Are We Shocked Anymore?

[stevenkesslar]

4 hours ago, tassojunior said:

It's obvious only the pro-war John Bolton crowd is coming over to help their NeoLib brethren in the Democratic party. No decent people are welcome. And no, it's not just that you take your allies where you find them in an election; these NeoCons share the middle east pro-war, pro-genocide aspirations of their NeoLib buddies. The only good _____ is a dead ____. Where are the moderate or anti-war Republicans being welcomed in the Democratic Party? Anti-war Justin Amash isn't welcome. Anti-war Tulsi is practically expelled. Bernie's not jumping in the party (not that he'd be welcome). There isn't a single moderate welcome because they're not pro-war enough.

Now I'll return the kindness.  Did you just write that?  John Bolton? 

Are you maybe confusing John Bolton and John Kasich?  One spoke at the Democratic convention.  The other was nowhere in sight at either convention.  But if Bolton's messages have been popping up, it's on the Republican side.  Like Grenell.  Gays should love President Toxic like I do.  Because he still wants to blow the shit out of Iran, where there are an unusually high number of well hung Gay men.

I'll put Tulsi to the side.  But Bernie and Berniecrats were more than welcome at the DNC last week, as far as I can tell.  And it's telling that the RNC is making zero effort to lure in the progressive crowd who care about things like climate change and gun control.  Unless that whole McCloskey thing was a play for progressives who want to create a climate where it is righteous to point guns at Black people. 

I don't think we'll know about Millennials and Blacks until Election Day.  And we should be focused like hawks on these legal and administrative issues of how they actually cast their ballots.  But I don't worry that we don't have a slogan like "Get Clean For Gene" about Biden.  Because I think what excites (or disgusts) the progressive crowd is that they want to be one of the millions of nails in the coffin of Toxic Trump America.  I sure do.

Now let's talk about China.

I agree with you that the best attack on Biden would be to go after him as China Joe.  But as I said already, President Toxic can't do that.  He will do it, of course.  But it won't work.  Again, roll the tape of the kisses and hugs and compliments President Toxic gave Xi and Kuddly Kim.  Upload the picture of Steve Bannon hanging out on the yacht with Billionaire China Dude right before he got arrested.  And then give me a fucking break.  China Joe?  Give me a fucking break.

I think one of President Toxic's many fatal flaws is that he really meant it when he said he's not responsible.  He doesn't seem to understand that, especially as President Toxic, he is responsible for what he says and does.  So in 2016 he could throw bombs at Hillary about shit he never had to actually deal with, and couldn't be held accountable for.  He actually does not seem to get that this is not an option in 2020.  When he ignores reality and lies about what we all know he said or did, he just loses votes.  

In 2016 Hillary did better at the debates than Trump.  But one of her worst moments was NAFTA.  Trump crucified her, and made her the poster child of NAFTA.  She said something about how she wrote about that in her book.  Nail, meet chalkboard.  The sound could be heard all across factory towns in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.  Even though we missed it.  We were all focused on what a Bozo Trump was.  Again, he could get away with it because all he did in the 80's and 90's is talk about how it's okay for Whites to hate Blacks.

For people like Axelrod and Brownstein who want more economic policy meat from Biden, this will be a key moment at the debate.  Biden will need to show empathy for all those communities that are struggling, now worse than ever before. 

However he communicates it, here's the facts.  We gained 1 million factory jobs under Clinton.  We lost 5 million factory jobs under W., many of which went to China.  Once the free fall stopped by Summer 2009, Biden was in charge of the recovery efforts, which brought 1 million factory jobs back.  Now we have fewer factory jobs than when President Toxic was elected.  In some states, like Pennsylvania, we now have fewer factory jobs than during the darkest days of The Great Recession.  Does everyone see the pattern?  I want you to know I understand your pain, and I have a plan to focus like a laser beam on these struggling communities again.  I actually did that.  We created 1 million factory jobs, which I know wasn't enough.  But  President Toxic has completely failed to do it.  All he did is gave tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires like him.  We raised taxes on the rich so that people could have more affordable health care, and not have to worry about pre-existing conditions.  Give me a chance to improve on that and I will.  Not destroy it, like Trump wants to.

Something like that is what I hope Biden says.

If you want to talk warmongers, Iran is not the issue.  Biden has already said he wants back in on the nuclear deal, and the Paris deal on climate change.  President Toxic will attack him for being a radical peacenik and Marxist climate freak.  Maybe we'll actually get to "Jihad Joe" by the time this gets stupider, meaner, and more bigoted.  

If we're talking about warmongering for the next war, we should start seriously talking about China.  There's a version of Lichtman - historical determinism - that applies to this question.  It's called the Thucydides Trap.  History tells us it's more likely than not we'll go to war with China.  Then again, history told us it was more likely than not that we'd go to war with the Soviet Union.  We dodged that nuclear bomb, even though it might have been a close call.

I actually think that's one of the few silver linings in the cloud of COVID-19.  Everybody knows it came from China.  Everybody knows China covered it up at first.  Giving hugs to Italians and poorly manufactured ventilators to the world didn't exactly make up for that.  The polls show that people all over the world trust China less because of all this.  We can't do a thing about that right now, though.  Because they don't trust President Toxic, either.

I think the magic word is "containment".  A very smart group of people probably would not agree what containment with the Soviet Union was.  Even though they'd agree it worked.  So we'll have to figure this out as we go, just like we did before.

Like you, I don't want warmongers leading that discussion.  I want someone clever, with a backbone.  I checked, and Indiana Jones isn't available.

I think in the Obama/Biden White House we now know that Biden was one of the ones who tended to say behind closed doors that we should just get the hell out.  We can't win.  So he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy into fighting wars he knows he can't win.  

I know, I know, I know.  Iraq.  I feel the same way.  All that is part of why I wanted Warren, and voted for Bernie.  But containment means never having to say you're dreaming in some alternative reality.  So somehow we're going to have to figure it out with Joe.  

I'll close with one more anecdote trashing a former Republican friend.  Believe it or not, I do edit myself.  Reading Stuart Stevens brought up lots and lots of conversations I've had over decades with Republicans.  So I picked a few in the post above.  Here's another one that is relevant to how warmongers like Bolton (or Cheney and Rumsfeld) actually get what they want.

The best explanation I ever heard of why W. was re-elected in 2004 came from a former Republican friend who I was having lunch with maybe about 2010.  And when I say "Republican friend" I should qualify that he voted for Obama in 2008 and as I recall was calling himself a Democrat back then.  That lasted until about Fall 2010, I think.  I guess old denials are hard to break, as Stevens might say.

I said at this lunch that I could easily get how he voted for W. as a compassionate conservative in 2000.  But why did you vote to re-elect him in 2004, by which time it should have been incredibly clear that Iraq was a disastrous mistake?

I'll never forget his answer:  "I think I just really wanted to believe that what W. was saying about the war was true."

I didn't have the vocabulary "permission structure" in my lexicon at that point.  But what he was saying is that W. said just enough to give him permission to vote for W.  Which is what he really wanted to do.  That's exactly what is happening this week at the RNC.

At the time this actually occurred, my attitude was kind of, "We're friends.  Let bygones be bygones." 

