Remember when Mitt Romney’s genius niece asked Repub presidential aspirants to sign a pledge that they would support the party’s eventual nominee as a condition to appear in the debates? Yeah, it’s not going so well. The leader of the motley pack (by a lot!) won’t sign: (NBC)
“I wouldn’t sign the pledge,” Trump told host Eric Bolling. “They want you to sign a pledge, but I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president. So right there there’s a problem.”
Trump declined to name the candidates he wouldn’t support, but criticized both former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie whom he said would both “ask me nasty questions.” The two former governors have been sharp critics of Trump, the GOP front runner in the polls.
During the interview, Trump also said he would announce next week whether he will participate in the Aug. 23 debate in Milwaukee, though a refusal to sign the loyalty pledge would make him ineligible under the RNC’s criteria.
Spoiler alert: he won’t participate, and McDaniel gave him an out with the pledge stunt. She has no idea just how scorched earth Hair Furor is going to go on her party unless it giftwraps the nomination and presents it to him on a silver platter with a nice red bow.
Speaking of stunt pledges, Nikki Haley continued her campaign o’ cringe with a showy flourish when she signed the so-called “Beat Biden” pledge: (Fox — no link because fuck them!)
Hammering down on a point she has made in the past, Haley crossed out President Biden’s name in the pledge and wrote, “President Harris,” signaling that she believes this race is not against Biden in the long run and instead against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I have said, and I say it to every Republican candidate who’s going to get on that debate stage, I will support the Republican that comes out of that. Certainly I want it to be me, but I’m gonna support the Republican because I don’t believe that America can afford President Kamala Harris and we need to remember that.”
I figured all the hopefuls would turn on Ron “Dead Bounce” DeSantis in Trump’s absence, but maybe Haley is angling to be the VP of whoever emerges, so she’ll bare fangs at Harris instead. Haley’s rhetoric on the stump is similar to that of DeSantis:
The only woman in the GOP race, Haley has said transgender students competing in sports is “the women’s issue of our time” and has drawn praise from a leading anti-abortion group, which called her “uniquely gifted at communicating from a pro-life woman’s perspective.”
Meanwhile, women nationwide, including in red states like Kansas and Ohio, are telling Repubs what’s really “the women’s issue of our time.” And it sure as hell isn’t trans kids trying to play sports, all of whom would probably fit into a single Cheesecake Factory restaurant with plenty of room to spare. These people are mind-bogglingly out of touch.
A TPM reader pointed out that the Repub reaction to finally overturning Roe is similar to their response after the Bush admin knocked over Iraq. Neocons schemed to topple Saddam Hussein for a decade, but when the smoke cleared, the reaction was: Uh, now whut?
Moral of the story: don’t expect a building plan from a wrecking ball.
Open thread.
trollhattan
Spooky brown woman running for president warns of spooky brown woman possibly running for president. Got it Nikki, and thanks for your service.
Baud
I think a lot of women would hand over control over their bodies to religious zealots in order to enforce traditional gender norms in sports. Don’t you?
UncleEbeneezer
Thanks TERFs…You must be so proud to have helped spread this hateful BS.
Old School
I guess Nikki Haley is running as the person who gets to debate Kamala Harris.
Ryan
Haley can only wish she’s running against the “Dark One” instead of the old white guys. But with respect to Trump, I mean, I want to see Christie cry on TV. Do we want him to not see him in the debate? Don’t get me wrong, I like Christie’s jib or cut or whatever, but Trump’ll do what Christie did to Rubio at some point.
Ryan
@UncleEbeneezer: Why isn’t it also the mens’ issue of the time? It’s almost as if this transgender thing was a one way street.
mrmoshpotato
Hahaha! The leader of their shitstain party is all “Fuck you all!”
Congrats on finally producing a monster after 40+ years, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, etc.
