Warren on Joe Biden … pic.twitter.com/zao0Y3KUYX
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) December 15, 2022
My senior Senator is a smart lady. Barring unforeseen events, incumbent Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024. This fact is an ongoing irritant to Our Very Serious Media (Village Idiots), who prefer speculation and rumor to process.
At least they have a wide — gaping, even! — field of potential Repub candidates to keep them busy, and the rest of us entertained. ‘Longtime political observer’ Ed Kilgore, at NYMag, has an excellent summary of the current wannabes — “Here Come the Trump 2024 Alternatives”:
It’s the early — or perhaps silly — season of the 2024 presidential-election cycle, and the only actual candidate in the field is former president Donald Trump. Among Republicans, Trump remains the front-runner despite pervasive signs of GOP fatigue with him, and the fears his destructive involvement in a disappointing 2022 midterm election have fanned even in MAGA-land. If Trump thought his early 2024 announcement would clear the field of potential rivals as the party base swooned over him all over again, he was wrong. But flirting with a run against the King and stimulating speculation among the chattering classes isn’t the same thing as mounting an actual campaign against the man who has been underestimated so many times before.
Right now, the so-called invisible primary of scribbling and gabbing, winking and whispering, probably reflects the fantasy world of Republicans as much as any real prospects for winning the nomination. So the right question today may be what prospective candidates bring to this GOP dreamscape of a future more promising than a Biden-Trump rematch…
– Ron DeSantis: Trump reverse-engineered…
– Mike Pence: Trump sanctified…
– Ted Cruz: The pre-Trump throwback…
– Mike Pompeo: He’s very available…
– Glenn Youngkin: An anti-Washington candidate from the D.C. burbs…
– Nikki Haley: Something for everybody…
– Tim Scott: The we’re-not-racist validator…
From another blog favorite:
Watch this clip & ask how in the world the media decided *this* guy is a political juggernaut. "Trumpism w/out Trump" is a mirage willed into existence by a press corps & commentariat who puff up nasally Mussolini-lites b/c the ultimate show-down will make a "great story" https://t.co/3ByBqroEju
— Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) December 14, 2022
This, was in fact, the correct take https://t.co/W8pMcfOnnz
— Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) December 14, 2022
Now, when it comes to DeSantis, I am truly loathe to make predictions about 2024, but if I were to hazard a guess, DeSantis & Trump will spend the primary trying to out-Nazi each other and Trump will eventually win b/c DeSantis’s voice is rather high pitched & that will be that
Now I refuse to make predictions about the presidential election b/c there’s just too much trauma there and the electoral college makes such predictions tenuous, but let’s say DeSantis wins the primary. Maybe he’ll win the general, but not b/c anyone thinks he’s scintillating
The point is that the media wants good stories. They also, for some reason, seem to herd around specific narrative tropes about characters that exist *soley* for the sake of the good story. Ron DeSantis is perceived as powerful because we have been told he is powerful.
Meanwhile, here's how DeSantis performed the last time he ran as a non-incumbent. Note that this is his performance in Florida, which is increasingly showing Democratic bloodbaths. Did DeSantis win? Sure. But this margin is hardly indicative of a powerhouse pic.twitter.com/GWIAy1IXUB
— Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) December 14, 2022
Just to be clear: I am not making fun of DeSantis’s voice. I am saying that Trump will most definitely make fun of it, DeSantis will be perceived as “weak,” and Republican primary voters are jerks who make decisions based on jerky factors like mocking men with high voices.
Wasn’t Tim Pawlenty a GOP rising star at one point? Scott Walker? Bobby Jindal?
— NeedBirds (@NeedBirds) December 14, 2022
I still remember the hype about Marco Rubio and the so-called "Young Guns"
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) December 14, 2022
Let us never forget that the GOP Death Cult has cultivated a flourishing batch of, shall we say, differently hinged TFG supporters, who will not let their golden idol go down without fighting.
