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

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

As with Bernie and the Squad going hard for Biden, I wonder if centrist dipshits like Ezra and Matty crying for anyone-but-Kamala is borne of an unconscious desire to make her more palatable to the left.

mark halperin (i know, i know) saying that biden won't endorse harris if/when he decides to step down

seems like Matty's writing like an early '80s Soviet apparatchik again

and Mark Halperin can endorse a dick.

I was just reading Harris' wikibio - I knew she was born in Oakland (!!) but didn't realize how cosmopolitan her upbringing was, she was all over the place in her youth, including Quebec

There was a local radio show about her parents' lefty activities here in the East Bay awhile ago, they ran around with a wild crew

halperins still around

xp andy very true! this is a good reminder that it's difficult to understand the actions of people who run for president or are adjacent to that world because they are all dealing with incredible personal issues

https://i.imgur.com/nsCwjG0.jpg

Just clicked on a New Yorker article about Trump as messiah figure and saw that it's written by Christopher Hitchens' daughter. Nice work if you can get it — but you can't, unless your parents were in the club.

the fucked up thing about his messiah / cyrus thing is that it fits what white evangelicals have been searching for signs of for their whole lives: the end, the rapture, apocalypse, punishment, rewards, fighting, action, love, peace. if trump ends up being really bad and evil, that means he's a false prophet or antichrist, and frankly, chandler from friends voice, could trump BE any more antichrist than he already is? he's so fucking evil he makes even me want to convert back to white evangelicalism again. on the other hand, i think of his glossolaliac buddies really do believe in him and think he's some sort of new chosen nu-testament figure. either way, it's apocalypse baby

the video of trump shouting "fight! fight!" was really chilling because it means one things to his paramilitary troll army and another to fundamentalist christians looking for signs of the rapture, matt 24 style

Eazy, it was the 2005 State of the Union. Shortly after the first Iraqi election. Republicans wanted to claim the W for spreading democracy with their stupid bloody war. Neener neener, liberals - give war a chance.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/2005/photoessay3/04.html

i think it has to be harris and it will go to her, but there are plenty of alternative community-driven systems to choosing a leader. for example,

mx. america
under this system, a new presidential candidate would be chosen via a series of ms america-style political contests, all onstage, on camera, evening shows with unknown faces and names, and the audience/judges just have to make a decision based on what happens that night. to start, each candidate would have to parade onto the stage, smile and wave. each candidate would also have a chance to display a talent or skill. finally, they'd have to answer exactly one difficult political question. each state would take 2 weeks to hold their events and choose a representative, and then the final mx. america competition would be 2 weeks later (in tribute to the 2-week break before the superbowl). whoever wins runs against trump. i don't know what kind of candidate would emerge from this process, but it would be way more representative of what people want than the current system, it would take 4 weeks total, and it would potentially usher in a new age of tv reality government that you'll have to see to believe

BREAKING: CNN reports that President Biden is in the 'contemplative stage' regarding his political future

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) July 18, 2024

nice

I'd vote for this lady.

VP: In recent days, they have been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. But here is the thing. If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word. pic.twitter.com/tJrVRdOagH

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2024

sources familiar with the matter say he appears to acknowledge he may be close to coming around to accepting the reality that though he has yet to make up his mind it is time to seriously weigh his options

— Eric Lach (@ericlach) July 18, 2024

BREAKING: CNN reports that President Biden is in the 'contemplative stage' regarding his political future

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) July 18, 2024

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, July 18, 2024 6:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

same

Welcome to the resistance, Joseph Robinette Biden

Eazy, it was the 2005 State of the Union.

Ugh, thanks!

I don't know who Eric Lach is but is he the Shams of politics?

He's a New Yorker writer and Twitter smartass

it was purple heart bandages at the 04 RNC. https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/30/gop.purple.hearts/

good times

Look, when you've lost West Virginia state legislator Kayla Young ...

It’s time. pic.twitter.com/KhqYNNrr6a

— Kayla Young (@kaylayoungforwv) July 18, 2024

Gotta listen to Young people

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4780762-biden-future-harris-running-mate/

They had to choose THAT photo, didn’t they?

lol PBKR I was just going to make a Shams joke

Every time I get home after being out for a couple of hours and find them still talking about Biden's intransigence, I'm amazed and appalled.

Supposedly, Trump's going to talk about how some higher being caused him to turn his head at just the right moment. I'd listen to the wording carefully, he may end up plagiarising Samuel Jackson's speech at the end of Pulp Fiction.

I guess a higher being also decided to kill a bystander.

"that firefighter died for all of us..."

He’s not going to mention anyone killed or wounded at that rally

Sources close to President Biden tell me tonight they’re *furious* that while the president is trying to recover from Covid in Rehoboth, a pressure campaign keeps picking up speed. Lots of anger toward some donors for talking of $ drying up if he doesn’t quit, toward what they…

— Robert Costa (@costareports) July 19, 2024

"Sources close to..." =Jill

Sometimes you just have to steal grandpa’s car keys.

ha what losers maybe try finding a fully functioning president if you care so much

Biden is starting to make the Nixon of August '74 look like a paragon of humility and clear thinking.

which.. he kinda was.. .delusional, antisemitic, but they didn't need a hook to pull him offstage

"You won't have Old Joe to kick around anymore..."