Is it Friday already? Days of the week are meaningless here in Happy Funville. That said, the news has been a lot more fun since the, uh, vibe shift in the 2024 election.
Exhibit A, did you know Trump is now too fucking old to be president? Even Republicans acknowledge that: (Newsweek)
In a fresh polling blow for Donald Trump, a majority of Republican voters have said they would prefer a president who is younger than the 78-year-old former commander-in-chief.
In a YouGov poll conducted between July 25-29, 59 percent of Republicans surveyed said they would prefer a president under the age of 75. Trump celebrated his 78th birthday in June. Forty percent said they had no preference, and just two percent said they would prefer a president over the age of 75.
After reveling in the media’s “Biden is old” chorus for years, even as their own candidate decayed before our eyes, now Trump and his shitty campaign say age is just a number:
“It’s not about age, it’s about competence…a Trump campaign spokesperson told Newsweek…
This latest poll could suggest the tables are turning on Trump, who regularly attacked his former rival, President Joe Biden, over his age. Biden is 81.
Trump seemed to row back on this sentiment at recent remarks at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“81 is not old,” Trump said, and now Biden has withdrawn from the race, Trump is faced with a substantially younger competitor in Vice President Kamala Harris, who will turn 60 just weeks before Election Day.
Good luck to the self-masticated lump of vintage Naugahyde and the henchmen who are trying to sell that!
Continuing with the general twin Trump campaign themes of pathetic and weak, Trump surrogates are trying to steal the limelight from Joe Biden by claiming credit for the prisoner swap. The sofa-shagger weighs in: (The Hill)
“But we have to ask ourselves: Why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house,” he said. “That’s a good thing, and I think it’s a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.”
(Slurp slurp!) The non-entity from North Dakota had similar thoughts: (The Hill)
“The reason why Russia wanted to do the deal now is that they think that President Trump’s gonna win and they don’t want to deal with him,” [Doug] Burgum said in comments.
As every schoolchild knows, it’s weak and pathetic to take credit for someone else’s work. When asked about Trump’s preposterous attempt to steal credit, Biden very sensibly asked, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?”
Answer, as Biden noted while announcing the deal: the task required the participation of allies. Multinational collaboration is a skillset He Who Does Not Play Well With Others conspicuously lacks. (There’s also the matter of Trump being Putin’s obsequious toady.)
***
Here’s an item that may be of interest to the many ambitious home cooks who comment in this space — a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the stack of cookbooks in Kamala Harris’s kitchen: (Esquire)
Here is a person whose horizons are broad but whose focus is pragmatic. What is immediately clear is that, if these cookbooks are indicators of an overall umwelt, Harris values the restorative powers of cooking—not individually but as part of a community. In other words, she cooks not just for herself but for others. She understands food not simply as caloric intake but as identity.
The best cooks do! Also, it warms my heart to see Louisiana Kitchen in that stack.
Have we ever had a competent cook in charge of the country? I can’t recall one. The article speculates that Biden visits the kitchen only to raid the freezer for ice cream, which seems fair. He’s a good president even without apparent cooking skills, but maybe a candidate’s approach to food — and sharing it — says something meaningful nonetheless.
***
Looking ahead, Harris will announce a VP pick soon, and the DNC is coming up fast. The potential lack of media attention on Trump and the sofa-shagger may cause them to wilt like water-dashed wicked witches.
Or maybe they’ll do or say additional stupid things to attract the media herd. Who knows? Who cares? Trump and Vance are the worst kind of weirdos — stale and boring!
I’m interested in Harris’s VP decision (pick Pete!) but don’t believe any of the candidates being vetted would fundamentally change the race. If she can wring a point or two out of a battleground state with a VP pick, it sounds like she should do so.
That’s all I’ve got. Open thread!
rikyrah
So much truth here.
FDRLincoln
Trump is a bully.
The best way to beat a bully is to punch him back and mock him. Most of the time, they will crumble.
Harris does that more effectively than Joe could. And Trump is crumbling into cheeto dust.
Old School
Pick Badger!
rikyrah
Josh Marshall
@joshtpm
As I’ve reported JD Vance is a major backer of “menstrual surveillance” by local PDs and sheriffs depts. turns out project 2025 wants CDC to compel abortion rights states to provide data for these projects.
https://x.com/joshtpm/status/1819342518670274843
Scott
The cooking angle reminds me of a scene in The Crown where Margaret Thatcher (played by Gillian Anderson) is holding a cabinet meeting and she is simultaneously cooking and serving kedgeree to the ministers while talking policy. Can’t imagine that happening here in the US.
rikyrah
LOOKING FOR THE LIE.
SEE NONE.
David Darmofal
@david_darmofal
A friend just said that J.D. Vance reminds her of Kyle Rittenhouse. Once you’ve seen that you can’t unsee it.
8:03 AM · Aug 2, 2024
https://x.com/david_darmofal/status/1819358269871112367
Baud
@rikyrah: Period Police!
raven
Louisiana Kitchen is great but, damn, the recipes are complex! I ate at K-Pauls before the book came out and it was stunning.
rikyrah
Renee![]()
@PettyLupone
The #Olympics![]()
are so cool because it’s where so many worlds collide. Snoop ![]()
Mariska ![]()
Sunisa & Jordan![]()
https://x.com/PettyLupone/status/1819360423415779515
Suzanne
I wish more people felt this way. But some people are shameless.
terraformer
While I love Pete and Walz, I agree with the “wring a point or two out of a battleground state” may make more political sense – and that would be Kelly (AZ) or Shapiro (PA).
Of those two, I guess I like Kelly – I wasn’t too keen on Shapiro’s heavy foot on the University protests. But whomever Harris chooses is light years better than any Republican.
WaterGirl
Yes, please pick Pete!!!
rikyrah
Ricky Davila
@TheRickyDavila
Simone Biles being the GOAT, winning Gold medals and dominating gymnastics is her black job
https://x.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1819093986243715492
Simone Biles
@Simone_Biles
I love my black job![]()
WaterGirl
@terraformer: Two things, with a cold look:
If something happened to Kamala, we would then have a relatively conservative Democrat as president. Boo.
If Kamala is good, Kelly would be too old to be President after her terms are over.
If Kamal is good, but wants to be done after one term, Kelly is not charismatic enough to win.
Pick Pete!!!
schrodingers_cat
Rasika is a popular restaurant in DC. Is that book written by the chefs there?
I have no favorites for VP. I trust KH to make the right choice.
CaseyL
Does having a particular state’s Governor on a Presidential ticket actually give a leg up for that state’s EVs ? Is there any statistical evidence to back it up?
Seems to me, if a Governor is that popular, people would prefer they stayed put!
And in Pennsylvania, the problem is the middle of the state, nicknamed “Pennsyltucky” for a reason. Shapiro’s presence on the Democratic ticket isn’t likely to mean much.
p.a.
I first saw it as “Have we ever had a competent crook as president…”
Thinking on that…
Betty Cracker
@raven: You’re right — lots of steps! I’d love to get back to New Orleans someday. Jazz brunch at Commander’s Palace. Coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde. ;-)
trollhattan
Deep dive from a Bellingcat investigator interviewed on BBC overnight: negotiations for the now-admitted GRU assassin Krasikov serving life in Germany for killing the Chechen there. It was Bellingcat who proved Krasikov was on official sanctioned Russian bidnez. The deal began proposing freeing Whelan and Navalny in exchange for Krasikov and others. When Putin had Navalny killed (a.k.a. “tragic unexpected death”) it nearly unraveled because Germany, who really wanted Navalny free, had no stake remaining in a deal. Freeing a murderer for nothing looks bad.
Vlad now gets to prove “we take care of our own” and will continue to pluck trading cards from among folks who travel to Russia and presumably, is not above snatching them from elsewhere. It’s how he rolls. Murdering Navalny ends his particular threat to Vlad’s continued rule. “Opponents, what opponents?”
The lightning speed with which Gershkovich was tried, convicted and sentenced had Russia watchers puzzled last week. And now we have our answer.
Given this thing was years in the making I will enjoy watching Donny try and take credit while declaring it “the worst deal of all deals ever dealt.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6p2p4e43lro
WereBear
@Scott: I’m sure it was a con. Right Wing Women thread an almost impossible needle if they do show competence.
schrodingers_cat
OT: From the last thread.
Sharing my latest WIP, A gorgon from Rosannes Mythomorphia.
Suzanne
@CaseyL: There is evidence that the VP pick only makes a very small difference.
I will note that Shapiro has pretty high approval ratings in the Pennsyltucky parts of the state. I will also note that those areas are rapidly depopulating.
raven
@Betty Cracker: And anything at Dookie Chase’s!.
trollhattan
I’m guessing TR could cook, having spend so much time out in the wilds. Cook for guests? “Deeeelighted! Have some fried badger.”
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Yeah I had borrowed that book from the library, when I was in Maine and couldn’t find half the ingredients. So gave up. I do like NOLA style cooking because my first love is fish, especially shellfish.
An Indian restaurant that focuses on coastal cuisine of India would be a great hit. I don’t I have ever seen one in the US or even heard of one.
Geminid
@CaseyL: I’m not sure “favorite son” status means as much now as it used to.* So I also look at a prospect’s ability to add strength to the ticket nationwide.
* Although I gotta say, if Gore had chosen Florida Senator Bon Graham as VP in 2000 he would have have won that year.
WereBear
The VP makes a difference on the ticket. Shoulder to shoulder and all that. Optics and communication.
Did Cheney help W? (shudder)
RA
Tim Walz would be a great VP but I would rather he stay in MN and keep up the great work he has done. That said, if he were to be selected and they win, we would have a fantastic Native American Woman for governor.
schrodingers_cat
Has anyone seen Subaru Diane off late?
Baud
So I assume Pete thinks he’ll accept if offered the job. I recall he was thinking of spending some time in Michigan, but I guess Veep is too big to pass up.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I thought I saw her recently, like last couple of days.
Chris
@p.a.:
Nixon was relatively competent on the foreign policy front, at least where relations with the USSR and China were concerned, which I suppose is not nothing. (A lot of good things happened on the domestic front too IIRC, but that wasn’t really him, both because the Democratic majorities in Congress were behind most of it and because he didn’t care domestically one way or another. Still, “able to let competent people do their thing without going out of your way to wreck their work” is a kind of competent, I suppose. Trump sure as hell wasn’t capable of it).
Reagan was like Churchill, only right about one thing, but it was a pretty damn important thing. (In this case, responding positively to Gorbachev’s overtures – when most of his advisers very much didn’t want him to). Not so much everything else. (And of course, he was defusing a crisis that he spent most of his life contributing to).
Dubya, IIRC, was surprisingly competent on issues that weren’t making headlines, or more importantly, weren’t attracting the attention of his brain trust (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc). Like disease control at home or AIDS in Africa.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: When I went to the New Orleans School of Cooking Chef Joe Kahn said “Never leave your home for an ingredient”! It was easy for him to say since he was in the Easy!
Old School
@WereBear:
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I think Cheney helped and I think Pence helped Trump as well.
But LBJ might be the last “helpful” VP for a Democrat. (Might be Biden for Obama.)
Suzanne
@Geminid: Media is much more national than it used to be, and “state identities” much less so. I am also highly skeptical that it would make a difference.
Consensus seems to be that the VP pick doesn’t help much, but it can hurt much.
Martin
First rule of land mines – make sure you don’t place them where you might need to walk.
There is no evidence that happens. Maybe before television that was true, but in the modern era there is no electoral impact by candidates.
Romney picked Ryan as his VP, and while Ryan won re-election to the House, Romney/Ryan lost that same congressional district. Ryan couldn’t even help the ticket carry his own CD while people were voting for him for the House on the same ballot.
Give up on the VP affecting the electoral map. It doesn’t. Elections are national now.
Chris
@WereBear:
If I were a cynic, I’d say the Dubya/Cheney relationship suggests that Dubya was the one helping Cheney get into the White House, rather than the other way around.
If I were a cynic.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m here! We exchanged messages yesterday in the comments to some thread or other.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: She was in the early morning thread.
AUGUST 2, 2024 AT 7:34 AM (balloon-juice.com
ETA: Also, right on top of me.
Mr. Bemused Senior
“Helped?”
I don’t know about Pence, but as for Dick Cheney [shudder!] I feel safe in saying that many voters thought him more qualified to be President than W.
Geminid
@trollhattan: There are also some interesting reporting on a possible $10 million cash transfer from an Egyptian bank to the 2016 Trump campaig. Journalist Laura Rozen reposted the reporting on her Twitter and Blue Sky accounts. Robert Mueller’s report raised this matter but Bill “Low” Barr squelched further inquiry.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Phrasing!
beef
I’m going to go against the grain here: I really want to see Buttegieg be President, but I don’t want it to happen until he’s won a statewide election. Why? I think it’s really important to get experience with coalition building and management. It’s a huge part of the President’s role, and I don’t want anyone coming to it cold.
bbleh
The potential lack of media attention on Trump and the sofa-shagger may cause them to wilt like water-dashed wicked witches. @FDRLincoln:
Just to echo comments upthread and elsewhere, this may be true — if the NABJ fiasco is any indication, they really are flailing, and we’re almost TWO WEEKS into it — but NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO STOP. On the contrary, we need to redouble our efforts! They’re dead in the water, so let’s SPRINT.
Don’t forget that (1) most swing-state polls (for what they’re worth, which still ain’t much imo, but will be within a month) still show the Felon ahead, (2) they have busy teams of minions ALL OVER THE COUNTRY working hard to sabotage electoral systems, from the precinct level clear up to Congress, and (3) THERE’S ONLY 95 DAYS LEFT.
Donate! Volunteer! GOTV! We have to SWAMP them if we’re gonna be sure they don’t ratfk the election somehow.
different-church-lady
So apparently in the public’s mind only one candidate at a time can be old, so it was impossible for Trump to be old until Biden stepped aside.
This just reinforces my belief that most people have a brain the size of a shelled peanut.
RevRick
Speaking of cooking, the best show on TV right now is The Bear on Hulu. Not only is the acting outstanding, led by Jeremy Allen White, but food is treated with a love that makes you drool and weep.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: That’s why I favor Walz or Beshear, who appear to have fewer potential liabilities than Shapiro (endlessly discussed) or Kelly (a conservadem mistrusted by labor). Their problems are probably minor but why incur them when there’s no reason to believe in a significant upside?
WereBear
There’s a video of J D Vance taking chocolate milk away from his youngest, a daughter.
He draws attention to her in the most contemptuous way as he ostentatiously takes away her half-full glass, a child’s portion, claiming she “already has her quota of chocolate milk for the day.”
We see her look upset.
He’s such a sick creep. To bully a child for three seconds of feeling powerful. I got the unhappy feeling he does it all the time because yes, he does hate women that much.
And that he never does it to her two older brothers.
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: How does “menstrual surveillance” work for people in perimenopause? Because lemme tell you what, my cycle is irregular as heck, and it’s frigging annoying. Last thing I need is some government dweeb demanding to know why it’s been 6 weeks since my last period. I don’t know, bro, ask Mother Nature.
Martin
@Baud: Pete’s political future is a little trickier than the others because he’s got to grapple with the identity question. My guess is his calculus is to pick the right opportunity and if he feels that this moment with Harris presenting a cultural change is one where his identity would have less bearing, might give him an easier path than he would face standing alone in a MI gov race, etc. And if he wants to run for president (presumably, since he did it before) he’d have an easier time as the VP than as a governor challenging the VP (we’re assuming he’s optimistic that Harris will win, which you have to take as a given)
BR
@bbleh:
Yeah, we need to win by 6-7% nationally to have a lock on the swing states. So a small national lead is a good sign but not enough.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Ah yes about the shruti box! I wanted to ask you about your Rosannes books. Have you been working on them at all?
Lyrebird
@schrodingers_cat:
Wow, that’s a lotta detail! Combination of watercolor crayons and pencils…? or…? I am curious how you embellished the foreground snakes.
SatanicPanic
lol Trump now trying to claim 81 isn’t old, maybe someone clued him in on the fact that he’ll be 81 before 2028.
I’m guessing next he’ll try to claim Harris is too old because she’s 59.
Ruckus
@FDRLincoln:
I don’t like the word punch here. Sure it may be appropriate but it is too suggestive in this particular case. Mainly because it might be the only thing the recipient might recognize. And he likely deserves it…..
And sure he’s a bully but not the school yard type, more the pompous arrogant type that would run away at the first real response because he’s all BS and is the only one that doesn’t know it. Plus he’s not worth the time, effort and air.
KatKapCC
@Baud:
Sheesh, get a room.
Bugboy
I have to think, based on the last few week’s events (including those events that no one was aware of, like this prisoner exchange), that Dark Brandon’s got this. I would expect President Biden to continue to trickle out accomplishments by this Whitehouse over the next 90 days, in which he sucks all the oxygen out of the media room.
Motivated Seller
seconded “pick Pete!”
Martin
@Steve LaBonne: I’m coming around on Shapiros Israel views not being a problem. He’s really in the same place as the others, and his jumping on expressions of antisemitism in the moment is something that if voters have a problem with, the campaign should fight to defend.
Vouchers is the bigger problem, not just due to the broader educational philosophy, but also because it runs counter to Bidenomics, which I think everyone is trusting Harris to run with and even extend in some ways. Vouchers is really hard to defend.
JoyceH
I saw another explanation of Putin’s motivation. Sometime ago, Trump was on camera saying that Putin would release that reporter when Trump was elected but he wouldn’t do it for anyone else. So speculation that the remark pissed off Putin, with the implication that Putin works for Trump, instead of the other way around.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady:
You will never go wrong keeping that in mind.
To be slightly more charitable, people think and see in contrasts. Ever looked at two very similar paint chips, and you think they’re exactly the same color…… and then you put them next to one another and they look dramatically different?
Bugboy
@WereBear: That reminds me of that insane story Grover Norquist likes to tell about his abusive father taking his ice cream cone away. Teaching him “taxation is theft” in the process…
schrodingers_cat
@Lyrebird: Mostly pencil and some fineliners for details. Actually used Crayolas 150 set for the base layer.
This one is more of a multimedia piece
I used watercolors as my base and waterbased markers, pencils and staedtler fineliners for details.
Lyrebird
@WereBear: I am sure I am not a good representative of “average voters” or anything. When Joey O’Biden picked his VP, it certainly did not change my vote because I was gonna vote for him anyway, but it made me feel even better about his candidacy. I was and remain very pro Warren, but as soon as I saw what Harris brought wrt prosecuting banksters and her charisma & ease with people, she was my 1st choice VP pick.
ETA:
@schrodingers_cat: thanks!
Spanish Moss
@raven: Never heard of Dookie Chase’s, we’ll have to give it a try. We so loved K Paul’s, we were heartbroken when it closed. One time we scored a few dozen Jalapeno cheddar rolls to take home because they were closing down the kitchen and were just going to throw them out. Heaven! That is the only cookbook in that stack that I have.
We used to go to New Orleans every other year when visiting family down south, but haven’t been since the pandemic. We are hoping to get back next year. I have always wanted to do White Linen Night, maybe 2025 will be the year.
narya
Since it’s an open thread: my friend likes foamy milk with his coffee, so he’s been using a fork and a measuring cup to froth it by hand; I also like it, but am way too lazy to stand there (plus I’d use a whisk instead of a fork, but whatever). I got an Instant Pot Milk Frother and OMG I love that damn thing–you can control the heat (none to hot) and the level of foaminess, and you can add things like cocoa and/or sugar. It’s induction-based, so it’s also super quiet. I generally avoid single-use items, but the two exceptions I’ve made recently–a carbonated-beverage maker, because I got tired of hauling bottles and cans of club soda, and the frother–have been totally worth it.
Martin
@SatanicPanic: He kind of did try to claim not that Harris was too old, but that she was almost as old as him and it was unfair that people didn’t see her as old.
<zoomer>Yeah, okay grandpa</zoomer>
WereBear
@different-church-lady: We don’t know the capacity because they would have to use it to get it light up on scanners.
Like the people who voted Obama twice, then Trump. How is that possible? How can you go from Obama to Trump?
Don’t tell me they can’t tell the difference. I would plaintively ask what through process went into this… and realize it’s none.
As best I can guess, they are always distracted and groping through a fog because there are so many things that aren’t working in their lives but solving them would require them to disturb all the stuff they aren’t allowed to think about.
They really don’t think so much as grope through a fog and whatever looms out of it catches their attention. Perhaps it is simply that they are in a cage of their own biases.
