So-called Repub hawks hammered Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last week for characterizing Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” and for failing to criticize Vladimir Putin in his remarks, which were provided in response to a questionnaire from Tucker Carlson Tonight, cable’s #1 rated show for confused and enraged shut-ins whose children no longer speak to them.
Carlson is a tireless advocate for a Putin appeasement strategy, so he was thrilled to have both GOP frontrunners on board. But DeSantis, like many fellow Repubs, including his erstwhile mentor Trump, is a tough-talking bully when strutting in front of wingnut audiences teasing plans to persecute or abandon vulnerable people, but he’s a giant chickenshit when taking flak.
This week he sort of walked back the “territorial dispute” remarks and finally mentioned the person responsible for the strife in Eastern Europe during a safe-space interview with Piers Morgan. Here’s the account in The Times:
“I think he is a war criminal,” Mr. DeSantis said of Mr. Putin, for whom the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant related to war crimes. “I don’t know about that route,” he said of the arrest warrant, “but I do think that he should be held accountable.”
To Mr. Morgan, Mr. DeSantis insisted that his comment about a “territorial dispute” had been “mischaracterized,” but he acknowledged he could have been clearer.
“Obviously, Russia invaded” in 2022, Mr. DeSantis said. “That was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — that was wrong.”
Incensed by the defection, Carlson snipped angrily:
Just hours after Mr. DeSantis’s new comments about Mr. Putin were made public, Mr. Carlson attacked what he said were people who give in to the news media, asserting that they are forced “to repeat whatever childish slogan they’ve come up with this week.” In a mocking voice, he said, “Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.”
DeSantis is gutless, so I doubt he’ll tell Carlson off. It would be easy enough since Carlson pitched a big fat one right over the plate: “Of course Putin’s a war criminal, Tucker, you simpering suck-up to a corrupt, America-hating, civilian-bombing goon.”
He won’t say that because he’s a chickenshit, but can DeSantis afford to let Trump’s latest broadside go unanswered? It came up during the morning thread, and though there’s plenty of coverage that partially quotes the statement on the political gossip sites, I can’t find a not-Twitter embedded version of the whole statement, so here’s an image:
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess whatever response DeSantis issues will be weak sauce. The opponent, a fellow Repub chickenshit, is perceived to be strong in Repub circles, so DeSantis will throw a weak jab if he bothers to counterpunch. It’s a pattern. Even the so-called “attacks” from DeSantis that drew the above smackdown were pretty weak.
That’s just how Puss ‘n Boots Pinochet rolls unless he’s punching down on trans girls or yelling at students about face masks during a pandemic. It looks like Trump will annihilate DeSantis, and not because Trump is strong but because DeSantis is weak.
Open thread.
Betsy
God, I can’t get enough of the Republican Party tearing itself apart.
Old School
When he’s right, he’s right.
sdhays
Wow. Most of those attacks could be (and often are) from Democrats. Since they’re now coming from Trump, will the media start to notice?
Alison Rose
I swear, he’s somehow getting worse every day. It’s like if you asked ChatGPT to write Carlson dialogue “but worse”. Christ, what an asshole.
Anonymous At Work
At least Chris Christie would yell at the teenage girls he was demeaning and didn’t have to wear high heels.
sdhays
I did not have Trump running on “Florida was great long before Ron DeSantis became governor, but now it’s a shithole” on my bingo card.
Old School
I see TFG has continued today:
Betsy
@Betsy: For example, TFG is carrying Biden’s message on Social Security by calling out a fellow high-profile national Republican figure for proposing to raise the age to 70, just after several such figures have tried to defend/walk back/erase their proposals to raise the age and cut benefits.
Could there be anything better than TFG as useful idiot?
And, I agree with TFG on one thing only: we should definitely all call DeS. “Meatball.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
If there ever was a rooting-for-injuries situation, this is it. Trump, DeSantis, and to a lesser degree, Carlson. Let it rip, guys
Alison Rose
@Old School: The funny thing about his dumb nickname is there is absolutely no way Trump knew what “sanctimonious” meant until he was trying to come up with a name and someone else probably suggested it and then had to tell him the definition.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betsy:
“Could there be anything better than TFG as useful idiot?”
Convicted criminal?!!
UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Give ALL THE AMMO to this circular firing squad!
Roger Moore
@Betsy:
I see Trump’s angle on Social Security and Medicare as incredibly dangerous. Yes, he publicly talks about how important they are and criticizes other Republicans for wanting to gut them. That might fool some gullible people into thinking those programs would be safe under a Trump presidency, but I can’t imagine him actually vetoing Republican legislation to get rid of them.
Ken
It is nice having TFG inside the Republican tent, pissing in.
Alison Rose
@Betsy: I hate that I laughed at Meatball Ron. I’ve started picturing DeSantis as Meatwad from ATHF and it’s great, but damn do I hate having to give TFG any credit at all.
Citizen Alan
@Alison Rose: Oh that’s true. I forget where I saw it, but there was a quote recently where Trump was asked to explain the nickname and he totally didn’t know what sanctimonious meant.
Paul in KY
The Cheeto Mussolini really let him have it there! I think DeSatanis will say something like “I don’t have time to respond to comments made by out-of-work politicians. I’m focused on Florida and my responsibilities to this great state blah blah blah”.
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore: I agree it is dangerous, but hurting DeSatan at this point in the calendar is useful. It gets tRump back in the public eye, and in his case absence has not made normie hearts fonder, and he’s about to go through some legal things so the more he draws R voters and especially politicians to him, well, you know, splatter is a thing. The D’s will have to make Medicare and Social Security a big campaign issue, and tRump is getting the media to talk about it. Joe and Kamala just have to seize the issue at the right time.
Paul in KY
@sdhays: I have seen many, many strange things during the last 10 years…
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
And, yet, the nickname is on point. And, YET, it’s too cumbersome to want to use.
Paul in KY
@Old School: He found out his goobs are much easier to hit up for cash & he doesn’t have to promise them anything real!!
Raoul Paste
@Alison Rose: Yes, that was really stunning
FelonyGovt
Ocean and Sunshine (and compassionate policies and Democratic rule) have made California pretty successful too!
Love to see TFG tearing down Puss ‘N Boots, in some cases using Democratic type framing! Have at it, boys!
Tom Levenson
I, for one, look at DeSantis’s collapsing poll numbers and increasingly visible weak sauce outside his curated bubble and see him as the Impossible Meatball.
Alison Rose
@Tom Levenson: So when a new GOP asshole emerges as the next frontrunner, can we say they’ve moved Beyond Meat?
StringOnAStick
@Tom Levenson: Oh you professional writer, you!
MisterDancer
True that. I think DeSantis is both weak and dangerous, and it’s that latter bit — the harm he’s doing today — that concerns me in the moment, even outside his chances (or not) of becoming President.
Anything that shreds his power to do harm, or distracts him from implementing more, is good in my head. And having these 3 utterly harmful people tear each other apart is an overall good, even if the mechanism is also harmful.
