Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

T R E 4 5 O N

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Please don’t feed the bears.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

We won’t go back.

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

The revolution will be supervised.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Relentless Positivity Open Thread: No More Handmaids

Relentless Positivity Open Thread: No More Handmaids

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STOCKPILE - No More Handmaidens

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)

When your marriage is rock solid

[image or embed]

— Molly Knight (@mollyknight.bsky.social) November 1, 2024 at 11:08 AM

STOCKPILE - No More Handmaidens 2

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

STOCKPILE - No More Handmaidens 1

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

194Comments

  3. 3.

    KatKapCC

    Well, Jesse Watters knows of what he speaks, since it was his wandering dick that led to his divorce.

  4. 4.

    KatKapCC

    @M31: I saw that yesterday and went to DudeBro’s Twitter page. He seems to have deleted that tweet but is still being pugnacious with people laughing at him for it.

  6. 6.

    hrprogressive

    As a resident boring cishet straight white guy –

    I sincerely believe “Just how pissed off Dobbs and other abortion-related women’s healthcare restrictions” has been deliberately downplayed by the majority of the media, not just “ignored”.

    All these patriarchal men cannot stomach the idea of “their women going against them”, so they’ve chosen to ignore it in the hopes that they end up getting what they want, and then women’s subjugation will be even easier than it, sadly, already is.

    It appears that, contrary to the wisdom of the Very Serious People, women, especially older women, apparently, said “Fuck All Of That” and may have shifted the electorate far enough to not just elect the first woman president of this country, but perhaps beat back enough fascism for the Republic to stand a bit longer.

    It is more than a little serendipitous that, perhaps the final straw in confirming this, may well be the one poll of Iowa by a literal Goddess of Polling, showing MVP Harris beating Trump after he was up 50-32 just 6 months ago, and appearing to be driven very largely by Women 65 and Older flocking to Harris.

  8. 8.

    cmorenc

    Two adult daughters of childbearing sge here – do NOT want Alito & Trump put them in handmaid’s paradigm, not going back!   Both are highly educated professionals with multiple degrees

  9. 9.

    KatKapCC

    @hrprogressive: There are a lot of men who think women are only allowed to have two emotions: happy and horny. Anything else is bothersome to men and therefore verboten.

  10. 10.

    Ken

    In fairness, that picture of Trump leaning to look at what Melania’s doing may be simply because he forgot who he was voting for. Though that could mean we’re looking at two Harris votes.

  12. 12.

    Raoul Paste

    Trump family members  were apparently with the Orange One today at a rally aimed at women voters.

    Melania and Ivanka were not there.

  13. 13.

    Dave

    Frankly if the question “should women vote is on the table” then we should really entertain the question of if men in general and white men in particular need a break from voting since we are seem to be losing our collective shit and can’t seem to make a good choice to save our collective lives.

  14. 14.

    unrelatedwaffle

    There are Dude Trolls on Kamala’s Instagram pages insisting that “no one really cares that much” about Dobbs. They are so gobsmackingly ignorant of any experience outside their own. I hope they are whacked in the face with a 2×4 of women’s voices tomorrow and for every day after.

  17. 17.

    Memory Pallas

    @Ken:

    I remember that picture from 2016. Notice they’re voting in New York. Could be two votes for Hilary though.

    ETA Baud seems to think its from 2020. Two votes for Biden then?

  19. 19.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @KatKapCC: I care about Dobbs and I’m a gay man, I have less reason to care than anyone; save for the fact that the decisions protecting my community are founded on the same logic as women’s autonomy in healthcare.

    Then again, I care about any injustice I’m aware of.

  21. 21.

    Nelle

    Out of the 68 households that I herd to vote in my turf here (Visited the houses at least four times this season), there are about five where I suspect that there may be difficulty in this way.  In one case, the man answers the door, every time, and never lets me see his wife.  Five years of me doing this and I’ve never seen her.  Not much English there (Bosnian).  Some houses I won’t go back to – I don’t want to stir it up.  But the women will take me if I run into the neighborhood.

  22. 22.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Ken: In fairness, that picture of Trump leaning to look at what Melania’s doing may be simply because he forgot who he was voting for.

    The look on his face reads “you better be doing what you’re supposed to.”

    Disgusting, despicable, deplorable…

  24. 24.

    KatKapCC

    @The Audacity of Krope: Being marginalized in one way can often (though not always) help someone have greater empathy for others who are marginalized in different ways. When I used to work as a clinic escort at PP, most of our volunteer pool were women, and of the small number of men, I think all but one of them were gay men. Because they knew what it meant for people to think they should get to tell you how to live your life.

  25. 25.

    bbleh

    FWIW a LOT of the early crowd at Kamapalooza in Philly have been women, singly or in groups.  Very big difference. And even now, more women than men.

    Lotta young girls too btw, w moms or parents.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    I read somewhere over the weekend women are putting post-its up on the bathroom stall walls with messages akin to “Your vote is secret.”

  27. 27.

    Phylllis

    @The Audacity of Krope: I really dislike these newfangled voting ‘booths’ that do not guarantee privacy. Bring back the three-walled booths and curtains. Now excuse me while I go shake my fist at the now dark sky because I’m already yawning dammit.

  28. 28.

    JustRuss

    @hrprogressive: Yeah, it’s funny how there’s always time for a Cletus safari to find out why real Americans love Trump so much, but not for talking to women about Dobbs.

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    @Raoul Paste: Neither was Kimberly. Apparently rumors that Don jr cheating on her may be true. I definitely don’t miss hearing her screeching rally voice.

  31. 31.

    Phylllis

    @Dave: Yes, when you had to pull the lever and it made that chick-chock noise so everyone in a fifty foot radius knew you were done voting.

  32. 32.

    cain

    @KatKapCC:

    This fucker talking about the sanctity of marriage while cheating on his ex-wife with a staffer is some next level bullshit. That no woman called him on it is a tragedy.

    I bet his ex-wife probably threw something at the TV. I hope that someone decide to get her reaction, that would be fun.

  33. 33.

    Chief Oshkosh

    I only know two women who are Trump supporters. They call themselves “Trump girls.” Both are in their 70s, perfectly horrific human beings. Luckily one of them fell down the stairs last week and won’t be voting (no permanent damage, but then, how would one know?). I feel bad for their husbands, both of whom are good guys. One is a long-time Democrat, the other just announced that he can’t bring himself to go to the polls this time around.

