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

i waver between a stubbly Elmer Fudd vs Tweedle-dum

There's a king in France just as tall as JD Vance

There's a hole in the ground where his remains can be found

I was just reading something about the Vance pick that referred to other VP nominees and I realized I had basically forgotten that Paul Ryan was one. Like, I remember Ryan as speaker and everything, but if you'd asked me point-blank who Romney's veep was I would have had to ponder.

To think Biden pwned him so much in the VP debate Republicans had to pivot to saying Biden was a bully

the beginning of Biden's use of inflammatory rhetoric

Had no idea an assassin was born that night

I was just reading something about the Vance pick that referred to other VP nominees and I realized I had basically forgotten that Paul Ryan was one. Like, I remember Ryan as speaker and everything, but if you'd asked me point-blank who Romney's veep was I would have had to ponder.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra), Monday, July 15, 2024

Biden laughed in Ryan's face several times, shredding Ryan's reputation in front of the Beltway press that worshipped him as a Serious Man. When I think of what he was and what he is now I remember this performance.

Yeah, I remember the debate, now that I've remembered Ryan's run. It was one of those times where it felt like Biden earned his place on that ticket.

If I remember one thing about Paul Ryan, it will be that he lied about his marathon time, by an HOUR.

Biden was able to pull a Lloyd Bentsen in that debate -- play the seasoned statesman to the callow dweeb. He even sorta-quoted the "You're no Jack Kennedy" line.

Vance is the son that Trump never had

Never Forget

https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/1e2/658/97214dcde5465d5180e2ff718c8b30060e-1----.rsocial.w1200.jpg

Next up the RNC is inviting Mike Love on the stage to perform "L'Il Duce's Coup"

And we'll have Trump, Trump, Trump now that CornPop took Kamala away

There's a king in France just as tall as JD Vance

There's a hole in the ground where his remains can be found

― rick beato meato manifesto (Neanderthal), Monday, July 15, 2024 5:49 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Diarrhea! 💩💩

That Winant article linked is incredible, thanks.

Paul Ryan was one of the 'young turks' or whatever the fuck they were called... that seems like 70 years ago at this juncture

This interview with actual Appalachian writer Silas House about Vance is also good.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/06/jd-vance-book-dangerous-00030374

lol well Ryan, Cantor and McCarthy were the future of the Republican Party — but only in the same way this Thai shrimp I'm eating is the future of my food.

never deny the succulence of Thai shrimp

that's a long swim

should Jack Smith just file in a different jurisdiction?

It's a criminal charge, has to be filed where the crime happened.

right, but he took the boxes from DC

If I steal a car in Missouri and stash it in Tennessee, it's a Missouri crime

But all the moving boxes around to keep them hidden stuff happened at Mara Lago

Biden also took stuff from DC. It’s what he did with it later thats different.

This is a truly remarkable bit of copy, from the widow of the man killed at Trump’s rally last weekend. pic.twitter.com/ZRLvRRz8OC

— SOTUS (@SteamboatUSA) July 15, 2024

…

“Devout Republican”

jesus christ.

eh if my mom got killed at a Trump rally I would gnaw off a pinkie before I took Trump's call

The rot is so deep

Begging pardon for posting something by center-right chin-stroker Walter Russell Mead from the Wall St. Journal. I'm not endorsing this so much as contemplating it. (Which I think is sort of his own position on it all.) From a conservative standpoint, it goes some way toward locating Trump in American political history, and explaining how the assassination attempt resonates on the right.

America’s Jacksonian Turn
The assassination attempt gives new power to an old political tendency.

Donald Trump was only glancingly wounded on Saturday, but the effects of the attack and of his courageous response will be profound. His chance of victory substantially increased, and the movement he represents will continue to be a powerful force in American policy regardless of November’s result.

Mr. Trump is part of a strain of American politics that Andrew Jackson brought to power in 1828. In domestic politics, Jacksonians are skeptical of big business, hate the political and social establishment, and demand “common sense” solutions to complex problems. They support the military but not an officer class seen as distant from the values and folkways of the nation — West Point stuffed shirts in the 19th century, “woke generals” today. They assume the political class is deeply and irreformably corrupt.

In foreign policy Jacksonians feel no need to spread democracy around the world. Instinctively realist, they view the United Nations and international law that would bind the U.S. with fear and contempt. Absent serious threats against America, Jacksonians have little interest in foreign affairs. But when the U.S. is attacked, they believe every measure is justified in its defense. Jacksonians don’t regret assaults on civilian targets during World War II, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Relentless warfare against terrorists is justified; most Jacksonians support Israel’s war in Gaza and believe the U.S. should respond to terror with the same vigor.

Sept. 11 was one of the moments in history, like Pearl Harbor, or the British attacks on Lexington and Concord in 1775, that ignited a Jacksonian firestorm across the U.S. and mobilized previously isolationist and almost pacifist Americans for war. Other such moments are the publication of the 1917 Zimmermann Telegram (in which Imperial Germany offered to help Mexico regain the territories lost in the Mexican-American War if it joined Germany’s side in World War I) and the destruction of the Maine in Havana (allegedly by Spain) in 1898.

