Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

Unless she gets bored and quits, they're stuck with Sen. Sinema for another 5 years.

3 years

^^ best Bowie song imo

Charles Blow

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/opinion/guilty-verdict-ahmaud-arbery.html

Let's end the month with some enjoyable pointing and laughing: A colossal flop — fawning media can't save Chris Christie’s new book

It’s hard to recall a former politician who was showered with more free media attention than Chris Christie this month as he peddled his new book, “Republican Rescue.” Invited to appear on a carousel of shows, Christie was all-present as journalists lined up to interview him. CNN even dedicated an entire primetime hour to him, treating the in-your-face Republican as one of the most important political voices in the country.

Consumers aren’t buying it.

A senior publishing source with access to the industry’s BookScan tabulations tells me that “Republican Rescue” sold just 2,289 copies during its first week in stores, which constitutes a colossal publishing flop. That figure does not include digital copies of the book, but based on industry sales patterns, given Christie’s weak showing in stores he likely sold only a few hundred digital ones. (On Sunday, “Republican Rescue” was ranked 15,545th at Amazon’s Kindle Store.)

...

It confirms that the deeply unpopular former New Jersey governor remains, first and foremost, a media creation. For years, he’s been propped up by the press as a populist Straight Shooter, but he left office with an approval rating in the teens, and failed spectacularly when he tried to run for president in 2020. That explains why CNN’s Christie special was a ratings disaster, coming in a distant third place among the three cable news channels that night. (During the show, CNN’s Dana Bash never once asked Christie about the BridgeGate scandal that ended his political career.)

“He left New Jersey as the most unpopular governor since the advent of polling. But he’s still catnip to the national media,” noted Politico’s Matt Friedman.

Part of the avalanche of eager Christie coverage represent a relentless sub-genre of Beltway journalism that clings to the fantasy that there’s still a functioning faction of the Republican Party that can and will stand up to Trump’s erratic and dangerous behavior.

...

The larger point here isn’t that Christie’s book stiffed — lots of authors swing and miss, especially in an increasingly difficult media environment. What’s disturbing is how the media keep pretending Christie is somebody who matters in American politics. Not according to the new sales figures.

Despite the media’s reverential coverage of Christie over the years, the bully actually doesn’t stand for anything, which became obvious during his recent media tour. Out promoting his book, Christie made clear his incoherent politics revolve around his unending desire to be viewed as relevant. On that front, he’s fooled the press, but not most Americans.

Recall that last year, Christie, the self-anointed truth teller in 2021, did his best to get Trump re-elected. (He helped Trump prep for the debates, got Covid in the process, and was soon hospitalized.) After the deadly insurrection on January 6, Christie conceded that trying to overturn election results in America is a bad thing and wrote a book about how the Republican Party needs to reform itself and step away from Trump-era conspiracies and move beyond the 2020 election Big Lie.

So, he’s an unapologetic anti-Trumper, right? He views Fox News misinformation as a danger to our democracy, right? Nope and nope. Pressed during his media blitz, Christie said he might vote for Trump in 2024, and when appearing on MSNBC he refused to criticize Fox News, likely because he appeared on the network a few days later hawking his book by stressing to right-wing viewers how he supported Trump for so many years.

Americans see through Christie, yet the press worships him. They’ve been doing it for the better part of a decade, portraying him as an authentic Every Man, a master communicator, and that rare politician who cuts through the stagecraft and delivers hard truths.

"Chris Christie is someone who is magical in the way politicians can be magical," Time's Mark Halperin announced while appearing on “Meet The Press,” in 2013. And remember when ABC's Barbara Walters crowned Christie as one of her 10 Most Fascinating People, casting him as a “passionate and compassionate” politician who cannot lie?

Today, nobody cares about Chris Christie, except Beltway journalists.

The only honest response is laughter.

Which begs the question of why it's so difficult for people to see through so many other obvious charlatans

media is so hungry for "reasonable" or even remotely "moderate" voices on the right, that they take what they can find and run with it?

Christie does seem an order of magnitude less insane than other GOP mouthpieces and he's not overly antagonistic to the media so it's not a surprise that CNN is the only one who loves him

He can't be antagonistic to the media -- who would book him on Meet the Press?!

xxp Yes, but also the idea of a schism on the right is a potentially tasty narrative ("OMG GOP civil war!").

As a former newspaperman myself, I continue to believe that the main bias of the media is for a story that changes. A story that is stable is not a story. "Franco Still Dead," not a story. "GOP Still Relentlessly Obstructionist," not a story. "Conservatives Still Racist AF," well, you know.

"Dems Still Dysfunctional," well, it shouldn't really be a story but it has enough dynamism in it to find a bountiful source of microstories. Dems keep finding interesting new ways to be dysfunctional so

"Trump Still a Monstrous Asshole," well, maybe it shouldn't be a story but like the fictional velociraptor the media sees what moves, and Trump never stopped coming up with new ways to be a monstrous asshole.

So, which phase from YMP’s post will be the December thread title

It was fairly eye opening to be out at my mom's house this weekend. It's always leaned conservative, so there's been no surprise that it's gone for Trump. Even so, what I saw out there this year was just jaw dropping and massively depressing. For context this is a small town about an hour west of Chicago, with a population of around 1,800 in 2010. Even during the 2020 election, while Trump signs probably outweighed Biden signs 15-1, you could probably have counted every election sign in town on both hands and both feet. Driving out there for Thanksgiving though, I'd say easily, a conservative estimate would be pro-Trump signs, flags and banners in 50% of the yards. And not just election style signs, but large 'Trump 2024' flags and "Let's Go Brandon" banners. One subdivision I pass through to get to my moms holds 18 houses. Seven of them had "Let's Go Brandon" banners up.

