This is 1000x more important than quibbling over what wording or messaging was or was/not effective. The biggest issue by far is the information environment. Where people are getting their news decided what breaks through. No amount of 'saying the magic words' changes that. https://t.co/q8pEGszShA
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) November 10, 2024
Charlie Warzel, at the Atlantic, wrote this a whole week ago, which already feels like forever. “Bad News: Legacy media must compete against a choose-your-own-adventure reality.”:
“You are the media now.” That’s the message that began to cohere among right-wing influencers shortly after Donald Trump won the election this week. Elon Musk first posted the phrase, and others followed. “The legacy media is dead. Hollywood is done. Truth telling is in. No more complaining about the media,” the right-wing activist James O’Keefe posted shortly after. “You are the media.”…
A defining quality of this election cycle has been that few people seem to be able to agree on who constitutes “the media,” what their role ought to be, or even how much influence they have in 2024. Based on Trump’s and Kamala Harris’s appearances on various shows—and especially Trump’s and J. D. Vance’s late-race interviews with Joe Rogan, which culminated in the popular host’s endorsement—some have argued that this was the “podcast election.” But there’s broad confusion over what actually moves the needle. Is the press the bulwark against fascism, or is it ignored by a meaningful percentage of the country? It is certainly beleaguered by a conservative effort to undermine media institutions, with Trump as its champion and the fracturing caused by algorithmic social media. It can feel existential at times competing for attention and reckoning with the truth that many Americans don’t read, trust, or really care all that much about what papers, magazines, or cable news have to say.
All of this contributes to a well-documented, slow-moving crisis of legacy media—a cocktail whose ingredients also include declining trust, bad economics, political pressure, vulture capitalists, the rise of the internet, and no shortage of coverage decisions from mainstream institutions that have alienated or infuriated some portion of their audiences. Each and every one of these things affected how Americans experienced this election, though it is impossible to say what the impact is in aggregate. If “you are the media,” then there is no longer a consensus reality informed by what audiences see and hear: Everyone chooses their own adventure…
I’ve watched for the past year with grim fascination as both the media industry and its audience have sparred and tried to come to some shared understanding of what the hell is going on. The internet destroyed monoculture years ago, but as I wrote last December, it’s recently felt harder to know what anyone else is doing, seeing, or hearing online anymore.
News sites everywhere have seen traffic plummet in the past two years. That’s partly the fault of technology companies and their algorithmic changes, which have made people less likely to see or click on articles when using products like Google Search or Facebook. But research suggests that isn’t the entire story: Audiences are breaking up with news, too. An influencer economy has emerged on social-media platforms. It’s not an ecosystem that produces tons of original reporting, but it feels authentic to its audience…
Independent online creators aren’t encumbered by any of this hand-wringing over objectivity or standards: They are concerned with publishing as much as they can, in order to cultivate audiences and build relationships with them. For them, posting is a volume game. It’s also about working ideas out in public. Creators post and figure it out later; if they make mistakes, they post through it. Eventually people forget. When I covered the rise of the less professionalized pro-Trump media in 2016, what felt notable to me was its allergy to editing. These people livestreamed and published unpolished three-hour podcasts. It’s easier to build a relationship with people when you’re in their ears 15 hours a week: Letting it all hang out can feel more authentic, like you have nothing to hide.
Critics can debate whether this kind of content is capital-J Journalism until the heat death of the universe, but the undeniable truth is that people, glued to their devices, like to consume information when it’s informally presented via parasocial relationships with influencers. They enjoy frenetic, algorithmically curated short-form video, streaming and long-form audio, and the feeling that only a slight gap separates creator and consumer. Major media outlets are trying to respond to this shift: The Times’ online front page, for example, has started to feature reporters in what amounts to prestige TikToks.
Yet the influencer model is also deeply exploitable. One of the most aggressive attempts to interfere in this election didn’t come directly from operators in Russia, but rather from a legion of useful idiots in the United States. Russia simply used far-right influencers to do their bidding with the large audiences they’d already acquired…
“You are the media now” is powerful because it capitalizes on the reality that it is difficult to know where genuine influence comes from these days. The phrase sounds empowering. Musk’s acolytes see it as the end of traditional-media gatekeeping. But what he’s really selling is the notion that people are on their own—that facts are malleable, and that what feels true ought to be true.
A world governed by the phrase do your own research is also a world where the Trumps and Musks can operate with impunity. Is it the news media’s job to counter this movement—its lies, its hate? Is it also their job to appeal to some of the types of people who listen to Joe Rogan? I’d argue that it is. But there’s little evidence right now that it stands much of a chance.
***********
Even if it’s Politico, the article linked in the top tweet is also… interesting. Per Steven Waldman, “president of Rebuild Local News, which advances public policy to strengthen local news, and co-founder of Report for America”:
… These studies reveal an interesting fault line. While most women get their news from TikTok, most young men get their news from YouTube, Twitter and Reddit, Pew found. This confirms that men and women often act on different sources of information. Yet while we spill many words analyzing whether New York Times headlines normalize bad behavior, we know very little about what news and information rises to the top on Reddit and YouTube.
Trump supporters will argue that this re-sorting of media consumption was a positive development, allowing people to get information unfiltered by the (biased) elite media. Indeed, Elon Musk declared that with this election, “Legacy media is dead. Long live citizen journalism!”
But there is much evidence that information on social media is more likely to include misinformation and provide news that reinforces preexisting beliefs than traditional mainstream media. And in 2020, studies showed that people who relied on social media for news were less knowledgeable. We’ll see if that remains true in 2024. At a minimum, we need to better understand the dynamics.
One meta-cause of the change is obvious: the rise of social media. The other is more indirect but still significant: the collapse of local news. We’ve lost one-third of our local newspapers; the number of reporters has dropped 60 percent in two decades. Studies have shown that the contraction of local news has created a vacuum — which has been filled by partisan news sources and social media (both polarizing and more likely to spread misinformation).
I’m certainly not arguing that issues like inflation or immigration were not important factors, or that if people just had different information they might have voted differently. But if we want to grasp the meaning of this election, we can’t ignore one of the biggest forces that shaped the electorate — or how the collapse of local news has changed the political equation.
hells littlest angel
The stupidest fucking people in the world are now in charge.
sab
I can’t complain about social media because I get most of mine through BJ
ETA : BJ is social media?
Baud
@sab:
Antisocial media.
Steve LaBonne
Neil Postman could not have imagined just how far amusing ourselves to death could go.
Harrison Wesley
Take charge of your world! So what if “they” call you a moran? Do your own research!!!
sab
@Baud: Social media cannot be antisocial media too? That seems too restrictive.
Echo the cat crawled out from under the bed and sat beside me for an hour while the pitbull was out watching football with my husband. That dog does love watching sports with her guy.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: I do enjoy your pet updates. They always make me smile 😊🌻
Suzanne
It appears that Bela Karolyi died.
Chris Johnson
The part of this that frustrates me: it looks to me like these people could not manage to win until they FORCED the ‘traditional media’ to their wills, still don’t know how. Big talk for people who had to twist the NYT and every other goddamn media source into a pretzel in order to get their way.
Rank ingratitude, I call it. Disgraceful contempt for the services rendered.
KatKapCC
@Suzanne: Good riddance.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne:
He won’t be missed.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: @KatKapCC: Until your comments, I had forgotten who he was. And then b/c of your comments, I suddenly remembered. Yes, as you said.
https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-gymnastics-news-may-he-be-completely-forgotten-gymnastics-community-unfazed-as-nadia-comanecis-coach-bela-karolyi-passes-away/
Naturally, fans didn’t seem too heartbroken across social media platforms over Bela’s passing. The Subreddit r/Gymnastics soon heated up with discussions of whether Karolyi’s demise should be a cause for sadness. “May he be completely forgotten and never revered again,” grunted one user, who made their sentiments on the matter abundantly clear.
scav
But, but, entire heartland diners may go broke if they don’t serve as backdrops for the celebrated meetings between salt o the earth bedrock trademarked ‘merkans and the dedicated professional gatekeepers of the MSM!
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: Note that I did not end my comment with “RIP”.
khead
It’s Dunning-Kruger for everyone!
Jeffro
Tax the social media companies to pay for straight-up local news, is my take.
(and that’s after we tax the billionaires to deny them the funds they use to distort the national news, in all its forms)
Jeffro
@Baud: HIGHLY anti-social media
Jeffro
@Steve LaBonne: Neil’s like, “it wasn’t an INSTRUCTION MANUAL, you gits!”
different-church-lady
Social. Media. Is. KILLING. us.
different-church-lady
@Jeffro: IT’S A COOK BOOK!
different-church-lady
@sab: BJ might be an info-bubble, but it’s not social media. For one thing: it’s moderated.
Bill Arnold
@Harrison Wesley:
There really should be decent guides to “doing your own research”, that are found at the top of the search engine results page when one searches for do your own research. (Or, gahhh, summarized by AI, as long as the summary is accurate.)
Keep the minimal version down to less than 10 useful bullet points, sorted most important first.
