I wrote about the big man's enduring dedication to The Bullshit, and how much he wishes us ill. https://t.co/KudnSqrdjB
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) July 22, 2020
I guess TNR isn’t conclusively dead yet:
It’s not nearly the same thing as getting used to it, but there is by now an identifiable rhythm to the Trump presidency. That rhythm is jittery, chaotic, and atonal, just one squashed-flat brown note after another. But as the Trump presidency bumbles from one skronking improvisational tantrum to the next, there is also a discernible pattern. Trump only knows how to play a few notes, but he absolutely fucking lives to make noise. And for better or worse, the sounds the man makes are distinctive, to the point where there’s both a bleak comedy and buried burlesque in his staffers’ game attempts to replicate his usual bombast and peevy rhetorical curlicues in his more overtly ghostwritten tweets.
This is what it means to elect an absolutely finished man—someone who cannot grow or care or even reconcile himself to any new thing—to a job like the presidency. Everything Trump does sounds the same, because whether it happens on Twitter or in the quintuple-byline newspaper stories about bleary behind-the-scenes White House upbraidings, it fundamentally is the same. Trump will always and only be upset about the same things in the same stupid way; he will stay mad about them even as the country shudders and cracks around him. It will never be any way but this for him, because Donald Trump will never be any way but this.
Every day unfolds in the shadow of this sour and soggy fact—that recursive and stubborn idiocy is at the heart of why the federal government has effectively and intentionally abandoned the management of a (still) rampaging pandemic because the president thinks it’s both boring and a loser of a campaign issue. This blank, militant incomprehension of the world at large is also the chief explanation for the new battalions of uniformed state agents loyal only to the president who’ve been dispatched to kidnap and gas protesters in American cities because the president saw statues being toppled on the news. Living with the knowledge that we’re being governed by a bottomly malicious dope who actively and openly wishes much of the country ill is unsettling. There is a basic presumption of good faith built into the broader American project: Presidents might be right or wrong, but they are at least supposed to try. But that is not where we are, because that is not the kind of president we have. And so all of this is still very much being worked out from one moment to the next, as Americans try to figure out how to live in a country so manifestly abandoned.
That’s not really new work for many communities, but it is also a lot to try to pick up on the fly. Trump’s presidency has long played as a vicious satire of American politics in the way that it stripped every cheesy grift and smug savagery of its familiar euphemism and disguise: All the violence that previous administrations in both parties had justified with administrative static or ideological fuzz are now scuttling and swaggering hideously in the open. The long-standing technocratic debate over whether and how well it all “worked” was answered in the most unflattering way through the exposure of how it worked. What had once seemed a flawed but extant system grounded in variously compromised institutions was suddenly visible as a series of naked and individuated deals; “working” for any other purpose, least of all a rough approximation of the common good, was simply never the point…
Through it all, Trump’s tweets and damply volatile public presence have always been just what they were; the sheer bulk of the man’s damage has always crowded out subtext. There was never any chance that he would grow with or into his important new job, and he has never even suggested otherwise. He has had exactly the presidency that his public life would suggest—a brazen win, followed by an inevitable decline born of laziness and pure hubristic dipshittery, and finally a catastrophic and vehemently denied collapse. This is the story of his life, and the story of his presidency…
Searcher
You know the most goddamn disturbing thing about that picture of Trump?
Someone took it.
Just Trump deciding to do a thing, well, he’s fucking Trump, he’s going to do shitty, stupid, churlish, childish things.
But Trump told someone else what he wanted to do, and they said “OK”, took the picture, and helped him tweet it.
mad citizen
I read the whole thing. Very well written. Saw a new word: metronym. Like every article about that man: so F-ing depressing.
PsiFighter37
Cannot fucking wait until that shitstain is booted out of office. What will be more annoying is that asshat, once out of office, will continue tweeting and ruining everyone’s life by being present. I hope SDNY bags his ass and sends him to prison real quick.
rikyrah
Baud
I think Juicers understood Trump just fine as far back as 2016.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Why do they even ask the Trump people about schools? No schools are listening to them or following their dumb ass directions anyway. Really. There is literally no discussion of what Donald Trump’s employees say in the actual school planning. None. They’re not relevant to this problem.
laura
@rikyrah: a nation which requires active shooter training in schools instead of preventing school shootings is a nation that sends children to school in a pandemic.
Snarki, child of Loki
“I hope SDNY bags his ass and sends him to prison real quick.”
I hear that the Jeff Epstein Suite is available, and luxurious also, too.
Elizabelle
Another really well-reported read: WaPost reporter Hannah Dreier rode along with Huntsville AL 9-year police veteran Thomas Parker. How Huntsville PD is learning to deal with mental health calls. In North Huntsville, the officers are predominantly white and the community they serve is black.
Ms. Dreier joined the Post from ProPublica, where she won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing “for a year-long series on immigrants, gangs and mishandled law enforcement investigations.”
Excellent addition to the Post, and she writes a suspenseful and compelling story here. Sharp eye for detail.
WaPost: The worst-case scenario
Converging in a tense section of Huntsville: A white police officer fresh from de-escalation training, a troubled black woman with a gun, and a crowd with cellphones ready to record
I’ll put up some excerpts if you guys like, but this one deserves a click to read it in full.
