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Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Petty moves from a petty man.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

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Tick tock motherfuckers!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Please proceed, Governor

Please proceed, Governor

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Remember yesterday when we speculated that a contested primary could be useful in exposing GOP radicalism on abortion? From RadioIowa:

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis says Donald Trump’s recent statements on the abortion issue show the former president’s “values” are out of step with Iowa GOP voters. Trump said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the six week abortion ban DeSantis signed into law this spring was a terrible mistake.

“Donald Trump may think it’s terrible. I think protecting babies with heartbeats is noble and just and I’m proud to have signed the heartbeat bill in Florida and I know Iowa has similar legislation,” DeSantis says. “I don’t know how you can even make the claim that you’re somehow prolife if you’re criticizing states for enacting protections for babies that have heartbeats.”

Like everyone in the pro-lie movement, DeSantis is a fucking liar. A fetus at six weeks looks kind of like a tadpole and nothing like the Gerber baby, and it doesn’t have a “heart” in any meaningful sense of the word. Here’s how a qualified medical expert (i.e., NOT Ron DeSantis) describes it:

“While the heart does begin to develop at around six weeks, at this point the heart as we know it does not yet exist,” said Dr. Ian Fraser Golding, a pediatric and fetal cardiologist at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.

So yes, Repubs are liars, and the reproductive freedom issue isn’t going away. I’m NOT saying the Dobbs decision will carry Democrats to victory in the fall. I am saying the Dobbs decision is deeply unpopular and a millstone around Republicans’ necks because they own it 100%.

That’s why they generally avoid talking about it, but the infighting is bringing the issue to the fore. Good.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

210Comments

  1. 1.

    Suzanne

    That’s why they generally avoid talking about it, but the infighting is bringing the issue to the fore.

    As always, rooting for injuries.

  2. 2.

    Baud

     “I don’t know how you can even make the claim that you’re somehow prolife if you’re criticizing states for enacting protections for babies that have heartbeats.”

    The heartbeat thing aside, he’s correct. You can’t claim you’re “pro-life” if you don’t support terrible abortion restrictions.

  3. 3.

    John S.

    Even when DeSantis is trying to attack Trump, he still manages to sound like a deferential sycophant kissing his ass.

  4. 4.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Always some superficially noble position based on claims that are antithetical to reality.

    Republicans are boring. I wish the MSM would figure it out.

  5. 5.

    Old School

    DeSantis seems to think his best chance is to run to Trump’s right.  That may be correct for the nomination, but it certainly will cause issues for the general.

    Of course, maybe he plans to pull a Romney and just pretend he never said these things.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Yep. And Trump was right in 2016 when he said “you have to punish the women.” He blurts out deranged garbage all the time, but that was a “gaffe” in the sense that he told an impolitic truth. Since Trump has no convictions of his own, he was merely extrapolating those of the host organism to its logical conclusion.

  7. 7.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: You can’t claim you’re “pro-life” if you don’t support terrible abortion restrictions.

    You want to rethink that? Or do I need another Red Bull and a snark meter calibration?

  9. 9.

    cain

    @Betty Cracker: How many white supremacist/patriarchy aligned white women are nodding their heads though when hearing ‘women need to be punished’? I bet that number is not trivial.

  10. 10.

    Glidwrith

    On a phone, so can’t link, but the Guardian published an article on what a fetus actually looks like before 10 weeks by Poppy Noor on October 2022. Perhaps a fellow Juicer can grab the link?

    Puts all the BS these people pull in perspective.

  13. 13.

    Bex

    Yeah he signed the heartbeat bill in Florida.  At one a.m. on a random morning.  Miserable little weasel you are, Ronnie White Boots.

  16. 16.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: A person not really paying attention to politics can self-describe as pro-life without understanding the implications and they might mean any number of things.

    Forced birthers describing themselves as pro-life, especially given the rest of the politics they espouse, is the worst kind of double-speak.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    I get what you’re saying, but “pro-life” is now a well developed brand of a long-standing movement.  Some normies may want that label to mean something different, but I don’t think we should hold our tongues about the true nature of the people who are part of that movement.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @Eolirin: Something, something some are more equal than others.

    Jezebel.com (from February):

    Kansas’ legislature on Tuesday advanced a bill that would establish a new crime of “unlawful destruction of a fertilized embryo.” An Arkansas lawmaker introduced a bill that would legally define personhood at fertilization and allow someone to be prosecuted for “wrongful death” of an embryo. West Virginia Republicans have introduced bills that would allow civil lawsuits for loss of an embryo was as a result of “negligence.”

    Legislation like this directly implicates IVF: If an embryo is inserted into the uterus and implants to the uterine wall, pregnancy occurs—but the chance of IVF being successful on the first couple attempts stands at just around 50 percent. Embryos that don’t implant are destroyed in the process, and fertility clinics often freeze or dispose of unused embryos. Post-Roe abortion bans that include “life begins at conception” language, like those in Missouri, Texas, and other states, pose a particular threat, as they define “child” as starting at fertilization without specific exceptions for IVF.

    Barb Collura, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, tells Jezebel that the new bills in Kansas, Arkansas, and West Virginia seem to “specifically single out people who are using different kinds of medical technology” to build their families—especially with the Kansas bill’s “nonsensical” claim that “unlawful abortion” can be “part of the process of artificial insemination.”

    Since the fall of Roe, fertility clinics have been acutely aware of the threat they face, and as have their patients: The Wall Street Journal reported in June that some patients began asking IVF providers to move their embryos to states that protect abortion rights. Similarly, providers began urging lawmakers to pass legislation to explicitly protect IVF.

    […]

    The RWNJs are always trying to carve out special exceptions for their “life begins at conception” [ hey, wait a minute, aren’t eggs and sperm “alive”?? ] mantra, for their special cases. We have to keep hammering them on their illogical, anti-biology, anti-women, anti-personal-freedom, etc., dangerous nonsense.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  22. 22.

    Juice Box

    @Baud:
    There are a lot of “pro-life” women who, if you question them further, say that while they would never have an abortion, they wouldn’t want to make that decision for another woman. They’re actually pro-choice, but they don’t think of it that way.

    Men, of course, are always deciding the matter for other people, but look at Rick Santorum whose wife had an abortion for a failing pregnancy. Cases like that are why they have to believe the cruel fantasy that sl*ts would have frivolous abortions at 8 months, if they aren’t kept under tight control.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    I think we’re going to have to work hard to make it clear to people that Trump is anti choice. I bet if you polled right now people are not clear on it. I know that sounds nuts to us but Trumpis making the same play he did in 2016 – where he pretends to be a moderate – and media are going along with it and promoting it exactly as they did in 2016. One of their cherished myths is that Trump is liberal on “social issues” and they are never going to let it go.

