You think Biden's having a bad news cycle? RFK Jr is on Fox News answering questions about a photo of him with what appears to be a barbecued dog pic.twitter.com/mH6NgLp3MS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 2, 2024
RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets. https://t.co/zErxGnZJRs
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 2, 2024
The family may not have shared every unpleasant detail, but all the cousins knew enough not to ask each other too many questions. Bobby Jr was, and is, someone who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Here’s the article that seems to have sparked this week’s agita, Vanity Fair “RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets.”:
… Long before he entered the 2024 race with a wagon train of conspiracy theories, the wider Kennedy family was intimately familiar with RFK Jr.’s problematic personality—the outsize confidence masquerading as expertise, the “savior complex” (as one family member called it) that drives him to take up quixotic causes and cast himself as a lone hero against established powers, and, above all, as one old friend calls it, his “pathological need for attention.” A few months ago I began talking to Kennedy family members and close friends, some on the record, others on background, to get insights into the man they know well, and to ask some pointed questions: Rather than merely rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s already fatally faltering campaign, shouldn’t you be telling voters what you know about your brother and cousin, whose candidacy threatens to swing the presidential election to Donald Trump and upend American history forever? With the future of the country riding on the narrowest of polling margins, shouldn’t you be describing in fine detail the acute dangers of the person you know so well—before your own family’s tragedy becomes the nation’s?…
After initially denouncing his candidacy last summer, most of the 105 Kennedy relatives —including Bobby’s eight siblings, the largest branch of the family—had hoped his campaign would collapse under the weight of his many bizarre claims and alliances with anti-vax cranks and Trumpworld figures like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. Instead the family has played defense, going public only when Kennedy’s statements went so far out of bounds they had no choice, like when he suggested COVID was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish and Chinese people; or his claim that anti-vaxxers suffered worse oppression than Anne Frank (a statement sister Kerry called “sickening and destructive”); or when he claimed there was a mysterious alternative shooter in the death of his father in 1968 (going so far as to interview Sirhan B. Sirhan in prison and proclaim him innocent); or that the CIA was possibly involved in the assassination—claims that caused deep pain for his siblings.
Their private efforts to get Bobby to drop out—or at least wait until 2028 to run—have also come to naught. “I’ve spoken to Bobby about this race, about what’s at stake, about the importance of supporting Joe Biden, of the impact of the Trump presidency on our country and on the world,” Kerry Kennedy, who leads the nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and is disciplined in how she speaks of her brother, tells me, “and I was clearly unpersuasive.”…
The portrait family members paint of Bobby is of a man of exceptional charm, wit, brains, and generosity who has championed important environmental causes, but whose worst traits—an unnerving ease with blending fact and fiction; a powerful ability to deny the collateral damage of his own destructive actions—have engulfed his better angels. The source of these pathologies, they observe, are found in his long and troubling biography, a life story marked by personal trauma and addiction to drugs, sex, and, perhaps most perniciously of all, public adulation.
“You can’t reason with addiction,” says Stephen Kennedy Smith, a cousin of Kennedy’s whose father ran the elder Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. “And what we know about addiction is it leads to bad judgment—extremely bad judgment.”…
======
For years Kennedy’s inner circle of friends, like Kaplan and Karsch, had stoked his lifelong political aspirations. But most of his old allies gave up hope. Kennedy had too many demons, too complicated a past. In 2014 Kennedy married Hines, in a wedding attended by a glittering array of friends, including Larry David and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and moved to Los Angeles. The move marked a reinvention of sorts, distancing Kennedy from his East Coast network and perhaps removing some of the built-in guardrails that had tempered his worst impulses. In addition to consulting for companies seeking his environmental seal of approval, he chaired the 501c3 nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which began in 2007 under the name World Mercury Project, and inveighed against vaccines and fluoride in the water.During this period, figures like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and Donald Trump mainstreamed conspiracy culture, with Trump seeding his 2016 presidential run by hyping the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama had faked his birth certificate and was a secret Muslim born in Kenya. Kennedy, having pushed discredited anti-vaccine views for over a decade, saw an opening. When Trump was elected president in November 2016, Kennedy secured an audience with him at Trump Tower. Friends warned Kennedy not to take the meeting, concerned he would end up like Mitt Romney, whose attempt to curry favor with Trump over dinner left Romney publicly humiliated. When Kennedy emerged from Trump Tower, in January 2017, he claimed to the press that Trump had asked him to chair a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.” That same day Trump adviser Hope Hicks said the two talked about autism but Trump didn’t commit to a commission on vaccines…
The year after the Samoa episode, the COVID pandemic began, ultimately killing millions of people—but it was a stroke of political and financial fortune for Kennedy, who found a ripe audience for his anti-vaccine claims, tapping into a newly fertile online world of misinformation, conspiracy, and distrust of pharmaceutical companies on podcasts and social media. High-profile podcasters like Joe Rogan allowed him to spout his conspiracy theories unchecked, and Kennedy built a following among pseudoscientists and self-styled influencers hawking supplements and alternative medicines under the banner of “wellness,” aligning with figures like Aubrey Marcus, a podcaster, poet, and self-styled guru of “Total Human Optimization” who hosted a fundraiser for Kennedy in Austin last March.
