Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

In my day, never was longer.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

The lights are all blinking red.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Late Night Open Thread: A Shift in the Vibes

Late Night Open Thread: A Shift in the Vibes

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2/Part of the problem, of course, has been the media polls, which have seemed predicated on similar or greater Trump turnout (as if there are a lot of people who didn’t vote in 2016 or 2020 but now, after all that has happened since Nov 2020, finally felt strongly…

3/…about Trump that _this_ time they’ll vote for him). Those polls have also showed 3rd party candidates getting 20% of the vote, which was evidence that they didn’t like their choices & hadn’t confronted the necessity to make a choice from the actual candidates…

4/Its also taken time for people to start to figure out that much of the supposed “sourness about the economy” was Repubs responding to survey questions about the economy w partisan answers (aided by spectacularly crappy press coverage of Biden policy successes). But now…

5/…we’re starting to get actual votes for & against Trump. Lot of pundits downplayed the Repubs’ 2022 disaster, they keep on saying Dobbs will fade, they ignored or failed to understand the results of 2023/special elections, etc.

But in Iowa Trump got barely 50%. He may win…

6/…NH by a solid margin, but reporters are starting to run in to a lot of 2020 Trump voters who adamantly refuse to vote for him in 2024. The evidence is harder to brush off

Trump is significantly weaker than he was when he lost by 7m votes

It’s sinking in with a lot…

7/…of people (including the press) that Trump has lost support, in part because the idea he wouldn’t lose support _never made sense_. After people dismissed his chances for the 2016 nomination & then failed to understand the decisive effects of Russian operations…

8/…to help Trump & especially the death blows delivered by Comey, in their minds Trump had some kind of MAGA magic. Yes, he leads a cult. But the cult has never been enough for him to win, he needed a lot of people who aren’t in the cult. For two elections he got a lot of them…

9/…(but neither time enough to get the most votes). Now reporters are discovering that the most significant development in US elections isn’t guys in rural diners, it’s people w mostly dumb reasons to oppose Biden but who will no longer vote for Trump. And now it’s becoming…

10/…conventional wisdom that Trump is weak, it’s hard to see a way he can overtake Biden, & instead of gaining voters (which never made sense) he’s lost a modest but consequential chunk of his past support. Sure, the cult won’t leave him. But he may have lost…

11/…10-15% of his 2020 support, w some of it going to Biden, & if Trump loses that much support, Biden will likely win a landslide.

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    TriassicSands

    Biden could never hope to attract the kind of “enthusiasm” that Trump has. Why? Because the whole Trump phenomenon is a cult and his most avid followers don’t “support” him, they worship him. Worshiping politicians is, I believe, a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.
    I also wonder if, at some point, even his most idolatrous worshipers won’t begin to wonder what’s up with that guy who is spewing a bunch of utter nonsense. When did he defeat Obama? How can Biden get us into WWII? Isn’t that already over? What does he mean, magnets don’t work in water?
    ETA: Obviously, different people must define charisma differently. I can’t begin to imagine what people are talking about when they say Trump is charismatic. I never associated a person making me want to vomit with charisma.​

  2. 2.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @TriassicSands: “Worshiping politicians is, I believe, a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.”

    Nailed it. Worshiping a politician is not a good idea and all TFG exists for is cash, adoration and feeding his ego and his cult has been delivering. Joe has been the leader of our nation, not a cult. We need a leader for our nation, not someone bent on enrichment, retribution and the destruction of our democracy.

    TFG should be locked up for his crimes against our nation and its people.

  3. 3.

    SpaceUnit

    Despite all the MSM’s horserace BS, there is absolutely nothing trending toward an advantage for TFG.  This election cycle is an opportunity to pound a stake into the GOP’s heart.  Let’s make the most of it.

    ETA:  Bayonets and steamrollers.

  4. 4.

    ColoradoGuy

    Like all cults, the Orange cult has a sell-by date. As it shrinks, supporters get more radical and fanatic, but there are fewer of them. Bit by bit, people get bored and quietly leave. The circus act is no longer new, and the edginess-for-its-own-sake act may be losing its appeal.

    There’s real things going on, after all. The pandemic terrified us all. Climate change is not going away. Putin is revealed as a bloodthirsty madman.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    Ron Fournier — ugh! I thought that aggressively obtuse fuck-squib had wandered off into well-deserved obscurity a decade ago. How unsurprising that Fournier mistook a blubbering, weak-minded, conspiracy-addled crackpot for a Quintessential American Man and is caping hard for the loon in ways that falsely implicate Democrats.

  8. 8.

    gwangung

    A) The problem was not Trump gaining voters, it was Biden losing voters, mostly through lack of enthusiasm.

    B) You know what generates enthusiasm? Showing an opponent has weaknesses…AND POUNDING THE HELL OUT OF THEM.

