I will have to go searching for a more current photo of Pete Buttigieg, but this will have to do in the meantime.
I am so tired of the breathless wall-to-wall media coverage about Epstein. We’re not learning anything new. The only good thing about it is that maybe, just maybe, Trump and his Distraction Machine (™️ Pete Buttigieg) could free MAGA from the clutches of FFOTUS.
So I’m happy to see that Pete Buttigieg is keeping his eyes on the prize, and looking ahead to the future.
What’s your pleasure?
Video? Audio? Transcript?
11-minutes of Pete Buttigieg (audio)
Full 47-minute interview (video)
As an aside, let me just say fuck Rahm Emanual.
Belafon
I am both tired of it but don’t want it to stop because this seems to be the one thing that is causing the Right to get angry at Trump and he can’t fix it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I get that Pete is a better person to think about, but I hope the Epstein coverage goes on for a long time yet so that it damages Trump as much as possible.
chemiclord
The problem isn’t whether we should or shouldn’t (we shouldn’t), but whether the “Average American Voter” wants to or not.
And if there is one thing the “Average American Voter” has demonstrated time after time, it’s that they’d rather have peace with reactionaries than any meaningful change towards a better society.
WaterGirl
@Belafon: @Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t disagree about the coverage having the potential to damage Trump where nothing else seems to touch him.
But I’m not the audience for that – my opinions are fully formed – so I personally don’t want to focus on Epstein when the rest of the world is burning down around us.
matt
This huge racist backlash against NYC voters might not work out well for the Democratic Party’s prospects with young voters.
Melancholy Jaques
I am almost certain that Pete Buttigieg would make a good president. I am not at all certain that he could win an election. Nevertheless, I want him out front answering the two questions I keep pounding: Who are the Democrats? What do they stand for? I mentioned yesterday that we could use a lot more Crocketts & AOCs; we would also use another dozen Pete Buttigiegs.
WaterGirl
@matt:
What are you referring to?
matt
@WaterGirl: All the attacks on Mamdani, insistence that he denounce various people he’s not connected to, etc. He got a 56-44 win, it wasn’t a squeaker.
The Audacity of Krope
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I wish the Epstein matter got more attention when it wasn’t a decade and beyond in the past. I also wish that voters could be swayed by policy and didn’t require these salacious matters, however weighty, to have the scales drop from their eyes.
Then it’s time like these that I remember that in Spanish to hope and to wish is usually expressed as esperar, which really means to wait.
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
Agreed. The Epstein thing is what it is because the political media love sex scandals because they have no political or economic consequences. All the other issues with that asshole and Republicans are more important than Trump & Epstein, meaning no disrespect to victims thereof.
WaterGirl
Interview
hells littlest angel
Be that as it may, it’s one of the few positive things going on in our politics.
WaterGirl
@matt: Pete Buttigieg in a Slate article:
Darkrose
From that interview:
advocate.com/news/pete-buttigieg-transgender-athletes
It’s really disappointing to see him fall into the same trap as Newsom and other Democrats. Because the issue isn’t “women’s sports.” It’s about erasing trans people from public life, using a handful of kids as a wedge issue. It’s even worse coming from Pete, because newsflash: they’re coming for the Ls, Gs, and Bs next.
The Other Bob
We in Michigan claim Pete and family as ours now.
hueyplong
I want more Epstein coverage, not less. It’s the one thing that allows us to see fear on Trump’s face in real time.
The first day without a big dose of Epstein, we’ll be “moving on” from Epstein to new substantive horrors as Trump and some of his enablers lose their fear. Congress in session without Epstein at the forefront is bad things about to happen
P.S. It’s a good thing we didn’t get sick and tired of Watergate.
Mr. Longform
Pete is both high-minded and practical. His approach may not work, given the state of our polity, but it’s the only way to possibly move forward without turning into our adversaries.
matt
@WaterGirl: Good on Mayor Pete! Just to be clear, I consider the Cuomos, NYTs, etc. of the party to be the old guard establishment that needs to fall to move forward. I respect Mayor Pete for breaking with them.
rk
I’m not tired of it. I’m reading Julie Brown’s book and it’s obvious that Trump had some role in it. Hundreds of girls were trafficked to apparently no one. Maxwell literally roamed the streets and picked up girls for Epstein. The prosecutors let him off lightly and the girls were portrayed as basically trash.
There are a lot of awful things going on. But if this brings down Trump so be it. I would really like the victims to step forward and tell their stories. Because maybe they may now finally be heard.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques:
I’m not sure, either. There’s still a lot of homophobia out there, even on our side.
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: Interesting way to look at it.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: I totally get why you’re tired of it. I just think it’s gotta be done until the pig strokes out.
The Audacity of Krope
@Suzanne: Pete wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s not to do with his sexuality. For everything correct he is saying in this article, I perceive him as being too close to monied interests and playing it too safe on issues, see the discussion about trans folk elsewhere on this thread.
I’d offer him consideration, though.
WaterGirl
@matt: I would throw Rahm Emanuel in with that group, 10x over. his time passed a long long time ago.
WaterGirl
@hueyplong: My concern is that there are so many other horrific things going on in real time that aren’t getting any oxygen at all.
Baud
@matt:
Which Dem has endosed Cuomo after he lost the primary?
Treating the NYT as any part of the Dems is nuts.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Agreed. But he’s also not really influential in the party anymore, at least as far as I’m aware.
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope: I think all of the concerns you have are very valid reasons about how to allocate one’s primary vote, for sure.
But I do think that we here at BJ overestimate acceptance sometimes. There’s a lot of people (especially men) who are still just squicked out. And others who say things like, “I’m fine with gay people, just don’t shove it in my face”, and by “shove it in my face”, they mean “be gay where I can see”.
SpaceUnit
The Epstein story is the only thing in the news I’ve enjoyed since before the election.
If watching that ugly orange sex offender squirm is a guilty pleasure so be it.
matt
@Baud: Rahm and Josh Shapiro have joined the attacks on Mamdani. Also a whole lot of other people have tut tutted about what he means for the Dems. Please don’t play ostrich about this – it’s unseemly. Like it or not, NYT is influential with Dems and identified with Dems in the minds of the non-online real majority of people.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Rahm is TRYING to be influential. Recently. Seems to me he is trying to get back in the game.
As I said up top, fuck Rahm Emanuel.
Steve LaBonne
@matt: I think we’re seeing the beginning of a major shift in public opinion on I/P and some Democratic politicians are at risk of getting caught in the undertow. Of course I expect nothing but fucking stupidity from Rahm but there is no reason for Shapiro to try to insert himself into the NYC election, against the views of a healthy majority of NYC Democrats.
gene108
@Melancholy Jaques:
This isn’t the media pushing the Epstein scandal. It’s pissed off Trump supporters who he promised answers.
QAnon was pretty damn big. In 2016, they decided Trump was going to bust the Democrat and Hollywood elite led ring of child sex traffickers they decided existed.
In 2018, Epstein is tried again and all this information comes out about a child sex trafficking ring catering to the elites. They have possible proof they were right all along.
Trump promised to show them the proof they believed existed for 10 years.
The reason Epstein has so much traction is that the criticism is coming from within MAGA. I think a lot of liberals would be happier talking about expanding renewable energy, implementing universal single payer healthcare, etc.
I myself want Epstein and Trump’s relationship front and center. I want to hurt Trump. This seems to be the only story that has a chance.
There’s nothing more important than hurting Trump politically. Nothing will be done until the MAGA cult is broken, and there are enough people willing to force Vought, Miller, etc. under the rocks they crawled out from.
