Guess who still hasn’t cracked 60% of votes in a Republican primary?
Trump “won” the Nevada caucus with a Saddam Hussein-like 99.1% result when his cult orchestrated a race with a god-bothering megachurch nobody named Ryan Binkley. But in every other contest so far, 40%-plus of the most engaged GOP voters expressed a preference for not-Trump.
Of course, Trump will win the nomination, barring an event like a ketchup-slathered chunk of overcooked gristle lodging in his windpipe. The snippets of savvy political analysis I’ve seen since yesterday in the major dailies are using the word “coronation.”
But it should be noted that Trump is a weakling despite being the de facto incumbent and leader of his shit-show party. So, duly noted!
I make no predictions, and I acknowledge that hope is not a strategy. That said, I believe we have an opportunity to beat the walking collection of untreated personality disorders known as Donald J. Trump like a rented mule.
Open thread!
dmsilev
There are, apparently, Ron DeSantis die-hards. I find that both hilarious and disturbing.
Baud
Because that’s what they want to give Trump all the way through November.
steve g
Still don’t like to see Trump being called the incumbent, with or without the de facto, since he is not the incumbent. Biden is the incumbent, and there is only one incumbent! Plus it makes it sound like he has been doing something the last three years, when in fact he has done nothing but play golf and sit around eating cheeseburgers.
Omnes Omnibus
Not aimed at you, BC, but I hate that line. It is almost always used by people who feel the need to kick the legs out from any positive statement someone might make. Just about everyone on this blog who has gotten that phrase thrown at them or been accused of peddling hopium has advocated working to achieve positive goals (just as you are here). It shouldn’t be necessary to disclaim hope as a strategy as though you are repudiating the broccoli mandate.
Thank you for reading my rant.
Omnes Omnibus
Not exactly true. He’s also been losing lawsuits and getting indicted.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker
I read this line:
and I couldn’t help but think of the hideous pic of meat item that Cole posted in one of his recents threads. Did you see it? It was sad, gray, and gross and rare, all at the same time.
oh, wait. It must be in the media library.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
99.1%? Shit, Stalin would have been happy to get that outcome in an election [sic].
Captain C
@dmsilev: Apparently that’s the demographic of won’t vote for TiFG, won’t vote for a woman or PoC, likes the kicking down.
Villago Delenda Est
The glorious thing is he’s going to take the Rethuglican Party with him, just as Lindsey Graham predicted.
Betty Cracker
@steve g: The point is he is the incumbent to Republicans since the majority are weak-minded enough to believe his lies about 2020. Therefore, he should be getting incumbent-like results, but he’s falling short. Weak! 😵💫
@Omnes Omnibus: I generally avoid those discussions as if they were an angry, rhinoceros-sized skunk, so it doesn’t land that way to me. In my book, the phrase is a reminder that much work will be required!
Miss Bianca
@Captain C: When you put it like that, I’m surprised it was only 0.4% of the GOP electorate!
citizen dave
A lazy and quiet Sunday afternoon jamming on some Laufey. It may be Alfred E. Neuman of me, but I’m not worried. I think the Dems should put on giant democracy and kindness rallies in all the places that want them, either everyone on one weekend day, or a series of them across the land. I would attend.
Baud
I felt that way before the primaries began, and nothing has changed for me now that a few results are in.
Jackie
My hope is TIFG believes the MSM BS and thinks his re-election is all but guaranteed and continues to listen to no one who could give him actual good advice. I heard last night he’s thinking of bringing Kellyanne Conway back on board – which I sincerely hope she refuses. She’s been openly discouraging him to opine on abortion.
BlueGuitarist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Re Hope
Dana Houle, often linked to here, likes to quote
“Hopefulness…is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.” Nick Cave
Also, too:
“Hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism. Hope is a discipline… we have to practice it every single day. – Mariame Kaba
Hope is the thing with feathers
dmsilev
@Miss Bianca: Well, don’t forget about the ones who stayed home and didn’t cast a vote for anyone.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
Same. But I gave up on hope in 2016 so I’m probably coming from a different place.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus: He’s also given several very weird, 80 minute long dissemblings at places like the Nazi-saturated CPAC. And to a Black audience that he can now suddenly ‘see’.
Somehow Donald calling his wife “Mercedes” hasn’t gotten the coverage of, say, Joe Biden briefly confusing the names of two foreign leaders.
Omnes Omnibus
This is why I stay out of Florida.
Baud
@RaflW:
Yeah, the media is super depressing. At least in 2016 they viscerally hated Hillary. This time, they’re aiding fascism for shits and giggles.
Omnes Omnibus
@BlueGuitarist: I have quoted the Cave and Dickinson lines here before. The Kaba one is new to me.
SFAW
How can you say that??? Haven’t you seen the portrait of him looking like Rocky Balboa? You libtards with your TFG Derangement Syndrome, refusing to acknowledge reality.
RaflW
@Baud: Our press won’t feel the brunt (or, thinks they won’t) of Trumpism, so the fascination outweighs the repertorial needs of this time.
Karl Bode sums it up well on Bsky
And in the case of the Times, when they descend from the tower to occasionally try to see the ground, they only go to red Ohio diners. They actively dismiss the chance to, say, interview a UAW worker who got a huge new contract in part thanks to Biden’s participation.
