Just before the consequential US election (I am optimistic we can prevail over Putinism), my previous posting offered a compiled packet of jpegs and quick bullets to use if you still have a marginally approachable, residually sane neighbor or relative who is 'sanity curious.' A truly comprehensive compendium! From the under-appreciated superb economy to proved dangers of pollution. From Ukraine to proof of Trump's religion-fakery. From saving science to ...
... the biggest single sentence of them all... "Almost every single honest adult who served under Trump now denounces him." Now numbering hundreds.
And Harrison Ford emphasizing that point with eloquence.
Anyone able to ignore that central fact... that grownups who get to know Trump all despise him... truly is already a Kremlin boy.
== More sober reflections ==
Fareed Zakaria is by far the best pundit of our time - sharp, incisive, with well-balanced big-perspective. And yet, even he is myopic about what's going on.
Booming manufacturing and wages, record-low unemployment, the lowest inflation among industrial nations (now down to 2%), with democratic policies finally transferring money to the middle class, after 40 years of Supply Side ripoffs for the rich.
The Wall Street Journal - of all capitalist and traditionally Republican outfits - calls the present economy 'superb at all levels' and 'remarkable,' with real growth in middle class wages and prosperity.
And yet, many in the working classes now despise the Rooseveltean coalition that gave them everything, and even many black & hispanic males flock to Trump's macho ravings.
Zakaria is spot-on saying it's no longer about economics - not when good times can be taken for granted. Rather, it's social and cultural, propelled by visceral loathing of urban, college educated 'elites' by those who remain blue-collar, rural and macho.
One result - amplified in media-masturbatory echo chambers and online Nuremberg Rallies - has been all-out war vs all fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. Where Fareed gets it all wrong is in claiming this is something new!
While sympathy is called-for, we need to recall that the recurring confederate fever is always puppetted by aristocrats - by King George, by slaver plantation lords, by gilded-age moguls, by inheritance brats and today's murder sheiks & Kremlin "ex"-commissars... and whenever the confederacy wins (as in 1830s, 1870s and 1920s in the United States and 1933 Germany) the results are stagnation and horror. And every "Union" victory (as in the 1770s, 1860s, 1940s, 1960s) is followed by both moral and palpable progress.
Trump has learned a lesson from his time in office. Never trust any adults or women and men of accomplishment and stature. He has said clearly he will never have another Kelly, Mattis, Mullen, Milley... or even partisan hacks with some pride, like Barr, Pence, etc... allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. ---
1. Harris and dems win big. They must, for the “steal” yammer-lies to fade to nothing, except for maybe a few McVeigh eruptions. (God bless the FBI undercover guys!) In this scenario, everyone but Putin soon realizes things are already pretty good in the US and West and getting better... and the many of our Republican neighbors – waking up from this insane trance – shake off confederatism and get back to loyally standing up for both America and enterprise.
And perhaps the GOP will also shake away the heavily blackmail compromised portion of their upper castes and return to the pre-Hastert mission of negotiating sane conservative needs into a growing consensus.
2. Harris squeaks in. We face 6 months of frantic Trumpian shrieks and Project 2025 ploys and desperate Kremlin plots and a tsunami of McVeighs.
In this case there will be confederate cries of "Secession!" over nothing real, as they had no real cause in 1861. We must answer "Okay fine this time. Off you go! Only we keep all military bases and especially we keep all of your blue cities (linking them with high speed rail), cities who get to secede from YOU! Sell us beef and oil, till we make both obsolete! And you beg to be let back in. Meanwhile, your brighter sons and daughters will still come over - with scholarships. So go in peace and God bless."
3. Trump squeaks in and begins his reign of terror. We brace ourselves for the purge of all fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. And within 6 months you will hear two words that I am speaking here for the 1st time:
GENERAL STRIKE.
A legal and mammoth job action by those who actually know stuff and how to do stuff. At which point then watch how redders realize how much they daily rely on our competence. And how quickly the oligarchs act to remove Trump, either through accelerating senility, or bribed retirement or... the Howard Beale scenario. At which point then Peter Thiel (briefly) owns America. It's Putin's dream outcome as the USA betrays Ukraine and Europe and the future... and tears itself apart. But no matter how painful, remember, we've recovered before. And we'll remember that you did this, Vlad and Peter. And those who empowered them.
Oh, yes and this. Idiot believers in THE FOURTH TURNING will get their transformative 'crisis' that never had to happen and that they artificially caused (and we'll remember.) Above all, the Gen-Z 'hero generation' will know this. And you cultists will not like them, when they're mad.
Again... here's your compiled ompendium of final ammo. To help us veer this back to victory for America, the planet, and the Union side in our recurring civil war...
A message from the future ('cos it's already Tuesday in Melbourne and we're having a holiday for a horse race, which seems... apt?)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as a little something to do with your fingertips, other than chew them, you can tell Tor/Reactor what you consider to be the most iconic SFF tales of the 21st century (or its first quarter, at least)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTrying again without screwed-up italics...
ReplyDeleteDr Brin in the main post:
GENERAL STRIKE.
A legal and mammoth job action by those who actually know stuff and how to do stuff. At which point then watch how redders realize how much they daily rely on our competence.
That was a plot element of Jack London's 1907 novel The Iron Heel, which someone on this list once pointed out to me. It predates 1984 and Brave New World, but anticipates those later novels in the same way that Forbidden Planet anticipated Star Trek.
In the pre-WWI novel, when the various national rulers try to initiate a war, the fact professions do exactly as you say and shut down power, transportation, and communications for a week. The war doesn't happen and the strikers are victorious. But unfortunately, it doesn't end there. The oligarchs get smart and start bribing the professionals who they really need with things like gated communities with wonderful parks and schools. Soon, these folks leave solidarity with the common man behind, and become part of the problem.
So the resistance plan depends a lot on how clever the oligarchs can really be about this sort of thing.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDr. Brin triples down on " the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on Terror" malarky, even though Snowden, Manning and Assange released copious documentary proofs that the US intelligence services have gone rogue, violated their charters and have engaged in numerous domestic intelligence operations that have illegally targeted US citizens on US soil.
ReplyDeleteThis is the official position of the ACLU, too. Look it up.
From Operation Mockingbird to the Pentagon Papers to Iran Contra to the Iraqi WMDs & the Syrian Nerve Gas frauds, the perfidy of the US intelligence agencies has been well-documented by numerous independent news services.
As for the 'War on Terror', did the US finally win this? If so, huzzah!!
But, if not, can we finally admit that our 'War on Terror' was largely created by US short-sighted incompetence, as the US literally founded, funded & created Manuel Noriega (Panama) and Saddam Hussain (Iraq), up to & including the Taliban, Bin Laden & ISIS (Afghanistan), years before we decided that we had to destroy them??
Be that as it may, tomorrow is the US Election, so we will soon see if Dr. Brin's worldview actually represents 'Consensus Reality' or not.
May God have mercy on our souls.
Best
It looks like you have a bad case of crank magnetism.
DeleteMade up jibber-jabber doesn't explain how 20,000 FBI folks, 100, 000 military officers, and 2 million science workers - a majority of the 1st two lifelong republicans - suddenly and UNIFORMLY, without a single actual leak - joined forces in a grand plot agains the country & civilization they swore to serve. What a scenario!
ReplyDeleteOr else... the jibber jabber is part of the Kremlin's PROVED ownership of the US right...
... and the FbI guys and officers and prosecutors and Grand Juries and juries across America (the latter mostly white retirees in red states who indicted >FORTY TIMES as many GOPpers as dems) see clearly what a festering mass of treason has taken over the US right.
Um, comparing plausibilities.... Nah... it's simple. Poor locum is a raving loony member of a treason cult. That'll do as a baseline till we see him present ANY evidence why even ONE of those heroes would become a cartoon Bond villain. Till then, you aren't fit to shine their shoes.
The boat, it is for staying in.
ReplyDeleteIt's 11/5/24 on the East Coast. Haven't been able to write a damn thing. Voted 2 weeks ago by mail in WA. If any citizen of the US here is waiting for Der Tag, get it done - even Loc can write in the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party ticket. Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my family - a two birthdays/wedding anniversary thing. Might even have a glass of something mildly alcoholic (rare for me).
Kamala Harris is apparently the Socialist, Extremely Left danger to America.
(eyeroll)
I wish.
Pappenheimer
A 50 year old message from Rod Serling (via Dick van Dyke)
ReplyDeleteThe key phrase in Dr Brin's above repudiation of US governmental & intelligence agency malfeasance is *** WITHOUT A SINGLE LEAK*** which denies the Wikileaks-mediated leakage of almost 10 million incriminating documents (not to mention the hundreds of other well-documented cases of official criminality reported by the MSM), proving only that none are so blind as those men of faith who refuse to see that which is contrary to their faith.
ReplyDeleteSuch 'faith' springs from a lifetime of Operant Conditioning, a Huxleyan process wherein "62400 repetitions make one truth", made ever more effective by our host's fine memory & intellect, as detailed by David Ryback's 1967 work on "Responsivity to Verbal Operant Conditioning" which concludes that High IQ individuals are much more susceptible to mental conditioning (with far fewer repetitions) than those Low IQ individuals who may require incessant & unending reinforcement.
Lying (in general) is an extremely common human practice, as many resort to self-deception as an Ego Defence --- to protect one's fragile self-image and avoid feelings of shame, guilt & inadequacy -- plus many rationalize lying to others as a moral good, assuming that those whoopers are intended to help others by maximizing benefit, minimizing harm or protecting the mentally fragile from all sorts of unpleasant truths.
Faced with the irresolvable dilemma of choosing between a pleasing lie or unpleasant truth, Dr Brin chooses to double-down on his current mostly pleasant narrative which allows him to protect his ego, while simultaneously allowing him to rationalize his generally deceptive practices as moral.
And this, my children, is exactly how "how 20,000 FBI folks, 100, 000 military officers, and 2 million science workers (along with 8.5 million WW2 German Nazi party members) joined forces in a grand plot against the country & civilization they swore to serve":
They lie to protect themselves AND the country & civilisation they swore to serve because they believe that it's the right thing to do.
Any questions??
Best
Yes, questions:
Delete•How did a retired physician come to possess 20/20 hindsight?
• Was he born that way?
• Does he know many in government? If so, how many, and in what roles are they?
•If the retired physician were employed in government—perhaps in a foreign service—would the world situation be better or worse due to his efforts?
Fingers Crossed, both for a defeat of Trumpism at the ballot box and a non- violent aftermath.
ReplyDeleteI wish you luck and that sanity, decency and democracy may prevail.
Danke.
DeleteThank you. I have more hope for the first wish than the 2nd though. I'll be dealing today with my election anxiety by driving people who need a ride to the polls.
DeleteOne thing I'll be watching in the event of a Harris win- whether the cease fire talks in the Israel-Gaza conflict get some new life. It's obvious that Bibi wants Trump back (and disgraceful that the protest voters are seemingly dismissing that), and if that doesn't happen, will he stop stalling?
"Remember, remember the fifth of November."
ReplyDeleteOne way or another, we certainly will this year.
And kudos to the Chicago Tribune for listing on their "This Day in History" section, "In 1605, the gunpower plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was apprehended before he could blow up Parliament."