WaterGirl
@Steve LaBonne: So many people seemed impressed with Josh Shapiro during the “who will be the VP pick” time, but I didn’t care for him at all. Too slick, too polished, too much of a politician (in the worst sense). I didn’t get any sense of authenticity from him.
So I am not an objective observer there. Inserting himself into the NYC election discussion – on what I think is the wrong side – only serves to cement my thoughts about him.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m definitely familiar with that line of thought, though those in my life who have expressed it have been very explicitly MAGA.
I seldom complain about the gays shoving anything in my face.
Steve LaBonne
@WaterGirl: I am glad he can win in PA but beyond that, no thanks.
WaterGirl
@Steve LaBonne:
That sums it up for me, too.
MrPug
Calling a decades long cover up of underage sex trafficking and letting the most powerful men in the world, including the current POTUS, rape children a distraction is morally disgusting and political malpractice. I hope I don’t have to explain the former, but on the latter, especially with the GOP circling the wagons to protect Trump, the Democrats wanting to move on to talk about the price of eggs and not hanging the biggest sex scandal in the history of the country wither on the vine is malpractice of the highest order. So, even if you don’t care about the 100’s of victims, well you suck, but the only way to get these better policies enacted is to destroy the Republican party and the Epstein case is not even a softball pitch. It is a baseball sitting on a tee waiting to be smashed and the longer Trump continues the cover up with the help of the entire Republican party the more damage the Democrats could do to them.
A tiny majority in the House/Senate an eking out a narrow EC win isn’t going to fundamentally change anything.
Jackie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Somehow FFOTUS will survive, but I sincerely hope those in his administration will be damaged beyond redemption. MAGA will always blindly support FFOTUS, but they don’t like or trust JV Vance, nor many of the republicans in congress.
WaterGirl
Kind of funny that i put up a post with the specified intent /hope of talking about the ideas that Pete Buttigieg shared recently in interviews, but instead we are talking about why we like talking about Epstein. :-)
Ah well, it’s Balloon Juice. So it goes.
rikyrah
Imma say this politely as a I can.
I have no interest in ANY candidate from the Democratic Party that doesn’t understand that we need to GET OUT OUR OWN VOTERS.
I have no interest in reaching across the aisle.
Those who say now that they ‘regret their vote’
THEY DO NOT
THEY ONLY REGRET THAT IT BOOMERANGED BACK ON THEM.
prostratedragon
@gene108:
The man who was not there
WaterGirl
@MrPug: If you’re thinking that I don’t care about the horrifying Epstein story, or don’t care about the victims, you have it all wrong.
But there are horrifying things happening in real time that are not getting coverage.
And the Epstein coverage is an example of everything that is wrong with the media. The coverage doesn’t seem to be about the victims, it’s more about the horserace in a different form. “Can this take down Trump?”
Misswhatsis
I was really disappointed by Pete’s comments about transgender athletes, claiming that the size/strength disparity was an issue. Size and strength are facts of life and not relevant to this conversation. Do better, Pete.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I admit…I continue to be in a confused state. It makes no sense. Why THIS Is so harmful to him
Trollhattan
Oh shit, we’re having a Zoom townhall and the Big Boss is giving a DEI moment.
ICE is circling the building as we speak.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Some of these old school Dems want to choose their voters, not the other way around.
WaterGirl
@Trollhattan: Can you say more? I’m not exactly sure what you’re referring to.
Steve LaBonne
@WaterGirl: I hate talking or thinking about Epstein but I love that Trump keeps talking about him and digging the hole deeper.
Ksmiami
@Mr. Longform: I’m sick of high minded. Time to go for the throat
Baud
@matt:
Don’t be condescending. You mentioned the NYT and Cuomo. If you’re not going to be specific, I’m not going to do your work for you.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
I have been asking that, too. The answer I get is that it’s harmful to him because it upsets the MAGA and QANON supporters. Who apparently actually believed that Trump was their savior who would take down the (democratic) elites who were sex trafficking in the basements of pizza parlors, etc.
P.S. Nothing about the whole QANON thing ever made sense to me. Some things are what they are, even if it’s inexplicable.
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: That’s just as well- it’s mentally harmful to think about QAnon MAGA voters.
The Audacity of Krope
I regret mine, going back decades, but I suspect your talking about Trump voter claimed regret.
Trollhattan
@WaterGirl: Work thang. California, where DEI remains on life support.
WTFGhost
@Belafon: I’m not exactly tired of it, but I am bored with the tension over when it’s coming to a head.
Frankly, my guess – which is pure speculation – is that Trump and Epstein both like schtupping women under 18, and, by “schtup,” I’m of course referring to flatulence; it’s like “bouffing,” and a sitting SCOTUS employee, a judge, swore to that under oath! Well, not the part about “schtup,” but close enough!
That’s the “wonderful secret” that they share, I guess – the “more” to life than having everything. For Trump, there’s always pretty young girls to enslave and rape. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a couple-three migrants in to demand service from them, just before he deports them for attempted bribery.
Anyway: if Trump really did rape enslaved children, along with Epstein, I really don’t think there’s any coming back from that. Especially not when “Q” told the base that Trump was the savior of trafficked children!
WaterGirl
@Trollhattan: More questions! How would ICE even know about a zoom meeting? And why would they be circling the building?
Geminid
I posted about this recent poll on the New York mayoral race last night, but it won’t hurt to do it again. It’s a large poll with 1021 likely voters out of 1453 respondents, by Amit Singh Babba and Zenith Polls:
Mr. Singh Babba found Mamdani leading among all racial, religious and income groups.
So right now, Democrats have substantial leads in all three major races this year– for New York mayor and New Jersey and Virginia governor. New Jersey’s will probably be the closest.
edited to add Eric Adams
Baud
@Geminid:
That’s heartening, especially New Jersey.
lowtechcyclist
Where’s the beef?
OK, WTF do Democrats need to do about this?
Maybe an example or two?
What should we do about the way the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College are stacked against us, for instance? Of if he’s talking about other things, what are they, and what needs to be done there, and what difference will it make?
I agree with him, but I’m not seeing an answer to the question, and it’s an important question.
Etc.
Ohio Mom
@matt: Oh, shame on Josh Shapiro, he just fell miles down in my estimation.
You don’t have to have an opinion, or voice an opinion on everything, it’s the mayor’s race in different state.
zhena gogolia
Great interview here about the Trump assault on higher education.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Epstein may be small potatoes compared to all the evil that the Trumpists are raining down on us, but … we need to neutralize the bastards somehow. Stress their defenses, find a crack, and then hit it like a hammer. If Epstein is the weak spot in the Trumpists’ defensive wall, then that’s where we hammer them.
After all, tax evasion wasn’t close to the worst thing Al Capone did. But that was where his defenses were weakest, and that’s how they put him away.
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong: Yeah.
Baud
Belafon
@WaterGirl:
And I get that, but we need a supermajority to defeat Trump right now, and that means we focus on the stuff we care about, and keep them focused on this. If the Right loses interest, there is no stopping him.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: Every time I see someone say something like that last paragraph of the Buttigieg quote, I want to ask how that would look different from what most Democratic politicians have been doing all along.
Baud
dww44
@Melancholy Jaques: absolutely front and center these folks. Chris Murphy is another.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: But he’s old!
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
If we go after discrimination, we’re going to viewed as playing identity politics.
gene108
@MrPug:
If an issue is hurting a Democratic president, I have never met a Republican who wants to move on from it to other issues. They’d do everything they could to keep the scandal front and center for however long it’s possible.