    Other than those two, every woman I know is very loudly and clearly voting for Harris. This includes a lot of conservatives — and they’re not shy about it, almost daring their husbands to cross them on this. I love it.

  34. 34.

    cain

    So interesting bit – someone on mastodon was pointing out this article:

    https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/04/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/certifying-election-worries-00187266

    It talks about about a GOP ploy where the GOP do not seat the speaker by Jan 3rd and thus delaying certification.

    Emptywheel though said,

    “Nancy Pelosi says Dems will take the House.

    I see no reason to doubt Nancy Pelosi on a matter involving math.”

    🤣

    No truer words have been sad. We’ll take the House and then hopefully keep the senate with less assholes involved and then get some more judges in while maybe do some official acts.

  37. 37.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Been out all afternoon, watching “Conclave.” Good movie. It’s obviously also about an election in which, it turns out, there’s a fair amount of corruption as well as disagreement over whether to go back or move forward

  40. 40.

    Wave Function Collapse

    There has been an idea growing in my poor addled head for the last couple of elections. We entitled white men have done a piss-poor job during my lifetime with our voting choices. So I’m leaning towards forever more “outsourcing” my voting choices.

    First, see how women in general are voting and emulate.

    If there is any question, see how the Black women are voting. They seem to be smarter than the rest of us.

    Finally, if there is any doubt, see how Stacy Abrams is voting. She is unlikely to keep that a secret.

  42. 42.

    scav

    @unrelatedwaffle: There are Dude Trolls on Kamala’s Instagram pages insisting that “no one really cares that much” about Dobbs.

    Sweet little dears.  Utterly convinced that a little mansplaining will totally correct the situation.  No doubt equally convinced that stealing lawnsigns will ensure the sign owners will forget who to vote for.

    Found another set of heads for the guillotine.  Or a little FAFO Musk-adjacent legal activity in the near future. Republican mega-donors asked their employees who they will vote for in survey

  43. 43.

    Kirk

    So I’ve been thinking about Dobbs and gerrymanders.

    Gerrymanders are “playing the odds” gamesmanship. They’re sacrificing margin in one area to gain advantage in another. The problem is when the odds get broken the game shatters.

    If we’re really looking at the kind of shift being implied by Dobbs, we’re looking at a lot of supposedly safe red seats turning blue.

    It’s a big if, but this is a positivity thread so I’m going to note it as my hope that isn’t necessarily a pipe dream.

  44. 44.

    Dave

    @Wave Function Collapse: I tend to follow that if I’m uncertain myself.

    It’s not that any individual black woman can’t be a dumpster fire or a stump as much as any random member of any given demographic but collectively I figure they are the group with the least space for electoral flights of fancy or general political idiocy.

  47. 47.

    NutmegAgain

    I just love how all the men in that long string of posts are happy to opine on how, when, where, and why women are voting… really drives the point home! Even if they are having opinions relatively supportive to women in politics, it’s still yadda yadda men say this about women’s votes, men say that about women’s votes. Fucking hell. I remember (vaguely) an episode from more than 35 years ago of a bunch of us (grad students) hanging out in somebody’s kitchen, talking about feminism something something social theory. I got kind of fed up (being a good bit older than most of the group) and challenged the young man who kept interrupting and sharing the bounty of his brain on the subject. I basically asked him to step back and let the women speak, for a change. Stunning thought.

  48. 48.

    coin operated

    @Wave Function Collapse:

    If there is any question, see how the Black women are voting. They seem to be smarter than the rest of us.

    This has been my mantra for a few decades. I was a nurse in the Army and every one of my supervisors were black women. The black female NCOs who train most of the nursing corps *know their shit* and are the best allies to have in any unit.

    They are also the worst enemy on the planet if you piss one off.

  50. 50.

    humanadverb

    There is a house I drive past twice a day that had a big “Women for Trump” flag flying in 2016, and it came down after the Access Hollywood thing.

    It had gone back up for this election year, for whatever reason, but I noticed that it hasn’t been flying for the last week or so.

    Anecdata…

  51. 51.

    lafcolleen

    My younger daughter is a freshman in college. When we were looking at colleges, I discouraged her from applying to schools in certain red states. While I get the argument that we shouldnt just write off red states, I was not willing to risk my young adult child to a reproductive wasteland. Not at the point in her life where her need to access reproductive health is great and her resources limited.

    My older daughter (junior in New York) and husband backed me up.

    She decided to stay local and made sure she came home to early vote.  3 hour wait time on Saturday for her and my husband.

    college girls are voting —

  52. 52.

    karen marie

    @Raoul Paste: Ivanka doesn’t go to rallies because then her children might hear their grandfather saying things that are not PG or even PG-13.

    Do people send their children out of the room when clips of Trump are shown on TV?

  54. 54.

    Betsy

    I suddenly seem to be sucked into my county’s Election Day Ground Game and let me tell you, it may be kind of a pain but a big benefit is I no longer have  time to sit around andworry!

  56. 56.

    Liminal Owl

    @Chief Oshkosh: I know a female Trump supporter. She’s 21, generally a nice person, from a family that probably gets all its news from Faux.  Because this is a work connection, I can’t find a way to talk about it with her. I’ve been ruminating ever since she told me she voted for the first time, and I’m sad.

  58. 58.

    Rudi666

    mY THOUGHTS and prayers go out to PNUT and his family. The Communists Liberals will take your guns and squirrels. This is all because woman, from Adam’s rib are allowed to vote. /s

  62. 62.

    zeecube

    A.L., thanks for posting something about the Women’s March.  I only became aware of it last week and had been looking for reports about Saturday’s march on MSM.  Had to google to find one.  Looks like it was well attended and lively.

  63. 63.

    KatKapCC

    @Liminal Owl: I ask this in sincerity: What is it about her that makes her a “nice person”? Because anyone who supports Trump is by definition not a nice person. And it doesn’t matter if she’s nice to you or to other people in her immediate vicinity. She supports a man who wants to do them harm, therefore SHE wants to do harm to them, by proxy, as well as almost everyone else in the country and around the world. Willingly and happily choosing to inflict harm on millions and millions of people cannot coexist with “nice”.

    If the principal of a school had never once laid a hand on a child, but knowingly and willfully hired child abusers as teachers, would you not say that the principal was also at fault for any harm done to the children at their school? And would you therefore say that the principal was not a good person?

