Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Democrats are back in array!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

It’s a doggy dog world.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: It’s On!

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: It’s On!

by | 305 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

Unpaywalled gift link — go read the whole thing:


… After Democrats won more races than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, any energy to challenge Mr. Biden quickly dissipated. The left has stayed in line even as Mr. Biden has lately made more explicit appeals toward the center. And would-be rivals have stayed on the sidelines.

The early entry of Donald J. Trump into the race immediately clarified that the stakes in 2024 would be just as high for Democrats as they were in 2020. The former president has proved to be the greatest unifying force in Democratic politics in the last decade, and the same factors that caused the party to rally behind Mr. Biden then are still present today. Add to that the advantages of holding the White House and any challenge seemed more destined to bruise Mr. Biden than to best him…

Representative Raúl Grijalva, a former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the left was laser-focused on “the fight against the isms: fascism, racism, sexism.” That has overshadowed Mr. Biden’s age, said the 75-year-old Mr. Grijalva: “I think why it hasn’t been a bigger issue is we don’t believe in ageism either.”…

During his first two years, Mr. Biden built up considerable good will among progressives, embracing many of the left’s priorities, including canceling student loan debt, and keeping a far more open line of communication with the party’s left-most flank than the previous two Democratic administrations. He has signed landmark bills that have been progressive priorities, including climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and a temporary child-tax credit.

Some Biden advisers credit the unity task forces created after the 2020 primary as the key starting point. Liberal activists say Ron Klain, the former White House chief of staff, had an unusual open-door policy…

In 2020, Representative Eric Swalwell of California briefly ran for president in the Democratic primary and then urged Mr. Biden to “pass the torch” to the next generation. Four years later, Mr. Swalwell is all aboard for a second Biden term, saying the president’s ability to pass significant legislation has bound the party together.

“Nothing,” Mr. Swalwell said, “unites like success.”

Come with me if you want to live…

Reader Interactions

305Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Almost all the Democrats The Post interviewed…conceded that, while he was far from their first choice, he might be the best option for the current moment

    I’m honored to be the Dems’ first choice, but this is the right call.

  3. 3.

    Anyway

    Yay! Biden/ Harris all the way!

    Can’t remember now – did other incumbents do this 18 months before the elections?! Seems awfully early…

  7. 7.

    Baud

    Good news. You don’t have to drink Bud for solidarity’s sake anymore.

    Anheuser-Busch has placed two executives who managed Bud Light’s sponsorship of two Instagram posts from a transgender woman on leave, according to the Wall Street Journal and other media reports

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    @Anyway: Per Wikipedia, Obama kicked off his re-election campaign in early April 2011, so Biden is actually a few weeks behind that timetable.

  14. 14.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I swear sometimes I can’t tell the difference between the NYT and DougJ.

    Despite questions about his age and his middling approval ratings, President Biden has won the full support of his party. Here’s why.

  15. 15.

    p.a.

    Really have to hand it to the Republican Party for making it so fucking easy to know who to vote for over the course of my voting lifetime the last hundred years.  No research needed!👍🏻

  19. 19.

    JeanneT

    I decided to send Biden-Harris my first contribution today, just to help get the grassroots support going.

  23. 23.

    Rusty

    Biden has been highly effective.  There are others that have talked a good game, but they have been unable to play a good game.  In the primary he was criticized as the middle of the road Democrat against a lot of progressives, but if you read his actual platform (I know, so boring to read policy positions but he had a ton of them!) it was solidly liberal with elements of very progressive and creative positions.  The pleasant surprise is Biden has governed toward those policies and positions he laid out.  I think he will go down as a more transformational presidency, and he clearly has a moral center from which he draws his positions.  I’ll take effective every day.  There are younger leaders in the party that will be next, I hope they look to Biden, Pelosi and others are examples of effective leadership and principled action that can make all our lives better.  Go Biden/Harris!

  24. 24.

    bbleh

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: seriously.

    “Despite the political media’s desperate need for entertainment — which makes their jobs easier even than they already are — Democrats are uniting behind a successful incumbent President and a team interested in (booo-rinnng!) effective governance.”

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: What, I would think the information was somewhere else if they didn’t explicitly tell me it was “here” in the article the headline is over?

  31. 31.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Rusty: Agreed—and more! I think he is a great President. He rallied Europe in support of Ukraine, and I don’t know that anyone else could have done that as effectively. He has articulated the need for a reversal of the trickle down/neo-liberal policies that have dominated since Reagan. He has done more than anyone else could have done to get legislation passed implementing the alternative vision. And I think he is doing as much as anyone could, in this political era, on climate change and social justice. Sure, I wish there were someone younger I thought could do as well but I’m not seeing anyone. Besides, he’s the incumbent and if he wants the nomination he’s got it, so everyone needs to fall in line. I’m definitely there.

  32. 32.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Exactly.

    I feel like all of humanity is turning into a dog that chases a ball you didn’t throw.

  34. 34.

    Ken

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: DougJ would, I think, go for a bit more absurdity in the “here’s completely unrelated news that creates a negative mood” lead-in.  Something along the lines of

    Despite the existence of over 150 potentially-hazardous asteroids with diameters over 1 kilometer, President Biden has won the full support of his party. Here’s why.

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    Headline writers use this one neat trick to drive engagement. Here’s what you should know.

    LOL!

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    I credit Georgia voters for a lot of the Biden administration’s success. Their election of two Democratic Senators in the January 5, 2021 runoffs made important legislation possible, and also allowed for confirmation of almost all Biden’s executive branch and judicial branch nominees.

    Now, with a Republican House Majority, legislative progress is stalled. Democrats have a clear path back to a majority through a couple dozen purple districts though, and “Let’s finish the job” could be a potent message for Democratic Congressional candidates.

  39. 39.

    Spanky

    I see that Biden waited until Tucker was out of the way before making his decision. Bold move, sleepy Joe!

    (//, in case it needs to be said. )

  41. 41.

    JML

    Biden really confuses the political media inside the Beltway. He does crazy things like tell people what he’s going to do, then he actually does it. He doesn’t “pivot” he follows through.

    He also commits the unforgiveable sin of not kowtowing to the DC conventual wisdom that he’s too old and was always going to be a one-term president.

    Those clowns don’t know any narrative other than “Dems in Disarray” and will desperately scramble to find it.

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    @bbleh:

    “Despite the political media’s desperate need for entertainment — which makes their jobs easier even than they already are — Democrats are uniting behind a successful incumbent President and a team interested in (booo-rinnng!) effective governance.”

    Perfect!

  43. 43.

    Michael Bersin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Sadly, no.

    The second speaker (in the post) is also an anti-vaccine nurse who just got stealth elected to the county health board.  Somewhere around 9% of registered voters turned out for the Spring election.

    There was some nasty stuff said at the meeting. The Allies spoke well, the bigots just sounded like fact-deficient loons. The bigots expected the city council to act on something. There was no way the city council would touch it with a ten foot pole – fear of really bad publicity and litigation costs.

    The good thing was that a lot of allies showed up. A lot.

    And, a bonus, there was apparently a self-righteous prayer circle outside after the public comment portion of the meeting ended. You can probably guess who didn’t participate.

  44. 44.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    Now, with a Republican House Majority, legislative progress is stalled. Democrats have a clear path back to a majority through a couple dozen purple districts though, and “Let’s finish the job” could be a potent message for Democratic Congressional candidates.

    Let’s hope we can hold the Senate as well. We have approximately zero pickup opportunities next year, unless one counts the devoutly hoped-for replacement of Sinema with Gallego.

  45. 45.

    delphinium

    @JML:

    Those clowns don’t know any narrative other than “Dems in Disarray” and will desperately scramble to find it.

    Media Assisting GOP Always

  46. 46.

    Scout211

    If you have 10 minutes, last night’s Daily Show was very amusing. Desi Lydic is the guest host this week. She covered all the news that jackals here have been talking about (real women of politics koozies!) and of course, the Fox News firing of Tucker, with some great one-liners.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    The campaign announcement vid had a retro vibe in a good way. I also like the theme, “more freedom, not less,” “more rights, not fewer,” because it directly counters Repub’s bullshit “freedom” rhetoric that they incoherently deploy around authoritarian actions like book bannings, fundamental rights abridgements and voter suppression.

