Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

We will not go back.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Embrace Strength, Not Fear

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Embrace Strength, Not Fear

by | 105 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Another storied musician joins the Harris / Walz band…


Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

     I was just in Florida at the Villages and it was wild

    Might want to keep the stories about the Viagra parties on the down low until after the election, Doug.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    They want to set the narrative of this election and now they can’t

    “Biden wasn’t supposed to listen to us when we demanded he step down.”

  5. 5.

    J. Arthur Crank

    Regarding that Quinnipiac poll, If you think Trump would be better at handling the economy, then I can’t help you.  The absolute number of people like that is staggering.

  8. 8.

    Leto

    @Baud: true, domestically. Just kind of noting how the foreign policy interference has quadrupled with Trumpov. Both Nixon and Reagan had the decency to interfere on the down-lo, whereas Shitgibbon is just doing it out in the open without a care in the world.

  9. 9.

    p.a.

    🤞🏻Slowly, then all at once 🤞🏻  I guess it’s a good sign for this election that it’s looking like the tRumpist Party HAS to rely on its bad actors in state gvts and “independent” groups (and the Scheming Six) to bollix the vote; even with the slave-friendly Electoral College, a straight-up count is trending to keep him on the outside looking in.
    The memory of ’16 is strong, no complacency!

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @Leto:

    Very true. I think we still haven’t really come to terms with how many Republicans voters have sold out this country’s sovereignty in the hopes of getting an edge over us.

  13. 13.

    New Deal democrat

    Just wanted to weigh in to reiterate that Trump and Vance’s jihad against legal (but dark-skinned) immigrants is likely to backfire – and it may already be starting to show up in the polling. Xenophobia is a winning popular issue when it is directed against nameless, faceless, anonymous masses. When it is directed against one’s known neighbors, it becomes repellant popularly. And Trump/Vance are directing it against local communities with names and thriving businesses.

    If Trump also succeeds in forcing the House GOP to cause a government shutdown, that is likely to be the final straw for those few remaining voters on the fence.

  15. 15.

    Soprano2

    That Politico article – *rolleyes* – haven’t they ever noticed that Republicans just repeat the same talking points over and over? What they’re really mad about is that she won’t go off-script like TCFG does, and make a “gaffe” they can write about over and over. I’m not always happy with all of her answers – I listened to the whole interview she did with the NABJ yesterday. I wish she would take on the “are you better off” question in a more direct way, because 4 years ago thousands of Americans were dying every week from Covid, millions were out of work, there were weird shortages of all kinds of different things (for awhile finding cat food was really iffy!), things were really bad. Right now, that is a stupid question that they either shouldn’t ask or should ask in a different way, like “Do you think people are better off now than they were before Covid happened?”, because that’s the question they’re really asking.

  18. 18.

    Trivia Man

    @J. Arthur Crank: A very successful example of lie by repetition. Since at least the 70’s it has become something “everybody knows” that GOP=good for business therefore good for the ‘economy’. It FEELS true because they are good for making rich richer. Even though it is very clear that democrats make much healthier and more fair economic conditions.

    Same reason only republicans qualify for head of DOJ FBI and other “security “ positions.

  21. 21.

    Trivia Man

    @Baud: Absolutely true. There are many charts that show very clearly how Clinton, Obama, and Biden all cleaned up huge economic disasters. Those need to be front and center, memed to hell and back.

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: Yes, and it’s not just neighbors Trump and Vance are slandering. Marriages and parentage between Americans of different races and ethnicities have grown throughout recent decades and if anything are accelerating now. In many cases, Trump is making these Nativist appeals to “White” voters who have grandchildren, nieces and nephews of mixed race and/or immigrant parents. Trump’s appeals to fear and hatred won’t hit those voters the way he hopes.

  26. 26.

    Mark’s Bubbie

    @J. Arthur Crank: I heard an interesting interview with Dem pollster Celinda Lake on why many young Hispanic men support Trump despite his racism. Yes, they know he’s a racist but a “businessman” and male so better for the economy. Lake was reluctant to call it sexism… but I’m not.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    @Baud:

    I think we still haven’t really come to terms with how many Republicans voters have sold out this country’s sovereignty in the hopes of getting an edge over us. 

