Democratic Party primary also-rans Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips and Cenk Uygur are threatening to sue the Democratic Party of Florida because the state committee submitted one name for the upcoming primary, Joe Biden, effectively cancelling the state party’s primary election. From the Tampa Bay Times:
“We’re not trying to create a conflict here,” progressive political commentator Cenk Uygur, who launched a presidential bid last month, said during a Friday news conference alongside fellow 2024 hopeful Marianne Williamson. “We’re just trying to do the bare minimum of getting on the ballot. And we’ve all earned it, and there’s no need for this conflict.”
Yes, they are trying to create a conflict, and no, they didn’t earn it. There are rules governing how candidates can get their names on the primary ballot. The rules are published online. None of the also-rans qualified, including Dean Phillips, whose top advisor takes a more threatening tone:
“We’re consulting with lawyers now and I think we’ll take a multi-pronged approach,” [Phillips campaign senior advisor Jeff Weaver] said. “A lawsuit if appropriate, an appeal to the Democratic National Committee and, if none of those resolve this problem, a credentials challenge at the convention, which could result in Florida losing all its delegates.”
A spokesperson for FL Dems explains that these dopes were asleep at the switch:
The party chose its roster of candidates at a meeting of its state executive committee in October — a decision that went under the radar.
Eden Giagnorio, the Florida Democratic Party’s communications director, said Biden was the only candidate nominated for the ballot and was consequently the only one whose name was submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office.
She said that the process by which the party determines names to submit for the primary ballot was routine and had been made available on the party’s website months ago.
“It was posted for months. It wasn’t a secret. There was no conspiracy,” Giagnorio said. “They didn’t get any votes. It’s not our responsibility to whip for them.”
Williamson, Phillips and Uygur are calling FL Dems “anti-democratic” for leaving their names off the ballot, but Giagnorio counters that “bending the rules for latecomers” would be anti-democratic. She’s right.
Open thread.
On The Road – dmbeaster – Spring bloom, California
Baud
Gotta follow the rules, but the rules should change so getting in the ballot is an objective of criterion.
Baud
Marianne Williamson has no excuse. She’s a veteran at this.
matt
well, it sounds like some lawyers will get some work.
Baud
I had forgotten about this. He’s not even eligible because he wasn’t born here, right?
p.a.
Post on Florida Dems getting something right?
I’m gonna play the lottery!
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Williamson said she was on the FL ballot last time because she was included in the debates. I don’t remember what the process was in 2020, but it seems unlikely the state party would link ballot access to debate appearances.
I don’t think the current process is great, but the rules were published and followed. That’s gotta be how it works.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Has Fried said anything?
sab
@Baud: Is his mother from Turkey? I think she is. So no, not eligible. Not born here and neither were his parents. Sucky rule, but people like him are why we have it.
Baud
@sab:
And Musk!
Leto
@Betty Cracker: She, like the rest of the dopes, think that because the RNC (and Republicans writ large) doesn’t give a shit about the rules, then the same has to be true for Dems/DNC. They think they can pull Trumpov style bullshit, but that doesn’t fly here. It doesn’t help that most of them hired RNC operatives to manage their campaigns. Dumbasses.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That is correct.
eta: wiki- Uygur was born in Istanbul, Turkey, to a Turkish Muslim family. He immigrated with his family to the United States when he was eight years old.[6]
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s got Geminid’s vote!
Leto
Some good news: Hollywood Stars Are Lining Up to Shower Lauren Boebert’s Opponent With Cash
Fingers crossed and all.
Tony Jay
By “under the radar” does the writer mean “doesn’t usually happen this way and seems to have been a hasty subterfuge to nail down the nomination for Biden”, or do they mean “wasn’t toot-tooted all over the show because that’s the way Florida decides it’s nominations and choosing Biden was so non-controversial that a press release wasn’t deemed necessary”?
I think I’ll put my money on B, but the News Media doing its best to leave A hanging around as a reasonable implication without actually saying yes or no is firmly on-brand.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Fried clapped back on a dumb and hysterical comment from Dean Phillips that compared FL Dems to the Iranian regime. Fried basically said what the spokesperson quoted above said about the rules.
I get the feeling Dean Phillips is way too emotional to be president. He flips out over everything, which is disqualifying. He should drop out.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto:
And I claim Boebert is receiving Putin dark money. The difference is my claim could actually be true.
eta: @Betty Cracker: Dean Phillips desperately wants to be relevant. He never will be and he knows it.
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Besides that he is a dopey candidate. No appeal at all that I could see in his New Hampshire ad.
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: I translated “under the radar” as “we didn’t cover it,” but to be fair, maybe they did cover the meeting and I just missed it, what with all the nauseating GOP corruption and creepy Repub sex scandals to read about, etc.
I don’t remember how the primaries were conducted here during previous Dem administrations. I don’t remember voting for Obama in a 2012 primary, but that was like 600 years ago…
NotMax
Cheers!
90 years ago today the 21st Amendment went into effect, ending Prohibition.
Curiously enough, it was Utah which provided the requisite number of states voting for ratification.
catclub
Unity Ticket with Schwarzenegger
catclub
yeah, they left out, ‘meeting of its state executive committee in October [just like they have done for the past 9 presidential primaries]’
or some number
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: I can’t find a 2012 Florida primary ballot image online, but my recollection is Barack Obama was the only name listed and then there was the line to write someone else in.
Harrison Wesley
Ms. Cracker – I don’t follow news as much as I should, but I think Nikki Fried can resurrect Florida Democrats. This state shouldn’t be in thrall to the religion of Jesus Trump Goober; it’s got so many wonderful things. I moved here from Pennsylvania, which has its own problems, but where I would happily move back if LOML told me to pound sand.
So – a long-winded way of asking – what do you think Dem chances are here?
Princess
They want to push a “DNC hates democracy” message again because it worked in 2016 to help elect Trump. Those rats won’t fuck themselves. I assume Williamson is in this for grift and Phillips is clearly a vain idiot but Uygur wants Biden to lose.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Gonna try to be funny in this thread?
Frankensteinbeck
@catclub:
I wonder if Schwarzenegger has gone nuts. I would put him as the last reasonable Republican. An asshole with bad policies? Absolutely. But when a black man was elected president and the rest of the Republican Party went absolutely self-destructively deranged, he remained merely bad without going down that rabbit hole. Strong proponent of green energy, which was always unusual in a Republican.
A lot more of this fellows have slipped down into fascist insanity since then. It’s utterly unimportant, but still, I wonder if he’s one of them.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: As far as I can tell… no, he’s gone actively anti-fascist. Schwarzenegger is disgusted by them, because he had family who were literal Nazis and he saw the cost of that, and he’s been putting out videos trying to talk them out of it.
TBone
@Frankensteinbeck: Schwarzenegger put out this PSA back in March:
youtu.be/jsETTn7DehI
Kay
Scout211
ProPublica, PBS Frontline and The Texas Tribune released their documentary today on the Uvalde school shooting, “Someone Tell Me What To Do.”