And there really are that many in their head, all contrary to reality.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
That is beautiful :)
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I have to go crude here. What the fuck is the matter with idiots like this? It’s like we are living in the early 1800s. Possibly a lot earlier. I mean I know it must be dark, smelly and not really comfortable if one parks their head in their exit port but still…
rikyrah
@Baud:
He lives in Michigan, but, if he accepts, the family will be at the Naval Observatory :)
Geminid
@Steve LaBonne: Mark Kelly is a Moderate, not a “Conservadem.” So are half the Democratic members of Congress and half the Party’s reliable voters. And if you compare members of the House’s “moderate” New Democratic Coalition with members of the “liberal” Progressive Caucus you’ll find they have much more in common than any ideological differences.
Old School
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Helped the ticket’s electability enough for a win.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Thanks! I like her. Faces are kinda difficult for me. I have no formal training in art besides the two AP like exams I took when I was in school.
Dave
@Chris: What fascinates me about the “W” administrations failures and where they could be competent is because they genuinely believed a lot of what they were pushing.
You don’t do something as boneheaded as Bremmer’s dissolving the Iraqi Army unless you really believe in that all you need for Libertarian paradise on the Tigris and Euphrates is to let it blossom.
Trumpism is amongst many other things a response to theory meeting pavement (many many other very ugly things).
Met a few guys who still pushed this line regarding Afghanistan as late as 2015 wasn’t a comfortable public disagreement with retiring LTC who had never actually dealt with the reality.
It’s made more complicated by the Straussian bent of lot the neo-conservatives that makes it difficult to pin down what they really believed.
WereBear
@Bugboy: Or the GOP’s evangelical child care manuals written by the Focus on the Family psycho who bragged about the beating he carried out on the family dog.
You can guess the rest.
Martin
@JoyceH: I don’t think Putin cares about who is dominant. His whole approach to spycraft here is make Trump feel dominant so that he can get him to give up things of value.
I think the view Putin would have is that if people think that Trump works for Putin, then Putin loses some ability to influence the election.
I don’t think either was a factor in Putin’s thinking. I think Putin has growing domestic problems and getting these figures that the public view sympathetically out of the country is helpful. Navalny had to be killed because he was also dangerous outside of Russia.
MattF
Vance is getting to be a big problem, what with referring to rape and incest as merely potential ‘inconvenience’ and therefore not valid reasons for ending a pregnancy. I’m quite sure Vance is very aware of TFG’s age and deteriorating mental state— it will be impossible for Republicans to get rid of him.
ETA: ‘Inconvenience’ via Josh Marshall.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
Donald Trump: “Look, we all know that an eighty year old man is younger than a sixty year old woman.”
Hollywood: “Yes, continue.”
Kent
Wow, I own over 100 cookbooks but not a single one from that stack of cookbooks in Kamala Harris’ kitchen. Gulp. I guess I had better up my game
If you want to find another president who was a foodie you probably have to go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson who was perhaps the original American foodie and famous for writing about and serving sophisticated meals. Although how much actual cooking he did himself as opposed to his staff of slaves might be debatable.
Chris
@JoyceH:
They are the pettiest motherfuckers in the world, aren’t they.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Old School: excuse me, I wasn’t clear. No doubt in my mind that Cheney helped W get elected.
WereBear
@Mr. Bemused Senior: And W’s father picked Dan Quayle.
Not for his personality, intellect, or looks. But I gotta hand it to him: He convinced Mike Pence he had to do his constitutional duty,
So, was that a good pick?
raven
@Spanish Moss: I spelled it wrong!
I went to Dooky Chase’s to get something to eat
The waitress looked at me and said
Ray, you sure look beat
Now it’s early in the morning
I told ’em it’s early in the morning now
Yeah, early in the morning
I ain’t got nothing but the blues
Lyrebird
Yeah, and FWIW I am glad to hear your take re: Gov. Shapiro. I thought he showed grace and leadership regarding the man who was killed at the Trump rally.
I’m also skeptical of the amount of difference a local-Gov VP pick would make, based on what everyone here has brought in on the topic, and I think Walz could appeal to PA voters in the ultra red counties I used to live in, with his Guard experience and with his advocacy for rural education.
I am sure there will be more downturns and curveballs ahead, but rn I LOVE IT that Dems have SO MUCH TALENT to consider for this pick!
SatanicPanic
@Martin: it just goes to show that if you assume Trump will say the stupidest possible thing you’ll never be wrong
topclimber
I dunno, BC. TCFG seems to be stirring a different shit stew everyday. What’s he and the couch potato cooking today?
More seriously, my hunch is that folks who explore unfamiliar cuisines are the types who welcome the multicultural experience instead of insisting on a diet of good ole American steak and ketchup.
Geminid
@MattF: People are still digging up more stupid stuff Vance has said on tape. Journalists are likely also running down Vance’s former co-workers and acquaintances to see if they have anything bad to say about him, and I bet some do.
BR
@Martin:
The harassment case involving his chief of staff could be an unwelcome distraction.
WereBear
@topclimber: See, when your identity is built on prejudice and enough of your Jenga logs are missing, even voting for a woman can turn you woman.
Jesse Waters said so.
And I think this comes closer to an important part of the puzzle, which is how can you even come up with something like that… unless it makes sense to a very dim part of your mind that you are afraid to look at?
bbleh
@Geminid: concur entirely, and even more so this election. It’s fully nationalized — and tribalized.
@Suzanne: concur also that VP nom may not be able to help much, but s/he CAN hurt. Gay from PA here, but I’d prefer Walz to Shapiro or Buttigieg, because I think Walz can’t hurt but they can — especially Pete — and this is a SQUEAKER of an election
But as noted elsewhere, I’ll support enthusiastically whomever she chooses.
trollhattan
@Kent: Don’t become another victim of Big Cookbook!
Meanwhile—has Trump’s running mate inadvertently killed sofa sales? It would be irresponsible to not speculate.
To think the biggest faux pas used to be putting your feet on the coffee table.
Spanish Moss
@raven: Hadn’t heard that song either, I like it! Now I really want to be in New Orleans right this minute!
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Ah! I did several last year from his Animorphia (?) and one other book, the name of which I have mislaid, but when I moved in December to a vastly smaller place I had to put lots of things in storage, and all my colouring books and supplies were among them. I don’t think I’ve done any yet from Mythomorphia, although I do own it.
Your Gorgon is magnificent! I love the colour palette you’ve chosen. Do you select your colours all before you start, or make it up as you go along?
Bugboy
@WereBear: Did you ever see the network “sanitized” version of the Will Smith movie “Hancock”? One of the laugh lines was everyone calling poor Hancock, “ASSHOLE!” which he would have a superhero freak-out over, which is never a good idea for a superhero. So, when it came to be aired on Prudish Television, they dubbed in “PSYCHO” for every instance of “ASSHOLE”.
That’s where we are at today.
topclimber
@Martin: Remember Trump’s immediate denunciation of Putin killing Navalny?
I don’t either.
KatKapCC
@Martin: He thinks 60 is almost the same as 78?
Man. How does he keep getting dumber?
Gravenstone
Phrasing!
raven
A picture on the wall at Dooky’s with Leah and President Obama
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
As someone who has had a couple real artists in the family, and has been to a lot of art museums in many parts of this world, you are very, very good
Heidi Mom
@Baud: In the WaPo article on Pete’s shifting priorities, one thing mentioned was the difficulty of campaigning while parenting two toddlers (they’re almost three). The obvious solutions have downsides: 1) Chasten stays home with the kids–but Chasten is a great campaigner in his own right, and Pete wants to be with his family; or 2) park the kids with the grandparents–but maybe toddlers wouldn’t understand the sudden absence of both parents, and Pete wants to be with his family. Maybe this abbreviated, three-month campaign season looks to Pete and Chasten like something they could manage.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid:Kelly’s big ideological difference is not supporting the PRO Act when it mattered. Unions are very important in several of the key states and Kelly would be a drag on their enthusiasm. And then too there’s the potential for punting that Senate seat in 2026. I don’t see that he brings any advantages big enough to outweigh those issues.
WereBear
@Bugboy: Never saw Hancock, but yes, that is how prudes think.
Reminds me of how the Saturday Night Fever I saw was a gritty look at Brooklyn life with jerk parents, assault, and despair as part of the story.
Imagine my surprise when people told me they loved this light-hearted musical. Turns out, there was a PG version, in constant play on TV, that was all dancing and romance.
Which had overwhelmed any cultural memory of the actual film.
rikyrah
@Martin:
Yeah, vouchers are a problem. I admit that. Which is why I moved onto Governor Santa Claus of Minnesota.
Martin
@different-church-lady: That’s not it at all.
You can’t attack a candidate for being old if the candidate you support would also be hit by the same attack. I mean, that’s Trumps problem right now that he attacked Biden for something he was vulnerable to and is now getting it back to some degree. Democrats didn’t make that mistake and avoided raising Trumps age and fitness, which a lot of Democrats believe is a good angle of attack and are happy to have available. That was part of their frustration with Biden as a candidate – he blocked what they saw as a useful way to beat Trump. (Personally, I don’t like attacking someone’s age – I think it’s bad politics and I think it’s something Democrats in the future will decide to take a stand against – but given Trump built so much of his campaign around attacking Biden’s age, it’s hard to avoid taking this thing Trump already built and leveraging it against him.)
If you looked at the polling, ⅔ of Americans thought they were both too old. We removed Biden from the poll and now ⅔ of Americans think only Trump is too old, because Biden is no longer being asked about. Nobody has changed their mind. The only thing that changed is who is being asked about.
Another difference is that voters thought Biden’s primary shortcoming was his age – or at least behavior they attributed to age (whether it was fair to do that or not). Voters think Trumps primary shortcoming is that he’s a fascist, and being an old fascist doesn’t make that worse, fascist is always going to win in the contest of bad traits. It’s only when you shift over to Republicans where they don’t see him as a fascist that the age rises as his primary shortcoming.
You’ve decided to interpret this as a shift in the view of the electorate I think because you still have an axe to grind, and you are subconsciously looking for a reason to grind it.
RaflW
“It’s not about age, it’s about competence…a Trump campaign spokesperson” said.
Is there anything to add here?
Lyrebird
TRUTH.
Know what else can be smelly and not really comfortable? That only mostly regular uterus self-cleaning process these sickos want to monitor!!!
I really want to support folks who don’t have children, after Vance’s other sh_tty remarks, but I would be so glad to see “Sane Dads for Kamala” or even just “People Who Actually* Care About Kids for Kamala” alliances.
I am so thankful I had a good dad. Even people who had kinda meh dads mostly did not have soulless heartless dads who could “[refer] to rape and incest as merely potential ‘inconvenience’ and therefore not valid reasons for ending a pregnancy.” (from @MattF)
If Mayor Pete is picked, I will celebrate, but if not, I will celebrate him and Chasten getting more time to just be dads with less national spotlight on the bebes.
*Some of the people I know who have made the MOST difference for the MOST kids around them are people who did not raise children of their own, I totally get that part. I think for getting swing voters, it can help to have ultra normie lookin hetero couples making key points about how anti-family and anti-kid this Creepy & Creepier ticket is. Wish I could find the quote from when Ted Cruz was trans-hating and making creepy statements about bathrooms (ETA: roughly saying never ever have an adult male in a bathroom with a girl). Some normal decent human, I think a girl dad, responded, “clearly his wife never let him take their daughters to the mall unsupervised.”
rikyrah
@Geminid:
NO SENATORS!!
JUDGES
JUDGES
JUDGES
If we can pull Ruben over the finish line..we won’t have to worry about Arizona for FOUR YEARS.
FOUR YEARS of breathing room.
Elly
FWIW, “The Cooking Gene” by Michael Twitty isn’t really a cookbook. I fell in love with Twitty’s writing after reading this – https://afroculinaria.com/2019/08/09/dear-disgruntled-white-plantation-visitors-sit-down/ – years ago, and I can’t recommend the book enough.
KatKapCC
@WereBear:
Answer
WereBear
@RaflW: Hearty laughter?
Dave
@rikyrah: It’s really that simple no Senators; maybe if you are talking a Senator from the safest of all seats but even then no thank you.
Stop trying to create opportunities to lose Arizona’s Senate seats damnit.
Kent
@Martin:
The main difference between Shapiro and Walz in my opinion is that Shapiro seems more of a product of elite education (private schools followed by Georgetown) whereas Walz is a public school product (rural public schools followed by rural teachers college).
There is also a coastal vs hinterlands dynamic going on as well. As a teacher with an interest in both K12 and higher education what I have noticed is that the Northeast leans way more elite in education compared to the rest of the country. There are vastly more private schools in the northeast and upper middle class parents are far quicker to enroll their kids in private schools. Same for higher education. In the Northeast nearly all the focus is on private colleges. The Ivies are all there plus a bazillion near-Ivies like MIT, NYU, Georgetown, etc. And the public universities don’t make anyone’s list of top schools (Penn State, UMass, Rutgers, SUNY, etc.)
By contrast, in most of the rest of the country vastly more upper middle class parents rely on public schools. They may do so by seeking out affluent and high performing districts but it is still public schools. So in most of the rest of the country the top performing schools are the public schools in affluent suburbs and private prep school enrollments are very low by comparison. Likewise the flagship public universities get far more attention. Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley, University of Washington, University of Texas, etc. In California the non-flagship UC schools like Davis, Irvine, and San Diego are superior to any flagship public universities in the Northeast. In most states outside the Northeast, the top universities are the publics not the privates. Here in Washington the top university is Washington not the privates (Gonzaga, Seattle University or University of Puget Sound). In Colorado the top university is University of Colorado and not Colorado College. Etc.
What does that mean when we compare Shapiro to Walz? In means in the area of education, Shapiro is coming from an environment and mentality that does not reflect the majority of the country where Walz is. I expect most of their policy in most other areas (the environment, health care, etc.) to be pretty similar. But when it comes specifically to education, they are coming from different worlds. And that is concerning to me. The last thing we need is another Arne Duncan who was easily Obama’s worst cabinet appointment. And who gave us a whole lot of “race to the top” claptrap that was heavily focused on standardized testing and charter schools.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@RaflW: this is a new spin on “every accusation is a confession.”
jonas
Re: Pete for VP — we have to remember that he also has two small children at home and an intense, national campaign may not be what he has time/energy for right now. I like what I see in Walz. Shapiro is good, too, but I’ve seen that some lefties are wary of his pro-Israel stance. But that could also be a bonus with other Democrats, so maybe it’s a wash. I don’t know much about Beshear other than that he’s a Democrat who can win in a very red state and has been brutally slagging Vance for his stupid fauxbilly schtick, so that’s a plus in my book.
TBone
The most horrible dirty smears are gonna come after the Veep pick is announced.
No need to slag on anyone beforehand.
Omnes Omnibus
I am pulling for Walz, but I think a good case can be made for any of the finalists. Ultimately, Harris needs to choose someone she is comfortable with. Whoever she picks will do just fine.
raven
Another nice image from Dooky’s.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker:
Sofa shagger for the win!
Coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde are always on my to do list.
Bugboy
@WereBear: They did that to Saturday Night Fever? WTF. I’m pretty sure I never saw all that gritty uncomfortable story line, because that’s just gritty and uncomfortable!
sdhays
@WereBear: I guess that must mean that Jesse Waters voted for Obama/Biden in 2008 because he was afraid voting for Palin would turn him into a woman.
Anyway
All last year and early this year I was afraid of the potential for Rethug’s “October surprise” that they’d pull a switcheroo with a candidate better than Dotard and Dems would be caught flat-footed…never expected it would be the other wya ’round.
WaPo has a list of MVP’s cooking-related clips from YT. She loves to cook…
WereBear
@KatKapCC: Yeah. I do trust Sponge Bob.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile, reactionary judges continue blocking federal anti-discriminations protections for LGBTQ students.
pajaro
It seems to me that it’s reasonable that a politician who is admired in the state he leads or serves and is nominated for VP might, in a small number of cases, assuage doubts that an undecided voter might have about a Presidential candidate about whom they were unsure. It would be interesting to do a poll of voters in Pennsylvania and Arizona comparing how each state’s votes turned out with a Harris-Shapiro ticket versus a Harris-Kelly ticket. Maybe they would be the same, I don’t know, but I do hope the campaign has tried to answer whether either one moves the needle.
I’m sure that the differences, if they exist, would be at the margin, but the margins in each of these purple states have usually been paper thin. If the vice presidential candidate would add 1% to the vote in either of these states, it could make the difference in the outcome of the election, so I don’t think the campaign should ignore the issue.
oldgold
@Martin: “Voters think Trumps primary shortcoming is that he’s a fascist, ”
I think voters think Trump’s primary shortcoming is that he is a malignant narcissist. His fascism is a subset of the malignant narcissism.
Dave
@Anyway: Never really had that worry because the odds of our boy not throwing a massive fit and taking a huge number of his voters with him, possibly forever, has to be in the single digits.
The only way that would work would be if he died/was killed so they could run the martyr playbook and also appeal to the mushy whim based voters and I’m not enough of conspiracy theorist to think they would try to make that happen.
Layer8Problem
@Bugboy:
“Yeah, thanks for the allowance Dad. Two bucks, hoo boy.”
“Gimme back your allowance!! It’s a tax! Taxation is theft, and don’t you forget it!”
“Who elected you again, Dad? I missed the whole election thing.”
“SHADDUP!!!”
Spanish Moss
@raven: Nice! I just looked at the menu, it looks fantastic! In addition to the creole dishes, which I love, I see some of my Southern favorites: fried catfish, stewed okra, and mustard greens, yum! Praline bread pudding, oh my.
WereBear
@Kent: Thanks, that was an additional element of what made me hesitate about him, every time.
If we are picking for Rust Belt appeal, I didn’t think Shapiro “works” as well as Santa Claus does. He’s intelligent and appealing, but he doesn’t connect the same way,
If we are luring scaredy cat voters let’s reassure them.
topclimber
@WereBear: How about we be the helpful types we Dems claim to be and provide the GQP with a cookbook entitle “Fifty Recipes that Restore Virility and Prolong You Org, Er Sex Life.”
Mr. Bemused Senior
@oldgold: it’s not easy to pick Trump’s primary shortcoming. There are so many to choose from.
Martin
@KatKapCC: He doesn’t. He’s only got so much to work with here. The attack could work if Harris were generationally out of touch with the electorate (which is more my issue with Biden, not his age specifically) but she isn’t. She can quote the summer hit songs because she’s an actual fan, and that’s what makes her authentic.
There’s ‘old’ as an objective measure of time, and there’s ‘old’ as being out of touch. It’s not always apparent which one is being used, and sometimes it’s both.
Kent
In a Harris administration Pete will be in line for promotion to a higher level office than Transportation.
I can’t think of anyone better to serve as Secretary of State and represent the US to the rest of the world. Whether that is in conflict with having small children at home is something he would have decide. All of these jobs are very time-consuming. I can think of worse childhoods than the chance to travel around the world with your dad to interesting places.
BR
@oldgold:
https://bsky.app/profile/nicholasgrossman.bsky.social/post/3kyqqy4p4du2x
Ken
A competent crook would not have been caught, so maybe?
This could be a new genre, like the “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” stuff. “John Quincy Adams: Crime Boss”.
WereBear
@topclimber: No, they would think such do-gooding stinks of libs.
Trump knows how to appeal to them. Put gold plated sneakers on the cover, make it look like it’s Biblical, and they will think it is a health manual.
Peke Daddy
@Scott: Theodore Roosevelt was probably pretty good at camp cooking from his time up to his Dakota Territory days. He would cook for his wife at their cabin retreat in Virginia during his presidency.
Suzanne
@Lyrebird: I voted for Governor Josh and have found him very impressive so far. I think he’d be a solid pick.
Sarah Longwell mentioned something that I have also seen: Shapiro pushed to get free pads and tampons in public schools…. and he is proud of it and his office has absolutely made a thing of it. Fuck yeah, Josh. WTG.
Martin
@BR: Could be. I’m not sure sexual harassment is the best line of attack coming from Trump, so I don’t think it would be a big problem politically. If it’s true that he protected that person, I’d argue that’s disqualifying regardless of the political implications.
RaflW
I’m with the folks (including Cheryl Rofer) who are suggesting that Putin has realized that Trumps chances are fading, and he’d rather have whichever critical asset it was that we traded to get the deal than wait and give Decompensating Donny a possible p.r. win later.
Plus, D.D. is so unreliable, who knows if his admin (shudder) could even engineer what Vlad wanted?
raven
@Spanish Moss: It’s in Treme so a bit of a way from the Quarter.
Lyrebird
Yes!!