For example, Benghazi happened in September 2012 and was an issue in the presidential debates between Romney and Obama. It was still an issue used against Hillary in 2016.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
That is a valid affirmative defense in the law.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: But Pete appears to be saying not that, but that we should have it both ways- go after discrimination but have it magically not perceived as “identity politics” by soft-bigot voters. This seems to be the standard centrist line these days but none of them can explain what it would actually look like.
WTFGhost
@rikyrah: “Pedophile” is the insult of choice for Republicans attacking Democratic people… except for women, who they accuse of being drunk, cackling, being ugly, being fat (Michelle Obama was one of the targets of that!), and “DEI hires”.
That he really might be a rapist, not just of loose women, but of underaged sex slaves, making him a “pedophile” in the vernacular, is just a step too far. He really might be the Bogeyman they painted “Democrat [sic] Party” on, and the paint’s coming off, and there aren’t any Democrats to destroy, just… him. Their hero is the one thing they can’t accept, because while grabbing women by the pussy is supposed to go away once you’ve done it, touching children is sick, sick, sick.
Hm? Well – as nearly as I can tell, the Republican Party’s line on rape is, “if she didn’t call the cops in a few days, and, certainly if the statute of limitations is past, then it didn’t really happen, and it’s wrong to blame a man for that particular act of rape.” So, it’s the cops, called quickly, or it didn’t happen. So, Trump raping an adult women is okay – he didn’t get criminally charged, so, it didn’t happen.
Republicans also seem to think that rape only really counts if you’re a virgin. Once you’ve had sex, you’re over the (ahem) hump, and can handle unwanted sex.
They really are twisted, when you think about it.
Okay: but, again, “pedophile” is the go to, maximal evil, nothing worse, insult, and to find that it could apply to their Lord Donald Jesus Trump Christ, their god emperor, well…
Have you ever seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?
“Oh shit, the stoner was right!” is all I’m saying. More humiliating than setting off the alarm is that Jay was right about something. Well – for Democrats to be right about Trump being evil, it’s too much for their heads to handle.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: The thing that kills me about Mamdani’s popularity is that, IMO, some Dems are getting wrapped around the axle in trying to tear him down, rather than thinking about how to latch onto what is driving his popularity and adopting it for other candidates. Like, the guy was relentless about cost-of-living issues. Absolutely drove that home every chance he got. That’s obviously resonating. So use that!
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
They really can’t explain what it would look like. Because Dems by and large don’t go overboard.
What they all mean is stuff that happens on social media that gets attributed to Dems.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Pretty much. But I kind of expect better from Pete, perhaps wrongly.
Bunter
@Geminid:
That’s missing Eric Adams. I wonder why, as far as I can tell, he’s still in as (yet another) independent.
I had this discussion with a friend on Sunday about who could/would win. I think Sliwa’s 13% is high with Cuomo and Adams in. I think Republicans are going to turn out heavy for either of those two. The Democrats who aren’t voting for Mamdani weren’t ever going to do so, which means it’s really about Mamdani’s voters turning out.
And, yes, I could be completely wrong. I’ve lived here for damn near my entire life and there’s no guarantee ever.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: What’s driving his popularity is exactly what Dems in hock to developers and Wall Street can’t abide. Hence the attempt of their house organ, FTFNYT, to take him down.
hueyplong
@rikyrah:
Imma say this politely as a I can.
I have no interest in ANY candidate from the Democratic Party that doesn’t understand that we need to GET OUT OUR OWN VOTERS.
I have no interest in reaching across the aisle.
Those who say now that they ‘regret their vote’
THEY DO NOT
THEY ONLY REGRET THAT IT BOOMERANGED BACK ON THEM.
Repeating the post because I wish I’d written it.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Not a lot of politicians really sticking their neck out for either so called DEI or identity issues or the party. (When’s the last time you hear someone talk about abortion?) Everyone wants to get in good with the people who disapprove of us. I’m not saying that’s the wrong political approach, given where things are.
Trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Kidding, ICE has not yet even received the AI harvest of her slide deck, plus they need to find the dude who reads.
Baud
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Well, I am pretty much where rikryah @41 is.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Darkrose:
Yup, very disappointing but a predictable line that’s coming out of people from that part of the Party. He’s smart, great on his feet, wonderful communicator who’s overlooking the fact that this is a basic civil rights issue and thus, should be a core part of what we say and do, not something shunted aside.
He’s definitely center and as Krope said in #23, entirely representative of the monied interests that have driven Dem Party policy and strategy for too long. That being said, he’s probably the only one from that wing of the party I’d consider in a primary. If he ran against the likes of Newsom or Shapiro, he’s an easy pick.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I’m always where rikyrah is.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Looks like 14% either undecided or not paying attention.
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The women’s sports bafflegab is the political equivalent of paying the Danegeld. It’s not going to magically cause transphobes to vote for Democrats.
rikyrah
Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) posted at 5:01 PM on Tue, Jul 29, 2025:
For decades, U.S. citizens abroad could vote in federal elections, a right historically supported by Republicans. But as overseas voter participation grows, the GOP is shifting its stance and targeting these votes.
t.co/CmpNYR5pe8
(https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1950315897731641796?t=MBjVc_n6Zb0JsGsoyjCBCw&s=03)
p.a
Next time you hear someone pontificate on the unfairness of the tiny percentage of trans athletes and “unfairness” ask them to pull up their social network posts decrying the thousands of athletes, male and female, who reclassify down to burnish their stats against younger competition in an effort to get college scholarships and club positions. Football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse etc.
gene108
@rikyrah:
@WaterGirl:
The two best explanations I have gathered about why Epstein versus every other terrible thing Trump did has traction is first MAGA, and Trump’s support within the Republican party, are cult. People have called MAGA a cult for years.
No cult lasts forever.
The cult members trusted their leader to deliver on his promises. He’s failed them. They are now questioning their beliefs in him.
Second, people can fall in love with the wrong person. You can see it, the rest of friends can see it, and warn them about it, but they don’t believe you. Until something happens in the relationship to break confidence, they may start realizing the criticisms were right.
Trump voters feel very passionately about him being great in a very irrational way. Strong feelings short circuit rational thought.
Edit: Nothing outsiders consider rational will break through the strong feelings.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
Yup. He’s supported by “so many people” meaning those that typically punch anybody to the left of Bill Clinton.
Again, he’s better than any (R) he ran against at the state level but we sure as hell don’t need him to be a party standard bearer in 28.
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
Correction: Epstein was never tried again. He was awaiting trial when he apparently killed himself in jail in 2019.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: It’s because he promised to blow the lid off the huge Democratic child abuse/trafficking ring all the MAGA’s think is there because all the talk shows they listen to have been telling them about it for ten years. They don’t understand why he’s covering up for them.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: It’s fucken gross. Like, here is a dude showing you some great strategies for winning. Steal some of them!
Or we could have another round of “young voters are dumb, why don’t they vote for the candidates we think they should vote for, why do they buy lattes and avocado toast, uphill both ways”, etc etc etc.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
It’s cuz they can’t. Or won’t because if they do describe it in what one assumes the end state of their messaging has been on the subject, it’ll sound very off putting.
brendancalling
A front pager (Cole? Water Girl?) posted a podcast interview w/Hunter Biden. I want to listen but can’t find the link. Refresh my memory, someone?