Check your local listings or stream it starting today.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
I didn’t say he was good. I said he wasn’t insane, at a time when the rest of his party was careening off a cliff.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Betty Cracker
@Harrison Wesley: I wish I knew. I think Fried has a lot of good ideas but hardly any money to implement them. Big donors are tired of getting burned reaching for that 29 EC vote prize, so they’ve tapped out. We’re going to have to bootstrap change within the state or it’s not going to happen.
I do think Repubs are giving us an opportunity by being so clownish, evil and corrupt, but I’ve seen us squander too many opportunities to assume we’ll benefit from their blunders. Plus, the population trends are not in our favor right now.
I don’t think the state is hopeless in the long term, but it will be a long, hard slog to turn things around.
Mai Naem mobile
@Frankensteinbeck: no, Schwarzenegger’s been a shock8ngly pleasant surprise. If somebody told me 20 years ago I would be saying positive stuff about Schwarzenegger I would ask them what they were smoking. He’s got a really good video out about disinformation and autocrats which refers to his dad and other people he knew in Austria post-WW11. The Biden folks should use him for messaging about democracy and disinformation. He’s a really good communicator.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I can even hear Joe Pesci’s voice.
Geminid
@Baud: Hey! I’m more of a Memleket (Homeland) Party guy. We old-school Kemalists have no use for Leftists like Uyger.
Kay
@Mai Naem mobile:
He’s a both sides suck, we need more PIZZAZZ! moron. He thinks if we just get some smart people around a table we can get things done- like “Ronald Reagan” did!
For someone who left office at 23% approval he’s very confident he knows what people want.
TBone
@Mai Naem mobile: Nobody can punch Nazis like Arnold, he’s an antifa hero. He’s not a great politician, but he’s a fabulous spokesperson for enightenment.
Kay
In 2028 Democrats will have “new blood” and a “new generation” and I guarantee all of these people who are bemoaning the lack of new blood will find something new to dislike about all the Democrats.
3Sice
Jeff Weaver – that’s a name I haven’t heard of in four years.
I guess if your job is pressing crooked Dems narratives into the media, you work with what you got.
Baud
@Kay:
You can book it.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: They’ll be WOKE WOKE CRAZY WOKE, of course. When you have even supposed “left radicals” complaining that the feminist and trans rights stuff went too far and is crazy woke, you know they’re not going to actually like the younger generation.
Scout211
After suffering through two terms here in California, I am admittedly biased against Arnold.
Yes, he is better now but he still is a Republican and is not voting for Biden. He has publicly stated that he isn’t in favor of either Trump or Biden. Link
ETA: and what Kay said at #37
Kay
@Baud:
Schwarzenegger thinks Manchin should be president because Manchin “comes from an energy state”
What?
We should stop hiring celebrities to run the country. They’re mostly morons.
OzarkHillbilly
QFT.
Ben Cisco
@Kay: The man is an idiot.
And yes, come 2028 he and the other usual suspects will find fault with the new blood, particularly in the form of Kamala Harris.
He can preemptively get stuffed.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: There will be a lot of White Males like Bill Maher bitching about “Gender Politics.” They might even threaten to withold their votes if a white man is not on the ticket. Not blackmailing the Party so much as WhiteMaling it.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
The ridiculous nostalgia of “we need a Ronald Reagan or a JFK” – the people of this country don’t exist to play a role in conservative fantasies about the US.
catclub
@Kay: I am sorry I brought him up. I was joking.
Suzanne
@Ben Cisco:
Nominated.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: In 2020 we got the candidate we needed and “nobody” appreciates the job he’s doing because he’s “old.”
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Barack Obama had that kind of star power and was actually pretty good. But it’s frustrating that that seems to be what we need.
Kay
@catclub:
I’m sorry I got so worked up – that “independent voter” idiocy just drives me crazy.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
There’s this kind of arrogance with commentary on Biden that I think comes from shallowness – how he’s always underestimated. Joe Biden is fundamentally reshaping the economy to be more equitable. It’s not “small ball”. It’s huge and it’s difficult.
NotMax
@Kay
Sure it’s not autocorrect doing its thing on “in Depends voter?”
//
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
Just want to note that Joe Manchin is 76 years old. If Biden is too old, so is Joe Manchin. (Trump too, but we’re talking Dems here…)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: And, on the margins, it has some consequences that most people don’t like, and are inclined to punish him for (fairer wages mean higher prices, other things being equal).
Ken
Baud is always trying.
It’s practically one of his campaign slogans.
Kay
@NotMax:
There’s a lot of voters like him. They’re a problem. They’re vulnerable to the idea – for example- that a comically corrupt coal baron should be president because he’s a “Democrat from a red state” because they don’t actually give this any real thought.
Anyway
@Geminid:
There’s a fascinating museum in Ankara dedicated to all things Attaturk – including his shaving set and a kewl old-skool workout contraption made of leather and wood.
it contains the proclamation establishing the Turkish republic and decrees that “all Turks will speak Turkish”, “Turks will adopt new (western-style) surnames and give up Islamic titles”, “all Turks will wear western clothing”… many references to the war of Independence and the “actions of the wicked Sultan”
Mike E
True, rubles spend just like pennies these days.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: “Gender politics” is going to be THE central issue in US politics for a long time to come, so anyone thinking Democrats can or should back off on it to win elections can get stuffed. It clearly already is and not everyone has gotten the memo.
And it’s mostly working for us, not against us. I think the instincts of pundits over 50 or so are entirely contrary to that.
Ken
One of the things lost with the move to electronic news is the layout. You used to be able to say “Yes, that was reported, but the newspaper gave it three column inches on page C-26.” Now, although it’s easier to find the article on the online site, there’s no real record of how the site prioritized it. Above or below the story about the guy arrested for speeding and found to have a trunkload of baby alligators and crystal meth?
Which reminds me, I just started Dave Barry’s new novel Swamp Story, and it’s got some similarities to some of your reports.
3Sice
2016 is a long time in the rearview, but there is nostalgia for the days of rage against Hillary among the beltway set.
Soprano2
@Kay: I hate the way people think we could pass a law and magically “solve” immigration. Things like that are constantly evolving, and need new and different solutions as they evolve. We do need immigration reform, which would make things a lot better for awhile, but eventually circumstances would change and there would be a need for new laws to adapt to the changes. It’s like the idea that we could “permanently” fix Social Security.
narya
So yesterday I listened to the Pod Save America interview with Phillips–until he started yammering about the “problem solvers caucus” and how awesome they are (I hadn’t realized he was a member of it). I had been rolling my eyes a lot, but that made me nope right out of the rest of the interview. They kept pushing him: you voted with Biden 100% of the time, so where do you disagree? He wouldn’t come right out and say “he’s ooooooooold,” just the “new ideas plus bipartisanship” bullshit. Also, at the beginning, they started off with “how do you differ?” and he just sidestepped and said “lemme tell you ’bout my
campaign stump speechhistory.” It had the same effect on me that people actually meeting DeSantis has on them.Baud
@narya:
Have they ever solved a problem?
