Tuesday’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:

    This is good advice:

    http://www.thebulwark.com/memo-to-dems-stop-taking-these maskless-pictures/

    4
  2. Sleeping Dog says:

    Once-fired Minneapolis police officer promoted to department training director

    In the summer of 2020 an officer with a long history of citizen complaints and also a training officer, murdered a citizen. Why would an acting, chief of police, who aspires for a permanent appointment, place another disgraced officer in the same role?

    Huffman introduced three of the appointees at the January news conference. She left six appointees out of the announcement, including Garman and three others who appear to have run afoul of the department on several occasions.

    Hiding something?

    It seems that this chief want-to-be is more interested in pleasing the police union than showing the citizenry that department management is interested in policing them fairly.

    This comes to light after another citizen was killed by a cop, while the department was executing a no knock search warrant. The warrant was requested by the St Paul PD, who specified that a no knock warrant wasn’t necessary and were over ruled by the MPD. The victim, not a subject to the warrant, was crashing on the couch, was waken by police who let themselves in using a pass key.
    The victim was in possession of a gun, for which he had a permit to carry.

    This is a department that needs to have done to it what was done in Newark, fire everyone and start over.

    3
  3. Jim Brown 32 says:

    It dawned on me today that the tsunami of black people in commercials since GF was murdered are serving to give the majority of white Americans, who have little interaction with black people (outside of the marginalized black folks in their town), an avalanche of skits that portray our lives as normal. drip, drip, drip

    Income aside, most black peoples family experience is closer to Blackish or Family Matters than it was to, say, Good Times. You’d never know that if you didn’t live in or near a metro area and only saw black people on TV and when driving through the poor section of town where everyone with wherewithal got out and people with more serious limitations were trapped.

    I dont even patronize products or services anymore that dont have at least an occasional black person or theme in their ads. If they cant spend a extra few dollars to appeal to me…I take it to mean they dont want my money.

    15
  4. KM says:

    Well, looks like the idiots are going to try and pick a fight that will not end well for them

    Republican Lawmaker Basically Begs Anti-Vax Truckers to Blockade the Super Bowl

    The “Freedom Convoy” is getting away with what it is because Canada is terrified they’ll go…. well, go American and start shooting up Ottawa. We’re at Day 10 of the siege because they don’t want to cause a scene or riot. Try this at the Super Bowl? Hah! The out of town fans alone will *NOT* tolerate it and there *will* be bloodshed. It would turn opinions on the unvaxxed around pretty quick if the SB was delayed or cancelled because of this idiocy; declining numbers aside, it still makes a ton of money and is virtually a national holiday for a large segment of the population. If all the horns blaring and anti-vax ruckus was the distraction that cost the team a crucial goal……

    3
  5. Kylopod says:

    @CSK: A lot of this goes back to the recurring problem Dems face, which is that their messages are always more nuanced than Republicans’, and most Americans are morons and therefore don’t get nuance. Gavin Newsom you can legitimately accuse of hypocrisy, but the recent Stacy Abrams flap was really much ado about nothing: she was wearing a mask, but she took it off for a speech and photo op. And then she deleted the tweets featuring her maskless photo. This I really don’t get. When has deleting tweets ever done any good for anyone? Do these people not understand how the nets work? It just plays as an admission of guilt. She should have just owned it. Now, she’s given the controversy an official stamp of approval.

  6. Joe says:

    @Jim Brown 32: When I was a teenager in my middle class white family, my mom became a Board member for the local Urban League. As a Board member, she received subscriptions to both Ebony and Jet, so they were always in our house. It didn’t take me long to notice that the ads in those magazines were identical to the ads in Time and Newsweek, except the families in the Ebony / Jet ads were black. Nevertheless, dad sat in the same chair with the same look reading the same paper and mom stood at the same counter with the same utensil in her hand – just like the white families. That experience left a (useful, I hope) mark.

    4
  7. CSK says:

    @KM:
    I’m thinking that a large number of those truckers are avid football fans.

    @Kylopod:
    I haven’t followed the Abrams controversy closely, but she could have said: “Look, I took off my mask to make a speech, because you can’t make yourself clearly understood while wearing a mask, and then I put it back on.”

