This is the energy, right here. Opposition rhetoric at its finest. Anger not measured response. Spitting facts without boring recitation. Talking like a real human being (“bullshit” “not one damn person thought this through”). Calling out Tom Emmer for saying that people voted for Trump so this is what they wanted, saying that Emmer cares more about a seat on Air Force One than his constituents.
Via Steve M’s piece on the Democratic governors, including Walz, begging Schumer to be more aggressive.
Open thread.
trollhattan
Speaking of downsizing, City of Anchorage has acquired a tiny new police officer. IDK its potential annual salary.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFbdHoHR3wd/?hl=en
dc
That’s the way to do it!
WaterGirl
On Fire!
Melancholy Jaques
Somehow we need to get this video in front of every elected Democrat in the nation. It’s a tutorial for how to talk about Trump & the consequences of Trump.
Old School
Good for Walz!
circular reasoning
I know, I know, not helpful, but I feel like someone has to lament that he wasn’t allowed to let this side show once he joined the campaign. Sigh.
Now that I have let myself indulge in “what might have been”, back to encouraging this kind of behavior from Walz and more going forward!
Steve LaBonne
We have a really strong bench of governors- Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, and Shapiro are others who can really bring the heat in ways that connect with normies.
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
And depending on how good of a job they do, I’d wager one of them will emerge the top contender for the nomination in ‘28.
eclare
@Melancholy Jaques:
Yep!
JoyceH
I particularly liked the point that “that’s our money and we want it back”. I think that connects more with most people than “unconstitutional power grab” which is pretty abstract.
Chat Noir
Righteously pissed off and I’m here for it.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Not every force has its own ermine.
Um. I guess Herman or Hermione? Zha Zha? Simone …
trollhattan
Pity.
JerseyBeard
Bring the heat or get out of the fight. Schumer is useless. And not the only one. We’re gonna have to primary some folks before they get the message. That’s not a quick solution, but it is a necessary one.
John S.
He doesn’t seem to think much of the job Hakeem Jeffries is doing as an opposition leader. Or Gerry Connolly for that matter.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Now that’s bipartisanship I can get behind.
suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: Agreed. Our governors are really good in that regard.
They also strike me as more normal? Maybe that’s just an impression. I do think some of our Dems have kind of faculty-lounge energy and that’s an issue.
Tim C.
It’s only at the level of fantasy sports at this point, but if Harris doesn’t go for it again, Walz is my top pick for 28.
Baud
@JoyceH:
Agree.
matt
LOL This is not Trump Steaks. The man is good at political messaging.
When I found out Matt Yglesias opposed him because progressives wanted him, made me want to punch him in his dumb face.
Lobo
As someone mentioned, Trump will pass, but dishonor of those who were complicit either by commission or omission will remain.
Baud
@matt:
Shame on you. You should have wanted to punch him in the face well before that.
hueyplong
@Baud: Yeah, seriously. Just seeing his name in print is a mild irritation.
cmorenc
@Steve LaBonne: The potential governor’s group might include Harris in 2026 if she runs for the term-limited Newsom’s seat. But if she runs for Ca-Gov, that would complicate possibilities of a 2nd POTUS run in 2028, to say the least.
Mr. Longform
Hey Republicans – this is what it looks like to be tough AND smart AND not a sycophantic toady
cmorenc
@trollhattan: It’s concerning that if enough R Senators do rebel against some of the hacks Trump has nominated (Gabbard, Kennedy, Patel etc) – Trump is likely to nominate someone equally noxious in their own way to replace them, except with a less prominent profile to as easily attack. Pam Bondi as replacement for Gaetz for AG is an example.
Percysowner
@Tim C.: Totally with you on Walz if Harris doesn’t go again. WaPo OTOH, listed him as #10 in their list of 10 most likely to become the next nominee because he was SUCH a failure as a VP nomination and nobody liked him nanny, nanny boo boo. I loved him and I think if he had more time to show this side of himself he would have been even more of an asset than he was.
