Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Books are my comfort food!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

Come on, man.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: The GOP Also-Rans, Still Debating

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: The GOP Also-Rans, Still Debating

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Pretty much the entire political media has accepted the reality that, barring death, TFG will be the GOP nominee. As the stakes get smaller, the fighting for second place gets meaner. Rooting for injuries!

Truest comment of the evening, for all the good it’ll do:



Christie’s gone full F*ck That Guy & All the Slimeballs Still Supporting Him.

Nikki Haley has accepted her slot as the 2028 ‘DID I NOT *WARN* Y’ALL?’ candidate:

Ron DeSaster makes no headway…

And Ramasmarmy goes full QAnon batshit, which probably won’t get him the VP slot, but will at least provide him a rich future on the cultist talk-show circuit.

In conclusion…

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    lowtechcyclist

    If a gaggle of GOPers debate in a TV studio and no one tunes in, does it make a sound?​

  2. 2.

    Splitting Image

    It boggles the mind, but Trump has basically prevented a single Republican politician from developing a national profile since 2014. They thought they had a pretty deep bench of potential stars when they won a lot of Senate seats and governorships in 2010 (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker etc.) but they’ve all completely fizzled out. None of them could beat Trump in 2016 and no one has come along to supplant him since.

    Haley and DeSantis are the best they’ve got right now and they can’t even beat an also-ran like Ramaswamy in the race to lose to Trump in the primary.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    @Splitting Image: Not only that, the Young Guns of the GOP are no longer holding any public office.

    I mistakenly thought yesterday was Pearl Harbor day, but it is today.

  5. 5.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Splitting Image: It’s amazing how badly the Republican Party has corroded. Not just in Presidential hopefuls, either; look at the various Speakers of the House. Of the last half-dozen or so Speakers, I think the only one to not leave the office effectively in disgrace was Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy, Ryan, Boehner, Hastert, Gingrich … and I doubt Vegas bookies would give you good odds on Mike Johnson’s future, either.

  6. 6.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    every open rethuglian primary there’s a nut job person of color:

    1996: Alan Keyes
    2000: Alas Keyes 2 Electric Boogaloo
    2012: Herman Cain
    2016: Ben Carson
    2024: Eye Chart

  12. 12.

    teezyskeezy

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: You are right. I think that “failed state” tweet from the other post is on target.  When a Speaker is protecting anti-state paramilitary activity, that’s some failed state bullshit.

  13. 13.

    satby

    Good morning all. Unseasonably warm weather here for the next three days. It’s unsettling.

    As is almost everything living in this timeline.

  15. 15.

    Tony Jay

    Ron De Santis might be a petty tyrant who has caused misery to a lot of people (and accelerated the fucking up of Betty’s beloved Florida) but he’s also such a gift to semi-professional mockers everywhere. His body language alone does 90% of the work. Just look at that slumped, battery-low picture. That’s genuine acting talent right there that is being wasted on vulgar acts of cruelty and graft when it could be put to work making people laugh their suppositories out on a regular basis. He’s like a pudgy Mr Bean.

  17. 17.

    Tony Jay

    Also, if Christie makes another stage he should just reach over and start stuffing Ramasmarmy down his canyonesque gullet. Really work those throat muscles so that every snap of bone and pop of vertebrae gets a round of spontaneous applause.

    “Now that’s how my Republican Party would clean house! Burp!!”

  18. 18.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @E.: “Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.”

    –Aldous Huxley

  19. 19.

    Princess

    Glad Filipkowski observed that Trump is not in the debate because he’s not capable of it any more and he’s too scared to do it.
    there will be no presidential debates next year and that will be weird, and the news media will give Trump a full pass.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    @The Thin Black Duke

    Huxley quotes? A few faves.

    “One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”

    “Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful.”

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    Sounds like the Christie who was promised finally showed up. I didn’t watch the debate and haven’t read anything about it except this post, but I am glad to hear Pudd’n Boots flopped again.

  24. 24.

    Scout211

    I guess DeSantis made news (other than his weird body language) in the debate last night..

    I’m starting to think that this guy is not ready for prime time.

    DeSantis was answering a question at the debate, hosted by NewsNation, about his past remarks that he’d authorize shooting drug smugglers coming across the southern border.