The man had met his time…
When Kennedy emerged as a candidate for president, in April 2023, his body and face had become transfigured by what he has called a regimen of “organic testosterone.” Kennedy showed off his unusually puffy body in campaign workouts, going shirtless in an infamous push-up video. “I mean, he’s unrecognizable,” says a family intimate who has known him for decades. “It’s like a body-snatching thing.”
His campaign also became pumped up, powered by cash infusions from his vice presidential pick, Nicole Shanahan, the ex-wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and from Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune who has given $30 million to the super PAC supporting Kennedy while also giving $50 million to Donald Trump’s campaign—an alignment of interests that critics suspect is strategic, financing Kennedy’s campaign to draw votes from Joe Biden and thereby boost Trump…
Every time I see video of this guy I feel like I’m watching a Cronenberg film https://t.co/EiAVylZR07
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) July 2, 2024
If a single billionaire can legally dump $100 million into an election, when the legal maximum an individual can donate is $3300 — that’s not democracy or a free and fair election, that’s an oligarchy and an auction.
The corruption is killing our country.https://t.co/OGiIOkOsHA
— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) July 3, 2024
Yet another twist in the tale!
Edward Snowden is a citizen of Russia, a country that has been ruled by the same man for the entirety of this century. pic.twitter.com/DMCZrN4jX5
— Kareem Rifai ?? (@KareemRifai) July 4, 2024
In fairness, pushing the line the Russians want when your continued survival is dependent on keeping your Russian handlers happy is actually pretty smart. https://t.co/azWrheFy2o
— Open Source Stupidity (OSSTU) Starfish (@IRHotTakes) July 5, 2024
One of those exchanges I absolutely did not think was real until I searched it myself.
RIP all of us pic.twitter.com/Eq8w5mCeAP
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 5, 2024
War for Ukraine Day 863: A Brief Friday Night Update
Shalimar
RFK Jr’s head is bigger than Barry Bonds.
NotMax
He’s like a candidate designed by the last generation of AI.
//
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Two leading questions along with a personal attack in one sentence. I think if some reporter asked me a question like that I would tell them to go f themselves, so this makes most of the article likely the level of a fan fiction. But the curious bit is how everyone sucks, not just the Dems.
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And the article acts like with all the secrets RFK Jr is somehow a better choice?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@WereBear: Yes, WTF kind of world do these reporters live in were reality bothering and rape are no big deal? It’s like they aren’t covering for Trump, just in their eyes being a predatory lying sack of shit is how they think adults should act.
MattF
This campaign is making us all familiar with the symptoms and effects of psychosis. That’s a bad thing.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
😸
Aussie Sheila
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
I hope he does. A good cat is a great thing.
After scratching Larry I hope Starmer and team initiate a public inquiry into graft and corruption re NHS contracts for PPS that were simply money for recycling into donations, and that they smash through BS excuses for not building in areas where people want and need housing.
Oh and most important, but I think it won’t happen. It would be good if central banks (including the RBA) raised their target interest rates to meet the need for increased social and public investment.
The US public has simply no idea how having the global reserve currency shelters their working and lower middle classes from the exigencies of high interest rate regimes.
Maybe the growth of international fascism might bring it home, even if the homegrown fascism doesn’t ?
This, more than reckless US foreign policy makes US elites including clueless US journalists feckless and clueless regarding the growth of petit bourgeoise fascism in Europe and elsewhere.
Forget the culture wars. It’s high interest rates that affect the petit bourgeoisie more than anything else. Small businesses, self employed contractors, (the employees of choice for 21c capital), mortgage holders and renters who have to pay mortgage holders’ rates to live in safe and bearable housing.
Independent central banks sound good in theory.
In practice they lead to fascism.
Put central banks into a vice that makes them act in accordance with democratic fiscal policy. The current regime is like the gold standard of old.
That didn’t end well. For the world.
matt
By the way – those people who were pushing Snowden as some kind of hero/martyr/savior – I hated them then, and I hate them even more now.
Layer8Problem
That exchange between Snowden and RFK Jr. disposes of any notion of Snowden as anything but an asshole.
Aussie Sheila
@Layer8Problem:
Snowden was always a grifter, if not a knowing Putin asset.
Who cares?
He doesn’t control US foreign policy, and RFK Jnr is a fucking joke.
The challenges of US FP go far beyond grifters and drug addicts.
Layer8Problem
@Aussie Sheila: “The challenges of US FP go far beyond grifters and drug addicts.”
