Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

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

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Second rate reporter says what?

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Cold Dawn Open Thread: Malignant ‘Undecided’ Liars

Cold Dawn Open Thread: Malignant ‘Undecided’ Liars

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Bret Stephens asks Stephanie Ruhle why Kamala Harris has not done interviews and stated clearly what her policy positions are. Ruhle responds that ‘We don’t live in Nirvana’:
Bret Stephens: “I’m an undecided voter. I’m not sure I want to vote for Kamala. My fear is that she doesn’t really have a very good command of what she wants to do as president.
It would be great for her to sit down with you, or George Stephanopoulos, or you Stephanie.
It’s not too much to ask Kamala ‘Are you for a Palestinian state, if Hamas is going to run that state?'”
Stephanie Ruhle: “If you don’t like her answer, are you going to vote for Trump? Kamala Harris is not running for perfect, she is running against Trump.
We have two choices. There are some things that you might not know her answer too.
In 2024, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy.”
Bret Stephens: “The problem that a lot of people have with Kamala is that we don’t know her answer to anything.”
Ruhle: “But you know his answer to everything.”
Stephens: “People also are expected to have some idea of what the program that you’re supposed to vote for.
I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for her to sit down for a real interview.”
Ruhle: “When you move to Nirvana, I’ll be your next door neighbor. We don’t live there.”

Stephanie Ruhle thinks it’s ‘utopian’ to demand Kamala Harris go through the process that every other candidate for president has gone through, a public vetting process.
Turns out, Stephanie Ruhle and her ilk are the true ‘threats to democracy’.


Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic (written in mid-June, before Biden dropped out):

… The Republican Party now has an entire subculture of Jimmy Clean Hands types, who claim to recognize that Trump is completely unfit for office and have said that they will not vote for him—yet will not vote to stop him.

Some Republicans have gone the full distance back to Trump, criticizing him but also now pledging to vote for him. Bill Barr comes to mind, as does Nikki Haley. Barr is a true believer, and Haley is a shallow opportunist, but both are pillars of courage next to Republicans such as Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, and John Bolton, the supposed guardians of the guardrails who have made the case against Trump but have also vowed not to vote for either Trump or Joe Biden. (Bolton has said that he will write in Dick Cheney.) Even former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a more moderate Republican now running for a Senate seat, has said that he will write in a “symbolic vote that states my dissatisfaction with where the party is.”…

In the end, the Clean Hands position encourages people to think that their vote really does not matter, other than as a solipsistic expression of personal dissatisfaction. It indulges the narcissistic fantasy that on Election Day, a town crier will say, “1 million votes for Biden, 1 million and one votes for Trump, and one admirable vote for Ronald Reagan. We all want to thank you for your deeply principled stand. And it’s not your fault that Trump won the state.”

Most of these ostensible Trump opponents, of course, will be happy no matter what happens in 2024. If Trump wins, they can push their Jimmy Clean Hands image, noting that no matter how much they hated Trump, they didn’t betray the party. If Trump loses, they can say that they warned their fellow Republicans. Either way, they can float above the fray. Because they care only about their own viability, both options work out: The Clean Hands Republicans believe that they will stay influential, moving and shaking, as if the Republican Party and the conservatism they once knew still existed.

I have sometimes been asked whether I would prefer that people vote for Trump or not vote at all. I think it is every American’s right not to vote, or to write in Marvin the Martian if they so choose. But I find it deeply mendacious for Republican leaders who know exactly how voting works—and especially how protest votes can affect the Electoral College—to make the simultaneous cases that Trump is completely unfit for office and that the election should not be regarded as a binary choice. The reality is that only one of two men will emerge with the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These prominent Republicans know better, which suggests to me that what they are really saying is that they hope Trump will win—but that they hope he wins with the votes of others, so that they themselves may avoid the moral stain of voting for a racist, misogynist felon who egged on rioting seditionists.

Personally, I vote as if my vote is the deciding ballot. I know it isn’t, of course, but it focuses my mind and makes me take the civic duty of voting seriously. People have given their lives for my right to stand in that booth, and when American democracy is facing a clear and existential threat, their sacrifice deserves something more than the selfish calculations of the Jimmy Clean Hands caucus.

======

Another former Republican stalwart:

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  5. 5.

    Baud

    Turns out, Stephanie Ruhle and her ilk are the true ‘threats to democracy

    Are we her ilk?