    Pretend normie voters don’t know anything, because they don’t. They’re spoon fed vague, useless garbage. They have to be told.

  24. 24.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: Some normies may want that label to mean something different, but I don’t think we should hold our tongues about the true nature of the people who are part of that movement.

    I agree wholeheartedly. And I think one of the most important parts of speaking out about their true nature is not conceding that loaded term to them

    ETA: In fact, we need to claw back every liberty they’ve taken with the English language.

    Make vocabulary great again!

  27. 27.

    Cameron

    So Prince Puddinghands of the White Boots is throwing down a chocolate -stained gauntlet at King Swino’s feet? Could be entertaining.

  28. 28.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Cameron: So Prince Puddinghands of the White Boots is throwing down a chocolate -stained gauntlet at King Swino’s feet? Could be entertaining.

    The ability to understand something like this means being part of a community. 🤗🥰🤗

  29. 29.

    Kay

    People are doing phone banking on Issue One (in Ohio) and they say voters are really unclear on the whole abortion issue and who is on what side.

    The coverage has absolutely sucked so I’m not surprised but it means we cannot take for granted that normie voters know ANYTHING about this. They don’t. Democrats have to hit it over and over in plain language and ignore political media who will whine that we’re talking about it too much. We have to talk about it because they did such crap jobs informing people.

  31. 31.

    CaseyL

    “Pro-life”? I like to ask them what life they’re “pro” besides fetuses.

    And I don’t refer to them as “pro-life,” but as fetus idolators. Which, admittedly, was more useful before they decided idolatry – of festuses, of Trump, of Putin – was just fine.

  38. 38.

    Jeffro

    I’m looking forward to trumpov tweeting/truthing/whatever the hell it’s called

    RON YOU MORON, YOU ARE GOING TO GET US KILLED IN THE GENERAL ELECTION WITH THIS SHIT – QUIT TALKING ABOUT ABORTION, YOU KNOW ONLY THE FUNDIES CARE ABOUT IT ANYWAY!

    Nickel bet!   ;)

  39. 39.

    Redshift

    @Kay: From what I’m seeing, Virginia legislative candidates this year are doing a really good job with this. Just bluntly saying Republicans want to ban abortion, and if you let them win, they will. And even better, totally ignoring the GOP “compromise” ploy, where they’re pretending a 15-week ban is some kind of compromise position everyone should be able to agree on.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    Mid term normie voters are more engaged and better informed than presidential year normie voters so we shouldn’t make assumptions about what they know from the voters who came out in the midterms.

    Go watch that Meet the Press interview with Trump and imagine that useless crap being the source of information. We have our work cut out for us. I think Team Biden are pretty good at reaching normie female (liberal leaning) voters online – the much maligned and jeered at “moms”- so I expect that will be a big help – Instagram, Facebook, etc. Not political sites. Not Twitter. The kind of social media accounts where women talk about parenting or hobbies or work.

  42. 42.

    Jeffro

    @Old School: DeSantis seems to think his best chance is to run to Trump’s right.  That may be correct for the nomination, but it certainly will cause issues for the general.

    Unfortunately as we saw twice with trump, almost to a person, GOP voters will hold their nose and vote for their guy, no matter how abhorrent.

    And the party’s oft-discussed structural advantages will keep it super-close no matter what.

    And the media will be furiously cranking out “hey – he’s not as bad as trump!” stories for the ENTIRE summer/fall of 2024 should DeSantis somehow prevail and win the nomination.

  43. 43.

    satby

    @satby: and when I’m feeling even more pissy than my usual, I whip open my tablet to that saved picture and invite the anti-choice creep fighting with me to SHOW me the heart.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: Pretend normie voters don’t know anything.  They’re spoon-fed vague, useless garbage. They have to be told.

    110% this.

    And they have to be told over and over, in very simple language.  trump is a complete moron on most things, but this part, he understands.

    ‘Rule of three’, Dems!  Never more than 3 talking points at a time!  Like you’re talking to a fourth grader.

  45. 45.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jeffro: And the media will be furiously cranking out “hey – he’s not as bad as trump!” stories for the ENTIRE summer/fall of 2024 should DeSantis somehow prevail and win the nomination.

    Right. He’s fucking worse

    ETA: This may be the first year I, as a registered independent , take a Republican ballot for the Presidential primary. Only if it won’t prevent me taking the D one on the state races later. Must research.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Redshift:

    I think it’s a little cleaner state level – they really will immediately ban it in Virginia and I think people know that know, see,  Texas, Florida, Iowa.

    I love Biden but I don’t think he’s a good speaker on abortion. Democrats have tons of smart women who can do it, including obviously, Kamala Harris.

    Our phone bankers were surprised at how little people knew about it. I am not surprised.

  47. 47.

    New Deal democrat

    The problem any GOPer has in trying to take a more “moderate” position on abortion is that I doubt very much that conservative Evangelicals and Catholics will let them get away with it. Anything after conception is murder, period.

    Given that the Fundies completely flipped in 1979 in order to get Reagan elected, it’s at least arguable that they might do so again, although I doubt their rank and file would go for it. As to the Catholic bishops, not a prayer. Those people know how to be intransigent for decades and even centuries.

  48. 48.

    sdhays

    Umm…so the government of India apparently assassinated a Sikh activist in British Columbia:

    Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on June 18 in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population. Nijjar supported a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state and was designated by India as a “terrorist” in July 2020.
    “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s death, Trudeau said.

  49. 49.

    Chris

    DeSantis sounds like he’s been watching the “pro-life” movement’s ads for so long he actually believes them, or worse, believes that it can help him in a Republican primary.

    “The little babies’ heartbeats” is schmuck bait for general audiences.  It’s what you say to keep yourself respectable among low-info sexist assholes who don’t like liberals and feminists but are just human enough that they’d balk at your full range of “women should be treated like chattel” ideology.  Nobody in a Republican primary is going to be persuaded by that shit.  They all know the reason for the abortion movement is to keep women In Their Proper Place, and President Grabherbythepussy has satisfied them for obvious reasons that he agrees with them about that.  You’re not going to convince them you’d do a better job of it with something as weak as “think of baby heartbeats!”

    Then again, this entire primary is a farce in the first place, since everybody running in it is in complete denial that Republicans are going to nominate Trump in a heartbeat, so I suppose that fits.

  50. 50.

    Suzanne

    @Jeffro:

    trump is a complete moron on most things, but this part, he understands. 