Kay
@Soprano2:
Agree. Media are already behind what’s actually happening with immigration. Asians are the fastest growing immigrant group but the entire media focus is on the southern border. It’s complex! It changes not just because of policy in this country but because of policy and economic changes in other countries. Mexico has more opportunity now- fewer people are leaving and many are going back.
Matt McIrvin
@narya: Phillips’ only idea beyond vague nods at bipartisanship seems to be “only I can beat Trump”, which to me sounds a lot like Trump’s “only I can fix it”. And he can’t articulate why only he can beat Trump.
Soprano2
@Geminid: So, same as the situation now. White male butthurt over not automatically being in charge of everything and first in line for all the good jobs has caused a lot of problems in this country. They tout the idea of competition, but they actually hate having competition from anyone other than another white male unless they can be assured of winning. Not all white males, of course, just the butthurt ones.
narya
@Baud: Hah! that was EXACTLY my question in my head.
Here’s the thing: I welcome people proposing different analyses and different solutions to the questions about how we should govern ourselves. What I loathe, nearly 100% of the time, is the folks who do not have a single proposal, but yammer endlessly about how we need to be more bipartisan, blah blah blah. Tell me your actual plan.
narya
@Matt McIrvin: He said that “someone else” had a better chance of beating TIFG than Biden does, so he is nobly volunteering, because Biden can’t possibly beat TIFG. Asshole.
Kay
@narya:
Democrats promising bipartisanship is a fools errand in the current climate. How the fuck was Biden supposed to start his term on a bipartisan basis? He would have had to voluntarily give up his win and give it to Trump. That was the GOP’s opening offer – don’t be President and let our loser take the seat.
These aren’t negotiations under any ordinary meaning of the word. A negotiation doesn’t begin with “I will blow up the entire economy unless I get what I want”.
Soprano2
@Kay: I can’t remember if you do podcasts or not. I listened to some of “The Wilderness”, where one of the O-Boys talks to focus groups of Obama to TFG voters in an attempt to try to figure out how people could change like that. As a politics-knowing person, it made my head hurt but was informative. One man liked both AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene because “they stand up to the establishment”! The normies don’t think the way you and I do about politics and political candidates.
Soprano2
@Kay: I heard a story on NPR this morning about Mandela because it’s the tenth anniversary of his death. They were talking about how some young South African activists think he was a sell-out because he didn’t do enough to help black South Africans and worked too much within the system! Nelson Mandela, a sellout – the mind boggles at how stupid that is, and yet some of these young people believe it. It’s unfortunate that with youthful passion can also come ignorance like that. People who weren’t there or involved in it have no idea how difficult some of these things are. Same with Biden, he makes things that are a big lift look easy, and he gets little credit for it.
narya
@Kay: Exactly. Tire rims and anthrax–I swear to you, when folks start blathering about bipartisanship, I think that to myself.
Jeffro
@Kay:
@OzarkHillbilly:
we could make it impossible for movie stars, new age gurus, pop princesses, and reality TV show goofs to run for president (as their first elected office, anyway)
Or we could just wait and see how President Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson handles Crises X, Y, and Z (especially if they happen all at once).
Ironically enough, the only way we could drum up enough popular support for an amendment banning political neophytes from our nation’s highest office would be if political neophyte Taylor Swift came out in support of it. And why would she want to close off her options like that? =)
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Yeah, I’m not getting on the Schwarzenegger train.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I do listen to podcasts. I did canvassing for years so I have heard the “normie independent” idiocy over and over. They always act like no one ever thought of this – no one ever thought of “getting around a table” and “hammering out differences”, like people go to work every day and say “how can I NOT get along with other people and also not solve problems?” These are not genuis insights! Demanding people “get along” is not a plan! If Bidne wanted to get along with Republicans his first act as President would have been to resign and give the win to Trump. That’s what they demanded.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Insomnia?
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Now, now, Dean’s doing the best he can. He can’t help it that he’s a midwestern white guy with inherited wealth. Given all that, he’s doing quite well, for a man.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
Maybe the PSA guys asked the following, or came close, but I’d kill for them to have pinned Phillips down with, “So ok, Biden is old. Let’s say he dies while in office. VP Harris is already in alignment with the administration’s policies, is already current on the briefings, knows all the cabinet secretaries, etc. You already voted for the Biden/Harris agenda 100% of the time. Why not just watch her the oath of office and throw yourself into supporting her administration in our country’s hour of need?”
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Abigail Spanberger solved the problem of Dave Brat.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@narya: I cut out of that same interview at about the same place.
Leto
@Jeffro:
But we did have a “celebrity” be president, and it went even worse than we could have imagined. Economy cratered, over a million deaths from Covid, international standing tarnished, on the brink of an authoritarian take over… we had X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, and AD all happen at once. The cognitive dissonance required to forget his presidency is just…
OzarkHillbilly
Very Republican.
Jeffro
The Post has up a piece about Liz Cheney contemplating a 3rd-party run in order to stop trump. I was a little irritated to see it, then read through to the important part…the conclusion she’ll almost certainly come to when she realizes that she has neither the time, money, or following that would enable any sort of viable run:
and this too
I’m glad to see this out there – it certainly needs to be part of the media coverage and national discussion going forward. trumpov’s not the only threat here.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: whoops…”watch her take the oath of office”
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: I think his line is that Biden can’t possibly win so a vote for not-Dean-Phillips is a vote for Trump. Because he said so.
Betty Cracker
I laughed because it’s true!
Despite the fact that the majority of Repubs are now in an insane cult, Biden has taken a bipartisan approach in every situation where it’s humanly possible. He’s still talking up bipartisanship even when he has no real negotiating partners. I used to think it was naivety, but now I think he’s trying to model good governance in the hope/belief that one day there will be a loyal opposition to work with.
Matt McIrvin
@Leto: Many of the rundowns I’ve seen comparing Trump’s performance to Biden’s simply characterize everything from spring 2020 on as not Trump’s fault. We’re supposed to compare Biden to pre-COVID Trump, who was apparently awesome.
And I think that’s the subtext. Trump was President just before COVID, so electing him will somehow take us back to before COVID.
Kay
There’s this awareness growing in the health care system that women are mistreated generally by providers – they aren’t listened to or believed when they self report and men are listened to and believed. It comes up most often in pregnancy and delivery because that’s where young women most encounter the health care system. Younger women do not accept being disrespected and ignored by a provider.
I just think it’s really interesting that medical practice is going in this direction – more respect and autonomy for women patients– a recognition that there’s a bias – while the anti abortion movement and Republicans go in the opposite direction. It’s truly amazing how out of touch conservatives are on this issue – they are just in the dark ages.
Abortion was never just about abortion and that becomes more and more clear the longer this issue percolates.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: I fear you’re right.