    If your neighbor had never hurt an animal in their life, but their kid had been caught torturing cats and dogs and your neighbor kept buying new pets for their kid to injure and kill, would you not say that the neighbor also bore responsibility for those animals’ pain and suffering? And would you therefore say that the neighbor was not a good person?

    If a newspaper editor had never uttered a single bigoted word in their life, but they repeatedly printed editorials and opinion columns in which the authors expressed the most odious prejudicial views imaginable and used every slur in the book, would you not say that the editor was to blame for helping spread those abhorrent views to a wider audience? And would you therefore say that the editor was not a good person?

    Someone being nice to you does not mean they are nice. Someone supporting the meanest, cruelest, most hateful man this country has ever served up to the electorate means they are most definitely not nice in any sense of the word. Stop giving this woman the benefit of the doubt. She does not deserve it. All she deserves is scorn. All any Trump voter deserves is scorn.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @coin operated: That reminded me of Virginia state Senator L. Louise Lucas’s career. Lucas went to work for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1967. Four years later she became the yard’s first female Shipfitter. Lucas learned to stand tall in a white male world because she had to.

    So in 2022, when Glenn Youngkin tried to push his reactionary agenda through Virginia’s General Assembly and Lucas and her Senate “Brick Wall” stopped Youngkin in his tracks, she’d been standing up to pushy, priviledged white men for 45 years.

  65. 65.

    Princess

    A friendly reminder that, no matter what the NYT says, if Harris wins the electoral college, she wins. Trump agreeing or acknowledging or conceding or anything else he might do plays no role. If she wins, she has won. Period.

  66. 66.

    Liminal Owl

    @KatKapCC: I disagree.  Not justifying her vote at all.  But she is a young person who has lived her life in a bubble in which she has, so far as I can tell, genuinely never been exposed to alternative world views, nor had any training in critical thinking. I have reason to believe that she would be horrified to know of the many sorts of harm her vote could facilitate—and that, not her individual behavior to me, is why I call her nice.  She has been misinformed, and disinformed, all her life, and has not (yet) grown up enough to learn better.

  68. 68.

    sdhays

    @hrprogressive: I think there’s both going on. Some of it deliberate because they don’t want to give women ideas that they should be upset, and some of it kind of just following along, believing that if women were actually really incensed, the bad faith people would be saying more. They just follow the herd, which amplifies the effect.

  69. 69.

    randy khan

    @Phylllis:

    If the spaces are arranged properly, there’s privacy.  The photo of the Trumps may be foreshortened because it was taken with a telephoto lens or their polling place in Florida may not care about voter privacy, which would be bad.

  70. 70.

    KatKapCC

    @Liminal Owl: Alternative world views like not being a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, isolationist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, ableist, classist spitemonger? If she is 21 and “would be horrified to know of the many sorts of harm her vote could facilitate” then not only is she a grown-ass adult bigot, but she’s also dumb as dirt. 21 years old, no matter what bubble you grew up in, is plenty old enough to understand cause and effect. Does she also not understand that if she puts her hand into fire, it’ll get burned? Does she not understand object permanence and think that when someone leaves her line of sight, they have disappeared from existence forever? Does she believe in the Tooth Fairy? I don’t know why you want to make excuses for an adult making horrid choices. If you didn’t know her from Eve and you saw her walking down the street wearing a “Trump can grab me any time” shirt, would you think she seemed nice?

  71. 71.

    randy khan

    @Geminid:

    The particular stupid thing that Youngkin did was hold a meeting about his plans to get an arena built in northern Virginia for the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards, and neglect to invite Senator Lucas to it, even though she was the incoming chair of a committee that had to approve the legislation the authorize the project.  And then he compounded his error by not even trying to negotiate with her, assuming he had the deal in the bag.

    You will be unsurprised to hear that the project never even got a vote in that committee.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Others may have pointed this out, but that photo of TCFFG and Melania is from 2016. The chyron thingie upper right says New York, and they changed their official residence to Florida in 2019.

    It’s still a very telling image, with TCFFG blatantly monitoring his wife’s choices. So much for the sanctity of the secret ballot. Who designed the New York voting cubicles anyhow?

  73. 73.

    Wave Function Collapse

    @coin operated:

    This has been my mantra for a few decades. I was a nurse in the Army and every one of my supervisors were black women. The black female NCOs who train most of the nursing corps *know their shit* and are the best allies to have in any unit.

    They are also the worst enemy on the planet if you piss one off.

    I spent my early years in rural Japan. They have a system there of National Treasures: buildings, artworks, literature that represents the soul of the country’s excellence and deserve to be protected and revered.

    I’m neither a woman or Black, but IMO Black women are our national treasure.

  74. 74.

    sdhays

    @Princess: Thank you. I’m so sick of people worrying about what Trump and his basket of shit will do when he loses. If he loses, he will be throw a shit-throwing tantrum, which will be tiresome and boring. And then MVP will become Madame President-Elect. And Trump will face sentencing in New York.

  76. 76.

    Betsy

    @KatKapCC: I think a little differently.  His is all about what kind of false “information” one believes.  A lot of people think they’re doing the right thing because they believe a bunch of fairytales I don’t deny most of them are primed to hate their fellow human being, but there are plenty out there who just don’t know any better because their “truth“ is all a lie.

    as the saying goes, if you can make people believe absurdities, you can make them commit atrocities.

  78. 78.

    Starfish

    @Liminal Owl: I think the approach that I have seen working with people, that I don’t think I could do, is just asking questions and being extremely patient with people. I watched a person talk about how she went about it in real life, and I think I watched a YouTube where someone was going about it. I don’t think I have the type of patience that this would involve.

    Here is the thing on YouTube. The video is kinda busted and freezes, but the audio is continuous. The lady is talking to a former MAGA, and she is just so open-minded and patient about the whole thing.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @hrprogressive:

    I sincerely believe “Just how pissed off Dobbs and other abortion-related women’s healthcare restrictions” has been deliberately downplayed by the majority of the media, not just “ignored”.

    All these patriarchal men cannot stomach the idea of “their women going against them”, so they’ve chosen to ignore it in the hopes that they end up getting what they want, and then women’s subjugation will be even easier than it, sadly, already is.

    Also, speaking as a boring straight I have to ask;

    1) do these clowns not have women in the families? Does the idea that their own loved ones would die if this Dobbs fuckery stands not enter their heads? Kind of like if they were a guy’s child or a pet, the guy then has not nurture and care for her.