Betty
@rk: They are telling their stories. Maria Farmer with Jen Psaki on MSNBC and Stacey Williams on Tim Miller’s podcast. In addition, Nicolle Wallace is platforming Tara Palmeri who spent s great deal of time with Virginia Giuffre and is telling her story.
Geminid
@Bunter: Oh man, I left Eric Adams out! He came in at 7 percent.
One of the poll questions was whether a voter would consider voting for a particular candidate and 68% said they would not consider voting for Adams, while 63% said they would not consider voting for Cuomo and 58% said they would not consider voting for Sliwa. So I guess you could say Curtis Sliwa is the least unpopular of the three.
Of course this is only one poll and the election is still over three months away.
hueyplong
If you’re a glass-half-empty person who still wants to see a path to ridding the country of this pestilence, the progression goes something like this:
They will never let go of “the cruelty is the point” as the prime directive. Trump is Der Fuehrer because he’s its foremost practitioner, to the point of becoming a cult leader.
No amount of shaming GOPers or seeing a few (supposedly) unintended consequences of that cruelty will change #1.
No legal or political process can remove the SCt-protected Trump.
Trump simply has to die.
We’re not in the business of political assassinations.
Gotta make him stroke out.
Epstein might make him stroke out. Economic/foreign/cultural policies generally acknowledged to be failures don’t bother him a bit. They won’t move the needle on the stroke meter.
So it’s Epstein or bust.
Trollhattan
Marge’s dealer visited quite recently.
“Humbled” declared a defunct word following Marge’s cruel misuse.
zhena gogolia
@brendancalling:
Here you go.
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong: Cogent analysis.
Trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Oh I see, “overseas” and “military” are in different silos.
“Thank you for your service.”
Ramona
@gene108: The Roman Empire’s Christianity cult has been going strong for two millennia now…
That said, only 5% of MAGA need go into non-voting hibernation for us moral folk to gain traction.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: It wasn’t me, but I just googled.
I found this headline, so maybe check out Jamie Harrison’s podcast. Maybe that’s it?
Or maybe someone else will like directly to the podcast that was discussed previously.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
I saw something along these lines at the tail end of last week.
Of NYC voters who ranked 5 candidates, 70% left Cuomo off the ballot.
How Cuomo thinks he has any chance in November, aside from self-absorbed hubris and fart huffing, is beyond me.
Madeleine
@WaterGirl: I also have little use for Shapiro. His thoroughgoing imitation of Barack Obama really irritated me, as you said he’s inauthentic. Enough already.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I edited your original comment to add Eric Adams at 7%.
Betty
@rikyrah: We pay federal taxes. That should guarantee us the right to vote in federal elections..
Bunter
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Because he does have a fan club. I’m pretty sure two of my friends are going to vote for him mostly because of his daily covid conferences. It’s not logical but it is so very NYC.
Timill
@zhena gogolia: And here’s the BJ thread
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Holy shit, this is awful:
He’s alive, was flown to a medical facility in Chapel Hill, and is being treated there. No word on the extent of his injuries.
Baud
If I strongly supported a candidate, and he was way ahead in the polls. I’d be enjoying it rather than looking for people who didn’t support him in order to be outraged by them.
I just don’t get people.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Me either. Or why the NYC mayoralty is so important all of a sudden.
Geminid
Andrew Cuomo reminds me of the adage, “A politician is a sick man who gets well by being elected.”
Aside from Cuomo’s personal neediness, his campaign will attract some big money, and the people around Cuomo are happy to get a piece of it.
Also, the guy likes to hear himself talk. He might be the only one who does.
Suzanne
@Baud: I’m more annoyed by this dynamic:
1) We get beat up in the last big election
2) We have a great deal of coalitional infighting about it
3) We see a guy over-perform expectations
4) Other people on his own team try to tear him down, rather than learn what we might do to not repeat #1.
I want to win next time. I think it behooves us to watch and learn.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: @Baud: The goal is to bash the Democratic party, everything else comes second.
JoyceH
Hey, I’m so old that I can remember when a ‘third-rate burglary’ turned into a years-long scandal that brought down a president, so I’m here for the Epstein business. And I take issue with Watergirl’s assertion that ‘we’re not learning anything new’. Heck, we’re learning something new every day! Either about the original story or the current administration’s ham-handed attempts to deal with it. That’s what keeps the story going.
People have written entire books about Epstein, but that Grand Guignol-creepy birthday card is new news. Important? Trump thinks it’s worth ten or twenty billion dollars. And personally, I’m loving the birthday book story. Why? Because it’s something that’s NOT in the DOJ vault. It’s in the custody of the lawyers for the Epstein estate. So subpoena that baby, have it dusted for prints! (And isn’t it handy that with all those indictments, we’ve got Trump’s fingerprints already on file, in both federal and state courts?)
It’s news when the Deputy Attorney General goes scampering down to Florida to spend two days interviewing a prisoner on a twenty year sentence for sex trafficking. And no read-out on what the interview was about? Huh.
And let’s start a Go Fund Me page for the White House correspondent who has the stones to ask Trump, “Why was your ‘world class spa’ employing minors? What were their qualifications beyond youth and prettiness?’
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I get that his win will be the biggest one for the left side of the party since AOC seven years ago. He still had to do the job after he wins in November.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Thanks, WaterGirl!
Betty
@Madeleine: That irritated me too. Besides, he started his career as a DA, and I tend to be skeptical of the type of lawyer who uses that as a stepping stone to higher office and will use their office to raise their profile even if it means going after the wrong guys.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Stop making sense.
ETA: One of the thing I consistently argue for is taking the win when you have it and recognizing when when you are ahead and enjoying it. Not becoming complacent, but playing with a lead is much more fun. Run up the fucking score.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Ignore #4, and be happy. His win means that people will look at it. Just because they’re not talking about it on social media doesn’t mean they’re not doing it.
ETA: We’re hopefully going to have three big wins in November. They’ll all be looked at.
Martin
@Geminid: My sense is that the race has turned into a Mamdani/anyone but Mamdani debate, and that there will be a movement to strategically consolidate around some candidate – my guess would be Adams because I don’t see Republicans backing Cuomo.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry. I didn’t mean to act out of character.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: It was a bit worrying.
rikyrah
I don’t think Secretary Pete understands how angry.
How much pure anger and rage exists on our side.
there is something, every phucking day, that stokes my rage.
Something new
Another day of EVIL ACTIONS
And, I do mean PURE EVIL
by this Administration.
So, nope, I have ABSOLUTELY no interest, in reaching across the aisle.
I don’t even want to be in the same room with those whose actions made this current state of this country possible.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yes wpp want to get together with their MAGA voting relatives.
Geminid
@Martin: Curtis Sliwa says he won’t drop out and I believe him. He’s having too much fun talking about Cuomo “slapping fannies and killing grannies.”
And Adams consistently polls lowest of all if you don’t count Jim Walden, so he’s a weak choice to build an anti-Mamdani coalition around.
I think Mamdani has this unless he blunders, and he seems too smart and sure-footed a politician to blunder.
Suzanne
@Baud: But you can’t ignore #4. If a candidate’s win reveals that the electorate wants action on a specific issue, it’s good strategy to grab onto that. We don’t need to tear at our own people.
ETA: And I say this as someone who would likely not have ranked Mamdani first.
Martin
@Suzanne: Yeah. This is what I see. There are a lot of people who don’t think they can learn from their opponents, that it’s some kind of betrayal. It’s not an ask to support a Mamdani or even a Trump, but if we can’t step back and put aside the things we don’t like and see the things that they are doing better than us, we’re never going to win. The first thing a team does after a loss is analyze what the other team did to beat you. We generally don’t do that. And we even lash out at the people who are trying to do it for our benefit and accuse them of defecting.
