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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Loser Stink (Open Thread)

Loser Stink (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  July 12, 202311:58 am| 221 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Even under a severe heat dome,* this warms the cockles of my stone-cold heart: (Rolling Stone)

Murdochs Start to Sour on DeSantis: ‘They Can Smell a Loser’

The conservative media kingmakers’ preferred candidate to knock off Donald Trump is not meeting expectations, and the family’s patriarch is getting tired of waiting

Since the beginning of the Biden presidency, the powerful Murdoch family has favored the Florida governor in the 2024 presidential primary, largely due to a conviction that DeSantis would be a more electable, and less chaotic, evolution from Donald Trump.

But in recent weeks, the Murdochs have grown increasingly displeased with the DeSantis campaign’s perceived stumbles, lackluster polling, and inability to swiftly dethrone Trump, multiple sources tell Rolling Stone. They have also seriously questioned whether the governor is capable of defeating Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch in particular has been voicing his doubts and frustrations, in private discussions and calls, at times wondering if a DeSantis “comeback” is possible at this point. Murdoch is the longtime patriarch of the family that controls Fox News, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and other media properties that are highly influential among conservatives.

“(Rupert’s) understandable worry is that we may end up being stuck with Trump anyway,” a senior Fox source tells Rolling Stone. “And DeSantis is underperforming. Anybody can see that…(and the Murdochs), they’re seeing it, too.”

Murdoch isn’t the only right-wing oligarch who’s lost faith in Florida’s mean, corrupt and socially awkward governor, and if it’s just now dawning on him that Repubs might get stuck with Trump again for 2024, maybe Rotten Rupert isn’t as bright as generally supposed.

The New York Times published an article about the Murdochs’ DeSantis problem too. And writing for the Financial Times, Edward Luce also dissects the campaign’s early stumbles, including that bizarre ad.

Luce says the problem is deeper than ineptitude; he claims the governor made a fatal miscalculation about the nature of Repubs in the Trump era, i.e., that the base wants a Trump without the drama when in fact they love the drama.

Luce doesn’t spell this next part out, but I think it’s possible DeSantis mistook GOP oligarch sentiment for rank-and-file GOP voter sentiment. Rich donors didn’t particularly care for all the Trump drama because it’s a risk to an investment they made to achieve favorable tax treatment and deregulation. For the rank-and-file, the transgressive behavior is the entire point.

As others have observed before him, Luce says the GOP base is caught up in a cult of personality, so it’s not a normal political party anymore. He argues that a cult can’t be “disbanded via focus group or contrived positioning.” According to Luce, the only way for a not-Trump to win is to slay the dragon instead of tip-toeing around it — another observation that has been made elsewhere.

Luce is not convinced the dragon-slaying option remains open at this point — whether by the hand of DeSantis or anyone else. Self-immolation by the dragon may be the only way Repubs dodge Trump 2024.

All that said, Doug Heye, a former RNC comms guy quoted in the Rolling Stone article, points out that it’s too early to write Rancid DeMeatball’s political obituary:

“There are a lot of people who are trying to write the obituary of a well-funded and popular figure in the party before the debates have even started. Ron was the designated dragon-slayer — and because he hasn’t slayed the dragon before the debates have begun, he’s being portrayed as a failure. And I think it’s too early for that.”

As much as I enjoy doing the cha-cha-cha on the DeSantis campaign’s comatose carcass, Heye is right. Like a buoyant turd that refuses to be flushed, Ron DeSantis might fight his way back up the RNC sewer pipe and bob to the surface yet.

One lesson of 2020 and 2022 is that GOP voters have gone nose-blind to loser stink. They don’t smell it on Trump and his kooky candidates, and if Trump does self-destruct, maybe they won’t smell it on DeSantis either. But the stench is powerful.

Open thread!

*Honestly? It just feels like Florida in July to me so far. But I don’t have to work outdoors.

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Reader Interactions

221Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 12:03 pm

    It is too early to tell (remember when Biden was written off before South Carolina), but DeSantis seems to suffer from a personality deficit that his cruelty can’t seem to counteract.

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 12:03 pm

    According to Luce, the only way for a not-Trump to win is to slay the dragon instead of tip-toeing around it — another observation that has been made elsewhere.

    Luce is not convinced the dragon-slaying option remains open at this point — whether by the hand of DeSantis or anyone else. Self-immolation by the dragon may be the only way Repubs dodge Trump 2024

    The dragon-slaying option does not appear to exist in today’s GOP, with today’s GOP’s slate of trump alternatives.  They’re all too trump-compromised/affiliated, or just too damaged, or just too unappealing, and time is growing short.  They must also know that if defeated for the GOP nomination, trump will burn the party to the ground.  Nomination + 2024 win = only way to stay out of jail.  He’s going to go for broke.

    Self-immolation is also not possible (short of a medical ‘event’): enough of the GOP base is willing to excuse literally anything the guy does that they can’t be overcome by trump’s own actions.

    Happily, the dragon-slaying option does exist outside the GOP, in the form of Biden-Harris 2024.

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 12:06 pm

    Btw/OT: this is some fun reading: How Biden & Co learned to love the economy

    As well they should!  It’s looking good!  Shout it from the rooftops, Uncle Joe!

    Something has come over President Biden and his White House. Rather than talking about the economy in their usual tone of apology and nuance lest someone think they haven’t acknowledged the feelings of anyone who might be unhappy, the “Bidenomics” push has become positively triumphal.

    The common Democratic impulse to make sure everyone’s pain is validated has been set aside, at least for now. Instead, through Biden’s speeches and a wave of media appearances by administration officials, the White House has gone on something of a victory tour. It’s as though Democrats have finally realized how to frame a debate: If you want the press to tell everyone how great the economy is, you have to start by saying the economy is great.

    That doesn’t mean all Americans will immediately be persuaded. The media’s own skepticism remains, and news outlets will give Republicans ample time to continue claiming the economy is in desperate straits. But if nothing else, the idea that the economy is actually doing very well — how to judge that success, what produced it, how we might continue it — will move toward the center of the debate. Which means that debate will become very different from what it has been recently.

    Blaming Biden for the press’ framing of the economy to date is classic Post, but still!

  4. 4.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Rather than talking about the economy in their usual tone of apology and nuance lest someone think they haven’t acknowledged the feelings of anyone who might be unhappy

     

    Did Biden ever do this? I get that others have. We were discussing that in the morning thread.

  5. 5.

    lee

    July 12, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    Another thing to consider: There are some state level GOP Party Orgs that are running out of money because 45 is grifting up all the small donor’s money. There have been recent stories about Michigan, Arizona, and now Minnesota about how broke they are.​
     

    EDIT: This makes you wonder just how much money the GOP was getting from Russia.

  6. 6.

    lee

    July 12, 2023 at 12:11 pm

    @Baud: ​
    I don’t think Biden ever has because it appears Bidenomics is actually helping the middle class.

    Even during the Obama years there were many middle class folk that were wondering where their strong economy was.

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 12:15 pm

    @Jeffro:  The FTF NY Times headline on Paul Krugman column today:

    Dude, Where’s My Recession?

  8. 8.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 12:15 pm

    Maybe DeSantis will get lucky and get arrested for kidnapping migrants. That could raise his status in the eyes of Republican primary voters.

  9. 9.

    laura

    July 12, 2023 at 12:15 pm

    Sweet fancy Moses, for a party who’s leadershit pines for a new way forward without tfg, they sure have been unwilling to bell the cat when given multiple opportunities to do so. It would’ve been so easy to convict and remove him during the first impeachment. But no, they all rallied around and protected him and then did the exact same thing in the 2nd impeachment and prevented him from running right now. So good luck to all the current pageant participants and the various and sundry grifting opportunists driving their “campaigns.” And good luck to the aging dregs of king makers who once bestrode our political landscape like it was their private playground.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    @lee:  ObamaCare and Bidenomics.

    Works for me.

    On the other side:  Everything Trump touches dies.

  11. 11.

    Hannah Huckaby

    July 12, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    Because this is an open thread with thoughts about DeSantis, here’s an article our son (college-age) wrote on his blog in April: https://thedashfiles.substack.com/p/a-third-option-for-desantis?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fdesantis&utm_medium=reader2

    I hope promoting his blog on Substack is okay, and if not, I apologize.

    Long-time Balloon Juice reader,

    Hannah

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm

    We need to somehow really knock the Murdochs down to size.  They have wrought disaster on three continents now.

    All this public consolidation of media, and allowing outright lies?  Not helpful, and antidemocratic.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm

    @Elizabelle: 🤣

    so very many RW pundits are scrambling for an argument…but the jobs and inflation reports just. aren’t. cooperating.

    meanwhile, Krugman’s like, “scoreboard!” 😁

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 12, 2023 at 12:18 pm

    @Baud: Biden always talked about an aspirational US in his campaign.  The tendency to talk about bad things and say that is not America that bothered many here is a part of that.  He talked about what we could be if we simply did the right thing.  He is capitalizing on that now.  He is able to say, “Look what we can do if we try.  That’s what I have been saying.  Let’s finish the job.”  Not a bad platform on which to campaign in 2024.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 12:20 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby:

    Better than most paid pundits.  No need to apologize. Your son would fit in well with us olds.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 12:21 pm

    Betty

    But the stench is powerful.

    Simple, concise, truthful, spot on.

    The stench is the point of either deathsanta or shitforbrains. The conservative voter seemingly has decided that they don’t actually want a government that will do anything but support the people they think owns the country – the ultra rich like rupert, who provides so much for them. He is their ideal human, vile, ruthless, wealthy beyond wealthy, and his faux news shows and tells them the TRUTH.

    It’s all a masterful, steaming pile of crap that has been shitting all over people who can’t see any better for 30 yrs now and don’t want to. rupert gets his financial ideals, the mass gets their shitty savior, and the world rotates backwards 100 yrs to a better time for no one.

  17. 17.

    Jerzy Russian

    July 12, 2023 at 12:23 pm

    Like a buoyant turd that refuses to be flushed, Ron DeSantis might fight his way back up the RNC sewer pipe and bob to the surface yet.

    Pure poetry.

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    July 12, 2023 at 12:24 pm

    @Jerzy Russian: BC is a master.

  19. 19.

    narya

    July 12, 2023 at 12:24 pm

    @lee: TIFG sucking up all the money makes me so very happy. I mean, I’m sure the PACs and sugar daddies will eventually throw money in the pot, but I’ll take my glee where I can get it.

  20. 20.

    Chris

    July 12, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    Luce says the problem is deeper than ineptitude; he claims the governor made a fatal miscalculation about the nature of Repubs in the Trump era, i.e., that the base wants a Trump without the drama when in fact they love the drama.

    It boggles my mind that they don’t understand this.  I understand the mainstream media trying to manifest a NeverTrump, they’re the ultimate “I want to pretend Trump never happened” demographic, but Fox News has been the largest right-wing puke funnel on the right for a generation; their whole job is to stir up and profit from this kind of sentiment.  You’d think they of all people would have realized DeSantis (or any NeverTrump, really) was never going to pass.

