With the House GOP implosion, Jim Jordan’s serial humiliations, Trump’s legal woes and racketeering Trump flunkies copping plea deals lately, few pundits or reporters have spared a thought for Ron DeSantis. But a couple of New York Times reporters did — yesterday they published an article under the title “How Ron DeSantis Lost the Internet.” I enjoyed it very much, and you can too with this gift link.
It opens with a poolside shindig at a Tallahassee pollster’s house, where DeSantis campaign operatives gathered to woo wingnut influencers who’d expressed an affinity for DeSantis online. You might think such a group of influencers wouldn’t be the sharpest knives in the drawer, and you’d be right. But many now say they sensed then that Team DeSantis was clueless about the internet and social media.
Mr. DeSantis’s advisers were defensive when asked about campaign strategy, they said, and struggled to come up with talking points beyond the vague notion of “freedom.” Some of the guests at the meeting, which has not previously been reported, left doubtful that the DeSantis camp knew what it was in for.
Four months later, those worries seem more than justified. Mr. DeSantis’s hyper-online strategy, once viewed as a potential strength, quickly became a glaring weakness on the presidential trail, with a series of gaffes, unforced errors and blown opportunities, according to former staff members, influencers with ties to the campaign and right-wing commentators.
The “brains” behind the DeSantis digital strategy is Christina Pushaw, who served as the gov’s press secretary until she left that job to manage the “war room.” As press sec, Pushaw was known for marshalling screeching armies of flying monkeys online to attack her boss’s critics, once earning a temporary ban from pre-Musk Twitter for harassing an AP reporter. She also had to remove a tweet containing an antisemitic conspiracy theory involving the Rothschilds.
So, it’s no surprise that Pushaw’s digital strategy turned out to be a big fat disaster, complete with an in-house produced meme video that superimposed DeSantis’s face on a Nazi symbol, an embarrassingly homoerotic video attempting to assert DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ bona fides, etc.
It may have been surprising to unwary donors that a person like Pushaw was put in charge of digital communications in the first place. If one good thing comes out of the failing DeSantis campaign — aside from DeSantis failing to secure the nomination, of course — maybe it will be that no one in a serious job ever hires Pushaw to handle their communications, ever again. What a dope.
That said, it’s not all on Pushaw. The first campaign manager (since demoted) insisted the Musk-hosted campaign launch on Twitter was a triumph when anyone with the sentience typically allotted to single-cell organisms could see it was a catastrophe. And as failure piled atop failure, no amount of rebooting could overcome the superior trolling operation Team Trump brought down on the hapless DeSantisites’ heads:
The [pudding fingers] episode looks like little more than childish bullying, but such moments can affect how a candidate is perceived, said Joan Donovan, a researcher at Boston University who studies disinformation and wrote a book on the role of memes in politics.
The best — and perhaps only — way to counter that kind of thing is to lean into it with humor, Ms. Donovan said. “This is called meme magic: The irony is the more you try to stomp it out, the more it becomes a problem,” she said.
The DeSantis campaign’s muted response signaled open season: Since then, the campaign has failed to snuff out memes mocking the governor for supposedly wiping snot on constituents, having an off-putting laugh and wearing lifts in his cowboy boots.
It’s fun to watch the trolls become the trolled, but ultimately, the DeSantis campaign sucks because DeSantis himself sucks. The quality of the hires matters, but only on the margins if the center is a gaping hole. At this point, I don’t think it matters how much more money DeSantis’s dwindling roster of donors pour down his rathole of a campaign. You love to see it!
Open thread.
Chief Oshkosh
Reading Betty reminds me of reading Molly Ivins. Within the first half sentence you know who wrote it, and by the end of the sentence, you know you’re in for a good time. :)
Thanks Betty!
wjca
Such Internet illiteracy looks especially inept when you consider what Biden managed in 2020. It was the current version of a late 1800s “front porch campaign,” and quite successful. And it’s not like Biden is anybody’s idea of a member of the Internet generation.
But perhaps the problem is that competent people have no desire, and no need, to work for someone like DeSantis.
Scout211
Thanks, BC. I just learned something new this morning. “Meme magic” is something I have observed on the regular from the Biden social media team but I never knew it had a name. Dark Brandon is probably the best example of that and likely will become a classic example of a campaign turning a meme from an insult into an asset.
As for poor DeSantis’ team . . . what a wreck.
SFAW
Based on some of the stuff I’ve seen from Pushaw, she’s not just a numbskull, she’s evil. Because no one with even a microscopic shred of decency would have said some of the vile shit she vomited out. Even if she did not write it herself. [No, I have no idea whether she wrote any of it. Authorship is immaterial, vis-a-vis what she said.]
OzarkHillbilly
That is just what the poor little dears deserve, God bless them and their fascist minds.
SFAW
@wjca:
And did you know that
John McCain was a POWSleepy Joe Brandon is OLD??Frankensteinbeck
Yep. DeSantis is a wimp who taped a Kick Me sign to his own back. Pathetic.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I rarely disagree with you — this might be the first time, in fact — but they deserve a lot worse. Of course, I feel that way because I’m an asshole, whereas you are a good and charitable man. [Yes, I’m being serious.]
Scout211
And the front runner in the GOP primary race lost a few in court this past week. I know it’s hard to keep up with his many civil and criminal court cases, but this is an interesting one. (I guess they all are, really.)
This is the lawsuit in Colorado to keep him off the ballot due to his insurrection involvement and his violation of the 14th amendment.
NotMax
Guess this counts as the morning open thread? And now for something completely different.
Hugh Reed & the Velvet Underpants, Guy Called Sue.
;)
Mai Naem mobile
To think I was worried about DeSantis being a good candidate. He’s turning out to be a Scotty Walker 2.0 on steroids. I feel like I am watching a movie and want to fast forward to Jan 6 2025. The way the GOP was doubling down on Jordan scares me to think about what they’re planning for Jan 6, 2025. I don’t see how TFG wins the GOP nomination with his legal issues except that there’s nobody else showing any life.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Scout211: You are so right that Trump has so many court troubles that it’s hard to keep track! When I read a news item, I have to stop and sort it into the proper bin.
WaterGirl
Betty, did you see that Ron DeSantis is included in the video posted by the Biden-Harris campaign? I think Anne Laurie first posted it in one of her threads.
DeSantis is among those whining about the House debacle, and it’s my hope that he will help bring down the whole Republican party. it’s a slow-moving train wreck, so it’s hard to know how long it will take.
Hopefully it comes soon enough for the survival of democracy!
Frankensteinbeck
@SFAW:
A snarling jackal? Vitriolic, perhaps?
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: I found the link.
NotMax
Baghdad Bob stamp of approval.
Geminid
There is a vast talent gap between Christina Pushaw and Trump campaign chief Susie Wiles. Wiles also has a very problematic (and vile) candidate to manage, but at least she’s a pro and could be counted as a Major League talent. Pushaw is more like a T-Ball player.
Danielx
Yes, reading this post with a second cup of coffee is the way to begin a Sunday. And yes, DeSantis is a mean little dweeb.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: Pushaw is an evil person and actively seeks out and gloms onto other evil people online. That’s basically her job.
The article says the influencer shindig included the Libs of TikTok chud, who gleefully puts unsuspecting people and organizations on the radar of deranged anti-trans weirdos, resulting in death threats. (The chud chose to remain neutral in the 2024 primary.)