    There’s blood in the water, and we can take advantage of it.

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    Worshiping politicians is, I believe, a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.

    And yet, some people love bad ideas.

    Like you and everyone else here, I am astounded by those who worship Trump. He is their Great Orange Hope. And so, I enjoy the mockery he deserves and gets.

    But he may wrap up the GOP nomination early. The conventions will just be formality.

    Democrats may need to start “get out the vote” efforts earlier than usual.

    Right now, we know how Trump attacks. There is nothing new here and he is easy to campaign against.

    Right now, one wild card, if he sews up the nomination, is whether Trump selects his VP early or waits until the convention.

    Otherwise, I say, let’s get ready to rumble.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    enthusiasm for Trump?

    Look up the etymology of enthusiasm sometime if you’ve a mind to. In Shakespeare;’s time, and well beyond, it was a pejorative term.

  11. 11.

    sab

    @Betty Cracker: He is only 61 and rich guys still want to pay him, so he will probably be around for a while.

    I am surprised that someone so obtuse at his age still has sugardaddies, but there is no accounting for the choices of the rich.

  13. 13.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Speaking of assholes I see that Texas is refusing to comply with the Supreme Court decision and instead are preventing the removal of the razor wire from the river in at least one area. The Texas National Guard are stopping the feds from clearing the way and have no intention of standing down. Can’t Biden activate the NG down there and send them to some remote station in Alaska to watch polar bears look for ice? Politicians and flaks are calling for civil war, secession (or succession as some stupid fuckers out there are calling it) and all of the other buzzwords that makes conservative white supremacists jizz themselves.

    I just heard TFG on the radio nooz saying that it will be the end of America if he loses. No, it will be the end of him and he is hard at work trying to build support for Insurrection II.

    Fuck Trump and fuck his mindless cult. Let’s beat their asses this fall.

  14. 14.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    The Texas National Guard are stopping the feds from clearing the way and have no intention of standing down.

    Those fuckers need to be court-martialed, not sent to an outpost in Alaska.  National Guardsmen take an oath to our Constitution:

    “I (state your full name), Do solemnly swear, (or affirm) that I
    will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and
    the State of ______
    Against all enemies, foreign and
    domestic; that I will bear true
    faith and allegiance to them; and
    that I will obey the orders of the
    President of the United States and
    the Governor of _____ and the
    orders of the officers appointed
    over me, according to law and
    regulations. So help me God”

    SCOTUS has spoken; a Guardsman who disobeys that (now fully lawful) order to allow Federal agents to pass, is in violation of his oath.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    @Chetan Murthy

    In the 19th century one could be summarily ejected without recourse from an esteemed British intellectual society for being deemed an enthusiast.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kathleen: That was a pre-caffeinated comment! I’ve now combined my first cup of Italian roast with a generous splash of half-and-half and will be incapable of reining in the application of adjectives. ;-)

    @sab: Fournier used to regularly annoy me during the Obama years from unearned perches at prestigious DC media outlets. I’m too lazy to look it up now, but I seem to recall him decamping to the Midwest after announcing the move with a column so laden with treacly self-regard that it’s probably permanently embedded in the Potomac muck. Then he mercifully fell silent. Until now.

  18. 18.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @OP:

    the most significant development in US elections isn’t guys in rural diners, it’s people w mostly dumb reasons to oppose Biden

    At this time, that’s any reason. Disagree, sure, but support our President.

    /ChoirDirectedPreaching

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @opiejeanne:

    OT, but has our BillinGlendale been seen recently in this-here blog?

    Yes. He posted a quick message that he was mainly lurking for a while.

  24. 24.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Taken to its extreme, if Texas can ignore court rulings then other states can ignore Heller, Dobbs, Citizens United, VRA clearance and a host of other shitty decisions.

    Stupid fucking conservatives. The party of the rule of law…lol! The party of personal responsibility…lol! They’re all a bunch of grifters and criminals fleecing the stupid puds out of their votes, freedom and money, all in the name of Jesus!

    The south will rise again and this time it’s even more stupid than last time.

  28. 28.

    sab

    So Trump, former president and also current Republican frontrunner in 2024, can barely get 50%.  And NYT thinks that is a massive victory.

    Biden got more with write-ins.

  29. 29.

    TriassicSands

    @gene108:

    How am I doing? Thank you for asking. Better in some ways, but the struggle with this health care system is mindnumbing. Now, it is my new, utterly worthless Part D provider. Absolutely, incompetent. I can’t get the medication I need locally because there is a national shortage and every pharmacy in this area has the same supplier — so when one is out, they’re all out.

    Against my better judgement, but because I had no choice, I had the doctor send the prescriptions to a mail-order pharmacy. They told me the meds would arrive on or before January 20. They are still not here on the 23 and they they “hope” they can get them to me by next Tuesday.

