New @CookPolitical: Trump has fallen below 50% of the popular vote. With 152.7M votes counted, he leads Harris 49.99%-48.22%. https://t.co/TOY7uUr6HL pic.twitter.com/ovso9aqbue
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 16, 2024
This really should be read in full & I encourage you to click over. Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire — “Bipartisanship Is Dead As Lincoln”:
… [N]o book has been used and abused for cheap political purposes more than Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals, her examination of the inner dynamics of the Lincoln Cabinet during the Civil War. In brief, the book is a detailed examination of how Lincoln managed an executive branch made up of his erstwhile political opponents – William Seward, Salmon Chase – by adhering to a rule later explicated by another president, Lyndon Johnson, that it’s better to have them inside the tent, pissing out, than having them outside the tent, pissing in.
In the years since the book was published, its entire message has been diluted down to a pale appeal for bipartisanship, especially when there is a Democratic president. Barack Obama kept Iran-Contra-adjacent Republican hire Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense, and that worked out. He nominated Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to the post in his second term, and all hell broke loose in the confirmation process. What followed was Trump I, when, suddenly, Team Of Rivals (™) didn’t matter anymore, and we got Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who forgot $100 million in real estate assets when he filled out his financial disclosure paperwork, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who didn’t know the difference between proficiency and growth, a concept my father explained to me when I was 11 years old, but who supported arming teachers because of the dangers posed by “grizzlies” out west. And, against all possible odds, Trump II has assembled an even less qualified pack of bastards this time around. No talk of Team Of Rivals (™) this time around, unless you count Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr., which I don’t and neither should you.
In reality, Goodwin supplies the most eloquent rebuttal to the glib misuse of her work in that same book.
“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing.”
In short, to make the whole Team Of Rivals (™) work, you have to have an Abraham Lincoln to run the damn thing. And, in case you haven’t noticed, those are in pretty short supply in the days since John Wilkes Booth did more damage to national politics than any other actor until the election of Ronald Reagan…
Besides the necessity of having a Lincoln—or someone very much like him—to make it work, the other element of the Team Of Rivals (™) that’s worth noting is that Lincoln’s most formidable rivals on his team were all also Republicans. Seward, Welles, Stanton, Chase, and even Republican-come-lately Montgomery Blair were all Republicans. Hell, Seward was the most prominent national politician to join the new party when it was formed and his opposition to slavery was sufficiently eloquent and sufficiently passionate that Southern newspapers suggested that Seward could use a lesson similarly dealt out to Senator Charles Sumner by Rep. Preston Brooks.
The point is that the Team Of Rivals (™) is not an example of bipartisanship. The Democratic Party at the time was the party of secession, disunion, and slavery. Lincoln was not stupid. There was not a Democrat worth considering for a seat in his Cabinet. And that is where recent Democratic presidents have failed.
The modern Republican party is the party of grifters, lunatics, and authoritarianism, as well as being the modern party of secession, disunion and bigotry. This has been the case since the GOP acquired the prion disease when Reagan fed it the monkey brains in 1981. It is now in a prolonged end stage. The Democrats of Lincoln’s time were false to the Constitution, but they were formidable politicians. The Republicans of today are angry lightweights pitching to a nation gone apathetic everywhere except at the extremes. Which, of course, will be controlling all four major constitutional institutions for at least the next four years…
This thread has a fundamental flaw: Democrats are different from Republicans.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 10:51 AM
The parties have different bases that operate differently, want different things, tolerate or celebrate different things. “Why can’t democrats just do what republicans did?” is a question that should answer itself.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 10:52 AM
Democrats rely on votes from people who specifically oppose the type of stuff that republicans celebrate. I don’t understand why people pretend not to get this.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 10:53 AM
Then again, there’s the Run away! run away! (non)solution…
A Florida cruise company is offering a 4-year escape to Americans upset by the results of the Nov. 5 presidential election pic.twitter.com/FUy5OTqDhA
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 17, 2024
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Good morning.
Apparently, the blue half of the country is one large echo chamber, but the red half isn’t.
Of course, that was true when we won too.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
This should be a corollary to an internet law, or perhaps its own law.
Then again, maybe someone has already stated it, just more eloquently.
Spanky
A Florida cruise company?
No thanks.
(I just say no to cruises of any sort.)
Princess
Someone on bluesky (maybe one of you) summed up all the post mortem hot takes as one of “Bernie woulda won/Bloomberg woulda won,” and that seems accurate. It’s cheap pseudo analysis, always in conformity with priors.
BC in Illinois
We haven’t finished counting all the late ballots yet, and Trump is still trending at around 49.9% to 50.1% of the vote.
The latest figure I googled says that he won the popular vote by 2,692,883 votes.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2,868, 686 votes.
So he has slightly less of a mandate from the American people than she did.
Tony G
Ha. For myself, for about 24 hours after Election Day I was furiously angry (at the majority of American voters — it’s pointless to be angry at Trump). After that I’ve just had a terrible feeling of hopelessness. The United States, once again, has revealed its true character. I have no idea what, if anything, can be done about it.
NotMax
Weekend respite watch.
Skeevy kitchen gadgets.
;)
zhena gogolia
I would like to see all of Subsole’s comments from the thread below front-paged!
Tony G
@Tony G: … but since then I’ve been getting angry every time I read some “leftist”‘s argument that “Americans would not have voted for a right-wing fascist if only the other party had offered a leftist alternative”. I do not think that that’s how things work.
NotMax
On the non-respite front —
Oy vey. Legal Eagle is justifiably not a happy camper.
:)
geg6
@Tony G:
That’s me exactly. I know I have to snap out of it, but I’m not ready yet. Hopefully, soon.
artem1s
Nazi’s marching in Columbus, Ohio yesterday. They managed incite some minor violent reaction from a store owner and then the craven, mask wearing fascist pepper sprayed the business owners and maybe counter protesters with bear repellent. They were pulled over when they left town for piling people into the back of a moving van (no seats or safety belts is illegal). Probably because bystanders had it al online in moments. They were taken downtown. Probably will be charged with assault for the bear spray. If any of them have records that will come out. The Columbus Reddit users are trying to find out who they were – likely came in from some white flight suburb – didn’t look like rural kids. Looked more like FPS gamer cosplayers. Their gear was not cheap.
It has begun.
Baud
@Princess:
Post mortem is Latin for white people making excuses for other white people.
I’m done with all that.
Jeffro
Two quick notes here peeps:
morons“independents”. I am highly encouraged!Oh, one more:
3. I pulled out my old copy of MoveOn’s “50 Ways to Love Your Country” this past week…good stuff! Nothing pulls me out of a funk faster than actually doing something, and it has (you guessed it) 50 ways to do something instead of curl up in a ball. (Which is still ok! We all need to hit the ol’ fetal position once in a while!). “50 Ways” needs updating for our modern times, though. I ran it by Froette and she suggested “start a progressive podcast”, “make a funny pro-democracy TikTok”, etc.
Anyway, there’s some good football on later, so…Go Steelers, Go Chiefs, and have a happy Sunday!
zhena gogolia
@Tony G: I hate leftists with the fire of a thousand suns.
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: What did I ever do to you?
narya
I still want to put up billboards near all of the new places that will be/are being built with Big Biden Deal infrastructure money . . . seriously, if I win the lottery, I would totally do this. And, if the local rep and/or senator voted against it? I’d put THAT on the billboard too.
New Deal democrat
@BC in Illinois: In 2016 there were about 156M registered voters. This year (exact figure is hard to come by) there were probably about 171M registered voters, so Trump’s numerical margin is significantly less as a percentage.
if CA’s remaining votes split 60/40 as they have so far, Trump will have gained about 2.6M votes from 2020, about a 3.5% increase, which is in line with the increase in registered voters.
But Harris will wind up with 7M *fewer* votes than Biden got in 2020, or close to 10% less than the organic increase in registered voters.
No matter how you slice it, it turns out the story that a lot of Dem-leaning voters in 2020 sat this election out, turns out to have some validity.
On a totally different topic, I was at a party with some Dem neighbors yesterday, which confirmed conversations I’ve had with others:
– everybody is not sleeping well
– everybody has stopped watching or reading news outlets
– everybody, when they encounter a bunch of strangers is much more cautious, thinking, “Half of you voted for Trump.”
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … EC.Social-Network.Europa.EU on Mastodon:
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
narya
@Another Scott: I just happened to watch a documentary on Frank Zappa last night, which starts off with the Velvet Revolution.
Starfish
@artem1s: Please have someone get in touch with “It’s Going Down” and write an article for the anti-fascist news source.
suzanne
I have been thinking about the erosion of a public concept of solidarity. I don’t know how to restore it. Racism is certainly a part of that story, income inequality is another.
Starfish
Thank you, Anne Laurie, for including some bluesky links and reducing your reliance on X links.
Baud
Since 2008, Team Steady Progress has been in a battle with Team Burn It All Down. Well. Team BIAD has won. Try to figure out how to campaign in a post BIAD world is a waste of time.
Starfish
@suzanne: There were things that allowed us to live in a unified culture. Those things included a functioning mail system, functioning journalism, and a common media landscape (the basic television stations.)
Now, a lot of those things are gone.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: So…steer clear of the flames and hope the fire consumes more of them than us?