Jeffro
I’m genuinely lost for a metaphor here (in terms of the debate). The GOP’s about to have
-6 or more single-digit-support candidates for president on the stage, including the last R administration’s VP and UN ambassador running against their former boss…
-all while said former boss – their leading candidate, by far – the one with nearly triple-digit felony indictments – skips the debate
It’s like…having a birthday party for a high schooler (who blatantly tried to rob a bank a couple years ago) and the preteen siblings who idolize him (well, except for the fat one and “Ada”) and the high schooler is skipping the party anyway ’cause he’d rather just party with a pack of rabid, red-capped dogs and soak up their incoherent barking and add some of his own. Who needs birthday parties, anyway?
Is that about right?
This party is more of a mess than I could have ever imagined, at any point in time including last week.
Caveatimperator
@Ryan:
Because the existence of trans men breaks the right wing narrative that trans women are all perverts trying to prey on cis women.
Though it should break a lot of their narratives about masculinity. But nobody ever accused right wingers of being smart or consistent.
Cameron
The raised three-finger salute….that’s not the Secret DeSantis Pudding-Dip High Sign, is it?
cain
@Caveatimperator: They are dumb.
I wish we could show a video of a frog changing genders or some other amphibian with the caption ‘God did that’.
rikyrah
Nimrata is so jealous of our Vice President that she can’t see straight.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
They hate women’s sports. Literally.
smith
@Ryan: I think RW men obsess over transwomen because they feel overwhelming anxiety at the thought that someone would give up the superior status of being a man to live her life as a mere woman.
Shalimar
@mrmoshpotato: Steve Schmidt has no problem working for monsters. Remember when he left his daily MSNBC pundit work in 2019 to make millions running Howard Schultz’s pathetic presidential campaign?
Butch
Well, here’s from the Associated Press – you wouldn’t even need the size of the Cheesecake Factory:
“Of the 15 transgender athletes competing in high school sports, only two are transgender girls according to an article by the Associated Press.”
JPL
@Shalimar: Rick Wilson is the one who attacked Max Cleland’s record.
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: every time I see them (Wilson, Schmidt, Stuart Stevens, so many more), all I can think of is what absolute fucking shitstains they all are. You’ve spent the past 40+ years building this, you finally get the monster you always wanted, then cry when it acts exactly how it’s supposed to act. I picked up Stuart Stevens book just on a lark, to see what he had to say as a “reformed” republican, but almost threw it across the room by the third chapter because if it wasn’t bothsiderism, it was basically the Dems fault for shit. Zero fucking accountability for what they’ve done. Zero. Fuck them all. They can produce catchy clips and soundbites, but you can stay relegated to the 3rd auxiliary overflow room. Fuckers.
Caveatimperator
@Butch:
Seriously, if trans girls and women had a distinct advantage over cis girls and women, we’d see far more than the half dozen scattered examples that always get cited. And most of those barely even count.
Yarrow
Nikki Haley should be disqualified from everything forever because of this, which she said when she resigned as UN Ambassador:
Poor judgment. Disqualified.
Jay
@smith:
I remember the “good old days” when homophobe’s would obsess over the fear that the hot woman in the club they picked up, or the sex worker they engaged on the street, had a penis.
Juju
@Shalimar: That alimony and new house won’t pay for themselves.
mrmoshpotato
@Shalimar: Ah yes.
I know these bastards have no qualms about working for monsters. It is what paid their mortgages and put their kids their school. Hell of a life’s legacy.
Suzanne
Architectural sanity prevails.
University of California abandons plans to build “windowless dorm” Munger Hall
Note that Renowned Smart Guy Eric Adams is Just Asking Questions when expressing doubt that humans need windows. Scrapping regulations that residents have windows will be an important part of trying to repurpose office buildings for residential.
(Humans need windows. There is significant research.)
UncleEbeneezer
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Conservative Feelings About Women’s Sports:
Pay Disparity In Pro Sports (Golf, Tennis, Basketball): ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Inadequate Funding of Women’s NCAA: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mass Sex-Abuse of Gymnasts: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Grooming of Young WTA Tennis Players By Male Coaches: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Letting Women Decide What to Wear (Not Forcing Them into Bikinis/Skirts): ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Transgender Girls/Women Competing Anywhere: “OMG, we have to protect Women’s Sports?!!1!”
eclare
@Suzanne:
Thank dog, that building was grotesque. And IIRC it had very limited exits, I didn’t know how everyone would escape a fire.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Now you libs have gone to far!!!1!