Please do! Super exciting! https://t.co/McKYheHKMR
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) December 14, 2022
Rooting for injuries!
Mike in NC
Despite his whiny, high-pitched, nasal voice Ron DeSatan has those shiny white shrimper boots. Trump wouldn’t wear those boots unless they had 2″ lifts in the heel.
Amir Khalid
Ah, Bobby Jindal! Now I remember why Rishi Sunak looks so familar.
Steeplejack
Clicking through from that first Magdi Jacobs tweet, I see that @ATRupar has been suspended. WTF?!
p.a.
Every time I see Cotton I’m reminded of Classy Freddie Blassie’s favorite insult: pencilnecked geek.
Or am I thinking of Hawley?
Alison Rose
LOL Bobby Jindal. Haven’t thought about that twerp in quite a while.
Alison Rose
@Amir Khalid: Even with those, let’s say, noticeable ears, Sunak is way better looking than Jindal. Not that looks should matter, but y’know…
trollhattan
Injury time out. In that we will take time out of our busy days to root for injuries.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
“Ron is a shrimper, Ron is a shrimper, Ron is a shrimper.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Serious hunk o’ manflesh.
Same topic, which Bushes are on deck? I assume we have, what is it, Gen. 4? to pester us anytime now.
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack: I saw that. He has no doubt offended the delicate flower that is Elon.
geg6
@p.a.:
Why not both?
Besides his weird whiny voice, amazing boot game and off-putting testy demeanor, DeSantis’ height and weight thing does not help. Joe Biden is tall, slim drink of water. Even if he’s forty or so years older, he’s a better physical specimen.
Which brings me to a question about Republican men. Why are they all either pudgy or skinny bobble-throated slapdicks? (Many thanks to Charlie Pierce for that.) yeah, they have a himbo or two (John Thune says hi), but so many male GOPers are just physically repulsive.
scav
@trollhattan: As pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: Mitt Romney actually had the classic Fictional President from Central Casting look, but it wasn’t enough.
UncleEbeneezer
“Barring unforeseen events, incumbent Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024. This fact is an ongoing irritant to Our Very Serious Media (Village Idiots), who prefer speculation and rumor to process.”
Not to mention Very Online Progressives who are already disappointed that we’re stuck with one of the most effective Presidents in our history. I’ve seen this from Bernie and Warren supporters I know and it’s just bizarre. Sure they admit Biden has been way better than anyone thought, but they are just sure that somebody else would’ve been even better! It’s the same, performative I’m-Holding-My-Nose bullshit they pulled with Hillary.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
I remember the DC media repeatedly saying the 2016 gop field was “the deepest bench in a generation!”
the same media elites also tried to coronate Fred Thompson in 2007
Brachiator
The GOP has a problem. They continue to embrace Trump. This pushes the Republicans further to the Nasty, Deplorable Right even though the rest of the country, right now, clearly rejects this.
Trump has rejected the Constitution. This should make him and any Republican who refuses to reject him ineligible for any public office.
Too much of the media seems eager to declare DeSantis the heir apparent. They also love to look over at Mike Pence and smirk while asking, “Mike Pence! You still here?”
There’s something wrong with DeSantis, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how he has done so well in Florida.
Apart from Mittbot 2000, you got the usual gang of idiots lining up for another ride in the GOP clown car.
I pretty much intend to ignore the GOP until the primary season gets seriously underway, unless there is a serious change in the political or social landscape.
Mike in NC
Tom Cotton has the charisma of clothes dryer lint, but he did have a few memorable things to say, like slavery wasn’t so bad and the South needed it for their economy. That, and going to war with Iran would be pretty much a cakewalk. How does a guy like that get elected? Oh wait, in Arkansas they just elected angry Sarah Huckerbee Sanders to be governor.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
Elon has gotten more and more blatant about banning anyone who annoys him or the Nazis he hangs out with.
Scout211
@Steeplejack:Aaron Rupar’s suspension is making news.
