Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

In my day, never was longer.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: …The Caravan Moves On

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: …The Caravan Moves On

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Old Arab proverb: The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

Or, to quote Pete Buttigieg, who has been stepping up to the moment recently:

Reader Interactions

247Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    It’s not the “president’s narrative.” It’s his “conspiracy theory.”

    Liar-in-chief continue his lying ways.

  7. 7.

    SFBayAreaGal

    Good morning everyone. I hope you all have a great day.

    Remember when you’re feeling stressed, or angry, or exasperated, let the bad air out and let the good air in.

    Now I’m going back to sleep for a couple more hours.

  13. 13.

    raven

    @Immanentize: We went during old people hours 8-9, the big conversation was whether or not to wait until 10 and get their humungous turkey and prove sammy. We didn’t!

  18. 18.

    satby

    Point of order, Pete Buttigieg was always this good, y’all just were too busy slagging on him to notice.

    Happy Belated Birthday raven. Fuck LBJ.

  22. 22.

    TS (the original)

    After reading the coronavirus thread, it is near impossible to believe that all trump and the GOP enablers is doing are working out how they can overthrow democracy.

    Virtually every other world leader is concentrating on what is happening with covid-19, releasing statistics, suggesting options and appealing to their citizens to do the right thing. trump is playing golf, swapping deck chairs on the titanic, and refusing the reality of election defeat.

  26. 26.

    JoyceH

    @p.a.: In other post-election news, my daily THIS IS HORRIBLE WE ARE DOOOOOOMED GIVE NOW emails are down 50+% ?

    My take is down more like 90%!

  28. 28.

    Sloane Ranger

    Happy Belated Birthday Raven. Wet your beak with a nice glass or two of whatever takes your fancy.

  29. 29.

    Jerzy Russian

    @raven: 

    We also have to drive and hour each way

    That sounds like the school my old man went to, except it was walking and uphill both ways.

  30. 30.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Thing is, we had a luxury in 2000 that we don’t now – the country was at peace after a pretty great decade, the economy was thrumming along well, employment and wages were stable and there weren’t any developing crises at the moment.

    Delay was something that could be afforded.

    Now, were in the midst of a recessionary pandemic with a vaccine that hasn’t rolled out yet (that can only be stored at -75 degrees Celsius – something that nobody has freezers adequate for), a collapsing labor market, self-induced shortages and market lockouts due to idiot’s tariffs and battered trade and diplomatic relationships with allies.

    Proper transition is needed, and it’s needed yesterday.

  31. 31.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Not only that, but he walked past the lot with the mean, loose dogs, next door to the rough kids he always had to fight.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    The cover of the NYTimes is interesting, but it would be better if the headline was Sore Loser.    We live in strange times.

     

    @raven: Happy Belated Birthday!!!

  33. 33.

    Mary G

    @satby: I’m so sorry for dragging Pete. You told us and I didn’t quite believe you. He is doing a stellar job explaining what Democrats stand for even on Fox. I wish he had won the race for DNC chair, and hope he gets whatever position he wants in the Biden administration.

    Happy Belated Birthday to Raven and Scout.

  34. 34.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @TS (the original):

    If he concentrated on, I don’t know – maybe governing – over his various grievances and pathetic need for praise, he’d be in a better spot.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @SFBayAreaGal:

    Remember when you’re feeling stressed, or angry, or exasperated, let the bad air out and let the good air in.

    I’ve been trying to fart more. It helps.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Not sure if you saw my b’day greetings in one of the threads yesterday. If not, I’ll say it again — have a (hope you had a) great day!

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m seeing people worrying that Trump’s aim with all these lawsuits might be to drag out the counting process all the way to mid-December so that states can’t certify electors at all, which would somehow throw it to a contingent election in the House that Trump would win, or enable a state-legislative coup after all, or something along those lines.

    Even if that were a viable mechanism, I’m not too worried just because Biden’s own legal team is clearly on the ball and ferocious. They haven’t had to do a lot yet, but lawsuits are a game two can play, and I find it hard to believe that even a fairly hackish court would look kindly on an attempt to sabotage an election by delaying it with frivolous lawsuits.

  39. 39.

    satby

    @Mary G: No worries. Pretty sure he never expected to win the nomination, just raise his profile since there’s no real path for a talented, ambitious Democrat in this benighted cesspool of a state, and he accomplished that quite well.

    Edit: but some of the nastiness directed at him on this blog was pretty amazing. And amazingly unfair.

  40. 40.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: -75 degrees Celsius –

    I hadn’t heard that. Why so cold?

    That’s dry ice temp, not liquid nitrogen, and dry ice is less of a specialized product. So it doesn’t seem insurmountable.

    But that is still going to require one hell of a lot of new infrastructure with storage and distribution logistics way beyond what we’re used to with vaccines.

  41. 41.

    different-church-lady

    The sane take that I have come around to is that…

    a) the coup is likely to fail, so don’t freak

    b) but take it seriously, stay vigilant and pound down every attempt anyway, because you never know, and

    c) the fact that they’re trying a coup at all, even if it fails, is threatening our democracy in the most significant way yet.

  42. 42.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The run-up to the 2000 election was not a luxurious time.  After the crass and bare-knuckled (and, down to that time, unprecedented) way the Republican Party rigged their primaries for W, and after his persistent and baffling jawboning of the economy, which somehow straddled predicting a recession and promising one, I (and surely not alone) was very nervous going into that November.  I can almost understand why seemingly no one remembers 1980, but 2000?

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @raven:

    Happy Birthday, kiddo, and many more!

    Hoping all your birthday wishes come true

    ETA: And I see I’m a day late, so make that “came true.

    ETA2: And Fuck LBJ.

  48. 48.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Somebody mentioned yesterday that Bob Bauer, head of Biden’s legal team, had given a very reassuring statement. I haven’t been able to find a Bauer statement post-election. Does anyone have a link?

  50. 50.

    germy

    When I think about a $100M book deal for a fascist I think of every entry level person told they can’t get a $40k salary. Or the mid-level people told there’s no money to promote them. Or the editors told there’s no money for a debut by an author from a marginalized community!— Rachel (@racheldoesbooks) November 11, 2020

    I ALSO think of the role book publishers have had in legitimizing bad actors; the tiny likelihood that anything would earn out $100M & they're doing it for bullshitty reasons; that the ENTIRE industry relies on one sales channel; ridiculous pricing; the decline of copyediting… https://t.co/TK3ppctnh8— Michael Gerber (@mgerber937) November 11, 2020

  51. 51.

