I think NH Gov. Chris Sununu is the type of Repub who could probably win nationally. If Repubs in Congress hadn’t been too chickenshit to take care of their Trump problem during impeachment II, they could have moved on to a Sununu-type candidate for 2024. But they were too chickenshit, so their orange Frankenstein continues its rampage across the land, squeezing the life out of its makers.
WaPo interviewed Sununu (gift link), who said he may toss his chapeau into the ring for 2024 or instead serve as a NH GOP primary “referee,” whatever the hell that means. While his comments indicate he understands the pickle his party is in on one level, they also reveal he’s in denial about how they got there or is too chickenshit to tell the whole truth.
When asked about Trump’s disastrous CNN appearance, Sununu said this:
It was weak. It was defensive. It was bitter. It really was everything that America is not looking for in leadership. And it just reiterated the idea that he cannot win in November. He could get the nomination, but he cannot win in November.
Unlike Sununu, I never say never, but that sounds about right to me. Sununu also called Trump a serial loser and acknowledged that abortion bans are political kryptonite for Repubs nationally. Correct again.
But when questioned about his own tribe, Sununu said DeSantis had moved too far right on abortion not only for the general election, which is true, but for the Repub primary. Has he met his party’s base? Does he know what his party’s activists have been working toward nationally for decades?
When asked how Trump’s relentless 2020 election denial and statements on CNN about pardoning the January 6 mob would play in the GOP primary, he said this:
I definitely think it hurts him in the Republican primary. You can’t just have such denial, such an absence of ownership of what happened both in the election he lost and on Jan. 6. He was a big part of that insurrection.
Again, has he met the base? Writers of large checks and less feral Repub electeds who appear on the Sunday shows (like Chris Sununu) understand that Trump’s antics are putting the party establishment’s ultimate goals (favorable tax treatment for the wealthy and deregulation) at risk.
But so far, they’re too chickenshit to stop him in the only way he can be stopped, which is to turn the tables on the bully and dominate him. It sounds like Sununu is either too chickenshit also or doesn’t understand the base well enough to know what it will take to break the Trump spell.
To reiterate, I never say never, but Sununu sounds like a Sununope to me.
MazeDancer
Not enough cruelty and hatred in Sununu for the GOP.
That NH audience on CNN was scary.
Frankensteinbeck
Yes. I think he’s noticed that the base wants a winner more than they want Trump specifically. It would be a Hell of a dance to get through the primary without being so repulsive you’re screwed in the general, but this is the first time I’ve heard a Republican acknowledge Trump’s weakness. He’s a loser and everyone knows it now, including his fans, for whom that is very, very important. If he can’t deliver white supremacy, what good is he?
Steeplejack
“Again, has he met the base?”
Hell, has he met his GOPers in Congress?! Very few of them will admit the truth about the election and January 6.
Sean
I can’t figure out why any GOP Trump opponent won’t come out of the gate with a rip-roaring message of “this guy fucking sucks.” It’s the only viable option if you really want to campaign against him.
You’re not going to beat him by agreeing that the election was rigged, or that E. Jean Carroll was actually the bad guy, or that the NYC criminal indictment is a witch hunt. That only helps him. There is a mountain of evidence that Trump sucks. Many people, even among republicans, agree Trump sucks. I can’t believe one of them won’t even give “TGFS” a try. He’s a loser, he’s a criminal. He sucks. What else is there? Especially as more shit from criminal mountain continues to roll down on him, and he increases his legal peril with every live appearance he gives. It failed in 2016, but we all know Trump much more intimately (to our great detriment) now. Not nicknames, not cutesey veiled insults. This.Guy.Fucking.Suuucccks.
Azhrie139
Reminder, “moderate” republicans are just collaborators. They aren’t mostly “in denial”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There’s a piece by Tara Palmieri in one of those new outlets (Puck or Punchbowl or Putzhole), that is paywalled (also it’s Tara Palmieri late of the Washington Examiner) so I didn’t even try, but according to an unnamed GOP operative in the room, there were a lot of people in the audience who looked scared, or at least non-plussed.
If memory serves, Chris Sununu called Bolduc a nutcase during the NH Sen primary, then endorsed him a couple of days after he won. Also has flip and flopped all around on trump ’24. And while it may not be fair to judge and apple by the tree, John Sununu got fired by Poppy Bush for being an asshole, by the Romney campaign for being too blatantly racist about Obama, and is in general a nasty old warthog.
Whenever I’m speculating about a GOP presidential wannabe, I google their age. Sununu is 48. I’m sure he thinks he can wait for trump to die and (ahem) the fever to brea
ETA: Palmeri, not Palmieri, and the piece is paywalled, but here’s the gist of the piece, from what I’ve seen
Her source is in fact named, Matthew Bartlett
Mike in NC
Anybody else remember that pigfucker John Sununu, who said more than once that Barack Obama “didn’t understand our culture” because mumble something?
That family is 100% shit. Nothing remotely moderate about them.
Baud
The only thing I can’t see the GOP base compromising on to win the election is abortion. That just seems to deep seated.
West of the Rockies
Orange Frankenstein’s monster…
As someone named Frank (and who was name-called throughout childhood), I need to mention it.
I’m sure you know the distinction, BC, and hope I have your understanding.
Otherwise, an excellent post.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And then the focus group of town hall attendees – and these were all Trump 2020 voters, mind you – basically went “I liked the show, but I dunno, it just doesn’t hit me like it used to.”
EDIT – @West of the Rockies:
Frankenstein’s monster was a Hell of a lot more articulate and intelligent than Trump. I’m pretty sure Trump never read Paradise Lost in his life.
Baud
Is it just me or are NYT and WaPo doing stories on a lot of Republicans lately?
anon
Trump or No Trump, Sununu still couldn’t win the republican primary
Sean
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Putzhole feels so viable.
Baud
@Sean: If Christie jumps in, I expect he will try that. I don’t know if he can succeed though.
Elizabelle
This is the Republican party Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh built.
SiubhanDuinne
I dunno why, certainly can’t prove it by any of the polls so far, but I continue to believe that TFG won’t even win the nomination in 2024. Maybe his legal problems will turn off (even!) Republican voters, maybe he’ll keel over from a surfeit of
lampreysBig Macs, maybe some hitherto unknown GOP candidate will storm forth and knock out the current field, declared and otherwise.Or maybe I’m dreaming. That’s always a possibility.
Scout211
Asa Hutchinson is pushing back against TFG and highlighting his weaknesses. Hutchinson vows to take Trump head on in GOP presidential bid
But . . . Asa who?
Baud
@Scout211: True, I forgot about him. Like you said, Asa who?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t have a view. I agree all the predictions aren’t worth the pixels they’re made of.
RSA
Steeplejack
@Azhrie139:
Good point.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies:
Oh jeeez. I got into a huge stupid fight the other day with someone when I was talking about Elsa Lanchester for some reason, and I mentioned Bride of Frankenstein, and my friend launched into this whole mansplainer “Actually, it should be Bride of Frankenstein’s Monster,” and the next thing I knew I was screaming “Take it up with James Fucking Whale!”