    As I’ve said before, I’m not giving Harris advice on media strategy, but the media’s whining about their loss of status is both pathetic and hilarious.

  6. 6.

    MattF

    Nichols is so right about Stephens. He’s disgraceful, and that’s really all there is to say about it.

  7. 7.

    Chet Murthy

    This is amusing: this Baffler article ( https://thebaffler.com/latest/gimmicks-of-future-past-tatol) coins a new term: “Gimmicks of Future Past”.  Like, y’know, NFTs, crypto, god-knows-how-many-other bullshit things we’ve seen come and go.  I love that phrase: it really captures the sense of “the future’s so bright I can see to last century” sense of so much of the grifting we see out there these days.

    ETA: I haven’t read the article; I just thought the title was so evocative.

  8. 8.

    Dangerman

    I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for her to sit down for a real interview.

    I didn’t watch it but Oprah is chopped liver? She only built and owns one of the largest media empires around.

    It’s unfortunate that much of the old guard are going the way of dinosaurs. Adapt or die. They’ve chosen the latter, apparently.

  9. 9.

    Suburban Mom

    All true.  Yesterday I was phone banking to a call list of Republicans and undecideds in Pennsylvania.  One who said he was undecided and focused on the economy talked to me for a while.  First he said he didn’t think Harris had an economic policy, so I shared her position and Trump’s.  Then he said Harris’s approach would not work.  So I switched topics to ask how he will decide.  He said he would vote for the better person.  I thought I had him!  I reminded him of Trump’s history, and how he said outright he would go after his opponents post-election.  That’s when my new phone buddy went off ranting about everything “they” have done to Trump.  I wished him a good day, and encouraged him to keep an open mind.  It could have been worse.   Other phone bankers were cursed at and told to die before the election. The best call I had was with a first-time voter and college student who was 90% for Harris and all about reproductive choice, because he cares about his girlfriend and mom.  I think I may have shoved him the remaining 10% of the way.

  14. 14.

    Shalimar

    @Dangerman: He’s just outright lying at this point.  Harris has been going on local and minority shows consistently since the Democratic Convention.  Maybe normal people aren’t aware of them because they’re demographically targeted, but this is Stephens’ job.  He knows better even before the Oprah event.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    The talk about Gaza is completely a clown show

     

    The Orange Menace had made clear:

     

    Bibi should FINISH THE JOB

     

    Jared done told you. …Gaza= BEACHFRONT CONDOS😠😠😠

  17. 17.

    Baud

    The reason this line of attack isn’t laughed out of society is because of the general lingering perception that Republicans are the default and people need a specific reason to choose the Democrat. Even a lot of liberals fall for it.

  18. 18.

    Chet Murthy

    @MattF: I suspect it’s a riff on “Days of Future Past”, which was a Moody Blues album.  And (so Wikipedia tells me) a Marvel comic book story title from even earlier.

  20. 20.

    Shalimar

    @Suburban Mom: “You don’t need to whine about all the horrible things people have done to Trump.  He never goes a minute without whining himself about how horribly he is treated.  That is your manly man?  Your better person?  What does he do for anyone else?  If your job is to protect him from all the mean, unfair people, you’re gonna be working 24/7 for the rest of your life.”

  24. 24.

    David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch

    This is just code for “why won’t she make us feel important and give us interviews.”

  25. 25.

    Shalimar

    @Chet Murthy: The Moody Blues album was 1967.  The Marvel Comics story (X-Men) that most people associate with the phrase now was from 1981 and was later used as a movie title in 2014.

  26. 26.

    MattF

    @Baud: There really does appear to be a systematic poll problem. I’d sure like to know which biases are real and which are not. Grrr.

  28. 28.

    Ramalama

    @Dangerman:

    It’s unfortunate that much of the old guard are going the way of dinosaurs.

    I love the imagery of Kamala being the asteroid that’s going to wipe them out. Fingers crossed.

  29. 29.

    TBone

    This whole Middle East argument and situation makes me simply turn away.  The agency of the actual actors is completely obliterated, as if the USA is literally in charge of everything that happens at all times everywhere. It’s just so disingenuous to remove from conversation the responsibility and abilitiy of the people that are doing the deeds to chart their own courses unless we intervene in our imaginary, supervisory capacity, that I can’t even.

  33. 33.