    Bex

    @Mary G: From Pete’s new book, Trust:  “A political system like ours relies on certain kinds of consistency in order for change to be possible.  This is why is matters so much that in every presidential election we’ve ever had, the loser has peacefully, if not unhappily, accepted the results…And much of the political unease across America in 2020 came from political and media analysts beginning to seriously question, for the first time, if a defeated president could be expected to behave as every one of his predecessors had, and leave.”  Book was written last spring.

  52. 52.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frank Wilhoit: I didn’t care about Republican politics, and there is always a recession coming or going. I had other things on my mind. Which is just a long way of saying YMMhaveV.

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @satby:  I had an advantage in a relative from the area who was an early fan :)

    I agree he’s peaked in Indiana, and needs bigger horizons. And we really need a good communicator, always.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    Thanks for saying this, satby. Always liked Buttigieg and could never understand why he was so reviled by so many.

  57. 57.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    When/If Trump finally does come around he’s going to expect endless accolades and applauds for doing what every president has done since the beginning.

  58. 58.

    Ivan X

    I’ve been up all night, half working, half procrastinating, half hobbying, and I really just feel like saying good morning to all you good people.

    Now that I live on the west coast it is super weird to me that many of you have the sun shining already. I wonder if I’ll get used to this living in the future. Or the past. It depends upon my perspective at any given moment.

  64. 64.

    satby

    @Bex: Pete’s smart but in all fairness Drumpenfuhrer has been saying some version of not accepting election results since 2016, so it’s not clairvoyance.

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @HalfAssedHomesteader:

    When/If Trump finally does come around he’s going to expect endless accolades and applauds for doing what every president has done since the beginning.

    “Oh, good BOY, Donnie! You made a poopy! You are SUCH a big boy now. And next time, please try to get it in the toilet, not on the floor, OK honey? So we’ll have to keep you in diapers for just a little longer.”

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @p.a.:

    In other post-election news, my daily THIS IS HORRIBLE WE ARE DOOOOOOMED GIVE NOW emails are down 50+% ?

    Apparently you don’t live in Georgia! We are resigned to overflowing inboxes for another eight weeks.

    (Not complaining, though.)

  71. 71.

    raven

    @debbie: Well, when Bohdi fell at the beach last month we decided we were not going to take him back down there so, for now, it’s on hold.

  72. 72.

    p.a.

    In a more perfect world the Rethugs pulling this shit in support of the most putrid and stupid fascist this country has ever produced would destroy the effectiveness of these tactics for the future ‘better’ fascists.  But w Fox, hate radio etc poisoning the well…

  74. 74.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Dems and other Biden supporters are frustrated because there’s no obvious (or maybe tangible?) way to make Trump just go away. “We have to let the process play out” is not reassuring to those who have seen Trump and his minions pervert/destroy so much/many of the processes/functions/safeguards of the government/democracy. [Yes, I know that, Constitutionally, he goes away on 1/20/21. But given how he and his minions have ignored various other Constitutional strictures — emoluments, for example — it’s not unreasonable to think he’d fuck with everything else. Thanks, Mitch!]

  75. 75.

    Bex

    @satby: No it’s not, but it’s an example of how badly the loss of trust in each other and in our institutions is breaking the country.   So many, including the media, tried to normalize Trump way too long.

  76. 76.

    Kristine

    I’m seeing Biden’s sharp edges these days. His repeating “Secretary of State Pompeo” and chuckling—I wonder what he knows about that guy. And his response, “They will. They will.” when asked what if about GOP coming around and accepting the fact he won. Subtle, but there. not hat in hand at all.

    I think he’ll remember who went after Hunter. I don’t believe I would want to be on his bad side.

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Looking forward to seeing Buttigieg’s next act. He’s a smart guy who will be an asset to the party for years to come. I am certain the Biden admin will find a high-profile role for him, something that furthers his national standing.

    VA seems like a logical fit, but that can be fraught — not much upside and a lot of potential for downside. He’d make an excellent press sec, but maybe that’s too disconnected from policy? I’m not sure, but I bet he has ideas.

  81. 81.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Someday, I will never again have to work at avoiding that face. Probably the day I die.

    Let’s hope it’s well before that (i.e., his disappearance, not your expiring of course). Like, say, a month from now? A week’s probably too much to hope for.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @p.a.:

    We don’t know what will happen. In the 1920s, the Klan enjoyed a massive resurgence, then it quickly dwindled.  That of course didn’t instantly produce racial justice, but that particular institution didn’t continue to grow.

    We’ll never be free of conservatives, but there’s no reason to believe that the Trumpian incarnation of it is forever.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    One of the tweets in that stream (or whatever it’s called) showed The Traitor Pompeo saying he was NOT joking about the Trump Second Term. I had figured he was trolling, but I guess not.

    I hope Biden picks a good, tough AG, and that Pompeo dies in prison. [Not forgetting Barr, Jared, Uday/Qusay, Miller, and the rest.]

  88. 88.

    Baud

    @SFAW:

    I understand the frustration, but if we want to people (normies) to see Dems as leaders, we have to learn to overcome it. I just don’t see any other way forward. We don’t have big money or racial tribalism to lean on. All we have is our policies and the strength of our character. If we start flipping out, we don’t inspire others to have confidence in us.  IMHO.

  90. 90.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “And all I ate for lunch in the winter was snow on stale bread. It toughened me up – I didn’t have it easy like you.”

  91. 91.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Fox is a pretty prominent promulgator of all things RWMF, and they’re not going away anytime soon, even if Rupert were run over by a MAGAt bus tomorrow. Fox’s evil gives oxygen to those treasonous/traitorous fascists.

  93. 93.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @germy: Veering into a rabbit hole re “ridiculous pricing”: I wanted a book yesterday and the e-book was $17. I just couldn’t bring myself to click. Believe me, I get that the writer needs to be paid, but come on!

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    Looks like we’ll have to secure the jon boat and canoes and take in all the bird feeders so nothing blows away or crashes through a window in the tropical storm/hurricane that’s heading our way. So glad we acquired a generator. Eta probably won’t be that bad by the time it gets to us, but we live at the end of a 1.5 mile dirt road that’s surrounded by trees that can take down a power line.

