Kamala has the exact opposite effect of Vance or Trump — the more people see and hear from her, the more they like her. https://t.co/LGFhpXFLxT
— Conor Rogers (@conorjrogers) August 25, 2024
Democrats are united and determined to deliver even more jobs, expand health care and protect freedoms. Our convention showed America how #KamalaWinsWithJoy — now each of us must volunteer and vote for Harris-Walz to deliver For The People.
Onward to a great Democratic victory! pic.twitter.com/1WAOtLtvcE
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) August 25, 2024
The ‘rule’ is that Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line; some hardcore conservatives seem to feel they can’t endorse Harris without… falling in love. The Financial Times’ U.S. correspondent on a perceived “The astonishing metamorphosis of Kamala Harris”:
… Just five weeks ago, Trump was acting as though he had already won the election. There was even talk of a landslide. In what feels like an eye blink, Trump is suddenly the old man running on a familiar script. The frequency with which he targets Biden shows he is still struggling with Harris’s lightning ascent.
To be fair to Trump, Harris is making his adjustment very hard. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago bucked tradition on many levels. The most striking of these was her party’s display of unity. All of the Democratic psychodrama of the last three decades took to the stage — from Bill Clinton, who was elected president in 1992, to Biden, who until last month was vowing he would serve out a full two terms. The star turns were the two Obamas, Barack and Michelle, who were consciously passing the torch to Harris. Even Jimmy Carter, the oldest living US president, who turns 100 in October, let it be known that he wanted to vote for Harris. From the populist left to traditional centrists, Democrats have called a truce on their fissures and personality tensions for the next 70-odd days. They have Trump to thank for that. The spectre of his return has concentrated minds.
Little of this would have worked with the wrong candidate. Harris’s metamorphosis from indifferent vice-president to the source of Obama-scale enthusiasm has caught almost everyone unawares. People did not know she had it in her. To paraphrase the adage, “cometh the hour, cometh the woman”.
It turns out that Harris is a once-in-a-generation natural. She has also learnt from the mistakes of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Though Harris would be the first woman president, and a non-white one too, her identity is not central to her campaign. In 2016, the Clinton campaign had the tagline “I’m with her”, which made it all about the candidate and her historic moment. The Harris campaign’s vibe is to convey that “she’s with you”. Let Trump turn 2024 into an ugly identity battle, is their implicit message. Harris plans to keep talking about the middle class…
The content of her relatively short address — less than half the length of Trump’s peroration in Milwaukee last month — reflected that. Harris did not try to reach for poetic heights. With a prosecutor’s directness she laid out America’s “fleeting opportunity” to save its democracy. Trump was an unserious person who posed a serious threat, she said. Her pitch was ruthlessly centrist. Gone was any mention of “Medicare for all”, open borders, attacks on the police and across-the-board tax increases. There was no hint of disapproval from her party’s left. Harris pulled off what an acceptance piece should do but rarely does — she wrapped her life story into her campaign’s larger theme: “We’re not going back”…
BREAKING: This video of Kamala Harris meeting some of her supporters and their children is flying across the internet because of the joy Kamala Harris creates. This is something Donald Trump could never do. Retweet so all Americans see this wholesome clip.pic.twitter.com/pBi7eOirMs
— Kamala’s Wins (@harris_wins) August 25, 2024
This has me crying 😂 😂 😂 #KamalaWinsWithJoy pic.twitter.com/cgCgaCLAUH
— 🪷 Madam Auntie VP Kamala Harris for PRESIDENT! (@flywithkamala) August 26, 2024
Strategists warn Democrats not to talk about identity, but new poll results show that making race and sex salient to voters is actually bad for Trump and boosts Harris. “When voters are thinking about race or sex, Trump’s support just plummets."https://t.co/Nm4jkrI7iJ
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August 24, 2024
On The Road – Albatrossity – Herons and Egrets of the World – Portraits
Baud
That Financial Times article demonstrates Newton’s Thrid Law of Politics: Every praise of a Democrat produces an equal and opposite condemnation of another Democrat.
Andrew Abshier
Honestly, I didn’t think the Vice President had it in her either, until she did her first rally in Milwaukee. She learned all the lessons she needed to from her 2020 run and honed her act in the Vice Presidential role. I wouldn’t call her an “indifferent” VP either, though she did need to grow into the role at first.
That Mrs. O dub is AWESOME.
Baud
Children and dogs know.
Baud
@Andrew Abshier:
Agree. She’s a much better candidate than she was in 2020.
Bupalos
@Baud: It really isn’t close to equal and opposite. Dems getting positive press just isn’t something that fits in the worldview here.
The press doesn’t lead, it follows.
ssdd
Can confirm the final item. When I think of sex and Trump, my support for sobriety absolutely plummets.
Jeffro
So much to work with…how do the Harris/Walz ad folks decide?
Show Kamala in all her joy? Show Walz, Walzing it up?
Or just go with unedited clips of the malicious orange clown “speaking”?
Decisions, decisions…
Jeffro
oh and here it goes: trump suggests he might skip Sept 10th debate for made-up reasons
knock me over with a feather!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Also agree, much better. Great to see.
That being said, “indifferent vice president” is a typically stupid and entirely too predictable take by the press.
gene108
It’s not Trump.
Democrats are very united in purpose, and are happy with their agenda and what they want to do. It’s been a slow evolution from the Great Recession until now.
Republicans becoming weird fascists cult followers helped move this along. The failures of Reaganomics that ended in the Great Recession helped move this along.
The youth vote becoming more liberal moved this along.
There’s more as well.
Baud
@gene108:
Agreed.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The media isn’t going to blame themselves for not taking her seriously as Veep.
K-Mo
@Jeffro: Holy Sh!t, they are reeling
Ishiyama
Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech was peppered with old leftist slogans; I heard paraphrases of Power to the People, An Injury to One is an Injury to All, and In Union There is Strength.
t
Frankensteinbeck
That article is such an amazing display of the writer’s prejudices. Hey, fuckhead, Harris was invisible because YOU ignored her until you had no choice. Democrats have rarely been in Disarray since Obama was elected, and especially since Trump. Harris’s liberal positions are everywhere, you just are glad you got a chance to pretend she isn’t opposed to all your vile desires. But at least she’s not uppity like Hillary, huh?
This at least might be true, although Democrats have a deep bench of awesome and you could argue Harris learned and honed her craft, that it is more skill than talent. Personally, I find that more admirable.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
The day that happens, I’ll look into the sky and see pigs aloft.
Mowgli
@gene108: you’re absolutely right. But in an election year (and, sadly, all other years when I think about it), the horse race narrative demands all articles are about “contrasting the two candidates” — so nothing else ever happens except in the context of that narrative.
The fact that the Democratic Party has always struggled with its “big tent” challenges (as any Party trying to triangulate half of an incredibly diverse America would) just doesn’t have narrative legs.
Liminal Owl
Jeff Jacoby yesterday, in the Boston Globe: “If you’re crushing on a political candidate, you’re doing democracy wrong.”
To be fair, he talks about Trump stans (which is unexpected, from the Globe’s pet “intellectual” conservative) for much of the essay. But of course he both-sides it, and my perhaps-biased reading is that it’s the Harris-Walz fans he’s really aiming at here.
EarthWindFire
@Ishiyama: Ssshhh, don’t let the media in on that. If they think that’s the center, fine by me.
RevRick
@Baud: She attempted to run a “too clever by a half” campaign, which also sank Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, getting lost of the weeds about Medicare for All, but not quite.
The office of VP is inherently frustrating, but Harris got to play a much larger than normal role by casting all those tie-breaking votes in the Senate. And she clearly gained President Biden’s confidence as he entrusted her with some critical negotiations with allies and adversaries.
Liminal Owl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: It’s too early (although I’ve been up and about for two hours and am about to start working). I read your comment and my jukebox brain started humming, “This is what happens when pigs fly.”
Ken
@Jeffro: I think I read that ABC has announced the debate will go on, even if one of the chairs is empty. So fine, it becomes an hour-long presser with Harris with no interruptions.
I’d also enjoy seeing a Trump stand-in, who would read something from his speeches, verbatim, after each question. Doesn’t have to be related to the question — Trump never managed that — but bonus points if it is.
moonbat
I’d like that FT writer to point to the Dem candidate who advocated for across the board tax increases or open borders. When has that ever been the Democratic Party position? These people live so far up their own asses they barely make sense to those of us who pay attention to this stuff.
BritinChicago
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree. It’s ridiculous to say she’s “a once-in-a-generation natural”. Does anyone remember who was President eight years ago? Did anyone see how many great speakers were on display last week?
One thing to like about the Harris campaign is precisely that it is not a cult of personality. She’s doing wonderfully well, and more power to her, but once-in-a-generation? No.
(Richard Feynman, perhaps the greatest physicist of the second half of the 20th century said: We’re not all that much smarter than each other. Something similar applies here.)
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
I knew she would be great and Democrats would rally. I didn’t know everything else would fall into place so well, however, in terms of logistics.
I (actually) think media has been fine so far and their requests for access, etc have been reasonable. I think they’ve give her a chance to show her chops and that’s all I would expect.
RandomMonster
Can someone explain ‘net favorables’ to me? I get that a falling negative number is better than a rising one, but it’s still a negative number. And what is Stinky’s number?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Liminal Owl:
It always begged for the “Wierd Al” treatment. But I vaguely remember that he always got permission from musicians to parody their material before proceeding and if that’s correct, then obviously didn’t get it in that case.
Ken
We’re talking about reporters, so quite possibly, no.
Seonachan
@RandomMonster: It’s % favorable minus % unfavorable
Ben Cisco
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The Press Corpse NEVER does self-reflection or accountability. It reads as though the writer had to undergo a root canal and a colonsocopy simultaneously w/o benefit of ansethetic.
Hoodie
@Baud: The 2020 campaign was afflicted by the narcissism of small differences. Most of the Dem candidates were establishing lanes for themselves and thus overemphasized minute policy differences. Biden was the only one who didn’t have to do that because he already had an established brand. This campaign is more “the are very few non-negotiables – democracy, women’s autonomy, national security – everything else is open to discussion.” In a sense, everything relating to the normal functioning of democratic government has moved to the Dem side because the GOP has abandoned democracy. Not having to negotiate with yourself makes the general campaign simpler.
OzarkHillbilly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Some day I’ll tell you the Ozark Hairy Tree pig.
Kay
I thought there might be some bleed of the white vote for Democrats – although a majority of white people don’t vote for Democrats tens of millions of white people DO vote for Democrats and there are so many more white people it’s (obviously) crucial that we hold the share we have. I watched the Haley numbers with Republicans though and that made me optimistic that we could hold the D share of the electorate there and it seems we have, so that was a relief.
BritinChicago
@Ken: Nice one!
Jesse
Isn’t there just generally relatively little coverage of a VP? MVP Harris did receive some press coverage since taking office as VP, and I do recall that Biden did task her (or maybe she raised her hand herself) for a number of fairly high-profile initiatives. But unless we’re talking about, like, a rogue VP pursuing an obviously independent agenda, I wouldn’t expect *that* much coverage of a VP, excellent or otherwise.
So I don’t get the statement — certainly not coming from the press! — that there’s a dearth of information about Harris as VP. It’s there. It’s just not necessarily front-page material in our president-centric press.
BritinChicago
@Hoodie: “The 2020 campaign was afflicted by the narcissism of small differences.” Yes, and the way Harris secured the nomination simply by-passed all of that. I don’t know to what extent Biden planned it out, but it worked perfectly.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@OzarkHillbilly:
Come up to True/False next year!
Ken
@RandomMonster: It comes from a poll that asks “do you view candidate X favorably or unfavorably?” Then you subtract the unfavorable number from the favorable.
A –1.9% for Harris means the numbers were something like 50.9 unfavorable, 49.1 favorable*, which is unprecedented in these days. Most politicians, including Trump (especially Trump) have much worse numbers.
* Given the American electorate and its laser focus on news, the numbers were more likely 32% favorable, 34% unfavorable, and 34% “have not heard of Harris”.
OzarkHillbilly
@moonbat: It’s source is DEMs habit of promising “pie in the sky” entitlement policies without ever saying how they are going to pay for it.
Ooopps, my bad, that’s repubs and their tax cuts.
RandomMonster
@Seonachan: Thanks, and okay, but how does it compare with Trump?
Edit: Ken explained it.
Princess
I found a Fb memory from 2020 in which I stated that the clear majority of white voters would vote for Trump that fall. It ended up being 58-41%. A landslide. The incredulity of my friends in the comments, all white, all liberal, that this would happen is part of what’s wrong with this country. One guy estimate that maybe 90% of white people weren’t racist. Seriously? In 2020? 90%? Wouldn’t that be nice.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Take responsibility?
No….they don’t do that 😒😒😒
RandomMonster
@Ken: Thanks Ken! I get it now.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The MSM has shown why MVP should pay them dust 😒😒
Liminal Owl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: *sigh* How can anybody refuse Weird Al? I’d have loved to hear his version.
AnotherKevin
@Baud: I really don’t get what you are saying here. What is the problem with the pull quote, or even more generally?
Kay
@rikyrah:
I don’t think we should carry each loss to the next race. I have no interest at all in fighting the last war. Theyve been fair to Harris IMO, and I’m only measuring “to Harris”.
Part of the reason she’s so attractive to normies is she’s a clean break from the last ten years. We’re not going back :)
Frank Wilhoit
@Bupalos: No, it pushes. That is yet a third thing.
sdhays
@Baud: Right?
“How did we miss this?”
”She must have magically become awesome.”
And “indifferent” is a choice word. Someone (or rather “someones”) were indifferent, but it wasn’t the MVP.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t think they’ve been fair to Harris. But they haven’t yet found a narrative against her that sticks.
