Gavin Newsom out-Trumps Trump on Twitter:
Not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I definitely want California, New York, Illinois, etc., to redraw their maps. We have no choice since the Trump Party is openly rigging the next election so they can snuff out U.S. democracy and complete the country’s transformation into a right-wing kleptocracy.
But I am so goddamn sick of how the sloshing orange bag of liposuction clinic medical waste has debased our politics and degraded the discourse. And imitating his grandiose bullshit tone seems like another slide down the slope of Shit Mountain.
But you know what? Fuck it. Whatever works. This is who we are now. Maybe this is who we always were.
Open thread.
PS: Not everything sucks — we’ve still got pretty birds.
Flock of Roseate Spoonbills taking over my crappy boat! #birds
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) August 13, 2025 at 7:41 AM
On The Road – way2blue – SINALEI, SAMOA—RESPITE EDITION—FEBRUARY 2025. (second of five)
Baud
The American people have rejected our ways, BC. Grandiose is what sells today as gravitas.
caphilldcne
Go California. Redraw those maps. Also Gavin Newsom is a dick who refuses to take political risk, fails to sign liberal bills passed by the California assembly and has sold out trans people. So I’m glad that the political wind vane is currently blowing anti-Trump but he is not to be trusted and he certainly should not be voted for in the Democratic primary.
MattF
Saw a RW social media reaction saying Newsom is senile. Yes, precisely, and thank you for your attention to this matter.
Suzanne
I really would prefer to vote for someone other than Gavin Newsom, but everyone in our party can serve a purpose. We do need a funny troll.
Depressing news: Israel looking into resettling Palestinians from Gaza into South Sudan. This is, like, comic-book villain shit.
MattF
@Suzanne: The Atlantic magazine has a devastating article by Anne Applebaum about South Sudan. It’s a hellhole.
Another Scott
+1
The first step in changing minds is getting people to listen. If making fun of TACO and his crappy media site gets attention, then that’s fine. As you say, that’s where we are now. We have to “play the game” given the current reality.
Have a good day, BC, and jackals everywhere.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Betty
I was happy to see a clip of Philly DA, Larry Krasner, on CNN with Kaitlin Collins calling out Trump’s D. C. action in no uncertain terms. Not afraid to call it fascism. We need that kind of fire from more of our politicians.
Baud
@Betty:
No matter how much fire our politicians have, it’ll never be enough. The goalposts will always move.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Netanyahu and his coalition of hard-right sociopaths will go after the West Bank’s Palestinian population next.
Gravenstone
Taking the initiative (however belatedly) fills me with joy.
Intentionally mimicking Trump’s writing “style” to announce said initiative, quickly robs me of that joy.
Just be matter of fact about it and get the job done.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Ethnic cleansing and genocide, with American taxpayer dollars. We’re complicit in arguably the worst human rights violations in this generation.
oldster
I applaud the ridicule. Mock that grotesque idiot.
No One of Consequence
@Baud:
/golfclap
-NOoC
Subcommandante Yakbreath
Like Newsom or not, this is an epic troll.
J.
Agree with everything you wrote. Sad it’s come to this, and not a big fan of Gavin Newsom, but brilliant of him to go after Trump like that. Hope it wakes some people up to how crazy Trump is. Also, I love roseate spoonbills.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I find myself continuing to wonder if the people who called Biden “Genocide Joe” got what they wanted in the election.
Steve LaBonne
Zohran Mamdani shows how it’s done.
WaterGirl
@Baud: what a depressing outlook that is.
With that hopeless view, how do you not give up before you even try?
brendancalling
I read stuff like this and wonder if maybe it’s time to drain the IRA and get sponsored into Canada.
The country has problems of its own, but the USA gets more puerile by the minute.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gravenstone: I know the echo of Trump is deliberate but it’s still juvenile and degrading. We may have to aim for mutually assured destruction to insure halfway decent action, but let’s not look like it’s fun.
billcoop4
“Just win, baby.” — Nancy D’Alessandro Pelosi.
BC in Upstate NY
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I think it’s reality. I don’t think it’s helpful for people to have expectations that aren’t going to be met. If people are waiting for others to stop complaining about how we’re not good enough yet, they’re going to be waiting a long time rather than focusing on getting persuadable people to work with us to fight the fascists.
Trivia Man
@Betty: A clear LIAR shouted at him after he spews bs would help. You KNOW man baby would have a tantrum every time. And flail with even more word salad and made up facts. Or as a historical shoutout make it YOU LIE.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I find those people annoying and lacking foresight, but the war crimes that the Palestinians are enduring are one of the few things in the world that is more important and urgent than American politics right now. I don’t like looking at people as instruments, and I feel that’s what happens when we focus on protestors in the U.S. rather than the people of Palestine.
Also, I have the sense that those people were loud and annoying, but not really large in number. The far bigger and more consequential loss of votes was in the moderate middle. The price-of-eggs voters and the anti-trans voters and the vaccines-cause-autism and the I-hate-student-loan-forgiveness voters.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: I agree.
Betty
@Steve LaBonne: Wow! That is brutal. Cuomo sure has been a busy boy.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: You can stop wondering.
sab
@Soprano2: Even here on this blog nobody much defended kay when she spoke out.
Betty
@Baud: Contrast Krasner’s statement with Brian Schatz talking about a bipartisan budget deal and being constructive while Murphy and Warren call for a boycott unless there are firm assurances Republicans won’t pull another rescission trick. More Murphy, less Schatz.
hueyplong
If Newsom’s a bit too accurate Trump style strokes out Trump, I’m here for it. It’s a grating thing but well short of the perceived requirement that we terror bomb the civilian populations of Germany and Japan to prevail in WWII.
Baud
@Betty:
Yeah, i know. Democrats do not speak with one voice. And that’s not likely to change soon IMHO.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Suzanne
@sab: There was a lot of conflation going on here of a general pro-Palestine position with some of the most idiotic/extreme protestors. It’s a ridiculous category error and it shut down discussion.
RevRick
@Gravenstone: @oldster: @Baud:
I found this hilarious, precisely because it mocks Trump. When we say we want Democratic politicians to fight Trump, we should allow them to use whatever means necessary to catch attention and do so effectively.
And Newsom’s tweets are designed to get under Trump’s thin skin. Which, in itself, is a good thing.
sab
@brendancalling: I like Canada but it isn’t a magical wonderland. It’s just another democracy north of us.
My grandmother’s mother emigrated here from there and married an Irish immigrant son.
Her Canadian relatives were and are the worst racists I have ever encountered. Never lynched anyone, but anyone not from British stock was slighly less human. USA isn’t perfect, but don’t think everyone elsewhere is much better.
My sister’s Canadian inlaws are much better, but they are mostly all recent immigrants.
Soprano2
I don’t disagree with this, but them being loud got them a lot of attention, so I think they had an outsized influence especially on young voters. I think their idiotic ideas, like that Biden could somehow wave a magic wand and stop what was happening in Gaza, were damaging. I also agree that it’s not something to focus on, but every time I read how it’s getting worse in Gaza I do wonder how those people think about it. Are they still blaming Biden? They don’t seem to be trying to influence FFOTUS at all. I think it was realistic to call for our government to follow our laws, and to put pressure on our government to do that. I don’t think calling Biden “Genocide Joe” had much constructive purpose or effect at all. It was self-indulgent posturing by people who tell everyone there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Some of them were actually taken in by FFOTUS’s assertions that he would quickly end the war in Gaza!!! I don’t think they ever asked him exactly how he would end it.
bbleh
I love this! There is nothing more devastating for a politician than making fun of them, and that goes triple for the authoritarian strain. I say, more of it!
And no we don’t like everything Gavin has done, and yeah one wishes Dem politicians would get their collective act at least somewhat together, realize there is collective advantage to be gained that would more than outweigh whatever individual advantage they see in going their own ways. But “the best is the enemy of the good,” and stuff like this is good.
Soprano2
@Steve LaBonne: This foolish idea that Biden could have ended that war makes me shake my head. Being unhappy that he didn’t follow U.S. law, that’s a legitimate complaint against him and it is a stain on his legacy. ETA – the truth is, they should be putting pressure on FFOTUS, because he probably has more sway with Netanyahu than Biden ever did. I’ve heard that he’s popular in Israel because of bombing Iran, and what he says holds a lot of sway there, believe it or not. Instead, they act like it’s no use to even try to get him to stop Netanyahu, which is stupid and foolish.
satby
@Betty: assurances from Republicans mean exactly nothing. They go back on any and all deals before the ink even dries. So the boycott isn’t necessarily a more realistic stance to take.
artem1s
I’m not jazzed about the Xhitter Xhit but if it works, I’m fine with that. BTW, taking over redistricting in blue states and making sure they are fairly drawn is going to get called DEI gerrymandering no matter how fair it actually is. So I’m OK with Dems using the same tactic against the GOP. I have faith they will actually be fair minded even if they are using inflammatory language to rile up TCF and point out what happening in TX.
Slightly OT. Here’s some ammo you can use for those fence sitters who manage to blame every economic problem on Dems. Our housing shortage and price problems are not because of interest rates. Millions of units owned by a few companies that have been colluding to drive up rent cost across the country. Increase rent means more units that are viable as investments and are so over priced individual buyers are priced out of the market and are forced to continue to rent rather than own and build equity.
Multi Unit Managing Companies
DOJ settlement – Rent Gouging Collusion case
I have no doubt that the DOJ case was started under Biden. I’m not sure why it wasn’t ended as of January 20 but there is a settlement that may help the housing problem. Of course Dems won’t get any credit for this in the mid-terms because the purity ponies will still be whinging about interest rates.
Raoul Paste
@RevRick: Yep. Mockery is what he hates the most. And I think it’s an essential element of what we need now.
Belafon
You know how tolerance is a contract that both sides must follow? So is democracy. You aren’t required to be fair because the other side isn’t. That doesn’t make you bad, it means you’re properly reacting to bad players.
Hildebrand
Too often what happens is that when one of the Dems does a terrible job at messaging, tactics, etc., too many folks spend a lot of time pointing out just how terrible they are at their jobs. This pushes those stories to the top of trending lines and searches. Let’s stop doing that. Quash the urge to give yet another hot take on what a bad job certain Democrats are doing – all it does is add to the typical ‘Dems in disarray’ storyline. Let’s not feed that beast.
Instead, when a Democrat does a great job of messaging, tactics, etc., let’s focus on that, push that, celebrate that, get those moments trending. We can help to start changing the ‘story’ about Democrats, but it means resisting the impulse to air our grievances over those who are terrible at their jobs. For now, just pump up the volume on those fighting the good fight. Don’t give any oxygen to those who aren’t, don’t bemoan those who aren’t, just focus on those who are.