  98. 98.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW:

    I want West Point to explain that stupid fucker and make apologies. If he was the best of his graduation year…..

    Do these chucklefucks understand the importance of legitimacy to authority or the history of the American Revolution? Do they think that people will sit idly by and let State Rep Cletus of East Pigshit take it on his own to decide who is going to be their national leader, despite the weight of national public opinion?

  99. 99.

    Woodrow/asim

    @SFAW: Dems and other Biden supporters are frustrated because there’s no obvious (or maybe tangible?) way to make Trump just go away.

    Truth to that!

    Yet, by hanging on every damn word someone says as though we’re all clairvoyant and can read the tea leaves…well, that, too, is an echo chamber of horrors. And one of our own making.

    Very few Americans have direct experience with creeping watching an Authoritarian government come into power — or lose it. For me, it’s been checking in with my Dad, who was active in pushing back Jim Crow, itself an example of Authoritarian, clocked in “democracy”.

    He keeps me centered, and reminds me that much of that work is still ongoing — but that Stacey stands on the work his Generation did, just as his stood on people like Du Bois. Things may slip back, but in his many years he’s seen them, overall, Get Better.

    Clawing back Human Rights, restoring Democracy and the Rule of what MLK would call Just Laws? Sometimes, yes, that’s a game of inches. It’s brutal to deal with, horrific to contemplate, and something that decades of entertainment has ill-prepared us for.

    Yet it is the work in front of us. the wish to Just Be Done should not override the need to speak with clarity, and center our conversations on something beyond the false wisdom of our fears. :)

  100. 100.

    Patricia Kayden

    Truly staggering to see the party that gutted Voting Rights Act, sabotaged USPS, closed polling places, purged voters, attacked mail voting, tried to throw out ballots & fabricated evidence under oath accuse the other side of cheating— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 11, 2020

  102. 102.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: This is the country of Joe McCarthy and Father Coughlin and “Birth of a Nation” and Henry Ford’s “The International Jew.” We just have to keep beating it back; the struggle doesn’t end.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    ????

    ? We have an emergency in progress at DoD and in IC. The plan is apparently to replace Haspel, Wray, Nakasone and do a coordinated dump of classified intel that causes chaos and damages US interests. ECW is now acting undersecretary of intel at DoD; part of Q operation.— Dave Troy (@davetroy) November 11, 2020

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    @SFAW:

    Dems and other Biden supporters are frustrated because there’s no obvious (or maybe tangible?) way to make Trump just go away.

    The Republican Party leaders add to the problem. They need to accept the results of the election and stop rallying behind Trump.

    Trump’s legal challenges will fail, unless the courts decide to actively support a coup.

    Trump needs to back down in December. There is no way this farce should go on up to the inauguration.

    If Trump continues to act like a wild beast, the 25 amendment should be applied.

  110. 110.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    For that to work, they’d also have to wipe the memories of Haspel, Wray, Nakasone, etc. More of Kay’s shoddy, low-quality plotting.

  114. 114.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Baud: In the 1920s, the Klan enjoyed a massive resurgence, then it quickly dwindled. That of course didn’t instantly produce racial justice, but that particular institution didn’t continue to grow.

    Well, the Bad News is that the KKK didn’t need to grow because its work was pretty much done — by the 1920s Jim Crow was pretty much a Southern Institution, and the world my Dad would be born into, already set up. Racism was, for all intents and purposes, the Law of the (Southern) Land, and all the KKK had to do was drink beer and lynch “Uppity Negros,” basically. :(

    The (quasi) Good News? All that happened because American Society, from the Compromise of 1877 on, just gave up on us Black folx. And, as I was musing earlier this AM, that happened because the Federal government had too few tools, and (arguably) even less desire, to fight back against the OG KKK and the acts of Racial Terrorism endemic in the American South.

    Keep in mind — it was the violence, and threats of violence, that actually led directly to Jim Crow. It was the inability of the then-Federal government to crack down on all these terror cells that allowed so many racially-diverse local/state government to be broken — physically and otherwise — by racists.

    Yet that was a different era — one whose lesson we still need to learn, yet still very much not of a one-to-one correlation with today. Now, 80% of Americans agree Biden won. We have professional Federal Law Enforcement that actually goes after the kind of people who kick-start those kinds of violent acts, and it appears even Trump isn’t eager to displace Wray from that work. We have a Society that actually sees Black folx as worthy, in ways prior generations struggled with.

    That so many supported Trump seems to belie that. Yet, as a Black Man, I can tell you there’s a weird cognitive dissonance around racist people — a desire, nay, an eagerness, to carve out some Black folx as “good” and the rest as “n*”. And as much as that’s been the game plan for centuries, it’s now so much the forefront (see: Carson, Ownes, K. West) that I think the popular concept of “racism” as “I hate all PoCs!” needs to be rethought around it (and has for a while, it’s just clearer now).

    None of this is to say that we can’t backslide. It is to say that the question of why so many voted for this White Nationalist government, and still loves it, is more complex than a resurgent KKK, and that it’d be useful for us to recognize that.

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kristine: Biden on the whole is trying to project confident leadership, dispel immediately any notion that he doubts he’s actually going to take office, and reassure people that when he gets in he’ll be ready and able to govern. But to people who are worried about Trump’s putsch attempt, this plays as “playing nice” or as obliviousness and they think he doesn’t even see what Trump is doing. That’s where it’s helpful for people like Bauer to talk to the faithful.

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I don’t really understand what Trump’s goal is in all this, but I guess this is just how a malignant narcissist lashes out when he isn’t getting what he wants. Does he think he can release some kind of classified dirt on Joe Biden, or the Obama administration or whatever, that will help him now?

  119. 119.

    hueyplong

    @rikyrah: I don’t understand this idea of dumping our intel.  Do the Trumpists supposedly about to do this think that time stops the second they do it?  That there will be no consequences to them?

    They think there is some powerful Deep State, but that Deep State won’t fuck their shit up big time after such a blatant act of treason?

    It doesn’t make sense to me.

  120. 120.

    Zzyzx

    The Hannity bombshell last night was so huge that not even Trump could bother retweeting it. It’s almost as though there hasn’t been any significant amount of fraud.

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    @hueyplong: All I can figure is that it’s the bureaucratic equivalent of smearing poop on the walls. Just a burst of destructive activity on the way out as an expression of infantile anger.

  123. 123.