    Slightly_peeved

    @Dangerman:

    “real interview” means New York Times. That’s all it is; bedbug and the Times won’t endorse her because she hasn’t paid obeisance to the grey lady.  It’s personal grievance with a veneer of politics.

  34. 34.

    Chris Johnson

    @Erin: You did specify The New York Times. How at this stage can anybody be surprised when they openly fight for Trump and make shit up? Musta hired pollsters from St Petersburg.

  36. 36.

    TBone

    The FTFNYT is not a source I would normally link, but this story seems worthy.

    It’s a terrifying thing: The Kremlin is hunting down ordinary people across the world, and nobody seems to care.

    I’ve been gathering information about Russia’s targeting of exiles since the start of the war in Ukraine. My sources range from people who themselves survived abductions and surveillance to the leaders of Russian diasporas around the world — and the few human rights activists helping them.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/opinion/russia-putin-kremlin.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M04.5F1h.DWxLFqhCi37C&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&ngrp=mnp

  40. 40.

    Soprano2

    @Dangerman: They want her to say something to a uniformly hostile interviewer (like Sean Hannity) that gives them permission to vote for TCFG, like “I think it would be fine for Hamas to run a Palestinian State if that’s what the Palestinians want.” To them the interview with Oprah doesn’t count because she wasn’t hostile to Harris.

  41. 41.

    TBone

    Ah, I smell more desperation and flop sweat this morning:

    Kirschner posted a video on his YouTube channel calling the motion a “desperate” attempt to prevent Smith from “revealing Trump’s J6 [January 6] crimes.”
    “One thing is crystal clear,” Kirshner said in the video. “Donald Trump really doesn’t want Special Counsel Jack Smith to file his brief on September 26 disclosing all of the evidence of Trump’s J6 crimes.”
    The motion “reads more like an unhinged 2 a.m. Donald Trump social media post,” Kirshner said. “But at its core, this new Trump court filing is asking the judge to ignore what the Supreme Court directed her to do and just dismiss the case.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-makes-desperate-move-to-stop-jack-smith-ex-prosecutor/ar-AA1qZSXX

  42. 42.

    Princess

    FWIW I dint think Frum has voted for a Republican president since 2012. He broke from them in the Obama era over healthcare and was cast into outer darkness by them — he rightly saw Obamacare as a conservative solution. And he wants gun laws. I don’t think he’s going back. He’s a neo-con and we can be mad forever about Iraq but that’s it. Nichols is basically a neo-con too and will never be happy with Dem foreign policy, but apart from that, all his positions are basically moderate Dem. His dislike of Democrats was primarily aesthetic and contrarian as a youth.  I don’t think he’ll ever go back. Whether Trump wins or loses in November I think these guys are stuck with us.

  43. 43.

    Princess

    With respect to the NYT polls, there’s no good reason to go all OMG the Russians! Unskew the polls!!!1!1! on them. They’re probably in the margin of error of their earlier polls and NYT/Siena is the top pollster in the country. Nate Cohn is also very transparent about what he does. But I see from the Newsweek story that only 66% of respondents say they are certain to vote. It does make me wonder about sample quality, a thing I’ve wondered about all year. But if that’s in error, there’s no way to tell in which direction until the election. Bottom line is we can win this election. But we are not at this point clearly winning this election. We have not definitively pulled ahead and it remains razor thin.

  44. 44.

    K-Mo

    Ruhle’s argument was effective, but I wished there was a 3rd person to say, “wait, Trump has a clearly articulated policy on PI?  Where is it written down- I’d like to read it.  Where’s the interview where he answered a bunch of provocative hypothetical questions?”

    and PS- “which one of these candidates is refusing to debate again?”

  45. 45.

    J.

    I have always liked Stephanie Ruhle, and that clip is one reason why. Also, this post/tweets nails the whole undecided BS. Thank you, Annie Laurie.

    Side note: Reading and hearing Bret Stephens, I can’t help feeling he would have voted for Hitler even though he wasn’t crazy about his policy re Israel/Jews.

  46. 46.

    narya

    So does the FYNYFT’s whining mean that they’re going to sit down for a lengthy, detailed, policy-oriented interview w/ TCFG and actually transcribe what he says?  No? For that and other reasons they can fk off into the sun.

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Princess:

    I was prepared for a loss when Biden was the nominee and I’m prepared for a loss now. People still don’t want to appreciate how awful many Americans are, and that’s not limited to the MAGA.