    When the prescription went in they had the medications in stock; now they aren’t sure. Apparently, no one there can count either. To make things even worse, they informed me — weeks after the prescriptions were sent in — that they will only provide me with a seven-day supply the first time. Not the 30 day supply that was prescribed. WTF? Not a word about that before today and it has nothing to do with any shortage. Could they have told me that two weeks ago? I don’t see why not. But, they’re “sorry” they didn’t let me know.

    Eventually, after an hour on the phone with them, I spoke to a pharmacist who said she had some questions for me. OK. Am I allergic to the medications my doctor prescribed for me. What? Yes, my doctor always prescribes medications that his patients are allergic to. I finally said to her, “You should be ashamed of yourself. The level of incompetence that you and your pharmacy have displayed is truly horrifying.”

    This kind of ineptitude has become increasingly common in what we pretend is a health care system, but what is, in fact, a money making scheme for a bunch of greed-heads. The delay in the medication is medically serious and the pharmacy failed in so many ways I can’t even begin to count them. The worse news? I’m stuck with them until January 1, 2025. Worse still, this was the highest rated Part D provider I had access to this year. I have been rationing medication for two weeks, but I won’t make it to next Tuesday.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TriassicSands: ​ I have been rationing medication for two weeks, but I won’t make it to next Tuesday.

    I do that all the time now with my Xarelto. Started a year ago when I got hit by the donut hole for $500 in f’n DECEMBER. Also went from Walgreens to Sinks because I’m not stupid enough to stick with a grifting operation after getting hit with that clue x4. I now take it for 2 days, skip 1, 2 days, skip1. My reasoning is pretty simple. Anytime I have surgery, I have to stop taking it 5 days before and go on the Lovinox. After a year with no clots, I’d say it’s working out.

    Also cut down on my Nexium to 1 a day from 1 in the AM and 1 in the PM, (just PM now). I think I’m gonna have to go back to 2 a days as I’m having a touch of daytime acid reflux.

    Sucks to be me.

    @Betty Cracker: He is missed.

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @sab:

    So Trump, former president and also current Republican frontrunner in 2024, can barely get 50%.  And NYT thinks that is a massive victory.

    It’s not what the NYT thinks. It is a massive victory over Hayley. Trump is getting closer to what he wants: the GOP nomination and the full support of the GOP.

    Is there anyone else in the GOP who can challenge him? No.

    How would anything make a difference if his percentage were higher?

    Jesus, people, get a clue.

    But it is also true that none of this means a thing as far as the general election is concerned. Here he is weak, vulnerable, ready to be taken down.

  37. 37.

    TriassicSands

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
     
    What terrible news.

    I missed the post. I’m saddened to hear that. The details don’t matter now, but I do hope his passing was an easy one and those he left behind are taken care of.

  38. 38.

    Burnspbesq

    Biden, or whatever subordinate has authority to do so, needs to federalize the Texas National Guard like ten minutes ago. Make them remove their own illegal fortifications. If they refuse, court-martial the lot of them. And just for shits and giggles, find some applicable statute and indict Abbott. No state gets to have its own foreign policy.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    I think they worship him because he’s all about money. All about lying about how much he’s got and how much he’s worth. Problem is that he’s decaying rapidly. He’s got no where to hide and wouldn’t think of hiding if he did. He has to be out in the open, out in the lime light. He’s convinced himself that he’s the greatest human ever – but unfortunately his convincing himself that he’s the greatest human ever has just shown a rather large segment of the population that he is an insane ass. Sure there will always be some who LIKE insane asses, but I’d bet that number is not exactly a political race majority. On either side.

  40. 40.

    Chris T.

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Also cut down on my Nexium to 1 a day …

    Be careful with proton-pump inhibitors (Prilosec, Nexium, etc) as the rise in stomach pH (usually tops out about 3.5) can let various “bad bugs” through.

    (I tend to use Tums myself, but if and when things get particularly bad I’ll pick up a proton pump inhibitor pack at Costco.)

  41. 41.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good early mornin’, y’all!

    Lightning from passing t-storm woke me up early. Since I have to leave for yet another flight out (hey, NotMax, coming to your neck of the woods!), figured I’d stay up and drink a cup of coffee.

    Anyhoo, I’m glad to see the “Inevitable Strong Trump/Weak Biden” narrative finally falling to earth.  I gotta wonder how much of that was being pushed, not only by a political media industry desperate for a horse race, but also by massive amounts of butthurt MAGA hopium.

  43. 43.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator: How would anything make a difference if his percentage were higher?

    If his percentage were too high, the media might have to work harder to continue to pretend that Republicans today are really just normal democracy-loving Americans who, sure, may dress up in MAGA costumes and worship a criminal, but because they hang out in diners, they’re really just typical, average Americans.

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    I think they worship him because he’s all about money.