Sean
@Baud: There’s a solid chance it wouldn’t work from anyone, but it’s really the only play. Any attempt to fete Trump while saying you’re somehow better is going to get you curb stomped. See: Ron Desantis.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Hmmm, a former Governor of Arkansas, obscure on the national scene until a Presidential run puts him on the map…hey, it could happen. //
Eolirin
I’m not sure that someone like Sununu could win a general election actually.
I not sure any Republican can win nationally without significant base turnout and I think the base is now so rabid that anyone who can win them turns off the rest of their former coalition, and anyone who can hold the independents and more moderate voters suppresses base turn out too much for them to have much of a chance. Trump like candidates coupled with voter suppression is their best potential path to victory.
Trump reversed a pretty awful slide for them with more Sununu like candidates. Romney is the sort of guy that’s “supposed” to be able to win and Obama kicked the shit out of him despite mediocre economic conditions. McCain was also cut from that cloth. Palin increased his polling.
Everything is flowing from that dynamic; abortion is a losing issue for them, but they can’t abandon it without alienating their most consistent voting bloc, because that bloc is fanatical about it and isn’t willing to abandon it, and they can’t lose that bloc. They’ve eliminated their own middle so there’s no way to thread the needle on anything controversial.
This is an extinction burst, effectively. There’s no way they can hold their coalition together anymore. If they don’t effectively dismantle our democracy they’re going to face a rapid loss of power. It’s unclear whether democracy holds, and that’s scary as fuck, but the place they’re going is completely unsustainable too.
If we can hold it together a few more cycles we’ll have a lock on the presidency, absent some significant scandal or mishandled catastrophe anyway, and very likely the house. A little more progress in WI, MI and PA and those won’t be in reach. They have no map without them. And AZ, GA and NC are moving our way too.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I never knew that was his middle name. The things one learns here.
West of the Rockies
@Scout211:
But… Asa who?
Also, too (from a Republican perspective): Asa? Is that a man or a woman… or one o’ them furreners?
cmorenc
Extreme gerrymandering tends to produce extreme candidates insolated from the mainstream electorate because they only need to compete on a heavily skewed electoral field.
Ken
I assume that’s to settle the inevitable claims that the primary was rigged, unfair, woke, or whatever. Why he thinks anyone will listen to him, and not just target him as a RINO, is a mystery.
I was going to say it’s like trying to referee Calvinball, but that’s a slur against Calvinball.
Ohio Mom
Eh, the Republicans in my neighborhood — mostly white, middle-class Ohio suburbanites — would love a candidate like Sununu. And like Sununu, they are biding their time until their party goes back to what they remember (not saying their memories are accurate, they aren’t).
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know whether I’m more hoping that Trump *does* make it through the primary to become the GOP candidate, or that he doesn’t.
In a sense, I would like him to, because I think Biden will stomp him into a grease puddle.
(Actually, I feel pretty confident that Biden would stomp *any* GOP candidate into a grease puddle, but the national media is such a fucking boat anchor around our necks right now that I fear what they could do to fluff a lesser-known GOP quantity.)
Scout211
@Miss Bianca: Ha!
I would suspect that the current Arkansas governor dreams of that scenario for herself.
Rusty
There is no way Sununu could win the primary. He has called himself at least modestly pro-choice, that makes him dead in the water for the primary. In his own state, the Republican base has picked candidates far to the right of Sununu. For congress and senate this last time, the NH Republican candidates were whack jobs. One was a 20 something Trump intern, she wanted to get rid of social security (a bright move in a state with the second highest average age in the country), another was a retired conspiracy promoting retired general who said one crazy thing after another. The Republican based absolutely loved them and will pick more like them next time. The only reason Sununu hasn’t been primaried out of existence is luck, political maneuvering and nostalgia for his father. He only won the primary two cycles ago for 600 votes. He neutralized his right wing opponent for the next cycle by making him the commissioner of education in the state (where he is working to wreak havoc for the public school systems). This last election the party recognized he would easily win reelection so, there wasn’t a lot of energy for an extreme right wing primary candidate. Sununu lives in a very cozy environment, he is able to use the state structure to blame others for negatives, and the state media is tiny and right wing (the only real paper is the Union Leader, as right as a paper can be). He is almost never asked a pointed question. Under the harsher spotlight of national media, he will not look remotely so good. The rest of the country isn’t going to have fond memories of his dad, or that he is a “true granite stater”. You thought DeSantis shriveled in the spotlight?
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne:
I know it’s shorthand. I’m just saying, that from about first through eighth grade, I experienced many dozens of kids staggering around me, arms extended, grunting, and moaning, ” It’s Frankenstein!”
From kindergarten through fifth I also wore a stick-on beige eye patch. Forgive me if I’m sensitive about it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I make it a point of personal pride to know these things.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: So old I remember when he was one of the Managers of the Clenis impeachment, along with a rising young star named Lindsey Graham and a venerable institution named Henry Hyde, he of the Amendment, whose “youthful indiscretion”– a longish affair with a “family friend” while both were married and in their mid-forties– was revealed while he was preparing to preach to the Senate about the Constitution.
Asa’s elder brother Tim was a Senator at the time.
My favorite behind the scenes moment from that time, Trent Lott telling the would-be Parson Hyde, “You’re not dumping this shit in my lap, Henry”
Baud
@Miss Bianca: I wonder what his position is on his successor’s love of child labor.
Ohio Mom
@Eolirin: There you are, I’ve been looking for you. The other night I woke up in the very early morning, read your comments on the Dooce, RIP post, and then fell back asleep before I could type how moved I was by your comment and how much I admire your gumption.
Now back to (ugh) Republicans.
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: Thank you, I appreciate it very much.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies:
Oh, I do understand (I had a surname that lent itself to bad jokes and weak-sauce puns, so I really do get it). I just thought it was funny (funny-annoying, not funny ha-ha) that this guy started correcting me about a movie title I had nothing to do with.
Baud
Didn’t Papa Sununu become persona non grata in the GOP because he pushed Souter, which kept Roe alive for another generation? Kiddo being somewhat pro-choice is the nail in his coffin.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Subaru Poppyhead?
Parfigliano
@Mike in NC: Im sure baby Sununu is every bit the shit his daddy was.
Hoodie
@Sean: Liz Cheney tried that, and look what that got her. There is no one in the GOP who can beat Trump because Trump is the embodiment of the base of the party. Guys like Sununu are delusional. The only way to defeat Trumpism is to join forces with Democrats to flush this shit out of the system by a massive electoral defeat. However, you won’t get many Republicans signing up for that because it means their careers as GOP politicians are over. The only way you recover from that is to become an MSNBC contributor, and there are only so many of those jobs to go around. This is the kind of thing you do for the next generation, not yourself. However, that goes against the core of the entire GOP project since Reagan and, more generally, the ethos of most of American politics, i.e., FYIGM.
MazeDancer
If you live anyplace you can do this, hope you try.
Gift link to old WaPo article on how to correctly keep bees so they don’t die.
It makes sense.
Shalimar
I saw Sununu on Maher’s program a few weeks ago. Gish-galloping asshole never defended Republican positions on anything, he turned everything into an immediate attack on Democrats and had that 100 words per minute bullshit technique that Jim Jordan also uses to say nothing. Horrible person.