    2) And if these bruhs are oh’ so alpha like they claim, what part of then the women folk become their goddamn responsibility they don’t understand? By their own fucked up logic – a woman dies in their family, it was the man’s goddamn fault because he didn’t see that she got the care she need.

    This Dodds shit is up there with disowning a young man in the family because he is gay or trans, that is not how it works.

    It’s like half the nation is test tube babies raised in Skinner boxes.

  83. 83.

    frosty

    @Nelle: ​Curious: how did you get started herding your turf in your neighborhood? Is is something you decided to do yourself or is it how the Democrats managed GOTV where you are?​

  85. 85.

    banditqueen

    George Takei  has a thread in BlueSky that should be seen everywhere. It’s inspiring, clear-headed, and relentlessly optimistic.

    As we all await the outcome of what feels like a make-or-break election, I want to offer some perspective, if you’ll hand a fellow with eight-plus decades the mic for a moment.

  86. 86.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @hrprogressive:

    I sincerely believe “Just how pissed off Dobbs and other abortion-related women’s healthcare restrictions” has been deliberately downplayed by the majority of the media, not just “ignored”.

    Very much agree. Similarly, they also downplayed Trump Fatigue.

  89. 89.

    hrprogressive

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: ​
     

    It’s hard to say.

    If you believe “The Internet”, and, as a guy who grew up with the Internet, there’s a lot that is to be taken with grain silos full of salt…

    1) There absolutely are a lot of really, stupid, naive, whatever, dudebros out there who do not understand anything about the world that extends beyond the 6 feet in front of them. This can include things like reproductive health care, and how do women even get pregnant, what do periods mean, and so forth.

    So, the idea that they grasp the gravity of women not being able to make their own healthcare decisions which may very well kill them certainly seems out of some of these guys’ reach

    2) To this point, in the sense that there is a lot of “victim-blaming” whenever something happens to them – IE the whole “What was she wearing?” instead of “Why did that man rape her?” – so, I definitely believe a lot of these chuds believe – whether biblically-tinged or not – that any woman who suffers anything such as ectopic pregnancy or any other complications that kills her as a result of her promiscuity, well, then “She had it coming / It was God’s Will / etc”.

    I obviously don’t agree with any of the above, but there is definitely a subset of men for whom there is zero concept of “responsibility”, and zero concept of “maybe we move past the middle ages because it’s nearly 20-fucking-25”.

  90. 90.

    prostratedragon

    Apropos absolutely nothing at all, I just saw this GIF and had to let it run about 10 times before I got my breath back. After 19 years some part of that man is still frozen at the moment he saw something.

  91. 91.

    Dan B

    @KatKapCC: It’s good to hear that many men who were escorts at PP were gay.  It’s also discouraging that there were few straight men.  In my experience the straight men I knew who were pro LGBTQ had LGBT or Q relatives or close friends and were often pro women’s rights.  When the discrimination and suffering are blatant It’s like a 2×4 upside the head.  For others it’s already obvious that equal treatment is the moral and just path, and the one with upsides for everyone.

  92. 92.

    hrprogressive

    @Melancholy Jaques: ​
     

    For two reasons:

    1) They don’t want it to be true because (a) if people are truly tired of him, and he starts to fade/go away, there go all their clicks and eyeballs and revenue and (b) they support his positions and want him to get his way, so they are trying to set the narrative.

    2) A multi-generational fear of daring to be labeled “liberal” because they dared report the truth.

    The facts on the ground show that in the last 2-3 years, he just does not have the same level of fervent support as he did, at least as his rallies show.

    From 2015-2019 or so, you could definitely see it. Also likely during 2020 but I gotta be honest the entirety of that year was lost to me thanks to the whole “pandemic ruined everything” that happened.

    But he’s just literally not selling out the same types of spaces as he might have been before.

    And I mean, it’s also anathema to dare suggest that Republicans who aren’t cultists might be tired of his shit too after nearly a decade, and while they haven’t decided to become liberals, they are happy to vote for Harris and/or just not vote for POTUS at all because they want to Turn the Page on the Trump Error, and prevent the Trump Reich.

  93. 93.

    Emmyelle

    What’s hilarious about this, in the Elle household, is that my husband and I had a loving disagreement about a local candidate, personally known to both of us, who is an incumbent, running unopposed, and who has, IMO, generally served our community well even though they are a Republican. I voted for the Republican, he wrote in our dog’s name.

  94. 94.

    Dan B

    @The Audacity of Krope: As a Cis gay man older than 65 I experienced what it was like from the 50’s through the 00’s.  I’m sure women in Iowa over 65 remember all too well and do not want to relive the subjugation of their youth.  Once was too much.  Younger people don’t have those memories embedded in their bones.  It’s more abstract.

    I find the same is true of younger LGBTQ’s.  The things that activate feelings of terror in me don’t do the same in younger people especially in progressive areas.

  95. 95.

    Kirk

    @KatKapCC: I hope someday you can see grey in addition to black and white. Perhaps after that, color.

    My wife’s best friend will be voting for Trump. A cad, a waste, a person to be cast into the pit you say.

    I’ve been married almost 35 years. This friend has been her best and in a few dark times her only friend for 45 years. This friend has literally saved my wife’s life on one occasion. She has some people that she spends time and personal money navigating the complex joys of social security disability benefits in the state of Kansas. The version of this friend that existed 15 years ago voted Democratic on a reliable basis.

    She married a Q. And for reasons that aren’t mine to share, she spent way too much time isolated in that environment and has changed.

    It’s my wife’s sincere hope she can detox her friend. She is aware, however, that it will take time and may never happen. She is aware that it may reach a point she has to drop her friend.

    But my wife and I believe that people can change – they change from good to bad, the other is possible. We believe that people are complex, and that as the quote goes, “Please do not ask God for justice, but rather for mercy. None of us want His Justice.

    My opinion, of course. But I will continue to hope you learn to see more fully. In my experience it makes for a much richer, more wondrous life.

  98. 98.

    caphilldcne

    Just got done with my GOTV shift in PA – 11 hours. We covered all our turf and more.  I’m pretty sure every D and undecided in PA has been contacted multiple times. The ads are pretty constant. I’ve got to get to my shift tomorrow at 6:15. Polls close at 8 and I’m ready for the verdict. Let’s kick Trump to the curb. I’m positive but trying to stay realistic. 🤞LFG

  101. 101.

    Jeffro

    We made Tim Walz’ hotdish recipe tonight – SUPER YUMMY! – and I posted a picture of it for friends and family to see, along with this message.  Let’s go win this thing, peeps!