    “When I was in Iraq, the Al Qaeda wasn’t wearing a uniform. You’d see anyone walking down the street, they all had man dresses on. You didn’t know if they had a bomb, an IED, attached or not,” DeSantis said.

    It wasn’t the first time DeSantis has used the term “man dresses” in an apparent reference to a thobe. He has used the term on the stump, including in Iowa and South Carolina.

    Yikes.  Man dresses?

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    There is one positive story at least in the eastern Mediterranean: Turkish President Erdogan is visiting Greece. He met this morning with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulo and spoke of “a new era” in the two countries’ relations. The affable Erdogan said it was “best for the future of both sides to discuss looking at the glass half full.” President Sakellaropoulo noted that the nations’ mutual aid after Turkiye’s devastating earthquake and Greece’s recent flooding and wildfires contributed to better trust.

    Erdogan was to meet with Prime Minister Kyriokos Mitzolakis later today. This will be their 3rd meeting this year, after very tense Turkish/Greek relations from 2020 to 2022. With their reelections behind them, the two leaders are better able to agree on matters like coordination between their Coast Guards and promoting tourism between the countries. Erdogan also wants Greece to looby the EU for better treatment of Turks under the Schengen visa regime.

    These are “small ball” initiatives but they’re an improvement on recent tensions. Now that the threat of a war has eased, Greece and Turkiye can help each other despite the two major issues that divide them. Those would be their conflicting maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean, and Turkiye’s occupation of northern Cyprus since 1974. These constitute the empty half of the glass Erdogan spoke of.

    The maritime claims will likely take years to work out and involve claims of several other nations. As for Cyprus, the Greeks will always complain about the Turkish occupation, but this frozen conflict will not be resolved this decade and maybe not this century.

    Cyprus has actually become one of the world’s more peaceful conflict zones. The most violent event in recent years occurred a few months ago over a road construction project. British peacekeepers said Turkish authorities were building the road in the off-limits buffer zone  and tried to stop their construction crews. There ensued a big pushing match with fistfights between the Tommies and what appeared to be Turkish Army Engineers in plain clothes. No major injuries were reported.

  26. 26.

    mrmoshpotato

    @E.:

    It’s tough being a part of a civilization that generates and consumes spectacles of this nature. 

    Tell me about it.  So tired of the shitshow of shit that are Republicans.

  28. 28.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    So, Vivek has decided visual aids will help?

    ETA: I just encountered a captcha that asked me to click on all the wizards. Is there some established idea of what a wizard looks like?

  29. 29.

    satby

    @NotMax: hope so! I have a leak from my bathtub into the kitchen below, but when I moved the drop ceiling panel to find it I was confronted with a bizzare mess of criss-crossed wood over greenboard. Apparently the doofus who did all his own repairs ran the pipes between the tub and the cradle to hold it. So they’re inaccessable.

    Fixing that’s going to be a huge bill. Might be cheaper just to pull out the tub and put in a shower only. Which is still thousands. 😣

  30. 30.

    Kay

    Christie was great versus Vivek in the clip I watched. Vivek is amazingly unlikeable but DeSantis is the bigger mystery because DeSantis won statewide in FL twice. How? He’s this awkward oddball with a horrible thin and whiny voice.

  33. 33.

    p.a.

    It wasn’t the first time DeSantis has used the term “man dresses” in an apparent reference to a…

     

    News break: DeathSantis attacks Catholic priests!

  36. 36.

    p.a.

    @Kay: DeSantis won statewide in FL twice. How?

     

     

    C’mon Kay, you’ve been on point on this for years.  Pick the right people to demonize, use the right phrasing (both these based on Cleek’s Law), make sure the people you put in cardboard boxes have a curtain rod & sparrow supply, and the demonized people don’t.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    I didn’t know they had an election theft theiory for why the red wave never showed up in 2020, but apparently they do – “Big Tech” is why they lost. Such losers.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Correction: the Greek PM’s last name is Mitsotakis.

    Reports are that security measures for Erdogan’s visit are “tight.”

  40. 40.

    Ken

    The Filipkowski “Checks out” tweet is missing/deleted.  Was that the one that @Princess meant, about Trump being incapable of doing these debates?

