Everything everywhere all at once!
#Maddow "It does not bend the constitution, let alone break it to indict criminals for crimes, even when the alleged criminal is someone who has been elected to a very important job. It's run-of-the-mill public corruption enforcement in this country, and we do it all the time." pic.twitter.com/NWgfpgTFSz
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 21, 2023
This'll need to be said many more times but Trump won by accident 7 years ago and Republicans haven't had a good election since.
— Franklin Stove Expropriator (@agraybee) March 18, 2023
If there is violence when Trump is arrested, it will just prove to the skeptics who launched the violence on Jan 6… DJT Himself
— Adam Kinzinger #fella (@AdamKinzinger) March 18, 2023
I think it's kind of silly to make this kind of definitive statement based on two protests but it is true that "stop me from going to jail for hush money payments to a porn star" is kind of an inherently pathetic rallying cry pic.twitter.com/M0nRcNsbJh
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) March 20, 2023
This is why it feels like MTG is kind of the natural standard-bearer in the near future, the base really loves doing the public harassment/trolling type stuff that's her whole oeuvre and Trump was more of an MC saying "I license you to do this"
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) March 21, 2023
INBOX: Rudy GIULIANI has been ordered to appear at a video hearing tomorrow before Judge Beryl HOWELL as part of a discovery dispute in the lawsuit brought by GA election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss pic.twitter.com/Wg1TBC32Tk
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 20, 2023
In honor of Nowruz, President Biden, the First Lady, Vice President Harris, and the Second Gentleman celebrated the renewal of spring at the White House. pic.twitter.com/yytQuPieyZ
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 21, 2023
BREAKING: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is heading to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Kishida, who will chair the Group of Seven summit in May, is the only G-7 leader who hasn’t visited Ukraine. https://t.co/kjHLLhyaOe
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 21, 2023
"A big theme of the show is to check in … with your neighbor, your coworker, your friends, your family and ask how they're doing."
"Ted Lasso" star Jason Sudeikis shared the importance of mental health awareness at the White House press briefing Monday.https://t.co/p2vOHaABwX pic.twitter.com/fCfQLTGx07
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 20, 2023
When you’re *so close* to understanding that a generous welfare state is a precondition to anything resembling a meritocracy https://t.co/VHrb1LhHqy
— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) March 21, 2023
I got mine, Jack, [forget] you — ‘conservatist’ motto through the ages.
Baud
Is Mandel a known person? That tweet seems like a parody.
p.a.
“My own bootstraps!”
We can see your boots and straps. The stitching says “gift of US government.”
lowtechcyclist
And while we’re on the subject, fuck James Comey forever.
Matt McIrvin
It’s hard for me to really enjoy the impending indictment of Trump too much knowing that if he goes to jail, they’re probably ensuring the Republicans have a stronger nominee for 2024, when the economy will likely be in recession. We might just get President DeSantis out of this. But it’s the right thing to do.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s only the right thing to do until it’s done. Then the Internet will switch over to how Dems wasted their time on this instead of doing things Americans really care about.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I’ve seen that sentiment from other conservatives–I think the actor Craig T. Nelson said something like it “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare, did anyone help us out? No”, etc.
I think the way to understand it is that they don’t see welfare programs as the government helping them out; they see that as the state of humiliating failure that they pulled themselves up from by individual effort. The government tried to keep them dependent but they escaped!
eclare
@lowtechcyclist: Republicans have won the popular vote once in the past thirty years. I don’t think their assault on women’s autonomy and enthusiasm for banning books is going to win them many votes in the general election, except in FL. Got no explanation for that one.
NotMax
A morning’s modicum of mouth organ to sip coffee by.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The sentiment is real. The way it is expressed in that tweet makes me think it’s a parody. But it’s hard to tell these days.
As to the sentiment, no one forces them to accept help.
eclare
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, Craig T. Nelson said that. To me it’s a justification for them to receive help, but not *those people* who are clearly undeserving. It’s a horrible attitude.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Bethany Mandel is the same person who had so much trouble defining “woke” to Briahna Joy Gray the other day.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Ah, thanks.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
A female astronaut of Persian descent who’s a colonel in the marine corp.
What a badass.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Mandel is still on welfare (wingnut welfare)
Baud
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
To be fair, it does pay better.
Matt McIrvin
@eclare: The economy is probably going to be in worse shape next year, which will give them an opening to get the “time for a change” and “Republicans are good for the economy” vote. We haven’t had a recession start on a Democrat’s watch since Carter, and Biden’s approval is already low. So this is going to be tough.
I do see that the head-to-head polls have changed a bit–last year, Biden usually beat Trump in these but DeSantis usually beat Biden. Now Trump and DeSantis are only separated by about 1% against Biden and who wins mostly depends on the poll’s house bias with either one. That probably comes from DeSantis actually getting in the news a lot for obnoxious behavior rather than just being “generic Republican, not Trump”.
Lapassionara
@Baud: I was thinking the same thing. Who is she, and why does she think she is a success?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: I agree our best matchup is Biden versus Trump redux since it takes the age issue and “generational change” crap off the table as a media narrative. That said, indictments might actually help Trump with the oppositional defiant-disordered GOP base.
Matt McIrvin
@Lapassionara: Conservative columnist/loudmouth maybe best known for proudly announcing “call me Grandma killer” for opposing COVID shutdowns in 2020.
LiminalOwl
@Matt McIrvin: We might, but DeSantis isn’t a stronger candidate. (Nikki Haley I’d be worried about, except I can’t see the base accepting a woman of color.). DeSantis has a charisma rating of maybe 1, only saved from 0 because Mike Pence has a lock on that spot.
We should, however, be worried about Charlie Baker.
NotMax
YMMV. Having been around this track more than a few times I won’t be giving more than the most fleeting attention to talk centering on ’24 until the next equinox. This far out it’s a melange of spotty speculation, mouth-flapping filler and empty-caloried clickbait.
LiminalOwl
@lowtechcyclist: Indeed. I’d quibble with the “by accident”; in addition to direct Republican (and Russian) interference, the manipulations by FTFNYT et alii were quite deliberate.
Lapassionara
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks. Since I’m one of the grandmas she was happy to kill, I hope she sinks into well-deserved obscurity.
NotMax
@Lapassionara
Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pundits.
//
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
The first question has been answered, but I’m thinking the tweet itself is a parody, because Twitter’s search engine can’t find it. (The other possibility is that she deleted it, but someone kept a screen grab.)
[I used the birdsite’s advanced search, limiting it to her account between the dates of 9-3-2012 and 9-5-2012, including the words ‘Medicaid’ and ‘meritocracy’. That should’ve pulled it up if it still exists.]
brendancalling
@Matt McIrvin: I’m not sure DeRon is all that. He gives me Scott Walker vibes. Devoid of charisma, whiny-to-the-point-of-annoying voice, thin skin. He play well in former Democratic places like Ohio and Iowa, but I’m not sure how the rest of the country will go for him.
Matt McIrvin
@LiminalOwl: There is no way Charlie Baker could get the Republican nomination. It’s not going to happen. Maybe if he transformed into a Christianist-bigot culture warrior, but then there wouldn’t be anything to distinguish him.
Betty Cracker
@LiminalOwl: I know nothing about Baker, but I assume he’s not a MAGA choad since Massachusetts elected him twice. Do you think the current GOP base would nominate a Northeastern governor with a reputation as a moderate? Strategically it’s probably their best shot, but they don’t seem too strategic.
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: Fuck Mark Zuckerberg and Paul Manafort too.
“No, comrade. I real American paying for Facebook ad to say Hillary eats babies.”
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of parodies of right wing figures that mirror what right wingers say on a day to day basis. It’s starting to seem like an excuse to say awful things while hiding behind the parody label.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Maryland’s Hogan decided not to run. He’s in the same position as Baker.
I heard a rumor that the NE “moderates” are waiting to line up behind Sununu.
Baud
A GOP trifecta in 2024 will probably destroy the country, which is bad, but they’ll get rid of the filibuster, which is good.
Betty
@Lapassionara: She wrote a whole book about “woke” and is a mom with six kids and and … everything. That’s not enough?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
It’s too early to worry about the next election. we’ve got 2 full baseball seasons and a full Super Bowl before another election occurs. That’s a long time.
FledtheUS
Bethany Mandel is the woman who wrote the book against wokeness and then couldn’t define it on TV. That’s why her tweets are coming up now, she was the main character on twitter a few days ago.
Mousebumples
Good morning, everyone!
Today is the first day of Early Voting in Wisconsin, for the April 4 Spring Primary. If you live in Wisconsin (or have friends or family that do), you can find out where you can vote early in person at MYVOTE.WI.GOV.
