"There is still time for voters to realize that this year, focus and seriousness are more important than ever." @RadioFreeTom https://t.co/R2mgPC5vKf
— Anthony Clark Arend (@arenda) February 6, 2024
Once in a lifetime. Don’t agree with every one of Mr. Nichols’ comments (frankly, I doubt Nichols does), but yeah:
… We’ve had some odd elections in American history; in 1976, for example, an obscure former Georgia governor ran against a sitting president whom no one had actually elected. (The vice president was also an unelected appointee.) In 2000, the son of a former senator and the son of a president ran against each other. But in 2024, we are heading into a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden that promises to be weirder than any presidential election we’ve ever experienced. Let’s review where things stand.
On the Democratic side, Biden is facing a reversal of the laws of political gravity, mostly because so many American voters are now ruled by vibes and feelings rather than facts. By any standard, Biden’s first term is perhaps as consequential and successful as Ronald Reagan’s first four years. With achievements including holding together a NATO coalition in the face of genocidal Russian aggression and an economic soft landing almost no one thought possible, Biden should be running far ahead of any Republican challenger—and light years beyond Trump.
And yet, Biden is not only struggling with Trump; he’d likely lose to almost any other Republican nominee. Why? Well, he’s old, apparently. (Unlike, say, 77-year-old Trump, or 76-year-old Joe Manchin.) And people are still mad about the economy, which continues to torment them with its low inflation, low unemployment, declining mortgage rates, and high growth. As my friend Jonathan V. Last notes, this is a “mass economic delusion,” and there’s not much Biden can do about it…
More to the point, barring an unforeseeable event, the 2024 election is set: Biden is going to face Trump again. In yet another sign of the public’s lack of seriousness, most Americans claim not to want this rematch, but it’s time to stop wringing our hands over those objections. (We also need to stop talking about third parties; the 2024 election, like every presidential election, will be binary.) American voters engage in this whining and complaining in every election cycle, a ritual in which many citizens—after refusing to pay attention to politics and staying away from primaries and off-year elections—demand to know who keeps saddling them with such poor electoral options. Americans ask this with clockwork regularity, despite the abundant presence of mirrors in their homes…
The Republicans, however, have completely departed Earth’s orbit and are now plunging headlong into the destructive black hole of Trump’s personal needs. In the past week, the GOP has moved along toward a Trump coronation, and they have been trying to help Trump’s later general-election chances by hamstringing solutions to the border crisis and holding up important foreign-aid packages—all while the military situation in Ukraine worsens and U.S. and allied forces carry out strikes in Yemen…
Now, anyone who has ever worked in politics knows that sometimes good bills die for stupid and cheap partisan reasons. The House GOP’s obstruction, however, is beyond partisanship. Republicans are threatening to harm the country and endanger our allies merely to help Trump’s reelection chances, obeying a man under multiple indictments and whose track record as a party leader has been one of unbroken losses and humiliation…
Such is the state of play in national politics, with only nine months until an election unlike any other in our post–Civil War history. The good news is that it’s early in the cycle, and Americans tend not to focus on and get serious about fall’s elections until summer. There is still time for voters to realize that this year, focus and seriousness are more important than ever.
Suzanne
That’s one way to describe his big fat mouth.
HumboldtBlue
If only there were people in the DC media willing to report on the facts of the economic recovery instead of a normalizing a wannbe fascist fuck stick, people wouldn’t be so ignorant?
Argiope
@Suzanne: and bottomless pit of malignant narcissism.
NotMax
Whole lotta words boil down to “No sh*t, Sherlock.”
Wombat Probability Cloud
Is David Byrne available to run for office?
Jeffro
Shortened that there for ya, Tom ;)
Personally, I hope to savor every freaking moment of the next nine months, as destruction finally comes for trumpov and
the maggots who enable himthe Republican Party.But from Labor Day onwards? Hoo boy, that’s gonna be soooooome shit show on the right
ETA: I am still chuckling at Miss Ronna departing the RNC and the thought that trumpov – a known, lifelong financial fraud – is going to install ‘his’ people there, putting them in charge of the money. CHUCKLING, I say. =)
cain
@HumboldtBlue:
The thing is – homelessness is on the rise. We don’t have adequate housing and in general it still feels like something is off.