And yes, I get it, it feels gross to be so calculating – I don’t care, we don’t have the luxury to continue to play by all of the old rules. When we get our democracy back, then we can go back to being the party of the circular firing squad.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: See my link, yes they’re still blaming Biden.
Stevarino
I love this. And Dems should have been doing it starting in 2016. Mock him and crush them.
Belafon
Someone wrote “GOP criminals protect pedophiles” in the dust on the back of a semi I saw on my way to work this morning.
TXG1112
As much as I dislike Newsom, I like his approach here. Whatever his flaws, he understands the urgency of this moment and the “ha ha only serious” tone of his messaging underscores its dark ironic humor.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: Me in 2023: Y’all do realize that the Biden/Harris administration is the only thing holding Netanyahu back from doing a real genocide, right? Biden has repeatedly shot down any resettlement of Palestinians as part of a peace deal. Trump, otoh, is all for it.
Uncommitted assholes (and their defenders): It can’t possibly get any worse. Biden/Dems are just as bad! BothSides! Genocide Joe!!1!
And now here we are. It was widely reported that Netanyahu felt like Israel’s hard-right fantasies (like resettlement/ethnic cleansing) was restrained by Biden’s diplomacy. Israel told us that, itself. Biden also insisted on a Palestinian State for any long term solution. But people willfully ignored his work, ignored the actual Dem position and how exponentially better it would be for Palestinians than anything Trump would support. And they said “fuck it” and helped elect Trump anyway. And now here we are.
sab
@Suzanne: Cleveland has a Palestinian diaspora community. They protested politely and not anti-Jewishly. Got good local coverage on our news.
On this blog and the national news all we heard about was anti-semitism at Columbia. At this point I don’t believe that.
I saw this in college when our one Palestinian refugee undergrad tried to speak up. His family (his parents) had been run out of Haifa to Saudi Arabia. He grew up in Toledo public housing. He was clobbered and the college administration came down on him because benefactors were offended.
Talk about actual cancel culture.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: I didn’t like Biden’s I/P policy one bit. But Christ, anyone capable of breathing should have known that Trump would be 10,000 times worse.
prostratedragon
Oh, boy (🧵):
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2:
No, they don’t, do they? Strange.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I don’t disagree….. but young people and college grads voted for Harris in pretty significant numbers. So, once again, I just doubt that it mattered much to the outcome.
Youth movements are often extremist and noisy, that’s been the case forever.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: It’s so hard to talk about the donors because it plays into very bad stereotypes. But the reality is what it is.
RevRick
@Hildebrand: One of our least helpful responses is to say, “Not that way, but this way.”
When I first learned to drive a car, I was so focused on the clutch, the brake and the gas pedals that I almost flunked my driver’s test, because I forgot to signal a turn. But learning a new skill is like that. It takes practice, with more than a few misses, to get it to the point that it becomes natural and fluid.
I would ask that we gave our politicians the grace to fail.
Baud
@Hildebrand:
This is what I try to do. Reinforce the positive.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Libya comes up from time to time as a possible destination for Gazans. The Egyptian government took these stories seriously enough to talk to the Libyans about this recently. As the article you linked to states, Egypt “is deeply opposed to plans to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.
The Egyptians are still trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza. The talks they, Qatar and the US have been mediating broke down a couple weeks ago with the usual of mutual recriminations. Now Egypt is trying to restart them. According to the Axios article I reference below, the Turks are counseling Hamas negotiators in Istanbul to return to the talks.
This matter has become more urgent since last Thursday, when the Israeli Cabinet ordered the IDF to invade Gaza City. The IDF is taking its time planning the operation but that might only delay it by another week. They will have to call up a lot of reservists and that could signal that the offensive is imminent.
Axios‘s Barak Ravid posted a good article about the Gazs war two days ago, titled “Trump to Axios on Israel’s offensive: “Hamas can’t stay in Gaza.”
Once you get past Trump’s blatherings the article provides a decent summary of the current situation. This link might work:
axios.com/2025/08/11/trump-israel-gaza-city-hamas
zhena gogolia
Anyone who cared about Gaza should have been all hands on deck against Trump.
Matt McIrvin
One of my favorite bloggers/social-media writers is Marcy Wheeler (“emptywheel”). She does a lot of following of right-wing outrages so I don’t have to, and she opines about messaging strategy a lot and fights with people who insists the Democrats suck because they’re not doing anything.
With her latest posts, though… it almost feels like she’s overwhelmed and going out of her mind. Writing these long rants about how left messaging is failing and the rhetorical tactics right-wingers are using to win on an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute basis, and it seems like she’s just fighting with horrible people online almost 24/7, and I can’t even follow 75% of what she’s talking about because I haven’t been marinating in the toilet bowl that once was Twitter. But she’s talking as if all of this chaff successfully swung the opinions of the people. Speaking of the Sydney Sweeney thing as if it was some catastrophic inflection point, and is anyone even thinking about that any more? Yes, it’s all terrible. But I don’t know, maybe she needs to take a week off and touch grass.
prostratedragon
Deputinize America
@prostratedragon:
That African American thing and that Indian thing need to go….
Soprano2
@Steve LaBonne: I read part of that and just shook my head. After saying “FFOTUS is complicit”, he spent the rest of the op-ed blaming Biden for not ending the Gaza War! As if he could have done that.
Geminid
@Geminid: Darnit! The link to Ravid’s article did not work
I may excerpt it later because there’s some good stuff. I wrote down one quote:
This is kind of funny if you’ve seen the torrent of abuse the Israeli and Turkish governments direct at each other over this war and over Syria.
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: Anyone who cared about Gaza should have been all hands on deck against
Trumpboth parties for the last few decades.You guys are right that it wasn’t fair to hang the whole thing on Biden. But let’s not pretend Democrats haven’t been making supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine; sorry that was unapproved terminology; the defense of Israel for longer than most voters have been alive.
Suzanne
@sab: There were peaceful protests here in Pittsburgh, too, and the vast majority of them were not anti-Semitic. Focusing attention on the extremists functions to discredit the reasonable protests, which, in this case, are on the correct side of history thus far.
That’s been a tactic forever. One or two rioters are used to discredit peaceful protest.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Every time Biden or Harris spoke they were interrupted by people shouting. This was not a good look for a presidential campaign. I never saw it happen to Trump, and it isn’t happening now.
Steve LaBonne
@zhena gogolia: Which tells us everything we need to know, doesn’t it.
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: When protestors shouted at Trump, I recall he famously encouraged his supporters to beat them up. He also promised, not credibly, to pay any legal needs they incurred doing so. No, those weren’t Palestine protestors.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@caphilldcne:
Exactly. It’s great that he does seem to have a skill, namely how he reacts and pushes back to the Orange Fart Cloud but heaven help us if he’s the 28 nominee. Last year somebody here said “He’d murder his own grandmother to become president” which seems to be an accurate reflection as it would pertain to other issues.
But hey, Governor GoodHair II can troll away if it helps.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: There was a reason Netanyahu wanted FFOTUS to win the election – he knew he would have a free hand to do whatever he wanted without any pushback from the U.S.
sab
@Suzanne: I was horrified at the time but I didn’t speak out (except maybe weakly).
I will know to the end of my life that I was complicit. I knew that if we didn’t help them they would starve. But I hoped somebody with authority would do something.
ETA And I know that a lot of American Jews were speaking out. So speaking out does not mean you are anti-semitic. Not speaking out means we did not back our informed Jewish concerned folks.
prostratedragon
@Deputinize America:
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I read that some Muslims in Michigan actually believed the bullshit FFOTUS said about how he would end the Gaza War! I have to wonder, has any reporter tried to interview them to see if they regret their vote yet?
stinger
I think the Newsom tweets are hilarious. Speak to the Felon in the language he understands. Pretty sure Newsom isn’t becoming Trump, won’t set policy and fire cabinet members via tweets. I don’t see this as a degradation of Democratic communications, just as a joke.
As far as Dems speaking with one voice, if that ever happened I rather doubt it would be with the voice *I* prefer, so I’m fine with multiple viewpoints and emphases. Frex, a lot of people around here say that, since Clinton and Harris both lost to Donald Trump, the Dems can’t run a woman again, like, ever. I don’t accept that 50% of our population should remain forever unrepresented in the highest office in the land.
Draggable timeline graphic here.
NotMax
Midweek musica obscura.
It was a different time. A time when a man named Snooky could achieve minor celebrity.
Heartbreak Hotel., in a world where apparently smoking is mandatory.
;)
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: I’m not denying that there was problematic behavior from some protestors. (I will note that I attended three Harris campaign events and none of them were interrupted by protestors of any type.)
I am not going to look at what is right and wrong w/r/t human rights and war crimes through the lens of American politics.
Timill
@Geminid: axios.com/2025/08/11/trump-israel-offensive-gaza-city-hamas
WaterGirl
@RevRick: That was totally true for me when I was trying to up my game playing volleyball. I was pretty good at passing, but when I was trying to up my game setting the ball up for someone else to hit it, for a little while, some of the stuff I was already good at suffered.
That’s the way it works.
davek319
@Soprano2: “Self-indulgent posturing” made me resent my partner and my SIL. Facrisesake, Joe never had any vocal public support from AIPAC, the Clintons, Obama, centrist Democrats, or the FTFNYT. The Progressive Caucus were the only group who consistently stood behind Joe, even as they demanded stopping the weapons shipments. I’m so sick of purity cheŕry picking, Rose Twitterers, and political wilful ignorance.
sab
@Soprano2: Did they even say that? I think they (lifelong Republicans) held their noses to vote for Biden the first time and he failed them ( he did!) they could not vote for him the second time. Really, how would things be better now if Biden had won?
I do think Kamala with a Jewish husband would have been able to do better, but that is just me.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Not to pick on you this morning because we all love you, but how is this reinforcing the positive?
Shalimar
I wouldn’t personally copy Trump’s style, but then no one is ever electing me to any office. I took it more as mocking than imitating. Whatever works.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2:
Do they hang out in Ohio diners? Then, no.
p.a.