We have another music/postcarding thread planned for tonight at 745pm eastern (blog time) or 645pm central. WaterGirl has more info on postcarding on this page.
Hope to see some of you there, later tonight!
LiminalOwl
Tangentially, is anyone else having trouble with Twitter? Since the latest IOS update, I can’t access my account (yes, I stayed, but only to read and very occasionally retweet). It demands a verification code but doesn’t send one, and says that 2-step verification is only available now for paid/blue accounts. Might be time to get out entirely, yes.
Hildebrand
DeSantis has no charisma, none. His campaign is nothing but culture war blather. I just don’t see him taking off with voters until he sorts out one of those two problems – especially not in a general election.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Baud: we all knew Hogan was no hero
LiminalOwl
@Matt McIrvin:
@Betty Cracker: I hope you’re both right, and think you probably are: certainly the MAGAts will never accept Baker. But if some comparatively-sane Republican were to notice that he appeals to folks beyond the base—even, heaven help us, to a lot Massachusetts Democrats—and find a way to get him the nomination, we might be in serious trouble. Baker is really good at hiding his evil. Betty, as you said: strategically their best bet, but they don’t tend to think strategically. And all the same applies to Sununu most likely, though I’m much less familiar with him.
RedDirtGirl
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Thanks for answering the question I was coming here to ask!
Kay
Scattered “tryranny” signs going up in yards here. One LED business sign (florist) warning us arresting Trump is tyranny. The Trumpsters are riled up.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: Well, that assclown doesn’t live in Illinois.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t usually associate fascists with flowers.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I would rule Baker out also, but I don’t think he is contemplating a run anyway. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is, and he could run down the moderate-conservative, non-feral lane. Sununu might have some limited success; I could see him doing well in a Virginia primary, especially among Independents. But this Republican electorate seems especially bloody-minded now and Sununu would get a lot of resistance too.
Now, Chris Sununu doesn’t ask for my advice any more than Ron Klain does, but if he did I’d tell him to wait for 2028. He’s young, and Biden may be harder to beat than Republicans think.
Baud
@Geminid:
Sadly, the Republicans have internalized the idea that they can wait us out. It’s one reason they are so hard to beat.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
It could happen, but I’ll be damned if I can see how or why. How do you go from way past full employment to a recession? You’ve got to unwind all the excess demand for labor just to get back to full employment without a ton of unfilled job openings, and then keep going a ways.
I mean, sure, the Fed could jack up interest rates way more than they already have, but things don’t work the way they did in the 1970s when most of the inputs and outputs were domestic, big companies were still mostly moving production to the South to save on labor costs, not Mexico or China, and a lot less of what we produce domestically was being sold overseas. Eventually it has to sink through to them that they’re pushing on a string.
We’re still unwinding the labor and supply chain shortages from the pandemic. Those things should gradually improve over time, which should help rather than hurt the economy, while easing costs of stuff. If the Fed has any other tools besides interest rates, it needs to use them, and if it doesn’t, it needs to just step aside and let things fix themselves.
Probably also wouldn’t hurt if we started letting more people in to this country to fill the shitty agricultural jobs that are going unfilled, but that’s a political problem that the Fed can’t do shit about.
Baud
@Kay:
I wonder what kind of boquet they would recommend for an indictment party.
Princess
@Baud: Mandel is very much a known person. She’s the woman who wrote a whole book on anti-wokeness then couldn’t define it. Her life story is a mess and she projects all her trauma out here on the rest of us.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Speaking of parodies that are hard to distinguish
Tony G
@Baud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNChSF5nqJs
zzyzx
@LiminalOwl: the not sending a code thing has been a bug for a while. Twitter is trying to get people off of the text message verification in a pathetic way to save like $10 and you’re like 3 days too late to fix it.
Twitter is still the best medium for what I use it for so I’m staying but I know it’s dying.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Nah, that’s easy. Wing nuts wouldn’t call destroying the country a bad thing.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I think for someone like Sununu to win the nomination, the feral vote would have to be split enough ways that he could win a bunch of primaries. I really think the feral vote will be divided almost entirely between TFG and DeSquamous, so there has to be at least 35% non-feral GOP voters for a non-feral candidate to have a chance.
I don’t think there are that many non-feral GOP voters left.
The other thing is, even if Sununu got the nomination, he’d have to go feral anyway in the general election to get the feral voters to show up in sufficient numbers. I don’t think the 74 million TFG voters from 2020 are just automatically on tap; people who usually didn’t vote in the past because dog whistles just weren’t enough for them came out of the woodwork to vote for TFG. Give them a non-feral candidate, or even a clearly pretend feral candidate, and a lot of them won’t bother.
Scout211
CNN is reporting that a producer working for Fox News is filing a lawsuit against the network for coercing her to provide misleading testimony in Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News. Interesting.
schrodingers_cat
Jamshedji Nowruz Mubarak!
I didn’t know that Iranians still celebrated the Zoroastrian new year.
BTW, Parsi/Irani food is to die for, something I sorely miss in cold New England climes
Kay
@Baud:
It’s a kind of sketchy business- florist/gift shop, coffee shop and tuxedo rental. It’s one of those business locations that look fine – state route, lot of traffic, ample parking, other successful small businesses surrounding it- but for some reason everything that goes in there fails.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, I don’t think Sununu could win the nomination either. He could pull in the Independents in states like mine that have open primaries, but he’d probably get swamped in the South.
Sununu’s a smart guy, and I think he’ll recognize this and pass on a run next year. This looks to be an unusually brutal primary process and every candidate in it will pay a reputational price.
Kay
@Scout211:
So pleased they’re suing Maria Bartiromo. She’s an underrated Fox liar. Lies constantly– along with all the people who work for her, like Ms. Grossberg.
These lawsuits are doing real harm to Fox and the multimillionaire Fox reality tv stars. It’s delightful.
Geminid
Another pretty morning here. A good day to plant flowers.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I haven’t strayed far from the compound in a few days but will look for signs next time I do. The Trumpsters around here are big on signs and banners! My kiddo is a graphic designer at a sign outfit and occasionally sends images of notably batshit signs and banners for my amusement. ;-)
@Baud: LOL! A crinum lily arrangement might be appropriate. There are orange varieties with stripes!
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist:
Without the feral vote GQP candidates can’t win a primary. The big question is how many of the ferals are Trump cultists rather than equal opportunity nutjobs and can detritus like DeSandpit attract them.
The GQPs Bernie Bros, Donald’s Dickheads perhaps?
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: On what basis are you predicting a recession?
NotMax
@Baud
Forget-me-nots mixed with pussy willow?
;)
Jeffro
re: the 7 years of GOP losing, post-trump…
Just think, if they had chosen
the email ladycountry over party, they’d have been able to run against President Hillz in 2020 and probably would have won, meaning the GOP incumbent would be preparing to run for re-election next year, with all of those advantages.Instead: losing, losing, and more losing. To say nothing of the (hopefully amazing amounts of) self-loathing at least some of them must feel, having voted for trump once or twice, and seeing this shitshow still going on in 2023.
Kay
@Scout211:
I do think there’s a connection between how sexist political media coverage is and the fact that political media outlets are absolute sewers as sexist, racist workplaces. It doesn’t surprise me at all- our political media is full of rigidly conventional, stodgy traditionalists who enforce the status quo and that’s reflected in management.
jonas
Theoretically, perhaps. But a moderate NE Republican like Baker (or Romney for that matter) doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever becoming the Republican nominee.
Jeffro
@Kay: maybe ask them if a Democratic president paid hush money to a porn star just before an election, then tried to count it as ‘legal expenses’, then…oh, never mind. It’s not like they’ll care.
Actually on second thought, do ask. It’s important to inflict as much cognitive dissonance on these people as possible.
Wait…’cognitive’ is the problem there. Never mind again.
kalakal
@Baud: Poison Ivy and Titan Arum aka the Corpse Flower
with Durian canapes
NotMax
@LiminalOwl
“Heartland” Repubs never gonna vote for someone from “Taxachusetts.”
;)
jonas
@Jeffro: Yeah, electing Trump in 16 and letting him spend the following four years showing the country (and world) his bloated, orange ass did not serve Republicans well. Sorry to say it, but you’re right — a conventional Republican would have trounced Hillary in 2020 after spending the better part of a year slagging her over the government’s Covid response and subsequent recession. (Which, no matter how she handled it, would have been criticized)
prostratedragon
For J.S. Bach’s Old Calendar birthday, Brandenburg No. 4.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I’m not going in there. I go to the normie florist – the place without the sign vaguely threatening political violence.
James E Powell
@Hildebrand:
Apart from a grip on the cruelty vote, DeSantis’s main asset seems to be that the political press is in love with him.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@LiminalOwl:
You would be safe in the knowledge that this would not happen. Every attempt they make to “prop up one of OURS” lasts exactly as long as it takes for the name to get into the press in any meaningful way.
