Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

This blog will pay for itself.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

“woke” is the new caravan.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Dems *NOT* In Disarray…

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Dems *NOT* In Disarray…

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David Leonhardt, in the NYTimes, “Democrats Are Running a Smart, Populist Campaign”:

Stacey Abrams and Conor Lamb are supposed to represent opposite poles of the Trump-era Democratic Party. She is the new progressive heroine — the first black woman to win a major-party nomination for governor, who will need a surge of liberal turnout to win Georgia. He is the new centrist hero — the white former Marine who flipped a Western Pennsylvania congressional district with support from gun-loving, abortion-opposing Trump voters.

But when you spend a little time listening to both Abrams and Lamb, you notice something that doesn’t fit the storyline: They sound a lot alike.

They emphasize the same issues, and talk about them in similar ways. They don’t come across as avatars of some Bernie-vs.-Hillary battle for the party’s soul. They come across as ideological soul mates, both upbeat populists who focus on health care, education, upward mobility and the dignity of work…

The lesson here isn’t just about these two candidates. Dozens of other Democratic candidates also sound like Abrams and Lamb. The lesson is that Democrats are more united than many people realize — and are running a pretty smart midterm campaign.

Yes, there are some tensions on the political left. But these tensions — over Obama-style incrementalism vs. Bernie-style purism, over the wisdom of talking about impeachment, over whether to woo or write off the white working class — are most intense among people who write and tweet about politics. Among Democrats running for office, the tensions are somewhere between mild and nonexistent…

None of this means that Abrams will win in November — she’s an underdog — or that the Democrats will take back the House. Trump’s approval numbers, while weak, have risen slightly, and the midterm campaign has a long way to go.

So far, though, the Democrats are defying the clichés about their division and disarray. They’re giving themselves a good chance to win.

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    Tony Jay

    They come across as ideological soul-mates, both upbeat populists who focus on health care, education, upward mobility and the dignity of work….

    Just like another Democratic candidate I seem to recall, but the Guardians of the Sacred Narrative didn’t want to talk about it then, either. Can’t have the hoi polloi thinking there might be something good to vote for when they can just pretend that Democrats are just copying the 2008/10 GOP playbook of making everything about the occupant of the White House, except this time as a bad thing rather than as a brilliant political tactic.

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Words fail me:

    Two employees of a northern California flight school have been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping a student pilot and trying to send him back to China, authorities said. Jonathan McConkey, general manager at IASCO Flight Training, and his assistant, Kelsi Hoser, were taken into custody on Friday at the municipal airport in Redding, police said. Tianshu Shi, a trainee in the US on a student visa, sustained minor injuries during the alleged kidnapping, investigators said.

    McConkey and Hoser showed up at Shi’s apartment the evening of 24 May and told him he was going to be “shipped back” to China the following morning, said corporal Rob Peterson of Redding police. The next day the pair returned to Shi’s apartment and told him to pack his bags.

    Shi told the Record Searchlight newspaper he recorded the confrontation. The profanity-filled audio clip was obtained by the newspaper. “I’ve got your [expletive] passport. You’re leaving now,” a male voice says in the recording. He later adds, “The United States government needs you out of this country right now, you understand?”

    “You are here illegal, you know that,” a female voice says later. “If you don’t go with us, you go to jail.”

    Fuck these fucking fucks.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Guess it was bound to happen sometime.

    Over the years one of my college alumni magazines has published lengthy articles I have liked, occasionally ones found so engrossing that they were photocopied and passed on, some Ion topics I’ve disliked or remained neutral about yet found worthwhile to plow through, many that have been skimmed or skipped over but never before one so vapidly written, so jejune, engendering such intellectual disappointment, that I all but hurled the magazine against the wall.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: After mid 90s yesterday, we’re looking at 83 for the high today. I suppose it is a gift from Alberto who is going to blow a little kiss to the hills and hollers. The real rain will stay to the south and east of us.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “She’s good, but she’s big,” I overhear the instructor say to my dance teacher as I am coming back down the hallway.

    I stop in my tracks, trying to process this comment without crying or letting on that I heard. But in that moment, my spirit is crushed. So many thoughts swirl through my head on the rest of our trip. I can’t believe that the wrongness of my body’s shape carries more weight than my ability to move it precisely and artfully through space. I can’t believe that a skinnier, potentially less-talented dancer would get “my” spot at the school. But most of all, I can’t believe how embarrassing and utterly humiliating it feels to be turned down not because I’m not good enough, but because I’m not skinny enough.

    These thoughts eventually crystallize into confusion, questions. Why had I been blessed with these talents in this body? What does it mean when your body is your art? Can a thicker brush not make just as beautiful strokes?
    ……………………………..
    I came late to dance. Later than most anyway. I am 11 years old when I take my first class – it’s a free class being offered on the stage of the little community theater in my small college town – but my natural aptitude quickly became apparent. As a naturally quiet, introverted person, dance is a revelation. I don’t have to speak a word to anyone. I discover a world beyond words, where movements tell stories in ways that words only ever dream of doing. It’s a world where words themselves become superfluous and seem almost perversely simplistic, and I am overjoyed to inhabit it every day.