Chetan Murthy
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Leave a noose in the cell, and wire it for cameras, 24/7 public streaming.
MattF
@Snarki, child of Loki: I suspect that Ms. Maxwell has a prior reservation for that room.
Kay
I had a mediation today with a Righty lawyer who is (reluctantly) voting for Biden. It was fun to laugh about it. So he exaggerates what it will be like just to tease me. He says with no police if he needs help I will send him to a “hippie tent” where a woman will give him water. So he sees the Biden Administration as sort of a national Phish concert. I’m a partisan so I get it- it’s tough to switch sides. I appreciate him both doing it and telling me he’s doing it and laughing about it. It cheered me up. +1 for the good guys.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I’m not crazy about this article. It has the usual world-weary cynicism about the whole “system,” as if there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats, they’re all part of the same corrupt capitalist bargain. Maybe so, BUT WE’RE IN A FIGHT TO THE DEATH AND WE NEED TO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY ARE BETTER.
Baud
@Kay:
Who leaked our plans?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I only skimmed it. Too many words.
MattF
The idea that Trump is, in fact, a stupid man constrained by a limited behavioral repertoire is not a new one. But it’s worth repeating, since, y’know, it’s true.
prostratedragon
@Searcher: That’s kind of the theme of Mary Trump’s book, which I recommend. Enabling his bad behavior and celebrating his (sub)mediocrity.
MobiusKlein
When I tell my 18 going on 32 year old daughter how Trump is so much worse than any president the US has had, she throws it right back in my face about how racist and violent the US was for so much of its history.
I do have a hard time saying “Yes, the Trail of Tears was bad, but this is different now somehow”
zhena gogolia
@prostratedragon:
I ordered the book just to support her, thinking I would probably not read it, but now that I’ve seen her react calmly and incisively to Meghan McCain, I’m looking forward to reading it.
zhena gogolia
@MobiusKlein:
Russian tactic. “What about?”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Elizabelle: A very good read. This cop is trying to be one of the good ones, and trying not to go first for shooting her. Even so, he recognizes that it could end that way. The fact that it didn’t is partly due to luck, but very much due to the fact that he was trained in de-escalation and had de-escalation rather than “kill somebody” on his mind.
But he also makes the case that it’s a lot to ask cops to make mental health assessments on their own, and they should have funding to bring along mental-health professionals and/or social workers along on calls like this.
Which is exactly the fucking point of “defund the police” that some cops are so upset about.
Kay
@MattF:
It’s a really cynical administration. They think the absolute worst about everyone and everything. I think it’s because they themselves are so bad they literally can’t imagine a good motive.
It runs through everything Trump says- his belief that people are horrible- wholly self-serving, dishonest, looking for an edge. Just a GRIM world view. It’s pure projection.
kindness
I saw the header of this article and I thought ‘Whow! Damn! Even David Lee Roth is ripping on Trump?’
In all honesty even he would run the country better than Trump.
Elizabelle
Alexandra Petri. WaPost: HomestyleFamilyRecipes.com will not cave to cancel culture
The Wall Street Journal editorial page apparently put up a doozie WRT cancel culture. My head hurts to much to read it right now. If they want to be at war with their reporting staff …
KenK
@Kay: Kay, nice story, but I’ll believe it if he actually ‘pulls the lever’ for Biden.
Baud
@MobiusKlein:
He’s not the worst president on terms of public policies, especially if you don’t account for societal progress over time. He’s the worst in terms of the mismatch between the person and the office.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Kay: Since police are funded by local government, how exactly do they think a Biden administration is going to make the police go away?
I’m seeing a lot of that idiotic “nobody answering the phone at 911” ad on YouTube and it always makes me want to go out and find a right-winger, and scream that question in their face.
Yutsano
OT: Jeebus they want a horserace so bad…
Baud
@Yutsano:
Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?
MattF
@Elizabelle: You can’t actually win an argument by invoking a ‘cancel culture’ defense. As Ms. Petri notes.
Ruckus
He hasn’t changed, he’s incapable of change, primarily because he thinks he’s the shit. Unfortunately he doesn’t read that the same way we do. Even in normal times this was not going to go well. The first 3 yrs did not gone well at all, and the last 6 months have gone far worse. His political concept is lacking every single thing that a democracy needs to function reasonably. No one needs to define what areas he’s lacking in, it’s every one of them. And he’s made a terrible political party far worse than it was, just by being him. I believe those of us who live through the pandemic can survive this absolute disaster of a presidential term, but that’s a lot of loss in human life for one shitty ego. Which is the only reason we are here. His shitty ego. OK and that of the shitty people who actually for some asinine reason believe in him, a proposition that defies all thought and logic.
MattF
@Yutsano: Policy, shmolicy.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I think Juicers understood Trump just fine as far back as 2016.
What we didn’t understand was how many hateful, ignorant bigots there were in our nation, nor how depraved our press/media are.
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yes.
Also, Officer Parker is honest enough to admit he kind of skated the day before; could have done better when Ivy was less volatile, but the mental health system is a revolving door. He seemed to think they would not keep her.