Yes, and we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Heck, we can even spare a few moments thought on this election coming up.
Mousebumples
I messaged Sen. Baldwin through her Senate website earlier – to express support for Biden and to ask her to do the same. (and to express support for her reelection)
I’ve got a family thing today, but hope to get back to postcarding when I’m home tonight or tomorrow.
If postcarding isn’t your thing, consider visiting Mobilize.us – but probably need to be stateside.
Aussie Sheila
@Layer8Problem:
Thats good if you can. Because if your centre right/centre left can’t get it together in your anti majoritarian constitutional electoral system, it’s not just you who is fucked.
The democratic world is fucked.
While I don’t swoon over ‘the international rules based order’ beloved of the US msm, I’m old enough to remember what happens when there are no rules. One thing worse than a tyrant, is a hundred petty tyrants.
Let’s hope the US electorate can get itself over the hoop of the US electoral system and elect the Biden/Harris team.
If it doesn’t, I think Australia is cunning enough to survive four years of trump.
Europe? Ukraine? I think not.
Ukraine because they need armaments and material support.
Europe, because it is rotten to the core with Putin assets. Like the US Congress, the UK and Europe and the Us in the 1930s.
What a disgrace.
Mousebumples
Also just heard the term “dime store Socrates” which seems perfect for the Just Asking Questions MAGA/Russian trolls.
I’ve got my pie finger at the ready, however…
Aussie Sheila
@Mousebumples:
I’m stealing ‘dime store Socrates’!
Love it!
Mousebumples
Tony Jay
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈
newnewlabourinc – ‘We Changed, So Will You’
Mousebumples
@Aussie Sheila: haha, same! Happy to share snarky terminology!
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay:
Love ya snark!
So the adenoidal toolmaker’s son (did you know his dad was a tool maker?) made it over the line with a landslide comprised of sheer exhaustion coupled with rage. I get you. I really do. Starmer and Reeve’s adenoidal prissy posturing for the shop keeper nation made me cringe into my winter woolies down under. They are simply awful.
But they are what you get in the electoral landscape you have.
I really admire the grassroots efforts to ensure that as much tactical voting as possible occurred and it worked!
Those activists were gold, and right in what they did.
Whatever one thinks of a particular Labor government, they are always, but always, better than the best Tory government.
Best wishes in this great Tory wipeout which was epic btw. Nothing I love more than the sound of Tory tears in the morning, and it was our morning!
And here’s hoping that electoral reform can be achieved before the next Tory government wipes out every improvement made.
✊✊✊✊✊✊
TBone
I have submersed myself in some of the worst commentary and the orgasmic proclamations of the “I was right all the way back in 2019” jagoffs this morning regarding the elephant in the room. Figured I’d get that outta the way right off the bat. And what I have to say is fuck ’em.
Ridin’ with Biden same as ever.
Ten Bears
Calls for Joe to step aside are a Republican psyop; dems repeating the call are either 1) fools led around by the nose or 2) Republicans in Democrat’s clothes. Has anyone thought this through?
We really need to do something about our Mainstream Multi-millionaire Media …
wil
So Biden’s interview was faltering and not reassuring at all.
It looks like everybody here is just willing to go down with the ship, though, and anybody that disagrees is either Russian or MAGA, right?
What about the millions of Democrats who are honestly just worried that Biden can’t win against Trump at this point?
Tony Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
Yup. The Dark Blue Meanies had to go, it’s just a pity the PTB stamped an Ymir-sized thumb on the scale to ensure that the primary beneficiaries of all their destruction were the Light Blue Meanies and their billionaire patrons.
Oh, and the Fascist Frog Party, which is now in pole position to gobble down the rump Tories and enjoy five years of 24/7 unearned media fellation from a lazy and compromised Media Establishment.
Things can only get better – until they don’t.
TBone
@wil: worry is a waste of imagination.
And there was nothing wrong with the interview, except the framing. He’s large and in charge so get over yourself.
What aboutism is also a losing gambit.
Geminid
@wil: Everybody here is not that way. I think there’s a majority who are sticking with Biden, but many of us don’t think dissenters are traitors or trolls. Personally, I think all these arguments are a waste of energy so I’m not trying to straighten anyone out. At this point I don’t think worth going ’round and ’round about this stuff even though others think it’s really important.
wil
@TBone: Then you are in your bunker and didn’t watch the interview. Blaming the media is what losing campaigns do, and I see a lot of whining about the media here.
Part of the problem is Biden does not appear “large and in charge” at all.
It looks like “not publicly blowing it” has become the measure of success for Biden’s public appearances, and that’s not going to beat Trump.
Biden appears hesitant and faltering, not large and in charge at all.
wil
@Geminid: Thank you.
TBone
@wil: he and his team are running the federal government right now. He’s the Commander in Chief. That’s my definition of large and in charge.
What’s yours? Physical strength? I’m 5’1″ and can still topple a young, 6′ specimen.