Yes. Conflating a terrorist organization we have little/no influence on with a terrorist government we actively subsidize. And arguing that some campus pipsqueaks unbalance the equation, requiring US taxpayers to grin-and-bear-it while we subsidize slaughter.
bluefoot
@Soprano2: I think it would be more productive for the media to look at themselves and how badly they reported on FFOTUS’s campaign and goals that anyone believed he’d be better on anything except giving money to billionaires and screwing over the American people.
narya
Much as I dislike Newsom, I am willing to cheer some of his efforts and STFU on the others (to avoid the “not THAT way” strain of criticism). Larry Krasner, however, I really like, full stop. There was a multi-part series on PBS a few years ago about him, how he got elected the first time and what he then did. It was really good.
WaterGirl
I LOVE THAT NEWSOM DID THAT.
That’s the best Trump trolling I’ve seen since the President of Mexico used to drag Trump in his videos.
Love love love it.
There’s no way that this is Newsom dropping to Trump’s level. This is mockery, plain and simple. But this may get the attention of Trump’s followers, and maybe some eyes will accidentally get opened along the way.
Now is not the time to go high. Now is the time to fight with everything we’ve got, and mockery is a pretty great tool.
Just my two cents.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I’ve seen at least one article about disillusiond Arab American Trump voters.
It’s easy to call them dumbasses. But Trump’s people ran a slick campaign, and the messaging to Arab Americans was slick also. It was amplified by skillful (and duplicitous) micro-targeting of the Arab Americans.
So I’ll cut Arab Americans some slack on this question. They were just a few of many Americans bamboozled by Trump’s campaign operation.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Because I’m criticizing people who are obsessed with the idea that we’re not and never will be good enough.
The fact that we will be even better in the future does not mean we’re not good enough now.
Suzanne
@p.a.: There was even commentary about how we should support Israeli actions in Gaza because Jewish Americans are a reliable Democratic voting bloc.
I’m sorry, that’s the kind of conclusion you come to when you stop seeing Palestinians as humans.
Baud
@Geminid:
People believe what they want to believe, and Arab Americans are people.
AM in NC
I am actually thrilled to see this kind of mocking rhetoric from Democratic lawmakers. It absolutely highlights the senility/psycopathy/dementia of Donald Trump that our media seems mostly determined to ignore or “sane-wash”. EVERY Democratic lawmaker should do this so that it is clear how around the bend our POTUS is.
Every Democratic lawmaker and operative should be pointing out the brain mush factor in every comment they make, no matter the topic. Economy? Talk about it and also mention POTUS’s incoherence about it may be part of why our economy is declining. Putin/Russia/Ukraine? Talk about the Trump capitulation to Vlad and is it a result of his mush brain? Trump’s statements seem to indicate that’s a serious possibility. Sending Nat Guard into DC after a failed carjacking (where police arrested the teenagers who did it) but refusing to even comment when federal buildings are shot up and a police officer is killed? POTUS clearly has no connection with reality, right?
Tie the issues to his mush brain. It’s all of a piece.
NotMax
@p.a.
Worked in Viet Nam, until it didn’t.
//
Steve LaBonne
@bluefoot: They reported exactly the way they intended to (and that their bosses wanted)- it wasn’t incompetence. And they’re still doing it- sanewashing Trump and letting him set their agenda. Mainstream political reporting is corrupt.
Soprano2
@sab: I’m not positive, but I think it was in this episode of “This American Life” that I heard this. I know I heard it, Muslims in Michigan saying they were going to vote for FFOTUS because he had come to their community and said he was going to end the war in Gaza. They believed him!!!! I guess they were so desperate for someone to put an end to it they would believe anyone who said that, but look how it’s turned out for them so far.
Are you serious? Do you think Harris would be telling Netanyahu “Go ahead, do whatever you feel you need to do”? Do you think she would be opining about making Gaza into a place like the Rivera, of course after all the Palestinians were removed? I can’t believe you seriously think things would be just the same, at least on the part of the U.S. I’m not sure about Israel, he might be doing the same things but we cannot control him!!!
Geminid
@Timill: Thanks! An informative article.
Barak Ravid’s reporting is followed and cited by other reporters throughout the Middle East; Arab, Israeli and Turkish; pro-Israeli, anti-Israel, and neutral.
Deputinize America
I’m rewatching Death of Stalin – it’s a wicked sharp satire, and could be set for any authoritarian who surrounds himself with fawning bootlicks. I was very reminded of Trump and the lengths to which pathetic people ingratiate and debase themselves so as not to experience his ire.
piratedan
in regards to the best way to fight these guys, I’m in the camp that you have to use the tools you have, not the ones you want. Raising the elevation of the conversation, being civil, being polite, treating these items as serious and getting into the nuts and bolts of the illegality of this shit hasn’t exactly brought us the results that we desire, nor the attention to the cruelty and illegality of what is ongoing. So if we have to sling mud at 5 paces in order to get the attention that the issues need, then mud it is.
playing nice and not stretching the rules and being civil has not endeared us to the refs in the media and expecting our hallowed institutions to hold firm and not fold has been a disappointment is an understatement. If it takes a goddamn two-by-four to their face to make it plain to them, then its time to pass around the virtual axe handles and take our message to a level where it’s rarely seen.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Anyone (particularly an Arab-American) who lived through the first Trump presidency and thought, “ooh, he SAYS he’ll really take care of MY pet humanitarian issue and I *believe* him”? Sorry, either they’re too stupid to live, let alone vote, or they’re just saying they believed him as cover for whatever other issues they have that just won’t allow them to vote for Democrats.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
We would never let tech bros off the hook on the theory that they sincerely believed they were doing the right thing.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Lots of people — most of whom were not watching their family members or countrymen getting killed — believed a lot of stupid and/or cruel things.
sab
I appreciated Newsome’s comment but I thought strongly that ALL CAPS was very Trumpian and I DO NOT like it. Also too I don’t much like Newsome.
My husband just came through and yelled at me (to me, that is ALL CAPs in meatspace) that I was not on board because He likes Newsome and I don’t much.
That made me like Newsome even less than Newsome’s ALL CAPS.
I like to think of myself as a calm, reasonable, rational moral person, and yelling at me just pisses me off.
Harrison Wesley
Governor Newsom does a mean Trump. I got a kick out of it.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
But we’re not and we won’t.
I feel that so hard. There are days when I can’t think about much other than the thought that I somehow caused all this by being a wimpy little shit, by not being the badass revolutionary who brings down the tyrants. That whenever anyone’s oppressed or killed anywhere in the world, I’m doing that, and I have to pay, personally. I have to hurt.
Sometimes I seek out people who will tell me that it’s my fault, and if you look for such people online, you’ll find them in about 5 seconds. No matter who you are. There’s a limitless supply.
There’s this voice that keeps demanding that I prove that I deserve to stay alive and have the life I have. And I can’t prove it. I can’t crunch that moral-utility equation and I’m terrified of the answer I would get if I really tried.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They don’t exist. Not in this country, and certainly not among the keyboard warriors online.
LAC
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you for that clarification! As Baud mentioned earlier about the goalposts moving, this is what is so infuriating about where we are now: the constant reshuffling of what the dems need to do, say, not say, say louder, to move us. As if this wasn’t plain to us last year. If they mock that gold lame loving bag of piss, then it’s tone, darling. I just do not understand how you can snatch representational power from a party with your votes, but demand that they do something, oh, but not that. Meanwhile, we are headed to volume 2 of the fascist diaries.
sab
I am retired. I can get up whenever I want. I just decided to roll over for another hour. Cats can eat chow not canned for a while.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: They do though. Revolutions happen. Sometimes they turn into blood-soaked autogenocides after, but, you know, omelettes, eggs etc.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Soprano2:
How exactly is it a foolish idea? He was the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, with lots of leverage he could’ve brought to bear on the Isreali government. He could’ve used our weapons shipments to them as leverage to get them to stop acting like monsters. Isreal relies on us, not the other way around.
I just don’t buy that there was nothing the Biden administration could’ve done
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
In history and elsewhere, they exist. Not in this country right now and not among the keyboard warriors online.
Ben Cisco
Not a fan of Newsom, absolutely DESPISE the depths to which political ‘discourse’ has fallen.
That said, we have to deal with the lumpenelectorate we have, not the one we want.
If it works, it works.
sab
@Soprano2: I am serious but I take your point. Kamala Harris might have been better, but Biden Two would not have been. I can see how they might have seen her as Biden Two because that is how she presented herself. I think she would have been better but that is just projection and belief. Nothing she said.
Steve LaBonne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Absolutely. I do think Harris would be doing better. I suspect she had a Humphrey / LBJ problem- I can’t believe that she was really down with Biden’s old-time Israel hawkery but she couldn’t openly break from him during the campaign.
Doug R
HANDSOME GAVIN NEWSOM HAS ONE GREAT SKILLS TO SET OFF MAGA TRUMP.
I HEARTILY APPRECIATE IT AND APPROVE.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Matt McIrvin:
Frankly…
Fuck that voice in your head!
It’s just repeating ableist “Protestant work ethic” crap that’s deeply ingrained in our society. Like we all have to earn our place to be deserving of anything good.
But it’s deeply wrong. No one is a leech. Everyone deserves to be loved and treated fairly. No ice floes for anyone.
You are enough.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@sab: Bingo!
Harrison Wesley
Harrison Wesley
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You mean like invoking and enforcing the Leahy Law? That was suggested a number of times. Although it’s possible that if he had done that, Congress might have just repealed it.
WaterGirl
@piratedan: @Hildebrand: Bravo!
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca:
TRUTH.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: You can also find Ragnarok Lobster on BlueSky in 5 seconds. Mr. Lobster could be a good antidote to the folks you encounter on the internet. He’s also a good aggregator of other level-headed commentators.
I run into plenty of leftie soreheads on Twitter and I gotta say, they’re getting more and more toxic. It’s like Trump has given them license to “let it all hang out.” The hate for Democrats is palpable.
I’ve got a thick skin and they can’t get under it, but if you don’t, you’d do well to cut them out of your life as much as possible
sab
@sab: If you are a Palestinian in America there are woefully few people you can vote for who care about you.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: Seems like they ALWAYS turn into blood-soaked autogenocides. You can argue for American Exceptionalism in this case, but our glorious Revolution was built on genocide and slavery.
dww4
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’ve always thought that Biden was totally played by Netanyahu and was influenced by a view of Israel that has not existed for more than 3 decades. He obviously believed that he “knew” Netanyahu and saw a version of the man that no longer existed if it ever did.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
Maybe, but I also can’t help but wonder if at least some of them used the I/P conflict as cover to vote for Trump because they’re conservatives who liked his right-wing authoritarianism. After all, just as Latinos aren’t a monolith and wouldn’t necessarily care about recent Latino immigrants to the US from different nationalities than they are (and even might see themselves as white), neither would Arab-Americans/American Muslims necessarily care about Palestinians
There was a Guardian article from June 2023 I’ve linked here before, long before the I/P War, where the all Muslim city council of Hamtramck, Michigan banned the display of the Pride Flag on city property. There was a shift in Arab-Americans that was already going on
Doug R
@Miss Bianca:
Bibi’s South Sudan plan sounds like Jackson’s Trail of Tears 2.