    I listened to a podcast this morning while I was running about Mencius Moldbug. (As you can guess, it was depressing as shit.) But I tend to agree with you on this: their hatred and resentment of others activates everything else.

    In short: evil more than stupid, even though there’s plenty of stupid.

  32. 32.

    Belafon

    @Trivia Man: If it were all about marketing, Biden would have been 10 points ahead of Trump considering how many places he toured touting the investment laws Democrats got passed and how many times he pointed out that Republicans had nothing to do with them.

    But Democrats don’t own the newspapers that publish in Nebraska, Montana, Kansas, and Wyoming, and they don’t own Fox. What they do have are people like Obama (black), Harris (black, Indian, woman), Pete Buttigieg (gay), Karine Jean-Pierre (black, gay, woman), and all of those other non-straight, non-white, not-male people around him that a whole lot of white people can’t hear over their prejudices.

  33. 33.

    Ishiyama

    @Geminid: Marriages and parentage between Americans of different races and ethnicities have grown throughout recent decades and if anything are accelerating now.

     
    Times have changed since Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

  34. 34.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @twbrandt:

    Many days it’s hard to see what’s been posted when.  Good ole BJ remains very old school in that regard.

    He was one of those people that didn’t necessarily hit the mass public consciousness but anybody who ever read liner notes knew who he was and in many cases discovered his music via that route.

  35. 35.

    Geminid

    Jackals Ahoy!

    The college radio station announcer informs me that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

    My friend Debbie is coming out to check on her bees, and I’m gonna pirate talk her. I may also create an imaginary parrot to pirate talk with the rest of the day.

  39. 39.

    Belafon

    I read an article the other day about how some of the money from the infrastructure bills is going to upgrade the plant in Vance’s home town, the one his grandfather worked at, so that it uses hydrogen rather than coal. The townspeople love it – not only is it modernizing the plant, but it will eliminate the smell and health issues from coal – they know that it came from Democrats, they know that Trump and Vance will end it if they are elected, but they are going to vote for Trump anyway.

  40. 40.

    catclub

    @J. Arthur Crank: The absolute number of people like that is staggering.

     

    They think The Apprentice was a documentary.

    Mark Burnett has a lot to answer for.

     

    Think how stupid the average American is. now realize that half the population is dumber than that.

  41. 41.

    catclub

    @Geminid: The college radio station announcer informs me that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.

     

    Pirate:  What ye think me favorite programming language be, matey?

    Matey: umm, R?

    Pirate: Aye, Tis a fair choice, but me first love is the C.

  42. 42.

    Jesse

    One of the items here isn’t right. The Teamsters didn’t endorse Harris. (They explicitly didn’t endorse anyone.)

  43. 43.

    RevRick

    @J. Arthur Crank:

    @Soprano2:

    @Baud:

    Whenever the generic question is asked of the general public as to which party is better for the economy, the answer usually is the GOP. Why is that?
    The reality is that Democrats far exceed Republicans when it comes to managing the economy, yet the belief persists otherwise. And I think that is due to people making the false connections between successful, local business owners (mostly Republicans), and who better steers the national economy. This is especially true when you see heads nodding at the claim that government should be run like a business. The equation is, if they’re great at x, they will of course be great at y. Not true.
    I, like most of us Democrats, are frustrated that while Trump gets a mulligan for the shambles he left the economy in, no such grace is given to the Biden/Harris administration for Covid’s aftermath. Historically, whenever there’s some outside shock to the economy, throwing it out of whack, inflation results: the oil shocks of 73 & 79, WW 1 & 2, the Civil War and Revolutionary War. But our lazy news media never gives context, and it would come across as whining if the administration did it.

  44. 44.

    gene108

    @Leto:

    Just kind of noting how the foreign policy interference has quadrupled with Trumpov. Both Nixon and Reagan had the decency to interfere on the down-lo,

    I’d like think there might’ve been a time when openly sabotaging the foreign policy of a sitting president might’ve negatively affected a candidate and caused a scandal that hurt them politically.

  47. 47.

    oldgold

    Are my fellow Americans living on a different planet than me?

    Former President Donald Trump‘s favorability ratings bounced back to their highest point since June, before Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, according to a new Gallup poll. The Gallup survey found that most Americans view both Trump and Harris favorably less than two months until the presidential race, but that Trump’s favorability has increased since an August Gallup poll.