Madeleine
Amanda Litman has a good long email today about what Run for Something is accomplishing. She makes the point that the change is happening, mentions not only, Mamdani but Crockett, McBride, Talarico, and several others. And, by Run for Something’s standard, they’re already far along beyond the many more local people that RfS supports.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
Once again, The Gilliard Doctrine:
As true today as it was in 2005 when that was written.
Baud
@Suzanne:
You can be unhappy if you want. To me, it doesn’t indicate strength or confidence, at least based on current polling. It’s like you expect to fail and are pre-looking for an adversary to blame.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: I am not at all certain that any Democrat will ever be allowed to win the presidency again, or will be allowed to remain alive and free if they try. Regardless, we keep pushing.
Geminid
One thing I noticed today while bouncing around social media is how intensely some people hate Pete Buttigieg. I saw some horrible things said about him in connection to the video posted at top of the thread. “Looks like a rat, acts like a rat” etc. Just hateful.
Citizen Alan
@Melancholy Jaques: I honestly thought most of the people who ran for Pres as a Dem on 2020 would have been a great president if elected. Maybe not as good as Joe, but most of them would have been great. The ones who would have been bad presidents in office were Sanders, Yang, Bloomberg, and the crystals lady (blanking on her name; I want to say Maryanne Faithfull, but she was a folk singer from the 60s).
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: A lot of people cannot forgive his two year at McKinsey.
Suzanne
@Baud: I feel like it’s more like turning away from winning. As I have said here, ad infinitum, there’s a lot of people who we don’t motivate, but who aren’t necessarily ever going to be reliable GOP voters. These people are infuriating in that they’re often capricious and incoherent and vibe-y, but we win their votes some of the time and that often makes the difference for us. So when I see someone who experiences success reaching them, whether that’s via policy positions or messaging or just good looks/rizz (or a combination thereof, most likely)….. I want more of that!
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Marianne Faithfull was not a folk singer from the ‘60s. She was much more than that. For one thing, she co-wrote The Rolling Stones song Sister Morphine. You know what, I can’t even…. I will be over in a corner softly sobbing and rocking back and forth.
RaflW
Late to this, but I’ll just add:
Eat shit, Rahm. Selling out trans people is a complete non-starter.
DAstronomer
@Darkrose: Agreed. I was listening to the interview while biking, and I started swearing like a sailor when he said that. Fucking asshole moderate attitudes towards ‘charged topics’ are going to be the death of us. Mayo Pete is one of the politicians with the most cache with the press, he fucking knows better, and he still couches the scary squishy topics in the terms defined by the far right.
Christ, what an asshole.
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan: Marianne Williamson.
My former mother-in-law loved her some Marianne Williamson. LMAO.
ETA: Guess how well I got along with my ex-MIL.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Williamson. I agree with you.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: I think this is mixing her up with the Those Were the Days gal — Melanie?
Mary Hopkin
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: If and when he wins the actual election, people will begin drawing too many lessons from his campaign.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: The most depressing effect that the last 10 years have had on me is that I have rethought my prior and absolute opposition to the death penalty. We need to make sure that it is used sparingly and not in a discriminatory manner, but I now believe there are people walking around who are so inhumanly evil that they should be put down for the public good.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Melanie Safka of Look What They’ve Done to My Song and Brand New Key fame?
ETA: Oh yeah, that’s possible.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: The chrystal lady was Marianne Williamson (ed.)
I thought Andrew Yang may have helped put Eric Adams in office. Yang sucked up a lot of attention in the 2021 mayoral race before he faded; a big distraction.
It turned out to be a close three-way race between Adams, Maya Wiley and Kathy Garcia, and Adams peaked at the right time.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Possible. But I’d rather err on the side of overinterpreting from a winner than repeating failures.
We want to find new, innovative, groundbreaking ways to fail. ;)
Melancholy Jaques
@zhena gogolia:
New York City mayor always gets national attention because of the proximity of national political media and the fact that it’s New York, New York. I mean, why wouldn’t it?
Slightly less attention is paid to Chicago and Los Angeles mayoral elections, but they also get some national press.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: Out of curiosity, have the anti-Trans freak EVER suggested a situation in which a cis-female might be at any kind of competitive advantage against a trans-female? I mean, there’s the hysterical reaction to trans-girls in the women’s restroom, but I can’t imagine how any sort of “unfairness” argument would even make sense outside the narrow context of a few sporting activities where a trans-female early in her transition might have muscular advantages over a cis-female.
Elizabelle
Per LA Times, Kamala Harris has said she is not running for governor of California.
Personally, I would dearly love to vote for Harris Walz again
They are both worthy of the high offices that Trump Vance are despoiling.
Princess
@rikyrah: no taxation without representation, I say. So long as overseas citizens need to file returns, they should be allowed to vote.
Citizen Alan
@p.a: Or older golfers who are counting the days to when they’re eligible for the Seniors PGA Tour and suddenly are the youngest and healthiest guys on the course.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@rk: why would the victims risk coming forward (again in some cases) when Epstein was let off almost Scot-free in Florida and Trump is President?! Their lives would be put under a microscope and media circus, their families (and children) would be harassed and probably threatened. Ask any woman who has accused any powerful man of assault, rape, sexual assault or domestic abuse how it turned out for her.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: What I am really saying is that we shouldn’t be too worried that people aren’t really learning from him yet. He has won a primary in a place that is sui generis. The actual election will change that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Princess: Taxation be damned. If someone is a citizen they get to vote. Fin.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus: I apologize for not providing a more thorough hagiography for someone simply because I briefly conflated her name with that of Marianne Williamson.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Like I said, we’re hopefully going to have three winners in November. NYC isn’t the only data set that’s important.
Everyone else doesn’t face an election until November 2026.
Sister Golden Bear
My concern about Buttigieg is he’s joined with Newsom in “maybe the haters have a point” about trans people.
Pete Buttigieg weighs in on ‘fairness’ of transgender kids playing girls’ sports
If someone won’t have my back, who else are they willing to throw to the wolves?
And for the record, trans people aren’t “cancelling” Buttigieg because we didn’t like what Buttigieg and expressing our displeasure. Disagreeing with a politician—especially a gay man who especially should know/do better—isn’t intolerance, it’s saying we’re pissed off at a position he took.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I felt like Karen Bass winning a not-close election was at least a left-ish victory. The money definitely wanted Caruso.
MrPug
@WaterGirl: Thanks for the reply. And, no, I do not think that you are minimizing the Epstein issue and the victims. I’ve been reading you long enough to know that is not the case.
I also agree with you that there are issues that are being ignored that will impact more people in negative ways. But, the single biggest impediment to enacting better policies right now in this country is the Republican party. So, for me, pummeling that party into the (metaphorical) ground is easily the top priority. No fundamental change will be possible until that happens and tying the Epstein millstone around the collective necks of Republicans is the best opening we’ve had in decades.
A large percentage of people in this country think that Democrats are unpatriotic, degenerate baby killers (to name but a few of the awful things people think about us) based on decades long lies. It is time the Democrats flip that script and we have truth in our favor. The morally degenerate party protecting criminals that include pedophiles is the Republican party and the Epstein is the teed up shot to drive that point home.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: I will let it go this time. Don’t let it happen again.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought that was just what people said because they know they shouldn’t say that they won’t vote for a gay man. How many people even know what McKinsey & Co is or does?