I hope her people are talking with Ben Wikler and the WiscDem folks to get some ideas. Have on-line live fundraisers like the Princess Bride reading and similar fun things. Create some cheap buzz and get people out of the doom funk, raise some money, and keep going.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gretchen
Pod Save America did a good interview with Phillips. He complained about how the powers that be “coronate” who they want. They said no, with Obama we spent a year in all 50 states learning and following the rules to get on the ballot. He said if he’s ahead in the polls next summer Biden should drop out. They were like, overturn millions of voters because of polls? No, you beat Biden by beating Biden.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Even if you don’t ding Trump for COVID, it’s still wrong to ignore that Biden inherited COVID.
But people ignored what Obama inherited from Bush, so it’s not unexpected.
Baud
@Gretchen:
Sounds like Weaver has taken control of the campaign. Everything reminds me of Bernie 2016, except the pushback.
Soprano2
@narya: That was a good interview because they did make a real effort to let him tell why people should vote for him, and he failed at it utterly. I suspect he’s yet another of those people who is worried about Kamala Harris becoming president, but of course he knows he can’t say that out loud in public. Otherwise his run makes absolutely no sense. Saying “I voted for what Joe Biden wants 100% of the time and I agree with everything he wants to do but I don’t think he should run again” makes no sense to anyone.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: oh, I know. Infuriating.
@Matt McIrvin: It will; he’ll potentially get to ride in, AGAIN, on the hard work Dems did to rebuild everything he/Republicans blew up, just so everyone can go: oh, look how well Republicans do with the economy! Fucking infuriating.
@Gretchen: yeah, how DARE the party get behind… *checks notes* The current president. That’s what’ll really unite the entire base. Throw out the current president, not to mention his awesome VP, and nominate super loser stink back bencher. Moran.
Another Scott
@Ken: Linkrot is another thing that’s going to damage attempts at studying the history of these times. (It already means that finding the original of TBogg’s “Mumia sweatshirt” is not easy.)
(I hope that Adam is saving PDFs (or similar) of his posts – we all know that all his Twitter links are going to die in the not-too-distant future.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s because that’s where the Republican focus is due to “scary brown people” coming from there. It’s criminal the way the press reports on immigration, for the most part they report platitudes and Republican talking points rather than talking about the real issues. The real problem with asylum seekers is that it takes so long for them to be able to work – if they could seek work quickly, none of the cities would mind having them at all. They’re only a problem because they can’t take care of themselves for so long, but it’s rare that the press actually talks about that.
Soprano2
@Kay: Like what’s going on with the Israel/Ukraine aid bill right now. House Republican’s ask is “implement all of TFG’s immigration policies and we might vote for this bill”. That’s not tenable.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
What made me give up on Ohio- other thanworking on the pro choice amendment which was my last effort here- was not that it’s gerrymandered or full of racist northerner Trumpists. That I could deal with. It was the massive corruption and that no one cared about it.
Ohio Republicans robbed citizens with the First Energy scandal. The plan was to take money directly from ordinary people and pass it to this company, who would in turn donate to Republicans. They were all fucking in on it! Just about every Republican has some connection to it. The state shrugged. No one cared.
It’s still going on. This was a couple of days ago:
The truth is without a DOJ (federal prosecution) nothing would have ever happened because the state AG is completely corrupt too, as is the states highest court. They would have gotten away with it but for the US attorney. This state is drowning in corruption. I don’t know how to fix that.
Soprano2
@Kay: Plus, what they don’t understand is that “hammering out differences” isn’t the problem, it’s getting enough votes in Congress for these things. I don’t doubt that around 80-85% of the people in Congress could come to an agreement on ways to reform immigration, taxes, and other things. It’s the 15-20% of people who want only extreme ideas that get in the way of enacting change most people could agree on.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: Oh, I wish they had asked that question, because to me that gets to the heart of the problem most of these people really have with Biden’s age. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
Soprano2
This is true. Too many people seem to believe that bringing back TFG will also bring back pre-Covid prices (without, of course, bringing back their pre-Covid wages too). It’s crazy, but I guess that’s human nature for you.
RaflW
Holy carp.
Jeff Weaver is now a senior advisor to Dean Phillips? I knew he was using apostate Republicans, but I didn’t know that he was desperate/stupid enough to use Jeff fucking Weaver.
21 Men Accuse Lincoln Project Co-Founder of Online Harassment
Jan. 31, 2021
John Weaver, a longtime G.O.P. operative who advised John McCain and John Kasich, made sexual overtures to young men, sometimes offering to help them get work in politics.
Soprano2
@Gretchen: Plus, if he were more popular than Biden wouldn’t he have won those primaries? Yeah, that was crazy, the idea that if polling says he’s more popular then he should be the candidate. We have primaries to decide that, run in them to get votes you moron.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I’m extremely pro immigration – I don’t think I’m in the mainstream. I just think the US is different than any other country because so few of us are original to the land. It’s really a fundamentally diferent idea than somewhere like Denmark (I use that because I spend some time there). Danes are indigenous to Denmark. Very few Americans are indigenous to North America. It’s a different relationship and US immigration law and policy has always reflected that. I prefer the US relationship with the land- the ground of the country. I think Europe can be really tribal in a way that I reject.
Obama was the best speaker on my view. Just really eloquent about the US being “an idea” more than a land mass. But I know people will always focus on a scarcity idea -that there isn’t “enough” of something or other and people might take theirs. I think there’s plenty of room.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: I should have started with, “To state the obvious…”
catclub
Mostly no. They continued to blame Bush for the bad economy well into Obama’s two terms. It is the only case I know of where that has happened.
Soprano2
@Kay: Especially when the unemployment rate is 3% and you can’t swing a cat without hitting a “help wanted” sign. We have plenty of room for new people here.
catclub
I am too. We are a nation of immigrants and that is our strength.
We have also always generally tended to want to pull up the ladder after our group is established.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think the mistake that Democrats make with immigrants is they don’t recognize that immigrants chose this country. They prefer it, in my experience. They’re US boosters hence they go to all thatfucking trouble to get and stay here. Democrats do this sad sack thing “oh, but the racism and the economic challenges” and immigrants are like “so it was a MISTAKE, my coming here?” :)
My youngest has a college friend from Pakistan – he’ll be staying with us Christmas – and he’s crazy blunt and funny. He wants to stay in the US after college because he wants to be “upper middle class” – not rich! Just upper middle. Lol. I said “good! That’s a good goal!”
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Yup. There are about 10,000 problems that we have that we know how to solve, but institutional roadblocks (“unanimous consent” and all the rest) get in the way. There’s a case to be made that big changes should be difficult and take time, but the US has gone too far into the “change is nearly impossible” direction.
What do we want!
Incremental progress!!
When do we want it!
As soon as reasonably practical!!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Hamlet of Melnibone
@Kay: Batman. Batman is the solution to corruption. :)
Kay
@Soprano2:
The mayor of Detroit, Duggan, shares my view on immigration and he has used it to great benefit for Detroit. All the energy and economic spark in the city comes from immigrants. Detroit has plenty of room it’s huge as a place (not population, acres) for one thing and they had lost so much population. I try to make them feel welcome locally.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker:
Phillips entire campaign argument is “Polls say lots of voters would prefer someone else. I am someone else, therefore voters will prefer me!”
