Because of course he is https://t.co/S9n9qv2JfW
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 5, 2023
Per the Associated Press:
Progressive activist Cornel West said Thursday that he is no longer running for president under the Green Party banner. Instead, the high-profile African American thought leader will run as an independent.
“I’m running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!” West wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“People are hungry for change,” he added. “They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people.” …
It remains to be seen whether West can gather the tens of thousands of signatures required to qualify for the ballot in crucial states. Without the infrastructure of a formal party, such signature gathering will fall largely to grassroots volunteers.
“As Dr. West’s campaign for president grows, he believes the best way to challenge the entrenched system is by focusing 100% on the people, not on the intricacies of internal party dynamics,” West’s campaign said in a written statement. “Our Constitution provides for Independent candidates to gain ballot access in all states, and Dr. West has begun seeking ballot access as an Independent, unaffiliated with any political party.”
In the statement, West’s campaign also acknowledged continuing to share the Green Party’s “values and commitment to justice.” …
I’ll bet a vinyl copy of Vanessa Daou’s Zipless (which I have never owned but remember seeing in my college radio station) that this is an internal Green Party power struggle, that list gatekeepers & those who control ballot access didn’t want to play ball w Brothers West & Daou https://t.co/BAbJQMKGh7
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 5, 2023
(Daou, as of this writing, is still West’s campaign manager.)
Well, Brother West *does* have a habit of burning bridges with every single academic institution that hires him…
— Kerr Avon 🇺🇲🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@KerrAvon4) October 5, 2023
The view from Electoral Vote (10/6 edition):
… [P]residential candidate Cornel West and the Green Party have decided they do not see eye-to-eye, and so he announced yesterday that he will go it on his own as an independent candidate.
West is famously… prickly, let’s say, so it’s entirely possible that he and the people who run the Green Party just couldn’t get along. On the other hand, running for president for over a year is hard work, particularly if you know you cannot possibly win. He’s also more than clever enough to realize that “a pox on both your houses” rhetoric is all good and well, but that on the issues West cares about, Donald Trump would be a giant step backward as compared to any Democrat. So, it’s possible that this is a way for West to back out of running for president while saving face.
Whatever the case may be, this is certainly good news for the Democrats. There are some people who are going to vote Green no matter who the candidate is. West’s exit from the ticket will have no impact on those people. There are also some people who would vote for West in particular. Now, that will be impossible for some of those folks, because there is virtually no chance an independent can get on the ballot in all 50 states. So, some disaffected liberals will be left without that protest option, and some of those folks will undoubtedly return to the Democratic tent.
Indeed, if West really wanted to make a statement while not aiding Trump, then the correct play would be to get on the ballot in deep blue states and to stay off in swing states. We’ll have to watch to see where, exactly, he ends up qualifying. (Z)
=====
And then, there’s RFK Jr…
we were never dating he was just stalking us and sending 200 manic texts every night we blocked him and then he started creeping around our hood at night looking through our windows pic.twitter.com/Yp32zE5eAC
— John Cole (@Johngcole) October 7, 2023
Per NBC:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears headed for a breakup with the party his family defined for generations, teasing that he’s preparing to ditch the Democrats in a “historic” announcement Monday in which he is expected to launch an independent presidential campaign against President Joe Biden.
The split is mutual, though hardly amicable.
His campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, which started in April, evolved from an annoyance for party leaders to a full-frontal assault on them; he now claims Democratic officials are conspiring to “rig” the primaries against him, citing his familiar blend of half-truths and outright fabrications.
Kennedy’s conspiracy theorizing and association with fringe figures like Alex Jones have long made him something of a black sheep in his family, which otherwise remains true blue. And his impending self-exile puts him less in Camelot than in the camp of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who left the Democratic Party after she claimed nefarious forces stunted her own presidential bid in 2020. (Kennedy has suggested she could be his secretary of state.)
“He is taking a dive among Democrats,” said Tim Malloy, an analyst with the nonpartisan Quinnipiac University poll. “A lot of Americans would entertain somebody from another party, and he’s pretty popular with a lot of Republicans.”…
Meanwhile, Democrats — a sizable minority of whom seemed initially willing to overlook his baggage in their search for an alternative to Biden — have grown to increasingly dislike Kennedy…
Honestly, there's no funnier outcome of the Thiel/Sacks/Greenwald/Rumble orbit putting in so much money and effort propping up RFK jr, then have to have it backfire and actually hurt Mr. Trump (whom they do NOT support). https://t.co/a77T2dVfl2
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) October 9, 2023
RFK Jr.’s days of avoiding Trump’s wrath might be numbered.
