GET OUT: US politics November 2020

The only way that ABC story could have been sweeter was if it ended with everyone involved trapped in the campaign headquarters and it burning the the ground.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-trump-us-election-news-11-18-20/h_d58d9f8fdf52db78e39075edb2389b59

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham acknowledged on Wednesday he is not seeking an investigation into states that President Trump won, telling CNN that that "they are not in question" so it isn't an issue for him.

The New Yorker

Will Trump Burn the Evidence?

How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history

By Jill Lepore

If nothing else it's been a good year for the obviously rhetorical question

At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam: pwning the libs.

They’re all easy answers tbf.

The New Yorker
Will Trump Burn the Evidence?

How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history

By Jill Lepore

This seems like the extremely rare exception to the journalistic rule "If the headline is in the form of a question, the answer is 'No'".

Trump is basically George Costanza taking the Rosses up to the Hamptons at this point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-MtW7hbzWk

Tbh after reading the Edsall piece in the Times today, I'm ever more convinced that it's either a third party of actual left-leaning politicians emerges or the US is doomed, because centrist Dems have no interest in crafting policy around their constituents and will continue to throw any actual chance at social or economic change out with the bathwater.

You can't build a party around certain populations and then give them the finger at every available turn. At least the Repubs cloak their loathing of their constituents in gaining ground on the social issues their constituents care about. The Dems can't even do that.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Wednesday, November 18, 2020 2:50 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yepppp, well said. if they keep this up, and they are absolutely going to, they are going to lose, lose, lose, and we will ALL be fucked. this is their fault much more than republicans imo.

i mean, i hope they don't lose. it will sure make my life measurably better, as someone making below 50k a year. oh wait.

There are huge obstacles to forming an effective third party (ask the Greens and Libertarians), but I think if it were going to happen it would need to be done strategically. Focusing on the running a presidential candidate is totally the wrong end of the stick. To be credible at all, you need to win some elections. The place that could happen is at the local level in liberal areas. Form a party, put forth a platform, set up a network in, I don't know, the 50 largest metro areas in the country, fundraise nationally but run only at the local level to start. Rack up some wins in those place, produce a City Council member who's a good enough politician to run for mayor, start challenging Democrats for state legislative seats, work up to a congressional race (but only one you have a serious shot at winning).

People fantasize about 3rd parties all the time without any recognition of the work involved. Getting a line on a ballot is hard enough, but it's really just the starting point.

important to note that the right/conservative political spectrum in this country is also in shambles

Tbh after reading the Edsall piece in the Times today, I'm ever more convinced that it's either a third party of actual left-leaning politicians emerges or the US is doomed, because centrist Dems have no interest in crafting policy around their constituents and will continue to throw any actual chance at social or economic change out with the bathwater.

You can't build a party around certain populations and then give them the finger at every available turn. At least the Repubs cloak their loathing of their constituents in gaining ground on the social issues their constituents care about. The Dems can't even do that.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Wednesday, November 18, 2020 2:50 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yepppp, well said. if they keep this up, and they are absolutely going to, they are going to lose, lose, lose, and we will ALL be fucked. this is their fault much more than republicans imo.

― map, Wednesday, November 18, 2020 1:39 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a structural issue -- Democrats were once at least sort of the party of unions and relied heavily on unions (and plaintiffs' lawyers) for their financial muscle. Now it's increasingly Wall Street and tech interests that will never be ok with left candidates. The donors get priority and the voters are kept in line with fear of how much worse the other side is. This also works out nicely to enrich a bunch of worthless consultants and cronies.

xp maybe? they got their absurd tax cuts for the rich, what else do they want now. i don't think the right actually gives a shit about the social issues used to stoke the base

they want people to stop aborting god or some shit idfk

Now it's increasingly Wall Street and tech interests that will never be ok with left candidates. The donors get priority and the voters are kept in line with fear of how much worse the other side is. This also works out nicely to enrich a bunch of worthless consultants and cronies.

The unions had problems with left candidates too tbh: a large problem in that post-FDR era through Muskie and Humphrey.

we have had the unfortunate tendency to over-focus on the Presidency, after the Dubya years and how destructive they were, plus what Cheney did to the role of Vice President.

I'm ashamed to admit I never voted in a mid-term prior to 2014.

It's so frustrating since Bernie and Warren showed the way forward with small-dollar donations.

It's so frustrating since Bernie and Warren showed the way forward with small-dollar donations.

― DJI, Wednesday, November 18, 2020 2:30 PM (twenty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

And consultants like Mothership have already figured out how to redirect those to the center using fear of the other side!

xpost Unions are in an awkward spot right now... the rank & file are often Trump supporters, but the leadership still supports the Dems.

we might want to figure out why that is!

Tbh, tho it can be a little dry and overboard on detail, Mike Davis' "Prisoners of the American Dream" does a handy job of explaining some of that.

David Roth's probably-final Trump essay of the administration:

This year, the last few weeks before Election Day were full of a tension that ran, unspoken, under the polls and the disgraceful debates and the usual savvy weaponized dullardry of campaign season—it was the question of whether Trump, at this moment of national atrophy, would or could ever be held to account for his actions. How Trump might respond if he lost was, by contrast, never really in doubt. He would handle it poorly, and lazily.

He would make idle threats and lash out where and whenever it seemed safe; he would yell at his television when it defied him and, when every other option was gone, do as much damage as he could, wherever he could, out of spite and out of habit.

