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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Friday Evening Bad Faith Open Thread: RFK Jr. And His Fellow Ratf*ckers

Friday Evening Bad Faith Open Thread: RFK Jr. And His Fellow Ratf*ckers

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I drafted the post below last night, planning to run it over the weekend when people had more time to read. RFK Jr isn’t offering West a vice-presidential slot (from what I’ve seen, that’s Tulsi Gabbard’s role in the spoiler-thon). And West almost certainly wouldn’t run in a VP slot, because he’s already got the Green Party’s funding locked in. But we can count on every political grifter not currently incarcerated to make a jump for the gravy train over the next 13 months…

TL, DR: Peter Daou has always been a ‘strong believer‘ in whatever political campaign would pay him enough, but his unsavory habits — like ‘independently’ praising Bernie Sanders while he was negotiating for a job as Sanders’ press agent back in 2016 — have made it impossible for him to get a job with any self-respecting Democratic candidate. Since there’s already a ton of well-connected competitors on the Republican side of the aisle, Dauo is now (IMO) transitioning by serving for Green Party candidate / spoiler Cornel West (after jumping ship from the sinking SS Marianne Williamson). “Peter Daou’s Theory of Election Interference—by Democrats”:

Peter Daou, a former aide to Hillary Clinton, recently announced that he had become the campaign manager for Cornel West, the radical socialist professor and public intellectual, who is seeking the Presidential nomination from the Green Party. It was the culmination of a fascinating arc for Daou, who was a legendary figure in the early liberal blogosphere, where he became known for his criticisms of the Bush Administration before joining John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential campaign. Four years later, he ran Clinton’s digital operation, and became known as one of her most high-profile and vocal online supporters. Then, in 2016, for Clinton’s second Presidential run, Daou ran the platform Shareblue, a partisan news site that attacked mainstream coverage of the race and fanatically defended Clinton. By 2020, he had endorsed Bernie Sanders; he subsequently left the Democratic Party. (Before joining West’s campaign, he briefly ran Marianne Williamson’s.) Daou now says his career as a fanatical Democratic partisan was misguided, and that the entire political system needs to be uprooted; he believes West’s campaign is the best vehicle for such a change…

Most people would say that Joe Biden is to the left of where Hillary Clinton was in 2008, or indeed where Joe Biden was in 2008. Do you think that’s an accurate diagnosis?

I don’t think so. Having done more research and digging, thinking about leftism, liberalism, progressivism, neoliberalism, getting a little bit deeper into how this terminology is used, I just think back to the support from the Democratic Party for George W. Bush’s war in Iraq and war on terror, which are based on lies. I don’t really see it in terms of movement to the left or to the right. Honestly, Isaac, I look at it systemically. I always looked at it as red and blue, and finally when I quit the Party, in 2020, I started looking at it as the system, and the Democratic Party comprises half of that system. Or maybe more, you know what I’m saying?…

Would the Iraq War and the war on terror be a good example of what I meant? You have a President now who’s pulled us out of the war in Afghanistan, who’s drastically reduced drone strikes, who’s tried to tamp down the war on terror, whereas, in the Bush era, even if the majority of congressional Democrats voted against the Iraq War, many voted for it, and both parties supported the war on terror.

I don’t see it that way, but I know a lot of Democrats do. I see Joe Biden and the people around him, some of the neocons he’s getting advice from, as sabre-rattling warmongers who are actually making the world a more dangerous place. Now, I’ve always said that I don’t support, as a leftist myself, any imperialist invasion, and that includes the invasion of Ukraine. I believe the war is a criminal imperial invasion of another country. However, having said that, this Administration has rattled and provoked and escalated the rhetoric from Day One. From my standpoint, I look at this Administration as bigger warmongers than what you’re talking about in the period prior to 2008…

As recently as 2020, you were opposed to a third-party candidate because of the urgent need to beat Donald Trump. What changed between early 2020 and now?

Yeah, it’s a very fundamental change in perspective. It’s almost like I took a different set of glasses or lenses and I put them on, and that lens is the systemic lens. During the years I worked as a Democrat, I bought into the general thinking that Democrats are better and therefore we need Democrats to stop the fascist domination of Republicans. If you go back ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, it’s the same argument: Oh, my God, if you let them get elected, the world’s going to end. This is a very standard duopoly technique.

