U.S. Politics, November 2022: “I don’t know, you hear the same things I do”

New thread.

And this month is CRUCIAL!!

Think I wantcha!

Some reasonably good local news — they caught the guy who shot at and burned down our local Planned Parenthood office. He unfortunately died from a medical issue while in jail on other charges (shooting at a federal building) and hadn't even been charged with the Planned Parenthood crimes yet. 63 years old, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, member of the Catholic group Church Militant Resistance. White guy, if that needs to be said.

A real loss to the world, sounds like.

He unfortunately died from a medical issue

His head was stuck all the way up his ass?

I'm guessing it was COVID and his family doesn't want to say so.

BREAKING: Supreme Court *rejects* Lindsey Graham’s request in the 2020 election-fraud case in Georgia. He must testify about Trump’s attempt to thwart Biden’s win.

— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) November 1, 2022

Too bad, so sad for the Paper Tiger of the Senate.

Huckleberry Lawyerup

I can't help but read the stories about Bolsonaro's supporters blocking roads as he refuses to concede and imagining this is just a preview of 2024 here.

Jan 6 types will def be taking notes about Brazil's election aftermath.

he is expected to concede shortly

wimp

You can't really say they're hiding it https://t.co/w9BhdYix8J via @patrickdmarley pic.twitter.com/HgpIQ0K6cB

— Astead (@AsteadWesley) November 1, 2022

Huckleberry Lawyerup

I am hearing this to the tune of "temporary layoffs" from the Good Times theme

probably just me tho

xxpost - we remember how lame/lackluster our trucker convoy was compared to the Canadians awhile back

Too many alternate routes in the U.S.

Dr. Oz, spending $27 million of his fortune on TV ads: https://t.co/mz3HbP4yr0 pic.twitter.com/a5bw7NBBFw

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 1, 2022

What a loathsome toad.

Patriotism - Values - Integrity - Eats Occasional Vegetables

Oh look it's Gavin Newsom in Biden's rear-view.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is campaigning for embattled Democrats in an effort to bail out a party he says is being "destroyed on messaging.” He spoke exclusively with @MajorCBS addressing questions about whether his political ambitions extend beyond the Golden State. pic.twitter.com/CzVdOhz7kX

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) November 1, 2022

And speaking of Biden, he's giving a speech tonight about democracy! This will definitely ensure democracy forever and ever, as the impassioned demos rises up as one in the wake of our leader's inspiring words.

If he's indeed the last democratically-elected president of the U.S., it'd kind of look weird for him not to give a speech about the importance of democracy

I'm all for a speech, I just lol at the mentality that thinks Joe Biden giving a speech is an answer to anything.

He could summon Merrick Garland to the Oval Office and punch him in the face.

Newsom notably says in that interview that he's not running for President in 2024 and in fact isn't interested in the role.

I'm all for a speech, I just lol at the mentality that thinks Joe Biden giving a speech is an answer to anything

Given that they refuse to do anything else, they pretty much just have signaling and symbology left. Plenty of Admin types still seem to be the kind of folks who think a rousing speech is all that’s necessary to close the deal

Newsom notably says in that interview that he's not running for President in 2024 and in fact isn't interested in the role.

If we assume the second isn't true (which I do) then there's no reason to think the first is true either. But obviously he's not going to declare unless/until Biden clears the way. Not that I think a Newsom run is a great idea or anything. Being firmly of the belief as I am that Biden should under no circumstances seek reelection, I'm still at a loss as to who should run.

lol

New: Monmouth U poll finds very little movement in PASen race post debate.
Fetterman: 48% "definitely" or "probably" support (same as early Oct)
Oz: 44% support (up 1 - though with more "definites" now)

4.5% MOE
All interviews done post debatehttps://t.co/BizaBpq8yf

— Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) November 2, 2022

The most misleading thing about that tweet is the Photoshopped graphic that makes Oz (6'1") and Fetterman (6'8") look like they're the same height.

same moral height if you were

Oz looking more like an aging muppet

I don't think Newsom can win the presidency, he'd have to be running against some extremely milquetoast republican, which is not the sort of person the GOP will ever nominate again. I more or less like Newsom, but the dude has a ton of negatives and has not ever been very good at optics.

Plus, Biden ain't budging unless he croaks.

the Democratic candidate for 2024 needs to be a wrestler. Biden will be primaried. the wrestler needs to be a new up and comer who arrives on the scene this year or early next.

and the wrestler will in exchange for his exposure promise to run on a progressive platform and also tape campaign ads in the middle of fights

because honestly I don't see how else we win, everything is backwards.

Newsom notably says in that interview that he's not running for President in 2024

politicians lie about their presidential intentions almost universally.

It's not completely up to Biden. Especially depending on the midterms, if they look as bad as they're likely to, he is vulnerable to a serious challenge. He's very primary-able already. But it would take somebody sufficiently threatening probably to make him seriously consider not running.

If the GOP does take the House, the rationale is even stronger for him to step down, because he would most likely be facing impeachment timed for early 2024. If the GOP has to try to impeach him AND fight off a different Democratic candidate for president, it at least opens up a second front.

Trump and Clinton proved impeachment is no impediment, though.

I dunno, Trump lost. Not because of the impeachment but I don't think it helped him. But it's more the divided time and energy between campaigning and defending. Plus also the impetus for the GOP to seriously pursue impeachment goes way up if they get to impeach the guy they're also campaigning against, it makes it seamless.

yeah, that's highly debatable for both Trump and Clinton. Let's not forget how much Clinton was seen as a liability in the 2000 election.

Let's not forget how much Clinton was seen painted as a liability by the press in the 2000 election.

Al Gore absolutely treated Clinton like a liability in his campaign.

otoh, what exactly would Biden be impeached for? I'm not sure that republicans can pull it off without it looking like an utter sham. Even the Clinton impeachment had some questionable acts that it could be built around.

hunter's laptop

presumably that would be the focus, but so far the actual evidence against Hunter is extremely thin, and none of it links back to Joe

Here's the angle:

Is a 25th Amendment removal in Joe Biden’s future?
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3714038-is-a-25th-amendment-removal-in-joe-bidens-future/

(it's an op-ed)

Impeached for giving speeches about democracy

You can impeach a ham sandwich with the coming GOP majority. Most likely things are mental acuity, the Afghan withdrawal or something to do with Hunter. Or maybe the Russians will helpfully turn over some damning documents, who knows. Lots of things can go wrong between January and October of next year. Maybe they'll impeach him just for failure to comply with their blizzard of investigations.

Oh, the authoritarian vaccine mandates too.

So will this fucker ever be forced to resign? Sorry for linking to politio.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592

no

Al Gore absolutely treated Clinton like a liability in his campaign.

Gore was right about the environment, broadly speaking, but in a whole lot of other ways he was a fucking dolt. I'm not saying he was the lesser of two evils or anything that insipid, but he should not have been the president of anyone's dreams and he shot himself in the dick multiple times while campaigning (Joe fucking Lieberman?).

JOEMENTUM, BAY-BEE

xp

I'm not claiming that Al Gore was right or that he ran a smart campaign

Newsom is about as loathsome and slimy a motherfucker that ever crawled out of San Francisco, and trust me when I say I’ve had some slimy times in the city by the Bay.

I more or less like Newsom, but the dude has a ton of negatives and has not ever been very good at optics.

he has and he hasn't? I mean, his performative gay marriages when he was mayor were very optically savvy. ... the bearskin rug photo with Kimberly Gargoyle was optically something, though time has changed those optics.

but I also think he is probably very aware of the awkwardness of having been married to a woman who is now a right wing troll

Afaic Newsom paved the way for Lee, and both allowed/forced the best city in the country for weirdos and freaks to be taken over by a bunch of soulless suburban yuppies who know how to code. Shameful shit, I wish the absolute worst on both (tho Lee is dead, I did a happy dance that day, hope he’s in an especially heinous ring of hell)

Actually, Willie Brown literally paved the way for Newsom, so ... like, wasn't Newsom originally a Willie Brown appointee to fill a vacant supervisor position? Or am I misremembering this?

Probably not literally ;)

and going back, we can always blame Dianne Feinstein ... and uh, the creme de la creme of the SFPD, Dan White

I would vote for Gavin Newsom over anyone I can imagine the Republicans putting up.

xp - don't make me search through the SF Building Dept records to see if I can argue for "literally paving" ;)

but I think the thing with Newsom as a presidential candidate is ... there are too many people from/associated with SF that loathe him and can sling mud ... like, leftists would sling it, and the right wing would repurpose it, and we all are aware of the "Democratic Party Direction" issues between leftists and moderates

I remember when he ran against Matt Gonzales and all the SF Lefties painted Newsom as just to the right of Pinochet lol

re: newsom being bad at optics, i guess I'm thinking more recently. It was dumb for him to go to the French Laundry in the middle of the pandemic. Do I personally care? No. But it looked bad and was dumb. It was also dumb for him to send his kids to a school where they didn't mask. Do I personally give a fuck? no. But things like that 'look' terrible and shit like that bites you in the ass in ways that it shouldn't.

Shall we?

Walker hits back at Obama: "Put my resume against his resume" https://t.co/9AlNMXQos1 pic.twitter.com/evZCY5B1xM

— The Hill (@thehill) November 2, 2022

More champagne!

What the fuck hahahahaha

xp Walker to Walker

I don't know that much about Gavin Newsom, but I watched the 60 Minutes clip, and while I agree with what he said about Democrats needing to be more aggressive with their messaging strategy, he just seems kind of smarmy. That's just an immediate surface-level reaction, but I'm having trouble seeing him as the party's savior.

Should there even be one

he just seems kind of smarmy

And this is why he'll never go national... Californians are pretty much used to our brie & quince liberals, but he doesn't have the folksiness to go big time - maybe labor secretary or something like that

I'll add that De Santis is probably too unlikable to go big time either, for different reasons

Too short, for one thing.

Gavin Newsom's early support for gay marriage meant a lot to me, and I would vote for him over almost anybody else, but I agree that he would not be the best candidate. Unless someone extremely charismatic and viable pops up soon, I think Biden is the only one who can win the presidency for Democrats in 2024

My friends are also saying that they think DeSantis is too unlikeable to go big, but I don't know

a military record used to mean something for presidential hopefuls, but nobody's won off of it in a long, long time

to be fair to walker, obama has never won the heisman trophy

I remember when he ran against Matt Gonzales and all the SF Lefties painted Newsom as just to the right of Pinochet lol

― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, November 2, 2022 2:30 PM (one hour ago)

lol u talking about my friends tbh

to be fair to walker, obama has never won the heisman trophy

But he did teach at the University of Chicago, the first school to ever have a player win the Heisman, so ... close enough!

