If (when!) that happens, I’ll feel like a fully equal citizen for the first time. I’ll be sad my mom didn’t live to see it but relieved she was spared witnessing Trump’s corrupt destruction of civic norms and traditions.
Oh how the rise of Donald Fucking Trump would have pissed my mother off! Mom was at war with leering, entitled creeps like him all her life.
***
Which brings me to my second point: friends, if the days ahead go our way, we’ll finally — at long fucking last! — be rid of the Queens Quisling as a dominant force in our politics. Forever. Oh happy fucking day!
I don’t delude myself into thinking when we yeet the man, our problems will end. We all know Trump is a symptom, the logical and yet wholly absurd extension of GOP political trends since Eisenhower.
That’s why a dumb, low-rent fraud like Trump was able to kick over that party’s rotten edifice, turn it into a crude grift engine and sell it off for parts to hostile foreign oligarchs in the first place.
And I’ve accepted that the Trump henchmen, including his heinous grasping offspring, will be with us for the rest of our lives. Closer to home, I’m resigned to the damaged interpersonal relationships and grievous loss of faith in so many people and civic institutions.
But the grotesque carnival barker himself? After enduring THREE goddamn interminable elections with that hideous orange prick braying in our faces like an air horn? If (when!) he loses AGAIN, he will be DONE.
***
By 2028, Trump will be in his 80s and maybe a convicted felon many times over on serious federal charges. He’ll have left his party a shambles, and his brain will have deteriorated even further.
Given his present state, 2028 Trump may well be shambling around in poop-befouled trousers (urine-soaked underwear on the outside) wearing an ankle monitor, his anus-like mouth in a perma-scowl as he stalks the halls of his tacky Florida estate, randomly exclaiming, “They HATE Trump!” at no one.
I don’t ever underestimate the stupidity of Republicans. But even they are unlikely to be daft enough to nominate the doddering, gibbering, buffoonish loser for a fourth time.
So that will be an auxiliary source of happiness for me if (when!) we win. Sixty percent of my joy will be watching fragments of that highest, hardest glass ceiling rain down. And 40 percent will be gloating over the downfall of the most depraved and ridiculous person to ever besmirch the White House.
Please Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints and prophets, let us be done with him at last!
Open thread!
Report from Boots on the Ground in Nebraska
West of the Rockies
I anticipate some Grand Guignol theater as Republicans look to assign blame and pursue the guilty within their own party. I hope Gaetz, MTG, Jordan, Boebert, etc., end up politically spayed and neutered.
JCJ
Wife, daughter, and I just voted in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Three tallies for the good guys!
The Audacity of Krope
I hope this isn’t a portent for tonight. I just learned I wouldn’t get the results of my clean room competency until tomorrow.
Old School
I think Harris will win, but I don’t think Trump is going away anytime soon.
Jeffg166
Ramen!
hrprogressive
Seems pretty clear that Thiel/Musk/et al will immediately try to make the Couch Fucker the new standard bearer.
Only question is – Do all the “never trump” GOPers who claim to want their old party back do enough to stop him?
Or will the veneer of his “kinder, gentler Fascism” be enough for them to get behind him, even if only tacitly?
Mel
Betty, I’ll send my two dumpling recipes to you via your BJ email later this week, if that works alright for you. One is from my Pennsylvania Quaker great granny, and the other is from my southern great granny.
Both had the same “secrets” for dumplings despite the different recipes. Simmer them, never boil them, put them into the hot soup or stew gently, using a spoon, and (said with a look of utter horror by both) never over-mix!! Mix the dough just until it’s blended, so that they cook up light and fluffy. 😺
dmsilev
I dunno. Certainly the professional politicians will make that calculation, but the actual voters in the GOP primary? They love him. Really truly, as horrifying as that sounds to us. If he’s even vaguely ambulatory and can still talk, someone is going to prop him up and have another go at the primary. And he’d probably win the primary, even as a shambolic mess four years worth of degradation worse than he is today.
JCJ
Also, quite a few “observers” at the voting place. I assume Rethuglicans looking to cause problems. I have never seen so many people milling around when voting.
...now I try to be amused
A fourth time.
3Sice
Baud
All the bigfooting today makes this blog feel like old times.
p.a
If we win, I don’t want to hear any fucking “just look forward” bullshit. The tax prosecutions and the rest are fine, but follow the $$$ on all these pos-es back to Russia, China, etc and prosecute. Invent new interpretations of existing laws if you have to. Get them out of the body politic. Treat them the way they will treat their targets. No pillows in a knife fight. They’ve been taking advantage of that since Noxin’s pardon.
Betty Cracker
@Mel: Fantastic — thank you!
@…now I try to be amused: Will fix — appreciate the catch!
terraformer
Another fine blast of exquisite prose by Madame Betty Cracker. I don’t know of anyone who does it better!
terraformer
@JCJ: Howdy, neighbor! I’m heartened by all the Harris-Walz signs along Gebhardt Road – never seen so many Dem signs in any election cycle in these parts
...now I try to be amused
@dmsilev:
How does an elite reclaim a party from its base? Go back to the smoke-filled rooms and accept the howls of the newly disempowered, along with several lost elections?
hrprogressive
@3Sice:
Nancy knows how to count.
KatKapCC
I would love to get back to a place where we do not have to think about this piece of trash every day. Since he started his first campaign, there has probably not been a single day where I didn’t have to think of him at least once. I want him out of my damn brain.
HeleninEire
I just took a 2 hour nap. Gearing up for a late night.
Thanks to everyone at this here blog. You are all a font of information and fun. Getting to this election would have been absolute hell without everyone of you.
Now let’s do this!!! Let’s do it for Ozark’s granddaughters. ❤️
Harrison Wesley
@Old School: “Old grifters never die, they just….” I dunno – what do they do?
A Ghost to Most
Lumpy is just a symptom. Even when he’s gone, the cult will remain.
Chet Murthy
@p.a: For the sake of the Republic, treason and sedition must not be seen to pay! Dammit! Our Republic is at stake!
...now I try to be amused
@KatKapCC: Really. I want Trump to go to jail for the social crime of not taking the hint that it was time for him to leave.
Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I don’t know… I think as long as he’s alive, they’ll keep nominating him. His hold on the base is that strong. We won’t be rid of him until he’s rotting under the ground on his shitty golf course.
Baud
I will miss your Trump art though, BC.
