Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The revolution will be supervised.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You cannot shame the shameless.

I really should read my own blog.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Let’s Finish the Job

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Let’s Finish the Job

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… Biden is a grinder. He can’t do it any other way. He is never going to be a great speaker, nor will he ever light up a room, and he’s not going to go out of his way to provoke or inflame. His great strength is that he loves politics and everything about them. He loves the rituals and customs. He loves meeting the folks and checking out the new farm equipment. He loves pancake breakfasts and chicken dinners. It is his great strength that he can do all this and not seem in anyway artificial.

I am concerned about his age, although my concern is tempered by the fact that the Republican frontrunner is pushing 80, and often can’t get from a subject to a verb without spraining his ankle. What I am truly concerned about is the reason behind the expressed concern of other people, because I think there’s a factor at play here that nobody is talking about when they talk about Biden’s age. There are far too many Democrats who don’t like the idea of Kamala Harris’ becoming president, which, we should face facts, the actuarial tables say is more likely with an incumbent in his 80s. And this, I believe, is quite shameful.

I will never understand the hostility with which some Democrats regard the vice-president. (OK, there are some easily understood reasons for it.) Granted, there was a lot of misplaced anger circulating in the 2020 primary field, but it seemed to take on a particular virulence when directed at Harris, who did, after all, call out the president in a debate for his long-ago flirtation with anti-busing politics. This, frankly, I thought was pretty brave. That the president picked Harris as his running mate anyway makes me think he felt much the same way. But I would bet a shiny buffalo nickel that a lot of the “unease” about the president’s age is tied in with a profound unease regarding a Harris succession. It is quite clear, however, that the president is comfortable with the choice he made three years ago. And he’s off again, in the last campaign of his life. I think.

ETA: Me too!

Reader Interactions

221Comments

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    The choice is simple.

    It’s between fascism and democracy (small d)

    That’s what 2024 is.

    And, I think the Democrats need to run continuous ads on the nightmares of the laws being passed in Red States and make it clear that’s what they want for all of America.

  6. 6.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    That piece about Harris is right on. After watching years of misogyny directed at Hilary Clinton, and adding in the racism that’s always there, no one should be surprised.

  9. 9.

    sdhays

    Put me down as someone who is completely comfortable with “old Biden”, and a substantial reason for that is VP Harris. The media doesn’t want to acknowledge that Harris has a fan base too (and some of us are even white! and male!).

    Can you imagine if the VP was someone like Joe Lieberman? My god!

  10. 10.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Let’s Go, Biden. I was profoundly skeptical in 2020, but he won me over in the job with room to spare.

    And, god forbid, four more years becomes only two; I’m thrilled to have Kamala Harris waiting in the wings. Fuck the haters

    Eta:

    @sdhays: The media doesn’t want to acknowledge that Harris has a fan base too (and some of us are even white! and male!).

    Present

    Put me down as someone who is completely comfortable with “old Biden”,

    Tho I prefer new Biden. His ability to learn and grow well into seniority ought to be an inspiration to us all.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    Rick Wilson about Tuckums:

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:05 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    1/ A few quick thoughts about Tucker.

    First, and most deliciously, is the seething, furious meltdown on the right, alt-right, and loon-right. On the right, Tucker’s wealth, origins, and prep-school presentation always helped launder the uglier stuff and dumb-down complex…

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:07 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    2/ …issues for the demo. (Boomer, older GenX non-hs grads who comprise the core of the base). On the alt-right, Bannon’s stompy-foot pissy-fit about Tucker and Fox tells you he lost the single best venue for laundering white nationalist…

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:11 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    3/ …agitprop into the normies cable boxes. His “I’m just telling you why the Soros-funded brown people are trying to rape your women and take your job by cucking you” schtick was normative and essential for Bannon et al on the alt-reich.

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:13 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    4/ The white nats loved Tucker, whom they called “Our guy” and correctly saw him as a gateway drug for their more virulent and obvious messages. For normies, Tucker could wink and nod about it, but the white-robe crowd filled their hate spank banks with Tucker clips.

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:14 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    5/ For the loons, there was nothing he couldn’t amp up. Election fraud, vaccine denial, Soros, and every other nutbird conspiracy was laundered into the “THEY are hiding the SECRET TRUTH from you”…and it validated the crazies in the same way as the white nats.

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:25 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    6/ The shock of this will ripple through the enormous right-wing media ecosystem for ages to come. He was the big goal for MAGA activists: the Tucker Hit.

    Consider this: Ron DeSantis predicated his entire campaign on winning the “Tucker Primary.”

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:26 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    7/ Many people on the right have adopted a position that may be wishcasting; “Tucker will be back on a new streaming channel tomorrow and you’ll rue the day, libtards!”

    Maybe not. Fox probably has a pretty stiff noncompete in his contract, so I wouldn’t count…

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:34 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    9/ What if he runs? He’s rich enough. He’d instantly have an online fundraising juggernaut second only to Trump, and perhaps surpassing him. He’s polarizing, terrible, and utterly amoral…in short, better than Ron DeSantis for the base.

    I’d argue he’s the only Republican…

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:37 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    10/ …who presents a material danger to Donald Trump in a primary.

    Celebrity, money, mental acuity, cynicism, pro-Putin isolationism, and an overt love of authoritarianism are a pretty strong secret sauce for the MAGA base.

    Celebrity got Trump the WH.

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:39 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    11/ It could certainly do the same for Tucker. And spare me your “That could never happen. Even Trump’s GOP would never vote for a former TV host pushing white replacement theory.”

    That’s PRECISELY who they’d vote for.

    Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) tweeted at 7:45 AM on Tue, Apr 25, 2023:
    12/ This iteration of “A Face In the Crowd” doesn’t end with a revelation of the real character of the showman-as-politician. This one ends with Tucker running and possibly winning a herrenvolk campaign, where his flaws don’t matter, only his capacity for hate.

    End.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Do not care for “Let’s finish the job” and its implication of finality, of reaching a point after which there will be nothing more to be done.

    Would much prefer “Let’s continue the job.”

  14. 14.

    Raoul Paste

    What did a campaigning Reagan say?  Something like  “ I will not hold my opponent’s youth and inexperience against him.”

    And the press loved it because IOKIYAR

  15. 15.

    Gin & Tonic

    Why am I seeing the word “based” everywhere now? I gather it is a favorable expression? What is its origin?

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    Those tapes from Tucker’s producer I bet are a treasure trove. That they caught Rafael Cruz…who else did they catch?

  18. 18.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Gin & Tonic: I’ve been wondering the same thing. I take people for their meaning, which seems to be along the same lines as “woke” unironically and unmaliciously.

    Still, I don’t adopt slang terms until I have a full grip of their etymology. My younger friends don’t use this, I mostly hear it online, so I don’t have a clear line of inquiry until I decide to do some research.

  20. 20.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @rikyrah: You mean these rubes I’m fleecing for their toxic views on taxation and governance want their toxic views on gender and race attended to also?

    ¡Que horror!

  21. 21.

    narya

    Love that aviators-and-Chucks image! One of the things I enjoy most about this administration is the joy and outright FUN of both of them have, right alongside their serious approach to the needs of the people. TFG was so spiteful and sour and cruel–yes, the cruelty is the point–and drew that negative energy into everything he or his flunkies touched.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    A smidgen of elder mirth.

    Q: When is too old too old?

    A: Depends.

    [insert rimshot here]

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Honestly, I can’t think of anyone more capable/fit to take over the reins if needed, than VP Harris.  She’s whip-smart on policy.  Has a keen understanding of Structural/Systemic Racism and Misogyny in America and has been pushing to address those (along with expanding LGBTQ rights) since early in the Primary.  She doesn’t take White Nationalism or the threats to our Democracy lightly.  She seems very adept at handling the press and GOP nonsense without losing her cool or taking the bait.  She’s always shown a willingness to work with the other side when they are actually interested in doing so.  She has experience now with numerous foreign diplomats.  And she’s hopeful but pragmatic about what can be achieved given the political landscape and structural limitations.  Also, she just seems like a good person and a great role model.

  24. 24.

    oatler

    ABC has found the fatal flaw: Biden is too old and Kamala is too Radical Left to be president. Now here’s Chris Christie to weigh in.

