People are worried that the fight against Donald Trump could be unwinnable. Here’s the thing: I’ve been winning unwinnable fights my whole life. Everyone thinks they know what fights are unwinnable—until everyone gets out, fights, persists, and wins. That’s how we’ll beat Trump. pic.twitter.com/34f4kkXbfb
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 11, 2020
(I didn’t see this on Political Twitter — I found it on one of the virologist sites I check for corona-virus updates, between links to scientific papers and the latest news about Ebola in the Congo.)
Monica Hesse, in the Washington Post:
KEENE, N.H. — Within three minutes of getting in line for an Elizabeth Warren rally, I’ve been handed a business card for a woman-empowerment organization called Brass Ovaries, and the founder, my linemate, has drawn me into a conversation about Warren that has begun to feel like the only conversation to have about Warren: the kind that’s about hope, and despair, and how it’s possible to love America and also want to throw it out the window.
“I went to one of her events before, and I gave her one of my Brass Ovaries pins,” Michelle Johnson says. “And I started to explain how it’s about fed-up women — but she said, ‘Oh, I get it,’ and I said, ‘I knew you would,’ because Elizabeth always gets it, doesn’t she?…
“I’m leaning toward Warren,” says Frank Brownell, a retired editor who relocated to Keene from Upstate New York. “I’m not a big Buttigieg fan. But I want to pick someone to win.” He sighed, deeply troubled. “Women have such a burden. I actually wish women ran the world.”
If he wished women ran things, I asked him, was there a reason he was still merely leaning toward Warren? Here was a woman he liked who was offering to run the country, and he literally had the chance to give her the job.
“I’m going to vote for her,” he decided, then waffled. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
His qualms weren’t with Warren. He loved Warren. His qualms were about everyone else, everyone else who might not be ready to vote for a woman. “I’m hopeful but I’m not hopeful. I don’t think America is what I always hoped it was.”…
At one event in New Hampshire, a little girl approaches the microphone, accompanied by her mother.
“My name is Elizabeth,” she says.
“Your name is Elizabeth?” Warren reels back. “Oh wow! Double Elizabeths! I feel the power.”
“I’m seven years old.”
Warren pauses, deadpan. “I’m . . . not.”
“I want to know if you will close the camps,” the 7-year-old Elizabeth asks.
Here, Warren’s response grows impossibly soft and intimate, so soft that it feels almost indecent to listen to, like this has become a private conversation. The camps in Texas where they are holding children? Warren asks. The 7-year-old nods. Those camps.
“Yes,” Warren says. “Yes.”
And then people in the audience tear up because in that moment, they did seem to believe things could change, that Warren was the best candidate, that others thought so, too, and just needed to be convinced that it’s safe to vote for her. That there’s nothing to fear in nominating this woman but fear itself…
Loving Elizabeth Warren means planning for America to break your heart.
It means watching her tweet out an optimistic message after Iowa, and then watching how all of the early replies instruct her to defer to Sanders and drop out.
It means making sure to preface your pro-Warren statements with “I don’t have anything against the male candidates,” as if the act of supporting a female one was somehow misandrist in itself.
It means listening to people complain about her schoolmarmishness and quietly wondering what was so wrong, exactly, with sounding like a schoolmarm. What’s so wrong with sounding like a grandmother? What’s so wrong with her animated hand gestures, her cardigans, her preparedness, her laugh, her husband, her brain, her work, her femaleness, her voice?
It means hoping things will break your way but accepting that they probably wouldn’t, because America never quite seems to work that way, does it?…
The music in the gym gets a little louder. When “9 to 5” comes on, Warren sprints onstage. She talks about her family. She talks about her toaster. She says she is running a campaign from the heart, because she believes 2020 is “our moment.”
“I believe in that America,” Elizabeth Warren says, and then she tries to convince the audience that they believe in that America, too.
“We have to show that we’re willing to take the risk. Because if we’re not, then women will never win.’” – @ewarren https://t.co/VtNB04ods4
— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) February 12, 2020
Last night, in Virginia:
A new chant for @ewarren from the crowd: “I believe that she will win.” pic.twitter.com/i5dBns81ZQ
— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020
Here’s a first: Warren tells the audience a line she always says when campaigning : “I believe in science.”
The audiences starts chanting: “Science! Science! Science!”
Warren also acknowledges that it’s the first time she’s heard a “Science!” chant.
— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020
HumboldtBlue
It’s pretty straightforward, check the box next to her name on your ballot. It ain’t hard, even I managed that.
And OT, but if you want to share a little love and joy you can send an e-Valentine card to the kids at St. Jude’s hospital (I chose the cat).
trollhattan
“I believe…” That’s a soccer chant, and nicely adapted here.
Kent
My 16 year old daughter gets Bailey updates via text message. She is a huge Warren fan and very disappointed that she isn’t doing better. She is learning the people suck and sometimes politics does too.
Her political life trajectory is basically going from Obama to Trump.
I guess when I was her age it was Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan which was not that great of a trajectory either. But didn’t quite feel so existential as this one.
Baud
I think one or more Juicers were at that rally.
Kent
I love me some Elizabeth Warren and think she would be among the strongest and sharpest candidates against Trump. But I really just wish we could have an alternative timeline where we shed the geriatric 78 year old white men with savior complex egos and just had a normal primary with the best candidates in the prime of their lives:
Warren, Harris, Klobuchar, Castro, Booker, Beto, Insley or something like that. Even wet-behind the ears Buttigieg who I think would be much less popular if all those others hadn’t been run out or deprived of oxygen by the geriatric egos.
RedDirtGirl
I’m making Elect WARREN buttons this weekend.
Kraux Pas
The trajectory of this primary is making me increasingly misandrist. And I’m a gay man.
Dopey-o
She blinded me with science.
SCIENCE!
debbie
Thanks for this post and those stories, Anne Laurie. Glad I got here and will get out before the Eeyores arrive bemoaning the horribleness of all Democrats in the race.
There is no one better or more deserving of the nomination than Elizabeth Warren. I’m not even sure we deserve her, what with all this whinging.
West of the Cascades
@Kent: Biden particularly angers me because he sucked up a year as the “front runner” until the pitifulness of his campaign became clear. Sanders I have more sympathy for if only because he placed a close second in 2016 (but not a lot of sympathy because of some of his supporters)
jl
@Kraux Pas: I do have something against all the major remaining male candidates, at least on policy: not nearly as good as Warren (for progressives) or Klobuchar (for centrists).
Edit: and Harris was better on policy, when she finally got a solid position on health care, which sadly seems to have been too late.
Running for national office is very difficult to do, maybe impossible, without making some blunders, especially on the first time out. For the better candidates, this was their first time out, in that respect a tragic timeline when we needed a better one.
Kent
Warren’s new nick name for Trump. And about the most perfectly calibrated Trump insult I have seen to date. Denigrating and dismissive but without being histrionic, vulgar or shrill.
jl
@Kent: Also true, which has its advantages, even though the concept has been recently cast into some disrepute.
