Turns out there will be a roll call at the Chicago @DemConvention – even though @JoeBiden will have already been officially nominated. Dems looking to replicate big hit from 2020-the slick original virtual roll call of states. Details in my column. https://t.co/C0NOZQ8tdr
— Lynn Sweet (@lynnsweet) June 22, 2024
Per the Chicago Sun-Times:
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August will have a prime-time roll call after all, the Sun-Times has learned, even though President Joe Biden will already have been officially nominated weeks before.
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee confirmed that the 2024 roll call will revive elements of the virtual 2020 “Roll Call Across America,” with final format decisions over the virtual and live components still to be made.
The 2024 planners are aiming to recreate one of the biggest hits from the 2020 convention, which was virtual because of the then-raging COVID-19 pandemic…
Conventions are basically four-night television shows. The 2020 virtual roll call turned out to be much better for the audience at home watching the show over what had been the standard, often chaotic roll call from the convention floor, which got somewhat repetitive by the time states starting with the letter “C” got their turn. The virtual roll call also eliminated the potential for unwanted surprises.
Democratic convention producers were on a path to reviving the best parts of the 2020 virtual hit for the 2024 roll call at the Chicago convention, running Aug. 19-22, even before Ohio Republicans seemingly scrambled things…
On Thursday, members of the Democratic National Committee approved moving up the Biden-Harris nomination and to allow for an “electronic” roll call. The vote was 360 for, two against and five abstaining.
The date for nominating Biden and Harris has not been set, but it will be before Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline…
Reminder: Sharing is caring!
In the last four years:
— Lower Black unemployment
— Lower Black poverty
— More Black businesses
— More HBCU funding
— More Black judges
— More Black Supreme Court Justices
— More Black Vice Presidents
— Less student loan debt
— Fewer presidential attacks on Black NFL players https://t.co/C1DIABjkJN— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 21, 2024
Biden v. Ticketmaster
Biden v. Amazon
Biden v. Crypto
Biden v. Big Banks
Biden v. Big Ag
Biden v. Big SocialThere's a reason that The Money Power (as they called it 130 years ago) is flocking to Trump and it's not because they've decided he's stable. https://t.co/QJOnuqvV86
— Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout) June 21, 2024
WereBear
If the rot in Trump’s brain stops this crazy train, I’m all for it.
Working on a ukulele song. I do have to learn it, first. I have the first three chords, but that fourth one is not compatible with my clumsy fingers.
I am keeping that hand’s nails trimmed close. And no calluses needed. I am trying!
Baud
I thought Ohio had fixed their deadline problem.
Baud
QFT.
I haven’t seen Zephyr’s name in a while.
WereBear
@Baud: Likewise, we voted for her in a primary. Part of the movement to shove Cuomo left.
Baud
Fixed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
My mother, who watches MSNBC nonstop, wants my Chicago-living brother to leave the city during the convention. Why? The news has convinced her the convention will result in a city-wide 1968 style riot over Gaza. And this is liberal news.
Betty Cracker
Seems like Biden talks about taxing the rich, lowering pharma costs, etc., a lot, along with correctly noting the grave threat Trump and his sycophants, i.e., the Republican Party, pose to democracy. As usual, different messages resonate with different voters.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Apparently there is a plan that hadn’t been implemented yet. This article is too arcane for me first thing in the morning:
yet.https://arkansasadvocate.com/2024/06/21/exclusive-dnc-moves-ahead-on-all-virtual-roll-call-for-biden-presidential-nomination/
ETA: this is all because Ohio’s gerrymandered Statehouse couldn’t be trusted to fix the problem properly.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx Keith, you just outlined the GOP’s next ad campaign.
Eyeroller
@Frankensteinbeck: Watching cable news of any leaning “nonstop” is a mind-killer. I wish retirees would find some better way to spend their time.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Something I noticed a long time ago: All the best mandolin players seem to have fat fingers. Every time I see them play I think, “How’d dey do dat???”
@Baud: The DNC doesn’t trust them to not reverse themselves
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Absolutely the reason Trump has a chance.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: I did all right with piano lessons but we couldn’t take the piano with us one time. But I will have to look at mandolin players next time.
I think it just needs practice. And every time I do I have to tune it, since it is a soft string instrument.
The cats love that part. It keeps me going. If they had a cat version…
WereBear
@Eyeroller: Growing up in Florida among so many retirees ,roaming in the wild.
A friend who worked in a hardware store said the wives would kick them out of the condo around the time the stores opened, and they would just wander around like zombies. In and out of the stores.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yep. Pandering to racists has been working since the beginning of the human race.
mrmoshpotato
This is actually in a list – and it’s actually true. Good grief is Dump a racist POS.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: The fact they think they are immune to Trump, and they know he cheats at golf.
The arrogance of them thinking this is risk-free for them, too.
Didn’t they EVER watch Game of Thrones, and get it?
Suzanne
I know that it’s just Xhitter and not real life, but….. here’s some anecdata: I have seen more than a few comments about the John Oliver bit from “Last Week Tonight” about voting for Biden as a harm-reduction strategy. It seems to have been really convincing to a swath of people. A frame, or permission structure, they can accept. A thing to share with the Biden skeptics in your life.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The good news is that Trump will need a healthy dose of sexism and classism to win too.
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh for the sake of fucks..
Tells your mom to flip over to TCM or something.
Kay
It was clever, what media and centrists and Republicans did – they simply didn’t cover or acknowledge how transformational Biden was on the economy and pretended their objections to him were for other reasons.
But make no mistake – they oppose Biden because Bidens a real threat to 55 years of Reaganomics and Trump isn’t.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Kay
@Suzanne:
In my experience harm reduction works with them but NOT if you come at them insisting that everything they believe is fake or “cosplay”
unsurprisingly.
lollipopguild
@WereBear: They do not think at any point that they are going to get hurt(impossible!). All those people they do not like are going to suffer!
Suzanne
@Kay: What, being patronizing and dismissive isn’t winning anybody any allies? I’m shocked to hear this news.