Omnes Omnibus
Completely OT: I am getting myself psyched up to go to the gym this morning. It’s nearly 2:00 pm in WI, you say? That’s how my day is going.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. Last week the students asked us for a gathering to commemorate Navalny, and during the discussion, one of the students from an authoritarian country schooled some of the older folks for having the luxury of giving up hope.
trollhattan
Gov Gav evidently did a Sunday show.
Here’s your hammer, please use it liberally. More, we want more!
smith
We got one of those, too.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Look at it this way: pretend you live in Hawaii, where it’s not even 10 AM yet.
Then, after your workout, you can catch some rays. [I don’t know how the surf is where you are, however.] Apparently it’s about 50 degrees in Green Bay, so it’s like a veritable summer’s day compared to Central MA.
jackmac
The Illinois primary is three weeks away and I’m feeling mischievous.
Haley, DeSantis, Christie and Binkley (who?) are on the GOP presidential ballot along with TFG and It’s tempting to vote on the dark side for one of them to embarass Trump and keep him below 60 percent again. And I can’t believe I’m alone in this sentiment.
Plus, by voting Republican I’d get a chance to help nominate an extremist MAGAt loon to give our great Congressional rep — Lauren Underwood — better odds for reelection in November.
There’s nothing contested on the D side although there’s also motivation to help pile up votes for Biden.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank You. Its usually thrown out by doomers who think wallowing in negativity is a strategy.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: It’s 55 here. That’s part of what is throwing me off.
MattF
Trump’s various lies and boasts about his ‘strengths’ offer a very precise picture of his multiple and varied weaknesses. Listing them is a waste of pixels, but they are right out there.
trollhattan
@SFAW: Feb tan is best tan.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’ll be honest, sometimes I get embarrassed with the rhetoric when I think about the struggles other people in other places and times have had to endure.
WaterGirl
@jackmac: I crossed over exactly once – to vote against Daddy Bush in the primary all those years ago.
In my opinion, it’s worth doing if there is hope that a different Republican candidate would win the nomination. Otherwise, I think it’s important to help run up the score for Biden.
With our “liberal” media, I don’t want to hear that even in BLUE Illinois, people don’t want Biden.
My two cents, even though you didn’t ask for it. :-)
hells littlest angel
My biggest worry at this point is that Trump goes completely off his nut, screeching and grunting and eating his own shit, before he is officially nominated. Hang in there, nutty buddy!
Baud
@hells littlest angel:
He probably would break 60% if he did that. Their voters would see it as a show of strength.
MattF
@hells littlest angel: Agree that coprophagia would be a bad sign.
Baud
@smith:
That’s funny because I’m pretty sure our side won’t believe that’s reality.
zhena gogolia
I watched the Trump “Mercedes” clip. Who was it who said he was thinking about Mercedes Schlapp? That’s ridiculous! He’s talking about his wife and he clearly calls her “Mercedes.”
I think he’s been watching JL Cauvin, whose version of Trump always substitutes different M-words when he mentions her. Melanin, mitochondria, etc.
zhena gogolia
@smith: My husband says, “That’s a good use of AI!”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
“Denizens of Staunchly Democratic Blog Discuss Voting GOP, Spelling Trouble for Biden” /NYT
Quadrillipede
@Omnes Omnibus: Hope is not a strategy, but it is a precondition for strategy.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker: Not quite as pithy, but I prefer to phrase as “hope alone is not a strategy” for that reason.
BlueGuitarist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Also
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” emphasizes hope: near the beginning, “hope is much needed” in conclusion, “I therefore, leave off where I began, with hope.”
Keep hope alive!
Lots to do!
Aziz, light!
In November many of the youngest voters are going to stay home chanting “From the river to the sea.” I don’t know how many. The conventional wisdom is that they will “come home,” but not if they have chosen to be homeless.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: +1
Some slogans / acronyms / initalisms are useful, some are lazy.
WarRoom.ArmyWarCollege.edu – Hope is not “a” strategy – it’s the only strategy.
;-)
Thanks.
[eta:] Also not aimed at Betty!
Cheers,
Scott.
jackmac
@WaterGirl: You make an excellent point about running up the score for Biden in Illinois.
Plus, I cringe just a little to think about voting GOP (I crossed over once to vote for John Anderson — my congressman at the time — against Ronald Reagan).
Baud
@Aziz, light!:
There are always people who stay home. Sometimes it costs us the election and sometimes it doesn’t.
cmorenc
Women in one of the red states who create a handful of specific exceptions when abortions will be allowed will be required to establish that they meet the qualifications before evaluators who are in the mold of speaker mike johnson – who start with the premise that the woman is making a gravely immoral request that should be presumptively disallowed, absent the woman being able to prove extraordinary justification for allowing such an otherwise heretically evil act.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Thanks for that link.
Starfish
@Aziz, light!: Generally, the expectation is that the youngest voters don’t vote. I think they turned up in unexpected numbers last time because they were doing school from home, and their parents helped them register.
Anyway, some of it is that young people are focused on things that are not voting, but some of it is that various people intentionally try to disenfranchise them.