But: they met the bare minimum; checked the boxes for the call requirement. The next day, she’s waving a gun. And has small children in the home. On this call:
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I would argue that we should be sending social workers or mental health professionals instead of cops in cases like that. Even if they’re trained in deescalation, a cop is starting from a worse place because sending a cop is inherently perceived as an escalation.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: That’s rather the point of the story. It’s a great look at how “defunding” (ie. reallocating resources) might work.
And: Alabama. Badly underfunded, and very difficult to commit someone against their will.
Baud
You know who suffers from cancel culture? The people whose lives were cancelled because Trump didn’t take the virus seriously.
Kay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
He loathes Trump so he’s not persuaded by the ads- he’s just making fun of them. Not a PARTICULAR fan of police, either, and that predated Trump.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Not sure I’d agree with that, considering his dismantling of consumer and environmental regulations, damage and destruction of so many federal departments by the appointment of saboteurs, and disruption of many treaty obligations and other aspects of the country’s diplomatic position. Most of these things have roots or equivalents in earlier, mainly Republican, administrations, but Fractal Boy has put them into warp speed.
Of course, his personal unsuitability will be the stuff of legend for generations to come, and that too separates him from his nearest competition [G.W. Bush] in my opinion, and I’m dismayed to have to say.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Cynicism also tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you expect the worst from people, you treat them badly and provoke the exact kind of bad behavior you feared.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Some of our presidents, especially in the 19th Century, were absolutely grotesque, especially by modern standards.
Where Trump is uniquely bad is selling out America to foreign countries, especially adversaries. No other president has been in the Benedict Arnold league.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
A horse race is easy to call/write about. It’s right in front of you, you don’t have to do a lot of work and it doesn’t denigrate the stupider person running for office. But primarily it’s air time without a lot of actual work and it supposedly keeps the viewers glued to the TV. Oh and is supposed to create excitement in the population. It’s disgusting that supposedly educated people can’t fathom that a good portion of the population might actually have enough whatever to make their own decisions, that they can not just present the horses, warts and all and not attempt to make the obvious loser actually sound like a bet may be warranted. It’s tainted the entire federal election process.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
I don’t know about David Lee Roth, but Woke Axl Rose has come as a pleasant surprise.
SWMBO
This is different this time because WE CAN do something about it. Recognizing the past doesn’t change the need to recognize the present and DO something about it. If you want to dwell on past mistakes, and do nothing to recognize and change present mistakes, your whataboutism will doom you to fail to change.
@MobiusKlein:
NotMax
@Yutsano
Politics and poker, politics and poker
Playing for a pot that’s mediocre
Politics and poker, running neck and neck
If politics seems more predictable
That’s because usually you can stack the deck!
:) Source
Elizabelle
@Yutsano: I do not do Kornacki. But thanks!
Elizabelle
@Baud: I think Trump has done the most damage, most comprehensively, and most rapidly. He’s at warp speed, and we are in an even more interconnected world than that of the 19th and even early 20th centuries.
We have not had any previous president that I know of take a wrecking ball to the actual agencies, federal mission, oversight, the courts, treaties, and now the health of Americans during an unprecedented economic shutdown. Who lies, continuously. Who cares not for his responsibilities or citizens.
The rest was awful, but not at warp speed. And not on purpose.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Trump is probably the most influentially bad, whereas part bad presidents were more reflective of their time.
Citizen Alan
@MobiusKlein:
Try this: “Okay, picture Andrew Jackson … with nukes.”
geg6
@Elizabelle:
Me neither. I despise everything about his manufactured persona, his manic speaking and his bullshit about polls. He actually used to be a pretty good reporter back when he did actual journalism. What a waste.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Kornacki’s become a knob.
“Look – suppose half of California falls into the ocean and Massachusetts secedes. Then the numbers flip dramatically, to this result. So it’s still anybody’s race.”
Kay
We’re seeing above 50 pretty regular now. The base is probably 38 so the number in the middle needs to narrow.
Kay
@geg6:
I don’t like him either and it felt ungenerous because I don’t really know why. I cannot listen to him. I never liked that barrage way of speaking. Maybe that’s it.
trollhattan
@Kay:
I’ll allow as to how Biden may be the right candidate at this particular time because it’s difficult for Trump-hating former Trump voters to come up with a rationale not to vote for the Democrat “just this once.” If it were a woman–any of them–she’d be “just not that one.”
If we make it to November.
Baud
@Kay:
Alf Landon got 36.5% against FDR. Let’s beat that.
dexwood
@laura: Thumbs up from me for this comment. Republicans are always quick to sacrifice the children of others.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
The problem is that some people really are mentally ill and can be not at all what one might expect, even one reasonably trained. I’ve said here before that I was a mental health counselor for 3 1/2 yrs and that was answering calls to the center, and seeing people in person – clients. One day we had a walk in, a seemingly nice guy, said he needed to talk. I had an hour so gave him a session. I’ve been in some tough places, had my share (or more!) of tough situations, this is one that is at the top of the heap. Guy was about 3 inches taller and out weighed me by probably 50-60 lbs. The rooms were situated so that the counselor sat with their backs to the door, a lot harder to get trapped in the room with someone like this guy. As he started talking he got more and more wound up, with or without me saying anything. I was positive that he could have attacked me at any moment. At the end of our time he didn’t want to leave. I have no idea if he would have attacked a woman or not and my point is that while a mental health professional will probably know better how to defuse a situation rather than end it with an arrest or a dead body, one never knows what will happen. Cops expect the worst and often make it that way, an irrational person is called irrational for a reason. That guy I spent one of the scariest hours of my life with? He’d lied to me about being a patient of a shrink and only told me at the end. If he had told me up front I wouldn’t have been allowed to talk to him, for good reason, and I would have called his doc to inform him. He knew that so he worked the system. People do that.