Ruckus
@Kent:
As bad and foreboding as your political life trajectory was you are right it isn’t as bad as now. This is the end of your political life trajectory, the point where all the bad shit is swirling around the drain and non of it is going down, just building. It seems like it will never end, but it will. Either reasonably well, or not well at all. But like then the only thing to do now is vote like your life depends on it, because it does. But it also means vote for the person who wants to make it better, not to just bring in a bit of spray to make it smell a little less, but a full on plumber to rebuild the plumbing and make it work.
Who might that candidate be?
I have my choice but each of us has to make that decision. And VOTE.
A Ghost To Most
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try, sometimes,
You get what you need
Kent
I have even less sympathy for Sanders. He is a 2nd heart attack waiting to happen. And as a 40-year member of Congress he is smart enough to know that EVERY DAMN THING in his platform is a lie. He is lying to his cult following when he suggests that as president he could actually accomplish any of the stuff in his platform simply by mobilizing a parade of 99%ers and marching on Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky office to demand that they concede.
AOC said as much yesterday when she conceded that with lots of compromise, maybe some sort of public option might be their best case scenario. Really? What are you not actually serious about implementing? Free college for all? Free childcare for all? Nationwide rent control? All of it?
Elizabelle
Jackals: Elizabeth Warren could sure use some more canvassers and phone bankers.
Please contact me through Anne Laurie or WaterGirl, and I can get you set up with calling Virginia (for sure) and probably South Carolina too. That could be really important.
We are still identifying voters, GOTV begins soon, and even if you’re shy — the voters are so happy to finally have a chance to be voting, and they will appreciate talking to you! And you can remind them to work their social circle and family and get out the votes.
I’ve seen how distraught a lot of you are at the horse race coverage. Get out there, while we can still effect a positive change.
ETA: Let me know if you’re really set on calling your home state, or a particular state. We can get you hooked up there. Spend the time contacting voters and reassuring them — action, not prognostication on a blog!
Yutsano
OT: Word Salad In All Caps is making me giggle. At least internally since at work.
Cacti
Seriously. What was the point of the last two years of histrionics from “The Squad”?
guachi
The problem isn’t Biden or Sanders or Bloomberg. The problem is there are lots of people who support them.
Mallard FIlmore
Ha! Kids these days. When I was your age, I was eight.
What I want to know is, if Trump pardons everyone involved in the camps, will she send as many to the World Court as The Hague will accept?
Baud
@jl:
Agree.
smintheus
Favoring science is controversial now. So is due process, honesty, integrity, and a decent regard for what the rest of the world thinks.
Martin
Only question is whether this will be a September or October investigation/indictment.
Martin
@Cacti: It’s good to have idealists challenging the party. It’s bad to have them running the party.
mrmoshpotato
@Dopey-o: Wake up! Time for science! -Adam Savage
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Cascades:
Umm….Hillary beat him like a rented mule by millions of votes, and he was mathematically eliminated in May.
Kent
@Ruckus: I’m torn between (1) the candidate I think would make the best president (probably Warren) and (2) a more mercenary approach of trying to pick the most electable candidate, who I haven’t yet decided who that would be except most definitely not Sanders or Buttigieg.
Since no one knows anymore what is electable and what isn’t I might as well go with #1. Clinton, Obama, and Trump were all considered unelectable at this stage in the process while Kerry and Romney were supposed to be the model of the electable candidate. So WTF does anyone know.
I do suspect that all the Trumpers are Jonesing to go against either Sanders or Buttigieg as the seem the two most easy candidates to beat. But then back in early 2008 the McCain people were probably hoping to go against Obama and not Edwards.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
So, everybody hates that the NH primary and the Iowa caucuses are first in the nation, right? What’s stopping a state, say California, from deciding to hold their primary in early January?Perhaps January 2nd (New Year’s Day wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons)?
If Iowa and NH complain, the DNC/California/whoever should tell them to go pound sand. We need a more representative state to decide our nomination process out of the gate
Baud
@Cacti:
Ikr? Warren may have harmed her campaign trying to make Bernie’s “damn bill” workable, and now they’re compromising it away withing two minutes of obtaining front runner status.
Kent
@Martin: Biden is toast anyway. All the folks interested in an old centrist white guy are already shifting in mass to Bloomberg.
JPL
@trollhattan: Gave me goosebumps.
JPL
@Martin: give me the fainting couch now Can we investigate trump’s sister who was a judge first.
RedDirtGirl
@Elizabelle: sounds good. I’ll reach out!
JPL
@Kent: that still pissed me off because we have the biggest grifters in the WH and the entire family should be behind bars.
Catherine D.
Isn’t Warren the only candidate left who is firm on rooting out/prosecuting the Trump rot? Bloomberg may posture about Trump, but I don’t believe for a New York minute he will pursue white collar crime (pun and irony intended)
SiubhanDuinne
I saw the video clip of this a couple of days ago and it was more adorable than you can imagine.
One of the many many reasons I’d like Warren to win is the thought of her attending a state dinner in London. The thought of Elizabeth the Queen and Elizabeth the President in the same room makes me happy.
(Also, if Harris were the VP and on the same trip: “Kamala? Camilla. Camilla? Kamala.”)
mrmoshpotato
@Cacti:
Horseshit to discourage voters?
Elizabelle
@RedDirtGirl: Yea!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mallard FIlmore:
Unfortunately, the Hague Invasion Act applies to appointed officals of the US government as well as elected ones and military personnel. I wonder if ICE/CBP officials (non-appointed) would count as “military personnel”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: she actually called it a “worse case scenario”
if the Democrats run the table with the White House, the Senate, and keep the House, a public option is still a pretty heavy lift, unless Joe Manchin’s gotten some religion on the issue. and the would be brightest star of the freshman class says it’s a “worst case scenario”
Yutsano
@Kent: After two contests? Let’s wait until at least South Carolina and Nevada do their thing first please and thank you?
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
That NH and Iowa are first is trivial. Nobody much complained when Obama did well in Iowa in 2008 or when Clinton did well in Iowa in 2016.
California sometimes has state and local issues that are on the ballot as well. Nobody wants to be thinking about that shit on January 2.
Martin
@JPL: No, because Trump is President, not Warren. That’s the point.
Kent
Warren has a much more plausible and compelling argument than Sanders. Sanders is all-or-nothing, my way or the highway and has zero history of ever compromising or building a coalition in support of any major objective.
Warren is a true coalition-building politician who pushes the envelope but also takes what she can get.
It is perfectly legitimate for Warren to explain that she believes that M4A is ultimately the best way to organize health care but that she is willing to make incremental changes like a public option on the way towards that ultimate goal. And that even incremental changes are much better than nothing. Indeed, even nothing is better than the deliberate sabotage and vandalism that Trump is doing.
But yes, I think Warren listened too much to the purity ponies on twitter pushing M4A when she should have understood that her true coalition and constituency are the older good government mainstream progressives and educated types split between Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, etc. not Sanders parade of young cultists.
