Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

This blog will pay for itself.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

In my day, never was longer.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Please don’t feed the bears.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

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

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Monday Night Open Thread: Our Failed Flailing Major Media

Monday Night Open Thread: Our Failed Flailing Major Media

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The peasants subscribers refuse to eat our dogfood! How *dare* they resist our wise counsel!…

…. So far, the campaign polling has been the least exciting part of the story of the 2024 election. Tomorrow, it will have been a full month since the Biden–Trump debate—a month of the highest possible narrative drama, culminating in Biden’s unprecedented decision to drop out. But the polling was persistently less feverish than the news. While professional political observers were convinced within the first five minutes of the debate that Biden was ruined, the poll-answering public reacted more slowly. The campaign crisis manifested itself not as a sudden collapse but as a slow deflation of Biden’s standing from week to week. As panicked commenters and Democrats warned of a coming Trump landslide, what seemed to be developing instead was an ever greater number of ways that Trump might collect a modest victory…

But another set of polls was considerably more dynamic. While the candidates were slogging along, the Democratic message-crafting group Navigator Research was asking how people felt about Project 2025, the 922-page strategic guide for a new presidency assembled through the Heritage Foundation by Trump’s advisors and allies. In its June survey on the subject, Navigator reported that 71 percent of respondents said they didn’t have an opinion about Project 2025; its most recent survey found that the no-opinion share had fallen to 46 percent—and that nearly all the newly developed opinions about it were negative….

Here in 2024, in the maelstrom of personality politics, the public is attending to a whole big book of issues. Some of the forces driving that interest are non-wonky—Taraji P. Henson warned the audience about Project 2025 while hosting the BET Awards, making the subject take off on social media; Trump and his campaign clumsily tried to deny their involvement with it, giving the political press license to treat it as a scandal and a cover-up—but also it’s a big, long document full of alarming and demented ideas, ideal for people to dig into and find their own points to warn other people about. It is an unsoftened product of the deepest right-wing ghoulosphere. To pick a topic more or less at random, it goes on for six pages about the importance of stopping the Department of Agriculture from feeding too many people, including urging a new Trump administration to “reject efforts to create universal free school meals” and abolish summertime school-meal programs for kids who aren’t enrolled in summer school.

That people care about things like this is a genuine breakthrough. A longstanding problem for Democratic campaigns has been that voters don’t like to believe Republicans could possibly support the policies Republicans support. In 2012, when Mitt Romney was running against Barack Obama, the New York Times reported in a profile of the Democrat-promoting Priorities USA Action PAC that “when Priorities informed a focus group that Romney supported the [Paul] Ryan budget plan—and thus championed ‘ending Medicare as we know it’—while also advocating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing.” In 2020, Data for Progress found that 45 percent of likely voters, and 81 percent of Republican ones, believed Republicans wanted to protect health coverage for preexisting conditions, rather than removing it; only 32 percent of likely voters, and 11 percent of Republican ones, understood that the party was in favor of dumping mining waste into streams.

This numbness was reinforced by the political media, which has long treated as unprofessional reporting on bad policy proposals if one party or the other hasn’t already successfully turned them into lines of attack. Earlier this week, the Times’ star newsletter writer David Leonhardt told his readers that Harris needs to sell herself to the public as a moderate (meaning, for Leonhardt, selling out trans rights), because “moderation works.” …

Nowhere in this account did Leonhardt raise the possibility that a person writing for a newsletter sent out to millions of people each day might have some responsibility to educate the public about where the parties actually stood on the issues, so that its members could hold better-informed opinions. In a similarly hapless vein, the Times’ chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, wrote that Harris may have trouble trying “to advance a clear agenda for the future”: “The party has held power for almost 12 of the last 16 years, and it has exhausted much of its agenda; there aren’t many popular, liberal policies left in the cupboard.”

Cohn is an electoral polls expert, so apparently his model of political power and agenda-setting didn’t include the Republican-dominated Supreme Court, which has put any number of popular policies back in play: the right to abortion, for instance, or keeping rapid-fire guns off the market, or the entire ability of the federal government to write and enforce regulations. But the public, especially on abortion, has caught on to the fact that these things are very much up for grabs. And now there’s a lengthy guide to exactly what Republicans want to do if they grab them.

That people are paying attention to this may be Donald Trump’s great contribution to national politics. Despite his total lack of interest in policy details, Trump successfully convinced the public that he’s capable of doing anything. Once you’ve seen a mob smashing its way into the Capitol on Trump’s behalf, it’s easier to believe he would privatize the National Weather Service. Once you’ve heard Trump claiming that the mob was not his fault and no big deal, it’s easier to ignore his disavowals of Project 2025, too. Trump has made America believe that old rules don’t apply. That includes the rule that no major political party could have an agenda as unappealing as the one his party is working toward.

Reader Interactions

283Comments

  1. 1.

    Tony Jay

     They all say I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him. No, I haven’t changed. Maybe I’ve gotten worse.

    I wonder which commentator he is.

  3. 3.

    Chet Murthy

    I tried to watch some of the dudes4harris zoom  call today.  I’m already convinced of the massive danger, and already know where I’m donating $$, so it was just to see what it looked like.  And …. gotta say, other human beings are always a puzzlement.  I couldn’t sit thru even one speaker (Walz).  Too …. boring, formulaic, ‘yeah, yeah, get on with it”.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m already scared shitless.

  4. 4.

    Martin

    Democrats have a big opportunity to shore up support with non-engaged male voters by making the Project 2025 and JD Vance supported policy of completely banning pornography a bigger campaign issue.

    I think getting voters to believe that Republicans support what they actually support got a big boost after Dobbs. Roe was one of the issues that almost everyone was convinced would never actually change – in part because the electoral consequences for the GOP were terrible. It was effective as a wedge issue, but as a successful policy it was kind of suicidal. And I think that’s an easy thing for Democrats to point to and say ‘look, when they say they want to ban something – they’re fucking serious about it. You should take it seriously too’.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    The MSM is mad that they were denied their weeks of Democrats in disarray, followed by a shytshow convention. They were salivating at the thought.

     

    But, JoeyB pulled the Uno Reverse on their azzes, and they are still stunned how we got in formation for the Vice President.

  7. 7.

    Ishiyama

    “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Attributed to Lincoln as his comment on Douglas promising one thing on the expansion of slavery to Northern audiences, and an entirely different thing to Southern audiences.

  11. 11.

    Chet Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: People say he looks so much older than Harris.  I don’t see the big gap: he’s lost a a bunch of hair, and it’s all white, but his face?  It’s pretty youthful.  No lines, no bags.  Pretty young-looking face.

  13. 13.

    [email protected]

    You know, I probably shouldn’t do this because I’m starting to worry my paranoia is becoming clinical, but am I the only one who finds it alarming Donna Brazile went to work for Fox Fucking News and is is still considered a some kind of fucking democratic insider?

    I think she tanked Al Gore’s campaign on purpose and the Fox job was payback.

    There.  I said it. Call the men with butterfly nets if you must.

  17. 17.

    piratedan

    @rikyrah: something else that is “weird” is the absolute refusal of the press to cover Project 2025.  It’s being driven mostly by peeps on the fringe, bleeding in from Black celebrities, Bluesky comments and getting passed around on Facebook person by person.  The NYT is pretty much concerned about the emotional trauma concerned by labeling the GOP as “weird” and accepting “pedophile killers of babies” as common political rhetoric.

  19. 19.

    Frankensteinbeck

    While professional political observers were convinced within the first five minutes of the debate that Biden was ruined, the poll-answering public reacted more slowly.

    So what you’re saying is, Biden didn’t lose the debate.  He got shafted by the nonstop press assault abetted by white liberals panicking.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The Heritage Foundation and ALEC both need the Ellen Ripley treatment.

    Only way to be sure.

  21. 21.

    BR

    I hope Marc Elias has a plan for the GOPers who will refuse to certify the vote in various swing states. Sounds like that plan is afoot.

  22. 22.

    hueyplong

    @Frankensteinbeck: One way to read that is to say voters were sorting out a pair of negative responses– to Biden’s optics and to Trump’s substance.

    If we’re lucky that’s what was happening.

  23. 23.

    Rusty

    What is it with the NYT and their obsession with trans rights?  The number of articles they generate and their placement on the front page is just weird given the tiny size of the trans community.   All I can guess is it is the one place you can be anti- LGBTQ+ and not be called an outright bigot in current culture.  One of the motivators to cancel my crossword subscription to the NYT was that I would get occasional emails trying to get me to take on a regular subscription.   The last one was links to a collection of articles about the trans community, the main one an anti-trans op-ed piece.  Of all the things in the world you think matter in the middle of this election, that is what you send me?  I took the time to answer their survey why I was canceling my subscription.   I was not kind.

  25. 25.

    Chet Murthy

    @Rusty: The Reichwing has tested out a bunch of “enemy within” candidates in the last few years:

    gay people
    uppity women
    immigrants
    trans folks
    probably others I’ve forgotten

    And the two that have -stuck- are trans folks and immigrants, though for different reasons.  I think they’ve stuck to attacking trans folks, b/c they’re so few in number, and they figure they can excite the disgust reaction in Americans who don’t personally know trans folks.  [Immigrants, I fear there they’ve been able to count on some pre-existing hatreds in the American populace: it is what it is]  I liken it to the way that the Nazis used Jewish people in Germany: a vanishing part of the population, and that was actually important b/c if Jewish people had been more numerous, they’d have had greater ties to more “Aryan” Germans.  For the enemy within, you gotta choose a small, defenseless minority, right?