DeleteAn excellent essay by Sam Harris. Unlike many he has not become detached from reality.
ReplyDeleteLiterally and Seriously
Why I Support Kamala Harris for President
From an e-mail newsletter from former Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn:
ReplyDeleteThe only predictions I will make is that it Trump loses, he will never, ever concede no matter how resounding his defeat. And if Trump wins, the prissy protest voters who didn’t vote or voted for a third party candidate because Harris wasn’t good enough for them on one particular issue or another will come to regret it good and hard. Either way, I will never forgive or excuse history’s fools who used the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to suggest it’s irrational catastrophizing to point out the threat his wicked, sadistic, rash narcissist poses/posed to our democracy.
Somehow the first stanza of "The Boxer" seems so apt.
DeleteAlso:
DeleteTomorrow we'll discover what our God in Heaven has in store.
One more dawn.
One more day.
One day more!
Ah, you guys are so dour and full of dread. Sing a bright, uplifting song like I do!
DeleteAnd we will all go together when we go.
Every hottenhot and every eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
We will all go simultaneous.
Yes, we all will go together,
When we all go together,
Yes, we all will go together when we go. :)
He will do his worst. Let us do our best.
ReplyDeleteOne of our biggest problems is that a good third of Americans would rather slit their own throats than live in peace and prosperity with people they despise.
ReplyDeleteAnd others are in denial of that.
DeleteJust voted; Randall Terry and RFK Jr. are on the ballot.
ReplyDelete(Abbott & Costello aren’t available.)
MSNBC is already calling Florida for Trump and for Rick Scott (Senate race), but I'm not buying it yet.
ReplyDeleteLike Asx in the Uplift books, I'm sticking with this site which only shows three states as having been decided yet. The wax hasn't congealed yet.
https://electoral-vote.com/
Postal ballots favoured the dems in 2020. Does that notion still hold?
ReplyDeleteNot as much. In 2020, Trump was actively telling his people not to vote early or absentee. This time around, I think he actually encouraged early voting.
DeleteBut that doesn't mean a net gain of Republican votes. They might have more of a percentage of early or absentee ballots, but that's at the expense of their percentage of same-day ballots.
The central prairie states (Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa) are... interesting.
ReplyDelete"Interesting" meaning "Republican"?
DeleteThey were swinging Democrat earlier, but not now.
DeleteMaybe, but they haven't ultimately swung Democrat for decades.
DeleteTony,
DeleteLand typical votes red.
Cities vote blue.
The variations between states have mostly to do with just HOW much cities vote blue. Our redder states are more of a split in cities. Where I live the cities often divide near 3 to 1.
"Let us wear on our sleeves crepes of mourning for the civilization that held the promise of joy."
ReplyDeleteNear as I can tell we Americans chose a fascist dictatorship because trans kids are icky. And we hate the idea of a black women being president.
The one thing that gives me happiness is the knowledge that Trump's MAGA voters will be the ones who suffer the most from increased prices at WalMart from tariffs, getting rid of Obamacare, not being able to get insurance because of climate change disasters, gutting of medical services and schools, etc.
ReplyDeleteEff them. I will enjoy watching them suffer.
Elon musk said that there would be pain and suffering if trump is elected.
ReplyDeleteI hope is right
Trump will probably be replaced for dementia reasons under the 25th.
Vance can then carry out the will of Peter Theil.
Then the real nightmare starts.
I hope all those Latinos that voted for Trump aren't naive enough to think that his mass deportations will only be for illegals. The Germans thought the gestapo would only be for the Jews. The gestapos was for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd those suburban white women who voted for Trump? I hope they enjoy living under a nationwide abortion ban. Maybe they will die of sepsis in the parking lot when they can't get medical care.
You get the president you deserve.
I actually thought Harris would win because I assumed Americans are basically good and decent people.
ReplyDeleteI won't make that mistake again.
I take it we shouldn't expect too much in the mail?
ReplyDeleteSo are we in scenario 3 or 4?
When the Republicans get around to blaming the Democrats for making them vote for Trump--because Biden called them "garbage," because we nominated a woman, because whatever--remind them that we did our duty.
ReplyDeleteWe warned them of what Trump is like. We warned them what he might do. We warned them of what might happen.
We warned them.
That, ultimately, was all that we could be expected to do.
Looks like a Trifecta (Quadrufecta?).
ReplyDeleteThis is bad.
From what I'm seeing, the Democrats still have a chance to flip the House. That would mitigate some of the economic damage from Trump's promises (can't do the budget without the House) but we are most certainly screwed concerning foreign policy and the judiciary.
DeleteFrom the future. Fourth scenario happened. Trump won by landslide. Kamala got so shaken she didn't even appear at her own HQ to accept it. Kind of humiliating to herself. So things will get... Interesting now?
ReplyDeleteThe first time Trump was elected I was angry and wanted to fight back.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I went to protests. She still has her pink hat.
Now I just don't give a fuck.
Any nation that would elect someone like Trump twice is simply not worth saving.
The bottom line is this.
ReplyDeleteTrump is who we are and we are not the great people we used to be.
I’ve been too busy to post. I wish the chaos would end. Things would be more peaceful if there had been a Harris landslide. The Electoral College win and a narrow popular vote win (depending on the CA turnout) might calm things down. But we will still have to deal with DJT’s erratic behavior. And I don’t know what will happen if the lawfare against DJT continues. Rep. Reskin wants to try and prevent DJT from being sworn in by raising an 14th Amendment Sec 3 challenge. But that will fail.
ReplyDeleteTrump won. Is it time to move to Canada yet? (Doubt they'll take me, though.)
ReplyDeleteother countries relax their immigration requirements to take in American refugees, we're in the same boat. Like Richard Gere's character in An Officer and a Gentleman", "I got nowhere else to go!"
DeleteThat was "Unless other countries..."
DeleteWords fail me
ReplyDeleteDP:
ReplyDeleteTrump is who we are and we are not the great people we used to be.
Hard to argue. It feels like people consider their lives so sucky that they chose a quick and entertaining end to it all.
Emotionally, I haven't felt this way since my penultimate girlfriend surprised me with a break-up back in 1991.
ReplyDelete"Arabs who care about Gaza for Trump" is only a little funnier than "Jews for Hitler".
ReplyDeleteSeriously, is there any demographic group that Trump didn't gain ground with this time around. Possibly black women, but I can't think of anyone else. Blacks? Latinos? Jews? White suburban women? The college educated?
Anyone?
The Wall St Journal says he's going to win the popular vote, for chrissakes.
I'm not going to waste any of my time in reading the political strategy finger pointing. As has been said, this result is ultimately on the voters. Trump was very open about all the bad things that he was selling, and enough people said yes. That's the problem. How much buyers' remorse sets in will be interesting to observe. The problem isn't fixed until we go through a lot of pain.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to laughing at their buyers remorse.
ReplyDeleteThat's my one consolation, bitter and inadequate as it may be. Watching those Michigan Arabs cry when Trump supports actual genocide in Gaza. Waving goodbye to the Latinos who voted for Trump as he deports them.
DeleteGod, I hate what I've become.
Gaza'a getting ethnically cleansed, I'm calling it here. Nothing to stop Bibi now.
DeleteI won't laugh at them, but I will offer plenty of "I told you so."
Deletehttps://electoral-vote.com/
ReplyDelete...
02:37 EST Reader P.S. in Arlington, TN writes: "I had that 2016 feeling. Now that 2024 feeling.
"I'm afraid for my kids. My family. I'm afraid for the world. I'm afraid for the impact for the domestic impacts and foreign impacts. I don't understand it. I believe we are on the cusp of the downturn of the American experiment. And we voted for it. Do we stay and fight for our vision of what America is? Or do we leave when we have daughters and we feel it won't be safe for them to exist with a uterus?
"I don't know how to go forward.
"I don't know what America is anymore.
02:31 EST Reader P.S. in Arlington, TN observes: "As this election comes to a close, Trump is around 7 million short of his total from 2020. Kamala Harris is 21 million short of Biden's numbers. It looks to me as if the exact same people showed up for Trump. Democrats stayed home."
...
"Democrats stayed home."
DeleteThat's the worst news of all. People who you'd think opposed all of Trump's awful policies couldn't be bothered to show up to help prevent them from happening. No legitimate excuses for that.
If Democrats loved their own feelings of moral purity more than they cared about democracy or the rule of law then that weakens your ability to resist what MAGA will try to do. I'm afraid that the only thing that can save your country if the Republicans win the House of Representatives is an economic collapse brought on by tariffs and expulsions.
DeleteTo avoid the possibility of dying of sepsis in a clinic parking many women will simply refuse to have babies. Which is ironic because what lies behind the pro-life movement is the desire for higher birthrates that will ensure the white people don't become a minority in America.
ReplyDeleteIn South Korea there is the 4B movement. So I wonder if an American version takes root.
DeleteMalcolm Nance, no paywall:
ReplyDeletehttps://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/a-trump-victory-if-so-break-glass
...
My dear readers, if you are reading this, then the worst has happened. Donald Trump has been elected the 47th President of the United States.
You are likely filled with two feelings. Some will be the same as you felt in 2016. You feel shame and grief. But now add a complete collapse of understanding of how the Trump train hit you into the mix. Your wits are torn asunder. Your heart aches and is in deep throbbing pain. You likely feel as if a close loved one has died, and you will be correct.
Like Washington, we risked a bold and daring campaign and since you are reading this, we have failed. Benjamin Franklin’s words now ring true. We were a Republic if we could’ve kept it. We did not and it died today, so Welcome to America, the Tyranny!
...
Thanks for reading Special Intelligence! This post is public so feel free to share it … Widely - like NOW!
I thought the stock market would balk at tariffs and mass deportation of workers, but the DJIA seems thrilled.
ReplyDeleteDuring the years up to the Holocaust, many German industrialist families became very rich. Most of them are still today, like the Quandts (BMW), Piechs (VW/Porsche) and others.
DeleteScenario 4 - Trump landslide. Therefore, Trump is NOT Putin's puppet (as if Trump could ever be ANYONE's puppet!) Apologies will be accepted.
ReplyDelete4. Trump landslide. Ain’t gonna happen.
ReplyDeleteLOL
Democracy won last night.
The regime that has been arming funding and providing diplomatic protection for the genocidal Israelis lost.
The war pigs who triggered the war and supported Uko nazis then lost the war in Ukraine...... lost.
The regime that conspired with legacy corporate media to spread lies and propaganda lost ( and so did those legacy media corporations)
The government scum who got people fired from their jobs because they did not want to take a dangerous, poorly tested, and ineffective experimental injection lost.
So yeah democracy worked and the greater evil was defeated.
and political judo dipshits are lying flat on their backs
good times
From your point of view, you are probably mostly right. Except for:
DeleteThe regime that has been arming funding and providing diplomatic protection for the genocidal Israelis lost.
Palestinians ain't seen nothing yet relative to what they'll get with a Trump presidency. I'd drink of your tears, but you obviously don't really care about Palestinians if you cheer for last night on that issue.
"The government scum who got people fired from their jobs because they did not want to take a dangerous, poorly tested, and ineffective experimental injection lost."
