Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

“They all knew.”

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Florida Flip (Open Thread)

Florida Flip (Open Thread)

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Fellow Floridians and I have frequently complained in this space about the immiserating political dominance of the FL GOP, which has made the state poorer, sicker and dumber since the turn of the century. But tides turn, even in Florida, and here’s some unalloyed good news from the Orlando Sentinel:

In a race seen as a bellwether for Democratic chances in November, Democrat Tom Keen flipped what had been a Republican state House seat in Central Florida in a special election held Tuesday.

Keen, a Navy flight officer who works in the aerospace training and simulation industry, defeated Republican Erika Booth, a teacher and member of the Osceola School Board. Unofficial totals for the District 35 seat had Keen with 51.3% of the vote to Booth’s 48.7%.

Keen, who made abortion rights and property insurance key issues in the race, got between 65% to 70% of nonpartisan, or NPA, voters to make up for Republicans turning out in larger numbers than Democrats, said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst.

“What actually clinched the win for Democrats was this massive margin with NPAs and perhaps some Republican moderates as well,” Isbell said. “If anything, this should be concerning for the GOP because it indicates a voter anger that maybe they have not understood.”

State House District 35 is a swing district that Biden won in 2020 by 5 points and DeSantis won by double digits in 2022. The seat was open because DeSantis cronies who are running the state’s higher education system into the ground appointed the completely unqualified Republican cop-impersonator who held the seat, Fred Hawkins, as president of a small public college.

I guess they figured DeSantis’s 12-point margin of victory in 2022 in the district meant the seat was safe. Oops. Florida House Dem Leader Fentrice Driskell on how Keen won:

“This is the blueprint for how we win elections: ground game, early investments and hard work,” Driskell, who chairs the FHDCC, said. “The FHDCC was on the ground immediately in this district, signing up Democrats to vote by mail and registering new voters through his primary and into the general election. The FHDCC is ready to repeat this formula and break the Republican supermajority this November.

She’s not wrong, but I think more is going on here than FL Dems stepping up. As analyst Isbell pointed out in the O-Sen quote up top, more Republicans voted than Democrats, and it looks like NPA voters and perhaps Republican moderates joined with Dems to put Keen over the top, despite a barrage of negative ads featuring dumb culture war themes and dirty tricks to try to split the non-GOP coalition.

My theory is that negative partisanship is coming into play, which this time benefited the Dems. As we know, the national political media built up a DeSantis boomlet by suggesting the sour-puss stilt-boot wearer was “Trump but competent” and heir apparent of the MAGA horde. But the more voters in other states saw of DeSantis when he launched his presidential campaign, the less they liked him.

What’s less widely known is that his numbers have been sinking in Florida at the same time, and DeSantis is underwater here too now. Most local analysts attribute that to people being pissed off about DeSantis abandoning the state. The theory is Florida voters are angry that DeSantis has been galivanting around Iowa stuffing his face with pork chops on a stick while things go to shit back home.

That’s part of it, but I also think normies are belatedly becoming aware of the FL GOP’s rampant corruption and hypocrisy, which has been on full and embarrassing display ever since the DeSantis 2024 campaign launch. And as the governor acquires loser stink, maybe the state party he transformed in his radical right-wing image is catching some of those odiferous fumes too. Non-Dems who are non-MAGA might therefore pause to think before they automatically tick the R on their ballot, as they did in District 35.

To sum up, I don’t expect the FL GOP’s grip on this state to loosen appreciably anytime soon. The structural factors that put them in power are still in force. But political realignments happen, and they usually start small. The Dem-NPA coalition that put Keen in office could be a sign of things to come.

Open thread.

PS: I’ve been unwell recently, unable to sleep and lacking my usually keen interest in food. But I nodded off before dinner last night and slept until 4 AM this morning, and now I am so hungry I’m thinking about trying to replicate a Denny’s “Moons Over My Hammy” special, perhaps with tomatoes substituting for ham. Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Reader Interactions

176Comments

  6. 6.

    Dangerman

    Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

    Exactly what I say to myself just prior to reading Balloon-Juice and most pron sites.

  10. 10.

    Kristine

    Yea Tom Keen!  I hope this proves the first few pebbles tumbling down the mountainside.

     0F this morning in NE Illinois by the Lake, with a high of !15F! expected. Beach 🏖️ party 🎉.

  14. 14.

    Ken

    I don’t expect the FL GOP’s grip on this state to loosen appreciably anytime soon.

    That would be unfortunate for the arguments of the “I’ll vote Republican so people will see how bad they are” faction — especially as the Florida GOP has been doing their utmost to keep up their side of the plan.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    This morning’s Politico Playbook tells me that Vice President Harris is traveling to New York this morning, in order to appear on ABC’s The View. Should be good.

    There was also a link to a Politico article analysing the Iowa results, by Jessica Piper and Steve Shepard. One highlight: Trump got less than a quarter of the votes in three dozen suburban districts, whereas he got over 90% of the vote in his best 3 dozen rural precints.

    Also, there is a link to a long, long article by Marc Cavuto about the dysfunctional DeSantis campaign and its dysfunctional candidate. It’s published by The Messenger and titled: “The Inside Story of How Ron DeSantis Got Crushed By Donald Trump.”

  20. 20.

    satby

    @Kristine: Yay, baby! Supposed to get to 18° here, and I should be able to bust out the car this afternoon. I hope before the next big snow storm predicted for this evening.