Kay
@NotMax:
I have to say though, I just watched 40 seconds but it’s actually wildly positive for Biden.
I think losing has its own momentum. They behave differently when they’re losing, which mostly makes them lose more.
I was thinking about being a Trump fan – they must have whiplash. He had them all ginned up to scream about Covid hoaxes and then- boom! He’s pretending he gives a shit and they’re all supposed to don a mask and wash their hands. It’s like if Obama had bad polling in ’12 and announced a new policy of tax cuts for billionaires. What? I don’t know how they keep up. One day you’re storming the Michigan statehouse screaming about freedom, the next you’re complimenting Trump on his mask.
Baud
@Kay:
gene108
@MobiusKlein:
This is different.
1. No other US President has accepted aid from a foreign power to get elected.
2. No other US President has so many conflicts of interest, with regards to his personal business dealings, and duties of his office.
3. No other President has used the office for personal enrichment like Trump has.
Most US Presidents have been racist, and sexist. I think you can count one hand those that are not both, by our current standards.
But the better ones at least contributed something improving the country and moving us closer to the goal goal of realizing “All Men are created equal…”, and that “We the People…” includes everyone.
Some poor fool(s) is going to have rethink how US history gets taught in the next few decades.
Doug R
@gene108: Nixon told the Vietnamese to hold off on peace talks in the 1968 election. Reagan’s people made a deal to release the hostages in Iran the day he would be inaugurated.
Kay
@trollhattan:
I don’t want to scare him off. Always be closing :)
One of the principles of mediation, which is where we were and I think is true, is that people need a graceful out to come off a position. You can dig them in further. I’m not great at it- too oppositional, which is why I’m an advocate at the table and not the neutral, but I do recognize it as true. It’s a really graceful dance to watch when you have someone who is good at it.
Kent
They can both be simultaneously true. You and your daughter are talking about separate things.
1. Yes, America today is in many ways a better place than it was 50 or 100 years ago, especially if you are not a white man, and
2. Yes, Trump is the worst president in history and is feeding off the worst impulses and worst segments of society. And his continued rule endangers most of the gains we have made in #1.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Kayleigh should spend some time down in that Texas country and hang out with their ‘death panels’, see if that influences her thinking.
Aw, who am I kidding? She’d just keep her thumbs-down gesture going until her arm fell off.
Geminid
@Baud: trump had the second lowest vote total of ten major party presidential candidates 2000-2016. Only John McCain in 2008 had fewer. I’m hoping that this November trump will pull in fewer votes than McCain did in 2008, and set a record that will last the rest of the century.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I need to learn that skill. Of allowing people an out.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
No escape.
Jeffro
@kindness:
I’m ok with Diamond Dave handling the annual egg roll on the South Lawn or whatever…pardoning the turkeys, maybe…that’s about it.
Standards, people!! Must haz them! ;)
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: I think Sebastian Bach got in on the act last week as well.
Hey, they’re senior voters too!
dmsilev
@Kay:
Fake Gnus!
(not to be confused with Fake GNUs of course; those open-source software people can be sneaky)
germy
Here’s my prediction:
I predict Joe Biden will pick as his running mate…
Susan Rice.
Jeffro
It’s why they’re getting so panicky…some part of them senses that at any moment, they’ll have to face the fact that they were the ‘marks’, and that their bovine fealty to trumpov will be rewarded with…nothing.
So easily misled, so easily used, and now just Covid-fodder for trumpov’s failing re-election hopes.
Baud
@germy: There was an article about that recently. Maybe even today.
Frank Wilhoit
It’s not Trump. It’s his people. They voted for him because they identify with him, and they identify with him because they are exactly like him. They are half the country and they’re not going to change.
germy
Losing to Joe Biden would be the ultimate humiliation. “I’m not going to lose to f***ing Joe Biden!” he yelled at his aides, according to one of the sources say articles I read.
Losing to Obama’s vice president would be like losing his battle with Obama. I don’t think trump will ever accept the results if Biden wins in November.
I almost think he could accept losing to Bernie Sanders. He’d just throw up his hands and say “They wanted the crazy socialist! Whaddya gonna do?”
But Biden? Too painful.
dmsilev
@germy: Kevin Drum yesterday was advocating for that, arguing that (a) she’s very qualified for the job, (b) has a long running good relationship with Biden and perhaps most importantly (c) will cause Republicans to scream BENGHAZI for two months straight while the rest of the country looks at them thinking “shouldn’t you guys be focusing on the actual crises right now?”.
He made a good case.
