Monday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. CSK says:
  2. CSK says:

    Even back when everyone was cooing over J.D. Vance, I had a sense he was an utter phony, nothing more than a sleazy opportunist willing to exploit anyone for anything.

    http://www.thebulwark.com/j-d-vance-cavorted-with-romney-resistance-during-second-year-of-trump-presidency/

    3
  3. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    That obit was loaded with names, both people and places that brought back memories of a strange, violent, but sometimes wondrous time. Friends’ had a house in So. Lawrence, that they viewed as a ‘safe house.’ Occasionally someone would drift through, stay for a couple of nights then move on. It was always guys, you only got their first name and that they were a friend of a friend of one of the roommates. It was all self delusion of course, playing at being a radical, romantics feigning the life of fugitives living underground. 10 years later we’d laugh over copious amounts of alcohol that in all likelihood, the most serious thing any had done was minor property damage and at worse, bloodied a cop. Pretenders, aping criminals that claimed to be political radicals.

    What happened to the keepers of the house? One became a corporate consultant, another managed a Radio Shack, with the third, ditching his ethnic sounding surname for something Wasp-ish, getting a Ph.D in psychology and tending to the needs of the wealthy, worried well in So. Cal. Politically, one has stayed a leftist, one became a Reagan R (you go the way the wind blows) the last, I don’t know but being a Trumpist today, wouldn’t surprise me.

    2
  4. Sleeping Dog says:

    More on, the problem with the Dem Party is Dems.

    What Democrats Don’t Understand About Rural America

    We say this with love to our fellow Democrats: Over the past decade, you willfully abandoned rural communities. As the party turned its focus to the cities and suburbs, its outreach became out of touch and impersonal. To rural voters, the message was clear: You don’t matter.

    Now, Republicans control dozens of state legislatures, and Democrats have only tenuous majorities in Congress at a time in history when we simply can’t afford to cede an inch. The party can’t wait to start correcting course. It may be too late to prevent a blowout in the fall, but the future of progressive politics — and indeed our democracy — demands that we revive our relationship with rural communities.

    This is likely to be ignored as well, since it doesn’t conform to the approved narrative.

    6
  5. Kathy says:

    I got Paramount+ yesterday.

    It was kind of accidental. I was looking for KF-94/KN-95 masks at this local smaller version of Amazon called Mercado Libre, and I learned I could get Paramount half off through this site. SO I did. I then demolished half of the first season of Lower Decks*.

    Currently I get Paramount, Apple, HBO, Disney+ and Star+ (basically FOX). Disney and Star are included in the “premium” membership at Mercado Libre, which costs less per month than what Disney charges for a subscription. Paramount is half off list price, HBO had a lifetime offer of 40% off list price when I subscribed, and Apple I pay in full (but will likely end it this week).

    I’m wondering if this is common in other countries and how widely it gets used.

    See, at the listed price Netflix costs more than any of these services. Add the discounts and the deals get better while Netflix looks worse. So I’m wondering whether that’s one reason Netflix is losing subscribers.

    *I don’t know if a Trek animated comedy was needed, but the show’s ok.

  6. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Yep.

    I’ve been saying this for quite a while. I’ve watched a blue-leaning Wisconsin turn more and more red–because Dems are focused on cities.

    2
  7. CSK says:

    @Sleeping Dog:
    Ah, yes, I remember it well. There was a certain type of “revolutionary” that you could tell just seized on whatever the big cause of the moment was, probably for reasons of self-aggrandizement. Then on to the next thing.

    I also recall the piquancy of listening to someone named Winslow Winthrop Cabot Lodge Saltonstall XVI earnestly haranguing a crowd about getting back to his working class roots–a big, big phrase then–when the most recent “working class” person in the family was the guy who tied the painter on one of William the Conqueror’s longboats.

    5
  8. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: This is likely to be ignored as well, since it since it involves throwing blacks and gays under the bus.

    6
  9. Scott says:

    @Kathy: Netflix is making noise about cracking down on people sharing accounts. If they do, there will be a mass exodus. At $16/month, if my immediate family (4 physical locations) can’t share accounts, then we’ll just drop it. Not a must have.

    1
  10. Sleeping Dog says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    No it doesn’t. You more than most here, have insight into the issues that Dems can use to capture a portion of the rural vote. R’s are offering rural whites only grievance and Dems are offering nothing.