  26. 26.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @narya: I get the signature Joe aviators but does Harris wear Chucks? Not sure where that part of the motif is coming from to be honest.

    To some degree I get the nervousness of having Harris as POTUS…not saying it’s not for the wrong reasons but we got TFG because just barely enough of the country was driven crazy enough by 8 years of a black POTUS + a female nominee to give him to us…the concern is that a black female POTUS would tip the scales again. I would enthusiastically vote for Harris if she’s the nominee but I get why some Dem voters might be a little nervous about racism + misogyny tipping the scales toward her opponent in a presidential general election. Maybe those concerns are overblown. I hope they are.

  30. 30.

    narya

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yeah, there was a whole thing on her Chucks during the 2020 campaign

    but I get why some Dem voters might be a little nervous about racism + misogyny tipping the scales toward her opponent in a presidential general election

    Yeah, I do, too, but I think at this point we just move forward. When we get to another primary for the office then we’ll see what happens.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: +1

    But Joe and his team know politics, so probably like how it inspires a “we all need to get to work together” kind of feeling.

    They can have multiple slogans, also too!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I set up a monthly donation yesterday, and I’m gonna order a Dark Brandon coffee mug

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Why am I seeing the word “based” everywhere now? I gather it is a favorable expression? What is its origin?

    I feel like I only saw it in alt-right stuff a few years ago, so this makes me wary. But maybe they just stole it from something better and it’s okay, I dunno.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @NotMax: @Another Scott:  I like the slogan.  It emphasizes that they have done a lot, but that there is still more to do.  To me, it does not have an implication that four more years of Biden/Harris will fix everything.  YMMV and let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: The cause endures, the work goes on, and the dream shall never die!

    but Scranton Joe and his team know his audience, I think

  37. 37.

    Redshift

    @narya:

    Yeah, I do, too, but I think at this point we just move forward. When we get to another primary for the office then we’ll see what happens.

    I agree. We’re always in the situation that Dems are more likely to win if we nominate a boring older white guy, but that’s never going to change unless we take that risk to make progress.

  38. 38.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @narya: Right.  The alternative would be never to nominate a woman, black, latinx, jewish, AAPI, LGBTQ person etc.  There will always be a risk of backlash to nominating a candidate who isn’t a cis/het, white man.  Our population is diversifying fast but many states like FL, TX, AZ, PA etc., will be a challenge for a while, especially those that are doubling-down on voter suppression.

  40. 40.

    Scout211

    Joe and Kamala.  Yes, let’s get it done.

    Sordid update on Tucker Carlson: I learned from the Daily Show last night that Fox News has evidence that Tucker repeatedly used the c-word  to refer to women. Abby Grossberg has evidence and also witnessed it. The news reports are all talking about it this morning. I guess Fox News really does have a trove of evidence against him in case he sues them.

  42. 42.

    Barbara

    @Scout211: I can’t believe Carlson was fired over his use of the “c” word.  When I objected to its use here (it was used in ironic terms) I received a significant amount of pushback, and I doubt if Murdoch or his viewers care enough about the sensibilities of women to make its use a disciplinary matter at all.

  43. 43.

    Ken

    @Scout211: So what MTG said* is true, Fox fired him because they’re too woke.

    * Her statement was made shortly after the firing, so may no longer be operative now that TFG has mumbled through an interview.

  44. 44.

    Matt McIrvin

    I actively disliked Joe Biden until he was Obama’s Vice-President–and performed entirely admirably in that role. He seems to have done a lot of evolving over that time.

    A lot of the Democratic disquiet with Kamala Harris is couched in meta-terms: she has worse poll numbers than they’d like, worse than this or that other person. “I’m not the one who dislikes her, those other people dislike her and that’s what I’m worried about.” And sometimes they’ll propose that Biden drop her and run with somebody else, as if this swap could be done without political cost. I like that Biden has very explicitly announced that he’s running with her; I think part of the reason for the early announcement is to squelch that kind of speculation.

  45. 45.

    Quinerly

    Has Ozark been around? Terrible house fire Sun in our old neighborhood of Soulard. Friend messaged me early Sun AM. Pretty sure Ozark knows the victim. Great musician, neighborhood feature for over 45 years. Made the front page of The Post Dispatch. Tom Hall. Just devasting.

  46. 46.

    smith

    @UncleEbeneezer: There will always be a risk of backlash to nominating a candidate who isn’t a cis/het, white man.

    The only way to get past that is to normalize candidates who are not cis/het, white men. That means we keep nominating and backing them until it’s no longer remarkable.

    We also need to work on our own tribe more. The amount of misogyny directed at Hillary and misogynoir at Harris coming from within our house has been most distressing. We’ll likely never budge the Goobers from their bigotry, but we can push our own people to deeper self-reflection.

    Luckily, we should get a lot of help in this from younger people. That’s the optimistic take I get from “cancel culture” — the Youngs are willing to be loud and in your face about this stuff.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gin & Tonic: I originally saw it being used by horrible alt-right people as an expression of political approval, then it was appropriated by other people to mean the same thing in less horrible contexts.

    But it apparently has a longer prehistory: it originally meant “must be on drugs”, referring to freebasing cocaine, but the rapper Lil B repurposed it as a positive term meaning roughly “doesn’t care what you think”. And the politically charged uses proceeded from there.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Scout211: they got rid of O’Reilly for costing them a lot less than Tucker did, and it seems as if Abby Grossberg is gonna cost them a bit more, and Smartmatic is still out there.

    The already set cliché is that Tucker thought he was bigger than Fox News. I’m guessing the old lion wanted to show everyone he could still bite, especially if you cost him money.

    Some Biden-friendly PAC should figure out a way to raise money off a countdown to Maria Bartiromo deciding to spend more time with her meds

  51. 51.

    narya

    @A Man for All Seaonings (formerly Geeno): @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Matt McIrvin:  It’s almost like . . . Biden doesn’t know his audience! Or maybe he doesn’t know that Kamala is black?!!l!

    More seriously, what all of you are alluding to is that the MSM still ignores BIPOC folks as any kind of real constituency. It’s like, oh, you have to get the black vote, but you don’t have to work for it, and it’s trivial, because they’re not the (white, male, cishet) Masters of the Universe whose opinion is what is truly important.

  52. 52.

    CaseyL

    Rick Wilson is not someone I take seriously as a political commentator anymore.  He turns a good phrase, but his lifelong mission to create the current GOP can never be forgotten or forgiven.  He did much of the heavy lifting to create politics-as-bloodsport, and that is always going to be the prism through which he analyzes politics.  Most, if not all, of his predictions have been wrong.

    I also don’t think much of the Lincoln Project, which seems to be ineffectual at anything other than keeping Wilson, Setmayer, et al. in the media eye.  Maybe it peeled off a percentage point or two in 2020, but it did nothing to help with the downballot races.

    (Wilson is not alone. There are quite a few commentators I no longer pay attention to, left and right.  They exist in their own hermetically sealed bubbles, only theirs are defined by Conventional Wisdom and Some People Say.)

  55. 55.

    Llelldorin

    @Barbara: I can’t believe they actually care, but I can absolutely believe that they can suddenly pretend to care when the guy helped cost them three quarters of a billion dollars.

    Particularly if Carlson could make a strong case that they agreed with him on the latter stuff until it suddenly cost them.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    @Llelldorin:

    @Barbara: I can’t believe they actually care, but I can absolutely believe that they can suddenly pretend to care when the guy helped cost them three quarters of a billion dollars.

     

    Not only that, but, it wasn’t going to stop there. The other company suing them was asking for almost twice what Dominion was suing for.

  58. 58.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @CaseyL: Brian Williams used to wax ecstatic about the Lincoln Project ads, I don’t think he let an hour go by in the 2020 campaign without smugly lamenting that “The people making the best ads for Democrats are former Republicans!”, but polling and focus groups I believe showed that Biden’s most effective ads were boring old Joe talking about cringe stuff like coming together to save the soul of America. Wilson et al knew how to speak to the sort of people who watched, and appeared on, the Brian Williams Show (ETA: including me!), but for normies, Wilson’s bite didn’t measure up to his bark about his “particular set of skills”

    I never even thought about sending them a dime. I gather they do a lot of fund-raising in Hollywood. David Geffen IIRC gave them a bankroll

  60. 60.

