"How should Trump double down on racist tropes to win an election" is just typed up as campaign strategy 101 by @adamnagourney on the front page of @nytimes pic.twitter.com/sqmxhNIj9b
— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) August 22, 2020
Campaign professional for the rebuttal:
What a stupid article. Yes, 2020 could be just like 1988…if the population of the US went from about 15% foreign born back to 8%, the non-hispanic white population went from 60% back up to 75%, & the electorate—which will probably be under 70% white—went back to 85% white https://t.co/YnjFEJpVZx
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
Yup, this too. Plus there’s all the openly gay people, more white people married to non-whites, more white people turned off by racism, fewer white people who grew up in & miss Jim Crow, the fact that Dems don’t need to win racist voters in the South, etc https://t.co/QzMP9zqinA
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
Oh, another way that article is stupid: it suggests the Republicans will be successful in 2020 doing something they tried in 2018 & that failed miserably!
Now, granted, it’s possible the Repubs—or the Trump people anyway—are that stupid. But Ad Nags taking it seriously is dumb
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
But Dems do need to avoid to make the mistake of 1988, when they may have underestimated a son of a Senator, a war hero who graduated Yale in 2 1/2 years, a successful businessman/Congressman/director of CIA/RNC chair/VP to popular president. Because Trump is so like that.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
“2020 could be 1988” is to accomplish 2 things: amuse reporters/pundits who experience politics as a game, & keep GOP donors from abandoning rest of the GOP. The Trump team may be stupid enough to believe it. The rest of the GOP hopes their donors are stupid enough to believe it
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
And as usual, @mschmitt9 has the key point that makes all the rest of those points secondary. https://t.co/hu7Z7r55xU
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 22, 2020
Sunday Recipe Exchange: This One’s Hot, Hot, Hot
BruceFromOhio
If that isn’t the real fucking skinny on how fucked up American elections are, boy howdy, where we at.
Omnes Omnibus
Forget it, Jake. It’s Adam Nagourney.
dr. bloor
Can’t remember the last time I thought of Adam Nagourney before this little dustup. Guess I’ll have to add that to the list of benefits of cancelling my sub to FTFNYT.
geg6
Dana Houle, kicking ass and taking names.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When I first saw that tweet, I thought it was some kind of mock up by DougJ
James E Powell
Kellyanne Conway leaving the Titanic at the end of this month. Probably to keep her court proceedings with her daughter out of the news.
Some commentors in Rubin’s feed are giving her a hard time because “this is a family matter” and “how low can you go?” This is people defending an aggressive and destructive liar who defends evil. Whatever problems her daughter is struggling with, it was her mother who put them there. I have no sympathy for Kellyanne Conway. Does that make me evil?
Monala
The New Yorker follows up with a “Dems are too prepared/Dems in Array!” article,
Did the Democratic National Convention Go Too Smoothly?
The thing that gets me about this article are staatements like this one:
The implication that inviting Republican speakers in, or a holding a smooth convention, means that Democrats don’t know what we value or will fight for is nonsense. One of the things that impressed me most about the convention was that even while they had Republican speakers sharing why they were going to support Biden/Harris, the Democrats made clear their positions and didn’t compromise. We support universal healthcare; affordable childcare and higher education; renewable energy and fighting climate change; unions and living wage jobs; welcoming immigrants; gun control; following science and respecting the expertise of scientists. And even though this didn’t get a major segment, several speakers mentioned support for a woman’s right to choose and Planned Parenthood. Not once did I hear the Democrats say they would support any typical Republican policies, apart from “support our allies and stand up to dictators” (which has long been the policy of both parties, but not Trumpers).
RaflW
Trump is, of course, a f\\king idiot. First he insults Goodyear, a key Ohio constituency. Then he narcissistically can’t be bothered to even have a look-see around Iowa after the devastating Derecho. If he loses Iowa for the GOP (esp down ballot), the party is in deeper doodo.