Thoughts are it was this tweet calling out Elon for violating the new policy barring the outing of people’s locations without their permission.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This has to come under “Assholes” and “Schadenfreude”
Elmo Musk sells 3.7 Billion of Tesla stock to keep Twitter going…
If Phony Stark really burned threw 4 billion in just one month, Twitter can’t be long for this earth.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
@UncleEbeneezer:
we’re stuck with one of the most effective progressive Presidents in our history.
/fixed
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What’s the saying; “beauty is only skin deep, but ugly cuts to straight to be bone.” One can’t be nasty piece of shit that attacks everyone and it not becoming part of one’s body language.
Scout211
Twitter has also suspended Mastodon.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
Maybe they’re trying to compensate for their repulsiveness by making life miserable for everyone else.
Miss Bianca
@scav: A-hem!! Dogberry doth protest at being compared to DeSantis! At least Dogberry made sense every once in a while! Plus, he actually *stopped* the bad guys, as opposed to *being* one of the bad guys.
PaulB
In looking at the list, a couple of things come to mind. The first is just who is clamoring for a Pompeo or Pence presidency? Pence is persona non grata with a large chunk of the Republican electorate for stabbing Trump in the back and not fighting to overturn the election results. And Pompeo? Seriously? A total non-entity wannabe with no constituency, no traction, and no real signs of either of these developing, despite years of trying.
The second is, if Trump has to bow out because of legal or health troubles, and DeSantis’ shtick doesn’t do well nationally, who would be the front-runner? Ted (most punchable face in the U.S. Senate) Cruz? Glenn (the slightly better hidden Trump) Youngkin? Chris (I’m not desperate; you’re desperate) Christie?
UncleEbeneezer
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch: Honestly, the results are further left than I imagined a (realistic) successful Bernie/Warren first term would have been.
Starfish
@Scout211: Twitter is suspending journalists from CNN, Washington Post, and The New York Times right now.
Starfish
@PaulB: DeSantis is trying to repeal childhood vaccination requirements for schools.
Sure Lurkalot
@Starfish:
Maggie’s? Peter’s? Ashley’s? I can dream
Aussie Sheila
@UncleEbeneezer: This time round, the idiots who like to ‘perform leftier than thou’ politics, need to be stomped on hard. I get young people were disappointed when Biden beat Bernie, but he did, and Biden has been an excellent President, which he could be only because he won.
Younger, more exciting candidates need to be preselected for state and local races, but until the electorate shifts markedly in the US, boring and effective it has to be.
I have come to believe that a lot of what passes for the left in the US is nothing more than libertarians who don’t watch tv and hate their parents. Pathetic.
Geminid
@PaulB: I think that Youngkin is just preparing for 2028, and won’t run in 2024. He’d be happy to accept the second spot, though and may try to shape the odds of that to his favor.
I don’t dismiss Christie or Pompeo. In fact, I group those two with DeSantis as the most viable alternatives to Trump. It’s easy to spot their flaws, but one of them or an equally flawed dark horse will come out on top if Trump can’t hack it. I guess this is good news for Joe Biden.
Scout211
More Twitter suspensions
Starfish
@Sure Lurkalot: Donie O’Sullivan, Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and a bunch of others.
Starfish
@Sure Lurkalot: Donie O’Sullivan, Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann, and a bunch of others.
cain
Lawd – Twitter is banning people who advertise Mastodon and a bunch of journalists. They actually permanently banned Aaron Rupar. I think they banned anybody who talked about the airplane tracking thing. It’s a shit show going on.
Plus the site has not become very responsive – lot of retries.
brantl
@p.a.: Why not both?
Aussie Sheila
@Starfish: I’m sure Taibbi and Weiss will be writing sub stacks about it any minute now. Ha ha ha.
I wonder if any of the US media will comment on this?
