I will put a good bottle of whiskey on the fact that Trump actually does better in the electoral college this time than he did in 2016.
In the end, this is not going to be about Biden and Trump, it is going to be about the "woke" left, riots, looting, burned businesses, frightened homeowners, defunding police, vilifying police, Antifa, and a democratic party that could not distinguish between legit riots and criminal conduct.
Yep. This Bernie voter has completely come around to Trump because the Dems refuse to disavow these riots. Some of them even encouraged them!
I grew up in LA in the area impacted by the LA Riots. The Korean community was devastated by them. Anyone who encourages rioting is an enemy of the people.
I find the actions of the Democratic Party treacherous and treasonous. Imo, they should not even be allowed to be a party anymore. I gladly vote for a candidate that believes in basic modern civility. The Dems have set such a low bar. No matter what they say about Trump, he’s still more palatable than they are.
I'm sorry, I'm not defending the Democrats as a whole, but the idea that Trump believes in "basic modern civility" is laughable. He has spent four years stoking discord, seemingly because he finds it amusing. He doesn't like the police because they encourage civility. He likes them because he likes the idea of authority beating down on anyone who challenges him and his positions.
Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost. If you think he's going to go quietly if he loses this time, you're kidding yourself. And consider what kind of messages -- subtle or direct -- he will send to his supporters in that case. I seriously doubt it's going to be "Let's all just be calm and ensure a peaceful transfer of power." He's going to claim fraud and conspiracy and illegitimate results and imperil our whole democratic system just because he can't handle losing...speaking of "treacherous and treasonous." Let's remember he claimed repeatedly and without any evidence that three million people voted illegally in 2016, and that was when he *won." What do you think he'll do if he loses? What in the world makes you believe he will be civil and put the country first?
And you're lumping Biden in with the more progressive wing and the DNC at large. Biden is not among those people, and he has not excused the rioting. I just googled his remarks in response to the protests. Here's an excerpt:
"The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that can bring us together. Leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for too long.
But there is no place for violence.
No place for looting or destroying property or burning churches, or destroying businesses — many of them built by people of color who for the first time were beginning to realize their dreams and build wealth for their families.
Nor is it acceptable for our police — sworn to protect and serve all people — to escalate tensions or resort to excessive violence.
We need to distinguish between legitimate peaceful protest — and opportunistic violent destruction."
His position is pretty clear. Not sure how Trump is so much more palatable than that.
"Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost. If you think he's going to go quietly if he loses this time, you're kidding yourself. And consider what kind of messages -- subtle or direct -- he will send to his supporters in that case. I seriously doubt it's going to be "Let's all just be calm and ensure a peaceful transfer of power." He's going to claim fraud and conspiracy and illegitimate results and imperil our whole democratic system just because he can't handle losing"
I love this part. You just described what the Left has been doing EVERY SINGLE DAY since November 2016. RECOUNT! FAITHLESS ELECTORS! RUSSIA! UKRAINE! IMPEACH! 25th AMENDMENT!! Every single effing day. Maxine Waters was saying Congress should remove him using the 25th Amendment just yesterday.
Honestly if you guys didn't have projection, double standards and ad hominem you'd sit in the corner like houseplants with nothing at all to say.
Please point out where I lied. You Trumpkins need to learn that "saying something you don't like" is not the same as a lie.
So you go ahead and point out which part of my statement was a lie -- an assertion of fact that is not fact. I'm not asking for your personal feelings on the Democrats or Trump or my opinion. Show me where I made a false statement of fact. I'll wait.
I'm not "the left." I'm certainly not Maxine Waters, and I haven't once called for a recount. I think the electoral college is stupid -- and I did long before Trump was ever a candidate -- but he won fair and square based on the electoral system we have. For what it's worth, a bipartisan congressional panel, led by a Republican, released a report just last week confirming that the Russians meddled in the election to aid Trump. I'm not saying he was colluding with them, but that the Russians tried to sway the election in his favor is not in doubt. There is little doubt he solicited the Ukrainian's president as well. Whether that constitutes an impeachable offense is up for debate. Whether it happened is not.
I pointed out *what he himself said* as a basis for my opinion. He said, repeatedly, that three million people voted illegally, which is the margin by which he lost the popular vote. There has never been a scintilla of evidence to support this claim. Any time anything at all makes him look bad, it's someone else's fault. The man is incapable of humility. Everything is a conspiracy. Everything is fake news. "I take no responsibility." And so on. Irrespective of his political positions, it is apparent to anyone but die-hard Trumpkins that he is a total narcissist who is incapable of accepting defeat.
I'm not defending the left. I take issue with a lot of what they do. But that has no bearing on Trump's character and his demonstrated record of refusing to accept reality when it makes him look bad.
Honestly if you didn't have gross overgeneralizations and deflections, you'd sit in the corner like someone trying to dream up gross overgeneralizations and deflections because he is incapable of addressing the point at issue.
I don’t care what Trump said. I care that he’s actually trying to stop these riots and the Democratic mayors and governors won’t let him. I review people by their actions.
Well if the election were Trump vs. the mayor of Chicago, you might have a point. Lucky for us, it's not. And we have four years of Trump's other reprehensible actions on which to pass judgment.
But you do you. Picking the leader of the whole country based on what's happened over a few weeks in a few cities seems like good judgment.
First, we do not have to like our choices but they are the ones we have. Neither of these parties or their leaders are going to address all of our issues in the way we want.
We could sit and bitch all day and probably agree on the fact that we need more parties with differing perspectives.
So then....on what basis do we choose?
1. War & Peace - Every president for the last century, maybe longer, has gotten us into a military conflict of some sort but lets just go back to the early 90's. Bush Sr. got us into Iraq. He was probably right and he probably handled it in the right way but we got into a war. Bill Clinton got us into Bosnia. Bush Jr, went nuts and got us into Afghanistan (justified originally) and then Iraq and thought he was going to change the middle east. Instead, we blew up the middle east resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and more of our soldiers killed and maimed and our treasury wiped out. Then comes Obama who rightly or wrongly refused to get us out of the places Bush Jr. got us into and THEN at the behest of his Sec State (Hillary) helped overthrow Ghadafi in Libya (turning a healthy country into a failed state) and then got us into Syria and a potential conflict with Russia and Turkey with more dead civilians, more dead soldiers and another near failed state. To top it off, Obama authorized the assassination of US Citizens overseas using drones.
For all of the hand wringing and prognosticating, what has Trump done? He is pulling troops our of Afghanistan. Tried to do the same in Syria with some success. BUT...NO NEW WARS! (think maybe that might be why the intel community and the defense establishment hate him? He is bad for their business)
So...on War and Peace...Trump earns a vote.
2. Economy: Until COVID hit, the US economy was humming along nicely. Trump challenged the Wall Street and Silicon Valley orthodoxy on free trade, a role that would have been filled by democrats prior to Bill Clinton, and Trump was right to do so. He reworked NAFTA, an agreement that in the end everyone knew needed to be updated. He challenged China, a country that never should have been admitted to the WTO, and for that was called a Xenophobe when in fact everyone now sees that China has been raping us for two decades and using that to rebuild its military.
He has worked hard to shut down the flow of people over the southern border and to cut back severely on work visas like the H1Bs. RACIST! No. It is about supply and demand. He is limiting the supply of labor so wages can rise. Guess what, they WERE rising which is why Silicon Valley and Wall Street were so ticked off at him. Nobody wanted to talk about that so they just played the racism card. Neither of these is an inherently racist action to take.
I would point out that the republican establishment and the democrats are very very tight with Hedge Funds, Wall Street generally and Silicon Valley. Trump went after the orthodoxy of both and made enemies in doing so.
I would also point out that Trump killed the TPP, a deal that would have hamstrung our national authority to regulate business and turned it over to an uneleced board of international business people who would have had the authority to award monies to businesses that failed to realize their expected profits if a country changed a regulation. In short, if a foreign company invested in the US and we changed labor laws or environmental laws and that foreign company did not make what it thought it would the US government would have to pay them. THIS is what Hillary was supporting, what Biden was supporting and what Wall Street wanted. Trump killed it. BTW....a new version of the TPP is now circulating. Think Biden will back it? You bet.
3. Foreign policy? What, he tried to get along with the Russians? Is it better that we be in constant conflict with them? For all the griping here about them, the Europeans are more than happy to do business with them. Germany just completed a major gas deal with Russia. Turkey, our supposed ally is buying weapons from them. The Chinese are a much bigger threat, do you think we can take on both Russia and China or might it be better to partner with Russia to challenge China?
Trump just managed to get the UAE to recognize Israel and normalize relations. Any other president had done that and they would be guaranteed a Nobel.
Does North Korea seem like a bigger or a smaller threat? How about Iran? Remember the panic that killing off the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was going to bring on WWIII? The man masterminded the killing of our troops and terrorist actions all over the Middle East. Dead. No new war. Trump made the right choice, it was a gamble and he won. Iran is weaker, poorer, and with the UAE now at peace with Israel, less of a threat.
Have we overthrown any more governments? Hillary, under Obama, went after Libya, Syria and helped overthrow the elected government of the Ukraine because the president of Ukraine wanted to get along with the Russians. Never mind that a large portion of the Ukrainian population is ethnic Russian. Never mind that the Crimea is of major strategic importance to the Russians. That action under Hillary is what triggered the Russian invasion of Crimea. Think the Ukrainians are thanking us? Belarus saw that and they are now hostile towards us because of it. Oh good. How nice.
I could go on and on...but I wont. I will however conclude with these two points.
1. Not reelecting Trump would be to fail to repudiate the actions of rogue intel and FBI leaders who attempted to effect the outcome of a US election and then when they failed to do that attempted to effect the removal of a sitting president. THAT is simply not something that we can allow to be condoned or to continue because it WILL lead to a formalization of an oligarchy.
2. To not reelect Trump would be to fail to repudiate the actions of the far left, indeed it would empower them, and undermine the ability of the center left to reassert itself. Until such time as we have a multiparty system, we need the center left in the democratic party to maintain balance.
The Dems have not disavowed these riots. Any political party who even thinks rioting and looting is okay is an enemy of law-abiding citizens. This is a major problem regardless of when it happened. I don’t care if it happened in the last few months. The fact that they won’t disavow any of it at all should be a huge wake up call to anyone.
This is about the least smart thing I've seen all day. Trump is INSPIRING these riots. The little moron who shot a couple of people in Kenosha is a Trump supporter, Frances! Good grief! The paintball truck brigade was a bunch of Trump supporters, Frances! And we don't know how much of the bad stuff in Portland was left-wingers and how much was right-wing instigators. These "riots" HELP Trump; why should he try to stop them?
He’s been trying to stop them since day 1. I’m sorry you’ve been propagandized by the media. The person in Kenosha was defending himself and killed two rioters attacking him. If you check the videos of the incident on YouTube or twitter then you’ll see clearly that he was defending himself. The same lawyer that represented the Covington high school student for defamation against the media has taken up Kyle’s case pro bono. Why do you think that is? Because the media is going to have to pay up AGAIN.
"He doesn't like the police because they encourage civility. He likes them because he likes the idea of authority beating down on anyone who challenges him and his positions."
What? Not sure what you're using to source that. That sounds like mind-reading, which I tend to distrust. Because I don't think people can actually read minds.
"Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost."
Actually, he refused to say that he *would* accept the results of the election, when reporters demanded to know if he would accept the results of the election if he lost. Hillary Clinton might have answered the same way--had anyone in the press asked her that question.
"What do you think he'll do if he loses?"
If it's decisive, he'll leave office. If it's not decisive, he will litigate the results (probably) ala Bush/Gore--and so will the Biden Camp, if Trump barely ekes out a victory and there are some uncounted ballots somewhere.
"Not sure how Trump is so much more palatable than that."
Slightly so to some, depending on whether your pallet tends towards sweet or savory.
I just looked it up. He had been asked several times over the weeks whether he would accept the election results, and he kept demurring. Once he said "Let me keep you in suspense, okay?" Then, at a rally during this time frame, he said "I will accept the results of this great and historic presidential election...if I win." So my original recollection varied slightly from what he said, which was that his winning would be legitimate, but Hillary's wouldn't. And it's probably worth considering that he refused to answer at all when asked by the media, but when he had a mass of frenzied supporters in his grasp, he all but said that Hillary's victory would be fraudulent. And let's nt forget that even though he won, he claimed without evidence that three million people voted illegally, which, coincidentally, is about the same number by which he lost the popular vote. The guy was peddling conspiracy theories and undermining the election results when he *won.* You think he'll refrain if he loses? Please.
“I gladly vote for a candidate that believes in basic modern civility.” Now that statement calls for a Scooby-Do double take!! (Your cognitive dissonance is showing)
Is that all you have? Insults with no substance? Going around accusing people of cognitive dissonance and then back tracking on your insult. Laughable.
“Backtracking?” I did no such thing, Frannie. I told you a fact- that I never said I “supported looting” which is what you are going around accusing everyone who doesn’t love your crazy leader of supporting. Risible, Frannie. Risible indeed. Or as your crazy leader loves to say, “Sad.”
I agree that Trump is the slightly less rancid turd here but I'm gonna have to point out that a persistent project of his administration and the Republican blood machine at large has been to systematically pack the courts to protect themselves against prosecution for voter suppression or just outright enacting their agenda without popular mandate. not to mention that Trump was pretty candid that his acrimony towards Sessions was due to his understanding that the federal AG, or at least Sessions in particular, was there to bend and distort the law in any way necessary to defend him and enable his agenda. there are some tepid arguments to be made in Trump's favor but rule of law ain't one, lol.
Eh, I don't know. The Democrats picked Biden. I understand that a lot of people don't like ANTIFA, etc., but the party didn't pick the progressive wing's standard-bearer. They picked the centrist.
There were a lot of bigoted morons in the Republican camp in 2016, but there wouldn't be as much anger and alarmism right now if the Republicans had nominated Rubio or even Ted Cruz. Biden has repeatedly opposed the progressive wing's calls to decriminalize illegal immigration, and he has stated his opposition to single-payer as well. I don't see him embracing the "defund" movement or anything close to it. Trump will keep trying to associate Biden with the liberal fringe. A lot will depend on how clearly and forcefully Biden repels those accusations by touting his centrist credentials.