    The Thin Black Duke

    I don’t want to hear any more shit about “Uh, maybe we should be cool about promoting Kamala as POTUS because she’ll scare some white voters away”, OK? Using that logic, it will never be the right time, whenever that is.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @narya: Yeah, and the interesting thing is that Biden actually doesn’t seem to be taking them for granted in the way that previous white Democratic politicians sometimes did. But the bobbleheads in the political media don’t get it.

  63. 63.

    Jay C

    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.

    Except that the HUGE problem we have in the American political system (well, one of them, anyway) is that said voters have to rely, for information, communication, interaction and opinion-dissemination on a media system that is either blatantly biased and dishonest (the infamous “RWNM”), or (the “MSM”) hopelessly wedded to “horserace” narratives, tabloid-scandal sensationalism, and with a inbuilt reflexive attitude that “boring” is the Ultimate Hideous Obscenity. What the voters might or might want is a virtual irrelevancy to Selling The Story.

  65. 65.

    geg6

    @UncleEbeneezer: ​
     
    Don’t lump PA in there. We have now elected a stroke survivor as Senator, a Jewish guy as Governor and a Black guy as Lt. Governor. We just need a woman to win a big office and we’ll be as woke as any state. ;-)

  66. 66.

    Anyway

    @rikyrah:

    I am with you – Thiel will always give $$$$ to Rethugs and R-adjacent reactionaries. They are his people.

    ETA – Plus there’s a ton of ways that  people with his kind of wealth can influence the political process. It’s not like me and my measly $20 …

     

    Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) tweeted at 5:45 AM on Wed, Apr 26, 2023: Thiel is upset about Republicans’ obsession with social issues like abortion and transgender rights and says he won’t make any political contributions this cycle. https://t.co/XXjHnUmNHB (https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1651175594791501827?t=IB9lzIMdBn2Nty51yc8uWQ&s=03)

  70. 70.

    Suzanne

    Has anyone checked on Rod Dreher to see if he’s died of shock from Tucker getting fired? I mean, a girl can dream.

  71. 71.

    Scout211

    @Barbara: I can’t believe Carlson was fired over his use of the “c” word.

    I don’t believe that, either. It’s either all the things we know or something or things we don’t know that was the last straw for Fox News.

    But calling staff, guests and management the c-word would likely be a violation of his contract, even a contract with Fox News. So if he does try to sue them for wrongful termination, they have a trove of evidence that he violated the fine print on his employment contract. And I agree that they obviously didn’t care about it until now. For some reason.

  72. 72.

    geg6

    @Quinerly:

    They’ve been creating havoc in certain school districts around here for a couple of years now.  They are all about book banning and trans scares.  I’ve seen so much of them on local news that I can pick one of these harpies out in any crowd.  They all have the same uptight Karen look.

  73. 73.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah:

    Yep. Great observation.

    I grew up in the South in the 1960’s. I have seen a variation of this in my lifetime up close and personal. Pitt County NC was late to desegregaation like a lot of places. When two community highschools were combined around 1970, one community was well over 50% Black (Ayden) and one community (Grifton) much less than 50% due to a creek that divided the township…For the most part, the Black community of my hometown of Grifton was in Lenoir County, other side of the creek. The guy who was hired as  principal came from the mostly White community, plus lived in the local “Country Club Hills “subdivision. His family woke up to a cross burning in their front yard after it was publicized that he was going to be the principal of the new consolidated HS. More than likely his neighbors did it trying to scare him from starting the job when the new consolidated HS was goung to be opened in the Fall. Didn’t work. He started the job. Many neighbors enrolled their children in a start up “private academy.”

  76. 76.

    narya

    @Matt McIrvin: Two of the things that put me in Joe’s camp were, first, a black commenter pointed out that Biden served Obama for eight years–truly SERVED him, not begrudgingly or as if he thought his white skin secretly made him better–served him and learned and supported, and, second, when Clyburn supported him. Selecting Kamala as his running mate really sealed the deal. He’s one of the first white politicians, especially of his generation, to truly try to recognize, in word and deed, that this is not just a country for/by old white men.

  77. 77.

    JPL

    @Quinerly:  Thanks for reposting, and I think you should send it to a front pager.   It’s horrifying.   I passed it on to friends and family.

  79. 79.

    VOR

    Yes, I wish Biden was 20 years younger but if the choice is 82 year old Joe vs. Fascism, then I’ll crawl over broken glass to vote for Joe. Easy call.

    I suspect some of the antagonism directed at VP Harris is the fact she is positioned to be the successor. And there are a LOT of people in the Democratic Party who think they ought to have that job. For example, there were 29 declared candidates in Democratic primaries in 2020.

  80. 80.

    Ksmiami

    @CaseyL: agreed. The only true converts I respect are Jennifer Rubin and inching toward Nichols But they were never into politics as bloodsport anyway.

  84. 84.

    sdhays

    Supposedly, Murdoch fired Carlson because he was was getting concerned about the guy’s messianic complex. His former fiancé apparently told old Rupert that Carlson is a “messenger from God”, and Murdoch dropped her a few days later.

    That seems to me to be potentially very damaging if religious conservatives take it as atheist Murdoch silencing them. My bet, though, is that they’ll pretend not to notice because they need Murdoch and don’t have equivalent options.

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Quinerly: Great article — thanks for sharing the link! I’ve posted about these extremists here before, and I’m glad to see national media outlets taking a closer look at them.

    They got lots of puff pieces early on that credulously passed along their cover story, i.e., that they’re just a grassroots moms group. It’s 100% bullshit, as one of their victims who was quoted in the Vice article explains.

    The founders and people who run it are all long-time GOP operatives. They were all in for DeSantis last year in his reelection, and he returned the favor by endorsing lots of these kooks for schoolboard races. An alarmingly large number of them won.

  86. 86.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    Carlson has a couple of problems if he decides to run.  First, his popularity on the right is entirely because he has a TV show on a major news network.  Without that spotlight, he’s at big risk of sinking into obscurity.  He just doesn’t have the platforms Trump and DeSantis do to keep more than the fringiest fringe talking about him.

    Second, he has no identity other than ‘ultra-bigoted batshit loon’ and that’s great in the primary, but maybe even worse than Trump in the general.  If he gets on stage in a presidential election and says woke groomers like Disney are destroying America’s manliness, normies are going to run for the exits.

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I don’t know where it came from, but ‘based’ is a commonly known but not everyday use word among The Youth.  It is the inverse of ‘cringe’.  ‘Cringe’ is… well, doing something that makes people cringe.  ‘Based’ means having the self-confidence to make it cool.  Often used as a more general ‘what a cool person would do.’

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I have abuse victim defensive crouch from 2016, but you are 100% right.  If we always wait until tomorrow to do the right thing, then we’ll be doing the wrong thing forever and might as well be the bad guys who want to do the wrong thing.

  88. 88.

    Surly Duff

    I’m more worried about Kamala running for president than I am about her being president.

    There’s a line of thinking that Biden, having secured re-election, will step down sometime in his second term so Harris can at least have the advantage of incumbency when she runs on her own. It’s not a horrible idea.

  89. 89.

    Quinerly

    @sdhays:

    This is my favorite theory as I said in a couple of threads ago. Gabe Sherman’s reporting in Vanity Fair.

    Also, overnight when I couldn’t sleep, I stumbled on the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal reporting Carlson was shit canned for the c word. That has to be my second favorite theory. Does anybody else find it fascinating that THE WSJ is reporting on the c word? We should search and see if this as ever happened before. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

  90. 90.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Surly Duff: Yeah, but that scenario is one of political reporters’ perennial favorite things to speculate about. They speculated about it with Clinton and Gore, they speculated about it with Obama and Biden. It didn’t happen then.

    As much as I like Harris, I think the public would respond to that as a manipulative bait-and-switch, unless Biden very explicitly said he was resigning over health concerns and maybe even then.

  92. 92.

    Cameron

    I’m glad Bernie bowed out before even stepping in, and endorsed the President, too.  Avoids a lot of pointless sound and fury.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I have abuse victim defensive crouch from 2016

    Hell, I’ve got it from 1980-84. Somewhere in the back of my mind is always the assumption that the median normie is a Reaganite. The thing is, the electorate is not the same as it was then. Those people who were voting for Reagan in ’84, the ones who are still alive, are mostly still all in for Trump. But the demographics changed.