    Soon, I am training for two to four hours a day. Homeschooling means I can be driven to studios an hour from my home to take classes multiple times a week with more advanced teachers. Finally, I am living with other families or my dance teacher during the week so I can train at the best school in the region. Summers are spent at ballet “intensives”, which means six weeks away from home, living in dorms, taking classes all day at the Washington Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I am getting better and better. I revel in my ability to balance en pointe forever and turn with ease. I once did five rotations in a single pirouette turn. Five. The typical maximum for women is three. It’s a moment I will never forget.

    But when you hear the word “ballerina”, my body is not what your mind’s eye conjures.

    When puberty hits at 15, weight begins to stick to me. I begin to sport fleshy hips, meaty thighs, a blossoming bosom. I’m not fat amongst “regular” people – I wear a women’s size 8 – but I am fat for a ballerina. In this profession, rarely is anyone bigger than a size 4. Ballerinas are supposed to be beyond human: to evoke ethereal, otherworldly beings that toe the line between the sensual and the virginal. To have noticeable breasts and hips is to interrupt this fantasy with grotesque sexuality, to remind the audience that you are indeed human.

    After that audition, I begin to doubt my abilities, question my chances of one day becoming a professional dancer. From then on, I never see exactly what I want in the mirror. Mirrors are unavoidable for most dancers, covering the walls of nearly every studio. I spend hours in front of them every day. I like the lines I see reflected, the shapes I can contort into, how I can mimic the movements of my teachers with relative ease. What the mirror also shows me now are my birthing hips and heavy boobs, the wiggly bits of flesh hanging from my upper arms.

    Now when I see all my fellow dancers reflected in the mirror around me, I see not how harmonious our movements are, but how their slight frames magnify the generousness of my own.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Yes, there are spots of good news

    Anyone who’s worn them will know that graduation robes are mega annoying. Very hot, very heavy, basically a pain in the ass, and that mortarboard is constantly trying to fly off your head.

    Now, imagine you had to walk for ages and sit on a bus to get to your graduation ceremony, on your own, with all that kit on.

    That was the situation for 19-year-old Corey Patrick, whose family don’t own a car.

    Corey gets up at 4.30am every day to make it to his school in Birmingham, Alabama, facing a hefty commute of at least 90 minutes each way. That’s a big ask for a teenager.
    [snip]
    The pictures of Corey heading to his senior graduation ceremony are kind of sad – a young boy trudging to a bus stop on his own when most of us would be getting lifts from our family or travelling in with friends.

    The original photos were posted by the bus driver who dropped Corey off at his graduation ceremony.

    Rickey Smiley, a local radio host, saw them and asked his followers to identify the teen.

    In a move that hits you right in the feels, he’s now gifted Corey and his family with a brand-new car – it’s the first vehicle they’ve ever owned. Source

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    Awaiting reviews from the jackals in Japan.

    Coca-Cola launched its first ever alcoholic drink on Monday in Japan — a fizzy, lemon-flavoured concoction laced with spirits that seeks to capitalise on the growing popularity of “chuhai” alcopops enjoyed especially by young women.

    Although the US firm dabbled in the wine business in the 1970s, the experiment in Japan is “unique” in the company’s 125-year history, said Coca-Cola Japan president Jorge Garduno.

    From Monday, three new “Lemon-Do” drinks — containing three, five and seven per cent alcohol — will be available in the southern Kyushu region of Japan.

    A 350-millilitre can will set you back 150 yen ($1.40). Source

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax:

    Patrick’s now working hard to get his driving licence before he goes off to uni, where he’s got a full scholarship for Jacksonville State University.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    So far, though, the Democrats are defying the clichés about their division and disarray. They’re giving themselves a good chance to win.

    Well, yeah!

    The Democratic Party easily wins on the issues. The Republicans have been in charge of everything, and they have fucked up.

    The Democrats can clean up the mess.

    That’s the core message. Everything else is detail.

    How fucking hard is that?

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: The first 3 are known for spreading Rocky Mountain Fever and Lyme Disease, The last spreads delusions of grandeur.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    When the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump emerged in the home stretch of the 2016 election, it should have been a gift from the tabloid gods for TMZ.
    Instead, the celebrity gossip website went into overdrive to help Trump.
    Within a week of the tape’s explosion, TMZ ran “exclusive” after “exclusive” giving Trump cover. There was a story that Bill Clinton made “disparaging remarks” about women when he played golf with Trump—as Trump claimed Clinton did when the tape dropped. Another story claimed NBC executives “had a plan to time the release” of the tape to sink Trump. There was also an item from a former Miss Teen USA saying she never had a bad experience with Trump after he was accused of leering at nude girls backstage.

    Everyone says Trump fans “don’t care” what an asshole Trump is but Trump and his buddies sure go to a lot of trouble to hide this stuff. There’s supposedly an “elevator tape” with Trump saying disgusting things about one or another huge group of people, and the whole Trump fan club went into overdrive to buy it and hide it.

    Someone cares a lot if any of this stuff comes out.

    You wonder how many people were paid, how many deals were made to hide stuff that “no one” cares about.

