Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The words do not have to be perfect.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

No one could have predicted…

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

You are here: Home / Politics / Proud to Be A Democrat / Damp Grey Dawn Open Thread: That Time Interview with TFG, Playing His Golden Oldies for His Biggest Fans

Damp Grey Dawn Open Thread: That Time Interview with TFG, Playing His Golden Oldies for His Biggest Fans

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There’s been a certain amount of hair-on-fire commentary on social media about this interview. It’s not the kind of reading I usually share before most of you have had breakfast, but before y’all get nervous: Yes, it’s pretty bad. Time found someone shameless enough to go back to the 2017 ‘intriguing dude talks tuff’ media smarmfest, because hateclicks spend just like honest labor:

Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.

We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”

Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words…

The most important thing about this whole document: Yes, it’s full of objectively terrifying ideas from someone who was given a uniquely awful chance to destroy our country. But there’s not one thing in it we haven’t already heard about. Stripped of the interviewer’s fanboi message-massaging, you’ve got an angry old man letting himself be shipped from one friendly venue to another, like an over-the-hill country musician playing his greatest hits (not as well as he once did, but the audience just wants to say they saw their god-emperor live in person, while he’s still around). If you know an undecided voter who’s been in a coma or an alien spaceship for the last several years, this would be an introduction to The Very Worst of Donald Trump. For the rest of us, IMO, it’s gonna be useful mostly as a source of political ads for his opponents. Especially for President Biden’s team!

Trump’s ramblings on reproductive health care are second worse only to his ideas about immigration, but again: We already knew all this! He doesn’t give a flying fart about abortion, but he’ll parrot whatever bullsh*t he’s heard most recently. He does care about immigration — only White people from White countries, preferably people who’ve passed the Bannon / Miller How big a bigot are you? test, should be permitted to enter Trump’s nationwide HOA. But this is not ‘news’!

And President Biden has a damned good social-media team, as the NYTimes grugdingly admits…

The Biden campaign is mounting a concerted push to attack former President Donald J. Trump over statements he made to Time magazine in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday morning, particularly on abortion.

In the interview, Mr. Trump refused to commit to vetoing a national abortion ban and said he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violated abortion restrictions.

“This is reprehensible,” President Biden wrote on X. “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do.”

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mr. Trump would “sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women’s privacy to monitor their pregnancies and put I.V.F. and contraception in jeopardy nationwide.”

Abortion has become a winning issue for Democrats, and Mr. Biden has argued that Mr. Trump and Republicans will continue to erode abortion rights. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned heavily on the issue in battleground states, and Democrats hope that state ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights will help their candidates for president, Congress and state offices. Their messaging has sought to pin state abortion bans directly on Mr. Trump, whose appointees to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade…

The former president also told Time that he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants, and did not dismiss the possibility of political violence should he lose the election.

Democrats highlighted some of those statements as well.

“Donald Trump’s repeated threats of political violence are as horrifying and dangerous as they are un-American,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “Trump is hellbent on threatening our democracy, win or lose.”…

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  6. 6.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TBone: I’ve seen “we need to repeal the 19th amendment”. So far just the stupidest voices on the internet. But we’re probably not too many years from that becoming a standard part of the Republican platform.

  7. 7.

    Matt McIrvin

    Like I’ve been saying, I’m not that worried about what happens if Trump loses. In that scenario, the big, big difference from January 6, 2021 is that Trump is not already in control of the federal government.

    I’m worried about him being a sore winner.

  8. 8.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: I see what you did there, and will let someone else fall into the continuing pedantry trap. Just consider this game recognizing game.

  10. 10.

    MomSense

    Can someone explain to me like I’m five years old why people are blaming Biden for the police being called on the Columbia University protesters?  Did I miss something in my personal crazy couple of days?

  11. 11.

    Freemark

    I just really, really hope the pollsters are way undersampling those under 40.

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    Biden is old and eats salad slowly and walks with a halting gait. Obviously it’s his fault. I mean, like, Duuuhh.

  16. 16.

    hueyplong

    When Trump says he won’t answer an important question on a dangerous topic, how difficult is it to show a pulse by asking “Why not?” and pressing for a substantive response to that blindingly obvious follow-up?  If for no other reason, the answer would likely generate more clicks, which is the highest and best motivation for the current courtier press.

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @MomSense: Obviously Biden could have used his powers as God-Emperor to prevent the police raid.

    His real failing, of course, is not using his Green Lantern power ring to end the war in Gaza by levitating the whole of Palestine and transporting it 3000 miles west to form a new island off the coast of Morocco.

