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

Bernie working to move the Overton window is a great idea, so long as we have 2026 and 2028 elections.

― papal hotwife (milo z)

i know we love our narratives, and yeah it's easy to look at 2021 and say "beer hall putsch", but come on, is that really plausible? like is trump in 2025 really going to be more powerful than trump in 2017?

i mean going back to what i said in the trump thread, the issue isn't that trump is _strong_, it's that the democrats are _weak_, and bernie pushing for the democrats to commit more strongly to left-wing ideas is... i mean me personally, i think it's _necessary_ for the democrats to stand for _something_ besides "donald trump is bad". i mean if we're gonna do facile historical analogies, for 20 years america had a party that ran on the platform of "andrew jackson is bad" that didn't take a coherent stance on the, like, single most important or pressing thing in america. the jacksonian democrats had an unabashedly pro-slavery policy, and the whigs were like "um, uh... we can see both sides of the issue, really." which was and is a grossly inadequate response. the democrats _need to meaningfully stand for something_.

The possibilities of political violence that worry me most aren't so much at the national level — always possible, but logistically harder to pull off — as at local levels across the country and especially in red states. Under either a Biden or Trump presidency, I can imagine ongoing targeted harassment of disfavored local politicians and groups (like, Pride centers in Southern cities, media outlets, mosques, immigrant rights groups), from broken windows all the way up to shootings and bombs. The successful anti-abortion terrorism campaign — which had already limited access many places even before Dobbs — is one recent template, but of course you can also look back to the KKK and others.

The number of right-wing gun nuts and "tactical" bros out there itching for a chance to hurt people is considerable. Even if they never get their "Day of the Rope," I'll be surprised if they don't make themselves more of a presence.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra)

i've talked about this before and i'll keep talking about it. being a victim in a mass shooting is a _a very real consideration_ for me. the main thing that worried about me the shooting is that it's pride over here this weekend, and violence, well, often begets violence. the republicans stoke all this fearmongering about trans people, that we're an existential threat to america or something, and, well. there are a lot of trans people here, and there are also a lot of people with a lot of guns who are taking what the republicans are saying very seriously. queer people have already been targeted in mass shootings. and out here, pride is this weekend. queer people are going to be out in force.

i'm not interested in being a martyr. i'm not interested in dying for what i believe in. i'm interested in living for what i believe in. all i can say is that i'm gonna show up this weekend, i'm gonna be working a booth for my employer, and i'm gonna keep showing up. and we'll keep doing our best to keep each other safe. but yeah. a mass shooting against trans people in portland, i'd say that's a lot more likely than trump cancelling elections in 2026.

is trump in 2025 really going to be more powerful than trump in 2017?

Well, it gets back to something I was talking about upthread — Trump in '25 will be the same guy, but the political landscape is much different. The degree to which red states have rolled well into authoritarian territory already in the last eight years, and the degree to which federal courts have allowed them to do so, makes for a much friendlier environment to a national authoritarian push. Under Biden, the federal government has litigated against several of those efforts, sometimes with success, and in other cases has found workarounds to keep federal funding flowing to various programs even after Republican states have tried to cut it off.

Plus also obviously you have Project 2025, there's a real concerted vision now for moving the U.S. into full-on authoritarianism — which legs of which chairs need to be sawed off, which people need to be installed where, which bogus legal doctrines they're going to try to use. None of that existed in 2017 or if it did the people pushing it were random cranks kept to some degree in check by "the grownups" in the administration. Now the cranks are completely in charge of the party.

So yeah, Trump's not different, but the circumstances are.

All that said, I expect implementation of many of those would-be diktats to be chaotic and stupid and to engender pushback and blowback of all kinds. A lot of the people in charge of these things will be bozos, and their ideas are bad and unpopular. So that there will be some roadblocks on the path to their glorious Christian Nationalist future.

Well, it gets back to something I was talking about upthread — Trump in '25 will be the same guy, but the political landscape is much different. The degree to which red states have rolled well into authoritarian territory already in the last eight years, and the degree to which federal courts have allowed them to do so, makes for a much friendlier environment to a national authoritarian push. Under Biden, the federal government has litigated against several of those efforts, sometimes with success, and in other cases has found workarounds to keep federal funding flowing to various programs even after Republican states have tried to cut it off.

Plus also obviously you have Project 2025, there's a real concerted vision now for moving the U.S. into full-on authoritarianism — which legs of which chairs need to be sawed off, which people need to be installed where, which bogus legal doctrines they're going to try to use. None of that existed in 2017 or if it did the people pushing it were random cranks kept to some degree in check by "the grownups" in the administration. Now the cranks are completely in charge of the party.