  28. 28.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @OzarkHillbilly: OT from your punishment of comic genius – I wanted to thank you for your advice on hoophouse building. I’ve finished mine and it’s holding well against our hot, dry winds. My plantings are thriving so far too.

  32. 32.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @debbie: I think you’re right as far as his deplorable base is concerned, but the people behind the scenes who are suppressing evidence for Trump have additional motives. I think where Kay is going is, “Follow the money.” ?

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    Everyone says Trump fans “don’t care” what an asshole Trump is

    They don’t. They know he is a morally repugnant black hole of narcissism but as @debbie: said, “What Trump fans enjoy most is how much Trump pisses us off.” and their need for that overrides any moral ambiguities they are feeling. It overrides it but it can not eliminate it, therefor they need some “plausible deniability” and no matter how implausible it is they will grab on to it with desperation of a drowning man. The trump crime cartel know this and provide them the life saver.

    As LBJ (fuck LBJ) once famously said,

    “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

  37. 37.

    Montanareddog

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    people behind the scenes who are suppressing evidence for Trump have additional motives.

    .

    Exackerly! Elliot Broidy did not take the $1.6M fall for the Playmate’s abortion out of the goodness of his heart. It was an investment that rapidly netted him a $600M UAE contract.

  38. 38.

    MattF

    @Baud: I agree– but… The big issues on the Right are Abortion and Guns. After that, second-tier issues are contraception and immigration. And maybe wimmin’s stuff. Contraception and wimmin’s issues are the ones that ring a bell on the left, but they pale beside Abortion and Guns. Trump’s immigration policies in practice are awful, but it’s a problem to get that across clearly.

    And it’s just a fact that people will ignore economic issues in favor of things that give them that serotonin zing. What, specifically, are you gonna do about that?

  39. 39.

    Baud

    Oh my. Al Roker just attributed changing weather conditions to climate change. Meteorologists have tended to shy away from mentioning the effects climate change.

  40. 40.

    Don K

    I’ve seen a lot of candidates in action at the local Dem club here in MI (chaired by Charles Gaba no less), and the universal messages have been health care, education and training, infrastructure (including getting rid of the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac), choice, the environment (with a special focus on water quality), and LGBTQ issues.

    Although there’s an unspoken anger about Trump underlying everything, they all seem to have missed the memo telling them their campaigns are supposed to be Trump Trump Trumpety Trump Trump.full-time.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I disagree. If that were true we wouldn’t see these elaborate and expensive efforts to hide information related to his character and behavior.

    Trump is doing all that for a reason. The reason is he thinks it matters. If you look at the Trump fans on Twitter they promote fantasies about how he’s a “good man”. This is very important to them! They were THRILLED with the Nobel Peace Prize bullshit because that was proof that he was a good man.

    Ivanka Trump has an entire paid crew devoted to selling her as a wife and mother- it’s cloying as hell- literally hearts and flowers. People don’t do that if they don’t care or think it doesn’t matter.

    Trump cares A LOT about how the Russia investigation makes him look. How do I know? because it’s all he talks about.

    Democratic candidates don’t have to raise this stuff but someone on the D side should because despite denials from media and Team Trump, Team Trump cares a lot about whether they’re perceived as corrupt and sleazy and degenerate.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @MattF: I just hope we’ve accepted that there are a lot of voters we can’t win over, and we therefore stop blaming Democrats for failing to win them over.

  43. 43.

    jonas

    @Baud: A while back NPR had a story on local weathermen/women who broached climate change in the context of their weather forecasts. Ooooh, the hate mail they get…. No wonder most avoid the topic.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    No. I refuse to take political advice from the (horrible) NYTimes politics team.

    Candidates can talk about issues. However. The Trump Administration is full of sleazy corrupt degenerates and since Team Trump care about hiding that fact A LOT I would like to use it against them. They’re basically pointing and saying “we think this is bad for us” and political media have declared it off limits for Democrats. It’s bullshit. Anyone in their right minds would use it.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @MattF:

    Trump’s immigration policies in practice are awful, but it’s a problem to get that across clearly.

    Huh?

    Trump lies and hurts people.

    It ain’t difficult to understand or tough to get the message across.

    And right or left, people are concerned about pocketbook issues. Even the racist conservatives who Trump exploits.

  46. 46.

    jacy

    Had Morning Joe on this morning in the background ( I know don’t yell at me) and heard Thomas Friedman say, “My only advice to everybody is to vote for every Democrat, no matter what. The worst Democrat is better than the best Republican. There are no good Republicans.” Jen Rubin said something similar the other day, that the only hope for the country is to vote only for Democrats. Iz our idiots learning?

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    I disagree. If that were true we wouldn’t see these elaborate and expensive efforts to hide information related to his character and behavior.

    Trump is doing all that for a reason. The reason is he thinks it matters. If you look at the Trump fans on Twitter they promote fantasies about how he’s a “good man”. This is very important to them! They were THRILLED with the Nobel Peace Prize bullshit because that was proof that he was a good man.

