I had a conversation over lunch with an old friend this week about politics and the 2024 elections. We’ve been friends since 8th grade. She grew up mostly liberal in a family of country club conservatives. I grew up liberal in a divided family of hippies, evangelicals and rural reactionaries.
My friend benefited the first time one of my political prognostications went awry, way back in 1980. We weren’t old enough to vote, but we were avid readers who followed the news, which made us a pair of odd ducks at school.
We were talking over lunch in the school cafeteria, discussing the upcoming presidential election between President Carter and GOP nominee Ronald Reagan. Shouting at times — not from temper but to be heard over the raucous din of our feral, food-flinging classmates — we disagreed about the likely outcome.
I thought the churchy folks would not turn out in droves for the phony old divorced actor from California who made the dumb chimp movies. My friend thought gas prices, the hostage crisis, etc., would cost Mr. Carter reelection.
We bet five bucks on the outcome. She was right and I was wrong, so I had to pay up, and since $5 was my entire allowance, it hurt.
A couple of decades later, we talked about the upcoming 2000 election over many beers. Again I was more sanguine about the prospects for Team Donk than my friend. She predicted it would be very close, and tragically, she was correct — it was close enough to steal.
Fast forward to 36 years after we first discussed presidential politics in the context of Carter vs. Reagan. My friend and I were again talking about an upcoming presidential election, this time while grilling dinner on the deck of a rented houseboat.
I said I couldn’t see an obnoxious, dumb loudmouth like Trump getting elected, if for no other reason than it seemed beneath the dignity of the country to elevate such a buffoon. My friend, always a closer observer of normie behavior than I, said she hoped I was right, but she thought Trump probably would win. No wager that time, so I didn’t lose any money. Only sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.
Nearly eight years after that, over lunch at a cafe on the cusp of the 2024 election year, my friend said she is hoping Trump gets disqualified or otherwise removed from the race because she’s convinced he’ll win if not. I said I think Trump will lose again but told my friend her prediction made me nervous.
I should note that my friend and I don’t always disagree on election outcomes, and she’s not always right. Sometimes I’m right and she’s wrong. Sometimes we agree. The losses mentioned above only stand out because they were such epoch-defining disasters.
***
I think some things will get worse before they get better in the coming year, and that sucks, but I hope it might be clarifying. For example, people will continue to seethe about a Biden-Trump rematch, but once the dreaded scenario becomes real instead of an abstraction to bemoan, I think that will solidify the non-fascist vote for Biden.
I think more women will suffer and/or die in the coming year because elected fanatics will impose religious dogma on patients and physicians, and sometimes we’ll even hear about it in the press. In fact, I think there’s a chance we’ll hear about it much more frequently when Florida’s state supreme court effectively bans abortion in the nation’s third most populous state, stranding desperate and ill patients many hundreds of miles from access to modern healthcare.
Also, I assume the clowns currently running the U.S. House of Representatives will try to impeach the president and may well succeed. The toddlers in the GOP caucus have unlearned the “stove = hot” lesson, so we’ll have a partisan shit-show to watch during an election year. My hope here is that it works out as well for creepy Speaker Johnson as the Clinton impeachment did for Gingrich.
By this time next year, we’ll have a better sense of where we’re headed as a society. It’s a small thing, but there’s a measure of comfort in that too. For me, anyway; I hate suspense.
Open thread.
Alison Rose
I’m just planning to spend 2024 trying to find a way to teleport myself into a volcano.
Scamp Dog
@Alison Rose: Not before you cast your ballot, though, this is an all-hands-on-deck election!
Brit in Chicago
“epoch-defining disasters” is right for 2000 and for 2016. I was a fervent supporter of Obama in 2012 but, in retrospect, while it would have been bad if Romney had won it would not have been a disaster. (Indeed—I hesitate to say it—since it would presumably have prevented the whole tRump phenomonon it might well have been to the good in the long run.) I cannot believe, however, that I will ever come to that opinion about 2024.
coin operated
@Alison Rose: The rest of us will work hard to elect Biden so your sacrifice is not in vain…
Scamp Dog
Apologies for the duplicate post…
Alison Rose
@Scamp Dog: I mean…yeah, although I don’t think we have to worry about Biden winning California.
Alison Rose
In other politics news, though related to the election of course, The Kyiv Independent has a great and informative interview up with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He’s a very wise and thoughtful person, and I really appreciated his insight and views on everything. (They speak in English for the whole interview.)
PatrickG
Open thread? Then another plug for saving money: if you’re in the market for Apple products, as an employee I can get you 15% off through friends* and family.
FYI this is not a time limited offer — if you need something next year, I’ll be around! Remember: paying full price for Apple products is the equivalent of donating to the DeSantis campaign! Don’t throw your money away!
Details here.
* Technically, this isn’t OT after all because the word friends appears in the title.
StringOnAStick
Notes from the ground: The sadsack friend who lets the polls terrorize her is lightening up a tiny bit; I sent her a recent Heather Cox Richardson email that addresses that topic, hopefully it helps her lighten up a bit more.
Another friend with a BIL who worked fabricating drones for a US government contract has been laid off, so the drop in funding is real. That sucks.
I have a week planned to go (1) convince my dad he must enter a assisted living facility since he can no longer walk and the house is impossible to make ADA compliant, and (2) sign a change to his will, making me the POA and executor because the oldest sister who now has that position is sliding into dementia and no other sibling has their faeces in a coherent pile. Item (1) is going to make item (2) quite difficult. Should be an exceptionally stressful trip, lots of fun.
rikyrah
I believe more women will die in Red States due to healthcare that they can’t get, because of that state’s abortion ban. And the way the GOP is going to try and find a way to explain away the deaths…..the MSM won’t call them out, but, it’s still gonna be obvious. I also predict that the women who will be ‘arrested’ under these laws, will be Black and Brown.
And then White women are gonna have to decide- are they choosing their race or their body autonomy?
Chris
@Brit in Chicago:
Romney would absolutely have been a disaster.
I got halfway through writing a whole spiel here, but really, the bottom line is that every period of Republican control of the White House since Eisenhower has been a disaster, in ever-increasing ways. Romney looked “normal” and (comparatively) harmless in 2012, but so did Dubya in 2000 – that was part of the whole complacency thing. By the time of his four or eight years, we’d have been horrified in ways we didn’t even think were possible in 2012.
And it wouldn’t have prevented the Trump phenomenon. The Republican Party has been building up to something like Trump for fifty years. It was always going to land them here in the end.
Dangerman
I’m convinced the Powers That Be want Trump no place near the White House. I went back and read his Christmas rant. Dude ain’t right in the head.
No idea how they pull it off, but Trump isn’t wining in 2024.
Rusty
I am worried that the youth vote won’t show up for Biden. I had my three voting age daughters home (19-27 years old). Each of them is angry with Biden about Gaza. One still votes from here, she did her absentee ballot for the primary, and only reluctantly vote (I think) for Biden. I am hoping the young people will come around and show up to vote. None of my daughters will vote for Trump, but I do worry about lack of enthusiasm for them and their friends. If Trump wins there it will take a generation to rebuild the Federal government, if ever, and the police state will be turned on every perceived enemy of the right.
eclare
It is going to get truly horrifying, fast, for women in FL when the court bans abortion. It is awful now in Memphis, but at least it’s only around a four hour drive to southern Illinois. Florida and Georgia are huge states to drive through to get to Virginia.