OzarkHillbilly
Currently in jail, awaiting sentencing. If I had punched a cop, no doubt I would have gotten a solid beating.
Kay
@Hamlet of Melnibone:
In 2005 there was a GOP scandal in Ohio that led to Democrats sweeping the state offices. Coingate. Compared to FirstEnergy it was chump change and in 2021 FirstEnergy didn’t even make a ripple.
So they’re inured to the corruption. They accept it – in 2005 they didn’t but they do now. They no longer care. I don’t know what to do with that other than get out. Obviously I’m lucky because I CAN. not all people can.
Redshift
@Kay: I don’t have a link handy, but there’s solid research showing that immigrants as a group are basically always a net positive economically because they’re the people from their country with the drive and skills to get themselves here. (And a net negative for the countries they leave, which is sometimes unfortunate.)
Baud
@Kay:
We’re forced to vote for Democrats because we’re anti-fascist,* and we forget that Republican voters are forced to vote for Republicans because they are fascist. So they can’t do anything about the corruption.
* Which is why I’m pleased that the NJ governor is a Dem.
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: The Biden campaign is planning to invest significantly in Florida, according to… some information I’m maybe not supposed to talk about, but I didn’t have any special access, so I can’t imagine it’s really secret.
So maybe that’ll provide enough resources to jumpstart things.
Baud
@Redshift:
Oooh. Florida and North Carolina. It would be sweet to win those states back.
Baud
@Redshift:
I would just like to point out that I, too, am someone else.
OzarkHillbilly
‘Good morning!’: how two words could transform your life
I can think of only one thing to say: Blech.
OzarkHillbilly
@Redshift: Yep. When trump said Mexico was sending us their worse people, I couldn’t help thinking they were sending us their best.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: You misspelled something.
Matt McIrvin
Still seeing people predicting impending doom in Michigan because of a move by Muslim leaders to torpedo Biden’s campaign as punishment over Israel/Palestine (presumably considering this issue as important enough for Muslims to voluntarily take the hit of an Islamophobic second Trump administration).
I don’t have any sense of whether the numbers make sense.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh. Who woulda thunk Jeff Weaver would wind up working for a campaign that was basically a rat-fucking op against Democrats
3Sice
@Baud:
There is always a constituency for old white cranks speaking “truth” to power.
This candidate ain’t got it.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I just read that Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney will run for Governor in 2025. That sets up a primary battle between him and Rep. Spanberger. I think that will actually be a good thing, but I’ll still be voting for Spanberger.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@narya: Weird, because there’s empirical evidence that Biden can beat Trump, and that was ninety-one indictments ago.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
And the legislative part has been done with the narrowest of majorities. I’m still in awe of how much he (and Pelosi and Schumer) accomplished in the last Congress. And I’m equally impressed by how he’s actually using all the tools that many years of past legislation has given to the Executive Branch.
This is a Big Fucking Deal. And the ‘liberal’ media are doing their level best to make sure that nobody realizes it.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
Can’t argue with that. ;-)
CaseyL
The thing about those psuedo-Dem candidates is, this is a grift for them and nothing more. They’re like the GOP that way. They’ll fundraise over being excluded from the ballot, make a lot of money and noise. They are not in any way serious candidates for office. The Democratic Party made a HUGE mistake in 2016, letting Sanders run as a Democratic Presidential Candidate when he wasn’t a Democrat. (It was a mistake even if he hadn’t torched the Democratic Party before and after.) Now everyone thinks they’re entitled to do so.
lowtechcyclist
@narya:
And there’s another thing: Biden has had far more success at accomplishing things by reaching across the aisle than I would have hoped for, given the nature of today’s GOP. And without giving away the store to the GOP to do so.
Does Phillips think he’s going to magically be better at this than Biden has been? Certainly nobody else should think that.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: A lot of Americans are intuitively white nationalists without necessarily admitting that that’s what they are. They just have a vague idea that “normal Americans” are white Christian English speakers and that it’s normal and unproblematic for policy to reflect that, sort of in the way that European states are explicitly ethnic in nature… except that we invented “the white race” as an elastic way to have that kind of identity without being too specific about national origin.
When they think about immigration, these ideas surface. A lot of conservatives, in particular, seem to think of the 1965 immigration reform as some kind of “Great Replacement” dirty trick foisted by liberals upon Normal Americans. But I think even a lot of self-described liberals, especially older ones, also think this way. They may carve out an exception for African-Americans and Native Americans.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think that’s exactly right.
@Redshift: That would be great!
Kosh III
“But we did have a “celebrity” be president, and it went even worse than we could have imagined.”
For a moment I thought you meant Ronald Raygun.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kosh III: Him too.
Leto
@Kosh III: calm down, Doc Brown. Reagan at least held elected office before his presidency.
Mai Naem mobile
@Kay: okay so i didn’t know he was a both sides guy as far as Biden. He’s still been a shocking surprise to me. I remember him being a bigoted RWinger and I do remember his promising everything to everybody to win the recall election. And I do remember the Enron style utility screwing of CA under him. I still think he can be used to fight disinformation aimed at low information voters. He really has a knack(I assume from his acting career) of simplifying stuff into winners and losers – right and wrong. That is something we desperately need in these times.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Nah they create problems for others to solve. That’s the Rs, actually, Problem Children Caucus.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Well put. I struggle with it in thinking about Denmark because 1. it’s a tiny country 2. Danes are actually indigenous and 3. I think worrying about losing their language (for example) is a real fear – that could happen. They also have much more of a social compact that we do, in that they have a robust, universal welfare state. I think concerns about immigrants “not buying into that” (what Danes fear) are also real. They also just value order so the idea of unrestrained anything upsets them.
But the US is very different. There’s a lot of different ways to “buy in” to the US way of living and culture. I dont know why conservatives don’t value that. I do. I prefer it to the Danish approach.
Mai Naem mobile
@Kay: I’ve read bits and pieces about that scandal for a few years now. I don’t understand how a scandal that large doesn’t bring down the GOP in Ohio. AFAIK there isn’t one Dem involved in the scandal so you can’t both sides it.
Kay
@Mai Naem mobile:
I didn’t mean to jump all over you. I just read his interviews on Biden last night so it was fresh. That simplistic view just makes me crazy – he has to read more and work harder on understanding what’s going on if he wants a national forum.
Jeffro
I know…I was being facetious ;)
Ohio Mom
@Matt McIrvin: The way I learned about the 1965 immigration reform law was by reading the essayist and food writer Calvin Trillin. He pointed out that the law greatly expanded our restaurant options. Every new group of immigrants opened restaurants and introduced us to new foods.
To go back to the the story in the post, and the would-be Democratic candidates who missed the Florida committee meeting, I am continually amazed by how many people do not think of googling the simpliest questions.
gvg
@CaseyL: Well Sanders has a history of caucusing with Democrats. Marianne Williams has always attacked us and is nuts, so is Jill Stein who is obviously taking Russian money. The Congressman is just delusional. If he had followed rules to get enough signatures, I expect he’d be on the ballot.