  23. 23.

    TBone

    Johnson lamented that universities are not inviting police into their campuses to take care of the protesters, saying that is one of the policy changes Republicans are looking to see.

    “Those are the policy changes that we’re demanding and if they don’t correct this quickly, you will see Congress respond in kind. You’re gonna see funding sources begin to dry up. You’re gonna see every level of accountability that we can muster and that’s what the work of these committees and these fine chairpersons are going to be involved in, and we’ll say stay tuned and you’ll see much more,” Johnson said.

    Fox News reported that the committees involved are Education & the Workforce, Energy & Commerce, Oversight, the Judiciary, Ways & Means and the committee on Science, Space & Technology.

    https://www.thecollegefix.com/gop-pledges-to-hold-mealy-mouthed-spineless-college-leaders-accountable-in-expanded-antisemitism-probe/

    It’s Biden’s fault!  Somehow!

  24. 24.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    you’ve got an angry old man letting himself be shipped from one friendly venue to another, like an over-the-hill country musician playing his greatest hits (not as well as he once did, but the audience just wants to say they saw their god-emperor live in person, while he’s still around).

    I’ve thought of the aging musician thing a lot, specifically Glen Campbell. I saw a documentary about Campbell at the end of his life. Far gone in dementia, he was unable to understand the simplest instructions during rehearsal and day to day life. But as soon as the audience was there and the lights were on, he was PRESENT: hitting his marks, playing the music, talking to the fans.

    I think TFG is well down that road but apparently still able to perform plausibly at rallies and I guess in interview situations like this. The country will be so much better off when they are no longer able to put him in front of the cameras or microphones, which I think is not far off. (But unfortunately probably not before election day 2024).

  26. 26.

    Splitting Image

    @Freemark:

    I just really, really hope the pollsters are way undersampling those under 40.

    They’re conducting the polling in Ohio diners to make sure they get a balanced sample.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    there’s not one thing in [the TIME interview] we haven’t already heard about.

    emphasis on ‘we’ there

    The normies, the low-info folks, the ones who have (thankfully, gratefully) been able to keep thoughts of trumpov out of their heads for over three years now…they’re the ones who needed to hear about the TIME interview.

    So…let’s be sure to tell them.  Amplifying his insanity for the normies to see/hear/be disgusted by can only help Biden and the Dems.

  29. 29.

    lowtechcyclist

    Anyone who can read that Time summary of Trump’s plans that Hillary tweeted, and can still consider voting for Trump, they should just leave. Hungary, Russia, Belarus, places like that would love them. But they don’t belong here. Anyone who thinks a right-wing version of a Stalinist purge is a good idea belongs somewhere else.

    And if they consider themselves Christians, well, I remember being told that loads of supposed Christians would be seduced by the Antichrist. (I don’t believe in any of that End Times crap, but if there were an Antichrist, he’d look like Cheeto Benito.)

  31. 31.

    3Sice

    The answer to MattYs question is that he doesn’t understand the question.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    @MomSense: Can someone explain to me like I’m five years old why people are blaming Biden for the police being called on the Columbia University protesters?

    Because in America, we blame the president (especially when he’s a Democrat) for everything?  Gas prices, egg prices, that toe I just stubbed…all of it.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”

    Oh noes! Apprentice flashbacks.

    “You’re fired!”

    A second Trump term would be a rancid Reign of Error.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @hueyplong:When Trump says he won’t answer an important question on a dangerous topic, how difficult is it to show a pulse by asking “Why not?” and pressing for a substantive response to that blindingly obvious follow-up?

    Right??

    Similarly, the way he keeps ducking on the abortion pill, mifeprestone…just ask him a follow-up!

    trumpov: “I’ll have a statement out in two weeks”

    reporter: “sir, you said that two weeks ago…if you don’t have a specific statement ready today, could you at least explain your general thoughts on women being able to access this drug?”

    you KNOW he’d bite…

  37. 37.

    3Sice

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    He is a bit more cogent on Adderall, but it gives him the shits.

    They’re gonna try to and run from Mar-a-lago with carefully controlled rallies and enough of an October surprise to get over. I think that’s a recipe for disaster but we’ll see.

  38. 38.

    Jeffro

    @Matt McIrvin:I’m worried about [trump] being a sore winner.

    I am only worried about him being a winner (sore or otherwise…and I think the choices are ‘sore’ or ‘VERY sore’).

