Megan Thee Stallion will join Kamala Harris on Tuesday during her rally in Atlanta, Georgia. More than 15,000 people have reportedly registered for the event already. https://t.co/daeApSpcg8
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 29, 2024
Democrats had feared Georgia was a lost cause with Biden running. Harris will campaign there Tuesday https://t.co/ZdYdYZhwmx
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 30, 2024
… Harris is planning to make a show of political force with a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday night that will feature a performance by hip hop star Megan Thee Stallion, the latest example of just how much the race against Republican Donald Trump has shifted since Biden abandoned his reelection bid. She will be appearing in the same city where Biden’s dismal performance in a debate against Trump on June 27 sparked a Democratic revolt that ultimately ended his campaign.
Harris is hoping a large rally will help affirm her campaign’s momentum. Her campaign argues that Harris’ appeal with young people, working-age women and non-white voters have scrambled the dynamics in Georgia and other states that are demographically similar, from North Carolina to Nevada and Arizona…
In a strategy memo released after the president left the race, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, who held the same role for Biden, reaffirmed the importance of winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, a trio of industrial states that have formed the traditional Democratic blue wall.
But she also argued that the vice president’s place atop the ticket “opens up additional persuadable voters” and described them as “disproportionately Black, Latino and under 30” in places like Georgia…
The Harris campaign and Georgia Democratic officials have 24 offices across the state, including two added last weekend in metro Atlanta. Trump and the Republican National Committee opened their first Georgia offices only recently.
Democrats are betting that a combination of high turnout among traditional, core Democratic constituencies, as well as a strong showing in the suburbs and small pickups elsewhere can be enough for Harris to carry Georgia…
All those GOTV efforts eat money, so this Interim report from last night’s #White Dudes for Harris Zoom rally is great news:
Thank you all for an awesome evening.
– 150,000 people have joined the cause
– 190,000 people tuned in tonight
– $4M+ raised to the @KamalaHarris campaignThis is the start of something special and we couldn't be more proud to be in this fight with you.
More to come. ✌️
— White Dudes for Harris (@dudes4harris) July 30, 2024
If 170,000 new volunteers each did one canvassing shift they could knock close to 7 million doors.
That’s more than the total number of households in Michigan & Wisconsin combined. https://t.co/r19Os3h5l5
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 29, 2024
Foremost on her mind is activating the new volunteers and getting them out knocking on doors. Harris and emerging campaign brain trust share the view that shifting the fundamentals of the race will be difficult with a calcified electorate and fragmented media environment.
— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) July 29, 2024
It’s significant *because* it’s Politico. They’re discussing the Democratic campaign seriously, not just dismissing it as a lame distraction from the very serious business of dissecting TFG’s latest fewmets:
A CRUCIAL THREE WEEKS — The “sugar high” is about to wear off.
Yes, VP KAMALA HARRIS has had a remarkable past week. Yes, she has managed to reset Democrats’ chances against GOP nominee DONALD TRUMP. Yes, her campaign is now $200 million and 170,000 new volunteers richer.
But the campaign now shifts into a new phase, and it’s the next three weeks before the Democratic National Convention that will dictate whether Harris can harness the momentum, grow her appeal and potentially expand the electoral map in Democrats’ favor…
But even some Republicans acknowledge she has been handed a major opportunity to reset the race over the coming weeks.
“There is no question Kamala has the momentum and she gets a summer lull period during the Olympics, a VPOTUS pick, then a convention before we are quickly at Labor Day and ballots starting to be mailed out shortly after,” as one Republican strategist texted us last night.
The fractured GOP response hasn’t helped, the person added: “The campaign seems to have realized that and will try to set the tone this week, but I am not so sure the entire MAGA Universe will sing from the song sheet immediately.”
Veteran GOP operative SCOTT JENNINGS told us focus will be essential for Republicans: “Bag the stupid crap and just focus on her record, statements and work under President JOE BIDEN. More than enough there,” he said. “With any luck she’ll spend the next two weeks disavowing her entire record, which of course will make her seem hollow to voters.”…
We also reached out broadly to top Democratic strategists this weekend about what they’re looking for in the coming weeks from Harris:
— Focus on attacking, not responding: “Every Democrat I know is worried about how and when Trump will attack Vice President Harris,” veteran operative PAUL BEGALA told us. “They see the next phase of the campaign as a test of her ability to respond to Trump’s attacks.” But Harris needs to focus less on responding to those attacks and more on prosecuting Trump rhetorically, day in and day out, on the litany of issues available to her. The more the election becomes a referendum on Trump, he and others said, the more likely it is Harris can win.
— Don’t get stuck in the weeds: Former White House comms director JENNIFER PALMIERI told Playbook that Harris needs to develop pithy responses to key GOP attacks that allow her to pivot back to her own issue set. On the border, for instance, “I would not get wrapped around the axle about that — it’s a loser,” she said. “Border crossings are down. And one of the reasons is her assignment was diplomacy, and she did a lot of work in other countries to try to stop the flow. And the numbers are down. Next.”
— Put the excitement to work: Nothing has changed more drastically for Democrats over the past week than the sudden infusion of grassroots energy into the campaign — from the coconut meme explosion to the record-breaking (and software-breaking) Zoom calls. Harris confidante DONNA BRAZILE compared the level of organic excitement to the 2008 primary and said the campaign needs to not only lean into it but give the newly activated crowd things to do. “We’ve been ready for this moment. We just didn’t have a vehicle,” Brazile said. “And now [Harris] is our vehicle.”
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — To that point: A new memo from DNC Chair JAIME HARRISON is signaling how the party is “doing more than ever before to equip our grassroots supporters with the training and tools to build and sustain the groundswell of enthusiasm for electing Democrats this November.” They include an organizing app, a tool to create organic graphics, memes and trainings for canvassers and content creators. The memo also runs down all the big numbers from the past week, including the record-breaking $6.5 million the party raised online the day Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris. Read the full memo.
Another sign of the vibe shift: The Sunrise Movement has suddenly realized that Republicans might not be their friends!
I didn’t know they knew about Republicans, good for them https://t.co/XHe5d1NhX3
— vituperativeerb (@vituperativeerb) July 29, 2024
This is the first presidential election after a coup attempt and the coup folks get mad if you call them a threat to democracy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 29, 2024
Don't forget: if Trump loses, Jack Smith's cases will have time to play out without his getting ejected, and Trump will likely face prison time.
Remember this when you notice Trump becoming increasingly desperate and undone in the final 100 days.
— Amy Siskind ?????? (@Amy_Siskind) July 29, 2024
History will forever regard Trump as leading to the complete and utter collapse of the current Republican Party and one of US history’s biggest losers of all time.
Friends. We have to make this happen. They need to understand how deeply unpopular they’ve become.
— Hutch (@hutchinson) July 30, 2024
On The Road – BretH – On The Road – BretH – Australia! Melbourne and Sydney Part 3
p.a.
Everything tRump touches dies, but time scales matter!
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Baud
I’m convinced.
Baud
Vance was once pro-climate?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
An observation on the hot takes regarding the gazillion volunteers who have registered:
Everybody immediately assumes this means (or should mean) a legion of canvassers. Good canvassing means having volunteers who are suited for that work and want to do it. Work on any kind of outreach campaign, grassroots to the big stuff, and you see just how turned off volunteers get if you shove them into tasks they are ill suited for. And when you see good canvassers at work, it blows you away. See somebody who’s really uncomfortable with it and it’s painful.
Nothing new in that observation to most folks here as we’ve discussed, particularly in the post card area, how best to utilize one’s skillset.
H.E.Wolf
It’s great to see the Democrats nationwide adopting the Balloon Juice program of getting out the vote… and raising money to do so.
Obama won North Carolina in 2008. I think Harris might be able to do the same, with the help of the NC Black Alliance (thermometer in sidebar! Zoom call today at 7 PM Eastern!) and other GOTV groups.
The Republican Party is going to struggle to find dollars for door-knocking and cash for canvassers… right now, it’s mostly being spent on their presidential nominee’s legal bills.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I would never canvass because I understand that the goal is to attract voters, not repel them.
zhena gogolia
They’re “deeply unpopular” but somehow still neck and neck in the polls.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
Walking up to their front door without pants does that, true.
WereBear
@Baud: Vance started out a liberal with an Indian-American wife and a trans friend. He went vegetarian and they named their children from her culture. They went through law school together.
My opinion is that he coasted on her big salary because his tenure with VC was not that profitable.
So he found a right wing billionaire that he didn’t repel. He can do the Professional Son thing. He’s a whole new VANCE.
In a way, it was inevitable. He was chosen for MAGA to love, as their professional son.
Instead, even MAGA knew he was weird. Things like that can break through the delusion. All that heavy lifting, and here comes a gas giant.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
We’re also deeply unpopular.
Tony Jay
With the unspoken proviso that Harris would be expected to run away from her past statements and the Administration’s pretty stellar record on most issues because Scotty’s pals in the corporate media will spend the next few weeks telling their consumers that she has to disavow them just because Republicans saying they’re a weakness somehow makes it so.
But that’s the old way of doing business in America, Scotty. It doesn’t quite have to work that way anymore.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
WereBear
Years of being raised with or married to “shut up — I’ll do the thinking around here” is in all ways tragic.
Some people just wear out and accept it.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
WereBear
@Tony Jay: I think attention actually increases the silliness.
brantl
I hope they sell people on what’s in project 2025, that should be enough.
H.E.Wolf
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: This is a “yes and” comment, agreeing with you. :-)
Good news, though! As a former and current volunteer, I can think of lots of tasks besides in-person, door-to-door canvassing.
Phone banking to Democratic voters and potential voters. This often means leaving a voicemail message, rather than chatting up a potential voter. A script is provided (much like some of the postcard projects).
Data entry. You gotta ask for this one – it may help to specify “address updates/database cleanup for the field organizers”.
Going to the campaign HQ and:
Bundling-up flyers that the canvassers take with them.
Doing little tasks: emptying the wastebaskets, bringing in food, running to Office Depot for whatever suddenly ran out.
Etc etc etc.
[Heavily ETA’d]
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tony Jay:
What universe does that clown live in? He’s basically saying “keep repeating the same talking points we’ve developed over the last 4 years”.
Plus, he realizes that much of what Biden, and now Harris, have been doing is touting their own record, bigly. And doing so in the face of GQP “focus” on attacking her/his/there record.
JFC, even the emphasis on JOE BIDEN is so “let’s tie Nancy Pelosi around the Dems neck” and that never worked either.
Mousebumples
Postcards update in Wisconsin – it sounds like my local office is temporarily out of addresses for postcards (may have some opportunities later, closer to November – we’ll see), but I’m hoping to get some new addresses from a different N/NW WI County.
With election day August 13, time is short, but at least these aren’t traveling that far. 😊
OzarkHillbilly
Texas megachurch pastor quits over ‘inappropriate’ behavior
Translation: He’s gay, but never did anything* more than hang out in gay bars or patronize several gay porn sites. He’s admitted he has a “problem” and will undergo “appropriate” therapy to “cure” himself. So no, the poor guy isn’t coming out of the closet and may well commit suicide in the next 2 years, because you just can’t pray the gay away.
*probably isn’t true but he’s not about to admit to more.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@H.E.Wolf:
I did phone banking for quixotic Congressional seat campaigns back in Central Misery for a variety of candidates. Heh heh, that seems like a lifetime ago pre-cell phone.
I brought up the canvasser issue because I got to see one up close and personal and just how awesome she was in that role. Now, ask her to talk to the press or do a TV bit and she’d run for the hills. That was my job to cover. But get me to canvas? Not my best role which is why I find these facile takes on what volunteerism means frustrating.
lowtechcyclist
Dream on mofo, she’s got a record to be proud of, and nothing to disavow.
Meanwhile, everything your party wants to do is toxic to the majority of Americans.
See you in Roevember.
sixthdoctor
The White Dudes for Harris call was mostly great (I ignored Adam Schiff) but in particular Mayor Pete and Governor Walz made me want to run through a wall for Kamala. I don’t think she could make a bad choice for VP (unless she has an aneurysm and picks Romney), but either of those two in particular would be killer.
The thing about Pete is that he’s almost too skilled, he’d be a great VP, but also a great Secretary of State. Walz is more of a unitasker (tm Alton Brown)…
OzarkHillbilly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: @Baud: I did it in ’08. I don’t think I was particularly good or bad at it but I never got comfortable with it. Not sure if that was because I am an introvert or because I was willing to cover territories nobody else would*. Wondering if one is going to come face to face with a gun at every door knock can do that to a person.
*canvassing alone is supposed to be a no no, but I found myself doing it again and again
twbrandt
VP Harris has Megan Thee Stallion and Beyoncé in her corner, Trump has Kid Rock and Ted Nugent in his. The contrast couldn’t be more stark.
TBone
They did it to themselves willingly. Never forget that the impending just deserts are richly deserved for the ancient mariners.
Poetic justice is the best kind.
Hildebrand
Can we collectively agree that ‘insiders’ such as Begala and Carville need to go find a nice quiet place and leave all of us alone? They can take Axelrod with them. May as well take Tommy Vietor, as well – he turned into an grouchy concern troll in record time.
We don’t need your ‘expertise’ gentlemen, because it immediately devolves, every single time you open your mouths, into ‘listen to meeeee.’
mali muso
I don’t love canvassing, but I’m willing to do it for MVP. Last time I did a few shifts I was 8 months pregnant and canvassing for Hillary. This time around, I could technically take my almost 8 year old daughter with me…but probably won’t just in case. For the most part, it’s just identifying the person(s) on your list, making sure they still live at that address, and marking them down as whether or not they intend to vote for our team, not getting into persuasion or arguments.
Tony Jay
@WereBear:
It’s the thing that was being mentioned in an earlier thread. The corporate media have traditionally used Republican oppo breakdowns as their copy editors when it comes to Democratic politicians’ records. Because those smart guys wouldn’t ever lie about anything. Perish the thought.
It’s not that they don’t know any better. It’s that they’re not paid to think there is any better way to do their jobs.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Good morning to you!
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The media have been successful at selling the idea that the economy is terrible and Biden’s administration ruined it. So the Republicans are assuming that there’s obviously nothing in Biden/Harris’s record to defend.
But these perceptions largely run on vibes. We all know there’s a lot of strength in the economy to tout; the media just haven’t been transmitting that message. Remember the way that, to Republican voters, the economy was terrible all the way up to Obama’s last day in office and then Trump magically fixed it. Nothing happened on that day! But it was how they felt.
The big question is whether the vibes change from Harris coming in is enough of a difference in media attitudes to get the message through. We say they’re biased toward Republicans and maybe they are, but I think to a large degree they’re biased toward pushing preconceived stories that have a clean narrative structure, and the stories seem to have flipped.
TBone
On topic tune
https://youtu.be/Yi7tTDoF-kU
Suzanne
@WereBear:
The good news is that seems to be changing. The bad news is that we have to live through loser men’s tantrums about it.
RandomMonster
How would anyone know? He doesn’t have any values. Just like Trump.
rikyrah
@Tony Jay:
This goes back to Gov Walz with Tapper on Sunday. Tapper lists all the stuff that Walz has done, and then purses his lips to ask Walz how he would be able to defend himself against GOP attacks.
Walz responded with
“Muthaphucka, please”,🤬
But, did it in Minnesota Nice.
Hell yeah, the VP can run on the record of this Administration
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s also horrifying to their wives, who are left to pick up the pieces and the children, often with no more than a Bible college background and piano skills.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not A Drag Queen 😒
Rachel Bakes
Personally I hate calling people on the phone or knocking on doors to talk to strangers. There are circumstances when I’m comfortable talking with people I don’t know but helping on a campaign ain’t it. Postcards for me!
catclub
I disagree. The only policy the GOP and Trump had over the past 4 years was ‘Biden is too old and incapable of being president’,
which is not even policy. Actually addressing what has been done by Biden Harris is a big shift. I doubt it will happen.
Ivan X
Since this is an open thread, and an Anne Laurie thread at that, I thought I’d share this website made by genius crypto critic Molly White, about how how an avalanche of crypto PAC money is attempting to influence election outcomes, and possibly already has in the primaries:
Follow The Crypto
catclub
It could be gay, it could be he has been drinking and stealing money from the church hand over fist for a while.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@rikyrah: At this rate, it’s safe to say that one’s children are exponentially safer in the care of a drag queen than a pastor. Not a moral judgment, just a matter of raw numbers.
apocalipstick
@twbrandt:
You neglect the Swifties at your peril.
BR
Ugly tidbit that Amanda Marcotte reminds us of:
https://mastodon.sdf.org/@AmandaMarcotte/112875460645875374
Anyway
@H.E.Wolf: Thanks for the list. I am no good calling people on the phone or knocking on doors to talk to strangers – I’ll see if the campaign office could use drivers or errand-people.
Tony Jay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
At the bottom of the corpse-clogged well that is the heart of any GOP strategist lies a mud encrusted box covered with tarnished brass engravings of a naked Newt Gingrich, and in that box is a single square of parchment with a single line of text scrawled across it, reading.
“Do only what they pay you to do – forever”
And that’s that.
stinger
@Tony Jay: Scott Jennings: “Bag the stupid crap”.
I looked up “stupid crap” in my Funk and Wagnall’s. You’ll never guess!
It means racism. And misogyny. But Jennings can’t actually say that.
They’ll never stop doing it when they can’t admit what they’re doing.
catclub
I bet that once one has been the party nominee for president, one never drops down to being the party nominee for vice president.
Matt McIrvin
@BR: Trump’s rally rhetoric constantly comes back to the idea that some other people or some other countries are “laughing at you” or “laughing at us”. Liberals are laughing at you, our NATO allies are laughing at us, our enemies are laughing at us. It’s obviously a deeply horrifying thing to him, and maybe to his core supporters as well.
I have a healthy skepticism of the political effectiveness of ridicule at bringing down tyrants once they’re firmly in power. They can just respond by killing you. But it seems to be something that hurts Trump.
lollipopguild
@BR: Humpty Trumpty is very insecure and he takes a woman laughing as a personal attack on his manhood.
apocalipstick
@catclub:
Could also be ‘stalked and/or harassed a female staff member/congregant’. That happens a lot.
I was a pastor for fifteen years. I’ve seen a great many variants on bad behavior.
Kyle Rayner
I was waiting for a post on LGBTQ+ news for this to be somewhat on topic, but those don’t come around often, and I’ve been spotting these terms misused lately so I figure it’s worth posting this vocabulary breakdown:
TERF is not interchangeable with transphobe. All TERFs are transphobic, but not all transphobes are TERFs. Calling Putin or Republican men TERFs makes no sense, because they are not Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists. Most Republican women you see on TV talking shit about bathrooms don’t fit the bill either. Republican goons might misgender a trans woman the same way TERFs do, but it’ll be the queerness itself that they believe makes someone dangerous.
TERFs generally believe ALL the people they consider to be men are abusers and sexual predators and say it with their whole chests – their transphobia stems from this core worldview rather than a generalized othering of queerness. You won’t catch a TERF saying “not all men” in a discussion about sexual assault. Their support of gay men tends to rest upon “Phew, those men aren’t as much of a danger to women” and their support of lesbians teens to rest upon “Phew, those women are less likely to get hurt by men.” Which is very different from true acceptance of the diversity of human sexuality, though some gay people have definitely drank the kool-aid and consider them allies. TERFs are also a group more likely to acknowledge and disparage the existence of trans men than garden variety transphobes. (“Look at what the TRAs* are doing to our beautiful young girls! They’re mutilating them!” is a common refrain.)
*TRA – Trans Rights Activist, an insult and a play on Men’s Rights Activist
Similarly, it doesn’t serve anyone to shorthand “lesbian activists” as part of the transphobic coalition. The lesbians who ARE transphobic are usually the ones who can be safely referred to as TERFs instead.
JKR can safely be referred to as a TERF or TERF-adjacent. But transphobe is a more general term that works just as well.
A fair chunk of people in comments have mentioned their lack of familiarity with political terms pertaining to LGBTQ+ issues, asking to be informed, so this is just a note to that effect, to help you feel familiar and confident in what you’re saying.
cmorenc
The race is not quite as calcified as could be assumed by the large firm sets of firm R/MAGA and D/anti-Trump voters. One gettable set is the substantial number of voters who did not like Trump (though not as passionately as us) but were horrified by their perception of Biden’s debate performance as someone simply not any longer mentally up to the job of the Presidency, and if they were answering “Trump” to pollsters, it was a very soft lean as what seemed for the moment the slightly less of two bad choices. (Hard-core Biden posters here can argue till the cows come home about media narrative driving this perception of what was just a cold-impaired 20 minutes, unfair etc etc, but you aren’t going to change what these folks firmly thought they saw for themselves). Don’t have the link, but on CNN (I think) there was a clip of interviews of Macomb, County Michigan voters now re-thinking their choices now that Harris is in the race instead of Biden.
Heidi Mom
@Tony Jay: That statement by Jennings is shockingly stupid. I had to read it three times to make sure he said what I thought he said. He thinks she’ll disavow Biden’s record? He thinks we’ll disavow it? Incredible.
Tony Jay
@rikyrah:
Exactly.
“Your opponent says you’re a ravening beast with the flesh of innocents dangling from your blood-streaked fangs. He says you steal from orphans and can’t be trusted around old people because you’ve been seen punching and kicking them. He says that right now you’re naked below the waist and touching yourself at the thought of foreigners beheading every young, blonde girl in America. That sounds awful. What kind of monster must you be to drive him to say these things about you?”
Fair and Balanced. Fuck’em.
catclub
a little lagniappe on the weird JD Vance stories:
unfortunately behind Fortune’s paywall.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Ridicule can keep a tyrant out by making them a laughing stock early on. Ridicule can bring one down when they are weak because it shows that they are no longer completely in control. And quiet ridicule can keep the spirit of resistance alive when a tyrant is strong, but it also can be dangerous.
Matt McIrvin
@Kyle Rayner: My experience from online discourse has been that the meaning of “TERF” is shifting to just mean “transphobe”. And the truly TERFy ones ally with right-wing types more than you’d expect, so maybe the distinction is even less useful than it used to be.
TBone
Susie Madrak takes on the Arizona candidate for today’s election there (also a Thiel bootlicker):
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/07/blake-masters-made-same-crazy-speech-about
hueyplong
@catclub: It will be the band playing its hits for a black woman.
“Radical leftist agenda”
Dog whistled terms that translate to “uppity.” From the Obama days we all recall “arrogant” as one of them.
I’m mildly surprised it hasn’t already begun in earnest. One possible answer is (as often said here) that they put all their eggs in the Biden Is Old/Biden Crime Family basket and have to do a full retrofit of the propaganda machine.