    4
  11. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Winslow Winthrop… Yup, some version of Win or sometimes Winnie seemed to force their way to the front of all those teach-ins. The English Dept at my alma mater was noted for being a hive of conservatives, typical Ph.D thesis on Eliot, Pound or Ransom. The arch conservative chair would rant on about so called radicals, plotting revolution on the campus green while smoking dope.

  12. CSK says:

    @Sleeping Dog:
    That’s interesting. English departments now, in my experience, are hives for let-wing radicalism. All theoretical, of course.

    1
  13. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Oh bullshit. Name a policy that helps rural Americans that DEMs are against. Crop insurance? Renew it every time it comes up. Food stamps? Nope, but that just helps those low down shiftless welfare queens by buying food produced by… Never mind. Ummm High speed internet! How come we don’t have access to high speed internet??? Why my Rep… Oh yeah, forget about that too. Our roads are shit! Because our Republican legisla… Never mind.

    11
  14. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The “revenge” political attack on Disney by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, for opposing his “don’t say gay” law violates the party’s mantra of restrained government, his counterpart in Arkansas said.

    DeSantis and Asa Hutchinson could be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. On Sunday, Hutchinson laid out his position on CNN’s State of the Union.

    “I don’t believe that government should be punitive against private businesses because we disagree with them,” the Arkansas governor said, referring to the law DeSantis signed last week dissolving Disney’s 55-year right to self-government through its special taxing district in Florida.

    “That’s not the right approach… the right approach is to shove all those icky gay and trans perverts back in the closet where they belong!

    Just in case somebody actually thinks Asa Hutchinson might actually have been so honest as to give voice to the quiet parts, the bolded part above was me filling in the blanks.

    3
  15. Kathy says:

    @Scott:

    One other thing I dislike about netflix, is that the website doesn’t let you browse the catalog without a subscription. All other streaming sites I’ve tried do.

    So unless I know of a show or movie I want to see, I’ve no idea if subscribing is even worth it. Things were different when it was the only or the biggest streamer.

  16. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    If so, it won’t do him any good. The MAGAs already have Asa branded as a gay-loving, trans-loving Commie RINO.

    2
  17. KM says:

    @Kathy:
    OMG I LOVE Lower Decks!!! Just mentioned it on the other thread.

    Very irreverent and yet the most Trek thing to come out in years. It really feels more in line with Gene’s vision then Picard or Discovery ever will. Also Boimler is my spirit animal, especially in S2.

  18. Kathy says:

    Qantas intends to debut the A350-1000 in a light configuration for nonstop flights from Sidney to London and NYC. Light means about 100 fewer seats than on a regular A350-1000, with less freight (if any).

    These flights will be 20 hours long.

    While the seat configuration ins’t out yet, buzz is for 34″ pitch in economy. that’s luxurious legroom, compared to 31″ in most legacy airlines, and as little as 28″ on many low-cost carriers. There are supposed to be areas for people to gather outside their seats, too.

    I wonder if Qantas ins’t, and hasn’t, been making too much of this. the longest flight currently si Singapore to NYC, booked at 18:30 hours, also with a light configuration, on an A350-900ULR (Ultra Long Range). Previously Singapore offered this flight on an A340 with all business class seating.

    So, sure, maybe 20 hours is just now feasible from the technical standpoint of range/flight duration, but the experience shouldn’t be that much more different.

  19. Sleeping Dog says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Then Dems need to get the @ss out there and do the hard work of selling the policy. Since it is likely that the Rs from the area will also agree with those policies, Dems need to find an angle that the Rs won’t offer. But to do that they need to go out and listen and try different ideas, but they won’t, it’s too much work and doesn’t follow the narrative.

    You mentioned blacks and gays, well at some point Dems listened to those communities, crafted a message and policies and both have benefited, but rather than do that for other ethnic communities, Dems have created the mythical paradigm of ‘people of color’ and expected those communities to crawl into the box. Well they didn’t and won’t. R’s in TX are making inroads into formerly strong Dem Latino constituencies, using the party’s social conservative message as an entry point to a community the is socially conservative. Then Rs promote support for entrepreneurial enterprise while Dems offer, what, student loan forgiveness? Then there is the proud Democratic Socialist wing of the party that has been loud and present, while all the Latin and Caribbean communities in FL heard was socialist, the oppressors that they escaped. Dems did the Rs work for them. Fortunately in AZ and CA, R’s screwed the pooch before realizing that they could capture a not insignificant part of the Latino vote there. For the Asian community, rinse and repeat.