Unless someone extremely charismatic and viable pops up soon

Pete Buttigieg proved that someone youngish, smart and ambitious from the lower tiers of the party can rise rapidly in a presidential race, though probably not against an incumbent president. he's probably reached his zenith as a cabinet member.

possibly. he is a surprisingly good speaker though who at times reminds me of Obama. "Pete Buttigieg" is just a really bad name though

As a midwesterner with no stakes in either state Desantis and Newsome feel like unlikeable rival brothers separated at birth who grew up to be the Florida and California versions of each other.

lol

the right fucking loves Desantis here, like he's not a 'lesser of two evils for conservatives' guy, they drink the Kool-Aid here w/ him.

nevermind that when the next pandemic happens and he's sitting on top of a freezer full of dead bodies, he'll be saying it's actually full of ice cream

god I hate him. no chance to unseat him unless the world's biggest polling error in history happened, but I'm still taking this weekend to cast my symbolic middle finger.

the one I'm curious about is Ted Cruz. I am sure the right likes him because he is so damn hated on the left but he comes across so goddamn pathetic and inauthentic. like do conservatives really buy his rootin' tootin cowboy act??

Speaking of Ted...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): “I wish Trump was spending some of his money … It would be nice if Trump would spend some of that $100 million to help some of these candidates who Mitch [McConnell] is abandoning because they're pro-Trump." pic.twitter.com/5VqrlDwel2

— The Recount (@therecount) November 2, 2022

"Pete Buttigieg" is just a really bad name though

Donald. Trump.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2e/Donald_Duck_-_temper.png/220px-Donald_Duck_-_temper.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Whoopee_cushion.jpg

Pete Buttigieg is awful, jesus we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel if a racist ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat is being talked about seriously as a dynamic individual. The idiot motherfucker joined the military after Harvard, in the midst of two of the most unjust imperial excursions this country has ever made. Fuck Pete, him being a homosexual makes me embarrassed to also be a homosexual.

“Oh let’s elect this big pile of confused and racist policies because he’s young and gay”

talk about the limits of identity politics

I refuse to believe Pete is a real person. He's like a powerpoint that became semi-sentient.

Maybe Walker’s resume has cartoon football stickers on it or something, pretty cool, you gotta admit

thanking tabes for the new screenname

I weep for two decades from now when Mayo Pete legit is the best choice because everything is awful and every election is like either whichever new generation of "ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat " the Dems have pulled up or like MTG's even more batshit offspring.

Two decades from now there will be no elections

And if we're lucky a ex-pizza junkie who looks like a rat version of a human will be president

Fair point, I was idly daydreaming about the remote chance of a semi-functional democracy in two decades.

Decomposed Herman Cain 2040

Decomposed Herman Cain versus Animated Futurama Nixon Head in Jar for GOP primary 2040.

president richard nixon's head gets stuff done, dammit

gross

It’s almost like sustained Russian-backed propaganda fed to a captive audience works https://t.co/I8nqgh634v

— Cassandra (@ChrisWarcraft) November 3, 2022

Buttigieg is pretty much the only talking head Democrat on TV who knows how to answer a bullshit question effectively, and since cable news is 100% bullshit questions he's pretty much the #1 Democratic media personality

Some people like humans who look like rats, what can I say

I honestly would love for a Dem candidate to run on a platform of promising, if they win, mandatory drag queen story hour, critical race theory, woke nightmare horror shows.

GOP messaging is pretty clear: If Dems win, it’s going to be a Drag Queen story hour, critical race theory, woke nightmare horror show.

— Stephen Robinson (@SER1897) November 3, 2022

making politics be about liking people doesn't improve it.

why can't woke drag queens teach CRT at story hour?

in blank verse?

i attended a DQSH show, it was a good time!

To be completely fair the “he looks like a rat” thing was kind of the last hurrah of those extremely helpful reflexively anti-Dem left Twitter trends Table is kind of mindlessly repeating in a sad pathos sort of way.

mention pete and summon gabbneb

kinda lol mostly sad

To be completely fair the “he looks like a rat” thing was kind of the last hurrah of those extremely helpful reflexively anti-Dem left Twitter trends Table is kind of mindlessly repeating in a sad pathos sort of way.

Expand on this and record it over the instrumental of "The Gift"

Lol!

Milo, you know about white light white heat? God that’s awesome

To be completely fair the “he looks like a rat” thing was kind of the last hurrah of those extremely helpful reflexively anti-Dem left Twitter trends Table is kind of mindlessly repeating in a sad pathos sort of way.

Great news that stands no chance of hell of enforcement:

n Monday the Supreme Court left in place a ruling that allows the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to issue mask mandates on planes, trains and other forms of transport, as it had for more than a year during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Supreme Court denied a California attorney’s request to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the D.C. Circuit from December, which found no merit in his claim and affirmed that the TSA does have the authority to maintain security and safety within the transportation system, including imposing the masking requirement.

California attorney Jonathan Corbett had claimed that the TSA did not have the authority to mandate masks on airlines and other types of transportation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Court of Appeals had disagreed, ruling that the agency “plainly has the authority” to address transportation safety and security

Milo seems like the big music head around here. The “tunes” guy

Tbf you can't spell "Democrat" without R A T

Okay Sean Hannity

Despite all Don's rage he's still just a fan of a rat in a cage

Oh oh wait hold on hold on I think I get that reference……ugh! fuck!!

He's the rat man for the job

"pete buttigieg looks like a rat"

About 89,300 results (0.81 seconds)

Your search - "a rat that looks like pete buttigieg" - did not match any documents.

lol I remember in like 2004 there was this controversy b/c some political ad was flashing the word "DEMOCRATS" across the screen and at certain points it (maybe unintentionally?) cut off part of it to just say "RATS". whereas now political ads are like "Mandela Barnes will personally send criminals to smash your baby's head in" while playing riot footage against a picture of his face digitally altered to look darker

I have often reminisced over the "macaca" incident

“That escalated quickly”

I'm thisclose to throwing out my tv set the next time I have to see an ad with a red-faced Joe Rogan shouting misleading bullshit about Pritzker. Not a campaign ad development I've welcomed. Less Rogan, more Dick Bigger Jr.

Your search - "a rat that looks like pete buttigieg" - did not match any documents.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51tUL-a204L._AC_.jpg

https://imgflip.com/i/6zf6h3

https://i.imgflip.com/6zf6h3.jpg

I'm thisclose to throwing out my tv set the next time I have to see an ad with a red-faced Joe Rogan shouting misleading bullshit about Pritzker. Not a campaign ad development I've welcomed. Less Rogan, more Dick Bigger Jr.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

DeSantis has got ya beat. He has his cancer victim wife in commercials purring about his manliness.

ew

tbf, the #4 google result for "pete buttigieg looks like a rat" is literally his official DOT bio

Greg Abbott has a commercial with a twentysomething woman talking about how much she trusts him to keep her safe blah blah blah and then she's like "oh yeah, he's my uncle - Tio Greg"

You don’t have to think he’s great obviously but Pete Derangement Syndrome is very much a thing that’s indicative of larger ways the same people who embrace have let themselves become dumber and get played by stupid bullshit online that helps republicans.

it is pretty crazy here in WI though you will see a commercial claiming that Evers let loose thousands of violent criminals and then immediately after one fact checking it saying "no the governor can't even do that if he wanted to". was watching some daytime TV while working out and I swear it was like 80% political ads

Every McKinsey consultant should be cast into a pit of vipers.

I'm not sure what bugs ya. Biden'll be the nominee unless he croaks, and if he loses in '24 we don't have to worry about Pete or any Dem winning anything again.

Don is overestimating the importance of the Secretary of Transportation imo, but more importantly nothing I do online helps or hurts republicans

The last words the jury heard before the prosecutors rested their case - Defendant Elmer Rhodes saying: “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then & there. I’d hang f**king Pelosi from the lamppost.” In the courtroom, you could have heard a firing pin drop.

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) November 3, 2022

polling shows that 25% of straight ticket Republican voters turned because BasedLenin69 tweeted "mayo pete lol"

we don't have to worry about Pete or any Dem winning anything again.

Our troubles will be over!

That “ oh yeah my random posts mean so much” thing doesn’t work and it’s just being dishonest. The navel gazey “blah blah McKinsey” nonsense like it fucking matters given the stakes of everything. In retrospect it will seem insane to norma people that everyone wasn’t just cringey “blue no matter who” wine mom while all this stuff was going on.

the only norma people I know are both Trump supporters anyway

Sound unlikely

*Sounds

ok I give in, I will vote for Pete on Tuesday

Oh Rob lol.

oh my God, could you imagine?

oh good big don is back

- america in 2024 ^

Wait why do you want that?

i heard he'd make big don abernathy stop posting here and i'm a single issue voter

I get that honestly. I mean I voted straight down the ticket Dems primarily (one could say “solely) to get Dr Morbius to stop posting here and…you know

Goodbye Normal Jean

what a relief, a truly fp-able post

Huh?

jfc dude

rob otm

thread slipped into absurdity and that's saying something for this thread

Mods you wanna take care of him, I am not interested in waiting for the FP threshold

why in the afternoon in the u.s. does ILE get all yessed out

If my comment was about a guy who didn’t also make comments like that I could see doing the whole “Mods!” thing.

If my comment was about a guy who didn’t also make comments like that I could see doing the whole “Mods!” thing.

Well, he also got banned sometimes.

Gee I wonder what the difference is

Oh that’s a good point.

What JoeStork said

xxp - Nothing wrong with a lil' absurdity in the pols threads now and then for some levity, imho. Laugh to keep from crying etc etc. But absolutely not in favor of that tasteless bullshit that crossed the line.

What’s it like to be the kind of person who comes back to gloat about someone who’s now dead?

woah hey that’s not a fair characterization. It was a retort to an insult. Relax.

Jeez, the only reason I mentioned Pete was to use his example from 2020 to demonstrate that a surprisingly viable 2024 presidential candidate need not be visible to anyone, yet. One could emerge from as obscure place as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. I was so far from touting him as the best choice in 2024 that I specifically said Pete had already topped out his career by getting to be a second tier cabinet member.