Reality is going to come down hard.
Splitting Image
@Brit in Chicago:
I think it would have delayed the Trump era but not avoided it. The rise of Trump came about because the Democrats nominated a woman immediately after electing a black man for two terms, and would have turned out much the same if they had nominated a black man after electing a woman for two terms.
The entire movement is built on the resentment coming from the rise of Those People along with the rise of the Other Those People. Splitting the Obama and (hoped-for) Clinton years might have cushioned the blow a bit, but the root of the problem is that racial and sexual equality are antithetical to their world-view, and they are willing to commit violence to defend it.
Tom Levenson
A lot of my friends, including some who have some or a lot of political science background are saying that Trump is likely or plausibly going to win (there’s some variation in the degree of certainty.)
And others, also some w. domain expertise point to the background indicators, from economic improvement to the changing composition of the electorate, to suggest that Biden has a genuine advantage.
To me: the election turns on the degree to which our side is able to block or minimize voter suppression, and the extent to which we can affirmatively motivate our voters. There are some real worries there. For example, Arab and non-Arab Muslim voters are significant in some key states (Michigan) and they are really not happy with the Biden administration response to Gaza-Israel. There are real R/conservative inroads on elements of Hispanic and/or Latino/a populations. And so on. The Republicans have similar problems to deal with, though, with the 900 lb one being women voters for whom Dobbs is determinative. I think (and my opinion is worth what you pay for it) that the R problem is worse than what we face.
All that said: there’s a whole lot of bad actors already intervening in the election, and much more to come. It’s going to be a brutal fight.
eclare
@Dangerman:
I believe the popular vote will be even more in Biden’s favor, but the electoral college terrifies me.
Geminid
I think one factor that will work against Trump next year is that he will get a lot more exposure than he has since 2020. Trump may be an ever-present figure here, but most people haven’t had to give him much thought. Pretty soon he’ll be in their faces all the damn time. Even if people are not up to speed on the many threats he poses to democracy, the “Day One Dictator” plan and the rest, I think they’ll see him better now as the angry chaos agent he is.
There was already a lot of Trump fatigue by the time the 2020 election came around, particularly among the Independents who broke towards Biden in the last couple months. His absence is unlikely to have made their hearts grow fonder. I just don’t see a lot of Biden-to-Trump voters; on the other hand, I think there will be a substantial Trump-to-Biden cohort.
I still don’t count Trump out though. A friend with whom I often talk politics came to the same estimate I did: Trump has about a one out of six or seven chance of winning next year, around 15%. Considering how catastrophic that outcome would be, those aren’t neccesarily comforting odds.
NeenerNeener
Speaking of health care that a woman needs and can’t get…I can’t find a PCP who can look at the mess I made of my face last week. I can’t even get seen in a walk-in clinic! This section of Ol’ Virginny seems to be a medical black hole. So I think I’m going to grab last week’s discharge paperwork and be an obnoxious Yankee in the ER.
eclare
@Tom Levenson:
I agree with everything you wrote, for what my opinion is worth. I will say the same thing that I said in 2016, when Hillary seemed like a sure thing to many, TFG has a non-zero chance of winning. How far above zero, I don’t know. But it is there.
Burnspbesq
It’s likely to be a turnout election, similar to 2020. Everybody has to hold their noses, if necessary (I don’t think it should be, as Biden has overall done a hell of a job), and SHOW UP, or we’re fucked.
Craig
I’m right with you on 1980. It blew my young mind that a bunch of Christians would vote for the oh so obviously phony Ronald Reagan over actual Christian and good guy Jimmy Carter. I grew up with Fallwell 90 minutes to the west and Pat Robertson 90 minutes to the east, so I soon learned who these ‘moral’ ‘christians’ were. I was pretty much alone in my school paying attention to politics in 1980. 2 years later my friends and I were listening to punk rock and talking about politics all the time.
Chris
@Tom Levenson:
To me, the scary thing is that the media has been in full Butter Emailz mode for virtually the entire time of Biden’s presidency, which is something I’ve literally never seen (they get like this in election years like 2000 and 2016, but not permanent campaign mode). And it’s paying its dividends: hearing good things about Joe Biden out in the wild, whether from leftists or centrists or garden-variety liberals, is vanishingly rare.
Add to that that 2020 was already far too close for comfort and that was with the base fully motivated by the disaster of Covid and the previous four years of Trump; it’s hard to imagine that that enthusiasm will have done anything but diminished in some way.
Against that, you have the reality of Dobbs, and the effect of Trump’s ongoing trials. That’s not nothing. I just hope it’s enough.
m.j.
I enjoyed Conan O’ Briens podcast interview with Joe Biden. I think it’s worth a listen.
I kept trying to imagine Trump being that human and I just couldn’t do it.
laura
My normie friends are all convinced/afraid that trump will win reelection because his base revels in the depravity, racism and want a big strong daddy who will punish any/everyone but them. The common thread is that it’s not so much trump, but our fellow americans who are increasingly viewing us as the enemy and not as fellow citizens with the right to hold a different opinion and support the opposing political party. They are stupid and drunk on the vengeful fever dreams of the criminal shite-bag who is promising the use his political capital to do who knows what to his perceived enemies. It can happen here. but not without a fight. I’ll be doing my part to reelect the President and Vice President, hold the senate and to elect a congressional majority every day, in every way I can use what influence and persuasion I can.
gratuitous
I think the popular media are overlooking one aspect of the 2024 election, and I don’t know if that’s by design or willful ignorance (as in, the big shots in the media are mostly men). I think women are really, really mad about being consigned to second class status, unable to decide for themselves their course of health care without running it by a bunch of ignorant old men. The data points are there for anyone with eyes to see (Kansas, Ohio, etc.), but the media are still talking almost exclusively to the Nitwit Brigade and fretting about the “crisis” at the border.
skerry
@Rusty: Since your three daughters are also child-bearing ages, they need to set aside Gaza issues for women’s healthcare issues. I also have three daughters and they and their friends are definitely single issue voters – abortion and healthcare.
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick:
Holy shit, yes it is. Best to you as you face all of that.
different-church-lady
SCENE: CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH FRIENDS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
FRIEND’S MOTHER: “But really, this is wild. Who do you think is going to win the republican nomination?”
ME, JOKINGLY: “Weeeeeeeeelllll, gotta go!”
FRIEND’S MOTHER: (Laughs) No, seriously who do you think…”
ME, NO LONGER JOKINGLY: “Weeeeeeeeeeelllll, gotta go!” (gets up from table, goes to kitchen to help friend with next course)
Soprano2
@Rusty: What on Earth do they think he can do to get Bibi to quit taking revenge on Gaza? Because at this point that’s what he’s doing. We could completely cut off funding and he would still do it
ETA – I’m completely serious with the question. What do they tell you they think should be happening?