  21. 21.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Good for Keen. The national coverage of DeSantis’s flop may have made voters less willing to associate with his faction.

    It’s 1 above this morning. I give an unironic yay!

  23. 23.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Betty Cracker: I’m thinking about trying to replicate a Denny’s “Moons Over My Hammy” special, perhaps with tomatoes substituting for ham. Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

    Do it, BC! Enjoy having your appetite. We need you to keep your strength up!

  26. 26.

    eclare

    Thanks for this Betty!  Keen winning is a baby step, but it’s also a good sign in the right direction.

  32. 32.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We didn’t get much of the winter storm here in Philly, it turned to freezing rain and left only a couple inches of wet snow. But I’d rather have the snow than deal with what we have, which is a crust of ice on everything. And now we’re getting some of the cold that the rest of you are suffering with. 12 degrees this morning, so the ice is not going anywhere for a while.

  33. 33.

    Bupalos

    YES YES YES.

    Things change. People change. I’d love to hear 99% less chatter about people making plans to try and run away from fascists and 2000% more B. Crackers believing in the most real and permanent thing there is in this world- change.

    translating a sense of place into a will to fight

    What a fantastic surprise this morning, I wasn’t even aware of the race!

  35. 35.

    Ken

    @Geminid: Electoral-vote.com also looked at the Iowa polls, and noted that Trump has solidified his grip on rural and evangelical voters, but lost support among urban and educated voters. As they put it, swing states swing on the votes of the latter group, not the former.

    Another result:

    a sizable percentage of Republican voters would find a Trump conviction to be “disqualifying.” In this particular case, 31% said so. Breaking it down further, 49% of Haley voters, 33% of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) voters, 6% of Vivek Ramaswamy voters and 10% of Trump voters feel that way.

    Ramaswamy for the win!

  36. 36.

    satby

    @Kristine: last night it was saying 4-8 inches here. None of the last 6-7 inches melted off because it’s been so cold; my side street is just snow packed down over ice. No idea how the main streets are. But next Monday we’re finally supposed to rise above 32°, so 5 more days to go.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    but lost support among urban and educated voters

     
    Didn’t someone quote an NYT headline before Iowa stating that educated voters were driving Trump’s success? Anyone else remember that?

  39. 39.

    Bupalos

    @Ken: what’s most interesting about this- since Trump is almost sure to win the nomination and highly unlikely to catch a conviction in time for the general- is it suggests there really may be some actual nevertrumpers among the desantis voters. Which is something most of us are not considering.

  40. 40.

    Karen S.

    I’m not from Baltimore, but my heart sank when I read that the Sinclair Broadcasting Group bought the Baltimore Sun. Since it’s Sinclair, it’s no surprise that the new owner is a horrible person.

    In Chicago weather news, it’s a balmy 6 degrees here in the city. Huzzah!

  41. 41.

    Scout211

    Betty, feel better soon.

    I didn’t realize until this morning (when I looked it up) that my sister is in District 35.  She always refers to the governor as “that idiot” so I’m confident that her vote was for Keen.  Nice. 

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: 38 and 37 today and tomorrow and then back into the deep freeze here. Then we have a warm up into the 40s next week.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    Currently 17° in the north ATL suburbs, but wind chill makes it feel like 5°. I know that sounds ridiculously mild to anyone not in the Deep South, but it is bone-chilling for this swath of the country. No snow, though.

  46. 46.

    marklar

    @Baud: “Didn’t someone quote an NYT headline before Iowa stating that educated voters were driving Trump’s success? Anyone else remember that?”

    The article was about educated REPUBLICAN voters. That’s a different sample from all voters.

    Most social science research since the early 2000’s has found that education is often used to buttress one’s cultural identity (e.g., the relationship between climate change denial (y-axis) and education (x-axis) is an inverted U, with highest levels of denial at both the lowest level of education AND highest level of education.

    If you have the inclination, check out the “Cultural Cognition Project”, run by Dan Kahan, which has a great deal of background on this.

  47. 47.

    Li-Li D

    @schrodingers_cat:  I don’t live in NH, but I’ve asked several family members who do live there to write in Biden on the D side rather than try to play games on the R side.

    I was in Portsmouth, NH on Sunday and did not see a single sign for any presidential candidate!

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @Baud: By an amusing coincidence*, today’s electoral-vote.com also has a piece on the NYT’s obsession with “understanding Trump voters” articles. They link (with full agreement) an article in the Bulwark criticizing the practice.

    * Or IS it?

  52. 52.

    Ken

    @Jackie:  ABC canceled it last night after TIFG and Haley refused to debate.

    And no one wants to see DeSantis try to smile and answer questions for two hours?

  55. 55.

    satby

    @SiubhanDuinne: I know that it’s awful for you all down there. I hope it improves fast for you all soon.

    I’m just being a whiney baby about it because I’ve been stuck without transportation since this all started last Wednesday. And I’m in dire need of cat food before they start eyeballing my well marbled flesh.

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @Baud: electoral-vote and the Bulwark are even stealing some of your talking points — like, if it’s so important to understand the voters, where are the interviews with urban Democrats?

  58. 58.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: NH debate is off. ABC canceled it last night after TIFG and Haley refused to debate.

    Count me as someone who hopes the presidential “debates” are soon a thing of the past.  When a candidate can refuse to  appear and there are no repercussions and the candidates that do appear just make shit up and try to outdo each other for zingers for video clips, it’s just not a debate on issues anymore.  And in my opinion, the debates are of very little value to the campaigns or the voters.  Ugh.