Planetjanet
Well, I am doing my part for democracy today. Enjoying a nice bagel and coffee before I join my friends as a Biden Delegate at the nominating convention for Virginia. Sad to miss the big gala tonight with Raphael Warnack and Andy Beshear, but I will take care of business. We will not be stopped.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Easy peasy: Substitue “women” for “blacks” in any sentence and the same for the “poor”.
Kay
If rich people and media had come out and said “Joe Biden is the most progressive President on the economy in our lifetimes! Get rid of him!” many Democrats and D learners would have reacted to that FAVORABLY and rallied round him so they just didn’t mention it and instead focused exclusively on his age – clever.
JML
Nope, DeWine tried but the crazies (aka, bog-standard GOP legislators today) couldn’t just pass a clean fix and tried to use the special session to shovel in a bunch of poison-pill BS.
Team Biden is smart not to take any chances. The GOP would absolutely use this to keep Biden off the ballot and media is too in tank and/or desperately clinging to “BOTH SIDES!!!! IT HAS TO BE BOTH SIDES!!!!” that they’d never report it in a way that would put blame correctly. FFS, even the Sun-Times columnist is acting like “Oh, this is all totally normal”
IOKIYR rolls on…
Baud
@Kay:
Yep. We need to acknowledge that many of us aren’t as smart as we think we are.
Kay
@JML:
The giant rolling First Energy scandal in Ohio is picking up steam again and now it’s reaching DeWine and Husted.
Republicans are going to be too busy getting indicted for corruption to fix the Biden ballot mess.
Im glad Democrats took care of it.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!!!!!
Kay
@Baud:
It’s just amazing how little coverage there has been on his progressive reforms.
They simply didn’t cover anti- trust although it’s a huge change in policy. Just decided not to cover it. Breathtaking.
OzarkHillbilly
This is a gut punch: ‘Reality hit: I was about to give birth to a dead man’s child’: I became a widow and single mother aged 26
It ends on a hopeful note.
One more book for the “To read” list.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: My wife reminds me every day.
Kay
@Baud:
We should have known – when Republicans and media didn’t call him a “socialist” that was the tip off that he was actually progressive – the real deal.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Seriously. It’s like Biden is in the Witness Protection Program. He doesn’t get stories on his accomplishments, or headlines, or even many photos.
Meanwhile, it’s like TRUMP branded the FTF NYTimes front page and website. Overcoverage, often with strong action words.
Perhaps it would work with those voters who could figure out a clue. “Why WON’T the media cover Biden? What is it that he’s doing that is unsettling their big money owners?”
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Stop bringing down the average, man.
Kay
@Baud:
Our smugness in our “smartness” is the least appealing trait of liberals, IMO. That and mistaking a lack of character for a lack of (formal) education.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Hey! I resemble that remark!
NotMax
Media note.
Cannot be described well in the space of a blurb, let’s just say if one sticks with it, it manages to become addictive in spite of itself. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk4hGP9BA"The Street is now available on Prime. Not necessarily a solid recommendation, more of a check it out option.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Why aren’t tissues handy when you need them.
Eyeroller
@Elizabelle: Meanwhile Biden constantly “tries” to do things. Not to mention all the heavily edited clips and pictures that are intended to show him having mental lapses when the full video shows no such thing. I am referring to media in general, not just the FTFNYT.
I have some Echo Shows. One has a headline feed, an annoyingly large fraction of which seems to come from Fox News (I would bet they pay for that) and it’s Trump Trump Trump. Every goddam day. I can’t wait for the fucker to die just so he’ll get out of my face. He’s nearly inescapable now and it would be worse if he’s re-elected. I should try to change my preferences and get rid of that feed.
NotMax
Crapola. Fix.
Media note.
Cannot be described well in the space of a blurb, let’s just say if one sticks with it, it manages to become addictive in spite of itself. The Street is now available on Prime. Not necessarily a solid recommendation, more of a check it out option.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to fix it. I just hope voters can get around them and figure it out themselves. Many times they do. We’ve had a real run of winning with good governors, for example, but that won’t translate to national. With the exception of I/P (Gaza) I think Biden did the best one COULD do and after that you just have to let it go – the rest is marketing and getting around a captured media.
Baud
@Kay: Yep. Our values already make it tough for us because they go against the conventional wisdom and unearned privileges. We don’t need the added burden of our personalities making things harder.
Betty Cracker
Ugh, this Politico story, “WH fears mount about Bibi’s* DC visit,” contains anonymously sourced quotes that I hope and trust are made-up garbage:
The highlighted portion is the part I hope is inaccurate because no one in the West Wing should be surprised by Netanyahu’s behavior. Lots of them had ringside seats when Netanyahu spoke to Congress and tried to sandbag the Obama admin’s Iran deal.
A “major slap in the face” is exactly what Netanyahu’s behavior merits. Also, since Biden has publicly accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political and personal reasons, he’s not keeping his displeasure with his “Israeli counterpart” on the down-low.
*I know “Netanyahu” contains more letters and is harder to spell than “Bibi,” but it annoys the shit out of me that everyone calls the corrupt, blood-gargling sociopath by his childhood nickname. Reporters and officials should either call him “Netanyahu” or start referring to Trump and Biden as “Mushroom Dick” and “Stud Muffin,” respectively.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Gosh, that last stuff in italics made me laugh so much!
That’s what will echo in my head all day. Thanks.
hueyplong
If you live on the internet, all references to Dems are about them “fearing” something, and all references to Trump are about “seething” or “raging” or “threatening.”
No wonder lots of people tune out altogether.
NotMax
What the devil is going on with the weather here? Forecast for the first week of summer in the immediate neighborhood is days in the low 70s, nights in the high 50s/low 60s.
Hobbits have second breakfast, we’re getting second January.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, I have to wonder what quotation by the anonymous source led the report to make that assertion. I guess we’ll never know.
Eyeroller
@Kay: It’s not just liberals by any means. Some research has shown that the Dunning Kruger effect (thinking you know a lot more or have a much higher skill level than you do) is largely a phenomenon of American white males. (And not all of them, of course.) These are the people who “do their own research” and think they can understand virology or quantum mechanics or such by watching some YouTube videos. Or who write for Jacobin, etc.