Biden is losing it, but no more than Trump. Biden is more benign. He's also only like four years older than Trump, so I'm not sure how the Republicans plan to execute the whole "don't vote for the crazy old man" campaign, when their candidate is only marginally less old and appreciably more crazy.
Second, not every voter thinks that strategically or that far ahead (I'd wager the majority don't). You're right that most Biden votes will really just be anti-Trump votes, but it's still important that the anti-Trump vote be one that people view as superior to Trump himself (cf. Hillary Clinton). So it does matter that Biden has declined the chance to embrace the left's more radical positions. I'd be surprised if he says anything closer to endorsing "defund the police."
The lesson that the Democrats need to learn one way or the other is that for all the crowing and tweeting that millennials do about race and privilege, they don't vote in the numbers that older people do. That's probably because older people have been around long enough to know that stomping your feet is a waste of time, and you're better off just trying to make a difference at the ballot box. Younger people will cast protest votes or sit at home because Bernie Sanders didn't win the nomination and the two-part system is rigged, and Biden is just another corporate white guy like Trump, and so on and so on. Older people will vote. And they like Joe Biden, and they're probably going to resent the implication that he's too old to be president, because it implies that they themselves are too old to be entrusted with responsibility. I suspect they won't like that. Because of the implication.
Fair enough BUT.....we do not all age the same way or at the same rate.
Would I prefer someone younger all around? Sure. Not what I got.
Trump is just sharper and more energetic and does not appear (yet) to have the same level of cognitive decline that Biden is CLEARLY showing.
Now, I think Pelosi is showing the same signs and so is Clyburn.
The dems need a major shift in power to people that are 20 or even 30 years younger. Time for those old Boomers and pre boomers to move out of the way and let GenX and the Millenials have a shot.
I agree that older people historically have made up the lion’s share of voters. A point Im pretty sure has not been lost on those who are high on the mail in ballot thing.
Most people over 65 dont have diminished capacity but tbh here in NJ Murphy is already confusing the crap out of people. Confuse voters who for DECADES have revered going to the polls. Erase that tradition. It’s no longer valued and hell we want to get rid of history anyway. The left is playing to woke millenials. This makes mail in ballots A brilliant strategic move on their part.
And...what is this sudden rally to “save the USPS?” Im still on the Change.org email list and have been getting one of these every day for the last week. interesting how most politicians werent exactly fighting to fund the Postal svc until...now. If you walk in to almost any post office you can see how time pretty much stopped during the Reagan years. NOTE: im not against the idea of mail in ballots in principle however - it should be an OPTION, requested as with absentee ballots. Simply sending a ballot to any name that appears on the rolls can and most likely WILL undermine the one man one vote rule. In the stone age i was a reporter Here in Hudson County NJ where the official Election Day slogan was “Vote early and often.” The ward bosses would make sure there was “a friend” working the polls. Now you dont have to pay people and you dont even have to wear the funny nose and glasses disguise. just go to any apartment building and scoop up ballots for tenants who’ve moved away, died, went into LT care facilities etc. and presto! You can do away with all of those pesky rules!
Your last all depends on how Joe performs once he's out of the bubble. Most old people know their faculties are slipping...it's a question of degree. On his worst days, Joe seems like he's slipped a bit too far...and pretty much all old people have friends who are, unfortunately, like that.
They won't object to people noting it about Joe though they might object to the way it is done.
"no more than Trump"????? Did you watch President Trumps' rallies yesterday and today in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona? He has spoken at each of those rallies more than Biden has in the last four months. Dis you listen to his wonderful remarks on pardoning Susan B. Anthony today??? They were very coherent. And the media showed their ignorance by attacking Anthony as not interested in blacks. They obviously don't know that Frederick Douglass, the leading advocate for black rights in the 19th century was a good friend of hers, that she introduced him at a women's conference in Washington on Feb 20 1895. After it he had a heart attack and died. She gave an eulogy at his funeral.
I have no comments to add about this discussion, but I simply will not remain silent when a fantastic “Always Sunny” reference is made. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.
Are the Democrats in DC (vice those in local Government in areas where protests are ongoing) responsible for those things, or just wrongly associated with them? I don’t know who you support, but have you extended that logic to the president and the GOP in DC as related to COVID?
"There wouldn't be as much anger and alarmism right now if the Republicans had nominated Rubio or even Ted Cruz."
Nonsense.
The so-called Resistance is a feature of Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign, not an incidental bug of Donald Trump's improbable but legitimate victory.
You’re assuming Biden would actually serve a substantial portion of his term. Deeming him unfit seems the only logical explanation for Harris to flip from Biden is “a racist” and abusive to women to being honored to blah blah and “I was great friends with Bo Biden.” On another note: any guesses which cabinet post Booker will get?
I'm not assuming that. I am talking about what he needs to do to get elected in the first place. I don't think most American voters think that far ahead. They're going to watch Biden and Trump in the debates and "trust their gut," or whatever euphemism people use to elevate a lack of critical thinking to justifiable behavior.
I know Trump and the Republicans are trying to make hay of the "he's too old, he's lost it" angle, but...well, that would be a much easier sell if Biden weren't up against another septuagenarian who alternates between saying things that are horrific and saying things that are incomprehensible.
There IS a reason that so many op eds have come out begging Biden not to debate.
I'm sorry man, but I have watched Biden on his broadcast interviews and in speeches and he is CLEARLY not all there AND I assume you have seen the different moments when he has lost his cool with people. Saw that same kind of behavior in both my grandparents as they were declining. They get frustrated and they get angry and sometimes it is just because they are confused and know they should not be.
Oh, I don't disagree that he's already slipping, and that he's liable to have a senior moment at a terrible time for his campaign. But I keep coming back to a comment I heard on the radio from a voter in the South Carolina Democratic primary, who said he preferred Biden to Buttigieg because Buttigieg "sounds too smart when he talks. I like Biden because sometimes he makes mistakes. That's more like me. Buttigieg is too smooth."
I think the point that perhaps I am not making clearly is that I agree with most of the comments responding to me that Biden is in mental decline and that, if elected, it will create substantive problems during his presidency. But it seems to me that most of the commenters here, who appear to be smart people, think the average voter is also smart and will go through the same multi-level analysis before voting. I really don't think that's the case. People have very bizarre pathologies when it comes to voting. Biden saying something dumb or looking confused won't hurt him as much as many people think. If he looks weak, that will be a problem. But looking lost won't make a difference.
Whatever people think of Hillary Clinton, there is no denying that she had much, much stronger command of the issues, the facts, and the data than Trump did. Trump just said whatever came into his head at any given moment during the campaign. He often sounded dumb and he often sounded lost. But many voters didn't care. I'd wager an appreciable segment of the population found it attractive.
I’ve got a grandmother who has mid-late stage dementia. About 2 years ago her cognitive abilities mirrored Biden. Couldn’t quite finish sentences. Mixes nouns. Forgets where she is and what she’s talking about mid sentence. Even tried to laugh it off and use humor to compensate. Look at Biden’s eyes. The lights are dim. You’re in denial if you can’t tell the different between him, Pelosi, trump, and Sanders who are about the same age. I honestly hope Biden does not debate trump because I think it will be cruel and embarrassing for him and his family when he has a complete meltdown on stage. Betting a paycheck that if he somehow gets elected he doesn’t make it 2 years.
I remember when Robert Mueller testified before Congress; I got the same impression. I honestly felt sorry for him and anger towards those who knew what was going on and still sent him in. Are these the same people sending Biden in?
How could we possibly want an incompetent President, even for two months??? President Trump has many important issues under way that will continue past 2020. The great success in the Middle East of Israel and UAE agreeing to recognize each other will soon be followed by Bahrain, Oman, and Sudan, but Saudi Arabia may be only after January 20, and only Trump could accomplish that. The Obama/Biden administration hated Israel and supported their terrorist opponents run by Iran. How could Biden reverse course now by 180 degrees when he cannot think coherently about where he is and who he is with?
President Trump's remarks today celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution ensuring women's right to vote in all states were very coherent. As were his remarks on pardoning Susan B. Anthony. As were his remarks on the historical agreement between Israel and the UAE, a more important accomplishment than anything Obama/Biden did in foreign policy in their 8 years.
I honestly don't know if he's going to lose or win, but I can't see either him or this ticket being a compelling choice even if things were less dramatic. Polls say different, but in a normal cycle the power of incumbency is strong--historically you need a serious 3rd party acting as a spoiler or a compelling primary challenger to the incumbent for the incumbent to lose. While I never say never, and try to recognize my own biases (given our choices, I'd rather have Trump, although even more so I'd rather have better choices) and I won't be astonished in Biden/Harris win the day, though I'll be even less surprised if Trump wins and in fact does better than previously.
But there are a lot of wildcards involved this time around, from COVID to universal mail-in voting (a thing which, Twitter-conspiracy-debates aside, there's just no existing infrastructure to make happen smoothly, and lots of openings for individuals and groups to make a mess of it, unintentionally or on purpose) and, thus far, a paucity of rallies.
So I'm not going to firmly predict anything, other than to predict that current polling predictions will prove to be information-free up until election night, no matter how it falls.
That "legit riots" comment gave away your thinking. That makes it seem like you conflate protests with riots, as there is nothing legit about riots, but perhaps in your mind, a protest is synonymous with riots, I've heard many people see a protest and then term it a riot.
If I am an RNC strategist, I am watching to see what NOT to do in this "unprecedented and historic" virtual convention. Bad enough that the speaker roster is Clinton(s), Obama(s), and AOC. What did the DNC think--let's trot out the very people that swing voters will likely hate? The DNC is doomed. The RNC is going to sit back and guffaw.
absolutely loving that John fucking Kasich is on the speaker list as a gesture towards woke centrism, when they could not in fact have picked a more null political presence if they tried. this dude's Sensible Grandpa tack washed out hard before even the foothills of the 2016 primary, so he's sure as hell not appealing to any Republicans; nor will any significant number of Democrat voters (politically dommed though they may be) ever warm to the idea of assisting the agendas of vile creatures like Mitch McConnell or Jim Jordan. it couldn't be a more obvious bromide, almost like the dems are proudly proclaiming their brand of feeling like you're doing a thing without actually doing anything at all - pure empty symbolism.
I actually think swing voters like the Obamas. He was, despite all the Republican insistence otherwise, a pretty popular president. He is also a good reminder of how a president should behave in public. My own mother is a staunch Republican who hates (with a capital "HATES") Trump. She used to really dislike Obama, but her tune has changed a lot in recent years. She always calls him "presidential" now. I imagine there are a lot of suburban Republicans like her, who just miss the office having some manner of integrity. I don't know whether all the media hype about suburban women deciding the election is accurate, but they love Michelle Obama.
As for the Clintons...I have no idea what the DNC is thinking.
calling it now, with her DNC speaking spot and new podcast and otherwise increased media presence, Michelle Obama is being groomed for a run, either congressional or presidential. really gives you hope for the future, that the progressive star on the horizon is just the wife of probably the greatest villain of the 21st century, with no other merits to speak of whatsoever. but it's okay, she's got a friendly smile and voice, and she can say nice things, which makes her a perfect candidate to socket into America's weird ass parasocial obsession with all of its public figures. Obama seems like a dude you'd have a beer with? sure! I doubt he's imbibed anything other than adrenochrome for the last ten or so years but his demeanor is just so genuine, you know? Michelle is so sweet, she seems like the kind of person you could just sit down with and confide in. I'm sure she'd care a lot about your smothering student and medical debt, maybe she'd even give you some help out of her own pocket. that's totally something that would actually happen. let's all get together and collectively post her into office so that we can have a Better World.
This is all fine, but it seems weird to get this worked up over something that is pure conjecture at this point. Michelle Obama is a public figure, sure, and I agree that our culture has a bizarre and suicidal fixation with "likability" over "actually qualified" in its political candidates. But I have not seen anything to suggest she is actually gunning for office. I think, so far, she is just using her profile to bring attention to issues she cares about and to help get Biden elected.
I'm not suggesting that her running for office is out of the realm of possibility. It's definitely possible. But nothing she has done to-date suggests she has the political ambitions that were so obvious in Hillary Clinton. She seems more likely to start a nonprofit for school children or something.
Probably correct here. But the Trumpsters have a fixation on anything Obama. They'd probably like to jail them or outlaw Michelle running for mayor of Chicago, much less a federal office. There is some serious derangement here.
I would LOVE to see Michelle Obama become mayor of Chicago and watch it blow up in her face, b/c West Side gangsters don’t give a hoot about the entreaties of Hyde Park liberals.
I keep looking for any sign that she has any interest, and I keep seeing none. She gives a good speech and probably could be a strong candidate. I say this as someone with 180 degree opposite political views.
The DNC will try every possible tactic- over many years- before possibly figuring out that people can only handle so many lies, deceptions, half-truths and false narratives. Eventually they'll win enough hearts once the lies get down to a manageable level.
But the foundation to all this is seeing the DNC, the woke and the average liberal as essentially out of touch. Blame the MSM for its relentless propaganda. Years ago, Americans loudly wondered how the Germans of the '30s could have fallen for the lies. We're seeing the answer every day now, right here. I tell my teenager he is living through history (whoa there's that word- take a shot!)
Unfortunately, as in those poor misguided decisions made in Germany in the 30's, decisions made today won't be truly recognized for what they are until it's all over and America looks like Germany at the end of 1945. Or Portland as it is today.
Here's the not funny. BOTH parties engage in propaganda exercises. Here's a way to play a drinking game without getting drunk. Only drink when you here non-partisan policy points of order or real facts. The political class in America is bankrupt morally.
Why on earth do you think that both USSR and North Korea ensured that the vodka and shoju(rice liquor-paint thinner) never, ever ran out come whatever else-famine, war, cult of personality, domestic nuclear chaos? People think Gorbachev was brave for perestroika-he tried to impose a 90% alcohol prohibition on the Soviet Union!!!!!!
Yes, it's tough to be on the left right now. I wonder how many involuntarily start turning their gaze towards Trump only to slap themselves out of it with a shiver.