TS (the original)
O/T For anyone else who hasn’t seen this
Kellyanne Conway to leave the White House at the end of the month, citing the need to focus on her family
Wyatt Salamanca
Fuck the NY Times
OT
Great twitter thread from Eric Topol, founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, showing how Trump’s breakthrough announcement about a treatment for COVID-19 is 100% grade A bullshit
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1297583093285494785
Auntie Anne
OT: Kellyanne Conway is leaving the White House at the end of the month to focus on her family. As TS mentioned above!
Wyatt Salamanca
@James E Powell:
@TS (the original):
As you posted this information, Kellyanne is probably negotiating a big fat book deal.
She deserves a special place in Hell right alongside the Orange menace.
trollhattan
Two active fires are battling it out for #2 in the list of largest California wildfires, but one of them will have to settle for #3.
Thunderstorms are predicted over the next 24 hours, which is how we got into this mess to begin with.
Chetan Murthy
@Wyatt Salamanca:
Time for the last phase of the Conway family exit strategy, where they successfully convert all their chips into cash without raising the notice of the casino and walk right out. Regardless of the outcome, they’ve got it covered, and as a family they will be employable and even invited to cocktail parties. What do you call this family act?
The Aristocrats!
RaflW
@James E Powell: At what point does George fie for divorce? I mean, it was all weird and maybe kind of fun when the two of them seemed to be working two very different ends of the same grift (that’s always been my cynical take on Federalist Society member George).
But her in-the-tankness has possibly wrecked their family. I of course can’t know how the kid views George, but it’s a very fractious situation, and as things have spiraled down with Trump, George has stayed the course of insults and alarm about the Orange Menace.
Monala
@Monala: And also embracing diversity and Black Lives Matter. The Democrats were very clear about supporting that, too.
trollhattan
Ooh, Willie Horton reference. Democrats should make their own Willie Horton ad, replacing Willie Horton with Roger Stone.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Can someone go tell Thor to knock it off?
trollhattan
@Wyatt Salamanca:
If Regenry publishes a book, is it still considered a “book?”
PaulWartenberg
The New York Times has such a fucking hard-on trying to protect trump that there is something rotten in that newspaper’s organization. Corrupted, bought out, blackmailed, something.
I still remember Kurt Eichenwald wrote about how he found out – his first year working at NYT in 1987(!) – that trump was an unhinged bullshitter and tried to confront his editor about it. https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1084539186571558914
The editor just shrugs and notes “trump lies, everybody knows it” and killed Kurt’s story idea. Rather than recognize the fact that a known public figure like trump, who was shilling his “genius” while lying about it all, deserved some form of public scrutiny in order to protect investors and other businesspeople dealing with a possible fraud, the paper of record brushed it under a rug and ignored it. trump’s bullshitting was and still is a legitimate threat to others, and the NY papers couldn’t be bothered.
So I’m not surprised the Times is still shilling for trump, protecting him from deeper examination and exposure as a failure. Keeping alive a Narrative that damns us all.
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
Mrs. Thor can hopefully get him otherwise occupied.
Am not liking our new normal.
different-church-lady
…and there was no pandemic to botch.
Hoppie
@BruceFromOhio: Little known statistical reality: in 1964, a little over 60% of the eligible voters participated, giving Barry Goldwater a little under 40% of the vote, so about 25% of the eligible voters.
In 1980, a little over 50% of the eligible voters participated, giving Ronald Reagan almost exactly 50% of the vote, so about 25% of the eligible voters!
Yes, Reagan got about as much of the eligible electorate to vote for him as Barry Goldwater did!
A lot of modern American political history is about who doesn’t vote and why. Mitch McConnell is a master at this.
different-church-lady
@Auntie Anne: She’s gonna murder George, you just know it.
Matt McIrvin
If Trump wins, it will be because Democratic votes were suppressed, rejected or thrown out in court. The trouble is, we can’t tell what the magic bullet is to minimize that damage–they’re planning sabotage on all fronts: armed bullies, polling-place sabotage and chaos to suppress the in-person vote, various court challenges and USPS sabotage to suppress the mail vote (which might suppress itself anyway through simple procedural snafus like first-time mail voters forgetting to sign the envelope). Everything we do to reduce risk for one reason seems to increase risk for another reason.
westyny
Adam “some Democrats say” Nagourney is still around? FTFNYT. The political desk really needs to be cleaned out and it will never be. But someone more reputable than me should run a lengthy expose on Nags, documenting his use of Republican operatives as sources since the 2000s.
debbie
@RaflW:
Her tweets slammed both parents.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Chetan Murthy:
I’m beyond sick and tired of the bickering Conway act.