So yeah, Trump's not different, but the circumstances are.

All of this completely ignores the fact that blue states have gotten a hell of a lot bluer in the last eight years — it started as resistance to Trump's first-term bullshit, but it flourished under Biden. I don't see New York or New Jersey or Massachusetts or California (you know, the states that drive the US economy) allowing themselves to be Alabama-ized in the coming years. I would expect resistance and pushback that's an exact mirror image of what assholes like Greg Abbott and Tate Reeves have pulled on Biden.

Yep, the blue states will push back, sure. But the overall US political environment is much more friendly to Trump now than it was in his first term, because the entire GOP apparatus down to state and local parties is much more enthusiastically authoritarian and Trump-oriented than it was in the first term. That revolution continued happening after he lost in 2020, and the convention this week is the absolute certification of that. Christian nationalism and authoritarianism have been present in the party for a long time, but they ARE the party now.

That doesn’t mean Trump will just be able to do whatever he wants. But he spent a lot of his term as a quasi-isolated figure even within his own administration. That is obviously not going to be true in round two. He will have lots of eager helpers both inside the administration and in Republican-controlled territories all over the country.

All that said, I expect implementation of many of those would-be diktats to be chaotic and stupid and to engender pushback and blowback of all kinds. A lot of the people in charge of these things will be bozos, and their ideas are bad and unpopular. So that there will be some roadblocks on the path to their glorious Christian Nationalist future.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra)

yeah, this is my experience here. ok, project 2025, sure. trump had all of the legal authority he needed in _2017_ to make america an authoritarian state. i mean my experience is that the trump administration sent people in unmarked cars to kidnap people of the streets of portland in 2020. and people started calling them out for it on twitter and then they denied it and then like a day later admitted it and then said "well we're sending DHS troops to restore order in portland" and then in portland we were like "uh nobody invited you" and then they said "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" and left. like this is not an effective authoritarian regime

have things changed in the last four years? yes. a number of state laws have passed making it illegal for me to pee. how on _earth_ do they expect to enforce that law? some states have set up hotlines to report cases of suspected gender affirming care, and those hotlines were immediately overrun by calls from dissidents practicing civil disobedience. great, trump can legally do anything he wants, but i mean... he already _has been_. this is some "the south will rise again" shit. like you rose again. you're in power. you control things. they control things _now_, i'd argue, because the democrats aren't effectively opposing anything they do. and people are saying, what, if trump becomes president, things are going to get _really_ bad? because they're going to change some policies to make it not illegal to do the stuff they're _already doing_ under biden?

maybe i'm wrong. overall, though, i do find it more likely that i'll be shot this weekend. and i don't find it terribly likely that i'll be shot this weekend.

That doesn’t mean Trump will just be able to do whatever he wants. But he spent a lot of his term as a quasi-isolated figure even within his own administration. That is obviously not going to be true in round two. He will have lots of eager helpers both inside the administration and in Republican-controlled territories all over the country.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra)

it's the republican-controlled areas. it's texas. it's florida. they're not _safe_ for trans people. like actually not safe. i got friends who live in texas and they got it much, much worse than me. anybody who can get out is getting out. people show up in portland from texas every week. refugees. nobody acknowledges it, nobody will say it, but they're refugees, they're desperate, they're homeless, they're out on the street. it's gotten a lot worse over the past four years. all of the things so many people are worried about happening if trump becomes president again, they're _already happening_ and it's frustrating because most people _don't_ recognize what's happening, don't recognize the extent of it. if in florida or texas or whatever they started putting trans people in camps, would the federal government act to stop them? because i don't believe they would.

would the _american people_, by and large, be ok with that? fuck no. fuck. no. if people were more informed about what's happening, what the republicans in republican-controlled areas are _doing_... when i tell people they're horrified. they can't imagine it happening. and that does worry me, i guess. but it doesn't worry me that much, because when i tell people what's happening, they _listen_ and they _believe me_. a lot of times, you know... people don't believe things because they can't imagine it being true. what's happening now... when people know what's happening, they believe it.

they control things _now_, i'd argue, because the democrats aren't effectively opposing anything they do. and people are saying, what, if trump becomes president, things are going to get _really_ bad?

I mean, deputizing federal troops to round up and deport 1 million immigrants a year would be a pretty big deal in and of itself! There are things he could have done or tried to do in his first term but he didn't do because he didn't know he could or he had people around him saying he couldn't. This will be a different and much more aggressive administration.

