It’s always gratifying to watch Republican villains fighting like half a dozen coked-up weasels in a tote sack. There’s nothing wrong with smiling as you read about Elon Musk threatening to primary Repubs who vote for Trump’s massive murder bill, Mike Johnson whining about being ghosted by the ketamine king, Trump trashing Rand Paul and calling Leonard Leo a sleazebag, etc. Oh, and this:
Over on the other site…. 👀
— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 12:40 PM
These are all unambiguously positive developments in the fight against the fascists and their shitty agenda!
But of course the U.S. political press is sifting through that gigantic shit-pile to find a “Dems in disarray” angle, and a few of the usual suspects are helpful on that score. Politico headline:
Dems eye a villain-to-ally arc for Musk
Two elected Dems quoted in that story are exactly whom you’d expect to catch making dumb mouth-farts on the topic of Musk: Reps Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY).
“We should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with,” Khanna said. “A commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him.”
“I’m a believer in redemption, and he is telling the truth about the legislation,” said Rep. RITCHIE TORRES (D-N.Y.). But, he added, Musk has “done an enormous amount of damage” and “there are Democrats who see his decimation of the federal workforce and the federal government as an unforgivable sin.”
For fuck’s sake, Musk is NOT telling the truth about the legislation! He dislikes the bill because he considers it too generous to non-billionaires, and it takes public money off the table that Musk had hoped to funnel into his own government-subsidized pockets.
And yeah, the vandalization of U.S. soft power, scientific leadership, etc., is “an unforgiveable sin,” and Musk’s “commitment to science funding” is contingent upon Musk personally receiving the funding, you absolute dinguses. (Unless they are unicorns who are the only electable Dems in their districts, I hope both of these guys get primaried so hard they materialize in a distant galaxy.)
The Politico article cites a couple of other Dem Musk-fluffers too, though I don’t personally find their takes nearly as egregious.
LIAM KERR, co-founder of the group behind the centrist Democrats’ WelcomeFest meeting today in Washington, said “of course” Democrats should, ahem, welcome Musk back into the party.
“You don’t want anyone wildly distorting your politics, which he has a unique capability to do. But it’s a zero-sum game,” Kerr said. “Anything that he does that moves more toward Democrats hurts Republicans.”
Rep. BRAD SCHNEIDER (D-Ill.), the chair of the New Democrat Coalition who earlier this year supported the party’s targeting of Musk as the Department of Government Efficiency slashed through federal agencies, said that with his departure from Washington, Democrats shouldn’t make Musk their focus. “We should be talking about what we’re doing for the American people,” he said.
While not as catastrophically dumb as what Khanna and Torres said, this too is stupid. “We” are not doing shit for the American people right now for the simple reason that “we” are shut out of power.
Musk is unpopular, and what he did (and is still doing!) to the federal government and with our personal data is unpopular. Musk is the very embodiment of the corrosive influence of money in politics, as is the wildly corrupt crypto scammer Musk installed as ceremonial president for the rock-bottom price of $288 million. Of course we should focus on that — all of it!
But Musk’s recent heel-turn also risks reopening a divide between progressives and moderates over how to approach him and other billionaires.
“Our caucus has done the right thing and gone toe-to-toe against Musk,” said Rep. GREG CASAR (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and one of the party’s most vocal advocates for making Musk an antagonist on the campaign trail.
Others are taking a wait-and-see approach. “I don’t think we should take one ketamine-fueled tweet as evidence of a change of heart,” said MATT BENNETT, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way. “It’s more complicated.”
The highlighted material is such a bullshit take. Khanna and Torres both have ties to Bernie Sanders of “Fighting Oligarchy” rally fame. Kerr and Schneider are center-left figures.
Again, I think the divide is between people who understand that our democracy is under grievous assault and know what must be done to neutralize the threat and people who don’t get it. It’s not ideological, so I reject that bait.
Open thread.
This Explains So Much
Omnes Omnibus
Musk? Yeah, fuck that guy.
narya
As soon as I read that I knew who wrote this post . . .