Zero of the candidates are treating climate change as one of the most important issues.
Sure Lurkalot
@zhena gogolia: Caveat re diagnosing from afar, a psychologist’s opinion (Dr. John Gartner on a tale of two brains: “Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing” | Salon.com)
Tehanu
An idea whose time really ought to come. Soon.
Baud
@Starfish:
Pretty sure that’s a lie. The Biden administration is working on a lot of climate issues.* If you’re talking about campaigning, I’m confident it’ll be a big issue, if it’s not already, but the campaign season hasn’t really started.
* I’m not interested in debating a question about whether it’s “enough.”
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Just back from my “morning” walk with Ellie here in NoVA. 44F and sunny. Came back sneezing with my sinuses clogged and runny.
It’s supposed to be 70F here on Wednesday. They often miss on the low side…
Spring is coming. In February. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
Curious to see if I can copy and paste a shared link to Apple News (which I subscribe to). Can people see this?
ETA: I can see the linked item, but that’s not surprising.
Baud
@MattF:
👍
Scout211
Have you seen Governor Newsom’s super PAC’s ad for Tennessee? He is all over the news this weekend to emphasize the GOP “war on women.”
Powerful ad.
Hostage
ETA: Sorry if there is a stupid commercial ad you have to wade through to get to the super PAC ad.
scav
How far are TX and TN going to take their “We own your body and will repossess it if we think you’re going to do something we disapprove of or have made locally illegal.” Will they imprison doctors they suspect of moving elsewhere and possibly participating in abortions? Or, what if a Texan wants to leave state and earn a few bucks in a cannabis dispensary? Slap that ass in prison and fine him for using county roads. Are they going to jump in and arrest all people they suspect are going to leave the state and commit different kinds of <scary voice> “Murder!” </scary voice>. Then again, they sure don’t step in and remove the guns from — let alone the liberty of — people showing all the signs of erupting into a little gun-slinging second amendment massacres. Funny how it’s not all bodies these noble states are asserting possession of, nor all crimes they are pre-imprisoning bodies over.
Baud
@Scout211:
Tennessee is aggressive. That’s a super Republican state.
japa21
Regarding “Hope is not a strategy”, I usually respond that without hope, there is no need for a strategy or tactic or anything else. Hope is why you have those.
bbleh
@BlueGuitarist: I always liked the thing-with-feathers line
(ETA, I can also see hope being a a ketchup-slathered chunk of overcooked gristle, except ew.)
TBone
Pretty bait or sincere grift?
https://digbysblog.net/2024/02/25/meanwhile-across-town/
brantl
@Starfish: Biden has been repeatedly banging the drum for fighting (and funding the fight of climate change); where are you living, under a rock?
topclimber
Hearing that Elise Stefanik really wants the GOP VP nod has filled me with a strange hope. But it all depends on whether NYS law doesn’t let her run for BOTH Congress and for VP in the same election. Since the terms start differently in Jan. 25 (Congress about two weeks ahead of Pres/VP) maybe this is a thing?
I have a shadow memory of LBJ having to resign from the Senate when he ran with JFK.
Sadly, I fear that she is forced to pick one only if she wins both, which would of course be a disaster.
I want her gone as my Congress critter SO bad.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Since the NYT is running articles in the business section about all the terrible consequences of Biden’s work on climate (for example, the infrastructure act’s focus on bringing clean-energy production to the US is hurting a small town in Norway), I think it’s already an issue.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
There goes the Nordfjordeid vote.
SFAW
@Sure Lurkalot:
So, once again, it has been proved (with geometric logic) that Sleepy Joe Brandon is old, but TFG is not.
SFAW
@Baud:
Gesundheit!
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: Josh Marshall says essentially the same thing that for the guy we know is going to be the nominee it’s exceedingly weak to have 40% show up to say, “I’d rather not.”
Starfish
@Baud: I was talking about campaigning.
The electrification efforts seem to be designed to be consumer driven, but consumers can only drive things so far.
Like if a place cannot get a transformer to charge their electric busses for a year or two, then they are not going to have electric busses.
Also, driving electrification in places that still rely on coal power seems a little cart before the horse, no?
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
Life is both hilarious and disturbing.
That’s what often makes it fun doing. Because if it wasn’t…….
Doc Sardonic
I agree with my fellow Floridian Ms. Cracker. Hope is not a strategy, hope is a state of mind. Hope is what motivates you to do the necessary, often hard, work to achieve an end or a goal. To use hope, and only hope, as a strategy is a recipe for failure, for at that point it becomes wishing. Two examples, first is that you have been hoping that you are going to be able to be one of the first to get one of the new EVs with all the latest battery technology, etc. If you only hope you are going to get the EV, and do nothing else, the EV is not magically going to show up in your driveway. It is going to take you doing the work of going to the dealer and making the necessary arrangements to get your hoped for EV. The other example is from a retired Navy Officer I once worked with, “Hope in both hands and shit in your flat hat and see which one fills up.”
BlueGuitarist
@topclimber:
According to Ballotpedia, only 5 states allow running for congress and presidency at the same time: Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and West Virginia, and maybe California.
https://ballotpedia.org/Running_for_U.S._Congress_and_the_presidency_simultaneously
Starfish
@brantl: So far, in campaigning, it has not been an issue so far as I can tell.
