(The September 6 event is being hosted by Bob Shillman and his wife – Shillman has also funded Tommy Robinson, Geert Wilders, Rebel Media, FrontPageMag, and Project Veritas) https://t.co/hp7ozrLMaP
— River_Tam (@RiverTamYDN) August 26, 2024
Forget about ‘election codes’, this is the real reason Trump’s not replacing Vance in the VP slot. The actual oligarchs funding this year’s GOP campaign want to be known as Powerful Men Meeting in Sober Conclave, behind a decent scrim of reportorial incuriosity. They don’t want to risk a sideshow where some half-crazed high-profile ‘celebrity’ shares his latest tales of exotic animal corpse abuse. They want a grey little nonentity who’ll quietly palm the slip with the wire transfer data while nodding sagely as they share their wishes wisdom… which is why they’re not inviting Trump to their soiree.
This only reinforces Alexandra Petri’s brilliance in the Washington Post — “RFK Jr.’s worm here: I guess I’m supporting Trump, too” [gift link]
… Ultimately, this came down to values. I say now what I have said this whole campaign: I am a parasite and I do not have the country’s best interests at heart. So it is clear to me now that I have no choice but to drop out of the race and support Donald Trump.
As a creature who seeks only to gorge myself willy-nilly on whatever life offers without concern for what devastation I leave in my wake, I have long admired Donald Trump’s way of doing things. To live off the production of others in a harmful way, and to dwell relentlessly in the minds of people who wish they did not have to devote a corner to me — that is a creed we share. And he frequently speaks of his admiration for Hannibal Lecter, who also famously ate brain, so I know that if we ever met, we would have something to talk about…
I understand that this is just injecting more chaos into an already chaotic race. But it feels like the only appropriate course for me, a parasite indifferent to human well-being, and the RFK Jr. campaign, my affiliates. And it is not as though I did not reach out to the Harris campaign, with a standard questionnaire: Are you, or do you possess, a parasitic worm? If not, would you be open to its ideas? We have yet to hear back — because Kamala Harris is afraid of scrutiny, I think…
— Paul Leigh-Some Rascal on the Internet ?????????? (@Pleightx) August 24, 2024
We'll see what happens, but if they try this I assume it would be a "soft replacement", where JD is sent to speak at puppet shows in Nebraska while RFK is the one doing the headliner rallies. JD remains on the ballot but he's like a wraith. A dignity wraith, if you will.
— Jim Roberts-Miller (@El_Jammer) August 25, 2024
One is a former heroin addict lawyer who become a medical conspiracy theorist who said the Covid vax was a deadly Bill Gates bioweapon, and the other is Big Mac addict who pressed the FDA to rush a vax out while it was still being tested so he could win the election. Great team. pic.twitter.com/8FJp3KyHis
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 24, 2024
Why would Harris, or any Patrlotic American, negotiate with Putin's tools to fuck up our democracy.
Sure, Trump did it with JFK Jr., but he is owned by Putin like the other three.
You are a joke. https://t.co/MYLWWtbrLu
— dengre (@denngree) August 24, 2024
One side is bringing together a coalition across ideologies of people who believe in democracy and the rule of the law; the other is bringing together a coalition across ideologies of people who are seriously weird. https://t.co/90tCmRi4cj
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 24, 2024
This you? https://t.co/ngG6vNXZFr pic.twitter.com/M5vGaloZMw
— Angry Staffer ?? (@Angry_Staffer) August 23, 2024
Its not nice to say but its just the reality that the GOP is the party for people that are really stupid https://t.co/fZcWDWiFim
— Giacomo Volpe ?????? (@_giacomo_volpe_) August 23, 2024
Perfect ????…..h/t @JRDuquette pic.twitter.com/nZhCeIdJdj
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) August 24, 2024
HumboldtBlue
Dangerman
… and TCFG faces life (well, more accurately, 55 years) in the Big House if he loses the election. Sure, he’ll appeal, but the Courts are going to cut him loose if they have any sense. Notice I said IF there.
He can’t survive 55 (/hagar).
Dangerman
TCFG must be under some serious stress. Well, as much stress as a Billionaire with a personal plane can have. Just stay away from open windows is all
ETA: Then Vance is top of the ticket, I presume, and the Right all shit themselves.
anitamargarita
Dave Weigel, what an ass. Never trusted a thing he said after his book praising “prog rock” – pretentious bullshit.
dc
@HumboldtBlue: 140 out of all state and federal offices. Maybe 1%, sad that we have to celebrate it as if it were a substantial number.
HumboldtBlue
@dc:
I don’t think it’s about celebration, it’s more about passing a mile marker, marking a footnote as we progress slowly.
Ishiyama
I have been sucked too far into the teevee media black hole for these past few weeks. It’s way too exhilarating, and the rush is habit-forming. And now, I can’t wait to see what happens next. I haven’t felt this way since 1964, when “LBJ for the USA” beat “In your heart you know he’s right”.