  48. 48.

    Kay

    Christie is great at attacking Trump now but I can’t forget he endorsed Trump and worked to get him elected. I don’t know how he could show such poor judgment – I think it was clear right from the start what Donald Trump was – Trump’s first campaign kicked off with 3 months of media-promoted birtherism.

    Christie is a poor judge of character. It means he would make bad hires.

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: ​ For starters, I’m not a professional plumber. Secondly, speaking as a professional carpenter I hate fixing amateur’s fuckups. For starters, it’s always worse than at first you think it is, and it always takes longer to fix than you expected..

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Taylor Swift has the Men of the Right in a tizzy, doesn’t she? Imagine for a moment if liberal men went after a female conservative country star like this – the NYTimes would have to hire an entire columnist to specialize in why it was offensive.

    I thought this was funny- from an interview with her:

    “I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and p—ing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”

  53. 53.

    p.a.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Secondly, speaking as a professional carpenter I hate fixing amateur’s fuckups. For starters, it’s always worse than at first you think it is, and it always takes longer to fix than you expected..

     

     

    The corollary is: when you agree to do sidework for friends & family the job will always be a shitshow.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    @Lapassionara: It’s Ok.

    GHWB, who supposedly was the youngest fighter pilot in WWII, gave a speech once on September 7 saying nobody remembered Pearl Harbor Day any more.

    :-/

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Tony Jay: I think the American moderate left has this sort of tacit agreement that Chris Christie’s actions have provided enough ammunition for criticism that we shouldn’t stoop to knocking his physique, which may not be something over which he can exercise full control.

    (TFG doesn’t get that courtesy about his physique because he actively lies about it.)

  56. 56.

    Josie

    @Kay: Yes! Being an old, I was not aware of the popularity of Taylor Swift, but I knew upon seeing this, she is one of my people.

  57. 57.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: “Of the last half-dozen or so Speakers, I think the only one to not leave the office effectively in disgrace was Nancy Pelosi.”  Well you have to go back almost thirty years to find a Democratic speaker other than Pelosi. (The last one—I just looked it up—was Thomas Foley. I don’t think he left in disgrace.)

  60. 60.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    Taylor Swift has the Men of the Right in a tizzy, doesn’t she? Imagine for a moment if liberal men went after a female conservative country star like this – the NYTimes would have to hire an entire columnist to specialize in why it was offensive.

    May I remind you of the  screaming-bloody-murder tantrum that was thrown by both sides when The Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed George W Bush was from Texas?

  61. 61.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Presidential trivia.
    <blockquoite…The relatively new method of illumination was initially intended to be only a supplement to gaslight. Wires were buried in the plaster, with round switches installed in each room for turning the current on and off. President Benjamin Harrison and First Lady Caroline Harrison refused to operate the switches because they feared being shocked and left the operation of the electric lights to the domestic staff. Source

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    Not my best morning. Fix.

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Presidential trivia.
    …The relatively new method of illumination was initially intended to be only a supplement to gaslight. Wires were buried in the plaster, with round switches installed in each room for turning the current on and off. President Benjamin Harrison and First Lady Caroline Harrison refused to operate the switches because they feared being shocked and left the operation of the electric lights to the domestic staff. Source

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @OzarkHillbilly: According to my (quite handy) Spousal Unit, who’s had to clean up a *lot* of incompetent DIY work over the last forty years, amateur electricians are the actual worst.

    The saving grace, such as it is, is that those ‘I can change a fuse, why pay a professional to rewire the house?’ fellas, is that quite frequently the evidence of their errors frequently burns down before forensic analysis can be done…

  65. 65.

    Tony Jay

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    I hear you, but that was less about Christie’s girth and more about his relative enormity in comparison to the squeaking chew-toy that is Vivek Rathersmarmy. Also, if I wanted to call Chris Christie a fat bastard, I could just do that. Instead I called him a bone-crunching cannibal creature.

    That’s all.

  67. 67.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: When I saw that Time selected her as “Person of the Year”, I immediately thought, “Now maybe those people on Balloon Juice who think that Travis Kelce is equally famous will be convinced”. LOL.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Ugh. Some friends asked me to look at some wiring* in one of their apartments. Tore open a soffit and was confronted with a spider web of half charred wiring. It was a f’n nightmare. Told them to get a pro. They begged me to do it because they couldn’t really afford a pro at that point. I finally acceded, warning them I was tearing it all out back to the main panel. Once I got all that shit gone, the job became a whole lot simpler. Easy to see what was needed and what wasn’t.