Gretchen
I wrote 300 Postcards to Swing States. I was surprised that I was assigned GOTV addresses in suburban Kansas. I figured it was because they wanted local postmarks. But today my daughter received the exact same card with the exact same message postmarked Seattle. I suppose it’s in aid of our House Candidate – it’s probably one of the closer ones, but I wasn’t worried. Sharice is running or her fourth term, has done a great job without appearing the least bit partisan. And her opponent is a doctor with deep ties to pharmaceutical companies who is trying to cover his prolife past by saying it should be up to the states.
Chet Murthy
I’m certainly not a “human systems engineer” (haha far from it) but ….
(1) there are lots of well-off Americans who would be receptive to a socially-liberal but economically conservative party. Yes, it would still require the Rs to voter-suppress like crazy, but hey, they’ve been doing that forever and ever.
(2) they would need to re-educate their billionaires to stop with the bigotry
They’d spend a good number of years in the wilderness, but the alternative is going all-in again (and again, and again) on insurrection and treason.
Splitting Image
I hope that once Trump is gone and the various churches who supported him pivot back to their longstanding belief in the power of ethical purity and the importance of traditional values, people will have the good sense to tell them to fuck off and die.
Likewise, I hope that when the news media who supported Trump so shamelessly this year pivot back to their longstanding belief in the importance of truth in journalism and of civility and bipartisanship in those elected to public office, people have the good sense to tell them to fuck off and die too.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I can hope. I hope so much. I want Harris to win so much it hurts. I realize Trump isn’t going away until he serves time for his crimes or dies of natural causes. I don’t care, as long as he isn’t in office.
jonas
@…now I try to be amused: The party has to have strong leadership that refuses to fund/fundraise for or endorse kook fringe candidates like the ones who have taken over. I don’t know what they can do about billionaire-funded PACs, though.
NaijaGal
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I think this is the last election that he has a plausible chance of winning. If they keep nominating him after he loses, in the future, there will be a lot more Independents than Republicans.
zhena gogolia
Wow, very eloquent! Co-sign!
hitchhiker
I’ve calculated the exact moment to swallow my little dose of xanax. I’ve voted, post-carded, texted, and dared to look at data.
I keep looking at the clock and thinking, my god, it’s actually going to be over. Soon. Tonight we’ll probably know.
Mr h is a member of a local honk band; they just learned an arrangement of Kamala’s walk-on song so they can go blast it into our little village when the moment comes. Freedom!
zhena gogolia
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
jonas
@NaijaGal: Given how he’s been looking and speaking the past couple of weeks, and especially the past couple of days, he’s completely lost it. He’s haggard, low-energy, slurring words, acting totally out of it. He’s not going to be around for the next election.
bbleh
@hrprogressive: I hope so. He’s SUCH a lightweight that it’ll crash and burn before it gains any altitude, and there’s so little there there that it won’t even make much of a fire.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia: I forgot to say, “I agree!”
apocalipstick
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I disagree. Trump is starting to be seen as a loser, a guy who couldn’t outpunch a (shudder!) woman. That’s one reason the debate hurt him; it’s not that he lost, but that Kamala Harris toyed with and played him.
If there’s one take I vehemently disagree with, it’s the “when tRump is nominated in 2028” view which treats him as an elemental force of nature instead of an old man who’s decomposing in front of us.
bbleh
@Harrison Wesley: grift off into the sunset?
J.
Being an agnostic, I’m not one to pray, but I pray that you are right, Betty, and we get at least four more years of democracy and our first female president — and a Dem controlled Senate and House. Amen or Awomen.
waspuppet
I mean, except for the ankle monitor, he’s basically doing that now. Maybe substitute pounds of bronzer for the trousers and underwear, at least in public. But I keep saying, we’re years past the point where his chosen physical appearance, specifically what it says about his ability to perceive reality around him, should be considered a legitimate issue.
WaterGirl
@Mel: I suspect we all want your dumpling recipes!
hueyplong
@Harrison Wesley: “’Old grifters never die, they just….’ I dunno – what do they do?”
Actually, they die. Can’t wait.
Marmot
Mine too. My mom was a looker, so she’d had plenty of experience with the type. At 80, with my Repub dad long dead, she finally voted straight-ticket Dem. It took TFG, but she finally saw the party for what it is.
apocalipstick
@jonas:
Nothing. That’s why Citizens United bites them as hard as it bites progressives.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I pulled mine since it had only been up for one minute.
You mentioned other bigfooting, hope I wasn’t one of the bigfoot-ers.
Tony Jay
Thing is, if the GOP elite try to renovate their Party without the MAGA element it’ll be like a General Staff going to war without any troops to command. The MAGA hordes are the vast majority of the GOP electorate, and that’s thanks to decades of increasingly radicalising propaganda designed to harness every negative element of American history into an electoral force.
The Southern Strategy might have been about drawing the Dixiecrats into alliance with the Northern Republicans, but it seems to have had the effect of turning the Republican Party into the Confederate Party. Without the racists and the evangelicals and the misogynistic wankers – who are they?
hueyplong
@Tony Jay: “Without the racists and the evangelicals and the misogynistic wankers – who are they?”
I don’t know. Maybe WaterGirl could invite both of them to a zoom meeting here and we could ask them.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I don’t recall. Just seemed like the posts were coming fast and furious.
Chet Murthy
@Tony Jay: Tony, I must demur. There are plenty of well-off non-white Americans who could be convinced to join a New Model GOP that was socially liberal. And all those college-educated folks could be convinced, too: and the GOP’s focus on low taxes would work on those groups, if they didn’t feel their own necks on the line as a result. It simply would require that the G(r)OP give up their racism, homophobia, misogyny. And that’s a tall order.
P.S. What I mean is, the GOP could entice -back- the liberal Republicans who fled with the Great Sort, as well as all the constituencies who could have become liberal Republicans. People like {Asian,Muslim,Indian}-Americans, for example. And esp. Latinos.
Marmot
@p.a:
Set agreement cannons to full.
This was Obama’s major mistake, I believe. Maybe he didn’t feel right, as the first Black president, to point fingers and exhume the Bush Administration’s many crimes. But that doesn’t make it the right decision.
Chet Murthy
I love my PBHO (PBUH). But (unlike Obama) I sure hope that President Harris will make sure the machine she’s built stays in working order, gets a good workout in off-year elections, and is ready-to-go in 2028.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Old School:
I think it’ll depend on how large the spread is. If Harris wins by only 2-4 points, then I suspect he’ll remain a force for his own interests and evil within the GOP for the foreseeable future.
If Trumps loses by a landslide, let’s say greater than 8%, then he’s toast within the GOP. The only question will be whether they completely repudiate the direction they’ve taken for the past 60 years, or just decide that they need to learn how to sell their currents beliefs better.