    Trump is devastatingly good at selling things to people, and our side underestimates it. He approaches politics with marketing tactics, because that’s the world he has lived in his whole life. Short, simple messages with direct calls to action, repeated at least seven times, slogan-type language.

  53. 53.

    pat

    How does that go?  Zygote, embryo, fetus….. baby.

    These goons want to preserve zygotes and embryos and fetuses because they might become babies.

  54. 54.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Kay:”People are doing phone banking on Issue One (in Ohio) and they say voters are really unclear on the whole abortion issue and who is on what side.”​

    @Jeffro:”‘Rule of three’, Dems! Never more than 3 talking points at a time!”​
     

    PostcardsToVoters.org is on it! They’re working to GOTV for the pro-choice side of Ohio’s ballot Issue 1.

    They provide addresses of Democratic voters (4 addresses minimum), 3 talking points, and 3 days in which to write and mail the postcards.

    1. Text JOIN to Abby The Address Bot at 484-275-2229‬
    OR
    2. Email [email protected]

    Sneaky people like me request addresses on Thursdays, to get an extra day’s worth of writing time (no mail pickup on Sundays).

    Commenting on Balloon Juice about anti-choice efforts is very satisfying. Writing 4 postcards – a small, concrete action – to counteract anti-choice efforts is extremely satisfying. Hearing the lamentations of our adversaries, when our actions defeat them at the ballot box, is JUBILATION.

  57. 57.

    hueyplong

    Ah, at last we see the onset of the long-awaited puddin-hamberder cage match. Don’t forget, fellas, if you’re not cheating you’re not trying.

    It seems like injuries are inevitable in fights to the death.

    And best of all, the fight will shove to the side the meme of Joe Biden being dirt’s older brother.

  58. 58.

    Ironcity

    @DCrefugee: I doubt Rhonda is keeping TFG honest, battalions of lawyers and media don’t seem to be able to.  Rhonda can’t even keep himself honest, he just makes TFG feel like he needs to tweet and talk and project more.

  59. 59.

    Chris

    @Geminid:

    Unless he’s 1) dead or incapacitated, or 2) actually been banned from running as a result of his legal troubles, he’s going to be the nominee, I’d say.

    Which admittedly is very different from saying “he’s definitely going to be the nominee.”  But, put it like this, if he isn’t the nominee, it won’t be because DeSantis or anyone else convinced Republican primary voters from turning on him.

  61. 61.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne: Speaking of advertising… I sincerely hope this backfires on TIFG BIGGLY! 😡

    Donald Trump “is pushing his mug shot, arrests and criminal charges to try to claim new solidarity with Black voters — a group that has largely shunned him in elections,” Axios reports.

    “Trump has latched on to a narrative promoted last month by Fox News commentators and others in conservative media — that his arrests could boost his standing among African Americans who believe the criminal justice system is unfair.”

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @hueyplong: Maybe Trump’s GOP rivals will point out that he’s only 3 years younger than Biden and spent half of 2020 bragging that he “aced” a simple dementia test. Dog knows the Beltway press isn’t going there.

  63. 63.

    trollhattan

    Dude from New York and Dude from Florida delivering straight talk to Iowans seems on its face, hilarious. Thanks to those Iowa State fans who let Trump know how much they enjoy being hectored by an Adderall-addled moron.

  65. 65.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Maxim: Pretty sure I still have postcards and stamps from previous campaigns.

     Awesome! Me too. :)

    I really like postcard GOTV projects, because:
    1. introvert!
    2. can set my own pace
    3. can see a tangible outcome (so can our mail carrier)
    4. there are data to support the positive impact of hand-written postcards on voter turnout.

  66. 66.

    Jackie

    Oh, and this! Tim Scott just lost the unions vote, but will get praise and donations from the CEOs.

    Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said during a Monday campaign event, when asked about the United Auto Workers strike, that former President Ronald Reagan “gave us a great example” when he fired striking federal workers in the 1980s, NBC News reports.

  68. 68.

    Dangerman

    I’m confused.

    A week ago, LB was doing the rub and tug of whore with some Dude, now she isn’t seeing him any longer because he’s a Democrat.

    She only jerks off Republicans ?

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    I am saying the Dobbs decision is deeply unpopular and a millstone around Republicans’ necks because they own it 100%.

    The Republicans are willing to own it. They fundamentally do not believe in reproductive rights. Red states have been allowed to go to extremes to outlaw abortion. The GOP can pretend to ride to the rescue with federal legislation that will still be more restrictive than the tests established under Roe.

    Republicans will talk about votes, babies and “radical” Democrats. But they don’t care about women.

    But if there is any wedge here, the Democrats should use it to their advantage.

    ETA. I saw the clip of Trump lying about abortion and again talking about how great he would be at making a deal to resolve the issue. He really knows how to play to his base and make use of the platform that the media gave him.

  71. 71.

    Paul in KY

    @Another Scott: If they had their way, a woman who went thru multiple periods of menustration (i.e. did not get pregnant with her oh so sacred eggs) would be prosecuted for killing the ‘future embryo’.

    It is that fucked up.

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @Another Scott: This underscores that the anti-abortion movement is really just a part of a general anti-modernism that wants society to be based on “natural law” that happens to coincide with certain types of fundamentalist Christian theology.  Of course, actual natural laws are quite amoral.

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @Chris: Yes, the most likely scenario by far is that Trump makes it through the primaries on top, even if he’s shambling like a zombie by the end.

    If he gets less than 50% in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary though, I would adjust his chances downward. Trump’s advantage then would be that he does not face an opponent capable of taking advantage of his potential weakness, and right now time is running out for new entrants.

    I guess a second advantage is that some of his hard core supporters could be vindictive enough to withold their votes in November from another nominee, so the nomination might not be worth much. And they will likely hold the grudge, which could deter candidates with their eye on 2028.

  75. 75.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: It’s like ‘Mouth of McConnell’ Daniel Cameron, running for governor here in the KY, saying he would ‘most certainly’ sign a bill that gives rape & incest exemptions for abortions.

    He also ‘most certainly’ knows he would never get such a bill from the whackjobs that now control the KY legislature.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jackie: Speaking of unions, tag-team Access at the Times says Trump’s counterprogramming for the upcoming 2nd Repub debate will be a speech to “current and former” union members in MI, including striking autoworkers.

    I don’t know that area of the country, but I can easily believe Trump can scrape up fanboys among the Johnny Lunch-bucket crew.

  77. 77.