    Folks, pictured below is Tim Walz’ hotdish recipe in all its Minnesota oven-baked glory – brats and canned soup and tater tots and cheese and probably way more calories than I need until it gets colder (if it ever does) or just more than I need, period.

    It really hit the spot tonight! It was normal, all-American grub – very solid, very reassuring.

    (you see where I’m going with this, right? )

    Tomorrow I’ll be up at 5am and will head out very shortly after that to handle my poll observer shift. We’ve donated monthly to the Harris/Walz campaign, dropped off yard signs, and put up bigger Harris, Kaine, and Witt signs throughout the county. I wrote ‘Postcards to Swing States’ for NC (go Tarheels! bring it home, neighbors! ), and now I’m going to do this super-early shift tomorrow and greet folks with a smile (well, until the coffee wears off…and then I’ll just keep smiling anyway). We’re going to win this thing, and for all the right reasons, too.

    For those of you who ALSO went all-out: thank you!

    For those of you who voted already, or are determined to vote tomorrow: thank you, too!

    For anyone still on the fence, or who hasn’t yet made a plan to vote…think about what you’ve seen this year, and the choice that presents itself. There’s so much bad info out there, so much ‘both sides’ BS, but we all know there’s a very clear choice to be made. It matters. YOUR vote matters.

    Vote for normal, vote all-American…and vote for a New Way Forward.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    @randy khan: When Foungkin’ Youngkin announced his arena plans, Senator Lucas made her own announcement:

       Anyone who thinks I will allow taxpayer money to be spent on this arena project without [bridge] toll relief and increased funding for Hampton Roads public schools must think I have “Dumb Ass” written on my forehead.

    Narrator: Senator Lucas does not in fact have “Dumb Ass” written on her forehead.

  115. 115.

    Kirk

    Another point of positivity. There are about 1.2 million Puerto Ricans in Florida. I know it’s a stretch but between Dobbs and “garbage” I do not think it’s a pipe dream.

  117. 117.

    Fair Economist

    @Kirk:

    Gerrymanders are “playing the odds” gamesmanship. They’re sacrificing margin in one area to gain advantage in another. The problem is when the odds get broken the game shatters.

    I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: this does not apply to most current Republican gerrymanders. The general rule for Republican gerrymanders these days is (in an evenly split state) two 60-40 R districts to one 30-70 D district. They don’t get *everything* setup so precisely, so we can make some gains, but we won’t see a reversing gerrymander unless the vote gets to 60-40 for us, and that’s not going to happen. Even Roosevelt ’32 didn’t do that well.

    We can certainly take the House, but it will be primarily due to taking reddish districts in non-red states. (or even blue districts, like the four remaining in NY.)

  118. 118.

    Kirk

    @Kirk: I should in fairness note that my wife is less tolerant than I. I said “we believe people can change” but there are some people she would be perfectly happy to see change in unpleasant ways. I’m the naive fool here.

  119. 119.

    divF

    I experienced something in real life very much like the Handmaid cartoon. In 2017, I was visiting KAUST in Saudi Arabia. At that time, the Jeddah airport had no jetways, so you took a bus to midfield, and climbed stairs to get on the plane. As the bus to our Lufthansa flight left the terminal, all the non-Saudi women on the bus stripped off their abayas and hijabs (they had western clothes on underneath) as they transitioned back into western culture.

  120. 120.

    Dan B

    @Liminal Owl: Just to reinforce your belief that living in a right wing bubble can foreclose on self and societal awareness I was at an event with a group of progressive Christians, including dozens of clergy, and a young, astonishingly handsome and athletic guy who’d been raised conservative evangelical was clearly attempting to hide his terror.  Groupthink is incredibly difficult to overcome even when it is obviously personally, incredibly painful.  I so wanted to hug him but felt it would be too much for him.  He needed to hear from straight male clergy.  I felt that they didn’t notice the signs of panic.

  122. 122.

    BellaPea

    I wish I had known about the women’s marches. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a vacuum here in my little East Tennessee hollow (I also don’t follow social media, so that’s probably part of it). I’ve seen a surprising number of Harris-Walz signs this time around and also a goodly amount of Gloria Johnson signs for the Senate. Probably no hope that she will defeat the odious Trump-worshiper Marsha Blackburn, but at least a little blue hope shining through.

  125. 125.

    karen marie

    @Geminid:   IMO, she kind of does if she wants to decrease tolls.  If the money isn’t needed for its original intent, find somewhere else to use the money – like mitigating issues created by too many cars.

  126. 126.

    Dan B

    @KatKapCC: A bubble that says everyone outside it is horrible, corrupt, and evil at their core while everyone inside the bubble is strong, virtuous, and protective of you is difficult to transcend.  It’s a cult and people die for their cult.

    As for 21 she’s a child or not far removed.  My partner came out at 28 and I know many more guys who came out even later.  My partner felt that his liberal family and friends would reject him.  He couldn’t even clearly see inside his own bubble.

    I definitely give a 21 year old woman some leeway.  She is unlikely to see the horrors she’s visiting on those outside the bubble.  Peter Thiel, Richard Grenell, and other 50+ gay men can’t see what his Ernst Rohm’s cohorts in the Nazi party would do to him.  It’s all hunky dory until the evil at the center of the bubble, the merciless judgement, has its way.

  127. 127.

    sdhays

    @Ksmiami: And that’s fair. But I refuse to worry about what those little shits will do when they lose. It’s not all about them. 

  129. 129.

    Rachel Bakes

    @lafcolleen: college freshman daughter here too. One of her requirements of college locations wasa state where women are treated as full citizens. Cut out a lot of the country

  130. 130.

    Kim Walker

    My federal election overseas ballot for PA was challenged yesterday, by some gal out of Middlesburg. The PA chapter of the ACLU also sent me an email saying that randos were challenging overseas voters in 9 PA counties. The Dauphin Co executive in charge of elections is holding a zoom meeting on Nov 8 or we could send in our sad stories on why we aren’t actually in PA and the names of everybody we know in PA. Anyway, I wasn’t overwhelmed by the ACLU PA response. I sent an email with a scanned copy of my voter registration from the early-mid 2000s. That was the challenge – that I wasn’t registered. What BS. It only cost $10 per challenged person. Cheap way to throw out votes.

  132. 132.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Jeffro: ​It really hit the spot tonight! It was normal, all-American grub – very solid, very reassuring.

     A good hotdish recipe is always nice to have.

