The Way Through is Donald Trump for President

Koz Freamon

Koz is a regular commenter on Ordinary Times.

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156 Responses

  1. Saul Degraw
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    says:

    Trump is a narcissistic, sociopathic, corrupt, malignant, autocratic, racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, Homophobic, Sexist, Transphobic, Xenophobic, fascist wanna be Putin with absolute contempt for democracy and the rule of law. There is no argument for him. There has be been an argument for him.

    He tells us who he is and what he will do. Believe him and take it seriously and literally. He will only inflict misery.

    OT should be ashamed to publish this after Sunday’s Nuremberg Rally which even the normally BSDI media denounced as filled with racist hate and lies. OT should be ashamed to publish this after Bezos obeyed in advance, refused to let his paper endorse Harris, and received 200k subscriptions.

    I get that the editors here are very committed to the idea that the some of the most contentious issues can be debated in a civil manner and this is normally good but there are exceptions and arguments for Trump are one of those exceptions. He is a wanna be Putin propped up by a bunch of billionaires. All of the billionaires who support him are emotionally stunted and stuck at being middle school
    edgelords.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw
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      says:

      I eagerly await the next set of dueling columns, including one ardently telling us why the US should give its support to Hamas.

      As I was asking yesterday, does the content moderation here at OT just consist of a list of naughty words?

      Like, if a column was written by our own Kristen, I suppose a commenter could call her a “cu. nt” but only by typing it this way because the other way is taboo.

      The idea of civil dialogue has to be more than this.

      In order to be civil, dialogue has to erect boundaries against ideas, not words. It also has to demand honesty and not allow people to lie their a$$ off all the way thru, like Koz is doing here. (Note the spelling- apparently its acceptable to lie, but it’s taboo to say you lie your a$$ off).

      This column isn’t civil in any meaningful sense of the word. It is a pack of bald faced lies, camouflaging hatred and bigotry.
      Ironically, if I were to give a verbatim quotation from real Trump supporters it would be banned because, well, I guess too much honesty violates civility.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
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        It is worth listening to opposing arguments just to know what they are. I could probably write something supporting Hamas although I don’t.

        And we also have the problem that a lot of these arguments aren’t wrong.

        The Palestinians really are repressed.

        Harris gives a lot of word salad answers that make her look unserious. The media and Team Blue claimed Biden was just fine up until he went on stage.Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter
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          Imagine a politely worded argument that all the Jews in Palestine should be rounded up and deported by whatever means necessary.

          And this argument is supporting a person who calls Jews “savages” and “garbage” and who tells us that Jews are “poisoning the blood of the country”.

          But politely, of course!

          You know how there is no First Amendment protection for libel? The implicit logic is that the benefits of free speech are grounded in truth, and lies are not beneficial and deserve no safe harbor or tolerance.

          The basic lie, that Jews or immigrants are savages and are poisoning the blood of our country is not something that we should allow to be said. Those who say it, those who support those who say it, should not be tolerated in any civil dialogue otherwise the entire concept becomes a joke.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels
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            Something like “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free”? Something like that?Report

            • Chris in reply to Jaybird
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              Who knew freedom meant genocide?Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Chris
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                says:

                To continue the analogy, “Palestinians and Israelis should both live side by side in freedom” is a defensible opinion, just as “We should have a more strict immigration policy”.

                “Lets purge the Jews/ Immigrants” is not an idea which deserves protection or tolerance.Report

              • Chris in reply to Chip Daniels
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                Certainly not. I’m just not seeing it from pro-Palestinian groups or individuals, except from some extremists in the region. In the U.S. and Europe, you’re much likely to see the reverse, and the reverse is in fact pretty much majority Israeli opinion and pretty close to official state policy at this point as well, if we’re to take their politicians, military leaders, and cabinet members seriously.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Chip Daniels
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                I’ve come to the opinion that the other Further Left basically finds the Jews do not fit into their cosmology and rather than re-examine their cosmology, they basically decide that all the principles they hold do not apply to the Jews. They basically seem to hold all three of these beliefs as once.

                1. Jews do not have a right to self-determination as Jews because that involves disruptive settler-colonialism.

                2. At the same time, the countries where Jews live are under no obligation to construct their identity to include Jews as Jews. If they do great but if they decide to exclude Jews or treat Jews as a side population, who cares?

                3. Jews are not to be recognized as a unified people and given the rights given to other minority or oppressed groups because reasons. If we acknowledge the Jews as an oppressed group that valiantly worked to preserve their own culture and identity in the face of vast persecution than it is a grave insult to the groups we care about.

                You can point out how all of this contradicts their beliefs till they are blue in the face but like the White Right or Islamic anti-Semites, the Left anti-Semites know that they out number Jews by considerable margins and will raise their fists in defiance forever because they can.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chris
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                The Keffiyeh Kidz.

                The Israeli President or Prime Minister or whatever they have there.

                Hamas.

                There are probably others.Report

              • Chris in reply to Jaybird
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                The Keffiyeh Kidz?

                I assume you mean the kids who wear them in the U.S./Europe? I know a bunch of them (I own one, and have for like 25 years). I don’t know any of them who think this, though I’m sure you could find one here or there. They probably also think we should leave this country and European Australians should leave theirs, because these people are 19 and have not yet thought about much of anything clearly. But hell, I know a bunch of 19 year olds who have Keffiyehs and don’t think this way, so it’s not most of them even when they’re not fully cooked.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chris
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                I will cheerfully concede that not all of them think that (and many of them haven’t thought about anything much at all).Report

              • Chris in reply to Jaybird
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                By your statements here, I’d wager you and they share that last bit in common.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chris
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                Eh, if I were to suggest a measurement, it’d be something like “essays” but that’s something that I would suggest, isn’t it?

                Perhaps they’d suggest “showing up for protests” and I haven’t done much of that so they’d win that one handily.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Chris
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                Chris, the Palestinians have this issue where they never exactly precisely define the type of freedom they want or what would be acceptable towards them. In fact, the only groups that give precise definitions are the groups that explicitly state “No Israel, No Jews” in one way or another. The alleged moderate Palestinians hem and haw around this but also kind of suggest they believe the same thing but are too intelligent to come out and say it.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chris
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                Chris: Who knew freedom meant genocide?

                They mean “free of Jews”. That’s been spelled out black letter in various charters.

                If we look at a map the space “from the river to the sea” is all of Israel.

                To be fair, removing Israel (i.e. by turning it into Palestine) over all that area doesn’t technically require genocide. The “colonial” rhetoric implies (and sometimes states) that the Jews will flee rather than die.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Chris
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                Do the Jewish people deserve freedom as Jews, Chris? Or is their big freaking exception to the principles of self-determination for Jews?Report

          • LeeEsq in reply to Chip Daniels
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            says:

            There are actually people who believe this and they say so out loud. It is the entire settler-colonial argument from the Further Left. There are other people who believe in a softer version of this in that they believe Jews should remain but not have any real say in what Palestine should look like because they aren’t real true Palestinians. Jews will be given the formalities of citizenship but not any power.

            Like if you do google searching, you can find groups calling cities in Israel proper as illegal settlements. The destroy Israel and take away all the Jews belief is a lot more common than you think it is.Report

          • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
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            There are a lot of Palestinian supporters that believe exactly this.