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: Something about November. On 21 November 2013, what was then called the “Euromaidan” protest began in Kyiv. Over the next four months it increased in momentum until in February, what is now known as the “Revolution of Dignity” led to then-President Yanukovych abandoning his post and fleeing the country.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Quinerly
@BC in Illinois: 😁
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
The Audacity of Krope
@Gin & Tonic: I would love to see something like that here. I worry Americans are too unwilling to disrupt…anything…to organize a protest that’s effective in that way.
Chris
Thank you.
The “Team of Rivals” thing feels like a category error. Lincoln may have nominated people who had previously run against him for X or Y job, he may have nominated people who disagreed with him on A or B issue, but what he didn’t do was nominate goddamn Confederates. (Even that turd Andrew Johnson wasn’t one).
That’s the Lincoln-era equivalent of nominating Republicans to cabinet posts in this day and age, or at least any Republican not named Liz Cheney. And, well, fuck that.
satby
@Baud: Exactly. Thank you.
And apologies to Schroedinger’s Cat for not being around much to defend her from being called a racist for just pointing it out.
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat: But that was not the case in a number of the swing states, where she actively campaigned. I think it’s at least WI MI PA GA where her raw vote totals were higher than Biden’s. So things are not so simple.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat:
I am definitely keeping that in the back of my mind the next time I’m on a business trip back to corporate HQ. The county in Upstate NY went 2:1 for Trump, & the Congressional District went for the Repubs by even more lopsided margins.
Dems won this R-leaning district in 2006 & 2008, & it was competitive as late as 2016.
suzanne
@Starfish: Agreed.
I remember reading an astute observation some time ago — can’t remember where or by whom — that we don’t just live in a market economy. We live in a market society. Which means we’re inherently in competition with one another. We conceive of ourselves, on some level, as products subject to laws of supply and demand. And the rewards for being a “better product” are more money, higher status, etc. And the consequences for those who are less successful at playing this game are resentment and even hate and violence.
I think there’s a lot of truth to this, and that it is ultimately inhumane.
narya
@Baud: Team BIAD got a head start–in 1980, with Reagan and Grover Norquist. I don’t have an answer to your question; I’m trying to believe that some possible responses will emerge. I don’t think there’s one thing Team SP can do right now except regroup, focus locally (and personally, if respite is needed), etc. I keep looking to Ben Wickler, and the work he did in Wisconsin; that’s one strategy. Stacey Abrams is another leader in this.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
Thanks for your comment back to me on that previous thread. Left you a comment.
Take care.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
Katelyn Burns (speaking about Bluesky but applicable to many spaces including BJ
Soprano2
I just read a USA Today story that was interviews of people who voted for TCFG asking why and what they hoped would get better. Lots of “deport those immigrants” and “prices will go down” but also things like “the country needs to come together” and “he’ll improve education (!)”. I think if they don’t repeal most of the Inflation Reduction Act TCFG will get credit for it from people like this, because they don’t think they’ve seen any benefits from it for their community yet. It was a sobering thing to read.
The Audacity of Krope
Liz Cheney is with the Confederates. She’s mad at MAGA for jumping over her to claim the harvest her wicked family has been growing for decades when it wasn’t quite as ripe as she might have liked.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: I live in a place where half my neighbors are Trumpers (and a much higher proportion than that in the more affluent surrounding area).
TBone
@suzanne: that’s why I’m going to the church where gay people can marry under a roof covered in solar panels. See you later today, Jackals.
different-church-lady
A four year cruise? Okay, I was wrong: there is something worse than Trump.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: I don’t see how mass deportations plus a global trade war doesn’t add up to a vicious recession plus high inflation. They won’t be able to ignore that.
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: Ship of Fools
Starfish
@satby: She wields racism to classify herself as most oppressed.
The reason the term BIPOC was created was to loosen the stranglehold that South Asians and East Asians were having on the majority of conversations on racism. The experience that Black and Indigenous people was far worse than what everyone else experienced when it came to racism.
When she declares that everyone who disagrees with her “Biden would have won!” position as racist, that is some pretty offensive nonsense. And it is a racism that only exists because she did not get what she wanted.
The Audacity of Krope
@Steve LaBonne: I’ve said a few times, I often worry about Biden’s investments in the economy paying off for Trump, but the one aspect of Trump I have faith in is his ability to screw shit up.
different-church-lady
@New Deal democrat: I can verify the first two. But to my surprise, last week my co-workers were much more forthcoming than usual in expressing their disdain and disgust — a lot of assumption that they were among the like-minded.
suzanne
@Soprano2: I listened to David Brooks this morning — yes, I know — and he observed that the people who voted for Trump but who aren’t MAGA psychos really want to return to the economy of 2019.
I think there’s truth to this. That’s a hard thing.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat: Yep. I just called off lunch plans in a rural/exurban locale because I just don’t want to deal with the rest of the jackwads that I know will be in the restaurant.
Instead, we’re all having dinner at the home of the most liberal of our liberal group, celebrating several dozen decades (combined) of fighting for criminal justice reform.
Much better use of our time.
Steve LaBonne
@suzanne: Let’s see how they like the economy of 1929.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: We’re in a post-fact era. Biden’s successes are immaterial — “Trump is president, therefore the economy is now better.” What the actual numbers say will not matter one bit.
Layer8Problem
@Gin & Tonic: That would be something to see. Maybe folks here don’t have the steel in the spine Ukraine has exhibited.
different-church-lady
@suzanne:
David, tell me more about these mythical creatures.
suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: You are deeply un-wrong.
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne: September 1929 or November 1929?
The Audacity of Krope
@different-church-lady: When the prices on half our food and all our manufactured goods jump because Trump unilaterally put a tax on them, people will notice.
When there’s no flu shot next autumn for ideological reasons, people will notice.
Will that result in more people understanding the consequences of their vote? I can hope, but probably not. But people are looking to Trump to fix things and he certainly won’t.
suzanne
@different-church-lady: There’s a lot of those people. There’s a lot of normies who aren’t anywhere near as invested in politics as we are, nor are into any cult of personality, but who show up sometimes and vote based on all manner of dumb shit.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: They won’t believe Trump has fixed everything until they stop seeing brown people.
Harrison Wesley
@different-church-lady: A new communicable disease in every port!
Another Scott
@Quinerly: 👍
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
According to Dave Liep’s atlas, Kamala’s % margin of victory in VA was bigger than her margin in NJ. And nobody’s thought of NJ as a swing state in roughly forever, so I’m gonna say Virginia’s unquestionably a blue state now. Not that it doesn’t have its red areas, but what state doesn’t?
rikyrah
@Baud:
Thanks Baud 👊🏾
Spanky
@The Audacity of Krope: It will be interesting to observe (I won’t be participating) how much of the stock markets tank in January as a bunch of individuals and maybe institutions get into a defensive crouch, monetarily.
Gin & Tonic
@Layer8Problem: They don’t. A protest of proportional size would mean between 6.5 and 7 million people in DC.
LAC
@satby: i am sure she knew you that you would, although you would get tired of trying to respond to the know it all and his cadre of pick me’s thanking him for his insight.
Chris
Also –
It did? Didn’t he leak like a sieve and then write a book on his way out trashing Obama and blaming him for every problem in the world today? I haven’t thought about him in a while, but my memory is that he was sold to us as yet another one of those Principled Nonpartisan Moderate Republican Men Of Integritude, and then as soon as he had to work under a Democratic president, it turned out to be crap. (See also Colin Powell in the early nineties).
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
We didn’t start the fire. ;-)
The Audacity of Krope
I’ve encountered two major categories. One is just vapid people who don’t bother to learn about issues and seemingly vote on flights of fancy. The other mainly care about their taxes and know they’re unlikely to be hurt by the bigots for one reason or another.
The latter group, to my mind, are worse than the true believer MAGAt bigots.
Layer8Problem
@suzanne:
“[Well-known oracle David Brooks sez] . . . people who voted for Trump but who aren’t MAGA psychos really want to return to the economy of 2019.”
Did those people specify how they expected that to be accomplished?
New Deal democrat
@Steve LaBonne: The US economy is very, very, *very* resilient. It takes a lot to bring it down, which is why the DOOOMers have been wrong about it for the last 15 years. And Biden has left Trump a very healthy economy, with the Fed now providing a tailwind.
What Trump will institute is called an”extractive” economy by the authors of “Why Nations Fail.” Over the longer term, banana republics have much poorer records, but it will take awhile for the positive momentum to give way.
suzanne
@Layer8Problem:
The extent of the strategy appears to be throwing a tantrum.
LAC
@Baud: Amen…
New Deal democrat
@Steve LaBonne:
Yes, but consider that in 2020 both Biden and Trump focused on the swing States as well. So the comparison in the 43 non-swing States at very least holds up.
Glory b
Haitians, who are here legally, are now quitting their jobs & leaving Springfield.
Moreno punctuated his victory/acceptance speech by yelling that he’s coming for them.
But it’s all about the 2019 economy?
Really?
The Audacity of Krope
Well, them, they won’t be welcome in my house.
Eunicecycle
@The Audacity of Krope: the only good thing I can see is that those investments are likely to be saved from DOGE, since they are in red states. Red state governors and Congressional members are likely to scream a lot if they are cancelled (even if they didn’t vote for them!) And we need those investments!
frosty
No. Just no, says this Ravens fan.
AM in NC
@New Deal democrat: All my peeps in NC are at the same place. When I go running, for example, I side eye every white man I meet now, and a lot of white women too. I’m a white woman, fyi.