I am going to check-in on CNN just to see if any succumb to the torture.
It's okay to acknowledge that Trump is the only viable option (if you are choosing to cast a vote...third party Is also an option although not one I'll be choosing) if you actually believe in liberal values and any semblance of law and order. The DNC has completely jumped the shark and its too late to get my vote back.
He's not a viable option for me. The self-dealing, the graft, the incompetence of his cabinet, and, of course, his mishandling of the pandemic have foreclosed any chance I had to consider him. No one I know is excited about Biden, but the idea that Trump represents some sort of sober leadership in the face of the this particular challenge is laughable.
Fair enough! I've just kept this opinion to myself out of fear of being yelled at so I decided to finally say it. Thank you for your respectful response!
Anytime, man. I often find kinship with conservatives and Trump people over the problems with the DNC. And the conversations I've had here on Taibbi's articles are actually informative and interesting, often with people I don't agree with. Want to do whatever small part I can in keeping that a reality.
Seemed to me Trump was just kinda riffing but who knows. Would absolutely love it if he pardoned Snowden. Woulda loved it if Trump actually got around to doing the infrastructure spend he ran on too. Unlike some people who dislike the guy, I'm still capable of giving him credit if he earned it. His foreign policy, for example, is less hawkish than prior admins. Was very worried with chickenhawks like Gorka and Bolton in there.
Agree. The Newspaper of Record published an "interview" with an imaginary Trump supporter instead of going off to find a real one to talk to. One reason I voted for him was that he used the word "peace" about the foreign policy he wanted to pursue, and I thought he meant it. Still think so.
The establishment media has been beyond horrible for over five years on this man. Where I live, if I were to wear a MAGA hat on the street I'd be at genuine risk of assault, and I hold them 100% responsible for that.
And Matt is right, I'll never believe a single accusation against him that comes from them solely.
When I heard that, I immediately took it as a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) warning to the Deep State (or whatever you wanna call our intelligence community). Did anyone else feel that way? He doesn't usually answer questions he doesn't feel will benefit him in answering. Even when he knows he'll be attacked for it...most of the time it seems that's part of his strategy. Not saying it always works out that way haha but there's a definite strategy to the way he holds press conferences.
Seriously folks. I get that what Trump talked about in 2016 had a progressive ring to it, but then did you go to sleep for the next four years? Has he brought manufacturing back to the U.S? Evidently not since the masks we needed were manufactured in China. Is coal mining back? Nope He had a plan for healthcare that would be better and cheaper than the ACA with no mandate. What did he accomplish? He ended the mandate — period — partly causing an increase in premiums. Moving beyond the did and didn’t do, which would simply evaluate him in the same terms as any other president, the man talked about the possibility of not leaving office if he lost the election—he talked about that! He wants to defund the post office when we need mail-in ballots. I am no more excited about Biden than anyone else, and if the Republican candidate were anyone else—even W — I’d say, sure, you want to register a protest vote, go for it. But you will have a dictatorship if the guy wins, and I am not one for hyperbole. This is not 2016. Not only have we been warned, we lived it.
I honestly want to understand - how can you claim that when we've had four years that weren't a dictatorship? We've had four years of our intelligence agencies running amok, trying to unelect a duly elected president - - and he's the existential threat? He's not perfect OBVIOUSLY but I just can't see this the way you're seeing it. If they can do what they've done to the President - - they CAN and WILL do it to us. Which party was behind the coup?
Has Trump been stifled and pursued every day of his presidency by the media and the neocons who want the USA permanently in the Middle East and want cheap labor from immigrants while making taxpayers pay the cost of their education, health care and the rest of the external costs? Not only entry level jobs but stem jobs suffer. Every time he tries to reign in H1b visas, Tim Cook gets on the phone to Jared to tell him Trump can't do that. Only 26% of graduates with stem degrees work in stem.
Have you family members who lived in a real dictatorship? B/c I have-USSR under Stalin. Trump might be a boor, a clown, and a typical 73 year old man in his rants/twitterings, but he is not a dictator or a dictator in waiting.
I am fortunate to have been born here. Having family that escaped the Castro take over of Cuba, i love it when people call Trump a fascist or a dictator. We Americans have the greatest privileges and relative wealth on THE PLANET. Yet Millions are willfully ignorant to The fact that they, their family and friends would suffer SEVERELY just for saying such things publicly or even privately (if a friend, neighbor, colleague or family member is hungry or frightened enough).
Yep, I had relatives who lived under Mussolini. He was all of the above AND a dictator in waiting. A dictatorship is the concentration of government power in one person. Putting people in front of firing squads or sending them to gulags is a by-product, not a definition. People tend to confuse that. Democracies are fragile. Most dictatorships these days aren’t due to a sudden takeover. They evolve, often with the support of the people, like frogs in boiling water. Once they realize what happened, it’s too late.
I have yet to hear someone in a similar scenario to yours say that they are not worried about the direction our country is heading. That alone should disturb people.
Everything you say about Trump is true. Unfortunately, Biden and Harris are not safe alternatives.
For example, Biden has been an outspoken and effective proponent of interventionist imperialism since the beginning of his career, has had a direct hand in the deaths of many thousands of Americans and many, many more innocent civilians in other countries, has played a leadership role in destabilizing entire regions, has played a pivotal role in the over-militarization of police and the significant and substantial weakening of civil liberties in the US (in the name of the so-called "war on terror"), has been deeply complicit in and enabling of nearly ubiquitous domestic spying, drone assassinations, black sites, torture, and the suspension of Habeas corpus (arguably THE foundational principle in the Constitution), continues to brag about decades of work that put untold numbers of non-violent offenders behind bars (often in private for-profit prisons), and has aggressively represented the economic interests of big corporations (especially banks, credit card companies, defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies, & health insurance companies) at the expense of regular people. Those are just the highlights.
Harris' career has been shorter, but she has clearly established herself as an eager servant of the de facto aristocracy and is by no means a friend to ordinary people.
It's a basic denial of empirical reality to think that authoritarianism, the rapid expansion of a permanent underclass, global destabilization, and environmental collapse won't continue to advance under a Biden administration. Trump is vile, ignorant, incompetent, banal, easily manipulated, boorish, and foolish. But he didn't create this problem - he's simply taking advantage of it. Biden had a big hand in creating it. I don't care if the person sinking a knife in my back has a gleaming, toothy smile and uses grown-up language or not. It's irrelevant to the final result.
And most importantly of all, neither of these buffoons is even giving more than tangential lip service to the foundational problems we must solve (environmental collapse and the rising threat of nuclear war) for stable civilization to continue and provide a future for our grandchildren and beyond. Neither is anyone else in Washington or almost anywhere else.
We aren't going to get solutions from whichever of these criminals successfully lies himself into office. We have to look for solutions elsewhere.
I dunno how you could say the mishandling is on the Federal level, given that they were fed misinformation (a cynic might even call it disinformation) from the WHO. Likewise, failure points in the US for the pandemic have been primarily on the state level and overwhelmingly in #Resistance states, at that. Yet these are the people purporting they'd be able to do a better job than Trump.
I'm not keen on absolving any layer of leadership for the failures we've had containing this virus. That goes for governors and the president. But the president and the fed have the most resources at their disposal and the most responsibility for how we handle it. They've mangled that response. They've done poorly. But they seem much more worried about winning culture wars than actually taking responsibility and providing coherent leadership. I won't support someone like that.
The Feds only have the most resources at their disposal if Congress backs the play, which they did up until late April/early May. Coincidentally, that's when the "Trump bungled covid" narrative began to hype up from the press.
Do-nothing Congress has completely destroyed my trust in the federal government. It was already low but now I feel like Congress is just plain useless. Nancy Pelosi keeps demanding that the House go on vacation. She is one of the worst politicians the American people have ever had.
Oh, I'm aware of and deeply bummed about that. Doesn't change my opinion as to how poorly our government has handled the crisis or how at sea Trump is when he talks about it. He really doesn't seem up to this challenge at any level.
Sorry, but Trump and Co were warned on 23 January, or before, that there was a serious pandemic heading our way. They dropped the ball. It should have been all hands on deck. Instead, Trump and his crackpot team kept telling us it was going to disappear. The clips of their public statements are available for all to find, unaltered. He didn’t even want to recommend masks until the death toll became too much for his Republican friends.
Sure, China hid the problem in December, but early January it was clear to anyone who could read the news that this was serious. The intelligence agencies were warning the administration and Congress about it. Vietnam just proceeded as if China was lying. Why didn’t Trump do the same?
How do you close borders for a pandemic when the borders are staffed by people who are so ideologically opposed to you that they will invite said pandemic in just because you warned against it? And you can extrapolate that to the entirety of the covid response because nearly all of it requires the acquiescence of state governments.
Forget about borders. The travel ban only made sense early on. Once the cases started to spread within the country, testing and other medical support was needed. They not only dropped the ball on testing, which I won’t actually blame on Trump, but he kept denying that the cases were increasing in the face of mounting evidence.
It is interesting how Trump supporters/apologists act like there is no recorded evidence of his clueless statements, from denying the problem to wanting to reopen the economy when the cases were still high. The states that supported him were badly misled into allowing the virus to spread. He turned it over to his idiot son-in-law and it shows.
President Trump has a better cabinet than President Obama did. Trump replaced the incompetent people like Sessions and Tillerson with outstanding people like Barr and Pompeo. Obama was incapable of removing corrupt cabinet members such as his two Attorney Generals.
President Trump's response to the pandemic was better than that of many other countries. The deaths per million population is lower than 7 other countries. If you take out New Jersey and New York, which have the highest deaths per million thanks to their incompetent governors, the U.S. is somewhere between 16th and 18th. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
The President also worked closely with key companies to rapidly increase production of things needed for medical personnel and care of COVID patients.
Indeed. A vote for Biden is a vote for the establishment to gain a foothold on everything again. The neocons like Bush and Cheney are voting for Biden. How anyone could stomach voting for both the neolib and neocon establishments all in one candidate is bizarre to me.
Trump is the only populist candidate on any major ticket. A vote for the establishment is a vote for the destruction of the populist movement. I voted for Bernie and watched the Dems do everything they could to annihilate that hope. I was never going to vote for them again anyway and have thankfully come around to voting for Trump. He IS the anti-establishment candidate.
I saw how they smeared all the progressives (Tulsi was and is still my #1 choice) so I’m 100% certain the media and establishment are constantly doing that to President Trump.
I thought they were unfair with Bernie, but the media's treatment of Gabbard was appalling. Still unclear why I'm to believe she's a puppet for Assad (?!) or whatever that narrative is.
Not that it matters to anyone but as someone voting for Trump -- if the DNC hadn't done what they did to Tulsi it wouldn't even have been a question who I was voting for these past few months. Would have voted Tulsi 1000%.
If the plutocracy hates you, you stand absolutely no chance of getting elected. "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."
As far as Trump being "left": His support of oil companies? coal companies? the national parks invasion? Drilling in ANWR? Tax cuts? Betsey DeVos? Kavanaugh? Religious extemism? And my all-time favorite - the wall...
Since I don't watch MSM, I'm not sure what you mean? We can't even get CNN or MSNBC.
The real problem is that corruption runs rampant through both parties and issues like civil rights, environment, abortion, etc, are an effective distraction. I find it baffling when people think that Trump is not just as ensconced in that corruption.
He didn't "get rid" of NAFTA! He slightly tweaked it! We still have 800 bases open all over the world. We're still killing kids in Iran, Venezuela, etc. with our brutal sanctions, we still are harming Cubans by the INSANE embargo, he didn't "bring back jobs and factories", his administration is based upon Cyrus I. Schofield's perverse interpretation of Scripture with Pompeo and Co. basing our foreign policy on "The Rapture". He talked a good anti-war game but Guantanamo is still open, he signed off on a cyber-war program so extreme neither W nor Obama would touch it with a 10 foot pole! A true populist of ANY party would be forcing AIPAC to register as a foreign agent!!! The "aesthetics" are different but he is as Wall Street-warmonger as they come! Dems are barely better except Justice Dems such as the Squad, Bowmann, Cori Bush!
I hope you're wrong but I fear you're not! As the great Chris Hedges says, "Take to the streets with acts of massive civil disobedience." And Caitlin Johnstone, "Remind everybody everyday, that this is NOT normal, this is NOT healthy. We do NOT have to surrender to a warmongering, Oligarchic, ecocidal, elitist, worldwide coup! Greed and selfishness are not inevitable!"
Mentioned this downthread, but Trump's foreign policy is less hawkish than I anticipated, which is good. That said, it's not exactly rosy. He's escalated our drone strike program massively (over 2000 his first two years vs. 1800 for Obama's eight years) and then did away with the reporting requirement. You and I have no idea how many drone strikes are being done in our names right now. That should bother people on every side of the political spectrum and it's hard to call a policy like that "anti-war."
And the large tax gifts he's given the richest Americans and business leaders isn't something I'd consider "left" either. That's just further wealth consolidation for plutocrats, a group that Trump is a part of.
(I'm not going to show my ass and pretend I know the ins and outs of NAFTA vs. its USMCA replacement. I simply do not understand enough of the particulars to have an opinion I feel is valid.)
Hard for me to buy the "left" argument given some of that stuff. Do appreciate that we gained back some manufacturing jobs pre-pandemic. Genuinely happy about that.
Totally agree with your comments on things the taxes and just wanted to clarify that when I say "liberal" beliefs lining up with a vote for Trump -- much of that is coming from a cultural perspective vs. a policy perspective. I see one side excusing things the other side is not...that to me is the biggest problem on the left right now. Free speech is a liberal value that is in short supply and the willingness to turn a blind eye to violence and censorship makes me wonder what they would do if they got their power back. Not saying Trump is some leftist hero or anything!
Trump poisoned a lot of liberal's brains and, most damning, a lot of those liberals are very prominent. There's almost this inability to judge Biden and Harris on their merits and instead *only* in contrast to Trump. Which makes sense, honestly. Biden and Harris are bad candidates but they represent Not Trump, which is the animating principle in the Democratic Party right now. Some purported liberals talked themselves into fuckin' Mike Bloomberg of all people.