            There are other Palestinian supporters who don’t understand this is what “From the River to the Sea” means.

            If we totally shut down the conversation then we’re just using power to enforce our view, and we should expect them to do the same if they get the ability.

            If we’re interested in changing hearts then we need to have the conversation and let the ignorant protesters understand what exactly they’re suggesting.Report

  2. Dark Matter
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    says:

    Well put Koz. Thank you.

    I think there’s a lot of substance to what you said and you said it well. I voted for Harris anyway because of Jan 6th and the fake electors. That takes us past “corrupt politician” territory and into “overturning elections” territory.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter
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      says:

      Hard to find substance in misdirection and subterfuge but yes, he writes well.Report

      • InMD in reply to Philip H
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        Eh I wouldn’t be that hard on Koz, disagree with him as much as I may. Deep in this piece is an echo of what a responsible conservatism might look like. It probably wouldn’t be something I’d find a lot to agree with and I’d imagine based on your views that you’d have even less.

        Where I think he is fundamentally wrong is the belief that Donald Trump, or the type of conservatism that the GOP has degenerated into, can ever be remotely constructive. He says his goal is to hold Democrats accountable but I would say that Trump and the Republican party are fundamentally incapable of doing that even if they win. Look at the various strains of charlatans and know-nothings that have come to completely dominate the GOP caucus in Congress. These bizarre personalities can serve as a kind of f*ck you to the ‘libs’ or ‘elites’ or whatever right wing bete noir they were elected to oppose. But they’re fundamentally incapable of accomplishing anything on the border or the economy or the other issues mentioned in the OP, nor even of creating an appealing alternative vision of what the values should inform government decisions.Report

        • Philip H in reply to InMD
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          He has repeatedly told me I’m not a real American. And he is championing a man in this piece for President who has called me and people who think and speak like me an enemy from within.

          And I shouldn’t be hard on him? Really?

          Wow.Report

          • InMD in reply to Philip H
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            says:

            Fair enough. I’ll stay out of the personal beefs.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to InMD
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              says:

              Notice how in my examples above I personalize things?

              Like, wondering if we can call Kristen a cu. nt or whether Lee and Saul are human beings or vermin.

              Because this is real. What is so objectionable about pieces like this and the sanewashing in the WaPo and NYT is that they take a hard objective lie and abstract it into a vaporous opinion about which reasonable people can disagree.

              This isn’t a personal beef between Koz and Phillip- the central claim of Trumpism is that we are NOT all equal, that certain classes and groups of people are lesser, unworthy of rights or dignity.

              This is the claim that this essay is implicitly defending, that about half of the commenters at Ordinary Times are not human, not really.Report

              • InMD in reply to Chip Daniels
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                says:

                I’m talking about the beef between Phil and Koz.

                On the larger point I agree with you and that’s what I was getting at in my previous comment. I don’t think the current state of the Republican party leadership and other officials is one where you can distinguish the policies from the people.Report

        • Koz in reply to InMD
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          Where I think he is fundamentally wrong is the belief that Donald Trump, or the type of conservatism that the GOP has degenerated into, can ever be remotely constructive.

          Well yeah, that is a problem, I don’t think it is an insurmountable problem (or the only thing we should be caring about obv).

          As far as holding the Democrats accountable goes, a lot of that is going to come from Democrats themselves. When and if Trump wins, how are you going to feel about Ta-Nehisi Coates and brat memes and closing the public schools? Are you really going to be rah-rah motivated for that flavor of Democrat to continue speaking for you when we’ve just won a general election without you?

          As far as Congress goes, I think you’re misreading a three-seat-whatever majority in the House of Representatives operating day-to-day on the mercy of Matt Gaetz and the his type as the same as Republican legislative operations in general. It wasn’t that way for the House during the Tea Party era, it wasn’t that way in the Senate under Mitch McConnell, it’s not the way now in the GOP statehouses. It doesn’t have to be that way post Nov 5.Report

      • Koz in reply to Philip H
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        says:

        misdirection and subterfuge

        Misdirection and subterfuge? Christ you’re an oblivious bubble-man.Report

        • Philip H in reply to Koz
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          Hardly. You write as if the best post-Covid economic recovery world wide didn’t happen; as if TFG wasn’t convicted by a jury of 34 election related felonies in New York State; as if January 6th almost didn’t happen. You are intentionally ignoring any and all good news in the last four years and sane washing the guy. All because you want him to hurt people you want hurt, like me.Report

    • Koz in reply to Dark Matter
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      I voted for Harris anyway because of Jan 6th and the fake electors.

      Yeah, but that’s not good. Jan 6 was resolved soon enough and clearly enough.

      If Kamala wins, it’s going to be brat memes “Kamala for fracking” every day. Not those particular things maybe, whatever lie is required to maneuver around the next political difficulty.

      I suspect the problem here is that for some people, maybe you, Jan 6 is a “real” threat whereas the ongoing lib message distortions is just sort of meh. But that’s wrong, and it’s important to emphasize that.

      It’s very likely that at some level we’ve already “lost” the Ukraine War because of this, we’re very likely to continue losing important things because we can’t talk to each other in good faith and move forward together. By comparison Jan just isn’t that important.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Koz
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        says:

        we’re very likely to continue losing important things because we can’t talk to each other in good faith and move forward together. By comparison Jan just isn’t that important.

        You’re right, we can’t talk to each other in good faith because you don’t consider people like me to be real Americans.

        How you get off at Americans from your side physically attacking the Capitol based on lie is unimportant is beyond me still. Though I suppose it is yet another example of the loss of communication since if they hadn’t been lied to so often they wouldn’t have felt the need to attack.Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Philip H
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          says:

          Violently attacking Congress to prevent a free and fair election is not that important, while a teacher wearing a rainbow flag pin is a Threat To Western Civilization.Report

        • Koz in reply to Philip H
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          You’re right, we can’t talk to each other in good faith because you don’t consider people like me to be real Americans.

          No, we can’t talk in good in faith because we people like you aren’t real Americans. What I consider is to be is not the point.

          The whys and wherefores of that is a little complicated but not that much, and we’ve gone over it before. We, the American voters, sit in judgment of you, the lib activist class, and not the other way around.

          If you can persuade us to support your agenda and/or you candidates, then your people get to hold office. Congratulations, you win. Otherwise well, it sux to be you.

          Unfortunately, everything you do here at the League, through your spasms of dyspeptic anger, is about the diminishment of us, the American voters and our capacity to participate in our culture to determine American governance. Or in concrete terms for right now, for you we could vote for Trump but that really doesn’t count because he’s fascist, or authoritarian or Hitler or whatever.

          It should be obvious, though for you it apparently isn’t, that what you’re trying to do inverts and distorts the sovereignty of the American people. In this way, you in particular, more than most other libs at the League even, you are not loyal and you are not a real American.Report

          • Philip H in reply to Koz
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            You always like to ignore that I’m an American voter too, and that 81 Million other Americans sided with me to repudiate TFG that last time. I want you to say your piece – always have. You want to be free of the consequences of that saying. That’s not how it works.Report

            • Koz in reply to Philip H
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              says:

              You always like to ignore that I’m an American voter too, and that 81 Million other Americans sided with me to repudiate TFG that last time.

