“I can hear those champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day": US Politics, February 2024

on the one hand, seems kind of bad
on the other, history has shown that the machinery of the state keeps chugging along (mostly) even with a complete non-entity up top so meh

this is insane pic.twitter.com/g9EYtK3reG

— royal acai enema naturopath (@lib_crusher) February 8, 2024

aka the Edith Wilson Clause

Best case scenario is still Weekend at Bernie’s-ing him across the line and then he keels over on 1/21/25

that sounds authoritative, but who or what's being cited?

Special counsel's observation. I don't doubt it, actually.

It's almost like all of those us who think he's too damn old to run for president are right.

it's getting a bit late to pull someone else off the bench. too bad kamala proved to be such a lackluster campaigner in 2020. a wide open primary season for the nomination would have sorted out the sheep from the goats. ofc, i'm still going with anyone but trump.

Would unironically support a party coup that set up Clinton Trump Part Deux. She still seems to be sharp as a tack and it would make for the funniest possible race.

Hey, you know who turns 35 this December?

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/BUK_8738-e1691715895373.jpg

xp That would be . . . interesting. Not sure how funny it would be.

These questions came up during Covid in 2020 as well.

If Biden dies between now and November, I think the DNC nominates a new candidate by a majority. By custom it would be the sitting president, but I'm not sure they can't open it up to Gretchen Whitmer and others due to the unique circumstances.

And re Clinton - no it was not funny the first time and would not be funny now.

"America is already great" and "Pokemon go to the polls" were hilarious

if you hadn't said "unironically" I might be laughing

It would be quite satisfying to see HRC beat Trump, but who wants to roll those dice?

And people say I have a dirty and foul mind

It doesn't matter. Like Dionne said, that's what veeps are for

The GOP isn't the only party that can run an aging hack for reelection.

I left my scarf there in the U.S. White House

the third place/religion conversation reminded me of this On Point segment, which I read the transcript of a couple weeks ago:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/01/24/the-great-dechurching-why-so-many-americans-are-leaving-their-church

The creepy bit that smacks of the worst parts of evangelical culture, while being divorced from traditional organized religion:
And then in this story, the New York Times story, there was a very, like you said, revealing quote from an Iowa voter, Sidney Hatfield who says she was raised as a Baptist, she prays to God every night, but doesn't go to church anymore, has attended a lot of Trump rallies because, and here's her quote, "He's the only savior I can see."

I think I’m some arch-humanist in saying this, but I don’t fault the idea of being spiritual without religion, I fault spirituality without non-political fellowship. Obviously many churches are by nature exclusive in some way, but I think defining faith by exclusion is both necessary in doctrine and catastrophic in practice. It’s the parts of any group that are heterogenous, and the attempts to reconcile that with the group as a whole, that define how robust your organization may be. The weird Trumpist evangelism is somehow both, some syncretic thing that pulls in the older immigrants who hate new immigrants, the people who lament their dying towns but hate newcomers, etc.

god knows i don't want to actually read this thread but just fyi whenever i see it i cannot help but think

and i can see those fighter planes
and i can see those fighter planes

so thanks for that

also lol 'a man breathes into his saxophone'

to go back, the thing is that churches aren’t the third place for rural america anymore and haven’t been for a while. truly rural spaces don’t have churches that people regularly go to! it probably has a bit to do with how we define rural. driving around the northeast I was struck my the fact it was rural but even on the highways you’ll run into some small set of organized couple of buildings every so often. but as a new coworker said about once visiting the Midwest, “you have a lot of land out there”

you get to some areas and the small towns are just gone. it’s not church/grocery/post office/bar or some subset of one or two things, it’s just maybe one. and it’s seldom a church

lol moo kid also otm

damn autocorrect but I’ll allow it

i car trekked last summer looking at some hunt3r roots places along the ohio valley from sewickley pa to far western ky, almost to mo. uh, the third place is def dollar general, by my visual review.

it's often the only thing in town but for shambles and gas stations.