Now, can they actually DO a lot of this stuff? Just on a logistical basis, a lot of it will be hard even if they navigate or neuter the courts. (e.g. I think deporting 1 million people a year is a total Stephen Miller fantasy. But they can definitely fuck with a whole lot of people.) Plus also see above about how many of these people are opportunists and/or fools. They are not going to sweep in like some well-oiled efficient operation. And everything will remain subject to Trump's whims, too.

But this isn't going to be first-term Trump part 2. It will be different.

Again the schedule F plan to fire thousands of senior civil servants will devastate the economy of the community I work for and the lives of friends. And Trump tried to do it just as he was leaving office the last time

But hey, we need to dial down the rhetoric guys amirite

Electoral college odds - @FiveThirtyEight

Biden - 277 🏆 (Highest since 5/20)
Trump - 261 pic.twitter.com/DGYCtwpM53

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) July 16, 2024

One outlier poll from a day or 2 ago with Biden winning seems to have Biden close supporters thinking everything will work out . Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain re-tweeted this

uh, did anyone see that the Teamsters president gave a speech at the RNC last night?

i don't follow labor stuff super closely but i was under the impression that biden had been the most pro-labor president of my lifetime

seems this teamster guy hates the woke tho

he has a lot of members who support trump ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

was this shared already?

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-16-biden-opponents-six-days-get-him-out/

damn. you know what, i was having a good fucking year. i don't know how to pay attention to any of this and not ruin myself again. this whole country is like a lifetime movie if they were political thrillers, just horrible

i had to take the day off, even though i'm part-time and living off my credit card now and need the hours. but i can't function when the fascism is encroaching so quickly and obviously and you can tell that it's not going to be stopped. i've moved from the now-cliche "i can't believe this election is even close, given what trump is and what he represents" to fully expecting, or just knowing, that roughly half of the voting population desires a white evangelical christian false messiah.

^i know that's wildly emotional and i don't feel that way all the time. but the foreboding of this creates an almost physical reaction on me, and i'm sure it's true for others too. i think it's wonderful that biden seems to be tacking to the left (the aoc/sanders medical debt forgiveness stuff, stepping up on supreme court reform) but this is an emergency and it would be awesome if a YOUNG PERSON would take the lead and inspire people. i'd like the world to stfu about polls, in all directions, and just pick one of the MANY MILLIONS OF AMAZING AND INSPIRING PEOPLE UNDER THE AGE OF FORTY who are LITERALLY 81 QUADRILLION TIMES MORE PERSUASIVE AND INSPIRING THAN JOE BIDEN and tell me to vote for them

Adam Schiff on the boot-Biden bus. Dunno if that matters or if anything on that side matters at this point.

maybe a beginning?

Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News.

According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race.

In response, Biden said:

"If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem..."

What about Loseritis?

I'd be fine with him being behind in polls if his mental health were stronger.

little backlash going on here

The rogue Teamsters social media manager is a real one, holy shit pic.twitter.com/kIWyXK5UlZ

— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) July 17, 2024

I don’t expect anything to change Biden’s mind, or anyone who he’d listen to to tell him anything he doesn’t wanna hear. I do wonder if he understands that if he loses that will be the only thing anyone remembers about his entire career — he refused to step aside and handed the country to Trump. Maybe he just can’t conceive of that.

Or maybe he’s 81 and gives not one fuck what anyone will think in 10 years because he won’t be here.

not giving a fuck when you get older seems to be a common theme i see in seniors.

I'm in a coffee shop and an elderly guy's phone just rang. He put it on speaker. A woman asked "Where are you?" He says, "I'm at Starbucks." She asks "Why? I'm at the bistro." And he replies with some irritation, after a pause of confusion, that he wants his Starbucks first. My parents were both also this way in their early 80s: a bit irritated and defensive that what they say is not just respected and good enough.

I understand why Biden's mad, I feel like it's kind of a huge fucking miracle we came out of post-pandemic without having a huge fucking recession and he looks around and 75% of Americans think their groceries cost double what they used to and that we're in the middle of an immigrant-driven murder wave, it's gotta be incredibly frustrating

And he probably is correct to feel that if he hadn't had his worst night on the national stage at the debate, the race would still be more or less tied and nobody would even be talking about him dropping out

But it's also true that what happened happened and fair or not he's in the political situation he's in.

The other question that I feel like I have to wonder is -- what if Harris, Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, whoever, actually *don't want* to run? Maybe all of them think they'll be better off running in 2028. And you know what, I almost hope that's the case, because it means they are more optimistic than I am about how corrosive to the actual democratic mechanism a second Trump administration would be.