Past that, yes, on a cultural level, the left is blowing it. Too much condescension and speech policing and identity politicking. You don't convince people to become part of a bigger, inclusive project to reform government in a more equitable way by scolding them for piddly bullshit or celebrating more diversity on the board at Raytheon.
The tax reform bill actually helped low and middle income people most. The wealthiest 5% have complained that it INCREASED their federal taxes because of the new $10,000 limit on State And Local Tax (SALT) deductions.
It impacts people making more than ~$250,000 a year in states with income taxes, and people with properties assessed at more than ~$1 million where local property taxes are collected. They are actually paying MORE now in Federal income tax than they did in 2017.
That is why the DEMOCRATS want to replace this ONE item in the tax reform bill.
The corporate tax rate was nearly cut in half (35% to 20%) while 60% of the tax savings went to the top 20% of earners in America. This isn't a populist tax cut. It's business as usual, propping up corporations above individuals, a bipartisan tradition like no other in America.
We don't have a left party in American. The policy goals of the DNC are much closer to Never Trump Republicans than someone like Bernie. It's deeply depressing. They're just going to dress up obsequiousness to their donors as diversity instead of patriotism this year.
It's depressing to see the state of the Democrat party these days- they used to stand for something- ie, the working class, at least somewhat anti war and so on. They kept the other party in line and the nation on a more even keel.
Well, they at least TALKED about the working class... and made references to the anti-war efforts they participated in before they became boomers.
Since those halcyon days they've become a bunch of Madoffs hell bent on reaping maximum profit at the cost of votes because.. who needs voters when the big money just hands you loads of money?
Ds love $$$$ as much or more than Rs-they just hate the free markets that generate such $$$-as a matter of rhetoric and policy. Wall St. and big finance is increasingly irrelevant to entrepreneurial freedom and initiative-which is why the Ds and Wall St. have a mutual bromance....
The Democratic Party purposefully abandoned the working class (deplorables) as a constituency 30 years ago in favor or immigrants who would vote Democratic.
Very true. I'd argue that seeing how far left the left has gone has made people realize that in a big way. We need some balance and right now we don't have it.
Matt, are you going to be live on video for portions of it? Do you remember that early cable era hilarious show Mystery Science Theater were two watchers made fun of wacky science fiction movies? You and Katie should do the same thing during these conventions. Maybe get Bret Weinstein and some others to join. I would pay real money to watch that.
Mystery Science Theater was so much fun, I still occasionally switch to it on Comet TV. Matt and Katie would be fun for this. Only one request to Matt: please don't pull Katie's leg about some fictitious sports story and then continue doing it for a while. That is abuse.
Love to read Matt’s article and comments. You are all very educated people (I am very educated too but the English is my second language and I can’t write as well as you are). Just want to tell you that Trump is the least of your problem. I risk my freedom to move to US 45 years ago and now these Marxists are turning US into the country I left. Believe me I have personal experience. My father spent 15 years in gulag, and I remember KGB searching our apartment. And after they finish with Jews, they will come for you. They will eliminate every free thought. You will only express yourself in a company of trusted people. They create terror. Nothing will stop them. They use young idealistic people who believe in equal outcome, not equal of opportunity. I, being an atheist, pray for this country, and I pray Trump will win. It might buy us 4 more years.
But if you will not stop these Marxist, you are looking at end of America as you know it. It is not pretty.
I agree that there is nothing valuable or useful in hammering "Trump is bad" for Democrats. Not only has this been the message for four straight years - including actual IMPEACHMENT - but it hasn't moved his numbers at all. Not even one bit. That is the definition of insanity, to keep doing the thing that isn't working. But I fear you're right, that it will be Twitter in real time and non-stop "Trump is bad."
This looks fun but unfortunately to participate I'd have to watch that trash, and I definitely am not gonna waste my time listening to conservative grandstanding and platitudes. God speed Matt!
I think my Zoom watching group will be including some add-on rules. In particular, I'd like to require the inclusion of the following performative gestures mandating 1 tequila shot each: (a) kente cloth (b) kneeling (c) "Wakanda Forever" gesture (d) hand heart (e) slow ripping of symbolic paper (f) Pelosi slow clap.
Optional drink for any appeal to a higher power, to wit: "God."
You're just phoning it in until you start dropping acid instead of taking shots. At least after 10 or 15 doses they might start temporarily making sense.
Very interesting and amusing take from the perspective of this Canadian reader. Maybe I don't have a thick enough skin, but I gotta say that I winced at the inclusion of "George Floyd." Whatever else you want to say about all the political drama surrounding it, he's still a human being who was choked to death, and I don't see any upside to making a drinking joke about it.
A small but important note, missed by most people. The autopsy did not find the signs of suffocation (choked to death), but instead found signs of a heart attack, caused by a combination of an existing heart condition, the potentially fatal level of meth and fentanyl in his blood, and the stress of the police encounter. So it will be up to a jury, after reviewing extensive presentations from both sides, to decide what criminal responsibility there is for George Floyd's heart attack, but he was not choked to death.
(Note that the body cams reveal that he had been saying "I can't breath" well before being put on the ground, and complaining about claustophobia (tho he had been driving another car), it didn't start when he was held down.)
The jury will hear all of this, along with questions about how long it took to get an ambulance, etc.
And the jury with either follow the law, in which case nobody is going to get charged to the level the mob wants, or the jury won't follow the law and convict based on the popular narrative--in which case why would you ever want to be a cop in Minneapolis? I don't see a good outcome from this, no matter how it shakes out.
Chauvin may be one of those poor, unfortunate souls whose fate was sealed not by the brutality of his act but rather by the threatened barbarity of the pitchforked crowd clamoring for his scalp. If this were a normal day he wouldn’t have even been charged with a crime since Floyd didn’t die of suffocation, was high on drugs, was resisting arrest and Chauvin acted in a manner consistent with the training provided to him by the City of Minneapolis. But hang he will, sadly (not defending Chauvin, just stating the facts).
Actually, Canada has a subtly different legal system. And they have some really poor excuses for lawyers. I know, I've done battle there. Mainly, Canada has a narcissism problem and a tendency to self-belief in however they see the world.
We're a little messed up down here and our media squeezed all the life out of George Floyd's name (no pun intended here) long before Mr. Taibbi used his humor to bring the absurdity to a drinking game. Mr. Floyd's name has been repeated so many times on our televisions and has come to mean anything but what the real person was about, I'm sure. Talk about becoming calloused. The name "George Floyd" at one time refered to a person but now it refers to any number of social and political causes/movements, for or against whatever, or it can be used to garner ratings to sell more advertisements. Our media bastardized the name a long time ago. Ran it through the mill...... if you will. And do you think our politicians aren't going to use his name for their own political gain?
Taibbi is only bringing light to an absurdity that's already there. Ever listen to Frank Zappa?
Oh you better watch out... there's a "meme" circulating where the Demonrats are fantasizing about making a "new" US of Canada" where you get the NE and NW states as invaders and THEY make a new country -free of all those pesky "rubes" in the heartland.
Ugh. Can we do less "Demonrat" and "Republithug" nonsense around here? That's on every other board in the universe and I genuinely enjoy talking to people here because it isn't just a partisan pissing contest.
Amen. I no longer claim to be right or left, but I guess I'm more on the right in the modern era--but I have always hated that nonsense. And general accusation of one side or the other being idiots, insane, or Nazis (although I have myself sometimes made parallels between modern progressives and Stalinists) but in general, one of my big objections to modern progressivism is the attempt to redefine words in a form of newspeak, so that nothing has a common meaning anymore. This is the flip side of it: just use the correct words for things. Democrats and Republicans are just proper names: use them. Similarly, I'm a dude. I'm not cisgendered.
I divide the world now between people who genuinely support free speech, due process, and equal justice under law, and those who don't. As just a generalization, those who do seem to be either on the right or (some) Bernie supporters, mostly. The "identity politics" crowd believe in collective guilt and collective victimization, which leaves little room for individual rights.
It's telling when someone I'm talking politics to really identifies as a Dem or Republican. When the Democratic Party contains AOC and Joe Manchin and the GOP contains Jeff Sessions and Mitt Romney, what do those party labels actually mean anymore?
Oh, I'd love to live in a new socialist paradise next door to a new nuclear armed right wing bully state. Both free to swing to the extremes, now that they are more politically uniform and don't need to deal with internal pushback. Imagine a new nation where Trump polls 70% positive and can crush any opposition.
Folks, we need to do our best to fix the problems in the US from within, rather than leaving it; the rest of the world is counting on us to do our part to balance and reform, rather than unleash, the extremism. There's nobody else who can step in and restore sanity or at least hold it together until people get tired of the extremists.
Please tell me that, in your dystopian horror fantasy, there will also be some sort of free state that is neither socialist paradise or nuclear armed right wing bully state. I had to read the book Ecotopia in 9th grade biology (I grew up in San Francisco) and pissed off the teacher when I posited that the whole thing wouldn't work because you had to force the non-believers to join... and then it's not a utopia anymore. I still agree with 9th grade me 40+ years later. I want to live in the free place in the middle.
I hear you. Even if "the united states of canada" on the map were to be just a moderately liberal democracy (rather than a "socialist paradise"), it would still be next door to a now much more conservative and nuclear armed nation ("jesusland" on the map). Likewise if a third "free state" as you sugggest were created out of the reorg.
And I do take your point. One point I want some of my fellow liberals to consider is: does your vision of the good near term society still have room to accommodate people with humane values but cultural differences? I'm not talking here about, say, Black culture (which they want to accept), but about, for example, church going NASCAR watching flag waving citizens. Or does their vision of mullticulturalism require deporting or brainwashing all such people, because only people who adhere to the new progressive ideology can live in peace there? I am not myself a church goer, a NASCAR watcher, or a flag waver - but I defend the right of my fellow citizens to be any of those things, and the multicultural society needs to have room for the to live with respect and dignity too. Or it winds up being authoritarian and dogmatic - like your non-utopian Ecotopia. (Alas, progressivism has been diverging quite a bit recently from previously shared liberal values, towards becoming the illiberal left).
90% of people can't meme, based on the meme's I've seen. The problem is not ideological, it's the huge number of people who have apps that can stick words on pictures now and think they are cleverer than they are.
They do it because we let them. In the end, you get the politicians (and the media and the music and the movies and the nature) you demand. It turns my stomach to watch politicians act so craven and calculating, but they do it because it works. It's no coincidence that Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow are the two most-watched newspeople in the country. Do you know who the anchor is at PBS? I don't.
I'm being cautious here because it could have been edited since you wrote that. But can you please point to where "George Floyd" is included, because I don't think he is.
Floyd wasn't choked to death as the autopsy clearly showed. He died primarily of a lethal dose of fentanyl along with major heart disease. What Chauvin and the other police did looked awful but it was exactly what they had been trained to do in this circumstance, neck hold and all. Take a look at the MPD officer training manual that was in effect at the time of Floyds death. It is enlightening as it shows the trainers doing EXACTLY what these men did to Floyd.
Biden is going to lose. He just is.
I will put a good bottle of whiskey on the fact that Trump actually does better in the electoral college this time than he did in 2016.
In the end, this is not going to be about Biden and Trump, it is going to be about the "woke" left, riots, looting, burned businesses, frightened homeowners, defunding police, vilifying police, Antifa, and a democratic party that could not distinguish between legit riots and criminal conduct.
Yep. This Bernie voter has completely come around to Trump because the Dems refuse to disavow these riots. Some of them even encouraged them!
I grew up in LA in the area impacted by the LA Riots. The Korean community was devastated by them. Anyone who encourages rioting is an enemy of the people.
I find the actions of the Democratic Party treacherous and treasonous. Imo, they should not even be allowed to be a party anymore. I gladly vote for a candidate that believes in basic modern civility. The Dems have set such a low bar. No matter what they say about Trump, he’s still more palatable than they are.
I'm sorry, I'm not defending the Democrats as a whole, but the idea that Trump believes in "basic modern civility" is laughable. He has spent four years stoking discord, seemingly because he finds it amusing. He doesn't like the police because they encourage civility. He likes them because he likes the idea of authority beating down on anyone who challenges him and his positions.
Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost. If you think he's going to go quietly if he loses this time, you're kidding yourself. And consider what kind of messages -- subtle or direct -- he will send to his supporters in that case. I seriously doubt it's going to be "Let's all just be calm and ensure a peaceful transfer of power." He's going to claim fraud and conspiracy and illegitimate results and imperil our whole democratic system just because he can't handle losing...speaking of "treacherous and treasonous." Let's remember he claimed repeatedly and without any evidence that three million people voted illegally in 2016, and that was when he *won." What do you think he'll do if he loses? What in the world makes you believe he will be civil and put the country first?
And you're lumping Biden in with the more progressive wing and the DNC at large. Biden is not among those people, and he has not excused the rioting. I just googled his remarks in response to the protests. Here's an excerpt:
"The country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that can bring us together. Leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for too long.
But there is no place for violence.
No place for looting or destroying property or burning churches, or destroying businesses — many of them built by people of color who for the first time were beginning to realize their dreams and build wealth for their families.
Nor is it acceptable for our police — sworn to protect and serve all people — to escalate tensions or resort to excessive violence.
We need to distinguish between legitimate peaceful protest — and opportunistic violent destruction."
His position is pretty clear. Not sure how Trump is so much more palatable than that.
"Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost. If you think he's going to go quietly if he loses this time, you're kidding yourself. And consider what kind of messages -- subtle or direct -- he will send to his supporters in that case. I seriously doubt it's going to be "Let's all just be calm and ensure a peaceful transfer of power." He's going to claim fraud and conspiracy and illegitimate results and imperil our whole democratic system just because he can't handle losing"
I love this part. You just described what the Left has been doing EVERY SINGLE DAY since November 2016. RECOUNT! FAITHLESS ELECTORS! RUSSIA! UKRAINE! IMPEACH! 25th AMENDMENT!! Every single effing day. Maxine Waters was saying Congress should remove him using the 25th Amendment just yesterday.
Honestly if you guys didn't have projection, double standards and ad hominem you'd sit in the corner like houseplants with nothing at all to say.
Well said. We have to call out Democrat lies every time that we can.