Great contrast between our side and Mr. J.D. “you thought George Orwell wasn’t creepy enough?” Vance!
dmsilev
Via WaPo, an update on the Veepstakes:
I think this is the first time I’ve seen “official” confirmation that Pritzker and Buttigieg are both on the shortlist. Looking at that list, they’re all pretty good possibilities. Nobody is perfect, but they’re all pretty good.
rikyrah
truth
Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) posted at 3:35 PM on Thu, Aug 01, 2024:
One of the reasons Kamala Harris managed to get such support out of the gate: she stood strongly by Biden until the very end of his candidacy. She had the most to gain from him dropping out, yet she worked the hardest to try to keep him in the race. People saw that. Other Democrats saw it. Activists saw it. It sent a clear signal that Kamala Harris the kind of person who can be trusted to do the right thing, not just the personally beneficial thing. And it’s part of why everyone felt comfortable getting behind her the minute Biden stepped aside.
(https://x.com/PalmerReport/status/1819109680352055503?s=02)
Geminid
@Steve LaBonne: If you read very much about Kelly’s relations with organized labor you will see that the Steelworkers supported and canvassed for him in 2022, and called him “pro-worker.”
I don’t know if the Steelworkers supported Kelky in 2020 but I suspect they did. UNITE HERE Local 17 did both cycles and took credit. This local fields a substantial GOTV effort in Maricopa County as well as the rest of Arizona.
As for Kelly and the PRO Act, an ABC reporter asked several labor leaders about this for an article 10 days ago. One said it was a concern, but another noted that the vote in question was a cloture vote that would have fallen 12 votes short even if Kelly had voted the “right” way; the leader basically shrugged the vote off as nothing to hold against a purple state ally.
So I think your appraisal of Mark Kelly’s relationship with labor is one-sided.
sdhays
I’m happy to support anyone on the VP list.
But I don’t really buy that Shapiro or Kelly make their states more winnable. They may both be popular, but they’re not institutions in their states. They’re both still pretty new in their positions. I think focusing on a particular state risks losing the big picture.
That doesn’t mean that either one would be a bad choice. I just don’t like that as an argument for why they should be on the ticket. I’m skeptical.
KatKapCC
@Martin: It’s also stupid because I’d bet if you asked 100 people on the street to guess her age, almost all of them would guess younger than she actually is, and some by problem a big margin. Calling an almost-60 year old “old” is silly enough, but even more so when the person could easily pass as 50.
Chris
@Dave:
For sure. Dubya was the conservatives finally getting the trifecta they’d wanted for six years (quadrifecta, really, with the Supreme Court), they were finally able to go completely ideologically wild, and… that ideology turned out to be a disaster.
My impression is that at least the foreign policy wing of neoconservatives are the people who have possibly the least appreciation or understanding of – and the least interest in – the nuances of domestic policy and how to properly run a government, except in the most vague and grand terms like “liberal democracy good, totalitarian dictatorship bad!” As an undergrad professor of mine once put it, they’re people who think every year is 1939, every foreign policy adversary is Hitler, and they’re always on the lookout for the next grand World War Two like moral crusade and world-defining conflict.
So when it comes to American politics, they gravitate to whichever party currently seems most agreeable to that worldview, and learn to dismiss the other party as isolationists, traitors, appeasers, pacifists, DFHs, and basically Chamberlains at best and Quislings at worst. So sure, why not put a bunch of Heritage Foundation interns in charge of the Iraqi government and let them run absolutely wild with their BioShock fanfic? Hey, all they want is freedom. They talk about it all the time. Anyway, they’ve got to be better than Saddam’s Baathists.
Unfortunately, discrediting these people with the GOP base has largely just meant replacing it with something worse.
WereBear
@Ken: You are going anti-hero with it, interesting.
I’m more thinking, Ben Franklin: Mad Scientist. Got flex there. Can go either way.
raven
@Spanish Moss: Check out Mother’s as well.
Layer8Problem
@Martin: Dude, Biden’s gone. Take the win.
WereBear
@Suzanne: Heckuva thing to campaign with, too.
BR
@Geminid:
Also Kelly put out a statement “clarifying” his vote and said he supports the bill. So he at least gets that he has to fall in line.
rikyrah
Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) posted at 5:17 PM on Thu, Aug 01, 2024:
Not once did President Barack Obama or Vice President Kamala Harris ever change their names to run for political office like Rafael Ted Cruz and Nikki Nimrada Haley did. Facts are facts.
(https://x.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1819135458414416122?t=nnUcsob9UurDH1OyzHOK-Q&s=03)
Mr. Bemused Senior
A behavior that Trump and his supporters find incomprehensible.
MattF
@RaflW: I think another factor was a German desire to give Biden (and Harris) a boost vs. Trump. Bear in mind that the guy they agreed to trade was a Russian assassin that Putin wanted back.
Kent
It is not just “rust belt”. I think someone like Walz plays better everywhere outside the Northeast. If we are ever going to win a state like Texas it will be with a down to earth guy like Walz and not an elite Northeasterner like Shapiro. And yes, I know Shapiro isn’t from an elite background. But he has more of that stereotype than Walz. I can see Walz doing the Texas BBQ circuit with a gusto but not Shapiro.
As for Kelly. I think he plays better on paper than real life. He has the amazing resume but when you actually see him in real life he doesn’t have the same warmth or easy smile as Walz. Google him and click images. The bald thing with the ears poking out and lack of a smile makes him look a little grim.
sdhays
@dmsilev: I’m from Illinois originally, and I almost don’t want it to be Pritzker because Illinois has gone so long with sucky governors that I want him to stay in place.
I’m not familiar with the Lt. Governor, and they’re probably fine. Just…I don’t think Illinois has had a solid governor this century until J.B.
wjca
“I don’t like the way the world is! I want someone different, to shake things up. What is more radically different than a black man for President? What is more different that a huckster who has never done anything besides (falsely) claim to be a rich, successful businessman?”
Framed that way, it at least exhibits a tiny bit of consistency.
BR
@Kent:
Yeah, if she picks Kelly, the plan better be to put him in his leather flight jacket and do 20 photo ops a day criss crossing swing states with little press gaggles where he delivers a couple of one liners. He’s not really good beyond that.
Leto
@Kent: if he didn’t take VP, I agree that SoS would be a very good fit for him. Mr Diplomacy is essentially his middle name.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: I don’t think it’s a major problem (the vulnerable Senate seat is a much bigger one for me). I’m just risk averse because I believe the VP choice has significantly more downside potential than upside. I will be fine with whomever she picks.
Sister Golden Bear
Also too, haters sooo wanted a trans woman athlete at the Olympics to hate that they made one up. There are no trans women competing this year.
One of the most galling things about the transphobic disinformation* attacking Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who is cisgender, is that Algeria is notorious for its anti-LGBTQ laws and there is no trans equality there. At all. Note, contrary to some report Khelif does not identify as intersex.
For the record, Khelif entered the Olympics, with a 9-5 career professional record, and was 37-9 with five knockouts at the amateur level. So yes, other cis women have beaten her. There’s no “unfair advantage,” Khelif is just a good and determined boxer.
To date there’s been exactly one trans woman (who was assigned male at birth) who’s competed in the Olympics, Laurel Hubbard at the Tokyo Olympics, and was eliminated in the first round after finishing last in her competition group.
This year there was a Filipino trans man (who competed in the women’s division because he’s not taking testosterone) who was eliminated after losing his first match. There’s also two non-binary, assigned female at birth, athletes competing, both in women’s categories.
*FWIW, the claim Khelif is a trans woman originate on a Russian Telegram channel and was initially reported by Russian media. Made of that what you will.
Kent
Misogyny.
Obama was a dude and a pretty cool one. Hillary was well…..Hillary.
Having lived through both campaigns in Texas I can tell you that it was a whole lot easier as a guy to jump on the Obama bandwagon than Hillary bandwagon. Plus, Obama literally came out of nowhere. Whereas the right had 20 years to define Hillary.
The question is whether Harris can be more of an Obama or a Hillary. So far it seems like the former rather than the latter. She already has a coolness factor that Hillary never had.
MomSense
@dmsilev:
I’m rooting for Pritzker for a lot of reasons. Behind the scenes there is some shuffling of the deck chairs because Big Gretch wanted to be the nominee in 2028 and I think Pete counted on that and wanted to run for Governor in MI. So there may be some recalculating going on among some of the potential Veep picks.
RaflW
@Bugboy: Apparently shitty dads lead to national problems like Grover and Donald. And since a lot of cis-het men won’t do therapy, they act out their intergenerational trauma on all of us.
I’m so ready for a woman president.
Suzanne
@Kent:
And grown-ass adults who have their own kids in college will talk about where they went to college! They will work it into conversation! It’s fucken bizarre! Oh my God. STAAAAAAAAHP!
Spanish Moss
@raven: Oh man, you’re killing me! Have we ever had a BJ meetup in New Orleans? I would travel for that one.
rikyrah
Portia![]()
McGonagal
@PortiaMcGonagal
It’s only Black people’s money they count. This should put an end to all discussions about whether she’s Black. The Obamas. Oprah. Any Black person with money. Both the right and the left stay counting what’s in their pockets.
https://x.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1819380829162033305
Dave
@Chris: That actually tracks domestic politics as boring whatever unlike the real important bold decisions that will reshape the world of foreign policy.
Read a fair amount of military sci-fi in my youth (and I will always love the liberal stereotype particularly when it’s Senator Hilarry Clintoon that is upset that the honorable square jawed space navy is clearly just a picking a fight with the Toddler Eaters of the No We Really Are Super Evil Empire; genuinely love it because they believe that’s what liberals are) and you can see that same disdain for domestic politics missing the clear defining issues of the time.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: I am mostly winging it. I decide on what color story I want to tell. Not the entire palette before I start.
I decided not to make her monstrous so I gave her human skin tone. I also decided I am going to keep the snakes reasonably natural hair colored and also that look like actual snakes. I made her eyes cat like. That’s the only element of her face that’s not human.
Background was blue to ground all the oranges and yellows. I start coloring the background first.
I will also look at Pinterest/Youtube and see what others have done for inspiration if I am stuck. Then I give it my own spin.
Geminid
@rikyrah: I wasn’t arguing the merits of picking Kelly. I was replying to what I thought was some gratuitous “dirtying up” of a good Democrat.
And wisely or not, Vice President Harris could pick Kelly and people trying to unfairly tear him down now are not helping that ticket.
I’m not saying that about this commenter, but Ryan Grimace has been beating this drum for a while now, and beating a different drum about Shapiro. Mr. Grimace does not want the Democratic Party to succeed no matter who Harris picks, so he is just poisoning the well.
WereBear
@wjca: I also considered that it was just that NEW sticker on the box…
wjca
Except if you try to guess what “the stupidest possible thing” will be. There, your imagination will frequently fail.
Dave
@wjca: He’s very predictable in aggregate but extremely difficult to pin down moment to moment.
Kent
Exactly. 3/4ths of what Trump says would actually be laughed out of the room as implausibly absurd if professional writers were actually trying to invent him as a fictional character.
The chaos is actually a big part of his appeal. The MAGA base eats up that shit. The chaos is a feature not a bug.
cmorenc
@p.a.:
Actually, yes – Richard Nixon was, for the most part, competent, and much of our core federal environmental legislation was passed while he was President. Not saying his administration’s overall policies were good, but bad stuff was competently executed, with the exception that Nixon was undone by his own needless cynical paranoia. There was no need for his campaign to break into the then-DNC headquarters at Watergate.
Trump is a recklessly incompetent crook. But unfortunately a very good con man.
Leto
@Sister Golden Bear: Imgur has been on this, showing what absolute shit birds the TERFs/conservatives/all of them are. Like UncleEboneezer said, this is where the hate was always leading, right back to cis female athletes. They’re simply too stupid to understand that.
Anoniminous
January 22, 2034, Laconia, New Hampshire
Oldest Presidential Candidate in history.
(comes with poopy-pants at no extra charge)
frosty
Sofa shagger! I love it.
MomSense
@Geminid:
Young people in the gun safety movement will be thrilled by Kelly. They love Gabby and Mark and will turnout for him.
Martin
@Kent: Yeah. One of Harris big policy views – and I would argue one of her best inroads with the electorate – is her focus on opportunity and building generational wealth. It resonates really well with young people, the black community, immigrants, and is a familiar beat for rural communities. It builds easily off of Biden’s economic policy, focus on labor and manufacturing. She has the single mom history and attendance at an HBCU, as part of her story.
Shapiro is a bad messenger of that because he’s not a product of it, and vouchers are fundamentally an attack on it. Walz speaks to it very naturally, not just from his story, but a public school teacher is one of the cogs in that machine. He’s a very authentic conveyor of that message, where Shapiro has to sell it as an outsider. And I think authenticity is an important quality of this campaign. Youth/future, authenticity, and lifting people up.
In my view, Pete checks all of the boxes. Walz doesn’t quite nail the first one (he’s fine), and he’s great on the last two. Shapiro is fine on the last two, but not great (I really don’t like yelling politicians and he likes the yelling thing – we already have a yeller in this race and people don’t like him).
Leto
Because we’re talking about food, here’s a bit of food porn (SFW) for everyone. Volume icon should be top right of gif. Enjoy!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I just wish that didn’t include so many Democrats.
I keep thinking my opinion of people can’t drop more. Mask hesitancy during COVID had me reeeeaaal cynical.
The age crusade was worse.
Sister Golden Bear
@CaseyL:
It’s been researched. There’s no evidence of any effect. But The Narrative….
rikyrah
Brian Schwartz
@schwartzbCNBC
NEW: Billionaire Elon Musk has created a PAC collecting voter data from those living in key states through an online “register to vote” form that does not directly register people to vote. All of this in an effort to help Donald Trump become president.
https://x.com/schwartzbCNBC/status/1819374704488013844
Outspoken![]()
@Out5p0ken
So instead of donating $45M a month to Trump, Elon is now using his PAC to deceive voters into giving up all their info and a recent FEC opinion allows America PAC to coordinate its canvassing activities with the Trump campaign — meaning, among other things, that the Trump campaign may provide America PAC with the literature and scripts to make sure their efforts are consistent for door knocking. Damn !
https://x.com/Out5p0ken/status/1819394669362467212
Kent
Nixon was politically corrupt. But I don’t think he was transactionally and financially corrupt like Trump. I don’t recall him ever being accused of any sort of wrong doing outside of the whole Watergate saga. He wasn’t cheating legions of workers, defrauding investors, or taking billions from foreign interests. Nor was he a sex pest like Trump. Trump is on a whole different planet.
Ken
I was going to go for “he’s weird”, but I see how the narcissism is a major component of that.
raven
@Kent: He was a murdering fucking pig.
Kent
People who are in the gun safety movement (as in it is their primary issue) are not swing voters and most definitely not swing voters in swing states.
I support gun safety too. But it isn’t an issue that is going to decide this election at the margins.
Spanish Moss
@Suzanne: That is so true. I know where all my MA friends and their kids went to college, not that I bring it up. I went to FSU, so I am an outlier around here. I am glad that education is valued but I don’t appreciate the snootiness. Maybe it just comes with the territory. You value education, you vote to raise taxes to support it, so you talk about it.
It was tough on my kids in high school. They were applying to public schools while most of their friends were applying to Ivies and other elite schools. We told them we would pay for in-state public school and they could graduate debt free. If they wanted to go somewhere more expensive they would have to get loans for the difference. They all ended up at UMASS and they don’t regret it, but I think they felt self-conscious in college application conversations with their friends.
Leto
@Sister Golden Bear: Taiwan has come out against JK Asshat. Very good article.
wjca
This.
raven
@Spanish Moss: At the right time of year it would be great! My retirement gig was a fishing trip out of Venice, LA!
Kent
Are you talking about Vietnam? Then so was Johnson. And for that matter so was Obama with the drone strikes and “surge” into Afghanistan.
America’s aggressive and violent foreign policy supersedes any one single president.
And Trump is singularly bad compared to all previous presidents when it comes to corruption and illegality.
sdhays
@Kent: He engineered the breakdown of peace talks, undermining the US government and causing thousands more to die in a doomed war for many more years in a treasonous thirst for power.
So, there’s that.
Suzanne
@Lyrebird: I know that this is a judgmental thing, but I honestly really evaluate the strength of a politician’s “game” by how well they use social media. Gov. Josh and his team are good at it. I think it’s a measure of how good a team is at reaching and listening.
Also…. and this should in no way be interpreted as a defense of traditional media…. I think social media, podcasts, Substacks, YouTube, etc. are equally if not more influential at this point than NPR, FTFNYT, local newspapers, etc.
BR
Ugh, pretty ugly comments from Shapiro’s past on Gaza:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/josh-shapiro-israel-gaza-peace-column-vice-president-20240802.html
Ken
@Sister Golden Bear: Nicholas Grossman’s take, on Bluesky:
raven
@Kent: So you don’t think I know about LBJ. Are you new here??
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: Not sure I love this tactic. Lots of people go by their middle names and not their first names. Yes, you can note that for Cruz and Haley, they chose to use middle names that sound less non-white than their first names, but I just don’t know if that’s a road the left should be going down. Tammy Duckworth’s first name is Ladda. If she chooses to go by Tammy, that’s fine, and it’s fine for anyone else to do the same. I get the hypocrisy angle, but I still think this is a very thorny mode of attack.
Martin
@Layer8Problem: Again. I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to understand the dynamics of why the election shifted so much over this decision. I would think other people would want to understand that as well, but apparently this is just a personal game of winning to you.
Tractarian
@Sister Golden Bear:
Not a coincidence! Most people are missing the Russian angle on this.
The whole uproar is based on Khelif allegedly failing to meet “gender eligibility criteria” at the most recent boxing World Championships. But the organization that ran that shitshow, IBA, won’t divulge what test she failed, how she failed it, or any other details. (She passed the gender criteria set by the IOC for these games.)
This is the same IBA which was sh!tcanned by the IOC for corriuption and governing shenanigans and no longer serves as the recognized world governing body for boxing.
It’s also the same IBA which has a Russian president (he’s close to Putin, surprise surprise) and which pissed off the IOC by allowing Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete under their own flags (and trying to ban the Ukrainian flag!)
You may have heard that Khelif has been competing in the woman’s category without complaint for many years now. What you may not know is that she wasn’t kicked out of the World Championships until after she beat a Russian!
This whole controversy is, at its heart, a Russian disinformation campaign.
MomSense
@Kent:
They aren’t swing voters but they would change the world if more of them turned out to vote.
I like all the potential veeps so I will be happy no matter what happens. It will also be interesting to me because I’ve been tracking the positioning for 2028 and this will be another piece of the puzzle.
Kent
I’m just making the point that Trump is singularly bad and horrible compared to all previous presidents and yes, that includes Nixon.
Chief Oshkosh
Rats, I don’t see my post, so at the risk of repeating:
There’s a “happy warrior” vibe coming from Harris that is energizing my friends and acquaintances (who span sexes, ages, races, education levels, etc). I think it would be great if Harris’ VP choice enhanced that. Among the candidates being floated, I get that vibe with Pete and Walz, but not all with Shapiro and Kelly.
FWIW.
Suzanne
@Spanish Moss: I went to Arizona State for my MArch, and I just looooooove the looks of incredulity I’ve gotten. I had a colleague who went to Carnegie Mellon who is really into trivia. He went on Jeopardy and won $65 grand. The look on his face when I beat him at a trivia contest we had in the office….. absolute chef’s kiss.
Seonachan
@Martin: That isn’t true: Romey/Ryan did win Ryan’s congressional district in 2012, 51-47, flipping it from 2008, when Obama beat McCain by a similar margin. In fact that district swung R more than WI as a whole, which swung R more than the country as a whole. I don’t buy that Ryan had much to do with that, but it certainly doesn’t disprove the native son/daughter effect. Also Ryan wasn’t elected statewide, so despite his high profile as Speaker it’s not quite comparable to a Gov or Sen.
WereBear
@sdhays: Reading Perlstein is like reading Stephen King.
Citizen Alan
@Bugboy: All Republicans are broken people. Just utterly broken in some fundamental way. The only Republican I can think of who even pretended to have a normal non-weird relationship with his dad was Dubya. You know, except for that time they apparently almost got into a fist fight over what a fuckup Dubya was.
BellaPea
@Kent: I agree with that summary of Pete’s elevation as the result of a Kamala victory. We’ve got enough of a hill to climb with running a woman of color, qualified and brilliant though she is, and while I love Pete as well and hope he makes all the way to the top, we’ve got to find a way to get past the low info voters.
HumboldtBlue
JD Vance Is An Investor In A Far Right Video Platform Filled With Neo-Nazi Content
sdhays
@BR: I will support him if he’s the nominee, but I don’t care for this at all.