north- and central-eastern ohio was FAR more depressing than i could have imagined, it's pretty dense with dire ancient housing in disrepair and opioid treatment centers, more gas stations. no i've not read that cunt jd vance.

western wv land is fucking beautiful, all i could imagine was that mountain biking and road biking and bikepacking there would rule.

my grandma was raised born in central ky in like 1900, lived in a place called caneyville. i imagined that area of ky as a hillbilly hellhole, and as a 16 y/o newlywed pregnant with my mom while in flight from her parents to northern ohio to work in the depression in 1930, it probly was.

but now? v scenic rolling lush green farmland. with periodic churches and dollar generals. frankly nicer by driveby than i'd imagined.

What a vast, variegated place this country is.

I lived, for like seven months, in Hazleton

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/09/latinos-pennsylvania-politics-00139944

Honestly I don’t really find this surprising. There is a saying in various minority communities about skinfolk not being the same as kinfolk, and just as there are conservatives in the Caribbean, Central and South America, there are immigrants who are conservative, too.

That they’ve been brainwashed into voting for racist schmucks who want them dead is concerning, but not surprising.

Hell, it's been my story since the Reagan years. I find liberal Hispanics anomalies.

I do think that your experience is more geographically-bound than others, Alfred— nearly every Cuban-American I have ever met has been a reactionary.

Now, to be clear, their kids are another story.

i did not watch the biden press conference last night, is it as bad as I'm hearing it was

Ive decided it doesnt matter bc a) february and b) ol donnie is about to get the bill for trump co ie there wil be something else to overreact to, possibly even today

I'm more livid at Democratic self-owns re appointing Merrick Garland, Bipartisan Super Genius.

Nominating, rather, but you get the idea.

people are focusing on the negatives of biden's press conference because people don't like biden. if he was more popular, he'd get more charitable treatment

Alfred otm

I got into an unfortunate fight at my local watering hole last night because the heretofore quiet Trumper barfly whom I've known well for a couple years insisted on listening to a story about the Secret Democrat Plot to replace Biden with...Michelle Obama. I told him politely to turn it down. We get into an argument, the crux of which is Biden's senility. Of course, I have to "wake the fuck up" and "you're too young to understand" (he's all of 11 years older).

I said, "Two senile asshats lead our parties. Me, I'm voting for the senile guy whose party most lines up with my beliefs, and if he dies we replace him."

This, I guess, shut him up. Ten minutes later he apologized, we should never argue over politics, etc. I couldn't dislike him. Besides using the same talking points as my dad, I feel bad for him b/c his oldest kid was killed in a motorcycle accident six years ago.

The Democrats killed him, of course.

I often wonder if anyone turns left-wing as a result of profound personal trauma. It seems like tragedy like that blots out all sense and privileges only the feelings of pain, anger and fear. And the right-wing feed off all that.

yes? especially among the speakers who advocate for social and economic assistance groups on the left. I have a couple coworkers who grew up in very right-leaning homes who have moved to the left in the last few years

My parents have moved to the left as I have gotten older, and they’re Boomers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, there is also the trauma of growing up in a right wing home.

Yep— I had many screaming matches with my mother and father about politics growing up, and still argue with them today, at times. My husband didn’t grow up with this sort of family, and is always deeply embarrassed when these arguments occur.

We've had a truce since September 2022 and it has held.

the press conference and report look really bad for biden.

i don't think it should be that relevant. there is no comparison between biden's stable, predictable administration and the madness of trump. the problems i have with his policies are problems i have with the democratic party (i.e. they are too conservative). the idea of people voting for trump because he doesn't sound or look as old as biden is absolutely lunacy. however, i think americans might vote like this.

it does seem like we are headed toward 2016 deja vu in november.

we've had the deja vu since January 2021

Uh oh! we all forgot yet again: America’s story

the report looks bad for biden if you don't think about who wrote it

and you don't read the letter the DOJ wrote saying "you shouldn't make this shit political"