    I think the FTFNYT (and the Guardian in the UK, and probably other media in the US) are running with it, b/c it’s part of the project of supporting the Fascists.  Plain and simple.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @BR: I’m sure he does, from watching a few YouTube videos.  He’s got a broad understanding of all this crap, and he knows of the despicable conspiracy to upend the election by officials refusing to certify results they don’t like.

  27. 27.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chet Murthy:

    I think they’ve stuck to attacking trans folks, b/c they’re so few in number

    If you are deeply invested in the idea that men and women are inherently different, trans people are an attack on your worldview.  If you are homophobic in a literal “I can’t let anyone find out I had a gay fantasy once in college” sense, trans women are terrifying.  If you’re an asshole who likes punching down, getting publicly shamed for mocking ‘men in dresses’ is an infuriating loss of a privilege you enjoyed.  For conservatives, trans women* are an obvious target of rage.

    To everyone else trans people are just people and this obsession with what is or may ever have been in someone’s pants is creepy as Hell.

    *Conservatives have trouble grasping that trans men exist.

  28. 28.

    Chet Murthy

    @Frankensteinbeck: Everything you write is true, and it’s what I mean by “excite the disgust reaction in Americans who don’t personally know trans folks”  I still believe that another reason they’ve stuck on attacking trans folks, is that they’re so few in number.

  29. 29.

    Msb

    “Like he’s p*****g in the mouths” of journalists. Of course he is. As Josh Marshall was maybe the first to point out, every interaction with Trump is a dominance game. Everyone has to not only bow down, but keep doing it, going lower every time. That’s why he hates Nancy Smash so much – she pushed back every time he tried it on her.

  30. 30.

    opiejeanne

    https://www.kten.com/news/politics/a-half-million-records-and-one-app-the-group-behind-a-massive-effort-to-clean/article_4a1e2b5f-7b09-5f27-8cf2-e1fef4bdc045.html

    “Police officers in Texas, senior citizens at a nursing home in Pennsylvania and people who had registered to vote at a Marine base in California.

    They are among the thousands of voters whose right to cast a ballot has been needlessly challenged ahead of this November’s election by activists — many of whom have been inspired by conspiracy theories — seeking to prevent voter fraud….”

  31. 31.

    sab

    My husband loves Joe Biden. When Biden bowed out my husband went on a news blackout, Therefore, he completely missed any talk of project 2025.  I.e. when I mentionned it he had never even heard of it. Thought I was nuts.

    This week when he went to his coffee klatch project 2025  was all they were talking about. We are doing some things right on the info awareness front

    ETA His coffee klatch is ’69 grads from an inner city Catholic high school. (LeBron James’ alma mater.)

  34. 34.

    Chet Murthy

    @sab: haha, for sure, I meant Walz, not TCFG.  TCFG looks like every other repulsive old man I’ve ever seen.  He reminds me of my male progenitor.  ’nuff said.

  36. 36.

    TS

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    So what you’re saying is, Biden didn’t lose the debate.  He got shafted by the nonstop press assault abetted by white liberals panicking.

    100% correct

  37. 37.

    sab

    @Rusty: They put a lesbian activist in charge of that beat. Lesbian activists think trans activists are recruiting potential lesbians to be trans men.

    Sounds nuts but I kid you not they are serious in their nutery.

    ETA These lesbian activists are pals of JK Rowling. She really should be more careful about her fellow travellers.

  38. 38.

    Shalimar

    @TS: Both of those things can be true.  Yes, the relentless whining that Biden’s mental decline has been hidden from us was overwhelming and eventually forced him out even though there has been no evidence it’s true.  No, his debate performance was not as bad as Trump’s, especially if you read the transcript rather than watch body language.

    But he did lose the debate, because his team promised us going in that he would wipe the floor with Trump and he did not even remotely achieve that.  It was a huge shock that he was so much worse than we expected.  Even for those of us who stuck by him.

  40. 40.

    Shalimar

    @Frankensteinbeck: They also all seem to have the “I’m a stud who is going to get this hot woman into bed and she will have a dick” nightmare, despite there being almost no chance of it actually happening to them or anyone they know.

    Rightwing men are not big on understanding consent, so it never even occurs to them that on the tiny chance they did start dating a trans woman she would inform them about the dick way before they got to the heavy petting stage.

  41. 41.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Shalimar:

    But he did lose the debate, because his team promised us going in that he would wipe the floor with Trump and he did not even remotely achieve that. It was a huge shock that he was so much worse than we expected. Even for those of us who stuck by him.

    Kamala Harris says hi.

  42. 42.

    Jay

    @Shalimar:

    But that being said, the effect was very small, and may have been amplified by a perception of Biden as unusually old and/or a potential one-term president meant to take down then-President Trump.

    #1. It wasn’t a debate, it wasn’t moderated, it wasn’t fact checked, there was no point, counterpoint. It was one man trying to answer the “moderator’s questions’, and another man ignoring the questions and spewing out a gish gallop of lies and nonsense.*

    *CNN later admitted that it was set up that way to trap Biden, boost ratings and generate clickbait.

    #2. There is no means in the universe to “debate” someone ignoring the questions and spewing out a gish gallop of lies and nonsense. The Biden Team prepared Biden for a debate, they did not prepare Biden for what was in effect, a Dolt 45 Cult Rally speech.

    #3. We were all expecting a “debate”, and we should have known better.

  43. 43.

    Jay

    @Shalimar:

    They also all seem to have the “I’m a stud who is going to get this hot woman into bed and she will have a dick” nightmare, despite there being almost no chance of it actually happening to them or anyone they know.

    You don’t know their lives, you don’t know what kinda bars they hang out in, you don’t know what kind of sex workers they are attracted to,……….

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @Steve in the ATL:

    They would have to be creative to do that. Spoiler alert, they arn’t creative.

    There are some sad stats about men and the claimed “trans surprise” involving rape and then violent beatings or murder.

  48. 48.

    Baud

    it’s still wild to see Donna Brazile boast on the record that party leaders like her were never going to let average voters decide who took over for Biden.

    This is just weird. There’s no scenario after the primaries in which average voters could decide who replaced Biden, except for adhering to the decision they made in 2020 when they elected Kamala as the backup quarterback.

  52. 52.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Chet Murthy:

    I still believe that another reason they’ve stuck on attacking trans folks, is that they’re so few in number.

    Absolutely.

    Also, after the SCOTUS ruled in a favor of marriage equality, the reactionaries realized that attacking gay people was a losing battle. So they very consciously switched their focus to trans people because we’re an even smaller minority group and fewer people actually know a trans person.

    In part this was a tactical retreat, and in internal documents (that we’ve gotten our hands on), the haters explicitly talked about using trans people as a stepping stone to moving back into broader attacks on LGB people, as they did with the “groomer” hysteria in recent years.

  53. 53.

    Chet Murthy

    @Baud: This fellow Paul McLeod is a Washington [sorry, not WaPo] reporter.  I’d say he’s just trying to do his part to push the “the only legitimate way forward is to have a mini-primary” line.  Whether because that would damage the Dems, or b/c it’d be great for the news business, I don’t really know or care.  His misrepresentation of Brazile’s point that there’s no way VP Harris was going to get “taken out” is part and parcel of that gaslighting.

    ETA: BTW, his beat is antitrust.  He’s as qualified as any of us to judge what is democratically legitimate and what isn’t.

  55. 55.

    TBone

    @Jay: I used to really like her, she was the picture of stately reserve to my eye. How times have changed, or I was just dumb and naive.

  56. 56.

    Chet Murthy

    @TBone: ehhhh …. I also was disappointed when Brazile took that job on Fox News.  But here she’s not wrong, and McLeod is dirtying her up, trying to say that she’s wrong.

  57. 57.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @sab:

    They put a lesbian activist in charge of that beat. Lesbian activists think trans activists are recruiting potential lesbians to be trans men.

    FWIW, the vast majority of lesbians are supportive of trans women, but yes there’s a small minority of lesbians who were/are anti-trans. Some due to misogny against trans women—the whole “trans women are aping femininity” argument.

    But lesbians were freaked out by the “butch flight” over the past decades when a percentage of people who had identified as butch lesbians (because it seems the best-if-not-quite-right option available) ended up realizing they were trans men. Which left a smaller dating pool for lesbians who were into butches.

    And then there’s a number of anti-trans lesbians who seem to be fighting their own internal gender issues. Much like a number of anti-gay straight folks do.

    It’s late, so I’m vastly oversimplifying a lot of history and nuances, but that’s the gist of it.

  58. 58.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Some people react less than stellar when life and the world changes.

    I don’t see her words as wrong, events bore her out, but she phrased them badly with some ego involved, and it appears to be an “ambush” question, because she no longer holds any office or power in the Democratic Party and hasn’t since 2017.

    It is a much different world now.

  59. 59.

    TBone

    @Jay: it is indeed a brand new world in a lot of ways, and older than dirt in the way bits and pieces appear to repeat, mimic, and/or echo the past…

  60. 60.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Shalimar:

    They also all seem to have the “I’m a stud who is going to get this hot woman into bed and she will have a dick” nightmare, despite there being almost no chance of it actually happening to them or anyone they know.

    Just a reminder that the “trans panic” defense is still legal to use in murder cases in most states.

    Also too, porn involving trans women is one of the largest sub-genres, so lots of men are into it, in particular anti-trans men, and the vast majority of the time, cis men want to be the receptive partner (at least during part of an intimate encounter). The “nightmare” is often more that they’re worried peers will find out that they enjoy sex with trans women.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @Chet Murthy:

    BTW, his beat is antitrust.  He’s as qualified as any of us to judge what is democratically legitimate and what isn’t.

     

    I guess it’s all hands on deck for the Village.

    Thanks.

  63. 63.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Jeffg166:

    Trans women make them crazy. Why would anyone give up male privilege?

    That’s a huge reason why anti-trans men (and women) hate us. It’s incredibly threatening to them.