    2
  8. Kylopod says:

    @CSK:

    but she could have said: “Look, I took off my mask to make a speech, because you can’t make yourself clearly understood while wearing a mask, and then I put it back on.”

    If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

    1
  9. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    In this case, she should have. It sounds perfectly reasonable, at least to me. Deleting the tweet seems like an admission of guilt.

    2
  10. Kylopod says:

    @CSK: But that goes back to the question I asked before: Why does anyone in the public eye ever delete tweets? It’s such a stupid and pointless thing to do, and always only makes things worse for whoever does it. It would be one thing if it was 2010 or something, but it’s been long enough that it’s hard to believe any seasoned pol (or the people advising them) doesn’t know this already. It’s also the first unforced error I can remember from Stacy Abrams, who up to now has been almost flawless when it comes to PR.

    2
  11. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    It’s probably something they don’t think through. We’re all capable of ostrich-like behavior at times: “If I can no longer see it, no one can.”

    Abrams probably deleted the Tweet on impulse. She’s human, just like all of us.

    1
  12. Scott says:

    Some people are just too dumb to serve.

    An Army officer may have nuked his career with a single tweet

    The Army is looking into whether Lt. Col. James A. Attaway III, a professor of military studies at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, tweeted in opposition to the Army’s requirement that soldiers be vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokeswoman for Army Cadet Command said.

    On Saturday, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston, shared a story about the Army starting to separate soldiers for refusing to get vaccinated on Twitter and he urged both leaders and enlisted soldiers to read the Army’s policy about mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations.

    Then a tweet from Attaway’s now deleted account replied with: “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting or transmitted [sic.] Covid, but we’re mandating that the most healthy population on the planet get vaccinated or be discharged? It’s time to resign …”

    Grinston responded to the message by tweeting: “Thanks for your reply. I’m sure @CG_ArmyROTC [Maj. Gen. Johnny K. Davis, head of the Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] received your feedback as well?”

    2
  13. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Rightwing lobby group Alec driving laws to blacklist companies that boycott the oil industry

    I can not think of a clearer example of Frank Wilhoit’s, “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

    6
  14. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    Blacks are getting a fair share of parts in commercials, and that has been noticed by the white supremacists who are outraged by this.

    7
  15. Joe says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    white supremacists who are outraged by this.

    That makes me so happy!

    2
  16. Kylopod says:

    @Joe: Is this sort of our version of “make the libs cry”?

    2
  17. Kathy says:

    @Scott:

    It gets tiresome to point out that low efficacy is not the same as zero efficacy, or that boosters bring efficacy against infection (and therefore transmission) of Omicron near to the levels of the two-dose regimen against the original strain.

    Therefore the vaccines do prevent infection and transmission, more so if you get boosted. Therefore vaccinating everyone who can be vaccinated, with medical exceptions only, would bring the end of the pandemic that much closer in time.

    I seriously can’t comprehend why so many people have taken the side of the virus in this fight. And I say this with full understanding of why Fins and Ukrainians took the side of the nazis in WWII. Unlike the nazis, SARS-CoV-2 can neither promise anything nor deliver it.

    2
  18. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    I think that’s known as “owning the libs.” Or “libtards.”

    It’s become the raison d’etre of the right.

  19. Kathy says:

    On big and overlooked aviation news, Frontier and Spirit have announced their intention to merge (meaning Frontier will acquire Spirit). This requires approval from the DOJ as regards antitrust issues.

    This makes a lot of sense as regards operations. Both airlines have A320 family fleets, and both have been investing a lot in newer planes. If they merge, they’ll have one of the youngest, most modern fleets in the world. there seems to be little overlap in their existing routes, too.

    No idea what the antitrust issued will be or how the DOJ will rule. There are other ultra-low and low cost airlines, plus Southwest and jetBlue, in addition to basic economy in the legacy carriers. I’m more concerned about the effects of consolidation in the market.

    1
  20. Jen says:

    @Kathy: If they don’t name the resulting airline “Frontier Spirit” I’ll be bummed.

    Still upset that the Penguin-Random House merger didn’t result in The Random Penguin publishing house.

    10
  21. Kathy says:

    @Jen:

    Lately airline mergers preserve the name of one airline only: American (US Airways), Delta (Northwest), United (Continental), Alaska (Virgin America), Southwest (Air Tran). Not to mention Boeing (McDonnell Douglas), or even Pan Am (National)

    About the only nod to an acquisition was that United kept the Continental logo on the tail of its fleet. And I think that was because Continental acquired United.