  94. 94.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I am starting to wonder if Carlson was let go because the pile of reasons he had to go kept getting higher until the camel’s back broke.  I mean, we’re inundated with ‘the real reason Carlson was fired’ stories and they would all be plenty by themselves.

  96. 96.

    JPL

    @Betty Cracker: I’m surprised that they haven’t made more inroads in GA, but I’m sure they are trying.  So far the organization is limited to a few counties in northeast GA.

  97. 97.

    gwangung

    @smith: We also need to work on our own tribe more. The amount of misogyny directed at Hillary and misogynoir at Harris coming from within our house has been most distressing. We’ll likely never budge the Goobers from their bigotry, but we can push our own people to deeper self-reflection.

    A-fricking-men.

  98. 98.

    Cacti

    I’ll support the Dem nominee which will almost certainly be Biden. But personally, I’m ready for a changing of the guard from the gerontocracy.

    We’re almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, and the candidates are likely to be two guys born in the 1940s…again. (sigh)

  99. 99.

    wonkie

    I’m concerned about winning first, second, last and on to infinity. Winning. I’ll vote for and work for any Democrat. My worry about Biden is that somehow he doesn’t seem to get the credit he deserves from the chattering classes, the msm, the people who could set the tone and set the conventional wisdom. That conventional wisdom is a pretty powerful force with swing voters. TO win Biden needs to GOTV and get enough of the swing voters. Trump will help with GOTV. The swing voters are mostly irrational and uninformed people who vote based on how which bingo ball rattling around in their heads gets pulled.

    I am worried about Kamela running for office (If Biden can’t for some reason like being dead) because I am afraid that she wouldn’t win. I also know from experience that any statement less than a totally positive endorsement of her can draw claims of being sexist, racist, or both. She ran a lousy campaign. Appointing her sister was a big mistake. Has she learned how to organize a campaign? I don’t know.

    Will sexism, racism and both be factors? Yes. There are plenty of people who won’t vote for a black woman. However, there are also people who would crawl naked over a hundred acres of broken glass for a black woman candidate—and make all their friends and neighbors crawl too. There will be people who support her for who she is, but most Americans don’t know her or know much about her, and so will react to her as a black female candidate. Add I think that could be either a very good thing or it might be why she’d lose.  I thought that, in terms of politics, Biden had to choose her for VP. Having to choose her for political reasons doesn’t mean she wasn’t a good choice for other reasons.

    The fact is our culture still has lots of confusion, negativity, unresolved acrimony, and snowflake fragility about women and black Americans which puts black female politicians right smack in the vortex of our national neurosis.

  100. 100.

    sdhays

    @Quinerly: I can’t believe he was fired over the “c” word at Fox. I assume that gets bandied about all day, every day in those offices.

    But it’s definitely interesting that they’re saying it was a reason he was canned.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: I think one straw may have been when Carlson quoted an altered version of a “Discord” leak that purportedly showed very high KIA figures for Ukraine’s military, and very low for Russia’s. The alterations were crude and widely reported before Carlson repeated them on air.

    Carlson may have pushed the Fox envelop generally with his commentary on the war. He seemed to take his pro-Russia line much further than GOP war critics.

  102. 102.

    Captain C

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Second, he has no identity other than ‘ultra-bigoted batshit loon’ and that’s great in the primary, but maybe even worse than Trump in the general.  If he gets on stage in a presidential election and says woke groomers like Disney are destroying America’s manliness, normies are going to run for the exits.

    And even if he can control himself in the general, there’d be a) tons of footage from the primaries, and b) even more footage from his show of him being an utterly hateful, wackadoodle asshole.  Plus everything that’s come out and may come out in discovery in the various lawsuits he’s involved with one way or another.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sdhays: I think it was that, when he used the ‘c’ word, he crossed the wrong person and doubled down on it when challenged.

  105. 105.

    mrmoshpotato

    @NotMax:

    Do not care for “Let’s finish the job” and its implication of finality, of reaching a point after which there will be nothing more to be done. 

    Would much prefer “Let’s continue the job.”

    “Let’s continue slapping the Rethuglicans in their fascist  faces with more jobs, more infrastructure weeks, and no cuts to government programs.”

  106. 106.

    Captain C

    @Matt McIrvin:

    As much as I like Harris, I think the public would respond to that as a manipulative bait-and-switch, unless Biden very explicitly said he was resigning over health concerns and maybe even then.

    I think if Biden spontaneously combusted live on national television like a Spinal Tap drummer a good portion of the press and Both Sides public (plus all the GQP) would call it a manipulative bait-and-switch.  The FTFNYT would be particularly concerned, to the point it might push their current “just asking questions” anti-trans bullshit to the background.

  107. 107.

    gwangung

    @Cacti: A black woman will always lose as a ticket topper—until, one day, they don’t.

    This isn’t fixed in stone; we can change that. (Granted, it may be more like quick setting concrete and the clock is ticking, but it isn’t set in stone).

  108. 108.

    Scout211

    ICYMI,  E. Jean Carroll trial against Trump started today. Link

    New YorkCNN — 
    The judge overseeing a civil battery and defamation trial for columnist E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump warned the former president’s counsel on Wednesday about comments their client made on social media about the case.

    Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, outside the presence of the jury, flagged to federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan a post Trump made on his social media site Truth Social earlier Wednesday about the lawsuit. The post called the suit a scam and mentioned DNA on Carroll’s dress that she alleges she was wearing at the time Trump allegedly forcibly raped and groped her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied the allegations.

    Judge Kaplan warned Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina that the statement and any further statements about the case could open Trump up to “a new source of potential liability.” Tacopina said he would ask his client to refrain from any further comments about the case.

  109. 109.

    smith

    @wonkie: My worry about Biden is that somehow he doesn’t seem to get the credit he deserves from the chattering classes, the msm, the people who could set the tone and set the conventional wisdom.

    Same as it’s been for all Dem presidents since approximately 1976.

  110. 110.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sdhays:

    Supposedly, Murdoch fired Carlson because he was was getting concerned about the guy’s messianic complex. His former fiancé apparently told old Rupert that Carlson is a “messenger from God”, and Murdoch dropped her a few days later. 

    That seems to me to be potentially very damaging if religious conservatives take it as atheist Murdoch silencing them. My bet, though, is that they’ll pretend not to notice because they need Murdoch and don’t have equivalent options.

    They won’t care.  They’re great at selective outrage.

    Dump being thrice married, banging a porn star, allegedly paying for who knows how many abortions?  Being a traitorous, Kremlin-cock-sucking bastard since at least 1987?  Meh.

    Consensual blowjob?  BURN BILL AT THE STAKE!

  111. 111.

    geg6

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I work on a college campus and am around 18-21 yos all day.  I have never once heard the term used by students except in the way anyone would.  Must only be a thing in certain places.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Why am I seeing the word “based” everywhere now? I gather it is a favorable expression? What is its origin?

    Looking at Urban Dictionary, it sounds as if it comes originally from “based in fact”.  It’s often used to refer to someone who is seen as a bold truth teller who says what they believe without caring if it hurts other people’s feeling.  This is obviously more popular on the right, where hurting other people’s feelings with the “truth” is a huge bonus, but lots of people of every political stripe appreciate someone who doesn’t beat around the bush.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    THIS.

    I will say this here, I voted for Harris in the primary because I believe that she has what it takes and now after being VP to Joe Biden I believe the country would be in good hands if they are elected again. Joe Biden is a artist in the art of politics and being president. He’s not perfect but then no human alive is, no matter how much bullshit that comes out their mouths. The difference is that when bullshit is the only thing that comes out, they are not and will never be any good at governance. And every republican running fits the bill as bullshiting is their only qualifier to run. Some far worse than others. There isn’t a republican that wants to actually govern, only rule, and that isn’t the job, not in this country, not in any way, shape or form.

  119. 119.

    Quinerly

    Soooo….I kinda screwed up. First Spring in JoJo’s Eldorado, NM casa. The house I bought to get him back to his Native Lands after Covid Times during  our 3 month camping trip starting 9/2021 is beautifully landscaped. I said I was going to do nothing to it, inside or out, after devoting every minute of my life when not working or in a bar….working for 30 years on my 1880’s Victorian in Soulard (St. Louis).