There are a few issues that are more important, but we are starting fire season again out west, and it really doesn’t seem like we are going at this in a “Hey, maybe everything catching fire every spring/summer is not working out for us” type way.
Ruckus
@steve g:
when in fact he has done nothing but play golf and sit around eating cheeseburgers.
He’s done a lot more than just damage golf courses and filled his diaper with digested cheeseburgers. None of it in any way good, even for him, but still he hasn’t been standing still, he’s a living(?) example of what not to do or be, if one is to be considered at all human.
Baud
@Starfish:
I googled and he mentioned climate in his campaign speech 4 days ago, but I haven’t seen any recent climate events. But I have no doubt it’ll be a big part of the campaign push.
SFAW
I gotta say, it amuses me no end when the “anti-Eeyore” contingent trash-talks anyone who says “hope is not a strategy.”
It’s not. For that matter, neither is fear. Hope (or fear) in and of itself doesn’t provide a plan of attack, or any of the other operational things necessary to a successful campaign.
But it DOES provide you with the motivation to do those things.
ETA: And Doc Sardonic said it earlier, and better, than I.
Frankensteinbeck
@Starfish:
Yes, and Biden is hitting them. As much as they care about climate change, I don’t think the Youngs are going to be turned off that Biden is instead focusing his rhetoric on things like Dobbs and Republicans nominating a senile dictator-wannabe.
Jackie
@MattF: Yes, and thank you 😁
Omnes Omnibus
@Doc Sardonic: That’s all fair, but, as I noted, it seems to me that most people to who that remark is aimed are not relying solely on hope but advocating doing the work and hoping that it will be successful. It’s become a facile putdown, and that is why I object to it.
@SFAW:
See above.
MomSense
@Sure Lurkalot:
My favorite one is when TFG was trying to think of instant replay. He starts with “action replay with mactified fortion ” and then still searching for what he wants to say calls it “fashionable magnified tape”
He even struggled with his Truth Social and called it truth- trothe sential.
WTF
moonbat
I’m with you, BC.
When you consider the MSM has been carrying water and normalizing the idea of a Trump second term as HARD as they have while handicapping Biden at every turn and this is the BEST he can do? I think it means that some reality is starting to sink in to a chunk of the electorate. The shine is off the gold-plated toilet. Trump is a loser. Not just in court but in his presidential run.
Figure in the strong showing of Dems in special elections and how hard Biden/Harris are hitting reproductive freedoms issues and I think Biden is going to pound him in November.
(Insert the givens “We must work our asses off to GOTV” and knocking on wood here.)
UncleEbeneezer
@japa21: And all of those things require hope/belief/confidence for them to have any chance of success. There’s a reason coaches tell our players that the worst thing you can possibly do is stop believing or give up and that your own fear is your biggest enemy.
Baud
Four days ago. Mentioned in his speech.
Not the focus of the event, but clearly one of his talking points.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Climate change is one of those issues that logically “should” be every voter’s top priority. But it isn’t for some reason.
An effective politician has to acknowledge and cater to the illogic of the electorate.
If the electorate was logical and rational, we’d be in a very different place today. Here’s why that’s Biden and the Democrats’ fault… //s
topclimber
@BlueGuitarist: Thank you for confirming that my memory might not be shot after all. (Feel free to disavow that assertion).
Miss Bianca
@moonbat:
Oh, my Lord, what an image. I am laughing and gagging a little at the same time!
Doc Sardonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Objection noted, and not disagreed with in that context.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s why I had to quit reading the Ukraine threads. Adam is especially bad about it, I think because of what he does. It’s disheartening to have any bit of hope for good things constantly stomped on, even if it is more realistic sometimes.
Gretchen
@RaflW: that “confusing foreign leaders” was infuriating. Biden said Mexico when he was talking about the president of Egypt. The president of Egypt has been referred to by his people as The Mexican for years. He’s a dictator so you can’t criticize him publicly, so people call him El Mexsiki – sounds like El Sisi. Biden knows this, the reporters don’t, so rather than seeing that Biden knows a lot about leaders in the area, it’s taken as a sign that he’s a doddering old man who can’t keep his countries straight.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: It interests me that they can just accept Trump’s lies about being the winner when he intentionally disappeared from public view for 2 years after leaving office. Truth Social posts that could have been written by staff members, occasional photos or videos from Mar-a-Lago parties and dinners, but really nothing in the way of rallies or fundraisers or other public appearances. He didn’t do anything presidential while claiming he was still president. It’s a weird cognitive dissonance.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Did you see my question to you in an earlier thread this week? I saw that you were ordering an iPad, and PatrickG had asked me to reach out to you so you could get the 15% discount.
I was waiting to see you in a thread, and then it fell right out of my head. I am so sorry!
Jackie
@scav: They’re emulating Idaho’s draconian abortion laws and hoping to punish young women and girls and their helpers even more.😡
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
nothing for himself but play golf…..
For himself is a given because he never does anything positive for anyone else but himself and over the last few decades (at least) he’s really done nothing positive for himself either.