    Hoodie

    @Betty Cracker: They have some great ammunition in that recent speech where he said he beat Obama in 2016 and that Biden would get us into WWII.  That was downright weird, including the musical accompaniment.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Dangerman:

    Boebert is flailing around.  She knows people are upset at her for something, and she knows she needs to respond to make the stink they’re making go away.  Her problem is she doesn’t really believe she did anything wrong, so she’s having a hard time figuring out exactly what part of what she did people are responding to.  So she’s making half-assed apologies for various parts of what she did, promising to change other stuff, and generally not recognizing she completely fucked up and just needs to make a blanket apology for the whole evening.

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Trump also has a particular advantage with respect to DeSantis: Trump’s campaign manager used to work for the Florida Governor.

    Susan Wiles is a very sharp woman who probably knows Ron DeSantis better than anybody, including DeSantis himself.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    Their side likes abhorrent. As long as it doesn’t affect them – and sometimes when it does. Life does have it’s pitfalls you know…..

  83. 83.

    Paul in KY

    @Jackie: He’s sly to try that now. Just wait until he only gets 25 years in prison, when he should have gotten the death penalty. That’ll show em he still gets those White Benis.

  84. 84.

    Chris

    @Hoodie:

    I wondered about that WWII “gaffe.”

    Had a theory for a while that Trump is one of those people who actually consciously believes the U.S. was on the wrong side of the World Wars.  That’s very much a minority even among American conservatives.  Most of them still take great pride in the event as Peak America Fuck Yeah, even if they can’t explain what any of it was about and will quickly pivot to saying it’s very different now and Antifa are the real Nazis, etc.  But Trump’s made vague and quickly forgotten comments in the past that make me think he actually is in that minority, which makes the “he’s going to get us into World War Two!” comment an interesting turn of phrase.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @pat:

    How does that go?  Zygote, embryo, fetus….. baby.

    Republicans don’t understand the distinction or care about it.

    They keep their objective simple, saving babies. So simple that it eliminates women.

  86. 86.

    Cameron

    @Jackie: You people all have criminal records, right? See, I’m just like you! What a great strategy. Not insulting or offensive in the least.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    @Chris: Since he had Mein Kampf on his bedside table (according to Ivana), I think it’s safe to say he sympathized with the Axis powers in WWII.

  90. 90.

    Hoodie

    @Chris: Could be. He might also have subconsciously viewed the 2016 race as a defeat of Obama, who dissed him at the WHCD.  The guy is just a seething caldron of resentments and insecurities.  But I think he’s also held together with duct tape and bailing wire.  We may see more obvious slippage like this.

    I was thinking that would be a great ad for Biden if Trump is the GOP nominee.   Something along the lines of “Yeah, I’m getting up there, but people age differently.  Some don’t age so well” showing him doing something like a bike ride at the Delaware shore and then that clip of Trump sounding like an incoherent drunk.

  91. 91.

    Redshift

    @pat:

    These goons want to preserve zygotes and embryos and fetuses because they might become babies.

    No they don’t. They want to punish women for having sex and massage it so their only option is a marriage where they’re subservient and the man has place as the unquestioned head of the family, as God intended (literally.) “The babies” is just marketing, which is why their arguments don’t make any sense if you dig into them at all.

  94. 94.

    piratedan

    @Roger Moore: it does appear that she hasn’t grokked that the same rules that apply to everyone else in the theatre (no vaping, no phones, no pics, no groping) also apply to her.

    It appears to be a hallmark of the “just comply” crowd that they should be exempt from said compliance.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @Jackie:

     

    @Cameron:

    “Trump has latched on to a narrative promoted last month by Fox News commentators and others in conservative media — that his arrests could boost his standing among African Americans who believe the criminal justice system is unfair.”

    Trump is shameless and this is offensive. But I have seen some black talk show hosts use Trump’s statements about the criminal justice system as evidence that he cares about black people.

  96. 96.

    eversor

    @Juice Box:

    It’s not just about women though, and many men are too stupid to get this.

    If you go read any of the Christian publications or say The American Conservative (which I guess same thing now) they always end up giving away the game.  Not only would they save babies they would also reduce promiscuiting, sex out of wedlock, force more marriages, and create a more chaste society bound by Christian teachings around sex and gender.  The racists are also quite open that by removing abortion it will discourge members of both sexes from sleeping outside of their race and thus risk having a mixed race child.  These same arguments crop up around birth control.

    Sure there’s a whole lot of controling women built into this and they are going to suffer the most.  But men need to wake up that this is about a total reorganization of society straight out of the wildest dreams of the Santorums of the world.

  97. 97.

    patrick II

    The odd thing is Tuberville and in part the coming government shutdown is happening for allowing abortions in the military while their candidates are campaigning for abortions with the only limit being how many weeks are permissible before it becomes against the law.

    Dobbs, harming our military in Dobb’s name, a possible government shutdown, a criminal buffoon rapist for a presidential candidate, and they still seem to have a chance to win the presidency.  There is something deeply wrong here.

  101. 101.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: No matter what her IQ and lack of education, she has to realize that making out in a public place with children nearby is going to offend a certain number of people who might otherwise be inclined to support her.  I chalk this up to being the kind of person who just doesn’t think about consequences as a matter of course.  These people are always shocked to find out that there is actually a limit to what they can get away with.  Trump is the same way, but male with money so can get away with basically anything for close to forever.  Boebert, not so much.

  102. 102.

    H.E.Wolf

    @eversor: ​

    @The Pale Scot: ​
     In the context of “ha ha girl name”, the problematic aspect is equating Something Bad with Something Coded As Female.

    That’s… more of a Republican thing to do. Let’s us not. :-)

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: the most likely scenario by far is that Trump makes it through the primaries on top, even if he’s shambling like a zombie by the end.

    This is the thing that I can’t decide: do I want the GOP thinking about this scenario now, or do I want them to keep their heads in the sand until it’s too late?

    I think the latter.

    Late next spring or early next summer, as trials progress and Smith/Willis/etc continue to add new indictments, and as trump keeps making insane public statements…it will dawn on them.  Not all of them, but many if not most GOP voters: they are well and truly fucked with this guy.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    I am deeply, deeply disturbed by pundits and analysts somehow going for the old “Trump the moderate” line from 2016 again. It’s as if they have no memory.

  105. 105.

    Roger Moore

    @Redshift:

    I think they also want to increase the birth rate of White people.  They have all kinds of weird racial hangups, and one of them is that Whites are refusing to have enough children.  It feeds into the whole “Great Replacement” mythology.  Outlawing abortion is part of their bigger plan to ensure the White birth rate goes up.

  107. 107.

    BlueGuitarist

    I want to highlight

    Like everyone in the pro-lie movement, DeSantis is a fucking liar.