    This after Trump:

    1. Picks the rancid JD Vance as his running mate;

    2. Tarnishes the Medal of Honor;
    3.  Desecrates Arlington Cemetery;
    4.  Is pummeled in a debate;
    5. Falsely and maliciously screams ad nauseum about cats and dogs being eaten by immigrants; and,
    6. Demonstrates daily that the indignities of aging spares no one.

    What the hell is going on?

  50. 50.

    BR

    @oldgold:

    I don’t think anyone other than Gallup is showing that. If I remember right, the favorability averages are showing Harris at approximately +0 fav/unfav and Trump at -9 fav/unfav. Walz is slightly positive, I think +3 and Vance is more negative like -11, but both VP picks are known by fewer people overall.

  51. 51.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I think we still haven’t really come to terms with how many Republicans voters have sold out this country’s sovereignty in the hopes of getting an edge over us.

    As far as they’re concerned, we’re the real enemy, a far greater danger to the Republic than Russia, China, and Iran combined. So it makes a perverse sort of sense, from their POV.

  52. 52.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Trivia Man: Since at least the 70’s it has become something “everybody knows” that GOP=good for business therefore good for the ‘economy’. It FEELS true because they are good for making rich richer. Even though it is very clear that democrats make much healthier and more fair economic conditions.

    The truth is that even the wealthy do better under the conditions Democrats create. However, the rich can’t separate themselves as easily into an elite under those conditions, so too many will take the smaller gains for the higher perceived prestige.

  53. 53.

    TBone

    I’m feeling illegal today, it’s the buzzword being drilled into us ceaselessly on repeat during every campaign ad by rethugs here in PA.  Illegal illegal illegal illegal !

    We need to flip the script on the rethugs and Felonious D immediately!  HE is illegal personified!

  57. 57.

    TBone

    @narya: 😆

    I said, “Well, at a tavern, for instance, you might ask the attractive bar maid, ‘Excuse me, but can I put me monkey pump in your bunghole?”

    This is when the anchor woman, who made the mistake of taking a sip of water while I answered her question, shot it in an epic spit take. Sadly, the camera was on me, so I’m the only one who saw it. There also was, as you might guess, some consternation from other people on the set.

  60. 60.

    TBone

    I wish I could post a photo of inflatable Gritty on my front lawn, positioned so that one hand is patting the Harris for President sign!

  65. 65.

    Eolirin

    @RevRick: It’s because Democrats are coded as feminine and Republicans are coded as masculine.

    The Daddy party, regardless of how incompetent they may be, must be better at security and financial stuff, because those are things men are inherently better at.

    Never mind that that’s rarely true even at the family level. We still haven’t broken the chains of that kind of unconscious sexism. And no one has any understanding of how anything works so they have no idea how to evaluate whether the economy is doing well or not except via price changes and whether they’re employed. 

    Easy to fall back on the stereotype. That a Republican is doing poorly on that measure is very notable. It’s a sign Trump is a particularly bad candidate.

  66. 66.

    trnc

    Trump has been begging officials worldwide not to do the right thing for years to help rig the election for him – no deal in Gaza, no defense of Ukraine, no Kremlin hostages release, no border deal, no continuing resolution, no interest rate cuts etc – just sabotage & subterfuge.

    I wonder if the Harris campaign should compare and contrast this with how democrats worked with DT on the Covid stimulus. I remember dems at the time worried that it could help him win the election but felt it was too important to play politics with.

    Also, for the love of whatever, someone somewhere in the party needs to point out that inflation started under DT and went up by 2 points before Biden signed a spending bill, and that a lot of that spending made up for DT dropping the ball on Covid and infrastructure.

  68. 68.

    Shalimar

    I think it would be horrible for the country if someone killed Trump and turned him into a martyr for Vance.  That said, I hope if a hunter does kill him they will at least eat him too and not waste food.

  69. 69.

    Eolirin

    @trnc: I think we’re better off focusing on what we’re trying to do moving forward on getting certain kinds of costs down than trying to explain how inflation works.

    People aren’t interested in the explanation and they’re uneducatable, broadly, on how things work. Easier and more effective to tell them we’re gonna go after their asshole landlords for jacking up their rents and tax the rich corporations that’re making record profits off of increasing their food and medical costs so we can put money back in their pockets.

  70. 70.