  21. 21.

    Raoul Paste

    July 12, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    “Rancid Meatball”?   So many new nicknames..

    I didn’t say stop

  22. 22.

    Inventor

    July 12, 2023 at 12:26 pm

    @Jerzy Russian: You beat me to it.

  23. 23.

    Anoniminous

    July 12, 2023 at 12:26 pm

    Ron ‘Born Again Bigot’ DeSantis support has fallen to -30 points v. Trump AND people who follow politics, i.e., the GOP base, have already looked at him and said no.  Despite the horseshit from the Horse! Race! crowd DeSantis isn’t going to win the GOP nomination unless Trump is incarcerated or dies.

  24. 24.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    July 12, 2023 at 12:27 pm

    If Puddin’Boots is too wimpy a Governor to permanently remove an obstacle to his Presidential ambitions in his own state, then he clearly is a GOP loser.

    I’d hope that there’s some swing states with the courage to declare “Nope, Trump is OFF the ballot, because insurrectionist and 14th Amendment”, and if the Supremely Deplorable Six sez otherwise, just telling them to fuck right off.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    July 12, 2023 at 12:28 pm

    Luce doesn’t spell this next part out, but I think it’s possible DeSantis mistook GOP oligarch sentiment for rank-and-file GOP voter sentiment. Rich donors didn’t particularly care for all the Trump drama because it’s a risk to an investment they made to achieve favorable tax treatment and deregulation. For the rank-and-file, the transgressive behavior is the entire point.

    As others have observed before him, Luce says the GOP base is caught up in a cult of personality, so it’s not a normal political party anymore. He argues that a cult can’t be “disbanded via focus group or contrived positioning.” According to Luce, the only way for a not-Trump to win is to slay the dragon instead of tip-toeing around it — another observation that has been made elsewhere.

    LMMFAO. It always makes me (point and) laugh when dipshits cannot/will not hear the truth because they don’t like who’s speaking it. BIH! Every left-leaning pundit has been saying this for Y E A R Z. Adam Serwer, please take your much-deserved (and much-delayed) round of applause.

    It’s a cult of personality?! Now y’all are listening?!

    Not too smart, are they?

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    Zelenskyy on his meeting with Biden.

    The meeting was at least twice as long as planned, and it was as meaningful as it needed to be. If the protocol had not stopped the meeting, we would have talked even longer. All the topics. Long-term support. Weapons. Politics. @NATO. We clearly see how to end this war with our common victory. Thank you, Mr. President!

    Can’t say I understand where UK Defense Minister Wallace is coming from, bitching that Ukraine isn’t sending proper thank you notes and treating the UK like Amazon. Does Ben have teenagers at home?

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 12, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I do think liberals need to learn to rhetorically define “American-ness” more aspirationally than descriptively, and not get so upset when their own politicians call bad things un-American. They know, they know, they’re not trying to whitewash history like DeSantis’s education trolls.

  28. 28.

    Butch

    July 12, 2023 at 12:31 pm

    @lee: Trying to remember which state, and I can’t find the article, but I believe one of them is down to something like $58.

  29. 29.

    MattF

    July 12, 2023 at 12:33 pm

    And imagining that primary debates with the Orange Menace will save DeSantis is a late-nite monologue punch line, not a reasonable political hope. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that there will be debates on the Republican side, may we recall what happened in 2016? Anyway, IMO, debates will happen because Trump won’t be able to miss the opportunity to be the star of the show.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 12:35 pm

    @laura:

    The current day republican party doesn’t want better they want power back. rupert really doesn’t want better because he’s rupert and because he makes a lot of coin out of the hate. He wants to be wealthier and he wants everyone to know how he got there. He is the poster boy for wealthy stink.

    They want the government they think we had decades ago, before all this communications stuff started showing up their hate and blame of everyone but themselves for the shit show that their policies are. This is conservative politics, always has been, it’s a way to show everyone that money in the right hands is the most important thing, that hate is normal and to bring back white is right.

  31. 31.

    BeautifulPlumage

    July 12, 2023 at 12:36 pm

    Clarence Thomas in a new ethics scandal

    Lawyers with supreme court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo

  32. 32.

    Delk

    July 12, 2023 at 12:39 pm

    Well, Ron is now calling himself the next Reagan. I guess Karen DeSantis is no longer Jackie and is now Nancy. Yeah, um, just say no.
    Link

  33. 33.

    citizen dave

    July 12, 2023 at 12:40 pm

    Little Florida Gov Man is at a fundraiser in my county this very moment ( Hamilton Co. Indiana)  Wondering if it will still reek by the time I get home later.

    If Orange Man is The Former Guy, is desantis The Never Guy (TNG)?

  34. 34.

    Jackie

    July 12, 2023 at 12:40 pm

    @Butch: Minnesota. I read an article yesterday – I think it was on RawStory – about $58 cash on hand and hundreds of thousands in debt.

    found the link:

    https://www.rawstory.com/amp/minnesota-gop-2662262391

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 12:44 pm

    @MattF: We occasionally dogsit and she and our dog will play and then just stop and yell at each other. It’s hilarious, for a minute anyway, and I imagine that’s exactly what a Trump-Meatball “debate” would  be like.

    Fox, or whomever, would have “rules” and they would both go “fuck that” and just come after each other, spewing nonsense. The cameras will stay on Trump (the only rule) and that would be that for Meatball. He has no plan for taking Trump down and if he did, he does not have the toolkit. He’s the only tool.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 12:46 pm

    @citizen dave: Lemme understand: the governor of Florida travels to Indiana and passes the hat so he can become God?

    Sounds like a plan to me.

  37. 37.

    BeautifulPlumage

    July 12, 2023 at 12:46 pm

    @Jackie: maybe they can get together with the Michigan GOP and have a balls kicking fundraiser. I’d pay to watch that

  38. 38.

    Barbara

    July 12, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    I don’t understand why DeSantis or Murdoch for that matter doesn’t intuitively grasp that the base is captivated by drama and would quickly lose interest if it goes away — popular culture has been embracing revolting amped up drama for a while now  — Jerry Springer, The Bachelor, The Biggest Loser, and innumerable other examples

    The other thing is, assume that Trump exited stage right — would DeSantis really rise to the top of all the other candidates who would quickly stream in?  His voice sounds like fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard.  The mystery is how he has made it so far, not why he isn’t slaying Trump’s still living carcass.

  39. 39.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 12, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    @Baud:

    DeSantis seems to suffer from a personality deficit that his cruelty can’t seem to counteract.

    I just needed to see that again.

  40. 40.

    stinger

    July 12, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    ABC News has actually broken in to the local noon newscast to show Biden’s NATO address, any minute now I hope.

  41. 41.

    VOR

    July 12, 2023 at 12:54 pm

    @Butch:Trying to remember which state, and I can’t find the article, but I believe one of them is down to something like $58.

    Minnesota. Republicans in Minnesota have not won a state-wide race since 2006 – US Senate, Governor, State AG, Secretary of State, State Auditor. Four of the 8 Congressional Districts have Republican representatives

    Remember, the GOP didn’t even bother to create a platform in 2020. Policy was “whatever Trump wants”. So it is no surprise their base cannot tell the difference between giving TFG money and giving the party money. Trump is the party, in their minds.

  42. 42.

    Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog

    July 12, 2023 at 12:55 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage:

    Clarence Thomas in a new ethics scandal

     
    This is a ” Day with a D in it” headline.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 12:56 pm

    @Baud:

    DeSantis seems to suffer from a personality deficit that his cruelty can’t seem to counteract.

    The defect is that his personality is tiny, asinine and stupid.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 12, 2023 at 12:58 pm

    @Delk: I’m trying to remember if I have ever seen an example of try-hardism wrt to a candidate’s family like the efforts to make Mrs DeSantis a Thing. I think the Romney campaign half-heartedly tried to make the early middle-aged Mittlets into a gang of lovable young scamps, and of course Meghan McCain, but I don’t think even her parents ever thought that was going to, or should, happen.

    And it’s not the old tactic, perfected by the Bushes, of “Oh, his wife softens the rough edges of his conservatism…” It’s: “You think he’s an asshole? Fuck yeah he is! And I’m an asshole in opera gloves!”

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 1:01 pm

    Housing market still weird here. Neighborhood place went on the market a week ago listed $1.6  mil. Already sold at $1.8. Bay Area refugee? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Higher mortgage rates had slowed things and maybe it’s just the upper end not affected, some people pay cash, you know, but everybody had expected the market to remain quiet and prices to drop. Not sure that’s the case but I’m not telling Jerome Powell. Enough with the 30% credit cards.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 1:03 pm

    @VOR:

    Trump is the party, in their minds.

    This requires repeating. He’s a BILLIONAIRE. But otherwise he is them. He’s a hater – a racist, like them. He’s them with billions, if he can do it so can they! They of course likely don’t know he stole from his siblings to bankroll his life. Or if they do – they approve. The money he started with was made by his father – the slumlord, which is OK for bigots. He rings all their bells.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 1:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Was it Nixon who admired Bar Bush’s ability to hate?

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:04 pm

    C-Span link for Biden speech to NATO.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:05 pm

    Biden gets applause.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:05 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Bad audio. Lots of echo.

  51. 51.

    UncleEbeneezer

    July 12, 2023 at 1:06 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: Messaging that appeals to the Very Online Left (mostly white dudes) and young voters doesn’t really work for Senate, Governor and POTUS candidates.  For bigger races Dems need to use messaging that appeals to Black Aunties.  Biden, Obama and Hillary all understood this.  I think Kamala and Buttigieg do too.  For Deep Blue House districts, sure, use all Progressive Twitter lingo, but for anything bigger it’s not likely to work.

  52. 52.

    MazeDancer

    July 12, 2023 at 1:08 pm

    The equally dynamic Scott Walker and Tim Pawlenty say “hi”.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 1:08 pm

    @Anoniminous:DeSantis isn’t going to win the GOP nomination unless Trump is incarcerated or dies.

    And maybe probably not, even then.

    @Barbara: assume that Trump exited stage right — would DeSantis really rise to the top of all the other candidates who would quickly stream in?

    it’s a good question and it looks like the answer is “no”…and it’s certainly fun trying to picture what would happen, that’s for sure!

    Sununu, Pompeo: back in for sure
    Kemp, Youngkin: probably get in
    Burgum, Hutchinson: still ‘who?’ LOL

    and on and on

    But as long as trump’s still breathing, the GOP is screwed

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:09 pm

    @Baud:  Could be better, def.

    Look forward to the transcript, after the fact.

  55. 55.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 12, 2023 at 1:09 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby:

    No apologies needed, other than for that white font on a black background. It’ll take an hour for my eyes to straighten out now.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:11 pm

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I use dark mode on my phone, so I’m used to the dark background.

    Not on my computer though.  The light feels different somehow.

