Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Democrats are back in array!

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

In after Baud. Damn.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Not all heroes wear capes.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

This fight is for everything.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Friday Morning Open Thread: ‘No One Can Walk Away’

Friday Morning Open Thread: ‘No One Can Walk Away’

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Whether or not she’s our candidate in 2028, I’m extremely grateful that Kamala Harris is willing to keep doing the hard work. There have been endless complaints that Democrats don’t follow up once their individual elections are decided, for better or worse; well, we’ve got a vibrant communicator who’s Out There right now:

Kamala Harris challenged young people to “stay in the fight” during a speech in Maryland on Tuesday, her first major address since conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump last month.

In her remarks, Harris expressed optimism in a future led by many of the young leaders in the room, praising their “passion” and “resolve” in spite of an electoral setback that threatens many of the causes they care deeply about.

“I ask you to remember that this struggle is not new. It goes back nearly 250 years to Lexington and Concord,” Harris told a group of students, recent graduates, volunteers and apprentices at Prince George’s Community College. “Generation after generation, it has been driven by those who love our country, cherish its ideals and refuse to sit passive while our ideals are under assault.

“This fight now, it continues with you. You are its heirs,” the vice-president said.

Since the November election, Harris has maintained a relatively low profile. Next month, the vice-president, in her ceremonial role as president of the Senate, will certify Trump’s victory and participate in the transfer of power. What she has planned next is unclear – but her punchy, optimistic speech made clear she had no plans to remain on the sidelines…

Harris made no mention of her own future on Tuesday, but implied that she too intended to stay civically engaged, drawing inspiration from the tens of thousands of letters she has received in recent weeks.

But she also acknowledged the “disappointment” that has left many people feeling “tired, maybe even resigned”.

“Let me be very clear,” Harris said. “No one can walk away.”

“The true test of our commitment is whether, in the face of an obstacle, do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves?” the vice-president added, drawing a prolonged “mmhmm” from several attendees that made everyone in the auditorium, Harris included, laugh.

The speaking program on Tuesday underscored Harris’s message, which she first delivered in her concession speech, that young people should continue to believe that anything is possible despite seeing her history-making candidacy extinguished by a man who has stoked racial resentment and anti-immigrant backlash…

In Harris’s remarks, she reminded young people that progress is often the hard-won result of everyday Americans pushing their political leaders forward.

“The movements for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the United States of America itself, would never have come to be if people had given up their cause after a court case, or a battle, or an election did not go their way,” she said.

“I urge you then, after you have had some rest. In fact, I challenge you to come back ready,” Harris continued, concluding her remarks. “Ready to chart our path to the future, chin up, shoulders back, forever impatient for change”.

… “I would be on board 100 percent with whatever she decides to do. I think she is a phenomenal person. I think she was a phenomenal candidate,” said Yvette Lewis, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive panel. “We were able to turn things around so quickly, and that’s a testament to her.”

At a confab of DNC members last week, no party officials outright dismissed the idea of another Harris campaign, and some said they were willing to back her if she ran again.

Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington Democratic Party who was also at the event, said, “I certainly was so proud to support her and would love to do it again.”…

People close to Harris, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, think that she has time to make a decision about her future. But she likely needs to start to chart a path forward relatively soon, potentially by sometime in 2025 when the California gubernatorial race will be in full swing. Many Democrats believe she would clear the field if she sought the governor’s seat.

Some donors and consultants have expressed interest in her pursuing a gubernatorial bid, including at recent receptions she has hosted as well as even her concession speech at Howard University, said a former senior aide to Harris.

At the same time, Harris is the early frontrunner in the 2028 presidential primary. Post-election surveys show that she is the top choice for Democratic voters, running ahead of her next opponent by more than 30 percentage points. Polling this far out is unreliable, but Harris is notably in a stronger position than Biden was at this point in 2016….

So all those Monday morning quarterback rants about how awful Harris campaign was about money were bullshit.
www.yahoo.com/news/harris-…

[image or embed]

— Kid Phantasm (@kidphantasm.bsky.social) December 13, 2024 at 11:38 AM

Reader Interactions

254Comments

  2. 2.

    thruppence

    When we fight we win. Sometimes. Sometimes we lose. But we still fight.

    And completely OT, our favorite Quiltingfool mentioned her Etsy page and I can’t find it. Does anybody have that link?

  9. 9.

    Geminid

    @O. Felix Culpa: I’ve always thought Kamala Harris would make a good President. Harris would also make a good Governor for California, and that’s the path I would like to see her take in 2026.

  14. 14.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    There’s suddenly a large crack in our bedroom wall. The coffee maker spasmed and spewed grounds all over. And the trash container overflowed.

    But I have coffee and I intend to drink it first.

  15. 15.

    JML

    I’m fine with another Kamala Harris run. She’s great, and I’ve always been a fan. Dems don’t tend to give someone another shot these days after a loss and have usually demand they go away, so it would be interesting. And there will be a number of serious candidates that will be running as well. (Big Gretch is a favorite of mine) It used to be that you needed to be a current office holder to hold enough attention to make a dent, but that seems less important now. That said, can you go 4 years without it following a loss to run as an ex-VP? Interesting political calculation there.

    Have to wonder if she would be interested in running for Governor of CA, but I’m sure she’d be great at it. I doubt she’d clear the field, just because there’s almost always going to be someone who refuses to stand aside, but I think a lot of serious candidates would see the writing on the wall if she got off to a fast start.

    Glad to see her stepping back out a little. Her voice is needed. Biden is likely to do the ex-president thing and mostly avoid the spotlight and/or directly whacking The Orange Idiot…plus, the media will just shit all over him if he does anyways. No such norms for an ex-candidate and/or VP. (yes, I know only Democrats follow norms these days, but the media will use them to assault Democrats anyways while pretending that the GOP would follow them, so it’s still an issue)

  16. 16.

    thruppence

    Comedian Josh Johnson made the point that the richest person in the world is an African American. A white South African American. My brain hurts.

  20. 20.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Baud:

    I think I understand where you’re coming from and, if I do, I don’t disagree:  The focus should be on the here and now and how to deal with the chaos and destruction of the incoming fascist-friendly administration.

    Having said that, though, we can’t put off all things 2028 until 2028.

    I can’t remember who was pushing this idea a week or so ago, but I’m inclined to agree that Democrats should be running for election 24/7.  I don’t like it but it’s the world Republicans have created for us and they’re using it to their advantage.

  23. 23.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid:

    Harris would also make a good Governor for California, and that’s the path I would like to see her take in 2026.

    She’d be a much better candidate than the last time a losing Presidential candidate followed it up with a run for CA Gov…

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: +1

    There are Virginia and New Jersey elections to win in less than a year.

    Harris is good and popular and competent and inspiring.  Whether she wins depends on how horrible it is in 2028 and who is running against her.  That’s far too far off for normal people, and non-Politico politicos, to spend much time worrying about now.

    But it’s very good to see that people aren’t trying to underbus her now.  It’s another sign of her strength.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    p.a.

    4 years is a long time (especially in a country where many voters’ memories apparently delete in seconds) so everything and anyone is on the table.  Like most everything in life, events are in charge.  Flexibility.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @Nukular Biskits: As a practical matter, we’ll have to hit the 2026 Midterms hard. We need the House as a check on Trump like it was after the 2018 Midterms. We can also start building a more Democratic Congress for our next President.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    Harris is wonderful, but talking about the 2028 election is bullshit.

    This.  Even in more ordinary times, the political situation can change a great deal in just a few years.  And these are not ordinary times.  We’ve got more than enough coming at us right now.