People in general should learn something about cognitive biases and metacognition so they can assess their own thinking. Some other research I’ve read about claims that extremists of any type have poor thinking skills and do not recognize their biases.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Although I like being in the private sector and enjoy managing and marketing the law office, I’m not as interested in the marketing aspect of campaigns as I was. I’m more interested in building some kind of durable, long term ideological group and I don’t think that will come about using campaign tactics or strategy – campaigns are a commercial model – sales. I’m looking for something that lasts longer than that, where people aren’t just “voters” (consumers) but instead are real participants. It’s fuzzy, this new direction, but I’ll get there! :)
Baud
@Eyeroller:
or planetary topography!
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
Just looked over the squishable post and have a question I may have asked you before (can’t remember).
WRT this:
Where in America’s wang (love that, BTW) do you roost? I was under the impression it was somewhere in the vicinity of Tampa given your restaurant recommendations for when I pulled in there in a US Navy ship.
Eyeroller
@Baud: Politico especially seems to have an awful lot of hand-wringing, fearful, pearl-clutching Democratic sources. Digby’s blog recently posted some excerpts from a Josh Marshall essay about this apparently eternal phenomenon. As Josh said, it’s tiresome and unhelpful and it seems impossible to stop these idiots from running to the press.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: They also make the article sound like Netanyahu* is undisputed leader of Israel atm, and he’s not anymore.
(* My phone wants to autocorrect to “Metamucil”.)
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
I’ll trade.
Nukular Biskits
@Spanky:
That autocorrect is apropos, I submit.
Baud
@Eyeroller: Yeah, like you, I’ve observed the subtle linguistic shifts the media makes when talking about Biden vs. Trump. Once you see it, it’s hard not to.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I raise my hand. I think so too.
But think for a minute how absolutely monstrous that is. Tens of thousands of dead Palestinians because Netanyahu is afraid of going to prison. I mean, this is more than a “bad leader”. He’s a monster who should be in front of a tribunal somewhere and instead he’s being honored in the US Congress. Sickening. Palestinians lives simply don’t matter. They don’t count.
Spanky
@Eyeroller: Huh! As a white male, I’m quite happy in my role as Village Idiot.
dmsilev
@Eyeroller:
My email inbox sighs quietly and then starts whimpering.
On a nicer note, from the Post, History’s Greatest Monster continues onwards: Carter’s next potential milestone: First former president to see 100
(INFLATION!!1!)
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: I keep a box on my desk for just such moments.
Nukular Biskits
@Kay:
That’s one of the things that absolutely infuriates me about my Congressional reps; i.e., they continue to demand unwavering support for Israeli gov’t policies that have deliberately caused massive loss of life and suffering … but refuse to acknowledge Palestinian civilians (much less the dead and wounded) even exist. When they do rarely mention that, it’s usually some form of conflating Palestinian civilians with Hamas; i.e., “They all look alike!”
And, of course, our supposedly liberal media here in MS doesn’t bother to challenge any of that.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
He’ a fucking Right wing nut along with most of his government (despite the costant claims that he’s a one-off it’s a Right wing government all the way down) so he’s going to get up there and trash US Democrats in the hopes of electing Trump. But Democrats did this to themselves. I hope they enjoy being humiliated. I knew they weren’t going to give Biden any credit for the blank check he gave them and lo and behold, they aren’t. They want Trump because they’re Right wingers. This isn’t fucking rocket science.
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
Once you see the lack of regard for Palestinian lives you can’t unsee it and it’s glaring in every editorial and State Department statement and press conference. The response is always “well, HAMAS doesn’t care about Palestinians either” True, but what the fuck does that have to do with my country not caring about them? How is this an excuse for US actions? How is it even relevant to the question?
p.a.
America: “hold my not-Bud-Light.”
wjca
Modestly suggesting a small fix….
TBone
@hueyplong: that phenom always serves to enrage me. I will never live in “fear” and those messages can just bite my ass.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Don’t look a gift weather front in the month.
TBone
@Baud: 😆
Nukular Biskits
@Kay: Preach.
Of course, it doesn’t help when polls come out showing Palestinians support Hamas …. WITHOUT PROVIDING ANY DAMNED CONTEXT.
Conservatives grab those headlines and wave them around as if that’s some kind of justification for the “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out!” strategy of “defeating Hamas”.
Eyeroller
@dmsilev: I’ve been out of cosmology for decades and still get an occasional email from somebody who has totally worked out the math. When I was in graduate school during the Cretaceous it was paper letters, and one faculty member collected them and pinned them to a bulletin board he called “crackpot corner.”
It really doesn’t help that some “science popularizers” are promulgating an old and IMHO impossible interpretation (many worlds).
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I don’t like calling him Bibi either; too much like insider lingo. So I’ll either type out Netanyahu or put the Bibi in quotation marks.
That speech to Congress is a month away, and there’s no telling what will happen between now and then. A couple days ago, the prospect of another Lebanon war prompted Noga Tarnopolsky to juxtapose statements by two Israeli ministers:
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Sounds great.
Betty Cracker
@Nukular Biskits: We’re about 80 or so miles north of Tampa now, but we lived there for many years. Nearly six years ago, after our kid fledged the nest, we moved from a town south of Tampa back to my home county, which is north of Tampa on the Gulf Coast.
The objective wasn’t to move back to my home county, which is a disreputable Confederate backwater that I spent my childhood planning to escape! But we found the perfect property for us — remote wilderness with blazing fast WiFi — and our surviving elderly parents both live nearby, so we can keep an eye on them.
TBone
https://www.sej.org/headlines/trump-allies-target-noaa-climate-research
p.a.
I think any complaints abt Democratic election stratergery and issue focus should point out that the Republican party is such a combination of incompetence, hate, corruption, and spite, there are so many targets of opportunity for Democrats that the messaging may come off as scattershot.