Gin & Tonic
@sab:
So am I. So why does my bladder think otherwise?
JML
@sab: even if you’re right about Biden 2 or Harris, the fundamental problem is all the energy and criticisms were focused on either Biden or Harris despite the actual choice being between Biden/Harris and The Orange Idiot.
Picking the GOP over Biden/Harris on the issue of Gaza is illogical, and anyone who believed that the Current Occupant would actually help people in Gaza or end the war with anything other than genocide for Palestinians got p[layed for suckers…and should have known they were being played. There was literally nothing to suggest that GOP policy would be better and every indicator that it would be not just worse but massively worse other than the Big Fat Fool opening his yap and lying like he always does.
And the fact that level of protest against Biden/Harris/Democrats has never gone against the GOP in the same way says something. It may not have actually been decisive in the election (even if it flipped MI, which is questionable, MI going the other way alone doesn’t save us) but there’s no way the drumbeat against Biden/Harris helped.
It didn’t help Democrats, but more importantly it didn’t help the people of Gaza.
lowtechcyclist
I’ve got an idea: why don’t the Israelis create a Jewish state in South Sudan, show the world they can turn that hellhole into a paradise, and leave Palestine to the Palestinians.
sab
@sab: ETA I had another long comment about how much harm Sirhan Sirhan did to his people. Being drunk isn’t an excuse for the harm he did. We were on the wire between Palestinians and Israelis and he tipped us over the edge.
artem1s
Also,too using TCF’s style makes it harder for TFYNYT and other MSM to whinge about Dems communication style.
Another Scott
@sab: Dunno.
It seemed to me that Biden tried to be “better” on Gaza and Israel and Bibi, and he was undercut by various factions. The “two state solution” was dead according to the “Blob” and the pundits, but it was Biden (and the ever-criticized Blinken) who tried to get people to recognize that that was the only solution (and still is).
A re-elected Biden-Harris with a real majority in the House and Senate would have given Biden more space to push things in a better direction.
A Harris-Walz administration would have been under the same constraints as B-H, it seems to me. The administration can only get so far ahead of Congress (and the media) if it wants to get lasting things done.
But, as we know, counter-factuals are fun…
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@AM in NC: I agree. How about mentioning that he said he was going to Russia? This is the kind of thing that became a several day issue if Biden did it, but they seem to be mostly ignoring it with FFOTUS.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, you have to measure last year’s Arab American vote against a baseline that was 40%+ Republican to begin with. So what was the swing within this particular group over this particular issue?
I’d have looked into this question more if I had thought it was that important, but I haven’t because I don’t believe Arab Americans cost Harris the election. I see them being blamed for it, but I think there’s an element of scapegoating in that conclusion.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I don’t think they were dumbasses, I think they were desperate and made a bad decision, as desperate people often do. I’m sincere when I wonder if anyone in the press has asked them if they regret their vote, because perhaps we could learn from that.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I think it was a rock and a hard place situation, because Democrats have support from both Jewish and Palestinian people. It was no win for us, and when you add in the way saying anyone who supports not murdering and starving Palestinians for sport is called anti-Semitic and a Hamas supporter by Republicans, well it was especially difficult.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Biden or Harris would be objectively better on this than Trump, but that is an unbelievably low bar, and the paradoxical thing is that liberals would feel more complicit. I’ve said before that I think a lot of people on the left think in terms of clean hands rather than objectively better outcomes, and that’s why they so often seem to prefer to lose.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
I’m inclined to agree with you that they didn’t cost Harris the election
Trollhattan
I’M SO HERE FOR THIS.
GO, GAV
wenchacha
@Soprano2: I always figure Susan Sarandon is ecstatic.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, we live in a time when the religious right will throw away every moral scruple for earthly political power while the secular left is obsessed with avoiding any impure actions that will taint their immortal soul.
Go figure.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Go watch KPop Demon Hunters. And then spend days afterwards wondering why it’s so hard to actually follow the central message of the movie (which actually isn’t fighting external demons).
Matt McIrvin
@sab: Hell, that guy even may be responsible for us losing our COVID vaccines.
frosty
I don’t see anything wrong with Newsom’s tweets. Mocking FFOTUS’s stupid style works for me and with any luck it will get under his skin.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I did not mean to imply that *you* thought these Arab America were dumbasses, and I’m if my comment came out that way.
And yes, they were desperate; or at least the Palestinian Americans were. Their kinfolk were being blown to bits. This war was an abstract issue for most of us, but it was very different for them.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I did not mean to imply that *you* thought these Arab America were dumbasses, and I’m sorry if my comment came out that way.
And yes, they were desperate; or at least the Palestinian Americans were. Their kinfolk were being blown to bits. This war was an abstract issue for most of us, but it was very different for them.
Doug R
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You seem to forget that Democratic Presidents have to listen to Congress, at least according to this Supreme Court
Brendan In NC
I’m inclined to agree with the majority of commenters that this is exactly what we need to see, and done, if need be. In addition, we need the people currently raising hell about ICE, Israel, Ukraine, tariffs, etc. to continue doing so – keep up the multi-pronged attack!!!
Ksmiami
@brendancalling: I feel you.
tam1MI
They kind of have to. Because if they don’t heap blame on Biden (and Harris), they have to then grapple with their own part in turning a bloody one-sided war into a full on ethnic cleansing and genocide, the exact things they claimed to be against. And that creates too much cognitive dissonance with their self-image of being morally superior brave truth tellers.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Although I didn’t say so explicitly earlier, and haven’t checked my recollection this AM, so this is subject to revision, I think Biden was better than Obama on Israel.
Remember that the 10 year, $38B, MOU with Israel (ending in FY 2028) was under Obama. Yes, the past is a different country, but Obama wasn’t able to substantially change the trajectory of US relations with Bibi. Biden actually turned off some arms for a while…
I/P is a hugely complicated problem. There have been weak / timid / compromised leaders in each faction, with legitimate concerns about being assassinated if they come to an agreement with the other side. But Biden was trying to make things better, and people calling him Genocide Joe were either misinformed or deliberate bad actors.
Purity kills.
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
tam1MI
And they often fail for that exact reason.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: Like I mentioned before, I really enjoyed the current Superman reboot, and a striking thing about its Superman is that when it comes to doing good he’s not an overthinker; he’s gonna take the opportunity to do the good deed that’s right in front of him, without fretting about whether people deserve it or what the larger ramifications will be or whether this will have some perverse effect down the line. And on balance, this seems to be the right choice, though he’s never 100% sure about it and it drives the well-intentioned people around him (e.g. Lois) up the wall sometimes. It’s a good message.
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: Have you ever heard the term “abeed?”
I’m not sure the Arab-American embrace of Trump wasn’t for the same reason ordinary Confederates did.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Which also tends to be the message in One Piece. I liked both of them.
KDH talks about the voices in your head.
Hildebrand
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dearborn numbers in the last two Presidential elections:
2020 Biden – 74.2% – 30,718 Trump – 24.2% – 13,239
2024 Harris – 36.26% – 15,189 Trump – 42.5% – 17,796 Stein 18.3% – 7,697
Soprano2
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have never said there was nothing Biden could have done, but some of these people seem to think all it would take is us cutting off weapons (that I believe were authorized by Congress) and a few phone calls and Netanyahu would have agreed to stop attacking Gaza. It’s just not that simple, in the end we cannot control the Israeli government. What do you think would have happened if Biden had tried to completely cut off Israel without the agreement of Congress?
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Agreed.
But again….. we cannot view human rights issues through the lens of what is more electorally beneficial.
Deputinize America
@Professor Bigfoot:
People will never understand how white-adjacent many Arab-Americans tend to feel, particularly after the second generation.
It’s gross – the racism is palpable.
geg6
@piratedan:
Couldn’t agree more.
Hildebrand
@Deputinize America: As is the misogyny. The Trump team played both cards regularly behind the scenes in Dearborn.
tam1MI
Go to the Leopards Eating Faces subreddit, you’ll find a decent number of articles on that subject.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: In this case and at this moment, the pro-Palestine position is the correct one. Other youth movements have also been on the right side of history. The antiwar protests during Vietnam were right. The protestors against the invasion of Iraq were right.
ruckus
As a CA resident I like how Gavin is running CA.
Is Gavin perfect? Hell no, but then who is? We are humans, some of us have actually operating brains. But we are not automatons. Most of us are actual human beings, in all the positive and negative ways. We live, as most animals do in a relative survival mode. Now that means that we belong to the group, the bigger picture, the survival of not just ourselves but of all of us. We survive better when we work together to have an operational government. Gavin Newsom, while not perfect, same as all the rest of us, is the governor of the highest populated state in the nation, with an almost 25% larger population than the next state. Is he the best CA governor ever? I don’t know, I haven’t been alive for CA’s entire existence – or even close. None of us have been. He works for the state, all of it and all of us. Is he the best governor? I don’t know, I don’t live in the other 49 states. Is he the best CA governor since the founding of the state? Don’t know that either, I’m not that old, just like the rest of the population.
My point is that no one is perfect and some are less perfect than others. Some far less.
But we all live in this world, today’s world. It can be nothing like we want, it can be closer to that but it’s the world and the humanity that lives in it and NONE of us are perfect, no matter how often or how poorly we claim we are. And some of us are a hell of a lot farther away from perfect than they think they are. Use your imagination.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Biden Two would have been a goddamned sight better than Trump Two. That was the choice, at least until Biden was defenestrated.
tam1MI
The Biden administration did things. The Gazassholes just ignored or belittled the things that were done.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I agree about the scapegoating. It’s gross.
stinger
@lowtechcyclist:
I like it!
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: I’ll criticize anyone who was working against our side in this monumental election. Arab-Americans are not the only group in that category.
ETA: People always separate out one group and say, “Well, they didn’t cost us the election!” But put together, ALL the people who weren’t all-hands-on-deck cost us the election. And cost the people of Gaza and Ukraine, not to mention the USA, a hell of a lot more.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Hildebrand:
The eye opener there is the % vote for Jill Fucking Stein. Really? What were those people smoking that day?
Then I did a little digging and it kinda makes sense as a protest vote if nothing else:
Still, I had no idea Stein pulled in that kind of number anywhere.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m sure part of it was because they didn’t want to vote for a woman for president, especially not a black woman with a Jewish husband.