Kathleen
@Steve LaBonne: Thanks for reminding me to read that book. It’s been on my list for years.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Suzanne: abusive POS. I had a friend in college whose roommate was on the gymnastics team for 3 years and got cut the last year. She was doing it more for the free scholarship ride than the gymnastics. I’ve always kind of had mixed feelings about gymnastics since then. She came back from summer break and had cut her hair into a cute pixie cut . The coach was livid that she hadn’t kept the standard ponytail that all gymnasts seem to wear. And more importantly she didn’t get her first menstrual cycle till her senior year in college which is just messed up.
scav
Ah, translation issues. “Doing your own research.” is more reliably understood as “Erecting my own justifications.” More information added to this process does not alter the outcome.
rk
Well we were in a bubble as well apparently. I was under the impression that she had a chance when apparently she had none. I’m also sick of listening to nonsense from channels like the Midas touch which I’m always being directed towards by you tube. Before the election it was all about OMG ! Donald Trump is flailing, collapsing etc etc. Now it’s all OMG! Trump supporters are having major regrets. He’s imploding before he’s even inaugerated. I don’t believe for a minute Trump is imploding, nor that his supporters are having regrets. I’ve stopped listening to it completely.
The reality for Trump supporters will come when/if they’re negatively impacted in a big way by his policies. How much will misinformation succeed in convincing them not to believe their lived experience? How much will misinformation succeed in blaming others for their problems even when Trump is in charge? Only time will tell.
Baud
@rk:
Agree. There are a lot of people playing to our sensibilities. You have to maintain an even keel.
Jay
Between the “Can I change my Vote” folks, “What are Tariffs?” folks and the “Why isn’t Biden on my Ballot?” folks, “we” are screwed.
As the “how to move to Canada” folks are finding out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rk:
Why don’t you think so? We all saw him physically struggling on the campaign trail. He’s not a healthy man, physically or mentally
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Depends on how the next elections in Canada go. As we have seen, very few nations on Earth are immune to this
hitchhiker
All I know is that the people I thought had a reasonably good handle on what was happening were catastrophically wrong. The pros. The people making their (wildly good) living at understanding processes and communicating about them. When I think of the amount of time I absolutely pissed away listening to these people … it just strengthens my resolve to ignore all of it. I realize this isn’t going to help, but paying attention didn’t help either, and I’m much less spun up now.
I don’t know what the answer is here, but I do know that when 75 million adults look at a lying, bitter grifter through whatever their media filters are and see “president,” we’re all fucked. This wasn’t just the rabid base, right? It should have been unthinkable. Fuck, it is unthinkable.
rk
@Baud:
Also, some of the hot snarky takes are really annoying! I’m so tired of hearing that they sold their democracy over the price of bread. No they did not. To live in this country and make a decent wage is incredibly hard. You have to work hard, healthcare nor education is not free as in other countries (even Obamacare is not affordable unless you get subsidies), rents are high and buying a house is difficult.
In a situation like this people are suceptible to any dictator who comes along and promises them everything good. Look at Brexit. We’re not alone in this stupidity.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Good thing we banned TikTok in the US earlier this year /s
Baud
@rk:
The snarky take can get annoying, but I’m not in to mood to excuse the voters like that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rk:
Yes, they absolutely fucking did. They willingly and knowingly choose evil. They fucked us all over, including themselves. None of what you mention justifies it at all. Stop making excuses for evil.
ETA: Also, the Biden administration was one of the most pro-worker/union administrations in a long time. Harris ran ads nonstop about Trump being only for the rich (“I’m not rich as hell”) and what she would do to help first-time home buyers.
Trump never did from what I recall, it was all hatred and bigotry 24/7. “He’s for you, not they/them.”
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think it will go okay in Canada. We arn’t in an election yet.
Steve LaBonne
@hitchhiker: What I come back to is that people who pay a lot of attention to politics went for Harris by 6 percentage points, and people who pay none at all (yet still voted for some unfathomable reason) went for Trump by 19. Time to start watering the crops with Brawndo.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
I hope so, but New Zealand was also viewed as a bulwark not long ago
Steve LaBonne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I just found out that having a grandmother born in Canada could make me a Canadian citizen, just as having two Irish-born grandparents could do for Ireland. If only I were younger and richer. I have wished for decades that I could live in Montréal.
rk
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I agree that he’s not at all healthy, nor mentally well. He’s worse than before but not collapsing by any means. But I saw some of his rallies. He did not come across the way the Midas touch portrayed him. They take bits of what he says and make it far worse than in the actual context.
They also take some random comments from redditt or some tic-tocs and cite them as some kind of a trend/proof that Trump supporters have regrets. The evidence before our eyes for the last decade plus is that Trump supporters are a die hard cult. How probable is it that any significant number of his voters are having regrets within a week after the election.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll just leave this linked headline here and then go back to my own demesne:
geg6
The loss of local news is dire. We have a local (Beaver County, PA) website that, although it tends to be a bit yellow journalism-y, doesn’t seem to have a bias either way. I subscribe to it because he does do investigative stuff that has turned out to be good. I also still watch the local news. The CBS-owned station is about as fair as any and I don’t trust the ownership of the local ABC or NBC affiliates. Not that CBS is great either, but I consider them typical legacy media, not some Sinclair or other wingnut company. The newspapers here are just trash. John insists on getting them but I ignore them both. They suck.
I don’t really know what we can do about this whole issue. I don’t know how to get people out of their algorithms.
sab
@different-church-lady: Well that is interesting. I guess I prefer moderation (Cole: don’t be assholes tonight.)
I shouldn’t joke because I know how much work is done to keep this space safe.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rk:
Maybe not his diehard supporters, they’re probably unreachable, but perhaps the people who voted in this election who forgot how awful he was and weren’t paying much attention, unhappy about inflation, and are learning what tariffs are for the first time
geg6
@Suzanne:
Too bad, so sad. Another abuser bites the dust.
sab
@geg6: Weirdly our new cable company ( Spectrum) is pretty good on non-political local news because they tend to feature their advertisers.
A lot of neat new and old businesses are out there. Locally, only tv cable seems to care.
JCNZ
@sab: BJ, TPM, James Fallows, The Guardian – that’ll do me.
hitchhiker
@rk: Come sit by me.
I’m pretty sure that even if things go completely bad, most of those responsible will pay no price — in fact, they’ll probably be rewarded.
Look at Covid. All that trauma and stupidity, and what’s the result? RF fucking K jr, baby.
Never been to a trump rally, never watched him give a tv speech, never listened to him talk at all if I can help it, never seen the Apprentice, so I have no clue what shape he’s in … but as you say, the people swearing 24/7 that he’s a rapidly collapsing hot mess seem to be mostly just grifting by telling me what I want to hear.
I really don’t need that. I’ve said this here before, but I seem to be living in the only state in the union that is more blue now than it was two weeks ago. Maybe it would be worth a minute to figure out what went right in WA.
trollhattan
Spouse goes on walk today with social friend, local businesswoman.
Spouse: “Job growth under Biden has been historic.”
Friend: “No it hasn’t, plus there was covid.”
IDK how a businessperson ignores the MONTHLY JOBS REPORT for four years but there you have it. This, by the way, is one of uncountable reasons I don’t pay attention to heartfelt pleas to “Please think of the small business owner!”
sab
@Suzanne: That will seriously cut down on disabled youngsters.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
There was COVID under Trump too. Funny how that gets memory-holed. Then again, my dipshit “Christian” aunt defended the “inject bleach” shit Trump said then.
When your spouse’s businesswoman friend said, “plus there was covid”, is that her way of saying the job growth didn’t really count since it was supposedly only replacing the jobs that were lost during COVID?
rk
@Adam L Silverman:
So why didn’t it work for Jewish voters, or even black voters? Logically shouldn’t Jewish voters vote for Trump it they’re supposed to be all about Israel, but they did not. Ironically it was the muslims who shot themselves in the foot. He also got jus 22 percent of black men and barely any black women. Why is that?
sab
@trollhattan: Having been there and done that, running a small business takes up all your time and all your brain.
They are the most pig ignorant people on the planet. Not by choice. That’s just how it is. But don’t expect even common sense from them. They are too busy and too frightened to think.
satby
@sab: Lots of social media is moderated. We often don’t like the moderators decisions, but even Twitter is still moderated. Content moderators for social media sites burn out at incredible rates, they see horrible stuff we never do. Worst shit you could imagine.
[My account there is locked (not sure why or who I pissed off) so I’m out of there.]
satby
@trollhattan: Job growth to a lot of small business owners is being able to hire good, motivated workers for $7.25 / hour. With no benefits.
Of course they aren’t happy.
sab
@satby: dcl seemed to say social media wasn’t moderated, which surprised me.
We seem to have different definitions of social media.
Having spent fifteen years in the eldercare vortex until my last surviving parent died in April, I haven’t gotten out much because I was watching elderly parents. BJ was my window on the world. And my only “friends” aside from my actual husband.
Briefly did twitter and found it an annoying time sink.
Aziz, light!
Information, misinformation, what’s the difference? No one knows anymore.
What should influence the voters is reality hitting them in the face like a two by four.
hitchhiker
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Guessing yes? People think that a functioning economy is the norm, and that if it is disrupted, it will snap quickly back into shape with no particular effort.
They especially believe this about the US economy. It can never fail. It can only be failed.
Tony G
Yup. But the problem with blaming the media is exactly the fact most people are actually choosing their own media. If, as is often the case, they are choosing right-wing media, then they are viewing the entire world through a right-wing perspective. The social media companies will not police this because they are in business to make money — and they really shouldn’t be policing this anyway. The people who chose right-wing lies and insanity are, by definition, stupid people who are full of hatred. So that’s where we are. People like Trump are the symptom, not the cause.
rk
@hitchhiker:
I’m a hundred percent sure that the people responsible will never pay the price.