Soprano2
@Eyeroller: I’ve noticed that “try” thing too. They apply it to “Democrats” as well as Biden. I don’t think they even realize they do it so much. Instead of saying “Democrats did ‘x'” they say “Democrats tried to do ‘x'”. I think it gets into people’s heads and they don’t even realize it. That’s one reason I think people believe Democrats don’t do things. Language matters.
OzarkHillbilly
Why just the other day I was looking at a picture of a 2 yr old in a keffiyeh and brandishing an AK-47 with upraised fist.
Elizabelle
@Eyeroller: I know. Trying. Attempting. Futile.
They wish Biden was impotent.
He man Republicans and scattered Democrat sheep. It is truly a parody.
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
They’re really amazing people:
The first thing they do when they’re herded into one of those camps that you see is set up a school. The resiliency just blows me away. They’ll have to rebuild the entire education system from scratch – they only have one college left standing. All their schools have been blown to smithereens with US arms. If these people ever get around the US and Israel and get a fucking state they’re going to be a force in the world. Maybe that’s why we treat them like garbage.
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
Sounds like heaven on earth.
There are times I think I’d like to “go back home” to the area around Meridian, MS, but, with Momma passed, there isn’t really anything tying me there now other than my sister.
Plus, every time I do go back up, it’s like going backwards in time +75 years, at least in terms of the attitudes, beliefs and politics. It’s a struggle for me to understand the mindsets of most of the people there I went to school with, grew up with, etc.
Elizabelle
@Soprano2: And “Congress.” Congress can’t get anything done. When every Democrat voted for a bill, and it was the Republicans who tanked it.
A media full of liars. The misrepresentations are a lie, certainly a form of lying. They are not truthful.
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
I wouldn’t be surprised some rightwinger actually believes that.
Spanky
@Soprano2:
Very much assumes facts not on evidence. In fact, the preponderance of examples leads me to conclude that it’s a directed campaign.
brendancalling
@WereBear: if it’s going out of tune that much, you might want to check your tuning pegs. A little playing shouldn’t put it out THAT much.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Netanyahu is a catastrophe for Israel. Even Tom Friedman can see that now! His latest column, “American Leaders Should Stop Debasing Themselves on Israel,” was astonishing considering the source. [gift link]
Baud
Via Reddit
Before clicking the link, try to guess the political party he belongs to.
hueyplong
@Baud: National Socialist.
Elizabelle
@Spanky: I agree. It’s too blatant.
and the problem is often the headlines. Which are misleading. The reporting may be a lot more accurate and nuanced, but with pay walls, and with lazy American voters, who actually sees most of the reporting? Of course, what gets written about is an editorial decision too.
Biden trying to level the drivers of massive inequality in our economy? Crickets.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I am still loving the Republican politician whose father bragged about being a World War II veteran. Neglecting to mention that he was in Luftwaffe.
TBone
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/06/senator-elizabeth-warrens-bill-takes-on-private-equity-milking-hospitals
This makes her my Shero of the Day finalist. It’s important to the entire nation.
geg6
@NotMax:
You can have your heat back, thank you very much. It’s too early in summer for mid- to upper 90s with 60+ humidity here in Western PA.
JWR
@Eyeroller:
I think it was on Amanpour & Co last night where one of the guests mentioned this phenomenon, quoting Dem “sources” who were all weepy about Biden’s chances, that if he blows the debate, it’s gonna be ‘end of story’ time. Just doom and gloom everywhere you look. And now I hear Trump starting to build Biden up into a “worthy” opponent who’s also good at debates. Sounds to me like the entire act is an… act!
TBone
@hueyplong: 😆😆😆
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Frinstance: Fewer presidential attacks on
Blackwomen NFL playersKay
@Geminid:
So we are, in fact, relying on Israel to change government/policy. That’s unacceptable to me. They’re a nation but so are we. Why would we make ourselves hostage to this insane far Right government?
They’re bombing Gaza City now, as you probably know. They hit another refugee camp yesterday. So much for Biden’s red line. Why did he say there was a red line? All it does is harm his (and the United States) credibility. The truth is there is NOTHING they could do that the US would object to. or ACT on. It’s an absolute blank check.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Only if Biden wins. The only people in the world that have both the willingness and capability to stand up to the Israeli right are the ⅓ of the Dem base that does so, and they only have a voice if Dems win.
I get that the rest of the world is more even-handed, but they also won’t stand up to a combined US-Israeli alliance.
People may resist this analysis, but I don’t see an alternative.
Almost Retired
@Betty Cracker: YES!! I hate hate hate referring to that ghoul with a cutesy nickname. Bibi my ass. It’s like reading that Chamberlain just returned from Munich for a peace conference with Dolfie.
Juju
@Frankensteinbeck: My mother watches MSNBC all the time and I’m usually in the next room when she watches and I haven’t heard anything that would lead your mother to those conclusions.
Betty Cracker
@Nukular Biskits: I hear you! When I run into someone I went to school with, I often think, “Wow, you’re old!” quickly followed by “And such a brainless wingnut too!”
wjca
Might want to do a little reading on how (sub)cultures work. Because it’s way too early in the morning (for anybody but diehard Republicans, anyway) to go charging down another conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
TBone
This is NOT a money beg link. It’s an action that takes about a minute.
https://act.americanprogress.org/page/68031/petition/1?cclt=Ca_30~Or_1~Pr_11~IA_A-1
Demand term limits!
Geminid
@Nukular Biskits: I think Mississippi should celebrate its Civil War heritage more. Maybe various Chambers of Commerce could set up a foodie tour along the route of Grierson’s Raid. Meridian could stage a “Sherman Days” street festival down where the railroad tracks used to be.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think Netanyahu is a catastrophe for Israel regardless of who wins the U.S. election, though I agree a Trump win would give him a temporary lifeline. The right-wing government’s policy on Palestine just isn’t tenable long term. U.S. patronage can extend the runway, but the crash is inevitable, IMO.
Baud
@wjca:
Yeah, there are ways groups can be manipulative without having a bunch of guys sitting in a room together twirling their moustache hairs.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: That would send the RWNJs right over the edge: “You mean we can’t tackle a women running the ball??? You’re treating them like they’re quarterbacks!!!”