  57. 57.

    kindness

    July 12, 2023 at 1:11 pm

    Rupert Murdoch’s money & media put Leopard’s Eating People’s Faces party in the lead of the Republican party.  Now it’s coming back to bite them.  Oh the irony.

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:12 pm

    It’s a fantastic speech.

    You cannot imagine, even, a Republican who could get elected giving this speech.

  59. 59.

    bbleh

    July 12, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    @Baud: @Ruckus: Concur.  Most of the opinion I’ve seen about DeSantis as a loser is NOT because he hasn’t yet “slain the dragon” but because he has negative charisma and an inept team.  He’s a lousy candidate, and it’s evident almost from the moment you lay eyes on him.  That’s not gonna change.

    I think part of it is, the chatterati were mesmerized by his big win in FL.  But as the (new) head of the FL Dem Party has observed, he didn’t win by 19%; they lost by 19% because they didn’t show up.  In addition to being a lousy candidate, he’s no superstar; he just got lucky.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    Cut the C-Span link before they can “go to callers” or put on some GOP mouthpiece to denigrate President Biden and his ideas.

  61. 61.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 12, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    @Jeffro: in a trump-less world, I’d put my money on Youngkin, but that trump-less world seems increasingly unlikely

    @trollhattan: Yup. Making the blue blood Ma Barker into America’s grandma is a good counter example. You never saw the effort.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    @trollhattan: I think generational wealth enables some of the home buyers keeping prices high. I work for some customers who help their kids out with home purchases, some expensive. They are not really wealthy people, just upper middle class professionals who did well despite the Recession and are fairly thrifty.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    @bbleh: DeSantis is an ugly, ugly man.  He is an ugly little man, regardless his height.  (In or out of boots.)

    What Florida is doing is horrifying.  WRT public health, and its educational system, from elementary through university.  Horrifying.

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    Even Rupert Murdoch is starting to get it: the GOP is utterly stuck with trumpov

    Oopsie!  You break it, you buy it!  Or is it, “you buy something as broken as trump and the GOP, you own it”?

    “oh trumpie, I jus’ can’t quit ya!” – RM

    “…like many Trump-skeptical Republicans, Murdoch appears to have believed that the party could rerun 2016 but with a twist: put a popular alternative on the ballot against a moderately popular Trump, consolidate the anti-Trump vote and watch Trump fumble. But this approach has already shown significant limitations, including that the non-Trump vote hasn’t consolidated.

    It’s also hobbled by the fact that the strongest non-Trump candidate to emerge was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who for months enjoyed favorable treatment from Murdoch’s media properties. But his campaign has proven to be an alternative to Trump not in the sense that anti-Trump voters like him. Instead, it’s an alternative to Trump in the sense that Trump voters like him

    DeSantis needed a strong campaign launch to assuage concerns that he might not be the consolidated anti-Trump candidate. He didn’t get it. So now, according to the Times and Rolling Stone, Murdoch is looking elsewhere.

    “Murdoch has also noted DeSantis 2024’s recent failures to chip away at Trump’s stubborn dominance in the polls, despite the pre-campaign-launch hype about how things would significantly change right after DeSantis’ declaration,” Rolling Stone reported. Murdoch, the Times adds, has talked about getting Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin into the race (an idea that obviously appeals to Youngkin).

    Again, though, the blame for Murdoch’s predicament centers heavily on Murdoch’s properties, including Fox News.

    Consider what happened in 2015 and 2016. Before Trump announced his candidacy — and immediately after he did — Fox News didn’t spend a lot of time talking about him. Then his anti-immigration rhetoric sparked controversy and a surge in support and Fox News went from talking about Jeb Bush 60 percent more than Trump (in June 2015) to talking about Trump four times as much in July.

    From then on, Trump consistently got far more coverage than his opponents. Fox News decided that appeasing their mutual fan base with Trump was better than antagonizing it.

    So far this year, Trump has consistently attracted more attention than DeSantis on Fox News’s airwaves. On average, he is mentioned four times as often in a month as the Florida governor. Even in the month when DeSantis announced, Trump still beat him by almost 2 to 1.

    And that was the peak of Fox’s attention for DeSantis. In the past two months, Fox News has mentioned the name Biden in the context of the president’s son Hunter more often than it has mentioned DeSantis.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:15 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If I had to guess, Youngkin would be my choice too for their best chance.

  66. 66.

    MattF

    July 12, 2023 at 1:15 pm

    @Jeffro: The question is, who would the cultists choose as their new leader? If no one, does the Republican Party just evaporate? Big Money rides on that question.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    July 12, 2023 at 1:18 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby: Smart kid! I’ve wondered about a DeSantis vs Scott primary scenario too. There’s definitely bad blood between them, and I think DeSantis could easily knock old Navy Hat Nosferatu out of a primary, but I don’t think the timing will work.

  68. 68.

    JML

    July 12, 2023 at 1:22 pm

    @VOR: Some of this is also about where they’ve been raising though: right now the money to support Republicans is going either to the state legislative committees (House & Senate GOP) or to Super PACs. there’s still a lot of cash coming in to elect the nutjobs, just not directly to the state party.

    The state parties can end up going into a bit of a death spiral: money stops flowing in because idiots are running the show, making them less impactful and fewer people focus on them, therefore it’s easier for fringe elements and yahoos to take more control, which leads to less support and money, which leads to…

    That’s kind of where the state party is for the MN GOP right now. But there’s a still a lot of danger with the legislative committees running the comms package, congressional bastards like Emmer and Stauber able to rake in big money and direct it where it’s needed, etc.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    July 12, 2023 at 1:22 pm

    Murdoch can’t figure out that the DeSantises of the world are a direct result of his own efforts?

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    @Baud: Wait for this Fall’s Virginia legislative elections. The result may take Youngkin’s reputation down a notch or two. He won’t be on the ballot, but his alleged prowess as a strong party leader will be.

    And I think these elections will get a lot of national attention.

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    July 12, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    @Jeffro: ​
      You gotta play the hits, man!

  72. 72.

    Josie

    July 12, 2023 at 1:25 pm

    @Baud: ​
     When I read on Political Wire that Murdoch was beginning to prefer Youngkin, I wondered why he had not chosen him in the first place. We dislike Youngkin, but he has a much more pleasant presentation than Desantis. I can’t imagine that Murdoch took a good look at Desantis before he chose him.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:26 pm

    @Geminid:

    Hopefully so.  But some loser has to win the GOP nomination. I’m having a hard time seeing who would be a stronger nominee for them.

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    July 12, 2023 at 1:27 pm

    Every candidate not named Trump is betting on him pulling an Elvis and tumbling off his golden throne whilst in the throes of unloading some hamberders. It’s their only realistic chance, though I wonder how many are deluded enough to think they can beat him while he’s still kicking.

  75. 75.

    Bill Arnold

    July 12, 2023 at 1:28 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage:
    LOL. The Guardian doing a little gentle knife twisting:

    Vasisht’s Venmo account – which was public prior to requesting comment for this article and is no longer – show that he received seven payments in November and December 2019 from lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks.

    Republicans seem incapable of learning that cover-ups can often do more damage than what is covered up.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 1:28 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Trump is what 77, his health looks super, his IQ is about that of a vacuum cleaner, and his only selling point is that he is a marginally wealthy (other than his debt level) racist fuck.

    Of course the conservative party wants to go backasswards to about 1950, when all those rights didn’t apply to every citizen, only the white ones with money. Which is why they supported him. But now that they see the real DT there seems to be some doubt cast that maybe he’s not the savior that they thought he was.

  77. 77.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 12, 2023 at 1:28 pm

    One lesson of 2020 and 2022 is that GOP voters have gone nose-blind to loser stink.

    Flat-out wrong.  Trump’s money gathering and rally attendance went to shit after 2020.  After the 2022 debacle, DeSantis, who looked like a winner and the meanest motherfucker on the field, was rising fast against him.

    Loser stink is exactly what’s going on here.  DeSantis has it.  DeSantis is covered with it.  Trump hit him, and DeSantis turned the other cheek so that Trump could hit that one too, never fighting back.  He proved he was a wimp in front of the voters he needed to take from Trump.  In doing so, he also washed a whole lot of loser stink off of Trump, because they got to watch Trump bully someone again.  DeSantis is the biggest political gift Trump could ever have received, a political jobber to make Trump look like a hero again.

    They do like the drama, but DeSantis provided them with plenty of it with shit like his shipping immigrants around.  Nothing is as important to them as who will make the Other suffer, and if DeSantis can’t fight, DeSantis can’t give it to them.

    I can’t see debates doing anything but reinforcing DeSantis’s cowardly inability to throw a punch at anyone who might punch back.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:29 pm

    Youngkin’s weakness may be that he comes off as a little Romneyesqe.

  79. 79.

    The Moar You Know

    July 12, 2023 at 1:29 pm

    Well, Ron is now calling himself the next Reagan. I guess Karen DeSantis is no longer Jackie and is now Nancy. Yeah, um, just say no.

    @Delk: the piece lacks historical context.  As does everything DeSantis says which doesn’t surprise me as he doesn’t seem like the “reads history” type.

    But it might be true.  Reagan dismantled every single state institution that he could while California governor and crippled the rest.  DeSantis has that part down.  He (and this is the important part) ran for president in multiple races, always getting blown out hard in the primaries.  A perennial loser.  Until he wasn’t.

    This is Rancid Ron’s first dance and he’s not going to win jackshit.  But if he has some vision for his future, funding, and the ability to stick with it, he could make it happen someday.  I have doubts:  Reagan, for all of being a vile piece of shit, had charisma – much like Trump.  He could be likeable and even if you saw through his bullshit to the snarling gargoyle underneath, he could be quite funny on occasion.  Like Trump.

    The main reason I think DeSantis will never be president, never even win a primary, it that he has no sense of humor whatsoever.  He’s not funny, he can’t even fake it.

  80. 80.

    Tony Jay

    July 12, 2023 at 1:30 pm

    It appears to me that the problem the GOP’s big kahunas are failing to deal with is a combination of selling hate instead of policy, social media outreach and a radicalised base.

    Basically, the long-term strategy of wrapping tax cuts for the rich up in white sheets and bloody shirts created a base of support that was (for a long time) more radical and engaged than the Dem base of support. Social media allowed people who would normally have been stopped at the country club gate and denied entry to the chambers of power to build online profiles and content brands that the base would vote for over Generic White Man In Suit, and the more radicalised the base became by the tax cuts for racism scam and by the growing extremism of the people coming to power in the Party, the more extremism they demanded from the lunatics they preferred to vote for.

    As social media democratised the music industry (to an extent) by allowing new young artists to directly market their music and image to a customer base hungry for something with non-manufactured credibility, that same side-effect of social media has wrecked the GOP. Ironically (but hilariously) their Party has become more democratic, but because their electorate is self-selected for white supremacy and balls-out conspiratorial victimitude, it’s left their bench chock full to the gills with utter dickheads who only know one song and keep time by punching themselves in the nuts.