    FWIW, that’s also a reason that trans men are generally seen as less threaten, i.e. it’s “natural” to want to become part of the patriarchy and no longer be a second-class citizen.

  64. 64.

    Betty Cracker

    Friedman of The Times is warning Dems not to lean into the “weird” slam against the undeniably weird Trump and Vance. You see, it validates the claim that Dems are sneering elitists who mock “the working class.” Instead, Friedman recommends yapping about “the dignity of work.”

    I hope President Harris becomes the first Democratic leader for decades who pays Friedman no mind.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    BTW, I would have answers the question, with:

    “Over $200million dollars, mostly in small donations and over 150,000 new volunteers for the Campaign, in just over a week,

    I would say that the Democratic Party base has voted with their dollars and their feet.”

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The “weird” thing will work or it won’t. But what in the current situation in the US would lead Friedman to think “dignity of work” would be a winning message?  Is he stuck on the “no one wants to work anymore” canard?

  67. 67.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    Sorry*, that was not clear to me. Sometime you are a little cryptic.

    *When Canada takes over the world, you will all be sorry.

  68. 68.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    That’s what a Taxi driver told him was important to voters,

    After his $87 dollar airport restaurant tab.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    I hit the mother lode yesterday! The lady that sells honey on a mountain road was not in business at her location, much to my disappointment.  So along our merry way to the lake we went, and then we saw a sign pointing up another little, winding road.  Miracle of miracles, the honey lady has partnered with a dairy farm lady.  In the middle of nowhere, there’s a little table covered by a big, black umbrella.  On the table are many jars – honey, jams, preserves, and pickles of every kind, as well as honey comb and fresh picked vegetables.  Under the table is a cooler full of fresh brown eggs, fresh hand-churned butter, and four different flavors of yogurt.  If you want the homemade ice cream, you have to knock on the farmhouse door further up the lane.  I came home loaded up and will make some honey butter today after a fresh eggs breakfast. I have more than several jars of preserves and jams (strawberry, peach, and apple butter) and pickled veggies for overwintering…

    Life unplugged as I watched the antics of a flock of Northern rough winged swallows skim the lake and cavort in the air from my water level vantage point kicked back on a lime green personal flotation device 😁 (a $3 single size blowup raft from Wally World).

    🎶

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U2xFLLG2jqk

    Recharged and battle ready today!

  75. 75.

    TBone

    @Jay: I’d put him on the crew of a honey dipper (that’s code for a truck that empties residential septic systems.  You can smell ’em coming down the road).

  77. 77.

    TBone

    New York Times Pitchbot
    @DougJBalloon
    ¡1h
    Opinion | Democrats shouldn’t call Trump and Vance “weird”. Instead, they should tell Trump and Vance to Suck. On. This.

    by Thomas Friedman

  78. 78.

    Betty Cracker

    @TBone: Perfect! Doug found his metier and is devastatingly effective in his mockery. It was a privilege to watch him hone those skills here in years past.

    @Baud: That canard doesn’t seem to be operational here. From the horse’s mouth:

    It is now a truism that if Democrats have any hope of carrying key swing states and overcoming Trump’s advantages in the Electoral College, they have to break through to white, working-class, non-college-educated men and women, who, if they have one thing in common, feel denigrated and humiliated by Democratic, liberal, college-educated elites. They hate the people who hate Trump more than they care about any Trump policies. Therefore, the dumbest message Democrats could seize on right now is to further humiliate them as “weird.”

    It seems Friedman is advocating unilateral disarmament because any attack on weirdos Trump and Vance is automatically an attack on their supporters. Somehow the “dignity of work*” twaddle will break thru with people whom Friedman identifies as spite voters.

    *IIRC, the phase originated with MLK. It’s a frequent theme from Sherrod Brown, a genuinely successful Democratic populist. That said, IMO, that context eludes most listeners, and it rings false from the lips of pampered, rent-seeking pols like Marco Rubio. I suspect most Dems couldn’t pull it off either, at least not using that phrase.

    “You deserve your fair share of the profits, but elitist weirdos like failed developer/serial trade contractor stiffer Donald Trump and failed Silicon Valley vulture capitalist JD Vance are protecting their billionaire donors” is better, IMO.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jay: Musk is openly promoting anti-Dem deep fakes and hampering left-leaning fundraising efforts. But MSM orgs will continue using a platform owned by a fascist oligarch and overrun by crypto-grifters and Nazi fuck-squibs because “engagement.”

  81. 81.

    TBone

    @Betty Cracker: mockery is a super power and your abilities in that dept. are also devastating! 👑 I have regaled you with peals of laughter on many occasions.

  82. 82.

    TBone

    @K-Mo: my Phrase of the Day

    😆

    “intentional forward fumble”

    Applicable to many, but especially fElon Skum.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    if they have one thing in common, feel denigrated and humiliated by Democratic, liberal, college-educated elites

     

    I’m no expert, but I don’t see how people how feel this way are gettable. It’s like saying I would vote Republican despite my feelings about them if they promised me tax cuts.

    Of course, he might be right. Any strategy or message could fail to resonate. But we still have to pick one and try to make it work.

  84. 84.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Where we used to live, the septic guy we used got paid pretty well, and people were happy to see him.

    The sign infront of his office offerered:

    “Septic pumping,

    Swimming pool filling,

    Don’t worry, different trucks.”

    Because a bunch of places had no water, or the water was 4,000 feet down, a lot of our neighbors had in ground cisterns that he would fill with potable water from the City.

    We paid $8k to have a well drilled where the diviner said there was water. There was water, and they pushed the well to 300feet, but it was all volcanic clay, so not possible.

    We had two “tanks” in the lower meadow, ( shallow troughs to collect snowmelt and runoff for cattle, we had no cows, other than volunteers from the neighbors). One was clear, one was not.

    Brought in a guy with the biggest excavator I could find, had him dig the clear tank down to bedrock and out about 30 feet. When he hit bedrock, he also hit a spring, (that was what was slowly filling the tank). Had the water tested, (high calcium, potable) Hauled in 25′ of manhole casings the bottom two  with cast holes, wrapped them in geotextile cloth and had him position them in a stack in what was now a pond.

    Got him to dig a 2′ wide 8′ deep trench to the top of the hill, a 10′ deep, 10′ wide, 20′ long hole, then another trench down to the house. He almost lost control of the excavator and almost hit the house.

    Then he was done, $800.

    I dumped 5 tons of pea gravel into the bottom of the pond, covered that with geotextile cloth to keep the silt from clogging the pea gravel, then filled it in to the casings with my skid steer after fishing a 1″ poly water line and the float wiring to the casings. Ran it up the hill to a 3800 gallon cistern, plumbed it in. Covered it all with R12 foamboard and buried it, Cistern too, with access and a vent. Ran 6″ ABS down to the house, (stack effect, better water pressure), then a 1″ SuperPex line into the house. Buried it the same way.

    Put an 8″ layer of pea gravel into what was now a spring fed shallow well, topped it with 6″ of sand to act as a Scheutler Filter, (biofilter). Wired up two solar panels to a Grunfoss Deep Well Pump* (low volume, high lift, designed for drilled wells, not shallow wells) and controller, rigged up some 316SS sailing rigging to suspend it in place, lowered it into the well, capped the well with a access hatch. Shocked the well with a couple gallons of bleach, turned the pump on.

    So the pump, pumps water up the hill to the cistern, the cistern volume, gravity and the large volume pipe creates pressure.

    Never ran out of water, even when wells were drying up all around us, and the water was sweet water, it had that slight taste and no chlorine. Just had that limescale issue, no big deal. That’s what vinegar is for.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The tweet under the linked tweet said the account was reinstated, but yeah, Musk will do what he can to elect Trump.

    I had actually been toying with getting a twitter account just because so many good people are still in there and I wanted to keep abreast of what they were saying. But Musk is making it hard to pull the trigger.

  87. 87.

    Eolirin

    @BR: Only GA, NC, and maybe FL, assuming we can flip it, are in a position to do that.

    And we don’t need any of them to win. Our electoral wins in 2022 have made the election mostly unstealable by the states.

    The Supreme Court on the other hand… And it’d suck if we get cheated out of a senate seat by FL overturning election results, but I think winning in the first place is a longshot.

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    I think Harris was always going to be the nominee but it’s still wild to see Donna Brazile boast on the record that party leaders like her were never going to let average voters decide who took over for Biden.

    I mean, we did decide: she was literally the other person on the ticket. Like, we voted for her.

    Oh why the fuck do we bother with common sense.

  89. 89.

    TBone

    @Jay: you, sir, are a frickin’ genius and I wish I’d known you when we were waiting for Godot our well driller who sat and watched us suffer hauling water for six months so he could drive up his price.  Since we were located directly on Penns Creek in a valley, he didn’t have far to drill.  That expense was the easy part – finding someone to do indoor plumbing when we finally got a well was even more painful!

    You know how to get true value.  Water is life!

  90. 90.

    TBone

    @TBone: PS some of the thousands charged by our well driller were used to throw a large hillbilly bash with the well driller’s bluegrass band starring at the local Sportsmens club and many kegs of beer and lots of food and a good time were had by all.  But we didn’t get credit as sponsors 😆 I met a really cool guitarist that night, wish I could share the video – the well drilling was only his side gig!

  91. 91.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    https://nitter.poast.org/NYM

    Nitter search works well, by post or user.

    You can see and read everything on the Dead Bird site, don’t give the dead bird site clicks or metrics,

    You can’t talk or comment through Nitter, which IMHO is a good thing, many of the worthy people have other social media you can contact them on, and unless you click on a Nitter post, you get to skip comments because 90% of the Dead Bird site comments are either vile, AI bots, Nudes in Bio, Nazi’s or Scammers and they flood the zone. If you click on a Nitter post, you can see comments, but I don’t recommend it. If a commenter makes a good, valid, on subject comment to a post, the poster will usually repost it.

