US Politics, August 2024 -- "Unburdened By a Has-Been"

Hard seltzer: the drink for people who say the words ‘adult beverages’ out loud.

i'm fine with them doing a *trump's greatest racist hits* ad in all 50 states and having that be the major response. "is this the person you want in the white house?" that kind of thing.

i would love it if the Harris campaign sponsored a youtube channel of young people hearing Trump quotes for the first time. play them rally soundbites with headphones on and get their responses. that would be funny AND eye-opening. you know they never listen to Trump. why would they? everyone loves a good reaction video.

Scott, you should email that idea to the campaign!

conservative whites seem to believe in a one-drop rule for whiteness, ironically. One reason I don't speak to 99.9% of my paternal family is because of their disassociative relationship with their own heritage. They are 1/2 Mexican, but (mostly) look white (grandfather is of English lineage). I myself am almost 1/2 native american from my mother's side. At some point on FB my paternal uncle announced that I 'don't embrace my whiteness' which made me go, huh? I mean I look white. I'm a big anglophile. I eat grilled cheese sandwhiches. How much more white do you want me to act? But I grew up closer to my native family and am a registered tribal member. But apparently because I am 1/4 white I am, in their view, "completely white". These people are incapable of understanding or accepting mixed races. It utterly fucks with their view of the world. "why wouldn't you just BE white if you get to BE white?"

I think they did that in 2016 - ads with kids watching trump say awful shit. Not sure it had much of an impact.

Did the mayor of Philadelphia just announce Shapiro as the Dems' VP candidate? https://t.co/gbhiM75tWb

— Bradford Pearson (@BradfordPearson) August 2, 2024

Yeah, Clinton's campaign was all about pointing out how Trump is rude and crude and politically incorrect. But that's his appeal!

xp i actually announced it earlier today, before the mayor

so the Shapiro sexual harassment coverup that Daily Beast revealed yesterday is BS?

Sharpiro oppo research surfacing

Ellen Greenberg was “found” dead by her fiancé with 20 stab wounds. Shapiro sat on the case for 4 years, upheld the cause of death as suicide (originally ruled homicide), and punted due to a conflict of interest: his ties to the fiancé, whose family is close friends with Shapiro. https://t.co/kylNk1bRf5 pic.twitter.com/Wq3QJWu54W

— Ryan Andrews (@RyanAndrewsUTLA) August 2, 2024

Yes Josh Shapiro wrote this when he was in college but this is bad even for that age. When I was in college my bad takes were like free will is an illusion or whatever lol pic.twitter.com/m07BbQtyxP

— Ken Klippenstein 📎 (@kenklippenstein) August 2, 2024

I think they did that in 2016 - ads with kids watching trump say awful shit. Not sure it had much of an impact.

2016 is the dim and distant past in terms of politics. Trump's nonsense was not taken very seriously then. Now we we are post-COVID, post-Jan6 and post-RoeVWade.

Wait he was in the IDF??? pic.twitter.com/bhsn5lbwpX

— ettingermentum (@ettingermentum) August 2, 2024

Perhaps not actually in the IDF but Shapiro volunteered for some military program in Israel.

yeah, i wouldn't have kids listen to trump to point out how vulgar or rude he is. kids are vulgar and rude! thought it might be more along the lines of the "weird" campaign. gen z kids can be brutal. they would be laughing and be like "what is he even talking about? hannibal lector?". in that funny devastating way that kids have.

x-post

"Lecter"

i guess my dream is to have as many people as possible laughing at donald trump in public for being such an idiot.

my dream is to have him in jail and as broke as fuck and everyone aware of it, but ~stages~

yeah first things first.

my dream is to see him have his skin peeled off in public, his skull filled with piss, his internal organs ripped out and fed to pigs, and his skeleton scattered over a broad terrain

Pass the salt.