    As the rotating tag says, “fuck these fucking interesting times.” But dammit, that’s what we’ve got. All we get to choose is what we’re gonna do about it.

  33. 33.

    sab

    My husband is on a news blackout. We are olds not in dire straits, so we still have cable.

    I record and watch later when he isn’t around.

    I record a some late night and weekend MSNBC: Lawrence O’Donnell (a fellow old),  Stephanie Ruhle (a former Republican financial reporter who is more tied to financial reality reporting than GOP talking points) and Ali Velshi (an ethnic Indian subcontinent former financial reporter whose family has gone in four generations from India to South Africa to Kenya to Canada to USA just looking for freedom and a safe place.)

    There are good shows out there with anchors as committed as we are to reporting what happened and is happening.

    We want a good MSM but whenever we lose we crawl under rocks and cry. Fox viewers hang in there. We need to support our media. Daytime MSNBC sucks, but they have good people on at night and on weekends. If we don’t support them they will be gone.

    Comcast owns all the NBC stuff. They want to and will spin off MSNBC. If we don’t watch their stepkid networks (MSNBC at night and on weekends) it will all disappear. Katy Tur will find a new home on Faux. What about O’Donnell, Velshi, Alex Wagner, Ali Velshi? Their reporters?

  35. 35.

    Kathleen

    @LAC: Third it. Thanks, AL.

    I subscribe to a political channel belonging to David Pakman. He offers many interesting videos and takes. The link below is to a video where he talks about how Democratic Party wants to improve messaging online  and he offers a lot of information about logistics of online media, problems Democrats have related to effective dissemination of content and discussions he and other content providers had with White House officials.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK7Xho5GU9U&ab_channel=DavidPakmanShow

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    But I have coffee and I intend to drink it first. 

    That deserves a T-shirt.

    I am a huge fan of MVP. I also don’t want to think about 2028 right now. I’d prefer to see the Dems engage in a larger rebranding effort, as a predecessor/foundation to campaigns.

    If she wants to run for CAGov, good on her. If she decides she wants to spend the rest of her life on the beach and having nice dinners…. can’t say I wouldn’t do the same in her place.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is reportedly eying a bid for Governor in 2026. New Mexico Governor Michelle Luhan Grisham is term-limited. Haaland will not make any formal announcement about her plans until her tenure as Interior Secretary ends.

    Deb Haaland ran for Luhan Grisham’s 1st CD seat in 2018, when Grisham ran for Governor. Before that, Haaland served two productive years as the state’s Democratic Party Chair.

  41. 41.

    Scout211

    As a Californian, I am hoping for a Governor Harris.  There has already been articles written that state that most of the Dems who have expressed interest so far in running for Governor would step aside for her.

    She may have bigger plans than California Governor and she would be great in anything that she decides to do, but I hope she’s our next Governor.

  42. 42.

    RevRick

    @Baud: I keep hearing the nonsense that a woman, or more specifically a black woman, can’t win a Presidential election. But if we give an honest assessment of Clinton and Harris’ narrow losses, we can discern burdens that weighed heavily against them.

    In Clinton’s case, she was running against two decades of GOP smears, the difficulties of candidates winning a third consecutive party term, and the fact that the recovery from the Great Recession had been agonizingly slow.

    In Harris’ case, she was running against the quadruple traumas of rising inflation, rising crime, rising drug deaths, and rising immigration that either afflicted or lingered during the Biden administration.
    The very narrowness of their defeats argues that absent those burdens, the results would likely have been far different.
    Would anyone claim, with a straight face, that had Clinton won the Democratic primaries against Obama in 2008, she would have lost the election against McCain?

  43. 43.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: I agree, that’s a long ways away. Who in 2004 would have thought Barack Obama would win the presidency in 2008? I remember thinking he would run someday, but I thought it would be later.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning again, jackals.  Always up for supporting Kamala.  I think she’s a generational talent.

    Suspect I will get to see her in person in 2025.  She is sure to do some events for Abigail Spanberger.  Doug Emhoff did several in 2022.

    Go Kamala!  Go Abigail!

    Go for all of us.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: So he thinks he can come back with a one vote margin and get something better than he can get now? I swear, if I were him I’d be trying to stiffen the spines of my members, telling them that sometimes they’re going to have to do something President Tusk might not like, but they need to do it anyway. Someone somewhere pointed out that this was a TCFG pattern in his first term, he’d wait until Congress had negotiated something to weigh in on it. More often than not he would try to torpedo it. A smart leadership in the next Congress would contact his office before starting negotiations on anything, insisting that they need to be involved from the beginning.

  47. 47.

    Soprano2

    @Kathleen: I think it’s funny that people who expect a pay raise every year are mad that Congress wants to raise their pay for the first time since 2009. ETA – do they think everyone in government should work for free?

  49. 49.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Another Scott: Here’s hoping the incompetent simps don’t notice that the Democrats slipped in an amendment to the CR bill that outlaws convicted felons from holding the office of President and that retroactively sets 20yr term limits on Supreme Court Justices and that disallows the Supremes from hearing appeals against the three changes due to clear COI

    ETA: Jeffries and his caucus will publicly call it Plan C, to mollify Reverend Speaker, but in private they’ll all call it Catch-22. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22.”

  51. 51.

    Scout211

    More good news from our real president this morning.

    Today, my Administration is announcing student debt cancellation for another 55,000 public service workers, bringing the total number of individuals who have been approved for student debt relief under my Administration to nearly 5 million people through various actions. The public servants approved for debt cancellation today include teachers, nurses, service members, law enforcement officials, and other public service workers who have dedicated their lives to giving back to their communities and who are finally earning the relief they are entitled to under the law.

    Thank you, Mr. President.

  55. 55.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Soprano2:

    ETA – do they think everyone in government should work for free?

    From my direct experience as a sometime-federal employee: Yes.

    SATSQ

  56. 56.

    Suzanne

    @RevRick: I am concerned about the relative population decline in blue states. It is projected that enough people will have moved out of blue states to red states that it will affect the Congressional reapportionment significantly. CA, NY, IL will lose seats and TX, FL, AZ will gain seats. So, the result is — even winning Biden’s 2020 map — that wouldn’t be enough electoral votes to win anymore. Whether this happens in 2030 or 2040 is a big question.

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @RevRick: 👍

    There’s a very powerful analysis tool in physics called perturbation theory. You take a system and apply a small change to it and analyze what happens, and it tells you a lot about the underlying physics of the system (that is in general too complex to analyze as a whole on its own).

    Small changes in 2000, 2008, 2016, 2024 would have led to different outcomes. Being smart in thinking about what those small changes did, and what it meant about the state of the system as a whole at the time (the system is probably different now, so the lessons may not completely transfer) is a path forward.

    I occasionally think back to the politics of the ’60s-’70s. Big, big changes while lots of things didn’t change. New voices gaining power and strong reactions to them. McGovern had the youngs and the activists and the sensible people opposed to the war in Vietnam and warning about the dangers of Nixon. But it looked like Nixon was on his way to building a permanent Republican majority after his win in 1972. And yet Carter was elected in 1976. Etc., etc.

    Politics is a complex, messy, aggravating, infuriating process. It changes every day – nothing is permanent. Sometimes it’s worse than 1 step forward and 2 steps back – it’s one step forward and then waking up in a gutter after a drunken bender. But we have to get out of the gutter, get help from our fellow citizens, and keep trying to move forward.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    different-church-lady

    @RevRick: Both were running against Trump.
    Trump is king misogynist, who knows how to activate the misogynist vote. A coincidental case of bad matchups.

  63. 63.

    sab

    We have seven (!) cats now. We have a two storey house ( basement and upstairs.) The basement is nice (painted white, and warm and dehumidified.) The cats love it. Two big rooms and three attached rooms. Seven litter boxes cleaned twice daily! ( by me.)