Also: fuck that guy.
George
“half a dozen coked-up weasels in a tote sack”!
I love the assonance! It reminds me of something Hunter Thompson would have written.
Hoodie
Seems dangerous for Dems to jump in on the Musk/Trump conflict. While the conflict is welcome, Musk is not an ally and it gives Trump a chance to distance himself from Musk, who is very unpopular. He is also erratic and unreliable. Dems seem to have a perennial need to find some third party validator, usually the Principled Conservative, which usually only makes it look like Dems are not sure of their convictions.
Baud
Khanna is a douche.
Torres’ quote is anodyne.
Josie
I would find it excruciatingly difficult to vote for anyone who is ready to forgive Musk. The man is evil personified.
Jackie
Muskrat’s loyalty is only to himself. He supported Dems when it benefited him. Switched his allegiance to FFOTUS when it benefited him. Now he’s threatening Reps – because this Bill threaten his benefits.
Steve in the ATL
Even a bling pig finds a truffle every now and again…
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I disagree because Torres said Musk “is telling the truth about the legislation,” which is bullshit. I mean, maybe if someone followed up (they won’t), Torres might say Musk was telling the truth when he described the bill as “an abomination,” which it is, but that ignores the reasons Musk hates the bill, which are bad.
Shorter: You do not — under any fucking circumstances! — have to hand it to Musk.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t mind that. Defeating the bill is the most important thing right now.
Apsalar
Ro Khanna represents Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and Santa Clara. A broken piece of concrete with a “D” next to its name would win there. He sucks up to Musk and his ilk because he chooses to, not because his constituents expect it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Anything Khanna (Tech Bro House Rep) says, the Dem party should do the opposite.
Suozzi’s a different kind of awful and no, his district makeup, ie., the usual “he can’t be an ‘AOC’ candidate” defenses just don’t cut it anymore.
Steve LaBonne
The party needs to wean itself off techbro money altogether. You’re on the billionaires’ side or the side of the rest of us, can’t be both. Also fuck Ro Khanna, what an asshole.
trollhattan
Elmo—Not Your Friend. Never. Nope. Nada.
Steve LaBonne
@trollhattan: Hostis humani generis, as the Romans would say.
Shalimar
Khanna absolutely was my first guess. I forgot about Torres.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed he is awful.
trollhattan
TACO is heard from.
Cluck!
TONYG
Elon Musk is, correctly, about as unpopular as a pile of shit right now, and any Democrat who is worth a damn must be exploiting that unpopularity now. That’s just common sense.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Fair point. If Torres is an otherwise good rep (I don’t know), fine. I hope Khanna, who fluffs Musk regularly, gets primaried into the sun.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know either. I’m just judging the quote. To be clear, it could be better, but I don’t find it as offensive as Khanna’s.
Bupalos
Woof. He’s not trying to take backsies. Trump tried to be more or less conciliatory (because I think Trump uses Musk for narcissistic regulation, as he does Putin.) But Musk just escalated and considering Trump’s psyche, this is pretty much nuclear escalation:
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
“Such ingratitude.”
Shalimar
Distinguished from Katie Miller, whose nickname is now “Three-Way”.
Baud
Suzanne
Elon Musk doesn’t have values, you idiot!
brendancalling
These fucking twatwaffles.
I just left a scathing message for that tool Ro Khanna or whatever that clown’s name is. What an idiotic piece of shit. Pack him and stupid Richie in the rocket with Musk and blast them off to Mars, one way.
schrodingers_cat
I find Musk and the entire techbro neoeugenicist crew appalling and boring. They are wealthy but they neither as smart or interesting as they like to think.
Betty Cracker
@Bupalos: LMAO!
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Isn’t it terrible how often people here get a hold of the wrong end of the stick? It must be a trial for you.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Biden was boring and every 25 year old couldn’t find the housing they wanted so now we reap the results of electing the vulgar content creator.
Eggs are still expensive and mortgage rates are inching up and our head of the executive branch is doing is his best to tank the economy.