I am pretty sure that is what you have to do to get nominated in Florida. Some minimum number of signatures in certain counties. Incumbents might not have to.
Kay
@Mai Naem mobile:
Right? And it’s the SECOND huge scandal in the last 6 years. They had a 60 million dollar charter school scandal that was also 100% GOP and also had no effect at all on the public. They have given up, apparently. A small group of activists – 10,000 people, whatever- can’t provide all the energy for 12 million people. They’re going to have to put some effort in. I don’t put good money – or time- after bad.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Reminds me of back in 1968 when I liked both Barry Goldwater and Gene McCarthy for that reason. But I was 14 then.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I think it’ll be a good thing too – it should, in theory, raise both candidates’ profiles across the state and keep them sharp for the general election.
I’m going to be at a fundraising dinner for Spanberger in a couple of weeks btw. =)
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: Oh I love the immigrants because now we can have many restaurant choices is not the compliment many think it is
We won’t accept you as our equals, heh but we like your food.
So much of what we think of American culture is really black culture and we all know how black people have been treated in this country. The current iteration of the R party is the reaction to Obama’s two wins.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin:
Bingo. BJ comment section is no exception to this.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I was thinking about this in the context of Quebec. My daughter is applying to colleges right now and one of them is Concordia, a majority-Anglophone university in Montreal. A thing that’s happening right now is that the Quebec government considers Concordia and McGill as threats to Francophone culture in Quebec, so they’re doing various things to punish them–in particular, they just massively jacked up tuition to public Quebec universities for out-of-Quebec Canadian students, basically to discourage Anglophones from going there, and this is probably going to result in a net reduction in revenue.
This doesn’t affect my daughter since, as a foreigner, she’d have been paying jacked-up rates regardless. She is a little baffled by it, though–says “well, I don’t speak French but if I went to college there I’d definitely be taking French classes.” She sees that as an opportunity to spread the language by teaching it to people. But I pointed out that she’s not a native French speaker, and I think a preference for that is part of what’s going on here.
And, you know, on one level I see where they’re coming from; French-Canadians have always seen themselves as a culture under threat of erasure by the North American Anglophone majority, and they probably are. But there’s also a nasty undercurrent of ethnic bigotry there; ethnonationalism always involves that. And it sometimes motivates them to do things like putting the squeeze on the crown jewels of their own higher-education system.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Now, now, let’s be fair. Trump also go undue credit for the good situation he inherited from Obama. He even claimed that credit himself, basically immediately after inauguration, when nothing had fundamentally changed from the “awful” sutuation Trump claimed to have inherited.
brendancalling
@Matt McIrvin: My kid is a Canadian citizen, and he’s going to Concordia. I had not heard this, but will be talking with him tonight, so I’ll ask him.
On a more general note, Cenk Uyger isn’t even eligible to be president, so I don’t know why he’s running. Ain’t no one changing the constitution so that lying, sexual-harassing asshat can be president. He is truly odious, and smarmy, and he looks like he smells like a canned ham. TBH he reminds me of Trump and Ted Cruz, fused into some awful mutant that feeds on attention.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Huh. I always figured you city Democrats had fundraising brunches. With avocado toast. 🥑
MagdaInBlack
@brendancalling: I’ve never been able to watch him, for exactly the reason/description you gave. Those comments are horrendous, but do not surprise me from him.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t know that it is intended as a compliment to immigrants. I think it is intended as intended as a statement of a benefit that others receive from immigration.
Jinchi
Is this the way Florida Democrats have always included candidates on the primary ballot and, if so, who would have be eligible to nominate a contender?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@brendancalling: On a more general note, Cenk Uyger isn’t even eligible to be president, so I don’t know why he’s running.
Well, he’s a blovating moron with a chip on his shoulder and a hate-on for Democrats, but from the left. He can get attention for his little internet show for this and probably a little scratch from donors who either don’t know any better or who are explicitly seeking to sow discord.
I wouldn’t worry. He didn’t even make a ripple as a Congressional candidate.
Miss Bianca
@Leto: Oh, for a second there I thought you were going to talk about Reagan! Another celebrity disaster President.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: We didn’t need a ronald reagan when we had a ronald reagan.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@schrodingers_cat: I like the opportunity for new cultural experiences immigrants provide. Yes, that’s mainly food. That’s also stories from back home, religious practices, music cooking techniques.
Most of my exposure to immigrants is through work. It wouldn’t be the same without them. To say I benefit from the experience doesn’t take anything from them. And I try to return the cultural exchange as best I can.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I have had people say this to me IRL as if it were a compliment.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
Wow.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Avocado toast is great with an egg and smoked salmon. Add some salmon caviar to give a real decadent vibe.
gvg
@Jinchi: Any democratic delegate apparently. They have a convention the year before and delegates are certain elected democrats in certain offices and delegates from the county clubs and organizations picked by the strength of the registered democrats in each county. That’s if I understood what I read in that document which was covering a lot of things not just what I wanted to know. All the google articles were about how to be a voter, not how to be a candidate. annoying.
floridadems.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Florida-Democratic-Party-Charter-Bylaws-2020-08-29.pdf
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: I think it was one of Adam’s posts where a Xitter pointed out that Michigan’s Jewish population – a heavily Democratic-voting bloc – outnumbers the Muslim population and might be just a tad bit upset themselves if Biden started weighing in too heavily with the anti-Israeli rhetoric that these folks seem to feel they need before Biden can count on their pure and precious votes to prevent, you know, a rabidly anti-Muslim Indicted Guy from becoming POTUS again.
CaseyL
The immigration and “pure America” thing drives me crazy, because America was not founded as an ethnic state; it was founded as a nation based on ideas. One idea, specifically: that people could rule themselves and didn’t need a monarchy. That an actual republic/democracy was viable. That people didn’t need an ancestral blood-tie to the land to be a nation.
You can accurately say the idea was stolen from the Five Nations, but it also had its roots in the European Enlightenment. You can accurately say that genocide and slavery were original sins to the new country, but if you go far back enough in any country’s history you’ll find the same thing. (Picts, anyone? Going even further back, the Sea Peoples?)
Any nations – all nations – are founded on the blood and dispossession of their original inhabitants. The US isn’t unique in that. What made the US unique in the mid-18th Century was the notion of self-government on a national scale. Not ethnicity.
Now that some version of self-government is practically the rule among all nations – very few are governed by absolute monarchists, and even most absolute despots make a play of portraying themselves as serving “the will of the people” – that distinction doesn’t have the same zing. But it was a thunderclap at the time.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Yeah. Fuck him.
Paul in KY
@Ben Cisco: And Sen. Fetterman!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Can I compliment you for Shah Rukh Khan?
Jinchi
We’ve had hundreds of millions of natural born citizens and only 45 presidents, so I don’t think the rule is really out of bounds, and honestly it probably keeps us from having to deal with every foreign born billionaire with a Twitter following taking a run at the prize.