Scout211
@Sure Lurkalot: Mostly journalists who report on the tech industry and Elon in particular. Link
Sure Lurkalot
@Starfish: Too bad, I like Aaron Rupar and hope he can make a living on Substack and the alternatives to Twitter. It seems to me around this time of day, Musk snorts some blow or whatever and then works on his “priorities”. I should be happy that he’s bleeding money like a hemophiliac but that amount of money could have done a whole lot of good in the world.
cain
@Aussie Sheila: Perhaps Elon will kick the US DC Press off next – won’t that be fun? They get all irate when they lose access – lol.
Starfish
@Aussie Sheila: Glenn Greenwald is already out there saying stupid things about private sites setting their own moderation rules now.
Starfish
@Sure Lurkalot: Why can’t he just go spend his holidays with his eleventy million children and their moms and have a normal one?
Aussie Sheila
@Starfish: Excellent news for John McCain! Seriously, GG is now nothing more than a punchline. As for the rest of the tech bros, musk has done more in less than a year to puncture their pretensions than any number of earnest articles. Good. One more bunch of billionaires whose cultural capital is in the dirt.
M31
That is obscene.
Walk around an old graveyard and the most notable thing from 100 years ago is the huge number of dead children.
Starfish
@M31: He is mostly “concerned” with the COVID-19 vaccine, but he wants to put together a group to overturn FDA and CDC rules for the state of Florida.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/12/15/gov-ron-desantis-shifting-positions-vaccines-under-fire/
zhena gogolia
@Aussie Sheila: Spot on.
PaulWartenberg
@Steeplejack:
More reports coming in that other reporters – anybody who covered the ElonJet account suspension – is getting suspended as punishment. Musk is going after ANYbody who broadcast how he shut down a critic, he is escalating his war against ANYbody who would dare cross him.
Musk is turning Twitter into his private hellhole.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Musk has failed or been replaced as CEO a number of times during his career. It is suitably ironic that his pathetic attempt to strongarm Twitter into who-knows-what might also destroy Tesla and the rest of his empire.
Another Scott
@Mike in NC:
No Democrat ran against Cotton in 2020:
Cotton could have won easily, probably. But instead some apparently hinky guy got the nod from the Democrats and then just happened to drop out when it was too late to get another candidate. Just coinkydink that the GQPers apparently had a boatload of charges to dump on him.
So Cotton ran against a Libertarian and got 67% of the vote.
Grr…,
Scott.
James E Powell
@Starfish:
Well, that’s the kind of thing that helped him win the pandemic isn’t it?
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
Hahaha! Well done!
Kay
lol
Elon Musk is a liar. He lies constantly. Taking something he says as meaning anything at all is just silly.
I feel like we’re going to have the same learning curve with Musk that we had with Trump-where it takes them two years to identify a liar.
Kay
Why repeat his bullshit? They know he’s not a “free speech champion”, that this entire thing was a eleborate lie.
Why not just say “he’s banning journalists for expressing free speech”. That way no one has to weigh in on “his committment” or read his mind or parrot his bullshit. Just describe what he’s doing.
I just get this sinking feeling that we’re watching a Trump-like media creation form. They should try something different than how they treated Trmp. That was a disaster. Try something else.
Ken
I find myself curiously indifferent to this wave of bannings, since there are multiple signs (financial, technological, and legal) that Twitter’s going to stop functioning soon.
How did Death put it in Good Omens? Oh, yes: THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
Another Scott
https://post.news/popehat weighs in:
Yup.
It’s unfortunate, and change is hard, but change is necessary for growth and progress.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
As someone somewhere pointed out (too old to remember, too lazy to look it up…but I think it was on TPM?) it’s not about beating trumpov in the GOP primary…it’s the damage trumpov’s going to do to the GOP once he loses the GOP primary.
Just go away quietly? Without a payoff? While facing jail time? With all the dirty GOP laundry he has/knows? Oh PLEASE
Republicans, you are so incredibly fucked.
jonas
The fucking pretzels journalists twist themselves into trying not to call a spade a spade is unbelievable. Why say “Musk is completely abandoning his pledge to defend free speech” when you can offer up this milquetoasty turd of “calls into question….”? Grow a pair, learn to write, and then get on a platform where you can tell the truth, dammit.