    1
  22. gVOR08 says:

    @Jen: My favorite is a large, successful test and inspection equipment manufacturer named Fluke.

    2
  23. CSK says:

    @Jen: @Kathy:
    According to NPR, “Frontier shareholders would own about 51.5% of the new company and Spirit shareholders would own 48.5%.”

    1
  24. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    I forgot the exact numbers, but this is what I mean Frontier is acquiring Spirit, even if they call it a merger.

  25. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    Readers of the Boston Globe have some suggestions for names of the new airline:
    1. FrontSpit
    2. FronTears
    3. JetPoo
    4. Snowpiercer Airlines
    5. Pain Am
    6. U.S. Scare
    7. Dispirited

    6
  26. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Kathy:

    On big and overlooked aviation news, Frontier and Spirit have announced their intention to merge (meaning Frontier will acquire Spirit). This requires approval from the DOJ as regards antitrust issues.

    The funny thing is I still remember when Frontier first started and was trying to brand themselves as more luxurious than the big carriers.

  27. Sleeping Dog says:

    I’ve only known one person that consistently flies Spirit, anyone else that I’ve talked to that has flown it say never again. The Spirit flyer owns a house in Berwick,ME and a condo in Orlando, so he has no need for luggage and usually doesn’t even bother computer bag, just brings a book. He points out the hassles of Spirit involve luggage, with none he enjoys the ~$60 fare.

    2
  28. MarkedMan says:

    The whole Joe Rogan thing has got me thinking about sources of news and information in general. It seems to me there are three main types of information sources out there:
    – Actual News Media. Sources that try to understand and explain reality. Examples – NYT, WaPo
    – Advocacy Sources. These are people and organizations that use information and analysis to try to sway people in some way. We can break these down further into Honest Advocacy, where the advocates engage fairly with all the disparate facts and analysis that challenge their advocacy, and Dishonest Advocacy, where the advocates only engage with strawmen and actively seek to distract from their opposition’s most substantial challenges. Examples of Honest Advocacy sources would be the CDC, or certain green groups. Examples of Dishonest Advocacy sources would be various astroturfing industry groups, Reason Magazine, the Heritage foundation.
    – Entertainment Sources. These are sources that really have no major interest in truth or reality but rather will put forward anything that attracts audience, especially audience of their target demographic. Relatively harmless examples of this are local sports pages and E! Online (I think that’s the name) and toxic examples are Joe Rogan or Fox News.

    In general I try to limit myself to Actual News Media, Honest Advocacy Sources (regardless of whether I agree with their positions) and relatively harmless Entertainment Sources. I actively avoid liars, which are basically what Reason Magazine, Joe Rogan and Fox News are. And the idea that there are lots of non-shit things in their shit sandwiches doesn’t work for me. I don’t give credence to anything from sources that regularly try to lie to me, and that applies in my personal life too.

    3
  29. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    I’ve only known one person that consistently flies Spirit, anyone else that I’ve talked to that has flown it say never again.

    I avoid Spirit because they have an explicitly predatory business model: quote a ridiculously low fare to show up first on all the search engine results for a flight, but then nickel and dime you for everything until by the end you’re actually paying more than you would have on a full-service carrier.

    4
  30. just nutha says:

    @CSK: Does The Bulwark have a Well duh! department or is this article’s tags something else?

  31. just nutha says:

    @Sleeping Dog: “Hiding something?”

    That she doesn’t actually GAF about the perception about the department by the citizenry would be my guess. Or, maybe she’s realized that she doesn’t really want the job after all.

  32. Stormy Dragon says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Actual News Media. Sources that try to understand and explain reality. Examples – NYT, WaPo

    I’d break this up into observational, investigational, and access news media. A lot of the problems with the New York Times come from it being primarily access journalism (e.g. bothsidesing most issues).

    1
  33. gVOR08 says:

    Yesterday alanstorm made a comment about Rs no longer being the party of the “rich and powerful”, with a couple comments in response. Jalmelle Bouie has a column at NYT today on exactly how Rs are the new working class party. It’s titled Marco Rubio Wants to Be a Working-Class Hero. There’s Just One Problem.

