Just as JD Vance was about to officially declare his candidacy for US Senate, his campaign sign fell off the lectern pic.twitter.com/5pqsikBdML
— Roger Sollenberger found true love, suckers (@SollenbergerRC) July 2, 2021
On the one hand, local primary which Vance may very well not even win. On the other hand: Hillbilly Sniping, Plutocrat Tonguebath author, now wholly owned & operated by Peter ‘Bathory’ Thiel. Schadenfreude!
“I am not responsible for the things I said” is perfect for JD “Personal Responsibility” Vance. Just perfect. https://t.co/BnO6fvC5Td
— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) July 6, 2021
… Vance is currently running for the Republican nomination in Ohio, a constituency where Never Trump Republicanism plays more poorly than it does in, say, Silicon Valley. Vance appeared on Fox News to confess his sins and plead forgiveness from the voters whose approval he now seeks…
Like any good capitalist, Vance pays careful attention to market signals and is quick to reposition his product when he has misjudged consumer demand. In his current role, he has tried to position himself as the enemy of the business elite (or at least the parts of the business elite not funding his campaign). Vance claimed that “career politicians” are “upset with me because I actually say what’s true — which is many of these people don’t care about their own voters; they think they’re either bigoted or they think they’re stupid.”
It is the other politicians who think Republican voters are stupid. Vance respects their intelligence enough to look them in the eye and beg their forgiveness for ever having suggested they are stupid to support Trump.
Vance absolutely abasing himself before the altar of Trump in order to get absolutely thrashed in a primary and waste a bunch of Peter Thiel’s money is, let’s face it, very funny. https://t.co/rgolntfEAZ
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) July 5, 2021
In his defense, he was pandering when he opposed Trump and is pandering now when he supports Trump, so he’s been consistent. https://t.co/MXWBs5809Y
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) July 6, 2021
vance is polling in the single digits right now, and the only reason he gets any coverage at all is because he represents a particular class of investor/politics maniacs that media outlets like axios are dependent on, in order to survive.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 27, 2021
jd vance is going to be the first person to ever run for office whose campaign ends up being legitimately terrible for his book sales
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 29, 2021
imagine being a NYT blockbuster best-seller, whose book was adapted by ron howard, backed by a venture capitalist’s checkbook full of blank checks, and *still* running a campaign polling in single digits
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 29, 2021
Literally Hitler. https://t.co/6bHZAyZVar
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) July 1, 2021
bluehill
Hillbilly eulogy
Major Major Major Major
Think you forgot to change the title!
ronno2018
I mean how can he debase himself by saying I love orange mango face paint moron after saying I hate that guy for being a rapist corrupt criminal faker devil man? Jesus christ, spaghetti monster. what a terrible person!!!
Adam L Silverman
The 11 PM advisory is still listing Elsa as a hurricane, but the meteorologist is saying flat out “right now it is nowhere remotely looking like a hurricane or winds that are even close to hurricane strength”.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Our local guy:
HumboldtBlue
Frantic finish to Argentine v Colombia, it’s become one yellow card after another. The Argies wasted an absolute lock of a goal with a breakaway in the 77th minute and completely flubbed their lines.
On to PKs.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Yep
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks, fixd
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: impressive
Major Major Major Major
Very happy he’s doing so poorly.
I think some of you might appreciate this silly samwise picture I made.
HumboldtBlue
Colombia makes first pen
Messi answersSave Argentina! Emi Martinez!
and Argentina miss! 1-1
Emi Martinez with another save! Argentina 2-1 after three!
Benw
Suns opening the door back up for the Bucks, like a bunch of dorks
Suzanne
Well, I mean, TRUE. I don’t give a fuck about J,D, Vance’s voters, and I think they’re probably both bigoted and stupid.
This dude is going to ruin whatever potential he had. I think he’s gonna go the Josh Duggar route into irrelevance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw: Not sure it’s enough tonight.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne:
Now where did I put that tiny violin.
