US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

Won’t someone think of the precious traditions that were made up a few decades ago and are abandoned by the other party when it suits them.

"Some Democratic senators say that while they support the goal of passing legislation to protect abortion rights, they’re leery of doing anything that might actually accomplish that."

Pushback against a call for filibuster reform underscores how formally offering policy and plan specifics can do more harm than good to a candidate, giving fuel to feckless critics and enemies alike. At the rate we're going we're soon going to have a race where neither candidate does interviews, offers specifics, or maybe even bothers campaigning at all*. For sure the current Trump campaign seems to be an experiment to see how much traction a candidate can get with minimum effort or attention to detail.

*I concede I do not live in a place where either candidate *would* campaign, and it's to Kamala's credit that she is apparently making a real effort in WI, PA and GA, among other places, to woo voters, which is more than Trump can claim.

I'm not totally sure-- I think making bold proposals works with voters, even if the ideas are bad. Trump is doing well with his tariff pledge. Harris is at least making it look like she will fight for abortion rights.

It works with voters if you can make a credible case that you can actually turn those proposals into reality.

Bill Clinton's line about the potency of being strong-but-wrong is truer than ever.

Yeah, I dunno, I think most people are turned off by details, unfortunately, which are the equivalent of asking someone to eat their veggies. Like, his tariff "pledge," it's really just another magic wand wave, isn't it? It's almost like saying you're going to outlaw wildfires or make rainbows brighter or give everyone a puppy that poops gold. Just words devoid of real meaning or specifics, like Trump's infamous child care rant, where he (incoherently) claimed tariffs would bring in trillions.

I guess Harris gave a pretty comprehensive policy speech yesterday or so, and what happened? The papers buried it.

Dan Froomkin has some conclusions.

By contrast, Trump, by any normal standard, has lost it, mentally and emotionally. His speech – at rallies, and most noticeably at the debate – consists of rambling, apocalyptic, nonsensical, hate-filled rhetoric and lies.

He’s saying crazier and crazier things in order to get attention – which the media is giving him – but it’s hard to see that any of it is winning over more voters.

It would be nice if this were true.

i don't think it's a tossup at the moment, and i think she's solidly ahead, but i am skeptical of any conclusion that harris is running away with the election. there isn't any hard evidence supporting that.

washington primary was d+3.7, which if past trends hold, translates to a narrow electoral college and house win for dems.

*d+4

Counterpoint:

NEWSMAX: You don't believe these polls?

TRUMP FAN: No. Not at all.

NEWSMAX: Why not?

TRUMP FAN: Just these anecdotacal yard signs. Facebook. Local news sites in the comments. You just read them. pic.twitter.com/9cDH6dgPkO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024

(just posting anything from twitter feels gross, but it's the only social media that embeds here, right?)

Truth Social might work ok

When I sell my ILX shares I'm gonna get riiiiiiiiiiiiich.

i don't think it's a tossup at the moment, and i think she's solidly ahead, but i am skeptical of any conclusion that harris is running away with the election. there isn't any hard evidence supporting that.

― hott ogo (voodoo chili)

yes

Vibes?

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:a4pqq234yw7fqbddawjo7y35/bafkreiajz6ikwsvebo6d2pgqqmxbwo54rz7frhe677s23o53rfk4of7pdm@jpeg

Q Vibes

the newsmax guy makes it pretty clear that the vibes are different depending on where you look

if it's 60/40 then my vibe is still "terrified"

Dan Froomkin has some conclusions.

I'd love to believe that Froomkin is right. But he didn't win my confidence when he includes this as part of his argument:

The economy, which used to be considered a solid indicator of whether an incumbent would win or not, is booming. Inflation is dead. The stock market is at all-time highs.

The economy may be booming according to the statistics most favored by economists, but voters are not economists and the economy in the past two decades has been subjected to extreme volatility with multiple boom/bubble/bust distortions, not to mention a global pandemic. With so much instability, voters feel financially insecure regardless of their current financial situation.

Inflation has slowed considerably, but it takes time for the new price levels to become normalized in the public mind. The speed at which prices rose on some necessities has left bruises in the public psyche that haven't healed.

As for Wall Street booming, 2008 killed off any trust middle income voters had in the future reliability of their 401Ks.

None of this says Harris is losing or will lose, in part because she doesn't feel strongly tied in voters' minds to the Biden administration and occupies a sort of indeterminate ground that isn't incumbency. But in terms of whether she's running away with this election, that paragraph stood out to me as full of self-delusion.

if it's 60/40 then my vibe is still "terrified"

― c u (crüt),

Terror is too 2017.