Even pulling just a few thousand votes in some of the key electoral college states can make a difference — and that’s not to mention No Labels, Cornel West, etc.https://t.co/nPWuTZOjHE
— Jake Lahut (@JakeLahut) October 5, 2023
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was roaming New Hampshire earlier this year, Donald Trump’s campaign saw him as “pure upside,” as one source close to the campaign put it…
Now that he is moving to run as an independent in the 2024 general election, putting him in direct competition with Trump for similarly inclined voters, Kennedy’s days of evading MAGA wrath may be numbered…
A FiveThirtyEight analysis from August found that Kennedy does appeal more to Republicans than those in his own party by a wide margin, with his approval rating among Republicans consistently in 20 to 30 points positive territory. Meanwhile, Democrats tend to have an overwhelmingly negative opinion of him in primary polls thus far.
“RFK Jr. appeals to crazies, and particularly Trump crazies,” a former Democratic presidential campaign adviser told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to speak candidly about the things some Democrats won’t say out loud about the controversial heir to one of America’s major political dynasties…
BREAKING: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that’s set to begin October 18.
Louder for those in the back: RFK JR IS NOT A DEMOCRAT! pic.twitter.com/y0SXaFiFpP
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) October 6, 2023
“At this, Kennedy turns toward me with his whole body, muscles flexing, and grips the tray table between us.
“You’re lying to me,” he says, furious.
Shocked, I ask what he means. People in nearby seats glance over nervously.”
The man is psychotic. https://t.co/y2zjzZ54y9
— Christopher, Esq. 🇺🇦 (@ChrisAlbertoLaw) October 5, 2023
This long read — imagine a wannabe Hunter S. Thompson as one of the politicians HST skewered, but with no sense of humor — came out in August. It’s worth reading, if only to understand just how much RFK Jr has turned into a standard right-wing paranoid, an aging crank with enough money and celebrity that he gets attention beyond his long-suffering ever-shrinking social circle:
On an overcast afternoon in mid-August, I find myself on a ferry to Nantucket with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—son of Bobby, nephew of John, Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Trapped between Kennedy on my left and a window facing the Atlantic Ocean to my right, it is no exaggeration to say this is the low point of my summer—a supposedly fun thing I wish I’d never done.
A couple weeks before, Kennedy had responded to an interview request by calling and expressing exasperation at various hatchet jobs in mainstream media and skepticism that a correspondent for Vanity Fair, a card-carrying member of the legacy media, might be fair to him. “Your editor won’t let you write anything positive,” he promised.
Kennedy had had a rough ride since the summer started (he was virtually set ablaze by New York magazine) and so I proposed that instead of raking over his many controversial ideas—like his belief that the media has been infiltrated by the CIA, as he told the right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe in an interview this year; or his claim that pesticides in drinking water are causing “sexual dysphoria” in boys, as evidenced by a frog study—we meet up at the Kennedy compound and talk about his family history. Lean into his Kennedyness, have a little fun. I was scheduled to be on Cape Cod for vacation anyway and figured I’d go take the cut of his jib…
When I arrive at the Hyannis Port compound, I’m told Kennedy is on a boat somewhere and running late. And so I idle in the dining room of his house, a white colonial with soccer balls on the lawn and bicycles piled against the siding. I peruse books on his shelf: Best American Crime Writing 2004; How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics; Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, and October Surprises in U.S. Presidential Campaigns. There’s a photograph of Kennedy with a falcon on his arm and a picture of him and his brothers as young men, posing shirtless in an outdoor bathtub together. Near the front door are two iconic photos, one of the late Bobby Sr., holding his son; the other of John and Jackie Kennedy on a boat, Jackie’s scarf blowing in the wind…
Three days before my arrival, Peter Baker of The New York Times had published a story on the Kennedy family’s unhappy feelings about Robert’s campaign; his taking on their friend and ally Joe Biden; his claim that John, and possibly Bobby Kennedy, were assassinated by the CIA. “That’s the third story the Times has done,” Kennedy says grimly. “The same story, three times.”
“Well, I have a big family,” he says. “Some of them agree with me, some of them don’t agree with me. I think it’s like everybody’s family. People are entitled to their opinions. I can love people who disagree with me about the Ukraine war or about censorship, whatever.”…
He crunches some numbers. “I think there’s 105 cousins now,” he explains. “So I think four or five of them made statements against me. And then a lot of other ones showed up for my announcement.”…
… Kennedy insists he won’t run as an independent (“Even if I was going to run as a third-party candidate, which I’m not, I would probably take more votes from Trump than I would from Democrats”), but feeling unloved by the press, he has embraced people like Joe Rogan, to whom he can fire off his theories without being fact-checked in real time, and Fox News, where Sean Hannity has given him free rein to espouse what Kennedy calls his “malinformation” (supposedly factually accurate information that Democrats don’t want you to hear)…
By now it’s clear that Kennedy sees himself as the lone truth teller in a world of lies and deceit, crusading against a vast conspiracy of interlocking powers involving the Biden and Trump administrations, the tech companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the CIA, the FDA, and the mainstream media, who have coordinated to stifle the truth of a “three-year experiment performed on the American people.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., like his father and uncle before him, was born to slay dragons. “From my youngest days I always had the feeling that we were all involved in some great crusade,” he writes in his memoir, “that the world was a battleground for good and evil…It would be my good fortune if I could play an important or heroic role.”….
