U.S. Politics, October 2024 -- “They smear because they fear”

Thank you, Raymond!

Here go, the final stretch

Important questions for tonight:

Does anything remain of the guy people were drawn to from “Hillbilly Elegy”? Does he have a core and if so, is it at all decent?

As for Walz, what qualities does he bring to the table other than being a guy Kamala Harris gets along with?

Do you support Israel’s attack on Hezbollah?
How can we best confront China?
How can the government make parenting easier?
Does industrial policy work?

Are we equipped to face a coordinated challenge from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang — and if not, will a Harris administration support a big increase in defense spending?

In 2018, I gathered some friends at my house to help JD think through his life options. This route wasn’t the one we recommended!

lol nice

If there’s a question about the Middle East, my prediction is that it’ll be dodged.

Does anything remain of the guy people were drawn to from “Hillbilly Elegy”?

Sure! He played that character before and he can play him again should he find it useful.

The real question is if/when Trump loses, who Vance will become next.

My guess is back to the "aw shucks, I'm just a simple backwater guy who got duped by that Trump guy" grifter.

From yet another NYT focus group on undecided voters:

https://i.imgur.com/bOD4sfo.jpg

So THAT'S why the UK had a war with Argentina

Honestly, I fear a *lot* of people like that guy in this election. Trying to stay hopeful and not dwell on it, but.

also not sure if that guy is actually undecided

Stop being a female overcome with emotion, Raymond!

when have men ever started a war?

We need the cold analytical mind of Trump

I think trump might be slightly squeamish about war, one of his only redeeming qualities

People keep trying to projecting that on to him but I don’t buy it

There are men, and then there are females.

Weird.

The female of the species, etc.

Any species, apparently.

WEIRRRRD

I think Trump may indeed be squeamish about war in exactly the same way that he may not be personally opposed to abortion: any personal preferences, real or perceived, can be put aside in favor of whatever he thinks might please his cult on any given day.

I think that's right, but nothing to linger on.

remember Hillary The Hawk?

Yeah, if you read about Trump's ill-fated 1999 presidential run, he was saying all kinds of thing about public healthcare and shit that he doesn't talk about now.. just looking for whatever got some claps in the crowd

tbf he's still promising the greatest healthcare we've ever seen, no one can believe it. You just have to elect one more time to get it, we're so close.

he's been blabbing about that for decades now.. from 1999

On the issues, Trump labeled himself "very conservative," but described his views on healthcare as "quite liberal" and "getting much more liberal", explaining "I believe in universal health care. I believe in whatever it takes to make people well and better. ... It's an entitlement to this country if we're going to have a great country."

tbf he's still promising the greatest healthcare we've ever seen,

Trump walks into the ward.

(points) "Euthanasia." (points) "Euthanasia." (points) "Definitely euthanasia."

Haha, listen to this... also from 1999:

As for the lack of a first lady, Trump said he could solve the issue "in 24 hours" by marrying his 29-year-old girlfriend, model Melania Knauss. In a later interview, Knauss said she would marry Trump under such notice. In the role, she said, "I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy. I would support him."

"Like Betty Ford, I will drink nail polish to keep sane."

Steamcrunk

She certainly was no Eleanor Roosevelt

I've seen this image a few times, and every time I do it looks like Vance has a little arm holding up his own sign:
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/_p4a1mDWO3GI-sD_oJpCf1Z-4EU=/0x0:4395x2472/1952x1098/media/img/mt/2024/09/GettyImages_2174537839/original.jpg

Btw, driving up to Wisconsin on Sunday I think I saw my first ever "Trump/Vance" sign.

Yeah the dearth of Trump/Vance signs (as opposed to ones just saying “Trump”) is quite noticeable.

Heh, I see plenty of both in my hood!

yeah i've seen em in tennessee and in georgia

some technical difficulties over at Rep. Nancy Mace's office pic.twitter.com/9LT7FvMT7x

— bryan metzger (@metzgov) September 30, 2024

lmao they are not sending their best, are they

She's anti-circumcision? Very progressive

Olivia Nuzzi taking Ryan Lizza to court

Nuzzi wrote in a court filing that in mid-August, Lizza “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation—a threat he has since carried out.”

...

Lizza hasn’t responded to the allegations in court, but he did provide a statement to CNN after being informed about the court action.

“I am saddened that my ex-fiancée would resort to making a series of false accusations against me as a way to divert attention from her own personal and professional failings. I emphatically deny these allegations and I will defend myself against them vigorously and successfully,” Lizza said.