The good news about that is that a sudden shift to a full-on outburst of completely different outrage will probably look much more artificial to “normies,” who might be a little less susceptible to the “We’ve always been at war with EastAsia” pivots than are the cult members.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@lollipopguild: There’s the saying that goes: men are afraid that women will laugh at them, while women are afraid that men will kill them.
Hungry Joe
Postcards to Swing States update:
Yesterday: 8
Running total: 126
TBone
@Ivan X: great info, thanks for sharing!
catclub
@Hungry Joe: well done!
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a big argument about this going on in my Facebook feed right now, so it was top of mind. A friend quoted some stuff Tom Lehrer said late in his career when he was getting disillusioned with the utility of satire. Lehrer quoted Peter Cook as saying, ah yes, the satirical Berlin cabaret culture of the Weimar Republic was so effective at keeping the Nazis out.
Lehrer also noted something I think is true, which is that often the more partisan sort of stuff is really just aimed at gratifying people by flattering their preconceptions rather than challenging them. We see that today across the spectrum. I have a hard time gauging what will really land with people who aren’t already on your team.
(I know from elsewhere that stand-up comics call those kinds of jokes “clappers”–jokes contrived to get applause rather than laughter. They look down on them.)
WereBear
@apocalipstick: Or, to marry theories, a male one.
UncleEbeneezer
@H.E.Wolf: Also, being the chauffeur to someone else who is canvassing. I did this in 2022 and it was great because I don’t want to do the door-knocking but am good for driving around someone who does. It allowed the canvasser to hit way more houses than if she was driving herself, parking, walking and then walking back.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: I don’t buy the story of poor widdle Usha Vance. She went to Yale. She clerked for Roberts and Kavanaugh. She is not a victim. She chose this. She comes from generational Brahminical privilege. Her mother is a provost for a big University.
Modi is vegetarian too and so was Hitler. So was Gandhi’s assassin it doesn’t confers some sort of godliness.
Geminid
New York Democrat Tom Watson reposted this from Manhattan Borough President Mark D. Levine:
Districts 3 is held by Tom Suozzi (D). who won a special election this Spring by 8%. District 18 was won by Democrat Pat Ryan in 2022 by 1.7%.
The other 5 districts are held by Republicans. Mike Lawler won NY01 by 11% in 2022. It’s a district Biden would have won in its current outline, so Democrat John Avlon has a decent chance of flipping it.
Republican Anthony Esposito won NY04 by 3.6%; his Democratic opponent this year is Laura Gillen.
NY17 was won by Republican Mike Lawler by less than 1% in 2022. He faces former Rep. Mondaire Jones this November
Republican Marc Molinari won the 19th CD by 1.5% in 2022, and this time Democrats are running Josh Riley against him.
The Republican incumbent for the 22nd CD is Brandon Williams, who won by 1% last time. His opponent this year is Democrat John Mannion.
New York carried out another round of redistricting this Spring that resulted some changes in the state’s congressional map, but they were relatively small.
Kyle Rayner
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t believe that just because it’s shifting in some circles of people who are less familiar with the topic, that we should all shift with it without a second thought.
I got my own pet beef with radfems (and SWERFs), wholly separate from the damage their TERF contingent does, so it’ll take a much larger popular culture shift for me to ignore the distinction.
But yes, you’re right. In many spaces where the idea of what a TERF is was poorly defined to begin with, the difference has eroded to nil.
stinger
@Hungry Joe: Your daily updates always make me happy. (Even if a given day’s count is zero; that’s life!)
Marmot
@Matt McIrvin:
So true. One unacknowledged journalistic tool for saving precious time is to begin writing a story before you’re done reporting. So you hang it all on one of your preexisting frames.
What happens if you remove the insane time-crunch from journalism?
Quinerly
@Hildebrand:
Seems to me Carville (and wife) disappeared for years except in human interest stories about their beautiful home in NOLA. I enjoyed reading those obscure articles about their house and the renovations. I think they have now sold it. Anyway, the pieces were interesting, along with a sighting or 2 of James at Jazz Fest eating soft shell crab po boys. Never saw her. He was pleasant in the food line. Kinda shy, if you can believe that.
Now it seems like he is everywhere on my TV slamming Dems. I think Ari Melber revived his pundit career. Maybe he was on CNN during the Trump years? Just seems like to me he has been off the airwaves for years.
Related, Donna Brazile has been dead to me since she started taking her paycheck from Fox.
WereBear
oldgold
@sixthdoctor: “I ignored Adam Schiff”
Why? Punishing him for being correct early on?
I understand why some may have been angry several weeks ago when Schiff was among the first to call for Biden to step aside, but now after what has transpired over the past 9 days, it is clear Schiff was correct.
Quinerly
@apocalipstick: I’m hoping Taylor endorses at the convention.
Love her. Admire her. She seems genuine.
Unfortunately, I still couldn’t name or recognize even one of her songs.
3Sice
Stable genius is still going on about Joe’s debate dig at his golf game.
It’s fucking weird.
Matt McIrvin
@Marmot: Once upon a time, news magazines were supposed to have that more reflective focus that daily newspapers couldn’t. (But I wonder if they ever did.)
different-church-lady
@Tony Jay: No, it’s more like the political press launders the talking points. They take the attack lines, turn it into “voters worry that…” and bit by bit the manufactured narrative becomes reality, because they’ve disguised the source.
hueyplong
@Quinerly: Carville, if posting what he says on tv, would be called a troll.
Quinerly
@BR: he was ranting one day that Margaret Thatcher didn’t laugh.
He’s so fucking weird.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree, this happens. But it’s kind of dumb to say ridicule is worthless if it isn’t the only thing we need.
WereBear
Joe Conason’s new book, The Longest Con, is something I’m reading (I’ve read him before, he’s good) for a Balloon Juice review.
While it is top of my mind for that reason, it’s also how, more and more, criminality crept into the Republican party from a new direction. Republicans sold their party positions, and hired an actor like Ronald Reagan to make a record, but that’s just advertising.
But white collar crime creeps in, because they already know people don’t get caught for that. It can dance on the edge for a long time without anyone noticing.
I can already see the promise of the book, because he’s really onto something. Even though I’m hoping I know how it ends, we don’t really know.
That’s how we get lost in the con. And could lose everything.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * confer..
Suzanne
@Quinerly: I don’t know if Taylor Swift needs to be at the convention. In the last cycle, she “endorsed” by posting a picture of herself with cookies.
I would love to see her endorse by posing with her cat. LOL.
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly: I started seeing Carville cited in funding pitches for Democratic party organizations–the DCCC, I think? Wondered why the hell anyone would think seeing his name would make it more likely for me to give them money.
Jackie
@rikyrah:
Or is he? It’s stated there was no untoward behavior involving children… Being a Drag Queen would absolutely qualify for being fired as head pastor of a southern conservative church.
cmorenc
@Kyle Rayner: WRT Trans-women, there is a substantial portion of people who take a tolerant “live and let live” attitude toward them, and are repulsed by the toxic hate many express toward them – but who only regard them as female limited by some heavy qualifications. One of these is against them being allowed to participate in competitive sports as women. Another is they would never consider a trans person as a potential romantic mate. As to the bathroom thing – for them that’s ok if someone has physically transitioned, but not when it’s still at the stage of just being mentally trans. Frankly, these qualifications are going to persistently be a hard hill to push past, much harder than gaining general acceptance of gay people, The hard-core anti-LBGT folks use these reservations among otherwise LBGT-tolerant people to gain leverage in the political fight around LBGT rights.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not objecting to vegetarianism. It was part of illustrating how liberal Vance got.
By all means, Usha signed up. I think she resigned for his Senate campaign.
I just wonder how well anyone can know him, and I certainly wouldn’t trust him.
hueyplong
@Baud: It reeks of tut-tutting away one of the many effective weapons we have this year. Once that one’s gone, we’ll learn that another one is supposed to be ineffective/inappropriate/etc. because not approved by the NYT.
TBone
From Mike’s Blog Roundup at crooksandliars:
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Lots of Dem donors are not like us. It’s what keeps the NYT in business.
hueyplong
@WereBear: If Vance weren’t from a privileged background with his path greased for him, he’d be George Santos (who has probably also used 3 names).
Lyrebird
Oh please yes! They can take up knitting or whatever.
TOTALLY.
And they are all, oh me oh my, Dems thought GA was out of reach… hmmm, any in depth reporting on the voter suppression tactics GA has been using? Somehow I doubt it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@different-church-lady:
Preeeeecisely. I’ve seen “writers” at Vox and the Atlantic do this on certain economic policy issues, basically launder right wing ideas/talking points for the Totebagger Radio crowd.
It’s seemingly all they know how to do.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: Before Abigail Thorn (Philosophy Tube) came out as trans, she made a really good video about this, saying that the “live and let live” attitude wasn’t good enough, people really needed to extend epistemic charity to trans people–accept that you really are the expert on what your gender is.
As an aging guy who grew up in a profoundly transphobic and gender-essentialist world, I’ll freely admit, this is difficult for me. But these are also the kind of habits of thought that it’s exciting for me to try to stretch and modify.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: I wouldn’t trust either of them
Yes I was countering your point that vegetarianism equals liberalism. It doesn’t
Quinerly
@oldgold:
Actually, when Schiff came out requesting Biden to step aside that’s when I came to the belief Biden had to step aside. Schiff probably has more to lose with a Trump presidency than most. He knows Trump’s DOJ will come after him and he could end up in Gitmo. I also believe in my heart he ran his Op Ed by Pelosi. (And Clooney ran his by Obama). Schiff is a good man. He’s arrogant, but he’s a politician and atty. Arrogance goes hand in hand with those professions. The Dem Party and the country owes him a debt of gratitude for his work on Trump’s impeachment et al. He knows what is at stake if we lose.
K-Mo
I’m fired up to get some of that online training and rejuvenated talking points. We’ve been canvassing in PA this summer, mostly stumping for Janelle Stelson, a middle-of-the-road local TV personality running against American Psycho Scott Perry. Ready to add some Kamala talking points!
WereBear
@hueyplong: That’s exactly what Mr WereBear was saying. A con artist.
But then, that’s what they are all, now. Proudly wearing Diapers for the Donald pushed the joke into full weird.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin:
The “weird” campaign is effective because is hits on what a lot of people, and not just the very political ones, feel about these right wing guys. They seem “off.” I’ve noted that in many elections, late deciders break for the leader/candidate with momentum. A lot of people want to be with the winner. Defining the GOP leadership as vaguely creepy and weird makes them into losers. Who do you want to be with, the laughing lady or the guy who might have fucked a couch?
Quinerly
@hueyplong: wonder what he gets paid to be on MSNBC?
Quinerly
@Suzanne: maybe her cat will release a statement.
Hildebrand
@Quinerly: I’ve been trying to sort out why it is that former Democratic operatives – Carville and Axelrod are two really good examples – turn into such critical scolds of current Democrats.
I’m guessing that it is simply that they are no longer on the inside. Perhaps the lack of real influence has so soured them, or wounded their egos, that they lash out and try to tear current politicians down because they had the temerity to not receive their ‘wisdom’.
I’m guessing its the same with pundits – Haberman, Dowd, the collective of Nates, Ezras, and Matthews, Hasan, the mustache of understanding, Jon Stewart, etc. – they are never truly on the inside, they don’t hold any power except for perception, and this lack of real influence has embittered them terribly.
The kicker is – I can’t sort it out if they just don’t give a shit because of their wealth, or is it that they, deep down, really do believe the Sorkin-esque fantasy of centrism uber alles?
Either way, I wonder how often each day they have people tell them to pull their heads out and stop aiding and abetting the destruction of our democracy. Or are they so siloed into their rich social circles they never even hear this critique?
cmorenc
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ll freely admit the element of “would never consider a trans-woman as a potential romantic partner” is an Everest-size mountain I will never be able nor willing to climb. The rest of the trans status hills are doable, at least for me.
zhena gogolia
@Hungry Joe: I did 20 yesterday. Running total: 20
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: Their record is phenomenal. Republicans offer nothing
Jackie
@Heidi Mom:
Scott Jennings is a smarmy smug condescending RW asshole. Especially towards the women on the panels he’s on. I get the impression he’s not well-liked, and barely tolerated.
WereBear
@Omnes Omnibus: I also think non-MAGAs have been studiously avoiding the subject because the whole subject still hurts. Look how long it took to even touch the Vietnam War afterwards.
Bad as that was, it wasn’t what we just went through. MAGA can find their nuggest of persecution in those days, and revel in the good times, but not the whole rest of us.
Perhaps, as a beacon of hope and justice and just a bitty bit of righteous anger, we can choose the leader we want.
Those hanging back will have a clear path. If they want it.
zhena gogolia
@oldgold: YOU WERE RIGHT YOU WERE RIGHT YOU WERE RIGHT
Happy now?
It’s not true, but happy now?
Marmot
@Matt McIrvin: Wow, that’s true. I’d forgotten.
Small operations are always frenzied, and I doubt the big ones lived up to it either. The field itself has the mentality of a high-volume restaurant kitchen, but with news.
I never really understood the value of a scoop. I’d wager that scoop-chasing is a net negative for readers.
WereBear
I’m also reminded of how a Lincoln biography had a chapter on the national mood as the future President was becoming an adult, and it was one of lost glories. Because their literal forefathers had stories of stirring revolutionary times. Abe Lincoln and his peers had lost what they saw as their chance to show their defense of their country.
All over but the shouting, pundits declared.
Mousebumples
@zhena gogolia: way to go! (and you too, Hungry Joe) 🎉
Quinerly
@zhena gogolia:
Whatever……
gene108
@H.E.Wolf:
There are enough third party groups awash in billionaire money that the gaps in the Trump campaign infrastructure can be filled in quite effectively.
Running against Republicans means running against billionaire money, Russia, etc., along with running against Trump.
oldgold
@zhena gogolia: No, I was not right. I was a fence sitter. Check the record.
H.E.Wolf
This is a great idea – thanks for adding these to the list!
Jackie
@Geminid:
Are there two Mike Lawlers? 😉
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: Well, exploring that further will get us off on a tangent that is not necessarily helpful. I’ll just say, I think part of the problem is in fact too many straight guys taking “what I find hot” as their barometer of true femininity.
H.E.Wolf
This is brilliant too! I love the collaborative nature of this option… together, we win.
WereBear
@gene108: Yes, but now the place is stocked with people who don’t want to work and don’t know how, but have been made management.
Golly, I hope there’s someone who will become enlightened and write a memoir about being a MAGA at this time. Maybe I’ll have to wait ten years.
catclub
I think Russian money has been coming in at least since 2016. Russian money to Trump? decades?
rikyrah
@BR:
and you don’t think the Vice President doesn’t know this?
WereBear
Also, humiliation shrinks all of their participation. Already many of us are seeing fewing Trump signs than in attempts past.
Not that anyone harasses them in particular, but they are now touchy about seeming weird. And there they are, looking at each other, in a non-Trump space…
Don’t forget. These folks are paranoid by nature, and their culture has only been hitting the bruise for years now.
Aziz, light!
There’s evidence that Usha Vance despises Trump. She is smooching his ample rump because there is a reasonable possibility that she will someday be first lady. I’ll bet she is writing “First Lady Usha Vance” on cocktail napkins.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: One of the things I liked about the WhiteDudes4Harris call last night was that several speakers took the approach of: something great and historic is happening, let’s be a part of it. I think this sort of positive, winner-energy vibes appeal is much better than what we often see on our side. And I think it’s something people like us should spend more time signaling to Normies. Instead of endlessly focussing on all the ways our candidates aren’t perfect. It’s an appeal that can work even for large swaths of white voters. Maybe not a majority, but enough to really get some big political wins and effect some massive change.
rikyrah
@Hungry Joe:
I love these updates :)
WereBear
@catclub: Failson Jr told a golf magazine years ago that’s where the money came from for all the golf courses.
Our MSMS, journalisming.
Baud
@Aziz, light!:
JD Vance probably despises Trump too.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
THANK YOU
Geminid
@Jackie: I had a hunch I’d missed something! NY01 is held by Republican Nick LaLota.
H.E.Wolf
And last but not in any way least – thank you to all the postcard writers for doing the work, and reminding us that this task is available if we’d like to pitch in.
Now I’m off to update more addresses for the field organizers. It’s a beautiful day for data entry!
PS: I almost forgot – there was one volunteer who was an adult recent English learner and too shy to canvass or phonebank, who painted a picture and brought it in to beautify the campaign office. ❤️❤️❤️
Belafon
@oldgold: Don’t think Schiff is the only target of our ire, or that only people in office are the only target of our ire. He just chose to go in front of a camera.
I will never not be annoyed that it wasn’t the threat of Trump and Republicans that got people fired up to fight for this election, it was Biden stepping aside.
So Schiff is kind of lucky in a way. I was able to go find something else to do for a few minutes last night.
Kyle Rayner
@cmorenc: I don’t think it’ll be harder. It was hard for people to come to terms with gay people being in the same locker room as them. People felt violated by our mere existence. It’s just that overcoming those barriers seems so easy in hindsight. (And they’re not even fully overcome yet.)
For trans people, it’s very much the same hurdle, the same scary mental images evoked by bad actors, just some years down the line. No one’s invented any new reason to be scared, and there’s not anything more inherently confusing or scary about trans people than gay people.
The idea that it’s harder, or some bigger ask, is just part of the slippery slope framing. “Oh, we accepted gay people and now they’re asking us to accept trans people too? These people never stop escalating!” (The implication, of course, is often that no one should have caved to gay acceptance either.) We CAN break out of that framing :)
WereBear
@Aziz, light!: I’m sure Vance is all “We fooled them darling! Pick out drapes!” and opening champagne behind closed doors.
Until people come to their home with papers saying he is divorcing her and the children. Their things will be sent.
Under Project 2025 he has that power. And this is before he’s President. Perhaps he knew he couldn’t possibly get it any other way.
And I guess I really don’t want to know the skills that might have gone into this giant transaction.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: I have always advocated acting confidant. The idea of fighting like we are ten points down is IMO counterproductive. I think that hopelessness is more of a hindrance than complacency.* Act like you are going to win, and people may believe you. It has helped me in sports, the army, and practicing law.
*2016 may have been an outlier for many, many reasons.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
This. There are two silver linings that have reduced the damage of Citizens United. First, asshole rich people willing to pour hundreds of millions into conservative causes want things done their way and do not cooperate with each other because they’re assholes. Second, it unleashed a class of political grifters who devour this money and give nothing in return. This might be a good chance to see if any of that PAC money actually does go to ground game work.
WereBear
@Baud: Thing is, both of them have decided it doesn’t matter.
Which is common, but still weird.
schrodingers_cat
On last word on the Vances vegetarianism. This is my theory.
Usha comes from a family of Telugu Brahmins who are vegetarians by tradition. J.D. became a vegetarian to win her over. That doesn’t make him or her liberal.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks for the updates. Sounds like Vance married up, status wise.
I’m just saying MAGA would never accept vegetarianism the way Gov. Walz did, joking with his daughter.
THEY would code it as “liberal.”
Sean
@Suzanne:
Not to get too in the weeds on this particular subtopic, but the woman commands an unreal amount of influence amongst more than a few key voting demographics. Making her endorsement a spectacle at the convention that gets a zillion write ups and eyeballs sounds like a good strategy. Especially if rolled out as teasing her involvement to get more eyes on the convention AND Kamala.
I just hope there are talks and plans behind the scenes on how to effectively wield her immense influence. She moves markets for god’s sake.
A part of me wants to speed it up. We need her fans registering and planning to vote with the fervor of going to her concerts. I know some of her fans have already started their own registration movements. I imagine that would increase by a lot after a public endorsement.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the people who say “fight like you’re ten points down” don’t realize how far down ten points down is. They mean something like “one point down”. One point down is a fight-hard situation.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Yeah I get that, for many Americans the world begins and ends with them and their cultural POV.
He definitely married up. She definitely is also the better looking of the two and smarter of the two. He looks like a a cabbage patch doll with a beard.
narya
@catclub: Decades. There’s an episode of “The World Beneath” that includes a Russian ex-spy who details this (“The Enemy Inside with Craig Unger and Yuri Shvets”).
MattF
TFG doubles down on ‘no more voting’:
Attention must be paid. Or else.
coin operated
@cmorenc:
I’m going to echo this sentiment…as liberal as I think I am, I’m on the cusp of old and a romantic interest would be a hard sell for me. That said…I have a trans nephew. He knew what he wanted to be as a teen and the transformation has been an educational experience for me. He’ll be going in for SRS soon and has a girlfriend who is completely supportive.
They come from a different day and age than you or I.
(minor edits)
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: And I think it was when they are in Yale Law School, and he could do a “saw the light” thing about his college liberalism but he did not when he switched to MAGA.
He hid that phase of his life.
A George Santos. So yes, if you are saying he was perhaps conning Usha and her college-connected parents into accepting him, I’d say it’s highly likely.
oldgold
In many respects this year reminds me of ’68 ( Political tumult and violence, Setting President stepping aside, Low character opponent, etc).
Humphrey began way behind. He damn near caught Nixon. The thing that he got going for him was the joy with which he campaigned. He was the “Happy Warrior.” I think later Reagan picked up on this and benefited by campaigning with a smile.
I think Harris gets this. The laughter is not a negative. It is a positive. Hope, joy and happiness will beat the sour dystopian grievances Trump is pedaling.
sdhays
@WereBear: Oh, god. I had forgotten about Diapers for Donald.
Not weird at all.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: Well, we just had a good demonstration of how hard people will fight when we’re only a couple of points down, so I imagine ten would lead to just outright surrender.
JML
It’s going to be really interesting to see how impactful the Democratic GOTV effort will be in this election. Because if it’s not a difference-maker it kind of flips the script on campaigns a little. The Trump GOTV effort is going to be a sh!t show; they’ve basically outsourced it to a bunch of right-wing grifters and there’s simply not going to be the level of organization, reach, and professionalism that you would expect there. So if the Democratic effort can’t outstrip the GOP on this one…uh-oh.
With a deeply polarized electorate, turnout isn’t just the most important thing, it’s the only thing. The numbers of persuadables is much lower in this election (regardless of whether it was Biden or Harris at the top of the ticket), but the numbers of low-propensity voters is still quite large. Harris taking over has added a level of energy into the race for the Democrats that should be influencing the likely voter screens…but will any of the polls be adjusting their likely voter models right now? As a former pro in the field, I’d say they damn well better be re-evaluating their metrics or run the risk of looking very stupid (again) but I suspect that most will not.