O. Felix Culpa
@Eyeroller:
Like reading Balloon-Juice!
Seriously, this retiree is so busy that I can’t find the time to watch television. Don’t understand how other people do it. I’m going to pencil in a slot to watch the Reading Rainbow documentary though. My boys (now well-raised Democratic-voting adults) and I loved that show.
edited
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I certainly put no stock in predictions, but I don’t see where that crash comes from. The only other avenue is the Israeli people deciding they’ve had enough.
Kay
I feel like I helped elect a US Democratic President but I somehow got the policy of the far Right Israeli government and I’m now in a position of “hoping” Israelis do… something or other which will trickle down to US policy? How am I in this position? We put OURSELVES in this no-win box. It’s infuriating.
It doesn’t help that the Biden Administration is playing some stupid game where they lie constantly about this deal as a kind of tactic. I’m really not on board with them lying to the US public, no matter if they tell themselves they have some noble objective. If it starts with a lie it ends badly. Guaranteed.
artem1s
@Baud:
they came up with a work around but the GOP super majority put a poison pill in it – IIRC it was related to absentee voting and drop off boxes, but have lost track of DeWine and LaRose’ too numerous to count ratfucking ways. And honestly the Dems couldn’t chance them screwing it up on purpose and missing the deadline to make on the ballot. It won’t make a difference to Biden probably. But it could’ve hurt turnout for the down ticket races, especially Brown. In the end, it may end up pissing off more moderate GOPers and give Brown some ad ammo. But in the long run, it was best not to trust the Scorpions to get them across this river.
Another Scott
@Nukular Biskits: Point them to Sen. Schumer’s speech from March.
One can support Israel’s right to exist while also calling out the RWNJs who are killing innocents and making everything worse, and the NJs on the other side who are overjoyed that Israel was goaded into their barbarity and them destroying their remaining international support.
Of course, much of the talk about Israel sits on top of a mountain of things beyond this current war, as we all know. Monsters on every side have their maximalist agendas, and those agendas don’t advance when there’s a quasi-peace. It’s not just about one thing and it almost never is, but nuance and seeing things from the other side to try to actually create a better future is difficult – especially when tens of thousands have died and more continue to die…
If this crap were easy, it would have been solved long ago. Here’s hoping a just compromise is found rather that it dragging out like another Hundred Years War or something…
Peace and comfort to the innocents.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Baud:
I used to believe this but I no longer do. I think it’s imagineable that the US becomes really isolated in supporting this and a group of other countries take the lead. There’s been real movement – not in the US, we’re stuck, but in other countries.
But I 100% agree Biden is better for Palestinians than Trump will be (although Biden sucks for Palestianians). Trump will suck worse.
Baud
@Kay:
You may be right, but I don’t see it.
ETA: Europe currently has its own issues with the far right and immigration from Arab countries and, if Trump wins, with Russia.
TBone
I, for one, take my retirement very seriously. I am never too busy. What’s the point, otherwise, says I. I guess that comes of being at an employer’s beck and call for such a long time. Sometimes, I can still hear the command voice calling out my name. Only once did I ever say “What the fuck is it now?” It’s good to laugh about that these days. And then turn over and go back to sleep.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Wow, Thomas Friedman wrote a good article that I agree with?! What’s next? Bill Kristol making sense? Oh, wait…
I know! Cats! And dogs! Living together! Mass hysteria!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks for Station 11. I really love it. I had to borrow my middle son’s HBO log in to try it and his password is a person’s name – so like “Steve Smith”. I asked why and he said his friend kept forgetting the password so he changed it to “the idiot’s NAME, which hopefully he can remember” :)
moonbat
@Planetjanet: You go, girl! Thank you for your service.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
If what you mean by “crash” is that Israel finally commits enough war crimes (I can’t believe that I just typed “enough war crimes”) to get the U.S. to withdraw all aid, and loses the rest of the world’s support…… and then other actors decide to go to war with them….. is that what you mean? Because that’s the most likely outcome I see.
It’s unbelievable. Immediately after 10/7, I had nothing but sympathy. But the government is using this as a pretext to, if not genocide, at the very least ethnically cleanse Gaza.
TBone
Shero of the Day runner up. Rep. Jackie Speier survived the Jim Jones cult.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/jackie-speier-jonestown-survivor-donald-trump-jim-jones-cult-massacre-1235929255/
Kay
@Baud:
I wonder if countries have to sort of go thru having a far Right government – like we had Trump and got rid of him (if we stay rid of him) and the UK is recovering from their far Right lunacy along with India…
So Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Scandinavian countries are just entering the far Right period and they’ll also recover.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Do these Internet petitions ever make a difference?
Serious question.
Baud
@Kay: Possibly. People unfortunately need reminders, as we have painfully learned. But the future isn’t pre-ordained. There’s always a risk of not coming out the other end.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: it’s a letter, not a petition. If it garners the attention of those in power even momentarily, I have not wasted the tiny moment of my life it took to participate.
I found the link at today’s The New Republic.
artem1s
@Frankensteinbeck:
that was my first thought when I heard that the convention was in Chicago this year. The GOP is pissed they didn’t get to pummel Antifa bloody on J6 (and hang Nancy and Pence) and they are going to do everything they can to provide Fox news with footage of police in riot gear beating DFH and POC bloody. They want their pound of flesh and they want an excuse to try to overturn elections results. The GOP wants their Green Zone in Milwaukee for a reason. It’s always projection with these guys. I really hope the secret service and convention planners aren’t thinking they can ignore the possibility of Federalist Society/Proud Boy plants who are charged with starting riots.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: You just described my HS reunions in South PA!!
ETA I hang out with the dozen or two non-brainless wingnuts.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: Probably not a direct line. Like with protests.
Kay
@Baud:
Because I think the far Right turn is tied to the pandemic. I think a lot of people are just not resilient – they’re weak- and the pandemic was “too much” for them and made them insane. As it fades maybe the hatefulness and tribalism will fade too.
One of my sisters is a nurse and she says “‘God never gives you more than you can handle’ is a big lie – a LOT of people cannot handle what they get, at all, and lose their minds the minute they face any real adversity” – I think that happened on a worldwide scale. Some people just didn’t hold up well. Many, many people.