Now when I finally took off that lens, the binary red-blue, blue-is-better-than-red lens, and I took responsibility for wearing that lens or looking through that lens, then my lens became, O.K., look at the entire system. Let’s say this cycle we also say the same thing, which is, Oh, my God, we have to stop Donald Trump or we have to stop whoever the Republican might be. And this happens the next cycle and the next cycle and the next cycle. Where is the so-called democracy that we’re supposedly protecting or saving? What we’re doing is we’re crushing third parties.We are stifling democracy itself, Isaac. This is the problem. From my standpoint, there are things that Biden has done that made the world more dangerous than Trump, and there are things Trump did that made the world more dangerous than Biden, and both of them go back and forth. You see what I’m saying?

I maybe need a different pair of lenses to totally see it.…

When it came to the idea of John McCain or Mitt Romney being elected President, in 2008 and 2012, I certainly remember Democrats saying, Oh, this would be bad. And maybe the extreme partisans would say, If Mitt Romney gets elected, the world’s going to end. But I don’t think that was the overwhelming idea. With Trump, it’s a little different, in part because he actually tried to steal a democratic election.

I have been one of the most vocal opponents of Donald Trump. In 2020, I was creating so many anti-Trump viral hashtags and videos. I was out there fighting this guy from Day One.

You recently wrote that “Trump’s two impeachments and four indictments are largely smokescreens,” correct?

Yeah. Well, the reason I say that is because he wasn’t impeached or indicted on the worst things he’s done, because the worst things he’s done, Democrats do, too.

January 6th? That seems high up there.

January 6th, that, too. But take a look at what Democrats are currently doing. See, this is when you start comparing good and bad…

I realize we might just have a factual disagreement now. What’s your interpretation of what happened on January 6th?

I’m not going to talk about the details of January 6th. What happened on January 6th was wrong. People died, and it was certainly a threat to a process. But here’s the problem: the premise is that we had a vibrant democracy and then a bunch of people stormed the Capitol and threatened it. What I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t even believe we have a so-called democracy. What we have is a duopoly, or an oligarchy, in which the vast majority of people suffer.

Just to clarify, you seem to be saying that before January 6th we had maneuvers such as Obama making backroom deals in the primary, and so when people say that we were about to lose democracy on January 6th, you think we actually were not at risk of that. Instead, we were at risk of losing a system where Barack Obama can call people up and get them to drop out.

But it’s not just the Barack Obama part. My main point is that there has been a systemic eradication of all the routes that third parties can take, which is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Let alone this constantly propagandistic vote shaming. Vote shaming is voter suppression. When you tell someone you cannot vote your conscience because you will ruin the world, that is voter suppression…

Reader Interactions

113Comments

  3. 3.

    Mai Naem mobile

    RFK Jr is such a weird looking guy. I assume it’s because of the plastic surgery he’s supposedly had done. He’s got that odd old face and younger body look.  I wonder if JFK and RFK would have looked anything like RFK Jr if they had lived to an old age.

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    and why he believes Democrats have been interfering in elections.

    “Why do Democratic voters keep voting for Democratic candidates!  They’re interfering in elections!” screamed Peter Daou, unable to find a second brain cell to rub with the first.*

    *Not intended to be a factual statement

  5. 5.

    waspuppet

    Once I took off those lenses that showed me Democrats are better than Republicans, suddenly Democrats didn’t seem better than Republicans. And now we need to get Joe Biden out of there, because the alternative is Donald Trump, whom I don’t support but under whom American life will be better, because a dozen new parties will bloom thanks to Trump’s well-known support for open political discourse.

    —Peter Daou

  6. 6.

    Tony Jay

    I’ve been in the room when people were talking exactly like Daou, but I couldn’t see what they looked like because of the impenetrably thick clouds of acrid dope smoke billowing around them like Granny Jay’s unleashed bosoms.

    What a fake prick.

  7. 7.

    tobie

    RFK, Jr. has a Jesus complex and this means he has to think of himself as a martyr, punished for challenging the Pharisees in this life but who will be rewarded in the future when we see the light and realize he was speaking truth to power.