I understood your initial post, Aimless, I was simply bemoaning the fact that he might be the best we have when he's clearly execrable.

Pete 2024: Not Senescent

Can we maybe all agree to ignore that turd gabbneb next time he rematerialises because you know he only does this for the attention

I’m pretty sure Pete would get fewer votes as the non in 2024 than Biden would

Who is big dick abernathy?

Who is gabbneb?

No i don’t think so

making light of the death of an ilx legend who is sorely missed and then dismissively posting "relax" should be more than enough to raise enough blood to reach the fp threshold. Even if the worthless cunt isn't worth getting angry about.

I miss his “Roe will never be overturned” posts. .

There have to be other fallen posters that can lionized instead, right?

come on folks, the button you need to push is right about ^^

aw it didn't let me space that out correctly

Whoa when did “block poster” show up? Far out!

oh it’s just the “hidden” tag basically

how is this guy not banned yet??

Adam Silver must be modding

Consider the possibility the moderators are very familiar with whom I’ve talked about here and thought “ehh I could go either way on this one”

All I see are "bookmark flag link"

It’s in Zing

Oh man Zing makes it so easy to block

I don't think Big Don should be blocked for anything he said

I think he crossed a line (I think he probably knows it too) but that doesn't warrant a boot

he has a long history of trolling here and should be banned at this point.

If Mr. Big truly is gabbneb back in our hair, then that is enough to permaban him for the fourth or fifth time. the perma in permaban means forever.

Map, trolling isn’t “guy I disagree with is saying things”

True; trolling is typically more, acting like a dick for attention.

"trolling" is looking like a troll while posting trollish thoughts

Well Jim I’m not doing that but I think we both know that my description is probably correct wrt what Map believes trolling to be.

Well Don, it's either that or you're just disregarding or ignorant of the first rule of holes.

Some states don't have sex ed, tbf

no that doesn’t work. I’m not in a hole. Sorry.

Map, trolling isn’t “guy I disagree with is saying things”

― “Big” Don Abernathy, Thursday, November 3, 2022 8:01 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, gratuitously insulting a deceased person in front of their friends is just, like, an opinion man

Yeah not sure I’d characterize it that way but even if that were true that’s not what Map wants me banned for.

Some states don't have sex ed, tbf

They do have shovels, though

hahaha what if every post was hidden/blocked and you had to click on it to read.

yes I am 9 years old

I used to post on Disqus and blocked the most egregiously racist posters. Some threads had so many blank spaces they looked like a meth addict's mouth.

Big lives in a van down by the river energy. https://t.co/YrIdC3ZqNe

— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 3, 2022

Totally normal election season in New Hampshire

(🔐) BREAKING NEWS: New Hampshire Republican Senate Candidate Don Bolduc Assaults Libertarian Party Activist on Camera Before Debate, Then Makes False Report to Law Enforcement

As a former New Hampshire public defender, I am astonished by what I just saw. https://t.co/uPcB511yRi

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 3, 2022

Abramson is kind of “oh this looks like a decent point” followed by looking at who posted it and thinking “oh, that guy”

I can’t even remember the full extent of what the damage was at this point, probably a lot of tweets ending with COLLUSION!

Will have to see if there's further confirmation about what happened, but it appears to be a messy situation.

1) I like Pete, 2) I think BDA should be banned

Good morning!

Only ILX Premium subscribers get the "block" button iirc

TAKE MY $8

At the platinum level, you can have a poster you don't like obliterated by a space laser

Currently saving up

$20 to insert that word "fart" in anyone's tweet

I wouldn't fart 20 farts for fart.

1) I like Pete, 2) I think BDA should be banned

Pros:

Has no soul

Cons:

Pete is obviously a guy who's determined to work the system in order to rise within it and accrue power. He's smart so he studies up, and he games it well. This makes it nearly impossible to trust him until he shows more of his hand by taking actions in support of positions that erode his power rather than enhance it. Then we can see if he has any convictions instead of just calculations.

Working at precincts and mixing with the Volk the last week reminded me of what I posted in 2018 -- in what turned out to be an outstanding midterm year for Democrats. Every volunteer to a man and woman echoed the candidates: electing Republicans is a suicide pact. The systemic disenfranchisement of voters in Georgia and Arizona who voted for Biden in '20, the disenfranchisement of felons here in Florida, the continued erosion of abortion access, the assault on trans lives, the abridgement of rights as an educator in Florida, the fealty to fascist autocrats above -- all of it, all of it. We've been clear. Yet the vanishing pool of swing voters who propelled us to triumph in 2018 may stay home or go for Republicans anyway because #inflationcrime. This isn't the fault of local Democrats*: it's an enfeebled, anachronistic, anti-democratic system.

*I have more complaints about the state party, though.

Watch him spar on cable news programs. He can overcome Republican framing and get points across. Can't think of a single Democratic talking head who is anywhere near as good at it as he is. Don't really give a shit about the other criticisms of him, I don't want to be his friend and he's no worse than say Biden or Beto both of whom I voted for.

above = abroad

xpost basically what f. hazel said

I appreciate those strengths, believe me. Every time he's on FOX he leaves the hosts flabbergasted, which confirms my suspicion that the hosts' docility is yet another attempt for the network to look Fair and Balanced. But Explaining Stuff doesn't work anymore. Obama and Clinton are excellent at Explaining Stuff. And?

He's a Capricorn

I think most of my anti-Buttigieg sentiments are based in the fact that it seems like he spent a large portion of his life living doing some sort of cynical politician resume builder training camp exercises but in practice his ability to actually frame things in a boring nonpartisan way is.. not good, but professional?

I feel like the ongoing deconstruction of how a "career politician" should present themself is rooted in an actual shift in the public perception of how campaigning is done versus what people actually do in office, but, weirdo tv's West Wing-esque adherence aside, there are some actual skills that are still valuable

I might just be getting old, though

I found Pete B highly annoying during the election, but my appreciation for him has grown since he joined the administration for the same reasons mentioned above. He knows how to deliver a message really well and doesn't get steamrolled.

I think the point about Obama and Clinton doesn't make sense. The reality is that they are insanely good at making speeches and people love that. I was struck by this all over again this past week seeing Obama go on the stump. He is simply on an entirely different level than pretty much every other politician and that's a big deal. People with that kind of talent have a very good shot at winning. I don't think Pete is anywhere close, but he's at least trying.

You may have misunderstood me or I wasn't clear. Clinton and Obama are sui generis on the stump. I just don't think that shit matters anymore except to rally the base (which is considerable!).

Aimless, on an emotional level I hear ya but I am not sure how to apply this test in practice. Like:

"Hello, politician person! I understand that your profession requires you to please the largest number of people that you can."

"Yes, we live in a pluralistic democracy, so I am obliged to try to reach and connect with a majority of people and address their desires to the extent possible. The more people I reach, the better my chances of being elected in order to pursue policy goals."

"Cool cool. However, I actively you want to demonstrate your willingness to NOT please certain people. To please me, you must piss off some other people, so long as they are the correct people I want you to piss off. By doing so, you will demonstrate to me that you are pleasing to the right people (me) instead of the wrong people (them). Got it?"

I think any normal human would be repelled by those conditions, with good reason.

Which is why people who pursue elected positions are, mostly, profoundly flawed people.

And the cycle continues.

I respect table's opinion but cannot agree with it, as I suspect anyone table would actually want in this position is not someone who would be capable of generating enough public support to actually win. We may all hate veterans; the fact is, the majority of the US does not. We may hate people who work for McKinsey; the fact is, lots of people take jobs at places they don't support 100% for all kinds of reasons. Good or bad? fuck if I know, I'm just saying it happens.

I think Pete B. is fine. That said, he needs more experience somewhere; maybe he should be a governor or something.

YMP, I'm well aware of the machinations required to acquire political power and keep it and that skilled dissimulation is a necessary part of this. What is lacking in Pete is a deep enough resume concerning how he uses power when allowed to wield it. Being mayor of South Bend is not much of a test of his convictions, nor is being Secretary of Transportation. Politicians who have records built around legislating or governing at a higher level of complexity, such a governors, can be evaluated on those records. So far Pete hasn't been in a place where it is possible to look at his record and know which of his convictions he's willing to go to the mat over, expending power, not just accruing it.

Aimless, I generally agree on Pete. I have yet to be impressed by him, but if I find myself in a middle-school gymnasium where the choices are him and fuckin Steve Bannon or DJT Jr. or MGT or Josh Hawley or Lori Boebert or whomsoever, I know which bubble I will fill in.

anyway

akm we all have a secret unicorn wish list that is never going to happen

In the meantime we occupy our time sniping at the Petes and Elizabeths and Joes and Hillarys etc.

It is the way of the world; I don't really have a solution but neither does anyone else.

You may have misunderstood me or I wasn't clear. Clinton and Obama are sui generis on the stump. I just don't think that shit matters anymore except to rally the base (which is considerable!).

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

no, I understand, I just disagree. I think an Obama-level candidate would win easily.

xp it's basically a professional consultant class training opportunity to work there right out of school, though. You could try to make the argument that Buttigieg learned what's effective and what mistakes not to make while there, but the trappings are still there

Today, we're launching Momentum, a new initiative to help countries around the world learn from our best practices and expertise in planning and modernizing transportation infrastructure. https://t.co/nDH1EJA2Jx pic.twitter.com/A585ZA0Qr0

— TransportationGov (@USDOT) June 27, 2022

the tweet phrasing isn't his, but good god did this do my head in

like the reason Obama matters less now is simply that he can't run for president again

but if he wore a comedy mustache and changed his name

the reason obama matters less is that he left the DNC by the wayside to rot instead of installing the leaders of his successful 2008 campaign apparatus in its place

otm

Also: he matters less now because in America we like to redress the progress of POC by offering white fascism.

Buttigieg just moved to the town in Michigan where my parents live (and where his husband grew up) and I feel about 75% certain it’s a cynical move to establish residency to run for senator or governor. Stabenow has been in office for 22 years and will be 74 when she’s up for reelection in two years.

I will 100% vote for him over whoever his insaniac fascist opponent is.

Buttigieg just moved to the town in Michigan where my parents live (and where his husband grew up) and I feel about 75% certain it’s a cynical move to establish residency to run for senator or governor. Stabenow has been in office for 22 years and will be 74 when she’s up for reelection in two years.