    Patricia Kayden

    Hey Democratic leaders: It's time you step up and start fighting for Joe Biden and against Team Trump's lies about voter fraud. It appears Democratic leaders have updated Michelle Obama's "When they go low, we go high" to now "When they go low, we go silent." Unite and FIGHT!— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) November 11, 2020

  125. 125.

    Suzanne

    @satby: Agreed. I first became aware of Mayor Pete when he was running for DNC Chair, and I saw him speak, along with Ellison, Perez, Harrison, et al. I thought he was impressive AF from that moment. I didn’t get the hatred here. (I also don’t get the Bernie hatred here, but that’s a topic for a different day.)

    I think it speaks to our strength that we have these very impressive people, at all age groups and all across the country, on Team Blue.

  127. 127.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: The NHC puts it over our heads as a tropical storm at 1 PM tomorrow, but it seems to be a wobbly storm, so who knows? Gonna be watching that track all day! :)

  128. 128.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Betty Cracker: It’s a shame that Trump can’t spare any thoughts for the Americans who are contending with potential natural disasters because he’s so busy trying to steal another election.

  129. 129.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    Part of what worries me is this will now be the accepted response to an election that Republicans lose. They’ll insist they didn’t lose. Their losing House candidates are already saying it.

    Are we going to go thru this every two years? Every governors race? Mayors? Republicans lose and they refuse to accept the result and destroy everything in sight on their way out?

    We already have a disadvantage in the electoral vote and the senate. We now must win by overwhelming margins, every race, or we endure weeks and weeks of all Republicans refusing to accept results and threatening to throw out votes?

  130. 130.

    trnc

    President-elect Biden on President Trump not conceding:
    “I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly … At the end of the day, you know, it’s all going to come to fruition on Jan. 20.”

    I’d personally like to see some very public warnings from the transition team that any federal laws that are broken regarding record keeping and retention will be prosecuted.

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @Patricia Kayden: I’m wondering if Trump, or anyone on his team, will remember Veteran’s Day.

    Other than their continuing efforts to get the military ballots thrown out, that is.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    Trump still retains a stranglehold on that Party. He’s getting ready to formalize it. He’ll install loyalists at all levels. Can we now expect every Republican to now refuse to accept the results of all elections they lose? They’re enthusiastically endorsing this position. The idea that it will go away when Trump leaves this office is unlikely.

    They accept the results when they win and refuse to accept the results when they lose. That’s the new Party principle. They can repeat this performance once a year all over the country, culminating with refusing to accept the next Presidential election. Unless they win of course. Then it’s valid.

  138. 138.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    We now must win by overwhelming margins, every race, or we endure weeks and weeks of all Republicans refusing to accept results and threatening to throw out votes?

    Trump didn’t invent this, Kay.  It happens fairly often.  When Bashear won in Kentucky, Bevin refused to concede, demanded a recount, yadda yadda.  And he wasn’t the first, either.  Trump is and will stay an extreme example, because he is an extreme example of a toxic narcissist and there is no strategy here, and no reward.  If anything, he’s going to be the example that if you throw this kind of shit fit and never, ever concede, you get walked out the door when your term ends regardless.

  139. 139.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    He’ll install loyalists at all levels.

    Where?  Trump’s loyalists will evaporate like the mist the moment he ceases to be president.  They’ll all be gone from the White House.  The Republican Party won’t have any use for the ones who were loyal to Trump rather than them.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    If you’ve been following fake voter fraud claims for 20 years, as I have, you know that because the claims are a belief- no basis in reality- it is impossible to disprove them. These claims are going to skyrocket.

  141. 141.

    Kristine

    @hueyplong: According to a story in today’s WaPo—which I can’t link to because stupid phone—Trump is still upset about Russian interference in 2016 being responsible for his winning and wants to dump intel he claims will refute that.

  142. 142.

    Matt McIrvin

    I guess there were still more outstanding provisionals in Philadelphia, lol.

    The final margin in PA looks to be at least 50,000, probably bigger.

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but I said multiple times during the primaries that I was not going to slag on any real Democrats.  This is why.

  144. 144.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    No, they’re all admitting they’re the Trump party now. It just isn’t true that they’ll kick him to the curb. No one says that. Not only will he be running the GOP, he’ll be the kingmaker. He’s got them good. They’re as trapped as trapped can be.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: An insurmountable lead, but a little disappointing it won’t reach Michigan levels.

    In six to eight months when there are more reliable post-mortems, I’ll be interested in seeing what people say about the effect of COVID restrictions in constraining GOTV efforts for Dems.

  146. 146.

    trnc

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m seeing people worrying that Trump’s aim with all these lawsuits might be to drag out the counting process all the way to mid-December so that states can’t certify electors at all, which would somehow throw it to a contingent election in the House that Trump would win …

    These make no sense on their face. Each state operates individually and under election laws already in place. There might be a recount in Ga, and let’s throw in Wisconsin for good measure, but so what? They’ll recount and certify the results, which will probably not change the outcome. DT has no way to slow down the process beyond a recount, and I suspect they can get it done by the deadline.

    As far as the election being thrown to the House, I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone thinks that helps DT since we control the House.

  147. 147.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: This is part of the reason I was a bit bothered by people getting too excited that wins in Florida and Texas were going to give us an early Election Night call, or going on about winning by a margin “too big to steal”. It seemed like they were raising the bar for what we had to do, normalizing that it’s only legit if Democrats win by a mile. But a win is a win.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    These claims are going to skyrocket.

    No they’re not, for the same reason you just mentioned.  They’ve been going on and on and on.  They rise and fall as they help get voter ID laws passed, then get too ludicrous and fail to get other laws passed.  The Republican Party hasn’t even refused to accept this election.  They’re standing around looking embarrassed and mumbling mealy-mouthed non-denials as they are unable to stop their leader from humiliating them by charging straight into the brick wall of Jan 20th.

    EDIT – @Kay:

    They will kick him to the curb so fast your head will spin.  Why?  Because his hold on them is his voters, and his voters do not give the slightest fuck about him except that he can deliver white supremacy.  When he loses office, he loses that power.

  149. 149.

    Matt McIrvin

    @trnc: They’re thinking about the contingent election where neither side gets a 270-vote majority. Trump would win that because it’s one vote per state House delegation, not a regular vote.

