Finally, a united nation.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) August 4, 2025 at 7:38 PM
===
About half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a “major” source of stress in their life right now, while 33% say it’s a “minor” source of stress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. buff.ly/vvM9ItD
— PBS News (@pbsnews.org) August 4, 2025 at 1:22 PM
===
A group of well-known Washington lawyers is opening a law firm focused on challenging President Donald Trump’s executive orders and agency actions as he strives to dramatically reshape the federal government during his second term.
— CNN (@cnn.com) August 4, 2025 at 9:18 PM
===
DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day
It’s another discrepancy between what White House advisers say and the administration’s legal posture.
www.politico.com/news/2025/08…— Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) August 3, 2025 at 10:43 AM
===
Donald Trump talked a big game on the economy, promising a new “Golden Era.”
But unemployment is up.
Economic growth has slowed.
Inflation is increasing.
This is the ugly reality of Trump’s economy.— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) August 3, 2025 at 12:53 PM
===
This is why Donald is crying about Elizabeth Warren.
— LOLGOP (@thefarce.org) August 4, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Baud
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that economic vibes seems to be holding for Trump despite the lack of a media drumbeat.
Suzanne
Also from that interview:
LOL. Adore her.
Affordability should be our major theme for the midterms. Candidates can interpret that for their own area and stressing people the most. Hammer it and back GOP candidates into a corner on it. Why do you want people’s grocery prices to go up? Why do you want people to struggle with their rent?
satby
Krugman today on FAFO of BLS statistics and the paranoid style in American economics.
Baud
@satby:
Link doesn’t work
ETA: Fixed. Thanks
Geminid
@Suzanne: Rep. Mikie Sherrill centered the issue of affordability in her speech after she won New Jersey’s Democratic primary for governor on June 10.
hells littlest angel
@Baud: Sadly, I think the only thing that can save us from fascism is a catastrophic economic collapse in the US. Even the lowest of the right-wing troglodytes won’t find mass deportations are worth not being able to feed and house themselves.
Baud
@hells littlest angel:
Maybe. It’s out of our hands. Only Republicans can bring our catastrophic economic collapse.
hells littlest angel
@Baud: More sadly, I have faith in them to do just that.
Baud
@Geminid:
Does it count if it’s not all over social media?
catclub
Always relevant in any US economy discussion.
thereformedbroker.com/2016/12/13/every-unified-republican-government-ever-has-led-to-a-financial-cra…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Agreed. Warren is knowledgeable and fearless. No wonder Trump is squawking
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s always squawking.
I think it’s looks weak. MAGA thinks it’s manly. They outnumber me.
catclub
A possibly useful tariff policy:
OTOH, why not actually pass the sanction bill? To keep all power to impose or withhold tariffs in his tiny fingers.
BellyCat
LOVE Professor Warren!
Had my vote then. Still has my vote today. Thank Sky Kitty that she’s still raising hell.
mappy!
A phrase that keeps bubbling up lately: A Perfect Storm.
That’s why Groceries! It’s what almost everyone (‘cept of course Billionaires) see every week, daily as it were. And he hasn’t done anything about it. It isn’t fixed. Like the files and 24 hours, buried by the latest distraction. It’s not working for them.
Edit – MAGA don’t pay taxes, not so as it rattles them every day. But they eat. And they have to have someone to blame… Immigrants aren’t raising food prices, but not having them around will… wait till that sinks in.
catclub
You get zero guesses on the skin color of the respective persons:
Baud
Instead of, or in addition to, the “I did that” stickers, they should print up some “I’m protecting Epstein’s clients” stickers.
Baud
@catclub:
It’s now considered gauche to emphasize identity.
cmorenc
Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, the GOP would have been nonstop 365/24 screeching about husband Bill Clinton, sex predator. And when the Epstein arrest happened in 2019, would have been all over screeching about combing the Epstein files for references to Bill.
The Audacity of Krope
Says the guy hiding behind a pseudonym.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Mikie Sherrill strikes me as a very smart person. I like her.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’ve always been ahead of the curve.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Like a surfer?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Warren’s always crafted a good economic policy message unlike so many other Dems.
She’s also one of the better front people for the party and always very deft at turning a reporter’s lazy GOP-sourced framing back into her talking points. One of our best communicators.
I’m trying to remember that viral video on the campaign trail where she was in a more informal setting and really nailed an answer to a question. But can I find that now? It’s out there, I just can’t remember the accurate words needed to find it.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Mikie Sherrill is another member of the talented Democratic House Class of 2018. Fellow Class members Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin are now in the Senate, while Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia’s first waman governor. All four beat Republican incumbents to win their House seats.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m often mistaken for Jason Mamoa.