    If he loses, life won’t be perfect…the RWNJs will still howl and there will probably, unfortunately, be RW violence here and there…but at least we’ll have a country, Constitution, and rule of law for four more years.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro: but at least we’ll have a country, Constitution, and rule of law for four more years.

    A few Supreme Court justices would beg to differ.

  41. 41.

    JWR

    My local news covered the TIME interview and it made my head spin. But this struck me as a pretty stupid question:

    Sir, the Posse Comitatus Act says that you can’t deploy the U.S. military against civilians. Would you override that?

    Trump: Well, these aren’t civilians….

    Gah! The “logic” here escapes me, because the act doesn’t say what he, and apparently the interviewer, think it says. Dude’s brain is broken, fried and overdone.

  42. 42.

    3Sice

    @Jeffro:

    Print outlet interviews control for blank stares, uncomfortable smells and digressions about Ivanka’s tits.

    Time is no longer. The brand is now a rich liberals every other week vanity project.

  43. 43.

    p.a.

    If you’re unfortunate enough to interact w a MAGAt “Biden is OOOoooolllllldddd”, “Biden is elitist”  chud, I wonder: does tRump even have a driver’s license?  We know Joe does, even has a ‘Vette.  Does Donnie Dollhands even drive?  Limos his whole life?

  44. 44.

    TBone

    @p.a.: remember those tiny hands on the steering wheel of that big truck?  No, he does not drive 😆

    Unless you count golf farts, oops, carts

  45. 45.

    TS

    President Biden and other top Democrats moved quickly to capitalize politically on Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine,

    NYTimes tweet – they have to denigrate democrats in some way – whatever they say. This is not capitalizing politically – this is calling out a would be dictator for the horror show he wants to implement. People of all political persuasions should be horrified by this .

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    Since there’s a possibility that he’ll win, I don’t worry about him winning, except in moments of weakness. My worry adds nothing to the situation.

  48. 48.

    3Sice

    Check out the remote interview he did with Detroit TV  – he looks and sounds like shit, and flubs the gish gallop when pressed.

  49. 49.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: Exactly. There will be plenty of time to be miserable if things go badly. Better efgoldman than Eeyore during the leadup to November.

  57. 57.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: And I seem to remember that he didn’t actually fire anyone–he got someone else to do it (despite him saying the words, I guess? I never watched it).

  59. 59.

    Tony Jay

    According to this live blog in the FTF Guardian, last night saw a protest encampment at the University of California attacked by an organised mob of anti-Palestinian thugs screaming about ‘a Second Nakba’ while the brave paladins of University security stood by scratching their arses.

    Now, personally, I’d like to go on record stating that I blame the thugs, their handlers, the Campus security shadows, the wingnut rabids spewing daily hate at the very idea of Palestinian rights, and the tut-tutting tone police giving them rhetorical cover by hiccuping “Russian Op!” on demand and megaphoning the click-bait bilge pumped out by faux-Left windbags with actual crypto-roubles in their actual crypto-banks.

    That said, this looks very bad. I’m sure we’ll hear soon from the usual suspects about “Antifa-hoax”, “No Angels” and “Drug gangs falling out”, but I also don’t give much of a shit what those wankers say about anything.

  61. 61.

    JWR

    @TS:

    This is not capitalizing politically – this is calling out a would be dictator for the horror show he wants to implement.

    And after Biden warned them about just this thing during the WHCA dinner. And so the horse races continue.

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m reading Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce. It’s starts in post-WWII England, where a teacher gets fed up and decides to go to the South Seas in search of a golden beetle her father told her about. It’s funny and touching. I’m reading it for my book club, but some jackals might enjoy it too.

  64. 64.

    hueyplong

    @sab: If you think about it, the denizens of the Pulp Fiction diner from the opening and closing scenes are now old enough to be explaining to intrepid NYT correspondents why they’re still with Trump.

  67. 67.

    Soprano2

    @MomSense: Didn’t you know that for some people Biden controls absolutely everything in this country? /s/s/s/s/s/s It’s stupid.

  68. 68.

    gene108

    @Freemark:

    I just really, really hope the pollsters are way undersampling those under 40.

    Trump, and Republicans in general, have a hard floor regarding support. Somewhere between 40% to 45% of people will support Trump, no matter what.

    Democrats don’t have that locked in level of support.

    What also happens is those 40% to 45% of people supporting Trump will never admit things are good under Biden.

    I think this election comes down to turnout. TFG will have billionaires working to help turnout the vote via effective digital marketing strategies, like they did in 2016, plus Putin’s help.

