We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022

pic.twitter.com/R3rJ95oEkT

— Blake Mitchell® (@Blake_Mitchell) July 26, 2022

NJ's own @StevieVanZandt 🎸 has a VERY special message for Dr. Oz!!

So Dr. Oz just fuhgeddaboudit! pic.twitter.com/awlAeVcUeg

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 27, 2022

This is wearing a little thin but still pretty funny

actually on the lunch money thing actually the tweet probably IS right in that states might conceivably forgo the lunch money just because they’ve been forbidden to make life miserable for LGBTQ+ kids, like what happened with medicare expansion and obamacare.

The CCP is all that the GOP wishes they could be politically

This is fantastically stupid but not quite as stupid as saber rattling with our third largest trade partner and largest source of imported goods because we're mad that they threaten our global empire.

Milo Z is neoliberal now? Not sure if “fantastically stupid” was aimed at me or the GOP but my argument in short is that both parties are authoritarian, imperialistic, ethnic nationalistic, oppressively moralistic, and oligarchic.

The ad itself is also this weird reverse-psychology thing where it pretends to be an attack ad framing Gibbs as "too conservative." Maybe so that the Dems can still officially say that they didn't explicitly support him.

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/26/peter-meijer-michigan-democrats-trump

Anti-imperialism is when you threaten war on the side of the world on behalf of your client state.

Oh no he’s still just a tankie haha silly me.

You’re going to get one of these words right one day.

xps and following jmm's post here,

Democrats funding trump candidates

Karl, have you actually watched any of these ads? That's not what's happening. The ads criticize the candidates, say they are wrong for their district/state, too conservative, criticize them on their stances on issues, and cast their connections to Trump in a negative light. Yes, they are playing a double game and thinking this will both hurt the candidates with most voters while boosting them with the whacko base.

Whether it is wise strategy is open to question, but it is not "funding trump candidates" in any sense.

here's one of the ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5XVRDC50Do

Bulb, that is a ridiculous take

Thanks.

okay yeah that ad isn't exactly promoting the guy

I think it’s doing exactly that. The two concepts pushed are “too conservative” and “connected to Trump.”

The content is nearly irrelevant imo. That they're spending significant sums ($44m according to Reuters, though I think $35m of that is just from Pritzker) trying to psych out/promote right-wing fascists is *immoral* while also being risky and foolish.

Think about it this way, if the GOP tried the same tactic would you be like "oh no the wily Rs are going to con us into having lefty candidates" or would you be like "fuck yeah morons"

And maybe that first response is the "correct" one but jesus at some playing politics like a german board game is just repellent

It's somewhat reminiscent of Florida Republicans putting up dummy Dem candidates to draw votes away from the actual Dem candidates.

I'm leaving open the tiny sliver of possibility that in November we'll all be amazed the Dems held onto the House by one seat because several too-far-right GOP candidates who had various kinds of Dem primary support lost in close districts. Tiny sliver. I think it's more likely some of those candidates will be part of the new GOP majority and this will be seen as an unbelievably dumb and wasteful strategy. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

various kinds of Dem primary support

I'm disinclined to see ads that say, effectively, "Holy shit! Look at this fucking asshole! He's fucking crazy, and probably a criminal!" as support, unless you're the kind of person who thinks "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is a thing (it's not), or thinks it's better to stay entirely silent about what your opponents are doing, and just wait for a candidate to be chosen, whereupon you engage with them in a good faith debate about the issues on an even playing field, as God and C-SPAN intended. Both viewpoints are wrong.

Saying "Oh no! If you do [thing X], the Republicans will do something crazy and evil! We better not!" is idiotic, because the Republicans are crazy and evil. They are going to do crazy, evil shit no matter what. It's who they are, it's what they do. So yes, you should draw attention to it, and condemn it, with the intention of waking up sane, not-evil people.

The strongest selling point for a Republican primary candidate is “libs hate him” followed by “Trump loves him.” Libs running ads about how they hate the candidate and how Trump loves the candidate is absolutely support.

Fortunately, the ads aren't being shown exclusively to the Republican base.

The Republican base are, however, the only people who'll be voting while the ad is running.

Come on, it's not some kind of 12-D chess that they're planning on voters remembering this ad in November - they're pumping up fascists. It's win-win - either the fascist is an easier candidate to beat in November OR they get to fundraise even more when the fascist wins. MAGA has been nothing but a boon to Democratic consultants.

am i missing something or having a stroke? how is that ad in support of Gibbs?

Meijer is a chump who wasn't going to win anyway

The point of the ad is to signal to the far-right GOP base that Gibbs is super conservative and endorsed by Trump. This thread of the conversation is weird as to my knowledge there is zero ambiguity about what the Dems are doing, their own party members are calling them out for it.

Trump has 80+% approval ratings with the people who are going to the polls in the MI GOP primary.

Democrats are running ads about how much the guy with 80%+ approval loves the openly fascist candidate.

Like Reuters doesn't even consider presenting another take on this here: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/risky-midterm-strategy-democrats-boost-far-right-candidate-michigan-race-2022-07-26/

Trump has 80+% approval ratings with the people who are going to the polls in the MI GOP primary.

See heres the thing tho. He's going to win anyway.

it's not some kind of 12-D chess that they're planning on voters remembering this ad in November

You really think everyone but you is a fucking moron, don't you?

I guess on the list of things I'm supposed to worry about that the Democrats are doing well this is way way down the list

'Democrats aren't running ads promoting a fascist because Democrats wouldn't do that - it's totally normally to run ads in the other party's primary for a candidate you're sure is going to lose anyway.'

C'mon Jack.