    For anyone who has the chance while they’re in Washington, DC, there is some AMAZING all-American grub at the Native American Museum (formal name: National Museum of the American Indian)’s cafeteria. We were glad we followed our friends’ recommendation to dine there.

  135. 135.

    lowtechcyclist

    @H.E.Wolf: ​
     

    For anyone who has the chance while they’re in Washington, DC, there is some AMAZING all-American grub at the Native American Museum (formal name: National Museum of the American Indian)’s cafeteria. We were glad we followed our friends’ recommendation to dine there.

    Seconded! I went there in January for the first time, and the food was excellent. I can’t remember what I ate, just that it was very good.

  137. 137.

    karen marie

    @divF:   That’s just wild.  I was in Saudi Arabia (Al-Khobar) the summer of 1977.  No “Western women” wore hijab.  We were told to dress modestly – no sleeveless tops or shorts when in town.  Every weekend a bunch of people from the various western construction companies building stuff for Aramco would go to the beach, and the women wore bikinis or one-piece suits, as they wished.  There were almost always Saudi families at the beach as well.  They’d sometimes set up a tent and sometimes cook a small sheep or goat, or just sit in their cars.  There was never a problem.  It’s a shame they’ve gone backward.

  138. 138.

    caphilldcne

    @Melancholy Jaques: this has been running through my mind all day. I just had my last supper for now in Free America and I plan to have many more!  Battle Stations!!  We got this.

  140. 140.

    Barbecue Swinger

    @H.E.Wolf: Seconding this. We had a wild rice salad with dried cherries that was absolutely delicious. The food at the Smithsonian’s African American History museum is also very good.

  141. 141.

    Steve LaBonne

    Oh look, squirrel! Seriously, that’s their closing argument? We’ve got this. Tuning out of news from now until Wednesday morning.

  143. 143.

    206inKY

    Having knocked on a crap ton of doors this cycle, I fully attest to these reports from canvassing. One dude used LITERALLY the same excuse — “she’s napping” — when I asked if the woman on my list was home. So many split households. I firmly believe there is a blue wave happening. I also think there will be some surprises in deep red states.

    My own mother secretly voted for Dems throughout the 1980s and 1990s without ever giving any hint that she disagreed with my dad’s politics until after he died. It’s not just wishful thinking.

  144. 144.

    Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @lowtechcyclist: I live 8 miles away and I haven’t eaten in downtown Reading since I retired, now I’m planning a lunch excursion. :-)

  145. 145.

    Brant Lamb

    @hrprogressive:

    1) There absolutely are a lot of really, stupid, naive, whatever, dudebros out there who do not understand anything about the world that extends beyond the 6 feet inches in front of them.

     

    Fixed that for you.

  147. 147.

    Torrey

    @Kirk:

      Thank you for your excellent comment. I was composing one, but it would not have been as kind, as wise or as generous.

    Since KatKapCC brought up cause-and-effect, I wanted to add that, no, a 21-year-old (whose brain is not yet fully formed) doesn’t have a solid handle on cause-and-effect, nor, for that matter, do the rest of us. A simple observation of the way most people drive provides all the evidence we need on that subject.

  148. 148.

    Barbecue Swinger

    @lafcolleen: I’m hoping my three kids, 19, 21, and 23 and all in Texas, help get Allred elected and give Cruz the boot. But I am worried about them living in a state with such draconian abortion bans. We have had MANY conversations about the importance of using birth control because the consequences of not using it are now so dire.

  149. 149.

    Dan B

    @Jeffro: Thanks for your post.  It outlines what you’ve been doing.  I’ve been posting reassuring info to friends who are paralyzed with fear.  It feels good to pull people back from the edge of panic.

  150. 150.

    rivers

    In the Iowa poll  – and seemingly in many other states – I am  thrilled to see evidence of so many older women turning out for Harris.  I’m not surprised and I’m also not surprised that this is a demographic that has been overlooked by male pundits and pollsters. I was 25 when Roe was decided.Until then the fear of pregnancy was like the blade of a guillotine poised to fall. And then came Roe and we were reprieved. Believe me, women of my generation have not forgotten and you cannot imagine the rage we felt when Dobbs was decided. I think perhaps tomorrow the depth and breadth of that rage will become obvious to even the most obtuse.

  151. 151.

    Mousebumples

    @Jackie: I read somewhere over the weekend women are putting post-its up on the bathroom stall walls with messages akin to “Your vote is secret.”

    I’ve heard of it happening in Wisconsin for months now.

  152. 152.

    TS

    They NEVER mention which party the person belongs to – unless it is a democrat

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/11/04/trump-harris-election-live-updates/

    Georgia poll worker charged with making bomb threat. … Prosecutors said Nicholas Wimbish, 25, of Milledgeville, Georgia, was working at the Jones County Elections Office on Oct. 16 when he allegedly had a verbal altercation with a voter. The next day, Wimbish mailed a threatening letter to the county’s elections superintendent, which he made appear was sent by the voter.

    And another – same link

    A man was arrested at a suburban polling station Sunday morning after he punched an election judge in the face when was told to wait his turn in line, police said.

    Stay safe out there all you voters/poll workers/election judges

  154. 154.

    Glidwrith

    @lafcolleen: My daughter is a college freshman as well. I didn’t have to say anything beyond confirming whether a state was red, because fuck ‘em.

  155. 155.

    frosty

    @HumboldtBlue: ​ Cute, but in my experience, she would have to knock on at least five, maybe ten doors, before anyone answered the door. That’s a lot of walking around with the Secret Service.

    Did they call ahead to find someone home?

  156. 156.

    Starfish

    @frosty: I am not sure how it is where Nelle lives, but where I live, we have precinct captains in charge of knocking the doors in a precinct and doing lit drops.

  158. 158.

    Peal

    @rivers: I think many of them remain uncomfortable with “elective abortion” and in the past were just sold on the idea that there were all these women who were 7 months pregnant and getting abortions for the wrong reasons. I think the reality post roe hit them that these laws don’t recognize that pregnancy can go wrong. And at their age, they would have known someone who had a miscarriage or a complication or had one themselves. I think the stories of women suffering or dying have hit them hard.

  159. 159.