Trump is trying to turn out his low-propensity voter with rallies, free media, and a cult personality and presuming that he has traditional high likelihood GOP voters locked in and banked. It’d be a fascinating bet if the potential result wasn’t so damn scary. (I should probably write a paper on it, but my motivation is a little low right now)
Geminid
@gene108: Those gaps in campaign infrastructure can certainly be filled with 3rd party money, but I wonder how efficiently they will be filled.
These operations will likely be trash magnets just like Trump himself is a trash magnet. Middle management could be a particular problem because a lot of Republican “activists” now are greedy opportunists with shaky work ethics.
Citizen Alan
@cmorenc: For what it’s worth, I am not any less likely to choose a trans woman as a romantic partner than I am a cis woman. That’s kind of the point of being ace.
frosty
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes. I’m not a very good canvasser. I don’t particularly like to talk to people and I have to stop at the door for a few seconds to put myself in gear before knocking.
But I guess I’ll do it again. Even though PA Dems don’t do a very good job of a combined campaign this will be an opportunity to get people to throw Scott Perry out of office, whether it’s in the script or not.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: It’s strange, many of their positions are indeed “deeply unpopular”, but as has been observed elsewhere people often don’t believe they actually hold positions that they say they hold. Some of who people, especially normies, vote for is about personality not their positions on the issues. I think generally you can say that many of the policy positions they take are unpopular, but not all of them. Immigration is our weak spot right now, as you can tell by watching the Republican primary ads in MO. Every state officeholder is saying they’re going to “deport illegal immigrants” regardless of whether their job has anything to do with that (none of those jobs have anything to do with that!). I think Democratic positions on immigration are not that popular in many places right now.
Anoniminous
Less than 100 days now and the GOP ground game is “Trump Force 47.” Which the FTWSJ calls “a hidden ground game.” Yup. Just what every candidate needs: A Hidden Ground Game.
The stupidity of journalists never ceases to amaze.
schrodingers_cat
Thanks for listening. We are in agreement.
Scout211
@Quinerly: Thank you.
I think not only did Schiff run his statement by Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries, I think he was specifically tasked by them to be the one to make that statement. His election was never in doubt so he was the one to come forward. But since he will be my Senator I have quickly gotten over my disappointment in him. And now I understand the role he played in the team effort to get Joe Biden to withdraw.
I hope all the Schiff hate here subsides soon, but whatever.
ETA for clarity
narya
@MattF: Last night, Maddow was detailing how many election deniers had obtained vote-certification positions around the country. It sounds as though if a given county (or other sub-state entity) refuses to certify, then the whole state can’t certify, either, and this is one of their plans to try to steal this election.
Kent
I think it is because people have stopped listening to them within the circles of power. And so to be heard and “stay relevant” they have to run to their media contacts. Who will only put them on the air if they say increasingly hysterical shit that makes news.
If Carville is only saying the same stuff as everyone else, why bother putting a has-been like him on TV? He was born in 1944 and about to turn 80 so older than Trump and definitely of a different generation.
frosty
@H.E.Wolf: Cash for canvassers???? C’mon man, I haven’t been paid in 20 years. Someone buys snacks if you’re lucky.
WereBear
Our people are being expertly guided into activity through enthusiasm.
While the opposition is stumbling drunkenly through a bee yard and seems determined to hit every one.
Right down to the incoherent screaming and anger.
Which place would your average low info voter be drawn to? Chances are, the apocalyptic kind have been rabid and already in Trump’s camp.
The room for growth is with Harris. As much as we can catch and keep.
Citizen Alan
@Sean: I want taylor and beyonce to show up unexpectedly at the DNC and sing a duet of “I am woman” by helen reddy.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
There was also this German guy who was vegetarian.
Just sayin’.
Tony Jay
@different-church-lady:
Just working different roles on the production line. Barry drafts the blueprints, Larry files the bearings, Gary works in marketing, but they all make shit cars.
different-church-lady
Galldam folks, Vance is a crawler. He has no principles of his own, he’s just going to say anything that will get him ahead with whatever group will give him power in return. There’s no transformation, he’s just figured out MAGA will give him what he wants more easily.
Suzanne
@WereBear: Vegetarianism in much of the west is associated with animal rights movements, which is when it started becoming frequent enough that it turned into A Thing That Other People Noticed. And most animal rights people back in the day were probably liberals and were definitely thought of as hippies. But of course there’s lots of people who choose vegetarianism/veganism for all sorts of reasons. As the south Asian population has grown in the U.S., probably more people are learning about it as a religious and cultural practice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Dear god, no.
catclub
@narya: there is CNN article on True the Vote rwnj’s
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: I’m so glad you perfectly understand everything that went on behind the scenes. I don’t. But history is being rewritten before my eyes.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: I didn’t forget him, I put him in my example above.
UncleEbeneezer
I just saw that “Cucks For Kamala” is trending on Twitter. Looks like somebody was triggered by the success of the White Dudes For Harris call last night. And it really speaks volumes about these assholes that they get so upset at the notion of white men supporting a black women that their go to move is to insult our masculinity/sexuality.
different-church-lady
@UncleEbeneezer: Incels say what?
Kent
@WereBear: I think it is that Vance has no core. He is a chameleon who just goes along with whatever group he is with.
He faked the hillbilly thing
He faked being a Yale blueblood
He faked the young cosmopolitan multicultural dude with his wife and her family
He faked being a hard-edged venture capitalist
And how he is faking MAGA which managed to get him into the Senate through a lucky 3-way primary and then into the VP slot.
If Trump loses then Vance will turn on a dime and become whatever is the “new Republican”
frosty
@H.E.Wolf: I don’t understand the need for data entry. With the Minivan app, canvassers enter the results as they work. Pre-canvassing? It’s all from voter registration. What gets fixed?
As for phone banking, I did one shift a long time ago. Run away!!!!
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: They got what they wanted and now they are rewriting history like victors do.
I think KH has a good chance of winning. As did Biden.
The presidency ages people so KH better beware of her new fair weather friends, who will toss her if she no longer satisfies their idea of beauty in 4 years time when she seeks reelection. Her record of achievments may not matter either to the shallow and the weak kneed in our coalition.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
One more push for the Pointer Sisters (in their current incarnation) singing “Yes We Can Can,” altered to “Yes We Can Kam.”
stinger
@Belafon:
This.
WereBear
And the surprise reveal!
That the Christian Nationalist wing of the Evangelicals, who got the Roe decisions of almost their dreams, find out just how much they were out-played and out-moneyed by Opus Dei, behind the curtain the whole time.
The church is the state and the state is the church, right there in Project 2025. So let’s have the discussion now: which “church”?
But, hey nonny, nonny, Catholics and Protestants have always gotten along so well, bless their hearts.
Suzanne
Can I also note that they always seem to go after “childless cat ladies”, but never #divorceddadenergy? Why is the right always so threatened by women who don’t want to bang them?
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’ve seen some American animal-rights activists touting Indian laws promoting vegetarianism without seemingly realizing the full political-religious context, which is problematic at best.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Scout211:
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t know what happened behind the scenes. I’m just glad Schiff came out immediately supporting Kamala Harris.
SFAW
@WereBear:
I’m hoping it will be the Church of the Sub-Genius. All hail “Bob” Dobbs!!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah.
rikyrah
Kamala HQ
@KamalaHQ
.
@PeteButtigieg
: JD Vance has turned out to be so odd. He systematically insulted so many people. He says not being a parent makes you less. He said people who don’t have children ‘have no physical commitment to the future of this country.’ When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I didn’t have kids back then, but I will tell you, my commitment to this country felt pretty physical
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1818291062298804238
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Many of them are highly sensitive to the idea that all of their thoughts and ideas might not be taken seriously by everyone. They believe they are the true “deep thinkers”, and have educated themselves by “doing the research”, so the idea that others are laughing at them is both highly offensive and extremely anxiety inducing to them.
Lochnessmom
@zhena gogolia:
I am going to say this once (because I am leaving for vacation shortly and I can’t believe this is still a thing.)
For the people I know in meatspace and on this blog — we were really sort of terrified of Biden being pushed out. Not because of undying loyalty or being deadenders, and not because we had reservations about Harris herself. We did not trust that there wouldn’t be a power vacuum that spiraled into a nightmare. It was a legitimate fear. Every dem Pol (yeah, looking at you Adam Schiff) who told Biden to step down but did not endorse Harris in the same sentence….well that was nerve-wracking.
If you look at this blog, most of the commenters from marginalized groups (poc, lgbtq+) were sticking with Joe. Because we do not have the LUXURY OF PANIC. It was mainly straight white folks that we saw upsetting the apple cart.
My partner is a closeted trans woman. (Cannot come out right now for a couple of reasons). They were in a panic.
We did not think Biden lost the debate. We did not think he displayed any cognitive decline. YMMV.
To a person, we have all admitted we have never been so happy to be wrong about something as being wrong about the outcome of him stepping aside. We are thrilled with Harris.
But we are literally traumatized by the manner in which it happened. So we don’t need to ENDLESSLY RELITIGATE IT.
You all ( sort yourselves, because I am not focusing on anyone) can stop trying to prove you were right. Please, let it go. You were right, our fears were reasonable but did not come true. But we do not have to like the way it went down.
And we are not the ones who drag it into every fucking thread. (Except for fuck Adam Schiff and fuck George Clooney, because we get to be mad. As my therapist reminds me “we all get to have our feelings.”)
But I can’t take people just rehashing it over and over. It was a traumatic week and it affected my opinion about some people I am fond of or respect — not just here, but elsewhere.
So, yeah, we are still mad/hurt about the way it went down. But we can’t let the anger subside if other people won’t stop telling us how wrong or dumb or uninformed we were.
Just take the W and shut the hell up about it.
/end rant
Onward!
(And not directed at you zhena because we were on the same side of the great BJ skirmish, but I didn’t want to call out specific people)
Omnes Omnibus
We didn’t all agree about Biden withdrawing. We very much were on the same page that, if Biden withdrew, Harris had to be the replacement. Can we focus on the second part until November? If she wins, we can all celebrate. Is she doesn’t, we can all bury one another in recriminations. Cool?
rikyrah
Thing is…
Is the Democratic Candidate for Governor Blanketing the state with Ads about how much this guy, on top of being crazy, is an actual CROOK?
Carolina Forward
@ForwardCarolina
.
@markrobinsonNC
and his wife have been directly implicated in massive financial fraud. They bilked the taxpayers of over $130,000 by abusing a program meant to feed low-income children – and that amount is only going to rise. A lot. This is big. https://wral.com/story/nonprofit-run-by-wife-of-nc-lieutenant-governor-must-repay-132-000-state-investigation-concludes/21542838/… #ncpol
https://x.com/ForwardCarolina/status/1818253708893036881
NotMax
@Hildebrand
Because the moving finger has writ and moved on, leaving them behind.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@rikyrah: I loved watching Walz give it back to Jake Tapper. Tapper: but you’ve legalized recreational marijuana, you passed universal background checks on guns, you expanded LGBTQ protections, you implemented tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans. There’s free breakfast and lunch for school kids. (side note from me-Don’t threaten me with a good time)
Walz: What a monster /snark. Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own healthcare decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness.
How the Hell does Tapper think this needs “defending” ?!??
And Walz smiles while filleting Tapper, good times
Soprano2
@TBone: I think many conservative men hate cats because they’re hard to train, aren’t always slavishly devoted to their owners and have minds of their own. I’ve always thought it was weird how many men seem to hate cats.
JML
And the reality is you generally only get one bite at the apple for running a presidential campaign/being in a president’s inner circle/etc these days. So afterwards those people become pundits to share their “wisdom” (and pretend luck had nothing to do with it), and spend a lot of time polishing their old boss’ halo so that there’s still enough shine left for them.
Part of it is about loyalty (the next candidate has their own inner circle) too. So you rise to the top of the mountain and then you fall off, because there’s no room for you on the next train. And then once you’re out, you either have to find the next candidate and build with them for a while and hope you picked a winner, or hit the punditry circuit. And it’s damn hard to pick a winner early enough to get back in the real insider track.
These are also entirely political flacks too: none of them are people who served as senior official in an agency, it’s all ex-campaign, ex-white house staff. They’re not subject matter experts on much except DC politics and/or communications…
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Look at their choice.
Older than dirt, and mostly that is not necessarily the years but the condition.
Hateful, mostly at the world for not accepting him as god – but the world is far smarter and far less egomaniacal than he is.
Useless as a human being, useless as a guide post, useless as – well anything.
Has no concept of being anything other than an object of attention. An effective IQ of below measurable, the personality of a full trash can and all the leadership skills of the trash heap that full trash can gets dumped on.
An ego the size of a battleship and as useful as the trash thrown over the side.
IOW a worse than nothing burger because he has followers that see nothing of the true worse than useless thing they are worshiping.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wait, if she wins, I have to give up recriminations?
Way to curb my enthusiasm, OO.
schrodingers_cat
@Lochnessmom: The people doing the victory dance are valued commenters here. We are chopped liver. They can say anything and do anything. There will be excuses made for them. That’s just the way it is.
Aziz, light!
@MattF: People are understandably making hay about Trump’s remarks about the end of voting. But they are forgetting that he is running only to stay out of jail. When he tells the godbotherers they need to vote this time, then he will “fix things” so they won’t need to vote for him again, he means he will wreck the justice system to get out himself out of legal jeopardy. Once that is accomplished he won’t need them anymore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: You can celebrate with recriminations. I am not one to kink shame.
Belafon
@Sean: If the convention gets half the media coverage from her that the NFL got, it’ll be worth it.
Splitting Image
@UncleEbeneezer:
I think it’s hilarious that these guys are freaking out about being called weird. Especially after they spent years getting the word “cuck” into normal discourse.
BDSM is an umbrella covering a lot of different activities, but cuckolding – encouraging your wife to have sex with other men – is definitely one of the weirder ones. And by my observation, it tilts decidedly right-wing. The weirdness runs wide and deep.
Lapassionara
@Lochnessmom: this comment is why I wish we had a like button.
Jackie
@Geminid: 😂 I only caught it because Lawler is interviewed on the tubes quite often, but offhand, I didn’t know which district he represented. He doesn’t present as a MAGA, but unfortunately for him, he’s GQP. VOTE HIM OUT!
Belafon
@UncleEbeneezer: Don Jr tweeted that.
Mr. Bemused Seniober
I think it’s more a question of who’s training whom. I mean, with cats it’s more like a negotiation than training. If you come to terms it works. If not, well, …
zhena gogolia
@Lochnessmom: Thank you — very well said. I’m praying (and contributing, and writing postcards) for a good outcome in November.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Festivus this year is gonna be lit.
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: If Kamala is making the entire party despondent and hopeless of winning, then I hope we’ll once again find the political will to try something better. I hope we’ll have folks like Nancy around who don’t over moralize and over personalize politics and understand winning in this arena is so much more important than “loyalty” or political friendships or, as Biden put it, “personal ambition.”
Geminid
@different-church-lady: I just wonder what else is going to come out about Vance. There’s probably more tape out there, and plenty of acquaintances and work colleagues to talk to.
I saw that Chuck Schumer said recently that Trump has 10 days to dump Vance. Schumer may have been alluding to some ballot requirement, but he could have pulled “10 days” out of thin air because this is psychological warfare posing as political punditry.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Aaack, typo in my nym today.
UncleEbeneezer
@stinger: Not to mention the fact that they seemed pretty damn “fired up” to fight our own candidate/President/base, in public. That’s the thing that will always piss me off. Had they put that energy into supporting our President, that could’ve been enough to raise public perceptions for him. But we’ll never know because they were only interested in bashing Biden.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m definitely going to celebrate.
Kyle Rayner
@Splitting Image: By my estimation, engaging in cuckolding is astronomically more normal than any right-wing talking point.
Lochnessmom
@cmorenc:
My partner is a trans woman who is not “out” yet for various reasons. They did not come to the full realization the fact that inside they are a woman until about five years ago. It took me a couple years of informing myself and thinking about things to understand if I could stay in a romantic relationship with them because I have always been a cis her woman. But now our relationship is stronger than ever.
I guess to say, it takes time for things to change. If more people knew trans people, they would see they are no different than anybody.
(I gave come to feel that gender is not a useful concept the way it is mostly thought of. We are beings. We like different things, sometimes situationally, sometimes not. Just let people be their best selves, no matter what that means).
Hildebrand
@NotMax: Yep – its ego all the way down.
You’d like to think – warning: idealistic knavery approaching – that these old men would look at their careers and think, ‘I did good work and have happily passed the torch to the next generation – you know, what I was constantly scolding Biden to do – and they know what they are doing.’
Yeah, I know, this rarely happens. But could you imagine if folks would actually do this? I mean, the moment I can afford to retire, I’ll happily pass the torch to the next person – and I will never look back.
Which is why I really don’t understand these people – Jesus, you have more money than Croesus, go enjoy life.
Splitting Image
@Suzanne:
The Democrats had a good chance to keep Idaho to within 20 points this year, and they. DIDN”T. EVEN. TRY.
TBone
@Soprano2: part of the reason I chose my hubby was that he was feeding the strays at his place of business where we first met. And he owned a kitten at home. And was unfailingly kind to all animals. He’s a dog lover who was able to convert and expand.
This is so unlike a lot of (not all!) men. When you find a really great cat dad, you know you’ve got someone of quality. Also, hubby called his mom every day to check on her.
He is not kind to certain humans. I wouldn’t ever want to be one of them.
Jackie
@oldgold: THIS!
I truly sense the overwhelming majority of voters are thoroughly DONE with DOOM AND GLOOM and want to celebrate happiness and positivity. Much like in 2008.
Hungry Joe
@zhena gogolia: Catch me if you can!
cmorenc
@Kyle Rayner:
IMO it comes down to people’s perceptions of how much they can be with you without their own sexual identity getting swept along with it. The portal to comfort by non-LBGT people being around people who are is the realization that it’s not a transferrale condition, not some sort of dread communicable virus you or loved ones are susceptible to by your presence around them. This realization is most often helped along by the presence of someone comfortable “safe” who has long been in their personal circle who is “out”. Of course, this dynamic does not always work with people with viscerally deeply dug-in (especially religious-based) anti-gay ideology. Nonetheless, IMO this is how majority acceptance of gays has dramatically come about, admittedly with enough stubbornly bigoted holdouts to still be a threat to you all.
I’m a solidly hetero male who for years has regularly had my hair cut by a gay barber, and we have long become comfortably friendly with each other that he has told me his “origin” story of his own realization he was gay, and his relationship struggles with his former studio partner he was married to (and now divorced from) and about the gay dating and relationship scene – I’ve often remaked to him how remarkablly similar it sounds to hetero guy-girl dating and relationship dynamics. He was from a small conservative southern town, and his first coulple of years in college at a public university, was a college athelete and ardent participant in one of the religious student unions hoping it would “cure” him of his deviant feelings, and finally said “F-it, it’s who I am” and went with it from then forward, to the horror and initial rejection of his hometown family, who have since gradually come around to acceptance.
oldgold
Who on this thread is crowing that they were “Right?”
If you think it is me, you are wrong! I was not right. I was an agnostic on whether Biden should step down up until the time he actually did. As Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.”
My point is that the continued hostility towards those who came forward early on to call for Biden to step down is misplaced. But for them, we would still be sucking pond water in this election cycle. They showed courage and wisdom. I thank them for it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Splitting Image: It’s not that weird. Over 50% of people admit to having fantasized about watching their partner with someone else. It’s just painted in a very negative way by misogynists who think that women are property and shouldn’t be allowed to have the same extra-marital/boyfriend/non-monogamy fantasies and/or exploration that so many men have for themselves. It does skew slightly more toward conservatives, but not drastically so. Check out the work of David Ley and Justin Lehmiller who have done the most extensive research of swinging, non-monogamy and cuckolding. I heard them both on some sex podcasts I listen to and dispelled a lot of common misconceptions/assumptions about the whole world of Ethical Non-Monogamy.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Wow, I guess you got your answer.
Lochnessmom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dammit Omnes, you said what I tried to say so much better and succinctly.
Yeah, what you said.
zhena gogolia
@Hungry Joe: I doubt I’ll make it!
TBone
@Marmot: currently watching ‘The Underworld Story’ on TCM that touches directly on these themes. Big newspaper guy goes to work at struggling, small town paper. Delicious movie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underworld_Story
K-Mo
@schrodingers_cat: Word.
lowtechcyclist
@oldgold: Sure, by the time we were deluged by three and a half weeks of shit from the media and too many Democrats, Schiff was unquestionably *retroactively* correct. That still doesn’t mean he was right at the time.
ETA: What zhena said.
tam1MI
@oldgold: Sorry not sorry, Adam Schiff doesn’t get to nullify my vote and expect me to love him for it. I don’t live in California so my opinion means about as much to him as my vote did, but if he ever shows up on a national ballot I will not vote for him, period. That is my right. Deal with it.
SatanicPanic
I didn’t get into it here, but I got a lot of shit for being on the Biden Must Go side on other sites and I as much as it feels good to be right, it’s hard to forget how vicious people on my side were. I’ve never seen anything like it.
rikyrah
@oldgold:
Black Joy triggers people.
Black female joy definitely does.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Republican concepts these days are that they need the ability to get their hate on. Everything else takes a very far back seat. They have zero concept of leading, positivity, a big picture. All they want is for politics to revert back to a time that never actually existed. What did exist was rather poor communications so no one really knew how shitty their ideals and goals were, and the fact that they could hate 50% or more of the citizens for completely asinine, reasons. And get away with it. Modern communications showed the world what they really want and why they want it – because it gives them power that they absolutely fuck up – because that’s who and what they are. The world has changed, grown up, and it is not their pure white, stupid, racist bullshit any longer. It’s humanity, in all it’s glory and BS and beauty and garbage. But this country is about ALL of us, not the few. I’m an old, straight, white man. And I’m no more, nor no less a citizen or human than anyone else. And neither is anyone else. That is the premise of this country. It is not the premise of the rethuglican party.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: ?
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: Ukraine v Argentina, men’s soccer on Telemundo right now.
Belafon
@SatanicPanic: There are two “rights” here:
1. Biden needed to step aside to refocus the election
2. Biden shouldn’t have needed to step aside.
At least we all stomped on the “What about this mediocre white guy instead?” attempt by wealthy donors.
hueyplong
@Suzanne: “Festivus this year is gonna be lit.”
Kind of disappointing to learn that this hasn’t been it. Yet another reason to be totally invested in victory in November. Recriminations over who gets credit beat the hell out of recriminations over whom to blame for the implementation of the 900-page version of Mein Kampf.
K-Mo
@rikyrah: There are so many dark corners with this guy.
