In the first two GOP early state primary/caucus contests, Trump notched wins with 51% and 54% of the vote, which analysts called dominating performances. And they were big wins in the sense that losers DeSantis and Haley got clobbered.
But this is what it looks like when a party leader has a unified base behind him:
According to the most recent poll I can find for South Carolina, Trump is beating Haley 58% to 32% in her home state. That’s embarrassing for her, but alarm bells should be ringing at Trump HQ since Orangemandias still ain’t cracking 60% so far.
We’ve known for almost a year now that, barring a black swan event, Trump is going to be the GOP nominee. A plurality of Republican base voters are hard-core cultists, and a not-insignificant number who don’t directly worship the buffoon nonetheless experience vicarious transgressive thrills from Trump’s antics. I think of the latter as the “just want to watch the world burn” faction.
But while it remains frightening and repulsive that tens of millions of our fellow citizens are such feckless fuck-squibs, this is not a strong start for Team Trump. Maybe the candidate himself dimly senses that, which might explain why last night he begged cultists on his tumbleweed-choked, knock-off social media platform to participate in his pathetic delusion that he looks like…Elvis Presley. Who died in 1977.
And speaking of pathetic, in South Carolina, Rep. Dean Phillips finished third behind the Crystal Blue Persuasion lady with a whopping 1.7% share of primary votes. Sadly, it appears no one loves him enough to tell him he’s humiliating himself and should slink back to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Open thread.
Baud
Need to copy and paste the comments in the overnight thread here.
I’ll start with this observation about the Elvis comparison.
Victor Matheson
Dean Phillips does vodka a whole lot better than presidential politics.
And let’s be clear, no one has ever gone into in fancy casino and ordered, “Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred. And make it Phillips.”
Baud
We should be prepared for the media to go crazy with a less than stellar showing in Michigan, however. Prime state for a protest vote.
Kay
One good measure of a candidate’s perceived weakness is the quality of competition he or she attracts. The Trump challengers were strong- DeSantis was the media/conservative darling and Nikki Haley is a better quality candidate than 90% of GOP electeds. They thought Trump was weak enough to challenge him.
Compare with the quality of the Biden challengers- grifter self help lady, anti vaxx legacy admit, and son of a rich person.
Biden’s would- be competitors in the D party believe he’s strong- that why no one with a real political career challenged him.
Baud
@Kay:
The problem the strong competitors have is that they’re all 2028 hopefuls, and if they came in this year and lost, they’d be kissing 2028 goodbye.
M31
I mean, probably Trump looks a bit better than Elvis looks right now.
maybe
NotMax
@Ma href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2024/02/04/win-place-show-open-thread/#comment-9092965″>Victor Matheson
Phillips is for screwdrivers.
::rimshot::
Kay
@Baud:
We don’t have to go crazy but that would be a real concern for me- a big protest vote in the Detroit area. That’s worrying for carrying Michigan. I don’t think that’s how it will go though. They aren’t going to vote against Biden- they’re just not going to vote the top line.
Geminid
@Victor Matheson: To repeat, a song about about Dean Philips set to the sappy Rod McKuen tune:
“Dean, Dean, you’re wrong, full of jive.
Drop out of your half-baked scheme.
And run, if you will, to the nearest landfill.
Get lost, don’t pass Go, Barmy Dean.”
NotMax
Fixy fix.
@Victor Matheson
Phillips is for screwdrivers.
::rimshot::
Jeffro
@Baud: I hope the Biden/Harris team has a fucking field day with trumpov’s delusions re: The King. I know I would.
Baud
@Kay:
They can protest in the primary. If they’re a lot of them, expect the media to ignore the unique situation in MI.
matt
Republicans think Trump is really fuckable?
Jeffro
I’ve seen a few pieces about how the Dems are unified and Reps are bigly split – I think Ezra Klein’s was the most recent one. Unfortunately it was noted in a piece about Dems having an ‘identity crisis’. (severe eye roll)
Even McMegs mentioned that the GOP was a collection of individual ‘entrepreneurs’ and not really a party anymore. The Post comments section had a field day with that one: “Hey Megan, you misspelled ‘grifters’! ” x 1000.
Sanjeevs
Never change NYT.
Princess
Betty, you’re a treasure.
(I feel that way about all the BJ front pagers — each in their own different way has something to offer.)
Baud
@Sanjeevs:
By which we mean, please change NYT.
Although I would hate to put pitchbot out of business.
NotMax
@Baud
Dolt couture: sequined jumpsuit with an elongated red tie.
Kay
@Baud:
I just don’t think the other candidates address their issue either, in any serious or respectful way. They don’t have anyone to vote for.
It could just be so tight in MI- 20k voters really could turn the election. It’s a genuine risk. That group have never really taken advantage of the fact that they punch above their weight in D politics- this could be when they do that.
Location, location, location. What doesn’t matter in NY or CA matters a lot in MI :)
Jeffro
Not only that, but they are out there plugging for him and fundraising for him like mad. Maybe they understand both what’s at stake this election AND that (maybe because of the stakes) Dem voters won’t forget who kept their egos in check for the good of the party come 2028?
Baud
@NotMax:
Mar-a-Lago = Disgraceland.
Baud
@Kay:
They wouldn’t be voting for the other candidates. It would be a protest vote against Biden, if it happens.
Another Scott
JoJoFromJerz has a decent counterpoint.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
I wonder who created that Elvis image? I’m assuming not Trump, he doesn’t have the advanced MS Paint skills needed. Whoever it was is truly delusional, though — using young(ish) Elvis!
I’m really hoping Trump starts using this in his rallies. Four or five nightly repetitions of a five-minute ramble about how people think he looks like Elvis — possibly with some attempts to hit an “Elvis pose” — would be difficult for the media to either hide or spin as normal.
Brachiator
Elvis Presley was a better president than Trump.
gene108
@Kay:
He might also be like and respected within the party. He’s been in politics long enough, he probably made a few friends in powerful places along the way.
NotMax
FYI.