Back when she was still a taxpayer-supported press secretary, Pushaw found the LoTT account and started amplifying it, presumably from state-issued hardware. No matter what anyone thinks about government policy on trans issues, a state actor doing something like that is grotesque.
NotMax
@Danielx
Yes, reading this post with a second
cup of coffeedouble martini is the way to begin a Sunday.Time zones matter.
:)
WaterGirl
See Brandon, Dark
edit: I see Scout 211 got there first!
citizen dave
Agree with everything (of course), except despite the trash human he is, someone is going to be their nominee (assuming their party still exists next year), so I still can’t count the nonstop face-twerk guy out. (Great to read a rare Sunday morning Better Cracker post, though–so fun!)
dmsilev
Sort of a longer-form version of last week’s rise and fall of Jim Jordan. When you live your life in the conservative media bubble and owning the libs is your philosophical pole star, anything that pierces the bubble causes rapid deflation. Because you’re empty inside and without the bubble you are nothing.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
@WaterGirl: I picked the wrong week to stop smoking since I need a cigarette after that!
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I’ve seen it — it’s a good ad!
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
That is such a good ad! I’ve watched it easily a dozen times over the past few days. It’s really well done. Using “In the Hall of the Mountain King” as background music is simply brilliant. And I love, at the very end, the various clips of McBowtie wielding the Speaker’s gavel building up to that ludicrous “WHAM!!” gavel strike. Too funny!
OzarkHillbilly
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… 10,000 unemployed comedians and here you are giving it away for free.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
Also too: did the word “snot” appear in the New York Times? At some point I guess it had to given the state of the GOP.
Brit in Chicago
I’m really happy to have more (yet more) reasons to think that DiS’s campaign is going nowhere. But it does leave me with this question: if TIFG goes away (hurray!)—whether because of his health or his legal troubles or something else—who then, if not DiS? Is the GQP really going to choose a woman of Indian descent? Or a Black guy? Jim Jordan, maybe?/s
NotMax
@J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
Viscous sinusoidal emissions?
:)
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Next time, try garnishing it with a slice of water chestnut. (I could let you have some left over from my latest tuna salad.)
:-)
sdhays
How does one pronounce “Pushaw”? Is it “poo-shaw” or like “pusher” pronounced in a British accent?
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think so, too. Even more brilliant is that either the music was so quiet for me to hear it in the beginning, or they simply added the music partway through. If it had been audible for the whole thing it would have been tiresome.
It’s the buildup that makes it work so perfectly!
SiubhanDuinne
@citizen dave:
I don’t know whether that was intentional or not, but it’s perfect.
OzarkHillbilly
Today in news of the weird: Man captures ‘weird anomaly’ of Storm Babet lifting forest floor in Scotland (video)
The video is a little unsettling.
NotMax
@Brit in Chicago
Jared! ’24.
//
Speaking of which, anyone mention Ivanka’s court filing that she’s exempt from being deposed in the NY fraud case because she’s a resident of Florida?
OzarkHillbilly
@sdhays: I pronounce it “Shitstain.”
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Was the big WHAM his first gavel as interim guy in the house? I didn’t see it, but I think I saw some people mentioning how hard he had banged the gavel that first time.
I loved the Nancy SMASH tap tap tap gavel. When you’re the big dog, you don’t need to bang the gavel to prove it.
Paul in KY
@SFAW: Agreed. She is like the absolute worst (or worster) of the evil harridans that TFG employed.
JPL
Liz Cheney was on CNN and spoke about the danger of a 2nd trump presidency. She openly discussed sharing military secrets about Israel with Russia. I don’t agree with her policies, but I do appreciate her speaking to the threat that trump poses.
WaterGirl
@Brit in Chicago: I believe they are eyeing Youngkin from VA.
One more reason why these elections in Virginia – in just two weeks! – are so critical.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: HA! That’s gonna fly like a rock.
Paul in KY
@Mai Naem mobile: I’m still afraid of him getting back in the game if TFG croaks.
sdhays
@Brit in Chicago: These people can’t even choose a warm body to schedule their damn shitbills in the House. If Trump exits stage pine box before the election, it will be similar.
They’ll probably call up Alan Keyes to see if he has time to lose in spectacular fashion to Obama’s former VP.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@WaterGirl: yes and I think the look on his face tells you all you need to know about him.
Betty Cracker
@Brit in Chicago: That’s the right question. It does look like Haley is gaining on DeSantis in the polls. I hope she passes him, even though I think she’d be a more electable opponent in a general.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Garnish? Real men don’t need no es-stinkin’ garnish. Or so I’ve heard.
:)
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
It’s there for the whole thing. The original is very slow and quiet at the beginning and gradually builds up to a loud frenzy. Obviously it’s compressed somewhat to fit the ad’s time constraints, but if you listen closely, you can hear the music from the beginning of the spot.
sdhays
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah, I see. It must be French.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: oh my gosh, I was so afraid for that dog, I was holding my breath!
Spooky.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I wonder tho, how much her candidacy would suppress the white supremacist vote?
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Yes. I think he was a bit taken aback by the size and heft of the gavel on that first day.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Either way, artfully done!
artem1s
Also,too if you define ‘competent’ as being the best at shitting on people in order to deflect from the fact that you have no solid reason for running for office except as a means to better position yourself to shit on people – then it makes plenty of sense when they hire people who have no earthly idea how to frame a candidate (or anyone) in a favorable light.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I was about to ask if Betty had noticed that she is a BROWN WOMAN running as a REPUBLICAN. They wouldn’t possibly vote for her, would they?
Everyone seems to agree, though, that she’s the only serious one on the stage.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I can’t help wondering how many trees fell.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
@WaterGirl:
I banged me gavel!
sdhays
@OzarkHillbilly: That is a bizarre video.
NotMax
@<a href="https://balloon-juice.com/2023/10/22/desantis-2024-when-the-trolls-become-the-trolled/#comment-8997411"Ozark Hillbilly
♫ I feel the earth breathe under my feet ♫
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Or will fall. Maybe their roots didn’t pull all the way out, but I would guess those trees will be more vulnerable to wind and storms than before.
It’s like the ground was breathing. I didn’t notice where that happened.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: Hard to say, given how much suck he’s done in primary, but I think DeSatanis gets more GQP votes in general than the Indian female. Tho the Indian Female might be more competitive in ‘blue’ states.
WaterGirl
@J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian): I must have seen that before, but I don’t remember it. Too funny!
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Another good question. It’s a significant constituency, but Haley did manage to get elected twice in South Carolina…
My guess is Haley would appeal to independents more than DeSantis would, and she’s one of the only Repub candidates who realizes the party needs to change its tune on abortion to avoid getting swamped by Dobbs blowback. She doesn’t have good answers on that, but unlike the others, she’s smart enough to hedge and obfuscate to avoid consequences.
Scout211
Thanks for watching so we don’t have to.
Cheney is definitely useful as a foil for Trump. I hope she doesn’t get a regular gig on CNN or any other news network, though. Ugh.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
The poet’s take. That is lovely.
NotMax
@JPL
The coveted 4 a.m. on a Saturday slot?
//
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: She’s an interesting candidate but I just can’t see her in the White House in the age of trump. Maybe another 8 or 12 years down the road. She’s only 51 so she should still be a possible then. The challenge for her will be remaining visible and relevant. I don’t know how she does that.