    Basement is also my workplace. I sew down there, always with cats watching me. Bad cats sit on my projects. Good cats just watch.

  64. 64.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RevRick: I keep hearing the nonsense that a woman, or more specifically a black woman, can’t win a Presidential election. But if we give an honest assessment of Clinton and Harris’ narrow losses, we can discern burdens that weighed heavily against them.

    While it is amazing that a black woman came with in 2%, it’s politics, so 98.9% there is the same as a being a total fuck up.  There are all kinds of Democratic voters who didn’t vote and who are outraged Harris didn’t win.

  65. 65.

    RevRick

    @Suzanne: Those shifts will make it impossible to win with only the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and will likely necessitate having to win Nevada and Arizona or Georgia as well. But by then, Millennials and Gen Y will be the largest chunk of the electorate.

  67. 67.

    frosty

    @Baud: Harris is wonderful, but talking about the 2028 election is bullshit.

    Seconded, absolutely. Can we take a fucking break????

  72. 72.

    Suzanne

    @RevRick:

    But by then, Millennials and Gen Y will be the largest chunk of the electorate. 

    That’s why I think an ongoing rebranding effort is critical. Voting behavior/alignment is acculturated pretty early. And though the youngest age cohort was the bluest…. it was also had the smallest turnout.

  73. 73.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott: What I don’t get is why doesn’t Johnson just tell President Musk to propose his own budget to congress, since Musk thinks it’s so easy.

  74. 74.

    RandomMonster

    In a massive anti-incumbent global wave, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz likely saved us from a GOP Senate with 57 seats and a GOP House with 240.

    I’m not making sense of this sentence.

  75. 75.

    Soprano2

    @Chief Oshkosh: That’s been my experience as a city employee, too. “You make money, how dare you spend my tax money on your salary?”. LOL That’s an exaggeration, but not by much. It’s ridiculous, Congress hasn’t had a pay raise for 15 years. Who would work in a job that was like that?

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    I cannot deal with thinking about 2028 now.  Survival mode for the next months/years.  Finding joy and happiness in personal life and small things and challenges.

    Cannot count on the American voter. Fuck ’em.  Especially the ones who could not be bothered to turn out for Kamala.  You did this.

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: The question answers itself, doesn’t it?  Johnson has no power on his own, because he has chosen to be Speaker of the Republicans rather than Speaker of the House.  And Musk is an “ideas guy” – implementation is a task for the interchangeable drones – no MotUs like him.

    🤪

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    Elizabelle

    @RandomMonster:  They had coattails, and kept the House and Senate margins close.  Despite an anti-incumbent wave.

    And when I think about that, I am enraged.  Joe Biden was an excellent incumbent.

    Too many Americans are just plain lazy and stupid.  Uninformed and trivial.  Kay calls them toddlers; adolescents works too.  Although both children and teens have growth and maturity (allegedly) in their future.  Cannot say for voters.

  80. 80.

    Elizabelle

    In a sour mood.  Not remotely in the mood for politics or “current events” today.  Later, Satan.

  81. 81.

    Soprano2

    @Elizabelle: I think of them as spoiled toddlers – they want everything they want right now!! Boy are they going to be mad in a year when they realize their grocery bills haven’t gone down any at all, and might have actually gone up.

  82. 82.

    cain

    @Baud:

    That’s what I said back when. Give them no choice. They want to use to be the janitors and clean up the mess you pick what we give you and that’s going to be a woman so fuck your misogyny.

  83. 83.

    glory b

    @RevRick: But crimw was falling, prices were falling, immigration was more under control than under Trump.

    But I see we are overlooking the racism and sexism once again.

  84. 84.

    Jackie

    @Baud:

    We should keep nominating women until voters cave.

    The reality is it’ll take two women running against each other to accomplish that – maybe.

    An independent male running would probably win and be the first non-party president elected.

    Yes, I’m bitter.

  89. 89.

    different-church-lady

    @glory b

    But crimw was falling, prices were falling, immigration was more under control than under Trump.

    And the dumbfuck electorate who turned out believed the exact opposite.

  91. 91.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Another Scott:

    in addition to the important elections fall 2025 in Virginia and New Jersey, Virginia has special elections soon, and Wisconsin has a state Supreme Court seat up April 1, 2025.
    On Wisconsin: Jodi Habush Sinykin won election to state senate in Nov. a lot of us wrote postcards for her for the special election in 2023.

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2: I think that there’s an amendment to the Constitution that says pay raises can only be for following Congresses, not the current one.  That abuse is already handled.

    I think that there are a couple of problems with freezing their salary – 1) it means that many talented people do have to take a substantial pay cut to serve, and that’s hard for people to do if they have normal expenses (health care, elder care, college, etc) and DC is an expensive area.  We don’t want only rich people serving. 2) It compresses normal federal salaries as well – people with a decade or two of experience can end up in never getting raises beyond inflation adjustments because they hit the top of their pay band.  Some GS14s and GS15s can end up in that situation – they’ll never get another raise (too few SES positions) but they still have 10-20 year careers ahead of them.  It’s a bad situation for morale and recruitment.

    Automatic COLAs are important, but so is having a prospect of raises.

    (Yes, the private sector has many issues as well.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @glory b:

    Was about to say the same things.

    Remember! It’s never racism and it can’t be sexism either

    We must continually search for explanations of the election results and the only acceptable explanations are those that blame Democrats.

  95. 95.

    tobie

    Musk wreaks havoc in the US and is now turning to Germany. According to Bill Kristoll Musk tweeted at 1:03 am, “Only the AfD can save Germany.” The February elections in Germany are going to get ugly. I hope Musk’s attempt to influence the election from afar will piss off German voters.

  96. 96.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott:  people with a decade or two of experience can end up in never getting raises beyond inflation adjustments because they hit the top of their pay band.

    That’s the situation I’m in at my job. It’s funny to talk about goals for the next year at your review when you’ve been with your employer for 31 years and you don’t anticipate moving up the ladder anymore because you’re happy where you are. I have never wanted to be a supervisor because the extra money doesn’t seem like it’s worth the extra headaches.

  98. 98.

    glory b

    @Suzanne: Does it? Remember, the “Woodstock, anti Vietnam war, peace and love” generation is the one being railed against now.

    And historically, the youngest voters have always been the smallest, most unreliable voting cohort.

    I actually don’t think that theory has been proven.

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Something that occurred to me about Trump, part of the reason why Trump won in 2016 was Trump was the Abrams Mystery Box candidate; no one knew his positions so they could imagine anything, and then he lost in 2020 because people found how shitty and half baked Trump ideals were. With Musk, Trump was able get a do over on the Abrams Mystery Box candidate; Trump 2.0, now with Shadow President!  And of course people are finding out quickly how shitty and half baked Musk’s ideas are.

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    Interesting take from Josh Marshall:

    Musk Shows Trump That He’s the New Chaos in Town
    By Josh Marshall
    |
    December 19, 2024 8:49 p.m.

    If you haven’t seen the details, the meltdown on Capitol Hill went from bad to worse this evening. Or awesome to awesomer, depending on your perspective. Let’s review. Donald Trump wanted a smooth ride to January 20th. He allowed the leaders of the congressional GOP to negotiate a government funding extension to smooth that ride. That was about to pass before Elon Musk stepped in with a tweet storm and blew up the whole thing. That sent Speaker Johnson and Trump back to the drawing board to come up with a new GOP-only plan to meet Musk’s objections. To get it through today it needed a 2/3rds vote in the House. It didn’t come close to 50%. For the next ten days or so the Senate is controlled by the Democrats. So the House isn’t even the only problem. Trump told House Republicans today they had to vote for this new plan. Then 38 House Republicans voted against. Now they’re barreling toward a government shutdown.