Old proverb: When God wants to punish you, He answers your prayers.
Onan Soumy
I have vague memories of West (I’m sure it was West) being interviewed on NPR back in 2012 and endorsing Obama for reelection. He promised to vote for him that November so he could protest him later in January, because he recognized that electing the politician who most closely aligns to your interests, and then pressuring that politician to actually stick to their campaign promises, was far better and more practical than throwing your vote away and then complaining when you don’t get what you want.
I wonder what happened to that guy.
AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team
Ty for the late-night post, AL. Keeps us insomniacs from drifting into the clutches of Reddit.
sab
Yikes, talk about old (cf Biden). I am only a month younger than RFK Jr and I feel old myself, but he makes me feel like a spring chicken. And I am a lot less angry looking although I never got to spend summers sailing and partying on Cape Cod with a huge close knit family.
mrmoshpotato
May RFK Jr. and Cornel West fuck each other with rusty pitchforks in Hell.
Any questions?
Wallis Lane
RFK Jr. squandered a golden opportunity. He should have realized early on that his best chance was in the GOP primary, where policy is disdained and the crazy is embraced. They also don’t care what your party label was in the past just as long as you currently subscribe to all the right hatreds and all the right conspiracy theories. As a bonus those Qanon types love that Kennedy name.
I maintain in all seriousness that if he had followed the GOP path, he would now be in a solid second place in the primary, and driving DeSantis and the Seven Dwarves into complete shock and bewilderment.
sab
@Wallis Lane: RFK Jr has spent his life squandering opportunities.
Spider-Dan
So what are the chances RFK Jr. slides into the Green Party nomination that Cornel West just ditched? The only obstacle I can see is that the raison d’etre of the Green Party is ratfcking Democrats, and they might see Bobby as too tainted to effectively pull that off. In other words, while he’ll definitely attack Democrats enough to meet the bar, he might actually hurt the GOP chances of winning… which the Green Party would not tolerate.
Geoduck
@Wallis Lane: I agree that RFK Jr. would have done much better as a GOPer. Heck, saying proudly that he used to be a big libtard but now has Seen The Truth (and his dead father and uncle agree with him!) would probably draw in even more votes.
Spider-Dan
@Wallis Lane: RFK Jr. is not being funded to get the largest possible number of primary votes he can. He is being funded to drive down Biden’s chance of winning, and he can’t do that in the GOP primary. He can’t even appreciably help accomplish that goal there.
An RFK that joins the GOP primary from jump never gets his campaign funding off the ground floor in the first place.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Aye. The real weakness of Really Fricking Kooky Eye-Eye’s campaign isn’t his smorgasbord of off-the-shelf conspiracy theories or his inability to be in the same room with other humans without giving them the distinct impression he’s only ever one ZOMG!!! eruption away from stabbing them in the face while screaming “I saw the second eyelid!!”
No, his real weakness is that he has a face consisting entirely of miniature Ernest Borgnine asscracks. Scores of them, each one a perfectly scaled replica of the late, great character actor’s wrinkled camel-lip of a rear-end. That’s a handicap in any popularity race that no amount of excitable media-coverage can overcome.
Baud
Bernie Sanders will never be held to account for the conspiracy theory he set loose on the world.
Thankfully, I think the only people buying it these days are people who are dead set against us already and the media.
But I repeat myself.
divF
@Tony Jay: Since things are quiet here, I would like to ask you if your nom de plume is a tribute to the great character and voice actor.
Tony Jay
@divF:
Ha! No. It’s just my name and the initial of my real surname, which I can’t share here for fear of being exposed to the Illuminati and/or The Magic Circle.
Tony Jabberwocky can’t be seen to have contact with the outside… damn it to hell!!
lowtechcyclist
Cornel West and RFK Jr. remind me of a Groucho line from Animal Crackers: “how happy I could be with either of these two, if both of them just went away.”
(Edited for accuracy ;-)
Brachiator
This doesn’t amount to much.
The Green Party has never been a significant factor in presidential elections, and was not even much of a spoiler in 2016, where independent parties may have helped Trump.