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: Exactly. Well put. And I’m not the least bit surprised about Stevens’ book.
Oh, it was all a lie, Stuart? No! Fucking! Shit!
Signed, Democrats Who Have Been Paying Attention
Steppanhammer
@Suzanne: Pardon the language, but oh THANK FUCK. I don’t care how much money Munger gave VTBS, there are some clients and projects you just pass on.
(said as someone with architectural training/experience, as well as being a human being).
Baud
Leto
@Suzanne: I wish someone would tell the military that. I think in my 22 years, I had an actual office window for about 14 months? When I was stationed in England and I was at the satellite comm facility. The big office space for the NCOs had this big wall window that looked out on the pastures. It was really nice.
UncleEbeneezer
@Caveatimperator: They just want traditional gender norms (and to punish Trans People). Even in cases where Trans Male Athletes like Mack Beggs (a HS/college wrestler in Texas) had an advantage from Testosterone therapy, they insisted that he compete against Cisgender Girls, where he absolutely dominated. It was never about fairness in sports or concern for the girls/women.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I once worked in an interior section of a building. No windows in our office area. The floor had been renovated and the ventilation system didn’t match the current layout, so we were always freezing when the a/c was on. Some people brought in space heaters to deal with it, which inevitably tripped the breakers and all the power to our area would go out. Again, interior office. Zero light. I’d have to feel my way to the wall and then find the door and open it to the hallway to get some light in. Windows really would have helped.
Leto
@eclare: if you don’t teach Triangle Shirt Factory, you don’t have to worry about workers/residents asking for silly things like “escape exits”, “emergency doors not locked”, and “escape lanes not being clogged full of shit”. Ezpz
Suzanne
On trans people in sports:
I wish our society would remember that the most important function of sport has nothing to do with who wins elite competitions. I really do not care. This is a country with significant physical and mental health problems. I care about people finding activities they enjoy that help them live healthier lives, make friends, relieve stress, etc. I am talking about your company’s softball team, the YMCA kids’ soccer league, the church volleyball tournament, your city’s half-marathon. Those are the sports that matter. I see no reason to craft public policy around the narrowest sliver of elite athletes, who already have some pretty significant exceptional physical advantages.
gvg
@cain: Parrot fish and clownfish. Parrotfish change colors with genders so it’s really visible.
eclare
@Leto:
So true! The book written about that was very good and haunting.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHA!!!!!! Oh Nikki… I… Wow.
Or is she praising the Subway pedophile? Either way…
Betty Cracker
@Ryan: I don’t think Trump has the wit to curb-stomp Christie the way Christie curb-stomped Rubio. Christie is definitely a fraud and vulnerable to barbs from a more quick-witted opponent, but all Trump will do is call him a fat pig and maybe taunt him about being a McDonald’s go-fer.
Meanwhile, if Trump doesn’t show, I very much look forward to watching a clip of Christie body-slamming DeSantis. In fact, my main motivation in hoping Trump doesn’t show is the expectation that the assembled will fall on Ron like a pack of hyenas on an injured antelope.
Captain C
@Yarrow:
This sounds like the kind of fake compliment one gives when one has nothing nice to say.
MattF
I’ve thought for a while that Trump wouldn’t resist the lure of a camera and a big TV audience, but I’m doubtful now. He’s playing his usual game of drawing things out for the maximum number of eyeballs and probably not making a ‘decision’ until the last possible nanosecond. My guess is that the RNC will decide he’s a special case. Personally, I’m looking ahead to the Georgia indictment.
Suzanne
@eclare: It did not have limited exits. It had limited entries, which would have been hectic, but it met all code requirements for exiting.
Its problem is that it’s ugly and terrible.