    New Deal democrat

    @lowtechcyclist:

    As far as they’re [GOPers] concerned, we’re the real enemy, a far greater danger to the Republic than Russia, China, and Iran combined. So it makes a perverse sort of sense, from their POV.

    And for most Fundamentalist Christians, it’s worse than that. We aren’t just a civil danger, but  – literally, not just figuratively – are in league with Satan to overthrow God’s Chosen nation, the USA. Therefore *anything* that prevents us from winning power is sanctioned by God, even allying with a vile human being, because “God chooses His vessels.”

    And Putin has shrewdly and explicitly positioned himself as the global Defender of orthodox Christianity.

  71. 71.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @RevRick: Sadly, the notion that Taxes R Bad (or even “Slavery” according to Republicans, Libertarians and many Independents) has been very much internalized by a lot of Americans.  Getting them to understand that taxes actually are responsible for many of the comforts, security, opportunity in our lives is really hard.  Dems being the only party honest about the need for taxes, get dinged perpetually for it because voters are shallow, ignorant and selfish.  So we are forever fighting the Tax & Spend Liberals smear because people can’t wrap their heads around the fact that “Tax & Spend” is actually a good thing!

  74. 74.

    Eolirin

    @UncleEbeneezer: Most people are very happy with more taxes being applied to rich people, just not to themselves.

    That’s an opening if we use it. Going hard after the ultra wealthy and tax cheats to pay for things like the earned income tax credit is a viable strategy. It doesn’t quite get us far enough, but it can do a lot of the lifting.

    Younger generations are also more down with government spending on services, so that’s also going to help as the demographic shift continues.

  76. 76.

    TBone

    @oldgold: uh oh

    Hubby is in charge of daily check, I only look in once in a while.  It is Pirate Day!  Should I be worried?  Nothing comes before Pirate Day!  See comment #25 🏴‍☠️

  77. 77.

    trnc

    @Geminid: In many cases, Trump is making these Nativist appeals to “White” voters who have grandchildren, nieces and nephews of mixed race and/or immigrant parents. Trump’s appeals to fear and hatred won’t hit those voters the way he hopes.

    How significantly has that demographic changed since 2016, or for that matter, June 2024? He’s not saying much that’s new, so that would seem to already baked in.

    If you’re saying the explicit threat to Haitians will make the difference, I think it will with Haitian-American voters and maybe a small orbit around them, but I doubt that’s very many people. Then again, maybe the explicit group naming plus the elevated talk of violence will get through more than I think.

    By all means, we shouldn’t let up on him for it and I expect Walz to say quite a bit at the VP debate.

  78. 78.

    oldgold

    @TBone:  About a month ago you mentioned having some anxiety the day the market tanked. Well, today is a very good day on the heels of the Fed action yesterday.

  82. 82.

    TBone

    @oldgold: I know, I was just messin’ – my advisor rejiggered over the weekend unbeknownst to me till I got electronic transaction confirms Saturday afternoon, alerting my spidey senses of good things to come this week!

    ETA manners, TBone.  Thank you for remembering me, OldGold!  That’s a great pirate nym!

  83. 83.

    Eolirin

    @trnc: I am genuinely concerned that while there’s clear blowback on the slurs against Haitians, that this is still improving Trump’s favorability amongst his base in ways that may end up being a net positive.

    I hope the conversation can be moved to something else soon. We want abortion and gun control to be the focus more than immigration. Even if it’s actively being refuted, it’s still getting signal boosted just talking about it.

  84. 84.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Eolirin: The problem is that the GOP routinely lies about Dems raising “your” taxes, and a lot of people believe it, even when it’s not true.  My Dad will, to this day, whine about how his taxes went up because of Obamacare, even though I suspect they didn’t at all

    Added: but yes, I agree.  Tax the ultra-wealthy/cheats, is a good approach.

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @trnc: I can’t speak to the facts and figures regarding changes in this group from 2016 to 2024. But I can reference a figure for another group over an 8 year period: the Hispanic vote share grew 30% from 2012 and 2020; from 10% to 13%.

    The Wikipedia article that broke down the components of the 2020 elecorate had another interesting (to me) finding: Hispanic men accounted for 5% of the vote that year, while Hispanic women accounted for 8%.

  89. 89.