But immigrants and people on work visas and student visas are afraid. So its all a win-win.
Suzanne
@Bupalos: I will watch the social media dick-measuring contest with great amusement.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
And young men found us icky because we are too female.
Steve in the ATL
@brendancalling:
I have seen “Send Elon to Mars” stickers on Teslas. Will it stop people from keying them?
oldgold
As I have said before, this is not an administration. Rather, Trump is presiding over a reality television show. It is frighteningly similar to The Apprentice. For goodness sake, Peter Hegseth is running the Department of Defense and Steve Wickoff is negotiating with Putin! And, it goes on and on.
The dangers this poses to our nation and the world are incalculable.
schrodingers_cat
I saw my first Tesla truck yesterday. It looks like a science project gone wrong. Its so ugly.
cmorenc
The above is why the notion of luring Musk to side with democrats is at least a briefly tempting fever dream: “what-if Musk had instead steered that sort of money in to supporting Harris and D candidates in a few critical Senate and House races?” But that retrospective notion fails against the reality of Musk revealing who and what he really is ever since he bought Twitter, and led DOGE through the massive arsonist vandalism of the federal government. They are imagining an entire alternative history of Musk that didn’t happen, and is impossible to expunge at this point, even if Musk implausibly had a change of heart.
What is still possible under present circumstances is for Musk to decide to use some of his fortune to commit some vengeful arson from inside the GOP tent by supporting primary challenges to R congressional incumbents. But that’s a vastly different dynamic than trying to transform Musk into supporting the D side, when Musk has become such a toxically corrosive force with the public.
rikyrah
He literally didn’t know who was the global base for those who would buy those cars.
Hint.
Those people don’t phucking like Nazis.😡😤😡
And, that buying base, isn’t coming back GLOBALLY 😒😒
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Definitely ugly
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
They aren’t. The entire lot are sociopaths
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Get thee ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE
I just can’t stand Khanna😡😡😡
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: The Joe Biden automaton is still working its evil will on long-suffering Merkins. Only Donald J. Trump, anointed by God while also being Your Favorite President, can save us! Raise high the Diaper of Destiny and shout our battle cry, “Kovfefe!”
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: curse all our superfluous X chromosomes!
jowriter
@narya: Indeed, a beautiful image.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@oldgold:
Every cabinet pick is basically trolling the Constitution.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Apsalar:
Aren’t Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and Santa Clara the heart of Silicon Valley? Seems like that might be relevant…
MazeDancer
Ro Khanna, still lousy after all these years.
Harrison Wesley
@schrodingers_cat: There are a fair number of them around where I live. They look to me like props from cheap 1960s sci-fi movies.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Why TF would anyone who has taken even passing observation of Elon Musk over the last decade come away with any delusion that the man has any values aside from naked self-interest?!?! That naked self-interest might be tech-flavored, but it’s just wanting to own more people and stuff.
Belafon
Also, if Trump were truly angry at Musk, Trump would end all of his government contracts.
Baud
@Belafon:
True.
Trump hasn’t put a tariff on Russia, despite mouth noises about tension over Ukraine.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: Its all a charade, to generate clicks and $$.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Increasingly I just don’t understand what it is you’re trying to say, other than to convey some kind of generalized animosity to me.
wrong end of the stick wha??!
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: Could be a pro-wrestling thing, but I don’t really think so given the actual unknown state of the Big Bursting Bubble.
If it is an act, it’s opening up a chance for Tesla TACO’s, down 8%.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Harrison Wesley:
Ah, Der Wankpanzer, always better to view one in person to get an idea what the buzz is about!
I was in LA/SD several weeks back and when we were out and about, we’d see from 1-3 each day.
Here in the Denver metro area, which is awash in money, we don’t see them as frequently. Rivian is the go-to EV for rich people here, probably because they have a significant sales/support presence here (I live 5 minutes from their support facility).