DeleteI've had 6 of those "dangerous" vaccines. Never got Covid and remain in splendid health. By your nutter "logic" I should have died already.
If the avian flu mutates into a threat to humans, I expect Trump 2.0 to do an even worse job than with Covid.
DeleteI've had 6 of those "dangerous" vaccines. Never got Covid and remain in splendid health
Bill Maher may get a lot right, but I had to roll my eyes when he asserted that he should have been exempt from vaccine mandates because he already had COVID three times, so he should have natural immunity. Without irony.
Yeah Larry, Trump will likely give the vile genocidal Israelis every thing they want.
DeleteAnd that will end Isreal.
The Master Race Jews in Isreal who think the +99.9% of humanity that is not Jewish are goyim, sub human cattle only fit to serve Jews will find out how hated they really are. Thier plans for a "final solution" to the "Palestinian problem" and to expand "greater Israel" so they can have their leg room, will go about as well as that mustachio man's plans.
So if we had armed Hitler, his plans would have failed too? Does that work with Putin too?
DeleteThe regime that has been arming funding and providing diplomatic protection for the genocidal Israelis lost.
DeleteTrump will likely give the vile genocidal Israelis every thing they want.
And that will end Isreal.[sic]
Are you listening to yourself? Your problem with "Genocide Joe" was that he didn't arm and support Israel enough?
Larry it is the murderous behavior of the Isreali Jews that i have a problem with.
DeleteThe fact that wealthy and powerful American Jews along with a foreign government (Isereal) have corrupted the American political process and perverted our foreign policy to make us complicit in their genocide, is another thing I am not too happy about. The fact that Benjimin Netanyahu routinely brags about how Isreal "owns" the US congress is something that will come back to haunt them.
But for now, geocidal Jews have control over the US foreign in policy and the only hope for the Palestinian people is for Isreal to be destroyed by its own hubris.
( oh and by the way Harris would give Isreal everything it wants too. so there is not much difference between the two on this issue.)
there is not much difference between the two on this issue.
DeleteIf I thought you actually cared about the plight of the Palestinians, I'd wait for the horrific realization of what your support of Trump has unleashed on those very people. But I know that's just an excuse for you to complain about Harris and endorse Trump. So, y'know. Whatever.
oh and by the way Harris would give Isreal ...
DeleteOnce is a typo. Three times is enemy action. :)
oh and by the way Harris would give Isreal everything it wants too. so there is not much difference between the two on this issue.)
DeleteThen I don't get why you're celebrating the defeat of the warmongering administration who gave Israel weapons, when you want Trump to give Israel weapons, thus bringing about its defeat. Why wouldn't Biden giving Israel weapons accomplish the same desired end?
Larry it is your co-religionists in the middle east that are engaged in genocide, murder, rape, theft, the assignation of children and about every kind of vile act against people your rabbis call goyim, sub human cattle only fit to serve Jews.
DeleteAnd the wealthy American Jews have corrupted the US government and perverted its foreign policy so that we are providing weapons, money and diplomatic cover for this genocide.
The ongoing genocide is caused by Jews choosing to do evil, you don't get to blame anyone else.
jim, I get that you want Israel destroyed, and that you somehow see arming them as a means to that end. I still don't understand why you consider that arming to be good if it is done by Trump but bad if it is done by a Democrat. Why it is a reason to vote against Democrats who will do that, but for Trump who will do the same thing. Why Democrats who want a two-state solution but don't do enough (in your opinion) to stop Israel are egregious enough to kick out for that reason, but Trump who wants Israel to level Gaza to the ground and doesn't even give lip service to the plight of Palestinians is a preferable alternative.
DeleteLarry it is not Trump or Biden or Harris that is the source of the genocide.
DeleteIt is the actions of Jews in Israel and the US that are at the source of the genocide.
There was no anti genocide choice in the election because a foreign government with the aid of treasonous citizens has corrupted our political process and perverted our foreign policy. You might want to talk to your fellow Jews about the wisdom of such a course of action.
And just to be clear, I want a 21st century Nuernberg Trails for the genocidal scum, but i will not get that either.
Delete@jim, you could learn alot about actual genocide from your fellow Christians and from Muslims.
DeleteIsrael is fighting a war against HAMAS who attacked them. War, however damaging and horrible is not genocide. The HAMAS charter declares an intention of genocide. Just because you are in favor of killing Jews doesn't make it a different thing.
Nevertheless, the issue I keep asking, and you keep deflecting with irrelevant anti-Semitic bullshit, is this. You cheered for:
The regime that has been arming funding and providing diplomatic protection for the genocidal Israelis lost.
You are happy that the Biden/Harris administration was punished because of their involvement in arming Israel.
You also are well aware that Trump is equally as bad if not worse on support for Israel. You're ok with that because you think that will help bring about Israel's downfall.
Why is it worth punishing Democrats for supporting Israel while Republicans supporting Israel is a good thing in your eyes, even if it's a good thing only because it will help destroy Israel? You say it makes no difference who arms Israel, but you condemn one party and praise the other for the same thing.
Another irrelevant response about how evil Jews are doesn't answer the question.
"You also are well aware that Trump is equally as bad if not worse on support for Israel. You're ok with that because you think that will help bring about Israel's downfall."
DeleteNo i am not alright with that at all. I have repeatedly expressed my outrage at how horrible this situation is.
In case you have not heard Jew snipers have been murdering children, shooting them in the head and chest.
Your fellow Jews have been indiscriminately murdering men, women and children. They have been blowing up hospitals and Mosques. Engaged in starving children and babies.
All of this is being well documented and Islamic versions of Simon Wiesenthal will be hunting down the genocidal scum over the coming century.
In case you didn't hear, your fellow Christians committed atrocities against Muslims in Iraq. Does that reflect on their "co-religionists"? Or is collective guilt only for Jews?
DeleteYou know who else is upset about Netanyahu and his eternal obstruction of a two-state solution? Other Jews, even many in Israel. Many of the "River to the sea" protesters on campuses are Jewish. Many more are Democrats. None are Republicans.
Been dealing with a few issues. Back soon.
ReplyDelete"Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings."
- Horace
Calculemus!
Harry Chapin redux, more relevant now.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US82GS9PCIk
"Oh, I used to have a country once, but where it's gone, I do not know."
"Where do you think you might have lost it?"
"And I used to raise the flag at dawn, but that was very long ago."
"Maybe you can find it where you tossed it."
Glad Jim came by! Lightened my mood in several ways.
ReplyDeleteWhen democracy votes to end democracy, then I guess one can say that democracy wins, from a certain point of view. It's equally true that democracy loses. It depends which side of the "votes to end" one is looking at.
DeleteHad we won, we'd be happy that life will be better for more people, both here and abroad. When they win, they're happy that more people will be miserable, here and abroad. That's all you need to know.
I had a feeling Trump would win. Kamala's polling numbers lagged vs. Biden's pre-election numbers. I also remembered a conversation I had with a 42 yo black man early in the AM in an ER here in Tucson.
ReplyDeleteHe was wearing a baseball uniform (he played in a men's rec league) which casued me to strike up a conversation with him. Then we began talking like old friends when hs said he grew up in New Orleans and I told him I was a Tulane Alum.
Anyway, transgenders come up as a topic, and his face falls and he said, "I'm a father, and they need to leave kids alone." Then he professed his support for Donald Trump.
I don't want to pin the loss on the dems support for transgender people. I think it's broader than that. Trump won a lot of middle aged black and latino men that traditionally voted democrat. I think their rationale was "manhood" (from their viewpoint) is under assault.
Ben Shapiro (and yes, he's an annoying know-it-all kind of guy) insisted the Democrats would lose because the only kind of masculinity that existed in their world was "toxic masculinity." Meaning, he insisted the only type of manhood the left talks about are toxic behaviors, and thus there's no positive way for a young person to "become a man."
Given the crossover votes Trump won from ethnic men who traditionally voted Dem, Shapiro might be onto something---at least to the extent that these guys who pulled the lever for Trump felt that way. Harris tried to address that problem by choosing Walz as her VP (career military, ex hs football coach), but it wasn't enough.
Apparently, women voters weren't jazzed enough about Harris to overcome the negativity from men. There's going to be all kinds of breakdowns in the coming days trying to explain Trump's win, and i do wonder how my "first guess" will hold up to the data that will surely come.
I think their rationale was "manhood" (from their viewpoint) is under assault.
DeleteThat's how they put it. They may even feel it to be so. But what they're really saying is that male supremacy is under assault. Just as Christians think they're the most persecuted clade in America because Christian supremacy is under assault.
It is impossible for any political party to cater to both those who strive for equality and those who strive for their own group's supremacy. At some point, one must pick a side. The painful thing for me is that support for equality apparently loses in a fair fight.
It is a very weird supremacy when you are forbidden, under risk of cancellation, to make fun of any religion BUT Christianity. It is a really poor supremacy when the only group you are allowed to make fun of and openly hate is White heterosexual men. Or just men in general. And boys too. Or even babies because they were born the 'wrong' gender. Specially unborn ones but those are despised democratically ignoring gender, race or anything else.
Delete"Allowed to make fun of" by whom? Trump's Nazi rally made fun of everyone else. And seriously, you're comparing someone looking at you funny with being killed by police or being forced to die of sepsis after a miscarriage? And concluding that it's so much better to be anyone but you?
Delete"Being killed by police" happens a lot in NYC doesn't it? The very bastion of the enlightenment. And while you look at these deaths... Okay, some are absurd and ridiculous but many if not most involved criminals with long lists of past crimes behaving dangerously. Not so white and black. And "sepsis due to miscarriages" well... contraceptives, not doing it or just letting it happen then leaving the little human being for adoption? Rape, well one crime doesn't justify the other. Maybe let's be WAY harsher with rapists instead of the slap in the wrist we have now? Funny how applying the death penalty to a innocent but letting the criminal who did it live at the taxpayer's costs sounds normal to so many. Or Okay, let the bastard live but keep him jailed forever. Being soft on criminals doesn't get anyone votes.Genuine health issues should be the only case allowed really.
Delete
Delete"Being killed by police" happens a lot in NYC doesn't it? The very bastion of the enlightenment.
Yes, it happens mostly in big cities. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. Minneapolis. What ever made you think liberals protesting police brutality were somehow overlooking that fact?
And "sepsis due to miscarriages" well... contraceptives, not doing it or just letting it happen then leaving the little human being for adoption?
Ok, now you're just being mean for meanness's sake. Women who have miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies usually wanted a baby, but something went horribly wrong. There's no live birth to give up for adoption, but under Republican rule, the women can't be treated.
Rape, well one crime doesn't justify the other.
Abortion isn't a punishment for the baby. Allowing abortion after a rape is about not treating the crime victim as forced labor. If the baby was growing inside a mechanical incubator, your point would be valid.
Maybe let's be WAY harsher with rapists instead of the slap in the wrist we have now?
Starting with Donald Trump? That's not gonna happen, is it?
Being soft on criminals doesn't get anyone votes.
Only being soft on terrorist insurrectionists does that.
Genuine health issues should be the only case allowed really.
And yet, you just dismissively argued against that very thing. Not surprised, just being impolite enough to point it out.