JPL
@Scout211: Liz didn’t rule out a run for the presidency. ugh is right! As long as she is out there speaking about the dangers of democracy, I am fine with her adding her voice.
that’s it though
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t know about the white supremacist vote, but I think a candidate other than Trump will suppress the MAGA vote even if Trump endorses him.
That would hurt down-ticket candidates, and I think this prospect is one reason why Republican elites are not trying very hard to block Trump. They need his voters.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
@WaterGirl: As a kid way back when we had a record of that skit and a few others (it might have been this one). It got played constantly. It wasn’t until decades later I saw the Hollywood Bowl video and nearly lost control of my bladder.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: The dog was WTF??? Thank you for sharing that.
Paul in KY
@Scout211: As long as she keeps skewering TFG (and she does know how to insert it in precisely the correct manner to obtain maximum pain (sure Darth Cheney worked with her on that)), I’m fine with her getting one of those gigs.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wonder if Shakespeare had heard or seen something about this phenomenon before he wrote about Birnam Wood. It is the Scottish play, and this happened in Scotland.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: I suspect they would continue to vote for the party, and rationalize that (as they said about TIFG, roughly) “all we need is a warm body to sign the bills we send them”. People rationalize all kinds of stuff that supposedly contradicts their stated beliefs.
It’s that party that’s the problem, not a particular personality, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
Shalimar
@JPL: Liz Cheney also said pulling out of Afghanistan after 20 pointless years was a huge mistake. It’s great that she recognizes what a huge threat Trump is, but part of that threat to her is that Trump might hurt us in the constant WWIII she wants America to be waging.
prostratedragon
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah, glad I checked to see whether you’d already posted it. The earth indeed can be a weird place.
In last night’s news, a Chicago man was rescued from Belmont Harbor, where he’d driven his car. Was on Lake Shore Drive recently when this pro tip occurred to me: to find highways out of town in a southerly direction when one is downtown, get on LSD southbound and look for the split to I-55. Easy. Northbound I can’t help you: afraid you’ll have to untangle that spaghetti yourself.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
JPL
@Shalimar: 👍
Anyway
@WaterGirl:
Love the timing of the Rethug train wreck with VA state elections just ’round the corner — I think VA maybe the state most responsive to house dysfunction and all the Rs in Disarray headlines cannot help turnout. Ha
ETA – Great ad with “R” prominently placed
Dorothy A. Winsor
Does this violate the gag order re attacking a potential witness in the Georgia case?
OzarkHillbilly
Yep. They made a deal with the devil back in ’68 and now they are slaves to the white supremacist vote.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I could not get the video to play, but I’m wondering: did the trees move at all? This sounds like the matted forest floor was raised like a rug (or a wing) by some negative air pressure above it, and independently of the more deeply rooted trees.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
@prostratedragon:
Hopefully not when you are driving or otherwise out in public.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Peat moves and takes the trees with them.
DailyMail.co.uk story with (1:22) video from 2020.
Cheers,
Scott.
Shalimar
@Anyway: It’s funny, the only reason I didn’t really like punting on the budget until after the Virginia election is that I though Republicans-being-assholes wouldn’t hurt them there like it should. Thank God that Matt Gaetz solved that problem by making them completely incompetent in addition to dickish.
prostratedragon
@J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian): Oh come on!😏
Shalimar
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Trump never personally hired Powell and she never worked for the government during his administration, so it’s technically true that she was never his attorney. Of course that also means there are no privilege issues that could prevent her testifying as to his conversations during those meetings. And she spent a lot of her own money losingly contesting the election in various states.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m not talking about the money guys who thought white supremacy was just a tool they could use to get power. I am talking about the hateful 88s who found their soulmate in trump and will accept no substitute except for one who doubles down on the hate. I don’t see any of them voting for Haley. I see them staying home in droves.
2016 was the first time I ever had to wait at my poll to vote and 2020 was no better. With a trump lite (and I don’t think Haley is even that) I just don’t see them coming out to vote.
Barry
“maybe it will be that no one in a serious job ever hires Pushaw to handle their communications, ever again. What a dope.”
Wouldn’t that make her the first professional campaign staffer (at a high level) to actually suffer consequences? I guess that not having white male ‘do over’ rights might be a problem.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: That doesn’t seem like a safe place to be walking. I wouldn’t trust the trees to stay upright.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: There are other Republicans who could get the shite supremacist vote, but Trump may have a cohort of voters that will not come out for any other candidate. Some of them will go to their graves grumbling, “I voted for Trump twice but the RINOs stabbed him in the back, so I never voted again.”
There might not be many of these, but Republican candidates in purple states and districts might not survive only a 5% drop in base turnout. A 10% drop would be fatal.
OzarkHillbilly
@prostratedragon: One of these days I will make it back up to Chicago for a visit. When I do I fully expect to get totally and completely lost and I will love every minute of it.
kalakal
@sdhays: Well if you’re going to drag me and my accent into it, “Pshaw!’
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: There is one scene where you can see a tree’s roots and the base of it’s trunk moving up and down with the ground. I estimate about a foot in diameter, so not a sapling.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: I’m looking at a map and the news report on that at Belmont Harbor. That took some effort to land in the water. But 3 am…….and a few drinks, Im sure it was a cinch
Eta: we used to drive in the Belmont Harbor and bike the lakefront, so I was struggling to see how they did that.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Here it is on youtube. It looks like the moss or whatever on the surface formed a mat with the topsoil, and the roots don’t go deep.
Geminid
@Geminid: I should make a correction here because I really intended to write “the white supremacist vote,” not the “shite supremacist vote.” But I won’t.
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack: News reports noted with some delicacy that citations of an unspecified nature were issued.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: That’s a great point. I don’t know how big a cohort it is, but only-Trump voters definitely exist.
Honus
@Scout211: she’s got a gig at the Miller Center here at UVA.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Heh.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Yes, it was much as you described, at least the part about the matted floor. At one point, as the air moved the ground up, it was as though someone pulled back the coupe – which appeared completely disconnected to the ground beneath it, and you could see the dirt beneath the raised part.
I will have to watch again to answer about whether trees were moving.The entire ground was heaving, and the camera was low so you definitely saw ground and not tops of trees.Another Scott said it best.
wjca
I refuse to accept the thesis that someone less than a decade older than me is necessarily “old.” Even if I am aware that there are people a decade younger than me who definitely are old. Old isn’t a number, it’s an attitude and behavior.
I recall, in 1997, my Mom (age 80+) was in a nursing home rehabbing from a hip replacement. Her only two complaints: 1) no Internet access (it was, after all, pre-dot com boom; but she had it at home and missed it), and 2) all the “old people” there — all of whom were at least a decade younger than she was. But they were just sitting around waiting to die (and griping about some version of “kids these days.”
RSA
From the article:
This is such a strange observation—as if Trump’s campaign is not combative and juvenile. Trump spends his time thinking up schoolyard nicknames to bully his opponents with, for God’s sake.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: I had the exact same thought, but I wasn’t sure how to spell it.
CaseyL
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve seen photos of other places where trees get knocked over by storms, taking the soil mat with them. Usually it’s just individual trees, though, not a whole freaking forest!
I don’t know how most people think about forest floors, but (in temperate zones, at least) they’re generally less than a foot of soil over rock and clay. You can tell how deep the soil layer is, or isn’t, by looking at the visible parts of the tree’s roots: does the root network spread out along the ground? If so, the soil is shallow and the root network needs to spread out in order to nourish and anchor the tree.