  92. 92.

    matt

    @Rusty: In the UK, there’s been a successful panic over trans rights leading to right wing electoral success for a decade or so.

  95. 95.

    WereBear

    A longstanding problem for Democratic campaigns has been that voters don’t like to believe Republicans could possibly support the policies Republicans support.

    I have noticed this, to my despair. “Just saying that to get elected” is itself a form of brain worm.

    Which is why things just had to get this weird with all these stunted minds finding something in MAGA.

    Something awful, as it turns out.

  96. 96.

    WereBear

    And here is my answer:

     

    the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing

    These are people who make their own reality, in their heads, and never look at it again.

    Fear of change? Not going far enough. Incapable of change? Maybe.

    But, reality can be rude and sudden when you’ve spent your life pretending.

  97. 97.

    matt

    @Betty Cracker: The ‘Creeps’ ad does kind of break down the wall of it being officially impolite to ever make fun of a weird Christian for their weird views.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @WereBear:

    “Just saying that to get elected” is itself a form of brain worm.

     
    Agreed. Of course, even if this excuse were true, as a liberal, my goal is to prevent the voters who the Republican message appeals to from obtaining political power over others. I’m less concerned with what’s in a particular politician’s heart.

  100. 100.

    TBone

    @TBone: urban dictionary:

    An unattractive person whose defining characteristic of their personality is their egotism. Most often used to describe typically one-dimensional preps, chauches, or the like. A particularly mean insult; it should not be taken nor thrown around lightly.

    “Those chuds drinking on the patio of O’Reilly’s are going to get egg-salad-sandwich bombed back to the caves they crawled out of!!!”

  101. 101.

    matt

    @Suzanne: The embedded hardcore GOP in the press were always, always going to try to find a way to offend Democratic voters that Biden stepped down and someone else gets to head the ticket without another election. This is the most obvious attack line, and Republicans in press are given the agency to make those attacks on their own.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    Regarding Friedman, the other thing to remember is that opinion laundering is a thing. Even the liberal Friedman writes an article about Dems risking being seen as elitist, and Republicans and their media allies build upon that to declare Kamala as an elitist whenever she attacks Trump.

  104. 104.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Where we were, drilling rigs were rigs. 80′ fixed frame semi’s, 60 foot masts, out riggers, drill sections were 40′ long, 8″ or 6″ diameter, hydraulic rams to drive in the well casing, onboard welders to connect the well casing, crew of 8, all designed to go down if needed to 4,000′ through granite.

    And man, they knew their stuff, not just the drilling, but the geology.

    The supervisor pointed out the geology of our little valley.

    Based on the clay and fine volcanic rock and the colour coming up, he believed that our little valley was flooded by a pyrocastic flow of volcanic clay and fine rock, about 36,000 years ago when Mount Magma in Oregon blew.* He guessed that maybe 1000′ down was maybe bedrock, but there was probably no water in it because of the overburden forming a clay seal.

    That was at 200′. I had him drill another 100′, nothing but clay and fine volcanic rock. So, we stopped the drilling. He then pointed out that if he pulled up the casings, and cut the welds, that would save me about $2k, so I said pull the casings.

    I had no issue with the work they did or the cost, other than it was $8k into a hole in the ground.

    When they were gone, I sunk 6″ ABS drain pipe some perforated, the bottom ones, wrapped in geo textile, some just solid, into the hole, (there was water down there and not that far, it just wasn’t potable), partially filled it with pea gravel and capped it. Eventually, I built a mount, got a cast iron hand pump from Lee Valley, put a handle on it, after all, it was in the middle of what would be our garden area.

    *scattered about, all the way from the border, up as far as Quesnel, are large volcanic boulders in the meadows and forests, irregularly scattered, that were once part of Mount Magma’s cone. The are called sentinels. Must have been a hell of a blast.

    Now, of course, shallow wells can be drilled with an inexpensive rig that fits in the back of a pick up in some places.

  105. 105.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    People or comment text you can search for.

    Here, give this a try and explore,

    https://nitter.poast.org/GlasnostGone

    You can’t “follow”, but everything they have posted, is there, and reloading the Nitter instance does a refresh.

    I let Goggle Search keep a list of the people who I “read” everyday.

  106. 106.

    Ivan X

    @Frankensteinbeck: I can only speak from anecdata, but literally everyone I know, to a person, described the debate as a tragedy, frightening, and something that couldn’t be unseen. Maybe he was shafted, maybe he could have held on, no doubt the media had their hand on the scale, and sure, maybe the polls wouldn’t have moved, but even if they didn’t, the President needed to gain some votes, and I don’t think that was ever gonna happen after that night. I could only see a million attack ads just consisting of clips from that debate. So yes, this white liberal panicked. I say this with sadness, not righteousness or glee.

  110. 110.

    Jay

    @matt:

    In New Brunswick, a hysterical campaign by 35 of 850,000 residents got the Premier to strip Trans protections from schools.

    Trans is sadly the new Satanic Panic.

  113. 113.

    Gvg

    @WereBear: how can they not believe republicans want to end social security and Medicare? They have made it policy for decades and most people say “it won’t be here when I retire anyway”.
    They were saying it before I was old enough to start working, and I am almost at retirement.

    I knew they meant it about Roe all my life. I didn’t think they would try for counterception….now they say so openly, and I know.

  114. 114.

    TBone

    @TBone: my well guy had the large rig truck, and the entire crew was half drunk at 7am (they brought their ice cold breakfast to work), working on the Full Monty by noon!

    As we say here in Union County,

    There’s a pork chop in every can!

  116. 116.

    Jay

    @Ivan X:

    I watched it, it wasn’t that bad for President Joe Biden, but then I have watched his other speeches and interviews.

    Yes it was no SOTU, but he was handed a flaming paper bag of poop for a venue, format, and a gibbering racist monkey for a “debate” partner,

    on top of 3 1/2 years of FTLMSM hyping Biden is too old, dementia, Parkinsons, foot cancer, altzhimers, gossip and selectively edited clips, quotes and photos.

    Media will be the death of us.

  117. 117.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    My guys were clean and sober, until quitting time. Then a couple of beer. You don’t want to drive our Forest Service Road even mildly buzzed. They even policed the site. Yeah, they did strip off their shirts, but it was 40C, 104F in full sun. It didn’t get hot until a few weeks later.

  118. 118.

    matt

    @Baud: If you step back and look at words and meanings and reality, the notion that it’s ‘elitist’ to criticize imperial Christians who want to impose their view on everyone else and stomp on their faces forever is preposterous. the insane Christians are trying to install themselves as the permanent ruling elite.

  119. 119.

    WereBear

    @Baud: Some of them have been trained from birth that it really is their lyin’ eyes.

    Their experience goes no further than fifty miles from home. Even with the Internet, their church keeps them on Fox News and there’s software to police their use. Rural roads mean a lot of driving, with Rush Limbaugh on the AM radio, from the time they were children.

    They remind me of the East Germans who had to re-integrate into the other Germany.

  121. 121.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Martin: Apparently you don’t pay attention to the stuff being said on our side in some quarters, there is a huge own goal danger doing that.

  122. 122.

    TBone

    Holy shit.  Lambert Strether 🙄 wrote a long diatribe on the subject of…snark!

    😆 It’s really getting to all of the nut jobs!

    Not linking.  To know that he is flouncing around and clutching his pearls is enough.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    @matt:

    It’s elitist for us to believe we get to govern them if we have a majority, in their world view.

    There are elitists in our side, but I don’t believe there are a disproportionate number of elitists in our side. We just get tagged with the label because it serves an agenda.

  128. 128.

    TBone

    @Baud:  in the best possible way!

    Lambert:

    😆

    If this is the reaction of a level-headed energy geek like Roberts, Lord only knows how more volatile liberal Democrats are reacting.

  129. 129.

    BretH

    @Jay: I put the blame squarely on them, and whoever didn’t tell him that whenever he felt his mouth start to droop that he should force an incredulous smile. And on the make up people who thought pallid gray was a good look.

    The Biden Team prepared Biden for a debate, they did not prepare Biden for what was in effect, a Dolt 45 Cult Rally speech.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    My thing is media can’t do this now. Media never, ever cared about policy. They never insisted Republicans run on policy. Now that Democrats are having some fun they want to come in and scold us about saying Republicans are weird? Where have they been for the last decade?

    Republicans opened the door to this behavior. My God, they have a dedicated “Libs of Tic Tok” grifter who does nothing but jeer at ordinary people and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars at it.

    There has to be reciprocity. Media’s chance to act as hectoring scolds policing campaigns has come and gone. They have no credibility on the civility issue. None. They went along with it from the Right so now they can’t raise it to the Left.

  132. 132.

    WereBear

    @Baud: Corporate press use the language of their masters.

    And share their (highly Freudian!) coping mechanisms.

    Calling Democrats “elitist”? It’s because we use science.

    We think we’re so smart or something. When the difference is, we use that power for good. At least, much more than they do.

  133. 133.

    MomSense

    @Jay:

    You do know that the Biden campaign negotiated for that format, right?  They knew going in the moderators wouldn’t be fact checking.  The Biden campaign called for the debate. They needed it because they were behind going in.

  135. 135.

    TBone

    @Baud: to start at the beginning:

    https://x.com/drvolts/status/1817269380147040620

    He has several followup xits highlighted in Lambert’s plea for civility 🤣

    It is so, so, SO telling that even in this moment, you have a chorus of folks — fresh from gazing at themselves in the mirror & complimenting themselves for how reasonable they are — scolding lefties for showing a little muscle.