    Let me repeat myself:

    They don’t. They know he is a morally repugnant black hole of narcissism but as @debbie: said, “What Trump fans enjoy most is how much Trump pisses us off.” and their need for that overrides any moral ambiguities they are feeling. It overrides it but it can not eliminate it, therefor they need some “plausible deniability” and no matter how implausible it is they will grab on to it with desperation of a drowning man. The trump crime cartel know this and provide them the life saver.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’ll add, the other thing they legitimately fear is that people who are not them will become focused on reality. They remember that the last time that happened, they ended up with Barack Obama as president.

  51. 51.

    MattF

    @Brachiator: I’ll agree that Trump’s immigration policies are bad enough that he feels compelled to tell grotesque lies about them. There’s an empathy vacuum on the right, but that’s a psychological problem, not a policy problem.

    Not persuaded about the relevance of economic issues, though. Lots of people live paycheck-to-paycheck and believe that’s just the way of the world.

  52. 52.

    glory b

    @Don K: I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I was disappointed to hear Deval Patrick on Pod Save America sayingthe same thing, although the hosts there have been like a broken record about this also.

    They seem to be veering off into the “(white) working class, need a poositive message, can’t win by running against Trump,” antra.

    I’m of the opinion that hate, fear and anger are great motivators. The anti Obama message worked great for the Republicans, and we aren’t a different species. It will work for us too.

    i mean, the Pod Save America guys should just listen to their own audiences. The “positive life-affirming message” statements get polite applause, The “these guys in the white house are stupid dangerous assholes” message gets wild cheers.

    African Americans vote in larger percentages than any other racial group, we’ve done so as a defensive measure.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Cordray isn’t running against Trump. But that doesn’t mean Rachel Maddow can’t. This stuff is interesting! Presented properly people will want to hear about the sleazy degenerates in the Trump White House.

    You want to hear the elevator tape right now, as do I. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I won’t let them shame Democrats into ignoring it.

    It DOES bother Trump voters. My God, they have elaborate conspiracy theories to excuse and minimize this stuff. It’s like 90% of Trump Twitter – “that didn’t happen”. They wouldn’t be denying it if it didn’t matter to them.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @glory b:

    I’m of the opinion that hate, fear and anger are great motivators. The anti Obama message worked great for the Republicans, and we aren’t a different species. It will work for us too.

    I’m not so sure about that.

    The “positive life-affirming message” statements get polite applause, The “these guys in the white house are stupid dangerous assholes” message gets wild cheers.

    Self-selecting sample. The problem is our periphery, not our core.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Kay: Rachel does yeoman’s (yeowoman’s?) work on Trump’s sleeze. But it’ll only reach the broader culture if the MSM gets its teeth into it.

  58. 58.

    MattF

    Completely OT. I discovered yesterday that archive.com has complete collections of images from Winsor McKay’s ‘Little Nemo’ and ‘Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend’, uploaded in the past few years by a fan. Takes a while to download, a total of a bit over a gigabyte of data, but free.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    But I don’t think anyone can predict what people will care about. The Access Hollywood tape was, to me, much less offensive than Trump’s absolutely gross leering and commenting on teenage girls. It’s a pattern with him and it’s fucking weird. Why is he commenting to Bill Gates on Bill Gates’ daughter? Gross sleazy old man. My God, he does it with his own daughter.

    But the Access Hollywood tape was big news while Trump’s consistent pattern of treating young women like some kind of commodity was ignored. So I don’t know. Throw it all out there. Some of it will stick.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    @Kay: Right. I’m done with predictions after 2016. I’m clearly not in sync with a large portion of the voting population.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I can not know the lies they tell themselves to cover up their true motivations and I am not even certain exactly what those are. I do know that I learned a lot about myself in my 5 years of marriage to a narcissistic pathological liar and the #1 thing I learned was that my own capacity for the rationalization of how I got to where I was and what I was willing to tell myself to hide from the reality of my situation was beyond anything I thought possible. And that is the behavior a lot of trump supporters are engaging in. Some of them really don’t care, but a fair number need to be able to tell themselves that they are still good people so they can justify their support of the dumpster fire that is trump.

    They need these lies almost as much as you or I need oxygen.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Rachel has a tiny audience (even if it’s big for cable news). She’s mostly preaching to the choir.

    It’s great she’s doing that – pushing back on Trump and his minions. But that doesn’t mean that her approach should be the blueprint for winning elections.

    We need to stop letting Donnie set the narrative.

    Remember, Trump is on Twitter so that he can go around the DC press and set the agenda.

    The Democrats picked up seats in the House and Senate in 2016. The Democrats have done very well in special elections this year. We have a compelling message about how we can make the country better, and how we have a responsibility to stand up for what this country stands for.

    I agree – we need to talk about what we’re going to do for average people. We need to fight the Trumpists every single day. Not simply because they’re bad people, but mainly because they are pushing horrible policies that hurt people and the country.

    The most important thing is winning in November. We should be doing everything we can to make the wave larger. Continuing to pick at the scab of Trump and his minions isn’t doing that.

    161 days to go.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    Trump right now is tweeting (again) about the Russia investigation. As he does every day. Because it is a threat to him.

    The person who talks most about the Russia investigation is not Rachel Maddow. It’s Donald Trump. The idea that he “doesn’t care” is laughable.