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    No transport for a full week AND out of cat fud? If ever a situation were whineworthy, that’s it. Hope things improve for you fast!

  64. 64.

    Jackie

    Ooooh, threats from MAL:

    Theodore Schleifer: “The Trump campaign has put out the word to major G.O.P. donors that if they’re not on the Trump train by next month, it will be noted on their permanent record—and that forgiveness will get harder thereafter.”

  67. 67.

    Albatrossity

    Great news! I hope that the authorities follow up on the fake text messages dirty trick. Those are becoming all too common, not just in FL but in other states, and it would be nice to see someone caught and punished for that sort of election interference.

  69. 69.

    Scout211

    In open thread news, CNN has an interesting article by their “senior Supreme Court analyst” that links up Gorsuch’s anti-regulatory votes to the fact that his mother was forced to resign from the EPA because of her extreme stance on regulations.

    Anne Gorsuch, a former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, cut a flamboyant, defiant figure in early 1980s Washington as she slashed air and water quality regulations.

    She fought with environmentalists, was held in contempt by Congress and eventually resigned under pressure from the Ronald Reagan White House that had championed her. Her memoir was, appropriately, entitled: “Are You Tough Enough?”
    . . .
    Anne Gorsuch, the first woman to lead the EPA, served from 1981 to 1983. Appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan, she was part of that administration’s massive deregulation agenda that swept across industries from airlines to manufacturing to telecommunications.

    Hers was a rocky tenure. She clashed with congressional investigators who challenged her cuts to air-quality programs and overall management of the agency intended to protect the environment.

    In one of her most defining battles, Gorsuch was held in contempt of Congress in December 1982 after she refused to turn over documents related to a hazardous-waste cleanup fund.

    Administration lawyers had advised her to withhold the documents based on executive privilege, and she later criticized those lawyers – whom she called “the unholy trinity” in her memoir – for misusing her for their own agendas. Pressure mounted all around, and by March 1983 the White House forced her to resign. (In the middle of the ordeal, in February, the divorced Gorsuch married Robert Burford, then-director of the Bureau of Land Management; she became known as Anne Burford.)
    In her 1986 memoir, she wrote that son Neil, then age 15, was distressed by her situation.

    “You should never have resigned,” she recounted him telling her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the President ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?” She added, “He was really upset.”

    Justice Gorsuch declined requests from CNN to talk about his mother’s work.

  70. 70.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I wonder if they’re doing this with Republican Senators. Last time I checked, 23 had endorsed Trump and 26 had not. Two of the Caucus’s elected leadership have endorsed Trump: Campaign Committee Chair Steve Daines and (last week) Conference Chair John Barrasso. Minority Leader McConnell, Whip John Thune, Conference Vice Chair Shelly Moore Capito, and Policy Committee Chair Jodi Ernst have not.

    Daines endorsed Trump last year. One report is that he did this in order to mitigate conflicts over candidates and fundraising.

  73. 73.

    J.

    Glad you are feeling a bit better, Betty.

    Re flipping Florida, the Dems need to field good candidates with messages that resonate. Insurance is a huge issue for Florida homeowners and those considering living here. And not that I think Democrats can do anything about the insane insurance market, but candidates should still hammer Republicans on the issue. I also think that using freedom in messaging — freedom to live as you choose without Republicans invading your privacy — would be a win for Dems, especially with NPAs and moderate Rs.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @Jackie:

    Interesting threat, since Trump will probably have secured the nomination next month, probably effectively on Super Tuesday.

  76. 76.

    eclare

    @satby:

    As I wrote earlier, I will probably be stuck at home til Monday, which will be a full week, and I am running out of pet food.  Luckily I have plenty of human food:  canned tuna for my cat and Cheerios/cooked oatmeal for my dog.  The oatmeal is the instant brown sugar and cinnamon kind, so it has way too much sugar, but desperate times and all that.

    Good luck getting the car out and getting cat food!

  78. 78.

    Jeffro

     

    today Thomas Edsall linked to a longer piece from 2019 about why trumpov has such a hold on American evangelicals:

    Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University and an expert on the role of religion in politics, published an article in 2019, “Are White evangelicals Populists? The View From the 2016 American National Election Study.” The essay describes the basis for the strong affinity of white evangelicals for Trump’s conservative populism.
    “White evangelicals,” Guth found, “are invariably the most populist: more likely to favor strong leadership (even when that means breaking the rules), to distrust government, to see the country on the ‘wrong’ track, and to think that the majority should always rule (and minorities adapt).”

    Guth also found that

    another salient trait of populist politics is the willingness to ignore democratic civility. We constructed a ‘rough politics’ score from three A.N.E.S. items: whether protesters deserve what they get if they are hurt in demonstrating, whether the country would be better off if it got rid of “rotten apples,” and whether people are “too sensitive” about political discourse. Here the usual pattern recurs: Evangelical affiliation, evangelical identity and biblical literalism predicts agreement with those assertions, while religious minorities, secular folks and “progressives” tend to demur.

    Guth ranked religious groups on their level of support for conservative populism and found that

    Evangelicals end up far above any other religious group, with about two-thirds falling into the populist category. White Catholics, mainline Protestants and Latter-day Saints have significant numbers in that group, but far fewer than evangelicals and nowhere near a majority. The religiously unaffiliated and minority ethnoreligious groups have few populists — often very few — with Jews, agnostics/atheists, Black Protestants and members of world religions the most anti-populist.