Please point out where I lied. You Trumpkins need to learn that "saying something you don't like" is not the same as a lie.
So you go ahead and point out which part of my statement was a lie -- an assertion of fact that is not fact. I'm not asking for your personal feelings on the Democrats or Trump or my opinion. Show me where I made a false statement of fact. I'll wait.
Best comment I've read all week.
Ditto
Hi. No.
I'm not "the left." I'm certainly not Maxine Waters, and I haven't once called for a recount. I think the electoral college is stupid -- and I did long before Trump was ever a candidate -- but he won fair and square based on the electoral system we have. For what it's worth, a bipartisan congressional panel, led by a Republican, released a report just last week confirming that the Russians meddled in the election to aid Trump. I'm not saying he was colluding with them, but that the Russians tried to sway the election in his favor is not in doubt. There is little doubt he solicited the Ukrainian's president as well. Whether that constitutes an impeachable offense is up for debate. Whether it happened is not.
I pointed out *what he himself said* as a basis for my opinion. He said, repeatedly, that three million people voted illegally, which is the margin by which he lost the popular vote. There has never been a scintilla of evidence to support this claim. Any time anything at all makes him look bad, it's someone else's fault. The man is incapable of humility. Everything is a conspiracy. Everything is fake news. "I take no responsibility." And so on. Irrespective of his political positions, it is apparent to anyone but die-hard Trumpkins that he is a total narcissist who is incapable of accepting defeat.
I'm not defending the left. I take issue with a lot of what they do. But that has no bearing on Trump's character and his demonstrated record of refusing to accept reality when it makes him look bad.
Honestly if you didn't have gross overgeneralizations and deflections, you'd sit in the corner like someone trying to dream up gross overgeneralizations and deflections because he is incapable of addressing the point at issue.
I don’t care what Trump said. I care that he’s actually trying to stop these riots and the Democratic mayors and governors won’t let him. I review people by their actions.
Well if the election were Trump vs. the mayor of Chicago, you might have a point. Lucky for us, it's not. And we have four years of Trump's other reprehensible actions on which to pass judgment.
But you do you. Picking the leader of the whole country based on what's happened over a few weeks in a few cities seems like good judgment.
First, we do not have to like our choices but they are the ones we have. Neither of these parties or their leaders are going to address all of our issues in the way we want.
We could sit and bitch all day and probably agree on the fact that we need more parties with differing perspectives.
So then....on what basis do we choose?
1. War & Peace - Every president for the last century, maybe longer, has gotten us into a military conflict of some sort but lets just go back to the early 90's. Bush Sr. got us into Iraq. He was probably right and he probably handled it in the right way but we got into a war. Bill Clinton got us into Bosnia. Bush Jr, went nuts and got us into Afghanistan (justified originally) and then Iraq and thought he was going to change the middle east. Instead, we blew up the middle east resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and more of our soldiers killed and maimed and our treasury wiped out. Then comes Obama who rightly or wrongly refused to get us out of the places Bush Jr. got us into and THEN at the behest of his Sec State (Hillary) helped overthrow Ghadafi in Libya (turning a healthy country into a failed state) and then got us into Syria and a potential conflict with Russia and Turkey with more dead civilians, more dead soldiers and another near failed state. To top it off, Obama authorized the assassination of US Citizens overseas using drones.
For all of the hand wringing and prognosticating, what has Trump done? He is pulling troops our of Afghanistan. Tried to do the same in Syria with some success. BUT...NO NEW WARS! (think maybe that might be why the intel community and the defense establishment hate him? He is bad for their business)
So...on War and Peace...Trump earns a vote.
2. Economy: Until COVID hit, the US economy was humming along nicely. Trump challenged the Wall Street and Silicon Valley orthodoxy on free trade, a role that would have been filled by democrats prior to Bill Clinton, and Trump was right to do so. He reworked NAFTA, an agreement that in the end everyone knew needed to be updated. He challenged China, a country that never should have been admitted to the WTO, and for that was called a Xenophobe when in fact everyone now sees that China has been raping us for two decades and using that to rebuild its military.
He has worked hard to shut down the flow of people over the southern border and to cut back severely on work visas like the H1Bs. RACIST! No. It is about supply and demand. He is limiting the supply of labor so wages can rise. Guess what, they WERE rising which is why Silicon Valley and Wall Street were so ticked off at him. Nobody wanted to talk about that so they just played the racism card. Neither of these is an inherently racist action to take.
I would point out that the republican establishment and the democrats are very very tight with Hedge Funds, Wall Street generally and Silicon Valley. Trump went after the orthodoxy of both and made enemies in doing so.
I would also point out that Trump killed the TPP, a deal that would have hamstrung our national authority to regulate business and turned it over to an uneleced board of international business people who would have had the authority to award monies to businesses that failed to realize their expected profits if a country changed a regulation. In short, if a foreign company invested in the US and we changed labor laws or environmental laws and that foreign company did not make what it thought it would the US government would have to pay them. THIS is what Hillary was supporting, what Biden was supporting and what Wall Street wanted. Trump killed it. BTW....a new version of the TPP is now circulating. Think Biden will back it? You bet.
3. Foreign policy? What, he tried to get along with the Russians? Is it better that we be in constant conflict with them? For all the griping here about them, the Europeans are more than happy to do business with them. Germany just completed a major gas deal with Russia. Turkey, our supposed ally is buying weapons from them. The Chinese are a much bigger threat, do you think we can take on both Russia and China or might it be better to partner with Russia to challenge China?
Trump just managed to get the UAE to recognize Israel and normalize relations. Any other president had done that and they would be guaranteed a Nobel.
Does North Korea seem like a bigger or a smaller threat? How about Iran? Remember the panic that killing off the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was going to bring on WWIII? The man masterminded the killing of our troops and terrorist actions all over the Middle East. Dead. No new war. Trump made the right choice, it was a gamble and he won. Iran is weaker, poorer, and with the UAE now at peace with Israel, less of a threat.
Have we overthrown any more governments? Hillary, under Obama, went after Libya, Syria and helped overthrow the elected government of the Ukraine because the president of Ukraine wanted to get along with the Russians. Never mind that a large portion of the Ukrainian population is ethnic Russian. Never mind that the Crimea is of major strategic importance to the Russians. That action under Hillary is what triggered the Russian invasion of Crimea. Think the Ukrainians are thanking us? Belarus saw that and they are now hostile towards us because of it. Oh good. How nice.
I could go on and on...but I wont. I will however conclude with these two points.
1. Not reelecting Trump would be to fail to repudiate the actions of rogue intel and FBI leaders who attempted to effect the outcome of a US election and then when they failed to do that attempted to effect the removal of a sitting president. THAT is simply not something that we can allow to be condoned or to continue because it WILL lead to a formalization of an oligarchy.
2. To not reelect Trump would be to fail to repudiate the actions of the far left, indeed it would empower them, and undermine the ability of the center left to reassert itself. Until such time as we have a multiparty system, we need the center left in the democratic party to maintain balance.
I wasn’t to bothered about voting this year but you make a very compelling argument (I live overseas).
The Dems have not disavowed these riots. Any political party who even thinks rioting and looting is okay is an enemy of law-abiding citizens. This is a major problem regardless of when it happened. I don’t care if it happened in the last few months. The fact that they won’t disavow any of it at all should be a huge wake up call to anyone.
This is about the least smart thing I've seen all day. Trump is INSPIRING these riots. The little moron who shot a couple of people in Kenosha is a Trump supporter, Frances! Good grief! The paintball truck brigade was a bunch of Trump supporters, Frances! And we don't know how much of the bad stuff in Portland was left-wingers and how much was right-wing instigators. These "riots" HELP Trump; why should he try to stop them?
He’s been trying to stop them since day 1. I’m sorry you’ve been propagandized by the media. The person in Kenosha was defending himself and killed two rioters attacking him. If you check the videos of the incident on YouTube or twitter then you’ll see clearly that he was defending himself. The same lawyer that represented the Covington high school student for defamation against the media has taken up Kyle’s case pro bono. Why do you think that is? Because the media is going to have to pay up AGAIN.
"He doesn't like the police because they encourage civility. He likes them because he likes the idea of authority beating down on anyone who challenges him and his positions."
What? Not sure what you're using to source that. That sounds like mind-reading, which I tend to distrust. Because I don't think people can actually read minds.
"Let's also not forget that he said in 2016 he would refuse to accept the results of the election if he lost."
Actually, he refused to say that he *would* accept the results of the election, when reporters demanded to know if he would accept the results of the election if he lost. Hillary Clinton might have answered the same way--had anyone in the press asked her that question.
"What do you think he'll do if he loses?"
If it's decisive, he'll leave office. If it's not decisive, he will litigate the results (probably) ala Bush/Gore--and so will the Biden Camp, if Trump barely ekes out a victory and there are some uncounted ballots somewhere.
"Not sure how Trump is so much more palatable than that."
Slightly so to some, depending on whether your pallet tends towards sweet or savory.
Trump never said he would refuse to accept the results if he lost.
Quote him or admit you lied.
I just looked it up. He had been asked several times over the weeks whether he would accept the election results, and he kept demurring. Once he said "Let me keep you in suspense, okay?" Then, at a rally during this time frame, he said "I will accept the results of this great and historic presidential election...if I win." So my original recollection varied slightly from what he said, which was that his winning would be legitimate, but Hillary's wouldn't. And it's probably worth considering that he refused to answer at all when asked by the media, but when he had a mass of frenzied supporters in his grasp, he all but said that Hillary's victory would be fraudulent. And let's nt forget that even though he won, he claimed without evidence that three million people voted illegally, which, coincidentally, is about the same number by which he lost the popular vote. The guy was peddling conspiracy theories and undermining the election results when he *won.* You think he'll refrain if he loses? Please.
That was a long paragraph to admit you lied.
you are so full of bullshit. THeadon backed up what he said and you are reduced to pedantry.
“I gladly vote for a candidate that believes in basic modern civility.” Now that statement calls for a Scooby-Do double take!! (Your cognitive dissonance is showing)
I would consider trying to stop looting and rioting the most basic of modern civility. I think YOUR cognitive dissonance is showing.
Did I say I “supported looting and rioting”?? No, I don’t believe I did. Don’t be such a reactionary, Frannie.
Is that all you have? Insults with no substance? Going around accusing people of cognitive dissonance and then back tracking on your insult. Laughable.
“Backtracking?” I did no such thing, Frannie. I told you a fact- that I never said I “supported looting” which is what you are going around accusing everyone who doesn’t love your crazy leader of supporting. Risible, Frannie. Risible indeed. Or as your crazy leader loves to say, “Sad.”
Exactly. At least one side is acting like they want a legal system to exist. It ain't the DNC.
I agree that Trump is the slightly less rancid turd here but I'm gonna have to point out that a persistent project of his administration and the Republican blood machine at large has been to systematically pack the courts to protect themselves against prosecution for voter suppression or just outright enacting their agenda without popular mandate. not to mention that Trump was pretty candid that his acrimony towards Sessions was due to his understanding that the federal AG, or at least Sessions in particular, was there to bend and distort the law in any way necessary to defend him and enable his agenda. there are some tepid arguments to be made in Trump's favor but rule of law ain't one, lol.
Indeed. If Trump wins in November he needs to open his victory speech by thanking BLM and Antifa.
Eh, I don't know. The Democrats picked Biden. I understand that a lot of people don't like ANTIFA, etc., but the party didn't pick the progressive wing's standard-bearer. They picked the centrist.
There were a lot of bigoted morons in the Republican camp in 2016, but there wouldn't be as much anger and alarmism right now if the Republicans had nominated Rubio or even Ted Cruz. Biden has repeatedly opposed the progressive wing's calls to decriminalize illegal immigration, and he has stated his opposition to single-payer as well. I don't see him embracing the "defund" movement or anything close to it. Trump will keep trying to associate Biden with the liberal fringe. A lot will depend on how clearly and forcefully Biden repels those accusations by touting his centrist credentials.
Biden is in the basement. He is clearly losing his marbles. He will not likely server out a single term.
Nobody is voting FOR Joe Biden, they are voting for NOT TRUMP.
In that case they are voting for the democrats.
PROBLEM....the democrats are now heavily associated with the burning, looting, violence of the riots.
Biden is just a placeholder. What he thinks means very very little.
Biden is losing it, but no more than Trump. Biden is more benign. He's also only like four years older than Trump, so I'm not sure how the Republicans plan to execute the whole "don't vote for the crazy old man" campaign, when their candidate is only marginally less old and appreciably more crazy.
Second, not every voter thinks that strategically or that far ahead (I'd wager the majority don't). You're right that most Biden votes will really just be anti-Trump votes, but it's still important that the anti-Trump vote be one that people view as superior to Trump himself (cf. Hillary Clinton). So it does matter that Biden has declined the chance to embrace the left's more radical positions. I'd be surprised if he says anything closer to endorsing "defund the police."
The lesson that the Democrats need to learn one way or the other is that for all the crowing and tweeting that millennials do about race and privilege, they don't vote in the numbers that older people do. That's probably because older people have been around long enough to know that stomping your feet is a waste of time, and you're better off just trying to make a difference at the ballot box. Younger people will cast protest votes or sit at home because Bernie Sanders didn't win the nomination and the two-part system is rigged, and Biden is just another corporate white guy like Trump, and so on and so on. Older people will vote. And they like Joe Biden, and they're probably going to resent the implication that he's too old to be president, because it implies that they themselves are too old to be entrusted with responsibility. I suspect they won't like that. Because of the implication.
Fair enough BUT.....we do not all age the same way or at the same rate.
Would I prefer someone younger all around? Sure. Not what I got.
Trump is just sharper and more energetic and does not appear (yet) to have the same level of cognitive decline that Biden is CLEARLY showing.
Now, I think Pelosi is showing the same signs and so is Clyburn.
The dems need a major shift in power to people that are 20 or even 30 years younger. Time for those old Boomers and pre boomers to move out of the way and let GenX and the Millenials have a shot.
I agree that older people historically have made up the lion’s share of voters. A point Im pretty sure has not been lost on those who are high on the mail in ballot thing.