I don’t trust my race outside of the very liberal areas I live in. And even here I got into it with a woman two days ago – white, in her early 60s/late 50s who gets all her “news” from “Christian News Channels” – she had never ever heard of the Trump Access Hollywood tape, OR the 28 women who accused him of sexual assault; OR that there were TWO separate juries that found him liable in the Jean Carroll case.
Just living in total non-reality.
So I just said, Lady, you voted for a serial sexual predator. Just google anything I am telling you. And she just kept denying, denying, denying.
I left telling her America is hopeless when stupid fucking morons can’t even be bothered to acknowledge basic, proven and publicized reality.
Not proud of myself. But these fuckers ar NEVER going to change their vote. All I can do is let them know we see them; we know who and what they are; and we’re not gonna let them exist peacefully for doing what they did and continue to do.
I’m fucking furious, and I WANT these ignorant cruel cultists to know it, and to know that WE know that EVERYTHING coming is on THEM.
I won’t get them to vote Dem ever. This lady is in a Christianist cult. But maybe if we constantly remind them very specifically of what they voted for EVERY time something awful happens that they caused, they stay home next time.
Soprano2
@satby: I agree that racism and sexism are big factors, but they aren’t the only ones. If we say “well this is because too many white people are racist and too many men and women are sexist” then where does that leave us?
Layer8Problem
@suzanne: I’m assured by the smart set here that blaming the voters is a bad. I’ll try blaming the media and see if that works.
The Audacity of Krope
@Eunicecycle: You may be right, but I’m at the point of rooting for shit to burn. I stocked up on popcorn to enjoy the show.
Soprano2
@Steve LaBonne: I agree, so we have to know that and be ready to take advantage of their disappointment.
artem1s
@Starfish:
Anarchist site? No thank you. Who do think is rooting for ‘burn it all down’? When I said ‘counter protestors’ all I meant were community members and bystanders generally jeering at these assholes. These cosplay Nazis are assholes who are trying to incite race riots they’ve been promised since Helter Skelter. I for one don’t want some anarchist asshole coming into my neighborhood and trashing the place so they can get attention. I hate those fuckers.
The actual police did their jobs. The community was happy to assist and gave them videos and eye witness testimony to help catch them in a non-violent way while they were going out of town and away from any residential neighborhood.
Soprano2
@suzanne: That’s what I’ve been saying!!!! They voted to go back to 2019. I can’t believe I agree with Brooks about something, but I do. We can’t make the mistake of discounting what these voters say because we want to believe something different. Hell I’d like to go back to 2019 without TCFG!
different-church-lady
@New Deal democrat: But one of the major reasons its resilient is because whenever there’s a major threat the federal government does a shit-ton to fix the problem.
MazeDancer
Almost half of Congress isn’t going away. Neither is public support for Dem policies.
The heartbreak is that it doesn’t count, doesn’t matter.
As long as there is Fox News and a right-wing tinge to all MSM, nothing will change.
Don’t know what to do about that.
Eunicecycle
A friend was filling up her car at a gas station and the guy at the opposite pump said, “Aren’t gas prices great, now that Trump is president?” And yes she said he was serious. She told him Trump isn’t actually the president yet, and did he really think the president controls gas prices? He was adamant that Trump was responsible for current gas prices.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope:
And I will bet you they don’t know squat about their own taxes.
Chris
@suzanne:
This.
And not just the way we think about ourselves, but the way we think about literally every aspect of society. Everything’s a market. Everything needs to justify its existence by whether or not it turns a profit. (Except the police and military, of course).
CaseyL
@Tony G:
I had just finished weaning myself off anti-depressants in mid-2016. Started taking them again after the election, because I would wake up multiple times per night feeling like my blood had turned to ice.
I had just weaned myself off anti-depressants about a year ago. Friday I gave up and started taking them again, because the constant undertow of rage and despair was just too much to bear.
(Clearly, this is all my fault for weaning myself off of anti-depressants. Sorry, everyone!)
The Audacity of Krope
@Soprano2: I tend to agree with with David Brooks on one theme I saw him bring up often in times of yore when I still subscribed to the Times.
We need to build more sense of community, especially in real life places. People are too isolated on the internet and in their friend circles these days. This invites distrust and for you to not think about needs beyond yourself and your nearest and dearest.
Chris
@The Audacity of Krope:
That doesn’t make her the Confederates, that makes her Andrew Johnson.
Which, arguably, is still a reason to exclude her, mind you.
LAC
@AM in NC: That is all you can do right now – let people like that know that you are not a safe haven for them to run their bullshit by just because you are white. No need to court their vote, since the reality is that they are not giving it.
tobie
@suzanne: Interest rates on mortgages have gone up since the election. Let’s see how much we hear about young people being locked out of home ownership now.
Harry
Please don’t support Elon
different-church-lady
@Harry: Forget it Harry, she’s never going to detox.
Sure Lurkalot
@zhena gogolia:
Subsole’s commentary last night’s thread was lit. This:
Someone should wag their finger back at Bernie every time he scolds Democrats about the working class because he sure has shit never assembled the working class into one unbreakable coalition. Because he conveniently ignores the elephant in the room.
suzanne
@Layer8Problem: I blame voters all the time: people are irrational and make bad decisions in all arenas of life, voting included.
I do think that some of our communications are not ideal, and that we have a significant brand problem, and that our side has not figured out how to be competitive on the current field of play (atomized media environment, short attention spans, etc.). I have and will continue to criticize that, because we donate a shit-ton of money to candidates and organizations on this site….. and that money is intended to be spent on doing this stuff well.
But, yeah: people are irrational and make bad decisions.
Soprano2
@Glory b: Different people vote how they do for different reasons. I think we can ignore the MAGA true believers, but we need to listen to the other people who voted for TCFG because we can get them back.
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: That’s why I’m not a worshipper of how great it would be if everyone could work at home. I think too much of that is corrosive to our society.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
His acolyte Tulsi Gabbard is about to sell this country out to the Russians. He needs to distract people from his silence about that.
tobie
@Baud: I think what we didn’t anticipate in 2008 was how big Team BIAD would get in the Democratic Party by 2016. Bernie Sanders praises Trump for proposing a cap on credit card late fees at $10. Of course he forgets that Biden’s $8 cap was overturned by a Trump-appointed judge in Texas. I have no doubt that conservative judges who worked overtime to hamstring Biden will now approve everything Trump does.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-blocks-rule-capping-credit-card-late-fees-8-2024-05-10/
Chris
@Starfish:
Wholeheartedly seconded.
Another Scott
@suzanne: As usual with Brooks, IMHO, his answer is too pat and too flippant.
Bill Conerly at Forbes in August 2019:
The economy was muddling through as it usually does. As Obama rightly says, DJT inherited his good economy and managed not to break it. It wasn’t some economic paradise under DJT as a lot of the pundits want us to believe.
The thing about perceptions is that they frame reality, of course. Voters believe what they want and vote the way they want, and tell exit pollers what they want. While all of that has to be considered, we also have to consider that humans really, really don’t like change. Moving forward is a slog and always has fits and starts and reversals. Some people will always resent it and vote accordingly.
And Harris had several weights, that we all know and have discussed here, holding her back.
All that said, Brooks is bad, and should be avoided. ;-)
My $0.02.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
@different-church-lady: I am just trying to get people to be more cautious about economic prognostications. Right after Trump’s 2016 victory, Paul Krugman Xit that there was going to be a deep recession, then walked it back. And of course there wasn’t, and the first 3 years of Trump’s Presidency were pretty good (e.t.a.: economically speaking).
So we already have a point of comparison.
lowtechcyclist
@suzanne:
Since housing prices are seen as one of the big differences in the economy between Trump’s term and Biden’s term (the other being inflation), I’ve been wondering about that aspect of it. Around here (southern MD), 2021 was the year that house prices suddenly skyrocketed after many years of only gradual increases.
Was it like that everywhere? I’ve wondered for years why the change was so sudden.
But whatever the reason, there’s no way to rewind housing prices to 2019 levels, unless they deport a shitload of immigrants who are doing well enough to own their homes.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: I think a substatial portion of Harris’s undervote wasn’t Democratic voters staying home, but instead was from 2020 Biden-voting Independents who came out again this year but flipped to Trump. I haven’t gotten into the numbers yet, but I believe Biden carried a majority of Independent voters in 2020.
This election reminded me some of the 2021 Governor’s election in Virginia, which saw a 12 ppint swing between Biden’s total a year before and Youngkin’s two point margin of victory. There was a definite difference in base motivation; Republicans were hungry compared to Democrats. That may in be attributed in part to differences in candidate and campaign quality.
But I think a big portion of that swing was Independents moving from Biden to Youngkin. Indies run around 32% of the electorate here, and if one out of eight of them flipped that would have accounted for 8 of those 12 points Youngkin gained over Biden.
One big difference: the stakes this year nationally were much, much higher than in Virginia in 2021.
The Audacity of Krope
See? I get it, though there’s tension here with my notion that employers have far too much power over employees.
Some jobs can easily be done from home and that option should be available to people who can benefit from it. Especially when considering that our transportation infrastructure is a shambles and, in conjunction with housing policy, has been atomizing people long before the internet came on the scene.
Yes, work is a place where a sense of community can develop. It isn’t the only one, though, just the one we’re literally forced to engage with.
Almost Retired
Here in California, the Governor and AG are convening a special session on December 2nd to “protect California values” against the incoming administration. Looks like it will center on litigation directed at climate change, reproductive rights and immigration. I hope it’s a real thing, and not performative. A ray of hope, I guess, although I suspect we wildly over-estimate how relatively safe we’ll be in the big blue states.