HumboldtBlue
Argentina a goal away.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Messi v Neymar Sat night!
HumboldtBlue
EMI MARTINEZ MAKES THREE SAVES IN THE PENALTY SHOOTOUT AND ARGENTINA WILL PLAY BRAZIL IN THE COPA AMERICA FINAL!
Suzanne
@Benw: Suns are still up by 12. Geez.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare: Wooooooohoooooo! Gonna be a blast!
And Emi Martinez proves yet again Arsenal made a complete cock-up by not keeping him instead of Leno
Geminid
The 2022 Ohio Senate primary is slated for May 3rd, so candidates Vance, Mandel, Timkin and the rest have almost ten more months to cut each other up. I hope they make the most of it.
It also seems that some Ohio Republicans adamantly oppose reelecting Governor DeWine. These could be some destructive months for Ohio Republicans.
On the other hand, Democratic nominating contests for Senator and Governor look to be less stressfu.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: That’s what the two meteorologists on the local cable provider’s news cast said at 11 PM. They said they think the National Hurricane Center may likely have left it as a hurricane, based apparently on one reading from one sensing buoy west of Sarasota that had a 55 nautical miles per hour reading, and they NHC wants to leave it as a hurricane through the next update just in case it reorganizes and restrengthens so as not to give people still in the path a false sense of security. We’re dealing with Floriduhans here, so if you tell them that it’s not even really a tropical storm a whole bunch of people will go out fishing in the gulf right away.
NotMax
Have never heard of this Vance person before. Or if I did, eldertude allowed nothing to stick.
Ignorance is bliss.
;)
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I did not have as crappy an upbringing as J.D. Vance, but I have always had the sense that everything is tenuous and have been fairly risk-averse. This dude writes a best-seller, gets it turned into a movie…. and is going on to just take a giant shit all over the reputation he built. I don’t understand people.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Absolutely! Here at the Copa….
::slinks away
Adam L Silverman
@Benw: They bumped it locally to cover the storm.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
I’m here for you.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: Hahaha!
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
I’m stone-cold dancing and my cat is snoring.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: I have to admit I’d really like to see Messi finally win one.
Benw
@Omnes Omnibus: nope. CP’s stat line is nuts
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
I would too.
Mary G
@Suzanne: That was my question; he’s made a shitload of money, could get more with another book, and could finish up the next 25 years raking in six-figured fees for one hour speeches to banksters, but no, he’s gotta jump on TFG’s wagon even though he doesn’t speak MAGAT at all well and can’t make it through a primary because there’s all this Never Trump video and tweets. Just stupid.
James E Powell
Vance gazed up at the enormous face. Five years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the bright orange makeup. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two bourbon-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Donald Trump.
Another Scott
Repost (was downstairs for some reason)…
So I’m catching up on JD. He apparently has ties to Peter Thiel who is (still, AFAIK) on FB’s board. OpenSecrets.org says that in 2020 Theil gave at least $2M to “Free Forever PAC”. OS tells me that FFPAC is a single-candidate “Carey Committee” that only supported Kris Kobach and that raised and spent $2.13M.
Yeah, not-affiliated, separate, independent. My wife, Morgan Fairchild, says that I’ve got the same body I had at 25, also too.
This is yet another illustration that campaign contribution rules are meaningless for most of us.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
He wants something he has zero skill for.
And has zero idea how to find, acquire, or use that skill if the first 2 magically came true. And as he’s put himself in this position by being an idiot, it reflects poorly upon him that he will ever recover and become less of one.
Suzanne
@Mary G: I don’t understand. Like you said, he could rake in the money for not much effort. This campaign is going to destroy his goodwill and make him dirty. And if, by some chance, he managed to win…. that’s a lot of work. I’m sure it’s ego. I don’t get ego, though. I never wanted to be rich and famous, I want to be rich and anonymous.
SuzieC
I so want Vance to beat little conniving weasel Josh Mandel. I so want litle conniving weasel Josh Mandel to beat JD Vance. May they eviscerate each other like wild crocodiles.