    But sometimes people do get that mixed up with the procedure for voting on challenges to electoral votes, and that is NOT one vote per state.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Oh, I didn’t think that. Georgia is a legit prize, as is Arizona. I think Georgia is bigger because it’s another incursion into the south with Virginia. Georgia is kind of amazing, frankly. It was amazing last cycle too.

  151. 151.

    Barbara

    @Baud: I estimate it will be between 60-70,000 depending on the mix of remaining votes.

    I cannot say what happened.  I think there probably was a bit of an anti-incumbent effect because people are in distress.  I think, too, that Republicans did a better job of turnout at least partly because more of their voters are primed not to worry about the infection.

  153. 153.

    Barbara

    @Kay: It’s “Jim Webb wins the Senate in Virginia” amazing.  I hope it portends a durable trend for the future in the state.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker: One of the best suggestions I have heard for Buttigieg is Ambassador to the UN.  It plays to his strengths.  It be high profile.  And it would put him in a role where the concerns some Dems have/had about his economic views are irrelevant.  VA is important, but I am not sure it is a place for an up and coming politician.

  155. 155.

    Baud

    I don’t recall her name, but I saw a clip of a new AA woman that Georgia sent to Congress. She was very impressive.

  157. 157.

    trnc

    @Matt McIrvin: It seemed like they were raising the bar for what we had to do, normalizing that it’s only legit if Democrats win by a mile. But a win is a win.

    I saw it as a way to encourage democrats to vote and not be complacent, which seems to have worked. And I think the idea that we have to win by a large margin has been normalized at least since 2014, when redistricting cost us the House even though our House candidates had over a million more total votes. I don’t think we can overestimate the amount of rat copulation by bad faith state legislatures where possible in close contests.

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: I wasn’t that certain Biden would hold Arizona until recently. Trump still does have a shot there but it’s dwindling, so the 306-vote map does look like the most likely possibility.

    Except that of these late-counting battleground states, Georgia is probably the one with the greatest likelihood of getting its electoral votes fucked with, just because Kemp is the governor and is actively echoing Trump’s conspiracy rhetoric now. But he’s going to have to go through the state Secretary of State who is having none of it despite being a Republican.

  159. 159.

    Barbara

    @Frankensteinbeck: I have to agree with Kay on this one.  They will no more kick him to the curb tomorrow than they are doing today, as they indulge his childish and dangerous refusal to acknowledge loss in order to keep the country on an even keel.  They can’t.

    On the other hand, I have read a lot of hysterical twitter comments on the “decapitation” of DOD leadership, and based on who is being installed, I actually see this as movement towards internal (if not external) recognition that this administration has very little time left.  All of the replacements are people who are in the know about all the foreign knicky knack that has been going on.  No doubt they are running term searches to find all electronic documents and messages that refer to shady Turkish and Russian dealings so they can try to do a virtual shredding job.

  161. 161.

    Sab

    @Kay: It already happens within the party. I remember how gracelessly Mary Taylor accepted being beaten by Mike DeWine in the primary last time. For a while she was even sayimg she wouldn’t vote for him.

  162. 162.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Barbara:

    They will no more kick him to the curb tomorrow than they are doing today

    Today Trump is president, and has great power over the rest of the party.  When he ceases to be president, that power evaporates.

  163. 163.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frankensteinbeck: The Republican Party won’t have any use for the ones who were loyal to Trump rather than them.

    I’m not following this. The only ones who weren’t loyal to trump are the Lincoln Project guys and they are persona non grata in the GOP.

  164. 164.

    Immanentize

    @Edmund Dantes: I believe the opposite.  As someone said, in January we will all be praising Manchin as a protecting angel in the 51-49 Republican Senate.  It was a smart thing to say when we look like will not take the Senate.

  165. 165.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Suppose the game is this –

    1. “We don’t accept the bogus electoral college process. It was fatally defective, and we will be inaugurated for our second term.

    2. The Marshal Service and FBI will be directed to remain under the orders of Barr and whoever the acting FBI director is.

    3. Military will be directed by Trump minions to put down any uprisings, whether sporadic or sustained. The sacredness of “civilian control” will be invoked to cashier officers who resist.

    4. ???

    5. Profit, at least for those connected to the regime. News will meekly accept, dissent will be stomped by decree.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    @Barbara:

    In some ways the Georgia win is even bigger, because it lets “the Abram’s approach” rise.

    The complaints about Democratic campaigns being too tv-heavy and sporadic and not plugged in locally enough have been made for decades, by almost every Democratic organizer I have ever encountered. But Abrams got their attention. The campaigns are going to change, and that’s an unequivocally good thing.

  170. 170.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I’ve already seen some on-the-ground reports that the Democtrats’ covid-conservative door knocking reductions hurt them (this was from folks I know in the Rio Grande Valley).  But that is still just anecdata right now.

  171. 171.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Right now, Trump is the Republican Party because he’s the Republican president.  They will never abandon their president.  That would be giving Democrats a victory, diluting their own power.  When Trump ceases to be president, all those people will have to make a choice:  Are they loyal to Trump personally, or to the Republican Party and Trump was just the face of the party?  Those two loyalties will be at odds, because Trump becomes a dead weight the second he loses power.  Anyone who picks Trump will be gone.  Anyone who picks the party… was a standard Republican anyway, so who cares?

  172. 172.

    Barbara

    @Frankensteinbeck: Normally you would be right because most presidents are like Bush, and go quietly into the sunset, reluctant to comment on nearly any new political issue or development.  Trump is less likely to remain quiet, but maybe he will just become exhausted and go play golf for the rest of his life.  An early indication of what will happen is whether Jr. and his girlfriend gain influence over the RNC as they have signaled that they want to do.

    ETA: However, it may be, if Trump does recede from being a significant force it will be his own choice.  The party will not “kick him to the curb.” That is my main point.

  174. 174.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I don’t believe a bid like that has any chance of succeeding. The civil service and the career military brass mostly hate Trump at this point, and they understand what it says in the Constitution. If the Electoral College votes in Biden, then Trump is no longer their boss at noon on Inauguration Day. The political appointees in the FBI and DoD no longer have those jobs–whoever Biden designates as acting officials will. Trump can issue all the “orders” he wants and they will have no legal weight.

  177. 177.

    Immanentize

    @Frankensteinbeck: I agree with part the one and disagree with your second part.  He will be the living version of the new lost cause at least for one more election cycle.  Personally, I think it will be OK, because we can only hold ideas for seconds, like in Harrison Burgeron.