    Some in the Beltway press still think that everything is great for Trump. Most see this as a pretty bad development for Trump. He ordered the House GOP to vote for this hastily improvised bill and dozens voted against it. That’s not a good sign for an incoming President in his honeymoon period.

    But this misses the real point. This wasn’t Trump’s bill. This was Trump and Johnson’s attempt to clean up the mess Musk created when he tanked their bill. I stick by what I said yesterday: The real story here is that Trump has lost control of the process at what should be his moment of maximum power. As far as I can tell Musk himself didn’t even express an opinion on the vote for the clean up. He’s off to something else. Or he was only there for blowing things up. Putting them back together is someone else’s problem. He left that to Trump and Johnson.

    Musk’s superpower here is that he doesn’t give a crap. He’s not worried about the midterms or his 2028 reelect. He’s only on hand for the fun.

    As I noted yesterday, yes, Trump loves chaos. But his chaos, not someone else’s. His chaos keeps him the center of the action. It forces everyone back on their heels and to be reacting to him. But here Trump is being forced to react to Musk’s chaos. That’s very different.

    Trump’s weathered a lot. It’s not like he’s done for. They’ll eventually figure something out. But the new dynamic here is what’s really important. Trump allowed Musk into the center of power and now Musk is the one calling the shots.

  103. 103.

    tobie

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    We must continually search for explanations of the election results and the only acceptable explanations are those that blame Democrats.

    Bingo! Some of us are mighty pissed at this.

  104. 104.

    Miss Bianca

    Given the anti-incumbent sentiment that swept the entire world, in addition to the particular creamy and delicious blend of racism, misogyny, and active disinformation campaign against Democrats that is our US corporate and social media, I have come to the conclusion that it was a miracle that Harris/Walz came as close to winning as they did.

  105. 105.

    schrodingers_cat

    Not walking away but taking a hiatus. I need some distance and time to analyze what happened, to judge who are my allies before taking any action

    This summer and fall have been horrendous for me and I haven’t had the time to process it all.

  106. 106.

    MomSense

    I hope Harris becomes the point person for the opposition from California where they are big and powerful enough to keep her safe. Then I hope she comes back in 2028. She came so close to winning but we ran out of time. The momentum and enthusiasm were real – she just had a very deep hole to get us out of.
    Of course she would be a great governor but I think she will be important as a national leader.

  108. 108.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott: And Musk is an “ideas guy” – implementation is a task for the interchangeable drones – no MotUs like him.

    That’s how you shut up Ideas Guy – “that is an excellent suggestion and it’s clear you are the one to help me implement it.” and if the Ideas Guy object “well, people dislike me, but I am sure they will love your’ fresh perspective”.

    Johnson’s problem is he want to be Speaker to much to be Speaker.

  109. 109.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @thruppence: Far more accurate to call that son of a bitch an “Afrikaner-American,” one who’d love the Confederacy, Jim Crow, and wow, looka that— he loves AfD, the German neo-Nazis too!

  110. 110.

    tobie

    @glory b: The only voting group to shift blue this election was the 65+ block, and that’s a block that regularly turns out.

    Anyhoo…my taste in politicians is so outside the mainstream that it hardly matters at all what I think. I like really sharp people. I admired Hillary Clinton so much for her mastery of every aspect of public policy and her ability to explain it easily. I think Buttigieg would grow on me for the same reason. Populism, left or right, raises alarm bells for me because it can easily shift to nativism and demagogery. Who can really say what “the people” think and want? Who would have the audacity to claim to be their vessel? That’s cult talk in my book. Politicians should advocate for what they think is right.

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @tobie: I think it would be more accurate to say Harris was running against the perception of those things by the public. For many people perception is reality. I had someone almost yell at me about saying the economy was actually pretty good! Plus, people don’t think about just the past six months, they think about the past four years and how things have been. The press hammered on inflation for a solid year or more, talking about it constantly while rarely noting that it was a worldwide phenomenon. That gets into people’s minds.

    There are multiple reasons for the election results; racism and sexism were definitely factors, but there were other causes also. It’s not “blaming Democrats” to acknowledge this. We were swimming upstream in this election, so even though the opponent was a known factor who fucked up mightly when he was president before and was a convicted felon, he managed to win anyway because people were unhappy and wanted something to change. They’re going to get that change, but I don’t think they’ll like it. They’re already getting a taste of it before he’s even inaugurated.

  112. 112.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m right with you; but I’m pretty certain I already know what happened: same thing that always happens.

    From the end of Reconstruction to the rise of Reagan to the backlash against Clinton’s economy for everyone to the Trump backlash against “Barack Hussein Obama,” it’s ALWAYS been the same demographic and ALWAYS been the same endgame.

    This is not nearly as complicated as that particular demographic would have itself believe.

  116. 116.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: Perhaps there were other circumstances; but absent white racism and misogyny, we’d have President Elect Harris right now.

    Much like the “many causes of the Civil War,” had there been no Enslavement, there would have been no war.

  117. 117.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: We got lucky.

    But Trump was the white backlash against him… or do you remember the treatment he received at the hands of the conservative movement?

    The roots of MAGA lie in the “Tea Party” movement— and exclusively WHITE movement against the Black president.

    White people made goddamned sure there wouldn’t be another Black president.

  123. 123.

    tobie

    @Soprano2: No campaign is above criticism. I’m not objecting to questioning the wisdom of this or that move. But absent a comprehensive analysis not just of the mainstream media but of social media landscape over the past four years, we are all just conjecturing and raising expectations for things we want rather than what moves or doesn’t move the electorate.

    BigTech needed to be broken up. Normie Dem Amy Klobuchar advocated for this mightily but couldn’t get it done. We’re paying a big price for this.

  124. 124.

    Kay

    WASHINGTON — Crime, including serious violent incidents like murder and rape, dropped nationally from 2022 to 2023, according to new data released by the FBI on Monday.
    Violent crime was down about 3% from 2022 to 2023, and property crime took a similar drop of 2.4%, the FBI reported in its annual “Summary of Crime in the Nation.” The most serious crimes went down significantly: murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down an estimated 11.6% — the largest single year decline in two decades — while rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%.

    Chris Hayes had what I thought was a good question. How far will we go to pander to people’s “feelings” about things like the economy or crime or immigration? “Pander” is my word- he’s much more gentle. If what they believe is objectively untrue does anyone have any responsibility to say that? If not, and the way to get their vote is to tell them what they want to hear, with media essentially bullying pols into “admitting” shit that isn’t true, how far do we go with that? When does it just turn into “lying constantly”?

  125. 125.

    RandomMonster

    @Elizabelle: They had coattails, and kept the House and Senate margins close.  Despite an anti-incumbent wave.

    Thanks for making sense of that for me.

  126. 126.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Professor Bigfoot: Yeah invoking Barack Obama is their get of jail free card. But IIRC he lost white women both the times he ran, isn’t it?

    Bill Clinton was the only president to win white women after the passage of Civil Rights Legislation, and that’s because Ross Perot was also running.

  127. 127.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    Someone somewhere pointed out that this was a TCFG pattern in his first term, he’d wait until Congress had negotiated something to weigh in on it. More often than not he would try to torpedo it. A smart leadership in the next Congress would contact his office before starting negotiations on anything, insisting that they need to be involved from the beginning.

    The members of a cult don’t get to tell the cult leader what he should do.

  128. 128.

    Old Man Shadow

    She was a good candidate. I would be pleasantly surprised if she was given another run though.