I don’t want to go back to the days where the local radio stations followed up the weather and surf updates with the morning smog report. Not to mention back alley abortions, mass deportations, sweatshops, censored textbooks, obliterating legal protections for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks, etc. And just like that, I went from mildly hopeful to utterly despondent in the course of a two paragraph comment.
Starfish
@artem1s:
Your people did right by stopping the vehicles that they were traveling in.
This type of reporting helps organize an opposition to the Nazis. Where I live, opposition usually involves recognizing Nazi flyers and Nazi stickers and pulling them down and scraping them off.
Pictures are usually helpful in the event that the cosplay Nazis are repeatedly engaging in this type of behavior and doing things that are a threat to the community.
Most antifascists are not Rose City Antifa.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: Maybe we should think of it as people wanting to go back to before Covid, because they don’t remember details but they generally feel better about how life was then. Yelling at voters that the reasons they voted were wrong and stupid isn’t how to win them back. I’m so afraid Democrats are going to learn the wrong lesson from this loss.
Chris
@Eunicecycle:
The only way gas prices have moved here in the last couple weeks is up.
Not significantly. Gas prices has been fine for the last few years, fluttering up and down but never skyrocketing up like they did a few years ago. In any real world sense, gas prices haven’t fucking changed.
This is why I’m skeptical of people saying now Trump’s going to have to explain to people why he can’t bring prices down. The media is going to stop rebroadcasting anything about high prices in mid January at the latest, Trump voters will assure everyone that prices have gone down, and by this time next year no one will even remember that there was a time when prices were lower.
tobie
@New Deal democrat: Agree. And Trump will put his name on every popular provision that Biden proposed but that Republican judges in TX overturned. There’s still plenty of room for fuck-ups and these folks don’t know how to govern so an environmental disaster or a pandemic will reveal them.
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: It’s one of the few places where we’re required to interact with people who are different from us.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: While I agree VA is blue, I don’t think we can take anything for granted.
One of the things that concerned me about the immediate post-election reporting was that it was taking so long for the AP to “call” Virginia for Harris. She won Fairfax County by 2:1, and it was higher than that in Arlington, but it still took a long time for them to decide that she won it.
That was and is concerning, IMHO.
We will have to fight like hell in the state elections next year. We will always have to fight like hell going forward – we cannot take anything for granted. Similarly in NJ, probably.
The monsters aren’t going away. We have to do the work.
Best wishes,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
2.75% mortgage rates, a 50+ year low, brought potential buyers out in droves (I.e., demand surged).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US
And a shortage of timber for building because of COVID restrictions in Canada drove construction prices for new housing much higher.
Baud
People haven’t figured out how to talk to the majority of white voters since 1964. I don’t know why folks think they’re going to figure it out now.
Quinerly
@Starfish:
Must get a hand clapping emoji. TY
trollhattan
@Spanky: Hey now, my time on the S.S. Norovirus was splendid I tell you, splendid.
All those buffets and you can still lose weight.
pika
@lowtechcyclist: I think that leap in housing prices is everywhere–it’s here in Rochester, NY, manifesting as cash-only offers from wealthy white folks buying houses for adult kids who feel it’s their divine right to own property by 25, and cash-only offers from companies seeking to extract housing supply for their portfolios and/or rent out at prices that I used to associate with Manhattan. Add those waves to the earlier one that swept through the depressed-price housing supply after the 2008 crisis, and, well, at least in part, there we go
Chris
@The Audacity of Krope:
In fact, I’d say one of the biggest problems with our society today is work increasingly turning into the only place of socialization and community, something that goes hand in hand with suzanne’s observation above that we live in a market society. Work isn’t where we need more human interaction.
The Audacity of Krope
@Soprano2: It is. But I think to have much impact, I think there needs to be more focus on voluntary engagement in the community.
I love my coworkers and engage with them happily, but they aren’t my friends. And if I had a job that were possible to do from home, I’d be really resentful if I were forced to commute every day for no reason.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Pretty much. Nixon and Wallace pried the Confederacy away from the Democrats and just look at that map today. Meanwhile, that’s where population growth is occurring.
And while the Civil Rights Act seems intact, look what the Supremes did to the VRA. (No not you, Diana Ross. You’re still golden.)
eclare
@AM in NC:
Wow.
suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah, housing costs — purchase prices and rents — have absolutely shot up since the pandemic. Pretty much everywhere, though of course some markets are nuttier than others. We bought our house here in PGH right before everything went insane in 2020, and it has approximately doubled in value in those four years. Which is insane.
This is a multi-causal issue, but it really sucks. Housing costs are also not captured in most measures of inflation. So costs have indeed gone up for a lot of people, or their ability to move to certain places has been seriously curtailed.
New Deal democrat
@suzanne: Inforgot to include in my previous response that, in response to ongoing COVID restrictions and fears in the US, existing houses put on the market dropped to historical lows in 2020-21:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUUS
Constricted supply + spike in demand + spike in building costs = big increase in house prices
Quinerly
@Geminid:
THIS!!!
suzanne
@Another Scott: For normies, “the economy” means their buying power. Not the stock market or yield curve or any of that. I have noted here, for illustrative purposes only, that my income has gone up 30% since 2020, due to some intentional career moves as well as COLA raises, and yet living in more of the country is out of my financial reach now than it was in 2019. If I was renting, I’d be absolutely fucked.
I think Brooks has a point.
The Audacity of Krope
🎶If there’s a point to being good
Then where’s my reward?
The good die young and poor
I gave it all I could🎶
RevRick
@BC in Illinois: Since 1900, Trump’s win is the second narrowest; only Kennedy’s in 1960 was narrower, a 0.1% squeaker. The other narrow wins were Carter by 2.1% over Ford, Bush by 2.4% over Kerry, Wilson by 3.1% over Hughes, Obama by 3.9% over Romney, and Biden by 4.4% over Trump.
Of course, both Bush and Trump lost the popular vote their first time.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
OK, but that wasn’t a huge drop from 2019, when they’d been in the mid to upper 3’s. And by April 2022, mortgage rates had hit 5% (highest they’d been in over 11 years, per your link) and kept right on going. But the housing market didn’t seem to notice. So the pieces don’t seem to fit together.
suzanne
@New Deal democrat: Yeah, agreed. There’s multiple causes to the housing issue.
1) New home starts dropped off a cliff in 2008 and are only getting back to something normal now, so we have almost 20 years of insufficient supply.
2) Zoning and design fuckery that has made development difficult and incentivized only expensive homes.
3) Demographic changes– average household size is the smallest it’s ever been, so we need more smaller homes than we have
4) Urbanization — overall trend is for more people to collect in metro areas and cities have historically underbuilt
5) AirBNB incentivized property speculation and basically took housing units off the market
6) Big home investors like Blackrock and Invitation buying up entire neighborhoods
Baud
Via Blue sky
suzanne
Also, other parts of the market haven’t been great, so companies and individuals have parked money in real estate.
Quinerly
Pollster Ann Selzer leaving the polling biz.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2024/11/17/ann-selzer-conducts-iowa-poll-ending-election-polling-moving-to-other-opportunities/76334909007/
Baud
@Quinerly:
Good on her for accepting accountability.
eclare
@Quinerly:
Wow. Thanks!
Quinerly
“This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools. It’s the dawn of a new age of political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump
AM in NC
@Chris: This is what I mean when I say it is on US to bring this to people’s attention in the real world. Things like printing up hundreds of stickers with:
Gas 11/15/24: $2.99 a gallon – THANKS DEMOCRATS!!!
Gas today: (arrow pointing in one direction) THANKS REPUBLICANS!!
And you position the sticker so the arrow points to the pump price (which will have gone up).
Do this for eggs, milk, bacon, etc. and paste these stickers all over WALMart Target, Kroger, etc.
Make reality intrude into their media bubble. If tens of thousands of us all do this, leaving millions of stickers for people to see – it may move the normies and the disengaged.
We are going to have to get really creative thinking ways to reach people outside of media channels. Because those channels aren’t just failing us, they are actively seeking to undermine and harm us.
Quinerly
@eclare:
Got your email. Thanks! Will message you back. Email got buried. Just flashed on it when I saw your nym.
Layer8Problem
This is not directed at you suzanne because I know how hard it is to get away from this stuff, but will there ever be a time where people stop reading and citing David Brooks and his cohort because they have been wrong too many times and engaged in High Broderism too many times and pushed too much anodyne mush to be relied on? I have a loved one who says “Brooks wrote something really good,” or “Maureen Dowd said [whatever, with alliteration]”. I have said “Great, but I don’t trust them.” The loved one takes it personally.
Another Scott
@suzanne: We bought our house in 1998. We had to stretch a bit to do it. If we had tried to buy it in 2019 it would have been impossible.
My inlaws bought a new house about a 10 minute walk from Walden Pond on an engineer’s and a government secretary’s salary in the 1960s. It’s supposedly worth $1.3M now. It’s nuts.
I get that housing is nuts in too many places. There have been many times in the last 40+ years when housing is nuts, and it usually only takes a disaster for the market to cut prices (instead they wait to sell).
But I think that a bigger factor in presidential elections is the trope of “have a beer with” rather than reality of particular numbers. The economy was still relatively horrible in 1984, but RWR ran the table.
Too many of Biden’s voters didn’t vote for Harris. I, personally, don’t think that they stayed home because of particular family budget numbers. They could have voted for the other guy if they actually liked his “concepts of a plan”… They couldn’t bother to vote for her because of X, Y, Z, while they often say that it’s something else (that the president doesn’t control).