Speaking as an Ohio Dem, I’m rooting for bloodshed in the R Senate primary.
Mike in NC
Netflix has “Hillbilly Elegy” and you couldn’t pay me enough to watch that crap.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Vance’s entire career in the financial sector is a result of Thiel. If Thiel wants to own his own senator lock, stock, and barrel and he wants that senator to be Vance, then Vance runs for the Senate. Because if Vance does not make Thiel happy then everything gets taken away. If Thiel decided he wanted Vance to act out drug induced hallucinations for him in real life so Thiel could enjoy them without having to take the drugs, Vance would do it. Because if he didn’t and Thiel became unhappy with him everything in Vance’s life gets taken away. That’s the dynamic here. There is no other one at play.
Raoul Paste
Good parody
edit- Voice recognition is really messing with me tonight, so never mind
Another Scott
@SuzieC:
WTOL:
And on the other hand you have billionaire’s cat’s paws who lie about their beliefs and motives and spout buzzwords to rile up voters.
Both sides!!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Mike in NC: Same
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: He may actually be less of a mediocrity than Susan Collins or Lindsey Graham, both of whom have probably exceeded their younger selves’ ambitions by becoming Senators as opposed to ex-MoC lobbyists, but there is always that extra degree of “relevance”, as Graham puts it. Power, prominence, attention… Vance probably thinks he can be President. I wonder if Collins ever daydreamed of taking the Oath of the Oval Office. Graham, realistically, hoped to be éminence grise to John McCain.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
Isn’t his book all about how people just need to Stop That, get their shit together and grab their own bootstraps?
SuzieC
@Another Scott: And on the other hand you have Peter Theil’s toadies complaining that the peasants don’t do what they are told. Vance is running to remedy that.
CaseyL
@Adam L Silverman: But as I understand it, Vance is already rich. He doesn’t need Theil to write, he doesn’t need Theil to hit the lecture circuit. Unless he’s one of those bog-standard psychopaths who never understood the concept of “I have enough and don’t need any more,” I don’t see what hold Theil could have over him.
And I wouldn’t count out Vance winning a Senate seat. There is no longer any such thing as a GQP candidate who is too dumb, too corrupt, or too overtly sociopathic. GQP voters eat that shit with a spoon and ask for more.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
Indeed.
laura
@Suzanne: I never wanted to be rich and famous, I want to be rich and anonymous.
Your theories intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Anoniminous
@Suzanne:
I’ll stay moderately well off and Anoniminous
Suzanne
@laura: I’m not rich, and all I have are theories about that. One being that I’m not an asshole.
Kent
@CaseyL: That’s the thing. If a beyond fake real estate scumbag from Manhattan can convince 45% of the country to vote for him, who’s to say that Vance can’t? There are just no standards below which the GQP won’t go. Honestly, the more overtly STUPID they are, the better.
I just don’t get it anymore.
I was just at a family reunion and I have MAGA relatives still pining for Trump’s return. Seriously. After 2020. They are also hard core old fundamentalist evangelical bigots.
I dropped in on one dinner table conversation about being uncomfortable with LGBT folks. “Bigot is the word you are searching for” was my immediate contribution. “Well….that’s it a very nice word to use” was the response. “Maybe not, but it’s the RIGHT word” and then I got up and left
The amount of absolute terrifying stone cold hatred for anything LGBT is just breathtaking. They truly HATE LGBT folks with every fiber of their being and believe that Jesus is looking over their shoulders to make sure they don’t ever let up on the hate. It stops you cold when you realize that old aunts and uncles that you have known all your life are filled with that degree of hate.
Lyrebird
@Suzanne: FWIW you have given this BJ reader a great gift by mentioning McMansions 101.
Went back and re read some of it tonight to get away from storm news and gridlock news and all.
matt the somewhat reasonable
@Kent: If you want people to like you don’t be a piece of shit has always been my common sense advice for folks like that. It’s maddening, they want to never learn, never change, never improve and to regulate away any consequences.