Burnspbesq
@Dangerman:
THEY ain’t pulling off jack shit. WE have to beat Trump.
Dangerman
@eclare: As it should.
I think Trump has signalled fairly damn strongly it would be 4 years of complete chaos if he wins. The PTB won’t let that happen (2016 was an aberration; Trump was an unknown but he is well known now)
eclare
@StringOnAStick:
That sounds awful. Good luck, those are major conversations. Keep us posted.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Woof, that’s a lot. I hope it goes as well as it possibly can.
rikyrah
@Rusty:
Every President, Democratic and Republican, in the last 75 years, has supported Israel.
Everything that they might criticize Biden for not doing enough of , with regards to Gaza, wouldn’t exist under ANY Republican President – point that out to them.
Plus, it’s cute that they think they’ll actually get to vote in 2028 if Dolt45 wins in 2024.
Project 2025. Do they know about it?
2024: Democracy vs. Fascism. They have to choose a side.
Ohio Mom
The sad part of these election bets is the reason your friend does not lose is that she does not over-estimate voters.
Like all good lefties I have mixed feelings about IQ tests but even so, George Carlin was right when he said (quoting from memory), think how dumb the average person is and then remember that half the people are dumber than that.
In my Cincinnati newspaper, this is the point that someone will chime in, “We need to go back to teaching Civics!” Um, we do teach Civics in Ohio schools, it’s woven through all the grades, plus a required HS class.
Barbara
@skerry: Or the way I think about it — But bad things happening in Gaza shouldn’t make you indifferent to bad things happening in your backyard. Women and transgender people are being subjected to imminent threats right here and now and you have power to help them.
Gaza/Israel is a generational problem that can only be addressed over the next few decades — and I actually think Biden has been remarkably evenhanded considering the amount of political pressure that is brought to bear by people who will never acknowledge that yes, Israel can be judged for moral agency (just like the U.S. can) without giving up its right of existence.
Kathleen
@Splitting Image: You expressed that beautifully and I agree. I get the sense the the media feel they have to punish Biden for choosing a Black woman for VP. Nothing will convince me otherwise.
Alison Rose
@Rusty: I try not to rag on The Youths, but like…they need to grow up. For one thing, Gaza is not the only issue facing the country or the world, and being willing to sacrifice the health and lives and safety of millions of people here because Biden didn’t fly to Israel and punch Bibi in the face is inane. For another, do they have enough understanding of history and reality to see that under any Republican, let alone TIFG, the I/P situation would be markedly worse, in their view? Do they think Trump gives a single fuck about Palestinians?
You can be frustrated by how the admin is handling that issue. But if that is going to rule the day for them, and they’re willing to put people of color, women, queer people, trans people, disabled people, poor people, immigrants, refugees, and literally THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD at massively greater risk all because Biden isn’t chanting “from the river to the sea” in the Rose Garden, that is a painfully ignorant and, yes, immature worldview.
Anotherlurker
I spoke with an old friend on xmas day. Somehow we came to the subject of slavery. He insisted that the Irish who arrived in the Americas were essentially slaves . He didn’t understand the basic concept between 7 years forced labor and multi-generational enslavement, forced breeding and life and death decisions being held by white men.
He hit upon the tired old trope of the African slave catchers selling captive people to the European slave merchants. Somehow the darker skin of the Arab and African human traffickers mitigated the culpability and horror of the white Europeans in the slave trade.
He also mentioned that many enslaved Africans learned useful trades as slaves.
His wife is a loud mouthed trumper who insisted on FOX “News” being on 24/7 in their home. I guess he tolerated her and her family in the hope hope that “go along to get along” was a viable of conducting a relationship. It is obvious to me that Murdoch and Ailes poisonous manipulation of current events destroyed my friendship.
I am devastated that the rot that was force fed to my friend by his wife and her family has succeeded in damaging and corrupting a good person. He obviously loves her after 40ish years of marriage . As someone who knows her and has engaged in conversations with her and experienced her loathsome ignorance and racism , I’m baffled.
Sadly, to each their own involving the brain rot that is the Republican Party has cost me a good friend. I cannot tolerate his outed racial attitudes.
I wish him good years in his retirement and their imminent move to Florida. I tried living in Fla. After spending 3 wasted years trying to adapt to living in Fla. and keeping my principles (before moving to California) I already told him I will not visit.
I’m very sad about this .
Barbara
@Soprano2: Even worse, Trump and his minions would be jumping up and down encouraging Netanyahu to unleash as much lethal weaponry as they can, kill everyone, they don’t deserve to live. Do they really not understand that?
Ohio Mom
@NeenerNeener: Hate to say I told you so, so I won’t, but for everyone else, the time to look for a PCP is before you need one. And when you finally land that introductory appointment, chat them up a little, you want them to like you.
I think the ER you went to will refer you to a doctor, didn’t they ask you if you knew where to go for follow-up? They asked me when I went to get stitches.
trollhattan
@Tom Levenson:
Are we any better prepared for Russian interference than in 2016? Because Vlad seems to have a lot at stake next November and I presume will act accordingly. Elmo’s Twitter acquisition is unhelpful in this regard, and Zuckerberg is a 1st Amendment moron in the Republican fashion.
Geminid
@Chris: Another difference between 2020 and 2024 is that President Biden’s campaign is well funded already. Last time they did not reach funding parity with Trump’s campaign until the latter part of August, so they had to play catch-up. This time they have already begun to put organizational and advertising resources into swing states including North Carolina.
Kathleen
@Alison Rose: Also, don’t they realize that if Trump is elected he will deport Muslims?
Dangerman
I just feel a “Have you no decency?” moment coming on. Could be a “Have you no Depends?” moment?
If I had to bet, the USSC (the best court money can buy) DQ’s Trump. They already have well protected lives.
Just a feeling.
Barbara
@Anotherlurker: So sorry. I feel like if you are going to burn your bridges anyway, you need to be blunt to the point of ugliness with people like this: “So, if it were you, you would totally agree to sell your children into lifelong bondage labor for the chance to learn a skill like carpentry? You think that’s an equivalent trade off?”
They draw back and spit in anger and say things like, “I didn’t say that . . .”
Yes, well, you were ignoring that fact that there is no “benefit” of slavery or anything else that can be evaluated without understanding its costs. Why are you and your wife and her brainwashing friends at Fox so eager to overlook the “costs” of slavery to the enslaved?
narya
@StringOnAStick: Sending you whatever good vibes you need/want. I’m spending time on the phone convincing my mother to get as much help as she needs with my dad; at least she’s starting getting overnight help a few days a week so she can sleep. I had a breakthrough this morning, too: she’s been hesitating on asking for volunteers to stay with dad when she does her various activities. She “doesn’t want to be a burden.” I pointed out that she volunteered for YEARS delivering Meals on Wheels (well into her 70s), and she enjoyed it and didn’t think it was a burden.
Bupalos
@Geminid: I’m going to guess that your odds guess there is wishful thinking. But what we all should be clear on is that we’re really just guessing.