In a one word description of SFB, nothing is as close to positive as it gets. And that is and will be true in his entire life, from day one to day end of.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Exactly!
You actually being DougJ has been a well kept secret!
Harrison Wesley
@hells littlest angel: …and within 24 hours, they’ll be marketing DonaldDung (0% organic) at his rallies.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
This won’t surprise you, of course, but I have not seen it used as a putdown (facile or otherwise) of people advocating doing the work. I think the commenters here who advocate for the work, be it postcards, or calls, or knocking on doors, have not had that thrown at them.
However, where I have seen it used: when someone responds to bad poll numbers or legitimate concerns about policy affecting (for example) Arab-Americans by pooh-pooing the data or (apparent) evidence.
RaflW
@Starfish: Anecdotal, but I recall multiple college campuses having very long lines, big surges in registrations, etc for the mid-terms. It will be essential for Dem state machines to have the funding and the plans to get those first-time voters to do it again.
Once the habit forms, they (we all!) need a bit of prompting, but their propensity goes up notably.
KSinMA
@Starfish:
You could ask Energy Sec. Granholm what the Biden admin is doing about climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPMZz_c16M
scav
@UncleEbeneezer: Still an oversimplification. What dooms things is not the lack of hope, it is the lack of action. It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie. It’s sure handy and nice to have a possible cookie on the other side, but one can get off one’s ass without it. Hope is one of many motivating factors.
Gretchen
@cmorenc: this. Like they’ll put it a rape exception, but you need to report it to the police right away, because if there’s no police report she’s probably just lying. And there’s an incest exception if the 10yo can get her stepdad to drive her to the police station to file a report about him. See? Plenty of exceptions.
WaterGirl
@MattF: On my mac, I get “Welcome to Apple News” and it appears that it will want me to sign up or sign in, or something.
So it’s a no go for me.
moonbat
@Miss Bianca: Which is why I always eat BEFORE sitting down to write. lol
Baud
@scav:
I wish that were a rotating tag. It’s frustrating how many so-called liberals see everything as transactional. It reminds me of Trump, actually.
Peke Daddy
@Omnes Omnibus: Been said that hope is a stance, not an assessment. Applied hope is taking that stance and acting on it.
smith
Ya know, if the Youngs haven’t noticed by now that one of the most persistent and powerful obstacles to doing anything constructive about climate change is and has been the Republican party for the last 40 years, then someone has really failed in their education. If you are an American and climate change is your premier issue, you shouldn’t even need to ask who’s running or what his recent speeches have been about to decide which side to vote for (Hint: it’s not the Greens).
WaterGirl
@Scout211: I have recently discovered that if an ad comes up on YouTube, I can refresh the page and the ad goes away.
Sometimes I have to refresh just once, sometimes twice, occasionally 3 times. But then I get to the video without having to sit through an ad.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Very good point.
One has to be able to at least aspire to hope to even think of it.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: No ad for me this time!
Baud
@smith:
That’s how I feel. That and abortion rights, I have zero respect for people who claim to support them but then don’t vote blue.
ETA: Are there gunhumpers that ponder which party to vote for?
MattF
@WaterGirl: So… it appears to be complicated. Some people see it, some don’t.
Baud
@MattF: I can see it on my phone and my computer. Tested both. Neither is an Apple device.
Hob
@SFAW: You can chortle in amusement as much as you want, but it’s really not to understand that a phrase can be literally true and still be an irrelevant and insulting putdown in context. Nobody is complaining about just the use of those 5 words. The point is that if someone was just trying to argue that some particular negative framing of such-and-such is misleading or unhelpful, and my comeback is “hope is not a strategy”, then I’m in effect pretending that they had literally no point of view other than “if we hope for the best everything will be fine.” Whether you personally have done that kind of thing or not, lots of others sure as shit have, and you have no call to pretend that anyone who has a problem with that is just an idiot who doesn’t understand the literal truth of the phrase.
ETA: That applies even if you think someone is inappropriately disregarding poll numbers or whatever. If they think the polls are wrong and you think they’re right, fine, argue about that. But there’s no point in pretending that what they said was “I don’t care about reality at all and everything will be fine if we just hope.” They don’t think that and they didn’t say that, so coming back with “hope is not a strategy” is not going to change their opinion about the polls at all, because they know that’s not what they meant.
MattF
@Baud: Hah.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: It might be 80º here on Tuesday! That would break a record. Then it’s supposed to be 44º on Wednesday. Might have some bad storms when that comes through. I’m not looking forward to it.
Update on hubby – his kidney numbers are better today but still not good enough to go home. I’m still hopeful he’ll leave tomorrow. Also hoping I can talk the doctor out of him having a catheter at home until Friday. I’ll probably have to stay home with him if the doctor does that to make sure he doesn’t take it out.
Harrison Wesley
@MomSense: “Mactified fortion?” Wasn’t that a secret weapon in some ’50s sci-fi movie?
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Have you not seen this, or something very close to it, multiple times?
“I am not the front pager who peddles hopium.”
RaflW
@Peke Daddy: I know I’ve mentioned Joanna Macy before, but her ideas resonate for me.
At the heart of this … is the idea that Active Hope is something we do rather than have. It involves being clear what we hope for and then playing our role in the process of moving that way.