“Close to” : We’re still working out some kinks in the perpetual motion machine, but any day now….
JPL
@matt: Not a good image…
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: I read that piece by Klein and was initially annoyed by the framing too. He talks about how college graduates have shifted toward Dems while mostly (but not exclusively) white working class voters have jumped on the faux-populist grievance train.
That’s true as far as it goes, but only one party has delivered for working people, and it sure as hell ain’t the GOP. Also, is there a real “branding” issue there? College graduates are working people too.
I think the Trump national emergency has definitely papered over some intra-party squabbles on Team Donk, and we’ll probably see fault lines reemerge in the 2028 primary. But it’s nothing like the identity crisis the GOP will face in a post-Trump world.
matt
@JPL: Dennis Prager kissing his pillow, looking at that split picture of Elvis and Trump…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I guess it’s about time for another CNN story in my inbox telling me TFG leads Biden in the polls and Joe is underwater in his own party.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@NotMax: How about, “nobody is going to repeal Roe v. Wade, that’s settled law”?
It worked for years, especially with the press. I’ll bet it would still work with the press.
NotMax
Presley didn’t claim bone spurs.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
The Ezra Klein piece is supremely stupid.
Klein doesn’t believe that there is a real threat to democracy. And he projects this onto voters and also finds Republican leaders who essentially say, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about losing your democracy. It’ll be just as pleasant as losing your reproductive rights.’
Klein’s cynicism is stunning in its blindness to what Trump and the GOP are doing to this country. And he answers a question I had wondered about. The pundit class truly believe that they will be fine if Trump wins and instigates authoritarian rule.
NotMax
Know I teased a fun link for this morning in a thread downstairs. Assuming an “official” morning thread is still forthcoming?
trnc
DougJ remains as relevant as ever.
M31
LOL, that’s like the Monty Python skit on “Camel Spotting”
“How many camels have you seen so far?”
“Hmmm, nearly, . . . .. uh. . . .nearly one”
trnc
All candidates have teams that include media workers, and delusional is a feature, not a bug.
RSA
Elvis died four years before the median American (38 years old) was born.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Polis is a Dem. He’s just one of those idiots who wants to give Dems advice. Here’s what he should have said.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Maybe some enterprising political reporter will start interviewing people in Starbucks shops instead of diners. You know, survey diverse college grads* in growing suburbs instead of white high school grads in fading small towns. They might win a Pulitzer prize for novelty.
*Actually, I think there were plenty of high school grads in the Starbucks shops I used to visit; upscale high school grads, so to speak. There are a lot of that group in the Shenandoah Valley.
Kay
@Baud:
“Popularism” is kind of an article of faith among centrist Dems. They think incrimental (but popular!) policies move the needle. I wish it were true – that people cared about clever tax policy or small changes in health care or regulatory rules – but it doesn’t seem to be. I think most voters respond to broad messages, not micro targeted “popular” tweaks.
Popularism also means you’re always chasing fads and the path of least resistance, so do things like throw trans people under the bus, clamber aboard the anti woke train, etc.
NotMax
@RSA
Doesn’t take a lot of rejiggering the lyrics.
Love that Hitler, love him sweet
Never let him go
He has made my life complete
And I love him so
.
Love me Putin, love me long
Take me to your heart
For it’s there that I belong
And we’ll never part
.
Baud
@Kay:
Is it just centrists? The infamous “I need something to vote for?” Is a lefty slogan, I thought.
ETA: I think the constant negative framing is a universal problem.
ETA2: I don’t know of any Ds that have thrown trans people under the bus. We seem to have resisted that fad pretty well.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
South Carolina has shown us the obvious truth. Marianne Williamson is twice the Presidential candidate Dean Phillips will ever be.
NotMax
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Marimentum!
//
Marmot
@Baud:
Yes. Absolutely. Why does Polis find this so difficult?
Brit in Chicago
@Baud: More likely people just staying home, is my guess. It’s not as if the other Dem candidates are going to arouse any enthusiasm. (Dean who?)
Kay
@Baud:
Lefties don’t have the “popular” obsession. I just think chasing “popular” plays into peoples worst impressions of politicians- that they have no real beliefs. It’s also wrong a lot. The “popularists” thought abortion was an issue where Democrats had to moderate and apologize, preemptively.
Matthew Yglesias is kind of the king of the (in my view, discredited) popularist wing and Yglesias called for Democrats to introduce legislation to ban abortion after 15 weeks the moment Roe was overturned. “Oh, people might get mad at us if we defend this right! Best to just capitulate!” The “popularists” are often wrong about what is popular. They think their opinions are public opinion. There’s no fucking evidence at all that voters care about “wokeism”, but all of the “popularists” are obsessed with opposing it.
skerry
WaPo: When Joe Biden lost his purpose (gift link)
I’m tired of stories and headlines like this.
gVOR10
I think Trump looks a lot like Elvis, who was born in 1935, would look today had he lived.
MazeDancer
Dean Phillips was just on MSNBC. Turned it off when they announced him.
Don’t care if he’s rich. He has to be getting Russian money to stay in the race.
Steve Schmidt, who broke my heart, and I do not support, also stopped being involved with Phillips weeks ago. So, not enough money to keep Steve.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t know much about Polis, but I wouldn’t taint Dems because of anything Yglesias says.
Does he even identify as Democrat?
Baud
@skerry:
Propaganda is all they have left. Expect 10 more months of this.
ETA: I agree with your general point though.
WaterGirl
@gVOR10: If I’m not mistaken, there is a stray “g” in your nym that you’ll want to fix before you post another comment.
Marmot
@Kay:
Is that what it is? That’s Mark Penn’s Microtrends all over again. Or still.
Brit in Chicago
@Betty Cracker: There are some pieces in place for a real realignment of the parties, though some more would be needed for it to happen. At the moment, the populist wing of the Republicans want (among other things):
1. To benefit the working class, hence no cuts to SS or Medicare. (Trump has been explicit on that, though many other elected Republicans go the other way.)