    You can’t sell a bland De Santis to that audience, not when all they want to download is Trump Sings The Songs That Makes The Libs Cry – Volume Eleventybillion. That’s not how their market works.

    And it’s killing them.

  81. 81.

    kindness

    July 12, 2023 at 1:30 pm

    @Geminid: Youngkin ran as a ‘moderate’ and immediately started ruling as a conservative MAGA type (hello abortion/contraception restrictions) leading all those Virginia moderates to be horrified they were duped so.  Stupid Virginia moderates, what did they expect?  With that as a near term history lesson, Youngkin’s chances of winning a national contest are nil.

  82. 82.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:31 pm

    @Geminid:  I despise Youngkin.  And the swing voter morons who fell for him.

    Not up for discussing Republicans.  There is a world out there to do something else in …

  83. 83.

    lee

    July 12, 2023 at 1:32 pm

    @Butch: ​
    Minnesota

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 1:33 pm

    @Baud: I think Sununu could also be a strong general election candidate. But if Republicans were to select him or anyone else besides Trump, that candidate will have to surmount the inevitable defections by hard core Trumpists in November. The party is in a real bind, and they could not deserve it more.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:33 pm

    @Baud:  Romney is a far better man than Youngkin could ever be.

    Seriously.  Romney has some principles and decency.  Maybe not as many as we would prefer, but they are there.  He has shown some courage (occasionally) in not buckling under to MAGAts in his face.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 1:37 pm

    @Josie:

    Not to maybe read too much into it but rupert has been doing this breathing stuff for 92 yrs, and while he likely has healthcare out the wazoo, he really is far, far closer to the end than the beginning. I’d bet that he was going for the FL goon because he had exposure. Of course once the FL goon took his pants off in front of everyone because he’s so smart, he had too much exposure and the package just isn’t all that appealing. In any way.

  87. 87.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 12, 2023 at 1:37 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    How sad is it that 43% Romney looks like a paragon of nobility compared to the current GOP?

  88. 88.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 1:37 pm

    @Geminid:

    Sununu has stated he’s pro-choice, right? Impossible to get the nom IMHO.

  89. 89.

    The Moar You Know

    July 12, 2023 at 1:38 pm

    Rupert’s Fox and Associated Properties empire are no longer kingmakers.  They lost that title in 2016 and are still running around like they matter.  They do not.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    July 12, 2023 at 1:43 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: Outside of Florida, DeSantis 2024 is almost 100% media hype, and there’s zero evidence he was “rising fast” with any other constituency except possibly wingnut oligarchs who want to move on from Trump and bought the media hype. He’s beating the pants off Pence, Haley, etc., but then again, so could a potted fern.

  91. 91.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 12, 2023 at 1:44 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    The Dominion lawsuit and the internal messages that came out during it confirmed what I long believed:  Fox has some influence, but ultimately they take their orders from the bottom, not the top.  The base has narratives they want to hear, and Fox has to tell them that what they already believe is true.  Most of their batshittery starts in the fever swamp, not in corporate boardrooms.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 1:44 pm

    @kindness: Personally, I thought Youngin ran as a moderate conservative. He was able to keep his positions on abortion and gun safety in the background though, and I debit his success in this area to the media and his overconfident opponent.

    Youngkin also benefitted from being a political newcomer. As Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch put it, Youngkin started with a blank canvas and the money to paint it in to his best advantage.

    I never thought Youngkin was a moderate, but I gave him full credit as an attractive candidate who could plausibly portray himself as an earnest, reasonable guy. Independents lapped that right up, and this group still holds the balance of power in Virginia elections.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 1:46 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    There is a big world out there.

    The only problem is that there is a side of politics that wants to take that world away from you and anyone else they think will spoil that world for them. They don’t want to share, they want to BE murdoch and keep it all for themselves.

  94. 94.

    cain

    July 12, 2023 at 1:49 pm

    As others have observed before him, Luce says the GOP base is caught up in a cult of personality, so it’s not a normal political party anymore. He argues that a cult can’t be “disbanded via focus group or contrived positioning.” According to Luce, the only way for a not-Trump to win is to slay the dragon instead of tip-toeing around it — another observation that has been made elsewhere.\

     

    What they fear is that without the dragon – there won’t be any enthusiasm to vote. All the voter suppression in the world against Dems will not work if the GOP doesn’t show up. OF course, they could always steal it by declaring fraud or something – but that would be difficult pull off IMHO.

    The other problem is that the GOP has been in on this loyalty garbage. Florida legislatures are mad at DeSantis for all the laws that he asked them to create for him to sign – unpopular laws. Their first job is to represent their constituents. Regardless, trying to kill off Trump would show a lack of loyalty to the GOP brand and that would also turn off GOP voters and then there is all the money that need to get from voters.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 1:49 pm

    @MattF: Kari Lake?  MTG?  I can’t see too many of the rest being acceptable to the trump cult.

  96. 96.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 12, 2023 at 1:49 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    He was doing great with the Republican primary voters.  There is an important distinction here.  All this ‘DeSantis is a winner, he’s Trump without the baggage!’ is the fantasy of people who want Republicanism to not look like the mean, stupid, bigotry that it is.  DeSantis is awkward slime, loathsome to anyone with a drop of decency in their makeup.  DeSantis never had a national constituency except the GOP primary voters and those media and plutocrats praying for a less embarrassing Trump.  DeSantis was playing solely to the GOP primary base, and it was working until Trump started hitting him and DeSantis wouldn’t fight.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 1:50 pm

    @Baud:I’m not sure Sununu has said he’s pro-choice. He may advocate a less restrictive approach to abortion rights than most Republican politicians, though.

  98. 98.

    BeautifulPlumage

    July 12, 2023 at 1:50 pm

    @Bill Arnold: Yes!

    Also makes you wonder who’s Venmo accounts were used before 2019 and after 2021…

  99. 99.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 1:50 pm

    @Spanky: tumbling off his golden throne whilst in the throes of unloading some hamberders

    dead.  I’m officially dead here.  LOL (and also, barf)

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:51 pm

    @The Moar You Know:  Bullshit.  Fox has way too much influence.

  101. 101.

    Mike in NC

    July 12, 2023 at 1:51 pm

    Rupert is 92 and might well drop dead before his hand-picked fascist sits in the White House again.

  102. 102.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    July 12, 2023 at 1:53 pm

    @Tony Jay:

    And it’s killing them.

    Its hurting them, not killing them. They are far from dead. They still win too many elections, and some of those who are supposedly on our team keep flipping to independent or their team (just happened in NC). If it was truly killing them, we could rest easy for a change.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 1:54 pm

    @Ruckus:  I get that.

    But knowing those assholes are out there does not mean that I need to do a Master’s in studying them.  Vote and work to defeat them, for sure.

    Let them live in my head?  Nope.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    July 12, 2023 at 1:56 pm

    @Geminid:

    But if Republicans were to select him or anyone else besides Trump, that candidate will have to surmount the inevitable defections by hard core Trumpists in November. The party is in a real bind, and they could not deserve it more.

    I would do it anyway. It isn’t 2018. Trump has now lost them three in a row. The risk that the base bolts is now, IMO, outweighed by the risk Trump loses again. They may not even bolt. Republicans are really loyal. Look at how many of them who think Trump is a bad person voted for him.
    It’s like they have become as deluded as Trump and they think they can pretend he didn’t lose three cycles. Except he did.

  105. 105.

    Anoniminous

    July 12, 2023 at 1:58 pm

    @Geminid: ​
     
    They’re called “Independents” because “Ignorant Idiots” was already taken.

  106. 106.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 12, 2023 at 1:58 pm

    Ted Lieu has some questions for FBI Director Andrew Wray.

  107. 107.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 12, 2023 at 1:59 pm

    @Mike in NC: I remember reading that the way Rupert’s assets and will are structured, it will be hard to hold the company together once he goes to what I wish would be his reward, and not just for the family. But I’ll wait to count that chicken until six months after he’s declared dead. If anybody could come back….

  108. 108.

    gvg

    July 12, 2023 at 2:01 pm

    DeSantis hasn’t been no Drama nor Competent. So you can’t use him as proof the voters wanted the hate without the Drama.

    He hates plenty.

    Maybe he just doesn’t have the ability to change according to the mood of the crowd, because he sincerely hates and reacts to being called on changing his mind wheras Trump just blew right through reality AND learned to sell whatever his rabid weasels reacted well to. supposedly Trump thought the wall was stupid when he first offered it but his voters cheered so he sold it more. He also thought vaccines were good at first but learned to shut up about it. The other thing is he had no state record of legislation, only federal. DeSantis is doing things he hopes will sell nationally (dunno about that) that are really sour here in Florida like attacking Disney and ignoring insurance issues.  Its a different position.

  109. 109.

    The Moar You Know

    July 12, 2023 at 2:01 pm

    Fox has way too much influence.

    @Elizabelle: Fox has no influence at all.  They do what the base tells them and NOT the other way around.  If they and the base have a difference of opinion the base wins.  Look at what happened to them when they called 2020 for Biden.

    That’s been the case since 2016 and it’s not going to change.

  110. 110.

    Anoniminous

    July 12, 2023 at 2:03 pm

    Trump is The Power and Trumpism is the ideology in the GOP because he got 74,223,975 votes in 2020, 11,239,147 more than his 62,984,828 take in 2016.

  111. 111.

    patrick II

    July 12, 2023 at 2:05 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby: ​
     
    Commentators here link to good political writing all of the time. Thank you. That was a good piece.

  112. 112.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 12, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    @gvg:

    He also thought vaccines were good at first but learned to shut up about it.

    When his fans booed him to his face.  The fever swamp rules this roost, not Fox, not Trump.

  113. 113.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    @Spanky: @Jeffro:

    AKA the Elvis Exit.

  114. 114.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    @Anoniminous: he can fire up their base all he and they want…he helps unify and fire up our base even more, and he clarifies to the blessed ‘independents’ just what the stakes are, too.

  115. 115.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Isn’t Rupert between wives ATM? What if he were to take a fancy to Casey and convince her to leave Meatball for some happy times and copious prenups as Mrs. Murdoch the whateverth?

    Ron’s gotta have three wives before becoming a Republican contendah, get going, fella.

    Also, I have just learned the DeSantis spawn are named Madison, Mason and Marnie. Spare me with this shit, they’re not circus dogs. Still time to birth little Manson, though.

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 2:14 pm

    @trollhattan:  The youngest daughter is Mamie.  Like Eisenhower.

  117. 117.

    Old Man Shadow

    July 12, 2023 at 2:14 pm

    If you don’t want Nazi Lunatics Incompetently Fucking everything up, maybe all of your rich fuckers should stop giving money to Republicans.

    Seems like a simple enough solution.

    I mean, fuck, you probably will save money in the long run since the Democrats aren’t exactly looking to raise your tax rates all that much.