Frankensteinbeck
@Citizen Alan:
He thought it meant ‘ungrateful’, because of course everything, everything, is about Trump.
Geminid
“I’ve got the receipts!” Trump cries.
It’s clear that Trump’s staff is putting this info in his tiny hands. They are well suited for generating attacks, as several of them including Susie Wild worked for DeSantis.
FelonyGovt
@MisterDancer: You’re absolutely right, we need to remain focused on the harm DeSantis is doing to actual people right now. With his apparent iron control of the Florida legislature and judiciary, I’m not sure how that can be changed in the near term, but hopefully these attacks will weaken and/or distract him.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I think any Repub that gets the nomination would have to pay lip service to not shivving social security. And they all would be gung ho to sign laws to gut it, IMO.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Betty, you have a gift. As has often been noted here.
The Orange Guy wants to be that kid on the playground who gives nicknames to everyone that stick, but I don’t think anybody has ever used any of his third-grade insults but himself.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Totally agree. Democrats will just have to make this a big deal when appropriate.
vbreakwater
@Alison Rose: Please don’t do that! Meatwad is a hero compared to RDS. Master Shake is a more apt comparison for his self-serving cynicism, but way more endearing.
Sure Lurkalot
I know it’s the FTFNYT, but how is it that no woke Ron “clarified” his position on Ukraine? More like he folded like a house of cards the minute he got pushback.
Can’t one use sniveling weenie in a headline?
mountain granny
I really don’t think Trump wrote these posts. They are way too literate, with a few “Trumpisms” thrown in for “legitimacy.”
trollhattan
My Mirages are always capitalized. Because they’re Really Great Mirages, believe me.
trollhattan
@mountain granny: Nobody has been able to teach Trump what sanctimonious even means, much less Spel Itt.
schrodingers_cat
Trump will win the primary if he runs. DeSantis is the Beltway media’s overhyped R governor for this presidential election, like Scott Walker and Chris Christie were in earlier cycles.
Alison Rose
LOL, from Jezebel: Ron DeSantis is Trying to Dunk on Donald Trump But Just Sounds Like a Dweeb
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Citizen Alan: As I recall, he said something like it meant you did something for someone and they didn’t pay you back. Typical Trum
ETA: Ah yes. Here’s the quote: “Well, I guess it’s referring to the fact that when you do something for somebody and they don’t reciprocate, I never liked that.
Ruckus
@Old School:
When he’s right, he’s right.
Yes but it happens so seldom that one only needs a single finger to count the times that it’s happened.
And I think you know which finger I’m using……
pat
Not sure it hasn’t already been said, but if trump annihilates desatan, is there a downside?
TaMara
I wish to dog, I had the will to quote that on the book of faces, but I’m not up for the relatives’ wrath today.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore: I think Trump and his ilk are all about keeping Social Security and Medicare on life support long enough for them to figure out how to privatize and raid them.
Not like it’s a secret plan, but W Bush and others before him have always dreamed about treating them like some ginormous corporate-raider LBO opportunity. Bush even gave it a go, but it proved his one significant failure (god it’s hard to type that on the 20th anniversary of his “triumph”).
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
One shouldn’t give him too much credit, he’s only ever heard the sentence – “You sanctimonious asshole!” and he likely thought it was a complement.
Elizabelle
That is so perfect. Memorable, too. And Anne Laurie had
to describe the eventual McConnell succession battle.
trollhattan
@TaMara: A certain amount of wrath can be very warming on a cold day.
sdhays
@schrodingers_cat: I think you’re 100% right. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not sure DeathsAnus could win the Republican nomination even if Trump kicks the bucket this year.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Given how many people fell for Trump’s health care “plan” in 2016, there’s definitely a risk.
Paul in KY
@TaMara: Ah, come on. Liquor up & let it fly. You know you want to use that line :-)
E.
Why does this remind me so much of professional wrestling?
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Most people move on to at least the 6th grade.
But not SFB. He may have attended school after 3rd grade but it seems to me that he never learned anything beyond it.
oldgold
In 2016 I thought Trump was less dangerous than Cruz. I was wrong.
Today I think DeSantis is less dangerous than Trump? Am I correct?
pat
@sdhays:
DeathsAnus!! We have a winner!!!!!
zhena gogolia
Meatball Ron is an anti-Italian-American slur. I won’t adopt it, but it’s good to see TFG doing it.
Poe Larity
So DeSantis is just a flip-flopping Surrender Monkey.
PaulB
What I find heartening is that the narrative developing around DeSantis now is not favorable to him. The political press are now talking about his lack of charisma, his stumbling and backtracking on foreign policy (and Carlson’s response to that), his mealymouthed response to the Trump situation, along with his refusal to engage Trump directly. Basically, he is developing a reputation as a “beta” or a “cuck”, to use the MAGA terminology.
None of this is conducive to a run for national office. And, as other candidates have found out, once the national political press develops a narrative, it is almost impossible to dislodge them. If this gets solidified, everything that DeSantis does from now on will be seen through the lens of that narrative. He’s got a narrow window of opportunity to fix this, but that window is closing.
Baud
It is interesting that DeSantis flip flopped on Ukraine. That is a positive sign that maybe the Republicans won’t have it in them to abandon Ukraine anytime soon.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Ok, that got a chuckle….
Baud
@PaulB:
He can take on trans kids but not Donald Trump.
rikyrah
Puss ‘n Boots Pinochet
BWA HA HA AH AH AHH AHAHA AH AHH AHA AHA HA
PaulB
That depends on what danger you are referring to. I think he would be more dangerous than Trump were he to obtain the office he clearly wants. However, the danger of him achieving that office is now lower than it was a few months ago.
It’s definitely not zero, just, for now, diminished.
schrodingers_cat
@oldgold: Hard to say. The best Republican is worse than any Democrat even Leap Year Democrats.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
“Meatball Ron at least could step up and make it a fair (and more interesting) fight.”
No, he can’t. He’d like to be able to, but he can’t. He wants to in the worst way, because worst way is all he’s got.
PaulB
Bullies always punch down.
Baud
@PaulB:
Right. And right now DeSantis is “down” from Trump. GOP voters see that.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
He had two major failures.
He could lie us into TWO WARS…but, couldn’t get either one of these.
sdhays
@trollhattan: I don’t think Trump wants to gut Social Security. I think he’s indifferent, but knows that it’s popular and it doesn’t touch his racist buttons so he doesn’t personally hate it. Racism, more explicit forms of filling his own pockets, and entrenching himself in power are higher on his agenda.
If something got to his desk, he would sign it, though.
JMG
Said this before, but this contest is between Elvis and an Elvis impersonator.
Alison Rose
@Ruckus: I don’t think the author was saying that as a description of realistic possibility, but more like an exasperated plea.
Baud
Haley must feel sad no one is picking on her.
Jeffro
I know, right? Feels so good so bad so GOOD!