The media will continue to play up the idea that Biden is too old and Harris is too unready, which is also, unsurprisingly, a theme of a number of “progressive” commentators. The Young Turks, for example, harp on this point all the time.
In 2020, even progressives wised up and acknowledged that Trump was the greatest danger to democracy. For some odd reason, a number of these people no longer fear a takeover of the country by authoritarian misfits.
There is not much that can be done about these idiots. Democrats just have to stay focused and get out the vote.
divF
@Tony Jay: Well, I’m still going to hear your posts in my inner ear in the voice of Sher Khan or Judge Frollo.
Nukular Biskits
@AJ of the Mustard Search and Rescue Team:
Anne’s late night/early morning reads are my go-tos when getting up at 0400 on weekdays.
Quick read w/ coffee before I face off against the day ahead.
mrmoshpotato
@Tony Jay: Hahaha!
Baud
@Tony Jay:
Any relation to Mark Jabberwocky in Suffolk?
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: Every time I watch a Marx brothers movie, I can’t help but think what fun it must’ve been to write that ridiculousness.
Baud
@Brachiator:
From what I hear about them second hand, they should be considered part of the Republican establishment. So their view isn’t a surprise.
Matt McIrvin
Remember that tweet of his that oddly emphasized the numbers 14 and 88? Yeah, I’m not convinced that was a one-off coincidence.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Tony Jay:
“Ernest Borgnine’s Asscrack” sounds like a great name for a Sex Pistols tribute band.
lowtechcyclist
@Tony Jay:
Too late, those slithy toves are on to you! :^D
Brachiator
@Baud:
RE: The Young Turks, for example, harp on this point all the time.
I don’t think this is accurate. They clearly love Bernie Sanders and Marianne Williamson and seem to hate Corporate Democrats even more than they hate Republicans.
Very typical of a certain type of progressive.
Geminid
@Spider-Dan: Most of Kennedy’s policies align with the Green Party’s with one exception: Kennedy is a pro-Israel hawk, and has been long before this horrible war.
Anyway, the Green Party is on its last legs.
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
Every time I watch a Marx brothers movie, I can’t help but think what fun it must’ve been to write that ridiculousness.
From Joe Adamson’s descriptions in Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and sometimes Zeppo (any serious Marxist should own a copy of this book), it was a lot of fun. Marx Brothers dialogue was rarely written by one writer working alone, it was usually two or more writers bouncing increasingly off-the-wall dialogue off each other. I’d love to be able to go back nearly a century and be a fly on the wall for some of those sessions.
Tony Jay
@divF:
Either of those work, unless I’m channelling a MAGAt in which case it’s usually the voice of Boss Hogg or Foghorn Leghorn.
@Baud:
The Suffolk Jabberwockys are of Cornish extraction, from the Old Brythonic Saibathe Suheelae or “Talkative Sheep Penis”. We’re purely Oirish with a dash of the Scandiwegian Javalwalki clan of one-legged Viking raiders through Daddy’s side.
sab
@Tony Jay: So Jabberwhocky was a real thing beyond Lewis Carroll?
Cornwall has a lot to answer for. Jabberwhockies and Cormoron giants.
Geminid
@Brachiator: The Libertarian Party has by far the best infrastructure of any 3rd party. They consistently put their candidates on the ballots of 40 states or more.
They are under new management though, since the “Mises Caucus” took them over. They have dropped traditional positions and now have more of an “alt-Right” profile. Many members have left although it is unclear how many, and it is also unclear how many new adherents it has gathered.
sab
@Geminid: Green in USA as right wing surely isn’t a new thing. They have been spoiling elections for twenty plus years.
Tony Jay
@sab:
I would love that to be true, but no, purely one of the by-products of Mr Carroll’s massive opium habit… which he may or may not have had depending on how litigious his estate might be.
sab
@Tony Jay: But you just spread the rumor!
I had never heard of jabberwhockies as Cornish before.
Tony Jay
@sab:
Oh absolutely. Mister Stir-The-Pot, that’s me. 8-)
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
If they looked around for a moment, they might notice that the Democratic Party is a lot less corporate than it used to be.
Sure, you still have Dems who get most of their campaign money from big donors, but ActBlue has really made a difference AFAICT in that many Dems are getting serious money from small donors.
sab
@Tony Jay: Missed the absent ////. Being on the spectrum, I tend to be too literal and miss hints and jokes.
Darkrose
@Onan Soumy: This essay by Michael Eric Dyson isn’t entirely wrong. West was mad that Obama didn’t give him more credit for getting him elected.