    Well, I have posted a bit about the side yard I have been working on since March. Maybe some pics at some point to be shared. Bigger project than planned but will be gorgeous when that flagstone patio is finished.

    So back to my screw up and First World Problem…..I started my seeds too early!!!! I blanked out and was thinking how Santa Fe and St Louis are the same grow zone, so started indoors when I used to start in Soulard. It is still freezing at night and 65 during the day here. I have 50 sunflower starts knee high begging to go out. Plus, I refused to pay the $5 a geranium going rate I saw last year when we first got here. Love me some red geraniums but never grown from seed. 95% germination and survival rate from my first time growing geraniums from seeds.

    Translation …95 healthy geraniums that want OUT. Geranium seeds are tiny. I thought at best I would get 20 geraniums out of a seed packet.

    JoJo’s casa smells like a greenhouse.

    Have a great day Jackals!

  120. 120.

    Old School

    @Scout211:

    Tacopina said he would ask his client to refrain from any further comments about the case.

    Well, I guess that’s all taken care of then.

  122. 122.

    Jackie

    For BettyCracker and Floridians:

    Disney World sues Puddin Boots!

    “The fight between Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Walt Disney Company is headed to court,” the New York Times reports.

    “On Wednesday, a board appointed by Mr. DeSantis to oversee government services at Disney World voted to nullify two agreements that gave Disney vast control over expansion at the 25,000-acre resort complex. Within minutes, Disney sued Mr. DeSantis, the five-member board and other state officials in federal court, claiming ‘a targeted campaign of government retaliation.’”

    CNBC: “The lawsuit dramatically escalates the drawn-out feud between DeSantis, who is expected to become a top Republican contender for the 2024 presidential race, and Disney, Florida’s largest employer.”

    From Political Wire

  123. 123.

    Miss Bianca

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I don’t want to hear any more shit about “Uh, maybe we should be cool about promoting Kamala as POTUS because she’ll scare some white voters away”, OK? Using that logic, it will never be the right time, whenever that is.

    I agree.

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    @wonkie:

    I am worried about Kamela running for office (If Biden can’t for some reason like being dead) because I am afraid that she wouldn’t win. I also know from experience that any statement less than a totally positive endorsement of her can draw claims of being sexist, racist, or both. She ran a lousy campaign. Appointing her sister was a big mistake. Has she learned how to organize a campaign? I don’t know.

     

    I will admit until the day that I die..

    That I COMPLETELY underestimated the misogyny that Hillary faced in 2016. I thought her being White would get her past any misogyny that she faced.

     

    I admit that I was wrong.

    But, also admitting that is why so many of us, in social media, do not tolerate the obvious foolishness towards the Vice President.

    We learned our lesson from 2016, and are not afraid to speak up when we see it towards Kamala Harris now.

  125. 125.

    MazeDancer

    Joe makes me happy.

    The patriotic messaging makes me happy.

    And what also makes me happy is the Mouse that roared.

    You know what Disney has that they no longer have in the “free state of Florida”?

    A-list Lawyers.

    The best, most highly-paid lawyers on the planet.

    Specially hoping Disney will field an all-LGBTQ+ team of blindingly brilliant lawyers.

    Eat ’em up, Mouse. Chew ’em to bits

  126. 126.

    trollhattan

    Let us consider

    In 1984, Reagan won re-election at the age of 73 years, 274 days, and was the oldest person to win a US presidential election until Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election at the age of 77 years, 349 days.

    2nd term Reagan was demonstrably suffering cognitive decline and it was 1. covered up and 2. just ducky for Republicans because they held the White House anyway, and could still wind him  up and send him out  for needed public appearances. Biden, older than Term 2 Reagan, has more on the ball than even Term 1 Reagan.

    LFG

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @Surly Duff:

    There’s a line of thinking that Biden, having secured re-election, will step down sometime in his second term so Harris can at least have the advantage of incumbency when she runs on her own. It’s not a horrible idea.

    Yes, it is.

  132. 132.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: Someone tweeted a funny meme showing DeSantis stuck to a glue trap, shrimper boots and all. A smiling Micky Mouse is looking on.

  133. 133.

    Roger Moore

    @Surly Duff:

    It’s not a horrible idea.

    It’s not a terrible idea in principle, but it’s a dumb suggestion.  People keep talking about it, but it never actually happens.  I have heard about this being done for lower political offices, but those are usually offices that A) don’t have term limits and B) reelection is mostly a formality.  In a case like that, yeah, it makes sense for the current office holder to retire during their term so they can hand the office to their chosen successor.  Of course it’s incredibly anti-democratic, and for offices where political patronage isn’t that important it’s more likely to piss voters off than enhance the political heir’s chances.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    Plus, I refused to pay the $5 a geranium going rate I saw last year when we first got here. Love me some red geraniums but never grown from seed. 95% germination and survival rate from my first time growing geraniums from seeds.

    95% is really good! I’ve never tried geraniums from seed. I like the deep matte red not the orange-red and they’re hard to find. Maybe I’ll try some next year.

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    @Surly Duff:

    There’s a line of thinking that Biden, having secured re-election, will step down sometime in his second term so Harris can at least have the advantage of incumbency when she runs on her own. It’s not a horrible idea

     

    I fully believe Biden will, if he wins, work his full second term..

    Unless he passes away. That’s the only way he won’t complete his second term.

    These West-Wingish fantasies make no sense to me, and aren’t based in reality.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    @trollhattan: A few years ago I learned that the progression of Alzheimer’s, if the genetic preconditions exist, are often triggered by some kind of physical trauma. It explains what happened to my grandfather–he went in for brain surgery for an aneurysm and he was just never the same afterward, but it turned into a progressive dementia and when he died they said it was Alzheimer’s.

    I think the same thing might have happened to Ronald Reagan. Hinckley didn’t shoot him in the head, but he was pretty badly damaged and maybe that got the ball rolling.

  141. 141.

    Ivan X

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t think I would see the modern use of “cringe” as adjective appear unironically here at BJ, but I guess I will have to adjust. Of all the latest internet slang, it just makes me…cringe.

  142. 142.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: So do I.  Then again, Harris was my original pick for  2020 and I moved the Joe when she dropped out, so I might be biased.

  143. 143.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Geminid: Don’t mess with the Mouse!

    I don’t often take the side of big corporations, but if it’s against RDeS I sure will.

  146. 146.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:

    I am amazed! And overwhelmed. Thankfully a musician friend from St. Louis postponed his 5/14 visit. I was really under the gun until his change of plans.

    Back to the deep red geraniums…I was spoiled by a nursery  in St. Louis.  89 cent ones. Then finally up to $1.10 last year I bought in 2021. I bet here they will be more than $5 a piece this year. I have had my eyes opened by bedding plant prices here.

    I ordered these early. Park Seed. Very impressed. It was odd packaging. I didn’t realize I was getting a 100 in one packet. $6.50.

    Highly recommend them. I planted in cells, kept a little clear lid on the cells. On windowsills and the bancos in the guest rooms.

  147. 147.

    Jackie

    @rikyrah: Agree. I also have no qualms if Biden has to step down due to a debilitating illness, he will willingly pass the baton to MVP Harris.

    UNLIKE TFG’s unwillingness to even TEMPORARILY allow Pence to assume POTUS duties while he was close to dying from Covid.

  148. 148.

    JoyceH

    Personally, I like the Let’s Finish The Job slogan, though I know it’s not strictly accurate. It feeds into the Democratic tendency (more so, I think, that Republicans, who see politics as a Forever War), once their guy wins, to say, “Whew. Crisis averted, good guys won, mission accomplished”, and walk away dusting off their hands. The slogan is saying, ‘those same reasons that you were willing to crawl over broken glass to vote for me in 2020 – those reasons still exist. We’re headed in the right direction, but we can’t stop now or we’ll be right back in that nightmare we escaped from then.’

    Remember after the 2020 election? That wild sense of relief and optimism? I sure do. We’d DONE it! Trump was finished! Could anyone imagine then that in 2024, Trump would run AGAIN? I honestly believed and told my friends that Trump would go down to Mar a Lago for the holidays and just not come back. (I still think that was his natural inclination, and people more invested in having Trump in power Got to him.)

    So the slogan assists that Democratic mindset, come on, just one more hill and we can look down on the Promised Land. It’s not strictly true, but it’s more hopeful and motivating than ‘we’ll be fighting this fight forever’.