I don’t understand how anyone can look at Israel and not see how Netanyahu and Likud in general are major architects of this. Destroying any hope of a stable, prosperous, peaceful Palestinian state has been the Israeli right’s primary focus for decades. That’s an objective fact.
And they’ve been in charge for most of the time since they assassinated Rabin, so they’ve made substantial progress!
Citizen Alan
@Kent: Wasn’t there a story about how we only have spaghetti because someone in Europe sent him a pasta roller and he didn’t know what to do with it, so he handed it off to his slaves and said “You figure it out”?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: You should already know raven’s opinion of LBJ.
tam1MI
It sure is fun watching his very real achievements make the Coup D’Etat Caucus look like the small, petty fools they are. At the very least it shows who put their country first and who put their donors first.
BR
@sdhays:
His only excuse (as given in the article) was that his views have evolved as he has gotten older and wiser. But Netanyahu has been this way for 30+ years now, so it’s not much of an excuse.
Spanish Moss
@Suzanne: 😂
I know just what you mean… there is an awkward silence when they don’t know how to respond. It is strange how so many seem to view your college choice as a measure of your intelligence. My father was a professor at a public university and he used to tell us that you can get a good education almost anywhere, and it is true.
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: Even worst…. If you’re from a non-swing state, e.g. CA, Musk’s PAC site directs you to that state’s voter reg site.
If you’re in a swing state, the site collects your info, and then displays a screen saying “thank you”—implying that you’re registered. I’m not saying they’re trying to deceive voters into thinking they’re registered… actually yeah that’s exactly what I’m saying. Given this was similar to other similar schemes that resulted in criminal fraud charges, I’m hoping this too will be prosecuted.
Bugboy
@Citizen Alan: RE: fuckup Dubya, which is exactly what he was. Allowing the guy he hired to select his VP put himself on the list, and then select himself, was the first mistake he made as President, before he was even President.
That was that “Mano a mano” bullcrap Dubya was going on about, wanting to fist-fight his old man, right?
Lyrebird
The DNC has been pushing delegates to file their paperwork before the last minute, and per this call she now HAS MORE THAN 50% of delegates, officially.
Spanish Moss
@Leto: That really is food porn! Those ribs in the smokers… I think I can smell them. If I tried cutting ribs with that super sharp cleaver like that guy at the beginning I am pretty sure I would cut my hand off at the wrist.
Hoodie
@raven: Obviously not. I don’t like it when we get into these comparisons between different grades of dogshit. You don’t need to turn to Nixon and Reagan to make Trump look bad. They were both awful and damaging in their own ways.
Baud
@Lyrebird:
The DNC doesn’t understand us at all.
tam1MI
My big issue with him is the way he bungled sexual harassment that occurred in his own office. This election, more than any other, the Dems need to draw a bright line on issues like this. Putting Shapiro in the V.P. spot only serves to muddy the waters on this important issue.
Lyrebird
:-D
narya
Nixon may not have been a transactional TCFG-like crook, but Agnew sure AF was. Then again, Agnew would probably be prosecution-proof under the current SCROTUS ruling.
Sister Golden Bear
@Leto: Yeah, J.K. Rowling — who naturally has been one of the major people pushing this, even after people have repeatedly corrected her — has managed piss off the entire country of Taiwan.
Martin
I think Democrats really underestimate how angry people are about the trajectory of the economy in this country. Say what you will about Trump, he renegotiated NAFTA making it more favorable to workers than corporations, and voters liked that. Democrats could have done that but didn’t.
Democrats calling for a $15 minimum wage only goes so far if they can’t get it done. Only here with Biden have we seen real efforts by Democrats to shift power from corporations to workers – pushing to keep unemployment lower than the Fed’s historic targets gives job seekers more leverage with employers. Antitrust efforts have started but not borne fruit yet. Biden using tariffs as a tool as Trump did.
Obama didn’t come through on that stuff. The banks were never punished for the financial crisis which pissed of a LOT of people. The recovery was slow which was Congress’ fault, but Obama took the blame. You listen to a focus group of MAGA supporters and they sound like fucking marxists until you ask them who is to blame for all of this and they point to immigrants, not republican policies.
Bill Clinton bought into neoliberalism lite and the party defended that until Biden got elected. We don’t yet know how to talk about the economy as a party. Hillary struggled with that. Biden did better. We’re waiting to see if Harris really goes for it on that – we’ve only seen her teaser so far.
Democrats haven’t really put forward a cohesive commitment to addressing economic inequality I think because they’re afraid of who they’re going to piss off. Will we lose big donors doing this? So they don’t really go for it on policy here. Bernie got a lot of support from Trump supporters because he spoke aspirationally to this well.
scav
@Spanish Moss: That, and from a teaching perspective, often the small CCs have the most fun students to instruct. They want to be there, whereas at the big schools, a lot of them are just sloshing about getting a degree because their parents are making them. Still, just a matter of percentages — there are good students in all of them.
kindness
I propose instead of a debate, we get the two presidential contenders to do a cook off. Grilled cheese sandwiches at twenty paces.
We all know Trump would burn his.
wjca
There is a difference at the graduate level. But what matters there is the particular department. Or, at the PhD level, the particular professor. But the university overall is pretty useless as a guide.
Steve LaBonne
@Spanish Moss: My daughter is having a more successful career with her Cleveland State chemical engineering degree than I ever did with mine from a certain Ivy university near Boston.
BR
@tam1MI:
The new Shapiro piece that the Philly Inquirer published today is not a good look (I linked above).
Hoodie
@Bugboy: Having Biden and Harris operating separately like this may provide an advantage in controlling the news cycle. The media seems unable to focus on more than one thing at a time. This also true for the Trump campaign. It has to respond to inputs from two different directions.
Baud
@Martin: I put zero credence into the economic anxiety rationale. Biden is the best worker president we’ve had in forever, and he got no credit for it. I know I’m not going to convince people who are wedded to pretending that white voters are really good people who hate corporations, but it’ll take a lot of evidence to convince me that social status isn’t the primary motivation for voting habits.
Bupalos
@Kent: I think just not being a natural politician was a much bigger issue for Hillary than her gender. Kamala is absolutely a natural politician. And Obama, obviously.
Martin
@Kent: Hold on, which is it? There is no job that takes you away from your family more than Secretary of State. Hillary logged a million miles in 4 years. It’s a job which is nearly incompatible with having a spouse, let alone small kids.
BR
@Baud:
I would put it differently. There is real economic anxiety. But people vote on vibes not on economic reality. They don’t connect the dots between reality and who improved (or worsened) that reality because the vibes overwhelm all rational thought.
Martin
@sdhays: Yeah, but he was GOOD at it.
sdhays
@kindness: That’s unfair. Trump wouldn’t even know where to start. He’d stare at the ingredients and then just start throwing them.
WereBear
@Sister Golden Bear: Well deserved pushback. From a whole country.
wjca
Assumes facts not in evidence. Like that Trump even knows how to turn on a stove. At best, he is competent to spread ketchup on a sandwich someone else prepared.
Ruckus
@Heidi Mom:
Pete and Chasten are not that old, they have time after the kids get a bit older. Sure I’d bet they want to do this now, but there are only so many hours in the day. As an old I lived at a time when a 40 hr work week was only a dream. When I started working a 50-60 hr work week was common. I’ve known a lot of men that worked a lot of hours and didn’t get to spend much time with their kids and really did not like that. Back in my kid days most of my friends saw about as much of their dads as I did. And a lot of moms worked as well, mine did. I at least got to go to work with dad on some weekends, because he owned his own business. I ended up owning the business and running it longer than he did.
KatKapCC
@BR: The article says he wrote it “in his college newspaper in 1993”. Come on. We’re gonna shit on someone for their narrow view while in college of a contentious topic that hits a very sore and difficult spot for them?
Trust me, if you dig up essays and speeches from most Dems in the 80s and 90s, you’re gonna find a lot of shit you’d find off-putting at best, abhorrent at worst. Think of how many Democrats were very vocally against same-sex marriage, or supported mandatory minimums and over-policing, supported DADT, and all the “tough on crime” shit from Clinton’s presidency, etc.
And there’s this:
I’m not saying what Shapiro wrote in college was great. But it would be ridiculous to say “He said something fucked up as a college kid, therefore he is permanent trash and we can never trust him”.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: Neoliberalism was genuinely popular then–even after Clinton beat Bush Senior, the prevailing view on the economy was that taxes and “red tape” and “big government” were killing it and needed to go away. I think it’s hard to even remember now how it was then. When Jerry Brown ran for President his main policy idea was a flat tax! By 2012 that was a fringe Republican idea and no liberal would have touched it.
M31
I don’t dislike Shapiro but with the Israel, sexual harassment, and school voucher issues, even if he has good positions on all of them, to get up to the ‘not hurting Harris’ level he has actual explaining to do on each of them.
Not sure that needing to explain away dubious positions is where you want to start, even if they’re good explanations.
Maybe Kelly has some explaining to do on labor, but there are some big unions that have been for him for a while, so that helps.
Walz? No explaining needed that I’ve seen but I’m not a Harris team campaign vetter, and good thing lol.
Citizen Alan
@raven: I would not dispute that. But it is a sad commentary on the state of the GOP that despite Nixon being a murderous pig, he was still probably the best GOP president of my life time.
wjca
Then Sec Def for Buttigeig perhaps?
Baud
@wjca: I’m not sure if Sec Def puts Pete’s rhetorical skills to the best use
ETA: Maybe if we’re at war, but we hope not to face that situation.
Citizen Alan
@Kent: I’m not sure about that. I think it would galvanize the youth vote, especially if the GOP responded to it with a frenzy of gun humping.
Leto
@Spanish Moss: most dangerous item in the kitchen is a dull knife! You’d be fine :)
@Sister Golden Bear: I will always love that most of the cast of the movies have basically disavowed her. Daniel has been especially strident in his opposition. I don’t watch the movies anymore, don’t read it anymore, basically just stopped that shit cold turkey. At this point I basically want her to fuck off to her castle, and die a miserable old hag as the world moves past her.
Ruckus
@wjca:
No, he’s not.
He is far worse than useless.
He likely doesn’t have the same following that he once had, because he sounds like the mental case he is when he speaks and it’s likely that even some of his followers see what he is now, even if they didn’t know it earlier.
BR
@KatKapCC:
Eh, maybe. I think it would be a problem, not because I care much but because Arab Americans will be pissed about it, and I think they’d be right to be. The language he uses there isn’t that different than the language he has used more recently, so it’s not easy to chalk it up to youthful indiscretion (he’s not that old, so it’s not ancient history in his lifetime). One of the things folks have liked about Harris vs. Biden on Gaza is that she speaks about Palestinians in a more human way, even if her policies fundamentally can’t be much different than Biden since it’s the Biden/Harris administration. Shapiro would be a tonal shift back to a more hawkish orientation even if the policy wouldn’t be any different.
Leto
@Baud: it honestly doesn’t. Also he doesn’t have the necessary skill set for it as well. Yes he was an intel officer, but that’s kind of the end of his defense/national security experience. He’s more of a diplomat/consensus builder, which is why I think SoS would be a better fit. He’s one of the best representatives that this nation has to offer.
M31
@Baud:
Secretary of Breaking Monopolies up into Little Pieces and Crushing Them and Taking 90% of the Billionaire Money Away
Bupalos
@Baud: Long established perceptions don’t change on a dime. One of the sad things about having to switch out Biden is that he operated a lot of his politics on the level of campaigning via actual governance. Which is so old fashioned it seems radical and new. The theory that if you actually do stuff for people who didn’t vote for you, you can change their affiliation. People run this down by citing that people aren’t directly thankful for the thing you did, and maybe even credit it to your opponent. But it works on another level than that, just actually improving their lot in life gives them (or maybe their spouse or their kids) room to break out of right wing stupidity.
Obviously that’s a theory that posits us having time that maybe we don’t really have. But I think there’s a lot of evidence it’s having an effect in places like Michigan, Ohio, and PA.
Though also if that’s your theory GET YOUR ADMIN OFF IT’S ASS AND GET HEEHRA IMPLEMENTED!!!!!
Villago Delenda Est
If it’s about competence, then TCFFG/PAB is complete fail.
ssdd
It’s over.
https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-nomination-dnc-463d0b8095f2ca3526b3af3a2f44c3ca
wjca
Oh, no question Secretary of State is a better fit. (And my long-time preference.) It’s the time away from home and kids that’s the issue there.
But perhaps in Harris’ second term State would work better.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kent: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were not comparable to Afghanistan.
Nixon promised peace and then expanded the war. He and Kissinger are among the worst of us. No need to normalize Nixon!
Villago Delenda Est
@M31: I can get behind this.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@BellaPea: I think Pete’s primary residence these days is in Michigan though he spends most of his time in DC to run Transportation. Not sure he’d help with winning Michigan at present but I could see him making a run at Governor in two years when Whitmer is term limited out. Should he get elected and get re-elected, there he’d be halfway through his second term as Governor as Harris’s second term as POTUS is ending (assuming of course she gets re-elected). He’d have a hell of a resume to run for POTUS at that point.
Chris
@sdhays:
What infuriates me about the current situation is that Netanyahu and Likud are maneuvering through the current crisis, even if it’s not their only consideration, with the explicit goal of hurting Democratic changes and throwing the election to Trump.
And none of the Israel groupies in the party give a fuck about any of it. They continue to insist that we have to give all the fuel they want to the people who are trying to burn down our house with it.
If these Democrats don’t want to help the Palestinians, fine. It certainly wouldn’t be the only population of nonwhite foreigners they don’t want to help. But for fuck’s sake, help yourselves, people.
Matt McIrvin
@M31: Over on LGM, Robert Farley took a twin poll of who people want for VP, and who Harris will actually pick. Last I checked, poll 1 had Walz in the lead, and poll 2 had Shapiro and Beshear on top. Many seem to have voted for Shapiro in the second poll on the grounds that they don’t like him, and they believe Democrats will always make the worst possible choice and have to fuck this up somehow. One commenter is already promising not to vote if this happens.
Layer8Problem
@Martin: First, Biden’s gone. “Many people [were] saying” he was a millstone around our necks. Now he’s not. We’re floating free. However, there’s still a fight. I want Harris to win.
Secondly, you’re just trying to understand, I so get it. Given that we have limited understanding beyond the statements of “unnamed sourced who do not wish to be identified” as well as our relentless geometric logic parsing more and more finely our chances based upon a panoply of variables, and completely reliable polls that are either in or out of the margin of error, I’m of the opinion that we won’t know who shivved who or which President made what decision to pull the rip cord until the memoirs are written and names are attached to actions. In the meantime, we’re “just asking questions,” and making assertions based upon what little we have, adding up to not much. And the election grinds on. The dynamics don’t matter. Harris needs to win.
People seem upbeat, more volunteers are volunteering, and money’s rolling in to the good guys’ side. Republicans and their fellow-traveller lunatics are on their back feet. Help the rest of us out. Drop silly comments about “You’ve decided to interpret this as a shift in the view of the electorate I think because you still have an axe to grind, and you are subconsciously looking for a reason to grind it”. I thought a month ago this election was a good v. evil thing, and I still think it’s a good v. evil thing. I have grandkids I’m worried about, and a partner I worry about, with futures and stuff. And a whole rest of the country too, full of decent people, some even in those red states. This is a shitload bigger than us and our delicate feelings. We need to win. You want to do good? Cool, write some postcards, phone bank, donate. You may already be doing so. In your spare time you and Bupalos can let us know how it’s really going down, maybe doing one of those chatty New York Times style conversations between columnists.
Chris
@Baud:
This.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Back when I was in college, I did a summer internship in D.C. and amused the hell out of my how interns who were Ivy Leaguers:
Leto
Simone Biles Deserves Another Gold for Apparently Shading Donald Trump
Scout211
@ssdd: Yay! I hope they filmed a cool video of all the states announcing their votes like they did four years ago for the roll call. I thought I read that they were planning that. That would be really nice.
Baud
@Leto: Biles & Swift together primetime at the DNC!
Martin
@Baud: The question was why Obama voters would vote for Trump in 2016. Biden wasn’t an option in 2016, and even Democrats in 2020 didn’t see these policies coming out of Biden until he pursued them once in office.
And I never claimed that social status wasn’t the primary motivation. Voters can still be angry about the economy, and Trump did push a very economic populist message. Our argument is that he shouldn’t be believed because A) he’s a liar and B) his entire party disagrees with it and they control congress. But note that the GOP flipped almost instantly on the issue of tariffs and Democrats still haven’t. We are attacking Trump from the right on trade.
Now the problem there is that Trumps trade policies are indiscriminate and for each US industry he’d help he’d hurt at least one other, but he has still forced us to attack from the right. And even if his voters are voting on social status, they now agree with his view to the left of ours.
BR
@Sister Golden Bear:
Even better is the false modesty of folks who went to Stanford or Harvard. They will say “oh, I went to school in Palo Alto” or “I went to college in Cambridge”. One time when talking to someone who introduced themselves to me that way right after saying their name, I wanted to ask “oh, did you go to Foothill Community College” (a community college near Stanford).
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
BWA HA HA HA AH AHA HA HA H AH
Only cause I know it’s true
Suzanne
@BR: Ironically, Mr. Suzanne attended Foothill Community College before transferring to UC Davis.
Chris
@Sister Golden Bear:
One of the running gags in The Spy Who Dumped Me is the MI6 officer getting progressively more exasperated with his CIA counterpart for being unable to get through a sentence without somehow dropping in the fact that he went to Harvard.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. The problem is, why do democrats still think it’s 1992? Why are they still defending those policies? Biden isn’t, and AOC and Warren aren’t, but the baseline economic position by Democrats is a clear extension of those same views from 1992 that we have just started to turn away from. We sure as shit weren’t there in 2016 when Trump was first elected.
WereBear
I have
trollhattan
Mixed 4X400 quickly becoming a favorite track and field event. Drama!
Team US anchor ran her guts off in her first-ever Olympics event and they got a new WR as a result. Final will be lit.
Anyway
Dem voters tend to be worriers =)
Martin
@wjca: Why not VP? Why are we making excuses for him to not be VP?
wjca
One of Pete’s most glaring weaknesses, during his presidential bid, was that his only government experience was as mayor of a medium size city. So I was coming at this more from an “expand the resume” point of view.
I would also note that we have had more than one Secretary of Defense who had neither more national security background nor any military experience.
Villago Delenda Est
@Citizen Alan: No, that was Bill Clinton. As an aside, seeing as I was born just after Ike’s second inauguration, Bill Clinton was the second best Republican president of my lifetime.
tam1MI
Exactly.
Baud
@Martin: His view not to the left of ours. Even on trade, Biden has expanded on what Trump did. So those voters should have moved to us if labor economics was a motivator. Maybe it’s not completely irrelevant, but it’s a minor factor in voter choices. That doesn’t mean we should move to the right, but we shouldn’t be spreading the falsehood that our economic policies are to blame for voters choosing the GOP.
Geminid
@wjca: I’d say UN Ambassador, and then Secretary of State for Pete Buttigieg. Harris probably has her own Secretary of State in mind already.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: At my first architecture job, a fellow new hire had attended Cornell and made sure we all knew it. This was in Phoenix, where the vast majority of people attended state schools in the western states.
When there was a round of layoffs, he was first.
SatanicPanic
@wjca: lol so true. It’s actually pretty hard to think as stupidly as Trump. He’s the Michael Phelps of saying dumb things
rikyrah
@Kent:
Count me in as one who would love to have Pete as Secretary of State, if he doesn’t get offered VP
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BR: Do people still put the names of colleges on the back windows of their cars? Is that still a thing? I always thought that was odd.
Leto
@Sister Golden Bear: this reminds me a lot of Air Force officers. There’s a hierarchy even among officers, with the Air Force Academy being #1 and everything else is… not. Also doesn’t help that if you look at all the Chief of Staffs of the AF (top leader), they’re basically all AFA grads. And yes, they like to flex on that within their circles. I don’t get it besides the fact that it’s their own circle jerk, and a self reinforcing culture.
I will admit to my own bias in that regard when it comes to my son. We live 5 mins away from the Penn St-Berks campus. It’s part of the overall Penn St system. He’s planning on transferring there when he finishes his associate, and a lot of it has to do with the fact we’d like him to get hooked into the Penn St network. It’s an extensive network which will help in the future. And as I said, it’s 5 mins away so there’s some good incentive there as well.
Baud
@Martin: You’re the one stuck in 1992, man. Dems have evolved a lot since then.
Chris
@Martin:
Uh.
Are we just taking it for granted that supporting tariffs is somehow both 1) good policy and 2) “to the left” of the free trade stance?