My pretty city of Portland, over the past 3-4 years has turned into a city that has businesses leaving, tagging encroaching everywhere, tents everywhere and inadequate services. I used to love this city but it seems so run down now. The local reddit groups used to be full on fanboying our city but are frustrated with the lack of movement by city govt held by progressives. We collected a bunch of taxes for the homeless and none of it has been spent. Even the governor is getting fed up.
Since I’m in high tech, jobs are scarce -if I lose my job, I’m in for a long wait for a new one thanks to nearly 40k people out there looking for jobs.
I can understand some of the pessimism. The job reports only tell only a partial story.
We need a working govt and these GOP assholes are not doing their part.
Don’t get me wrong, I think we are doing great – but there are definitely issues to address.
Politics is local.
ETA whoo! this came out as way too depressing :D
sab
It’s a typical American election if you discount the democracy on the edge part ( I don’t.) Economy is booming, we’re bored, so let’s elect a disruptor! Things will be a lot more interesting when we are looking over the edge of the abyss. And we are Americans, so there is no abyss for us. We’re special.
Chetan Murthy
Oh noes, underbussing! https://www.rawstory.com/trump-head-of-gop-mcdaniel-steps-down/
Oh noes! Oh noes! Poor Ronna Romney McDaniel!
cain
@Chetan Murthy:
TFiG doing his best to kill as many careers as he can. All must suffer to allow the Orange King his due.
RevRick
@sab: I just finished reading The Shattering of the Union , recommended by a fellow jackal, about the antebellum era politics, and this era bears an uncanny resemblance to that one. An increasing demonization of the other side, sporadic violence, and threats to the very foundations of our democracy.
hrprogressive
Look, the elites of all stripes can keep talking about how the public isn’t warming up to the idea that the economy isn’t as shit as it otherwise could be, but there are multiple generations who feel like the American Dream is dead and buried, and have little to nothing left to look forward to with job hunting being abysmal, what jobs are out there paying shit to poverty wages, and the climate falling apart around everyone so even if you do buy a home you can’t afford the chances of you raising a family that sees anything worthwhile is dwindling.
So, I agree that “vibes and feelings” aren’t enough to sustain a functioning country, but for fuck’s sake some of these people need to understand that for the poor to working poor to modestly working middle class, what’s left of it, the idea of prosperity is a fantasy, stolen from every generation after Gen X, and stolen by remaining Silents, Boomers, and Gen X’ers who used to be punk but are now the fash they once stood against.
So, yeah.
On that very specific note, Fuck Tom Nichols and everyone else claiming the economy is grand for everyone, when it’s really only the shareholders and already wealthy who are doing fine right now.
Jeffro
Matt Gaetz is blaming today’s impeachment fail debacle on…wait for it, waaaaaait for it…Kevin McCarthy.
For quitting. He could have been that winning vote, dontcha know!!
LOLOLOLOL
Chetan Murthy
@hrprogressive: My understanding is that there are “distributional statistics” that look at how different quartiles or deciles of the population are doing. And under Biden, they’ve been doing better than they were previously. This can be true alongside “they’re still not doing great.”
Elizabelle
@hrprogressive: This is why I have you pied.
Chetan Murthy
@hrprogressive: And furthermore, the people Nichols is deriding, aren’t looking at how the poorest are faring. Not. At. All. The idea that they care about the poor is laughable.
Ksmiami
@hrprogressive: the trades are booming, manufacturing is having a renaissance, hotel and leisure is booming, tech is being shifted a bit, but really, people are doing better than they have in years. I mean we do need more housing built, but on the metrics things are going well.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
LOL. That can’t possibly be true. You’re just fucking with us now.
Elizabelle
@RevRick: I have not been laughing this afternoon. I find a lot of this terrifying. It is so unstable. As Adam says, “through the looking glass.”
I will laugh once we are past the election and Biden has won, prefererably with both Houses of Congress. (Please, please.)
You see the Civil War. I see the 1930s.
And so many Americans are so unserious and easily fooled that I fear another black swan event.
lowtechcyclist
@hrprogressive:
As a 25 year old in 1979, the notion that I’d ever be able to own a house seemed out of reach. I was working, but living in a shared 2-bedroom apartment was the norm for me and most people I knew – college grads all.
