Why does Vance have terrible advance work: tiny crowds, a “spontaneous” trip to a donut shop where nobody knew he was coming, appearing on a podium stacked with cardboard boxes?
Why was the Republican convention a low-key, muted, partially empty, boring event, especially when compared to this week’s Democratic event?
It’s because Trump (and his wholly-owned subsidiary, the RNC) isn’t raising money, and he’s not spending the money he has raised:
Since the start of 2023, Trump’s official campaign committee has spent a total $117 million, compared to $330 million from the Biden-turned-Harris operation over the same period. (That doesn’t include fundraising expenses from joint fundraising committees, or funds directed to other Trump groups for his legal bills.)
Trump continued to be massively outspent in July: His campaign reported spending $24.3 million, compared to $80.7 million in spending from the Biden-turned-Harris campaign committee.
More than half of the Trump campaign’s July spending, $14.1 million, went to paid media buys, $13.5 million of which came after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris on July 21. Direct mail ($3.4 million) and air travel ($3.3 million) accounted for the Trump campaign’s next-largest expense categories. The campaign also spent just shy of $1 million on polling.
The July spending total was a substantial increase for Trump’s operation, which had spent just shy of $10 million in June. Advertising — including TV, digital and mail — is among the easiest expense categories for campaigns to scale up in a relatively short time frame. Campaigns also get lower TV ad rates than outside groups in the months before an election.
But the totals for July were far less than what Trump was spending when he was seeking reelection four years ago. In July 2020, amid an election cycle altered by the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump’s campaign committee spent $65 million — including $34 million on placed media and $13 million on online and text message advertising. At that time, his campaign committee and the Republican National Committee also had a combined nearly 800 staffers on payroll, according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC data.
This July, the Trump campaign and the RNC had just over 300 staffers on payroll, FEC filings show. Meanwhile, the Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee had a combined roughly 1,100 staffers last month.
The Democratic convention was clearly an expensive event, and it should have been — the free media and attention garnered by a convention probably pays back the investment on the convention ten- or hundred-fold. I realize I’m in a bit of a bubble, but I sure don’t remember the Republican convention making much of an impact — it was a real “going through the motions” event. As for Trump’s campaign spending, I’ll bet there are Senate campaigns that spent $10 million in June. It’s just a pathetic effort.
The Trump superpacs are spending, of course, but some of them are run by billionaires with their own personal agendas, and if anything’s been clear in the past few years, it’s that the average Master of the Universe billionaire can barely handle assembling a ham sandwich left to their own devices, nevermind a political campaign organization.
None of this is to say that Trump’s underfunded campaign will lead to a Harris victory, but it’s hard for a bloodsucker to detach from the host once it’s gotten a good grip. Instead of draining the RNC dry, he’s going to have to run a real campaign, and that’s a big stretch for an old man with a tiny staff.
KatKapCC
My favorite part of the donut shop visit was the person who said “I don’t want to be on camera”. Contrast that with the happy photos from Walz’s visits to local restaurants where everyone is grinning for the photos
Also, damn you for that photo. I hate those things. The worst critter G-d ever created. Now it’s gonna be in my brain all day.
Downpuppy
The big story of the Republican convention was Trump’s horrible speech, and having fun afterwards yelling at the AP & everybody else who tried to report it without listening to it.
Also, Hulk Hogan, who later had to remind us what a terrible person he is.
So they could have made it bigger. It would have been an even bigger mess.
Eunicecycle
@KatKapCC: In the donut video, I chuckled when he introduced himself and the employee said, “Okay” looking very unimpressed.
Steve LaBonne
I am cautiously optimistic that likely voter models based on recent elections are not able to capture what’s happening with GOTV on the ground (including negative GOTV for Trump because his moldy old schtick is boring even Fox News to death) and consequently that Harris’s election result will outperform the polls.
RepubAnon
I expect Trump has spent all the money received on lawyers to defend Trump in his various criminal and civil cases. Or on other bills.
Trump drains businesses dry and then has them file bankruptcy. The RNC is about to learn that leeches aren’t their friend.
oldster
“…an old man with a tiny staff.”
Tee-hee! But I am sure that he keeps a tight grip on his staff at all times.
KatKapCC
Lordy, look at this close-up photo of the back of Vance’s hair. Was his barber blindfolded???
japa21
@KatKapCC: Even worse than RFKJr with his brain worms is having a brain lamprey
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The “event” at Disorb was basically 4 Seasons Total Landscaping v2.0.
I looked at it via Google street view and they were literally just inside the back loading dock. Hysterical.
Mowgli
@oldster: Barack Obama is having a chuckle.
Subcommandante Yakbreath
I think he’s planning a coup after the election. Being lazy and cheap, why should he expend energy and money now?
Downpuppy
@KatKapCC: Lampreys are creepy, but not nearly as annoying as the cute little chipmunks eating all our tomatoes.
Matt McIrvin
Especially weird given that the RNC wasn’t held under current conditions–it was basically Trump’s high point, when most people assumed he was cruising to a win and would get extra sympathy from the assassination attempt. Maybe they were overconfident–choosing J. D. Vance seems like the kind of red-meat move you do when you think you’re gonna have a landslide victory and want to spike the ball.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@KatKapCC:
There was a thread on twitter or bluesky about how his advance people must hate him. I’ll go with the more likely reason — when you pay shit, you get people who don’t know shit. I mean, is his body man some 20 year-old intern?
That whole donut shop thing was a perfect example of how bad advance work plus a terrible candidate can turn a VP pick into a fucking anchor around the neck of the campaign.
SW
I see what you did with that “tiny staff” thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC: You can see the moment when the barber looked into the waiting area and saw that Vance had defiled his couch.
oldster
@KatKapCC:
That’s a less-extreme form of a style of razor-cut very popular with alt-right fascists. That cut is sometimes even referred to as a “Hitler Youth.” Richard Spencer wears it.
Vance is trying to show his street-cred to the Groyper set, while toning it down a bit for the sheeple.
He’s not the victim of a bad barber. He is the willing follower of a wicked ideology.
lowtechcyclist
Why, I’m sure Lara Trump is ready to run a top-notch campaign if he decides to let the RNC keep some of the money it raises!
KatKapCC
@Downpuppy: I would take a thousand annoying adorable chipmunks over one of those hellbeasts above.
hitchhiker
So many great & spine-tingling moments last night, so much joy from imagining vultures like Susie Fucking Wiles and Chris Motherfucking LaCivita watching it all unfold — but one that I haven’t seen lifted up is Adam Kinzinger’s admission that he had profoundly misunderstood what Democrats are about.
The lunatics living in trumpworld will just call him a RINO and move on, but I’m betting that moment will sift and settle into the minds of the great not-paying-that-much-attention middle. I hope the Harris team puts it into whatever ad strategy they’re building out.
SatanicPanic
@Downpuppy: I remember some noise about Amber Rose’s speech too- analyzing how someone goes from organizing Slut Walks to joining MAGA (answer- attention seeking). But that was about it.
OzarkHillbilly
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. Funny guy, you are.
MattFa
I think Vance is in this because he’s looking ahead to Trump failing bigly, le
MattFa
[deleted]
KatKapCC
@oldster: Sure, but it’s messy as heck, too. Like as though the “Hitler Youth” who did the haircut was an actual toddler.
Frankensteinbeck
He owes $500 million dollars and that debt keeps getting closer to due. He’s saving every RNC penny for it. The big question is whether any outside group is covering for his lack of ground game, and how he’s robbing other Republican candidates of their money. I haven’t heard any answers there.
@KatKapCC:
I took a parasitology class in college. It gets so much worse. I’ll spare you even hints because that stuff is straight-up nightmare fuel.
@Subcommandante Yakbreath:
He doesn’t have an army. His reactions since Harris took over also make it plain he does not think he has this in the bag, so if there are bureaucratic or legal shenanigans in the offing, nobody told Trump.
sdhays
@Matt McIrvin: But it wasn’t a “red meat move”. It was a “biggest toady evar!” move. JD wouldn’t have a political career without Trump. Period. No one else on the list was that indebted to Trump, or had demonstrated the abject self-humiliation and groveling JD had to in order to secure Trump’s support.
That’s ultimately why he was chosen. No other candidate would have even put JD on the long list.
MattF
I think Vance is in this because he’s expecting Trump to have a psychological breakdown, leading to the inauguration of President Vance. It’s becoming less likely by the day, but his sponsors are the tech-bros who avidly seek low likelihood/high payoff possibilities, and this is a huge one.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Why should they bother? Some prosecutor would just come along and indict it. 😁
wjca
If he does that, keep a wary eye out for flying pigs!
Horatius
Mistermix is the master of double entendres.
Matt McIrvin
@Subcommandante Yakbreath: He can try! He surely will! But in 2020 and early 2021, he was the President. That gave him a lot of control he doesn’t have today. He could try to badger his Vice-President into refusing to certify the electoral vote. He could let the January 6th riot play out because he figured those guys liked him.
Anyone who thinks a coup is going to happen, and be successful, this time around has to explain why the conditions are more favorable than in 2020-21.
SatanicPanic
@hitchhiker: The left made a lousy show of love for America, because we love different things about America. And also because the foreign policy left got us to believe that saying we loved America was cheering on foreign wars.