Belafon
@Belafon: Just a note for site maintainers, the edit your comment box doesn’t like ordered lists.
SatanicPanic
@Belafon: I don’t agree that Biden’s problems were simply a media creation. His campaign was doing badly before the debate.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: It has long been my theory that men who hate cats are men who do not like woman. I know I’ll catch hell for that, but cat and women share a lot of traits………like ” aint puttin’ up with yer shit” for one.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: #206
Kent
I think it is because cats “code” female while dogs “code” male.
Cats are just more “feminine creatures” than dogs. And so for conservative men who are constantly engaged in overcompensation and “gay panic”, they shy away from cats because they contain the whiff of the feminine. Whereas a big goofy dog like a lab, or a big aggressive dog like a doberman or pit bull feels much more masculine.
WereBear
@Suzanne: There is definitely a moral angle. I understand those kinds of motives, as a Childless Cat Lady myself. By Vance standards.
But a youthful vegetarian experience was terrible for me, as I needed that heme iron, especially as a young woman.
And the animal I advocate for the most, cats, are obligate carnivores. I have to feed them their species-specific diet.
And then where are my ethics? In a pickle, that’s what :)
I everyone needs to sort that out in their own way. I’m here for the cats, and the humane movement.
The real lever is humane legislation that gets rid of factory farms. The Biden/Harris Administration made a huge investment in our national food supply chain.
To protect family farms and form a chain of regional meat processors which will be much more healthy than what we now do with China.
Walz would be great in his area with that accomplishment.
Lochnessmom
@SatanicPanic:
It was a fraught time. People get a little sideways when they are legit scared, either direction. I think because the stakes are so, so high, it magnified every instinct, good and bad.
I am trying (mostly succeeding, but not always) to give people grace. (Except Schiff and Clooney, because fuck those guys. Somebody gets to be the repository of all my bad feelings so I can give grace to everybody else. Consistency/shmomistency.)
3Sice
The senior senator from S.C. noped on Vance?
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly: My County Dems send us out alone. Not enough warm bodies to pair us up. The best they could do was put two on the same turf working opposite sides of the street, which wasn’t bad.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: They have been muted. So I didn’t see their brilliant take. Not worth my BP rising.
Just checked their comment, completely expected.
Belafon
@SatanicPanic: The media has been a tool by some in this election, but it’s still not who my ire is directed it. Let me put it to you this way: Where was the “White Women for Biden,”, or “White men for Biden”?
Belafon
I want Harris to announce her running mate so I can buy a sign and a bumper sticker. Hurry up!
WereBear
@Soprano2: Cats look like they have their number.
Some of them even do.
That’s how fragile they are. This “female coded” animal is not OBEYING the same rules they have for women. Maybe they lack proper brain partitions.
Like the guy at the party who does too much and then no one can laugh around him? That’s a lot of guys in certain areas of the country.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Right.
TBone
@TBone: excellent Ali Velshi report on Project 2025:
https://youtu.be/EyRO-w9ATX4
Lochnessmom
@Kent:
We always had both. But as adults I have 4 boys who are more cat people and 1 girl who is all dogs. My partner’s 2 boys are dog people, but cat-curious.
(I think you are spot on about the coding, tho!)
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: I went to buy a baseball cap yesterday, although I didn’t really like the “Madam President” design, but they were sold out, which I thought was good.
SatanicPanic
@Lochnessmom: That’s fair, I just hope that next time people can remember not to get so personal and to allow some space for unpopular opinions.
BR
Just read that Harris will be on the campaign trail with her VP pick next week (!). I also read that Beshear has gotten an extra security detail. I’m hoping that that doesn’t mean Beshear is the pick (I mean, he’s ok, not bad, but I would like someone a bit more high energy).
WereBear
@Geminid: There’s only one way to get a Veep in Ten Days.
Reality show!
BritinChicago
@BR: you quote
“The reason he seems to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll? She was laughing and it pissed him off.”
I’m put in mind of a line attributed to Margaret Atwood: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; women are afraid that men will kill them. ETA: —Oops, scooped, I see. Apologies
hueyplong
@MagdaInBlack: Interesting theory. I don’t think all cat haters hate women, but I do think that there is a good chance that nearly all women haters also hate cats. So maybe a circle within a circle?
Standard GOP talking points hit me like failed psychological tests, and I’m nearing a state of fatigue with trying to parse what makes assholes be such assholes. I don’t want to understand them; I want to defeat them soundly and cause them to be less of a threat.
Lochnessmom
@schrodingers_cat:
My thoughts too. Some people are just gonna stress me out. And I cannot change their attitudes, so I need to just not engage. Self-care on the internet is underrated.
Geminid
@Belafon: I’m guessing Harris will announce her VP choice this week, and I think it will be Walz.
Belafon
I’m also trying to think of what a good t-shirt would look like with Harris on it, but that doesn’t make me think of those annoying Trump t-shirts.
stinger
@UncleEbeneezer:
I hadn’t known that we had so many Bill Frists on the Dem side.
Leto
@TBone: Joy Reid’s report on 2025 last night was really good. She also had Ali on for the economic part, but the entire hour was good. I hope that they keep hitting it for the next 99 days, just all the different parts, and how absolutely vile it is.
BR
Good take on Wilhoit’s law and “weird”:
https://xoxo.zone/@KevinMarks/112875240821088208
Lochnessmom
@Geminid: I did not know much about Walz until this week and he has really grown on me. He seems like such a delightful person. And still able to cut a bitch, but in a charming, folksy way.
SatanicPanic
@Belafon: I can only speak for myself, but I didn’t think Joe could win. I saw some of his appearances and thought- there’s just no saving this campaign.
Scout211
No, I really don’t understand it and definitely didn’t like what happened.
It’s just one of my coping mechanisms, to try to find a framing that makes me feel less angry. Maybe I am totally making shit up (probably) but I personally need to find a way to make sense of what happened and find a way to move forward without anger. That’s just me. I have too much going on in my life to stay angry. But I accept and completely respect that my thoughts and opinions are not in sync with everyone here.
I’ll refrain from any Schiff comments in the future.
phdesmond
@Jackie:
Results for Boolean Google search:
“Scott Jennings” “asshole”
About 3,060 results (0.56 seconds)
catclub
@rikyrah: This: Tell young childless people in the military, JD VANCE thinks that their vote should count less than the trailer trash they left behind, who stayed home and had kids.
Jackie
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m sorry, but that’s BS. Kamala’s physical attractiveness is BONUS. She’s already shown her inwardly attractiveness with her humor, intelligence, positiveness, and her genuine caring for ALL people.
She is everything TCFG and the GQP is NOT.
coin operated
@Geminid: I was all in on Pete being the VP nod, but the more I hear about Walz the more I like him.
WereBear
My current theory is that they are East Germans, and we are West Germans, and they put up the wall, and now it’s coming down.
They are going to have to assimilate. And they are stunted, fearful, people. But I”m thinking of them that way, and if we improve their lives with broadband and medical care and good public education, everyone will feel better because of us.
Whether they want to admit it, or not.
RaflW
“The [rapist+catlady hater] campaign seems to have realized that and will try to set the tone this week”.
Good luck with that. Trump is notoriously un-resettable (heck, he went on Ingraham and just repeated his “no need to vote in 4 years” thing), and Vance is swatting down day after day of new clips and emails of his hatred of people who dare not (or cannot) have kids.
The creeps are still creepy.
Belafon
@BR: I like that take.
rikyrah
I looked at this yesterday, and became LIVID.
LIVID.
We do not allow voter cancellations HERE WITHOUT A SIGNATURE.
If it’s not a government entity confirming death (via Death Certificate or Social Security Administration confirmation)
We do not allow voter cancellations to be done ELECTRONICALLY.
I find this absolutely INSANE!!!
It’s bad enough that they allow random people to challenge a voter’s status – BY THE THOUSANDS.
but, THIS NONSENSE?
ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
…………………………
Dr. Michelle Au
@AuforGA
A new web portal facilitates cancellation of a GA voter’s registration. https://ajc.com/politics/georgia-website-allows-voters-who-moved-to-cancel-old-registrations/6SSJV2QN2NGKJFAISVCHF2362E/… All you need is a name, county, DOB, and DL #. This page also looks verrry similar to the one used to![]()
whether your voter registration is still active. Do…we see a problem here?
https://x.com/AuforGA/status/1818117651165585575
schrodingers_cat
@Jackie: Did you even read what I wrote?
Because I don’t disagree with anything in your comment after the quote. I was making a completely different point.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Fair enough.
dkinPa
@Kyle Rayner: Thanks for the breakdown!
Kent
We have 2 cats and a yellow lab as well.
I assume though, that your 4 boys are not MAGA incels and so liking cats does not threaten their perceptions of manhood. Because that is what I was talking about.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus: Dammit, I’m agreeing with you again! Does this mean I need to become a Cheesehead? Or just go through lots of therapy?
To be more serious: this place had become pretty ugly in the weeks between the debate and President Biden ending his campaign. I’m hoping that shit has ended, including all the sniping from those who can’t seem to let it go.
For the record, I didn’t want him to drop out, and was pissed at the MSM (led by the FTFTFNYT) pile-on, as well as that from people like Schiff. But my wants matter not a bit.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
COOL
All in with trying to save democracy in America
WaterGirl
@Mr. Bemused Seniober:
Somehow in removing the empty ines between @Scout… and @zhena… – it appears that you deleted the colon between the two and one bit of the html code that allows you to click on @whatever and go to their comment.
So the spam filter saw that as suspicious html code and threw you into moderation.
That’s my best guess.
Mike in NC
As running mate, does JD ThreeNames have to change Fat Bastard’s dirty diapers. Inquiring minds want to know.
Bupalos
@Lochnessmom:
AFAICT this is the sole way it is coming up in these threads, so that’s a mighty big “except for.” Interpreting defending Schiff as “NYA NYA TOLD YOU SO!” is not fair. Folks are welcome to their opinion of what happened and whether there was some better way to effect the party’s will over Biden’s than the gradually more public campaign that we saw. Or whether Biden’s first inclination was right. But EVERYONE is welcome to their opinion, not just those who got more upset about it one way or the other, and if folks are going to bring the “fuck these sellouts crap” of course it’s going to be addressed by people who are 180 degrees from that, who are grateful to Pelosi for making a move when sitting still and keeping their head down was the easy way to go.
Kent
I like the red white and blue Obama style portraits. They are starting to pop up all over organically. I don’t think there is any official one yet
https://www.teepublic.com/poster-and-art/13740042-yes-we-kam-kamala-harris-poster-biden-harris-202
https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Kamala-Harris-for-President-2024-by-MoClan-Graphics/54845207.LVTDI
etc…
Leto
OT: I finally broke down and downloaded Shitfest 2025, and specifically ctrl+F’d “military”… and JFC this is probably one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve read. I mean I’m only about 14 matches in, and it’s already just an absolute whine fest about the military is woke, pursing a leftist agenda, and the fact that because we needed our people to mask and vaccinate, that it’s kept them from being the best they can be. I honestly want to throat punch every fucker that had a hand in crafting this, because it’s the same bitching they’ve done since the military racially integrated, as well as gender integration. It’s an embarrassment.
Leto
@Mike in NC: he’s the Diet Coke bitch. Trumpov presses the button, the shock collar on JD’s gonad’s goes off, and he has 3 seconds to deliver it.
hueyplong
@WereBear: I saw your prior analogy to East Germans (maybe last night when sleep was elusive) and am trying it on for size. My knee-jerk reaction is that you’re too kind, but I’m losing my empathy for the problems of Trumpers, so my POV is skewed in an unfortunate way.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2: The Democratic party’s position on immigration is hugely unpopular. Any time they attempt to move the needle a smidge toward the center where it would be less unpopular, the immigration activists start screaming very loadly. What’s more, the right wing has been particularly smearing Kamala on this since 2021 or 2022. She has to address it head on and she particularly needs to emphasize over and over and over again that refugees are LEGAL immigrants. If people don’t like the law they have to change it. The president’s job is to enforce the LAW, not make up new ones. The GOP has been very successful at convincing people they aren’t here legally. This is a huge problem they’ve mostly been ignoring.
Ksmiami
@hueyplong: I have zero sympathy for the asshats that support Trump.
catclub
They bury the lede only 6 paragraphs deep. CNN:
The US economy is on the verge of an extremely rare achievement.
Economic growth in the first half of the year was solid, with the economy expanding a robust 2.8% annualized rate in the second quarter, according to fresh Commerce Department figures released Thursday, which are adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings.
Stocks surged in the morning after the economy’s powerful show of resilience, but later lost steam and closed the day mixed. The Dow rose 81 points, or 0.2%, after jumping more than 500 points earlier in the session. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9%. That comes after the benchmark index and tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wednesday logged their worst day since 2022.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, was much stronger in the second quarter than economists had predicted. The GDP report showed that businesses are continuing to invest and that consumers are still opening their wallets. That’s key, because consumer spending is America’s economic engine, accounting for about two-thirds of US economic output.
As the economy continued to expand from April through June, inflation resumed a downward trend and seems to be on track to slowing further toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
America’s economy is about to stick what’s called a “soft landing,” which is when inflation returns to the Fed’s target without a recession — a feat that’s only happened once, during the 1990s, according to some economists.
Heidi Mom
@Hildebrand: I read somewhere, maybe in his memoir, that David Axelrod was hurt when Obama, as President, didn’t always return his texts/phone calls. Apparently he thought that, having been so important to Obama at the outset, he’d retain that status forever.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus:
I didn’t actually agree with this second part, not in the certainty expressed. Harris was probably going to come out of any process, she had every advantage, and if she didn’t come out of that process it would have been a great sign that she shouldn’t be the nominee. Something would have to be wrong. I think people were worried about party unity at a time when it’s not actually a worry. And if it had been the kind of existential threat everyone assumed, we wouldn’t have seen the quick and easy transition we did whether or not it was more publicly acknowledged as an open process, as it seems Pelosi and Obama and Clyburn wanted. No one seems to ask themselves why these folks thought something that was so obviously wrong to everyone here.
We always fight the last war. 2016 has given people a kind of syndrome about party unity. There is not going to be a party unity problem as long as Trump is around.
Hoodie
@Geminid: A lot of misdirection and smoke out there regarding the final VP pick, so I don’t have the slightest clue who it will be. Needs to be done before Aug 7, but give the GOP as little time as possible to prepare for the choice and, hopefully, give them something they don’t expect. I think the GOP assumed the Dems wouldn’t go with Harris, and that was reinforced by all the sturm and drang about Joe stepping down. The failure of the GOP to game for a Harris pivot is kind of ironic given that fear mongering about a potential Harris presidency was largely behind the whole “Biden is too old” thing. This enabled the Dems to get inside their OODA loop, so they should try to continue to keep them off balance. That may be part of what the Harris campaign is doing by having all these different potential candidates out there on the media circuit. Lots of exposure for Walz and Buttagieg while we’re hearing rumors about Beshear and Shapiro and Whitmer are out stumping for Harris in PA.
BR
It’s not every day that AOC and Manchin are on the same page. We did it folks:
https://bsky.app/profile/fooeynet.bsky.social/post/3kyj73oj3za2b
H.E.Wolf
Absolutely true! The snack-suppliers are heaven-sent.
I was thinking of the money BJ raised for Four Directions, who pay their canvassers. Their model is tailored to their particular circumstances on the rez.
And I needed a good alliterative phrase. :)
Chief Oshkosh
@stinger: Just win, baby. Just win.
Omnes Omnibus
@WereBear: They didn’t assimilate well. The former DDR is most friendly territory for the AfD. I think it is in part because they, but for a few years in the 1920s, never lived under anything but an authoritarian government until 1990. Then when Reunification happened, they were the poor relations. They have no good experiences with democracy or capitalism. The right promises that they can get even with those snotty people in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Sound familiar?
hueyplong
@Hoodie: What matters most to me is that all those Dems you mentioned continue to be out there stumping for Harris after one of them is tabbed for the VP slot. I’m hopeful that they will.
RaflW
Via Daniel Nichanian of Bolts:
New FAU/Mainstreet Research national poll:
Right after the debate, Trump 48/44 vs Biden
Right before Biden’s drop-out: Trump 49/44 vs Harris
New poll: Harris 48/46
Maybe a sugar high, but we will also have the VP nomination and convention bounce in a few weeks. The Trump frame/strategy of “inevitable” is crumbling. LFG!
different-church-lady
@BR: It’s just one day, but let’s enjoy it anyway.
catclub
@Bupalos: I look at it as: 1) Harris is the only one who will have access to the Biden/Harris campaign funds.
and 2) Who has a presidential campaign organization right NOW?
any process that overlooked those is crazy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Let it go.
SatanicPanic
@RaflW: Wow!
different-church-lady
@Leto: Manifestos: not just for loner bomb-makers anymore!
Kirk
@TBone: eliminating information is a common thread through the plan (so far. I’ve not yet finished reading it.) eliminate agencies that have primary purposes of reporting. eliminate reporting on racial and gender disparities. Eliminate reporting on climate issues. eliminate parts of reports on funding sources and taxation effects.
It’s not so much drowning government in a bathtub as it is hollowing out and re-filling it with loyalists and stenographers.
Kay
Michigan has early vote this year:
I’m going to do early vote/GOTV in two Right leaning/Right wing counties in MI, Mason and Oceana. GOTV is very much like delivering mail so I’m good at it. I’ve been doing a lot of bike riding the last year so I’m going to do this on a bike.
I leave the day after the election for a trip to Portugal where I’ll meet up with the Denmark contingent including the adorable 3 year old so that’s my reward.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos:
For three weeks it was a TOTAL fuckin’ worry.
But, ya know, “Had ’em all the way!”
Hoodie
@hueyplong: They will, but that kind of thing becomes kind of marginal after the VP pick because the press mostly pays attention to the actual candidates. It’s important to take advantage of the press currently paying attention to all of them because they’re all potential VP candidates.
matt
@MattF: instant campaign ad
hueyplong
@RaflW: Regardless of overall accuracy, you have to like the trend.
KatKapCC
@RaflW: I think it will also benefit from people just hearing more from/about Harris in general. Most non-wonky types don’t pay attention when the VP is giving a speech somewhere. They might tune in for the president, but that’s it, and even then, not always.
Sure Lurkalot
I don’t get how the childless thing is anything but a net loser. The childless by choice don’t care and the don’t/didn’t want to be childless may still feel raw.
I fall into both camps..found out at 30 having natural born children was never to be and soon after childless by any means was my choice. But guess what? I was always dialed in on my nieces and nephews and my workmates’ kids too. I was the one whose office they came into glowing about some accomplishment or family picture. You can be childless and love kids and don’t mind taxes that pay for their upbringing.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: while we’re probably not going to be in recession before November, the next president is almost certainly going to have to deal with one, which will be a political problem. If it’s Harris, it will be the first recession under a Democratic President since Carter. I do think it’s remarkable that it hasn’t happened already, though.
different-church-lady
@Lochnessmom:
And I think I know why: because publicly it unfolded in the dumbest way possible. If Biden and whomever else worked behind the scenes hadn’t finessed it, it would have just been just as much the superfund site people were terrified about.
KatKapCC
@Kent: My only little worry with the Yes We Kam thing is it might get more people to mispronounce her name. Because your brain looks at that phrase and thinks “Yes we can” and wants to reflexively pronounce “Kam” like “CAMera”. And then people might start saying the first syllable in her name like that, too.
But I guess that’s not the biggest campaign issue in the world.
Bupalos
@catclub: That’s why she would easily win an open process. Unless something was really wrong with her crew or her messaging. I just don’t see the big downside to making more of a splash, but that’s because I believe party unity takes care of itself right now.
Fortunately it’s pretty clear the mistakes of 2019 are something Harris’s team learned from, and she appears to be in top form and kicking ass. But I do regret no having the nation fixated for 3 weeks on Dem messaging and a “who can plunge daggers into Trump the deepest” contest, one that MVP would have aced and been stronger for it.
Kyle Rayner
I know we’re well past the cliche horizon at this point when it comes to comparing current events to Nazi Germany, but your comment reminds me so much of the gutting of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut and the decades of research/data lost in those book burnings that could possibly have propelled queer rights at an accelerated rate.
different-church-lady
@KatKapCC: ”Yes, we calm!”
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Other than our own goddamned incompetence, there was nothing preventing us from continuing to aim political daggers at Trump during those three weeks.
WereBear
@hueyplong: What’s that saying? Don’t get between a politician and a camera?
hueyplong
@Sure Lurkalot: When you read the rationale for their “childless” policies, what jumps out is that they cannot conceive of people with empathy for others. Buying their argument is buying the idea that Americans will reject and, additionally, consider unfair, anything that isn’t a detailed accounting of “what’s in it for me?”
It’s an asshole agenda in very nearly its purest form, the logical extension of Republican thinking for as long as the longest current life in being.
Baud
@KatKapCC:
Someone told me that Kamala rhymes with Pamela. Not true?
Kay
@catclub:
They convinced young people the economy was bad so none of them have any kind of realistic view of what a bad economy actually looks like, because they have no experience of bad/good.
What jerks. It really was propoganda. They did it because Biden’s liberal economic theory was a success and they panicked and had to knock it down. They really misled people – especially people who have very little work/life experience simply because they are very young. They should all be ashamed. Lefties should be ashamed too. Dumbasses didn’t defend the Biden economy, and now they might lose it. Useless.
WereBear
@Baud: Look up the Randy Rainbow song about her and sing along. You’ll be fine then.
sdhays
@Geminid: Oh please oh please oh please!!!!
I want Dump to announce that he’s dumping Vance only to find he actually can’t.
“But Biden did it!!!! Waaahhh!”
H.E.Wolf
Excellent points about Minivan and pre-canvassing!
What I’m fixing are records in the state party’s (gigantic) volunteer database. It’s a parallel effort to what the canvassers and phonebankers update as they go.
I mainly update obsolete addresses, which often show up when older lists get loaded into the database.
I also update records of volunteers who have died, moved out of state, or changed their name when they changed their gender.
In addition, I run a daily list of everyone who signed up the day before, and merge any duplicate entries (usually active volunteers who sign up for multiple events) so that all the information for a given volunteer is in the same place.
My “update count” will be in the tens of thousands by November. The volunteer coordinators seem a little puzzled, but happy, to have someone doing this.
Kyle Rayner
@Baud: Delightful and helpful ad to answer your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVGfzbP7WBY
AWOL
@WereBear: Good to hear. I produced that book. Copyediting GTC3’s late-arriving foreword was a blast.
rikyrah
@H.E.Wolf:
You are a gem. Absolute gem. Wish this was replicated across the country.