    * Having spent 35 years looking at electricians work, I can handle residential wiring. Commercial? Fuhgedaboudit. Once had a GC say, “It’s just a fluorescent light fixture. I can get it out of the way.” One blinding flash and an ambulance ride to the hospital later, they were checking the soles of his feet for burns. Dumb fuck..

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    Christie has managed to make mean jokes about his weight seem small and churlish, which I think is a real accomplishment in a country obsessed with appearance.

    Vivek did one last night “go get dinner” – it’s become the mark of a jerk.

  70. 70.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Kay: One of my hopes in a political season which contains a lot of room for pessimism is that DeS’s performance in the R primary contest will sink his political career for good. If he takes the Republican dominance of FL down with him—well that would be more than icing on the cake, that would be a whole ‘nother and larger cake!

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Anne Laurie:

    My son won’t even look at DYI home improvments in electrical because they upset him too much. I watched him expertly evade looking at someone’s DIY kitchen electrical job at a christening party.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Anne Laurie: ​ The ones I hate are the ones who remove a bad fuse, put a penny in the socket, then put the bad fuse back in. Restores the electricity, but there is no longer a fusible link. So if there is a short, it’s just gonna burn everything down.

  76. 76.

    Soprano2

    @NotMax: My husband was able to completely rewire the electric in our bathroom and kitchen to put them on separate switches in the electrical box. However, he hates plumbing. It was the only thing he wouldn’t fight me about when I wanted to hire someone.

  77. 77.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Josie: I’ve been wondering whether she might play a role in supporting Biden, at least getting out the vote—I gather she has quite the following.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @Brit in Chicago: Tom Foley did not leave the Speaker’s office in disgrace, but he did leave it in defeat. He was one of the 60 or so Democrats who lost in the 1994 midterm elections.

    Foley’s 5th CD was one of the many primarily rural districts Democrats lost then and in succeeding decades. This rural political realignment took longer than the Southern party realignment but has been as thorough.

    Spokane resident Cathy McMorris Rodgers represents the 5th District now. Although McMorris is still relatively young, she’s been in Congress long enough to chair the important Energy and Commerce Committee. Except for the Democratic wave year of 2018, Rep. McMorris Rodgers has won election reelection by over 15 points. Her margin dropped to 10 points in 2018.

  79. 79.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: She’s a woman who makes no bones about having been successful without needing a man to help her with it – no wonder she makes them crazy! She cleverly found a way around a record company ripping her off. I think it’s funny, she’s been popular for a long time but they’re just now discovering her? LOL

  80. 80.

    Brit in Chicago

    @RevRick: I’ve wondered about that myself. Every time I read about actual voter fraud with, you know, evidence, it’s a Republican voting twice or something like that—I suppose there must be occasional cases of Democrats doing something like that, but I can’t remember seeing one. So yes: I think the 2016 election was stolen, and HRC is the real President.

  81. 81.

    Soprano2

    @p.a.: You don’t know how much I miss being able to have my BIL fix our vehicles. He quit doing side work when he got in his early 60’s – he decided he was too old to crawl underneath cars. When he was fixing things, I knew they were fixed correctly and it wasn’t that expensive.

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: When we remodeled our pub back in 2020, one of the things we did was have the electrician get all the old wires out of the ceiling. There was a lot of crap up there that didn’t go to anything anymore. We also had them put plug ins over every window, because the previous owner had the neon signs plugged in with extension cords that ran halfway across the ceiling! It was insane and dangerous. Now you can plug the signs in right above where they’re hanging.

  85. 85.

    lee

    While Chris C is still a horrible person, I do enjoy the fire he brings to these debates. He no longer has any fucks to give. Once Rump wins the nomination some cable show should have the pair on for commentary.

    I’m not sure Haley and ‘Harvard mouth’ really want to run with ‘cultures that are hostile to us’ after India assassinated a Canadian and attempted to assassinate a US Citizen.