2. To cut taxes for the rich (because they’re still Republican enough for that.
3. To balance the budget, or some close (ditto).
Those are clearly incompatible. So far they’ve fudged it by neglecting 3. and lying about it. When some Republicans give up on 2, and start talking about raising taxes on the rich, then there might a real socially conservative (anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, pro-traditional gender roles) party which acts economically in the interest of the economically lower half. But it’s pretty hard to see anyone calling themselves a Republican giving up on tax-cuts for the rich any time soon.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Good catch. Klein sometimes wants to talk about college graduates vs voters who don’t have a college degree, but later shifts to “working class” vs ???
Baud
I can see politicians talking about small scale fads to fill out a coalition. But they shouldn’t be the focus of a campaign.
Brit in Chicago
@Brachiator: “later shifts to “working class” vs ???” Isn’t the answer “middle class”? Am I missing something here? No one thinks the middle class is mostly people who don’t have to work, they just often (not always) do more pleasant work for more money.
Baud
@Brit in Chicago:
I don’t know any Republican other than Trump that says #1 and he’s lying.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: I have no idea. Believe it or not, we don’t really coordinate content deployment around here! ;-)
Baud
@Baud:
Ugh. That ETA was for Kay in the comment above.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Young Ezra (I’ll always think of him that way), always the careerist using the language that got him to where he is today.
Kay
@Marmot:
I care about incrimental small changes that build on existing systems, but ordinary voters? The people who only plug in after Labor Day every four years? I’m going to tell them about the new federal rule that protects gig workers and that will drive them right to the polls to vote for Biden?
Fat chance. Broad strokes for them, and they’re the majority. Democracy (anti Trump) Freedom (abortion) and Prosperity (good economy).
Baud
@Kay:
👍
Tony Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Might be something to do with the fact that CNN’s editor-in-chief and CEO is Mark Thompson, former head of the BBC (where he saw it as his mission to address the Corporation’s (non-existent) ‘pro-Left bias’) and former CEO of The Fuck The Fucking New York Times. If this article in today’s equally Fuck The Fucking Guardian* is anything to go by he’s matching his anti-Biden slant with the same overtly pro-Israel slant he was frequently slammed for at the BBC. I guess the thing with Thompson is he’s a reliable champion of The Right on any given issue and an accomplished and enthusiastic breaker of journalistic standards in pursuit of that lifetime aim, so we can only assume that that’s what CNN’s head honchos wanted in a new CEO.
* And yes, the fact that the FTF Guardian has the nerve to get up on its high-horse about pro-Israeli Right bias in reporting and the silencing of other, much more honest and factually based viewpoints, in order to push a false narrative is one of those Tunguska-scale eruptions of rampant hypocrisy that that rag specialises in.
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
As long as he’s his own best friend, he’s got at least one good friend in a powerful place. :^D
Betty Cracker
@Brit in Chicago: Yep. I suspect most elected Repubs are waiting for Trump to finally croak so they can stop pretending to care about Social Security and dust off the Paul Ryan model. Also, if someone proposed SocSec cuts that would benefit Trump, he’d be on board with that. GOP “populism” is a mile wide and a nanometer deep.
RevRick
@Brit in Chicago: Not only are they not giving up on the tax cuts for the rich, but they’re also gunning for the regulatory state. Since the Chevron deference decision, courts have allowed regulatory experts to make decisions about how to interpret the statutes governing their area of responsibility. But all that may be thrown out the door if the Court’s radicals decide to overturn Chevron.
That would put in jeopardy a vast number of regulations governing the environment, worker and consumer safety, food and drugs, the regulations of monopolies.
The GOP is populist only in the sense it peddles racism and xenophobia, and that’s all too popular diseases of white folks.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think the lefties who habitually find reasons to reject Democrats are really in the “want to watch the world burn” faction identified above. On some emotional level they’re getting jollies from watching chaos happen and they want to be on the side of chaos to be against “the system”.
I saw these people do a lot of online trolling back in 2016 and they seemed to find some kind of revolutionary excitement in watching Trump roll over liberalism. I’m not even sure it mattered whether there was going to be a revolution that gave them the socialist utopia they claimed they wanted–watching liberals suffer was enough.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Polis is as fauxgressive as they come. Just another rich tech bro who got into politics and in order to succeed in the “new” Colorado (ie, everybody who’s come here in the last 15 years has significantly changed the voting patterns) he has to have a (D) behind his name.
He thinks that b/c he (probably) voted for Obama, supports abortion rights (and obviously gay marriage), people should see him as Bernie Fucking Sanders.
Being here with him as governor actually makes me look back at McCaskill’s time as my senator in Misery with fondness.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: When are the primaries in Michigan? They will be a good measure of the electoral strength of “ceasefire now” folks.
EarthWindFire
@NotMax: They had nearly half a century to work out their post-Roe message. Nah gunna happen.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I believe that was Whitmer’s broad strokes platform, and it worked!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, I’ve said more than once that owning the libs isn’t just an obsession of the far right.
Our own anti-Christian troll voted for religious fascism in order to stick it to BJ libs.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Yep they (red roses) are nihilists just like the red hat wearers. They get mighty upset if you call them tankies though. They have a hammer and sickle in their nyms but when called on it they will say they want to be Sweden.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
Another rich guy born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
His only talent is how he manages to phrase things in a way to make it seem like he’s part of some sort of correct, reasonable majority on any given issue, when in fact he’s a useless turd whose input has never been salient in any context whatsoever.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Those things unfortunately aren’t nothing these days, but I didn’t realize he was trying to market himself as a lefty like Bernie.
different-church-lady
The biggest reason I find the media asymmetry on this to be infuriating is that it was completely predictable they’d be using these bullshit frames weeks before New Hampshire. I’m pretty sure I even said so here just before Iowa.
They’re just fucking complicit at this point.
Tony Jay
Of course the Media Bros think they’d be okay in a Second Trumpist Revolution. They’d get four years of outstanding clickbait dropped into their lap, their bosses would be so super happy the bonuses would come rapid-fire, and after four years of entertaining chaos the Public would re-reject the excitement of political theatre in favour of some boring Democrat with a brush and shovel.