This is the same guy who in Spring 2017 complained to me about all this noise about Trump, who he'd voted for.  He wasn't supporting or defending President Toxic at that point.  He just was sick of the noise about him.  As I posted already, at the time I was polite, and the only question I asked was, "What did you expect when you voted for him?"

One of my escort buddies came up with a good nickname for this guy, or his behavior.  Mr. McGoo.  Because it's like he doesn't see or connect his steps, and the consequences of his own actions.  Or, as Stuart Stevens might say, he doesn't really want to think too hard about the likely consequences of his own voting decisions. Stevens himself didn't really want to think about the consequences of re-electing Bush by Gay-baiting.  Shucks.  We were at least trying to be our better angels.  

If we're talking warmonger, that's the real danger I see today.  I'm sure many who supported Hitler didn't really intend that whole thing about concentration camps.  Leni Reifenstahl, Director of the Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will, always defended her movie against claims that it paved the way for genocide with the willfully ignorant explanation that the movie never even explicitly mentioned or attacked Jews.

I think President Toxic is already paving the rhetorical groundwork for war with China.  As in, "China virus".  One of the reasons the Hitler analogy is a stretch is that Hitler was  very clear that he actually wanted Mein Kampf.  This is more like Mein Herr McGoo.  Like with COVID-19, President Toxic won't have a plan.  He won't think much about what he decided to do today, which will be very different than what he decides to do tomorrow.  General Kelly or Mattis, hardly peaceniks, would of course try to prevent the worst consequences of President Toxic's behavior.  But we all know what happened to them.  And it just makes sense.  President Toxic is way smarter than them, anyway.  And he's smarter than Bolton, too!

The final thing it takes to arrive at nuclear holocaust is willing Mr. McGoos in your base, who really want to believe what President Toxic is telling them is true.  About the China virus.  About how China Joe will hand the US to Xi on a silver platter.  About how China and secret Chinese labs did this to us on purpose, as Fox News reported and everybody who isn't lied to by the fake news knows.

I'm not predicting this will happen if President Toxic wins.  But I think it's far more likely that President Toxic would go this route than President Biden.  Biden will get to work on containment, I think.  I understand that "containment" with the Soviet Union in real terms meant things like the Vietnam War, and all kinds of proxy wars and assassinations, among other bad things.  So we have a huge number of challenges ahead of us.  And this could end very badly. 

I agree with you that we should be very sober.  And vigilant for warmongers.

Edited August 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

@stevenkesslar  It's hard to have a fair objective discussion of strategy when you intentionally don't mention glaring facts but try to be a cheerleader for one side rationalizing what facts are important and which to omit. "China Joe" is such a problem because the Bidens , on an official government trip as the VP, who was in charge of China policy, brought back $1.5 Billion from China  made out to the Biden's ("to invest") . That's not a minor thing nor something to think the other side won't mention (although the Trumps are hardly clean on that score). Then on Jan. 31 when Dummy blocked travel from China, Biden and half the Dems went out with a message that it was simply Trump's racism, nothing else. Then Biden immediately makes all those speeches, "Give me a break; China is our friend." Yes, the Republicans are stupid and 45 is the lowest of the IQ's. But you really think that won't be a factor and isn't a fact worth mentioning?  https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/may/22/hunter-biden-and-china-sorting-through-murky-busin/. ( a pro-Democratic site). 

In truth, like many political families, if not most, the Bidens have a long history of getting "favors" in jobs and consulting from Bank of America/MBNA, who Biden got bankruptcy laws toughened for, from the government of Ukraine who got US taxpayer money from Biden and then "employed" his son (who never was in Ukraine), and finally, from China. Although the Bidens, with the brother holding the loot usually, were very good at it, and technically it was 100% "legal" in America (to our shame), don't just dismiss it as never having happened. Playing ostrich is usually a bad strategy. If it were me, I would make a speech on government corruption and admit and apologize that I might have benefited or appeared to from this and come out for a very strict ethics code for all government workers no matter how high an elected or appointed official. Ordinary people in both parties and no party are sick and tired of government corruption and eager for someone to take it on head first. A huge part of the appeal of the Bernie/Tulsi/Yang reformers besides the anti-war positions. 

But to continually say it's just a smear, a conspiracy theory, or like you, ignore that it's an issue, is a terrible tactic that just loses points when it can be used to gain points. 

I detest seeing Trump back in another 4 years but I have every confidence in the stupidity of the corporate Dems to blow this election again. 

Edited August 27, 2020 by tassojunior

[stevenkesslar]

As part of my daily intellectual masturbation, I thought it would be interesting to follow up on some things about Nick Sandmann.  And just to be clear, Nick is a man now, not a child.  And I mean intellectual masturbation about legal and political issues, not real masturbation.  Frankly, Nick is just not my kind of guy.  Nor are his pals, as you can see below.  And please, Nick.  Don't take that as being cancelled.  

Mostly my feeling about this is all's well that ends well.  Nick made an important point about leaping to conclusions, got a bunch of money, a college scholarship, and he's pals with Donald Trump. Jr.  Hell, 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

This has pretty much nothing to do with this thread.  But I can connect it to what's above this way.  Reading this stuff about Northern Kentucky just reinforces my feelings about Orange County and the suburbs.  If Democrats, and progressives, are going to grow, we have to grow somewhere.  I get that small town and rural Michigan is not the same as small town and rural Kentucky.  But nothing I read about Nick, his beliefs, his lawyer, or his part of the USA suggests that Democrats should be thinking much about Kentucky as the center of a new national Democratic majority.  I know, of course, that they did just elect a Democratic Governor. That actually is what I hope Democrats do in the South, for now:  build a bench of people like Gov. Andy Beshear and Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

I think we should smile or smirk, send Nick on his way, and wish him luck - but not too much - in his passionate crusade to cancel women's right to choose.  And, of course, to call out the mainstream media's anti-Catholic bias.  Most Catholic priests I know are Gay.  So I suppose you could say in a weird way Nick is actually speaking up for few Gay people who are still forced to hide in the closet.

Speaking of the media and their anti-Catholic, anti-conservative, and anti-Trump bias, according to Nick, this all was a bit of a surprise to me:

Federal judge reinstates libel lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic teen against Washington Post

That's an article from last Fall.  As most of you probably know, WaPo and CNN settled.  I knew that, so I assumed they must have thought there was a case here that they could lose.  Or at least one that could publicly embarrass them were it to go to trial.  If they called Nick something like a "little Mussolini" or said he should "off himself", like the guy who went after Chick Fil A ineptly said social media trolls were telling him to do, that would sound really bad.

So the facts I didn't know is that there were 33 specific statements WaPo made that were potentially defamatory, according to Nick's lawyer.  The judge first threw all 33 out as protected opinion.  Then he said he'd allow 3 of the 33 to go forward at least to discovery, to clarify what the statements meant.  None of the statements were about "little Mussolinis" or how Catholics or conservative kids suck, or anything like that.  They were about what was stated about Nick's motion in the moment relative to Nathan Phillips.  Like whether Sandmann "blocked" Phillips.

Nick of course won that argument in the battle of public opinion, based on clear facts.  The true assholes spouting anti-Gay, anti-Semitic, and anti-Trump slurs were the Black Hebrew Bozos.  I think it's fair to say that Nathan Phillips and Nick Sandmann now both qualify to be labelled professional protesters.  But they both have every right to do that.