One good thing Der Wankpanzer has done is really hurt Tesla:
https://fortune.com/2025/06/04/tesla-cybertruck-disused-parking-lot-stockpile-of-unsold-vehicles/
https://www.fastcompany.com/91338704/tesla-cybertruck-is-officially-a-flop
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2025/05/17/teslas-very-existence-critical-as-10000-cybertrucks-remain-unsold/
Sure, a lot of other things are also hurting Tesla but any additional anvils tossed at them are just fine.
Which is really a bad thing to say about a company that really has revolutionized the move to EVs in the automotive world.
Problem is Tesla leadership still treats the company as a meme stock, not as a potentially viable automobile company.
Apsalar
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Ro Khanna can absolutely represent his constituents who work for tech companies without fluffing the tech bro billionaires.
PatD
@Apsalar: to be fair, he does have a lot of constituents that do expect him to suck up to Musk. Very few of them are Democrats though.
PatD
@Betty Cracker: Really depends on how you come down on Israel/Gaza. Torres is a defender of Israel’s government and their broader conduct and basically equates any criticism of that to supporting Hamas.
trollhattan
@MazeDancer:
Don’t know him, don’t live in his district, but there’s some burnishing going on. The local paper:
Evidently also a Bernie bro. Maybe he’ll get over it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: The fact that they’re framing it in that headline as “villain to ally arc” says it all to me about the lazy fecklessness of the MSM these days. For fuck’s sake, they sound like they’re reviewing the latest MCU movie. That’s all they are today in the MSM – not reporters, but movie critics. Fuck ’em.
catclub
Yes. Mark Burnett has a lot to get answer for.
The first and greatest sane-washer of that idiot.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Jeez. “He’s so dreamy 🥰”
Belafon
@trollhattan: Here’s how I solve it: Tax the rich more.
Here’s my argument: There’s only one profession that truly earns $150/hr for their labor, and that is teaching. There are others that come close, such as garbage collectors and pediatricians. Anyone else making more than $150/hr is stealing someone else’s labor, and we have the right to tax that back into helping people and improving the country.
Eyeroller
@Baud: I learned something interesting about South Korea yesterday. Their liberal party recently squeaked out a win. What was remarkable was the gender gap in younger people. Something like 70% of the women and 30% of the men voted for that party.
Korea is very homogeneous so it eliminates the confounding factor of race. We can probably also eliminate certain complaints about not doing things for men to help them out. I think we can conclude that there’s a worldwide issue with men in general in what we think of as democracies. It’s also the case that young South Korean women have said that the men are terrible and they don’t want to date them. And the birthrate is collapsing.
Some teacher subs on Reddit are full of complaints that boys as young as 4th grade are spouting Andrew Tate bullshit, and are often backed up by their dads. I wonder whether there’s some Korean version of Andrew Tate, but having basically no knowledge of the language or culture (other than it’s likely pretty patriarchal) I wouldn’t know.Seems like we’re in some big sociological experiment right now.
catclub
Burnishing indeed.
Beat sweetener, total ass kissing article.
TONYG
@Hoodie: That’s right. Musk versus Trump is like the SA versus the SS. Both sides are equally repulsive. The correct response is to condemn both of them.
catclub
I would argue that plumbers in winter earn their summer vacations.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
100%.
It’s not us, it’s them.
oldgold
Exhibit A that this is remarkably similar to The Apprentice :
“Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence.”
Baud
@Belafon:
I wasn’t expecting teaching.
Geminid
Musk is clearly no ally to Democrats, and I don’t see this being a consequential intra-party problem.
Musk could be big problem for Mike Johnson though, and for the rest of the Republican leaders including Trump. Musk has thrown Freedom Caucus members in particular a challenge. Up to now, they have gone along with the Big Fvcked-up Bill against their purported principles. Freedom Caucus members were bound to face attacks from primary opponents for expanding the national debt, because they promised Republican voters they would control it. Now those challenges could be turbocharged with Musk money.
On the other hand, if Musk means what he says and follows through, a Republican who defects on the budget bill could have Musk on their side. That makes crossing Trump less dangerous. And it’s not like they have to fear the institutional Republican Party because Trump has hollowed that out over the last ten years. That makes it easier for Musk to set up a rival power center.