If she could campaign in a hood and those gloves dollar store Jackie O is fond of, maybe…
narya
@Kay: I do appreciate it when businesses let me know that I do NOT want to give them my business.
kalakal
@prostratedragon: Ah my favourite piece of music. Thank you
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
TBF, Matt didn’t predict a recession per se, just that the economy will be doing worse enough than now that the GQP can make it an issue.
Anyway, see my critique of that @49.
Kay
@jonas:
I disagree. Republicans were in trouble when Trump arrived. That’s how he took over the Party so easily- it was weak. Trump reveals, he doesn’t create.
They had an after election summary when they lost in 2012 outlining the same problems they have today, except all the problems are now worse. They had a huge grifter sector skimming off their donors in 2012- that has gotten much,much worse. They had a problem with focusing on white men- that has gotten worse. They had a problem with no actual ideas or proposals- that has gotten worse.
But they were in trouble before Trump. He exploits weak institutions and people.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
I just want to say this post is a thing of beauty.
kalakal
Reposted (ish) from last night.
As repubs scramble to defend the Anger Yam how long is it before we see the “just a process crime” defence?
Soon to be followed by the classic “perjury trap”
MisterDancer
About DeSantis – the issue is that we’re looking at horse-racing. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. There’s certainly an argument that DeSantis ain’t POTUS material, and I’m not here to debate that.
Yet DeSantis has already killed thousands with his ongoing COVID policies, and the impact his actions and words have had on other states. He’s trying his best to eradicate LBGTQIA+ identities in Florida. work already spurring other states to enact similar measures. And that we know will drive people to try to leave at great cost and suffering, and drive others to far more extreme solutions.
And he’s working to destroy the ideals of collegiate life, slowly turning Florida into a slate of conservative colleges that indoctrinate their students. The knock-on effect from that could be horrific for all of America, not just one state.
I need to say all this because it doesn’t take DeSantis becoming President for him to lead much of America into an Authoritarian regime, a hellscape for anyone who isn’t White and Male and “Christian”. No White Supremacist, after all, had to make the Presidency for Jim Crow to be enacted!
All it took was the Federal government making a ugly deal, a “Compromise”, and then turning it’s backs on the Black people it swore,post-Civil War, to protect.
We need to bear in mind the cost of DeSantis standing as he does, protected and supported as he is by entities like Fox News. That this is not what we should consider normal, and should not treat as just another political moment, another half-assed character trying to grab the brass ring.
It’s not, and we should be real clear about that.
Betty Cracker
@Scout211: Wow, that’s got to be a nightmare scenario for the Fox News defense — an insider who’s spilling the tea.
Kay
@narya:
I know people here disagree but I think it’s dumb. I think it’s bad business. I advised a young couple on their tattoo business – gf and bf, not married- and I had to tell him to stop posting anti abortion rants (which were really bitching about child support, if you followed along his theory was he was paying child support so therefore, um, OWNED the mother and child) on the business page on Facebook. She knew it was bad but didn’t want to tell him, so I did. He’s horrible. Let’s not advertise that fact, okay?
Princess
@schrodingers_cat: I’m no economist so I’m not predicting anything on my own bat, but most of the economic voices I respect the most are predicting a worse economic situation over the next twelve months than what we’re experiencing now. These are not public voices trying to influence elections — they’re people who advise individuals on what to expect for their own financial futures. Universally, the ones I hear are pessimistic.
Baud
@Princess:
I’ve been hearing economic pessimism for almost two years now.
Geminid
@Kay: In a 2020 Bearing Drift article, the late “independent conservative” M.D. Russ put it this way:
Betty Cracker
@MisterDancer: You make valid points. About 22 million of us are already living in DeSantis’s authoritarian state, and while the majority of Floridians voted for that, millions of us did not.
Plus, as you said, the influence goes far beyond Florida’s borders, and that will be the case whether he flames out as a presidential candidate or not. They’re already all singing from the same “anti-woke” songbook, even the ostensibly less feral characters.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I don’t think waiting will pay off for him or Youngkin or any of the other potential candidates vying for the non-feral lane. The party isn’t going to get any less feral over time, at least not in the next decade.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: The tech sector is already in recession, has been for several months–the SVB collapse is just the most visible manifestation, and it sounds like there are wider problems in banking in general. There’s been a bear stock market for over a year. So far, the damage has been contained but I figure that’s got to have wider effects. Might not be as bad as 2008.
Jeffro
I know, right? It’s always “right around the corner”. (eye roll)
Maybe instead of Friedman Units, they should be Summers Units or something.
Kay
@Geminid:
Does no one remember 2012? They had a great year state level in 2010, thought Obama was vulnerable (I heard “he’s toast” more than once in Ohio) then their white evangelical/fundie Catholic + racist base didn’t come out for Romney. They faced a choice- 1. double down on the reactionary racism with authoritarian leanings or 2. try to become a broad-based coalition party. They chose Number One.
Jeffro
@lowtechcyclist: thanks! That almost never (ok, absolutely never) happens. =)
lowtechcyclist
@MisterDancer:
This. We see already what’s happening in states from Tennessee to Wyoming. It ain’t pretty. Not sure what we do about it, given the Bogus Scotus, but it just seems like there has to be some way of pushing back against all this.
gvg
@Matt McIrvin: As opposed to how without the governments help, they would have possibly died, or remained a wage slave or street person and never had an equal chance at an education to find out that they could be a valuable contributor to society. All welfare was/is is a chance or a liferaft. Some people from terrible circumstances rise above it like a phoenix. When there is nothing, we never hear about those people. they are the forgotten beggars and street people that we turn away from and pass laws to remove. We certainly never think we may be throwing away child geniuses or even just nice neighbors and coworkers. That didn’t happen, so they never think about it. My sister the doctor had a fellow medical student who was homeless as a child. His family camped in Ocala State forest.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Charming!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I’ve been hearing economic pessimism for almost 40 years. Before that I wasn’t listening.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think media consistently overrate white male “tough guy” politicians (Christie, Walker, Trump) because our media are rigidly conventional and stodgy defenders of the status quo, but I also have to admit that DeSantis won by double digits in a very diverse and huge state. He won Latinos by 15. Biden only won them by 7. So there’s something I’m not seeing. Florida is a mystery to me but if I were running the Democratic Party I would stop using all the consultants and experts they’re now using in Florida and start fresh- strip it down to studs and rebuild.
Baud
@Kay:
Biden got more votes in FL than DeSantis. It’s all about turnout.
Kay
@Baud:
I can kind of buy “turnout” but I don’t buy “Florida is all old people” or “Florida is not representative of the US” because it’s not all old people and 22 million is probably somewhat representative of the US.
schrodingers_cat
@Princess: What are the experts you trust basing those predictions on?
@Baud: Agreed. On TV most of the macroeconomic analysis comes from Wall street analysts and most of that is based on cyclical arguments. Also, Correlation != Causation.
Most of the punditry is rooting for a Biden bust.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: There’s a business cycle. It was massively interrupted by the COVID pandemic but we returned remarkably quickly to an employment situation as good as or better than we started with (but with supply-chain weirdness and inflation). But it looks to me like the usual measures like unemployment are approaching a bottom right now. And, as I said, there are sectors like tech and banking that already seem to be having trouble.
James E Powell
@Baud:
@Kay:
For me the puzzle with Florida is how it went from a state that Obama won twice to a state where no Democrat can compete statewide. I’m all the way on the other end of the country, so it’s a mystery to me
See also, my beloved home state of Ohio.
Baud
@Kay:
Texas is pretty large and diverse too.
Geminid
@Kay: I think of Eric Cantor’s 2014 primary defeat as another waypoint on the road to radicalization. Two other moderate-conservative Virginia Republican Reps retired afterwards, in the 2016 cycle.
Scott Rigel and Robert Hurt were both fairly young, and their seats were safe for a general election. They did not feel like kissing Tea Party ass to stay in office though, and had prosperous businesses to return to.
James E Powell
@Geminid:
And they got rid of Boehner because he didn’t hate Obama enough.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the 2020 election was decided (thanks to the electoral college) by fewer votes than 2016. It was 45,000 or so. It’s terrifying to think how close we came to a second term for Trump.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
ISTM that tech jobs outside the ‘tech sector’ are still hard to fill, so it’s not like these people are going to go on unemployment, especially when good people in IT can increasingly work from anywhere with a high-speed Internet connection.
Bear market? The S&P is way above its pre-pandemic levels. Yeah, it’s not at its summer 2022 peak, but it’s not at its fall 2022 low, either. Looks like the market had a correction, and now that it’s been corrected, it’s fine.
