US Politics, July 2024 - "Will you just drop out, man?"

just like in 2018, 2020, and 2022, democrats will way overperform the polls

this cannot be repeated enough

decency doesn't mean perfection and there is a lot of self-righteousness and snobbery that complicates decency

the quiddities of NPR

hard disagree... all stories are on some level about _our world_. so much in watchmen depends on actual real-world events. the kennedy assassination, the vietnam war, the cold war. if you portray a real geopolitical entity in ways that are incongruent with that actual entity without _explaining or justifying the difference_ in some way, i'd call that bad writing.

Yes but all those events are seen through the prism of how they are perceived within mainstreamsuperhero comics, and within that prism the Soviet Union 100% was still seen as this scary megapower, with some honourable exceptions (JLI). The objective being to highlight the fantasies behind the archetype of the supersmart boy genius, I don't really see why a realistic depiction of the Soviet Union would be at all necessary. It's just not what the book is about - it's about our world in that it is a screed against the ideologies behind mainstream comics, it is not about our world in terms of wanting to say anything about 1980's geopolitics.

This does make it a somewhat parochial work - it is not in my top10 fave Moore books and the fact that it's a lot of people's first comic (or "graphic novel") is a bit of a shame.

I think the fact it is also a million degrees outside in most of North America is not helping our mental state either. Hot weather makes me anxious and edgy.

hey i love alfred too! he is the glue that binds...the book...that is...the story...of...us.

― scott seward, Monday, July 15, 2024 11:58 AM

and everyday I bind the book

Yes but all those events are seen through the prism of how they are perceived within mainstreamsuperhero comics, and within that prism the Soviet Union 100% was still seen as this scary megapower, with some honourable exceptions (JLI). The objective being to highlight the fantasies behind the archetype of the supersmart boy genius, I don't really see why a realistic depiction of the Soviet Union would be at all necessary. It's just not what the book is about - it's about our world in that it is a screed against the ideologies behind mainstream comics, it is not about our world in terms of wanting to say anything about 1980's geopolitics.

This does make it a somewhat parochial work - it is not in my top10 fave Moore books and the fact that it's a lot of people's first comic (or "graphic novel") is a bit of a shame.

― Daniel_Rf

i just don't think he's... i mean i kinda see alan moore as the comic book equivalent of david foster wallace. to be completely honest.

I'm pretty sure this was already discussed upthread, but I was struck by it again this morning - it feels so weird for the attempt to be such a non-event, in a way. Sure the media won't let this go and it will certainly have a long tail effect on the election, but it feels like people are barely talking about it at all. I just can't imagine an attempt on say, Obama, just fading into the background so quickly. It's almost like this is the exact kind of chaos that people expect from Trump's orbit that it's not surprising or barely even worth a lot of thought.

(which isn't to say I long for a proactive period of performative grief or w/e bullshit, just you wouldn't expect a sort of collective shrug because of course this would happen to Trump!)

I've never read David Foster Wallace. Just from vibes I'd guess the comics DFW is Seth or Chris Ware or one of those 90's/00's indie guys, but who knows.

I'm pretty sure this was already discussed upthread, but I was struck by it again this morning - it feels so weird for the attempt to be such a non-event, in a way. Sure the media won't let this go and it will certainly have a long tail effect on the election, but it feels like people are barely talking about it at all. I just can't imagine an attempt on say, Obama, just fading into the background so quickly. It's almost like this is the exact kind of chaos that people expect from Trump's orbit that it's not surprising or barely even worth a lot of thought.

You all made fun of me yesterday when I said nobody was talking about it in my little Montana town. This morning I was on a Zoom call with coworkers in Idaho and nobody was talking about it then either — I mean, obviously people are gonna tiptoe around political shit at work for the most part, but there wasn't even a cursory "Did you see what happened this weekend?" before everyone was talking about their kids' summertime activities and how hot it's been. Off the internet, no one cares.

I think AMerica has become so normalized to gun violence no one bats an eye

Maybe it’s because a looooooot of people genuinely wish the gunman had succeeded and are shocked at an uncomfortable over that feeling. Like, not us, but everyday people offered a glimpse of a world where there was no Trump.

The life of Donald Trump is one perpetual 'come at me bro'. The only surprising thing about someone finally coming at him is that it took this long.

With regards to what happened over the weekend, I have been struck (unlike trump) by just how people were sort of eh about the whole thing. When the news broke there was this brief since among myself and the people I was with that this would be a big deal, and then it just fizzled pretty quickly. I don't even get the sense that outside of a few hardcore maga types that anyone is really feeling particularly angry about what happened. That may be because the shooter wound up being a registered Republican without much political motive, just another in a long line of apolitical loner types wanting to make a mark. But mostly I think everybody feels just exhausted, like it's just another annoying story beat in this stupid chapter of American history.