As I recall, tariffs were the Republican response to the Great Depression, and it did fuck-all to resolve it or to help American workers. FDR somehow managed to do more on both problems while backtracking from Hoover’s position on tariffs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: Yup. “Economic anxiety” is the MSM’s pathetic attempt to cover up the elephants in the room, racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
Baud
@Geminid: UN Ambassador should involve less travel than SoS, so that makes sense for his family situation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Leto: The Army is a bit better about that. I was an ROTC person, but ring knockers I knew thought I was one of them.
wjca
ROTFLOL!
rikyrah
@M31:
We are under 100 days, and don’t have time to explains shyt.
Dave
@Sister Golden Bear: I toured Cornell, the barely acceptable safety school for Ivy Leagues, shortly after returning from Afghanistan in full hypervigilance intensity PTSD with a side of my life imploding.
Wasn’t even thinking about was on the outside of the tour wouldn’t walk stairs with the group but took the incline and man I’ll tell it was only after the fact that I realized how many of the parents were appalled that I was polluting their very special child with my presence.
And too be fair it my aura was probably quite disconcerting.
The snobbishness to UC Berkeley is just hilarious it’s not by any means ubiquitous but the attitude that if you didn’t go to the right school that you basically need to given a ball to play with and pat on the head is not exactly uncommon.
ALurkSupreme
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, absolutely.
Chief Oshkosh
@dmsilev: I’m a little surprised that there are no women on her candidate list. I mean, just mentioning Stacey Abrams would make several MAGAt heads explode. :)
Of course, I’ll be fine with whoever (whomever?) Harris chooses.
Layer8Problem
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s one way of establishing a pecking order on the highway. Paraphrasing Caddyshack:
“How do you measure yourself against other drivers?”
“By height.”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@KatKapCC: How does enforcement of “no crossing state lines for an abortion” work when the cutoff date is before a woman is showing?
You’d have to have pregnancy test stations at state border crossings, like trucker weigh stations, where any woman of childbearing age would have to pee in a cup before being allowed to cross the state border.
And imagine the pregnancy police turning you back and not accepting “but we’re going to a wedding / Thanksgiving / our niece’s graduation” as an excuse.
Leto
@wjca: true, we have; but those people were 1) older which lead to 2) having a much broader experience within government as a whole which leads back to your point: he didn’t have enough experience from just being a mayor. Sec of Transportation has been invaluable for him as it’s leveraged his natural skills in a very productive fashion. It’s a great stepping stone for both a higher Cabinet position, or say a run at governor. But I’ll still contend that he’s wasted at DoD. I know he’d do well, but he can do so much better elsewhere.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Johns Hopkins sends me decals and occasionally I’ve put them on.
Oh dear, I think I just did the thing Suzanne was laughing at, at #168
PAM Dirac
@Suzanne: I remember a Sports I. article a number of years ago that pointed out almost all of the up and coming young professionals in D.C. rooted for the Boston Red Sox because they either went to Harvard or wanted people to think they went to Harvard.
Leto
@Suzanne: His name was Andy, wasn’t it? He then went on to work for this little paper company in our neck of the woods…
KatKapCC
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah, these jackasses act like the ONLY reason a pregnant person might travel out of state is for an abortion. What if they have a job that requires travel? Family/friends in other states? Just want to take a dang vacation?? It’s both ludicrous and terrifying.
RevRick
Well, well, well. The notorious Rasmussen poll has Harris +5 versus Trump nationally. Meanwhile, in my own PA7 district, the Republican internal poll has my Dem. Rep. Susan Wild up +2 over Ryan MacKenzie while Trump is +2 over Harris.
Note, internal polls often have a party bias.
wjca
I’d be delighted to see him as VP! Heck, I’d love to see him as President.
My concern is that I think most voters can only take a little change at a time. Then they need time to adjust to that, before they can cope with the next change. I think that was a significant part of Hilary’s problem: a woman as President was another change too soon after a black man as President. Not misogyny per se; just a limit capacity for changes in close proximity.
By now, a woman as President isn’t a big deal for them. (Most voters, not Trump cultists!) But I worry that adding a gay man to the mix may be a bridge too far just yet.
M31
@rikyrah: yup, and you know the NYT has the articles and op-eds all lined up and ready to go “Does Shapiro give Harris a _______ problem?”
fill in the blank
every one takes time and media attention space away from real issues
argh
tam1MI
Buttigieg still has a shot at the Governor’s office because Whitmer will be termed out.
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: I looked at the CSAF page, focusing on when I entered (1997) just to see… 2. There’s been 2. It is what it is. I didn’t really have any skin in the game on that front, but I’ve had ideas about leadership, and how we might approach things differently. But I’m just a TSgt, so wtf do I know… *ducks shoe
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s funny. My group of friends in my battalion was primarily USMA grads and ROTC guys from fancy schools. My best friend had gone to Princeton on a ROTC scholarship. I came out of OCS, but I was a college option guy who had gone to a private LAC. But there is no snobbery in the army.
trollhattan
@Dave: Of the blizzard of recruitment packages that arrived during the kid’s HS junior year, Cornell’s was the prettiest. My god the aerials of the campus made Hogwarts look like a suburban destination mall.
Anyway, that’s my Cornell input.
Hoodie
@Martin: A lot of Dem pols came out of the Bill Clinton era and they view such policies as electorally beneficial because Clinton was electorally successful and because that era may be viewed as more “normal” than the current one. In attempting to overcome Trump, there might be some benefit in that type of triangulation because a lot of voters might view as a return to normalcy even if they don’t particularly like those policies (see, e.g., New Labor’s recent win in the UK). We are seeing some potential softening of the labor market, however, and that does make one worry that will provide ammunition to the GOP. Tariffs and other forms of market protections are kind of silly when you’re running record low unemployment levels, but that kind of stuff gains more traction when unemployment increases. The Dems really need to come up with some sort of game plan for goosing the housing market to both address the affordability issues and buttress employment numbers.
Sister Golden Bear
@BR: I live next the belly of the beast (Palo Alto adjacent), so I know, I know…
Ironically I’d probably agree that Stanford does a better job of under-grad education than Berkeley thanks to small class sizes, averaging 20 students, vs. hundreds students for some Berkeley under-grad intro classes.
OTOH, Berkeley huge size (roughly 20K under-grad and 10K grad) and lack of handholding does a far better job of preparing you for post-college life. You realize you ain’t special. Which is a marked contrast to many of the Stanford grads I’ve worked with over the years.
The Stanford to Silicon Valley senior management pipeline definitely explains part of the techbro MOTU ethos. They’re both coddled and sheltered from reality. The Stanford’s main campus is literally isolated from the city of Palo Alto, which itself atypically affluent, whereas Berkeley’s campus directly abuts a much more downscale community. Yeah the campus itself is separated, but all the dorms are out in the surrounding areas unlike Stanford’s dorms
Chris
@rikyrah:
Yeah, that’s where I am too. Shapiro seems to have more baggage than anyone else who’s being considered for VP and I have no interest in trying to cut through that knot. Is that fair to him? Maybe not, but neither was Biden resigning because fifteen minutes on a bad night and four years of MSM hit jobs, and guess what?
We’ve finally got the wind in our sails now that we’ve switched out Biden for Harris and Trump picked an anthropomorphic facepalm to be his running mate. The last thing we need is to drag that down with a VP candidate who comes with three prepackaged lines of attack.
Kent
I’m not the one arguing that Buttigieg should be disqualified from the VP slot because he has small children. Every high level job is hugely demanding of time and energy. I think it is for him to decide how he wants to combine family and public service, not us.
My hesitation with Buttigieg as VP is entirely for electoral reasons. I’m not sure how he really enhances the ticket on the margins in swing states compared to say Walz.
Geminid
@Leto: Pete Buttigieg became Transportation Secretary at just the right time. The Infrastructure bill Congress passed in November of 2021 has made this post unusually consequential.
Ed. When he was selected, some people complained Buttigieg had little subject matter experience. He actually had a lot, at the local government end of transportation matters, which is an important point of view.
KatKapCC
@RevRick: Rep Wild was on the Jewish Dems for Harris call this morning! She was great. I think she said she’s the only federally elected Jew in PA? I might have misheard.
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick: The polling situation is crazy right now. I just saw a Civiqs/Daily Kos one in which Harris is leading Trump by 4 points nationally, but her approval/disapproval is one of the most negative of all polls out there. All I can conclude is that things are nuts.
trollhattan
@wjca: You’re not wrong. There are myriad reasons Obama picked Biden and settling doubts about the ticket being “too radical” was a big one. Conversely, Harris was an envelope-pushing exercise by old school Joe who needed to get the base excited by the promises of his administration. (TBF being not-Trump was reason aplenty.)
Harris has an interesting needle to thread and is more like Obama than like Biden WRT needing to soothe the nervous voter. Luckily, she too is not-Trump.
SatanicPanic
The guy on Daily Shpw was making fun of Shapiro for doing a very obvious Obama impression with his speech. Since I am the guy who believes vibes are how you win I think she should pick someone else. We don’t want to be fighting accusations that he’s phony.
I saw Mark Kelly on tv as well and he’s kinda awkward.
Walz is a good folksy man and that seems like the best choice.
These are my very superficial takes. I don’t have opinions of the other candidates. I’ve never watched Buttegeig clips because I never things labeled “Dem DECIMATES Fox host”. I’m not trying to shame anyone but watching people dunk on idiots isn’t my thing. I’ve also never watched a Katie Porter clip so I realize I’m an outlier.
Chris
@wjca:
One of my pet theories of American politics is that if JFK had been an Italian instead of an Irishman, that would’ve been just enough extra “otherness” to cost us the 1960 election.
KatKapCC
@Sister Golden Bear: My father went to Berkeley, his brother went to Princeton. It was a long-running joke in the family that whenever they played a game together or shot hoops or anything, whoever won was like “And that’s why _____ is the better school!” Or if one of them knew something the other didn’t, we’d say, “It’s that _____ education” or something. Constant ribbing, all in jest :)
OId Man Shadow
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Well… if I were evil and didn’t care about human rights or the personhood of women, and fash friendly courts backing me, I’d simply quietly subpoena bank records from financial institutions quarterly for any transactions related to a list of known abortion providers, crosscheck that with my state’s records to locate possible women who violated the law, and refer the list I compiled to the Religious or Morals police for investigation. Wouldn’t be 100% accurate, but it doesn’t have to be. Just need to make an example of a few hundred women to inspire more fear. And if a few innocent women and girls get jailed, well, can’t make an omelet, right?
I’m gonna go watch cat videos and wash my soul now…
Dave
@trollhattan: It’s a gorgeous campus and I like Ithaca and it benefits that it still has the ag side and some general crunchy nerd sciences.
Martin
Slow your roll there, buddy. I didn’t say shit about trying to understand the sequence of events. I said ‘why was the campaign struggling before and isn’t struggling now’. The nature of Biden stepping down is largely immaterial to that analysis, and I’m not trying to raise it here.
This is simply a question of – why did the energy in the campaign shift SO dramatically, when Democrats clearly do like Biden and everything he has done. Now, the elephant in that room is ‘old guy out’, and ok, that’s part of it, but I don’t think that’s even most of it. Remember, I’m the guy who argued that had we had a proper primary in 2024, that I think a lot of the people wanting Biden out would have instead been more inclined to support him because they had more of an investment in him as a candidate.
I think voters are energized because we have a woman and a woman of color at the top of the ticket, and even if Biden 2024 had all the same affect of Biden 2020, the same dynamic would have played out, though to a lesser degree. There are other lessons here worth learning, regarding how to align your campaign to the moment.
We’re having this big discussion on VP which requires understanding that very thing. But I feel like we can’t have that discussion because any time we bring up Biden’s weaknesses (which are not necessarily his fault) some of you demand that we stop doing that because it hurts your feelings, and like, are you going to issue a memo or something when we’re allowed to talk about legitimate political questions or something? We’re allowed to talk about the political shortcomings of every person here, Harris included, but not Biden. And if we can’t acknowledge those, we can’t learn from them.
PST
Two of the main themes of the Harris campaign so far — and I’m not talking about substantive policy themes that smart folks like all of us base our decisions on ;-) but vibe stuff — are youth and non-weirdness. If she wants to push youth hard Pete might help a bit at the margin (not that he’s weird); if she wants to push weirdness hard then Uncle Tim might help (not that he’s old). Walz somehow comes across (to me anyway) as the least weird person in the world. And he’s barely older than Harris, although he sure looks older. He might want to ask his barber to trim those eyebrows a bit, but nothing weird like eyeliner.
wjca
@Sister Golden Bear: True Cal arrogance is shown by the fact that we look down on UCLA. Because we have Stanford for competition, which keeps us on our toes. Whereas UCLA only has the University of Spoiled Children.
Matt McIrvin
@BR: Speaking as someone with direct experience, It’s not all false modesty, partly it’s because people who really fucking hate Harvard will flip out.
I know, they may have legit reasons.
BR
@Suzanne:
Oh, nice. I took a few classes there long long ago. Beautiful campus.
Belafon
@SatanicPanic: I want the guy who can do what Biden did as VP when he pushed gay marriage into the “Yes, we can” position with his comment.
Kay
Good. Stephanie Cutter was Obama 2012
Dave
@Sister Golden Bear: My brother did his PHD at MIT after doing his undergrad at RPI and then a stint as an Air Force intel officer and his general conclusion was that it was that he probably received a better under grad education at RPI than he would have at MIT since it’s geared towards graduate level education.
Same with taking electives at community colleges in places with large prestigious schools you get a fair number of professors that enjoy teaching taking on a class or two at the community college and they enjoy both the students and the more flexible curriculum they can go with.
Hoodie
@Sister Golden Bear: There’s also the grade inflation thing, which tends to make smart people think they’re smarter than the really are and, as a result, a bit lazy and entitled. At an Ivy, I imagine the administration is loathe to have a C+ level average GPA, both for marketing reasons and because, to some degree, a lot of people there think they already won the competition to get ahead. You don’t have the same constraints at public schools. It’s anecdotal, but I’ve had acquaintances tell me that classes at upper level private schools are a breeze compared to equivalent classes at public schools. A friend got his engineering undergrad at Maryland, worked as an engineer and then went to the MBA program at Columbia. He said the classes at Columbia were mostly a joke; they spent six weeks teaching people how to use Excel.
BR
@Kay:
Good to see. These are data people who will analyze every county down to the second decimal place. Harris has the people good with vibes already working hard and they’re doing great work.
Baud
I like to tell people I went to Yale. I didn’t, but I like to tell people that.
Dave
@Hoodie: To be fair MBA programs are sort of infamous for this across the board. Had a friend who has since passed with one and man did he hate that degree.
Good guy angry at the world for not being better; despised the MBA degree.
MomSense
@Kay:
Hooray! This is great news. The campaign has been one of my big worries. These are good moves.
ETA I hope I get to do messaging calls for them again. Those were the craziest, most stressful calls but the next day you might hear the president say something you said in your calls and reported in.
WereBear
@Chris: Hell yes.
Stacy
Just saw another clip of Vance from maybe yesterday telling the podcast host that his seven year old son came up to him to show him a Pokémon card while he was on the phone with Trump and he told his son to “shut the hell up.”
scav
@Dave: Also, teachers that can focus on teaching, and not juggling the race for wringing the next LPU (least publishable unit) from their research.
topclimber
I would like Pete to have a job connected with housing. Our society has screwed the Millennials and the generations behind them in this regard, not to mention minorities.
Whoever manages to force progress on this issue will do a lot of good for society and their own political fortunes.
I can’t see him as secretary of state yet. A great spokesman, yes, but not yet versed in international matters. A stint as UN Rep might punch that ticket. But he would spend a lot of time in NYC rather than Michigan.
Baud
@Chris: I wouldn’t vote for an Italian even now.
j/k
Belafon
Bumper stickers, window stickers, decals you can put anywhere on the back of the car. Here in Texas, you can get any university or college logo on your vanity plate. You can also get any sports logo, so I have seen Pittsburg Steelers license plates here in Dallas.
Nelle
@sdhays: I really regret having to deal with this, but if Nixon hadn’t interfered with the peace talks, the man I ended up marrying wouldn’t have had to go to Vietnam and it would be incredibly unlikely that we would have met, married, had two children, and now, three grandchildren. So many personal trajectories and journeys were sent spinning in different directions, due to that man. I am thankful for my family, but don’t give Nixon the credit.
Matt McIrvin
@Dave: As I grad student I was grading, and to some extent teaching, the same classes at Harvard that I took at William and Mary. It didn’t seem to me that those undergrads were particularly getting a better version of that education at Harvard than I’d gotten at William and Mary–in fact since I was the one doing a fair bit of the teaching, they were getting a secondhand version of that same education.
There were exceptions. If you were a very motivated undergrad driven to seek out research opportunities and advanced upper-level courses, you could benefit from the fact that you were at a world-class research university. I knew several such people. Some later became famous scientists! But such a student could probably excel anywhere–it was just that being at this place raised the ceiling of what they could accomplish.
But the average student who was just taking the undergrad courses that were presented to them… if anything, they were being mildly disadvantaged by larger class sizes where teaching assistants carried a lot of the load. It didn’t matter that much if the dude up at the front of the lecture hall had a Nobel Prize.
Kay
@MomSense:
Me too. I think it’s a big lift, getting it up so fast. Supposedly Biden poured a ton into “field” so maybe they really can have a big early vote/GOTV operation up quickly, but it’s a huge job.
Martin
@Kent: My argument remains that there are so few swing voters in such a polarized environment that focusing on them is how we wind up with these razor thin margins – there just aren’t enough votes to get that way. Meanwhile, ⅓ of registered voters aren’t voting, and the largest share of them are young voters. Turn them out, and there’s a LOT of room to do so because they are starting from a relatively low baseline, and you can convert WAY more votes. No demographic had a bigger turnout swing for Dems from 2016 to 2020 than young voters – 44% turnout to 55%. And they voted Dem 2:1. You’re trying to get a 52%:48% demographic to go 48%:52%, and I’m pointing to a 66%:33% demographic that you just need to energize to vote. You don’t need to sway them on a single position. And young voters are even better distributed across the electorate than white working class men.
Pete wins young voters, and it’s not even close to anyone else being considered.
I’m trying to win through touchdowns and you guys are trying to win through touchbacks. One of these is way more efficient than the other. Chase the easy money.
Dave
@Baud: Now now lets not run from brave but true statements.
I mean my grandparents were off the boat and first cousins. And my grandpa apparently sailed back to Italy to snag his cousin bride away from his brother who was stuck in the Italian army at the time.
And that’s the classy side we don’t mention the rest; not a people you should trust with power.
Kay
@Stacy:
I swear to god he’s exactly like Trump. He talks too much.
Leto
@Geminid: agreed on both counts. Right person, at the right time. And like everyone else here, can only see bigger/brighter things for him.
KatKapCC
@Kay: Nice!!
Chris
@Baud:
Still haven’t digested Italy beating France in the 2006 world cup finals.
I try not to hold that against their American cousins, though.
Martin
@Baud: We can believe it.
Kay
@MomSense:
I hoped it would have a kind of urgent, all hands on deck feeling and it is turning into that. Democrats have a lot of talent and this is historic for a number of reasons – it would attract good people.
“The Best People” :)
Dave
@Martin: I do wonder, and I am no longer in touch with the kids so who knows, if Walz paired with someone like Harris (who despite them being really close in age brings youthful vibes) actually does have a lot of potential appeal to younger potential voters.
Might be helped because he was a teacher and army which both keep in you touch with younger people. Who knows I’m unexpectedly fanboying over Walz a bit and so therefore don’t trust what is likely motivated reasoning on the part of my inner fanboy.
glc
@trollhattan: Missed that but caught this one (Guardian)
Russian prisoner swap deal was to have included Alexei Navalny
BR
@Dave:
Yeah, I don’t think it’s about biological age. If anything, it’s about how “real” someone is that appeals to younger voters. That’s why Bernie, the oldest of all the candidates for every cycle in the last decade, had the biggest youth support — you know he’s saying what he thinks even when he’s being a grouch.
Baud
@Martin: That is a NotMax quality cross-reference.
Martin
@Hoodie: MBA programs very quickly turned into money grabs for universities. Terminal/Professional MA/MS programs are as well.
Martin
@Baud: I think I got it from him, actually. LOL.
Hoodie
@Martin: Young voters have historically been fools gold, chasing them doesn’t exactly have a great track record. The most success was probably Obama in 2008. We’ve had about 2 weeks of Harris being the presumptive candidate and I’m not sure we can conclude this is a rerun of that. She’s mostly returned the base and canceled the enthusiasm gap. Pete would be a risky move and not necessary to win.