" And "sepsis due to miscarriages" well... contraceptives, not doing it or just letting it happen then leaving the little human being for adoption? "
DeleteThe fundies are coming for birth control too. Clarance Thomas has some alarming opinions on Griswold. The "just say no" approach has a very bad track record with things humans find pleasurable like sex and drugs. The very definition of a miscarriage is that there's no live child. Go back to remedial biology.
"Rape, well one crime doesn't justify the other. Maybe let's be WAY harsher with rapists instead of the slap in the wrist we have now? Funny how applying the death penalty to a innocent but letting the criminal who did it live at the taxpayer's costs sounds normal to so many. Or Okay, let the bastard live but keep him jailed forever"
Not a single word about the victim and her pain, typical. So you would in a sense continue the rape for months, as her body is again being used without her consent. Unacceptable. Rape is very underreported- have any idea why? Here's a clue, the victims who do press charges often have to go through another form of rape in the court system. It takes extraordinary strength to be a complainant in a rape trial.
"Genuine health issues should be the only case allowed really."
Which aren't in practice. The law here in TX is especially cruel. It prioritizes keeping the heartbeat of a doomed and dying fetus going as long as possible, over the health, future fertility, or even the life of a woman. I was talking to 2 friends last night who are women in their 30s- they are actively job hunting in other states because they've realized that TX isn't so safe for them any more. I will miss them when they move but I cannot blame them.
A reader comment under
ReplyDeletehttps://www.stonekettle.com/2024/11/turns-out-it-was-cancer-after-all.html
Regarding Trump supporters however, they aren't listening because they don't live in reality. They never hear the bad things trump says. They never see his frequent senior moments. They never see anything but the carefully created image of him put out by Fox and other right-wind media. Trump will take away their rights and livelihood but Fox will tell them they're really getting really freedom, America is the greatest country on Earth, and unfortunately they'll eat it right up and ask for more. We can't reach them and I don't think we ever will.
Y'know, the first time I read 1984 in high school, I didn't get the significance of the government always announcing that the chocolate ration had increased this year, even though people were actually getting less. Seemed kind of a trivial point compared to everything else going on.
I get it now.
"We can't reach them and I don't think we ever will."
DeleteWe should not bother trying. We should just abandon them to their fates.
Laughing at their suffering can be optional.
I think the writer meant "We can't reach them to stop them from empowering these fuckwads."
DeleteI come by -- not to gloat -- but to answer Alan_B's rather insincere questions about How did a retired physician come to be so cynical? Was he born that way (or) does he know many in government?
ReplyDelete35+ years providing healthcare to Rural America while working ridiculous hours in the most highly regulated industry in **the history of the world** has taught me this about government bureaucracy:
No matter how cynical you think you are, you'll never be cynical enough.
I know that most of you are still reeling from the unexpectedly tragicomic US election results -- unexpected by you, that is -- but you really haven't fully grasped the full implications of the Trump victory by Electoral College AND popular vote.
Have you heard of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?
Adopted in April 2024 by California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico & most eastern democrat strongholds, this law requires all of the compact's participants to give all of their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of how each participant's citizens voted in that US presidential election, meaning ...
That these Democrat Party strongholds are required by their own laws to give ALL of their Electoral College votes to Donald Trump on January 6, 2025, even though they voted against him by a landslide, meaning ...
That Trump is the first US president in history to 'win' nearly the entire Electoral College UNANIMOUSLY.
But how could so many 'smart people' ratify such a stupid law?
This I attribute to a three step process which I call 'The Deceptive Cycle':
(1) We enlarge our egos by self-deception. We tell ourselves that we are more 'special, unique, exceptional, intelligent, moral, progressive & deserving' than everyone else (while simultaneously insisting that we are all 'equal, interchangeable & the same').
(2) We propagate our self-serving lies as 'propaganda' (a process described by Bernays, used by Goebbels & endorsed by Chomsky) in order to confirm & support our self-serving lies; and finally
(3) We confuse and mistake our own self-serving propaganda as objective truth & reality after it comes back to us (in a feed-forward loop) from our own false 'consensus reality' which makes us increasingly unrealistic, stupid & delusional.
Stop lying to yourselves.
Best
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact does not kick in until states representing 270 EV agree to the compact. I suspect you know this though since you always argue in bad faith.
DeleteIf the Dems want any choice of winning they need to never nominate a woman, and throw the LGBTQ community to the wolves. Both are pariahs in today's America.
ReplyDeleteThat's my family you are talking about throwing to the wolves, so, no.
DeleteNo. This is just post-election depression.
DeleteThrowing away people who might otherwise vote WITH you is always a bad idea.
What we do instead (for the absolute worst folks) is de-emphasize them... which better not happen with women and the LGBTQ folks because they are quite numerous.
Give this a few weeks to settle in your head. You'll see.
I think it is (sadly) clear that a woman candidate can't win Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. The blue wall holds when the candidate is an old white man.
DeleteLarry,
DeleteI don't know that we know that.
We've only had two try to win them so far.
I'm not nitpicking for the sake of it.
We really DO have a small sample size, so caution is advised when making general statements.
You answered the questions; yet there are questions regarding international relations, or lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteA physician might be experienced in dealing with bureaucracies, yes. But aside from patronizing IHOP, what experience does he have with foreign relations? The comment I replied to was your discussion of misdeeds committed by the US. However such harks back ages, to 19th century imperialism.
Do you wish to start with William McKinley? Skip ahead to the Suez Invasion of 1956? Vietnam? Chile? When do you wish to start your survey of imperialism? Where—what other countries? There was and is Russian and Chinese imperialism to reckon with. Other nations as well.
What do you know about espionage?
What do you know about diplomacy, including backchannel diplomacy?
A week ago, I had a conversation with a friend. He is a dual citizen Afroamerican/German national, and I asked him if he has voted. "No." I asked why. "It is Trumps America now. The rest is just refinement. It is not the same country I left twelve years ago."
ReplyDeleteAmerica has voted. It has condemned tens of millions of people, within it's own borders and abroad, to at least a decade of insecurity, despair, hardships and death. Lean times are ahead, for everyone who happens not to be a sadistic crony or a Nazi Space Billionaire. They don't even deny it - Musk said so directly before the election.
Authoritarianism and Fascism is not just wearing funny mustaches, uniforms and waving swastika flags It's not even killing and torturing people and invading other countries. It is a core belief system that can be nurtured, fed until it grows and takes over common sense, decency, even self-preservative instincts. It has done so with tens of millions in America.
Fed it has been. By thousands of hands. By the social and the traditional media. By extremist capitalism. By waging war in foreign lands. By handing out death penalties and draconian prison sentences to one part of the population, and protecting others (including Law Enforcement) from the consequences of their actions. By accelerationist billionaires. By ridiculing science and education. By spreading fear, lies and hatred against minority groups. By allowing religious fanatics to hijack the GOP. By allowing states to subvert the elections through legal means to limit the voice of the people, to successfully generating the illusion that nothing ever changes and therefore voters can stay at home. By keeping an archaic bit of paper and revering it as holy scripture. By placing fascists on the benches of the Supreme Court. By allowing Congress to be a clown show and ruling by presidential decrees, both of which undermine trust in democratic processes.
By Hollywood and Copaganda, by Citizens United and sums of money used for campaigning that could well be used for better purposes.
It has been fed well, and now it hungers for more.
For Americans, Europeans, Mexicans, Immigrants, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people, "leftists", experts, scientists, teachers, officers of state with integrity, union members, women with unwanted or endangering pregnancies, disabled people, the elderly, the unemployed, the sick. Everyone on this Earth threatened by climate change, Russian aggression, political persecution, economic hardships.
Make no mistake, in every corner of this world fascist extremists applaud and will try to use Americas vote to their advantage. Our own tribulations begin now, and I dare not to fathom the extent of our perils. The wolves are within and outside of our borders, and smell blood.
We concluded our conversation with the agreement that, most likely in the event Trump is re-elected, that Russia would attack the Baltics and that we both would be drafted. Effectively since yesterday, we have legislation in the making that would increase the number of soldiers in times of need from 180.000 now to 460.000. Even if it is likely that we will have a new government before the year ends.
"Let's go hunting Russians." he said.
See you in the trenches.
That was quick. Our government coalition has collapsed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fired Christian Lindner, head of the libertarians and minister of finances, and the remaining FDP ministers will resign. Scholz will ask for a vote of confidence at January 15th (which he will lose and will end in new elections).
ReplyDeleteYes, that should be the end of the horrible FDP under Lindner but I guess they will hang on somehow. They used to be a respectable party but Lindner and the clearly corrupt Wissing have made them just a party of arseholes. Their antics within the coalition were reprehensible.
DeleteThe downfall began earlier, when the FDP abandoned their focus on civil liberties and focused on libertarianism in the 90s.
DeleteIf everything works out as planned, we will have elections in March. As of now, Friedrich Merz will become chancellor and most likely form a "Grand Coalition" like in the twelve of Merkels sixteen years, or go full fasch and team up with the AfD.
Just thought: On the Ides of March, we get the Ideas of Merz (An den Iden des März bekommen wir die Ideen des Merz.)
Just learned that Wissing has left the FDP and remains in Office until re-election - or until Scholz sacks him, too.
DeleteWell I was wrong - completely wrong - I did not think the American people were quite THAT dumb
ReplyDeleteThere is a stupid feature of the American system - the long delay between the election and the transfer of power - in this instance I just hope that Biden uses those months to do as much as possible to help Ukraine before the Orange Idiot takes charge
I was also wrong about Musk - I thought he was an idiot supporting a loser - now he appears as a smart guy supporting the person who will have the power destroy his business
No reason for Loc to reply to my questions of today. He is too moral a person to know about or be involved in Foreign Policy; however do keep in mind that he began this discussion with a diatribe re American international errors of omission & commission.
ReplyDeleteLoc took the Hippocratic Oath long ago—this is the translated old Greek version: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/HRNREJ/hippocratic-oath-1938-HRNREJ.jpg
But there is no Hippocratic Oath in foreign affairs.
@Dr Brin,
ReplyDeleteBTW, I win the bet as I originally envisioned it, that Trump wasn't offed before Election Day. However, because I wanted to lose the bet, I'm willing to consider it more the way you put it later. You win if something untoward happens to remove him before the Electoral College votes. I'll even extend that to Jan 20. I don't "win" until he's actually sworn in.
This is partly because I now envision the plan (all along) as being to have Trump get the rubes to elect him and then have Vance assume the actual office.
Wouldn’t he prefer Don Jr to Vance? Jr. could play the role of caretaker if Sr. were to be chronically ill; then slowly Jr. might become the shadow potus.
DeleteIt's not what he (Trump) would prefer that matters. It's what Peter Thiel and Elon Musk would prefer.
DeleteI think that Larry Hart has a good point - IMHO selling Trump life insurance now ........