New Deal democrat
@catclub:
Same thing as last year’s immigration bill. He could have Congress pass the same thing and sign it, but he’d rather be unconstrained by any law.
it will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court does with these tariffs when the appeals court (presumably) finds the entire scheme Unconstitutional. I don’t mean “interesting” in the sense of how they will apply the law. Rather, I mean “interesting” in terms of what arglebargle they will use to allow them to continue.
cmorenc
@Geminid:
What is a “waman” – a female shaman capable of magical powers?
Yeah, I know, just an inadvertent misspelling, but an amusing one.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Don’t be silly. A female shaman is called a sheman.
The Audacity of Krope
All very true. Makes it even sadder she was a member of the coup caucus. I loved her years before she ever ran for office. I voted for her for President. I will not so much as consider voting for her for reelection next year.
Trivia Man
@Suzanne: i helped on her first campaign for congress, she was very impressive. Her campaign helped convince one of the last old school genteel republicans retire rather than get beat.
Rodney Freylinghausen was THE new jersey family dynasty going back 200 years. chair of Appropriations, he could have been a counter to trump but instead meekly submitted. And he tainted that family legacy forever.
catclub
“Of course Brazil continuing to prosecute Bolsonaro is an emergency!”
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: Will you vote for Ed Markey? He’s the one who’s running.
Baud
@Geminid:
Isn’t he old?
satby
@New Deal democrat: I wonder if they will. As long as the felon looked powerful and had the support of his base, he strengthened the Republican’s hand in elections. SCOTUS’ aim is to empower the Republicans and will (mostly) be there after he’s gone. And if he looks like he’s costing the Rs elections, they might decide to help throw him overboard and just wait until a more opportune time to continue their drive to supporting Republican autocracy. Plus, that would give them a veneer of judicial objectivity to derail their critics for a bit.
Baud
I’ve heard of sea horses but apparently there are also lake horses.
The Audacity of Krope
@Geminid: Oh, I had them crossed. I thought we just did his. Regardless, no future votes for Warren from me. Not for so much as register of deeds. For what it’s worth.
chemiclord
@Suzanne: The big problem with “hammering them with it” is that they already know the code to that one, and it one that resonates with the “Average American Voter” pretty damn hard:
“We don’t want to punish people for being successful, and we do want to punish people who want to be leeches on the system without contributing to it in some form. Come on, how many billionaires do you know? Now, how many lazy little shitheads do you know? Which one do you really want to see get off their ass and work?”
Geminid
@Trivia Man: Aha. So Mikie Sherrill did not beat an incumbent. I’m pretty sure I was right about Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin.
Abigail Spanberger beat Dave Brat, the guy who knocked Eric Cantor out in 2014 primary. That Richmond-area district had been in Republican hands since the Southern political realignment of the 1970s.
Geminid
Duplicate.
Who is this Redis guy, and why is he fuvking with this blog?
Baud
@chemiclord:
I agree. I’ve questioned the popularity of being anti-billionaire in the past. But Trump and his people are doing everything under the sun to make rich people unlikeable. So if there’s ever a chance of running against billionaires, it’s gotta be now.
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: I suspect Elizabeth Warren ran her final race for public office last year.
But here’s a blast from the past. Scott Brown is running for Senate in New Hampshire. I think Brown could give Rep. Chris Pappas a tough race.
Librettist
There’s been a hard social media push over the last week or so. Same down market anti-DEI junk they flooded the zone with in the run up to the election.
Is you is, or is you ain’t, my constituency?
RevRick
@Baud: Maybe because it was never just vibes. I know it’s popular amongst many on this blog to pooh-pooh the complaint that inflation had a lot to do with the election result, but as has been pointed out Trump won with a tremendous shift right by young voters and minority voters. And those are the very groups hit hardest by soaring grocery prices and rents.
It’s been over forty years – two generations – since we last had a serious bout of inflation. Over half the voters alive have no memory of that. All they know is that they were hurting on President Biden’s watch. And given the economic illiteracy of a vast swath of the population, affixing blame to him, and by extension to Kamala Harris, was easy. After all, one of the two most GOP ads against Harris was of her declaring, “ Bidenomics, it’s working!”