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne:
He sounds like a classic man-splaining moron. And tedious AF.
schrodingers_cat
The Orange Monster bores me. His odds of winning the R nomination are pretty high.
OT: Votes have been cast for elections in Karnataka. BJP’s southern stronghold and home to Bengaluru, the American off-shoring hub and India’s IT capital.
Sudha Murthy, Sunak’s MIL pretends to not care about the growing communalization of politics in her home state. She and her husband are among the funders of the Indian versions of NRO and Daily Caller. So she is just fine with it.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
If he can’t deliver white supremacy, what good is he?
I truly believe this is the core of the current day rethuglican party. And it has been the unspoken core of the rethuglican party for most of my lifetime. The reason that it is more out in the open now, both from their “candidate” to the base, is that this country has made some good strides in actually having it’s humanity – ALL of it’s humanity involved, rather than a large portion being 3rd or 4th class “citizens.” And it was way, way past time and it still needs to get better. And seemingly, most of those left in the rethuglican party have one main goal, restoring the racism that they adore and want to be able to practice openly once again. And SFB is the leader in that segment of humanity that looks like me but has racist hate as their main motivation in life.
Ocotillo
@Miss Bianca: He was also a House member back in the impeach Bill Clinton days and one of the ring leaders. Thing about these anti-Trump Republicans is, they are still Republicans.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Damn. Who told you?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I don’t remember that but it sounds plausible. I remember he was such a raging asshole he offended everyone else in the White House and on the Hill. He once made the mistake of treating Senate Cardinal Robert Byrd as an underling.
I think the final nail in his coffin was taking gov’t helicopters back to NH for dentist appointments (and really, who likes looking for a new dentist?), probably leaked by the Bush WH
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruckus:
They lost their fucking shit at BLM. Merely saying that blacks should not be indiscriminately killed enraged them.
JML
Sununu is from the old-school “don’t say the quiet part loud” wing of the GOP. You won’t see him throwing red meat to the base on abortion, but he also would never stand in Congress’ way when they pass a federal abortion ban. He’ll never go anywhere in a national GOP primary today because the GOP base wants their candidate to be a rage-monster, to scapegoat someone, anyone for their problems and enable and empower their worst impulses, validating all of their fears and hates. He’s the guy the billionaire class wants, because he’ll keep the lid on things while they strip-mine the country.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: Gaaaah!!
As others have pointed out before me, if the Creature’s last name isn’t Frankenstein, what is it? One could argue that, in the book, Victor Frankenstein’s inability to recognize this is a large part of the problem.
EarthWindFire
@Sean: Because anyone running in a GOP primary needs the votes of people who believe the election was rigged and in no way believes Trump sucks. The GOP is in a classic prisoner’s dilemma…I send nothing but my thoughts and prayers.
@Eolirin: Said it better than I could.
Baud
@JML:
The media too. He seems like the 2020s version of John Kasich.
I agree with you that no Republican president would ever publicly stand up to a Republican Congress that wanted to enact a federal abortion ban. The most that would happen is that the president would try to persuade Congress behind the scenes not to throw him under the bus.
Betty Cracker
Speaking of horror shows, this looks like a promising modern take on Frankenstein:
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Jones.
Ocotillo
One thing that is going to be rough ride here in the near term and has the capacity to run until 11/24 is the migrants at the border. It’s the national media’s new play toy now that inflation and Afghanistan have faded somewhat.
There is a lot of angst down here and I see NYC mayor feeling the heat because of the 2023 version of forced bussing.
We (the country) need real and serious immigration reform but the GOPers need something to grandstand about and with a racist base will not do anything in good faith. I am not sure what the administration will be able to do but it is going to be a major thorn in the side.
Matt McIrvin
(See also David Harbour Jr.’s masterpiece, Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein)
EarthWindFire
That’s only half-right imo. They also want white liberals to repent for considering brown people human beings and lie prostrate before their righteousness. They are seriously pissed off at white liberals for not seeing their light.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
If the base of the rethuglican party wants racism and that is their line in the sand, they are going way, way out on a limb. Sure there are a lot of racists, haters and assholes in this world, most countries have more than their share of them. But the world is different these days, it has I’d say, finally woken the hell up, both sides of it. And that’s the racists and actual humans. But a lot of things are helping, and yes hurting that growth of humanity. First, in this country, on the hurting side is faux news. The tarted up haters that they hire, their uniform blandness and hate comes through in every possible way. They very much attempt to present their whiteness as the only allowable way to move forward. But as someone who’s been here a few years, their way is backasswards as all hell. rupert wants a world where his money and his skin color are the defining ruling points of everything. And the world, extremely thankfully, is mostly saying fuck that. Our ability to be, in a rather few hours most anywhere in the world, our ability to see most of the world in our living rooms has changed everything, in my lifetime. Some of the world will recoil at that, it is after all humanity, in all it’s emotions, including hate.
MattF
It’s just a fact that every Republican who has come out against Trump is dead nationally. Hogan, Romney, Cheney, the list goes on. So, sure— advise Sununu to commit political suicide. I’d support that, but I don’t expect it to happen.
ETA: Here’s Miz Petri’s recommendation for how to do a Trump town hall (gift link).
Matt McIrvin
@Ocotillo: The problem with the immigration issue is that rhetoric is so uncoupled from reality that literally no policy will actually help the Democrats. There are obviously real problems but they bear no relation to what Republicans claim they are, and you can’t fight phantoms with policy.
RandomMonster
Only lately?
Kelly
A neighbor out here in rural Oregon is flying a new flag I’m sure they think is cute. “F 🇺🇸 K BIDEN”. They are one of 26 homes that share our privately maintained road. I take care of the road. They never chip in for road maintenance.
Baud
@RandomMonster: I don’t know, but people have recently been linking to articles about various Republican politicians.
gene108
The problem Republicans have with Trump is after he won the nomination, in 2016, they decided to agree with everything he did.
It’s impossible to “take someone down”, if you agree with everything he’s done.
Betty Cracker
@Ocotillo: I don’t really see a political solution for Democrats that doesn’t entail becoming as amoral on the issue as Republicans.
StringOnAStick
@MazeDancer: We have a neighbor with 2 hives. Last year she told about putting out trays of gravel with water in them so the bees can get a drink without drowning. I see bees watering themselves every day now.
Ruckus
@EarthWindFire:
Well of course they are pissed off. Their world view of humanity is as old as dirt. Only dirtier. Mainly in a mostly excrement sort of way. They want the racist world they believe is the basis of all that is good. It doesn’t matter where they are from or what they look like they consider only people that look or even sound like them to be the basis of humanity. Everyone else is beneath them on their scale from shit to actually human. The largest change in the world in the last 100+ yrs is the ability to communicate and to travel long distances. And that has opened up the world to seeing that not everyone is worthy of sharing oxygen, because they hate people that don’t look or sound like them. vlad would be one such asshole. Everything/everyone has to be to his standards and ownership or he wants everyone not, dead. Some in this country (and many/all other countries) really aren’t a lot different other than the level of power they have. It’s humanity, all of it. It’s changing, slowly, some places far slower than others, but it is changing. I have no idea how many generations it will take to get to a far better place but it won’t be tomorrow.