    Guth wrote that his “findings help us understand what many have struggled to comprehend: how can white evangelical Protestants continue to provide strong support for President Donald Trump, whose personal values and behavior trample on the biblical and ethical standards professed by that community.”

    The most common explanation, according to Guth,

    is that white evangelicals have a transactional relationship with the president: as long as he nominates conservative jurists and makes appropriate gestures on abortion and sexual politics, they will support him.

    “The evidence here,” he wrote, “suggests a more problematic answer”:

    White evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility toward immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism, and nativism, as well as his “political style,” with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership. Indeed, Trump’s candidacy may have “authorized” for the first time the widespread expression of such attitudes.

    Guth took his analysis a step farther, suggesting that pro-Trump, conservative populism has become entrenched in the white evangelical community:

    The pervasive populism of white evangelical laity not only helps explain their support for President Trump, but suggests powerful barriers to influence by “cosmopolitan internationalist” evangelical elites, who want to turn the community in a different direction. As hostile responses to efforts of anti-populist evangelicals like Michael Gerson, Russell Moore, David Platt and many others indicate, there is currently a very limited market for such alternative perspectives among the rank and file. Indeed, the vocal populism of many of the conservative evangelicals filling President Trump’s religious advisory council is probably more representative of the community as a whole.

    Guth went on:

    Nor does cosmopolitan or cooperative internationalism find much purchase among local evangelical clergy. Analysis of the 2017 Cooperative Clergy Survey shows that ministers from several Evangelical denominations, especially the large Southern Baptist Convention and Assemblies of God, exhibit exactly the same populist traits seen here in white Evangelical laity, but in more pronounced form: strong Islamophobia, Christian nationalism, extreme moral traditionalism, opposition to trade pacts, militaristic attitudes, resistance to political compromise, and climate change denial, among others.

    (I find that last part fascinating: why would evangelicals oppose trade pacts or deny climate change?  Answer: because they’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by the propaganda paid for by the plutocrat wing of the GOP)

    In other words, conservative populism, with all its anti-democratic implications, has taken root in America. What we don’t know is for how long — or how much damage it will do.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    Pro tip for Trump.  If you have to threaten people to get their support, you’re not getting their support.  You’re getting their obedience, and resentment.  Not the same thing as support.

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    I think Florida might be experiencing some of the same feelings of regret as Brexit fans in the UK: We were mean to gays/immigrants/brown people…. And it didn’t fix it!

    Being a fucken dick is a flex for some people, but that hit wears off.

    Also, LMAO at the UK. Way to go from a global empire to a shitty backwater. I would find it even funnier if we weren’t doing the same thing.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    Also of note: DeSantis speaks some truth for a change

    (he’ll still kiss the ring in a week or two, though)

    During a CNN town hall Tuesday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Republicans will lose if the election is focused on Donald Trump’s legal challenges, noting that Trump could get convicted when the Jan. 6 election interference case goes to trial.

    “We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues. We want it to be a referendum on the country going in the wrong direction,” DeSantis said. “I just don’t think we’re going to succeed if all those issues are front and center on voters’ minds.”

    DeSantis said Trump did so well in the Iowa caucuses because he is “one of the most famous people that’s ever been involved in American politics.” But about half the electorate “made another choice, so that shows me that there is an appetite for a different leader,” DeSantis argued.

    Those last two comments especially – wow!  “Here’s why he won in the first place: decades of fame.  Here’s why he’s not good for us in 2024: when it comes down to it, about half of us are not trump cultists.”

  83. 83.

    eclare

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I think the same.  If so, I wonder if Biden will do what Obama did in 2008 and air a 30 minute video of his plans and beliefs.  So many people only see the horrible soundbites of him stuttering over a word and think he has lost it mentally.  That could help, maybe.

  85. 85.

    geg6

    I’m thinking about trying to replicate a Denny’s “Moons Over My Hammy” special, perhaps with tomatoes substituting for ham.

    I have no earthly idea what this is, but it sounds like a horrible idea. I’m not a breakfast person, but if I’m having one, it’s going to be either a soft boiled egg on toast with maybe a bacon side or, if I’m going all out, eggs Benedict.

  86. 86.

    geg6

    @NotMax: ​
     
    Currently 10F here in Western PA, with wind making it feel like -6. And the local weather person tells me it will be 50F next week.

  89. 89.

    Redshift

    Hope you continue to get better, BC!

    It got down to 15 and windy here last night, and will be again tonight. We’ve just hunkered down since the snow, but laziness will probably drive me to get out and put some ice melt on the walk, so it will melt without any effort – today’s the only sunny day this week.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    @geg6:  Our breakfasts have become gigantic.  Scrambled eggs, lots of veggies, tomatoes, spinach and veggie sausage, plus avocado and PB&J toast.   Nonetheless, by lunchtime there we are again.

  91. 91.

    satby

    @eclare: yeah, I even toyed with loading Instacart to get something delivered. If you have any frozen ground beef or chicken, [cooking] it and plain rice with the drippings tossed together make a great substitute dog food. Hope you can bust out soon too!

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @geg6: I have no earthly idea what this is,

     

    I suspect pancakes, eggs and hash browns all over ham. probably no bacon or sausage, but you never know.

  93. 93.

    Jackie

    @Baud: I think it’s donations – I read his small donations are slowing to a trickle. They’re probably tapped out so he needs those corporate donations. Fighting lawsuits ain’t cheap lol

  95. 95.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: If you have read “The Authoritarians” and learned about ‘authoritarian followers’, this is EXACTLY what the those evangelicals who favor Trump, are. Too bad Guth did not mention it.