    I’m so tired of these men who present themselves as the victims of the “establishment” while (a) enjoying all the privileges of the establishment and (b) being the most self-serving cretins under the sun.

    This applies to the lesser Kennedy, Daou, West, Sanders, etc. All megalomaniacs, all guys.

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    That interview with Daou is just hilarious. There’s so much to pick from, but I think this was my favorite part:

    I maybe need a different pair of lenses to totally see it.
    You have to look at it through a systemic lens—the entire system, the structure of the system itself versus a binary view of which party is better and which one is going to be more dangerous. It’s a completely different way of looking at the picture.
    It’s almost like “The Matrix,” where you’re either in it or you’re not, you know?
    Correct. No, that’s a great way of looking at it. Exactly. When you’re inside the matrix, you go along with whatever structure is built around you, and you just see things that way. You remember the scene where it’s all the bodies being fed through their neck to their brain, and you suddenly are like, Wait a minute.That’s what this election is about. This election is about how we’re just not going to buy this framing anymore.

  11. 11.

    Jackie

    I see RFK Jr as an alternative to TIFG for those who think TIFG has too much baggage and is too chaotic – altho Jr is chaotic, himself. If he indeed runs Indie, I expect the Kennedy clan will openly support/endorse Biden.

    The majority of anti-vaxers AREN’T Dems.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    Say want you want about Kanye, at least he wasn’t an old white dude.

    Although neither is West, so I guess he has that going for him.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    Now when I finally took off that lens, the binary red-blue, blue-is-better-than-red lens, and I took responsibility for wearing that lens or looking through that lens, then my lens became,

    Guy should do ads for LensCrafters.

  14. 14.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Yashar Ali via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    RFK Jr. plans to announce he will run as an independent on October 9 in Pennsylvania.

    I wonder how much Republicans are paying him.

  15. 15.

    AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team

    So basically Nader saved us from Gore, and we had so much good flowing from that under Bush* (actually Cheney) that we gotta keep doing that, is that it, bud?

  16. 16.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Jackie:

    If he indeed runs Indie, I expect the Kennedy clan will openly support/endorse Biden.

    Count on it. I expect Kerry will be one of the first.

  18. 18.

    Gvg

    That’s so much nonsense I couldn’t analyze it. It’s boring to me.

    Trump would be boring to me if it wasn’t for the people who think they know what he said. He also talks a bunch of argle bargle.  I just can’t even. Why don’t people walk away and find something more entertaining to pay attention to then incoherent nonsense that is so much work to try to interpret.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    The same people who told you Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. would never run as an independent are now telling you not to worry because no Democrats will vote for him.

    I don’t have him figured out, and I don’t think that reporters have him figured out. I have no idea what kind of people he thinks he is appealing to. Name recognition is not necessarily a big deal, because he is nothing like his father.

    The Independent lunatic fringe and the purity progressives seemed to be energized after being reasonable in 2020.  It’s too early to see if their discontent will amount to anything.

  23. 23.

    kalakal

    That interview is something else. That’s weapons grade self importance right there. What is it with these tools, they all reek of smug, (false) superiority, that they have discovered truths beyond the ken of the lesser mortals that surround them?

    He’s really rather stupid, isn’t he?

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    Take them all on at once and lump ’em all together, Biden/Harris ’24!

    Narrator: “There’s a lot of fake candidates out there.  A lot of grifters.  A lot of folks with an axe to grind.

    And the well-being of you, your children, your job, the environment…those are the last things on their minds.

    Some of them are obviously delusional.  Some owe a lot of money.  Some have direct connections to Vladimir Putin and his interests.

    Whether they’re doing it for the campaign donations, the attention, or to flat-out fool you into wasting your vote, once thing’s certain: these bloodsuckers don’t care about you, not one bit.

    This election, if you want to oppose MAGA extremism and preserve democracy…if you’re horrified at the thought of trump (or DeSantis) in the White House…if you want to protect reproductive rights…if you care about turning the corner on climate change…if you want to oppose the ongoing insurrection…there’s one choice for freedom, the Constitution, and America: Biden/Harris 2024”

    (y’all can probably guess which visuals would go with each line!)