Tree roots form networks that turn the soil into a woven mat. I can see how flooding loosens the mat from the rocky layer beneath, and then strong enough winds can kick up the mat altogether.
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: Use your phone map thing.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: Just get on one of the Wacker Drives…
Paul in KY
@RSA: Maybe all the wokety-woke stuff? TFG doesn’t seem to explicitly rely on that stupidity as much.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: As long as he is promised a full pardon, trump will campaign for the nominee. They might stay home, but they might listen to their master.
Jinchi
The best counter to the right wing troll machine has come from the Biden campaign, who happily stole “Let’s Go Brandon!” from the Fox news crew along with the “Laser Eyes” photoshop of his face.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe a birch. Some oak probably yelled at it, “I done told you: grow your roots deep!”
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At least no pesky “attorney-client privilege” objections.
MagdaInBlack
@wjca: That sounds like my mom, who used to say ” Some people are just born old.”
RepubAnon
@OzarkHillbilly: The last time I saw anything like that was right after Bruce Campbell read from the Necronomicon.
SiubhanDuinne
@eclare:
Oh, wow! That’s a great insight! (There’s a dissertation lurking in there for some aspiring PhD).
pat
@OzarkHillbilly: Looks like trees with very shallow roots just about to be blown over.
Sure Lurkalot
@JPL: Maybe next Sunday show appearance Liz Cheney can tell us why she voted for Trump twice and with his “policies” 93% of the time.
Her singular focus on Trump on the J6 committee is one reason why Trump’s fellow election overturners still have seats in Congress and their complicity goes further down the memory hole every damn day.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin, y’all!
Sitting on the back porch, drinking coffee, being lazy.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I think there’s a good chance the trials will expose quite a bit of it. Whether that will matter I cannot predict, though I hope so.
JPL
@Sure Lurkalot: I guess she is doing the Sunday show circuit, because there was a clip online about her being on Face The Nation. I haven’t watched it yet.
Barbara
@RSA: Trump is combative but De Santis truly embodies the kind of taunting and stunts I associate with adolescent bullies. He has zero finesse or wit.
Jinchi
@Brit in Chicago:
I have the same question. I think there’s a small but real chance that Trump will not be the nominee. But there is no real 2nd, 3rd or 4th place. They’re all bouncing around in the margin of error.My bet is that they’d actually try to get someone who isn’t even in the race to jump in.
Honestly RFK Jr. is a better fit for the Republican party right now and they spent the last 6 months pushing up his favorability among conservatives.
Geminid
@Honus: I wonder if Liz Cheney will stick around. Western Albemarle County is a nice place to live, and DC is just 2 1/2 hours away by car. Cheney will find plenty of congenial people to socialize with.
Tom Levenson
@prostratedragon: “get on LSD” seems to be part of the problem when it comes to errant driving.
#PerhapsUnclearOnTheConcept
ETA: I see I am way late to this lame joke.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Tom Levenson:
Nukular Biskits
@Chief Oshkosh:
I enjoy reading Betty’s posts and her sarcastic humor. In fact, of the several nuggets stuck in my head from years of (mostly) lurking here, her post about Newt Gingrich is at the top of my list of all-time favs:
Anoniminous
We can calculate fourteen million as a rough estimate for the specific Trump Vote:
2008 – McCain 59 million
2012 – Romney 60 million
2016 – Trump 62 million
2020 – Trump 74 million
That massive increase in turn-out is one reason Biden only narrowly won the election.
Of course we could postulate Biden’s unprecedented 81 million votes is what got him to the position to be able to narrowly win. His total was 15 million more than Clinton, a figure we can use to estimate the Not-Trump vote?
Jackie
@sdhays: I pronounce it phishaw – but there are probably many correct variations.🤷🏼♀️
WaterGirl
@Tom Levenson: It’s never too late for a lame joke!
My father taught me that.
Bill Arnold
@Scout211:
It goes back to 2015/2016.
Meme Magic (Know Your Meme)
Meme Magic Is Real, You Guys – I know you already have your explanation for Donald Trump being elected. But I’m telling you: it’s false. He was elected because of Chaos Magick, Memes and a Frog-like creature named Lord Kek. (Theødor, Nov 11, 2016)
What are dubs and trips in 4chan
It is said that people used dubs and trips to launch memes on 4chan. (Last 2 or 3 digits of the post id the same, considered a sign of power. I wasn’t tracking 4chan at the time.)
At any rate, the Biden team’s use of memes is often competent. (That is a compliment.)
trollhattan
Have a hard time believing Casey the Cape doesn’t “get” social media and All Internet Traditions and so am left believing 1. He really doesn’t listen to her or give a fuck what she thinks and 2. she’s using Ron as a (short) stepping stone for bigger things ahead, for Casey the Cape. Both of these things can be true and coexist. She could be the DeSantis family Tom Wambsgans.
I do wonder if she calls it Thigh food to placate the douche.
eclare
@trollhattan:
My first thought, does she correct his pronunciation?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just slippin’ on by off LSD
Saturday night, trouble-bound
smith
Hooh boy, we now have nine candidates for Speaker.
trollhattan
@smith:
Maybe they can form a little House Choir?
smith
@trollhattan: I’m guessing it will be more like a barroom brawl.
Another Scott
Speaking of weird stuff in the north… APOD: Ghost Aurora over Canada
Cheers,
Scott.
kalakal
@smith: None of them even a hero to their own mirrors
kalakal
@Another Scott: Wowser! Weird indeed
MagdaInBlack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was so close to posting that. Thanks !
Nukular Biskits
Betty’s post brings up the perpetual question (at least for me) as to why/how enough people can support someone like Ron DeSantis enough that they could be elected or, in the case of DeSantis, reelected.
I’m not talking about differences in tax or economic policy or even ideology here. I’m talking about candidates such as DeSantis generally just being awful people.
But, then, I remember with respect to “conservative” politics, cruelty is the point; i.e., supporters of people such as DeSantis, Trump, et al, apparently have some kind of character (moral?) defect that causes them to “need” to inflict pain, suffering and punishment on “other”.
Anoniminous
@smith:
In theory House Majority Whip Tom Emmer should have the inside track. Trump put the x-nay on him a day or so ago so it will be interesting to see what happens, especially since Trump’s support for Jordan didn’t do a bit of good.
Villago Delenda Est
@eclare: You mean MacBeth?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nukular Biskits: Also, most people just don’t pay a whole lot of attention
ETA: Which favors incumbents
Villago Delenda Est
@Shalimar: Never ending WWIII is good for daddy’s stock portfolio, you know.
sdhays
@Jackie: Or maybe “piss-hah!”.
Ruckus
@Brit in Chicago:
I think it will be the janitor from some 3rd world state, that NObody knows, has ever even hear his name, who shows up in his work uniform because that’s the best suit he has and defends his HS diploma from an online diploma mill. He is there to clean up of course, he is after all a janitor.
eclare
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep! Not a big Shakespeare fan, but I love that play.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Nukular Biskits: The national spotlight is unique, it breaks a lot of people. Palin was said to be capable of complete sentences before McCain and Bill Bristol hauled her up on the national stage. And as I understand it, DeSantis ran an extremely local campaign for his re-election in ’22, used Covid relief for local schools and (IIRC) a big everglades program. And then there’s almost legendary badness of the FL Democratic Party, and a few national trends…
I forget who said the biggest, or most important, gap in politics isn’t so much left and right, but between the hyper-engaged online voters, and Normies.