Kay
SatanicPanic
@Belafon: that was the highlight of his Vice Presidency for sure. I wonder who that person is this time
Matt McIrvin
@BR: I don’t think it’s just younger voters. The “being real” quality is how Trump consistently got rated more honest than Hillary Clinton–even though everything that came out of his mouth was a lie, you always got the sense that it was really what he was thinking at that moment, that his verbal diarrhea had absolutely no filter. That appealed to many people–probably still does.
Right now, Kamala Harris seems to be consistently hitting the “being real” spot in her stump speeches. I didn’t quite get that sense in 2020 but I do now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: No you are trying to win with one long deep pass. Some of the other people are arguing that running the ball and some screen passes might be the higher percentage plays. We aren’t at a Hail Mail point right now.
What I think we can agree on is that we have momentum right now and the GOP is flailing a bit. We shouldn’t let up on them or give them a moment’s peace until after Election Day.
lowtechcyclist
Wrong thing to say! At least Trump has an age,,,,
Betty
@Martin: A headline in the Phila Inquirer describes Shapiro’s backers as feeling betrayed by him. I didn’t read the article so don’t know the details. I am guessing they are more progressive than he has been.
Kent
@Martin: I’m just trying to win period. We live in a closely divided country and every election is won on the margins going back to at least 2000. The one exception was Obama in 2008 and that was a unique combination of a deeply unpopular incumbent and incumbent party (Iraq war fatigue and the financial crisis) combined with a generational political talent in the form of Barak Obama.
Every other election since 2000 (and not involving Obama) has been close and decided on the margins by the electoral college.
I’m in favor of whatever the hell gets us to 270 and maximizes Democratic numbers in Congress. There is no inherent virtue in landslides. Bush governed like an autocrat despite winning the narrowest of electoral college margins and losing the popular vote.
gwangung
@BR: Um, guilty as charged…
@Sister Golden Bear: Hey! I resemble that remark! (having gone to Stanford and have the institutional disdain for Cal)
(Though, seriously, I always felt Cal was high octane education. It’s UCLA I have problems taking seriously…)
(Though I am disappointed that the term “Cal weenie” has seemed to have dropped out of use…)
Kay
Walz was the highest ranking enlisted soldier in the history of Congress too, which is kind of cool.
BR
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, Harris has both gotten a lot better at it and also seems to be comfortable and uncoached in a way she didn’t used to seem. I’ve followed her career for a couple decades as a CA resident and she has gone in and out of this mode over time — like every other race she’s been comfortable in her own shoes and then the next one she’s not. We’re lucky that the stars aligned on this one.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Baud:
I wouldn’t tell normies “I went to Yale” because then they’ll never stop asking you to fix their door locks.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Martin: forgive the Dilbert reference…
Chief Oshkosh
@Hoodie:
If that’s the case, a whole buncha my profs didn’t get the memo.
Hoodie
@Omnes Omnibus: He’s trying to win with a gadget play. Pete would not be the presidential candidate, and it’s quite likely that young voters aren’t going to give two shits who the VP candidate is. At most, VP candidates are about assuring hesitant (i.e., mostly older) voters who worried that the presidential candidate is too inexperienced, radical, etc.
Bill Arnold
@wjca:
Several decades ago, while working in a (world class, large) industrial research lab, I overheard a few European scientists talking in English about a candidate employee, and they literally used the word “pedigree”, derisively.
Eye-opening, that was. The flawed heuristics that people use in human interactions can be vile.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Take the FTFNYT – Please….
In todays world newspapers are old hat and a waste of resources. At worst sell access on line. And this comes from an old fart who was a paperboy at 12 yrs old. We have a better delivery system that doesn’t waste bird cage liner, which is a better use of the paper than most newspapers. There is plenty of news on TV, radio and the web. And little reason to worry about access to the TV stations that have news, because there are other sources, at least no worse than TV news, or are where TV gets their info. It was a changing world when TV came into being and had news in place of newspapers, but now that the amount of commercials is worse than newspapers ever were and TV has sold out everything for the money, which they worry about far, far more than what they are getting paid to supply. I haven’t had TV for over a decade and haven’t missed a minute because of the internet. I can watch shows I like online, without commercials, I see the news online, without commercials. Tell me how much news do you remember from the day before, after watching TV news? To me if it isn’t important enough to remember for one day, it has no importance whatsoever.
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
Well, not 2004 really. Something like 38,000 additional Gore votes could have flipped IA, NM, and NV (IIRC) to bring about a 269 tie in the EC and put the election in the House, but Dubya would have won easily there.
Ohio wasn’t any closer, percentagewise, than the country as a whole, so it’s hard to argue that the EC made the difference on account of Ohio.
sdhays
@Nelle: My dad’s draft card was up next when Nixon ended the draft. If the draft hadn’t ended when it did…
Mousebumples
@Kay: I saw that article earlier too. I wonder if his work as a surrogate would help at all in persuading military (active and vets) to vote against the MAGA.
My one retired navy friend leans Dem, so I’m not sure that I’d get a useful piece of anecdata from him.
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: Believe it or not, age 18-29 voter turnout was higher in 2020 than in 2008, and only a hair below the record youth turnout in 1972, the first election after the voting age was lowered to 18.
They are fickle but turnout seems to follow the same ups and downs as other age groups… just generally lower and with more variation. 2012 and 2016 were relatively low-turnout Presidential cycles, at least by recent standards, but turnout was quite high in the 2018 midterm (for a midterm) and in 2020.
Cheryl from Maryland
When Wayne and I were poor grad students in the early 1980s, our birthday celebrations consisted of selecting a cookbook from the Library and having the other make the recipe of the birthday honoree’s choice. Wayne once chose the Cajun meatloaf from the Louisiana Cookbook. Have never made another type since.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Hoodie: Also, the VP pick is the first big decision the candidate makes. It tells us something about them.
Martin
@Hoodie: Nope. Most success was literally 2020 when the black women turnout machine fired up after Harris was picked. It was both the highest 18-35 turnout in at least 40 years, it was the highest year on year change from the previous election. Both were higher than 2008.
Young voters aren’t fools gold, they are a demographic which from election to election gets ignored. They turn out when we pay attention to them, and they stay home when we don’t. And usually that’s enough to win or lose, because again, they are evenly distributed across the country.
As additional evidence, the 2020 turnout of young voters was state-specific. The highest turnout increases were in swing states and in states with important senate races. The turnout directly tracks where Democrats did the most aggressive outreach. This is why I keep focusing on doing the goddamn work instead of constantly reading the tea leaves of what old white men might think. It’s easier to convince someone who agrees with you to vote for you, than to convince someone to agree with you when you don’t know their biases in an election where biases will be a thing. I’m not saying don’t try, I’m saying young people, particularly young women who these policies most directly impact, and where you have the most cultural juice with pop stars and all that, should be your first priority, because there’s so much more opportunity there and because it synergizes so well with the candidate and with the campaign message.
piratedan
instead of us picking a “favorite” and creating more divides and schisms as people get “invested” in a candidate, could we perhaps have posts on the strengths that each of these folks would bring to the ticket? It seems like all we’re doing is the oppo research on our own guys (which helps to know their weaknesses, but really shouldn’t this be left to the professionals?) and I want to understand the strengths and nuance that each of these pols would bring..
WereBear
Does the Walz resume keep racking up bullet points or what?
Geminid
@Martin: Do you have any evidence beyond anecdotal for your assertion that Pete Buttigieg does great with young voters,and none of the other candidates comes close? You say this like it is self-evident but I do not see it.
Baud
@WereBear: Maybe he should be at the top of the ticket.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Some of my best friends at the LT level were Academy grads, and they treated me like everyone else. There were only a few serious “ring knocker” types and they were pretty universally not popular because they didn’t have the respect of the troops that non pretentious Academy grads had.
Bill Arnold
@BR:
There’s this, from the same article.
When one is Jewish (or Palestinian) in college, one is huffing own-side propaganda and regurgitating sometimes-vile ideas.
My Zionist (&self-aware) girlfriend in college was very clear about this, noting that the propaganda (all parties) had been (even then) honed for decades and could ensnare people really effectively.
Kay
@Mousebumples:
I’m a little concerned that it harkens back to chasing a certain kind of Democrat that there just aren’t that many of anymore. We really do do better in suburbs now – we took a chunk out of the GOP with that group and those voters are economically Right leaning – they’re going to have to be reassured that Harris is not a Lefty.
randy khan
Anybody who hasn’t seen the video of Harris cooking with Mindy Kaling should go find it. It’s from the 2020 campaign, when she was still running for President, and it’s delightful. Just the bit about not wanting to be called Auntie is worth your time, but you’ll also see that she does cook.
And seeing the Rasika cookbook there impresses me. It’s a fine-dining Indian food destination in D.C. (If you ever go, have the fried spinach appetizer, which is famous for the right reasons, but everything is excellent.)
geg6
@BR:
Okay, I’m jumping in here from my time out because I’m about sick and tired of the shit being said in this thread about my state and my governor by people who obviously know nothing about either.
Shapiro’s remarks were from 30 years ago. He has changed his position over the past 3 decades. Oh, and he didn’t grow up rich and he didn’t go to any Ivy League schools. He only went to Georgetown because he was an aide on the Hill and got his law degree taking night classes.
FWIW, PA is not the fucking northeast. Most people in PA would consider us something between the Mid-Atlantic and Appalachia. Philadelphia isn’t the only city in the state and doesn’t rule all.
Fucking ignorant people opining on shit they know nothing about.
And now I’m back out because I can’t take the stupid. Maybe I’ll see you all after the election. Maybe not.
Geminid
@Kay: That is good news for this Walz fan. House Democrats have an interest in putting up the strongest ticket possible since they have a lot at stake nationwide. I expect Vice President Harris will give their recommendation some weight.
WereBear
@Baud: I don’t get the impression Walz wants it. Which is a good impression to make at this point.
Kay
@Bill Arnold:
It would also give Democrats an opportunity to make it clear that they don’t think Palestinians are subhuman, which I think they should do. This is a fresh start. Rather than avoiding it why not make a genuine overture, acknowleging that there’s a real divide.
Villago Delenda Est
No, things are weird!
ljt
@Elly: Thank you for that.
Martin
@Hoodie: They cared in 2020, unless you think that Biden was a particularly appealing candidate to 18-34 year olds (I can assure you he wasn’t).
Biden picking Harris didn’t swing any votes, but it helped get young people to turn out.
Give us a plausible explanation for how Biden, who didn’t get any notable support from young voters in the primaries, came back with a historic increase in turnout in the general over 2016 if the VP pick wasn’t a first order or second order effect? There was an overall increase in turnout, but 18-34 turnout was higher than all other demographics, and that turnout was also among the most favorable to Democrats. The other notable demographic increase over baseline was black voters.
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
The ones that are made public do.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Ah yes, doing the god damned work…. I am so glad you thought of that. No one else had that idea.
If you are trying to persuade people, I am not sure that you are taking the right tack. We get it, you think Pete is the killer choice. Many of the rest of us think he is a good choice among other good choices.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I told a “normie” co-worker about this today at lunch, and her eyes got wide and she said “What”?, which is how a normal person responds to such a ludicrous proposal.
KatKapCC
@Geminid: I will be full-throated in support even if she chooses someone I don’t love…but I do hope it’s Walz.
Kay
@Geminid:
I still think Shapiro is strongest. I love Walz and I love Minnesota (I lived there for a time) but the people we have to attract are middle aged white college graduates who live in suburbs or small cities and are basically Right leaning. I think that’s Kelly or Shapiro. But I’m good w/any of them. I think the campaign talent is more important to actually getting elected.
tam1MI
I’ve butted heads with Martin on a lot of topics on this blog, but on this one I agree with him. That huge turnout in the youth boat that Obama got in 2008? That was directly the result of the fact that the campaign put resources into turning out the vote on college campuses. Where I part ways with Martin, despite the fact that like him, I would love for Pete Buttigieg to be the VP nominee, is that I think we can get the vote no matter who the VP nominee is just by putting the resources into turning out that vote.
KatKapCC
@Soprano2: If they ever try to implement any of this shit, I say anyone who menstruates ought to store up their used pads and tampons every month and FedEx them to the appropriate offices.
different-church-lady
@Martin: https://news.gallup.com/poll/646547/age-issues-working-trump-advantage-pre-debate.aspx
very concerned + somewhat concerned:
Biden: 76%
Trump: 38%
There’s been a shit-ton of revisionist history around here lately, and I ain’t the one doing it.
BR
@Kay:
I dunno, because I always figure “when you’re explaining, you’re losing” and I’m not sure Gaza is the kind of thing we want to make the front and center issue of the campaign.
Mousebumples
@Kay: Fair . I was more thinking Trump is outside the norm enough (eg Jan 6th, comments about thinking enlisted were fools or something to that effect) that there may be potential.
But Veep probably isn’t enough to override natural inclinations.
Chris
@geg6:
Always thought your state was sitting squarely atop a border. Philadelphia is firmly East Coast. Pittsburgh is, not quite Midwest yet, but firmly Great Lakes/Rust Belt.
That’s before you even get to the Cities vs Pennsyltucky divide.
Dave
@Villago Delenda Est: Personally it was most likely the VMI or Citadel cats that were not so comfortable with others they drank a much heavier more reactionary sort of indoctrination.
Mostly what I got from West Pointers was internalized ideas that you have to X even if you are better suited for Y and so on. The joy of going from active infantry to civil affairs reserves is you can engage more easily across whatever class boundaries exist and have that conversation with young LT’s who may need it but won’t receive it from any other source.
Though whenever I had to work with the Navy it got weird either full on “why is the peasant making noises at me” or deep deep relief that it’s not considered weird for Chief and above or officers to be able to talk to you like you are a human being with like thoughts and stuff.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin:
Yes you can! The Republicans were doing that up to the moment Biden dropped out–that’s the Republicans’ strategy in almost every election! You attack the other side for your own candidate’s weaknesses, to preemptively put them on the back foot and partially neutralize that avenue of attack. That’s why they emphasized Hillary Clinton’s supposed corruption and dishonesty, ties to Jeffrey Epstein, etc.
Martin
@Geminid: Highest name recognition by far – clips of his takedowns of Fox News etc are popular on social media. He has the highest favorability of the VP options (probably related to the name recognition). He’s been very effective at reaching young people, even as Transportation Sec.
Marist poll had him as the top pick for rural and suburban voters after Gretch, and top pick among young voters.
gvg
@trollhattan: Wayfair is overpriced compared to others. IMO. I’ve looked at them and not been impressed.
Dave
@Matt McIrvin: Yep if you get the attack in earlier and more relentlessly you totally can attack a candidate for a shared weakness and this favors republicans for a variety of reasons.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
Obligatory Checker Shadow Illusion.
Cheers,
Scott.
—
(Who wonders if someone else got there first…)
RSA
Speaking of odds and ends, I just recently realized that the traditional boundaries of the Baby Boomers are the birth years of 1946 and 1964, and that TFG was born in 1946, Harris in 1964.
The cultural category of “Baby Boomer” really breaks down toward the edges.
JML
Yeah, this is straight form the Politics 101 Handbook these days. It doesn’t always work: you have to be properly resourced to make the attack, have the ability to generate earned media, and you have to be able to to do it in such a way so that it doesn’t immediately rebound on your candidate twice as hard, but it’s been #1 of the GOP game plan for a long time. W’s campaign was brutally good at it in both 2000 and 2004. (just because I hate those scumbags and despise everything about them and the campaigns they ran…doesn’t mean I can’t see how effective some of that crap was)
Matt McIrvin
@Martin:
There had been a giant increase in youth turnout already in the 2018 midterm, a type of election in which youth turnout is usually absymal. I think they were both largely negative-partisanship elections–youth were sick and tired of Trump.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think Walz is the better candidate for that. He’s my dad or my brother at the local Lion’s Club. The right leaning guys (and in central WI, there are lot of them) know they are liberals, but somehow they keep voting them in as club president. Walz is recognizable to them as a good guy even if he is too lefty for their particular taste.
JML
@RSA: no group clutches harder at power than the Boomers, though. :P
Belafon
@BR: I’m afraid that, with Shapiro in the mix, we’re screwed anyway. If he gets chosen, he and Harris get constantly asked about his stance. If he doesn’t get chosen, Harris and her choice get constantly asked about their standing among Jews. It’s a story the media can go after Democrats with, and they are really looking for anything.
tam1MI
The tradition of counting people born from 1960 on as Baby Boomers is increasingly being cast aside. Under the more modern understanding of generational cohorts, Harris would be classified as either Gen Z or Generation Jones.
M31
@WereBear: Walz had the most Minnesota reply when he was asked if he wanted to be VP, something like “sure I guess if she wants to pick me”
doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it lol
but he’s been a strong, articulate, endorser of Harris and progressive policies in a completely unapologetic way, and doesn’t let journalist bothsiderism/whataboutism get him flustered
that’s actually what I think he brings more than the others — charming attack dog and the other side doesn’t even know yet that they just lost bigtime lol
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: If we are doing Venn diagrams, PA is Rust Belt but not Midwest. Iowa, otoh, is Midwest but not Rust Belt.
BR
@Belafon:
I don’t think the latter issue will stick. Trump already tried that by attacking Schumer and other dems and Harris’s husband inoculates her on that.
JML
@Matt McIrvin: generationally, voters may be getting more tuned into politics more broadly at a younger age as well; we won’t really know for a while but it wouldn’t surprise me to see a more consistent uptick in younger voters?
But part of the trick is not thinking of a generation of voters as a block. That’s the biggest fallacy of “chasing younger voters”: you can’t really appeal to generational voting blocks like that.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: Donald Trump understands it instinctively, too. “What do you mean, I owe you money? You owe ME money! In fact, I’m gonna sue YOU!”
Villago Delenda Est
@RSA: Given that Fred Trump did not go to war (the Baby Boom was predicated on all those soldiers and sailors coming back from WWII and breeding like bunnies) I’d say TCFFG/PAB is an outlier.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: Youth turnout was down a bit from 2018 in the 2022 midterm. But not down as much as you might expect, with Biden in the White House, which usually lowers the “in party” vote (and that was one of the things that blunted the “red wave”).
tam1MI
I feel like the Dem group organizing against Shapiro really did Harris a disservice. (Maybe that was intended?) At this point, if she picks Shapiro, it will be perceived as her giving the back of her hand to the Gaza portion of the party (you gotta know that the irresistible Protestors=KKK quote will get replayed endlessly) and there goes Michigan. If she doesn’t, it will be perceived as her backhanding Jewish voters and in some quarters taken as sure fire proof of antisemitism. She’s been Kobayashi Maru’d.
Layer8Problem
@Martin:
I raised it, but it’s not material to the present, beyond being an instance of theorizing without sufficient information. Regardless of how I or anyone feels, Biden is out. We, nice people who want to get along with our neighbors, move on, because we have to.
Beats me. My initial take on it was “This is a massive throw of the dice. Candidate who beat the bad guy last time quit. That sucks. Are the stakes just as high? Oh yeah, I guess so, because this is for all the marbles. So we move forward.” I think, though I don’t know, that that decision was based upon real thinking and an analysis of the playing field with better numbers and intelligence than the likes of us get to see in real time, and a lead player who used his wits to choose as good a course as his experience suggested, who planned an outstanding pivot with exquisite timing with his allies. If I were to venture a guess I would say the energy comes from a bold, decisive move and people thinking “Shoot, that wasn’t the standard cookie-cutter play. Damn, the game just got exciting.” And the Vice President is qualified, positive, and all the good stuff.
So we have energy now. I hope it stays right up to the moment sparks fly out of Kornacki’s head and someone hits the switch on the back of his neck in the early morning after the election. I want fear in the other side’s hearts. If the sudden change in the contestant energizes those actually working for the Democratic candidate, fortifies the despairing, and excites the low-information crowd and interested bystanders, I’ll take it.
People have gone on ad nauseum about Biden’s shortcomings, perceived and real, and those comments have been reacted to, as happens in comments on blogs all over. Those who choose to talk about them keep talking about them. Very few have been banned from Balloon Juice. No good-faith commenter was silenced. Some people are touchy about being reacted to. Life goes on.
Martin
@Martin: Here’s Pete showing up in the Delta subreddit, of all places. Not representative of anything, but he reaches people, particularly young people really well.
jimmiraybob
@rikyrah: And Kyle “AR-15 of Healing” Rittenhouse reminds me of a young Ernst Röhm.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the attacks on Shapiro are largely or completely unfair. All I know is, if he’s the VP candidate, I’m going to spend half my mental energy between now and November dealing with enraged progressives threatening to abandon the ticket over him, and God I don’t want that drama. Not again.
frosty
@raven: We loved the NOLA School of Cooking. When the chef dumped a brick of gumbo and one of lard into the red beans there was a gasp from a couple of people in the audience.
