we had a whole debate on this in the 1860s and ended up bayoneting to death the people who thought that some classes of people did not deserve equality before the law.
Just something to consider, you know. In the abstract.— Sky Marchini (@sky.skymarchini.net) July 16, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Fascinating read: Jamelle Bouie with an interviw on how “The Civil War That Never Ended” [gift link]:
Rather than write a column for this Independence Day weekend edition of the newsletter, I decided to chat with Zaakir Tameez, a recent graduate of Yale Law School, about his new biography of Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator and great antislavery proponent who helped change the course of American history.
I hope you enjoy the discussion, which has been edited for clarity…
So what brought you… to wanting to take on the project of writing a biography of Sumner?I never planned on writing a book. The project started in a class in law school where I was reading the brief filed by Thurgood Marshall and the N.A.A.C.P. in Brown v. Board of Education. And as I’m reading this brief, I stumble on the name of Charles Sumner, who was cited not once, not twice but more than 40 times.
And I’m amazed by this because I knew about Charles Sumner as this U.S. senator who had been caned on the Senate floor as a prominent politician during the Civil War. What I did not know is that more than 100 years before Brown, Charles Sumner tried to integrate the schools of Boston in a case at the Massachusetts Supreme Court, where he argued that the equality provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution and the Declaration of Independence had to be implemented in law, such that there can be no separate schools.
Marshall took this argument by Charles Sumner, cited it point by point, redeveloped it and then said — and I’m paraphrasing — that credit goes to Thomas Jefferson for saying all men are created equal. But it was none other than Sumner who insisted that equality should be implemented in law. And given my own interest in Jefferson and at U.Va. and my interest in the history of race and slavery in this country, I thought Charles Sumner’s story needed to be told again.
Tell us about Charles Sumner in Boston. What is his family background? What brings him to the place where he is fighting for integration in Boston schools?
So Charles Sumner grew up in a series of contradictions. I’ll tell you just two. First, he’s a third-generation Harvard-educated man. His father went to Harvard, his grandfather went to Harvard, and he went to Harvard. But he also grew up in poverty because his father was a bastard child of his grandfather. Didn’t have any of the wealth and privileges that came with that. His father also was just a lawyer who was really bad at being a lawyer. He just couldn’t seem to make any money. And so they grew up impoverished. His mom was a seamstress.
That leads to the second contradiction, which is that Sumner grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Boston in the 1810s and 1820s because his parents could not afford to live in any other part of town and also because his father was a true racial egalitarian. He was known to tip his hat walking past Black Bostonians. He always said that he wished for the day when Black people would be judges in Boston. Interestingly, he insisted on using the term “people of color” to refer to his neighbors. I thought of this as a modern term, but I see it in his diary…
What did his peers think of his closeness with Black Bostonians?
So when he was a kid, he was bullied in school for coming from the Black part of town. And the main bully, interestingly enough, was a young Wendell Phillips. So Wendell Phillips is one of the leading American abolitionists, kind of the right-hand man to William Lloyd Garrison. But Phillips is a real Boston blue-blooded Brahmin. His father was the first mayor of the city. And Wendell Phillips, as a kid, was definitely a racist and definitely prejudiced. He was kind of the alpha male of the school because of his privileges. And so he bullied Sumner. They went all the way through Boston Latin School. They went to Harvard College together. They didn’t even become friends until law school…
It seems like that early experience really solidified in his mind that Black Americans were not some foreign imposition but very much part of the national community.Precisely, and once he gets into politics, he would continually point out that at the time of the founding, in 1788, when the Constitution is ratified in 11 of the 13 colonies, Black men, at least on paper, could vote or perhaps Black men of property, which is a really striking fact, I think, for most people who don’t know much American history, because we assume that Black men didn’t have the right to vote, couldn’t own property, couldn’t do anything until after the Civil War. But in fact, many of the rights that they did have at the time of the founding were taken away after the founding. I believe that in New Jersey and New York, it was only in the early 19th century when Black men lost the right to vote…
Yes, it’s a long read, but well worth your time!
