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

xp I wondered!

Kamamentum!

Do people realize that a Harris-Shapiro victory would mean the First Gentleman, the VP, and the Second Lady are all Jewish? I sense insufficient excitement around this prospect. 3 out of 4!!!

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 18, 2024

Mexio's new lady president is Jewish too!

Shouldn’t we be celebrating that Vance’s wife is Hindu? Representation!

In terms of Harris' weakness, they're real and will be evident to some degree if she's the nominee. We're in a not-ideal situation and won't get an ideal candidate no matter what. The time and way to get the best ticket was an open primary, but that was foreclosed by Biden running, so here we are.

My biggest irritation with Biden defenders at this point is that they see all of this as something being done to him, rather than something he caused.

xp

lol a conservative friend texted me that there was no way anyone could call Vance racist because his wife is Indian. I was like, that's not how racism works ... (also, I've known some super-racist Indians!)

kid rock is introducing donald trump tonight. just so you don't miss it.

lol a conservative friend texted me that there was no way anyone could call Vance racist because his wife is Indian. I was like, that's not how racism works

to a lot of people, that IS how it works. i got into a horrible argument in the middle of the street with a neighbor a couple years ago in chicago because he kept shouting extremely offensive things about gay and queer people, including my partner at the time, and my window was open and i heard it so i went out and told him to stfu. one of his many explanations for his behavior was that his son was gay

A person who'd say that about Vance's wife knows nothing about aspects of Indian culture.

everybody's still influenced by the Eminem - Elton John SEE I'M NOT A HOMOPHOBE performance

ha Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to Biden using the exact tired-pitcher analogy I used way upthread (also dragging in poor Pedro Martinez, just a knife in my BoSox-supporting heart):

But the crux of the letter is a four-paragraph metaphor comparing the president to the Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez, a Hall of Famer who was left on the mound for the eighth inning of Game Seven of the 2003 American League Championship Series despite being tired. Mr. Martínez allowed three runs, tying the game before the Yankees won with a walk-off home run in the 11th inning that denied the Red Sox a trip to the World Series, which they had not won in 85 years.

“There is no shame in taking a well-deserved bow to the overflowing appreciation of the crowd when your arm is tired out, and there is real danger for the team in ignoring the statistics,” Mr. Raskin writes. “Your situation is tricky because you are both our star pitcher and our manager. But in democracy, as you have shown us more than any prior president, you are not a manager acting all alone; you are the co-manager along with our great team and our great people. Caucus with the team, Mr. President. Hear them out. You will make the right decision.”

of course the dems don't have a good candidate, mutually exclusive terms and all that. in the current situation i'd even be grudgingly excited to vote for my arch nemesis mayor pete.

one of his many explanations for his behavior was that his son was gay

"... and he HATES you!"

gah kill me

man i stopped checking this thread a few weeks ago because everybody was doom and gloom over biden not dropping out.

i checked the headlines today and it seems that biden is going to drop out. so i click on this thread expecting to see hosannas to heaven, except instead i see everybody is doom and gloom over biden dropping out.

anyhow, carry on, as you were

Vance’s wife also clerked for Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts.

xp not me! I'm psyched, bring it KH

Looks like some on the Trump campaign have begun the pivot:

The GOP campaign recently declined to schedule a vice-presidential debate with Harris, saying they don't know who "her running mate" is yet.

"We don't know who the Democrat nominee for Vice President is going to be, so we can't lock in a date before their convention," former President Donald Trump's senior campaign advisor Brian Hughes said in a statement on July 17.

"To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate," Hughes added.

He referred to the Democratic National Convention, set to take place in Chicago from August 19 to 22. Biden and Harris are the presumptive Democratic nominees.

Lagoon, Harris as a candidate in a busy primary field was relatively unknown and not surrounded by a huge support team.

As VP, chosen successor and nominee, she would, presumably, be backed by the muscle and resources of the Biden campaign, plus the national party apparatus. That would include all the training and prep and spinners and spokespeople and such.

Beshear is worth picking just to debate Vance. His state is actual Appalachia. (Though Shapiro would give the same advantage there I guess.)

Look I’m just going to be excited by somebody who is not going to die soon. So what if she says weird stuff sometimes, the guy she’ll be running against is 24/7 weirdness.