Can’t speak with any knowledge about the banking sector, but I figure the failure of the three most techbro banks isn’t likely to be indicative of the sector as a whole. Depositors know their money is protected, and that’s the main thing.
Baud
@James E Powell:
AZ and GA have been trending in our direction. Things change.
Suzanne
@Baud:
She is dumb as a fucken stump. If you haven’t, you should enjoy her clip of not being able to explain “woke”….. while she’s promoting a book about how bad “wokeness” is.
lowtechcyclist
@lowtechcyclist:
@schrodingers_cat:
Never mind, I missed Matt’s comment all the way back @4. He did predict a recession, I just saw his later comment which didn’t use the ‘R’ word. Apologies.
narya
@gvg: John Scalzi’s “Being Poor” piece remains a stunning expression of this. One of the things I appreciate about him is that he says, yup, I’m successful, and no way that would have happened without people helping me, including food stamps, at various points in my life. I’ve recommended the “Being Poor” essay a zillion times–it was written in the aftermath of Katrina, as many folks were saying things like, well, why didn’t those people just move out of the way?
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Youngkin might be the guy who’s had the most success threading the needle between primary voters wanting red meat and general-election voters not wanting it. But I think it’s a trick that only works once.
I think the Republicans are going to nominate a bloody red-meat guy for 2024. It’ll be Trump or DeSantis. The question is whether non-culture-war issues manage to override culture-war ones in the general campaign.
danielx
@Baud:
I have rarely read a statement with more self absorption and less self awareness.
Kay
@Suzanne:
What was more surprising is how nasty the book is. I assumed the anti woke warriors who are centrists were defending her (Jonathon Chait) because the book had some kind of “argument”. Looking at the sample, it’s like “lberals hate families- mommies and children”.
No one is under any obligation to be nice to this person. She’s a nasty piece of work and her whole speil is attacking others. It’s also a grift. Churning out crap books is the family business. They’re all branching out into book publishing for K-12 too – producing hagiographies of Churchill and Reagan.
Baud
I for one hope we hand President DeSantis an economic catastrophe. It’s what they’ve done to us, and it has been very successful for them.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Sure, but FL’s change in particular was rapid & radical. Ohio has been sliding toward the Rs for a while.
tobie
@lowtechcyclist:
We need a larger and younger workforce, not just for shitty jobs. I hate that all we talk about is border security instead of the economic rejuvenation that immigration brings. (I know I’m preaching to the choir here but had to get that off my chest.)
Baud
@James E Powell:
FL’s state government has been solidly GOP for a long time.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not sure the culture war is a net negative for us anymore.
Kay
I love that there’s a written record of Gelnn Greenwald’s Right wing, pro war and anti immigrant views and he’s shouted so many critics down that everyone ignores this record and pretends it doesn’t exist because it’s easier to pretend he’s a “Leftist” than dealing with one of his tantrums. What a racket. Amazing he pulled it off.
Baud
@Kay:
Liberals have had a bad habit of not getting offended by what conservatives say about them. Like it’s beneath them or something. It signals a lack of pride.
Betty Cracker
@James E Powell: Florida’s descent into GOP hell wasn’t really all that rapid and radical. We hadn’t elected a Democrat as governor in Florida since the 1990s. The Repubs brag about their recent advantage in voter registration, and they did out-register our crap state party, but the truth is Dem dominance in FL voter rolls for decades included Dixiecrats. Obama was kind of a unicorn — he won other red states that Dems struggled with before and after.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think the culture war is a net positive nationally, though structural/Electoral College issues complicate that.
But it’s the other, sort of lazy stuff that could still get us–“Biden is too old”, “the economy is bad, Republicans are good for the economy”, “I’m bored with these people, it’s time for a change”.
tobie
I’m always amazed that Florida is touted as an economic success. I don’t see any growth industry there that powers the economy nationwide. Florida’s doing well in real estate, tourism, and elder care. That’s all very local and comes mostly from having good weather and nice beaches. It’s also linked to people having disposable income. One downturn in the economy and Florida goes bust.
Jeffro
Especially with his obvious corruption, four years of him BLARING at us multiple times daily, and of course, his incredibly incompetent handling of the pandemic.
White supremacy is one. hell. uva. drug.
Kay
@Baud:
“Liberals hate families” is popular now among the anti woke warriors. Freddie DeBoer accuses people of being liberal because they don’t have families- liberalism is a replacement for family. That’s the unmarried, childless DeBoers theory.
It is more and more diffcult to tell the difference between the “liberal” or “Leftist” anti woke warriors and the far Right. I don’t think any of them read – they just write– so I think they don’t know this, how they move and speak as a group.
Mandel once gave an interview where she insisted Scholastic (the publisher) had no biographies of Right wing leaders/politicians. The person conducting the interview told Mandel that was not true and pointed to two – Mandle then easily and smoothly switched to attacking THOSE books, which she had no read and was not even aware of until 5 minutes prior. She described imaginary (bad) liberal books.
They don’t read. They just write. The whole premise of her new business is she’s providing books no one else is, but she doesn’t read any books.
JMG
@Kay: Democrats did not turn out at all in 2022. Turnout fell off a cliff in Democratic parts of the state. Many reasons for this, but uninspiring gubernatorial candidate was perhaps the biggest.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: The thing to keep in mind about Florida’s Latino population is that it skews right because it comprises immigrants/descendants from the most right-leaning Latino groups, e.g., Cubans, Venezuelans, etc. I remember hoping the influx of folks from Puerto Rico following the hurricane would mitigate the effect of the right-wingers, but that didn’t pan out. I grudgingly give credit to the FL GOP; they are effective at outreach, where as FL Dems have not been.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: Conservatives like to complain about the “lump of labor” fallacy but the flip side is that xenophobes believe in the “lump of jobs” fallacy–there’s a fixed supply of jobs, and if immigrants take them they’re taking them away from someone else. (Never mind that we actually have a labor shortage at the moment.)
But immigrants also participate in the economy in other ways. They buy goods and services. Will buy more if they’re not horribly exploited.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the way to understand it is that they don’t see welfare programs as the government helping them out; they see that as the state of humiliating failure that they pulled themselves up from by individual effort. The government tried to keep them dependent but they escaped!
This. To me it seems that the conservative mind set is that they are individuals who succeed all by themselves, in spite of life trying to not let them and liberals look at life that we are all in this together and help each other. Their view is that they are better because they do life alone. We know better, life is about all of us. Yes we have individual stories but they work because we are all in this thing called life – together.
Baud
@Kay:
Do your kids know how much you hate them?
Jeffro
Btw Jamelle Bouie has a good, if a little obvious, take in That Paper today:
trump couldn’t lose Mike Pence’s support if he tried (article is ‘gifted’)
And since that’ll never happen, we’re going to keep seeing all kinds of disconnected BS from GOP candidates. DeSantis did it just yesterday: “hey how ’bout those porn star hush money payments? But also, this DA is off the hook and ought to be investigated.”
Same thing with Haley: “I’m not running against president trumpov…I’m running against Joe Biden.”
First columnist with a “well, which is it, Republicans?” piece up this week wins. Bouie’s close, but he hasn’t quite nailed it. Alexandra Petri would have a field day with that as her topic, I bet!
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree on the food !! Last time we were in NYC, when we asked people where they were from, Iranians always answered “We’re Persian!” with glee.
We like to learn where new American folks are from when we’re in a place with lots of new immigrants like NYC, because there aren’t so many out here in the countryside.
We thought it was interesting that they preferred to be from Persia…
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Don’t borrow trouble. We may have a mild recession that many people won’t even notice, or we may not have a recession at all. They’re already screaming about how we’re in a recession now when we’re not because inflation is higher.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Conservatives have been crowing that they’re going to outbreed us to oblivion ever since I was a child. Periodically, liberals fret about it. But since conservatives have had a fertility advantage for at least 100 years, probably longer, it raises the question of why there are any liberals at all. It only works if they can keep the kids inside the tent, and they can’t.
Also, right now, it sure seems to me like liberal-leaning professionals are better at building healthy, stable families than most of conservatives’ constituencies are, and that gets them so pissed off.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Matt doesn’t borrow trouble. He buys it in bulk at Costco.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: True, but I doubt it will help him any with independents, especially if they start piling up. Who wants an indicted person in the White House?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
That doesn’t explain supposed leftists like Freddie getting on the same bandwagon.
Gin & Tonic
Ruckus
@LiminalOwl:
My account works. I had to check because I rarely go there after SFBII brought it.
Soprano2
@Kay: It’s funny how for MAGA’s enforcing the law against TFG is tyranny, but so are DA’s who don’t enforce the law against black and brown people in the way MAGA’s prefer. Here in MO the state legislature is panting to take control of the police force in St. Louis away from the (elected, black) city government and give it to a board of people from St. Louis (probably majority white and Republican) appointed by the governor.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: Right, but the GOP base will pick the nominee.