Ya gotta know how to use a fulcrum.
Princess
@wil: Hi person with a nym I’ve never seen before. A lot of people I’ve seen posting here for years came on last night and said he was fine. Nothing special but fine. And you, a complete stranger to me, come in this morning trying to stir up doubt. Who am I going to believe? What am I going to think?🧐
MagdaInBlack
@wil: I am just not playing this bs game this morning. I hope I get a nice chocolate croissant in exchange for you.
wil
@TBone: Every incumbent that has ever lost was “running the federal government” until they weren’t.
Jesus, do you really think that is a point?
wil
@Princess: “Nothing special but fine”
Real vote of confidence there.
TBone
@wil: 😆 you sweet, summer chile
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay:
I get it. But the strength of both independents, Greens and the smashing of the ‘blue wall’ in the South West by the Lib Dems provides opportunity for a united front for electoral reform. I hate FPTP voting systems. They force so many different political factions into one Party they eventually exhaust democratic energy and involvement.
That is far worse than any one loss in an electoral contest.
Keep the faith, keep kicking right wing arseholes, and above all, just enjoy your win. Every non Tory in the UK deserves a few days to savour the taste of Tory tears.
I know I never get sick of them.
Princess
@wil: Troll somewhere else, pie person.
The Thin Black Duke
Please don’t feed the troll.
BR
@wil:
Do I wish Obama could have a 3rd term? Yes. But that’s not possible. Biden is who we have. If we had someone else then that would be who we have.
4 months. Eyes on the goal.
Raven
@Tony Jay: Ready for some futbol!!!
wil
@TBone: laughing at you as well.
Watch the interview. Try to have a bit more of an open mind. Biden is not able to bring the fight to Trump in any way, shape or form.
Winning an election against a CONVICTED FELON AND RAPIST should be child’s play.
The fact that it isn’t should be telling you something right there, and while I’m not one to cite polls, they can’t ALL be wrong, biased, or outliers.
Come out of your bunker.
Aussie Sheila
@wil:
So what are you planning to do about it?
He’s the candidate, barring his decision, if any, to stand down.
JFC, one bad debate performance, and fuckton of elite US media journalism and we’re off to the races.
Lucky you don’t live in a country where 70% of the print media and most of the broadcast media are controlled either by Rupert Murdoch or a mining magnate.
Grow up or get used to living in an authoritarian nightmare.
Shalimar
@wil: “Fine” is definitely a vote of confidence when the alternative is chaos. We have watched Trump for the last 8 years. Fuck chaos. Let the Republicans keep it as their brand.
wil
@BR: What about the honest opinion of Democrats who believe Biden can’t win?
We have our eyes on the goal, but we aren’t going to get there with Biden.
And I was all aboard with Biden until a week ago, and was willing to give him some benefit of the doubt that the debate was just a bad night. I didn’t watch the debate, but watching the interview last night proves that it wasn’t just one bad night. He is feeble and faltering, and that’s not going to beat Trump.
You can call me a troll, Russian, Magat, whatever, but it’s not going to change the fact that Biden is not up to the task here.
Citizen Dave
@wil: Did you watch the interview or Biden’s rally?
wil
@Shalimar: “nothing special but fine” is actually what she said.
Real vote of confidence.
The Thin Black Duke
@wil: Troll. Pied. Bye.
Shalimar
@The Thin Black Duke: We need pictures of trolls eating pies.
Shalimar
@Citizen Dave: Wil watched whatever will make you doubt Biden. Thin Black Duke is right, these conversations are going nowhere.
BR
@wil:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference
wil
@Citizen Dave: I watched the interview. I saw some clips of Biden greeting supporters at the rally.
Honestly rallies don’t mean anything. Gladhanding to the converted.
Eyeroller
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That jumped right out at me. Immediately. It was completely uncalled for and was pure opinionating on the part of the “reporter” in what was allegedly a factual piece.
wil
@Shalimar: Sorry, just giving an honest opinion. I’m not a fan of sticking fingers in ears and yelling “I can’t hear you”
Seems a lot of people here are big fans of that, though.
wil
@BR:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”
That is the question facing Democrats now, though. Whether to change, and if so, how to do it.
We are going to need the serenity prayer if Trump wins again, not now.
Aussie Sheila
@wil:
I’ve changed my mind.
Fuck off you right wing troll.
Shalimar
@wil: Speaking of honest, your choices are Joe Biden or the most prolific liar in history. And you’re spending your time trying to convince people there is something wrong with Biden. It’s too important for this bullshit.
prostratedragon
The search started as a rumination on a remark above about RFKJr, bu then …
“A Benevolent Psychopathology,” Howard Shore.
wil
@Aussie Sheila: What makes me right-wing?
Wanting to beat Trump?
I’ve never voted Republican in my life. You?
wil
@Shalimar: Our choices are Trump or a Democrat that can beat Trump.