But what I do believe is that Trump has to deliver on improving the personal economic situation of the people who voted for him. Can he make rents and housing more affordable or healthcare cheaper. How does he do all this when he has Musk and all other cronies ready to slash and burn everything? How do things improve when he deports a major part of the migrant workforce? Until and unless the non cultish supporters suffer, they’re not going to have any regrets.
He can/will destroy a lot. Destroying things is the easy part. I hope I’m not being hopelessly naive when I say that he also has to deliver. I think he’ll be focussed on destruction over anything else, he’s not running for reelection and he has nothing to lose.
sab
@rk: I am guessing that American Jews are faithful to their faith first, to America next, and to Israel third.
KatKapCC
@rk: The only Jewish voters who could even possibly be said to be “all about Israel” are Orthodox, and they are only around 10% of American Jews. But people like Musk pushing these garbage ads have absolutely zero understanding of American Jewry, and the only things they “know” are stereotypes and garbage.
satby
@sab: This is the definition (From TechTarget). Has nothing to do with moderated or not, though they all are in some way.
sab
@KatKapCC: Gentile here who had a Jewish husband for ten years. That was my impression also.
NotMax
@hells littlest angel
Now now. The incels fit in with stupidest but they are not fucking.
//
Bill Arnold
@rk:
The point of those targeted deceptive advertisements was to cause small/modest shifts in the targeted parts of the electorate.
The article suggests that they believe that they succeeded, and that some liberal watchdog activist groups were upset that their complaints to e.g. google/facebook were almost entirely ignored. (complaints to twitter/X go straight to /dev/null)
At least as worrying is the deceptive nature of the operation; they used several different and not-obviously related front organizations, to make response to them slower and more difficult.
NotMax
Been saying it periodically for more than ten years;
Social media is neither.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: Have any the Dem reps given any explanation for why they voted for that thankfully failed “Stop-Terrorism” bill that would have given the president unilateral authority to ban any non-profit organization in the US? There was literally no excuse for that and it was fucking stupid. That bill was literally handing Trump (and any future president) a weapon to be used against us
A commenter from China that usually comments on the Ukraine threads speculated that those votes would give the bill “bipartisan” cover and the Republicans will likely try again
Tony G
@rk: That’s right. Trump will try to destroy the country — and if there is another election in four years (big IF) then I hope that people will turn against the Republican Party. Trump cares about nobody but himself — he never has. He cares about the Republican Party as much as he cares about his own family — that is, not at all. What I’m worried about is the possibility (probability?) of the Republican Party going full fascist and cancelling all future elections.
Tony G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There’s an element of truth in the leftist’s contention that the Democratic Party is “just as bad” as the Republicans.
Tony G
@Bill Arnold: People who are stupid enough to make electoral choices on the basis of ads on Facebook (or on TV) are, by definition, too fucking stupid to vote. They are the problem.
rk
@hitchhiker:
Unbelievable right! A billion dollars raised and they could not figure it out. I would have had a far better idea had I just listened to my kids. They told me over and over again that Biden was too old (this was pre the media meltdown this year). They repeatedly told me ” you have no idea how hard it is for people even when they have good jobs”. They know that Trump is not going to improve anything, but apparently the majority did not.
Tony G
@NotMax: It’s amazing but true. Insulting women all day long is actually NOT the most effective tactic for convincing women to have sex with you.
KatKapCC
@Tony G: To quote a Facebook tag group: “I don’t know where you’re going with this, but it’s not inside a woman.”
mrmoshpotato
@Harrison Wesley:
People with decades of medical expertise tell me one thing, but Jenny McCarthy read some bullshit on the Internet!
Both sides are equally as bad bellowed Chuck Todd!
NotMax
Experiment I’d like to see.
NO content of any sort from X on front page posts for one week.
Discommendation, as the Klingons practice. Bet this joint would be better for it.
Aziz, light!
It’s not religious faith, it’s our understanding that white supremacists don’t regard us as their equals and/or view us as an enemy. Our collective memory goes way way back.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@trollhattan: dusing Obama’s presidency when things turned around and the employment numbers were good, Jack Welch said they were made up. You know, the ‘great’ GE CEO Jack Welch who said you should lay off the bottom 10 percent of your company’s workforce just for shits and giggles.
rk
@Tony G:
A co-worker of mine who knows people in living in near poverty and who don’t ever vote. I asked her why. She said that they don’t care because nothing ever changes for them. Something similar was told to me recently by a friend from India. She said “why are you guys so passionate about politics, we never talk about politics, we hate all politicians, they’re all the same”.
An extreme version of “both siderism”.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne: Who?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rk:
As I said above, those people willingly and knowingly voted for evil. The Biden administration has been the most pro-worker/union administration in a long time, and did a lot of good. Sure, things are hard, but Americans during the Great Depression by and large didn’t turn to fascism.
I think it’s funny how people thought Biden was too old, yet Trump, who will be Biden’s current age in 4 years, isn’t apparently. Not that I disagree that Biden’s age had caught up to him
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rk:
I hate that stupid nihilistic shit. Where do these people think old age pensions, labor protections, and everything else they take for granted came from? The aether?
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): For them this is their actual reality. Nothing much helps them so why should they care.
Politics takes a certain level of prosperity to even be bothered with it. Below that it doesn’t impact you because nothing ever does.
Bill Arnold
@Mai Naem mobile ¹:
Every year.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Did she inject bleach into her veins?
Bill Arnold
@Tony G:
Many of them vote.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sab:
The Gilded Age and the Great Depression weren’t picnics but good people fought for what was right, got involved, voted, and made gains for themselves and society at large
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Well, if Bluesky is populated enough by now…
Quinerly
Trump has no mandate. This was no landslide. CA still counting. Yes, we lost but no landslide. Harris needed more than 107 days. It’s all so heartbreaking.
73,794,005 (48.23%) Harris
76,464,848 (49.97%) Trump
Cook Political Report Ticker
rk
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
They didn’t have to. The white government at the time very much made sure that all economic policies benifitted the white race.
FDR intentionally excluded occupations dominated by people of color from New Deal initiatives to win the support of Southern Democrats in Congress. Blacks and Jews were demonized during the great depression Asians could not immigrate to the US till the 1960s. Women were very well controlled and on and on and on.
All this democracy, rule of law, the great justice system worked pretty much exclusively for white race.
There is a reason why Donald Trump gets the majority white vote repeatedly.
hitchhiker
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
They think these things have always been obvious and came without any particular effort, much less struggle. It’s part of the natural goodness and strength of the US economy, which would run like a top if only it could be left alone.
Altho I have to say I noticed that the market doesn’t seem quite certain about whatever is going to happen next. No worries! It will be the fault of someone else.
catclub
@rk: The evidence would not necessarily be votes for Trump, but lack of turnout. that is enough.
… but hard to measure.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Quinerly:
So, in the end, he didn’t even break 50%
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly:
Dump still has a mandate to continue being the Kremlin’s bitch since he’s been since ’87.
Kayla Rudbek
@Steve LaBonne: I would be eligible for Italian citizenship, but I’m not sure it would help. I’m a bit too old to be trying to repopulate them…
scav
GE CEO Jack Welch undoubtedly also paid umpteens of fees to contractors to come in and Generate Team Spirit! with songs, posters, coffee cups ‘n’ shit. Wheeee!!!
RevRick
@Steve LaBonne:Audous Huxley certainly did. Brave New World
Starfish
@mrmoshpotato: The guy who child abused all the cool gymnasts of the 1990s. He will always be remembered for Kerri Strug’s having to do the Olympic vault on that fracture.
frosty
So we’re back to the Colbert Report’s definition of truthiness.
Quinerly
I’ve been in Albuquerque all day. Away from all things BJ and news.
Anybody discussing this POS Hegseth wanting to court marshall those involved in our Afghanistan withdrawal? Caught a snippet on MSNBC. Guess I need to Google.
Fascism 101. The fucking firestorm of shit coming at us never stops. It’s to wear us down.
mrmoshpotato
@Starfish: I see.
frosty
@sab: Yes, if you read all the comments, recognize the commenters and feel like you’re friends with them, then B-J is social media. I’m on here an connecting with people much more than FB.
More often than Real Life, but not as deep obviously.
ETA One of the challenges of retirement is staying in touch with friends who are younger and still working.
@Baud: LOL yes in many cases. I’m gaining weight from all the pie lately.
Quinerly
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Cook Political Report ticker.
CA still counting.
Saw you comment to me on that old thread. I responded. Hang in there. Always like seeing your nym and comments.
NotMax
@Quinerly
court martial
(Autocorrect strikes again?)
Quinerly
@frosty:
I am still a fan of FB. My circle is small…around 100. My St. Louis and NC peeps check in in the AM. Pretty much every AM. I think they are more concerned about JoJo las Orejas than about me. Most still don’t understand my move here.
See you in Albuquerque if I’m not in Death Valley. More than welcome to coordinate a stop here sometime down the road.
Quinerly
@NotMax:
Yes. Court martial. Auto correct. I guess. Thanks.
Quinerly
@NotMax:
COURTS MARTIAL
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-transition-team-compiling-list-current-former-us-military-office-rcna180489
RevRick
@geg6: Our local Allentown paper The Morning Call is a sad shadow of what it was when we first arrived here in 1988. It used to have four fat sections, one dedicated to local news. That’s entirely disappeared. Now we get a smattering of state and local news and a thin section of national and international coverage with a business page and comics section squeezed in.