Old School
@cmorenc:
Take the victory that the noxious Gabbard, Kennedy, Patel aren’t there in that situation. Every successful opposition makes the future one more likely in my opinion. Get people used to the idea that Trump just can’t demand everything.
Professor Bigfoot
I like Harris-Walz ‘28; but we gotta run a white dude if we want to win.
Lumpy
Everybody look out, there’s a chance that Chuck Schumer might furrow his brow.
IMO Schumer is more interested in protecting the “norms” of the Senate than he is in protecting the public. He is totally unqualified to be the leader of an opposition party.
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: I wish I thought you were wrong.
Bill Arnold
@cmorenc:
The point of attacking Trump’s nominees is to do political damage to Trump and his administration. More damage is done if a nomination is withdrawn; that is a loss, which Trump in particular (and acting POTUS Musk, for that matter) refuse to accept. If the Rs do confirm problematic nominees, they problems are on the record.
The Audacity of Krope
I refuse to believe that. If it were up to me, we’d put hyper-qualified women in front of the general electorate until they wise up.
The Thin Black Duke
@Miss Bianca: It’s going to be Governor Newsome. He’s white, male, and has great hair.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree it’s going to be Newsom. Moreso because I don’t think he’s much of a friend to labor and, therefore, will be more appealing to the D consultant class and also to the media*. Yes, both these groups will also prefer him for being a white man, but they can’t sell that explicitly to primary voters.
*Offer expires once he secures the nomination
catclub
I thought that Walz was on the Karen channel. That would be odd.
WTFGhost
The only thing I dislike is the chryon calling him a Karen.
(I kid – it’s KARE 11 NBC. Still – if you saw it on Fox, you’d *know* it was deliberate!)
@Lumpy: if anyone is interested in the norms of the Senate, at impeachment trials, each Senator takes an oath to see impartial justice done – they were going to grill Trump just as hard as they did Clinton, because that’s what impartial means!
There *are* no norms in the Senate any longer; every Republican must be considered an incipient oathbreaker, ready to excuse any Republican abuse of power.
The Audacity of Krope
Fox?
WTFGhost
@catclub: damn it, I knew I should have posted the joke sooner.
Ohio Mom
@Mr. Longform: Yes, Walz is tough and strong and very importantly, in complete control of himself. It’s almost as if he has experience reading the riot act to I dunno, teenagers?
RevRick
@JerseyBeard: I am disinclined to raise the primary sword. There’s nothing that Felon47 and his thugs want more than for us to get into purity fights. I don’t recall any Senate Majority Leader since LBJ in the 50s being much of the party’s public face. I prefer legislative leaders to know how to manage the caucus and use the rules to accomplish goals.
suzanne
@The Thin Black Duke: Why does everyone talk about Newsom’s hair?! It is not that good! He looks like he’s about to experience a midlife crisis via Corvette.
Ohio Mom
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes, I agree. I think we need an older white male, who looks like what central casting would offer up. It gives me no joy to say that, rather despair.
Tim C.
@Percysowner: I know it’s been said a million times, but the WaPo and Times are now deeply on the other side and functional supporters of fascism. So yeah, I suspect we both put zero import on what they say.
Juliet
My governor!!! Whom I proudly voted for every time he ran, including VP. He should never have been muzzled by consultants.
The Audacity of Krope
@suzanne: Newsom looks like your boss’s boss.
Newsom looks like he’s going to buy the block and put up a luxury high-rise.
Newsom looks like he soaked up the Exxon Valdez spill with his hair and has been profiting off it since.
Newsom is the media’s platonic ideal of a Presidential candidate.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Old School:
I think this is very important.
Every loss accelerates the end of Trump’s “honeymoon” in the conventional wisdom echo chamber, which does leak out to normies over time.
Belafon
Personally I think it’s going to be Beshear.