     

    They will ignore failings in their leader if he is hurting the right people.

  96. 96.

    eclare

    @satby:

    I can’t in good conscience ask a delivery driver to brave my slippery front porch steps if I won’t.  I doubt they would try anyway.  I don’t have any frozen chicken or beef, and I don’t think I have any rice but I’ll check.  Thanks for the suggestion!

  101. 101.

    frosty

    @Karen S.: I am from Baltimore (well, Baltimore-adjacent now) and I saw the news about the Sun. I finally cancelled my subscription of 20+ years when the Tribune bought them. Then it got sold to a hedge fund guy. And now this sale.

    I hate that my go-to paper now is the WaPo. Someone from Baltimore reading a DC paper? Mortifying!

  102. 102.

    catclub

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think Trump will be happy to debate if he is told it will rev up his devoted followers.  He has a routine that will still work for them.  Ignore the questions and reject the authority of the moderator.

     

    The problem will be if his advisors tell him he needs to convince moderates who have not decided between him and Biden, by debating sensibly.  No can do.

  103. 103.

    kindness

    My uneducated notion is that Democrats problem with Florida voters is that far too many Florida voters don’t bother to vote.  There are any number of reasons as to why.  My beef is that the poor in Florida don’t seem to link their wellbeing/government with their lives and blow it off.  I have no clue how to motivate these folk to get to the polls and vote.

  106. 106.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jeffro:

    What defines populism as a general political phenomenon? In my view, three fundamental features are key:

    • Appeals to the people: Populists invariably point to the wisdom and virtue of the “true” people (while sometimes conceding that the people have been corrupted or enfeebled) as opposed to the perfidy of elites and outsiders. These appeals are almost always anti-institutional, often conflating elites with the institutions that house them. Which elites populists are against can vary dramatically, however.

    • Grievance rather than program: Populists are generally far more articulate and passionate about what they’re against than what they’re for. It’s not that populists never have programs. It’s just that the programs are not the essence of their appeal. The essence of their appeal is a protest against a system and elites who are failing the people.

    • Experience over knowledge: There’s no such thing as a populist intellectual, or a populist scientist, or a populist expert. What people see with their own eyes is accorded higher value than whatever the pettifogging facts that the bean-counters may trot out.

    Source.  I am always a bit suspicious of populist movements.

  108. 108.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    What gets me about that piece is the use of the term populism.  When I first encountered the term in the 1970s, it meant siding with the average people against the moneyed interests – the big corporations and so forth.

    Now I’m not sure what it means.  These days, what’s called ‘populism’ seems to be all about punching down on women and minorities, and pwning the libs, of course.  I’d just call that racism and misogyny.

  109. 109.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jeffro:

    (I find that last part fascinating: why would evangelicals oppose trade pacts or deny climate change?  Answer: because they’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by the propaganda paid for by the plutocrat wing of the GOP)

    They’ve been reflexively opposed to any sort of cooperation that might help lift up other countries (especially ones with Black/Brown people) since the 50’s.  The whole notion of even considering the needs of other countries is anathema to their worldview.  It really is: America, fuck yeah!  And they view the planet as their little bundle of resources that God granted them for endless extraction and profit.  I don’t think they were brainwashed so much by GOP/plutocrat propaganda so much as GOP/plutocrats figured out how to tailor the propaganda to tell them what they already wanted to hear.

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: Those are interesting points. Much to chew on there.

    They would suggest that someone like Senator Professor “I’ve got a plan for that” Warren is not a populist. Though I believe she is deeply concerned with how governance and policy affect people to the point of making it her life’s work.

  111. 111.

    EarthWindFire

    @Ken: I live across the Potomac from DC. I’ve often observed that the same WP writers who can sit in Ohio diners understanding Trumpublicans for hours on end couldn’t be bothered to cross the river to ask anyone why they voted for the first AA president. Gee, why might that be?

  114. 114.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @lowtechcyclist: Now I’m not sure what it means. These days, what’s called ‘populism’ seems to be all about punching down on women and minorities, and pwning the libs, of course. I’d just call that racism and misogyny.

    Perhaps “manipulating poular sentiment in a particular way and harnessing it for power” would be a definition that fits both scenarios.

    There’s still that element where the undesired effect is being pushed from unaccountable powers above, just Republicans unhelpfully point that impulse away from wealth imbalance and toward diversity initiatives.

  115. 115.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jeffro: I was reading an account of the DeSantis townhall earlier, and I’m almost tempted to watch part of it because this sounds so unbelievable:

    DeSantis sought to connect with town hall attendees in more personal ways Tuesday night…

    The looser, gentler DeSantis onstage in New Hampshire looked like a much different candidate than the one who entered the presidential race with a reputation as a brawler in Florida.

    “I don’t take the politics personally. People attack me — that’s just the price of doing business,” he said.

    Wait, what? This is the asshole who’s still going after Mickey Mouse at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars because they criticized his stupid anti-LBBTQ law.

    We’ve seen DeSantis change personas before. When he ran as an unknown (outside of Fox News) backbencher in the general election, he was deer-in-the-headlights guy who tried to play down the extremism he displayed during the primary.

    Early in his governorship, DeSantis mostly kept a low profile and occasionally did moderate things, like funding environmental projects and raising teacher pay. But then COVID happened, and he turned into the angry, sneering right-wing pumpkin we’re familiar with today.