    Falling Diphthong

    TFG promised to go to Springfield in two weeks. And we all know how his follow-through on two week deadlines is.

  90. 90.

    President Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)

    Trump adviser Steve Moore on the Fed cutting by 50 basis points: “It was jaw-dropping, frankly. There’s no reason they couldn’t do 25 now and 25 right after the election. Why not wait till then?”

    The party that raised the National Terror Alert immediately after the 2004 Democratic Convention for purely political reasons has earned the right to shut the fuck up forever.

  92. 92.

    wjca

    @RevRick: Whenever the generic question is asked of the general public as to which party is better for the economy, the answer usually is the GOP. Why is that?

    At a guess:

    • For those born before maybe 1970, the (officially named, if not really) communists ran the Soviet Union.  Communism (if actually implemented) being more left than right.
    • The Russia economy was visibly far worse than ours.
    • Therefore, a further right party will be better for the economy than a more liberal party Q.E.D.

    Lots of flaws in that.  But I would bet it’s a major part of where the “Republicans [i.e. the more conservative party] are better on the economy” idea comes from.

  93. 93.

    President Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)

    @wjca: I would add that to the average voter, the GOP means low/no taxes, and who doesn’t want to avoid paying taxes? Of course, it’s the millionaires and billionaires who actually get the breaks, but hey, ingrained messages are hard to shake.

  97. 97.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @UncleEbeneezer: I ran into this all the time when Obama was president. One oldster I had to work with would just not let it go. I knew about what he made and could guess from his house and car that he didn’t have some windfall or side gig with high pay, so I challenged him to show us his tax returns for the last three years. He rightly refused, so I challenged him to at least go look at his tax returns privately and get back to us with percent changes. His response is that his wife did their taxes so how should he know?

    To which I said “So how do you know they went up? He just stared at me.

    It is a fucking religion with these people.

  98. 98.

    divF

    @Geminid:

    Marriages and parentage between Americans of different races and ethnicities have grown throughout recent decades and if anything are accelerating now.

    This! Over the last couple of decades I’ve observed with joy the increasing number of mixed couples and (especially) mixed-parentage children. But with an admixture of fear of the moment when the white bigots would realize what was happening and lash out. I think (hope!) that they waited too long, though, and the normalcy of an integrated society as perceived by the majority will win out.

  99. 99.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    @UncleEbeneezer: Not to mention the fact that the “Trump tax decreases” were actually very significant tax increases for middle-class homeowners (like me) in California and New York, because of the cap on mortgage and property tax deductions.

    I don’t think that any red state voter would have any sympathy for that little middle finger to blue states in the current tax code, but someone could maybe explain more explicitly that Trump’s proposed tariffs would act effectively like a sales tax on many household staples–i.e. a regressive tax that disproportionally burdens the lower/middle class in all states. Kamala did make this argument in the debate, but did it in a more abstract way that I’m not sure registered with the general public.

  100. 100.

    bluefoot

    @Belafon: ​
      It’s 100% identity and tribalism with some people. They vote their values (e.g. white supremacy, psychic wage of being “better”, etc) rather than their economic or quality of life interests (better working conditions, upgrade to the plant -> better, longer-term jobs, being able to provide for their families, etc).

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @Leto:

    Why should shitforbrains have a care in the world? In his mind the entire world revolves around HIM. (It may be that stick stuck up somewhere in his person is something he believes everyone else has – or is it doesn’t have? Mmmm, something else not to think about…

    My take is that sfb thinks he is the perfect human, while every second of every day he continues to prove exactly the opposite. Is it possible that what little work that lump in his head does is guided by  his shitty personality, rather than by any so called intelligence, which he seems to have at an ever increasing negative value?

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @wjca:

    They do seem to be better – if you consider the uber wealthy to be the basis of the economy. If you consider ALL OF US to be the basis of the economy then the uber wealthy just seem to be greedy fucks. I owned the business my father started for many years longer than he did, and it was a business that employed very talented people to make molds for plastic products – 8oz to 5 gallon bottles, toys, commercial products, and on and on. My point is that many people in this world do things that affect many others. Most are neutral to positive things for others, some are neutral to negative things for others. Money is the thing that drives most of this, but not all of it. Most of us have to work at jobs that in some way, small or large, affect others, some think that doing whatever, but only in their own interest is a better thing.

Comments are closed.