    Trailer for a BBC documentary on Trump’s 2016 digital media operation. Very eye opening.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-40852227

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Fewer wildfires, great biodiversity: what is the secret to the success of Mexico’s forests?

    As average temperatures soar around the world and wildfires rage across the Americas, in Mexico, where more than a quarter of the country suffers from drought, the number of wildfires has remained steady since 2012. More than half of Mexico’s forests are in community and Indigenous hands, a situation unlike anywhere else in the world, which, according to experts, helps explain why the country has done better at controlling large fires.

    “There are more wildfires south of here because they have a lot of small private properties,” says Melchor Matías, a community forest manager. “They just don’t have the capacity to monitor their forests as we can.”
    ……………………..
    Worldwide, an estimated 36% of remaining intact forest landscapes are on Indigenous land. Studies show that not only do community-controlled forests absorb more C02 than those under government or private control, but deforestation rates are lower. They also suffer less during severe water shortages, greatly reducing wildfire risk.

    Ixtlán’s long, narrow territory of 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) encompasses snowy mountain peaks and lush lowland jungles with cloud forests in between. Rather than clearcutting, vertical ribbons of pine and oak between six and eight hectares (15 and 20 acres) are logged in strips down mountainsides, enabling the forest to regenerate naturally.

    Logging operations are closely regulated by Ixtlán’s community forestry enterprise, which wrested forests away from a private concession in 1982. Ixtlán’s success had been happening all over Mexico since, after 1970, communities took advantage of state forestry reforms and subsidies to exert greater local control.

    Of the more than 21,000 communities with forest ownership in Mexico, about 2,200 engage in sustainable logging, mostly in the southern part of the country.

    For forest enterprises such as the one in Ixtlán, maximising profits has never been the principal goal. “Our interest is in creating jobs,” says the conservation scientist Guadalupe Pacheco-Aquino. In the second-poorest state in Mexico, relatively well-paid rural jobs like those community forestry creates in Ixtlán are a rarity. “Forestry has been instrumental in helping people to get out of poverty.”

    It’s a good read.

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    This morning’s Politico Playbook tells me that Vice President Harris will fly to Jacksonville, Florida today to speak at a campaign event focused on abortion rights.

    Also, former Senator Barbara Mikulski has endorsed Prince William County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in the Maryland Senate primary.

  73. 73.

    RevRick

    @Splitting Image: Yesterday evening I got a phone call from a polling operation and after asking for my age and level of completed education, they abruptly ended the call, explaining that they already had enough of my “age” cohort sampled.

    I hear people whining all the time that they never get polled, but this is the first time I’ve ever had them hang up on me. And yes, this outfit has polled me multiple times before!

  75. 75.

    RevRick

    @lowtechcyclist: I don’t believe in any of that End Times crap either. It’s all based on complete misreading of isolated texts taken way out of context.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @RevRick: ​ The only time I ever got a call from a pollster, they hung up on me. They wanted the woman of the house.

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Ohio’s Sec of State wants to keep Biden off the ballot because our nominationg convention is too late. This has happened several times before and they always managed to make an exception, but this time the Sec of State and a lot of the Republicans in the state legislature are just saying no. And our state Supreme Court will probably go along.

    I suppose it doesn’t matter because we are so red.

  80. 80.

    JWR

    I missed this one, from NBC:

    Democrats won a special election for a House seat in western New York on Tuesday, The Associated Press projected, further shrinking the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.

    Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy defeated Republican town supervisor Gary Dickson in the 26th District, a reliably blue area that includes Buffalo and some of its surrounding suburbs. Democrats will now control 213 seats in the House, compared with 217 for the Republicans. Five seats remain vacant.

    This was the seat vacated a few months ago by Brian Higgins, “to run a local performing arts center.”

  81. 81.

    Soprano2

    @TBone: I swear they’re Jonesing for another Kent State to “show those students who’s boss. It’s kind of scary. Also, I heard a report this morning about how “counterprotesters” were trying to tear down barricades, but they never said they were “pro-Israel”.

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: I predict VP Harris will mention TFG’s pregnancy monitoring idea in every speech about abortion going forward. It’s such a horrifying idea, that the government would be monitoring your pregnancy.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @gene108: ​
     

    Trump, and Republicans in general, have a hard floor regarding support. Somewhere between 40% to 45% of people will support Trump, no matter what.

    Democrats don’t have that locked in level of support    .

    Citation?