    The persona CNN describes sounds completely different. I don’t know if I’m up for seeing that today.

  116. 116.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: “White evangelicals,” Guth found, “are invariably the most populist: more likely to favor strong leadership (even when that means breaking the rules), to distrust government, to see the country on the ‘wrong’ track, and to think that the majority should always rule (and minorities adapt).”

     

    This is the definition of authoritarian followers. Guth is doing a disservice by not labeling it as such.

  117. 117.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Commentator KM over at Outside the Beltway has put up a gofundme:

    Hi! My name is Kelly and it’s been a difficult year with several emergencies, one after another. My mother passed away suddenly in an accident several months ago and she didn’t leave much behind. I had to pay several thousand for the surprise funeral, the taxes on the house and other outstanding bills. She left behind a dog (the beauty in the pic) that’s needed some vet bills covered over the year – the last was over $500! To round the year out, I was diagnosed with several masses in my abdomen that required prompt surgery for fear it was cancer in November. I ended up with an unexpected overnight hospital stay because of complications. Thank God I’m out of the hospital and doing well but ending the year with $5,000 in medical debt has placed me in a precarious place.

    To that end, I asking any generous soul to help donate to cover all the unexpected costs 2023 left me. $8,000 will help me get back on our feet after a sad and finically challenging time. It will cover the hospital stay as well as cover the funeral costs. Thank you so much!

    She’s a good ‘un. I put in a few bucks to help her out. If anybody here feels like helping, she will appreciate it.

  119. 119.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    And the bit about white evangelicals was, um, interesting:

    White evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility toward immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism, and nativism, as well as his “political style,” with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership. Indeed, Trump’s candidacy may have “authorized” for the first time the widespread expression of such attitudes.

    IOW, who would Jesus be an asshole to?  I want to just go through some of these idiots’ Bibles, and rip out the passages that they dishonor, starting with “love your neighbor as yourself.”

    The Bible is also very particular about immigrants. Deuteronomy 10:17-19: “[The Lord] loves the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt.”

  120. 120.

    Scout211

    True to form, it has happened.

    Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday went after Nikki Haley while referring to her by her first name, Nimarata, in the latest example of Trump using racist dog whistles to attack his GOP presidential rival.

  122. 122.

    lowtechcyclist

    @eclare:

    “Permanent record”?  OMFG, are we truants in high school being threatened by a principal?

    Indeed.

    But the funny part is that they’re trying to threaten donors with this talk.  Yeah, they’re shivering in their boots, I bet: they’re thinking, “what are you going to do, refuse to take my money? Oh noes!”

  123. 123.

    Miss Bianca

    @Scout211: I didn’t want to get into the middle of the “Nikki’s name” wars the other day, but this right here is exactly the point I would want to make –  if Trump goes there, that is a positive sign that no upstanding person should.

  126. 126.

    satby

    @Omnes Omnibus: Hofstader’s book was published in 1955; Hoffer’s was published 1959. Both drawing on lessons from a war that we still need to remember, lest we repeat that horrible history.

  127. 127.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Trump will find some reason not to debate Biden either.

    Trump will try. I think Biden will straight out call him a coward and will comment on how he’s losing his faculties. If he does, Trump can’t refuse without looking really weak. Trump can get away with refusing to debate the GOP candidates. They have all been afraid of alienating his supporters. Dark Brandon doesn’t need to care about that. They would never vote for him anyway.

  128. 128.

    Jeffro

    @Omnes Omnibus: thanks for the link, that is fascinating!

     

    Generalizing from the Agrarian party, Hofstadter noted that as a general matter populism appeals

    “…to those who have attained only a low level of education, whose access to information is poor, and who are so completely shut out from access to centers of power that they feel themselves completely deprived of self-defense and subjected to unlimited manipulation by those who wield power. . . .  One finds in Populist literature as well as among their agitators the following: the conception of history as conspiracy; an obsessive concern with the fabulous enjoyments deemed to be the lot of the plutocrats; cynicism about the two party system; the notion that the world is moving toward an immense apocalypse; the exclusive attention to the greed and other personal vices of bankers and other selected plutocrats, as opposed to structural analysis of the social system; anti-Semitism and xenophobia; the appeal to the native simplicity and virtue of the folk. . . . There are, moreover, certain types of popular movements of dissent that offer special opportunities to agitators with paranoid tendencies, who are able to make a vocational asset out of the psychic disturbances. Such persons have an opportunity to impose their own style of thought upon the movements they lead . . .”

    Reading this passage, many of these features bear uncanny resemblances to our own contemporary populists, not least those who believe in the existence of a supposed “Deep State.”

  129. 129.

    smith

    Wow, in court today Alina (“not smart and not all that pretty”) Habba just asked again for an adjourment so TFG could attend his MIL’s funeral, despite being smacked down yesterday for asking after being denied. Smacked down again. Judge just admonished her for not standing when making an objection. This is starting to look like a planned strategy to me. I’m expecting TFG to break into a rant any time now to try and provoke a mistrial.

  130. 130.

    Jeffro

    @UncleEbeneezer:I don’t think they were brainwashed so much by GOP/plutocrat propaganda so much as GOP/plutocrats figured out how to tailor the propaganda to tell them what they already wanted to hear.

    Yeah, maybe.  Or they just tied evangelicals’ issues up with the plutocrats’ issues into a neat little bundle of ignorance and hate via Fox News’ 24/7 propaganda blast?