I will 100% vote for him over whoever his insaniac fascist opponent is.

OK, OK, we get it!

loses 50.1-49.9 because his father taught at Notre Dame and Wolverines fans can't countenance that

possibly to Jim Harbaugh

I don’t hate vets— I hate people who should know better signing up for imperial wars of plunder when they could have done just about anything else.

Fuck Pete Buttigieg.

Also, this isn’t going to come out right but fuck it, cable news and TV in general mean nothing to me, and afaic that it does mean something to anyone is just another sign of the rot at the heart of this fading empire

“Why lookie, I graduated from one of the fanciest schools in the world and can do anything I want, why don’t I assist my country in a genocide?”

Please, spare me— the guy is indefensible

he's really not, but OK you can hate him

voting is harm reduction IMHO, not a moral statement

are you guys still talking about mayor pete? I'm outta here

if pete makes his dad sec of education maybe I will reconsider

i'm tired of hearing about him cos of all of the people that make "booty judge" jokes

If voting isn't a moral statement I would expect fewer intimations that non-voters or the left or etc. are bad people for not being appropriately Vote Blue.

Voting is consumer choice, a team sport, a moral statement and sometimes harm reduction. The Pete Buttigiegs (imperial foot soldier, consultant for pure evil) of the world are a significant factor in why things are so bad - the vanguard of a Democratic Party that hasn't been able to credibly sell a vision for a better, brighter future for almost three generations at this point. "Things will get worse marginally slower maybe" and hectoring people for not being content with that is not a good long term strategy.

^ ^ ^

"Sorry this is the best imperial ghoul we have, look he's gay this time"

It's pathetic.

lol if anyone is hectoring here it's you two, fwiw I'm sure Morbs would agree

purity tests are for losers, sorry, I've been down that dead end road before

and, of course, real change happens in real life, not via elections or cable news, the real danger is people who think that's all there is. direct action gets the goods, as always.

I am hectoring, admittedly. Believe it or not I don’t have a lot of purity tests for most people or regarding most actions, but directly aiding and abetting genocide—choosing to do so— is a bridge too far for me. If that makes me some sort of purity test motherfucker, then I am a purity test motherfucker.

"It's not good to build a resume by actively involving yourself in war crimes" is a pretty low bar for purity testing, I'm not sure what you can't give a pol a free pass for at that point if they're (supposedly) on your side.

Even if it is of the utmost importance to vote for whatever wretch the Democrats throw on the ballot for you - and I voted for Obama twice, Clinton and Biden - right up to that moment and then again after you can still criticize them, point out their flaws, why they're monsters (but lesser monsters, of course), ridicule them for their love of cheese, etc.. Given that Pete isn't on the ballot anywhere on Tuesday seems like we're still right in the zone where you can call him out for his hollowness without being responsible for Republican control of the government.

we're still right in the zone where you can call him out for his hollowness without being responsible for Republican control of the government

quite so. pete's impact on Nov 2022 politics is negligible. i'm sorry I mentioned him. Bernie in 2016 would have been a better example for my purposes, because he was a better emergent candidate and drew more support.

I know nothing should surprise me anymore but I’m still struggling with the post-Trump pivot of Republicans from “slavish fawners over big business” to Putin-style state bullying of big business.

This is a helpful list of brands who are begging to sit in front of a House panel next year to discuss their company’s participation in leftist corporate extortion. https://t.co/bPLes15PnJ

— Josh Holmes (@HolmesJosh) November 4, 2022

It makes some sense. The Republicans are now irrevocably yoked to a base that deeply mistrusts government, science, big business, unions, education, the media, the courts -- pretty much every powerful institution, including institutional Christian churches. The way to ingratiate yourself to them is to bully every established institution as much as you can and flout the rules as much as you can get away with. It also helps to post photos of yourself holding a semi-automatic rifle.

fully automatic, unless you want to be a rino

This isn’t even a funny nickname, but here we go anyway

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-donald-trump-ron-desanctimonious-comment-20221106-7kq5x5guazbrplzvzi3gst3bgi-story.html

Someone looked up the word for him.

DeSantis is going to be the midpoint between JEB! eating shit and Ted Cruz eating shit but asking for more, please, sir

this is good news!

Quick 🧵 thread on California, weather, and election day, focusing on House seats.

It's going to be windy, rainy, snowy all day on Tuesday in CA, from the top to the bottom of our state. Since we have the *most* competitive districts, this will matter nationally. 13 comp. races https://t.co/jeDIdQeVRE pic.twitter.com/Mrb3nhg5S2

— Flip California State Senate 38! (@FlipperForty) November 6, 2022

So, friends, is anything happening in American politics this week

i took a dump this morning and it kinda looked like DeSantis

so basically, Senate a toss-up, House heavily favored for Repubs, but could stay Dem with a Trump-esque polling error, and everything else in Florida is gonna suck.

thinking about voting tomorrow

glad i got it out of the way cos i couldn't squeeze it in tomorrow if I tried.

tulsi gabbard endorsed chuck grassley so i know how to vote now

Yes, we might have reasons for optimism if Neanderthal and I didn't live in the state with the prettiest name.

As I said elsewhere, I think we're fucked:

There's a very strong possibility that this country's gonna go Nazi tomorrow. And a lot of people are going to vote for that without realizing that's what they're doing — they're thinking, "I'm gonna vote Republican and then my gas prices and my grocery bill are gonna go down, because that's how voting works." And all the other people, the people who are already full Nazi, are smiling inside and waiting patiently. (And the "political press" don't give a fuck, because they're gonna stay rich and safe no matter what happens, so they can be theater critics.)

THERE IS NO REPUBLICAN PARTY ANYMORE. THERE IS ONLY THE CHRISTOFASCIST PARTY, AND THEY ARE GONNA TAKE ALL YOUR RIGHTS AWAY, WITH BOTH HANDS, AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

So, friends, is anything happening in American politics this week

How do you do, fellow kids?

Lol

Jan 6 testimony from the Oath Keepers guy is going well

"I've been carrying a gun my entire adult life, with zero use of force incidents, by the way," said Rhodes, who lost his eye when he dropped a gun.

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 7, 2022

nothing and I mean nothing keeps me up nights more than thinking of the words "Ohio Senator J.D. Vance." I may have to be placed on watch tomorrow night.

I have said this before but: Do. Not. Stay. Up. Watching. Returns. It does not change who wins and it just makes you crazy from hope/despair pendulums.

Eight PM: "Well, it looks like Jones is up three thousand with three percent or precincts reporting!"

Hours later: "Well, now Smith is up by five hundred with six percent in! Jones really needs to close that gap with the rural vote from Buttgulch County!"

Hours later: "Smith and Jones are neck-and-neck, but I'm hearing that the college vote from Choadville is starting to trickle in. Smith really needs to thread the needle here! Maybe the lacrosse moms will come through for Smith."

Hours later: "Still too close to call, but there are still some precincts here (points to monitor) around Assmunch that could be critical for either candidate. Smith might do okay with the field-hockey dads, but you can't count out the heavy presence of Graeco-Roman wrestling uncles."

They're talking like things are happening, when they already happened.

Eat a weed brownie, pound a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and go to bed. The news will be the same in the morning as if you'd stayed up.

Amen

i'm watching over two friends getting married in a low key ceremony tomorrow, so fortunately that decision has been made for me

I’m gonna watch as much Reservoir Dogs as possible until I’m exhausted

Ha, sorry, Reservation Dogs

Eat a weed brownie

Will do.

I'm going to campaign headquarters #whynot

The little bit of television news I see in public leads me to believe that pandemic school closings have broken 80% of white suburban parents’ brains and they’ll never recover.

Ha, sorry, Reservation Dogs

Hanging Senators’ ears around my neck like an extra from a Vietnam War movie.

pandemic school closings have broken 80% of white suburban parents’ brains and they’ll never recover

'hey no one told us we were going to have to be around our kids ALL DAY'

I mean yeah, it’s pretty difficult to have a full time job and take care of children at the same time

lol so tomorrow morning actually begins with a full blood moon from like 4-7 a.m. eastern. That doesn't seem ominous at all.

Anyway, tomorrow night I have to cover local election returns for our state legislative races. I covered Republican HQ for the primaries but I got my colleague to agree to cover the GOP and let me go to the Dems' gathering because I don't think I can take being in a room full of MAGA exuberance at the moment.

xp spooky season continues into november this year

at least this year, expectations being low unlike previous elections means it's not going to feel as big of a blow to the solar plexus if/when it goes south

I just really hope we don't lose the Senate

I think there’s a distant non-zero chance we won’t re-elect Chuck Grassley but I regret to inform I’m obligated to vote for him. u kno why

lol the one arrest during the Astros World Series parade was a guy who hit Ted Cruz in the chest with a half-full White Claw can.

give me his bail bill, i'll pay it

If you know you're gonna get the chance to throw a can at Ted Cruz, why would you drink any of it?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ted-cruz-hit-beer-astros-world-series-parade-houston-man-arrested-rcna56113

This also happened:

Ted Cruz got booed heavily at the parade. pic.twitter.com/6VaAe4bUDn

— Connor Murphy (@Connor_P_Murphy) November 7, 2022

Beer flies at Ted Cruz during Astros World Series Parade pic.twitter.com/lRALgyXCe2

— Alien Truther Wildwest (@wcgroovy) November 7, 2022

"a guy who hit Ted Cruz in the chest with a half-full White Claw can"

I love this detail, it's like "i am not going to waste a perfectly good beer" on this guy get me a nasty White Claw or a Mike's Hard Lemonade.

I wish the Plankton, Florida's senior senator, had earned similar treatment.

Florida’s junior senator Rick Scott, the guy who’s company Columbia/HCA scammed billions from Medicare and Medicaid while he was chief executive and was fined $1.7 billion, is now a Florida Senator complaining that Medicare is going bankrupt and that we need congress to reconsider funding it every 5 years. Rubio is awful, but he is so much more despicable

Putting this here for reference in the near future:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/turnout-soared-in-2020-as-nearly-two-thirds-of-eligible-u-s-voters-cast-ballots-for-president/

Maybe a bit more relevant for that

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2022-11-04/early-vote-totals-point-toward-record-breaking-turnout-for-midterm-elections

It's glib and meaningless and I live 3,000 miles away but I hope to whatever higher power there is and against hope itself that somehow, somehow the republicans get a fucking tanning today. That the vote might even be close, given their transparent hatefulness and corruption, and the horrors that would result, sends me in tailspins of desperation.