Most people over 65 dont have diminished capacity but tbh here in NJ Murphy is already confusing the crap out of people. Confuse voters who for DECADES have revered going to the polls. Erase that tradition. It’s no longer valued and hell we want to get rid of history anyway. The left is playing to woke millenials. This makes mail in ballots A brilliant strategic move on their part.
And...what is this sudden rally to “save the USPS?” Im still on the Change.org email list and have been getting one of these every day for the last week. interesting how most politicians werent exactly fighting to fund the Postal svc until...now. If you walk in to almost any post office you can see how time pretty much stopped during the Reagan years. NOTE: im not against the idea of mail in ballots in principle however - it should be an OPTION, requested as with absentee ballots. Simply sending a ballot to any name that appears on the rolls can and most likely WILL undermine the one man one vote rule. In the stone age i was a reporter Here in Hudson County NJ where the official Election Day slogan was “Vote early and often.” The ward bosses would make sure there was “a friend” working the polls. Now you dont have to pay people and you dont even have to wear the funny nose and glasses disguise. just go to any apartment building and scoop up ballots for tenants who’ve moved away, died, went into LT care facilities etc. and presto! You can do away with all of those pesky rules!
You are busy today. Are they paying you by the post or by the word?
I get paid based on how many sarcastic and condescending response posts I get.
Your last all depends on how Joe performs once he's out of the bubble. Most old people know their faculties are slipping...it's a question of degree. On his worst days, Joe seems like he's slipped a bit too far...and pretty much all old people have friends who are, unfortunately, like that.
They won't object to people noting it about Joe though they might object to the way it is done.
"no more than Trump"????? Did you watch President Trumps' rallies yesterday and today in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona? He has spoken at each of those rallies more than Biden has in the last four months. Dis you listen to his wonderful remarks on pardoning Susan B. Anthony today??? They were very coherent. And the media showed their ignorance by attacking Anthony as not interested in blacks. They obviously don't know that Frederick Douglass, the leading advocate for black rights in the 19th century was a good friend of hers, that she introduced him at a women's conference in Washington on Feb 20 1895. After it he had a heart attack and died. She gave an eulogy at his funeral.
I have no comments to add about this discussion, but I simply will not remain silent when a fantastic “Always Sunny” reference is made. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.
Thank you. Nobody else noticed and it was starting to make me a little sad.
Are the Democrats in DC (vice those in local Government in areas where protests are ongoing) responsible for those things, or just wrongly associated with them? I don’t know who you support, but have you extended that logic to the president and the GOP in DC as related to COVID?
"There wouldn't be as much anger and alarmism right now if the Republicans had nominated Rubio or even Ted Cruz."
Nonsense.
The so-called Resistance is a feature of Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign, not an incidental bug of Donald Trump's improbable but legitimate victory.
You’re assuming Biden would actually serve a substantial portion of his term. Deeming him unfit seems the only logical explanation for Harris to flip from Biden is “a racist” and abusive to women to being honored to blah blah and “I was great friends with Bo Biden.” On another note: any guesses which cabinet post Booker will get?
I'm not assuming that. I am talking about what he needs to do to get elected in the first place. I don't think most American voters think that far ahead. They're going to watch Biden and Trump in the debates and "trust their gut," or whatever euphemism people use to elevate a lack of critical thinking to justifiable behavior.
I know Trump and the Republicans are trying to make hay of the "he's too old, he's lost it" angle, but...well, that would be a much easier sell if Biden weren't up against another septuagenarian who alternates between saying things that are horrific and saying things that are incomprehensible.
There IS a reason that so many op eds have come out begging Biden not to debate.
I'm sorry man, but I have watched Biden on his broadcast interviews and in speeches and he is CLEARLY not all there AND I assume you have seen the different moments when he has lost his cool with people. Saw that same kind of behavior in both my grandparents as they were declining. They get frustrated and they get angry and sometimes it is just because they are confused and know they should not be.
Oh, I don't disagree that he's already slipping, and that he's liable to have a senior moment at a terrible time for his campaign. But I keep coming back to a comment I heard on the radio from a voter in the South Carolina Democratic primary, who said he preferred Biden to Buttigieg because Buttigieg "sounds too smart when he talks. I like Biden because sometimes he makes mistakes. That's more like me. Buttigieg is too smooth."
I think the point that perhaps I am not making clearly is that I agree with most of the comments responding to me that Biden is in mental decline and that, if elected, it will create substantive problems during his presidency. But it seems to me that most of the commenters here, who appear to be smart people, think the average voter is also smart and will go through the same multi-level analysis before voting. I really don't think that's the case. People have very bizarre pathologies when it comes to voting. Biden saying something dumb or looking confused won't hurt him as much as many people think. If he looks weak, that will be a problem. But looking lost won't make a difference.
Whatever people think of Hillary Clinton, there is no denying that she had much, much stronger command of the issues, the facts, and the data than Trump did. Trump just said whatever came into his head at any given moment during the campaign. He often sounded dumb and he often sounded lost. But many voters didn't care. I'd wager an appreciable segment of the population found it attractive.
Same
I’ve got a grandmother who has mid-late stage dementia. About 2 years ago her cognitive abilities mirrored Biden. Couldn’t quite finish sentences. Mixes nouns. Forgets where she is and what she’s talking about mid sentence. Even tried to laugh it off and use humor to compensate. Look at Biden’s eyes. The lights are dim. You’re in denial if you can’t tell the different between him, Pelosi, trump, and Sanders who are about the same age. I honestly hope Biden does not debate trump because I think it will be cruel and embarrassing for him and his family when he has a complete meltdown on stage. Betting a paycheck that if he somehow gets elected he doesn’t make it 2 years.
I remember when Robert Mueller testified before Congress; I got the same impression. I honestly felt sorry for him and anger towards those who knew what was going on and still sent him in. Are these the same people sending Biden in?
Cue the 25th Amendment...
How could we possibly want an incompetent President, even for two months??? President Trump has many important issues under way that will continue past 2020. The great success in the Middle East of Israel and UAE agreeing to recognize each other will soon be followed by Bahrain, Oman, and Sudan, but Saudi Arabia may be only after January 20, and only Trump could accomplish that. The Obama/Biden administration hated Israel and supported their terrorist opponents run by Iran. How could Biden reverse course now by 180 degrees when he cannot think coherently about where he is and who he is with?
Two years? I think the over/under would be two months!
President Trump's remarks today celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution ensuring women's right to vote in all states were very coherent. As were his remarks on pardoning Susan B. Anthony. As were his remarks on the historical agreement between Israel and the UAE, a more important accomplishment than anything Obama/Biden did in foreign policy in their 8 years.
Idk about Booker but I'm guessing Susan Rice will be in there somewhere 😫
Housing/HUD or Health/Human Services are the designated token minority cabinet positions-regardless of party. Condi Rice Booker isn’t....
Im thinking President Harris will install him as DOE or Commerce Secretary
I honestly don't know if he's going to lose or win, but I can't see either him or this ticket being a compelling choice even if things were less dramatic. Polls say different, but in a normal cycle the power of incumbency is strong--historically you need a serious 3rd party acting as a spoiler or a compelling primary challenger to the incumbent for the incumbent to lose. While I never say never, and try to recognize my own biases (given our choices, I'd rather have Trump, although even more so I'd rather have better choices) and I won't be astonished in Biden/Harris win the day, though I'll be even less surprised if Trump wins and in fact does better than previously.
But there are a lot of wildcards involved this time around, from COVID to universal mail-in voting (a thing which, Twitter-conspiracy-debates aside, there's just no existing infrastructure to make happen smoothly, and lots of openings for individuals and groups to make a mess of it, unintentionally or on purpose) and, thus far, a paucity of rallies.
So I'm not going to firmly predict anything, other than to predict that current polling predictions will prove to be information-free up until election night, no matter how it falls.
*not "legit riots" but "legit protests"
That "legit riots" comment gave away your thinking. That makes it seem like you conflate protests with riots, as there is nothing legit about riots, but perhaps in your mind, a protest is synonymous with riots, I've heard many people see a protest and then term it a riot.
Boy O Boy I agree. But your gonna pay for this by the Crazed Lefty Sycophants that scurry about this page.
I don't want him to win, but I do have money on Trump at PredictIt
If I am an RNC strategist, I am watching to see what NOT to do in this "unprecedented and historic" virtual convention. Bad enough that the speaker roster is Clinton(s), Obama(s), and AOC. What did the DNC think--let's trot out the very people that swing voters will likely hate? The DNC is doomed. The RNC is going to sit back and guffaw.
absolutely loving that John fucking Kasich is on the speaker list as a gesture towards woke centrism, when they could not in fact have picked a more null political presence if they tried. this dude's Sensible Grandpa tack washed out hard before even the foothills of the 2016 primary, so he's sure as hell not appealing to any Republicans; nor will any significant number of Democrat voters (politically dommed though they may be) ever warm to the idea of assisting the agendas of vile creatures like Mitch McConnell or Jim Jordan. it couldn't be a more obvious bromide, almost like the dems are proudly proclaiming their brand of feeling like you're doing a thing without actually doing anything at all - pure empty symbolism.
Empty Symbolism You Can Believe In!
The neocon vote. Those dark trillions that have been missing from some coffers all this time count for more than you think
I actually think swing voters like the Obamas. He was, despite all the Republican insistence otherwise, a pretty popular president. He is also a good reminder of how a president should behave in public. My own mother is a staunch Republican who hates (with a capital "HATES") Trump. She used to really dislike Obama, but her tune has changed a lot in recent years. She always calls him "presidential" now. I imagine there are a lot of suburban Republicans like her, who just miss the office having some manner of integrity. I don't know whether all the media hype about suburban women deciding the election is accurate, but they love Michelle Obama.
As for the Clintons...I have no idea what the DNC is thinking.
calling it now, with her DNC speaking spot and new podcast and otherwise increased media presence, Michelle Obama is being groomed for a run, either congressional or presidential. really gives you hope for the future, that the progressive star on the horizon is just the wife of probably the greatest villain of the 21st century, with no other merits to speak of whatsoever. but it's okay, she's got a friendly smile and voice, and she can say nice things, which makes her a perfect candidate to socket into America's weird ass parasocial obsession with all of its public figures. Obama seems like a dude you'd have a beer with? sure! I doubt he's imbibed anything other than adrenochrome for the last ten or so years but his demeanor is just so genuine, you know? Michelle is so sweet, she seems like the kind of person you could just sit down with and confide in. I'm sure she'd care a lot about your smothering student and medical debt, maybe she'd even give you some help out of her own pocket. that's totally something that would actually happen. let's all get together and collectively post her into office so that we can have a Better World.
This is all fine, but it seems weird to get this worked up over something that is pure conjecture at this point. Michelle Obama is a public figure, sure, and I agree that our culture has a bizarre and suicidal fixation with "likability" over "actually qualified" in its political candidates. But I have not seen anything to suggest she is actually gunning for office. I think, so far, she is just using her profile to bring attention to issues she cares about and to help get Biden elected.
I'm not suggesting that her running for office is out of the realm of possibility. It's definitely possible. But nothing she has done to-date suggests she has the political ambitions that were so obvious in Hillary Clinton. She seems more likely to start a nonprofit for school children or something.
Probably correct here. But the Trumpsters have a fixation on anything Obama. They'd probably like to jail them or outlaw Michelle running for mayor of Chicago, much less a federal office. There is some serious derangement here.
I would LOVE to see Michelle Obama become mayor of Chicago and watch it blow up in her face, b/c West Side gangsters don’t give a hoot about the entreaties of Hyde Park liberals.
I keep looking for any sign that she has any interest, and I keep seeing none. She gives a good speech and probably could be a strong candidate. I say this as someone with 180 degree opposite political views.
Prediction: Michelle Obama will at least be OFFERED a cabinet post.
The Clintons probably still have enough juice to make trouble if they are not given what they view as proper respect. I think it comes down to that.
What are you talking about? They got John Kasick! 😂
Most intelligent comment in this thread. Good....but kinda sad overall. WTF are the dems. thinking?
The DNC will try every possible tactic- over many years- before possibly figuring out that people can only handle so many lies, deceptions, half-truths and false narratives. Eventually they'll win enough hearts once the lies get down to a manageable level.
But the foundation to all this is seeing the DNC, the woke and the average liberal as essentially out of touch. Blame the MSM for its relentless propaganda. Years ago, Americans loudly wondered how the Germans of the '30s could have fallen for the lies. We're seeing the answer every day now, right here. I tell my teenager he is living through history (whoa there's that word- take a shot!)
Unfortunately, as in those poor misguided decisions made in Germany in the 30's, decisions made today won't be truly recognized for what they are until it's all over and America looks like Germany at the end of 1945. Or Portland as it is today.
Here's the not funny. BOTH parties engage in propaganda exercises. Here's a way to play a drinking game without getting drunk. Only drink when you here non-partisan policy points of order or real facts. The political class in America is bankrupt morally.
That drinking game is called "going cold turkey".
Not a fun drinking game. Not at all.
You'd be safe to drive after six hours of convention shenanigans.
Safe to drive perhaps, certainly not to vote.
Why on earth do you think that both USSR and North Korea ensured that the vodka and shoju(rice liquor-paint thinner) never, ever ran out come whatever else-famine, war, cult of personality, domestic nuclear chaos? People think Gorbachev was brave for perestroika-he tried to impose a 90% alcohol prohibition on the Soviet Union!!!!!!
Yes. During the lockdown liquor stores have been considered essential businesses in this country too.
Yes, it's tough to be on the left right now. I wonder how many involuntarily start turning their gaze towards Trump only to slap themselves out of it with a shiver.
I am going to check-in on CNN just to see if any succumb to the torture.
It's okay to acknowledge that Trump is the only viable option (if you are choosing to cast a vote...third party Is also an option although not one I'll be choosing) if you actually believe in liberal values and any semblance of law and order. The DNC has completely jumped the shark and its too late to get my vote back.
He's not a viable option for me. The self-dealing, the graft, the incompetence of his cabinet, and, of course, his mishandling of the pandemic have foreclosed any chance I had to consider him. No one I know is excited about Biden, but the idea that Trump represents some sort of sober leadership in the face of the this particular challenge is laughable.