Martin
@Suzanne: I don’t think it’s as clean as that. I think there’s a lot of proxy stuff in politics that if you take it at face value you run off in the wrong direction because it sits as a placeholder or even dog whistle to the electorate.
The DNC seems to have decided we need a Joe Rogan of the left to appeal to young men. Mamdani is winning 85% of young men in the latest poll and rank and file democrats reaction to this is ‘oh, no, not like that’. We’re going to reject your D+70 strategy in favor of finding some 26 year old who will speak in defense of both expanding Medicaid access and arms shipments to Israel.
Darkrose
@Baud: There are a fair number of Democrats–Pete included–who are happy to talk about identity politics right now, as long as it’s about how far under the bus they’re throwing trans people.
Baud
@Darkrose:
Comes with losing. All the people you thought were allies take the knives out.
Baud
@Martin:
Better than this suggestion.
Peke Daddy
If this rule brought you here, of what use was the rule?
Sister Golden Bear
@Citizen Alan:
Unpossible, because they simply don’t believe trans girls/women are girls/women. And I doubt they’d ever consider the possibility that a cis-female athlete might ever have a competitive advantage against a cis-male athlete—that would go against their entire worldview.
On a related note, the anti-trans freaks are noticeably silent about trans-boys/men competing against cis-boys/men.
The only time I’ve ever heard them complain about a trans boy athlete was the case of a high school trans boy who was forced by the Texas athletes league to compete against cis girls—and half the time the haters claimed he was trans girl. (For the record, the trans boy hated doing so, but needed to do it in hopes of getting a college wrestling scholarship. Which he did, at a small no-name college, where he had an undistinguished record.)
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: So I think their position is that if yielding ground on trans women in sports (which is the only one they seem to be yielding on) is how we win, we need to do that because you are not better of now under Trump than you would have been under Harris with rules against transfemme athletes. And I think that Sarah McBride spoke directly to this in her interview with Klein. In 2008 California voted for Obama and to ban gay marriage on the same ballot. It was a setback to be sure, but Obama got to put the people on the court that gave us Obergefell. Before he even left office gay marriage was legal nationally, and that is still the law a decade after he left office – Prop 8 wasn’t the thing that endured, all of the work under the Obama admin including appointment of judges was. Public opinion during the Obama admin shifted substantially creating the space for it to be legalized everywhere.
I do not think public opinion toward the trans community is being advanced while Trump is in office, but if ceding that one issue would have allowed for Harris to be elected, would that have been a trade worth making for the trans community?
For the record, I don’t think that would have changed the outcome, I think it’s a trap for Democrats to fight on the contours of the GOPs culture war nonsense rather than on the underlying issues which I think Dems have taken their eye off of.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: @Baud: Y’all are both right and I can sit tight for a while and be patient. With age brings, well, maybe not wisdom, but hopefully patience!
Would just like to avoid self-dick-stepping.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
This is a non-negotiable for me.
on the NCAA level
it’s 10
10
muthaphuckin 10
athletes out of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND
PHUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THIS MEALY MOUTHED BULLSHYT
Don’t give one phuckin inch to those bigots
THEY HAVE NO POINT
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin: Easy for you to say when you’re not the one being actively erased.
Who else are you willing to sacrifice? Seriously, I want to know. Name them.
Martin
@Baud: I agree with Bernie here though. If you can’t defend your ideas against someone as dumb as Rogan, you probably shouldn’t be running for office. I think a lot of the problem many Dems have with Rogan is that a lot of their positions are really hard to defend in a 3 hour interview (which is what he requires of his guests) because their positions are wearing increasingly thin. Slotkin went on Krystal Balls show and got torn apart in 10 minutes because her position was indefensible. I think that’s why Pete does so much better in that format because I think Pete owns his positions. Talarico did great on Rogan because Talarico knows who he is and what he stands for.
Martin
@Geminid: Oh, I think he does too, but at some point here voters start to get tactical/pragmatic. If Mamdani is over 50% that probably won’t happen because what’s the point, but if he slips to 40% or less, then a hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-Adams campaign could work.
I agree that Sliwa won’t drop out. He’s an attention whore. Always has been. But last I read Bill Ackman had shifted all of his money off of Cuomo and onto Adams for exactly this reason.
Baud
@Martin:
I think a left wing Rogan is better than the real Rogan. But whatever. I don’t know so I’ll just see what other people are doing
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
That was a sight to see.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: It’s hard deal with morons for that length of time. That’s the reason that used play judge who just refused to understand one particular point and just kept coming back to it back when I was helping my law school’s national moot court team practice. I would interrupt late arguments or skip ahead to pet issue and say things like “Okay, that fine, but I really concerned by the implications of X. Could you explain…”. After about the third time I did in a 10 minute argument, you could just see the rage building beneath the surface. But moot court judges do it, and, more importantly, real judge do too. Sometimes for fun, sometimes because it is really important to them for some reason. And you just can’t tell. But Rogan is still an idiot.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s the McKinsey angle for sure. I saw Buttigieg called a “McKinsoid.”
But I think the depth of the hate stems from Buttigieg’s very narrow victory in the 2020 Iowa caucuses. I don’t think Bernie Sanders would have won the nomination even if Buttigieg hadn’t edged him out in Iowa, but there is a small but obstinate group of his fans who are obsessed with the idea that their guy was robbed, and that Pete Buttigieg was a major culprit.
The way Buttigieg concentrated on Iowa, won, and then endorsed Biden on the eve of Super Tuesday makes him a special object of their anger. And like Jim Clyburn’s role in 2020 brings out their racism, Buttigieg’s role brings out their homophobia. These people are not that numerous but they’re really vicious.
Darkrose
@Geminid: The McKinsey thing is people attacking Pete from the left because McKinsey is a soulless corporate behemoth that’s been involved in supporting authoritarian regimes and had a hand in the Enron collapse and the 2008 financial crisis. It’s certainly one of the many things that had me side-eying Pete from the beginning.
Martin
@Sister Golden Bear: Like I said, I don’t agree that trading that out will yield the result they want. It’s a dangerous game.
But if you think that politics is about values, you’re wrong. It’s about getting to 50%+1. People are always getting traded out to get over the line. Go ask black people how often they accept being traded out in order to get the larger win. Biden authored the fucking crime bill that created so much pain in the 90s and black voters didn’t waver on their support for Clinton or Biden, because they understood that winning the office is what mattered. Hell, black voters needed to be convinced to vote for Obama because they thought they had better odds of winning with Clinton. They fucking volunteered to be under that bus for the greater good.
Look at how angry many people here are at the uncommitted voters because they believe they cost us the election. There’s no sympathy for them having been thrown under the bus by Biden, because they think those voters should have gotten over it and pulled the lever – and that was about peoples family members being killed, not how someone can participate in sports.
I’m not trying to judge anyone here, I’m just noting that’s how politics works. And if by chance their thinking is correct (I’m skeptical it is) you didn’t answer the question of whether the trans community would be better off with Harris and no transfemme athletes or Trump. Yeah, you’re getting shit on either way, but isn’t the real goal full acceptance in society which will automatically deliver on sports?
I think it’s a little presumptuous to suggest Pete doesn’t understand this when he served in the military under Clinton’s DADT policy, and continued to vote Democratic and run as a Democrat and in the end got to see the benefits of that work. I think he fully understands how this works even if he doesn’t like it.