WaPo already also won their argument in a court of law.  When the 33 claims of defamation were thrown out, it negated the idea that the Post was cancelling Nick because they have an anti-Catholic or anti-conservative agenda.  So this wasn't about somebody saying something like "the little Mussolini should off himself", which is in the ballpark of the worst real life examples of what's wrong with cancel culture.  The judge was willing to talk more about whether Sandmann "blocked" Phillips.

This is partly why I say Democrats should stay a million miles away from this legal cul de sac.  Maybe this is an editorial issue for WaPo to deal with.  Like when a reporter says 3 people were killed in the explosion and it was actually 4.  But whoever reported on this wasn't there when it happened, and was going off the same video everyone was.  This sounds like the kind of stupid "but is that really a dot over the i?" nonsense that a lot of US law ends up revolving around.  At least in the eyes of a non-lawyer like me.  The Post was smart to settle this after they made their point, stated in the article above, that they don't have a bias and they did not defame Nick. 

Nick said this incident changed his life in his talk this week.  He didn't say if it was changed for better or worse.  Nick having a college scholarship, a big trust fund, a national platform to pursue his desire to cancel women's right to choose, and a budding friendship with Don, Jr. doesn't make me feel like he was cancelled.  He's also now eligible to vote.  I'm guessing he'll be voting for Mitch McConnell, not Amy McGrath.  If that works really well, Nick can get the conservative judges he needs to cancel women's rights over their own body.  How cool would that be?

Forgive me for being a cynical bitch, but I also decided to seek information on this because I figured I'd probably learn that the lawyer involved had some political agenda.  Honestly, I expected to find out that the law firm behind this was a politically well-connected conservative law firm close to McConnell or other Republicans.

Todd McMurtry: The local lawyer, father and grill enthusiast who wants Rep. Thomas Massie's job

That's an article about Todd McMurty, Nick's lawyer.  Turns out he had a political agenda: running against the incumbent US Rep in the Republican primary.  

I get the sense that all of us are conservatives who despise the mainstream Marxist media and get a chub when we read about Republican heroes who take these Marxists on.  So I'm sure you'll all be very saddened to learn that Rep. Massie clobbered McMurty by like a 4-1 margin in Kentucky's Republican primary.  I'm not sure about this.  But from the very few articles I read it sounds like part of it may have been that Massie is actually more conservative than McMurty.  For example, as the article above points out, Massie was against the Coronavirus relief bills.  Then  again, McMurty went off about how “some cartel-looking dude is playing a video of some wild Mexican birthday party at full volume in an airport".  That's part of his argument about limiting migration more.  I guess that's better than using the incident as an argument for waving guns at Mexicans in airports.

All this suggests to me that Democrats in this part of Kentucky will lose every argument they make the second their lips start moving.  Why bother?

I was a big Amy McGrath fan in 2018, when she ran for and narrowly lost a nearby Kentucky House seat.  I'd love to see her take out Mitch McConnell.  The odds are very much stacked against her, just like they are for Sen. Doug Jones.  They both reek of a desire for moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise to get things done.  Stuart Stevens actually gave me a new reason to feel like this is a lost cause.  To paraphrase him, if Republicans keep rejecting Democrats (and RINO Republicans like Kasich) who are into moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise, you have to conclude at some point that's because Republicans are against moderation, bipartisanship, and compromise.  I'm there.  Why bother? 

Yeah, they finally dumped White Supremacist Steve King.  Only to be replaced somewhere else by the Q Anon whack job.  Frying pan, meet fire.

None of this makes a very rational argument for focusing on Orange County and the suburbs of Dallas or Houston or Phoenix or Atlanta or Chicago.  But we actually are winning there.  And part of the reason why is people like Lucy McBath and Lauren Underwood are actually winning there.  And they are winning based on what I would call "progressive" values, like gun control  and affordable health care.

I'd rather focus on helping suburban women like Lucy and Lauren win.  Let's just let Nick go about his business of cancelling women's right to choose.  And wish him luck.  But not too much.

And, Nick, if I may.  A word of advice.  I'd cancel your friendship with Don, Jr.  Like his Dad, he's a fair-weather friend.  He'll throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it becomes politically expedient.

Edited August 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

But to continually say it's just a smear, a conspiracy theory, or like you, ignore that it's an issue, is a terrible tactic that just loses points when it can be used to gain points. 

I detest seeing Trump back in another 4 years but I have every confidence in the stupidity of the corporate Dems to blow this election again. 

First, thanks.  You just taught me I'm psychic.  This is the second time I was typing a response to a post you made before you posted it.  See my post on China above.

Second:

Say It Ain't So, Joe

That's a link to the thread I started a year ago.  So I hardly dismiss the issue.

In context, that post above was basically an argument for Warren.  Since I'm psychic (or, if you prefer to believe, psycho) I'll tell you how Warren would have played out, if nominated.  First, she would have pivoted.  She's just the former Republican from Oklahoma, who wants to help Main Street.  Not some socialist.  And this is an election about corruption, which is what President Toxic stands for.  She kept signaling again and again she intended to make 2020 a referendum on corruption.

Of course, all that was before COVID-19.  Warren could make a great argument about any of the "c" words:  President Toxic's lack of competence dealing with COVID-19, his corruption, or his lack of character.  We agree that the corruption/nepotism argument is a difficult to impossible one for Biden to make.  Which is why it's better to let President Toxic make it, so everyone can say, "Really?  Really?  Give me a fucking break!"

I honestly believe that Lichtman is right and Biden, Warren, or Sanders would all have won in 2020, if nominated.  The difference might have been victory margin, electoral votes, and - most importantly  - Senate seat pick ups.  Sanders would have the wind blowing in his face in Florida (communism, socialism, Jews - even though Bernie is one) whereas Biden has it blowing at his back and pushing him ahead. 

Lichtman said in 2016 it should be a close call, and Trump should win.   But Hillary might win because Trump is just so awful.  One way you can read that is that even President Toxic could not fuck up where the fundamentals were driving the election. 

If you buy that, it's even more true today.  Team Toxic won't be able to fuck up their own defeat, which is what the fundamentals are calling for.  In fact, they'll help defeat along. 

To reinforce my point, here's Steven Bannon and Billionaire China Dude:

Can I just say it?  They make an adorable couple.

Now, you can take this one of two ways.

One, Steve Bannon is actually in bed with China's richest dudes.  He's a hypocrite.

I don't think that will fly.  The image of Bannon in bed with anyone is gonna be a bridge too far even for a whore like me, who is open-minded about who I'm in bed with.

Two, Steve Bannon and Billionaire China Dude are plotting to overthrow Communist China from a yacht off the East Coast.  When you think about it, that's better than China Joe handing us to Xi on a silver platter.  Right?

The more you think about it, the more this makes sense.

First, it worked super well when we tried it in Iraq.  So why not try it again?

Second, it worked even better when we tried it in Venezuela.  So why not try it again?

Third, Xi is a wimp compared to Saddam or that second rate Chavez wannabe.  One or two nuclear bombs will take him out quick.