  118. 118.

    zhena gogolia

    July 12, 2023 at 2:14 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: Very good.

  119. 119.

    Betty Cracker

    July 12, 2023 at 2:15 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    DeSantis was playing solely to the GOP primary base, and it was working until Trump started hitting him and DeSantis wouldn’t fight.

    I know that’s your theory, but I don’t see much evidence for it. Trump has led DeSantis by double digits in head-to-head polling averages for more than a year now. DeSantis was and is leading the other nonentities in the race, but he sure wasn’t replacing Trump in the base’s affections, even before Trump started beating DeSantis up. 

  120. 120.

    MomSense

    July 12, 2023 at 2:16 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    King Minus.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    July 12, 2023 at 2:17 pm

    I hope Mr. Brody sues Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. There’s a lawsuit going forward right now where an Arizona couple were targeted by these same disgusting grifters and they had to go into hiding.

    They need to be checked and it seems private litigation for damages is the only way to stop this- it’s now spread from the fringe far Right to the mainstream Right with Musk and Rogan joining in. They both have deep pockets. Sue them. There’s a heavily anti-semitic element to this too- that shouldn’t be glossed over.

    It was halfway through the Dodgers game he was attending with his mother when Ben Brody realized some of the worst people on the internet believed he was a federal agent pretending to be a neo-Nazi 800 miles away. Earlier in the day Brody, a 22-year-old recent political science grad from UC Riverside, had noticed people commenting on his Instagram account and calling him “a fed,” but he thought it was just trivial and would blow over. But while at the June 25 game, which saw the Houston Astros beat the Dodgers, his phone kept going off until he and his mother realized something horrible was underway. Before they left the game their home address would be leaked online. By the time they got home, they decided they couldn’t stay there that night.

    One day earlier, over 850 miles away from where Brody lives, two far-right groups got into a scrum at an Oregon City pride festival. During the hubbub two neo-Nazis with the Rose City Nationalists had their masks pulled off and their faces exposed. The men’s faces were caught on video and internet sleuths quickly went to work. At some point, someone found a photo of Brody that looked similar to the man in the video and posted it as fact. VICE News attempted to find where it originated but was unable. At about 8 AM PST on June 25 that Brody’s name began to be shared across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook amongst some MAGA and pro-Proud Boy circles.

    After his name appeared, the online right found a small blurb written about him on Instagram by his Jewish fraternity which said he wanted to possibly work for the government one day. This was enough to confirm one of the right’s favorite conspiracy theories: neo-Nazis are federal plants that are there to make them look racist. Despite Brody being a young man who lived in California with public ties to a Jewish fraternity who just graduated college days before the public scuffle of the group of conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers—almost entirely organized and spread by people who have purchased blue checkmarks on Twitter—went to work portraying him as a federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi.

    Many of the people spreading the fake fed information did so under the idea the neo-Nazi group in Oregon City was Patriot Front—likely because Joe Rogan made some noise calling the group feds last year—but the group in question was the Rose City Nationalists, a group affiliated with neo-Nazi Active Clubs.

     

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 2:20 pm

     

     

    @Anoniminous: Ah yes, “the ignorant idiots” framing of Independents. Many Democrats besides you find great satisfaction in sneering at Independent voters.

    They constitute 31-33% of registered voters in Virginia though and more in other states, especially out west. Successful Democratic purple state politicians never disparage these voters, at least not in public. They may not go out of their way to woo Independents, but they are careful not to needlessly alienate them

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 2:20 pm

    @MomSense:  King Minus.  That is good. Memorable, too.

  124. 124.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 12, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Still time to birth little Manson, though

    Hahahahaha

  125. 125.

    sdhays

    July 12, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    The point about hanging on for the debates is stupid, IMHO. First, Trump doesn’t need to participate, and he doesn’t particularly like them, so he probably won’t. If he’s not there, the debates are a joke.

    Second, if Trump does participate, the fact is Ronny is terrible in debates. Trump will wipe the floor with him. And that’s just on style. There’s still the fundamental problem that our Ron doesn’t have a critique of Trump that he’s willing to voice forcefully in front of voters. So even if he magically became “good” at debating, he still doesn’t have anything to say that will “slay the dragon”.

    I mean, sure, anything is possible before the votes are cast, but what are the truly plausible avenues for Ron to turn this around himself? His only hope is, really, for Trump to turn up dead in the next 6 months.

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 12, 2023 at 2:32 pm

    @Geminid: But is anyone here an aspiring purple state Dem politician?

  127. 127.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    @Elizabelle: God, that’s vastly worse! Mamie in 2023?

  128. 128.

    Betty Cracker

    July 12, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    @Kay: I also hope Brody sues those irresponsible assholes. It’s a wonder they haven’t gotten anyone killed yet.

  129. 129.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 12, 2023 at 2:36 pm

    @Geminid: In states with semi-open primaries, where only Independents can vote in either party’s primary, it’s rational to be an Independent if you think you ever might want to switch to maximize your political power.

  130. 130.

    gene108

    July 12, 2023 at 2:37 pm

    @Baud:

    It is too early to tell (remember when Biden was written off before South Carolina), but DeSantis seems to suffer from a personality deficit that his cruelty can’t seem to counteract.

    Biden also has had a lot of friends from his time in the Senate, like Rep. Clyburn to endorse him before the South Carolina primary.

    I don’t see DeSantis having anyone who’d endorse him, unless they expected something in return.

  131. 131.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 2:38 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, I have aspirations for purple state Democrats, and I think I’m not the only one.

  132. 132.

    Miss Bianca

    July 12, 2023 at 2:40 pm

    @Jerzy Russian:

    @zhena gogolia: Sheer magic. :)

  133. 133.

    kindness

    July 12, 2023 at 2:42 pm

    @Geminid: Independents though.  How many of these people who call themselves Independents really are?  From those I’ve met, most of them are Republicans who don’t want to label themselves as such.  They want to appear more open minded.  But they aren’t, no matter how much they prattle on about it.  They almost always find a reason, any reason to vote for the Republican candidate.

    I’m all for courting the actual middle that could be called a sway voter.  That isn’t most Independents imho.

  134. 134.

    sdhays

    July 12, 2023 at 2:42 pm

    @Baud: I really don’t get how anyone not attached Youngkin takes him seriously as a potential national candidate. He won a single off-off year election with Republicans so hungry for a win they cancelled the primary to anoint him the nominee. That means he has run a single campaign in his entire life, and he got lucky.

    Maybe he’s extraordinarily talented, but I don’t think we have enough data to really conclude that. Donors seem to agree, otherwise he’d be running already.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    July 12, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Brody says in the article that he thinks this has hurt his job prospects (he’s a recent grad). I think that’s legit -if one had two equally qualified candidates and one was part of some insane Right wing pile on and the other wasn’t, I think you hire the one who wasn’t. No one needs these nuts invading a work space. It’s safer and easier for the employer to just pass on him.

    If he can show that Joe Rogan and Elon Musk harmed his job search he might have damages. Maybe you could even make Rogan toxic to Spotify as a collateral good result. Does Spotify really want to be in the same category as Alex Jones? I mean, FUCK these people. They’re wealthy people with huge platforms who are ruining the lives of ordinary innocents. It’s appalling. Enough. Sue them each and every time.

  136. 136.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 2:49 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: And some Independents in closed primary states are rational and relatively well informed. They just look at the same facts as we do and come to a different conclusion about their political affiliation.

    Next year’s Arizona Senate race will be an interesting social science project in this respect. The percentage of Independent registrations there is greater than Democratic, less than Republican. There will even be an actual Independent candidate in the race if Sinema runs. Early political polling, though, shows Ruben Gallego leading both two-way and three-way matchups. A possible indication that while Independents may be contrarian, they aren’t all stupid.

  137. 137.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    July 12, 2023 at 2:49 pm

    The GOP’s problem is that they don’t just have to slay the dragon, they have to capture the loyalty of the dragon’s minions when they do so, because without those minions, they’re electoral toast, and nobody’s figured out how to square that circle.

    Biden, Harris, Garland, and Jack Smith don’t have that problem. They can just go slay the dragon, and if the minions vow revenge, well, that’s part of being a dragonslayer.

  138. 138.

    Old School

    July 12, 2023 at 2:50 pm

    Anchor Brewing Co. officials announced early Wednesday that it will cease operations and liquidate the business — established in 1896 — citing economic factors including declining sales since 2016.

  139. 139.

    Baud

    July 12, 2023 at 2:53 pm

    @sdhays: Mostly his public image. He’s not well known so he’s a blank slate to most voters. He’s a smooth talker and he doesn’t look or act crazy. He seems to be able to talk to the right wing and the moderates. And he looks like someone the media would love — a comparatively reasonable sounding rich white avuncular figure who won in a blue state.  Think about how the media went wild for Chris Christie, who shares some of those qualities, even thought he acts like a bully who punched down quite a bit as governor.

    That’s all superficial, of course. But how much more do we know about any of the other candidates, beyond Trump and DeSantis.

  140. 140.

    Ken

    July 12, 2023 at 2:54 pm

    @Jackie: [Minnesota GOP has] $58 cash on hand and hundreds of thousands in debt

    If they go bankrupt, do the creditors get control of their other assets?  “Ooh, three state Supreme Court justices, I can do a lot with those.”

  141. 141.

    Barbara

    July 12, 2023 at 2:58 pm

    @sdhays: More like, extraordinarily rich.  Really, the best analog for Youngkin is Mitt Romney.

  142. 142.

    Ken

    July 12, 2023 at 2:59 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage: The transfers were tagged as if for a Christmas party, so it might be innocent.  Just a friend of Thomas, collecting money from other friends of Thomas for a perfectly normal Christmas party.

    Then again, it reminds me of a Hogan’s Heroes that I caught recently. Two Wehrmacht officers asked Klink for a donation for a gift to the Fuhrer.  “Now we have two books here. In the white book go the names of all those who gave — look how full it is! The black book is those who have refused — as you can see it is empty. Both books will be given to the Fuhrer. Do you really want your name to appear first in the black book?”

  143. 143.

    Brachiator

    July 12, 2023 at 2:59 pm

    Since the beginning of the Biden presidency, the powerful Murdoch family has favored the Florida governor in the 2024 presidential primary, largely due to a conviction that DeSantis would be a more electable, and less chaotic, evolution from Donald Trump.

    This is just as delusional as Trump himself. The GOP leadership still supports Trump. His base is loyal.

    These fools believe that they created Trump and that they can replace him at will.

    Murdoch is used to manipulating the public with revelations and gossip about celebrities in his various vile publications. They are currently having a field day in Britain with salacious allegations about a BBC News presenter.

    But they can’t bring Trump down using the same tactics because his base don’t care about the sleaze or Trump’s inability.

    DeSantis is as lame as Jeb Bush was back in 2015. It’s funny how the media had pre written stories about how another member of the Bush dynasty was the inevitable GOP nominee. How’d that work out?