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: Zorastrian-Indians call themselves Parsi if they came to India when Persia fell to Islam . If their arrival is more recent (early 20th century) they call themselves Iranis. They settled along the west coast of India. In Sindh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.
Iranis mostly settled in Mumbai and Karachi and they started many bakeries and cafes. Also they were cooks to many Brits and other colonial officers. They married many European/English dishes with Indian spices with delicious end results
Old Irani cafes with marble tables and cheap tea and delicious snacks and pastries bring back many memories.
VeniceRiley
One of my 10yr+ webseries friends married Mr. Hunt. And it was a treat to see her cameo with her baby in S3 ep1 of Ted Lasso. Also a treat? Seeing her phone fb story of him bowling a strike in the White House bowling alley. :-)
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Freddie is just another fake leftist of the type who claims that cultural liberalism is a corporatist distraction, so he can say reactionary stuff without thinking he’s uncool. We can safely ignore him.
schrodingers_cat
The American economy is huge with many moving parts. Wall street (capital markets) are important but they are but one part. If someone is telling you they know how the economy will behave a year from now, they are lying. No one knows. No one can predict an event like the COVID-19 outbreak.
Boom and bust cycles can be and are mitigated by monetary and fiscal policies of the federal government. They are designed to be countercyclical. Biden has appointed good people in both places.
Krugman is a Nobel winning macroeconomist, I would listen to him over the Wall Street boys. His analysis is sober and well reasoned and goes beyond just cyclical analysis or regression analysis
Don’t listen to the TV punditry they are rooting for a Democratic debacle so that their racist tax cutting buddies can win and screw us again.
Soprano2
@Kay: I had a regular customer at the bar friend me on Facebook, so I accepted it (what was I supposed to do?). It reaffirmed my instinct to not friend anyone who’s a customer there, or anyone I work with. After she posted a vaguely threatening comment on a post where I literally only said “Trump is in the finding out stage”, implying that I shouldn’t say things like that because most of my customers are conservatives and like TFG, I had to block her from seeing my feed. Remember, this is my personal FB page, not the business one! I agree, indicating what your political leanings are on anything about your business is a bad idea. I don’t want to do business with someone who has TFG stickers plastered on their work vehicle.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I personally am very pro family and I find the natalism on the Right creepy and (most likely!) bad for women and girls. It’s women as breeders and when you set that up you are inevitably teaching girls that they have no valid role other than breeder. I don’t think there’s enough concern about lurching backwards on womens rights because political media is very traditional and conventional and still dominated by men. I don’t think it’s an accident that some of the biggest “me too” issues came out of media. It wasn’t the Ford or GM plant. It was CNN and Fox.
Elizabelle
@Kay: And NBC (Matt Lauer). And CBS. (Les Moonves.). And Charlie Rose (CBS and PBS) … And. …
Kay
@Soprano2:
A lot of my clients are Republicans because this place is 75% Republican and they know I’m a Democrat (if they pay attention) because I’m often in the local newspaper connected to some political event. But I don’t talk about that with them- I talk about their problem.
I will says there’s a plus too. I get a LOT of labor union members and that comes out of political activity in and around their local. I sometimes feel like I am in a union I have such granular knowlege of what’s going on in the locals. Like a free agent who belongs to all of them :)
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Yup. There were explosive allegations of a hostile worplace at Fox a decade ago. Apparently they did nothing to address it, because here it is again.
I maintain political media (the business and the employees) are MORE conventional and traditional than the average American. I think it selects for conformity and a kind of brittle….backwardness. We know it selects for conformity- is there any industry that operates more like a herd?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I’ve always assumed that businesses that do a lot of political (or religious) signaling do that because they’ve figured there is a market that will be attracted to it. (Chick-Fil-A thrives in part because it’s occupying this niche of “the conservative fast-food chain”. Penzeys Spices does this on the left!) But maybe sometimes they’re just being foolish.
Kristine
@Baud: @Princess: The way folks I follow are stating it is that the buying opportunities are coming.
Princess
@Baud: with good reasons. Prices ARE high. People with investments have lost a ton of money and that means anyone with a retirement savings account. It’s harder to sell a house and you won’t get as much for it. I’m not saying all the news is bad (low unemployment!) but there has been a lot of bad news that doesn’t seem to hit BJers as much for some reason.
OzarkHillbilly
Not the police force but the DA’s office. STL police have long been under the *partial to complete* control of Jeff city.
*It has been a long time since I paid much attention to STL politics and I certainly don’t know anything of what has happened in the past 20+ years, so I may be partially or completely wrong, but I don’t see the state Lege giving up their hold on police powers in STL. This situation of local governance in STL (as with so many things) has it’s roots in the Civil War.
Delk
@schrodingers_cat: there’s three Persian restaurants in my neighborhood. We go all the time.
JMG
@Matt McIrvin: Both Penzeys and Chick-fil-A are good products in their markets. I use many spices and eat next to no fast food, but I know folks who do and they praise Chick-fil-A. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I believe this has more to do with their success than socio-political stances.
schrodingers_cat
@Delk: Lucky you
ETA: If anyone wants to give Parsi recipes a try, check out chef Kayzad at Sanjeev Kapoor’s
Khana Khazana (Food Treasury would be my rough translation
The videos are in English and Khana Khazana has been one of the pioneers in Food TV in India.
Edmund dantes
@Baud: https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/243171279862108161?s=46&t=OXP-P0l2aEBrD1Q_l9zjsg
You can’t rely on Twitter search anymore since Musk broke Twitter.
I forget who said they couldn’t find it but here is the original tweet
kalakal
@Kay: It’s a concatenation of circumstances.
Repub turnout didn’t change much. It wasn’t DeSantis getting lots more votes it was Dems getting less.
Demographically the US is about 16% over age 65, Florida is about 20%. Here in Pinellas it’s 26%. The new olds tend right wing, the older were more dem. (Florida has the highest rate of internal immigrants in the nation and they are mostly wrinklies, not starry eyed 20 somethings)
As Betty says many of the Latino community is largely from Cuba, Venezuela etc and the Repubs have been very effective with media foxification “vote dem get Fidel!”
At a state level Florida’s been heavily GOP for years, look at the state house, its hugely republican.
Florida dems are a bit of a mess.
DeSantis’ well publicised public arrests for voting ‘fraud’ in the run up to the election had the intended suppressive effect.
As Schrodingers Cat said DeSantis’ super power is the msm love him. The narrative of how “free Florida” won the pandemic is accepted as gospel. This is winning defined as coming 42nd out of 50 ( and that’s with doctored figures). Ditto economy.
Add these up and you get the last election result. A lot of DeSantis’ schtick is performative jackassey, it doesn’t help anybody, solve any problems but it does hurt people and the wingnuts love it. As Mistedancer pointed out this dangerous poison is spreading outside Fl.
DeSantis ought to be unelectable for a national office, his track records garbage, he is personally repellent with the charisma of earwax. I hope so as he’s very dangerous
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Matt McIrvin:
That is what I am seeing also. My hope is that this is just a mild correction. The tech sector did get bloated.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Youngkin benefited from a compressed “Disassembled Convention” process that put a premium on preparation and money (he may have engineered the process). Then Youngkin papered over the cracks between the party factions with fat checks. In the general election, his team ran a skillful campaign that made the most of his narrow path to victory over a less energetic opponent.
Glenn Youngkin probably would not win reelection, but thanks to Virginia’s one term limit for governors he won’t have to try.
schrodingers_cat
@kalakal: People on this blog disagree with this take but red roses and their patron saint are an anathema to many immigrants from former Communist/Socialist states. That helps the Rs.
Baud
@Princess:
I guess we’re just economically immune.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Yup. They even made a movie about it a few years ago.
Betty Cracker
@Princess: I notice it every time I pay for groceries. It’s a weird economy in that the job market is exceptionally strong and therefore wages have increased, but prices have gone up precipitously too.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I will speak for myself not having unrealistic expectations (stock market will keep growing continuously, inflation will always be close to zero etc) helps. Also, not having cable news helps.
Also the media loves to drive panics. Especially against Democratic presidents.
We don’t hear from them when prices come down whether it be gas or eggs.
catclub
@LiminalOwl:
Except he has zero chance of winning GOP primaries.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
Good!
A few of them will have cardio events over the next several days, a few more will experience mental anguish and walk into a train or something equally stupid, and a very few will decide that the whole political process isn’t worth their precious time and essentially dropout, never to vote again.
Every little bit helps.
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: Agreed 100 percent.