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
While over here the Nu-New Labour Party are running away from membership fees and Union money towards billionaire donors, many of them former Tory sugardaddies who, obviously, aren’t going to want anything for their cash.
It’s almost like they just want to wrap themselves into the shed skin of Cameron’s 2015 Tory Party and get as far away from the stench of dirty, smelly, Lefty things as they can ASAP.
Meh! Back to mocking the American Right, it’s less enraging than the antics of the British version.
Darkrose
BWAHAHAHAH.
Last time West was really relevant was when he was in The Matrix Reloaded.
satby
True.
Tony Jay
@sab:
I’m terrible for making the snark as questionable as possible. That’s why I had to start sticking *** Jackal News *** tags on my FTFNYT/WAPO opinion piece pastiches, people were getting triggered by the nonsense I was putting in the mouth of various bobbleheads. Too realistic.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: The margin in Florida in 2000 was far less than Ralph Nader’s vote count. We will, of course, never know if that means Nader threw the election to Bush–but Greens’ rebuttal to that seemed to be that the margin in Florida was so close that even the Socialist Workers Party’s 562 votes could have swung it. Not their fault! But not that comforting.
satby
@Darkrose: the hurt fee-fees of self-important men have always caused trouble for this country. Newt Gingrich getting some slight around AF1 in Clinton’s time, West re: Obama’s failure to be properly grateful for the dozens of votes he may have swayed, and finally tfg: supposedly so angry at Obama’s joke at nerd prom that he decided to run for office.
Falling Diphthong
@Wallis Lane: I can see it now. The Republican primary debate between all the people who are not Trump and wanna sorta criticize him but also swear their undying loyalty. And then The Main Event, Trump vs RFK, which won’t even bother checking in with the RNC for permission.
Evap
I was driving through a wealthy neighborhood recently (in Atlanta) and I spotted a Bobby for president sign in front of a mansion. I almost stopped to take a picture, I felt like I had spotted a rare bird.
Tony Jay
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
I was once told that the reason Simple Minds are called Simple Minds is because Jim Kerr was annoyed with the owners of a venue who wouldn’t let his band play under their original name of Johnny and the Self-Abusers.
And thinking about it, Ernest Borgnine’s Asscrack could also be the name of their difficult third album.
“So, um, what’s this album about? What’s the concept?”
“Speaks for itself, dunnit?”
Geminid
@sab: The Green Party can be described as “Right Wing” in its electoral effect, but its avowed policies are definitely “Left.”
I think the LaRouchites may be capturing the Greens now, though. That’s hard to tell because LaRouche’s following is very sneaky. They are small in number but very tightly disciplined. Very much a cult.The Schiller Institute is their principal public institution.
People may remember the men who disrupted town hall events of New York Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Torres, Jeffries and Bowman earlier this year. They were LaRouchites. Big men physically, with loud voices who tagged off each other as a team. I think a woman joined in at one of these events. They were hollering about Ukraine and nuclear war.
lowtechcyclist
Yeah, I think you were doing a Brett Stephens parody with the one I got suckered by. Even after I knew, it still was totally believable that he’d have actually written that.
The loonier they get, the harder it is to do parody that is clearly parody.
prostratedragon
Katherine Anderson of the marvelous Marvelettes.
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
The trick is to marinate each word in a bubbling vat of “what would most offend someone who values the truth?” and build each sentence on a scaffold of outrageous offensiveness and massive hypocrisy.
Basically like Conservative dating apps.
Chris Johnson
@Brachiator: If you haven’t been following left politics, The Young Turks are more or less obvious ratfuckers at this point. They produced a bunch of ratfuckers like Jimmy Dore, and have gone on an anti-trans tirade that profoundly hurt their credibility with the left.
Not sure why it was now they chose to go mask off, but mask off they are.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
It boggles my mind that they’re still around. LaRouche himself died in early 2019.
Tony Jay
@Evap:
Do Bobby Jindal’s parents live in Georgia? They still have faith in their Vivek Smarmyfucker Mark#1.
sab
@Tony Jay: Don’t ever change. Me lacking subtlety is my own problem. However, I am still committed to Cornish jabberwhockies, and that is all your fault.
Tony Jay
@sab:
I’ll happily take the blame. There are creatures down in Cornwall so eldritch and uncanny that the Jabberwockies tell whispered tales about them late at night while clustered around the tavern fire supping pints of Exeter Mild.
And don’t get me started on Somerset. Posh birds hanging around in lakes waiting to steal cutlery. It’s madness!
Geminid
There is an interview of former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon out that is described as a “must read.” The French newspaper LeFigaro interviewed the retired head of Israel’s internal security forces. I won’t get into the details but it’s worth looking up for those interested in this war. I think it will be all over the news.