I’m pretty grossed out by people who have a massive amount of energy for their
homophobia. It really isn’t any of their business. People do things in private for a reason.
ian
@CaseyL:
But there is such a thing as a GOP candidate not sufficiently loyal to Trump.
That man is hosed. Any of them that at any point said ‘no’ to the concept of Trump can be beaten mercilessly by the Trump sycophants, and their voters react like sharks to the scent of water.
Ohio Mom
You who are not Buckeyes may not know that in addition to Josh Mandel and Vance, there is a third candidate, Jane Timken.
I don’t know much about her, other than she’s the head of the Ohio Republican, from a well-connected and wealthy family (yeah, that’s redundant with “head of the party”) and a committed Trumper. I know so little about her in fact, I had to google her to make sure I spelled her name correctly.
Here are the headings on her page: Conservative. Champion. Ohio Mom.
I’m outraged, I was “Ohio Mom” first.
NotMax
@ian
Remember when “I am not a witch” was considered the zenith of nutzoid?
;)
L85NJGT
Katie Rife takes that POS movie apart.
Best comment in the thread:
Just Chuck
@James E Powell: Doubleplusgood bellyfeel!
ian
@ian:
blood… i swear i know what I’m talking about :)
NotMax
@OhioMom
My very limited takeaway last time around was that nobody likes Mandel.
Including Mandel.
The few times I saw clips of him he came across as a none too wound tight, petulant brat.
Chetan Murthy
@L85NJGT: Joe Bageant, _Deer Hunting with Jesus_ covered this ground well, about his hometown, Winchester VA. H/t to an LG&M commenter who recommended it. Lovely book. Damn sight better than Dorkbot Elegy.
Ohio Mom
Kent:
IIRC, one of your daughter identifies as gay? Trans? Obviously I don’t remember correctly — I just hope she stayed home. But it also occurs to me that you must be something of a black sheep for having married a “foreigner.”
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
Delaware! Represent!
I’m not a witch, I’m you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: or, “in the good old days, if you were gonna have a baby or you fractured your leg in three places, you brought your doctor a live chicken, a good laying hen or a young rooster”
jl
To be fair, the sign didn’t fall all the way off. Let’s be fair and balanced here.
I don’t understand about the deleted tweets. It seems like I’ve read many of them on funny twitter posts and news items that put them next to his hilarious excuses and retractions. That’s weird. How can that happen? Clearly the fiendish Obama let Hillary and Joe take a spin in his time machine. Nothing else could explain it.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I dunno. I cut my finger open in the kitchen years ago, and brought a box of old vinyl flower power rock to the urgent care clinic. They looked at me funny and asked for an insurance card.
WTF?
Kent
@Ohio Mom:
It is a crazy-ass family. There were 14 kids in my dad’s family, growing up in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, in rural Willamette Valley Oregon NW of Salem. Of the 14, two have passed and the remaining 12 are split as follows: Three highly-educated liberals of which my dad is one. Seven uber-conservative evangelical fundamentalists of various strains but all of them pro-Trump bigots. Two libertarian dipshits, always scheming various idiotic get rich schemes and going on about typical bullshit like the tri lateral commission and gold standard. But at least they are pretty non-religious dipshits.
That is the old generation, all in their 70s and 80s now. My generation of cousins is probably split about 50/50 between urban liberals and dipshit conservatives. So some of the evangelical fundies have raised educated liberals to their dismay. So I fit in fine with my cousins. Well, at least half of them. And everyone loves my wife because she is a doctor and charming. And, despite being Chilean and Latina, she is also very white, coming from upper crust white Chilean society. Our kids are all blonde and blue eyed.
My daughters generation are mostly all right. Most of the HS kids who were there took to wearing masks the whole time just to antagonize their fundy MAGA parents which I found utterly charming and amusing. It was genius frankly.