What could possibly go wrong?
EarthWindFire
They’re like so many Republican-voting women were on Roe. They think Trump’s saying that enemy of the people stuff just for votes and counting on him not pulling the trigger. Bad idea. He brags about pulling the trigger on overturning Roe; he’ll brag about dismantling the pundit class too.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Yes, although it’s somewhat heartening to see that more people have wised up to it. That wasn’t the case in 2016.
Baud
@EarthWindFire:
Not all of them. Many will succumb and become Trump courtiers.
different-church-lady
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: screw the press, even after all this it would probably still work with the Senate.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Oh, he’s not doing it that way per se, it’s just there’s a wide swath of self-professed “progressives” here that are neoliberal, Reaganomic types. It’s the old “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” trope w/o actually saying that.
Techbros like him epitomize that mindset. I voted for him b/c the alternatives are beyond godawful but it was a vicegrip my nose while filling out the mail-in ballot.
EarthWindFire
@NotMax: Hoping for a rejiggering of Jailhouse Rock myself.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: They are complicit. NYT is the worst of the worst.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
And of course barbershops and beauty parlors in neighborhoods where a lot of Black folks live. And taquerias where the menus are in Spanish.
EarthWindFire
@Baud: So they’ll become Maggie Haberman? She’s going to hate all the competition.
Another Scott
@Baud: There were some noises a few years ago by some GQP hack and a few of their senators trying to argue that they were the real party of the little guy and the working class and the Democrats were the party of Big Money.
They’ll try anything to muddy the waters.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Trump will get south of 60% and it will be “romping to the nomination.” Biden will get north of 80% and it will be “Biden weak with his own party.” Fuckin’ count on it.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in the classroom…
[ rofl ]
Cheers,
Scott.
JML
If Haley can’t win her home state, where she was the freakin’ governor quite literally no one should take her seriously as a candidate. Of course, basing your candidacy on the hope that TFG gets sent to prison and DQ’d late and being the only other republican still in the race is a shitty basis for being a candidate. It’s deeply craven, which I suppose is a qualifier for the GOP nomination these days.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
Butbutbut, that would involve actually being close to “those people”. No Pulitzer is worth that!
different-church-lady
@NotMax: Editorial cartoonists are about to have a good week.
Uncle Cosmo
@RSA: It’s actually 8 or 9 years “before the median American was born.” (2023 or 2024 – 38 = 1985 or 1986, 1985 or 1986 – 1977 = 8 or 9.)
Note to Jackals in general: Next time you decide to post something that involves numbers, you might want to take a few seconds to do the math before hitting “post comment” rather than risk coming off as an innumerate slugabug.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Lately. It hasn’t been that long since Dems were reluctant to take a firm stand for gays and lesbians.
The only reason Dems didn’t specifically throw trans people under the bus over the past few decades was that somehow the RWNJs never made an issue of gender transitioning until the past three years.
smith
Funny how they overlook how often Russian journalists miraculously take flight from upper story windows. The mobster-oligarchs who own them also seem to forget how often that happens to their Russian counterparts. TFG has made it abundantly clear that he will try to establish a Putin-style dictatorship, where nobody, however privileged, is safe. They should know by now that he’s not joshing.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all! It’s funny how, when I’m home, I always come to the discussions late, but when I’m on travel, I’m usually somewhere in around Baudtime. 😊
Still reeling from the flight and time change. Got to spend one night back in my own bed. Driving up to Southaven, MS, today to attend the memorial service of work colleague who retired a few years ago due to what was diagnosed as early onset Alzheimer’s.
schrodingers_cat
Most people don’t vote based on economic policy. The leftists who hate Biden (they find a new reason every week,right now it is the Gaza War, before it was because he was too old) and the Ds is because they don’t like it that the Ds don’t center them and their grievances 24/7. Because non-white people have a say in how the party is run
JWR
Welp, I’m convinced!
Yeah, I listened so you don’t have to, but damn, this guy can weave some elaborate alternate histories. Stupid alternate histories, to be sure, but stupid nevertheless.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
waspuppet
I’ve been screaming for eight years that the way Trump looks is not just a harmless quirk or an unfortunate act of God. The guy seriously does not perceive the physical reality around him and it’s well past time our six- and seven-figure media stars talked about it. He said the E. Jean Carroll trial “proved” he did nothing wrong.
Come on, people.
artem1s
@Kay:
The issues that matter a lot this year should resonate with the voters that the spoilers usually try to appeal to. I have a hard time believing they are going to sway White women in MI into believing their health care choices are safe with some third way, protest candidate. Anyone who saw what happened in 2000, 2004, 2016, all the mid-terms losses and Dobbs isn’t buying into the protest vote anymore. Auto workers and other union shops seem to finally understand they have a chance to gain back decades of losses. It’s a possibility but I’m way less worried about MI swinging back in the general than say, PA or GA. I’m hopeful that for the Dems at least, the Saint Big White Daddy Business Edgelord candidate (lefty grifter) may be dead on arrival for at least another least another election cycle or two.
Another Scott
@Tony Jay:
Relatedly, …
:-(
Sorry, man. Hang in there.
(via Mastodon #explore)
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Kay: Among other things, Matt grew up wealthy among other affluent people, many of whom seem unable to comprehend how economically consequential reproductive freedom – including abortion – is to women. As in, many women, maybe including their mothers, wouldn’t have been able to lead the life they have without it. Is it that hard to understand?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
They find a new reason every week.
Ding
Ding
Ding
Completely nailed it 👍🏾
Kay
One thing I had forgotten about was Trump’s effort to overturn Obamacare. I’ve been reaching out to some of the women I met during the Ohio abortion rights efforts (they’re not all Democrats or “political” and I want to see if there’s interest in forming a womens rights focused group to back Biden and Sherrod Brown). I told one of the women I spoke with that “all Trump did is cut taxes for rich people”. She corrected me, reminded me that Trump spent his first year trying to repeal Obamacare. Her family is dependent on Obamacare protections – chronic illness and preexisting conditions.