AnotherKevin
@AnotherKevin: On re-reading, I see what you mean. The second to last paragraph was gratuitous, even if it included a valid differentiation. There was no good reason to put that in.
The Audacity of Krope
@Kay: Fair to Harris…as nominee…so far.
The Financial Times excerpt above carries with it the legacy of them being unfair to her as VP as recently as a month ago. They just haven’t figured out how to deal with her as candidate yet.
Once we win this, the time until 2026 will have to be run against undemocratic sources of power outside our government. The media, in particular, is due a major reckoning.
Geminid
@RandomMonster: A practicsl example (I think) of “net favorable” would be a poll released by Noble Predictives in February, 2023. They’re a Phoenix-based polling outfit. They were previewing the Arizona Senate race by matching up Ruben Gallego, Kyrsten Sinema, and 5 different Republicans.
They also asked a “Favorable, Unfavorable. or No opinion” question regarding each candidate. Gallego was the only one “above water” at +6%. Sinema and Governor Ducey were minus 12%. Scary Kari Lake came in at a negative 20%, and that weirdo Blake Masters was down 22%.
Seonachan
Current 538 net favorables:
Harris -1.9
Trump -9.7
Walz +5.6
Vance -10.3
Kay
@The Audacity of Krope:
Oh, you can do what you want. I’m not re-running 2016 for the rest of my life. I refuse. I think voters are telling us in no uncertain terms they want to move on. Let them.
IMO that article is extremely favorable to Harris. You aren’t going to get better than that. It’s favorable coverage. She’s gotten mostly favorable coverage since she launched because she is a very good candidate and she’s popular with the public.
Geminid
@Seonachan: Vance sure is a clunker. First impressions count a lot, and it will be difficult for Vance to turn that around even if he has the capacity.
Jeffro
I feel like I’ve heard that, somewhere… =)
Kay
I also take issue with “Biden did this” or even “Harris did this”. This was a joint effort by the Democratic Party. A big reason it worked is because the Democratic Party functions as a positive institution in this country, an institution that still effectively performs its mission and function and does a lot of good – not just for Democrats- for the country as a whole. All Democrats and allies are a part of that, including the Democratic base. We all did this together. Republicans could never in a million years have pulled it off. It was never about One Great Man or One Great Woman – that’s an individualist take that media and Republicans ascribe to. Our ethos is a little different (and better) – we’re the “we” people :)
Frankensteinbeck
Voters do want to move on. They want free of Trump’s abuse. One of the huge ways the press beat down enthusiasm for Biden was by making it constantly feel like he’d done nothing to rid them of Trump. Switching to Harris brought that hope back. I admire what she’s done with it, but I think that huge initial surge was mostly from that hope.
@Kay:
Yeah, it’s true. As obnoxious as I find the writer’s perspective, in external context the article is a very good thing, and very friendly.
Jeffro
This – the simple fact of moving on from the past 9 years of trump’s constant barrage of whining – and the anti-vax issue feel like things that could really make a difference with whatever undecideds still remain.
(difference in our/Harris’ favor, I mean. =)
The Audacity of Krope
@Kay: 2016? We have not had a functioning media my entire adult life. The ridiculous treatment of Biden and H. Clinton and their predecessors is the same as the ridiculous treatment of BLM protestors and trans people and pro-Palestine protestors and Me Too victims and it never ends.
And if that is good coverage, then heaven help us. They just couldn’t help but have some stupid asides referring to their previous bullshit coverage as gospel. Positive coverage of Harris does not describe her as indifferent toward her job.
2016 was not a one-off. And treating it like it was is guaranteeing we’ll be re-running it well past the rest of your life into eternity.
Ken
@Geminid: Vance should do something to make himself look like a nice, regular guy, like, um… (can’t say buy donuts)… Something with a baby! Holding one and doing whatever one does with babies. But not like DeSantis. Normal stuff.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s not either / or. We’re a team, but we have leaders charged with doing leader things. None of us could make Harris be excellent after being thrust into spotlight. She had to do that herself.
Geminid
@Kay: Yes, that was a team effort. Congressional leaders and rank-and-file members delivered the goods despite vey narrow majorities
Ed. And Democratic voters also delivered, most importantly in Georgia where they flipped two Senate seats.
Matt McIrvin
The two political blogs I read regularly are still full of conflict over (1) Israel/Palestine, and (2) pointless retrospective infighting over the switch to Harris and who was right about it all along.
So it’s a bit hard for me to see the unity… until I step back and compare it to 2016 (there are *still* flare-ups of fighting over 2016).
Kay
And SO MANY institutions failed and let us and the country down over the last ten years but one that didn’t was the Democratic Party. It held up. It’s resilient. The GOP, on the other hand, failed in the face of challenges. It just… collapsed the moment it was tested. They didn’t even put up a fight.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Agree. The reason were not going back is because we’re not going to forget history.
cmorenc
@BritinChicago:
Wade your way through Feynman’s 1st-year Cal Tech’s 3-volume Physics text and get back to me on that thought. Challenging though that lucidly explained text is, that’s just the basement foundation level for Feynman’t 33rd story level grasp of math and physics, far higher than most mere mortals can reach. Feynman’s indulging false modesty with that comment, big-time
A characteristic of people who are both great thinkers and great communicators is their ability to make something difficult seem much easier than it is.
rk
@Jeffro:
I think he’s doing the will he, won’t he routine to stay in the news. I expect him to be there. He treats everything as a TV show and a ratings competition.
OzarkHillbilly
One small problem with that: Does Vance even know what one does with babies?
Oh yeah, secondly, who would trust him with their baby?
Suzanne
Still blows my mind that the man wearing orange makeup is an icon of masculinity to some, but I’m just a caveman.
Baud
@Ken:
He can ask his wife if she would lend him one of her children.
Suzanne
@Kay:
We have Nancy Smash, in large part, to thank for that.
Kay
@Baud:
No voter wants to watch a pissing match with media. They aren’t going to have any idea what you are talking about or why you’re doing it. It takes us away from the core mission, which is voters.
I took a driving course for USPS managers. One of the things they told us is that bad and dangeous drivers try to “correct” other drivers on the road – that’s where you get the dumb stuff that leads to wrecks – following too closely, cutting people off, inattention to your own vehicle and rate of travel. They told us “drive your truck – you’re not the manager of the whole roadway”
We’re not the managers of the media industry. We’re about getting and delivering for voters.
Baud
@Kay:
Most of our voters are normies. They don’t any conflict. Most of them want Dems to find common ground with Republicans.
A party that can stand up for itself is not going to inspire others over the long term.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: What that means is that they didn’t pay attention to anything she did because they were too busy writing articles about Biden’s age.
Mousebumples
@Kay: I think that’s due to a number of things – free Anti-Racist movement/George Floyd related protests, DEI trainings, and women remembering how sexism and misogyny was an unreported (or underreported) part of the 2016 HRC campaign.
I’ve been more mindful of potential sexism and racism than I might have been 4+ years ago. As a cishet white woman, I there’s some things I keep finding in my brain/subconscious that I’m working with/through. I’m probably not the only one working to be a better ally – and working to use my privilege to push back against Narratives.
BethanyAnne
@Kay: That… Huh. That explains so much. That’s a hell of a reframing for me. Thanks for sharing that USPS bit o’ wisdom.
mappy!
/de-lurk
This DNC convention was cathartic. the Harris/Walz campaign is cathartic. The thin film of grime of Atwater & Stone’s CREEP, has been flushed.
/re-lurk
Kay
@Suzanne:
I love Pelosi and agree she was central to this but IMO that’s One Great Woman again.
Democrats have an actual mission. They stuck to it. One goal- win and then deliver for voters. When we veer from that mission – into managing the for profit media industry (which is an institution that largely failed), I think we run into trouble.
We can’t fix all the institutions. They have to do it themselves.
Kay
@Mousebumples:
Agree. So true. I’m much more aware of both racism after Obama and sexism after Clinton.
Scout211
I could be wrong but I don’t think Trump’s rant about ABC News means he will skip the planned debate. I think he is just pre-planning who to blame for his poor performance, like he always does. He did the same thing prior to his debate with Biden, accusing Biden of using drugs to boost his energy and performance. This is what he and his social media minions do to make sure the base believes his failures are not his, but are caused by others.
He (or his social media minions) never specifically said he would skip the debate. They are just teeing up pre-planned excuses for his possible poor performance, like they always do.
The Audacity of Krope
@Kay: We don’t need to get in a pissing match with the media. We just need to be a little more circumspect with them.
For example, the obvious, successful does not equate to high quality. We should take a little time to note who is putting in real work and who is advancing lazy “everybody knows” narratives. After this long overdue diligence, give interviews to the former group.
What we don’t need is to be feeding any particular outlet’s sense of entitlement or high self-regard. This isn’t just a game. Tactics aren’t the only consideration. They are on a long-term mission to dumb down the electorate and the only real tool we have to push back is choosing who gets access.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: I think all Harris has to do is call him a coward for wanting to back out, and he won’t, because it would be a blow to his “manhood” to be seen as cowardly in the face of a woman.
lowtechcyclist
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh, they were in disarray for all but occasional moments of his presidency. Remember those huge Dem Congressional majorities of 2009-2010? If we had >250 Dem Congresspersons, why did Pelosi have to work so hard to pass bills by 219-216? We had lots of Ben Nelsons in the Senate that made it a heavy lift to get to 60 even during those few months when we had 60, and of course Joe Lieberman who was outright undermining his own party half the time.
If you ask me, the loss of a ton of Blue Dogs in 2010 and 2014 ultimately helped. The Dems who won Congressional races in 2018 and 2020 to get us our narrow majorities weren’t the sort who were looking to underbus Blacks or women or gay or trans people in order to win white votes.
The result has been a party with narrow majorities, but one that is united on these and many more things, and can now start expanding its majority as more people realize we’re right about practically everything. If we come out of this election with the Presidency and both houses of Congress in our hands, things are going to get better from here.
TBone
Our Jay posted about the financial disclosures fElon had to make recently, tying him and X to this Russian oligarch Durov. Vindman xit:
https://x.com/AVindman/status/1827704034783879439
(Durov is Telegram owner who is very close to Pooty)
In response to:
Soprano2
@moonbat: Those are the positions Republicans have assigned to Democrats, so the press has to pretend they’re real. /s/s/s/s/s/s
Soprano2
@BritinChicago: I think the closest thing Democrats have to a “cult of personality” is the popularity of Michelle Obama.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The press didn’t cover what Harris was doing much, but they didn’t cover the Biden/Harris achievements either. My hairdresser recently told me she was voting R because the D’s had their chance and didn’t do anything.
ETA: I’m actually astonished at what the Ds managed to accomplish given the Congress.
Princess
@Scout211: I don’t know if Trump will skip the debate or not. He needs it more than Harris right now, though she needs it too. But if it does happen I don’t think it will be a slam dunk for Harris. I don’t think Trump is easy to debate. Same with Walz Vance. Vance is completely charmless but he’s not stupid. Frankly I’m not sure I can bear to watch either one!
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I hope she’s better with hair than with reality.
Scout211
This morning Politico has a “scoop” about the behind the scenes negotiations for the September 10 debate. They are reporting that there is a disagreement on the mics being muted.
I think she’ll do fine either way, but if true, this is an interesting strategy.
Jeffro
@rk: I hear you about him always wanting to be the center of attention and to get ratings (mankind’s highest measure of esteem, in his mind) but here I think he’s laying the groundwork to bail out on the debate.
His base will, of course, see it as a sign of strength. Fortunately, the rest of the country will see it for the weakness that it is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW just came in my office and told me that a shirt worn by Babe Ruth in a World Series just sold for $24M. Yet another sign that some people have too much money, and we should be taxing the bejeebers out of them.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Agree.
Princess
@Scout211: Oh, I love this story. Goad him in the media. Good for Harris. What a great team she has. (Which, I know, is mostly Biden’s team)
Attapooch
@Princess: Harris just needs an updated version of Reagan’s “There you go again” to use each time that Trump spews a lie. I’m not saying that Carter was lying just that it was an incredibly effective rhetorical tool.
Frankensteinbeck
@Suzanne:
He’s belligerent, has no soft feelings, sees women solely as sex objects, commits rape and has had sex with porn stars. Those are all major toxic masculinity points. Throw in that he’s fat and flabby, dumb as a stump, and a complete chickenshit who talks loudly but carries a matchstick and he’s also what most of his fans want to excuse and validate.
EDIT – @Jeffro:
I’ve seen Republicans abandon a candidate for backing out of a debate. They do not see it as strength.
Suzanne
@Scout211: Remember the “shitshow” debate? The one with “will you shut up, man?”? I remember that was just an absolutely insane event. I don’t remember if it had any effect on the polls.
Harrison Wesley
@Ken: A baby? He’d probably try to eat it.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s “Let trump be trump.” GOPs used to think that was a positive for rump. Maybe they’ve changed their tune,
Soprano2
@Princess: Boy, your friends must live in liberal oases, or else they don’t pay that much attention to how people really are. LOL I knew the same thing, I live around it, although my area is getting slowly, slowly more liberal. All the surrounding counties are TCFG Country, though. He’ll still get a majority of the vote even in my city where the white population is around 86%.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: That’s because Michelle Obama is not a politician or a political candidate. She knows perfectly well that if she ran for any office that comity would break.
Soprano2
I agree with this. Voters have been telling pollsters for two years that they didn’t want a replay of Biden/TCFG. I personally think a significant amount of that is that they want to move on from the Covid years. Republicans could have gotten rid of TCFG if only they’d been willing to vote “guilty” when he was impeached the second time, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do that, so they’re stuck with him until he dies.