Good luck USA

yeah it really does boggle the brain. like I get that inflation & gas prices might be some people's #1 issue right now, a lot of families really are hurting, but it's not like Republicans are even pretending to have a plan. on the contrary, they gleefully vote against every bill that comes up to curb corporate profits and drive prices down, then turn around and say it's all Biden's fault, hoping their voters won't look at what's going around in the REST of the world, since honestly the USA hasn't had it all that bad. it's crazy to me that people my age can look around at what happened the last two times Republicans had control and say "yes, more of this please". owning the libs must be a hell of a drug.

I just wish the dems had packed the court, had prosecuted Trump sooner and quicker. I know there were obstacles, there were two dems who basically voted like repubs, etc. I think Biden has been better than I could have hoped, has pushed policies more daring and worthwhile than I would ever have imagined. But still, I worry that he's a Jimmy Carter-esque blip, and will be undone by a catastrophe not of his own making (and this is no slight on Carter who seems one of the most decent men to hold the office).

I agree with those posts. It is hard to see why or how anyone sensible or sane could think it was a good idea to vote Republican in the USA today.

I can only speak to what I've seen on the ground the last couple weeks, and it may be as hard for libs here as it was for me to realize. It's sobering.

I suspect what state and national Democrats miss about Hispanics is their willingness to accept what many of us who are ourselves Hispanics consider a motheaten fiction about the American Dream. The loudest Cuban-Americans at the early voting site where I volunteered last Saturday were not my parents' age: they looked about twenty years younger and had the mien and manners of recent arrivals (we locals can spot them in a crowd). They want smart phones, new cars, a summer trip to Longboat Key. Immigration-as-synecdoche they could give a good goddamn about. Trans rights, access to abortion, "saving democracy" -- they matter but not as much gas prices for those new cars and puzzling through the byzantine social mores of persuading Cousin Raul in Hialeah to let them crash in his efficiency for a couple months as they delude themselves into thinking Miami-Dade has affordable housing.

This quote from a local satrap who gets it speaks to my own experience:

“You see, that’s a perfect example. I’m telling every single one of my candidates here, do not talk about abortion in this campaign,” López said. “You have a lot of Latinos who are fine with abortion being the law of the land—but they are against it morally. They may not be, quote-unquote, pro-life, but don’t shove the issue in their face. Don’t force them to choose sides. They might not choose the side you would think.”

I think we'll realize tomorrow that the national party's emphasis on abortion-as-winning-issue may have been a mistake in many local races. It's fucking cornball, but HOPE AND CHANGE and YES WE CAN is precisely what Hispanics want to hear. The Obamans got that right in 2008 and 2012 -- even HRC did in 2016. Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Puerto Ricans fuckin' hate whiners. You know how I felt this weekend on the phone and campaigning? Like John Fucking McCain in 2008: defensive and cranky, offering no platform except what the other side will do.

It is hard to see why or how anyone sensible or sane could think it was a good idea to vote Republican in the USA today.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

Good morning!

Negronis for all!

it's true, I'm not sure exactly what the Dems have to offer besides "things will get much worse if we lose", which, ok, that's fair. I mean yes, obviously they're on the right side of many of these issues, but the truth is that the vast majority of voters will never need an abortion, know somewhere between 0-2 people who are trans, and will never be in an active shooter situation. I don't wanna be one of those dipshits who brings up "virtue signaling" but yes, running on issues that won't directly impact most of your voters doesn't feel like a winning formula. the appeal to 'democracy' doesn't really work either, since democracy is already fucked, and the MSM is so insistent on treating "the 2020 election was rigged" like a legitimate viewpoint that it probably all just feels like noise to the average voter. and it's frustrating because the Biden admin HAS made a lot of progress - they did pass the biggest climate bill in history after all - but they campaign in the same fear-mongering manner that Republicans do. I don't know how well that works on their base.

Well, I voted. It was bitterly amusing in a way, because Crooked Bob Menendez's (presumably) crooked son is running for the House. I felt like I was in Louisiana or someplace.

It took ten days of this shit to realize "obviously they're on the right side of many of these issues" is precisely the problem. It's not enough. And paying more for gas and milk would've defeated the GOP incumbents too in any other year.

And the "obviously" part is what comes off so insulting and condescending to the Hispanics I talked to. It's like, "Fuck you, dude, DeSantis is positive!"

(I'm not at all zinging you, frogbs. I have the same posture).

According to every "swing voter" interviewed by NPR, the real problem is that the Democrats are TOO WOKE, and "out of step" with "the country" on social issues, so if they can't talk about abortion/LGBTQ rights and they can't talk about democracy or gun control, and no one cares/the media doesn't adequately report this administration's progress on climate, energy, predatory lending/student debt, or drug price caps, and voters are liable to DISAPPROVE of taxing corporations (taxes bad) or adequately funding the IRS (TAXES BAD), I'm honestly not sure what's left. Like it's an un-thread-able needle.

Please run for local electoral seats, people.

Get on your goddamn library board.

The economic moment is a large problem. Campaigning with low gas prices + no inflation makes selling positivity easier.

perfect time to run on legal weed for all

It is hard to see why or how anyone sensible or sane could think it was a good idea to vote Republican in the USA today.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 6:50 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But hopey-changey buzzword shit is also patronizing— it might work, but it is patronizing. And tbh, pinefox is right— anyone who can't recognize that the Republican party wants them and their children and their children's children (if that even happens) to work as wage slaves and then die, preferably early, well...that's on them, afaic. It's not patronizing to be truthful, and anyone voting Republican is a fascist, a moron, or both. Period.

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

Is that patronizing, though? It's very difficult to see what the appeal of the Republican message is now. Maybe it's just a failure of empathy on my part.

the one happy part about voting this year is that I was reminded Austin had some redistricting and I am now in Lloyd Doggett's district instead of Mike McCaul's. First time I've had a Democratic congressman representing me in many, many years.

yeah I was also happy to discover that I get to vote for Doggett again!

But hopey-changey buzzword shit is also patronizing— it might work, but it is patronizing. And tbh, pinefox is right— anyone who can't recognize that the Republican party wants them and their children and their children's children (if that even happens) to work as wage slaves and then die, preferably early, well...that's on them, afaic. It's not patronizing to be truthful, and anyone voting Republican is a fascist, a moron, or both. Period.

― poppin' debussy (the table is the table),

Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter.

I agree with everything you say -- you're not the one I've been trying to persuade the last two weeks. Instead of merely pointing out what the other side will do, though, we have to say what we DID and what we WILL DO.

Is that patronizing, though? It's very difficult to see what the appeal of the Republican message is now. Maybe it's just a failure of empathy on my part.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux),

Yes. You're telling the people whose votes you're courting that they're repulsive and stupid for voting GOP. Most people react violently against being shamed even when they agree with the shamers.

But, y'know, don't mind me -- a Hispanic surrounded by these people in a county about to take the biggest rightward swing in 20 years.

in orbit exactly right.

People are allowed - even encouraged - to regard voting as an act of self-interest and self-care. That is, they make their decisions based on what affects them directly.

It is a hard sell to get people to regard voting as an act of empathy for others. Personally I am very privileged (and also very imperfect), but my cradle politics was always based on sympathy for the downtrodden. If my family and peers had designed a politics purely around what benefited us, it would be fucking horrible.

Um, I guess I mean, even MORE horrible.

there's probably a good article written about this but the GOP's strategy of being comically evil actually does seem to work for them. it allows them to shame the media for being "biased" whenever they try to report accurately on the things they're doing. and it makes the Dems look bad for constantly pointing out how blatantly evil they are. I have two kids - when one is annoying the other, and the other starts complaining and screaming, that's the one you get mad at. even if it's the first one's fault.

xxp The problem is that so much of the Republican platform is repulsive and, if not stupid, then profoundly cynical. And it's a direct threat to some of those I hold near and dear. Maybe that doesn't make every Republican voter stupid or repulsive, but at a minimum it makes me question their judgment.

You're right, Alfred. I think there are ways to couch my more strident last few sentences in a better way, but I'm obviously not a political sloganeer.

"The Clinton and Obama years were the most prosperous years the US has seen in the past few decades— don't you want prosperity and hope over mean-spiritedness and constant seething anger?"

It doesn't have a ring to it, and tbh, lauding Clinton and Obama at all gives me the fucking willies, since they're both murderers. But some variation of that, in a more succinct form, could work wonders.

Mind, I'm not courting Republican voters, but Hispanic voters hesitant about voting blue; reminding them what's at stake if they vote for Republicans...isn't enough, in my experience. Making them feel part of an aspirational moment in which they do belong to the Dem coalition, not dismissed as a given because #immigration. Since 2020 the GOP's been in South Florida unceasingly explaining what the party will do for them; we've however taken them for granted.

It doesn't have a ring to it, and tbh, lauding Clinton and Obama at all gives me the fucking willies, since they're both murderers. But some variation of that, in a more succinct form, could work wonders.

And I'm with you. Saying this shit runs counter to every molecule in my body, hence why I don't do this for a living.

"Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter."

Shouting change without delivering any change might get old.

Don't mind me.

"Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter."

Shouting change without delivering any change might get old.

Don't mind me.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, November 8, 2022 7:42 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this is the part of the Dem platform and marketing that makes it most infuriating— the hollowed out version of the ACA notwithstanding, while Dems were screaming hope and change, a lot of things were getting measurably worse for many people. The Repubs took this resentment and ran with it, and while white grievance and xenophobia certainly have a lot to do with Repub numbers, it is also without dispute that Dems really shit the bed in straight-up refusing to think about their former constituents put out of jobs by a combo of neoconservative and neoliberal economic policies.

The thing is, Biden does have real accomplishments he could promote.

If Dems were to plausibly run on a hope and change platform, there would need to be major movements on M4A, raising the minimum wage at a federal level, and so on. But too many of the party's people are just as in the pocket of the nefarious megadonor class and at the whims of lobbyists that it'll never happen....the reality is that these policies are winners, but people within the Democratic party act as if they're not because they're not policies that suit their own self-interest.

A minimum wage might have mitigated against inflationary pressures.

and also an excuse for raising prices

Lukashenko has outlawed inflation, you'd be ok.