For a lot of Democrats, that is not Biden in 2024. It was in 2020, but not this year.
I will be voting for whatever candidate has a D after their name, but it’s not about us. It’s about those squishy middle people who see a faltering, increasingly feeble old man in Biden.
Not facing some hard realities is not doing Democrats any favors.
MagdaInBlack
Way way back when Bobby Jr was first being whispered about as going to run, I was chatting with a woman in my waiting area. She mentioned Bobby and I told her he was a lunatic. And lo and behold, he’s a lunatic.
sab
OT: commenter Neal had neat little chart about dewpoint as a useful weather comfort indicator. I had never much thought about it but now it’s what I look at.
When I first read it our dewpoint was 77° and our temperature was 75°. Based on temperature alone I should have been comfortable, but every time I went outside my glasses fogged up
ETA Oh dear. I missed the next thread where not OT.
Shalimar
@wil: We had primaries. Biden is our candidate. Get a fucking grip.
Another Scott
+1
(via Frischner)
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris Johnson
I don’t know why the word ‘cudlip’ suddenly comes to mind…
Also, when new guy is the ONLY ONE LEFT still hammering the original narrative, it makes me think that fake narrative is slipping.
When the fake narrative is slipping and there’s no backup, there is nothing to do but bury everyone under the failing narrative in hopes you can just drown out the smarter voices with bullshit. You know ‘everyone is saying’? When one person is the self-appointed ‘everyone’, well, that’s a bad look.
Thanks, wil! If you’re all that’s left of the bullshit, we’re doing really well! Because you’re like a cartoon version of a bad faith actor, and people who are actually known might take a second look at how they’ve been acting, to see if it is too much like you.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Is ok, I’d rather read what you have to say than all the pie
Good morning.
wil
@Shalimar: What instrument did you play on the Titanic?
There should not have been ‘one bad debate’ that was that bad, however, if that was it, then so be it.
But the interview last night showed a feeble, faltering Biden that cannot beat Trump.
Biden will be doing more interviews….what if they are ALL bad?
Are you just willing to lose because you’re too hardheaded about it to do anything else?
MagdaInBlack
@Another Scott: I suddenly like her even better for her use of language❤️
Shalimar
@wil: If they are all bad, Biden and his campaign team will make the decision to drop out and Kamala Harris will be our candidate. We also selected her in primaries very recently.
Welcome to the party. Please stop pissing on the cake.
Aussie Sheila
@wil:
Like I said, fuck off right wing troll.
wil
@Chris Johnson: Honestly it just sounds like you want to enforce a single point of view and not allow others, and are celebrating what you view as stamping out dissenting voices, if only on this blog.
But the voices calling for Biden to drop out are getting louder, not softer, though perhaps not in your cone of silence here that you are trying to maintain.
Mousebumples
@Another Scott: I love MVP. Hope to vote for her atop the ticket in 2028.
@Chris Johnson: +1
We’ve got this. Let’s do the work and back our candidates.
Tony Jay
@Aussie Sheila:
They are delicious, but the catering company insists on filtering each glass through Tony Blair’s arse-membrane, and thus the flavour takes a noticeable hit. 🤢
PR really is the big fight for the future, but bear in kind that the actual Labour Party did actually vote overwhelmingly at conference to adopt it into the manifesto, and the Plastic Peer told them that wasn’t something His Party was going to do.
Think newnewlabourinc are going to change their tune on that after all of their internal diktats have just been retroactively rubber-stamped by the electorate to the time of 400+ marionetted yes-persons?
I haz me doots.
Layer8Problem
Folks, folks, please. Many new people we’ve never seen before, lifelong Democrats and longtime lurkers I’m sure, are standing up to tell us we’re DOOMED, DOOMED I tell you, and they just want to help. Suggestions are aplenty, to toss Biden over the side, to do one of those clever brokered conventions to churn up whatever, to give up because there’s no hope. Absolutely none of these totally unscripted thinking-outside-the-BJ-groupthink types have said bow down before TFG or suck it libs, so I’m sure their hot takes are candid AND heartfelt. It’s refreshing to see such new thinking breaking up our usual BJ jackal chorus of lockstep unified Kumbaya singing. Actually, I think the word I’m looking for is incredible. Yes, utterly incredible.
We’re being played.
Chris Johnson
@wil: Bro, it’s literally you. I concede that you’re getting louder. That’s because you’re posting 37 times like you’re on meth. You being louder is not actually persuasive.
It looks like it’s just you. Why does it look like it’s just you? Again, you being louder and posting more often does not mean a lot. Who knows why you’re doing this. I only know that whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong.
You are evidence that the manufactured narrative HAS NO BACKUP. I mean, makes me happy to see it, but are you sure you want to spend valuable posting hours producing the opposite impression? That your side is fake but also not very good at this?