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    July 12, 2023 at 3:00 pm

    @Old School

    No more Anchor Steam?
    ::pout::

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    July 12, 2023 at 3:04 pm

    @Baud:

    But how much more do we know about any of the other candidates, beyond Trump and DeSantis.

    Nobody cares.

  146. 146.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    July 12, 2023 at 3:04 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    Its hurting them, not killing them.

    So true. “In the long run we’re all dead.”

    For now we have to fight.

  147. 147.

    Jackie

    July 12, 2023 at 3:05 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    “…All this ‘DeSantis is a winner, he’s Trump without the baggage!’”

    And, then his suitcase burst open… Pudd’n Boots fooled a lot of Repugs with “his TIFG without all the drama” until then. 😂

  148. 148.

    sdhays

    July 12, 2023 at 3:12 pm

    @Baud: I remain skeptical that he can build a national campaign that garners any actual traction in a Republican primary. Virginia Republicans were thirsty and bent over backwards to help him win.

    It’s similar, in another way, to how DeSantis won his first race for governor. He was handed the nomination by Trump; without that, he was toast. Neither can get the Republican nomination for President handed to them like that, and we see now how DeSantis has fared.

  149. 149.

    Anyway

    July 12, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    @NotMax:

    pouting with you. I love(d) Anchor Steam…

  150. 150.

    Hoodie

    July 12, 2023 at 3:15 pm

    @Brachiator: One thing about the Trump base is that Trump is their guy.  They feel like they created him or he was chosen by God for them.  He was initially a joke to the GOP establishment.  The Trump base remembers that and feels that’s how the GOP establishment views them as well.  A lot of the base were people who were previously not engaged and came out from under the rock preloaded to assume the establishment was shit and wouldn’t do what was needed to make America great.  Trump was eventually heavily aided by this establishment, but under terms that made it pretty clear who was stirring the drink.  Throughout his presidency, he made  point of shitting on them from time to time to reinforce an image that they didn’t own him.   With this history, it’s likely the kiss of death among the Trump base to be picked by the GOP or Fox establishment, which is part of DeSantis’ problem, in addition to his basic flaws as a candidate.

  151. 151.

    narya

    July 12, 2023 at 3:21 pm

    @Old School: this bums me out.

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 3:26 pm

    @kindness: Political scientists study Independents a lot. It’s a diverse group, but typically roughly 40% consistently vote for Republicans, and a similar number vote for Democrats. Rachel Bitecofer did a lot pollling of Virginia registered voters for the Wason Center when she was on the Christopher Newport University faculty, and she said that conservative Independents outnumbered the more liberal ones in this state. That could be true generally.

    But as you say, there are not that many actual Independent swing voters. It may be only 15 to 20% of them, which in my state would be 4.5-6.5% of registered voters. With the exception of the 2021 Governor race, Democratic candidates here have carried most of these voters for the last 15 years and that is one reason we usually win statewide.

    I think that is also how Mark Kelly and Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020. That was a high turnout election, and I don’t think either party left many of their base voters on the table. Mark Kelly won the state again last year, despite Democrats lagging behind Independents and Republicans in voter registrations.

    My attitude about Independents is that Democrats don’t need to and should not tailor policies to fit their outlook. Independents have a clear choice now between a “Center-Left” and a “Right” party, and they’ll either come over to our side without us rolling out the blue carpet for them, or they won’t.

    Messaging, though, might be a different story. I think the best Democratic candidates figure out how to appeal to both Democratic base voters and Independents. Abigail Spanberger did that in my district last year. She won a nominally D+1 district by 4.5%, and there are are a lot of Independents in Virginia’s 7th CD.

    Spanberger is a hard worker and I predict her winning margins will approach 10% by the end of the decade. That’s partly because demographic change here will be in her favor.

  153. 153.

    different-church-lady

    July 12, 2023 at 3:27 pm

    @Hoodie: Or, to put it another way: DeSantis is running a campaign. Trump is running a cult of personality.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 12, 2023 at 3:27 pm

    @Geminid: That wasn’t my question.

  155. 155.

    NotMax

    July 12, 2023 at 3:28 pm

    FYI.

    Shorter MTG: NATO bad, Russia good.

  156. 156.

    different-church-lady

    July 12, 2023 at 3:31 pm

    @Old School: I’m interested in hearing what the MBAs did to fuck this one up.

  157. 157.

    Hoodie

    July 12, 2023 at 3:35 pm

    @different-church-lady: The thing about a cult of personality is that it is as much about the cult as it is about the personality. The cult members feel like they’ve been chosen, too, which is a sort of pseudo empowerment.  As we’ve seen with cults, while some will eventually defect, a lot will resist giving that up until the bitter end (if then).  There certainly a lot of cults that have outlived their leaders.

  158. 158.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 3:35 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I know. I answered a different one.

  159. 159.

    Betty Cracker

    July 12, 2023 at 3:42 pm

    @Geminid: You sound like a great purple state politician yourself! ;-)

  160. 160.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 12, 2023 at 3:44 pm

    @Geminid: If, as I have frequently been told, this is just a place where people can vent and air concerns, it shouldn’t matter if people slag independents here.

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    July 12, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    Hate without charisma=DeSantis

  162. 162.

    rikyrah

    July 12, 2023 at 3:47 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Talk to all those suburban ⚪⚪women who voted for him.

    It was obvious that he was a right ringer.

  163. 163.

    Tony Jay

    July 12, 2023 at 3:47 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    Difference in emphasis, I think.

    It’s killing them, but they’re in the thrashing about headless and uncontrollable stage rather than the dead and cooling and food only for the worms stage.

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 3:48 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    You are right and no I don’t want them living in your or my or anyone else’s head. But there is also a very long standing rule, Know Thy Enemy. Now in this case that isn’t all that difficult nor do you have to let them live in your head to know what they are. And I’m not saying that. You have to know what your enemy wants, what they will do to get it, and how crappy will they be at doing that. Considering that we’ve already seen them try to physically take over the government it’s not that hard to see that they are willing to go pretty far to take (Not Earn) the whole thing. Now that many of them are paying for and earning a record for the attempt, that will somewhat limit their ability to go full on stupid. They want a world that never actually existed because it’s the only way they have power. And I believe that it’s obvious that while they are a large group, they are not large enough. But the murdoch’s of the world are trying to increase that number so they can have a world modeled after their ideals. Which is they get all the money and you and I get jack and shit. I say they are wrong. If enough of us say that they lose.

  165. 165.

    trollhattan

    July 12, 2023 at 3:49 pm

    @Old School: Commie alert!

    So sorry to hear. Anchor was the nation’s lone small independent brewer in the ’70s when consolidation wiped out/swallowed up all the regionals into the handful of giants, which coincidentally controlled wholesale and distribution.

    My favorite craft brewer died last winter–there’s a round of this happening–most probably because the sector’s continuous growth was not sustainable, and many never bounced back from covid.

  166. 166.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    July 12, 2023 at 3:54 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby: Interesting article.  Thanks for the link. I think he made some excellent points, and I am intrigued by the thought of an attack on Rick Scott.  He certainly is a target-rich environment!

  167. 167.

    rikyrah

    July 12, 2023 at 3:56 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Talk to all those suburban ⚪⚪women who voted for him.

    It was obvious that he was a right winger.

     

    They knew what the VA GOP was about… What made them think he was so different and won their nomination for Governor.

    Breakdown in logical thinking

  168. 168.

    rikyrah

    July 12, 2023 at 3:57 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby:

    Thanks for the link

  169. 169.

    Kay

    July 12, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    We were talking yesterday about the Lost White Boys of the Rustbelt and I said Democrats had been very good for them and if they would just get off their ass and take advantage of some of it conservative elites could stop whining about them and blaming women.

    No one is ordering them to go get a liberal arts degree. That’s a myth. They have a lot of options.

    This is the type of thing I meant:

    Michigan Reconnect provides free in-district tuition at a Michigan community college to earn an associate degree or Pell-eligible skill certificate.

    Community College

    If you’re interested in pursuing a career training program instead, starting later this year, you can receive up to $1,500 towards tuition costs for eligible career training programs here in Michigan with the Short-Term Training Program.

    If they don’t want to do these things that’s fine- but they can’t complain that everyone is ignoring their plight – it isn’t true.

  170. 170.

    Dangerman

    July 12, 2023 at 4:02 pm

    @Jeffro: They must also know that if defeated for the GOP nomination, trump will burn the party to the ground.

    I might need to go have a cigarette (and I don’t smoke).

  171. 171.

    Anyway

    July 12, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    What’s the definition of independent? Those not registered D or R? Or those that switch between parties at the voting booth?

  172. 172.

    rikyrah

    July 12, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    @Josie:

    While he may present better than DeSantis..

     

    He is enacting the same hate-filled right wing policies.

  173. 173.

    StringOnAStick

    July 12, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    Here in OR-5, a newly redesigned district that was from the D column last time because Kurt Schraeder was too conservadem but the woman who defeated him in the primary got successfully painted with the Portland liberal brush lost to a MAGA woman.  I firmly believe ol’ Kurt worked to make sure McLeod-Skinner was defeated and I haven’t seen anything that he plans to run again, but McLeod-Skinner has just said she’s running again, and I have mixed feelings about that.  She’s lost twice now.  There is a young guy named Cameron Pahl who is exploring a run.  He’s a software developer and his website looks like a solid D without the “Portland liberal” label (or the married gay woman label that McLeod-Skinner has, and that it even matters sucks, but apparently it does to some), so I tossed a few bucks to see what he can do.  The MAGAT that took the seat last time has kept a pretty low profile, so you don’t see anything positive or negative about her and I suspect she’s generally ineffective; I think she was just a warm body and it worked.

  174. 174.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 4:12 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Trump is running a cult of personality. Because other than his shitty personality he’s got nothing.

    DeSantis thinks he is running a campaign. And he seems not very bright.

  175. 175.

    Martin

    July 12, 2023 at 4:17 pm

    Trump won because Republicans that stayed home for Mitt Romney did so because Romney wasn’t willing to fight for change, and Trump was.

    DeSantis didn’t get any more GOP or independent voters in 2022 than he did in 2018, but Democrats thought that Charlie Crist wouldn’t do shit as governor and so they stayed home, and that’s why DeSantis won by so much.

    If Democrats yell from the rafters for abortion rights, they’ll win, because they’ll turn out Democrats. If they yell for economic policies that help young people, they’ll win. Not talk politely about this stuff – fucking YELL. Action carries votes when the parties are saying everything is an existential crisis – democracy, women’s rights, trans rights, climate change, economy, etc. But you have to match affect to the urgency you’ve laid out. Biden kind of does that, but it doesn’t resonate quite like it does from Granholm or Beto who are really good at leaning into that kind of anger. It is more of a paternalistic ‘what are you doing, man’ kind of approach, which gives more of a ‘oh shit, dad is here to balance my checkbook properly’ vibe. It’s not terrible, but it’s not what Trump gives off which is a very clear ‘I will overthrow the government for you’ message.