Random note: a volunteer just knocked on my door, left a Wes Moore hanger, and cheerfully reminded me that today was Election Day. I assured her that I voted by mail weeks ago. Even in this safely blue state, it felt heartening.

between this and another damn hurricane (albeit one that looks to be milder than Ian), today is gonna suck.

Assuming GOP control of the House and possibly/probably Senate, yes, there'll be a lot of handwringing about Democratic messaging and leadership and being out of touch and whatever. A hard turn from DC consultants against talking about racial equity, LGBTQ issues, maybe even abortion. Most of that will be dumb, not least because a lot of these election results (the House especially) were functionally baked in regardless of other factors.

But it's also true — and will be true even if things aren't a total wipeout for the Dems — that the party really is lackluster, really does lack leadership and direction and vision, really has not articulated a clear much less inspiring vision for the future of the country. The GOP messaging is borderline insane — "Save our children from being mutilated by radical liberals!" — but it sure is simple and stated with great force. Even worse, I don't really see how the party fixes any of that itself. (Especially if Biden runs for reelection, lord have mercy.)

That's why I think the messaging and energy and coherence has to come from outside the party and force its way in. I don't have a magic formula for that, but it ain't gonna come from the DNC.

I don't have anywhere near the relevant training to know but perhaps part of the problem is Dems care too much about weighing every statement/decision by how it will affect their electability, which makes them too slow to react, too wishy-washy, and too easy to paint into a corner by their opponents. whereas Republicans just lie and shout their nasty messages, unfiltered, from the rooftops, knowing they'll alienate a big chunk of the population, but that they'll amp up their base's enthusiasm, and maybe peel off undecided dummies with their confidence and ability to stay on the attack.

would love to see a Democratic candidate just run an ad where they call their opponent a dumb motherfucker rather than trying to politely debunk what was said about them in previous attack ads and doing things like going "we're not woke, we don't want to defund police either, see!" to try and appease independents.

LIke quit falling for the gish gallop, quit taking the high ground, just hit back, be a damn liberal with teeth for once.

sorry, that was teethist of me

you're otm. Isn't that what Fetterman has done in Pennsylvania?

admittedly haven't been following that one as closely.

Senator Oz, if I hear those words tonight, flat screen tvs will cease to exist in a 10 mile radius of me

I guess it boils down to, most Democrats are so afraid to lose, they wind up doing it anyway

yeah Fetterman's race is the one to watch IMO, he was polling way ahead for a while and it seemed like they might actually have a blueprint on how to beat these morons who exclusively argue in bad faith. but it's tightened up a lot since then, so who knows.

A big chunk of Fetterman's message is "I'm just like you, only taller." Of course, he's also got a track record as the state's lieutenant governor, something the political press decided a year ago that they were just going to ignore so they could paint Fetterman v Oz as a contest of equals.

like literally, every goddamn D politician should go to every debate with a bullhorn and when their opponent lies, should blow the fucking thing, every time

*foghorn

Apparently the debate and the ablelist terms under which it was scrutinized changed few minds, as ever.

making them feel part of an aspirational moment in which they do belong to the Dem coalition

Yes! Making something seem fun and exciting and then inviting people to enter and invest in it, is just good organizing! But also, you have to have actual fun and excitement and things that feel transformative to offer.

But it's also true — and will be true even if things aren't a total wipeout for the Dems — that the party really is lackluster, really does lack leadership and direction and vision, really has not articulated a clear much less inspiring vision for the future of the country.

O______O

Re the Fetterman debate, hearing some of the actual audio was extremely upsetting as he struggled to articulate things and get words out. I'm astonished at the amount of campaign work that's been happening while he recovered and wasn't always visible or heading up the work. It's so interesting how his wife (who famously embraced being the SLOP--Second Lady of Pennsylvania lol!) stepped in and took up that space on his behalf.

We need better salespeople for some of these ideas - brash, charismatic, daring, but acting in the spirit of altruistism. That seems to be what so many people instinctively respond to.

(We have a few Democrats like this, but they aren’t really in seats of power.)

Yet.

A hard turn from DC consultants against talking about racial equity, LGBTQ issues, maybe even abortion.

I fucking wish Dems talked about LGBTQ issues as much as Tucker and Cruz and the rest of the GOP rogue's gallery likes to convince people they do. Sanctimonious tweets from Biden and Harris on Coming Out Day don't amount to shit. A lot of us haven't forgotten that "signing the Equality Act" was promised as a Week One priority. And yes I know that's predicated on getting it through the Senate, but I'm not the one who articulated that promise without a Plan B.

Was listening to the Know Your Enemy podcast the other day, I don't remember which episode, and at one point they were riffing on the (I think correct) idea that neither Democrats, liberals or the left seem to have a vision of "America" to sell — an idea or ideal of America. Obama did, kind of, but it was of course totally superficial, just basically "Hey, we're all the same, we all love our country, let's all get along." We can all maybe intuit that it's a vision of pluralistic multicultural democracy with a strong safety net and so forth, but it's not clear or well articulated and tends to sound programmatic rather than aspirational or inspiring.

We can scoff at that kind of appeal maybe, but it's politically important if you want to pull people together. The GOP obviously has a vision of America, and while it's a crabbed and cramped and exclusionary one, it's at least fairly coherent and explicitly rooted in (their version of) the country's past and traditions.

Yeah, let me emphasize that slogans aren't for Smart People like us on ILE. Other people like slogans! I was at this university in 2007-2008 and I'd quietly mock student enthusiasm for YES WE CAN but it fucking worked.

Idk imo we have a vision of the America we ("we" as progressives, abolitionists, and so on) but we also have an ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS public education & culture change project to prove to people who don't think of themselves as progressives, abolitionists, or what have you, that our project also benefits/liberates them.

We should all be training in change management imo.

I'm not saying there aren't animating ideas on the left, obviously they are. But there's not a compelling or inspiring public narrative around them that can resonate with an empowering idea of "America."

I get the yearning for fighters. And of course I hope the Fetterman style works in Pennsylvania.

But that type of candidate type (even foghorn-equipped) is not going to magically win in Wyoming or South Carolina or Tennessee or whatever.

Sometimes this line of thought annoys me a bit, like, "ok (Fetterman-style candidate) lost, but it was because he didn't have ENOUGH foghorns. What if he had had TWO foghorns?!?!?!"

There's not one election with one polity, there are thousands of each.

That's what inspired my first post. Of course access to abortion matters, but for the Cuban and South Americans I interacted with it's third or fourth on the list of priorities.

"Yeah, let me emphasize that slogans aren't for Smart People like us on ILE."

I like slogans, they aren't for stupid people -- good ones tell me the movement is in a good state, so they are vital.

thank you for doing what you do, alfred, and same to other ilxors who knock on the doors and phone bank and do all the stuff i admire but don't seem to ever do myself. i received one knock on my door this election season, a very shy and nervous and shaking young man who was there because my duplex neighbors put a giant sign for a fascist in front of our patch of sidewalk. i admired him and told him the same. it's hard to face people who are planning to vote for fascists and have already solidified their reasons for it.

i'm trying to limit what i say to positive things, so i will leave it there. good luck everyone

But there's not a compelling or inspiring public narrative around them that can resonate with an empowering idea of "America."

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 5:18 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I agree but I think part of the reason for this lack is that there's not one "America" that everyone to the left of Republicans agrees on!

Idk maybe I'm just disheartened by too many "we talked to this union organizer in Pennsylvania and he says he can't convince any working class men to support rights for marginalized groups bc they're happy being racists and homophobes oh noes what will the Democrats do to win them over?" podcasts.

Yep I agree, the first thing is actually articulating a 2020s vision of the country that can tie together the various dreams and priorities of the liberal-left continuum. I think it’s doable, but it hasn’t really been revisited since the sad triangulation of the Clinton era.

i kinda liked c hayes take last week where he was "save our right to throw the bums out." sometimes you go with what you have left. but it's still pretty critical imo.

i don't know that my foghorn idea would have a greater chance of success, but if we're going to fail, I'd rather do it going balls-out and presenting a true vision confidently rather than micromanaging every idea/statement based on weaksauce ideas of 'electability' or who will be pissed off.

I mean, yes, there does have to be careful consideration of how to deliver a message to avoid alienating people, but Dems due it to maddening levels, ie giving lip service to anti-leftist ideas or saying "DEFUND THE POLICE? that's just CRAZY!"

Remember there's also a fuck-ton of voters, whether they will admit it or not, vote for the people they like/could have a beer with, as opposed to issues. tribalism has shrunk the influence of that group of people significantly, but they're still there. and the shit that turns them on/off seems arbitrary.

That Demings ad made me want to jump off a skyscraper.

i kinda liked c hayes take last week where he was "save our right to throw the bums out." sometimes you go with what you have left. but it's still pretty critical imo.

― i'm right back on my shit (Hunt3r), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 11:55 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is actually a great argument

And they elected an extremely unlikable non-drinker for president, so go figure. xxp

We need better salespeople for some of these ideas - brash, charismatic, daring, but acting in the spirit of altruistism. That seems to be what so many people instinctively respond to.

True, and I would also suggest we start asking more loudly why candidates like this have massive uphill battles trying to get thru the state party bureaucracy or challenging the establishment candidate.

I mean we know why, not totally sure asking about it more loudly will change anything. The people in the DNC establishment are all lining their fucking pockets.

Thanos just needs to snap

(BTW, Neanderthal, I don't wish to sound dismissive re: foghorns; I respect your passion and love your energy.)

Fetterman in Pennsylvania is a close election. Fetterman in Missouri would be 20 points down.

I totally get the frustration with milquetoastiness and the affection for brashness in service of honestly held principles, but. That unicorn Democrat who campaigns full-throatedly for all the things that "we" (broadly speaking) like? That candidate will definitely absolutely lose, bigly, in large swaths of the nation.

Without changing the structural obstacles, they will not get power. And without getting power, they will not be able to change the structural obstacles. Fantasies of storming the barricades with pitchforks abound. But if there were a way for them to look harmless, fly under the radar, sneakily get power, and THEN change things, I would be for that as well.

xp

I’d say a Fetterman-style populist absolutely could win in South Carolina. Public opinion in SC like many ruralish states is closer to Fetterman than the GOP on economic issues. Hate to say but one of the last big name populists before Bernie got big was *gulp* John Edwards, from NC. The Carolinas basically might as well be one state in terms of demographics (although it’s changing as the SC coast becomes more like Florida, etc).