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: I think it’s more that for a long time Taylor Swift avoided being publicly political and they sort of assumed that as a blond white woman who started out identified as a country artist, she was one of them. I think when she was really young she might have made some remark about “not being a feminist” that drove a lot of assumptions.

    Well, now that she’s a gigantic superstar it’s clear that that was all wrong, so they’re freaking out.

  87. 87.

    gvg

    @OzarkHillbilly: Funny but sad. My dad was trained as an electrical engineer. He ended up doing computer engineering after the space program was cut back after the lunar landing, but those weren’t taught and didn’t exist when he was in school. Over the years, he has done a few repairs and advised family on issues. It mostly hasn’t seemed to involve him doing a lot except making sure we bought the right kind of replacement part or did not buy a house with aluminum wiring. He did build a laundry addition including wiring for my first house including permits and inspections which required an electrician to approve the plan. Said Electrician tried to hire him and complimented him on his accurate diagrams when it was at least 50 years since he had graduated with that degree. Very disappointed dad was retired and not interested.

    Family tends to use him to make sure we aren’t hiring a bad contractor or doing something wrong on all kinds of house repairs. Most of us are fairly handy but electrical just isn’t something that comes up that much.

  88. 88.

    Subsole

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah. It is never ‘fix the fuckup’.

    It’s ‘find the additional fuckup the amateur used to tie the original fuckup to the other fuckup they used to get the primary fuckup to fit into the desired area.’

    Typically while one is standing there with both hands full of fuckup, mid-repair.

  89. 89.

    lee

    Re: Taylor Swift.

    I’ve been aware she existed since the Grammy(?) incident. I could not name or recognize a single song of hers. Lately I’ve become a fan simply because she seems like a nice person and doesn’t take anyone’s shit. I should probably listen to at least one of her songs at some point.

  90. 90.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Soprano2: Snoop Dogg (another smart-as-hell musical icon) gives Swift credit for getting the word out regarding musicians remastering their records to retain their right of ownership.

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: It’s kind of crazy, rather than changing to align more with the voters they want to change the voters to align with what they want.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    When we remodeled our pub back in 2020, one of the things we did was have the electrician get all the old wires out of the ceiling. There was a lot of crap up there that didn’t go to anything anymore. 

    I’ve designed renovation projects, and then when they go in and demo the interior, there’s been literally tons of abandoned wire and cable. One project I worked on had over 40 years of abandoned stuff in the plenum. The demo sub used a torn-out bathtub to haul it out. I think they said it took 25 trips or something to haul it all out. Just mindblowing.

    The plenum looked positively spacious after that.

  95. 95.

    Suzanne

    @Josie:

    From what I’ve read, Kelce is just fine with that. 

    Yeah, he seems like a good dude, at least as far as I can tell from here. There was a WaPo piece that came out when it was first made public that they were seeing each other, and the writer said something like “Travis Kelce seems nice but is not in the same stratosphere, fame-wise, as Taylor Swift”. And a few people here were like, “What?! He’s a big deal, he’s got two Super Bowl rings!”.

    To be clear: no one is saying that he isn’t a good person. Just that…. he’s dating up.

  96. 96.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: Lots of men have been raised/acculturated to think that they get to pick their partner, and that the power dynamic flows in that direction. So it’s, like, pre-emptively insulting to this cohort to learn that the women one might want to pick…. have no intention of being picked, in fact have the power to do the picking, and obviously wouldn’t pick you.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    @Suzanne: ​
     

    people on Balloon Juice who think that Travis Kelce is equally famous

    Well, he sorta is — if you define your population subset appropriately, e.g., KC Chiefs fans, his Mom (maybe).

  98. 98.

    Splitting Image

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @Soprano2: I think it’s more that for a long time Taylor Swift avoided being publicly political and they sort of assumed that as a blond white woman who started out identified as a country artist, she was one of them. I think when she was really young she might have made some remark about “not being a feminist” that drove a lot of assumptions.

    Well, now that she’s a gigantic superstar it’s clear that that was all wrong, so they’re freaking out.

    Swift seems to have deliberately patterned her life after Dolly Parton, which is not a bad thing. Parton also avoids talking politics whenever possible, and also generally avoids calling herself a feminist.