What does baby gronk have to say

Oooof

(This can be applied to more than one thing)

Nuzzi in, uh, NOT rizzing up Lizza shocker, I guess

Nuzzi Nuzzling Fizzles Lizza Nuptials

Nuzzi Lizza Tizzy

this is a bit like suing the guy who snitched on you after you get arrested

The main reason that wing of the GOP dislikes Trump is over NATO and Ukraine.

she's an effective hater

citation needed

Aside from the moral failing inherent to aligning oneself with the monsters like Cheney and the ‘hundreds of Bush staffers’ types is that there appears to be no evidence it has any electoral impact. Hillary getting the entire military and foreign policy arm of Republicanism on her side sure made the difference in 2020.

Democrats cozy up to Cheneys not out of political expedience but because they’re sick freaks who like it.

cool

There's a pack of wild dogs actively eating my family and then another one of the dogs that's just over there using the bathroom on my belongings, and I'm pretty unthrilled about everything that's transpiring but yeah if pressed I guess I'd say that I hate that one dog a little less than the others

sick freaks who like it

no kink-shaming plz

Political parties love highlighting turncoats from the opposing party, whether its Tulsi or RFK or Cheeny or Zell Miller or Colin Powell or Lieberman or all the racist Democrats who became Republicans.

Whoa, Melania! We never knew ya

Melania Trump doubled down in her first public response to news of her passionate support for abortion rights, a position starkly at odds with that of her husband, Donald Trump, and the Republican party he leads.

“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” the former first lady said in a video released on Thursday. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does, ‘My body, my choice’ really mean?”

OK, good for her, but Melania is such a strange, politically and socially detached creature that it's hard to see what difference this makes to anyone or anything.

A support for abortion rights that was nowhere to be seen when Roe went down, but is now front and center because a book is out, and there is money to be made.

or it's some devious political calculation - "Honey, you be the pro-choice one, okay?" wouldn't surprise me at all

If the Cheneys are in to help beat Trump, so be it. That’s the result that matters.

There's a pack of wild dogs actively eating my family and then another one of the dogs that's just over there using the bathroom on my belongings

Liz Cheney's entirely political history indicates that she would eagerly eat your family but the slightly larger dog leading the pack isn't using proper table manners while doing so.

Nothing about this is about "liking" Liz Cheney. Donald Trump is the enemy. You attack the enemy with every weapon within reach. Most normal humans are never gonna hear about this event, just as most normal humans are never gonna hear about 99 percent of the attacks Harris and Walz level at Trump. But you keep blasting away and eventually everyone has heard something about how Donald Trump is a piece of shit who should not be president, and that moves enough votes that he loses. You guys are analyzing the spin angle on one pellet from a shotgun blast.

I highly doubt there's any strategy there, Trump backed himself into a corner with the abortion stuff, he knows it's a losing issue but every time he suggests he might be open to moderating his stance the Evangelicals go after him, obviously Trump himself doesn't give a shit either way, he's just saying whatever he thinks will get people to stop bothering him about it

I think the Melania thing is to provide some amount of cover to Trump on his most vulnerable issue. I'm sure there will be various interest groups circulating it through targeted social media etc., trying to reach those suburban wine moms — but independent of the Trump campaign to protect him from the pro-lifers.

f you look at the absolute incoherency of the people who are still “undecided” it makes some amount of sense. It’s off-putting to people who hate the Cheneys and the people who would be most attracted by it are already on board (fervent resistance “enemy of my enemy” types ie half the people I know on Facebook who follow politics) but I think the campaign is gunning for the pudding-brained “I can’t figure out what each candidate stands for despite them both shrieking their stances into microphones 24/7” as well by showing their bipartisanship.

― DJP, Thursday, October 3, 2024 2:02 PM (thirty-five minutes ago)

this is pretty compelling, thanks! I do think making this alliance is immoral (and more importantly maybe, a sign of things to come) and even giving her an ambassadorship would be grotesque, but I was genuinely curious about the tactical logic.

You guys are analyzing the spin angle on one pellet from a shotgun blast.

give me a break, this thread routinely spends hours discussing individual polls. You yourself constantly post stuff that no normal human will ever hear about

liz is out of office and a pariah to the majority of her party, so her ability to eat us is much impaired. thank goodness. her main power now is as a spoiler wannabe. it's fairly safe to let her do whatever she can in that role.

Trump is actively trying to whitewash his views on abortion because he knows it's killing him, he posted on truth social that he would veto a national abortion ban, which I absolutely do not believe for one second. So I think Melania's statement is just part of this whitewashing.

here's a campaign issue more salient to normal humans (gas prices, not ~foreign policy~): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/biden-says-us-discussing-possible-israeli-plans-to-attack-irans-oil-industry

The NY Times goes after Trump for not revealing his health records. (gift link)

Yes, there's bothsides bullshit in there. Still...

As a presidential candidate in 2015, Donald J. Trump declined to release his medical records, instead offering a four-paragraph letter from his personal doctor proclaiming that he would be “the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency.”