Circling back to the sorry mook quoted at the top of this post:
who is this guy?
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) July 16, 2025 at 11:51 AM
===
SF crypto bro with a string a failed startups to his name, libertarian (“libertarian”) nominee for us senate in New Hampshire a few years ago
— Sky Marchini (@sky.skymarchini.net) July 16, 2025 at 11:52 AM
===
He’s also one of the people involved in the “free state project”, which ended up almost getting a bunch of people eaten by bears in New Hampshire a couple years ago www.vox.com/policy-and-p…
— Sky Marchini (@sky.skymarchini.net) July 16, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Trollhattan
Big Pay attention to meeeeee!!! vibes.
russell
sent back where?
Baud
@Trollhattan:
Our society is fascinated with extremists, but not fascinated enough to work to defeat them.
matt
which beliefs are we monitoring and punishing now?
Baud
@Trollhattan:
Along those lines
Baud
@matt:
All of them, Katie.
West of the Rockies
I apologize for asking an OT question so early in the thread, but I’m curious…
Do the release the Epstein files pro-Trumpers (such as Michael Flynn and the base in general) genuinely not think Trump would be listed as a debauchee? It’s pretty damn clear to everyone else that Trump doesn’t want the files released for that very reason.
Omnes Omnibus
I am guessing that the neighborhood Sumner grew up in was on the back side of Beacon Hill.
Omnes Omnibus
@matt: Whadda ya got?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: A Masshole to be proud of!
prostratedragon
@Baud: They’re so entertaining. And people so love to be entertained.
dmsilev
Sumner was also the victim of the assault by Preston Brooks in the Senate, where that “brave” son of the South attacked with a cane a man sitting at a desk, and had a couple of friends pull guns to keep anyone else from intervening. Despite nearly being killed, he kept his Senate seat
Also, too, his namesake is cursed on a regular basis by present-day Bostonians, as anyone who has ever driven or ridden to or from Logan Airport can attest. (one of the tunnels under the harbor is named for him).
Belafon
@matt: Texas college students. Specifically, Republicans are trying to ban all “expressive activities” between 10pm and 6am on campuses.
Old Man Shadow
Truly sad the decent Republicans have been dead for over a hundred years.
Old School
@West of the Rockies:
Pretty sure the popular theory in that crowd is that Trump is working to expose all of those treacherous people.
JaySinWa
Undercover lover.
oldster
“Black Americans who believe in… respect for the individual are great.”
“Respect for the individual”? Did you say “respect for the individual,” you racist piece of shit?
prostratedragon
More bestirrings:
With piquant animation.
Trollhattan
You sitting?
zhena gogolia
@Trollhattan: Jake? Jake, where are you? George? Anyone?
H.E.Wolf
Thanks for this post! Just put the book on hold at our library. There are 11 people ahead of me, which is good because I’m only halfway through The Trouble of Color by Martha S. Jones (highly recommended).
sab
@prostratedragon: Jon Husted will still vote YES!
Martin
I don’t think they do, but I think they’re now questioning that. Trump was kind of the most prominent person to sign on to the conspiracy theory in the early days.
My thesis is that you take a crisis like the 2007 financial crisis – that normal people do not understand, leaving them subject to this financial system that they cannot really navigate and more than anything they want to go away and be replaced with something they can navigate (I think this is a valid response). Epstein first surfaces and is arrested in 2006 and pleads guilty in 2008. So the Epstein thing is fully concurrent with this other global crisis, and Epstein is a financial manager to very wealthy people, an insider in the system that is blowing up. One way to simplify this whole space is to say ‘oh, okay, so there’s this pedophile ring in and around the banking industry with Epstein at the center. I don’t need to understand the financial system, I just need to understand that all of the bankers are pedophiles and everything they produce is corrupt, and so when this is uncovered, we have justification to tear the system down and replace it with something new’. Note, Bitcoin shows up in 2009 to fill the slot of ‘something new’, and a lot of this crowd grab and run with it despite the fact that it is more complex and WAY more corrupt than the banking system, it’s at least a system they understand better because they put in the time to understand it. Anyway, Obama doesn’t throw the bankers in prison, Congress rallies around the industry, bailing it out, etc. In isolation all of these things have their own explanations but they also slot nicely into the conspiracy – why did Obama and Congress protect the bankers unless they’re part of the pedophile ring? Note, this is the time when Democrats enjoy their largest majorities in Congress. All of this is bananas but for people who are trying to simplify and understand the world around them (as I’m trying to do right here) everything kind of fits together. There’s this unfortunate confluence of events that of course these things must all be connected. It’s kind of a post hoc ergo propter hoc perfect storm.