Ruckus
@oldgold:
He’d be more dangerous if he tried but he seems to be too chickenshit to do that. SFB is dangerous because he’s too stupid not to be.
Alison Rose
@Baud: She’s too boring. She’s trying to be spicy with her whole “wokeness is the worst pandemic” and it’s just like, yawn.
Jeffro
It was either a trumpov original or something trumpov retweeted/”re-truthed” today, but I am pretty sure I saw Ron being called “DeSoros”
OUCH
It’s a sort of existential dilemma: what’s a good Democrat to do when nazis start using anti-semitic slurs against other nazis?
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Yeah that’s dumb. She’s not going to out -woke DeSantis. But maybe she’s not trying to if she’s running for Veep.
Jeffro
@JMG: that’s a GREAT take
Bostondreams
It’s getting so so dumb in Florida.
Florida principal fired for showing 6th grade students pornography: the Statue of David.
And this was at the Hillsdale charter school, which focuses on classical education. So so dumb.
Baud
@Jeffro:
The thing I’ve found funny about Soros is that in all my years following Democratic politics, his name only comes up in connection with GOP slurs against him.
oldster
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Yeah, “Puss ‘n Boots Pinochet” — whatever John is paying you, it’s not as much as you deserve.
Brachiator
@JMG:
Ha! Very good.
sdhays
I just find it amazing that everyone in the Republican Party who thinks they should be President hasn’t honestly thought out a strategy for actually taking Trump on directly. There was some logic behind that in 2016 since there was a popular but silly assumption he was a flash in a pan that wouldn’t amount to a real contender. But now, if you’re not prepared to make the case directly to voters why Trump shouldn’t be returned to office, even if it’s just critiquing his ability to win, then you’re just wasting your time.
I mean, going all in on Trump lost to “JOE BIDEN, OF ALL PEOPLE” would be an obvious opening. Make the case that Trump is a weak general election candidate, and that he’s been wasting everyone’s time by failing to cope with his loss. I’m not saying a candidate could win with that strategy, but the odds are better than declaring oneself a candidate and then looking down at your shoes and shuffling around when Trump attacks you.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
Oh I think you are correct but any chance to pour a bucket of smelly, salty waste liquid on either DeSanctimonious or SFB is worth it.
Baud
@Bostondreams:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/simpsons-predict-david-censors/
Baud
@sdhays:
Their strategy is Merrick Garland.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I can’t decide if it’s an ethnic slur or if it was inspired by DeSantis’s objectively meatball-shaped head. Given TFG’s fondness for low-rent insults, the former is certainly plausible. Personally, “meatball” doesn’t resonate so much for me because I have a friend with an adorable, sweet dog named Meatball, and he doesn’t deserve to be associated with DeSantis in any way.
Hoodie
@sdhays: Trump doesn’t care about debt. Debt scolds are the only ones who want to cut Social Security. Trump would, however, be all aboard on raiding the Social Security trust fund to line his own pockets or pursue whatever nonsense he wants, e.g., buying Greenland.
gvg
@pat: I’d like him to go after Carlson or better yet Fox and Murdoch. Now that would be a nice feud.
MisterDancer
Yes, two:
On the 2nd item: There can be worse than Trump in terms of harm, worse than DeSantis. And they could learn from DeSantis’ fall (er that occurs!) how to use the same tools of inflaming hate to actually beat Trump via actually having charisma, being a solid fundraiser, while playing out all the horrific dreams of hurting anyone not White and Male and “Christian” .
That would be bad, for hopefully obvious reasons.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I think there are a few things in play:
I am absolutely rooting for injuries on this one. Both of them are incredibly dangerous, each in his own way. My fear is that the right-wing elements will close ranks behind whoever comes out on top of their fight, and lay waste to the country in the process.
Mike in NC
Neo-Nazi Riley Williams just got three years for her role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Will she have time to go for ice cream at Mar-A-Lago before they drag her away to prison?
sdhays
@Hoodie: Exactly.
Citizen Alan
@oldgold: I think Cruz would have done more harm had he somehow become President. He’s as big a sadist as Shitgibbon but not as much of a fucking idiot. He would have handled marginally Covid better and probably won reelection.
Ken
Don’t give the Republicans ideas. This will end up with them sending everyone on Social Security to Greenland, equipped with a MyPillow and two cans of Goya beans.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
And that the Republicans didn’t actually end Social Security and Medicare the last time Trump was president.
Geminid
@oldgold: I think DeSantis could be more dangerous than Trump because he’s not as lazy.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Or hoping Trump croaks. From a McKay Coppins piece in The Atlantic on Repub magical thinking:
Disco Bean
I’ve always thought that Trump’s nicknames suck just as much as his golf swing does.
Kay
None of them are going to fight him. Again. Incredible. It’s like they’re incapable of competing on the Right now. He’s going to mow them all down one by one, and none of them are even going to try to attack him.
Trump is better for us than DeSantis is, so I’m rooting for Trump.
sdhays
@Betty Cracker: It’s probably best to assume it’s both. Knowing how racist Trump is and that he’s a product of NYC and thus would have been around that type of language, the ethnicity-targeted aspect would have been imprinted on his shitty brain. But he may have activated it based on his impression of the governor’s head, or someone mentioning it.
I’m reminded of George Allen trying to downplay his “macaca moment” by saying it was an insult he had heard from his mother but didn’t really know what it meant. Maybe that was true! But it didn’t make it any less racist.
Bill Arnold
@UncleEbeneezer:
Heck, give them exploding bullets. Metaphorically.
Betsy
@Roger Moore: Oof. Right you are.
But look: the more we own the high road on this, the stronger the messaging. We’ve now got the George Lakoff approach going (get your enemy to repeat your message), thanks to our savvy Pres. Dark Brandon: Everyone’s in agreement — no cuts to social security!
And that creates the opportunity to constantly call into question Republican loyalty on this principle – including TFG’s.
After all, the people that are still believing him at this point are irredeemables.
We will never have them anyway (and we can and do win without them altogether). Go hard as hell for the 60% of sane people left in this republic. And the way to them is on bread-and-butter issues. Social Security. Human decency. Health care.
sdhays
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, this is the grand strategy these people who think they deserve to be President have come up with. “Hopefully McDonalds and KFC kill him while I still have a chance.”
Betsy
@Betty Cracker: Aww! Now I don’t feel good about it.
Maybe we could call DeS “Pudding.”
(Well, that would just call up some other sweet innocent dog.)
ETA. Meatball is such a great name for a dog, especially depending on the dog.
Once I knew a neighborhood mutt named Pork Chop.
gvg
I think we are going to see the media and possibly GOP pundits trying out one possible not Trump after another almost every month until the primaries actually start and most if not all are going to rise then fizzle. It is not an advantage to be the early leader before the normies really wake up. So many different political opinion leaders are going to try and sell their guy in the next year and the politics absorbed just don’t have a clue what the normal voters think, or thinks they can be trained to like what is “good ” for them.
I know I don’t know. I have never spotted who was going to take the lead.