    It is interesting that there seems to be such strong correlation these days between what should be separate issues: i.e., if you are an NRA supporter, you’re also likely to believe climate change is a hoax and that we spend half our budget on foreign aid, etc etc.

  131. 131.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jeffro: It is interesting that there seems to be such strong correlation these days between what should be separate issues: i.e., if you are an NRA supporter, you’re also likely to believe climate change is a hoax and that we spend half our budget on foreign aid, etc etc.

    Well, the Republican Party has helpfully aggregated virtually all of the bad ideas and put them in one place for us.

  136. 136.

    geg6

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     
    Totally agree on what my former understanding of what populism was. It seems to me that populism is just a term they use to avoid calling them racist misogynists.

  138. 138.

    Ken

    @smith: Ah, hence all the quote hypothetical unquote questions being asked on the legal blogs, about “have you ever said this to a judge, and how did it work out for you”?

  139. 139.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: There is such a thing as “crank magnetism”: particularly with conspiracy theories, belief in one tends to lead to belief in as many of them as possible, even if they’re contradictory.

    You get people who believe both that the Moon landings were faked in a studio, and that the astronauts discovered aliens when they went there.

    Just yesterday on Facebook I saw someone trying his best to reconcile his belief in both of those things into one coherent story, and it got really convoluted. He seemed to actually believe the old joke that the Moon landings were faked but they were shot on location. I think the idea was that NASA fabricated the Apollo program to cover up the fact that the saucer aliens were giving them rides to the Moon on the regular.

  141. 141.

    smith

    @Ken: I think Engoron was entirely too lenient with the ongoing blatant disrespect in his fraud trial, and, as I said above, I think TFG’s team may have adopted it as a strategy. They are still attempting to try his cases via public opinion instead of the judicial system, with the goal of denying the legitimacy of the courts.

  142. 142.

    Ken

    @Matt McIrvin: the saucer aliens were giving them rides to the Moon on the regular.

    Oooh, nice. And you could tie in any number of other conspiracy theories, by claiming they were the “payment” for these rides. Saucer aliens want adrenochrome!

  143. 143.

    RevRick

    Question. Does this district have a substantial Hispanic population,,who tend to be irregular voters?

    That could explain the anemic Democratic turnout. Which makes this great news.

  144. 144.

    Hamlet of Melnibone

    I think I’d forgive Haley all of her many sins if she’d get down in the mud with Trump.  #DiaperDon attacks please!

  147. 147.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: Historically, there was a connection between the “anti-moneyed-interests” and the more sinister, racist-authoritarian types of “populism”. Andrew Jackson was both, for instance. Huey Long, though he was, interestingly, probably less racist against Black people than the average white politician of that time and place.

    You still see that surfacing sometimes in the “horseshoe left”. Railing against the banksters often shades into antisemitic conspiracy theories. All the people who came to prominence during the Great Recession as critics of the financial industry, but were really some sort of quasi-libertarian goldbug. The figures like Matt Taibbi allying with the cultural right. I think the Wikileaks/Assange type of supposedly anti-imperialist radicalism was also an example, the way they got classified with the far left but somehow mostly attacked liberals and not the extreme right even when the extreme right took over the government.

  148. 148.

    BlueGuitarist

    Sad that so many Iowa Caucasians aren’t embarrassed to say the loser won the last election. The Know-Nothings have completely taken over the Republican Party; in the 1850s the Republican Party absorbed a significant part of the Know-Nothing Party, a group notable for their bigotry and conspiracy theories.

    Excellent news about Florida State House!
    As H.E. Wolf mentioned last night, Postcards to Voters helped get out the Democratic vote in that election.
    Lots of ways we can make a difference, including postcards, contributing to candidates and GOTV, sharing good news, good cheer, music, snark, all the full service blog practical info…
    Getting fired up and ready to go!

  149. 149.

    Ken

    @smith: I agree, with the one mitigating factor being that this wasn’t a trial before a jury or the public; it was a trial to determine the fines and other punishments for what has already been found to be criminal fraud. (Same, really, as the second Carroll trial.)

    And in that regard, Trump’s courtroom rant was about as far as you can get from “acknowledgement of guilt”, “show of remorse”, “promise not to repeat the crime”, and all the other things that judges look for in sentencing. So I think Trump shot himself in the foot.

  150. 150.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

    If you are trying to give DougJ competition, I say well done.

    Maybe, but I think it needed more “At this diner in Keene, NH, …” [NB: “At the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, NH …” would have been an acceptable substitute.]

  151. 151.

    BlueGuitarist

    @RevRick:

    Question. Does this district have a substantial Hispanic population,,who tend to be irregular voters?

    According to Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA), FL-H-035 population is 33% Hispanic;
    CVAP (Citizen Voting Age Population): 27.5%.
    The DRA map shows a district geographically larger than neighboring ones, consisting of bluer, more urban, more Hispanic precincts nearer Orlando and redder areas, less urban, less Hispanic.

  152. 152.

    Sister Golden Bear

    As property and car insurance in Florida continue spiraling out of control to crush people around the state with no end in sight, and affordable housing remains difficult to find as Florida leads the nation in inflation, Republicans in the legislature are laser focused on banning Pride and BLM flags.

    Part of Republican efforts to erase eradicate LGB, and especially T, people. Also too, I’ve lost track of which state it was — because so many anti-trans bills have been introduced in the last week or two — but another state is trying of define trans people as inherently “obscene” and ban us from appearing anywhere there might be children. Which effectively bans trans people from being in public at all. This is literally a direct strategy from the Project 2025 handbook.