But if you seriously want to give 6-1 odds, vegas would be happy to lay its entire existence because that isn’t even in the ballpark of what people who make their living doing this say the odds are. It’s not even in the same city as the ballpark.
Ohio Mom
@Anotherlurker: That is sad. I hate finding out things I’d rather not know about people in my life.
For some reason, I am reminded of this conversation teenage me had with my mother about my paternal grandfather: “So grandpa was apprenticed to a furrier back in Europe, before they came to America?” My mother (who despised people who put on airs) “Apprenticed?! He was an indentured servant!”
Somehow, no one in my family complained of a history of being enslaved.
Another Scott
2016 showed us that we’re always one election away from tragedy if people are willing to give up on doing their jobs and following their oaths. The monsters are always, always out there.
I think Biden and Team D will do well. Not as well as logic says they should, but well.
TheNationalNews.com (from March 2021):
I like our chances.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
People who go on about how Trump is going to win are helping to bring about that outcome.
I refuse to play that game.
Geminid
@Bupalos: Well, obviously it’s a guess. I’m clear on that. But that is still my estimate, and I am looking at the same facts you and the oddsmakers are.
I would add that historically, incumbents lose when the economy is bad, and win when the economy is good. This is the best U.S. economy in my adult lifetime.
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: Thank you. It’s the equivalent of talking yourself into losing.
Manyakitty
@Alison Rose: reasonable. Let me know if you figure it out.
Another Scott
@Burnspbesq: Yes.
One thing that gives me some comfort was a neighbor a few blocks away had some giant obnoxious Turnip flag up for months, but was gone on January 7, 2021 and has not returned. Less obnoxious things are mostly gone from the neighborhood too.
I think that many RWNJs quasi-normies realized after January 6 that he’s dangerous and will not support him again.
But, we’ll see…
Cheers,
Scott.
Bupalos
The reality is that democracy in the west is going to be challenged, decline, and generally go through some things in the next decade or two. People are going to have to respond and relearn that democratic politics is inconsistent with the kind of fundamental polarization and willingness to count opponents as enemies which we’re indulging in. Which is mostly to say we’re going to have to digest the disruptive force of information technology and the internet. We’re living through the early stages of a global social disruption as profound as the printing press or industrialization.
The challenge will be there whether Trump retakes power or not. Just obviously somewhat more acutely if he does. But it doesn’t hang on one election in one country. Which is a good thing because our odds in the long run look a lot better to me than our odds in coming elections.
Marc
You know, there’s absolutely nothing we can do. We can’t refuse access to the hundreds of thousands of US 155mm artillery shells and dumb bombs “pre-positioned” in Israel. We can’t abstain from UN votes calling for a cease fire. We can’t stop putting our aircraft carriers and cruisers in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea where a single missile evading defenses could “force” us (against our will, of course) to once again join a wider mideast war. We can’t stop saying that we’ll provide tens of billions of dollars in emergency military support to a country that couldn’t figure out that maybe positioning it’s troops to support illegal settlement activity was perhaps less important than defending its southern borders against a rag-tag “army” equipped with unguided rockets, bulldozers, motorcycles, and powered parachutes. We can’t provide funding to members of the so-called “squad” who don’t quite mouth the right words when the subject of Israel-Palestine comes up, nor say anything when a right wing religious PAC provides millions of dollars to their opponents. We can’t do anything except show our undying support for Israel and Bibi, so all those kids should just shut-up, hold their noses, and vote the way we want them to.
Just maybe the people of Israel need to realize that maybe they can’t depend on 100% US support if people like Bibi are running the show. That would require that the Democratic party say and do uncomfortable things about our relationships in the mideast (and elsewhere) that the young folks can relate to. End of rant.
hrprogressive
I didn’t vote Biden in the Primary but I damn sure voted for him in the General in 2020.
I understand that some of “The Youth” aren’t happy with the fact that they are, generally speaking, super-mega-progressive and virtually nobody in our political sphere with any wieldable power is.
They need to understand, quickly, that any and all grievances they have against “Stodgy Old Guard Joe Biden” will pale in absolute comparison compared to “The Trump Reich” that the fascist right wish to establish in this country if they get their chance to do so.
We can and should have a broader, and much more in-depth conversation about what the future of this country and the world should look like, especially if we want any hope of mitigating the absolute worst of the climate crisis.
But we’ll never get that chance if the fascists get their way. Never.
It is not hyperbolic to say if he’s not kept away from the White House now, it’s “Game Over, Man” for not just America, but it’s gonna be hard to keep the rest of “small l, small d” liberal democracy from also being overrun by fascists, too.
Their opinions no matter how strong on any subject – be it Gaza, or any human rights at all, aren’t going to matter much if they are busy trying simply to survive in their own country.
It’s Biden Or Bust, unfortunately.
Bupalos
@Geminid: there is a serious problem with raising the “reality” of this economy versus the “perception” as an argument in favor of Biden’s odds.
And I don’t think we can use the old reliable predictors anymore. As I’ve noted before, the old truism that incumbency gives any advantage at the presidential level is only true by the numbers if you expand the dataset back more than a half century.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: It isn’t as clear to me. I think it’s possible that being scared shitless by talk about a second Trump term will motivate as many as it paralyzes. My guess is (unfounded) complacency about the 2016 outcome cost HRC a lot.
Jackie
@StringOnAStick: Since your dad’s health is declining, also have your dad empower you as his medical POA.
There’s a distinction between general POA and MPOA. You’ll need both to fully assist your dad’s wishes and needs.
eclare
@narya:
Great breakthrough, I hope your mom takes your advice.
Brachiator
MSNBC posted a story about the Daily Mail asking people to describe Biden and Trump in a single word. The results were compiled into a Word Cloud for the two men. You can watch a short video clip about the story here.
For Trump the most frequent word used was Revenge, followed closely by Dictatorship and Power.
Trump was pleased with the results and promptly reposted it.
Meanwhile CNN recently broadcast some pundit crap suggesting that Trump really might be a moderate.
People know that Trump is a devil. Trump is happy to be a devil. Some in the media are desperately trying to rehabilitate him.
Right now, I don’t think that voters will elect a devil.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Gary Johnson pulled in 2 million more votes in 2016 than he did in 2012, more than doubling his total. The Libertarian vote reverted to norm in 2020.
I think many of those 2 million extra voters acted on the assumption that Clinton would win, so they had a “free” protest vote.
geg6
@Rusty:
They need to decide if their right to bodily autonomy and democracy are more important to them than Gaza, a situation which we can only control so much.
eclare
@Geminid:
I bet you’re right about “protest” votes in 2016.
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: this, all day long. And say it louder to the people who don’t get the message the first time.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
Good advice.
Just downloaded one for myself.
Geminid
@geg6: A lot will depend on the future course of this war. Rightly or wrongly, Gaza may not be so big an issue in a few months.
Bupalos
@Geminid: If I remember the data was not very conclusive but tended toward more disaffected Republicans getting pulled off of Trump.
Colloquially, Libertarian would be a kind of weird protest vote for Dem leaners, no?
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
What were the words for Biden? “Old”?