    Gov. Whitmer and Dems in Michigan ran on themes similar to what Biden says here to excellent effect in a state that has earned bellwether status. I like this messaging, which is mildly terrifying to me because my political instincts are so consistently wrong. But I think the campaign rollout hit all the right notes.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    Just perfect, IMO. First word is “freedom” – big, inspiring theme of individual rights and democracy.

    I was afraid they’d retreat to laundry lists of policy but they didn’t. Bravo.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    I don’t know if this has been posted with all the recent news.

    DOJ is seeking Supreme Court review of the crazy 5th circuit ruling that domestic abusers cannot be barred from having guns. So in addition to the likely decision on mifepristone, we’re likely to get a major gun decision next year.

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    18 months ahead to compare and contrast…I like it!

    Biden vs trumpov II…I like it!

    A Republican Party in ever-increasing disarray over its candidates, path forward, and even its choice of house propaganda network…I LIKE IT!

    Let’s finish the job, indeed!  Stick a fork in ’em, Uncle Joe!

  51. 51.

    jonas

    @PJ: ​
      Years ago I think I read somewhere that the style of Time magazine was the gold standard in print journalism: 8th grade-level English, everything in passive voice, no big words you’d have to stop reading to look up. It’s all online now and from what I can tell, mostly pie charts and celebrity profiles.

  52. 52.

    Jeffro

    @JeanneT:I decided to send Biden-Harris my first contribution today, just to help get the grassroots support going.

    Same here!

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: it’s a good choice of theme on its own merits, but it’ll help tremendously when the Rs bleat about their own version of “freedom” – the freedom to not have health care, the freedom to not make your own reproductive choices, etc etc.

    Compare and (especially) contrast for 18 months, Ds!

    ETA: or what Betty said, better, at #47. =)

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    @Baud:

    Anheuser-Busch has placed two executives who managed Bud Light’s sponsorship of two Instagram posts from a transgender woman on leave

    Gaah! I’m wondering why it matters that the trans woman is on leave from whatever her job is. I suspect the writer really meant to say

    Anheuser-Busch has placed on leave two executives who managed Bud Light’s sponsorship of two Instagram posts from a transgender woman

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Exactly. That’s part of why I like it so much. It’s not defensive. I also think people need big themes to rally around – only the hyper engaged core gets all excited over policy lists.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s some Orlando Sentinel coverage of DeSantis’s inexplicable trip to Japan:

    Some Florida lawmakers say they are frustrated by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ absence overseas as they come down the wire on the legislative session and while one of the state’s largest counties deals with a historic flood.

    “As a representative for the majority of the district impacted by this one in a thousand-year flood, I called out Gov. DeSantis to ask where he was with his white rain boots,” State Rep. Hillary Cassel, D-Dania Beach, said in Tallahassee on Monday. She said she received no response…

    “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes,” DeSantis said, smiling with his head bobbing as he replied when asked about his drop in the polls to Trump.

    What a clown show!

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: I like Ruben Gallego’s chances in Arizona. He’s done well in early polling like the OHPredictive survey taken in February. In that poll, Gallego won two- and three-way matches against 5 potential opponents plus Sinema. Gallego was the only candidate with a net-positive favorability number.

    If Gallego wins Arizona’s Senate seat, Democrats will still need 2 wins out of 3 states: Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.

    It does seem unlikely that Democrats will flip any Republican seats next November, but I still do not rule out an upset in one of those races.

  59. 59.

    Sanjeevs

    Two things he’s done that I like ( and he doesn’t get much credit for:

    1. Preserved the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. The Brexiter wanted to wreck it and he warned them of severe consequences

    2. He’s pushed back hard against Chinese bullying in the Pacific. Got an agreement with the Philippines and signed AUKUS.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    smiling with his head bobbing

    we need to talk about something else too- why does he open his mouth so wide when he smiles? No one smiles like this.

  62. 62.

    Amir Khalid

    On topic: the Biden-Harris administration has a strong track record to run on, and there is simply not a better Democratic ticket in sight. It’s blindingly obvious they should run again in 2024.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    Yay Biden/Harris. They have done an excellent job. Competence matters.

    Presidents are usually re-elected. It’s (almost) never easy, but the deck is stacked in their favor. The press’s desire for clicks and “engagement” shouldn’t distract us from all the other vitally important races.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I also think people need big themes to rally around – only the hyper engaged core gets all excited over policy lists.

     
    I don’t think that’s a universal truth, but it is true given where we are right now.

  65. 65.

    Betty

    Joe Biden is just a normal guy. The media hate that. As noted above, limited entertainment value.

  66. 66.

    Low Key Swagger

    @jonas: Not my experience at all.  I always look forward to getting my copy in the mailbox.  It isn’t in-depth reporting, but so many of the articles are well written and most at least help make sense of complicated issues from all over the world.  I usually skip right past the “arts” part, it rarely interests me but occasionally I’ll skim it and find a good recommendation for a film or album.  Overall, well worth the 20 bucks a year.  Never read it online as I really like to hold a magazine or book in my hands.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: That trip might have been planned a few months ago, when DeSantis’s presidential prospects seemed ascendant. The DeSantis team probably thought they’d be building on his momentum.

  68. 68.

    Betty

    @Geminid: West Virginia looks like it is gone. Manchin was on Fox excoriating the IRA and efforts to combat climate change. That seems to indicate where he thinks the state is.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    Interestingly enough, when I mentioned the Biden/Harris 2024 announcement to Mrs. Fro and Fro Jr  – both left-leaning normies – this morning:

    • Mrs. Fro asked me about Biden’s age
    • Fro Jr mentioned the Willow Project up in Alaska

    (insert pulling-the-needle-off-the-record sound effect here)

    I’d had my coffee and been out for a good walk, so I just took a calm minute and reminded them that

    • trumpov is 77 and oh by the way also insane, corrupt, and likely to keep accumulating indictments over the next 18 months*
    • one not-eco-friendly project approval vs all of the green goodies in the Infrastructure bill + the Inflation Reduction Act = I’ll take it!

    *Fro Jr did not know that in America, you can not only run, but win, the presidency while under multiple criminal indictments!  Technically speaking, that is.  It’s still a pretty bad look LOL

    Anyway, for Biden v trumpov II, they laughed off the idea of it being even a close call, so that’s 3 votes for Biden!  Always good to hear what the normies in my own house are thinking.  =)

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    On a side note, I’m about 99% certain that at the next opportunity, presser, or shouted question about his age, President Biden will note

    • “well yes, I’m not a spring chicken of 77 like my opponent…I’m also not nuts”

    AND/OR

    • “it’s amazing, isn’t it, that I’m kicking this much ass at my age?”*

    *please let it be those exact words!

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: ah, ya gotta roll with it a little…we got around to ‘3 solid votes for Biden’ in pretty short order!  =)

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    That’s the other thing. Trump is also old and this is a choice between two. DeSantis is younger but they can’t seem to train him to imitate  a normal human being, so he’s probably out.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I went to the D meeting last night and our youngest member (Zoomer – I love them) said he was depressed because Biden is an “old white guy”. I said “but you’re not just hiring Biden- you’re hiring the people Biden hires and they’re diverse and younger” and he seemed satisified with that.

  83. 83.

    M31

    @Geminid: The DeSantis team probably thought they’d be building on his momentum.

     

    Oh, they are, they just  mistook the direction the momentum would be carrying him

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The Zoomer is the new D hire on the Board of Elections and he’s great – smart as a whip, really well informed and also has a sense of humor. Hired by 4 old white guys :)

    He is from the smallest, most rural town in the county. There were probably 20 people in his graduating class in high school – itty bitty little district and very conservative. Yet he’s really progressive. A miracle.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Fine.  I’ll give him a pass.

    But IMHO, the culture of perpetual disappointment completely undercuts our message about the GOP threat to America.

    I know I’m in the minority on that.

  89. 89.

    catclub

    @bbleh: This. The ONLY  people who bring up the ‘disaster’ in afghanistan are media hacks.  It wasn’t. It was the most successful withdrawal under adverse conditions ever.  But they don’t compare it to those.

     

    The US people are not clamoring for us to go back there and finish the job.

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: FWIW I agree with you. It’s the message of purity progressives who may or may not be Democrats that Ds suck.

    Green Mountain Man weaponized this sentiment against HRC and we got the Orange 🍊 🤡. They are still at it.

  91. 91.