Having travelled a lot I realized I love America. I love the people, our optimism, our creativity, our culture. And yeah, I love other countries too, but I am not moving to any of them. I don’t even think our political system is as bad as people make it out to be. Right now we’re talking about electing our 47th consecutive democratically elected head of state. And yeah, there are some caveats there, but 47 over almost 250 years is incredible. We must be doing a few things right to make it this far.
Frankensteinbeck
@sdhays:
JD had raised a couple of million for Trump from super-rich guys like Thiel. For Trump, I’m sure that’s the most important groveling of all. But damn, I admit, I’ve never seen toadying like Vance. You couldn’t even cast him as a cartoon character.
TBone
Snort, “tiny staff” snort!
KatKapCC
@MattF: The possibility that Vance thinks he could beat Harris is just…laughable would be putting it mildly.
terraformer
@lowtechcyclist: Indeed. I mean, it seemed obvious (at least to me) that once that horrid family took over the RNC, the goal was as it ever was: take the money and run (away, not a campaign). And that’s just what they’ll do.
Mr. Bemused Senior
That is no joke. What other strategy can he have?
Blue Galangal
I agree with everything you’ve said, with the addendum that I believe someone around here did predict that putting Lara Trump in charge of the RNC and firing all the experienced staff would lead to exactly this problem.
Also, didn’t I just see a headline that he’s grabbed 28 million of the donations for himself?
TBone
I’ll say it again: it’s like all his donors are paying for a dive on a shoddily built submersible.
There will be implosion.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
He’s acting like a man with no Plan B.
Captain C
@Frankensteinbeck:
A nonfiction book called Parasite Rex is probably the scariest and creepiest book I’ve ever read. 100% agree on the nightmare fuel description.
(edited for spelling)
Eunicecycle
@hitchhiker: I read somewhere about a guy who decided to listen to Obama “without hate in his heart” as he put it…and he was amazed! So people can break through sometimes.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@KatKapCC:
I think the Romans ate them.
TBone
Spirochetes are also fucked up nightmare fuel parasites. That is all.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Frankensteinbeck:
There were a number of pieces around Mar/Apr stating that the RNC was beginning to ramp up the ground game, then that stopped dead in its tracks as Felonious D underwent the ‘re-imagining’ of the RNC, ostensibly so he’d get all the money.,
Then we had all the reports about him outsourcing such ops to the Christian grifter Kirk and Turning Point USA and everybody wondering just how that would work given the lack of experience.
Now over the last couple of weeks, our Failed Political Media Corps have been running headlines about how the Trump ground game is becoming “more professional” (that from The Economist but other right-ish publications are saying the same thing; the WSJ calls it ‘Trumps Hidden Ground Game’).
What has be done differently? Not much, basically just doubling down on billionaire PACs being able to possibly throw money at the issue.
Hell, the Wa(com)Post and FTFNYT have run basically the same headline calling that stagety a “gamble”.
BR
@Matt McIrvin:
On balance I think it’s like 2020 — he doesn’t have the power of the presidency but he does have new GA voter suppression rules. We need to win NC — that’s the key in my mind.
Baud
It’ll be a few days before we saw how much of a bounce, if any, we got from the convention.
wjca
Kinda depends on how delusional he is, doesn’t it? Not at all sure I want to (OK, pretty damn sure I don’t want to) guess what is going on in his head right now.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: I don’t want to denigrate the feelings or motivations of people who are thinking they’re in danger in the US and are considering leaving. They’ve got legitimate reasons to fear.
But I also think they sometimes don’t realize how globally dangerous the fascist international is. It’s generally gaining in Europe. There’s been a huge, violent anti-immigrant freakout in the UK, spurred by bigoted tabloid media responses to a child-murder incident. The right took over in New Zealand. This is not just something that’s happening here. And we might even manage to hold it off, for a while at least.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@KatKapCC: “I’d like the Simple Jack, please….”
Jeffro
LOL
It’s a whole new concept, but it fits him perfectly!
#ETTD
Chris
Making it personal, I see.
Jeffro
true
he’ll probably start blabbing all about it any day now…he’s already done “we have all the votes we need” a few times. maybe some enterprising young reporter could get him to elaborate?
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: I didn’t mean it in that sense- if someone needs to flee, I support that. I just meant, I like living here more than I can imagine enjoying living somewhere else. Like yeah, our healthcare system sucks, but is anywhere more fun or cool than the USA? I’m not convinced. If you live in a blue state it’s even better.
sdhays
@KatKapCC: If he was the top of the ticket, I think Ohio just might be a swing state again. He slouched to victory in 2022, but his negative charisma is really on display this time.
Eunicecycle
@Baud: I believe I read Trump got no bounce from his convention. Of course Biden kinda stole his thunder on Sunday but there were several days of polling that should have shown a bounce if there was any.
Matt McIrvin
@BR: In 2020, Trump had a bunch of swing-state governments and legislatures in his pocket, which fueled the fake-electors scheme and Eastman’s crazy “sovereign legislature” theory. This time around, he doesn’t have that except maybe in Georgia.
So they’re pivoting to a scheme that is actually way dumber, about county election officials obstructing the whole state’s electoral count by refusing to certify. It seems to me that if that theory worked, it could have been used by the losing party to stop every election, and that’s sufficiently obvious that it’s going to be hard for judges to support.
narya
@Matt McIrvin: Things that have changed: (1) Additional voter suppression laws; (2) massive purges of registered voter lists; (3) election-deniers in positions of certification; (4) a SCROTUS that seems even more willing to let him do whatever he wants; (5) home-grown militias intent on interfering with voting (esp. at drop boxes). I know there are efforts to address many of these things, but it’s not an all-or-nothing strategy, it’s a sow-enough-doubt-and-confusion strategy, and its dispersed/disseminated nature makes it more difficult to counter. Do I think it’s dispositive? No. But I do think that at least some conditions are, in fact, worse than in 2020.
ETA correction
Ken
@sdhays: Exactly. Trump himself said that, when asked why he picked Vance. “He liked me more than anybody else”, something like that.
Jeffro
@TBone:
right??!
How hard is it to lose one election cycle? Especially when they could be putting their bucks into Senate races and ensuring that President Harris has to deal with a GOP Senate to get her nominees through??
How hard is it to see what trump’s malice and incompetence could cost them? Wasn’t his Covid non-response enough?
Me, I like both a) being able to live with myself and b) living. I guess they are built different.
BR
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, I think they’ll try it anyway despite how stupid it is. But with a win in enough swing states it’ll be very hard to pull off. But we need to make it happen.
One of the things I sense among virtually all Dems right now is that 2016 looms large and nobody is taking this for granted. It’s the right spirit — determined optimism.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
This is, in fact, one of the main reasons I haven’t thought all that seriously about leaving, despite the fact that I have two countries and my other country’s citizenship opens up the entire Eurozone. The fascist tide is on the rise everywhere. It’s not a great bet that I’d be safer anywhere else than I am here.
Matt McIrvin
@Eunicecycle: You can see a bounce in Trump’s favorable/unfavorable, but it was tiny (1-2 points) and is already dissipating. Meanwhile Harris’s took this rocket ride from way underwater to nearly even.
SatanicPanic
Unrelated to anything, I’m really enjoying this conversation between Uncle Luke and Kamala Harris from four years ago.
Aside from it showing how smart and empathetic Kamala Harris is, my teenage self would have never imagined a vice president sitting down with the guy from 2 Live Crew.
waspuppet
@Frankensteinbeck: His Plan B is “I’ll figure something out. I always do.” He literally said that in 2018.
Paradoxically, the Republicans were just re-crowning a (to them) incumbent, while we were celebrating someone new.
Baud
I don’t think we can underestimate how many voters didn’t know who Harris was before the convention and how many still don’t.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
… I mean, the “our healthcare system sucks” part of your statement has a big “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” energy to it.
Economics is probably the number one reason I could think of to feel compelled to leave the country, in fact.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: I’ve been traveling to other countries a lot over the past several years, before and after the pandemic hiatus… and there are many I enjoy being in, but they’re not my country. (The fact that they’re culturally different from my country is, in fact, part of the appeal as a visitor, but it makes them not home.) If I moved there I’d always be a foreigner, and some places deal with foreigners better than others. Most, actually worse than the US does.
oldster
@SatanicPanic:
“Having travelled a lot I realized I love America. ”
Ain’t it the truth. Nothing made me more American than living and working overseas for four years.
Prior to that, I was felt like a stranger in my own country, turned off by the flag-waving, out of sorts with the jingoism, fascinated by foreign cultures.
After that? America, fuck yeah.
And I had a great time in my four years! And I still love foreign cultures! But I learned the value of what we have, and I learned just how deeply American I am, no matter what I may have thought.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Chris:
My escape route was always going to be Crete. It’s cheap to live there, the climate is nice and the food is fantastic
Plus, while they speak Greek, they hate being governed by much, and were Greece to go fascist they’d simply ignore decrees from Athens.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
This. Living in a place is a lot different than visiting. And people will put up with a lot simply because it’s familiar
ETA : In Spanish, familiar means familial.
oldster
@KatKapCC:
Messy indeed. And the barber probably *did* make a mess of it. But if it had been high and tight, a real Peaky Blinders style razor cut, then the fascist affiliations would have been even clearer. My guess is that someone in the Trump campaign is telling him to tone it down a bit until after they get elected.
