"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

xp to old lunch

i think my last words to my mom were something along those lines.

sorry to always make things about my parents and white evangelicals. i know that's not the whole world or the whole explanation. but yeah, i think for a lot of people, they grew up literally worshipping an imaginary, all-powerful being that promises nothing less than eternal happiness for the good and eternal suffering for the bad. it's not much of a leap to go to anything else, from there

Something I've always noticed and pointed out is that almost on principle Americans are maddeningly contrarian. It's almost like a chaotic correction failsafe, and partly explains how pretty consistently in the modern era we go from, say, reelecting Nixon/Reagan/Bush in large numbers and for no good reason but then immediately go the other direction. One of my favorite stories, one that has stuck with me since I think 5th grade (so, a long while ago) was from a teacher who told us of her next door neighbor, a retired teetotal nun, who apparently, the day after Prohibition was passed, got totally smashed and went out on the street shouting something like "*nobody* tells me what to do!" That's America, in all its crazy contradictions.

Which is to say, I can totally see some of the same people that supported Trump and his judges out on the street protesting the repeal of the ACA/Roe, etc. That's part of the con right there. "Yeah, I wanted the ACA overturned, because Obama and unconstitutional and socialism and the lying media, but I had no idea it would hurt me and my family and friends and everyone I know! Boo!"

I don't know how much a Trumper gives a shit about judges; that seems more like what a "traditional conservative" focuses on and thinks Trump can serve as their useful idiot to provide. The Mexican-fincanced wall was the big, tangible thing Trump promised…

Well, there are Trumpers, and then there are Trumpers by proxy, the people who don't like him but still vote for him because of his policies. Not the racist stuff, heavens no, or the cruel or reckless stuff. Just the other stuff. Like ... taxes? The economy?

KM how did you mom feel when Trump wound up actually getting COVID if she thinks it's a hoax?

Right. It's not enough for them to get what they want - they also want you (us) NOT to get what we want.

Though, if I were to be completely honest, I confess I kinda feel the same way about them.

Put roughly, that style of politics has caused untold suffering. And yeah, there is a dark part of my heary that wants its proponents to suffer. Not proud of it, but it is there.

― nonsensei (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, October 12, 2020 11:20 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The truly fucked thing about conservatives is: they can already pretty much live according to their stated principles, but it just isn't fun unless they're imposing those principles upon everyone else. It's not enough to personally decide not to have abortions because you have to make the decision for every other person in the country for some twisted reason.

To the extent that they aren't infringing upon others, I'm all for allowing conservatives to live however they want to live in their own private lives. But that's just never enough for them.

c'mon, the current usa president is the "fun" face of normal Republican policies, in the way that little Bush was their "folksy" face and Reagan their "glamorous" face. But those policies are always the same: white supremacy, kleptocracy, war. They may sell those policies differently, but everyone knows what the policies are.

xposts
we haven't spoken in a few months now.

last we spoke, she thought it was a hoax, but my dad had a very different belief. he was posting facebook messages with hundreds of likes and shares that said that "As a former Emergency Safety Director of a large hospital", he believed that everyone was going to get Covid, that there was no point of trying to do anything to prevent it, like wearing a mask...and oh yeah, also that some people in the world are "unclean" and the "unclean" will get sicker and die more quickly than the "clean". he then concluded with the following:

I stand firm that when Abba Father made us (his seed) in secret, He made our immune system perfect and designed to be among the mixed peoples and all their poor health habits. Abba Father does commands us not to hide in caves or crevices. He commands us to stand for His Torah and not to hide or keep our light under a bush basket. Yes, this virus can kill but it is so weak picking on those immune systems that are already compromised so I do tell those type of people to keep socially distanced, keep hydrated, keep washing hands, keep hands and fingers out of our body openings, and at times, wear a mask. But for the 99% they should absolutely never wear a mask. HaSatan and his minions are ruling the world right now but as [my Uncle] would say, "Yeshua's about had it with the evil in this world and He is coming back to clean His house." Amein.

...

Once again, I am so very sorry, KM.

don't feel sorry for me. feel sorry for my parents. they are so oppressed, it's really hard for them

Abba Father does commands us to dance, and to dive, and to have the time of our lives.

keep hands and fingers out of our body openings

so not gonna happen

But those policies are always the same: white supremacy, kleptocracy, war. They may sell those policies differently, but everyone knows what the policies are.