KatKapCC
@Baud:
~squints at your comment to try to see if it’s a joke or not~
Quinerly
@Scout211: TY
Schiff will wind in a landslide either way. He didn’t have to expend any political capital. He could have stayed quiet. He didn’t. Reasons.
Have said it several times. No crystal ball. Seems pretty obvious, though, there are at least 2 more chapters to this to come out (hopefully after we get Kamala elected). It will be interesting to see some commenters’ opinions of Pelosi, Obama, and Jeffries down the road.
schrodingers_cat
I have heard people with children complaining about property taxes once their kids have grown up. So CabbagePatchDoll with a Beard is wrong.
@Baud: ComeLa
rikyrah
So, Vance has changed his name three times.
Does anyone know the story behind it?
Martin
@Baud: If the emails with his friend from college are to be believed, yes.
sdhays
@Baud: It doesn’t rhyme, but the emphasis on the syllables is the same. Some people put the emphasis on the second syllable – I was one of them before I heard it.
In my case it was because I thought it looked like a word from Battlestar Galactica, and they pronounced it with the emphasis on the second syllable.
Matt McIrvin
@Kirk: LIke the Simpsons story about a comet threatening to destroy the world: “Let’s go burn down the observatory so this never happens again!”
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
After THEIR children have gotten the benefits of good public schools.
Well, we continue to pay taxes to benefit everyone’s children.
laura
I Love to talk to people! I’ve done GOTV from 2002 to 2020. And so, I’m signed up for CA Dems Yes We Can(vas) to make sure I’m on point, on message and Do the Work to elect Kamala Harris. I’m also a childless (bc endometriosis turned my innards into a fucking ghost ship) cat lady who is both salty and petty af, and I’ll vote for Adam Schiff despite his being a back stabbing shite-bag who didn’t offer one word of support for the President or the Vice President. I’m keeping receipts regardless of the kumbaya.
I’m stoked to talk to the people about electing Kamala Harris!
rikyrah
@Sure Lurkalot:
THANK YOU.
Because, I know that there were childless adults who paid taxes when I was growing up. Paying it forward.
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
The world, and humanity are in a place of rather massive change. And that change is not humanity itself, it is the perception of humanity, what it is, and what it should be. And a big part of that is communications. I’ve said this before on this blog. What we are doing now, in the concept of humanity is very much new and different. I’m an old and almost all of this has taken place in my lifetime. Communications. What we are doing now is what, maybe 25-30 yrs old? In terms of humanity that’s nothing. Go back steps before this 25-30 yrs ago and it was all personal, letters, telegraph, then land line phones. And now computers and you carry a far more powerful computer in your pocket or purse than the first ones that existed. Think back 25 yrs ago. I had a cell phone. It was crude, most people didn’t have one. But I worked on the road and as I had to check in with the office a couple times a day, and as poor as the cell phones and service was, it was dramatically better than finding a working pay phone. Look at today. How many here have a landline? I haven’t had one for almost 2 decades. Seen a pay phone in a while? My first computer I bought in 1978, an Apple II. My current phone is a dramatically far better computer. And many home computers of today are better than a mainframe of 25-30 yrs ago. Mine is, and it isn’t even top of the line in the brand. A few days ago I found my laptop of about 25 yrs ago and it still works. Such as that is.
Baud
@sdhays:
I wish she had a normal American name like Barack Hussein Obama.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: I have a really hard time seeing what you people are seeing here. I doubt Biden and Harris managed this process overall, I think Biden’s crew was focussed 100% on surviving right up until the last day. It’s not unreasonable to think that he did deliberately try to short-circuit Pelosi’s and Obama’s apparent preference for a longer and at least nominally open process… but there’s a certainty here that doesn’t seem warranted.
But again, I think the whole idea that we were hovering over some kind of abyss of chaos in the first place is wrong. No matter what happened, Harris was overwhelmingly likely to be the nominee unless something was really off in her organization or she didn’t want to do it. And the party was overwhelmingly likely to be as unified as it’s ever been no matter what, because Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Apparently they were the names of the men his mother was married to. Then he reverted back to his mother’s maiden name. Dana Houle had a thread about it IIRC.
Argiope
I’m LT3 as always (late to the thread) but I want to add a few things here about canvassing: 1) most of us who regularly do it aren’t crazy about it. I have rarely met a canvasser who enjoys the activity for its intrinsic merits, and many of us who do it have to “work ourselves into the right mindset” to do it. 2) canvassing, like many things in life, is only weird the first time, and 3) more white dudes ought to try it even if they feel like #1 above when they do. It’s work. We (mostly women, I believe based on who I see out there) do it because it is effective to get out the vote. We who put in the shifts don’t do it because it feels ego-syntonic, because it’s easy for us, or because we naturally have the energy and the mindset to do it. We do it because we know that knocking on enough doors = more votes for our side, and that not a lot else works quite as well.
Consider this encouragement to try it before you decide it’s not for you, if it’s SAFE for you to do so, emotionally and physically. Understand it’s gonna feel weird the first time. Go with someone who has done it before, and go to the first door or five with them until you feel confident enough to knock on a door yourself. Typically, organizers send you to friendly doors who need a nudge to GOTV, so you aren’t going to persuade people, only to help them make a plan to vote–this is especially true for the October canvass. Lots of times you aren’t actually talking to people, but dropping lit–but I have personally helped more than one elder make a plan to make their vote count, confirmed a polling location for others, and helped impress upon numerous folks that their voice matters.
Because I’m in Ohio, I’ve canvassed twice in the past year alone, and I’ll be doing it again in late September. I always have to make myself do it. Every. Single. Time. I’m always glad that I did afterwards.
Ksmiami
@Matt McIrvin: why do people like you keep saying this? There can always be downturns- sure: but that’s a far cry from a recession. The Fed is about to lower interest rates which should prime the pump. If we get the trifecta, that means more Keynesian policies and technology is going to transform the world in several innings.
MCA1
@phdesmond: 100%. His exaggerated look of incredulity at anything that isn’t a recitation of what he received in the bubble before coming on set at CNN makes me want to punch him in the face every time. So condescending it’s incredible.
All that said, going all the way back upthread, while he may be wrong about a Harris campaign response to focusing on policy and record, at least he’s urging the GOP to actually try a little substance now and again instead of nothing but personal attacks, racism and sexism. I’ll give him some credit for that, regardless of the purity or lack thereof of his motives.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yeah I see it all the time in the town meetings. So much whining about property taxes. We are next to major university and there are a lot of young grad students who live in apartments, don’t pay property taxes but their kids go to the local schools.
hueyplong
@Bupalos: “I have a really hard time seeing what you people are seeing here.”
Getting an impression of general consensus on that point.
Scout211
different-church-lady
@Bupalos: Well you just go on thinking whatever you want to.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you very much. I admire you and the work that you do, so these are words I’ll treasure!
And who knows, maybe this *is* being replicated across the country. I can’t be the only person who’s goofy for data entry….
Old School
Deleted. Scout211 was better prepared to answer.
danielx
@rikyrah:
The spawn has been out of school for a while now, but I still vote for school levies when they’re on the ballot. They did a good job with our daughter and I don’t want to see other people’s kids not having the same experience and opportunities.
That’s my reality, others have their version.
different-church-lady
@danielx: As a childless-by-choice property owner, I’m perfectly content for my taxes to go into the schools, because I figure the better educated the kids are, the safer my town is.
Baud
@Scout211:
That is weird.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Not even close to the weirdest thing about him, but I ain’t gonna pipe up.
Bupalos
@different-church-lady: It’s not a question of whether you’re doing it, it’s a question of who is listening. The media would have been inadvertently doing Dem messaging 24/7 for a couple weeks and the convention would have probably tripled its ratings.
A lot of sturm und drang here in this space about “time wasted not talking about Trump…” , to me it matters not one whit whether people in this space are further exposed to the chronicles of Trump’s insanity. Choir-preaching gets you nothing. Getting to hold the national megaphone, having unaffiliated’s hear your arguments, getting to introduce Harris on our terms to a wider audience… I think those would have been worth a lot.
bluefoot
@H.E.Wolf:
Thanks for this. For various reasons, I’ve been having what I guess is social anxiety of late. Data entry or bundling up flyers are definitely things I could do. I’ve done a LOT of data handling and data management in my time, so sitting in front of a screen with some good music on would be a return to the past for me. :)
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: that man [Vance] is weird. Nothing more to say.
Martin
@Quinerly: Jeffries was kept away from the plan. Pelosi and Obama are essentially out of their political careers – they can take the hit if people are upset. They were protecting Jeffries and Schumer from having to be involved in this. This is normal stuff.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Here’s your problem…
+1
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Bupalos:
For three weeks everyone listened to nothing but us freaking out and amplifying MAGA attack points.
ArchTeryx
@Matt McIrvin: It’s been quite a journey for me too, the quiet Gender Revolution. But what that journey has won me is some of the most talented and loving friends a cis-het white dude like me could ever ask for. Validating outgroup people is amazingly rewarding… especially when you are in an outgroup yourself.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: Renters pay property taxes in the form of higher rent.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
It’s not necessarily the weirdest thing that will capture the public’s attention.
Changing names like that is shifty weird, and easy to articulate and for people to understand. But who knows?
Anoniminous
Deleted. Suzanne already answered
WereBear
@Aziz, light!: It’s like dementia is eroding his ability to lie.
Leto
@different-church-lady: Here’s the thing so far, in the DoD section there’s like a few good points. You know, like 2-3 out of a 100. But that’s the thing, the other 97-98 are just so bad. From a policy perspective, from a management perspective, from a personnel perspective. This is a non-serious document from non-serious people. Non-serious in the fact that these people are just morons, with no real policy aims outside of: this is how we’re going to enable a dictator, go!
I’ll go so far as to say this document would enable another William Callum/My Lai and/or Abu Ghraib. I can see how what they’re trying to do with the general officer corp, and by extension the rest of the overall force, that it’d lead the professional/moral breakdown that we had previously. Yeah, that bad.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Well that’s what I’m doing. I mean, have you watched that video?
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I hate to be cliche
But, that’s weird.
I supposed because I’ve never thought of changing the name given to me at birth. If ever I had gotten married, I wasn’t all that convinced that I needed to take my husband’s name.
I understand people when they do a religious conversion (like with the Black Muslims)
But, change your name willy nilly like that?
Odd indeed.
Suzanne
@Baud: I will note that my mother changed my surname back to her maiden name after my BioDad bailed, and he relinquished parental rights. Ex-Mr. Suzanne also had his name changed a couple of times by his mother after she divorced and remarried. It’s not necessarily shifty.
Pharniel
I’m glad I canvassed when I did.
I signed up around the 4th, and while there was a decent room of people on the 27th, the organizers said they went from 2 leads to over 100, and that’s great because I fucking suck at knocking on doors.
I sucked going door to door as a boyscout, and 34 years later I’m still terrible at it, but it’s very useful so I’m hoping there’s tons of people better that will do it.
ArchTeryx
@oldgold: Us furries also turned the whole Kamala-hyena meme on its head by creating a yeen “fursona” for her, and DAMN did it turn out fantastic. In the age of series like Aggretsuko, hyenas aren’t the monsters that people used to think they are, and as animals go, Kamala Harris makes a pretty damn good yeen.
Plus they’re matriarchal. The female hyenas take names and kick ass. I look forward to Harris doing the same to Trump.
WereBear
@AWOL: I can imagine! Good to know there are still copyeditors in publishing :)
Baud
@Suzanne:
Sure. Regular folks underatand name changes in connection with marriages or divorces. But the way it was described above, there’s no standard explanation for the changes.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@BritinChicago: You had the cite, though, which is worth more than without it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Well, that is nice. It is another thing that didn’t happen. There is no sense in constantly revisiting the issue. What is Napoleon had not been so far back from the front lines at Waterloo? Could he have done a better job of directing the battle? Or if Net hadn’t let himself get sucked too close to the front lines so that he was unable to see the bigger picture?
WereBear
@H.E.Wolf: That’s what I did, many times. Save them lots of work and postage, just for starters.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Oh it is weird. J D Vance may be a bigger liar than the Orange One. So I don’t trust anything he says.
frosty
@H.E.Wolf: A volunteer database??? I guess that’s how somebody knows my phone and email, judging by all the messages I get.
I figured once I set up Minivan I was doomed. Shoulda used a burner phone.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: What if Napoleon had had a B-52?
WereBear
@rikyrah: AP has the story.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@AWOL:
Sounds like a good topic for a BJ book club.
Suzanne
@Baud: My understanding is that his name was changed when his mother’s partners entered and left his life, and he changed it to Vance because it was his grandmother’s name.
Kay
Okay this is very bad for JD Vance:
Kamala HQ
@KamalaHQ
3h
Unearthed video: JD Vance says people who don’t have children are “sociopathic,” “psychotic,” and “deranged”
God, he loves to hear himself talk. It will be his undoing.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Ok, thanks.
206inKY
@sixthdoctor: It was phenomenal. I agree on both Walz and Pete. Interesting to think of Pete as SoS: fits his skillset as a disciplined and diplomatic communicator, and a damn good message to global homophobes who would be forced to reckon with him.
The WDFH call seemed revolutionary. I think sensible white dudes have avoided any organizing in recognition that such groups have worn white pointy hats in the past. But it has ceded the floor to the far right, which is aggressively recruiting teen/gen-z white dudes online who aren’t always aware of historical context, having grown up with a black president, and want some kind of affinity group. The call seemed like a great step with its humorous vibe while also counterpunching hard with the message: We don’t want to live in a world where everyone else is a second-class citizen.
I think Don Jr’s response was very telling, saying it should be “Cucks for Harris.” No surprise that these weirdos go straight for a metaphor about controlling women’s bodies. Dominating women is their core message for young men online, and the WDFH call was a great step for calling that shit out as gross and showing that there are better goals and role models out there.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s like he sees into my soul.
different-church-lady
Let’s see if I have this straight: this is the VP candidate for the same folks who insist trans-people must use their birth names, correct?
NoraLenderbee
@Sure Lurkalot:
You can be childless and not love kids and still willingly pay taxes to support their education and well-being. We don’t all have to prove our bona fides by insisting that we love children as such.
Suzanne
@Baud: LOL, you can tell from the conversation around this who has a messy family and who doesn’t.
Kay
@Baud:
I did not actually think the other two were that bad, or bad enough.
This one is bad enough.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Some of us come from stock that do not permit severe dysfunction to destroy a perfectly good marriage.
SatanicPanic
Watching Walz on Pod Save America and I like this guy. An older white man talking about Toxic Masculinity- YAY!
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Exactly. That’s where all of these counterfactuals end up. What happened, happened.
Jackie
@Baud: Comma+la, is how Kamala explained how to pronounce her name.
Baud
@Jackie:
That’s helpful. Thanks.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: He’d be living in his own Private Idaho… oh wait you meant the bomber;)
WereBear
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I dropped it here in case someone wanted to get in on the book discussion with some background.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
He doesn’t know who or what he is. He’s an adult aged human that has no idea what adulthood is or means. That’s my take.
scav
@different-church-lady: What’s worse, they’re the tribe of patriarchy and he’s switching to 1) non-invested-in-America “step!” father based affiliation and 2) a maternal! line affiliation.
Lochnessmom
@Kent: My 4 boys are all agnostic democratic socialists in stable relationships with charming, independent women, so I am very, very lucky. We don’t have much to disagree about and the few things we do, we just don’t needle each other with.
And none of them have kids, so they are all childless cat “ladies” lol.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: What if everyone in the world just shut the fuck up about everything? There’s an alternate history someone should write.
matt
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I see that the coup supporters who rushed to the ir fainting couches when I suggested that I could see NP’s finger prints all over the campaign by some Congress critters to push Biden out are now gloating about it as a masterstroke.
TBone
His way with words – always such a treat!
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/stop-calling-us-weird-whine-the-weirdest
Plus the photographic evidence 😆
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Well, we continue to pay taxes to benefit everyone’s children.
And that pays off for all of us. I can imagine what this country would be like if we didn’t do that, because I’m old enough to have seen what it’s like to have too large of a group of uneducated adult humans – it wasn’t good my lifetime ago and it would be worse today.
KatKapCC
@Kay: “Sociopathic.” Do these numbskulls realize that there are other kinds of love and caring besides parent-for-child? And also that not having kids doesn’t mean you hate children and want them all shot into space?
Scout211
I think that is exactly the point why this will be yet another weird issue with Vance. His focus for the last few years on the trad American family is tarnished a bit when his messy family is exposed by his name changes. If he hadn’t started criticizing other people’s families and parenting choices, it wouldn’t have been such a big issue. But he’s a huge hypocrite trying to hide his own messy family
I also wonder which one of those name changes were legal name changes.
scav
@different-church-lady:
Suzanne
@Baud: I think the changing-your-kids’-names thing is pretty common in that age cohort? (FWIW, JD Vance is four years younger than me.) I know lots of my peers whose parents changed their names with successive marriages, divorces, adoptions, etc. It surprises me that people are surprised by it. Up until the late 80s, it was legal in most states to relinquish one’s parental rights in order to avoid paying child support. So abandonment was not uncommon.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: hahaha
KatKapCC
@206inKY: I don’t want to make things too…weird…here, but how is “cuck” about controlling women’s bodies?
Sister Golden Bear
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Also, FWIW, being a door to door canvaser in a deep blue area of a deep blue state — like where I live here in the SF Bay Area — isn’t the best use of my time, or a campaign’s time. I’d rather put my efforts into GOTV efforts in swing states, and the few CA congressional districts that might be in play.
WereBear
@Suzanne: And I married and took his name because we were raising stepkids, and this gave me parental authority in emergencies, etc.
Kids grown, widowed, remarried… why can’t I do it for him, too? So I did.
Back when it was easier.
different-church-lady
@scav: Mister, we could use a man like Douglas Adams again…
Westyny
@Geminid: Josh Riley would have won in the original district and almost beat Molinaro last time. He’s great. Send him money.
Lochnessmom
@different-church-lady: Yes!! SO DUMB.
AND I feel like it’s sort of like the Cuban Missle Crises. Nobody knows how close we actually came to disaster.
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: Never a drag queen.
That said, I think one reason Christofascists throw around the “groomer” stuff is that sexual abuse is so rife within the church that they assume everyone does it.
WereBear
@TBone: Now that needs a trigger warning.
Kay
Good news. Although I think Shapiro just got less likely – she may not need him :)
hueyplong
@Kay: I’m game for living in such a world.
Kay
@KatKapCC:
They’re just really weird :)
TBone
@Soprano2:
@MagdaInBlack:
You are both 1,000% seeing this correctly. Women (intelligent women) and cats are not naturally obedient. We won’t love a dumbass unconditionally! As well, we speak a language that dumbasses do not understand. We readily show disdain for dumbassery. And we do not beg for affection. We are comfortable in solitude and dumbasses never know what’s behind our smiling (catty) eyes.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC: If she is doing it because its her husband’s kink and not because she is a willing and enthusiastic participant. Jeri Ryan comes to mind.
Lochnessmom
@rikyrah: I think he is a totally empty vessel who keeps trying to fill himself up with different things. There is no “there” there, which is why he is so creepy, bordering on uncanny valley territory.
Scout211
I don’t think that many people are surprised by it. Again, it’s the hypocrisy. He smears any families that are not the trad American family while trying to hide his own messy family.
Name changes are not the issue. It’s Vance’s hypocrisy that is the issue.
Baud
Something I learned recently about Franco’s Spain
If you’re curious where Vance gets his ideas from.
dkinPa
@Scout211: Thanks, I was disappointed with Schiff’s statement, but your explanation (and others) makes sense. My main fear about Biden dropping out was that there would be too many people trying to skip over Harris and that we’d end up with a contested convention. So happy that Kamala was embraced so quickly as the nominee.
I just had an email from my sister saying that she contributed to Harris’ campaign. She’s a reliable Dem voter now, but she has never, ever, given money to any candidate.
206inKY
@Bupalos: No point in endlessly litigating this. It’s obvious that:
1) There’s literally no way Biden’s exit could have been accelerated. The full pressure campaign was needed—Joe made it clear in his Oval Office address that he still believes. He made the decision entirely out of a selfless recognition that it was the only way to unify the party. And he made the decisive choice to endorse Harris.
2) Harris needed those three weeks. An operative gave a quote in one of the articles during that three-week span, before Joe dropped out, saying basically, “The one gift that came out scheduling the debate so early was that it gave time for Harris to get ready.” The immediate rollout wasn’t just magic: it was the product of three weeks of hard work by Harris and her team.
That’s all behind us—we have a great candidate who is generating historic enthusiasm.
different-church-lady
@Scout211:
DING DING DING DING CORRECT. If you’re gonna play that cushion, better put the right English on the ball.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
I love the t-shirt that just says
, LA
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: This thread comes from your statement that we were all on the same page that it had to be Harris. I’m just stating that it was not all, and stating why. Yes it’s history now. History is something to think about, unravel, and use to instruct future actions. What I’m aiming at is suggesting this party is more unified than it thinks, and maybe we would do well to continue to err to the side of being bolder (as replacing Biden was) rather than fearing we have some gaping weakness we have to crouch and cover up.
Peale
@Kay: Given the circles he runs in, I think its only a matter of time when something surfaces with him weighing in on the “Female Wall” and whether its over for them by 27, 24, or 21. Probably something out there about how the government should encourage 16 year old to marry.
TBone
@WereBear: 😆
Quinerly
More on Elon suspending the acct for White Dudes for Harris.
https://www.newsweek.com/white-dudes-harris-x-suspension-1931827
Lochnessmom
@rikyrah: dammit, we need good public schools because maintaining the fabric of society benefits us all! They cannot conceive of that because everything is a zero sum game to them and every resource is “finite” so there must be winners and losers, haves and have-nots. And this is why we can’t have nice things.
Grumpy Old Railroader
IMO knocking on doors and blind calling are so old fashioned. Most folks in my hood 1) have video doorbells and 2) do not answer the door to strangers. It is pretty much the same with phone calls. If you ain’t in my contact list, you’re gonna get my voice mail. It is the same with text messages. I donated once earlier this year and now everybody and their family is texting me for support. Once or twice daily I am blocking unknown text messages from candidates both known and unknown. It really makes me not want to donate.
TBone
@Leto: 👍😍
Martin
@Bupalos: Yeah, this. This isn’t hard if people can let go of the emotions and explanations they were searching for during that time.
Pelosi and Obama (and probably others) decide after the debate that we need a change. To be clear – this didn’t start with the debate. There was already concern about polling numbers, lack of volunteers, donations, etc. going back earlier. I think the early debate was intended to get Democrats to wake up – because the early GOP convention and the late Dem one had created an imbalance in fundraising, energy, etc. It was already trying to solve a perceived problem.