Geminid
@Bupalos: Liberyarians are commonly perceived as being on the right, and I think that is true of the Party’s core voters. But the people who voted for Johnson in 2016 but not in 2012 were not exactly Libertarians. I think it was a diverse bunch with a mish-mash of political views. Their most common denominators probably were an anti-establishment bias and misogyny. And I bet they skewed male by a lot.
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: Worse:
The world would be just fine if it weren’t for the people inhabiting it. I try not to question God, but why did He have to give us so many stone-cold morons to contend with
ETA linky
Bupalos
@Steeplejack: in the report it was phrased like “what will they want if elected.”
The answer for Biden was “nothing.”
Bupalos
@Alison Rose: did s/he give them to us? Or did we make them?
Alison Rose
@Bupalos: Why the hell should the rest of us accept any blame for the willful ignorance and hatefulness of others?
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
The top word for Biden was Nothing.
This was followed by Economy and Peace.
The media offer distractions about Biden’s age, while neglecting to fairly cover his administration. They only grudgingly mention Biden’s victories but give plenty of air time to his critics.
Juju
@Soprano2: I would add to your question, do they really believe Trump would be better at handling the Israel/ Gaza situation, or any situation that a president has to deal with, for that matter?
Bupalos
@Alison Rose: Because our society is a common endeavor, and we’ve done a lot of failing here in the U.S. as far as building one that produces happy, well adjusted citizens as opposed to a grasping lot of lazily self-obsessed bitters?
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: I was never for a moment complacent about Hillary. And I’m not complacent about Biden. But I have to focus on helping him win rather than predicting doom.
Bupalos
@Juju: A vote for Trump is a vote for the simple clarity of destruction over the complicated messiness of repair and construction.
And it’s very appealing to a widening array of democracy’s discontents.
eclare
TV alert: Kennedy Center Honors tonight at 8 EST on CBS. One of the honorees is Billy Crystal, this should be good.
I’ve been surprised how much I enjoy the show. The production is always excellent.
Marcopolo
@Rusty: if you can have a calm conversation w/ your daughters ask them what exactly they honestly think Biden can do about Gaza. He’s not the leader of either side. Ask what they think trump or anyone else would (or could) do that would be better. Maybe point out how long the Israeli/ Palestinian situation has been going on too.
next, attempt to explain to them that they are being manipulated by this specific tragedy. i mean there’s not a lot of organizing going on over all the folks dying (a lot more than in Gaza) in the Sudan or Central African Republic or a lot of other conflict zones right now. It would be fascinating, if it weren’t so awful, but right wing white supremacists and nazis are actually using the pro-Palestinian protests as recruiting opportunities.
last, but not least, the folks who want your daughters fixated on the Middle East also want to distract them from even noticing all the good the Biden admin has done over the past three years: job creation (manufacturing jobs in the us), higher pay, supporting labor & actual working people, better health care for less (drug pricing), student loan forgiveness, judges that represent all Americans, policies to address climate change, and so on and on and on. It’s a very long list but if the folks who hate all that progress (mostly rich white dudes) have their way they’ll have enough people looking at this so far intractable shiny bird mess in the Middle East that we (biden & the us) really don’t have any ability to solve instead of seeing all the good that has and will continue to happen. Or thinking about all the crap 💩 that will happen when they get back into power.
well, I hope your daughters & other young people are smart enough to see the bigger picture. god knows & history shows that we human are all too often suckers for shiny birds attention-wise.
Alison Rose
@Bupalos: Bigoted sacks of shit are not bigoted sacks of shit because society wasn’t nice enough to them. FOH with this garbage.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
My RWNJ brother claims to have voted for Johnson in 2016. (Dunno about 2012, but almost certainly Romney.) He checks a lot of RWNJ boxes: gun nut; anti-establishment; problems with women (both in personal relationships and in general); “immigrants taking our jobs!” (which he hasn’t had for years because of being on disability and/or retired). The big gap is absolutely no trace of Trumpism that I have been able to see. I think there is a cohort of white men, not necessarily libertarians, who see Trump as a buffoon but will tie themselves in knots to avoid voting—or even consider voting—for a Democrat. Whether they vote third party or just stay home remains to be seen. Maybe Johnson is past his “best by” date?
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
Looking at Lichtman’s list above, I count 8-9 positives for Biden. That’s pretty good. And that’s not counting Dobbs.
And imagine the counter-factuals:
1) Biden does nothing in the runup to 2/24/2022 and VVP succeeds in installing a puppet government in Kyiv. (Of course, there would still be fierce resistance, but…) “Biden lost Ukraine. Big daddy GQP will protect you…”
2) Biden does nothing to rally NATO to stick together in the face of VVP’s aggression, to quickly get Europe off of russian gas, to quickly impose sanctions. “Biden lost NATO. Big daddy GQP will protect you.”
3) Biden gives in to the pundits and the blob and decides to fight our way back into Kabul and the cities in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 and tries to keep a non-Taliban government propped up no matter the cost. “Biden has us bogged down in a war because he’s too woke. Big daddy GQP will protect you.”
4) Biden washes his hands of Gaza and tells Bibi he can do whatever he wants, no questions asked (without always emphasizing international humanitarian law, without telling him to avoid our 9/11 mistakes, without working for a cease-fire, without always saying that a 2-state solution is required, etc.)…
5) Biden gives into the GQP on [ any topic you like ] and …
Counter-factuals are fun, but in this case the counter-factual is clear. Everything would be worse if Biden had not chosen the policies and actions he did, compared to doing nothing or far too little.
Yeah, things aren’t as good as they should be. But, …
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris
@Ohio Mom:
I think social media has been a big “loss of innocence” thing there.
Especially with relatives and friends who live far away and that you only see for a few days once a year or less, in another time, it used to be easier to ignore the politics and tell yourself that, sure, they’ve got some wrong opinions and they listen to some crazy people, but they’re basically decent people at the end of the day, right? All the more so since nobody wants to spend most of their family reunions talking about politics.
When you’ve got a new tweet or Facebook post from them every other day with things like my uncle retweeting a picture of refugees sent back to Syria with the “grab the popcorn!” caption or my cousin giggling at the Portland cops as they throw a grenade on an OWS member’s unconscious corpse, suddenly it gets a lot harder to deny that, yeah, we had some fun summers at Grandma’s house when we were growing up, but these are deeply malignant people, and the fact that it’s still fun to talk to them in non-political contexts doesn’t change that.
Denali5
I keep hoping that the reason that the media keeps plumping TFG is that they want a close race-nothing interesting about a total Biden wipeout. The scary part is the role of the Electoral Collage and gerrymandering. These two non-trivial factors plus the cultural divides made the election close, even when one candidate is truly beyond normal acceptability.
Steeplejack
@Juju:
“Do they really believe Trump would be better at handling the Israel/Gaza situation?”
C’mon, man. Trump would get Bibi and some Hamas towelhead together in a room and make them work something out that would satisfy everybody. One or two days tops! Art of the deal, baby.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
I would bet my libertarian cousin voted for Johnson in 2016. I had an interesting convo with him last time he was in town. He really is live and let live: pro-choice, thinks drag shows are fine, etc. Very anti-TFG. But he refuses to consider voting for a Democrat.