  49. 49.

    Layer8Problem

    @Suburban Mom:  Allow me to tack on my thanks for your efforts.  Phone calling, door knocking, and handing out information on street corners and engaging with passers-by is necessary work.  A lot of us just don’t have the sand to deal with random or potentially hostile folks in a useful way.  I would probably end in a screaming fit of invective on caller number three.

  50. 50.

    Chris T.

    @Baud:

    Are we her ilk?

    I am not ilk, nor milk, nor silk. I might filk sometimes though.

    Oh, and: I put up our “Cats for Harris/Walz” sign on Sunday.

  51. 51.

    Princess

    @Baud: I can’t say I’m emotionally prepared for a loss but I am intellectually. I know it can happen. And then number of people I’ve seen who say things like, both candidates are terrible/have issues, but I’m voting Trump because I’m terrified about the economy (or whatever). Yeah, these people are not mAGA but they are awful.

    i don’t want to be a downer. I still think we can win. I’d rather be us than them, for so many reasons, but also because I think we have more fight in us. I’d like to see Harris do even more interviews. She’s good; I’m not scared. Even with unfriendly outfits. Put her live, no editing on Hannity. I trust her. Not the NYT though. Fuck those guys.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Princess: Yeah, in 2016, the ridiculous Republican-slanted polls we hated were the correct ones. Probably through no virtue of their own–they hadn’t been correct in 2012–their biases just happened to match what was going on on the ground that time. You can drive yourself crazy staring at these things.

  54. 54.

    TBone

    Vibes from lived experience

    “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

    Walden, or, Life in the Woods

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    There was a lot of work put into defeating Hillary. It didn’t just happen.

    I don’t know if Kamala will win, but the effort against her seems to be flailing.

  56. 56.

    rikyrah

    @Princess:

    Do people understand what they put in Kamala Harris ‘s shoulders?

    The burden of trying to save democracy in America in 100 days.

     

    The way that she is running for President is the most Black woman thing ever 😒 🧐

     

    So, yeah, the ridiculousness of it is peak Black woman.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Well, IMHO she’s stepped up to the challenge beautifully. There’s only so much you can do with the voters you have. She’s likely to win, but it won’t be by the amount she should win by.

  58. 58.

    Princess

    @Baud: I don’t think Harris is scared at all. I think some of her supporters are scared and want her to stay under wraps or only talk to supporters. I think that’s a mistake.

  61. 61.

    narya

    @Baud: I absolutely think the orange menace could win again, either outright or through the concerted cheating efforts in various states, I also think that the increase in voter registration is a huge unknown–how many of those folks will actually vote? How many are able/willing to stand in line, jump through any hoops, etc.? And can the polling capture any of that? (I’m not shitting on polling at the moment; I just think it would have to be hard to properly model the electorate and then get respondents to the poll.

    ETA: and I just saw the #s on Bsky, and . . . that’s insane.

  64. 64.

    narya

    @Baud: Yeah, I think in some cases they think they can get a win by throwing out SOME votes, in some cases they think they can sow enough chaos to enable them to then throw out votes, etc. I’m exhausted today (couldn’t sleep for a variety of stupid reasons), which just ratchets up my anxiety about the whole thing. Gonna have to focus on doing positive things today.

  65. 65.

    Princess

    @rikyrah: And to be perfectly clear: I have complete faith in her and her team to decide what venues are right for her and what are not. All I’m saying is that whatever she chooses to do, she will do well. Zero criticisms. 11/10. A+ No notes.

  66. 66.

    Princess

    @Baud: I think with legacy media you are mostly talking to the same old people who have already made up their minds. Anyone who regularly watches the news already has pretty well-formed opinions.

  68. 68.

    mappy!

    Undecided are just conservative bigots (intolerant hypocrites) who don’t want to publicly admit what they are.

    Rent free by any other definition is Rent free.

  73. 73.

    Starfish

    @TBone: The US supporting Israel in the UN when it is engaging in complete lawlessness by killing and wounding indiscriminately makes the US an actor in the situation. Israel needs to feel a little more isolated in planting bombs that injure thousands in other countries.

  74. 74.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Soprano2:

    To them the interview with Oprah doesn’t count because she wasn’t hostile to Harris.