  27. 27.

    kalakal

    On the subject of assholes getting to the FO stage of FAFO that fuck all to be Proud of Boy who skipped his sentencing got a visit from the FBI today

    Worrell caught

    Way to ensure you get to the top level of the sentencing guidelines ace.

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @Lacuna Synecdoche: I wonder how much Republicans are paying him.

    Not as much as he might’ve charged them, if his own ego hadn’t convinced him he was The One.

    (The GOP’s gotta hoard what funds it’s still got, because TFG has looted every source he could find.)

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @Anne Laurie: The GOP’s gotta hoard what funds it’s still got, because TFG has looted every source he could find.

    “And that is why the demons of Hell allow him to climb out of the boiling pitch for one day each century.”

    (Repurposed from Niven and Pournelle’s Inferno.)

  33. 33.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: Our minister put a quotation from West on the bulletin last Sunday. There was nothing wrong with the quotation, but it pissed me off nonetheless.

  41. 41.

    Tony Jay

    With troops from the Russo-Arabian Alliance occupying most of the East Coast and GOP-affiliated RedState Militias bushwhacking Federal supply lines across the MidWest, many people must be asking why you continue to aim your most vocal attacks on Democrats. 

    I don’t see it that way. It’s a choice. A lot of folks, sometimes understandably, concentrate on public executions and civil detention camps and all the children that have gone missing, and I understand why they’d want to see things through one eye, but I choose to look through both eyes. When you do that. When you make that choice. It’s like things come into a sharper focus, a true focus, and you see that really it’s always been the Democrats, who could have stopped all this if they’d just listened to people like me when we said Biden was the problem, it’s Democrats who are the real warmongers.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    @kalakal: From the article:

    Worrell, a member of the Proud Boys extremist group, went missing in August just as he was about to face sentencing for multiple crimes he committed during the riot. He was found guilty in May. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence that includes 14 years in prison, fines and other conditions.

    Enjoy your extra years in prison, Trump trash!

    What a dumbass.

  43. 43.

    kalakal

    @Tony Jay: Yes, but he’s wearing a tie and a shirt with buttons so he must be a good guy and trustworthy. Now if he was wearing a hoodie…

    And the chap on the right of the picture is wearing a suit! Why he must be a paragon of honesty and square dealing!

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    I know virtually nothing about the fine points of men’s dress, and not to be kookiest, but that skinny tie and tight button-down collar strike me as all wrong for his body type.

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    My main point is that there has been a systemic eradication of all the routes that third parties can take, which is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Ah, yes, they’ve closed off the routes that were open when previous third parties started by running a presidential candidate and went on to mainstream success.

    Clown.

  52. 52.

    karen marie

    @mrmoshpotato:  I kept reading to see what he believes is “election interference” by the Democratic party.  The best he can come up with is “Obama made phone calls”?

    I mean, WHAT?

    Daou took off his “red/blue glasses,” and put on his “greenback glasses.”

  53. 53.

    Tony Jay

    @kalakal:

    “Sir, I have only the greatest respect for your late father, but we can still smell Senator McConnell’s aqua velva on your skin-mask and the gentleman behind you is clearly an agent of Emperor Ming’s secret police. Are these really the qualities Americans should be looking for in a delusional spoiler candidate?”

  59. 59.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Sadly, I couldn’t vote for your Unity & Just Underpants campaign even if I did.

    I would, however, wibble supportively from afar.

  60. 60.

    mrmoshpotato

    @karen marie:

    The best he can come up with is “Obama made phone calls”? 

    That dastardly Obummer!  Doing campaign work for his own party!

    He should be indicted on 91 counts!

  63. 63.

    Freemark

    Not so sure he’ll pull from the Democrats. My conspiracy nut brother loves RFK Jr. He also likes Trump but Jr. really hits his pleasure buttons.

  68. 68.