He lives in TN so it doesn’t matter, TN will go for TFG, but I wish he would.
Betsy
@gratuitous: Exactly this. Almost all women (who are 51% of voters) know someone among their close friends or intimate family members has had an abortion or difficult miscarriage. This is because many women do share this information with other women they are close to.
Women generally don’t share this information with men, not even their brothers, but maybe with their boyfriends or husbands only — so almost no men have this information and have a vague idea that no one they know has needed an abortion. (Unless they are in a relationship with a particular woman and know about it that way.)
Thus the intense personal interest in the issue by 51% of voters soars way over the head of most journalists, who are men.
And way, waaay, waaaay over the head of most Repug political advisors, who are overwhelmingly men.
For most men, yes there are women who have had abortions, but it’s a vague, unknown group and they could be just wayward sluts or careless dummies,
and anyway six weeks should be enough time for anyone to take measures, because to a man (who typically doesn’t experience a woman’s biology, or economic dependency, or child-care burdens, etc.), it’s six whole weeks, right?
Bupalos
@Alison Rose: yes, in general they absolutely are that way because of the cultural poverty of their environment and experience.
Which you’re welcome to discard as naiive or whatever, but this is the core of liberal thought and your opposite “fuck off” inference is the core of conservative or right-wing thought. THEY ARE THAT WAY BECAUSE THEY ARE THAT WAY AND I DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE THINGS I DO NOT THINK ABOUT!!!
Marcopolo
@Bupalos: I know this won’t sound as if it makes sense but many libertarians actually tend to have authoritarian leanings. They very much want to be able to do whatever they want with little regulation but kinda hate it when other folks are doing their own thing when they don’t like what that is. They also seem to believe in a society with much less regulation & more freedom that they’ll be the ones running things so what could possibly go wrong? No one (and yes, this is totally anecdata) I’ve known who was libertarian curious has ever come around to voting D. They’ve always thrown their lot in with Rs when push came to shove. One caveat, all the people I’ve known like this are guys. Maybe because of Dobbs/abortion libertarian women (I mean there must be some, yes?) would go D in a pinch.
Betsy
@Anotherlurker: That’s so sad. I’m sorry. It’s very hard to lose an old friend, especially when it’s about something we would have thought so basic.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: Gary Johnson is off the Libertarian table now, and the party is under new management, namely the Mises Caucus. They seem to be trying to shape the party into an “alt-right,” Nativist bloc.
From what I’ve seen, they will nominate an unkown ideologue. But they could surprise and nominate someone like Tulsi Gabbard. She was a featured speaker at the anti-Ukraine rally in DC that the Mises Caucus co-sponsored in February. The rally was a bust in terms of attendence, but I remember that connection.
Overall though, I don’t think 3rd parties are as big a threat to the Democratic candidate this time. There was a lot of dissension in 20l6, but that has been mostly resolved since. This time, it’s the Republicans who are conflicted. I think they have more to fear from 3rd party defections.
Another Scott
@Marcopolo: Well, there’s Dagny Taggart. And Megan. And, …?? Hmm…
I’m sure Melon and Thiel are working on making female clones of themselves to solve that problem.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Juju
@Bupalos: We aren’t referring to democracy’s discontents. We are referring to three left leaning young women who are upset about the way President Biden is handling the Gaza situation, but I understand your point.
Pittsburgh Mike
My guess is that abortion will be the deciding issue here. If the D’s aren’t completely brain dead, they’ll point out, over and over, that a national ban would arrive with a Republican president, and that the Supreme Court might even use the Comstock act to ban abortion nationally anyway. So, without a strongly Democratic congress and President, the Supreme Court could indeed toss out past judicial interpretations of Comstock to ban abortion nationwide. And that a national ban will mean that it is simply unsafe to be pregnant in the US.
The economy will probably continue to improve as interest rates drop further, boosting home purchases, so Biden’s probably in good shape there.
Unfortunately, Biden isn’t really doing a good job selling the Democratic vision; we haven’t had anyone any good at that since Bill Clinton; I still remember that Clinton gave a better speech during the 2012 Democratic Convention than Obama did himself, but I don’t think Bill can or will substitute for Biden this time around.
I’m not sure why I’m not nervous this time; I was definitely very worried in 2016, and less so in 2020. I don’t think it’s because Trump is less of a threat; I think it’s just that if people elect Trump after seeing what’s he’s really like, well, you can’t fix stupid.
Barbara
@Betsy: It’s also men (and too often women) in a socio-economic group that considers themselves to be well-insulated from the impact of Dobbs. The fact that most live in blue states like New York does not help the situation. But it’s also the same cohort of men like Jeff Zucker who thought that women would love Megyn Kelly as a morning show host. Did they actually seek out the opinion of any women before staking tens of millions of dollars on that intuition?
Bupalos
@Marcopolo: that comports with my understanding…but to me it means the party boundary-crossing that brings into play is Republican/Libertarian not Democratic/Libertarian. Again the point being Libertarian vote as protest against Trump makes more sense than against Clinton.
But we can all take our guess…I really do feel like I remember data-crunchers coming to the conclusion that while 3rd party votes in 16 were high, they weren’t determinative.
Chris
@Rusty:
In addition to what everyone else said, this might also just be worth using as a teachable moment for your kids.
You can defend Biden’s Gaza policy, but you can also just frankly admit that that policy is fucking terrible. Then point out, apart from the fact that the alternatives would be even worse, that this is going to be true of literally every politician you will ever support. Every politician who rises high enough to be considered presidential material will have at least one terrible, inexcusable policy to his name. FDR had Japanese internment, to name only the most memorable of his racial issues. Lincoln had several Indian wars, one of which IIRC ended in the largest mass execution on record in U.S. history. Washington, well, look no further than the slave plantations.
Anybody you can support is going to have at least one genuine turd blossom to his name, and while they shouldn’t be excused from it, it also doesn’t excuse you the voter from voting for the candidate who’s on balance going to do the most good.
Marcopolo
@Another Scott: if you want real life Rich white women here’s a few: the daughter of that father daughter pair I think from MI but I don’t remember their names & the Publix grocery heiress in FL (also don’t remember the name). Not many though. Oh and Betsy DeVos!
Brachiator
@Marcopolo:
Fair points.
Most libertarians I have known are racist white guys, but they try to cover their racism with pleas about “freedom of association.”
Never seen many libertarian women.
eclare
@Pittsburgh Mike:
After the 2012 convention, Obama kind of acknowledged Bill was the better speaker by saying that Bill should be the Secretary of Explaining Stuff. I still remember Bill explaining what a block grant would do to people on Medicaid. Just brilliant.
Eta> agree with the Ron White reference.
Chris
@Marcopolo:
My European half probably helps here, but it’s much clearer once you realize that libertarians are the twenty-first century version of the aristocrats from a few hundred years ago, who didn’t want a strong king because they wanted themselves to remain the absolute and uncontested authority over their little baronies. Any legal system with a functioning central government to give it teeth would mean there was a bigger fish swimming around who might be able to move into their pond, however unlikely they are to do it in practice, and that absolutely couldn’t be tolerated.