    However much Republican politicians denounce “woke capital” or emphasize their growing number of working-class supporters, the fact remains that the Republican Party’s economic agenda — of tax cuts for the wealthy and impunity for employers — is organized for the benefit of capital, from wealthy shareholders and Wall Street asset managers to the billionaire owners of glorified family firms.

    This is true even when Republicans try to turn their rhetorical concern for the interests of workers into something like public policy. Last week, for example, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Jim Banks of Indiana introduced the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act, which would permit the creation of voluntary organizations “comprised of an employer and a group of their employees for the purpose of discussing matters of mutual interest, such as quality of work, productivity, efficiency, compensation, benefits (including education and training), and accommodation of religious beliefs and practices.”

    Crucially, these “employee involvement organizations” are not unions and “cannot enter into collective bargaining agreements.” They serve, instead, as an “alternative to employee unionization” and are “dissolvable by the employer.”

    It’s unclear why legislation is needed for voluntary groups or for company unions, which already exist.

    This is how GOPs are the party of the working man, BS and fraud. I’d like to say this is more proof that Marco (Mr. water bottle) Rubio (my senior senator) is, improbably, actually as dumb as he looks. But the MAGAts will probably love this. “We can tell the boss not to make us get vaccinated or wear masks without having to have some socialist union.”

    4
  34. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Cattle Express was taken?

    @Stormy Dragon:

    We’ll see how Breeze does, but overall the model of offering more or a better experience is not working. See Interjet. It works at the very high end, with people willing to pay exorbitant prices for a flat bed and a good meal with top shelf booze.

    @Sleeping Dog:
    @Stormy Dragon:

    I haven’t priced a flight/trip since 2015, but my MO might help.

    I look at travel agencies first, to get a notion of price. I then look up airlines and hotels, separately and flight/hotel packages if they are on offer. At the airlines, I price the ancillary fees, including fuel surcharges, and luggage and seat selection. At hotel sites I look for resort fees and such.

    Results vary. Sometimes I’ll get a better deal with a travel agency, sometimes booking flight and hotel separately.

    It is worth mentioning I enjoy browsing such sites, and often I have months of lead time.

  35. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    Which is why I’ve never flown them. My acquaintance is the rare traveler that beats Spirit at its own game.

  36. CSK says:

    @just nutha:
    One would think that those who vigorously promote mask-wearing by others would have the brains to wear masks themselves, even if only for the look of things, but apparently not. “Masks for thee but not for me” is not a winning strategy.

    2
  37. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Kathy:

    Having been a business traveler for several years, I flew whatever airline was most convenient and d@mn the price, someone else was paying. Those years, personal travel was on points. Since retiring, I no longer fly, except to cross an ocean. Every other trip I drive. I’ve nothing but time and I get to see the country along the way.

    3
  38. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    I kind of like Pain Am.

    1
  39. just nutha says:

    @gVOR08:

    It’s unclear why legislation is needed for voluntary groups or for company unions, which already exist.

    So that Rubio and Banks can appear to be in favor of working for the interests of the worker while not doing so. What’s more interesting to me is that this transparent ploy will probably work and RTW advocates will cite opposition to it as more lefty/progressive hypocrisy about worker rights.

    1
  40. Kathy says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Volaris began as a low cost airline, along with Interjet in 2005. Later it adopted the ultra-low cot model, which means packing the plane and charging for everything. Interjet featured lots of space (32″ seat pitch standard, when full service airlines offered 30″).

    17 years later Volaris is thriving, while Interjet is deceased, and even Aeromexico charges for nearly everything. The trend is clear.

    Not long ago, c.2012, you could pick a bulkhead or exit row seat, both have more legroom, on any airline for free, if any were still available when you booked. these days even a middle seat in the last row (standard legroom, no recline) will cost you money. It’s obscene.

  41. Jen says:

    @gVOR08:

    It’s unclear why legislation is needed for voluntary groups or for company unions, which already exist.

    I’d be interested in taking a closer look at the text of the bill, there’s probably something in there that bolsters the hand of the employer in some way. This seems like just another way to form a PAC.

  42. just nutha says:

    @Sleeping Dog: I flew on Frontier a couple of times. It takes a lot of discipline to limit yourself to “no, just the flight itself, please” though.