But to be clear, I don’t think campaigning against trans athletes is a winning message for Dems. In fact, I think their best strategy is to not engage with it at all because I think it’s a trap. But I’m guessing your goal is not to have transfemme athletes competing because a Democrat made it happen against an arena of people booing, but to have transfemme athletes competing with an arena of people cheering. Democrats can’t deliver on the latter by engaging in a campaign promise. It’s a much bigger project and one that doesn’t get advanced with someone like Trump or Vance in office. That was McBrides point – eyes on the real prize. If you have to temporarily accept Nancy Mace’s bathroom ban, that’s fine because that’s not the goal.
Personally, I don’t think the issue can be disconnected from what I saw talking to parents around college admissions – a LOT of almost desperation around doing everything perfectly so their kid could get the right degree from the right school to get the right job so they’d succeed. I think the underlying problem is that we are starving young people for opportunities for success and people who are starving are in no position to be compassionate or generous, and a trans athlete out there looks like someone taking what few precious opportunities there are out of their kids hands. I think if you fix that, most people won’t give a shit if there’s a trans athlete out there or not, because they don’t see that first place as being critical to unlocking the school/career door. And a LOT of parents are that desperate. I’ve had elementary school parents scream at me because I would refuse to tell them which musical instrument their kid should play to maximize their chance to get admitted a decade later. That happened a LOT. So I think if you throw the trans kids under the bus, these people will just pick up immigrant kids or black kids or poor kids or some other group to join you because the opportunity problem remains. That’s why I think it’s a trap.
And yeah, you have every right to be angry. I ping-ponged around a lot of last-minute weddings in California because of that political bullshit. The distress was hard to miss. But they were pretty fucking happy after Ogberfell – and still are. It’ll come. It’s always a shitty journey, though.
Martin
@Baud: I don’t think Rogan is the issue. Rogan’s views didn’t change the election, the exposure to candidates on his show is what I think mattered. Democrats hid from the electorate. Don’t do that. Just go on the fucking show.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Come on, you are old enough to remember that the CBC supported the crime bill. Remember all the GOP folks complaining about provisions like midnight basketball. The law ended up being counterproductive, but it wasn’t seen that way at the time.
Martin
BTW, I think THAT is the real issue. Everything was based around the perceived need to get that opportunity. Take that away by making college more affordable, accessible, whatever, and a lot of the dynamics around that simply go away. Not entirely of course, but enough that you can take it away from the national spotlight.
Baud
@Martin:
I disagree, but I don’t do analysis so my views don’t count for anything.
Omnes Omnibus
Duplicate
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ll never forgive Bernie for voting for that.
Geminid
@Darkrose: Yeah, but you don’t hate Buttigieg. These people do; it’s pathological.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Right but how much do we cheer when Pete goes on Fox News and walks away on top? And they’re much worse actors than Rogan is. So we reward politicians with the skill to do that. And we seem to make excuses for the politicians that don’t.
Don’t blame the voters for tuning into Rogan. Just fucking beat Rogan on his show. That’s WAY easier than trying to displace his audience with some creation from the left. Rogan has been doing that show for 16 years to build that audience. If it takes us 16 years to get the perfect forum for our candidates, it’s going to be the 2040 election before our master plan finally comes together.
Darkrose
@Geminid: Which people though? All of the people I’ve seen bringing up the McKinsey thing are doing so for the same reason I do: McKinsey is genuinely awful. Anyone on the right who hates Pete because he’s gay isn’t going to be shy about saying so.
Baud
@Martin:
Who blames people for not going on Fox or Rogan? Has AOC ever done so? I don’t recall it and I don’t blame her. Same with everyone else.
People have different skill sets and they should play to those, not try to fit into someone else’s paradigm.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: What did you think the point of my moot court story was?
Miss Bianca
@Melancholy Jaques:
Well, I do, but mostly that’s because the most miserable three months of my professional life was the time I spent working in their Chicago office.
sab
I haven’t read the comment thread yet.
I have had a granny crush on Chasten since his book first came out, and I hugely admired Mayor Pete before that, when he first hit the radio airwaves on his presidential run. Just some midwestern mayor, but when I actually heard him it was yikes and wow. It still is.
I am very glad that Chasten and Peter met each other, and that those two lucky twins fell into their lives.
Omnes Omnibus
@Darkrose: What about anyone who spent a couple of years a BigLaw firm out of law school? They’re are do a lot of the same soulless things and junior associates at both places have fuck all to do with the type of work they get assigned.
Geminid
@Darkrose: I’m talking about the two people running a site called “Vanguard[Something]” who said that “Buttigieg looks like a rat, he acts like a rat, and if he was around he’d smell like a rat.” Those people, and the ones who chimed in with similar Buttigieg hate. They didn’t say anything about Buttigieg being gay but I believe that adds to their hatred.
These people are not on the right, they’re part of what I call the Dirtbag Left.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: BS or bust folks haven’t been able to get over Buttigieg besting their hero in Iowa.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: It is not remotely that simple. For one, CBC is not the same as black voters, and a lot of black Democrats at the time were skeptical of it including Mfume who was the chair of CBC. But Democrats were seeking to win over suburban whites and they saw that was the means to get there and put leverage on the CBC to support it. And in the end it split black Democrats – 11 CBC members voted against it, 29 for it. I would argue that was an expedient vote rather than an enthusiastic one given how handily it won in the Senate 95-4.
Black legislators knew it was going to drive up the incarceration rates, and I think it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest that they were willing to trade midnight basketball for that.
Miss Bianca
@Martin: Two things people – especially lefty people – keep forgetting about the 90s:
1. DADT was abso-fucking-lutely an improvement over “get dishonorably discharged for being gay”, and it was recognized as such at the time by the people it affected the most.
2. Black people by and large *supported* the crime bill that a later generation ended up reviling. If no one else remembers the rampant drug-induced killing sprees that erupted in cities like Chicago, which overwhelmingly involved young Black men, well…I remember. I worked with a lot of the folks who lived in those neighborhoods and wanted *something* done about it.
Were either one of these things ideal and what activists would have ideally wanted? No. Did they improve the situations they were intended to address for the people most affected? For the most part, yes.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
Well that’s a rather ridiculous requirement. I’d hate to have to defend anything for three freakin’ hours. Not to mention, you’re going up against a guy who’s used to questioning people for three hours and is going to still be fresh and on top of things long after you’re ready to call it quits.
If I were running for an office visible enough that it caught Rogan’s attention, I’d tell him: you get one hour of my time. If that’s a problem, fuck you.
Geminid
@Martin: I don’t think Black people who supported the 1993 Crime Bill were trading increased incarceration for midnight basketball. They were tired of seeing their neighborhoods turned into shooting galleries and were trading increased incarceration for increased public safety.
There were a lot of people being killed by gun violence back then. Not in my neighborhood and maybe not in yours; they were being killed in Black peoples’ neighborhoods.
Darkrose
@Omnes Omnibus: As I said above, McKinsey was involved with the Enron mess, and the 2008 global financial crisis. They were paid well to help Purdue “turbocharge” (their words) sales of OxyContin. They’ve worked closely with Saudi Arabia and Erdogan. They helped Yanukovych loot Ukraine. In 2018–well after Russia invaded Crimea–they took a contract to help develop business strategy for the Russian state bank, which was under US sanctions for said invasion.
Most US law firms don’t have that kind of reach to do that level of harm.
Martin
@Baud: I never suggested people blame them for not doing it. AOC doesn’t need those venues to win, so why expose yourself to them. It’s the DNC that has said repeatedly that Democrats do need those venues to win – that’s why they’re seeking a Joe Rogan of the left.