My gay daughter only dropped in briefly to see her cousins. She is not really aware of the intense bigotry of some of her old great aunts and uncles. But she doesn’t really give a shit about them either. She is not trans, just ordinary gay. She has a regular girlfriend and doesn’t do all the pronoun stuff. She’s just a girl who likes girls. She isn’t closeted but we don’t really spend any time with these extended family so they probably don’t know. But my parents have known for years.
James E Powell
The checks that Biden & the Democrats provided paid overdue rent and medical bills, but in this Ohio diner, some say it wasn’t worth it, others give credit to Trump. They are all stupid, hateful assholes and there isn’t a damn thing any Democrat can do about it.
Kent
@James E Powell: Geez. Another cletus safari? I thought we were done with those now that Trump is gone. What the fuck? Whey don’t they ever do a safari to say….south central LA. Or maybe the Navajo reservation. Or inner city Atlanta to talk to folks about how they are spending their stimulus
Right…..those aren’t white people. So they are invisible.
danielx
This is a true story of the terrible horrible no good very bad day.
Find out at 10 am the HVAC drain has become clogged and there is water in the living room carpet, under the two year old floor in the kitchen and hallway by the utility closet.
Call plumber, who miraculously shows up in an hour. Unstops drain, $125 but no biggie. Upside: he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to unstop it and they’d have to tear up concrete, which would meant pulling the furnace and water heater (shudder). But nevermind – he gives me the number of a restoration company, I look them up, reputable – give them a ring.
Guy shows up with various sensors to detect moisture and whatnot, tells me kitchen floor is wet up to ten feet from utility closet, up to ten feet from living room wall, most likely all will have to be torn out – there’s that two year bamboo flooring. Check for insurance deductible will have to be provided to get started. Okay fine, get started. Minions will be here in a couple of hours. At this point a number of verbal expressions on my part are being repressed with some difficulty. Not because of the restoration guy, just because. Move furniture, always a joy.
Go to lunch with old friend – this still isn’t sinking in, but I’m getting there. Get home, call insurance company. Right person calls me back an hour later, gets me to claim service. Find out right off the bat that insurance deductible has gone from a thousand to 1% of assessed value of home…decide that high pitched noise in my ears is brain cells dying in outrage, starting to channel Samuel L. Jackson. But hey, it’s okay, all cool….notify client via email that sorry, shit just isn’t getting done today.
Restoration minions arrive, do another inspection, inform me that all flooring carpeting etc including floor trim will have to be removed/replaced. Hook up numerous drying fans, washer-sized dehumidifier, tear up carpet and pad. Decibel level: high. House: chaos. Cats: convinced the end of the world is nigh. Daughter unit: highly pissed. Personal disposition: surly at best.
Oh yeah, head minion says this one will be a challenge, because of the way floor was installed. I know this already because I watched the floor being installed on top of troweled adhesive; there’s a half inch of that shit under the flooring which means the floor will have to be mechanically scraped to get to bare concrete for installation of new flooring. It’s not a quiet process.
Eight pm: am notified (with it’s-your-fault glare) by daughter unit that she had to rinse her hair with cold water and that I need to fix this problem posthaste, whatever it may be be, and excuses unacceptable. Water heater (installed in 2010): not heating. Do all the startup stuff: pilot light igniter not sparking nor yet igniting. Further conclusion: have to get new hot water heater installed, while restoration minions are removing water soaked flooring tomorrow and isn’t this just going to be an absolute joy.
I want somebody else to unfuck this whole situation.
There isn’t anybody else.
Want to just leave and go on vacation. Can’t.
Fuck fuckity fuck.
James E Powell
@NotMax:
I’ve been gone too long to have any kind of understanding for my beloved home state. A recent poll had Mandel up, but there were a lot of undecideds and there is a lot of time.
The question is, has the white supremacist revanche that swept Ohio as it did all of the Great Lakes states run its course? Are Ohioans ready to elect a senator who will work to do stuff for people who live in Ohio who are not millionaires?
I expect Ryan to run with a bit of “fuck the rich” in his campaign. Hope he can get Mahoning and Trumbull counties back in our column.