Who emerges as Obama’s foil but Trump, and Trump is the leader of the birther movement. He signs onto all kinds of conspiracy theories including the Epstein one. Trumps kind of an insider with this group – why would he sign on if he was part of it? Never mind that he was good friends with Epstein, never mind he once objectified his young daughter on national TV (you know, the thing pedophiles do). Their need to simplify the world by throwing all of this shit that they were struggling to navigate (Covid didn’t help), and the people who built it into a box with ‘Epstein/pedophile’ on it was more important and Trump uniquely gave credibility to that box by supporting the theory.
The problem now is that Trump is the one adding to the complexity – nobody understands what’s happening with tariffs, prices aren’t dropping as promised, the visuals around the immigration stuff don’t match the promise – that 8 year old that ICE just handcuffed wasn’t a violent criminal. Like, most people understand right and wrong and that looks wrong. And they can’t reconcile it. And here’s the Epstein thing that Trump continued to promote, because it enamored his base to him but he probably knows he’s in there. I’m not saying he’s a pedophile, but he and Epstein were friends, we know girls were recruited at Mar A Lago, he’s going to be in there even if he kept it all at arms length. That conspiratorial part of his base, which is where he gets his most fervent support (these are the folks that do the death threats and storm the capitol) need the Epstein files to do the thing they’ve been relying on them to do for like 15 years now – to expose the Democrats and the bankers and all that, let them tear those systems down and simplify the world. And now Trump is denying them that, and the most obvious way to reconcile that is to say, what a second, what if he was in on it all along? What if they let them get to him?
I’m not suggesting this is a perfect theory – I’m sure there are loads of holes in it, but I think the shape of it is about right – it looks vaguely like this. Each participant is going to swap in and out their own personal elements. This is a big tent conspiracy – you can fit anything in there without much effort. Want to blame it all on the jews? Easy peasy – you can slot that in without much trouble. Think Ukraine was in on it? Sure. Did these people create Covid? Why not.
But the conspiracy existed to do a job – which was to make sense of the world, and they’ve been working all this time waiting for Trump to open it up – trust the plan is their cry. Well, the day is here. This is supposed to be the payoff. The client list is on Bondi’s desk, and Bondi is loyal to Trump. There shouldn’t be anything to stop it now…
prostratedragon
@sab: Oh, there’s a fair chance he’ll get in, I’m sure. But 900 people have gone on the record.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: Have you read Louis L’Amour’s Echo Sackett yet?
For those who don’t know the story, Echo Sackett is a young lady from the Tennessee mountains who has to travel to Philadelphia to collect an inheritance. So Echo puts on her best city dress and packs two pistols in her handbag. She also brings a big knife that she hangs down her back. A cautious woman.
Librettist
@zhena gogolia:
I blame the liberal media.
Belafon
@sab: Which Republican will be the first to argue that this is why he must be approved to root out the establishment corruption?
Trollhattan
I’m going with “Her forceful casting call audition for a Trump administration position.”
With chops like these, how does Donny not hire her?