    Dems need to do with rural whites the same thing that Rs are doing with various minority communities, separate out the messages that will turn off those voters and focus on issues that will benefit those voters. Dems need not get a majority of white working class and rural voters but they need increase the approx 20% of that vote they receive today. Dem voters in rural America are as likely to be simply contrarians, than agree with the values of the party.

    6
  20. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Remember, this was 50 years ago, most of those Ph.D’s were earned in the late 50’s-early 60’s. Plus it was a Catholic college.

    2
  21. CSK says:
  22. Michael Cain says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Name a policy that helps rural Americans that DEMs are against.

    Locally… Oil and gas drilling must not be constrained no matter that methane and VOC leaks from the fields are a major contributor to air pollution in the urban corridor. Farmers always get first call on scarce water and are never required to make capital investments to improve their water efficiency. The public lands are for extractive and grazing purposes only. Formulas for allocation of state money to local authorities (eg, water, roads, healthcare) can only be changed if the changes increase the rural share.

    Some of this has changed in recent years, as it soaks in that the state population split is now 80% in the urban corridor, 20% in the vast empty tracts to the east and west, and that if the rural areas piss the urban corridor voters off enough the corridor voters can rewrite the state constitution however they please.

    3
  23. Mu Yixiao says:

    Today is the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl incident. This strikes me because I didn’t think it was that long ago.

    I was recently watching a video about Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the host mentioned that the movie was an allegory for Chernobyl (the moon Praxis) and how it lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall (the Kittimer Treaty). I had to go look it up, because I could have sworn that Chernobyl was years after the Wall. Nope. It was years before.

    I know that I have a crappy sense of time, but I still can’t wrap my head around the correct timeline.

  24. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: So in other words, DEMs need to do a better job of messaging. That’s what the problem is.

    People hear what they want to hear. You even note it: “Then there is the proud Democratic Socialist wing of the party that has been loud and present, while all the Latin and Caribbean communities in FL heard was socialist, the oppressors that they escaped.”

    Got it. So this one small wing of the Democratic party is now defining everything DEMs are with their one narrow little message.

    Meanwhile Ron DeSantis is getting cheered on by conservative Floridians with his attempts to stomp private businesses for daring to object to the very laudable goal of not teaching kindergartners about the Gay, and GOP everywhere are “running around like their heads were on fire and their asses was ketchin” with the CRT indoctrination program targeting our precious 4th graders with hate for white people and they are all scared to death of the trans recruiting program aimed at our children…

    Yeah, DEMs have a messaging problem.

    2
  25. Mister Bluster says:

    @Mu Yixiao:..This strikes me because I didn’t think it was that long ago.

    Every January 3rd, my birthday, I find it hard to believe that I was born that long ago. 1948.

  26. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    I saw that yesterday. Yes Loeb, a proud resident of Pride’s Crossing, a racist and a hater of unionism, except the Teamsters, because they bailed him out with a loan to keep his newspaper afloat. Good that the current UL management took his name off the masthead, but there were dozens of reasons for doing so previously. Loeb was a hateful little man and many celebrated when he died.

    1
  27. CSK says:

    @Sleeping Dog:
    I remember a friend of mine from NH saying that the state needed a Loeb-otomy and a (Meldrim) Thomson-ectomy.

  28. Sleeping Dog says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Whatever. I guess we’ll just need to accept life under a R minority regime because Dems won’t make an effort.

    1
  29. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Uhg, Thomson, he and Loeb were two peas in a pod that someone should have used Roundup on. Thomson was the equivalent of today’s DeSantis or Abbott with Loeb being a minor league Murdoch.

  30. @Kathy:

    *I don’t know if a Trek animated comedy was needed, but the show’s ok.

    TBH, Lower Decks may be the most consistently good of the new Trek series. It has been better, overall, than DISCO IMHO.

    1
  31. MarkedMan says:

    @Kathy: Is all the new Trek stuff on Paramount+ (Discovery, the new one, etc)? I was googling around on their website and found very little that I would be interested in, but I don’t remember that stuff showing up.