She said “Are you my Californians?” They said yes. Response:
”Get over it!”
zhena gogolia
@geg6: Oh, please come back!
Kristine
So I guess TBogg units are the new normal?
Kay
@tam1MI:
So this too was also unacceptable? I’m supporting Shapiro but I’m starting to think there is never going to be an “approved” way to oppose US policy in Gaza on this blog.
MazeDancer
Marcella’s book even looks a little bit used. A good sign.
Kay
They can’t protest and they also can’t organize for or against a candidate.
KatKapCC
@Belafon: Anyone who tries to say “Harris hates Jews because she didn’t choose one for her running mate” is too stupid to waste any time on.
Villago Delenda Est
@tam1MI: You’re right that the utter scum that is the MSM will latch on to ANYTHING to try to bring Harris down in service to their billionaire parasite paymasters.
KatKapCC
@BR: Well, while I wouldn’t apply this to Harris, being married to someone of a certain group doesn’t mean you can’t harbor any prejudices toward that group. I’ve known a few white men married to Asian women who certainly didn’t think highly of Asians as a whole.
Layer8Problem
@Kristine: I think we’re wearing out the front pagers with our hijinks and they’re not spitting out the quality posts we pay them good money for as quickly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Kay, they seem to be saying that Shapiro being a part of the people coming down on the UPenn protestors would hurt the ticket with those who oppose the current admin on Gaza.
Hoodie
@Matt McIrvin: 2018 and 2020 were more likely than not anti-Trump; they were voting for 77 year old Biden in 2020. Just thinking “let’s pile on some more stuff we think the kids will like and that floodgates blocking the youth vote will magically open” is making an extrapolation that might be (and likely is) wrong. There’s this unexamined proposition being put forward that more youth will turn out because Buttagieg is on the ticket. I think that’s nonsense. He’s just a VP candidate. And he may be a risky choice (violating the first rule of VP choices) because it could change the subject when it should be on Harris becoming the first female president. That’s the real hook in this election when you consider the backdrop of Dobbs and the threat posed by people like project 2025. Yes, anti-LGBT is part of that agenda too, but you risk overcomplicating the message bringing Buttagieg into the picture.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
JaySinWA
@Kristine: I’ve been fighting the urge to make up lyrics to the “Happy Wanderer”
I get stuck after the first verse.
I love to go t-bogg-ening,
This post is off it’s track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
It’s never going back.
Villago Delenda Est
@jimmiraybob: I’d say Heinrich Himmler. Röhm actually had military experience.
Dave
@KatKapCC: This is true but if the entirety of the attack relies on didn’t choose a particular individual as a running mate so therefore bigoted against that particular group it’s going to be hard for that to gain much traction particularly when she can just point at her husband.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Martin:
Delta would have never lost Caitlin’s bags
Kristine
@JaySinWA: lol
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: I suspect we’re near the peak of possible youth enthusiasm for Harris and the VP pick can only hurt her there. At least among the plausible names–she’s not gonna run with AOC, as fun as that would be.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, this is 100% correct. Let me clarify my point.
That’s now how Democrats do politics. Maybe they should, but that’s not how we do it, and because of that Biden was in the way.
If you want to argue that Democrats should run campaigns that way, I’m not going to argue, but that’s not going to happen in 2024, and not with Trump since he’s already defined.
Trivia Man
@Suzanne: I like to host trivia at work as a hobby, always happy when someone unexpected wins. As someone who has had success* at trivia I am confident in saying it is only very loosely related to “smart.” Recall, making connections, super curious, widely read.. all much better for winning. Makes me laugh to see the many people who automatically equate SMART and TRIVIA SUCCESS and vie versa. Very satisfying to see that look on his face, I bet.
*(Made it to the cut for Jeopardy but never got selected to fly out, 3x national college bowl tournament, blah blah blah)
KatKapCC
@Dave: Well, true, I agree there.
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin: In addition to Biden’s choosing Harris, a possible reason for the difference in da yute turnout between primaries and general is that “shit got real” over that time span wrt the pandemic.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ugh. It’s a problem for all Dems even though trump made the situation worse (his
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Eh, fwiw, I think the comments in question is rather incoherent. I just don’t see a “damned if you do damned if you don’t” wrt Shapiro. I do think that he has things on his resume that aren’t the best for a Dem even if it just because they may require explanation.
tam1MI
Given that Shapiro’s stance on Israel is not too far out of line with most Dems overall, and that the only thing differentiating him from other V.P. candidates (at the time) was that he was Jewish, the optics of going after him and only him were bad, to say the least. Couldn’t the folks advocating for a change in US policy towards Israel dig up a single V.P. candidate they could be FOR?
randy khan
@Sister Golden Bear:
The whole thing is hideous. And J.K. Rowling has stuck her nose into it, ratcheting up the entirely unjustified outrage.
It also should not go without saying that not only is she cis-gender, but that the IOC’s own testing regime (something that kind of gives me the creeps) determined that she’s female. Given that she’ was disqualified by the most corrupt and also possibly worst run of all of the international sports federations *after they had determined she was eligible* in previous competitions, I’m also not exactly what you would call confident that her disqualification was justified under whatever rules the boxing federation claims to have. (The IOC regime was used because the IOC took over qualification for boxers for the games in light of how terrible the boxing federation is. So far as I know, that is the only time that’s happened at least as long as I’ve been watching sports.)
m.j.
The sofa-shagger
couch pushion?
Martin
@tam1MI: And more modern analysis sets generations not based on when they were born but what events shaped their life in early adulthood. Even boomers get split between early and late with early boomers benefitting from (paradoxically) from high interest rates in the 80s which each year lowered their housing costs as rates dropped and allowed them to invest, where late boomer hit that market too young to buy, the market heated up and got expensive and the effect on them was jobs and wages which stalled out their access to housing. As a result, old boomers are overrepresented by high house ownership and outright ownership where young boomers are overrepresented in the homeless population because they missed their chance to get on that train when they were young.
And you see this in a lot of generations – where half of the generation got wiped out by a recession because it hit right when they were hitting the job market, and the other half got their footing before it hit, etc.
Kay
@tam1MI:
They have a candidate they’re for – Walz. I understand that Gaza is inconvenient for our current political project but it is, in fact, happening and they oppose US policy there. That’s permitted in the Democratic Party.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ll admit to having Cal license plates holders, but given I live in the heart of ‘Furd territory, it’s required least my degree be revoked.
(For those not in the know, UC Berkeley and Stanford have a rivalry that’s well over a century old. Though it’s somewhat friendly because we recognize each other as academic peers, which is why we’re united in our hatred of U$C in LA.)
M31
@m.j.:
The davenport diddler
the inter-sectional
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
If I were to imagine this as the single issue affecting my vote, the issue I keep running into is most Democrats of enough prominence to run for VP have gone along with slandering pro-Palestine protestors as necessarily anti-Semitic and supporting the ham fisted responses from most universities.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Will my jackal status be revoked if I say I’d be happy with any of the VP possibilities? I’m willing to let the Harris team do their analysis and pick the person they think best.
@Sister Golden Bear: I think that’s allowed. It’s subtle. :-)
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’d prefer not to go back to the Democratic Party pretending Gaza isn’t happening. That wasn’t a success.
Of course they object to Shapiro saying Palestinians are subhuman. I object to it too. I’m just willing to believe he was 20, he’s moderated his views, and white suburbanites are going to want an economic centrist who looks and speaks like they do. They have a different analysis and want Walz. I accept the center and Right of the Democratic Party. I think the center and Right should reciprocate and accept the Left.
jackmac
@tam1MI: Slightly off topic, but a testimony to the Obama campaign’s organizational abilities was how they stole blood red Indiana (INDIANA!!) from the GOP in 2008. It was a narrow victory but the first time in 44 years that a Dem presidential nominee won the state.
SiubhanDuinne
Came across a fine meme today, written by a non-American. ROFLMAO, as the kids used to say.
AM in NC
@KatKapCC: We have a winner!
Pika
@Kay: Liz Allen was a student of mine!
Martin
@Chief Oshkosh: Yeah, but it got real for everyone. I agree that was a component for why overall turnout went up, but we also know that there was more organizing done in 2020 starting after Harris was picked than there was in 2016 and it was constantly tied back to the organizing boost that happened in 2008 starting in the primaries. And all of these had downstream impacts on young people because we’re picking candidates that best reflect the vision of the future that young people have (they aren’t invested in the identity of the candidate so much as they are invested in living in a country that isn’t so racist or sexist, and the candidate is a vehicle to that goal), so that organizing effort works particularly well on them.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
They have now taken that rivalry to [checks notes, rubs eyes, checks notes again] the ACC.
I will never forgive the bastards who blew up the Pac 12 in pursuit of mo money, mo money, mo money.
K-Mo
@Kay: I agree with you. Coming and going.
We are looking for a right-ish white dude to mollify the well-off suburbanites that liked Reagan. Both through right-leaning economics and by being masculine. Shapiro had the jaw line and Kelly has the right stuff.
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: Look, hatred for USC is universal, I can assure you.
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think most of us would agree that the worst of the 6 is a ‘B’ tier candidate. None of them are losers. We’re arguing over who deserves the ‘A’.
tam1MI
And I am hopeful that US policy will change for the better vis a vis Gaza should Harris get in. (And I like Walz, too). And I don’t like Shapiro as a V.P. candidate because of the many negatives that have been surfaced about him – at this point, he is giving me real Andrew Cuomo vibes. But going after the (at the time) only Jewish candidate under consideration is just horrible optics no matter how you slice it. The proponents of a better US policy on Gaza had to know that. They can’t have been that dumb.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Am I misreading you or are you suggesting that Walz is the centrist/right choice here? I don’t want to argue with something you aren’t saying.
Ramona
@RaflW: It seems to me that Putin’s chief interest was in getting back the Russian assassin who was being held by Germany. This bolsters your (and Cheryl Rofer’s) argument because there is no way TFG would be even interested in establishing diplomatic negotiations with Germany to have Putin’s assassin released.
HumboldtBlue
OK, another 500 it is…
SatanicPanic
I’m not concerned about Harris being accused of not loving Jews enough. That’s a fucking weird ass thing to say about someone married to one. Yes there are bigots out there in mixed race marriages (ahem.. JD Vance). But I just don’t see it working on her.
I don’t think the average American is as obsessed with Jews like the right wing is. They’re either Nazis over there who hate Jews or fundamentalists who think they are key to the end times. The rest of us, I dunno, Jewish people are just a white ethnicity like Ukrainians or Mormons. That’s my half-assed take anyway.
Chris
@Martin:
“Old enough to remember 9/11, but too young to remember the Wall coming down” = Millennial.
Belafon
@Kay: Are they both permitted though? And do all sides agree that both are permitted?
KatKapCC
@SatanicPanic: Um. Without wading into the details of the protests, I think it has been made quite clear over the past nearly-10 months that “the average American” absolutely has less than positive feelings about Jews, and many of them are not on the right. I don’t think many goyim realize just how many and how virulent the antisemitic attacks have been. There has always been a much deeper strain of Jew hate in this country than a lot of people want to recognize. Jews have always known it, and acting like it only exists among a few weirdo neo-Nazis on the right is only contributing to the problem.
sdhays
@Chris: Not completely. I’m a millennial, and I remember the Berlin Wall coming down. I’m definitely on the “old” side of millennial, but at least that doesn’t describe all millennials.
HumboldtBlue
closer…
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Belafon: Opposing Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians has always been a fringe position among Democrats and verboten to Republicans.
Our current President has gone farther to seek balance on the Palestine/Israel issue than any other. His fellow partisan elites and the media decided he wouldn’t be allowed to run again…
Martin
@K-Mo: Please tell me you’re channelling DougJ.
There is no polling I have seen thus far to indicate the electorate is looking for any of that. The well off suburbanites that liked Reagan are 65+ and a declining share of the electorate. The median age voter was born in 1974. They were 6 when Reagan was elected.
None of the electorate is looking for right-leaning economics. 62% of voters want a $15 minimum wage (this might start suffering in the states where minimum wage is higher than that). 70% of republicans want paid family leave. 79% support raising taxes on the rich.
This is some Mark Penn bullshit.
tam1MI
To expand on this:
Old enough to remember the assassination of John Lennon but too young to remember the assassination of John Kennedy= Generation Jones
Old enough to remember the death of Kurt Cobain but too young to remember the death of John Lennon= Gen X
Old enough to remember the death of John Kennedy but too young to remember Pearl Harbor= Baby Boomers
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@KatKapCC: But at least anti-Semitism rates as a topic of discussion.
Anti-Muslim bias is just flat out accepted everywhere, encouraged.
Ramona
@RaflW: In my opinion, “definitely” rather than “apparently”. You can add Reagan and GWB to the list of men who act out their inter-generational trauma on the rest of us.
Belafon
AP posting on Daily Kos: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/2/2260143/-Harris-secures-enough-Democratic-delegate-votes-to-be-party-s-nominee?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s a keeper!
Martin
What? In polling a plurality of Americans say Israel is committing genocide. Among Democrats its 56/22. Among Republicans it’s 23/55. More Republicans think Israel is committing genocide than Democrats think they aren’t.
C’mon man.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC: As a goy who is close to some Jewish people, I was shocked to my core at how quickly antisemitism was spun up an brought into the open. The easy conflation of Judaism and Jews with Israel, Israeli politics, and Zionism was pretty revealing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: Knowing what “the Wall” means is a marker, too.
KatKapCC
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: While I would never deny that there is Islamophobia rampant in the US, and that it certainly exists on the left, I don’t see it being “accepted and encouraged” in leftist spaces.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
It occurred to me when I wrote that that I’d dearly love for “I saw the Wall come down” to be an equally memorable thing to say during my lifetime, but about a rather different wall.
Splitting Image
@Villago Delenda Est:
It meant that Roger was becoming impossible for the other three to work with.
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin: Yes, shit got real for everyone. The olds ended up doing a lot more to keep boats afloat. The young, OTOH, mainly had a lot more time on their hands to actually watch the shit getting real. At least for my students and various younger cousins and nephews/nieces, more of that time was spent looking hard at how the world worked than otherwise would’ve been the case. Just recollections of times gone by at this point, and maybe unique to my circles, but there seemed to be a lot more Ah Ha moments of “that pig fucker is going to get me killed, I better get my poop in a pile and vote!” Possibly that effect, if it was real, was additive with the effect of having Harris on the ticket.
Ramona
@wjca:
@Dave:
That’s the thing about stupid; rational and logical can be predicted. Stupid is sheer nonsense!
@Kent:
NotMax
Have we ever had a competent cook in charge of the country?
Ike does burgers.
And when it came to steak….
:)
Captain C
@tam1MI:
Maybe. As someone who’s solidly in the middle of the X cohort, I remember well John Lennon’s death (I was…9?…at the time). Of course, I was a bit more clued into the news at that age than my fellow 4th graders, so I’m likely a bit of an outlier. My memory of Presidents (at least existing) goes back to Ford.
KatKapCC
@Omnes Omnibus: And yet, people will still deny it and gaslight us into thinking it barely exists and isn’t a problem worth worrying about. Which tells you a lot about the person saying so.
The fact that you can have crowds — of definitely NOT right wingers — chanting things like “gas the Jews” and “kill the hostages”* and “Talmudic devils” and the like and people will still hand-wave it away is…yeah.
(*some of whom are AMERICANS, I would note)
Martin
@Chris: Someone described GenX as ‘too old to have Facebook in college’. The last traditional GenX would have been 24 when it launched.
But it’s the economic conditions when people hit adulthood that some researchers say has lasting impact. If you start out behind, the conditions that follow are usually never good enough to catch you back up and so that becomes a permanent mark on that generation.
AM in NC
@Spanish Moss: It’s where I’m from, and my extended family still live there. I would travel home for a meet up, Cher.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Sheesh, where do these people come from?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Martin: Polling has been and continues to be crap. I look at what the politicians and relevant private-sector leaders are doing and saying.
The discussion on the news is always about anti-Semitism and violent protesters and campus disruptions. The culture has been hostile to the Palestinian position for a long time.
Let’s suppose for a moment that the polling is right, though. This has been going on for decades and I’m glad people are suddenly getting hip to the fact of the atrocities being committted, but it does not reflect in our leaders or major institutions.
Instead people get mad and they are met with arrest and derision. Elected Democrats have been consistently supportive of this.
I think back a few years when Kennedy vacated his Congressional seat in my district. He drew a crowd of about a dozen to replace him. As I went through all of their policy positions, something really stuck in my craw. Save for one, all of them made statements of unflinching, unequivocal support for Israel.
The one who didn’t came in a distant third in the primary. The guy who won, Auchincloss, happened to be the one with an actual history of explicit anti-Muslim bigoted statements. Granted, I doubt the election turned on that issue.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Bingo!
However, this is more than a one person’s complaint. Joe is old. Hell I’m old and 6 yrs younger than him. And I wonder if I’ll be in his health level in those years. He seems great for his age. And I’m saying this because I live in a federal program seniors apt complex where one has to be at the spry age of 55 or older to rent here. The oldest person I know of in the complex is 98 and still rides around on her 4 wheel combo bike/old fart scooter. And I walk a couple miles 3-4 times a week and retired only about 1 1/2 years ago. And a bit over 1/2 of the residents still work.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Because it isn’t. I’m talking about mainstream, run of the mill, FTFNYT reading, totebagging centrist Democrats and the media that has them in their thrall.
raven
@AM in NC: Unfortunately my friends who had a house at St Ann and Burgundy sold it.
Chris
@Martin:
I think you’re onto something there.
My sister graduated college right at the new millennium, into that good Clinton economy that would endure for most of the Dubya era. I… was part of the first graduating class to hit the economy in the Great Recession.
It’s shaped our worldviews. We’re both Democrats, but she’s definitely more of a Third Wayer, and I’m definitely more of an economic radical.
Or when it comes to our other country: she doesn’t hold her nose when voting Macron. I do.
Kay
@tam1MI:
But again – this leads me to ask- what would be an appropriate way to oppose US policy in Gaza? Because they oppose it. You know as well as I do that Shapiro writing that about any other minority group in this country would be disqualifying. He wrote they have some kind of “terror brain” or something – some intrinsic propensity for violence and inability to self govern. It’s appalling.
They want Walz. Of course they’re seizing on it. Just like everyone else in this stupid party they’re allowed to express a preference and lobby for an outcome.
KatKapCC
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Okay, sure. I hear you. But again — you seem to be making this an either/or thing. There is both rampant Islamophobia and rampant antisemitism in this country. And you seem to be saying “It’s okay for people to scream “gas the Jews” and to stalk the streets of a Jewish neighborhood with baseball bats because centrist Dems will say antisemitism is bad”. I don’t get why you’re insisting on setting up a competition here. Just because some people are willing to recognize that a prejudice is bad doesn’t mean it’s okay for that prejudice to exist.
SatanicPanic
@KatKapCC: fair enough but I think that sort of adds to my point that Americans aren’t super concerned about whether or not Kamala Harris loves Jews enough.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@KatKapCC: I’m not trying to make it a competition. I’m saying one gets ignored almost entirely while the other gets months of blanket coverage in the media to discredit those who hate neither and support peace.
ETA: I literally can not tell someone more than 2 years older than I am that I support Palestine in my real life interactions without their first and immovable reaction being “so you support Hamas?”
SiubhanDuinne
At 6 hours in and 520 comments, this thread is averaging approximately 1.4 comments per minute.
(N.B.: IANAM)
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@SiubhanDuinne: Damn, that’s like the old days. Seems we’re coming back to life.
Kay
@K-Mo:
Maybe Kelly is less divisive. Unions don’t really care about his vote on the Pro Act. The Pro Act is aspirational – they knew it was never going to pass and they were 12 votes short – that’s a lot. Kelly wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. Also Senators seem to like him – like Walz in the House he seems to be well liked among his colleagues. That matters.
danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
A TBogg unit!
Baud
Isn’t Pritzker on the short list too? He never comes up here.
SatanicPanic
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: if someone ever says that to me I’m going to go “that stuff people put on pita bread? Not really, it gives me gas”.
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Donald Trump literally uses Palestinian as a slur – hurls it at people like “pedophile!” – and it barely gets mentioned. He does this every day. Americans are like “that’s fine”.
Baud
@Kay: Eh, that’s a bad example. Donald Trump does a slew of offensive things that Americans are seemingly “fine” about.
Kay
@Baud:
Not here but he has a big fan base among progressives and did before Biden stepped aside.