So other than being able to give names to previous generations, I don’t get what’s different about now.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle:
Me too. I literally don’t know how to make longer-term plans — that is to say, longer than a year out, since I don’t know what I’ll be doing a year from now. So much depends on whether we fall into Fascism. So. Much.
But that said, well …. you can’t stay in terror forever, and at least we can laugh at the incompetence of these imbeciles, while (still) bemoaning the fact that these same imbeciles are so damn close to destroying our country. So hey, it’s OK to laugh too.
Still: every day I end up thinking a bit about what next November has in store for us. Every day. So you’re not along. Not at all alone.
catclub
@hrprogressive: so no jobs is why more Americans are going to Disney World and Europe for vacations than ever before?
So that is why Taylor Swift tickets cost a fortune and somebody – a whole lot of somebodies, are buying them along with weeklong junkets to the concert city.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: Thank you. All the best to you, too.
And mind you, these shitweasels do deserve a good laugh. So we should probably do some of that this evening.
It might be wine o’clock.
catclub
More people employed, more overall wealth. More options.
catclub
Huh? unemployment in the 30’s was 25% and we still did not have a peasants revolt. Now the rule or Ruin fascist party seems utterly familiar based on Lincoln’s speeches.
Chetan Murthy
@catclub: I read @Elizabelle: as saying that if you look at the world situation, with Fascism rampant seemingly in many places (to a Westerner, it seems like “everywhere”), it sure feels like the 1930s. And yeah, I get that feeling too. Not so much the economic situation, but the political one.
RevRick
@Elizabelle: The Southern slave society and its Jim Crow successor was the modern world’s original fascism.
catclub
worked so well in 2000.
Scout211
Maybe Ivanka will take over. She’s good with money, right?
Donald Trump paid more than $2.3 million in donor money to law firms helping Ivanka Trump with her legal problems last year
Quadrillipede
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
Quadrillipede
@Jeffro: I’ve been wondering whether the 🍊 would destroy the Republican Party before the US itself, and at the moment, I’m reasonably happy that it’ll be the former.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
Here, what’s different now is 4 College Grads sharing a 1 bedroom.
In the early 90’s a $100k down payment would get you a $325K 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath an a 1/4 acre lot in the suburbs. Those now go for $1.5 million.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: Do you find yourself thinking about the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime” ?
I got some groceries, some peanut butterTo last a couple of daysBut I ain’t got no speakers, ain’t got no headphonesAin’t got no records to play
Why stay in college? Why go to night school?Gonna be different this time
Eyeroller
@cain: I was in Portland in 2009 for a (computing, big presence by Intel BTW) conference and the downtown area was full of homeless people. We were in hotels fairly distant from the convention center and were expected to take the light-rail system to get there and I often felt uncomfortable at the stations and in the general area around them, especially since the conference had events on the weekend when the area was otherwise pretty deserted. There was no real reason for me to feel that way since none of the unhoused people were threatening, but I understand the general sense. If it’s worse now it must be pretty visible. This annual conference is nearly always in downtown areas of big cities, in late November when it’s dark quite early, and there have always been a lot of unhoused people around and I’ve always felt that. I have not noticed it being all that worse now that we’ve returned to in-person meetings but it could be.
Elizabelle
@RevRick: Yes it was.
And we have the horrible Electoral College as a workaround to our beloved Southern slave states.** Unacceptable risk in the 21st century. Antidemocratic.
I would LOVE to be invisible and watching/listening to Mitch McConnell and others tonight. Today was BAD. Would love to know what they say amongst themselves, and they can’t spin all the time.
** OK, I live in one. But Virginia has been pretty good in recent decades, except for The Youngkin Embarrassment.
TBone
moonbat
@Quadrillipede: I agree. He has a track record of destroying those who trust him most and right now the GOP have all but declared him their god-king. He’s going to hollow them out.
Meanwhile, I’m reasonably certain that the great wishy-washy middle of the country have caught on that this orange guy is fishy and won’t be fooled again. Just enough to put Biden back in office for four more years.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: I love that song. Just don’t want to be living it!
Maybe Psycho Killer would be more cheerful tonight.
We’re on the Road to Nowhere.
Great band.