Now, if any of what I'm saying makes sense to you, you belong on TV at the Republican National Convention.  You can sit right next to the McCloskeys while you explain this to America.  Although they did the whole gun thing super well.  So I might suggest bringing a nuclear bomb to wave.

For pretty much everybody other than the devoted base, I just don't see how they prosecute the China Joe argument given the criminal shit show they've created.

There's a good argument that corruption/nepotism will fuck up a Biden Presidency.  Either because Hunter or somebody does something new.  Or because the Sacred Toxic Remnant that Trump leaves behind decides to impeach Biden over it.  They'd need a House majority.  Good luck with that.  We'll deal with that when we get to it.  But I don't think it's likely.  

I'm not even sure why, but all the toxic is sticking to Trump.  Joe really is turning out to be Teflon Joe, at least so far.

Since I invoked her name, I'm more concerned about whether Elizabeth Warren - or one her proteges - will be Treasury Secretary.  If Biden gives it to someone like Geithner or Summers, that's a good time for progressives to break the glass and yell, "Corrupt hack!"

And this video isn't precisely about corruption or nepotism, but those things are sandwiched in.  I missed this particular Randy Rainbow parody when it first came out.  Speaking of being best, I think this is one of Randy's best.  When I watched it, my reaction was like when I hear the Trumps go off on corruption or nepotism.  I was just laughing my ass off.

I assume you've all seen Randy's videos already.

But while we're on the subject, let's just go for the Biden And The Beast double header.

This is also one of his best.  All the stuff about hypocrisy, corruption, nepotism, and even blowing up Iran is in this one.

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

Randy Rainbow made a LOT of very racist and transphobic shows and songs a few years back. He's trying to be "in fashion" again.  

 

On Biden, maybe the "cookie, what cookie?" routine worked for you. I found early that adults like humility and honesty and are very forgiving then. ..it gets points....at least a couple times. Bold face lies and even weak excuses infuriate people.....leave that to the other side. It's hard to ignore $1.5 Billion. That's a lot of money to a lot of people. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by tassojunior

[JKane]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

Randy Rainbow made a LOT of very racist and transphobic shows and songs a few years back. He's trying to be "in fashion" again.  

 

I saw that story too, though the examples in it didn't seem particularly bad.  I think that most liberals comfort and acceptance of trans people has evolved over the last 10 years, and that few of us would look great if the past was brought forward.  

Further, it's a comedian's job to be edgy, and to take today's most progressive standard and judge something made years ago against it... what's the point?  

Where Randy was (and many other liberals used to be) is still head and shoulders above where right-wingers are NOW, so by all means, let's flagellate *each other* for not being woke enough 5 or 10 years ago while *they* continue to do their damnedest to drag society backwards.  

 

 

[tassojunior]

2 hours ago, JKane said:

 

I saw that story too, though the examples in it didn't seem particularly bad.  I think that most liberals comfort and acceptance of trans people has evolved over the last 10 years, and that few of us would look great if the past was brought forward.  

Further, it's a comedian's job to be edgy, and to take today's most progressive standard and judge something made years ago against it... what's the point?  

Where Randy was (and many other liberals used to be) is still head and shoulders above where right-wingers are NOW, so by all means, let's flagellate *each other* for not being woke enough 5 or 10 years ago while *they* continue to do their damnedest to drag society backwards.  

 

 

There were just so many race jokes and the thing is they weren't very good jokes. So they didn't make me feel guilty for laughing, they just made me uncomfortable why someone tries so hard to make race jokes. It's the condescending attitude I guess. If they were at least funny they'd have that redeeming value. ......   my 2 cents

[stevenkesslar]

6 hours ago, tassojunior said:

Randy Rainbow made a LOT of very racist and transphobic shows and songs a few years back. He's trying to be "in fashion" again.  

 

I didn't know that.  So I Googled and there is this

Randy Rainbow ‘Deeply’ Apologizes for ‘Racist and Awful’ Old Tweets: ‘They Make Me Sick to My Stomach’

Given your prior posts, I'm assuming we agree this is not grounds for cancelling Randy, right?

6 hours ago, tassojunior said:

On Biden, maybe the "cookie, what cookie?" routine worked for you. I found early that adults like humility and honesty and are very forgiving then. ..it gets points....at least a couple times. Bold face lies and even weak excuses infuriate people.....leave that to the other side. It's hard to ignore $1.5 Billion. That's a lot of money to a lot of people. 

So I posted my long rant from a year ago saying the Hunter issue is a real problem - even if it is more a problem of perception than reality.  Meaning Hunter himself broke no laws, even if you assume what he did was sleazy and wrong.  And Joe certainly broke no laws because Hunter played off Joe's position.  

I'll say again, this is one of the reasons I would have gone with Elizabeth.  That said, Hunter at least quasi-apologized.  And Hunter's sins don't seem to be sticking to Joe, despite the best efforts of the asshole who did effectively brand Hillary as "Crooked Hillary".  Beyond that, perhaps just because I have no choice, I'm seeing more of Joe's strengths than I did a year ago.   On balance, I think he's playing this whole campaign well.  My expectations of him as a candidate were low.  So it's easy from him to beat my expectations.  And he is definitely beating my expectations.  

So what are you actually suggesting I do, if I don't want to fall for the "cookie, what cookie?" routine"  Vote for President Toxic?  Not vote at all?

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[stevenkesslar]

Here's Ron Brownstein hitting the ball out of the park again. 

The Flight 93 Convention

This is an excellent companion piece to Stuart Stevens' "It Was All A Lie."  Brownstein reinforces much of what Stevens is saying.  But he's coming at it from a completely different angle.  Stevens speaks from his perspective.  I think he believes that the Republican Party could be noble and good perhaps, if it were led by someone like a President Mitt Romney.  This article looks at it from the perspective of the Republicans that Stevens views as the dark side of his party.  And who at this point likely view Stevens and Romney and Kasich and that whole ilk as RINOs they won't miss.

As a caveat, Ivanka's speech tonight gave a hint of what a Trump Presidency could have looked like on Alternative Earth, if you assume that the priorities would have been very different:  Like if it was about child care, not The Wall.  And if the tone was like the one she used, rather than her Dad.  But President Toxic himself did a great job of putting the cherry on the icing on the cake they'd been baking all week.  About how nobody will be safe in Joe Biden's America.  So this is definitely going to be a Flight 93 Campaign,  The Sequel.

Quote

In 2012, on the morning after Obama’s convincing reelection victory, the talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh viscerally expressed the widespread conservative fear that the country had reached a demographic tipping point. “I went to bed last night thinking, We are outnumbered,” he lamented to his audience. “I went to bed last night thinking, We’ve lost the country. I don’t know how else you look at this.”

That panic helped fuel Trump’s unexpected triumph over a crowded field of competitors in the 2016 Republican primary. “Trump tapped into that,” says Pete Wehner, a former top adviser to Bush and now a vice president and senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. Many GOP voters picked Trump over more conventional choices because they believed “he was going to bring a pistol to a cultural knife fight and the others were not, that he’s a protector against this impending darkness, that he’s willing to use even unethical means to protect us,” Wehner told me.

There was endless debate after 2016 about how much of President Toxic's victory was more recent economic pain felt by people in factory towns, and how much of it was racism or "cultural anxiety" felt by White people for a very long time.  My answer was always "both/and". 