JPL
@Kent: and Martin.. I don’t know how to do two links.. They did the same thing to Jimmy Carter who is one of the most decent individuals and to see them repeat it sickens me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JPL:
I know. But that’s what happens when a corrupt POS runs the federal government. Actual principles and consistency are for liberals, apparently
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
TBF, she also said it’s not a nightmare. Which I think is rather mature and sensible to say. I’d rather see that then maximalist sloganeering
Ohio Mom
Two Bloomberg calls in the last ten minutes, one for me and one for Ohio Dad.
Told each of them Bloomberg is a racist who has sent money to Republicans running for Congress, and that they (the callers) should get an honest job.
Ohio Dad then lectured me that we might have to vote for Bloomberg. I don’t disagree but am disgusted with the money Bloomberg is spending, basically on himself.
Kent
I’m not personally driving the nails into Biden’s coffin. The fact that he is running a tired low-energy campaign, raising hardly any money, with hardly any ground staff, and comes across as geriatric and barely coherent on TV is doing that. The polls are already picking up a shift from Biden towards Bloomberg.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Private investigators and citizens committees could investigate her in the feds’ stead. Let’s see how Trumpy and his GOP cultists like that
Edit: or the House could but they have bigger fish to fry
Brachiator
@Kent:
Electable is whoever got elected, as seen through Wayback Retrospective Hindsight goggles.
Baud
Avenetti convicted.
Yutsano
@Baud: Looks like we dodged a bullet eh?
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But Berrrrrnie’s going to give us the public option! Cute.
Kent
I was a HS sophomore during the 1980 Carter/Reagan campaign.
Carter might have been a super decent individual but he had a lot of flaws as a president, and some of the same ones that Sanders has. As an outsider he did very little to actually push legislation through congress and spent a lot of time being holier than thou and trying to micro manage shit that he had a bureaucracy to do for him.
Reinstating draft registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in some sort of symbolic dick-measuring contest did not help him with the youth vote. This wasn’t about using our superior technology to go shoot Afghanis and Iraquis from jet planes and helicopters. This was go sit in a tank across from the Soviet Red Army in the Fulda Gap with tactical nuclear weapons on both sides. When you are a teenager and your Democratic president wants you to go down and register with the selective service in preparation for war against the Soviet Union it tends to focus your mind.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
His active defense of the stop and frisk policy as mayor disgusts me. I don’t believe for a second he’s really sorry or believes he was wrong.
I saw the other day a black woman who was wearing Bloomberg gear at work. I almost wanted to ask her what she thought of Bloomberg’s stop and frisk policy as NYC mayor but thought better of it. I get wanting to defeat Trump. I’ll vote for Bloomberg if he’s the nominee, but that’s basically it.
I’d rather have Biden over Bloomberg. At least he’s an actual Democrat who has worked to get other Dems elected over the years. Not to mention being a lot more progressive than Bloomberg
Mary G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In the past, the national parties have threatened state parties with dire consequences for trying to go before Iowa and NH. Like do that and your delegates won’t count. There is a network of pros who make bank off being early state campaign experts who scream like stuck pigs at the idea. FTFNYT reporters also take to their fainting couches because the flights are soooo long, they don’t speak Spanish, and they don’t get California at all.
The more reasonable answer is that it would hurt long shot candidates, because ads here cost a fortune.
Kraux Pas
Bloomberg is the only choice for Democrats who want to guarantee a Republican picks RBG’s replacement.
FlipYrWhig
@mrmoshpotato: I’m old enough to remember when the shorthand for this theory was HE. DIDN’T. EVEN. TRY! More and more lately Ocasio-Cortez just seems to me like a run-of-the-mill DailyKos poster from about early 2010.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Didn’t everybody here complain about the recent results from the states because they’re overwhelmingly white? That South Carolina would be more representative of the Dem base?
Dan B
@Kraux Pas: Misandrist is my word of the day, Thanks!
Having dated a lot of guys I do know misandry… lots of nasty socializing that carries over to gay guys. Fish, water problem.
And I’m off to write postcards Sunday at the Seattle meetup. Would I get in hot water if I write mash notes about Liz? It is Valentine’s weekend.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kent: This
She is also able, as much as anyone would be, to bring people together. Yes, there are some hardass Trump supporters who will stay in their caves on their island, but once we have a government again and it starts doing good things, a lot of people will come over, and she will welcome them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig:
been a couple of weeks since I last went dumpster-diving into a Rose Twitter thread, but as of January, they were still doing it
also, Obamacare is killing poor people
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Black folks (at least some of them) are trying to tell us why they don’t like Buttigieg or Klobuchar either. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/buttigieg-klobuchar-privilege/
I do understand their point. The notion that the older “salt of the earth” white “heartland” guy on a tractor in the midwest knows better than Washington bureaucrats (or the black guy commuting to work on the A-train or the black nurse working in home health care in South Carolina) is something that seems to be a deep subconscious belief of these midwestern candidates. So I get that.
Yutsano
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Honestly, of the first four states, the only one that is close to representative is Nevada. And really Nevada is only representative of the West. The nomination contest is terrible, but there’s too much inertia plus state law keeping things from being shaken up. A lot needs to change true, but it will take some heavy lifting to change that. I don’t see Perez as the man who can make those changes.
JMG
I gave $100 to Warren yesterday when John tweeted he did. She’s not gonna win, but it’s nice to support a politician who’s actually decent, kind, AND competent. If Bloomberg wins the nomination, I’ll vote for him. Won’t be a happy moment, but if he wins, he would be constrained by Democrats in Congress as Trump has not been by Republicans.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If SC is more representative of the Dem base and this poll is predictive then Sanders is pretty popular:
Eastern Carolina University gives us our first SC poll since NH: Biden 28% (-9) Sanders 20% (+6) Steyer 14% (-5) Buttigieg 8% (+4) Klobuchar 7% (+5) Warren 7% (-1)
tomtofa
I’ve been wondering why Warren isn’t doing better. 538 recently put up an analysis that explains why she’s struggling: she’s not polling well.
Sigh.
Kraux Pas
Care to elaborate what you mean about this? Cus I just had flashbacks to fights with my ex about my bro-y friends, wanting to fit in, etc.
TMI?
Dylan from Port Arthur
I am absolutely baffled by Warren’s lack of traction.
Yes, the media alternating “she is more of a socialist than Bernie/Warren who?” routine is partially to blame but she is a pretty well known commodity, isnt’ she? Been in the spotlight for years unlike Mayo Pete.
I will happily vote for who ever wins for the Ds, but the fact that Warren is _now_ trailing Mayo Pete and Klobuchar is very disheartening to me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JMG:
Would a man with an ego like Bloomberg decide to use his media empire and money to run ads targeting congressional Dems who try to rebuff him?
FlipYrWhig
@tomtofa: It does feel like a lot of people want to back the candidate who’s going to be the winner, as opposed to wanting to *determine* which candidate is going to be the winner. I don’t understand that mentality but it happens rather often.
Sab
@Elizabelle: I am signed up canvassing tomorrow in Ohio. I have my Bailey campaign hoodie all ready, and her bumper sticker on my car.