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    If Biden is reelected, he will serve his full term.  Whether it’s a good idea is irrelevant.  His record and personality are clear.  He doesn’t play games like that.

    DeSantis has been hitting Disney because even if he failed to hurt them, he knew they would not hit back.  From a quick read, this law suit doesn’t sound like they’re attacking him, they’re just slapping down his latest legal attack.

  151. 151.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JoyceH:

    Remember after the 2020 election? That wild sense of relief and optimism? I sure do. We’d DONE it! Trump was finished! Could anyone imagine then that in 2024, Trump would run AGAIN?

    Yes. I didn’t think for a moment that we were done with him. Trump’s conspiracy theorizing about the “stolen” election was in part intended to keep him from collecting loser stink, since his followers didn’t actually think he had lost.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    The American Prospect, a supposedly liberal outlet, published some low quality drivel that lauds Tucker Carlson as bravely fighting against The Man on behalf of the little people.

    The whole thing is as dumb and bad as this paragraph. Cheap junk.

    After starting his career as a fact-checker and magazine columnist, Carlson went on to occupy many roles as a talking head. His style rankled adversaries but often freed up his show to entertain controversial subjects that other mainstream shows wouldn’t touch. Carlson’s incessant mockery of first lady Jill Biden’s insistence on being called “Dr. Biden,” for example, bordered on the absurd while subtly exposing an elite obsession with credentials and meritocracy.
    Tucker, as his enormous fan following knows him, was adored by viewers and reviled by critics for his signature incredulous stare—the slack-jawed expression he wears when he simply can’t believe what he’s being told.
    That look of smirking disbelief is deliberately theatrical. But Carlson’s insistent distrust of his powerful guests acts as a solvent to authority, frequently making larger-than-life figures of the political establishment defend arguments they otherwise treat as self-evident.

    Anyway. the eeditor, David Dayen, has (sort of ) weakly apologized for this crap “work” he’s promoting in his outlet, but I think it raises a larger issue. The larger issue is that “The Left” have become embarrassing. This romance they’re conducting with white nationalists is disgusting. Their position on Ukraine is ridiculous and incoherent. They have really torched their own credibility the last couple of years and I say that as someone who is often sympathetic to them and has often defended them.

    Which genuis “on the Left” (supposedly) told them it would be a good idea to embrace insanely racist misogynist Tucker Carlson? Glenn Greenwald? Is that who they are following? I think there’s more to drop in the Tucker story. I don’t think Rupert Murdoch gets rid of a money maker for saying “cunt” or lying. Fox doesn’t have any ethics or scruples. They suddenly developed some?
    The gullible, not very smart dopes “on the Left” will look even dumber as the news about Tucker gets worse. And it will get worse.

  154. 154.

    Ivan X

    Re all the handwringing over Kamala Harris: I have zero issue with her being the VP candidate. I frankly don’t think VP candidate moves the needle unless they are terrible (see: Sarah Palin), even if the candidate is 109 years old. I think she’d be a good president, as well.

    With that said, she was my default preferred candidate in the primaries, until I saw her interviewed and speak. I don’t think she’d succeed in a campaign, not only due to her well documented mismanagement, and not only due to sexism and racism (and those would certainly be out in force).

    The problem, to me, is that she has an insincere affect when she speaks, and I think that kind of thing rubs off badly on voters. She sounds, to me, like a “politician.” Voters like charisma and authenticity, and unfortunately, I don’t think she projects these, regardless of her skill, talent, and merits. I realize many here may feel differently, but this is my perception.

  155. 155.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ivan X:

    I didn’t think I would see the modern use of “cringe” as adjective appear unironically here at BJ

    You still haven’t as far as I can tell

  156. 156.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s a really interesting lawsuit. I don’t think Ron DeSantis has any idea what he has started. Who is going to defend Florida? DeSantis’ low quality political hires? That should be amusing.

  157. 157.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I didn’t think for a moment that we were done with him.

    Everything I predicted about him came to pass.  His rallies dwindled.  Elected Republicans kissing the ring dwindled.  The stolen election myth remained strong because Republicans have always believed it, and Trump was a detail, but Republican incompetence would limit its damage.  When Trump espoused policies, they were ignored.

    What I did not expect was that when 2024 came around, Trump would be the nominee by default because nobody was fucking brave enough to hit him with the incredibly obvious “You failed to stop the cheaters, now I will save conservatism” punch.  Or any punch whatsoever.  Jesus fucking Christ, what an unbelievable cringing pile of cowardly worms Republicans are.  If Trump becomes the nominee, it won’t be because he’s still strong.  He’s a limping, whining, bleeding wreck of a candidate.  It will be literally by default because nobody would try to fight him.  The one guy who even tried to make a showing is standing there and saying “Thank you, Sir, may I have another?” every time Trump humiliates him.

  158. 158.

    Jeffro

    @mrmoshpotato:“Let’s continue slapping the Rethuglicans in their fascist  faces with more jobs, more infrastructure weeks, and no cuts to government programs.”

    or the shorter, bumper sticker version: “Let’s keep slapping!“

  159. 159.

    smith

    @Matt McIrvin: It can happen from psychological trauma as well. My mother was a remarkably spry and sharp 90-year-old when my older sister died suddenly. Literally overnight, my mother showed significant cognitive decline, to the extent that within 6 weeks we had to take over managing her finances, which she had done quite well herself up to that point.

    Luckily with Joe, he has shown himself quite resilient to psychological shocks, and seems remarkably fit for his age as well.

  160. 160.

    JoyceH

    @Matt McIrvin: Loser stink? Trump can’t smell it. His track record, his entire life, was to get into a new venture, make wild promises, and then once the thing was screwed up beyond all repair, he cuts his losses and walks away. He always has some self-serving reason why HE didn’t fail, but he cuts and runs. If he’d followed his own inclinations, he would have done the same in politics. He still could have said to the end of his days ‘I really won’, just like he’d still insist that he didn’t really go bankrupt umpteen times. But this time he was surrounded by people for whom Trump as a powerful political figure enabled the grift of a lifetime, and they’re the ones who couldn’t let go. IMO, of course.

  161. 161.

    Sean

    @JoyceH:

    Remember after the 2020 election? That wild sense of relief and optimism? I sure do. We’d DONE it! Trump was finished! Could anyone imagine then that in 2024, Trump would run AGAIN?

    I find it astonishing that anyone thought he WOULDN’T run again. The guy can’t stop, his followers refuse to move on. We’ll never be rid of him until he’s dead, or perhaps if Biden won massively in 2024 (but even then, I dunno).

  163. 163.

    FelonyGovt

    @smith: Yes, that happened with my aunt. Her 50-year-old son died unexpectedly shortly after her husband passed, and she slipped from mild cognitive impairment into a raging dementia.

  165. 165.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Sean: I find it astonishing that anyone thought he WOULDN’T run again.

    Is he running again or did he never stop? Is this still the 2020 campaign? Are we in hell?

  166. 166.

    smith

    Regarding the Disney suit, it seems to me that DeSantis has been on  tear to violate pretty much the entire Bill of Rights (excepting the 2nd, of course).  Are the appropriate lawsuits being filed? Before this is over, his Legal Troubles Scorecard may rival Trump’s. Of course, it’s the good taxpayers of FL who will foot the bill, but then, they elected him.

  167. 167.

    sdhays

    @Frankensteinbeck: They’re afraid that if they do anything to cause Trump to fall, the base will turn on them, or (even worse) will give up and stay home.

    They are all in on relying on ginned up bigoted rage-monkeys and abuse of state power overcoming hideously unpopular policies, misgovernance, and corruption, so anything that threatens to disengage those voters for even one election cycle is potentially a short to medium term extinction level event.

  168. 168.

    hilts

    @JoyceH:

    That wild sense of relief and optimism? I sure do. We’d DONE it! Trump was finished!

    I’ve always been in the camp who believed that we’ll never be done with Trump until he drops dead.  Hopefully, his health will give out within the next few years.

  169. 169.

    narya

    TFG cannot afford to not run–his finances are a house of cards, and it’s essential to keep the grift going. Given the willingness of the MAGAt base to send him coin, why would he stop doing that?

  170. 170.