Bupalos
@Chris: also a good time to point out that these turds actually usually represent larger constituencies and political forces, not just personal whim. People disagree about stuff. Often with good or at least understandable reason on all sides.
Marcopolo
@Bupalos: So the margins in the deciding states WI, PA, and a few others were tiny (10s of Ks) in 2016. While I too don’t think 3rd party voters were determinative per se they were one dimension of a very successful R voter operation to increase disenchantment w/ Hillary. It’s the folks who stayed home, weren’t jazzed enough to vote, who truly let Trump win. The echoes of the current hunter Biden/Gaza stuff to the emails/Clinton fatigue are quite clear to me.
Juju
@Marcopolo: Don’t forget the repulsive James Comey. He was the final nail.
Geminid
@Bupalos: I crunched the numbers for Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and I thought the Libertarian “overvote” could have been determinative. It definitely exceeded Trump’s margin of victory in those states. There’s no way of telling how that vote would have gone if the race had been thought to be the tossup it actually was.
But we first got into this because someone raised the impact of the belief that Clinton was certain to win, and that is what I responded to by bringing up the exceptional Libertarian vote that year. Here, we have to consider also the less motivated Democratic voters who did not turn out because they thought Clinton had the race in the bag. When you add them to the unusual number of 3rd party defectors, overconfidence could have been decisive.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Of course the trap here is that the Republicans not only outlaw abortion, but interfere with the level of competent medical care available to women.
As we have already seen, this forces women to leave the state in order to get medical care. This starts to impact more middle class women and even some upper middle class women and families.
Pittsburgh Mike
@Soprano2: Oh, I’m pretty sure that if you tell Bibi that all military aid and intelligence cooperation gets suspended until he stops bombing Gaza, it would stop.
But there’s absolutely no chance Biden will come down that hard on the Israeli government in an election year. Or any other year, for that matter.
I’ve read very little about Israel/Palestine that gets to the core of what an utter clusterfuck the whole place is. Since the start of the 2nd Intifada 23 years ago, there has been no real interest on the Israeli side in granting any Palestinian autonomy, nor any civil rights to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Israelis have never stopped expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank, either, and continue to violently kick Palestinians off of their land there.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, have never relinquished the demand for something like 4-14 million descendants of the original Palestinian refugees to return to Israel proper, nor obviously have they abandoned terrorism as a tool.
Peace between these two peoples looks to be at least another generation away.
Marcopolo
@Pittsburgh Mike: I honestly think there’s just too much junk news and fragmentation in the information-sphere circa 2023 now for anyone to be able to clearly get their story out (at least to a broad swath of people). It’s like trying to find that thing you want on the grocery store shelf: it used to come in one plain vanilla version with no competitors, now there are 20 varieties & 20 other knock off competitors and nothing is where it used to be. Terrible analogy but there you go.
Denali5
@Betsy: I keep wanting to tell the Ohio DA who charged the woman who had a miscarriage to CHARGE ME. I had a miscarriage in 1973, and I never dreamed that I could be charged with murdering a child. What are we thinking! This is a Me Too moment for women, and they should understand what it is about. It is about controlling women’s lives.
Betsy
@Barbara: I agree. That’s how the Repugs got themselves stuck with Sarah Palin as VP pick — a bunch of men in a room all nodding their heads with excitement — “We met her and she’s GREAT!!! The girls are gonna LOVE her!!”
Bupalos
@Geminid: very possible. I used to say that if the election had been re-run the next day, she’d likely win. I don’t see it that way anymore. You can make just as good a case that confidence she would win depressed Trumpist turnout.
Pittsburgh Mike
@Alison Rose: Not just the “Youths,” but all the people who haven’t figure that elections are always a choice between two imperfect candidates. Even when I first voted, for Carter over Ford in 1976, I realized that you’re voting for party platforms, and the Republicans back then stood for tax cuts for wealthy people. And that’s still what’s motivating them, 48 years later.
For most Republicans, hitching their wagon to Trump is just a way to get more support for gutting the any sort of economic fairness; Romney in 2012 showed how unpopular a clear description of the Republican economic platform of writing off 47% of the country was.
The rich think they can buy their way around any problems caused by their social pandering, although perhaps some of them are giving it a second thought after Dobbs made emergency medical care for pregnant women illegal in so many states.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Well said.
Paul in KY
@Anotherlurker: She must be a good lay. Another thinh=g about the Irish indentured is that after the 7 years, they could go to another town far away, pass themselves off as a Brit & marry into a better situation. No way an enslaved or free Black person could do that.
Another Scott
@Rusty: Politics is slow, but things are happening.
WhiteHouse.gov:
I hope your daughters realize that even this small bit of good news wouldn’t happen if TIFG were in office.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Until about a month before that 16 election, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of people thinking he was a viable person to be President. In mid August, I thought she had it wrapped up. By early Oct, I was freaking.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: To me, they are Republicans who are too (insert nasty word for being scared & craven) to admit they are Republicans.
They might run in social circles that trend more Democratic/Liberal or something like that.
eclare
@Paul in KY:
I didn’t freak til Comey came out, but once he did, all of my friends and I started freaking.
Paul in KY
@eclare: Fucking Comey…
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: You and me both, sister friend.
schrodingers_cat
@Kathleen: Yep. WW have to decide whether preserving their white privilege is more important than losing bodily autonomy.
Ohio Mom
@Marcopolo: I don’t think this will be helpful but when I hear about “Israeli settlement colonialism” I think silently to myself, “And what is it exactly that you have been doing all this time to counteract the long term effects of U.S. settlement colonialism? Our first peoples are suffering and they have never been on your radar.”
The politics and history of Israeli-Palestinian relations is complicated, and neither one of them are admirable. But I can’t think of a less productive path towards a solution then this framing.
brantl
@Brit in Chicago: Anybody who thinks Romney wouldn’t be an unmitigated disaster, could only do so by saying maybe we would have dodged The Stump. There’s no other f*cking argument for it. And “Maybe” is doing yeoman’s work there.
Bill Arnold
@Dangerman:
Digby has a roundup for yesterday. The nutiness is not subsiding.
Good Morning Sunshine! – Some uplifting messages from your once and (hopefully not) future dictator (Digby, December 27, 2023)
I had to look up the “51 Fake Intelligence Agents” thing. That was a Trumpish rewrite of a NYPost headline; the headline was quoted by Glenn Greenwald in a tweet. (That was the first google hit).
(The former intelligence agents were correct to say that the “Biden laptop” had the appearance of a Russian, or at least Russia-affiliated, hack and leak operation. IMHO, it actually was such an operation. If the FBI has an actual Biden “laptop”, they would have announced, or leak-announced, DNA evidence from keyboard detritus, right?)
brantl
@Marc: We need to vote “yes” on the cease-fire; that would be telling for the Israeli government. Then, we need to tell them (privately) that if this continues, their weapons allotments (from us) are going to be ramped DOWN.