Matt McIrvin
@brendancalling: If I recall correctly, Uygur insists he’s got some kind of “slam-dunk” legal argument that the Constitutional restriction of the Presidency to native-born citizens is invalid and he’s actually eligible.
I don’t like that restriction and I wish it didn’t exist, but I think he’s delusional if he thinks it doesn’t exist.
Jeffro
@Geminid: ha! I’m too old for avocado toast. =)
(or so my kids would tell me)
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You can! But I don’t see why I deserve the credit for SRK.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: I think it was mostly to prevent some European princeling from coming in and somehow transforming the Presidency into just another monarchy related to all the crowned heads of Europe. To my mind the rule is completely obsolete and should go away, regardless of how I think about Cenk Uygur. There’s surely no evidence that it’s kept out more assholes than good people.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
The answer is simple: you can “hammer out differences” if you’re starting from the same underlying goals and values. But if the two parties want to take the country in vastly different directions because they have vastly different fundamental values, there’s no basis for compromise, there’s no way to give everyone half a loaf.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Yes that’s the reason. That was a real danger when the Constitution was written, that’s what I have read anyway.
In the naturalization process you also have to give up any claim to any foreign titles you possess
You also have to agree to participate in a war in any capacity that you have been called on.
These two clauses seem to have their origins from the earliest days of the foundation of the US.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Very sad to hear that about Ohio.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: The people I was thinking about were in other fora, but I’ve definitely seen this pattern of people going “I’m the biggest liberal hippie there is, but come on, it’s like this neighborhood isn’t America any more” or “what, Democrats are going to die on the hill of letting illegals squat everywhere?” etc. etc. Basically a lot of “throw them under the bus” sentiment.
Alison Rose
In the top 5 of “worst dinner party guest lists ever”.
Also…BC is anti-OC??? :P
sdhays
@Baud: “Even if you don’t ding Trump for COVID”
This isn’t in response to what you wrote, but it triggered a point that has been completely forgotten. Because Trump wanted to posture tough to the Chinese, he ended a program where we had US representatives in Wuhan (IIRC) monitoring for possible infectious outbreaks. How fucking different might have things gone for the world if those people had been there doing their job?
Maybe not much. Or maybe detection and containment would have happened much, much earlier.
RobertS
“Dopes” is exactly right. I’m pretty sure that step one of running for President is getting onto the ballot which includes mundane things like “Showing up at the right meetings”. That part isn’t even hard.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Immigrants are not immune to that sentiment either. People in GC backlogs kvetching about DACA recepients is all too common.
UncleEbeneezer
@Scout211: I was just thinking last night that someone should make a tv series that (finally) accurately portrays police work. Nintey+ % of the show is them sitting around doing administrative work or doing traffic stops. Of course, the series would end up being cancelled after only one episode due to outrage from our BlueLivesMatter society. I don’t think I can stomach watching this documentary but it is very much in line with everything I know about policing in this country. Their ability to solve and prevent crimes is exponentially lower than most people assume.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, they sure ain’t. Sometimes seems like nobody hates the latest batch of immigrants more than the previous batch of immigrants.
Bugboy
@Frankensteinbeck: Schwarzenegger has produced some compelling videos in recent years reflecting on his experiences with authoritarianism in his home country as a youth.
Yeah, he’s a Republican’t, but he’s certainly not insane.
ETA: Sorry, late to the show…
Alison Rose
@UncleEbeneezer:
True.
But what if we brought back Cop Rock?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I guess the same way I deserve the credit for Bob Dylan?
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: I LOVED COP ROCK
zhena gogolia
@sdhays: I think of that all the time.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Hot Fuzz has the “massive amounts of paperwork” sequence.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: I’M THE BABY MERCHANT, TOTS ‘R US
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Why Bob Dylan? I love Bob Dylan especially in young angry phase.
Don’t want to work on Maggie’s farm no more..
OGLiberal
@brendancalling: I think the “natural born citizen” requirement is stupid in this day and age but it’s still there so Cenk is just being a rabble rousing, attention hound asshole. The other two are the same but they can actually be president, he can’t.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I just mean I was born in the same country as Bob Dylan, no other reason to give me credit for him. I guess that’s what you mean about Shah Rukh Khan.
Timill
@Matt McIrvin: He could always have been a citizen of the US when the Constitution was adopted…
Bobby Thomson
I am shocked, shocked, that Comic Book Guy is once again using his own ineptitude as evidence of rigged primaries.
Those holes greased the skids for Trump’s Big Lie.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: The interesting thing about the lofty ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is that they’re gifts that keep giving. There was all this blatant hypocrisy involved in their adoption. But the best of us kept using them as reasons to make things better. It’s a maneuver that paid off over and over.
My kid is studying US history and we’ve been talking about William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Garrison wanted the free states to secede from the US. He went around burning copies of the Constitution and declaring it “a pact with the devil” because of its accommodations for slavery. And in a real sense, he was right! You couldn’t really say it wasn’t that.
Douglass was with him at first. But Douglass eventually decided that this attitude wasn’t going to do any good, since if the US broke up, all the enslaved people in the South would still be SOL–the North would just have this illusion of clean hands (an illusion, since the North was complicit in the whole system after all). And he eventually decided something along the lines of “read correctly, the Constitution is a freedom document”.
And there was a war that smashed up much of the country. The victory was incomplete. But the US did accomplish something that even its leaders had thought was impossible. And survived.
By the end of it Lincoln had adopted essentially the same rhetorical strategy, framing the Founders’ ideals as applicable to the abolition of slavery. And then the civil-rights movement did the same thing 100 years later, when the time finally came to start enforcing the Reconstruction amendments.
We keep slipping back like that. But the strategy does seem to work, haltingly and at intervals.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was reading in my building’s coffee bar this morning, and an old white guy parked himself at the counter and harangued the barista with Fox talk about immigration and how the government needed to do something. Then later I walked past a group having some sort of meeting, and they were talking about how something would probably happen to Biden because he was so old.
I don’t know what has them so stirred up. Maybe Liz Cheney’s book and TV appearances have them worried in some way. They can’t dismiss her because of who she is.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Show them photos of Biden being active and remind them that he’s nothing like they are.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays:
To the MAGA conspiracists, that was Anthony Fauci helping the Chinese create COVID.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: The other thing that’s frustrating is the idea that there some sort of magical, one-weird-trick messaging strategy that will work for Dems with regards to Immigrant voters. Especially when a non-trivial % of Immigrants just want to be spoken to like everyone else (ie- stop focussing on “immigration”) but another part of the group wants Dems to specifically court them based on issues that are specific to them and their immigrant status. There’s no simple messaging strategy that will make both factions of the group happy, but people like to pretend that there could be, if only Dems would try harder.
Ken
@UncleEbeneezer: I had a similar idea a while back. Forty minutes of forensic accountants staring at spreadsheets, until one of them says “That’s not right….”