    He also cares, a lot, that his administration are perceived as mean spirited assholes on immigration. I can tell because he lies about it. For a “Teflon Don” he’s pretty fucking defensive.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @MattF:

    The NYTimes should stop telling Democrats to ignore Russia and tell Donald Trump. He sure seems to care about this “nothingburger” a whole lot. Understandable, what with all the indictments and the fact that he’s surrounded himself with white collar criminals.

  69. 69.

    MattF

    @Kay: I’m thinking that the NYT newsroom is a battleground lately. Given that Trump seems to care… it’s worth making that argument, vehemently.

  70. 70.

    Baud

    @Kay: Remember all the times the NYT told the Republicans to ignore EMAILS! and focus on the real issues.

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: My wife went to Dartmouth and gets the alumni magazine. All the ones we get occasionally have stupid articles, but the Dartmouth magazine has sometimes had articles by Dinesh D’Souza. Enough said.

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: What they like is what I call the reverse dogwhistle: the bigoted or otherwise horrible statement that is just bad enough to get liberals upset, but that supporters can construe in an innocent way with enough logical contortion. That’s the sweet spot where you can just use the whole incident as proof that political correctness has gone mad and liberals will get upset about anything, but your guy is brave enough to say the unvarnished truth. Rush Limbaugh was the master of this before Trump.

    If it’s bad enough, people who are not very liberal, or in the insulted group, start to agree that it’s bad and it no longer functions as the reverse dogwhistle. Though the bar for that seems to be getting lower.

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    @jacy:

    Iz our idiots learning?

    Well, we’ll know the answer to that in the next six months or so..

  75. 75.

    eric U.

    News of the gas price spike made me wonder how much the price spike under Bush the lesser had to do with his unpopularity. Probably more than we usually think. I always thought that gas prices hurt Gore a lot, even though the spike at the end of Clinton’s presidency was much smaller

    @jonas: Well, in general, weather isn’t climate, so blaming some storm or another on climate change is something to be careful about. OTOH, the horrible late winter/spring weather we have been having in the northeast the last couple of years appears to be related to ice melt, and thus directly attributable to climate change.

  76. 76.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MattF:

    The big issues on the Right are Abortion and Guns. After that, second-tier issues are contraception and immigration. And maybe wimmin’s stuff. Contraception and wimmin’s issues are the ones that ring a bell on the left, but they pale beside Abortion and Guns.

    Here’s a wacko idea that Dems should think about for 2018: single-payer contraception.

    0) People are going to say, “we want single-payer everything,” which is fine, but even when we have House, Senate, and President agreeing on that (2021 at the earliest) it’ll take several years to make it happen. Single-payer contraception could probably be thrown together in a year or two.
    1) It solves the problems of affordability of and access to reliable long-term contraceptives. No woman should have to worry about any of that, ever.
    2) It’s a great wedge issue. Even most of Trump’s base favors easy access to contraception. GOP elected officials and candidates will oppose it anyway, but they’ll have a hard time explaining why.
    3) F.U., Hobby Lobby!

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @eric U.:

    That’s what Al was talking about this morning. Increase in heavy downpours nationally, but especially in the Northeast.

  78. 78.

    H.E.Wolf

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    So glad to see you here! Please accept my belated congratulations on your new responsibilities within your local political organization. You are stellar! They’re lucky to have you.

    I’ll be eager to read further details as you go forward. Onward to victory!

  79. 79.

    eric U.

    @Baud: I know people who still joke about wanting some global warming. I always thought it might be nice, with the realization we would all die of some weather catastrophe as a result. OTOH, who knew it was going to be all bad, with much of the world catching on fire and the rest of us suffering through horrible winters and a total lack of spring weather before a really hot summer? We had a couple of weeks of spring-like weather in February, but apparently that lead to a huge melt-off of ice and in return we got almost 3 months more of winter. You would think that would wake some people up, but they are too heavily propagandized.

  80. 80.

    Di

    @Kay: As someone who grew up with two sociopaths, I agree with your assessment that the trumps care about looking good. They’re shame-based, but the shame they feel isn’t about their despicable actions. It’s all and only about being exposed.

  81. 81.

    glory b

    @Baud: Well, lots of folks harp on getting out “the base,” who are,in large measure, people of color. To many of us, that “positive message” is too close to the “no identity politics” piece.

    And yes, we are all homo sapiens, and acknowledging the harm that has come to the more marginalized people by virtue of Trump’s presidency is a good thing.

  82. 82.

    JR

    @glory b: the efficacy of an anti message is unquestioned but what do you do with the outcome? What if you push too hard?

  84. 84.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @Matt McIrvin: A student group brought him in shortly after his release from prison to give talk. I generally think of Dartmouth as a safe space for conservatives.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @eric U.: I remember a website that plotted Bush’s disapproval ratings vs. gas prices; they rose in eerie synchrony but most of that was just that both were increasing–could have been a spurious correlation, or a simple consequence of the fuckup in Iraq driving both of them.