Idk imo we have a vision of the America we ("we" as progressives, abolitionists, and so on) but we also have an ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS public education & culture change project to prove to people who don't think of themselves as progressives, abolitionists, or what have you, that our project also benefits/liberates them.

We should all be training in change management imo.

So much this. The issue isn’t so much a lack of vision as lack of an effective voice. The consensus vision on the left seems simple — we have plenty of functional social democracies to emulate. But we are operating in an absolutely hostile media environment. It’s as if this discussion is taking place in a nation without highly targeted ads on social media, or where the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled that campaign spending is protected as “free speech”.

I’ve mentioned before how I felt like there was a real smear campaign against both Bernie and Warren in the primaries. Now in Georgia I’m seeing constant ads on YouTube attacking Warnock — I’ve seen ads accusing HIM of abusing his wife, when there are multiple examples of credible stories of Walker being unstable and abusive. Just the standard reactionary victim blaming writ large through this toxic media environment we’ve let fester.

The pollution of disinformation can be just as toxic as the environmental pollution, and now we’re suffering from the failure to regulate the cancerous externalities of the information revolution.

Wish I could figure out a way to say that without sounding like such an enviro-geek.

The people in the DNC establishment are all lining their fucking pockets.

Yeah but they're a symptom more than a cause — one of bad aftereffects of the Bernie campaigns was this obsession on the left with the DNC. The DNC has never been very powerful or important, it's a misconception of their role to think otherwise. Any party has apparatchiks, if the party changes the apparatchiks either adapt or find themselves out on the street, but they're not the people to focus on.

The Kings County Democratic County Committee (lol terrible name) is by some measures the largest Democratic club in the country but can they be bothered to hold a phone bank or a single canvas for a beleaguered Democratic state governor facing a serious threat from a lunatic? CAN THEY FUCK. They've put zero resources into supporting any Dems this cycle on the state or local level. The reformer/insurgent lower level people are organizing canvases and doorknocking campaigns on their own with no funding!!

Weirdly (for East Tennessee) our local county Dem party is kind of on fire. They have a young, super energetic chairman who has a whole cadre of young volunteers and data crunchers, and they've been smart about recruiting candidates and door-knocking etc., at least for the small number of legitimately competitive districts we have around here. It's quite a contrast to our local Republican Party, which is a total shitshow run by an inexperienced doofus nobody in the party likes. They're coasting on having a mostly Republican county, of course, so they win elections even though their party apparatus is a shambles.

But anyway, just the level of energy the local Dems have is a big change from 10 years ago, shows it really matters if you get good leadership at the local level.

That's awesome. What great news!

We have that too but the party bosses have been shutting the door in their/our faces for over a decade while they molder in obscurity (and spend all the money in secret). We're working on it though.

Hmm..

There is not a strong relationship between inflation or employment & midterm election outcomeshttps://t.co/oKbJeheFVw pic.twitter.com/QHzzTzpoWC

— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) November 8, 2022

extremely naive question: what determines party direction in a way that matters to most eligible voters? (if not the national committees then ... ???)

xp actual numbers don’t matter, it’s about the inflation/employment/crime vibes

Do the actual numbers matter for people who encounter them as not averaged in relevant indices?

One thing I wonder is how easy it is to influence people in an age where politics spread by meme.

Pre-social media, pre-"excessive ad content" search engines, confirmation bias and fake news were still a major problem, but there seemed to be more of a willingness to work out positions for oneself and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of competing noise, at least not the level of today.

I knew a lot of people, friend and family, who professed to be Democrats/liberals but would say things to me like "Rob, we can't force gay marriage on people, I support civil unions", or "I hate racism, but I don't support the Affirmative Action quota system", "violent protests make you as bad as the thing you protest", or would whine about PC culture.

Some of these people were this way through, like, 2016, and now have done a 180, and some of it may have been a byproduct of getting older and experience, but others seemed to shift as post-Trump liberal social media meme-storming took off.

I'm not here to do stupid purity testing or insinuate people are "real" or "fake" leftists, or suggest I myself haven't changed at all over the years, but it is interesting to see the divide between the politically-minded friends who share their own thought-out ideas and the people whose feeds are literally wall to wall political memes with no additional comment, half the memes partially or completely false.

Independent voters get influenced by that shit too, and those meme addicts rarely even dive into the topics beyond the meme.

Picking up a book on hold at the library where I volunteered last Saturday, I got interviewed by Telemundo. As I waited my turn the reporter interviewed a young Venezuelan woman with two boys who said in Spanish she had voted for every Republican on the ticket. Why? "Gas is too high, I spend $100 more at the store every week, this Biden has done nothing in two years." She didn't mention socialism or crime.

When my turn came I spoke in car crash Spanish about why I had voted Dem down the line, in part b/c of the infrastructure bill and how our party still believes in democracy, not election deniers.

I post this only because -- more anecdata -- here are the reasons among others for why people vote GOP.

Tax cuts should fix everything right up.

When most in this country are living paycheck to paycheck, that does tend to kind of be the only thing that matters to them

It's really their only "solution." It's like the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Windex.

xp actual numbers don’t matter, it’s about the inflation/employment/crime vibes

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 2:16 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Everything is about vibes, and probably always has been to some extent. Right now, nearly everyone is feeling bad vibes about politics and the state of the country in general, no matter where they sit on the political spectrum, so a lot of people are simply looking for something to believe in. Someone who will give them a good feeling, whether that's high-minded hope, irresistible enthusiasm, or righteous indignation. It's not enough to promise voters that you'll achieve certain policy goals, or to recite a list of accomplishments, if the overall message and presentation doesn't inspire people to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves.

Yeah but how does anyone get any inspiration from venal toads like, say, Ron Johnson? He'd never get elected for anything if there wasn't a -R after his name on the ballot.

Right? Or a loathsome specimen like Ted Cruz. Who gets fired up to vote for him?

I mean, their voters may not be overcome with emotion for the candidates themselves, but for a lot of them, casting a vote for the Republican on the ballot means voting for their values and sticking it to the other side. I guess what I'm talking about, though, is how to break through the noise and appeal to voters who either aren't paying much attention or are ambivalent/indifferent.

xps based on the (very few) R voters I have experienced first-hand in WI: they believe the claptrap about Johnson's business skills and expertise with money, as well as love the fact that Ds hate his guts, because they hate liberals in return

Right? Or a loathsome specimen like Ted Cruz. Who gets fired up to vote for him?

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:10 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anti-abortion people.

also they are scared of the sOcIaLiSt BlAcK mAn FrOm MiLwAuKeE xp

I couldn't begin to tell you how many mailers, door hangers, etc I have received with ominously-photoshopped, high-contrast greyscale images of Barnes alongside dire warnings of how he would bring crime from the cities to the peaceful small towns of WI

Was he one of the candidates whose skin got artificially darkened in opposition ads?

same with "Evers did nothing while Kenosha burned" messages—and I live in Kenosha, have heard directly from city officials and the (retiring R) sheriff that the governor gave them everything they asked for… that doesn't matter, the lie has been set

xp dunno but it would not surprise me one bit

this seems like good news?

BREAKING: talking w/ the Chair of the Wisconsin Dem Party @benwikler, who confirms youth turnout in Wisconsin is *360%* HIGHER than in 2018. If you're in Wisconsin, remember that there is same-day voter registration. Get out there & cast your ballot. 7 hours left. Let's win this.

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) November 8, 2022

xp yeah, one of many

https://www.thebulwark.com/attack-ads-are-darkening-the-skin-tone-of-black-candidates/

every single Packer game so far there's been this attack ad against Barnes that says he wants to "cut the prison population in half" and every time I see it I say "that's a little extreme, the regular death penalty is enough"

love the fact that Ds hate his guts, because they hate liberals in return

Politics has been cynically called the systematic organization of hatreds.

I don't think that's so for everyone everywhere. But it certainly seems like "he has the same enemies as me" is a pretty good predictor of voting patterns.

Further, "would like to have a beer with" is often just a nicer way of saying "he has the same enemies as me."

In my hate-reading of various aoshq and donald.win and q stuff, there is loads of "I don't really have a politics except hating libs" greeted by "that's enough, fren."

Cruz skates in Texas because he has the strength of the Texas GOP behind him, which is what his voters are really voting for--he could be anyone.

He's a fitting avatar to a lot of exurban nebbish cowboys who take F-250s to their office building.

It really doesn't matter which lump of misshapen, swearing clay that someone hastily slaps a fake beard on, as long as there's an (R) after the name, it'll win.

meant sweating, but probably swearing too

Yeah but how does anyone get any inspiration from venal toads like, say, Ron Johnson? He'd never get elected for anything if there wasn't a -R after his name on the ballot.

Owning the libs, sticking it to those cultural elites who made a RAPPER one of the heroic agents on your favorite CBS military crime drama.

Yeah I think one of the organizational and vision-coherence problems for the left is that it's much less driven by anger, fear and resentment than the right. I know, Tucker Carlson's head would probably explode at that — I hope — but it's hilarious to me how so much right-wing rhetoric is dependent on painting Dems/liberals as these wild-eyed hateful maniacs. If only! Not that there isn't real anger on the left, at injustices and inequities, but it's more structural than personal. Where the anger on the right is all personal, all ad hominem, hating individual people. That's what Libs of Tiktok is all about, naming and shaming specific people. I listened to a local podcast today (for work purposes) where two right-wing lunatics were frothing about young adult books in school libraries with trans characters. The male co-host kept repeating that any person "exposing children to this pornography" should be "thrown out of a helicopter." He said that about 12 times, savoring the phrase more each time.

Where especially among middle-class and affluent liberals I think there's a real hesitance to personalize the fights, to see the other side as evil, there's an assumption that there's some reasonable way to work things out. And to distance themselves from anyone on the left they perceive as too angry. There's an anger gap, basically. And that's probably inevitable given the basic difference in right and left worldviews, the left worldview is inherently more inclusive as a primary value. But, like the man says, anger is an energy. If you don't have that to fire people up, you need something else.

the old Alex Cockburn story

Which brings me briefly to Ed Miliband, now chosen to be the leader of the British Labor Party. The last time I saw Eddie he was an intern at the Nation in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Round the corner from the Nation when it was on Fifth and 13th st in Manhattan was Zinno’s restaurant and amid a pleasant lunch with JoAnWypijewski, my own intern Richie McKerrow and Eddie, I asked the future leader what I asked all interns as a matter of form, “Eddie, is your hate pure?”