It seems like that's a good answer based on 2018 and 2020, so far.  We know some of the 2016 Trump voters voted Democratic in 2018, and handed the Democrats a House majority.  That also played out at the state level all over America.  And in 2020 primaries in places like Michigan I'm pretty sure Biden did well because he got the votes of some of the people that voted from Obama/Biden in 2008 and 2012 but flipped to President Toxic in 2020.  Stevens himself, and all the Lincoln Party crowd, are proving that they are not wedded to the concept of a Republican White Supremacist Party.   The idea instead repels them. 

Then there is this other group, which Rush Limbaugh certainly speaks to.   They are overwhelmingly but not exclusively White.  And they do clearly view this as a Flight 93 moral and cultural crusade.  Implied in that is that Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Blacks in general - or at least Black Lives Matter, Muslims - or at least Rep. Omar - are all as bad as ISIS.  Oh, and let's not forget that Marxist socialist Black woman who - can you believe it? - actually got elected to Congress?  We certainly heard these themes loud and clear from President Toxic tonight.  No one will be safe in Joe Biden's America. 

So I think we are heading into The Flight 93 Campaign, Take Two.  Or, as I'll explain below, it might best be called The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition.

It's hard for me to believe that President Toxic scored points with anyone that wasn't voting for him already tonight.  In fact, the goal now may simply be to get the base motivated to vote, even if it turns off everyone else.  That sounds so 2018.  Michael Steele, the former RNC head, said something like that on MSNBC tonight.  It was a good show, but it's unlikely to add to the base.  He thinks Republicans are looking at losing 4 to 7 Senate seats unless things change substantially.

There were two specific things that stuck with me.   The first was when President Toxic said that by calling out "racial, social, and economic injustice" at the DNC, Democrats disqualified themselves from power.  Because they are tearing down America.  Right after that line the camera happened to pan to the Cabinet members in the crowd, who were almost all old and very rich White men - guys like Mnuchin and Ross.  I remember the days when Democrats were called un-American because they burned flags. So I just found it interesting that calling out economic and racial injustice in 2020 would be labeled as tearing America down.  And that the label would be placed on us by very rich old White men.  That does say something to me about how these Republicans on the plane view their predicament.  

The other thing that was weird, which just about everybody on mainstream media labeled as this alternative world President Toxic wants us to believe is real, is all the fear mongering about  how unsafe we will be if the Biden Armageddon is allowed to happen.  Throwing all that into the metaphor of the Flight 93 Campaign makes it even more of a mind fuck.  Because in the real world which Trump didn't talk about, we really do have 10 % unemployment.  There really is a virus that is expected to kill 250,000 or more Americans by Election Day.  We have plenty of real scary things to make us want to run under the covers and hide.  So you could imagine that the virus is what's taking down the plane.  Or the loss of jobs and income is what's taking down the plane.  What's difficult for me to imagine, as a Democrat or liberal, is that somehow this whole Biden/Harris/Black thing is so scary and so horrible that that's what's worth bringing down the plane over.  The virus and 10 % unemployment and the recession?  We don't need to talk about that.

All of this would help explain why what Stevens sees as the dark side of his party does view this as life or death.  And as cited in the quotation above, if that is the end, unethical means are really not a problem.  It was all there painted in a beautiful picture on TV.  Even with fireworks.  So I get how the people on the plane don't look at the Trump family and see corruption or nepotism.  And if having it at The White House is a violation of the Hatch Act, who cares?  This is a life or death fight.

I'm not sure most Americans would agree with me about what I said above about racial or economic injustice.  Those do sound like progressive buzzwords.  But my guess is that people at the center who are less political or more moderate or both are going to see safety my way, not President Toxic's way.  They'll be more concerned about the virus and their jobs and income than about the suburbs being abolished by Blacks - who do of course live in suburbs already.  I'll be very curious to see whether this has any impact on Independents, who are tilted to Biden.  Maybe I'm kidding myself.  But if this is really a Flight 93 campaign again, that's only playing to a shrinking base.  I think it sets President Toxic up to lose, and maybe lose badly.

The rhetoric of Biden being a "job destroyer" is another gift.  That might be catnip to rich White Republican millionaires, or the gun-waving McCloskeys.  But it makes it very easy for Biden to win the argument at the debates, given that for 7.5 years of the Obama/Biden Administration there was steady job creation.  Even if you count the 6 months of job shredding from January to June 2009 against Biden, he still was a Job Creator Vice President.  President Toxic is now a Job Destroyer President.  He can blame it on COVID-19.  But the losses of jobs and income are being felt deeply all over America.  Like most of his arguments, he just doesn't think it through.  "Sleepy Joe" made it easy for Biden to outperform.  President Toxic has done it again, and defined this in a way that makes it easy for Biden to win the jobs debate.  

Quote

Alvin Tillery Jr., the director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, says such anxieties are likely to only intensify through the 2020s as white Americans continue to decline as a share of the overall population. “They are a minority party whose base is shrinking considerably when you project forward in the generations,” he told me. “If you dig deeper and look at the political psychology of their base, it’s driven to a large extent by this narrative of loss. It means that they are going to have a playbook that is cast narrower and narrower toward that white male base.”

What Tillery says there matches up with what Stevens is saying.  Stevens says in the future the real debate will be between Berniecrats and Biden Democrats.  The post-Trump Toxic Republican base will become smaller, and more bitter.  It's consistent with the idea that a substantial part of the Trump base is racist to the core, and won't be able to reconcile themselves to a different America.  Which is to say, America TODAY is too different for them.  These are the people who are presumably willing to bring the whole plane down.  While Trump didn't use the same metaphor, it's all consistent with the idea that Biden's America is a destination that is so horrible that a plane crash would almost be a better alternative.

All this also reinforces what I've felt for a year or two, as I've been shredding relationships with former Republican friends.  This is not politics as usual.  Politics as usual is basically about Democrats and Republicans somehow working together to ensure the plane gets to its destination, and everyone on board is safe.  Now we're in a situation where the Democrats, especially some or all of the Black passengers on  the plane, are actually terrorists.  So the job of the Toxic Trump Republicans, worst case, is to bring the whole thing down.  That's a scary idea.  It's not politics.  It's a moral crusade.  And it doesn't leave much room for compromise or unity.

Another scary idea is that this actually worked in 2016.  As I said above, we'd have to think of it as The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition.

There are three things that I think are very different than the 2016 version of the Flight 93 campaign.  And each of them was palpable watching the speech tonight.

First, President Toxic in now the incumbent.  So the splendor of The White House and the fireworks may have helped him create the picture he wanted.  Be it also means he is responsible for what is going on in President Toxic's America, as both Biden and Harris pointed out today.

Second, what's going on in President Toxic's America is not very good.  Pick any metric - like jobs or income or poverty or violence - by which Trump attacked the Obama/Biden record in 2016.  It's now a lot worse.  And then there's the racism.  Steele, the Black former RNC head, is saying the problem with President Toxic's approach to Black Lives Matter is that most Americans feel that it just inflames the situation.  That's a Republican talking.