RaflW
Too many tabs open. Thought I posted this in the current thread, trying again:
There’s some sh*t going down in GA. I really think we need to increase the use of disbarment on these sonofaguns.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Sorry about that. I’d pushed the schedule back twice already to accommodate other posts and didn’t see anything in the back room when I published. I blame the shitty WP mobile interface.
Hoodie
Here near our second home on the GA coast, seeing an unexpected profusion of Harris Walz signs over the last few days. Historically we haven’t seen a lot of Dem organizing around here. No doubt GOP will still carry the area but maybe an indication that the margins will be reduced and give added weight to Atlanta and its suburbs.
ssdd
If Trump loses, I expect he will file for a 2028 run asap so he can continue to fundraise. Got lawyers to pay and all that, y’know. Whether that becomes a full-fledged run down the road I don’t know but at the moment I don’t see anyone obvious to take the mantle from him. Plus he still has control of the RNC too. My hope is it leads to a big internal war in the gop between the Trump rump and the ambitious cretins like DeSantis that he’s blocking.
bjacques
@Chet Murthy: the New Model GOP wouldn’t abandon racism, sexism, homophobia/ transphobia—they’d just write it into their tax and budget policies.
But, for now, I’ll just be glad to be shot of the Great Circusized Peanut.
West of the Rockies
@…now I try to be amused:
Does anyone think Trump will actually be cognitively able to run again in four years? I think he’ll be out of the public eye completely, whether in prison, a coffin, or an assisted living senility facility.
hueyplong
@RaflW: We talking about R Stan Baker? If so, I think he’s a Trump appointee (who *shudder* attended the same undergrad school as me).
...now I try to be amused
@Chet Murthy:
It doesn’t help that many of the elite are themselves racists, homophobes, and misogynists.
Baud
@ssdd:
This makes sense.
RaflW
@hrprogressive: “Seems pretty clear that Thiel/Musk/et al will immediately try to make the Couch Fucker the new standard bearer.”
As Barack Obama famously said, “Please proceed, [idiots].”
I know I’m in a relative bubble, but I’m fairly confident that Vance is looked upon with horror by women voters, and plenty of men, too.
What he did to Springfield, a city in his own constituency, no less, should indelibly stain him for life. His views on patriarchy are sooo plainly gross.
So, yeah, a fine standard bearer for a rump party that can’t figure out sh*t.
Chet Murthy
@bjacques: Deep-down, I agree with you: they aren’t capable of the transformation I describe. Which means they will not attract the people I’m describing: well-off POC, women. Heh, I read once that gay Americans are the perfect GOP constituency, -except- for the homophobia. So yeah, if they can’t jettison their bigotry, they’re destined to die.
And then, well, the Democratic Party will split in two, and the conservative wing will -become- that New Model GOP, perhaps? B/c they would inherit the rejection of those bigotries, etc, etc, etc.
Tony Jay
@Chet Murthy:
Yeah, but, 1) they need a majority, 2) socially liberal doesn’t automatically mean racially diverse, 3) is social liberalism really that attractive to those non-white sections of society? Am I wrong on thinking that social conservatism is more of a draw?
That said, it would be much healthier for the country and the wider world if they tried. Split the Right between non-white conservatives and the bonkers racists, leaving the Democrats to get on with fixing the country for a decade or two.
Nice.
Geminid
There’s a big story out of Israel tonight: Prime Minister Netanyahu fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant has been blocking the PM’s attempts to personally control the IDF throughout this war. Before that, Gallant’s criticism of Netanyahu’s attempt to subvert judicial independence prompted Netanyahu to fire him in March of 2023.
That time the PM backed down in the face of mass protests, but he won’t this time because Gallant just approved the IDF’s call to draft 7,000 Ultra-Orthodox men, and that is intolerable to Netanyahu’s coalition partners.
Netanyahu is rumored to be about to fire the IDF and Shin Bet chiefs as well as the Attorney General, but his office denies it. It’s not clear that he can legally fire them but that might not stop him.
This follows a week of controversy over the arrests of five men for violating security laws. One of them is close to Netanyahu and has been held for seven days without access to an attorney because of the gravity of the offense. Netanyahu’s allies are crying that this is a coup instigated by his enemies.
Apparantly, the accused are suspected of selectivly editing top secret documents and then releasing them to friendly journalists with the aim of making the PM look good while discrediting IDF and Shin Bet leadership.
Barack Ravid will have an article about this in Axios soon if not already. Noga Tarnopolsky is tweeting away about this as well. Ravid and Tarnopolsky will also repost good reporting from other Israeli journalists.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We were at Mr DAW’s cardiologist’s this afternoon and one of the receptionists was wearing a “Trump World” sticker. I gotta say if that was my office, I wouldn’t allow political gear of any kind.
I used to edit The Journal of Business and Technical Communication. We once published an article about how workplaces in Northern Ireland handled the tension between different factions after The Troubles ended. One thing was they banned all political symbols in the workplace.
Chet Murthy
@…now I try to be amused: As they say over at LG&M, “nym checks out” !!!! *grin*
Yeah, that’s part of their task, if they wanna remake themselves.
Kent
The plus side of Trump running again and again (and losing again and again) is that he is stepping on a whole generation of younger GOP leaders who would be coming into their own were it not for Trump sucking up every bit of airwaves.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer party
But I’m not sure the stress is worth it.
jonas
@RaflW: It seems over the past several weeks whenever a judge in GA tries to put the kaibosh on whatever nonsense a GOP lawyer presents them with, the state SC just steps in and goes “Lol, no. Republicans can do whatever they want!”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@3Sice: Excellent! Nancy Pelosi can count votes. When she says Jeffries will be speaker, I start chanting “Hakeem! Hakeem!”
RaflW
@p.a: I don’t know who adjudicates security clearance violations, or what punishments can be meted out to civilians, but Musk being in frequent contact with Putin has to be investigated and pursued to the hilt.
Git ‘im. GIT!
HeleninEire
Hey WaterGirl. I just sent you an email you may find relevant for a post later tonight.
Dangerman
@Marmot: Ditto. Pull it out by the root, pile it up, set it ablaze, and spread the assholes, er, I’m sorry, ashes far and wide.
Jeffro
Wow.
I know this is going to sound dumb, but…it really hasn’t hit me in a while: the GOP actually put this malignant clown up as. their. party’s. presidential. nominee. THREE times!
The first time was obviously bad enough. The second time, the incompetence and malice (and one impeachment!) should have told them something. But a third time?!?? Adjudicated rapist and second impeachment and dozens of felonies later and they still did it??!? We all lived it and it’s STILL shocking.