RevRick
@Baud: Maybe because it was never just vibes. I know it’s popular amongst many on this blog to pooh-pooh the complaint that inflation had a lot to do with the election result, but as has been pointed out Trump won with a tremendous shift right by young voters and minority voters. And those are the very groups hit hardest by soaring grocery prices and rents.
It’s been over forty years – two generations – since we last had a serious bout of inflation. Over half the voters alive have no memory of that. All they know is that they are hurting on President Biden’s watch. And given the economic illiteracy of a vast swath of the population, affixing blame to him, and by extension to Kamala Harris, was easy. After all, one of the two most GOP ads against Harris was of her declaring, “ Bidenomics, it’s working!”
Baud
@Librettist:
Trump has pissed off the Q-Anon people. He can’t afford to piss off the bigots. They are his true base, and the base of the party as a whole.
Baud
@RevRick:
I’m done debating that. I accept my view is a minority one, like it is on so many things.
I’m just happy Trump and the media haven’t yet gotten the public to buy into positive vibes. I thought there might be some risk of that with the stock market gains and the fact that the trariffs didn’t lead to empty store shelves. But so far, so good.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Audacity of Krope: Got cut off editing.
Markey, himself, is fine. I thought he was just a benchwarmer, learning otherwise when I considered the Kennedy/Markey primary, ultimately voting for the latter.
I’m interested in figuring out where he was on Biden last year, too. I didn’t see him on national TV using the approved coup artist weasel words, but silence is sus in that situation, too.
NotMax
@Geminid
Didn’t Brown previously try running for Senate from New Hampshire and lose (to Shaheen, IIRC)?
TONYG
@Baud: Donald Trump as a “manly” public figure. I’m no psychologist, but I still can’t figure out the appeal of that asshole. I’m about ten years younger than Trump; we’re both Boomers. I grew up in a blue-collar town in an era that (for better or worse) had a particular view of what it meant to be “manly”. Work hard; be physically tough; don’t whine and complain; use your fists if you have to. Donald Trump has NONE of those characteristics and never did. I honestly don’t get it. Maybe it’s just the fact that he was on that dumb-ass TV show.
The Audacity of Krope
Republicans got so upset about the differentiated subset of masculinity called toxic masculinity that they decided unadulterated toxicity is what it means to be masculine.
Geminid
@NotMax: I don’t think so. I know Brown spent 2017 to 2020 ss Ambassador to New Zealand. Those were good years for a Republican politician to be half way around the world.
Brown is a good retail politician and New Hampshire is a small state. That’s why I think he could give Chris Pappas a tough race.
Baud
@TONYG:
IMHO Trump’s cult status is grounded in his ability to successfully be a bigot, especially for white males, but secondarily for anyone else that wants to look down on some other group.
Because of that, people will conform their minds in other areas so as to preserve and protect what Trump offers. Hence, Trump is manly because his not being manly would diminish his status in their eyes, and that would be an unacceptable outcome.
NotMax
@Geminid
Looked it up. His NH loss to Shaheen for Senate was in 2014.
Ben Cisco
Check out today’s vocabulary word of the day.
You’ll thank me.
peter
@Geminid: From a previous life I know that Redis is a cloud-based “solution” that manages the session state information for website users. It’s ubiquitous with platforms like Microsoft’s Azure and others. It’s very finicky to configure.
Geminid
@NotMax: Ok. That is a good sign for next year.
Geminid
@peter: Redis seems to have supplanted the “You said that already, dummy” prompt.
danielx
@Baud:
You done hit the nail on the head. For a lot of people, his primary appeal is his demeaning attitude* towards people of color, women, logic, evidence, the law…come to think on it, I don’t know of anybody outside his family he does like.
He made it okay for them to openly show off their worst instincts. Makes them feel liberated.
*demeaning attitude is putting it pretty damn mildly.
Baud
@Geminid:
@peter:
I like Redis. Cole should make him a front pager. We could use some more dissenting perspectives.
BellyCat
@RevRick: Preach it! Inflation took down progressive incumbents all over the world. Great “Past, Present, Future” podcast on this. Can’t find/link episode atm (on phone).
The Audacity of Krope
Y’all ain’t ready for me on the front page.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
You, sir, are no Redis.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Right, when I get fucked up the blog still works.
suzanne
@BellyCat: I voted for her, too. I think she’s fantastic and I love her laser focus and deep knowledge.
We need more professors in the government.