Good luck getting an honest answer out of any of those guys though. "Hey Kamala, do you want me to step aside so you can be the nominee?" "Oh no, Joe. You are the best. You're the only one who can win."

The other question that I feel like I have to wonder is -- what if Harris, Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, whoever, actually *don't want* to run?

Been wondering the same thing.

I think Harris is kind of done if she doesn't run this time. People aren't really going to want a reminder of the Biden admin after he loses big time.

xxpost "but i will if you wanted me to"

"I'll drop out if I found out perhaps you wanted me to. but only if you want me to."

"I'm ok, I think you've got it. but if you were thinking of dropping out, of course I'd support it."

"right, no i'm good. but you know, if you told me you wanted to run instead, you know, i might could be convinced"

"nah i think you are the best candidate. but...you know...if this was something that REALLY you didn't want to do and you wanted an out and you were just afraid to say so, you know...I'm here"

If I was Whitmer or Newsom I wouldn't want to run now. They haven't had nearly enough time to create an impression of themselves nationally, and interviews on Sunday morning talk shows don't count. They need to spend the next four years shining a spotlight on themselves, no matter who's president. And sadly, if they can set themselves up as forces of resistance to Republican evil, it'll be very helpful for brand-building.

At the RNC three different sets of event staff have come over to our section of the convention floor (fairly empty) to try to get us to move over to where I point in this video, to fill it out so it looks better on camera

Worth noting how empty the arena really is pic.twitter.com/mNsUIjmayi

— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 15, 2024

People aren't really going to want a reminder of the Biden admin after he loses big time

yeah, there never was a President Quayle

Actually, Dan Quayle is actually younger than Trump or Biden lol

fake news the convention is sold out but some people wore blue suits that look like seats

xp why stop there, so's bill clinton, a figure from an unimaginably distant past

RNC Convention has a thing for empty chairs.

We could definitely be nostalgic for the Biden term as a stopgap between four years of Trump and 40 years of President Vance.

I mean, deputizing federal troops to round up and deport 1 million immigrants a year would be a pretty big deal in and of itself! There are things he could have done or tried to do in his first term but he didn't do because he didn't know he could or he had people around him saying he couldn't. This will be a different and much more aggressive administration.

Now, can they actually DO a lot of this stuff? Just on a logistical basis, a lot of it will be hard even if they navigate or neuter the courts. (e.g. I think deporting 1 million people a year is a total Stephen Miller fantasy. But they can definitely fuck with a whole lot of people.) Plus also see above about how many of these people are opportunists and/or fools. They are not going to sweep in like some well-oiled efficient operation. And everything will remain subject to Trump's whims, too.

But this isn't going to be first-term Trump part 2. It will be different.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra)

it's gonna be different, for sure! and i don't know how it's gonna be different.

i'm just... idk, i'm reminiscing a lot about 2017. about how i felt then, about the things he said. he was going to build, like, a 10 foot wall across the entire united states border! he said that, like, over and over again, and it genuinely seemed like he was gonna do that. and of course he didn't do that, the idea was ridiculous. he made life a lot harder for a lot of people and he made america a lot worse. i remember thinking at the time, you know, he doesn't have to build a _wall_, you just have to make america so shitty that nobody wants to come here

i grossly underestimated how hard it would be to make america so shitty that people wouldn't want to come here

people come here because they _believe in america_, and... and! because that faith _isn't delusional_, unlike the republicans' faith in trump. they make great sacrifices, they work really hard, they go through great risk to get here, and life is still hard and sucks but life is _better_ in a lot of ways. in america, than it is wherever they came from. i mean any time i hear an immigrant answer why, that's what they say, and i figure they know what they're talking about.

to me, you know, america is a racist shithole filled with shithole racists and i mean. it is _better_. oregon fucking sucks, but it's better than indiana. life as an out trans woman is fucking awful, but it's better than gender dysphoria. i've spent so long hearing all of these capitalist shitlords talking about "continuous improvement" that the concept is ridiculous to me, the idea that things will get better forever and ever, but i mean, have i worked really hard to make my life better and succeeded? yes. do other people do the same? yes, all the time, and a lot of the time that means coming to america.

deporting 1 million immigrants, having a big round-up, it would suck. it would make a lot of people's life worse for no real reason other than malice. i think that's probably more possible than that fucking wall. he's really good at taking the lives of people who already have it pretty hard and making their lives harder.