*brief sense

for me i guess the similarity is that alan moore and dfw were the two cis white guys i was most into when i was full-on into my "clever white boy" phase, people who wrote stories about "everything". and nobody's qualified to write stories about "everything". particularly when they talk about people who do kinda embody "the archetype of the supersmart boy genius", i think there's kind of a tendency to conflate self-doubt with cultural critique. i don't think either dfw or moore are particularly adept at critiquing the archetypes they embody, _particularly_ when it comes to their treatment of women. moore is interesting because he's _not_ a liberal yet his perspective has some of the... challenges i associate with liberalism, to me. that tendency to think that one has a _universal voice_.

i don't know. i'm not sure there's an argument for _reading_ alan moore at _all_, unless one is a certain type of obscurantist. he's a niche creator who people treat like the God of Comics. i mean the _idea_, not that they treat him like he's tezuka.

The disappointing part is that the general public shrug is likely to discourage copycats. I mean, if you won't even be famous/a subject of public discussion, why bother?

no ex-president has ever been in our faces like this in any of our lifetimes. people just want him to go away

I think AMerica has become so normalized to gun violence no one bats an eye

― | (Latham Green)

it's a survival skill. if i didn't deliberately deaden myself to mass shootings i'd have a hard time functioning. just because i don't talk about it doesn't mean i think it's _normal_ or _ok_.

The disappointing part is that the general public shrug is likely to discourage copycats. I mean, if you won't even be famous/a subject of public discussion, why bother?

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

i don't see how this is _disappointing_. i admit that i'm not totally all-in on electoral politics, but i don't particularly think we should have an assassination-based political system.

I don't even get the sense that outside of a few hardcore maga types that anyone is really feeling particularly angry about what happened

Those people aren't even angry. They're celebrating his survival by sharing pics and memes about it on social media, bragging about about how they've wrapped up the election.

Prove them wrong.

Fwiw I don't think "nothing matters, it's over," I am just slightly more sanguine about our current situation because I believe a lot of what I write— we already live in a fascist state, and while it can get much worse, there's also a lot of room to get better, and so that's where I'm at.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, July 15, 2024 11:13 AM bookmarkflaglink

definitely, and tbh you've never come across as "nothing matters, it's over", I've appreciated your takes. sometimes we react like some of these threats are new whereas they've always been here and needed acting on, we just waited until they could no longer be ignored.

I was just in Ireland for about 2 weeks, and I'll tell you that while I don't doubt there are plenty of homegrown problems over there at I wouldn't notice. The sense that there was not an ever present under current of aggression permeating throughout the entire society was vv refreshing. I am certain someone from Ireland might come and correct me on that, but keep in mind I'm coming from America, where every time I take a drive to the grocery store I feel like I'm going to see a violent act on the road or in the parking lot. And that's because I have on both counts, multiple times.

it's a survival skill. if i didn't deliberately deaden myself to mass shootings i'd have a hard time functioning. just because i don't talk about it doesn't mean i think it's _normal_ or _ok_.

― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, July 15, 2024 12:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is me now too. I stopped generally talking about most political/news items outside of this thread. everybody else is too galaxy-brained or addicted to performative despair (note: I am very much not talking about anybody in this thread, remember I have a lot of theatre people in my circle so performative kinda comes w/ the territory)

Watchmen always looked boring to me. I could never figure out what it was about. I knew people loved it. I picked it up a few times. But, yeah, not for me. I never read anything else by him i don't think. He's after my comix time. wait, no, that is so not true. I totally used to buy and read 2000 AD when I was a kid. And Captain Britain too. so i probably read stuff that he wrote. though i don't know when he did Captain Britain. oh and i did enjoy those 80s Swamp Things but that's cuz i enjoyed the work of Stephen Bissette.

*curtain drop*

Well I don't think Moore writes about "everything" - I see how ppl would make that claim because he does set out this epic scope for certain projects like League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Jerusalem - and that his appeal is indeed in very specific things...postwar working class culture and the erosion of same, the history of comics (loved the parts about non superhero comic Kirby in Jerusalem), british pagan and occult shit. And I suppose caring about these matters is somewhat obscurantist and niche, sure - all writers are niche, I've never held Moore to have a universal voice nor assumed that he believes he does.

Anyway current God of Comics according to fanboys is ex-CIA agent Tom King

I'm pretty sure this was already discussed upthread, but I was struck by it again this morning - it feels so weird for the attempt to be such a non-event, in a way. Sure the media won't let this go and it will certainly have a long tail effect on the election, but it feels like people are barely talking about it at all. I just can't imagine an attempt on say, Obama, just fading into the background so quickly. It's almost like this is the exact kind of chaos that people expect from Trump's orbit that it's not surprising or barely even worth a lot of thought.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, July 15, 2024 12:08 PM bookmarkflaglink

it is weird! My company sent a company wide email about it which I refuse to read, but literally nobody virtual water-coolering about it is bizarre.

feel like the window of what is earthshattering has been moved in the last 8 years.

"I stopped generally talking about most political/news items outside of this thread."

a lot of people i know irl don't even know what i'm talking about when i talk about the news. they have a vague idea of what's going on. they know who they are going to vote for. but they don't follow things day to day. nobody ever brings up trump when they come in my store. which is nice actually.

This is the case generally even my neighborhood where the Trump flags crisply wave. We're the junkies who obsess over this shit.

ya but doesn't that like... scare the everloving piss outta ya'll????