    They are pro-lie, always lying,

    the “heartbeat,” lie, the insane lie about abortion up to the minute of birth and even after birth.
    and everything about The Leo Court is pro-lie.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @piratedan:

    It appears to be a hallmark of the “just comply” crowd that they should be exempt from said compliance.

    It all goes back to Wilhoit’s Law about people the law protects but does not constrain and those the law constrains but does not protect.  They really think the rules shouldn’t apply to them, and they get pissed off any time they do.

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro:

    they are well and truly fucked with this guy.

    Well, I hope that’s true. (And not just in the sense of “they are fucked along with the rest of us because when he wins, he’ll be a terrible President and possibly a terrible American dictator in the making”).

    It all feels too much like a repeat of 2016. Everyone being graded on a curve, with the media trying to imagine Trump as some kind of august statesman while the narrative about Democrats is all grasping at clouds and shadows.

  111. 111.

    Chris

    @Roger Moore:

    One of the most revealing mask-off movements in the pro-life movement I remember is when Pat Robertson was asked about China’s forced abortion policy, and his response was basically that they were just doing what they had to do to handle their population.

    Hard to read that as anything other than “there are too many yellow people in the world, please eliminate many, PS I am not a racist.”

    (With a side order of “it doesn’t matter whether women are being forced to have children or whether they’re being forced not to happen.  The important thing is that other people, their betters, are making the decision for them.”)

  112. 112.

    piratedan

    @patrick II: maybe I am whistling past the graveyard here, but I think the “closeness” factor is essentially two things….

     

    #1 – the media will say anything to keep their horse race narrative in play.  It’s simply good for their business/bottom line because it generates clicks from nervous Dems.

    #2 – the economy is an issue because while Joe put money into people’s hands, those rent seekers and business owners turned right around and used it an excuse to jack their prices by cited “rising costs”.  While I can understand that for consumables, industries like the automotive manufacturing crews and people with apartments to let also kicked up their prices doing their best to erase those gains.

    virtually everything else regarding social policy is a complete loser for the GOP and they apparently don’t care thinking if they can deny economic windfall from voters and keep people depressed that they can skate from any political reckoning.

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: Conservatives have had this mythology for ages that tomorrow belongs to them because they can outbreed liberals (and they also imagine this is entirely because of abortion, as if liberals abort all their fetuses while conservatives keep pumping them out).

    That this doesn’t seem to be happening, that the younger generations aren’t super conservative like they predicted, really bothers them and all they can figure is that some kind of nefarious racial replacement plot is involved.

  119. 119.

    rikyrah

    Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) posted at 10:09 AM on Tue, Sep 19, 2023:
    So let me get this straight. A guy founds organization to catch sex traffickers. He ends up being investigated by his own organization for trafficking women for sex, but when they find the allegations credible they just let him leave?

    Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) posted at 1:07 PM on Mon, Sep 18, 2023:
    We’re now able to report that Tim Ballard’s departure from Operation Underground Railroad followed a sexual misconduct investigation. This news was first broken by Utah journalist Lynn Packer. https://t.co/wnYqfTSL7q
    (https://x.com/annamerlan/status/1703833084557443516?t=TkwHFx6kjWmnTfT9BtC0Pg&s=03)

  121. 121.

    eversor

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The conservative breeding program doesn’t work because the kids grow up and find out conservatism sucks right after.

    Also remember that didn’t start as a conservative program.  It’s started as a Christian program and still mostly is.  That they would produce large amounts of children and take back the nation for Christ.  It’s only conservative in so much as the GOP is the political arm of it’s religious base.  If take the Christian right out of the equation this isn’t actually going on among conservatives at all.

    You can’t run away from the religious origin of it or the fact that it’s the religious engaging in it.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    He lives a great life – nope, eats well – very likely nope, likely has high BP, and is in absolutely great shitty shape, and he’s 77.

    Given my five points and other than he likely gets decent healthcare if for no other reason than he was – I can not type that – he shows all the signs of early – I can’t type that either I might jinx it. Now if one believed in the devil I’d say there is a good chance that he’s the one sent here to really, really screw up every damn thing, which he seems particularly good at doing – the reverse of anything resembling good, wholesome, human, which means he appeals to a not unsubstantial percentage of the race of beings we call possibly, likely not actually human.

  123. 123.

    rikyrah

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) posted at 5:25 AM on Tue, Sep 19, 2023:
    NEWS:

    Today @GovernorShapiro will announce that Pennsylvania is switching to automatic voter registration, potentially adding tens of thousands of voters to the rolls.

    “I see voter participation as key to strengthening democracy,” Shapiro tells me.

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) posted at 5:35 AM on Tue, Sep 19, 2023:
    By switching to automatic voter registration, Pennsylvania joins around two dozen states that have already made this change. AVR is a quiet success story.

    This is what it looks like not just to run on strengthening democracy, but also to deliver on it.

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) posted at 5:45 AM on Tue, Sep 19, 2023:
    Switching to automatic voter registration in Pennsylvania could be dramatic. Shapiro says the state calculates that around 1.6 million eligible voters in the state are unregistered. This change could add tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls.

    Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) posted at 6:12 AM on Tue, Sep 19, 2023:
    Republicans are responding to election losses by redoubling the anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian tactics — even though that’s energizing voters against them still more.

    By delivering on a pro-democracy agenda, Dems can reinforce that dynamic.

    https://t.co/geGvqLU4Hr https://t.co/xwCNi9Yd81
    (https://x.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1704091064263446854?t=moG1JYJkB61VC4rC4ixfFA&s=03)

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: I think one difference between now and 2016 is that there is a lot of “Trump Fatigue” now among Independents who might otherwise vote for a Republican. He was an exhausting President.

  125. 125.

    patrick II

    96% of abortions happen by the end of week 15. If Republicans pass that national law a lot of abortion clinics will be reopened in the South. I don’t think that is going to happen.

  126. 126.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne:

    Trump is devastatingly good at selling things to people, and our side underestimates it. He approaches politics with marketing tactics, because that’s the world he has lived in his whole life. Short, simple messages with direct calls to action, repeated at least seven times, slogan-type language.

    I think he has a talent that we shouldn’t underestimate, but I don’t think that’s it. He was in the world of real estate, but he wasn’t particularly successful at it. And he spent most of his career successfully selling his personal brand, but being unsuccessful at selling most of the products based on it.

    He’s not successful because he can take a product or policy and sell it to people. He’s successful because he doesn’t believe in anything, and since he’s unconstrained by that, he can apply a talent for feeling out what people respond to and repeating that endlessly. That puts any opponent of either party who wants to be president because they want to do things or change things at a disadvantage.