    Right now, I expect every “advisor” and “consultant” to be sizing up any white guys they can find who might have a credible shot and pushing those men hard.

  129. 129.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @schrodingers_cat: Like I said— they are making good and goddamn sure that there’s never another one— from the gerrymandering at the state level to the red-state supermajorities, white people are asserting control.

    I FULLY expect these “white liberals” to be able to explain why they’ll support the return of Jim Crow for the sake of “unity” and “national healing.”

    Watch and see.

    Same as it ever was…

  130. 130.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Kay: “Crime” is Black and brown people.

    ”Law and Order” is the white response to the existence of Black and brown people.

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2: Hmm.  I think that Josh is kinda wrong here.  Donnie always has to be the center of attention.  He didn’t want a smooth transition – he wants to break stuff. He was always going to blow up any bipartisan agreement.  Melon was pushing the same line, because he wants a free hand in China, among other things.

    It’s not going to be less chaotic when Melon is marginalized.

    My $0.02.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    Because we’re all seeing it, right? The whole “unaffordable” narrative has disappeared. Along with the voter fraud narrative and the invasion at the border narrative. So is it anyone’s role to say “hey wait a minute- if these things were huge problems on Halloween shouldn’t they still be huge problems?”

    Should there be some sort of touchstone of truth in our politics or do we just go further and further out?

  135. 135.

    lowtechcyclist

    @RevRick:

    And yet, he came back to win. (The only time I ever got puking drunk was when he was declared the winner in 1968).

    The bum lied to us! He said in 1962 that we wouldn’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. So he deserved every last kick he got in 1973 and 1974.

  136. 136.

    Suzanne

    @glory b:

    Does it? Remember, the “Woodstock, anti Vietnam war, peace and love” generation is the one being railed against now.

    And historically, the youngest voters have always been the smallest, most unreliable voting cohort.

    I actually don’t think that theory has been proven.
     

    Based on the exit poll data that we have — which will probably be replaced pretty soon by better data from Pew — the youngest age cohort was the bluest. They voted 54/43 for Harris. But they’re only 8% of the electorate.

    For the first time in recent elections, the oldest cohort wasn’t the reddest. 65+ went for Trump 50/49, and they are the largest cohort with 28% of the vote. The reddest cohort was ages 50-64, who went for Trump 56/43, and they are 27% of the electorate.

    It’s generally known that, if you can get people to identify with a party when they are young, that they will be more likely to continue voting for that party in subsequent elections. But lots of people never identify, and probably become those swing-y/independent/incoherent voters. Thats why I think a rebranding effort is more critical than “endless campaigns”.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: The only way Democrats ever win–Republicans fucking up badly enough that there’s an acute crisis, and the Democrats get brought in as the technocratic Mr. Fixits.

    His win in 2012 is a bit harder to explain, but, note, that was closer than 2008 and his opponent was a charisma vacuum. And with both Clinton and Obama, the Democrats suffered terrible and profoundly damaging midterm losses before they were reelected–much worse than we had under Biden, oddly enough.

    We like to say that the problem of Trumpism goes beyond Trump, and it does, but there’s also this strange personal shallowness to the Trump phenomenon–voters like him more than they like all the other Republicans who are trying to be him. We can say that’s just Republicans’ personalist authoritarianism, but that wasn’t what happened in the 1990s or 2010s, when a whole cadre of awful Republicans made huge gains in midterm elections without their own Presidential candidate on the ballot. In those days, it was the Democrats whose successes seemed shallower and more limited to the Presidency.

  138. 138.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: Oh, I see it clearly. I live among them. I know how badly they want to change society so it’s once again acceptable to say racial and religious slurs and put “those people” in their place. My only objection is that saying it was all racism and misogyny means that we have no actual agency to change anything or do anything different. It means we don’t examine what we did and how we did it in order to make the field better for us. It makes people think “what’s the point, Democratic women and non-white candidates can’t win because of things we can’t do much about”. I reject that idea.

  140. 140.

    Old Man Shadow

    @Kay: The “Truth” is whatever convinces stupid people not to line the billionaires up against the wall but shower them with tax dollars instead, revised as needed.

  141. 141.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: Bush’s stupid Iraq war and then the economic meltdown in 2008  created some powerful headwinds for Republicans that year.

    Barack Obama was and is a strong politician, but I think even he might not have won under more normal circumstances. Looking back, I think Obama’s big win in 2008 made me overestimate the strength of our coalition.

    It’s definitey a competitive coaltion, and scrapping it is not an option (for me at least) but we hsve to build on it, starting in the 2026 Midterms and in Virginia and New Jersey next year.

  142. 142.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Chris Hayes had what I thought was a good question. How far will we go to pander to people’s “feelings” about things like the economy or crime or immigration? “Pander” is my word- he’s much more gentle. If what they believe is objectively untrue does anyone have any responsibility to say that? If not, and the way to get their vote is to tell them what they want to hear, with media essentially bullying pols into “admitting” shit that isn’t true, how far do we go with that? When does it just turn into “lying constantly”?

    This.  The whole “meet voters where they are” advice runs up against the problem that “where they are,” generally, is believing whatever right-wing bullshit the media is currently saturating them with, which means that in effect we’re just repeatedly chasing people onto ground that’s deliberately chosen to be bad for us.

  143. 143.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I’ve read so many scare stories about the youth going hard right and the headlines always hide the “compared to what?” question. Usually the actual threat turns out to be “they’re not as much further left than awful GenXer men in their fifties as we hoped”.

  144. 144.

    Torrey

    @RevRick: Adlai Stevenson and William Jennings Bryan would like a word.

    I was going to express appreciation for your comment at #42, but in response to this, one, I am obliged to add: “I see our phone lines are lighting with calls from a Mr. Thomas Jefferson, a Mr Andrew Jackson, a Mr. William Henry Harrison, a Mr. Grover Cleveland, and a Mr. Richard Nixon. There was also a Mr. Trump on line 6, but it seems he was just trying to order take-out–something called a ‘hamberder’? Anybody know what that’s about?”

  145. 145.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    It damages authenticity too, right? It doesn’t “ring true” to people because the speaker knows it isn’t true. So we don’t really pull it off anyway and now we’re 1. repeating things we know not to be true and, 2. the audience doesn’t believe us anyway because we don’t believe it.

  146. 146.

    tam1MI

    @RevRick: In Harris’ case, she was running against the quadruple traumas of rising inflation, rising crime, rising drug deaths, and rising immigration that either afflicted or lingered during the Biden administration.

    Setting aside for a moment the fact that the “traumas” you listed did not in fact exist, there is also the phenomenon of “the Glass Cliff” to consider.

    Harris was never anything more than a sacrificial lamb.

  147. 147.

    Old Man Shadow

    When does it just turn into “lying constantly”?

    I’m cynical enough that “lying constantly” seems like a good strategy to me, at least as the opposition party. Blame Republicans for any setback. Anything. Minor annoyance? Republicans. Major problem? Republicans. Just over and over and over again. Doesn’t matter if they really are responsible.

    It’s time to try to use ‘both sides’ media to our advantage. And if they “fact Check” us, then we double down and slam them openly and vocally. The media seem to get off on being abused anyway.

  148. 148.

    frosty

    @schrodingers_cat: See #138 above yours to see an acknowledgement of what I think is your “bleeding obvious” with an addition that we have to look beyond that if we’re going to change things.

    Headwinds. Ugh.

  149. 149.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2: they will lie to themselves and insist that grocery store bills have gone down even though they have actually got up. They are mindless innumerate cultists  to this day, they insist that obama raised their taxes, even though for the overwhelming majority of them, he lowered them.