MazeDancer
Hoping Josh Shapiro tweets out blanket immunity for Elon for coming clean on whatever Elon did to flip PA to Trump.
Get the feeling that Elon tweeting Trump wouldn’t have won without me isn’t just about money.
TONYG
@catclub: The goddamn New York Times had an article a few days ago talking about how, now that he’s out of the government, Elon Musk can concentrate on his “visionary” “effective altruism” plans to colonize Mars. Really disgusting ass-kissing by the fucking New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/business/elon-musk-longtermism-effective-altruism-doge.html
Shalimar
Also, too, Tesla stock is down over 10% today over concerns that Musk is breaking with Trump and won’t get the benefits of that relationship. Tesla stock has been down over 10% on previous days because of concerns that Musk is too close to Trump and not spending enough time managing Tesla. In other words, Musk really should not have gotten involved in politics because he is fucked no matter what he does at this point.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: Wow, you mean it’s a problem for Republicans, not Democrats?
Why aren’t you writing for the NYT? (I think I just answered my own question.)
Shalimar
@TONYG: If Musk doesn’t personally go on the Mars mission, I really do not see how they can describe it as effective or altruism.
They Call Me Noni
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t consider it a real truck. You can’t haul dirt, flowers, lumber, etc. in it. It looks like a dumpster on wheels.
Belafon
@catclub: Very true, but is it $150/hr?
There are plenty of professions that come close, but the true point is that there’s a cap on how much real labor costs compared to how much someone like a CEO makes.
Eyeroller
@TONYG: Over and over again I am reminded why it was right of me to cancel my 20+ year subscription a few months before the election.
Belafon
@Baud: I consider them and parents foundational to a society, and since all teachers are also trained babysitters, they get to earn more.
Raoul Paste
@Shalimar: One has to wonder whether Trump‘s feud with Musk will depress Tesla sales even more in the USA. The remaining buyers would presumably be Muscovite’s.
ETA. Darn the spell correct. I typed Muskovites
Suzanne
@Eyeroller:
Well, yeah. Feminism has changed the social order all around the world. South Korea has a staggering gender divide, but I saw a graph that indicates that a yawning gap is opening up in many of the first-world countries. South Korea is probably ten years ahead of us.
Feminism has opened up doors to education, social status, and financial independence for women. Keep that in mind whenever you see lefties who complain that Dems aren’t appealing to working class men enough, so that’s why they’re flipping to the Republicans.
Captain C
Should have stopped right there, or added, “and between that and because he’s an apartheid nepo baby freakazoid and snake oil salesman who should be put on a rocket out of the solar system, we should have nothing to do with him at all.”
catclub
Tesla stock down 10% when it is 300% overvalued is almost a paper cut. The PE ratio for Tesla is 162.
revise that, 800% overvalued
trollhattan
@Shalimar: OTOH if Elmo IS going, I’m getting my MARS NOW! poster ready to deploy.
ETA am informed a trillion dollar bill stack is a mere 67,866 miles, that’s not even reaching the moon. Gotta ride the rocket, Elmo, the one that tends to blow up.
Baud
@Shalimar: Heh.
Shalimar
@catclub: Yeah. 800% overvalued is actually optimistic, for people who believe his bullshit about being an innovative AI and robot company. For a company that produces cars, even a PE of 20 is at least double anyone else.
Bupalos
@Geminid: It’s still an eternity to 2028, but I think some much more complicated politics developing within the Republican Party is probably just around the corner. This may even be the start of it. But I’d say definitely by the 2026 elections and their aftermath, or sooner if we go into recession.
laura
Ro Khanna has been a greasy bag of medical waste ever since he pulled the shove that old man aside because I’m a savvy fresh young face on long serving progressive representative Mike Honda. Mike Honda was an actual progressive who had a solid reputation for coalition building and legislative record to prove it. Ro Khanna has been owned and operated by big tech bro’s since jump. Trust that shite-bag at your peril.