Ha! If we do our work right, that day will never come.
Tony G
@Downpuppy: To me that perfect symbol of the 2024 Republican Party is “Hulk Hogan” — a guy who was a fake tough guy and a horrible human being when he was at the height of his fame 35 years ago. At this point, anybody younger than 40 will look at that clown and wonder who the hell he is.
Matt McIrvin
@oldster: Symbolic jingoism is dumb and distasteful and the extent to which the US is into it is a specific negative of our culture. We are, no question, worse than most countries in that one regard.
But that’s not patriotism. It’s a hollow sham version of patriotism.
It does help to know where it came from. Most of our flags-and-anthems-and-pledges bullshit was a panic reaction to mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century. People felt that all these immigrants streaming in needed to be badgered into symbolic patriotism so they would be loyal to America. It was a silly fear, I think–people immigrate because they want to be here, and they’ve usually got some kind of reason.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Tony G:
I’ll never understand why Gawker Media threw in the towel as early as it did. Their material was clearly defensible.
JoyceH
@KatKapCC: He didn’t have to beat anyone. My assumption is that Vance joined the ticket because he figured Trump would win and then die.
3Sice
Last night he was confused, fearful, and panicked. Is it time to start the conversation about assisted living arrangements?
RevRick
@Frankensteinbeck: The plan is to not certify election results so that the election is thrown into the House, where each delegation gets one vote. The counter to that, in my opinion, is to refuse to seat any GOP Representatives in states that pull that shenanigans.
KatKapCC
@oldster: GASP. Do not mention Vance’s name in the same breath as anything related to Cillian Murphy. Blasphemy.
ArchTeryx
Right how the Republicans are running on what they’ve always run on, and all too often successfully: Negative partisanship with a billion dollars in dark money to push that message.
It’s gotten to the point where they’re calling Minnesota, Minnesota, a strange and un-American state because it has… German and Swedish immigrants in it. And their cult will eat it up. Trump’s floor remains about 40%. The Democrats are excited and activated, but an “activated” vote is still one vote. Trump could still easily win this thing thanks to the Electoral College and voter distribution.
And I can’t afford for him to win. My life depends on his losing. So back to GOTV.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
BTW – I noticed that Omnes mentioned drinking Malort shots last night. I’m proud to announce that earlier this year, I figured out a way to drink it and have it not taste too awful.
Hold your breath, sip it, blow out and then take in air. DO NOT shoot it or take in air while it is in your mouth.
Chris
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
I caught Covid in Greece while visiting last Christmas, and speaking of what I said above about economics, it was a nice experience in terms of how civilization is supposed to work. The following list of realizations after the hospital visit happened;
1) I am only being charged $300.00 for this visit.
2) But wait, there’s more. That’s $300.00 for me, because I’m a total outsider, non-citizen, non-resident, non-EU-resident. This is a worst case scenario. (Compare and contrast the Americans who tried to bill me $10,000.00 for a chest X-ray).
3) But wait, there’s more. The $300.00 was something I was made aware of before paying. At every step of the process, people told me what they were suggesting, then told me what it would cost, and then let me make the informed choice of whether I wanted the service or not.
4) To top it all, this is Greece. This is the place most of the EU points and laughs at as Europe’s third world. This is the bad part of the EU, allegedly.
Could do a lot worse.
Steve LaBonne
@RevRick: They don’t appear to understand that removing a state from the picture reduces the number of electoral votes Harris needs to win.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: Obviously healthcare is important, but it’s not everything. It’s a privilege but I’m employed and while I prefer the ease of other systems, it’s really not that bad for me personally. And overall, I think economically, we’re not that bad either. At least for me with a college education.
@oldster & @Matt McIrvin: Absolutely. I spent five years in Japan, and while there are things I love about Japan, it’s ludicrously xenophobic. And just kind of stagnant in general. Like nothing changes there and everyone seems a bit bummed out and constrained by their society. The healthcare system is fantastic, but that’s not enough to make me want to live there permanently.
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick:
As I’ve been saying over and over, it doesn’t work that way. This was bullshit that people who should have known better kept spreading around in 2020, which is why the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 has specific language making it 1000% clear that that was never how it worked.
The House contingent election happens if nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes that happened. It doesn’t happen if nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes that might have happened. So you can’t force one by just decertifying electors until the plurality dips below 270. If you decertify electors, the threshold gets smaller than 270.
Now, in theory, they could decertify enough Harris electors that Trump has a majority of the remaining ones. Then he just wins, no House contingent election required. But that’s probably a harder lift (depending on how it shakes out).
ArchTeryx
@RevRick: The only way, at least Constitutionally, the election gets thrown to the House is in case of a tie in the Electoral College. If a state refuses to send electors, it gets deducted from the denominator, not just the numerator. So the number of EC votes to win also goes down proportionally. This was a real thing when electors had to physically travel, via very slow means, to DC to get counted, so alternate plans were put in place.
peter
@SatanicPanic: Patriots come in all shapes, sizes, colors, etc. Here is the voice of a patriot:
Allan Ginsberg, “America” (1956)
BR
@SatanicPanic:
Wow, great interview she did there. So much depth to that conversation.
Steve LaBonne
@ArchTeryx: Running against German-Americans should play really well in Pennsylvania.
Chris
@ArchTeryx:
I mean, it’s infuriated me for ages that the easy immigration model of the nineteenth century under which so many Americans’ ancestors arrived is held up as radical and unthinkable and one-worlder, so on some level I can’t help but appreciate scumbags like Vance shining a light on the fact that yes, we’ve always been a nation of immigrants, yes, the supposedly pure heartland was in fact settled by a hodgepodge of Germans, Scandinavians, Irishmen, Hungarians, and other immigrants from all over Europe, and that yes, under a fascist logic, most of your ancestors would’ve been excluded and/or hunted like vermin too. Maybe they’ll unintentionally educate a few people.
TBone
@Jeffro: they are hastily dumped, rancid cowpies. Watch out where ya step!
ArchTeryx
@Steve LaBonne: Comer’s dumb enough to do it. He’s the one that started the whole narrative.
IIRC, though, the Dutch far outnumber the Germans in PA, and most of the Pennsylvania Dutch are rural. And Comer was dumping all over the Germans and Swedes, not the Dutch (which are as much a core voting bloc for Republicans as evangelicals).
Western Michigan is a darker red than most of rural Alabama, and the Dutch are a huge part of the reason why.
Ken
That’s really something his family should handle — his wife, his daughters, his sons, all of whom have been right by his side throughout this campa—
Er. Well, I’m sure there’s some sort of advice and counselling available under the ACA.
rikyrah
He can’t help himself. The thievery. He’s not giving them shyt.
oldster
@KatKapCC:
I apologize. I understand the reverence for Cilian Murphy, and I am sure that all couches are safe in his presence.
citizen dave
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I also thought of Simple Jack when I saw the haircut. (The movie Tropic Thunder is the reference for anyone wondering)
Regarding the submersible, I have been using that analogy on twitter from time to time, and invented the term Trumpmersible. It either has imploded or is going to in these next 11 weeks. A Vance campaign would be truly hilarious.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: I just visited Japan earlier this summer, and while it is a beautiful country with many admirable qualities (I am in awe of its transit systems, traditional architecture and food culture), I got a sense of what you say even for the short time I was there.
One of the nicest things about it right now is just that the dollar-to-yen exchange rate is so favorable that to someone coming in with US bucks, everything seems cheap. But that’s not actually a feature that speaks of a society in great health.
E.
@Chris:
Thirty five years ago I traveled with a friend in very remote Guatemala and he broke his foot. Took 24 hours to get to a hospital but they gave him a cast and crutches. They did not have any capability of taking payment. They just asked him if he would be so good as to leave the crutches at the airport when he flew home, so they would stay in Guatemala and could be reused. It blew my little mind.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
I haven’t been in decades and wow, how that’s completely the opposite of back then.
TBone
@SatanicPanic: healthcare is not everything, until you need it. Then, it really is.
scav
@ArchTeryx: Imagine when they learn about barn raisings. I mean, people freely and openly joining together to deprive a corporation of the profit involved in erecting a building. And, not expecting to be paid themselves! What next?! A mass federal giveaway of public land to citizens and future citizens?!!! In up to 160 acre increments? oh dear.
ssdd
@Steve LaBonne: and Ohio!
narya
@ArchTeryx: Pennsylvania Dutch = Pennsylvania Deutsch, i.e., German.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s about time we cleaned out all the parasites. Musk, Bezos, Koch, DeVos, the lot.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yeah, I remember when it was the opposite–and we made the same jokes about waves of Japanese tourists that they’re making right now about us.