    I know lots of people wish that politics were a matter of evidence & reasoned argument & coming together despite our differences. And maybe someday we can get some of that back. But right now, it’s a knife fight, and being ostentatiously high-minded…

  138. 138.

    Kay

    I know media and Republicans will be back to fear mongering on immigration and lying about the economy in a matter of weeks. Right now people on our side who have been thru a lot are having some fun with it. Media should just allow it. I promise we’ll go back to being afraid and holding on with white knuckles and thinking eveything sucks soon. They’ll fucking drag us down whether we want to go or not, because they’re rigidly conventional bores. Give us 2 weeks to enjoy something.

  139. 139.

    Jay

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Yeah. Back in the day, talking election with a bunch of “normie” coworkers, I pointed out that if the Cons got in, they would be screwed.

    The Con’s got in, one of the first things they did was change the UI system, (you paid in, if you weren’t working for any reason, quit, fired, laid off medical, you got paid out what you had paid in, less a “handling fee”, 75% of what you were making.

    UI had a massive surplus banked, so the Con’s stripped that out and moved it to general revinue and gave themselves a raise.

    Brought in the EI system, no EI if you quit, no EI if you are dismissed for “cause”, and “cause” can be anything, (take that up with the WBC in your Province, hire a lawyer and try to fight a wrongful dismissal suit, too sick to work, sucks to be you, that’s what disability through the Welfare system is for).

    Of course, the EI system then generated generous surplus’s every year, which were siphoned off, so it basically became a tax for working.

    When the reality hit, the normies said “how did you know they were going to do that?”

    I said, “because that what they said was what they were going to do if they got elected.”

  140. 140.

    Baud

    @WereBear:

    It’s because we use science.

     
    Science is the antidote to “people believe what they want to believe.” It’s the principal reason the West became dominant. It’s always interesting the see Western “traditionalists” reject it.

  141. 141.

    TBone

    Lambert wears his white gloves to the cotillion while waving high the white flag of surrender for all to see.

  143. 143.

    Jay

    @BretH:

    They expected a debate, we expected a debate. It was not a debate.

    I wasn’t on the Biden will rip him a new one crowd. I thought that no matter the format, trying to “debate” the gish gallop 34 Felonies (so far) Rapist Pedo would be a shit show.

    Pig wrestling.

  144. 144.

    MomSense

    @Kay:
    Exactly.  I saw a tic toc makeup influencer reviewing Vance’s aggressive guyliner.  LMAO.  Look some of these never trumpers don’t like the crassness of trump or the Russian stooge part but they are in line with his policies.  They may not want him to win but they do want Republican senators and representatives.  The weird thing is working and it is has coattails.  They are worried about down ballot candidates and how weird the whole party has become.
    Can we just point and mock the NYT and Friedman as per usual and not veer into conspiracies ourselves?
    We are on a much better path now.

  148. 148.

    BretH

    @Jay: pig wrestling indeed. My only point was that if that was obvious to us then “they prepared for a debate” is grounds for banishment from any campaign advising.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    @Ivan X:

    I can only speak from anecdata, but literally everyone I know, to a person, described the debate as a tragedy, frightening, and something that couldn’t be unseen. Maybe he was shafted, maybe he could have held on, no doubt the media had their hand on the scale, and sure, maybe the polls wouldn’t have moved, but even if they didn’t, the President needed to gain some votes, and I don’t think that was ever gonna happen after that night.

     

    Common Knowledge is what everyone knows that everyone knows.
    Common knowledge is why coronations and executions are held in public – not so a crowd can see the new king or the hanged man, but so a crowd can see a crowd seeing the new king or the hanged man. Common knowledge is why sitcoms have laugh tracks, why American Idol has a live studio audience, and why professional sports teams pipe in crowd noise. Common knowledge is also why the 2024 Biden/Harris campaign has collapsed….
    And once that common knowledge is formed … well, I can’t emphasize this next point strongly enough.
    Common knowledge formation is an equilibrium outcome. It is impossible to unring this bell.

  150. 150.

    Princess

    @MomSense: if they stop being so weird and creepy and stop pushing such weird candidates with their weird intrusive policies on us, we’ll stop calling them weird. Until then, too bad.

  151. 151.

    JMG

    @Ishiyama: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, and those are pretty good odds.” — Bret Maverick’s Pappy.

  152. 152.

    TBone

    Hubby is racial profiling the farm fresh eggs we purchased yesterday.  I had to remind him that we are all alike on the inside.

    Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people–at the bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside, and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.

    – Mark Twain

  154. 154.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ivan X: Same, and I also say it without apology because any factor that impedes our ability to win is an existential threat. The debate performance was devastating because it reinforced doubts voters already held. All available data, such as it was/is, indicated we were already in trouble going in. Now, it looks like our odds have improved.

    Is it fair? Nope. But again, winning is all that matters given the stakes. We’ll never know for certain who was right on the replace/retain question. But I have more confidence in Nancy Pelosi’s political acumen than almost anyone else’s, and it looks like her fingerprints were all over the change at the top of the ticket. Just win, baby.

  155. 155.

    Princess

    FWIW we in here are very preoccupied with weird and the couch thing. Out there in my irl social media, it’s cats cats cats all the way down. Cats with the Statue of Liberty, cats catching the “don’t tread on me snake.” That’s what is capturing the attention of my normie friends. It’s interesting.

  157. 157.

    Suzanne

    @MomSense:

    The weird thing is working and it is has coattails. 

    It’s interesting how much it bothers them. Right-wing Christian white guys spent so long thinking that the country would always conform to their aesthetic preferences, and that they would get to shape the normative opinion.

    I am interested in the role that visual culture has played around this. IME, one of the biggest “tells” in reflecting the current state of society’s values is advertising, because it is totally amoral and it usually trying to tap into consumers’ aspirations in a way that most people can’t even articulate. I have been interested in the themes presented in advertisements over the last decade….. the right-wing white dude is definitely cast as weird.

  158. 158.

    Barbara

    @MomSense: Maybe people have forgotten that Friedman married into megawealth. It was retail mall property so it might not have kept its value, but his social set almost assuredly involves a lot of conservative moneyed folks.  They don’t like it when guys like them become an object of mirth and derision.  There are lots of guys who think the Vance mockery is a hoot, but Friedman is basically telling us that he identifies with Vance more than he does with Dems. I haven’t read Friedman or Dowd in ages. I don’t care what they think.

  161. 161.

    Jay

    @MomSense:

    see #143

    Sadly, the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party has had blinders on, basically since Dolt 45 took the escalator, They rely on broken polls, consultants and focus group of normies.

    Look at Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, Roe, ruZZia’s “Red Lines”, The Extremes, etc.

    They expect semi-normal behaviour from the ReThugs when in reality, the are all Trumpists, Boberts, Jordans, MTG’s, etc.

    So yes, they sent out the challenge, set some of the rules up, and expected they would be followed, in a normal way.

    They did not plan for the insane, and still arn’t, in a large part because “normie’s” arn’t.

    Looks like Project 47 and 2025 might be starting to tear the veil a little bit, despite the FTMSM.

  164. 164.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: I’m glad you liked my little story, it’s the reason I tell them here: so everyone can feel the refreshing joy of a summer day!

  167. 167.

    Barbara

    @TBone: ​And yet, thousands of years later we can tell from skeletal remains at Pompeii who was the master and who was the slave.

  169. 169.

    Kay

    @Princess:

    The cat themes are delightful – better than the “weird” themes, really. Have you seen the one on IG where they got a photo of women standing in a queue with cats on leashes? It looks like from the early 60’s – no idea what it was originally about.

    That’s the cat ladies waiting to vote :)

  170. 170.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: I have absolutely concurred with your assessments 100% during these last few weeks.

    To me, it’s an issue of cognitive empathy….. those of us who were unsure if Biden should stay in, or those who were convinced he should get out….. we were hearing from others and observing the deep concern.

    I will also note that the idea that the election should be an issue of personal loyalty — the whole “dance with the one that brung ya” approach — feels like telling me that I should just sprout wings and fly. Like, what? This isn’t about any one person. Even politicians who I like and feel warmly toward, I’m never going to be ride-or-die for them. It’s about a team winning and holding power in order to make good policy for the country. And making the conditions the most likely for that to happen. Just win, baby.

  172. 172.

    Jay

    @BretH:

    Democrats still believe, and normie’s believe that the ReThug’s are still “sane”. And the FTLMSM reinforces that,

    Project 47 and 2025 proves they are not.

    Is the FTLMSM covering Project 47 or 2025?

    That would be a hard no.

    It’s filtering out by word of mouth only, and the “normies” who are encountering are shocked, shocked I say, just like women in Ohio who need a medical abortion now, only to find out, there is no such thing in reality, now.

  173. 173.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: There are lots of good people still on Twitter, and I don’t fault them for staying. Some find it irreplaceable to advocate their causes, need the communities they’ve established, etc. I’ve went back and forth myself (before finally leaving) over the comparatively trivial issue of Baseball Twitter.

    No excuses for the MSM orgs though. Musk destroyed the only basis for credibility ever granted to them, i.e., proof that they are who they say they are, and is actively undermining reality. That’s poison for a group that allegedly traffics in news gathering. They should shutter their accounts.

  174. 174.

    Princess

    @Baud: when Vance complained about Democratic women being childless cat taxied. It struck a chord in a very bad way.

  175. 175.

    Kay

    @TBone:

    I love it. My youngest showed me one on Tik Tok that is animation of these big-headed kittens with huge eyes who are crying with an out of focus head shot of JD Vance in the background, glowering at them.

  176. 176.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Probably a swinging Take That to Couchslurper’s weak “Childless Cat Lady” dig at, well, women in general.

  178. 178.