and INS comes around and sends good people to prison and deports them and, you know, they fucking come back. because it's important to them. america is. why would anybody go to all that trouble just to be an _american_? i was assigned american at birth, and i don't really know. and i'm sure, i'm _sure_, there are a lot of AFABs who look at me and how much trouble i went to in order to be a _woman_ and are just like... why?

i mean we're different in a lot of ways. i don't really _understand_ what it's like to be them, to live that experience. transnational and transgender, they're very different things. the people he goes after, though, i mean, we're just fuckin' trying to exist here. we're just trying to live our lives. and they're going out of their way to make our lives harder and they don't _have to_. i mean "persistence" and "resilience" are buzzwords and it's fucking exhausting, it's fucking tiring to keep at it over and over again, but we're not going to stop trying to live our best lives until we're dead.

of course governments can do that. they can make it happen, systematically. it takes a lot of time, though. a lot of time and _lot of work_. and frankly, on a national level, republicans just haven't done the work. malediction alone just isn't going to get you very far.

fake news the convention is sold out but some people wore blue suits that look like seats

― rick beato meato manifesto (Neanderthal)

oh god! remember when trump tried to claim that he had the biggest turnout for his inaugaration ever, and it was a blatant, bald-faced lie, and everybody knew it, and he kept saying it? everything old is... older. i mean. eight fucking years older.

He also had someone take a sharpie to a hurricane map to cover up his fuck up

In line with politics as wrestling, is there any juice behind Vance as a plotting traitor storyline?

Well, Vance got his senate seat through Thiel's support, so if he's a traitor it's not in a way that's going to help us / the country.

Mark Cuban suggested this:

Part 1
Here is a contrary opinion on the emergence of Silicon Valley support for former President Trump. Which like all my opinions on here, probably won’t be popular.

It’s a bitcoin play.

Not because the former President is a far stronger proponent of crypto. That’s nice.…

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) July 17, 2024

If I was Whitmer or Newsom I wouldn't want to run now. They haven't had nearly enough time to create an impression of themselves nationally, and interviews on Sunday morning talk shows don't count. They need to spend the next four years shining a spotlight on themselves, no matter who's president. And sadly, if they can set themselves up as forces of resistance to Republican evil, it'll be very helpful for brand-building.

In line with politics as wrestling, is there any juice behind Vance as a plotting traitor storyline?

― Philip Nunez

nah that angle would be a flop in wrestling. like eazy says he'd struggle to sell a face turn, even if he did decide to suplex trump through a table on the inauguration. also, he couldn't do a face turn alone - he'd have to have allies, and at this point, you know... the last time i saw someone pull a stunt like that was, uh. what was that lady's name? her gay husband was a prominent republican and then she was like "lol just trolling" and started a liberal site. huffington! that's where huffpo came from, right? i mean that was pretty successful, i think. but it was the lady who ran the site. i don't know what happened to her gay husband, what happened to him.

I think part of the problem is that the internecine fights within the party keep them from choosing one person.

Also, I shall repeat this every time he is mentioned and I notice it, but Gavin Newsom is an evil sonofabitch with the charisma of a Gordon Gekko, and his ilk is repellent to most people who don't make a lot of money and/or aren't from California. Why he appeals to anyone is beyond my comprehension— he's like a sentient wad of cash covered in grease and cocaine additives

To me (observing as a Canadian) one of the biggest indicators of the Democrats’ addiction to losing is the fact they didn’t spend every second after winning the last election just grooming a superstar for the 2024 one

― It was on a accident (hardcore dilettante)

doing everything they can to avoid being accused of grooming lol

but yeah they not only have put no effort into developing their talent, they're like openly hostile to younger people. like there's _no_ sense of long-term strategy at all. it's something i think of as... boomers don't seem to have spent a lot of time planning for the existence of the world after their deaths. like i never got a sense that they wanted a better future for their children in any _meaningful_ sense. and i guess it kind of makes sense... growing up in the cold war, a lot of people got the idea that the world was going to end, you know, nuclear death or whatever, that they were the last generation. and now it's, i guess, the climate apocalypse. i mean i'm not immune. having kids makes a difference, of course, and i've never been able to have kids, but the idea of leaving a better world for future generations just seems so... i mean, fucking ludicrous.

Yet apparently, according to CNN’s blaring red white and blue RNC coverage, conservatives are excited by tonight’s speakers: Newt Gingrich, back from the dead! Matt Gaetz, forehead bigger than ever! Kimberly Guilfoyle, is there anyone who wants to hear from her?
Greg fucking Abbott. It’s not like the GOP is some storehouse of charisma.

I was legit trying to remember the other day if Gingrich had died at some point. I guess we'll see, huh.