Geminid
@ArchTeryx: I think the Pennsylvania “Dutch” are descendents of German immigrants. Germans started pouring into Pennsylvania Colony in the the 18th century. They all spoke “Deutsch.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s father was a Swedish American. Mr. Haaland was a Marine Corps officer, so naturally the other officers nicknamed him “Dutch.”
me
@ArchTeryx:
>? Usually when people talk about the Pennsylvania Dutch they mean Pennsylvania Deutsch, in other words, Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch
I don’t believe there are many actual Dutch in Pennsylvania.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
@Matt McIrvin:
Something I heard recently from a couple of women who’d traveled to both countries was that the sexism was worse in Japan than it was in China. And neither of them were the kind of people to be enamored with the CCP. File that next to the xenophobia…
trollhattan
@ArchTeryx: @Steve LaBonne:
Piss off enough Hot Dish Americans and we’ll invade your ass.
Villago Delenda Est
@narya: Deutschland is not Holland. As you have indicated.
Villago Delenda Est
@me: The Dutch had New Amsterdam before some 17th Century war turned it English.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: 😆
divF
@SW: You toggled a memory:
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est: TBF Holland has been part of Deutschland from time to time. Belgium too at no extra charge.
To this day they give one another the side-eye.
TBone
@ArchTeryx: in German, the word is Deutsch. The misnomer arises therefrom. They are PA German.
Sprechen sie Deutsch? Nein.
Flanders Other Neighbor
I caught a lake trout fishing Lake Michigan off Milwaukee with a lamprey attached around ’83. Got it in the boat before it could let go, so I had a neat show and tell for a science class in high school.
Nasty looking critter.
Steve LaBonne
@ArchTeryx: Those are Germans, not Netherlanders. “Dutch” is cognate with Deutsch. (My wife is Pennsylvania Dutch. Her grandparents spoke Pennsylvania German when they didn’t want the kids to understand.)
SatanicPanic
@TBone: I’m talking about the difference between healthcare systems being the reason why someone might move to Europe or Japan or whatever, not about whether or not someone can access healthcare at all. Most Americans can access healthcare to some degree, but the way things are set up aren’t great.
Steve LaBonne
@trollhattan: I for one welcome our new Democratic Farmer Labor overlords.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: I think it was the Australian comedian Jenny Tian who made a crack about how Japanese trains seem incredible until you realize they have women-only train cars for a reason.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch
One of my gr-gr-gr-gr-gr grandfathers was an indentured servant who came over in the 1750s.
People typically don’t know that two of the biggest immigration groups where the Germans who came over during that time frame and again came over in the 1840s.
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As a result of which Germans are the largest white ethnic group. Bigger than Irish or English.
schrodingers_cat
@oldster: It looks bad. The other day he was wearing a brand new plaid shirt without ironing. The creases where it had been folded in the store were still visible. His staff must hate him.
He looks like an alien whose human suit is tad itchy. Temu Trump makes Trump look better. Maybe that’s his purpose. To make the R nominee seem more normal and human in comparison.
M31
@trollhattan:
piss off those Hotdish Americans and they’ll beat your ass at Gettsyburg and take your flag and they still won’t give it back
me
@ArchTeryx: My grandfather was a Minnesota German so that is a bit personal for me. What a fucking jerk Comer is.
TBone
@SatanicPanic: 👍
I would like to have access. I can currently access shitty, for-profit corporate care (worse than useless), unless a blastocyst has attached to the lining of my uterus. Then I’m S.O.L.
ETA that last part is snark but true for way too many.
Chris
@TBone:
One of my friends in college grew up poor in rural South Carolina and Texas. There wasn’t just one thing that eventually flipped her from Republican to Democrat, but one of the very biggest ones was studying abroad in the U.K. for an entire year, getting all kinds of health problems taken care of that she’d never been able to here, and coming back shocked and furious that “they [her family and basically everybody she grew up with] LIED TO ME!!!” about universal health care.
Mind you, since the ACA, this is increasingly a thing between U.S. states as much as it is between the U.S. and other countries. Most of my horror stories about health care come from Florida. When I moved back to Maryland, despite the fact that it started off with a year or two of either unemployment or underemployment, the difference was night and day: I was always covered. It really is like crossing a national border in terms of what a profound difference it makes.
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE
Yesterday — 5, to Postcards for Sherrod Brown. I was just getting started when this really interesting TV show out of Chicago came on, and I kind of got drawn in.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: It’s very sexist for sure. I’ve been to China but it was in the 90s and I don’t speak the language, so it’s hard to compare. Korean is supposedly really bad too.
Then again, most of the world is very sexist
Edit- to your comment about xenophobia though, China is pretty much as bad as Japan. I had a guy stare at me for six hours on a train. Like, he looked at nothing else. I think he was experiencing xenophobia in a very literal sense.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: A lot of it was also a reaction to the USSR. The adding of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance is an example of this kind of crap. I never say that part when I say the pledge.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As Erika Lee’s America For Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States described in detail, there was a xenophobic panic about German immigration before the United States was a country. Some of my ancestors were those immigrants. Others were undoubtedly panicking about them.
oldster
@schrodingers_cat:
My guess is that he is getting a lot less grooming advice from his Ushual source.
At this point, I imagine that she has kicked him out of bed altogether. But what does he care? It means that he sleeps on the couch.
Eunicecycle
@Chris: I was diagnosed with Covid at an out of network ER when I passed out at my daughter’s house. The bill was $12,000. Luckily my insurance considered it emergency care so I only paid a $110 copay. But if I hadn’t been covered…oh and that was just the ER bill. The ER doc and a radiologist billed me separately, but I didn’t have to pay those bills either.
NutmegAgain
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Looks like he had that fashy cut where it’s very shaved on the sides and there’s a little mop on top.
Steve LaBonne
@me: My postdoc adviser was a German Catholic (and ex-priest) from a little town in Minnesota where everyone still spoke German. OMG Comer is right! ;)
Booger
@lowtechcyclist: Do you think Lara Trump is already managing his tiny staff?
TBone
@Chris: 👍 and that right there is a travesty for the unlucky born in the wrong State.
Healthcare should be a human right. Inalienable.
Shalimar
@Matt McIrvin: There were dual routes to a coup in 2020-2021. The January 6th riot route is closed completely. The administration will not let that happen again.
The other route they tried was interfering with state-level vote counting. They took note of who shut them down last time and tried to replace as many of those people as possible with loyalists. It will be chaos until every state is certified regardless of how much Harris wins by.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I know at least one person who I’m pretty sure is alive because of Obamacare. But that’s because we’re in a state that fully embraced it.
It’s so far from perfect, or arguably even good, because there was so much political pushback against making it better. But it’s a framework that allows gradual improvement. I think it’s interesting how many red states eventually found a way into the Medicaid expansion that you’d think would never have done it.
Steve LaBonne
@Booger: Only Ivanka is allowed to touch his staff.
M31
met a Korean couple back in the 90s, well educated, they were in the US at some USAID think tank thing — was talking to them about sexism and ‘when will Korea become more open to feminism’ and the wife jerked her thumb at her husband and said ‘well, when his generation dies off’
so maybe it’s coming lol
Soprano2
@SatanicPanic: I heard a story once about Japan and how xenophobic and racist it is there. They said that the closest a white person in America can get to knowing how black people in America feel is to live in Japan. They talked to one white executive who lived there a year who said it was eye-opening. People would move from tables in a restaurant to not be near him and his family, or cross the street to avoid him.
beckya57
They’re not really campaigning at this point. Their strategy is base mobilization to keep the EC close, followed by election stealing via Trumpy election officials and judges. And it could work. Trump’s goal is to stay out of jail, so he needs to either win the EC or make continuing his trials under a Harris administration frightening to the public (via threatened or actual violence by energized supporters) and thus politically radioactive, as well as keep much of the federal judiciary in his corner. The GOP has broader goals: they’d like Trump to win, but if he doesn’t they want to at least sow enough chaos to make Harris illegitimate in the eyes of much of the public and thus unable to deliver on her agenda. For example, if Harris wins but the GOP gets the Senate, they’ll claim she was elected illegitimately and will refuse to even hold hearings on her appointments. TBC a GOP Senate will do this anyway, but it will be much more effective if the public is primed to doubt her win.
M31
@Soprano2: lol had a black friend live a year in Japan and he said it was so refreshing — they were totally racist but not actually because he was black, but because he wasn’t Japanese
Matt McIrvin
@M31: There’s been a lot of ink spilled about young men being radicalized into the far right through misogyny, and while I think it’s overblown (mostly it’s “young men aren’t as less sexist than old men as we’d like”), from international surveys, one place where there genuinely seems to be a worrying backlash going on is South Korea. Part of that seems to be resentment of male-only mandatory military service.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
We’ve got ancestors from the same wave. I’ve got another from the 1840s wave, he turns out to be the most recent of any of them.
It’s a reason why many of them were on the edge of the frontier in places like PA, MD and VA (the one’s I’m familiar with because of genealogy work). You go up and down the Shenandoah Valley in those three states and it’s basically towns founded by German immigrants. That way, not dealing with as much of the xenophobia if they were still along the coast.
Yeah, people like former Senator James Webb wrote about the Scots-Irish but they were always moving west so when the German wave hit, they pulled chocks and kept moving. The Germans? Not so much once they landed in a place where they could create German communities.
pacem appellant
@MattF: d’accord.
I also think Vance is the one most likeliest to shiv Trump should they win the election. Those tech bros want a compliant puppet, not a chaos machine.
