https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area/358713/how-the-1990s-broke-politics The thing that Trump is selling is a brand of conservative ideology that is essentially: "fuck them, get yours with us." and "they might have the passport, but they are not real Americans, and thus are not worth considering/counting votes/etc.". Also, Trump entered politics based on the lie that Obama was Kenyan. This is such an easily defeated and silly lie, but people never held it against him. It's the lie they want to believe: I'm a 'real' American, and they are not. It became so fucking easy to perpetuate this: anything that doesn't jive with this brand isn't "real" America, from doctors during COVID-19, to climate scientists, etc. Trump tells lies about things that would make Americans put their head in the sands otherwise. He made them proud and defiant of the things the left shames, like ignorance, racism, greed and prejudice. Trump saying "I'm not a rapist or a pedophile, the women making these allegations just hate me and want my money" is the Idiocracy version of Bush's "they hate us for our freedoms". The truth of things like climate change, the economy, covid, etc. is absolutely terrifying, and the Boomers keeping Trump afloat are simply not reckoning with any of the dark clouds over their future well. They've sold out to Trump, to religion, to any possible variation of a future where they are not the problem, their beliefs were lies, and they were railroaded into a lifestyle they never wanted and then sealed into it with comfort, propaganda and money. At this point, they won't reconcile, should Trump lose. This movement just gets more shrill and absurd as the participants increasingly see themselves as victims, and precious few point out the victimizers are the ones they elected. There's too much smoke now for Biden to not acknowledge there's fire. He's never polled well, but he's also behind in fundraising, and the polling only matters in swing states. Remember kids, Biden wins on a "defense" (ie, anyone but Trump) vote in most places. The path depends on 6 states, and if Kamala does better than Biden in WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ and NV, that's all that matters. She'd definitely have an advantage in GA, and I could see a late-campaign push making her do much better in PA, WI, and MI, especially with the suburban women Trump lost. I see AZ as a toss up and NV going her way. I could see some pink states like OH, IA and NC flipping for Kamala based on the Dobbs issue getting more women out to vote. Also, this is the first election with GenZ. I see turnout being more significant than in other elections, but again...not so much in red states. For the record, Biden is as easygoing a centrist as they could ask for, and the vitriol never stopped. "Fuck Joe Biden" goes down far easier than "Fuck Kamala Harris". Kamala Harris just might fuck back, and she doesn't have the burdens that Biden did. I see Kamala's messaging being wildly aggressive compared to Biden's, if for no other reason than she has to get everyone's attention real quick. I'm saying they make the switch once Trump's VP pick is announced, and they can do a fundraising push off that.
The most important reason to vote for a Democrat is to prevent Russia from overrunning Europe next year. I'd rather Russia get stopped in Ukraine than a full-blown war if they push to NATO.
Piggybacking off what DnD said and to add to my last posts, I see now that my phrase made it sound like “I would vote for Biden, but…” what I meant was, I’m already assuming he’s dropping out, so voting for him is gonna be moot.
The danger of a binary choice is that it leads to the perception that they are equal, but different or equally different. They are not. Biden's age and mental issues are not insignificant, especially when compared to other candidates. They are not significant when you compare them to the risks of another Trump term. The risk of another Trump term is wildly higher, from the likelihood of another SC appointee, to the Project 2025 shit, to the increasing likelihood of economic calamity (remember how Biden's whole economic shit was cleaning up the covid-induced mess, from inflation to the PPP crimes). The threats of political violence have continued to escalate and they are simply not being taken as seriously as they should. The international fallout, the defense fallout, on and on and on. Trump is detrimental to nearly every US interest I can think of. The risk of another Biden term isn't as existential to democracy, rights, etc. Biden has not threatened violence, nor erasure of norms, rights, processes, rule of law, etc. Trump is a nightmare, Biden is a milder version of Reagan's second term. The two are not comparable, but this choice is predicated on a set of shared values used to assess each candidate. Increasingly, the way folks assess Biden as a candidate and why he's worth their vote is wildly divergent from what folks see in Trump. Trump voters do not seem to care about a free and clear election, for example. They do not seem to care about democratic norms. The frustrating part is the Democratic coalition didn't build a bench and there's not a clear-cut succession plan. Trump's MAGA movement will die out without him, but the GOP coalition won't fragment so hard: the religious folks who want to legislate sex aren't going Democrat, but they won't have as easy a shot at nationwide legislation. The business interests seeking privatization of everything and the rollback of regulation won't go Dem, but they will find ways to work to get their agenda pushed. The African American, Latino, LGBTQIA+ (fuck if I know what some of those letters mean, I looked them up the other day), and minority coalition will shift, and the signs are worrying. Most of that shift has occurred due to Dobbs where Latinos do not support abortion and their take on immigration isn't aligned to the Democratic side, but the Biden response to police brutality, Israel/Gaza, etc. will all continue to threaten this loose alliance.
I'm still amazed that the people who were more than happy to let a few thousand American soldiers die in Iraq, while spending over $1 trillion, for... what? are super duper pissed at the "cost" of letting Ukraine rummage around in our storage closet.