    But the Trump 2024 campaign will be led by all the usual suspects (Jordan, Gaitz, Nunes, Blackwell, Noem, etc.) Who will be given a big platform for at least four years.

  178. 178.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Once you believe in voter fraud, no amount of evidence to the contrary  will shake that belief because the theory was never based on fact. You can’t use facts to shake a belief. One of the affidavits by the Trump observers is instructive. The observer watched overseas and military ballots be opened and counted. She’s in the room, seeing this. Most of them went to Biden. In her affidavit she says this is part of what convinced her of fraud because she doesn’t believe any military would vote for Biden.

    There will never be enough proof.

    Democrats know this, because they’ve been fighting it for decades. That’s why they moved off opposing things like voter ID and instead went towards expanding access. They’re no longer engaging on the voter fraud front. It’s more productive to just make voting more convenient.

  179. 179.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Barbara:

    Oh, Trump won’t be quiet.  At all.  But no one will care, because he won’t be president.  That he is president is everything.  He’ll be another white supremacist loudmouth with no power to deliver anything and who is terrible at public appearances because all he talks about is himself.  His voters will bail because he’s useless to them.  Then the party will bail, because he’s useless to them.

  180. 180.

    Immanentize

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I wasn’t that certain Biden would hold Arizona until recently.

    Ha! I don’t think you were certain that Biden would win California! Well, there are still a lot of votes out, there. Biden might still lose it all!

  181. 181.

    Amir Khalid

    In the five short years since he decided to run for President, Trump has become to the Republican party something like the little boy in the Twilight Zone episode who can wish the townspeople out of existence on a whim. That’s why they are all so terrified of him. As much as we of a leftward persuasion may despise them, it is tragic that the party of Lincoln has come to this.

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Immanentize: I hate all the postmortem complaining that Democrats’ weaker ground game was a “mistake”. Sure, kill your supporters and volunteers with COVID-19 if it’s what it takes to win.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Immanentize: No, I was watching the scraper data. Biden’s margin in Arizona has been shrinking, not growing, since AZ is an unusual case where mail ballots were actually more Republican than in-person ballots on the whole. And for most of the past week, the margin going to Trump was very, very close to the point that you could extrapolate to a tie vote given the number of outstanding ballots. But the Trump vote has fallen just a little short lately.

  186. 186.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I hate all the postmortem complaining that Democrats’ weaker ground game was a “mistake”. Sure, kill your supporters and volunteers with COVID-19 if it’s what it takes to win.

    It is a universal truth that Democrats can’t succeed unless they are simultaneously more like Republicans and less like Republicans.

  187. 187.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    This is horrible to say but I was glad they weren’t door knocking here, not because of covid but because everyone is armed and I was watching really aggressive shows of dominance by Trump supporters. Always IN the trucks, these shows. Because they’re cowards and they need to be in the big truck before they’ll show off.

    I worried they would get shot. I’m not alone in the “fear of people getting shot” issue. I once when to a county commissioner meeting where the public health nurse said what “keeps her awake at night” is a home health aide being murdered by a patient with dementia because the home health aides enter their homes and they might not remember they have a home health aide so will see a stranger walking in. She said this matter of factly.

  190. 190.

    Baud

    @Barbara: Initial anecdata suggests that it did.  But that also means we don’t need a radical course correction to turn our voters next time, assuming vaccine progress goes has hope in 2021.

  191. 191.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: @satby: I was thinking he’d be a dynamite Press Secretary – I’d watch the hell out of those briefings. But it may be too narrow a field for his talents. Someone suggested Commerce Secretary, as it needs a combo of tech savvy and smarts that he seems to have mastered.

    And yeah, I was one of the ones who ragged on him – mostly because I thought his reach was exceeding his grasp by a ridiculous amount in a POTUS run, and I thought the attention he was getting was primarily due to the fact that he was a nice, clean-cut young white dude, which I resented on behalf of candidates like Warren and Harris. But he’s a lot more than I thought. His willingness to be a team player impressed me, and his rhetorical chops, presence of mind, and Midwest-nice “Ooh, I’m gonna slip the knife in so smooth and easy you won’t even feel it” routine on Fox has won me over completely.

    Which makes me more than ready to admit I was wrong about him. #MayorPeteConvert

  193. 193.

    frosty

    @Kay: Good, if this happens. The campaigns need to change. Every two years the PA Dems parachute me into different neighborhoods, a different one every weekend, to knock on doors. In other places there are precinct captains and volunteers who repeatedly contact the same voters, sometimes their neighbors. This seems way more effective to me.

    Plus, every campaign we get a new field worker managing us. Every campaign we get a new list of voters that we have to vet. Why can’t we start the next campaign season where we left off last time?

    IMHO letting OFA wither away was criminal. The community organizer running for president had the best organization I’ve seen.

    OK, rant over.

  195. 195.

    Kay

    @frosty:

    EVERYONE says it, right? It’s so incredibly consistent that it’s entered the ordinary conversation, like “herding cats” has.

    I could time it. In the first 5 minutes the organizer will tell me “there’s no organizing infrastructure so I had to start from zero”. What it also tells you is they’re not listening to their organizers and haven’t been for like…20 years :)

  196. 196.

    trnc

    @Frankensteinbeck: Today Trump is president, and has great power over the rest of the party. When he ceases to be president, that power evaporates.

    I doubt that. Sean Hannity was never president, and he has a tremendous amount of influence. If DT really does start his own network, he’ll have a big following. This is why republicans are supposedly going all in for his crap – they aren’t afraid of him; they’re afraid of his voters.

  198. 198.

    Immanentize

    @Matt McIrvin: Did I say “mistake?” You are a ninny.  You talk about scraping data and other stuff, scrape turn-out data and figure out of the Republicans’ willingness to ignore covid risks led to getting more of their people to the polls?  That seems like a positive use of your talents.

    PS. I did not have doubts about Arizona.  I was right not to fret.

  200. 200.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Immanentize:

    He will be the living version of the new lost cause

    That’s really the key question.  Will Trump remain the face of white supremacy?  Because it is white supremacy that Republican voters are fanatically loyal to, and Trump is the most perfect avatar* of white supremacy in a hundred years.  But by the same process, white supremacy cannot fail, it can only be failed.  Trump will be the man who failed white supremacy.