    KSinMA

    Hey, Ohio Mom, I saw your comment on Frank Bruni’s (rather witless) column in the NY Times this morning. Good on you!

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @Betty: Manchin’s rhetoric may have more to do with his legislative agenda than his reelection prospects. He trying hard to pass legislation that would streamline permitting for pipeline projects, electrical grid upgrades, etc. Manchin says that was part of the deal whereby he agreed to the “IRA” bill.

    The West Virginia Senate race is complicated by two very different Republican candidates. Rep. Mooney is a doctrinaire Club for Growth politician, while Governor Justice is a conservative with elements of pragmatism. In many ways, Justice is like a Manchin with an “R” after his name and Manchin might not mind losing to him.

    Manchin recently commented to state media about the two Republicans. Justice is looking out for the interests of West Virginians, Manchin said, but Mooney is just in it for himself.

  93. 93.

    Delk

    Six reasons why President Biden has won the full support of his party. You won’t believe number five.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I know we disagree about this but I think a Dem meeting is where Democrats can talk frankly about what bothers them, etc. I don’t think it’s representative of how Democrats talk to normies.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I think young people naturally want to feel special, and end up being easy targets for anti-Dem propagandists. I don’t blame the young kid, who seems to be doing good work.

  96. 96.

    catclub

    @Kay: I also think people need big themes to rally around

     

    Is ‘competent government day after day’  a big theme? Incumbents get re-elected on that.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    You’re correct, I don’t know the details.  But in the age of social media, I’m not sure how much of that talk remains confined to quiet rooms.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @Rusty:

    In the primary he was criticized as the middle of the road Democrat

    Hasn’t every Democratic President been a “middle of the road Democrat?”  The guy who wins is the guy who’s in the middle of where his party is at, not the guy who’s out on either the left or the right edge.  Even at the height of the Great Depression, we ran FDR, not some Huey Long type radical or some Al Smith type centrist.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Honestly that’s IMO a view from 30,000 feet- a very online view. The Zoomer in my Dem meeting is permitted to express his views on the Democratic Party. It doesn’t bother me a bit. I actually am happy to debate him – it helps clarify my own thoughts and I’m not 22- I’m interested in what someone so young thinks. He shows up and he engages which is a hell of a lot more than most people do.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I know I’m not as ….conflict averse as a lot of people :)

    I enjoy batting back and forth with Grant (his name). Doesn’t depress me at all – it jazzes me up a little, honestly. Up until he spoke up it had been 20 minutes of droning discussion on the t shirts we sell.

  104. 104.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @different-church-lady: IDK but on NPR it’s “what it all means” – someone is always coming on to tell the listeners what it means, or they just ask what it all means, constantly. Despite the fact that their pledge drive marketing is all based around having the “most informed, smartest listeners in the news media landscape.” Apparently despite having super smart listeners those listeners need to have every single thing explained to them so they understand “what it means”…like shouldn’t they be able to figure some of what it means out for themselves?

  105. 105.

    cain

    @Kay: he is definitely a good kid. Engaging them is definitely something we need to do.

    That said, I hope this is the final time we have a boomer or older for POTUS. We need new blood and we need to really start giving representation to the younger generations. They can skip the Gen Xers though.

  106. 106.

    Chris

    @JML:

    Biden is also a lifelong Washington insider, who’s been there for half a damn century, and an old-fashioned politician whose door is usually open to talk to anybody.

    Which is to say that they have no goddamn excuse for being confused by him: they’ve had all the time in the world to get to know him and he hasn’t made it exactly difficult.  It really is because he doesn’t fit their Democratic narratives.  (Few Democrats do, at the end of the day, which is why they haven’t actually liked one of our presidents since oh before I was born).

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    This is a 22 year old male who knows every detail of the GOP push to put a ballot initiative out in August to increase the percentage needed to pass an initiative from 50% to 60%. He knows which R’s in the upper chamber may chicken out and not pass putting it on the ballot. If he wants to complain about the top of the ticket nationally I think he should be heard.

  108. 108.

    Chris

    @Delk:

    Six reasons why President Biden has won the full support of his party. You won’t believe number five.

    Good start, but you need a picture with some text on it that’s the beginning of a reason, and then when you click on the actual article that reason isn’t on there at all.

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anyway: It’s likely to help quash media speculation about him stepping down or getting a major primary challenge, etc. Of course it won’t stop them from speculating about all manner of things or trying to create horse-race drama about Democratic under-enthusiasm, but it closes off some types of story.

  110. 110.

    Chris

    @Baud:

    I think young people naturally want to feel special

    I’ve seen very little to suggest that this phenomenon reduces with age.

    Fox News and the Republican Party, after all, have been running a wildly successful decades-long project pretty much entirely on the insight that old white men want to feel special.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid:

    while Governor Justice is a conservative with elements of pragmatism. In many ways, Justice is like a Manchin with an “R” after his name and Manchin might not mind losing to him.

    IIRC, Justice was elected as a Democrat and switched parties.

  112. 112.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby: His points about the motivating force of hope and the demotivating force of despair are well-put. So many people said change won’t/can’t happen at Fox and elsewhere, but it did. And more (positive) change can happen if people are willing to work for it.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @cain:

    Right- he is smart- which is why pointing out to him that “a President” is a team of people – easy to do in Biden’s case with Kamala Harris as the best example of “hires younger and more diverse” – was an acceptable answer to him. I guess I could have told him “you are LOSING THE ELECTION FOR US WITH YOUR COMMENT, GRANT” but because I think that’s nonsense, I didn’t.

  116. 116.

    Dangerman

    @Jeffro: … you can not only run, but win, the presidency while under multiple criminal indictments!

    First coffee on the West Coast (and Decaf; there should be a warning label on that shit, something like ” Warning: Might As Well Drink Water”), but I’m fairly sure he can still be the nominee and President even if he’s convicted and in prison. Of course, they might give him time off for good behavior, which is kind of like me getting a vacation soon for winning the Nobel Prize (file under na gonna happen).

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott:

    Presidents are usually re-elected. It’s (almost) never easy, but the deck is stacked in their favor.

    This always seems slightly strange to me since I first started paying attention to politics through Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush when it seemed like reelection was the exception rather than the rule: the one guy who managed it was the mighty conservative cult figurehead. But since then, reelection has been more the norm.

  119. 119.

    Suzanne

    I’m voting for him because he said, “more rights or fewer”. If he had said less instead of fewer, I’d be out.

  120. 120.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Yeah, of course he should be heard.  But people — even all of us — are subject to the influence of popular political culture, and I’m comfortable pointing out how that culture works against our interests.

    I’ve criticized people here on occasion for similar reasons.  Even the best people are susceptible to it.

  122. 122.

    Jeffro

    @Dangerman: I’m fairly sure he can still be the nominee and President even if he’s convicted and in prison

    Yup, that’s what I said!  Well, I said “indicted” but yes, you can also be convicted and thrown in the clink.  Maybe we’d hit the impeachment/conviction threshold then?  What do you say, Rs?

    We need some higher standards, America!

  125. 125.

    geg6

    @Geminid:

    One must always keep in mind that Justice was once a Democrat.  One in the very mold of Manchin.  Two peas in a pod.

  126. 126.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:  Yeah, I’m not worried about Ohio; the state may have become more red over time, but the people there seem to love Sherrod Brown.

    I think Jon Tester is more likely than not to win re-election, but it’s gonna be a tough fight, and it’s far from guaranteed, especially as Montana does seem to have gotten more red.  That’s the one that worries me.

    He’s been lucky with his races, though: 2006 and 2018 were Dem wave years, and in 2012 he had the tailwind of a reasonably popular Dem President running for re-election.  As will be the case next year.

    I have a feeling that WV has gotten too red to give even Manchin one more term, which makes Tester’s race even more critical.  But if we wind up with 50 Senate seats in 2025 with the only changes from 2022 being Fetterman, Gallego, and a new CA Dem instead of Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein, Senators like King and Warner won’t be able to hide behind Manchinema anymore when it comes to carving out filibuster exceptions for voting rights and the like.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t think people will come to local Democratic meetings if they are identical to a national campaign website. Part of the reason young people do this is they are still exploring their own beliefs – I’m really confident and solid in mine but part of how I got there was being a political minority where I live and going back and forth with a lot of Republicans and conservaDems. Doing that doesn’t upset or anger me. It’s the environment  I operate in, every day, for decades. The conflict- the debate- is what keeps him engaged.