Third, while Trump hammered themes about law and order and how Blacks were living in hell in 2016, the core of his campaign in 2016 was hope:  "Make America Great Again".  He was the business genius from reality TV who would win so much that people would beg him to stop, because we were winning too much.  There is no evidence that most Americans feel like winners today.  There is lots of evidence that Blacks feel like they are living in Hell - in large part because of President Toxic's failures and racism.

The theme of tonight was:  "No one will be safe in Biden's America."  That's not hope.  That's raw fear.  Which is why I say we're looking at The Flight 93 Campaign, Fear Edition.

On CNN's analysis tonight, Chris Cuomo cautioned that fear works.  He thinks this could be how President Toxic wins his second term.  He added that what's happening in Kenosha right now will help Trump in Wisconsin, not hurt him.  No one disagreed.

I agree with Cuomo about Kenosha.  Don Lemon, like Biden and Harris, is being increasingly emphatic about how peaceful protest about racial injustice is good, but rioting and looting are unacceptable and bad.  I'm pretty confident Biden/Harris will be able to sell a nuanced and positive vision of the future of race in America.  Unless Biden and Harris really screw up the message on race and peaceful protest, I actually disagree with Cuomo that fear works.  Here's why, quoting again from Brownstein's great article:

Quote

Geoffrey Kabaservice, the director of political studies at the libertarian Niskanen Center, told me that such fears of eclipse have a long history in conservative thinking. “There’s a very pessimistic strain about having lost the country that runs through all of conservative thought through the 20th century,” said Kabaservice, the author of Rule and Ruin, a history of moderate Republicans. During the 1980s, he noted, Ronald Reagan largely replaced that negativity with an optimistic vision of America as a “shining city on a hill.” George W. Bush, hoping to entice more Latino and Black voters into the GOP, initially echoed those themes while promising to govern as a “compassionate conservative” (though those sunny chords were steadily overshadowed by the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq, and increasing partisan polarization in Washington).

"Make America Great Again" is a message of hope.  President Toxic basically stole it from Ronald Reagan.  What he didn't steal so much was the deeper optimistic vision of America Reagan was a master at consistently painting.  The "shining city on the hill" usually involved immigrants coming to our shores to escape oppression or find opportunity.  That's the open borders and free trade vision of America Stuart Stevens believed in, which he thinks his party completely abandoned with Trump.  Toward the end of his Presidency, Reagan proudly noted in a speech that he always tried to win based on playing to people's highest hopes, rather than their worst fears.  As a Democrat and critic, I think that's more true than not.  H.W. had his thousand points of light.  W. had his compassionate conservatism.

If there's a Republican winner in my adult lifetime that was a fear monger, it's President Toxic.  But I'd still say 2016 was The Flight 93 Campaign, Hope Edition.  I think the people that gave him the benefit of the doubt on Election Day really were hoping that "Make America Great Again" meant their lives would get better.  One consistent theme of stories I kept reading about Trump supporters in 2017 and 2018 and 2019 is that even if the high paying factory jobs or coal jobs were not back, and the opioid addictions were still a big problem, Trump's supporters said at least now we have "hope".  I kept reading the word "hope" again and again and again.  It was clear that it gave people a way to support President Toxic, even if in many cases they couldn't point to clear results in their community.  And it's not like President Toxic completely abandoned the rhetoric of hope tonight.  He did say, if re-elected, America will be greater.

I have a strong feeling that President Toxic is backing his campaign into a corner that is built around fear, anger, racism, and also a lack of reason.  If Corbyn lost in the UK because Labor became "the nasty party", in the words of a Labor PM, I think President Toxic faces the same danger.  We'll learn soon from polls.  But most of what I heard tonight felt out of touch and over the top in COVID-19 Recession America.  To me, it felt like instead of offering America hope, President Toxic offered us denial.  And fear.  Lots and lots and lots of fear.

I've been thinking for a few months that it's possible that 2020 could be like 1980, with President Toxic playing the role of Carter.  If you just go by the economy, stupid, we're worse off than when Reagan won.  Hearing Michael Steele say Democrats could win 4 to 7 Senate seats didn't make me feel like I'm being foolish.

There's one other thing that reminded me of Reagan and 1980 tonight.  Joe Biden is no Ronald Reagan.  But when I say that I refer to the mythical Reagan we remember now.  Not the crazy conservative who many people thought was unelectable in 1980.  My point is that tonight President Toxic pulled a Jimmy Carter.  In fact, it was Carter on steroids.  However bad Reagan was during the 1980 campaign, Biden is going to destroy jobs, abolish the suburbs, cancel people, and make America unrecognizable.  All in one year, Sean Hannity says.  Meanwhile,  Biden didn't cite Trump by name last week.  And his humility and branded decency is his version of Reagan's "aw shucks" armor. 

President Toxic's fear mongering may work out as well for him as Carter's worked out with Reagan.  At least I hope!

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

So what are you actually suggesting I do, if I don't want to fall for the "cookie, what cookie?" routine"  Vote for President Toxic?  Not vote at all?

SK, we're discussing the election, polls, strategy, issues, etc. Not running a mini campaign on an escort discussion site. (You're in CA and I'm in DC so our votes count zero anyway). 

I'm saying as an issue corruption is an important one against Trump. Unfortunately this Dem ticket isn't a great one for that message. But I've seen campaigns like this where a Biden comes out strong for new anti-corruption laws and admits their own prior conduct could have appeared wrong. It totally reverses the actual history as a negative and gains points. It's a main weak spot of Trump.

American political corruption is much worse than other 1st world countries. Whoever is in power it's a big issue.

But unfortunately I have no doubt this campaign is too arrogant to turn the issue.

Edited August 28, 2020 by tassojunior

[Buddy2]

13 hours ago, tassojunior said:

Randy Rainbow made a LOT of very racist and transphobic shows and songs a few years back. He's trying to be "in fashion" again. 

Yes, he did. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Suckrates]

My take-away for the 4 Day RNC "Trump Show".......

Trump broke the law AGAIN, this time by violating the Hatch Act in the most Defiant, vulgar, obnoxious and ostentatious way .  What he did was "symbolically" thumb his nose, give us the finger and say "FUCK YOU AMERICA, I do what I want,  not what YOU want or what the LAW tells me to do....  I do things MY way"   

At the end of his exhausting 71minute ego trip, we were reminded with the continuous rhetoric that "Biden will destroy your America", however what we SAW was the destruction of America right there, all lined up in Grand couture, from Jared all the way down the food chain including Kimberly, Lara and Tiffany.....For me the only one that gets a pass is little 6'6" Baron. who did not look like a happy or willing participant. Our White House emblazoned and festooned with tacky Trump banners and frou-frou was an eerie foreboding. 

What we witnessed when Trump and Melania made there regal final " entree' " onto the sacred WH balcony was akin to a Royal event at Buckingham Palace...All that was missing were hand maidens and footmen...   He was not thinking of the American people...HE was thinking of DJT.   

Once you finished fact-checking the litany of LIES and misinformation from the Trump Shit Show,  you must get up and VOTE. THIS is now Trumps America but before the Royal family gets another 4 years to don crowns and tiaras, we must drain the GOP swamp..  Let's make The Emperor's new clothes an Orange jumpsuit and shackles....unless you All want to become his hand maidens and footmen ?  There is still plenty of room in prison for a few more corrupt and greedy Republicans !!!!