Melancholy Jaques
@circular reasoning:
I didn’t say it, but I definitely thought it.
tam1MI
Whitmer has gone a bit squishy recently. She issued a directive to all state departments to review how they are in compliance with Trump’s EOs and to identify areas where they are not in compliance. Democratic legislators have been calling her out on this, demanding to know why she won’t stand up. I’d like to think she is just doing this to buy some time for the state to figure out a way to resist the worst of Trump’s depredations, but I’m worried she isn’t.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Professor Bigfoot:
@Miss Bianca:
For God’s sake. A woman of color who only had half a year to campaign and came to the height of her prominence in the shadow of Biden stepping down came within a hair’s breath of winning. Maybe Harris won’t be the best choice in ’28, but please, can we take context into account when we’re talking about this stuff? As opposed to leaving it out and deciding for candidates of color that they shouldn’t run?
Obama was a one of kind candidate, but he still might have lost if McCain hadn’t handled the tanking economy so badly and Mittens wasn’t a Mormon. Hilary wasn’t just any female candidate, she was one that had been slimed for years and had made her own poor choices like the Iraq war vote. Context matters.
The Audacity of Krope
Until demonstrated otherwise, I’m inclined to believe this is right. What you described is information collection. Your claim doesn’t suggest these agencies need to achieve compliance.
Belafon
@The Audacity of Krope:
That’s what I would do.
JML
@suzanne: Governor is also a different job than senator. Senator you;’re 1 of 100, even when you’re a majority/minority leader. Governor is 1 of 1. Tim Walz doesn’t have to care if the legislature gets mad at him (I mean, they’re going to do that anyways) because they can’t fire him. the caucus can dump Schumer at any time.
Don’t get me wrong, Schumer isn’t great. But expecting the senate minority leader to throw heat like a governor or House back-bencher is unrealistic. And it’s why you need a good DNC Chair to organize opposition.
Geminid
@cmorenc: I expect the Governor’s group will also include Abigail Spanberger in Virginia by this time next year, also maybe Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. Two members of the talented House Class of 2018.
Another Class of 2018 member, Deb Haaland, is expected to run for Governor of New Mexico next year. Haaland will likely succeed; as Senator Luhan said, “Deb knows how to win.”
As for Kamala Harris, she’ll have to choose between running for Governor of California next year or running for President in 2028. As a practical matter, I don’t think she can do both.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@matt:
Any day ending in ‘y’ is reason enough to punch The Turd (and his fellow Neoliberal Horsemen of the Apocalypse like Noah Smith, Dylan Matthews, Eric Levitz and honorary horseman, Little Ezra Klein) in his dumb face.
tam1MI
I will sadly go even further and say we need to run a white straight Christian dude. Newsom, Walz, Beshear…guys like that.
The Audacity of Krope
@tam1MI: Complying in advance, are we?
Geminid
@JML: Some people used to see Chuck Schumer as Hapless Charlie Brown. Then, Georgia voters elected Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and a 50 vote majority transformed Schumer into Clever Chuck.
Now that John Tester, Sherrod Brown and Johnnl Casey lost Schumer is back to Hapless Charlie Brown in some people’s minds because he does not meet their emotional needs. I think that speaks more to their emotional neediness than to Chuck Schumer’s capabilities.
stinger
God damn. Harris/Walz 2028.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
All those things and more. Newsom will be lapped up by the Yglesias, neoliberal, Reaganomic, Atlantic-reading, Totebagger Radio wing of the party. I absolutely dread him being the nominee and hope he gets good primary opponents.
In his defense, he rose to the occasion as a Democratic team player last summer supporting Biden and more recently his pushback against Hair Furor after the fires. That counts for something.
Hell, I’d be all for a Harris-Walz reprise if they completely rejigger the campaign approach.
Betty Cracker
Loved it when Walz contemptuously mocked Trump ball-gargler Tom Emmer (R-MN) and literally called bullshit on the lies about the Medicaid portal outages. That’s the spirit!
Coincidentally, I just got back from a brief road trip during which I listened to Rachel Maddow’s show via a podcast. (I think it was yesterday’s show.) She played part of the same clip and interviewed Walz in more detail. Here’s the YouTube — definitely worth a listen.