    You might be right. I don’t know. We enjoy dissecting Trump and finding him and his supporters to be deficient.

    But I don’t know why his base cannot see how morally and psychologically damaged Trump is. It’s not like he’s paying them.

    The bottom line is right now there’s more of us than there are of them and we have to do what we can to keep our numbers high and defeat Trump in November.

    Then we can go back to dissecting him.

  46. 46.

    TriassicSands

    It’s almost 2:30AM here. Time to try to try to beat back the steroid-induced insomnia and try to get some sleep.

    Goodnight, all.

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    There have been some great posts and links recently to stories about the media’s failure. But I don’t see them changing anytime soon. Or helping to bring Trump down.

    I also admit that I am watching my hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times, struggle to survive. I know that for many jackals, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the only newspapers that matter, but state and local news coverage are important to me.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    @TriassicSands:

    Sorry you are dealing with so much stress. Not having important meds is scary.

    I had an issue with Walgreens mail in pharmacy, when they were the preferred provider. They told me a drug was out of stock, which I really need, but after a bunch of follow up it turned out the specific generic brand they have been giving me was out of stock. They had other generics from different suppliers for the same drug, but somehow didn’t automatically use one of those to fill the order without follow-up on my end. The only redeeming fact is the physical pharmacy had the drug in stock, so I paid out of pocket for a two week supply until the mail order was delivered.

  52. 52.

    LiminalOwl

    @TriassicSands: That is awful. I’m so sorry you have to deal with such incompetence, and I wish there were something we could do to help.

    (If it’s okay, might I ask the name of the unavailable med(s)? Would scouting local pharmacies elsewhere be potentially helpful, for instance? Feel free to ask WaterGirl for my email address if you want to answer but not publicly.)

  54. 54.

    Capri

    @Chetan Murthy:  Read an article some time ago in (I think) Wired who used crypto tracing to bust a ton of child porn abusers.

    Very depressing but good to catch so many.

  55. 55.

    Denali5

    I really don’t appreciate turning on the news to see at least 5 images of TIFG. The media is pushing him on us. Do they not understand what a danger he poses? I am so frightened for the future of this country.

  56. 56.

    evodevo

    @TriassicSands:  Yeah…had similar experience (though not quite as serious as your problem) with the cortisone eyedrops I was supposed to get for my eye surgery.  The surgeon referred me to a mail-order pharmacy located in …Louisville…so no way I could just drive over and get it.  The prescription was supposedly phoned in and I was supposed to have it a WEEK before surgery.  Well, 2 days before, no meds had shown up in the mail, so I called them – they had never sent it out.  It finally arrived the day AFTER surgery, 24 hrs after I was supposed to begin using it.  I think a lot of these mail order places are understaffed and overwhelmed, especially after years of the covid crisis.  Won’t be trusting THAT again…

  57. 57.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Denali5: Trump has benefitted by being out of most people’s sight over the last couple of years. Now between his court appearances and the election, he can’t stay there anymore. The more people see him, the more they remember why they were happy to be rid of him.

  59. 59.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Brachiator: ”

    How would anything make a difference if his percentage were higher?

    Jesus, people, get a clue.

    But it is also true that none of this means a thing as far as the general election is concerned. Here he is weak, vulnerable, ready to be taken down.”

    But his relatively low percentage shows the weakness and vulnerability that mention, so I find your “get a clue” comment to be out of place (and insulting).

  61. 61.

    JaneE

    I don’t know if Haley will make it to our primary (in June), but I hope she does.  In 2016 a straw poll before the nomination showed Trump with about a third of the voters in my very red county.  Of course they voted for him in the general, and I even had one person tell me she was liking him more and more.  But there were few yard signs out, and next to none in 2020.  And not long after Trump’s inauguration people just stopped talking politics.  At all.  There had been plenty of criticism of Obama floating around.  I would like to see how many really MAGA Trump supporters we have here, as opposed to the GOP conservatives they have been for the last 150 years.

  63. 63.

    moonbat

    FINALLY! Reality begins to sink in. The media has been spinning the Trump is a Juggernaut! plates on top of weak polling sticks for far too long. Some of them are starting to fall.

    And I never thought I’d say this in this day and age, but I’ve found a registered Republican I actually like: That little old lady in Manchester, NH who has figured out what is at stake. Bless her.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    SFB is not alone in his politics or his humanity. If he was he would have a lot less support.

    But. Notice that he has lost a lot of support over the last bit of time. And it’s because of who he is, not because of his like and desire of and bragging about his money. When one is normal or even near normal and in an OK monetary position, even if not where one desires to be, money becomes an issue but not an over ridding issue. SFB is the type of person who sees money as the overwhelming guiding principle of life but without any reasonable way to get, keep or use it, other than bragging about it. What skills does he have to sell? Zero. His life is about money, nothing more, nothing less.

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