In 2020, when he was hospitalized with Covid and running for re-election, Mr. Trump’s doctors gave minimal information about his condition, which, it emerged later, was far more dire than their public descriptions let on.

In 2024, days before becoming the official Republican presidential nominee for the third time, he was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet, yet his campaign did not hold a briefing on his condition, release hospital records or make the emergency physicians who treated him available for interview.

Now, just over a month from an election that could make Mr. Trump, 78, the oldest person ever to serve as president (82 years, 7 months and 6 days when his term would end in January 2029), he is refusing to release even the most basic information about his health.

What does, ‘My body, my choice’ really mean?”

I really don't care, do u?

The NY Times goes after Trump for not revealing his health records. (gift link)

What does, ‘My body, my choice’ really mean?”

In what I'll take as a positive sign, I was walking a couple construction sites today and saw three different laborers wearing "Harris Walz" high-vis construction safety shirts.

Congrats to Melania for being there for the power, corruption and racism but not the abortion stuff.

here's an encouraging sign. wonder what specifically is driving this. could be so many things I guess

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/29/politics/kamala-harris-senior-voters-election-analysis/index.html

What does, ‘My body, my choice’ really mean?”

it means "for rich people only"

Made me laugh: CNN's Brianna Keilar pointing out that Trump is sensitive to the fact that his crowds have shrunk. That was the verb she chose, so I immediately thought of--yes--"shrinkage."

just heard some reporting about new voter registration trends, and it's leaning heavily towards young women, and young women of color in particular... all bodes well for Harris as far as enthusiasm

Whoa, Melania! We never knew ya

FLINO, former first lady in name only?

any focus on Trump's health is welcome. we still know nothing about his Saturday "night last minute check up" where he was rushed to Walter Reed, as you do.

That was the wildest, where he came out with the loose tie looking more like Rodney Dangerfield than ever?

Apologies if someone else has shared this

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/07/can-harris-stop-blue-collar-workers-from-defecting-to-donald-trump

Gah, remember when he made that "I'm OK!" video after catching covid that was clearly edited together from several takes to cut out clips of him coughing uncontrollably?! I can't believe this asshole is running for president again and/or not dead.

One thing re: Cheneys, if having them in the news was irrelevant, Trump wouldn't have to go out of his way to slam them as washed-up RINOs (which he has). If there wasn't anything to the strategy Trump could ignore it.

Trump never ignores any attack on him. It's like his #1 Rule of Life.

I don't recommend it but I watched a few minutes of this rally he's doing in a high school gym right now and it's kinda stunning how visibly bored everyone is. half the crowd is staring at their phones and two people right in front are trying not to fall asleep. these rallies can't be helping him.

Trump never ignores any attack on him. It's like his #1 Rule of Life.

As proved by the debate with Harris. Honestly, that's all she really has to do — keep talking shit about him with cameras rolling. He'll spend the entire last four weeks of the campaign in "nuh-UH!/I know you are but what am I?" mode.

this is good, more of this

A Colorado county clerk was sentenced to nine years in prison Thursday after spearheading a data breach scheme in the 2020 presidential election.

District Judge Matthew Barrett sparred with former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters during her sentencing for continuing to push discredited claims about rigged voting machines, and said she had not taken her job seriously.

He also said he believed she would do the same things she was found guilty of doing again.

“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” Barrett said to her, according to The Associated Press. “You are no hero. You abused your position, and you’re a charlatan.”

she was a My Pillow Guy pal

She claims she needs a magnetic mattress to be able to sleep. Good luck finding one of those in the slam.

Who wants to make the first “in a diner” joke?

https://www.stereogum.com/2282935/springsteen-endorses-harris-calls-trump-the-most-dangerous-candidate-for-president-in-my-lifetime/news/

Oh noes!

#New Pennsylvania Presidential Poll:

🔴 Trump 59%
🔵 Harris 41%

Trump Univ. (B+) 1,188 LV 10/3

— Daniel Aguilar (@daanielaaguilar) October 3, 2024

Holding out for what Prager U's definitive take myself...

what

Can I be anti-carceral-state but also kinda pro-isolating-her-from-society? It's a conundrum.

(Her being Tina Peters I mean.)

Restorative justice was made for dipshits like her, but it only works if you’re genuinely contrite.

I love how the judge makes that point, like, "Yeah, that's what I'd send you to if I thought it would make a difference. But it won't, so off to prison!"

Speaking of pick-me Trumpers

The Oklahoma State Department of Education under Ryan Walters has put out a bid to buy 55k Bibles for public schools. The description of the purchase order is almost word for word a description of the Trump Bible. Millions in school $$ going to Trump https://t.co/jRytBEzLQB pic.twitter.com/Xa4x3pleQX

— Blake Allen (@Blake_Allen13) October 4, 2024