    *A whiny, butt-ignorant, petty, self-obsessed, bullying, cowardly, corrupt, ranting asshole.

  201. 201.

    Kay

    @frosty:

    Democrats got lazy in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania because for 50 years labor unions did their organizing for them. I’m now an “official” Democrat- I’m an officer in the county organization- and when you look back it’s completely clear what happened. ALL the meetings and notes are like “Teamster reps says” or “UAW reps says”. The labor union organizers were the organizers.

  202. 202.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Cory Bush in MO credits close personal contacting for her success.  But she has a tremendous personal story that resonates as well.  Great candidate — great game.

  205. 205.

    Sab

    @satby: I first heard of Buttigieg when he was being interviewed on Cleveland OH public radio’s morning local show early in the primary season. He got a whole half hour and he was really impressive.

    (I hate NPR national, but they still have good local stations in many places.)

  206. 206.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Amir Khalid: Trump has become to the Republican party something like the little boy in the Twilight Zone episode who can wish the townspeople out of existence on a whim.

    OT, but people reference this episode a lot. I’d like to get a little love for the source material, a short story by Jerome Bixby, called “It’s a Good Life” like the TZ episode, published in 1953.

    Edit: Like many short stories, somebody has posted the full text online.

  207. 207.

    topclimber

    @Baud: We are looking at a doubling of the popular Presidential vote margin on perhaps a 20% increase in turnout. Maybe that is mostly never-Trumpers voting for Joe and no other Dem. But when Trump continues to dominate the GOP after he goes perhaps the NTs will rethink their down ballot loyalty.

  208. 208.

    Chris Johnson

    @Frankensteinbeck:They will kick him to the curb so fast your head will spin.  Why?  Because his hold on them is his voters

    No. A bunch of them are traitors, able to work with Russia in the same way that Trump can’t. His hold on them is that they’re being threatened that if they give in they will be straight up fucking murdered.

    Treasons have consequences. They’re not afraid of AMERICAN jail time. They’re afraid of being Epsteined, and are probably right to fear that.

    Bear this in mind as you see them act like their mad scramblings might just work. These people are doomed on a level beyond the obvious. There is no retirement plan for what they’ve done. Some of them are gonna die, and not by our actions or intentions. They didn’t think they were signing up for this, but they were.

  209. 209.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    True, but we’ve had fascist media before.   They’re not eternal in their power.

    Prior fascist media did not have the power and popularity Fox does.

  210. 210.

    schrodingers_cat

    @satby: I was  critical of the white liberal and MSM’s fawning reaction to him and didn’t think he was quite Presidential material, yet. He was lionized for stuff that would get an immigrant (or a woman), scorn.

    But ever since he dropped out of the race he has been a stellar team player. And I am glad that he is on our team.

  211. 211.

    frosty

    @Kay: Ah ha! That explains a lot. This time around I did lit drops for Biden/Harris and DePasquale (PA-10) on different days. Neither one listed the other candidate, or any of the others. The last weekend, I picked up a union sticker that had fallen off a door. It listed everyone, from President down to state assembly.

    So, WTF? The PA Dems only worked for Biden. The congressional campaigns had their own funding and only worked for themselves. This is nuts.

  215. 215.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Are we going to go thru this every two years? Every governors race? Mayors? Republicans lose and they refuse to accept the result and destroy everything in sight on their way out?

    I have a potential remedy, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

  216. 216.

    Denali

    @Kay,

    You are right. There has been a disconnect in the local and national races. I did not understand why my local Democratic Committee was so focused on local candidates. I was the only one who stood up and asked for the Committee to support Trump’s impeachment. I think the shrinkage of the unions’ influence has also hurt the Democratic Party. They could count on the unions’ support. That support is not so meaningful now. The Republicans stole the working people’s vote with their not so subtle appeal to racism.

  217. 217.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    That’s dry ice temp, not liquid nitrogen, and dry ice is less of a specialized product. So it doesn’t seem insurmountable.

    Also, liquid nitrogen isn’t that specialized; just needs a Dewar. An old scientist (another forum) mentioned recently that over 50 years ago on his uncle’s farm in then Rhodesia, 8 miles down an African dirt road, frozen bull semen was delivered in a Dewar of liquid nitrogen, with another Dewar to top it off.
    But a vaccine without such requirements (and single-dose) will be important. Many in clinical trials.

  218. 218.

    Ruckus

    @Kristine:

    One doesn’t successfully play at Joe Biden’s level without some level of real cognition of the other players in the game, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as being aware of one’s own, in the same way.

  224. 224.

    Kay

    @frosty: 

    Here is My Plan.
    Democrats hire organizers in the places where the organizers live. They pay them a decent wage with health benefits. They cast a REALLY wide net for these people- not just young people but all kinds of others- retirees, etc. Then let them “job share”, so you could have two doing half of 36 hours, all sorts of combos. They need oversight and a manager or there will be grifting, so you’d have to pay that person by state or by region.
    They could do this with 5% of the tv adverting spending. You literally wouldn’t even notice the reduction because you’d be paying these people 32k, 36k, 40k. What they would become is local experts. They would know all the D’s in their area.

  226. 226.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:  That’s a great plan.

    Cost effective, too. We have elections just about every year in some states [Virginia and New Jersey?? have governor’s races next year], and certainly congressional every two. The purely focusing on presidential elections … is not that useful.

    Keep in touch with those new and newly re-energized voters!

  227. 227.

    Kay

    @frosty:

    My paternal grandmother did this for a labor union. The union paid her as a full time, permanent organizer. Campaigns came and went- she stayed. She knew everyone. She was like this weirdly powerful working class person with a 6th grade education because she had this extensive understanding of the whole local scene and she knew so many people. For the right person I think it’s gratifying work. There’s power in it. They don’t have to be ideological. They have to be SOCIAL.

  230. 230.

    LadySuzy

    I too have come around about Pete Buttigieg. I saw that he was very bright and talented, but thought during the debates that he looked like the bright kid who wants to play at the adults’ table. He looked a little green. And I found him pretty arrogant to have run at 36 years old. Intelligence is important, but life experience, political experience are important too.

    I had the feeling that he really thought he had a chance and that’s what irritated me. That he thought he was already good enough, had already the wisdom and the maturity to be president.

    @Miss Bianca:

  231. 231.