  176. 176.

    cain

    July 12, 2023 at 4:18 pm

    @Ruckus:

    DeSantis thinks he is running a campaign. And he seems not very bright.

    I would say that it’s quite possible that he might be bright but his voters are not and are in a cult. So that means he’s got a lot of constraints. That said he has a lot of personal failings that. I definitely think he lacks wisdom which is important even if you have intelligence.

  177. 177.

    Brachiator

    July 12, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @Hoodie:

    With this history, it’s likely the kiss of death among the Trump base to be picked by the GOP or Fox establishment, which is part of DeSantis’ problem, in addition to his basic flaws as a candidate.

    You nailed it. While some people insist on viewing Trump as a standard Republican, Trump himself reached out to people who were frustrated with the GOP establishment. Trump promised to do what the chamber of commerce Republicans would not do with respect to immigration, and also to be more aggressive in terms of jobs and the economy.

    In reality, Trump helped get the Establishment GOP one of the things they really wanted, tax cuts for the rich, but he talked a good game about the other stuff and won the hearts and minds of the base.

    DeSantis has no hope as long as Trump can mount any kind of campaign. The only question is whether DeSantis will hold onto second place.

  178. 178.

    Kelly

    July 12, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @StringOnAStick: I’m interested in State Rep. Janelle Bynum. She beat Chavez-DeRemer for state rep a while back. Solid Legislative experience including Chair of House Committee Economic Development and Small  Business. Owns 4 restaurants with her husband.

    https://www.janellebynum.com/meet-janelle

  179. 179.

    peter

    July 12, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    @NotMax: And no more Christmas Ale! If they make it this year, it will be the 49th year — I was hoping they’d make it to 50 and beyond…

  180. 180.

    narya

    July 12, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    @trollhattan: In the case of one I know about (in Madison), apparently they expanded their capacity, but then never came close to filling that capacity, and I don’t think it was entirely the pandemic that did them in. Conversely, a local brewery I support also expanded–added a site with a lot more brewing capacity–but they also DELIVERED during the early part of the pandemic, and, in general, their expansion has been extremely intentional. They just filled their millionth can.

    None of these are relevant for Anchor, I suspect.

  181. 181.

    narya

    July 12, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    @peter: Yeah, my friend has maybe a 7-year vertical at the moment.

  182. 182.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 4:32 pm

    @rikyrah:  Yeah, fuck ’em.

    I remember the hysteria over CRT in the schools!  CRT!  Rightwing activists showing up at school board meetings, pretending to be parents.  (They were not.)

    FWIW, this was also the first election after a lot of the Confederate statues came down.  Some of the little darlings might have thought Virginia was moving too swiftly.  LOL.

    Appreciated your reminding us of Kay’s observation that a vote for Trump demonstrated one’s lack of character.  Truth.   I guess we could add a soft category for gullibility, because there were a few of those.  In the end, they brought the disaster upon all of us, too.

  183. 183.

    Barbara

    July 12, 2023 at 4:34 pm

    @peter: It’s a shame to lose a truly local brand.  Here, the local brands tend to get bought and then production is moved so they aren’t really local anymore, even if they try to keep the recipe or what have you the same.  I gather Anchor Steam decided to close down rather than go that route.  It’s hard to believe there was no interest.

  184. 184.

    Matt McIrvin

    July 12, 2023 at 4:35 pm

    @Geminid: I think our notion that Independents are all reactionaries who, for whatever reason, don’t want to label themselves as Republicans comes from the 2010 Tea Party midterm. In the run-up to that, Republican party ID was pretty low but there was a huge Republican wave anyway. And the Tea Party billed itself as “nonpartisan” but was obviously far-right.

  185. 185.

    WereBear

    July 12, 2023 at 4:35 pm

    @Hoodie: DeSantis appeals to spite voters. He hurts the people they want to see hurt.

    I think what happened is some kind of Disney mind virus that infested central Florida and lured bigots down to live in their fantasy of Main Street, USA.

    Now, they seem to please no one. That’s a serious hit to the economy.

  186. 186.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 4:37 pm

    @Ken: If [the Minnesota GOP] goes bankrupt, do the creditors get control of their other assets?  “Ooh, three state Supreme Court justices, I can do a lot with those.”

    ha!

    may as well

  187. 187.

    Paul in KY

    July 12, 2023 at 4:37 pm

    @The Moar You Know: Reagan should sure play ‘genial old man’. I’ll give the fucker that.  He was a much, much, much better campaigner than DeSatanis.

  188. 188.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    @Barbara: Really, the best analog for Youngkin is Mitt Romney.

    that’s pretty spot-on

    Romney + (insert evangelical nut of choice here) might work just as well or better, too

    In Virginia “Youngkin = Romney + Cuccinelli” would get the message across

    Or just “Youngkin = Cuccinelli w/ $600M and a fleece vest”

  189. 189.

    bbleh

    July 12, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby: Oh yeah, he’s got the knack.  He’s got the vocabulary and the cadence, and some very plausible takes.  Better than some NYT columnists, actually, at least judging from a sample of 1.

  190. 190.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 4:41 pm

    @Geminid: excellent on the details as always – thank you!

  191. 191.

    Paul in KY

    July 12, 2023 at 4:42 pm

    @trollhattan: ‘Manson’ would be a great name for the offspring of those 2!

  192. 192.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 4:42 pm

    Youngkin was, what, co-chair of The Carlyle Group?  (Although I don’t think ever a sole CEO.)

    And he is a gazillionaire.  Too many (Republican) voters equate $$$ with merit and extra brains.  It is not always a reliable signifier.

    I think Democrats are going to do very well in upcoming elections.

  193. 193.

    Jeffro

    July 12, 2023 at 4:44 pm

    @rikyrah: While [Youngkin] may present better than DeSantis..He is enacting the same hate-filled right wing policies.

    110%

    He’s doing everything he can, to the extent that he can.  He doesn’t have that rubber-stamp legislature that DeSantis does, otherwise, he’d be running completely wild with abortion bans and public funding of religious er charter schools and everything else.

  194. 194.

    zhena gogolia

    July 12, 2023 at 4:44 pm

    @Elizabelle: WG has a “positive politics” thread up above, you should join in!

  195. 195.

    Brachiator

    July 12, 2023 at 4:45 pm

    @Martin:

    DeSantis got out the GOP vote and flipped some districts.

    A summary.

    About 7.7 million Florida voters cast ballots. GOP voter turnout was 67.3 percent, compared to 52 percent for Democrats and 38.5 percent turnout for independents and those registered with minor parties.

    The detail was devastating for Democrats. From Politico.

    DeSantis’ large margin of victory was in part due to him flipping Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade County for the first time since 2002, and Palm Beach County for the first time since 1986, as well as winning Hillsborough, Osceola, Pinellas, and St. Lucie counties for the first time since 2006; this was also the first gubernatorial election since 2006 in which a candidate received over 50% of the vote. His 19.4% margin of victory was the largest since 1982 and the largest for a Republican since 1868. It was also the first time the governorship was won by double digits since 2002, and the first time it was won by over one million votes.

    Significantly, Crist’s 40% performance was the worst for a Democratic nominee for governor of Florida since 1916.

    RE: Biden kind of does that, but it doesn’t resonate quite like it does from Granholm or Beto who are really good at leaning into that kind of anger.

    Beto is a good guy and media darling, but winning in Texas is tough for Democrats. Passion and anger is not enough.

    Local politics helped DeSantis in Florida, but his own deficiencies, and Trump, is preventing him from catching fire on a national stage.

    Clear advantage for the Democrats. But nothing that they should take for granted.

  196. 196.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 4:49 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I did not jump that hard on the commenter, just pointed out another and perhaps more practical way of looking at the question.

  197. 197.

    UncleEbeneezer

    July 12, 2023 at 4:50 pm

    Moms for Liberty is part of a long history of rightwing mothers’ activism in the US:

    As a movement, Moms for Liberty draws from the long history of rightwing women’s activism in the US – particularly in such activists’ identity as mothers. Where mothers’ movements are often associated with projects of social welfare, a counter-tradition of women’s activism has politicized motherhood to pursue staunchly conservative aims.

    As the historian Michelle Nickerson demonstrates, the period surrounding the cold war is a useful lens for understanding how mothers’ movements became a pillar of American conservatism. Like Moms for Liberty, these groups responded to cultural change by condemning the spread of progressive ideologies through public school systems. Fueled by anti-communist panic, they fought for the removal of textbooks, teachers and administrators they judged to be tainted by progressive ideals. A defining feature of these groups was how they leveraged cultural beliefs surrounding motherhood for political ends. They invoked motherhood to argue that they were uniquely connected to the domestic sphere and childrearing and therefore uniquely able to speak for the moral interests of parents, families and children.

    Moms for Liberty pulls deeply from this established playbook of “housewife populism”. Behind their challenges to school policies rests a repeated assertion: as mothers, they possess a right to speak for the welfare of children, as opposed to government bureaucrats, educational elites or teachers’ unions (who they deride as the “K-12 mafia”). This insistence rests at the heart of the slogan that defines the group: “We don’t co-parent with the government”. In the Moms for Liberty worldview, parents hold an “innate” or “natural” right to decide what their children should be learning, the health protocols they should observe, or the ideas they are exposed to. And parents must wield this right in an uncompromising, militant sense to protect their children against elite campaigns of “woke indoctrination”.

    The specific aims pushed by Moms for Liberty reflect a more troubling thread from the history of rightwing mothers’ activism. Scholars such as Elizabeth Gillespie McRae have detailed how white mothers’ organizations were some of the most committed players in the mid-century project of “massive resistance” fought to preserve the Jim Crow order. This segregationist battle was particularly concerned with legal mandates for school desegregation. And one of its battlegrounds remains central to the mission of Moms for Liberty: textbooks and school curricula. In the south and beyond, mothers’ organizations fought to eliminate books and teachings that highlighted white violence or white supremacy. Furthermore, they routinely attempted to remove books from the curriculum that highlighted Black contributions to the nation, its history, or its culture.

  198. 198.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 4:51 pm

    @Geminid:  Good comment.  And:

    My attitude about Independents is that Democrats don’t need to and should not tailor policies to fit their outlook.

    In 2014, Mark Warner made a few too many assumptions about his appeal to “independents” and other gettable Republicans.  And then they went home, and voted en masse for GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie.  Who does not scare horses.  Warner barely pulled a win.

    Take all voters seriously, but dance with who brung you.

  199. 199.

    randy khan

    July 12, 2023 at 4:52 pm

    Ron was the designated dragon-slayer — and because he hasn’t slayed the dragon before the debates have begun, he’s being portrayed as a failure. And I think it’s too early for that.

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.  He’s waiting for DeSantis to slay Trump at the debates.  DeSantis is more likely to get slain himself by one of the other Lilliputians who have nothing better to do.

  200. 200.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 4:53 pm

    @zhena gogolia:  Ah, thank you.  Although.  I hear the pool calling.