  129. 129.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: and he blew it largely because of how he botched the pandemic response, imho.  He tried to ignore it, finesse it, lie to our faces about it, all in the hopes that it would blow over.  OOPS.

    It really is the least punishment he could have suffered for it, though.  An extra couple hundred thousand Americans died while he was busy telling us about UV light and drinking bleach.

    (well, first he was keeping cruise ships from docking and trying to keep the numbers from being reported, but you know what I mean)

  132. 132.

    Chris

    @Another Scott:

    Presidents are usually re-elected. It’s (almost) never easy, but the deck is stacked in their favor. The press’s desire for clicks and “engagement” shouldn’t distract us from all the other vitally important races.

    The other way of looking at it is that there is simply no way for Biden to bow out of his reelection campaign without it being immediately seized on and trumpeted everywhere by both Republicans and the mainstream media as an admission of failure by the Democrats, either in their policies over the last four years or in their choice of presidential candidate in the first place, and that’s going to be hung like a ball and chain over whatever other Democrat we do run in 2024.

    It doesn’t matter that the last four years haven’t been a failure by any stretch, it doesn’t matter that there are dozens of perfectly valid reasons why Biden wouldn’t run that are no discredit to either him or the party: any reasonable message would simply get drowned out in favor of “Democrats in Disarray!” and such brilliant editorial hot takes as “Democratic presidents only decline to run again when things are really bad and they’re sure they’ll lose, like Truman and Johnson!  What does Joe Biden know that we don’t about how bad the country is really doing?  What massive disaster is he trying to run away from before it blows up in his face?  Why are the rats abandoning the ship?”

    Not seeking reelection would be handing a giant propaganda coup to everybody who hates the Democrats, so yeah, good on him for not doing it.

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: Had COVID not hit, Trump probably could have cruised to reelection just doing his usual clown show. He’d been lucky enough to come in during a strong and improving economy, and to be hit with no major national crises beyond his control, up to that point–his biggest news-making disaster was probably Hurricane Maria, and this affected people who could not vote for President. Most Americans simply do not care about Puerto Ricans, or about immigrants or Syria.

    It was too close as it was, which gave him the opening to attempt a coup, though I do think his chances would have been better if it’d been down to one state like in 2000.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I don’t know- I think it was more than the pandemic response. Donald Trump was never popular.

    I think he might have been a real threat if he had done what the idiots at the NYTimes told us he would do – if he had been a genuine “independent” instead of a lockstep far Right Republican – but he doesn’t have the imagination or genuine  work ethic to pull that off. That would have been real work. He took the easy road- huge tax cuts, deregulation and culture wars. It would have been much more difficult but also much more popular with the (normie) public if he had worked with Democrats, admitted he’s pro choice, not been such a huge obvious racist, etc.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris:

    The other way of looking at it is that there is simply no way for Biden to bow out of his reelection campaign without it being immediately seized on and trumpeted everywhere by both Republicans and the mainstream media as an admission of failure by the Democrats, either in their policies over the last four years or in their choice of presidential candidate in the first place, and that’s going to be hung like a ball and chain over whatever other Democrat we do run in 2024.

    This is what I tell Democrats who want Biden to step down (and, yes, I do know some). It gets criticized as an excessively conventional-wisdom take.

  138. 138.

    narya

    @lowtechcyclist: And the Montana leg is trying to turn JUST this election into one like California, where the top two vote getters have a runoff (if no one wins outright, I guess).

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I don’t agree. I didn’t and don’t now believe that Donald Trump was in a strong position pre covid. I think he was successful in conning political media into presenting him as a strong and popular President but I don’t think that was ever true.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    Trump was not popular but he was about as popular as Biden is now. He was maybe more polarizing, but Republicans are self-polarizing at this point regardless of who is in office.

    He didn’t have to win a popular-vote majority to get reelected, just to carry enough states, and there were enough states where his margin was close enough that I can imagine him getting the required several thousand more votes in a less fraught national situation.

    I think a bunch of the centrists who became never-Trumpers would have held their noses and voted for Trump if the material situation of the country had remained that placid. It’s an era people have nostalgia for now.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    The Democrats who are most handwringey and anxious at these meetings are not the youths- they’re the people my age who are not online but instead spend a lot of time watching cable news. I don’t know if I was like this when I had cable- maybe- but it really does seem to contribute to bed wetting.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Twitter’s off the rails again. A whole bunch of accounts, including the above-cited agraybee and fake Nixon, have been erased, “at so-and-so hasn’t tweeted”

  144. 144.

    ian

    @Another Scott:

    Presidents are usually re-elected. It’s (almost) never easy, but the deck is stacked in their favor. The press’s desire for clicks and “engagement” shouldn’t distract us from all the other vitally important races.

    Last eight presidents

    Trump: Not re-elected

    Obama: re-elected

    Bush: re-elected

    Clinton: re-elected

    Bush: not re-elected

    Reagan: re-elected

    Carter: not re-elected

    Ford: not re-elected

    That is 50/50 going back the past 50 years.

  147. 147.

    Matt McIrvin

    @ian: The problem with doing statistics on Presidential elections is that they happen infrequently enough that you’re in a different political world before you can get a decent number of samples.

  148. 148.

    Chris

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I know a couple, and interestingly, they’re not even Biden-haters.  They’re just excessively NPR-brained people who’ve heard the “BUT WHAT ABOUT HIS AGE AND MAYBE SENILITY” “concern” enough times that they’re really worried about it, and don’t think there’d be any negative repercussions for him pulling out because oh well surely everybody can understand someone retiring because he doesn’t think he can do the job anymore.  Why, they’ll even respect him for it!  We respect people who value the prudent and statesman-like thing over their own ambition?  Don’t we?

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He’s such a bad manager. The reports I heard from people working at Tesla and then leaving because he’s such a bad manager all appear to be true :)

    Put him in the huge pile of people media insanely overrated and foisted on the public.

  151. 151.

    ian

    @Matt McIrvin: I agree that they don’t occur often enough to be a statistical measurement.  I merely wanted to point out that the collective wisdom of presidential incumbency as a shoe-in for re-election is not as strong as it seems.

  152. 152.

    artem1s

    @lowtechcyclist: ​

    the people there seem to love Sherrod Brown.

    IMO Ohio caught a break when Vance decided to snatch Portman’s seat and not challenge Brown for his. They may still pull some asshole out of their hat that could present problems. But the crop of losers from the last Senate election are now a known quantity and were already rejected by the RWingnut Chamber of Commerce GQPers. MAGAt hate voting for losers. Expect loonie Mandel to throw his hat in again though cause basically he’s a clueless git.

  154. 154.

    Chris

    @Ken:

    I will mentally translate that to “followed a Democrat”.

    Yeah, this.

    It’s been like clockwork over the thirty or so years that I’ve been alive: Republicans coast on the achievements of their Democratic predecessors for most of their term until they’ve finally fucked things up so badly that no one can ignore it anymore, Democrats get the blame for the fuckups of their Republican predecessors even as they’re working to fix them because they didn’t just fix everything instantly with an Infinity Gauntlet finger-snap.

    I think you have to go back to Carter to find Democrats losing the White House when times were actually bad (as opposed to when times were good so people thought they could afford not to pay attention anymore).  And all the way back to Eisenhower to find Republicans leaving the White House with the country in decent shape.

  155. 155.

    Kay

    @artem1s:

    I hope Mandel does run. He’s genuinely popular with the base and they think he was shunted aside by the national Party. Mandel was Trumpy before Trump. He’ll create the kind of infighting we need.

  158. 158.

    Gin & Tonic

    In preparation for the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow, Red Square will be closed to the public from April 27 through May 10.

    They must be nervous about something.

  159. 159.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: You mean like this?

    Ron DeSantis fake smile

    Yep. It’s just weird. Rumor has it his ex-local-Fox-TV-news presenter wife coaches him on how to act human. Maybe she said, “Raise the corners of your lips and show off your teeth”?

    Melania Trump is another human who can’t manage to smile credibly, though her weird fake smile was a different type, more like a spider monkey baring its fangs.

  160. 160.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Jeffro:

    excellent!