Top Israeli officials current and retired are holding back for now because their nation is in a crisis. But Ayalon’s blunt assessment of this government’s failures will likely spur others to speak now. I have thought that this government will not survive the aftermath of this debacle, but now I’m beginning to think Netanyahu might be toppled and the government reorganized mid-war.
Captain C
@Matt McIrvin: I think Nader’s efforts in Florida were a necessary but not sufficient cause of Gore’s defeat there, with other important components being Jeb and Kath. Harris’ removal of voters from the rolls and other election flummery, Gore not fighting for a full recount (which as per the news orgs’ later study, probably would have won him the state if carried out), the Brooks Brothers ‘riot’, and of course the Supremes making such an egregiously and shamelessly bad power-grab of a decision that even Angel Hernandez would have been embarrassed to be associated with it. If Nader campaigns hard only in deep blue and deep red states to get 5% nationally, gets half the vote he did in Florida, and the rest break 2/3 for Democrats as is likely, Gore wins Florida by low 5 digits and none of the rest can happen. Also, Sanctimonious Joe was a butt choice for Veep.
NotMax
No hat, all prattle.
Baud
@Geminid:
As we learn over and over again, when right wing governance fails, it fails spectacularly.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: LaRouche built a tightly knit cult of educated and financially secure supporters. They were prepared to carry on after his death and they have done so. The Schiller Institute is their public “think tank” but much of their organization is very opaque. They try to make up for their small numbers with tight discipline.
Darkrose
The motto of the Roberts Court should be: “Calling balls and strikes like Angel Hernandez.”
Matt McIrvin
@Chris Johnson: Trans rights has been a really effective tell for some reason–so many of the really obnoxious “left” ratfuckers who did more harm than good have decided to be publicly transphobic.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Something had to replace Hillary Clinton as the tell.
Judges will also accept Kamala Harris.
Geminid
@Baud: One recent development is that Egyptian officials have affirmed the story that ten days before Hamas attacked, the Egyptian intelligence chief warned Netanyahu that “something terrible” was about to happen and specifically mentioned Hamas.
Baud
@Darkrose:
I like it. Two birds, one stone.
Baud
@Geminid:
“All right. You’ve covered your ass.”
Chris Johnson
@Matt McIrvin: I figure it’s because they’re actually Russia stans, and a primary vector for Russia stoking conflict in America is through trans issues and the demonization of trans rights and anything not ‘traditional’.
So they know to hide their authoritarianism and their true allegiances, but they can’t NOT respond to the trans bait. They’ve internalized all the authoritarian arguments in taking their side, but fighting trans rights and ‘woke’ is so intensely the public face of fascism that they can’t NOT side with, say, DeSantis and so on.
I figure if they were purely calculating grifters like Tim Pool they would be able to walk that line, but they are to some extent true believers. Tankies. Some part of them believes, like Roger Waters does, that Russia got screwed over and is wholly justified.
And so they listen when the manufactured outrage is trans-related, because those they secretly trust are really intense on the subject, and it’s just unrelated enough to leave ’em off guard.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: For a while I was looking up the accounts of anti-Ukraine people on Twitter. Many were anti-vax, anti-trans, and anti-“climate hoax.” A lot of them were pro-Cryptocurrency too.
Chris Johnson
@Geminid: All vectors for Russia in specific meddling with US politics. I spent time checking up on ‘dirtbag left’ with very similar results. Ended up running away from those types like they were plague zombies.
There’s still lefties out there who don’t buy in to all that. You might notice the anti-trans, anti-Ukraine left frantically trying to attack ’em. Vaush, Xanderhal, Dylan Burns, Shark30Zero, DemonMama: probably haven’t covered them all but there’s quite a few.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Many years ago I walked out of my local post office and was confronted by a stunningly beautiful young woman who was handing out LaRouche literature. I was captivated and initially wanted to enjoy her company for a bit, so I asked her about the material she had in hand.
After a short time, I just felt sad that a woman who was so beautiful was also so nutty that you just wanted to get away from her.
That there is any remnant of the LaRouche movement is really surprising.
Evap
@Tony Jay: it was definitely a Bobby Kennedy sign.
Geminid
@Brachiator: It does not surprise me. It’s a cult with a core group of intelligent and educated people leading it.
Ed. And they have money. I’m not sure where it comes from. They are a lot like the “Church” of Scientology in this respect. For all I know, they may be Scientology, or vice versa. More likely, the two organizations recognize each other and have a non-compete pact.
lowtechcyclist
@Darkrose:
The whole balls-and-strikes framing was bullshit from the first time Roberts said it. District courts call balls and strikes. SCOTUS rules on the boundaries of the strike zone. And the bogus SCOTUS has given it quite an interesting shape.