Baud
@Kay:
I read an FDR biography a long time ago, and he said once that a country moves right after a major war. Certainly happened after WWI and WWIi. I could see the pandemic having a similar effect on people.
Baud
@Kay:
Even God would scoff at that.
TBone
@Baud: it’s not an internet petition.
TBone
@TBone:
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
In Station 11 when Miranda is leaving Arthur because he had the affair and she says as she’s leaving “the poolhouse is on fire” – so cold. Just perfect.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: You think we’re already through our “far Right period”, I think it hasn’t really started yet. The first Trump administration was just a taste.
Wait till we get Trump II and then the J. D. Vance administration. That’s when we get our American Auschwitzes.
Another Scott
@JML:
I’m confused. APNews.com (from June 3):
I haven’t read the bill, but ass-u-me that it’s written so that it’s not “severable” – if any part is unconstitutional then the whole is as well. Of course it has poison pills – the GQP does (almost) nothing in good-faith.
Maybe the worry is that a court will strike it down before the election?
But as of now, Biden will be on the Ohio ballot even without Democrats doing this early nomination stuff. At least as I understand it.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@TBone:
I didn’t suggest that it was.
ETA: I see that LTC did.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Do we know how many other states have this kind of provision lurking? I wouldn’t trust them.
moonbat
I reject the “Our smarts are off-putting” argument. What Sagan understood decades ago is that discounting the expert and the experienced is a road to our own destruction.
You don’t have to have a degree to realize that facts matter in the real world. Your feelings are not just as good as verifiable facts when it comes to solving problems. What Joe Rogan spouts has no bearing on reality, most days.
It’s not about elitism. And I think that accepting that framing is exactly what the propagandists on the right want us to do. If we start preemptively devaluing what we know and how we learned it, the game is over. Their ignorance IS just as good as your facts.
And what pisses me off the most about this is it devalues the real life work — hard work — of getting an education and staying current on the world around us. We act like the only work in this country that qualifies as work is blue collar work and that’s bullshit. My students are offended by it and they should be because they work hard and make sacrifices to do well in school and to have some yo-yo with a radio or TV show to come along and say it’s “elitist” to share what they’ve struggled to master is deeply offensive to them.
TBone
@Baud: ya can’t win if ya don’t play! 😉
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Alabama and Washington. Those other two have been fixed.
sdhays
Thank you so much for this. I vomit in my mouth every time I see him called “Bibi”.
TBone
@moonbat: Nazis have always hated the intelligentsia.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: over my dead body if that’s what it takes. And I ain’t going alone.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: re “Bibi” – I think it’s a lost cause. It’s from newspapers doing everything they can to save characters.
Like they did with W.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in 20 years every president will have their own Unicode symbol kinda ala Prince.
“⚓ called 🔨 a ‘buckethead’ today, sparking an international incident.”
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@sdhays: That’s why I don’t say “GOP”. It’s an affectionate nickname for the Republican Party and I don’t have any time for affection for them. I don’t use derogatory epithets either because that’s childish. Just use the formal name.
moonbat
@TBone: True.
In this country this divide began widening as soon as the fairness doctrine in news reporting went out the window. A functioning and fair fourth estate used to be the bridge between the expert and the layman, making a clear distinction between facts (news section) and opinion (editorial section). And that’s why all newspapers wrote to the 8th grade level.
Now there isn’t a bridge. Even the Washington Post is under attack from gossip-mongering libelers. People complain about Maddow’s style in reporting the big issues of our times as being tedious, but I give her a pass for beating that horse because what she’s trying to do in a 15-minute news segment is bridge that gap that used to be filled by the daily newspaper and mandatory junior high civics courses.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
Digby may be paraphrasing Chomsky here in the title, for conciseness (no other search engine hits in a brief search). The actual quotes are longer.
“Of course you vote for the lesser of two evils. You get less evil” — leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky (digby, April 25, 2024)
That is precisely my attitude. (Not intending to start a Chomsky-hate subthread. I appreciate his writings on anarchism, FWIW.)
TBone
@moonbat: I adore Rachel Maddow. You hit the nail right on the head.
✊
scav
@Baud: It’s a tidy grand rule, but the first election in the UK after WW2 saw Churchill and the conservatives tossed.
Baud
@scav:
Truman won in 48, but then the 50s were conservative.
TBone
@Bill Arnold: thanks for sharing that.
artem1s
@Kay:
About time. First Energy should be made to repay every single customer for the surcharge we’ve had added to our bills for the last 5 years. DeWine should be in jail already for assisting the Catholic Pedo Priest cover up in Ohio while he was AG. The church will probably step in and keep his ass out of jail one more time though. Quid pro quo for signing the heart beat bill and the execute order banning gender affirming care in Ohio. He’s skated along pretending to be a moderate reasonable GOPer for too long.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
I am fairly sure that Netanyahu and his political allies (he has no real friends in politics, IMO) do not understand how much Joe Biden loathes him, and them.
The Israeli interference in USA politics, from at least 2015 (arguably much earlier) and onward, is not easily forgivable.
If I were Biden, I would demand an apology on the record, and if it was not freely given, immediately terminate the meeting.
scav
@Baud: Just saying, it’s complicated. Simple one-easy-trick rules so often come with an impressive list of qualifications. Given enough time in a two-party system, oh look! there’s a backlash and a swing.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Tom Friedman writes from a lofty perch, but retired IDF General Israel Ziv is watching from up close. From Noga Tarnopolsky:
Tarnopolski links to a 52 second excerpt from an interview Ziv gave to an Israeli reporter. It had English subtitles:
Ziv is the former head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate. This interview is being propagated by “NonGrata,” an Israeli/American outfit which is organizing against Netanyahu’s visit.
Melancholy Jaques
@WereBear:
Does that ever work?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Melancholy Jaques: Biden’s arguably moved left over the past couple of decades. Make of that what you will, I suppose.
Geminid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I’m curious: are people in Athens paying much attention to the US presidential race?