I got a call yesterday from a campaign staffer who just relocated to Ohio from Iowa
ETA: she just called back, and they will have printed sheets for me since I don’t have a smart phone. Yay!
Catherine D.
@Ohio Mom: Come sit by me
Kraux Pas
@FlipYrWhig: My main objective with my vote is to help stop the four B boys. I love Warren, but I’m starting to think my best option may be Klobuchar. She’s rising rather than falling and has the best of both left and center, pragmatic but seems to genuinely recognize people are hurting.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
This infuriates me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mary G:
Yeah, inertia (tradition) along with a ton of media money is probably why
@Yutsano:
Also what you said.
@Kay:
I’d be interested to get a breakdown of those polled: AAs and by age group among them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: No green balloons, so I doubt it.
Sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): How did you do that multiple reply just now?
Ruckus
@Kent:
Well the republican party has been saying it for 50-60 yrs. Most of the people that live there have been hearing it for most or all of their lives. The midwesterners are the hard working people, salt of the earth and everyone else is a drug using wino who wants free stuff. Of course a lot of those hard working states have a negative flow of federal tax dollars, compared to those blue states but logic is not a mainstay of republican thought, while bullshit is.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: Those midwesterners need to wake up and look around and try to notice the Guatemalans and Salvadorans who actually are the only ones contributing to the population of their states, while the white folks’ kids all move to Brooklyn.
Ruckus
@Sab:
Click reply and the leave a comment box opens.
Click the X in the upper right corner and it closes without deleting what’s in the box.
Click reply to another comment and add content.
Click X again – so on and so forth.
Finally when you are done, post comment.
I have no idea how many times you can do that but that’s how it’s done.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Steve Kornacki
@SteveKornacki
Among black voters: Biden 36% Sanders 20% Steyer 17% Warren 7% Bloomberg 5%* Buttigieg 4% Gabbard 1% Klobuchar 1%
Bloomberg isn’t on the ballot in SC, but they polled him anyway.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Steyer at 14%—WTF?! Someone explain that to me.
Martin
@Ruckus: We have a whole valley of people out here who would generally consider your average farmer to be a bit of a slacker.
“You spent 10 hours milking 200 cows? Swell. I invented a laser that will shoot mosquitos out of the air and prevent a million cases of malaria annually. Tomorrow I’ll invent some other new thing. You’ll just milk the same 200 cows again.”
Elizabelle
@Sab: You’re going to love it. Proud of you!
Martin
@Steeplejack: 17% actually. Same dynamic as Bloomberg – old white guy with too much money, but one who is actually on the ballot.
J R in WV
@JPL:
We can!
But the DOJ won’t do that until after the next Democratic President is inaugurated! Right now the DOJ is an arm of the Re-Elect Donald John Trump Campaign, and there is really nothing we can do about that. Perhaps promise A G Barr he will pay for inappropriate actions as A G…
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I lived in OH for 11 yrs. Since I left, 15 yrs ago the population has grown about 1 to 1 1/2 million. CA in the same time has grown almost 4 times the % of OH. TX has grown a higher % than CA.
The midwest is going nowhere, no big industries are going to move in because of weather and workforce, and who wants to move there?
What the hell does heartland even mean?
debbie
@A Ghost To Most:
Trump’s campaign song? Really?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Oddly enough, Carter won the 18-30 vote, he lost all the other age groups.
zhena gogolia
OT, it’s Simon Pegg’s 50th birthday!
Kent
The actual JOB of the next president will be: 49% International Affairs. Traveling the world to repair our shredded alliances, the Paris agreement, NATO, middle east, Korea, China, etc, and 49% Executive Branch Management. Repairing the absolute wreckage Trump will have left in every single executive branch agency from Justice and State to the EPA and Education. Ripping out Trump regulations and executive orders, repopulating gutted departments, rooting out political hacks and at least isolating them, etc. Only about 2% of the effort and focus will be on big legislative initiatives. That’s Pelosi and Schumer’s job. And all the committee chairs where big policy originates and gets analyzed, evaluated, and developed.
I think both Warren and Klobuchar would be equally good at both of those jobs. I don’t have a strong favorite. I do think Warren might make stronger cabinet appointments which is important and Klobuchar might make more traditional centrist ones. But that’s only a guess. A lot of that will depend on whether we have the Senate or not.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: Or they will invent a machine that using advanced imaging can tell the difference between crop and weed and move through the rows electrostatically killing the weeds, thus reducing even more the personnel per acre of crop needed.
Oh, wait, those machines have already been invented.
Farming needs fewer and fewr people every year. That trend isn’t changing.
Ruckus
@Martin:
A cow story.
Being discharged from the Navy, you have to go up the chain of command to the XO and have everyone sign a paper. The XO, sort of a pompous ass, was signing mine and handing it to me, he stated, “You’ll be back, your kind always comes back.” My response to him was, “I have a friend whose family owns a large dairy company and they have 5 ranches/milking locations and every one of the cows in those 5 locations shits constantly, 7 days a week. I’ll work every day till my last one, shoveling cow shit, rather than come back here and work for people like you.” And then I walked out, handed the clerk the paper and walked off the gangplank for the last time. Cow shit would be better. I’d only been on that ship for a month, that was about 2 yrs too long.
DivF
@Ruckus:
@Sab:
Nice! Thanks.
Kent
Not really. He won the 18-21 age group 45-44 with 11 voting for Anderson. He tied the 21-29 age group 44-44 with 11 going to Anderson. It looks like a lot of the youth vote shifted to Anderson as he got higher percentage of youth than any other age group.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1980
debbie
@J R in WV:
She should get points for stopping her brother from trying to get Fred’s entire estate solely for himself.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
I keep forgetting to tell you that, since you liked Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, you should check out Paul, another good Simon Pegg movie. Better than the previews indicated. Kristen Wiig is very funny as an accidentally kidnapped/rescued fundamentalist.
Martin
@Gin & Tonic: Nope. Same applies to manufacturing.
Watched American Factory. It was good. Couldn’t help but notice that none of those workers were excited about the new job or about it once they had it. It was a paycheck.
Surely we as a species can do better than a lot of these jobs. Let the robots do them and let people do stuff we would appreciate.
Kent
@Kay: This is a much better picture of South Carolina than just a single one-off poll:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/south-carolina/
Martin
@Ruckus: You would love my dad. Had similarly fond memories of being in the Navy. Was a similar smart-ass.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve been binge watching The Crown so this made me LOL!
@Yutsano: Unfortunately according to that Root opinion piece earlier African Americans are already betting on Bloomberg as their second choice. FSM help us.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Obamacare is killing middle class people who don’t have the employer based healthcare, have pre-existing conditions and can’t get subsidies like me. Don’t get me wrong, Obamacare has saved lives and that’s awesome. But we can do better
JMG
@Kent: Is the Democrat willing to act like Trump to negate Trump? If not, they will fail. One big reason I am against Bernie.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: OK, you found a finer breakdown than I’d seen, my point still is accurate.
Marcopolo
This caught my eye:
Baud
@Marcopolo:
WE HAD OUR CHANCES! COME BACK, BULLOCK!!!