FWIW.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
eclare
@Quinerly:
No biggie! No response required.
trollhattan
@suzanne: Agree that housing starts have never recovered from the Great Recession. Plus, lending to anybody who could fog a mirror via neg-am, variable-rate 100% mortgages went to the landfill.
Cheryl from Maryland
@lowtechcyclist: here in MoCo MD, new town houses within walking distance to a subway stop now have an asking price of 100K less than last year. They are still hideously expensive and not affordable as a starter home. I’m guessing many Trump supporters will be unhappy about the decrease in their home equity. That being said, the townhouses in my development are somewhat affordable (minute drive from Metro stop; 8 buses an hour during the rush; 20 minute walk), but every time one comes up for sale, some asshole buys it to be a landlord.
suzanne
@Layer8Problem: They can be right about some stuff and wrong about other stuff, and I think it’s reasonable to cite stuff they’re right about, or bring it up as a point of discussion. Obviously YMMV. It’s never meant as a categorical endorsement of their oeuvre.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Starfish: I just finished reading Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. The central character talks about having difficulty articulating his experience of racism because it’s missing that original American sin of slavery. It’s a good novel.
The Audacity of Krope
This right here is the reason housing affordability will never be a winning issue while we’re under the tyrannical rule of capital.
oldgold
@Quinerly:
Buttercup Selzer, the perennial A+ pollster, seen as damn near as an oracle in the Hawkeye State, had Harris up by 4 points in Iowa several days ahead of the election. Trump won by 13.3
suzanne
@Another Scott:
Disagree. I think people get disheartened when their financial lives get hard, or when other things get hard. And basically opt out with a “fuck it” attitude. Lots of people think that none of this makes any difference. That’s hard.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: The bulk of the industrial development spurred by the IRA & the CHIPS Act are in deep red or R-leaning states, & a lot of them are just ending the construction phase & entering into hiring/production phase. If Trump actually follows through on his campaign quip of allowing Chinese EV & battery makers to invest in manufacturing in the US, the bulk if is certain to go to red states.
Then again, Trump will probably junk the IRA, so…
The Audacity of Krope
Self Fulfilling Prophecies, LLC’s oldest and best selling product…
suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope: Again…. people are irrational and make bad decisions.
Starfish
@AM in NC: You know, this focus on eggs, milk and bacon seems a little dated. They need to be more inclusive of millennials by including avocados in that grocery basket.
oldgold
@Quinerly:
Buttercup Selzer, a perennial A+ pollster, considered damn near an oracle in the Hawkeye State, had Harris up by 4% in Iowa several days ahead of the election. Trump won Iowa by 13.3%. So, she was off an almost unbelievable 17.3 %!
Given that, it is probably time to take an Alka-Selzer and retire.
karen marie
@NotMax: He’s very helpful for raising anxiety and increasing depression. One of those slick fast talkers. No thanks.
Quinerly
“All of these undercover Trump people are out,” says Robert Cahaly, a pollster and strategist at the right-leaning Trafalgar Group. “People that would have hidden a week or so ago aren’t hiding anymore.”
https://ssnews.page.link/ezHyTcstyTX8kZCL7
different-church-lady
@Layer8Problem: Sadly there is no penalty for being chronically wrong in a newspaper.
The Audacity of Krope
@Quinerly: Nazis gonna be out and proud Nazis now.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Layer8Problem: once upon a time Bemused Senior and I watched a number of talking heads and news programs (MacNeil/Lehrer now known as the News Hour, Agronsky and Company, even the McLaughlin Group).
These days I avoid even NPR. David Brooks was appalling even years ago and I’m sure he’s no better today.
BJ and TPM are my starting points for connection to news these days, I follow links of interest.
Quinerly
@Starfish:
Avocados $1 a piece in Sprouts Market here.
Much less in Walmart Super Center.
The Audacity of Krope
Even more sadly, that seems to be a highly sought after trait in the upper echelons of political reporting and opinionating.
Starfish
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thank you for the book recommendation! I added it to my reading list.
I just recently finished R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: Biden was doomed because he couldn’t fix greed.
My tongue is not in my cheek.
sab
@Glory b: And that asshole is himself an immigrant.
Another Scott
@Starfish: My J likes to watch Elsbeth on CBS (though she’s starting to find it annoying). The most recent episode mentioned the Avocado Cartel…
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
So, we can finally kill “people vote for president based on gas prices” as a trope, yes?
The Audacity of Krope
Not exactly. Maybe update it to “people vote for President based on manufactured impressions of gas prices that don’t reflect world events or the decisions made by leaders that might make a marginal impact.”
Jeffro
@frosty: the Ravens are a good team! just not one I root for. =)
LAC
@suzanne: But when folks like that vote against their economic interests for 20, 30, 40 years, what did they think was going happen? I remember reading an article several years ago where in either Kentucky or Tennessee voters elected the governor who said clearly that he was going to cut back Medicaid, with the usual coded nonsense about it being abused by certain people. The story had anxious pinched faced people sitting on porches in sepia tones wondering how they will now get their dyalsis treatments. Did they just think it was going to hit “those” people?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Starfish: I liked Yellowface. June is such a great unreliable narrator.
Layer8Problem
@suzanne: I wait for the article saying they are sorry, they have soft pedaled creeping fascism and enabled bad actors with their easy listening takes, assisting in causing real pain for the less well born or well compensated, in return for seats at well-catered conference panels and think tank cocktail parties.
Jeffro
@suzanne:
all true (and a great summary btw)
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: Maybe! But it, like many things, might only apply to reporting on Democrats.
R^2 = 0.2244 – pretty weak correlation.
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Starfish
@Cheryl from Maryland:
This is one of those “we are living in divergent realities” issues. A lot of rural red states did not experience the same run up in housing costs so they see people in blue states as a bunch of assholes trying to buy million dollar houses as opposed to “there is nothing much cheaper than a million dollar house in that area.”
The Audacity of Krope
Repeat everywhere ad infinitum.
The Thin Black Duke
While my wife and I were out driving around Westfield, MA, yesterday we saw a truck convoy with big-ass TRUMP signs waving. It was scary. But yeah, keep telling yourself it’s all about the price of eggs.
White people will come back to the Democratic Party when they throw POC under the bus.
frosty
@Jeffro: I reluctantly say the same thing about the Chiefs. The loss in the playoffs last year stung.
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
There called Massholes for good reason.
Starfish
@The Thin Black Duke: Western, MA is so freaking racist
There is a lot of “there is no racism around here” New England racism that goes on in New England. It is bananas.
Chief Oshkosh
@lowtechcyclist:
Rhode Island? Maybe?
YY_Sima Qian
Something to be vigilant about:
Layer8Problem
@The Thin Black Duke: Yet another manifestation of economic anxiety.
The Audacity of Krope
@Starfish: It’s usually the Cape I deem the racist segment of the state, but I haven’t spent a lot of time in the sticks out West.
artem1s
@Another Scott: Real Estate speculators discovered people want to work close to where they live and mid sized cities are regaining population in especially in the Mid West/rust belt cities that were decimated by White flight. Lots and lots of low cost houses that got foreclosed on during the W crash and have been sitting in land banks were the first to be gobbled up. Of course cash buyers way over paid. Low interest rates coming out the W crash let them mortgage and hold as rentals or Airbnbs, so they didn’t have to price to sell quickly. They would start the bidding at 2-3X what they paid based on a slapdash renovation. The next set of group buyers would grab them and then mortgage at 2x what they bought it for. I saw house values in high investment/desirable areas go from $75K to $400-$500K in 5-10 years with no real structural improvements. They were getting flipped from one set of out of state investors to another. Around the beginning of ’24 they started to drop their prices and dump some of their least profitable portfolios because the mortgages had reached the point where the initial rates were going to adjust.
While all this has been going on the developers have also swooped in and started building new units on inner city vacant land (lots of cities tore down houses after W’s bubble burst rather than trying to maintain them). All of them with ridiculous tax abatements. Those units are going for 1.5-2-3x what existing stock goes for.
These investors were treating the mortgages as banks to pay for the next purchase. The Ponzi schemes are coming close to a head where a lot of these investors will start to default and walk away leaving these cities with huge swaths of vacant houses in their landbanks and bringing in no property taxes and costing lots to maintain. Meanwhile actual residents who want to buy can’t afford to even if they have a property to sell because the buyers of existing property have moved on to buying up the tax abated properties.
It’s gonna be a real shit show when this developer’s housing bubble pops this time. Let’s see how fast TCF bails out the banks who have refused to lend to him since the 1990’s. Gonna be fun when Russian mobsters own all the land in the US.
TBone
Favorite part of church today (in addition to hearing the Priest say the word ‘resistance’ several times).
Part of the Prayer of the People:
My “Lord have mercy” was a little louder for that part!
Tazj
@New Deal democrat: Right, the only thing we can be sure about is the thing Trump most cares about is himself. Now that he has his get out of jail free card thanks to the presidency who really knows what he’s going to do, besides appointing horrible people to positions of power in government. Maybe he’ll golf and hold press conferences telling everyone how great he is.
Things will go badly for many people, they already have thanks to Trump but the economy might be ok for a little while.
The Thin Black Duke
Meanwhile, in the latest installment of Leopards Eating Faces…
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
A decline from 3.75% to 2.75% doesn’t seem like much, but the monthly payment on a $300,000 mortgage at 3.75% is $1,762.