  127. 127.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ruckus: Trump’s parents both lived to fairly advanced ages, and it’s likely he simply has the genetics to keep ticking for a long time despite taking poor care of himself.

  130. 130.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin:

    That this doesn’t seem to be happening, that the younger generations aren’t super conservative like they predicted, really bothers them and all they can figure is that some kind of nefarious racial replacement plot is involved.

    The racial replacement stuff has a long history, including all the most racist parts where there’s a shadowy (usually Jewish) group orchestrating the whole thing.  That said, the USA really is becoming less White, which is a big reason the younger generation is more liberal.  IIRC, people who have looked closely at this stuff say the main reason the younger generation is more liberal is demographics, not shifts in political views within ethnic groups.  That’s not to say that young Whites aren’t at least somewhat more liberal than older Whites, but that’s a secondary effect compared to younger generations being less White.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @patrick II:

    15 weeks is the longest permissible. Southern states will still outlaw at 6 weeks. All 15 weeks does is change the laws in blue states, and, incidentally, takes the issue off the table which wholly benefits Republicans.

    15 weeks harms blue states and Democrats and helps red states and Republicans.

  135. 135.

    Roger Moore

    @Redshift:

    And he spent most of his career successfully selling his personal brand, but being unsuccessful at selling most of the products based on it.

    This.  The main thing Trump is good at selling is Donald Trump.  Other than that, he’s a lousy salesman.  Of course a big chunk of that might be that he cares more about selling his own image than anything else, so that’s where the time and effort goes.

  136. 136.

    Redshift

    @patrick II:

    96% of abortions happen by the end of week 15. If Republicans pass that national law a lot of abortion clinics will be reopened in the South. I don’t think that is going to happen.

    No they won’t. The 15-week federal law they’re proposing is a ceiling, not a floor. It allows any state laws that are more restrictive to remain in force.

  137. 137.

    Alison Rose

    Re-upped my Paramount+ subscription so I can watch the Champions League and will now spend the next 90+ minutes hoping Newcastle manages to pull off an ass-kicking against Milan. Or at least a scrabbled-out 1-0 win. I’d be fine with that :P

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @patrick II:

    That’s why I think it’s incorrect to say anti choice people have “compromised” on 15 weeks, or that it’s a “concession” on their part. All it does is allow them to restrict abortion in states they could never reach before. It’s a great deal for them and it has zero benefit for Democrats.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: True, though if conservatives’ differential-birthrate mechanism were determinative, we’d expect young white Americans to be getting dramatically more right-wing, and they’re not. The fraction who are right-wing may be getting more violently deranged, though I’m not even sure of that.

  141. 141.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Media should call it the GOP proposal. Anyone using “compromise” to describe it is basically doing PR for Republicans.

  142. 142.

    Spider-Dan

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: “Pro-life” is like “All lives matter” or “Separate but equal” in that the phrase represents an idea that is not the same as the definition of the words in the phrase.

    I don’t think an effort to reclaim the true meaning of those phrases (or whatever) is worth the bother.  They are political signifiers and should probably remain so.

  143. 143.

    Chris

    @Percysowner:

    I don’t have Twitter, but I do have Facebook, have for eighteen years.

    Quite frankly, it sucks.  Bots and ads have increasingly crowded everything else out in my feed, not just because there’s more of them but because fewer and fewer people are posting less and less.  It’s been going on for a long time, but it’s gotten really bad in the last year or two.

    Despite this, I have no plans to leave.  It still keeps me connected to three hundred or so people, most of whom I never would have stayed in touch with if social media didn’t provide a lazy way to do it, but whom I still enjoy hearing about from time to time or being able to look up whenever I have a “gee, wonder whatever happened to that guy” moment.  (Mostly high school and college classmates).

    I’m your basic customer who will bitch about the product but continue using it out of inertia, in other words, exactly the kind of people who’ve stayed on Twitter despite not being Nazis over the last year.

    And if Facebook started to charge me for the service, even as little as ninety nine cents a month, I’d be gone instantly.

  144. 144.

    Redshift

    @Roger Moore:

    This. The main thing Trump is good at selling is Donald Trump. Other than that, he’s a lousy salesman. Of course a big chunk of that might be that he cares more about selling his own image than anything else, so that’s where the time and effort goes.

    Or it may be that the successful ventures to sell his image were ones where he licensed his name to have it slapped on/associated with a property, and other people/companies did all the selling (“The Apprentice” being the most prominent example.) The ones he was directly involved in (casinos for sure, not sure about the “university,” steaks, etc.) were often miserable failures.

  145. 145.

    Jackie

    Get ready for the next Faux/Newsmax/OAN/Tucker/Bannon conspiracy! I’m pretty sure Epps’ arrest will be pegged as a “false arrest” by the Feds to protect one of their own 🙄

    “Ray Epps, a Jan. 6 participant whose removal from the FBI’s Capitol Violence webpage sparked conspiracy theories that he was a federal informant, was charged in connection with the Capitol attack on Tuesday,” NBC News reports.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I’ve given up on them.

    I’m glad patrick commented -there’s a lot of confusion out there about these laws and proposals. It’s not the first time Democrats had to create and fund an information campaign to supplement/replace the billion dollar for profit media industry.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: All 15 weeks does is change the laws in blue states, and, incidentally, takes the issue off the table which wholly benefits Republicans.

    Yes – it takes it off the table for now, and then when the Rs circle back to make it a 12-week ban, or 9-week ban, or some other nonsensical thing, it’ll be the Democrats who get blamed for ‘being unreasonable’.  And our most ardent supporters get demoralized, and theirs get fired up.

    “You were fine with a 15-week ban…why not 14 weeks?  Murderers!” – GOP

    Leave it up to the woman and her doctor, period.

  149. 149.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    And our most ardent supporters get demoralized

     
    That’s really a self inflicted harm. Our people get demoralized by a cloudy day.

  150. 150.

    Redshift

    @Kay:

    That’s why I think it’s incorrect to say anti choice people have “compromised” on 15 weeks, or that it’s a “concession” on their part.

    Absolutely. The only “compromise” is between factions of their own side, and they’re trying obscure that fact to push the narrative that Democrats should be fine with it because it’s a compromise. “Look we’re being reasonable and compromising.” This is very explicit in the Virginia elections.

    Fortunately, I think they blew their chance at pulling something like this by arguing for Dobbs because “it should be left to the states” and then immediately turning around and pushing for a federal ban. Nobody who’s motivated by this issue believes conservatives will ever consider the issue “settled” with anything but a total ban. They’re just flailing.

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @patrick II:

    There is something deeply wrong here.