Suzanne
@Leto: I made the Andy joke more than once.
Geminid
@SatanicPanic: The attempts I see Republicans make to portray Harris and other Democrats as anti-Israel have been very clumsy. They are undercut by the fact that the rightward fringe of the “America First” movement is explicitly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
And its not hard to see that while a lot of Republicans idolize Jewish people when they are 5,000 miles away, they are much more ambivalent when it comes to the Jewish Americans who live among them.
Kay
@Baud:
Have you heard any national Democrats raise it? “Donald Trump is using the name of this entire group of people as a slur?” They may have and I missed it. This isn’t the first time this bias has come up in the US. Remember the War On Terror?
Ramona
@Leto: I grew up reading British boarding school books aimed at young audiences, both for boys and for girls. And, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books just struck me as an age-old genre with the twist of magic thrown in. I was never a fan but I thought it a good thing that it got children excited about reading.
I got dragged to two showings of every Harry Potter movie by good friends who lived in different cities. It always seemed ridiculous to me that Harry faced the most danger at Hogwarts and yet it was deemed the superior option for him to attend that school.
Baud
@Kay:
I haven’t, but I haven’t really been paying attention.
ETA: He slurs Dems every day and I can’t say I’ve heard anyone push back on that either.
Old School
Oooo – new Sarah Cooper!
Belafon
@K-Mo: Why? Is that what got Obama elected?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
And for basically everyone except Muslims and Muslim-coded populations abroad on the wrong end of our weapons, we would expect Democrats to call them on this. Resist them and whatnot.
Kay
@Baud:
I mean, wouldn’t you expect the party of civil rights and diversity to defend on that? He calls Chuck Schumer a Palestinian. That seems like an opening to me for Chuck Schumer to say using them as a slur is wrong, because Chuck Schumer is in a very solid position to do that and “Palestinians” are not.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
The Americans who listen to enough of his speeches to know what he actually says, yes. But they’re in the tank for TFG.
Most remotely gettable voters have no idea that he uses Palestinian as an epithet, because the news does such a good job of cleaning him up.
Geminid
@Kay: The “Nomadic Warriors for Pritzger” account certainly favors Jay Pritzker. They see the Vice Presidency as a stepping stone to a nationwide Khanate with Chicago as the summer Capital and Springfield the winter Capital. Gotta vary the grazing.
Kay
@Baud:
You know Republicans attacking Dems is not the same as Republicans attacking (and dehumanizing) Palestinians.
tam1MI
@Kay: But again – this leads me to ask- what would be an appropriate way to oppose US policy in Gaza?
Well, you could try running and voting for candidates for Congress that reflect your view on the matter so they in turn can influence US policy. But whenever I bring up that option I keep getting told it just can’t be done because Reasons.
But I think we’re talking past each other a little bit here. You are asking what tactics would be appropriate, and I am commenting on whether or not those tactics are effective. And I happen to think that coming out in opposition to only one candidate for vice president, and not the other candidates who shared his views, and making that candidate notable for being the only one that had organized opposition within the party, and, finally, having the only thing that makes that candidate different from other candidates who shared his opinion being that he was Jewish, gave his supporters a ready-made talking point that the basis of the opposition wasn’t his policy, but the fact that he was Jewish. Which strikes me as being a very ineffective way to go about things.
Martin
@KatKapCC: I would also caution people that it’s very hard to separate the scale of something like racism from the intensity of it. A relatively few people can do a fucking ton of damage to a community, and there’s a survivors bias there as well – you usually don’t register the not-racist people to contextualize well.
I’m not trying to downplay it, just that jumping from personal experience to national demographics is hard. Anti-black racism is obviously still a huge problem but it wasn’t quite enough to stop Obama getting elected.
Kay
@Geminid:
I like him too. Happy warrior. But right now we need a suburban moderate or the ridiculous swing voters will bolt like frightened herd animals. Republicans haven’t even brought up Harris’ Lefty parents yet, but they will.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Disagree here. Democrats certainly have taken many opportunities to point out the violent rhetoric he uses against political opponents, the misrepresentations of policy, the nonsensical personal insults.
They do a still more rigorous job pushing back against both bigoted statements and laws meant to hamper the rights of a wide range of racial and sexual minorities.
The exception here are Muslims broadly, Palestinians specifically, and weirdly Biden.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m not going to do any research on this. My only point is that Donald Trump being offensive is a bad example.
sdhays
@Baud: Well, a few days ago, (seemingly incorrect) reports said it was down to Shapiro, Kelly, and Walz. There hasn’t been much discussion of Beshear or Buttigieg either for that reason. At least from what I’ve seen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I don’t think that using Trump as the marker for what is and is not acceptable behavior is valid. Also, given the firehose of garbage that comes out of his mouth, I don’t think a failure to object to any specific statement of his constitutes acceptance of that statement.
That being said, we can do a lot better than we are doing.
Mousebumples
Just got a text poll of Wisconsin residents. When I said I didn’t want to disclose my gender, I didn’t qualify. *eyebrow raise
sdhays
@Mousebumples: Gender: mouse
Mousebumples
@sdhays: lol, yes. I do identify as female, but why does that matter for the first question of a poll?
If you ask after the other questions, I’d consider you more legit.
KatKapCC
@Kay: And there is a long history of bigots using “Jew” as an accusatory slur against anyone they don’t like. Heck, they’ve called Pelosi a Jew — you know, the woman who got Communion in the Vatican.
Both are wrong. Both are cruel and evil and twisted. We do not need to make one worse than the other. It is wrong to hate anyone for their identity. That should not be complicated nor controversial.
Martin
@Mousebumples: Yep. One of the biggest problems in demographic polling is how to handle this. On the way to making a world where gender doesn’t matter, you have to collect gender information to measure if it’s working or not, forcing it to matter. It is a trap that is really hard to escape.
But yeah, without your gender they don’t know who you are a representative sample of, which begs the question ‘what if there’s a group of voters that isn’t captured in the options provided’ and now they’re not part of the poll at all.
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I keep hoping Corey Booker will step up. He defended the judicial candidate who they blocked for no other reason than he was a Muslim. A Pakistani American. NJ has a solid Muslim population. That’s why Christie defended them. I think Booker is decent so might do it anyway but I don’t think it hurts that he has to go back to NJ and talk to actual Muslim constituents who vote for him.
Martin
@Mousebumples: Usually you do demographics up front because if you spend all your time on the poll questions and don’t get that, you have to throw the response away. It’s just an efficiency thing.
M31
@sdhays: Gender: bumples
lol didn’t Biden say, when asked how many genders there were, replied “at least 3”?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I agree with you here. Technically. I have a hard time believing you, though, considering that one is already considered worse than the other. One is damn near encouraged.
It’s giving…”All Lives Matter” type vibes.
Martin
GM killed the Malibu today. That was the last American sedan being manufactured. There’s nothing left but light trucks.
Kay
@KatKapCC:
The Democratic Party should defend when an entire group of people are dehumanized, whether those people are Jewish or Arab and/or Muslim. Except they don’t defend when they’re Muslim. It;s a problem. They need to get better. In my view the Araba Americans in Michigan have an absolutely valid beef with this party. They’re right.
206inKY
@CaseyL: I doubt it…except maybe KY. Beshear is currently the single most popular Democratic governor in the country and 2nd overall. From Louisville Public Media:
https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-07-24/kentuckys-andy-beshear-most-popular-democratic-governor-survey-finds
I would prefer Walz or Pete, no doubt. They are communicators who can deliver a hard punch to the face; Andy exudes kindness, reassurance, and good manners. He is the opposite of an attack dog (see, for example, his apology to people who drink Diet Mountain Dew). Part of why his brutal abortion ads were so effective is that he had earned trust by being relentlessly polite to his opponents for four years. He goes out of his way to emphasize his duty to all people of Kentucky including Republicans. Three months simply isn’t enough time to build that sort of reputation on a national scale.
But if Harris does choose Andy, it’s going to be MADNESS in Kentucky. We will be running a full-court press to put KY in the blue column without any national funding or support necessary. We already know what to do from 2019 and 2023 and nobody outside KY has to pay attention or believe until election night.
prostratedragon
56
45th!The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Kay: You know I’ve been trying to avoid you but I can’t let that go without thanking you for that genuinely important piece of knowledge you passed along.
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Is it possible that we just have more to be pissed about?
Kay
@KatKapCC:
And you can say “well, would they like Republicans better?”
No, but Republicans don’t idenitfy themselves as the party of civil rights and religious tolerance and diversity and Democrats do. Which is why 70% of Arab Americans in Michigan were voting for Democrats. We’re not living up to it and we can improve.
Martin
Bloomberg might lose some of their WH access. They leaked the prisoner exchange before it was complete, possibly jeopardizing it. Breaking that kind of embargo is about as big a sin a news publication can commit.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Liar.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@Ken:
Martin Van Buren and the Dutch underworld.
Baud
Some good news.
Not sure how mainstream they are, but it’s something.
Martin
@206inKY: If his name wasn’t Beshear, would he have gotten elected in the first place? I’m skeptical. I think his popularity in the state is greased very heavily by his name, which has NO juice outside the state.
Geminid
@Kay: One thing I’ve noticed about Jay Pritzger is that he has attracted talented Democrats to his campaigns. Quentin Folks is one example. He is chief deputy campaign manager for the Harris campaign. Before that Folks oversaw a $100 million dollar budget when he was Raphael Warnock’ 2022 campaign manager.
Folks is only 34 years old. His first political campaign was Pritzger’s 2018 election campaign. The head of Emily’s Last brought Folks along from Washington when she hired on with Pritsker.
Rep. Nikki Budzinski, WaterGirl’s new Congresswoman, also worked on Pritzger’s first campaign for Governor. When he won, Budzinski headed up Pritzger’s transition and then became Pritzger’s key negotiator with the Illinois legislature.
As a University of Illinois undergraduate, Budzinski interned in the offices of Rep. Richard Gephart and Senator Paul Simon; also Planned Parenthood. After graduation Budzinski worked for national unions until she hired on with the 2016 Clinton campaign. She was working as chief of staff for Biden’s OMB Director when the new Illinois map came out in 2021 and she filed for the 13th CD.
At the time, Republicans complained that the district was drawn with Budzinski in mind and they were probably right.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
Usually you do? I’ve responded to dozens of telephone polls and the demographic questions have almost always come at the end. (In fact, I don’t remember them ever not coming at the end, the ‘almost’ is only there to allow for a faulty memory.)
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
lol. I genuinely like how blunt you are.
The Muslim constituency thing is fascinating. It came to general notice with this Michigan group but like all the other Dem constituencies it was just a matter of time before they started using their clout where they have it.
Isn’t coalition politics fun? Like a dysfunctional family.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I mean maybe. Not me, though. I don’t think my anger could possibly reach the heights they did in 2016.
Nowadays my mood is better characterized by long periods of cautious optimism punctuated by days of deep, deep dismay.
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Same. Time has hardened my heart since then.
Baud
Damn. The women’s beach volleyball uniforms have actually gotten skimpier.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Must be a function of my consumption habits.
Constituencies do play a major role and I am happy to see Muslims growing in influence in some areas and providing perspectives that have been seriously lacking in our national conversation among several issues, not just ones pertaining to Muslim identity.
prostratedragon
@Baud: 😉
topclimber
I’m going to get a jump on the next big BJ flareup, which I think will be the platform that comes out of the Democratic Convention this month.
I hope there is a movement to get beyond the anodyne “two state solution” and a call for an end to Israeli apartheid. It’s not the loaded word that genocide is and it is the damn truth.
KatKapCC
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Seriously? The “all lives matter” people were white people getting mad about others caring about Black folks — i.e. privileged people wanting to be centered in a conversation about discrimination and bigotry. I’m sure you’ll disagree with this, but Jews are not privileged. Neither are Muslims. We are both minority groups who experience hatred against us. You keep insisting that every single non-Muslim is 100% okay with Islamophobia, but that no non-Jews are okay with antisemitism. So I really don’t know where to go here. I think Jews experience hatred and they should not. I think Muslims experience hatred and they should not. But you keep pushing back on the former. So…okay. That’s who you are.
topclimber
@Baud: Next they won’t even wear pants! Talk about weird.
Ruckus
@Baud:
No one bothers to push back because in that shallow, simple mind of his he NEVER considers anyone else to be at his mental level. And he’s probably correct, it’s just that no one else wants to stoop to his level.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
Elderly narcissistic convicted felon Mr. D.J. Trump used Palestinian as an epithet during the “debate” with Joe Biden.
Anyone listening heard it. (I did. (Was listening, not watching the video feed.))
Baud
@Bill Arnold:
There’s only one thing that people took from the debate and it had nothing to do with Donald Trump.
Baud
@topclimber:
I bet Pornhub would provide better coverage than NBC.
Mousebumples
@lowtechcyclist: same. That’s why I was skeptical, wondering if it was a push poll. All online, so I wasn’t wasting the time of anyone on the phone.
Uncle Cosmo
@PAM Dirac: And then they swarm over Oriole Park whenever the Sawx come to town. For a number of years whenever the Blowsox or Skanks were in town the infestation was so bad it felt like a road game for the Os.
Geminid
@topclimber: The “Two State” solution is in my opinion the best and only practical way to get beyond the current situation. That is why many of the nations closest to the conflict, such as Jordan, Egypt, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pushing it.
This is also the position of EU countries and the UK , China, and Japan, and most other countries favor it as well. It is very unlikely that the Democratic platform will advocate otherwise.
206inKY
@Martin: The name ID didn’t hurt, but Andy has generated much more enthusiasm, popularity, and prominence than his dad ever did.
I still remember knocking on one person’s door in 2019 who said they hadn’t been canvassed by a Democratic governor’s campaign in over 20 years. Beshear knocked out a Trump-endorsed incumbent in that election, Matt Bevin, by driving home a singular message about teacher pay and retirement. Then in 2023 he did it again with abortion. Both times he successfully appealed to the importance of manners in public life.
I don’t see him gaining that much traction outside of KY, but I have no doubt he can win a Senate seat. He’s beloved here.
Uncle Cosmo
The Hop is a curious case – a world-class med school on Broadway sutured to a not-quite-Ivy undergraduate/graduate school up Charles St. Compounded by the fact that getting into JHU is considered top-tier by us Baltimorons even though it’s probably easier for a local to be accepted than for someone out of state. That decal on the rear window was something of a brag here in Churn City. (And yes we had them when I was there, BA Physics 1971, and yes I probably had one on the back of my car then.)
Citizen Alan
@Ramona: You should try wading into the thicket of HP fanfiction. The nearly universal consensus of the fanfiction community is that Albus Dumbledore is actively evil and has consistently and deliberately endangered Harry’s life since before he was born.
topclimber
@Geminid: Perhaps I was unclear. If you want a two-state solution you have to agitate for it. Calling out apartheid is a good start. Americans don’t want to fund it any more than they did its South African version, at least in the decade leading up to its demise.
Do I think the Convention will do that? Nope. But some chunk of delegates, perhaps. I think it will get air time, divisive or not. It’s a start.
Kay
@tam1MI:
Thank you for the explanation. I don’t agree that they opposed him because he was Jewish. They opposed him because he took more actions than the other governors. For example – he wanted Ben and Jerrys – a private company- sanctioned for refusing to supply in the occupied territories. The occupied territories are unlawful – Ben and Jerrys were on absolutely solid legal ground to supply Israel (which they did) but not the unlawful settlements, but Shapiro wanted them punished.
There continues to be this belief that these protestors don’t know a lot about these issues. They really do. They examine records, statements, etc. and not just of Jewish politicians – when Hillary Clinton made her (dumb) claim that they were poorly informed and referenced a proposed map they pulled up that map and took her argument apart. They had the better side of it too. Thinking you’re going to beat 21 year old college students on researching a counter is a mugs game. They’ll win.
Ruckus
@Martin:
The US auto manufactures seemingly were waiting for people to get tired of smallish cars and go back to seemingly mid sized. I believe it was also the quality issues or at least the impression that US cars were not all that and bag of cookies. They had improved quite a lot but that impression was hard/impossible to overcome. And I have a 2016 Ford smallish car, not the smallest they made but close and that was about the time all the US manufactures screwed themselves by not building the size cars that more and more people were willing to purchase. They were stuck in the mindset of 10-15 yrs prior and a lot of dealers didn’t help because that meant their profits would shrink as well – they didn’t consider anything different. Their only savior was pickup trucks. The other side was the manufacturing process. Other companies, especially those from the far east, Japan, Korea, etc started out with small vehicles and had to add factories to build anything much bigger than an early Toyota or Nissan.
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
My point was that while things have improved, been brought forward, eyes opened, has it been enough, has it gone far enough?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Oh, I see what’s wrong. We’re dealing with a lack of reading comprehension. I didn’t say anything remotely like that.
I’ll say again, for the last time, my issue is the way the media and cynical authority figures have weaponized claims or anti-Semitism to promote the most.violent ends of Islamophobia.
We get months of blanket coverage of poorly sourced, frequently trumped up, analytically skewed claims of anti-Semitism to protect America’s worst current diplomatic stance. This is a critical, life or death issue for people who are subject to state-sponsored mass murder. Actively. Right now.
Who is threatening whom with what? Who has the actual power to follow through on those threats? What is our government’s role in all of this?
Ponder on those questions a bit and you may realize why I’m getting All Lives Matter from you.
Geminid
@topclimber: I am sorry that misinterpreted your comment. I still think the Convention platform will not break new ground in this area. There could be a floor fight though, as you suggest.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ruckus: Don’t be silly. There’s always more to do until either we’re all dead or achieve some sort of societal level of enlightenment*.
*This is also the only way I can ever see communists’ ideas ever taking hold. Nice as they sound.
Kay
@tam1MI:
This is a good rundown including the Ben and Jerrys situation.
I think if you look at it you’ll see he is not “exactly the same” on the issue as any other Democrat.
I still think he’s probably the best choice both for “moderate” and for “Pennsylvania” (both of which we need) but Kelly also checks those swing state/moderate boxes, so either/or.
artem1s
@RaflW:
Please proceed?
K-Mo
@Martin: I’m not talking about policy per se. I’m talking about personality, and vibe. Shapiro dominated PA against a MAGA schmuck by playing to the middle.
And I’m not talking about people who actually voted for Reagan IRL. I’m talking about a demographic. Mushy middle white guys who can be convinced to get a bad vibe regarding a black woman supporting progressive policies.
evodevo
@CaseyL:
That’s why I’m thinking Walz would be the best choice.
K-Mo
@Belafon: 20 years ago Obama exploded onto the scene with his “there’s no red state there’s no blue state” shtick. Most talented politician of my lifetime. One of one. 4 years ago Biden captured just enough of these guys by being a regular Joe / a white guy from Scranton whose basic pitch was “Cmon guys”
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@K-Mo: I loved Obama. I wanted Obama to be right. Then Red America showed themselves.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
HP fanfiction
I miss the heady days of Compaq fanfiction.
“Is that a dongle or are you just glad to see me?”
//
AM in NC
@raven: That IS unfortunate.
It makes me unreasonably happy that my kids (North Carolina natives) both love NOLA and appreciate its unique attributes.
K-Mo
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: He was right about how to get elected as a blank person in 🇺🇸
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@K-Mo: That is some comfort.
Ruckus
There is a reason that I call him shitforbrains. And there is a reason that no one questions who I mean.
He is and always has been shitforbrains. It’s just that enough morons voted for him to be president that he got elevated in stature. He’s never been above 600 feet below ground level, mentally. He needed family money not to be seen as completely mentally useless, because he never would have earned any position in life above bum on a street corner otherwise. Except most of the bums I’ve seen can at least start a fire and cook a hot dog and/or stay warm. He’d never have managed that. And now, what little actual mind he had, is fleeing, like it almost always does. His is just running away at breakneck speed.
Ramona
@Citizen Alan: thanks for letting me know. I’ve tried to but wasn’t able to get into Harry Potter. My tastes are far too readily defined by my life circumstances at the time I am exposed to any particular exemplar of culture so there is no consistency across what does or doesn’t appeal to me. But, it’s good to know that there are some who see Dumbledore as not having Harry’s interests in mind.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Or un-coverage.
Ramona
@topclimber: Kudos to John Oliver last Sunday night for a hard-hitting piece on Israeli apartheid against Palestinians!
Tehanu
We have the Bavel cookbook — it was a gift from our son, because we took him there and we all loved the food. But we haven’t cooked anything from it yet!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ramona: And this is me going to my Max account…
way2blue
I’m beginning to believe in karma again. Grumpy old man Trump versus a beaming, fresh-faced Kamala. Too sweet!