Cameron
@Jay: Yeah, they thought the Beatles were singing “A penis is a warm gun.”
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Windows aren’t required by code in most business or mercantile occupancies. They are required in residential in most jurisdictions. Residential windows are typically required to be operable in most jurisdictions, except in high-rises (75′ or higher from the street to an occupied floor level).
eclare
@Suzanne:
Thanks! My bad, I guess I assumed that the entries were also the exits. Obviously, IANAA.
Geoduck
@Betty Cracker: Even if the Shiatgibbon shows up, they might still aim all their fire at DeSantis.
Suzanne
@Captain C:
It sounds like my terrible attempts at talking dirty in secksy role play situations. #justgivemetheballgag
Yarrow
@Captain C: Perhaps that’s what she was trying to do. And then she said she couldn’t say enough good things about them. Disqualifying.
persistentillusion
@JPL: And Maz, unlike Rick, is a truly lovely person.
brantl
@mrmoshpotato: They’ve been producing monsters for 40+ years, it’s just that it’s now terrorizing their villages.
JML
JFC, Nikki Haley. Why not just quote Lee Atwater directly, since you’re following his racist-ass playbook anyways…
Suzanne
@eclare: Yeah, if you look at the floor plans, you can see a ton of fire stairs, at least one in each “pod”, IIRC. The description that was given to the press was some nonsense about how there would be one point of entry to force everybody to mix and mingle.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I’m sure there were code violations in this renovation. Windows may not have been one of them but not having any emergency lighting in case power went out (which happened all the time, so an indication of bad electrical work) in a windowless interior area where people worked may have been. I don’t know.
MattF
@Suzanne: The Three Stooges syndrome.
wjca
@Ryan: Basically, in sports it depends on which physical characteristics the particular sport emphasizes. For example, gymnastics (especially floor exercise) rewards flexibility. If you went thru puberty as a female, you have a natural advantage over a guy. But far more sports reward size and strength.** Which means going thru puberty male gives you an edge. Hence the tendency to see it as a women’s issue.
** There are, of course, sports which reward physical characteristics which aren’t sex-linked. Baseball (fast reflexes and sharp eyesight) comes to mind.
Jay
@Suzanne:
one of the code things here that has become a stumbling block here for densification, is that basement suites, (legal) have to have two exits, and one has to be in the bedroom.
So the basement door is one.
The other is usually a 3′ x 3′ window, in a window well, as most basements here are 7 feet in the ground. In the wet season, this often causes problems, and retrofitting a proper set up requires an engineering report to start.
This means that most basement suites, don’t meet code and can’t meet code.
And yet a 1 bedroom is going for $2800 a month.
Jeffro
believe me, I completely get the “rooting for injuries – especially Ron’s” train of thought, but I don’t get the point of the whole debate if trump’s not there?
it’s almost…meta-performative MAGA nonsense? who cares what these clowns think when almost none of them will take the front-runner on directly, and the front-runner’s not even there anyway?
they might as well all be on some CNN (or MSNBC! lol) panel for all that it will matter. MAGA don’t watch debates, so it’ll be the enabling fringe watching/wasting their time
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Not just to look out of. The telephone company used to put fake windows on the the little brick buildings that housed switching equipment, because people got creeped out by buildings with no windows.
brantl
@Cameron: For them it is!
persistentillusion
@persistentillusion: Max, not Maz. Stupid fingers!
UncleEbeneezer
@Suzanne: Thank you! I coach tennis and most of my students will never win a trophy or even play competitively. Most will only play for fun and the physical and mental health benefits that activity yields.
Suzanne
@Jay: Yeah, Pittsburgh has the same issue. Lots of people want to finish their basements and make legal bedrooms and it’s expensive to do right. I bid on one house, and then backed out, because the basement had been finished but waterproofing wasn’t done well, and so all the finishes were getting damp over time, and whoever bought the house would end up having to tear it all out.