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: Agreed but something has happened with GenZ and “Alphas” or whatever, in particular. Feminism was pretty strong when most Millenials were growing up and they’re one of the most liberal generations, including the men.
It’s possible there’s another backlash going on. A while back some commenter noted that maybe in the case of GenZ, they were mostly raised by GenX parents, who are even more right-wing than Boomers. But somehow Millenials, mostly the children of Boomers and perhaps the oldest GenX, turned out “better” (at least by our standards). So I don’t know how we can make progress when this backsliding seems worse than previous episodes, with social media seeming to be a heavy driving force.
Parfigliano
@Shalimar: Fucked both ways that’s a good thing
Suzanne
LMAO Elon Musk is currently tweeting about needing a third party.
Please proceed, asshole.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Ro Khanna is ready for his audition.
Suzanne
@Eyeroller: Maybe. The Gen Z voting cohort voted bluer that the Millennials, but not by a whole lot. There was certainly a shift from how we expected them to vote.
Bupalos
@Suzanne: One of the main reasons the Republican Party is getting more male is because the blue side of the gender reveal is just having a bad time. More anxiety, drugs, suicides, gambling, loneliness, time with screens, less education…
I know this all gets received here to some extent as a lame reaction to a kind of deserved loss of status, but we’re talking about an age continuum and the disparities are basically worse the younger you go.
But anyway, men are just getting worse, which translates into a bunch of tragic outcomes… becoming Republican being one of them.
chris
@narya: Country NC boy here…my mom (mama) always said what sounded like “TOE sack” but I aint sure til now that I knew it was just a bastardization of “TOTE sack” Thanks Betty C!
Harrison Wesley
@TONYG: The Night of the Long Knives and Short Fingers, when two forces both led by narcissistic morons destroy each other and make the world a better place.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I consider this misleading reporting:
That reporter must have taken an average age of the Ranking Members of the various House commitees to get that number. Personally, when I think of “Democratic House leadership” I think of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar; they are 53, 61 and 45 years old respectively.
And just among the rank and file, there are a couple dozen House Democrats who are every bit as intelligent and hardworking as Ro Khanna, but younger. Here the reporter is relying on the typical reader’s lack of knowledge about any but a few “stars” among Democratic House members.
suzanne
@Bupalos: I think the Democrats are better for men on every issue than the Republicans. Unless you are pulling in $500K a year or more, the Dems are better for your self-interest.
What they aren’t better for is their self-concept. Being in a political coalition with a woman who makes more money than you is threatening, I know.
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: IIRC the gender gap was bigger for GenZ than for Millenials, rather similar to what was reported about the recent South Korean election but less extreme. So that’s how they still voted blue but we’re suddenly worried about young men.
But I really don’t want the officials to be hiring Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias to explain it to them.
Eyeroller
@Geminid: Also he is comparing a backbencher to “leadership.” What is the average age of the Members overall? What is the age of Leadership, and non-Leadership? One would expect “leaders” to be older on average.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: He values Elon Musk and the sweet sweet envy of others.
Bupalos
@Shalimar: Who knows what kind of company the investors really think Tesla is at this point, but one thing you can say in relative terms is that it’s pretty crazy that it would be valued higher now than it was before the election. I mean there are just no metrics that are better. The existing business is way worse, and it’s no closer to any of it’s pie-in-the-sky stuff – and in fact it looks like it’s fallen behind in the things it claimed to be inventing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Two of the better, to date, pieces on how blocs voted:
https://www.iwf.org/2024/11/13/7-charts-tell-us-female-vote/
https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-gender-and-age-analysis-of-2024-election-results/
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2024
Each provides more nuance than just suggesting “Boomers vote right wing” and such. There’s an obvious gender-split in terms of that vote. Other pieces indicate that 65+ women voted Harris but it’s hard to find reports that break that down further by race, income, education, etc.
Suzanne
@Eyeroller:
LMAO INORITE.
“I know, we’ve got a lack of appeal with young working-class men. Let’s hire two middle-aged Ivy League trust fund assholes to investigate.”