    Then gas prices temporarily plunged when the global economy collapsed in 2008. The low point happened to coincide with Obama’s inauguration. Then prices shot back up almost to where they were before, and I remember Republicans passing around pictures of gas prices on Inauguration Day and trying to blame the increase on Obama, which struck me as one of the stupidest attacks on him among many, since you could only fall for it if you had no memory of what happened.

  87. 87.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @H.E.Wolf: Thank you! Sometimes I wonder if condolences are in order though. ;)

    I’m looking forward to the end of the primaries and beginning of the coordinated campaign, when we focus on working for all the Democratic nominees up and down the ticket. People seem to be waking up to the fact that ALL the races matter. We have a strong and eager team of voter registrars and will do our best to GOTV and win in November. Fingers crossed.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @The Ancient Randonneur: The whole Dartmouth Review crowd gave Dartmouth a reputation as a right-wingnut campus. I think it actually was less of one than William and Mary, where I went. But they had a lot of vocal ones. I gather what really happened was that sometime in the Eighties or so, national movement conservatives focused on Dartmouth as the Ivy that they could make “their” Ivy by bankrolling the hard right there. I always thought William F. Buckley was an alumnus or had some kind of association with the place because of the extent to which he got quoted in their publications and spoke there, but no, he was a Yalie. Dartmouth was just the place they adopted.

  89. 89.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Di: As someone who grew up with *just* one sociopath, I’m sorry for your plight and agree with your assessment that their shame lies only in being exposed.

  90. 90.

    donnah

    As proof of this thread, Elizabeth Warren was on the CBS morning show and one question was about this exactly, “Aren’t Democrats running strictly against Trump? What policies are they talking about?” The other dialogue they brought up was how Trump has been criticized for his handling of North Korea, but isn’t it working? His tough stance and walking away from the table did the trick, so hasn’t he succeeded? Shouldn’t he get credit for being a good negotiator? aarrgghh

    Warren handled the questions adroitly, but the hosts were pretty “meh” about what she had to say and played the interview as mostly a promotion for her new book. It is infuriating!

  92. 92.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @NotMax:

    I hope he spotted them to a year’s insurance and gas to go along with the car. Just sayin’.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @eric U.: I’m lately seeing some liberals arguing, correctly, that if it was dumb to blame gas price fluctuations on Obama it’s also dumb to do so with Trump. Actually caring about whether your arguments make sense is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

  94. 94.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Matt McIrvin: I was at Dartmouth during the Hitler quote controversy. I don’t think the Review was ever the same after that.

    BTW Hark Upon the Gale.

  95. 95.

    rp

    @eric U.: I remember reading an article about this years ago. Apparently gas prices track presidential approval very closely.

  96. 96.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Matt McIrvin: Another reason it’s not dumb to use gas prices against Trump, besides that we should use anything and everything that’s ready to hand, is that Trump sold himself as the king of all negotiators, including specifically with oil companies.

  97. 97.

    Jeffro

    Trumpov is tweeting that – get this – the DEMOCRATS are meddling in the upcoming election and it is the MUELLER INVESTIGATION that is ‘rigging’ the midterms by sheer fact of its existence.

    I
    Want
    My
    Bat,
    NOW

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @FlipYrWhig: The Dartmouth alumni magazine’s letters column also reveals that there are a lot of ancient alumni who are still butthurt about the place going coed, which happened in 1972.

  101. 101.

    JPL

    @O. Felix Culpa: I’m in the GA 6th and two candidates are in a runoff to go up against Handel. Although they agree on health care and gun control, I’m a strong supporter of Abel, because he is a strong advocate for immigration and income inequality. As an immigrant, he believed in the American Dream. They might not be winning issues here, but they are important issues.

  102. 102.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Kay:

    When the house is on fire it’s okay to talk about that and not just about your plans to redo the kitchen and finish the basement.

  104. 104.

    Brachiator

    @MattF:

    I’ll agree that Trump’s immigration policies are bad enough that he feels compelled to tell grotesque lies about them. There’s an empathy vacuum on the right, but that’s a psychological problem, not a policy problem.

    Isn’t it both? Policy is not dry or abstract. Fuck, even Trump acknowledges that his immigration policy hurts people. He just says that the Democrats are to blame.

    Also, Trump encourages his supporters to hurt immigrants, and to revel in it. This is the psychology of the perverse.

    Not persuaded about the relevance of economic issues, though. Lots of people live paycheck-to-paycheck and believe that’s just the way of the world.

    The GOP brand is based on their supposed expertise about the economy.

    Also, again, the psychology of the perverse is at play here. Republicans tell their voters the lie that immigrants take their jobs and use up benefits that belong to citizens. But then the GOP “fixes” this problem by giving tax cuts to the rich.

    And even people who live paycheck by paycheck know when they don’t have a job. Trump promised jobs and lied. Ask those laid off workers at Harley Davidson.

  105. 105.

    Ronnie Simonds

    They come across as ideological soul-mates, both upbeat populists who focus on health care, education, upward mobility and the dignity of work….

    This IS running against Trump.

    Seriously: the reason why everyone thinks Democrats are running against Trump is because they run in favor of decency. You know… liberals.