It had been a family business, but when the owner retired, he sold it to the Chicago Tribune , which has since sold it to a vulture capital group. The paper used to be printed downtown, but they sold the building and equipment and it now comes to us from Jersey City, NJ!
Mart
I am so old I remember telling a black union steel worker he really shouldn’t be listening to Rush Limbaugh, he’s not in your side. Nobody listens to me.
Citizen Alan
75 million Americans voted for Hitler. The best of them voted for Hitler because they thought the price of eggs was too high. The worst of them voted for Hitler because they agree with everything Hitler was and want Hitler to rule the world. In 1933, they went to Bund rallies at Madison Square Guarden. They have always been with us. They are bitter than they can’t have slaves. They are bitter that they might go to jail if they get caught beating a gay man to death. They are bitter that the nerdy kids they beat up in high school ended up making more money than them. They are bitter that women who they openly say they want to rape won’t sleep with them voluntarily.
I said before the election that even if everything went our way, we would still have to grapple with the existence of 70-75 million of these creatures as fellow citizens. The only thing that has changed is that 10 or so million of the people I had thought were on our side stayed home.
frosty
@Quinerly: My FB circle is small too. My main gripe is that I have to wade through dozens of “suggested for you” and whatever it is they think I want to see before I see anything from my friends.
Granted, “whatever I want to see” is WWII aviation and Kaley Cuoco / Big Bang and Calvin and Hobbes, but I could use a break!
Jackie
@NotMax: Bluesky doesn’t allow my iPhone browser to open links. I don’t have a X account either, but I can open to see the link posted. I’m not messing with my browser for the sake of seeing links I won’t subscribe to. I don’t/never have subscribed to social media – except FB, which I only get family/close friends info.
Soprano2
@Quinerly: I think if she’d had two more months she could have pulled it off. It’s a real tragedy.
BTW, I saw gas today for$2.29/gal. They can’t be mad about that.
RevRick
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That assertion about COVID jobs betrays a fundamental ignorance about how jobs are created. Employers don’t hire people just for the heck of it. They do so because demand requires a bigger workforce. Both the Great Recession and Great Depression taught us Keynes truth that there’s no natural level of employment. In fact, economies can get stuck at low levels of activity and high levels of unemployment. Only government spending can juice the economy. It’s just simple addition: GDP = C + I + G +X, where C is consumer spending, I is business investment, G is net government spending, and X is net exports ( and for the U.S. X has been a net number since 1980).
Citizen Alan
Why do you believe that? I’m serious. Nothing he did in his first term improved the economic situations of his voters who weren’t already rich. Nothing he seriously proposes to do this time will. To the extent he made any promises, they were childlike in how vague they were.
The only campaign promise that Trump ever made that led his followers to vote for him was “I, Donald Trump, hate the same people you do. And if you give me power, I will hurt them on your behalf.” And that was the only promise he needed to make, and by and large was one he kept.
frosty
@RevRick: The Baltimore Sun got sold to the Tribune, which ruined every paper they bought. I noticed when the op-eds started getting a little right-wingier and I finally dropped them after decades (including getting a paper delivered in the DC suburbs!). I subscribed to the Baltimore Banner, a non-profit with a bunch of ex-Sun reporters. It’s OK, good for Baltimore and Maryland news but nothing beyond that.
Really good coverage of the Key Bridge collapse.
Gretchen
@hitchhiker: Young people think that they have always been able to stay on their insurance until they’re 26. Pre-existing conditions weren’t a disqualifier, and they’ve never heard of lifetime caps. They have no idea that it came from Obamacare and Republicans would love to remove that. They just know that the subsidies aren’t enough to make insurance affordable now.
Citizen Alan
@Tony G: No there fucking isn’t. That is the battle cry of pampered cosplay Marxists whose entire approach to politics arises from Operational Defiant Disorder. They adopt the persona of a beret-and-Che-Tshirt wearing armchair revolutionary because they get to feel elitist as they look down on people who are actually working to produce positive outcomes because they know their policies never will and feeling superior is more important to them than any tangible results. Fuck them.
frosty
It’s down to 7.5 million now and dropping as the votes are counted.
raven
How bout them Dawgs!!
hitchhiker
@Citizen Alan: I’ve been reading this book called Defying Hitler, which is not really about defying him at all. It’s a sort of personal history/memoir by a guy who begins his story with his memory of the beginning of the 1st World War. He was a child, on vacation with his very correct and middle-class family.
He tells what it was like to be a boy in Germany during that war — which played out for him and his young friends as a sort of giant game. Then, in great detail, he describes what it was like to be a young person watching as money became worthless — for him, another sort of game, as he experienced it. Privation, yes, but his mother and father were resourceful people.
Then his very first encounter with the ugliness that would become the SS, in the early 30s. He’s not Jewish. He is a very capable writer, and was an astute observer. His rage and despair at the way everyone who had power to stop Hitler failed to do that — at how they simply refused to do that — fairly rises off the pages.
At the end of the book he’s in London. It’s 1939. I guess my takeaway is that what we’re witnessing isn’t new. People simply don’t have the imagination to believe that the evil and stupidity they’re seeing could actually come to power.
It’s all a bit of a game to them, right up until it’s not.
https://www.amazon.com/Defying-Hitler-Memoir-Sebastian-Haffner/dp/0312421133
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rk: Ever heard the phrase “touch grass”?
My Touch Grass says the people who voted for Trump are saying this isn’t what they wanted.
Another Scott
@Quinerly: I saw Redistrict’s tweet (here) about it earlier. It would be good if they provided actual cites other than “official sources”, but presumably their numbers can be trusted.
AP still says TCFFG is at 50.1%, but with a smaller total count (they claim the number is being updated).
CookPoltical.com has the numbers at the moment at:
H – W 73,862,320 T – V 76,496,707 Total – 153,111,573
H – W 48.24% T – V 49.96%
Thanks.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Quinerly
I miss those old, late night music threads from many years ago. Cole’s drinking days. Lots of Raven and Ozark, if I’m not mistaken. The music threads brought me out to comment after years of lurking.
Here’s a cool video that came up in my FB memories from 2020. Probably never posted here. Willie, Lukas, and Micah. A tribute to John Lennon. Such a great setting. And a real close up of Willie’s beloved Trigger.💙💚🩵🧡
https://youtu.be/hqS4rgG7TjU?si=sDxYOowUXNF0Q1If
Soprano2
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Don’t be so sure about that. Rachel Maddow did a podcast about a plot in the government where fascist sympathizers tried to take over our government. There were a lot of fascist sympathizers in the U.S. in the 1930’s.
raven
@Quinerly: The only way I can stay up late is when my Dawgs are playing.
Soprano2
@hitchhiker: I would think the market wouldn’t like the chaos of TCFG. They must want those tax cuts really bad.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
Don’t know the ins and outs. Cook’s ticker comes up in my feed in the AM. I consider them trusted. My point is it always was a margin of error race. And that’s where it seems to be going. She certainly outperformed Biden’s day of election 40% approval rating.
rk
@Citizen Alan:
And he didn’t win. Biden won. This time he will destroy everything, every agency and which according to all the knowledgeable people (??) will wreck the economy. Ultimately the president gets blamed for all bad things in this country. Remember that down ticket democrats did better than him and we’ll find out that he didn’t run away with the popular vote either. I’m not sure that people will support across the board destruction (other than die hard Trump supporters).
Quinerly
@raven:
Well, in honor of you….be careful out there.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B2fqUt7KVjA&pp=ygU5aG93IGNvbWUgbXkgZG9nIGRvZXNuJ3QgYmFyayB3aGVuIHlvdSBjb21lIGFyb3VuZCBkciBqb2hu
Soprano2
@Quinerly: That’s such bullshit. What would the grounds be – we’re upset it wasn’t perfect? This is the worst reality.
Timill
@Soprano2: Hmmm. Does presidential immunity extend to courts martial? If not, Trump could be in trouble…
Quinerly
@raven:
Speaking of Dawgs….(and, yes, I know you be talking Georgia)
Some buddies of mine……and actually acquaintances/friends of Ozark’s. I forget when we made the connection that we both knew David Spangler (long gray beard) and Thom Pallozola. Both hung and played in my old St. Louis neighborhood (Soulard) and played at Ozark’s old bar (The Venice Cafe). Thom P. has been out here to visit. Trying to get the trio (there’s a third, Lee) to make the pilgrimage west for some gigs and a house concert here at my home.
The Flea Bitten Dawgs!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RXTM0DbJ9tE&pp=ygURRkxFQSBCSVRURU4gREFXR1M%3D
Quinerly
@Soprano2:
$2.35 at Santo Domingo Pueblo off of I 25 between Santa Fe and Albuquerque today.
Quinerly
@frosty: 💙
Quinerly
@Soprano2:
It would be nice to have Silverman weigh in. Especially if this courts martial BS picks up steam.
RaflW
Late to this. But about that Musty comment that “Hollywood is done” I so resonated with this:
They hate Hollywood not because stars fluff for Democrats (though that, too). They hate Hollywood because conservative culture creating is so often so trite and tedious.
Kayla Rudbek
@Soprano2: my grandfather probably being one of them, he had a book of Father Coughlin’s sermons and a book from the founder of Opus Dei, plus a subscription to National Review.
Splitting Image
@Tony G:
Honestly there is less difference between a left-winger and a right-winger than there is between a Democrat and a Republican.
NotMax
@Quinerly
$4.75 locally.
So glad to be driving a hybrid.