    Chet Murthy

    @KatKapCC: First, I should say that I’m in the same place as you are.  I have no time for Trumpers in my life, none at all.  But I think the reason -why- is relevant; every time I even think about one of these Trumpers (even now, years after I cut them out of my life) I grind my teeth, I get stressed, I see red.  That is why I’ve cut them out of my life: it’s a form of self-care.  But I can understand that if someone of good will wants to try to slowly change one of these Trumpers, they will have to remain on good terms with them.  And a 21-year-old kid?  Yeah, I can see why one might want to at least try.  I get it.

    We weren’t all good liberals all our lives, eh?  I could describe my views on abortion and such from my early 20s: it wasn’t pretty.  And heck I thought I was a feminist.  But in truth, I’d grown up in a very conservative lily-white Texas town, and that’s what I’d imbibed.[1]  It took years of living elsewhere, before I realized that all that was shit.

    [1] In my defense I’ll just note that I was a Dem from about sophomore year, when my Mom explained what RaYgUn had done to Medicare.  But that doesn’t change things that much.

  160. 160.

    Nelle

    @frosty: Just back from granddaughter’s concert and may be too late for you to see this.  In my suburb (about 47,000), one recently retired couple decided to organize the whole suburb into turfs, recruit people to get to know their neighbors, and get the vote out.  They are smart, energetic, and really get it done with weekly bulletins during election seasons, updated voting during early voting.  I don’t know how they have the energy.

    They recruited me during Covid just by walking by and seeing my sign for a Dem candidate.  I was on the porch and we talked back and forth across the lawn.  I had two neighborhoods, then I got acquainted with one of my neighbors and he decided to take the one just to the north of us.  In 2020, I had about 48-50 households and 75 names.  This year, 68 households and 122 names.  That was my first clue that something was happening.  Some are kids coming of age to vote (apparently there is a teacher at the high school that nearly requires them to register).  But I think some are switching affiliation.  I know that we will get more Harris votes, because a couple of neighbors who are registered Republican or No Party have told me that they will be voting for Harris.

  162. 162.

    VFX Lurker

    @Mousebumples: I’ve heard of it happening in Wisconsin for months now.

    Michigan, too. Weeks ago, my mom saw a Post-It note with the “your vote is private” message on the back of a bathroom stall at a Meijer store in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

  163. 163.

    prostratedragon

    It seems God has had enough:

    Donald Trump is a mean, mad, cruel, sad, pompous, puny, lonely, loony, horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad, dippy, disturbed, dopey, deranged, distorted, demented, delirious, delusional, MAGAlomaniac, psychopathic, sociopathic, lead-the-whole-world-down-the-garden-pathic, egoistic, egotistic, narcisstic, solipsistic, chauvinistic, jingoistic, nihilstic, terroristic, antagonistic, opportunistic, animalistic, cannibalistic (unproven), racist, sexist, classist, ableist, isolationist, segregationist, white supremacist, homophobic, transphobic, galeophobic, bathmophobic, shameless, shameful, pitiless, pitiful, helpless, hurtful, friendless, foeful, serial defaulting, sexual assaulting, criminally addicted, thirty-four-count convicted, justice obstructor and document-hoarder and subject of court order after court order, buck-passing, bus-throwing, dog-whistling, fear-sowing, race-baiting, rage-stirring, all-hating, omni-slurring, spirit-crushing, money-hushing, secrets-blabbing, pussy-grabbing, climate-denying, Putin-complying, fast-food-scarfing, soda-snarfing, slush-fund-diverting, Epstein-frequenting, Kim Jong Un-flirting, NATO-dissenting, tchotchke-shilling self-styled Messiah, diplomacy-killing global-pariah, rebellion-provoking, complicity-cloaking, coup-stoking, bear-poking, election-losing, falsely-accusing, republic-destroying, Giuliani-employing, deceitful, deceiving, deceptive, designing, dissembling, duplicitous, dubious, devious, untrusted, untruthful, treacherous, treasonous, Roget’s-thesaurus-exhaustingly traitorous, awful, unlawful, eats-crow-by-the-jawful, vain, insane, got-rocks-in-the-brain, hypocritical, parasitical, horrible-stain-on-the-body-political, bullying, bullying, bullying, stop bullying!, self-absorbed, self-admiring, self-concerned, self-important, self-obsessed, self-conceited, self-involved, self-regarding, self-seeking, self-serving, self-defeating, self-fulfilling, apparently self-loving, actually self-loathing, abusive, befuddled, corrupting, destructive, embittered, fallacious, grotesque, horrendous, indignant, judgmental, kowtowing, lethargic, malicious, neurotic, obnoxious, pathetic, quick-tempered, resentful, sadistic, tormented, upsetting, vindictive, washed-up, xenophobic, yammering, zombified, awkwardly autocratic, fecklessly fascist, totally-not-ready-for-totalitarianism, strongman except for the strong part, Mussolini without the muscle, Needy Amin, intellectually bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, morally bankrupt, literally bankrupt, leather-jerkined, crystal-buttoned, knot-pated, caddis-gartered, sodden-witted, elvish-marked, rumbumptious, disloyal, unworthy, discouraging, unhappy, dismissive, unpleasant, disdainful, unhealthy, disinterested, uncaring, disorganized, unfeeling, rage-tweeting, misspelling, ALL CAPS ABUSING!, flat-footed, weak-kneed, yellow-bellied, lily-livered, stony-hearted, tiny-handed, sticky-fingered, “yeti-pubed”, “toadstool-penised”, thin-skinned, cold-blooded, bone-unspurred, stiff-necked, bald-faced, slack-jawed, double-tongued, foul-mouthed, snot-nosed, shifty-eyed, beetle-browed, soft-brained, narrow-minded, where-do-you-even-begin-haired, wolfish, boorish, waspish, sheepish, apeish, piggish, sluggish, slothful, catty, fishy, squirrely, weaselly, snake, skunk, cuckoo, chicken, one-term, twice-impeached, three-far-right-Justice-appointing, four-time indicted, Fifth Amendment-cowering, six-time insolvent, G7-detested, eight-year-term-limited, 9/11-valor-stealing, Ten Commandments-exploiting, Chapter Elevened, 12-member-jury convicted, angry, broken, clueless, dreary, eerie, feeble, gutless, heartless, idle, joyless, klutzy, leery, morbid, nasty, oafish, painful, queasy, rabid, shabby, tiresome, unstable, vicious, whiny, X-rated, yapping zero.

  166. 166.

    Anoniminous

    In 1980 Little Ronnie RayGuns got 489 Electoral College Votes with only 50.7% of the vote.

    Weird things happen during re-alignments.