Redshift
Sununu is trying to be the one who nobly rides in to lead the GOP after the craziness crashes and burns, or “the fever breaks” or whatever. I’ve noticed a series of such attempts starting with a local congressperson. The problem is that the crazy never ends, so they either have to come crawling back to join the unrepentant people they’ve criticized, or stand wistfully in the sidelines and fade into irrelevance.
trollhattan
Since we talking about Trump the topic of serial lying is in the room. So I ask, if Ukraine is saying they did a thing and Russia is saying no, they did no such thing, who am I to believe? Further, what do I do when Russian 2. is contradicting Russian 1. If Russians always lie and one is calling the other a liar, who’s the liar?
Baud
@Redshift:
Consistent Democratic dominance would help drive it back into the nether regions of the country. But it never truly ends.
jonas
Trump shit the GOP bed for at least a generation. People like Sununu coming along and suggesting that maybe if we sort of just shift over to this side or maybe cover the mess up with one of the throw pillows, it won’t be so revolting anymore isn’t going to make a difference. The problem is their revanchist, Fox and Newsmax- addled base. Until they cut these little nazis loose and tell them (and Trump) to go to hell, it will never be possible to resurrect anything resembling a mainstream, center-right party that can either govern responsibly or serve as the loyal opposition. As BC observed, however, they’re simply too chickenshit.
rikyrah
David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) tweeted at 2:06 PM on Wed, May 10, 2023:
Paging @peterbakernyt: Biden’s job approval among registered voters in the new The Economist/YouGov poll is 50%, with only 47% disapproving. I look forward to reading Baker’s column on this poll in the @nytimes.
https://t.co/i1Aizk1FeX https://t.co/TiGrScJjdG
(https://twitter.com/david_darmofal/status/1656375196394061824?t=4yAB8Os0JWXHusvlfjIosg&s=03)
dww44
As it is an open thread, I’ve a Twitter question. Since Musk’s takeover, the stuff that shows up in my twitter feed is just awful and mostly from right wing users. After that CNN trump debacle, all I got was paeans to Trump and his followers on stage and stuff showing unflattering views of Biden with “Dementia creeping” messaging. How do I get rid of that? I’ve been a user/follower since its inception and have posted less than a dozen times.
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: There’s a business in Bend along highway 97 in town that flies a Let’s Go Brandon flag from a piece of heavy equipment in their business yard. It was down for a few months and I thought they’d given up, but it’s back up again. I notice that this piece of heavy equipment isn’t getting any use at all, even in these booming building times; I sarcastically wonder why?
MattF
@trollhattan: I’d assume either side would lie— but Russian lying appears to be a norm. In reality, no one knows.
rikyrah
Sununu is just like the rest of them.
THEY HAVE NO POLICY DIFFERENCES WITH DOLT45.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HE DID DURING HIS ADMINISTRATION THAT HE DISAGREES WITH.
Only how he said it.
Muslim ban?
Children in cages?
Fumbling the COVID response?
Point to me where Sununu called Dolt45 out on any of it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Munster
rikyrah
The base and feeding the base their social warrior stuff is what gets them their tax cuts. That was their bargain. Sununu will have to deal with the consequences.
StringOnAStick
@dww44: I use those threads (on the rare occasion when I look at the twit site) to employ the block function aggressively.
Bill Arnold
@StringOnAStick:
Interesting. I will try this. Not keeping honeybees, but beekeepers are in the area. Honeybees are about 30 percent of the pollinators that I see; the rest are mostly native bees/wasps, hummingbirds, and some butterflies/moths.
rikyrah
Qondi (@QondiNtini) tweeted at 8:33 PM on Thu, May 11, 2023:
While the press coddles the man who caused a deadly insurrection, remember people are going to jail for the crimes they committed on 1/6
Officer Harry Dunn submitted a victim statement for the Oathkeepers’ sentencing
It’s heart wrenching
Send @libradunn love and light![]()
![]()
(https://twitter.com/QondiNtini/status/1656834845815783426?t=DcT5Ugm4lCBzG3KoHd9hvg&s=03)
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: That’s a really weird version of the two brothers problem.
dww44
@Betty Cracker: You’re right about there not being a political solution because of Republican intransigence and grandstanding, but there could be better messaging. Like showing some of what is actually happening in a measured and calm manner. Speaking with clarity and firmness. Less of the process part if it’s not relevant. Mayorkis speaks for the process.
Let Gavin Newsome be in charge of this, he’s good at it and he’s a perfect counterpoint to the Abbotts, Roys (hysteria personified), and DeSantises.
Omnes Omnibus
@dww44: Don’t use the For You feed. Use the Following feed instead. It should help.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Fronkensteen.
Redshift
@dww44: Use the “Following” column and never the algorithm “For You” one. (I never see that stuff in Following, ymmv.)
satby
@dww44: block, block, block all the objectionable tweets you see. Be sure you’re not accidentally blocking a liberal highlighting the evil, but block a lot. Elmo complained that block lists cost him $$ to maintain 😏 and it cleans up your feed. I have a huge block list, and my feed is mostly normal news and liberals I follow anyway.
JaySinWA
@dww44: I have not seen this problem with Twitter that you and others have, at least not much and not lately. I set the default top level to “following” although the “For You” setting doesn’t change much if I switch to it temporarily. I haven’t blocked many people, I have muted more but still not many. I have followed about 2000 accounts, so maybe they drown out the ones being pushed now.
ETA I also unfollow someone when they go off the rails. I would often follow someone for a single comment, then discover it was a one-off. Don’t just scroll past if they are someone you followed, unfollow them.
rikyrah
@Ruckus:
Always was, Dear.
Always was.
Just cloaked in Frank Luntz- approved dogwhistles.
Roger Moore
@Azhrie139:
I think a lot of people, including people here on Balloon Juice, are in denial. The Republicans are a full on personality cult. Not everyone within the party is a cultist, but enough of them are that Trump effectively owns the party. It really isn’t about policy for the majority of Trump voters; it’s about adulation of the dear leader. Yeah, he couldn’t get that adulation if he didn’t agree with them on a lot of points, but outside that area they’ll go along with whatever he says, even when he changes his mind.
trollhattan
@jonas: Trump is the ultimate product of Reaganism and I wonder if it’s going to take 40 years to claw the party back from fundamentalist insanity? They and the greedy class have the party locked up in a bespoke box, not coincidentally along with a large portion of the judiciary.
MattF
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s what I do, and it seems to work. There was a period when the feed would ‘spontaneously’ shift from ‘Following’ to ‘For You’ but that hasn’t happened recently. Rumor has it that blocking is going to become a subscriber amenity, if that happens, I’m out.
Baud
Via Reddit
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: I guess the Monster’s family name should be a blend of the family names of the dead people it’s made out of.
Kelly
@StringOnAStick: Nearby is a small drive up coffee stand with a great location along highway 22. They have flown Trump flags since the 2016 election. They seem to get plenty of local business. I wonder how many city folks to Central Oregon pass them by.
cain
@Hoodie: I disagree that their careers will be over. Once the Trump strain is gone – they could re-write their story as the victors.