Baud
MAHA caves to Big Orange.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Nope. Kamala promised to expand Medicare coverage to at-home elder care. Something that many of us know would be an absolute life-changing benefit in our own affordability struggles. People barely acknowledged it, even here. Too busy screaming Genocide!!1!, making excuses for the Uncommitted fuckery and fretting over Biden’s bad 9 minutes in one debate.
Mamdani’s focus on affordability is great, I approve. But it’s really nothing new or special. Local Dems in deep Blue districts, run on this shit all the damn time. As does every Rep, Sen, POTUS candidates with a “D” next to their name.
UncleEbeneezer
@TONYG: A lot of people fantasize about being an asshole without consequences. Or worse, being applauded for it.
suzanne
@RevRick: There is a ton of evidence that a lot of people are really having a difficult time with affordability, even though they are working. Record-high rent burden, growing credit card debt, grocery inflation, education and childcare costs, etc. We should absolutely hammer on this.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That’s why accelerationist strategy doesn’t work unless your aims are basically destructive: you can benefit politically from a crisis but you have to have been working against it in the first place or nobody will buy you as a savior.
The Audacity of Krope
@UncleEbeneezer: Assholes are better organized than one might expect. They’ve managed to turn the Republican party solely into an organization for assholes in general to have a support system where they applaud each other’s particular assholery.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud:
I thought Redis was pretty good in Death Stranding.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I call it asshole intersectionality.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: That’s exactly what it is.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Republicans overcome this. A lot of people who are left of center think they can mimic Republicans and can overcome it too.
chemiclord
@Matt McIrvin: There is this bizarre idea among the accelerationist movement that seems to think that once everything has collapsed and the old way is smoldering ruins, that the survivors will look towards those who actively stood by and let it happen, and beg them to save the people and rebuild society.
And not… ya know… resent them for their inaction and then promptly turn on them, like such a desperate people would actually do. To be an accelerationist basically requires you to completely ignore how human beings truly behave.
The Audacity of Krope
If that were true, Republicans would never get elected not ever.
Lapassionara
@chemiclord: Not to mention, ignoring history. Anybody remember “Nach Hitler, uns”?
montanareddog
@Baud:
With me, it’s George Clooney. The crosses we must bear, huh?
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: I grew up in a suburban town on the edge of the South, full of the children of affluent defense contractor workers who played as sort of faux rednecks. I see a bit of Trump in them. They seemed to value the ability to bully much weaker people as a hallmark of manliness. And Trump is all about that. When he can’t do it he whines that he’s been cheated.
piratedan
@montanareddog: that explains a few things, as I’m often mistaken for George Mamoa
NotMax
@Baud
Redis the new black.
;)
Trivia Man
@Geminid: IMHO she is the reason he dropped out do she did sort of beat him. Those blue blood types thought of politics as beneath them and their noblese oblige. We protested at his office for an hour every friday, he quit rather than engage or try to explain himself. She had a credible campaign and he realized coasting wouldn’t be enough.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That’s because Republican base supporters are attracted to the spectacle of destruction and cruelty– it doesn’t really register as bad until it affects them personally. The fraction of the left that gets off on this is very small, though they exist and make a lot of noise.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
In our short attention span society, making noise is an important skill.
The Audacity of Krope
I just saw a Toyota that seemed to have similar design sensibilities to the Cybertruck, yet better in every possible way.
NotMax
@Baud
Bang the Drum All Day.
;)
TONYG
@chemiclord: “how many billionaires do you know?”. That is one of the many advantages that the ultra-wealthy have in this “society”. The average person will get glimpses of physicians, dentists, attorneys, middle-managers who are moderately affluent. But an ordinary person can easily go through a lifetime without ever seeing (except perhaps on TV) a billionaire. Billionaires use their enormous wealth to separate themselves from the rest of us. Private residences with private security guards. Traveling by limousine, private helicopters and private jets. Their kids go to expensive private schools. We don’t see them, and they don’t see us. So it’s easy for the average person to focus his or her anger on that immigrant working for minimum wage.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud:
He and I don’t look much alike, but we have the same level of acting talent!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
TONYG
@Matt McIrvin: I guess so. A culture of whining! A much earlier manifestation of that in my home town (North Arlington, New Jersey) was the support of many adults (not my parents, fortunately) for Nixon in the late sixties/early seventies. A lot of that, I think, was resentment of those “Negroes getting welfare” a few miles away, and resentment of their own damn kids with their long hair. There’s a long history. But Nixon was a scholar and a statesman compared to Trump.
The Audacity of Krope
The former may be the difference between your and his ability to pull seven figure acting jobs.