He was pretty decent for a R governor during COVID so that will be a turn off for the Proud Boyz faction of the R party.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: It’s true that if you actually are anti-natalist or just want to be childfree, you have no place on the right, so people like Freddie can point to that and say some leftists/liberals hate families.
But actually saying “the family is evil and should be destroyed”… well, I actually do know of a few people who go around saying that on Twitter, they seem to have some very specific damage, but they are very unusual. Most liberals will argue that if you want people to have families it makes sense to support generous public policies that make it easier to raise and support one.
Soprano2
They’re hoping for a recession next year because they know it will hurt Biden’s chances even though he has nothing to do with it. They would admit this in a private room if you promised not to repeat it to anyone else.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: My theory as an amateur political economist is that Democrats got their counterclyclical spending in early, in the last Congress, and that spending from the Infrastructure, CHIPS+ and the so-called Inflation Reduction bills will help avert or at least cushion a recession. At least, that’s my hope.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: There are people who aren’t even shy about it–I recall an op-ed by a guy who ran a call-center company that was crowing about how we needed a good recession to knock some sense into all these entitled millennials and zoomers who didn’t want to work or know the value of a dollar. He was ecstatic about the prospect of a recession. He was clearly feeling the pinch of the labor shortage, wanted warm bodies to crack the whip at.
Chief Oshkosh
@jonas:
This assumes that Covid would’ve become a pandemic. Recall that Trump closed our inspection/response teams in China. There have been other bad critters that our internationally-placed teams caught early. SARS Cov2 might have been just another one of those near misses if only…
WaterGirl
@Scout211: I lied under oath, but fox made me do it? I’m not sure that’s a get out of jail free card.
especially since it only appears to have bothered her now that perhaps the DOJ or dominion is coming after her
But I’m still glad she’s making it public.
Gin & Tonic
Media interview done right:
WaterGirl
@Geminid: seems like a candidate like that could be useful for getting the protest votes from responsible – make that formally responsible Republicans – who just could never vote Democratic?
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Agreed. That’s their hope too. As I said in the comment above. Predictions are hard in macroeconomics because there are many interacting factors. The tools available to the government are blunt and crude.
And Biden is using both well. So even if there is a recession those policies will minimize the downside. Also Biden’s policies with his focus on employment rate favor the consumer over the investor. Wall Street doesn’t like that.
After almost 20 years of close to zero interest rates some increase is not a bad thing.
Spanky
@Kay:
Wall Street.
Elizabelle
Today is a day that Trump might be indicted but …
Let’s all talk about the incoming recession and how Biden is likely to lose. President DeSantis!
No thank you.
Cheryl from Maryland
@lowtechcyclist: Sununu has already gone feral with his support of Don Bolduc and Trump.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
The pro natalist on the Right will inevitably become authoritarian and it will be about controlling women and girls.
My son lives in Denmark and I’ve now spent some time there and while it is a country that supports families in a really great way – everything is geared to families, from public transportation to public “gyms” that are accessible to everyone and filled with parents and young kids and they make no bones about why this is so- they are making more Danes- it ALSO feels a little cramped to me- like it might be a bad place to be a woman and not want a spouse or children. And this is Copenhagen. So the city.
I want the American freedom of choice on lifestyle with the robust child friendly policy, which I think can be done but you won’t get there imitating Denmark. Denmark operates on a kind of rigid shared social compact and, frankly, conformity and rule following. It’s not going to work here and we should invent our own approach.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist:
I am reminded of the old phrase that we used as kids – monkey see monkey do.
they are seeing all the awful things he’s doing, and then it’s hey I want to do those awful things too.
Kelly
@Kay: Local drive up coffee stand put up brand new Trump Flags a couple weeks ago. It’s a good location, alongside a busy highway connecting the Willamette Valley to Bend. Trump flags are probably a good draw for the locals, maybe not for the outdoorsy Democrats on their way to recreate. Now that I think about it most of the battered old Trump flags around here have been replaced.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Yes, but how will indictments play in the Milwaukee suburbs?
CaseyL
@Princess: I am employed, but I assure you the bad economic news is hitting me – not nearly as badly as others, but it has already changed my long-term plans. I was going to retire at 70; now it looks like I’ll have to stay in the workforce another year or two, retiring at 71 or 72.
UncleEbeneezer
Thank you Marcy Wheeler for writing this. Comparisons of Watergate to 1/6 only work if you account for the numerous factors that make investigating and charging January 6th Planners WAY MORE COMPLICATED/SLOW!!!
Saying that “Watergate took X days,” ignoring the countless apples/oranges differences and then smugly declaring that this is proof/justification for skepticism of Garland/DOJ’s work (while also ignoring the numerous signs that DOJ has been working it’s way up to Trump and his henchmen) has always been lazy-thinking at best or bad-faith cynicism at worst.
Prosecuting the Watergate crimes was like building a pinewood derby car compared to investigating/prosecuting the leaders/planners of January 6th which is more like building a rocket ship. The two really aren’t even remotely comparable.
sdhays
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Nikki Haley is the frontrunner, I think, to be the VP nominee, on the well-established Republican “token me too” principle.
They searched around under the couch cushions for a black man to run against Obama in Illinois in 2004. They picked Sarah Palin for VP nominee in 2008 because Hillary. Hershel Walker in Georgia in 2022.
We have a black/south Indian woman VP right now, so the Republicans will think that propping up their own south Indian women VP candidate will be the height of cunning. Especially with Dobbs, having a vagina on the ticket will be considered useful. And the VP candidate doesn’t go in front of primary voters, so that decision gets made behind closed doors by the candidate.
schrodingers_cat
@sdhays: Nikki Haley’s parents are Sikh. So she has north Indian heritage. You probably meant South Asian.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I read an op-ed in WaPo by Ruy Teixeira yesterday about how Dems shouldn’t get too confident about 2024, etc.
I had to go back and read again to make sure. The following words do not appear in said op-ed: “abortion”, “Dobbs”, and even “women”? (maybe, I’d have to recheck)
Blindspot for Mr. Teixeira, perhaps?
Falling Diphthong
I’ve been predicting Marjorie Taylor Greene as the ’24 nominee for some time. (Assuming something would go wrong for Trump, whether that’s arrest or fleeing to Russia or trickling out because he’s too tired.) She’s exactly what they like in Trump, only more.
I cannot get worked up about the idea that the GOP base might suddenly decide that what they want is a nice sensible moderate, the sort who can get elected in a blue state. That is not what they want.
I think the evidence for the coming recession is “people are saying.” It’s not impossible–eventually the current run will end, there will be another recession, then another period of growth, then another recession, etc and so on, and I get exasperated with anyone who claims that whichever is currently happening is obviously how it shall be forever and ever anon, because Special New Conditions. But people have been announcing The Recession Is Here since Biden took office, and actual economic data keeps refuting that.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: Thanks for sharing that. Very interesting. Any time someone says “But they can do X in Scandinavia” presuming it would work in America I’m like “Have you met Americans?”, lol. Like can you even imagine how America would respond to the fairly strong restrictions Denmark has on gun ownership?:
“Denmark does have more restrictive gun laws than the U.S. – individuals must demonstrate a valid reason to possess a firearm (hunting, collection), obtain a permit, clear a criminal and mental background check, and have the aqcuisition, possession, and transfer of each firearm be registered”
Half of our country would lose their mother-f***ing mind at even the suggestion of these policies.
Barbara
@Kay: My first au pair was Danish. As she explained to me, Danes are actually pretty conservative and traditionally have a strong sense of social cohesion and conformity. She considered immigration to be a real challenge to the Danish social compact, which in her view was based on the notion that you didn’t have to trace your family tree very far back to find some kind of family relationship with any other Dane you happen to meet.
RSA
Yes. Fidelity says the average 401(k) was down 23% at the end of 2022, compared with the end of 2021. IRAs were down 20%. That’s a huge amount for anyone close to retirement or older.
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: Denmark is tiny and homogenous compared to the US. Plus their immigration policy is draconian. So no wonder BS acolytes love it
Baud
@RSA:
People close to retirement should have their money in less volatile investments.
I’ve heard people complain for years that the stock market isn’t the economy, but I guess that was all not quite true.
Soprano2
@Kay: They all know how I feel about TFG, it isn’t a secret. I never bring up politics at the bar, although sometimes they try to bait me. I usually turn it into a joke. I know better than to get into a political argument with a customer! I know many of them don’t agree with me, but that’s OK as long as they’re spending money. It is interesting sometimes to listen to them talk about politics, they’re pretty typical MAGA’s. There is one guy who’s interesting – I can talk politics with him, although I’ve never been able to get him to really tell me how he thinks downstate IL can have more of a voice in state government without it being undemocratic. I think he’s one of those “land mass should get more votes” people but he won’t say it.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: If Trump is the nominee he will demand a running mate who is a nonentity like Pence, someone who won’t attract attention away from him. Not actually Pence, of course.