Baud
This is a bright spot, especially given the lack of a media drumbeat in inflation.
tam1MI
@Geminid: I don’t believe Arab Americans cost Harris the election. I see them being blamed for it, but I think there’s an element of scapegoating in that conclusion.
They didn’t cost Harris the election, though not for want of trying. What the Uncommitted movement showed was that they couldn’t swing an election on their own. It’s kind of bitterly amusing the volte-face the Gazassholes have done on this issue. At first they were all, “Harris lost because of us! You better do what we say or you will lose again!”. Now that people are blaming them for the loss and the accompanying devastation, they are all now bellowing, “It wasn’t us! We did cause the loss! Stop yelling at us!”.
Hildebrand
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yep, similar story in Dearborn Heights.
2020 Biden 68.7% – 30,638 Trump 36.4% – 9,749
2024 Harris 38% – 9,643 Trump 44% – 11,079 Stein 15% 3,78
laura
How do you separate the state of Israel and the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian people from Hamas? Do Jews have a legitimate right to maintain a state? Do Palestinians have a right to exist within that state? Was the United States justified in supporting the the existence of the state of Israel with military equipment to defend itself against hostile neighbors? Should American policy against settlements in the West Bank impacted Americans from building even more settlements and displacing Palestinians? How are evangelical Christian end timers allowed to dictate American policy in Israel? Why is avoiding prison allowed as a platform for achieving the highest office in both Israel and America? Have the goals of October 7th been achieved? Why does our foreign policy allow for children to starve? How can the media watch the murder of journalists and not see their future? Who has the moral high ground? Who should blame be apportioned to? Who stands to gain? What is the cost of any option? Where is peace? What is my role, my obligation, my conscience require?
ruckus
@sab:
I was born in CA, a rather long time ago. I’ve lived in other cities and states, I’ve traveled a lot of the world, some on my own and much in the USN. I’ve been to every state in this country, some for very short stops, but I’ve been there. This ain’t a bad place to live, some parts better, some worse. I’ve crossed the oceans on both sides of this country, several times. Haven’t been to the north or south poles but I’ve been rather close. Been to every state, some for not all that long a time, but I’ve been there. Been to many countries of this world, absolutely not all of them, but more than a few. It’s a big world, some of it is amazing, some less than. And the humans I’ve met have mostly been OK. Some less so than others but mostly OK. Or better.
This country has a mixed history, some of it rather crappy – or worse, and some of it great. IOW humanity is involved. My point of all of this is that we are all human, but we are not all the same – thankfully. We make choices – regularly, some good, some not so much. It’s called living. It can range from Great, to pure crap. Or worse. But fortunately most of us can see the difference and mostly stay away from the pure crap – or worse. It will never get to perfection because it’s humanity, in all its ups and downs. But it’s a tad better than not being.
rikyrah
Fly Sistah 🪷 (@Fly_Sistah) posted at 9:52 PM on Tue, May 10, 2022:
Basic rights taken – Oct 15, 1883 SCOTUS deemed the 1875 Civil Rights Act giving Black Americans equal access to public accommodations unconstitutional. By 1890 Black men couldn’t vote in southern states. 1898 Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation.
t.co/qCO3z7z2Wz
(x.com/Fly_Sistah/status/1524220890598322182?t=bM2hlvgS3J1JEj-VbDXNJw&s=03)
Fly Sistah 🪷 (@Fly_Sistah) posted at 6:53 AM on Wed, Aug 13, 2025:
So many people called me hyperbolic when I said we could lose our Civil Rights, again. The 1875 Civil Rights Act was overturned in 1883. SCOTUS Is Determined to Turn Voting Into a Limited Privilege deliberating the constitutionality of Section 2 of the VRA t.co/GiWcDQnkoT t.co/frj8oz8G5i
(x.com/Fly_Sistah/status/1955598484398059645?t=Q3YU9SCTIiX0qvg2_l-NWg&s=03)
Suzanne
@laura:
One is a duly elected government and one isn’t? One receives weapons funded by American taxpayers and one doesn’t?
rikyrah
scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) posted at 3:52 PM on Tue, Aug 12, 2025:
Suppressing speech or ideas that did not align with the monarch were among the reasons we fought the Revolutionary War 250 years ago. Ironically, Trump’s goal is return the U.S. to that pre-1776 world where HE gets to dictate what we think, say, and do. Media shrugs.
(https://x.com/scarylawyerguy/status/1955371821114491383?t=te1ku0GIWF8-iRLgvi5hKw&s=03)
tam1MI
But being right means nothing if you fail. Being right doesn’t save a single life if you fail, and often makes the situation you were right about worse.
I would highly recommend that folks here read up on the history of the SDS (the student organization that spearheaded the protests against the Vietnam War), and how, with the very best of intentions, they flew off the rails. It is highly applicable to the Gaza protestors of today.
rikyrah
Jason Chervokas (@chervokas) posted at 6:12 AM on Tue, Aug 12, 2025:
Sanders is a upper class white college kid’s fantasy of a working class hero. He has little actual working class support, especially among 41% who are black or Hispanic. When he says “working class” read “angry white men,” that’s actually what he’s talking about.
(https://x.com/chervokas/status/1955225773649838538?t=rXQqf5vlAZaeXeLAVaye-g&s=03)
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: And they’ll say, “why are WE the ones who had to give something up? Why don’t you blame THEM for not doing the morally correct thing that would have earned them our vote?”
rikyrah
FOH
Marc Owen Jones
@marcowenjones
The police are asking local Cotswolds residents for their social media handles to be passed onto to JD Vance’s security detail. Glad to hear some people refused. Honestly the nerve of it, especially for the man who criticised Europe for censorship
uk.news.yahoo.com/helicopters-police-cia-fishing-life-040000626.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer…
rikyrah
Democratic Wins Media
@DemocraticWins
BREAKING: Governor Wes Moore just went on Fox News and put a masterclass on how to destroy the myth that Donald Trump wants to keep us safe. That’s how you flip the script.
x.com/DemocraticWins/status/1955613724984959364
Suzanne
@tam1MI: I’d contend that a refusal to distinguish between the vast majority of reasonable, lawful, and entirely moral protestors and a small number of bad (albeit noisy) actors is a far bigger component of any failure.
ETA: It’s our job as citizens to make those distinctions.
Baud
tam1MI
@Hildebrand: Step back and look at the state of Michigan as a whole. Even adding those Stein votes back into Harris’s total, it wouldn’t have been enough to swing the state to her.
(I haven’t been able to figure out how to calculate what would have happened if people in Dearborn had voted for Harris at the same percentage they had for Biden, and how that would have impacted the state vote. I suspect not much).
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Everyone is free to blame whoever they want to blame.
BellyCat
(Narrator: This is who we always were)
I’m in the “whatever works” camp, with fellow travelers who have (begrudgingly but finally) accepted that polite norms no longer are working.
Baud
What a bored nation demands.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Vomit, vomit, vomit
tam1MI
Hamas was duly elected to be the government of Palestine.
Steve LaBonne
@BellyCat: This is gentle compared to almost any 19th Century political campaign.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: Gaza hasn’t had an election since 2006 and over half of the people of Gaza have never voted at all.
Geminid
@tam1MI: Hamas won a plurality in the 2005 election. When negotiations with the Palestinian Authority for a unity government hit an impasse, Hamas took matters into the own hands and violently purged PA officials and police from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has ruled Gaza with an iron fist ever since, although now their control has broken down in many areas.
hueyplong
@Suzanne: Americans should probably feel kind of familiar with the concept of half of the population not voting.
scav
@tam1MI: Do you really want to come across as that person who consistently puts winning as the all-important single thing especially when compared with the mere morals or rights of the matter. Especially when it’s your preferred messaging style contrasted with a simplified caricature of a complicated alternative movement (with the minor assumption that your technique equates to inevitable win). Cause you’re beginning to edge into that territory.
ruckus
@laura:
That’s a lot for one paragraph.
I’m an old, in the 4th quarter as it were. As I said above I’ve traveled a lot of this world and most of this country. I’ve met people from many countries and walks of life, I’ve owned 2 companies and made tools that made many products that many people would recognize.
My point is that we all have a part in humanity, some have a bigger part and most a small part, but only because there are more than a few humans on this planet, some of whom seem to think they are the very top of the heap. And they very/most often prove that they are not even close. Pompous arrogance is quite common with many holding the concept close, mostly not realizing that pompous arrogance is not a positive.
catclub
CNN updates:
• Live Updates
So I read that as Trump did NOT offer any security guarantees. He never has so no change.
Suzanne
@hueyplong: In the case of Gaza, roughly half of the population wasn’t even born at the time of the last election.
catclub
@Baud: Awards for Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis for Some Like It Hot?
Steve LaBonne
@scav: 1. Winning is the absolute prerequisite for pursuing any kind of policies, including moral ones. 2. When the opposition are fascist criminals whose program is to destroy everything in their path, then yes winning is infinitely important. Anyone above the age of about 5 should be able to understand such simple concepts.
Elizabelle
@laura: All good questions, and the framework for an honest and exacting discussion.
I can see Democrats wrestling with them. I am sure the Biden administration considered those questions carefully, if to no one’s complete satisfaction.
I cannot see Republicans doing so. It is pure power politics and propaganda with them. No moral compass; merely an affinity for controlling land and wealth.
Hildebrand
@tam1MI: In a state that Harris lost by 80,000, the 20,000 she lost in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck was not insubstantial.
Clearly, it wasn’t the only issue, but it was an issue.
hueyplong
I put the value of a “Trump security guarantee” at one cent, and only that high because we’re phasing out pennies.
catclub
@tam1MI: If you told us the vote totals we could judge for ourselves.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: That’s why I always say that it was a perfect storm, and if any one piece hadn’t been in place, I believe we would have narrowly won.
Miki
@Matt McIrvin: Kind of like the Superman in this song.
tam1MI
True, but they were still elected at one point
catclub
@hueyplong: it would be negative. Trump would charge for the service…
and not deliver.
catclub
@WaterGirl:
I suspect the perfect storm was 2020 and vote by mail.
Deputinize America
@laura:
Do people who live within borders claimed by a state get the full panoply of legal rights – economic and political – afforded to residents of the claiming state? If not, then that state is not entitled to peace or deference by the deprived.
Now, add in the “God’s Chosen People” part of the strictest adherents of the dominant religion of the claiming state, and the whole thing gets really ugly when those strict adherents form the real base of the governing coalition of the claiming state.