The Audacity of Krope
I see it as a kink, best relegated to intimate situations.
Geminid
@Baud: No one talks about the Creep State, but it’s all around us.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Same legal talent also. 😝
Another Scott
@suzanne: I agree, to some extent, but I want us looking more than a few steps ahead.
What do we propose to do about it?
What will we do if we don’t have enough votes to get our proposals through?
What if new events make implementing those proposals problematic and we have to pivot?
“You said you were going to fix these things before the election, but now you say you can’t. Why should I vote for you again??”
It’s the old saw: “If things were easy, they would have been done already.”
Wes Moore is dealing with a $3.3B-ish state deficit in MD. For lots of reasons, but he’s got to find a way through that problem. Lots of normie voters don’t like excuses, they just want problems dealt with in ways that don’t make things worse for them.
We know how to fix these problems, and more, and we can fix them in sensible ways – if we have enough sensible people in office. Even with a big Blue Wave, it’s hard to see the kind of huge majorities that made things like the Great Society happening – and being sustained – in the near term.
It’s a slog, and will continue to be one.
[/Lt-Obvious]
Incremental progress, baby. Forward!!
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Maybe you’re born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline!
TS
@satby:
That would be by saying the President is no longer immune to prosecution, thus making sure the next Democratic President can be prosecuted for whatever reason the GOP dreams up.
brendancalling
Been in Canada visiting the kiddo since Saturday. Since we’ve put huge tariffs on Viet Nam and Indonesia, where most athletic apparel is made, I decided to check the prices at a running store here in Montreal using a handy dandy currency converter. Even with the higher taxes (Pennsylvania doesn’t tax clothing) it was still cheaper than in the US.
I figure I know how I’m gonna holiday shop (if I holiday shop, it’s never been my thing).
Geminid
@TS: Or, Republicans can offer Trump a golden off-ramp: a comprehensive pardon and freedom from a job he is already ambivalent towards. Trump has already refilled his financial coffers, so he would be free to golf and gripe.
Betty
Is anyone else getting frequent sign-in requests from Bluesky, or am I doing something wrong?
The Audacity of Krope
@Betty: I am, but I never signed in, so it makes sense.
coin operated
@Geminid:
Trump isn’t leaving office voluntarily…too much loserstink associated with that move. His narcissism would never allow it.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: zing!
FYI to the jackaltariat, I heard from raven last week and he is still alive and kicking, just mostly lurking as he deals with real life stuff. I’m sure a post about fishing would bring him back to commenting!
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: You’re more plausibly mistaken for Oumuamua: Came in from outa nowhere, blew through like a bat outa hell, left in a hurry, no lasting impact. ;^p
cmorenc
@The Audacity of Krope: You are part of the D circular firing squad if you are still obsessed with punishing anyone who pushed Biden to drop out after his disastrous debate performance instead of how we Ds can retake power from the kleptocratic fascists and the Orange fart cloud Presidenting like he was John Gotti.
The Audacity of Krope
@cmorenc: If you don’t respect election outcomes, you don’t deserve to hold office in a Democratic Republic. Simple as that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Many of us have been screeching an economic populist message for years only to be told by the center/center-right of the party that’s not the key to electoral success. And here they are (the so-called ‘abundance’ clowns and the rest of the MattY/Broder Klein/Atlantic/Vox “liberals”) saying that hasn’t failed, it’s been failed (the usual conservatism trope) and that we need to double down on their approach. Abundance Coachella earlier this year with all those “talented” Dems like Slotkin, etc., basically laid out that agenda.
And therein lies the rub and the distinct split among non-right voters: in what form will an economic populist message take? The business-as-usual trickle-down, rebranded Reaganomic approach that we’ve see for the last 45 years and it’s results or something different?
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Thanks for the news about Raven.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne:
Bravo, Senator Professor Warren! LMAO!
Scout211
Want a good laugh this morning?
Rex Huppke’s opinion piece this morning is all about Trump’s (and the Right’s) crazy obsession with that Sidney Sweeney American Eagle jeans ad.
Trump praises Sydney Sweeney ad, but does he know American Eagle is super WOKE?
A few snippets:
. . .
. . .
Jeffro
@Suzanne: I know we kinda sorta got a Warren presidency under Biden…but man, I wish we could also have a Warren Warren presidency…
…sigh…
…I’ll go back to wishing for unicorns and gumdrop trees.
Trivia Man
@coin operated: they will name him President Emeritus and create a new OFFICIAL seal JUST FOR HIM! And let him ride AF1.