LBJ had Goldwater tabbed as, dare one say, weird. We saw him as unstable, irrational (AuH2O = U235). This was before the Daisy Ad, and why it worked.
I’m dreaming of a Great Society level mandate.
VFX Lurker
This hinges on keeping the Senate, winning the House and winning the Electoral College.
I wrote 25 more Postcards to Swing States earlier tonight. Every bit helps.
SpaceUnit
You know, there’s good weird and there’s bad weird.
But the trump, Vance and RFK Jr. act is like going on America’s Got Talent to butcher a rescue dog and then circle around the stage with your bloody hands in the air expecting a big round of applause. I think they’re totally fucked, whatever the useless polls say.
Shalimar
@anitamargarita: Dave Weigel has always been clear that he’s a libertarian, the ideology of narcissists. Despite that, he is an honest observer and isn’t a bad reporter as long as you know his biases. I think it’s fair not to want to sort through all his bullshit to evaluate his stupider ideas like the one above.
Baud
Elon must have had a contest for Most Stupidest Tweet.
Shalimar
@dc: It’s like gay marriage in 1995. No one is doing it, it’s still pretty unpopular, but the pool of people open to the idea is growing rapidly and there is potential for a majority in 20 years.
JWR
Good interview.
Spoiler alert: He still thinks removing Judge Cannon would be an extraordinary step to take, but here’s hoping she’s unceremoniously given the boot anyway
PS. That last cartoon is perfect!
hueyplong
Can’t help but wonder what supposed pros Wiles and LaCivita think of this Trump/Kennedy turn in the narrative and how it might affect their statuses as perceived political geniuses.
And somewhere the writer of the “jump the shark” episode is asking whether we might move on to a new name for a bad concept.
Baud
@Shalimar:
It’s also a list of openly nonreligious. I think many candidates don’t even talk that much about their religion anymore. I notice it less and less, especially in the Dem side..
Manyakitty
@SpaceUnit: I’ve been adding ‘and creepy’ after my “weird’ descriptor. Seems like an understatement.
Manyakitty
@Shalimar: maybe Weigel got a brainworm of his very own.
WereBear
Gore Vidal: “In those days we poured god over everything like ketchup,” from the play, “The Best Man.”
Suzanne,
It’s a coalition of the really stupid, the nakedly self-interested, and religious fascists.
I’m sure there’s a Venn diagram joke to be made.
Gvg
It makes sense to me why Vance is putting up with this position if he is the one meeting all those money men who don’t want to deal with Trump. In the long run he may end up with more money and more power (barf). Think McConnell. Or at least he hopes so. What I hope is some teeth in laws limiting money in politics again, but that requires a better Supreme Court which requires winning quite a few election cycles, President and Senate. Remember that, we need to keep at this. Buying justice and laws is not acceptable.
Baud
@Gvg:
There’s the rub, as the saying goes. We have a history of digging our own holes.
geg6
So is Trumpy Bear out now? Did RFK Jr. kill it? Is he keeping it in his freezer?
Jeffro
please please please FSM – let trump embrace RFK Jr and his ‘positions’ even more publicly, loudly, and earnestly than ever across the next 70 days
Baud
@Jeffro:
I would enjoy watching Trump trying his hand at falconry. The last time he was near a bird of prey, it didn’t go so well for him.
BellyCat
How pissed will Vance be if he doesn’t somehow inherit the Presidency AND Trump keeps all the money that JV raised for them?
Truly couldn’t keep up with all the weirdness, and that was before RFK endorsed Trump!
Princess
I can promise you, Vance may be busting his butt to raise cash beyond the sticky coins he can find in his couch, but those billionaires won’t be happy to open their wallets for a night with the vp. For the big money, they expect to talk to the future president. And the fact that Trump is not capable of doing that fundraising work is telling. I say not capable because it’s not like he’s doing anything else those nights.
PST
@Shalimar: In fairness to Dave Weigel, I don’t think he was suggesting that such a deal with Stein or West would be a good idea. I think he was just pointing out how weird the Trump-Kennedy deal is in the context of traditional American two-party politics. It’s “as if” Harris made such a deal, and he pointed out that this is more characteristic of European multi-party systems.
MagdaInBlack
@Princess: I think that trump is just a cipher for those folks. Prop him up in the position of president, feed him lots of praise, let him think hes the one in charge while they really run everything.
They don’t really need to meet with him other than now and then to give him a treat and pat him on the head.
hells littlest angel
If you can’t help the boss get his beak wet, what good are you?