The Trump era has made me more aware than ever of being part of a long-running struggle in this country that has taken a lot of different dimensions but basically runs from its founding, and is essentially over who the country is for. The fight to make it for — open to, accessible to, fair to — more people and more kinds of people, people who are not only white males, has been the animating principle for social justice warriors (a phrase I use positively) from the beginning. We've made a lot of progress on that front overall, but every fight is still hard and the resistance is always strong and the chance of losing ground already gained is always there.

And it makes me feel better about Trump to understand him in that context, as a particularly grotesque manifestation of long-running tendencies. Yes he's terrible but also lots of have things have been terrible, and many of them have been overcome.

keep hands and fingers out of our body openings

no more wiping or teeth brushing!

wtf is going on here

Perhaps the most interesting result: Gary Peters (D) holds just a 1 point lead over John James (R), 43-42, in the race for US Senate in Michigan, down from a 10 point lead in June

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) October 12, 2020

That is not good.

it's one poll but apparently schumer's (?) PAC is sending more money there than anywhere else, which is ominous

(that's the result for a sample where biden is up 10 which makes it more concerning)

Yeah, I just donated. Not taking over the Senate if you lose that seat in all likelihood.

it will probably be ok. people split the ticket more in polls than they do when they vote.

Internals show you the Dem strategy: Just get Biden votes to pull straight ticket. James is within 1-3 point of Trump numbers, and the difference is undecideds. (Example: 15% of independents undecided in prez race, 22% in Senate race.)https://t.co/s10wAElENu

— Dave Weigel, Re-Animator (@daveweigel) October 12, 2020

still!

it's a weird race, because lots of people are "unfamiliar" with both candidates, but james ran in 2018 against stabenow too, you'd think voters would know who he is.

tipsy that’s a great post.

Climate change didn’t really become a public issue until 1988.

Back To The Future came out in 1985

Mad Max 2 came out in 1981 btw

Did Mad Max 2 specify that the preceding apocalypse that it was supposed to have taken place after was anthropogenic climate change?

it's been a while, but i thought it was just "oil scarcity"

J.G. Ballard wrote a bunch of books about a world pillaged by climate disasters in the 60s

I'm sure we can dig deeper into the past and find even earlier examples of fictional depictions of dystopian futures driven by climate change but using that as a marker of when people started discussing climate change as a mainstream political issue would probably be dumb.

but anyways, i'm pretty sure if we go looking we'll find a popular culture artifact that mentions climate change and came out before 1988. i wasn't trying to say that suddenly in the year 1988 people started hearing about climate change. i'm just saying, hansen's 1988 testimony is commonly referenced as a watershed moment in terms of popular awareness of the issue.

xp

djp otm

i think this is the first time it was on the front page of the times fwiw

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/listening-to-james-hansen-on-climate-change-thirty-years-ago-and-now

On June 23, 1988—a blisteringly hot day in Washington, D.C.—James Hansen told a Senate committee that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and is changing our climate now.” At the time, Hansen was the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and though his testimony was certainly not the first official warning about the “greenhouse effect”—a report to President Lyndon Johnson, in 1965, predicted “measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate” in the decades to follow—it was the first to receive national news coverage. The Times ran the story at the top of the front page, with a graph showing a long-term rise in average global temperatures.

sic you should write to the new yorker fact checkers and remind them about mad max 2, which that article blithely ignores.

"Climate change didn’t really become a public issue until 1988" was brought up to dismiss any notion that transitioning away from fossil fuels might have been considered for any reason prior to that.

Mad Max 2's prelude posits that society might collapse due to an over-reliance on this scarce, damaging and non-renewable energy source. The core text of the narrative is about even in the wake of this, humanity continuing to fight and kill for guzzoline, even while burning it in the most wasteful and counter-productive way possible.

https://editorial.designtaxi.com/editorial-images/news-KFCDoubleDown240518/KFC-Double-Down-Three-Flavors-1.png

I'm just trying to do what Tombot said!

My halfassed take on the james/peters thing:

- peters is kind of an empty void - i moved back to michigan 3 years ago and honestly don't know what he even looks like, where he's from - nothing at all.

- there hasn't been a republican senator in the state for 20 years and I don't he's ever really had any sort of serious opponent, nor has he really had to do a whole lot to keep his position. He actually sent mailers out last spring that were basically like "hey I'm your senator, remember me? don't let me lose this fall"

- a lot of the people who haven't gone full nutjob dislike trump as a person but still love everything he's done so voting for someone who do those things without being a raging asshole is great for them. I see lots of james signs in yards without trump signs; almost every peters sign i see is sharing a yard with a biden one.