Noskilz
The lead story on CNN’s front page at the moment:
Trump’s businesses are raking in millions of dollars from Republican political campaigns – including his own
Even when the upcoming election has immense personal stakes for him, the former guy just can’t stop funneling everything within reach into his own pockets.
Shalimar
@Booger: Doesn’t Lara already manage Eric’s tiny staff?
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@ArchTeryx: Ummm… Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German immigrants. They’re called “Dutch” because they referred to themselves as Deutsch – what German people call themselves.
I grew up in West Michigan and there are a lot of Dutch here – folks whose heritage goes back to immigrants from The Netherlands. It’s red in rural areas but I’m home visiting my parents in Grand Rapids and it’s all Harris/Slotkin/Scholten signs here. We spent a week in Manistee and there were plenty of Trump signs but even there Harris/Walz was pretty well represented too. That was encouraging.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Shalimar:
Soooooooo nominated!
Booger
@Shalimar: She’s a multitasker.
RevRick
@Steve LaBonne: No, the number to win remains at 270. I just think that if they plan to steal the election, we steal it right back.
M31
@Matt McIrvin: and I suppose that mandatory female military service isn’t in the cards, though that might be an interesting long-term cultural experiment
Steve LaBonne
@RevRick: Sorry, that is incorrect. The winner needs a majority of the Electoral votes actually cast.
Villago Delenda Est
@M31: I’m here for that. Virginia, you lost. Get over it.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@me: Yes it’s this. My mom is PA Dutch. Her ancestors came over before the revolutionary war on one side, and during it as Hessian soldiers on the other. I’ve always wondered if the Brits just left them here when they lost the war or if they just looked around and decided to stay because they had better prospects here.
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick:
“(2) DETERMINATION OF MAJORITY.—If the number of electors lawfully appointed by any State pursuant to a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors that is issued under section 5 is fewer than the number of electors to which the State is entitled under section 3, or if an objection the grounds for which are described in subsection (d)(2)(B)(ii)(I) has been sustained, the total number of electors appointed for the purpose of determining a majority of the whole number of electors appointed as required by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution shall be reduced by the number of electors whom the State has failed to appoint or as to whom the objection was sustained.”
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4573/text
In my opinion, this already should have been clear from the text of the 12th Amendment, but so many people claimed otherwise in 2020 that they evidently felt the need to make it explicit in a statute.
Villago Delenda Est
@pacem appellant: The proper way to deal with the tech bros is they ride a SpaceX rocket with no plans for a return into deep space, we don’t want them polluting the area near Earth.
SatanicPanic
@Soprano2: that was part of why I moved there. My GF suggested I should go there to experience was racism really feels like and I have a strange love for that kind of challenge. Some dude spit on me out of nowhere one time, and I felt like I was going to have to fight on more than a few occasions. I think it’s only because I’m tall that I didn’t have to. Even being exoticized isn’t all that fun when you get down to it. So yeah, racism sucks. Definitely recommend everyone experience it at least once though.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Not to make light of the damage that racism causes, but, man, this sounds awesome.
Villago Delenda Est
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: That’s a valid theory, which is supported by contemporary testimonials.
prostratedragon
@KatKapCC: We had to examine one of those or a relative in h.s. biology class. It was a tough day, though for me it could have been 8 or 10 times worsr.
KM in NS
@Matt McIrvin: I grew up in a red state and have lived in Nova Scotia for nearly 30 years. Many years ago I began to feel Canadian; I get the inside jokes and references to CBC shows and The Tragically Hip. So when I talk about my childhood, I just refer to the red state by name. Now, home is Nova Scotia.
Geo Wilcox
Tiny staff… coming after the Obama joke about crowd size, well I see what you did there…
Steve LaBonne
@Villago Delenda Est: We can call it “Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B”.
Leto
@KatKapCC: when you call someone a dickhead…
peter
@Flanders Other Neighbor: When I was a kid growing up on Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee, we used to fish for smelt in the spring. One night we pulled in a free-swimming lamprey along with the catch. It IS a nasty looking beast, and it was dispatched with no regrets.
Villago Delenda Est
@me: “Jerk” Is a kind appellation for Comer.
Jeffro
somewhat related: I think there’s a decent chance that as he spirals out of control over the next 80 days, he slips and actually, clearly, calls for violence on his behalf.
at which point, NFLTG Dark Brandon has him arrested(!)
Normally I discount, or at least double-check, when what I want to happen aligns with what I think will happen. But this just sounds so…probable…that I’m not going to over-critique it.
SatanicPanic
A truly unhinged detail on a WaPo article about the difference between pop songs at the two conventions this year:
Nice metaphor there Mid Rock.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
I knew at least one person who I’m pretty sure would still be alive if he had had the ACA – but Florida refused the Medicaid expansion.
It’s nice that it’s, slowly, spreading, but it still says a hell of a lot that this is a literal life and death situation where crossing the border from blue America into red America is more consequential than moving from blue America to Canada. We really are back to the slave state/free state world of “one government, but two different countries.”
Thylacine
Speaking of parasites (in the brain):
https://x.com/robgeorge/status/1827036150290125160?s=61
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Villago Delenda Est: Which, that they were abandoned here by the British, or that they just chose to stay because they had better prospects here. Guessing it was latter though I could see the British balking at the expense of shipping all those guys back to Europe. But they may have needed them to fight the French.
Jeffro
@RevRick:
@Matt McIrvin:
what’s great is that we have to do this at all
so many amazing “firsts” with the malicious orange clown!
Make Elections (Relatively) Boring and Straightforward Again
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@oldster: This. It’s got some connection to the old Army high & tight cuts, probably because the Fash Boys love them some stolen valor—20+ years in the National Guard, stacking sandbags in flood zones and helping people after blizzards that drop 36” of snow is too much like work, and heaven forbid they get sent somewhere people shoot back! But they do love the look.
Feckless
The Republican grift started right at its inception with the civil war contracts where they provided rancid meat for troops and got rich off the stolen tax money. The party was new and unformed before the war, afterwards and thru reconstruction it was nothing but corruption from suckling on the govt teat.
Most of Lincoln’s time in office was taken up with giving out patronage jobs.
Grant’s teapot dome scandal is emblematic of this.
And it’s never stopped
The elephants trunk is a lamprey.
Chris
@Noskilz:
This reminds me of the stories of misappropriated Russian supplies in the Ukraine war. It’s not the fact that a lot of Russian soldiers were selling their weapons and supplies on the black market, even to Ukrainians. It’s that by all accounts, a lot of Russian soldiers were selling their weapons and supplies on the black market from the very first day of the invasion, when they had no reason to believe yet that it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
In other words, this wasn’t just a reaction to cratering morale as the war got bogged down, soldiers got trapped, and started trying to make the best of it. This is just how Russian soldiers act, regardless of circumstance.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mowgli:
A polite chuckle, to be sure.
RevRick
@ArchTeryx: The Pennsylvania “Dutch” are Deutsch. They are not Dutch; they’re German. How do I know?
Well, the Lutherans came from Germany. The German Reformeds, ditto. The German Brethren, ditto. The Moravians, from what’s now Czechia via Germany. The Mennonites, Dutch and German.
Anoniminous
@ArchTeryx:
We’re starting to get polling results that actually mean something because they are results comparable to previous results thus we can start comparing Maps with Maps — if that makes any sense. Going to a Kos diary there’s a significant statistic: the non-college educated have moved +5 from Biden to Harris. OK, may not look like much but since Biden won Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan by 2.39% or less a 5% swing is electorally significant. On the other end of the scale there was an eye-popping +17% swing in the youth vote.
DaBunny
@Matt McIrvin: If votes aren’t certified, they could toss the election to the House. In that case, each state gets one vote, so Trump wins. I’d like to think that wouldn’t work, but it’s barely plausible. Enough so that it could be Trump’s plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: The Russian officer corps is utterly corrupt, If they could sell tracked vehicles easily, they would do so. Russia’s other major problem is that it has no NCO corps to speak of.
Suzanne
@oldster:
I have also heard it referred to as “the fashy”, as in fascist.
The Pale Scot
Just today watching The Who videos I’ve was assaulted by 2 trumpolini adds, the first one I can’t even recall a minute after I saw it. The other one had a guy in camo paint with a truck ad voice over. I was like what the fuck?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Yeppers. As Jefferson put it:
me
@Thylacine:
Maybe the only good thing to come out of his presidency and RFKJr wants him to repudiate it?
MCA1
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Someone put the “Veep” closing credits music on top of the audio to that video and it’s just absolutely perfect. We should just do that to every clip of Vance out in the wild, and continue with the “Curb” theme song on all clips of Trump from here on out.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
My mom was a bio major in college. Her old parasitology text was on the shelf in our house, and we used to page through it periodically for fun. Or something.
M31
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Fash Boys want the Kristallnacht part, not the sent to the Eastern Front part or the shoot yourself in a bunker part
TBone
@peter: I once caught a big chain pickerel. That long snout, with razor sharp teeth, was a huge surprise. Not a pleasant surprise. Luckily, the guy with me wasn’t afraid of it like I was and was able to remove the hook with gloves and pliers. We released it but I was told by someone afterwards that we should’ve killed it. I dunno!