I think there’s a confusion there between whether they need a left leaning type who won’t bog down candidates on anti vax shit, or whether they need to reach the approximately 15 million young men who tune into Rogan. If they think they can invent someone in a lab and peel that audience off of Rogan, they’re fucking delusional. If you need to reach 15 million young men in order to win, that’s easy – go on Rogan. If you need someone to interview you that will feed you left-coded questions, then you need to invent someone. And I think that’s really the project – not reaching young men, but creating a Dem friendly space and hoping you can get people into it. And I think that’s a huge mistake. I think simply recruiting better candidates or adopting more defensible policies and throwing them where the voters want to be is the thing. If there is any one lesson to be taken away from the rise of social media, it’s the importance of being a native in the space where your voters are and I find a lot of Democrats to be too afraid of making a mistake to be themselves and say what they believe. I think a lot of Republicans do too and they also are being shown the door for the more hood-off types.
I think one of the more fair criticism of Dems is the Democratic consultants desire to make fetch happen, and the electorate slams that shit down every time and we never seem to learn that lesson. If the audience sees you win on Rogan and they like you and then you go over to Adam Conover or whoever then you’ve done the thing – you’ve moved the audience you are trying to reach to a much less stupid host. But you have to move them and in order to do that they need to see you winning on Rogan.
Democratic media have flirted with Piker because he got that same energy, and roughly same demographic of young men but basically no politicians have actually gone on his show either. He’s as close to a Rogan of the left as we’ve got, but it doesn’t feel safe there either.
Darkrose
@Geminid: Oh. I thought you were saying that hating Pete was a big thing on the left, not that it was two people on some random website.
Geminid
@Darkrose: No, I was saying thst hatlng Pete Buttigieg is a big thing on a small *part* of the left and I made that clear at comment #183.
These two people had readers who agreed with them wholeheartedly, and I’ve seen these sentiments plenty in “left” social.media spaces; it’s usually not in so raw a form.
Martin
Was there an option that didn’t include increased incarceration? Note, everyone called it the ‘tough on crime’ bill because the increased incarceration was the point. Everyone is acting as though the only way to improve public safety was to treat 5g of crack with the same sentence as half a kilo of cocaine. Like, no, that was always a false choice. No matter where you were on the spectrum of anti-drug use like Rangel to legalization like George Crockett, that disparity is inconsistent with all of them, and black lawmakers seemed pretty aware of that. Yes, they wanted gang violence addressed, but they didn’t really have much of a say in how it was addressed, did they? They were 20% of the Dem caucus and had a lone vote in the Senate. They got midnight basketball as one of the consolation prizes, and then got beat up that even that insignificant crumb was thrown their way.
This was a bill written by white democrats to help solve an electoral puzzle – how to get middle class whites out of the GOP. And along with other laws it worked. And it was a bit of a shit sandwich for black democrats – it helped keep them in power, it would help with the crime situation, but they’d pay a community price for it. And some went one way and some the other. Even if the CBC didn’t think the black community would get run over doesn’t change the point that they did get run over. And the black community voted for him 2 years later and initially backed his wife 12 years later. The GOP was not going to treat them better.
Note, I’m not saying the goal of the bill was to shit on black people. The goal of the bill was how to win in ’96 without the benefit of the Gulf War recession and Ross Perot in the race to help get Clinton over the line. They needed to build a real wining coalition, and they did that, and the gay community and the black community and wage earners and a whole bunch got a bite taken out of them to get there. Now, I disagree that was a necessary path to build that coalition but it doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong, that is why they took that path and they did win in 96, and they ended up holding onto the gay community and the black community and wage earners despite it. I think it sucks, but why they did it is pretty well documented.
Geminid
@Martin: If the Black community voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 and Hilary Clinton in 2016, maybe they weren’t as bothered about the Crime Bill as you think they should have been. I know that some Black Representatives who voted for the bill defended it afterwards as a necessity, not as something imposed upon them.
Gvg
@Sister Golden Bear: regular people are really hard to impossible to convince on the trans women don’t have an advantage long sport issue. I am having no luck even with normally liberal people. This seems just really hard for people to even consider might be scientifically true. Like telling them water doesn’t run downhill. I guess I can try practicing but I think I can see why politicians are weaseling on this one. It’s not fair. Keeping you alive is more urgent. The issues are related, but not to normie voters. To them sports fairness isn’t the same as allowing bullying or erasure.
Also the maga and trumpies have so many hate targets that it’s hard to try and protect them all.
The Audacity of Krope
It doesn’t always.
I don’t even try to convince people on the trans women not actually having an advantage issue. While true, with caveats, it is entirely aside from the point.
Everyone deserves a meaningful means to participation
ETA: I say meaningful because some will suggest an all trans league. That just seems a thinly veiled way to say “go play with yourself.”
Martin
@Geminid: I think you’re drawing false conclusions. Were black voters going to get a better deal out of Bob Dole or any of the GOP contenders in 2016? No? Then they were going to stay the course with the Dems even if they backslid some.
Sister Golden Bear
@Gvg: It was less than a decade ago that the NBA boycotted an entire state because it passed laws banning trans people from bathrooms—and bigots backed down. Just saying.
One reason it’s become hard to convince cis people that trans women athletes (all 10 of them at the collegiate level out of 510,000 athletes) is that the Right spent years turning trans athletes into such a boogy-(wo)man with almost no pushback.
And—as trans people kept saying it would—it’s moving far beyond sports. Witness Brown University announcement today that they’ll effectively ban trans women from campus.
Martin
@Gvg: I don’t think it matters to a lot of them if they have an advantage or not – I think they just pull that out as an excuse to oppose it, they think it’s a winning argument. If you are adding competition for a limited resource, and you see that resource as critically important, it doesn’t matter if they have an advantage or not, you’re going to oppose the addition. I don’t think voters need to feel that immigrants have an advantage on economic opportunities to oppose them because they believe there are already too few opportunities. I know people don’t think of winning a swim meet as a high stakes opportunity, but a lot of people treat it as such. At UC, being on the swim team was one thing but winning at the state level or higher is what made your application notable. It’s a real effect. There are very few of those opportunities, parent know that, and they get real weird about it. And I think because female sports get so much less support than male sports already, have fewer opportunities, less funding, and all that, many don’t want to give up any ground at all, even for a handful of people. Isn’t that one of the main arguments by the TERFs? And they’re not wrong that there are too few opportunities. There really are.
I think that contributes to why the reverse issue isn’t as pronounced because there are a lot more male sports opportunities, more scholarships, more funding and so on that adding a handful of new competitors isn’t as big of a deal.
This is sort of similar to the anti-asian academic bias that has been around for quite a while where groups would argue that there need to be limits or compensation for asian academic performance not because they were genetically superior (white people weren’t about to admit that) but because they worked too hard and crowded out opportunities for their kids. (There were similar Jewish quotas to limit their population in universities up until the 60s around similar arguments). We’re all about the meritocracy until it’s some asian kid busting his ass to get the grade. But fundamentally it was an argument about scarcity of opportunity.
I’m curious if Democrats introduced legislation to support trans athletes to compete alongside requirements that women’s sports be fully equivalent to men in terms of opportunity, scholarship, pay, etc. How much support would the anti-trans movement lose if the opportunity gap got closed in the process?
Geminid
@Martin: I think my conclusions are as well founded as yours. And there were other positive elements in the crime bill that you are leaving out of the picture.