    It’s called humanity. It runs the gamut of possibilities of organisms that can possibly walk upright on 2 legs, which takes 2 reasonable legs, a balance system and a minimally functioning neurological organ to those that have a possibility of awards for actual, helpful, thought and solutions. IOW, an extremely large group of human beings. The problem is that those neurologically minimal organisms that walk on 2 legs can still vote and have found a fellow traveler and at one time made it their leader. And if they give that up, they are back to nothing.

  153. 153.

    Alison Rose

    @Chris: The thing that drives me crazy on FB now is it is impossible to comment on any public page’s posts, whether it’s something like NPR or a sports team or a cute-animal-videos page or something, without getting two kinds of comments, usually multiples: Weird spammy links to some scam clothing shop with dozens of commenters tagged in the comment; or weird spammy bots under fake accounts from men asking to be my friend and telling me how lovely I am and how much they like my comment. It’s irritating as hell. I wish FB would give us the ability to not allow replies to our comments on public posts.

  154. 154.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The younger generation is getting individually more liberal.  For example Evangelical churches are bleeding members.  For a long time, they had succeeded in maintaining their membership while other Christian denominations had been losing membership, but not even the Evangelicals are losing young people.  It doesn’t matter if you can out breed the other group if members of your group leave when they finally have a chance.

    Note that this applies to race and ethnicity as well as religion.  People can’t leave their race or ethnicity, but they’re far more likely to marry and have children with someone of a different race or ethnicity, so multi-racial people are the fastest growing demographic group.  And that group does a lot to undermine racism.  Not only are they a lot less likely to hold the most noxious racist views themselves, but their extended families have to confront their racism, too.  Sure, some people will disown their multi-racial relatives, but others will soften their views once it’s their own flesh and blood involved.

  155. 155.

    Chris

    @Alison Rose:

    I have lots of gripes against Facebook these days, but the most basic one is probably that it’s recently started sending me notifications after the fact.

    “Yesterday was Alison Rose’s birthday!  Let her know you’re thinking of her!”  Thanks a lot, peckerhead.  Is there a reason you didn’t tell me this yesterday, when it was actually relevant?

  156. 156.

    cain

    @Percysowner: we will welcome more folks to mastodon and bluesky. Hopefully, mastodonians will be able to provide a more twitter like experience – but for many they like going to a single server and joining up. Maybe that’s mastodon.social.

    Regardless, I think folks like Tom Nichols it’s going to be something like BlueSky. He already said he’s not using Twitter as much as he used to.

    My kittie post got over 300 likes today :) If you’re into cat posts, mastodon’s #catsofmastodon hashtag is well monitored. :)

  159. 159.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @eversor:

    If take the Christian right out of the equation this isn’t actually going on among conservatives at all.

    You can’t run away from the religious origin of it or the fact that it’s the religious engaging in it.

    While certainly it’s a big deal among evangelicals in the US, it’s not of religious origin.  It’s just a very old white supremacy trope.  Every racial supremacy group, really.  They’ve been obsessed with who is outbreeding who since Ramses supposedly ordered the Jews to drown their male children.

  161. 161.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: My daughter’s cohort’s attitudes toward sexual orientation and gender are not even in the same universe as what I grew up with. Being gay or bi is normal, being trans or nonbinary is normal, being disturbed by these things is weird and using them as insults happens but is heavily frowned upon.

    A lot of her friends are mixed-race too. Though I think there’s still more segregation there than we might like.

    Granted I live in a blue state, but it’s not the most liberal neighborhood of said blue state.

  162. 162.

    wjca

    @Roger Moore:  They have all kinds of weird racial hangups, and one of them is that Whites are refusing to have enough children.  It feeds into the whole “Great Replacement” mythology.  Outlawing abortion is part of their bigger plan to ensure the White birth rate.

    Waiting for the moment that some Great Replacement nut says out loud: “Well, we can let Those People have abortions whenever they want.  Because, after all, they aren’t real people so their foetuses aren’t either.  Besides, then we wouldn’t have to deal with maternity leave for the servants.”

  164. 164.

    Matt McIrvin

    @wjca: Anti-abortion people have tried to gain non-white votes since forever by claiming that abortion is a genocidal plot to eliminate their babies. The target audience hasn’t generally bought it, though maybe some in places like Florida do, who knows.

  166. 166.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cain: For pure numbers it seems like Threads instantly stomped all of the other “Twitter replacements”–its Facebook/Instagram affiliation gave it a huge natural installed base. The need to sign up for Instagram is a barrier for me, but it isn’t for normal people.

    But Mastodon is an interesting case in that it doesn’t necessarily have to do big numbers to survive. The instances are going to have find sources of funding though.

  167. 167.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Alison Rose: I definitely get those–also, while my posts on my own Facebook wall are mostly friends-only, there are a few that were completely public (mostly by accident), and those keep attracting this steady trickle of fake honeypot ladies wanting to get to know me better.

  169. 169.

    Alison Rose

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, everything on mine is friends-only except donations I’ve made to friends’ fundraisers, which are public by default. Once in a while I get those creepy comments on those, so I’ve just started deleting the posts. It’s also always fun to check your spam messages and see dozens of these bots in there. Like…does this actually ever work??

  170. 170.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Alison Rose: If you’re not going to work, then what the fuck am I doing here?

    It looks like electrons in this space. They don’t come as often as I would have imagined.

  172. 172.

    Paul in KY

    @rikyrah: My normie, apparently votes Democratic, nephew has swallowed a whole lot of agitprop about her. He really thinks she sucks, for….reasons.

  174. 174.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Alison Rose: I once got into a Facebook Messenger convo with a scammer who I suspect was imitating my uncle, though it’s *possible* that my actual uncle had gotten roped into a scam and was actually trying to pull me in. I dropped once it became clear that whoever it was was trying to phish.

  175. 175.

    eversor

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Many Catholic/Evangelical Latinos/Asians are anti abortion and rather socially conservative.  The GOPs been using Christianity to make inroads with those groups.  A lot of them also think socialism is a boogeyman because of their regions history.

  178. 178.

    Roger Moore

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The instances are going to have find sources of funding though.

    I think the actual funding needed is pretty small, all considered.  My instance has something up saying donations aren’t required, since they have all the money they need right now.  Maybe that would be less the case for one of the really big servers, but I think the truth is the infrastructure to keep something like Twitter going is only a tiny fraction of their budget.  Instead, a lot of the money goes into trying to monetize things: hustling to get advertisers, analytics to maximize value to those advertisers, refining the display algorithm to show people what you want them to see, trying to sell blue check marks, etc.  If you do away with that stuff, it gets a lot cheaper.