ReplyDeleteThe law Trump is using to justify the round ups and deportations is the same one used to put Japanese Americans into concentration camps like Manzanar.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.salon.com/2024/10/11/theyre-animals-vows-mass-deportation-under-law-used-to-justify-japanese-internment-camps/
"They're animals": Trump vows mass deportation under law used to justify Japanese internment camps
Trump said he'd use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to remove "animals"
(If he spoke in German he would have used the term Untermensch instead of animals)
“We will have an Operation Aurora at the federal level to expedite the removal of these savage gangs. And I will invoke the Aliens Enemies Act of 1798, think of that,” Trump told the crowd, during a night centered around the specter of "migrant crime." The Alien and Sedition Acts grant widespread powers to the president during wartime and were famously used to justify the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War 2.
You are naive if you think that these camps will only be for migrants.
All sorts of undesirables will end up there.
Unlike Manzanar the planned camps will be part of our "for profit" prison system.
Why throw away perfectly good cheap (slave) labor by sending them back home?
The internees will be making cheap crap for WalMart.
"You are naive if you think that these camps will only be for migrants.
DeleteAll sorts of undesirables will end up there."
I can see that as the "solution" for the homeless problem. DS9 was only a few years off.
Der Oger,
ReplyDeleteI cringe when I hear the word "accelerationist" billionaires, even though that's what they call themselves, because the originator of the term (Roger Zelazny iirc) meant something entirely different.
I also am amused by the thought of Elon Musk prancing into the Oval Office to lay out his Mars colonization scheme, only to receive a fish-eyed stare and the question, "do you really think we're going to pay for this?".
I am less amused by the likely outcome of all this for my trans daughter and the trans community she is a part of. The Spokane trans folk are already trying to assist Idaho trans wanting to leave. Smart; WA is probably the safest state in the Union.
Re: McS and his request for an apology: by Putin's reckoning, the rumpT nows owes him:
1) Ceasing aid to Ukraine
2) removing US sanctions on Russia
3) pulling out of NATO
Do you want to lay odds on the above occurring? I'll put money down, and apologize if none of those occur.
Pappenheimer
The GQP has followed Orban's playbook very successfully, using anti-immigrant and anti-other sentiment to consolidate control over the courts and the media. Note that neither Putin or Orban have rewritten the laws to eliminate voting, technically. They've just made voting futile, and the party in power will remain in power. As an historian I wonder just what rumpT will do before 2028, assuming he survives at above-vegetable level. Will he think he can leave office safely or will the Constitution need a quick rewrite?
ReplyDeletePappenheimer
Alan,
ReplyDeleteRe: Don Jr becoming a Bonaparte Jr, I doubt that is going to happen. The Lady Ramkin would refer to Don Jr as one of those 'total whittles' you have to put up with in any breeding program.
Pappenheimer
I'd be happy to address additional questions from Alan_B if only to point out that he is engaging in Step#1 of the Deceptive Cycle as he essentially argues that only those 'special, unique, exceptional, intelligent' people (yada yada) who have been trained in the specific discipline of foreign affairs should be allowed to express an opinion on foreign affairs, as if the non-politician is unqualified to vote on political questions in a democratic election OR the random astrophysicist should never be allowed to address non-astrophysicist issues on a blog called Contrary Brin.
ReplyDeleteI can't even begin to describe how incredibly arrogant, elitist & undemocratic such a position is, even though I've described in some detail how this type of Step#1 self-deceptive egotism invariably leads to the 'Propaganda of Specialness', a False Consensus Reality & the Delusional Idiocy made apparent by the simultaneous endorsement of Democracy & Equalism.
Der_Oger also appears deeply invested in the Deceptive Cycle as he admits that he & his ethnically divided 'Diversity is our Strength' friends are incapable of either maintaining a functional 'unity' government or accepting any personal responsibility for their nation's common defence, since all of his country's shortcomings are obviously caused by the reelection of Donald Trump.
Thankfully, this blog is run by a real scientist & smart person who would never engage in self-deceptive egotism, spread propaganda about the unique attributes of 'specialness' or insist on his rightness when confronted with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as any real scientist would be the first to concede that he might've been wrong.
Best
DB is more than an astrophysicist—or we wouldn’t read so many of his posts. He isn’t required to be Abraham & Moses rolled into one.
DeleteYour standards are laudable, but you set the bar for intellectuals too high up. Do you sort-off think of them as still belonging to the priestly class?
—
My complaint is that you are in the hypercritical mode concerning America. Unless you know much more about the history than it strongly appears you do.
Pretty broad topic: international relations since c.1898!
DeleteDer_Oger also appears deeply invested in the Deceptive Cycle as he admits that he & his ethnically divided 'Diversity is our Strength' friends are incapable of either maintaining a functional 'unity' government or accepting any personal responsibility for their nation's common defence, since all of his country's shortcomings are obviously caused by the reelection of Donald Trump.
I had hopes, but that vanished over the last two years. Yet, the party mostly associated with your meme - the Greens - have been those who actually did the work and weened us of from Russian gas and pushed renewables over the 50% -line.
Concerning " accepting any personal responsibility for their nation's common defence, since all of his country's shortcomings are obviously caused by the reelection of Donald Trump.":
No, that is not what I said, but I will break it down for simpler minds:
1) Putin has made no secrets about the intent that he wants to invade the Baltics and Poland. Our own gold stars project that he will be ready for it as early as 2027. Whether or not the US will remember their duties as an ally, the EU will be de jure and de facto in war with Russia at that point. (Though the extent what will be contributed will vary extremely between the states.)
2) Consider the possibility that the nations bordering Russia don't exactly want to wait until the hammer fails, and act on their own. As much as the Poles distrust and hate us, it is tenfold with Russians.
3) US Tariffs will hurt our economy. That will mean we will be even less ready to protect the states and will shift our domestic policies (to my chagrin) to Russia- and China- friendly parties.
4) Issues like climate change and mass migration won't improve under a Trump presidency. (On the contrary, Canada, Mexico and the EU to a lesser degree could face an onslaught of US political refugees. Tariffs will harm to developing countries far harder than us.)
5) For me (and I know I am in the minority) Europe should progress into a more unified, autark body of "United States". That is anathema to US (not just Trumps) and Russias foreign policy interests.
But a question to you: Where is the point you personally would disagree with a second Trump or first Vance administration? When they start to shoot down and arrest protesters, or when they round up political dissidents, immigrants, LGBTQ people and put them into camps?
Or would you accept all this?
Or would you happily apply for a position as a camp doctor?
The Rude Pundit. I won't quote the harangue against Trump supporters themselves which immediately follows this bit, but the link is free:
ReplyDelete...
At the end of the day, a majority of Americans wanted Donald Trump to be president, and they didn't give a damn about anything else. They hate what he hates. They want to see retribution agains the imagined foes he's conjured. They did this even with everything they knew about him and his extravagant criminality and treason. They simply didn't believe it or they liked it. His voters might have been misinformed about a lot of things, but they know who Trump is, and they're completely fine with it. Where we see a rapist and a felon and a coup leader, they see a Tony Soprano-like antihero. Where we saw a competent and accomplished Democratic candidate, they saw a communist harridan who will force schools to give sex changes to children and let Venezuelans take over towns out west. You laugh, but they hold this as true. God, they want to punish immigrants and women and trans people so fucking badly they can taste it. They want their tears and blood and screams to bathe them.
There are things we know for sure. The Latino vote, especially men, tilted dramatically to Trump. White people, especially white men, voted for him. College-age men voted for Trump in much larger numbers than anticipated. And my generation, Gen X, betrayed everything that we were raised to believe about fakes and frauds in authority and went for Trump. All of them, us, deserve blame. America has a men problem, and it's scary as hell.
But one thing above all other ruled the day, and, frankly, makes me embarrassed to live on this floating island of garbage we pretend is a country. And let me do this as an address to Trump's voters:
...
The link:
Deletehttps://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/11/america-is-floating-island-of-garbage.html
He deserves a victor's reward: to crow his joy. And hece I read every word. Alas, in victory, he displays none of the magnanimity that it would entail to at least aim his triumphant blast anywhere near my direction.
ReplyDeleteAlas, hallucinatory delusion remains what it is. And his howls have nothing whatsoever to do with me.
Enjoy the moment, though, son. Your jubilation is a firefly speck next to the celebration among the "ex" commissars who are now rebuilding the USSR, and whose very lives and fortunes were saved by the incompetent politics of Kamala Harris.
In retrospect, Kamala's biggest mistake was being a black woman.
ReplyDeleteNo way in hell is America ever going to elect a woman as president let alone a black woman.
No way in hell were traditional Latinos, traditional Black males or traditional Arab Americans in Michigan ever going to stomach a woman president.
And any party that promoted LGBTQ rights was going to be a pariah to these same traditional Latinos, Black males and Arab Americans.
Same for abortion which is also pariah to culturally traditional immigrants
So there really is no mystery as to why Trump scored big with Latinos, Black males and Arab Americans despite his history of bigotry, racism and the fact that Trump will give Netanyahu the green light to turn Gaza into a parking lot.
As for why suburban white women voted for a serial rapist who bragged about killing abortion rights, the answer is equally simple.
Race trumps gender.
Whites will be in the minority by 2040, hence the positive enthusiasm for Trump rounding up migrants and putting them into concentration camps like Manzanar.
If migrants were white people from Scandinavia instead of brown people from Central America, nobody would notice or care.
As for picking Shapiro over Walz, what makes you think a ticket comprised of a black woman and a Jew would have wide based appeal?
Its not exactly a combination that would flip a Red State now is it?
As for young male Trump Bros, they aren't getting laid.
As Scott Galloway pointed out our society and economy has fucked over young males.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLmznS91kM&t=225s
(This video you all have to watch)
They have no prospects and are outnumbered by more successful women who now make up the majority of college educated professionals.
Females do not mate down, they don't have sex with losers.
And Trump Bros are nothing if not losers.
Ironically, a nationwide abortion ban will make sure Trump Bros - or any young male - isn't getting laid ever again.
Any women who can end up dying of sepsis in a clinic parking lot is going to keep her legs crossed.
So add fears of emasculation to racial fears and disgust over LGBTQ.
And this is who Americans really are.
Trump definitely understands what Americans are really like, much better than liberals with our hopes that people are better than they actually are.
Trump was never under any such illusion.
There is a saying "fuck around and find out"
We just fucked around by re-electing a fascist, racist, rapist, traitor as president because that is who we are.
Don't kid yourself, American love this guy.
Over the next few years comes the finding out part.
"Ironically, a nationwide abortion ban will make sure Trump Bros - or any young male - isn't getting laid ever again.
DeleteAny women who can end up dying of sepsis in a clinic parking lot is going to keep her legs crossed."
As I mentioned above, 4B is getting attention:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-win-spurs-interest-in-4b-fringe-south-korean-movement-to-swear-off-men/ar-AA1tFlc4
So there really is no mystery as to why Trump scored big with Latinos, Black males and Arab Americans despite his history of bigotry, racism and the fact that Trump will give Netanyahu the green light to turn Gaza into a parking lot.
ReplyDeleteI get the feeling that the dirty little secret among Arabs is that they don't really like Palestinians all that much. Gaza in particular and the plight of Palestinians in general are excuses to hate on Israel, which they also don't care for. But (to misquote Monty Python), "The only thing they hate more than the Jews are the fucking Palestinian People's Front!"
The harsh reality is that Democrats cannot appeal to frustrated voters unless they become as racist and homophobic as these very same voters.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats can't do that and still be Democrats.
Hence democrats will lose.