              I’m not ignoring that at all, in fact that’s a key premise of the whole thing. As a voter go ahead and vote for Kamala if you want to. It’s a bad idea on the substance for the reasons I went over in the OP. It’s your prerogative.

              As a lib activist, you are disloyal in that you (and other libs) are attempting deny, short-circuit, intimidate, mislead us out of our (our meaning Right-of-center America, or even apolitical Right-curious America for that matter) legitimate prerogatives to participate in electoral politics and other aspects of political culture. When and if we retaliate against that (tbh as much Right wingers talk and libs talk, I’m not at all convinced that we will), it will be legitimate.

              You in particular are emotionally incontinent, especially wrt anger. Tbh, it’s not at all your fault by any means. There are more judicious libs in the world, and some of them should have had a quiet word with you long before now. But they didn’t, things happened and this is where we are.

              And as where we are, Go Trump.Report

          • JoeSal in reply to Koz
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            says:

            “TWO AMERICAS? NEW SURVEY DETAILS THINKING OF ELITES AND ORDINARY AMERICANS”Report

  3. Derek S
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    Good article Koz. Well put.

    For me it is the economic plan. Harris’ want to tax unrealized gains is insanity and a great way to crush the average worker’s 401k.

    Hopefully Trump wins.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Derek S
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      And how do you feel about Trump’s Tariff plan and it’s likely impact on the economy?Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Philip H
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        He looks forward to a dozen eggs costing 40 dollars.Report

      • Derek S in reply to Philip H
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        I look forward to the concession that will be made for them to be removed. Trump like to use them as a bargaining point. Personally I am not a big fan of using them this way, but Trump had some success with this in his first term, so we shall see.Report

        • Philip H in reply to Derek S
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          Who paid for the tariffs he imposed initially? And when did he remove them the last time?Report

          • Derek S in reply to Philip H
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            Americans paid for the increases until shifting away from the riffed products to US made. The USMCA removed the ones for Canada and Mexico. South Korea, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil negotiated and had tariffs removed as another example.

            The China tariffs are ongoing even under Harris and they have even increased some of them.

            Yet even with all this “bad” tariffs, Trump increased the US economy above what the “experts” though possible. That is why the full policies of Trump’s was so good.

            Far better than 20% inflation, close to 100% gas price increase at its height, and then the threatened tax increases of the Harris economic plan.Report

            • Philip H in reply to Derek S
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              I see you have memory holed the economic impacts of COVID on TFG’s economy – impacts that Biden-Harris had to deal with. And memory holed the actual inflation numbers and trend as well. Which is expected by a broad range of economists to be reported tomorrow to be just slightly above the Fed’s preferred rate of 2%.Report

              • Derek S in reply to Philip H
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                You see this is why I so rarely post on this site. You guys have you head so firmly stuck up Orange Guy = Bad you cannot even concede the point. You just move on to the next drivel you want to complain about.

                Look to the answer above and see what directly answering the question and conceding a point when it is made looks like. Maybe you will learn something.

                You are right about Biden’s people having to deal with the after affects of Covid, thankfully Trump put the economy in a historic position to bounce back from something that would normally drop the US into a recession for months if not years. Then Biden’s people mishandled when to stop pouring money into the economy and created the inflation. That is on them.

                Oh and congrats on getting inflation back to 2%, did this reduce people’s prices back down to before the inflation? I’ll answer that since I doubt you would answer directly. The answer is “No”. Also, I do not thank the bully that pushes me into the busy street just to jerk me back to the side walk and then asks “aren’t you going to thank me for saving your life?”

                Biden’s people hammered the lowest income people with inflation on the products they had to have and they still deal with those inflated prices.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Derek S
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                We don’t have a centrally planned economy. The Biden Harris Administration has little to do with grocery price inflation, much like they have little to do with gas prices. I get why people like to fling ire at the President, but given the on the record testimony of Kroger senior leaders in the anti-trust litigation surrounding their monopolistic attempt to buy Albertson’s I suspect the people deserving that ire will never get it.

                And if you read economic history you will come to understand that the floor prices for everything never go back down no matter how much or how little inflation you have. If they di we’d have been back to sub $1 gas a long time ago.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Philip H
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        “And how do you feel about Trump’s Tariff plan and it’s[sic] likely impact on the economy?”

        The Biden administration kept most of those tariffs in place, and in fact increased many of them.

        So, I guess we ought to feel about Trump’s tariff plan the same way we feel about Biden’s tariff plan?Report

        • Philip H in reply to DensityDuck
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          Trump’s current tariff plan is to ramp up existing Chinese tariffs to 60% or more, add 10-20% tariffs on every other imported good no matter the source. Every economist who has published on this since it was proposed has said its a great recipe for a recession. And most of them are not liberals.Report

    • Joe in reply to Derek S
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      There is no “Trump Economic Plan”. There is the intent of the Elon/Theil/Vance crowd to use Trump as a puppet and figurehead to implement what they wish.Report

  4. Jaybird
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    says:

    Editor’s Note: The endorsement of a candidate is the author’s alone, not Ordinary Times editors or contributors

    Sigh.

    Basically, at this point she’s counting on a polling error in her favor, and I don’t think that’s very likely at all.

    That’s where I am too.

    Now, one thing about Trump 2016 is that there was this weird energy behind him that infected everything. It’s like Team Trump was having fun and Team Clinton was not.

    This time around, everything seems muted on both sides. Trump’s chaotic energy has been turned down a bit. This might be something that a skilled opponent could capitalize on but, instead, the energy for Harris is also somewhat muted. The enthusiasm isn’t quite there.

    There’s all of this weird energy and I have no idea how to read it.

    But the polling doesn’t strike me as making errors in order to make Trump look better than he is.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird
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      Trump’s “weird energy” was a media fabrication, and they were happy to fabricate it because Of Course He Wasn’t Going To Win Or Anything. He really hasn’t changed; they’re just selling it differently now.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck
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        No… the weird energy last time wasn’t a media thing. Remember the Clinton speech about the “alt-right” and someone in the gallery yelled “PEPE!!!”?

        That sort of thing. That sort of weird chaos.

        Remember when Shia LaBeouf got arrested at his HWNDU art installation?

        The strange insanity that seemed to swirl around him. That’s been turned down to a 3.Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird
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          Josh Marshal yesterday had a series of comments about how the origin story of younger Trump supporters comes from the fetid sewers of 4Chan with its mix of adolescent incel insecurity curdled into toxic hatreds.