    LadySuzy

     

     

    @LadySuzy: I’ve come to grips with that. He seems happy about where he is right now. He has respect for the president-elect, and Mr. Biden is very fond of him. Mayor Pete is going to be part of the administration, will learn a lot, and will realize that he needed more experience before aiming at the Big Job.

    He is exceptionally bright, so he will be ready at a younger age than others. We’ll see.

  232. 232.

    rikyrah

    @Kay: 

    I think Georgia is bigger because it’s another incursion into the south with Virginia. Georgia is kind of amazing, frankly. It was amazing last cycle too.

    We think that court cases don’t matter. But, they really do.
    Stacey Abrams and others have been doing the fight in Georgia.
    The fight to get a paper trail – even for votes on electronic machines – that mattered.
    Getting people signed up for Mail Ballots obviously mattered.
    Literally getting unregistered people registered mattered.
    All these things came together to matter a great deal in 2020.
    I think Georgia has been blue since 2012 and Obama’s second run. But, they had to get past all the Voter Suppression tactics. Find a way around them.

  233. 233.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    Republicans were loyal to W. until they weren’t.

     

    And then they forgot he even existed – remember 44’s term? It was like Shrub hadn’t ever been President, if you listened to Republicans.

  234. 234.

    rikyrah

    @Frankensteinbeck:

     

     He’ll be another white supremacist loudmouth with no power to deliver anything and who is terrible at public appearances because all he talks about is himself.

     

    How will he do rallies?

    Unlike as President, cities will have the right to demand their money UP FRONT.

    And, he doesn’t have money.

  235. 235.

    frosty

    @Kay: (The Plan) Democrats hire organizers in the places where the organizers live. They pay them a decent wage with health benefits.

    Yes! That would be a great start. I understand we had an organizer this year from our County. I didn’t interact with her at all, I hope she sticks around.

  236. 236.

    frosty

    @O. Felix Culpa: I have a friend in ABQ whose wife is a precinct captain(?). Anyway, her job is to keep in touch with all the Democrats in her turf and make sure they have a plan to vote and nag them until they voted. It seems like it would be a lot more effective than what I’ve been doing since 2004.

  238. 238.

    misterpuff

    @Spanky:  Can’t Manchin count? Support the Democratic base and we will shower money on you in single and double digit values, you don’t need the fat cats, you got us (if you do the job FOR US).

  239. 239.

    Brachiator

    @Zzyzx:

    once again, the 25th amendment doesn’t work that way. If the President is conscious, it’s far easier to just impeach.

    I would prefer impeachment, but this president is increasingly unhinged. The 25th amendment applies to mental incapacity.

    Hell, Congress could rein Trump in if Republicans weren’t such fools.

  240. 240.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Late to the thread, I know (happy belated birthday, raven) but…

    Today would have been the 90th birthday of my esteemed teacher, resolute chess opponent, Eurotravel and statistical inspiration, Dutch uncle, intellectual father-figure and top-3 all-time friend.

    An amazing guy. Born in Rotterdam, came to the US age 19 with his Swedish wife, taught me geometry and trig in HS and sponsored the chess club (where I was the only one who could beat him – he was a gifted natural). He spoke at least 5 modern languages fluently  plus a few ancient ones (only many years later did I find out that he was an ordained minister who’d taught HS to support the family until a congregation came along – which it didn’t before he left the church). Also a gifted musician (piano & organ). After his marriage collapsed, he got a graduate fellowship to UMd. I typed his PhD thesis while he regaled me with stories of the wonders of statistics, & when I needed to find another career path after bombing out of astrophysics, voila. He also spun tales of many trips to Europe (his dressing down in German an East German Grepo who’d messed with the wrong US passport holder is legendary) and when he moved to Denmark he got me off the travel schneid by ordering me to come visit – 40 years and dozens of trips later I remain grateful for that.

    I’d visit him as often as I could, especially after a stroke hobbled his last years – brought him books, cooked for him in the assisted-living efficiency provided by the Danes. We would have burned up the international phone lines over the 2000 election foofaraw – had he not passed away the day before, a few days short of 70. And 20 years later he remains, with my parents and my nephew/godson, one of the people I miss nearly every day.

    So happy birthday, Dr Kip, requiescat in pace. You are remembered on a plaque in the lobby of the new high school on the grounds of our old one – I made sure of that. (And I hope I can finally track down your son, who  could tell me where you were laid to rest, before the airliners are flying again, so I can visit.)

  242. 242.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Ivan X: Time travel! When I took a trip to Greece a couple of years ago, I would email my husband in CA (10 hours behind) around dinner time and he would get it that morning. Fun.

  243. 243.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trnc: As far as the election being thrown to the House, I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone thinks that helps DT since we control the House.

    How many god-damned times do people who know better have to tell you imbeciles to read the Constitution (Article II Section 1 and 12th Amendment) before you shoot off your uninformed mouths??

    If the election goes to the House, each state has one vote – and the GOP controls a majority of state delegations. So Trump wins.

  244. 244.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker:

    @SiubhanDuinne: The NHC puts it over our heads as a tropical storm at 1 PM tomorrow, but it seems to be a wobbly storm, so who knows? Gonna be watching that track all day! :)

    I’ve been watching Eta since it was a gleam in the Hurricane Tracker’s eye, and it’s path seems like the pattern for a Drunkard’s Path quilt. I don’t know how they expect to predict where this thing will go next, nor what will happen when it gets there.

    Best of luck, hope the mere fact of having a generator keeps the grid power up for you. We live up a dead end hollow with a dirt road, we’re always the last bits of community to get power restored after a storm event. Now we have a whole-house generator with automatic switch over, 15 seconds after the grid fails our lights come back on.

    The two things it won’t run are the A/C and the water pump, the A/C needs too  much juice and the well is too far away. But everything else works fine.

    Best of luck Betty, keep in touch while you can, please give us a heads-up if and when the shit hits the fan!!

  246. 246.

    J R in WV

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: He had the highest GPA.  It doesn’t mean he was the smartest or the best.

    Pompeo’s major was pretty lame too: “Engineering Management” — not Engineering, management. No wonder he had a high GPA!

    I took some management courses as part of the Comp Sci degree course, I guess to make sure the systems analysts could understand management-speak, which sounds like English, but isn’t quite, really.

  247. 247.

    Barbara

    @SiubhanDuinne: Speaking personally, everyone should have to command a larger stage before running for president. Buttigieg has definitely stepped up over the last six months.

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