David Fud
I will leave a link to this new article, a piece of a forthcoming book, to be considered by the community. I believe it to be an interesting description of the American political populace, excepting the uneducated and unaware, which he does not address. In particular I found the description of the “Real Americans” interesting because it crystallized in my mind that they have hatred for both those who they consider elites and all they consider below of their class. These are the authoritarians that TFG riled up so much.
He doesn’t find much to like in any of the groups and while I think he is unnecessarily negative, he isn’t wrong about these broad brush descriptions. I will be interested to see if his profiles are backed up by surveys.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/
eclare
@danielx: Holy shit! That is a year’s worth of crap.
Jay
@danielx:
SDS Max installed in a Makinex tool cart.
Noisy 4 hour job to do 800 sq feet of glued down flooring, almost to bare concrete.
They can rent the tool if they don’t have one.
Or, an Eddy Stick, quieter, but takes longer.
James E Powell
@Kent:
Amazing, isn’t it?
A used car sales manager and a Republican elected official. I guess the WaPo was just trying to get a feel for what the ordinary, average people in Monroe County, Ah-Hi-Ah were thinking.
West of the Rockies
@danielx:
Holy shit, DanielX, that IS a wretched day! I’m a stranger so my well-wishes mean little to nothing, but I hope things improve. Do what you can to still laugh and enjoy what you can: a nice merlot, good coffee, your friends and family.
danielx
@West of the Rockies:
Eh, things can always be worse. At lunch I found out that my friend’s niece by marriage, his brother’s daughter in law, is 33 years old, has five kids younger than ten and just found out she has stage four breast cancer. Really nice people – not evangelical go-forth-and-multiply nut jobs, just a young couple that found out they just liked having a lot of kids and could afford it. (Edit: distinction without a difference?) Italian Catholics, whaddyagonnado? Anyway, put my difficulties in perspective – I don’t have problems, those guys have problem.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
I love this stuff, although I guess it might also be a cautionary tale about how some conservatives just cannot be reached. They will look at anything the Democrats do as just throwing money at the unworthy. They will not let facts get in the way.
A few random bits of reality.
The first stimulus came from Trump, even though the GOP leadership didn’t like it.
The stimulus largely went to people who filed tax returns and people on Social Security. People who have or who had jobs.
The Federal reserve chair and the Secretary of the Treasury repeatedly stated that they were not worried that the stimulus might contribute to inflation.
People used the stimulus to pay bills, reduce debt and put a little aside for savings. Republicans are never happy with money that goes to the average taxpayer as opposed to the wealthy or to corporations. Some GOP leaders looked at the amount of stimulus going into savings as “proof” that the stimulus payments were too high.
I have noted before that the stimulus payments and increased tax credits are a grand experiment in helping lower and moderate income people get a very helpful hand to help them recover from the pandemic. It ain’t a handout.
Brachiator
@danielx:
Wow.
Hang in there.
ian
@David Fud:
I thought it was thoughtful, I took the biggest issue with this
He doesn’t get what he calls “Unjust America” if he thinks young people aren’t upset about unjust laws and unjust living conditions. I’m sure people in the other 3 categories could also find plenty they object to.
Well worth the read, thank you for bringing this up.
Jay
Kathleen
@Adam L Silverman: Thiel: “Dance Vance, Dance!
EntroPi
@danielx: a few years back, while I was out of town, the toilet in the rarely used bathroom on the 3rd floor of my house spontaneously developed a crack in its tank.
After the tank had emptied itself, it dutifully refilled. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The water ran down an interior wall, taking out the basement ceiling. Eventually enough water pooled in the 2nd floor ceiling that it shorted out the smoke detector, the fire department showed up and turned off water to the house until I got home.
Had the same deal with dehumidifiers, etc. walls had to be opened up to get aired out.
Fun times!
Brachiator
@David Fud:
Thanks very much for the link to the Packer article. I am going through it now.
One thing I found interesting. He is one of the few pundits honest enough to note the libertarian support for racism.