          The comic at MSG was representative of that, where he was so isolated in the bubble of online dudebro rage that he didn’t realize how he sounded to normal people. Its why the word “Weird” is to on point because these guys are so far outside the mainstream of how people talk and act.Report

  5. DensityDuck
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    Every argument I’ve heard in favor of Trump falls into these categories:

    1) I’m Voting For Generic Republican, Who This Year Is Donald J Trump
    a) there have recently been Problems, and Democrats were in charge, therefore it’s the Democrats’ fault
    b) there might be Problems in the future, and Republicans are better at handling those specific Problems than Democrats
    c) single-party dynastic governance is bad for the Republic, therefore the parties should take turns
    2) Trump isn’t gonna do any of the stuff he says
    a) Congress is the group that passes laws, not the Executive, and there are plenty of Democrats to foil him
    b) anything he does as an Executive can be challenged in courts, who will of course countermand him
    c) the Deep State bureaucracy is responsible for actually implementing his orders and they can stymie his efforts by slow-rolling his plans or just flat refusing to work on them

    And I don’t think either of these is a good argument to pick Trump specifically, and the man has many reasons why he’s not suitable for the job, leaving me to conclude that even if you think Generic Republican is desirable then this specific one is no good.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to DensityDuck
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      Actually there’s a third category which I guess I should have listed, and it actually is an argument for Trump specifically:

      3) He makes the right people mad
      a) there’s too much Woke and he’ll stop that
      b) there’s too much Woke and voting for him is a statement that I don’t like that
      c) there’s too much Woke and voting for him makes those people feel bad and I think that’s funnyReport

      • Jaybird in reply to DensityDuck
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        “A Donald Trump victory will cause the Democrats to step back, clean house, and come back without baggage” is 100% a reason to vote Trump.

        It won’t, though. If Trump wins, there won’t be a minute’s worth spent asking “did we make any mistakes?”

        There won’t be 30 seconds spent asking that.

        It’ll be 2017 all over again.Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird
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          This is an example of the weird hyper online bubble Josh Marshall was talking about.
          People saying stuff like that without realizing how freakish and sociopathic they sound to normal humans.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels
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            “Donald Trump is going to win and the Democrats won’t spend 30 seconds asking why they weren’t seen as preferable, just like 2017” is freakish and sociopathic?

            Because if it’s accurate, I’d say that we’re in a place where the Democrats are calling an accurate description “sociopathic” and that’s not healthy.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird
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              Like I said, not one iota of self-awareness.

              Carry on.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Chip Daniels
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                Leaving aside that it isn’t true. Lots of people publicly, and many people privately, spent more than 30 seconds on what went wrong. There were even actual, hard-copy, publicly-available books on the subject. And the proof of the pudding is that the mistakes were not repeated.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to CJColucci
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                Even then, attributing Trump’s victory to “mistakes” is itself a mistake.
                It is premised on the idea that, absent some sort of flaw in the Democratic candidate, he would have lost.

                This is demonstrably untrue. Paired against any Democratic candidate anywhere, in any of the three elections, polling showed that Trump would always be within a percentage point or two from where he is now.

                This lie is always deployed in an effort to exonerate Trump voters, that they Shirley would vote for democracy and the rule of law, if only this, or if only that.

                But as we’ve seen, no matter who the opposition is, about 45% of the American electorate will knowingly, willingly, choose the racist dictator.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Chip Daniels
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                I’ve long held that Trump’s victory, being as close as it was, was overdetermined, and anyone could point to any pet peeve and say if X didn’t happen things would have been different. And that might be true for just about any and all X’s.
                Which overlooked the big point, which is how it could have gotten close enough for any of these X’s — and there will always be X’s, even if you win — to matter. The answer to that question is sobering.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
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                says:

                Chip: about 45% of the American electorate will knowingly, willingly, choose the racist dictator.

                If you want racism to be a seriously evil crime that we take seriously, then you can’t also claim that everyone is racist. You also can’t use that claim in every election.

                Ditto the dictator claims. After you dumb it down to mean “is in the way of Team Blue”, it doesn’t mean anything.

                So yes, it’s a mistake to use these accusations against everyone who gets in your way.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                If you want racism to be a seriously evil crime that we take seriously, then you can’t also claim that everyone is racist.

                Why?

                Is it somehow un-possible, that 45% of Americans would accept racist policies?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                Chip: Is it somehow un-possible, that 45% of Americans would accept racist policies?

                Given that you’ve redefined it to mean “in the way of Team Blue”? Sure, absolutely.

                Microaggressions (which require Team Blue to identify) are racist. DEI insists that being white means you’re super privileged and ergo racist.

                So this totally means that Trump is a racist, just everyone else.

                I suggest you find a different argument to prevent Trump’s election, because racism is a dead horse.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                No, I mean literally, that somewhere around 45% of Americans will knowingly cast a vote for a guy who says Puerto Ricans are garbage people, and that immigrants are poisoning the blood of America.

                Not petty nomenclature or microaggressions, but someone who openly tells us he hates certain groups of people.

                And stands within a razor edge from winning not just the election, but a trifecta.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                That’s true.

                However they insisted the VP be a black female and that came at the expense of “most electable” and/or “most leadership experience”.

                Team Red is claiming that she’s been hiding in the White House doing solitaire for the last 2+ years and every time she answers with word salad it reenforces that.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                Team Red would say the same thing if Harris were the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                CJColucci: Team Red would say the same thing if Harris were the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.

                They would, but I would not be saying it.

                Here is her CNN interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl9gPBasyv4&list=PLxzNezk7uSpPKgEOsA4SkI0gGU1wKHbZ9&index=17

                Q1: What would you do on day one?

                A1: My priority is the middle class. [then more word salad].

                She gets asked that question again and says something about “her other proposals” and (finally) something about a tax credit (which means sending that idea to Congress).

                So she’s extremely vague in her answer and has vague intentions.

                Q2: What do you say to voters who do want to go back to the Trump economy for housing and groceries?

                A2: Says Trump was bad. Admits that prices are too high and need to come down. [something about price gouging, some more tax credits]

                Q3: The stuff that you’re talking about, why haven’t you done them already?

                A3: We have to recover as an economy. [Something about a specific drug’s price]. A few other specific accomplishments.

                Q4: Fracking

                A: She insists that her values haven’t changed (talks about values) even though her position has flipped.

                Good answers:
                A1: I will pass an executive order saying “X,Y,Z”.

                A2: Trump doesn’t have the ability to bring back his economy and his tariffs are a tax on American taxpayers. I will encourage American farmers to make more food via X,Y,Z.

                A3: I wasn’t President then (although if she says this then she needs to be able to list things she’d do differently than Joe which she has failed to do in other questions).

                A4: The actions and self destruction of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran have changed the market. I’d rather have natural gas than coal. Fracking has it’s place in the overall energy mix although long term it’s on the way out.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                I guess we’ll have to take your word for it.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                Oh, man. You must not have been here in the days following the election.

                I admit, there was a bit of a “okay, mistakes might have been made, let’s move on” undercurrent for some, digging into specifics was a *LOT* more likely to get a “SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE!!!” than a “yes, it was a mistake to brag about putting miners out of business”.

                Even now, I’m sure that someone will show up and make the argument that goes something to the effect of “why are you worrying about the Democrats making avoidable mistakes when Republicans are obviously Nazis!”

                And, well, it’s just that I think that Trump is going to win.