    JoyceH

    @sdhays: ​
     

    They’re afraid that if they do anything to cause Trump to fall, the base will turn on them, or (even worse) will give up and stay home.

    Same situation as in 2016 – that massive field of candidates were all hanging back waiting for someone ELSE to step up and take Trump down, and then they could swoop in and gather up the Trump base, since they weren’t the one who attacked him.

  172. 172.

    Soprano2

    I listened to “Pod Save America” this morning. They interviewed Mark Leibovich about various things. He mentioned that he wished someone credible would run against Biden “because we need to have that conversation”. Unfortunately, Lovett didn’t immediately ask “what conversation is it we need to have” and “why specifically are you worried about Biden as the candidate?”. They never, ever, ever address the elephant in the room, which is that all of these concerns about Biden are actually concerns about Harris becoming president masquerading as “concerns about Biden’s age”. I mean, they all act like if something happened to Biden TFG will become president! It’s crazy how much they talk about this without asking “so are you concerned about VP Harris becoming president? Because that’s what would happen if God forbid something happened to Biden during a second term”. Leibovich said he’s “ready for a new generation”. Unfortunately, Lovett didn’t immediately come back with “But isn’t VP Harris part of the new generation?”

  173. 173.

    Kay

    @smith:

    It’s fascinating though. Can an authoritarian like DeSantis use state power to retaliate against a business because the business took a political position (protected political speech) that humiliated and enraged the authoritarian governor?

    I’m just glad we have a private entity with deep pockets to sue the authoritarian state actors. Dominion and Smartmatic and now this.

  174. 174.

    Miss Bianca

    @Soprano2: OMG, that’s infuriating.

    (Incidentally, I had to address the “Oh, but Biden’s so old” thing with my neighbor the other day – she’s kind of my bellwether for what passes for a “normie” around here in Redneckistan. I tried my best to assuage her concerns, but I wish I had thought to try the “he may be old, but his team is NOT” line.)

  175. 175.

    zhena gogolia

    @rikyrah:
    I love this:

    The suit dramatically escalates the feud between DeSantis, who is expected to become a top Republican contender for the 2024 presidential race, and Disney.

    No, it’s not a “feud.” It’s a fascist trying to control free enterprise.

  176. 176.

    trollhattan

    @Frankensteinbeck: What you said.

    Trump’s tired schtick might still “excite” the 27% but the money people, at least smarter ones, acknowledge he “won” a single election and lost the next two. What trend is going to reverse that the next go?

    To your point there’s no golden boy waiting in the wings. Oh hi, Ben Sasse!

  177. 177.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    The arguments against Biden are really weak. I would hope people like Lovett would challenge these people on specifics. The “new generation” talking point is just dumb. Honestly it’s on the level of when you canvass and you get people who say things like “I vote for the man, not the party”. Okey doke.

    The Presidency – an administration- isn’t one person. Biden has SURROUNDED himself with younger, more diverse leaders and if they’re happy with Biden’s performance then why would it matter what “generation” he was in?

  178. 178.

    FelonyGovt

    @Kay: Yes, it’s amazing how rightwing wackos believe political speech by corporations is good (Citizens United) until it’s not (Disney vs DeSantis).

    Just like “parental choice” is good (restricting what books ALL kids can read) until it’s not (parents helping their kids receive gender affirming care).

  179. 179.

    Roberto el oso

    Like several of the commenters here my 1st choice was Kamala. I genuinely don’t get the charges that she’s somehow inauthentic. And anyway, when it comes to US politics, authenticity can very obviously be as affected as any other trait, and ultimately, who cares? If the policies being boosted are good ones and there’s a plan to put them in place, the person in charge of enacting them can be as phony as a $3 bill, so long as the job gets done.

    And I agree with a lot of you (MisterDancer!) that all the concern by folks who are worried that a Black female candidate is just a bridge too far for some voters is dumb. I find it infuriating that after the rock-solid spine of the Democratic base (Black female organizers, activists, and voters) have saved this country’s bacon several times over, they (and their supporters) are supposed to be cool with being told that maybe someday it will be safe to vote for someone like Kamala Harris for President, just not this go-round (ETA: not this election cycle, or the next, or the next etc etc.). I’m old and white and straight and male and I take my cue from the demographic of which Kamala is a representative.

  181. 181.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I was really disappointed that he just let it go without any kind of comment at all. I immediately thought “But Harris is part of the next generation you’re wanting to move to, why isn’t Lovett saying that?”!!!

  182. 182.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    He mentioned that he wished someone credible would run against Biden “because we need to have that conversation”. Unfortunately, Lovett didn’t immediately ask “what conversation is it we need to have

     
    The conversation about assholes in the party that would run against Biden.

  183. 183.

    Kay

    @FelonyGovt:

    I maintain that DeSantis is now stuck in this Disney trap that he can’t get out of because DeSantis listened to Christopher Rufo, who told DeSantis to do 100% culture wars, all the time, and they just kept doubling down. 

    Rufo was a bad hire but DeSantis hired him. They’ll go down together. Good. Couldn’t happen to two bigger assholes.

  184. 184.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @sdhays:

    the base will turn on them

    Then take his base away from him.  It’s not hard.  There’s no passion there anymore.  It’s a loveless marriage and they’ll leap into the arms of the next broad-shouldered, macho politician in a Klan robe who makes a go at forcing women and minorities out of public life.  They were liking the cut of DeSantis’s hood until Trump started attacking and DeSantis showed himself to be a wimp.

    Jesus.  Fucking.  Christ.  DeSantis’s bizarre body language got the attention, but when Trump insulted him, DeSantis’s idea of a comeback was “Who said I’m running for president?”  JUST LIE DOWN AND PAINT DOORMAT ON YOUR BACK, RON.

    Republican politicians are supposed to be, you know, professionals.  They are supposed to have experience wooing a crowd, even if it’s just a carefully selected crowd of white supremacist evangelical bigots.  Instead they’re so weak anyone on Balloon Juice could out-campaign them.

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    @Soprano2: I, too, listened to the most recent Pod Save America – except that I immediately turned it off in anger as soon as that guy started his bullshit that no Democratic candidates should go easy on Joe Biden about the age issue.  FUCK THAT GUY.

    Sometimes the Obama bros PISS ME OFF.

    No wonder Joe Biden won’t go on their show.

  187. 187.

    Geminid

    @Ivan X: I think VP Harris has been working on her speaking. Public speaking is a skill, and an art as well, and it can be improved. Ms. Harris is a hard worker, and I think she has gotten stronger in this area.

  188. 188.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    It’s a really interesting lawsuit. I don’t think Ron DeSantis has any idea what he has started. Who is going to defend Florida? DeSantis’ low quality political hires? That should be amusing.

    Who is going to pay for the lawyers? Why should the taxpayers?

  189. 189.

    C Stars

    @sdhays: I had occasion to interact with Harris *very very briefly* at a neighborhood event in SF many years ago. She was brilliant and compelling in person, not at all harsh or standoffish. Clearly very ambitious. I’m not sure why that hasn’t translated to wider popularity in her role as VP. But I would guess racism and misogyny have a lil something to do with it.

  190. 190.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    They’ve paid for all of this.They pay for the stunts where the assholes trick migrants into boarding planes. They’re right now payng for DeSantis and the bad imitation of Jackie Kennedy to tour Japan.

    DeSantis hires dopes. Looooow quality. Disney wil clean their clocks.

  191. 191.

    japa21

    @C Stars: ​
      And the media not covering her in any decent way. But then that is also probably due to the misogyny and racism.

  192. 192.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @japa21: And the media not covering her in any decent way.

    It’s just like grandma always used to say, “if you can’t say something harsh and unhelpful, don’t say anything at all.”

  193. 193.

    Geminid

    @Roberto el oso: I think a fair amount of the “Kamala can’t win” noise is made by disingenuous people. They don’t neccesarily think she can’t win; they just want someone else and she’s in the way.

  194. 194.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Reagan was a dummy – period.

    I saw two of his flunkies, who worked with him when he was Governor, give a lecture on how smart he was because he could change his mind. They gave about dozen stunning anecdotes that in reality showed he was a nitwit.