Of course it will be all our (Dems’) fault – the WSJ even said so last week, that Dems bore some of the responsibility(!) Republicans of course have ZERO agency, they’re blameless, just like an infant’s toots. And about as substantive and stinky, too.
Doug
Tell me more. Distill this. Pour it into a shot glass so I can drink it straight.
Chet Murthy
@Tony Jay: (1) yes, true enough. But imagine if the Rs manage to entice back the college-educated. There’s the makings there of a majority perhaps
(2) today in the Democratic Party it does. I’m basically saying “take the Democratic Party and subtract economic liberalism”
(3) I grew up in a house where the father said “out there it’s America, but in here, it’s India”. His children rejected all of that violently. We don’t even know where he’s buried. I think that lots of non-white Americans might be -personally- conservative, but they’ve learned that social liberalism is a matter of self-defense, of self-preservation. It’s why they (WE!) vote Democratic.
I’m basically saying “imagine the Democratic Party splits in two, and the conservative wing renames themselves The New Model GOP”. That’s all.
RaflW
@jonas: Case is in U.S. District Court. I don’t think GA supremes get a say. And while I’m sure Thomas or Alito or someone is standing by the shadow docket all sorts of bullshit, can that happen by the time these ballots are intermingled and counted?
JoyceH
Bringing up some info I posted on the earlier thread-
The bomb threats being called in to majority black districts in Georgia have been traced back to Russia.
And Rudy Giuliani showed up at his polling place in Florida in Bacall’s Benz that he was supposed to turn over to Freeman and Moss.
TBone
I am fully on board with your intentions, B.C.! 💙🎶
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsr2r-EiVDU
Dedicated to VP Harris and VP to be Walz
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy:
I blame Prosperity Gospel. The worst of our billionaire class act the way they do because they have internalized the belief that the reason they are billionaires is because of their inherent mortal worth. Ergo, whatever they consider to be moral must be what God (or natural law or whatever) thinks is moral and should therefore be imposed on everyone else.
Before Prosperity Gospel came along, it was at least possible to shame the super-rich into not acting like utter monsters.
Jeffro
@hueyplong: ‘could invite both of them’ – LOL
It’ll sure be exciting to see them switch their logo from the elephant to a bucket of angry crabs, that’s for sure.
lee
@ssdd:
My thoughts exactly. There is a reason he installed a relative as the head of the RNC. He’s going to grift the ever-living-fuck out of Republicans until he is dead.
and I’m absolutely torn up about it /s
Quicksand
@Betty Cracker: Is the circus peanut your own work? Because it rules.
Also kinda apropos given the MAGA squirrel drama.
West of the Rockies
@Doug:
Worsening flatulence, soiled Depends, falling over, diminishing crowds… He’s going the way of his father fast, who was said to show up at work long after he’d ceased control; he was given a stack of blank sheets of paper to sign, being told they were important contracts.
Jeffro
@3Sice:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
SO psyched for Speaker Jeffries!
KatKapCC
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Same. And not just for me. Like, in addition to her being a smart, competent, capable, wonderful person who I believe will be a terrific president, I also WANT A FUCKING WOMAN PRESIDENT. But that’s not just for me. I’m in the waning days of my 40s, and I think about women in my mom’s generation and older, women in their 70s, 80s, 90s, who have been waiting even longer to finally see this happen. I want them to get to see it. I want them to experience that joy, finally finally finally.
Citizen Alan
@apocalipstick: Part of the problem is that the Cult cares more about Trump sitting in the Oval Office than about him as a human being. The reason a lost of MAGAs, including Shitgibbon himself, were so shocked when Biden stepped aside and we all immediately rallied around Kamala is that they assumed we would be like them and simply not care what Biden’s mental and physical health is so long as he won.
Doug
@West of the Rockies:
Yessssss … Cannot happen fast enough!
Honus
digbysblog.net/2024/11/05/women-are-not-without-electoral-or-political-power-2/
when I saw that headline on Digby I remembered Lysistrata. Aristophanes knew it centuries ago.
TBone
@Quicksand: I thought it was one of those nasty candy Halloween peanuts (blech!) in honor of the PNut squirrel incident from yesterday.
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy: Alternatively, they could do what Bush proposed but couldn’t get the party to go along with: Remain socially conservative but give up on immigrant bashing and instead focus on drawing conservative immigrant groups into the GOP by telling them to blame all their problems on LGBTs.
Tony Jay
@Chet Murthy:
Gotcha. It sounds like the idea that’s been floated here before. The Democrats becoming such a big tent because of the collapse of the Republican Party that it splits into conservative and progressive halves, with ‘liberalism’ in both. Might not happen, but it would be a lot better than what there is now.
Chet Murthy
@Citizen Alan: Now -that-, I think, wouldn’t work: the college-educated (and, frankly, many well-off POC) are simply no longer homophobes and regard such phobia as at best declasse’ and at worse an unacceptable bigotry. And homophobis goes along with misogyny, right? It is my fervent (I think, justified) hope that at this point women are energized enough that no New Model GOP that is misogynist is going to win them over.
Delk
I guarantee that at every gay street fair this summer the picture of trump with the garbage man vest and his mouth wide open will be turned into a dildo toss.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: The Southern political realignment spurred by the Civil Rights Act was deep and broad. It took more a decade in some states. In Virginia it happened “real quick-like” as we say. In 1965, Mills Godwin easily won his race for Governor as a Democrat. In 1973 Godwin easily won as a Republican.
However, there’s been a more gradual counter-realignment in reaction to first realignment. First, Republicans started losing traditional strongholds in the Northeast. The trend became nationwide in this century, with suburban Republican districts getting flipped all over the nation including the South
A good example is the Grand Rapids-centered district in western Michigan. Before Democrat Hilary Scholten won it in 2022, it had been held by a Republican for all but two of the previous 112 years. Republicans are unlikely to get it back this decade, or the next either.
JCJ
@terraformer: definitely good to see so many signs for the good guys – a huge improvement over all of the Bush the Lesser signs in the past. Only two of my neighbors have Dump signs while there are many more for Harris. I hope that they are not just too embarrassed to put out their usual signs.
karen marie
@Splitting Image:
lolwut?
TBone
@TBone:
😆😆😆 DONOLD’S TAG LINE FOREVER
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy: I was low-key convinced that once gay marriage was legalized nation-wide, there would be a huge growth in gay Republicans who bought into the “family values” dogma. But the bigots won out, and the GOP basically told conservative gays “we will NEVER accept you.” And now, only the most masochistic and self-loathing of gays will have anything to do with the Log Cabin Republicans.