    Hob

    I’m not sure how much their motivations matter at this point, but RFK Jr. comes across to me as a very damaged person who’s so self-centered he can’t really distinguish between self-aggrandizement and a meaningful destiny– he just assumes anything that might get people to look up to him in kind-of-sort-of the way they looked up to his dad is automatically a good thing. I assume most of his campaign crew are grifters and ratfuckers, although Kucinich may just be flaky and confused, and Charles Eisenstein is a total true believer who almost literally thinks his boss is the messiah and has probably done a lot to make RFK Jr. worse. The podcast Conspirituality has covered Eisenstein quite a bit and he’s a piece of work.

  71. 71.

    Hoppie

    @Tony Jay: Thanks for the laughs.

    Because you sort of asked a while ago:

    Hey, Donny,

    Yes Vlad?

    I’ve got something to say.

    Uh-huh?

    I’m really proud of the slimy way

    You tricked the ‘Murcans

    To do things my way.

    What you most crave is money, Donny;

    I know that your “business” is funny, Donny;

    So please don’t pretend to shun me, Donny,

    I’ve one thing to say, and that’s

    Dammit, Donny,

    I own you.

    The ramp was long, but you ran it, Donny,

    If there’s one tsar who owns you, I am it, Donny.

    I’ve one thing to say and that’s 

    Dammit, Donny, I own you.

    Here’s e-mails to prove that I’m no joker,

    There’s three ways that proof can show

    You’re bad, worse, not just mediocre,

    Oh! D-O-N-N-Y I own you so!

    Oh, it’s more dirt than Johnson, Bo-Reece had, Oh Vlad,

    Now I’m ensnared, and I’m so glad, Oh Vlad,

    That you’ve made Mitch and Kev do bad, Oh Vlad,

    I’ve one thing to say, and that’s

    Vlad, I so bow to you,

    Oh, Vlad.

    Now Obey me, I’m mad oh Donny, for you,

    I own you too.

    There’s one thing left to do, hoo-hoo,

    And that’s go thank the man who has spun thee, Donny,

    When he promoted your lust for the money, Donny,

    In his tabloid with memes that are Foxy, Donny.

    There’s one thing to say, and that’s

    Don’t defy me, Donny,

    I own you.

    Down boy, Donny.

    Oh Vlad,

    I’m mad!

    Beg me, Donny.

    We’re bros, we two.

    Sort of apologies to Richard O’Brien.

  72. 72.

    kalakal

    @WaterGirl: I think when it comes to MAGAs the FBI have learnt to use  “What’s the dumbest thing they could do?” as a guideline for their investigations.

  77. 77.

    Ken

    @Redshift: Ah, yes, they’ve closed off the routes that were open when previous third parties started by running a presidential candidate and went on to mainstream success.

    Not at all. Admittedly it hasn’t happened since the 19th century, but the fragmentation and collapse of one of the major parties looks more likely every day. (Reference.)

  78. 78.

    Freemark

    @Alison Rose: ​
    My brother was able to ‘link’ Aaron Rodgers’ blown achilles to 9/11 in 7 or 8 easy steps. RFK Jr. makes his eyes glaze over and even drool a little.​

  79. 79.

    frosty

    @Tony Jay: ​
     With troops from the Russo-Arabian Alliance occupying most of the East Coast and GOP-affiliated RedState Militias bushwhacking Federal supply lines across the MidWest, many people must be asking why you continue to aim your most vocal attacks on Democrats.

    Brilliant!

  80. 80.

    ColoradoGuy

    Come to think of it, RFK Jr’s “base” is probably Q-Anoners, random conspiracy nuts, and really low-info Democrats. The conspiracy nuts are probably the largest group, and they would probably be mostly Republicans, since they’ve gone all-in on every CT out there … the more absurd, the better.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

    @kalakal: LMAO!  No argument here.

    ETA – recording themselves storming the Capitol building makes it even better.

    What kind of idiot do you have to be…

  83. 83.

    Hoppie

    @Tony Jay: Thank you, I am an hono(u)red.  First saw the stage show at Kings Road in 1974 on an Anglophonic respite from my time as a student in Italy.

  86. 86.

