when they just nominated Vance as VP. I mean, they’ll still do it, because a good chunk of what they mean by ‘inexperienced’ is ‘a woman’, but it makes them look idiotic.Report
I am optimistic that she can do this. Trump is unpopular and Biden was unpopular. Polling indicated that a lot of Americans wanted anyone but Trump or Biden to be the 2024 nominees and Project 2025 was getting the GOP bad press before the RNC. The RNC did not go over well with the non-cultists.
So here we go.Report
I think it has to do with “Negotiation from a Position of Strength” and how one negotiates when one is and how one negotiates when one is not.Report
And it’s worth pointing out, in addition to everything you covered, how utterly stupid this plan is.
No Republican nominated by Democrats would be accepted by anything but the smallest fragment of Republicans, and meanwhile would turn off a good chunk of Democrats. This is utterly bonkers as any sort of actual plan.
What the Democrats could do is nominate a central-left Democrat, like, uh….Kamala Harris. Hmm.Report
Kudos to Biden for doing the right thing while there is still time to turn this thing around.Report
Biden endorsed Harris and others are following very quickly. Good.Report
Sometimes I hate how politics operates off ‘It’s their turn now’, and how damaging that has been, along with how _old_ it has made politics.
But this is a situation where a) She was literally elected as backup, and b) we don’t have time to deal with a fight.Report
“She prosecuted sex predators; He IS a sex predator”
Report
“Kamala is a Cop” would have been a great ad at any point in the last 75 years except for the few months during 2020 when it was actually being thrown around during the Democratic Primaries.
She should bring it back.Report
Here’s a great one!
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Ftrumps-nightmare-scenario-v0-wvbpg4mf5wdd1.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1315ebd74720731e727e20ac0e390c34885b08fbReport
“Fund the Police!” might be something to send to potential donors.Report
“Prosecute sex offenders!” should enjoy bipartisan support… right?Report
Hell, maybe finally start digging into the Epstein files.Report
YES.Report