I agree it's a shit strategy but it's not like Trumpy candidates did very well in 2018 or 2020. not having him in office changes things obviously but I can't imagine the January 6 stuff is helping

that said it's utterly insane for the party to be spending their money this way. not only are you amplifying harmful messages but you're turning off potential donors. you're engaging in gamesmanship at a time when the country has some real serious problems, not least of which is the fact that the literal fascists you're boosting are going to outlaw real elections the first chance they get. it's as though they learned absolutely nothing from 2016.

As more or less reasonable as a few of these retorts are, I've yet to see a Democrat use one of them to defend this practice (of course, I may have missed something); it's only been about manoeuvring to run against the supposedly easily beat wackjob

Anyway, the reason I called it immoral is my own hunch about electoral strategy is: this is a bad time for the Ds to double down on appearing to be nakedly cynical and cocky with too much money lying around. I'm sure someone will point out that not too many voters even know about this, which is probably true though it's been on NPR and CNN, but I can still be mad about it.

xpost w/frogs, you're engaging in gamesmanship at a time when the country has some real serious problems is exactly what I was bothered by

there's a little bit of 12D chess going on here, in that it might force Meijer to spend more money, which has to come from somewhere

He's a Meijer heir, I think he can scrape up some money.

"Grandpa, my trust fund only has $100mn can you spot me $5mn for an ad buy?"

idk while I don't think I can ever be convinced this is a good use of resources we are kinda in uncharted waters here. Biden is massively unpopular and every traditional factor points to Dems getting demolished in the midterms, but the GOP is even *less* popular, they're running some truly awful candidates out there, they're actively stripping away our rights, plus it looks pretty fucking obvious that they attempted a coup last year. I cannot fucking stand the Dems and what they're doing, and I really really wish Biden would step aside, but I'm going to vote for them the first day I can because I'm so terrified of what the GOP will do once they get power. I am guessing a lot of people who don't normally vote in midterms feel the same.

milo, it is possible to believe that Taiwan has a right to its own sovereignty— because it does— while not making apologies for the CCP OR the US. You don't seem to care about that, tho. How do you feel about millions of people being put in reeducation camps?

I expect typical response that forgives great leader China for everything because blaming the US for the situation *when it is pretty obvious that CHINA is the aggressor* is convenient.

(and yeah, if that is your response, you are a fucking tankie)

"Believing that Taiwan has a right to its own sovereignty" is irrelevant to US saber rattling and ratcheting up Cold War II: Electric Boogaloo, which was the subject of the Politico article I was referring to.

I'm neither Chinese nor Taiwanese, I have no say in their internal or foreign affairs. I'm an American citizen, though, and thus have some interest in our empire, our nationalism, our military industrial complex, our foreign policy. What I do oppose is the United States potentially going to war over Taiwan and the MIC selling ever more weapons to Taiwan, which is the endgame of the people "hardening" US policy toward China.

Accepting that there are other great powers and that we don't get to dictate terms to the rest of the world is not being a 'tankie.'

many xps bulb

you're right, i had not watched the ads! but they line up with the description in the article:

Desperate to retain control of Congress in November in the face of stiff political head winds, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has become the latest party entity this election year to aid a Trump-endorsed Republican in a primary against a candidate who has resisted the former president. The $435,000 investment calls Gibbs “too conservative” in ads and highlights his connection to Trump — a winking message meant to boost his appeal to conservative primary voters.

The calculation: Come November, a far-right GOP nominee with polarizing positions will be easier to defeat. But some Democrats have voiced alarm that their party would elevate the kinds of Republicans they have argued present a threat to democracy and would punish the rare GOP official who joined their stand against Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Not only is it risky, they said, but wrongheaded.

but, after watching, i agree that "Democrats funding trump candidates" is not a good way to describe what's happening. it's weird. they are spending money to support Gibbs (or at least to make Meijer's re-election more difficult, as andy the grasshopper mentioned), but they can't say "we want Gibbs to win", and i guess they also don't want Meijer to win, so they can't say that. so instead of a positive statement about either of the two republicans, all the DCCC can do is make a sort of double-negative, two wrongs make a right kind of play where they "insult" the far-right guy for being too conservative. it's all so weird, and it also insults the intelligence of anyone watching. either they fool the republican primary voters, or they get caught trying to fool republican primary voters. maybe they wouldn't be in this situation if they stopped trying to run ads in republican primaries that require multidimensional fluency in order to make sense of in the first place, lol

🚨MANCHIN says he’s reached agreement with Schumer on a reconciliation deal that deals with climate, energy, tax and health care. pic.twitter.com/v3fRxP5n70

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 27, 2022

lmao "inflation reduction act" they should have called it that months ago

'affordable fossil fuel energy'

in fact, he'll even sell you some

lol

Did no one see this part of his statement? Of course this is a windfall for oil, coal and NG. You can call it whatever you like but it's not green. pic.twitter.com/R3VAdjYDK2

— Avant-guerre (@Pruit_Igoe) July 27, 2022

A little good news

Teen bullied by Matt Gaetz raises over $200,000 for abortion rights funds

“He’s probably afraid,” said Julianna, referring to Gaetz not replying to her comments or campaign. “Last time ‘Matt Gaetz’ and ‘teenager’ were trending it didn’t exactly go well for him.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/27/matt-gaetz-texas-teen-abortion-rights-funds

The Dems have used this tactic before, at least as far back as 2010. Before Trump they would just say the candidate was “too conservative” or the most pro-life or whatever. Sometimes it works! I don’t know why people are mystified by what’s on here.

because the candidates they are boosting might win and if they win they will have a good shot at ending democracy

While putting the 1/6 hearings on in prime time and scolding you if you don’t treat them seriously enough.

This whole “Dems funding GOP ads” thing only reinforces my belief that television advertising is one of the worst facets of American politics. Millions of dollars poured into out of context sound bites, half truths, innuendo and bullshit.