The man who first asked me that question was the late Jim Goode, editor of Penthouse. Like Playboy, Penthouse would pay good money for long articles about the corruption of America, thus giving the pointyheads an excuse to thumb through the pinups. Goode, tall and cadaverous, was gay, clad in black leather as he crouched on the floor of his office, gazing morosely at hundreds of photos of bare-breasted women. As I entered with some screed about corporate and political evil, he snarl, “Alex, is your hate pure?” “Yes, Jim, my hate is pure.”

It was a good way of assaying interns. The feisty ones would respond excitedly, “Yes, my hate is pure.” I put the question to Eddie Miliband. He gaped at me in shock like Gussie Fink-Nottle watching one of his newts vanish down the plug hole in his bath. “I…I… don’t hate anyone, Alex,” he stammered. It’s all you need to know.

Owning the libs, sticking it to those cultural elites who made a RAPPER one of the heroic agents on your favorite CBS military crime drama.

It will probably never happen but I am still holding out hope for a crossover episode in which NCIS:LA's LL Cool J meets L&O:SVU's Ice-T.

Bonus points if their suspect somehow ends up being played by Ice Cube

Where especially among middle-class and affluent liberals I think there's a real hesitance to personalize the fights, to see the other side as evil, there's an assumption that there's some reasonable way to work things out. And to distance themselves from anyone on the left they perceive as too angry. There's an anger gap, basically. And that's probably inevitable given the basic difference in right and left worldviews, the left worldview is inherently more inclusive as a primary value. But, like the man says, anger is an energy. If you don't have that to fire people up, you need something else.

OTM! The anger gap reminds me of how some liberals found Michael Moore's work distasteful for being too much like "propaganda" in its presentation, i.e., appealing to people's emotions/anger rather than calmly, bloodlessly presenting the facts. It's less present now, but candidates like Gore seemed to believe that firing people up was taking the low road.

(this is worse than a cigar in a waiting room)

where's the tax returns?

good afternoon!

hope you're doing well, alfred :)

Thanks, qualmsey, likewise. I've tried. Please come back regularly.

Rank & file voters are deeply concerned about crime, chiefly Hunter's laptop crimes

Well we'll have an investigative committee for that very soon, don't you worry.

A non-USian asks: is there any chance that the Democrats will do better than expected?

Yes. Definitely.

But it's a wait and see thing. FiveThirtyEight kind of laid out the various scenarios iirc

Seeing a lot of reports about turnout being high, especially among young people, so ya Dems could definitely beat expectations. GOP enthusiasm is high too though

I doubt there will be a blowout, either way

there's been a lot of Dem doom-mongering lately, but that's also a way to drive voters to the polls - so it's hard to read what's really going on

covid has probably killed significantly more repulican voters than democrats, so there's that.

Nearly 500,000 people have voted in Philadelphia. 91% of 2018 with 70 mins to go

— umichvoter 🏳️‍🌈 (@umichvoter) November 8, 2022

This for example seems good

Tbh I never had high hopes for 2022 but Oz winning would be legitimately depressing. A guy like that should lose In Pennsylvania by 40.

covid has probably killed significantly more repulican voters than democrats

true dat, but mask mandates super-energized the republican base to vote for FREEDOM

The media keeps alive this myth of intra-party mobility - i.e. 'well, I think the GOP is better on crime and the economy, so I'll give them a shot this time around.' And I just think it's utter bullshit - everyone is voting for the party they always vote for, it's super calcified. So.. it's all about turnout

It’s probably mentioned above, but Fetterman defeated the establishment Dem candidate in the primaries, thus plenty of people in the state machine(and their media friends) have incentive for him to lose.

The media keeps alive this myth of intra-party mobility - i.e. 'well, I think the GOP is better on crime and the economy, so I'll give them a shot this time around.' And I just think it's utter bullshit - everyone is voting for the party they always vote for, it's super calcified. So.. it's all about turnout

the media does like to find weird examples of people who are voting for Shapiro and Oz; because Mastriano is 'crazy' but they think Oz is not? I dunno how many idiots there are like this but I fear there are many.

Swing voters definitely exist they’re just mostly complete weirdos like Ken Bone

I’m shocked Bone isn’t running for something this year

I'm more hopeful that Fetterman will win than Cortez-Masto. If she loses, then Warnock better pull it out, or we will lose the Senate.

warnock is way ahead as of right now, but only like 30% of the votes are in

DeSantis already predicted to have won. No surprise but fuck you Ron anyway

Nixon in 1973 moment. DeSantis had his best night. It's his peak now that Trump will be the nominee.

Incredible that he barely eked it out against the guy who got busted in an hourly motel with meth and now this. America!

DeSantis now praying that DT chokes on a chicken wing and/or strokes out on the shitter some time between tomorrow and primary season '24.

Whomst among us

Ron at his most relatable!

Lol

Crist fucking sucks though it’s true

posting this should get you pelted with rotten fruit

This is the way I’ve voted in basically every election since I became a journalist: Blank ballot. Only because of the current climate do I feel like sharing publicly. #PoliticalCelibacy pic.twitter.com/g8FKR5spih

— Dave Orrick (@DaveOrrick) November 8, 2022

Taking "No Nut November" way too seriously.

fun

It is very likely that the top of the ticket Republicans will be ahead after tonight, with thousands of mail ballots uncounted.

Will they try to declare victory even though the races may not be over?

What do you think?

Ugh.

— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 9, 2022

OK, I checked and the crook I voted for, Bob Menendez Jr., is winning 82-18. Even Tom Malinowski, the guy I've seen the most attack ads against this year, is up 63-37 over the son of one of our former Republican governors. Jersey ain't flipping red anytime soon.

Betcha Warnock/Walker goes to runoff.

Red Tsunami 🤔

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) November 9, 2022

not looking very red wave-ish

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) November 9, 2022

Lol the Needle is back but they completely changed it to not be panic attacky anymore.

No I'm not watching, taking Tracer's advice

So far tonight’s results are like an advertisement for DeSantis’ candidacy for Republicans. He waxed his opponent, delivered 3 seats with an aggressive gerrymander in his seat while Trump nominees are running behind Generic R’s all around.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 9, 2022

So far, Democrats are running about a point ahead of our expectations outside of Florida, with the GOP lead in the House starting to come down a bit
Not many signs of a red wave at this point.

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 9, 2022

Midterm message so far is clear: Voters want more crime and completely open borders.

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) November 9, 2022

warnock is way ahead as of right now, but only like 30% of the votes are in

Yeah this, kids, is why we do not watch returns, because it is a hope/despair pendulum and it doesn't affect anything other than your liver. Eat an edible and go to bed. If you have a sweetheart nearby, hold them.

xp You can shove the criminals across the open border?

There is 62% in here. Boebert losing would be delicious.#Midterms2022 pic.twitter.com/fu8bRUM79g

— GM 🇺🇦 (@WasOnceLou) November 9, 2022

really don't see it happening but seems to be a lot of Dems running better than projected so far, outside of Florida which remains increasingly fucked up

I mean I'm sure there's one county that's like 95% Bobo that's uncounted, I just refuse to get my hopes up

Ugh. Florida.

"Joe Biden is on the verge of being the most successful Democratic president in a midterm election that we have seen in quite some time" pic.twitter.com/1lc3ywKglk

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 9, 2022

okay can breathe a little easier now

NBC calls Josh Shapiro as the projected winner of PA governor's race.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 9, 2022

curious what that means for Fetterman, I know there might be a lot of ticket splitting this election but somehow I don't think that is gonna break in Oz's direction

It's so weird to be part of two elections cycles in which Florida makes me feel as if the GOP lined me up to get shot while the rest of the country are like Ewoks after the Battle of Endor

yeeeeeah

Fetterman outrunning Biden just about everywhere in Pennsylvania. Our estimate now leans Democratic pic.twitter.com/KXfvvsug1e

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 9, 2022

Nate Cohn
It’s hard to get a clear sense of election results in the age of mail and early voting. But so far, there is little sign of a big red wave. On average, Democrats are running ahead of what the pre-election polls suggested, and the polls didn’t show a huge Republican lead.48m ago

DeSantis, like all incumbents (ESPECIALLY in this state) already had an advantage tonight the moment he won in 2018, but when the best you can do to oppose him is run an ex-Governor who LITERALLY WAS A REPUBLICAN, that's a good way to depress your own party's turnout. Not to mention, since you already had the damn job many years ago, everybody already knows what your fucking ceiling is. You can't get by on lofty promises and starry-eyed ambition because you already have a track record, and well, in his case, it stunk. It stunk in a much less harmful, more non-descript way than Rick Scott, but it still stunk.

just do better. Rubio, on the other hand, just wins because there's an R in front of his name, even though his voters literally make fun of him.

what homeopathic snakeoil is Dr Oz going to suggest his voters take to cope with his eventual loss

whoa Kornacki saying Bobert might actually be in trouble

at least she'll be home to stop her husband from flashing his genitals

odds of Ds retaining Senate are swinging in the betting markets towards Dems

Democratic chances of winning the House have... slowly started to tick up. Now up 29%, up from about 21% at the start. They're favored to win 208 seats up from 203 in our poll-based starting estimates

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 9, 2022

thanks for watching that Neanderthal, was gonna say the betting markets are probably pretty accurate but then I remembered how much money was made by live bettors in 2020 who knew Florida was definitely going red and that mail-in ballots were gonna heavily favor Dems. people were taking Trump -400 even as he was underperforming his polls lmao

JD Vance wins pic.twitter.com/3G1Tv3xa4D

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 9, 2022

please throw pig carcasses at him every time he makes a speech

kinda looking like a bad night for the Trumpy guys

lol if it turns out this was a real thing

One take that sounded like Twitter craziness but now feels right - Rs flooded the zone with narrative-friendly polls in the last week, results not matching up.

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) November 9, 2022

I mean I know they always are but man the Trafalgar polls were insanely wrong this time around

538 gave them an A- lmao

Cotton-Eyed Joe plays at the Mastriano party as Fox News projects Shapiro as the winner pic.twitter.com/itJXBSIA3e

— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) November 9, 2022