You’re embarrassing previous real posters who did authentically worry about all this, and needed to be taken seriously and to see our guy Joe respond appropriately (and to watch the remaining part of that same debate, such as it was). There were real people who got upset, and we all went through a thing finding our places in that.
You are embarrassing our faltering friends. Shame on you.
wil
@Shalimar: you have such faith in leaders. I don’t. As FDR said “I agree with you. Now make me do it.”
Biden sounds like he is not going to be easily convinced that he should drop out.
Pressure is mounting, though. And no, what you or I say on this blog doesn’t matter a bit.
But while you may be determined to toe the line no matter what until the bitter end, don’t expect everybody else to do the same.
wil
@Chris Johnson: This is just a blog, kiddo. Calm down.
Shalimar
@Layer8Problem: The trolls don’t affect me. It’s most of the front pagers at LGM joining them that is depressing.
Chris Johnson
@wil: You should see me AFTER I’ve had coffee :D
sab
Here in USA we just had the worst president of my lifetime followed by the best most effective president of my lifetime, and now we are running them against each other again. And somehow that is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Ridin’ with Biden works for me.
Mr. Bemused Senior
This must be some other balloon-juice with which I’m unfamiliar. Are you sure there isn’t some Unicode character like dotless-i in the link you’ve been reading?
wil
@Shalimar: I don’t know what LGM is, but like I said, there are plenty of real Democrats with real worries who are terrified of losing to Trump and have real and sincere beliefs that Biden can’t win after his recent public showings.
I’ve been reading here since 2006, though I rarely ever comment.
You seem to really want to enforce only one point of view. Sure you’re in the right party?
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay:
Yeah me too, but I see a lot of possibilities in:
1. Many newly elected Lab MPs
2. The new/nu/not the other lib dems who just got a shot like a line of gank up a Tory’s nose
3. The Greens
4. And hear me out here, the fash faragists, whose grip on the thick and sick depends on a more efficient vote getting strategy that isn’t as exxy as FPTP.
I see a lot of possibilities there for a focussed campaign. Like stopthetories.com did with their tactical voting effort. Very good work, btw.
If that doesn’t put the wind up snivelling A holes like the abominable Mandelson, people aren’t doing their job. Oh, and well done grass roots campaigners in Islington.
😉😉😉😉😉😉
Chris Johnson
@sab: I know, right? It’s genuinely weird. I’ve been just chalking it up to ‘Joe is a public servant’ and that he started out working for Delaware, where some of his stuff I didn’t like at all, but now he works for all of us and he’s legit changed course and is genuinely representing us.
That’s what they’re SUPPOSED to do.
Ain’t letting this one go so easily. An actual public servant?
wil
@Chris Johnson: I honestly couldn’t care less.
Chris Johnson
@wil: I just can’t figure out why you didn’t show up on Friday, where it would’ve been some use and we’d have been taken in far more easily by your schtick.
It’s not that it’s only one point of view, it’s that you’re trying to make up, by posting volume, the fact that you’re an outlier trying to shove an Overton window all by yourself as if that wasn’t a very obvious and ineffective thing to be doing. I mean, what are you even thinking.
There’s a time and place for what you’re doing, and it was here but two Fridays ago. Crank up another nym and start over. Are you really suggesting that you guys have nothing in the tank other than repeating two Fridays ago, forever? That’s… sad.
EarthWindFire
@wil: I’d feel a lot better about the millions of democrats who feel badly about Biden if they could outline what happens after they get their way and how that leads to a second democratic presidency. But none of you have. Until you do, I see no reason to listen.
Layer8Problem
@Mr. Bemused Senior: “This must be some other balloon-juice with which I’m unfamiliar.”
Nope, it’s the real deal. Just go through that large mirror the concern trolls and sealions are coming out of and you’ll find it.
wil
@EarthWindFire: The reality is that sometimes the future is unclear and not a straight line.
Obviously the only possible choice for campaign funding reasons (and other reasons) is Kamala Harris.
So the question becomes, does Kamala stand a better chance of beating Trump than an increasingly feeble and dug-in Biden?
A lot of people who are loyal Democrats same as you honestly think so.
Whether you “listen” or not just because you don’t see a clear plan is irrelevant.
Sometimes there is no clear plan, but you still have to jump off the sinking ship and hope for the best.
In this case, though, the plan would have to be Kamala as the candidate. Beyond that, I can’t say.
wil
@Chris Johnson: You really have nothing much to say.
Carry on, son.
Chris Johnson
@Layer8Problem: It’s actually really interesting. I think we’re actually being polled!
The one guy here is posting up a storm and reading everyone’s reactions. His postulate is ‘we’re doomed, Trump is invulnerable, therefore ditch Biden, Kamala can run against Trump’.
Downthread a ways, there’s a different guy doing exactly the same thing, just as attentive to all responses, but HIS postulate is ‘Trump is a wounded bird, therefore any Dem can take him, therefore ditch Biden AND Kamala (insert troll talking points about Kamala), and it’s some younger Dem’s lucky day, they can run against Trump’.