  106. 106.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    In case you’re looking for a place to send people for info on the immigrant children story, Morning Edition had Cecelia Munoz on this morning disentangling the various stories on immigrant children. The pictures of children in what looks like cages are from 2014 when there was a huge influx of unaccompanied minors. They were moved from that setting to HHS which was obligated to release them into the least restrictive setting. Something like 80% of them went to their parents who were already in the US, often illegally. Munoz speculates that most of the “missing” kids are in this category. Their families have cut off contact because they’re afraid.

    In contrast, the current administration’s POLICY is to separate children from their parents, which the Obama administration did not do. Sessions announced the policy and Kelly talked about it on Morning Edition. They played clips this morning showing that.

    Munoz said that despite what Trump claims, there is no law requiring the separation of parents and children. She also said that asylum seekers are not breaking the law when they approach the border patrol and ask for asylum.

  108. 108.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    The Rectification of Names make the problem apparent.

    This is tired bullshit.

    As ususal, it’s a complex subject requiring more than 1 paragraph so 44% of ‘Murkin’s will be lost.

    No, it’s pretty simple.

  109. 109.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @JPL: It sounds like you have two good, or at least acceptable, candidates to choose from. I like what our state house majority leader says about how Democrats should behave/vote:

    Fall in love in the primary; fall in line in the general. May it be so for Democrats across the country.

  110. 110.

    Jay

    @Brachiator:

    It’s so simple that the MSM is running 99 articles blaming Obama for Trump’s Border Policies and Bernie Bro’s are tweeting that Trump=Obama.

    Did you know , according to the lede at The Economist and the LA Times, Obama deported more “immigrants” than any other US President?

  112. 112.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Mary G posted a few threads back about the egregiously untimely passing (at age 70) of gifted SF editor Gardner Dozois. (ETA: Arguably the best there ever was – IMHO only John W. Campbell Jr. is in his league.) In his obit, author Michael Swanwick said

    Anybody who was ever praised by Gardner Dozois should know this: He meant it. Not only did he like you personally, but he loved your work.

    I was reviewing SF for a (then-)major metropolitan newspaper in early 1978 when a review copy of Gardner’s novel Strangers came in. It must have been that spring when I ran into him at a SF convention. After he signed that copy (one of the few perks of freelance reviewing is keeping the tome) I mentioned that I’d reviewed it but he probably wouldn’t remember what I’d written. When I gave him my name he said, “Of course I remember it. You were the only one who understood what I was trying to do.”

    I doubt I was “the only one” – but I don’t doubt that at that moment he wanted me to feel that I’d written something true & right. IMO a reviewer cannot hope for higher praise than that.

    The review is long lost to the chaos in my files & the disintegration of newsprint…but maybe I can pry a copy out of the newspaper’s archives. After I reread that signed copy of Strangers I’ve just taken down from the shelf, I’d like to review what I wrote that seemed to its author true & right.

    RIP indeed. :^(

  114. 114.

    JPL

    @O. Felix Culpa: True! Stacy Abrams is a strong candidate and should be able to bring out the democratic vote. The republican candidates for governor are running to the right of Trump, and that should convince moderate republicans to vote Abrams.

  117. 117.

    glory b

    @JR: Like everything else, you need to see where the district is. I work (sometimes) in Conor Lamb’s now defunct district. The population there is about 98% white. It wouldn’t have made any sense for him.

    By the way, a lot of talking heads got that race wrong, I’ve heard a few times that he won because the blue collar white former Dems came back to the party (a la Wilmer).

    Actually, the ones who changed were mostly the suburban educated Republicans. The switched up, not the working class people. It was enough that they added to the Dems there and pushed him over the top.

  118. 118.

    trollhattan

    @jacy:

    Thomas Friedman say, “My only advice to everybody is to vote for every Democrat, no matter what. The worst Democrat is better than the best Republican. There are no good Republicans.”

    No “boff sides” equivocation? Good thing I’m seated because I’d fall over, otherwise.

    What do Friedman’s Uber drivers tell him these days?

  119. 119.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    Because he’s a loathsome human being, Kay.
    And, as you have pointed out from the beginning:
    Their vote for him shows THEIR LACK OF CHARACTER?

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Mary G posted a few threads back about the egregiously untimely passing (at age 70) of gifted SF editor Gardner Dozois. (ETA: Arguably the best there ever was – IMHO only John W. Campbell Jr. is in his league.)

    I missed this, but you are right. A supremely talented individual. A great contributor to SF.

    RIP

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    There should be a team.
    Led by Ted Lieu and Maxine Waters.
    They should give classes on how to talk about Dolt45 on tv.
    Too many Dems are too phucking mushy about Dolt45??
    They pretend that we are in normal times??

  124. 124.

    Mike J

    @OzarkHillbilly: As usual the Gruniad gets some details wrong. It wasn’t Washington Fish and Wildlife that put the mussels out. It was volunteers with Puget Soundkeeper who got together on a cold, rainy, December night and slogged across the beaches and mudflats at low tide carrying cages and rebar to secure the cages. The volunteers went back in February, collected the mussels and all the gear, and took the mussels to DFW down in Olympia.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    @Jay:

    It’s so simple that the MSM is running 99 articles blaming Obama for Trump’s Border Policies and Bernie Bro’s are tweeting that Trump=Obama.