Of course, you still have to deal with your voters – at some point though you have to do it to protect your country because a fascist America is a terrible thing to behold.
Geminid
@trollhattan: The Ukrainians are telling the truth here, I believe.
Do you mess with Twitter? Noel Reports and @Tendar seem like good, cautious sources to me. Adam Silverman will sometimes include their reporting in the Ukraine threads, so I think they are trustworthy.
kindness
Sununu is not a moderate. Oh sure, compared to the fuhrer wanna be Trump & DeSantis he is but that’s a terrible scale.
trollhattan
@Baud: It’s Boebert, isn’t it?
cain
@Kelly:
Like most conservatives they tend to take from the commons but don’t like to contribute. Yet somehow they are still like those frontier people – all independent and shit even though that’s not how it went down back in those days.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Russia in this instance and considering the situation and the person in charge, has zero on a scale of zero to a billion in trust. This is the country/despot in charge that has twice in 10 yrs attacked and is trying to destroy a country that he thinks is HIS. Said country existed long before anyone alive today and longer than the country he owns.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: Or Haaland.
dww44
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you. Simple enough.
mrmoshpotato
Does this dude think the Rethuglicans are still the party of St. Ronnie?
Wake up and join us in the 21st century Chris! Your party has become much, much worse.
JaySinWA
@Ruckus: Russian sources are proven unreliable narrators. OTOH both sides in any war are unlikely to provide complete and accurate information on what is happening on the ground currently. I wouldn’t blindly trust anything said by either side. That said, Ukraine sources seem to be much more reliable than Russian ones.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
That is genuinely unsettling.
(Plus though; it might bother EMusk.)
He wants to remain in overseer mode as CTO. That’ll have some amusement value.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hahaha, but true.
Ruckus
@jonas:
In my lifetime and that many of the commenters on this here blog, and republicans have been in charge for a (I can’t use the word good) too long part of it. But their goals, every single one of them, has been not one of democracy but of power and money. Every single damn one of them. What we are seeing now is just a more open, more visible party with the same goals. Joe Biden could not be a better example of the opposite of that type of leadership. This presidency is the culmination of his entire political life of be a better person and be a part of the whole, rather than always be attempting to steal everything not tied down — and much that is.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
You preach the truth.
Burnspbesq
I saw a brief clip somewhere of Joey Tacos putting up a brave face about Trump’s appeal in the Carroll case, but if he’s even minimally competent he knows he’s got bupkis.
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
The problem, of course, is that they (or at least a large majority of Republican normies) keep voting for the Republican crazies while they wait for the normies to retake the party. If they really want to take control over the party back from the crazies, they need to be willing to vote for moderate Democrats over Republican crazies in the general election. That will give the non-crazies a strong electability argument in the primaries. Of course it might still be too late, but at least they won’t be rewarding the crazies.
scav
@MattF: Strong possibility, especially as he’s not the product of a legitimating marriage — bastards didn’t automatically get the name of their father. Fitzfrankenstein might technically have precedent I guess. Or would it be Fitzdoctor or Fitzvictor?
rikyrah
Whole family is trash![]()
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Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) tweeted at 7:02 AM on Fri, May 12, 2023:
Home-school advocate, actor Kirk Cameron, says public schools are staffed with “nefarious forces” who want to indoctrinate kids by “killing God,” and replacing him with “progressive, socialist, communist ideas.” https://t.co/RUiYqywMGf
(https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1656993225339535362?t=LvON7E1dh6UE8flB6n7WXA&s=03)
dww44
@StringOnAStick: @Redshift: @JaySinWA: @satby: Thanks to all of you as well.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Also, lists still work pretty well on twitter. One can make them or view other’s lists in a browser, e.g.
Ukraine Military Analysts – A list with emphasis on expertise in military hardware, tactics, strategy, logistics. (Josh Marshall)
2022 Ukraine Crisis – Reporters, diplomats, heads of state and analysts tweeting on the Ukraine crisis. (Josh Marshall)
The replies are often self-policing, though a twitchy block reflex is helpful.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@dww44: You can mute or block words and phrases.
trollhattan
@rikyrah: “killing God”? Is that not what occurred on Good Friday?
Citizen Alan
@Azhrie139: There are no moderate Republicans. If a “moderate” votes with the MAGA Republican 90% or more of the time, they are not moderates, they are MAGA Republicans in denial. Liz Cheney is not a moderate. She was just pissed off that Republicans outside her coalition were close to establishing the permanent Republican government that the Bush-Cheney-Rove crowd dreamed of.
wenchacha
@dww44: I block, relentlessly. If I find a bunch of twits liking the initial shit post, I block all of them, too.
I don’t tweet much, but I RT lots of things. Under 1000 followers, but following about 3k. I think I am still seeing people I follow, but I have been watching the Caroll stuff, mostly.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yikes! I read something about the new CEO this morning, and she is/was in charge of advertising at a major network. Seems like a weird choice since advertisers fled Twitter in droves and Musk says he wants to squeeze users for revenue instead of relying on ads. Maybe this hire is an acknowledgement that his stated strategy is failing?
Citizen Alan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
One of the most compelling pieces of political writing about someone’s personal appearance came from one of the front pagers here (can’t remember who) that wrote that they first saw a clip of John Sununu speaking while reviewing pictures of “prolapsed pig rectums” for some college project and they were shocked by the physical resemblance. And I have never been able to get that mental image out of my head either.
scav
@rikyrah: Ah yes, their omnipotent Lord God and Savior can be reduced to shattered and lifeless crumbs by merely exposing children to the concepts of kindness and inclusion.
JaySinWA
@Ruckus: I think you left out the goals of retribution and the FY portion of IGMFY.
Retribution has been openly stated at least since Robert Bork was Borked. The Bill Clinton impeachment project by the “Elves” was part of the retribution for Nixon’s downfall.
Money may be one goal for sure but making the FY stick is as important or more so than keeping the IGM part. I suppose that is part of the power goal, what use is power if you can’t hurt somebody with it
ETA Spite might be a good shorthand for this goal.
Ruckus
@JaySinWA:
Think of the fighting. Is Ukraine attacking another country – ON THEIR OWN LAND? No they are not. Sure there may be some action taken to stop the military action on their own country and population but they are not attacking another country to try and steal it, only to defend and stop it. Russia is trying to steal their land because they are far more successful as a country than Russia. Because Russia is led by someone so far behind the times that he thinks he owns everything, including everything he wants that he has zero rights to. vlad wants to own the world, but he knows he can’t so he’s doing the next worse thing, he’s trying to steal anything he thinks he can get away with. And it’s not quite working out how he envisioned it. Because he can’t get away with it. vlad is old school and the world is finally becoming new school, figuring out that endless wars are just endless wars for a concept that no longer has any value. We can travel around the world in far less than 80 days. We can communicate most anywhere in the world rather easily. You can call most of it from the little thing you carry in your pocket. We can tell stories and compare weather very easily, just as we are doing now. The world is not the same as the one that most of us were born into, it is becoming much smaller and much more communicative. And that changes everything.
Tony Jay
@Kelly:
Someone needs to ‘Dark Brandon’ that bullshit with the addition of a ‘DON’T’ at the beginning and a ‘VOTE’ near the end.