Jeffro
As for the “17 orcs”, I am really and truly looking forward to them telling the GOP base that they’re JUST AS BIG AN ASSHOLE AS ORANGEMANDIAS while simultaneously explaining that they’re smarter, better, less corrupt, faithful to their wives, have never filed for bankruptcy, etc.
I say this for two reasons:
1) It’ll be hysterical watching them list trumpov’s many faults, over and over and over again
2) Every last statement they make about how horrible trump was, but how they intend to be just as big an asshole, is free campaign footage for Biden 2024. “Here we go again with these clowns…”.
Jeffro
@Another Scott: He’s right and I’m heading to Post.
Going to keep my Twitter account, just won’t do anything with it until I see something change for the better.
karen marie
Nothing makes me smile more than Republicans in disarray.
Thanks for this, Anne Laurie!
Jeffro
@Mike in NC: I can’t quit feeling that Dems would get a lot of mileage out of a “You Deserve Better, Republican Voters” theme in 2024. Or any year, really.
”Your party’s politicians are just amazingly corrupt and inept and malicious and don’t give one flying fuck about you. They don’t care about your health, your family budget, or your kids’ future.”
times infinity
rikyrah
Who cut the onions?😢😢
Trans rights are human rights
https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1599457606015209472?s=19
Another Scott
@Geminid: OT – make sure to check out APOD tomorrow. You’re on it!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: If I had to bet today, I’d bet on Brian Kemp, but only if I had to, and no more than I had to.
Captain C
@trollhattan:
But it won’t play well when Middle America looks that up in the Urban Dictionary (there’s a reason I didn’t link).
West of the Rockies
@rikyrah:
Wow. Thank you, Rikyrah.
BruceFromOhio
The Kardashian Effect: they are perceived as [blank] because we have been told they are [blank]
Bleating and finding proper footing on this slippery slope are optional.
BruceFromOhio
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
I remember Melissa McEwan of Shakesville describing Fred looking like “a carp sucking on a lemon”. Makes me laugh whenever I catch him on Hunt For Red October or Law & Order re-runs.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
That was an unexpectedly moving ad.
Thank you for sharing the link.
Frankensteinbeck
@PaulB:
Pompeo has two consistencies. Evangelicals love him. They remember very well his telling them that his major foreign policy goal is to bring about the Rapture. Remember those congressman’s texts about the battle with Satan that we thought were batshit insane? Pompeo can talk that talk and the evangelicals eat it up. The Republican establishment sees him as solidly loyal. Whether either of these groups likes him more than they like other candidates remains to be seen, but he is more plausible than non-Republicans would think.
Anyway
@Frankensteinbeck:
Pompeo is also a Koch favorite and will presumably be well-funded right off the gate.
prostratedragon
@Roger Moore: Ever see the movie of The Name of the Rose? That was apparently one of the main points of the production design. Gave me nightmares for weeks after I saw it on a big screen, and I was in my 30s.
Scamp Dog
@UncleEbeneezer: Huh. I was a Warren supporter during the primary and I’ve been happily surprised at the job Joe Biden is doing. I wholeheartedly support him and can’t see that changing. Now Bernie’s gotten on my nerves for a couple of cycles now, although he’s mostly been doing the right thing during the Biden administration, or at least as far as I can tell from the limited amount I’ve heard about him, post-primary.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: It’s not just Very Online Progressives. Most normie Democrats I know IRL think Biden should step down for 2024, mostly out of concerns about his age. When they ask me who I think should be the candidate and I say “at this point, our best bet is Biden running for reelection,” they look at me like I’ve got three heads. There’s also a persistent perception that he “hasn’t done much” and has been reactive and doddering.
This is, I think, a real problem. I don’t think they’re going to vote Republican in ’24 but if Biden runs again there’s going to be a 2016-like lack of enthusiasm.