    1
  43. just nutha says:

    @CSK: You’d also expect people to be smarter considering the sheer numbers of pols who’ve been beat about the head and shoulders with this particular stick. I guess the old saying is true: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, business as usual.”

    2
  44. CSK says:

    @gVOR08:
    It’s more cultural than anything else. White non-college-educated voters see the Democrats as a crew of elitists who sneer at them and their values and vastly prefer Europe to the United States.

    This has been going on for a while. Remember Spiro Agnew decrying the “elite corps of impudent snobs”?

  45. CSK says:

    Sidney Powell says she shouldn’t be disbarred because “millions of Americans” believe that there was election fraud in 2020, and perhaps they’re right.

    1
  46. MarkedMan says:

    I don’t think of Fox’s Brian Kilmeade as an original thinker (and that’s an understatement), so I wonder what is behind him making the following statement about Trump, as reported by The Hill:

    “Nobody cares about 2020. Nobody. And everything that he said and the challenges that he made should have been done before the election. And they did a recount in Arizona, and the recount showed no difference almost, and he came out and said it showed that they won Arizona. That’s an outright lie, and please stop wasting our time with that, because he’s capable of doing so much more,” Kilmeade said.

    1
  47. gVOR08 says:

    @CSK: Oh yeah. I point out Wisconsin where Scott Walker went on a Koch fueled war with public service unions. When people saw unions got teachers a little better pay and benefits, the reaction wasn’t “We oughta get a union.” It was “Yeah, stick it to them uppity teachers.” Sad. It’s really hard to help some people.

    3
  48. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:
    I haven’t read The Hill piece yet, but Kilmeade appears to be saying that Trump is a great, great man capable of doing so much good, so why is he wasting his time with this election crap?

  49. CSK says:

    @gVOR08:

    It’s impossible to help some people when those people think you’re trying to destroy their way of life and everything they believe in.

    1
  50. @Scott:

    Then a tweet from Attaway’s now deleted account replied with: “The vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting or transmitted [sic.] Covid, but we’re mandating that the most healthy population on the planet get vaccinated or be discharged?

    Interestingly, that sounds a lot like the Rogan position on vaccines.

    2
  51. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Kathy:

    You maybe right, but the cheapies aren’t worth it. After I stopped flying significantly for biz and before retirement, I mostly flew Southwest, which was seldom the cheapest fare, often $25-$75 more. But everything is included and the pitch of the seats is tolerable. Quite often, I’d buy the early boarding option or even a biz class seat in order to get the early boarding. Flying commercial now is such a terrible experience, why make it worse. Granted some folks simply need to fly as cheap as possible, but most folks I saw seeking the cheapest possible fare, and extra $50 or $75 wouldn’t have been noticed.

  52. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    If millions of Americans tried to argue electoral fraud in court without evidences, they should all be disbarred as well.

    3
  53. Sleeping Dog says:

    Why does it seem that it is the R candidates who have the kinky peccadillos.

    https://nypost.com/2022/02/08/oregon-gop-gubernatorial-candidate-admits-belonging-to-swingers-group/

    1
  54. Kylopod says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Does that mean Oregon is a swing state now?

    5
  55. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    Yeah, Powell’s an uber-loon, just like her buddy L. Lin Wood.

    Does it ever, ever occur to the MAGAs why the only people willing to work on behalf of Trump now are utter sleazoids like Bannon and Roger Stone and lunatics like Powell and Wood?

    Not that Wood and Powell aren’t sleazy, but their defining characteristic is lunacy.

    2
  56. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    Very clever.

  57. Kathy says:

    Boosters for the 40-49 age group started this week. Apparently the stock of AZ has been used up, and this group will get the first dose of Sputnik V*.

    I’ve heard from one coworker who doesn’t want it. She wants AZ or Pfizer. Easy for me to say (I got AZ on top of two of Pfizer, after all), I advised her to get whatever’s offered. She could wait and see what the 30-39 group gets, and take it then (but they’ll likely get the second dose of Sputnik V).

    She countered with a reasonable objection: she wants to travel abroad this year, and the Russkiy vaccine isn’t approved in many countries. She assured me she’ll take it, though, as she’d rather not die of COVID.