[stevenkesslar]

3 hours ago, Suckrates said:

What we witnessed when Trump and Melania made there regal final " entree' " onto the sacred WH balcony was akin to a Royal event at Buckingham Palace...All that was missing were hand maidens and footmen...   He was not thinking of the American people...HE was thinking of DJT.   

Yeah yeah yeah.

But seriously?

You're going to give us your take-away, and not comment on the fashion combination of lime green dress and red shoes?

Personally, I'm grateful to Melania for giving me something to like.  Since almost everything else either bored me, or annoyed the shit out of me.

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Suckrates]

23 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Yeah yeah yeah.

But seriously?

You're going to give us your take-away, and not comment on the fashion combination of lime green dress and red shoes?

Personally, I'm grateful to Melania for giving me something to like.  Since almost everything else either bored me, or annoyed the shit out of me.

FAKE NEWS.... As reported by the corrupt media, and if you were watching, the shoes were FUSCHIA, not Red and matched her belt.... Dress by Valentino, shoes and accessories by Loubatin...in excess of $5000.....   She certainly out-shone Frumpy Karen Pence.  If it were ME, I would have worn my hair UP, and looked truly Regal.  Fire her stylist !  

[Buddy2]

4 hours ago, Suckrates said:

My take-away for the 4 Day RNC "Trump Show".......

Trump broke the law AGAIN, this time by violating the Hatch Act in the most Defiant, vulgar, obnoxious and ostentatious way .  What he did was "symbolically" thumb his nose, give us the finger and say "FUCK YOU AMERICA, I do what I want,  not what YOU want or what the LAW tells me to do....  I do things MY way"   

At the end of his exhausting 71minute ego trip, we were reminded with the continuous rhetoric that "Biden will destroy your America", however what we SAW was the destruction of America right there, all lined up in Grand couture, from Jared all the way down the food chain including Kimberly, Lara and Tiffany.....For me the only one that gets a pass is little 6'6" Baron. who did not look like a happy or willing participant. Our White House emblazoned and festooned with tacky Trump banners and frou-frou was an eerie foreboding. 

What we witnessed when Trump and Melania made there regal final " entree' " onto the sacred WH balcony was akin to a Royal event at Buckingham Palace...All that was missing were hand maidens and footmen...   He was not thinking of the American people...HE was thinking of DJT.   

Once you finished fact-checking the litany of LIES and misinformation from the Trump Shit Show,  you must get up and VOTE. THIS is now Trumps America but before the Royal family gets another 4 years to don crowns and tiaras, we must drain the GOP swamp..  Let's make The Emperor's new clothes an Orange jumpsuit and shackles....unless you All want to become his hand maidens and footmen ?  There is still plenty of room in prison for a few more corrupt and greedy Republicans !!!!

There was a hand maiden, Ivanka Trump. And her husband, Jared is a bit of a hand maden as well.

[stevenkesslar]

9 hours ago, tassojunior said:

I'm saying as an issue corruption is an important one against Trump. Unfortunately this Dem ticket isn't a great one for that message. But I've seen campaigns like this where a Biden comes out strong for new anti-corruption laws and admits their own prior conduct could have appeared wrong. It totally reverses the actual history as a negative and gains points. It's a main weak spot of Trump.

American political corruption is much worse than other 1st world countries. Whoever is in power it's a big issue.

But unfortunately I have no doubt this campaign is too arrogant to turn the issue.

I agree.  If corruption is what we wanted to focus on, we should have nominated Elizabeth Warren.  I think she had the lock on the anti-corruption thing. 

It was nowhere near the # 1 reason I favored her.  But it was in the Top 5.  The fact that it didn't put her on top may or may not say something about the relative importance of this issue to Democrats.  It's certainly not the driver.  And whatever Democrats think about corruption, it didn't stop them from voting for Biden. 

Much like it didn't stop Republicans from voting for President Toxic.  The proof that some people can be fooled, or probably more correctly are invested in fooling themselves, is that Trump convinced them he would "drain the swamp".  And some of them will double down and vote for him because they think he's doing it.

Given where we are, I completely disagree with you about a Biden anti-corruption initiative.  First, why draw attention to something I see as a Biden weakness?  Why give Republicans a chance to say, "Really?  Is this a joke?"  Second, the time to do that would be after the election.  Frankly, though, I'm not sure that would be a good idea.  If you start with the idea that, best case scenario, Democrats can move ........... what?  2?  3? 4 major bills?  Like on ............ what?  economic recovery?  health care?  racial justice?  corruption?  Warren said (before COVID-19) the first thing she would do is pass an anti-corruption bill.  Again, it didn't get her the nomination.  And in the context of the multiple crises we are in, that feels to me like it is perhaps a luxury we can't afford.

I'll go back to what I said above.  If Biden appoints Geithner or Summers as Treasury Secretary rather than Warren or someone like her, that's the time to break the glass and rant about, "Same shit, different Presidency" I think. 

As you know, the devil is in the details on this one.  Thousands of decisions will be made about who gets Cabinet posts and top jobs.  Personnel is policy.  That is why Warren wanted to make it Priority # 1, of course.  And I was serious.  While very unlikely, I would not eliminate the idea that Hunter will just do the same shit again once his Dad is President.  So this will be one of the constant sources of tension and disappointment between the Left and Biden Democratworld - just like it was with Obama Democratworld. 

Biden is a product of DC political culture, no doubt.  So one thing this will not do is transform the swamp.  Then again, we're coming off a President Toxic who promised to drain the swamp, and instead deepened it.  As the whole nation saw last night.  Fuck the Hatch Act!  So just getting it back to "normal" is actually a sort of victory, I think.

As part of my daily intellectual masturbation exercises, I stumbled on this YouTube video of an interview of Jon Stewart by Chris Wallace back in 2011 this morning.  I think both of them are very thoughtful guys.  So I thought it would be interesting to watch, which it was.  There's a few things Stewart said that are relevant here. Although if you have time, watch the whole 25 minute interview.

Jon Stewart vs Chris Wallace, uncut - 2011.06.19

At 18:10 Stewart answers Wallace's question about whether he is disappointed by Obama (this is 2011) by saying yes.  He says his fundamental gripe is that he thought Obama understood that if you keep doing the same bad things, you'll get the same bad result.  And yet Obama put Geithner and Summers in charge, who he said are "the guys who got us into this mess in the first place".

I of course agree.  I thought, Wow!  I just typed that yesterday.   

I think at least some of us learned a lesson from that.  If you want to talk about what could have happened different in 2009 and 2010 and 2011 under Obama when all those Black (and Brown and White) working class families were losing their homes, read what Warren says about how Geithner cared a whole lot more about the banks than about the little people who were suffering and losing everything they had.  That said, letting the banking system collapse would not have made things better.  And Team Obama got plenty of push back from Fox News for bailing out undeserving home owners.  So I'd agree with Stewart.  And you can also blame that shit on Fox News for setting a tone.  I'm pretty sure a lot of Fox viewers lost their homes, too.  Meaning I don't think Fox News gives a shit about whether their viewers lose homes - unless it means they can't watch Fox News in their living room anymore.