    Re Biden’s age: he’s not like old people, or some not so old, who get confused and whiny about pronouns; he’s consistently pro trans youth, not stuck in a previous century.

  161. 161.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Oh thanks. I think it’s very funny. Maybe he does it because it makes his eyes narrow, mechanically pushed closed, and that’s an approximation of the human “eyes also smiling”.

  162. 162.

    Kay

    Obambi’s poll numbers were quite bad the year running up to re-elect too, so much so that local Republicans went out of their way to tell me he was “toast” and we all know how that turned out- he won easily. Just to put the polling in perspective.

  163. 163.

    Warblewarble

    Democrats need to remind voters of the diverse , competent appointees that  Biden has put in place, in contrast to the grifters and crooks and loons that made up TFGs maladministration.

  164. 164.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: I do still think the probability of a new recession hitting over the next year is fairly high, which is something we haven’t seen when a Democrat is running for reelection since Carter. The technology sector is already effectively in recession–we’re feeling it.

    On the bright side the Republican nominee will almost certainly be Trump and in his current state, he’s much weaker than he was in 2016. But he will be riding heavily on nostalgia for the strong-economy pre-COVID era which some voters are going to associate with the Trump administration.

  165. 165.

    Chris Johnson

    @Michael Bersin:

    And, a bonus, there was apparently a self-righteous prayer circle outside after the public comment portion of the meeting ended. You can probably guess who didn’t participate.

    God?

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: I think that with Obama’s administration, US politics flipped to a high-partisan-polarization state in which really broad popularity or unpopularity is nearly impossible for a President. Probably because it was the final step in the 50-year process of the partisan division realigning with race and civil rights.

  167. 167.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Heading to WV tomorrow and really debating whether I should wear my “Biden Won, Get Over It” tee shirt that has Joe in red-white-and-blue shades.  The only reason I’m hesitant is because I’m going there for my wife’s funeral and I don’t think she’d want the added anxiety of the angry looks from white people in OH/WV, especially since there are gonna be several MAGA family members in WV.  So I’ll probably just play nice for this trip.  But I will probably still bring/wear one of my pro-Trans Rights tee shirts.

    Let’s Go Joe (and Kamala)!!  Woo hoo!!  The fact that the main/first criticism people have of him is: 1.) he wasn’t their first choice (congrats, here’s your cookie) or 2.) he’s too old/white/male, is pretty damn impressive when you think about it, and a sign of just how good of a POTUS and candidate he is.

  170. 170.

    Matt McIrvin

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’ve seen an accumulation of policy criticisms from the left: that he wasn’t pro-union enough in the railroad crisis, isn’t pro-immigrant enough on the border and isn’t pro-trans-rights enough over the trans athletes issue. I may even agree with some of these. In all such cases, though, the position that progressives want him to take is not a popular one, so I’m not sure it’s a general-election handicap.

  174. 174.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I certainly don’t have any special wisdom here, but I remember I was fairly confident in Obama’s reelection changes starting at some point in the spring of 2011 and never really wavering since.

    1) The economy was finally starting to improve.  (And the papers were noticing).

    2) The teabagger wave had already crested, and what they were doing in Congress wasn’t reflecting well on the party.

    3) It was already fairly obvious that the Republican nominee would be Romney, and that the base voters really really didn’t want Romney, but that none of the alternatives they were trying had any staying power, so they were going in with a ton of baggage regardless.

  178. 178.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I just don’t think political media are capable of evaluating Donald Trump in any kind of sensible or rational way. They give him some kind of magical hold on the public when really his hold is on the GOP base. Trump should acatually be higher WITH REPUBLICANS. 70% is not a good number.

    I genuinely believe it’s because political media is led by the NYTimes political team and Donald Trump was a NYC figure for 50 years and completely bamboozled the (supposedly!) ultra sophisticated NY media for that entire time. They cannot evaluate him objectively. The NYTimes now basically has a whole Donald Trump DIVISION- he’s a profit center for that media company all by himself. The fact that they suck at covering Biden is not driven by Biden- it’s driven by the fact that they can’t cover Trump.

  180. 180.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: I think that’s right, and it’s a testament to Team Biden’s skills that they’ve managed to find a balance that keeps factions within the coalition that have competing agendas on board so far. Successful democratic leaders by definition have to be cat herders. The best of them, which includes Biden and Pelosi, IMO, manage to do so without shitting on any constituency, even though that must be tempting!

  181. 181.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: I was confident about Obama’s reelection because I was becoming a believer in state-poll aggregation models, but that confidence turned out to be misplaced–the predictors just got lucky and had relatively small systematic-error effects to deal with for a few cycles in a row, including that one.

  182. 182.

    Jeffro

    @different-church-lady: close enough to be true!  ;)

    I know he grayed up some, but President Obama is the only two-termer I can think of who seemed at least as healthy and energetic in his second term (and since) as he did in his first.

    Which is understandable.  One bad night of sleep and my whole week is off!  I can only imagine all the late-night briefings and early wake-ups, the constant go-go-go.  Whew.  It requires a guy with pep in his step, not someone on a hamberder diet 24/7!

  183. 183.

    PJ

    @Matt McIrvin: Wow.  I’d never heard of anyone, even a Republican, having nostalgia for the Trump era, but then I live in NYC.  Do people really think of that as “the good times”?

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Warblewarble: That’s correct, but the degree of mystification about it was amazing to me.

    The official Republican position under Obama was simply that the economic statistics were fake, but then when Trump took office, the same numbers magically became real, like the Blue Fairy turning Pinocchio into a real boy. The result was that they could insist that Trump fixed the economy.

    I remember one rally where Trump just openly said this. It was some sentence like “We used to think those numbers were fake but now they’re real, right?” and the crowd roared in approval. They were people who just wanted so badly to be bamboozled that you could state it right in front of them and they’d be happy.

  185. 185.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    The Obama re-elect team had a meeting with bloggers and they invited John Cole but he hates people so he asked if I wanted to go and I did go. I also have a credit card with miles so it was free – I am a cheapskate.

    It changed my view of how media covers elections because there was so much anxiety about Obama’s re-elect among the base and the actual people running that campaign were 100% confident. They were rat a tat tat reciting what they knew but it was not “spin”- it was WHY they would win. They knew he was going to win.

  186. 186.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: Trump should actually be higher WITH REPUBLICANS. 70% is not a good number.

    It’s probably naive of me, given how the GOP will (obviously) rally around literally anyone regardless of scandals, bankruptcies, pending indictments, etc etc.  But if he’s at 70% now – where will they be with 18 more months of trump continuing to act out?  (and he has been putting out increasingly kuh-RAZY shit) 18 months of waiting for DeSantis to get it together and be their “trump plus competency” or “trump minus the scandals” savior?

    You can almost hear the GOP cogs starting to grind up, the smoke starting to come up from under the hood.  And it’s only April 2023

  187. 187.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PJ: You’ve never seen people expressing fond memories of how much better and simpler a world it was before pandemic lockdowns and masks?

  189. 189.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PJ: …Just a few days ago, I heard a United Airlines rep at Newark airport complain that “since COVID, nobody works” as an explanation for the fucked-up situation there. I expect to be hearing a lot of that too.

  190. 190.

    J R in WV

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​

    IIRC, Justice was elected as a Democrat and switched parties.

    This is accurate. Justice is also a coal man, perhaps a billionaire, who does not pay his bills, ever!

    Pay Taxes? Nope.

    Material bills for one of his many coal companies? Nope.

    Live in the Governor’s Mansion at the state house, as required by law? Nope.

    Lets his cute dog make major decisions (or at least pretend to)? Yep…

    RWNJ? Yep.

    Actually lives in VA? Maybe so, can’t tell from my hollow…. but he does own major estates along the WV VA border, so could be, has a state helicopter, who knows where that picked him up on his way to “work”…​​

  191. 191.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think there was some exhaustion from people who kept working all thru covid so there’s some truth to that – would be true at an airport, for example- but I also think we’re coming out of it.

  192. 192.

    PJ

    @Matt McIrvin: No.  Obviously, few people look back on the pandemic fondly, but I’ve never met anyone – and I do come into contact with some Republicans, even some rabid RWers – who is nostalgic for the Trump times.  But again, I live in a specific environment.

  193. 193.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Matt McIrvin: Before pandemic lockdowns and masks? Absolutely.

    While Trump was in charge, eh..

    How do you think the pandemic response got so forked to begin with?