Miss Bianca
@Alison Rose: QFT. All of it.
Bill Arnold
@Tom Levenson:
This will be an influence-operation and ratfucking election, the messiest in many decades.
Tool up. (Metaphorically. Not with guns, unless that’s one’s thing.)
I would not want to be in D.J. Trump’s position, though.
StringOnAStick
@Anotherlurker: I’m sorry about the loss of your friendship. FOX has cost me any chance at a relationship with my parents and half my siblings; it hurts less with time, honest.
NeenerNeener
@Ohio Mom: No, they never asked on the followup paperwork at the ER. That spot is left blank. To compound the problem, I’m now a Medicare patient and the Medicare office shoved me into a Medicare Advantage plan with an HMO, so I need referrals for all my medical pit crew. With a PPO I could have made calls, but I didn’t know until I got to my temporary address in Virginia that what I had was an HMO. I had way too much going on at once, I guess: retirement, selling my house, emptying it out and moving all within 2 months. Hindsight is 20/20…
Geminid
@brantl: Tbe Biden administration does not want a permanent ceasefire at this point. That’s why we pressed for the Security Council resolution to call for “the creation of the conditions” for a ceasefire, and not a ceasefire. We would have vetoed it otherwise.
The resolution is extensive and covers a lot of ground, including UN administration of aid to Haza and the governance of Gaza after the war ends. It’s a template for the resolution the US will eventually vote for.
Right now negotiations for a ceasefire center on a proposal made by Egypt last week. Neither Hamas nor Israel have bought in, but that could change.
Egypt’s proposal is thought to be backed by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and it seems to track US policy. I have not seen the details, but I think it is similar to the one the Saudis proposed earlier. That called for 1) evacuation of Hamas leaders and fighters to Algeria and the return of the hostages; 2) introduction of a peacekeeping force under UN mandate; 3) Installment of a “technocratic” government in Gaza; and 4) handing Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority after 4 years.
Evidently the Saudis don’t think the PA is up to task now but could be after it has been reformed and strengthened. They also seem to agree with Israel and the US on the neccessity of removing Hamas from power.
brantl
@Geminid: But you have to have a ceasefire, before you can have anything else. And the US insisting that Hamas be condemned without the ghost in the room, 50 years of Palestinian imprisonment, and having their land stolen from them by the Israelis, being called out, is extremely one-sided.
Geminid
@brantl: Of course you have to have a ceasefire, and that is a key feature of both the Egyptian and Saudi proposals.
As for the mistaken, one-sided views you want our government to revise, wouldn’t a ceasefire be worthwhile even if we didn’t? It might not please some people but it would stop the bleeding.
This is both an acute problem and a long-term one. The second part won’t be solved all at once because it can’t be. This will have to go one step at a time, and the first step is to address the acute problem by means of a sustainable ceasefire.
Another Scott
@Marc: @brantl:
The problem with telling Bibi that we won’t send him weapons that he says he needs is that everyone knows that the USA will never allow Israel to lose a war. If Israel cannot defend itself and, say, Hezbollah and Iran and Syria attack, then the USA is going to be there to help defend her no matter how pissed off we are at Bibi.
And if Bibi thought that we were serious about not giving Israel what they need, then he would be on K-Street and in the GQP cloak rooms faster than you can say Who Lost China. And Congress would tell him to give Bibi everything he wants, probably in overwhelming numbers.
Threats only have power when there is confidence that they have power behind them.
I think Biden and Blinken and all the rest have handled this about as well as it’s possible to handle it. They’re burning up the phones to just about all the players in the region. They’re not letting the Houthis goad him into a war on their timing. They’re not letting themselves be distracted from protecting our troops in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the region. They’re not letting their anger at Bibi make them make stupid mistakes that get Congress involved, forcing his hand. And they’re continuing to press Bibi in private, and even in public, to stop bouncing the rubble and think about what happens next.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in Pasadena
@rikyrah: Suspect most will choose race.
Mike in Pasadena
@Chris: Agreed Pres. Romney would have been a shit show. However, Brit was correct in implying that Obama tipped Rethuglicans into total madness.
Mike in Pasadena
@Rusty: What exactly was Biden supposed to do in their minds? Wave his magic wand and instantly stop the war in Gaza? Say mean things about Israel and thereby stop their genocide of the Palestinians? Inquiring minds want to know beacuse I’ve heard the same and the youths have not convinced me they have any credible answer other than Biden didn’t do enough to stop Israel. How he was supposed to do that remains unspoken. A mystery wrapped in an enigma.
Geminid
@Mike in Pasadena: I support Biden’s basic approach to this war, but I think that if he wanted he could curtail Israel’s offensive by witholding arms shipments. Israel cannot supply themselves with what they need to keep fighting at this tempo. I think Biden hasn’t done this because he agrees with the strategic goal of ending Hamas rule in Gaza.
We may finally be restricting arms shipments, or at least threatening to. There was a story in Israeli media this weekend that Defense Minister Gallant told other government officials that the US might not fulfill future Israeli requests, and not for “technical reasons” either. This was after a phone conversation Gallant had with Secretary of State Blinken. Blinken might have told Gallant that we won’t keep sending Israel ordinance if Israel continues to misuse it.
Glidwrith
@Betsy: Yep, on the blindness of a lot of men about biological reality: brother and father barely knew Roe had fallen and when asked about the consequences, the first response was “what if she’s a slut?”
Subsole
@Dangerman:
Nah, bro.
Nah.
Fuck them. They had their shot and dropped the ball.
I mean, I didn’t see any of these nebulous Powers step up with the rat-poisoned Adderall when that abject fucking cretin was running us into the ditch during his 4 year reign of error. Did you?
The Powers That Be can take their ‘pull’ and apply it directly to my hangdown. They have demonstrated that they and their influence are capable of jack shit and worth even less.
We are on our own here, homie.
Subsole
@Bupalos:
And what are they saying the odds are?
Super Dave
The effect of the Dobbs decision is being underestimated. Democrats are going to benefit from a Blue Wave and win the Presidency, the Senate, and retake the House.
Juju
@NeenerNeener: Here is some information about Medicare Advantage policies from AARP. It may help you. Get in touch with an Advantage agent, that might help.
Jan. 1 to March 31. If you have a Medicare Advantage plan, you can switch to another Medicare Advantage plan, or change from Medicare Advantage to original Medicare and join a Part D plan during this Medicare Advantage open enrollment period. Coverage begins the first day of the month after you switch.
I hope you see this and can improve your situation. I take care of Medicare enrollment for my mother. If you have questions the 800-Medicare number can help.
whatsleft
@NeenerNeener: You have a 60-day window, called a Special Enrollment Period or SEP, from the day you move into a new zip code, to change to a new Medicare plan. You can also make a one-time change between Jan 1 to March 31 to change from one MAPD to another or switch back to original Medicare and add a Prescription Drug (PD) plan. If you qualify for a chronic condition such as diabetes or a heart condition, you can get a C-SNP (Chronic Special Needs Plan), and you can change your plan as often as once a quarter during the first 9 months of the year. These are just some of the options. You may qualify for others. Good Luck!