Villago Delenda Est
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: A lot of them just chose to stay. But I can’t discount the Brits just saying “fuck it”, no need to bring them back. The French Revolution was 6 years in the future, and the wars over it even farther out.
trollhattan
@M31: Heh :-)
It has never been verified the original name of Little Round Top was Little Casserole Dish.
Chris
@Feckless:
TBF, that’s less a Republican thing and more a post-Jackson thing. The spoils system, which effectively turned every civil servant into a political appointee and the entire federal government into a giant patronage machine, had been in force for a generation at that point; Lincoln and Grant just kept the gravy train running. Also to their credit, the civil service reform act that finally ended the practice was passed by a Republican president with a lot of Republican congressional support.
Eunicecycle
@Thylacine: do not read the comments unless you want to feel like you have brain worms, too.
Matt McIrvin
@DaBunny: No, as I said twice in this thread, lots of people claimed that in 2020 but they were wrong, and Congress passed a law in 2022 making it more clear that they were wrong.
The only way you get a House contingent election is if nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes actually cast and certified. That means a tie, or a three-or-more-way split. Not a majority that happens to be smaller than 270.
In principle, they could still just make Trump the winner by disqualifying enough of Harris’s electors, but that route has weaker Arguably Legitimate Weird Trick energy and will be harder if it’s a sufficiently big majority.
TBone
@Thylacine: 😆🤣
trollhattan
@TBone: Caught a northern pike once when I was a kid and that fucker put double rows of teeth into my then bleeding hand.
He was delicious.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: Project 2025 wants to obliterate those reforms that Republicans used to support.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, Hessians in the family tree! I’ve had one line that might be that but the records aren’t there.
The German mercs for the Brits could have been POWs from the Saratoga surrender. They were housed around Winchester VA for a good while and often under “parole” meaning they could live in the area. Given the German-heritage around them, they might have stayed.
Hessian deserters as well. Articles on the web are all over the map on this, I was trying to find any hard-core academic research on that but if that work has been done, it’s not readily available in the granularity online.
In general, of the 30K Hessians who came over, around 6K stayed behind. Interestingly, about half of the Hessians who came over in total never went back because of disease, battlefield death or desertion.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh yes. Project 2025 pretty much wants to reverse everything up to and including the American Revolution, and the Enlightenment along with it, so…
rikyrah
Leaundra Ross![]()
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(@LeaundraRoss) posted at 10:24 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
I don’t know how many times I’ve said on here that President Biden isn’t new to this.
If he was going out he was going out on his own terms.
He said his VP pick was going to be someone who could lead from day one.
He endorsed her because he knew she could do the job. https://t.co/xQMRKwYoYt
(https://x.com/LeaundraRoss/status/1827004111247581528?t=V-duwz4VB1DIkEDsfcxrPA&s=03)
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ll let others take on the parasitic horrors—the big effort by the Trumpistas seems to be at the election official level. I suspect the timing of Tina Peters’s trial was not entirely coincidental—hearing that she was convicted & will do time does send a certain FOFA message that some might actually heed.
But I don’t think TCFG can egg on another attack like January 6—too many people have found themselves with big legal bills and time in stir instead of being widely hailed as Great American Heroes. It’s hard to find foot soldiers when your base of potential volunteers has seen what happens when you touch a hot stove. At this point he has an “army” like the one in an Oz book that’s all officers and only one private.
I suspect some of the people pushing Vance for VP were hoping for a more coherent & energetic person to push things & stir up the base. We’ll see how that works out over the next few months but so far he’s either hiding his light under a really solid bushel basket or this was another disastrous personnel pick.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin:
I applaud your diligence Matt
rikyrah
WHY is this so hard to understand?
She’s a woman.
The hardest hurdle to overcome is the COMMANDER IN CHIEF hurdle.
She must make it clear that she will PROTECT THIS COUNTRY.
Zara Rahim (@ZaraRahim) posted at 11:57 PM on Thu, Aug 22, 2024:
I can’t believe she said ‘I’ll always make sure the us has the strongest most LETHAL fighting force in the world’ who was that for????
(https://x.com/ZaraRahim/status/1826846311804485641?t=pRfEiqTPPl43UCeSs6msdg&s=03)
TBone
@trollhattan: good serve!
Here’s another one, for the ages 😆 (Kamala HQ eats him for late night snack):
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1826829221806617018
Snarki, child of Loki
Re: “Pennsylvania Dutch”.
The area around Philly started as a SWEDISH colony (with a little Finnish subcolony part of it), [cf. “Christiana, DE”], then got beaten by the DUTCH [cf. “Schylkill River”], then got beaten by the ENGLISH.
The “Pennsylvania Dutch” were Amish/Mennonites that got treated like awful heretics in SWITZERLAND (seen prison in Trachselwald Castle) then moved to American, where they still speak “switzer deutsch”.
History is so cool.
Fake Irishman
@SatanicPanic:
A buddy of mine studied in China pretty extensively during and after college in the early 2000s. He wrote several great columns in the college paper detailing how he was perceived by the locals when he was traveling in the hinterlands. One of his memorable lines was “People here look at me like you might look at a bikini-clad Jenifer Lopez walking a cougar down Fifth Ave. in Manhattan.”
rikyrah
Yesss..![]()
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Get that bag
Portia![]()
McGonagal (@PortiaMcGonagal) posted at 10:17 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
I mean this was kismet!
Angel Reese scores an endorsement deal with Reese’s chocolate
https://t.co/pZBUFMNgsj
(https://x.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1827002260033057075?t=2HwrJMVzetq4fy3u14ZTvw&s=03)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Villago Delenda Est:
Any Hessian merc still reporting to his regiment (as opposed to deserters) was taken back. Why? The contract(s) had the British paying for mercenary deaths and the contract terms (I don’t have them handy) were very costly.
It was very much in the British interest to make sure they could ship back as many Hessians as they could, otherwise they were paying thru the nose.
The Brits, despite a lot of contemporary complaints by Tories, actually did very good by late 18th-century standards of getting people out of places like NYC when they left. Area Tories were understandably scared shitless about being “left behind”.
Again, the Brits weren’t perfect given what the transport capacities were, but they made damn sure their military personal, in-house and 3rd-party, were shipped out.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: No, we need a military that just taps people on the shoulder!
Matt McIrvin
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
Or the one in the other Oz book that consists of one robot.
Kenneth Fair
“[T]hat’s a big stretch for an old man with a tiny staff.”
ISWYDT.
TBone
@Snarki, child of Loki: ❤️
My grandparents used to make us spell Schuylkill and Susquehanna during long car trips.
rikyrah
Cake or Death (@Johngcole) posted at 9:38 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
I hate to break it to Republicans and the naysayers, but the senile old coot Biden was right again about a soft landing. How he keeps winning and putting forth game changing policy while being in the throes of deep dementia remains a mystery.
(https://x.com/Johngcole/status/1826992418996056348?t=ISAhhBYdCsTQFMrgVf4dKg&s=03)
rikyrah
This cartoon……who cut the onions?
It’s Virgo Season![]()
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(@DrVirgo1981) posted at 7:54 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
![]()
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(https://x.com/DrVirgo1981/status/1826966344899719380?t=8NNa8TX8xcVjuLrgBG7xmQ&s=03)
artem1s
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
That’s what happens when you don’t have good relations with labor unions. I can’t tell you how many small rallies I’ve attended that were held at a local hall. A not-weird campaign organizer would already have a list of dozens of small venues that can handle a pop-up like the ones Vance is doing. The convicted felon always hires ‘the best people’ I guess.
Tony G
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Ha. If I were minding my own business ordering donuts, and then JD Vance and his entourage waddled in, my inclination would be to insult him, but most likely I’d just get as far away from him as possible. Basically I’d be pissed at him for disrupting my quiet morning.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: This pisses me off because the first time this idea came around, 4 years ago, I thought “What? That can’t be right” and looked at the actual text of the 12th Amendment, and, sure enough, there was nothing about how you could force a House contingent election by just disqualifying enough electors (unless you actually engineered a non-majority that way). But news articles in supposedly legit political media outlets just kept quoting each other about how forcing the majority below 270 to get a House contingent election was the weird trick that just might work. It was like nobody had done that one sentence of research, in the United States Constitution, a document that is not hard to find.
And then, two years later, Congress went out of its way to pass a law that came right out and said “no, that is not how it works”. But these stories just keep on quoting each other.
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: NICE! Now Caitlin Clark needs to call up whatever company makes Clark bars.
rikyrah
Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) posted at 9:25 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
The Harris campaign should pursue nontraditional interviews:
Put Kamala on the Food Network (she’s a huge cooking enthusiast and foodie)
Put former football coach Tim Walz on ESPN
Meet people where they’re at
(https://x.com/arlenparsa/status/1826989046880428101?t=JX8ub5FGKPAegqpSYBh7GQ&s=03)
TBone
@rikyrah: needs more Shirley Chisolm and Bella Abzug tho
rikyrah
PROJECT 2025
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) posted at 9:13 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
this is real but if you look at it I almost cannot believe it’s real. when you’re protesting this much you’re losing and losing badly (not saying the election necessarily but on this issue). But it shows that they correctly recognize this as political kryptonite.
(https://x.com/joshtpm/status/1826986025069019631?t=Uf3REWowp96iBx8bNkDyNw&s=03)
Sister Golden Bear
@Downpuppy: Chipmunks (and squirrels) are just rats with cuter outfits.