Yarrow
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The UK had a Window Tax until the mid 19th century. Some friends had an old Edwardian house that had some bricked up windows because previous owners wanted to avoid the window tax. Bricking up windows was apparently pretty common.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, in the not-even-close-to-news, “Reagan’s three-legged stool of fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and national security hawks is gone, Gone, GONE”
“Traditional conservatives capitulate to MAGA madness for a few more tax cuts and judges; film at 11”
Ok seriously, we have discussed this endlessly here on BJ. My question is, why isn’t anyone in the snooze media asking why this happened?
(answer: the GOP didn’t deliver shit on any of this for its voters, with the exception of tax cuts for rich folks)
UncleEbeneezer
@wjca: Then why aren’t the Very Concerned About Fairness In Women’s Sports people openly pushing for access to puberty-blockers?
lee
@JPL: Every time that shit stain mentions on twitter something about patriotism or the military I tell him to STFU until he publically apologizes to Cleland. The last I heard Rick stated he did nothing wrong to Cleland.
lee
Yeah the Orange Dufus won’t attend the debates no matter what. He’ll hold his own rally and I’d bet 10 internet points the networks cover that more than the GOP debates.
I’d also bet 10 internet points that he declines to debate Biden.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Yarrow: Thanks for the interesting bit of history. Making a note to see if my favorite 19th-century YouTube channel, “Fact Feast” has covered it.
I’ve always found the huge nearly-blank wall of this house vaguely creepy.
We live near where painter Andrew Wyeth lived and painted, so we’ve spent a lot of time looking at Wyeth paintings at a local museum. This house belonging to his neighbor Karl Kuerner was a favorite subject.
Lee Hartmann
Betty: it’s a good thing I didn’t have a mouthful of G&T when I read your caption to that photo.
Suzanne
@UncleEbeneezer: It’s such transparently disingenuous bullshit. Like, the people who opposed Title Nine are not interested in protecting women’s access to sports.
And if sports are genuinely an educational issue, a civil right, then we let everyone play in them! These debates are sooooo tedious because worrying about elite athletes and hundredths of seconds feels like that moment in a meeting where you spend 45 minutes of an hour-long meeting discussing the tiniest little issue that could have been an email! The far bigger issue is finding things that most people can do, want to do, have time to do, have friends to do it with, have facilities at which to do it!
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I agree the whole thing is a completely pointless shit-show so far, and I’m enjoying the spectacle. They’re still going through the motions like things are normal. Things are not.
Sometimes I don’t think casual observers — or even certain media figures who are paid handsomely to analyze politics — appreciate how much Trump has fucked the Repubs already, and there’s no reason to think he’s going to do anything but keep right on boning them.
wjca
@UncleEbeneezer: Probably for the same reason that they demand forced birth, but object to any support for children.
Even when they (possibly by accident) have a valid point, they won’t be consistent because their proclaimed motivation isn’t what they actually care about.
Anoniminous
Have a dose of reality.
Trump got 74,223,975 votes in 2020. Yes Biden got 81,283,501 votes but he won Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by 0.6 percentage points or less, which was similar to Trump’s 2016 victory, flip fewer than 43,000 votes and Trump is re-elected.
Brachiator
This is going to be fun. Whether Trump shows up or not, I want to see if any of the other contenders go after him.
Some of the contenders are still waffling over whether they believe that Trump lost in 2020. This lets Trump pretend that he is an interrupted incumbent. The contenders should be forced to clearly answer what they believe. Trump will have to respond and his reaction will probably be disruptive. A win for the Democrats.
Nikki Hayley going after Kamala Harris. Dumb, but predictable move by Hayley.
Jay
@Suzanne:
20 years of doing reno’s, new builds, commercial and residential taught me that most people are false cheap.
Our house in the hills that I built, had a crawl space. In ground on the sides and back, above ground on the front. (slope).
The footings, walls and slabs were steel pin reinforced grade 6 concrete, over mesh and rebar with 6 inches of under slab HDF foamboard. The concrete was protected with tar, a layer of ground cloth, another layer of tar, then rain screen. Drainage was epdm perforated pipe, covered with ground cloth on a 2 foot base of pea gravel, (protected by ground cloth, and a pea gravel “wall” again protected by groundcloth, up to surface level.