Kay
@The Audacity of Krope:
I think rank and file Democrats “working the refs” is effective, but Harris and other Dems in leadership should stay away from it. It’s bitter, it’s a loser, and people will see it as self interested. So rank and file Dems doing things like checking media on their “focus groups” which include fake undecided voters -check them on garbage work, that’s effective. But general “we don’t get the coooveraaage we deserve!” – ugh- people wil hate it.
Go read Trump’s boring fucking social media posts about the NYTimes. You’ll want to kill yourself it’s so boring. On and on about Maggie Haberman. No one normal knows who she is!
My son in law, a new Democrat and a centrist normie, told me the best thing about the Harris campaign is it isn’t about Donald Trump.
He wants to move on. So does everyone else. Let’s go with them instead of dragging them back. They don’t want to go! They’ll refuse!
Jeffro
oh, okay, sounds good. I know where I’m putting my money.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
I think this is true, but I also think we have underestimated how much thirst there really is on our side for generational change. Our coalition is younger and much more racially diverse than the GOP voting cohort. I think a lot of the younger crew wants to see themselves reflected positively in public and governmental life, in a comprehensive and meaningful way. Part of why our convention was so great was that it showcased AOC, Hakeem, Warnock, and others who show us that we have a bright future.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I think the interview Vance did yesterday morning shows that he has no intention of trying to turn any of that negative impression around. It’s who he is, for good or ill, and he’s not going to change that. Good Lord, evidently he said that his wife has 3 beautiful children, rather than saying that they have 3 beautiful children. And they wonder why we’re saying they’re weird…..
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well, in their defense it was the ‘called shot’ jersey from the 1932 World Series . The fact that it might be a myth is beside the point, it’s Babe Ruth.
If you aren’t a baseball fan you are probably saying, “So?” Fair enough but true blue, died in the wool baseball fans aren’t very high on the normie scale.
OzarkHillbilly
@Frankensteinbeck: Today’s repubs aren’t going to hold it against him. They will rationalize it as the ultimate alpha male move.
BritinChicago
@Princess: Yes. Remember all that blither after the 2008 election about our now being a post-racial society? I didn’t buy it at the time but it was even further from the mark than I thought. If Harris is elected that might be evidence that we’re moving in that direction, but not quickly.
Ben Cisco
@The Audacity of Krope: True. There’s a lot more pushback now, and there will continue to be as long as the Press Corpse keeps doing Press Corpse things.
BritinChicago
@Kay: Thanks. That needed saying.
Scout211
Another interesting article this morning, this one from Axios.
This is a positive development that is a very smart move. But what was going on with the Biden campaign team that they didn’t include House members?
Kay
@Soprano2:
Lol. He did say it. I watched. Republicans have put themselves in a box where they can never, ever apologize or admit a mistake. That’s a disaster for quality work. You see the same thing in media. You really, really need people who self police and self correct to uphold quality.
It’s all ego driven, not mission driven. Media have this absolutely NOBLE mission just sitting there, and they won’t pick it up. Instead they’ve made themselves petty and small. I watch international news with those godammed brave reporters in the vests that say “press” and I think “who the fuck abandons this historical and constitutional mission so cavaliery?” Low quality hires, that’s who.
But I want to think of them as bad drivers on a roadway I share. All I can do is drive well and stay focused on getting where I’m going – I dont have time or energy or ability to fix their industry. Go around them.
gene108
@Princess:
That’s the lowest share of the white male vote a Republican presidential candidate has gotten in several cycles. Biden cut into the Republican white male voter advantage, which is how he offset losses in Hispanics/Latinos and other minority groups from Hillary’s share in 2016.
Starfish
@Baud:
Baud
@Scout211:
Perhaps Biden had different plans and strategies. Perhaps it’s the difference between June and August.
Who knows? See comment number 1.
Baud
@Starfish:
True, but funding didn’t improve her speeches or her interaction with voters.
Bupalos
Couldn’t you just as well say there has never been a functioning media in the sense we’re talking about here? At which point we have to ask ourselves what we expect “The Media” to be and to do. What was the period of time when “The Media” was functional? In some respects this kind of thing feels like a “golden age” myth to me.
TBone
College radio playing ‘Blue Money’ right now.
🎶💙
“When this is all over, you’ll be in clover…”
Wasn’t gonna but this is such a happy occasion!
https://youtu.be/dECPWpAlgaU
Steve LaBonne
@Andrew Abshier: I mean, how would the reporters know what kind of VP she’s been? They were too busy pretending she didn’t exist.
gene108
@Matt McIrvin:
Nobody is fighting over what the end goals are. There is some disagreement on how to get there.
This wasn’t true in 2016.
Big Mango
“The astonishing metamorphosis of Kamala Harris”: more like
we didn’t pay any attention to her until now…..
Baud
@Big Mango:
To be fair, “The Steady Development of Kamala Harris” probably wouldn’t get as many clicks.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
If that’s all we’re fighting about, that’s freakin’ amazing by the standards of even four years ago, let alone anytime previous.
K-Mo
@Jeffro: I think this is right. Loathing of trump has been monotonically increasing for 8 years, and their one trick for combating that fact was to drum up antipathy for Biden. Ironically, 4 years ago Biden’s biggest political asset was his lack of objectinableness.
Bupalos
@Steve LaBonne: I think this whole line is a little over-bittered. VP’s are basically never paid any attention whatsoever, and I can’t think of any that wouldn’t have had their tenure in the role described with a shrug and a “meh.” It tends to be a borderline ceremonial role.
It’s also a bad alley for us to head down, Trump is trying rather desperately to act like Harris was already president the last 3 years. Dems shouldn’t abet that in any way.
Soprano2
Boy, you do see it everywhere. I’ve seen it where I work, people who will never admit they screwed something up and instead point the finger at everyone else. I take responsibility for the things I mess up, but I won’t take responsibility for other people’s screwups. Sometimes that gets you called not a “team player” by the people who never want to admit to errors.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Pelosi was amazing in her last Congress as Speaker, getting all that big legislation through with only a few votes she could afford to lose.
And serious props as well to Chuck Schumer, who couldn’t lose a single vote, and had Manchinema to deal with.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m still not sure you see what I’m driving at. I don’t want the electeds to campaign against the media. They don’t have to say a word. Let their actions speak.
If they only do public-interest focused, challenging interviews (I’m not asking for softballs or tongue baths) with professional journalists, that will set better expectations for the whole media across the public.
Public interest in elections may actually increase if the conversation looks less like a circus and actually speaks to real needs of voters.
Matt McIrvin
@BritinChicago: If Kamala Harris becomes President I expect the white-man backlash to be apocalyptic. Maybe even literally, but at least metaphorically. It’s a reckoning that is going to come sooner or later though.
Soprano2
@Bupalos: I think a lot of us were so burned by what happened to Hillary in 2016 that we see things even when they aren’t there.
cmorenc
@Soprano2:
If Trump loses in ’24, he will be 82 going on 83 going into the 2028 campaign, with double loser-stink. Some younger pugnacious ass-wipe like Tom Cotton (?) or maybe even a female in the mold of Jodi (pig-castrating) Ernst will be the standard-bearer. Rich GOP backers will no longer see worthwhle profit in propping up Trump’s tottering financial state. All that’s not to say they won’t be looking for a new cult figure to replace Trump, nor that he won’t remain a popular figure at GOP events, but he will be regarded as too-unguided a missle to be an actual campaign surrogate on the hustings for whomever new cult figure emerges.
Steve LaBonne
@Bupalos: I don’t expect or want Harris to say it, but I’m a nobody with no influence and I will damn sure say it.
Josie
@Ken:
As I think about what you wrote, it occurred to me that I have not seen clips or pics of him interacting with his own kids. There may be some out there, but not enough to break through. It is difficult to imagine him as a family man.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I’m pretty sure Harris looks to this blog to help her fashion strategy.
Baud
@Josie:
You will also not find clips of Trump interacting with his own base.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
This. The Harris campaign is already handling it the right way, by working around the MSM as much as possible. Don’t fight ’em, just give them less oxygen.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s why we have Coach.
Chris
@Princess:
The number of people who after the 2016 election rushed to say things like “look, you can’t assume someone’s racist just because they voted for Trump!” (often after an entire year of saying the exact opposite) was a nice summary of how meaningless the concept of “racist” is in “mainstream” public discourse. “Racist” by definition means fringe and unacceptable, so any time a racist person or concept makes it to the big leagues, the concept has to be redefined so that it no longer covers these people. Because obviously, ordinary Americans can’t be racist.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: I thought it was going to be J.D. Vance, but maybe not. Cotton or Josh Hawley maybe?
Chris
@Baud:
This is more accurate, yes.
Bupalos
@Suzanne: I think Kay’s point is that we don’t so much have particular individuals to thank for that, we have a strong institution to thank. Which party means patting our own selves on the back.
I think that’s really true. I think it’s frankly pretty amazing that a lot of electeds looked beyond a short term political reflex to not make waves and mostly coalesced into a general party will, that party leaders then acted on with remarkably strong resolution. Upending tradition, sticking their heads up, taking a risk for democracy. A lesser institution would not have been able to function this way, whatever great individual you injected into it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Kemp.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: In a *subordinate role* to a black woman, which will trigger the troglodytes all the more. I remember the speculation about having Tim Kaine as running mate to Hillary Clinton actually made it more galling because the woman was boss over a man.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think whoever it is has to have fascist-groyper cred. No more normie Republicans. They can only double down.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s going to take a while (if ever) for that to happen. In ’28 they will all be trying to be the new trump but I doubt very much any of them can carry it off. Should they lose in ’28, rumpism is dead (a few will still try to capture that zeitgeist, but I don’t see anybody carrying it off).
We might still lose in ’28 but if so it will be because a DEM in the WH for 12 years might be too much for the American electorate.
Another Scott
I’m shocked, shocked that ossified middle-aged white guy opinion havers underestimated a smart, talented, strong, personable, and yes joyful, Indian-Jamaican-American woman vice president.
It boggles the mind, it does.
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
Her DNC convention speech was great.
But so was her 2019 Our America speech in Oakland.
Maybe the press and the pundits are catching up. We’ll see.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Bupalos
@Baud: This is fair since it’s basically the whole line I was taking with the whole replacement foofaraw.
But whether we’re talking communications strategy or just reality, Harris was pretty much like every other VP – hamstrung and hidden, by design. There’s no such thing as an amazing VP. I suppose it makes sense then to say that the press shouldn’t make it sound like that’s a possibility, but it also sounds silly to me when people are like “how can they ignore how excellent she was as VP??!”
Chris
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
2020-2024 was the media running an experiment to see if they could get away with simply being in 2000/2016 Butteremailz mode not just during an election year but during an entire presidency. Total blackout on anything that could be good news for the White House, total blackout on anything that could allow the White House to get its message out, relentless barrage of nothing but negative stories all the time.
The answer was that yes, they can get away with it, and it works.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Big scoop on front page of NYT today — she says she’s from Oakland, but she’s really from Berkeley!
Belafon
@Jeffro: Trump’s trying to play the refs. He’s going to show up because 1) he craves attention, and 2) he knows he would get thrashed if he didn’t. He’s just trying to get everyone to think any hard questions for him are unfair.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bupalos: Dark Brandon would like to have a word with you.
Baud
@Bupalos:
I think people are saying it’s the media’s own fault if they’re utterly surprised by Harris.
Chief Oshkosh
@Liminal Owl:
Waaah! Duh bad lady took my horse race away! Waaah!
Fuck you, Jacoby. Goddamn but the political press really needs to have a long time-out.
Starfish
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Some of the youngest billionaires are barely 20 years old.
Quiltingfool
@Baud: Yeh, I think Kemp, too. Heaven help us, but we (humans) judge people on their looks. Kemp looks normal. Hawley and Cotton, well, not so much.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Oh no. California is going red!
The purpose of these types of articles to portray Dems as shifty and untrustworthy. The subject matter doesn’t matter.
Suzanne
@Bupalos: I’d agree with that.
But one important strength of political parties is picking the right people to be the leaders and the public faces and the rising stars. In this sense, Pelosi was elevated and maintains great influence because the Dems are inherently mostly functional and results-oriented and have a goal of good governance.
Contrast that with the GOP, which has been taken over and utterly decimated by this utter freak show and his fucken freaky family….. specifically because everyone else in that Party is a craven and self-interested and cowardly piece of shit.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
How is that a freaking scoop? It was mentioned in an official DNC video played during the convention. And she has talked in the past about being among the first classes to integrate Berkeley public schools. But she was born in Oakland and as an adult lived there IIRC.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: I’m ready! I practically DARE ’em!
Hubby don’t play! I got my Chucks in baby blue, ready to JUMP BAD.
College radio is LIT today 🎶🔥
https://youtu.be/5z25pGEGBM4
zhena gogolia
@BR: But don’t you know that Oakland and Berkeley are worlds apart? I think there’s a big huge wall between the two of them.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Fun fact: Mexico paid for that wall.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
I spent a decade of my life on and off living in Berkeley. It’s funny to hear the right wing caricatures like it’s still the summer of love over there — they’re the ones stuck in the ’60s. It’s mostly a town of very tired and stressed college students with a lot of shiny new university buildings mixed in with old craftman houses.
Josie
@Baud: Good point. Same lack of humanity.
Chris
@Bupalos:
That’s also true. People usually refer to a few decades in the mid to late twentieth century in which Everybody Trusted Walter Cronkite, which is basically the media counterpart to the Liberal Consensus era in politics… and like the Liberal Consensus era in politics, the memory is a lot rosier than some of the reality under it. Like the extent to which it rested on an accepted principle of “don’t make the average white guy upset,” and the speed with which that trust disintegrated once that principle was no longer viewed as being honored.