Dreams sometimes come true; a few of these likely will.

akm's option works for me

that part of game of thrones where the queen walks down the street naked? that might work...

you give him a choice. 10 years in solitary -vs- walk naked down the length of 5th avenue and everyone on the sidewalk gets a tomato.

xp i want him to know and feel the reality of the law, and the people to see it, feel it, know it.

there is real joy outside the law for sure. and even, within limits, against it. but to treat it as he has? let him get the wrath.

that other akm torture and its runoff? satisfying but corrupting imo

lawful evil handbook quotes are so fucking square

that's why he deserves a chaotic evil fate

disagree but yo i get it

YOU DON'T SAY, NYT! (i need 6 minutes for you tell me that? also, she wasn't the candidate for President in the 2020 election. she was running to BE the candidate and the DNC probably never would have let her be the candidate in the first place. A primary is a whole different thing than the actual Presidential campaign. mostly because of $$$. you have to do so many low rent humiliating things in a primary. so much fried food.)

Analysis

Kamala Harris is shaping up to be a different candidate from the one she was in the 2020 primary.

6 min read

I think it'll be sadder than his skin getting ripped off... his version of hell will be when people stop paying attention to him

A mopey Howard Hughes figure, slouching around the moldy ruins of Mar-a-Lagoo while Melania goes on yet another overseas trip with her young tennis instructor.. muttering to his valet about yet another run for the White House.. yelling at Fox hosts who no longer return his calls... etc.

my second place but vying for first

she was running to BE the candidate and the DNC probably never would have let her be the candidate in the first place

Huh? She was the preferred establishment candidate in the year leading up to primary voting.

I just heard a brief interview with the Republican mayor of Mesa AZ who's endorsing Harris for President.. he acknowledged that some people think he's a RINO for not supporting Trump, but said something to the effect of "As a lifelong Republican, I really hope we hit rock bottom this year."

I thought that AA-ish language was apt - Republicans are addicted to MAGA Trumpism even if they know it's not good for them or the party - the party is shrinking and becoming more desperate to hold on to what power they do have, but only a clean break with Trump-style populism will let them move forward - to what? I don't know... but their current agenda is seriously off-putting and 'weird'

yep that makes me think of the "American is an alcoholic drunk on racism" analogy - the country is in denial and has not yet started recovery

"America" not "American"

It seems like ridicule and dismissiveness are gonna be the tone going forward; there's an interview with Buttigieg in the Times that includes this question:

Have you read “Hillbilly Elegy”?
It’s one of those books that I own but haven’t read, just to be honest.

brutal

"Huh? She was the preferred establishment candidate in the year leading up to primary voting."

well i can't remember that far back! i just assumed the Dems would want to put all their money behind some drip like Amy Klobuchar.

It was kind of a mess as I recall - there wasn’t really a clear consensus candidate, was there?

can't believe twitter deleted the immortal "have you ever done acid?" post re: 2020 primary contender's (fake) answers

I kind of want to read hillbilly elegy. Who down for book club

e.g.

Klobuchar: yes (lying)
Yang: I'm microdosing rn
Harris: ur under arrest for reading this tweet

(xp to myself)

whenever i see amy klobuchar on television i think she's going to tell me to move my car because the buses are coming back from the field trip and she wants to make sure there is enough room for them in front and she would really appreciate it if i could wait for my child a mile away over by the utility shed.

"I kind of want to read hillbilly elegy. Who down for book club"

would you please just watch the damn movie already! why am i alone in my knowledge of just how horrible that movie is? i was traumatized way worse watching that movie than j.d. was growing up with his violent drug addict mother.

lol

xp i remember my boston mid-lib sister big-upping hillbilly elegy at the time, as truly we are born out of the real trials of kentucky 1930, but i was “uhh, nah.”

xps - the dem establishment may have hoped Harris would emerge as a strong 2020 candidate in the mold of Obama. she ticked a lot of the right boxes. but I don't recall there being any tailwinds from the establishment pushing her. they wanted to see her poll well and generate some excitement in Iowa, but Bernie, Warren, Klobuchar and Buttigeig crowded her out and left her no unoccupied place to perch. Somehow or other Iowans didn't warm to her. Shocking, I know.

Maybe I’ll watch it airplane over the shoulder style, where I see the visual but not the audio

no you have to hear glenn close and that horrible child actor. its 100% hilarity.

I just saw that book in a shopping cart with a broken printer and some cables