I’m being told: not blonde. Might be an impediment.
u
@russell: Back to Africa, I guess. You know, the place from which the ancestors of black Americans were forcibly transported two or three or four hundred years ago. It is certainly surprisingly to hear a “libertarian” advocating for the forced removal and/or the deprivation of voting rights of 41 million Americans. If I didn’t know better I might think that “libertarians” do not, in fact, give a fuck about liberty. Apparently this guy is involved with cryptocurrency. That makes him extra special.
Parfigliano
@Martin: Simpler theory. They are stupid fuckin idiot trash people that will never admit they got conned.
u
@Trollhattan: She’s also older than 17. Not Donnie’s type.
Baud
@u:
I’ve always subscribed to the theory that only about 10% of people who call themselves libertarian are actually libertarian.
I have no data to back that up, so under the rules of the Internet, my belief should be taken as Gospel.
Trollhattan
@Baud: Republicans who want weed legal.
Anonymous At Work
@Belafon: That’s gonna last until they cancel the Texas A&M bonfire and pep rally/cheer prep sessions. And a few other traditions celebrated in Texas. Can’t wait for righteous trolls to call the police on post-game celebrations, wanting to arrest and expel decent portions of the student body for celebrating a win by/over Texas Longhorns.
Anonymous At Work
Gift link didn’t work.
artem1s
So basically Epstein files have replaced Area 51* as the “Great Unified Conspiracy Theory” that will explain everything if only those in power would just let us look at the files.
*when I was a yute, I remember my uncle, the family conspiracy authority, and his nut job friends referring to a hanger at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH, as the location where the government kept all it’s secrets including the flying saucer and corpses of the aliens who died at Roswell. It wasn’t until after X-files and Independence Day came out that I learned of the very real secret AFB in Nevada called Area 51. It amused me to no end that the Roswell conspiracy was the plot they built the whole ID franchise around. I guess Dayton just wasn’t big or sexy or photogenic enough for Hollywood.
prostratedragon
Speaking of Reconstruction, to which Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens devoted great effort, the 14th Amendment birthright guarantee of citizenship is before the SCOTUS next term, in a case called Trump v. Casa. In view of their recent buffoonery, some suspect that they will authorize 🤡 to strip people born here of this right.
Sherrilyn Ifill:
BC in Illinois
The best way to get into the Trump/Epstein saga, is through the fist five minutes of this Josh Johnson presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5M16u2bAeA&t=307s
Baud
The newest Trumpgasm on Blue Sky is that Trump announced that he got Coke to start using cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup in the U.S.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Geminid
@artem1s: I saw an alien in Roswell once. He was 12 feet tall, green and holding up a Dunkin’ Donuts sign.
Martin
@Parfigliano: Problem with that theory is that if these people are impossible to reach, the only way for Democrats to win is to disenfranchise them. Did we ever have a time in our history when we relegated a class of people to being too stupid to participate in Democracy? Maybe we could administer a test when they go to vote?
Elizabelle
Great topic, Anne Laurie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Iowa will LOVE that.
Librettist
@Baud:
So RFK Jr. has the phone now?
Martin
@Baud: I would argue that most people that actually think libertarianism as a philsoophy through would call themselves anarchists. The line between ‘libertarians’ and sovereign citizens seems to be pretty thin.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@artem1s: I think in Epstein’s cause this about the old conservative belief that
gay = child molesters.
So the reason why the gay went from a persecuted minority in the 80s to getting divorced in the 2010s is because of The Conspiracy in their minds.
Splitting Image
@Martin:
I would add to your theory the fact that these people have believed in the Great Replacement Theory for a very long time, which holds that “The Jews” are orchestrating the forced eviction of white Americans so that they can be replaced with “The Blacks”. Epstein was Jewish. Obama and Harris are black. QED.
Hoodie
@Martin: This may have been a poor tactical choice on his part, as it has too much documentary stuff that ties him directly to Epstein. Trump has always used running conspiracy narratives to bind the MAGAts. In the beginning it was Obama’s birth certificate, but that ran out of gas around the time Trump was first elected because most news about a past president is yesterday’s news. After that, it was a lot of immigration-related paranoia but, in order to expand his coalition, he started cultivating the Qanon and Qanon-adjacent types, which is where this Epstein stuff comes in.