JoyceH
@TBone: The squirrel story is sad, but as I understand it, it had to be euthanized because it bit someone and needed to be tested for rabies. And dunno if this is true but I saw an article that said the reason Peanut’s owner didn’t vaccinate him for rabies is because… he didn’t want the squirrel to get autism!
KatKapCC
@Delk: It could also be used for those games at carnivals where you try to toss a ball through a hole to win a prize.
karen marie
@jonas: Will we be forced to endure a state funeral? Ugh. Dead Trump is no more palatable than live Trump.
TBone
@JoyceH: 😆
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: My fault, too, I hadn’t checked to see if anything was scheduled. There was nothing about my post that can’t wait.
lee
@JoyceH: Squirrels having rabies is very very rare (not even sure if there is a single reported case of it). IIRC their saliva glands are too far back for them to pass it on even with a bite.
lee
@karen marie:
I can’t imagine him laying in-state without hecklers.
Citizen Alan
@Kent: Are there any young Republicans who aren’t repulsive? I mean, Charlie Kirk is the standard bearer for young Republican activists right now, and his face is even more punchable than Ted Cruz’s.
p.a
Hey, let’s win THIS, then if tRump wants to channel Lyndon Larouche, fine…
Chet Murthy
@Citizen Alan: Yes, if the New Model GOP could just jettison -enough- of their bigotries, there are constituencies out there to be had. I’m not saying that gay people would be -right- to ditch the Dems for the NMGOP, but OTOH, lots of people will throw over their neighbors for tax cuts. Lots of people.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
The base won’t believe he lost either way, so he won’t be toast in the GOP.
Betty Cracker
@Quicksand: It is, from 2016, I think. Sucks that it’s still topical, but here we are!
Betty Cracker
@Delk: LMAO!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
That top pic. I’ll never eat Circus Peanuts again.
Oh wait, I hate Circus Peanuts. Carry on.
ArchTeryx
I will leave my furry Kamala Harris meme here. (Dropbox link for a shared image).
If she wins tonight, I have another one which is guaranteed to bring big laughs. And it will make BixByte’s stuff collector’s items on Etsy.
Harris has apparently seen this and quite likes it. She apparently knows something about lady hyenas, and just how toothy they really are.
Sally
I haven’t read anything yet, so perhaps this has already been addressed. Is trump permitted to vote? Isn’t he a felon? Perhaps he must be sentenced first, but he was convicted, of 34 felonies. I thought (hoped) the leopards would eat his face on this.
Maxim
@JoyceH: Rudy! needs to be arrested and jailed until he complies, that dipstick.
Re Trump, I think the odds are pretty good that his clock will run out of natural causes in the next four years. And if he’s still alive, the odds are even better that he will not be coherent enough to nominate. But if they do run him again, it will not do the GOP any good.
The Never Trumpers are going to try to create some sort of “new” GOP from the ashes after this election, but I’m not exactly sure what their platform is going to be if they try to leave behind the racism / homophobia / misogyny. Lower taxes, fewer regulations, keep the minimum wage low … are any of those really that popular? Maybe they are among second-generation immigrants who have started businesses.
ArchTeryx
@Sally: Technically felons are allowed to vote now in Florida, if they are the right color. He is, sadly.
Maybe after DeSantis is turfed out, that voter initiative will have some teeth added to it so it isn’t just another cudgel for Jim Crow.
Layer8Problem
@Jeffg166: Just had some, thank you.
prostratedragon
“Second Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” Joan Tower
Trollhattan
@West of the Rockies: He ain’t cognitively able today, and yet.
Perhaps depends on the condition of his bile-generator. If that’s still viable, then he’ll keep himself in front of the cameras as long as they show up (and RWNJ media have plenty of cameras).
Who takes a shot at “the king?” DeSantis? Abbott? Cruz? No profiles in courage among the lot.
mrmoshpotato
Punch the fat, orange, fascist, pussy-grabbing, Soviet shitpile in the scrot with your vote!
Citizen Alan
@Chet Murthy: I certainly hope that’s the case. I’m just saying that a color-blind GOP might be able to weave an effective majority by uniting conservative men from various ethnic immigrant groups that the party presently disdains too much to even talk to civilly by appealing to their hatred of gays, blacks, uppity women, and illegal immigrants who “jumped ahead of the line.”
counterfactual
@Sally: He hasn’t been sentenced yet, so under NY law he can still vote and FL will follow that. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood emptywheel and pope hat
Trollhattan
@ArchTeryx: They have a carveout for the Orange Minority?
Harrison Wesley
@hrprogressive: He and the Pudding Strangler can duke it out.
Eolirin
@ArchTeryx: I think Florida follows the rules of the state that felonies are convicted in, for things from other states, and in NY, Trump because he hasn’t been sentenced yet, would be able to vote. So I think he can legally vote in FL too.
Scout211
I read that Florida has a policy that if the crime occurred in another state, they accept the other stare’s rules on convicted felons. I can’t remember where I read that, I’ll try to find it or a Floridian may know that for sure.
ETA: Link
gvg
@Gretchen: “It should be up to the states” is an exposed code word set that I don’t think works anymore.
Angry women are not even going to accept going back to just Roe and leaving the Hyde amendment. None of your business you incompetent dicks is the way women voters (IMO) are going. ONLY the woman and her doctor, and the doctor should be guided by best medical practices by professional orgs NOT any political unit.
Personally I have been ready for years to also forbid any religious organization or church to own or control any medical business, hospital, practice, clinic or pharmacy. Not even just not a monopoly in an area but keep out entirely. A woman’s body is one organism, and it turns out that things that are sometimes related to abortions are often unrelated. You just can’t even allow one area before it impacts health of even non pregnant women and sometimes even men because anti scientific control jerks can’t resist controlling. It’s impossible to outthink stupidity so we can’t write laws that compromise in a smart way.
Mind your own business is the law I want.
Gloria DryGarden
The spanish subjunctive tense is precisely perfect for a moment like this. It’s a kind of predictive future but carries an implied unknown, sort of a vague if.
cuando el pierda
cuando ella gane
cuando ganemos
estaré muy aliviada, y seré feliz.
seremos felices, y vamos a celebrar con mucha alegría
Chet Murthy
@Citizen Alan: I do take your point, but ….. that’s the G(r)OPers’ current plan, right? So we’re finding out if they’re going to succeed right now. And sure, maybe in the next couple of cycles. My theorizing was based on that strategy failing. And I think it will, b/c immigrant women (certainly second-generation) are showing that they’re just as “uppity” as any native-born woman *grin*.