I don’t even care what republican voters are going to hork up. I know I will hate him.
I want Trump in jail because he should be and it’s a bad example not to hold him accountable.
Betsy
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, you’re right. That’s too bad.
NotMax
Whether it’s Ronald prick Donald or the other way ’round, they’re both clowns.
Ken
@sdhays: “Another birthday card from one of your admirers, Mr. Trump. It’s… it’s another McDonalds gift card.”
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: I’ve lived almost 50 years as an Italian-American and I’ve never heard this used as a slur.
Kay
They can’t compete because they refuse to take responsiblity. This is in the NYTimes right now. It’s an op ed by a conservative professor who says it is the job of liberals to find normal conservatives and offer them as role models to students, so students won’t imitate insane clowns like Trump or DeSantis or MTG – the conservatives who are actually in power that Republican voters elect.
It’s YOUR JOB to make BETTER conservatives.
I mean, do they hear themselves? He says that a bedrock belief for conservatives is marriage. That’s one of the Right wing beliefs we’re supposed to be imparting to young people.
They worship Donald Trump! WTF are they talking about? They’re telling their children they revere marriage while supporting Donald Trump? No wonder their children don’t grow up to be conservatives. Their parents are full of shit. They don’t mean a word they say.
Hoodie
@Kay: They’re basically in the same situation they found themselves in in 2016. The GOP is basically a collection of shitty lounge acts, with Trump being the only one who could bring this motley ensemble into some sort of order. He’s sort of a Master of Ceremonies of Assorted Grievances.
Citizen Alan
@Bostondreams: At one point in my thankfully brief Music Ed career, I had to teach Music Appreciation to a class of freshman hellions. (And they were absolute hellions because the Guidance Counseler was also a coach, and he manipulated the scheduling so that every discipline problem kid went into my class while all the top students got funneled into the Art Appreciation class taught by a different coach.) There were no textbooks, so I had to order new ones, and the one I went with had a small picture of Michelangelo’s David in it. When I noticed it, I informed the Principal who had to ask “Is he nekkid?!” in the most irritating drawl. He then instructed me to cover it up with a magic marker which I dutifully did to over 50 textbooks. But it was all for naught as there was also a copy of a Hieronymous Bosch painting that had a naked guy in Hell with his willy showing. And even though it was so small, I needed a magnifying glass to see it, one of the hellions somehow spotted it the second week of class and joyfully pointed it out to everyone else.
So glad to be out of education.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I really don’t think anyone fell for anything Trump promised in 2016. They hated Hillary Clinton & everything else was just a way to express that without coming right out & saying it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Bill Arnold: Yes. Metaphorically. In reality, don’t “give” them ammo, make them pay for it as the market requires, lol.
karen marie
@Geminid: DeSantis’s wife is the power behind the throne. Without her, he’s nothing. She wants it. Fortunately, she doesn’t have quite what it takes – made obvious by his floundering.
Geminid
@sdhays: George Allen had a big mean streak, and he showed it the time he called the Webb videographer that name. The incident was bad in itself, but it also emphasized Allen’s general nastiness. This definitely made a difference in Webb’s narrow victory.
It also took Allen out of the upcoming Presidential race. Allen could have tapped into the feral side of the the party Trump exploited 8 years later.
Mai Naem mobile
@JMG: post drugs Elvis not Jail House Rock Elvis.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
The ladies of Balloon Juice are on a roll today.
Truth!
CaseyL
@MisterDancer: I’m not sure who in the GOP is more vile but also a viable national candidate.
I mean, there are TONS of vile GOPers. SFAIK, other than DeSantis, only Noem has enough of a national profile to make a run for the WH.
Kari Lake? – she can harness the nutbags, but I don’t think anyone else.
Kristi Noem? – she said no to a WH run, but could change her mind.
No GOP Senators come to mind; none of them have that combination of amoral cruelty and national profile. Hawley is Brave Sir Robin who Ran Away. Cruz is unlikeable even to his fans. Cotton’s never expressed an interest.
Ditto the House GOPers: so many sociopaths, so little charisma.
There’s always the other, non-Cruz 2016 also-rans: Christie, Rubio, Jeb. I can definitely see the GOP lumpen proletariat getting excited about them…
Kay
I mean, I completely understand why Republican parents don’t want their college age children imitating Republican political leaders but pretending that Edmund Burke represents the modern Right when they actually elect a motley crew of liars, grifters and nasty people is a bridge too far. I don’t have to pretend that’s true. It’s not my job to clean up the GOP reputation.
Baud
@Kay:
Frankly, I think most liberal college professors do probably give their students information about different political philosophies.
But otherwise, yeah, our plan to fix the GOP is to remove them from power. This writer is welcome to join us.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Early days yet for puerile mudslinging from Dolt 45. Wait until DeSantis officially throws his
hathood in the ring.Baud
@James E Powell:
I can accept that.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
What this shows, more than anything, is what a bunch of cowardly careerists they are. They know someone will have to take Trump head on if they want to get rid of him, but they all want someone else to take the risk. After all, if they do it and fail, they’ll probably lose whatever position they have now, and they’re afraid to risk what they have.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
You know who are good role models for marriage? Obama and Biden.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I do think liberal professors should do more to expose conservative students to Adam Smith, as I think a complete review of Wealth of Nations would indicate that Smith would be a Democrat if he were alive today in America. As I recall, he had no particular love for the rentier class, let alone outright kleptocrats.
West of the Rockies
Any Republicans hoping to run against Trump have to return fire with equal or higher caliber. Trump, for his countless faults, is an effective junior high bully. He reems DeSantis, but Governor Gogo Boots only responds with, “Yeah? Well, you’re a poopoo face!”
DeSantis is this election’s Walker.
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
No. There are plenty of people who want to cut Social Security because they hate Social Security. Debt is just a more socially acceptable excuse than saying you want working people to have to keep working until they die.
Kay
@Baud:
“Why are young conservatives so insane and strutting around with tiki torches and Nazi emblems?”
Liberal professors, that’s why.
I thought another one of their bedrock beliefs was personal responsibility? I didn’t raise the Young Nazis- they did.
Baud
@Kay:
When did they get gay married?
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
I think they do if my sons are any indication. My daughter took mostly science courses.
Kay
@Baud:
They would be a great couple though. Really. Joe would be older but Obama would be the “older and wiser” one temperamentally.
Baud
@Kay:
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
And for conservatives, the idea that they are to blame is impossible.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kay: This is one of the age-old demands of Conservatives. They desperately want everyone to pretend that Conservatism has some sort of useful ideas and completely skip past all the Racism, Misogyny, LGBTQphobia etc. Even putting the blatant bigotry of their fellow travelers aside, they want us all to ignore the fact that everything they believe in just so happens to perpetuate existing hierarchies of Class, Race, Gender etc. and pretend that’s somehow ok.
Baud
@Kay:
Mnemosyne should write that romance novel.
Hoodie
@Roger Moore: Debt scolds have always been that, e.g., Ebaneezer Scrooge.