Yep. Clinton tried that and Carville still advocates it. To defeat them, we must become them.
DeletePolitics is persuasion. If we can't convince voters that our way is preferable to theirs, then sadly, I'd rather lose than win by becoming part of the problem.
No way in hell is America ever going to elect a woman as president let alone a black woman.
We're certainly not there yet. We finally elected Catholics in 1960 and 2020, and a black man in 2008, and maybe a woman isn't out of the question eventually, but we Boomers probably have to die first.
And this is why I was so jazzed about Biden's nomination in 2020 and worried about him being sidelined this year. Biden didn't check the boxes that would eliminate him from consideration by disaffected Republicans and independents. Even if Biden couldn't win, I still thought that any other viable Democrat would lose worse than him, not better. Guess that goes into the prediction registry.
Given Biden's low approval ratings and the media double standard that played up his age issues far more than Trump's, I honestly can't see him doing better than Harris. Too many people who either didn't show up or many who did were mad about the economy without actually listening to the batshit crazy stuff Trump and Musk are proposing, and so voted anti-incumbent as a reflex.
DeletePeople unsatisfied with the status quo often vote out the incumbent president, but then retain their incumbent congress people of the same party. It's like they don't know who really gets things done (or obstructs them).
DeleteDP:
ReplyDeleteIronically, a nationwide abortion ban will make sure Trump Bros - or any young male - isn't getting laid ever again.
Any women who can end up dying of sepsis in a clinic parking lot is going to keep her legs crossed.
I suspect that we'll see a reemerging tacit acceptance of rape. Not outright of course, but when a woman who hasn't "done her duty" by marrying and bearing kids is raped and possibly impregnated, the attitude of the Republican officials and much public opinion (including that of older, married women) will be that she had it coming.
They have no prospects and are outnumbered by more successful women who now make up the majority of college educated professionals.
DeleteI get the point. But it angers me that for 60 years, I've been hearing white Republicans tell the disaffected whose skillsets aren't marketable that they just have to suck it up and get with the times, because the world doesn't owe them anything.
I'm not unsympathetic to those who are finding out that they too are among the disaffected, but it galls me that their anger and their argument is that the world does indeed own them everything. Just not everybody else.
Trump definitely understands what Americans are really like, much better than liberals with our hopes that people are better than they actually are.
Point taken, but from deep blue Chicagoland, I understand why. Blue State liberals see people who are better than that every day, in person and on media. Our mistake is similar to a Reagan official's once was, wondering where all the poor people are because his circle doesn't contain any.
You're wrong to assert that all Americans suck. You're right to notice that there are more who do than who don't.
From Malcolm Nance, over on Twitter:
ReplyDeleteLETS GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT.
The American People voted to absolutely make sure LOADS of people would die at Trumps hands.
- Their daughters, their wives, children & their fellow citizens will die from school shootings, pregnancy & easily cured diseases.
-It’s free hunting season for blacks with immunity for white cops.
- Muslims & Latinos will DEFINITELY die in mass deportation roundups/camps.
- Gaza will be bulldozed if not ethnically cleansed.
- Iranians who want democracy will die.
- Ukrainians are dying in droves already.
If you think your family is immune from Trumps dementia & chaos that is coming? Did you forget about Covid?
A few mutations in the right places, and the bird flu could be the next pandemic. Imagine that with RFK Jr. as health minister.
DeletePopehat is always worth reading, but even more so now:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.popehat.com/p/and-yet-it-moves?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
DP, when you say:
ReplyDeleteNo way in hell is America ever going to elect a woman as president let alone a black woman.
No way in hell were traditional Latinos, traditional Black males or traditional Arab Americans in Michigan ever going to stomach a woman president.
And any party that promoted LGBTQ rights was going to be a pariah to these same traditional Latinos, Black males and Arab Americans.
Same for abortion, which is also pariah to culturally traditional immigrants
When you say this, you're saying we lost because we're better than the other guys. They're racist, sexist, and despicable. Since they're more people who suck than have character, we lost.
Sounds elitist to me. And also counterproductive. Such a conclusion might make sense if you had no substantive problems. But that isn't true in this case. There are all kinds of things that the Dems need to look in the mirror and fix.
Look, the biggest problem with "wokeists" is they overblow the number of toxic racists and sexists in society. My Dad came to the United States in 1956 (BEFORE the civil rights act) and found enough people who didn't care about him being Asian that he could build an outstanding career as a doctor.
Today, young women make more than young men because they're getting the majority of professional degrees. Yet, we are to believe this is male oppression. A black man was elected President in 2008. A woman won the popular vote in 2016. The Democrats didn't lose because Americans are too racist and sexist to elect a black woman.
Maybe, just maybe, too many people resented the social bullying that came from the media if you pointed out that Kamala Harris got her first political job from her then-boyfriend, Willie Brown. And that she became the VP candidate due to identity politics. This was AFTER Tulsi Gabbard destroyed her on the debate stage by attacking her record as attorney general in California, pointing out the hypocrisy that she laughed about using marijuana herself while putting people in prison for drug charges. Gabbard also clobbered Harris for being a weather vane when it came to being tough on crime and then easy on crime.
So this person that Gabbard destroyed on stage (which caused her to end her campaign) is the VP pick? And Democrats attacked people as racists and sexists if they pointed out her history with Willie Brown or called her a DEI hire.
The problem is: those accusations aren't racist or sexist if they're TRUE.
Harris was never a good candidate, but the Democrats were stuck with her when they didn't force out Biden before he showed he wasn't able to be President on the debate stage in June.
This also points out another problem with Harris' campaign. If Joe Biden gets forced out due to questions about capacity, how is he still president? If Biden wasn't capable, her job was to use the 25th amendment.
Instead, the Democrats clearly forced Biden off the ticket due to doubts about his capacity, but then expected everyone to be ok with him finishing his term. If Biden couldn't be the candidate, he needed to resign. Remaining on the ticket put Harris in an impossible position. Throwing him under the bus makes her look disloyal, but supporting him in power makes it look like she failed to carry out her duty as VP.
If she can't make a tough call as VP, how can she be President?
I'm not saying Trump is better. I'm just trying to point out reasons why the Dems lost (and yes, I'm focusing on things they can control. You can't control how many racists and sexists exist in society).
Another big cultural issue was how schools will let small children socially transition and hide this from parents. This is wrong. Basically, schools can only justify this by PRESUMING parents are ignorant bigots and do not have their child's best interest at heart. Many Hispanic and black fathers have mentioned this to me.
You contradict yourself. If you claim I am an elitist for being anti-sexist you strongly imply that sexism is the norm of the ordinary American - thus proving my claim.
DeleteDP
DeleteThe only way to say that I implied that sexism is the norm of the ordinary American is by twisting my words into a pretzel that fits your desired narrative.
I DID recognize that racist and sexist individuals exist. Now matter what you do, you won't completely eradicate these kind of character flaws from society, just like some people will commit murder even if you have perfect law enforcement backed by a strong culture.
And yeah, arguing that "we lost because Americans are ignorant Yahoos who don't live up to our ethical standards" is elitist----especially when objective analysis shows errors in your campaign and party positions that can be fixed.
If Joe Biden gets forced out due to questions about capacity, how is he still president?
DeleteBill Maher explained this. He is still capable of being President--a damn good one at that--but he is not capable of campaigning. He needed to show he was fully capable at the debate with Trump. He didn't, and after that, there was nothing he could do to dispel the impression that he wasn't capable (not being the gaff machine and stutterer that he is). So while he is fully competent (just watch his townhalls), he was not up to winning the election.
There is a difference between running for President and being President. Biden can do the first but not the second. Trump is the opposite. :(
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteOnly going to address the "Instead, the Democrats clearly forced Biden off the ticket due to doubts about his capacity, but then expected everyone to be ok with him finishing his term. If Biden couldn't be the candidate, he needed to resign. Remaining on the ticket put Harris in an impossible position. Throwing him under the bus makes her look disloyal, but supporting him in power makes it look like she failed to carry out her duty as VP."
If I'm managing a satellite in LEO, It's perfectly reasonable for three statements to be true:
(a) The satellite is slowly being pulled down to earth by various forces (friction with the atmosphere being one of the main ones) ... technically all LEO satellites suffer from the same condition.
(b) The satellite has enough remaining delta-V to stay in orbit for at least 4 more months.
(c) The satellite may not have enough delta-V to remain in orbit for 4 years.
And to conclude that we should launch a replacement satellite by late Jan 2024, (and de-orbit the current satellite, or move it to a graveyard orbit).
Similarly, its logically consistent to say that
(a) Biden is old, and getting older (we all are), and as part of that "getting older", he is showing some signs of cognitive decay
(b) Biden is still competent to be president, since the decay is minor, and is almost certainly going to be competent through the end of his term.
(c) Biden may not still be competent for 4 more years (he is old)
And to conclude that he's fully competent to fulfil the remainder of his term, but ought to be replaced for the next term.
So no, the fact that she didn't declare him incompetent and assume the presidency is evidence of nothing.
That said, I 100% agree with you though that the above ladder of logic does say that the Democratic party / Biden / his closest advisers didn't do a great job of managing this.
That selfsame satellite operator better have had this discussion with his manager BEFORE the satellite completely ran out of delta V and dropped out of his target zone. He should have been telling his manager during the 2024 budgeting process that "we're going to need to replace this satellite in ~ 15 months".
Biden should have declined the nomination so the Dems could have actually had a proper primary + convention. And yeah, Harris should have told him so. The notion that in December 2022, an 80 year old Biden really though he was the most competent Democrat in the country to be president was the height of hubris.
From what I have gathered in the last few hours, I have come to the following conclusions why Kamala has lost the election:
ReplyDelete1. Biden. And that Mrs. Harris is a black woman. Discussed by others, above.
2. The economic situation. While official numbers look good, people have attributed the inflation to Biden, not Trump or the pandemic. If at the end of the money so much of the month is left, workers won''t
vote for the encumbent, and things like gender equality, the fate of foreign countries, and climate change become unimportant if you have mouths to feed and bills to pay. (Yes, I know that they have voted against their own interests.)
3. People vote for The Original, not The Copy. If being "Hard On Crime" and "Mean To Immigrants" is an important point in the electorate, they will vote for the candidate who is authentically harder and meaner. And it becomes always the same dance: The Killer Clowns make outlandish demands, what was unsayable and unthinkable is now part of the public discourse, and compromises are made. Then, the whole show starts again. The moderates loose more and more ground and authenticy.
4. There has been a massive disparity in media coverage. If you have several billionaires on one side with vast traditional and social media options, a few in the middle who refuse to take sides, and almost none on the other in comparison, you will loose.
Der Oger, sorry. Your #2 is pertinent. The others are just wrong.
ReplyDeleteDP you could not be more wrong in your diagnosis. Mexico just elected a woman president and watch as Trump fills his cabinet and staff with Black and female and Hispanic faces. In fact, your reflexive “Racism and sexism!!!” shouts are EXACTLY among the top reasons that we lost. They are the disease that killed us.
But one more word sums up the problem.
“Abortion.”
Yeah, that was a gift from the Supreme Court and it helped, for a while, till it became a tsunami mantra and all that the upper middle class white ladies in charge of her campaign would talk about.