  32. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    In retrospect, those two were fighting a rear guard action to keep NH in the 19th century and losing, though they didn’t realize it. Their influenced waned and Thomson political career ended over the simultaneous battles over the Seabrook nuke plant and an oil refinery on Dover Point. Thomson exhausted his political capital on the refinery and lost a decisive vote in the state legislature, that was then dominated by Rs.

    1
  33. MarkedMan says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    This is likely to be ignored as well, since it doesn’t conform to the approved narrative.

    What would not ignoring it actually entail? It seems to me that the reason Republicans are winning in the rural areas is that they are willing to attack the “Urbans”. What could the Dems do that wouldn’t involve giving up on their current constituency?

    2
  34. KM says:

    @MarkedMan:
    Yeah. Amazon Prime used to have all the Trek Series but they’re gone now. Noticed it a few weeks ago when I went to look for a specific DS9 episode and they’d been removed.

  35. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Kathy:

    If you haven’t seen ST: Prodigy, I’d recommend it. It’s an animated show for kids, but it’s quite well done, and rather fun.

  36. CSK says:

    Trump doesn’t know the name of the person he’s endorsing:

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/02/donald-trump-forget-name-jd-vance-josh-mandel

    1
  37. a country lawyer says:

    I think I’ve seen this movie.
    In a move which appears to have slipped beneath the radar, Japan has taken steps to amend its MacArthur imposed pacifist constitution to allow for a more robust military to confront its aggressive neighbors China, Russia and North Korea.
    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254871.shtml
    What could possibly go wrong?

    1
  38. Jay L Gischer says:

    @CSK: I have this thing, which is not widely shared, as I have found out. I express the thing as “the work stands on its own”. I don’t judge the value of a work by the moral worth of its creator.

    “Hillbilly Elegy” is an interesting read. I do not regret reading it. It’s a lot more human than the sorts of political things he’s doing now. The work stands on its own. I wouldn’t go out and buy it now, because it puts money in his pocket, but that ship sailed. The book is not its author. Any remarks about the book are about the book, not the author.

    So I rather object to being described as “cooing” over JD Vance.

    2
  39. charon says:

    Rural politics is mostly white Christian identity. With only two parties, there is not room for more than one party of white Christian identity. GOP is just the Jesus party, either you are on board with that or not.

    3
  40. Kathy says:

    @MarkedMan:

    I suppose it varies by country.

    In Mexico, Paramount has Discovery, Lower Decks, and Prodigy. Picard is on Amazon.

    Other than that, there’s not much of interest. But I expect the Capt. Pike Enterprise show, Strange New Worlds, will be on it as well.

    The website has things arranged alphabetically, so it takes a lot of scrolling for Star Trek to show up.

  41. Kathy says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    It’s on the waiting list.

  42. Sleeping Dog says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Well they can start by competing for all political offices in rural areas. Yes, Fox and Sinclair pound on and on about evil, urban Dems and elitist Dems. If all rural voters hear is that, then yes give up. Dems once were real good at something called community organizing and that is what they need to be doing in rural areas. Dems are letting the RW define them and that is recipe for continued losing.

    4
  43. CSK says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    I didn’t mean specifically you, or indeed anyone at OTB. It was just that back when the critics were rhapsodizing over Vance, he struck me as a poseur. I don’t know exactly why. There was something untrustworthy and opportunistic about him.

    I was right about that.

    1
  44. steve says:

    “Got it. So this one small wing of the Democratic party is now defining everything DEMs are with their one narrow little message.”

    Correct. I suspect you were being sarcastic but this is correct. Dems all support violent protests because a few did. They all support CRT and radical wokeness because a very few do. You can whine about it being unfair but that is how it is portrayed. The messaging needs to be better and the party leaders need to be willing to tamp down the radicals. Dems are not good at either. In their defense I dont know how many rural voters are reachable. They keep getting all of the benefits of the Democrats being the ones who actually support the economic stuff that helps them like rural internet and welfare/Medicaid/Medicare, while the GOP caters to their grievance issues like religion, race, guns, etc. Given this dynamic why would they change?

    Steve

    5
  45. Michael Reynolds says:

    @CSK:
    This is why people should listen to writers when considering character, we hear things most people don’t. A good writer hears the word choices, the sentence construction, the subtle efforts at distraction or lamp-shading, and we know why those choices are being made, what they say about the speaker and what they say about the speaker’s opinion of his audience. Very hard to explain to normies, though. It’s sort of like the way the casual art appreciator when listening to an expert guide, discovers that he’s missed 90% of what’s going on in the painting.