Gelfling 545
I get how the “leaning” guy feels. You’re convinced but all those other people? Thing is you can only vote on your own behalf so vote your choice. If we don’t try we automatically lose.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Kay: Effin Steyer taking primary votes he won’t use in the long run that Warren and Klobuchar could earn…ugh.
Kent
We need to staff up the executive branch with cabinet secretaries and departmental heads who are the Dem version of John Bolton. Experienced bureaucratic knife fighters who know where all the skeletons are buried and who know how to manage the bureaucratic process to get shit done. For example, as a former regulations specialist (I wrote big fisheries and environmental regulations for NOAA) I know that the Trump people most certainly cut a bazillion corners in their rush to turn the Federal government over to oil companies, mining companies, and polluters. It will take managers with balls to simply do things like pull back Trump regulations with a finding that they were improperly promulgated in violation of NEPA or the APA or some procedure and just declare them tossed in the shredder to the shrieks of the affected industries. And then just start back over where we were back in 2016.
My fear with Sanders is that he would put a bunch of outsider purity ponies into federal agencies who will do lots of press releases and photo ops and talk about how they are installing solar panels on top of the EPA building or some such shit. But they won’t know how to actually get shit done, or how much pushing and corner cutting it is going to take.
My fear with the Buttigieg types is that they will be all process oriented, and instead of just ripping out the Trump garbage by the roots, they will convene 400 town halls through the midwest and spend 6 years on a listening tour where it is mostly just corporate lobbyists showing up. And then after years of process and negotiation with “stakeholders” they will land 1/2 way back to where we were in 2016 before Trump. The trump people get it. None of those people on the other side of the negotiating table are going to vote for you anyway. Just use your power when you have it to do the shit that needs to be done. Because the power is fleeting. Way too many Obama initiatives were still trickling through the “process” in year 8 of the Obama administration, only to be pulled back by Trump before they even took effect.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: Obamacare isn’t killing those people, the people who voted for trump or “couldn’t bring themselves” to vote for HRC are (Sorry, Sarandon spoke at a rally today and her name is infesting twitter)
Only if we take the Senate. You’re in AZ? how does Kelly look from the ground?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Another point in favor of Bloomberg.
Kay
@Kent:
Yeah, I look at 538. Biden trending down, Bernie trending up, 1 and 2.
Bernie could win Nevada and come in 2nd in SC. That’s a strong showing and they aren’t white states.
I’m a Warren supporter and Sanders drives me crazy but I don’t think the narrative on Sanders is accurate. He polls higher with Latinos than any of the others. Warren has to do better than single digits in these states.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: “Damn it Janet!”
Kay
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
Our primary voters are zany. No telling with these people. Ugh. I hate surprises.
Kent
@Kay: Sanders has had 4 years to build organizations in those states. Warren has not. I don’t know how she catches up without some big momentum shifting event. On paper she should have done better in Iowa and NH and that is hard to overcome. I think Buttigieg has sucked up a lot of her natural constituency. Sigh. I mean he is running an Amazing campaign and some of my lefty type Facebook friends are tilting towards him. But I have a sinking feeling that Trump would beat him like a crippled puppy. And I don’t see where he has the massive media operation and surrogates and machine to stand up to the tidal wave of online filth that would be coming his way.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I was thinking about this on my walk today– because that’s how far gone I am in my political junkie-dom: Who would be Sanders’ campaign surrogates? Can you imagine Mark Warner, or Debbie Stabenow, or Michael Bennet campaigning for him? “Well, I may not agree with Bernie’s major campaign proposals on health care or foreign policy, but…” Michael Moore? Nina Turner? AOC is IMHO the most talented politician in the bunch, but as the above-discussed muddle about health suggests, she’s high on her own supply and gets carried away on jejune tangents. I foresee a lot of ‘clarifying’ tweets about how Chuck Todd and even Chris Hayes are “misrepresenting” her views by airing quotes and clips in their entirety
Baud
@Kay: OT. NBC Nightly News is doing an expose on active shooter drills.
Gin & Tonic
The question with Bloomberg is how many Trump-2106 voters does he draw away. People who are now embarrassed, but who want a “businessman” type, just not one who is obviously a moron. I, in fact, know a bunch of these types – middle-class middle-aged white guys who went “eww” at the prospect of HRC and would do the same with SPW, might have voted for Romney, but are not cultists. I submit there’s a significant number of these guys. Does that number outweigh the lifelong Democratic types like you find here who will be sufficiently turned off by Bloomberg that they’ll sit on their hands?
Again, the stakes in 2020 are essentially the future of the USA.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“It’s important to vote for the lesser evil.”
ETA: Bernie 2020: It’s a negotiating tactic!
Kay
@Kent:
I think so too, and I agree- I don’t think he can win the general.
Kay
@Baud:
Thanks.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Steyer is 3rd and was at 19%? What kind of weird-ass place is that?
debbie
@Baud:
The ones where children have gotten shot at in scenarios? Sick.
Kay
@Kent:
My husband think it will be Bloomberg v Bernie /Trump which he characterizes as “three NYer’s” :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic:
anecdata but I have seen/heard a lot of women, of all ages (if of pretty uniform hue), say things about trump’s business (cough) experience being good for the country, including, now that I think of it Roseann DeMoro (former executive with a large nurses’ union, now a Grande Kazoo in the Bernie Cult) who once said trump would implement single-payer because as a businessman he would see what the numbers spelled out. “Run the country like a business” is a hard-dying myth– though I could be sold on consolidating a lot of small, inefficient divisions (seven or eight Plains states) being consolidated into two electoral votes.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Mayor Pete holding an event downtown right now, and I’m here typing instead. My kid had signed up but decided on track practice instead. Feel the Petementum!
To be fair she saw him already in fall and as she puts “Got to pet him” and this crowd will be a lot bigger.
Baud
@debbie: The NEA and one other organization issued a report on the drills. I didn’t really pay attention.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I know he’s sworn six ways of Sunday to support the Dem nominee, but I’ll believe he’s not setting up an indie run when the filing deadlines are past
Kay
@trollhattan:
I read he blanketed SC with ads. It really is a crazytown primary.
Kraux Pas
Most overrated city in the world.
Ohio Mom
Now the Bloomberg campaign just called for Ohio Son!
They are now out of registered Democrats at this address, hopefully that’s it but I suspect they will be calling back. And back.
No one else has called us, at least directly. There’s been a few survey calls, one of them very clearly a push poll for one of the candidates for county commissioner.
Our primary is March 17, so a month more of this.
debbie
@Baud:
I believe it was the AFT (“the other teachers’ union”).
Baud
@Ohio Mom: Good thing you don’t have triplets.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
I don’t pick up my phone anymore, but whoever has been calling me isn’t leaving a message. I’m getting more stuff for local races instead.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But…he promised!
trollhattan
@Kay:
In my never-gonna-happen dreamworld Steyer and Bloomberg take John Roberts out for a nice dinner and show him in a cause/effect balls/strikes kind of way how money directly buys poll percentage points and thus, votes. It’s laid bare right now, for us to all see and blanche at
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: I’m guessing that Steyer’s on the TV machine a lot(like here in CA).
sheldon vogt
@Dopey-o: The close we get to a Thomas Dolby campaign song, the better.