The monthly payment on a $300,000 mortgage at 2.75% is $1,225.
That $537/month difference in the monthly budget is actually a pretty big deal for potential home buyers.
Chief Oshkosh
@Layer8Problem: If we has a useful media, they would have explained to the population so, so many things. Like, for instance, having prices regress to 2019 levels means that we’d have undergone another Great Recession, if not an actual Great Depression.
But fuck ’em. If people are too fucking stupid to understand that, well I guess all I can do is become one of the fleecers.*
*Not really. Fleecing sound like a lot of work. And I’m lazy.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chief Oshkosh: nah, Rhode Island has plenty of Republican Catholics. Although there’s a lot of corruption in both parties there from what I understand.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
Left you a comment on that old thread where we were discussing hot springs. If I am home in the yard, I hear Amtrak’s SW Chief twice a day when it stops in Lamy for Santa Fe passengers. If I am in Lamy, I am one of the locals waving at you when you pull away. If you take the train out here, you are practically in my backyard.
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2:
HinTN
@Another Scott:
Brooks is bad, and should be avoided. 100%
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s similar to what happened in the UK under the Tories from Thatcher onwards. The one big difference is the public goods were sold to corporations* rather than oligarchs. Generally has resulted in worse services, higher costs, increased subsidies, and increased government deficits
*in many cases European state owned ones Euro Snark
Dave
@Soprano2: Right there is an ignorant goddamned painfully ignorant but not inherently malignant set of voters that exist and have to be addressed.
The truly aware ugly voters are a waste of time for the most part.
So we need to focus on the ignorant and the disengaged and neither of those are exactly easy in the current environment but we also have to begin shaping that environment which is again not easy at all but necessary.
TBone
Today in church the Priest also highlighted false prophets and prescriptions (The Great Disappointment).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerism
YY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: ”Conservatism” has devolved considerably since the Reagan/Thatcher days, now there is zero pretense of public service & common good.
suzanne
@LAC:
The extent of the thinking is “this sucks, let’s throw the bums out”.
As we keep noting….. incumbents keep getting their asses kicked worldwide.
Glidwrith
@Soprano2: “If too many white people are racist and too many white men and women are sexist then where does that leave us?”
Fucked.
Seriously, these MAGAts have said multiple times they want mass deportations. We’re either going to get mass extermination or we get the multicultural and racial country we are moving towards. Whites aren’t going to get any less bigoted, just more outnumbered, though they get a helpful boost from bigots of other minorities. The only saving grace is roughly 40% of us whites do want that multiracial society and that can lend some weight to slowing these fuckers down.
Starfish
My mom, who did not vote for President, is calling me to complain about Pete Hegseth. 😂😂
Aziz, light!
I couldn’t afford to buy a house until I turned 60, so I’m not sympathetic to the yoots who hate boomers because they think we all had wealth and comfort handed to us. But housing costs must have been a very big factor in motivating voters. Of course they are dreaming if they think the people coming into power are going to lower prices and rents by any means other than a long global recession.
I frequently get mailed “handwritten” cards by local nobodies who are repping institutional buyers, offering to buy my house as is for cash. They want to turn my small starter home into a pricy rental. This trend is bad for everyone but I don’t know how anyone can stop it.
Baud
@Starfish: Tell her you love Pete
ETA: And especially his Crusades inspired Nazi tattoo.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@kalakal: Russian oligarchs bought quite a bit in London too. Gory details available in Oliver Bullough’s Moneyland.
Tazj
@TBone: Is this a Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal or Orthodox Chirch?
Quinerly
Haitians in Springfield fleeing. I guess no one needs reminding that they are here legally.
“Unofficial results from the presidential election found that Trump beat Harris by fewer than 150 votes in Springfield despite his making false claims about immigrants in the Ohio city a cornerstone of his anti-immigration election campaign.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/17/haitian-immigrants-springfield-ohio-trump-election
Spanky
@The Thin Black Duke: Here, let me play my tiny violin for them.
Miss Bianca
@New Deal democrat:
You mean…I am not alone?/
Except for, in my case, I get to look around and think, “75 percent of you voted for Trump.” (extremely red portion of “Blue State CO.”)
Princess
@New Deal democrat:
– everybody, when they encounter a bunch of strangers is much more cautious, thinking, “Half of you voted for Trump.”
Really, it’s about time we started recognizing and admitting this (by we I mean white people). And for those of us who like me are in academic communities that shade left, our version of that needs to be “half of you voted third party or sat out and spent the last months of the campaign persuading others to do likewise because you needed to teach Harris a lesson.” And my contempt for them is equal to my contempt for Trump voters. Maybe it’s even higher in my case because I know them personally and I know they should know better. And I know a lot of them were doing it for the lefty cred they hoped to earn among their friends.
TBone
Over at Atrios, he posted a photo of Elno, Don, Jr., and RFK, Jr. (et al.) on an airplane with a large FcDonald’s “feast” spread out before them.
😆🤮
Sister Golden Bear
@Sure Lurkalot:
And who all live/work in either DC or NYC.
Miss Bianca
@New Deal democrat:
You mean, I am not alone?/
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
Glad to see you again. Wish it were under better circumstances.
Layer8Problem
@Miss Bianca: Good to see you by the way.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Miss Bianca: you are among friends here.
TBone
@Tazj: Episcopal. Solar panels cover the roof.
It is a lovely place to find fellowship and to rejoin an IRL community after years of living like solitary, feral alleycats. We didn’t stay for the after-service coffee hour to meet people, but will start doing that soonish.
Did you see my comment at #189?
Hubby, being lapsed Catholic, knows how to genuflect, something I’ve never done ever once in my entire life.
Soprano2
Yes, that’s exactly what they thought.
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s about more than one thing, though. Do you think any of us believe racism isn’t a significant factor in how people vote?
p.a.
Via Open Secrets, CNBC, Barry Ritholtz, click my nym for graph of top 10 corporate funders 2024 election.
Guess photos, graphs, artwork can’t be posted by commenters. Just as well…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This is goes back even this place is basically re-writing the same 3 hot takes and ignoring everything else.
Manufacturing is the the reason why this country is simultaneously in the worst of times and the best of times is because the Biden administration but a lot of restrictions on trade with China on top of the stuff the Trump admin did. The end result is gone are the days cheap appliances while at the same time domestic manufacturing can’t keep up with demand.
I worked in manufacturing since the 80s and I have never seen the job market this hot. I have had senior VPs at the company I work for beg me not to quit for another job. and I am just some in electronic technician. Naturally they wanted me to work myself to death because they can’t hire more people, I told them no, and they had to eat it. It looks like Trump would have to fuck up in Winston Churchill as the Exchequer kind of way to effect my employment.
Of course, since almost no white people work in manufacturing now, because that ichy, boring, work with your hands kind of stuff, no one one white works in it, so that means in-sourcing isn’t happening.
TBone
@p.a.: 👍 thank you!
Soprano2
@Miss Bianca: Come sit by me.
Jeffro
@Soprano2:
@Sure Lurkalot:
Brooks never seems to want to talk about the manipulation of low-info (read: most) American by certain elites against other elites. It’s always this fake “I have my finger on the pulse…now let me pontificate away…” stuff
Just like he never wants to talk about how the lack of highly progressive taxation helps those same certain elites fund their never-ending war against the collective good.
Peale
@Cheryl from Maryland: Regarding the decline in equity, it doesn’t look to me that Americans are cashing out on their equity. Probably because interest rates remain high and lending standards high as well. So I don’t think this is going to be a repeat of 2010 where everyone is underwater on their mortgages if housing prices come down. At least not yet.
Right now the housing market is tilted towards the “already made it”, say the upper 20% of the income bracket. Those people who already have expensive houses selling their already houses to equally well heeled newbies. Otherwise, its death, divorce and bankruptcy bringing housing on the market. I think housing prices will come down somewhat when interest rates come down and the market runs out of upper income people who want to move.
Jeffro
@Starfish: “NO BACKSIES, MOM!”
(sorry)
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian:
Agreed. The Royal Mail and the ‘privatization by stealth’ of the NHS being more recent examples
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Oligarchs of every nation, due to an incredibly corrupt tax system ‘non- doms’ and insane price inflation London property is a great place to park money
Aziz, light!
@Glidwrith: There won’t be any mass deportations. A few hundred migrant workers will be rounded up here and there as a form of racist cosplay with sensational TV coverage. This media bullshit will appease the haters, more or less. The corporations who employ all those beleaguered, underpaid workers are not going to give them up because their industries would collapse without them.
hitchhiker
@Baud: You’re exactly right.
HinTN
@The Thin Black Duke: Hoocouldanode?
AM in NC
@Princess: Yep. And we need to figure out how to get this across to them without alienating them for next time.
Maybe every time something bad happens, say, gently, “this wouldn’t have happened with Democrats in power. We might not have gotten everything we wanted with Harris/Dems, but we surely would not have had THIS happen”. And do that every single time something awful happens.
Maybe it sinks in that better is in fact BETTER, and worse is in fact WORSE. So next time, choose BETTER. Even if not perfect.
Gravenstone
@Steve LaBonne: They won’t ignore it. They’ll be lead to blame Democrats for it. Logic won’t even be in the same state, let alone conversation.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: Even a blind squirrel, etc.
Gravenstone
Good luck convincing our business titans to agree to this. They finally got their post-COVID profit seeking and they will never surrender that without threat of bloodshed – theirs.