Hope isn’t a feeling, she suggests. “Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening.” Macy advises us to decenter our feelings, and center our intent. “Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. … Rather than weighing our chances and proceeding only when we feel hopeful, we focus on our intention and let it be our guide.”
WaterGirl
@Baud: @MattF:
Yeah, if you’re on an Apple device, they want you to use their Apple News.
I am definitely an apple girl, but I have no interest in signing into Apple News, or having to use Apple News in order to see a story.
wjca
Think of those as anti-Trump voters who are too sexist to give Haley their protest vote. At least some significant number of them.
EDT Naturally @Captain C: (and no doubt others) got there first. Comes of having my day job keep getting in the way.
japa21
@UncleEbeneezer: Which is what I said.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: I couldn’t access the article via the link (got a come-on from Apple News), but I looked it up anyway, and thanks for calling attention to it. Newell is 100% correct, IMO.
MattF
@WaterGirl: It’s not the failure mode I’d have anticipated. ‘Only works for non-Apple users’.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: Hope may not be a strategy but it is the rock bottom ground upon which strategy and tactics are built. Just ask the Civil Rights Movement (which extended far further back than we commonly consider it).
WaterGirl
@MattF: Laughing. Yeah, it does, perhaps, seem counterintuitive.
I’m sure it works just great for anyone on a Mac who uses Apple News. :-)
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
I may have seen it once or twice, but (I think) mostly someone quoting someone else’s use of it, without context.
Are you the FP-er about whom that line was used? I hope not, especially because I don’t see you as that way, but as someone practical/well-grounded.
SiubhanDuinne
@TBone:
I’ve seen or heard that Posobiec statement three or four times now, and each time it scares the ever-loving blue-eyed shit out of me. These “people” (not sure what to call them without demeaning another species) are fucking demented, insane, and beyond redemption at this point.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: To cross the streams here, it seems that hope the link would work for everyone was not a strategy.
West of the Rockies
@Omnes Omnibus:
That line shows up frequently in the Ukraine posts.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Yes, that has repeatedly been directed at me and my organizing and fundraising efforts, in a mocking and dismissive way, by one of the other front pagers.
Which I always disregard because it’s bullshit. But I was shocked to see you say that you haven’t seen that here, which is the only reason I mentioned it.
Omnes Omnibus
@West of the Rockies: I know. It is part of the reason for my original comment.
KrackenJack
@BlueGuitarist: I thought Puddin’ Hands got a law passed to allow him to do both.
Ruckus
@Sure Lurkalot:
I’ve had direct experience with Alzheimers patients, was related to one of them. Maybe my experience is the exception but this person’s ability to speak was nothing like you describe. This person’s speaking was definitely affected for their last 10 yrs of living but when they still could actually speak the formation of words was correct but the context of the words uttered was pulled from some other planet. And their last 5 yrs their function of speech was totally non existent. Other patients that lived where this parent did either spoke the same type of nonsense or nothing at all. Mis-formation of words was not within my experience, misuse of them was. Now my experience was limited to Alzheimers patients where my parent lived over 10 yrs but that was not an insignificant number of Alzheimer’s patients. The person of my experience lived for most of that 10 yrs in a very large care facility for Alzheimer’s patients. I’ve heard a lot of misuse of words but no where near a universal mispronunciation.
japa21
@WaterGirl: Every front pager has their own priorities. Adam is the extreme pessimist who wants people to face harsh reality and feels people talk too much as if hoping will make things happen. He is very good at what he does and he also will frequently semi-apologize for being too harsh in some of his replies to people.
You are one of those who peddle hopium. But you also peddle ways to make the things hoped for be realized.
Baud
Is contempt a strategy?
Asking for a friend.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: It’s more of a way of life.
lowtechcyclist
That’s so bizarre. Against a field of nobodies, Trump can’t crack 60%, yet it’s a ‘coronation.’ Meanwhile, Biden gets 97%, and all we hear is that he’s old.
Do these clowns even read what they’ve written? I’d die of embarrassment if I were writing crap as ludicrous as our extremely well-paid punditocracy churns out.
AlaskaReader
@Baud: I see it as a way to view Republicanism
WaterGirl
@japa21:
Just so you know, I fund that phrase offensive and insulting, and I would appreciate it if you would not direct that toward me.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
@AlaskaReader:
IMy friend can live with that.japa21
@WaterGirl:
Apologies. I was using it as an example of the way the other user means it. That is why a extended my comment. I consider you to be extremely hopeful but recognizing that hope is not an end in itself.
wjca
Glad to know you have friends. In addition to all us supporters. ;-)
Baud 20XX!
Subsole
@Harrison Wesley:
Man’s over here speaking in Victorian patent medicine labels…
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
Yeah, across the river* here in Calvert County, it’s been typical first-half-of-March weather for about two weeks now, and I saw my first crocus bloom yesterday.
*Actually across two rivers, Potomac and Patuxent, from where you are.
BlueGuitarist
@KrackenJack:
Yes, DeSadeness had Florida’s “resign to run” law changed to exempt candidates for president and vice president.