Soprano2
@Quinerly: Yep, I don’t think you can do that for bullshit reasons, but I could be wrong.
Soprano2
@NotMax: I think it was over $5/gal when we were there in Oct 2022.
YY_Sima Qian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Even if all of the Dems voted against the bill, the Repubs are sure to try again, & the next time based on a majority. However, why would any Dem go along & give it bipartisan cover? How wold the Dem caucus vote against the bill the next time, when every vote Nay counts?
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman & all of the “Serious” people across the political spectrum in the US are hyper-focused on TikTok being a threat to national security (emphasis mine):
NotMax
tap tapIs this thing on?;)
Jay
@NotMax:
The Night Shift has the Weekend Off.
Chris Johnson
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This is always very frustrating. With all we know about the scope and intensity and EXPENSE of the overwhelming disinformation on the MAGA right, how on earth can you say ‘knowingly’?
My own touch-grass experiences strongly suggest that those in my circles whom I’ve known for years, and who are decent good-hearted people, are hiding stuff from me.
But it’s not that they want nothing more than to be jackbooted thugs. That would show, over years.
They are hiding that they think I am the feckless, innocent collaborator with an evil left-wing cabal that seeks to hunt down and murder all Christians and heterosexual people with death squads. Most of the time they cope with this without freaking out, but in the right situation they get VERY ANXIOUS and it’s over ridiculous, childish misinformation. And yet they’re so immersed in this that they react viscerally. And THAT shows, though they are trained not to tell the rubes being exploited about their beliefs, politics, especially religion. Because they’re taught it is not safe.
Don’t you come around calling my personal friends secret Nazis. They’re secret IDIOTS.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: hear, hear. Except for the one time my former BFF tried to be a Nazi because of Fucker Carlson. She went to a gun range to get training and ended up giving the trainer hundreds of dollars to purchase some guns before she left her first visit. When she went back for her next session, he asked for her background check paperwork. She said “WHAT? Background check? Whatchoo talkin’ bout?” She thought she was just gonna buy the guns, no questions asked, wasn’t even aware there is such a thing. Then, she had a helluva time trying to get her money back, it took months. 😆
So yeah. IDIOTS! But also she wanted to be a Nazi. I laughed privately for months (after the initial shock wore off that she was THAT dumb).
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If you are interested in why the 50 (or 52) Democrats voted for the bill sfripping charitable status from advocacy groups, I suggest looking up the individuals and seeing if they said why. One or more of Marcy Kaptur, Sharice Davids, Elissa Slotkin, or Angie Craig has likely said something.
I think Emilia Sykes voted for it, as well as fellow Ohio Democrat Greg Landsman. Someone who lived on their districts might get an answer from their office if they have not put out a statement on the matter, or taken a reporter’s question.
I bet Josh Gottheimer is saying why he voted for the bill. Gottheimer is running for Governor now, so he’s probably telling every New Jersey reporter and voter he can about it.
This bill clearly is a reaction to the “pro-Palestinian” protest movement. I might explain its aim in five words: “Students for Justice in Palestine.” At least, they and their allies are the initial targets.
Subsole
@Jay:
I wish.
This part of the night shift is just about done with their night shift. At least for tonight. Hasn’t been too awful, all told. Working a couple extra twelves on top of my normal schedule. Trying to stack as much paper as I can, and hope it doesn’t end up worthless.
I wish I had more to say about current events. But I frankly am still trying to process it all into something intelligible, if not actionable. Mostly just swinging between fury, and despair. Of all the interesting times, why did I have to live through Temu 1930s??
We live in an info environment where EVERYONE from Leftists to Republicans to Trumpers to Media shits on us. Nonstop. How are we supposed to fix that? What do we do when everything is rigged to the point that Republicans get all the credit for what we fix and we get all the blame for what we break?
Re:Trump voters and the average American.
The cold fact is, everyone in this country considers us, Liberals, Democrats, to be their…let us say, they consider us to be a word best left unsaid. We are here to clean their mess and take their beatings and swallow their lies and tremble in their wake. And also gently pat them on the head and applaud their cruelty, vacuousness, delusion and spite and smallness as the height of authenticity. We are here to be the victims who do all the heavy lifting. (A small, tired voice observes that an authentic asshole is still just an asshole…)
No, folks. I love y’all but the Socialists are not buying them out of it.
Put it this way: if you have to preface Working Class with an Ethnicity, then the Class part of the appellation is not the lever that will move them. Ever.
Look at white women. They chose white over woman. All those ordinary 9-to-5-ers out there that we need to gaze deep into the souls of and understand? They chose white over working.
Anywho. Wish I had solutions. I don’t. I’m tired, I’m sad, and I low-key hate everyone for fucking this up so badly.
Hope y’all are taking care of yourselves and each other.
Also: Get. Your. Shots. Now. Because ho-leeee fuck.
TBone
I woke up laughing today. Had a dream about Elno but I can’t remember it now, only that it was so funny I woke up laughing.
Baud
@Subsole:
Good comment.
Princess
@rk: Just want to express my agreement with everything you’re saying. There’s a bubble on the left too. I can see it but I don’t know what to do about it. And lots of people who don’t realize that when people are saying “the economy is bad” they don’t mean the unemployment rate and the stock market. They mean, “I can’t buy what I used to be able to buy and my kid can’t move out because rent is insane.”
YY_Sima Qian
@Princess: I think Isabella M. Weber puts it succinctly (click through the link for the relevant CNN polling):
We also have to remember that inflation is the rate of increase in prices. When the inflation rate comes down, that means prices have stopped rising so quickly, it does not mean that the prices have come down. They stayed elevated, & so people remained pissed off.
Subsole
I had to chuckle at all the hand-wringing over campaign strategy and what we’ll run on and how we’ll sell our message and rehabilitate the Democratic brand. All of these high-paid experts and none of them can see it.
We’re going to run on the issue we always run on. The issue we have run on since I was in frigging junior-high: fixing what America’s spoiled little asshole brat voters broke. Saving the fucking ignoramii from their poor life choices. Burying all the people the GOP killed and pasting back together some semblance of life for everyone who pissed away the last semblance of life we pasted together for them.
We’re the battered wife who is expected to hold a broken home together for the privilege of being everyone’s punching bag, and I have goddamn well had it.
I just wish I had something productive to channel all this into.
Subsole
@Baud:
Thanks, Baud. That means a lot.
Geminid
@Subsole: That was a thoughtful comment. The only thing I would add is, “…and stay hydrated.”
Subsole
@Geminid:
I assume the absence of pants helps with that, somehow.
Ramona
@RevRick: Is net Government spending the difference between total Government spending and the money Government takes in in taxes? If so, then the deficit counts positively in the GDP. I think I don’t understand what is meant by NET Government spending. Please edify me.
Barry
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “Why don’t you think so? We all saw him physically struggling on the campaign trail. He’s not a healthy man, physically or mentally”
‘Fake news!1!!!1!’
I saw a painting on Real American Newz! and he has the physique of a god!
TBone
Interesting Reads.
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance:
https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/07/18/leonard-cohen-anger-resistance/
Barry
@rk: “He also got jus 22 percent of black men and barely any black women. Why is that?”
Probably because misogyny and macho doesn’t sell to black women.
NotMax
@Barry
Epitome of human evolution.
//
Princess
I know everyone hates the Obros on here but Favreau said something interesting. He said when Biden stepped down, they were showing him a projection that Trump would win 400 electoral votes. I’m taking that to be true, or close to true (400 is a very round number). If so, what Harris did is that more heroic. She basically lit her future prospects on fire in order to save a bunch of senate and house seats in order to preserve a enough of party to continue to fight, and she largely succeeded. I think she ran a campaign tightly targeted around voters internal polls told her were gettable, and she got a lot of them.
Barry
@Soprano2: “BTW, I saw gas today for$2.29/gal. They can’t be mad about that.”
They can be. They’ll say that it is due to Trump being elected.
TBone
Today’s Pop-Up poem:
Listen to it here:
https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/love-after-love-by-derek
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: When I look at the round of inflation 2021-2023, I keep in mind how low inflation was in the years 2008-2020. The Great Recession held prices down for years, and I think this had an effect similar to compressing a spring.
I saw this a couple years ago, when I bought a new battery for my tattered Accord. I’d paid around $125 for the one I bought four years before, and that wasn’t much more than what I paid four years before that. But this battery cost 175 #@&*?! dollars. It was like Wham!…fifteen years worth of inflation all at once.
I could afford it, but there were times I couldn’t and was living hand-to-mouth like so many others are today. I can see how this issue can drive people crazy, especially when it’s amplified for political purposes.
TBone
The price gouging is back, and only just beginning again.
Any/all turkey day items were marked up to ridiculous yesterday.
Before the election, we had noticed a distinct drop in prices at that same market. Trying to woo us away from Walmart.
Baud
@TBone:
Remember to blame Trump.
TBone
@TBone:
NotMax
@TBone
Bag of seasoned croutons for stuffing/dressing was $10.99 last week.
Foil roasting pan? Eight buckaroonies. (89 cents at the restaurant supply grocery.)
TBone
@Baud: every goddamn day. I was accosted by an old woman at this same market right after prices went way up. Talking to hubby in the soup aisle, I remarked that, for that price, I’d just make my own soup. The old biddy shouted “Thanks, Biden!” I turned around, astonished that she’d even heard me. “GET A GRIP, LADY! INFLATION IS WORLD WIDE. BIDEN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!