    EarthWindFire

    @Baud: Of course “dignity of work” will get through where “weird” offends. Just ask President John Edwards.

    Friedman’s just as past his sell-by date as Brazile is hers.

  179. 179.

    Kay

    Putting an out of focus head shot of the person they’re ridiculing floating in the background like the Great and Powerful Oz is brilliant. JD Vance has such a big beefy face it’s perfect for him.

  180. 180.

    Baud

    @Princess:

    Thanks.  Interesting that it caught fire. The right has been making similar attacks against women on our side for decades.

  182. 182.

    Betty Cracker

    @Suzanne: Yep. The “dance with the one that brung ya” metaphor was especially ill-suited to describe the situation because it confuses who issues the invitation to dance. It’s the coalition of voters — all of it — that invites pols to dance, not the other way around.

  183. 183.

    Layer8Problem

    @MomSense:  In a world of Cambridge Analyticas and Internet Research Agencys I think the boat’s kinda sailed on ignoring conspiracy theories.

  185. 185.

    brantl

    @Baud: I have lost count of how many times I have been thrown off Twitter and reinstated. They don’t tell you what they throw you off for so all you have to do to get back on is say I don’t know what you have thrown me off for, but I haven’t done anything wrong off of about two or three days. I file my thing and I’m back. They don’t tell you what you did wrong so all you have to say is I didn’t do anything wrong.

  186. 186.

    zhena gogolia

    @Suzanne: 14 million people voted for that person. The NYT took away that vote.

    I know we’re not supposed to keep talking about this, but since people do, I’m not going to let it slip by.

  187. 187.

    Kay

    I’ll talk about policy any day of the week. Economy is booming, Joe Biden brought the rust belt back (!), murder is down to 2014 levels – even drug overdoses are dropping.

    But media doesn’t want to talk about that policy. Now do they.

  188. 188.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m just dreading (and hoping it doesn’t happen) the moment when it looks as if Harris is having trouble. I plan to stick with her no matter what.

  189. 189.

    catclub

    @Jay:

    It wasn’t a debate, it wasn’t moderated, it wasn’t fact checked, there was no point, counterpoint. It was one man trying to answer the “moderator’s questions’, and another man ignoring the questions and spewing out a gish gallop of lies and nonsense.*

    *CNN later admitted that it was set up that way to trap Biden, boost ratings and generate clickbait.

     

     

    If there was any admission in the planning stage that there would be no fact checking (Trump would likely be insisting on ground rules to that effect)  The Biden team missed that… badly.

  191. 191.

    3Sice

    How dare Old Joe have a succession plan in place?

    The attempt to re-litigate two weeks ago is in response to the Vice President’s approval and swing state numbers shooting up.

    Whatever. The GOP should find a better candidate.

  192. 192.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yeah, and saying the entire Democratic leadership suddenly turned against…Democrats is just not rational.

    I mean, come on. I look at all those big Twitter accounts who were pushing that now and I’m appalled that there’s not even going to be an acknowlegment that they went insane. Who can trust these people?

  193. 193.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: There have been people worrying in these comment threads that those who abandoned Biden will also abandon Harris, when her polls drop or when she gets slightly older, because they lack loyalty, or the will to persist.

    I was not publicly expressing doubts about Biden for the last few weeks because I was worried these expressions would have bad effects. But it was very hard to see people here insisting that the only people who had doubts were bad people with bad ulterior motives, when in my real life, most of the liberals I knew were openly deeply worried and frustrated and sometimes making nervous depressed jokes about it. Were these all bad people? These were my family and friends. Was I supposed to pick fights with them? Trying to be reassuring didn’t work. Emphasizing the horrors of the alternative didn’t work–they all knew that, they were all going to vote for Biden, they just didn’t like the situation.

    One of the reasons putting Harris in takes a weight off me is that suddenly everyone around me is on the same page, unless they’re Trumpers.

  194. 194.

    Barry

    @Rusty: “What is it with the NYT and their obsession with trans rights?  ”

     

    Remember that the NYT carries water for Trump.

    Also, IMHO, the Right using trans people as a vulnerable starting point for the rest of their schemes. The  NYT is working with them closely on this – see Christopher Rufo.

  195. 195.

    Suzanne

    @zhena gogolia: I’m by no means saying that others can’t feel differently about it, and that that feeling isn’t eminently reasonable.

    I think most people here were motivated by the right things and wanting a good outcome.

  196. 196.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: I would have been among them if FL Dems held a presidential primary this year. They didn’t, figuring it was a waste of money to invest millions in what was amounting to a Dean Phillips’ vanity project.

    Should I be mad about that? Maybe, but I wasn’t at the time and am not now. Harris was on the ticket primary voters who got to vote overwhelmingly chose. If there’s democratic legitimacy associated with a contest held by a partisan organization that makes its own rules (like foregoing a presidential primary), she’s the only one who has it.

    @Kay: & @Suzanne: Co-signed!

  197. 197.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    @brantl:

    if you just want to read, https://nitter.poast.org/NYM is the thing. If you want to comment, respond, most of the people you want to talk with have other social media, other than the Dead Bird sites.

    I quit Twitter, back when it was still Twitter, (pre Apartheid Space Cadet) when I was mostly focused on “Land Back”, and Neo-Nazi’s and was getting about 250 death threats a day, that Twitter would do nothing about.

  198. 198.

    Ken

    @3Sice:  The GOP should find a better candidate.

    Someone younger, at the very least.

    Oh wait, that’s suddenly not an issue.

  199. 199.

    catclub

    @Kay: This.

    Also the US economy post-Covid has responded far better than any other nation due to our government response. Unemployment is at record lows. Industrial investment has jumped dramatically. The stock market is at record highs. The federal reserve wanted to kill jobs and failed, yet we have beaten inflation with no recession.

  200. 200.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: He’s confusing “sneering elitists” with “smirking younger generation”.

    Or “horrified non-awful people”.

  201. 201.

    Layer8Problem

    @Rusty:  “What is it with the NYT and their obsession with trans rights?”

    Perhaps it’s a clue to young Sulzberger’s secret porn fetish.

  203. 203.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @zhena gogolia:

    As long as others refuse to drop it, why should any of us when it’s raised yet again?

    Same people, same messaging tactics.

  204. 204.

    Kay

    @3Sice:

    I don’t believe this myself but I think it’s possible. However. It sometimes comes very close to not giving Kamala Harris credit for her own talent and that bothers me. He’s not actually her dad. She’s a 60 year old very accomplished woman who is probably hyper competitive in her own right because they all are at that level. I saw a meme of him walking her down the aisle. Gag. I don’t want any part of that.

  209. 209.

    3Sice

    They had no contingency plans in place for the possibility of an eighty-one year old man dropping off of the ticket.

    Seems like a “you” problem.

  210. 210.

    Jay

    @catclub:

    Where did you read that, some obscure blog?

    Doncha know the FTLMSM says there is a massive recession coming, hide your eggs, hoard your TP. If you don’t, how will you ever manage to get back at your neighbors?

  211. 211.

    Kay

    @catclub:

    It’s a huge success for liberal economics and that’s why they have spent the last 4 years denying it and lying about it.

    Harris is even with Trump on the economy though so I think the public is breaking out of the box media put them in. I read something on social media where someone said media and the tech sector talk down the economy because they’re incredibly self centered and their part of the economy was weaker than manufacturing, sales, travel, etc. I bet there’s truth to that. It’s all about them. Always.

  212. 212.

    WereBear

    @Princess: Cats are cool.

    It’s why some people don’t like them.

    If they worry that a cat has more presence than they do, they should maybe work on their personality.

  213. 213.

    TBone

    Trump’s nephew is doing a book tour interview on GMA!  He says Dotard is “atomic crazy!”

    YES!  Timing is everything.

    SPILLING THE TEA!

    N word enters the chat…

    Now he says Dotard is not racist (despite just telling us he uses the N word slur), just an equal opportunity grifter 🙄

  215. 215.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Perhaps I’m a bit slow on the uptake this morning but my reaction to the Argella Stone post is they think this is something new?

    Felonious D has been doing exactly what was being described literally since Day 1. I remember hack Katy Tur plugging a book on The Daily Show after the Orange Far Cloud wasn’t reelected in which she talked about the direct threats her and others in the Press Corpse constantly got when covering the campaign.

    And yet, her and the rest continue doing the same stuff to this day when the observable reality should tell them that what they experienced the last time around could very well have been child’s play.

  216. 216.

    WereBear

    @Suzanne: the right-wing white dude is definitely cast as weird

    It’s undeniable. Trump People might have a left-wing relative they dread seeing at Thanksgiving, but that is because they ask uncomfortable questions.

    The more right wing the relative, the more it involves increased ranting and hostility as the evening wears on. Most of the family has been trained to just put up with it.

    And the right wing ones, do. Which perpetuates it. A kind of learned helplessness.

    We have broken out of ours, and yes, we do want to divorce these horses’ asses.

  217. 217.

    Kay

    @matt:

    If you live in the northern part of the Great Lakes states – some of Ohio, some of Indiana, some of Pennsylvania, all of MI, all of WI, all of MN,  it is just undeniable. This is the best economy I have ever seen in my life.

    It never made sense to say it was bad. Working and middle class were spending. They were getting the money somewhere. It’s crazy making to listen to it. They’re so parochial. I know the fucking shitty for profit media industry is collapsing. They’re not representative of the economy. Look around!

  218. 218.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    But it was very hard to see people here insisting that the only people who had doubts were bad people with bad ulterior motives, when in my real life, most of the liberals I knew were openly deeply worried and frustrated and sometimes making nervous depressed jokes about it. Were these all bad people? These were my family and friends. Was I supposed to pick fights with them? 

    Agreed. I was also hearing borderline despair. SuzMom used the word “bloodbath”.