That’s how you get dehumanization and ethnic cleansing.
Archon
@tam1MI: That’s like saying the Nazis were the duly elected government of Germany in 1944.
tam1MI
@scav: Do you really want to come across as that person who consistently puts winning as the all-important single thing especially when compared with the mere morals or rights of the matter.
I was told in 2024 to shut up and sit down when I objected to my party vaporizing my vote and defenestrating my president. I was told to shut up and sit down when I pointed out that screaming “Genocide Joe” and “Holocaust Harris” at the best chances to help the people of Gaza was, at best, a counterproductive tactic. Then the people who told me to shut up and sit down led us all to bloody defeat and now the Gazans are being wiped off the face of the Earth and there isn’t dick squat any of us can do about it anymore.
I am NEVER going to shut up and sit down again.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Betty Cracker: You know what else is gross?
All of what’s currently happening.
If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem, and these people chose willingly to be a not-insignificant part of the fucking problem.
WaterGirl
@catclub: No, I’m talking about things like the timing of Oct 7. That was a clearly choreographed dance that played out just as both sides wanted it to be. Just to name one of the many things. A lot of foreign actors wanted Trump, and Trump they got.
Geminid
Yesterday Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky reported on the AP story about potential resettlement of Gazans in South Sudan. She posted this an hour ago:
Tarnopolsky accompanied this with a screenshot of document from South Sudan’s foreign ministry marked “Press Statement, For Immediate Release” and dated August 13:
scav
@Steve LaBonne: That’s also somewhat a vast oversimplification. Waging total war in pursuit of your preferred goal — however much you may elevate it to the one and holy true principle forsaking all others — may be a bit of overkill, especially as such a mindset lends itself to thinking of anyone that differs from you as an existential threat, irredeemably wrong and thus deserving of being smashed under your holy tank-treads. Even when they’re headed in the same direction as you.
But then, I’m just clearly under 5.
Geminid
@tam1MI: Hamas was not “elected.” They won a plurality in an election, and then staged a violent coup to grab total control of the Gaza Strip.
tam1MI
@catclub:If you told us the vote totals we could judge for ourselves.
Michigan 2024
Michigan 2020
These were the sources I used. I added up the percentages.
scav
@tam1MI: I’m not arguing intent, I’m arguing tone, especially a tone we can slip into when angered. Just because you were silenced or ignored or not feted as you felt your just desserts doesn’t mean your doing it to others, later, is any better.
Steve LaBonne
@scav: You are certainly under 5 if you still can’t understand that the Republicans are indeed an existential threat that MUST be defeated, period. And now thanks to the “my vote is my precious” crowd that will be vastly more difficult, and will only come after massive damage to the country, some of it irreparable.
scav
@Steve LaBonne: But, whoever it is isn’t fighting republicans, she’s fighting other anti republicans. .fuck it. Enjoy the serotonin rush.
tam1MI
@Archon: That’s like saying the Nazis were the duly elected government of Germany in 1944.
True. My point was that Hamas can’t be dismissed as some sort of free floating terrorist group that just so happened to operate out of Gaza. As shitty a situation as it is, everything Hamas has done and are doing was done in the name of the people of Hamas because up until recently they were the ones in charge there.
Betty Cracker
@Interesting Name Goes Here: If by “these people” you mean the people who voted for Trump, I agree, but it’s important to be precise here. Scapegoating Arab Americans, Muslims, Palestinians, all pro-Gaza protesters, etc., is not only inaccurate, it’s counterproductive. It’s doing the same goddamn thing the scapegoaters are accusing the people they hate of doing.
HopefullyNotcassandra
Love the spoonbills !
@Hildebrand: Yes!
Steve LaBonne
@scav: I was responding to what you wrote: “Do you really want to come across as that person who consistently puts winning as the all-important single thing especially when compared with the mere morals or rights of the matter.” Yes, in 2024 winning WAS the all-important thing, morally as well as practically, and we are seeing the dire consequences of failure every day.
tam1MI
But anyway, on another topic, I am absolutely thrilled with Gavin newsom’s latest act of resistance against the Trump regime, and I will vote for him if he should become our next nominee for President of the United States.
Archon
@Steve LaBonne: I literally cannot think of an issue where Trump and the Republicans have the moral high ground on Democrats. Based on that premise I think a real philosophical argument can be made that anyone who did not vote for Harris and the Democratic Party in 2024 (either by voting Trump or not voting at all) made an immoral an unethical choice.
Deputinize America
@Geminid:
South Sudan can’t feed itself, and is barely above the level of a warlord-dominated subsistence state.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: I’d put money on it- I’d put money that it would be a BIG “part of it.”
Suzanne
@Archon: What is right for the people of Palestine is an independent question from how Arab-Americans voted.
hueyplong
@tam1MI: Newsom has positioned himself in the class of the most anti-Trump politicians out there and the one who most reliably satisfies the desire to (rhetorically) punch the pig in his face.
OAC and Crockett are as good or better, but neither is governor of CA or is (yet) angling for the nomination in 2028.
I’m personally in favor of anyone, working any style, who shoves this semi-ambulatory garbage toward the dustbin of history.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Betty Cracker: They contributed to the problem. They deserve the scorn. Being nitpicky about what percentage of people did X and what specific group of people did Y is irrelevant when the consistent tone out of those groups is “He said he would save us! He promised us this! This isn’t what I signed up for!” I’d say that they should have read the fine print, but when the fine print is as coarse and sharp as cliffside rocks, then other questions have to be raised and none of them are particularly flattering. They have known who this asshole was for a decade and they still decided he was better than supporting Biden or Harris. So here’s one of those unflattering questions now – what were they hoping to achieve that made all of this other bullshit worth it? Because whatever that was, it certainly wasn’t anything benevolent or beneficial to society.
satby
Re: Newsome, this from Stonekettle Jim Wright:
I’m going to tell you something now so you can get ready for it: if it’s Newsom or Trump (or Trump’s MAGA successor) come the next election, I’m supporting Newsom all the way, problematic or not.
Because if it’s fascism or flawed not-fascism, that’s an easy choice for me.
That said, I’m not a Democrat (also not a Republican), if you don’t like my attitude, then work with your political parties to give me better options. Otherwise, you can sit down, because in the end, I’m going to do my duty to the Republic and to the future we’re leaving my grandchildren and if the choices are nothing better than fascism or not-fascism, then the choice is clear.
You want a better nation, be a better citizen.
Archon
@Suzanne: What WASN’T right or moral for the people of Palestine AND Arab Americans was Trump and the Republicans winning the election.
Soprano2
@Geminid: If you remember, this election was held at the insistence of the George W. administration, even though others kept telling them it was a mistake. They sold it as a great day for the Palestinian people to start having self-determination.
Suzanne
@Archon: No one is arguing that point. The people of Palestine aren’t voting in American elections. And American foreign policy in this matter should not be affected by how Arab-Americans vote.
LAC
@Interesting Name Goes Here: 💯 THANK YOU!
These people had literally an open book exam on democracy last year, but still managed to fail it.
Betty Cracker
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Again, the definition of “THEY” matters.
So, define groups. I named some at #226. Is this who you mean?
Are these the groups of people for whom trivial matters like who they voted for are “irrelevant”?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yeah, the thing about clean hands is, it’s a completely negative moral ideal; it’s about NOT doing. And you can always find some way, some bad association or possible perverse outcome, by which doing something is tainted, even if it’s a good thing on the surface.
It feels like our side spends a lot of time looking for the feet of clay, the dirty secret, the reason why the hero of the minute is tainted. And the long-term impression is that we should avoid everything.
The Audacity of Krope
Depending on what you view the problem as…
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Betty Cracker: Yes, that’s exactly who I mean. I’m also talking about the Latinos and Asians and, of course, the white people who helped make this happen (many of whom were on the pro-Gaza Fuck Biden and Harris train).
There, does that satisfy you? Is that enough to make you drop this nonsense and see that, as LAC noted above, these people failed the open-book test, and they did so in such a manner that has made their goals highly difficult or outright impossible to achieve now? Or are we about to move the goalposts all the way into a twisted perversion of an Emo Phillips bit?
The Audacity of Krope
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Eh, I voted for Harris enthusiastically. Everything I’ve seen since has shown me the abstain crowd was right and, frankly, I should never have been voting to put any of these Dems in federal office. Local may be a bit more case by case.
tam1MI
@Suzanne: American foreign policy in this matter should not be affected by how Arab-Americans vote.
Both by law and by custom, foreign policy in the US is the exclusive province of the Executive Branch, i.e., Donald Trump. If anyone knows a way to get him to change his mind and do the right thing, I haven’t heard it.
Now, if you talking about about what the US’s policy should be in 2028 should we win the Presidency, that is an entirely different proposition.
Although I am fairly certain that by 2028 Bibi will have finished the job that Hamas started. Unless we all luck out and he drops dead.
Geminid
@Deputinize America: That’s why I was sceptical of this and the many other reports of potential relocation sites. They do not meet the test of feasibilty.
Israeli and US diplomats keep exploring potential hosts for Gazans, but my sense is they’re just going through the motions for political purposes, and they know it’s not going to happen.
Interesting Name Goes Here
I feel like I need to leave this here for the people who are…disgusted right now.
bsky.app/profile/deardean22.bsky.social/post/3lwc6hc46gs2j
Geminid
@Soprano2: Actually, l don’t remember as I wasn’t paying close attention at the time. I only studied up on these matters last year.
But if it was a Bush project it went downhill quickly, like everything else he did in the Middle East.
tam1MI
If you want to see the historical precedent for this, look up “MS St. Louis” on Wikipedia.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: I am talking about what our Party platform should be, what I want to hear Democratic politicians saying when asked about this issue. I want to hear full-throated support for human and civil rights for the people of Palestine.
I understand that we’re out of power. I’d submit that we have a better chance of regaining at least some power if we took a firmer line on this issue.
The triangulation I have seen on this issue is gross.
ETA: I’d like to see a firmer line on this even if it did not serve our electoral interests. Having said that, I think it actually does serve our electoral interests.
hueyplong
The problem is people who voted for Trump. What other boxes they check pale in significance to their conscious decision to fill in completely the oval next to the name of a narcissistic, fascist pig who, no matter their demographic, is going to do them some kind of harm over these four (or God willing, fewer) years.
Another Scott
@tam1MI:
I think this is too strong.
Congress still controls the power of the purse. Congress still writes the laws. 2/3 of the Senate must approve any new treaty (and a treaty, like the Constitution itself, is (supposed to be) the supreme Law of the Land).