Chet Murthy
@gvg: all of this. All of this. I read about the abominations the Catholic-run hospitals get away with and it makes my blood boil.
sdhays
@Delk: If I was a TV news editor, that would be my stock photo for Trump for the rest of his days.
JML
I hope that a strong and convincing Harris win will finally force the GOP to have a reckoning with itself, but I suspect that it will need (sigh) another cycle at least to shake things out, especially because I expect the in-fighting to be SAVAGE.
TFG is a malignant tumor on the taint of politics, but his malevolent charisma and cult-like hold has still managed to keep in a single coalition disparate groups that want nothing to do with each other. The only thing binding them is hate & tax cuts, and the former only works with a strong enough demagogue (look at the puny elves the GOP put up this last run as potential “successors” to TFG; pathetic all of them) and the latter is thin gruel for the masses and won’t turn them out.
Is Nikki Haley or Glen Youngkin going to be able to turn out the merchants of hate and motivate them to vote but saying all the crazy in the world? Seems likely: they’re not sociopathic enough. TFG sells it because a) he is a salesman, and b) enough of a sociopath that he believes whatever he is saying at the time he says it. Most of the rest of them struggle with it. Vance is there, but has little personal charisma. Tom Cotton is appropriately soulless, but couldn’t motivate a lemming off a cliff.
And the leadership in the Senate is equally vacuous and charm-free as well, so as McConnell (thankfully) slides off the stage on his way to burn in hell there should be some wonderful knife-fights there too. I mean, look at how fractious the House GOP caucus is.
That’s my hope: the GOP spends the next 2-10 years stabbing each other in the face.
catclub
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Rick Wilson does not think he will be the nominee in 2028. Really too old. But until he is underground, he WILL be the only kingmaker in the GOP. The stuff about Thiel and Musk taking over and pushing Vance? Interesting.
sdhays
@gvg: Amen!
Eolirin
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, the GOP could certainly make a go at realigning around gender instead of race and enough women are willing supporters of patriarchy that they’d have a chance of succeeding but they do run into an issue that more women vote than men.
They’d have to avoid going too extreme and I think that’s a problem for them.
Anti-new immigrant sentiment is also something that they can weild successfully to try to get their numbers up. But they need to do it while embracing the groups already here, which has historically been an issue for them.
Maxim
@Gloria DryGarden: Si! (Can’t get my keyboard to do the accent, sorry.)
@gvg:
Cosign.
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: Gross – because Dump’s face is gross.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@gvg:
Amen.
RAM
I figure well before 2028 Trump’s going to be confined to a rubber room where he will be playing with his Nerf skyscrapers and golf clubs.
catclub
Repeal of the Hyde Amendment would be a sea change. That, a Voting Rights Act, and killing the debt limit stupidity are on my wish list.
Scout211
Ever the tiny snowflake, Trump locks out reporters who have criticized him. LOL
Baud
@catclub:
We’ll need a Senate. But good list.
catclub
Hello, Puerto Rico!
Geminid
@Tony Jay: I’ve seen people talk about the Democratic party splitting into Liberal and Moderate halves, but I am very sceptical of the prospect based on the current composition of our House Caucus. If I were to graph its membership’s ideology, I think I’d get a fat bell curve. Most members of the “Liberal” Progressive Caucus and “Moderate” New Democrat Caucus would be jumbled up in the middle.
These caucuses don’t differ that much in their programs, and for many of their membership is more a matter of branding than ideology. Same with the ten Blue Dogs. Unless and until there is strong disagreement over an important issue or issues, I think this situation will persist.
Sally
Thank you for the clarifications everyone – damn New York being so liberal! It would have been a great final message if the felon hadn’t been allowed to vote for himself.
Not Going Back.
Ruckus
I’m an old. I was a democrat before I could vote. As I’ve said here before, the voting age dropped to 18 the year I turned 21 before voting so I would have gotten to anyway, but I could be drafted at 18 and took my draft physical after I turned 18, during Vietnam. Of course I passed it, I’d say that 98% of people that walked through the door passed. I believe that one had to be very much overweigh, deaf or blind not to be eligible for the draft. Boot camp could knock off at least 50, if not 75 lb off you so they didn’t really care if you were oversized. That’s not to say that an overweight person might not enjoy boot camp even less than a average weight person, I’m sure they would. So one would have to be huge or very small not to be drafted. Or join, as I did, into the navy. Boot camp was in San Diego, next to Marine Corp boot camp. You have no idea how glad I was that I didn’t get drafted into the Marines. We’d get up in the morning, walk out the back door to stretch and get some fresh air and Marines would come by, on the other side of the chain link fence separating the 2 boot camps in full combat dress, backpacks and carrying a large, heavy rife, double timing in formation over broken ground, about a mile or more from their buildings. USN boot camp seemed a breeze after watching that.
@Jeffro:
Do they actually have anyone better? I’d imagine dozens but anyone better that actually wants the job? Look at much of the rest of their lineup and tell me that they would be better. Sure the concept of any one would be better works here/now but then look at where we are as a nation, where much of the world is and tell me, do you want to go back at all? I’d say most people might say no but many people in this country seemingly are thinking we’ve gone too far from where they think we should be. Racism is not gone, wealth as an indicator of humanity is not gone. The concept that 1/2 (or slightly more) of our population are equal to the other half has not been bought by everyone yet. This is humanity, there likely will never be full, 1000% consensus that everyone is equal, because rationality is seemingly not a human trait.
jonas
@Scout211: Of course if Harris did this to Fox or Newsmax, everyone would be completely losing their shit. Once again, Dems have to be grownups and Republicans can just fling poo like addled chimps.
Baud
@Sally:
NY isn’t that liberal for such a blue state.
Kent
There would be if not for Trump. For the past 8 years he has been systematically purging the party of anyone not 100% MAGA. Which is to our benefit in a way. At least at the national level. Nikki Haley is kind of the only one out there that I can think of at the moment. Romney is way long in the tooth.
If the GOP ends up rebuilding in the ashes of MAGA I think the only real branch of the party at this point is the Utah Mormon branch so Romney and the younger local pols there. They dislike the southern Baptist version out of the south. It is a more sane version that is generally friendly to science but with less racism and stupidity. More business friendly and old school conservative. Utah never really went all in on Trump.
I don’t see any other branches of the party anywhere in the US that aren’t full blown MAGA crazy at this point.
Sally
@Scout211: Leopards Eating Faces.
bbleh
@Citizen Alan: I’m just saying that a color-blind GOP might be able to …
Fair enough, but such a thing does not, and for the foreseeable future CANNOT, exist.