Goldwater set the stage for Nixon’s later open invitation for white racists to join the Republican Party.
However, I think the libertarianism of many tech people is more infantile than ideological.
Jay
@EntroPi:
if it was a Crane, it wasn’t happenstance. QA didn’t catch a bad batch of clay. Tens of thousands of toilets and tanks cracked.
Company went bankrupt.
They now make check valves for the toilet supply line that shuts off supply to a continuously running toilet.
Well worth the extra $15.
EntroPi
@Jay: 100+ year old house, toilet probably dated from the early 80s. Everything is always on the edge of falling apart.
I have replaced the interior of the other old tanks with ones that depend on a flush having happened in order to refill.
JD Vance thread seems to be an appropriate one to discuss failing toilets, though!
Morzer
@bluehill: Swillshilly sellergy.
Kay
It’s very heartfelt.
A really good book about small(er) rust belt towns and what has happened to them is Glass House, by Brian Alexander. It’s about the glass industry in Ohio but it’s the only book in this genre that discusses what really happens when an industry pulls up and leaves or (gets leveraged and stripped out of existence). What happens is the college educated management class leaves and they were the people who were demanding city services and good schools and public amenities. They had to live in these places to run the companies so they improved them. They’re not insanely wealthy people- they’re the top 10% in places where the median income is 35k, so people who make between 100k and 250k a year. When that particular management class went the towns declined.
Alexander has written another good book. The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town.
If someone is really interested in understanding these towns and this group of people, read Brian Alexander not J.D Vance. These places are not one dimensional. The college educated management minority is as important to them as the working class majority. Both have to be there and both have to be vibrant. The management class left when the companies did (and because they could leave) but the working class remained.
leeleeFL
@Mike in NC: I always thought Hillbilly Elegy was a load of self-serving crap. May not forgive Ron Howard for making it available to illiterates.
Rooting right there with previous poster. Hope they need transfusions and they have no matches. UGH! UGH! UGH!
Also too, Peter Theil should be audited by a team of crocodiles!
leeleeFL
@danielx: Sorry that I chuckled a little, but this was almost Cole Level disaster and you write rather good dry comdedy, no pun intended! Good luck with all the BS, cuddle your kitties, introduce Daughter Unit to reality 101, have a beer or something and try not to lose your mind!
Geminid
@Kay: A similar process happened in Waynesboro, Virginia, when Dupont downsized its huge operation and moved it’s R&D division elsewhere. Dupont engineers and managers were the core of the city’s upper middle class, and plant workers were the middle class..
Now, commuters to more prosperous Charlottesville are taking their place, but these people are not as connected to Waynesboro itself. If they have school age kids, they often move out into Augusta County, or to Albemarle if they can afford it.
Kay
@Geminid:
Exactly. Vance’s ideology makes it impossible for him to look at the whole scenario because he has to deny these towns were whole systems and everything was interdependent. He has to insist it’s all individuals.
I don’t read that many conservatives (but I did read Vance’s book) and when I do I’m always surprised at how they’re the opposite of hard headed. They romanticize everything. They wrap everything in this gauzy theory so they miss what is right in front of their noses. It isn’t as politically useful for J.D Vance to talk about engineers and dentists and college educated plant managers who are essential in these places so he wants to talk about how he got a job at a tile plant and bootstrapped it up.
Obviously in Trump era it’s less fashionable to talk about the “hard working engineer” or the “hard working CPA” too, but that doesn’t make them less essential.
To a certain extent it’s what’s happening in the GOP. What they will find is white working class and very rich people won’t sustain that Party. They need a college educated upper middle. They act as a moderating influence on the GOP here. They’re the “progressive Republicans” – the people who will do longer term public investment. My precinct is an example of it.
There go two miscreants
@Kay: Thanks for the book suggestions; I added them to my list to check out.
Industries and individual companies or plants are always going to change or move, the rate being faster or slower depending on external circumstances and technologies. There may be a minimum size or minimum degree of industrial diversity for smaller towns, below which they’re not really viable in the long term — the one-industry town being particularly vulnerable.