Fair enough! I've just kept this opinion to myself out of fear of being yelled at so I decided to finally say it. Thank you for your respectful response!
Anytime, man. I often find kinship with conservatives and Trump people over the problems with the DNC. And the conversations I've had here on Taibbi's articles are actually informative and interesting, often with people I don't agree with. Want to do whatever small part I can in keeping that a reality.
I believe Trump voters are far more sympathetic to Progressive ideas than Progressives realize. Heck, Trump is considering pardoning Snowden.
Seemed to me Trump was just kinda riffing but who knows. Would absolutely love it if he pardoned Snowden. Woulda loved it if Trump actually got around to doing the infrastructure spend he ran on too. Unlike some people who dislike the guy, I'm still capable of giving him credit if he earned it. His foreign policy, for example, is less hawkish than prior admins. Was very worried with chickenhawks like Gorka and Bolton in there.
Agree. The Newspaper of Record published an "interview" with an imaginary Trump supporter instead of going off to find a real one to talk to. One reason I voted for him was that he used the word "peace" about the foreign policy he wanted to pursue, and I thought he meant it. Still think so.
The establishment media has been beyond horrible for over five years on this man. Where I live, if I were to wear a MAGA hat on the street I'd be at genuine risk of assault, and I hold them 100% responsible for that.
And Matt is right, I'll never believe a single accusation against him that comes from them solely.
When I heard that, I immediately took it as a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) warning to the Deep State (or whatever you wanna call our intelligence community). Did anyone else feel that way? He doesn't usually answer questions he doesn't feel will benefit him in answering. Even when he knows he'll be attacked for it...most of the time it seems that's part of his strategy. Not saying it always works out that way haha but there's a definite strategy to the way he holds press conferences.
Amen. We aren't each other's enemies despite what the Bernays Media insists.
Seriously folks. I get that what Trump talked about in 2016 had a progressive ring to it, but then did you go to sleep for the next four years? Has he brought manufacturing back to the U.S? Evidently not since the masks we needed were manufactured in China. Is coal mining back? Nope He had a plan for healthcare that would be better and cheaper than the ACA with no mandate. What did he accomplish? He ended the mandate — period — partly causing an increase in premiums. Moving beyond the did and didn’t do, which would simply evaluate him in the same terms as any other president, the man talked about the possibility of not leaving office if he lost the election—he talked about that! He wants to defund the post office when we need mail-in ballots. I am no more excited about Biden than anyone else, and if the Republican candidate were anyone else—even W — I’d say, sure, you want to register a protest vote, go for it. But you will have a dictatorship if the guy wins, and I am not one for hyperbole. This is not 2016. Not only have we been warned, we lived it.
I honestly want to understand - how can you claim that when we've had four years that weren't a dictatorship? We've had four years of our intelligence agencies running amok, trying to unelect a duly elected president - - and he's the existential threat? He's not perfect OBVIOUSLY but I just can't see this the way you're seeing it. If they can do what they've done to the President - - they CAN and WILL do it to us. Which party was behind the coup?
I'm glad you are not one for hyperbole.
Has Trump been stifled and pursued every day of his presidency by the media and the neocons who want the USA permanently in the Middle East and want cheap labor from immigrants while making taxpayers pay the cost of their education, health care and the rest of the external costs? Not only entry level jobs but stem jobs suffer. Every time he tries to reign in H1b visas, Tim Cook gets on the phone to Jared to tell him Trump can't do that. Only 26% of graduates with stem degrees work in stem.
Have you family members who lived in a real dictatorship? B/c I have-USSR under Stalin. Trump might be a boor, a clown, and a typical 73 year old man in his rants/twitterings, but he is not a dictator or a dictator in waiting.
I am fortunate to have been born here. Having family that escaped the Castro take over of Cuba, i love it when people call Trump a fascist or a dictator. We Americans have the greatest privileges and relative wealth on THE PLANET. Yet Millions are willfully ignorant to The fact that they, their family and friends would suffer SEVERELY just for saying such things publicly or even privately (if a friend, neighbor, colleague or family member is hungry or frightened enough).
Yep, I had relatives who lived under Mussolini. He was all of the above AND a dictator in waiting. A dictatorship is the concentration of government power in one person. Putting people in front of firing squads or sending them to gulags is a by-product, not a definition. People tend to confuse that. Democracies are fragile. Most dictatorships these days aren’t due to a sudden takeover. They evolve, often with the support of the people, like frogs in boiling water. Once they realize what happened, it’s too late.
I have yet to hear someone in a similar scenario to yours say that they are not worried about the direction our country is heading. That alone should disturb people.
Everything you say about Trump is true. Unfortunately, Biden and Harris are not safe alternatives.
For example, Biden has been an outspoken and effective proponent of interventionist imperialism since the beginning of his career, has had a direct hand in the deaths of many thousands of Americans and many, many more innocent civilians in other countries, has played a leadership role in destabilizing entire regions, has played a pivotal role in the over-militarization of police and the significant and substantial weakening of civil liberties in the US (in the name of the so-called "war on terror"), has been deeply complicit in and enabling of nearly ubiquitous domestic spying, drone assassinations, black sites, torture, and the suspension of Habeas corpus (arguably THE foundational principle in the Constitution), continues to brag about decades of work that put untold numbers of non-violent offenders behind bars (often in private for-profit prisons), and has aggressively represented the economic interests of big corporations (especially banks, credit card companies, defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies, & health insurance companies) at the expense of regular people. Those are just the highlights.
Harris' career has been shorter, but she has clearly established herself as an eager servant of the de facto aristocracy and is by no means a friend to ordinary people.
It's a basic denial of empirical reality to think that authoritarianism, the rapid expansion of a permanent underclass, global destabilization, and environmental collapse won't continue to advance under a Biden administration. Trump is vile, ignorant, incompetent, banal, easily manipulated, boorish, and foolish. But he didn't create this problem - he's simply taking advantage of it. Biden had a big hand in creating it. I don't care if the person sinking a knife in my back has a gleaming, toothy smile and uses grown-up language or not. It's irrelevant to the final result.
And most importantly of all, neither of these buffoons is even giving more than tangential lip service to the foundational problems we must solve (environmental collapse and the rising threat of nuclear war) for stable civilization to continue and provide a future for our grandchildren and beyond. Neither is anyone else in Washington or almost anywhere else.
We aren't going to get solutions from whichever of these criminals successfully lies himself into office. We have to look for solutions elsewhere.
I dunno how you could say the mishandling is on the Federal level, given that they were fed misinformation (a cynic might even call it disinformation) from the WHO. Likewise, failure points in the US for the pandemic have been primarily on the state level and overwhelmingly in #Resistance states, at that. Yet these are the people purporting they'd be able to do a better job than Trump.
I'm not keen on absolving any layer of leadership for the failures we've had containing this virus. That goes for governors and the president. But the president and the fed have the most resources at their disposal and the most responsibility for how we handle it. They've mangled that response. They've done poorly. But they seem much more worried about winning culture wars than actually taking responsibility and providing coherent leadership. I won't support someone like that.
The Feds only have the most resources at their disposal if Congress backs the play, which they did up until late April/early May. Coincidentally, that's when the "Trump bungled covid" narrative began to hype up from the press.
Do-nothing Congress has completely destroyed my trust in the federal government. It was already low but now I feel like Congress is just plain useless. Nancy Pelosi keeps demanding that the House go on vacation. She is one of the worst politicians the American people have ever had.
Do you honestly think he's done a *good* job? And if so, why?
Remember New Zealand, the island country that beat covid? The Prime Minister has just delayed the General Election one month due to a new outbreak.
Covid is going to be around for awhile.
And remember Sweden, the country that blew it badly? They have no second wave and their economy isn’t completely off the rails.
Oh, I'm aware of and deeply bummed about that. Doesn't change my opinion as to how poorly our government has handled the crisis or how at sea Trump is when he talks about it. He really doesn't seem up to this challenge at any level.
Sorry, but Trump and Co were warned on 23 January, or before, that there was a serious pandemic heading our way. They dropped the ball. It should have been all hands on deck. Instead, Trump and his crackpot team kept telling us it was going to disappear. The clips of their public statements are available for all to find, unaltered. He didn’t even want to recommend masks until the death toll became too much for his Republican friends.
Sure, China hid the problem in December, but early January it was clear to anyone who could read the news that this was serious. The intelligence agencies were warning the administration and Congress about it. Vietnam just proceeded as if China was lying. Why didn’t Trump do the same?
Warned on January 23rd, closed travel from China on the 31st. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html)
Just as an example, NYC Mayor's Office tweets this on Feb 13: https://twitter.com/nycmayorsoffice/status/1228095506368344066?lang=en
How do you close borders for a pandemic when the borders are staffed by people who are so ideologically opposed to you that they will invite said pandemic in just because you warned against it? And you can extrapolate that to the entirety of the covid response because nearly all of it requires the acquiescence of state governments.
Forget about borders. The travel ban only made sense early on. Once the cases started to spread within the country, testing and other medical support was needed. They not only dropped the ball on testing, which I won’t actually blame on Trump, but he kept denying that the cases were increasing in the face of mounting evidence.
It is interesting how Trump supporters/apologists act like there is no recorded evidence of his clueless statements, from denying the problem to wanting to reopen the economy when the cases were still high. The states that supported him were badly misled into allowing the virus to spread. He turned it over to his idiot son-in-law and it shows.
President Trump has a better cabinet than President Obama did. Trump replaced the incompetent people like Sessions and Tillerson with outstanding people like Barr and Pompeo. Obama was incapable of removing corrupt cabinet members such as his two Attorney Generals.
President Trump's response to the pandemic was better than that of many other countries. The deaths per million population is lower than 7 other countries. If you take out New Jersey and New York, which have the highest deaths per million thanks to their incompetent governors, the U.S. is somewhere between 16th and 18th. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
The President also worked closely with key companies to rapidly increase production of things needed for medical personnel and care of COVID patients.
Biden will be same.
Indeed. A vote for Biden is a vote for the establishment to gain a foothold on everything again. The neocons like Bush and Cheney are voting for Biden. How anyone could stomach voting for both the neolib and neocon establishments all in one candidate is bizarre to me.
Trump is the only populist candidate on any major ticket. A vote for the establishment is a vote for the destruction of the populist movement. I voted for Bernie and watched the Dems do everything they could to annihilate that hope. I was never going to vote for them again anyway and have thankfully come around to voting for Trump. He IS the anti-establishment candidate.
I saw how they smeared all the progressives (Tulsi was and is still my #1 choice) so I’m 100% certain the media and establishment are constantly doing that to President Trump.
I thought they were unfair with Bernie, but the media's treatment of Gabbard was appalling. Still unclear why I'm to believe she's a puppet for Assad (?!) or whatever that narrative is.
Not that it matters to anyone but as someone voting for Trump -- if the DNC hadn't done what they did to Tulsi it wouldn't even have been a question who I was voting for these past few months. Would have voted Tulsi 1000%.
If the plutocracy hates you, you stand absolutely no chance of getting elected. "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it."
As far as Trump being "left": His support of oil companies? coal companies? the national parks invasion? Drilling in ANWR? Tax cuts? Betsey DeVos? Kavanaugh? Religious extemism? And my all-time favorite - the wall...
You are, by far, the most MSM induced Maroon I've heard.... Today. Watch CNN & MSNBC and drool. Then go to bed.
Since I don't watch MSM, I'm not sure what you mean? We can't even get CNN or MSNBC.
The real problem is that corruption runs rampant through both parties and issues like civil rights, environment, abortion, etc, are an effective distraction. I find it baffling when people think that Trump is not just as ensconced in that corruption.
He didn't "get rid" of NAFTA! He slightly tweaked it! We still have 800 bases open all over the world. We're still killing kids in Iran, Venezuela, etc. with our brutal sanctions, we still are harming Cubans by the INSANE embargo, he didn't "bring back jobs and factories", his administration is based upon Cyrus I. Schofield's perverse interpretation of Scripture with Pompeo and Co. basing our foreign policy on "The Rapture". He talked a good anti-war game but Guantanamo is still open, he signed off on a cyber-war program so extreme neither W nor Obama would touch it with a 10 foot pole! A true populist of ANY party would be forcing AIPAC to register as a foreign agent!!! The "aesthetics" are different but he is as Wall Street-warmonger as they come! Dems are barely better except Justice Dems such as the Squad, Bowmann, Cori Bush!
Adding to that, he pulled out of the Iran nuclear treaty.
Even if AOC became president tomorrow, none of this would change. It's all theater!
I hope you're wrong but I fear you're not! As the great Chris Hedges says, "Take to the streets with acts of massive civil disobedience." And Caitlin Johnstone, "Remind everybody everyday, that this is NOT normal, this is NOT healthy. We do NOT have to surrender to a warmongering, Oligarchic, ecocidal, elitist, worldwide coup! Greed and selfishness are not inevitable!"
Mentioned this downthread, but Trump's foreign policy is less hawkish than I anticipated, which is good. That said, it's not exactly rosy. He's escalated our drone strike program massively (over 2000 his first two years vs. 1800 for Obama's eight years) and then did away with the reporting requirement. You and I have no idea how many drone strikes are being done in our names right now. That should bother people on every side of the political spectrum and it's hard to call a policy like that "anti-war."
And the large tax gifts he's given the richest Americans and business leaders isn't something I'd consider "left" either. That's just further wealth consolidation for plutocrats, a group that Trump is a part of.
(I'm not going to show my ass and pretend I know the ins and outs of NAFTA vs. its USMCA replacement. I simply do not understand enough of the particulars to have an opinion I feel is valid.)
Hard for me to buy the "left" argument given some of that stuff. Do appreciate that we gained back some manufacturing jobs pre-pandemic. Genuinely happy about that.
Totally agree with your comments on things the taxes and just wanted to clarify that when I say "liberal" beliefs lining up with a vote for Trump -- much of that is coming from a cultural perspective vs. a policy perspective. I see one side excusing things the other side is not...that to me is the biggest problem on the left right now. Free speech is a liberal value that is in short supply and the willingness to turn a blind eye to violence and censorship makes me wonder what they would do if they got their power back. Not saying Trump is some leftist hero or anything!