K-Mo
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, and…
i love the way they are dictating a message. It’s like, you guys aren’t going to cover what actually happened at the Trump rally? We will whip off a quick synopsis ticking off all the cra-cra. You are at a loss for what to say about us without being able to pigeonhole it into your prefab policy-dickering apparatus? Here are your talking points- go report on this stuff or just plug it into your AI system, thanks.
Chris
@cmorenc:
All of this.
I’m one of the people who knew as early as February 2020 that Trump was absolutely going to be the 2024 nominee. But I think that if he loses this one (a big if – knocking on wood) – he probably won’t be the 2028 nominee. Republican victimhood complex can only carry you so far when you’ve got that much loser stink on you. At a certain point, you cross the line from being a righteous victim appallingly wronged by the Liberal Deep State to being just a fucking loser who can’t close the deal and needs to step aside so somebody else can have a shot.
SatanicPanic
@Bupalos: There’s no such thing as an amazing VP
Exactly. Yes they occasionally do good stuff, but the idea she saved the world but the media didn’t tell us is kinda silly.
TBone
WQSU college rawk! 🎶💙
https://youtu.be/tUcA2ij_piU
Barbara
@Another Scott: Women are mostly invisible to men. That’s the message that comes through from the media and press each and every day. And the corollary is, the media usually have no real idea what is important to women that might be distinct from or even the same as what is important to men. Media types just assume that people like them have carved out the space that counts as “normal and typical” and that everyone else who says something different is a “special interest.”
The other trope is, men are presumed to be competent — whereas, any imperfection in a woman is presumed to be a sign of incompetence. Otherwise, by what objective measure could anyone see Donald Trump as more qualified to hold public office than Kamala Harris?
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Since they exile those who aren’t (e.g. Kinziger, Liz Cheney), that’s what they’re left with.
Bupalos
@Baud: I thought she’d be good and a big upgrade, but I’m pretty close to shocked how easy she’s making this look. A very very difficult ultra-high-stakes hand is being played as breezy and fun, and at the same time she’s somehow steely-eyed and radiates gravitas and a particularly American kind of authenticity. No I did not see that coming. I don’t think it was predictable, and is a mix of a sea-change in the energy environment and vast improvement in her communication and confidence.
If people aren’t surprised by how well she’s doing here, how were so many so dead set against the switch?
Barbara
@Bupalos: Because it wasn’t anything close to certain that the transition would be as immediate and well-thought out as it was or that she would be the victor in the process. That’s why.
SatanicPanic
I know there’s been a lot of crazy things in this election but JD Vance claiming that Trump would veto an abortion ban is … pretty crazy. First of all- no, we’re not stupid (as Liz Warren said), he definitely would sign a ban. But like wtf a Republican claiming this out loud? He knows that his evangelical base will believe he’s lying. And since evangelicals are practiced liars he knows they’re ok with that.
Bupalos
@Barbara: Journalists are disproportionately white but no longer disproportionately male.
Another Scott
@Chris: Recognizing your larger point, I have to respond to this:
Which is, of course, yet another lie. Lots and lots of people hated Cronkite and watched Huntley-Brinkley/John Chancellor or that other guy instead. Our family was a Huntley-Brinkley/John Chancellor family.
It’s yet another lazy shorthand from lazy ossified white middle-aged opinion havers who either weren’t there or have lived in a cocoon of similar folks all their lives and who never bothered to look outside it.
There have always been disagreements and problems and people being punched down in the USA. There is no “golden age” of the press in the USA where everyone agreed and everyone trusted them. It’s just that most people at least pretended to be non-fascists when out in public and didn’t have national networks pumping up white supremacy without any guardrails or shame 24/7.
[/rant]
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: If Biden was a decrepit as the MSM consistently suggested, would it not have been a good idea for a functioning news organization to have a working knowledge of the woman who could be expected to replace him at any moment?
SatanicPanic
@Bupalos: if the media had spent the last two years telling us how great Harris is I have a suspicion people who didn’t like the idea of replacing Biden would have had a problem with that. “Why are they angling to replace Biden by hyping Harris?”
Anoniminous
@Chris:
Johnson knew what he was talking about when he told Bill Moyer “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,”
lowtechcyclist
@Chris:
Other than I think you mean February 2021, I think this would be correct if Trump weren’t mentally deteriorating. But he is, and I think his inability to let go of Biden is evidence of that – he just can’t shift gears anymore. By 2027, it’ll be clear that he’s too far gone to be the 2028 nominee, loser stink or no loser stink.
cain
@Ken: just invite JD Vance or Kennedy. That should send Trump into a fit.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara: It has to keep being said. Lot of short-term memory loss around here.
Bupalos
@Barbara: How is that not an underestimation of her then within that process? I always completely disagreed with the idea that Dems were some kind of powder keg that only careful, paralyzed management could keep from exploding. Dems wanted to be unified, in fact were hell-bent on being unified over and above any policy or identity consideration, because Trump.
But even accepting the flawed premise…She clearly held the best cards in that hand. As was specifically noted by Clyburn or even blog-villain Ezra Klein. Even if the game was somehow going to be messy, this iteration of Harris would be on top of it.
I’m not saying that’s predictable, I’m saying the combination of sentiments “oh I totally knew she was this good, not surprised” and “we’re dead if we try to switch to Harris” don’t seem to mix.
Chris
@lowtechcyclist:
I did mean 2021. Sorry. I can’t math. Math is hard.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: They are going to attack her on the basis of her mother’s religion and her father’s leftist leanings. We better have her back.
lowtechcyclist
@Barbara:
Remember that they also found Trump as more qualified to be President than Biden was, as evidenced by the raft of “Biden must step aside” pieces after the debate, without any suggestion that Trump should do the same because he’d be far worse – until their readers practically forced them into it, that is. And that was after Biden had been doing the job, and doing it amazingly well, for three and a half years.
Not arguing that that trope is false, just that there was clearly a lot more going on here than that.
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: I think she’s got the right Obamaesque response to that kind of effort.
It doesn’t hurt that that kind of angle just feels (like Trump) really old.
PAM Dirac
@Another Scott:
Or nobody. I think it was mid to late 70s when there was a lot of chatter about the negative effect of the violence on television. I always thought by far the most damaging thing on television was the evening news. A handful of rich white guys in NYC claiming to tell the whole country what is important and if you disagree, well you aren’t important. Bully for them, but I’m not a rich white guy from NYC so why should I defer to them for opinions on what is important?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Why don’t you take people at their word? It is not unreasonable to think that replacing the candidate was dangerous and unnecessary while also thinking that Harris is a talented politician who would make a good president. Those are two separate thoughts.
Steve LaBonne
@schrodingers_cat: Attacks like this are as old and tired as Trump himself and play only with the most rabid MAGAs.
PST
@Kay:
Very true. It might actually be Nancy Pelosi who was closer to being a once-in-a-generation talent. And in addition to being true, the joint effort claim is a good reason for Harris to resist too much specificity in her policy prescriptions. She does not and cannot know what will be possible. Will Democrats carry both houses? Will they need some “bipartisan” Republican votes, and if so, will there be any to be had? What compromises will be necessary? After all, that immigration bill we are beating up the Republicans for backing off from is very flawed and wouldn’t have passed muster with Democrats a year ago. Harris should stick to the general thrust of what she wants to accomplish, as she mostly has, and state without embarrassment that the specifics will depend on Congress.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The House Blue Dog Caucus came out of the 2018 election with 25 members. They were actually some of Nancy Pelosi’s strongest supporters and she took care of them in return. They was a more demographically diverse group than the it during the Obama administration.
They’ve lost members since, 5 or 6 in 2020 including some promising Democrats elected in 2018 and a veteran rural Minnesota Demowho’d held on several cycles as his district became more and more Republican. His seniority on the Ag Committee no longer trumped negative partisanship.
When the current Congress commenced in January of last year, six more members left the Caucus including Case (HI), Correa (CA), Sherrill ((NJ) snd Spanberger (VA). The Blue Dogs added Mary Peltola and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez to bring their numbers back to 10, but 4 members are over 70 years old so the caucus mught not ladt out the decade. It’s more of a brand now than an ideogy anway.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Accepting the nuances of a disputed situation doesn’t help anyone argue they were always obviously right the whole time…
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You should have told her* that you guess you’ll just have to go to another hairdresser tomorrow since, similarly, she won’t have “done anything”.
*Not really – never talk back to someone with scissors chopping around your head.
TBone
Meanwhile 😆
Rats, sinking ship…I am ever hopeful
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/elon-musk-calls-for-release-of-telegram-founder-pavel-durov-as-arrest-sparks-debate-whether-x-owner-may-be-next/ar-AA1psrJM
Rumble’s owner fled Europe yesterday.
Deets at the link are on point!
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: We’re not talking about “being a good president” we’re talking about having almost instant and unprecedented campaign success and turning things around on a dime. I’m just reacting to the media criticism angle here “of course they’re surprised, unlike us, they underestimated her! We always knew she was a generational talent!!” Just noting some dissonance here, not questioning anyone’s “word.”
I do think people should be a little surprised. Or, like Kay, have been “are you people fucking nuts? Put the girl in she will slay!!”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sdhays: I said I couldn’t take Trump, then held my tongue. Yes, she had scissors and a hank of my hair in her hands.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve LaBonne: The media will be “just asking questions”. The attacks work, ask Kerry, Gore and Hillary Clinton.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@PST:
This. And it started the nano-second we took the house in 2007. She wasted no time squashing a ton of “we’re-creating-our-own-playbook” crapola the Bushies had spent their first term implementing.
Obama’s legacy will owe much to her. I feel Biden’s ability to smash thru all the stuff he did was in no small part because of her.
Historically, House Speakers have been a “meh” lot on both sides of the aisle. History will be very good to Nanna.
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus:
@The Audacity of Krope:
In fact, it becomes somewhat hopeless to change someone’s mind when they see no reason for a change to take place.
Princess
@Scout211: It’s especially interesting given that Harris’s team basically is Biden’s team. A few possibilities: It’s something Biden would have done too post convention but drawing the contrast is a clever way for the Harris team to differentiate her from her predecessor and get a positive story. It’s a new direction coming from the top– Harris. It’s a new direction coming from the few people she added. I prefer the first explanation but any could be true.
Chris
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Earlier even than that, I’d say. If memory serves she was the one who led Democrats in holding the line against Dubya’s Social Security privatization effort in 2004.
She’s easily the best politician of this century.
Gin & Tonic
@TBone:
No, they’re not. Telegram and Twitter are not comparable,
Bupalos
@The Audacity of Krope: erm…. this whole objection of mine is based on the premise that I was wrong about Harris. I thought she’d be a marginal improvement on Biden that mostly just raised our chances from 1-in-10 to 2 or 3-in-10 while stabilizing down ballot and mitigating against further erosion. Absolutely did not foresee the separation she’s gotten and fresh start she’s provided.
And specifically questioning a kind of take that is basically “I knew she was this good all along.” Come on now. No one KNEW it, don’t pivot off of “we can’t switch” and be like “well yeah The Media is so racist and sexist they couldn’t see the obvious…”
The Audacity of Krope
@japa21: Indeed. In fact, while I had Harris on my short “preferred” list four years ago, I’m shocked with how smoothly her transition to the main candidate has been.
And even though I emphatically did not support Biden in the primaries four years ago, I will always be offended by what was done to him. And I will worry for our Democracy as long as powerful undemocratic institutions like the media and the donor class have that type of influence.
Mark’s Bubbie
@Frankensteinbeck: Is it so hard for them to say, “she learned from experience and improved”? Apparently yes!
Mr. Bemused Senior
I have stayed away from this conversation until now.
That “sentiment” [… we’re dead…] is your imagination. Having been a Biden supporter throughout does not imply it.
bluefoot
@Princess:
I’d be happy if 50% of white people weren’t racist. But I learned to my chagrin after George Floyd, that I had a good number of white friends (I’m POC) who were racist. As time has gone on, more have shown their true feelings. Trump really did give permission to people to show their bad sides. It’s depressing.
On the flip side, I’ve also had more than one white friend tell me that George Floyd, BLM and Jan 6th really opened their eyes to what it’s like to be a POC in the US. One or two were kind of racist before but are working on it, and some who weren’t racist are now actively anti-racist.
TBone
Today’s Tiedrich, for all who celebrate!
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/kamalas-successful-convention-has
Mr. Bemused Senior
👍
TBone
@Gin & Tonic: no one compared them! As in
The deets were not a comparison. They were statements about what’s going on (Fidelity Bank loan holder, the cratering, etc.).
Apples and oranges are different, as we already know. No comparison necessary.
schrodingers_cat
@bluefoot: White people are always discounting racism just like upper caste Indians discount casteism. If they don’t face it, it must not exist
Also their bar for what counts as racism is set pretty high. I am sure ever Trump and Vance don’t think that they are racist.
Omnes Omnibus
@bluefoot: Any white person is going to have some issues with race. Even the best of us. All we can say is that some of us are trying to identify and fix the issue we have.
tam1MI
Note to self: next time click the link!
Bupalos
It was the Democratic party that had that kind of influence, and I think it was one of the most positive signs for American democracy in a decade. Democracy is as strong as its institutions, and our party just flexed its democratic muscles. People wanted a different candidate. Polls said so, vibes said so, and the reaction to the change here is all the evidence we should need.
Jeffro
ALERT: we talk about it a lot, but it really happened, the NYT has descended into complete farce. Here’s what they’re selling this morning:
Rich Lowry: Trump Can Win On Character
(no link needed)
Pitchbot gonna just have to give it up now…ye gods..