@trollhattan:
Depending upon its heft, it could serve as a useful door stop.
John Revolta
I’d like to think that KAC is “leaving to spend more time with her family”. I really would. The timing is mighty strange though. I can’t help but wonder if the Mercers decided that down the stretch, her ratfucking talents might be more useful somewhere else.
Felanius Kootea
@James E Powell: I feel bad for her daughter. Suing your parents for emancipation at 15 can’t be easy. George Conway is also stepping back from the Lincoln Project and Twitter. I really hope their children aren’t scarred for life.
Parfigliano
@Wyatt Salamanca: I hope kelly anns daughter makes the rest of kelly anns life hell on earth
RaflW
@PaulWartenberg: How much money does the Times make in a year on all the glossy real estate crap they produce?
In the same way that the Star Tribune in Minneapolis in effect has shilled for every pro sports stadium deal, because sportsball is a huge amount of the paper/web clicks for a major daily, I suspect Trump’s real estate (and not wanting to by association piss off other shyster NY tycoons) has impacted the NYTs cravenness about him.
mrmoshpotato
I know nothing about Adam Nagourney, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he was smart at one point.
Having said that, his brain should give his face a good hard slap if it hasn’t fled his body long ago.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
And the economy were humming along. And the Republican candidate could speak in coherent sentences.
RaflW
@debbie: I haven’t known who she is, and this whole thing has only come into my view literally today. So, thanks.
I do think there’s something really not right about the whole act the two of them have done (the adults, I mean). I won’t go searching, but I recall that like a year ago I posted a few times around here that I thought George was then laying down his “I oppose Trump” markers to try to buy Kellyann a lifeline when the SS Trump hit the berg.
I still think some variation of that, or some other yin/yang grift that’s skulduggery enough that I’d not thing of it, is going on with them two.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Revolta: I suspect there’s some genuine issues going on. I think KAC is a vicious and horrible human being. Maybe her husband’s a fraud, maybe he isn’t. I have no sympathy for anything that happens to KAC, I actively wish a long life of misery upon her.
mrmoshpotato
@James E Powell: No. Kellyanne Conjob and her shitbag husband can both go fuck themselves.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: Right. And to some extent, the work of people like Nagourney is to give a credible gauze to Dems just “losing because they’re Dems”, not because Trump and the GOP cheat like russian mobsters.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Parfigliano:
Well, she certainly deserves her life to be a living Hell given the fact that she was one of Trump’s most fervent enablers.
James E Powell
@PaulWartenberg:
There is definitely something there. Just compare what they did with Clinton Cash to what they did with Mary Trump’s book.
Trump is a lifetime corrupt New York real estate fraudster. There is no question that they have names, dates, and places that they have decided never to publish.
dww44
Well, isn’t this just the cat’s pajamas. The subject line of today’s New Yorker email newsletter posits the following:
Can Joe Biden’s Center Hold? with the teaser text lead-in:
Article is by Evan Osnos. A divided party? Juxtaposed to a beleaguered country that ‘s beleaguered why? No mention of Trump or a batshit crazy rightwing conservative party.
Isn’t David Remnick the editor at the magazine? Maybe asking who are the owners is the more relevant question, because they surely are creating their own version of the HRC email scandal.
Seriously, by what objective measure are Democrats a divided party? Someone has an agenda at that magazine and someone higher up than me better figure out who it is and either get it stopped or out them.
Kent
I suspect it is all performance art on both their parts and they will all cash in. She is the rat jumping ship and will probably wind up on Fox news somewhere, first in line to start hammering the new administration.
The kid is also cashing in. She learned it all from her parents.
Gozer
https://twitter.com/adamnagourney/status/1297209100997074944?s=20
So…Republicans are gonna…call Dems socialists? Never has this happened in the last 70-80 years.
I wonder how much this tool makes per year…
RaflW
If nothing else, KAC announcing her departure from the WH the night before the RNC, where she will be speaking, does add just another small frisson of “Repubs in Disarray” about it all, and that’s nice, even if its minor.