GET. A. CLUE!!!”
Hubby was slightly embarrassed by my ferocity.
TBone
@NotMax: JFC Hawaii!
I’d roast a bird on a spit in a pit in the yard while baking bread in your bread maker!
scribbler
@Subsole: Could not agree with you more. Thank you for this comment (and thanks to Baud for pointing it out).
RevRick
@Ramona: You understand it perfectly well. Federal Deficits are a plus sign in the equation. Our longstanding trade deficit, on the other hand, is a drag on the economy.
In fact, according to classic economics, longstanding trade deficits are a significant problem. Ordinary countries get severely penalized for running them and are required to take steps to reduce them, from jacking up interest rates to hiking taxes to reduce consumer demand.
In our case, however, despite our 40+ years of running such a deficit, the world has responded with a shrug. And the reason for that is that U.S. Treasury bonds are the gold standard today, with every financial asset benchmarked against it and much of the world’s trade priced in dollars.
Hope this helps
NotMax
@TBone
On the other hand, 25 pound bag of bread flour at Costco is four dollars less than a few months ago, nearly back to its ‘normal’ price.
TBone
I can’t politics yet today. I’m gonna go to that new church and try not to open my big yap. Will not speak unless spoken to! They’ll already know why we showed up. I don’t have to explain.
TBone
@NotMax: stock up now!
JMG
About Jack Welch. He also very obviously cooked the books at GE for years and years, each quarter showing almost exactly the same rate of earnings growth. That’s impossible, but the history of Wall Street contains many chapters on very smart financiers believing impossible things. They run Ponzi schemes on themselves.
TBone
Damn, I miss being able to read the Rotating Tags for attitude adjustment! 😔
NotMax
@TBone
Also noticed while at Costco that a 30 roll pack of toilet paper was marked Limit 1. Same limit for both Kirkland brand and Charmin.
Why? Your guess is good as mine.
TBone
@TBone: 🎶😂😎
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pa5nqYXEnY
Fly, Eagles, Fly! 🦅🏈
Quinerly
@Princess:
I have read about this. Someone posted the info here about Biden’s internal polls and this 400 EC vote. The person posting was attacked for posting and for listening to the podcast. We have a lot of people here with strong opinions on how others should get and process their news.
Thanks for saying this again. It seems pretty obvious what should have gone down long before July. Egos had to have played a part in some of these decisions.
Geminid
@TBone: I wonder what turkey prices are doing. I guess I need to pay more attention to Harrisonburg, Virginia radio station WSVA 550AM. They like to talk about turkey prices because Harrisonburg is the center of the Shenandoah Valley’s thriving poultry industry.
WSVA has been around since the early 1920s, and its call letters stand for “Serving Virginia Agriculture.” It complements the two other stations I often listen to on my car radio. Those are WTOP 107.7 FM, the D.C. all news station from its Fredericksburg transmitter, and WNRN “The Wren,” the Charlottesville oldies station at 99.7 FM on the dial.
Quinerly
@Princess:
There is a definite bubble here on BJ.
Baud
People need to stop worrying about the BJ bubble and start dealing with the bubble the majority of white people live in.
Ramona
@RevRick: Thanks. It certainly does. Before I read this I began to see that of course net Government spending i.e. the deficit would by definition have to be a part of GDP.
A trade deficit represents the goods we are getting which we have not produced.
Does the US Treasury Bond popularity ameliorate our trade deficit because other countries buy them using the dollars we’ve spent buying their goods and in the process running up our trade deficit?
That makes it seem that our trade deficit to a degree finances our deficit to the extent of the public debt not carried by we citizens owning our T bonds.
Quinerly
@Soprano2:
You would hope. So many norms and rules are being broken, though. The fact that it is even being discussed is a red flag to me.
TBone
@Geminid: I had purchased a bone-in turkey breast at Walmart weeks ago in anticipation of high prices and too much meat for the two of us. $18 at 5.88 lbs. and it fed us more than five meals. When I got a Free Turkey Certificate at my other market, I cooked Thanksgiving supper ahead of time. I’ll make it again on turkey day because it’s near my birthday and we’ll live on leftovers for a few days plus make gallons of turkey stoup for the freezer.
I hope you find a reasonably priced bird!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: True.
Quinerly
@Baud:
This is true.
zhena gogolia
@Subsole: You are so right.
Another Scott
@Geminid: +1
Riffing on that, I’m remembering that The Economist once had a graph of the price of bread for around 500 years. About 98% of the time, it was flat – no inflation.
That doesn’t mean that things were great for around 490 years, people!!1. :-/
Yes, it’s actually bad when inflation is too low for too long. It means there’s little or nothing to keep the rich form hoarding ever more of the economy.
Shocks like spikes in some prices (housing, food) affect the economy and yes causes real damage to real people. That doesn’t mean that it explains the election. Too many other things were going on, and the GQP still fights tooth and nail to prevent everyone from voting.
Beware of the conventional wisdom that just so happens to be against progress.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
This site does a pretty good job enlarging my bubble. (crooksandliars)
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Soprano2: Just read Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland about the Klan in the 1920s – they got to a hair’s breath of being able to control the President on down. That was in the wake of the Flu epidemic. Something about epidemics seems to make people turn fascist.
NotMax
@TBone
When living in PA used to make the trek to Jaindl’s Turkey Farm near Allentown* for fresh, not frozen, birds.
*waves to Rev Rick
NotMax
Bad linky. Fix.
@TBone
When living in PA used to make the trek to Jaindl’s Turkey Farm near Allentown* for fresh, not frozen, birds.
*waves to Rev Rick
TBone
@NotMax: I haven’t ever purchased a fresh bird because a friend in the days of yore had purchased a “fresh ham” for Easter and she’d invited a ton of us to supper. Her surprise, upon unwrapping it to find that what she’d purchased was not ham was epic! I think we ordered pizza.
If I wanted to, there are a lot places here to do that (my local butcher does it every year) but Sarah Palin ruined it for me forever!
(My friend had purchased the largest pork leg I’d ever seen that wasn’t on a live pig.)
Quinerly
Speaking of prices…originally I was leaving Thanksgiving Day for my winter drive about. 2 weeks ago I realized this cabinet project was going right down to the wire (no fault of anyone). Postponed my departure, changed all my Air BnBs reservations.
Started looking around for a Thanksgiving dinner or buffet in Santa Fe. Restaurants/hotels. I can’t find a single place under $95 for one person. (Pre tax and tip). Most in the $115-$125 range. PER PERSON.
New Mexico is always on the list as the poorest Blue State. A lot of locals are very resentful about the prices of everything here. Yes, loads of money in and around the area….mostly from out of state. And, there’s the celebrity money. People who have lived here for generations with their Spanish roots going back to the 1500’s can’t afford go out to eat for a family meal on a normal Saturday night.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: When I visited the US over the summer, I was shocked at the cost of eating out in restaurants, easily 2X of what it was in 2019, & this was small town Upstate NY. I think the expected tipping rate has gone up, too, which puts the total cost of dining out to be 2.5 – 3X of 2019.
I abhor tipping, but the wait staff are paid well below minimum wage so they rely up on tips. (Why is this legal, again?)
NotMax
@TBone
That Palin footage was epic for her utter cluelessness of what was transpiring..
TBone
@NotMax: 🎯
Burned into my brain 🤮
The Audacity of Krope
Fun fact, Massachusetts just voted to keep this legal.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@YY_Sima Qian: I wonder if that’s a rural/low cost of living area phenomenon. I live in the DC area which is high cost of living and yes groceries are somewhat more expensive but actually got cheaper as of a few months ago compared to their peak, and the cost of restaurant meals, again it’s a little more expensive but not shockingly so. But maybe things were worse in low cost of living areas.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: & that is also why calling such sentiments “Vibecession” was absolutely the wrong tack politically for the Dems & allies to take. No the US economy was & is not in recession, but the hardship, scarcity & precarity were & are real.
TBone
Haircut: check
New clothes and shoes: check
Cash for collection plate: check
But there is no way I’m not gonna hafta pee halfway thru today’s service, no matter how many times I go before I go! 😆😭 Trying to be as incognito as possible on my first meet n greet but I anticipate being new will scuttle that intention. Gah!
NotMax
@Quinerly
That had better include an after dinner full body massage.
;)
TBone
@NotMax: right???
Quinerly
This guy nominated for Dept of Energy is a nightmare who appears to be flying under the radar since we are being hit with a firehose of bad and deeply disturbing nominees.
I just started getting caught up on him.
I guess we can take some comfort that he isn’t affiliated with a cult that eats its leader’s nail clippings and chases those clippings with sand the leader has walked on. (See Tulsi’s upbringing if you aren’t totally up to speed. Watch her speeches, TV appearances. She’s like she has been programmed).
Anyway
This tracks with what I’ve seen -restaurant prices have gone up by a LOT and as others have pointed out we had a long run of steady prices and COVID just destroyed that. I don’t complain about restaurant prices though – it’s discretionary spending, supplies and staff wages and rents have gone up — I try to curtail my dining out — it’s a social thing — only way to keep up with certain RL friends and acquaintances.
DO NOT THINK THAT IS A REASON TO VOTE FOR THE RTHUGS!!! (sorry for shouting)
Geminid
In the categories of “More Muscapades,” from Saudi-based Al Arabiya;
Baghei was heard muttering, “Fuck the Fucking New York Times” under his breath.
Anyway
This. so much this. Appreciated both your comments.