ETA: Pitchbot on Twitter just now about this: “I think we may be nearing the end of civilization”
TBone
@Jeffro: 😆🤡😆🤡
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chris:
She was after Dubya said in 05 he’d cash in all that “political capital” he felt he got during the 04 election.
Her messaging on that until the midterms was masterful and was definitely a factor in the Dem win, which enabled her to shutDubyathefuckup on Social Security afterwards.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Those spaces will never show a reflection of Dem unity because they are spaces that attract people who are as obsessed with Dem division (and in creating it themselves) as the media. They are extremely loud, relentless and dominate threads with their antics, as we’ve seen here for the past ten months. The result is that any spaces they inhabit regularly are not a good snapshot of our party, coalition or Electorate. If you want to see where we are really at, I think what we saw at the DNC is a much more accurate one.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Doug’s already got a response up:
“I think we may be nearing the end of civilization.”
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bless you for saying this. So much truth.
bluefoot
@schrodingers_cat: It’s why I think the election is still a toss up. Between the systemic (hello, Electoral College and gerrymandering) and nefarious (election officials purging voter rolls, etc etc), it won’t take a lot of votes to swing the election one way or another. What people say and how they vote don’t necessarily correlate. Latent racism comes out in all sorts of forms.
We need to *crush* TCFG’s ticket and all downballot Republicans.
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope:
I find myself in alignment with this.
I supported her first in 2020, then voted for Warren in the primary. And much of my angst this summer was centered around risk, and how much damage could have been caused if everything turned into a shitshow. But it was never doubt about her skills and talents.
BritinChicago
@Matt McIrvin: You may well be right, but a strong backlash may be evidence of progress, no?
bluefoot
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think most people, not just white people, have issues with race. I think the difference is that most white people can afford not to deal with it.
schrodingers_cat
@bluefoot: Yes it is a long road ahead to November and there will be obstacles.
artem1s
@Ken:
He’s gonna try to phone it in. The way he did the last night of the convention and all the other non-stop phone-in interviews he did in 2016 (thanks for normalizing his odious ass Rachel). The campaign will probably try to get ABC to agree to it.
He’s finally lost his ability to hold it together for the rallies. The cocktail of whatever meds they’ve got him on is not working anymore. And physically he looks terrible. He can’t pull off the physical intimidation crap he used to. It doesn’t surprise me he’s not appearing in public with his much fitter looking VP.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: I agree.
TBone
@Jeffro: Tiedrich 1,000% correct, as usual:
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/kamalas-successful-convention-has
Chris
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Man, I really can’t math. Thanks. I keep conflating the year the election happened with the year of its aftermath.
Bupalos
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Oh that sentiment was there. No need to rehash, but part of the reason emotions ran high is there were a fair number of people so convinced of a particular detailed scenario coming to pass that it seemed to them that those willing to go into that process must be “traitors.” This is drifting back into it. I initially just wanted to note that Harris’s performance here shouldn’t be thought of as completely predictable. If you ask me she’s done better than anyone should have expected.
Omnes Omnibus
I think this is largely true on both sides of the stay/go drama. Where most people landed on the issue doesn’t change this. People hand waving over the potential dangers now that it worked this well are underestimating the amount of hard work and luck that made the transition work.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Especially luck.
And as we all know, luck is not a strategy
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: Or they don’t, just ask Obama…and hopefully Harris. Two politicians who for obvious reasons may be more used to having to deal with ‘othering’ attacks.
Matt McIrvin
@Liminal Owl: Everyone who lived through Ronald Reagan can tell him to go to hell.
UncleEbeneezer
It’s too early to say Harris is a once-in-a-generation political talent. But it’s certainly not impossible that she will prove to be one. We can have more than one person deserve that title, since they do their magic in different ways, from different approaches at different times and under different circumstances. I have no problem believing that Obama, Hillary, Biden, Pelosi and potentially Harris can all be once-in-a-generation politicians, because they are so different. Different strengths and different roles and different impacts on our world. But this isn’t a “there can only be one” Highlander sort of thing. Sort of like the fact that Mariano Rivera and Pedro Martinez were both once-in-a-generation pitchers. Or the fact that Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Serena are all once-in-a-generation tennis talents.
cmorenc
@Scout211: If Harris wants the mics “hot” she must be confident she has an array of tactically effective responses if/when Trump tries to show his ass and try to dominate her, whether by intimidating gestures ( moving off his podium into her frame of view when she is speaking a la Clinton ‘16 (or speaking over her as she is talking in her turn (like with Biden in ‘20) or simply making more outrageous accusations and claims than she can respond to to try to force the narrative onto his terms (Biden 2024).
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Hope is not a strategy
Joy is not a strategy
But incessant whining sure is a strategy approved by our blog and media betters.
Baud
@Jeffro:
All the Trolling of Democrats that’s Fit to Print
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Very much true that it was largely about what risks people were focussed on. Personally I was looking at “this is really really bad, and it shows every sign of getting disastrously worse if we don’t do something.
Interestingly I think the switch kind of put egg on all of our risk-averse, defense-playing faces, because what it’s looking like now is that we maybe should have been thinking more about going on offense and looking at rewards.
Mr. Bemused Senior
And certain Supreme Court justices.
schrodingers_cat
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Yeah that too.
moonbat
@Soprano2: BINGO!
Bupalos
@UncleEbeneezer: Hell yeah. Plus, maybe democratic decline creates a political atmosphere analogous to climate change – now we get the 1000 year flood every decade.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Sound more like strippers to me.
TBone
Achilles heel, meet stiletto
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/26/trump-dreads-being-laughed-at/
Policy statement from TBone:
Replace hate with love
Continue to be a badass who got game
Laugh!
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: I just wish Tiedrich’s photo didn’t make him look like Eric Clapton. He’s a racist, xenophobic, anti-vax asshole and every time I see Tiedrich’s pic I have to spend five minutes cooling down from my hatred of Clapton, before reading Tiedrich’s excellent writing.
Soprano2
QFT. The reason the press couldn’t seem to find any enthusiastic Hillary voters in 2016 was that they were mostly women, and especially middle-aged and older women, and to many men those people are completely invisible! As for the competency thing, yes yes yes white men are assumed to already be competent; literally everyone else has to prove their competency.
It occured to me today that the “you don’t need college to be successful” movement tracks with the “fewer and fewer men are going to college” fact. I think that’s not a coincidence. It also tracks with the tendency to say lots of jobs don’t need college degrees anymore; I suspect these employers were getting lots more female than male applicants, and decided that wasn’t going to work. It’s always been true that there are a lot of jobs that allow you to make money where you don’t need a college degree, but most of them require some type of training past high school. The days of easily getting a well-paying job with only a high school diploma are pretty much gone, and young men need to figure that out.
SatanicPanic
@Omnes Omnibus: The transition only looks hard if you bought into the idea that the Democrats were likely to fall into a big round of fighting over who the replacement would be. The coming Democratic civil war was largely a pundit creation. Bupalos is right that Democrats have been unified since 2017 and are largely going to stay unified until Trump is gone.
If you ignored the pundits, who would replace Harris and how was plainly obvious and the way it went down was pretty predictable. The handwringing was ironically giving pundits power they didn’t have. Of course, there were a lot of things that needed to happen- people making phone calls to delegates, and adjusting DNC plans, etc., and that did take hard work. But those people are paid to do that work, and I don’t think it was ever in doubt they’d do it.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Oh, absolutely not. It’s an attempt to devalue college degrees because women are doing better at college than men are. And black women are the fastest-growing cohort on college campuses.
It is all part and parcel of the women-out-of-public-life agenda.
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: avert your eyes and focus on the
harpooninglampooningSoprano2
@zhena gogolia: I was against it because I’m risk-averse, and it was a huge risk. I’ve been amazed at how well it turned out, but that certainly wasn’t guaranteed.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: Trump’s horror of being laughed at keeps him from recognizing that, for most of his ride to the Presidency, the mockery helped him. His absurdity made him an object of fascination. Would he have ever been president if Spy magazine hadn’t spent months mocking his messy divorce?
He craves being taken seriously, but if he’d been taken seriously his political career never would have gotten started.
Hoodie
@Omnes Omnibus: One way to look at is that racism is not an essential characteristic of anyone in particular, but more a bad habit that just about anyone can fall into. Trump and his ilk have made that habit acceptable to some people who view themselves as “normal.” Goes back to Vonnegut’s “you are what you pretend to be.”
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I would agree that too many employers pumped up their job requirements too much; my first full-time job required a college degree, but any intelligent high school graduate could have done it. They used that as a way to screen the applicants, nothing more. However, I think they’re probably going too far the other way now, because most jobs are still going to require some type of training after high school.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: you didn’t read the article at the link, did you?
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, sure. In retrospect, it looks easy. But the other underestimation being made was on the stay side, I think. I think there was absolutely a reticence to accept that the hurdles that faced the Biden campaign were really, really high.
Sure Lurkalot
@Attapooch:
I’ve had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth
Kent
We should also consider the extent to which it isn’t Harris that has actually changed. Perhaps the coverage of her has changed. The national press basically wrote her off after her 2020 primary loss (and a whole bunch of prominent Dems lost that primary).
I expect that from 2020-2024 Harris got a subtler version of they typical NYT “but her emails” type coverage and we just didn’t really see it because there was no prominent theme like emails (Clinton) or age (Biden).
I’m not saying she hasn’t grown as a candidate. Clearly she has. But I suspect the coverage she got in 2020 and during her vice presidency wasn’t entirely fair either. And that lead to a lot of the “anyone but Harris” train of thought from the talking heads in the early summer when they were talking about some sort of speed dating primary to replace Biden with….I dunno, some white guy I suspect. Because only another white guy is capable of beating Trump.
rikyrah
@Kay:
But, the thing is Kay, it’s not re-running 2016.
The shyt they did to the VP as VP : Pretending that she didn’t exist and wasn’t doing anything – that’s current.
And, the Biden shyt was this year.
Them deliberately not holding the Orange Menace to any standards is REAL TIME NOW.
Them CHOOSING not to reveal what was found in the Epstein files is REAL TIME NOW.
The same muthaphucka who wrote the ‘ Joy is not a strategy’ article for the NYT is the SAME muthaphucka who wrote about Hillary’s laugh.
SAME ONE
Same misogynistic bullshyt, rooted in GOP tropes to try and OTHERISE the Vice President.
That’s not 2016.
That’s NOW.
Jeffro
@TBone: “work the eye” – love it!
Belafon
@Suzanne: Though I don’t think that’s entirely working out the way you describe. The push has been coming because of the amount of college debt graduates have, and I think unions are taking advantage of that sentiment to attract high school graduates to jobs such as electrical and plumbing work. And the two examples I have seen related to this – electrical work and the new jobs related to green energy, have used women as their examples.
Belafon
@Soprano2: Apprenticeships are also ways to gain this knowledge, which you can get in the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC fields.
Tenar Arha
@Soprano2: @cmorenc: @Chris:
I dunno. He’s got his fingers in WinRed and the GOP apparatus, or what’s left of that. He might not be a candidate. But he’ll unfortunately have a big say since he’s been the gyre around which the party turns for a decade. Even the loser stink might not get rid of him.
I’m guessing we’ll know for sure about one thing quickly, if he files to run again immediately after the inauguration in January 2025, as he’s done the past two cycles.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Preach it sister. The relentless attacks and the erasure of the accomplishments of this administration is ongoing. They (media lead by the NYT and helped by some prominent Dems) got Biden’s scalp and they are emboldened.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: The GOP’s hostility to college education, student loan forgiveness, etc. is based in sexism, racism, and homophobia (because lots of LGBTQ young people have historically used college as a way to get out of their homophobic environment).
All politics is about relative social status, indeed.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Absolutely.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: The NYT Sunday magazine cover is a portrait of Biden with half of it smeared in white. They’re taking their victory lap.
Scout211
Thank you. Well said
And I would add: it’s only been a few weeks that the media has stopped (or drastically reduced) the “Biden is too old” stories, while at the same time rarely commenting on Trump’s more obvious signs of physical and mental decline.
It’s not 2016, it’s NOW. (I like your meme, I may steal it)
jonas
From the floridapolitics piece:
His flabby, orange-hued “performance of whiteness” aside, I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone can look at anything Trump does, particularly his incessant, self-pitying whining, and think it’s “masculine.” Whiny, PAB comes as close to describing his whole schtick as anything.
UncleEbeneezer
The biggest difference between 2020 and 2024 is that Progressives (aside from a sliver of Gaza-obsessed loonies) have largely stopped bashing her. That’s it. That’s the whole difference. They’ve stopped calling her a cop and making jokes about how she only got 1% in the Primaries and are now finally acknowledging all the great stuff that her Primary supporters were trying to help everyone see in 2020.
And I think that is mostly because Bernie and Warren are too old to replace Biden. If there was a Bernie/Warren candidate that was younger as an option for 2024, I doubt we’d be seeing the same love for Kamala from Progressives and probably would have had an absolutely disastrous mess/fight over who would replace Biden.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
The MSM doesn’t want free. They prove it everyday.
tam1MI
The period of time I like to think of as the “Murrow- Cronkite Era” of journalism. People trusted the news in that era to be truthful and accurate. Nowadays I trust the MSM not at all.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: Thank You
PST
@Jeffro:
We can all agree that Rich Lowry is loathsome. But he doesn’t argue in his piece that Trump’s character is actually superior to Harris’s. I doubt that he cares. Instead he argues that Trump’s best strategy for defeating Harris is to attack her character, and he goes into detail about how. It’s a bunch of fallacious crap, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work. Honestly, I’m glad I read it because now I have a better feel of what Trump would be saying if he were smarter and his team had more control over him.