    Wow. Now that you explain it to me this way, it’s still bullshit.

    Did you know , according to the lede at The Economist and the LA Times, Obama deported more “immigrants” than any other US President?

    And what does this have to do with Trump policy today?

  126. 126.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: I have so much to say about this, just so much that I will become incoherent with rage. So many excellent dancers are the “wrong” shape or size that it makes the head spin but I will spare you and instead tell you that she’s auditioning for the wrong dance company. It’s really that simple. If she’s that good then she needs to find the one that will look past that “imperfect” size 8 body. I know a professional ballerina who is 6 feet tall and is cast in roles calling for that size, but is never seen in “the fish” pose with a partner because he’d destroy his back.

    I am having trouble with her description of herself as a size 8 with the fatty upper arms and “birthing hips”. She’s carrying the same body prejudices she’s fighting in her auditions.

    P.S. The pay is crap unless you’re so outstanding that your name becomes a household word, and the first thing the dance company does when they hire you is to show you how to fill out unemployment papers, because you’re not going to be paid by them for half the year.

  127. 127.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Uncle Cosmo: I keep doing this: I wake up early, read the overnight threads to catch up, get all interested in the discussions among the late night jackal shift, and add my $0.02 to the discussion. Which is long dead.

    Anyway, in that now-dead thread, I said this about Gardner Dozois.

    I knew his work only as the name on those annual anthologies (and author of the long essays contained within about the state of the industry). I always went to those anthologies to get a glimpse of promising new talent who weren’t yet on the book shelves. Reading that article, now I understand that Dozois was the reason they were such a treasure trove of new talent.

  128. 128.

    Gelfling 545

    @GregB: At least W had the grace to admit he had been soundly beat in the midterms and I can’t believe I’m writing that.

  129. 129.

    Jeffro

    @GregB: From here on out, it’s attacks on the rule of law, the legitimacy of our elections, and the freedom of our press, all the way down. Buckle up, America!

    @Gelfling 545: Yeah but that was back when we had presidents and members of Congress who still believed in mostly free and mostly fair elections. Ah, those were the days…

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    The obvious simplicity of the evil of the immigration policies is what punches through. And why they lie!
    Prison buses full of baby seats cannot be spun away.

  131. 131.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @MattF: Sadly, no. I don’t keep in very close touch with the field anymore & so far IMO no one else’s compendium compares. If I find anything that seems worthwhile I’ll post it. Keep watching the skies!

  132. 132.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    The republican candidates for governor are running to the right of Trump, and that should convince moderate republicans to vote Abrams.

    I’d be satisfied with Republicans just staying home.

  133. 133.

    catclub

    remember when trump was crowing that fewer people died in Maria on Puerto Rico, than Katrina ? What a surprise!

    Kate Brannen

    New Study Finds Hurricane Maria’s Death Toll in Puerto Rico Likely More than 4,600

    slate.

  135. 135.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @debbie: Tru dat. I have a friend who wears his MAGA hat & Trumpolini T-shirts to the dances we both attend, just to piss off us libruls. He’s basically a decent guy – I’ve never known him to treat anyone badly, & he’s always there when a friend needs help – but he’s convinced people like us are stealing his hard-earned income to give lots of people lots of stuff they don’t deserve. One of these days he might wake up but I’m not holding my breath.

  136. 136.

    ruemara

    @catclub: last figure I heard was around 6k. And hurricane season is starting up again. genocide by neglect. I want this administration to face charges.

  138. 138.

    catclub

    @Baud:

    For some reason, I believe meteorologists skew wingnut. Think I read that somewhere

    I think TV weathercasters ( not the same as meteorologists, but they usually want you to think they are) skew wingnut.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: I would bet those suppressed taps havw Trump’s going off on REAL Americans(tm). That would be to far for them if they saw they were on the enemy’s list too.

  142. 142.

    opiejeanne

    @ruemara: .

    I met you in December. Your body is fine. Mine is fine too but simply under-tall for what I weigh. My youngest is 4’10”. She would show up at the spring auditions when she was 12-15 and every summer ballet program would get very excited because she has “nice feet”. By the time she was 14 the jig was up, they knew she wasn’t getting any taller.

    The Joffrey was famous at one time for hiring the best dancers regardless of size or shape. We saw Tommy Tune in Vegas and his dancers were every size and shape you can imagine, and they were GOOD. Alvin Ailey took a young woman we knew, tall and slender and not an ounce of fat on her, and mistreated her about being so overweight that she came back to the West Coast emotionally wrecked at first. It was hard to see this talented girl so hard on herself, and so emaciated. The SF ballet company had a young ballerina die of a heart attack because her diet regime was so strict. She was on a vacation with her parents, sitting in the back seat, and just passed away quietly while they were driving.

  144. 144.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    But it’ll only reach the broader culture if the MSM gets its teeth into it.

    Yes, but the MSM is will paid, hired even, to not do that. They’re instructed to ignore it completely.

    @ruemara:

    the latest whine from MAGATs – no one wants to date them. Wonder why.

    Because they’re very nearly as vile as their champion, Trump! No one wants to be physically near a walking turd!!

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