    Hob

    And I never believed for a second that he would stay in the Democratic primary race. Giving lip service to being a Democrat was necessary in order to set up the “I tried to work within the system but the DNC wouldn’t give me a chance” narrative that might appeal to a subset of post-Bernie leftists, and there may have also been some sincere (if shallow) feeling on his part that his dad and his uncle were Democrats and maybe that part of their legacy mattered. But the people around him were only ever aiming for third-party fuckery. The one who seems most driven by an actual belief system of some kind, Eisenstein, is an ultra-New-Ager who thinks of RFK Jr. as such a spiritually significant figure that he couldn’t possibly belong in anything as mundane and corrupt as an existing political party.

  88. 88.

    Tony Jay

    @ColoradoGuy:

    Has Really Frigging Kooky Eye-Eye come out as a J6 Truther yet? Even if he does eventually bail out of his independent ego-jet and parachute onto Das U-boot 62215’s gold-painted conning tower looking to be part of a media-friendly ‘unity ticket’, he’s going to have to utter those magic words to convince MAGATs that he’s truly seen the light.

  89. 89.

    Bill Arnold

    @glc:
    Yeah, pretty much.
    If anyone links that interview in a reply to one of Peter Daou’s tweets, they will probably be blocked by Peter, at least after he drinks a hot steaming cup of self-awareness.

    ETA Daou’s tweets appear to average a few 10s of replies. So replies will be noticed.

  90. 90.

    Matt McIrvin

    I’m not that worried about RFK Jr. because I think he’ll probably pull from Trump more than from Biden. I’m more worried about Cornel West because a lot of liberals actually like and respect him, with justification, for his past work. He’s more like Nader in that regard.

  92. 92.

    Hob

    @Ken: Your comment is a little hard to understand because you replied “Not at all” to a clearly sarcastic statement, but I think that you meant “That’s not a ridiculous thing to think” and that you think the chart you linked to provides support for the idea that a new party might rise soon. If so, I think you’ve misunderstood either the meaning of that history, or the nature of the current situation, or the nature of the claims being made by RFK Jr. and other third-party cranks. They’re using basically the same rhetoric as Naderites in 2000 who thought that 1. the US having had other political parties in the past was a mind-blowing revelation and 2. what had kept their own preferred faction from ascending to be a new major party wasn’t the fact that there were still two major parties that had not collapsed yet, nor the fact that their candidates were dilettantes and flakes, but rather the Duopoly having made unfair ballot rules. And that’s ridiculous. There is no honest analogy to be made between these bozos and, for instance, the factions that went on to become the Republicans after the demise of the Whigs.

  94. 94.

    zhena gogolia

    @Geminid: Yeah, it was something like, “If success in politics means being okay with poverty, than we don’t need more successful politicians,” blah blah blah.

    Quote Rev. Farmer to me all you want. Miss me with Rev. West.

  96. 96.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Tony Jay: ​ 

    He looks like Richard Widmark stuffed his head inside Mitch McConnell’s neck wattle and pulled it tight.

    This is why we read this blog.

  97. 97.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m more worried about Cornel West

    If the 2024 POTUS election is close, West will objectively be on team racism/climate gigacide/oligarch/authoritarianism/Christian Supremacy/sexism/punching down. AKA Team GOP.
    (If the election is close, he will deserve no less than personal destruction, IMO. Would say the above loudly to his face, such that everyone within 50 meters could hear every syllable of every word.)
    Such activists should restrict themselves to pushing for changes like jungle primaries[1], maybe proportional representation systems at state and lower levels, maybe ranked choice. Winner takes all sucks.

    [1] Also known (I did not know this) as Nonpartisan blanket primaries

  99. 99.

    MisterDancer

    I don’t underestimate any of these people and their desire to ratfuck our Republic. I get the desire to mock Daud’s outfits and speech, but RJK Jr., West and now Daud are clear and present dangers, and need to be treated with the grim understanding that they are AT BEST pawns of the same people who front load GOPers to fuck over so many Americans.

    And West. West still carries a lot of weight in circles we don’t need the GOP breaking apart. I’ve seen this game played before by Conservatives,  annnnndddd it’s not great for us.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bill Arnold: My city currently has top-two nonpartisan primaries for most city offices. I don’t know if it’s good or bad but I just voted in one for mayor, since our longtime mayor, a moderate Democrat, is retiring.