Hoodie
@Kent: I can’t recall who said it, but one person said she’s more returning to the person she was when she was a DA and AG in California. They viewed the 2020 campaign as her trying to be something she wasn’t, e.g., she was trying to avoid all the “Kamala is a cop” stuff.
BR
@Kent:
I think it’s a bit of both and — Harris has improved but also the NYT and other outlets live for laundering GOP attacks against Dems as if they’re good faith arguments. (Sometimes it’s as explicit as in 2016 when they laundered a crazy right wing book as if it were news.) But the GOP hasn’t settled on an attack line against Harris so that has left the NYT without a party line to hammer her on, so they are flailing just like the GOP is. I expect them to settle on a message at some point, even if Trump himself can’t be bothered to do so.
TBone
@Jeffro: 💙💙💙🥊
UncleEbeneezer
@jonas: To them, masculinity is nothing more than bashing Women and LGBTQ People. Sure, things like guns and hunting and Nascar etc. are also important but it’s mostly about bashing non-men.
Suzanne
@Belafon: If the GOP and its voter goons were really concerned about student debt, but weren’t hostile to an educated populace, they would have supported loan forgiveness and wouldn’t have defunded public higher education to the degree that they have (taxpayers now pay somewhere around 10-12% of the cost of attendance in most states).
But, since they don’t do that, I conclude that they’re lying pieces of shit.
Bupalos
@Soprano2: I was for it because I was being risk-averse. It’s just a question of what risks you weighted.
Relatedly, being risk-averse doesn’t generally lower the odds of disaster. A thought I frequently have watching the administration slow-roll aid and permissions to Ukraine in order to manage nuclear risk, while the actual longer term nuclear risks thereby escalate.
Munich was all about lowering the risks of WWII breaking out.
TBone
@Belafon: if I hadn’t apprenticed for attorneys before going to college, I might actually have become one. I’d have been miserable! I am very glad that I worked the field before going to more (expensive) school.
Try before you buy!
Hoodie
@UncleEbeneezer: Probably true, but there also may be a recognition in progressive ranks that candidates like Bernie are not going to be able to form the type of broad coalition needed to win general elections. For example, Bernie and Warren went pretty much nowhere with rank and file black voters. The best bet is to have influence within that coalition. AOC seems to get that.
Scout211
I’m always surprised how the Apprentice producers so carefully curated a version of Trump that has manipulated the public’s perception of him for years (decades?). I’m not sure that it’s masculinity per se, but a perception of wealth, power and intelligence that is still is attributed mainly to cis het white men and rarely, if ever, to anyone who is not a cis het white man.
Old School
New Randy Rainbow video: JD, JD… (Married Lady)
Twitter
YouTube
Kent
One of the most interesting things about this race is how we have to opposite pole versions of masculinity on display. Something I did not see coming
On the one side we have the angry grievance-filled MAGA man who despite wealth and privilege is constantly whining about this or that slight. Trump is just the role model here but there are millions as any walk through the cesspool of X or Facebook will reveal. Like the butthurt dipshits who would go to school board meetings to scream about mask mandates at my kid’s schools. And the guys with 6 giant Trump flags on the back of their pickups.
On the other side we have the teacher/coach/father role model who seeks to be the quiet helper who makes the world a little bit better for those around him. Who shovels the walk of the old lady next door or will come jump start your car on a cold winter night. Who always has a joke and a smile and doesn’t seek credit.
I’m a 60 year old guy and in my extended family we actually have both. And you know, I hadn’t really put it together until seeing Trump/Vance side by side with Walz. I just knew that some of my uncles were assholes and some weren’t.
schrodingers_cat
@PST: What does he say? That she is a Manchurian candidate with suspect political (communist) and religious (Hindu) sympathies?
They are going to try to other her. That’s all they have got.
Mike E
@PST: heh, Turd cannot be controlled, contained or stopped in any way other than biology (and maybe taxes). Press narratives are kind of getting desperate right about now which shows that chips have been pushed “all in” and the endgame is afoot.
lowtechcyclist
@Bupalos:
Oh, there wasn’t just one possible disaster scenario. The one I was most afraid of assumed Kamala would quickly replace Biden as the presumptive nominee.
Captain C
@Chris:
Perhaps, but I can definitely say that they don’t have enough of a problem with virulent racism to vote against it. It’s definitely not a deal breaker for them.
UncleEbeneezer
@Hoodie: Her positions now are almost identical to what they were in 2020. She has never been ashamed of her work as DA/AG. The whole Kamala-Is-A-Cop thing dying down is more because people realized it’s bullshit (thanks to K-hive) and have now moved on.
Suzanne
@Hoodie: Something that is interesting and maybe highly specific to Pittsburgh is that we have elected black progressives. Summer Lee is our Congresswoman and Ed Gainey is our Mayor. Malcolm Kenyatta, who is from Philly, is progressive and is running for Auditor General (he ran for Senate against Fetterman and Lamb). I will be voting for him.
I think progressives have been supportive of Kamala (and Biden) because they’ve done a good job. Warren in particular has been a fantastic team player. The entire Party and the country are better off for her work.
BR
Economy update this weekend from valued commenter New Deal Democrat:
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2024/08/weekly-indicators-for-august-19-23-at.html
Mike E
@Captain C: the true tell is their reaction to being called racist, because in their minds the accusation is the worse crime.
Ksmiami
Fuck the pundit/msm class. I hope they all get fucking fired. They are worthless, preening, overpaid tools
TBone
@Old School: “catless child person” 😆😍
Thank you!!!
Hoodie
@UncleEbeneezer: She’s backed away from M4All and she’s backed the more conservative policy on border control, so I’d say your statement is inaccurate. I don’t have any particular problem with her evolving views.
Geminid
@TBone: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries quoting rapper Biggie Smalls:
At the time, Jeffries was responding to a threatened primary challenge. Some observers thought this outwardly cheerful saying was an implied threat, probably because It was.
Another Scott
@UncleEbeneezer: +1
My state senator in Virginia, the Democratic leader, Scott Surovell, is an amazing talent. He gets stuff done, will work with anyone (he was Gov Fuzzy Vest’s liaison for the proposed stupid new arena in Alexandria, while he worked to make the fatally flawed proposal better), and is an unapologetic liberal while doing it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Captain C
@Jeffro: Perhaps Pinch the Lesser has converted the FTFNYT to a copy of The Onion and just not told anyone? Otherwise I got nothing at this point.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
One of many paths to that conclusion.
TBone
@Geminid: 💙
Steve LaBonne
@UncleEbeneezer: Having worked for years in the criminal justice system (as a forensic scientist), I have long been infuriated by the refusal of too many progressives to understand that it’s very important to elect progressive prosecutors.
Hoodie
@BR: Harris may have economic winds in her favor come this fall. Interesting that Powell is strongly signaling several rate cuts, which stand to pump up the real estate sector. Mortgage rates are already dropping.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: All roads lead to “Republicans are lying pieces of shit”.
Hey, it’s not my fault they’re so comprehensively and unrelentingly terrible.
piratedan
I get the points that both esteemed commenters rikyrah and Kay have made….
Kay is right, most normies have no idea about the animosity that has happened between the 4th estate and the Dems and they very likely don’t fucking care or even want to know. They expect to tune in and get informed.
rikyrah is correct in noting that 2016 is STILL happening today and it appears that even post obtaining their HRC scalp, the 4th estate is motivated by two things… one the GOP drives revenue in engagement clicks, no matter the type of engagement. Two, they’ve very much come to believe that it is about THEM, the 4th estate as their own constituency and what they want to know and call into question probably even matters less to the normies.
Harris has to thread that needle. She’ll need to reframe the narrative on damn near every question and she’ll need to be ready to address redirects as the media tries to force her in their chosen framing. Do NOT expect that to happen with DJT. the 4th estate has not demonstrated that they are a “good faith” actor as they’ve jumped the shark and are substituting themselves as THE arbiter of what is not only news but also what is relevant.
Anyway
Comparing Harris the Dem primary candidate for 2020 to the General Election nominee in 2024 is oranges to lemons – something like that. Big difference in the focus and emphasis between the two races. She’s a great general election candidate and we (and she) got lucky that we got a stellar nominee without a bruising D primary. The D bench is so deep that it would be a hard choice and the 20+ debates and all the attendant noise and chaos would not have created such a smooth transition to general election nominee.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Yeppers! Wherever we may rome, we can’t avoid that conclusion.
Suzanne
L O fucken L. Vance better be grateful that his end will be gentler than Pence’s. This is just a soft launch of RFK.
Kay
@Suzanne:
JD Vance should have had some soft wingnut welfare job at a think tank. He just isn’t cut out for this intensely competitive, cut throat business. Republicans have SO MUCH money sloshing around and so many grifters. Vance ended up in the wrong category.
matt
@Scout211: On ‘Hope is not a Strategy’ – Democrats are doing right not to share the details of their strategy with a hostile press.
Attapooch
@Suzanne: At some point JD Vance is going to realize that the Trump campaign is in its Spinal Tap mode and he’s the drummer.
Suzanne
@Kay: JD Vance is a total fucken dumbass. A horde of crazy people tried to kill the last guy. Absolutely delulu to think that this would ever work out well for him.
Chief Oshkosh
@Dorothy A. Winsor: To counter that, I’ve been getting my hair cut by the same guy since the 90s. He’s extremely apolitical and the classic low-information voter.
Until now.
Now he is absolutely outraged that ANYONE ANYWHERE would be willing to vote for Trump. He’s also alarmed about Project 2025. He LOVED the DNC convention (had never watched a convention prior to this one) and now is IN LOVE with Kamala and Tim.
He also just lost two clients because he’s not hiding his new opinions but says it was worth it. I gave him a big tip.
SatanicPanic
Trump probably isn’t actually considering skipping the debate, he’s just trying to build tension for his appearance.
UncleEbeneezer
@Hoodie: She was never in for M4All. Like Biden, she ran on improving Obamacare as the best approach to maximizing healthcare coverage and acknowledged the very real concerns that many Dems have with M4A/Single Payer. She got bashed by Progressives for not being on the M4A train and for daring to point out the flaws/downsides of it, not to mention how unlikely it would be to actually pass it. I don’t think she ever opposed funding for border security (which to many Progressives means she’s no better than Trump) and always supported a Bi-Partisan approach that would protect Dreamers, streamline the process for asylum-seekers and create a Path-To-Citizenship for undocumented people. I believe this is still her position now. She always seemed comfortable with the reality that she is never going to please the most ardent immigration activists.
Nettoyeur
@gene108: Don’t stop at “weird”…..Republicans are CREEPY. You know that word women use to describe men they don’t want to be in the same room with.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I thought the “Joy is not a Strategy” column was fine for Harris. It was a dumb, sloppy piece of punditry – so conventional and unoriginal I could have slotted in any pols name. Typical low quality NYTimes political team work, but it won’t make a bit of difference in this race.
I expect they will go after her for her Lefty father and they’ll do their boring, predictable “San Francisco is liberal!” thing, but Harris and her team now that and prepared for it with the centrist DNC.
She’s going to get attacked because they’re all boring douchebags and they don’t know how else to do their jobs but I refuse to pre-worry about it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Steve LaBonne: So you’re a Cop?!!1!, lol…
Agreed. If there’s anything that the difficulty of police reform efforts shows is that we really need good people pushing change from within the system.
Kay
@Suzanne:
JD Vance is miserable. He’s not going to stay in politics. He’s not cut out for it. He enjoys none of this and it’s a hard job and you have to like it to do it successfully. He hates it.
BR
@Kay:
The funny thing is I had always gotten the impression that her father was actually conservative politically, even if his economics work has analyzed some left economics.
Nelle
@Steve LaBonne: If anyone hasn’t read her book, Truth Be Told, do so. I recommend it highly.
Jackie
@cmorenc: Harris has “That Look” that’s very effective at shutting the other up. Combined with her “excuse me, I’m talking now,” in her assertive tone of voice will be effective even with DonOLD.
I’m looking forward to watching the debate.
BR
@Kay:
Yeah, Vance’s probably wondering why he ever agreed to this. Being a well-funded VC is a cushy job — you spend all day with people kissing your ass (startup founders begging for money), you have a PR team to write about how you’re a genius, you can spend half your day on twitter and in business lunches, and you get paid well for it all.
Nettoyeur
@artem1s: JD Four Names was puffy with a moon face (partially covered by beard) until he started Ozempic.
Mike E
@piratedan: I dunno, the campaign is hitting their messaging pretty well by being simple and direct… I’d love for Harris and Walz to say “you need to ask yourselves if Trump is even a legitimate candidate anymore” at least once during their news gaggles going forward . No threading needles required!
Steve LaBonne
@Nelle: I didn’t know about it, thank you for the recommendation!
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Prince never gave Weird Al permission to parody despite numerous requests. And, according to Al, when he was once seated next to Prince at some awards ceremony or something like that, Prince’s people told Weird Al to not speak to Prince or even make eye contact with him.
Kay
@BR:
Oh, you may be right. I haven’t looked into it much. I just read Republican social media so I know they are planning to make her father out to be a dark and scary person, and I do mean dark. It doesn’t matter at all if it’s true.
Suzanne
@BR: JD Vance is a Catholic integralist now and they are the most terrifying group of psychos out there at the moment.
Integralism = imagine Rod Dreher as the president.
ETA: And they are power-hungry as a movement.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh:
Right on! ✊
Thor Heyerdahl
@TBone: Thanks!
From the post “Trump is cut over the eye. Go out and work the eye.