    That’s just the way Dolly has always been though. Elvis Presley’s manager offered her a deal to have Elvis record “I Will Always Love You” if she turned over the songwriter credit to him (and the zillions in royalties the song eventually earned.) Parton turned him down, which was an act of radical feminism if ever there was one. Women should own their work and earn the profits from it. Dolly has always believed this and Swift seems to be a chip off the old block.

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Not sure what all the hubbub is about amateurs trying to do electrician work. I’ve wired/re-wired most of my homes. No problem, easy as pie.
    Yeah, they all subsequently burned due to major electrical fires, but I think I got the hang of it now. As Bullwinkle used to say “This time for sure.”​
     
    ETA: I might not be commenting for awhile; gotta go call the fire department. Completely unrelated, I’m sure.

  100. 100.

    lee

    @Splitting Image: ​
    Dolly doesn’t talk about politics, but she certainly makes her opinions known (giving, caring, learning).

    Taylor has gone a step further and has told her fans to vote. Which is freaking out the Rethuglicans.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @SFAW: This is actually a strawman that the commenter keeps knocking down. I went back over the thread in question, comment by comment, and I found that it was being misrepresented. I thought the real problem was that the commenter kept sneering at Kelce and no one joined in.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: You apparently cannot read. Multiple commenters asserted that Kelce is at least equally famous to Swift, which I am sure they think because they are football fans and not really into music that (largely) millennial women listen to. As this commentariat skews largely Boomer, that makes sense…. but it is not reflective of objective reality. And the point is that it illustrates that one’s perspective is also not accurate.

    Also, if you read the accompanying article, you’d read something about how her recognizing her staggering popularity and respect for her as a talent (as opposed to a pretty pop star) is a way of taking women’s inner lives seriously. They historically have not. That’s literally why the commenter shared the original WaPo story. The GOP and their toxic neckbeard voter cohort are threatened by her.

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: You already told me once, in the same superior tone ypu model so well, that I apparently cannot read. So I went back and read the thread in question comment by comment and took notes, and then I responded to you in detail. That was several hours later so I am not surprised you did not read my response, but you can always go back and read it now. It’s long because it’s detailed.

    Until you do I’ll just tell you to get lost, and keep telling other people that your account of the arguments that day is not reliable.

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: Here’s the thread.

    Here’s comment #80:

    Kelce is in the argument as one of the best tight ends in NFL history and probably a lock for the NFL hall of fame.

    But he is a lightweight compared to Swift?   OK.

     
    Here’s part of comment #178:

    There are probably international cricket players who are more popular than Taylor Swift. But in America, Kelce and Swift are on top of the celebrity pyramid.

    Here’s comment #126:

    This is about the dumbest thing I’ve read in a while. Kelce is a celebrity, a Star player on a Superbowl championship team. Hell, there are college football and basketball players who know that they are celebrities.

    The world that he and Swift travel in are very similar.

    ETA. In Los Angeles, I have seen actors and singers who were clearly in awe of sports superstars and eager to hang out with them.

    And, again, all of these comments were made in response to a linked WaPo piece asserting that Kelce is not as famous as Swift. (Never was it asserted that he is not good people, or that he isn’t very good at his job. That was never the argument.)

    I know you get facts wrong a lot. Maybe you need to work on it.

  105. 105.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay:

    Christie is a poor judge of character. It means he would make bad hires.

    Yeah, but couldn’t you say that about *any* of the Republican candidates? It’s pretty much a “feature, not bug” default for all of them!

  107. 107.

    Miss Bianca

    @Soprano2:

    It’s kind of crazy, rather than changing to align more with the voters they want to change the voters to align with what they want.

    After the uprising of the 17th June
    The Secretary of the Writers Union
    Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
    Stating that the people
    Had forfeited the confidence of the government
    And could win it back only
    By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
    In that case for the government
    To dissolve the people
    And elect another?

    – Bertolt Brecht

  108. 108.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: TFG anointed him the 1st time (and the Dem guy had some really bad pub at end of campaign & didn’t spend a bunch of money he had a good ads) and he ran against the apparently woebegone Crist in 2nd try (also TFG wasn’t slagging him at time of election).

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Paul in KY: I agree. Yeah, he was an outlier, but he was saying things that needed to be said at the time, imho.