- i believe a lot of people who love or at least are indifferent to racist policies and actions see voting for james as a way to say "see? i can't be racist because I voted for the black guy"

c/o Ned:

Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a significant lead in the pivotal states of Michigan and Wisconsin, with President Trump so far failing to retain the overwhelming advantage he enjoyed among white voters there in 2016, according to surveys from The New York Times and Siena College on Monday.

Over all, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by eight percentage points in Michigan, 48 percent to 40 percent, among likely voters. His lead in Wisconsin was slightly larger, 51 percent to 41 percent.

The new results, along with recent Times/Siena surveys from elsewhere in the Northern battlegrounds, suggest that the president has not yet managed to reassemble his winning coalition across the region. He faces modest but significant defections among white and independent voters, while facing a groundswell of opposition from those who voted for a minor-party candidate or didn’t vote at all in 2016.

And:

While Mr. Trump’s surprising victory in 2016 lent him an aura of political invincibility, an Upshot analysis of more than 5,000 respondents to Times/Siena results surveys in the Northern battleground states suggests that his winning coalition was always a fragile one. The president’s margin of victory was extremely narrow, and he failed to reach 50 percent of the vote in each of the decisive states. He also did so against an unusually unpopular opponent, Mrs. Clinton.

roffle:

The surveys began after Mr. Trump was released from the hospital, and there was no immediate indication that his political standing recovered along with his health. Most voters in Wisconsin and Michigan expected that the president would recover quickly from the illness, echoing findings from Times/Siena surveys fielded while he was hospitalized. The president did not appear poised to benefit from the public’s sympathy; by at least a two-to-one margin in both states, voters said the president did not take adequate precautions to protect against the coronavirus.

Mr. Trump’s surprising victory in 2016 lent him an aura of political invincibility

I read this and instantly thought, "oh, these quotes must be from a NYT article".

Re climate change in the public discourse, Carl Sagan (who figured out the greenhouse effect) warned about fossil fuel CO2 changing the climate on national television in 1980.
https://www.scu.edu/environmental-ethics/environmental-activists-heroes-and-martyrs/carl-sagan.html

sorry to be a nitpicker today, but sagan wrote about it in Cosmos, but the greenhouse effect as a topic of study goes back to at least 1859

sorry - to correct myself there, Sagan didn’t figure out the greenhouse effect, apparently that was Arrhenius in the late 19th century. I think Sagan made a model of the atmosphere of Venus which demonstrated how the effect led to its current state.

thanks KM, I knew as soon as I wrote it that I was getting it wrong.

I was surprised watching The Naked Gun 2 1/2 a couple of months ago that its plot hinged on climate change / renewable energy. 1991

Hector Sa-vahge!

iirc, the Rio de Janeiro Climate conference was in 1991, which was the very first international effort to address greenhouse gases and the climate. Naturally, it was torpedoed by the USA.

has not yet managed to reassemble his winning coalition

I am as worried as anyone about avoiding wishcasting and about the likelihood of legal shenanigans and/or malarkey.

HOWEVER, I am starting to feel like we can retire the constant repetitions of "It's still early" / "lots can happen." If Trump hasn't "reassembled" his coalition by now, he's not going to.

All year we've had to temper our projections with "it's still early" / "lots can happen" / "at this point in 2016 it felt like Hillary had it in the bag" obligatory caveats.

It is NOT early. Hundreds of thousands of people have voted. Almost everyone has their mind made up; almost no one is still persuadable. The dynamic is unlikely to change - and even if it were to change, it may not make a salient difference.

At this point it seems safe to say that Trump will obviously have lost the national popular vote. Further, that the contest to determine the final electoral vote will take place in the courts. That will involve the "usual suspect" states - Pennsylvania, Florida, maybe Ohio.

And it will entirely hinge on how many mail-in ballots the Trump campaign can successfully get disqualified.

Note - this will not be a matter of "wait till all the votes are counted." Everyone knows by now that the majority of mail-in ballots will be Democratic ones. The Trump camp's only hope will be to get as many of them thrown out as possible.

Hundreds of thousands of people have voted.

An understatement. It's about ten million now:

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

And those numbers are about to ramp up heavily this week with the widespread start of early voting in a number of states.

If Florida gets called on Tuesday night, which is likely, and gets called for Biden, Trump has lost. He might want to exercise that litigious muscle for its own sake.

Also, much of the messaging re GOP fuckery with mail-in votes has to do with last minute voting. The Democratic message in response has been to emphasize getting things in much earlier.

Florida's already counting ballots. Mine got counted on Wednesday, two days after receipt.

"Climate change didn’t really become a public issue until 1988" was brought up to dismiss any notion that transitioning away from fossil fuels might have been considered for any reason prior to that.