(Edit…I see that others got to this first)
Kay
@BR:
I don’t think he’s ever been happy anywhere. Everyone brought attention to how gross he was about his mother in law taking a year off to help with the Vance’s newborn, but I wondered why JD didn’t do it. He’s never had a traditional job. His book was very profitable and the Vance’s live in suburban Ohio- it’s affordable. He could take a year off, easily. But that would be really hard work and that’s just not how he sees himself.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: MAGAs imagine they are a majority. Opus Dei Catholics (mostly converts) KNOW they are a small minority with very unpopular ideas, but believe God wants them to rule the rest of us with an iron fist. Terrifying indeed.
Ruckus
@Baud:
That’s an easy call.
Likely the easiest call since the first printing press.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Agreed. Kemp will be supported by all of the old-style Republicans with very deep pockets and very thick Rolodexes.
The meeping unwashed Confederate/Nazi/Shitheel masses will go along with him because he just oozes Southern wink-wink nod-nod racism and misogyny.
He is slimy but effective.
wenchacha
@Jesse: Does the press care that she went to talk with Ukraine 5 times?
Baud
@BR:
Dammit. I wanted to get back into the market but Biden has made it impossible to buy low.
Damn you, Joe!!!!
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sure! Just hand them off to a post-menopausal woman!
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
A post-menopausal female!
Eunicecycle
@Nettoyeur: I think he’s lost weight since his Senate campaign.
MomSense
@Kay:
In 2020 the NYT had over 600,000 print subscriptions and a little over 10 million online subscriptions. In 2023 it was down to just under 300,000 print subscriptions and 8.3 million online subscriptions. Just one of the dancers/influencers who was given full access at the DNC has 2.7 million Instagram followers and his videos on tik tok and YouTube routinely get over 50 million views. The NYT ‘s influence is lessening. I have never once had a voter on the phone or in person ask me about the NYT. I’m not saying to ignore them but let’s not inflate their importance either. Most people have not been following Harris which is why she spent so much of her convention speech telling us who she is.
I think there is a common misunderstanding of what happened. People on this blog think the MSM/pundits and donors drove the calls for Biden to step aside. They didn’t. This had been brewing for years and many of us ignored it. The donors certainly ignored it- their support for Biden was a big factor in the lack of challenge during the primary season.
Kay
This is O/T but I think it’s interesting. So my daughter is a PA and she saw (but did not read) a new public health theory that Americans became more overweight because they stopped smoking. Isn’t that wild?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: timing is everything.
Eunicecycle
@Kay: and it’s not “man’s work” to be a stay at home dad in Republican world.
Baud
@Kay:
The R J Reynolds Institute for Public Health puts out good work.
Citizen Dave
@tam1MI: Media history. Recalling that when Cronkite turned against the Vietnam War on his nightly news show, it was impactful, and LBJ knew he was f##ked. How about Dan Rather answering Nixon’s question in the press conference? A long way from that to Doocey.
The Audacity of Krope
The media had been brewing it for years, yes.
Kay
@MomSense:
Too, I think media and Republicans trying to get traction on Harris’ shockingly radical (Black) father will fail because of the RFK Jr. freakshow on the other side. He’s going to be great for us – he’s insane. It’s just a fact. Idiots in media and Republicans elevated another complete damaged, toxic nutjob.
raven
@Citizen Dave: Fuck LBJ, Nixon AND JFK!
Citizen Alan
@Kay: The One Great Man/Woman theory is reductive. But in our democracy there’s also something to it. Because the office of Speaker of the House, like the Office of President, is a singular role that wields enormous power. It matters a lot who holds that gavel. And we were incredibly fortunate that Nancy Pelosi held that gavel for as long as she did and would be in a much worse position if it had been a Republican or even a less-adroit Democrat in her place during that time period. By that analysis, she was a Great Woman in a way that none of the GOP Speakers of the last 25 years have been “Great Men” (as opposed to a succession of mediocrities).
Baud
@raven:
I’m going to need a bigger bumper sticker.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: The number of very likely confounds that occurred over that same period make me very skeptical that smoking cessation was a major driver for increase obesity. Separately, smoking cessation didn’t drive childhood obesity, which did and does affect adult obesity.
Kay
@Baud:
Ha! No, she makes fun of all those “studies” that tell people to drink- “2 glasses of wine a day for better health”. She says that’s bullshit.
It sort of makes sense, right? We stopped smoking so therefore could taste things and thus ate more!
SatanicPanic
@MomSense: the media didn’t convince people that 81 is old. 81 is old.
Kay
@Chief Oshkosh:
Oh, good point about childhood. True.
Citizen Alan
@Scout211: And one I agree with. I think if Shitgibbon had had a hot mic during the first debate, there’s a good chance he’d have blurted out something awful and focused media attention off Biden and onto him. Not a great chance given BIden’s own performance, but I think it would have helped.
Kay
@SatanicPanic:
They’re never going to agree with us. It’s one of those things – if you saw it you saw it and you can’t unsee it. They didn’t see it.
Suzanne
@Kay: I have thought that smoking is an under-credited part of weight loss for a long time. Remember that book “French Women Don’t Get Fat”? I have always been like, “Well, yeah, because they smoke a lot!”.
I also think that hot weather has a lot to do with it. As more Americans move to the Sun Belt, we get bigger.
Suzanne
@Kay: Nicotine is also an appetite suppressant. It’s not just the taste issue.
Steve LaBonne
Donald Harris is a “radical” only in the mushy brains of wingnuts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris
Citizen Alan
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t believe there is an article of clothing in the world that is or should be worth $24 million. I am filled with revulsion at the thought of someone paying $24 million for a piece of sports memorabilia when 1/10 of that devoted to charitable giving could substantially improve thousands of lives. It is a prime example of why I believe that wealth beyond a certain point (and far below billionaire status) inevitably makes people turn evil, crazy, stupid, or some combination of the three.
I know jackals from Illinois disagree, but I still say that JB Pritzker terrifies me because he seems like a “nice billionaire” so he must have something in his closet that is utterly dreadful.
MomSense
@SatanicPanic:
yup. Plus most people aren’t paying attention to news media.
SatanicPanic
@Kay: yeah you’re right. It’s just hard to reconcile with what I expect of Democrats.
Kay
@Suzanne:
And, she and I have had that conversation too. I said “Danes smoke so much but you never see wheelchairs or oxygen in Copenhagen” and she said “because they don’t have any handicapped access so those people can’t leave their houses”
I’m always interested in her observations. I never would have thought of that.
rikyrah
@Kay:
He is perfect for them. A bought and paid for techbro billionaire sponsored VP.
I will stand 10 toes down on this: the only vetting done was to see if Thiel’s check cleared. It was the only thing that mattered.
Jeffro
I didn’t say Lowry argued that? But he glides right past trump’s character and acts as if there’s something bad in Harris’ character to be attacked.
Slime her, in other words, so that people (and the media) can get back to both-sides-ing this race.
MomSense
@Kay:
@Suzanne:
I recommend the podcast Maintenance Phase. It is laugh out loud funny and the topic is health and wellness including all the fad diets.
Chris
@Soprano2:
I mean, that’s a problem, depending on your definition of “good job.” A job that’ll make you rich, no, but you should be able to afford a decent standard of living with nothing but a high school degree. We’re never going to hit a society where everybody’s gone to college, we probably shouldn’t even want a society where everybody’s gone to college, and the people who don’t need good work too.
Mike E
@raven: man, you got a list!
tam1MI
Some of the reality. On the other hand, the media accurately reported what happened with the civil rights marches of the 50s and held people like George Wallace to account for his hate-mongering. Trump, on the other hand, they normalized and excused.
Think we could ever get a magazine cover like this about Donald Trump?
https://images.app.goo.gl/d8nEfyW5ESkEsGy69
wjca
@Jeffro:
Ummm. Because you would get hammered relentlessly as a coward of you don’t show up? And, on some level, you not only know it, you know it would be true.
rikyrah
@Citizen Alan:
Family was sort of a nightmare. Addiction issues. I think it propelled him towards the ‘ noblesse oblige’ kind of life.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: We know exactly what he thinks is wrong with Harris’s “character”, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?
Suzanne
@MomSense: I listen to Maintenance Phase every once in a while. Agree that they are great on diet issues.
I think it’s multi-causal, for sure. Single-family sprawl reduces walking, reduced recess for kids, more ultra-processed foods, less time to cook, all that adds up. One thing that is interesting about Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc….. there’s evidence that those drugs reduce urges for other compulsive behaviors, such as gambling. Like, incredible.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
They are a movement that needs power because otherwise very few humans would ever go along with their crap. Power gives them the ability to sprue their crap in a fashion that can add people which gives them more power. It’s a circle that feeds itself. That power lends the movement “credibility” which builds more power. It doesn’t mean they are in any way credible, it just means some people will believe it is. It’s a herd environment. It takes a herd to create the illusion that there is something there, when there isn’t, because some humans can easily be herd animals.
Chris
@Hoodie:
To paraphrase an excellent comic, racist isn’t something you are. It’s something you do.
I’d kind of like the average white dude to internalize that “racist” is in the same category as “asshole” – it isn’t actually something inherent in a person, it’s a choice somebody makes over and over. When somebody points out that you’re being a racist, they’re not marking you as excommunicated for life. They’re pointing out something you’re doing wrong, and asking you not to do it anymore.
Anyway
@Kay:
I’ve heard the correlation theory between reduction in smoking and uptick in weight – don’t think it’s new.
Jeffro
@Kay: I found a few pieces from back in 2016 about that when I Googled it. It makes sense that it could be part of the problem, but I bet you could also track 5-6 other things across the past few decades (declines in home cooking…increases in fast-food and take-out…increases in heavily processed food…decreases in time spent outdoors and/or playing sports) and come up with other reasons.
Heck, people these days have NO idea how much sugar they’re taking in across a day. A Starbucks Frappuccino has 60 grams (or 15 teaspoons!) of sugar(!) Just nuts.
Chris
@Captain C:
I mean, voting for Trump by definition is a racist act – as noted above, being racist isn’t some immutable inherent quality, but any definition of it that doesn’t consider “voted for Donald Trump” an act of racism is so narrow as to be functionally useless.
Mart
@Frankensteinbeck: Also too, “Gone was any mention of… “open borders” WTF?
Baud
@Chris:
That’s really unfair to the non-racist misogynist.
trollhattan
@Anyway: Few things as prone to make one lose weight than lung cancer. You could ask my dad but he’s not available to answer.
Looks like Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginny have the highest smoking rates. One wonders what their obesity rates are.
https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco-trends-brief/rates-by-state
Gratifying to live when smoking has become fringe. When I was a kid the downtown sidewalks were a carpet of discarded butts.
Baud
@Mart:
I’m sure the Dems supported open borders somewhere in the multiverse.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
One of my dear friends was interviewed on 60 minutes (she was also written up in the NYT but we won’t go there) about her treatment for obesity. She was part of a study that included Ozempic. They couldn’t get approval for it for treatment of obesity even though it is so effective and can reverse heart disease and diabetes. Anyway she got so much hate after that interview. The fat shaming was appalling. A group of us watched the interview together and she was so thoughtful and impressive. Some people just cannot help themselves – they have to be cruel.
The Audacity of Krope
You expect us to accept what you say on blind faith when what we saw is fundamentally the opposite?
Anyway
heads-up for NJ Jackals-
cain
@Kay:
Even if true, Kamala wasn’t raised by her dad, but by her mom -of course, they could argue “sins of the father” etc etc. But that’s pretty weird argument to make.
She never once mentioned her father in anything. They could try to do the deep dive but likely not much of a relationship they can exploit.
Old School
@The Audacity of Krope:
They’re never going to agree with us. It’s one of those things – if you saw it you saw it and you can’t unsee it. They didn’t see it.
SatanicPanic
@The Audacity of Krope: ummm what
Juju
@Soprano2: Nicely put, and so true. Bravo!
Chris
@Suzanne:
If nothing else, you’ve got to appreciate the historical irony of Catholic integralists and American nativists having fused to become one and the same, given that the former was one of the favorite topics for hysteria by the latter for most of history.
At this point I fully expect that in a hundred years, whichever of our parties is the most reactionary will be nominating not just Muslims but actual-factual Muslim Brotherhood members who cite Sayyid Qutb in their opinions, as Supreme Court justices. Meanwhile, the majority of Muslim-Americans will want nothing to do with these people, but they’ll be dismissed as “cafeteria Muslims” and otherwise non-authentic.
The Audacity of Krope
@SatanicPanic: Don’t believe your lying eyes and own understanding of facts, folks, believe SatanicPanic.
That’s what you want, right?
Chris
@Baud:
Should I apologize to all three of them?
Jackie
TCFG visited Suckers and Losers today.
He’s not fooling anyone.
wjca
Hawley suffers from that video of him running away on Jan 6. Sure, it was the intelligent thing to do. But in a Republican primary he would get roasted for it.
SatanicPanic
@The Audacity of Krope: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Jay C
Don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but Charlie Kirk (yeah, yeah: consider the source) put out a Xit castigating Tim Walz as a “legendary liar” for (kid you not) allegedly mis-identifying his dog in a post about going to a dog park.
I realize that most dogs would only refrain from biting Charlie Kirk out of fear of being poisoned, but SRSLY: deliberately misinterpreting an Instagram post about DOGS to slam Walz?
They really DO “got nuthin’”
Chris
@Baud:
Well, they were okay with them back in the nineteenth century, as were Republicans.
I wouldn’t mention this is except that given the ludicrous depths to which “fact checking” has plunged in this election, I’m 99% sure that someone somewhere actually has said “well, in the nineteenth century, Boss Tweed said the following quote in the context of Irish immigration to New York, therefore, Donald Trump is correct that about the Democratic Party having a history of support for open borders.”