Anyway! That’s a rich anti Trump vein we haven’t mined yet. Democrats can run on Trump and Republicans repealing the (now popular) Obamacare.
We have loads and loads of video of Republicans voting against it and Democrats and a few Republicans barely saving it. Powerful stuff. I hope Biden and Co pull that out and use it because Trump will bite– I gaurantee he’ll say he wants to repeal Obamacare again and then Republicans will have to deny it, like they’re denying they want a national abortion ban. It’s a nice fit, Ocare and abortion rights.
different-church-lady
@JML: Maybe, but she’s tremendously useful to us right now. Keep driving that wedge, Nikki!
different-church-lady
@Uncle Cosmo: Hard ass.
Kay
Pro Trump political media have memory holed Trump’s obsession with overturning Obamacare, but that doesn’t mean Democrats can’t remind people it happened and will happen again. Roll tape of how the GOP (and especially Donald Trump) tried to repeal the very popular Obamacare. Over and over. No one in media is going to bring it up. We have to and it’s a great issue for us.
JML
@different-church-lady: I just don’t need the somnolent and pathetic DC media to start running 14,000 stories on how Nikki Haley can save the GOP and the country (by ignoring how she’s basically Trump with less blatant corruption and administrative incompetence). She’s a horrid person, with horrid policies (when she can be forced to speak of them at all).
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@schrodingers_cat: People who aren’t Democrats pushing their issues and, ultimately, finding a way to support Dems in the end is a good thing.
Self-identified Democrats is a group that produces far more frequent and effective saboteurs.
different-church-lady
Yeah dude you look like Elvis…. if Elvis was an aging evil scientist on Jupiter working his way towards being Gollum.
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
Yep. It’s part of nunewlabour’s eternal ‘charm’. Defend to the hilt any scanty policy offerings that ‘prove’ how secretly progressive the puppet leadership really is, accuse anyone suggesting they’ll u-turn on it sooner or later of being a “Tory enabler”, then defend to the hilt the inevitable u-turn on the policy and accuse anyone who dislikes it of being a “Tory enabler”.
Their Tourette-tic of “Tory enabler” being, of course, a PR strategy to ‘both-sides’ the factually incontestable accusation that the people at the top of nunewlabour spent every minute of every day between 2016 and 2020 enabling the Tories rather than supporting the Party’s choice of centre-left leadership.
There’s a reason those fuckers got on so well with their fairweather friends at the FTF Guardian, they’re both a bunch of steamingly hypocritical gaslighting fucktards.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Go far enough back in time, and Dems were really racist too.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Barbara:
They still don’t get the fundamental practical problem abortion bans have – they necessarily bleed over into reproductive health care- the whole spectrum. They can’t fix this. There’s a consistent belief that there are 7000 “solutions” to every issue, that the people who dealt with issues prior were stupid. But Roe really is the best framework for abortion. Women first in the 1st 3 months, then women and fetus balanced rights for the next 3 months, then fetus comes to the fore in the last 3 months. It’s why other countries, like Ireland and Mexico, eventually end up there. They aren’t going to come up with anything better than Roe. It wasn’t broke and they broke it. The “solution” to overturning Roe is a national law codifying Roe.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: Polis is probably 60/40 Libertarian/Democrat. He has been braying about getting rid of the state income tax in Colorado because taxing rich people like himself thwarts innovation and growth. Appears to believe the Laffer “less tax creates more revenue” laugher. Sure, I voted for him twice given the alternative. Previously had conservadem Hickenlooper as governor.
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Good point! I withdraw my suggestion. //
Baud
@Kay:
They also want to use pregnancy to limit women’s work opportunities.
That’s less overt now, but it’s coming.
Barbara
@JML: I dunno. At this point, Nikki Haley is throwing away her hopes for 2028 if that’s what is motivating her to stay in. It’s a different kind of delusional to think that in four years there will be an epiphany that “anti-Trump” is what the party really needs and she will be the one to step in. More like, Trump would have won if Haley hadn’t stabbed him in the back. It’s sort of like a conspiracy theory where, the more evidence you adduce against it, the more true believers will tell you that just proves how powerful the conspiracy is. You rarely get rational thought from someone who starts out already convinced of the answer to a question.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They never show up in New England either where a majority of white vote goes to Ds in many states.
satby
@trnc: What they need to do is photoshop Elvis in his Army uniform (hat?) as the other half, and then tell tfg that nope, he doesn’t look like Elvis at all.
schrodingers_cat
Oh and the guy who coined the extremely stupid sound term popularism is another grifter. Best ignored along with MattY.
Kay
Before Obamacare, I had a woman come to me for advice on 6 million dollars in uncovered medical bills for her 16 year old son’s blood cancer treatments – the son had died. She had health insurance- there was just a limit on what it would cover. It may have been more than 6 million- I added six million in my head reading a list and stopped counting. I told her to file bankruptcy. It was the only option for people with really high medical bills then. She cried and left. I don’t know if she ever filed. I assume so- if she didn’t they would have garnished her wages. Just a cruel, cruel system. Donald Trump wants to go back to that.
MomSense
Yesterday was the memorial service for my cousin and we managed to pull it off.My kids played a Johnny Cash and a Merle Haggard song that he loved and were joined by a guitarist who is famous in Maine. His brother Lenny was considered one of the best country guitarists. They were like Mom why didn’t you tell us who we were playing with? I didn’t know!
Not sure what they would have done differently if they had known but it went well and he invited them to jam with him at his club.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: I found that to be true in many conversations I had with a former pen pal who I shall call “horseshoe.” She couldn’t wait for the burning down. She insisted on it. I’d point out over and over that the numbers didn’t support her and that her dream was never going to come to fruition. When she went completely TERF I read her the riot act and she melted straight the fuck down.
satby
@Baud: That guy probably isn’t even a citizen. But John gave him the hook.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … NSJOnline.com:
(Emphasis added.)