Then, of course, earth quake ties, R-100 insulation, R-100 entrance and fire walls.
So, basically the foundation of the house was way, way above code, and will never fail, and it only cost 25% more than basic code.
In the middle of winter, -40c outside, +20c inside, with no heating other than ground heat. No frozen pipes.
People want bling instead.
When we were putting in the trench for the waterlines from the cistern on the hill, the guy lost control of the Hitachi 40ton excavator, (very steep slope, 65 degrees) and slid it into the house at speed. I had to repaint the outside and patch some drywall on the inside. The house did not move even a 1/4 of an inch.
strange visitor (from another planet)
yeah, i’m getting the feeling you guys have no idea what a curb stomping is or you wouldn’t be so keen on it happening to people.
after a street fight, you take someone you beat down, put them on the asphalt, make them open their mouths on the edge of the curb… and then you stomp on the back of their neck, breaking the jaw, crushing their skull, and killing the shit out of the person.
it’s really fucking ugly and just not cool.
find a better euphemism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: “Time passes. Weather changes. Shit happens.”* It isn’t 2020 anymore. It isn’t even 2022. Look at what has happened in special elections since then. Look at WI’s Supreme Court election and what just happened in Ohio.
*Artillery saying explaining why one needs to update meteorological reports every few hours. It has broader applications though.
karen marie
@Jay: I don’t know how people do it. Typically, one is required to have a monthly income of two to three times the monthly rent. At 2x, a $2800/month apt requires an income of $67,000/year. At 3x, one needs $101,000/year.
I can’t imagine earning $100,000/year but still only being able to afford to live in a tiny, crappy one-bedroom apartment.
People that own houses want prices to increase exponentially – great for them – but it causes rental prices to rise at an equal if not greater rate.
I saw a headline that in Minneapolis they’ve stabilized rent inflation by creating more housing. I did not read the article because no time! but I can’t believe homeowners won’t vote out the politicians who made this happen.
Suzanne
@Jay:
I have spent my career mostly working on huge buildings, and it is the same. People get wrapped around the axle on dumb shit and then corners where they shouldn’t. Like this project I’m working on now has some super-spendy curving fire-rated ceramic glass walls in some high-visibility areas. I foresee that it will get broken within three months of opening, and it will be months before they can replace it. But we’re going with cheap doors! You know, the doors into 90% of the rooms in the building. The doors that get smacked into by beds and wheelchairs and IV poles and the floor scrubber about 300 times a day.
kalakal
@Yarrow:
He hides it well. So well an electron microscope couldn’t find it
Suzanne
@karen marie: Minneapolis banned single-family zoning, enabling every homeowner to build an ADU or divide up their house into an apartment.
mrmoshpotato
@brantl: Point taken.
Maxim
@strange visitor (from another planet): Yikes. Not a phrase I’ve used, and now I never will. Thanks for the education.
cope
I take Haley’s replacement of Biden’s name with Harris’s as a veiled swipe at Joe’s age. Also, being a woman of color, she is a much more natural target for her ilk than an old white dude.
sab
@Suzanne: So true. My niece is trans, and almost all of her friends growing up were girls when we thought of her as a boy. That’s who she wanted to hang out with, not with the boys.
Ivan X
hahahahahaha
“all of whom would probably fit into a single Cheesecake Factory restaurant with plenty of room to spare”
BC killin it yet again. We need an anthology of her sickest burns.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Betty Cracker:
Despite this, it is distressing how close elections still are when we go up against these people.
RedDirtGirl
@strange visitor (from another planet): Thank you. I’ve noticed it being used here a fair bit and wondered if people actually knew what it meant.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@RedDirtGirl: it’s like inigo montoya said, more or less. “you keep using those words. i donna think they mean what you think they mean.”