So Pelosi and Obama take the lead – Pelosi with elected members, and Obama with donors. They have their own press operations. They start ramping pressure on Biden. Pelosi sets a calendar that this will be a quiet pressure campaign so that Biden gets to make the decision, but starting the Monday after he decided, it would become a public one and he’d clearly be getting forced out.
Biden resists this pressure campaign, does a whole bunch of stuff to reassure people, boost his polling, etc. It doesn’t work. It’s not terrible, but it’s not working. He gets the message, he ends his campaign.
Now, Obama and Pelosi have been pushing for this outcome for 3 weeks. There is no fucking way that Nancy Smash, who has run more campaigns than anyone alive (400 every 2 years while she was minority leader/speaker), read more polls, and who knows how to count, didn’t have a plan for the moment they succeeded. There is no way Obama didn’t either. They had 3 weeks to figure out the plan, figure out the legal ramifications for trying to transfer the $130M Biden/Harris funds to someone other than Harris (she can take it easily because her name is on the legal entity), where there is support, how angry delegates and supporters are, and all that.
I have been involved many times in removing a high level person from their job and inserting someone else, usually one of their staff, but sometimes someone external. There is a well understood process for this:
This is routine. It’s done constantly. Obama and Pelosi and the folks calling for an open process were the folks in 2. The people calling for Biden to step down were various members of congress, donors, etc. that Pelosi/Obama had cleared. That kept their hands clean. Biden was built up, thanked for his service, and all of that is genuine. The hand picked successor arrives with unanimous support.
In this case, even though Pelosi/Obama are calling for a fair process, they’ve already picked Harris as the best option, counted endorsements for her from elected members, governors, etc. and once Biden makes the announcement, they start whipping and getting this tsunami of endorsements out the door. I’m sure they told Biden that this was the plan, and either Biden agreed, or took the message that he’d look pretty shitty if the entire party went for Harris and he didn’t, or if he endorsed someone else. (I tend to think he wanted Harris). 6 hours later there were no other possibilities. Harris was the nominee. Even donors that didn’t want Harris are endorsing her. It’s done. Nancy Smash knows how to win a vote, and Nancy Smash doesn’t take a shit without having a plan.
There is no burden on Biden here. The announcement decision is hard enough. He has a choice to endorse Harris or not, but one will make him look good and one bad, and his endorsement ultimately will mean nothing other than this process takes a little longer – Nancy has already determined how this is going to go. I don’t think she needed to convince many people – I think everyone was just genuinely on the same page on this. We put Harris on the ticket in order to take over for Biden should the unthinkable happen. Everyone had already internalized that. But Nancy would have known beforehand if there was uncertainty and she and Obama would have done work to address that.
The uncertainty around Pelosi and Obama endorsing Harris never made sense to me – it was obvious they would because it was obvious she was their choice. Things would not have played out in the way they did if she wasn’t. The goal is to give the illusion that the candidate wasn’t hand picked when they were, because that illusion gives credibility to the person. Yes, it’s obvious there wasn’t an open process – but democrats said they value and prefer the open process, and that expression gives us something to willfully suspend disbelief from: had this happened 6 months ago and we had time to do a process, there would have been a process, Harris would have been the winner, so in the end it’s exactly the same thing. Harris earned this, and we can turn our attention away from this and toward the convention and beating Trump.
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
Me too. I prefer to buy a shirt from the campaign, though. Has anyone seen any of these ” , la” shirts in person?
KatKapCC
@Omnes Omnibus: I mean…sure. But when I hear that word, the first thing to come to mind is not “stop controlling women”. Some like DJTJr using it likely means something more like “wimpy beta males who let women control them”.
TBone
@Kirk: a hostile takeover in every sense of that phrase. Offensive to all intelligent, free people.
Martin
@Grumpy Old Railroader: It’s why postcards have become more popular. They punch through those things.
Most people here still answer the door, so door knocking still works in some places.
Kay
@Peale:
Have to wonder what’s going on with that since his wife is actually more accomplished than he is. These are genuine beliefs of his – he’s raising them in interviews and expanding on them. I can’t make that match with his wife.
Quinerly
@Martin: hey!
Come hang out with me! We think alike!!!
frosty
@Argiope: Great comment, you nailed it. Amongst the grind, three moments stand out.
The guy who liked Kennedy and decided to vote for Kerry when I told him he had the same initials, JFK.
The guy who said he’d love to vote but he wasn’t registered. When I told him he wouldn’t be on my list if he wasn’t registered he got in his car and headed for the polls right then.
And my favorite, in 2008 when my brother and I (white dudes) ran into five black kids in the city while dropping Obama lit. They said “Obama?” We said “Absolutely.” They said, “You know what change stands for?” “Nope.”
”Come Help A N****h Get Elected.”
Pause…. “That’s what we’re doing!”
206inKY
@KatKapCC: They are referring to “cuckold” which in their circles means dudes who don’t care if their wives are non-monogamous. It has morphed into a catch-all for men who (in their fucked up worldview) are submissive to women instead of being dominant. Their ideal of masculinity is someone who enforces strict control over women in their lives.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kyle Rayner: Thanks for taking the time. I generally agree, but as a trans woman, my experience is that it’s my queerness that is the root of Republican hatred (although that’s also a big factor), but my trans-ness in particular.
Especially the fact that trans women “renounce being men” — although we never were — which is a huge reason for the asymmetry between the vitriol directed at trans women and conservatives barely acknowledging trans men exist.
For TERFs in particular, trans men usually get ignored because they disprove a number of favorite TERF talking about “men invading women’s spaces” and trans women actually being men with a sexual fetish, etc. Though TERFs do love to trot out the same handful — and by that I meant you can literally count them on a hand or two — of pet de-transitioners as evidence that poor cis innocent girls are being “trans-ed” by an evil conspiracy of doctors.
Geminid
@Leto: Have you looked at the Project 2025 plans for veterans’ health care? It sounded like privatization to me.
Ed.I think this could really hurt Republicans among veterans and their family members. I’m neither but I still found it alarming.
Steve in the ATL
@Scout211: @Baud: @Suzanne: @rikyrah: there are many reasons why people change their names, most but not all are perfectly normal. But that many name changes is weird adn not normal. Like just about every aspect of his existence.
Harrison Wesley
@different-church-lady:
https://youtu.be/dgo-As552hY?si=SfRyqcJTJrmkmjW4
Bupalos
@Kay: Whatever it is, a sugar high or durable shift, I have to say I did not anticipate the strength of this jolt. I mostly thought of the switch as a way to protect down ballot from risk of a collapse if Biden put up more problematic appearances. I’m kinda sorta starting to believe here… hope we can weather the money-storm about to come at us.
I know you keep your ear to the ground on Sherrod, what’s that looking like? Here in NEO markets I’m seeing a lot of attack stuff, but almost nothing with the used car salesman’s name on it.
narya
@rikyrah: Minocqua Brewing in WI has a beer with that name, with a silhouette of Harris and Ruby Bridges on the front. (They also have a Biden Beer and an AOC beer, plus Evers and Tammy Baldwin and Bernie.)
WereBear
@Steve in the ATL: If that were the only weird thing… but it’s not.
Lyrebird
@Sister Golden Bear: Hi and thanks! I am trying to track down the name of an author, a horrible one. Not sure which acronym might apply, but if it wouldn’t add to today’s stress, here’s a question: this white cis het female author has written a book about girls being brainwashed as you say, and I think she has written a separate book saying that all of psychology is hogwash. I am not super brave and I am afraid to go Googling to find this person’s name again. Another friend is trying to fight the arguments she is popularizing.
Kay
@Bupalos:
They think Sherrod is ahead but as you know he’s a very aggressive campaigner so no one says it.
I’ve been surprised at the jolt of energy too. I spent a week with my youngest and his gf and they have this whole thing about how people are sad and want something to hope for which I SORT of buy. They’re persuasive anyway :)
Whatever. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth right
dkinPa
@WereBear: BINGO! I grew up in the south in the 60’s, so I know there are people out there who don’t think Roman Catholics are real
Christians. I suspect this will come as a rude shock to more than one Catholic on the Supreme Court. Bless their hearts, indeed.
Leto
@Geminid: I’m getting there. Avalune told me some of it, basically it was being gutted. Because ofc that’s what they do with us: use, abuse, discard, then cry crocodile tears over how we’re supposed to be respected/venerated. Fire them all into the sun.
Frank Wilhoit
@Lochnessmom:
I was afraid of Biden being pushed out because of what it said about the Party. Everything that we know about organizations tells us that once the overt sabotage begins, it can only escalate. Today we see a great outpouring of support for Harris, but for the past four years, we did not see Biden pissing people off, which he must have been doing a great deal of, else none of this could have happened. What are we not seeing today?
Frank Wilhoit
@Soprano2:
I can haz Toxoplasma gondii? It may explain all of human history.
Eyeroller
@Frank Wilhoit: The only way he was pissing people off was by being perceived as losing and, much more significantly, perceived to be threatening the House and Senate members’ races. There is tons of evidence for that. He would never have accomplished as much as he did if he had been pissing people off personally for the past 3.5 years.
Geminid
@Leto: Republicans see another big pot of money in VA care that they can distribute to their rapacious friends.
rikyrah
@Kay:
His hatred of women is palpable.
Argiope
@frosty: Ha! I think that’s why I am always glad I haul my reluctant ass out to do it. You may only help one person in 40 doors that you can SEE you helped vote, but that’s the one that sticks with you. Last time, I had an older couple convinced they “weren’t allowed” to vote anymore, because they were homebound and couldn’t go to the polls. I checked their registration, told them they were current, and helped them make a plan to vote by mail.
rikyrah
yvette nicole brown (@YNB) posted at 9:05 AM on Tue, Jul 30, 2024:
![]()
BE VIGILANT! Go to https://t.co/jERus0tOxX to make sure you’re still registered. You must be at least 89 days before an election in most states. If you are good. Screenshot the page and take that with you to the polls.
(https://x.com/YNB/status/1818286787951038729?s=03)
TBone
@Frank Wilhoit: 💩
rikyrah
Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) posted at 0:09 PM on Tue, Jul 30, 2024:
They ban abortion.
They ban IVF.
They take back no-fault divorce.
They want women to marry very young. They want women to have children when they are very young. They want every choice a woman makes to be tied to men. This is white Christian Nationalism. This is #Project2025.
(https://x.com/magi_jay/status/1818333201112203264?t=bZx-MSAZ6CfHjL-a8yLhFg&s=03)
Lochnessmom
@Frank Wilhoit:
The last 8 years have given me severe trust issues. I think everybody has PTSD from both 2016 election night and Jan. 6 and everyone is expressing it in different ways. (Both voters and within the party).
Martin
Oh, I should note to the above – at least half the stories in the NYT questioning whether Biden should drop out are from Pelosi/Obama feeding them. It’s just part of the pressure operation. The donors pulling money back during this time is Obama giving them permission to. Pressure is coming from a lot of different directions. Biden doesn’t really have the juice to fight all of them – Obama is too popular, Pelosi is too fucking good at her job. And even though those two aren’t the only ones wanting this change, they agree to take the lead because they can afford to take the hit from people who are pissed – they’re both in their political legacy phase. So they can let Jeffreys and Schumer stay out of this, because they can’t afford to take the hit. AOC goes out and warns people that there are people who also want Harris out, and builds support for quickly coalescing around Harris should Biden drop out – without taking a position on whether Biden should drop out. I don’t know if she was tasked by Nancy to do this or simply understood the assignment on her own. I have a hard time believing that Nancy was unaware given their relationship now.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Agree. I think this one is a little worse than the prior. It starts to be “this is why I hate people who don’t have children”. Just undeniable.
I listened to Trump defending him a bit yesterday – just a clip – and boy Donald Trump does not like defending people and is also not very good at it.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin:
Ironically, the fact that a number of (but definitely not all) trans women present more feminine than many cis women* — and trans women I porn definitely are presented as hyper-femme — is often a big reason cis-het guys are sexually attracted to us.
*There are a variety of reasons for this. For me, a big one is being gendered correctly. Thanks to what testosterone did to my body — and inheriting my mother’s stocky “born to the plow” body — I have to send more signals that I’m a woman, and what to be treated as such. There’s also the aspect of having been denied clothing, etc. that never “fit,” I’m delighting in being able to be to dress in a way that feels like me. (It’s bit analogous to how cis-het women who hated being forced into wearing “girly” stuff growing up, are much more comfortable in androgynous to masculine attire and presentation.)
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: 89 days is incorrect, and I’m a bit worried that it might discourage some people. The worst cases have a deadline about 30 days before the election, and for many states it’s shorter. Here’s a list of registration deadlines by state:
https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-deadlines/
H.E.Wolf
That’s the great thing about being a data-entry volunteer. If anyone ever puts my name in there, I can take it right back out. 😎
Quinerly
@dkinPa: same here. Grew up in the South. Lots of prejudice back in 1960’s/1970’s against Catholics. Probably still is with old timers. Loved my born and breaded small town Eastern NC father (WW2 vet, born 1922) he was very progressive politically….even voted for McGovern in 1972. Unfortunately, he was very prejudiced against Catholics. Never could get a solid explanation from him other than “they don’t think for themselves. They do what the Pope says.” He did vote for Kennedy, though.
With all his harsh feelings about the Catholic religion, he loved and respected Jesuits. I can write several paragraphs on why but won’t. I have had a lot of Catholic boyfriends over the years. St. Louis is a very Catholic town, plus Saint Louis University is Jesuit based. His first question to a Catholic boyfriend was always, “how do you feel about Jesuits?” Caught many a suitor off guard.
Martin
@narya: Minocqua brewing is a good story to know when talking to conservatives.
They are a liberal owned brewery in a small town in MN, and they have been under constant assault by the conservative county and town trying to run them out of business. So when conservatives say that liberals don’t care about these rural communities and the loss of jobs – point out Minocqua Brewery as a very successful business that provides jobs in one of these communities that conservatives keep trying to destroy simply because it’s owned by liberals.
H.E.Wolf
I loooooved bundling up flyers. Sat there in a nice quiet corner and happily observed all of what Inigo Montoya called “the hustle and the bustle”. :)
Soprano2
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I completely agree. Over and over I hear people characterize people seeking asylum as “illegals”. The press lets them get away with it, too. It’s a big problem, bigger than many Democrats realize. I’m not kidding about all the statewide R’s here running heavily on “stopping illegal immigration”, even though none of their jobs have anything to do with that! They know that’s how to appeal to the voters here.
Suzanne
@Scout211: The hypocrisy thing is real, for sure. It’s just the description of it as “shifty” or “suspicious” that I question. It’s not suspicious in and of itself. He was pretty scathing of the various men involved with his mother over the years.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: The line is that “seeking asylum” is just a thing liberals made up out of whole cloth as a trick to let hordes of “illegals” in
To his credit, Matthew Yglesias of all people has forcefully called bullshit on this.
206inKY
@KatKapCC: Yeah that’s what I mean. Don Jr is using it to mean “wimpy guys who submit to women instead of controlling them.” This isn’t an accurate description of what “cuckold” means to everyone—my original point is just that it’s no surprise Don Jr used this to criticize the WGFH call, since his pitch to young white dudes is that Trumpism will give them control over women.
frosty
@Martin: All of this reads like facts but is it just speculation? Do you have anything to cite? Sounds plausible but since no one’s talking, who knows what happened?
Kay
Sahil Kapur
@sahilkapur
1h
.@HawleyMO on @CaptMarkKelly: “I’m very impressed with Senator Kelly. I can understand why she’d vet him. I hope she doesn’t choose him, let’s put it that way… He’s really sharp. And I think he obviously has a honorable record of serving this country in multiple different ways.”
Hmmm. I wonder what trickery is afoot here
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL:
I got the impression that his mother changed his name multiple times when he was a minor. It seems like, once he was of age, he selected to change his name to his grandmother’s name. Like it or not, that’s not really weird. As I noted above, some people who come from messy family lives have that kind of backstory.
Look, the dude is weird, and he absolutely looks like he fucked a couch, and he deserves to get tons of shit for that.
Soprano2
@Kay: I know people who went through the Great Recession of 2008-2010 who also feel this is the most terrible economy ever, because for them the problem is that prices went up a lot faster than wages, so they feel poorer. I agree none of these people know what a really bad economy is – try living through 8-10% unemployment along with 8% inflation, that was the late ’70’s-early ’80’s. I graduated into one of the worst job markets in a generation when I graduated from college in 1983. We had 4 employers recruit at my college campus – 4 in a whole year, when they previously had dozens! No one was hiring anyone! If you were lucky enough to find a job you’d better hang onto it, because there probably wouldn’t be another opening for years. That’s a bad economy, this is a great economy.
HumboldtBlue
OK, 500 comments it is, then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: It’s in Wisconsin. I know that to a Californian there is no difference, but do try.
OId Man Shadow
@Soprano2: Well, they can’t just get up and scream the N-word… yet.
Geminid
@206inKY: Ron Filipkowski posted a 2 minute clip of Don Jr. talking to JD Vance a week ago and wow! Junior was skipping without a rope. Filipkowski noted that he did not speed it up, but Junior sure did
Ed. Vance just listened and smiled those two minutes and gave a phony laugh a couple times.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I pay for my great nieces and nephews, and everyone else’s kids who are going to hold jobs in this community someday. We all have a stake in kids being better cared for and educated.
AWOL
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I hope so. My copy editor (a good Democratic-voting friend of mine) was doubtful that Joe Conason’s message would resonate beyond the immediate echo chamber.
I’m willing to order about two or three volumes from the warehouse and send them to a person who would run that discussion. They can distribute to BJers who can’t afford a hardcover or whose libraries refuse to carry it.
I’ll check this thread later to see if here any interest in free copies. The books take about eight days to arrive at my home address from the warehouse in VA.
Leto
@Geminid: update: found the VA changes. JFC, what a horror. Essentially they think agent orange and burn pit legislation was unneeded, think those people are faking it, and they’re looking to put in changes to deny more claims/reduce disability ratings, while at the same time either keeping current disability ratings, or reducing them, for already awarded claims.
I fucking hate these people. Vile isn’t the correct word for them.
Edit: I saw you second comment about doling out money to their private sector friends. Yup, that’s littered throughout this. I just can’t. I can’t with these worthless fucking stolen honor fucks.
JoeyJoeJoe
Just regarding James Carville’s current location; it’s Alexandria VA. I’ve literally run or walked by him a couple of times in the past year
Soprano2
@WereBear: Oh, that’s definitely a possibility.
RaflW
@Martin: Just a few notes (from a customer): Minocqua Brewing is in Wisconsin. And Oneida County is a hornets nest of all the worst GOP tropes.
Really good friends own a cabin just outside town. Their lake subdivision went bust in the 90s (not sure on timing). It spans two counties, Oneida and Vilas.
In Oneida Co., people are buying up the cheap-ish off-lake lots, building horrible pole-barn garages with maybe one cheap-ass paneled room attached and calling them ‘residences’ to get access to the subdiv. private beach, picnic area and launch (these are townies who just go out to the lake to fish or boat).
Vilas Co. is refusing to issue building permits to such bullshit ‘residences’, but Oneida is violating their own county code and letting the f–ers do whatever they basically want. Land rights!
Anyway, that same county board is making life shitty for the brewer of “Evers Ale” “AOC • IPA” etc.
Argiope
Just to help TBogg this thing:
Billboards: a waste of campaign cash, or inescapable for commuters so a good idea? I can picture a prosecutor vs felon one on the long stretch of I-71 between CLE and Columbus
HumboldtBlue
499…
Soprano2
@Kay: OMG that is really, really, really bad. What the hell is up with his obsession with how everyone should have to have children? Is he secretly miserable in parenthood and thinks everyone else needs to be as miserable as he is? Or does he think we all need to have our viewpoints changed by having children? ETA – can’t wait to hear him say he didn’t say what we all definitely heard him say.
Hey, I Tbogged the thread!
HumboldtBlue
@Soprano2:
WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!
Kay
@Soprano2:
I don’t know but I agree. It’s bad. I don’t think we can break thru with Trump horror anymore so Vance is just a gift. Trump must be so mad. lol
Sister Golden Bear
@Lochnessmom: I hesitated to reply because it appears BJ will be re-litigating this until the heat death of the universe, but I wanted to thank you for your cogent summary of why folks like myself wanted to stay with Biden. Chief among them that, although yes, a number of BJ commenters were advocating for Harris to step in, folks like Schiff etc. were very noticeably not saying that, and the pundits/mega-donors were clear they wanted both Biden and Harris to go.
Anyway, I’m ecstatic that Harris has brought new energy into the campaign. I know the debate was nasty at times, and traumatic for a number of people including me, and there’s a hurt feeling that won’t go away soon. I’m not asking people to forget, nor to forgive, but I am asking that FFS can we re-focus on achieving a Blue Wave election.
Martin
@Frank Wilhoit:
Ok, this is a terrible take.
Let’s zero in just on Nancy Pelosi. Her job as Democratic house leader for years was picking and choosing which races to back. If she came into my district and refused to put money behind Katie Porter because the district was too red, that is not an expression of Katie Porter pissing off Pelosi. That is an expression that the polls show that whatever resources Porter would need to win are more than Pelosi has, and there’s no point throwing good money after bad. She has made that call hundreds and hundreds of times based on polling data, and her vibes about a candidate or a district. This shit is not personal and so many people here are trying to make it personal.
I have had to fire people that I adored. I fired them because I had a job that needed to be done and they weren’t doing it. But I thought they were wonderful, caring, joyous people to be around. I thought they were smart as hell, and talented, but they were not invested in the job I needed done, and they were not able to overcome that to perform in the job at the level that other people in the office were performing at. It happens – you find a great person, and it’s the wrong fit. And I did everything in my power to find them the right job, and there they did great.
Biden’s problem wasn’t that people didn’t like him, that he pissed people off, that he was doing a bad job (maybe a little if the reporting that he hadn’t seen a swing state poll in weeks is correct) but that he was the wrong candidate in this moment against this opponent. The national issue in 2020 was Covid and he was perfect for that, the national issue in 2024 is Dobbs and he’s totally the wrong messenger. Trump is opening opportunities to attack him on his age, and we can’t do that because Biden’s older, etc. He was the right fit for the job in 2020 and the wrong fit in 2024. And Nancy and Obama, being pretty fucking good at this understand that, see that he’s not overcoming it in the polls, recognize what a catastrophe it would be for the country if Trump was elected and decide that protecting Biden’s feelings are not more important than protecting the country from a wannabe dictator. Anyone who thinks that call should have been made in favor of Biden’s feelings really need to reexamine the kind of parasocial relationships they have with politicians, because that’s not healthy or helpful.