Confusion++ is good.
TIFG’s people figure that they can’t even win a fair fight inside their own party. They’re just pathetic. And dangerous. They’re a cult.
Rooting for injuries.
(via Memeorandum)
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@satby:
Who knows? But why do you think that?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: In Wisconsin, they never come to Madison or Milwaukee. Funny, that.
satby
@MomSense: Sounds like it was a perfect send off. Condolences again.
smith
@Barbara: Haley’s supposed anti-Trump credentials will evaporate the instant she inevitably endorses him. The icing on the cake will be that, after months of her pounding on the evidence of TFG’s cognitive decline, she will cite Biden’s age as the reason to oppose him.
artem1s
@Brachiator:
Blue and white collar just doesn’t cut it anymore. How to you categorize someone in their late 20’s who has an undergrad degree, works at a gig economy job while they go to grad school part time? Or a second wage earner with an undergrad degree in a double wage family that splits child rearing duties so one partner can go to school part-time and get a degree and then a management level job? Which is working class and which is ‘college educated’. Part of the polling problem is the old demographics just don’t work to suss out voting trends anymore.
TBone
@Another Scott: stolen for future use!
different-church-lady
@satby: Without going into details, my own experiences over the past few years have made me realize that mental health issues are a fuckton more common than we acknowledge.
beef
Oh yeah, he does look like Elvis. But not Young Elvis. Or Fat Elvis. He looks like Dead Elvis.
Maybe Zombie Elvis?
TBone
@Uncle Cosmo: I am proudly innumerate and believed there would be no math when that was postulated.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I blame Dems for mental health parity legislation.
satby
@Baud: He made odd, erratic grammar mistakes that a native speaker wouldn’t be likely to make (we make different ones), for one reason. But I didn’t read his garbage so I never paid very close attention. Even when he was nuked, he derailed the thread, because people kept yammering about him and his state of mind. So well done troll, for your last performance!
TBone
@smith: the leopard won’t eat MY face, surely!
Soprano2
@NotMax: They don’t have a “workable” abortion message, because every Dem running knows they want a national abortion ban, and will mention it every chance they get. At least I hope that’s what happens, because it’s the truth. They should make the R’s defend or deny it.
Another Scott
@smith: +1
She’ll rerun her statements from 2016.
She wants to maintain what little power she has, and leave a path for more in the future. Everything is subservient to that goal for her.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@satby:
Gotcha.
Points to him for a different schtick, at least.
Part of me wonders whether he was trying a faker to “expose” BJ as a hate site, and was hoping his rhetoric would be applauded.
Anywho, I’ll start worrying about more productive things now.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I forget who that was who coined the term “popularism.” I just remember he was a white guy like Matt Yglesias. It seems like a lot of the “public intellectuals” who criticize the Democratic Party from either Center or Left suffer from X-Chromosome/Melanin Deficiency Disorder.
satby
@different-church-lady: Oh they are, no argument. But we aren’t shrinks (unless someone actually is) and we can’t address that on a blog. Ignoring trolls means not answering them OR getting sidelined by discussing them. And if it is a person needing assistance, not feeding their illness with attention is important. Rage and delusions spiral.
And I have to head out. Everyone have a good day!
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: They also keep nakedly saying they want a national ban, and that makes it a little difficult to message around it.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Dean Phillips, the supposedly strongest challenger, had a basic premise that Biden’s problem is that he’s running too far to the left! The groups of Democrats who are discontented with Biden mostly don’t agree with that. So it was just dead at the starting line.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Naw, I read it as true believer.
Brit in Chicago
@Baud: “I don’t know any Republican other than Trump that says #1 and he’s lying.”
That’s may be right if you’re looking at Republicans holding (or seeking) high office, but if you look at Republican voters, and especially at those that Trump has converted to voting R, I suspect it’s a different story. I take this to show that a party which pushed a socially conservative message while defending the economic interests of the working class might do well, and that the R party could evolve into such a party. I’m glad that there is no such party at the moment, because I want the economically progressive voters to vote for a party that is also socially progressive. But the situation at the moment does seem to me unstable, with so many working class voters attracted to the Trump version of the Republican party, and the Democrats increasingly becoming the party of the college-educated.
different-church-lady
Why is nobody talking about how many delegates JFKjr has won??!?
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Okay. Here goes.
Well, that’s enough of that.
Baud
@Brit in Chicago:
We’re definitely in a realignment period. But I don’t believe there is such a creature in the real world as a socially conservative but economically pro-working class party. Purely abstract.
The closest may be the old FDR coalition.
Barbara
@smith: I agree she will endorse him. I disagree her anti-Trump credentials will evaporate the moment that happens. They might go dormant but they will not be forgotten among those who now see voting Republican as synonymous with voting for Trump. Those are the people the Republican party can’t see a way around, and dealing with them will have a long tail effect.
sab
Ohio Democrats need to come up with somebody for governor. The GOP are already crowning DeWine’s lapdog Husted as the next governor.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Very sorry about your cousin. Great that it came off well and that the *boys were invited to jam with the talented artist, who shall remain nameless.
Also great that they still assume that Mom knows everything!
*i imagine the boys aren’t as young as I am still picturing them!
Geminid
@sab: Tim Ryan is rested and ready!
Ed. I’m just joking. Tim Ryan might be ready but I don’t think you are. It would be nice if Rep. Emilia Sykes ran, or Rep. Shontelle Brown or Rep. Greg Landsman. That’s a tough race to give up a Congressional seat for though.
Juju
@Jeffro: All they have to do is show Trump dancing compared to Elvis dancing.
Eolirin
@Geminid: The term dates back to the People’s Party or Populist Party of the 1890s.
Geminid
@Eolirin: That’s interesting. I was thinking of the term’s 21st century iteration though..
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed.
But there’s been a lot of stoking of grievance there. I have encountered more than one “blue-collar” person who has told me, straight up, that I “don’t deserve” to make more money than the tradespeople who work on constructing the buildings I design, because their job is “harder” than mine.