Now a large part of this would be due to the opening of "THE TRUMP STORE" (as it declares in an obnoxiously large sign), which popped up last summer as a roadside stand, but has now moved into a sizable storefront in a strip office building otherwise filled with a dentist and a lawyer's office. When we drove by it on midday Sunday, there was a line of approximately 10-12 waiting to get in. All of this in a town of 1,800 people.

Like I said, Trump signs out there don't surprise me in the least, but the level I saw this weekend was way out of proportion compared to anything I've seen out there, particularly for a non election year. It's insane.

Raymond - hell no, I suggested this month's. Surely it's someone else's turn

The hinterlands of Maryland have a lot of Trump signs up, the 2020 election editions, threatening slogans, outlines of the man like he was on a coin or whatever.

NE Pennsylvania, where I used to live, is home to many Trump roadside stands but it’s been a while since I’ve been back so maybe they’ve graduated to storefronts.

YMP, fair enough! I was kidding.

Mostly I wanted to inspire thread title talk

"Home To Many Trump Roadside Stands," perhaps?

we have to put ourselves in the mindset of mid-december

what's gonna be happening in US politics then? we need outrage! we need clicks!!

an angry, insult-laden thread title will bring in 5 times the clicks than a funny pun

YOU'D REALLY BELIEVE THIS, YOU FOOL!?: US Politics December 2021

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Please let's don't suggest anything Christmas-themed (like no "Manchin Claus is Comin' to Town" or "Joe-ngle Bells" or anything cringey like that, plz)

Submitted as a potential thread title (see attached image):

Today in unsolicited email . . . pic.twitter.com/pdQvoBlGGQ

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) November 30, 2021

Good King Wenceslas Looked Out, Then Put On A Cleverly Unsettling Gater: US Politics December 2021

Kidding, kidding, ignore me

it seems like people are way more concerned with the price of gas than the fact that we probably won't have a democracy in about 3 years

Is democracy putting groceries in my fridge? RIDDLE ME THAT

the rest of y'all know where I'm politically at

we need outrage! we need clicks!!

I misread this, thanks for new display name KM

Yes I chose to buy a huge SUV and to live 40 miles from my work because I needed more Sq footage to store all my crap/kids but it's the guvmint's fault I ""can't afford"" gas.

^ Ngl, blaming people for the misdeeds of city planners, NIMBY types, and the automobile industry is kind of ugly.

Lol Neanderthal

For anyone who needs to hear it, VP is a vital partner of POTUS: US Politics December 2021

it seems like people are way more concerned with the price of gas than the fact that we probably won't have a democracy in about 3 years

something something material circumstances yada yada yada

Something something Mussolini made the trains run on time.

xp to table

we blame people as much as city planners and nimbys because those same people are deeply invested in the policies advocated by those latter groups. our fox news radio station has a local morning show that i would occasionally tune into on the way to work, and their only talking point for over a year was recode, an effort to update and modernize our zoning laws. it's no mystery why the local pundits were so invested in this particular dog whistle. recode is not only a harbinger of right wing culture war boogeymen, threatening eg their right to barrel around town in a coal rolling four ton truck because the city narrowed the street and put planters in by the sidewalk; it also raises the possibility that a non-white person will move in next door in a newly affordable apartment, townhouse, duplex, ADU or what-have-you. and local non-pundits have these same concerns and will express them in explicit terms.

i choose disunity over empathy for someone who would sooner see me and my loved ones dead than ride a bus. i don't have patience for concern over the proverbial trump voting diner patron, but from the left, and certainly not when the matter at hand is the desire for cheap acreage.

pretty sure i can never afford to live near my job in DC and i live on .008 acres rn but yeah everyone concerned about gas prices chose to live far away from work so they could cheaply store their kids in their SUV/mcmansion and is in a trump diner. just to add to the series of strawmen set up here.

I mean, also sometimes companies move their offices/warehouses/headquarters/whatever and most don't bother to ask their employees if that's convenient with them before doing so. All of that without getting into people who are asked to work shifts that are incompatible with public transportation schedules/options, etc etc etc.

Which isn't to say I defend people driving monstrous pickup trucks or gigantic gas guzzling SUVs just because, but there's a whole lot of ugly strawmen in that argument.

Yeah, sorry, but setting up all people who don't live in cities as relentlessly fascist hicks who don't care about the planet is fucking idiotic, period.

Beyond that, it's also untrue.

It's also not something anyone has said but go off son

Fortunately there's an alternative, and it's called the electric car

...which is overwhelmingly a luxury product for rich people

Personal consumer choices still don’t matter.

I can’t wait for my apartment complex that hasn’t been remodeled since 1975 and has probably 600 cars parked on the lot every night to install charging plugs for all of them.

Yeah close-in, mixed-use, high-density development that is engineered for walkability? Unfortunately, it's still largely a luxury product, mainly consumed by rich people.

New urbanism is great but even I can barely afford it, and I'm pretty well off.

My office is 30 miles from Chicago. There's plenty of single family homes within short drive of it. Yet many of my coworkers choose to live in what are basically rural areas so they can afford a larger home. None that I know of drive anything other than a huge suv. Obv this isn't all or even most ppl! But they're out there and they tend to be the ones I hear bitch about gas prices. Ymmv Har Har.

Imo this isn't an either/or situation, it's a both/and one. Sometimes people's choices are limited by things outside of their control so we shouldn't rest blame on anyone at the bottom of a power structure, AND ALSO some people make bad & selfish choices and are proud of doing so for reasons that are incompatible with community survival and that's not a value-neutral choice they're making.

This isn't really a strawman in my experience. The white flight from cities to suburbs has clearly moved on out to rural areas and townships where the taxes are low and minorities are rare. More and more farmland is being parceled up for them and boy oh boy do they love putting Trump signs on their oversized lawns.