It’s all very WWE, creating story lines that draw in an audience that is looking to be entertained by outlandish characters and acts so that they can lose connection with reality. It’s an escapism not unlike drug use. If you have ever been to a professional wrestling match, there is a definite subgroup in the audience that ends up taking that nonsense very seriously and very personally. I’ve seen similar behavior in some of the threads outraged about the failure to release the Epstein list, lots of personalized references to the various characters in the saga like the poster is part of the story instead of some random dipshit on the internet. However, I’m not sure they’ll turn on Trump in the long run. What they really want is a new plot twist to get their next entertainment fix. That could be casting Trump as being part of the conspiracy all along, but it’s also possible he could come up with some new twist that will feed their need for intrigue while turning focus away from him.
Belafon
@Baud: Sucks to be Iowa. :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Hoover got nearly 40% of the vote in 1932. Idiots are always with us and so are people we call evil. We need to convince the incurious but not stupid to vote for us. That can be done.
Paul in KY
@JaySinWa: Like Lt. Dangle going undercover as a prostitute in Reno 911.
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon: Well, yeah. Have you ever been there?
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: My thought exactly. I mean, I’m with Trump on this one if that’s true – propping up the corn syrup industry is bullshit, but like, there was a political reason we were propping up the corn syrup industry.
Throw Nebraska and Indiana in with Iowa on that one. They’ve already lost Illinois.
But I can’t imagine this is true. Why would Coke switch off corn syrup when Trump just slammed down a 50% tariff on Brazil – the place that makes everything out of sugar because they grow so much of it?
Paul in KY
@Martin: God help us we have so many stupid people in our country!
Peale
@Old School: Yeah. I mean all he has to say is that he was working under cover to expose Bill and Hillary Clinton on all those jaunts to the island, but the FBI under Obama lost his evidence and they’ll believe him.
H.E.Wolf
Not yet – so I’m glad your reminded me. I’ve just checked out the ebook! Our library had it under the title Ride the River.
It will be my incentive/bribe/reward for finishing my current batch of 5 (count ’em, 5) GOTV postcards. :)
Martin
@Splitting Image: Oh, yeah, there’s loads of bits and bobs you can swap in and out of this, none of which are necessary for anyone in the movement to believe in order to stick with the larger project. That’s one reason why it’s so hard to nail down – it can adapt very quickly to new information without having to get everyone to agree.
artem1s
Cane sugar Coke is bottled in Mexico. Trump made us all settle for high fructose corn syrup – failure!
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: i wonder if Orange Moron knows that they use cane sugar in the oooga booga Mexican cokes.
H.E.Wolf
…now I have to decide whether to correct the typo in my comment at 56 and ruin the formatting, or let it stay there where it will give me a twitch in my eyelid when I see it.
Sure Lurkalot
@Parfigliano:
Ah, Occam’s razor. See also this shamelessly abridged quote:
u
@Parfigliano: Stupid fuckin’ idiot trash people is the most accurate description. These people really have no political ideology. They’re the kind of idiots who blow the rent money on DraftKings bets, and then blame somebody else for their own stupidity.
Peale
@u: We like black folk who believe in private property, but that isn’t going to stop us from using the state to rob them of their property and then gifting it to ourselves.
BellyCat
@Martin: This was a truly entertaining conspiracy translation rant!
Mai Naem mobile
I sometimes hate-listen to Dan Abrams’ radio show. He was talking about tfg being on Epstein’s flight log to NJ and how Marla Maples was on the flight with 7 month old Tiffany and therefore obviously there was nothing sleazy going on on that trip. I’m thinking to myself “dude did you completely forget him boinking Stormy Daniels soon after Melania had given birth to Barren?”
Kosh III
@Baud: “I’ve always subscribed to the theory that only about 10% of people who call themselves libertarian are actually libertarian.”