    Plus, they view Oprah, in part, as one of the few crabs to climb out of the bucket. They’re still scrambling in the bucket, so they hates her, hates her

    ETA: Oh, and Oprah is blah. No interview is legitimate and serious if the interview and the candidate are blah.

  75. 75.

    Scout211

    In celebrity uninformed voter news, the Janet Jackson saga continues. In an interview in The Guardian, Janet Jackson repeated Trump’s claim that Kamala Harris is not black, citing misinformation that Harris’s father is white.  After immediate backlash, her management made a public apology for her.

    Controversy over, right?  Nope.  That apology was not authorized by Janet Jackson and the person who made the apology for Jackson was not even on her management team.  Her manager is her brother and he has not made a statement, nor has Janet Jackson.

    Shortly after the publication of Jackson’s comments, an apology was issued on the singer’s behalf to Buzzfeed by Mo Elmasri, an Egyptian filmmaker who has allegedly worked as a creative consultant for Jackson.

    Elmasri, who claimed to be Jackson’s manager, reportedly told the outlet that the pop icon’s remarks on Harris’ racial identity were “based on misinformation.”

    Jackson’s current manager is her brother, Randy Jackson, representatives for Jackson confirmed to USA TODAY on Sunday. Elmasri was not authorized to make the statement to Buzzfeed, the singer’s reps added, nor has he ever worked on Jackson’s team.

  77. 77.

    K-Mo

    @Princess: Agree 100.

    They know who they need to get and it’s not single issue P/I voters with polar opinions.  They want the 10% who know Trump is awful but are afraid to trust her with the economy.  I expect her to build out her description of the “opportunity economy” to provide hope around how it will stimulate jobs while reassuring folks that this stuff is all solid and mainstream.

  79. 79.

    Soprano2

    So this day is off to a rousing start. When I started my car this morning, I got a message that said there was a problem with my EBS (Emergency Braking System). My brakes have been acting strange, I thought I needed to have the mechanic check the brake job they did a few months ago. This error message evidently shuts down your car so it’ll only drive 2 or 3 mph. Luckily, I have another vehicle I can drive to work. Then, when I got to work, I found out that our database is down (they probably did some kind of update over the weekend). I called my dealership, and on the second try I got a person who scheduled an appointment for me. Then I called AAA, where I was talking to their virtual thing on the phone. When I tried to explain why I needed a tow, it said it was going to send my request to a provider and hung up on me! I needed to talk to a person to explain that I’m not at home, I’m at work! Jesus Christ, I miss the days when a person actually answered the telephone so you could tell them what you want. Everything cannot fit into a “pick menu”!!!!!!!!!

  80. 80.

    Starfish

    @Soprano2: Everything is now a phone tree is incredibly frustrating, but no one has really come down on folks for inconveniencing their customers.

  81. 81.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Trump didn’t actually do a lot of that work in 2016– his campaign was famously lazy and underfunded; there was a lot of talk about how he had no ground game. The media gave it to him for free, because he was fascinating to them and taking down Hillary looked like a David and Goliath story about anti-establishment leaks.

    Is this the same situation? No, but we still have the problem of being the incumbent party in a “change” cycle. That’s part of the drag. Another party is that there are just a lot of voters who will never vote for a black woman–we all know that.

    National signs are encouraging. But I’d certainly prefer to see our side pull away like Obama ’08

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    Oh, and I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:40 this morning, so I can’t schedule the tow until I’m done with that appointment, because I have to meet the tow truck people at my house where my car is!!!!AAAARRRRGGGHHHH, this is a Monday on steroids!!

  83. 83.

    Soprano2

    @Starfish: Like I told the operator I finally talked to, some things can’t fit into a pick menu. I think if someone said they were going to make it illegal for a company to tell you to go to their web site every 30 seconds while you’re on hold, they’d get 95% of the vote! I hate that, if I could do this on your web site I’d be there!!!!

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @Suburban Mom: ​
     

    The best call I had was with a first-time voter and college student who was 90% for Harris and all about reproductive choice, because he cares about his girlfriend and mom. I think I may have shoved him the remaining 10% of the way.

    You’re a much better person than I. I probably would have responded in one two ways:
    1) “The perfect is the enemy of the ‘good enough,’ dumbass. This means: you’re considering voting for someone who will destroy America, because you’re not 99.99999 percent in agreement with Kamala’s policies?”
    2) Quoting TBogg’s “Your Mumia Sweatshirt …” post from years ago, with emphasis on the last two lines.
    People like that drive me crazy. Yes, I understand he’s “gettable,” but it shouldn’t even be in doubt.