And, of course, the way they define “harder” is “requiring more physical exertion”. Not to mention, the amount of money one commands in the labor market has never been about “deserving”.
I will note that defining the validity of labor and “deservingness” to favor physical over mental labor is inherently favoring men, insulting to service workers, and not an attitude I really want to be in coalition with.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The electorate is not as white as it was in the 1930s/40s, and limits how far such a coalition could get, since it was built on white racism to some degree.
brantl
I’m pretty sure Stumpy would look a lot like a picture of Elvis, after Elvis was six weeks dead…
brantl
That’s Michigan, he’s not from Michigan. I’m from Michigan, and we don’t want to lay any claim to this schmuck.
Marmot
@Kay:
That fits my experience too. The moment you start talking about how anything actually works, you see their eyes glaze over. Thinking about sports or something.
Uncle Cosmo
The punditocracy believes that being owned in fee simple by the bazillionaires who sign their cheques will earn them the same immunity from consequences. The latter (if past is prologue) will indeed do OK in a trumped-up autocracy – they’ll keep control of their property, the requirements of the local Gauleiter might not be too onerous, any restriction that becomes inconvenient they can simply buy their way free from*, and come the counterrevolution the new democratic government will whitewash their record and work with them.**
But “pound-its” are a dime a dozen, and Pastor Niemoeller is holding on the white courtesy phone while a brownshirt lurks within earshot…
*Little Annie in an inconvenient family way? Daddy Warbucks sends her on a European holiday including a few days in a Dutch hotel with an attached “women’s health clinic” & pseudonyms all around…
**Cf. Deutschland 1945 on.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: It was
some young white guyDavid Shor and IIRC, the short version of it was ditch the women and the minorities and focus on wwc and their economic issues. Old wine in a new bottle, now with more statistics.schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: He is angling for the Broder Chair of Journalism.
Alison Rose
Fuck this fucking timeline JFC
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: While both WI and MI have more lakes than MN, they did grab the term Land of 10,000 Lakes.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
His name is Denny Breau. His brother Lenny played with Merle Travis and Chet Atkins.
brantl
@matt: with tongue….
brantl
@Omnes Omnibus: Michigan’s used to be on license plates, maybe Michigan’s was Land of a Thousand Lakes?
frosty
@Baud: Well, technically true. If you go back that far, that’s when the Confederate Party* was part of the Democrats. Now they’re part of the Republicans. The rest of the Democrats didn’t really change [he asserted without looking it up].
*h/t Dennis Green
Jeffro
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
LOL
so true, too!
Omnes Omnibus
@brantl: I only remember seeing the 10000 Lakes plates on MN cars. I remember Great Lakes State on MI plates though.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Let’s try this from another angle. Everyone deserves good pay. We try to classify jobs whether they merit a decent livelihood. No one deserves to toil endlessly with no security to show for it.
“Deserving” jobs obviously get more pay. So clearly the most “deserving” people are in financial services, people who produce nothing and disregard the lives affected by their decisions.
NotMax
@comrade scotts agenda of rage
“I am not sure what it means when one says that he is a conservative in fiscal affairs and a liberal in human affairs. I assume what it means is that you will strongly recommend the building of a great many schools to accommodate the needs of our children, but not provide the money.”
– Adlai Stevenson
.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: Wowser! Even I know those names.
different-church-lady
@Alison Rose:
Nominated. OH so nominated…
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: oh, great. Now I’ve got *that* earworm stuck in my head.
That was a Rod McKuen effort? No wonder it was so sticky and sappy!
Suzanne
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Agreed.
But lots of people measure their success to the people near them, and that fosters that grievance. The GOP has tried to tell working-class people to hate the snooty college grad (who maybe earns 20% more than you but with a stack of loans to get there) rather than anyone who genuinely controls capital but code-switches effectively when they show up to glad-hand once a month at the factory. It’s sad that many people got fooled by that.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: If Polis really said that, shame on him. And women in this country have ALREADY fucking lost democracy, thank you very much, you smug shithead pundits.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
AKA the Trump wannabes.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
In my biz there seems to be two poles people cluster around. At one end is “I’m skilled, I deserve to be paid well enough, I’m not shy about asking the client to pay for things,” and the other is, “I can’t ask for that much money, I can’t ask them to pay expenses.”
By nature I am more like the second type, and it has deeply hurt my security in my old age. I am trying to learn from the first type, and actively trying to remove the second type from my voluntary associations.
I don’t yet have any insight as to why people end up in one camp or the other. But I did want to comment that it’s very common in our society. There doesn’t seem to be any happy medium between “money grubbing bastard” and “volunteering to be shit on.” Bad psychology issue I can’t crack.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: If Polis really said that, shame on him. And women in this country have ALREADY fucking lost democracy, thank you very much, you smug shithead pundits.
@Baud: in no way, shape, or form is Polis trying to portray himself as a Bernie Sanders.
NotMax
@Suzanne
May be of some interest for you.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Calvanism runs deep in this country. That very basic premise that everyone deserves to be fairly compensated for whatever kind of labor they do is not a shared value.
TerryC
@Baud: My wife and I have already voted.
Glory b
@Omnes Omnibus: Id like to note the Youngstown OH has a robust black blue collar community that journalists can never seem to locate.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Suzanne: @different-church-lady:
I have been very lucky in my career, finding my way into computers at an early stage. As a result I am comfortable and I fall into different-church-lady’s first category.
Stoking grievance has been a GOP strategy for a long time. On this particular aspect (pay) it’s easy to point to the rise in CEO pay in contrast to ordinary workers.
And who exactly decided to ship jobs overseas and hollow out the U.S. economy? OK, most people are not political junkies like us but one chart is all you need to show.
President Biden has a political advantage here and is using it. Good.
Kay
They are so going to try it again. Democrats can use Republicans like Vance. Point out that GOP Senators are planning on overturning the next election.
Kay
The GOP Senator from Ohio would have disenfranchised tens of millions of voters and handed the Presidency to Donald Trump, the loser of the election.