Shalimar
I can’t think of anything else positive to say about Trump, but he’s the perfect person to call DeSantis on his bullshit new anti-vax shit. Remind everyone Ron was very pro-vaccine when Trump was taking credit for getting them to market so fast.
geg6
We all know Donny didn’t write that, but good on his media person for it. It’s easily the best thing I’ve ever seen him communicate as far as clarity, other than pure unadulterated bigotry and misogyny. And sadly for Governor Kinky Boots, it’s all true (for once).
I really don’t think we have to worry about DeSatan winning the nom. Despite all the love and flattery showered on him by Never Trumpers and the media, he is not a winner. Trump is going to tear that little fucker to pieces.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Good lord. Also, it’s suspicious that he cherry-picked fields of study in a 24-year-old survey to “prove” that academia is overrun with liberals:
Okay, now do engineering, business, ag, medicine, chemistry and computer science. The idea that colleges are Marxist hives is a steaming load of horseshit.
Ken
@Citizen Alan: Also, Smith’s often-cited “invisible hand” depended on the principle, “if you screw up running your business, you personally will be bankrupted and spend at least the next ten years in debtor’s prison”. No corporate golden parachutes for him.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think it’s not so much that Edmund Burke represents the modern right as it is that conservative intellectuals wish he did, and he would if liberals would just hold him up as an example of conservatism rather than Trump.
The Lodger
@CaseyL: Don’t forget Rudy!
Anoniminous
Don’t get too cocky.
Unusually for a sitting president Trump increased his vote to 74,223,975 votes, 11.2 million more than the 62,984,828 he got in 2016, in 2020. We have to assume that will be his vote in 2024 if he gets the nomination and right now – on March 23, 2023 – we have to assume he will get the nomination.
Biden got 81,283,501 votes and if his sitting president decline equals Obama’s 5% drop in 2012 his vote will drop to 77,219,326. Given our archaic presidential election system that gives Trump a decent chance at being elected.
Further, if any state is close enough for suit to be filed in the USSC we must assume the Robert’s Court will throw the election to the Republican nominee just like it did in 2000.
If it’s a Biden/Trump rematch our odds at this moment in time is little better than 6/5 & pick ’em
PJ
@Baud: In addition, to indictment, their other strategy is death.
Every prominent Republican is terrified of the Trump-loving base. Even if that’s only 27% of the population, they know they can’t win a primary if that base is opposed to them. As long as he is around, even if he isn’t running, he will demand that the candidates kiss his ass. Whether they are being attacked by Trump, or endorsed by him, it’s likely to be fatal in a general election. Which, while I could never bring myself to do it, would be one reason to wish TFG a long life.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
I assume nothing.
Roberto el oso
It’s very possible that I’ve overlooked it, but has DeSanctis ever actually said whether he thinks the 2020 election was stolen from Trump? Depending on his answer it seems like it would open up interesting questions regarding his loyalty, his opportunism, etc.
Frankensteinbeck
@sdhays:
At the moment, they don’t need to have a strategy. It’s absurdly early in the election cycle. ‘Let DeSantis and Trump fight’ is a great strategy. They have months before publicity will be useful to them.
And right now, the field is Trump, DeSantis, and Pompeo. Haley is an also-ran. Pompeo is biding his time, which I think is the smart play.
RSA
Of course. Conservatives similarly think it’s the responsibility of minorities to make racism irrelevant, and it’s the responsibility of women to demonstrate to men that misogyny is wrong.
Old School
@Anoniminous:
Presidents who have increased their vote totals as they’ve run for a second term (in past 51 years): Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, W. Bush, Trump.
Presidents who have decreased their vote totals as they’ve run for a second term (in past 51 years): Carter, Bush, Obama.
Betty Cracker
@Anoniminous: Good point about Trump increasing his vote total in the second go-round. My feeling is still that Trump would be more likely to lose (again!) than any other Repub in the conversation, but your comment is a timely reminder that it would not be a slam-dunk.
Chief Oshkosh
@zhena gogolia:
@Betty Cracker: I’ve always that that it’s being used as in “meatball surgery” as in, sloppy. But, if it’s an Italian slur, I’m against it. I save my slurring for the Irish.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Not to be too crass, Ok I’ll be too crass. Meatball’s crap doesn’t deserve to be associated with deSantis in any way, let alone Meatball himself.
oldgold
The reason for my original inquiry concerning Trump/ DeSantis is this:
Suppose the two are neck and neck for the GOP nomination and you are in an open primary state, do you consider voting in the GOP primary? And, if so, for which one?
NotMax
@Baud
Nothing is getting more pricey.
;)
trollhattan
@Kay: Lordy, you made me just realize why DeSantis can never win. He hasn’t had three wives!
What kind of Republican is he, really?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
policy-wise, what difference do they have with him?
None.
They hate like he hates. Only difference, and the MSM wants it too:
They want to be able to hide behind Frank Luntz-Approved dogwhistle language.
Betty Cracker
@Roberto el oso: DeSantis has not said he believes the 2020 election was stolen. He does what other Trump-fearing Repub pols who don’t want to sound completely nuts do, i.e., says there may have been irregularities in some states and pivots to how Trump voters FEEL and claims their FEELINGS justify taking action. He placated election deniers in Florida by passing unnecessary restrictions on early voting and ballot access and spending millions on a bogus election fraud law enforcement unit.
Ruckus
@MisterDancer:
It would be bad.
But either of those two would be bad, no, horrible in any way, shape or form.
We’ve already seen how shitty SFB is in office, I’m just hopeful there are enough people that don’t want him at any cost. And DeathStupid seems to have shot his chances in every sensitive area possible, but I’m sure he can find more places to apply his arrogance and stupidity and hurt himself even more.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
And possibly the best role models for marriage? Jimmy and Rosalyn
ETA: And Hillary was (and maybe still is) and outstanding wife. She’s for sure a heck of a mom (from my distant view). Bill, OTOH,…
Paul in KY
@oldgold: Nope (IMO). I think DeSatanis is worse, as he’s not insane, has evil forethought and is a much more experienced politician, who better knows how the levers of power work.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I love every bit of this.
They showed, by supporting Dolt45, that they don’t mean one word of being a Christian. It’s just so absolutely obvious.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
Did your son in Europe get to take Paternity Leave when your granddaughter was born? Was it paid Paternity Leave?
Paul in KY
@Baud: As far as I know, he doesn’t explicitly do squat for the Democratic Party.
trollhattan
Since technically open thread, here’s Slovakia handing over some of their MIG-29s to Ukraine today.
I realize Vlad doesn’t do self-doubt any more than Orangemandius can, but it might actually surprise him that everybody hates him, his fucking war, and his miserable excuse for a professional military, and they’re not backing down from supporting Ukraine.
On those dark nights when sleep never comes, maybe even he grasps the reality that nobody is afraid of his fucking military now, at least the part of it without nukes.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think it’s because none of them went to normal colleges, nor do they know anyone personally who did.