  195. 195.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The covid backlash was the dog that didn’t bark in 2022 though. There was an entire section of the the internet (and not all Righties) who predicted doom for Democrats due to covid restrictions in the 22 midterms. It’ll be even less relevant in ’24. 2022 was the year they could exploit covid. It didn’t take off.

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Presidents are usually re-elected. It’s (almost) never easy, but the deck is stacked in their favor. The press’s desire for clicks and “engagement” shouldn’t distract us from all the other vitally important races.

    Here is the crazy thing. For the MAGA crowd, Trump is also the president running for re election.

  197. 197.

    Elizabelle

    Make the publishers and editorial boards of the Bezos WaPost and FTF FNYTimes sad!

    Re-elect  Handsome  Decent Joe.

  198. 198.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Kay: The COVID restrictions were always overblown in the public conscious as far as severity. Partisan. Polarization demanded it.

    They say lockdowns like we couldn’t leave our house. As an essential worker with all essential worker friends, I’ll tell you I never spent so much time out of my house than in the early days of the pandemic.

    I just wish the masks stuck.

  199. 199.

    tam1MI

    Bad news for Krysten Sinema, looks like her re-election campaign is toast. She is coming in third in a 2-way race.

    https://jezebel.com/kyrsten-sinema-has-a-net-favorability-of-negative-23-p-1850367190

    The only question now is whether she’ll acknowledge the writing on the wall and drop out of the race, or if she’ll stay in and act as a spoiler to Democratic chances. I’m betting on the 2nd option. Sinema is just too narcissistic to think about anybody except herself.

  201. 201.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @tam1MI: The survey results, first obtained by Jezebel via an internal Ruben Gallego campaign memo, show that just 27 percent of voters in the state view Sinema favorably

    That number…

  204. 204.

    J R in WV

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Harry Belafonte has died, age 96. I grew up with his Carnegie Hall album.

    In the V. distant past I worked at WV Educational Broadcasting as a production assistant. One of my coworkers was a daughter of Harry Belafonte, a good coworker.

    I got the impression that she came to WV to attend WV State, a historically black land grant college, and while she didn’t receive a ton of $$ support, was quite fond of her father. It took months for me to learn who her dad was. Then I could see the similarity, quite clearly.

    He would send the family jet to pick her up for holidays sometimes…

  205. 205.

    Betty Cracker

    @tam1MI: Wow, this fundraising data is telling:

    Sinema is trailing Gallego in terms of fundraising as well. She raised just $2.1M in Q1 compared to Gallego’s $3.7M, and just 0.3 percent of her donations were from small dollar donors, according to NBC News. Roughly a third of her haul came from just five companies, including hedge funds and private equity firms, whereas 98 percent of Gallego’s donations were from donors who pitched in less than $100.

    0.3% — that’s pitiful! Does her family live in AZ?

  206. 206.

    Kay

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    I worked for the whole thing too and I agree. I also did not mind masks and I was really engaged in how to keep operating so was weirdly positive during that period. I actually enjoyed hooking up my small business clients with PPP loans and SBA grants. It was a kind of “all hands on deck” thing until conservatives started screeching and whining incessantly and ruined that whole vibe. Do not want Right wingers around in a tough situation- I learned that. They fucking freaked out and fell apart the 4th week they couldn’t go to a restaurant. Babies.

    I do think the school closures were hugely difficult for parents and chldren though but I still don’t think they were a bad call, as far as public health. Also- the test score drops don’t correlate with closures – California did better than Florida , for example, so I was wrong about the harm closures (specifically) did to children. It seems covid harmed children – the totality of the pandemic itself- not the government response to covid.

  208. 208.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    I’m mildy obsessed with the antiwokeists and anti cancel culture Substack ninnies and they were 100% convinced there would be a huge political backlash to Democrats in 2022 based on anger at “lockdowns” (exaggerated, overly dramatic word) and school closures. They were all wrong. The “backlash” was supposed to doom Whitmer in Michigan – remember the loonies attacked the MI statehouse?

    She won by 11. So, no, I don’t think covid backlash will matter at all in ’24 since it didn’t matter in ’22.

  211. 211.

    Taken4Granite

    @ian:

    Nixon: re-elected

    LBJ: re-elected in 1964, chose not to run in 1968

    Eisenhower: re-elected

    Truman: re-elected

    FDR: re-elected three times

    Hoover: not re-elected

    Coolidge: re-elected in 1924, chose not to run in 1928

    Wilson: re-elected

    Taft: not re-elected

    TR: re-elected

    McKinley: re-elected

    So going back to 1900, that’s 15 out of 21 who were re-elected. It’s true that one-term presidents (including Grover Cleveland, who was elected to non-consecutive terms) were common in the 1800s, but even then it was frequently that the sitting president did not seek re-election (Hayes, A. Johnson, Buchanan, Pierce, Polk) rather than being defeated.

  212. 212.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I mean, I think it’s pretty simple: the public has the memory of a goldfish.  If the midterm elections had happened in 2021, I absolutely believe Covid resentment would have taken a bigger bite out of the Democrats.  A year later, it was old news and nobody cared anymore except people who were never going to vote Biden anyway for reasons that had nothing to do with Covid protocols.

  213. 213.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … Science.org:

    Bogner’s apparent alter ego is only one of many concerning findings about his life and the way he runs GISAID that emerged during a Science investigation involving interviews with more than 70 sources, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and reviews of hundreds of emails and dozens of documents. Scientists and funders have also started to ask hard questions about Bogner and his creation, because GISAID’s mission could hardly be more critical: to prevent, monitor, and fight epidemics and pandemics.

    Many of those questions eventually come down to this one: Can the research community trust Peter Bogner?

    So much of modern society depends on trust in volunteer organizations. People behind them are people of all kinds, including weirdos (and worse). And crises can expose problems that aren’t apparent when sites are small and just used because they are easy and convenient.

    Worth a click.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  214. 214.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    Thats why Joe Rogan predicted a complete wipe out for Democrats in 2022- covid mitigations backlash.

    He and his ass kissing guests were 100% confident that the public would rise up to punish D’s for the “lockdowns”. Didn’t occur. At all.

  216. 216.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @J R in WV: Cool connection! I’m ok with rich parents letting their kids make their own way. We’ve seen all too often the consequences of coddling nepo babies.

  217. 217.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    But Bari Weiss insisted that parents would not forget! Joe Rogan said so!

    I actually give Weiss credit. She is the only one of the anti woke industry who admitted their dire predictions for 2022 were wrong. The rest of them just continued on pretending that this backlash they had predicted happened.

  218. 218.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The @nytimes tonight reports on one reason for Fani Willis’s delay following her statement in January that decisions were “imminent”: “…A number of witnesses have sought to cooperate as the investigation has neared an end.”

    Delay sucks, but in this case, it is for the best possible reason!!

  221. 221.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    The public shcool parent/pandemic thing was actually really interesting. As I said, I got it wrong and I was a public shcool parent at that time. I thought Democrats would take a hit for school closures. But the polling was really consistent that normie parents did not blame public schools for the closures. There was also a real spilt between white parents and AA and Latino parents. AA and Latino parents were much more supportive of closures which I think was completely rational- they were more at risk of contracting and dying from covid and they have worse outcomes in the US health care system across the board. They get worse care.

  222. 222.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Ok, sorry. So much of our discussion is “this was said on Twitter” and I really do think local groups do and must operate differently than broad online groups. “progressive” is, as you know, relative. Our Zoomer is quite progressive for my county but he would be a mainstream Democrat in most cities.

  223. 223.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator: ​

    Here is the crazy thing. For the MAGA crowd, Trump is also the president running for re election.

    Also, if Trump is “actually” the President running for re-election, he isn’t constitutionally eligible for a “third” term. But asking Trump supporters to be able to count to three appears to be really, really hard.

  225. 225.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Just in case this hasn’t been shared yet, there is a Dark Brandon tee shirt for sale!

    DARK T-SHIRT
    $32.00

    Best worn while vanquishing Malarkey. AMERICAN MADE | UNION PRINTED. Purchase is a donation to Biden Victory Fund.

    Pre-Order Now to ship by Friday, May 12.

  226. 226.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: “Now let’s see… one side is trying to keep me alive by asking me to wear this annoying piece of cloth over my face, and the other has taken away body autonomy from half the population. Decisions, decisions…”

  227. 227.