  219. 219.

    Jay

    @WereBear:

    It’s the “normie” “all politicians are the same”, “they are just saying that to try to get votes”.

    And of course, TFLMSM “both sides”.

    When they tell you who they are the first time, believe them.

    T my wife, is pretty “alert” for an almost “normie”, but when we talk politics, (only when she brings it up, usually because she’s pissed off at something, and it’s Canadian politics) I usually wind up dropping in a fact, that takes her to 11.

    I read the policy papers, the various “shaping” “Institute” papers, the “Foundation” papers, the bios, etc,

    She doesn’t and the FTLMSM doesn’t either.

  222. 222.

    matt

    @Kay: Here in Portland the real breaking point was a couple of years ago when I was seeing signs all over for entry level jobs at 15, 18, 20 an hour. Wages haven’t dropped back down. I think a whole lot of Republican angst about the economy is about that! My burger costs more, because people get paid to work now.

  223. 223.

    Kay

    @WereBear:

    She’s talented but her honeymoon is not going to last. They’re throwing a ton of shit at her. But I think the bricks she’s laying now will stand up to the onslaught.

    Media decided Donald Trump was going to win. They’re stodgy, conventional people who don’t handle changing conditions well. They’re now going to punish us for three months because they were wrong. He’s not a lock after all. It’s a toss up. But it’s exciting and our side is engaged and if we pull this off we’re amazing. Talk about making lemonade from lemons.

  224. 224.

    Princess

    @Kay: I don’t think they thought Biden would drop out. I think they thought they could ride him until November.

  225. 225.

    Kay

    @matt:

    My college junior youngest is making 18 an hour this summer in Michigan. The only thing I worry about is this economy has been all he knows and, you know, what goes up must come down. They all switch jobs constantly in his age group because they can. I don’t really approve of it – I’m an employer and I think people should try to be considerate of others but I understand market leverage and it’s about damn time working people had some.

  227. 227.

    matt

    @Kay: I think it’s good that young people are learning about capitalism in a good time. Maybe they’ll be better at it than I was when I was young. Buyers and sellers. Sell your labor high.

  228. 228.

    Soprano2

    Gotta give credit where it’s due, this morning on “Morning Edition” Steve Inskeep did a story about JD Vance talking about childless cat ladies. In the story he said that conservatives said that in 2020 JD didn’t say “what you heard him say on that tape”. LOL

  229. 229.

    Kay

    @Princess:

    The Democrats are a real political party, as opposed to a cult of one person surrounded by a group of suckling grifters, and the party decided because they knew the general Dem electorate – 75% of them – were with the switch. If it had been 25% switch and 75% stay they would have respected that and just tried to limit losses down ballot. White people on Twitter don’t have to tell Democrats in leadership that AA women are their most reliable voters – they know that.

  230. 230.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: I’ve seen Bay Area tech-sector people on Mastodon announce that the economic recovery is a lie, we’re deep in depression and everything to the contrary is propaganda, because of all the tech layoffs. They’re not Trumpers, if anything they’re socialist lefty types who see it all as the horror of late-stage capitalism.

  231. 231.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I think Harris was always going to be the nominee but it’s still wild to see Donna Brazile boast on the record that party leaders like her were never going to let average voters decide who took over for Biden.

    Brazile is pointing out that party leaders knew how to represent Dem Voters and especially the base of our coalition, and weren’t going to accept anyone but Harris. The only people who didn’t understand that skipping over Harris would destroy our chances in November and rip art our coalition were white media, podcasters and BJ commenters. In other words: the same people who pushed Biden out.

  232. 232.

    Matt McIrvin

    @matt: Most of the young people I know openly dislike capitalism and would prefer to get rid of it somehow, to a degree that would have seemed absurd when I was growing up and that attitude would have been identified with yearning to live in the Soviet Union.

  233. 233.

    Kay

    @matt:

    I think young women are better at it than older women were. They are better at getting paid. It’s just that simple. It took me until almost 50 to get it. They know it right out of college. I live in a 75% Trump rural area and I noticed something great when interest rates were still low – young unmarried women were buying their own houses. I had never seen that out here before. Wonderful. Financial security buys freedom. They get that.

  234. 234.

    Jay

    @Kay:

    I am old, last job I had was $20 CDN, (less than $3 above minimum wage). It was a skilled job. It was what I was making in retail, but I was supposed to get a $2.50 raise after probation + benefits.

    Got the benefits, no raise.

    “Not in the Budget”.

    Comparable jobs were paying $35+ benefits.

    A living wage here is $25.04 for two incomes, no kids.

    There are always those who will try to screw you when you are a worker and have a real job.

    Fuck Freidman and his “dignity of labour” bull shit.

  235. 235.

    Josie

    @matt: ​
     The other grandmother, who is hard core Republican, used that line of argument on facebook the other day. I found it rather ironic that she was so concerned with my voting rights. I bit my tongue (not literally) and refused to answer in the the interest of family peace.

  236. 236.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Ok, and I want everyone to make money so I’m not happy their industry is in a bit of a slump but can they make an effort to not be so self centered and narrow? They’re not the whole world.

  237. 237.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: …There’s also a lot of dread of AI taking all our jobs, because they’re working in companies whose CEOs drank deep of the AI Kool-Aid and are slashing headcount in the hopes that AI will somehow take up the slack. I’m kind of dreading the crash that happens when they realize it won’t, and trying to stay mentally ahead of it and figure out what this technology will actually do.

  238. 238.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    They all switch jobs constantly in his age group because they can. I don’t really approve of it – I’m an employer and I think people should try to be considerate of others but I understand market leverage and it’s about damn time working people had some. 

    I have never stayed in a job more than four years. It’s because it’s not financially advantageous to do so. If employers don’t like it, they can pay more. Insert shrug emoji here.

    Employers fire and lay people off with no notice, yet they want two weeks or four weeks of notice. Why is the greater burden on the employee than the employer?

  239. 239.

    matt

    @Josie: Meanwhile Harris has ticked way up to 93% support among Democrats. Oh, Republicans are mad we didn’t get there by having another election when that would be logistically impossible? Well isn’t that special?

  240. 240.

    matt

    @Matt McIrvin: The funny thing is the job cuts weren’t necessary – they were done because they’re trendy with Wall Street. You can juice your stock for a quarter or two by announcing a layoff.

  241. 241.

    Kay

    @UncleEbenezer:

    and BJ commenters

    Nonsense. I said at every juncture that I was backing Harris AND that the leadership of the Democratic were NOT going to pass her over because they understand their base.
    In fact, there were a large group of BJ commentors screaming at me to shut up who said Harris couldn’t win and even to suggest that she could was (insanely) racist.
    There’s like 11 newspaper recitations of what actually happened. Refusing to read them is like poll denialism. It’s not good. I don’t suggest we do that again.

  243. 243.

    matt

    @Suzanne: I job hopped in 2021 and got an incredible 100% increase in pay, so it’s been super difficult for me to take all this poor mouthing and egg bitching seriously. Like, go get a job then.

  244. 244.

    Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Idiots. Big Tech overhired to kill start ups for years and had arranged non-compete clauses with each other. My ex-Brother, worked at Amazon, as an upper level programming Manager, until covid hit, and WFH became the norm.

    About a year into Covid he and a bunch of others were laid off, because productivity was up and the Corp realized that all my ex-Brother’s job was pre Covid was to glare over cubicle walls at people who did work, and during the shut downs, do the same over Zoom.

    Economic’s, ’tis a mystery.

  245. 245.

    Matt McIrvin

    @matt: When the VCs get it in their heads that layoffs are the done thing, and you’re dependent on VC money, you have to do layoffs. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, as the saying goes.

  246. 246.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    Last summer my youngest got insulted because his employer (an elderly man who owns a car wash) threw them a pizza party for handling giant crowds of midwesterners washing their giant American cars and my son thought they should have gotten a bonus. So he ghosted the job. I think that’s bad behavior.

    But he’s young. My daughter negotiates for a salary like pro and she did that right out of grad school. I was not like that until 50 or so, and that’s wonderful.  Women undervalued themselves. They don’t anymore. Good. They’ll be secure when they’re old.

  247. 247.

    catclub

    @Kay: My college junior youngest is making 18 an hour this summer in Michigan. The only thing I worry about is this economy has been all he knows and, you know, what goes up must come down.

     

    OTOH, Australia went about 45 years (and counting? not sure)  without a recession.  There are no immutable laws in economics.

  248. 248.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: I don’t like job ghosting, either. But I do like quitting (with notice) and getting another job if you don’t like where you’re at.

    I think employers should be required to also give at least two weeks of severance, though. You want notice when someone quits? Then give at least financial notice when someone is let go.

  249. 249.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    My daughter is a PA and they work on a contract. She moved from Pittsburgh to work for a health care company in NY. Part of the reason she moved is she knew she wanted a child and would need maternity benefits. In the 4 months between her signing that contract and her showing up in NY, the health care company was sold and the new company said they would not honor her contract on the family leave portion. NY has a omnesbudsman for contract disputes so I looked up the relevant code and sent it to her with “arbitration is not a good or fair process – be prepared to lose this” – she won. They had to pay her 27k for maternity leave.

    I would never have done that at 30. I should have.

  250. 250.

    Suzanne

    @UncleEbeneezer: I didn’t see any BJ commenters want to skip over Harris. I saw questions about the logistics of making Harris happen. That’s not the same as a desire to skip over her.

  251. 251.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t want to relitigate this but jettisoning the one that you brung to the dance in the name of coalition politics is not a metaphor that works here.  14 million primary voters constitute that coalition — but they voted for a ticket that included both Biden and Harris, with the understanding that there might be some eventuality in which Harris would take over.  Harris is the ONLY legitimate “other” candidate to Biden.  So I am okay with the way things turned out.  But a convention contest would have been outrageous.