Feathers
@Kay: And what happens is the teachers and other government employees become the visible people with stable jobs and, unforgivably, a pension they will be able to retire on. The resentment is there. I try explaining this to my liberal suburban friends, but they just can’t imagine a place where teachers own the nicer homes.
Fox is playing to this market. The anti-unionism is a big part as well, of course. The poison goes everywhere.
Kay
@There go two miscreants:
Right. My town is auto industry dependent. It’s a lot more than “assembly” (what people think of when they think of auto manufacturing jobs). They don’t assemble here. They make components and the industry has changed so much they make components for all the companies, foreign and domestic. They’re as dependent on Honda as they are on GM. They were able to survive and really thrive (it’s still cyclical) because they make parts for all of them and I assume it must still be cheaper to make it here than making it elsewhere and shipping to assembly.
So even that is more complicated. You may be okay with one industry. It depends on the industry. How much it throws off in aligned work. Glass wasn’t complex enough.
Kay
@Feathers:
Absolutely true. And for K-12 teachers, who are still like 80% women, something else is going on. They are college educated so they tend to marry college graduates so they have a top 10% (again, in context of 35k median) combined income. Both of our local judges are married to public school teachers and both judges were successful private sector lawyers prior to being judges. They’re in the upper class. The dividing line isn’t income alone- it’s all the benefits that flow from going to college.
Vance doesn’t touch any of this. He complains that white working class are portrayed as one dimensional but he himself does a poor job of describing these places and how they work.
JML
@Brachiator: tech libertarianism boils down to: “I wanna use drugs, I don’t wanna pay taxes, and because I’m the smart one, people like you shouldn’t be able to tell me what to do.”
leeleeFL
@JML: I say move to Somalia! They are a Libertarian Paradise! Pirates and shit!
dnfree
@Benw: “bunch of dorks” made me laugh, because one of my husband’s favorite insults when a favorite team or player is messing up is “Dorkbrain!”
Matt
Campaign promo idea for Vance: little packets printed with his photo on one side and the 14 Words on the other, labeled “1000mg heroin” with 1000mg of fentanyl in them.
They’d be super-popular, and solve several of Ohio’s problems rapidly.
L85NJGT
@Feathers:
I noticed this in Western NC during election season – all Trump sign out in the sticks, but the small towns were Biden territory.
@Kay:
County seats always have a wealthier downtown, and higher building occupancy. The court and county employees keep the restaurants and retail alive.
jonas
Just fixing that for Mr. Vance there. You know, for clarity.
artem1s
Oh Jeebus. I hadn’t heard Timkin had thrown his hat in the race. Man that’s one batshit crazy field of mudders.
However, the really fun part of this primary is going to be watching the deplorables tear themselves into pieces commiserating that they have to actually use the Republican ballot to vote in the primary this time around. They can’t use their vote to split the vote on the Democratic ballot this year.
Count on rural Ohio to vote in the worst of their bunch by a nose anyway. Vance is easily the biggest prick in the bunch. So I predict the only way he loses is if King John Kasich decides to throw his swinging cod into the race.
The Moar You Know
The not-at-all rare pander bear.
J R in WV
@danielx:
Danielx… no blood, not that bad. No visit to the ER, no big deal. It’s just typical modern life happening.
ETA: On the other hand, after the tree fell on my rubber roof… I do empathasize (sic)! You take care, go out for dinner, ask daughter to shower the day after tomorrow! Teens don’t actually need to shower every day unless they’re working for the plumber… or some such.
J R in WV
@ian:
You are correct, this is arrant bullshit if this guy thinks the civil-rights movement actually fixed much of Jim Crow. Look at the international swimming federation that won’t let black athletes wear a differently shaped pool cap to accommodate their Afto style hair, for just the most recent simple example of thoughtless racism
Panurge
@ian:
I think he’s trying to articulate what “Just America” is thinking here. It’s a fairly common rhetorical technique.