Jackie
@Anoniminous: It’ll be hilarious if Emmer is elected precisely because he’s NOT endorsed by TIFG and TIFG declared Emmer isn’t worthy because he voted that Biden was the lawfully elected President.
For that reason alone I’d vote for Emmer – if I was a Repug.
@Anoniminous:
Nukular Biskits
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
True. A lot of politicians count on the apathy and/or indifference of voters.
Eric S.
@prostratedragon: A dear and dearly departed old friend told me this when I first got my driver’s license oh so long ago…
To go south, go east (90/94 to Indiana)
To go north go west (90/94 to Wisconsin)
To go west, go south (55 to St. Louis)
To go east, go towards the lake.
Nukular Biskits
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There is always going to be a baseline of voters who can be counted on to voted one way or ‘nuther.
For example, when I ran for local office, I did little campaigning but still managed to get 25% of the vote. While some of these were folks who knew or knew of me, I suspect most were either diehard Democrats or people voting against the Republican candidate.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nukular Biskits: On Thursday, one of the Obama guys swore that a few months before the election, there’ll be people looking up and saying, “Wait. Trump is running for president again?”
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: The music is there right at the beginning. It is written to start out very quietly and gradually ramp up.
Montanareddog
@SiubhanDuinne: CaseyL’s description of a horizontal root network in shallow topsoil explains those films of upright trees sliding down a mountain during a landslide. And it is such a landslide that my highschool English teacher postulated may be an explanation for Birnam Wood during our class reading of the Scottish play.
And, yes, I, too, am a little superstitious. During a later school production in which I was involved, our MacDuff was badly gashed on his hand during the climactic swordfight.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark (never trumpers) does a lot of focus groups, and she says she runs into this a lot.
Then she brings Villagers like Jake Tapper and Amy Walter in to put a VSP spin on the 57 different ways swing voters say “gas costs too much”
Ruckus
@Barbara:
I’d call deathsanta an adolescent wannabe bully.
The point being that the only part of that is that he still acts like an adolescent. The richie rich kid up the block who has zero clue of what to do or how to do it. One lived up the block from me in elementary school. He’s probably retired now, after working at department stores as a shelf stocker for 50 yrs.
Nukular Biskits
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Lack of information combined with lack of interest is a problem. Hell, I’ll admit to often not knowing the positions, etc, of half of the candidates on the ballot when I go vote and I consider myself to be engaged and informed.
The other part is that most folks tend to focus on the big races (i.e, gubernatorial, US Senate, House, presidential) and pay very little attention to local races (like school board, state rep/senator, etc). It’s these local/state offices that arguably have far more impact on daily lives yet most folks simply don’t track them.
Montanareddog
@eclare:
There is an old debate about whether Shakespeare should be read, or watched, in order to best appreciate the poetry of the language. I am firmly in the latter camp, am currently rewatching the BBC’s “The Hollow Crown”* and it is overwhelmingly beautiful when performed by 1st rank actors.
*”The Hollow Crown” is Richard II, Henry IV 1 and 2, Henry V and Richard III done as a series.
Trivia Man
@Nukular Biskits: I also ran, as a nuisance candidate, and got 26% with essentially no serious spending. Once or twice I thought… WHAT IF I JUST XYZ!!!
or well meaning supporters told me some PLAN to win or build for THE NEXT TIME
i figure if I’d spent 100x the $, quit my job, gone full time campaign… maybe I could have got to 40 or 42%. Still glad I did it, but also glad I was realistic.
kalakal
@Montanareddog:
No one* has ever done The Scottish Play like the incomparable
William McGonagall
*Thankfully
cain
@WaterGirl: the Internet is going to copiously use that McHenry gavel moment. It’s golden. We should use it to teach tiktok version of history when we want to add a exclamation point. Lol
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
Seeing as how we hear so much about newt now I wonder if someone read that and accomplished it. His wiki page has no info past 2022.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: Well, it works beautifully! I am aware that the music is written to ramp up :-) –I just didn’t hear it initially.
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly: this is some “Let’s throw someone into the Wicker Man, quick!” shit here.
Delk
BTW, it no longer is LSD, it’s DLSD — DuSable Lakeshore Drive.
Another Scott
@Villago Delenda Est: eclare:
Obligatory – https://youtu.be/h–HR7PWfp0?si=GZALGBMNHR2FPULF
🤪
Cheers,
Scott.
kalakal
Surely the theme tune for the GOP has to be Yakety Sax?
They all go into a room, they all leave a room, they all go into…
Montanareddog
@kalakal: I had never heard of him before. And, having read your link, regret not bathing still in a warm bath of blissful ignorance!
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: I actually laughed at that. Not that I disagree with you necessarily. it’s just amazing to me that the Governor of Florida (a must-win state for Republicans) is so bad at this that Republicans are more likely to go with a POC woman.
opiejeanne
@Another Scott: Also, the wind pushes against the trees, the trees act as sails, and trees that grow strong roots on just one side because that’s the direction the wind usually comes from, don’t do well when it comes from the other side.
In 1982, there was an honest-to-god hurricane that ripped through Southern California, especially Riverside, and trees were down all over town blocking many of the main roads. One of the street trees across the street from us came down into our driveway.
Geminid
@Jinchi: Upcoming filing deadlines require a new candidate to jump in soon if they want to be on many state ballots. The alternative would winning a convention vote after delegates are released from their pledges. I think that is done after the first or second ballot. Maybe that’s when Glenn Youngkin could ride in on a white horse.
But who could broker the “brokered convention?” A lot of those Trump delegates could be hard to wrangle. It’s one thing to herd cats, but this would be like trying to herd rabid cats.
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
I think it is because they are deficient in some part of their brains and they think that if the world only rotated backwards every once in a while we’d have the world as they see it. So they attempt, every 4 yrs to make the world rotate backwards. They managed once, in 2016, to elect one completely backasswards SFB/TFG and the world is attempting to realign, get back to spinning correctly and rid itself of that one pile of shit.
kalakal
@Montanareddog: My work here is done.
Poor McGonagall effortlessly takes the crown for World’s Worst Poet. He truly was terrible. For the full brain melting effect it has to be read in a strong Scottish accent
Ruckus
@Geminid:
but this would be like trying to herd diseased rabid cats.
FIXITFY
cain
@Betty Cracker: although you know how misogynistic this country is. They will have a hard time regardless. Also not white even if she looks white. Gonna be a hard slog.
I rather DeSantis as he isn’t ready to prime time and won’t be able handle the heat. He will be throwing ketchup and what not and like a toddler and then get on a private jet to feel better.
Anoniminous
@Jackie:
Jordan got 86 votes in the secret ballot so maybe that’s the actual support Trump can command in the House?
Nukular Biskits
@Trivia Man:
I’m of the opinion that EVERYONE should run for public office at least once in their lives. Having said that, they should do it for the right reasons, of course.
It’s quite a learning experience.
Jackie
@Jackie: I’m not alone thinking there’s more secret anti MAGAts in the GQP House:
https://www.rawstory.com/jim-jordan-anti-maga-republicans/
Nukular Biskits
@Ruckus:
If only it were so. I heard him blathering on Hannity’s radio show a couple of weeks ago.