Citizen Alan
@Eunicecycle: I will never forget a good friend of mine having way too much to drink at a house party and it rising to the level of alcohol poisoning. We were to the point of thinking he needed to go to the hospital when he started yelling almost hysterically: “No ambulances! No ambulances! My Tricare won’t cover it and I can’t afford it!”
Eduardo
I can give a pass to regular Americans who can’t grasp this fact. But I don’t want any politician who doesn’t anywhere near the White House.
Dave
@Matt McIrvin: If it reaches that point, what is clearly a commanding Harris victory overturned by BS, never would there be a better time for a leaving public service Biden to test the full limits of the SC’s immunity decision.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@SatanicPanic: Since 1789, we’ve had 46 presidents elected under the same constitution with slight modifications. Even the Slavers’ Rebellion used the same basic framework for their attempt at a government. Since 1789, France has had a monarchy, a dictatorship by committee, a triumvirate, a consulate (AKA dictatorship), two empires, a constitutional monarchy (with interruptions), and five republics.
I’m not trying to dunk on France here—establishing a stable democratic state is hard, especially when no one has had the experience or training to do that. We’ve been exceedingly fortunate, both in having a good framework and in sticking with it in spite of temptation.
rikyrah
@billbindc (@BillBindc) posted at 10:34 PM on Thu, Aug 22, 2024:
1. She was loyal to Biden to the end.
2. She so decisively crushed Pelosi’s plan for a contested convention.
3. She picked Walz.
4. Her convention was fun, joyous and politically astute.
5. She crushed her acceptance speech.
Can we finally admit she’s really good at this?
(https://x.com/BillBindc/status/1826825437693038771?t=IdTomQ8TGrsRPtyUYYGLWw&s=03)
TBone
@Citizen Alan: yup, a sobering thought! Perks ya right up!
Dave
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): On top of that a January 6th type attack even if it did occur would almost certainly be met with a significantly more rigorous response than it was met with.
brantl
@KatKapCC: That’s the puddin’-head haircut. It’s also the you-can-tell-there-are-aliens-among-us haircut, too……
rikyrah
Take Back the House and Save the Senate (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 11:16 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
Kamala Harris & her complete chokehold on Alpha Generation & younger Zoomer girls of all backgrounds will have massive consequences for this nation for the next 50 years. None of us presently alive will live long enough to bear witness to all them. But America will be just fine.
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1827016970878791812?t=I8QqeXdel2Kcowoj3MtsRw&s=03)
Timill
@KatKapCC: And I think State Farm needs to do more for Jake Fromm.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Thylacine:
Had an “interesting” exchange with a middle-aged stranger just now about Kennedy press conference, watching it on his phone, Fox News of course.
“It’s a shame what his own party did to him, trying to kick him off the ballot. This is an historic event.”
He’s a Trump supporter, judging from the wristband he was wearing.
I called Kennedy a loon, and he actually asked me why I thought that, but I declined to answer
BR
@rikyrah:
If I had to bet, the last day of the convention took the wind out of the sails of very online lefties who were supporting Harris, but they’ll come around within a week or two.
Sister Golden Bear
@oldster: Vance’s haircut: Couch party in the front, fascism in the back.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ve seen conservative groups trying to do a ground game for various Republican candidates over the years when I’ve been out knocking doors, and they’re universally terrible at it. They’re incapable of getting volunteers, and they think being cheap is genius, so they hire minimum-wage people who have are just going through the motions for a check. A billionaire-funded supplementary “campaign” is one thing I’m not worried about.
M31
@rikyrah: I was maybe a bit worried since her previous campaign had organizational problems, but (even before the last brilliant month) I figured that a term with Joe Biden and his people would have been a good lesson, and she’s would inherit and build on a good team.
And then you add that she’s become a REALLY good speaker, and has learned the most important Democratic politician lesson of all time which is to know when to tell pollsters and advisors and insiders to shut the fuck up.
She’s taken it to another level, and I just want her to keep steamrolling
Citizen Alan
@Villago Delenda Est: This is why I’m not afraid in the slightest of Putin’s threatened “nuclear escalation.” I think if Putin ever pushed the big red button, nothing would happen because crucial parts needed for their nukes were cannibalized and sold on the black market years if not decades ago.
rikyrah
His campaign is unimpressive.
Take Back the House and Save the Senate (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 5:36 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
Collin Allred and his nearly imperceptible appearance at the DNC convention
he could have tapped into the surge of multicultural “brown energy” powering the Harris campaign, but he’s chosen not to, and opted instead to chase the same voters who’d previously failed Beto, twice
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1826931581799309321?t=HbmJoDUMvJTCMNDqRTHOmA&s=03)
rikyrah
Florida Chris (@chrislongview) posted at 9:10 AM on Fri, Aug 23, 2024:
Hello.
This is Minyon Moore.
She served as the Chair of this Democratic National Convention.
You want to thank someone and congratulate them on a job extraordinarily well done?
Thank @IamMinyon.
Congratulate her.
She did this. https://t.co/yRlRqrBFlh
(https://x.com/chrislongview/status/1826985437786735102?t=un1beD0Nn7rZg6i7blC_aw&s=03)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Redshift:
There’s a diarist over at Teh Orange who writes regularly about canvassing, voter outreach, etc. She has extensive experience on the issue and it’s always educational to read about it.
About a week ago, she addressed this very issue, namely volunteers vs paid. In her particular story that time around, she talked about canvassing. Yeah, as things move along, Dems pay for canvassing but apparently much of the time, it’s volunteers and in her experience, the difference is significant. As you noted, GQP people in that role are simply getting boxes checked to collect a small paycheck whereas Dem volunteers are motivated.
This isn’t the exact diary I remember but it goes into gory detail about the process:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/8/20/2264491/-What-We-Learned-about-MAGA-Canvassers-Last-Saturday
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: She’s really good at this!
Scout211
The
wormy brainworm has turned ahead of his joint not-surprise appearance with Trump in Arizona today. RFKjr’s lawyers told a Pennsylvania court that he is endorsing Trump for President.sdhays
@Chris: Japan is rated shockingly low on the treatment of women globally.
At one time, Hong Kong was top in Asia. I expect Taiwan is toward the top as well.
steve g
Came late, first thought was “how about a ‘tiny staff’ joke”, did a search, 14 others already posted. LOL.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Thanks and congratulations to her. Great job.
Tony Jay
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
Well, y’know, there’s also geography.
Post-Revolutionary America did its developing on a massive continent thousands of miles away from the cockpit of Europe, populated mostly by bronze-age equivalent tribal cultures and a few weak colonial governments.
Post-1789 France…. very much didn’t.
Pommes and oranges, innit?
Geminid
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: The Hessians found much better prospects in the US. Germany was plagued by chronic overpopulatiin from 1700 on up to 1850 or so, and that is why so many emigrated to America.
Loiking back, Virginia’s settlement process is kind of funny. The English started settling the Tidewater region in early the early 17th century. It took them a hundred years to approach the lue Ridge. Thomas Jefferson’s father settled near present day Charlottesville around 1740. The English were on a pace to reach the Shenandoah Valley by 1760.
But you snooze, you lose. The Germans and Scotch Irish came pouring out of Pennsylvania through Chambersburg and filled the Valley* up by 1750. Some kept going west and some crossed the Blue Ridge and settled its eastern foothills.
The Shenendoah Valley is parr of a larger valley running from central Pennsylvania to Tennessee: the “Great Valley.” It runs through the Potomac, James, Roanoke, New and (I think) Tennessee River watersheds without any other natural barriers so it made an excellant route to the west. Down past Abingdon there was a right turn which led through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky.
When Abraham Lincoln’s father was a boy, he rode a wagon down the Valley to Kentucky. His father Abraham had sold his rocky farm up near Harrisonburg in order to take advantsge of Kentucky’s rich soil. Abraham died plowing it when a Native ambushed him.
By Carl Sandburg’s account, Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks walked barefoot down the Valley to Kentucky.
karen gail
@RevRick: One thing I learned after marrying into German Lutheran family is to never, never, never bring up “which synod is right?” To me they were all the same, Lutherans; but to them it was a call to war.
pacem appellant
@Villago Delenda Est: No argument from me. I’m okay if their destination is Mars. They’re not coming back. Mars is a one-way trip to oblivion, and the tech-bro obsession with it stems from misreading Kim Stanley Robinson not as a metaphor but as a blueprint.
Sister Golden Bear
@SatanicPanic: I’ve traveled a lot as well (45 counties and counting) and much prefer living here. But when people like me talk about fleeing the country if Trump wins it’s definitely not because I want to, it’s because Republicans already have taken away many, many trans rights and Prioject 2025 has explicit plans to eradicate us from public life (and I suspect the secret parts of the plan, which haven’t been released go further).
And yeah, the rightward turn in Europe island is worldwide is extremely concerning — I’d been looking at Portugal because they had strong support for LGBTQ+ rights but after electing a rightwing government they may no longer be safe.
I’m cautiously hopeful now, but the fears are deeply justified, and why I’m treating this election as a rock fight no matter what the polls say.