Eyeroller
@HumboldtBlue: Fucking gas prices are nearly $1 a gallon more than when Biden took office and that seems to be all that matters to the infantile American electorate and its insistence on its right to grotesquely huge automobiles. That seems to be the main factor. And I guess groceries are a little more expensive, another way in which we are overprivileged toddlers since our average food expenses are a much smaller part of our incomes than in almost any other part of the world, but we demand cheap food (and gas).
eclare
@catclub:
https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Buying power has largely diminished. The ratio of the median priced house to the median salary is, right now, approximately 6x. Historically, it’s been about 3.5x.
I don’t know why so many people are resistant to the idea that this economy is not great for young people without wealthy parents. Saying that they buy Taylor Swift tickets sounds kind of like complaining about people on public assistance having cars or cellphones.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@Chetan Murthy: Thank you, and well said. We’re in the same boat.
Elizabelle
@moonbat: Perhaps even our media betters are crying in their expensive scotches tonight.
They just can’t both sides this. At least, not this week.
Elizabelle
@Wombat Probability Cloud: And you get an extra special lifevest and rations too.
moonbat
@Elizabelle: I’m thinking of pouring a single malt myself, but in celebration of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals iron clad ruling that Trump is not a crime proof, super-special kind of ex-President of the United States. And the court’s “BTW, the USSC has to decide quick whether they are taking this up or your ass is back on the March court docket” was an especially nice touch. ;)
Elizabelle
@moonbat: Do it! I have a bowl of Goldfish crackers (one of Julia Child’s favorite bev accompaniments, believe it or not) and a glass of rose.
To the District Court of Appeals! Drink!
japa21
With Biden about to be declared winner in NV, the main thing I am curious about is how “None of the above” will do. Hope it’s not over 5%.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne:
I don’t think that that’s the case at all. Of course the economy isn’t great! But it’s *better than it was just a few years ago*. That’s the point! [Not to go all pedantic and all, but] Too many poeple focus on the zeroth derivative, when they should be focusing on the first. The first derivative is what we can influence with policy. The zeroth derivative is a result of past policy — which is by definition unchangeable.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@Elizabelle: A modicum of relief, thanks. Being able to breath is good.
moonbat
@Elizabelle: Ah! Sherry cask spicy on the nose with a lingering finish of D.C. Circuit smoked Trump’s ass on the finish. Tastes like a healthy democracy in action.
Enjoy your rose!
Elizabelle
@Wombat Probability Cloud: @moonbat:
Cheers!
Scout211
Another Circuit Court issued a ruling yesterday that was good to hear.
Refusing to wear a mask during a health emergency is not free speech.
Chetan Murthy
@Scout211:
A-fuckin’-men! It was a civic duty, just like paying taxes. A-fuckin’-men.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: I can definitely agree that it’s better than a few years ago. I can also agree that conditions have never been good for entire swaths of the population historically. But there’s definitely a cohort that wants me to think it’s fantastic.
Unemployment is super-low, productivity is high, and people are still struggling to afford a decent place to live near their job. That’s not fantastic.
Jackie
@Scout211: NOW we know who’s taking over the RNC budget!
TIFG’s oldest kiddos!
Quadrillipede
I wonder whether we’re starting to see the counter-backlash to the Obama backlash that caused Orange Man Bad’s Reign of Error…
terry chay
He’s full of shit. The assumption is any republican other than Trump can get all of Trumps votes plus moderate Republicans and some independents. The reality is these candidates can’t turn out their base because they have some appeal to the moderates. The base won’t vote for anything less than Trump, they won’t even vote for Desantis.
Biden v. Trump will be a massacre once the electorate realizes those are the two choices. Any other Republican would be even worse because 2 MAGA stay at home for every vote they gain amongst the middle.
wjca
Forgive me for pointing this out. But from what you say it sounds like your local problem is progressives in city government failing to do their part. Not to justify the GQP assholes in Washington (impossible), but just to note that the rot does not seem to be as contained as liberals might like to believe.
jackmac
@Eyeroller: You “guess food prices are a little more expensive”? Are you living in some kind of denial? At the places I shop (typical suburban groceries stores) every trip features a new round of sticker shocks on both staples and supplies. As someone who is semi-retired and live on a relatively fixed income, food takes up an increasingly large share of my budget. I can absorb higher gas prices by driving less in my modest car and can generally pass on the exorbitant fast food prices by just not going there. (I always enjoyed Starbucks, but they’ve priced me out). Inflation rates may have eased, but prices are never coming back down (except around the edges). There’s plenty of angst over the economy and Biden (unfairly) gets a fair amount of the blame. Still, I remain an enthusiastic Biden supporter and am impressed with his first term performance under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
wjca
In an earlier thread, someone suggested that the guy cleaning ketchup off the Mar-a-lago dining room walls was probably an illegal immigrant. While I understand the reasoning, it seems more likely that it’s actually whichever sycophant TIFG feels like humiliating currently. It’s how he rolls.