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ve read so many scare stories about the youth going hard right and the headlines always hide the “compared to what?” question. Usually the actual threat turns out to be “they’re not as much further left than awful GenXer men in their fifties as we hoped”. 

    Agree. The youth shifted to the right, but there’s not that many of them, and they are usually pretty far to the left.

  152. 152.

    lowtechcyclist

    @glory b:

    Does it? Remember, the “Woodstock, anti Vietnam war, peace and love” generation is the one being railed against now.

    My understanding is that that component of the early* baby boom generation was never a majority of that generation, just the most visible part of it. And drew the most media attention.

    *Early baby boom: Kamala Harris is technically a Boomer, having been born before the end of 1964.  She was 4 years old when Woodstock happened.  Hell, I’m a 1954 kid, which puts me in the middle of the Baby Boom, but as a mere 15 year old, I wasn’t at Woodstock either.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    Joe Biden deported more people than anyone has since 2014:

    US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 271,484 immigrants last fiscal year, marking the highest level of deportations since 2014, according to a newly released annual report.

    So it responsible to go with peoples “feelings” and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the “wall” (that doesn’t work at all) and ICE and Border Patrol overtime? It’s at 60 billion dollars a year already. Should we just double that and waste 60 billion dollars to address “feelings”?

  154. 154.

    Kay

    There were SEVENTEEN police walking Luigi for cameras yesterday. It was ludicrous. Imagine the overtime. Is that to address peoples “feelings” about rising crime?

    It’s expensive! Pandering costs real money!

  155. 155.

    tam1MI

    @MomSense: She came so close to winning but we ran out of time.

    More time would have made things worse. Harris came out of the gate strong but then her momentum stalled and Trump made up lost ground.

  158. 158.

    schrodingers_cat

    @frosty: I don’t see any introspection in that comment. If you can’t question your own attitudes or if you think you are above it all, that’s a problem too.

    BTW, my desk easel arrived! And also my other supplies. BTW which technical pens did you use?

  159. 159.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I’d also say 3. these issues are tailor-made to play to right-wing narratives, so if that’s what dominates the debate, of course people are going to go to the right wing party.

    I’ve been seeing this in France for twenty years, where pretty much every party to the left of the FN completely concedes the FN’s framing of immigration issues and you should vote for them instead because they’ll do a better job of being the FN than the actual FN, but the actual FN is still bad for some undefinable reason.  The message is less than convincing.

  162. 162.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: White people have that agency, IF YOU CHOOSE TO EXERCISE IT.

    Most of you don’t, and none of you listen to any of US, so…

  163. 163.

    RevRick

    @Omnes Omnibus: For many Hispanic communities it was, either by overburdening and overwhelming their resources or by making them targets for racist attacks. Like the El Paso Walmart massacre.

  164. 164.

    chemiclord

    The issue has never been about Democratic message or that there’s no meaningful communication from the Democratic Party.

    It’s that too many voters do not want to hear that message, sometimes for valid reasons, but far too often because of completely bullshit reasons.  So when bad things happen, they blame the Democratic Party for “lack of messaging” or “not willing to reach out to us” rather than reassess their bullshit priors.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    Warren wrote in her “plan” for going forward that Biden’s economic approach was effective especially regarding the bottom 25%, but there are longer term structural issues that have to be addressed. That’s true and from that baseline truth she can go to those structural problems without saying she will “lower prices”.

  166. 166.

    VFX Lurker

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Not walking away but taking a hiatus. I need some distance and time to analyze what happened, to judge who are my allies before taking any action

    This summer and fall have been horrendous for me and I haven’t had the time to process it all.

    Self-care comes first.

    Wishing you rest, space and time for yourself and your situation. ❤️

  167. 167.

    kindness

    Until Democrats can control their own narrative in the media, I don’t see a lot of room for us winning.  For example, when Hillary ran in 2016, the MSM leaned all in on the 20+ years of Clinton bashing to make her out as something she wasn’t.  The same media knew from his history, Trump was a lying conman.  But they ran with it because it brought eyeballs.  In 2020, Trump’s chaos and fuck ups were too present in everyone’s memory for media to pull a look over there and Joe Biden won.  But right off, starting with the Afghanistan pull out that Trump negotiated, the media was badmouthing Joe even though getting out of Afghanistan was extremely popular.  The MSM made the mistakes and difficulty or the pull out all Joe’s fault and they never looked back.  The media used Republican framing in every sentence, pillorying Joe his entire term.  When Kamala took over the presidential run in July, that same media hated it because for a very short time, the MSM didn’t control the narrative.  Soon enough though, after months of doing the same ole same ole, all of Trump’s convictions, corruption and chaos was forgotten, because the eyeballs were there.  They sanewashed every single appearance and statement Trump made.  Now, that was just the wallpaper setting.  All it took for Kamala to lose was that segment of the population that refuses to vote for a woman for president, let alone a black one.  Too many Democrats & normie middle were in that group.  Most of those folk, just didn’t vote.  So we lost Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan & Nevada and Trump won again.  2028 will be different.  Trump’s chaos will again be fresh in everyone’s minds.  I bet Trump tries to run again.  Whether this Supreme Court lets him is not a bet I will make.

  170. 170.

    schrodingers_cat

    @VFX Lurker: Thanks! My art has been a solace. But I haven’t yet come to terms with my mom’s sudden passing away. The India trip and then my MIL’s visit have both been difficult to say the least. I am so exhausted.

    This is before I even consider the November results.

  172. 172.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @RevRick: I would like to see some evidence that resources were overwhelm to the point of causing trauma.  Also, blaming immigrants for racists is victim blaming.  I am not inclined to buy it.

  173. 173.

    Kay

    @Chris:

    I don’t like comparisons to Europe on immigration because the United States is completely different.

    So the baseline truth to start off with should be “the United States has a very different approach to immigration than that of older countries with indigenous white populations and here’s why it’s unique and also valuable and wonderful”.

    Obama used to do some of that.

  174. 174.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @chemiclord: I like to ask, why is it Black, brown, and Jewish people hear Dem messaging just fine?

    Why is it only white people who can’t hear?

  176. 176.

    Another Scott

    @chemiclord: +1

    People make choices about where they get their information.  Too many of them love the RWNJs and the joy of rage they get from the things pushed there.  I’m not exactly sure what we people who are not in that bubble can do about that.

    “The Internet interprets censorship [ or other bad things ] as damage and routes around it” is a pithy saying that one would like to believe is true, but the Internet is run by humans.  Similarly with news media.  Breaking up the media monsters, re-imposing ownership restrictions, pushing community and free media, etc., etc., can help but it’s not a slow process.

    Maybe billboards everywhere can start to route around the damage.  There are no ad-blockers for billboards (but there is of course zoning and other issues that come into play).  Dunno.

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  177. 177.

    TBone

    @NotMax: I love the rat parody song, you always bring something new to me to the table!  I was more of an AC/DC fan in my yute (saw them for the Those About To Rock show), and I never even needed caffeine before age 35.  I was always a morning person, just naturally bouncy.  Tiggers bounce!

    Today my bounce is nowhere to be found.  But I’ll persist anyway.  Thanks for helping with that!

  178. 178.

    VFX Lurker

    @Soprano2:

    So how on Earth did Barack Obama ever win the presidency – twice?

    1. Misogyny less of a factor for a male candidate
    2. One of the greatest (the greatest?) politicians of my lifetime
    3. A fully functioning Voting Rights Act, which Chief Justice Roberts gutted for the 2016 election

    As a white woman, I think President Obama’s “sin” was being a great President. Too many fragile white egos could have accepted a Black failure in the office, but not a Black success.