In the opening block of the show (prior to the Walz interview), Maddow talked about the tech overlords’ not-so-secret scheme to destroy American democracy by replacing it with a right-wing oligarchy headed up by a dictator, JD Vance’s role in that scheme and how the OBM’s lawless funding freeze and bogus fed employee “buy-out” offer are evidence that they’re moving full steam ahead. Walz agreed with Maddow that this is what Thiel, Musk, Vance, et al., are attempting to do.
Josh Marshall at TPM has a piece up today about how the Trump people were out of the loop on that shit. (Gift link) But that’s by design — Trump handed out fiefdoms to unelected oligarchs in exchange for bribes and grift opportunities.
My takeaway is that via the so-called DOGE project, Musk is attempting to do to the U.S. what he did to Twitter — degrade the experience for everyone except himself and his Nazi pals and stick his feed straw further into the public wallet, only this time under government cover.
Maddow noted that the one bright spot here is that these people don’t know what they’re doing, hence the embarrassing face-plant on the funding freeze. It’s possible their arrogance and incompetence will prevent them from achieving their aims before they snuff out democracy entirely. I sure hope so. I don’t want to live in a world run by those assholes.
stinger
@Professor Bigfoot:
History proves that that is wrong.
TBone
Here we are again in a circular firing squad, shooting at those on our own team instead of directing that fire outward, toward where it truly belongs.
I’m not gonna argue against or with my fellow Dems right now – each contributes what their strengths and experience allows. Not one of us truly wants Rethugs in charge; we are on the same team. Urging appropriately is not the same as deriding.
thethinblackduke
@The Audacity of Krope: No. Recognizing a pattern, is all.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: I wanna know what private conversations these fucks are having with Putin, Orban, and that gang of oligarchs, et al.
tam1MI
We don’t have elections with the electorate we wish we had, but the one we have. And we all know what doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of.
MomSense
OT but I needed a laugh today. Apparently the youngs are calling teslas Swasticars.
Betty Cracker
@TBone: I know some folks believe Putin is the grand puppet-master in all this. I think that gives the two-bit thug more credit than he deserves. He definitely led Trump around by the nose because Trump is an idiot, but I think the objective was more to weaken the U.S. than control it. Gotta hand it to him there: mission accomplished.
MomSense
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
Thank you. She had to overcome so much in a short time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
Saw a meme I wish I’d saved. Picture of China’s leadership seated at some massive conference hall, all the usual PRC iconography behind them. The caption reads:
“CIA just learned of China’s intent to sit back and watch the USA collapse.”
Geminid
@RevRick: I expect there will be a lot of contested Democratic primaries next year, if only because retirements will make for a lot of open seats.
As for challenges to Democratic incumbents, I think there’ll be plenty of those too. Even though I hold a fairly high opinion of our Congressional caucus members in general, I have no problem with that. There clearly are a lot of issues of both form and substance– like those expressed here– that need to aired out, and primaries are the way that’s done.
I recently saw an interesting item along these lines; that the leaderships of the “Liberal” Progressive Caucus and “Moderate” New Democrat Caucus had agreed not to take sides in primary challenges.
Such an agreement cannot bind individual caucus members, but I took this as a sign that Party leaders want to tamp down intra-party conflict as much as possible. They know they are playing for very high stakes next year, stakes that transcend the intra-party issues some of their Democratic constituents want to fight over.
Chris Johnson
@Betty Cracker: I’m that guy, yeah, but I agree with you completely. It was always about weakening the US rather than controlling it. And that makes Trump inherently weak, as he’s not being helped to be a tyrant, he’s there to take a fall.
I’m happy to help him fall, and that doesn’t mean me and Putin have the same aims.
If you want Harris/Walz ’26, which I’d love, we have to bring down Putin’s election interference campaign. That’s all, it’s as simple as that. It’s the same one that placed Trump in power the first time. Without dealing with that (and it’s actively against the interests of Republicans!) there is no person we can put up that’ll be immune from interference. I think Harris was about as savvy at resisting that interference as anybody could ask for. She even defused the coconut thing by turning it into a laborious metaphor for being enlightened and history-aware :)
RevRick
@tam1MI: I leave the choosing of our theoretical nominee to those more qualified than me: Black South Carolina church ladies.