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: oh, ffs. Do you take downer pills in the morning or something? And if so, do the directions indicate that you have to spread the joy as well?
Mr. Bemused Senior
I happened strike up a conversation on a plane, seated next to a professional who works on disaster planning. I’m familiar with technical issues related to computer system redundancy and survivability. He described the planning process for physical, large scale disasters.
His thumbnail summary of people’s reactions divides them into three groups: some people panic, others mistakenly think they are experts, and the third, largest group, is somewhere in the middle.
His point was that the two extremes are both troublesome and the goal of a disaster plan is to help the people in the middle respond intelligently. Especially the know-it-alls have to be sidelined.
Another Scott
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Someone made the point a while ago that Biden has pretty much always (?) worked to position himself at the (moving) center of the party. His gift is seeing that new center before many others (e.g. gay marriage in 2012).
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Another Scott
I place a goodly portion of the blame squarely on the shoulders of Ted Koppel, who promoted him to the hilt on Nightline. Seemed he was on the show every week, if not twice within the same week.
NotMax
@scav
That election was held after V-E Day but before V-J Day, so technically during the war.
Joey Maloney
Such mandolin geniuses as Chris Thile (MacArthur genius!), Sarah Jarosz, and Sierra Hull should serve as adequate counterexamples.
Good morning.
wjca
I rather think you miss the point. It isn’t that our smarts are elitist or off-putting. It’s that our insisting that our smarts are all that matter is both.
Our audience (the ones who haven’t gone full bore cultist) is fine with the idea that facts matter. They live their everyday lives in the real world, after all. But they dislike being told that they are just too stupid to understand anything with having their hands held. Try telling them that too often and too loudly, and they’ll just tune you out.
It’s not that they object to expertise and experience either. Indeed, they will seek it out. IF they don’t have some self-important twit (who shows unmistakable signs of ignoring facts himself, when they are inconvenient) constantly proclaiming that they’re too stupid to pound sand.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Cut to Bruddah Iz and the ukulele.
Pet theory is the larger the Hawaiian musician, the smaller the instrument.
;)
Kay
@wjca:
Well said. The smugness (IMO) also blinds us to other reasons – like a lack of character or an ideological conservatism. A lot of the Trump team had very good academic credentials – but they were also mean spirited, corrupt jerks.
It works the other way too. I’m training a new lawyer. He’s a conservative. He’s really interesting – I didn’tthink highly of him at first (I hired him) but he’s growing on me. I think he might be a really good lawyer eventually. He told me undergrad and law school broadened how he thinks and he became less dogmatically conservative (he grew up in a rural, working class fundie family). But I think he was able to do this – to reject the racism and misogyny and mean spiritedness of the Right – because I am finding out he is fundamentally a decent person. You need both. Just a degree or expertise is not enough. Formally educated does not = “good person”. That’s a category error.
Kay
@wjca:
We were talking about immigration and how the US has more liberal immigration policy than many other countries and why that is, historically, and I could tell that this is an area he’s far Right on – he got worked up. So he asked me “we’re not indigenous to the US (me and him) but how long does one have to be somewhere before they are considered indigenous?”. So because I know his ethnicity (I know his entire family) I know when his people got here (approximately) so I said “well, ok, but then African Americans are really MORE indigenous than you and I then because they were here before we were” and he was just speechless. But the thing is he will THINK about this. He won’t just “own the libs” with a snappy comeback.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Betty Cracker: Very early in our marriage I went with my wife to her 10th high school reunion in Nassau County, Long Island (George Santos country). All the classmates of my pretty young bride were Long Island (probably) Republicans who already looked and acted middle-aged.
Geminid
@Kay: I wonder if our experiences with schooling condition us to overrate intelligence as a virtue. It has its place for sure, but so do empathy and an open mind. I think a strong work ethic is more important than intelligence, for both individuals and the society around them.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: He’s late on Israel/Gaza. Maybe because he had other emotional concerns overriding the political calculation.
wjca
I’m betting that, having raised that issue, you then moved on to a different topic. Gave him time to process the new idea. Rather than hammering on about how this counterexample proved that his views were nothing but raw racism.
Too often, people on the left get exasperated and start ranting (there’s really no other way to characterize it). All about how nobody with two brain cells could believe such nonsense, unless they were afflicted with massive moral failings. Which is probably a nice emotional release for the ranter. But seriously counterproductive if the goal is to change minds.
EDT If ya just gotta rant, try to at least get out of earshot of those you wish to persuade.
Eyeroller
@wjca: Supposedly, according to psychologists, the way to change minds is to ask questions and get the other person to explain where their ideas come from and to justify them. Ranting, whether by liberals or conservatives, just causes people to put up defenses and/or tune out.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Glad you’re enjoying it!
@Baud: The Friedman column summarizes the situation pretty well, IMO. Their right-wing government has Israel on the brink of fighting a three-front war, and they’re already stretched too thin. There are more Palestinians and Israeli Arabs between the river and the sea than Israeli Jews, and the right-wing government wants to control them indefinitely. Doesn’t seem like a stable situation.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits:
For some reason, I was reminded last week about how trent lott said at one point during the iraq war something along the lines of:
I remember wanting to ask him the same question about the yankees and the confederates, and see what his response was.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits:
Is there any media source other than the Jackson Free press in the state of mississippi that even pretends to be liberal? Or that wouldn’t break down, crying in shame if someone accused them of being liberal? I still remember the time sid salter, opinion editor of the jackson clarion ledger, threatened to dox me in his next column because I sent him an angry email, accusing him of lying about a proposed constitutional amendment in a way that benefited the republicans
Kay
@Geminid:
I think it might. This young man also has a good work ethic, which is something I (too) admire. He’s steady, you know what I mean? Not flashy or “quick” but I realize after 6 months with him that he’s really productive. My middle son, the electrician, is also like that and HE was undervalued at school, I think. I envy them their quality of attention and even pacing.
He will do well. I think people will trust him.