If it’s somebody else, all manner of other things could happen.
Soprano2
Wow, from a Yahoo article about Abby Grossberg’s lawsuit against Faux News:
Even if you don’t like Bartiromo, this is gross and disgusting. Can you ever imagine them talking about Tucker this way? Kay is right, these people are traditional and entrenched, it’s no wonder the news business is the way it is.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: I have zero sympathy for the lying Money Honey. No one forced her to work for these tools.
Kay
@Barbara:
Absolutely true. Which is why my son fits in so well. He has a strong sense of social conformity – he was a moderate Democrat when he lived here and his main complaint about Chicago (where he lived as an adult) was people weren’t behaving :)
I think you see it in parts of the midwest where a lot of Scandinavians settled, too, so I recognized it in Denmark – it’s very familiar to me- but everyone should recognize that “social conformity and cohesion” comes with restraints and has a kind of dark side where it’s stifling. Danes brag that they don’t use curtains or blinds because they’re all so wholesome that nothing going on in their homes would ever embarrass them. But because I’m very familiar with Scandinavian midwesterners, I know that the other reason is they’re all watching one another, in a kind of creepy, nosy way that I don’t want to bring more of here.
Shalimar
@James E Powell: Democrats have been losing statewide races in Florida by 1 or 2 points for over 20 years now with only a few exceptions, and Republicans have dominated the state legislature for much of that time. DeSantis won big, but it’s still too early to say that was a big shift from the longterm pattern.
gvg
@James E Powell: No, Obama was a temporary aberration. Florida has been trending republican since the 80’s. I live here and I can’t exactly explain why, but a lot of it seems to be that democrats have fallen apart. We have a disorganized group who are disheartened and used to losing. They have not found any messages that seem to work and unified. It doesn’t help that some of the old guard were actually corrupt. Small petty stupid easily caught corruptions too.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: The city got control of the police there in 2013 due to a statewide vote on the matter, now the state (white people) is trying to take it back.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: There are just not enough of those voters left in the primary electorate, except maybe states with open primaries like Virginia. To the more feral Republicans, someone like Sununu is a RINO, and they hate RINO’s as much as they hate Democrats, maybe even more.
Karl Rove had a vision of an enduring Center-Right majority, and his dream might have come true if his boss hadn’t gotten into that disastrous Iraq War. It’s a Right party now though, and that will change only if the Republicans get thrashed over multiple cycles. I think someone like Sununu might have a chance for the nomination in 2028, but not next year.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Glenn Youngkin has that “grandpa in a sweater vest” thing going for him, it fools a lot of “normie” voters. Sadly, a lot of people vote based on stuff like that.
Kay
@Barbara:
It’s tiny too- half the population of Ohio- so in order to keep that robust welfare state they need a steady inlfux of young people paying in, and maybe more importantly BUYING into as a kind of nationalism.
Their immigration laws are much stricter than the US, but that’s true of lots of places. The US actually has more liberal immigration laws than many, many other places. Denmark would have a harder time incorporating immigrants and keeping Danish (like keeping their language) so I don’t think US/Denmark immigration is comparable either. There’s no real threat to the US becoming a non English speaking country, and English isn’t our indigenous language anyway. A lot of the differences between European countries and the US, IMO< come down to the fact that Europeans are indiginious to Europe and unless you’re talking about native Americans or Mexican Americans (some) the US population really are all immigrants. It’s not just a touchy feely saying. Danes really are descended from Vikings IN DENMARK and Americans really all did all come from somewhere else.
Ken
Yes, actually, though with changes in the gender-specific language.
CaseyL
@Geminid:
Not too sure about this, unless the thrashing is paired with demographic die-off.
The thing about the ferals is, they learn nothing, remember nothing, and change nothing. Any loss is because they were robbed, not because their politics and their candidates are repulsive. They will believe that no matter how often and how badly they lose.
I know there are young ferals, and Christofacism recruitment is a real thing, but hopefully not enough to make up for the old ones dying off.
Scout211
@Soprano2: @schrodingers_cat:
I posted that at #57
I tend to agree with @schrodingers_cat. You sue your employer for $1.6 billion because they “forced” you to commit perjury? I don’t mind that Fox News will be mired in another big bucks lawsuit, but really? Wouldn’t the honorable thing to do is re-testify truthfully?
There is no honor among
thievesFox News employees.Hoodie
@Baud: Yep, and folks might want to take into account there was a huge runup in the market in 2021, so basing your expectations on that is probably misguided. If you were in a basic index fund, 2022 was basically a lost year, but no more than that.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Youngkin also benefited from being a political newcomer. As Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch put it, Youngkin had a blank canvas he painted to his advantage. He was able to be all things to all people. Youngkin also practiced energetic retail politics and spoke to scores of groups from 30 to 300, all over the state. But I still think Terry McCauliffe would have beaten Youngkin had he run a better race.
Now I hear that Youngkin has developed a secret weapon for when he runs for higher office: a high tech sweater vest that turns different colors depending on which side of his mouth he’s talking out of.
frosty
@Hoodie: That’s basically what my financial advisor told me. My retirement savings went down but it’s the same as it was when I retired in 2020 and I’ve taken a bunch of money out since then.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Totally agree with you here. Krugman is usually sober and well-reasoned on the macroeconomics side. However, his specific policy recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt. That is, if he suggests that government stimulus is in order, I listen to him. But when he suggests exactly how the money should be spent or allocated, he is not necessarily correct (in my humble opinion).
But it is weird how often media economic pundits, who have no particular expertise in monetary policy, spout off on how the economy should operate.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Super-conservative upbringings seem to alienate at least half of the kids raised in them. And yet I rarely see the inverse….a kid growing up in a pretty liberal, secular family becoming a religious conservative. I’m sure it happens, but much less often.
There is a significant and growing gap in the family-making of college grads vs. non-college-grads. And yes, this pisses off the social conservatives.
Paul in KY
@LiminalOwl: Pence has a certain gravitas that DeSatanis does not have. I’d put GoGo Boots at 0 and Cotton Pence at 1.
Geminid
@CaseyL: Yes, it might not change even if Republicans get thrashed over several cycles. I would have better said “could change.”.
My notion is that some of these crazies are new voters who will lose interest because they were not civic minded to begin with. And others may still hold to their radical beliefs on policy matters, but adopt a more pragmatic view on elections and candidates. These might find a Sununu or a Kemp less objectionable in a few years.
schrodingers_cat
Agreed because you can’t divorce policy from politics. Politics is not where his expertise lies.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: My RRR review is coming along well. I should finish it in a day or two.
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: This is true. I’m more than a decade out from retirement so I can afford to take slightly more risk, but most of it is in “target year” funds that are supposed to automatically shift to lower-risk investments as the day approaches.
I do still have a chunk of Microsoft stock that I got as an employee benefit when I worked for them over a decade ago and that I just hold onto; it lost quite a bit of value over the first two-thirds of 2022 and has been clawing it back since then.
I’ve also been spooked by people making grand claims about how the return from stocks is going to be permanently lower from now on, etc. No idea whether anyone knows what they’re talking about.
scav
Oh god and Boris is talking again. It’s like watching the lingering value of truth slowly evaporate off the bottom of whatever well of (theoretical) probity Parliament and Oxbridge had accumulated over centuries.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: I disagree. Wall Street will bounce back. Tech stocks have been inflated so that correction is long overdue. Overall the American economy has bounced back much better than other major economies of the world and we are still working through the COVID-19 related disruptions.
Realworldrj
i remember when very serious people were trying to convince us that Bethany Mandel wasn’t stupid
Brachiator
@Kay:
A very interesting, and somewhat creepy, observation.
Oddly enough, Denmark recently was ranked Number 2 among “happiest countries in the world” in a CNN story.
Finland was Number 1. The US is Number 15,
Another Scott
@Falling Diphthong: I have no idea who the GQPers will pick. MTG would be an interesting choice, and I’m sure she’s working to make it so.
The thing about politics that I think is under appreciated – normal people like voting for winners. They’ll happily turn out in big numbers for a winning team.
Youngkin gets mentioned a lot, but he only won because he (and the state party) twisted the process. He wouldn’t have won the nomination otherwise (the larger, crazier wing of the party wanted someone else, so the party made it so that it was a restricted choosing process, not a normal primary/convention). Youngkin won’t be able to twist the process if he runs for president – the GQP is too weak as a party to control the crazies. I don’t think he’s going anywhere nationally anytime soon (could change if he somehow were elected to US senate and had a couple of terms of the press fluffing him there).