    Matt McIrvin

    @J R in WV: He had an answer for that, though: even when he was in office, he insisted that he qualified for an exception to the constitutional two-term limit because Obama spied on him in 2016 (so he had, in some sense, been robbed of a victory even though he won). It didn’t make any sense, but nothing he said made any sense so it wasn’t as if this was any more nonsensical. It fit into his lifelong general theme of “Donald Trump has been robbed of something and deserves compensation”.

  228. 228.

    Jeffro

    @tam1MI: The only question now is whether she’ll acknowledge the writing on the wall and drop out of the race, or if she’ll stay in and act as a spoiler to Democratic chances. I’m betting on the 2nd option. Sinema is just too narcissistic to think about anybody except herself.

    I’m with you – she’ll stay in.  The folks wining and dining her and promising tons of sweet, sweet lobbyist cash down the road won’t pay her unless she stays in and does her best to sink the Dem.

  229. 229.

    gwangung

    @Matt McIrvin: Um, yeah…but who do they think is shaping the media narrative?  And they don’t think Republicans would take advantage of this take?

    Sigh. Not thinking it through, are they?

  230. 230.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chris: Grandstanding opposition to COVID measures was part of DeSantis’s and Abbott’s 2022 reelection pitches, though, and they seemed to be richly rewarded for it. Maybe the electorate just had to be red enough.

  231. 231.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gwangung: I think for the most part these Democrats just have a personal preference for some younger candidate (I’ve heard Pete Buttigieg floated as the replacement, so this isn’t Twitter-lefty stuff: they hate him!) and they’re projecting that onto the general population.

  234. 234.

    Elizabelle

    @Matt McIrvin:  No way re Trump cruising to re-election.  He was never above 50 %, and he was abhorred by many.

    You can surmise what you like, but Trump’s high water mark was election night 2016.  When he lost the popular vote, decisively.  

  235. 235.

    Nelle

    Just home from coffee with some Dem women who organize to get out the vote.  Thank you for the suggestion about countering the “He is old but look at who he picks to work with!  Young, diverse, plus he listens to them.  No more “I can do it all by myself talking crap.”  It is actually going into newsletters here.  I’m not sure who brought it up but I think this is a most effective way to counter that kind of talk.

    Also, the GOP front runner is also old and, while orange, not white, so it isn’t as if this is the only old person running.

  236. 236.

    Kay

    @Paul in KY:

    I was so hoping he would be one of the governors who are unlikeable weirdos outside of their own states (Chris Christie, Scott Walker) and that seems to be true. Thank goodness. It’s better than I hoped. I had no idea he was such a freak. My husband commented on his voice months ago – just said “have you listened to him?” and I had not. Now I have. It’s bad.

  237. 237.

    WV Blondie

    @Geminid: I’ve got a loooooong history with Mooney, all the way back to his very first election – MD Senate seat in 1998 – when he used a flood of outside $$ to knock the popular, liberal Republican incumbent out of his seat. He’s an execrable simulacrum of a human being! I may very well make sure I’m registered as an independent during primary season so I can vote for Justice. I agree with the commenter above (sorry I didn’t note who said it) that there’s little difference between Justice and Manchin.

    In fact, Justice might be a smidge better. He did a very good job getting WV through the pandemic, followed the science, knew when to issue mandatory requirements, when to cajole. He seems to be his own man. Manchin, OTOH, has never cared that everyone knows who owns him.

  238. 238.

    Anyway

    I  get so pissed by this “no one works since Covid” narrative. My work has increased so much in the last 2 years and NO ONE listens to my complaints (‘cepfer Jackals maybe…)

  239. 239.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: The fact that he voiced concerns was good because it gave you a chance to address them, which sounds like it ended up positive for Democrats. If he never says anything, you never get to address it.

  240. 240.

    narya

    @zeecube: Or if Tester gets >50% while the other two split the vote. I don’t know how they’re wording the legislation, but it is even more of a naked power grab than usual.

  241. 241.

    Ksmiami

    @Matt McIrvin: the only things that would crash this economy are the fed being pig-headed or default. Since when has 3.5-4.5 percent unemployment meant recession?

  242. 242.

    Ksmiami

    @Matt McIrvin: Ah but even Trump recognizes that the federalist trash appointees have made guns and abortion top of mind for millions of voters. As Kay can attest, women are still mad. And getting madder.

  244. 244.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I’m a little biased because he’s a young male and he got all worked up about the Ohio R effort to take our referendums from 50% passage to 60% passage which he knows is about the abortion referendum we are putting on the ballot so now I consider him my ally in that group, which is Right leaning Dems and frankly pretty sexist. I was impressed by that.

  245. 245.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Nelle: An old, white man who actually listens to, supports and tries to promote/empower young people and PoC is a rare thing indeed.  You can also point out that a big part of Biden’s appeal is that he is building/carrying on the legacy of Obama who was relatively young and definitely not-white!  So Biden’s position/brand was really unique, in that regard.  And I haven’t seen Biden do anything to suggest that he believes the Presidency or any other position in government should default to Old, White Men.  In fact his efforts at increasing diversity suggest the exact opposite.  He’s appointed a whole laundry list of First Black, First Native, First Woman, First LGBTQ etc., people to positions of real power and is helping set a precedent for making sure these people are always at the table and perhaps more importantly, that White Men need to use their power/position to help ensure that, going forward.  That’s really important for changing our political culture.

  246. 246.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: hard to say you’re for bodily autonomy while Dobbs literally made 50 percent of the population forced livestock…

  247. 247.

    The Thin Black Duke

    In my dreams, I’m seeing a Lincoln Project ad where Biden is saying to Americans, “Vote for me if you want to live.” I wish it was hyperbole. I don’t think this country can survive another Republican administration at this point in time.

  250. 250.

    2liberal

    the federal reserve is gearing up for election season.  Lots of layoffs in the news. time for a rate increase! (again)

  251. 251.

    trollhattan

    Fun fact: Julie Chávez Rodriguez is the granddaughter of Cesar Chávez, who knew a thing or two about organizing.

    Yet another example of Dark Brandon walking the talk.

  253. 253.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: I have been quite scared of him, before the magnifying glass got put on him. IMO, he’s worse (by a little) than TFG.

  255. 255.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Paul in KY: Ron DeSantis polled stronger than Trump in a head-to-head against Biden, in the early surveys that were done when he was being hyped up as the great non-Trump hope of the Republicans who had won the pandemic. I think most of that advantage has vanished, though–he’s not “generic Republican” any more.

  260. 260.

    rikyrah

    ANOTHER anonymous weasel who won’t put his name out there.

    coward.

    Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) tweeted at 9:12 PM on Fri, Apr 21, 2023:
    A GOP member who doesn’t want Trump to be the nominee again just sent me this: “Interesting how some pick on DeSantis’ introverted personality and ignore the gross, junior high like taunting by #45. It is exactly what turned off suburban voters and cost him the election in 2022.”
    (https://twitter.com/Olivia_Beavers/status/1649597060092444675?s=02)

  262. 262.

    UncleEbeneezer

    A special prosecutor in Michigan has used a secret grand jury to weigh criminal charges against a group of Trump supporters who obtained and examined voting machines in Michigan after the 2020 election.

  264. 264.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: By Cleek’s Law, we will shortly be seeing ads on Fox for companies that will replace your copper with good, old-fashioned lead pipe.

  269. 269.

    RaflW

    What if Joe Biden’s age is one of his best assets? He’s been around long enough to not fall for all the GOP tricks, bullshit, and misdirection that seem to ensnare 7/8th of our idiotic and uncurious Beltway media.

  271. 271.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I see a lot of conservatives with these purely stylistic laments about Trump where they just seem to hate Trump’s public personality, but insist that policy-wise he was a fine President and that Biden has been a catastrophe from day one–and they’re upset that Trump’s asshole behavior will keep the public from seeing that.

    Kind of feels like the traditional complaints of liberals in reverse, that the people ought to be with us policy-wise but they get hung up on personality-based distaste for liberals. Nice for the shoe to be on the other foot for once.

  272. 272.

    Jeffro

    btw I know folks don’t like That Paper much but Michelle Goldberg’s column today is titled, “Tucker Carlson’s Great Replacement” and for that ALONE I have to thank her.  But the rest is good, too.