  84. 84.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yeah. We have 40% locked in. Probably 45%. But our people still vent honestly in polling. I don’t think Republicans do. They just support the tribe and oppose the other tribe.

  85. 85.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Biden does not deserve blame for decisions being made & action being taken by university admins, local authorities & local law enforcement across the country to suppress student protestors. Biden can be criticized for staying mum on the subject. I think it is political malpractice.

    If these scenes were playing out outside of the US, especially outside of the US’ circle of allies & partners, one can be certain the State Department, the WH & probably Biden himself will be very vocal in condemnation.

    The student protests & the encampments had hitherto been relatively small, but their suppression is bringing much greater national attention & sympathy. Video footage of NYPD officers in riot or SWAT gear breaching an academic building temporarily occupied by protesting students, as if though they are assaulting a terrorist stronghold, are at once farcical, comical, maddening, saddening, & tragic.

    The protests were very far from a reincarnation of ’68, but these suppressive acts, especially should one of the incidents result in bloodshed (thankfully avoided so far), could precipitate a ’68 moment. As a Cornell Alum, the ’69 take over of Willard Straight Hall was discussed as part of freshmen orientation & remembered as a seminal event in the university’s history. The African American student occupiers were eventually armed w/ firearms. I guess if it happened today, SWAT would breach w/ guns blazing.

  86. 86.

    hueyplong

    Lots of people write that the GOPers have a relatively high floor while the Dems don’t, yet the Dems have gotten a higher percentage of the vote in, what, 7 of the last 8 presidential elections?

    Kind of makes you wonder how “floor” has been defined since Bush 1 sought a second term.

  88. 88.

    Timill

    @sab: Could be a good idea – no Biden votes from Ohio, so MVP can rule the poll not properly conducted, so no Ohio EVs for Trump.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: I suppose it doesn’t matter because we are so red.

    It does matter, very much. Because you can say goodbye to democracy if it stands.

  90. 90.

    stinger

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Glen Campbell. I saw a documentary about Campbell at the end of his life. Far gone in dementia, he was unable to understand the simplest instructions during rehearsal and day to day life. But as soon as the audience was there and the lights were on, he was PRESENT: hitting his marks, playing the music, talking to the fans.

    It was the same for Tony Bennett. Couldn’t recognize family members, but once the music started, he knew every word and every note.

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @YY_Sima Qian: It’s amazing to me how stupid some college administrations have been about these demonstrations. I guess it’s predictable, I assume they were getting pressure from donors to make it stop because it was embarrassing. The one at USC was particularly stupid – it was small until they said their valedictorian would be unable to give a speech at graduation due to “security concerns”, which everyone knew was complete bullshit. I think that made many students who otherwise would have ignored the protests extremely angry. Many other colleges have managed them fine, yet you hear little in the press about those because they’re not exciting and don’t have good visuals.

  93. 93.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Soprano2: Yep, I’ve seen analysis that, of the 90+ campuses w/ encampments, > 60% have decided not to call in law enforcement.

  94. 94.

    lowtechcyclist

    @gene108:

    Trump, and Republicans in general, have a hard floor regarding support. Somewhere between 40% to 45% of people will support Trump, no matter what.

    Democrats don’t have that locked in level of support.

    I disagree.

    In 2004, we ran a weak candidate against an incumbent President, and still got 48.26% of the vote.  And if anything, this country has gotten less Republican and more Democratic in the twenty years since then.

    Not to mention, that was the only time we lost the popular vote since 1988.

    We’re going to win the popular vote again this year.  But obviously we still have to win enough of the swing states to get 270 EVs.  Whether we can do that is really the only question.

  95. 95.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Just saw this statement from the WH Press Office from yesterday concerning student protestors taking over Hamilton Hall at Columbia.

    White House condemns takeover of Columbia University building, use of ‘intifada’ at college protests
    Joey Garrison
    USA TODAY

    The statements are fine in a vacuum. However, in the current context, it serves to center the student protests on their most extreme expression (& much of the anti-Semitism we have seen are actually from outside provocateurs seeking to take advantage), ignores the causes that generate their outrage, & signals acquiescence to university admins & local authorities to employ law enforcement to clear out the occupied buildings at the 1st opportunity. Given what we have witnessed w/ the NYPD’s “show of force” at Columbia & City College overnight, the statements seem particularly obtuse. This is worse than silence.