I think we’re being polled. This is an attempt to sound out reactions against alternate narratives, and it wouldn’t be happening if wil’s narrative wasn’t failing, which it is.
Go check out ‘Never Trust A Centrist’. We’ve got a whole other guy down there with completely opposite takes. In some ways that one’s closer to reality, but still arguing for throwing away the plan (and, in that case, all the actual money raised, which is a… bold move)
Kim Walker
I feel like I would like to try pie, but can someone tell me the exact procedure? I know where the cupcake is, but what other clicks need to happen in what order? Many, many thanks in advance!
Layer8Problem
@Chris Johnson: JFC, polled, focus-grouped, I never even considered! Like there’s some marketdroid or Luntz out there with a clipboard and a pointed stick to provoke reactions.
Layer8Problem
@Kim Walker: At the top of the comments, between the Front-Pager’s story and the very first comment, there’s an image of a luscious tart with the word ‘Filter’. Click on that and you get a menu listing the commenters in that post. Click on any deserving commenter and the deed’s done.
Chris Johnson
@Layer8Problem: It’s important. Anybody doing high level political work, especially if they’re stuck trying to make Donald Fucking Trump win, has their work cut out for them.
You can’t just sit around thinking you have it made because you run the same old narrative. You HAVE to test and adapt on the fly, and even that might not be enough in a post-Dobbs, post-immunity world. Note also that these guys are opposite narratives but they’re not fighting.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You mean like Donald Trump?
Li-Li D
I just tried the pie filter for the first time. Clicked on a single name & almost 1/2 the thread disappeared.
Wow!
Ksmiami
@Aussie Sheila: I’ve been saying this for awhile. That Powell and the Fed initially led to Biden’s first bouts of unpopularity and their 3 percent inflation targets vs employment were too exacting for today’s world.
Glidwrith
BRRRAAAAAAPPP!!!!
God damn! I’m so full of pastry this morning!
Time to go feed the cats and play with my orchids.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chris Johnson: Do note that our REAL Democrat here entire narrative is one massive goal post shift. “I didn’t watch the debate, but the interview convinced Biden lacks force” after an interview that was done to prove Biden doesn’t have dementia.
hotshoe
@Shalimar: yep, all of them at LGM got my attention today and I did myself serious emotional harm by reading their stupid takes on getting rid of Biden — extra stupid as in get rid of him now! get him to resign now! not merely take his name off the ticket for November. It’s all underpants-gnomery from them. And the front-pagers, at least, should be better at political reality than that.
We won’t get to run the election twice to see which way works out better: once with an old Joe Biden running for Prez, once with an attacked-by-truly-vicious-misogenist/racists Kamala Harris running for Prez, and with the constant media message of “you can’t trust Dems because they couldn’t even figure out how to pick a candidate who could last through 2024”.
I cannot believe that some folks — supposedly intelligent and politically aware front pagers at LGM — are so incapable of predicting what the national response would be to Biden quitting.
I stupidly wasted half a day of my precious time on Earth reading those fargin’ assholes Campos and Lemieux. The disaster they are courting for clicks-and-likes might come to pass, who knows, but at least I don’t have to expose myself to any more of their depressing propaganda in the meantime.
oldgold
Biden was better in last night’s interview than in the debate debacle. But, not so much so as to fully staunch the bleeding.
At this point I remain an agnostic. The midweek “high” quality polls will probably tell the tale.
Wil, I welcome your comments. Remain civil and do not let the Hallelujah Choir dissuade you from expressing your opinion here.
Dark Patriot
@Li-Li D:
Great idea. It’ll be my first time as well
chemiclord
There was a time where I considered Snowden courageous for blowing the whistle on the U.S. Military. There’s a small part of me that still does.
That small part of me dies a little bit more every time Snowden opens his mouth.
Mike E
@Li-Li D: with great power comes great responsibility, choose wisely.
@Kim Walker: click the cherry pie icon slightly above comment #1 in the thread and have yourself a picnic!
Mike E
@chemiclord: Snowden blows something else these days.
Chris
Of all the things I’m proud of when it comes to my political judgment, I’ll never be prouder of the fact that I thought Snowden’s story smelled funny from the start.
Chris
@hotshoe:
The last time I’ve seen this many liberals completely lose their shit and turn into babbling GOP/New York Times talking point regurgitators was right after 9/11.
I was thirteen at the time, so I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Kinda wish that was still the case. It took me years and years to understand how completely the grown-ups had lost their fucking minds, and years more to understand just how hard and maybe impossible it was going to be to unfuck everything they’d done.
hotshoe
While hating on Campos and Lemieux in particular, to be fair I want to add that many (most?) of the commenters are funny/smart, and they don’t seem to appreciate being bullied into doomerism by their front pagers, either.