Understand where Pelosi is coming from. Trump sent his goons on Jan 6 to have her killed. Later, he sent his goons to her house to have her killed and they nearly killed her husband, and Trump turned that into a punchline. She does not give a fuck about anyones reputation or hard feelings when it comes to stopping Trump from returning to power.
People need to get over themselves. This is not about hurting you. This is about stopping a dictator from taking power and everything is on the table in that kind of fight. Wake the fuck up.
Citizen Alan
@Splitting Image: I still say that one of the single most bizarre chain of political events I’ve observed in my lifetime was how cuckoldry helped get Obama elected president. He had a serious opponent for his Illinois Senate run with Jack Ryan until Jeri Ryan divorced his weird ass in part over his rather insistent desire that she have sex with another man in some sex club while he watched. That forced Jack Ryan to drop out and he was replaced with the hapless Alan Keyes (and that race was what gave rise to the 27% trope!). Obama won and was then position for his presidential run.
Eyeroller
@frosty: It’s a story we can construct, at least in the broad outlines, from consistency among what public statements we got and all the “unnamed sources.” In my case, I assume most of those sources have an agenda, and are spinning, but I do not assume they are outright lying in general. It’s pretty clear that the Party grandees didn’t think Biden’s chances were good before the disasterdebate. High negatives and low job approval aren’t a good signal for an incumbent. So they were predisposed. They were ready to go immediately after the debate. They fed the media frenzy.
Recall that one of the first things was Michael Bennet going on MSNBC and whimpering about how Biden was going to lose and cause a bloodbath for Democrats in the House and Senate. They cared a lot more about that than about Biden. Josh Marshall even commented on it (“don’t be pathetic”). It seems House members were running to Nancy with their “internal poles.”
The low approval was why they wanted to get rid of Harris also. They assumed it would carry over to her. But they seem to have been wrong about that. (The media who pushed for a “mini primary” just wanted a spectacle so fsck those nearly-all guys.)
I am betting that the mostly nonwhite Members who stuck by Biden felt that the pressure campaign was unseemly and divisive and should have been handled more privately. But we don’t know for sure. Maybe someday, someone will write a book about it.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Kay:
/fixed
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: My family’s cabin is in Oneida County. Between Tomahawk and Rhinelander.
Quinerly
@JoeyJoeJoe: like I mentioned earlier, their home in NOLA was gorgeous. Didn’t realize when they put it on the market, they were relocating.
Article from 2021
https://www.nola.com/news/business/james-carville-mary-matalin-moving-out-of-3-4m-new-orleans-gem-heres-a-look/article_a7e4a960-72ff-11eb-8118-e3a93ed6b3d9.amp.html
And
https://prcno.org/carville-matalins-new-orleans-home/
Helping to add to the T Bogg unit.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
BWA HA AH AH AH AH AH AHA HAH HA
206inKY
@Geminid: Totally! The man is losing his mind right now. The whole “weird” attack is not just torpedoing Daddy’s campaign but cutting oxygen from their Nazi recruitment pipeline.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I told you I have a young conservative law student in the office now. We get along really well but he’s not nuts – he is a partisan though – not a normie. He was kind of a sleeper because I was not impressed initially but now I know he will be very good.
He’s upset, I think about Vance. He’s like needy. I was “Jesus Christ, this now?” :)
Hoodie
@Martin: This may be somewhat accurate, but it’s probably inaccurate to characterize this as getting rid of an older employee. We’re talking about the President of the United States, not some old dean. This guy got 80+ million people to vote for him in the last election, and won the nomination and election when a lot of people thought he was past his sell by date. You’re not going to unseat a guy like that without including him in your plans. The rest is kabuki. Sure, Joe is disappointed. He did a great job, had a truly great run in the first two years (some of which should be credited to Pelosi and Schumer, but it’s a team sport). However, he knows what needed to be done.
Sister Golden Bear
@Lyrebird: I know the author you’re referring to. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name offhand.
WereBear
@AWOL: Have you alerted Watergirl? She organized this.
Bill Arnold
@Lochnessmom:
It was (and is) literally chaos. Well-managed chaos, the state of USA political affairs was competently and rapidly nudged into the desired attractor(s).
Omnes Omnibus
@Hoodie: Actually, I don’t think some of the people commenting on this see much of a difference.
Tony Jay
@Citizen Alan:
There’s surely an entire, award-winning comedy routine out there somewhere revolving around the thoughts, dreams and final, crushing disappointment of the long-term German sex-club aficionado who truly believed, for one, single supernova of a second, that he was about to have public sex with Seven-Of-Nine.
Until she said, “Nein.”
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
Lochnessmom
@Sister Golden Bear:
Yes, I would love if we never had to hash it out again. It was…hard. My partner and I were really upset and nervous about the uncertainty. They felt it more acutely, but I was really feeling terrible too.
SO excited for Harris though. She was mu pick in 2020 and I was thrilled that Joe chose her for VP. Now we just need the trifecta and we can start clawing some stuff back. Positive thoughts for a blue wave!
Kyle Rayner
@Sister Golden Bear: I hear you! This “renouncing being men” detail is very important to conservatives.
I think we’re always going to see a different “face” being presented from TERFs wherever we go, just by selection bias of where we spend our time. Their ultimate goal is ruining lives, but step one is recruitment to supporting transphobic policies, so they tailor their approach to address that asymmetry you mentioned.
I see TERFs talking about trans men quite a bit, obsessively fixating even, in spaces where they’re trying to position themselves as natural allies to cis gay men, in a “We’re protecting you from comphet” sort of way. (The mental gymnastics this requires, I can’t comprehend.) But in other spaces, that’s totally moot, and like you said, they’re parading out the detransition stories instead to recruit closeted trans people and worried parents, they’re “protecting” women’s spaces/lesbians to recruit feminists who don’t know any better, or they’re focused solely on those woman-fetish narratives to recruit everyone else that manages to spook.
Recruit, radicalize, deploy.
different-church-lady
@Martin: Where’s the part where you call the leader-to-be-removed a guy with pudding for brains in front of the shareholders?
No One You Know
@Hildebrand: Absolutely. Carville in particular has a problem with women, as well as an all- consuming preoccupation with himself.
different-church-lady
@Citizen Alan:
Which wouldn’t happen in today’s GOP.
WereBear
@Lyrebird: I am only aware of Camille Paglia.
different-church-lady
@WereBear:
This kind of thing is why I’m terrified of being in a coma.
Soprano2
@Kay: I agree with that, no matter what TCFG says (you won’t have to vote ever again!) the press just shrugs and says “That’s just how TCFG is, what are you going to do?”. They don’t even ask other Republicans follow-up questions about the things TCFG says anymore.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2:
TRUMP: “The cannibal is a great guy!
PRESS: [shrug]
PJ
@Martin: Are all of your comments are about your imagination (re what Pelosi and Obama thought or did) or you and what you did in your job. That may have some bearing on what went on with Biden and elected Democrats, or it may have no bearing whatsoever. You have disclosed no inside information that leads one to believe you have any insight into the matter. Maybe someone else needs to “wake the fuck up.”
The fact is, no one knows what is going to happen, and whether Harris will turn out to be a stronger candidate than Biden. The same people who were doomers a week and a half ago are now exuberant, based only on the candidate change. That’s just a vibe shift. Poll numbers (which I think are very broken – and if they were broken before, they are still broken after) are slightly better, but not decisive (and certainly not this far out).
It’s good that people are excited about volunteering and donating, and switching the candidates certainly helped the Democrats by removing the “Biden old” bell that the media was going to ring several times a day until election day, but I don’t doubt they will do their best to find something else to sink Harris. But it remains to be seen whether this switch actually gets the “independents” (i.e., morons) who will decide this election and who might be inclined to sit at home to get up and vote.
different-church-lady
@PJ: Martin’s superpower is stating theoreticals as facts.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s true for normies too, I think. Nothing about him gets in anymore. I genuinely want to tell people they will never have to think about Donald Trump again if they beat him this time – I think it’s a big incentive.
He’s boring. People tell me about the sharks or whatever and I’m just not interested. Someone on social media said this switcheroo has made Trump the incumbent and Harris the change agent, and I think that might be true. But we’re all guessing.
Soprano2
I think that’s right. Just think about it, he’s been either running for president or president for 9 years! How can he be the “agent of change” under those circumstances?
Kay
@Soprano2:
That’s why I never thought “why doesn’t media talk about HIS decline?” would work. He’s been saying this shit for 8 years. No one hears it anymore.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Trump is an agent of chaos. That’s why I think the slogan, “We’re not going back” will resonate with Independents as well as Democrats.
Martin
@frosty: All of the reporting supports this. None of it has been refuted or even questioned that I’ve seen.
And some is speculative on my part, but should be what people just assume is likely to have happened. Have we ever known Pelosi to get caught out in a vote? No, never. She knows where everyone in her caucus is, if they aren’t where she needs them to be she helps get them there, and when the vote comes everyone does their job. Every goddamn time.
There is no way, knowing everything we know about her, that she pressures Biden to drop out and then asks ‘now what?’. Like that is the most inconceivable, unbelievable thing to me. Of course she had a plan. Two of the most prominent moments in the runup were Schiff’s call for Biden to step down, Schiff being a protege of hers, and AOC rallying support for Harris, AOC now being another protege of hers.
I’m not saying that Pelosi strong-armed the caucus to back Harris. But if she took the temperature of the caucus and saw there was widespread support for Harris, she didn’t need a plan. All she needed to do was choke off the opportunity for an alternative to get traction, and you do that by moving quickly. And boy howdy did Democrats move quickly. There was not much time between when Biden notified the party that he was stepping down and people endorsed – almost as though someone came through and said ‘we don’t know if Biden is going to step down, but in the event he does, you need to be prepared to immediately endorse Harris’. And everyone did.
We know Obama is in tight with the donors – more than Biden is – and so he’s the natural person to coordinate any kind of strategy there. There’s disagreement about the replacement but not much about wanting Biden to step down. Nobody even gets a chance to suggest an alternative, things happen so quickly.
Pelosi and Obama take the roles that you see happen all the time in these kinds of situations. There is a very well known pattern to this sort of thing. Nobody deviates much from it. So you have this template to fit all the pieces into. Some are kind of obvious – you don’t give this to Jeffries/Schumer because if it goes wrong you’ve destroyed their careers and we lose our ability to legislate. Pelosi and Obama are the obvious choices. Now, I thought Obama was more in Biden’s camp, and figured this was all Pelosi, but I was wrong, and all reporting is that they were on the same page for a long time, and divided the task, which in hindsight makes more sense given how things played out.
The nature of the reporting coming out of NYT didn’t feel like them just holding a grudge. They had a lot of sources and nobody was denying the reporting, which is a good indiction that someone is coordinating with them.
The narrative that developed here was that this was rogue agents – the media, the donors, the occasional disloyal Democrat. People could not accept that this was an organized campaign by the two most important and powerful and successful people in the party. And if you think in terms of loyalty, and friendship, and obligation, and ‘what people deserve’ then yeah, that’s impossible to accept. But if you think in terms of politics, of how Nancy has operated her entire career, of the stakes of this election, it becomes hard to believe that wasn’t what was happening.
And I think that’s a big part of the infighting that took place here. A lot of people that had Biden’s back build relationships around loyalty and friendship. For others of us, people like me who have had to fire friends, remove people I really liked from positions, and so on we have a different perspective of how this works when you put your responsibility to the organization or the community ahead of your personal relationship and you learn how to separate those things, recognize that it’s not personal, and deal with the consequences knowing you did the right thing. And you see the situation in a very different way. For all the shit we give Republicans for swearing an oath to Trump and not America, we are pretty quickly to cast blame on Democrats for standing by their conviction that the best way to keep Trump out of office is for Biden to step down. They might have been wrong, we might all be wrong here still, but they put their loyalty to what was best for the country ahead of Biden. And that’s the thing we’re supposed to want them to do, even when they might be wrong. And if you give them the benefit of the doubt that is their intentions, it’s not really that hard to see the contours of this. It’s when you think this is borne of grievance or disloyalty or self-interest that you can’t see it because none of the pieces fit together right.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Well, another reason they don’t talk about his decline is we don’t even try to force the issue.
SatanicPanic
@PJ: But… the overall vibe of an election is important.
I don’t think there’s a good argument that Biden would have been stronger. I don’t see it.
Steve in the ATL
@WereBear: I have a hold on it at my library. 14 week wait. That’s a good sign, right?
Tony Jay
@different-church-lady:
TRUMP: “The Cannibal Vampire Dinosaur hybrid loves me more than anyone and will make the best Secretary of Education in the history of Education. Just the best.”
PRESS: “Concentration on novel education policies adds depth to Trump’s child-focussed bona fides.”
WereBear
@Steve in the ATL: I think so!
Hoodie
@Geminid: He’s the fucking Joker.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
It’s not really a decline from 2020. He sounds exactly the same. He has to fill the hour and a half he has decided he is going to hold people hostage, so he does free association. He’s always done it. Is he worse than 2016? Yeah, but he ran in 2020. It’s just so lucky he picked my senator. It’s like you can just slot him right in there.
dkinPa
@Quinerly: What a cool story! My dad was raised Lutheran in a small town in Illinois, went to St. Louis University, and joined the Navy for the last couple of years of WWII. Ended up in D.C. where he met my mom, a 1st generation Catholic, and they got married. His mother was not pleased that he was marrying a Catholic!
different-church-lady
@Kay: Fine: they won’t talk about how bizarre he is, because we don’t even try to force the issue.
Hoodie
@Kay: The people who vote for him won’t recognize his decline irrespective of objective evidence to that effect. Analogous to Dunning Kruger, people who vote incompetently don’t know they’re voting incompetently. Dems (and a lot of independents) worry about whether the candidate can actually do the job and are more sensitive to evidence indicating that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Yes, no one who supported Biden staying in has ever had to fire someone or take any kind of adverse personnel action against someone they liked. We all made an emotional decision. We could not have looked at the facts and thought that staying with Biden was the rational choice. That it was too late to switch and that Biden could still win. What has happened since his withdrawal is immaterial because none of us knew what would happen next.
Hoodie
@Omnes Omnibus: Martin seems to fall in love with his own ideas. It might be an emotional thing.
different-church-lady
@Hoodie:
Apparently we’re so fuckin’ sensitive to it that we’ll believe the enemy saying he can’t the moment our guy stumbles.
Lyrebird
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks!
and
@WereBear: thank you, too. The one we’re thinking of is younger, but thanks for reminding me of Molly Ivins! The site where I used to find her 1991 take-down of Camille Paglia is gone, sadly, but here is a quote:
different-church-lady
@Hoodie: Here’s the thing: it’s ALL an emotional thing, for all of us.
Some people are better at realizing it than others.
SatanicPanic
@different-church-lady: I was looking at him long before the debate thinking he was not going to be able to run a winning campaign. Were you not nervous that he was so absent from the public eye for so long? He skipped the Super Bowl interview. Twice.
different-church-lady
@Lyrebird: Sounds like someone’s a big fan of Neil Peart.
different-church-lady
@SatanicPanic: Yeah, of course I was worried. I just wasn’t dumb enough to internalize the gaslighting and then externalize it to others.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Because there was no campaign prior to Harris. Now that you see this campaign are you “OOOOH – THIS is what I remember!” The candidate never campaigned. It was a problem.
SatanicPanic
@different-church-lady: what gaslighting?
Hoodie
@different-church-lady: should have added the /s. I was just pulling Martin’s chain a bit.
SatanicPanic
@Kay: Right? The Biden campaign was just absent from the conversation so much of the time. The news still covered him, but it was 90% stuff about how he was presidenting.
AWOL
@WereBear: I’ll send her an email now with my personal info. I’m mostly a lurker. I’ll also order a few copies now and will be happy to UPS a copy to two people in need.
Martin
@Hoodie: It is NOT about getting rid of the President of the United States. This is the problem I’ve pointed out before about deference to authority. None of these people asked Biden to step down from the Presidency.
In the context of this situation, Biden is simply a nominee for office, with no more or less right to be there than anyone else. He is not wearing his POTUS hat, he is wearing his presumptive nominee hat. And for people who do this sort of thing, you can’t do the job if you cannot divorce the person from the title they hold. This is why Trump is dangerous – he doesn’t know how to do that – he thinks because he was president, that becomes an innate property of him and he gets those powers even after office.
To Pelosi, Biden is not the President in the context of the problem at hand – winning the 2024 election. He’s just the nominee, and she treats him as such. There a job here to be done.
I’m not saying Biden wasn’t included in the plans – I’m sure he was. I’m saying Biden wasn’t the one setting the plans, because why would he? He’s trying to hold onto being the nominee. Why would he have a transition plan? The alternative is to believe that Biden was on board for some time, was holding out, and the Democratic Party allowed itself to get torn apart in the media for no reason. You may think the party is that incompetent, but I don’t. Reporting is that Pelosi was still trying to convince Biden the day before the announcement and her public appearances at the time support that (Biden was in lockdown so we can’t glean any information off of him). I don’t think they could have kept that secret from Harris, and we know she didn’t find out until minutes before. I don’t think it would have been a mid-Sunday announcement unless it had just come together and they wanted to get ahead of news leaks (which I think is very smart). If this is the correct read (again, it’s what reporting says happens with nobody refuting that), then Biden didn’t have time to formulate a plan, he signed off an existing one, and most sensible choice for that plan is Pelosi, for obvious reasons. Maybe it was Obama, maybe it was both (Harris has always enjoyed strong support from both), doesn’t matter. So yeah, you assure Biden of the plan so that he knows this won’t head off a cliff which makes his decision easier to make.
Kent
So if JD Vance was a school student in Florida he’d have to go by James Donald Bowman since that is the name on his birth certificate and because of trans panic we can’t have kids using different names now can we?
Layer8Problem
@Martin: If I ever take up D&D, you gotta be the Dungeon Master. Your scenarios would be lit.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I think it will resonate with everyone who isn’t in the TCFG cult.
I think either a) they didn’t vet Vance AT ALL, or b) they did vet him but then TCFG completely ignored it all because he wanted to pick someone who was as offensive as he is. Either Rubio or Bergum would have been a much smarter pick. Evidently Vance is all in on the idea that women who don’t have biological children (and maybe men too) have something seriously psychologically wrong with them. Not a great position for someone who needs to get votes to have.
Soprano2
@Kay: I disagree, I think he sounds different than even 2020. He seems more disjointed and goes off on crazy tangents more. I don’t think he has dementia necessarily, but he has some kind of brain processing problem or something is wrong there. It fits in with the “weird” thing well. “Isn’t it weird that TCFG seems to think Hannibal Lecter is a real person?” is a totally reasonable thing for any Democrat to say to any reporter.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I was in the bubble too! We had 2016 and then covid – I no longer knew what normal looked like. When I went back from the debate I realized there were almost no appearances. The NYTimes is terrible but they’re also right – he had to do interviews and not with only friendlies. This is the work.
SomeRandomGuy
Yeah, I like to think my enemy is really fucking stupid and incompetent, rather than hateful, because Trump got his ass totally kicked in 2016, and the Rs flushed away the House and Senate.
Total and compete incompetence. Stupidity. Wow, are we lucky Republicans are totally fucking stupid, because if they weren’t such moronic incompetents, Trump would have named two, maybe three, judges to the Supreme Court who would immunize him against the crimes that are so clearly laid out, anyone, even the most stupid, could see he’s guilty as sin, but a lot of people simply don’t care, because,
STUPIDITY survey says: BZZZZZZZZZZ
What, you think only a stupid person can find every opinion that comes out of your mouth to be stupid, idiotic, and pederastic[1], yet it’s *not* based in hate – they don’t even find *one* of your ideas reasonable? Get real, ‘they are stupid’ is what mommy tells you when the kids pick on you. If you really are stupid, you believe mommy, and don’t believe they’re cruel motherfuckers who are going to grow up into cruel motherfuckers.
They don’t notice his decline for the same reason they saw decline in Joe Biden: their hate was more important than the truth.
[1] trust me, the last one is a dead giveaway about how it’s not “stupid” and instead, “hateful,” to say such things.
Miki
@RaflW: You’ve reminded of the ugly “Treaty Wars” in the mid-80s and Treaty Beer, a/k/a Racism in a Can
Had a friend who had a friend with a cabin in the area – it was really an ugly time, scary, too. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like much has changed.
phdesmond
@KatKapCC:
i just think it’s a poor pun.
VFX Lurker
I was tempted by that sold-out cap. I did buy the tasteful and elegant “Kamala” signature T-shirt from the official campaign site. I plan to wear it outside of work.
TEL
@Lochnessmom: THANK YOU!!!!
I only occasionally comment, as a rule I try to make any comment I write bring more light than heat, but it’s been a definite struggle not responding to some of the very prolific long-time commenters patting themselves on the back about this entire debacle. We haven’t won yet, but the fact that it’s Harris and not a total shit show is at least reassuring.
SomeRandomGuy
I’m sorry, are you really saying Mr. “if you inject bleach, your electric boat won’t sink from the weight of the battery” hasn’t declined since 2020, with his slushing his words, reliance on rhyming words, inability to tell that he has to hate *TWO SEPARATE WOMEN*, Nikki Haley, and Nancy Pelosi, and keep their names straight in one speech, plus occasionally, his complete loss of ability to speak, ashz he schputtersh to nothing?
zhena gogolia
@TEL: Comment more often!
Misterpuff
@KatKapCC: I have to say Rachel Maddow related the mnemonic of “Comma” la and that really helped me.
Martin
@PJ: I have said repeatedly that nobody should be taking a victory lap here or ever. Even if Harris wins, that’s not proof that Biden couldn’t have won. Even if Harris loses, that’s not proof that Biden would have won. We don’t know, and we’ll never know. There is no right and wrong here with respect to the decision. I’m not arguing that at all here.
What I’m arguing is that the emotions people are trying to attach to various people – that Biden pissed people off, or that Schiff hates Biden or is disloyal or this was Biden’s plan all along or whatever are all bullshit. I mean, those emotions may exist, but none of them are necessary to make sense of what just transpired.
My argument is that all of this is BEST explained as a dispassioned focus on defeating Trump in 2024, that started building steam even before the debate, where the debate or more likely the debate with some immediate swing state polling put in the field probably by Pelosi, lead to a decision by Pelosi and Obama, together or independently, that we needed a new nominee regardless of how they felt about Biden. These people know how to win an election and we found ourselves on the wrong bus and we needed to get on the right one. I don’t think you need to even entertain the idea that Biden was doing a bad job, or was a bad person, or wasn’t capable of doing the job. I think this conclusion comes independently of all of that. He was just the wrong person for the moment and despite all of his gifts and wonderful qualities and accomplishments he wasn’t able to overcome that. It happens.