There's one other thing Stewart said which tangents on this issue.  Take a guess who the last Republican Presidential candidate Stewart voted for was?  This surprised me.  I would have guessed Stewart is a liberal so the answer would be, "None of the above."

He voted for H.W. Bush against Dukakis.  He made a joke that implied he wasn't that impressed with Dukakis.  But he also cited H.W.'s "integrity" as a reason to vote for him.  While he didn't say it, I'd suggest Stewart was also saying that H.W. was enough of a moderate unifier that he was acceptable.

I think all of that is the reverse of where we are at right now, if you think about what all these Lincoln Project folks are saying.  They haven't become liberals, or even moderates.  They are still conservatives.  And they don't apologize for that.  Although they do express regret and shame and ignorance for some of the things they did as conservatives.  Biden is tolerable to them and the segment of ex-Republicans they speak for in part because they see him as a unifier, and moderate enough.    Never Trumper Rick Wilson was warning Democrats all this Spring that if you want to lose an election you should win, nominate Bernie.  I voted for Bernie, so I obviously am not a Rick Wilson fanatic.  That said, I worried when I voted for Bernie that he could be right.  By that point, the California primary, I knew Bernie was not going to win, anyway.

The other reason I include this is that I think Biden has done what you're talking about on the issue of "Gropey Joe".  He found a way to turn the issue around.   You've posted lots of pictures of "Gropey Joe" engaging in really gross gropey behavior with women who said it was, in fact, gropey and awful.  It was on my Top 5 reasons to think nominating Biden would be a big mistake.

Which brings us to this:

If you freeze frame 0:50 in that 1:16 video you will get the perfect picture, out of context, of "Gropey Joe" being "Gropey Joe."  And this is AFTER he promised that he wouldn't be "Gropey Joe" any more last year.  And yet, there he is, doing it again.  This time with a young boy, right next to the boy's father.  Gross!

I tried to find a picture I could post of that exact image at 0:50 in that video.  I couldn't.  The image below is the closest I could get.  And it doesn't have the same feeling of "gropiness", where Biden has his forehead on the kid's forehead, and his hand on the back of his neck.

So I think my point is obvious, but I'll spell it out this way.

To put the most cynical interpretation I can on this, Biden is the kind of calculating politician who cultivates relationships with a mind toward payback.  So I'd bet money he personally asked Brayden to speak on TV on his behalf.  His staff may or may not have helped the kid edit what he said.  

Did Joe Biden only do this because he thought it would be to his political advantage?  I don't think so.  These Lincoln Project people are wicked smart.  Wherever they got the video in that ad, it feels authentic.  And they want you to know that Biden still has a few dozen stutterers he helps to manage their stuttering.  So Biden is the kind of people person and decent guy who just does this.  But at some point down the line, he very well may ask some of them for a favor. Like I'm sure he did with Brayden.

My point is that I think he''s changed "Gropey Joe" into "Decent Joe".  That Lincoln Project ad moved me.  No one would look at that ad and see "Gropey Joe". And it works because I think it's authentic.  Just like President Toxic is such a mean and unethical and corrupt person that they really can't clean him up.  All they can do is try "Sleepy Joe" and "Crooked Joe" and now "Destroyer Joe".  All of which are more nails in President Toxic's coffin.  Because people are not stupid.  My guess is that every time President Toxic tries that shit, he loses more votes from the parts of his base that are abandoning his shitty, stinking, awful and evil ship.

My main point to bring it back to corruption is that the thing that bugs you a lot bugs me a lot, too.  The corruption problem is real, and deep.  I would never argue Joe Biden is the best person to fix it.  And I don't think it makes any sense for him to try to turn it around during the campaign.  The good news is that if President Toxic or Jared or any member of The Cabinet Of Billionaires try to make corruption an issue, people will just laugh.

The decency issue works because I think it is real.  Perception is reality.  I think the majority of America has bought the idea that Joe Biden is a decent guy. 

As a campaign issue, as opposed to an issue for governance after he wins, I think being "Decent Joe" is as close as he can get to mitigating the corruption issue.  If you think someone is decent, you're probably not going to buy the message that they are corrupt.  it sets up Republicans to do what Jon Stewart, who is no dummy, did with H.W.  Right or wrong, he voted for Poppy in part because he thought he had integrity.  The same thing is going to happen with Joe in 2020, for the same reason, I think.  That right there is one of the reasons Biden is probably going to win.

Had the 2016 election been two weeks earlier, or had Comey kept his mouth shut, I think Hillary would have won, too.  Comey basically plastered a massive "Crooked Hillary?" sticker on her forehead right before the election.  But given how perceptions are cast right now, I'm not sure some last minute revelation about Joe in late October would even work.  We'll see.  Because if Team Toxic has some dirt they are holding on to, they will of course use it when they think it's the right moment.

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

@stevenkesslar Well, if you're forced to give Trump a pass on the corruption issue it hurts. I've seen the "mea culpa and let's make it illegal" work. Otherwise I would not be so sure that Trump isn't going to strike a blow with the issue on Biden, especially the China money. In fact I assume he will be the one bringing up corruption. That's when Biden can do the mea culpa, it's pervasive, Trump did it too but lies, let's make it illegal, or Biden can call it a conspiracy theory that never happened. His advisors have him always claiming conspiracy. Gets as old as Trump's gibberish.The Kool-Aid drinkers don't care on either side but normal people appreciate straight talk from the heart.    

[stevenkesslar]

And sorry, Randy.  I have no discipline.  I'm going to drag you into this again.  You say it better and funnier than me.  Besides, you're cute.

I'll offer Randy as a rebuttal to last night.  I think President Toxic is branded, too.  I'd argue last night proves it.  They had to put on a huge spectacle in an alternative galaxy that didn't get within a million light years of concepts like "180,000 dead" or "22 millions jobs lost" or "unprecedented -9.5 % GDP loss in second quarter".

I'm taking Randy's advice.  For the next two months, President Toxic will keep offering up lies and alternatives realities in a desperate attempt to make things what they are not.  Like Randy, I'm going to try to see it all as comedy, not tragedy.

Edited August 28, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Suckrates]

 

Let's face it, The Reality Show President definitely "gave us a show", EXCEPT that in his RNC case, there was NO reality to it.   Focused on spectacle and ratings, Trump gilded his event with all the glitter he could muster, to DETRACT from the steaming hot bowl of bullshit he was serving.  The drinking game of the night was NOT to "chug-a-lug" at every LIE he told, but to drink when he told the Truth.   Lets just say everybody went to bed after his 71 minute self praise tsunami "stone cold SOBER".......  (Except for the fact checkers who were working overtime and disproved almost every comment he made)....

And on a final note:  As Jerk-Off Jared said said about those NASTY professional athletes who suspended playing in support of BLM.... "The are rich, they can afford to take a day off"....

YES sirree, they surely are an empathetic family "of the people" !       DONT allow them to keep pulling their designer gold lame' over YOUR eyes.......

Edited August 29, 2020 by Suckrates

[Suckrates]

 

Need more proof, check out @Daniel Dale of CNN fact-FULL roll-call of Trumps post speech LIES, and contrast that to Hannity or Carlsons "fact-LESS" apocalyptic hysteria of a Biden presidency or a pandemic they imply is "in the past".  The Trump circus and ALL the brown nosed clowns MUST be shut down !