Leto
Way OT: started school today, think it’ll be a lot of fun. First two classes are taught by the same professor, we mesh pretty good. As usual, I’m the old fart in the class which is just bog standard by now. I want to thank the FP’ers for not throwing up a new post, as this has simply allowed me to hit refresh and keep moving along with today’s overarching conversation. I just pray for everyone’s computer/mobile device as we approach the T-Bogg singularity.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Utah is a bit of an outlier, no?
Elizabelle
@Leto: Good luck! Remind me what you’re studying?
scav
@Jeffro: And there are entirely a lot of other factors. For example keep an eye on the changes in the average French diet going forward. Certainly in the 80s (maybe started changing in the noughts in at least the grocery stores I haunted) the difference in the snack aisles was stark. The essentially single or slightly above size bag of chips were all there were. Family size? Party packs?! No. Did the French snack? of course. My French sister’s goûter was practically a religion, only it was usually Bonne Mamon on those odd toasty little slabs. There were charmellow ads that scarred me. But the snacks were generally much closer to real food and that counted for actual meals too. That’s changing no doubt, going forward. Harder to find actual bakeries, more fast and prepared food. But still, very different food culture.
Ramona
@Leto: in which subject are you resuming formal study?
Jeffro
OT but there is some noise about trump’s campaign buying ad time in…West Palm Beach?
meaning, so that His Orangeness will see His commercials (and possibly crowd out other ones, like Lincoln Project’s) as he binge-watches Fox throughout the day.
WOW
Belafon
@Chris: Did you hear that Democrats were the party of slavery?
wjca
My first job (it was in IT) was, in some ways, even worse. It had a basic salary ($6,000 / year, which was decent money in the early 70s). But you got $7,000 if you had a college degree in anything. And $8,000 if you had a graduate degree, also in anything.
In short, they knew damn well you didn’t need a college degree to do the job. But some of us got paid substantially more, just for having had some utterly irrelevant additional school time.
Chris
@Belafon:
People are talking about it more and more!
sdhays
@Attapooch: I think Harris’s version is going to be: “…What was that?”
trollhattan
@Jay C: Speaking of, Happy International Dog Day everybody and your dog! Today’s Letters of Note celebrates.
John Steinbeck
Letter to his editor, Elizabeth Otis
27th May 1936
—A Life in Letters, edited by Elaine Steinbeck
Chris
@wjca:
Meanwhile, the jobs in which I used my college degree the most (I didn’t end up going into the same field that I studied) were mostly unpaid internships.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
It’s the de-vice state!
“I’ll have the decaf.”
“I’ll have the same.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Citizen Alan:
That does not surprise me. By all accounts, Prince was a piece of work. Brilliant musician and all that but definitely, well, anything I say about him the person is bound to offend those who are big fans of him the musician.
Go to YouTube and search using this term:
kevin smith prince
There’s a ton of clips where he talks about his interactions with Prince back in the day. They’re hysterical and instructive.
I remember reading pieces back in the day about artists who had been approached by Weird Al for permission to parody something of theirs. They were always exceedingly flattered that he wanted to do that. In fact, he said when he first approached Michael Jackson about “Beat It”, he, Weird Al, was really apprehensive because Jackson was such a massive star. MJ was *thrilled* that Weird Al wanted to do it.
But Prince…..
Uncle Cosmo
IIRC Pritzker came by his bazillions the old-fashioned way: he inherited them[1]. Now it may be (mostly) true that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime”[2] but in JB’s situation the major transgressions might have been committed a generation or two back, and he might just have been raised in a fashion discouraging the arrogance of wealth.[3]
[1] Hyatt Hotels, amirite?
[2] Balzac, amirong?
[3] Warren Buffett’s spawn, mebbe?
sdhays
@Jeffro: They must be worried Trump is going to vote for Kamala Harris.
//
Baud
@sdhays:
If Trump endorses Harris, that would surely hurt her poll numbers. 🤔
scav
@wjca: Eeehh, yes but not quite. The mere ability to leap through all the hoops, be reliable enough (traditionally under your own steam, no less) to hit the deadlines (tests, papers, fees), plus the demonstrated (as much as theoretically measured by coursework) ability to fucking remember and integrate new information is of value to an employer as a signal of basic employee caliber, even if the subject matter of the degree is on the surface non relevant. (Actually, to my mind, getting a diversity of degrees into the working team could be as valuable as getting a diversity of life experiences in there. Engineers have different ruts than biogeographers and code jockeys from psychologists.)
Kent
They seek to impose a conservative Catholic dictatorship. So basically Franco and the Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil war and afterwards.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: ‘Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may know me from such films as “Smoke Yourself Thin!” and “Get Confident, Stupid!”‘
Suzanne
Billy Baldwin (of THEEEEEE Baldwins) dropped this about RFK Jr. today on Xhitter:
geg6
@Baud:
Same. Those who are still sticking up for the MSM are sticking their heads in the sand, imagining that we still have a major media that is interested in facts or anything other than vibes and horse race. They get no kudos from me ever again and everyone should shun them until they decide to commit journalism. I don’t foresee that in the near future, but we, luckily, live in the age of the internet and there are plenty of places to find information that is actually factual and useful. Don’t go looking at the FTFNYT, WaPo, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS or CNN to find anything truthful. Look at smaller market newspapers (the Cleveland and Philly metro papers are great) and publications and podcasts, blogs, substacks, etc. instead.
I have no idea how anyone who has paid attention to politics for the last forty years has an ounce of trust in those people.
CliosFanboy
@OzarkHillbilly:
this I hafta hear!!!!!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Seonachan: yup, pretty much everyone loves Tim ❤️ (relatively, of course)
Geminid
@wjca: Many of Israel’s top IT professionals are trained out of high school by the IDF’s Unit 8200. That’s Israel’s equivalent of our NSA. The soldiers go on to college after their 3 year hitch, or directly into the tech sector. Or into journalism, like Axios reporter Barak Ravid
Ed. Although to hear Hezbollah leader Nasrallah tell it, Unit 8200’s headquarters was left a smoking pile of rubble after Hezbollah’s attack Sunday morning.
Istanbul-based reporter Levent Kemal commented, “More tales from Nasrallah.”
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Well now, I know somebody who’s not getting their Christmas dead bear this year.
SatanicPanic
@geg6: because on the facts, the MSM are mostly fine. If they report “Harris reports $540 million in donations so far” is that a lie? No, of course not.
You just need to read something like WaPo with a critical eye on the analysis, if you want to bother with the analysis at all. Yes, the opinion pages are bad. Most opinions are bad, whether in blogs or YouTube or whatever. I can do my own analysis and make my own opinions. It’s how I didn’t fall into some of the groupthink that liberal blogs fell into recently.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: I’m sure America was waiting with bated breath for the coveted Baldwin endorsement.
But, honestly…. damn. Everybody who has ever known the guy seems to find him detestable.
prostratedragon
Wow, y’all sure do talk a lot! Since I guess now we’re out for the TBogg unit, I’ll just say I love “Black Jobs.” Needs to become a major hit.
geg6
I keep seeing people saying this, but I’d like to see some evidence for the second part of this sentence. Because what I’ve seen over the last few years belies it completely. Especially lately.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
When CNN puts a Trump supporter on a panel of “undecided voters” who are giving their impressions of Harris’s speech, that’s a lie.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: True
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Yup.
“When you’ve lost even the Baldwins.…”
BR
@geg6:
He’s smarmy but if you watch Vance in the Sunday show interviews, he knows the basic political maneuver of ignoring the question from the reporter and reframing and responding with nonsense talking points. He has no charisma so those lies don’t sound believable and his word choice is often weird because he’s weird, but he doesn’t miss a beat.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Ha. She’s not PRO SMOKING. She (kindly) scolds all her people about smoking and eating bad food and not exercising. We used to joke that she wasn’t going to have any patients because she would write a prescription like “exercise!” – so you’d want to strangle her.
This is just scientific inquiry :)
RaflW
Stopping by on the later side to say f— you to the FT for their needless “indifferent” slam on Kamala.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Dorothy A. Winsor: my husband agrees that $24 million is crazy, but wants to add context:
1) it is a uniform top, not a “shirt”
2) it is the uniform he was wearing when he hit the home run he called beforehand, so a real piece of legendary baseball history. Have you seen the famous picture where he point to the stands, then proceeds to hit a homerun right to that spot?
Kay
Arizona Police Association
@AZPoliceAssc
30m
We are proud to endorse Ruben Gallego (@RepRubenGallego) for the US Senate.
Wow. They switched parties. Ruben Gallego is another very good candidate.
Chris
@Kay:
The hell is going on in that state.
Have we ever had this many Republicans in one place pop up and endorse the Democrats?
Belafon
@Kay: Maybe they’re doing it so that the far left sees that Democrats are the corrupt cop party. /sarc
cain
@Jeffro:
Yes, perhaps he’ll have starbursts, although likely in the bathroom after a particularly hard go at it.
ETA OMG! #444!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT – THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!
cain
@Kay:
That’s going to cause some major panic. The cops changing horses? Whoaaaa!
trollhattan
@cain:
Just 222 to nirvana.
Jackie
Statement from President Joe Biden on the Anniversary of the Terrorist Attack Outside Kabul Airport:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/08/26/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-anniversary-of-the-terrorist-attack-outside-kabul-airport/
It’s long and didn’t want to C/P the entire statement.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
This.
I’m in my 71st trip around our local star, and I’ve absorbed, mostly but not entirely unconsciously, a lot of bad attitudes along the way, many of them before I even knew they were wrong, but some even after that. There’s no magic wand that completely cleanses one of all that. All one can do is be aware of what lurks in hidden places within us, and choose not to honor or act on those attitudes.
Life is not a love song, but we can try
to fix our broken pieces, one at a time
.
cain
@Suzanne:
Everything Trump touches dies.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@OzarkHillbilly: I was late to the party, but exactly the point my husband was trying to make. You did it much earlier and in a beautifully pithy comment. Thanks!
JWR
New cartoon from Mike Luckovich via Daily Kos.
SatanicPanic
I got a question. My dad was a twin and his brother did not get along well with either him or my other uncle. When my dad passed away it turned out that no one knew how to reach his twin, or anyone else in his immediate family. I found my cousin on LinkedIn and was going to message him. My cousin is a good guy but it’s been ten years since I talked to him. Do I ask him for his father’s number so I can tell his father or do I just tell my cousin and let him handle it? I don’t want to make my cousin have to have a hard conversation but I don’t particularly care for his dad either.
cain
@SatanicPanic:
Tell him to handle it. But also, leave a contact address in case they want to reach out.
Nelle
@Uncle Cosmo: One of Warren Buffet’s sons travels the world, photographing efforts to feed people. He had an exhibition of photos at the headquarters of The World Food Prize here in Des Moines. Some good work.
Scout211
I think that either way would be fine but asking your cousin for his father’s contact information seems more straightforward and avoids your cousin having to be in the middle.
Jackie
@cain: I agree.
SatanicPanic
@cain:
@Scout211:
thanks! I’ll ask him what he thinks. It’ll be good to be in touch in case either of my cousins want family heirloom type of things.
Doc Sardonic
@Kay: Yes it is….However, I can provide some anecdotal evidence for a reason why. On my part I was a heavy dipper for many years, and an old friend was a heavy smoker. We both quit about the same time and gained some weight until we put together the reason for it and made adjustments. The reason, we could actually, truly taste what we were eating. Before we ate basically the same stuff all the time and while it had some flavor from spices, it had to be really spicy to penetrate the numbing of the taste buds from nicotine. But once the nicotine was out of the way and the taste buds recovered, different ballgame, food has flavor, hoocoodanode.
Jackie
Oh NOOOO!!!
Tulsi Gabbard has endorsed donOLD! She is going to cause a stampede of Democrats and undecided voters to switch support and vote for TCFG!😱😱
snark – just in case I accidentally fooled somebody 😉
rikyrah
@Leto:
Good luck in school :)
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Somewhere around 20 years ago, I calculated that I was drinking ~500 calories per day. That made me decide to give up sugared sodas and use Splenda instead of sugar in my coffee and to sweeten my tea.
That didn’t entirely solve my weight issues, but I’d hate to think of what I’d weigh now if I’d stayed with sugar as my sweetener.
Princess
@Kay: You probably won’t see this but I completely believe that some/much of the weight gain is due to the fact people don’t smoke anymore.
Miki
@raven: Have you read A Bright and Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@TBone: thank you!
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: I agree with the Southern and Southwestern weather as being a factor; it gets too hot to safely exercise outside versus the Upper Midwest and the Northeast where you can throw on more clothes and still get outdoors in most of the winter.
Uncle Cosmo
@Chris: Kari Hill lost the cops? She must be a heckuva piece of…work.
Uncle Cosmo
@SatanicPanic: Why don’t you offer him the option to handle it himself, but volunteer to do it for him if he provides the necessary contact information?
SatanicPanic
@Uncle Cosmo: I think that’s probably what I’ll do.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Yes there will very likely always be jobs that do not require a college education to do.
I used to own a business that most often the employees did not attend college. However they did need knowledge of math. Good HS math was acceptable as geometry and trigonometry used to be taught in HS, are they taught today and how many students take them?
VeniceRiley
@Suzanne: Hundred percent and maybe we should lean into it and market political jobs as being like nursing and teaching.
Manyakitty
@The Audacity of Krope: stopping on this dead thread to agree with you. The other commenter’s take is bullshit and I’m very glad for the pie filter.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Isn’t that wild?
I don’t think so. There are a lot of sides to stopping smoking. And food can be one of them, because it involves someone’s entire day, and is even more necessary than smoking is to someone so addicted. And for some smoking reduces one’s hunger pangs, they are already doing something with the mouth. Take that away and food can replace it, to a degree, for some.