Another Scott
@Gravenstone: “Bush kept us safe!”
We’ve been here before.
It’s a slog, it’s going to be a long slog. We have to keep pushing.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Archon
@Steve LaBonne: If we stop pretending these people cared about the price of eggs and start accepting that these people are fascists then all these people will care about is having plausible scapegoats for why their agenda didn’t work.
And fascists are very good at finding scapegoats.
Baud
@Princess:
Justified IMHO.
Baud
It’s funny how the people say democracy is dead except when they want to preach about what Dems should do to win over white Trump voters.
cmorenc
If only Lincoln had remembered that point when choosing his Vice-Presidential running mate in 1864, or his security detail at Ford’s theater in April 1965.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I’m about past giving a shit what Dems do. Being not quite as hidebound as Republicans isn’t a great selling point and isn’t protecting us.
Other MJS
@Spanky:
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, why wait for Trump to throw you in prison when you can confine yourself to a boat for four years?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I actually feel the same. They have free rein to do whatever they want as far as I’m concerned. I’m done asking for anything.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: Yeah, Schadenfreude over Leopards Eating Faces is probably the only thing that’s going to get me through the next four years/eternity…
Well, that and a judicious amount of self-medication.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Miss Bianca: don’t overlook “point and laugh.” My spirits are a bit low lately but the Onion buying Infowars was a bright spot.
Layer8Problem
@cmorenc: His vice president and security detail were Democrats? Really?
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
@Layer8Problem:
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Thanks, friends. Sometime around, oh, mid-July, I realized I had hit the “I can no longer rationally discuss the 2024 election” wall and had to check out for a while.
But I’m baaaack…just wish it were under happier national circumstances.
TBone
@TBone:
😆
I must need more church.
https://youtu.be/lS3Q0Diu474
ArchTeryx
@Layer8Problem: Voting the incumbent party out. SATSQ.
Ramona
@Quinerly: tried to I thank you for your kind words on my post in another thread about gently casting doubt in people’s minds but the reply button wasn’t working. So, thank you Quinerly.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: Just read that thread. I agree
Colleeniem
@suzanne: I am so glad you keep beating this drum, because while I know the big factors are most relevant (racism/sexism), there have a been several people here blaming spoiled upstarts for their unwillingness to be happy with a fixer-upper/starter home. Guess what? Because of the price doubling in four years and triple the interest rates over the same that starter home is over half your paycheck, every month, for 30 years. That’s only if you have a down payment, which I do because I’m closer to retirement than not, good luck to the spring chickens.
I know the relationship between politicians and house prices are not causal, but low info voters don’t know that, and I can tell you from personal experience (hey I didn’t buy in the best time as I loved for my job so much because I though it would make me competitive, and the 2008 crash caused us to lose rather than gain money, more fool me) that they are feeling the housing pinch. Everywhere.
Jackie
@The Thin Black Duke: Que sera, sera…
They knew who and what they were voting for.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: I agree with you 100%. I was too late to the thread to voice my support of her comments.
Ebony
@Soprano2: People mostly worked in person when Trump won in 2016. Work from home was a popular until Covid. Work from home can be beneficial from people with disabilities. Also once I started working from home my mental health improved.
Bill Arnold
@Sure Lurkalot:
The difference between an epistemic bubble and an echo chamber is mainly that an echo chamber ruthlessly reinforces its belief structures against outside influences.
With tactics like X can’t be trusted because it is on the other team. Not that it lies or that its arguments are bad , but simply that X argues against the echo chamber’s narratives.
Saying that this place is an echo chamber is thin gruel compared to the echo chamber(s) in which many in the USA right wing reside. Firehoses of falsehoods force everyone, including non-RW types, to have at least some filters, which are always imperfect.
Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles (C. Thi Nguyen, Episteme 17 (2):141-161 (2020)) (pdf download button at link.)
TBone
@NotMax: I need me a pickle pincher 😆
Raven
We’re a couple of hours from the beach. We’d be closer but I put Birmingham in the map app instead of Montgomery!
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: No one thinks that, but it is noteworthy that that people of color who are at least as likely to be struggling as white people did not choose Trump. I wonder why. It must tell us something, right?
Kathleen
@artem1s: Yesterday a friend of mine who is a psychologist told me many of her clients are LGBTQ or trans and they are utterly terrified. She labeled it a crisis.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Everyone talks about racism and sexism in relation to whether people would vote for Kamala.
The other, more powerful part of it is whether Trump could have gotten away with with everything he did if he weren’t a rich white guy. How compelling do you think the economic argument would be to voters if Trump were a black woman?
Ramona
@New Deal democrat: IMHO the 4 year long campaign the MSM waged against Biden and inflation were responsible for erosion in the non swing states.
Jackie
@Other MJS: How long would TCFG wait to have his Navy torpedo them? Fish in a barrel 🤦🏼♀️
K-Mo
@Another Scott: Brooks is like the Cliff Calvin of commentators. He starts with some real piece of information and then talks out his @ss about it for several paragraphs.
cmorenc
@Layer8Problem:
1) Lincoln chose to replace his VP his first term in office (Hannibel Hamlin, from the northeast) with Andrew Johnson, an anti-secessionist democrat from Tennessee who had been serving since 1862 as Military Governor of that state, as a gesture to the South of future postwar reconciiation. Unfortunately, Johnson proved to be spectacularly ill-suited to the role of a reconciliation President rather than aa a mere reconciliation gesture.
2) As to the role of Lincoln’s security detail in facilitating his assasination – the problem wasn’t that the personnel assigned to his security detail at Ford Theatre were Democrats or Confederate sympathizers (nope) but that the assigned detail was so thin and irresponsibly inattentive, given the risk that Confederate sympathizers (such as Booth) might be especilly motivated to make an assassination attempt in the immediate aftermath of final Confederate defeat. There were just four, with the most critically posted among them, John Frederick Parker at the door to Lincoln’s private box at the theater, irresponsibly leaving his post to go elsewhere in the theatre where he could watch the play. In the circumstances, there should have been a whole platoon of federal troops assigned to guard access to the door of Lincoln’s box seats at the theater.
Ramona
@CaseyL: Please, for our sakes, don’t wean yourself off antidepressants in 2028. (Sorry, could not resist this bad joke. I am a fellow antidepressant taker.)
Layer8Problem
@cmorenc: “. . . Andrew Johnson, an anti-secessionist democrat . . .”
Damn, you’re right, and I should have known that. Kids, always remember triangulation never pays.
Kathleen
@Steve LaBonne: I hope some trusted source analyzes what happened. Such an analysis should start with mail in voting – how many many mailed out, how many received, how many ballots were mailed to voters late, how many of those late ballots were returned and counted, how many were provisional ballots and if they were counted. Then look at locations where there were bomb threats and compare numbers of voters in 2024 vs 2020. Then look at ballots where votes were cast for down ticket but blank for President and determine how many were part of “Uncommitted”. Determine any other possible anomalies not mentioned (this was off the top of my head).
Democratic Party needs this data as part of analysis to determine next steps. Institutional Dem Haters Inc is going to use lazy tropes that have no bearing in reality. Surprise surprise. Dems should not listen to them unless data indicate they have something useful to day.
K-Mo
@suzanne: My understanding of Pierce’s take on “proficiency and growth” is that DeVos confuses the slope with the intercept. Your circumstances seem to also have a slope-intercept problem.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Racism and sexism shape the view of what’s normal, and affect expectations that people have for their lives, yeah? And the baseline idea of a social order? Saying that people are freaked out about prices and their cost of living is in no way at odds with an assertion that racism and sexism had a hand in this outcome.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think democracy is on life support, but not yet dead. The emerging right-wing kleptocracy will want to keep the trappings of democracy while it establishes one-party rule. That won’t happen overnight, but we need to know we’re up against oligarchs like Musk, Thiel, et al., not just the clown-ass Trumps.
There will be elections. The question is will they be legit.
The Thin Black Duke
White supremacy isn’t just hoods and burning crosses. It’s deluding oneself into believing that the gibbering orange buffoon was more qualified to be POTUS than the blackity black black woman.
Soprano2
@Baud: TCFG couldn’t have gotten away with most of what he’s done is he weren’t a wealthy white man.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know, one of the people interviewed in that USA Today piece was a 43 year old black man from Detroit who talked about the economy. I think we won’t know for awhile about things like this. What was the shift and where did it happen and why is the question to me.
K-Mo
@suzanne:
This seems about right to me.
To be clear, this was Biden’s 2020 voters, not putative 2024 Biden voters.
Kathleen
@Baud: Thank. You.
Chris Johnson
@TBone: I’ve just tried to meet up with my local Episcopal post-service coffee hour but I missed it. I was at my recovery meeting, and two of us have lost partners or close friends to OD in the last two weeks. So I’m not a bit sorry I stuck with my recovery meeting, but it meant I couldn’t attend Episcopal services.
I emailed the senior warden who’d answered my first email, explaining I’d missed them and asking for advice. If there is one thing I’ve learned in recovery meetings it’s patience and serenity. I hope I can find my local folks like you’ve found yours. My Mom would be so proud and happy that her church was proving a safe haven for her oldest kid in times of great travail :)
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
Read history.
Many have stated this, many have understood this. Many still do.
Many have the desire to move on, live reasonably, earn, save, educate, exist as actual humans.