                And that’s why I care.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                I was here, all right, and back then I pointed out in real time criticisms of the Clinton campaign, and, later, books on the subject. And, still later, that the mistakes were not repeated. So somebody must have been on the case.
                But that didn’t interest you then and probably doesn’t now. You wanted people to adopt a certain tone of contrition and you didn’t get it. But then again your politics are largely aesthetic and not political.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                I remember those threads and took part in some of them — as well as the later ones that mentioned post-mortems that, necessarily, didn’t exist until some time after the election. I also remember your frustration that people didn’t want to talk about what you wanted to talk about the way you wanted it talked about, but preferred to talk about other things more interesting to them. And not surprisingly. Once you’ve said: “Hillary f****d up by not putting more campaign resources into Wisconsin” and the like, there simply wasn’t much else to say. That Hillary was not a particularly good candidate was common ground and there was nothing much else to say. Unless you thought Bernie could have won the nomination (he couldn’t) or the general election (he wouldn’t) or that there was some yet-to-be-named Johnny Unbeatable who had a path to the nomination. The commenters found other topics more interesting (including whether The Big Bang Theory was funny) and preferred to talk about them.
                Sometimes, the damn dogs won’t eat it.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                Then we’re in a place where Clinton was the absolute best that the Democrats could have done in 2016. (Mistakes were made, of course.)

                Biden is the absolute best that the Democrats could have done in 2020 (I think I agree with this one.).

                And Harris is the absolute best that the Democrats could have done in 2024.

                We’ll see if mistakes were made.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                There’s no such thing as the absolute best a party could have done. There is always, at least in theory, a better candidate. But when Candidate X wins the nomination, apparently fair and square, it is incumbent on the person who thinks there was a “better” candidate to explain who it was and what path that person could realistically have had to the nomination, not just wave one’s hands around and say Somebody Else would have been better.
                I have my own short list of people I think would be excellent Presidential candidates if they had such bothersome things as name recognition, a sizeable natural constituency, and a base of built-in supporters who have some strong preference for these candidates over similar folks on other lists.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                Well, my go-to is some variant of “if we had a *REAL* primary process…” but Biden didn’t drop out in 2022 or 2023 and, of course, he couldn’t have dropped out in 2024 because it would have destroyed the party at that point.

                And here we are.

                Nothing to have been done differently that doesn’t involve hand-waving.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                It seems we agree on what was possible in the situation we found ourselves in.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                “Maybe if journalists told the truth instead of covering up?”

                “You’re engaging in make-believe again.”Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                More like projection than make believe. We don’t know when exactly Biden declined to the point where he was incapable of both being President and running for the job of being President. We know the right was saying it since prior to Biden being elected in 2020 which was patently nonsense. We know Biden reached that point sometime around the time of the debate but prior to that? We don’t know and neither do you.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to North
                Ignored
                says:

                I imagine that books will be written.

                Ooh, here’s a title: “No One Could Have Known”Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                I agree, the books will be written and if Harris loses it’s possible that could be one of the titles. And until those books from Bidens famously tight lipped inner circle are written we won’t know- heck, even once they’re written we won’t know exactly until historians balance the whole genre against itself.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to North
                Ignored
                says:

                I look forward to the book which lays out a plausible scenario in which the election outcome isn’t razor thin.

                Guaranteed prediction- there won’t be one.

                Everyone wants to talk about that last fly ball that was dropped and allowed the tie-breaking run to come in, but no one wants to talk about why it was tied in the first place.Report

              • North in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                What immigration? I am pretty sure we don’t want to talk about that.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                no one wants to talk about why it was tied in the first place.

                The media’s self interest is that it be tied and not a blow out. The various pollsters have shown that they don’t really know what they’re doing.

                There is a good chance that one side or the other has more/less support than we think.

                Beyond that, we have a pair of terrible candidates.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                If things were different, they’d be different.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                I also keep assuming Free Will.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
                Ignored
                says:

                Whose? To do what? And when?

                Maybe — maybe — somebody, or a lot of somebodies, could have done something that would have gotten Biden out of the race early enough to allow a pseudo-primary in which the sitting VP (or acting President in a 25th Amendment situation) would still be a heavy favorite, especially if Biden endorsed her. And maybe — maybe — it wouldn’t tear the party to pieces if someone out of nowhere jumped over the existing back-up QB. Maybe then we could have “done better” for the 2024 race. Maybe.
                But none of that happened, so what was the move in actual reality?Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to CJColucci
                Ignored
                says:

                And doesn’t anyone think its weird that in 2020, the outcome of the Biden campaign was essentially the same, with winner and loser separated by just a few tens of thousands of votes out of nearly 200 million cast?

                Did the Biden campaign also “make mistakes”?

                And here we are, again with the winner and loser separated by only a razor thin margin in a handful of states- are there “mistakes” this time?

                It reminds me of a joke I read in National Review in the 1980s, with a faux press release by the Politburo- “For the 84th consecutive year in a row, freakish and unusual weather conditions caused a poor potato harvest…”

                “For the third consecutive election in a row, poor candidate selection and mistaken tactics have forced 70 million American voters to choose a candidate they really don’t want…”Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                Without COVID, in 2020 Trump would have crushed any Team Blue opposition. The Trump economy would have been in full swing and he arguably did things to encourage growth.

                For all of the unhelpful things he did with Covid, Operation Warp Speed got us a vaccination (actually 2.5 vaccinations) in less than a year which was supposed to be impossible.

                After he left office, we went back to extremely slow approvals of vaccinations and didn’t see a covid update for more than a year.

                Trump had extremely strong arguments for deserving a 2nd term. Of course he pissed all of that away on Jan 6th (and so on). His various crimes-he-should-be-charged-over all happened after he lost the election.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                Yes I agree.
                None of that contradicts that he openly hates certain groups of people, and 45% of the electorate will knowingly vote for him.

                I wish it wasn’t so; I wish that 2016 was a fluke, a weird confluence of this or that. But it wasn’t. It was a clear reflection of who and what half our nation is.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                One in four black men under the age of 50 support Trump. “That makes them racists” is probably not a useful way to describe what’s going on.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                One in four black men under the age of 50 support Trump. “That makes them racists” is probably not a useful way to describe what’s going on.

                5.7% of Americans are Black men. 25% of that is 1.425%. Call me nuts but they have zero influence at those levels.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Philip H
                Ignored
                says:

                I’m responding to Chip’s narrative “everyone who votes for Trump is a racist”.

                And if the election really is a dead heat tie, then 1.425% will be one of the deciding factors.

                If they voted for Harris in the same numbers that they voted for Obama, she could coast to victory.Report

              • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                If 25% of black men support him, its likely the other 75% support her. Given that no politician ever get’s 100% of any demographic, I’d say that 1) She’s good with black men and 2) the vast majority of Trump’s supports are racist.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Dark Matter
                Ignored
                says:

                Allow me to amend:
                Everyone who votes for Trump is resentful and aggrieved; The resentment may be racial hatred, or misogyny, or homophobia or some other unspecified grievance, but grievance and resentment is the primary motivating factor among his base.Report

  6. Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    “Our reporter visited Aryania, a natural resource extraction colony founded by Bavarians in 1946, to see what the locals there felt about Kamala Harris’s candidacy. Overall, we encountered a high level of skepticism.”Report

  7. Mike Schilling
    Ignored
    says:

    Where did you find that much lipstick to put on this pig?Report

  8. North
    Ignored
    says:

    Congrats on the editorial Koz, somebody had to do it and I’m glad it was you.Report

    • Koz in reply to North
      Ignored
      says:

      Thanks North. Btw, to the extent I’m going to be following up with this, I’ll probably be referencing this blogpost from Tyler Cowen, wherein he writes a number of bullet point speculations as to why the culture has shifted in Trump’s favor over the last 6/12/18/whatever months.