J R in WV
So I see this FTFNYTs headline on Google News:
Someone thinks the Border Patrol has elite tactical strike teams to deploy!! Because they have so many armed border crossing groups of mothers and children to deal with. Like Seal Teams. Only stupid and slow and ignorant.
Another Scott
@Ohio Mom: The local NPR station (WAMU) had a report on the drive home that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has endorsed ex-Mayor Mike and that there have been phone polls asking people what they would think about her being his VP.
A whole slew of carts before his horse, there… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
Nevertheless, she persisted.
topclimber
@Cacti: Don’t ever accentuate the positive. Wouldn’t want to think that someone of AOC’s stature in Bernie World might be nudging him toward reality, now would we? Quick, to the BashMobile!
Your use of the term histrionics will no doubt endear you to many feminists. Nor will your math skills impress the logical among us. AOC only took office 13 months ago. This does not equal two years.
debbie
@J R in WV:
These are the guys who grabbed Elian Gonzalez. Can’t wait for those optics. //
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@topclimber:
only the ones who don’t know what the words means, and confuse it with “hysterics”
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
I saw it on television once. It was cute. (Not a masterpiece like Hot Fuzz, of course.)
topclimber
@Kent: You are largely right, but you forget the other top Presidential Role–using the Bully Pulpit.
Not the pulpit of a bully, a la Trump. Rather, that of a leader who inspires the nation (or at least reassures it), and connects the dots of an agenda she shares with Congress. No doubt this role overlaps in your foreign policy and executive cleanup percentages, but I peg it as at least 25% of the job.
Feathers
Late to the thread, but I think the whole “white feminist” hate on has really hurt Warren. I follow film and ADHD twitter and this drumbeat is just constant. I think that for a whole swath of young women (and men), there is a huge mistrust of not only the “neo-liberals,” but any feminist woman who predates the intersectional age. It’s just so sad.
And the whole “called herself Native” theme is the nail in the coffin for them. “But it’s what her family told her.” “Doesn’t matter. That shit hurts people and she hasn’t apologized.” “But she has.” “Not to me.” Sigh.
Steeplejack (phone)
@topclimber:
How so? It has nothing to do with hysteria, if that’s what you’re suggesting. It’s derived from Latin histrionicus, “theatrical,” and histrio “actor.”
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What you said.
Baud
@Steeplejack (phone):
That’s hysterical.
Cacti
@topclimber: Tissue?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
Why, I oughta—?
Martin
@Ohio Mom: Someone is building a general election voter list. No calls here in CA yet.
Cacti
@Baud:
Whereas topclimber’s post was a histrionic response to the use of histrionic.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I say it means overly dramatic. Often a slur against women in my part of the country. And good response to the jist of my post.
topclimber
@Steeplejack (phone): Means overly dramatic, right? Ever heard a woman put down as such?
topclimber
@Cacti: Tissue to you too.
topclimber
@Cacti: And yours was a complete dodge of the gist of the comment. Keep hating on Bernie, cause you seem to feast on negativity.
Dan B
@Kent: To your point on racial justice and midwestern white guys there’s a long article in Medium: Here’s a Comprehensive List of South Bend’s Efforts Towards Racial Justice and Equality Under Pete Buttigieg, by JS.
It’s a long list with photos. It’s s different narrative than we’ve heard from Michael Harriot and The Intercept.
Seems to suggest that half truths can get around the world before the full story can get its pants on.
CarolPW
@topclimber:
I wouldn’t recommend arguing with a literalist, foolish or not. And it’s gist.
topclimber
@Baud: Quick response as usual. Did you have an opinion about the gist of the comment–namely, why folks are so eager to bash a sign of reasonableness in the Bernie coaltion?
Cacti
Will do.
Don’t you have a participation trophy to collect somewhere?
Mayur
@trollhattan: In my fantasy world a Dem wins the White House and Steyer and Bloomberg pay someone to poison Roberts’, Kavanaugh’s, and Alito’s communion wine.
Baud
@topclimber:
I have zero trust or confidence in the Bernie coalition.
Kent
@Dan B: We keep getting told that we need to listen to the Black folk when it comes to our Dem candidates. Then when I try to do that it was apparently the wrong black folk?
I’m only being half facetious. I’m sure all the Dem candidates have lots of good shit they can point to in their records. Even slim records like Buttigieg and Sanders.
The real question is why Black folk don’t seem to be taking to our upper Midwest “heartland’ candidates. I found the answer enlightening.
topclimber
@Cacti: Good response on the gist of the comment.
Cacti
@topclimber: Racist.
topclimber
@Baud: Does that include AOC?
Baud
@topclimber: While she’s shilling for Bernie, yes.
topclimber
@Cacti: Racist back at you.
topclimber
@Baud: Fair enough. But perhaps you could share what you like about her, sans Sanders.
Kent
@Kay: Your husband thinks that either Bernie or Bloomberg are going to run as 3rd party? Or that they will be the final 2 Dem candidates in the primary? Which I could actually see happening in which case I’d vote for Bloomberg and hope to hell he picks a young charismatic running mate who would be our likely next president.
Baud
@topclimber:
Why?
Kent
@Baud: I don’t even know what the Bernie coalition is. Besides AOC, who is in it? I mean actual people with the power to do things, not Michael Moore or Susan Sarandon or Rose Twitter.
topclimber
@Baud: Why not? Seriously, don’t you think we should praise the praiseworthy? Ok if you don’t. But what a waste of such an influential voice on BJ.
Baud
@topclimber:
Why would I randomly praise anyone? If a front pager puts up a post about something good she did, I’ll comment as the context warrants.
topclimber
@Kent: A cadre of supporters who will be a key to beating Trump, if the purity ponies among them and the over-the top Wilmer haters don’t f–k it up.
topclimber
@Baud: I await that moment.
RedDirtGirl
@Kay: it’s a huge deal to have a married gay man in the race. That is a victory in and of itself.
Kay
@Kent:
This.
But I’d vote Bernie over Bloomberg in that. It’s not even close. Bloomberg is a bridge too far for me outside of a catastrophic emergency. I just get no sense of any appreciation for civil liberties or small “d” democracy from him. I’m not as strict on pure D Democrat as a lot of you but I have to insist on small d democrat.
RedDirtGirl
@J R in WV: I assume they have been upgraded with military gear, just like all the other law enforcement groups in our country. Always looking to expand the market for all that weaponry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think I see a sea lion!
Ruckus
@Martin:
Smart ass is my default personality. I try often to hide it but it pops up at either the most inopportune, or, perfect time. Can never tell which ahead of time. That may be the smart ass side.
And really, if you understand the concept and the job the military isn’t bad, it’s just a lot different than real life and there are/were a lot of people who seemingly stay(ed) in because mediocrity is often a cherished trait. Not too stupid to get stuff done, not too much of a smart ass to get in the way. But I also got out a long time ago and have no idea if it’s the same. From some of the lifers when I was in I got the impression that little had changed since the advent of rope and sails but like a lot of life, much may have changed
And I forgot to thank you for the compliment – thanks!