Lagoon, Harris as a candidate in a busy primary field was relatively unknown and not surrounded by a huge support team.

As VP, chosen successor and nominee, she would, presumably, be backed by the muscle and resources of the Biden campaign, plus the national party apparatus. That would include all the training and prep and spinners and spokespeople and such.

― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, July 18, 2024 4:24 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thats nice

That Harris article with the "fweedom" anecdote has me spooked. Reminds me of Eric Adams.

Harris's weird shit like fweedom and listening to Tupac in college (circa 1984) reminds me of Hillary's bottle of hot sauce, a liberal lizard person trying to be relatable (where Adams is more like a prosperity gospel megachurch pastor trying to be relatable). Off-putting but not the thing that lost 2016 so whatever.

Her past sucks, her politics suck (as Senator she was showing early signs of being willing to make accommodations with the leftish wing of the party at least), she has a strange affect half the time... but like, her entire brain works so I'm even willing to promise god I'll cast my meaningless vote for her in November if it puts Joe to pasture.

Doug Emhoff, proud Einstürzende Neubauten fan.

Kamala's stepdaughter was raising money for Gaza relief so by default she becomes the best first child in memory.

If we get Harris elected we can immediately hate her, it's fine.

Imagine you injure your ear this week and have to wear a bandage and now everyone thinks you’re the kind of Trump voter who would wear a bandage on your ear because he did.

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) July 18, 2024

LOL

I have some questions about that bandage. As in, y'know, is it legitimate, and did an actual doctor dress it, and is it perhaps being played up a little (or a lot) more than necessary? I had a cat literally tear clean through the cartilage in my ear once and even that only necessitated a band-aid.

Speaking of: political reporters are such easy makes.

There have been many moments since Trump first entered the presidential conversation in 2015 that political observers have predicted a pivot in his fundamentally bombastic political persona — after his election in 2016, after his first speech to Congress in 2017, or at points during the Covid pandemic. And at this particular juncture, Republicans would seem to have a vested interest in projecting Trump as a more reflective, subdued version of himself, after his polarizing rhetoric during his presidency turned off many swing voters.

But GOP allies, in roughly a dozen interviews, used words like “emotional” and “serene” — even “spiritual” — to describe Trump in the days since the attempt on his life. A person close to the former president’s family described him taking on “humility, in the biblical sense.” In moment after moment at the Republican National Convention this week, Trump’s usual resting face — a scowl with squinted eyes — was replaced by a more subtle expression. One Republican who spoke with Trump, granted anonymity to describe private discussions, said he seemed “existential.”

A question remains of whether Trump’s personal response to his near-death experience will last — and if his calls for national unity will mark any real, enduring shift within the GOP.

Nothing will help you finally become presidential like an assassination attempt.

A question remains of whether Trump’s personal response to his near-death experience will last — and if his calls for national unity will mark any real, enduring shift within the GOP.

Who is asking this remaining question, and have they been formally declared braindead yet

McKinley was never more presidential.

I don't know if it was a consideration (or even a possibility) to try to get Biden to step aside today, hoping to crowd out Trump's speech, but besides being gimmicky, I have to believe that not yet having your opponent 100% clarified has to make it just a little bit awkard for Trump. (My guess is they'll just assume Harris and proceed from there.)

Speaking of: political reporters are such easy makes.

There have been many moments since Trump first entered the presidential conversation in 2015 that political observers have predicted a pivot in his fundamentally bombastic political persona — after his election in 2016, after his first speech to Congress in 2017, or at points during the Covid pandemic. And at this particular juncture, Republicans would seem to have a vested interest in projecting Trump as a more reflective, subdued version of himself, after his polarizing rhetoric during his presidency turned off many swing voters.

But GOP allies, in roughly a dozen interviews, used words like “emotional” and “serene” — even “spiritual” — to describe Trump in the days since the attempt on his life. A person close to the former president’s family described him taking on “humility, in the biblical sense.” In moment after moment at the Republican National Convention this week, Trump’s usual resting face — a scowl with squinted eyes — was replaced by a more subtle expression. One Republican who spoke with Trump, granted anonymity to describe private discussions, said he seemed “existential.”