Like Ky senator Rancid Paul who has hissy fits at the thought of lgbt having Liberty.
me
@Kosh III: Rand’s dad pretends to be a libertarian but really is an unreconstructed confederate. He is fine with tyranny as long as it’s the states doing it. (I guess I should say was as I bet he has no problem with Trump tyranny).
Peale
@Baud: And where exactly do they plan to grow this “sugar cane?” I mean, does the sugar beet ever receive any love from the “natural sugar” crowd?
Martin
@Hoodie: So, I think it’s also important to recognize that a lot of these are new voters. These are a lot of the ‘both parties are corrupt’ non-voters who were biased toward the right and Trump gave voice to that. He was the antiestablishment candidate on the right that wasn’t going to toe the party line and was wiling to throw establishment candidates into that box. And it’s a pretty scary box to mainline Republicans to be thrown into by Trump. I think that’s why some of them got in line so aggressively. So yeah, it binds them to him, but it also expanded the party by a lot. And the ones pushed out aren’t well captured by the Democrats (the Bulwark crowd are the ones that were).
And yes, it is very WWE. But I think it’s a mistake to think this is all entertainment and all they want is the next plot twist. I think they want a world they can understand, and I think they think this is the key that opens the door to that world. Jewish space lasers is a much tidier explanation for California wildfires than all of the complexities around how climate change will change society and what we need to do to address it. It doesn’t matter that it’s wrong, it allows them to function – and that is a goal we all share.
I would gently suggest that folks on the left who might think that all these people are racist, or all these people are stupid, are doing the same thing. They don’t know why people voted for Trump, and stupid/racist/sexist is the absolute simplest bow to tie around that so they can put that question away. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t stupid/racist/sexist in that answer, there definitely is, but the bow is not remotely that tidy. That’s not a conspiracy theory, but it serves the same purpose.
I would also gently suggest that the Democratic Party thinks money is the simple bow to tie around why they lost and keeps correcting in that direction, continually pissing off their own base.
Captain C
@Trollhattan: I’m half-surprised that the FTFNYT hasn’t found some way to blame Biden for FFOTUS’s obvious dementia.
Martin
@H.E.Wolf: Doesn’t matter. Google has already indexed it and AIs will incorporate the typo that you made forever and ever.
Thanks for ruining the English language.
Miss Bianca
@Martin: Fascinating.
But y’know, for people that you posit don’t understand complexity (and I would tend to support that thesis)…this conspiracy shit seems awfully…complex.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: That’s right, the Echo Sackett novel is titled Ride the River.
One thing I liked about the book was its 1830s setting. The heroine travels through Pittsburgh on her way home, and experiences it as a busy new boomtown.
Ramona
@Martin: The picture you present here hangs together logically and explains why this topic holds so much emotional salience for them.
Is there anybody whom you’ve known who seems to have followed this trajectory of thought or somebody (or bodies) you’ve read online? Even if you haven’t, your narrative here makes sense to me.
Montanareddog
@Baud: the apricot asshole drinks diet Coke, FFS.
WTFGhost
@Baud: 83.71% of all statistics are just made up.
RevRick
@West of the Rockies: @Old School:
It’s an article of faith amongst MAGA that those listed in the Epstein files are liberal coastal cosmopolitan elites. After all, Democrats, in their view, are really demonrats. They believe that there’s no depravity of which we’re not capable.
According to their bizarre conspiracy, Trump was at Epstein’s parties doing undercover investigations.
So, yeah, loony tunes.
Montanareddog
@Martin:
Because the dumbass thinks it is the Brazilians who will be paying the tariffs and it is free revenue for the US?
Ramona
@Parfigliano: Mentally lazy…
Captain C
@u:
Only their own liberty. Their philosophy consists of three propositions:
*You’re not the boss of me!
*I got mine, fuck you!
*Get off my lawn!
Citizen Alan
I’d say it’s a lot less than 10% personally.