    *The Russian vaccine is a viral vector vaccine, like AZ and J&J, but uses a different virus in each dose, apparently to prevent the immune system from developing resistance to the vector. I thought that was clever, but credible efficacy numbers for Sputnik V are hard to find. So who knows how well it really works.

    Two people I know who got both doses last year also got breakthrough Omicron this year. I don’t know if they got it mild or not, but both recovered without hospitalization. So it may be effective.

  58. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    This should answer your question: You’re just jealous that Biden can’t get people of that caliber. Benito hires the best people.

  59. just nutha says:

    @CSK: Is her statement actually related to the charge being leveled at her related to the disbarment or is it simply a deflection/diversion. Yes, I know that’s a stupid question, but I haven’t been following this circus, so I don’t know what’s going on anymore.

  60. just nutha says:

    @MarkedMan: I’m wondering why Fox hired a guy who, seemingly, can’t string words together better than that. Is he really THAT much better at reading off a teleprompter? Wa!

    2
  61. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    Okay, you made me laugh.

    When I make my daily trip to Lucianne.com, the Trumpkins there (which is 99.9% of them; non-worshipers get evicted tout de suite), always lament that Trump, being the honest, forthright, upright businessman that he is, was far too trusting of the evil Deep Staters who surrounded him.

    It’s his only flaw, you know. He was far too virtuous for Washington, D.C.

  62. CSK says:

    @just nutha:
    It was in the documents she submitted to the U.S. Appeals Court.

  63. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Sure, but also pretty clearly called him a liar. People like Trump either fade away (which ain’t gonna happen with this clown) or they wear out their welcome. When they turn on him it will happen fast. Not that they will ever admit they were wrong, but “Trump just isn’t the same guy any more…” (See Doctor Who: “Don’t you think she looks tired?”)

  64. Kylopod says:

    @CSK: You mean the old “Trump may be an asshole, but he’s our asshole” take is too cuck for them? They have to actually say he’s a nice guy whom they’d happily trust with their daughter?

  65. just nutha says:

    @CSK: I’m not seeing any reason for MAGAots to even recognize lunacy when they see it. Rejecting it would be unlikely in such a scenario.

  66. dazedandconfused says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Re: Kilmeade

    Trump’s extraordinarily soft take-down of Mike Pence is causing some of the mice to feel brave. They act the way they do to keep their highly lucrative jobs but most of them are quite aware Trump is a liar.
    Trump’s method of control is hard but brittle. When people are forced to act in ways they don’t believe in they hate the person who forces them, of course, but even more they hate themselves for knuckling under. The self-loathing stews and becomes toxic.

    I expect Trump’s loss of power, if it comes, will follow Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

    2
  67. Kathy says:

    I’m trying to come up with a quantum physics joke, but all I’ve got so far is the set up:

    A photon walks into two bars.

  68. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    Oh, my God, yes. Trump is a devout Christian. a faithful husband, a devoted father, a superlative businessman, and the best president we’ve ever had. Better even than Reagan. He fights on behalf of real Americans. No one stronger than Trump.

    That’s what they say they believe.

  69. Kathy says:
  70. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:
    Other than Trump deciding he’s now a liberal, I can’t see his hardcore worshipers ever turning on him.

  71. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    Oh, I think that some of them–a very few–are just pretending enthusiasm for Trump because they cherish the feeling of community they get at Lucianne.com and don’t want to be kicked out of the nest.

  72. Dude Kembro says:

    @gVOR08:

    Marco Rubio Wants to Be a Working-Class Hero. There’s Just One Problem.

    The other problem is that contrary to the prevailing media narrative, Democrats are still winning the (low turnout) votes of the lowest-income households and demographics.

    1
  73. DK says:

    @MarkedMan:

    I don’t think of Fox’s Brian Kilmeade as an original thinker (and that’s an understatement), so I wonder what is behind him making the following statement about Trump

    Same thing that’s behind Pence and McConnell’s newfound tepid anti-Trumpism. Fundraising numbers and internal polling showing Republicans are way weaker for the midterms than the prevailing narrative says they should be.

    1
  74. Michael Reynolds says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    When people are forced to act in ways they don’t believe in they hate the person who forces them, of course, but even more they hate themselves for knuckling under. The self-loathing stews and becomes toxic.