  153. 153.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    It’s probably too much to hope for, but I would like to see Carroll awarded upwards of $100M.

    Which would probably reduce Shitgibbon’s net worth by 50 percent. [I believe he’s a billionaire about as much as I believe the Jets will win this year’s Super Bowl. And that’s even with the “emoluments” he received while occupying the WH.]

  155. 155.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @smith: I’ve also heard legal commentary that they are trying to goad the judge(s) into a reaction they can use as evidence of bias on appeal. So judges are giving him a lot of latitude where they ordinarily wouldn’t to a defendant, just to minimize that possibility.

  156. 156.

    smith

    @Ken: True, but in the current trial there is a jury, so the potential damage is much higher. At least Judge Kaplan is not taking any of their shit — he’s already today told Habba to sit down and shut up at least thre times, told her to stand when addressing the court, and just admonished TFG to keep his voice down so the jury doesn’t hear his commentary. (For anyone who’s interested, a blow-by-blow account can be found here, a nitter link.)

  157. 157.

    smith

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m guessing that the judges he might appeal to would be extremely not amused by his antics, and would give any frustrated judge a lot of leeway in yanking his chain. He certainly has had very little luck in his appeals so far.

  158. 158.

    Jackie

    @RevRick: I was surprised it made all the major MSM headlines – it must be a more significant win than we realize! I saw one blurb stating it’s a good omen for the Nov elections.🤞🏻🤞🏻

  159. 159.

    BlueGuitarist

    @RevRick:
    @BlueGuitarist:

    Based on 4 precincts in each group
    Blue precincts, 36% Hispanic:
    2020 73% Biden, 43% turnout
    2022 66% Crist, 20% turnout

    Red precincts: 14% Hispanic
    2020: 80% Trump, 70% turnout
    2022: 84% DeSantis, 53% turnout

    (Turnout = votes/citizen voting age population; not necessarily registered voters)

  160. 160.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I heard Tom Keen on I think Joe Sudbay’s State of the States(a really good show focused on local state politics/races) show on Sirius over the weekend. Keen came across as a really good candidate. I hope he goes for something bigger down the road.

  161. 161.

    Jackie

    BettyCracker, hope your tummy gets better FAST for potential popcorn celebrating:

    “The super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in the presidential race began carrying out layoffs on Wednesday, even as the campaign insisted he had a path forward,” the New York Times reports.

    “It was unclear how broad the layoffs were at the super PAC, Never Back Down. The group had spent heavily on a vast field operation in Iowa, taking over many of the responsibilities of a traditional campaign, but Mr. DeSantis lost the state’s caucuses to former President Donald Trump on Monday by 30 percentage points.”

  162. 162.

    Denali5

    @Betty C

    I actually found fried green tomatoes at a restaurant up here in the frozen western New York State. They were  heavenly.

  163. 163.

    Scout211

    @Miss Bianca:didn’t want to get into the middle of the “Nikki’s name” wars the other day, but this right here is exactly the point I would want to make –  if Trump goes there, that is a positive sign that no upstanding person should.

    Yep.

    I hope we can refrain from copying Trump and his band of racist campaign advisors.

  164. 164.

    Anyway

    @kindness:

    My uneducated notion is that Democrats problem with Florida voters is that far too many Florida voters don’t bother to vote.  There are any number of reasons as to why.  My beef is that the poor in Florida don’t seem to link their wellbeing/government with their lives and blow it off.  I have no clue how to motivate these folk to get to the polls and vote.

    One of the voter suppression tactics in Red states is to have voting rights suspended after many encounters with law enforcement and the judicial system – it’s never clear when those rights are restored.  It’s not unreasonable for POC and urban folk (the main targets of voter suppression) to be wary of trying to vote. There have been reports where people whose records were cleared were questioned and probed when they showed up to vote.

    Our Aussie commenter in the am threads gets a lot of pushback but she is right that the US system puts up many blocks to voting from POC and the disadvantaged. Also the various jurisdictions involved make it much harder for people to even find out their voting status after it’s been suspended.

    I don’t think it’s this complicated and messed up in other countries.

  166. 166.

    Ken

    @Jackie: (solemn voice) We must remember that super PACs such as Never Back Down are completely independent of the candidate they support. As such their actions, whether running ads or winding up operations, are in no way correlated with the operations of the campaign itself. Anything else would be Against Campaign Finance Law. (end solemn voice)

    As for “the campaign insisted he had a path forward”, his most plausible path to the Presidency would to become Trump’s VP and pray for a miracle in the form of a cheeseburger-induced infarction; but he’s pretty well closed off that path by having the temerity to run against Trump in the first place.

  171. 171.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    Jeez, it’s abortion.  Dobbs is the worst decision since Koromatsu or Dredd Scott.  It has made pregnant women barely citizens, with no right to the best health care for their conditions.

    This isn’t even hard to guess.

  172. 172.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Meant to add this earlier but hooray for the FL news!  Nice to finally see a small sliver of hope.  Happy for you Betty C :)

  175. 175.

    louc

    @Anyway: One of the tricks Ron DeSantis pulled in 2022 was having FDLE officers several formerly incarcerated who received voter registration cards. They received them after the ballot initiative was passed restoring voting rights to convicted felons who had served their time. All the charges against them were eventually dropped. But the damage was done and people in several communities stayed home in droves.

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