Princess
@Baud: Harris didn’t talk about her religion at all as far as I heard, and no one else talked about it on her behalf. There was one mention in a video of celebrating Christian and Jewish holidays at home and that’s all I heard. It was refreshing tbh. I’m on team I don’t want to know the religion of the president. And it makes no difference. Evangelicals flocked to vote for atheist (c’mon, we know he thinks he’s the highest power) Trump over devout church-going Hillary. So what’s the point?
MagdaInBlack
Also too: Chicago-land weather report is that we had really fine storm last night, temps in the 80’s today and the lightning last night was spectacular.
sdhays
@Princess: Hey! Faux News in West Palm Beach can’t watch itself! How else is Trump supposed to know what other people are saying about him?
catclub
Their only question is “Am I still getting paid?”
catclub
@sdhays: Apparently the GOP is buying ads in West Palm beach TV to counter the ads George Conway is running there. Fine use of money for emotional support of the fragile boss’s ego.
Ken
I wish we had someone who could whisper in Trump’s ear, “They think they are, and so does Vance, watch your back….”
The Audacity of Krope
Working for Trump, they ought to know to get paid in advance.
Princess
@Ken: George Conway could run an ad saying so on West Palm Beach Fox News…
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
Remember, any liberal is a fake Christian as far as they’re concerned.
Leto
@lowtechcyclist: They would rather believe that God is channeling his will through Trumpov like that one ancient king (I don’t remember his name), rather than follow a fellow Christian. The mental gymnastics they have to do make Simone Biles look like a beginner.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: I’m just glad Susan Wiles wasn’t running Trump’s 2020 campaign. Wiles would have had much more to work with then than she does now.
JWR
@MagdaInBlack:
Wasn’t that what some big Repub strategist said about Bush II, that he was “an empty vessel” who was easy to manipulate? All they needed him for were public speaking and bill signings. Just leave actual policy to them.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t care how many Wiles she has, ain’t no helping that man.
ETA: But actually it was interesting to learn about her, first time I heard her name.
lowtechcyclist
@Leto:
Truth.
(Not that it matters, but the king was Cyrus of Persia, who freed the Israelites from their captivity in Babylon.)
The Audacity of Krope
Better known more recently for declining to prosecute Trump for his many crimes. Damn, those Biblical folk are long-lived.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Cyrus was riding high until he took on Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae. Legend has it that when her warriors defeated Cyrus and brought his head to Tomyris, she plunged the head into a bucket of blood and shouted, “WE’RE NOT GOING BACK!”
Karen S.
@MagdaInBlack: Spectacular and lots of it. It was amazing. I’m glad we’re headed toward cooler weather here over the next week.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
All well and good but not if it means TCF being able to bury P25 and Dodd.
zhena gogolia
So Weigel says “started speaking for him” in reference to Harris. And dengre says JFK Jr.
Chris T.
@JWR:
That worked out really well for them until Katrina. I’m not sure quite why, but GWB grew a conscience some time after 9/11. You could see it in how he didn’t age at all upon assuming the Presidential Throne, nor even after the 9/11 events, but then suddenly did after Katrina.
BritinChicago
@SpaceUnit: ” I think they’re totally fucked, whatever the useless polls say.” Really? You’re that sure? Would you take a large bet at 1,000 to 1? Or are you just mouthing off?
Yes, I’d make that bet against you. (Of course I could also bet the other way at much better odds and making a killing either way.)
Dave
@Chris T.: “W” had and has a great number of flaws but there is something like a real person that has come fairly close to the surface in there. Like he’d be fine if he was your neighbor. Still wouldn’t shed a tear if somehow he was shipped off to Iraq for some sort of tribunal though that will never happen but there is a person there.
You actually used to see a much smaller amount of that with the older large adult Trump sons as well. Tiny aspirations to be a real not always awful people but DJT is ardent about snuffing that out and neither had the courage to break away.
Aziz, light!
I hope that we will win the election. I do not believe that we will win the election. I think that it will be too close for comfort. Believing that the race is won leads directly to some people not bothering to vote, as when we believed that Clinton had the election in the bag.
I like to recall a line from my favorite novel, Aldous Huxley’s “Island:” “Give us this day our daily faith, but protect us, dear God, from belief.”
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Interesting, Trump isn’t involved in the big time fundraising. I suppose the handlers saw how he did with the big money crowd a few months ago ( when most of them left thinking “the boy ain’t right in the head”) and won’t let it happen again.
Tell me, if he can’t schmooze, which was one of his few abilities, how do the handlers expect him to be president again? Or do they care?
artem1s
@BellyCat:
Let’s ask Darryl Issa how he felt about being passed over when he led the recall effort against Davis and only to see the GOP embrace the Governator.
azlib
@Ishiyama:
And the Dem response to Goldwater at the time was “In your gut, you know he’s nuts”.
And, yet, today, Goldwater is seen as sane and rational conservative. Remember, he is the senator that went to Nixon and told him he had to resign at the height of the Watergate scandal. Looking back those times seem awfully quaint and innocent.