If Trump seemed confused about where to go with this tantrum, it was likely because his television had not yet told him. Trump uses Fox News like a Human Centipede to generate the furious confusion that powers his politics; his anxieties and curdled impulses simultaneously fuel, and are fueled by, the programming he so hungrily devours. ... Trump, like many of his fellow cable news casualties, watches television in the same blank and fulsome way that dogs might be said to listen to music.

This is Trump going out exactly as he governed—by telling someone whose name he’d soon forget to fix a problem he didn’t care enough about to understand, and then watching television to see how well he was doing. It’s axiomatic that the man doesn’t really understand what he’s mad about; Trump never really knows anything about anything. ...


 Donald Trump’s life, in and out of politics, has unfolded as a series of endless dreary compromises forced upon other people. This has mostly worked out for him, at least insofar as he has been permitted to indulge in whatever stupid, grasping, childish cruelty he desires because it would have been much more annoying and difficult to forbid it. There is not, and has never been, anything in the man that suggested he was qualified for any position of responsibility, but neither he nor anyone else has ever let that prevent him from rising to the most powerful office on Earth, where he sits every day scowling into his television. It is hard to imagine any president whose life has changed less for having assumed the responsibilities of the office. The rest of us cannot say the same.

An increasing lack of fucks given:

Raffensperger savages fellow Republican Doug Collins to @grace_panetta, calling him "the president's mouthpiece."

"He did nothing when he was a Congressman. And I think he needs to answer to the voters why he never did anything for election reform." https://t.co/0ScPucK6cq

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) November 18, 2020

welcome to the resistance etc.

who? *eyes glaze over*

hard to unionize the ‘consultant class’ and freelancers

capitalism you’ve done it again!!

Or gig workers! Hello Prop 22! And guess who helped develop prop 22 -- https://prospect.org/politics/prop-22-is-a-dress-rehearsal-for-this-biden-cabinet-hopeful/

I still think there's plenty of political mileage in labor/workers' issues (aside from just being something a decent human should care about), but it may need to be somewhat separated from organized labor, or at least conceived more broadly. You don't want to give up on the union structure that's there, obviously, you want to strengthen it whenever possible. But equating labor issues with unions overlooks that the vast majority of American workers aren't unionized and won't be in the foreseeable future, yet still have immediate needs. You can speak to those needs — for better wages, working conditions, healthcare, child care, paid leave — without positing unions as the only way to get there. Your average Wal-mart shelf-stocker may or may not get excited about an in-store union organizing drive, but they definitely care about the issues.

Ah yes

The Trump campaign's top legal advisor, attorney, and spokesperson Jenna Ellis previously repeatedly called Trump an "idiot," and said his supporters didn't care about "facts," "logic" or that Trump was an "unethical, corrupt, lying, criminal, dirtbag." https://t.co/ihAvbKgBeq

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 18, 2020

From her bio: Jenna Ellis is a native and resident of Colorado, where she was home schooled from kindergarten through 12th grade. Growing up in an evangelical Christian family, sound doctrine and theology were the basis of her education and fostered a love for God, a solid understanding of the Christian worldview, and her acceptance of the Gospel and Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior.

How these people live with their painfully obvious day to day hypocrisy shouldn't amaze me any more, and yet...

Jesus is a cunt

Is that a Crass song?

no, Sunday school

Like, is the money that good?

Isn't there a vein of "if the money's that good, it's proof that Jesus approves" in that kind of thing?

"I appreciate KFILE showing clearly through past statements that I think for myself, and that my mind was changed based on fact and personal knowledge. President Trump is a sincere Christian, the best president in modern history, and made and kept his promises to the American people. I am proud to stand with him and his goals for the future of this country and all of its citizens," she said.

She later added, "this gigantic pile of money is absolutely comfortable to sleep on and helps me sleep very, very, very well at night."

Jesus is a cunt

― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 18, 2020 1:53 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is that a Crass song?

― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, November 18, 2020 1:56 PM (ten minutes ago)

You're both getting your punk groups and lyrics mixed up.

Jesus was a cock-sucking Jew from Galilee, according to Nervous Gender.

Okay lol from that Twitter feed: She is the Alan Dershowitz of Kellyanne Conways

_"I appreciate KFILE showing clearly through past statements that I think for myself, and that my mind was changed based on fact and personal knowledge. President Trump is a sincere Christian, the best president in modern history, and made and kept his promises to the American people. I am proud to stand with him and his goals for the future of this country and all of its citizens," she said._

(in the so baptist bible study tradition)

She's a lawyer, f'rchrissake.

Well, that might be the problem

Hollywood actress Holly Robinson Peete (@hollyrpeete) confirms that during her time on “The Celebrity Apprentice” @realDonaldTrump did call her the n-word. Read: https://t.co/TA7qpU25rJ #HollyRobinsonPeete #WhiteHouse

— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) November 18, 2020

She's a lawyer, f'rchrissake.

xpost - is that Holly Robinson Peete another example of, "well thanks for going on the record now" or just that no one bothered to ask her?

I dont know how anyone can say "President Trump is a sincere Christian" with a fucking straight face.

xp her silence was probably NDA-related. maybe she senses that trump is legally occupied elsewhere?

Okay, I didn't want to dump on her without knowing more context. Just frustrating to keep seeing stuff trickle out now.