A vote for Biden is essentially a vote for Harris as we all know he's not making it four more years. Do you think we'd be having the discussion if Harris wasn't so disliked?
Yes, we would. Her popularity isn't an issue, Biden's is. She's polling 2-6 points behind Biden, who's polling 2-4 points behind Trump, all within the margin of error. She shouldn't be anywhere close to Biden, and she hasn't benefitted from any of the campaign thus far. The campaign has just been about Biden. The last Dem candidate that won the kind of support needed was Obama, and while she may not have his charisma or bona fides, she's got a huge advantage in that her opponent is Trump. Another advantage is she can flip her cabinet posts, to enlist more aggressive campaigners on her own behalf. Once this goes public, you'll have folks like Mayor Pete stumping for her for his job. I read this as more of an unknown quantity than unpopular. I genuinely don't know much about her platform or policies, aside from a rough notion of her days as a prosecutor in CA. I don't think she'll hinge her campaign on a bunch of policy nuances either. Broad strokes painted with "Not an old white guy, and definitely not Trump." This is a move to shore up a lack of bench, to be sure. 2024 is the last election where Boomers are the target audience. In 2028, Millennials will be the largest voting cohort, and GenZ will be fully engaged as well (no college-era difficulties with distance voting!). Having Harris queued up now, so she can run again in 2028 avoids a major lurch left that has been anticipated since the Tea Party movement. The logic here is "Kamala now, so no AOC in 2028". We know the pendulum swing left is coming, if for no other reason than the entire narrative on the Millennial generation's economics, and they will be more insistent as the entire cohort enters middle age between now and 2028. Also, I'm calling it: she'll do some sort of Oprah interview where her own experience with sexual assault comes out, and makes running against Trump "personal". She needs to win 6 states, it'd be nice if it were 8-9, and she needs to not lose the rest. It's not unrealistic, and given the math on Biden, it's starting to look safer as the days wear on. It's a much easier play to donors and supporters: help Kamala carry GA...we need $X to outspend Trump in MI....Biden has kept most of his war chest until the last leg of the campaign, and she's been quiet the entire time, even for a VP.
Run a clearly accelerating declining geriatric while making all of the excuses you want. If you want to defeat this ArchDemon in Trump you’re going to have to realize there are enough voters in swing states that look past all of the things about him you pull your hair out over and also are more concerned with Biden’s health than coming to Jesus about Trump.
Trump is a colossal piece of shit who is encouraging a level of hatred and dangerous rhetoric that I've not seen in my lifetime in this country. We have nearly a decade of watching this man in the political spotlight. At this point, if you are voting for Donald Trump, ignorance is no longer a mitigating circumstance. He has been too loud and too clear about who he is. There is no media slant or bias in this - the man is explicitly clear about his positions, and the party is very deliberate about their policy goals. To turn a phrase that has been used for Trump in the past - not everyone who votes for Trump hates [women/minorities/poor people/educated people], but all of them have decided that hatred of those demographics is not a deal breaker. It should be a deal breaker. At this point, Trump voters are either dangerously stupid or dangerously malicious. I don't know that, "awww but Cletus don't really hate nobody" is a reasonable defense.
I don't mind handing them deprecated hardware that cost more to dispose of normally instead of than going to fight in eastern Europe or having my son do so in 15 years.
Is horror-comedy a genre? Not comedy-horror, like Tucker and Dale vs Evil, where it's a horror structure that's made funny, but rather a comedy structure that's made horrifying: https://x.com/atrupar/status/1810419967604482305
It might be a good investment. You don't know how valuable that could be in the future. Like my Dale Earnhardt shot glass, just waiting for it to moon before putting it on ebay.
The fact that Trump and his supporters have been as successful as they have been at dehumanizing their opponents & perceived opposition is what scares the shit out of me.
Trump people took an arrest and turned it into a way to bolster his campaign, Biden people took a poor debate performance and are turning it into a way to get him out of the campaign. I remember when there were presidential campaigns where the candidate's biggest flaw was being too Mormon. It's bizzarro world.
Well, to be honest, I don’t want a true blue Mormon anywhere near the White House. Call me crazy…but they’re still crazier. Thank God Tim Ballard’s “blowies for Jesus” scandal came to light.
But that's the thing. That's not an option. Where we're at now, you don't get to just say "I don't want a Mormon in the White House." You do get to choose between a Mormon and a rapist, or you get to choose between a murderer and pedophile, or you get to choose between a psycho racist criminal liar and a lifelong special privilege favor dementia liar!
Mormons think Jesus and Lucifer/Satan are brothers who lived on a spaceship. And that god was 6’2” and straight up dicked Mary down. Their prophet (a career criminal and pedophile) learned this from reading invisible scriptures using —and I quote from them— “Magical Glasses” and wearing fruit-of-the-looms that make you invincible. But…. No dancing allowed. Whatever anybody else is, Mormons follow under an objectively goofy and psychotic cult. They shun their own fucking loved ones just like Scientologists do, too (I personally know people this happened to). All of their historical heroes fucked kids. Give them power? Fuck them entirely.