  252. 252.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Baud:

    I am in twitter gaol right now because I said that, should the Ukrainians get their hands on Putin, they should give him a fair trail and then hang his ass (unless he’s found not guilty, of course, a low probability outcome for sure).

    ”Advocating violence.”

  253. 253.

    Quinerly

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I thought Biden should step aside. Came to that belief about 5 days after his disastrous debate performance. I always said Harris was the only choice to step in. That she was already prosecuting the case against Trump and doing a great job on the campaign trail. Said she could win. That we would have a RESET with excitement, money, new interest. Young voters.

    I am not trying to re litigate the last few weeks. I am not even trying to tell you, “I told you so.” Just don’t say the BJ commenters who came to the conclusion after thoughtful consideration and looking at the facts that Biden should step aside that we wanted to skip Harris. Simply is not true.

  255. 255.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Yep. The overwhelming consensus here (and in the saner parts of the liberal media) was that it had to be Harris. Meanwhile, at least three Biden dead-enders who commented here said they would write him in if removed, effectively throwing their lot in with the Trumpers and Kennedy kooks. Didn’t see a load of shit dumped on their heads from fellow commenters either, but to be fair, I haven’t read all the threads.

  256. 256.

    George

    @Msb: ​
     At a minimum Trump is a malignant narcissist. Likely he is a psychopath. All of his behavior is consistent with both of those conditions. Anyone who has dealt with a psychopath as a supervisor or a partner or a parent knows the signs.

    The ability and willingness of the media to ignore Trump’s disorders and instead to treat him like just another politician is what has gotten us where we are today.

  257. 257.

    Anyway

    @UncleEbeneezer: BS.  Kay was mocked for saying People loved Kamala. Momsense was very clear that her preference was Harris

     

    ETA these were the two BidenShdStepAside jackals to whom I paid attention

  258. 258.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @zhena gogolia: The people who acted like traitors to the Dem Party know what they did was fucked up, deep down.  But they don’t have the character to admit it or apologize for it.  So they keep trying to rewrite history to frame it in a positive light and gaslight everyone.  And now that the Kamala train is rolling, of course they want to take credit.  But they’re not fooling anyone.  They did the same thing with all the Bernie Bro shit from 2016: defending and downplaying it all like it was just some harmless fun, healthy debate and didn’t do any lasting damage to our coalition.  Shit-stirring in our coalition to the point of almost ripping it apart is what they do.  It’s what they always do.

  259. 259.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:

    I am late to this thread. Thanks for saying this.

    This is still a sensitive subject with me. BJ has been an outlier, at least in my world.  Everyone I talked to after the reality of the debate performance set in felt Biden should step aside. Harris was always the only choice in these people’s minds (And, obviously in my mind based on my comments here). My rationale was she was his pick for VP and when voting in the primary I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. Everyone I talked to said the same thing. (The whole 14 million voters were disenfranchised argument was a non starter with me and with everyone in my circle….we all felt we voted for the ticket).

  260. 260.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I was told I was a racist, told to shut up, told I wasn’t really supporting Harris but was lying, told I don’t know how many times that is was “pied” by people who clearly reading me because they were attacking me passively aggressively.

    If you appreciate tough decisive women then you get the whole fucking package. Pelosi is tough. She’s not “nice”. She’s also the best strategist on either side. They were surprised she was like “disaster- pull the plug”? It’s what she does. She makes decisions everyone else is too cowardly to make. I admire her.

    Obama too. Obama was always a hard ass. He’s tough as nails and not at all sentimental. He’s had to be.

  262. 262.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Suzanne: I saw a lots of mentions of Newsom, Whitmer, and others.  They weren’t coming from people who stood with Biden.

  264. 264.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    I love Democrats. I don’t want us to turn into people who dismiss all news reporting and data. It’s not a good path. It”s also fear-based behavior – avoidance -and that’s just poison to a political campaign.

    There were concerns in Democratic leadership about Biden’s decline going back to 2022, the WSJ reported. They weren’t the only ones. I’m not “diagnosing” him – I’m talking about observable common sense reality.

  265. 265.

    Suzanne

    @UncleEbeneezer: Newsom and Whitmer are talented. If Harris didn’t want to chase it, they would have been good backups, and I don’t see anything wrong with speculation. You apparently see it as disloyalty. The fact that everyone coalesced so quickly behind Harris should indicate that the vast majority of Dems — and BJ commenters — think she’s a good choice and that we have the best outcome possible.

  266. 266.

    Suzanne

    @Kay:

    If you appreciate tough decisive women then you get the whole fucking package. Pelosi is tough. She’s not “nice”. She’s also the best strategist on either side. They were surprised she was like “disaster- pull the plug”? It’s what she does. She makes decisions everyone else is too cowardly to make. I admire her. 

    Fuck yes.

    Everybody likes it when Nancy wins. NANCY SMASH!!! But this is how Nancy wins. She’s putting the long-term good of the country above her personal relationships — as she absolutely should. This is why I hate this “loyal Dems”, “stand with Biden” framing, Personal loyalty doesn’t mean shit if we lose.

    My kids are in physical danger if we lose.

  267. 267.

    Sally

    @Betty Cracker: I had a long comment written about Nancy Pelosi and the change over last weekend. I decided not to submit it because feelings were too raw. I also think she had this gamed out. She’s loving, caring, and ruthless. Thank goodness. I was in the keep Biden in camp. I felt I was being bullied out of my candidate.
    Biden and Pelosi knew what they were doing, down to the last minute of timing. Sunday afternoon was perfect (after church I guess). After the RNC. After they tied themselves to two tossers for their ticket. Perfect. GivingHarris a week to tie it all together, which she has done.
    I bet Pelosi had many (most) Dems, big donors, and other potential candidates already locked in. This did not happen so smoothly by chance. This has Nancy Pelosi’s fingerprints all over it. IMHO.  What did her daughter say? She will shiv you with a stiletto (the knife) and you won’t feel a thing.just win, baby win.

  268. 268.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:

    Totally agree.

    If the entire saga taught me one thing it is I am more of a Dem Party person than a specific candidate person. I support my Party and its leaders…..and the decision that they made, most likely with facts, that the BJ community didn’t have. We are not a cult of personality of one person. We are a coalition of MANY. I love my PARTY.

  270. 270.

    Suzanne

    @Quinerly: Yeah, I see my relationship with the Party — and with every candidate — as transactional. I feel passionately about my values. The Party is just a vehicle for getting my values represented in public life, and if they don’t perform well at that task, then I will stop supporting them.

    I don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance because I don’t believe in loyalty oaths.

  271. 271.

    Sally

    I was impatiently explaining to everyone around me that Harris was the only alternative. We voted for the Biden/Harris ticket.  It was important to rally behind her straight away. No prevaricating.

  273. 273.

    Barbecue Swinger

    @Kay: I agree. Our older daughter graduated from college in May 2023 and got a job in September 2023. She negotiated and got a slightly higher salary offer than the org originally gave her. Her bosses have been impressed with her work and offered her a promotion at the 6-month mark. Again, she asked if they could go up a bit more and they did. She discussed with her boss a list of her accomplishments and stats about pay for that kind of position at other orgs, and her boss agreed it was reasonable to up her raise. Most of her women friends her age have similar stories.

  274. 274.

    MattF

    TFG doubles down on ‘no more voting’:

    Mr. Trump’s initial comments, to a group of Christian conservatives on Friday, were interpreted by many Democrats as evidence he would end elections. On Monday, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham urged him to rebut that framing, but he offered instead: “I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.”

    Attention must be paid. Or else.

  275. 275.

    Quinerly

    @Suzanne:

    Totally unrelated. I’m working on my Dec drive about. Will be my 3rd Christmas Eve/Christmas at La Posada in Winslow. Northern Arizona has been my haunt for years. Last year I did hit Williams, Prescott, (both new to me),  Jerome and Sedona (second and third visits respectively). A week in Phoenix and a week in Tucson before hitting Winslow on 12/24 finally in the cards. Have been trying to get to Phoenix and Tucson since my 2021 drive about. Enjoyed my week in February in Bisbee and its surrounds. Started looking for dog friendly AirBnBs last night for Phoenix. Need to educate myself on areas. If you have time and want to give me some suggestions on areas and restaurants, please feel free to get my email from Betty Cracker. Thanks.

  277. 277.

    Quinerly

    @Suzanne: no real rush. I am narrowing down Phoenix AirBnBs in the next few days. Doesn’t have to be a walking neighborhood. I am seeing some available, though, in interesting looking areas. For Tucson, I want a neighborhood feel. Thanks.

  279. 279.

    TheronWare

    The Heritage Foundation is a domestic terrorist organization and should be classified as such.

  280. 280.

    Citizen Alan

    @TBone: I was confused because I grew up in Union County Mississippi. I was even more confused by the thought of your drunk well workers doing … the Full Monty?!?

  281. 281.

    dnfree

    @zhena gogolia: I voted for Biden because he was the name on my primary ballot who was most likely to win.  If Kamala had been the name on my ballot I would have voted for her.  The presumption anyway was that we were voting for the ticket of Biden and Harris.

    When Biden faltered so badly, and he stepped aside in favor of Kamala, I do not think my vote was negated in any way.  The same thing happened that would have happened if Biden had suffered a stroke.

    My perception of the debate was along the lines others have described. Then there were also anonymous reports from White House staff and from abroad confirming the impression. Biden did the right thing.  The point is winning the election.

  282. 282.

    dnfree

    @Suzanne: I attend meetings where adults over age 55 recite the pledge.  I mumble my own words along with them, e.g. “liberty and Justice for some”.

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