    In one was he was against state withholding taxs, believing a yearly tax bill shouldn’t be paid until due. Rich republicans came to him and said it would be a disaster. They argued normies wouldn’t set aside enough cash for April 15th and then they would incur stiff penalties while the state would face a cash flow crisis from lack of receipts and would have to borrow funds and hire more state employees to collect the garnished wages. The then 56 year old Reagan relented saying “why didn’t any one tell me this!”.

    In another he was against a gas tax that was completely dedicated for infrastructure. Rich friends from LA came to him to explain the rapid expansion of California’s post-war economy required more highways, bridges and expansion of ports. That trade doesn’t work if you can’t get goods to market. Reagan once again relented saying “why didn’t any one tell me this!”.

    It went on and on like this. They thought it was a mark of intelligence that he could change his position. But it reality he changed positions because his benefactors were telling him big money was at stake. Had some academic like Krugman or some technocrat like Elizabeth Warren made the same argument he would have rejected just to own the libs. But when his paymasters said jump, he said, “how high”.

  195. 195.

    C Stars

    @japa21: That’s true. The times that she has been covered (when she spoke about the Tennessee Three, or went on the stump before the ’22 elections) she has been amazing and EFFECTIVE. But never trust the media to not capitulate to an easy stereotype.

  196. 196.

    Gravenstone

    @Gin & Tonic: This gave an LOL moment. Took a quick gander online to confirm my understanding of the usage and the default quoted response comes from of all places, the Hillsdale Collegian (student newspaper). So thank you for the inadvertent giggle.

    Urban Dictionary, the recognized expert on all things slang, offers a concise definition for the word: “A word used when you agree with something; or when you want to recognize someone for being themselves, i.e. courageous and unique or not caring what others think.”

  198. 198.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Florida taxpayers are already paying untold millions to defend the many lawsuits filed due to shoddy legislation DeSantis and the statehouse goons passed, and the Disney defense will just be added to the growing pile, I guess. The work generally gets funneled to wingnut firms out of state that are staffed by DeSantis cronies like Adam Laxalt. Are those goobers are up for taking on Big Mouse? My guess is no!

  199. 199.

    Jay C

    @Kay:

    DeSantis hires dopes. Looooow quality. Disney will clean their clocks

    This. It seems like Gov. Whiteboots is a self-inflicted victim of one of the more common flaws of the would-be authoritarian: i.e. trying to look better by never hiring anyone smarter/abler than yourself. And since Ron DeSantis is, at best, a nebbishy mediocrity (tough-talk bluster from the podium notwithstanding), low-quality hires are all that can be expected.

  200. 200.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Leibovich is the worst. A low rent version of David Broder.

    Whenever I see him on tee vee I turn the channel cuz, like Broder, he only exists to undermine Dems. Case in point, he had no problem with a 72 year old republican with a history of cancer and traumatic injuries running for president (ie McCain).

  201. 201.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: In 2016, Trump may have only defeated Hillary Clinton for unfair and stupid reasons, but he absolutely crushed the entire Republican primary field. This was obvious from the beginning but it seemed like there was a whole industry devoted to denying that it was happening. So many pundits assumed that the Republican Party powers that be would step in and substitute a safe authority figure somehow, or that Trump would get bored and quit… but the Republicans wanted Alpha Asshole and all Trump had to do was act like a bigger asshole than anybody. And he was grooving on it too hard to quit. The other guys were just weak.

  202. 202.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Yes, but Trump is much weaker than in 2016.  He has visibly cognitively declined.  He has loser stink on him, and lots of it.  He acts like he has loser stink.  He whines.

    It’s 8 years later.  Everybody knows how he won now.  The base wants an asshole white supremacist.  It’s not like there are any shortage of those.  Republicans gleefully jumped on that bandwagon.

    An actual schoolyard bully could beat Trump now, but it turns out all the big name Republicans are “Please clap,” level weaklings.

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    SFB is the ultimate conservative candidate. He’s brash, racist as shit, supposedly wealthy, who has never actually accomplished anything in his life except exciting other racist loons to vote for him. He failed at president just like every other effort he’s tried because he’s a looser as a human. If he hadn’t started adulthood by stealing $400 million from his siblings he’d be a total zero. But he’s a minus because he had enough money to throw away and he managed to do exactly that to most of it, by failing at every single thing he’s tried, including president.

  207. 207.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: Don’t hold back. Tell us what you really think Kay. Btw, have the idiots in your state realized that the GOP savings plan hurts them yet?

  208. 208.

    Gravenstone

    @Scout211: Tacopina said he would ask his client to refrain from any further comments about the case.

    Good luck with that! Really, break a leg! Maybe one (or both) of Trump’s?

  209. 209.

    StringOnAStick

    @japa21: No, the media are not at all covering Harris in a decent way.  I have forwarded several of the “celebrate Kamala” posts here to a friend who was a strong Kamala supporter in the primary and who had switched to “I’m so unimpressed with her” and I couldn’t figure out why.  Then I went to her house and noticed that MSNBC is on in the kitchen and the living room from the moment the day starts until it ends; it’s the constant background noise.  I pointed out to her that having this crap on basically 24/7 means it is getting into her brain affecting her opinions because how could it not?  It’s like the 24/7 brainwashing that we make fun of for FOX watchers.  Her husband is the guy who insists that it always be on, but I think part of my message got through.  She seems happier now that she turns it off when she’s in the kitchen.

    We never watch TV news and I listen to much, much less radio news now that I live in a smaller town and don’t drive very long to anywhere; my husband refuses to have it on when we are on longer drives and we use the music on our phones instead.  Cutting that constant crap out of our lives has been a definite improvement.  I get my news here and online, where I can assess the source quality and control the emotional content it comes freighted with.

  210. 210.

    J R in WV

    @The Thin Black Duke: ​

    I don’t want to hear any more shit about ..Kamala

    Oh, man, I am so with you there!!! Joe picked her, she worked with him, they are large and in charge. I’m done with any problems with that ticket. Joe was the guy who picked his Vice, and she is working out for him, end of story!

    Also a totally class act ~!~

  211. 211.

    steve g

    “chaotic ass bigot”

    Thank you Rod for this fine appellation for D. Trump. It’s the word of the day in my book.

  213. 213.

    WaterGirl

    @Ivan X: @Geminid:

    I thought Kamala was an excellent speaker, say, in her acceptance speech for the VP nomination.

    Shortly after that, though, she shifted to some awful speaking mode where she seems to say a phrase and then pauses at a point that is meaningless, says another few words and then pauses for effect.  Over and over and over.  It comes off very badly, and whoever the hell told her to start speaking like that ought to be taken out and shot  to lose their job.

    Her natural style was fine, then they fucked it up.  I hope it can get un-fucked shortly, but it’s been 2 years.

  215. 215.

    artem1s

    @Roberto el oso: ​
     

    I genuinely don’t get the charges that she’s somehow inauthentic.

    Same bullshit as when Hillary ran – almost exactly the same wording. It was the main complaint against her until #butheremails picked up steam. Men can present as the most obvious used car salesmen ever and never be accused of being inauthentic. TFG is about as artificial a personality as I’ve ever seen. Wilmer too frankly. People cannot admit their bias against women. Alas, she’s not someone they can drink a beer with.

  216. 216.

    Soprano2

    @WaterGirl: Well, that guy wasn’t one of the O-Bros, it was their guest. My disappointment was that Lovett, who was the interviewer, didn’t push back against that bullshit. Why don’t any of the people who talk about this ever say that Harris is part of that younger generation they claim to be so eager to embrace? They just don’t want to admit that they have anxiety about a non-white woman becoming president!!!!!!

  218. 218.

    WaterGirl

    @Soprano2: No, I know it was a guest.  But they chose the guest, I’m guessing they knew where he was coming from when they chose him, and most of all, there was no pushback.

  219. 219.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Public speaking is both a skill and an art. Some people, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, are considered “naturals” but even they had to work at it. I think Vice President Harris is doing the work.

  220. 220.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid: Oh, I hope so!  I confess to reading about her speeches these days instead of watching because I find the speaking style to interfere with the message.

    I was hoping that when she talked about TN she had gone back to her style where it feels like she is talking to you, but I haven’t listened.

  221. 221.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid: Even Barack Obama, who I adore, got into a sing-song kind of rhythm toward the end.  So I was especially thrilled when Barack was back to his regular authentic speaking style when he was campaigning for Dems at the end of 2022 and for the special election in GA!

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