      My point is, libs just want to sweep it all under the rug and say that it doesn’t exist or isn’t important, when quite clearly they are wrong about that.

      marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/the-changes-in-vibes-why-did-they-happen.htmlReport

    • Saul Degraw in reply to North
      Ignored
      says:

      “somebody had to do it”

      This is actually not true.Report

  9. Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    “Those who came before us-the patriots at Normandy and Selma,Seneca Falls and Stonewall, on farmlands and factory floors-they did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down our lives only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.”-Kamala Harris.

    Government of the people, for the people, and by the people, shall not perish from this earth.

    Trump is a nothing and he cannot and should not receive another term in office. He is not a patriot. He is a Benedict Arnold.Report

  10. LeeEsq
    Ignored
    says:

    I just saw a Donald Trump ad that informed me that liberal border czar Kamala Harris has instituted on open border and bad hombres are coming from and that somehow this is paying for transgender surgeries. It is basically something that Julius Streicher would come up with. Anybody who thinks that putting Trump into office again needs some work done on themselves.Report

  11. Jaybird
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, the Puerto Rican thing has been effectively neutralized by Biden.

    Remember the theory that Harris was his revenge for being kicked out?Report

  12. c1ue
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m sorry, but the notion that Nate Silver has any credibility at all is ludicrous.
    Ditto most of the polls.
    All you have to do to verify this, is to look at the RCP Averages for the 2016 and 2020 elections and compare with the actual results. In both cases, the RCP Average was way, way over the actual performance: Hilary was 5%+ over Trump but lost; Biden was 10%+ over Trump but won by around half of that.
    The very fact that the RCP averages show Trump ahead nationally by 0.4% now and 1.0% ahead in the swing states means he is far, far ahead – unless you really think the polls have fixed their problems.

    As for the rest of the commentary: Israel suffered a horrific attack on October 7, 2023 – but its ongoing genocide is still inexcusable. The focus on the former without acknowledging the latter is precisely the type of nonsense that discredits the classic neocon Republicans and discredits anyone else.

    The failure to mention the merging of RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, the latter even joining the Republican party, is also an egregious omission. What this represents is at least a partial merger of populist right and populist left and is meaningful.Report

    • Koz in reply to c1ue
      Ignored
      says:

      All you have to do to verify this, is to look at the RCP Averages for the 2016 and 2020 elections and compare with the actual results. In both cases, the RCP Average was way, way over the actual performance: Hilary was 5%+ over Trump but lost; Biden was 10%+ over Trump but won by around half of that.

      I think your specific numbers are wrong but the general point is vaguely correct. With one important caveat: the 2016 national averages weren’t that far off. Hillary ended up winning by 2% and she was favored by 3-4% or so.

      What did happen was a polarization-enhanced geographical realignment wherein Trump was not only competitive in the Rust Belt, he actually won it. Nobody really saw that coming with the force that it did.

      Frankly, I suspect that might be Kamala’s best hope now, that even if the national topline numbers are basically right, that there will be some distributional effects in her favor enough to win. Specifically that she loses the Sun Belt but wins all of the Rust Belt and everything else breaks as normal and she wins the EC 270-268.

      The very fact that the RCP averages show Trump ahead nationally by 0.4% now and 1.0% ahead in the swing states means he is far, far ahead – unless you really think the polls have fixed their problems.

      This paragraph is interesting. I have a gut feel that you might be right, and a lot of people have mad interesting speculations one direction or the other, but nobody really knows for sure. We’ll find out on Tuesday.

      Though, one thing in her favor is that the pollsters are changing their methodologies all the time. Maybe for this cycle they have made adjustments that underestimate her. Again I don’t really believe it, but maybe.Report

  13. Geoff Dewan
    Ignored
    says:

    The part that makes this discussion a rather painful to read exercise in bad faith argumentation is that the only thing that makes this even a discussion is the Electoral College.

    Without it there is no Trump, in fact, no Republican Party as it currently manifests. The EC is a racist artifact created to maintain a racist artifact and, to this day, excels at “electing” racist artifacts. The great majority of people don’t want to have their wives, mothers, daughters bleeding out on the asphalt of the hospital parking lot because some insane religious zealot on the Supreme Court went back to the 17th Century to tell us that’s “all in God’s Plan”. Fuck that.

    The Great Majority of people don’t want to return to the days when the comapnies that have been paid ever increasing premiums can tell you your insurance doesn’t cover you now because you had a bad case of acne when you were 13. (Check your Project 2025, or Mike Johnson’s ‘gaffe” yesterday- that’s their “Concept of a plan”. Fuck that too.

    The great majority of Americans don’t want to have air you can’t breathe, water you can’t drink so that corporations can extract even more money .

    C’mon man (to coin a phrase) this is all bullshit and you know it. It’s all about the Benjamins (to coin another phrase) and Trump is solely in it for the power and the glory- and the money. He wants all he can get and any left over that’s yours, well, he wants that too.

    Don’t get me wrong- Kamala is no shining savior arriving on a half shell to restore us to days of our imagunary former glory but she’s not “low IQ” and, fact check, Donald Trump is not better looking than her…so there’s that.

    A vote for Trump is a vote for death, slow or fast. If that’s what you want go right ahead. In the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, “I prefer not to.”Report

    • Koz in reply to Geoff Dewan
      Ignored
      says:

      The part that makes this discussion a rather painful to read exercise in bad faith argumentation is that the only thing that makes this even a discussion is the Electoral College.

      Without it there is no Trump, in fact, no Republican Party as it currently manifests. The EC is a racist artifact created to maintain a racist artifact and, to this day, excels at “electing” racist artifacts.

      Sux to be you.Report

  14. DavidTC
    Ignored
    says:

    Not everything, of course, and not even a bipartisan consensus as much as an _apartisan_ consensus of issues that haven’t been meaningfully addressed due to the circumstances of the political balance of power.

    I’m thinking in particular of things like opposition to terrorism in the Middle East and in favor of diplomatic solutions there. There’s also opposition to transgenderism, improved border security, reorientation of foreign policy to oppose China (along with Russia/Iran/North Korea), and YIMBY policies for domestic land use.

    I feel it’s worth pointing out how wrong some of this list is. First of all, ‘opposition to transgenderism’ is indeed a bipartisan consensus to voters in both parties, in that neither party’s voters thinks it is slightly important all.

    Likewise, ‘opposition to terrorism’ is pretty much nonsense. Sure, it’s something voters oppose but ‘What level of terrorism should there be in the middle east?’ is not, in fact, a US policy. What is that even supposed to mean as a policy position? ‘I promise, once elected, to vote against Middle Eastern terrorism!’.