Geminid
@coin operated: I dunno. Trump looks like crap and he sure whines a lot. If his health worsens, Trump could use that as an excuse. “I have sacrificed enough for my country, and can do no more!” Left unsaid: “And I was a lazy fuck to begin with.”
I expect this possibility has been quietly discussed by party leaders already. A friend thinks the topic may have come up when Vance flew to Montana to persuade Rupert Murdoch to not print Trump’s birthday letter to Epstein. Due diligence and all that.
Jeffro
I think it’s along the lines of, “trump’s willing to be a horrendous, utterly shameless asshole (to include being sexist, racist, and an obvious con artist) so that you can live vicariously through his words and actions”
ETA or what Baud said at #72: ‘asshole intersectionality’
suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: I love that she treated that ludicrous comment with all the respect that it was due, which is to say: none.
That’s the kind of attitude which suggests she’ll never have higher office, but that’s okay.
mrmoshpotato
@cmorenc:
Also, BEN! GAZEE!
Belafon
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I wouldn’t mind the party talking more about economic issues alongside rights for marginalized people, but it wouldn’t have won the election last year. None of that fixes the issue of insecure men (mostly white, but not all as it turns out), or the fact that Hamas’s attack on Israel and the subsequent retaliation by Israel has divided two groups that find their home in the Democratic party, or the battles I saw online between black and trans communities, or, ultimately, the structural problems Democrats have to overcome to get elected.
Jeffro
yeah but while he’s richer than ever, he’s still not Putin-level rich.
also I don’t think he could bear to not be the center of national/world attention. He’s probably going to try and ride this gig all the way in just for that alone (much less the opportunity to loot billions more)
oldgold
This morning the Mango of Madness made these racist comments :
Trump on undocumented farm workers: “People that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They’ve tried, we’ve tried, everybody tried. They don’t do it. These people do it naturally. Naturally, they don’t get a bad back, because if they get a bad back, they die.”
RaflW
Perused the upscale local grocery chain where we like to buy salmon on Sunday. Peets Coffee has never been cheap there, but $17/bag (not an lb.!) blew my mind.
Deputinize America
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
As I was telling a younger colleague about a half hour ago, this deliberate slide into authoritarian Franco/Pinochet-style autocracy only ends bloody, and in a timeframe that I’m unlikely to live long enough to see. In the end, there’s gonna be a revolt that kills off some good and a lot of bad, a rump few institutions of the current government will remain, followed by a decades long slog to create a more egalitarian economy and polity, depending on what the violence level is (so that the usual suspects get the stern message that their rapaciousness won’t be tolerated).
suzanne
@oldgold: I thought that my gob had already been utterly smacked by FFOTUS and that I had fully used up all of my WTF OMFG FFSs for my entire lifetime. But, like…. what the fuck?
frosty
@Geminid: Every time I read about the talented Democratic House Class of 2018 I think back to Jess King who I canvassed for and who got trounced by Smucker (of course). She would have been another one of that class. Dammit.
dexwood
@Baud: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it do the backstroke.
Baud
@oldgold:
@suzanne:
He desperately needs to (1) distract from Epstein and (2) shore up his base.
Which means he will ramp up the racism to beyond 11.
Baud
@dexwood:
I would watch equestrian synchronized swimming if it were an Olympic sport.
Steve LaBonne
Often these days I think of the bit in Gary Shteyngart’s amazingly prescient Super Sad True Love Story where the Chinese finance minister describes the collapsing US as “an unstable and barely governable country”.
suzanne
@Baud: It’s not just racist. It’s also so fucken dumb. Who TF thinks you die if you have a bad back?!?
Anonymous At Work
NYT (no link, are you crazy?) has an article about how Premier Xi of China is using the new job report to skewer Trump on a trade deal. Now that the Emperor’s new clothes are made public, I expect a lot of trading partners to forgo their promised billions of investment and only respond if TACO actually raises tariffs (not if he announces he will).
Baud
@suzanne:
I may be giving him too much credit, but I read that as saying they can’t work with a bad back so they can’t afford to stay alive.
Lyrebird
@Baud: I wonder if someone has already made Chairman Trump stickers… they have already made Golden Child Mao-style Trump pins. Obvs this isn’t how to sway Gen Z, but maybe there’s 1 or 5% of Republicans who can feel a bit ashamed to have supported an autocrat once they make the connection. I don’t know how many people starved to death because of faking numbers and autocratic takeover of food growing, but I know there were lots. (Should be working not googling)
But yeah Chairman Mao i mean Trump already has his hats, now he’s firing the job-numbers messenger…
schrodingers_cat
IMHO millionaires railing against billionaires is not a winning message that wins elections.