Soprano2
@Kay: Happened to my mother when my father cheated on her. She never had any real adversity in her life until she was in her 40’s, and she fell apart. As much as their divorce and my father’s death at the age of 48 sucked, it taught me at a young age that no matter how bad things seem, they eventuality get better. People who wrap their kids in bubble wrap aren’t doing them any favors.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Agree, but I don’t think that happened because of votes for lefty candidates in primaries.
Biden has always been at or near the center of the national Democratic Party. That center as a whole has changed, but I’m not sure that it has moved left as much as it has shed its conservative members. Nearly all the blue dogs that Obama had to deal with are gone. I think there’s only about ten of them now.
Look at all the conservative Democratic senators who voted for the ACA that were replaced by Republicans: Baucus, Bayh, Begich, Conrad, Dorgan, Hagan, Harkin, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, McCaskill, both Nelsons, Pryor. Did I miss any or get any wrong? That’s a sea change right there.
Melancholy Jaques
@Kay:
I agree. The disruptions from the pandemic, the responses to control it, and the economic consequences generated inchoate rage that always seems to go right-wing for some reason. At least here in the USA, the rage is never directed at the rich and powerful. See, e.g., the political responses to the economic collapse of 2008.
We need ads that tell the three step story: the pandemic came, Trump’s incompetence made it worse, Biden fixed and everything is better now. Make it a “Led by Joe Biden, Americans triumphed over adversity” kind of story.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Israel’s Arab citizens and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have very different relationships to the State of Israel, and very different perspectives. I’m not sure why Friedman would lump tgem together, but I have not read his op-ed to see how he did.
Arabs account for around 20% of Israel’s citizens, although that includes the ~1.5% who speak Arabic but belong to the Druze community.* The Druze are subject to the draft and provide many of the IDF’s career soldiers and officers. Only a few Arabs volunteer for the IDF, although the IDF has had a Bedouin Regiment since the 1950s.
*The Druze are a mountain people spread between northern Israel, Syria and Lebanon. They have a esoteric, “syncretic” religion and haven’t taken converts since 1100 CE. The Druze religion is blatantly heretical from an Islamic point of view, but after a while authorities learned to leave the fierce hillbillies alone.
Soprano2
@wjca: I try to plant ideas and than just go on. There’s no reason to rant like that, it makes people more resistant to what you say.
SoupCatcher
@Geminid: I feel we’re a species that can appreciate rational thought, but it’s learned behavior. It’s not where we live when we are stressed. And there’s a tremendous amount of money that is spent to keep as many of us stressed as necessary to maintain the status quo. Biden is a huge threat to the status quo, and the amount of resources that have been invested since his election dwarfs anything previous. This is the big money election, and most of it is on the other side.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: The thing is, the US’s far Right turn happened *before* the pandemic. I mean, we elected Trump President in 2016. More than anything else it was a freakout response to there being a Black President followed by possibly a woman President.
Melancholy Jaques
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree that it started in response to Obama; white backlash is a constant in American history. But Obama was re-elected. He won Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, all of which are out of reach for us. Something happened since then and I think it was COVID. I can’t think of another explanation for why the general public – not the partisans – are so negative on the economy and Biden personally.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Dunno. People can always do more, but he’s been pretty consistent and pretty good on Gaza given all the constraints. (Would Obama – let alone TCFFG or W – have tried to build the pier?)
Biden’s October 18 address:
Yeah, yeah, just words. But he’s also done public actions. Maybe he could have pushed harder in public and private. Maybe he will push harder. I have no doubt that Biden and Blinken are doing a lot more behind the scenes that we don’t know about.
Yeah, yeah, the proof of the pudding is
on the fingersin the eating. Time will tell.My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Melancholy Jaques: I disagree with a lot here. I think it wasn’t Obama winning and being re-elected. It was the thought of Hillary winning that broke too many people’s brains, and too many monsters took advantage of that to try to push the country hard-right. My best friend from HS was in the “Anyone But Clinton” camp. He just had a visceral hatred for her… :-(
Misogyny is a huge, huge problem in the USA. Remember, Black men got the vote before white women. Black athletes were accepted as equals before women (women are still fighting that battle today). Male vs Female actors. Astronauts. Tenured professors. Bosses of any kind. Etc., etc.
(Of course, racism is still a huge, huge problem as well – e.g. look at the number of Black CEOs in the Fortune 500. So, it’s objectively hard to say one is somehow worse than the other in the USA – but I think it mattered a lot in Hillary’s case.)
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I shared a gift link to the column upthread, so you can judge for yourself. IIRC, Friedman didn’t lump them together as if they didn’t have separate identities as groups but rather as factions that are opposed to the far-right extremist plan to occupy the West Bank and Gaza forever. The same is true of lots of Israeli Jews too, of course. Even if Trump wins, I don’t see how the Smotrich agenda succeeds in the long run.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Thanks, I’ll probably read Friedman’s column despite my general aversion to op-ed pieces.
As for Smotrich, I am sceptical that he will still be in government when our election rolls around in November. Netanyahu is trying to hang on until July 28, when the Knesset is set to adjourn until Fall. His path keeps narrowing though, and he’s starting to resemble a shaky tightrope walker.
If and when there is an election, the Arab vote will be worth watching. Some Israeli Arabs vote for “Zionist” parties like Labor and Meretz, but more vote for the Joint List headed by Ahmed Tibi (sp?) or the Ra’am party headed by Mansour Abbas. I think they each won 5 MKs in the last election.
This is down from the 15 seats an Arab joint list won in 2015, and that was less than the 24 MKs Israeli Arabs might have elected if their turnout was equal to their Jewish counterparts and they all voted for Arab parties.
Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party was part of the last Bennet/Lapid government, and they increased their MKs from 4 to 5 in the last election. Evidently, some Israeli Arabs must have liked Abbas’s stance. Abbas received a warm welcome on a visit to the UAE last month, so they seem to like him too.
One of the only silver linings in this war has been the lower level of intra-communal violence seen in mixed Arab/ Jewish cities, compared to the 11 day Gaza war fought in May of 2021. Then, Israeli media seemed more alarmed by the communal violence than they were by the war itself. This could change though, especially since political arsonist Itamar Ben-Gvir controls the national police force.