RSA
@Elizabelle: I thought that was a good read. Thanks for the pointer.
wvng
@Elizabelle: it is a remarkably astute piece of journalism.
Jeffro
@germy: She’s got a much better shot than people think. The folks who are saying Biden has to pick _____ or has to pick _____ are incorrect. He has plenty of latitude here and can & should pick whomever he’ll be the most comfortable with for the next 4 or 8 years. Rs will bash whomever it is, so who cares. Ds will be thrilled because it’s still Biden at the top of the ticket, running mostly on Warren’s platform.
I think it will be Duckworth or Rice.
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Not Duckworth. I will bet a $25 donation to the Democratic candidate of your choice – that he will choose a black woman.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@kindness: Oh thank goodness. I thought I was only philistine.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I thought you were from Iowa.
Punchy
Im a (relatively well) educated guy, and yet I find this writing style almost too thick and adjectorious for my tastes. I dont need “Trump iz dummy!” scribblings, but reading this takes far too much concentration than I can summon on a Friday evening…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I’m actually from Detroit. When we both took jobs in Iowa, I had to look at a map to be sure I knew exactly where Iowa was.
Calouste
Calouste
@germy: If the shitgibbon doesn’t want to accept the result, the Secret Service should just take him for another bunker “inspection” and lock the door behind him.
Kent
One of the Pod Save America guys made that same prediction. I have my doubts. I haven’t really seen her enough to know how good of a retail politician she really is and how widespread her knowledge is beyond foreign affairs. Perhaps we don’t really need a retail politician this election. But we do need someone who can speak on a wide variety of topics from education to health care to civil rights and yes….foreign affairs. My instinct is that someone like Kamala Harris has a lot more experience giving short concise campaign-style answers on all of those topics. Rice probably has a steep learning curve in front of her if she wants to be a national candidate, and not early enough time in which to do it. Look at how much better the primary candidates got after 6 months of primary campaigning. Someone like Harris has already been through all of that seasoning and prepping.
On the other hand, I think Rice is a lock for Secretary of State, which is no small consolation prize given how much work there is going to be to repair America’s standing in the world when Trump is finally fumigated out of the Oval Office (to use Pelosi’s turn of phrase).
Kent
If he chooses Kamala Harris, what are they going to scream…SHE’S A COP!!” ??
Baud
@Kent: They’ll scream whoever Biden choose.
dmsilev
@Kent: It’ll be some variant of “The sheriff is a nig-CLANG!”.
Baud
@Kent: Right. Choosing someone who has never run for an office seems risky.
phdesmond
@Kay: i never have been able to listen to his voice.
Kay
Is there a legal defense fund for the 22 year old protestors the Trump thugs are hauling in on bogus federal charges?
I want to donate. Let’s keep the Barr DOJ very, very busy conducting trials for what wouldn’t even be a charged offense in a state court.
patrick Il
@MattF:
Shorter WSJ: If you ask us to be transparent and also check facts, you are cancelling our culture.
I actually agree.
Geminid
@Kent: Kamala Harris won three state-wide races in California, so I figure she’s got some political skill. I can’t hold her lack of success in this presidential nomination run against her but so much, as it was a weird year. So I like her as a safe pick. The rose people would piss and moan, but they can go pound sand as far I’m concerned.
Ken
I don’t think Biden should pick any Senator, even from “safe” states like Illinois or California.
Elizabelle
@RSA: @wvng:
I am in the Hannah Dreier fan club. Moar of this, please, WaPost.
Glad you liked it.
lamh36
Clip of Amy McGrath on the View and Meghan “gotcha” question crashes and burns!
twitter.com/EternalNyx/status/1286820796195835905
Elizabelle
@Ken: I am good with Kamala Harris.
But not a Senator where the seat might go sideways.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Had to fit a “both sides!” in there somewhere
Elizabelle
@lamh36: Don’t you just want to poke Megan McCain with a stick? I sure do.
Or a hatpin. Or something.
Kent
Campaigning is an acquired skill no matter how smart you are. The stakes are ENORMOUS and she will be under a 24/7 microscope for the duration of the campaign. I frankly want someone who is tested and who has practiced giving on-message concise stump speeches and answers hundred of times before.
Uncle Omar
@Kent: I want Harris as AG and I want her to instruct the USAtty for the DC to investigate Brett Kavanaugh for perjury during his testimony before the Judiciary Committee. And I want her to turn a hose on the Augean Stables of the Trumpov Administration and send every one of the miserable bastards to a nice quiet Federal Prison, either Marion or the SuperMax in Colorado will do. Put Barr in Noriega’s cell and Trumpov in Terry Nichols’.
Jinchi
Yeah, Joe Biden didn’t have much success his first two tries either, so I doubt he’d hold it against her.
JMG
Never say never, but I’d be shocked if Biden picked Rice. Maybe 1 of 1000 Americans know who the hell she is. That’s on us, not her, but it’s the reality. Also, I’d prefer someone who got elected to an office to be my running mate. Again, not on Rice at all. Her career is distinguished. Distinguished means shit in politics.
Princess
@dmsilev: I think Susan Rice is his best pick. She’s more qualified to walk into the presidency if necessary than anyone else out there (except Hillary Clinton), and she’s a Black woman with ties to Maine, which is a state we need that splits its electoral votes.