Racism is the glue that holds together the otherwise untenable coalition of plutocrats, disaffected working-class voters, and bewildered and abandoned-feeling rural voters. Without racism, as has been widely understood by the political class since Johnson, the Republican Party is not just a minority party but one that can’t cobble together a majority, except perhaps in isolated districts. (See California Republican Party.)
So valid theory perhaps, but no existe eso.
Sally
@Baud: Yep
JoyceH
Apparently Melania has been wearing sunglasses indoors all day. What’s up with that? Black eye?
Chet Murthy
this is the needle they cannot thread. They tried back in the 80s, right? But lemmetellya, the hatred comin’ from the good ol’ boys was so thick you needed a jackhammer to cut it. They really can’t tell apart “new immigrants” from “we’ve been here for decades, we’re legal, we pay taxes and all!” They’re just not that discerning. It’s either “accept immigrantts” or “reject immigrants”. And the latter is where they are today.
HinTN
Here’s my prognostication
270towin.com/maps/gmOoA
I think Tester wins and we hold the Senate. The NE independent has to caucus with the Dems to get committee assignments, no?
Jackie
@A Ghost to Most:
A very diminished cult. Once TCFG is once AGAIN proven to be a LOSER! he won’t have the power he relishes and needs. “Normal” republicans will finally break away and tell him to shut his pie hole and go away.
His MAGA cult will try to hold it together, but a toothless leader has no bite and they, too, will be diminished.
Queen of Lurkers
@Betty Cracker: I always love your posts. Thumbs up for the use of the verb “yeet.” I want to yeet him out of my brain which he has inhabited like a succubus. I want to achieve the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Chet Murthy
@Geminid: Before such a split could take place, the current G(r)OP would have to collapse. And that would mean a lot of current G(r)OP districts would have Dem (but really conservative) Reps. And that would stretch out the spectrum of our coalition ….. until maybe it breaks.
Baud
@HinTN:
All committees are bipartisan, so no.
He needs to be named to a committee, however, so some party leader needs to make that allocation.
noncarborundum
@Harrison Wesley:
Steal away?
bbleh
@JoyceH: wouldn’t surprise me, except (1) not clear he could swing a punch without overbalancing, (2) not clear she would let him anywhere near close enough, and (3) arguably just as likely that she’s visibly hung over having been drinking herself into alternative hysterical laughing fits and catatonic stupors over what looks like an increasingly inevitable defeat, decline, abandonment (of him by all the lampreys), and eventual conviction and incarceration (assuming he lives that long).
I just hope her prenup includes a sufficient grant / stipend. I wouldn’t count on the will.
Geoduck
@JoyceH: The clips also show her smiling a lot more than she usually does, leading to claims it’s not really her.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kent:
They would be a real threat.. socially conservative, but genuinely tolerant of other races and ethnicities (as long as they are also socially conservative) and not as mean. If the GOP went that route, it would be appealing to a lot of Latinos, South Asians, etc.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chet Murthy:
@Citizen Alan: like Suzette Elgin Haden had in some of her SF series? I think she and Heinlein underestimated the power of racism
Baud
@Geoduck:
Maybe she knows his real medical situation.
ArchTeryx
@Chet Murthy: Already happened in 2008. We got a LOT of Dems – who all were Blue Dogs. And the carping about them was just absolutely nonstop. When almost all of them lost in 2010 – thus handing Congress back to the Rs just in time for redistricting – the Great Orange Satan was openly celebrating the end of the Blue Dogs.
They quit celebrating when they realized – far too late – what that meant.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
The Party of Lincoln becoming the Party of Lee; rural, racist and regressive, basically just a rebranding of Blood and Soil.
With Trump as their tacky Hitler, the second time really is – hopefully – just a farce. Fingers and toes crossed.
Jackie
@ssdd:
I really really hope his suckers are broke and finally hide their credit cards – realizing TCFG is nothing more than a huckster.
Ruckus
@Doug:
Trump was never all that and/or anything else. He was born into wealth, his father was worth, in the way back over $400 million. He’s been this money thing is all there is, his entire life. (I used to read about Fred T in Forbes and then the kids) His siblings got real jobs/careers and then there is him. He seemingly was going to be the second generation of his dad. But I don’t think he ever had/has the chops. And he isn’t finding them now.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
Yep. Libs have done a good job improving the party, but we haven’t grown our ranks among voters.
lee
@JoyceH: Massive amount of drugs
zhena gogolia
Goddamit to hell, I scheduled a blood test for tomorrow morning at 7:30 so I can’t drink!
Lacuna Synecdoche
OT, but just saw this headline on CNN and wanted to share. It’s one of those headlines, a few Page Downs from the top, that you scan past quickly, until your brain clocks it a couple seconds later and you say to yourself, “Wait, what?!”
Sausage-maker thinks he’s found the answer to Germany’s raccoon problem
I guess he wants to be the Sweeney Todd of racoon control.
Jay
So, I saw two MAGgAt “influencers” posts today that made me laugh.
The first one came up with a brilliant plan to prove voter fraud, and suggested that her 250,000+ followers follow her plan. The “cunning plan”?
Fill out your ballot, but don’t submit it, then see if the State records show you voted.
Brilliant!
The second one, with some 650,000+ followers wrote a long rant.
The opening paragraph, was the usual MAGgAT screed about MVP and Tim. The second paragraph was a very, very long, foulmouthed screed against Apartheid Clyde and how nobody should vote for Cheetolini because Apartheid Clyde is too dangerous and evil to be allowed anywhere near political power of anykind.
PrairieLogic
Amen!
Bill Arnold
Chas Danner
Updated Nov. 5, 2024, 4:57 PM EST
Surprise!
Google search traffic is spiking in the U.S. for the question “Did Joe Biden drop out?”
The USA electorate, sigh.
Baud
@Jay:
Common ground!
tam1MI
They’ll have to get by DeSantis first.
evodevo
@lee:
yep very unlikely for a rodent to have rabies. Raccoons on the other hand are well-known carriers even if vaxxed. And way likely to bite.
Frankensteinbeck
The majority of Republican primary voters will pick the most racist candidate offered. The Republican Party does not get to pick its primary voters. There is no mechanism for a realignment.
Geoduck
@Bill Arnold: Yeah, there is probably a measurable fraction of the US voting public who did not hear about Biden dropping out until they were actually in the voting booth looking at their ballot.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
In news from The Orange today, one of the company’s founders, Bernie Marcus has exited this mortal coil. He is best known recently for saying that we, associates, don’t want to work anymore and are lazy and fat.
He was a Trump supporter.