There isn’t much of my imagination in this. There has been extensive reporting going back 3 weeks now which makes clear the players, the goal, and the process. Some imagination is required to connect some dots, but I don’t think I’m saying anything that we wouldn’t expect out of these people. Would Pelosi have a plan if she successfully got Biden to drop out? Of course. It’s absurd to think she wouldn’t. How did Democrats so quickly rally around Harris? Maybe they were predisposed to do so, and maybe Pelosi helped to organize that a bit. I’m not arguing for one or the other, I’m saying both are perfectly plausible explanations for what we saw that require no more scheming to explain. My assumption though is that Pelosi would probably not leave that to chance (because she never has in the past) and would have put effort there to ensure the outcome as she always has.
The distance by Pelosi and Obama to call for an open process and not immediately endorse Harris matches the usual pattern of reaffirming values in a situation when out of necessity you have to break those. So they step back, they call for an open process, because that’s the responsible thing to do here, it helps people shocked by this let go a bit of their fears that this was some kind of coup, and and gives legitimacy for Harris. It’s no different than the people who were saying that their primary votes were being disrespected by pushing Biden out when any outside observer would say those primary votes were worthless because the outcome was preordained. You didn’t choose anything. But you believed you did. It allowed you to invest in the candidate in a particular way that was valuable. And then you need to let go of that belief and are asked to adopt a new belief that Harris was chosen in an open process and back her in the same way. Manufacturing consent is not a new concept and Democrats are not above doing it. In fact, everyone does it. Let’s just be adults here, recognize it for what it is, recognize that it works, even if we don’t like the fact that it works, or that Democrats are employing it. Sometimes it’s the pragmatic solution, sometimes you have no choice. So it makes sense that Pelosi and Obama hang back from endorsing Harris – because doing so helps Harris as she doesn’t need the extra support, she’s got this – and the elder statesmen here can affirm our values to make everyone feel better and endorse a bit later, which they do.
Could this all be a mistake? Absolutely. I’ve never argued otherwise. All I’m trying to establish is that all of this makes sense if you give all parties the benefit of the doubt they are all doing what they believe in their experience is best for the country – and that includes Biden.
PJ
@SatanicPanic: I won’t dismiss “vibes” entirely, but it’s not quantifiable. It sure seemed like the “vibe” in 2016 was that Hilary was going to cruise to victory, but reality was otherwise.
My argument for sticking with Biden was that it is easier for dumb Americans – the ones likely to decide this election – to vote for a safe old white guy than it is for them to vote for a woman, a person of color, or someone from California, and that the incumbent advantage is something real that should not be dismissed – particularly if the economy stays strong, as it looks like it will, through the election. Beyond that, most of the people calling for Biden to step down were also calling for a shit show, because they had no idea what would happen next, or were calling for something asinine like a “blitz primary”. Most of them were specifically not calling for it to be Harris, who was the most obvious and safest person. (And beyond that, I also think that if Biden were re-elected and we held the Senate and picked up the House, he would be the Democrat most likely to get crucial litigation passed.)
None of that matters now, because Harris is the candidate. She’s doing a great job, and I think she’ll be a fine President. I just hope this country is less racist and misogynistic than it has been.
PJ
@Kay: Biden was doing interviews before and after the debate.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Trump was also probably over-confident. Most of the people around him were. A lot of Republicans had been assuming he would win since last year. I can see the change in the way they are scrambling now.
I wonder what campaign managers Wiles and LaCivita thought. I think they would have known better because they are professionals and not enthusiasts. They knew his path back to the White House was a narrow one.
So then I wonder, what they did they think of the Vance pick, and whether they pushed for another prospect and spoke against Vance? The over-confident Trump could have overriden Wiles and LaCivita in part to let them know they were not the boss of him. Trump’s kids might have egged him on.
This probably doesn’t matter much in a practical sense, but I am curious about such things. I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.
Itinerantpedant
@Sean: Her concerts can be sensed with Seismometers. Hell yes, if she’s willing we should encourage it.
And NO ONE is as fiercely protective as Swifties.
SatanicPanic
@PJ: He wasn’t though. This is from 2022:
by 2024 it was even more apparent.
The Axios article reports that he did more small “pool” interviews, but those don’t really seem to make news, and I’m not even sure if they’re publicly available. Biden really was quieter than any president I can remember, and his campaign was very relaxed
EDIT- this matters because while I agree about being nervous about Harris’ race and gender becoming an issue, the big problem for me was that Biden really just didn’t seem up to the job of winning.
Slightly_peeved
@Martin:
After I read that link, and found a bunch of speculation about Pelosi’s motives with no new factual reporting, I’m sure as hell not going to then read your speculation about Pelosi’s motives too. Fool me once, yada yada.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not arguing that those who through staying with Biden wasn’t a rational argument. I’m sorry if that’s how that came across.
I was referring only to those people who were making arguments that the same couldn’t be true from those who were suggesting Biden should drop. I was not one of them, I was resigned to whatever happened, so I was not a particularly strong defender of Biden staying in, let’s just say that. My view was that this was probably too late in the game to be happening, but I would have preferred he not have run for re-election. There were a lot of people who would not listen to those other arguments, who considered those people making them to be traitors, trying to hurt Democrats, trying to disenfranchise people, accusations of disloyalty to the people making the calls, and so on. I mean, this isn’t a hot take, there are people in this thread still pissed at Schiff, which I suspect is because he threw money behind the republican to avoid a Dem/Dem general, which is being carried over to this. I get being pissed over that, I don’t get still being pissed over this. Be mad for the right reasons is all.
I don’t recall you doing any of that. My recollection was that you just thought this was a bad idea. Ok. I’m trying to make a qualification everywhere that it may indeed be a bad idea. Additionally, we’ll never know if it was necessary to win, if we win, or if it ensured a loss, if we lose.
My comment got FPed last week because I’ve been arguing all along that nobody knows. But we can assume that everyone is advancing a view that they think is best for all – everyone here (well, almost) and all of the elected officials and even the donors. You can assume everyone is acting in good faith, with good intentions, and still wind up in exactly the same place as we are right now. You don’t need to do all of the other stuff if you can shift your frame away from Franks assertion that ‘Biden must have pissed someone off’ or whatever to ‘Pelosi believes that we need a different nominee to win’ and give her the benefit of the doubt (which everyone here has done in the past) that she knows what she’s doing. Again, she could be wrong, but she’s a hell of a lot more likely to be right than I am, I know that much.
That’s why I was sanguine about who the nominee was. From day one this was out of our hands. Biden decided he was the best nominee, and the primaries reflected that. Then, Pelosi/Obama and others decided he wasn’t. Who is right? Fuck if I know. But I’m not about to evaluate Biden’s judgement here against Pelosi’s. That is a fools game where everyone loses. So, I’m going to sit back with the understanding this is out of my hands, not get emotional about it, and accept the outcome. It’s a lot easier for me to throw my weight at beating Trump if I haven’t spent a bunch of time figuring out which bucket of deplorable I’m going to stick various Democrats or other posters here into. That is the opposite of useful toward the thing that matters.
That is the only thing I’m trying to defend here – that there was a pattern to this process that looked familiar to some of us (I got some parts wrong, I’ll be the first to admit) that would allow us to make sense of things without throwing anyone under the bus. It didn’t require you to take sides. It just required you to have faith that the people we have long trusted to get stuff like this right would come to a resolution, right or wrong, and that’s what we would have to throw our weight behind. You can be skeptical of a plan without asserting malice. Be skeptical. I sure as shit was, and remain so now in various ways. Hell, I was skeptical of Biden both dropping out and staying in at the same time.
SomeRandomGuy
Do you have a squirrel, or a kitten, maybe a puppy, in your pocket named “Biden”? If so, don’t speak for “Biden’s” problems. Speak for Martin’s.
Martin had a problem: he didn’t like the Presidential candidate, LONG after the choice for presidential candidate had been foreclosed. Martin knew that the primaries always determined the Presidential candidate in normal times, but, Martin was afraid, and his fear had to be listened to, because HE WAS MARTIN even if he never got a boom of thunder and lightning, as Martin felt was appropriatel.
What was Martin’s fear? His fear was Biden would lose, and he couldn’t handle his fear with anything less than insisting that there was no option that would allow an electoral win, under the current laws of physics, as understood: replacing Joe Biden with another candidate.
There. All fixed. You’re no longer making baseless, unsupported statements about things you really don’t have any data about. You are, instead, making statements about Martin. You know Martin.
You were afraid; you know how bloviators handle their fear; you did what fearful bloviators do, say a lot of words that you think clearly establishes your wisdom, when, in fact, you don’t know anything more than anyone else (but you do CRY so pretty, like one of the folks calling Trump sir, when you have to fire people, we get it). Now, you get to pretend you were right, simply because, when the dice landed, they were the combination, or sum, of pips you’d hoped for.
Alas, you didn’t use careful analysis of data to make a sound prediction; the dice landed your way, just like the guy who swears he has “a system” for winning at craps.
Anyway: I just want to say, I do hope you were never one of the really nasty people who said beating Trump was the big issue, and were lying about *that* too, because those people, who get their way, would be gracious if they wanted to win the election, and not their personal snarkfest.
Kay
@PJ:
I watched the interviews after the debate.
Slightly_peeved
@SatanicPanic:
COVID.
Ksmiami
@PJ: on 2016, I didn’t get the Clinton will win vibe at all despite polling.
SatanicPanic
@Slightly_peeved: He could do interviews during COVID. Trump was giving daily press conferences.
SomeRandomGuy
If you didn’t know: he wants to imply Democrats hate children, and Republicans love them. He doesn’t have to say ‘that’s why Democrats have so many abortions,” because his audience says that part for him.
Yes, it *is* one of those Republican talking points that’s wide spread, but you usually only see it in the right wing comment sections that no newsie is likely to look at. It’s like the Paul Ryan ‘Fuck Granny’ Medicare plan – no one would actually believe someone would make such a proposal.
Martin
@SomeRandomGuy:
If you want to wind back about 2 ½ weeks I was arguing that I thought Biden stepping down was a bad idea because were were probably too late in the game to build momentum around a new nominee (even Harris) and that it’d piss off too many Dems. I was wrong about the the time needed, and I was probably wrong about the pissed off thing (though you’re causing me to re-evaluate that).
But cool story, bro.
Slightly_peeved
@SatanicPanic:
Trump liked infecting people.
SomeRandomGuy
@KatKapCC: “Cuck” is “you’re the kind of wimpy girlyman whose wife sleeps around.” It implies that if you were one of the Village People, and a real Macho Man (like Randy Savage?), THEN you would be a REAL conservative.
It’s not about controlling women’s bodies; it’s about emasculating Republican (but I repeat myself) girlymen (but I repeat myself). That said: the idea that women want Randy Savage, and the Village People, all in bed with them at once? Doesn’t work, not even on date night. Trust me.
(Apologies for using Republican misogyny as part of the explanation.)
Frank Wilhoit
@Martin: My interest is in the dynamics of sabotage within organizations. If people cultivate their networks within organizations, this kind of thing does not happen. The Democratic Party did not suddenly become a healthy organization on 21 July, and it was not one before 27 June, if only because there can be no such thing as a healthy organization. If we think it is one, we are setting ourselves up to be blindsided and, as you rightly point out, the stakes are too high for that. Pragmatism dictates that we assume that every organization is essentially paralyzed by sabotage and friction, and look very carefully for the sources of those — not to try to mitigate them, but to predict their effects.
SomeRandomGuy
Okay, so, you really didn’t know the stakes, but, you had a very definite opinion, without the most relevant facts. Why am I not surprised? Just so you know: only the Biden-Harris campaign could keep donations, employees, contracts, ad buys, and, there are probably a few thousand things I haven’t thought of.
It’s not something to take pride in. Just sayin’.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: they pay rent to landlords who pay taxes, and so that rent IS paying the property taxes, or the property would be sold.
That’s as silly an idea as raising tariffs won’t make your own prices higher.
Ruckus
@Martin:
This.
Joe is a very good president.
But is he up to another 4 yrs? I don’t think so and I don’t think you do either. We all have limits and we all may be absolutely great at whatever we do for a career, but there is a time that career has to come to an end, and I reached my, at least desire, to do the work I’ve done for most of 60 yrs, even if I still have some capability to do so. Retirement is good. I suggest it to everyone when they get to the point they can and the point they want to. My want to point went beyond can, but came before can’t and while it takes a bit of getting used to, I am very glad I retired.
SomeRandomGuy
@Martin: Sorry – I’m just seeing a lot of blather with no facts, so I must have misremembered your sharp and incisive arguments that all vanished two and a half weeks ago, but, I’m sure they *were* “cool stor(ies), bro.”
Gvg
@Grumpy Old Railroader: they do it even if you don’t donate.
Colette South
@Omnes Omnibus:
I will never forget this passage from Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger, assigned to my high school religion class by a Priest.
“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution–these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.
– “The Chronicle of Young Satan,” Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts
This was in 1975.
(Who says irony is dead)
SomeRandomGuy
See, YOUR point – if you’re making a point – is that the people who called on Biden to step down were 100% proven correct, without any relevant facts supporting that statement.
No, they weren’t. Biden dropped out of the race, meaning:
1) he was hounded out of the race with “BEAT IT BEFORE YOU LOSE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY UGLY OLD MAN!” OR
2) he made a decision that he felt he was best, using his own reasoning and thoughts and feelings, which none of the shit stirrers had any information about.
If he was hounded out of the race due to people screaming he couldn’t win, that’s not wisdom and courage, that’s bullying.
If he left because he wasn’t hounded out of the race, there was no wisdom or courage, or even knowledge, demonstrated beforehand. He made the choice, for his reasons.
MomSense
@Martin:
This tracks with what has been reported and with the rumint.
SatanicPanic
@Slightly_peeved: That was no longer and issue by early 2021- the vaccine had become available. He also could have done interviews via zoom or whatever.
Ruckus
@twbrandt:
Candidates and their friends:
Harris – people that easily earn respect
Shitforbrains – useless assholes that no one with a gram of common sense or humanity wants to be within a thousand miles of. Or possibly a lot farther. Like would anyone mind if the 3 of the took a one way trip to mars?
Quinerly
@dkinPa:
Just back to this T Bogging thread. Saw your comment. Thanks!
SomeRandomGuy
@Matt McIrvin: there’s no honor in being THE muckety-muck for an adderall snorting lying old man who makes no sense at one end, and is constantly sharting at the other, and sometimes, we’re not sure which!
Now, replace “adderall snorting lying old man who…and sometimes, we’re not sure which!” with “der fuehrer” and, now, there’s honorable muckety-muckness.
It’s not that he’d just give up, take his ball, and go home; it’s that he’d be assassinated, because his guards hate guarding a feeble, lying, toad of a man. Or he’d be overthrown through legal means, or by a usurper, because, while everyone would recognize the danger, they now saw “just a human being, who can be manipulated, or removed,” and no longer “der fuehrer”.
You’re right – a good biting joke doesn’t bring down a tyrant, but it exposes vulnerabilities that would never be exposed, when people are too afraid to make the joke, or worse, *laugh* at it.
Martin
@Frank Wilhoit: Ok, that’s a better idea to interrogate.
I think there’s a lot of room between a healthy organization and ‘who did he piss off’. In my experience working in organizations, you’re right – there is a lot of room for unhealthy relationships and those are normal and common.
However, those can be transcended under the right circumstances and my thesis here is that this is one of those. (Again, keeping in mind my bias that I thought Biden shouldn’t have run for re-election after Dobbs. To be clear I didn’t think he was an inherently bad candidate as I keep getting accused, I thought Dobbs changed Democrats platform and message and possibly the makeup of the party so strongly that only a female candidate, not necessarily Harris, should lead it). So, we know nothing about the discussions within the party around Biden running for re-election. We know there were some, that was reported, but I don’t recall reading anything that included details around that. So, there was some concern of him running. By all accounts, the decision to run was Biden’s alone to make. He was in charge of the party so he got to shape the friendly side of the primary field – people agreeing to not challenge him, and he only drew a few malcontents which the party effectively shut out.
I’ve argued this was a sign of a dysfunctional party because if there were serious concerns about him as the nominee, be it age, Dobbs, or even that a lot of his 2020 victory was to fix Covid, which he’d now done and it not being clear he could get all those voters back – that should have been something brought to the electorate in a primary and not an internal discussion with the usual political jockeying and all that bullshit. Yes, that’s all perfectly normal and routine, but dysfunction is also perfectly normal and routine.
And I’m sure the intra-party dysfunction continued right up to the debate, since all reporting is that’s the moment things changed. That appears to be when the opposition to Biden being the nominee stopped being a concern and became a campaign. Now, I don’t doubt that Pelosi, etc. were annoyed, frustrated, whatever here, but a) that doesn’t mean they were right to be, and b) being annoyed or frustrated doesn’t necessarily involve disloyalty. I get annoyed and frustrated with Ms Martin all the time – that doesn’t mean I’m going to be disloyal, it just means there’s something to work through.
So, post debate a campaign forms. Is the campaigns goal to be disloyal to Biden? No. The campaigns goal is to be loyal to the party and the country and they are in disagreement with Biden as to how best to do that. And this campaign forms most likely out of the bad polling – showing Biden possibly losing blue states. This creates a crisis – there is the real potential we will lose this in a landslide to Trump. And it is in a crisis that the dysfunction stops working the way it used to work. It doesn’t necessarily get better – it can get worse – but it changes a lot. In my experience with these things, if there is a shared agreement as to what the crisis is and how to address it, personal grievances and politics get put aside until the crisis is addressed, and then after those grievances are usually less pronounced. You get a little less dysfunctional. If there is not a shared agreement as to what the crisis is or how to address it, then the personal grievances are employed as tools to win arguments in the path to forming a consensus. This is why jumping too soon at a crisis can be sabotaging. Waiting too long is also sabotaging because it’s a crisis and you need time to fix it. It’s understandable when organizations get this wrong and they do all the time. I certainly have. But Pelosi doesn’t control the timing – it’s imposed. The debate is the catalyst, and there is very quickly a shared agreement as to the crisis – this is going wrong. Everyone can see this. What we can’t agree about is what to do about it. Some people say do some interviews to shore up confidence, do this do that, and other people say to pick a new nominee. We out here are dysfunctional, but it’s not clear if the people who do this for a living are, or to what degree.
There are a lot of elected Democrats saying Joe Biden is the nominee (an expression to stabilize worried democrats), and not many saying he should be the nominee (a statement on what to do about the crisis). There are elected Democrats saying he should not be the nominee (a statement on what to do about the crisis) and anonymous reporting that there are quite a few saying that, which we cannot confirm.
So, we can also infer things about a personal grievance from the magnitude of what results. So, let’s go all out and say hypothetically that Pelosi is personally pissed at Biden. Just fucking hates him. And launches this campaign. If it works, she’s left with a different huge crisis. The consequence of winning your vendetta is very large, and not particularly in your favor. Sure, Biden is out, but he’s still President – he’s still got juice, and now you have a huge mess to fix – in part because you don’t know how Biden will react. He won’t necessarily go along with your plan with Harris – not if it’s a personal vendetta. You don’t have control over this situation if thats what this is. And throughout this you have to recognize that nobody has better access to the media than the President does. Literally a small army of reporters just tasked with talking to him every goddamn day. If he wants to burn you at any point in this process that’s trivial to do.
I think you can infer a lot about the degree of dysfunction by how orderly things were overall and the media coverage. Yes, the media were pressuring Biden. But nobody refuted any of the claims being made. Yes it felt chaotic out here, but there was no D on D infighting. We just watched a GOP speaker get taken down by that. We know what that looks like. There was no sniping at other Dems. I’m curious if anyone can provide a name of a single elected Dem who defended Biden and called on him to stay in the race. I never saw one. And defending the status-quo, the President, should be an easy thing to do. I don’t think it ever happened. Which suggests there was pretty broad agreement with the idea – or at least uncertainty. I don’t think Biden pissed of most of the Democratic Party, and I don’t think Pelosi has the kind of juice to push out a nominee that people think should stay in.
So, in the ‘what do we do about the crisis’ phase of this, a consensus appears to form naturally – a bunch of people think he should drop, a bunch of people aren’t sure, and not many think he should stay. And on the next crisis who should replace him, the same thing probably happens – a bunch want Harris, a bunch unsure (have an open process), not many saying ‘it should be this other person’. Again a consensus forms.
If there is real animosity, I would not expect this to go so smoothly. But there’s no evidence of that, even between Biden and others. Biden is not taking shots at the people asking him to step down. He’s not taking shots at Obama or Pelosi. I’m sure he’s not happy about this, and maybe feels betrayed, and all that but I think he also understands why it’s happening. He can see the polling too. He can watch the debate night reactions before any kind of communication would have happened among the party. He knows these are real concerns.
That is not a vendetta. It is not personal. Everything we know and can see indicate this was a product of objective events and not some internal power struggle. I am sure there were people asking him to step down that really adore him. But a crisis tends to cause people to put those things aside when there is agreement on the nature of what the crisis is and what to do about it. Organizations can get REALLY functional when those things happen. There is even a theory of management that dysfunction is a product of complacency. A corollary is “Success covers a multitude of blunders.” The implication being that a an organization that finds success can get away with ignoring its dysfunction, at least for a while.
So, I agree that the party is dysfunctional. I think we got into this situation because of it. But I think we got out of the ‘problem’ (as the party collectively agreed) we were in 2 weeks ago and into the current state through a short burst of function. They recognized a crisis (by their own agreement), came up with a plan, executed the plan, and we’re now in a place that again by our own agreement feel much better about.
The question is, crisis averted? Do we return to dysfunction? Is the crisis ongoing because it’s defeating Trump which is the identified problem and we stay in a pretty functional state until Nov 5? Not sure. So far the VP stuff seems pretty functional. Normally I’d expect to have gotten at least one piece about infighting among the new campaign team that has been lashed together, but I haven’t seen that yet, so either they’re working well together or they’re at least not leaking. We’ll see.
UncleEbeneezer
@Citizen Alan: Wow, I had never heard that story. Crazy. Though I would say it wasn’t really cuckolding that caused the issue, it was a man pressuring his wife into something she didn’t want. Which seems to be a really common problem in swinging/non-monogamy/polyamory circles. I have some poly friends and they complain about this all the time. Even in the most free/open community, men (especially cis/het ones) are still entitled jerks who can’t take “no” for an answer.