  180. 180.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: I think “crime” = “I see more homeless people” or “I see more non-white people” or “I hear more foreign languages when I go to the grocery store”. I completely agree with you on this. People will always say crime is increasing no matter what is actually happening. What I wonder is, do people who aren’t white see this in a more realistic way, or are they also susceptible to the idea that if you see more homeless people crime must be higher?

  181. 181.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I agree, and I think it’s a problem when they pander to people’s feelings too much. What’s funny is that eggs are still really high here. I paid almost $4.00/dozen a couple of weeks ago, which is really high for my area.

  182. 182.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: FWIW, I think you’re right to note that it’s a complex, multifaceted problem that will require nuance and skill to address. I think Senator Chris Murphy (TNR transcript) is onto something when he says Democrats can’t be defenders of a status quo that isn’t working for lots of people (and hasn’t for a long time) but that the party can and must attack Trump’s fake populism that benefits the richest people in the world while offering ideas for reform that would help regular people. IMO, that approach needn’t excuse bad actors nor coddle uninformed and/or malevolent nitwits.

  184. 184.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: People who aren’t white are not susceptible to this white supremacist framing that conservatives always use.

    we know what it’s like to live in over police neighborhoods to be worried about seeing a cop car in your mirror.

    No, the law order rope is entirely about white people demanding that Black people be kept under control.

  186. 186.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Betty Cracker: I just don’t think the majority of white Americans are interested in any policy that helps all Americans and not just the white ones. It could be subconscious. It could be completely unintentional, but the effect remains the same.

  187. 187.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: yes, I believe that’s exactly why she lost. Maybe you’re not paying attention to the way white people have reacted to every gain by non-white people in this society and culture but we are well aware of how white people have reacted. As I said before, if it weren’t for racism and misogyny, regardless of any other factors you might choose to include, she would be president elect right now.

  188. 188.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think Senator Chris Murphy (TNR transcript) is onto something when he says Democrats can’t be defenders of a status quo that isn’t working for lots of people (and hasn’t for a long time) but that the party can and must attack Trump’s fake populism that benefits the richest people in the world while offering ideas for reform that would help regular people. IMO, that approach needn’t excuse bad actors nor coddle uninformed and/or malevolent nitwits. 

    Agree.
    The status quo is not good. It is not acceptable. It doesn’t perform, and it isn’t improving.
    Being put in the rhetorical position of defending it, or tinkering around the edges with it…. that’s deadly.

  189. 189.

    Elizabelle

    @Professor Bigfoot:  I think so too.  Evidence is:  she came so close.

    Eventually, I want to know why Biden’s voters did not turn out for her.  I mean, they showed up once ….  maybe it is just racism and misogyny.  But.  Was there anything else targeted at them that convinced them to sit this one out?

    It’s astonishing to me that American voters did not believe Biden when he said that democracy is on the line.  Maybe The Felon and Elon will be able to persuade them otherwise.

  190. 190.

    Old Man Shadow

    @Kay: No, I’d say it’s to reassure the rich fuckwads that the police understand their job is to protect them from the unwashed plebs and are committed to it.

  193. 193.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat:  I blame the media for pushing Biden out even more.

    And I don’t blame you for wanting to take a hiatus from politics for a while.  Enjoy creating your beautiful art.

    I want to read a lot more.  Not online!  Not current events.  It’s bad enough to be forced to live through them.  Again.

  194. 194.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Elizabelle: listen to Black people. We can tell you exactly why she lost, but white people in the main are incapable of recognizing or dealing with this.

  196. 196.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I go off on the eggs but I am just so tired of lies to make people feel better. Almost no one in this country “works two jobs to make ends meet”. I’m not advocating working two jobs but I’m just baffled at how telling people they’re doing it helps anyone.

    I have joked for years that Democrats are incapable of tooting their own horn without starting with ” I know people are hurting” and it just seems we get further and further from reality every cycle.

    No one ever defunded the police. In fact, the lie that it happened resulted in us throwing even more money into ever-escalating policing while starving the rest of city services. We pay for these lies. Its not just rhetoric. Its the budget.

  197. 197.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: No, it’s not. Sometimes I think that’s the reason we have a huge response when there’s a problem in a highly visible area – people want to see that it’s being taken seriously and something is being done, even if that actually only needs two or three people. They want to see a beehive of activity. If you tell the MAGA’s that statistic, they’ll say the government is lying about it. I don’t know what to do about that.

  198. 198.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: But he’s dangerous to wealthy white people, Kay. They have to make sure everyone knows they’re taking that seriously. /s/s/s/s/s/s/

  199. 199.

    JML

    @RevRick: Adlai was the last time for the Democrats, and how did that work for us? been a long time since the Democrats let a national candidate get a second chance to be the nominee.

    Hubert lost in ’68 and got nowhere the next time he ran (and he did make a real run at it again). McGovern was cooked after losing in ’72. Fritz Mondale was done after ’84, Dukakis after ’88, Gore after 2000, Kerry after ’04, Hillary after ’16.

    but The Orange Idiot made a comeback after losing, so who knows. but the GOP has always been more tolerant of this; i’ve seen it at the congressional level where they’ve run the same candidate (and not just a perpetual gadfly type) multiple times to build them up and help them get a fundraising base before they break through.

  200. 200.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: So what exactly am I supposed to do that I’m not already doing? That’s a serious question, I vote for Democrats, I support Democrats, I give money to Democrats. What am I supposed to do that I’m not doing? Maybe we’re talking past each other.

  202. 202.

    VFX Lurker

    @schrodingers_cat: BTW, my desk easel arrived! And also my other supplies. BTW which technical pens did you use?

    Back when I used traditional media, I used a mix of Staedler-Mars technical pens and art markers by Micron and Faber-Castell. The finer-point technical pens often clogged, and the finer-point markers often dried up too quickly.

    If you’re working on something you want to enjoy viewing twenty years from now, stick to “light-fast” materials. Micron pens should be labeled “light-fast” and be a safe choice.

    If you’re sketching for pleasure or planning to scan/photograph your work right away, anything goes. Fountain pens, Sharpies, Copic markers, Pilot pens, Uniball pens, gel pens, the stationary section of a Japanese bookstore like Kinokuniya — anything goes.

    I’ve seen artists use non-waterproof Uniball pens and go over them with a watercolor brush pen filled only with water. They would use the water to smear the non-waterproof ink, creating a “wash.” Anything goes for sketching and fun.

    If longevity is not a concern, use whatever gets in your way the least.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Thanks! My art has been a solace. But I haven’t yet come to terms with my mom’s sudden passing away. The India trip and then my MIL’s visit have both been difficult to say the least. I am so exhausted.

    This is before I even consider the November results.

    Rest, refuel, recharge, and recover. ❤️

  204. 204.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Its laughable. It also makes him look sympathetic. They were putting that photo beside an image of a painting of Christ at Gesthsemane on TikTok and the grouping of the figures DOES look like the painting.

    There’s your 6 billion a year for NYPD. They made a murderer look.like an ethereal martyr. Good job.

  206. 206.

    Kathleen

    @Miss Bianca: Considering the war that has been waged against the Democratic Party by all sides (including our supposed allies) it’s a miracle Biden/Harris/Dems accomplished as much as they have the past 4 years.

  210. 210.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: They listen to different media. They attend different churches. Those are two possible reasons for the difference. Lots of white people do hear the message, so the question is how do we get more white people to hear it?

  211. 211.

    Quiltingfool

    @sab: Cats don’t watch, they supervise.  My kitty only sits on a project if I lay it on the floor (to arrange blocks).  She is better behaved than the last two.  My first kitty would sit on top of the sewing machine.  The second kitty would wallow on any fabric, in boxes with fabric, on quilts that were being quilted, on quilts that I was sewing, you name it.  She was a very ACTIVE participant.  I loved her so much.