Overall let’s follow my mom’s best general advice, which is “don’t borrow trouble!” There is nothing helpful in talking our way into loss/disenfranchisement - think if this as the chance to repudiate 45 once and for all. Biden isn’t going to move unless his sister tells him it’s over, but people left of centre can pull together.

Also now would be a good time for Biden to send a bill to congress banning AKs

From what I've seen online and what I've heard from Republicans, it has really fired up the GOP — not just the MAGA base, but also people who were already going to vote for Trump but weren't happy about it, it gives them the fig leaf they need to stop apologizing for the guy. Which is all valuable politically, it's good to have a fired-up party, it sets the stage for a big wahoo convention. How or to what degree any of that carries over outside the party I think is really hard to say. I think there's probably some lizard-brain appeal to the idea that "He got shot and got back up again and the other guy can barely walk or talk," which is mostly just reinforcing perceptions people already had. It doesn't wipe out all the many real reasons most people don't like Trump.

I do think that the shooter being a "normal" mass shooter — bullied young white man of indeterminate ideology — has somewhat muted the response to it. GOP would have loved it to be a trans-masc Mexican-Palestinian vegan.

hello MAGA my old friend
i've come to shoot at you again

They’re misreporting the donations because the $15 to ActBlue was made by a 60sthg with the same name as the shooter, not the shooter - and it is driving me nuts to see this falsehood travel so far, so fast.

I've seen that ActBlue donation reported both ways but not a definitive account. Have any major media said for sure?

yeah I agree there's not really a lot of chatter about this outside of the news and online spaces, idk if that's a product of how insane politics have gotten in general or just the anti-mattering reality TV shield that surrounds Trump at all times, I mean he's already committed Watergate-level offenses nearly every week and everything about him is fake, I think in most people's minds he doesn't even register as a real human being. he's more like a cartoon villain who does the most laughably evil and corrupt shit and even gets arrested for it but still comes back for the next episode every single time. that's why him getting a serious case of COVID felt so surreal - like, other people were supposed to suffer because of his incompetence, not him. when lifesaving drugs were invented just in time to save his life that's when it felt like the universe had returned to its natural balance.

hell there are differing accounts on whether Trump was SHOT at all! the few reports came in of it being glass from the teleprompter and yet the media STILL is saying shot in ear.

This is the case generally even my neighborhood where the Trump flags crisply wave. We're the junkies who obsess over this shit.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i guess that's an interesting point... pre-transition i very much was one of those people for whom politics was theater, something to talk about at the water cooler. since transitioning it just seems so much more _real_. it's not a _literal_ matter of life and death for me, who the next president is. at least i don't _think_ so. politics is just a lot less... abstract for me. less about _ideas_ and more about _people_. and i think that's why, for a while, i was so put off by political discourse, _because_ of how abstract it is, necessarily. it's distancing. of course trump getting shot is gonna be abstract for me. i gotta take people i know dying and make that not personal somehow. if politics is a game, well, that's the kind of game it is these days. it's not a game for me. i don't play. i'm serious about it, and that includes being serious about being personally nonviolent. what other people do, well, i got limited ability to affect that. it doesn't matter in a broader sense whether i _approve_ of someone shooting donald trump or not. i don't, and that matters to me personally. but to other people? why should it?

so the documents case was thrown out by a judge that was appointed by Trump himself - imagine the outrage if this happened in any other country

In any other country where it happened, being outraged would probably get you thrown in jail. So, enjoy your impotent outrage! Like the great Lee Greenwood said, at least we know we're free.

much handwringing being made from people saying oh the 11th will uphold Cannon cos Clarence Thomas is assigned to that circuit, like, that isn't how it works, he doesn't just act as Emperor of the circuit, how do you think the last two Cannon batshit decisions were overruled?

the real decision is whether to do that or whether to refile in DC, to get a shot of having another judge assigned, per Mark Joseph Stern

i'm proud to be Amecran
Where at sleet i know im fwee
n i wont protect the menu fries
that gave lil wyte to me

how do we think Trump actually dying would affect him in the polls

the irritating part about this is if/when Trump wins and he starts really inciting shit and breaking laws we will be reminded over and over that we were just one inch and/or half a second away from avoiding all of this

It’s the resurrection that will seal the deal.

i just don't think he's... i mean i kinda see alan moore as the comic book equivalent of david foster wallace. to be completely honest.

― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, July 15, 2024 12:08 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

DFW and Moore share almost nothing in common other than the fact that lame-o online hipsters find people who like them smelly.

there's always the October surprise (heart attack)

pre-shooting, so go ahead and add another 2-3 points to Trump's lead

#New General Election Poll - Battlegrounds

Arizona
🔴 Trump 44% (+7)
🔵 Biden 37%

Georgia
🔴 Trump 44% (+4)
🔵 Biden 40%

Michigan
🔴 Trump 42% (+2)
🔵 Biden 40%

North Carolina
🔴 Trump 44% (+4)
🔵 Biden 40%

Nevada
🔴 Trump 46% (+4)
🔵 Biden 42%

Pennsylvania
🔴 Trump…

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) July 15, 2024