Quinerly
@NotMax:
It’s insane.
And, yes…People can say, “no one is forcing you to go.”
The point is everyone sees these advertised prices. People ask about where to go on social media on the community bulletin boards on FB and Santa Fe Foodies FB Group and on that toxic Next Door app. Arguments break out literally between the “haves” and “have nots.” People with Anglo surnames lecturing others about paying for quality food. I am looking at a lot of this with wide open eyes now.
I feel like I have been in my own private privileged bubble since we came out of Covid Times. (Pre initial vax)
prostratedragon
“Resurrección del Ángel,” Piazzolla Quintet live
Geminid
@Quinerly: Yeah, Tulsi Gabbard seems creepy as hell. Assuming the Intelligence Committee holds them, these will be some very interesting confirmation hearings.
I regard Gabbard as the most dangerous of Trump’s Cabinet nominees by far. The position of Director of National Intelligence is a recent innovation that concentrates power over national security information in a single person. Gabbard could do a lot of damage as DNI and unlike Energy Secretary Wright, most of her damage can be done out of the public eye.
Subsole
@Baud:
In fairness, the concern with “the bubble” here is based in debate over how best to pierce the enemy’s bubble.
We have to understand the problem in order to tackle it, and all that.
That said, I do not agree with the idea that people will respond to economic messaging.
Put it this way: you think black men aren’t economically anxious? Asians? Black women? Latinas?
Of course they are.
47 % of white women and 39% of white men don’t respond to economic pressure?
Of course they do.
And yet somehow they didn’t crumble into powdered bitch over the fact that their crazy cruncheezy chalupaduparito cost too much.
Again. We aren’t talking working class. We are talking White working class. And if you want to sway them, you need to have a long, hard convo with yourself about why the ethnic component of that demographic comes before the economic.
Also, too, being poor or middle class or living paycheck to paycheck does not make one deaf, blind, stupid or soulless. My folks very much live paycheck to paycheck. They didn’t go vote for a craven, insecure, preening bully and the racist, wackjob bundle of midlife crises and substance abuse that bought him the election.
It was status-based. Trump and Musk didn’t pick at money. They picked at outgroups.
Again, folks, if you listen to a liberal long enough, they will tell you who we need to help, and how we need to fix things. Listen to a conservative long enough, and you will learn who they fear, who they look down on, and who they feel is getting too uppity and needs their face shoved in shit.
And the hard truth is, I fear, that after over a decade of pickling in social media and Sili Valley’s Internet of Shit, America is a place where everyone’s desire for a better life has curdled into fear and loathing of everyone else’s desire for one.
I don’t know how to attack that. I think we need to spend more time figuring it out – or pressuring the people we pay to lead us for a solution.
Quinerly
I guess everyone is getting caught up on Hegseth paying off a woman who accused him of sexual assault. She made a police report at the time of the assault. 2019
If you are confused and need a scorecard, this is the nominee for DOD who got his girlfriend pregnant while married. White supremacist tattoo boy who is a big fan of the Crusades and is on record saying all Muslim holy sites should be destroyed.
Subsole
@TBone:
Ha. Like he has to blackmail them…
Baud
@Subsole:
You’re on fire this morning.
Quinerly
@Geminid: totally agree with you on Tulsi. And she is kinda slipping from the news coverage. I actually think if we are ranking, I put Hegseth a close second behind her. Gaetz in 3rd place.
I always look for your comments in these threads. TY.
TBone
@prostratedragon: 💙
The most memorable time I went back to church was in 2013. I’d been a few times over my 30s but never regularly.
I woke up one Sunday, and a brand new voice in my head, outta nowhere! said “Go to church.” What the…
So I phoned a friend. I had no idea that she had been hired as a cleaning person at a nice church recently! She had not yet been to a service there either but when I told her about The Voice she knew just what to do.
When I got home that day, I found out that my Dad had been diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. I needed that church every week thereafter. For sanity, because my family went straight into denial and we realized my Dad had been covering up Mom’s dementia.
The new female Reverend was a vital solace, she knew somehow exactly what I needed and she reached out. She got personal.
I am not a very religious person. But…the coincidences that ensued…
Albatrossity
@hells littlest angel:
If this has not yet been nominated for a rotating tag, I think it should be!
YY_Sima Qian
@Anyway: I mentioned dining out because I was traveling for business, but the cost of groceries have gone up by > 50%, too.
MagdaInBlack
@Subsole: This part of what you said:
“Also, too, being poor or middle class or living paycheck to paycheck does not make one deaf, blind, stupid or soulless. My folks very much live paycheck to paycheck. They didn’t go vote for a craven, insecure, preening bully and the racist, wackjob bundle of midlife crises and substance abuse that bought him the election.
It was status-based. Trump and Musk didn’t pick at money. They picked at outgroups.”
Thank You
The Audacity of Krope
Sometimes I worry about Trump getting credit for the amazing things Biden did that are only just starting to pay dividends for the economy; but if there’s one part of Trump to place faith in, it’s his ability to fuck up anything.
Subsole
@Quinerly:
Huh. That looks bad.
Has Greta weighed in on it?
Any climate marches?
Sunrise Movement protesting in front of GOP offices?
Any of that crew awake, or nah?
Nothing? The people who wouldn’t shut up about how bad we are for the planet and a vote for us is just like voting Republican got no smoke for the GOP?
¿Como se dice “uhm-hum”?
As a wise woman once said:
Lips.
Pursed.
TBone
@Subsole: he does it anyway. The FTFNYT. From the link:
Another Scott
@Quinerly: I live in NoVA. Lots and lots of very spendy places too.
But there are also places like the Royal Restaurant in Old Town Alexandria that has a $69 to-go Thanksgiving dinner for 2. We used to go there for their Thanksgiving buffet.
Lots of grocery stores have to-go Thanksgiving stuff as well.
Keep looking – there must be something out there for dine-in that isn’t off-the-wall expensive. Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Subsole
@Quinerly:
In fairness, a lot of folks are also focusing on the pedophile that the party of Christ is fixing to make America’s AG…
The Audacity of Krope
I doubt this was uniform everywhere. Most of the items I can think of with noticeable spikes were cheap to begin with. More expensive items had more moderate price increases. Gas is back where it was before all the troubles.
I wonder how many people complaining about prices bother checking sales tags and shopping in clearance sections. I get good quality meat for a song, I just need to make sure to cook it the day I buy it.
The Audacity of Krope
Not like the NYT or the Post were putting it to good use anyway…
zhena gogolia
@Subsole: You are on fire today!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: GMTA
AM in NC
@sab: I was a small business owner (small chain of urban garden centers) in North Carolina for 20 years until we sold and retired early. We were selected to be Obama spokespeople and got to meet former Gov. Jim Hunt to talk about issues facing small business and how Democrats benefit small business people – the ACA being especially important to us.
So I don’t exactly buy, small business people are too busy to understand reality and not vote for racist sex offenders.
There are small business owners who choose to be ignorant and immoral, and there are small business owners who choose not to be. We were also busy. We chose not to be ignorant and immoral.
MagdaInBlack
@The Audacity of Krope: Gosh, your right, never occurred to me to check sales and clearance to make my pay check go further.
C’mon folks, some of us are living this, and no our checks ain’t getting bigger and yes we are struggling. And we do not blame Biden.
I’m so tired of saying this
YY_Sima Qian
@Subsole: The point of economically populist messaging is not to convince the 30% of Americans (most of whom are of course White) committed to Herrenvolk authoritarianism. They are unreachable. The point is to sway perhaps 5% of Americans (White, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) away from the siren song of the reactionaries who tell them exactly who to blame for their hardship & insecurity. Swing/reactivate those 5% & the Dems win EC landslides & clean up on the House & Senate.
Economic hardship, insecurity, precarity, especially during periods of high inflation, is fertile ground for populist extremism & strongman authoritarianism, which then tries to externalize domestic tensions & heighten the risk of international conflict. We have seen this movie play out many times in many countries, the US is not exceptional.
We can always vent our frustrations at why some people are so blind/stupid when so many others remain clear-eyed under similar circumstances, but humans are going to human. We have to deal w/ the electorate/humanity that we have, not the electorate/humanity we wish we have. Either we believe there are enough people who are not so overwhelming affected by their bigotry or apathy & thus reachable enough to help form part of a durable anti-Fascist coalition (isn’t that what FDR’s New Deal was all about?), or we resign ourselves to the belief that a slight majority of Americans are committed supporters of the reactionary ideology. If the latter, then what? An “enlightened” dictatorship to keep these reactionaries permanently suppressed?
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
Oh, plenty of dine in options. Not sure what I am going to do. Obviously, I fly solo.😁
My first Thanksgiving here in my new home, I threw a big party. Sit down dinner for 11. Great time, and I had hoped to start a tradition. But, when last year rolled around I really wasn’t into a big production here. Tried to encourage that we rotate it around. That fell flat. I ended up going to the lovely Indian Pueblo and Cultural Center in Albuquerque on my own. Had a fantastic time basically hanging out with strangers and the families there. Great buffet. Wonderful price. It was geared for it’s audience for sure.
This year I was invited to some folks place nearby. I know them from the neighborhood watering hole and I have had this couple over for a small party I gave in July. Very nice older couple. Honestly, I don’t know the lay of the land with their sit down, though. I really don’t know these people nor their friends. Not sure with my political hair trigger and rawness right now if I can sit down in someone’s home if I don’t know all the players. I would be captive. I’m a little feral right now. And not really in control of some of my emotions. I broke down and cried in Dollar General a week ago when I saw the young Gay, Hispanic boy who works there. He is terrified about the election and I was the one crying like a baby. He came from around the counter to hug. Then he started crying.