Meanwhile, in real collegeworld: Top major? Business. Followed by health sciences.
Business is always in the top three and has been for years. I don’t understand how you reach the level of working for the NYTimes and just glide past facts like these.
We have low quality elites, sad to say. I think it’s tied to income inequality. They crushed the whole “striver sector” of the working class so went a generation and now two where it’s all nepotisim and no competition. Democrats are better for merit. We create pressure on the elites from below them, scrappy poor whites like Bill Clinton, smart and ambitious immigrants..
It weeds out the low quality elites from positions of power. We have a glut of low quality elites clogging up the merit system – squatting, essentially.
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’m half Sicilian ancestry and I’ve heard it before. Not in a long time mind you but I’ve heard it used.
lowtechcyclist
@Bostondreams:
That’s fucking hilarious. Not to mention, the school calls itself the Tallahassee Classical School.
And from the charter school’s board chairman:
Manages to contradict himself in the space of four words. Impressive!
Paul in KY
@Baud: Or the clearing at the end of the path (for TFG).
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
That David?
lowtechcyclist
@Ruckus:
Can’t remember who, on one of the Nixon tapes, called him “our meatball President.” If Tricky Dick had any Italian or Sicilian blood, it was well hidden.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: Remember when John Ashcroft had drapes placed over the Lady of Justice (or whatever she’s called) to hide her bronze boobies? I thought that was peak Republican prudery, but nooooo.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I will say that the mfer has a better constitution than I thought. Back around 2017, I thought there was a good chance he’d stoke out during his term.
Ruckus
@Kay:
They don’t mean a word they say.
Oh yes they do. What they don’t understand is actual logic, which is why they can say and believe the crap that comes out of their mouths. They follow a code. It’s illogical, stupid, defenseless, idiotic but it’s their code. All the above may be why they follow it, it’s like the club admission code. You have to learn it, believe it, live it to belong. It makes no sense, has no logic or even reality but you get to belong to something, be part of the gang.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Hillsdale is a far Right college in Michigan. They’re opening hundreds of ideologically Rigbht wing charter schools because literallly anyone can open a charter school in Florida or Ohio and secure tens of millions in public funding.
We had a sort of stupid lawyer here who went to Detroit to open a charter school. In her late twenties, spent her entire life in a 99% white rural area and had zero training in education or even management.
I was furious at her. Why would she imagine she could do that job well? I asked her “is that FAIR to Detroit students, though?” She thinks that’s an EASY job? She could barely practice law and she had 3 years of training in that.
trollhattan
@rikyrah: You know those 16th century Italians, couldn’t keep it in their pants.
Did they even have pants? Mama-mia!
Paul in KY
@Kay: They are the laziest and whiniest bunch. Jeezus!!
Citizen Alan
@Chief Oshkosh: It still galls me that Hillary would have become our first woman president if only her husband and her best friend’s husband (Weiner) could have kept their goddamned pants zipped up.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I know that’s right.
It was you Kay, that wrote late 2016/early 2017…
that those who voted for Dolt45 showed THEIR LACK OF CHARACTER.
Because, unlike previous GOP Candidates, who either Hid their intentions behind Frank Luntz-Approved Language, or hit their personality rottenness behind closed doors..
Dolt45 let it all hang out. There was nothing that you didn’t know about how rotten and evil his personality was.
And, they voted for him anyway.
In no way, could they say that they were ‘ fooled’ by him, when he told them, straight up who he was.
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
He’s sort of a Master of Ceremonies of Assorted Grievances.
Perfect.
And all of their grievances are self caused and self perpetuating. The people that stay in the group are the ones who can’t see the shit for the toilet paper and stay because it’s the group, not because it will solve any issue in any positive way, but because it’s their group of the like minded.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are making too much sense, Kay.
pat
@Baud:
thanks, that made me laugh because that was my first thought!
Obama and Biden, a perfect marriage… oh wait…..
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I wonder if there’s a TV personality that we haven’t considered yet that they might get to run to take on Trump? As an example (just off top of my head as a TV personality): Jeff Probst from Survivor. He’d have to take a bunch of Repub asshole positions, but he has fame & name recognition. He’d also have to be ready to get skewered by Trump.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Plus alot of the really rich hate that amount of money taken from their pay, as they feel (and probably correctly) that they could get a better return than was they get from SS. So simple greed also comes into play here.
Dangerman
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No, no, NO. NEVER tell Trump “let it rip”. Also “pull my finger”.
Roberto el oso
@Betty Cracker: Thank you! So he’s straddling the fence and hoping/praying that no one asks him pointblank in a way that he can’t weasel out of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, it seems.
NotMax
@Paul in KY
What’s Joe the plumber up to these days?
(Rhetorical question, no answer sought.)
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
This.
Nothing about conservative politicians is about a better future or a future at all. It’s about how to make money without any actual work whatsoever. And one does that by underpaying people to do something that most anyone can be trained to do, because that is a hell of a lot easier than actual, physical/mental Work.
smith
@Citizen Alan: Not sure I agree. While Hillary probably was hurt somewhat by Bill’s pecadilloes (classic ploy of the patriarchy to hold a woman responsible for her husband’s misbehavior), she lost in large part because she had the potential to be the first woman president. What I mean is, the political and media establishment recognized very early on, going back to her days in Arkansas, that she had both the ambition and talent to become president, and we just couldn’t have that. Putting someone in the White House who didn’t have the requisite personal plumbing would cause willies to shrivel up and fall off nationwide. So Hillary Derangement Syndrome was born, and vigorously stoked by Republicans, the “elite” media, and even many Democrats. In my opinion there is no other good explanation for how early the attacks on her started, or the virulence of those attacks. People like to complain that she’s not an extremely good politician, but given the 30 years of headwinds she had to go against, getting a majority of the popular vote is a remarkable political achievement.
sab
I remember winning a discussion with a right wing but not nut job co-worker who was ranting on about Hillary. He was a young father. I asked him if looking at how Chelsea turned out he really had a problem with the choices Hillary made about her marriage. He agreed that probably in their case she chose best.
rikyrah
@Citizen Alan:
I admit that of all things that I underestimated in 2016, it was the depth of the MISOGYNY that Hillary faced. I thought that I had accounted for it, but, I didn’t.
The ‘ Me too’ movement revealed the depth of it in the press that was covering the 2016 Election. It’s one thing to think that they were ‘ both sides’ everything . But, the pure misogyny against Hillary and how it manifested itself in their coverage – it’s so easy to see in hindsight.
Especially, since they’re trying to run the same playbook on Vice-President Harris.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I think and hope that you are right. That SFB loses. I do think that enough conservatives have had enough of him but one can never count out loyalty to their party. They will vote for him if he runs. They may be holding their noses doing it but if it’s SFB, they will vote for him rather than any democrat. Now of course if enough of them stay home…… A boy can hope can’t he?