Trump poisoned a lot of liberal's brains and, most damning, a lot of those liberals are very prominent. There's almost this inability to judge Biden and Harris on their merits and instead *only* in contrast to Trump. Which makes sense, honestly. Biden and Harris are bad candidates but they represent Not Trump, which is the animating principle in the Democratic Party right now. Some purported liberals talked themselves into fuckin' Mike Bloomberg of all people.
Past that, yes, on a cultural level, the left is blowing it. Too much condescension and speech policing and identity politicking. You don't convince people to become part of a bigger, inclusive project to reform government in a more equitable way by scolding them for piddly bullshit or celebrating more diversity on the board at Raytheon.
*things like taxes
The tax reform bill actually helped low and middle income people most. The wealthiest 5% have complained that it INCREASED their federal taxes because of the new $10,000 limit on State And Local Tax (SALT) deductions.
It impacts people making more than ~$250,000 a year in states with income taxes, and people with properties assessed at more than ~$1 million where local property taxes are collected. They are actually paying MORE now in Federal income tax than they did in 2017.
That is why the DEMOCRATS want to replace this ONE item in the tax reform bill.
The corporate tax rate was nearly cut in half (35% to 20%) while 60% of the tax savings went to the top 20% of earners in America. This isn't a populist tax cut. It's business as usual, propping up corporations above individuals, a bipartisan tradition like no other in America.
We don't have a left party in American. The policy goals of the DNC are much closer to Never Trump Republicans than someone like Bernie. It's deeply depressing. They're just going to dress up obsequiousness to their donors as diversity instead of patriotism this year.
It's depressing to see the state of the Democrat party these days- they used to stand for something- ie, the working class, at least somewhat anti war and so on. They kept the other party in line and the nation on a more even keel.
Well, they at least TALKED about the working class... and made references to the anti-war efforts they participated in before they became boomers.
Since those halcyon days they've become a bunch of Madoffs hell bent on reaping maximum profit at the cost of votes because.. who needs voters when the big money just hands you loads of money?
Can't argue with any of that.
Ds love $$$$ as much or more than Rs-they just hate the free markets that generate such $$$-as a matter of rhetoric and policy. Wall St. and big finance is increasingly irrelevant to entrepreneurial freedom and initiative-which is why the Ds and Wall St. have a mutual bromance....
The Democratic Party purposefully abandoned the working class (deplorables) as a constituency 30 years ago in favor or immigrants who would vote Democratic.
In favor of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood
Yes, the left and the right don't realize they actually need each other.
The true left and the true right aren't that far apart. both want a sane and civil society.
Very true. I'd argue that seeing how far left the left has gone has made people realize that in a big way. We need some balance and right now we don't have it.
>> turning their gaze towards Trump only to slap themselves out of it with a shiver.<<
That was me until Biden picked Race Card Kamala as his running mate. Now I'm done shivering.
Matt, are you going to be live on video for portions of it? Do you remember that early cable era hilarious show Mystery Science Theater were two watchers made fun of wacky science fiction movies? You and Katie should do the same thing during these conventions. Maybe get Bret Weinstein and some others to join. I would pay real money to watch that.
Mystery Science Theater was so much fun, I still occasionally switch to it on Comet TV. Matt and Katie would be fun for this. Only one request to Matt: please don't pull Katie's leg about some fictitious sports story and then continue doing it for a while. That is abuse.
I don't drink but if I watched this trash I'd probably have to start.
Love to read Matt’s article and comments. You are all very educated people (I am very educated too but the English is my second language and I can’t write as well as you are). Just want to tell you that Trump is the least of your problem. I risk my freedom to move to US 45 years ago and now these Marxists are turning US into the country I left. Believe me I have personal experience. My father spent 15 years in gulag, and I remember KGB searching our apartment. And after they finish with Jews, they will come for you. They will eliminate every free thought. You will only express yourself in a company of trusted people. They create terror. Nothing will stop them. They use young idealistic people who believe in equal outcome, not equal of opportunity. I, being an atheist, pray for this country, and I pray Trump will win. It might buy us 4 more years.
But if you will not stop these Marxist, you are looking at end of America as you know it. It is not pretty.
I agree that there is nothing valuable or useful in hammering "Trump is bad" for Democrats. Not only has this been the message for four straight years - including actual IMPEACHMENT - but it hasn't moved his numbers at all. Not even one bit. That is the definition of insanity, to keep doing the thing that isn't working. But I fear you're right, that it will be Twitter in real time and non-stop "Trump is bad."
It's like watching a sports team actively trying to lose the game.
This looks fun but unfortunately to participate I'd have to watch that trash, and I definitely am not gonna waste my time listening to conservative grandstanding and platitudes. God speed Matt!
I think my Zoom watching group will be including some add-on rules. In particular, I'd like to require the inclusion of the following performative gestures mandating 1 tequila shot each: (a) kente cloth (b) kneeling (c) "Wakanda Forever" gesture (d) hand heart (e) slow ripping of symbolic paper (f) Pelosi slow clap.
Optional drink for any appeal to a higher power, to wit: "God."
Oh gawd my liver can't take that
Oh God this was funny. I love how "this isn't who we are' doesn't apply to twats hurling Molotov cocktails or firing people for having opinions.
You're just phoning it in until you start dropping acid instead of taking shots. At least after 10 or 15 doses they might start temporarily making sense.
😂
This game won't last long. Everyone will flip to Netflix within an hour.
Hahaha this made my morning.
Very interesting and amusing take from the perspective of this Canadian reader. Maybe I don't have a thick enough skin, but I gotta say that I winced at the inclusion of "George Floyd." Whatever else you want to say about all the political drama surrounding it, he's still a human being who was choked to death, and I don't see any upside to making a drinking joke about it.
The joke is not his death, but the craven invocation of his name by corporate-captured stooges as a panacea for all social ills.
A small but important note, missed by most people. The autopsy did not find the signs of suffocation (choked to death), but instead found signs of a heart attack, caused by a combination of an existing heart condition, the potentially fatal level of meth and fentanyl in his blood, and the stress of the police encounter. So it will be up to a jury, after reviewing extensive presentations from both sides, to decide what criminal responsibility there is for George Floyd's heart attack, but he was not choked to death.
(Note that the body cams reveal that he had been saying "I can't breath" well before being put on the ground, and complaining about claustophobia (tho he had been driving another car), it didn't start when he was held down.)
The jury will hear all of this, along with questions about how long it took to get an ambulance, etc.
And the jury with either follow the law, in which case nobody is going to get charged to the level the mob wants, or the jury won't follow the law and convict based on the popular narrative--in which case why would you ever want to be a cop in Minneapolis? I don't see a good outcome from this, no matter how it shakes out.
Yes, prototypical example of how a short video can be very misleading.
Chauvin may be one of those poor, unfortunate souls whose fate was sealed not by the brutality of his act but rather by the threatened barbarity of the pitchforked crowd clamoring for his scalp. If this were a normal day he wouldn’t have even been charged with a crime since Floyd didn’t die of suffocation, was high on drugs, was resisting arrest and Chauvin acted in a manner consistent with the training provided to him by the City of Minneapolis. But hang he will, sadly (not defending Chauvin, just stating the facts).
And, he asked to be put on the ground.
Wait till the evidence is all presented in a court of law- not the court of public opinion. Canada does still have a real legal system, no?
And no, you don't have a thick enough skin. Might want to work on that- the future will demand it of you.
Indeed. That leaked body cam footage was quite revealing.
Yep
Actually, Canada has a subtly different legal system. And they have some really poor excuses for lawyers. I know, I've done battle there. Mainly, Canada has a narcissism problem and a tendency to self-belief in however they see the world.
LOL It could be said that the future won't suffer the weak or thin-skinned.
Right now, the country is at "peak" thin skin (hopefully)
Oh, it's only August... you've not seen the bottom of that barrel yet, good sir.
Calling a guy out on his optimism? What a cruel world!
Welcome to the U.S.A.!
We're a little messed up down here and our media squeezed all the life out of George Floyd's name (no pun intended here) long before Mr. Taibbi used his humor to bring the absurdity to a drinking game. Mr. Floyd's name has been repeated so many times on our televisions and has come to mean anything but what the real person was about, I'm sure. Talk about becoming calloused. The name "George Floyd" at one time refered to a person but now it refers to any number of social and political causes/movements, for or against whatever, or it can be used to garner ratings to sell more advertisements. Our media bastardized the name a long time ago. Ran it through the mill...... if you will. And do you think our politicians aren't going to use his name for their own political gain?
Taibbi is only bringing light to an absurdity that's already there. Ever listen to Frank Zappa?
And why are few to none of these comments about what the original post was about?
George Floyd died of an overdose.
Oh you better watch out... there's a "meme" circulating where the Demonrats are fantasizing about making a "new" US of Canada" where you get the NE and NW states as invaders and THEY make a new country -free of all those pesky "rubes" in the heartland.
https://external-preview.redd.it/GL7vdlInJUPeWTdkz-8DvldzBXCLLb_wRwbGjIHij1c.jpg?auto=webp&s=b37b2464ab9633cb452f9c5380de3981afffde82
Ugh. Can we do less "Demonrat" and "Republithug" nonsense around here? That's on every other board in the universe and I genuinely enjoy talking to people here because it isn't just a partisan pissing contest.
Amen. I'm on the right, and this is about the only place I can find to speak reasonably with people on the left.
Amen. I no longer claim to be right or left, but I guess I'm more on the right in the modern era--but I have always hated that nonsense. And general accusation of one side or the other being idiots, insane, or Nazis (although I have myself sometimes made parallels between modern progressives and Stalinists) but in general, one of my big objections to modern progressivism is the attempt to redefine words in a form of newspeak, so that nothing has a common meaning anymore. This is the flip side of it: just use the correct words for things. Democrats and Republicans are just proper names: use them. Similarly, I'm a dude. I'm not cisgendered.
I divide the world now between people who genuinely support free speech, due process, and equal justice under law, and those who don't. As just a generalization, those who do seem to be either on the right or (some) Bernie supporters, mostly. The "identity politics" crowd believe in collective guilt and collective victimization, which leaves little room for individual rights.
It's telling when someone I'm talking politics to really identifies as a Dem or Republican. When the Democratic Party contains AOC and Joe Manchin and the GOP contains Jeff Sessions and Mitt Romney, what do those party labels actually mean anymore?
(Talking politics *with*---though at my worst, I'm sure it feels like I'm talking *to* people. Dear substack: 5 minute edit window please. Thanks)
Oh, I'd love to live in a new socialist paradise next door to a new nuclear armed right wing bully state. Both free to swing to the extremes, now that they are more politically uniform and don't need to deal with internal pushback. Imagine a new nation where Trump polls 70% positive and can crush any opposition.
Folks, we need to do our best to fix the problems in the US from within, rather than leaving it; the rest of the world is counting on us to do our part to balance and reform, rather than unleash, the extremism. There's nobody else who can step in and restore sanity or at least hold it together until people get tired of the extremists.
Please tell me that, in your dystopian horror fantasy, there will also be some sort of free state that is neither socialist paradise or nuclear armed right wing bully state. I had to read the book Ecotopia in 9th grade biology (I grew up in San Francisco) and pissed off the teacher when I posited that the whole thing wouldn't work because you had to force the non-believers to join... and then it's not a utopia anymore. I still agree with 9th grade me 40+ years later. I want to live in the free place in the middle.
I hear you. Even if "the united states of canada" on the map were to be just a moderately liberal democracy (rather than a "socialist paradise"), it would still be next door to a now much more conservative and nuclear armed nation ("jesusland" on the map). Likewise if a third "free state" as you sugggest were created out of the reorg.
And I do take your point. One point I want some of my fellow liberals to consider is: does your vision of the good near term society still have room to accommodate people with humane values but cultural differences? I'm not talking here about, say, Black culture (which they want to accept), but about, for example, church going NASCAR watching flag waving citizens. Or does their vision of mullticulturalism require deporting or brainwashing all such people, because only people who adhere to the new progressive ideology can live in peace there? I am not myself a church goer, a NASCAR watcher, or a flag waver - but I defend the right of my fellow citizens to be any of those things, and the multicultural society needs to have room for the to live with respect and dignity too. Or it winds up being authoritarian and dogmatic - like your non-utopian Ecotopia. (Alas, progressivism has been diverging quite a bit recently from previously shared liberal values, towards becoming the illiberal left).
Thanx for the link, tho any bid to implement that map will need adjustments, for this bid to be sustainable.
The list of segments (of states) which would refuse to join Canada would include
eastern WA (?) & OR, and western MN & PA, northern MI, and southern IL.
Likewise, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, northern Ontario, and eastern B.C., would move to join "Jesusland".
But then there will be other-side enclaves within those areas, and smaller other-other-side enclaves within those. Ethnic cleansing is messy.
Think India, post independence.
You know what they say, "The left can't meme".
Ben Shapiro WAP remix: Hold my beer.
90% of people can't meme, based on the meme's I've seen. The problem is not ideological, it's the huge number of people who have apps that can stick words on pictures now and think they are cleverer than they are.
It speaks directly to how politicians take such human tragedies and move immediately to cynically exploit them. As commentary, it makes sense to me.
They do it because we let them. In the end, you get the politicians (and the media and the music and the movies and the nature) you demand. It turns my stomach to watch politicians act so craven and calculating, but they do it because it works. It's no coincidence that Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow are the two most-watched newspeople in the country. Do you know who the anchor is at PBS? I don't.
I'm being cautious here because it could have been edited since you wrote that. But can you please point to where "George Floyd" is included, because I don't think he is.
Wow! I think you're correct that it was edited out or I'm senile.
It was definitely in there. Definitely a good call to take it out though.
Oh please. Let him rot in the ground.
Floyd wasn't choked to death as the autopsy clearly showed. He died primarily of a lethal dose of fentanyl along with major heart disease. What Chauvin and the other police did looked awful but it was exactly what they had been trained to do in this circumstance, neck hold and all. Take a look at the MPD officer training manual that was in effect at the time of Floyds death. It is enlightening as it shows the trainers doing EXACTLY what these men did to Floyd.