Suzanne
@sab:
There’s very little more frightening than a man who didn’t receive what he thinks he is owed.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Nominated. Quite profound.
Tony Jay
@Evap:
Weird. Very weird.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Story of recent times!
Gin & Tonic
@lowtechcyclist:
That’s what <ominous voice>they</ominous voice> want you to think.
catclub
Is Clint Eastwood still alive? Great pairing if he is.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Scientology is a religion with a number of celebrity adherents. They have a big ass headquarters in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. Some of their satellite offices seem to have gone out of business.
There are still people handing out literature. I haven’t seen LaRouche people in decades.
Geminid
@Brachiator: You have to look for LaRouche people, but they are still a going concern. One of them ran for Senate in New York last year. Their “above ground” group is the Schiller Institute, which is based in the NYC area.
Ed. The LaRouches used to be based in Northern Virginia. I think they attracted a certain kind of federal worker.
Tony Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
And Lyndon H. Larouche Jr is an anagram of ‘Raunch Her Jolly, Don’.
Open your eyes, Daou-doubters. It’s all there if you want to see it!
Geminid
@Baud: I was hoping someone would nominate Patty Consentino’s response to Lauren Boebert’s Columbus day speech.
OverTwistWillie
The whole Kennedy mystique is like your Grams fifty years out of date home decor.
Of interest historically, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
From the here and now, one wonders what the fuss was all about.
Suzanne
@WereBear:
Isn’t that the truth.
As I finished up my yoga class last night, I thought about George Sodini, who murdered three women in a group fitness class about ten miles south of where I now live. He had written extensively about how he couldn’t find a girlfriend or wife and hadn’t had sex in decades.
Women are afraid that men will kill them, indeed.
Soprano2
@Baud: I always respond to the claims of rigging by saying “You mean getting the most votes”.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris Johnson:
Oh, in some other online circles I frequent, there are a lot of outright Marxists who don’t buy into all that and are in fact vehemently pro-trans-rights, though they still fume about Democrats being “neolibs” a bit. The one stereotypically right-wing position they tend to buy into is being into guns (Marx and Engels wanted to arm the working class, don’t you know).
Soprano2
@Captain C: How could you forget the Palm Beach butterfly ballot, where over 3,000 people voted for Pat Buchanan in a heavily Jewish area? That election exposed how fucked up elections can be in general, but we usually never know about it because the outcome isn’t that close.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: I grew up in Northern Virginia not too far from LaRouche’s compound (before he was in prison) so they were often in the news. I remember he had a little private army that did scary little paramilitary training exercises there. At the time, they would occasionally have success getting stealth candidates nominated in Democratic primaries for state legislatures and such. I don’t know if that’s still happening somewhere.
The sheer baroque wackiness of their conspiracy theory was impressive even by the standards of these things. It encompassed things like nuclear physics and orchestral tuning.
But bits of it ended up getting mainstreamed–the climate-denialist line about volcanoes having a bigger everyday environmental effect than all human activity ultimately comes from the LaRouche cult, though it mutated in the telling.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Both of my two friends who own guns are from working class backgrounds, but they are solid Democrats who would be fine with Virginia upping its firearms regulations to be on a par with California’s.
They also own pickup trucks, are lesbians, and raised mixed-race children with their respective wives. A very niche demographic, I think.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I know some gun-owning Democrats too. I have really mixed feelings about this: I think they’re buying into dangerously incorrect wingnut ideas about the utility of guns for everyday self-defense (for maybe 99.99% of people, just living their lives, there’s no way it’s going to outweigh the danger of simply having that gun). But, on the other hand, I think we might someday end up in a national situation where we need some armed people on our side and it sure ain’t going to be me.
BellyCat
FTFY
(Unless, of course, male-bashing was the original intent.)
Suzanne
@BellyCat: Uhhhhh, it was a comment on toxic masculinity. Which, if you think is a baseline attitude of all men, indicates much more male-bashing from you than it does from me. I don’t see any women throwing a temper tantrum that they’re not being loved up by the Democratic Party enough.
Even attention-hungry Marianne Williamson isn’t doing what RFK, Jr., and Cornel West are doing.
schrodingers_cat
Bhakts are embarassing themselves as usual. Proclaiming solidarity for Israel with Hitler’s photo as their avatar.
While BJP’s offical handle using Soros as a big bad pulling the strings behind the scenes where domestic politics is concerned.
Ken
Because “copy editor” is no longer a thing, I am left wondering who is doing the citing. Is it RFKJr, and NBC’s writers are saying his claims of rigging are outright fabrications? Or is it the Democrats, citing RFKJr’s fabrications as their reason for keep him off their primary ballot?