Baud
@Geminid:
@Jinchi:
Hillary is the only nationally successful woman out there, and it’s not going to be her.
Baud
@Princess:
If Maine is relevant in this election, we’re in bad shape.
Kent
We have plenty of excellent candidates for AG. Adam Schiff, for example. He would be badass. There are lots of excellent Democratic State AGs. Letitia James in New York, for example, who is already taking on Trump corruption.
cain
@dmsilev:
and we are everywhere! No GNU for you! Incidentally, I just gave two talks and a cooking class at my fav open source project – GNOME – conference these past two days :-)
Dan B
@germy: What is Susan Rice’s political bent? I’ve heard some rumblings and it’s likely the VP slot will be teed up for 2024 run for Pres. (If the US is not dismantled before 2021.)
DHS is here in Seattle. Freakin out.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Agreed on the last!! As for many of the earlier ones personally, I just don’t know enough to guess which ones were so invariably vicious, etc.
NotMax
@Princess
Rep. Val Demings’ experience as a police chief in a biggish city could be particularly relevant this year.
Anoniminous
Cancel Culture in a Nutshell:
Billionaire J.K. Rowling on international media: Trans people are icky.
Trans on social media and blogs: No we’re not
Billionaire J.K. Rowling on international media: HELP! HELP! I’m being canceled!!! I’M BEING OPPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Princess: I’m a big Susan Rice fan, but I keep coming back to the idea that Harris is the most conventional choice, and Biden is a very conventional politician.
Was Rice on the “Our Revolution” list? I’m sure her association with that Obama taints her forever.
cain
@WaterGirl:
I agree.. and I think Kamala Harris would be a good pick. We’ll see where it goes. Harristas have been clamoring to have Kamala be the VP.
Of course, this is all so that she can be President in 4 years.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What list?
prostratedragon
@Baud: Yeah, and influentially bad in an era of mass media amplification. That’s another thing that could have made some of those 19th century guys much more harmful.
Jinchi
@lamh36: Has Megan heard of Charles Keating?
Kent
This is very much a “don’t fuck things up” election for Biden right now. I hate to say it but Harris feels like the safer choice. I’m not quite sure what he gains electorally with Rice as she doesn’t really seem to have any natural voting constituency that doesn’t overlap with Harris. And if he wants Rice by his side to govern, he can still have that by making her Secretary of State or Chief of Staff or something like that.
Kent
Who would you rather see run in 2024?
NotMax
OT.
Went out to pick up something earlier. People are goin’ nuts at the stores about Hurricane Douglas, expected to pass over later this weekend – in a much weakened state from what it now is.
Far away as it is right now, one can practically smell a storm brewing in the unsettled outside air. Winds shifting every which way.
cain
Be safe.
Fucking storm troopers are invading the northwest. There is going to be some serious shit going to go down.
@Kent – It seems our mayor finally got some amount of clue when the feds tear gassed his ass. That’s some balls – tear gassing know the mayor of the city is out there.
raven
@NotMax: Looks like a big hit on you.
Jinchi
@Baud: Right and the nationally successful metric doesn’t really work as a standard for picking a VP candidate. The only people who have been nationally successful are former presidents, and they’re all ineligible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Tenar Arha
@Elizabelle: I definitely hate watch her on the View, which is why whenever she acts up I have to remind myself “don’t go there.” & yet sometimes I do anyway. I’ve managed to avoid clips of her and Mary Trump, but only by doom scrolling elsewhere, which isn’t healthy either.
ETA Mostly I want to yell at her to STFU about whose daughter she is, but I’m not sure she’ll ever stop that as it’s her only legitimate qualification to be there (mostly)
Geminid
@Kent: I always liked Eric Holder and wouldn’t mind seeing him take another turn at Justice. And there are good Obama U.S. Attorneys like Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance who could hit the ground running if appointed to their old districts.
NotMax
@raven
As it stands at the moment, making a beeline for us.
cain
Well, I wanted Warren, and then I moved to Kamala – so Kamala is fine – although she comes off kind of awkward especially when laughing – like she’s trying hard to be likeable. I’ll be happy when phase is over.
Otherwise, I’m fairly open on 2024 – I think Schiff would be good as well.
Jeffro
@Baud: right. What I said
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has insatiable greed, contempt for the law, and cowardice in his DNA.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: That was great!
edit: ooh, ooh, ooh. How did your interview go?
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Susan Rice would be the pick to make right-winger’s heads explode, since she’s been a focus of conspiracy-mongering to an almost Hillary Clinton-like degree. I suspect Biden won’t pick her for that reason; regardless of her actual merits, it’d be a troll pick and I don’t think he rolls that way.
Jeffro
@JMG: nobody cares about VP…minimal (as in 1%) impact at most either way
he’ll pick whomever he wants, and sweet jebus does he ever have a lot on his plate. Let’s all just take a breath and see how it goes
Matt McIrvin
@Kent:
They do that through their useful idiots on the left, silly.
Jeffro
@Kent: he doesn’t need to gain anything electorally…he’s already crushing it
he’s from DELAWARE for Pete’s sake…the old rules don’t really apply anymore ?