4 other states have a resign to run law
But afaict different situation for Elise Stefanik.
https://ballotpedia.org/Resign-to-run_law
Pennsylvania allows people to run for multiple offices at the same time, on the same ballot.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: There are different types of dementia, and they can manifest differently.
schrodingers_cat
I have had that hope is not a strategy and its related condescending put downers targeted at me as well. Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Sarcasm + contempt = Winning strategy!!!
Soprano2
@japa21: To me Adam is too much the “that’s never going to happen quit trying to make it happen” person, and he’s too sure of it when he says it. He also thinks Biden should have done something with Ukraine aid I’m not sure he could have gotten through that Congress.
Mr. Bemused Senior
AlaskaReader
For those who admire Biden’s stance on climate change, I admire him for it too,
…but know that he could be doing better and needs to be reminded that he’s wide of the mark on several fronts. It’s not a reason to hold back support for Biden but it is a reason to write him a letter and tell him we wish he’d do better.
He recently approved new offshore oil leases in the Gulf and the massive Willow oil project in Alaska got his nod when neither decision was the right thing to do.
Biden is definitely the best choice at the ballot box, but there’s work to be done before Biden administration policies are going to reflect what’s in all our best interests.
I always figure when politicians are campaigning for votes is the best time to impress upon them that this voter would prefer they improve their take on issues like climate change and what it will take to make the meaningful changes necessary.
Betty Cracker
@topclimber: Ugh, Stefanik? My sympathies. Since the most recent gerrymander, I’m stuck with corrupt MAGA drone Gus Bilirakis, who sucks big beefy gator balls. But Stefanik would be worse. 🤮
schrodingers_cat
If I had only relied on hope and didn’t have any strategy to back it up, I wouldn’t even be in this country. Let alone become its citizen.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
As an Apple fanboy – I must be – my first Apple computer was purchased in 1978. That was for actual work. It was far better for typing code on 1 inch paper tape than the prior used, teletype punch machine. I’ve had non Apple computers but not for at least the last 2 decades. I rarely get an Apple News nudge. Maybe they once heard me say “Blankety – blank, blank NO!
smith
@AlaskaReader: Yep. Choose the side where you’re most likely to get results, and then bear down on that side hard. Too many people think that flouncing off if you think they aren’t doing enough will motivate them to do better, but mostly it will motivate them to look for votes elsewhere, maybe in places that are inimicable to your cause. You should let them know you are part of their base and stay in their faces as long as it takes.
Baud
@smith:
Yes, my ire is directed at the flouncers.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat:
That bears repeating.
Another Scott
Someone commented on TIFG’s hair downstairs.
(Nitter doesn’t easily show just the particular post, and twitter.com says it’s not there at all. But it is, if you scroll down the nitter link.)
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: I did and I answered it too. But by then it was a dead thread. I got my iPad Air + Pencil yesterday. Thanks for thinking about me. I got a good deal from eBay for both.
I will keep that in mind if I am in the market for another Apple device.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: That’s the truth!
WaterGirl
@Baud: Flounce had the potential to be such a great word, and then you get to the meaning. Flounce should have been saved for something great.
A perfectly cromulent word wasted on something that is most definitely not flattering.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, good, glad it worked out.
wjca
Why? Pretty sure that if they’re wearing flounces, they aren’t wearing pants.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I can’t tell, when/where is that photo with the orange hair from?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
When I’m president, I’ll issue an executive order redefining it.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Yeah! I mainly brought it do digital art on the go. And as a digital notepad.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I will hold you to that!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Will you flounce off if I break my promise?
strange visitor (from another planet)
@schrodingers_cat: i, for one, am glad that you’re here
eta-
@Baud: i dunno. as a perpetual candidate, you make a LOT of promises.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Sadly, no! Flouncing, in its current definition, is against my personal code.
But I will flounce in a heartbeat when you redefine it as something as fun as it soundalike it should be.
Miss Bianca
@BlueGuitarist: What happens if you run in multiple elections and win both or all of them?
Miss Bianca
@smith:
That’s very soundly put, I hope I can remember to put it that succinctly the next time I encounter any meeping about “Why isn’t X doing more about Y?”
Jackie
@WaterGirl: That’s weird; my iPhone opened right up to the article.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Guessing that as some point you opened Apple News and did whatever it is that they want you to do to start using Apple News?
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: From his SC victory speech, I think.
Having a spotlight pointed at the top of his head probably didn’t help with the color.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
kalakal
@schrodingers_cat:
Couldn’t agree more. Hope may or may not be a strategy, but defeatism is always a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Princess
@Another Scott: wow, that’s quite a video. Trump looks awful and in fact the whole stage looks like they emptied out the retirement home on bingo night, along with the mean nurse who likes to give enemas. No wonder they call Biden old — their party looks like death.
dexwood
@RevRick: Amen.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: So it’s recent! Interesting.
Maybe they discontinued the pumpkin orange hair color he usually uses, and they are having trouble getting the color right.
BlueGuitarist
@Miss Bianca:
In Pennsylvania you can run for more than one office but can’t hold more than one, so have to resign one of the seats.
In 2022 Democrats gained 12 seats, including 2 Super Swing District candidates supported by Balloon-Juice to win a 102-101 majority in the PA State House of Representatives.