    (Full disclosure: he was the first political candidate I ever contributed to, *and* I believe I voted for him in the Democratic primary.)

  110. 110.

    Paul in KY

    @Suzanne: I’m not going to do the research, but it’s been a while since an entertainment singer-type has been person of the year. Maybe Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen circa 83/84? Maybe Elvis?  Maybe never?

  112. 112.

    Paul in KY

    @Matt McIrvin: She also comes from a very wealthy family & then became very wealthy herself. So they probably thought she was of the ‘patrician-republican’ stock.

  113. 113.

    Paul in KY

    @Suzanne: I think right now, Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe are probably the only people that would have a good case for not ‘dating up’. That’s also only on the World stage, not in USA.

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: Yes, someone questioned the assertion that Kelce was a lightweight compared to Swift. That’s not saying he was as famous.

    Someone else said they were both on top of the celebrity pyramid. They are, but in their respective fields.

    As for the assertion that no one said Kelce was not “good people,” you ran Kelce down throughout that thread and made it obvious you disrespected him because he is a football player. Most of the commenters said she was more famous than he but it could still be a good relationship. You said she was “slumming” and derided his looks and demeanor; just showing your elitist ass.

    And I reject your condescending suggestion to me and its premise.

  118. 118.

    suzanne

    @Geminid: I understand that context clues are difficult for you (and Travis Kelce isn’t even the most famous person in the NFL, so “top of his pyramid”, LOL). I’m beginning to think you’re threatened by any assertion that a woman can have more cultural capital/influence as a man.

    Which, to be honest, is the only reason I’m still engaging in this boring fucken discussion. I think you might have some unexamined biases that color your reading of the issue. And it’s pertinent. DKos has a piece up about how the right wing is freaking out about T. Swift and resentment of her extreme popularity and breadth of influence. It’s like when people freak out that the music they listened to as teenagers is on the oldies station and isn’t relevant and nobody cares.

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @suzanne: You are projecting here. I’ve never said a word against Taylor Swift here, and respect her and her accomplishments. You are trying to deflect criticism of you by lumping your critic in with critics of Taylor Swift. This is a shabby argumentative technique.

  120. 120.

    Suzanne

    @Geminid: Again, the original quote, which got pasted in that thread, and I will not link to it directly out of respect for the WaPo strike is:

    From what I can tell — and if you have evidence otherwise, don’t spoil this for the rest of us — Travis Kelce seems like a nice young man. Affable, authentic, capable of delivering a joke as well as being the good-natured butt of one, etc., etc. What he does not seem like, however, is a person who exists in the same stratosphere as Taylor Swift.

    He is the Kansas City Chiefs tight end who still plays second fiddle to teammate Patrick Mahomes in television commercials for State Farm insurance. She is one of the most famous women on the planet.

     
    Again, nothing stated here is in any way implying that he isn’t a nice guy, that he isn’t a good football player, that he isn’t a good romantic partner. (Even me saying that I don’t think he’s especially good-looking is stating any of that.)

    This is literally what started the whole discussion: a comment about her fame relative to his. I will note that it is a fairly common trope to diminish women’s accomplishments relative to their male partners, and that’s why I’m sensitive to it here. Things women create are often thought of as lesser artistic or aesthetic merit, of lesser financial value, or less influential. Men’s work, men’s stories, men’s interests are “universal” or “monocultural”. Women’s work, women’s stories, things women like are just for other women, and they’re frivolous and unserious. Men make art (or in this case, play an Important Sport, a thing that other men find really important), women make crafts. Men are chefs, women are home cooks. It’s one of the more insidious tropes out there, and I find it highly offensive.

    And the fact that you so obviously missed it happening, even when this has been pointed out to you repeatedly with textual evidence, IMO, reveals some (I hope) unconscious bias on your part. Maybe you aren’t attuned to it because you don’t encounter it every day. I do.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    That is a very charitable and self-serving characterization of your disparaging comments about Travis Kelce. This is consistent with your other arguments.

  122. 122.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Suzanne: “Now maybe those people on Balloon Juice who think that Travis Kelce is equally famous will be convinced”. LOL.

    I would not know who Travis Kelce is if not for Taylor Swift.

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