Ken
Here is my worry as a Floridian: Puss n Boots Pinochet doesn’t make the cut to be a contender. So then he gets mad and has to prove that he is worthy, and so he goes totally scorched earth on my Florida and we suffer endlessly. So here, in the Sunshine state, we are in the “damned if he do, more damned if he don’t”.
smith
@Ken: How can you tell the difference between scorched earth and what he’s doing now?
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think you would be surprised at how heavily the hard sciences skew leftward. I am constantly surprised at how often the people around me express very liberal views and just sort of assume everyone around them feels the same way. This is true both in person and in the online science groups I’m part of. It might have been true at one time that the sciences were a bastion of conservatism, but conservative rejection of anything remotely close to science has changed that.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Cage match!
Betty Cracker
@smith: If life has taught me anything, it’s this: Things can ALWAYS get worse.
Ken
@smith: It feels like it could be worse, and that is my concern. I am not smart/savvy enough to know how much worse it could get, but it sure feels like it could.
geg6
@Paul in KY:
Much easier on the eyes, too.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I was very irritated to see the conservative professor’s op ed did not allow comments. As I skimmed that garbage I was hoping to revel in hundreds of takedowns.
Roger Moore
@Chief Oshkosh:
Even George HW and Barbara and George W and Laura aren’t bad examples of marriage. I would probably exclude HW and Barbara because they appear to have been terrible parents, but W and Laura seem to have done a fine job of raising their daughters. It’s one area where W has clearly done better than his father.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
The NYT knows what it’s doing.
There’s a reason they consistently dedicate the most valuable op-ed real estate in the world to this drivel.
Hoodie
@Ken: I wouldn’t worry too much. Once he’s loser in the national scene, that would likely diminish his popularity in FL. IIRC, that happened to Walker in WI, i.e., once he was no longer a “winner” people lost enthusiasm for him. In the case of DeSantis, they’d start thinking more about what a whingeing, unpleasant shit he really is.
Chris T.
@Betty Cracker:
Unfortunately for the rest of humanity, these people are making a terrible mistake. Outside of things like accidents or being murdered, basic biology sets one’s possible lifespan to some range. Health habits push one towards one end or the other of that range. So someone could have a potential range of “30 to 50 years”, do everything right, and keel over at 50. Someone else—Trump, alas—could have a basic potential of “89 to 99 years” and do everything wrong, as he does, and still live to 89.
(And, as usual, my comment triggers a new thread, killing off this one 🙄)
Ken
@Hoodie: Thanks! THAT is good to know, and have my memory refreshed. I truly hate that man with a burning passion. My mother always said not to hate, but gosh, he has a really warm spot in Hell (I wish!) waiting on him and his wife, since he is her puppet!
Bupalos
Despite the fact that we seem to have talked ourselves into the proposition that Republicans will always do the opposite of whatever is good, it appears that a bipartisan consensus on Ukraine does have a future. At least if you squint just right. tRump and DeSantos are really as bad as they could be, within the context of current American politics, and both have retreated pretty hastily from early alignments with Putin. I think we should celebrate that.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
This is one of the things I will never understand. What charisma? I find him a totally repellent and disgusting human being, and every word out of his mouth to be repellent and disgusting.
I suspect that the things that repel me are EXACTLY what his followers would describe as “charisma”. I sort of get that intellectually, but it’s not something I can really comprehend.
Same thing with the phrases “all his accomplishments” and “all the things he’s done for us.” What accomplishments? All he did was break a lot of stuff and destroy a lot of lives. Again, I suspect that if pressed, that’s exactly what his followers would cite as his accomplishments.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Dubya was soused during the kids’ most impressionable years. If anything, the offspring turned out mostly okay in spite of their parentage.
Roger Moore
@lowtechcyclist:
Please stop with this nonsense. When a conservative says “use pronouns”, they don’t mean “use pronouns in everyday speech”. They mean the (relatively new) procedure of each person providing their preferred pronouns and other people following along.
I agree it’s annoying that they use this shorthand, but come on. Everyone, even you, knows exactly what they mean when they say they don’t use pronouns, so stop treating it as some kind of gotcha. You just look ridiculous.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
More refusal to compete. The NYTimes is a “safe space” for conservatives.
RevRick
@Betsy: This is exactly the playbook that Trump ran on in the 2016 primary, flanking his opponents on the right with his open white supremacy and on the left, defending Social Security and Medicare. It’s herrenvolk socialism.
Of course, he generally governed as a bog standard Republican, signing the tax cuts and seeking to repeal the ACA ( with the “promise “ of a great replacement). His deviance was on the “wall” and his protectionistic tariffs.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: Didn’t mean to imply that certain fields of study always accurately predict political leanings, but I think there’s a reason the columnist cherry-picked academic focus from an old survey: His assertion that there are no conservatives left wouldn’t hold up otherwise.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Brooks and Douthat are so obviously click bait. I sometimes wonder if the two of them are in competition for largest number of enraged comments or just going for personal bests.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Trump’s followers love him because he demonstrates it’s OK for them to let their worst impulses out in public. They are people who long to call Black people n****rs, women b***hes, and so forth. Trump gives them permission to do it, and they love him for it.
In some ways, it reminds me of Reagan. One of the things Reagan did very effectively was to give bigots a fig leaf to cover their bigotry. His fans knew what he was, and they loved him for providing them with a socially acceptable way to parade their bigotry. Trump fills the same need, but he gives them permission to skip the socially acceptable part.
Geminid
@Chris T.: I am not counting on it, but I think Trump’s physical and mental vitality could end up a factor in this nomination race. I think he’s lost a step since 2016. The question in my mind, has Trump lost two or three steps, or will he have by this time next year? He’s got more stress in his life than he’s used to, and that could take a toll.
I guess I’ll find out in the debates. Maybe Fred C. Boggs will start sounding like Captain Queeg.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: Hey, my tiny corner of chemistry is pretty liberal. Of course, we have our fair share of regressives, but more in the non-degreed operators rather than the degreed chemists and scientists. It helps that a lot of our scientists tend to be younger, too.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Social Security is (a) off-budget and (b) runs a surplus. And with relatively minor tweaking can continue (b) for decades hence.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: Didn’t GHW carry on a decades long extra-marital affair? I am pretty sure that disqualifies them from the Successful Marriage competition.
I am also not sure about the claims some here are making about how the Bush twins turned out. I think the glimpses of them we are given are carefully arranged so I will have to defer any judgement.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It can be a problem at some point, but at least in terms of the government we are not particularly close to that point. We could easily fix the budget deficit and close any gaps in Social Security with fairly modest tax increases. The real point of the claims that Social Security is insolvent is to provide cover for people who want to default on the Social Security trust fund.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: Yes to all this. Relax, Goku.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
If it wasn’t so opaque to the general public, would be rotating tag fodder.
:)
smith
It’s also been used frequently to rile up young people against Social Security. The message is that those greedy Olds will use up all the funds, leaving nothing for you.