“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.”“Abortion.” ABORTION!!!
… forgetting that Hispanics are CATHOLICS! Sure, most can vote aside from the priest-preachings… unless they have their noses rubbed in it over and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
ad infinitum. At which point they wondered if they were being oversold a bill by the devil.
Then we get: “Yep. Clinton tried that and Carville still advocates it. To defeat them, we must become them.”
Stunning utter bullshit of the rankest order! In fact, let me make it clear… if Kamala had hired BILL MAHER to run her campaign, she would be picking drape colors for the oval office now… and almost NO liberal programs would be harmed an iota.
“We must become them…” my shiny metal…
Then John V joins you to blather this: “If Joe Biden gets forced out due to questions about capacity, how is he still president?”
JEhosephat!!! You guys ALL need to take a stress pill.
We don’t need a president without some age-exacerbations of lifelong stuttering that make him a bad candidate. We need one who is generally wise and will remain so till the end of his term…. AND WHO APPOINTS TOP FOLKS. Who right now surround Biden and what the f88888 are you even talking about?
It's the APPOINTMENTS that will show us Trump intentions. And this time there will be no adults.
Thank you C-plus for showing that in an excellent ‘satellite” allegory.
I’ll be back. Soon.
Well, I am thinking that I am still right with 1-4, and partly because 2-4 happen everywhere else too.
DeleteThere must be an underlying mechanic how bodies of large populations behave... somewhat like gas molecules.... If only someone Had written a novel about it...
But I am fine with disagreeing. And I am fine with adding the catholic argument to the list.
Mr. Brin gets it. The whole Democrat Party doesn't. It was inevitable really.
DeleteDer Oger
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with point 2. I TRIED to tell people on this site that the economy wasn't so wonderful. In part, the economy IS pretty good if you're someone with a graduate degree. With boomers retiring in droves, well-qualified people are getting pushed up the ladder rapidly because subsequent generations are much smaller.
However, inflation isn't uniform. It's been disproportionately high for groceries. The last two holiday seasons, food banks have reported levels of food insecurity that we haven't seen since the sharp recession that kicked off the Reagan era. If you're struggling to eat, you're going to think the economy sucks no matter what the headline numbers say.
There's a whole lot of people being "left behind" in marginal labor jobs, and they're feeling a TON of pressure from the flood of immigrants (especially in the southwest---which I see in Tucson, AZ). Very easy to blame the immigrants if you're having trouble putting food on the table---and the Biden/Harris admin has a real political weakness with border issues.
Actually, I live in Germany and I can tell you with the baby boomers retiring the jobs most needing people are tradesmen and teachers. These were jobs that were in oversupply for a while so nobody was trained for them, and then massive retirements all at once.
DeleteDr. Brin,
ReplyDeleteWell, weirdly enough I totally accept that, in the abstract, that c-plus' satellite allegory is a possible outcome. Thus, it can be true that Biden is unfit to run for re-election while being fit to still be President.
However, that's not the perception that drove the Democrats to force him off the ticket. Biden's numbers tanked after that debate. Too many people viewed him as incapable to hold office---including many hugely liberal pundits like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart who absolutely lampooned Biden's debate performance.
I don't pretend to know what Joe Biden is like behind closed doors. I don't have that kind of access. However, in this case it's a perception problem. At times, leadership can depend more on perception than reality (which is devilishly hard for someone with a hard-sciences background to recognize. Trust me, I've been there. "Perception is Reality" seems like a nonsense statement to someone devoted to the scientific method. But it makes perfect sense to a marketer, a politician, or a trial lawyer).
A scientist often responds, "I won't bend to the inaccurate perceptions of idiots." And yes, sometimes sticking to your guns is what you need to do. The problem is that the ability to lead can collapse based on perception----and it's devishly hard to get people to use their brains when they're under the kind of stressful conditions that tend to challenge a leader's position.
Look, I'm a sports nut. So, I'll use a sports analogy. Many great football coaches get fired at some point in their careers. It doesn't mean they're a bad coach or did a bad job. However, as losses pile up (which can often happen for reasons outside the coach's control), players often tune out the coach. Sometimes, people won't "buy in" unless there's some kind of tangible change that makes them believe that the team's situation can improve.
One example of this is Chiefs coach Andy Reid. He got fired after the 2012 season after many years of good performance in Philadelphia when his son died of an overdose in training camp. Following this collapse, he immediately gets hired in KC and posts 11 consecutive winning seasons (and counting). Oh yeah, the guy has won 3 Super Bowls. Clearly, he wasn't doing a bad job in Philly. He was a still a great coach the day he got fired. Yet, I think the Eagles made the right move. The team had lost faith and tuned him out. They needed to move on due to a perception problem.
I think Biden was in a somewhat analogous position. Too many people were doubting him. Hence, if you believe Biden wasn't capable, then you'd wonder about Harris not pulling the 25th amendment trigger. And that voter's perception becomes their reality, and they will behave in accordance with that perception.
if you believe Biden wasn't capable, then you'd wonder about Harris not pulling the 25th amendment trigger. And that voter's perception becomes their reality,
DeleteI did not get that impression from people who considered Harris a weak candidate. Yes, many thought she didn't separate herself enough from Biden on policy issues, many of which were unpopular. But I never heard an argument that she was considered incompetent specifically because she didn't oust Biden from the office.
I did not come here to either gloat or 'crow my joy'.
ReplyDeleteI've warned you over & over as to Team Progressive's ill-advised choice of actions until my face turned blue, along with the inevitable consequences thereof, and the last 10 years of my posts will prove that this true.
Yet, with extreme arrogance, Team Progressive persisted & still persists, dismissing every critic as an ignoramus, deplorable, racist and garbage nazi in their ever-escalating attempts to destroy fully functional conservative culture in order to 'Build Back Better'.
Your progressive policies did this! In the US & EU, your attempts to bulldoze the political opposition created the Far Right, the AfD & Donald Trump because "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".
You progressives are insane because you do the same things over & over and expect a different result. You could easily defuse the coming crisis, but you will never retreat (because you worship 'progress') and you will never admit that you 'might be wrong'.
You have chosen the form of your own destructor.
Best
Monday morning quarterbacks have all kinds of suggestions as to what Democrats could have done differently. Most of them sound to me like something that would gain some voters at the expense of others.
ReplyDeleteI think the voter sentiment shows that any Democrat would have lost. I happen to think Biden would have done better than any others. Other people have different opinions on that. But at the end of the day, the voters were hungry for punishing the current administration and for being entertained by their president.
I don't think it's a case of we fucked up. I think it's a case of we fought the good fight and lost badly.
Trump took over after Obama - and inherited an economy that was doing very well - before he trashed it
ReplyDeleteNow Trump is going to take over another economy that is doing very well
It appears to me that the problem is that American voters have a very short memory - they seem to be able to remember back two years - which is why the 2022 "Red Wave" failed - but after two years it becomes history and not relevant
The fact that the GOP stopped Biden from making any further improvements in the last two years is blamed on Biden
And that is as far back as they remember
Your economy is doing very well just now - how long before Trump destroys it?
@duncan cairncross,
DeleteI was about to post something very similar. We seem to go through cycles where voters are tired of one party and so trade them in, and then they're disappointed with that party, etc, etc.
The fact that the GOP stopped Biden from making any further improvements in the last two years is blamed on Biden
The fact that that is a deliberate strategy and that it works boggles my mind. Mitch McConnell perfected it. He said out loud that he would obstruct everything and then voters would blame Obama for the failures. Voters fell for it anyway. Trump did the same thing with the border bill.
A while back, Stonekettle said something like, "Voters don't mind what Democrats do--they just want Republicans to be the ones doing them. And since Republicans won't do those things, they are constantly disappointed." I think that explains the boom-bust cycle. "The Obama economy is great--now all we need is for a Republican to be in charge of it." Then Republicans screw it up, so they empower Democrats. "The Biden economy is great--now all we need is for Trump to be in charge of it!" And so it goes.
The Republicans did a variation on the theme back in the 2000 race of Bush v Gore. Ever since the Gingrich ascendency in 1995, the Republicans were on a campaign of viscous nastiness against Bill Clinton. In the run-up to 2000, they suggested that electing them would bring about a more civil politics. In other words, "Vote for us, and we'll stop slinging s###."
DeleteAh, David is back to his "the democrats didn't pivot to the center enough" tack, showing that he has learned nothing in 25 years.
ReplyDeleteAppealing to the center with polarized population simply doesn't work. Embracing Liz Chaney and promising to put a R in her cabinet are two of the worst examples of political mismanagement ever, and David basically says that the Dems did too little to appease a non-existent center.
If Republicans end up with the House as well, any bets on how quickly they'll abolish the filibuster for legislation. Any side bets on whether Joe Manchin will apologize?
ReplyDeleteI just spent an entire year at work dealing with people who, when asked why their loan was delinquent, said "Biden." These loans were mostly for RVs and boats. That was a warning sign, but I had some hope for the election, because I was dealing mostly with truckers and construction workers. One of them even said 2020 was better for him than 2024. Apparently rumpT's disastrous Covid-19 response, mass layoffs and closures, toilet paper shortages/disrupted supply chains, bodies stacked in refrigerated trucks - none of that mattered compared to their remembrance of lower interest rates and gas/grocery prices.
ReplyDeleteWall St is apparently giddy over the prospect of looting America again. Did they not notice that Elon Musk is going to be in charge of cutting the federal budget and RFK Jr. will handle health care? rumpT even said - I heard the speech - that RFKJR can do what he likes as long as rumpT gets to pump out the oil.
I can understand people not remembering TFG's incompetent foreign policy, but the non-1% citizens who voted for him will get the domestic policy they deserve, good and hard. It's just too bad that the rest of us are along for the ride.
Of course, rumpT was given credit for the bipartisan stimulus checks issued during that year, and Biden reaped the inflation. As noted above, it's cyclic. I just don't know how close the GQP is to stopping the cycle by instituting a 1 party state, where everything is blamed on commie liberal witches full time without media pushback.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Larry's point about people just wanting to punish the party in power is well made. A lot of other nations also saw a tide of anti-incumbent sentiment. Some administrations weathered it, some did not; the UK's Tories finally managed to center their aim and blow their own wedding tackle off, but I'm sure New Labour can put them back into office in 2-4 years.
A phrase stood out as I skipped Loc's usual...."fully functional conservative culture". I, and a lot of people like me, do NOT fit in well within such a culture, but we are not stopping people like Loc from embracing whatever culture they desire.
ReplyDeleteI note, however, that Loc wants that culture to apply to everyone. They certainly don't want people inside it to have the option of leaving to join or form a different culture. JV talks about conservative men worrying about their kids not following their strictures, or not being told if they change. Well, if your kid is unhappy in that stricture, should they have the right to force the kid to stay? Your culture's not being replaced - except as the only available choice, now alongside others. And if your kid's not willing to tell you - and my trans kid took a long time to take that step - what does that say about us? Should our children fear us?
Pappenheimer
addendum - if your answer to "should our children fear us" is "yes", then that doesn't say much about you. Or rather as Greg McDonald put it in a Fletch novel, "lots, but not good."