    It was/is dumb & irresponsible for the protestors to invoke “Intifada”, surely aimed at provoking the pro-Israel counterprotestors & might evoke traumatic memories among Israelis & some Jewish Americans. The terrorism associated w/ the Palestinian Intifadas cannot be justified. However, the USG through the administrations have rarely spared much thought on why the Palestinians have had to launch their uprisings.

    Now I feel I have to share this piece from James A. Millard, a prominent scholar of Uyghur culture, vociferous critic of the CPC regime’s oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang (& Israeli conduct in Gaza), & meticulous documenter of the CPC regime’s oppressive policies in Xinjiang. A few days ago I would have thought drawing the parallel to be preposterous. Now… No, not because the streets of American cities are likely to run red w/ the blood of gunned down students, but that the powers that be may well mismanage the student protest movement via similar dynamics.

    Lessons from Tiananmen for Today’s University Presidents
    April 29, 2024

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    I think there ARE universities that are handling it well so we can compare. The idea that it’s impossible to handle reasonably and with rights protections simply isn’t true – if it were no university would be succeeding and there are some who are doing it WELL.

    Columbia is clearly the worst-run and the least student- centered so that’s our “worst case” but there’s a “best case” and that would be worthwhile to look for. I read that Brown had a discussion with the students and reached an agreement that comports with the students right to political speech -that sounds good. There’s always a worst and the incompetents get all the media but there’s also always a best.

    Colleges love rankings and they’re supposedly merit based. Let’s rank the management :)

  98. 98.

    TerryC

    Listening to a cicada story. They carry a fungus that feminizes the males. I think this story needs to get out to the MAGATs!

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He wouldn’t be a sore winner.

    He would be a deranged winner. He would set this country back to before it was formed. He is not human enough to be – I can’t think of any job, other than prime asshole that he’s suited for. He’s deranged – mentally he’s aging – and being himself – out of humanity. And he has followers because he’s a hateful POS and he is not alone in this country. He thinks he is the greatest human being of all time. And he doesn’t make the cut on the lowest level, and it only gets worse the more levels are revealed – not that he’s hiding them. If he doesn’t fail miserably then I do not see how this country survives.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Here’s the Brown approach:

    It’s really excellent work. They’re holding a vote so not dodging the issue (I/P) but addressing it head-on.

    I think the students will rise to the expectation that they have a role in discussions. If you tell kids all they merit is brute force, well, they’ll meet that (low) expectation just like they’d meet a higher one.

    The students are going to lose the Board vote, so we’ll see if Brown’s respect for them pays off in the students accepting the vote.

  101. 101.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Kay: Absolutely agree! Biden should be highlighting the universities & localities that are handling the situations well as examples to follow, rather than going all “law & order” on peaceful protests. That is not a competition Dems will win against the Rs (as it concedes to R’s framing), & not one that should be waged over these protests against Israeli war crimes & crimes against humanity in Gaza.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    People who are aging out do best at the thing(s) they did the most, because that’s ingrained into their being.

    SFB has been a bullshitter his entire life. It’s what he does best. His only claim to any fame whatsoever was winning the presidency and he of course won that by being himself – a bullshitting hate monger, who could get other hate mongers to listen to him because he inherited/stole his and his siblings inheritance. He’s never been actually human, unless you count the worst level of humanity as human – which I guess we actually have to do/admit to. IOW who he is today is who he is and always has been.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    We’ll have to look for a public school dealing with this competently, now that we have a private.

    I don’t really think it matters what Biden says. I think the issue is bigger now than Biden’s political machinations (or, as you believe, lack of political machinations). Media and Republicans will love it if he punches some hippies. They’ll all coo and say “Sister Soulja!” because they are the most conventional, boring people in the world and they have about four political frames, all from the 1990s,  which they immediately jam any event into.

  105. 105.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Kay: A lot is riding on the Nov. elections, even if it is rear guard action to prevent things from getting much worse.

    It seems cops used tear gas & rubber bullets on student protestors at University of South Florida. No reporting that the protestors were anything other than peaceful, though the police claimed otherwise.

  106. 106.

    evodevo

    @Kay: ​
      The public schools’ problem is that not only do they have donors and boards of directors upset about protests, but also state legislatures, and if they are in a Red State, the shrieking will be at a level above human hearing lol.

  107. 107.

    evodevo

    @Kay: ​
      Well, US disinvestment in South African interests was a factor (I don’t know whether major or minor) in pushing the regime to engage in negotiations with the opposition parties, a prelude to the end of apartheid (the timeline was, of course, much more complicated). Major US universities and colleges were in the forefront of disinvestment, so this is not a new strategy…

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