    3
  46. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Yes. When I was younger, I made a comment to a colleague–a rather well-known playwright–about two other colleagues, that I could tell they had become a couple because of the way he opened and closed her office door. Proprietorial. The playwright stared at me for a moment and said, “You have a writer’s eye.”

    We do pick up on things. It’s our business.

  47. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    It’s also a skill picked up by wall-flowers*. I’ve never been overly social, but I’ve spent a lot of time watching people. It took a long time, but I started to see patterns. Those patterns led to commonalities, and progressions. Once you see 100 go through a progression from A-F, it’s easy to say that a person at D probably started at A and will probably end up at F (by which time you might be seeing G-Q in other people).

    I used to get in arguments in the BDSM community with people who insist that I couldn’t identify a person who is submissive–no a submissive (BDSM role) but “submissive in general nature”. I’d laugh, since there are entire industries dedicated to it (including mugging, if you want to call that an industry).

    Stance, posture, gesture, eye contact, voice… choices in clothing, hairstyle, adornments… The way we present ourselves just screams out who we are.

    ===============
    * To be fair, I am a writer (even published!)–just not on the level of others here.

    1
  48. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Maybe he has to put his name on everything because otherwise he’d forget it.

  49. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Communism was the invention of coffee house and weed smoking hippies…the exported to the rural dissatisfied populace to carry out the Revolution part

    1
  50. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    And speak of himself in the third person, like your average 2-year-old.

  51. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “running around like their heads were on fire and their asses was ketchin”

    Thanks for the reminder of, (IMO) bestest ever C Daniels song. Shot his show a couple of years before he died, and asked why he didn’t play that in a 2+ hour gig. He responded to the effect that he and I (and the band) were the only people there who wanted to hear it. Great artist, and a gracious man.

    2
  52. Gustopher says:

    @Kathy: it would be easier if he just renamed the people he was endorsing.

  53. Kathy says:

    @Gustopher:

    It’s what he does, but those others refuse to go along. Like changing their name three times a week were such a big deal.

  54. just nutha says:

    @MarkedMan: When Paramount+ sends emails to me asking me toe renew the service (which I disconnected because they dropped my account and failed to reactivate it after 3 requests), they always feature all of the Star Drecch stuff. I ascribe that to the fact that their AI is mis-targeting me for having watched half of the premier of Picard as a Trekkie.

    Interestingly, the ad never mentions any of the 3 shows I actually watched regularly (one of which has been cancelled, so there’s that reason). AI is going to revolutionize advertising…

    eventually, but not today.

    1
  55. just nutha says:

    @MarkedMan: If the goal is to pry off Republicans. You’ll lose. Period. Democrats may stand for some things that Republicans want. But we’ve been watching them refuse to take those things because the Democrats are giving them for most of 2 decades now.

    1
  56. Sleeping Dog says:

    Dr T has been patiently explaining to us that our political system is not representative, sometimes we listen and sometime not. Here’s another way to look at it.

    La Pen Could’ve Won Here

    A scary thought but we have already had our La Pen in TFG and probably will again with either TFG redux or DeSantis.

    3
  57. Kathy says:

    It may be just me, but I think in “For All Mankind*” the second half of the first season and the first eps of the second, are kind of implying: “Space travel is boring, so let’s add all sort of drama to the characters’ lives.”

    That’s as far as I can go without spoilers.

    *I find the title most ironic, as women astronauts show up in this alternate reality ten years ahead of schedule.

  58. Mister Bluster says:

    Supreme Court says Boston unconstitutionally barred Christian flag from city hall
    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the city of Boston must let a Christian group fly its flag over city hall, but the decision was sufficiently narrow that other cities, indeed Boston itself, could construct rules that would limit flag flying to government-approved messages.

  59. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: I’m sorry, where did I disagree with you? You said DEMs were failing at their messaging to rural voters. I agreed. Where, pray tell did I go wrong? Was it in not mentioning all the rapist Hispanics coming north for our white women and our welfare state so they could send food stamps south of the border to support their families? Was it not mentioning how DEMs fail to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and subservantly in the kitchen? And if they are raped they should look to the bright side and realize that they may well be carrying the next Einstein? Or the next Travis McMichael? Maybe even a George Zimmerman? Or was it how DEMs threw rural hospitals a life line with the Medicaid expansion that GOPs denied their constituents? Or maybe it is their failure to sell themselves as real honest to God Christians by not just attending church every Sunday all their lives but by actually performing Christian acts, unlike the “chosen one”.