What Jacksonians regard as the unsatisfactory outcomes of the “endless” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led them to sour on the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. That didn’t change their attitude toward international politics and the need for a strong defense. In recent years, China has replaced jihadist terror as the prime enemy, but new terror attacks in the U.S. could easily reignite the fires.

For most Democratic policymakers, the presence and power of Jacksonian America is a national liability and a political danger. At home, Jacksonian hatred of educated elites and contempt for their policy preferences is a potent source of opposition to Democratic cultural and social policies. Abroad, Jacksonians’ skepticism about international organizations and law, their resistance to global climate policy, and their indifference to ideological crusades threatens essential elements of what most Democratic policymakers believe are sensible policies required to save the world.

Jacksonian America likes strong leaders, even those like George Washington and the two Roosevelts who come from elite backgrounds and whose policy preferences don’t always align perfectly with Jacksonian ideas. Jacksonians are deeply skeptical of most politicians; Jacksonian faith and loyalty, once given, can be enduring. This gives Jacksonian leaders flexibility on policies; the base will often follow where they lead.

Saturday’s events made America more Jacksonian and gave Mr. Trump an unbreakable hold on Jacksonian America. On the one hand, the assassination attempt reinforced the sense that Jacksonian America is under siege. On the other, Mr. Trump’s fist-waving defiance and determination quieted any doubt about his personal courage. Attacks on him from the political and journalistic establishments will only boost his standing with his followers and inflame Jacksonian hatred of elites.

The more Jacksonian America becomes, the harder it is for Democrats to win elections and to govern. Team Biden sought to tamp down the Jacksonian fires, but the most important fact about American politics in 2024, even before Saturday, was that these efforts have fallen short.

Democrats hoped that the superior wisdom of elite-guided policies would generate results that would convince the peasants to lay down their pitchforks and torches. Bidenomics would make Americans feel more prosperous at home as an enlightened foreign policy—wise, focused on alliances—would make the world safe again. In that atmosphere, Team Biden hoped, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and promise of disruption would resonate with fewer voters and alarm more. The strategy was failing even before the debate. Bidenomics isn’t having the desired effect. Inflation and the high interest rates required to suppress it have infuriated voters, as have the administration’s controversial stands on immigration, gender, crime and climate change. The sense of growing international danger has made Mr. Trump’s attacks on the administration weakness resonate with worried voters who don’t see a world returning to stable normalcy.

The Butler, Pa., attack exposed another problem with the Biden strategy. Making Mr. Trump toxic has been the core theme of Democratic campaign rhetoric all year. Comparing him to Hitler and calling him a coward, a traitor and an existential threat to democracy have been Democratic talking points. This strategy boomeranged in spectacular fashion as, post-Butler, Democratic anti-Trump rhetoric looks like irresponsible demagoguery recklessly pushing the nation into crisis to serve President Biden’s political ambition.

After Butler, America has suddenly become a more Jacksonian nation. The shadow of Old Hickory looms larger than ever, and Donald Trump stands taller as his undisputed heir.

He sure is masturbating furiously.

The problem with Meade's analogy: Jackson won commanding majorities twice and won in 1824.

The popular vote, that is

not enough eyerolls in the world for that nonsense - wishful thinking at best

(not u, tipsy, ofc)

Well, yes. Read is a TrumpWorld fave.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/22/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-216493/

And absolutely Trump's no Jackson. But the politics he's describing are very much what I see around me. It's what Republicans are now.

lol Mead I mean.

(Also by saying Trump's no Jackson, I don't in any way mean to endorse Jackson, good grief.)

He sure could wear a cloak, though!

Inspired the best #1 Billboard hit of any president too.

Saturday’s events made America more Jacksonian and gave Mr. Trump an unbreakable hold on Jacksonian America.

Also true before he got shot. That's a lot of words to plumb the depths of the American reactionary mind as it has always existed, column inches don't fill themselves I suppose.

The tendencies have always been there — and obv he doesn't dwell on the white male supremacy of it all — but it's interesting how few presidents have ever really embodied them. I think he's right to include both Roosevelts on the list, e.g. But not Reagan, who was a Cold War globalist. That populist engine has switched parties a few times, but it's mostly helped elect elite establishment types.

Now the elite establishment types are all partying in Milwaukee and are totally cool with it all. As long as he wins. If he blows it, they'll go back to trying to sweep some of this under the rug.

I don't think Reagan's imperialism is incompatible or that much has changed in the mindset - American reactionaries are still fine with war and conquest, isolationist sentiments are more a recognition that we don't have the capacity to dominate in the same way. The UN and NATO won't just do our bidding, so fuck them.

Oh I'm not counting on these guys being anti-war. There's inherent violence in the whole mindset. Jacksonian means Jacksonian.

But Reagan was of a different stripe. Terrible! But this wasn't quite his shtick. He sold lovable, not tyrannical.