Kent
@Kay: I think they would both be a disappointment as president. For different reasons. I think Sanders would set back progressive ideals for a generation and inspire a tea party wave that would make the last bunch look like a PTA meeting. I think Bloomberg would be more of a status quo placeholder who would bring back a lot of Timothy Geithner high finance types to run the government in a technocrat sort of way.
The VP pick would be more important than any in our lifetime. And I think a placeholder technocratic Bloomberg presidency would set the stage for a continued Dem majority in 2024 and beyond better than a lightning rod Sanders presidency where every dumbshit thing one of his young lefties in government does will be amplified 1000x over. Obama had INCREDIBLE message discipline in his administration and a lot of very competent loyal folks who just worked hard and didn’t pose. I expect the opposite from the Sanders crowd.
I guess a younger competent candidate in the prime of their life who can put together an 8-year run like Clinton or Obama is just too much to ask from the universe right now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Also, Bloomberg has a good chance of wining, Bernie would be crushed.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well yes. There’s that too
I think the wet dream opponent for the Trumpers is either Sanders or Buttigieg. Both of them will be utterly overmatched against the tsunami of sewage waiting to be unleashed.
Kay
@Kent:
Bernie Sanders has been in Congress forever. He’s a senator. He’ll be a bad President because he’ll be a bad executive but he’s no revolutionary. He’s in the senate screwing around with all their archaic rules like all the rest of them. He’s not even a particularly combative senator.
RedDirtGirl
@Cacti: 2. But I also feel exasperation with people like AOC, and those on the “left” who think Diane Feinstein is a regressive dinosaur ? . There is such a tension between the “aspirational “ and the “nuts-and-bolts” approach. We need both, and they should work together in tandem against the real enemy.
@debbie: 1. You are likely long gone at this point in the thread, but I appreciated your point about getting off before things go sideways. The negativity can be daunting.
Kent
@Kay: Maybe I’m wrong. But I have an image of his administration full of a bunch of Nina Turner, AOC and Michael Moore Bernie Bro types with little actual experience in government. Who, instead of actually getting down to the hard slog of unwinding 4 years of Trump, they will be off tweeting and doing photo ops promoting feel-good lefty initiatives that don’t accomplish much and have no permanence. Like composting in the Bronx or something. At least judging by how he runs his campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@RedDirtGirl:
In fairness, I think DiFi had a dinosaur as a pet when she was a child.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, she’s basically the female Joe Biden. California could do better at this point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: in my wool-gathering moments, I sometimes wonder who he would pick as Veep? Who would be deemed acceptable? Who would accept? I could see him asking Warren, I think it was Jeff Merkley who endorsed him last time, but… two white guys? and then… I run out of ideas
JGabriel
Monica Hesse Via Anne Laurie @ Top:
I do, starting with that it’s okay for me, being a male, to say that, but seemingly not okay for a woman?
But more importantly, we’ve had 8 male presidents in the past 50 years: 5 of them totally sucked, while 2 of them were problematic (a one-termer Dem, and an impeached serial philanderer). That means that we’ve only had ONE male president in the past 50 years who was Democratic, re-electable, and unimpeachably faithful to his spouse.
For fuck’s sake – for the goddamned country’s sake – can we at long last please, please, please, finally put a woman in charge!?!?!?
I am fucking sick and fed up to here of the goddamn American presidency being a fucking sausage party.
jnfr
I filled out my primary ballot for Elizabeth Warren and we’ll take them to the library tomorrow.
Colorado has a really sane voting system, and I wish everyone did.
Jinchi
I agree. Even if Bernie is as incompetent as many of the BJ commenters believe, he isn’t actively contemptuous of civil liberties in the way that Bloomberg and the Republicans are. I’ll take a Jimmy Carter disfunctional presidency over a Richard Nixon autocratic one if it comes to that.
RedDirtGirl
@Kent: I remember the big to-do when she “lectured” the Sunrise Movement teen.
Sturgeonmouth
Democrats supporting Bloomberg are akin to evangelicals supporting Trump, throwing away their values for a “win”. I don’t get it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sturgeonmouth: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85 years old and has a history of serious health problems. Stephen Breyer is, I believe, 80.
Martin
@Ruckus: My dad appreciated that submarines kept him out of Vietnam. That was the extent of his appreciation. He bailed as soon as he could.
Don’t get me wrong – he learned a lot about life, about himself. Made some good friends. Found that peaceful place where no matter how shitty things were, he could recall being in a shittier place. And yeah, didn’t have to shoot at anyone or get shot at.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nina Turner is ready
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I was wondering when and how the Russians would be chiming in.
Baud
@Sturgeonmouth: Evangelicals didn’t throw away their values supporting Trump.
Dan B
@Kraux Pas: So, here goes. In my yoot in the 70’s and early 80’s there were some guys who really got the egalitarian breaking the dominance / submissive paradigm of coupling. Most became friends if not steady relationships. There were others who went for the ‘head of the house’ or macho / fem routine. Me, the backpacking, landscape construction, but not into sports, was a puzzle. Was I a fem or a top? And the attitudes to women and feminine guys ( frequently themselves… ) was awful. I call it internalized machismo misogyny.
It’s much less common, or obvious, in the last 30 years, more the exception – common but not dominant. But even in the late 60’s and 70’s it was clear that most people who came out had to reject the dominant paradigm. There was less rejection of “masculinity”, probably like your exe’s blindness to ‘bro’ culture. It would be interesting to compare 60’s gay culture to the aughts. For one thing there were many LGBT’s in the closet before 1980. I met too many guys who would not kiss because that would “make them gay”. They viewed sex as “relief” from their urges. Kissing would make them gay and that implied that you had “girly” feelings instead of “manly” hot sex drive. Physical and emotional intimacy were divorced from each other in this worldview. It felt suffocating – adopting the beliefs and behaviors of a society that was happy to eliminate your humanity or even you existence.
Enuf rambling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sturgeonmouth: also, as with “working class”, there’s a word missing when you talk about “Evangelicals” supporting trump.
debbie
@RedDirtGirl:
Well, here I am, listening to Townes van Zandt and catching up. Thanks!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Martin: Biden will not be the nominee.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jinchi: He voted to keep GITMO open.
You don’t really think an 80 year old Socialist, who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, who wants to take everyone health care away (which even Unions are against), who just survived a massive heart attack is electable, do you?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Kent: Disagree Biden was completely supportive of Barack Obama, while Feinstein went on every Sunday show to undermine him.
Another Scott
Robyn Pennacchia at Wonkette:
:-/
Only in America, Be Best Healthcare In The World!!1
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris Johnson
The thing I’m wondering tonight is this. I could see Bernie being the Russian plant people have said he is, IF he picks Tulsi Gabbard as a veep (…if he even gets the chance). If he did that thing, I’d know it was all true and I would not be able to vote in the general election.