Baud
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Good omen!
Eolirin
@Chet Murthy: This is only true insofar as the immigrants aren’t white. They eventually were able to make common cause with the Irish for instance.
I could see longer term Hispanic and Latino groups maybe, maybe, able to eventually bridge that gap too. But not quickly.
Jeffro
@Scout211: ONLY MY FWENDS ALLOWED IN MAR WAGO TONIGHT!!1!
lol what a fucking loooooooser
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: I’ll have yours for you, if that’s ok?
#TeamPlayer
Jeffro
@Bill Arnold: you have to LOL
imagine those election officials, dealing with America’s Best:
“Excuse me sir EXCUSE ME…this ballot is strange and might be old or defective? Where’s Joe Biden’s name on this?”
mrmoshpotato
@Doug: I’m hoping the orange shitstain’s grave is perpetually saturated with piss by 2028.
Geoduck
@Jeffro: It is amusing that Politico wasn’t sufficiently boot-licky to get an invite.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Harrison Wesley: They steal away, obviously.
The Audacity of Krope
Fixed
Frankensteinbeck
@Eolirin:
I believe the Hispanic and Latino groups thought that was happening, and for a whole lot of them the ‘garbage island’ was a slap in the face that when Republicans hate on immigrants, they mean anyone brown, not actual immigrants. I think a whole lot of Hispanic and Latino groups have been going “I’m an American citizen and I hate immigrants, too.”
Melancholy Jaques
@HinTN:
You’re more optimistic than I am. Let’s hope you are also a more accurate predictor.
Citizen Alan
The feeling is mutual. I still remember getting whiplash when I accompanied my mother to church for Mother’s Day in 2008 (when Romney was still in the running), and the preacher was talking his usual drivel about “wives submitting to their husbands” when he suddenly blurted out in a complete non sequitur “and by the way, Mormonism is a cult!” I was genuinely surprised that Romney carried Mississippi, because Obama only needed 15% of the white vote to win the state. Instead, he only got 11% because thousands of white Southern Baptists who genuinely thought Mitt Romney might be the Antichrist still voted for him over a black man.
Trivia Man
@Old School: at least he loses the “but im running for office” card in court
Geminid
@Kent: There’s Georgia. In 2022, Trump backed former David Perdue’s primary challenge to Brian Kemp and Kemp crushed Perdue. Kemp went on to beat Stacy Abrams by 5 points, and Abrams was a dynamic candidate with a strong campaign. Kemp couldn’t have done that with a divided party.
When the Trumpers took over the Georgia’s party apparatus, Kemp and his business establishment allies didn’t defer to the knuckle-draggers; they worked around them.
I think Georgia will be a model that establishment Republicans elsewhere will try to follow. They might not succeed because their staes’ radicals are too strong, but that depends on the post-Trump dynamic which is unpredictable now.
Some of the knuckle-draggers will slouch back to the caves they lurked in before Trump showed up, because they were never very civic-minded to begin with. Others may get tired of losing and fall behind more pragmatic politicians.
I think the 2026 midterms will show us sometng at least. There will be enough hotly contested primaries to start assessing the different factions’ strength. I’ll be interested to some extent because I’m about such things, but for now I look at this as a Republican problem and not mine
p.a
Sadly, one sign of immigrant success in the US is feeling invested enough in the nation to start kicking out the ladder rungs we’ve managed to climb above*. Naturals for a conservative party that can keep its overt racism sotto voce. Not today’s R Party, but the attempt began with W I believe. They may get it right one day.
*#notallimmigrants of course.
Ruckus
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
I owned the custom manufacturing company my dad started, longer than he did. I started working there summers/weekends at about 12 yrs old. The concept that people didn’t want to work is as old as the first employer. If the employer pays crap wages, the result is often crap work, especially if it is in manufacturing. Most people see the owner of a company as someone getting rich while the employees get Jack’s exhaust. Most people are not near as stupid as many employers seem to think. But then pompous arrogance is still in and likely always will be in overabundance. My experience is that if you pay a fair wage you get fair work. And if you don’t there is a door for them to walk out of. Which gets used less often than one might imagine, if the pay and working conditions are reasonable.
Citizen Alan
@Eolirin: This is why I hated Scalia so much and still hate Alito. Both of their fathers were probably called “dago” to their faces at some point by WASPs, and the two of them were still willing to buy into white supremacy.
Geminid
@Chet Murthy: I don’t see the Republican Party collapsing. Even if they get their asses kicked the next three cycles, I figure they’ll enter the 2030s with a base of 35+ Senators and 180 or so Representatives in Washington to build upon. They may be marginilized at the national level and in many states for a while though.
As for the seats they lose to Democrats, I expect they’ll be filled by moderates, not conservatives because party members are not especially conservative anymore even in purple or red districts. We might see a few more politicians like Blue Dog Reps. Gluesnkamp Perez, Peltola and Golden elected to Congress, but those three don’t differ from mainstream Democratic politicians in policy so much as in attitude.
Harrison Wesley
@Lacuna Synecdoche: RFK Jr has bought rights to the American franchise, I believe.
gwangung
@ArchTeryx: I doubt that many younger Democrats will remember the lesson from that.
schrodingers_cat
@hrprogressive: He is a void of charisma.
PAM Dirac
Well there is a turnout tracker for Philly that as of 5:43pm estimated that 764,436 people have voted today, added to the 178,202 mail votes received for a total 942,648 total votes cast. There are pretty big error bars (664,139 – 1,030,192) and of course there is a bit more than 2 hours of voting left as well as ~57K mail ballots that have not been received, but that is crazy turnout, heading toward 90%. The 2020 total was 749,317 and Biden netted ~472K votes. If we are really looking at 200K+ more votes that suggests Harris will net ~120K more votes than Biden in Philly alone. Biden won PA by ~81K votes.
Capri
@Citizen Alan: It’s hard to overstate evangelical’s hatred of Mormons. I spent a summer in Idaho Falls, which is 1/3 evangelical, 1/3 LDS, and 1/3 everything else. It was like living in Northern Ireland during the troubles. I was told by one person that when her daughter’s piano teacher suggests a new collection of music they’d check the publisher. If it was published in Salt Lake City they’d refuse to buy it. I met a lot of home schoolers who kept their kids home because they said the public schools were actually LDS parochial schools and non-LDS kids were discriminated against.
Gloria DryGarden
@Maxim: in settings, keyboards, you can select for several languages. That allows words to be typed, and even offers it them to you.
if you hold down a letter key, depending which device you have, a box pops up with various accents, and you slide the cursor to the one you want
ça va, señor. No importaría…