One of the commenter’s metaphor, I haven’t seen elsewhere: claiming that Biden resigning is the way to win, is just like Bush going into Iraq with the not-a-plan of “We’ll be greeted as liberators!”
It hasn’t coalesced into consensus of Ridin’ with Biden — not like here — but it’s a little bit hopeful.
hotshoe
@Chris: Funny, I hadn’t seen your comment when I mentioned Bush’s Iraq war. Coincidence?
Yes, that was definitely a bad turning point for the US.
One of its consequences that cannot be unfucked is the collective decision to become subservient to security-state apparatus. Which of course, is not used against the rich/powerful … but is now available to trap poor women who order the abortion pill by email.
And of course, Bush’s fake image as a successful wartime leader allowed him to get re-elected in 2004. Then beaten Democrats agreed to drop the filibuster for judicial nominees, and Bush saddled us with both Roberts and traitor Alito in the Supreme Court.
If it were possible to go back in the time machine …
chemiclord
@hotshoe: I think the general sentiment at the LGM community is “We don’t particularly care if it’s Biden or Harris or whoever. But Biden isn’t going anywhere, so stop complaining about it.”
(For what it’s worth, I suspect that’s the general sentiment among Democratic voters as a whole.)
And said front pagers are not taking that pushback well at all. Loomis, for example, posted about how they needed to bring the heat down in the comment section. Within an hour, he had melted down into the same contemptuous trolling he had become blog famous for.
Bettencourt
@Shalimar: Yeah, that’s really been getting me down this week.
Gvg
@Ten Bears: some of them are just nice people. That’s why they are democrats. That’s also why they aren’t rhino hide tough. They are empathetic. Sometimes overly thoughtful. Sigh, my parents, Biden’s age. The kind of people who always watch debates and have subscriptions to th NYTs. Raised me to be liberal and watched many decades of democratic loses from Nixon, Regan and Bush so they tend to be on defense anyway. And I was too confident Hillary would win against the clown with all those bankruptcies in his past.
Ruckus
@MattF:
Actually it’s not a bad thing.
The problem is real and it never gets better if it’s hidden under the rug. Humans can be good, they can be not so much and they can be RFK jr. The only way things can get better is if people know the pitfalls of life. RFK jr is a pitfall of life, it’s like trying to walk across the freeway, it is extremely likely to never work out well. Now that doesn’t mean he is trying to be who he is, but it does mean he is who he is. And not discussing it means that it is possible someone like him can get in some kind of position of power, and people that don’t even have their own interests in mind really, really should never have anyone else’s.
Gvg
@hotshoe: Bush 2 used daddy’s success in Iraq war 1 to get us into war 2 with no reason or plan. People believed he could do it. It was widely reported in the NYTs and elsewhere that he was ignoring people who told him it would cost a lot and not be easy or quick, and doing it on the cheap. This was before the invasion started. The lack of supporting evidence and lack of support for his chosen puppet were also reported but didn’t get picked up and repeated as much as the more pro war stories in the same papers.
i don’t think it would have been able to happen if his dad had not been a lot more competent before him.
I expected that war to go wrong. It didn’t. Good planning. Defined mission. Lots of Ally’s. A possible clear goal. Not allowing mission creep such as proceeding to conquer Iraq when it went so well. Just liberating Kuwait. Stopping a conquest for territory such as started WW’s. Like Trump doesn’t even understand why not. Such as Bush 2 or Cheney implied we were doing with Iraq in that the oil would pay for it….which it could only do if the oil was going to be ours to keep. Red flag.
I will add that Iraq was already not a successful war in 2004 though some still supported him for it. My right wing gun nut anti hippy Vietnam vet Uncle voted against him and for Kerry over Iraq. Also very anti Trump. Still mostly Republican though.
Bill Arnold
@wil:
I just listened to it ins entirety (a 1.0x speed) and you are full of shit.
Personally, I would have threatened GS with physical harm at the fifth time he asked the same fucking question. But I am not Joe Biden.
Do you believe that Donald J. Trump would ever correctly use “inflection point” without extensive coaching and some luck?
Ben Cisco
@Another Scott: I love my D9 sister!! Moving onward!
brantl
@Aussie Sheila: It isn’t about you being cunning enough, it’s about you being isolated enough.
brantl
@wil: Good look with that, he’s got the delegates locked up, or weren’t you aware of that, in your cave?
brantl
@wil: It is, when he’s running the government better than anybody in the last, say, 30 years, yeah.
brantl
@wil: How can we miss you when you won’t STFU?
brantl
That was LBJ, moron. Nothing says “fake Democrat” more than getting the quotes wrong.
brantl
@wil: So, piss your pants and go find a group of professional pants-pissers, you’ll fit right in.
Freemark
Never used the PF before. Damn did I get a lot of deserts by just blocking one Wil.I.Ain’t