Under what circumstances would it make sense that Mike Bloomberg is also another secret Putin henchman?
If you look at his behavior and history, you see that HE is in fact the feared ‘Republican with slicker moves who would complete the move to a totalitarian state’ that people talk about when they say Trump isn’t the worst of all possible worlds. The BEST we could hope for is that his militarized police would throw both black and white people against the walls to frisk ’em, rather than just only black people as he’s done. Nobody is suggesting that he would not have police throwing people up against the walls on any whim or suspicion: we give him a pass because he is not Trump and it’s in the interests of gun control.
We assume because he plausibly does not need money from Putin to be doing all this (unlike Trump) that he’s clean, but he is the ally of oligarchy and will do whatever is necessary to further it. Now, look at how well Trump is working out for Putin right now. Wouldn’t it be much nicer for Putin to work with someone who is not so batshit crazy and uncontrollable? Wouldn’t he be really about ready to turn things over to, not a puppet, but more of a partner? Bloomberg has been pro-Russian quite a bit. And dropping his mask of Trump to take on a mask of Bloomberg means Putin gets to maintain a sort of control through a massive, democracy-ruining upheaval. We lose our country to authoritarianism, and Putin gets to firm up relationships with a fellow autocrat who talks the language of mega-capital, and they both continue trampling their respective ‘citizens’ to the profit of both.
Obviously Bloomberg is not ‘in the pay of’ Putin, but Trump was, and look how well that’s working: the man is off the rails and incapable of staying on message. Bloomberg will put out any message you like, believing none of it (probably excepting climate change, but that just makes him passably intelligent). Bloomberg can turn America into Russia West, far more effectively than Trump ever could, because he would be doing it from inside the only other organization that can manage the country, and the Republicans are completely controlled by Putin. If he can work with Putin, he can do literally anything he wants, and if he believed in democracy or government or America, he wouldn’t be actively moving to buy and dismantle it.
So: Bloomberg. Obvious Putin ally seeking to dismantle democracy and install permanent authoritarianism?
Sturgeonmouth
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So, with Bloomberg, we will get one or maybe two pro-choice, corporate friendly Republican justices? Yippee.
Lymie
I heard a good argument for Elizabeth: no one who voted for Hilary is going to vote for Trump. Elizabeth only has to get a few more votes in a few key states to win.
Eolirin
@Kent: My bigger concern is that they’d be actively hostile toward Democrats and blame every failure to enact impossible and unpopular progressive policies on the party, even and especially, when it’s the Republicans blocking progress. Because that’s the kind of person he’s surrounded himself with in his campaign, it’s how he’s tended to act personally, and it’s the only way he can keep his core supporters. His brand is grievance.
So bad excutive, staffed with bad hires, who are generally incompetent and blame the party for everything that goes wrong.
I don’t think it just puts the progressive agenda back decades, I think it has a good chance of burning the party to the ground.
Bloomberg is also terrifying. And he’s extremely competent, which is possibly worse, given why he’s terrifying. I think Kay’s right and a Bloomberg presidency is quite possibly the end of democracy.
Trouble is, if Sanders manages to win, and it plays out as bad as I fear, the Democrats won’t be an effective party and the Republicans will do the same thing but worse anyway. We desperately need it to not be one of those two. I think a brokered convention is our best hope at this point, with a prayer that the BernieBro segment of the Sanders supporters don’t burn everything down when he’s denied the nomination because he can’t get the other candidates or the super delegates to back him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Lymie: Possibly true, but some just might not vote.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: also:
and: a lot of right-wingers stayed home or wrote in Romney thinking trump would be an economic populist or let Ivanka pick judges. They like what they’ve seen in the last three years
Kent
Sort of the same as Biden yelling at people in his town halls.
I didn’t mean to say that they are carbon copies. Only that they are both old and increasingly out of touch, having been cloistered in the top echelon of government with staff protecting access to them and doing everything for them for the past 30+ years.
Kent
@Eolirin: If it is any of the 3 “B”s, Biden Bloomberg, or Bernie, then their VP pick becomes the most important VP pick in a century. Because whoever that person is, will most likely be the nominee in 2024 and could quite possibly be taking over before then.
I trust Biden and probably Bloomberg to pick a sensible competent VP with widespread appeal, like a Klobuchar, Harris, Booker, etc. I don’t trust Bernie to do the same. He is enough of a stubborn asshole to pick someone unelectable in 2024, who will nonetheless have 4 years to marshall his entire army of twits and bots behind his/her campaign and suck up all the oxygen for 2024 and beyond. Assuming that a Bernie ticket with some leftist firebrand would actually beat Trump.
MoCA Ace
She is Michelle Obama with more ambition and attitude… I love them both.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Almost no submarines for me (another story for another time) but otherwise seems about the same here. I did have some risk of being shot at or having to shoot someone, a pretty damn small risk but still, I did carry a loaded weapon on watch in port for 2 yrs. But I never had to do anything but walk around. I did get to see a bit of Europe, which was nice. And most important, it gave me the VA.
Ruckus
@Chris Johnson:
I may be wrong here but it seems like you are giving vlad more credit than he is due. He is trying to do with election fraud and supporting trump, what he couldn’t do militarily. Tear this country apart. Bloomberg may not be a democrat but he is smarter than a 25 yr old Tootsie Roll and he knows that his 50 billion was made in a capitalistic country – a reasonable democracy, not whatever it is that Russia has become or that trump is trying to turn this one into. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not a Bloomberg fan and don’t think he would be the president that we need but I’d be pretty amazed if he was a vlad plan or has anything to do with him. OTOH he does have a lot of business dealings in Russia, so……..
trump is also a demented fucking asshole and has been his entire life. As I’ve said before the shit didn’t fall very far from the asshole – Fred.
Ruckus
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Don’t need to remind you who is president do I?
Stranger things have happened. Do I need to remind you that vlad very likely doesn’t care who sits in the oval office as long as the country is incapable of getting it’s shit into anything resembling a pile. He may desire BS as an offset to trump and to piss off the entire right side of the country. It may not make much difference if BS or trump is in the office as long as both are inefficient, just from different directions.
Morzer
@Eolirin:
I think a Sanders presidency begins with much self-righteous over-promising and advocacy of simple-minded solutions, continues with utter failure to achieve anything and increasing rage from the cultists, ends with Bernie raving against the Democrats who didn’t sign on for the Vermont Unicorn Production economic plan and the Democratic party burning to the ground with the Bernie Bros throwing gasoline on the flames because their hero was “betrayed”.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Ruckus: There’s a double standard in the corporate media and among the public against Democrats.
Imagine the unmitigated feeding frenzy if Bill Clinton was sleeping with porn stars and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal hush money. But when a republican does it, it barely registers a blimp on their radar. republicans get a free pass on acts that would politically kill any democrat. Look at the different treatment btwn Duncan Hunter and Katie Hill. Look at how they get away with massive, staggering deficits (starting with raygoon), yet a national panic ensues on the issue every time a Democratic is elected. So I have no doubt Wilmer would get politically killed on his crap.