    “The end of [Carlson’s] Fox News tenure should be a reminder to people on the left not to surrender to the cynical illusion that to revive a trump-era phrase, nothing matters…Once in a while, justice is delivered.”

    “It’s impossible to know what happens to his career now that Carlson has achieved the rare cable news trifecta of of flaming out at CNN, MSNBC, and Fox…but other Fox hosts have seen their relevance rapidly diminish after being deprived of the network’s platform.”

    May the FSM make it so!

  273. 273.

    Manyakitty

    @Matt McIrvin: my preferred response to that is, “Maybe they’re dead.” Usually doesn’t elicit much more than an eye roll, but it tends to shut down that particular strain of whinging.

  274. 274.

    Elizabelle

    @RaflW:  That is a great way to turn that around!  Remembering that line of argument.

    Added bonus:  it is true.

    Unlike so many who have the memory of an addled goldfish.

  275. 275.

    WaterGirl

    @UncleEbeneezer: I must be psychic because just this morning I was wondering whether Michigan was going to get in the game with the election shenanigans in MI, or whether Gretchen/Dems want to keep their head down on the election stuff and just continue to kick ass on everything else.

  279. 279.

    sdhays

    @Kay: Thank you for pushing back on this. “COVID doomed Trump” is the conventional wisdom, but without COVID, basically all of 2020 plays out differently. For example, for all we know, the economy might have headed into recession in the fall, just as people started voting, without COVID to blame. We just don’t know what happens in 2020 if COVID doesn’t hit.

    One big thing we know would have been different – Democrats would have had a large conventional ground game which they sacrificed for public health. I seem to recall that they went ahead with normal door knocking in Arizona(?) and it’s credited with possibly making the difference there.

    So it’s plausible that Biden’s victory could have been bigger without COVID. We just don’t know.

  281. 281.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I constantly hear from people like Bill Maher that “50% of the country doesn’t agree with Democrats”, as if the electorate is equally divided between R’s and D’s, when we of course know that’s not true. The press says stuff like this a lot too, saying “Half the country” when it’s more like the magic 27%.

  282. 282.

    Soprano2

    @PJ: OMG, I can’t tell you how many memes I’ve see on FB about how gas was so much cheaper when TFG was president, prices were lower, etc.

  285. 285.

    BruceFromOhio

    I look forward to the FTFNYT wearing out the bearings on the THIS IS CLEARLY BAD NEWS FOR DEMOCRATS/JOE BIDEN/OTHER SHIT WE MAKE UP AS WE THINK OF IT front page templates. Maybe this will be the election coverage that is produced entirely by ChatGPT.

  287. 287.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think it harmed children’s social development quite a bit, especially grade schoolers. I was never worried about the learning, because most kids can catch up pretty fast, although it’s hard on lower level learners. Getting the social development back up to speed is a lot harder.

  288. 288.

    Soprano2

    @Ken: ROFLMAO Or “cat food and dog food” or pretty much anything else. During the first two years of covid there were a lot of weird shortages. I still find myself wondering if they’ll have canned cat food this week.

  289. 289.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    This is a 22 year old male who knows every detail of the GOP push to put a ballot initiative out in August to increase the percentage needed to pass an initiative from 50% to 60%.

     

    Completely anti-democratic (small d)

  290. 290.

    rikyrah

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I think Jon Tester is more likely than not to win re-election, but it’s gonna be a tough fight, and it’s far from guaranteed, especially as Montana does seem to have gotten more red.  That’s the one that worries me.

     

    Tester is a good Senator who seems to know how to find his voters and bring them out.

  291. 291.

    rikyrah

    @lowtechcyclist:

     But if we wind up with 50 Senate seats in 2025 with the only changes from 2022 being Fetterman, Gallego, and a new CA Dem instead of Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein, Senators like King and Warner won’t be able to hide behind Manchinema anymore when it comes to carving out filibuster exceptions for voting rights and the like.

     

    I know that’s right. Don’t let them hide anymore.

  292. 292.

    rikyrah

    @narya:

     And the Montana leg is trying to turn JUST this election into one like California, where the top two vote getters have a runoff (if no one wins outright, I guess).

    Yes, JUST THIS ELECTION.

     

    Phuck Outta Here.

  293. 293.

    rikyrah

    @tam1MI:

    The only question now is whether she’ll acknowledge the writing on the wall and drop out of the race, or if she’ll stay in and act as a spoiler to Democratic chances. I’m betting on the 2nd option. Sinema is just too narcissistic to think about anybody except herself.

    Truth.

  294. 294.

    Ruckus

    The president is supposed to be a leader for all, not a roadblock to many. Joe Biden is. Many of us here have been on this earth for a bunch of decades and seen many different types of leaders. And many types of bullshit. Joe is a man that wants to do good for all. And has proven that all is a rather inclusive word. He’s not for the rich and powerful. He’s not for the poor and hungry. He’s not for the middle of the road.

    He’s for all of us, the good, the not so good and everyone inbetween. Joe is not all that charismatic, he is himself. He’s not perfect, but then who is? He’s old – and experienced. Do we want pompous arrogance or do we want leadership? Which of those do you think work better? Is Joe too old? From any one perspective, maybe yes. But from the perspective of all of us does his age give him a better vantage point to do the actual, real work of being president? In Joe I think his age does. He doesn’t see the world through only old eyes, he thinks about real humans in real ways and lives, no matter their age.

    How well has he done so far, especially against those that have gone before?

    In my eighth decade I can see that he’s as good as the best that has gone before him and better than most of them.

  296. 296.

    rikyrah

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    An old, white man who actually listens to, supports and tries to promote/empower young people and PoC is a rare thing indeed.  You can also point out that a big part of Biden’s appeal is that he is building/carrying on the legacy of Obama who was relatively young and definitely not-white!  So Biden’s position/brand was really unique, in that regard.

     

    He wasn’t only the Vice -President to the first Black President, but, there’s not an instance, during those 8 years, where it seemed as if Biden was trying to undermine Obama.

    As a Black American, you can’t understand how profound that is.

  297. 297.

    rikyrah

    @The Thin Black Duke:

     I don’t think this country can survive another Republican administration at this point in time.

     

    You ain’t never lied.

    I don’t wanna live in a Police State. My parents did, in Mississippi and Tennessee during the Jim Crow South. They fought so that I didn’t have to.

  298. 298.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    “Donald Trump has been robbed of something and deserves compensation”.

    That is SFB’s way of saying that once again, he fucked up. Which he has been doing since he was at least a teen. He’s been saying this for so long and never once admitting that he is a fuck up deluxe, maybe THE fuck up deluxe of the world that it has become his excuse for everything he’s ever done, which is every single time he’s attempted anything, he’s fucked it up.

  300. 300.

    Al Rennick

    Biden is clearly too old to run in 2024 and shame on all of you for your willful blindness in the face of his physical and mental decline.

  301. 301.

    RevRick

    I, for one, am stoked that Biden’s campaign will take the right’s culture war head on. Not only will it reclaim patriotism for the left, but it’s using a clear, simple message, one that doesn’t require nuance and explanations.

    One of the biggest mistake that we who are online political junkies forget is that the marginal voter, who decides elections, is not. Politics is a fifth order concern for most of them, and often they express it by voting against what they perceive will add to their life’s problems. Emotional messages that clarify the issues resonate with them.

  303. 303.

    J R in WV

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    He was there quite a bit for her, was noticed walking in the rural neighborhood she moved to after leaving TV production for example. I think there is nothing about Harry Belafonte that you can criticize. I think it would be fair to say she built a successful life and family, and Harry provided some spice on occasion.

    He was a beautiful man with amazing talent, we will miss him…

    One of the bad things about aging is that I get to see so many heroes of my youth die, or lose their luster from the true facts.

  304. 304.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:

    I think of it as their sheen was polished too much so we didn’t see the flaws. Because we all have them, some are just far more flaws than not.

  305. 305.

    UncleEbeneezer

    How long does he have to be the one who is right before people admit he knows what he’s doing?

    This old man got the most votes ever in the history of ever. And he did it exactly how he said he would. And he’s governed better than any of his detractors said he would. He low key brought the party together. People said that was impossible.

    In a world full of attention grabbing turmoil voters might want a “boring” steady president at the helm after that chaotic ass bigot republicans installed last time.

Comments are closed.