    I hope that’s true. We need these invertebrates to pull a Wormtongue vs. Saruman moment.

    2
  75. MarkedMan says:

    @CSK: Like I said, they will never admit they were wrong, they’ll just talk about how he’s not the same guy anymore. Not up to the new task.

  76. MarkedMan says:

    @DK:

    Same thing that’s behind Pence and McConnell’s newfound tepid anti-Trumpism.

    You could be right but, still, I think it’s different. McConnell and Pence have always resented Trump because he diminishes them. But Kilmeade was raised up by Trump. For him to risk Trump’s wrath, well, it just seems it has to be something more than some kind of general concern about Republican prospects.

  77. CSK says:

    @MarkedMan:
    I don’t think they’ll ever do that. They have far too much invested in Trump’s utter perfection.

  78. gVOR08 says:

    @Dude Kembro:

    The other problem is that contrary to the prevailing media narrative, Democrats are still winning the (low turnout) votes of the lowest-income households and demographics.

    As I recall, there was a rather revealing slip by a lot of analysts after 2016. It was common to say TFG won the working class vote. They had to be corrected – No, he won the white working class vote. He lost the working class vote billy.

    1
  79. gVOR08 says:

    @gVOR08: “billy”? I swear that said “bigly” when I typed it.

    1
  80. Kathy says:
  81. DK says:

    @gVOR08:

    there was a rather revealing slip by a lot of analysts after 2016. It was common to say TFG won the working class vote.

    Like we all do, many in legacy media extropolate too much from their own narrow experiences. Journalism social circles tend to be disproportionately white. And, yes, among whites Trump caused the educated (aka “the elites”) to drift left. Meanwhile, white Beltway types watched their downscale cousins back home in Ohio drift hard right.

    So the lazy narrative became Democratic elitism vs. working class champion Trump. Which erases the people of color, LGBT, youth, and others in relatively less privileged or less wealthy demos that formed the core of anti-Trumpism from the day one.

    Not only did Hillary carry households making under $50k annually by nearly ten points, she won even working class whites who told exit pollsters their top issue was the economy. Trump won working class whites voting on the culture war: immigration, crime, anti-Islam, “political correctness” etc.

    In response to criticism, some in the press have tried more intersectional nuance in analyzing demographic complexities. (Some still don’t get it, like the perpetually clueless Ross Douthat, who tried to rewrite how Zucker’s CNN enabled Trump with false equivalences, the But Her Emails witch hunt, and the now-infamous Trump podium coverage.)

    But Republicans remain high on their own supply; they think repeating “we’re the working class party” enough will confuse those folks into voting for tax cuts for billionaires.

  82. de stijl says:

    So I learned a new word today – ambivert.

    Not introvert, not extrovert. Something different. Between and both. I need to dig into this. It seemingly explains a lot.

    Fascinating.

    1
  83. Kylopod says:

    @gVOR08:

    As I recall, there was a rather revealing slip by a lot of analysts after 2016. It was common to say TFG won the working class vote. They had to be corrected – No, he won the white working class vote. He lost the working class vote billy.

    While I absolutely agree and have noticed that many people use “working class” as a shorthand for “white working class,” the claim that Trump won the working-class vote is based on defining the term as voters without a four-year college degree, and it is true–Trump did win that demographic both times (albeit very narrowly in 2020). And then the analytical pieces talk about Trump’s domination of the vote of whites without college degrees, which he indeed won by massive margins both times.

    The problem is that this category doesn’t map perfectly onto the everyday meaning of working class as someone who holds a particular type of job. Many people with four-year college degrees hold working-class jobs (at least initially), and many people without them don’t (Bill Gates would be defined as working class by this standard, at least until the honorary degrees he was given several years into being the wealthiest man on the planet). So why do pollsters use this category as the benchmark for what other people call working class? Probably simply because it’s easier to identify. It’s possible to imagine a long-ranging study where they identified working-class voters under specific criteria on what types of jobs they held, but it would be complicated as hell to set up such a study. For a run-of-the-mill exit poll, they’re pretty much stuck either asking the voter directly “Are you working class?” or asking them if they have a four-year degree. Most pollsters choose the latter, and this has gone on to become the overwhelming convention of a technical definition of working-class voter for analysis purposes.