As in ‘Don’t F 🇺🇸 K – VOTE BIDEN’, where F 🇺🇸 K = Fuck Around America.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: The GOP can’s survive without evangelicals, and evangelicals would stay home if the choice was between a Dem and a Republican who would “settle” for a 20-week ban with health exceptions.
raven
geg6
@EarthWindFire:
You’re both missing the misogyny that underlies all the bigotry.
rikyrah
A conservative group just asked a federal court to end the student-loan payment pause immediately — partly because ‘some junior associates at major law firms saw their six-figure salaries increase’ during the pandemic
Story by [email protected] (Ayelet Sheffey) • Yesterday 11:52 AM
A nonprofit conservative group asked a federal court last month to end the student-loan payment pause. It’s asking again — and it wants borrowers to be thrown back into repayment immediately.
On Thursday, The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a law firm aimed at protecting constitutional freedoms — filed a motion for preliminary injunction on behalf of the Michigan-based nonprofit Mackinac Center to end the student-loan payment pause immediately. In April, the group filed its initial lawsuit against the Education Department to end the pause and prevent a further extension. The pause is currently set to expire 60 days after June 30, or 60 days after the Supreme Court issues a final decision on the legality of Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers, whichever happens first.
The initial lawsuit detailed that as a nonprofit, employees who work at Mackinac Center would be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after ten years of qualifying payments. The group argued that the payment pauses have taken away the incentive to work in public service because the waived interest means that outstanding student debt that would be forgiven under PSLF “is less than it otherwise would be.”
A conservative group just asked a federal court to end the student-loan payment pause immediately — partly because ‘some junior associates at major law firms saw their six-figure salaries increase’ during the pandemic (msn.com)
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: What a bunch of assholes.
Ruckus
@JaySinWA:
I suppose that is part of the power goal, what use is power if you can’t hurt somebody with it?
To have power and desire all of it is a downfall of humanity. A wart if you are willing to underestimate the power of hurting and killing. But yes the history of humanity is replete with the stories of assholes who thought that they and they alone should have power. And in the end they ALWAYS met, usually under not so friendly situations, someone who said “Nope, I’m having that or one of us will have to die.” After which usually a lot of innocent people die and we start all over. And we are no different than most who have gone before. In a modern world we need to be, otherwise there will be nothing left for that one guy to claim ownership of.
Ohio Mom
@Roger Moore: everything you say is true. My neighborhood went purple for Biden. But it took someone as nuts as Trump to nudge them to vote Blue, once. Other than that instance, they generally can’t find it in themselves to vote against their party’s crazy.
Ken
@Baud: Yesterday I saw that the blue checks are revolting* because the new CEO has links to Davos, or some such thing, and is pro-vaccine.
* Shame on you, that joke was old when Mel Brooks used it.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
To say the least.
At least we now know the value they place on life. And it’s only what fits into their bank accounts.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: I don’t think Sununu can win the nomination either. I can see him doing well in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, but he probably couldn’t win many delegates at all from North Carolina to Texas.
I still hope Sununu runs, though. He might help “heighten the contradictions,” and also make Trump and DeSantis spend more resources. I would like to see the Republicans come out of the primary season broke and embittered.
I don’t think any of the other candidates- Pence, Haley, Scott etc.- will be much of a factor.
SteveinPHX
@Frankensteinbeck: I’d bet a bunch that Trump’s never heard of Paradise Lost, nor its author!
Betty Cracker
@geg6: A commenter here (I think it was Suzanne) recently said misogyny is so deeply embedded in every society and subgroup down to familial relationships that people become “nose blind” to it (paraphrasing). I think that’s true.
Was reading an article about the shooter in Allen, TX the other day, and it sounds like he may have been yet another neo-Nazi whose gateway drug was misogyny.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
Fixed.
sdhays
@Geminid: For anyone to have a chance of gaining traction, some people with a lot to lose, like Murdoch, are going to have to take some risks and go all in on supporting someone who is very pointed at taking Trump down.
Murdoch won’t do it. And no one who might be able to accomplish something with Murdoch’s backing (whoever that might be since it’s clearly not Florida Ron) will try without it.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
The instant response I’ve see to this is that she’s basically being brought in now to take the blame when the company collapses. It’s a common enough pattern people call it the Glass Cliff.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
They really are. And, how do they have phucking STANDING to even bring cases.
Matt
Of course he has – he’s just LYING.
If he was a good person, he wouldn’t be a Republican.
If he had a molecule of moral fiber in his soul, he wouldn’t be a Republican.
Come 2024 he’ll be licking the shit out of Trump’s asshole with a smile on his face, just like all the rest of them. He’ll give press conferences about how that shit doesn’t really taste particularly good, which will be lauded by the press as proof of his “moderate credentials”.
Old Man Shadow
Too right on abortion?
Hahahaha… honestly, dude, half of your base would probably go along with you if you proposed capital punishment for women who have sex outside of marriage.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
I doubt that a nontrivial number can be convinced to cross party lines; they’ve been telling each other stories for so long that justify the GOP being awful because those Demon-Rats are even worse.
With any luck, enough of them to make a difference will be sufficiently disgusted with Trump, and down-ballot Trumpist candidates, that they can’t bring themselves to vote at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@SteveinPHX: He probably thinks it’s a strip club.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan:
Sounds like a question in a first-year logic class.
satby
@dww44: I see essentially the same stuff in both feeds, so I think blocking also trains the algorithm (what’s left of it) to “serve” that. Keep that in mind if you need more active measures.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
While in Shelly’s book the creature claimed that it’s name should be Adam,
it went on to live a long and productive life as Bob.
Burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
how the f**k do they have standing?
Geminid
@sdhays: Murdoch has some power, but I don’t think he or the rest of the Republican elite can deliver voters now. The few Republicans I know would like Sununu, and they definitely don’t want Trump. But their professional, upper middle class cohort no longer punches above its weight in the party. The radicals are the center of gravity in the Republican electorate today, and they’ll tag Sununu as a “RINO.” And some of them hate RINOs as much or more as they hate Democrats.
So I think DeSantis is the only one who could beat Trump. He’ll have to up his game though, and that may prove impossible.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I believe you’re right that it was Suzanne. And she’s right. I see commenters here breeze right by it to rail on about GOP racism and disdain for education and, well, anything good. But the misogyny was always there first. Just look at the creation story of the Abrahamic religions. The misogyny was there first and is foundational to all the other “isms” that they cling to like a toddler to its mother’s thigh. And I can’t even blame the commenters for missing or overlooking it because it’s so baked in that it’s easy to miss or just skip over. And the misogyny makes all the other “isms” that much more toxic. Look at how they react to Black women. They despise black men, but don’t hate and fear them like they do Black women, as is demonstrated every time they talk about a Black woman.
twbrandt
@Matt McIrvin: Normal. You know, his brain was Abby Normal’s.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: In India the right wing crazy was in political wilderness for 70 years but even that didn’t kill it.
rikyrah
@geg6:
Suzanne is indeed the one that put it all together.
ALL the dots. She connected them.