Montanareddog
@kalakal: Ah, Great Britain – the island that gave us William Shakespeare and William McGonagall, The Beatles and The Birdie Song, Winston Churchill and Liz Truss. It doth contain multitudes.
cain
A hallmark of your maga mark. Trump also reveals something else about our nation.
Anoniminous
@Geminid:
GOP has bound and pledged delegates. Bound delegates must vote for a specific candidate in the first round of convention voting and are free to vote for whomever thereafter. Pledged delegates are free to vote for whomever in the first round of voting.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@kalakal: It was a dark and stormy night.
[free association strikes again; not poetry but I think you’ll get the idea.]
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
I confess I’m nervous about using the 14th Amendment to keep Trump off the ballot, absent a conviction. I’m too afraid that one’s gonna turn around and bite us on the ass in the not-too-distant future.
My off-the-wall idea is that they should use the 22nd Amendment instead. He was elected in 2016, and he claims he was elected again in 2020. That’s twice, and “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” States should keep him off the ballot unless he states under oath that he was not elected in 2020.
Geminid
@Anoniminous: Trump’s influence may not be sufficient to elect a House Speaker, but he could end up keeping one from being elected. He’s a chaos agent, and some of his adherents in that caucus are chaos agents too.
Citizen Alan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She was. I’ve seen video footage of her from her time on Alaska local news (weather person, I think?) and she literally talked like her IQ was 20 points higher than it was when she was running for VP. It was like she’d simply assumed (probably correctly) that GOP voters don’t like people who “talk gooder than them” so she actively chose to dumb down her speaking patterns so as not to trigger them. And I can almost sympathize–when I was practicing law in Mississippi, I consciously developed a drawl because it seemed to be more soothing to my less educated clients.
Montanareddog
@lowtechcyclist:
Well said.
cain
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I will say this .. I don’t know of any other country that is so ignorant of what happens in their own country.
Even with the pandemic it didn’t seem like people were laser focused on policy or reassessing things politically given this is a disruption you can’t ignore. I cant help that Americans slept walked through the pandemic waiting for it just be over.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl: That’s awesome! And great use of “Hall of the Mountain King” as soundtrack.
ETA: Speaking of that piece of music:
Here’s a tune that’s quite perverse, it’s the same every verse…
kalakal
@Montanareddog: Something for everyone, that’s us.
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Snoopy was obviously preparing his entry for the
Bulwer-Lytton Contest
Dear Bulwer-Lytton, in his day he outsold Dickens, now he is hailed as the William McGonagall of the opening sentence
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus: Newt Gingrich is on my champagne list. Which is to say that he’s on my list of people whose deaths I will celebrate by drinking an entire bottle of champagne in one sitting.
Montanareddog
@lowtechcyclist: Not only is it great musical use of “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, it is metaphorically appropriate, since he is the King of the Trolls. I would like to think that was intentional.
eclare
@Montanareddog:
Interesting. I also submit that high school is too young to really appreciate Hamlet or King Lear. But MacBeth was cool. Witches!
eclare
@kalakal:
That’s what I was thinking, Yakety Sax! Or the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Montanareddog
@eclare: I say teach ’em Titus Andronicus. That’ll learn the little bastids!
Scout211
IANAL, but the fact that there is not a conviction (yet) for Trump’s involvement in the insurrection will likely make any of these lawsuits difficult, if not impossible, to win. My guess is, most of them will be dismissed at some point. But at the very least, making him
pay more moneyget more money from his donors to pay his attorneys’ fees is a good thing.Dorothy A. Winsor
@Geminid: It would be like the Speaker elections
NotMax
@Paul in KY
Which do you have in mind? Wacker Drive, Lower Wacker Drive or Lower Lower Wacker Drive?
Juju
@sdhays: Poo-shaw?
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT (if there is T): I finished reading Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, a fantasy novel about a 3-day battle. In my head, I was convinced that I was bored by fight or battles scenes, but holy cow, this one was fabulous. I think it’s because it’s about the people in the battle rather than just the exchange of attacks. Abercrombie stays in the heads of multiple people, alternating sides. The cast is huge, so I had to keep consulting the list of characters at the book’s start. But I was completely sucked in. It’s cynical about war but not about the people who fight them. A blurb on the front says “Abercrombie takes the grand tradition of high fantasy…and drags it down into the gutter in the best possible way.”
It was interesting to me that my library shelves this book with general fiction, not science fiction/fantasy.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: you have to factor in the people who voted for Jordan in order to stick it to someone else they hate more.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did you, like Senator Kennedy, learn your drawl from Mr Haney?
(I kid, I kid!)
dnfree
@Paul in KY: NEVER get on Lower Wacker Drive! People have disappeared there, never to be seen again.
frosty
@Nukular Biskits: I just read that out loud and once she stopped laughing Ms F said “What s gift.”
Thanks Betty C!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare: also the shortest tragedy, I believe? both factors meant to appeal to James I, I’ve read, His Sophomoric Majesty?
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
It’s more a matter of turnout. Judging by the numbers, millions of people voted for Trump who’d never voted before. They aren’t going to turn against the GOP if Trump’s not the nominee, it’s more a question of will they care enough to vote if he’s not the nominee, or will everything just be so much noise to them?
kalakal
@eclare: It also has the least diplomatic greeting in literature
“How now, you secret, black. and midnight hags”
Quite the charmer was our MacBeth
prostratedragon
@kalakal: Well at least he knew how to make the word “butresses,” um, stand out. How am I only now hearing of this man?
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon:
You’ll still be in town, but at least you’ll be having a ‘far out’ experience.
(Late to the party, but this seemed to deserve one more joke!)
raven
So this douche bag is making a big deal out of opening additional red snapper days in the Gulf whining about the anti-business Biden restrictions. The rub is that it only applies to “state” licensed boats and there are very few boat that have that license because you can only go nine miles off shore and then it becomes federal water.
StringOnAStick
@OzarkHillbilly: The web of forest roots covering bedrock can be like a throw rug. This summer we climbed to the 1,000′ summit of a rocky point by the ocean, and last winter a big storm peeled back a 20′ square carpet of huge conifers and shrubs, tossed them backwards down the lee side with the cemented in place park bench going along for the ride. The exposed bedrock and the tangled mat of what was peeled back made It all so clear that it had been very high and sustained winds. It was amazing to see such a scene of localized devastation on such a peaceful, sunny day. There were big trees down all along the trail, and the eastern branch of the trail was still closed due the damage.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Many of those Trump voters have already turned against the GOP. Some are quite vehement about this.
wjca
Even a few of them sufficiently knowledgeable of the Constitution (if ignorant of current events) to say: “I thought you couldn’t be President more than 2 terms.” There really are people even that oblivious.
Martin
When I was a kid, my grandmother showed me her AA coins. I didn’t know she was an alcoholic, and she took me to one of her meetings. I was 10 maybe, and she talked pretty openly about how that happened – it turned out to be the tip of the iceberg of the shit she had to go through in life. I was 10, I didn’t know how to respond to all of this and told her I thought she was a wonderful person, citing her career and stories I knew – she had just helped get an injured student out of a fairly dangerous location overseas and back to the US – and how my dad turned out. And she said that a lot of people helped her along the way. She told me “There no substitute for being a good person” and attributed the help she got from others for her efforts to always try to be kind and helpful to others.