  168. 168.

    frosty

    @Starfish: We’ve got nothing like that in my corner of South PA. I’ve canvassed for 20 years and I don’t know anyone in the Democratic organization. There were a one or two a few years ago but they retired. Seems like every election we start over with new field organizers parachuting in.

    Frustrating!

  169. 169.

    3Sice

    His last rally with the kids, no Melania, no Kim Guilfoyle.

    He is ranting at the unfairness of it all, and they all look resigned.

  171. 171.

    frosty

    @Nelle: Thanks! So this wasn’t done by the Party, it was an individual “community organizer.” Sounds like it’s working really well.

  172. 172.

    Starfish

    @karen marie: Please quit judging folks by western standards. Just because things were more western does not mean they were more “liberated.”  The Pahlavi dynasty BANNED the hijab, and it gained in popularity right before the Pahlavi dynasty waas overthrown.

    The leaders of the countries involved and the western contractors were benefitting themselves and not the people in general. Various folks were hoping that going more religious would end the corruption of their leaders, but it didn’t quite work out.

    What was described here is typical of every flight to and from certain middle eastern countries.

    The morality police in Iran approached this woman a few days ago and told her that her head scarf was on wrong so she stripped down to her underwear.

    Foreign visitors try to stay inside the lines of what is acceptable while people who have to live under this type of stuff try to get as close to the line as possible without stepping TOO FAR over it.

  174. 174.

    Nelle

    @frosty: They work with the party, yes, but it is possible for me to do what I do without being much involved with the actual goings on of the party.  I don’t go to meetings, etc.  I do organize women in my neighborhood for coffee and chat.  Have what we call porch wine on my big porch where other Dems in the neighborhood walk over and eat, talk, and drink some wine in good weather.  I’ll likely start potlucks soon.

    Some of this came about because we moved to Iowa just before the pandemic, so my involvement has really centered on building community in this neighborhood.  And my eyes are a bit wonky so I’m not wanting to drive all over the metro.

  179. 179.

    karen marie

    @Starfish:   You’re putting words in my mouth.  The article said that WESTERN women were removing hijabs when they were on the bus to the plane.  What I expressed was that in 1977 WESTERN women weren’t made to wear hijabs when out and about in Saudi Arabia.

    Your inability to comprehend basic English is a problem.

  181. 181.

    Chet Murthy

    @karen marie: I’ve read accounts of Westerners living in KSA, and there were areas where they lived and played, where they didn’t have to wear niqabs and such; perhaps this was such an area?  That is to say, even though Saudis were permitted to go there, it wasn’t a place where Saudis were the majority ?

    I do know that 15yr ago when my manager was running a big-ass sale of hardware/software/services to KSA, the (female) Germany country manager came down to KSA to help close the deal.  She wore a niqab, b/c …. you do what you gotta do.

  182. 182.

    karen marie

    @Chet Murthy:   People who live on Aramco compounds can wear what they like – or at least they could in 1977 – and women could drive within the compounds but not outside on public roads.

    No, the beach we went to was just a beach, it wasn’t within an Aramco compound.  It was a beach, as I said, where both westerners and Saudis would go.  It wasn’t regulated in any way – like there were no life guards or restaurants.  The parking area was just an area next to a road that someone had bulldozed all the loose sand off so that vehicles could get in and out without getting stuck.

    I had a lovely summer there.  I was 21 years old, visiting my parents (my father was working for an architectural subcontractor), and did weekend day trips with a guy from Chicago who was a civil engineer for the contractor I got a secretarial job with (because spending all day inside a small prefab house with no TV and one radio station was not an option), so we wandered around little towns around Al-Khobar, and even had a wildly ill-advised but successful overnight trip to Riyadh.  We flew there and came back by train through the desert.  That was crazy incredible.  I had brought home-made chocolate chip cookies with me and handed them out to fellow passengers on the train. They thought they were too sweet.

    But, yeah, no, it was a very different place than it apparently is now.  The regular people that I met all seemed very interested in having more freedom going forward.  As I said, it’s very sad to hear that things have gotten worse instead of better.

  183. 183.

    Jeffro

    @Dan B:I’ve been posting reassuring info to friends who are paralyzed with fear.  It feels good to pull people back from the edge of panic.

    It does indeed!

    I made a co-worker’s day today when he asked me (noted ahem armchair pundit that I am in our office) what I thought and I said, “she’s got this…WE’VE got this”

    Action makes fear fade into the background, that’s for sure.  And talking about those positive actions helps others.

  184. 184.

    hilts

    Dumbass Megyn Kelly spoke at Trump’s Pittsburgh rally:

    Kelly recited the names of American women who have been killed by migrants in recent years. Kelly also slammed transgender women in sports and women’s bathrooms before saying Trump would keep women safe.

    “He got mocked by the left for saying he would be a protector of women,” Kelly said. “He will be a protector of women! And it’s why I’m voting for him! He will close the border! He will keep the boys out of girls’ sports and where they don’t belong!”

    Kelly closed by slamming the left for targeting “masculinity” and hugged Trump after her remarks.

    h/t https://www.mediaite.com/trump/megyn-kelly-joins-trump-onstage-at-pennsylvania-rally-he-will-be-a-protector-of-women

     

     

  189. 189.

    catclub

    @Memory Pallas: Baud seems to think its from 2020. Two votes for Biden then?

     

    It would be so nice if Trump loses Florida. Then he will have lost two different home states.

  190. 190.

    catclub

    @Anoniminous: Didn’t John Anderson get about 10% of the vote, so Carter was at 40%?

    Economists will tell you that Carter losing 1980 was overdetermined.  The economy contracted 5% in 1980, a record for an election year. No way an incumbent gets re-elected.

  191. 191.

    wjca

    @karen marie: I was in Saudi Arabia (Al-Khobar) the summer of 1977.  No “Western women” wore hijab.  We were told to dress modestly – no sleeveless tops or shorts when in town. . . . It’s a shame they’ve gone backward.

    I was in Riyadh in the late 2000s.  Saudi women were required to be in full hijab, with only their eyes and hands visible.  For non-Saudi Muslim women the rules would let them have bare faces.  Non-Muslim women were required to wear ankle length skirts, long sleeves, and high neckline (think t-shirts), but could be bare headed.  Oh yes, and no bright colors.

    So, contrary to rumors of modernization, steady movement backwards.

  192. 192.

    wjca

    @catclub: It would be so nice if Trump loses Florida. Then he will have lost two different home states.

    Three: New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

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