    Meanwhile, ‘improved border security’ is not only not something that people are demanding, it is something that both parties have _signed on to_. Harris is running around pointing out how Trump failed to build his wall and she promising better border security! I don’t know what the American people think about that(I’ll break this out into another comment), but pretending the American people are demanding border security and politicians are not ‘addressing’ that is nonsense.

    And ‘reorientation of foreign policy to oppose China’ is, flatly, just silliness. The American people have, somewhat slowly, continued dislike China more and more over the past two decades, but do not really have any changed _policies_ they want. (Whereas the American people did want a different foreign policy towards Russia when it became clear how warmonging Putin was, and…we got it. So, I guess, chalk one up for the actual will of the voters.)

    This one, though: ‘YIMBY policies for domestic land use’…I feel is more wishful thinking. I would love it to be true, but I think it’s only true if you mean ‘land owners and land lords do not want it, but that group of people has shrunk so much in America that the people opposing NIMBYism have become larger’…which I’m not sure is wrong. But it is, indeed, wealthy land owners who set US land use policy.

    And I find it really weird you’ve stopped there, but I guess conservativism means you can’t notice a bunch of _other_ stuff there actually is a voter bipartisan consensus on that the parties will not address. Like various specific sorts of gun control, or increased taxes on the wealthy.Report

    • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      To address the border specifically: Voters on both sides want the thing that normal people would describe as border security, aka, stopping people both from going over the border illegally and from having an incentive to do so. Republican voters also want to crack down on refugees and asylum seekers and, like, people who look kinda foreign and why does this phone keep asking me to if I want to use Spanish, I’m in America dammit.

      The thing is, both political parties are already promising to do that thing that voters on both sides want to do.

      The problem, of course, that actually securing the border isn’t done by building giant walls, it is done by doing what Harris was actually supposed to be doing as VP: Trying to make it where we didn’t have constant failures of governments to the south of us, which is, in a very real way, mostly our fault. Both because we like to constantly overthrow governments that seem slightly not conservative enough or not willing to let Dole do bananas enough or mine lithium or borite or whatever US businesses are trying to do in South American this week, or just because our giant-ass drug problem sends so much money to drug cartels that the government cannot function.

      The only way to fix the southern border is to fix the countries to the south of us, and thus we need to do that, I say, pretending we don’t have a moral obligation to do that _anyway_ because we are the people who repeatedly broke them.

      You can’t fight smuggling by putting up walls, and you especially can’t do that when the thing people are smuggling are themselves, because people are very smart compared to other contraband. You can reduce demand, aka, do what has been done a bit to reduce hiring people who are in the US illegally, but that’s already been done and has merely resulted in all corporations hiring ‘contractors’ who they ‘don’t know’ are hiring illegal workers. And it is, in fact, literally impossible to hold corporations responsible for the criminal activity they are engaging in beyond small fines, because politicians have been bribed to make sure of that.
      So there’s no way to ever fix that.

      So we’re not making any more advances there, and the only other solution is to reduce the demand, aka, reduce the amount of extremely desperate people who think their best chance is to sneak into the US…and I remind people that is basically impossible to stop crime by threatening people with punishment, that’s literally not how human brains work. The way to stop crime is make it where people no longer think they need to commit crime, which is mostly done by fixing whatever actual problems they face that they think crime will solve.Report

      • Koz in reply to DavidTC
        Ignored
        says:

        The only way to fix the southern border is to fix the countries to the south of us, and thus we need to do that, I say, pretending we don’t have a moral obligation to do that _anyway_ because we are the people who repeatedly broke them.

        No. One way you can fix the southern border is to negotiate/intimidate/cajole the Mexican government to prevent mass migrations from getting with 500 miles of America, and thereby to a large extent preventing the other vulnerabilities of our immigration system (lack of wall, asylum loopholes, etc) from being exploited.

        Of course, I must must must must must must emphasize this because either you don’t know or are gliding past, THIS WAS THE STATUS QUO AT THE TIME BIDEN ASSUMED OFFICE. STATUS QUO WHICH HIS ADMINISTRATION QUICKLY DESTROYED AND ALLOWED MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS TO ENTER AMERICA.

        Once we have internalized this (and grassroots America has), the motive to vote for Trump based on border security is obvious. Whether or not the voters end up actually voting on this motive, we’ll all find out soon enough.Report

    • Koz in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      Likewise, ‘opposition to terrorism’ is pretty much nonsense. Sure, it’s something voters oppose but ‘What level of terrorism should there be in the middle east?’ is not, in fact, a US policy. What is that even supposed to mean as a policy position?

      It’s pretty simple. It means we put the hammer down on all the wannabe Yasser Arafats at the staff level of our political and cultural institutions and in our colleges and universities.Report

    • Koz in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      Meanwhile, ‘improved border security’ is not only not something that people are demanding, it is something that both parties have _signed on to_. Harris is running around pointing out how Trump failed to build his wall and she promising better border security!

      Well, yes and obviously that’s ridiculous and most likely she’ll end up losing because of that.

      Really David, I’d be interested to know what your level of awareness is. The fundamental reality of border security of the Biden Administration is that the Biden Administration ended the successful bilateral US/Mexico modus vivendi that the US attained under Trump, and thereby allowed millions of illegal migrants to cross the southern border into America, where most of them are today.

      This is a weird one in that everybody knows this at the grassroots level but the media/punditocracy are either playing dumb or really are dumb.

      Really, there’s no reason why the voters have to take on the feigned ignorance or actual ignorance that lib thought leaders have. It is their prerogative to punish the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party (and Administration’s border czar) for its gross malfeasance of that issue.

      We’ll see soon enough whether they exercise that prerogative.Report

      • InMD in reply to Koz
        Ignored
        says:

        If Harris loses I think you’re right that illegal immigration will have been among the top two or three reasons. However I think it’s interesting that as best as I can tell she’s one of very few top Democrats to actually say what the message should have been, and in a very high profile way:

        In a news conference alongside Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, she warned against illegal migration to the US, saying: “Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders.”

        She added: “If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57387350

        This is an area where there seems to have been room to run against the Biden admin, with a good soundbyte and everything, but for whatever reason they haven’t.Report

        • Koz in reply to InMD
          Ignored
          says:

          However I think it’s interesting that as best as I can tell she’s one of very few top Democrats to actually say what the message should have been, and in a very high profile way:….

          Come on inmd, I think you know better than this. That quote is basically the same as her campaign flip-flops on fracking or electric vehicles, except before the campaign.

          In either case, the intention is the same as it pertains to fronting a misrepresentation to the American people. The policy, or the direction of policy is one thing, the politically convenient representation to the American people is the opposite.

          As far as distancing from Joe Biden goes, in a vacuum she should be doing that but there are problems with actually doing that she can’t overcome. In particular wrt immigration and inflation, not only was she part of the Biden Administration, but she also has significant measure of personal responsibility for the mistakes that have created their political problems.

          But even in general, in order for her to pull something like that off, she’d have to show more adroitness and substantive engagement that she has or she can.