What about terroir?

you could convince NY Times reporters that you stole their nose

”The White House thought Israel was ‘on board’ with a 3-week cease-fire plan in Lebanon."

best president of my lifetime™️

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-asylum-restrictions-us-mexico-border/

President Biden's administration is planning to soon issue a regulation to cement the sweeping asylum restrictions it enacted at the southern border over the summer, two U.S. officials told CBS News, describing changes that would make it far less likely for the strict rules to be lifted in the near future.

best president of my lifetime™️

this only works because they get graded on the curve

a dead men's curve iirc

I get that it's objectively true to an extent, but personally I don't go around saying "this is the best bout of diarrhea I've ever had"

Don’t kink shame

lol

If diarrhea got me health care and a relief check, gimme more of the runs, hon.

my anaconda don't want none

It's important to remember that for the mainstream media, Donald Trump is the protagonist of every election story, and everyone else is either his antagonist or a supporting character.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYe3nPpX0AAOoIH.jpg

Delightful.

i don't think it's a tossup at the moment, and i think she's solidly ahead, but i am skeptical of any conclusion that harris is running away with the election. there isn't any hard evidence supporting that.

― hott ogo (voodoo chili)

on the flipside what evidence is there that Trump can outperform the polls by the 2-3 points he needs? they've been underperforming consistently since 2016, especially in the last two years. they outsourced their entire GOTV operation to grifters who seem to be just pocketing most of the donor money. his rallies are poorly attended and everyone there looks visibly bored 30 minutes in. most downballot R candidates are completely underwater. he picked arguably the most hated VP candidate in political history. compare that to Kamala's campaign, which has more money than it knows what to do with, a robust field operation, voter enthsiasm levels comparable to 2008 Obama, she also draws a lot of people to her events. she also has the advantage of not looking and sounding like dogshit the way Trump does.

you could make the argument "of course Trump could outperform the polls, he did it twice already". that's true but you have keep in mind that 2016 was almost certainly unilaterally decided by James Comey. it happened 10 days before the election, meaning polls didn't really get much of a chance to catch up (and the latest ones did show the race getting a lot closer). also her campaign made a ton of mistakes that Kamala is not; again, the fact that they never did a single event in Wisconsin just seems insane in retrospect.

the fact that he overperformed in 2020 does scare me, but I do think that may have to do with us being at a peak culture war moment - both with Covid lockdowns & masking regulations and the George Floyd civil unrest, I hate to say it but I think the riots and footage of stores burning down really did help Trump, I mean that stuff does look pretty bad to uninformed/unengaged folks and if Republicans have any message it's that this stuff is all the Democrats' fault. also Trump was the incumbent, so he no longer had the disadvantage of having no experience - plus, it was before the insurrection & felony conviction, and with Barr successfully burying all the Russia stuff the "witch hunt" narrative actually did have some creedence amongst dumb people.

anyway, not gonna claim it's in the bag, I think Harris will win but it'll be uncomfortably close, but I do think there's a good chance she just runs away with it and we all go "well yeah, Trump ran one of the worst campaigns in history, of course he got crushed"

Or we'll be reading about Trump's genius strategy of going on a bunch of podcasts.

Tha Rupar dude just posted clips of Trump in Michigan and he sounds terrrrrrible.

you're not lying

I know Trump doesn't drink, but if you didn't know better you'd think he's drunk today pic.twitter.com/Lr08AH0xFA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2024

One thing to think about is that loads of people have already voted. Inasmuch as Harris is, at present, a little bit ahead in consequential ways, this is a good thing.

We've had months of wacky shit happening. Right now Harris/Walz haven't had a serious setback, but it's possible that one or more could occur. So it's better that people lock in their votes while the mojo and vibes are still positive, approval-wise.

xp No respect, no respect

One thing to think about is that loads of people have already voted.

Only a few states have sent out absentee ballots so far. I'm supposed to get mine October 11 or shortly thereafter.

are those giant rolls of paper behind him?

trump is amped on amphetamines, the silver spoon pill!

xpost I think it's a big backdrop that just says "looooooooooooooooser."

idgi. he doesn't sound any drunker than he normally does. to me he sounded much better there than in the debate w/ Harris, because of angry ranting about our collective doom, he's being more conversational. that's the normal free-association rambling he employs at these rallies.

his supporters listen to how dumb he sounds but "rich" he looks and pray, prosperity, trickle down upon me!

free-association rambling

Aka 'The Weave'... a lot of, like, English professors are just blown away by this, they've never seen anything like it

they should study him for sure.