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: It looks like Monty Burn’s ringer soapbox derby race car.
B1naryS3rf
(deleted)
Harrison Wesley
@Suzanne: He can join Andrew Yang and the Forward Party.
Paul in KY
@Bupalos: I didn’t get that one either.
Paul in KY
@Eyeroller: Korea is a very macho culture, IMO.
Paul in KY
@oldgold: I assume he’s there to fuck it up.
Paul in KY
@They Call Me Noni: The Incel Camino!
Paul in KY
@suzanne: There are fucking GQP women who make oodles more than them too. Why is that not hurting their fee fees?
Bupalos
@suzanne: I don’t know how much of the “turning Republican” thing is because it’s hard to accept women making more money. It’s more like young men are just rotting on the vine before they are even ripe. I don’t think it’s a question of getting over bigotries or preconceived notions or the promises of patriarchy or anything like that as much as it is just… fundamentally not developing. I kind of wonder if the screens do more damage to boys or something. Maybe something about the different development path and hormones leaving them more vulnerable?
Anyway, I’ve got 3 daughters stretching from college to middle school. Just from being around their school and friend situations, the basic ratio of ‘quality’ girls to ‘quality’ guys just scares me. I think people should take seriously the “crisis of men”, I know it can be icky-place adjacent, but something’s gotta give. You can’t have a decent society with the number of stunted chuds we’re going to have running around in a few years.
Suzanne
@Paul in KY: GOP women tend to do a lot more performance of femininity.
You can have, like, one deviation from the ideal, right? You can make more money, as long as you’re quiet about it and you bleach your hair blonde and have fake boobies and pretend to like your husband.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
Saw my first cybertruck over the last weekend, at a light turning left in front of me (to my right).
Shamefully, my middle finger was delayed about took like 250 milliseconds (slow for me), but they got a good view if they were looking.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Gender gaps can turn up in the weirdest places too, like in an Emerson College poll of the New York Mayoral primary released May 28. It showed former Governor Andrew Cuomo beating Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani 54.4 to 45.6 percent when the various ranked choices were tabulated.
Emerson polling director Spencer Kimball found these salient demographic aspects of the Mamdami vote:
Kimball’s description of Cuomo voters is where it gets really interesting
I did a double take the first time I saw that last number, which is why I bolded it.
They Call Me Noni
@Paul in KY: I forgot all about El Caminos!
Suzanne
@Geminid: It is weird. And the gender gap has been growing significantly in each election cycle.
Bill Arnold
@Belafon:
So far today, Mr. Musk’s net worth has declined 30.8 Billion dollars.
If that is close to the final 24 hour number, he will have lost approximately 356 thousand dollars per second, today.
That is 1.28 billion dollars per hour.
It exceeds your 150 dollars per hour threshold by a factor of 8555555.
kindness
Ever since Ro Khanna primaried and beat Mike Honda back in 2016 I’ve not liked the asshole. Yea Ro is a Democrat but Mike Honda was a great Democrat. Ro rode in on his techbro credentials, painted Mike Honda as old and in the way and beat him. Fuck Ro Khanna. Silicon Valley gives us many nice things. It’s tech titans and leaders though? Not so much.
JaneE
The funniest part of the GOP slap fight is that little kernels of truth keep peeping out. The BBB is an abomination.
Geminid
@Bupalos: Yeah, I think Musk could be a factor on the Republican side in the 2026 midterms. That is, if Musk doesn’t lose interest in politics. He seems to have gotten the bug though.
As for 2028, for some reason this affair reminds me of the words Plutatch ascribed to Pompey the Younger when the Dictator Sullar complained about Pompey’s popularity:
I wouldn’t neccesarily describe Musk as a rising sun, but I think Trump is in many ways a setting sun.
Baud
@JaneE:
I just realized they appropriated the initials of Build Back Better.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
The Musk/Trump fight on social media right now is getting hot. [1]
E.g. Musk said that Trump hasn’t released the Epstein files because he’s in them. Trump twice suggested canceling Musk’s government contracts, etc.