They are coming for no-fault divorce. Making it difficult for women to leave marriages that they don’t want to be in. They want women dependent on men. They want them out of the workplace. Take away their birth control, so that they can’t control their sexual autonomy. Eliminate the possibility of abortion, which forces women to be attached to men that they don’t want to be. The no exceptions of rape or incest. The fighting against getting rid of CHILD MARRIAGE. The disgusting defense of CHILD MARRIAGE from the GOP in these states. The disgusting justification of forcing CHILDREN to have babies resulting from rape or incest. Only to their rabid, ideological cohorts do they sound sane. To everyone else, they sound like a horror show. The laws being passed to prohibit ‘cohabitation’ by people who are not-related to one another. The passing of the bill in Texas to allow religious people to be in schools instead of formally trained and licensed counselors. Counselors, who, BY LAW, are REQUIRED TO REPORT A STUDENT’S PHYSICAL OR SEXUAL ABUSE TO AUTHORITIES. These religious people ARE NOT. Where do you think that’s going to leave these vulnerable and preyed upon young teenaged girls?
Follow all the dots. This is about controlling women. This is about turning back the clock and stripping women of the freedom that they have won over decades of victories. I can’t tell you how upset it makes me to think that Peanut could live in a country with fewer freedoms than I did. It enrages me. And, yes, I talk to her all the time about it. And, about living her own life. Establishing herself first. Getting her education and career before she remotely even thinks about marriage and children. I tell her that if she decides against having children, that I fully support her CHOICE. But, that she better understand, that it’s all HER CHOICE. And, nobody else should decide for her what she wants to do with her body.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
When Trump reversed course on vaccinations, they booed him. To his face. It’s really not about Trump himself.
Roger Moore
@Burnspbesq:
Because the Republicans really want the program shut down. Standing arguments didn’t stop the judge from blocking Mifepristone.
rikyrah
Tesla is recalling almost every freaking vehicle they have EVER sold in China.
Geminid
@geg6: I think patriarchy is so embedded in culture and society that it’s hard to see. The sexism and misogyny we do recognize are the tip of an iceberg.
NotMax
Sununu has honed his Susan Collins imitation to a keen edge.
brantl
@MazeDancer: That’s odd, because his father ran cover for Nicoraguan terrorists.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
But it’s an over-the-air update, not something that requires physical recall of the vehicles. That said, it shows a drawback everyone familiar with software that can be updated this way is familiar with: easy of updates makes developers sloppy. They figure they can always fix problems after the fact, so they don’t chase everything down before release. It’s annoying when it happens to something trivial like a game, but it’s dangerous when it happens with a safety-critical system like a car’s braking system. And, of course, who knows if the patch they’re sending out won’t create new problems.
RaflW
Chris Sununu doesn’t even seem to register that the people jeering and clapping as Trump bashed and (again) defamed E Jean Carroll and mocked sexual abuse are New Hampshire Republicans. 400 of them. Including ‘independent’ MAGAs (whatever the absolute f**k that means).
I’m sure I’d hate having Chris as president. I’m sure he’s not that far to the left of Attila the Hun, because you can’t be and still get anywhere in today’s GOP. But he’s also either just performing moderation for an adoring ‘centrist’ press, or he’s utterly detached from his own constituency. It’s probably a toxic goo of both swirled together.
trollhattan
@rikyrah: China has a recall process? Zounds!
NotMax
@Roger Moore
“The brakes do function better but now the infotainment system plays only ‘It’s a Small World.'”
//
Jeffro
Sununu: “[trump] was a big part of that insurrection”
My dude, he was the ENTIRE REASON we HAD an insurrection on J6, ya clod.
RaflW
@Frankensteinbeck: As to naming the loser stink, greasy finger in the wind John Cornyn said it way back on Tuesday. “‘The fact is, I do not think he could win the presidency,’ Sen. Cornyn of Texas told reporters on Capitol Hill. ‘Regardless of what you think about him as an individual, to me, electability is … the sole criterion.'”
Not sure how long he’ll maintain that apostasy, but he managed to get it in print.
Jado
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ha! Yeah, a bridge too far for the racist fuckers,
“Black people SHOULDN’T be wantonly slaughtered by police? What is this, kumbaya kindergarten? WTF?”
AND-they look just like me, old, male, and white. I’m sooooo thrilled at the resemblance…
Capri
@Roger Moore: Agreed
Oz and Walker didn’t win their primaries over conventional GOP politicians because of their positions on any issues.
The pundit class can’t grok that the GOP electorate doesn’t care a whit if they put up candidates that have no chance in general elections.
JaySinWA
@rikyrah: Elon giveth, Elon taketh away. All praise to Elon or else.
Ruckus
@geg6:
Not missing it, it is absolutely there, was just answering a different question/point.
RaflW
@rikyrah: I know this goes way beyond Business Insider, in fact it’s pretty much every media outlet that does this, but OMFG do I hate this lazy mimicry of utter bullshit: “The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a law firm aimed at protecting constitutional freedoms”
I get that this group wants that to be their identity, but why credulously put that out? I just splutter with exasperation at the servility to the desired and most often plainly untrue framing that these right wing groups flog.
Do your g*d damned job of reporting, Ayelet Sheffey. What ‘freedoms’? Constitutional in what way? Just the original document? Bill of Rights included? Anything after the Civil War? Prior SCOTUS rulings that interpret the Constitution?
Gaaaah.
Jeffro
One of the reasons none of us can picture a ‘moderate’ Republican winning the GOP nomination is because the Democratic Party is so thoroughly moderate/mainstream/representative of the country as a whole. Pick a ‘moderate’ position on any topic and the Dems are already there.
Also, if they were going to be a more ‘moderate’ GOP, they’d have to at least agree that climate change is a problem, gun violence is a problem, etc. Then they’re just arguing with us about different ways to solve the problems, and their base has been lied to for far too long to accept that.
Y’all are screwed, Republicans.
oatler
@trollhattan:
Archaic contraction of God’s Woundz
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: this doesn’t even make any sense as nonsense!
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
It may be an old piece of equipment that isn’t worth fixing so it sits there adorning the yard as sort of a business sign. If it is it likely would be worth more as metal to melt down to make new things. But some would never think anything old, equipment or human should be replaced. Humans get to that point on their own, machines have to be taken care of, even if they are smarter than their owners.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Bill Arnold: Native bees will use the water/gravel dishes too.
Here are Natve Chimney Bees (Anthophora abrupta) in my yard using mine.
They also use wet moss near the planters at out back porch too.
RaflW
@Jeffro: And yet literally 10s of millions of Americans regularly bemoan how Biden is a marxist (I know, what?!) or basically an extreme liberal zombie.
I totally tilt at windmills for a better, more informative press. But the fact that so many people in this country can’t even identify what policies are centrist, liberal, or conservative, nor which party really holds and enacts those policy views, damns us to the sorts of deadly whims that led to TFG mashing the levers of power in such reckless ways.
Yes, I’m really vinegary today. This week – despite the Carroll verdict – has been rough. I do not relish being an Eeyore. I struggle to tap into optimism.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Ah, the elusive drooping crane.
;)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ocotillo: Inflation is still an issue. People are still daily complaining about high prices and now some job markets are starting to contract because of the repeated interest rate hikes. That immigration is such a huge mess (and divisive for Democrats) is going to be an ongoing challenge.