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: agreed. I was going to say that I have seldom, if ever, seen even the most egotistical or power-hungry woman throw the kind of hissy fits that men do when they don’t get what they think they are owed.
AirSpencer
@lowtechcyclist:
Oh thank goodness. I thought I was the only person who thought that the Supremes were more like the “Subcommittee on the Definition of Balls and Strikes” of MLB’s Rules Committee than a plate umpire.
OverTwistWillie
@Matt McIrvin:
They did a number on the Illinois statewide slate back in the eighties (IIRC).
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: My friends are motivated by self defense. I think they feel vulnerable to hate attacks because they are woman and lesbians and later on, parents of mixed-race children. They are not in the least influenced by rightwing narratives.
They both have taught their children to safely handle firearms, and instructed them in shooting skills. They don’t encourage their adult kids to own firearms though.
Ed. When my friend Debbie was working at the hospital as a nurse, she had a 1 mile walk to work through a very sketchy part of Charlottesville. She had no concealed carry permit, but she carried a handgun every time she had a night shift.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: What always amazes me in this comment section is how we can (rightfully) speak in generalizations about certain groups in order to have discussions about social forces, for example, we talk about white people and whiteness in order to discuss racism. And that is absolutely appropriate and correct and important. But note that in many of the discussions around toxic masculinity, someone shows up to NOTALLMEN!!! the discussion.
Blanket disclaimer: Dudes, we know. We know not all men. Settle the fuck down, stop feeling attacked, and maybe consider if we are pointing out a patriarchal social dynamic that causes harm.
Paul in KY
@Onan Soumy: ‘Cornel’ West kicked his ass…
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: I never thought of Mr. Borgnine’s ass crack till now. Thank you, Tony.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: You’re alright. You have to say it 3 times…
Paul in KY
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Hard core punk band!
Paul in KY
@Darkrose: Ha! I had a ticket. Take that, Cornel! I also gave Pres. Obama a bunch of money. I wonder how much Doc West gave?
Paul in KY
@Captain C: The fucking butterfly ballot in that county too.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Also he ‘died’ in a year with 19 in it! I would say he’s probably being hunted by Roland Deschain.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY:
Now it’s all you’ll see every time you close your eyes. I am sorry.
Ruckus
@sab:
I’m 5 yrs older than RFK Jr and I look younger than him. I’d imagine being insane doesn’t help aging a whole bunch. My take on him is that his family name and money has rotted his concept of himself and his family history leads him to think the country owes him the presidency. Politically he’s all over the map and personally he seems to worship himself just a tad bit too much. (That tad bit is doing a fair amount of work)
matt
Oh, Harvard professor Cornel West is running to break the iron grip of the ruling class. Well then.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I mean, the overwhelming extent to which violent freakouts are done by men is difficult to ignore. To the point that it’d seem like cartoonish bigotry if it were only in fiction.
Ruckus
@Geminid:
Scientology would never have a non compete pact. OK they may sign one – but sticking to it is not in their best interest, which is never in anyone even approaching normal’s interest.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
There’s very little more frightening than a man who didn’t receive what he thinks he is owed.
Especially as in this case when the man in question thinks that he is owed everything, for his name and his “obvious” magnificence. (That word obvious is doing a hell of a lot of work there)
kindness
Cornell West isn’t going to be taking votes from Biden. All anyone has to do to Cornell is ask him why he refuses to pay his child support. No one is going to vote for a guy who obviously has money but won’t support his own damn kids.
H-Bob
@Ruckus: Maybe a non-aggression pact.
Pink Tie
@Tony Jay: wow, we lived in Cornwall when I was an adolescent, and I just remember the Little People, aka the Piskies. Not everyone could see them, and sometimes they would take your baby away & leave a changeling. Also lots of witches in Cornwall. We lived walking distance from some standing stones in New Mill!
I am also cousins with the Marx Brothers (great-great aunt was Rose Marx) so I’m charmed by this thread!
Pink Tie
@Suzanne: Amen. This is much like the internal conversation I have when I, a white woman, feel overwhelmed by criticism of white women. You don’t have to have personally participated in WW bullshit to acknowledge that it exists, and you don’t need to pipe up to say “it wasn’t me.” Sometimes it’s better to shut up and listen, even when it stings.
Ruckus
@sab:
One’s view of a somewhat famous person does tend fall a bit when they move towards bordering on insanity.
RFK Jr has perhaps passed that border a while ago. And is still traveling in the same direction at a not insignificant rate of speed.
Tehanu
@Tony Jay:
You, sir, are an exemplary wielder, indeed a master, of invective — one who destroys without profanity and amuses at the same time. Kudos!