The GQP desperately wants to win again by any means possible. Normal GQP voters want to win and want to be able to stop thinking about culture war stuff every – single – day and just want their capital gains to keep rolling in without being taxed. The RWNJs want to seize power and change all the rules so that they never have to submit to the will of the governed ever again. We’ll soon see which faction has more power…
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2:
He won’t admit they want more handouts, because while they do, its against the GOP gospel to actually admit it. I’ve argued with more than one IL downstater or MO rural voter who votes against infrastructure tax increases while demanding more local spending. It is possible they don’t believe that they are getting more than they pay for or that in a resource constrained environment these agencies are going to spend the road dollars where most of the taxpayers drive (rather than in their communities). But I think they just feel like they deserve the dollars more, so they should have them, even if they are already contributing less than they receive.
The Pale Scot
SUGAR NEPO BABY: THE BETHANY MANDEL STORY
From LGM
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed that the stock market is the place to be for medium-long term investing. The trouble with getting out is – when do you get back in?? Market timing is a great way to lose lots of money.
@Baud: I did some figuring a while ago. It looks like Social Security figures the average retiree will collect benefits around 14 years (that’s when the breakpoint between collecting at 62 and collecting much larger checks at 70 seems to happen (ignoring COLAs)). You would miss out on a lot of income and wealth opportunities if you decide to dump your S&P500 401(k) for a CD or bond fund the day you get your first Social Security check.
Moderation in all things (even moderation).
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne:
I’ve never heard of it happening. I do often hear stories of people switching from one fairly conservative religious affiliation to another, more hardcore one. And I guess some cults and churches hook people by providing a lifeline when they’re going through a personal crisis such as drug addiction.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Very cool. I look forward to reading it.
Hoodie
@Matt McIrvin: Seems to me the market is always going to be important simply because just about everyone’s retirement is locked up in 401(k)’s. Those things have so much time lag built into them and skew toward broad market indices. In engineering terms, it’s a highly-damped system. The biggest risks are (1) fraud/structural ones like the CDO debacle in 2008, e.g., where a whole class of assets (not just an individual stock or small group of stocks) was wildly overvalued and (2), as always, stupid fucking Republicans worried about poor people getting something. SVB is probably a one-off, a situation where a relatively small ingrown group with inflated notions of their own competence managed to flunk basic risk management (e.g., what moron at ROKU thought that putting $500 million in a single bank was a good idea?). Even so, SVB may have the silver lining of causing the Fed to look at bank balance sheets, take a rate hike pause and maybe avoid overcompensating for inflation.
Mimi haha
Nikki Haley? Marjorie Green? These people aren’t going to vote for a woman.
Another Scott
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: +1
I think we all remember crying “unfair!” when something happened in daycare or grade school. Fairness is a great rallying cry!
Trouble is, of course, it’s great to demagogue stuff with “fairness” too. I think that’s why “Obamaphones” and the like won’t go away. “I have to pay $100 a month for my cell phone, why should those people get free phones! It’s not fair!!” Telling them, “Well, you inherited $500k from your rich parents, you get to deduct your mortgage interest, and have police patrolling your neighborhood so that you don’t have to pay $100 a month for an alarm system, and have good schools so that you don’t have to pay private tuition so that your kids have a chance to learn, and …” probably won’t get very far with explaining the difference. :-/
Something something rich and poor living under bridges.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Hoodie:
More banks, in the US and around the world, have similar problems. The Swiss recently had to bail out one of their banks
Here in the US, Republic Bank is the most recent to show weaknesses.
The Lodger
@Betty Cracker: Since you can post pictures, please feel free to share some of your son’s more notably batshit sign pix with us!
Hoodie
@Brachiator: No doubt that, after SVB, the Fed should be looking to see of other banks have similar duration risk problems. From what I understand, Credit Suisse has been shaky for quite a while. There will always be banks that have poor investments, usually the regulators catch those and arrange takeovers. The difference with SVB is that it could have killed off an entire chunk of the tech industry simply because of a liquidity problem that was exacerbated by dumb depositors who didn’t have plan B other than “take all our money out!” When you put that much money in a bank, it’s kind of dumb to simply trust the bank. There are a bunch of ways they could have managed that risk that probably would have prevented the run that occurred. My son works for a regional bank and he says they’re now getting a raft of new customers putting $250k in sweep account arrangements to avoid this very risk.
Princess
@CaseyL: you’re definitely not alone in that. And a lot of people who aren’t very clued in conclude from it something like, gee, my 401k was booming under Trump but now I need to work two years longer to retire. They don’t need to be listening to pundits.
Brachiator
@Hoodie:
I don’t want to characterize the depositors as “dumb.” I think that most people would think that a bank with a good reputation is safe.
But you make good points, and your son’s observations are very interesting. I have never been in a position where I was responsible for huge amounts of money and had to consider whether to use multiple banks. Just not in my realm of experience. But it is very interesting to think about what should be done.
Matt McIrvin
@Princess: Yeah, I mean, I’m not personally in a dangerous situation at all, but I see my retirement account flatlining at the same time that the whole industry I’m in seems to be going through a sudden contraction, and it doesn’t look like boom times. I could definitely see someone less politically clued-in deciding “things were great under Trump and now they suck, I want someone like Trump back.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Matt McIrvin: @Suzanne:
It happens. The creepy dude who was responsible for immigration policy during the Trump admin comes to mind.
Soprano2
Or when shortages ease, like the baby formula thing. They emphasize bad news, not good.
Hoodie
@Brachiator: A bank can have a good reputation, but that’s a lot of eggs in one basket. Smaller depositors are protected by FDIC, so it’s not dumb for them to trust a bank’s reputation. At most it will be a hassle to get their money if the bank fails. In contrast, these Silicon Valley companies are supposed to be pretty sophisticated and should understand hedging risk. They really dropped the ball here.
Soprano2
Yes, this is a big problem – people keep their money in risky investments for too long because they want that sweet, sweet gain. Happened here in 2000 – several people had to delay their retirements because their deferred comp accounts got cut in half! That only happened because they kept their money in high risk accounts when they shouldn’t have.
Soprano2
@Kay: The only reason their government services are so robust is because of this “sameness” – it benefits people who are like them. It could never work that way here because white people don’t want non-white people to have those generous services.
...now I try to be amused
@Another Scott:
Before Youngkin came along I had a hunch that the GOP’s best way forward would be to give up on the primary system and bring back the smoke-filled rooms to select candidates. Youngkin’s election seems to confirm it. The problem, as you noted, is that the loons have taken over too much of the party apparatus to re-impose smoke-filled rooms nationwide.
hilts
@Baud:
Bethany Mandel’s brain needs to be rebooted.
NotMax
@…now I try to be amused
Once again, Politics and Poker.
;)
...now I try to be amused
@NotMax: Speaking of politics and musicals, I liked Howard da Silva as Ben Franklin in 1776.
H-Bob
@Baud: Maybe liberals don’t want to get into a feces flinging contest with people who like that taste!
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: What if these characterizations of Ms. Bartiromo were objectively correct? The ‘menopausal’ one is below the belt, but the other ones could be true.
Chief Oshkosh
@Princess: They all draw from the same playbook that is as often wrong as it is right.
Bottom line for all of these people, even the ones acting in good faith, is that they make more money from client fees when they’re predicting doom. After all, only THEY know how to carefully choose the path through Doom Forest, leading you out to the other side, into The City of Light and Happiness.
Geminid
@…now I try to be amused: Youngkin’s nominating process was probably a one off, conditioned by pandemic rules. Otherwise, Republicans probably would have used local caucuses, county conventions, and a state convention to select their candidate.
The state of Virginia would have let them have a June primary alongside the Democrats, but party leaders feared that nutty state Senator Amanda Chase would win and then drag the entire ticket into the Dismal Swamp.
Paul in KY
@The Pale Scot: I just assume that everything she says (in general) is a lie of some type.
Paul in KY
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Stephen Miller (spit). I have assumed his parents must have been some form of creepy. If not, I’m sure he’s been a heartbreak to them.
billcinsd
@Matt McIrvin: Youngkin did not have a primary, so that he could appear moderate in the general
Another Scott
@Scout211:
Liz Dye at Wonkette:
(Emphasis added.)
I suspect the suit is going to take a while.
Indeed. Let them fight.
Cheers,
Scott.
El Muneco
@Jeffro: President Clinton would have been excoriated for the 50k people who died to COVID before her measures defeated it to the point it was endemic, and less harmful than the yearly flu season.
billcinsd
@Kay: Didn’t Cole get really pissed when the BJ commentariat did not take kindly to Freddy being a front pager?
artem1s
@schrodingers_cat:
most of the banking industry is rooting for a bust of any kind. They want to force the Fed to lower the lending rate so they borrow at zero % again. the VC’s can’t keep up their ponzi schemes if all their marks are putting their money in conventional savings accounts and CD’s.