RaflW
@Redshift: One can look to California to realize that – for now, certainly – even being in the wilderness of repeatedly losing elections won’t get the GOP to moderate. And CA having a Republican governor 2003-2011 was sort of a fluke, too. Schwarzenegger is hardly even recognizable as a Republican a mere 12 years later.
What will it take for the fever to break? I certainly don’t know. Given my current mood, I sometimes think the illness is gonna kill the patient.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kelly: Could the part of the road that is in front of their property just be a bit less maintained? Like if a giant pothole opened up right in front of their driveway, could you just put a cone in front of it?
zhena gogolia
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: My thought exactly!
Jay
Omnes Omnibus
OT: Simone Biles is now a Packer fan.
Jay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
yurp. Back in the day, I maintained our road, all 12km worth.
People who refused to pitch in, (money, gravel, snow clearing) got a quick and rude surprise, like a 4 foot deep trench where their driveway connected to the road.
Other MJS
@SiubhanDuinne: Trump is the Monster from the Id. Sadly, the 2015 essay comes to the wrong conclusion.
Jay
Baud
@RaflW:
Those Californians get the benefits of living in a liberal state and the protections afforded by the strength of the national party. If the GOP we’re weaker nationwide, they would be forced to change.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: This is the way I try to explain it to doubters: Misogyny is so ingrained in American culture that a woman is generally presumed to be a lesbian if she has short hair and wears pants with functional pockets.
Citizen Alan
@Burnspbesq:
As I said here yesterday, I honestly think standing now exists any time a conservative is butthurt about something a liberal is doing.
Barbara
@Jay: I will give Trump this much grudging respect — he has an almost unerring instinct for being able to gain the upper hand and use people to his own benefit even as they keep trying to convince themselves that they will be able to control or contain him for their own purposes. Not even the military types were able to do that. I guess if you are the president of CNN or whatever, you are so successful that you just can’t imagine being the rube in the room, but there you are.
lowtechcyclist
Jordan Neely’s murderer is getting charged with second-degree manslaughter.
Better than nothing, but just manslaughter?? For maintaining a chokehold for 15 minutes? WTF?
gwangung
@Matt McIrvin: The core issue with immigration is racism, and has been ever since they created immigration laws.
...now I try to be amused
@Kelly:
FUSAK BIDEN? (or FUSK BIDEN)
jonas
Yep. The result is that most people don’t vote on policies or qualifications — they have no idea what those are — but on whatever personality resonates with them. You know, who “you would have a beer with” or something like that. Terrible, terrible way to pick your political leaders, but here we are.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Our local TV station had a news piece today about how some food and housing prices have dropped! They have been on the OMG rising prices bandwagon for a long time so this was a pleasant change!
Jay
@Barbara:
this am, sitting on the balcony on the 22nd floor, a crow caught my eye, because he/she/they were busting their ass to climb up.
then I noticed a hawk, circling up high, (we have a lot of pidgins, seagulls and crows in the mall parking lot)
crow climbed all the way up, and harassed it all the way to Burnaby.
You would think the Press could do the same.
geg6
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
I was about to make the same comment. Saw a story last evening and this morning on local news about prices going down.
This is why the GOP is so stubborn about the debt limit. Inflation has been dipping ever so lightly and they can’t have that on Biden’s watch, so gotta manufacture an economic crisis or two to distract from the orange fascist and his minions and drag Biden’s approvals back down.
lowtechcyclist
@RaflW:
People have been thinking since the Reagan Administration that the GOP needed to turn more towards the center to keep from being a minority party. And it never seems to happen, but they never get more than a hairsbreadth from power for very long.
Part of it is the way the mainstream media normalize them, no matter how extreme they get. They’ll always find some ‘moderate’ Republicans like Sununu who are mostly distinguishable from the crazies in tone rather than ideology, and hold them up as evidence that the GOP is a sane party with an extreme wing. You know, just like the Democrats.
Geminid
@jonas: Many voters are motivated by fear of and anger at the other party, so-called “negative partisanship.” As Republicans move further from majority opinion on policy, negative partisanship has become their best argument. They rely upon voters accepting an exaggerated image of the Democratic Party to make it stick.
tam1MI
Can we say “Glass Cliff”?
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: How would you charge him and why?
rikyrah
@geg6:
CRASHING THE ECONOMY IS THEIR ONLY PLAYBOOK FOR 2024.
Ksmiami
@Kelly: dump rocks and debris in front. Freeloaders.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Apparently, a lot of people either didn’t click on the link or didn’t get the joke.
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
Truth. Because, if they told the truth about the GOP and what their ACTUAL POLICIES are – there is no way to portray them as moderate.
That’s why I am enjoying watching the Florida economy crash in real time. After all the ink they spilled on propping up Ronny D and how he was the Great Next GOP Hope…..
You point out the 6 week bans on abortion.
The non-exceptions for rape and incest.
Pointing out the consequences of said laws with actual children being forced to carry the children of incest, or having to go over state lines to have an abortion at 10 … women almost bleeding to death from a miscarriage that she can’t get corrected because of the state laws against abortion..
The absolute disconnect…that these are just ‘political positions’ and somehow body autonomy isn’t that important.
Eunicecycle
@Baud: nobody had a reaction to that horrible picture? Like needing brain bleach?
...now I try to be amused
@Geminid:
And it’s worked very well for them. But the negative partisanship gap is closing thanks to the GOP’s open extremism. About time.
Gravenstone
@Kelly: Any chance you can arrange a pothole at the end of their drive?
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus:
Shows she is a very discerning individual. Not sure how long her husband will be on the team. Don’t get much down here in Chicago. They seem to have a bias against a real pro team.
Ken
@Baud: When you start that deep in the uncanny valley, it’s hard for any changes to cause much comment.
Uncle Cosmo
@cmorenc: I’m not sure “insolated” is a word, but just FTR “insolation” is…and it doesn’t mean anything close to what you’d like it to. (Yah, yah, Fingerfehler, I get it…)
Geminid
@…now I try to be amused:
The phenomenon of negative partisanship has been around forever, and a political scientist came up with that descriptor ten or so years ago. Another political scientist, Rachel Bitecofer gave a good explaination of it in a New Republic article about the upcoming presidential election titled, “Hate is on the Ballot,” February 2020.
Bitecofer has since moved from political science to political engineering, and last year hired on with Arizona political consultants Main Street Strategies. One of their clients was Adrian Fontes, candidate for Secretary of State.
After he won. Mr. Fontes had this to say about Bitecofer’s help:
One advantage Democratic candidates who exploit the negative partisanship dynamic have is that unlike the Republicans, they don’t need to lie to make it stick.
Jeffro
True.
They seem to have maxed out just about every anti-majoritarian tool in the toolbox to its fullest, though. And nationally, they’re still losing.
Jeffro
truth
It’s why the whole party went anti-vax just as Biden was taking office…it’s why the GOP and snooze media went nuts on “INFLATION!!!1!” leading up to the midterms…they are ALWAYS up for kneecapping America if it means kneecapping Dems.
WaterGirl
@Baud: shudder
TEL
@RSA: That really is a perfect description of the problem Repub’s face with Trump.