Steve LaBonne
@karen gail: Um, ELCA Lutherans (one of the most liberal of all Protestant denominations) are VERY different from the ultra-reactionary Missouri and worse yet Wisconsin synods. (The Walzes are ELCA.)
SatanicPanic
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): yeah every time I hear an argument for a parliamentary system or some such, I have to ask- why? Despite the issues with our system, it might not really matter. Having a population that values democracy (I admit, it’s sometimes an open question) is more valuable than any system fix.
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: My response.
dm
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Oh, the way one consumes hakarl[1], then.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
Anoniminous
Speaking of parasites …. Kennedy dropped out.
Steve LaBonne
@SatanicPanic: People (when talking about a multiparty, proportional system- the UK FPTP system doesn’t meaningfully differ from ours) get the part about how they could vote for a party that closely reflects their views, but not the part about how that party would have to compromise in order to join a governing coalition. A center-left parliamentary coalition is basically the same thing as the Democratic Party.
KatKapCC
@BR:
Huh? How would last night have made her supporters LESS enthusiastic, even temporarily?
SatanicPanic
@Sister Golden Bear: For sure, I wasn’t talking about fleeing though. I was talking about normal times. I like the USA better than any other country I’ve been to, though Greece and Mexico are pretty great.
Steve LaBonne
@KatKapCC: The Very Online Left is a legend in its own mind, and best ignored.
SatanicPanic
@Steve LaBonne: I think they would prefer that though, because there are too many people who think that by voting for someone you are endorsing every part of the party platform. So by having a bunch of bespoke parties they don’t have to feel bad about themselves. At least, I suspect that’s the case.
BR
@KatKapCC:
The national security / law enforcement stuff was not at all the kind of stuff folks on the left like. It grates even on me, though I’m practical about why there was so much of it at the DNC and in Harris’s speech.
Eolirin
@Feckless: Teapot Dome was Harding, not Grant.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Tony Jay: It helped a lot, no kidding. As I said, it’s harder than you might think, and while the French had a lot of distractions, they did have to build the concept of representative democracy for themselves, without, at the start, much experience with it, except as observers, in the face of multiple wars.
For us, it really has been a matter of the time, the place, and the desired object all together.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin; @BR:
Forecast back in 1940.
DaBunny
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the correction, good to know.
me
@Scout211:
They are so dumb. https://bsky.app/profile/peark.es/post/3l2ft6f7sdj2h
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@ArchTeryx: The Pennsylvania Dutch are Deutsch – that is German.
The Dutch were all in the Hudson Valley. Hence Martin Van Buren and Sojourner Truth were native Dutch(Nederlands) speakers.
oldster
@Sister Golden Bear:
“Vance’s haircut: Couch party in the front, fascism in the back.”
Great line!
It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. I’ll have to mull it over….
Eolirin
@Steve LaBonne: I think the reason to do it isn’t to get away from two parties, but that it’d get rid of the senate and the obstruction that the minority party can do through there.
It has the added benefit of more cleanly separating the process for selecting the party heads from the election process for determining the governing coalition.
But that’s relatively minor. It’s really just the first thing.
Msb
@hitchhiker: his appearance and speech were great acts of bravery.
I have to note, however, that I had a mirror-image experience. The emergence of sincere never-trumpers and sincere patriots, at great social and financial cost to themselves, from among the Rs was a revelation to me, from which I hope I’ve learned.
Msb
@schrodingers_cat:
Like Edgar in The Men in Black?
Uncle Cosmo
In actuality, “Teapot Dome” refers to shenanigans over oil leases on Federal lands involving members of the Harding administration, > 35 years after Grant’s death.
(NB Grant had his own bevy of scandals that you can look up in your copious spare time and pick one that fits with what you’re trying to say.)
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: I was gonna mention the Credit Mobilier scandal but that actually happened before his administration (it was exposed when he was running for reelection though).
Lovely grift though, basically the Union Pacific Railroad made an “independent” construction company so they could charge themselves jacked-up prices for publicly funded construction, then put some of the money into kickbacks to politicians.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Tomorrow (Saturday, Aug 24), I’ll be at the Elmhurst IL library from 10-2 for their Author Fair. If you’re in the area, stop by. Mr DAW comes and helps, though he also wanders away. I’d love to meet some jackals in person. Sort of like a library BJ meetup.
Uncle Cosmo
@ArchTeryx: IIRC Artemus Ward, Lincoln’s favorite humorist, once wrote,
Hey Arch, I don’t mean to brake you bawls too badly over not knowing “Pennsylvania Dutch” refers to German immigrants…but I am curious as to whether you ever posted an acknowledgement of the mistake in this thread. IMO that’s not an unreasonable request of anyone once they’re satisfied that (as Rick Blaine admits to Captain Renault in Casablanca) they were misinformed.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@ArchTeryx:
Michael Caine in the movie Goldmember — ‘There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.’
And yes, I know the Pennsylvanian Dutch are German, but I couldn’t resist.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin: Ah, Credit Mobilier! Brings back fond memories of Mr Goos’ Honors American History course in high school,
I can’t say that the Reconstruction era was my favorite part of that course, but it was certainly the most entertaining in a shamelessly salaciously scandaliferous fashion…;^D
Tony Jay
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
Another reason to be added to the many, many, many reasons to be thankful that the Slaver’s Rebellion (love that title, btw) failed so badly (if not quite badly enough).
Two mutually hostile American republics on the same continent, one of which would very much need foreign alliances to secure it’s continued independence, would have been a toxic injection that could well have torn the democratic experiment apart from within.
MrPug
I live in California and my 2020 primary vote was a real toss up between Warren and Harris. I, ultimately, voted for Warren, but would have been happy with either choice. For these 4 years the Harris critics and the hate for her has been perplexing, so it makes it all the better to see her shut those critics up.
louc
Here’s some first class leeching, right here.
VFX Lurker
I believe this. I’ve read similar stories in Shadows of the Rising Sun (1984).
For myself, I didn’t have anything like that experience for the whole week I visited Tokyo in 2018. One kind local even stopped to chat with me and my two companions in English. He had worked abroad as an engineer in the States for decades before retiring in Tokyo.
It also didn’t hurt that we spent most of the trip visiting locals my companions knew personally. We had warm welcomes from my companions’ Japanese tutor, business contacts, and family members.
Maybe the closest awkward experience I had was when I accidentally bumped into an older stranger in a shopping mall. She automatically turned and said a loud and friendly “gomenasai” but cut off her apology abruptly and walked away quickly when she saw I was a foreigner. Maybe she didn’t think I understood her apology in Japanese. She came across as more embarrassed than xenophobic, though.
However…I only experienced Tokyo for one week. I might have had a fuller experience if I had traveled outside of cosmopolitan Tokyo. Or if I had lived for a year in Tokyo instead of just one week. Or if I had known the language fluently and confidently enough to try to converse with complete strangers. Or if I was perceived as an immigrant instead of a tourist.
Matt McIrvin
@Tony Jay: I’ve often wondered how the world wars in the 20th century would have gone with a divided US.
That alternate history is probably so different from ours that all bets are off about what the world looks like. But I can see USA vs. CSA becoming a North American theater of war, giving any allies the US might have had in our time line a harder time. I could imagine the US never becoming a truly global power, and whoever eventually wins the Germany vs. USSR showdown becoming the unipolar world hegemon. Maybe the slaves get freed in the 1950s after the Soviet Union nukes Richmond and conquers Dixie.
Matt McIrvin
@VFX Lurker: I didn’t really encounter a lot of friction there, but I was also only visiting for 10 days. I’m a pretty oblivious person IRL and there was probably a lot I didn’t pick up on. I know my manners were not well-tailored to Japanese norms.
I was just talking to a coworker who said that when he was traveling with his family in a European city that has had trouble in recent years dealing with a flood of hard-to-manage tourists, his wife had an uncomfortable sense of general resentment from the locals that he couldn’t even detect. I suspect I’m more like him.
TBone
@hitchhiker: my normie hubby, who really wanted to see Liz Cheney make a speech, was enormously satisfied to see Kinzinger. (Oops it was Pat Ryan who used the FUBAR acronym).
Cec65
@Matt McIrvin: Harry Turtledove wrote a series of books with that premise.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin: Harry Turtledove got there a couple decades ahead of you. Though I hesitate to recommend the trilogy – IMO Turtledove has interesting ideas but in his character development resembles an elephant trying to tapdance in hip boots. If Analog back in the day had specialised in alternate history then HT would’ve dominated it and Harlan Ellison’s classic gripe would still hold (how John W Campbell “once published a magasine of science fiction called Astounding and now [ca. 1960\ pulishes a magasine of schematic drawings called Analog…”).
Darkrose
@rikyrah: The purity ponies don’t want to understand how politics work. They want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
yellowdog
@KatKapCC:
@Matt McIrvin: Because he has the Supreme Court to hand it to him.
columbusqueen
@Villago Delenda Est: Most Hessians chose to stay; the chance to actually own land was a huge opportunity. In fact, many married Hessian soldiers sailed back to fetch their families & returned here.
The Lodger
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Reminds me of the running A.U.B.T.D. (Americans United to Beat the Dutch) gag in National Lampoon.
The Lodger
@Matt McIrvin: Man, you need to catch up with your Harry Turtledove novels.