All these tribunes of the masses have dropped millionaires out of their populist tirades for a good reason that they are millionaires themselves. And people can see that. Whether is BS of Vt or EW of MA or the newest sensation ZM
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were more representative of the middle class than these rich lefties who presume to speak for the poor.
frosty
@Steve in the ATL: Good news about raven, thanks for the update.
Geminid
@Baud: There’s a site called MENA Visuals I check out from time to time. It’s run by a woman in Alexandria, Egypt. She posts a lot of archived photographs taken from Morrocco to Iran– architecture, landscapes, movie stars, regular people etc. Anyway, she posted a cool picture a couple days ago of camels “chilling out” in the surf at a beach in Morocco.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
ZM is likely to win in NYC. No clue if he’s message will be successful elsewhere. As I said above, I don’t think it has moved many voters yet.
suzanne
@Baud: Yeah, that’s not my reading, but who knows what half-eaten Swiss cheese is rotting inside that empty head of his?
Baud
@suzanne:
Yeah, Rorschach tests have more logical coherence than anything Trump spews.
Baud
@Baud:
Clarifying: I don’t think the message against billionaires generally has moved voters in the past. Too soon to speculate what impact ZM will have.
Citizen Alan
Honestly, I think that describes nearly everyone to the left of joe biden. Certainly every DSA/Green voter i have ever known has acted like they’ve never actually met another human being before.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes it is an appealing message with well to do mostly white liberal Ds. BJ commentariat is an example of that as is the NYC D primary electorate. I was speaking more broadly.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: My understanding is that ZM’s coalition is broader than that. But it is still NYC.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Never been to Oakland, CA, you say?
sixthdoctor
Some background music for this thread.
Paul in KY
@The Audacity of Krope: I saw an Incel Camino down in NOLA and the tailgate had ‘TOYOTA’ written across it in large letters.
Thought that was funny.
Baud
@sixthdoctor:
Where’s the Jump, You Fucker guy when you need him?
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No I haven’t been to Oakland. Are you saying that the daughter of an immigrant single mother was rolling in riches?
Bill Arnold
@TONYG:
Trump’s “fist” is not a fist. It is loose, and would break if it hit anything hard.
A well-trained 11 year old (gender irrelevant) could drop him 10 times out of 10.
I continue to be surprised that nobody, not even secret service, has corrected it. Maybe one or more have, and were fired.
I’ve seen Musk do it too, though he might have been mocking Trump a bit, hard to tell. Same forward facing loose “stage fist” with thumb resting on index finger.
Hawley, at least, has a real upraised fist.
Archon
@satby: It was a perfect electoral storm that all worked in the Republican Party and Trumps favor. They will never have this opportunity again.
If Republicans truly want autocracy it’s now or never.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Maybe monkey synchronized swimming as well. Was at NOLA zoo and they had an exhibit with simiangs in it (large arboreal monkey from SE Asia). The only thing they had keeping them in there was a deep pool surrounding their habitat. Fence beyond it was 2 1/2 feet tall. If one of them ever learned how to swim, it would be on the zoogoers. I was a bit shocked.
Soprano2
@mappy!: Like I said somewhere else on this blog, I can’t make it out of WalMart on my weekly Saturday shopping trip for less than $100 these days. I looked back on my app to see what I was paying a year ago, and it was mostly under $100. I haven’t changed my buying habits except I’m not buying expensive protein shakes anymore. It doesn’t matter what the FFOTUS administration says, they cannot hide that prices in the store are higher.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I’m not sure anyone on our side has really torn into the plutocrats with complete vengeance since FDR.
Bill Arnold
@Betty:
I have one browser that logs me out (or equivalent) of bluesky maybe once per day.
Another (different machine, firefox browser) that has been logged into bluesky for several months at least.
Have not debugged it, yet.
Baud
@Paul in KY:
Maybe because people don’t think it’ll work.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think that’s because she was a college professor who was used to debating ideas with her students. That can be a valuable skill if it’s used correctly. She has the rare gift of being able to explain complicated issues in a way most people can understand.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Worked for him. He told the unvarnished truth about them and they despised him for it. He loved their hatred.
Bill Arnold
@RaflW:
Coffee prices are my personal grocery prices benchmark.