Chetan Murthy
@wjca:
you just know that all the pretty waistaff at MaL are immigrants, here on short-term H-2 visas. TFG’s companies were voracious users of that visa.
wjca
@Chetan Murthy: Of course. I’m just saying that TIFG couldn’t resist the opportunity to humiliate one of the sycophants around him. Even though there are illegal staff to do the job.
piratedan
I guess for me its hearing the complaints of the young adults and the moving into middle age that are attempting to grok that the fact of the American Dream (married, 3/4 bdrm house with 2.5 baths and a small yard to let a pet and kids romp in and maybe a small garden) isn’t something readily available at 25. It took me to be on the cusp of 30 before I was able to scrape enough for a first home with the spouse. So perhaps expectations are not realistic or ideal on what to expect. I didn’t pop into the job market in what I wanted to do at first and it took a long time (5 years) before I managed to find anything resembling a career path.
I think part of the problem that we see with housing is two-fold… one a certain number of hedge funds are buying up property and flipping them or turning them into rentals and coupled with the pandemic rise in rents by greedy landlords ate significantly into the amount of money saved. So we have less houses on the market, with potential buyers crushed by higher initial costs while trying to escape their rentals. Put that into play with transit issues and lack of lower income housing… yeah its a thing. What I have to ask back tho is, how do you fix it? Better yet, why does no one EVER ask the other side how they would fix it?
gwangung
Also, what’s under appreciated is that rental prices are higher and are consuming an ever higher portion of income. And THAT makes it harder to accumulate capital, and makes it longer and tougher to accumulate the capital to buy that first home.
wjca
I think there is a certain lack of awareness of history going on.
My parents (members of the “Greatest Generation” which won WWII) bought their first house in their late 20s; with, be it noted, parental help. I, a Baby Boomer, bought my first (small) house when well into my 30s — and I had a very well paid career in IT going.
Somehow, the fact that current 25 year olds can’t afford to buy the house of their dreams doesn’t strike me as an unraveling of the American Dream. Perhaps of an American fantasy, but not something resembling a reasonable aspiration at any point in our history.
Suzanne
@piratedan: I know this thread is dead, but I don’t think 25-year-olds not being able to afford a big house is the issue. I think it’s 35-year -olds not being able to afford a house that’s the issue. And there is plenty of that happening, especially in and around the cities where jobs exist.
No offense intended, but this blog’s readership is fairly high on average, and there are times that it shows.
Miss Bianca
@RevRick: Yep, I just finished that one too, and am now hurtling even farther back into time with “Gentlemen of Property and Standing”, which examines the anti-abolition mob violence of the 1830’s. Interestingly, the author, who wrote it in 1970, talks about the end of the 1960s in his introduction, talking about the political assassinations and violence of that time and drawing comparisons to the pre-Civil War period.
History may not repeat itself, precisely, but at least in America it surely does rhyme…
Paul in KY
@Ksmiami: If you’re a dope smoking leftist who can’t keep a job because of whatevs, I don’t have alot of sympathy for you. When I was in my 20s, I was poor (after I left USAF). Had a job though and lived with my parents until I was 28. Then I bought a rundown house that had been lived in by complete low-lifes. Had been on the market for over 2 years due to the general nastiness of the house (every plug plate you took off had loads of roach droppings behind it. That kind of house). I persevered and over years fixed it up to be one of the best houses in that low income neighborhood.
Paul in KY
@Chetan Murthy: One of their two greatest songs. ‘Psycho Killer’ being the other.
Paul in KY
@wjca: All those stupid ‘flipper’ shows on HGTV have young couples in late 20s and early 30s with (evidently) oodles of money. IMO, these kids (mostly women, IMO) see this and get down on their own ‘not rich’ situation and start stewing.