Bill Arnold
@Elizabelle:
Long handled titanium camping sporks is a real product category:
https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/long-handle-titanium-spork
S Cerevisiae
@Roger Moore: I agree, particularly in life sciences. My field was ecology and you won’t find a lot of conservatives there, biology or oceanography either.
Business school on the other hand…
Anyway
“it’s amazing what Ocean and sunshine will do”
Hahaha! Wonder who authored that screed – it’s too coherent for Dump…
Thanks for the screen capture. I enjoyed that,
Eduardo
@pat: Yes. Ideally not Trump wins a hard fought nomination and then Trump sinks the whole Republican Party. I am 100% sure he would do it.
Unfortunately he will win the nomination unless he is put in jail.
karen marie
@lowtechcyclist: I guess Boots forgot about the statue of David that’s been a feature at the Ringlings museum in Sarasota, Florida since the mid ’60s. Apparently multiple generations of Florida school children have been “exposed” to it on field trips.
JustRuss
That’s generating some…disturbing imagery.
Eduardo
@Anoniminous: Jan 6th happened after the election, FWIW
JustRuss
Yup. Started doing just that during Clinton’s administration. Shrub & Co. ended that right quick.
Geminid
@Eduardo: I’m just hoping this nomination contest will be protracted, rancorous and expensive, no matter who wins.
Eduardo
@Betty Cracker: He is the most likely to win also because he will sink anybody else if the other guy wins the nomination against him.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore: Hard sciences agree, to a point. Engineers skew the other direction by comparison.
I’ll consider geologists as a third group, because quite a few have expressed to me “the planet will be fine” in regards to manmade climate change. When measuring time in units comprising millions/billions of years, our blip on this rock is not very relevant in their view (however, see Anthropocene).
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: My experience is that the “pure” sciences are pretty liberal (though not exclusively so), engineering runs more conservative.
Eduardo
@Geminid:
Nothing will make me happier.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: What an odd response. We’re under no obligation to extend a courtesy to fanatics by interpreting their idiotic, deliberately hostile framing in good faith.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: It’s interesting how much this picture has changed since I was a kid–in the 60s and 70s, it seemed like Science! was still strongly identified with technology, the Bomb and the military-industrial complex, and a scientist who seemed kind of countercultural was treated as a novelty.
But it was starting to change. The evangelical movement and the huge revival of creationism in the 1980s really beclowned the right with the scientific community, I think, and environmentalists successfully rebranded themselves as scientifically motivated.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: George Carlin had a bit about that, right? The Earth isn’t going to die, it’ll just become uninhabitable by us. And when we’re gone, problem solved.
Elizabelle
@Ohio Mom: FTF FNYTimes is allowing comments on that inane op ed. Entitled “Liberal Professors Can Rescue the G.O.P.”, which is all most who look at the NY Times website will ever see. And fewer still will see the reader comments. Which point out that Professor Jon Shields of Claremont-McKenna is full of it. Does not live in the real world.
Top-liked reader comment:
Third most liked:
Fourth:
Fifth:
UncleEbeneezer
@Ruckus: If someone tried to insult me using it I would just laugh and after asking them if it is 1933, I would say “I’m not even Swedish.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Eduardo: He would if it weren’t for the need for a Federal pardon. So while I struggle seeing him telling his voters for someone else, his desire to avoid conviction on Federal charges (which is looking pretty damn likely, right now) would probably be enough to make him hold his nose and support other GOP candidates.
Kay
The funniest part of the Trump attack onDeSantis is the part about how Florida has sun and beaches so (essentially) how could a governor screw that up?
Trump is saying “location, location, location”, which is true.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
This is workers, not professors. Surprising, even many engineering fields skew Democrat. (Missionaries, Loggers, Truckers, and Roofers are the top Republican fields.)
DEMOCRATIC VS. REPUBLICAN JOBS: IS YOUR JOB RED OR BLUE? (Kathy Morris, Feb. 2, 2023)
satby
I confess tl:dr the whole thread, but has anyone mentioned Deathsantis’s embrace of anti-vax policies?
louc
Who else saw that and thought what would Marge Simpson do?
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
We’re under no obligation to extend them courtesy, but we should look at what we’re doing to see if it’s helpful or harmful to our cause. Saying, “You say you don’t use pronouns, but you used a pronoun while saying it,” isn’t really a gotcha because everyone knows what they mean. Yeah, people who already think they’re a bunch of assholes will appreciate it, but it doesn’t convince anyone who isn’t already on our side.
Jeffro
@Anoniminous: You’re assuming a Biden drop but trump holding even…
…even as Biden delivers while trump goes full-bore nuts…
…even as the Greatest Generation and Boomers depart this plane and are replaced by Millennial and Gen Z voters…
…I’m not buying it.
Nothing is a sure thing, the EC works against us, and we absolutely MUST run like we’re down by 10 points.
BUT
I like our chances here, folks.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
It would make a brilliant totating because it is opaque to non-Jackals, also because we care about him.
Anyway
@Kay:
At heart he’s real estate guy …
NotMax
@Kay
So does Devil’s island.
//
Geminid
@Jeffro: If Trump is the nominee, one difference between 2020 and next year is that Trump will not be President this time. That office magnified Trump, and made him a larger-than-life figure even to those who hated him. I think that was an advantage he won’t have in 2024.
The nomination contest may hurt Trump too. DeSantis may not be much of a fighter, but I think there will be at least one tougher candidate who is not afraid of Trump.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The last time they raised the Social Security age was in 1983, and they postponed it for decades. That made the numbers crunch out okay for the interim. Back then I thought it was saving Social Security. Now I felt I got screwed out of two years of my retirement.
The Reagan playbook won’t work this time because the kids he fooled forty years ago are the olds being screwed today. I very much hope (and firmly believe) that we will not make the same selfish mistake for our grandchildren that our parents and grandparents made for us.
I think Social Security is still a political third rail and safe.
The Lodger
@Geminid: If there is a tougher candidate who isn’t afraid of Trump, that candidate isn’t a Republican. (I had to work to cut this sentence down to a double negative.)
Realworldrj
Alls that’s left is for the New York Times to come to Ron’s defense (and they will) and the circle will be complete
Geminid
@The Lodger: I think there is one tougher than DeSantis who is not afraid of Trump. But we won’t know the entire field for a few more months.
StringOnAStick
@trollhattan: How conservative or liberal a geologist is depends on what subcategory of geology they work in. My experience was the people in environmental work were generally more liberal and those in extractive industries skew conservative. Gender plays a roll too.
Ksmiami
@trollhattan: Republicans are pretty much miserable people… their entire platform boils down to “someone somewhere is having a good Time .. we must put a stop to it.” Seriously- Fuck them all, they need therapy or a Thorazine drip
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I only see stuff about Jenna. I wonder what Not-Jenna is doing?
Paul in KY
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: All this time and he’s managed to stay out of jail. That’s one accomplishment.
Paul in KY
@JustRuss: In soft focus…
scav
Scuse me, clearing something here
Yup, worked, if only dislodging encumbrances in office were so easily done.