    I mean, obviously GOPs have the superior messaging seeing as they can get rural voters to time and again vote to fuck themselves right up the ass. I guess DEMs should just go ahead and do the same.

    3
  60. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Well they can start by competing for all political offices in rural areas.

    Here in the hills and hollers, they do. Not that they stand a chance of winning. I’ve been to a few Crawford County Democratic committee meetings and it’s the saddest thing in the world. Here are all these folks thinking that somehow someway they can get their conservative neighbors to do something about say, the homeless camps out on NFS land, something other than arrest them all, lock them up, and throw away the key.

    Square peg, round hole. Fat chance.

    It ain’t the messaging. They live in different worlds.

    1
  61. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @steve: I suspect you were being sarcastic but this is correct.

    Not being sarcastic at all.

    Dems all support violent protests because a few did. They all support CRT and radical wokeness because a very few do.

    First off, CRT and radical wokeness are GOP bogeymen. Cut that crap right out. And ftr, when the Proud Boys come thru bashing skulls, they cheer it on.

    You can whine about it being unfair but that is how it is portrayed.

    I’m not whining about how it is portrayed, I am merely pointing out how it is uncritically accepted by rural voters, Republicans, and certain centrist observers.

    The messaging needs to be better and the party leaders need to be willing to tamp down the radicals.

    Tell me, pray tell me, how do the party leaders tamp down the “radicals”? The GOP leaders couldn’t. Fer christ’s sake the radicals took over the GOP! And just exactly how many of the “radicals” on the DEM side have engaged in a violent attempt to subvert an election? 3? 2? 1? Any?

    Dems are not good at either.

    But Republicans are? Because somehow someway DEM “extremists” are radicals but GOP extremists are “patriots”?

    In their defense I don’t know how many rural voters are reachable. They keep getting all of the benefits of the Democrats being the ones who actually support the economic stuff that helps them like rural internet and welfare/Medicaid/Medicare, while the GOP caters to their grievance issues like religion, race, guns, etc.

    Exactly, Never enough guns, Jesus, ni##ers, Kikes, Spics or $$$.

    Given this dynamic why would they change?

    Given that dynamic, why in the F would DEMs change?

    2
  62. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Flat Earth Luddite: The very bestest Charlie Daniels song ever was “Long Haired Country Boy”. Either that or “Trudy”.

  63. Sleeping Dog says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    No apology needed. I began to feel we had begun to talk in circles and it was time to move on to a different topic.

  64. EddieInCA says:
  65. Beth says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Honest question here that popped into my head while reading your comment. Do you think we would get any traction with someone (a hypothetical person) coming down and giving a version of what MI Sen. Mallory McMorrow gave. Like a cutting take down of how these rural people are being lied to. Just straight, no apologies, mean-ass, but tasteful, truth.

    I’m fairly certain I know the answer to this, but I figured I’d ask.

    1
  66. Beth says:

    @EddieInCA:

    Well the clerk that leaked that is a hero. Probably toast, but a hero.

    2
  67. EddieInCA says:

    @Beth:

    I’m guessing more than one person leaked it. I hope Susan Collins is happy. I really want to hear her excuse.

    I’m 62, live in California, and am already making my exit plans. It won’t affect me.

    I’m curious if this will finally get young people engaged to the point of making a difference.

    Last thought: I wonder what the brain drain will be in Alabama, Mississipi, Oklahoma, and the rest of red states that will rush to outlaw abortion fully.

    2
  68. Kathy says:

    @EddieInCA:

    I’m more worried they’ll come after contraceptives next, especially the morning-after pill.

    3
  69. EddieInCA says:

    Based on the opinion, Oberfell, Griswold, and Casey are all probably going to go away.

    2
  70. Beth says:

    @EddieInCA:
    @Kathy:

    I just sent the surgeon I’ve selected for my GCS a message begging to be put on her schedule before the end of the year. I’m fairly confident that the Republicans will attempt to outlaw Trans healthcare.