  212. 212.

    Soprano2

    @VFX Lurker: I hadn’t thought of the role of the Voting Rights Act, you’re right about that. I also agree that what made them craziest was that he was popular and successful. They wanted him to fail so that they could say that proved a black person couldn’t be president. They have to make up things to “prove” he was a failure.

  213. 213.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: I know what the “law and order” trope is about. What I wonder is if there is any actual evidence that none of these factors influence the beliefs of non-white people, or is that just your feeling? I’m sincere about that, I think seeing crime reporting on the TV all the time and seeing more homeless people affects how people think about crime.

  215. 215.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, it seems to me that this is what you are saying, over and over again. There’s a lot of pushback against the idea that anything else was a factor in the election. I just don’t believe that every white person who voted for TCFG is a racist and misogynist, and I definitely don’t believe that about every non-white person who voted for him. I guess we just have to agree to disagree about some of it. I’m starting to feel like I need to preface every post about the outcome of the election with “of course I know racism and misogyny was a big factor in this election”.

  217. 217.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Soprano2: You are hearing but not listening. I can’t show you what you refuse to see.

    Nowhere have I said that everyone who voted for T is racist and and a misogynist. That is your simplistic reading of what I and others are trying to say.

  219. 219.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Professor Bigfoot: Even before that comes some introspection and self reflection. Something that most people regardless of their demographic are loath to do.

    Also blaming it all on the media (which definitely was a problem) is an easy out. T’s lies work on white people because he tells them what they want to hear. And that’s the reason they don’t work on you or me.

  220. 220.

    tam1MI

    @Elizabelle: Eventually, I want to know why Biden’s voters did not turn out for her.  I mean, they showed up once ….  maybe it is just racism and misogyny.  But.  Was there anything else targeted at them that convinced them to sit this one out?

    An entire month of Dems trashing their own President and telling his supporters their votes didn’t count and didn’t matter, plus the usual helping of racism/misogyny.

  221. 221.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: NOTHING affects nonwhite people like it does white people, because we are not supporting supremacy.

    which is why white people cannot hear Dem messaging. It doesn’t support white supremacy.

  225. 225.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    I just don’t believe that every white person who voted for TCFG is a racist and misogynist 

    I think about this a little bit differently. If you asked most white people, or most men, if they had prejudiced thoughts about racial minorities or women….. they would say no. That might even be correct, because most people are pretty focused on self and don’t really think about others too much.

    But racism and sexism shape one’s basic worldview, they shape what one thinks of as normal, and they help form your aspirations/expectations. They kind of frame everything, even if one isn’t holding any conscious racist or sexist thoughts. I think of sexism as the bigotry of the home and racism as the bigotry of the neighborhood. Both baked into us from earliest days.

    And that’s what’s so hard about it. If we look, we can see when people are affected by these values, even though they would deny it. So, do I think everyone who voted for Trump is racist and misogynist? I mean, I think they’re all affected by racism and sexism to varying degrees. But I think that’s true of Democrats, too — even if, maybe more of us try to do some personal work on ourselves to improve in that regard.

  227. 227.

    Glory b

    @Kay: No, those weren’t for him, they were to deter anyone who wanted to take the “Free Luigi” moment into their own hands.

    Adam’s was there because he’s a duck who wants a pardon from Trump.

  228. 228.

    kindness

    @Professor Bigfoot: While I agree with much of what you are saying, Trump made gains among Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans in this last election.  Now I do think misogyny and racism caused some 2020 Biden voters to either not vote at all or to vote for Trump.  I don’t think focusing exclusively on berating white people is accurate or particularly helpful in terms of winning in 2026 & 2028.

  229. 229.

    Glory b

    @kindness: Berating Native Americans and Hispanics for not voting for a black female candidate and black men (almost the entirety of Trump’s black gains) for their misogyny works too.

  230. 230.

    schrodingers_cat

    @kindness: Next you will say that the British Empire was not a white supremacist project because they had natives willingly working for them.

    Just like patriarchy can have a female face, so can white supremacy

    So since white women voted for Trump again, can we say that misogyny was not a factor in November.

  233. 233.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    There were SEVENTEEN police walking Luigi for cameras yesterday. It was ludicrous. Imagine the overtime. Is that to address peoples “feelings” about rising crime?

    It’s expensive! Pandering costs real money!

     

    the way people were mocking the photograph on social media was hilarious

  234. 234.

    Betty Cracker

    @Suzanne:

    I think of sexism as the bigotry of the home and racism as the bigotry of the neighborhood. Both baked into us from earliest days.

    Good way to look at it. “The bigotry of the home” might just be a tougher nut to crack too, judging from the casual and wholly unexamined sexism emanating from many dudes who are fond of talking about their anti-racist activism.

  235. 235.

    Soprano2

    @Professor Bigfoot: Most of my relatives probably didn’t vote. If my mother were alive, she would have voted for TCFG – she was a hopeless cause. Most of my friends voted for Harris, although I know a couple who probably voted for TCFG. People know how I feel about TCFG and Republicans in general.

  236. 236.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: Simone de Beauvoir absolutely nailed the essential paradox of sexism for men, which is that most of them deeply desire women while also, yanno, hating them.

  237. 237.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat:  T’s lies work on white people because he tells them what they want to hear. And that’s the reason they don’t work on you or me.

    That’s definitely true, he says things they want to hear. Why do they work on some black people and some Latinos who aren’t from communist countries? That’s also a question that needs to be answered.

  238. 238.

    Glory b

    @rikyrah: I know, right?

    All this exhortation over the “status quo” when economists point out that people are ACTING like everything is fine.

    Wages up, jobs up, economy gangbusters, the envy of the world, but we HAVE TO pretend like everything is shit.

    If the Republicans did this well we’d never hear the end if it.

    Every time a Dem does the same, the “Yeah, but…” crowd comes out in force.

  240. 240.

    Glory b

    @Soprano2: Beczuse they know white adjacency is the key to success in the US & the way to be close to that is to be a Republican.

    Also, many Hispanics are Catholic & follow the teachings of their church.

  241. 241.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Soprano2: 1 in five Black men, fewer than 1 in ten Black women.

    To say that mango MF’s shit works on Black people is simply not accurate.

    Who give him over 50% of their votes?

    WHITE PEOPLE, and trying to blame this on anyone other than white people is just white people white peopling.

  244. 244.

    tam1MI

    @kindness: Trump made gains among Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans in this last election.

    Hispanic, Black, and Native American men.

    Misogyny.

  247. 247.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Soprano2: I have always supported Dems.  I was early on the Harris train in 2019.  I think I am open minded about people.  I cannot say that I am entirely free of prejudice because I grew up in a world that was steeped in it.  And I benefited in all sorts of little ways from it.  What I can do is look for when these pop up in my thought processes and work to eliminate them.  We are all works in progress.

  249. 249.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:

    There were SEVENTEEN police walking Luigi for cameras yesterday.

    They displayed him like they had apprehended The Joker.
    The memes are numerous on Blue Sky.

  252. 252.

    Renie

    .@Soprano2: ​
     

    Good point. I was in charge of the MoveOn group for my congressional district for Obama’s first presidential campaign and it was primarily white women running everything. We also had a lot of diversity in the volunteers who helped us out for various events.

  254. 254.

    WTFGhost

    Sorry, lost me ‘ead again.

    If you find a marble labeled “unimportant garbage,” add water to it, and it will probably expand, like “dehydrated” products in 1940s cartoons, into my brain, and then, you can look for the blob that fits that, and it’ll all be fine.

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