Boy have there been a lot of times in my life when I rewound that moment of her saying that when I wanted to do something unkind and unhelpful.
I see DeSantis as someone who has no clue how to be a good person, but wrapped in the uniform of a Christian and elected official assumes he must be one. And then he steps on the stage and whiffs the line every time because he can’t in any way understand the motivations of this character he’s supposed to be playing.
wjca
Perhaps merely an advanced AI….
Fortunately, it can’t meet the age minimum to run.
Brachiator
It was inevitable that the political media would become disenchanted with DeSantis and this only adds to his problems. But how is he doing in the polls? And when is the next Republican presidential debate?
The DeSantis campaign, and that of other Republican aspirants, are in limbo because so much depends on what happens with Trump. This gives DeSantis some breathing room, even if he continues to screw up, as long as his campaign doesn’t collapse.
Brit in Chicago
@WaterGirl: “I believe they are eyeing Youngkin from VA.”
Thanks for the response. Youngkin—yuck! But is there an even somewhat coherent “they” here? The evidence of the last couple of weeks—actually of this whole year—is that there is not. Anyway, I wish them confusion and the circular firing squad.
Brit in Chicago
@sdhays: I was in Chicago in 2004. Obama had won the primary with almost as much ease as he won against Keyes (against a better opponent, of course). I am not to any extent a religious person, but I still could not help but think that it was almost as if the hand of god was clearing a path for him.
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: Yep. This is really how elections are won and lost in the US. It’s not really about which lever a person pulls, but whether they show up or not.
The media never really talk about the latter part because it’s not an interesting story. Nobody wants to positively identify with the person too apathetic to bother – and when they do run that story its always pretty cringe. So the story is always about the dozen or so actual swing voters in this country, as if there are enough of them to matter (there aren’t).
My guess here is that those Trump surge voters will largely stay home, and the Biden surge voters won’t, because Trump isn’t delivering for the former group, but still presents a HUGE threat to the latter group. In the end the question voters are asking is:
“What’s the worst Biden can do” and “What’s the worst Trump can do” and one of those lists is completely fictional and people know it, and one of those lists is very real and people know it.
Brit in Chicago
@Betty Cracker: “I think she’d be a more electable opponent in a general”
I respect that opinion, and maybe if I had to be I’d go that way—but there’s a lot of the TFIG base that it’s hard to see voting for her. (And base is the word.)
Frankensteinbeck
@Anoniminous:
Naah, Jordan had a constituency in the House before Trump opened his pie hole. It’s hard to know what, if any, effect Trump had. Presumably he had some. 84 votes against Scalise is reasonable even if Trump was uninvolved, though.
Emmet has a steep hill ahead of him, though. Trump doesn’t have to command many votes to sink him, and we have no clue how liked he is by the factions or individuals. If Emmet wins, Trump has no power at all over the House, and that’s the only thing we can learn.
Martin
@Brit in Chicago: It’s going to be really interesting to see how the timing of the trials influences the primaries. Right now, the GOP seems determined to take him on even if he’s going to be in prison at time of election, but there’s no cost to saying Trump is your person right now – polls aren’t binding. That’s why polls are unreliable until the decision becomes real, and we’re still a few months away from that. The timing with Super Tuesday is really ominous because Trump could practically roll up the nomination a couple days before the first really serious trial hits the ground. And then they’re going to be stuck.
Martin
@Frankensteinbeck: Emmet needs Democrats to win, and I think he’s the kind of candidate that could get a deal with Democrats.
I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I think it’s at least in the realm of possibility. Jordan was never in that realm.
prostratedragon
@Delk: Yeah, thanks, but …
There was a DuSable High School once. Note the listing of notable alumni; there is practically a DuSable wing of the jazz hall of fame, many of whose members also are highly regarded by other musicians. Thousands of other alum have been among the teachers and public servants who make the city go. Given a choice between making DuSable one of the showplace schools and letting it be dismantled into a couple of small charters, you can probably guess what the decision was. So, not mollified here.
Incidentally I noticed just now that a real star among those musicians, jazz and symphonic bassist Richard Davis, died in September. He was a favorite bassist of a range from Nina Simone to Igor Stravinsky and a professor at UWisc- Madison. There’s a trove on youtube under Richard Davis bassist,” including videos from his classes and music camps.
Brit in Chicago
@prostratedragon: Another pro tip to remember if you’re taking 90/94: in Chicago North is called “West” and South is called “East”.
mrmoshpotato
No. The best way to counter that is to not be a grownup eating pudding with your fingers.
MazeDancer
Apparently, DeSantis stunting left people fleeing Hamas stranded in Cyprus for days.
Orlando paper report
cmorenc
@prostratedragon:
Not sure about your advice to avoid getting lost in town by dropping acid…
prostratedragon
@kalakal: Oh god, mighty would be the flood of tears!
Brachiator
@Montanareddog:
Shakespeare wrote plays. Plays are meant to be performed. When I studied Shakespeare in college, I ran across one critic who insisted that Shakespeare was best appreciated when you read the text. The man was an idiot.
@eclare
Hamlet can be a sullen teenager. High School kids can relate to that. The TV production of King Lear is not perfect, but it deftly presents the story as a fairy tale. “Once upon a time, there was a foolish king who broke up his kingdom and gave it to his selfish daughters.”
cmorenc
@prostratedragon:
Not sure about your advice to avoid getting lost in town by dropping acid…can’t avoid going southbound by doing that.
Brit in Chicago
@Anoniminous: “Trump’s support for Jordan didn’t do a bit of good”
Well something got him about 90% of the way there. His own charm and congeniality, maybe?
sab
@Martin: I found, handing out sample ballots at early voting, is that a lot of younger voters are asking what i.d. they need. It changes with every election. And people are voting early because they don’t know where their polling place is, because that also changes with every election.
Brachiator
@prostratedragon:
I didn’t know that bassist Richard Davis had died. I loved his work with Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy.
And of course I first heard his work on the Van Morrison album, Astral Weeks. Magical.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon:
I think highways will go in any direction you want when on LSD.
Anoniminous
@Brit in Chicago:
Jordan’s support during the Speaker nominating election is a complete mystery. By all accounts the man is an odious toad. Usually not an asset for a politician beyond county supervisor.
Once the floor vote started other factors came into play, e.g., party loyalty, which to me explains what votes he did get.
Brit in Chicago
@Martin: “there’s no cost to saying Trump is your person right now – polls aren’t binding. That’s why polls are unreliable until the decision becomes real”
This strikes me as a very smart remark: thanks!
On the other hand, if there were a plausible alternative you might think that s/he would be starting to look like one around now, and I’m not seeing anyone yet (but maybe Younkin is positioned to make up a lot of ground v quickly, as Water Girl suggested?).
Brachiator
@Martin:
This applies in many countries. In the recent by elections in the UK, the turnover of a long held Tory area to Labour was attributed to previously loyal Tory voters staying home.
The media don’t say much about this because it is difficult to measure or to predict how many voters will choose to stay home. And of course practically all polls try to identify “likely voters.”
mrmoshpotato
@Anoniminous:
Toad slander! And on a Sunday!
Go Bears!
sdhays
@Brit in Chicago: A majority of the House Republican caucus actually doesn’t care who is Speaker and just wants to get on with the normal business. The problem is that now that they have allowed the “norm” of the entire caucus supporting the selection of the majority to be destroyed, the few with actual opinions will block everyone.