POTUS, even a post-GWOT POTUS, cannot do whatever he wants in foreign relations.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Archon
@Suzanne: My question would be then do you agree with Arab-Americans or Palestinian Americans or anyone opposed to what’s going on in Palestine NOT voting for Democrats if the party doesn’t give “full throated support” for the people of Palestine?
The Audacity of Krope
At least most of the D politicians stopped pushing the line that supporting Palestinians is inherently anti-Semitic. Just in the last couple months, but it’s a start.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
My take when dealing with the pale blue Dem, MattY “liberal” electeds in Denver has driven me to the opposite end of what you describe.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for a Federal Dem and obviously have had decades of experience doing just that, but the locals are the ones doing the visible damage on a day-to-day basis which makes it really hard to wanna vote for them. Particularly when there’s not an inch of daylight between what they do once in office and what somebody from the other side of the aisle would do. We’ve seen this play out repeatedly coming out of the Great Recession here.
Citizen Alan
@sab: That was the point. He was deliberately mocking the insane delivery style of Shitgibbon and his ALLCAPS Truth Social babblings.
Professor Bigfoot
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I doubt seriously that message goes over here… but hey, one tries, no?
Suzanne
@Archon:
I think voting for Trump is bad. I think it is idiotic and shortsighted and I did everything I could to get people to see things my way.
But I also don’t think it should make any difference in our party position. I think being waffly on a human rights issue because of domestic electoral concerns is fucken gross and transactional and I want no part of it. That kind of position comes from seeing people only in terms of what purpose they serve to oneself, and policy as just exchanging favors. I think that, in the words of a valued commenter here, politics is for something.
Martin
@Geminid: I will continue to note that if we stop talking about race and start talking about class, it won’t answer all of these questions (because lots of things are about race) but it will probably reveal a new line of thinking.
Also, don’t fall too deeply into the trap that a group of people that are disappointed with Democrats are doing to vote for Republicans, normally they just don’t vote. And that alone can swing elections. The largest voting demographic in the US is non-voters and we don’t talk about why they are non-voters. We just assume they’re lazy and stupid. Some are just ‘I’m not going to vote for someone who is going to bomb my family’ and in 2024 that was both candidates, so they didn’t vote. Sure, there were the Muslims for Trump or whatever that group is that to this day believe that Trump will end the war and restore things, but there aren’t many of them. They sure get on CNN a lot, though.
Citizen Alan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This is the dynamic that people who screamed at Biden over Gaza refused to acknowledge:
If Biden had done ANYTHING to seriously impede Bibi and the IDF in their efforts in Gaza, and, in response, Hamas had taken advantage of the breathing space to have launched another attack that cost even one Israeli life (or, God Forbid, the life of an American who was in Israel at the time), Biden would have owned that. The GOP and the Media would have waived any bloody shirts they could get their hands on and blame Biden and the Dems for, at best, being soft on terror. And at worst? Being pro-terrorists and anti-Semites.
Republicans accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists” back in 2008 because ten years earlier he’d been in the same room with Bill Ayers, who’d been in the Weather Underground when Obama was a child.
Going into the 2024 election, Gaza was an impossible, intractable problem and would have been for any Dem candidate. Perhaps Harris might have been free to take a tougher stand against Bibi had she won. Or maybe not. But I am fairly confident that, had she won, Israel would not be moving forward with open and unabashed ethnic cleansing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
Few people here want to talk about class because as you say, it reveals plenty about Dems, Dem policy writ large and class.
Reverting to “everything is about race and sexism” is basically “SQUIRREL!!!!” to avoid pointing to the failures (and loss of votes) that’s resulted from much of what you comment about.
The Audacity of Krope
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The Dems do some good for us here in Massachusetts. Relations between police and communities tend to be pretty good. Effort is put into providing public services, though it could always be more.
On the federal side, I can’t get past the fact that Dems are far too willing to support violence abroad in the name of a putative national interest, Israel/Palestine just being the top example now. Also, they betrayed their own voters last year in a way that’s disqualifying unto itself.
There has been an unwillingness for a long time to even argue a moral position. Racial minorities and women and the gender non-conforming have to wait for public opinion to turn in favor of their issues, if it ever does, and once it does on any particular issue, the bold leaders of the Democratic party will have always been on side from the start.
It’s phony. It’s no wonder why people think Ds are insincere in their pluralistic beliefs and only play the affected groups for votes.
Citizen Alan
TBF, I kinda do want a Dem President who has a killer instinct where Republicans are concerned.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Citizen Alan:
Heh heh, I didn’t realize his grandmother was a Republican! /s
Archon
@Suzanne: Unfortunately being waffly and transactional on human rights issues is as American as apple pie. I just think when one party is in full fledged authoritarian fascist mode and therefore is WORSE on every single issue of consequence and the other party is in “less than full throated support” of a human rights issue in Palestine it seems almost quaint to spend real time and energy holding the party currently with no power to account for it.
Citizen Alan
@tam1MI: The subtle pernicious threat of third party spoilers like Stein is not that people will vote for them over the Democrat. It is that people will accept the third party framing that there is no meaningful difference between Dems and Republicans. And if you believe that, it’s just a waste of time to take off in the middle of the work week and stand in line at the polls to cast a purely symbolic third party vote. I am convinced that, for every person who actually voted for Stein (and for Nader back in the day), 2-3 just stayed home and refused to engage.
Betty Cracker
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
Shitting on entire demographic groups comprising millions of people for what a subset of individuals in the groups did is bigotry. It’s especially egregious when applied to people who are already discriminated against, brutalized and relentlessly othered.
Now you’re identifying the behavior, which is separate from the demographic groups. Was that so hard?
Suzanne
@Archon: I can only influence my own party. And I’ve never withheld my vote over this (or any other) issue.
But part of active citizenship is using your influence to advocate for your positions. So I think the Democratic Party can hear from me on this issue. They certainly find me with fundraising texts, they can stand to listen to their membership.
Omnes Omnibus
Maybe it’s just the way my day is going, but when I read this thread I just felt like a lot you need to just yeet yourselves into the sun.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I see any and all proposed new homelands for an involuntary forced relocation of a whole people as something akin to the “farm upstate” where your dog went.
Geminid
@Martin: I guess I could have talked about the number of Arab American businessmen. They are an entepenurial community. That would would have touched the class base.
But I wanted to focus on a couple simple points. I did not try to write a more comprehensive essay on the topic, even if that meant I ran the risk of being warned about falling into this trap or that trap.
The Audacity of Krope
They both want you in thrall to monied interests, but the Republicans’ role is to push the boundaries of what citizens can tolerate them the Dems can ease the abuse juuuusst enough to lull the sheeple back into complacency
The ratchet continues as the powerful aggregate more and more control.
Baud
Reddit contribution to the topic at hand
Citizen Alan
@The Audacity of Krope: In other words, both parties both suck so either stay home or else cast a meaningless vote for some cosplay Marxist in a “Free Mumia” t-shirt and then smugly brag about how pure you are.
The Audacity of Krope
@Citizen Alan: Well, trying to convince Democrats and Republicans that they should demand positive reforms from their politicians certainly doesn’t work.
And that lesser of two evils outlook isn’t right. It’s the more overt and more insidious of two evils.But evil is what you’ll get.
Archon
@The Audacity of Krope: Anyone who doesn’t see meaningful difference between the parties in 2025 is my enemy.
Paul in KY
@Gravenstone: I thought they were well done. Good job Gov. Newsome!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Also just like “They were sent east” to explain how Jews were disappearing during the Holocaust.
And while it was technically true, tons were sent geographically east to the extermination camps, the implied message was they were sent east to “settle” all that land the Germans were getting from the evil Soviets.
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: Fine. Anyone supporting our warmongering, violent, bigoted parties; either of them; is not necessarily my enemy but is not to be viewed as serious about improving lives.
tam1MI
In a 2 party system, not voting for lesser evil is voting for more evil.
Paul in KY
@bbleh: I think, in hindsight, that we didn’t point and jeer at him enough in the 2 races he won.
Paul in KY
@Hildebrand: ‘Calculating’ is one of the things that wins elections.
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: Those people were either idiots or ratfuckers. No sane person could look at TACO and they way he operates (and the GQPs alliance with Likud) and think it would be better for the Palestinians under his administration. No one.
The Audacity of Krope
There is no lesser evil. It’s two faces of the same damn evil.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: It rather boggles my mind that people are actually debating why the majority of white people voted for a white supremacist, 34 count felon, and adjudicated rapist over the former prosecutor, former US Senator, and sitting Vice President.
How much fucking subtlety do you need to figure this out?
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: I’d stop reading her for a bit. For you mostly.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: Well then, most commenters here fit that description. Nice to know your opinion.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: Anyone who equates the neo-Confederate, Nazi-adjacent Republicans with the Black and Jewish and female led Democrats is BY DEFINITION a white man.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: And that anyone could possibly believe that, in the incredibly unlikely event that Stein had got elected, that she would be able, with no party apparatus behind her in Congress, to just wave her hand and say “complete embargo, yo” and that Congress would just roll over and give her what she wanted.
I mean, who does she think she is, Donald Trump?/
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
balloon-juice.com/2025/08/13/wednesday-afternoon-open-thread-49/#comment-9683346
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Well then, most commenters here fit that description. Nice to know your opinion.
And most of the commenters seem more interested in Democrats winning than what they have done when they won or plan on doing next time. So, yeah, that tracks.
@Professor Bigfoot: More inclusive exploitation is still exploitation.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: I say fuck em. I think they (the ‘deluded’ Arab Americans) wanted to vote for TACO (man, not black, etc.) and they were just looking for a ‘reason’ to do so.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Here’s a recent article about it from Slate.
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: Thank you for responding to that. I was going to, but then was ‘I’m not going to waste 35 secs answering such a stupid question’.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: Alot of Stalin’s flunkies were so much more informed and wilier than the choads we are saddled with now, IMO.
Paul in KY
@sab: It’s a shtick. Lighten up Sandy, baby…
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Dude, you’re overthinking this situation.
Nettoyeur
@Suzanne: No it is later day Naziism
Paul in KY
@Steve LaBonne: That’s one of the reasons she lost. You have to slag whomever you have to slag to win an election. Once again, it’s just business. Nothing personal.
Matt McIrvin
@tam1MI:
Something in me recoiled at this part. Being right is BEING RIGHT even if you fail. Even if your whole country is destroyed. Even if humanity dies out and the heavens fall.