  201. 201.

    jonas

    July 12, 2023 at 4:55 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage: This was such a bizarre story: so apparently Clarence and Ginny throw this annual Christmas party and invite a bunch of his former clerks, many of whom are now high-powered lawyers and lobbyists, and they “pay” to attend. Like, literally, Venmo his aide a couple of hundred bucks each. WTF? When I accept an invitation to my former mentor’s house for a dinner party, I usually don’t expect to have to fork over a donation. Then again, my former mentor, while a friend, also isn’t in a position to rule on the constitutionality of stuff my clients want to do. So there’s that.

  202. 202.

    Dan B

    July 12, 2023 at 4:56 pm

    @trollhattan:  Seattle’s overheated real estate has dropped.  Small houses in my minority majority neighborhood were going for over a million.  Now they’re down to $800K.  But nearby cities are still climbing because of Seattle refugees.

  203. 203.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 5:01 pm

    @Anyway: In states like Arizona, Independents are usually thought of as the voters who register as Independents. Colorado’s Independents are more or less the “non-affiliated” voters, but I think that is the default for new registrations. The non-affiliated are the largest group in Colorado.

    In my state (Virginia) there is no registration by party, so I use the figure for “self-described” Independents in the Wason Center’s regular polls of registered voters. That number is fairly consistent over time, usually between 30 and 34%. Self-described Democrats typically number 35 to 37%, while Republicans have been bouncing around between 26 and 29%. They hit 25% in the poll right after the January 6, 2021 Insurrection.

  204. 204.

    jonas

    July 12, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    @randy khan: So DeSantis is supposedly going to whip out his dick at the debates now and suddenly intimidate Trump? Yeah, I think not. It’s clear he does not have, and never has had, any clue about how to effectively take on Trump. Theoretically, if you don’t take on Trump, you will have absolutely no chance of beating Trump. DeSantis’s problem, of course, as many here have pointed out for the past year, is that the GOP base still *loves* Trump and will turn on anyone seen as criticizing him.

    Fun time to be a GOP donor these days, I guess. The high rollers like the Murdochs are throwing their hands up in despair and the small-money donors have all tapped out giving to Trump’s defense fund and have enough MyPillows as it is.

  205. 205.

    gvg

    July 12, 2023 at 5:05 pm

    My understanding is that Independents in different states are not alike, much like Hispanics. This history of that state and party voting and affiliation matters. Some states have an actual “Independent” party which is not the same as no official party nor neither Republican nor Democrat. I think Alaska actually has more Independents than R’s or D’s? Some people switch back and forth or routinely do mixed ballots in generals. The rules for voting in primary’s also matter and can cause people to declare an alligence they don’t really feel.

    In Florida and much of the south until about the 70’s, most people were registered democrats because Lincoln and the Yankees had been Republican.  Even after the Civil Rights laws were passed by Democrats (Nationally) it took awhile for people to change their voting.  My Uncle who has always been mostly concerned with gun rights was and may still be registered Democrat because he told me the Democratic primary settled who was elected, and if he actually wanted a voice, he needed to be registered as a Democrat. This county still mostly votes Dem. I am sure he voted Republican in most general elections and mostly still does. He didn’t like Bush Jr’s Iraq adventure though (Vietnam war vet who hated the peace protesters but knows a cluster* when he sees it) and he hates Trump. Lots of local considerations like that in every area mean that it is not simple to say what “independents” are.

    I do think there are some unhappy former republican voters every cycle since 2000, just some each time, and we should work on keeping them because the reasons they changed are mostly pretty tied to the party not just one lousy President. We just need to get them to look around.

    Of course it ought to be the whole mass of them, but its not so…

  206. 206.

    Ruckus

    July 12, 2023 at 5:08 pm

    @cain:

    Little ronnie reminds me of the guy that came to our shop for a job. Dad hired him, he came in the next morning with 8 toolboxes. No one ever has more than two in this line of work, most have one. He gets settled in, dad gives him a sketch of a part to make and he has zero idea what to do, how to do it. Not One Fucking Iota Of An Idea. Took him over an hour to load those 8 toolboxes back in his car.

    ronnie reminds me of that guy, not one fucking idea what he’s doing. Shit For Brains is smarter than that. And that is not saying much. He may have academic smarts. He has zero idea what street smarts are, you know like most humans have some level of street smarts. My grand ma who knitted all day long had far more street smarts than ronnie. He looks and acts lost every moment of every day.

  207. 207.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 5:15 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Virginia Democrats would have to have very slim pickings before they chose me to run for Greene County Dogcatcher.

    But I think a lot of my views on practical politics were formed by watching my state move from red to purple to blue over the last 20 years. Some of this was demographic change, some because of the radicalized Repupublican party. But some of it has been because of skilled politicians like Tim Kaine who have found the liberally moderate (or moderately liberal) sweet spot in the state’s electorate.

  208. 208.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 5:25 pm

    @Martin: I think this is all very true. But I would add one thing about the 2012 election: some of Romney’s undervote was due to evangelical Christians who would not vote for an LDS church member.

    I noticed the tepid support evangelicals gave the upright Romney in 2012, and the effusive support they gave the reprobate Trump in 2016 and 2020. I bet LDS Church members noticed too.

  209. 209.

    Brachiator

    July 12, 2023 at 5:30 pm

    @Geminid:

    Political scientists study Independents a lot. It’s a diverse group, but typically roughly 40% consistently vote for Republicans, and a similar number vote for Democrats. Rachel Bitecofer did a lot pollling of Virginia registered voters for the Wason Center when she was on the Christopher Newport University faculty, and she said that conservative Independents outnumbered the more liberal ones in this state. That could be true generally.

    Absolutely not true in California. Independents include a lot of progressives, and tend to vote for Democrats. And yet despite leaning towards Democrats, they prefer their non-affiliated status. There are almost more non-affiliated voters than registered Republicans.

    I keep reading jackals who want to believe that Independents are just Republicans who won’t fess up. This is just not true.

    My attitude about Independents is that Democrats don’t need to and should not tailor policies to fit their outlook. Independents have a clear choice now between a “Center-Left” and a “Right” party, and they’ll either come over to our side without us rolling out the blue carpet for them, or they won’t.

    Democratic Party policy is often more nuanced than Republican policy. The idea that Independents can be ignored is political suicide in some states. The 2020 election brought out Independents and also people who didn’t vote at all in 2016. Some of these voters may have feared or hated Trump. That’s a start. Democrats should build on this. Policy and messaging are both important.

  210. 210.

    Geminid

    July 12, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    @Elizabelle: The year 2014 was a bad one for Democrats nationwide, and a few other Democratic Senators lost. I’m not sure Mark Warner’s moderate positions were a factor in his narrow escape that year. Warner has easily won two elections since then, and as far I can tell he’s the same white bread moderate he was in 2014.

    I thought it was very fitting that when Kamala was giving out cooking lessons after Biden picked her for VP, Harris schooled Warner on how to make an open-faced tuna sandwich. Get down, Mark. Get all the way down!

  211. 211.

    Subsole

    July 12, 2023 at 5:36 pm

     

     

    @rikyrah: Most white folks simply do not understand that whiteness is provisional  – especially for white people.

    Or, they understand it all too well, and will do whatever ut takes to stay in the club, because the club is all they know.

    Hard to sympathize, either way.

  212. 212.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 5:52 pm

    @Geminid:  I skimmed a Politico story on the 2014 outcome that was dripping with (Larry Sabato’s) derision for Obama.  And yes, Warner’s office reminded that he was the only Southern Democrat who won his race.  Ouch.

    FWIW, I think Youngkin’s election was an anomaly.  Time will tell.

    2014 Politico.  Wouldn’t it be “slew?”
    How Gillespie nearly slayed Warner

  213. 213.

    Citizen Alan

    July 12, 2023 at 6:06 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage: I will remind everyone once again that SCOTUS is the way it is today in large part because Abe Fortas was denied the Chief Justice’s chair and later forced to resign over a matter of $35k. That led to Nixon picking the new Chief Justice (and three other appointments in 8 years) and we have never recovered.

  214. 214.

    sab

    July 12, 2023 at 6:34 pm

    @Citizen Alan: I went to lawschool, in admiration of Abe Fortas and others.. Then I realized that real, good lawyers are much tougher and  more conplicated than I was up to.

    I have been a very good tax accountant. Clear rules (mostly.)

    Law is a bunch of fog.

  215. 215.

    Miss Bianca

    July 12, 2023 at 7:05 pm

    @Old School: Oh, no! Anchor Steam was my very first microbrew beer – drunk in a pub in Faneuil Hall in Boston in 1983, as I recall – which experience completely changed my mind about American beer. And Anchor Steam’s Liberty Ale is still one of my old-time fave raves, although it was getting hard to find in latter years.

    RIP

  216. 216.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 12, 2023 at 7:53 pm

    DeSantis needs to get his game face on if he expects to dethrone Trump.

    Trump says he can kill someone of  Fifth Avenue and get away with it. OK, DeSantis needs to double down on Trump and kill a bunch of people live on national TV.  DeSantis should have the Florida State Police round up twelve random tourist, cut heart out of their living, screaming bodies as an offering to dark and malevolent gods while a blood covered DeSantis proclaiming that “look, in Biden’s America a rouge state governor can kill people with the help of the cops and there is nothing anyone can do about it” and Republicans need vote for DeSanits because the only person who can stop DeSantis, is DeSantis.

    That is the kind of unrepentant cruelty the Republican base is looking for.

  217. 217.

    BellyCat

    July 12, 2023 at 8:04 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby: Well done! You must be quite excited for him.

  218. 218.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 8:14 pm

    @Hannah Huckaby:   Enjoying my scroll through The Dash Files.  Thank you for bringing him to our attention!

  219. 219.

    Elizabelle

    July 12, 2023 at 8:16 pm

    Dash Files supporting Biden running again; responding to the insane FTF NY Times op ed (that week); they are constant.  Also Michelle Goldberg, who usually knows better.

    https://thedashfiles.substack.com/p/biden-running-again?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

    Dash predicts Biden winning by 6 to 7 %, and bringing North Carolina and Texas along with him.  Let’s make it happen!

  220. 220.

    Chris T.

    July 13, 2023 at 1:30 am

    @Dan B:

    But nearby cities are still climbing because of Seattle refugees.

    It’s a bit lumpy. Some places are climbing, some are holding steady, some are dropping, all along the I-5 corridor. If you’re either a buyer or a seller, this is not a bad time to buy or sell, as things aren’t changing too much too fast.

  221. 221.

    Chris T.

    July 13, 2023 at 1:34 am

    @Subsole:

    Most white folks simply do not understand that whiteness is provisional  – especially for white people.

    I didn’t realize this myself until I learned some history. I’m about as white as anyone gets (due to Irish ancestry), so much so that you can see all the veins right through my skin, but “the Irish” weren’t “white” in the NYC area until the Eye-talians started coming in…

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