Geminid
@Martin: We *are* propping up the corn indusry with ethanol mandates, but the reason corn syrup is used so widely as a sweetener is that it’s cheaper than other sugars; an economic reason, not a political one.
Martin
@Miss Bianca: Oh, it absolutely is, but notice how it is. Anyone can slot in or out the bits and pieces they can handle or that they are most concerned about. But at the end of the day, the conspiracy boils down to the coastal elites are all such evil people that we don’t need to listen to them or preserve any of the systems they created – they are all tainted. Anything I throw into this box I can simply explain away by this corruption and if anyone tries to defend that stuff I don’t have to listen to them because they are defending evil.
Yes, the conspiracy can look exceedingly complex with Soros and Comet Ping Pong and all this shit, but that’s a puzzle they control. They can choose to do that and piece it together however they want. The global financial system is out of their control. They don’t get a say – understanding how MBS led to CDOs, like, you have to do real work to understand that. But you can invent whatever bullshit you want to connect Jaime Dimon to Jeffrey Epstein via the Steel Dossier or whatever. That’s easy. It’s still complex but it’s a complexity they control. They’re in charge. The stuff in the Epstein conspiracy box they don’t control. That’s why it’s in the box. Everything in the box needs to be destroyed because it’s evil. That’s what you do with things that are evil.
Steve Paradis
Among his key campaign issues are “abolishing the Federal Reserve, the Internal Revenue Service and child-labor laws”,
In September 2024, the LPNH posted on X that “Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.” In a statement to the Boston Globe, Kauffman told the paper that the LPNH “believes that the journalists at the Boston Globe are as evil as rapists or murderers. … A proper society would exclude Globe journalists from residing within it entirely”.[32]
Kauffman has criticized the end of apartheid in South Africa, calling the movement to end it “race-based bitter leftism” that led to the destruction of the country. He has said that “One can imagine better systems than apartheid, but South Africa is now much worse having removed it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Kauffman
Martin
@Ramona: So, the thing that gave it shape was this video. It’s long, it’s very well done and entertaining – made by a filmmaker. It’s 4 years old, and made before Jan 6. Much of my thesis is lifted straight from that video, at least to the motives.
Martin
@Montanareddog: I’m not questioning why Trump thinks that, I’m questioning why the Coca Cola company would think that. This would have to be something they agree to. Why would they step into this much more expensive ingredient? Note, Mexican Coke is ubiquitous here in SoCal and uses sugar. It’s more expensive, but we think it’s worth it. Maybe Coke is doing that nationally? But I don’t buy that. I think the rumor is bullshit.
Martin
@Geminid: Why’s it cheaper? Maybe because of the tariffs on sugar we’ve had for decades to protect the corn industry?
Coke would probably be paying 50 cents a pound maybe a bit more? That’s a 40% tariff. That’s a LOT.
PatrickG
The book “A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear” is really fun. Think you can download it free, I’d find some links but I’m in haste.
Just in case you ache for a simpler time in which stupidity is amply rewarded.
H.E.Wolf
@Martin: Well, I do what I can. Everybody’s got one talent!
H.E.Wolf
@Geminid:
I wonder if the locals back then pronounced it “Pitchburg”, like my college acquaintance who grew up there? (For context, this was slightly later than the 1830s.)
Geminid
@Martin: Ah, thank you for the correction. I had not thought if this
Now I wonder how domestic beet sugar fits in. I’m not even sure its the same thing as cane sugar. It seems to be grown in northern states where corn can’t be grown.
Old School
@Martin:
So I shouldn’t think people who decide to believe that there are Jewish space lasers are racist and stupid?
u
@me: The word “libertarian” sounds a little bit more intellectual than the word “racist”, but in practice the two words are usually synonyms. I’ve met a few libertarians in my life. All of them have been full of shit.
Martin
@Geminid: Yeah, I have no idea. It’s a good question.