It’s like the Lem story where Trurl the constructor makes a giant, very stupid thinking machine that insists that 2+2=7, and it chases him across the countryside and threatens to crush him and level the whole area with thousands of dead if he won’t agree that 2+2=7, and his friend keeps trying to appease the machine but Trurl just, just can’t do it, because damn it, 2+2 is not 7.
My wife recently told me I seem to have a really deep horror of being wrong. Maybe that’s so.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: I don’t disagree with you that full support for Palestinians and pushing for some sort of statehood for them should be rock-bottom bog-standard foreign policy position for Democrats, regardless.
What I disagree with is the notion that people who voted for Trump on the basis of “well, sure he’s a lying sack of shit but maybe he MEANS it about Gaza” should get a pass for their vote. They made things objectively worse not just for the Palestinians but also for their fellow citizens.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: That was a part of it, I’m sure.
Paul in KY
@zhena gogolia: Then Harris 1 would have been so so much better than Trump 2
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Righto! Mine is SuckaDickCouchFucker. Cheerio!
Paul in KY
@scav: When it comes to winning the Presidency: Yes.
Paul in KY
@tam1MI: I think we could certainly do worse than Mr. Newsom as nominee in 2028. He’s not my number 1 or 2 pick at present time, but he’s a viable candidate.
Paul in KY
@The Audacity of Krope: You need to put down the crack pipe and take chill out time.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t know what you mean about getting “a pass”. I have no way of punishing anyone. I don’t give anyone “a pass” for anything. What’s the way we can “punish” them for their votes? Abandon Palestinians? Nope.
I think that Dems used to get a lot of Arab-American votes and probably could do so again, and thus it’s unstrategic to alienate them.
But lots of people did stupid and self-harming things with their vote. None of that changes my policy views.
Splitting Image
@Matt McIrvin:
Ethics and politics are often two different things. In fact, they are more often than not two different things.
The gay rights movement didn’t begin with the Democratic party embracing the issue in 2010 or so. Before that there were over 40 years of backbreaking work getting enough people to support gay rights that a major political party could support the issue without it killing them at the polls.
It was always right to support gay rights, even before Stonewall. It was never good politics to make it a red line for political support until the Obama administration. It might not even be a good idea now.
As for Gaza, Israel has been on the path it is now on since Netanyahu had Yitzhak Rabin assassinated over 25 years ago, if not earlier. It is ethically right to oppose Netanyahu and has been for a long time.
Most of the Glorious Defenders of Gaza had nothing to say about it until they had a chance to defeat the Democrats, or even the (((Democrats))) in an election, then they pounced.
TEL
@sab: Are you really saying Biden is as bad as Trump?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Ha! Well said, Omnes.
cain
Trump has debased our politics to the point of gutter politics. But that’s who we have to be temporarily. His supporters love this shit. I don’t know what else we can do.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: Does appear to be a ‘tell’, doesn’t it?
The Audacity of Krope
@Paul in KY: It’s a bigger tell that defenders of these Democrats who have been supporting murderous policies abroad and capitalist exploitation everywhere.
A black woman can now own a Congolese sweatshop employing children for a dollar a day. Gay homosexuals can pilot the drones flattening Yemeni schools. This is what equity looks like! /Democrats
Paul in KY
@The Audacity of Krope: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of KEEPING THE FUCKING GQP OUT OF POWER!!!!!!!!!!
The Audacity of Krope
@Paul in KY: Yes, GOP and GOP lite which inexplicably calls themselves Democrats.
zhena gogolia
@Paul in KY: Of course.
TEL
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. I’m also amazed at the amount of energy folks have to spend it all on Israel Palestine issues, when we’re facing all kinds of terrible things in our own back yard because of Trump.
The Audacity of Krope
@TEL: Nothing in our backyard is as bad as what they’re facing. And if my tax money is going to support genocide no matter whom I vote for, my right to marry whomever I want pales in comparison.
It astounds me how myopic people can be about their own needs as they blithely support the pillaging of other nations.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Professor Bigfoot: At this point, I don’t really care. These people have spent a decade shaping a world in which I have to become someone I really didn’t want to be, and now they are begging for my forgiveness and support because the stuff people like me warned them about is happening to them because they didn’t pass the vibe check they were so confident they’d clear. They want to talk disgusting? That’s disgusting. And what’s even more disgusting is, just like 2020, 2018, and 2008, the only way these people are going to figure any of that shit out is for it to be their own asses sitting on the grill. It’s darkly amusing, to be honest, watching such a wide swath of people all realizing at the same time that they aren’t as white as they thought they were.
Ksmiami
@The Audacity of Krope: one party wants healthcare for Americans. The other wants to starve and molest kids. I know which party I’m voting for.
Tehanu
I hold no brief for Newsom, he’s an ambitious schmuck, but at least he’s making noise, so yeah.
TEL
@The Audacity of Krope:
So says someone who lives a very comfortable life, as many white men do. So says someone who has no experience with poverty in the US. You either don’t believe what is happening in our country is real or think it’s no big deal. There are people in the US being deported to prisons, families being torn apart (which Trump also did in his first term), and so many other things directly because of Trump.
Steve LaBonne
My denomination has spoken out against the DC occupation (as I would expect).
Archon
@TEL: That persons view is morally and politically indefensible in 2025.
We are in a popular front crisis moment in a two party system. Therefore anyone NOT supporting Democrats is supporting fascists Republicans, period.
The Audacity of Krope
@TEL: Democrats also brutalize immigrants and the poor. Immigrants because they think it will buy them street cred with Republicans and the poor because we have property values to maintain and those encampments are unsightly.
But at least the Democrats perform the appropriate regret that these supposedly entirely necessary policies continue.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Your anti-pants stance (so to speak) cost us the last election. //
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: Who’s being exploited?
The only political party where Black people have significant power?
You’ll have to forgive me (or not, of course) if I hear “the two parties are the same” from a white man, what I understand is “there are too many Black people and women and Jews with too much power in this party.”
Because if you cannot see THAT fundamental difference— the party with Jews and Black people and women in positions of power and authority, versus the party of outright white supremacy, the party of the Confederacy… it’s hard to take any of your opinions seriously.
Soprano2
I think it’s “all of the above”. You can’t talk about politics and the future of the Democratic Party without talking about race, misogyny, homophobia, and class. It’s all bundled together.
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: Who’s being exploited?
As many people as can get roped into the system, of course. They get it the worst in far-off countries that our bombs have made safe for American commerce, but they’re exploiting Americans, too. Really anyone with a job and it has only been getting worse.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: Oh, I see why you think the two parties are the same.
Thanks for the feedback.
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: So, what is it? You only care about non-white people in America? You’re happy to take advantage of stolen wealth from other nations as long as communities you care about get a slice?
Gotcha.
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist: I disagree. Not pushing the anti-pants stance enough cost us the election.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: No, I consider this one more datapoint in my assumption that American white men are stupid, hateful idiots who cannot see beyond their own selves; who absolutely will not ever listen to anyone who is not one of you, and who have constant shitty takes that completely ignore the role of *white supremacy* in everything you complain about.
So, yeah, we’re fucking done here.
ETA: Obligatory “Not All”
Another Scott
@The Audacity of Krope: Nope.
You apparently, from your arguments, want a dictator. Maybe a benevolent one, but a dictator nonetheless.
Our system is that a majority has to be on-board to pass meaningful legislation. That’s majority rule, that’s democracy, that’s representative government.
People aren’t going to agree on everything that you want them to do. That’s why progress is so hard. That’s why it’s so easy for monsters to block progress. That’s why it’s so easy for demagogues to convince people that guaranteed health insurance is tyranny and guaranteed death for all they hold dear.
The choice isn’t more or lesser evil. The choice isn’t getting what you want or the status quo.
The choice right now, as long as the Republicans are insane and controlled by an actual dictator wannabe, is incremental progress, or enabling monsters to make things worse.
That’s it. “All the rest is commentary.”
If you want faster progress, now and in the near future, then work to elect more Democrats, because they’re not the ones standing in the way – it’s the other guys (and gals).
[/Lt-Obvious]
And I think you know this.
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Archon
@Professor Bigfoot: I have more respect for that MAGA bigots than people like this Krope guy. At least they know the score.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t see where you’re getting that. Because I don’t think Democrats are persuadable? The party is riddled with bigots and myopia cases.
Incremental progress toward what? Democrats, too, make things worse. If actual incremental progress were on the menu, I’d go for that. All we really get a choice in is the tone of voice our leaders use as they authorize pillaging, murder, destruction, and waste.
Another Scott
@The Audacity of Krope: So, you want someone to make things happen on your timeline. You don’t care about competing interests or the reality of our economy or our hundreds of years of rules and laws. Their interests don’t matter.
You don’t want Democracy, where people have to compromise and take half-a-loaf (or less) to get even small things done – you want what you want. You don’t want to persuade others, to get their votes, you want what you want now and aren’t willing to do the work to make it happen. Because you can’t see shades of gray or how politics is slow or how even incremental progress is difficult even when monsters aren’t wrecking everything that makes progress possible.
You want a dictator who will do what you want.
Seems pretty clear to me.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Please don’t worry about the fucking “not all”. Anyone who can’t grasp “if it’s not about you, it’s not about you”- well, it probably IS about them.
The Audacity of Krope
No, as a practical matter I’ve given up on expecting anything good out of the government and politicians. I’ve just stopped deluding myself that Democrats share anything in terms of goals with me. They’re there the advance the needs of capital, same as Republicans, and there isn’t a below-median income community inside this country or out of it that they won’t allow to be crushed so a donor can line their pockets.
I’m not being fooled by the good cop/bad cop routine anymore. Those cops work together. They’re a team.
Another Scott
@The Audacity of Krope:
Ralph, is that you??
Best wishes,
Scott.
==
(Who voted for Nader in 2000, [in Virginia] but grew out of it.)
The Audacity of Krope
For the record, I have been voting straight D tickets for the last 20 years, including last year. I’ve grown out of it
Maybe if the Democrats change, I’ll keep supporting them. And I’m not saying they need to support some particular view of mine or another, before someone gets there. I just need them to stop being murderous billionaire bootlickers.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: Based on the Blogfather’s latest post and pronouncements, I think I’ll continue to add the #ObligatoryNotAllWhiteMen.
Just those who feel the need to defend their whiteness.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Deputinize America: As a retired SI employee, I know to Trumpitize those museums means closing them down. As for Natural History, what will happen to all mentions of climate change and evolution. They are everywhere!
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: Once again, very good points. Policy differences between the 2 parties make that claim laughable, also. Too.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: Use ‘ONA’, IMO. :-)