Many seem to think that the world owes them something, or even everything. This is a human trait that seems to have existed since Adam and Eve had human neighbors. But one major difference is that we, humans have changed the day to day operation of the world. The vast majority of us do not raise/grow our own food, we earn money to purchase it. Which has created work for a lot of people. Most of us do not create our own homes, we depend on a lot of others to build them for us. Most of us do not own and ride horses, although most of us do use horsepower to move around, to have our food delivered to a place we can go to buy all we need, we have an education system to create skills of thought and labor that often assists others so that we are a part of a bigger system than our own lives. Most of us do not belong to a militia, we hire others to be one. We have a system of education to provide job skills for all of us to have a place to work and earn money to pay for the homes, transportation, food, medical care so that we can live better lives, and on and on and……
What we seemingly haven’t really learned is humanity, it’s ranges of talents, thoughts, demands, it’s positives and negatives. We have educational systems to make living better, and we often, almost always forget the things that will always exist as long as we all breathe, greed, stupidity, hate and the innate need for survival at any cost – even to others. Life mostly no longer requires many of the specific skills and demands that each of us used to need to survive, we’ve built systems to do those things for us and which also creates jobs to replace us using force against each other to survive. Now if we could only figure out how to create a humanity that still doesn’t see survival as the need for each of us to be better than anyone/everyone else – even as we aren’t – and never will be.
Kathleen
@tobie: So Bernie is offering to work with Donald Trump. Hakeem Jeffries was criticized and referred to as “milquetoast” for mentioning working with Republicans. So why didn’t Bernie get the same criticism in yesterday’s thread about why Hakeem Jeffries is a typical weak Dem sellout? ETA Rhetorical question of course not directed at you. Just a general dead horse beating rant on my part.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: You can find one person to say anything.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: One thing we may have going for us with regards to elections is the idea that this most recent one was transformational electorally, that it created a basic realignment to the Republican Party’s long term advantage. By that logic, Republicans ought to be able build on their coalition by normal means in 2026, and they might act accordingly.
I don’t think this anaylisis is true, but if Republicans believe it they may have to get thrashed in that year’s midterms before they realize they’re gonna have to steal elections in 2028. Then their challenge will be subverting state governments, because those are the authorities conducting both state and federal elections.
Ruckus
@Tony G:
The United States, once again, has revealed its true character.
It’s not just the US, it’s humanity.
We, as all animals do, have an innate need for survival. Now many will often sacrifice that for the greater good, but as day to day survival has become less than a selfish need and more of a joint process, many have not moved on into a world of more than just survival and more of one that requires belonging and understanding that we are not a gang of individuals but a dramatically larger system of bit players, each finding a spot and skills to be a part of a larger system than one individual or even just a group of individuals.
Chris Johnson
@Kathleen: Yeah they are, rightly so.
My meeting had two trans guys at it today, one in person and one by zoom. They were bearing up OK, but there’s a reason. It’s an extremely diverse meeting for being in the Northeast so close to Vermont: we have a shitload of LGBTQ but very poor racial diversity because of the demographic of the area, and a bunch of the women are actually right wingers (some of whom I have known for years).
The reason our otherly-diverse people find refuge in our meeting is that all the oldtimers have always been super goddamn deadly serious about letting NO possible reason interfere with seeking recovery. It’s in our literature, repeatedly, and we are addicts in the time of fentanyl etc. and we are all dead men and women if we put other things (like politics) ahead of our recovery.
The rightwingers have always been much better at not bringing their politics into the meeting, but that’s partly because they’re trained not to trust lefties anyhow, so it’s a natural move for them. As far as I can tell, literally every one is dead serious about protecting ALL our people including gay or different ones: they know from years of experience, fuck that up and it’s your own path to relapse. We have no liberty to fuck around on that front.
I’m sort of on alert at meetings now, to jump in and cool off any lefties who feel THEY can mouth off, because they absolutely can’t. Even if they thought they could, it’s not safe. We don’t know who’s listening. We have strangers Zooming in now, who could be any fuckin’ thing: claiming to be family members trying to help an addict, but they could be government apparatchiks trying to find dissidents. We are not going to get ourselves targeted as such. We have a higher purpose, saving addict lives.
If we go down it’ll be as ourselves, not because some asshole thought we were a cover for politics.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Great point about state governments. That could buy some time.
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree with you. And I’m seeing more evidence of that every day.
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: “Trump won because of us” is an interesting data point in determining root causes of Harris’ defeat. We’re not dealing with just face eating leopards but rodent procreators as well.
Chris Johnson
@Geminid: For what it’s worth, I’m certain they are schisming. Otherwise, Rick Scott would be majority leader. They successfully went for a guy Trump hates and has literally called out personally in tweets, a guy who’s a Russia hawk.
Those who don’t see Putin behind Trump won’t make anything of that, but if you figure Trump, Gaetz, Gabbard etc etc etc etc are all literal puppet people being directed by Russia, and that Russia’s scheme is a harebrained but alarming scheme to get OUR nukes to nuke Ukraine with and to wreck all our shit beyond hope of repair so they can be the only empire on the block…
and I think that’s behind all the ridiculousness that’s being proposed rather than just appointing a bunch of Republicans to everything and letting them dominate as they well could do…
then what we’re seeing is major objections to the idea that electing Trump means it’s a great idea to throw all the Republicans under the bus too, and ruin absolutely everything with stupid wrecking-ball bust-out stunts.
Republicans can be as evil as you like by our standards, and still not want to be utterly destroyed and left in rubble, economically or literally. If you asked them ‘do you love Trump so much that you will let him give Putin our own nukes to bomb us with since theirs are shit?’ you would get a ‘whoa wait a minute, we were promised wealth and power!’. Which they were, they absolutely were.
Because it’s all Russia, this is the catch. This is the twist ending. No American was ever meant to be great again. The only true promise was that they would get to beat up on liberals. And that is true, but Russia omitted to mention they were also trying (fruitlessly) to radicalize the liberals to fight back.
Lotsa luck with that. But it’s very important that Russia has been also arming the leftists as well as they can. We are meant to fight each other like Kilkenny cats until there is nothing left but rubble and Russia. But I repeat myself.
Any Republicans who understand this are trying to work out how to hold power, but outmaneuver Trump. Hence, Thune. Gauntlet, thrown.
Kathleen
@Sure Lurkalot: But…but…his fingers are on the pulse of “The Heartland”!!!
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: I think the people who kept saying they didn’t know enough about her policies were these kind of voters. It was a reasonable thing they could tell people instead of the real reason they were uncomfortable about her, that she was a black woman.
Geminid
@Kathleen: I thought yesterday’s post about Hakeem Jeffries was pretty funny actually. It was very typical of the front pager, one of whose specialties is arraigning various Democrat politicians in metaphorical stocks and inviting commenters to pelt them with rotten tomatoes.
I’ve watched this general debate so long I could write these posts myself. What I found so funny is the way people underrate Representative Jeffries. And they sound so serious about it!
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: True, that’s why I said I think we actually don’t know much yet. We do know there was a shift toward TCFG, we have to figure that out. I don’t like pat “one weird trick” answers.
Kathleen
@Chris Johnson: I’m glad there is some space there for them. It would be interesting to know if there are any similar spaces here. I’m meeting friends who have reason to be concerned and are plugged into both recovery and counselling worlds next month. It will be interesting to get their takes. Thanks for offering this insight.
Uncle Cosmo
@Another Scott: IOW over 3/4 of the variability in the response variable remains unpredicted after the predictor is applied, even presuming the model assumptions are correct.
That’s worse than worthless, it’s borderline statistical malpractice.
Kathleen
@Geminid: What you said so eloquently plus how would he react if his faves were treated the same way?
greenergood
@BC in Illinois: Yes, I want the official stats, because I’m getting very tired of the ‘landslide’ meme – and want the stats to prove they are completely deluded, even if they ‘won’.
Ramona
@Layer8Problem: I think it was one man. I learned this from watching Apple TV (bows head in shame for being one of the misinformed masses).
Chris Johnson
@Kathleen: I can tell you that at least Narcotics Anonymous has numerous readings that make totally clear that NO ‘otherness’ can be a grounds for exclusion. We specify religion, creed, and sexual orientation by name out loud as stuff that CANNOT be a dividing factor. Every week. For decades. AA is also like that but older, so they’re less explicit about it if I remember correctly. But they’re in the same boat.
Every twelve step community I’m aware of, spells out very clearly that if you put anything over your recovery, you’ll lose your recovery and whatever else that was, game over, thanks for playing. It’s basically the simple truth. I’ve never heard of it being any different. I guess there are some communities that are so totally siloed that ‘other’ addicts or alkies aren’t even human, but it’s hard to be that siloed when you’re a recovery community.
satby
@Geminid: Right there with you.
Kathleen
@Chris Johnson: One of the friends I’m meeting is involved with AA so I’m really looking forward to seeing her and her spouse. She did text that they’re both frightened also.
Quinerly
@Ramona: 💚
Bex
@TBone: Moses Johnson was in the picture, but there was no sign of Vance. They don’t consider him a bro.
Bill Arnold
@The Thin Black Duke:
Out of curiosity, I found the twitter/x account for “Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump.”. ( @ChowdhuryRabiul )
That one is actively defending most of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks. The replies are 90% LOL FAFO, which is good to see, especially on the Nazi site.
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: 👍
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
gluon1
At the risk of being that guy again, Edwin Stanton was a Democrat until 1862 and he was perhaps the most passionate member of the Lincoln Cabinet in attacking the confederates, so the metaphor is imperfect.