    I’m pretty sure that there will be bills filed this week to ban contraceptives.

    Sen. Collins can choke on her BS.

    2
  71. a country lawyer says:

    @EddieInCA: Contraception is next. Griswold v. Conn. was based upon the individual’s right to privacy which was the underlying right in Roe. If privacy isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, then according to Alito it’s not a constitutionally protected right. If that’s true Griswold is also gone.

    2
  72. gVOR08 says:

    @EddieInCA: From what I’m hearing, the key argument is there can’t be a Constitutional right to abortion as the Constitution doesn’t mention abortion. First, how many things are there the Constitution doesn’t mention? Second, why would they mention it? Abortion was mostly legal when the Constitution was ratified. (Also, too, the Bible doesn’t mention abortion. Unless you twist the words and squint real hard in the right light. Which is to say if you’re an Originalist. And the ancient Hebrews practiced infanticide.)

  73. EddieInCA says:

    @gVOR08:

    Doesn’t matter. if 5 of them say it’s not a right, it won’t be. Simple as that.

    3
  74. Beth says:

    @gVOR08:

    Computers,
    Automobiles,
    the Internet,
    Space Travel
    Interracial Marriage
    Drug Laws

    I like listing stuff off when my conservative friend whines “its not in the Constitution…wah”

    2
  75. Beth says:

    Top of Page 30, second paragraph:

    While individuals are free to think and to say what they wish about “exisitance”, “meaning”, the “universe”, and the “mystery of human life”, they are not always free to act in accordance with those thoughts. License to act on the basis of those beliefs may correspond to one of the many understandings of “liberty,” but it is certainly not “ordered liberty”.

    Notwithstanding what comes after it, that paragraph will be cited over and over as gay rights are rolled back.

  76. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Alas, Trudy wasn’t on the list that night either. LHCB got played twice, IIRC. Fantabulous show.

  77. Modulo Myself says:

    @Beth:

    These theocratic freaks are literally putting idiotic Catholic Natural Law in charge of America. There’s no such thing as liberty; only ‘ordered liberty’. This is a license to harm humans and I”m 100% positive that the fucking scumbags who get angry about freedom in this country when it comes to racist speech on going to be licking boots like they were taught after this ruling.

    I don’t advocate violence but holy fucking shit am I angry right now and I’m so fucking sorry that this is happening now to people who do not have my privileges. Beth, you are one of my favorite commentators here, and I’m so sorry this is happening.

    1
  78. Beth says:

    Page 66

    A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, is entitled to a “strong presumption of validity.” citing Heller It must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests.

    This will be cited over and over to deny Trans kids health care. To deny Gay kids affirming services and health care. This paragraph will be cited to deny Trans adults the health care they need to transition and survive.

    Also, the bottom of the first paragraph under section 3. Either Justice Alito is an idiot, or a liar. I’m going with liar.

    1
  79. Beth says:

    @Modulo Myself:

    First off, thanks. It makes me happy to hear that I’m a worth-while voice here.

    Second, this opinion really does have a Fascist undertone to it. Having skimmed the whole thing, this is Alito at his angriest, lying-est, nonsense. If this opinion makes it out like this, which I don’t doubt it will, it will be used over and over again to roll back rights and each time, he will lie about it.

    The other thing, while I’m pretty sure this is going to be a 6-3 decision. I think it really underlines how much the Chief Justice has lost control over there. He’s really a Chief Justice in name only. It’s WILD that someone leaked this. Presumably in order to rile up public opinion prior to its actual publishing. Tomorrow is going to be a wild day.

    2
  80. EddieInCA says:

    @Beth:

    Roberts is voting with the liberals.

  81. Gustopher says:

    @Beth:

    This will be cited over and over to deny Trans kids health care. To deny Gay kids affirming services and health care. This paragraph will be cited to deny Trans adults the health care they need to transition and survive

    Yes it will, if it is in the final ruling.

    Whoever leaked this draft probably did so in hopes that when it is read before the ruling, outrage makes some of the justices back down at least slightly (or they were a right winger doing a victory lap…).

    But, honestly, the best case scenario is for Thomas to have a heart attack and die before the final draft is voted on. Any of the others would do — Barrett is a lawn dart accident, Alito choking on a piece of sushi, Kavanaugh getting drunk and hitting a tree, Gorsuch being mauled by a bear, whatever.