Jinchi
@germy: I have nothing against Susan Rice, but I’d be puzzled if Biden picked her given the other candidates he has to choose from. Rice’s expertise is foreign policy, which is a particular strength of Biden’s already.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle:
A lucidity stick? Is that a Harry Potter thing?
Selfus Awaranuss!
She’d never recover.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why don’t they like Duckworth?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think I might well be the absolute last person here you would want to explain the motivation/s of the Rose Tweeters…
Chyron HR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Does Bernie’s Sunshine Justice Revolution not understand how sick the rest of the human race is of their bullshit, or is that just a badge of honor for them?
TriassicSands
You’re right, but that alone wouldn’t mean we could all remember “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.*” It’s not like he hides who he is.
Trump’s unfitness for office is one of life’s great truisms.
The mystery is how that unfitness escapes so many. The inescapable conclusion is that millions of Americans are both horrible people and horribly stupid.
* In other words, one doesn’t have to be a genius to recognize Trump for what he is.
Jinchi
Agreed.
Biden can pick anyone he wants. It won’t matter to the outcome. This election is all about Trump.
mad citizen
@Punchy: I agree with you, it was a dense read. I found myself accelerating through it to get done.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: There’s been a bit of a boomlet for Rice this last week. Saw a NPR article pushing her too.
I think it flies in the face of some earlier reporting, though. Biden was said to want someone who had political campaign experience and executive experience who could step in immediately, even on Day 1.
Rice has a lot of really excellent experience but hasn’t run for office, and her media appearances are acceptable but great. I don’t think she has a constituency of voters that would really like her, unlike most of the other candidates. And her lack of elected office experience makes her a better fit for SoS or similar.
But it’s Biden’s choice and she’d do just fine, even if I’d be sad that Harris didn’t get the historic nod here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
Be safe
MisterForkbeard
@Ken: California is really the only state I’d be okay with it. We have a pretty deep bench here and we’d 99.9% win the election and give a good dem a huge boost into the Senate.
zhena gogolia
@Punchy:
It’s way overwritten. Trying to be Pierce, IMO.
lamh36
@WaterGirl: I think it went well. Now it’s just a waiting game.
Jinchi
Republicans have long declared that their preferred president is someone with ‘enough working digits to handle a pen’. They only care that the president will sign their agenda and seat the right judges.
Trump passed the bar in the 2016 campaign when he publicly trotted out a list of potential judicial nominees written by the Heritage Foundation.
mrmoshpotato
Over/under on this ratfucking sack whining about 2020 being rigged against Berrrniiieeeee?
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
Mrs Dr Holder fought for years to get him to stand down as AG for his health. While he was indeed excellent in the job, I doubt he’s available for 2021.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Excellent!!!!
I’m proud of my monthly donation to her from here in coastal elite Connecticut.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why not? You seem knowledgeable
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh look, OurRevolution can go fuck themselves again. Where do they get off talking about who isn’t acceptable after decidedly losing the election? Are they STILL pretending that Biden is a horrible corporate Dem who also has dementia?
zhena gogolia
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yep.
NotMax
@TriassicSands
Inattentional blindness in action.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I hope you stay safe.
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Excellent!
Did they tell you how many finalists there are or what the next step is? Or the timeframe for a decision?
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wilmeristas can suck Putin’s asshole.
Amir Khalid
@Jinchi:
Biden’s campaign is running a pretty rigorous selection process. He has many excellent VP candidates to choose from, including a good number of African-American women. I know this is easy to say from my side of the planet, but you guys should chill the F out. He’s got this.
mrmoshpotato
@lamh36: Good to hear!
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Six to ten inches of rain predicted. Not much worry about the wet at my home location, it’s the winds which are of concern.
NotMax
@NotMax
Currently making extra loaves of bread in case of extended power outage
lamh36
@WaterGirl: They didn’t tell me how many applicants and I did ask about the next steps in the process, but I realized I didn’t ask for specific timeframe.
I did ask me if I was chosen, how much time do I think I would need to relocate to Houston, but that could just be a general inquiry.
So far, this process has been moving at a steady pace. I mean completed my application a little over a month ago. And I’m already at the 2nd phase of interviews, so I’m hoping it continues and I get some news sometime next week?
Danielx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m sorry, did I miss the part where we are supposed to give a flying fuck about who is acceptable to those guys?
Jeffro
I have to give McCardle credit for this line (and THIS LINE ONLY, ever! I swear!) in her latest WaPo stream-of-consciousness missive:
“Natural anarchists!” A quick Google search tells me that there is currently no punk band by that name and BOOM…now I know what I’m doing with the second half of my life. =)
Suzanne
So I noted in an earlier thread, the building in midtown Phoenix that is the offices of Arizona Democratic Party and the Maricopa County Democratic Party was destroyed by fire last night. Police are now officially labeling this as arson. The building was sort of divided into two wings, and the County side was totally destroyed, and the AZ side is mostly lost. No injuries. Both groups need donations.
Two Confederate memorials were removed and relocated under cover of darkness two days ago. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Kent
One thing that has really surprised me is how fast the BLM movement has shoveled the entire Wilmerista movement to the dumpster. The whole ‘It’s the 1% not racism” that’s the problem just isn’t flying anymore. It’s like the country just flipped a switch and there is a whole brand new cast of leaders and issues on the left and the whole Wilmer movement just vanished from relevancy.