ReplyDeletePappenheimer, who agrees that yes, young people don't listen to their elders anymore, everyone wants to write a book (sorry make that 'do a podcast' these days, and the world is certainly coming to an end.
This might help.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGRP3jxwD_A
Rise again. Rise again.
Though your heart, it be broken, or life about to end.
No matter what you've lost--be it a home, a love, a friend--
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!
and
ReplyDelete'smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go"
Pappenheimer
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb". Dark Helmet.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, in a parallel Universe on Earth Prime, 2024, the Democratic party decides to evaluate the coming election and their roster of candidates in a way analogous to a professional sports franchise. They decide to keep their aging and developing talent off the playing field and do a preseason free-agent signing with a rival team.
On Earth Prime, the Democratic party calls Romney’s agent and NEGOTIATES a deal. Gospel Stream and BYU TV are in every household. Trump is prosecuted. Women’s reproductive rights are protected. State secrets are safe. National Parks only allow decaffeinated fracking. Of course both extremes kick and scream and throw tantrums. Yawn. Vanilla. Meanwhile progress slowly moves forward.
BTW Heritage Action for America gives Mit (spelled with only one t on earth prime) Romney a scorecard of 47% vs a 78% average Senate Republican. Vance has a 93%!
Sigh…
I recently re-read A Tale of Two Cities. One minor story element did stand out as being currently relevant. When Lucie is newly wed, she wistfully contemplates bringing forth children, and she considers it a 50/50 shot that she'll die in childbirth. She's sad at the thought of her heartbroken husband mourning her every anniversary of the day. This, I gather, was a normal thing for young women to consider as their future.
ReplyDeleteDickens wrote the book in the mid to late 19th century, and there were some aspects of the late 18th century setting of the novel that he felt the need to explain. The rich man hard-riding his carriage with abandon through crowds of poor people on narrow streets, for example. Dickens's omniscient narrator speaks directly to the reader, explaining that a "modern" audience will find it hard to appreciate the then-common practice. But about the newlywed wife contemplating equally the prospect of a smiling child on her breast and her greif-stricken husband at her young grave was not something he had to do that with. I gather that as recently as the late 19th century, death was still considered a semi-inevitable consequence of pregnancy.
I dunno, it seems somehow contemporarily relevant.
JB has about 70 days left to seat as many federal judges as possible (over 100). He has the Senate and Kamala's vote. The ink must flow.
ReplyDeleteHis statue should be in the market square of the first domed city on Titan.
Has JFK Jr started babbling about precious bodily fluids yet?
ReplyDeleteApart from banning fluoride (adding a new spin to the mantra "drill, baby, drill!"), he's been babbling about doing away with all those toxic vaccines.
DeleteBird flu viruses must be rubbing their binding proteins together in glee.
If he *does* do more than babble... well, I wouldn't wish pancreatic cancer on anyone, but it would be poetic justice! (Usual cautionary note about preliminary research applies.)
Under JFK Jr we may have to restart the Open Insulin Project and those caravans to Canada for cheap insulin if you are a T1 diabetic.
DeletePoint of order. That's RFK Jr you're talking about.
DeleteJFK Jr. was the one who was going to parachute into a Q-Anon rally, back from the dead to join the ticket as Trump's VP.
Oops. Thanks for the correction.
Deletehttps://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Nov08-1.html
ReplyDeleteIn a first for a presidential election, the number of independent voters exceeded the number of registered Democratic voters, and tied the number of registered Republican voters. What, exactly, this means will be a question of much interest over the next few years.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Nov08-2.html
ReplyDeleteOur view, with the benefit of 48 hours' reflection (admittedly not much), is that this election was about forces that were beyond the control of politicians. The pandemic swept Donald Trump out of office, and then its aftereffects put him right back in office. The whole world was affected by the pandemic in a similar way, and the entire world has reacted in a similar way, often favoring populists and authoritarians but, even more commonly, favoring "something different." That the Democrats took a pasting everywhere, and in nearly every "competitive" race, indicates that this was about something larger than Kamala Harris or her campaign. Long-time Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) didn't lose to a carpetbagging hedge fund manager who lives in Connecticut due to any mistake Kamala Harris made. The voters were angry and he was collateral damage.
We do tend to agree that, in 2024, it was "the economy, stupid." However, we don't agree with the argument that the Democrats should have realized that, and proceeded accordingly. The blue team, from Harris on down, knew that was THE issue. It was not a secret, poll after poll showed it to be the case. The problem is that such insight isn't really actionable. Politicians, even presidents, have relatively little power to affect the economy for the better. They have even less power to affect people's perceptions of the economy. If this was going to be an "economy" election—and that is what it turned out to be—then woe be unto anyone who is associated with the current regime
Wave elections can and do sweep out people who were doing their jobs and didn’t deserve replacing, but they had the wrong party label. Harris Co in TX (where Houston is) has provided plenty of recent examples, biting both parties on their backsides.
DeleteAs for the economy, I will be battening down my financial hatches. No discretionary spending for now. If the orange cretin keeps even a fraction of his economic promises, we are in for lean times.
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
ReplyDeleteI'll be brutally honest with you: When Supreme Leader Trump comes for The Press, and he will, I'm going to cheer. No one deserves it more than these faithless journalists who sold out the Republic for clicks and likes.
Not a feel-good, but he has a point.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-elites-working-class.html
...
The rest of us need to look at this result with humility. American voters are not always wise, but they are generally sensible, and they have something to teach us. My initial thought is that I have to re-examine my own priors. I’m a moderate. I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center. But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn’t work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption — something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.
Can the Democratic Party do this? Can the party of the universities, the affluent suburbs and the hipster urban cores do this? Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that. Those of us who condescend to Trump should feel humbled — he did something none of us could do.
...
But he did it by tapping into fear, hate, bigotry, and ignorance. I’m still not willing to compromise my values so badly.
DeleteThe op-ed writer isn't suggesting that. He's a centrist who is wondering if the Democratic Party needs to embrace its inner AOC and Bernie Sanders, despite the fact that that's not his personal inclination.
DeleteLarry Hart said...
ReplyDelete"https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
I'll be brutally honest with you: When Supreme Leader Trump comes for The Press, and he will, I'm going to cheer. No one deserves it more than these faithless journalists who sold out the Republic for clicks and likes."
I am very close to being completely on board with that sentiment. As I've harped for years the press has long since failed its mandate. The major news outlets have long since prioritized making news in order to make more money over reporting news. In doing so they have also, witting or not, been the primary tool of those politicians and political operatives that have made The Big Lie their primary tactic. Over the years this has lead to a majority of people on all "sides" becoming progressively more detached from reality.
TV and radio news used to be a public service. That changed in the 1980s when it became just another profit center. It's no longer about informing the public, but about entertaining the customers.
DeleteThe actual journalists and editorial staff have little choice in the matter.
Deletehttps://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
ReplyDeleteTrump told Americans that they'd love living in a Russian style oligarchy with him as their Putin.
And a majority Americans said, ooooh, I gotta get me some of that!
No one actually asked the average Russian living under Putin and his cronies what they thought about it. For good reason.
So it begins. "It was all about the economy," my ass!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.the-independent.com/life-style/trump-misogyny-tiktok-reproductive-rights-us-election-b2643207.html
In the wake of the former president’s shocking political comeback, women have reported men are writing “your body, my choice” on their social media posts, among other troubling reproductive rights remarks.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-people-text-messages-picking-cotton-nearest-plantation-rcna179036
Dozens of Black people across the country said they have received text messages telling them they had been “selected” to pick cotton “at the nearest plantation.”
The messages came just hours after the polarized presidential election came to a close this week.
On Wednesday morning, Monèt Miller, a publicist from Atlanta, was reeling over Donald Trump winning the White House when she received a text message from an unknown phone number.
“Our Executive Slaves will come get you in a Brown Van,” the message read, “be prepared to be searched down once you’ve enter the plantation.”
The incels are remarkably stupid. They’ll just widen the gender gap.
DeleteI'm afraid this election showed us that the gender gap doesn't matter.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
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DeleteI was thinking more of their wretched personal lives, although maybe they think there will be mandatory marriage laws coming soon.
From my perspective, the Democrats were found guilty by the majority of not fixing decades of attempted "Conservatism" in a single term, of pandering to great wealth after their labor union allies were more than decimated to deprive Democrats of their support. This suggests a question, "Do Republicans ever feel chafed at the apparent low expectations?".
ReplyDelete4. Trump landslide. Ain’t gonna happen
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHA! This aged well. You know nothing about people, you're an elitist snob who can't or won't see the truth.
@ Dr. Brin:
ReplyDeleteRegarding a "General Strike" as in your blog post - wouldn't that require the participation of the worker class, and hasn't it shown this week where they stand?
As I've long since argued that Team Progressive is 'uncompromising', 'idealistic', 'compulsive' and 'immoderate', I'd like to give a big shout-out and 'thank you' to the blog participants who validate my thesis:
ReplyDelete'Shout-outs' to Larry_H for compulsively insisting that the losing Democrat Party shouldn't do anything differently in future contests to achieve different results;
And to immoderate Matthew who insists that a willingness to negotiate or engage in political compromise equals a major character flaw;
And to pendantic Pappenheimer for suddenly arguing for the selective (rather than the uniform) application of the Rule-of-Law to those with different cultural preferences;
And, as always, to the many idealistic leftists who wish to 'redistribute wealth' on the basis of personal preference while extending special privileges & protections to imaginary identity groups in the name of 'equality'.
Best
Split tickets in 5/7 of the swing states prove that the POTUS election choice was about misogyny and racism.
ReplyDeleteVote Blue when it is a white man, vote GOP when it is a black woman. We just ran the A/B test on this hypothesis. Millions of centrist voters voted Democratic Party for Senators / Governors but then voted GOP for President. Millions.
Data. Look at the damn data.
I heard callers to WCPT in Chicago call that out after the 2016 nominations, when Republicans could have nominated Marco Rubio but went for Trump instead.
Delete"They had a choice between conservatism and racism, and they chose racism."
All the pointless Monday morning quarterbacking over what Democrats should have done feels pointless to me. They'd have had to do all the things our former big tent insisted on, even the things that contradict the other things. Support Israel more and abandon Israel. Lower prices to 2021 or 2009 levels without causing a depression. Revoke the ACA and provide beautiful health care for everyone instead (but not nationalized health care). Support freedom of religion, but give more respect to Christian nationalism.
ReplyDeleteAnd the sad fact is that the alternate media universe most people live in would still call them Communists.
It's reminding me of "Officer Krupke" in West Side Story.
The trouble is he's lazy!
The trouble is he drinks!
The trouble is he's crazy!
The trouble is he stinks!
The trouble is he's growing!
The trouble is he's grown!
Krupke, we've got troubles of our own.
As far as I can ascertain, the Democratic Party now consists of:
ReplyDeleteWhite liberal professionals
Black women
Trans people*
And the Republican Party now has the big tent of everyone else.
But the actual Republican platform is white Christian nationalism, so most of Trump's voters willingly enacted their own second class citizenship (at best).
* My wife wants to add LGBTQ+ generally, but I think the "regular gays" actually did go for Trump
** possibly Lesbians also belong in the Democratic tent
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