And Trump losing easy access to one of his staunchest and disgustingly most adept liars is also fine with me.
Wyatt Salamanca
“trump took the post boxes out of the post office, the roses out of the rose garden, and the united out of the united states”
h/t https://twitter.com/ManlnTheHoody/status/1297238136217427968
Mike in NC
Fuck the fucking NY Times who worked overtime to give us Fat Bastard, with assists from Putin’s GRU and James Comey.
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
The absolute worst of all worlds, high temps, high winds and lightning with no rain.
Roger Moore
@Parfigliano:
While I wish nothing but the worst for Kellyanne Conway, I hope her daughter finds something more productive to do with her life than make her mother miserable.
Redshift
@dww44: Polls show an unprecedented unity among Democrats, but there are still a small number of True Progressives making outsized noise, so that must mean there really are major divisions. ?
HumboldtBlue
@mrmoshpotato:
I was called a “reductive thinker” by some mincing twitter intellectual (I think she had multiple degrees but she screamed Breakfast Club debate team) by pointing out that while the Lincoln Project is doing good work with its crusade against Trump we must remind ourselves they are still GOP ratfuckers and to always bear that in mind.
We’re just pointing out the snake may eat the rat but the snake is still and will remain poisonous.
Redshift
Will? They’ve been doing it for months, and steadily losing ground in the polls. It doesn’t matter what decade it’s a hackneyed retread from, that isn’t evidence it will work.
Redshift
For writers who may have one been smart, the important thing to keep in mind is that punditry, like movies and video games, is hit-based. You don’t achieve success by writing about boring likely things, you do it by making unlikely predictions. Everyone will forget the string of times you were wrong, but you can ride the gravy train a long time on the one unlikely prediction that came true.
The only unlikely call in 2020 is Trump success, so unfortunately we’re going to see a lot of this from the pundits.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: Yup. It’s why I say I’ll take their attack ads, but Rick Wilson, etal are all ratfucking shitstains that can go fuck themselves.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
There’s something to what you say, but it’s important to be heterodox in the right way. Your unlikely prediction must be something that isn’t so controversial you’ll be shunned before it has a chance to be proven correct. Many of the people who correctly predicted what a shit show the Iraq War was going to be were cast out immediately and never accepted back into the fold even when their predictions came true.
HumboldtBlue
I don’t golf but a hole-in-one is a hole-in-one.
Mary G
I am planning to think of this reporter as Ad Nags forever. It’s perfect. You know he hates it.
Redshift
@Roger Moore: Hmm, very good point.
J R in WV
I wonder if Ad Nags even has any Democratic friends? Or maybe the question is does he have any friends at all…
Kay
The NYT’s political coverage is terrible. The whole newspaper isn’t terrible, but their political coverage is.
I don’t agree that it’s ideological though- I think it’s terrible because they feel they have to add value and distinguish themselves from the rest and they do it with this awful analysis that doesn’t add anything at all.
SFAW
@Kay:
Kay, I loves ya, but I think you’re wrong on this. They have (or maybe “had” at this point) a strong enough rep that they can hire anyone they want, and could turn a David Fahrenthold- or Ari Berman-equivalent loose, but instead they allow Ad Nags and various others to keep pushing the “but her e-mails!” (and similar) crap. That goes far beyond the idea that they think they need to add value to what’s already out there. It’s Fifth Column stuff.
ballerat
@TS (the original): This tells me that what George Conway is doing via LP and twitter became a greater negative to Trump than whatever Kellyanne does could compensate Trump for.
BTW, I’m not sympathetic with the family issues they may actually have. What these two lived and worked for have caused millions of children and their families to suffer strife, anxiety, loss and grief.
Fuck these destructive team-grifters.
ballerat
@Kay:
It’s a propaganda technique. The truth side gives credence for the lies and preserves the paper’s rep and readership. It’s a classic because it works.
And obviously I disagree that it’s not ideological. The paper reflects the Sulzberger’s politics. They’ve always been more than a little fascist-curious.
It’s not bad reporting decisions, it’s a pattern of political support.