Mai Naem mobile
@WaterGirl: From what I’ve heard Youngkin has to get on the ball very very soon because of the rules and deadlines of getting on the ballot. I believe NH’s deadline is coming up soon. Also, Youngkin has to choose whether to skip this cycle altogether and not get the MAGats po’d at him permanently and just wait till 2028. He might have more competition in 2028 from GOP Senators but he would be one of the few governors and I believe the only purple state GOP governor. Not sure if GA is classified as purple yet.
Brachiator
@Brit in Chicago:
Very true. And early polls in particular are worthless.
But primaries are where you can begin to see voter preference. So, we may see things shake out there.
BTW. With all the craziness happening with the GOP, I presume that Trump is not going to sit out the Republican primaries.
sdhays
@Brit in Chicago: The money likes Youngkin now, but the money has a pretty shitty track record of identifying what the base will accept.
Mai Naem mobile
@Anoniminous: i think it’s related more to TFG and the MAGats than actual support for Jordan. That is the reason that I am concerned about what TFG and his MAGat pals in Congress have planned for Jan 2025. Imagine if Jordan had been Speaker on 1/6/2021.
Brit in Chicago
@sdhays: Right. I think there is an incipient deep split in the GQP between the base (which wants is Social Security and Medicare) and the money (which wants, guess what, more money, i.e. tax cuts). Once you add in the thing they all feel they have to say (but never act on), that deficits should be lower (even, god save the mark, that the budget should be balanced*), the contradiction becomes—well I was going to say “evident”, but I know it won’t be evident to some people.
*I remember when the budget was last balanced. Yes, it was under Bill Clinton! And I remember what happened to make that seem like a fantasy—Bush’s wars, Bush’s tax cuts, TFIG’s tax cuts. Someone needs to rub the right-wing’s nose in this.
Steeplejack
@Brit in Chicago:
That’s a weird nomenclature thing. All even-numbered interstates are nominally east-west, and all odd-numbered ones are north-south. Go figure.
sdhays
@Brit in Chicago: I still remember the deep sense of betrayal young me felt when the so-called non partisan Greenspan went from saying the economy needed debt reduction to saying not cutting taxes and ballooning the debt would be disastrous.
I’ve never recovered.
Mike in NC
USA Today‘s resident wingnut Ingrid Jacques thinks Pudding Fingers is dreamy and she’ll reliably puke up an article about that every week or two. She believes people can’t wait for him to turn the entire country into DeSantisland.
Geminid
@Brit in Chicago: In Virginia, the split has been between the Chamber of Commerce/ Country Club wing and an alliance if bible thumpers and more secular Tea Party types.
The 1st group used to call the shots for the party, but since Eric Cantor’s primary loss in 2014, they have been on the defensive and the 2nd group has been ascendant.
In 2021, Youngkin papered over the fault line with big checks for candidates and party operatives. If Youngkin had lost the two factions would have been at each other’s throats again. Youngkin won, but I think that just postponed the intra-party fight until 2026, after Abigail Spanberger reclaims the Governorship.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Interstate introspection.
;)
prostratedragon
@Brit in Chicago: What I’m talkin bout. I guess those directional signs are a concession to how local traffic uses those roads. But where you have the advantage of the Lake — it’s east! — use it.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: It would be nice if someone was able to figure out how much of the increased turnout was a consequence of TIFG, how much was a consequence of HRC losing as a result of Comey, etc., how much was a consequence of voting absentee (especially during the height of the pandemic), etc., how much is Dobbs.
I’m sure disgust with / being thrilled with TIFG was a big factor, but other things were at play as well.
I continue to think that making voting easier for everyone will break towards Democrats (and non-insane GOPers) benefit. And the country’s benefit. We really, really need national voting standards. And it’s going to be a more difficult slog than it should be until we have them.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Even making election day a holiday would help.
NotMax
@Brachiator
That could well lower turnout. People will blow off Monday and take a four day weekend away from home.
evodevo
@Geminid: The trees that were being lifted looked very shallowly rooted, with nothing but rocks underneath…I’d say they were bending in the wind, and their root systems were picking up the turf and lifting…
Brachiator
@NotMax:
I would keep election day on a Tuesday. I would also allow weekend voting.
If turnout is subsequently low, I would be fine with that. If people don’t want democracy you cannot force them to keep it.
Martin
Only in high turnout primaries. Primaries are too subject to self-selection to really extrapolate. Seeing all the Nazis turn out to support the nazi candidate tells us less about what the general populace is looking for in a candidate than it does about how many Nazis there are.
But I don’t see how DeSantis struggling relative to Trump tells us very much about because I haven’t seen any objective explanation of why voters are choosing one over the other, and there’s a perfectly reasonable assertion that the Republican electorate is *misreading* the appeal of one over the other to the general electorate, as an electorabilty strategy. Is DeSantis an unlikeable candidate? Yeah. We’ve all met Trump though. Is DeSantis an extreme candidate? Yeah. Trump initiated a coup.
My sense is that DeSantis doesn’t pass off as ‘tough’ enough to, you know, actually murder immigrants which I think the GOP electorate actually wants to have happen. This will both never be reported, and also never be believed, even if it’s true.
RevRick
Today, I participated in the Allentown (PA) Crop Walk with six other members of our church, ranging in age from three teens to three of us in our seventies. We all walked the six-mile route through the city. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott:
That’s what I was aiming for!
Brachiator
@Martin:
RE: But primaries are where you can begin to see voter preference. So, we may see things shake out there.
We agree that primaries say little about the general election. But the issue is the relative appeal of Republican candidates to Republican voters. I want to see how far Trump is ahead of any challenger. Where DeSantis falls is only important if Trump has to drop out, and maybe for 2028.
Otherwise, none of this is applicable to the general election.
Ksmiami
@smith: gah at first I read your comment as Ballroom Blitz… would be a good musical score to the GOP speaker follies though
Paul in KY
@NotMax: I think there’s also an Upper Wacker and East Wacker too! So many Wackers…
Paul in KY
@dnfree: Will do. Try to stay on Lakeshore and Michigan, when possible.
Frankensteinbeck
@Martin:
I heard, and I don’t have a source to cite to confirm this, that the Republican voters have so totally accepted the ‘Biden is senile’ lie that they aren’t concerned about electability. They think anyone can beat Biden easily.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: I have noticed that strain of overconfidence among Republican who are discounting Biden’s strength.
Ken
@Martin: I can’t help but think that if some candidate had sewn up the Democratic nomination, and was then convicted of multiple felonies, the Democrats would find a way to nominate someone else at the convention and not just shrug and say “we’re stuck with him”. I guess that’s one benefit of having agency.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t drink so please, have one for me….
Ruckus
@Martin:
I consider DeathSanta to be rather stupid. Not sure he was that stupid as a child-teen but he sure seems to have taken a strong hold on the stupid as he aged, such that he seems to be about 6 blocks short of the trip to not the stupidest person in any room or open field he’s in or near.
wjca
I know this is a dead thread by now, but…
That nomenclature dates back before the Interstates. US 101 was north-south. US (Route) 66 was east-west. If you want reasons, you have to go way back.
Hey, at least there was a system.
yellowdog
@Mai Naem mobile: BUT he can’t succeed himself as governor so he will be out of sight by 2026.