A question remains of whether Trump’s personal response to his near-death experience will last — and if his calls for national unity will mark any real, enduring shift within the GOP.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 18, 2024 4:18 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzUKcXxbU4U

RE: the ear bandage, I'm sure they're aware that it superficially evokes (at least to an older generation) the revolutionary fife player with the head bandage

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/69415/69415-h/images/frontis.jpg

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/69415/69415-h/images/frontis.jpg

Reading some diehard ridin'-with-Biden Twitter accounts is pretty interesting. It's all an inside job, the "rich assholes" taking away "the people's choice." I get the framing, it's not too dissimilar from complaints of Sanders supporters 4 and 8 years ago, and maybe that's what it ultimately connects to. It's just weird for Biden to be the focus of that.

I have some questions about that bandage. As in, y'know, is it legitimate, and did an actual doctor dress it, and is it perhaps being played up a little (or a lot) more than necessary?

Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was Donald Trump's White House doctor, told The New York Times that "the bullet took a little bit off the top of his ear in an area that, just by nature, bleeds like crazy."

Jackson replaced the former president's ear dressing during a flight to the Republican convention on Sunday, the Times reported.

"The dressing's bulked up a bit because you need a bit of absorbent," he said. "You don't want to be walking around with bloody gauze on his ear."

re: "Imagine you injure your ear this week and have to wear a bandage and now everyone thinks you’re the kind of Trump voter who would wear a bandage on your ear because he did."

i imagine decorating my ear bandage with a drawing of tom cruise eating shit

I have to admit that if someone had narrowly missed blasting my head off a few days ago I'd be a gibbering wreck. Then again I'm not a psychopath, maybe they just take it all in their stride. Serious medication helps too, which probably explains the serenity.

unless something additional came out today, i think the news about the injury is that it's not certain that it was from a bullet. initial reports included suggestions that he was hit by glass (from the teleprompters, was an early thought), and the only person who has confirmed what the injury is was trump himself, who said later that he'd been hit by a bullet. but 1) he's a fucking liar and 2) how would he know? he just knows his ear suddenly hurt badly. i don't think there's been any official news on what actually hit him, other than reporting based on what trump himself guessed at in the immediate aftermath. snopes.com did some sleuthing on the teleprompter part (and found the teleprompters were intact after the shooting). but anyway, they're being really weird about not releasing any confirmed info on what happened.

conspiracy theory bullshit:

i think the most obvious answer for why they haven't released information is they're incompetent and just don't care about releasing accurate info to the public, but some 11th dimension shit is maybe they want to leave some obvious things unanswered that so conspiracy theory minded people can distract themselves with total BS for the next few months instead of paying attention to important things. i know multiple people who are suspicious that it was an inside job, that trump cut himself with a razor, etc. i think the obvious answer to that is that ...why would you do an incredibly risky thing like fake an assassination on yourself or deploy fake blood when there millions of cameras on you from every angle, especially when trump was already seen as the frontrunner and the biden campaign was hanging itself with its own rope?

I don't much like Ezra Klein but he's as insider-y as it gets, I suppose:

Where things stand:

1. Top Dems who believed even a week ago Biden would stay now believe he’ll go.

2. House and Senate Dems have lost faith in his ability to win and there’s no way to win them back. His calls and interviews have hurt him badly. Confirmed debate wasn't a…

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) July 18, 2024

Maybe it actually was a mosquito, he said it sounded like one

xpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJUTZQ38hEA

9. Democratic Party is acting like an…actual party? Quite a thing to watch.

lol get em

xp to Z

Why would Nixon order a DNC break in when McGovern was essentially circling the drain? But he did it

It's rare that I think someone deserves a bullet in the face more than Donald Trump, but...

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:uwpwffxyhm3jcdaggliez4tz/bafkreidp64eirsbyrjmta6c7yj25vzslkwv7f2jtc6nqgqgogcw6radzn4@jpeg

The convention bandages reminded me of the purple fingertips, which I thought was at the 2004 Republican convention mocking Kerry, but googling isn't leading me anywhere.

xp it's not really Biden's choice who replaces him, is it?

A person who'd say that about Vance's wife knows nothing about aspects of Indian culture.

Jindal, Haley, and a whole bunch of dudes I used to work with two jobs ago back this up

kamala harris is running for AG, she is awful. newsom is a douche but seems particularly suited to the douchey job of junior fake governor of nothing

― akm, Thursday, May 6, 2010

14 years ago seems like 60 years ago now