There are budget friendly options in Albuquerque and there’s always that sweet and welcoming Indian Pueblo and Cultural Center. I might even drive over with JoJo to Abiquiu. A favorite place in Georgia O’Keeffe country is doing something. Reasonable price. Might even cop a squat in a dog friendly room at the inn and get in a hike a Plaza Blanca (GOK’s famed “White Place).
Thanks for piping in!
YY_Sima Qian
Here is an essay that argues the US is especially vulnerable to rise of Fascism compared to Europe, due to its unique historical experience (should be a gift link):
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope: yet, he is trying to sue them out of existence with a $10 billion defamation suit anyhow.
Geminid
@TBone: Actually, I’m not looking for a bird, not even a drumstick. I’m not a big turkey fan. I like the gravy on stuffing and mashed potatoes, and it makes the meat tasty, but I like chicken thighs more.
So I’ll be looking for the biggest, fattest pork chop I can find. They usually come in pairs and that will be handy if my musician friend comes for dinner.
He might walk out if I served turkey. Mike did time in Virginia’s state prison system, and he ate enough turkey there in two and a half years to last a lifetime. What with cost and dietary restrictions, turkey was the go-to meat for prisons.
Geminid
@Quinerly: Do you ever visit Jemez Springs? I liked the hot baths there. I remember how the cold water faucets were extra-big because the hot water taps were so hot.
Subsole
@YY_Sima Qian:
I am not entirely sure how economically precarious the opposing coalition is.
A lot of those White Working Class folks have 2 year degrees. They do HVAC or plumbing or small engine maintenance. They are not poor. At all. You can knock down good money with that.
The folks I know who are committed Republicans? They own rental properties and car dealerships. I know actual millionaires, and they are rabid Republicans. They loooove Trump. And it ain’t for the tax cuts.
But let’s say they are precarious. Heck, let’s say they are poor. That does not translate to permission to take their brain out and flush it down the toilet.
I mean, I am reading about “are tarriffs bad” and “how do tarriffs work” spiking on internet searches…after the election. You would think someone getting crushed under the merciless weight of Biden’s Five Year Plan would stop and check that before they go vote for the guy who’s entire plan is literally just “Oooops! All tarriffs!!”
I am sure some folks are struggling. But a lot of the conservatives I see are driving big fancy trucks and buying enough guns to outfit a Ukrainian rifle platoon. That is not poor, that is “does not spend money responsibly.”
The question also remains: why do other, more precarious groups not fall for the flimflam, if it is economically based?
As far as solutions? I don’t know, Great Historian. I truly do not. I hope we are successful in keeping alive what I fear is dying, and preserving what I fear is ceasing to exist. But I do not know.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
I go to the Jemez area pretty often. Have a sculptor friend who is from the Jemez Pueblo. There’s also a biker bar in Jemez Springs that has great food and a huge roaring fire and live music. On my second year of travels out here, I spent a good part of the day at that public bathhouse. Those faucets and old bathtubs!!! Had a great time. I assume it is still run by the villagers who take turns for no pay running it and keepingvit clean. I have also done a privately owned one there. Large outside pools. What I need to do again is the hike up the little mountain to the natural one where the locals go. I did it a few years back. Clothing was optional.
There is a nice natural hot spring, literally side of the road in Montezuma, NM (outside of Las Vegas, NM). It is very neat and a favorite for easy access. On lands owned by Armand Hammer’s United World College.
Do you get out this way anymore? Would love to meet up if you do.
RevRick
@Ramona: I think you have a handle on what’s happening. But 75% of the federal debt is owned by Americans and American institutions. Most of the dollars used to fund our trade deficits are sloshing around in the world or sitting in foreign banks as a sort of reserve backing of their own currencies.
YY_Sima Qian
@Subsole: Human beings are mostly motivated by complex interplay of factors. Some people feel the social marginalization/discrimination much more strongly than economic precarity (because their are the targets), for others it is the reverse (because they are not the targets). Clearly, there is variation w/in groups, so from an analytical perspective it is not that useful to stay at the level of this or that demographic voted for or against a candidate, though such framing can certainly be effective as exercises in polemics (& there is place in politics for polemics).
I agree that the majority of the people who voted for Trumps & the rest of the reactionaries are not necessarily motivated by true economic hardship/insecurity, but I think there are enough of them (especially the low information voters) who are not yet committed members of the opposite coalition, that just peeling away 5% of the people who voted R in this election could dramatically change the electoral landscape.
Even more important than peeling away people who voted R this cycle is reactivating the millions of Biden voters who failed to show up this year. I would venture to guess that economic economic hardship/insecurity was a significant factor causing disillusionment for these missing voters. Other factors could include dissatisfaction w/ the Primacist orthodoxy of Dems’ foreign policy & the increasingly indefensible unconditional support of Israel. Misogyny is certainly another major factor that caused some of them to stay home, but we don’t necessarily need to reactivate all of the missing Biden voters, just half of them could have won Harris the election.
As I have written elsewhere, whatever coalition we try to assemble for electoral success would also be useful for mass civil disobedience, & even civil war should it ever come to that.
YY_Sima Qian
@Subsole: OT, a pedantic point: Sima Qian’s official title was Grand Historian. :-)
Geminid
@Quinerly: I’ve seen those natural springs above Las Vegas. They made me think Las Vegas could be a cool town to live in. I Iike eastern New Mexico. It’s like a transition zone from the Plains to the Rockies.
But I like all of New Mexico. When you mentioned your St. Louis friends who don’t understand stand why you moved, I thought, “Those must be the ones who’ve never visited New Mexico.” Few people are immune to the Land of Enchantment.
I have not been out since the Winter of 2019-2020. I’d be planning a trip this winter if I didn’t have so much to do here. But maybe I’ll come out next winter and check in with you.
I’m thinking of taking Amtrak this time. I love to drive, but trains have a lot going for them too. This route would take me past Albuquerque to Willisms, Arizona. That’s on the other side of Flastaff (or “Flag” as we road warriors say), and there is a train line operating from there to Grand Canyon Village, just a few hundred yards from the South Rim.
So I’d be stopping in Albuquerque not that far from where you live if I take the train. If I go by car again I’ll run through Glorieta Pass on I-40, which is even closer. Either way, we out to be able to meet up.
Bill Arnold
@Princess:
My lived experience is that this is the best economy in my working lifetime. (Pre Trump POTUS 47)
Excepting, perhaps, a couple of years right before the dot-com collapse/recession, and everyone with any sense knew that that bubble would shortly collapse in a recession, with they and/or their friends possibly being unemployed and burning through savings, if any.
2009(2007 late, officially) was very very bad, with a slow recovery.
The early 1980s recession was very very bad, with high unemployment and high inflation. (I observed a 20+ percent unemployment rate where I was living. Soul crushing for those people. Saw it in peoples’ eyes.)
The other recessions sucked, tool.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
I love Williams and that train. Not to mention “The World Famous Sultana Bar and Tattoos.” I spent about a week in the Williams area last December. I have been spending Christmas Eve and Christmas in Winslow at La Posada. Amtrak SW Chief stops right at La Posada. After Poco died and before JoJo burst on the scene (and before I made the decision to move here), I took the train from LV to Winslow and back. I am a big fan of the old trackside Harvey Hotels. The guy who saved La Posada 20 plus years ago has now saved LV’s Castenada. He also owns LV’s Plaza Hotel and The Legal Tender out here in Lamy. I spent a night at the Castenada in LV, hopped the train right out front and got off and spent a couple of nights at La Posada. That was January, 2020. The train was full of Amish making their way to Tijuana for dental work. There’s apparently a big Amish community there with a dental clinic that the Amish back east travel to. The things you learn when talking with strangers! Everyone was sick and coughing. Between that in January 2020 and prowling around on the Navajo Rez those first 2 weeks in March, 2020, I still am amazed I dodged Covid somehow.
I am about 5 miles from the historic Lamy Train Depot. That’s where Amtrak’s SW Chief stops for Santa Fe. Amtrak is now leasing the station from a group headed by George RR Martin. We have a community bar in half of the station. That’s my local watering hole. Trains stop twice a day. Very cool. We go out and greet them and wave when they pull away.
Stay in touch. Lamy and LV are in my neck of the woods. I kinda wish I had seriously considered LV for buying and living. I know I wish I could drag my house that I love from Eldorado to Lamy.
Feel free to get my email from Betty Cracker. Take care.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
Yep. Among other reasons, she is a literal mortal threat to many loyal Americans and allies.
RaflW
@Princess: “…my kid can’t move out because rent is insane.”
Yep. This is a big issue. Now, the GOP ‘solutions’ are either free market hokum, or morally reprehensible. But poorly informed people looked at the current situation and said, that’s Biden-Harris’s fault.
Yes, there’s decades of structural problems as to why housing is expensive and hard to get. I’m confident that the predatory house-buying-to-rent-out industry, being one of the problems, will be thoroughly unchallenged by Trumpers.
Subsole
@YY_Sima Qian:
Lol, point taken. And thank you for the always engaging discussion.
Ramona
@RevRick: I was aware that we the American public own the vast majority of our debt but thank you for disabusing me of the false notion that countries on the positive side of our trade deficit use all the dollars we give them to buy US Treasury bonds.