          No, libs have bought a pig in a poke on that one. It’s hard to say they don’t deserve it.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Koz
        Ignored
        says:

        That modus vivendi ended because it was founded on COVID based precautions, which were naturally lifted after the pandemic ended. Or have you forgotten the Biden Administration trying to keep those restrictions in pace and being told no by the courts?Report

        • Koz in reply to Philip H
          Ignored
          says:

          No, that was something different. What you’re talking about is how to handle migrants who have made asylum claims in America already. And it is true in that case that Biden reversed the Trump policy of Remain in Mexico and other things to prevent migrants from establishing themselves in America. And after Biden tried to reverse Trump policies he was prevented by the courts from doing that for a while because of Covid reasons. But eventually those went away too and Biden got those migrants in.

          What I was talking about was before Covid, when Trump negotiated a bilateral modus vivendi with Mexico to prevent the migrants from moving through Mexico, long before they were hypothetical asylum applicants in America. Biden reversed that too, and that was by far the biggest fish in the pond.

          Without that we’d still have the same legal issues as before, but the millions and millions of migrants would never have made it here.

          Really, you should vote for Trump because of it.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      The vast majority of voters are incapable of forming an informed opinion on whether there should be higher taxes on the wealthy, because they have no idea how high taxes on the wealthy are.

      If low-rent demagogues like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Robert Reich keep telling them that the wealthy don’t pay taxes, or that they pay less in taxes than the middle class, and the media don’t call then out on their lies, then of course when you ask them if taxes on the rich should be “higher” without specifying higher than what, they’re going to say yes.

      But if you instead ask them what effective tax rate (including state taxes) the wealthiest 1% (or whatever) should pay, many, perhaps most, of the people who said that they should be “higher” are going to specify a rate that’s lower than what the group in question actually pays.Report

      • CJColucci in reply to Brandon Berg
        Ignored
        says:

        That’s true of many things. For example, most voters say they want to cut foreign aid. And yet when asked what percentage of the budget should go to foreign aid, they pick a number lower than what they imagine the current percentage to be but far in excess of what it really is.
        Low information voters believe silly things, part 5932.Report

      • DavidTC in reply to Brandon Berg
        Ignored
        says:

        But if you instead ask them what effective tax rate (including state taxes) the wealthiest 1% (or whatever) should pay, many, perhaps most, of the people who said that they should be “higher” are going to specify a rate that’s lower than what the group in question actually pays.

        This is because ‘effective tax rate’ is utter gibberish.

        How about we ask people what the total amount that Jeff Bezos should have paid in taxes as his net worth went to $191 billion, over his lifetime?

        Or let’s phrase it the other direction. Here’s a poll question for you, one that they never will run:
        If you, taking this poll, were already in the highest income bracket, you would had to earn $16 dollar to become wealthier by $10 more dollars last year. How much do you think that Bezos should have had to earn if he became wealthier by $10 billion last year?

        If the respondent does not answer ‘About $10.01 billion’, they want taxes to be higher. Because that’s what they currently are.

        Because he literally didn’t have to pay any taxes on 99.99% of that money, because it’s not classified as income, it is merely increase in stock price. It will only become income when he turns in into cash, which he will not have to do, because he can just use it as collateral for interest-free loans instead. He can keep that money until he dies, at which point he now has to pay taxes on his exact expenses over his life, before inflation, a very fun cheat compared to normal Americans having to pay taxes before they get the money.

        The American people do not understand that, you are correct. You can tell because we have not all decided to murder the wealthy.Report

        • Dark Matter in reply to DavidTC
          Ignored
          says:

          We don’t tax people based on wealth for good reason. It’s highly questionable whether it’s possible to have a wealth tax which generates more tax dollars than it costs to run. That low bar ignores the level of damage done to the economy by having it.

          Fundamentally you’re claiming Bezos shouldn’t be allowed to build Amazon. That there should be an upper limit to how successful someone is allowed to be and how much good they can create in the economy.Report

          • DavidTC in reply to Dark Matter
            Ignored
            says:

            I didn’t say anything about taxing on _having_ wealth.

            BB is lying and claiming ‘The wealthy are taxed more that people think’.

            The wealthy are actually taxed _much less_ than most people think, because their money is increasing in ways that are not taxed at all instead of ‘earning income’. The amount that their income is taxed is meaningless, hell, at this point the amount that _capital gains_ is taxed is meaningless, because of that trick where instead of selling assets, they just get banks to loan them money based on those assets, which allows them to defer actually coming up with the money and paying any taxes to whenever it is best for them…or just when they die.

            So, I think a good polling question would be to point out that his wealth has _increased_, and asked how much in taxes they think Bezos should have paid _for that increase_. You know, the way people inherently think income taxes work, that when you get more wealth you have paid taxes on it, because that’s how it works for them in all but extremely specific circumstances.

            Not a single on of them will guess that because of how Bezos’ wealth increased, he paid basically no taxes on it.

            Also: A chunk of Amazon’s success was it using the lag of state laws and court decisions to avoid paying state sales tax. State sales that that, incidentally, was actually legally required to be paid. It’s just, in the early internet, states generally regarded out-of-state purchases so rare that the buyer was supposed to collect and send in the money, and usually didn’t bother and no one cared. And even after state laws fixed that, Amazon argued it didn’t have to follow state law in states it wasn’t located in. And Amazon tried to avoid having a ‘physical presence’ in a lot of states to avoid it…they at one point considered trying to operate off a Indian Reservation to disclaim all sales tax.Report

    • Koz in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      And I find it really weird you’ve stopped there, but I guess conservativism means you can’t notice a bunch of _other_ stuff there actually is a voter bipartisan consensus on that the parties will not address. Like various specific sorts of gun control, or increased taxes on the wealthy.

      Well yeah, I could have mentioned all-of-the-above energy production as well. Though tbf the libs haven’t been as successful actually shutting down energy as much as they like to talk about it.

      Even gun control has a lot of the same factors, though that’s a little more complicated. There’s basically three reasons why gun control doesn’t advance in America: 1. the Republicans have the political power to stop it and they do. 2. the 2nd Amendment and its jurisprudence. 3. the grassroots unwillingness among Americans to let guns be regulated from them.

      Maybe you are aware, but 20 years or so ago, Australia did a widespread buyback confiscation that more or less worked. Not talking about the effects on gun violence but just the policy itself: Australians sold their guns back to the government.

      We can’t do that here. It’s not imminently on the cards here because of 1 and 2 above. But bracketing those things for moment the permanent obstacle is 3. Australians are ruled by “us” so when “we” (Australians) decide to do something “we” can carry it out. Americans are ruled by “them” so when “they” decide to do something, “we” can and do still say no.

      There’s lots of reasons to vote Trump in this election, but that is the biggest one: we can punish the libs who have made a routine of lying and maneuvering around the intentions of the American people, thereby restoring trust of the government among Americans and allowing us to accomplish things that would not have been possible before.Report

      • DavidTC in reply to Koz
        Ignored
        says:

        There’s lots of reasons to vote Trump in this election, but that is the biggest one: we can punish the libs who have made a routine of lying and maneuvering around the intentions of the American people, thereby restoring trust of the government among Americans and allowing us to accomplish things that would not have been possible before.

        The lack of self-awareness here is boggling.

        Hey, question: What exactly do you think is happening in Florida with Ron Desantis and the pot legalization voter imitative?

        Do you think Desantis is upholding ‘The intentions of the American people’?Report

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