UncleEbeneezer
@Alison Rose: Reno 911 might be the closest there has ever been to an accurate portrayal of US policing, lol.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: Kind of like the way people in rock bands say This Is Spinal Tap is the most accurate representation of what it’s like to be on tour.
OGLiberal
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Here’s Butters crawling up Trump’s asshole and explaining how Cheney is wrong and only Donald Trump can save us because he’s such a manly,manyly man. And Cheney is just some irrational lady who is obsessed with hating Trump:
Graham responds to Cheney’s dire warnings about second Trump term (yahoo.com)
I don’t know if I despise anybody more than I do Lindsey Graham.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: This is why cyberpunk science fiction invented the idea that hacking was like playing some kind of elaborate video game in virtual reality where if you die you DIE IN REAL LIFE for some reason. Because computer programming, including computer programming for purposes of crime, is one of the least interesting activities in the world to watch.
(The most accurate portrayals of the culture tend to be satires focusing on the pitfalls and personality conflicts of the industry, for the same reason.)
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Denmark’s social compact really is a culture. It’s the Danish Way (literally a phrase) and it means you as a citizen buy into certain collective ideas – they enforce it too, in a way Americans would never, ever accept, starting with day care, so with babies. Train em up. You pay high taxes sure, that’s part of it, and that creates fewer economic losers (but also fewer big winners) but it’s much, much more than that. It’s a culture that demands that you think about the whole – you don’t speak loudly on the train because to speak loudly on the train is to make the train worse for everyone and quality of life is what they are after. But this has a downside, right? It can be stifling and tamp down incentive and individuality. They willingly sacrifice those things to get the benefit of a collective society with a very specific culture and set of norms.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The Law of Jante, right? Often said to apply to all of the Nordic countries to some degree. Don’t go thinking you’re special. The tall poppy gets cut down.
American small-town culture has some of the same thing going on–only there, there isn’t really the associated feeling of collective responsibility, just the resentment of anyone who puts on airs.
Manyakitty
@Kay: see, that’s the right take. We have dying towns and cities all across the country. Why not situate immigrants there?
Matt McIrvin
@Manyakitty: Somalian refugees have been a huge help in keeping towns alive in Maine–which doesn’t stop people from seeing them as a threat, or Donald Trump or Paul LePage from complaining about them.
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: Has had me stay out of Reno! Great show though.
Paul in KY
@OGLiberal: Stephen Miller is a real scumbag. Doesn’t have as much power and none of the senatorial bullhorn as Lindsey “Ah’m a Going to the Fainting Couch” Graham does, however.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve never done a full tour (have done a couple out of town gigs in one trip which I guess technically is a tour but I still wouldn’t say I’ve been “on tour”) but yes, Spinal Tap is a brilliant depiction of what it is like to play music for audiences, especially for 80’s rock and the dynamic of being in a band. It’s a bit dated now, but it really did an amazing job of capturing a lot of the absurd aspects of musicianship.
Manyakitty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: all I can say is that I’m 55 and Biden gets up a lot quicker than I do when he stumbles. I need to sit and think for a minute and he bounces back immediately. Can’t wait to vote for him again.
Manyakitty
@Matt McIrvin: ugh. So you’re saying my idea actually works in practice and the dead-enders can’t stand it. Super. Also, too, unsurprising.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: Barney Miller, besides being really funny, was also apparently considered by actual cops to be the most realistic cop show out there.
Soprano2
@RobertS: The O-Boys talk about how hard it is to get on the ballot in all 50 states. It’s a big job to do that, you can’t start campaigning less than a year from the election and expect to get on the ballot.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: So many times I’ve seen comments about someone being a good immigrant who did it “the right way”, and I always want to tell them they’re lucky, because it’s hard to come here and get to stay. That’s something that definitely needs major reform. It shouldn’t be that hard for people to come here and live and work if that’s what they want to do.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: Too many people watch shows like “Cops” and get the wrong idea about what most police work is.
Matt McIrvin
@Manyakitty: Yes. It’s the easiest way to keep communities from dying, also the #1 easiest way to spark xenophobic freakouts and fascist demagoguery.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Also most Americans don’t realize that there were essentially no restrictions on immigration when great-grandpa came here–except for the total ban on Chinese people.
steve g
Oh my, how would Biden win at the convention without Florida’s delegates? Who would speak up on the platform committee for all the valuable contributions usually made by the Florida delegation?
I guess if they don’t understand how to get on the ballot, they also don’t understand how conventions work, or anything else about the process.
Kosh III
“I don’t know if I despise anybody more than I do Lindsey Graham”
(In my best S O’H voice) Why Cap’n Butler, how can you say such a thing about a genteel southern LADY.
satby
@Miss Bianca:
My late father, a homicide detective in Chicago during the 60s and 70s, said that to me. He never missed that show.
Jørgen
@Kay: As a Dane I do recognize this description. What may be of interest is how much this has changed over the last 50 years. Danish society is much more open and accepting than it was in the sixties. The big change was kickstarted by two things, entering the common market and the admittance of ‘guest workers’. Both were hugely controversial, and permanently changed Danish politics.
When I went to school in the sixties and seventies, apart from myself the only obviously foreign students were adopted, and spoke fluent Danish. By the time my kids started school at the turn of the century bilingual students were common, and there were several majority-minority schools in the greater Copenhagen area. About 15% of the workforce in my company do not speak Danish, so the working language is English. This was unheard of just 30 years ago. I believe close to 10% of the population are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants now, compared to 0% 50 years ago. Given how quickly these changes have occurred, I am surprised how little unrest it has caused.
artem1s
Not true – the GOP AG and Governor didn’t care. They were actively in on the First Energy fix. The Geauga county GOP loves that bill. The Catholic Diocese of Ohio loves the corruption and stealing all the public school tax dollars and keeping wimmenz in line, pregnant and barefoot.
That’s not the same as “No one”. I do think the OH Dems could have used the scandal in their campaigns more effectively. But unfortunately the asshole glibertarains, Occupy, Greens and Kucinich babies all want to place blame equally on the Dems. After all, only Dems have agency to fix shit, right?
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Almost no one understands that there are quotas in place for how many from a given country can legally emigrate to US in a given year.
England has like a 3,000,000 quota (essentially uncapped, as that many will never come in a year)
Mexico has 2,000.
Chris T.
@Mai Naem mobile:
If you’re talking about Schwarzenegger: that happened under Gray Davis, but wasn’t Davis’ fault: it was set up during Pete Wilson’s governorship (and corresponding legislature). Davis was stuck with the rules passed by earlier Republicans, who were working with the Harvard playbook that went so wrong in the UK.
There was probably more that Davis could have done (using the emergencies created by the rolling power outages), but he didn’t and that led to Schwarzenegger. He too was hamstrung by the Rs in the Cal lege, and it wasn’t until the second coming (er) of Brown that all that got cleared up. Funny how fixing the gerrymandering issue caused so many CA lege issues to resolve, innit?
Dopey-o
How odd it isn’t that an immigrant like you would know more about our government and our politics than most of my neighbors.
My father used to say that our people weren’t content to sit around watching the potatos grow.