Sometimes it still shocks me how radical the Right is.
Betty
@Kay: Trump has brought it up. He still says he is going to offer a better plan. For the umpteenth time. Some Dems are running on how they have lowered the cost of getting Obamacare. It is out there at least somewhat.
dr. luba
@Kay:
They aren’t going to vote against Biden- they’re just not going to vote the top line.
The March primary in Michigan is a presidential primary only. There is only the “top line” to vote for.
Michigan does allow the option of voting for “Uncommitted,” so that might be a way to protest vote. Ballot here
Question: has anyone heard of Ryan L. Binkley? Apparently still running on the GOP ballot.
Uncle Cosmo
@JWR: The cretin is four years off the mark. This election is shaping up much more like 1948, when Truman had to deal with the Dixiecrats walking out of the Convention to run Strom Thurmond for President, and a fourth-party challenge from the left led by former VPOTUS Wallace. Harry barnstormed the country savaging a “do-nothing” GOP-controlled Congress and “giving [the Republicans led by “little man on the wedding cake” Tom Dewey] hell*” and won.Smart money sez that’s zackly what President Uncle Joe is gonna do this year: Run against the seditious obstructionist Thugs and “give ’em hell” while savaging Cheeto Benito at every opportunity (which that shitgibbon will provide on an almost-hourly basis). If we hold up our end on the retail side – ignoring the corrupted polling, reminding all our friends and neighbors of the stakes and of how well the USA is doing under the Democrats, getting our folks out to the polls – then PUJOTUS will win in a walk, book it!
*Onlooker at a Truman speech: Give ’em hell, Harry! HST: I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell!
Ruckus
@M31:
Naw.
SFB is completely worthless.
As a human being.
As a bank account maybe $1.95. He seems to be in hock up to his whatsis. Or likely way, way past that.
He’s the guy that waited 60 yrs for his high school non accomplishments to be recognized. Exactly what has he accomplished other than ripping off his siblings for dad’s monetary misdeeds? His presidency? Oh yeah, that was – sorry I fell asleep for a second. His stellar walking? His lifts? His red tie? He is the best story of all time of how not to human.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Your dog is better.
And I’ve never met your dog and still know, even if you don’t have one – he’s better.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: But they really define it in such a way that it doesn’t include jobs women do. They make a big deal out of having to lift heavy things even though there are safer ways to do that. For them it’s all about jobs that require physical strength being hardest. Everywhere I’ve ever worked there’s a “thing” about the more blue collar people vs. the office. They think we sit on our butts all day doing busy work that’s not “real work” because you don’t get dirty or sweaty.
ETA I don’t think they’d be telling a man with your job the same thing.
Ramona
@Kay: A better framework than Roe is that it is the woman’s choice until the fetus takes its first breath because no woman is monstrous enough to abort in the third trimester on a whim and neural development in a second trimester fetus is insufficient to support consciousness so there is not yet an entity whose rights approach the priority of the rights of the woman whose body the fetus is in effect parasitizing.
Ruckus
@Brit in Chicago:
Wealth is good.
More wealth is better!
Everything else is useless, a waste of time, not worth thinking about.
There, I did the rethuglican party in 19 words. I’d bet that number can be beat.
Bokonon
Dean Phillips either lacks the basic self-awareness that he is serving as a GOP rodeo clown, or he IS aware of that and is embracing the role.
I don’t know what is worse. But he’s clearly not going to stop attacking Biden from inside the tent (claiming that the DNC is corrupt, Biden is too old, whatever script the tech-bro donors have handed him in exchange for their donations that week).
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I wonder if some think that both sides are the problem, that we effectively need to start over, because they see most politics as infighting over how things are stated, not how they work/don’t work.
Ruckus
@Baud:
You don’t have to go back all that far. In the lifetime of some still breathing. Like me. And no it wasn’t all dems but it was a significant percentage.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Donald Trump wants to go back to that.
SFB has no future, he broke that, only a past. And that past wasn’t all that and a box of cookies. More like none of that and a pile of cow dung.
wjca
FTFY
[At least his version of it]
Mr. Bemused Senior
My grandmother summed it up like so: “the Republicans are only for themselves.”
RSA
Thanks for the correction. Yes, it was a mental slip on my part.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I don’t yet have any insight as to why people end up in one camp or the other. But I did want to comment that it’s very common in our society.
It’s common in all societies. I believe it comes from how people are taught to respect themselves and others around them. And please do not take that as any kind, type or way of saying anything negative about you or this concept. It’s humanity, it is not good or bad it is humanity. We see ourselves from 2 perspectives – we can do anything or we don’t know. The anything folks are often wrong because very few people are that skilled to do everything. Some can learn to do a lot of things, others fewer things. The nothing folks are closer because that comes from the effect of not being born with knowledge, only the differing ability to gain knowledge, which is why some learn to do fewer things and some more and/or more difficult things. It’s perspective. Some learn faster, some learn better, some learn more, some learn less. And even that isn’t always dependent upon the individual but also upon the teaching. You had teachers you liked and understood easily and some you didn’t. Because they are humans as well and all of our brains work better at different levels and things, with different information and different speeds. But we are almost all taught at the same speeds and similar information. And that is very difficult and costly to change and that change is seen negatively by many. Because we are all the same. Or maybe not.
Ruckus
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
See, I was right…..
Once every so often……
Oh well I’m used to that – now. It’s about time….
WaterGirl
@Uncle Cosmo:
Geez, maybe lighten up? It’s a blog, not a master’s thesis where you need to triple check everything.
Eduardo
@Kay: I am worried of course, but I am not very sure a big chunk of the Democratic Arab-Americans will stay home or go Trump on November. They know the stakes at least as best as any other group in America.
But the truth is that — on top of their very valid, raw feelings — the only way they have to put pressure on Biden is threatening to withhold the vote. A lot of them probably will use the primary for the protest vote.
Eduardo
@Barbara: I think Yglesias is clearly pro-choice and mentions it a lot.