But 2 of the Dems were elected to other offices — US House and Lt. Governor — and resigned their PA House seats, delaying the full Democratic majority until those seats could be won in special elections.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Lately his orange face paint seems to have a browner hue too. Almost like they’re smearing a mixture of Skippy peanut butter and Tang on his hideous mug.
Chris Johnson
@MomSense: wait WHAT
o_O
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@RaflW:
He’s had so many wives and mistresses, it’s easy to get confused. Maybe Mercedes is the latest.
kalakal
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: The way he’s racking up fines the next one will be Trabant
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
I’ve seen it used in the context I described, but I truly don’t recall seeing it directed at you. I guess I’ll have to start paying closer attention.
It annoys me — to put it mildly — that someone does that to you, because you’re (almost) always working to help us jackals find ways to help any number of campaigns and candidates.
Bill Arnold
@MomSense:
Tx, hadn’t heard that one. Here is a short clip:
User Clip: Mactified Fortion (YouTube, 0:27)
Chris Johnson
As for ‘hopium’, I’m with WaterGirl. I have to put a lot of effort into not assuming Adam is just some kind of malicious op, but I try to stay away and if I don’t see him insisting we’re doomed and there will definitely be a civil war, I have a much easier time being kind. (btw, harping on about a civil war is one of my litmus tests for Pravda allegience, so if he does ever say that for God’s sake don’t tell me :) )
Hope is simply this: people exist who cooperate. People exist who team-build, who are not dependent on some clay-feet King to be their avatar. People exist who can elect a Joe Biden knowing he is just a damn good dedicated representative: the man is a god-damned public servant, not a God-King.
As it should be. He is elected to a job, that of representing ALL the Americans, including the ones who are temporarily quite insane and incapable. And he’s left holding the bag for a Potemkin trojan President who ran off with all the secrets he could, trying not to reveal how shitty all that was, aided by the fact that the media who could expose how badly Trump fucked us all, is ALSO totally controlled by those who controlled Trump, hence they have no desire to spotlight the damage while they can still cause more.
And with ALL THAT, the orange-jowled motherfucker still can’t break past 60% in his own god-damned primary.
Dems can cooperate and team-build. Newsom can wait until he’s working WITH the party. A hell of a lot of people can wait and can pull on the rope when they’re needed, and hold their counsel when things are more uncertain.
Villains cannot cooperate. They hate everyone, including themselves, and each other. If they could work together we’d be fucked. But they can’t. If they could work together we would NOT be here now trying to support actual President Biden as he closes out his life with the grandest political hail mary pass anyone ever had the stones to attempt.
He could keep it together until our enemies implode. He could be taken out by age and stress and illness and give us Harris, our first Black female president and a damn capable woman AND an ex-cop just when we need one AND part of HIS TEAM which has been an amazing team, any of that. Biden is pulling off a freaking heroic performance and he’s holding the line. He’s done incredible things in the face of a shockingly broken country, and is pulling it together through normalcy and team-building.
I’m team Biden. I’m team Hope. I’m sorry. Villains cannot cooperate as we do. They will not stand. 2016 was their high-water mark, and all this is their fall and disgrace.
Sixty percent for der Fuhrer of der Orangeface. In a PRIMARY. For fuck’s sake. The fact that the New York Times is desperate to paint that as a dominant win only exposes that they, too, are exposed and disgraced and clearly fucked. If they weren’t truly desperate they would not have had to disgrace themselves with such a ruinous take, but they apparently had their orders. Villains can’t cooperate, and somebody saw fit to make the Times throw itself on its sword in an attempt to save the Fuhrer.
Fuckers.
SFAW
@Bill Arnold:
I’ll see your “Mactified Fortion,” and raise you a Turbo Encabulator.
OK, fine, so it’s not directly related to politics or TFG. Try to bear up under the strain.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Yes, his hair and his face have changed color, totally agree. Still odd, but more bronzer and less orange. I don’t know how his hair and make-up people can bear to work on him.
SFAW
@Hob:
Thanks so much for Hobsplaining to me. “Chortle”? My, aren’t we superior.
I explained the context, you don’t like it, too bad.
PaulWartenberg
Trump’s failure to crack 90 percent of a Primary thus far in 2024 is ONE of the MANY things I’ve got on my handy 2024 Presidential Checklist to compare the differences between Biden and trump!
https://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-2024-us-presidential-primary.html
Please print and share among your friends! ;-)
NobodySpecial
We don’t need hope, we just need to remember that when he was at the height of his powers, we beat him, and he’s spent all his time since crying and getting in legal trouble. His party sucks at GOTV for him, he can’t even crack 60% in the deep South against a woman in his own party, and several hundred thousand to a million of his most avid voters aren’t currently breathing, and large sections of the crazies have taken over to the point where people can’t ignore it no matter how much makeup the NYT puts on the clown.
We do our job and get our voters to the polls, we beat him like a rented mule again. Worst thing we can do is continual doomcrying because the national media isn’t throwing roses at Joe’s feet.
SFAW
@PaulWartenberg:
90 percent? I thought he hadn’t got more (or much more) than 60 percent. And 60 percent (for a former preznit who’s a cult leader) is pretty effing bad.