  179. 179.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Matt McIrvin: But they’re so fast.

    What if these aren’t electrons and my perceptions of what I’m seeing are biased by the culture I was raised in.

    Like my alien abduction dreams, a consequence of waking sleep paralysis.

  183. 183.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Roger Moore: I tend to think once the bias against black skin was ruled taboo, the bias was refocused more squarely on culture.

    Don’t put one culture over another. Judge only for harm, no matter the culture.

  186. 186.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @BellyCat: If he gets through the primary without their support this time, I wager they mostly still fall in line. But any peeling off helps.

  187. 187.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: Relatedly, on the BBC Newshour on the radio on my public radio station, the host interviewed some guy about the “disaster” that is going to befall Japan because they aren’t having enough babies and 10% of the population is over 80 and …

    There aren’t enough people working to support those who are retired, you see.  Doom, gloom!!1

    They clearly haven’t been reading Dean Baker at CEPR.net (from 2015):

    Actually, since Japan is a densely populated country with expensive real estate, a declining population could be associated with substantial improvements in living standards as the property values and rents would drop due to less demand. It’s not clear why fewer workers and more dependents should be a big problem. This has been the reality for the last 60 years, a period in which countries have generally enjoyed rising living standards. The key of course is productivity growth which means that we need fewer workers to produce the same amount of output. (Remember the robots who are supposed to take all of our jobs? That is productivity growth.)

    People in rich countries having fewer children is not doom.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  188. 188.

    Chris

    @Roger Moore:

    We need to care a lot less about Whiteness.  Becoming less White is one way to achieve that, but it’s not the only one.

    What I want is for “white” to go the way of “WASP.”

    As in, yes, of course, there are many many people who still qualify as White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant.  But it’s really not the special identity marker that it was a hundred or even fifty years ago.  There’s been so much intermarriage and so much living in the same neighborhoods between what used to be called WASPs and what used to be called White Ethnics that the brick wall that used to exist just isn’t there anymore.

    That’s what I want “white” to be: still technically describing a lot of people, but not an identity marker that most of those people actually give a shit about.

  189. 189.

    wjca

    @Paul in KY: You can damn well guarantee that the only motherfucker on this earth that TFG gives a shit about is TFG.

    His kids know that too…

    Well, except that he apparently still has the hots for Ivanka.  No word on how she feels about that.  (After all, anyone who was attracted to Jared….)

  191. 191.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: Japan has a lot of declining or abandoned amusement parks. That’s the eeriest thing about it. But it doesn’t seem to be hurting the Japanese standard of living.

    Japanese science fiction is interesting in that stories set in a genteelly depopulating future are a whole subgenre. These exist outside of Japan too but there’s usually some science-fiction MacGuffin explanation of why everyone suddenly became infertile. Not “the population is declining just because”. Western SF drank the Population Bomb scenario for long enough that it became the default assumption of how these things go.

  192. 192.

    Matt McIrvin

    (Of course, the US has had a lot of dead or dying amusement parks too, just because of market consolidation and competition from other types of entertainment, combined with the real estate they sit on becoming more valuable for other types of development. But I suspect the aging population in Japan has hit them particularly hard.)

  193. 193.

    Subsole

    @Hoodie:

    We come into this earth knowing how to shit, piss, cry, burp, fart, puke, and suckle. Maybe flail and wiggle.

    Next time someone talks at you about how it just isn’t natural,” think of a wriggling, squalling baby that has fouled itself.

    There sits your Natural Man.

    Everything else is a socially constructed tool handed down to us.

  197. 197.

    Ruckus

    @BellyCat:

    I’m entirely in favor of him getting zero votes. I also wouldn’t mind if he gets something like 1-2 million, if taken away from any other right wing candidate would be better.

  200. 200.

    ChrisSherbak

    @New Deal democrat: re: Catholic intransigence. To be fair, I think the mainstream to hardcode Catholic voter is better adjusted to hold-your-nose and half-a-pie-is-better-than-none voting. Catholics are ALSO (as part of what I think of as an actual coherent/consistent ‘pro-life’ stance) against war, capital punishment, euthanasia AND (mostly) for prison reform, universal healthcare and the welfare state/social safety net. So they are playing the long game and generally it’s abortion that gets them going so they vote GOP.  Dems and their supporters (lukewarm and all) need to get with the program and realize we are in a two party system and they need to vote blue blue blue if they want ANY of the sh-t they claim they are for.

  201. 201.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    People in rich countries having fewer children is not doom.

    In Japan, the proportion of people age 65 and older is increasing greatly. This is a problem for a country which still greatly discourages immigration. The economy is relatively stagnant and the Japanese cannot depend on automation coming to their rescue.

    Property values in the cities are still high. But what you see is the abandonment of small villages and suburbs, which can no longer support the small number of remaining residents. Homes are simply abandoned and fall into decay. You see something similar in Italy, which also has a large elderly population, where entire towns are offered for sale.

  203. 203.

    Glidwrith

    @pluky: I’ve thought at times that if the legislation didn’t specifically state an embryonic stage, one could argue an abortion was perfectly legal since no ‘baby’ was actually involved. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work for long before the fetus fetishists tightened up the language.

  204. 204.

    eversor

    @Chris:

    It is going away.  If you look at the younger generations the only people identify as white are alt-right and the Christian Nationalists.  Outside of them white people don’t bring it up unless to use as a slur or an attack.  If someone calls you a white boy/chick it’s an insult.  If someone says that’s so white, or so white of you it’s an insult or an attack.  Calling someone cis is also an insult.

    It’s one of the reasons the right is so pissed. The race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation they prefer all carry negative connotations.  A problem that is entirely of their own making.

  205. 205.

    sab

    @ChrisSherbak: Catholics against capital punishment yet Bob Barr rushed to execute as many as he could before leaving office, even many with appeals pending. I am not accepting that anti-capital punishment is a part of official Catholic thought in America, regardless of what the Pope says. The American bishops wink otherwise.

  206. 206.

    Aj

    There is a suit in South Carolina i believe. Contesting the 6 week heartbeat that is a lie. They need to include the whole counting weeks thing. If there is no zygote or fetus from first day of last period until ovulation on the 14th then there is no 6 weeks. The fetus is at 4 weeks when their 6 week ban takes effect. I would love to argue it in court. At ‘6’ weeks the fetus is a ball of white fuzz with no heart and no vascular system.

    Lying is all they do.

    Birth control pills mimic pregnancy hence no ovulation or preparing for implantation.

    IUDs prevent the lining from developing for implantation

    Plan b prevents ovulation not an abortifacient

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