Betty Cracker
@strange visitor (from another planet): I know what it is. I also know what it is not, which is a euphemism. I think metaphor is the word you’re looking for, like other words that describe violent acts that are more commonly used as metaphors in this context, e.g., torched, crushed, murdered, killed, steamrolled, slaughtered, bludgeoned, etc. All pretty gross if you think about the literal meanings.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: I’ve made an effort to stop using gun-related metaphors. Once I decided to do that I saw how often they’re used in our language. It’s kind of hard not to use them. We are very much a gun culture.
I am weary of seeing Outrage Headlines, like “[Person Dem-related] DESTROYS [Person Republican-related]”. No they didn’t. They didn’t destroy them at all. The R person is still here, still doing their dumb shit. Dem person may have won a rhetorical argument that, for the most part, the R person won’t ever see or care about. Good for them. Will it change much of anything? Who knows.
japa21
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: And they are getting less and less close.
Trump won in 2016 and almost won in 2020 because a ton of people just reflexively vote GOP. Sometimes it’s tradition, sometimes it hating the libs, sometimes it’s peer pressure. Sometimes it’s because they think the GOP cares about them.
Not all the GOP voters are racist bigots. In fact, I would posit that at most, 50% are. And they don’t realize just what the GOP has become. That is changing. Dobbs did some of that, DeSantis is helping change minds against the GOP. Lots of things are happening that, in the past, were lower key and people were able to avoid seeing them.
One had to be paying attention to what was really happening below the surface to recognize what the GOP was becoming and had become. I remember a post election focus group of Trump voters in early 2017. When asked about the obvious racism he used they almost to a person felt he didn’t really mean it, that he just wanted to pick up some voters.
I am very optimistic about 2024. I believe we can even pick up a Senate seat or two. People don’t like being lied to and a lot are starting to realize that is what the GOP has done for several decades now.
Plus, the Dems have delivered and that makes a difference.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Betty Cracker: look i don’t wanna get in a fight with you. lemme just say this: when you say, “someone is steamrolled, slaughtered or bludgeoned” i can’t help but think of those in the most cartoonish, ACME-powered ways.
IMO, curb stomping is far more serious, visceral, up-close-and-personal, and yeah. cruel bc it prevents open casket funerals. it’s not a term i’d throw around casually, and the phrase has been all over this joint in the last few.
eta- i’ve been in my share of brawls. i’ve cheerfully bludgeoned and been bludgeoned but to me, curb stomping is just a completely different level. it’s not fighting. it’s not kicking ass. it’s sadistic, disfiguring murder.
Bill Arnold
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Thanks. Some people needed the clarity.
cope
@Betty Cracker: So when DeSantis said “…you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on day one…”, was that some sort of reverse euphemism that really means “We will initiate in-depth performance reviews.”?
For the record, I found that statement by him one of the most graphic and offensive ever uttered by a politician running for office.
Betty Cracker
@strange visitor (from another planet): I’m open to critiques on language — you have to be around here because it’s constant. Sometimes I find it irritating and nitpicky, and sometimes it’s clarifying and I learn something. I’m not sure where yours lands on that scale, but the assumption that I don’t know what the phrase means was kind of offensive. I’ve seen American History X, FFS! But judging from the other comments, I guess not everyone here has. Anyhoo, food for thought!
@cope: I’ve seen at least two letters to the editors in local papers about that. A lot of people found it pretty shocking.
Uncle Cosmo
I don’t even know what American History X is, though I’m guessing it’s not a new DeSatan-approved AP course in FL high schools. I only had the vaguest notion of what “curb-stomping” meant til the post moved me to google it, and – yeah, yikes 8^O. That’s one expression I’m dropping from my vocabulary toot-sweet. Thanky kindly to strange visitor (from another planet) at #76 for the headsup.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Betty Cracker: there have been a buch of people who have been quite blasé about tossing the term around lately. wasn’t trying to make you feel singled out which is why i didn’t directly respond to your specific comment.
…but yeah, let’s just say i didn’t need to see a movie to know what it meant.
yellowdog
@Ryan: Trump won’t debate.