  85. 85.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Matt McIrvin: I don’t think Obama ’08 can be replicated. The economy had just crashed and McCain, the candidate of the party on whose watch it happened, basically threw up his hands and said “what do you expect me to do about it?”.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @SFAW: That kid is having the left version of the “clean hands” reaction. If I don’t vote for either side, I’m not responsible for anything bad they do.

    I associate the clean-hands thing *mostly* with the left, actually, and it’s interesting to see it happening on the right with Trump. Encouraging even, perhaps.

  90. 90.

    Suburban Mom

    @Starfish: There were lots of hang-ups.  Those don’t bother me.  I view them as an opportunity to get to the next persuadable voter faster.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    Anndddd, it’s pledge week on the local NPR radio station! This day just keeps getting better and better!

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Is this the same situation? No, but we still have the problem of being the incumbent party in a “change” cycle  the media actively trying to help him.

    Fixed. The “change” part is a convenient excuse, but not really applicable, except to the non-productive Morlocks* who want to destroy/kill Demoncraps.

    * My recollection is that at least the Morlocks kept the machinery going.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @Matt McIrvin:

    That kid is having the left version of the “clean hands” reaction. If I don’t vote for either side, I’m not responsible for anything bad they do.

    Hence my “Mumia” comment.

  96. 96.

    K-Mo

    @Baud: I am 100percent not ready for Trump to win.  I am ready to lose the Senate and have 4 years of logjam while Trumpism continues to grow, followed by a terrible President a la Tom Cotton.  That’s as much as I can handle right now.

  97. 97.

    Hoodie

    @SFAW: This goes back to the observation that a lot of Americans treat voting as an atomistic consumer choice.  It’s like this guy is not sure whether to buy a particular new TV because he’s not sure about the refresh rate.  In normal consumer choice, there are no particular repercussions if you forego buying, e.g., you make do with your old TV, keep shopping and/or take up reading.  In this case, that 90% gets destroyed if he chooses the alternative.

  100. 100.

    K-Mo

    I mean you’re not wrong, but also, the vibes are better this time.

    My gut feeling is: HRC was a lousy candidate with a ton of baggage (a lot of it created by Fox News but still).  Kamala is a good candidate that people want to like.  At the end of the day, marginal voters are going to give Harris a shot rather than submit themselves to 4 more years of surefire chaos.

  104. 104.

    Hoodie

    @Matt McIrvin: I would expect that pulling away, if it occurs, will come very close to the election.  This “I want to know more about her policies” stuff is more likely than not evidence of people trying to get comfortable with the idea of voting for a woman of color.  It’s frustrating and stupid, but it still does mean that these people really may not want to vote for Trump, as the potential chaos of another Trump admin is roughly equivalent to the chaos that helped Obama in ’08.   Harris has the additional burden of misogyny.   I’m not sure incumbency is that big a factor, as Trump is also arguably an incumbent in the sense that a lot of people are sick of him and probably view Harris as  something new.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    Who the hell is Eric Abbenante and why should we give a damn what he thinks?

    In his Xitter bio, he describes himself as “Comedian Filmmaker Documentarian.” If he thinks “Stephanie Ruhle and her ilk are the true ‘threats to democracy’” that doesn’t mean shit, AFAICT. Some people’s idiocy matters because they influence a lot of other people; can’t see why I should worry about this guy’s idiocy.

    And whether we’re talking about Bret Stephens or this Abbenante guy, the point is still the same. >95% of the difference between any Dem candidate and any GOP candidate is right there in the party label, on account of the vast chasm between where the two parties are on practically anything. If someone needs details about that last <5% to decide how to vote, they're bullshitting you, or bullshitting themselves, or just plain don't know shit about what D and R mean these days.

  106. 106.

    TBone

    @Starfish: wow

    That’s assigning agency where it doesn’t belong.

    Not to mention unfounded assumption since I rarely comment on any current military war situations.  This is why.

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud:

    FWIW, if a state actually throws out its election outcome, I don’t consider that him winning.

    What you consider doesn’t particularly matter here–what matters is who gets shot or thrown in a detention camp.