    It’s been an interesting election in that he’d been getting a lot of flak over his preference for fiscal austerity, and the leading candidate’s endorsements from organizations like the firefighter’s union seemed to be characterizing her as running to his left. Her actual rhetoric has been almost 100% about touting her qualifications, though, not about policy preferences.

  102. 102.

    TriassicSands

    @ColoradoGuy:

    I think low info Democrats are also prone be included in the conspiracy nut category. Being uninformed or ill-informed sets people up to be manipulated and misled. It’s much harder to sway people who have solid foundations of knowledge and factual information that are true and based in reality.

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: Ageism is just the excuse. If Joe Biden had Cornel West’s politics the same people who claim he’s too old would talk about how wise he is.

    I think a lot of the criticism of Nancy Pelosi’s age is also ideologically based. She’s not “Progressive” enough for some people. They don’t want to say it because the conflict that raged from 2016 to 2021, between proponents of the “Center-Left” and “Bold Progressive” paradigms, is basically over and Nancy Pelosi’s side won. Most Democrats are fine with that, so the sore losers complain about her age.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @Jay: She wouldn’t care about the Falun Gong. They put out a cleverly packaged but very slanted newspaper and she likes it

    They also print a lot of copies for free distribution. That’s how they hooked Jane. She received some copies in the mail and got sucked in. This was during the pandemic when she was stuck at home.

  105. 105.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jackie: A lot of the same people who complain about the gerontocracy were all in for Bernie Sanders when he was at an advanced age.

  106. 106.

    Steeplejack

    @Matt McIrvin:

    And didn’t Sanders actually have a heart attack or some other medical “event” during the campaign?! Although I think it was covered up for a while.

  107. 107.

    Jay

    @Geminid:

    I always push it to the next level of CT.

    “So you are a member of an anti-Christian Cult seeking Global domination of the world by China, right?”

    “Are you learning Cantonese, because you are going to need it!”

  109. 109.

    Tony G

    In fairness, coordinating with Roger Fucking Stone shows that RFK Junior is the REAL PROGRESSIVE in this election.  Jesus Christ, what a worse-than-worthless piece of shit he is.  Somebody really needs to beat that asshole with a baseball bat.

  110. 110.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Matt McIrvin:

    A lot of the same people who complain about the gerontocracy were all in for Bernie Sanders when he was at an advanced age.

    But but but Bernie’s not OOOOOLLLLLDDDDDD like Biden! /S

  111. 111.

    Ivan X

    I get why some Democrats are preoccupied with Biden’s age. I think the guy’s been an excellent president, but he projects being even older than he is, even feeble at times, in the way he speaks and moves.

    And, unfortunately, we live in a country that venerates youth and has disregard for elders. Also unfortunately, some people do suffer meaningful decline of their physical or mental capabilities in their later years (*cough* Reagan *cough*), and it’s not totally unreasonable for people to be worried about that in a president.

    I don’t think Biden is feeble, and I think he should be the candidate, and yes I know he’s in better shape than Trump ever was, but telling people they shouldn’t believe their lying eyes doesn’t usually work. So I get when people worry about whether he can be an appealing enough candidate. I think he’s the best shot we’ve got, and that he can beat TFG, but he’d have a even better shot as a younger version of himself, or even if he just projected younger.

    Trump is obviously in terrible health and yet he projects younger because he’s so fucking belligerent, and the more he hates, the more energized he gets, and that energy is mistaken for vitality. (Fortunately, he increasingly sounds like a raving lunatic as the noose tightens, though not specifically an old raving lunatic.)

    I don’t get why people care how old Pelosi is at this point any more than any other elder member of the House, especially since she projects so powerfully. She appears to be able to do her job well and she’s no longer in a leadership position, and she represents but one district, and she has to run every two years, unlike senators, so who cares? Complaining about her age at this point genuinely is ageism, and she doesn’t belong on the New Yorker cover (which doesn’t otherwise bother me, but I’m a fan of Blitt’s cartoons so he gets the benefit of the doubt from me, and I often like tasteless humor) with the other three. If she were still Speaker, or even minority leader, then there perhaps would be a reason, but she’s not, so it’s a potshot.

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