They have indeed increased during the Trump 2 administration.
Average Price: Coffee, 100%, Ground Roast, All Sizes (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average (APU0000717311)
Baud
@Paul in KY:
I believe he welcomed their hatred in 1936, not when he first won in 1932. I think by 1936, he realized how popular he was.
That was also a long time ago, and FDR didn’t really try to upset the social order.
Belafon
@Paul in KY: He also hade the benefit of Republicans failing for 3 years after the stock market crash before he was elected. He also chose to marginalize blacks to get things accomplished.
suzanne
@Bill Arnold: I buy coffee at Costco. It has definitely gone up $1-$2 dollars per bag, depending on your selection.
I refer to it as “life juice”.
Geminid
@Baud: The poll I commented about last week showed Mamdani leading among all racial and religious groups. There will be other polls to follow to compare that one to.
Yesterday I talked to a friend who used to live in Brooklyn; now he lives in Courtland County, up near Ithaca. He’s not into politics that much but he really likes Mamdani. He also likes Kathy Hochul, which I guess means he’s a normie.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud:
I’m not sure they overcame it. The GOP message for decades is that helping the poor and paying workers enough to live would lead to inflation. Under Biden, they just had to shriek, ‘I told you so!!!’ It doesn’t matter that the real root cause was supply chain disruption. Most people didn’t know inflation was worldwide and could not reasonably be Biden’s fault.
Captain C
@Baud: An actual manly man would make them soil themselves, so they go for someone who plays on on the teevee.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I’m confused. The so-called ‘abundance’ clowns want to streamline excessive bureaucracy which imposes much more burden on ordinary people than billionaires. After all, the billionaires have people for that. Excessive bureaucratic burden also greatly slows our ability to provide needed services to the public. How is that anti-populist? I get why environmental groups are mad about it, but a good bit of the voting public would be happier with change.
Geminid
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I think people also were used to the low inflation in the years following the Great Recession. I remember buying a battery in 2022 and thinking wow, that price sure jumped a lot from the last one I bought!
The last battery had cost little more than the one before that. So I looked at the inflation like a spring that had been compressed for ten years and finally got a chance to spring back. I could afford to be philodophical because I could handle the cost. But there have been times in my life when that wasn’t so, and a lot of folks are in that boat.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I don’t see how slagging billionaires is upsetting the social order. Agree FDR didn’t do that, except with introducing SS. Fixing it so a ‘regular Joe’ could retire and have some years of rest before death was a big change.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: He was an overly pragmatic man at times.
Central Planning
@brendancalling: We were visiting Montreal this past weekend. There didn’t appear to be a reduction in the number of people there (we’ve been there the past 2 summers).
However, our food tour guide said it did seem like things are down this summer – less people and things are generally “quieter” – their words.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Some of them seem to believe that capitalism is the corrupting force that makes people selfish– that most people would naturally be generous and kind and do the necessary work of society for its own sake, but capitalism is a kind of external demon that burns this out of them. And I doubt, personally, that this is so. But I may just be corrupted.
dnfree
@The Audacity of Krope: I hate coming back to this, but in the primary I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. Replacing Biden with anyone else would have arguably ignored election results.
People’s perceptions vary as to whether Biden was still electable after the debate. I thought no, you thought yes, apparently. But election results were not ignored, in my opinion.
The Audacity of Krope
@dnfree: I hate coming back to this but it doesn’t matter who had a better chance of winning. It was wrong, a bad thing to do. Mortal sin when operating within democratic, by my reckoning.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: monthly shopping trips (used to be weekly, no longer) routinely blowing past 300 dollars now, sometimes up to 400 if we’re throwing wet groceries in with the dry.
dnfree
@The Audacity of Krope:
And you are entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. But there were so many factors in play in 2025 that we could both be part wrong and part right.
To me, the information I had about Biden changed instantaneously the night of the debate. Up to that point, I thought, sure he had slowed down, he had his moments, but it was unfair that he was being portrayed by Republicans as having dementia. The night of the debate I saw dementia–the dementia I have known in relatives and friends, where there are good days and bad days, but the downward trend is inevitable and sad. When I receive new information, sometimes I have to change course. My new information made it seem that those expressing their concerns might be on to something. They might not be “betraying” Biden. Sadly, Biden might be betraying us by being overly convinced that he was still the best candidate (like having a father convinced that he’s still a safe driver).
It’s easy for family members and those close to a situation to deny it’s as bad as it is until something happens that they can’t deny. The debate was that situation for me.