    That said, I think we should be worrying less about “weird trick” scenarios and more about just losing outright. I think the “weird trick” stories are more psychological warfare aimed at demoralizing our side to prevent a Democratic win, and ginning up false hopes in violent people on the other side if we do manage it, than anything else.

  108. 108.

    Princess

    @Starfish: Doesn’t Harris have a plan for that? I thought consumer protection for communicating with companies was one of her policy proposals.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: Well, I can’t blame “the voters” if he wins in that manner.

    Also, if a state blatantly cheats like that, Biden will have a decision to make. If Trump wins the EC through the actual vote, then Biden has no choice but to honor the outcome.

  110. 110.

    Matt

    Bret Stephens: “I’m an undecided voter. I’m not sure I want to vote for Kamala.

    Shorter Bretbug: “In addition to being a fascist, I’m also a liar and a coward.”

    He’s 100% voting for Trump.

  112. 112.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Matt McIrvin: When you look at the crosstabs, there are objectively observable issues with all of Siena’s samples. They consistently overweight Republicans and less educated people, show women going for Harris with implausibly small margins, and underweight young voters. These are the reasons why their polls have been outliers all along. In any case, averages of quality polls >> individual polls.

  114. 114.

    SFAW

    @K-Mo:

    HRC was a lousy candidate with a ton of baggage (a lot of it created by Fox News but still).

    She wasn’t a “lousy candidate with a ton of baggage.” She was a pretty good candidate who had to deal with a years-long effort by Congressional Rethugs (i.e., Benghaaaazziiiiiiiiii!) to drive up her negatives, plus the decades-long hatred from the FTFTFNYT (e.g., the [mostly] made-up Whitewater “scandal”), which (coincidentally, I’m sure) manifested itself as Trump-fluffing.​

  115. 115.

    moonbat

    For whatever single poll results we are going to pull our hair over today, I would just like to note that polls since 2022 have been really bad at tracking the increased turn out of women since Dobbs. Really, really bad. I’m not an unskewer, but I do look closely at sample size and demographic weighting of the polls I bother reading and as a result I find I usually don’t end up being as depressed as the FYNYT wants me to be.

  116. 116.

    TBone

    @Starfish: why would you assume that I need to be educated by you as if I were unaware of these things?  I am not an illiterate, uneducated, unfeeling clod.

    I’m really trying to remain polite and did not intend to give a soapbox for anyone to stand and shout from.  I care too much, which is why I turn away (since I have no agency in the military or governmental matters except my vote which I wield accordingly).

  119. 119.

    Mark’s Bubbie

    @Matt: Peggy Noonan (WSJ) too. I don’ t think she has come out and said it, but you just know that when push comes to shove she will vote for Trump.

  120. 120.

    stinger

    To Bret Stephens and his ilk:

    1. If what you really want is to know where Harris stands on the issues, have you been to her website?

    2. Must she give an interview to the FTFNYT? What if instead she gave individual sit-down interviews to the Washington Post and the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Tulsa World and the Des Moines Register? Would that do? Or does she have to follow YOUR personal rules for running for office?

    2a. Does Trump?

    3. Would the interviewer(s) ask substantive questions on policies, or would it mostly be horse race questions and what does she think about the latest Trump-Vance comments/atrocities?

    But never mind. I already know your answers.

  121. 121.

    frosty

    Politics Kindergarten, LOL. That’s a good description of how far away from reality the MAGA Party has drifted.

  122. 122.

    frosty

    @Suburban Mom: Yesterday I was phone banking to a call list of Republicans and undecideds in Pennsylvania.

    Good for you. I couldn’t talk to them in a million years. The walk lists I get for canvassing are infrequently voting registered Democrats. In 2020 most of them were voting D and when I asked them said yes, the whole way down the ballot. It’s a lot easier psychically and it’s one more push to get them to the voting booth at least.

    ETA The best one I had (a couple of elections ago) was somebody who said he wasn’t registered. I told him he wouldn’t be on my list if he wasn’t. It was Election Day and as I left he was getting in his car go go vote.

  124. 124.

    Bill Arnold

    @Baud:

    FWIW, if a state actually throws out its election outcome, I don’t consider that him winning.

    That would be a first shot in a second Civil War.
    The people involved in these election-theft schemes do not fear Democrats/their opposition; they think us weak and feckless, and unwilling to take drastic actions. They are delusional.
    Also, many of them believe (without real evidence) that 2020 was stolen (“stollen”) and that election theft would be justified payback.

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