[1] (Really hot is 100 million degrees kelvin, thermonuclear. Hopefully we won’t go there. :-)
Geminid
@Suzanne: New York City politics in general and this Mayoral primary in particular are very singular, in my opinion. And this is just one poll. But the gender gap was still counter-intuitive and somewhat surprising to me.
In other ways it’s not so surprising. Voters may not be focused on issues of moral character so much as the pragmatic question: Who can best make the City work for us?
Ed. This is just a theory because I’m watching this race from 250 miles away. But my general impression is that Black people and women are more pragmatically-oriented than their White and male counterparts.
Splitting Image
Well, he is a junkie.
Marc
I live adjacent to that district. The demographics of that district have changed dramatically, 50 years ago is was pretty much all white and Latino, now there are large numbers of East and South Asians 1st/2nd generation immigrants (just try driving through downtown Fremont when there is an election going on in India). A lot of them are quite conservative. I think it’s a bit crazy to think that a white (or in this case Japanese-American) liberal Democrat should have some sort of lock on that district, but I’m not white.
Captain C
@trollhattan:
I don’t know who wrote this article or what old-ass encyclopedia they were using, but the current leadership in the House (assuming this is current with regards to who they are, which AFAIK it is), per a cursory Google search, averages 55.8 years old, with the oldest being Suzan DelBene (DCCC Chair) at 63, and the youngest being Pete Aguilar (Caucus Chair) at 45. Only DelBene is within a decade of the purported average here.
Either someone was extremely lazy and didn’t bother with researching the article themselves (using grotty AI slop counts) or they’re bullshitting on purpose.
Captain C
@TONYG: Perhaps Musk can bring the Sulzburgers, Joe Kahn, and Kathleen Kingsbury with him on the first mission. Even if it’s successful and they make it back, we’ll be rid of them for several years.
Captain C
@Geminid:
If you take the average of the ranking committee members (I didn’t bother with all the subcommittees) the average is 68.85. Throw in the five overall leaders from my post just above, and it drops to 66.24. The figure of 72 was either done using completely outdated data, data counting the subcommittee members (which is kind of too wide a net for the point they’re presumably trying to make and I suspect this isn’t the case anyway) or was completely made up bullshit.
Kayla Rudbek
@Eyeroller: there’s what they call the 4B movement (I guess in Korean, the word for no starts with B). No dating, no marriage, no children, and I forget what the fourth No is for.
I seriously think that runaway sexism is a factor in the Great Filter (we can call it the Screwfly Factor after the short story of the same title).
Kayla Rudbek
@They Call Me Noni: I don’t even think I could get the tandem bike and the telescope footlocker into it either
Timill
@Kayla Rudbek: “Its proponents do not date men, marry men, have sex with men, or have children with men.”
Kayla Rudbek
@Timill: thank you! I knew there were four “no” terms for the movement (and South Korea having below replacement birth rates)
Ben Cisco
TACO has another enemy.
That’s not the same thing.
And yeah, fuck that guy.
YY_Sima Qian
@Eyeroller: Here is the supporting data, for South Korea & around the world (gift link to FT article below):
Here is a more recent X thread by Murdoch on the same topic, & link to the slides of the talk he refers to in his thread.
YY_Sima Qian
@Timill: A somewhat similar dynamic is at play in Japan, Taiwan, the PRC, & emerging in Vietnam, Singapore & other parts of SE Asia. However, the South Korean iteration is particularly extreme & toxic.
Lumpy
Bernie Sanders is not “tied” to Richie Torres, that comment is utterly bizarre and way off base. Richie Torres endorsed Bernie during the 2016, big deal, anyone can endorse a candidate. Torres has changed a lot since then. The Bernie bashing on this website gets tiresome, it’s the tired old “circular firing squad” type of stuff that people here claim to be against, but it’s like catnip, it’s irresistible apparently.
Betsy
Well said, Betty.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: I see your point. What a bunch of fakeos!
Paul in KY
@Kayla Rudbek: No Hope?