Jager
@Baud:
Wow, Mexican Coke….!
cmorenc
@West of the Rockies:
Trump probably also likely suspects that the Epstein files exist in an archive that’s inaccessible and secure against any efforts to destroy them.
pluky
Don’t know about Boston, but in Louisiana Les Gens de Couleur Libres were a thing before Jefferson’s purchase.
Martin
@Old School: Well, I think if they are specifically going Jewish Space lasers then yes, racist and stupid are pretty clearly on the table.
Are you suggesting all Republicans believe that? It’s kind of just one and a few around her, isn’t it? The left talk about it WAY more than the right because it’s so colossally racist and stupid. I used it as an example because it’s ubiquitous on the left.
What part of “That doesn’t mean that there isn’t stupid/racist/sexist in that answer, there definitely is, but the bow is not remotely that tidy.” did you not understand? Or are you just trying to score points?
Betty
@Geminid: My understanding is that the sugar cane industry in Florida is also subsidized.
Old School
@Martin: I apologize for going for a bit of humor in my response.
Geminid
@pluky: There was a Creole regiment that enlisted in the Confederate Army at the beginning of the Civil War. I’m not sure how long they stayed. Union forces captured New Orleans early in the war, I think April of 1862, and some of those Creoles might have gone home to sit out the rest of the war.
The capture of New Orleans did not involve bloody battles and I think its importance may be underestimated because of that. New Orleans was the South’s biggest city by population and its industrial capacity exceeded Richmond’s.
Between the loss of New Orleans and Grant’s victory at Fort Donelson, the Confederacy had lost 20% of its population just 12 months into the war. That put a lot of men of fighting age outside the reach of the draft that the Confederacy instituted around that time, and a lot of industrial and agricultural production as well.
There was a New Orleans regiment posted in northern Virginia that suffered an acute loss when New Orleans fell. It was composed of the city’s “finest” citizens and they had brought along a first-rate French chef. He did fine with the delicacies the soldiers’ families sent from home, but when the packages stopped coming the chef threw up his hands and returned to the Big Easy. He took his pet fox with him.
sab
@Trollhattan: He only put him in because there was a lady doing a man’s job before that.
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: Good point.
Paul in KY
@Martin: We are so fucked then.
Paul in KY
@PatrickG: Libertarian Policeman is another funny read.
Martin
@Paul in KY: The conspiracy can’t run forever. It is a campaign of struggle – get the right people in power and they’ll blow the lid off the thing. Problem is, these are the last of those people. If Trump/Bondi don’t do it, there’s nobody else to turn to. Either it happens now or it never happens, and these people check out politically.
I think there are really only two end states here – either nothing happens, they abandon Trump and walk away from politics because from their view it’s thoroughly corrupted. That doesn’t mean they go away – we may get some home grown terrorism out of it like we had on Jan 6. Or something happens but it’s not what they promised. Maybe it’s a nothing burger, maybe Trump is implicated, maybe a bunch of powerful but not ideologically aligned people are, but there’s no deep state, no grand cabal, none of that. That may spin up a bunch of new conspiracies, but Trump is external to all of this. He’d need to find his way back into that space and know how to navigate it, and I think that takes time, and he’s kind of on the periphery. He’s not useful any longer because he did the thing.
Either way, I think it weakens the GOP, maybe by a lot because these are the guys who have been running the show for the last decade. It probably creates new problems elsewhere. Some will snap out and engage as normal people.
Martin
@Old School: My apologies. That one flew right past me.
Kayla Rudbek
@prostratedragon: I saw that and I was thinking “you can’t get 900 lawyers to agree that the sky is blue, this is a clear sign that the man is completely unfit to be a judge”
Paul in KY
@Martin: I hope you are correct about it weakening the GQP. To me, it (the concepts you have explained above) sounds like a smorgasbord of ‘reasons’ to convince yourself to always vote GQP, despite whatever you may perceive in ‘reality’.
Very interesting/scary points you make.
Professor Bigfoot
“Your keyboard to God’s monitor.”
Fascinating insights you keep bringing, Valued Commenter Martin!
(no, dammit, that’s not sarcasm! ;)