Melancholy Jaques
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
Total agreement with everything you said.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: I was thinking of Elno mostly, who has been caught having phone calls with Pooty.
https://apnews.com/article/musk-putin-x-trump-tesla-election-russia-9cecb7cb0f23ccce49336771280ae179
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I will also follow the lead of Black, South Carolina Church ladies.
Well, that and Yvonne Reeves Chong, the Misery Dem Party Vice-Chair, also a black lady.
The Audacity of Krope
@tam1MI: Every election has some degree of a new electorate. Furthermore, the two women we lost with were, in the first case, damaged by years of right-wing slander and a couple questionable votes to alleviate the same, in the second case, was put before the electorate not having won a primary.
So, no, nominating another woman would not be insanity. Caving to patriarchal shitheads would be.
Old School
@TBone:
The Audacity of Krope
I agree. And I do give him some credit there. Only some, though, as he would be aware as a politically astute person that helping defenestrate Biden would look…untoward…given his obvious ambitions.
TBone
@Old School: what was that response in regard to? (
Need context.) Inquiring minds almost don’t want to know wtf he IS speaking to him about!ETA I see it is about the helicopter crash.
tam1MI
Agreed. Probably the wisest move for all of us would be to see who they plump for and then go for that person.
The Audacity of Krope
@TBone: I thought it was in response to your own statement about Elon making kissy calls with Putin.
ETA: From your update, though, appears I understood wrong.
Betty
@The Audacity of Krope: The Seth Meyers mocking of Newsome may provide ammunition to his opponents.
The Audacity of Krope
@Betty: I’m unfamiliar. Though I used to watch religiously, I haven’t watched Seth Meyers since the election.
Betty
@The Audacity of Krope: His brother does regular bits posing as Newsome and making fun of his California woo-wooness.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There’s an Israeli lady, Iris Boker who I follow mainly for her sarcastic scorn for Israel’s lying, self-interested Prime Minister.
Boker also has some good threads on history and contemporary events, and she posted one today on the perverse effects of Trump’s “America First” policies, starting with the withdrawal from the WHO:
The Audacity of Krope
@Betty: Ahh…gotcha. If I go back maybe I should watch the whole show not just A Closer Look, which he takes time to shame us YouTube viewers for.
catclub
@Geminid: yeah, this
catclub
@Betty Cracker: I take it as a good sign that Trump has not already given away Ukraine.
I think people are whispering in his ear that Putin is dramatically weakened by the Failed Ukraine war, and Trump can pile on. It sounds too good to be true.
p.a
We’re much more likely to get this from governors than Congresscritters because the govs aren’t worried about limiting tension with their Republican fellows in the House & Senate at the Capitol gelato bar.
Chief Oshkosh
@JML: Except we have the example of McTurtle on the R side and of Nancy Smash on the Dem side. In their own different ways, both were feared by their members.
Being loved and feared is best, but if only one is possible, being feared is the more effective. Somebody famous said that…
Geminid
@p.a: I wonder if you have seen Hakeem Jeffries’ statement.
Miss Bianca
Just got done watching this again after a morning of trying to report on the blizzard of shit coming down from the Trump Administration and then doing an interview with our local Public Health Director and all I gotta say is:
GOOOO, GOVERNOR WALZ!!
@The Thin Black Duke: And if it’s gotta be a white guy, I say, let’s go with Walz.
brantl
@cmorenc: Pam Bondi was just as bad as gates if anybody bothered to look her past.
I'm not Rappaport
@Baud:
Heh. Indeed.
brantl
@Geminid: Yeah, but Chuck Schumer is so dry he’d fart dust. The guy needs to stop that professorial hand-clasping behind his back, get loud and bang his fist (hard!) on the podium.