Kent
OT but here in OR and SW Washington my wife says they just got an alert this afternoon that they are not going to authorize any more Covid testing except for hospital admissions because they are completely out of tests. I’m not sure if that is just for her network (Kaiser Permanente) or the entire region. But wow.
Jeffro
Also (back on topic, sort of) would just like to point out that while some of us are musing about who could win/carry on the torch in 2024 or 2028, it’s entirely likely that the VP pick (and I’m not just talking about Rice) would be up for punching out when Biden does. “Fare thee well, brave GOP-clusterfuck-fixer-uppers! Go with the thanks of a grateful nation!!”
I can see Warren doing that, and Rice too.
“Who can win in 2024” is not a great lens, is what I’m saying. It’s not like the GOP thought about that post-2012 and went, “Donald trumpov”.
“Who can help Biden clean. this. shit. up. in a few years” is probably a better way to think about it. And by that standard, the top 4-6 are all fine.
Kropacetic
I remember something about a medical device tax and the ACA. Not sure if there are other things, but I imagine it doesn’t take much for some people to write others off entirely.
laura
@Kay: I can’t agree more- about mediation as a dispute resolution because people deserve and need a chance to be heard, and then return to the workplace with a repaired work relationship when done well. I’m a zealous advocate and having to manage expectations is difficult when the likely outcome of arbitration favors the employer- mediation is cost effective and compromise has much to offer.
Having your mediator admit in a form most comfortable to him, the gravity of preventing a trump re-election is good to hear. I’m so glad that you’ve returned to posting comments – your insights are appreciated. I wish Mnemosyne would come around here some more.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, at least they are self-aware enough to make their acceptable list not all-white, and their non-acceptable list not all-non-white, even if they had to add a 2nd/3rd tier name to achieve that in both cases….
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: Trump made it really clear that the 0.01% are perfectly willing to use racism for their own purposes. He campaigned as a racist populist and governed like a racist Republican.
The “class not race” folks seem to agree that race is used in this way but somehow they think anti-racists are the ones causing all the trouble, as if we could ignore it and it would go away.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
Ah yes, the “r/stupidpol, identity politics bad!” crowd
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kropacetic:
So, probably stupid bullshit nobody actually cares about
cckids
@germy:
dww44
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I agree with Raven and others on a thread a couple of nights ago. The BLM protestors could hardly have picked a worse slogan than “Defund the Police” in terms of the ability of the right and Trump to push it back in our faces. That ad of Trump’s with the Senior Citizen at home alone calling 911 because someone’s breaking in to her home only to get no answer because the police have been defunded is running on almost a feedback loop on TV and even on You Tube.
At least “demilitarize the police” is not a slogan that confuses people. My independent voter spouse who despises Trump says that the movement did itself and the rest of us no favors when it adopted that slogan. Lifelong true liberal Democrat here. Just old or, to be kind to myself, older.
dww44
@cckids: I like virtually every single one of the names that have been mentioned as a possible VP pick. Obviously, the playing field should tilt towards one whose strengths offset Biden’s weaknesses, of which we would all have to agree do exist. My choice would be Warren, but he’s got to go with a woman of color. I like Susan Rice, but she really isn’t a politician. We will need a VP nominee who can push back. I think that is Kamala Harris. She successfully stands her ground with Republicans in the Senate. and I honestly think that she has the broadest appeal, and can bring many disparate voters to the table in a Biden candidacy and administration.
catclub
Up until the pandemic and the cratering of the economy, he was getting a LOT of mileage out of saying we had the best economy ever, and he was responsible for that. It was a lie, but he said it so often, a lot of people believed it.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
NotMax. You have nothing to worry about. I’m sure it will “just disappear.”
on second thought, be careful and stay safe.
dww44
@dww44: If I had my druthers and if we didn’t have to pick a woman, I’d like to see Cory Booker on the ticket.
Librarian
I don’t understand the support for Rice. She’s not a politician and has never held elective office. She’d be a great Secretary of State, though.
Brantl
@prostratedragon: Douche, left to his own devices, would have been every bit as bad as Stump, but we’ll never know, Bush had Cheney’s hand up his ass, working his mouth. You never saw Cheney drink while Douche was talking…..
Brachiator
@Baud:
Trump is not that hard to understand. But no one really saw the evil that this man would do.
Or the degree to which sullen fools and people of bad faith would support him and cheer him on.
Brachiator
@dww44:
Doesn’t matter. To white racists, the essential purpose of the police is to beat back the nonwhite horde. “Demilitarize” appeals to many liberals, but still scares the right wing. And Trump has been consistently clear that all protest that suggests that America can do better for any of its citizens is anathema, and must be put down hard.
Brantl
“Both parties “, my ass.
dww44
@Brachiator: It does matter. Maybe not where you are but where I live it does matter. I live in a red state trending purple. This is not helpful.
ballerat
@laura: This. Both responses come from the same place.
sheldon vogt
Where are they on Sarah Cooper?@Jim, Foolish Literalist: