2016 was similar to 2000: there was a widespread feeling the win was illegitimate; at the very least you would say there was no broad mandate to make big changes and a grassroots resistance made sense as the voice of the popular majority. This feels more like 2004: the people are getting what they asked for and it's a rancid sack of shit. I'm not saying "they deserve it" but it's hard to sustain a mass mobilization against what the majority of people, with clear eyes, very much voted for. I'm very uncertain what I can do that would be constructive. I do know I can't ride on the fresh outrage of the day train for four more years, for my own mental health.

This caught my eye but unfortunately there's no source for the data given

https://x.com/patrickjfl/status/1854645395856482568/photo/1

...so I'd be sceptical about it until it gets sourced.

Yeah, the 2004 election broke my brain.

The one productive thing that occurred to me was to double-down on working to master spanish fluently. Also it allows me to not listen to the news.

Yeah. I am checking out and so are the few folks I've talked to.

I Resisted with all my heart for four years and so far as I can tell, accomplished fuck-all.

This time I'm going small. I'm trying to figure out how to avoid the news.

For sure I am not marching again. I was dubious about those by Year 3 or so. Came to think they were symbolic and pointless against people who cheerfully ignore symbolism. So definitely not that.

A lot of organizations are being pretty submissive this time. In 2016 there weee messages about protecting the vulnerable, we won't back down from the challenge, everyone will stand up together. This time I've heard companies saying we can be bipartisan and have to respect the country's decision, we can find ways to work together. Obama said, "progress requires us to extend good faith and grace--even to people with whom we deeply disagree." I deeply disagree with your plan to open concentration camps, but I see you're making it in good faith? C'mon man. That's all aside from the bootlickers like Bezos and Zuckerberg. What's the point of $100B if you can't say Fuck that guy?
I just saw Inslee is an exception and put out a statement more like what was said in 2016.

There's a lot of good - well, valid - personal reasons so many in our generation are going to be checked out and hard to activate. That definitely includes me. I venture to say the social media drip-drip-drip also magnified everything in our brains so it was much harder to get respite than under Bush.

That said, let's not assume this follows for everyone, especially the generation that came of age after Trump. There might be a lot of ruin in a country, but there's also a lot of spirit.

And there is the regular old thermostatic resistance. Bush was tired and done by 2006; maybe Trump can be the same. If he were really Putin underneath he could fully prevent unpopularity from hurting him, but he's not so he probably won't cover all the bases.

I haven't wrapped my head around whether the great and good American people are actually fucking evil or if the average voter just literally has the IQ of a thermostat. It's kind of both, probably? Anyway I think all effort put into crafting and messaging policies and selecting good candidates might be totally wasted; you just have to wait until it's Your Turn, and it will probably be D's turn in 26 and 28 as long as Trump doesn't succeed in dismantling the constitutional order.

My belief is that Trump won't seek a third term because he will be 100 fucking years old and be fully mush-brained and ambitious Republicans will be ready to cannibalize him and eat his brains to absorb his magic power. And also because he won't feel the sting of defeat like he did in 2020 - he can ride his addled superlatives into the sunset forever.

I mostly agree with the despondency, but I'm not quite as aimless as LK seems to be. Several times since Tuesday I've imagined conversations with right-wingers I sort-of know (a college friend of mine I unfriended on FB after he posted celebratory stuff on Wednesday, but I haven't talked to him by any medium since 2021 anyway, and my aunt's significant other, who doesn't talk politics but was some kind of right-winger more recently than anyone else in the family), and I'm currently imagining it going something like this:

Me: why?

Them: inflation and the economy.

Me: but they're both currently good! And to the extent that they were bad, it was caused by covid rather than anything Biden did!

Them: I disagree, and anyways, Trump would make them better.

Me: No he wouldn't.

Them: Let's agree to disagree about that.

I can imagine similar discussions with only minor differences about the coup attempt on Jan. 6, abortion, and general sanity and civility. Those seem to point to the need for more reliable shared information, or how to understand/process that information, or basic agreement that facts matter. I don't know how to create that, but it's a starting point.

However, these are both genteel, dignified conservatives in purple states or at least purple districts. I have absolutely no idea where to start with open Naziism in North Carolina, just to pick an example in my FB feed.

Michelle Goldberg in the NYT was good on this topic.

Trump's first election felt like a fluke, a sick accident enabled by Democratic complacency. But this year, the forces of liberal pluralism and basic civic decency poured everything they could into the fight, and they lost ... The American electorate, knowing exactly who Trump is, chose him. This is, it turns out, who we are.

There's a lot of good - well, valid - personal reasons so many in our generation are going to be checked out and hard to activate. That definitely includes me. I venture to say the social media drip-drip-drip also magnified everything in our brains so it was much harder to get respite than under Bush.

The other thing that I've been thinking about is that for all of the immediately horrible things during the first administration, the single thing that I believe will have the greatest and most long-term negative impact on the country is his Supreme Court appointments, and that's hard to change with a march. Not everything will be the same as the last term, but I still think it's highly likely that the greatest impact is from the courts.

I get 13, but don't really feel it. There's a huge chunk of people who will never ever vote for a Democrat. The Alabama relatives (Democrats themselves) tell us about their friends who say things like "we really hate Trump but just had to grit our teeth and vote for him." Some of those people like him and are lying, but not all. These people are politically, if not personally, shitheads, and there are dozens of millions of them, and they've always been around. American as Apple Pie.

There are also the people who will never ever vote for a Republican. There are fewer of these people! There are always fewer people on the "better angels" side of a polity.

That leaves the people who decide elections, who are poorly informed and mostly apolitical, without enough context to understand what's actually being proposed and the likely consequences. Some of these people are just stupid, but I see a lot of these types on HackerNews who aren't precisely dumb, but are like "this RFK guy is making sense!" because they don't have enough knowledge to distinguish good faith from bad, or grifters from revolutionaries. These are the people who end up switching sides based on whatever has become salient in that particular election. Inflation, trans rights, whatever. And you think we're seeing these sea changes, but it's just a sliver of the population blowing this way or that.

I'm really starting to incline towards the viewpoint that you should focus on things which you have control over, and so trying to figure out how to be less aware of political things that do not directly affect my life. I know the usual left-of-center viewpoint is that this is bad and unfeeling, but all the mental health research backs it. And of course there will be plenty that directly affects my life (had both a trans student and a muslim student afraid this week). In a way that's "surrender" but I think of it more as "acceptance." Focus on what you can do, and stressing isn't doing.

Comment 195 to 1. At any rate you said it well, and I completely agree that's where I'm at. The two things I'd add are that in 2004 it took me a lot of anger because it was so fresh, but I already processed a lot of my anger (mostly at the church) then and so it isn't as strong now, and that you never know what will happen there wasn't long from 2004 to 2008.

John Hinckley Jr. Tells People to Quit Asking Him to Kill Trump

Not an Onion headline!

https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-hinckley-jr-tells-people-to-quit-asking-him-to-kill-trump/

the single thing that I believe will have the greatest and most long-term negative impact on the country is his Supreme Court appointments

Probably right, and it may be that I'm worried about it because I work with a lot of these people (might lost my job myself, in fact!) but I think the coming gutting of the civil service is going to be a huge deal that will be hard to recover from for a long time.

I'm really starting to incline towards the viewpoint that you should focus on things which you have control over, and so trying to figure out how to be less aware of political things that do not directly affect my life.

Yeah, I think especially in the social media era there's this pervasive narrative that you need to be aware of everything and Doing Something about every problem, and there's just no way. People who try to keep up burn out and take out their frustrations on each other.

I'm not quite as aimless as LK seems to be.

That wasn't a self-description: I was talking about seeing things along the lines of what SP describes in 8. Submission is another good word for the phenomenon. I'm not feeling personally aimless (or submissive); maybe a little apprehensive. Impulses are driving me in a few different directions at the moment, but I also have a bunch of private-life crap to deal with (such as finding gainful employment), so I need to do triage in general.

I think I've successfully quit twitter in the past month (I was back on for the election, but just for a day or two), and Facebook, and next up is stopping checking the NYTimes front page. The main problem is figuring out how to get less politics on my non-politics Reddit. I don't want to quit Reddit because I mostly enjoy it, but boy the algorithm has been super annoying in repeatedly suggesting election-related stuff no matter how vigorously I hide it all. Fucking algorithms.

Weirdly I think the election is going to get me to quit this extra job I have at the end of this year (I'm supposed to stay on for three years, this is year two). I'm not totally sure why. I really hate a lot about the job, but a week ago I wasn't seriously thinking about quitting, and now I am, so it's probably about the election but I'm not sure the connection.

And to 16, targeted action is definitely not "surrender" in my view. I really wasn't referring to anyone here, tbh.

23: the election result means that the amount of shit you hate but have to put up with is about to increase by a pretty large %?

the coming gutting of the civil service is going to be a huge deal that will be hard to recover from for a long time.

Also not something for which marching against it feels like a fruitful path.

I don't know what my activism / media consumption is going to be like in the next few years, but I want to cut out Kremlinology and anything that requires me to formulate a mental model of Trump or his cronies. I don't want or need that shit.

I have very little self discipline when it comes to abstaining from news and social media so I'm absolutely dreading these next four years

28 is me. I remember a team discussion thing at work* back in about 2018 or 2019 where our manager talked about how the political drama had made so many people totally check out from the news, and I volunteered that I was experiencing the opposite, that it had made me a (miserable) compulsive refresh monkey.

* super awkward, mostly consisted of my well-meaning but not very smooth manager trying to say good stuff about touchy subjects while the rest of us were kind of stony-faced and trying not to respond.

I've been mulling the idea of founding an art gallery and using it to sell subversive political art. The left needs propagandists and a way to fund them.

Could I swing that financially? Not sure.

I bravely watched horrifying videos from TFNYT opinion page (link by request) to get these M. Gessen quotes:

The worst case scenario for a Trump presidency is reaching the point "basically, when nothing we can do by voting or using our existing institutions will reverse the consolidation of power. And I have a great fear that that's exactly what's going to happen over the next four years. (The best version of a Trump presidency is one that is so torn apart by infighting, by battles over loyalty to the leader, that it doesn't get a whole lot done.)"

It is very much an open question what happens to journalism in the U.S. now. I grudgingly admit that I actually do fucking care. I wish I didn't.

I share the fear about consolidation of power ratchet effects.

I remember the election in 2016 pretty clearly, but I don't remember much of those first months of the Trump administration. Sometime around New Years it was apparent that my dad was likely to die soon.

On the unproductive front, this morning was the first that I found myself in an absolute rage (I know, quelle surprise) rather than just gutted. To the extent that I was distracted enough during an activity I was engaged in that I did it quite poorly. I just happened upon three "hate bombs" in a row and it got in my head. Unhealthy, but maybe better to rage than to seethe.

1) Manchin saying Trump had an *unbelievable* opportunity to unite the American people. ..., Really, really fuck off and go away; I appreciate that you were one of the highest WAR Senators of all time, but yeah , what an opportunity for the guy who just spent weeks calling your former black female colleague "stupid, low IQ" in a barely veiled racist misogynistic dog whistle. I mean I get it, the "fuck your feelings" crowd gets to be snowflakes in perpetuity and we are the only ones with agency. But fuck 'em. Whatever else you have to say about them, HRC and Kamala have both faced the tidal waves of hate and invective hurled at them with grace and dignity. But that counts for little when we have a walking obscenity who barely gets 50% support in a post-Covid warped information environment* and we gotta go kumbaya. Kumbaya in my pants you slimy subterranean goiters.

2) Yet another Times guy banging on in an article about inflation. Yes, yes, we fucking get it. but inflation hit everyone and only half chose to vote for the worst human in the country. I think this was the Times business guy who got all self-righteous after he mocked Dems with no one knowing what was in the IRA etc. Said his not job to tell people. You know what, if you are a business reporter it actually *is* your job to report on relevant government actions.

3) Various D "strategist" blaming woke, and trans, and whatever-your-little-centrist interest is for turning off voters. Just fucking hold it for a week or two could you not? No, no they cannot and will not.

*I will give Rupert Murdoch genius props. Evil, but an evil genius. he has won.

31. I agree with her. Palantir can (maybe has already) implement a loyalty score for everyone, and with weakened financial regulation, maybe implement selective capital controls, definitely selective harassment from whatever new form regulators take. They'll start by going after obvious financial or ideological enemies. I'll be paying attention to ProPublica's fate. OpenSecrets lists the biggest donors, they're going to go after powerful Democrats. Bloomberg, Simons foundation, probably the Pritzkers. Apologies if this is the wrong kind of thing to write, but it's a pretty obvious start.

Some more unhelpful but heartfelt DGAF rage:

We all contain multitudes, including Stupidity, Ignorance, Nastiness*, and Selfishness. If any or all of those become politically dominant for you, you vote Trump. And politically that is what you are. Am I saying I'm better than them? On this particular front, yes, yes I am. There are many other aspects to life, but to me this level of political transgression overshadows them all. Excluding some very disadvantaged people in communities that keep them in ignorance, I am willing roundly condemn every trump voter. Per heebie, they do vote as if they have rotted cores.

When I see them, I see them mocking the handicapped and egging on the attack on the Capitol and the police protecting it. That is what they are to me.

*Generally manifesting itself in misogyny, racism and hatred of the other.

We all contain multitudes, including Stupidity, Ignorance, Nastiness*, and Selfishness.

I did not have the full-on street preacher meltdown over SINS here on my bingo card.

I am back to saying I have no idea what will actually happen and do not want to excessively catastrophize. But no one who supported or voted knows either.

And there is no denying that the risk is palpable and ongoing. Forget the grotesque fraud, the attack on information and rationality have potential consequences far beyond the direct actions of any individual actors or groups.

They have collectively cried havoc! and let slip the dogs irrationality and hatred. (Maybe in the end, lead always wins.)

In other news, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood and I need a more gripping book than the one I am currently reading. Book recs that drive all else from one's mind appreciated. (We are just finishing up My Brilliant Friend on the TV machine and that has done a good job of immersion. Dark also worked well along those lines.)

So, that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money? There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it.

8 is exactly right.

Black people, especially black women, even more especially older black women did what they were supposed to do. They did the work they've done for a long time. As a white woman I don't think I have the luxury of giving up now. If I'm going to give up, I should make a decision to leave the country.

Democracy is important to me, but I'm not a pure democrat. I value the Republic and the Rule of Law more. That's worth fighting for. And trying to preotect the vulnerable is important. I don't know what's going on in New York and NJ. I know that the municipality with the highest percentage of Harris voters, wasn't Brookline or Cambridge, but Provincetown. Because gay people know they are at risk.

Dan Davies' Unacountability Machine is good, Devdutt Pattanaik's My Gita I found mostly absorbing and interesting, not every chapter worked for me, but the good ones were great. I loved Podany's Weavers, Scribes and Kings. Chuvin's Chronicle of the Last Pagans up until the last couple of chapters was good. Donald Westlake, Ross MacDonald for mysteries, some of Pelecanos' books also.

Oh, the autotranslated dialogue is occasionally terrible, but The Long Season on Amazon is truly fantastic television, the best episodes, including the first and the last, are so good-- great cinematography and acting.

I'm reading James by Percival Everett and I'm enjoying it a lot. I read a couple of other book by Everett, and they were interesting, but I wouldn't say I enjoyed them. I'm thinking of rereading Huck Finn now, but maybe it would have been better if I reread Huck Finn first.

I mentioned this book a week or so ago, but The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (a retelling of the King Arthur stories) was incredibly absorbing and a lot of fun. I also loved Liz Moore's newest, The God of the Woods. I've loved everything I've read by Liz Moore, but this was maybe my favorite.

35
They'll start by going after obvious financial or ideological enemies. I'll be paying attention to ProPublica's fate. OpenSecrets lists the biggest donors, they're going to go after powerful Democrats. Bloomberg, Simons foundation, probably the Pritzkers. Apologies if this is the wrong kind of thing to write, but it's a pretty obvious start.

I don't know, I'll bet they'd start by going after illegal immigrants. Followed by rolling rights for LGBTQ+ people back to 2010 or so. Those two categories right there are tens of millions of people. I think rich people who happen to have donated to the "wrong" side are safe for a long time yet.

Sulzberger has already told us the degree to which he is willing to work with, and against, an authoritarian government. I'm really going to be interested to see what happens at the Washington Post.

If I were advising Bezos, I'd tell him that the best way to reach his goals would be to turn the Post over to a nonprofit and wash his hands entirely of that newspaper. Or maybe sell it to Sinclair.

45. Sure, those unfortunate events are also coming soon, but they're not directly part of consolidating power.

I think rich people who happen to have donated to the "wrong" side are safe for a long time yet.

Ok, but will they curtail their donations to the wrong side, at a time when it will be needed more than ever?

I think whither the billionaires is chaotic and non-obvious. In Nazi Germany, they mostly fell in line, became allies of the government, and made massive profits, with a few exceptions. In Putin's Russia, over time a lot of them ended up hounded out of their positions and replaced with friendlier oligarchs. There's reasons for both greed and cowardice on their parts.

Its weird how much Musk and Theil and Bezos have become genuine oligarchs now.

a lot of them ended up hounded out of their positions windows

The quote I read over the past few days that hit home was: "Perhaps you're beginning to see America the way the rest of us have for years."

(from an American's conversation with a Moroccan)

50: Yeah, "oligarchs" and "fascism" can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole.

What's the source? I'm curious whether it was more "now you're an outsider in your own land" or "you look in the mirror and finally see the asshole that you really are."

55 to 52/53 obviously.

52, 53, 55: I often reflect on -- and have mentioned here several times -- the 2016 SNL skit where Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle mock the white liberals on election night saying things like "This is the worst thing America has ever done!"

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1gmu38f/the_incumbent_party_in_every_developed_nation/

55: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/177cTvEnjX/

I am really annoyed by all of these articles about the Harris campaign being in debt. If it had worked, it would all have been worth it. Aren't they often in some debt.

I did just get solicited for money to help cure the ballots in Pennsylvania, but it seems to me that it would be more useful to give to Casey's campaign directly.

I'm emotionally checking out for a bit (to the extent that I still can while teaching about directly relevant subjects), and then will be politically active at local levels. If there's another DC march I'll probably attend just for the optics/narrative, but wow am I effing stressed out.

59: That is quite the read.

Most of America's Christians will rejoice, of course. They believe their God has given them what they want, what they have asked for. If they paid closer attention to their Scriptures, they would note that when the biblical God was displeased with his people, his go-to punishment was to give them what they asked for. King Saul comes to mind. "He gave them over to the desires of their hearts" was, I believe, the phrase. "Be careful what you wish for" is a more secular rendition. Americans just handed the keys to the nation to the Allstate Mayhem Guy. The results will be ugly.

Thx for book/tv recs.

I stayed home yesterday and watched movies all day
The Swimmer: A masterpiece. Burt Lancaster was born for this role. You could watch Mad Men or just watch this, and you should. I can't believe it took me this long to finally watching it and I will again and again.
The Big Gundown: Underseen Spaghetti Western. Lee Van Cleef is great as always.
Big Time Gambling Boss: The yakuza movie as Shakespearean tragedy. Highly recommended.
Play Dirty: Fantastic and very cynical war movie. Michael Caine is very good but holy shit is Nigel Davenport brilliant.

Please pretend that had proper grammar

Also, NMM to Tony Todd. I really need to rewatch Candyman. Also the Visitor episode of DS9 which always moves me to tears.

The Swimmer is vivid and odd and contains a scene involving the worlds most ill-conceived cocktail, the bullshot. The short story is good.

Smearcase!

Since heebie mentioned learning Spanish and I've been doing the same, I'm reminded of years ago when I was first learning Spanish. I had wondered how a society could decide a gender binary was so central to life that they would views hands as feminine and feet as male. Now I'm like "oh, that's how."
Also, if feet weren't female, then they had perversions, but not in a way we could understand.

I realize the conversation has moved on but to expand on 1 another big demotivater is the pointlessness. In 2016-2020 we were always possibly One Big Thing away from being done with this guy forever. It's now clear that there's literally nothing he could do that would get 67 votes to convict in the Senate, that the legal system can't or won't do anything as long as he's in office and that the only realistic escape before then is a massive cardiac event.

(I'm surprised I haven't seen any Resistance Porn about what weird trick Jack Smith or Judge Chutkan can use to save the federal cases. Note that firing Jack Smith would be an impeachable act in itself if we were living in a rule of law society.)

I have been studying Spanish daily for four years and am completely held back by being terrified of attempting to have a real conversation with a native speaker.

In Spain, I once was conversing with a native speaker and pretending that I couldn't understand English when a British guy asked me for a cigarette. I only had two cigarettes and we were on a train where I didn't know if you could buy them.

69 is a good point. He was perpetually doing The Thing that was clearly such absurd performance art that everyone would surely finally rise up against him. A ban on all Muslim people! A secret direct line to Russia! And that's just the first week. Children in cages!

I am committed to blaming the voters and not dissecting the campaign. And yet I do note that we didn't remind anyone about children in cages. Probably wouldn't have changed a single mind.

Apparently not having a better answer to the question "what would you have done differently ?" But was damning.

A significant minority of voters views the children in cages as a positive, either because they enjoy children in cages or because they do not believe immigration can be curtailed short of cruelty to the weak and don't care about much beyond curtailing immigration.

It's kinda surprising to me that the stock market just doesn't believe there's going to be tariffs.

I don't understand the connection between the economy and the stock market anymore. But I suspect that the tariffs will never actual happen.

I think the deportations will happen, but I don't know how bad they will get. From what I understand about Florida, they kind of stopped enforcing DeSantis's law as soon as it threatened the broader economy.

77: Yes. I think there will be abuses and some horror on the margins, but they will not threaten the broader economic dependence on undocumented workers. Probably will mostly be used as another tool for differential enforcement to enforce loyalty. Nice little agricultural/construction/food industry thing you got going be a shame if something significant happened to your workforce.

On tariffs, I'm not so sure. I suspect there will be a big internal debate on how to apply them with some actual honest difference of opinions. Once again, most likely will be deployed differentially as a tool of the autocracy.

As the results continue to come in 2 things:

1) Am reconsidering my dismissal of the polls. Sure they are heavily model dependent and i am still skeptical of their validity in predicting the actual margins, but I think there are two things they did get right for sure.
.. a) The differential between Trump and Senate candidates. And this one makes sense as being actual signal, whatever the actual margins and massaging, if on the same survey people pick an R presidential candidate and a D senate candidate that is probably a real differential, no matter if the overall margins are suspect. (And I will confess this is one where my own biases blinded me, these fuckers actually "want" Trump, they really wanted him. And I even knew about Trump/Gallego signs in Arizona.)
..b) The SW Sun Belt thing was real. The male Hispanic thing in large part I am guessing.

79.2 The following is already baked in and will never be undone.

Trump's "decisive" win and huge mandate. Almost uniform shifts for sure, but PV will be *much* closer than 2020, EV are a little worse as are tipping point %s, but not by a lot. (And Harris closer in Blue Wall states than Trump in 2020.) One of those baked-in asymmetries that to me are yet another symptom of the warped information space that the coming Trump administration will work on to warp further,

I was not at all a fan of MSM "wanted him to win" takes, but watching media in the aftermath (only a little bit, I have not the stomach) has weakened my resolve on this a bit. However I do give credence "they would prefer it to be close" (also see Bush versus Gore in 2020), "we should soften his reality to not antagonize crazy bigoted greed heads" and "our owners are ambivalent at best" do apply.

Grimly amusing was watching folks like Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in the last few weeks clearly trying to write much more strongly about his disqualifying features and threats to democracy and stability, when their work for the whole of the Biden administration was the epitome of double standards for coverage of Trump/Rs versus Biden/Ds.

76: I heard someone say that Trump might selectively introduce tariffs to punish people he sees as enemies. Usually companies are favored in the tax code, but that requires an Act of Congress.

75: The bond market does. Mortgage rates aren't going down because people are expecting long term inflation to be higher. Also stocks in private prisons have gone up a lot.

Further to 82.2- I recognize that the bond and mortgage markets are not the same, but bond prices have fallen allowing yields to go up because they too are pricing in higher inflation.

81 when their work for the whole of the Biden administration was the epitome of double standards for coverage of Trump/Rs versus Biden/Ds

so much this

Good analysis of what the numbers are actually telling us.

- Once California and other states are fully counted, Trump's margin will likely be in the ballpark of 1.9-2.8m votes, or 1.2-1.8%. Harris's drop vs Biden will be 5-6m. Overall turnout 2m lower.
- Turnout will be up in swing states, down in the rest.
- It seems to have been very common for Trump voters to leave the whole downballot blank, and this could turn out to drive the Senate results more than Trump+Senate Dem voters.

And given the difference in margin between (a) Trump and Senate votes and (b) swing states and non-, it is likely that all the Harris GOTV saved multiple Senate seats. (Not from the same thread.)

85.last is interesting.

I thought this was a fairly good election take. I disagree with some of the claims, but I still found it a helpful description of a deep frustration (written by the author of _Recoding America_ which I thought was very good).

https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/curiosity-and-conflict

I'm not clear in what sense the Democratic party didn't choose Biden. It was an open primary! He won!

To be clear, that's to Pahlka's: "Republicans let their voters choose the candidate, and Democrats didn't -- twice."

To be clear, that's to Pahlka's: "Republicans let their voters choose the candidate, and Democrats didn't -- twice."

Yes, I had the same question (I also objected to her reference to the misleading "garbage voters" story).

87: Huh. I found nothing of value in there. Just a series of false claims and indifference to how human processes work. Even "Let's find a scapegoat" is routinely done better.

I admit that "Don't nominate a black woman" is advice that has to be taken seriously, but she can't admit that's what she's advocating. The point of the essay isn't to diagnose the actual problem, it's to avoid the discomfort of facing the problem.

Did 91 read the same 87? She's not scapegoating; her whole deal is making government actually work, and she's saying that it keeps failing, and the Dems keep not engaging with that fact at a deep level. This is all true! Her late mention of identity politics is about the priorities of the party; not about Harris.

The "twice" comment I think must be about Bernie.

82: Sorry, I vehemently quit reading when she pretended that Biden had actually called half the country garbage and then in her footnote explaining the possible misunderstanding she cites Megan McArdle (!).

She is a mild sort of disnformationist and can got to fucking hell.

And then I noticed the reading list Matt, Barro, Parker, Brooks, Noah Smith.

Maybe the main part is "good," but seeing the reading list I highly fucking doubt it.

In my opinion it is fuckers like this who are complicit in the destruction of the information space and the enablement of our spasm of unreason.

We should listen to thes3e voices ... yada, yada, yada.

My rage way sucks, these fuckers are worse.

"Twice" is Biden and Harris.

One of her evasions is that she talks about "Democrats" but doesn't admit that the folks who drove this process in the end were Democratic voters. Biden was essentially unopposed in the primary because everyone understood that Biden had the support of the voters. The Democratic Establishment would have loved to have had an alternative -- and they found one!

Harris was overwhelmingly supported by "Democrats," which is to say "the Democratic voters." The only meaningful opposition to Harris came from people like Pelosi -- the Establishment. It's pure fantasy to suppose that it would be useful for Democrats to tear into each other in some kind of weird undemocrartic ad hoc primary conceived in an effort to overturn the will of actual Democratic people.

Who does Pahlka propose would have done better? She doesn't say -- or even hint at an answer -- because that's not the point. The point is to avert eyes to the actual problems. And the problem, per Pahlka, is Harris.

Pahlka is waaay into the essay before she talks about good government. Ron Klain is her primary target for the first part of the essay, and "Democrats" are the target in the rest. Biden was, in the real world, very good for good government.

85.last: (trump voters leaving senate blank)

I had seen that elsewhere (Jon Ralston in Nevada noted it) and it is quite interesting.

That would modify my 79.1.a. Were there more undecideds for Senate among the Trump respondents in polls? I guess I could try to look at some. But however it manifests, a significant differential between candidates of the same party on the same poll survey is probably signal and not noise.

92: But I do think your essential point is sound: You and I did not read the same 87, in much the way that Pahlka and I did not observe the same election.

I am short-tempered with the incessant drumbeat of this stuff. Nick Kristoff, and every-fucking -one. This after what will be a 1-2% PV loss and they are acting like it was the McGovern loss.

I will surely lose on this, but they are a big part of the problem. They have capitulated to the warped info space.

I realize I am bit unhinged a the moment, but God do I wish there was some national setup like in New York state (or just in PA at least) so I could disassociate from this fucking Democratic Party while not committing electoral suicide. (But not that it seems to have worked any wonders there.)

It's especially annoying because if Harris had won with 1-2%, they wouldn't be claiming a mandate.

98: Right, see Joe Biden in 2020 winning by 4.5%.

Paywalled, so I could only see the hed and sub hed, but the answer is right in front of us plain as day!

Anthony Weiner Weighs Return to Politics
He said on his weekly radio show that he's tired of seeing his fellow Democrats walk "into knife fights carrying library books."

You guys here have been doing a pretty good job for howevermilliontly of years you have been doing it of the Thing To Do which is centering community and disregarding institutions. You are in good shape.

Welcome to the era of Radical Just Hanging Out.

he's tired of seeing his fellow Democrats walk "into knife fights carrying library books."

Nothing wrong with that, Democrats just need the right candidate: John Wick

they are acting like it was the McGovern loss

I think it was. The entire group of professional Democrats should be ushered out and replaced with something grass roots and genuine. As I said in another thread, I think the proper frame to understand "the Democrats" is the years since Carter, and not any given decision that's been taken inside the paradigm they've been operating in.

But they're not going anywhere.

100: I don't exactly want to keep doubling down on my "guns vs. schools" take, but good heavens.

Clytie! I really hope you and your family are doing okay. The last couple of years have been a bulldozer, and now here comes another one.

It is so wildly expensive to run for office. My semi-retirement fantasy is to spend a year boning up on public policy, raise a few million dollars, and run for Senate in Illinois. I'm not the most capable or knowledgeable person, but I have two relevant real-life talents: I can explain complex things very clearly in different ways to different audiences, and I can make other people's opinions sound completely retarded. I also have a deep voice and spent my childhood downstate (and liked it). So I'm actually kind of serious, but the activation energy (and money) required is just enormous.

I think the deportations will happen, but I don't know how bad they will get.

I think it will be worse than I thought it would get in 2017, partly because there are fewer Republicans who would be horrified by camps and expulsions, and partly because I think they'll figure out how to fund the hiring, camp construction, and flights/buses/railcars/bribes to foreign governments that they'll need for mass deportation. I would expect them to try to tie the tariffs to the deportations, it's all foreigners being bad and getting punished for it.

Clytie! Clytie Stabby!

Biden was essentially unopposed in the primary because everyone understood that Biden had the support of the voters.

If "Biden won lopsidedly so there wasn't a real primary" is the implicit argument made in the section I quoted (maybe one of her citations makes it in more detail), it still bespeaks a lack of sense. The primary is what he won!

I also think birthright citizenship is probably dead. Not sure if there's a case already in progress to hang that on, but the right-wing legal arguments for overturning Wong Kim Ark have been around for a couple decades* and it doesn't matter if the arguments have any merit. If the Trump admin - or a successor since it will take a while - finds some administrative competence, probably they'll go for "guest" workers with no path to citizenship as the preferred labor arrangement.

*Probably longer, but that's when I came across them while learning about the case.

105/108 it me! Thank you! It has been a WILD 5 years or so. Lots of travail and lots of triumph. Pretty sure I now know everyone and everything and am the official Coolest Person In The World. And the first thing I thought after the election was ok welp AS I HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR SOME TIME this is going to be a community > institutions reckoning for lots of guys and I thought about folks who did community good and I thought about you guys and so I said hi! We got this! Unless we are the Ukraine or Baltic states. Uh silver lining there gotta be someone else's department entirely. I think I can handle the Middle East with some backup.

And while I'm speculating about deportation, I think the first Trump admin's loss on the citizenship question for the census will make things harder than they wanted. I don't believe that they wanted that question just to manipulate apportionment or redistricting or whatever "normal" manipulation that seemed to be the going theory of why they wanted it, I think they wanted to be able to use the data for deportation. There are supposed "walls" that would prevent data use for that purpose but I don't think they'd have observed them. I'd be more convinced that they wouldn't use the census data by an explanation that the data wouldn't have been helpful for the purpose.

What's the over/under on how long this White House issue brief on a tariff stays up? Gone before the end of January?

I admit I'm unconcerned about the tariff. I know it will be implemented in such a way as to punish enemies and not friends, but if the electorate is really fixed on inflation over employment, a tariff is shooting yourself in the foot. The only sympathetic victims of the tariff will be honest absentee landowners trying to sell soybeans.

I think they're going to gamble for a while on controlling and intimidating enough media to shift the blame. The midterms will matter a lot.

That's fine. Beans aren't an essential part of my income and I don't really need to buy much stuff.

82.last to 107. The border-industrial complex is already booming and that's going to continue. Not sure yet what kind of macroeconomic effects it will have -- I have definitely given up predicting that sort of thing -- but this is one obvious way for Republicans to enrich their constituents and create jobs and capture hearts and minds and so on. If anyone has better information on how this is going, I'd read it.

If "Biden won lopsidedly so there wasn't a real primary" is the implicit argument

The argument, as I understand it, is that Biden was, essentially running under the false pretense that he could manage a campaign and normal workload -- that he should have recognized that, declared that he wasn't seeking reelection, and we could have had a different primary (which Kamala probably would have won, to much grumbling).

That seemed like an absurd argument at the time but, in hindsight, merely seems like quite a stretch.

I've been doing pretty well at ignoring the media, and even most of the internet: really only this thread here since the election. It's what I did in 2004 and, as I think about it, 1984. I am not planning on demonstrations, because I don't think there's a persuadable plurality either in or outside of government. Obviously, specific instances might arise where it looks like there's room, but the result this time is so so different from 2016. At least in what people voted for. Naked Authoritarianism, without the fantasy of an impending pivot.

I may participate some in this community, which has been a valuable part of my life for nearly two decades now. And a couple of Discords. But I don't plan to pay much attention to the transition, to staffing, to Kremlinology. There may be instances where I have to care about something federal, professionally, but that'll be pretty limited.

Professionally, I've been disappointed at Joe Biden quite for a while, and will go to my grave mad at Lloyd Austin.

Locally, we gained seats in the Montana legislature. Not enough for a majority in either house, but with moderate Republicans, there may be majorities to defeat the craziest shit. We went 1-1 on the Montana Supreme Court races, so our constitution might be safe. We'll see how Held gets decided: a win for the kids would be a big deal. (The case was argued in July, so our outgoing CJ will likely still be on the court to write the opinion.)

We already had solid pro-choice precedent based on our constitution, and we just voted to amend our constitution to add a right to abortion. I think the pro-life movement is going to try very hard to get a national ban from Trump, and I wouldn't be surprised if they added to some kind of must-pass legislation.

They're smart enough to do this in '25, hoping it won't be as big an issue in the '26 midterms. If he had actually people, Trump's people would be telling them to wait for the lame duck in '26, but that's when the pro-life movement's leverage will be at a low ebb.

which Kamala probably would have won

I seriously doubt that, just as I doubt any California-identified politician would have won.

A friend who works in federal information technology contracting (basically a government contractor company, not the government itself) invited me to send in a resume a few weeks ago and I can't decide whether I'd take a job doing that. I do want a different job than I have, though.

I seriously doubt that, just as I doubt any California-identified politician would have won.

I agree that in a complete, blank slate primary with no incumbent (like 2020), Kamala would probably not have won. But in the scenario in which Biden was voluntarily stepping back before the primary, I think she would pick up a significant number of Biden supporters (even if he didn't endorse her, but I think he would have offered an endorsement of some kind). I do not think, if that had happened, that it would have been as magical a political experience as supporters claim but, as I say, in hindsight the idea shifts from clearly absurd to, "maybe if you really try you can believe there's a useful idea there."

When our presidential candidates win, they do so in spite of primaries, not because of them. No primary would or could have helped any Democrat, Harris or other, beat Trump. People voted for Trump because they wanted the fantasy world he sells, both about the present and the future he talks about.

People who knew that Trump was lying voted for Harris. 'Tell more people he's lying' has been tried and does not work.

People who knew that Trump was lying voted for Harris.

Not only that: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/live-update/election-news-2024/half-of-voters-are-worried-about-trumps-authoritarian-tendencies-some-voted-for-him-anyway

Nearly half of voters said they were "very concerned" that another Trump presidency would bring the U.S. closer to authoritarianism, according to AP Votecast survey data. Roughly 1 in 10 in this group voted for him anyway. About 6 in 10 voters said he is not honest and trustworthy, but about 2 in 10 in this group backed him. A majority of voters said he does not have the moral character to be president, and about 1 in 10 of those voters supported him.

To questions about camps above, the US has plenty of infrastructure that can be converted quickly, a sufficient number of companies that will be happy to get the contracts to build more, and law enforcement entities that will be happy to fill them. The Nazis' first concentration camp was at a military airfield; it opened within days of the Enabling Act. In the first two months after the Enabling Act, the police, SS and SA took about 35,000 people into "protective custody." (That figure is from the Federal Office for Political Education; Wikipedia says 100,000 arrested, some number of which were arbitrarily released.) The SA was deputized ("Hilfspolizei") and did what they wanted. Categories of people were arrested, but sometimes it was enough to be a personal enemy of whoever was doing the arresting.

On that cheerful note, good night.

CCarp- why were you disappointed in Biden professionally? I wish they had fought harder to continue expanded healthcare and food assistance but they were limited by the Republicans. And he did a fair amount. He couldn't sell it well enough, but I thought the policies were better than either Clinton's.

I'm very angry that Trump wasn't prosecuted for the insurrection much sooner, and now he never will be. If he has a heart attack in a couple of years, what happens then?

Charley, you're a lawyer and you did a lot of work with Guantanamo Bay detainees, so I'll let yi7 off the hook. My question is: what are small ways for the rest of us to resist and say that we do not assent to fascism and to try to protect the vulnerable?

The argument, as I understand it, is that Biden was, essentially running under the false pretense that he could manage a campaign and normal workload -- that he should have recognized that, declared that he wasn't seeking reelection, and we could have had a different primary (which Kamala probably would have won, to much grumbling).

Oh, so she's saying the formal 2024 primary was the first time and after Biden dropped out was the second? I guess that's a stretch but not as much as if she meant the old "and then Buttigieg strategically dropped out" jargle.

One thing that people actually could do is start crowdsourcing opposition research on likely nominees for various federal appointments. I'm sure the Heritage Foundation has a long list of scumbags with sketchy backgrounds just ready to put Project 2025 into action. Sandbagging those nominations will be one of the first battles of the administration.

Because pointing out past atrocious behavior has been working so well lately.

131: Ramming current nominees through now would be good.

I've read the link in 87 and the subsequent comments and you know what it reminds me of? Thousands of comment threads about Democratic primaries by someone complaining that the more leftist candidate didn't win. The author thinks the nation, or party, would be saved by even more of those comment threads. It's bullshit. It's the biggest waste of time ever, and I say that as someone who's spent literal years of his life playing World of Warcraft. Maybe Biden's biggest mistake ever was not announcing that he wouldn't run again in January 2021, or January 2023, but who cares? What lesson can we extract from that? Those were literally unique circumstances that can't come up again. Anyone saying that the lack of a Democratic primary in 2024 is why they voted for Trump is as suspect as anyone saying that they voted for Trump to restore dignity to the White House.

139, 131: I would love to hear examples of the sort of thing one could dig up that would stop a Republican Senator voting to confirm someone Trump wants confirmed.

I couldn't get past the first paragraph of the link in 87. I'll probably finish reading her book though.

Since the relatively early days of blogs, I've followed a path where I thought it was great to be able to read all kinds of thoughts from people I don't know whose work I respect to focusing mainly on reading people writing about their areas of expertise and worrying about what I might find if I look up their social media or blog or blog-like writing.

134 I suppose we're far beyond the point with getting caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy would do the trick.

Madison Cawthorn figured out how to get kicked out.

134 I think RFKJr might have trouble getting confirmed for HHS or FDA. But why bother with that if he can wield the power without having the title?

Ill-Omened Armistice Day, everyone!

135 is so vivid and tragic (and comic).

I am comforted to think that 135 can't possibly be talking about me because I have no area of expertise.

138: also bear in mind that this is advice coming from someone who didn't bother voting for Harris because he was sure she was going to win in a blowout.

Trump is advocating for recess appointments--I think by having Senate go on recess*, too enraged by media to look it up. As his term went on he grew fonder of acting positions.

*If he really digs in, this will be probably be a conflict with the pragmatic dickhead faction in Senate that will not want to give up having a hand in.

This is fascinating and drives one to drink or weep or both https://x.com/aaronnarraph/status/1855962504712552829?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

143 it is not enough for him that his party controls all branches of government and will willingly give him everything he asks for, he needs to feel no restraints on his power even if purely theoretical and perfunctory. A true narcissistic sociopath.

145 beat me to it; it's possible that Trump has some candidates in mind that he honestly doesn't think the Senate will confirm, but far more likely that he resents having to ask permission to do anything he wants, even when he knows that permission will certainly be granted.

Imagine that you, at work, had to put up your hand and ask for your manager's permission to go to the lavatory. Your manager is a good friend and a decent person; she has never refused you permission and you know she never will. It would still annoy you, though, wouldn't it? You'd want to get rid of that rule if you could?

Trump feels like that about everything, all the time. (There is a villain in the kids' book "Impossible Creatures" who justifies his actions by defining freedom as no one else being able to limit your actions, so only someone with absolute power can be truly free. Like that.)

144: is it really that ludicrous that a left-wing Democrat voter might vote for the congresswoman he supports, but be vehemently opposed to Harris's complicity to genocide, to the extent that he decides to use his vote to send a message to Harris (in New York, a safely blue state) on how unacceptable he finds that? I feel you should be able to conceive of such a voter. You might even have one living in your apartment.

By voting for Trump rather than abstaining in a state she was sure to win? You're just as delusional as they are.

I don't see why. Why is it perfectly rational to abstain (with no material effect on the election, because it's a safe blue state) in order to express displeasure with the candidate who's going to win, but ludicrously delusional to cast an equally ineffectual vote for the opposition for exactly the same reason?

If one's just trying to send a message, switching sides will be twice as effective. If 10,000 Gaza supporters in NY abstain, Harris sees her (still huge) margin of victory in NY go down by 10,000. If they all switch to Trump, her margin goes down by 20,000!

147: but that's not what most of those responses say. Many seem to genuinely support both Trump and AOC and see them both as anti-establishment and pro- working class.

151: that admittedly is nuts. It's difficult to imagine someone who can rationally and simultaneously think that their life would be better if AOC's policy preferences came into force, and also that their life would be better if Trump's policy preferences came into force.

Yes, it clearly isn't an expression of policy preferences . . .

Here, for the very little it is worth, is my extremely simplistic class analysis of the shift underway.

Neoliberalism was a very successful governing alliance between the emerging class of knowledge workers (ie "The New Class") and the plutocrats. It meant that knowledge workers did quite well, had their values and opinions represented across all media, which they populated professionally, and ran things as long as the conventional wisdom was also in the interest of those who controlled capital. As far as personally and culturally embodying all those meritocratic values, Obama was the high point and also the end. I still can't shake my deep attachment to him because those are the values that I imprinted on, as well. But intellectually I look at his 2 terms and think, well that shows all the shortcomings of that approach.

But the new coalition - not so much political coalition as much as deeper interest group balance - is an alliance between billionaires and the working class. This seems to be working out pretty well for the billionaires. Those of us in this knowledge class keep looking out and saying, but the working class will end up screwed.

But did they do all that well in the old regime? No, absolutely not. Look at how returns to growth shifted from going to labor and capital to going only to capital. And there were all sorts of moments, like China entering the WTO, where we said everyone is made better by trade but we'll need to help those hurt by it. Did that coaltion deliver anything to workers? Nope, all those "transfers" to losers were forgotten when the time came. But the upper middle class knowledge workers did pretty damn well until recently.

I think this helps explain the mysterious rejection of science and expertise. Experts are seen as a self-interested class that sounds smart but delivers only for themselves and the powerful. Because that's how it worked.

Anyway, this helps me make sense of things but I haven't any idea what to do with it from a pragmatic standpoint. Reread Karl Polanyi? Or Brad DeLong? Pretty thin gruel.

My brain's not on enough to extract insight, but this is kind of interesting....
https://coloradosun.com/2024/11/08/colorado-exit-poll-2024/

I think it's:
- Massive misinformation, specifically around immigration and the Democrats destroying democracy*
- Bro culture and sexism.
- Using markers of a healthy economy that are irrelevant to most voters' lived experience of the economy.

*For real. I keep reading that more people believed the democrats were destroying democracy - and considered this a top concern!! - than believed the Republicans were destroying democracy.

154: it's an expression of a desire for a compelling narrative to watch. What AOC and Trump have in common is that they are both memorable, visually distinctive characters with vivid personalities and clear ambitions and desires who get into dramatic public disputes with people. That makes them good characters.

If US politics were fictional, you would look forward to episodes of the show that featured them in central roles, and you'd be disappointed by episodes that were centred on, say, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson or whatever his name is, just like you'd look forward to an episode that had a lot of Tyrion Lannister or Hannibal Lecter or Omar Little. It doesn't mean you like Hannibal Lecter, far less that you want him as your psychiatrist. Just means that he makes good TV.

I think what this means is that the Democrats must begin their search for a 2028 candidate by looking for a Midwestern governor or senator who is four feet tall, or seven feet tall, or has a giant scar down one cheek, or a Maori facial tattoo or a great big bushy beard or a missing hand or something. Biden and Walz looked like generic grandfathers and this was a bad thing. No one wants to turn on the TV to watch generic grandfathers. They probably have at least one already.

I think 156 and 157 pretty much cover the whole thing. JPS likes to talk about the fucked up "information environment" or "information space," and I think that captures the rest of it.

seven feet tall, or has a giant scar down one cheek, or a Maori facial tattoo or a great big bushy beard

John Fetterman it is, then.

160: seriously, yes. Think about how much press attention Fetterman gets compared to other senators, and how he is a junior senator in a swing state and still has a fairly positive net approval rating (+12%).

Maybe someone with elven features to complete the party.

Except I don't think Kucinich did that well.

152: This reminded me of a crazy thread back in ye olden days when we were discussing a mc /manus -- shea / rer joint platform. And then I thought that it actually wouldn't be too surprising to find out they both voted for Trump. Actually the only vote that is completely implausible (putting aside geography) is James voting for AOC.

161: But Fetterman's been so gleeful about the genocide in Palestine. Will the voters who would withhold votes from boring Harris over Palestine come back to Fetterman because he's exciting?

163: elves are tall, though.

165: one way or another Palestine will probably not be a salient issue by 2028.

165 is that a sockpuppet on the blog?

167 Ukraine too, more's the pity.

Also I think Biden's approach was the wrong way round, vibes wise. He had radical pro-worker policies which the performative side of the party didn't notice and a centrist affect which put them off. You want centrist policies which the performatives will ignore but the base will like, and a radical appearance which will give off the right vibes.

Can't remember who pointed out that you have no chance guessing the big issue of an election four years out. Who was thinking about COVID in 2016 or email server security regulations in 2012?

170: I'm still not sure what the big issue was in 2024.

All interesting. Not sure the GoT explanation is incompatible with my class alliance theory.

But I think the misinformation frame isn't helpful. There is a reality war afoot and trying to win it by adjudicating through fact checking is a clear loser. If you want to win, you need to sell a more appealing reality not nag about inconsistencies.

We're snobs is the problem.

173: But we were trying so hard not to be snobs! We convinced ourselves we loved Tim Walz's corny salt-of-the-earth regular guy disdain of weirdos!

If you want to win, you need to sell a more appealing reality not nag about inconsistencies.

I think this is right, but I would change one word.

If you want to win, you need to sell a more appealing fantasy not nag about inconsistencies.

Also all the other reasons.

172: There is a reality war afoot and trying to win it by adjudicating through fact checking is a clear loser.

This is where I believe I and many other media cr4itics have been misunderstood); the "nitpicking" about inconsistencies and the like is not the point. it is pointing out that they are but a small symptom that media itself is working in a (skewed) alternate reality and that is why they come up a cropper a consistent direction so very, very often. But evidently not doing a good job of that. The whole framing that they (and we*) generally use is already a loser.

As an example Nate "the greater asshole" Silver is constantly on the warpath against people he claims (i.e strawmans) are saying Harris lost because the media was "mean to Biden." Be "mean" to Biden all you want, but cover the presidency and the laws as if they are part of our shared elected government which they are. and the economy as something other than a political story. a reconceptualization would have Government sections of newspapers rather than just Politics.

It is a gamed environment. Unfortunately the "appealing reality" if it is the actually reality has a fair number of warts. Fact checking is clearly not enough, but hard to win with reality versus a skewed alternate reality.

Upon preview, what said more succinctly in 175.

I'll add that "fact-checking" puts the facts off in a sidebar. It's not unusual for a story to say, "Republicans say this ... Democrats say this" and then have a fact-check column that says, "Of course, the Republican claim is ridiculous."

Fact-checking is the respectable media's way of saying, "We think the truth is a peripheral matter."

Yeah, I should have said that 'fact checking" ends up usually being harmful for those reaqsons.

It's funny to think of how many presidential elections I've voted in (missed 1996 by a year), and how many post-primary or post-electoral defeat postmortems I've witnessed here and elsewhere, and how the effect of my thoughts and opinions on whatever happens next with the Democratic Party is always zilch. Nothing discernible whatsoever. I could be complaining about a DC comics arc or a basketball game. And yet the format is always mea culpa, if I can just think this through: with such an intensely felt sense of responsibility. (Even more so than the extremely intense dissections of coaching strategies on the field.)

But 154 is onto something -- it's not original, but wherever the original arose, it was also onto something. Maybe this stems in part from the over-identification of knowledge workers with the political elite.

This isn't a very pointful comment, but why not post it? Who cares, nothing matters, etc.

154: I believe this is more or less the argument in Twilight of the Elites (Chris Hayes). I'm just guessing because I only read like a chapter of it before I got bored.

Over at our sister site, Chris has a good line, "...the point of governing is to make people's lives better, but the point of politics -- especially campaigns -- is to give people a story about who to blame for things sucking."

Also I think Biden's approach was the wrong way round, vibes wise. He had radical pro-worker policies which the performative side of the party didn't notice and a centrist affect which put them off. You want centrist policies which the performatives will ignore but the base will like, and a radical appearance which will give off the right vibes.

In the Ezra Klein interview with Patrick Ruffini* there's a point at which he says.

There was a period of time in which she was really consciously foregrounding around the homebuyers credit. That, by the way, was something that came up a lot in open-ends. When we asked people "what one policy proposal do you most associate with the candidates?" The homebuyers credit really shown through brightly for Harris. . . . She was executing almost flawlessly on what the Democratic pollster's memo would have said

I don't know how much weight to put on that, but I remember when she made the policy proposal there were a lot of center-left economists who immediately wrote that it was a bad idea, and would just drive up housing prices**.

*Republican pollster; so take anything he says with several grains of salt.

** Surprisingly, one of the people who was positive about was Noah Smithwas Noah Smith

Also I think Biden's approach was the wrong way round, vibes wise. He had radical pro-worker policies which the performative side of the party didn't notice and a centrist affect which put them off. You want centrist policies which the performatives will ignore but the base will like, and a radical appearance which will give off the right vibes.

This strikes me as a wild amount of shoehorning the past into hindsight. A flamboyant liberal who produces centrist policy would be super unpopular!

But anyway, Apo is right about the Fetterman model, and I remember saying so back when he was first elected. Unfortunately, this country is bound up in gender and some democratic candidates who can perform Super Male would be handy.

I feel like I'm getting dangerously close to self-parody, though.

Truly it can be said that this whole thing smacks of gender.

We need our own JD Vance!

Has anyone seen convincing numbers on how much gender hurt Harris?

What I've seen has been "about the same gender split as always, not unusual." But I think that kind of demographic breakdown isn't firm for a couple of weeks.

187: Has anyone tried to compare her race to one between a man with similar issue positions who was also running against Trump?

187: What I've seen is everything was about the same except for Latinos (men) and 20-something bros.

I'm at a Spurs game. I'm always vaguely surprised that professional sporting events do so many dorky crowd gimmicks. I know hockey and baseball, but I'm starting to think sports fans are dorky in general.

This Wembayana fella really has crazy proportions.

I'm envious! Would love to see Wemby live.

Also I'm old because I wear earplugs when I go to Bulls games.

Also also, I think the gimmicks are mostly aimed at kids. My kids get bored with the game, but they're into trying to catch t-shirts and guessing who will win the Dunkin race.

People only go to Pirates games to see the perogi race.

This strikes me as a wild amount of shoehorning the past into hindsight. A flamboyant liberal who produces centrist policy would be super unpopular!

Yes, there are two, mutually incompatible theories of political success. The first, which you reference, is that it's best to combine a politician who is (a) personally appealing and unthreatening with (b) policies that make a real difference in people's lives. That's an intuitively appealing premise for me, but some people are arguing that Biden's experience suggests that (b) may be a good use of political power but isn't a good route to political popularity. Which leads to the theory ajay is gesturing at -- that you want a politician who is (a) attention-getting and memorable with (b) policies that offer some visible signature items but which mostly don't change people's lives and retain the status quo.

The second theory seems unlikely to me but, again, current political events suggest that it's a stronger hand to play than it might initially appear.

Maybe human beings are just dorky.

There are a lot of empty seats! Come on down.

Where are you sitting? I'll look for you in the crowd. I see we're doing trampoline dunks right now.

Section 224! These seats are so high and steep that it's unsettling.

Hawaii is performing at halftime, if they air that! It's their community day with a bunch of local dance studios and high school bands, etc.

Nice! League Pass typically airs the in-arena entertainment, so maybe!

100-year-old vets get me in the feels.

Anecdata, but the first two triumphant Trumpers I ran into on election night were both most pissed off about their wives leaving them, and the financial difficulties that flowed from that. Vengeful Daddy is going to straighten that shit out.

We can't run against this kind of thing, any more than we can run against punishing immigrants for eating cats in small town Ohio.

I can totally see Trump's recess appointment strategy. Not sure all senators the R are going to be on board. What he really needs are some opportunities to appoint horses to the senate. First, he'd need to get some horses , , ,

I thought that was sweet, too.

A flamboyant liberal who produces centrist policy would be super unpopular!

OK, there's a definitional issue here, obviously, but I think in the context of their times and races you can fairly call both the Bill Clinton's and Barack Obama's pre-election personas flamboyantly liberal.

People who are genuinely flamboyantly liberal were disappointed in both of them, yes, but this just shows that they had expectations based on paying more attention to the vibes than the words. But both were popular, and got re-elected fairly handily.

Any way for me to recognize Hawaii?

The studio is First Class Dance Studio. Wearing black bike shorts and black shirts. Hawaii is probably the second tallest girl on the team? Maybe the tallest?

Very long light brown hair.

I haven't seen the dance yet, so I don't know where she's located.

I think they're next!!

Only the fact that my wife is sitting with me makes it ok that I'm watching these performances with interest.

She was the first one walking out, dancing on the far left.

They were good!

I had her pegged as either far left or far right.

They did so good!! so much fun to watch them.

Just emailed you a pic of the screen.

Ok, this game is terrible and I'm going to stop watching now.

haha. That photo is amazing, and I uploaded it to the team chat, and everyone is loving it 🥰

Yay!

What he really needs are some opportunities to appoint horses to the senate.

If Marco Rubio gets to be Secretary of State, that actually gives Ron DeSantis an opportunity to appoint a horse.

The last 2 NBA games I went to were in Boston, and it really was like a circus/parade with some breaks where they played basketball,

220 Nice try, but no one other than Trump gets to appoint anyone to anything.

Do you think Don Jr will get a seat?

Yeah. That game was no good. Did not see the halftime shows.

Yeah. That game was no good. Did not see the halftime shows.

184: Fetterman, interestingly, has come out in vehement opposition to the use of the word "bro" which he said was the Democrat equivalent of talking about "childless cat ladies".

196: I think what I'm getting at here, and I am very much thinking this out loud so feel free to point out why it's rubbish, is that there are two electorates, and traditional politics has only really looked at one of them.

Electorate A are, I suppose, goal-oriented. (You could call them rationalist but that sounds a bit pejorative of the others.) Each of them has a set of policy preferences and they look at the candidates and vote accordingly. Electorate A includes people from across the political spectrum. What makes them all Electorate A is that they all act like rational agents seeking to maximise governmental movement towards their target, expressed as a point in an n-dimensional policy hyperspace.
An Electorate-A progressive might say: "Well, Gomez supports free childcare and lower military spending. Chavez doesn't, but he does support more foreign aid for Africa and student debt reform. Let me consult my list of preferences. Hmm. I like all these things, but I like foreign aid for Africa and debt reform more than I like the others. My vote therefore goes to Chavez." An Elec-A conservative would do the same sort of thinking but looking at his own preferences of lower taxes, support for businesses, abortion bans or whatever.
If you do things that make an Elec-A voter happy, he will vote for you, and you make him happy by implementing as many as possible of his top policy preferences.

Electorate B fundamentally don't believe that policy decisions make much impact on their lives - they go by vibes, which is mostly about who will produce the most entertaining stories. Electorate B also includes people from across the political spectrum, but they will vote for the people whose vibes match their preferences. A conservative Elec-B voter won't vote for the candidate who favours the most conservative policies, but for the candidate with the most entertainingly conservative vibes, or the candidate whose supporters offer the most rewarding parasocial environment.

Now, my suspicion is that much of the support for people on the fringes of politics comes from Electorate B. Fringe politicians don't appeal to most of Electorate A because their actual policy ideas are wacky and impractical, and most Elec-A voters disagree with them (because they're fringe!). By elimination, then, they're getting their support from Elec-B.

I would hypothesise that Elec-B is big enough that a winning coalition mathematically has to include people from both electorates. You can't win, as a left-ish candidate, with just the Elec-A left. You need to bring in some of the Elec-B left too, otherwise you won't have the numbers.

So from that, you can deduce that a good candidate has policies that will attract his side of Elec-A - fairly central - and vibes that will attract his side of Elec-B - so fairly fringe. This was Obama, for example. Not a very progressive president by Democrat standards, certainly not compared to Biden, but good progressive vibes.

You correctly point out that doing things that will improve people's lives is good - yes! But it's not necessarily a good way to win elections.

Electorate B fundamentally don't believe that policy decisions make much impact on their lives

...I should have added "or on anything they care about". Elec-B voters aren't necessarily selfish - they just don't believe that government policy decisions affect anything that they regard as important.

Nicely summed up. I've been thinking something along those lines for ages, but I get stuck in impotently fulminating about nihilism and unseriousness and "some people just want to watch the world burn."

Two meta-ish things that I have found helpful. First, in a two-party system if you don't roundly despise the wackos/sellouts/whatevers at the other end of your coalition, it is too small and you will probably lose.

Second, elections are referendums on the organizing that we have done since the last one. (I think I first heard that from Erik Loomis.) That's organizing broadly defined, not just specifically campaigning.

Nothin' Matters and What If It Did

227 is a bit like Jason Brennan's taxonomy of the electorate into hobbits, hooligans, and vulcans. Pulling from Ch 1 of his Against Democracy, hobbits are apathetic and ignorant, low-information with respect to social science, government, and current affairs, and prefer not to think about politics in daily life. Hooligans treat politics like sports fandom. They have largely fixed worldviews and can present arguments for their positions, but tend to overconfidence, confirmation bias, and inability to weigh alternative viewpoints. They also tend to despise members of opposing political "teams." Vulcans, obviously, are scientific and rational political actors who aim to weigh evidence dispassionately and without bias, and have no strong negative emotions towards their opponents.

On this scheme the A-Electors are vulcans, and the B-Electors are hooligans who prefer to be entertained above anything, mixed with hobbitish skepticism about whether any of it matters at all.

Of course, as the title says, in the end Brennan thinks we shouldn't have democracy at all, given that most of the electorate is hobbits and hooligans (or B-Electors). If you want the best outcomes, just let the actually qualified people decide. So either straight epistocracy or something equivalent to it.

227: I do think there are some aspects of Electorate A that I think can shade a bit into vibes (and quite rightly so). For instance in addition to the policy goals themselves are an assessment of the ability to enact those policies, build and maintain coalitions to support the polices and win future elections. Agree that for Elect A these are all in the service of "rational" goals, but they manifest in more vibey ways contrasted with assessing support for desired and undesired policies.

Not meaning to start a Bernie Sanders assessment, but I will just say for me Sanders has signaled in various ways that he would not be that effective in actually doing the stuff and so has been a pretty hard no for me. And I may well be wrong in that.

232: interesting (and now I know what "epistocracy" is; it isn't "rule by people who write letters to each other). But I think my point of difference would be that I think Elec-A is a very large part of the population, maybe even a majority.

233 is a very important point and I don't think it shades into vibes - you absolutely should include an assessment of how likely Chavez and Gomez are to actually get anything done in your decision.

This is what the Labour left missed regarding Corbyn. Yes, his policies mostly polled pretty well, but people simply did not believe that he and his crowd had the competence to put them into effect.

The hobbits, meanwhile are by definition not an important part of the electorate because they are apathetic and ignorant and very unlikely to vote.

Completely off topic but this is interesting:
https://www.politico.eu/article/october-deadliest-month-russian-troops-war-uk-official-says-tony-radakin/

Russia took an average of over 1500 casualties (dead and wounded) per day in October, according to UK intelligence. Armoured vehicle losses confirmed by photograph were also at near-record highs in October https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/11/05/open-source-data-shows-russia-s-equipment-losses-in-ukraine-reached-a-two-year-high-in-october

This morning the Ukrainian government reported that yesterday - in one day - Russia lost 1,950 casualties (a record) and over a hundred tanks and armoured vehicles (also a record).

And things haven't died down since the US election - quite the contrary. Maybe they think Trump will force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire on the current front line, and they want to grab as much as they can before he's inaugurated?

236: Unless an actual orc is running, Apparently.

hobbits are apathetic and ignorant, low-information with respect to social science, government, and current affairs, and prefer not to think about politics in daily life. Hooligans treat politics like sports fandom. They have largely fixed worldviews and can present arguments for their positions, but tend to overconfidence, confirmation bias, and inability to weigh alternative viewpoints. They also tend to despise members of opposing political "teams." Vulcans, obviously, are scientific and rational political actors who aim to weigh evidence dispassionately and without bias, and have no strong negative emotions towards their opponents.

I think this is good, as well as Ajay's taxonomy.

I'm now actually off twitter so missing some of my vote count guys (and I do not think they really know Alaska anyway). Vibes I see are Peltola not going to pull it out, does that square with your read, teo?

I think it will be a 3 seat majority, but a number of those late counting CA seats in play.

Hobbits can sometimes be inspired to hooliganism by pickups driving around with flags.

Vulcans are fairly rare. And flee a movement once the ability to enact policies is gone.

I think this description of Vulcans is off too: "Vulcans, obviously, are scientific and rational political actors who aim to weigh evidence dispassionately and without bias, and have no strong negative emotions towards their opponents."

I think you can have a rational political actor who weighs evidence without bias and still has strong negative emotions towards his opponents. You can absolutely hate and fear your opponents and still want to do the optimal thing to defeat them!

240.last: That's a 3-seat R majority btw.

Thanks for 237, ajay.

244: my pleasure; I think it's not widely understood that the war in Ukraine is not calming down, but steadily escalating. Every month in 2024 was bloodier for Russia than the same month in 2023.

Vibes I see are Peltola not going to pull it out, does that square with your read, teo?

Yes, it will almost certainly come down to the RCV tabulation but she is an underdog at this point. It's just slightly possible that the final mail-in ballots trickling in get Begich over 50% but not very likely. Within the RCV it'll come down to the split of second-choice votes by AKIP voters. It's hard to predict because they're sort of definitionally weirdos, but they're certainly right-wing weirdos so they probably lean Begich.

I am very much thinking this out loud so feel free to point out why it's rubbish

I appreciate that; I'm very much thinking through these questions myself. The one that occurred to me today is how well you think Tim Walz fits the current political environment.

I still remember when the shorthand was, "people want a candidate they could enjoy having a beer with" and I think Walz clearly fits that. He had the highest favorability rating of the 4 people (from both parties) running this year and yet, I find it hard to believe that the outcome would have been very different if the ticket was Walz / Harris rather than Harris / Walz. I don't know how successfully he could appeal to Republican voters in a way that would cut through the partisan media environment.

The gap in swing states between Harris and the senate candidates seems to be entirely driven by Trump's popularity with low-propensity voters (i.e. people who don't usually vote voting for Trump and leaving the rest of the ballot blank) rather than a difference in popularity between Harris and Casey/Slotkin/Baldwin. So I'm very skeptical that a swap of Harris for Walz would move the needle at all in swing states. (I'm less sure in non-swing states.)

This seems nuts: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/11/the-apprentice-2

I check the glacial progress of CA vote counting once a day and there seems to be a slow turn towards Republican leads in close races shrinking. Especially noticeable is the Steel-Tran contest, which surprises me a bit because Steel has won a few times and I thought she'd build on the advantage. But I don't know the number of votes outstanding in these races, and I don't look in detail to see what areas are still to be counted, so I have no idea how likely anything more will flip. Plus, a few Democrat-led races haven't been called yet either.

3 seat majority
Hasn't Trump already announced at least three sitting R congresspeople for admin positions? He won't accidentally cost them the majority with his picks, right? The dumbest possible scenarios...

Can we please not taunt fate right now?

From a group chat I'm in:

"I hope Donald Trump can be a check on Elon Musk's worst impulses" is a thought I just had in 2024.

Also:

the fact that the efficiency commission has two co chairs is really on the nose

I'm hearing stories about a caravan of Trump pickup trucks harassing immigrants at a shelter in an MA town not far from here, driving circles around the parking lot making everyone feel unsafe to be outside.

CyberGigaEfficiencyX

https://x.com/agraybee/status/1856533903705522657?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

Another race got called in CA, a Democrat keeping Katie Porter's old seat. The remaining hopes for the House seats in CA where a Republican is leading are CA-13 (currently 51-49, 70% counted) and CA-45 (50.4-49.6, 86% counted). There's one more Republican-led race that hasn't been called but the margin is above 51-49.

I think maybe they need to win both of those, plus Peltola needs to win, plus all the other Dem-lead races need to stay Dem, to take the House.

Alaska results were supposed to update today but it doesn't look like they have.

Whar it appears Hegseth did do in his first asmin was advise on the pardon of 3 war criminals.

Ah, okay, they've been updated now. No big surprises. Begich's lead narrows and he's still under 50%.

Thread on Bluesky re:Hegseth's recent book The War on Warriors

https://bsky.app/profile/jeffsharlet.bsky.social/post/3lastm4o3u22e

Pretty extreme stuff. Def someone who would have tried to call out military on Jan 6 --and not in a good way.

His direction is clear, question is how much bureaucratic inertia there is.

Stabbed in the back over GWOT. Advocates internal use of military. Woke killing military. No women in combat roles.

Hegseth far weirder and full of multiple toxicities.He sort of was a General Jack T Ripper (but I think as a major).

For instance:
https://bsky.app/profile/parkermolloy.com/post/3las3i6qw222a

He said he had not washed his hands in 10 years because some RFK Jr-ish germ theory. Bluesky link is Parker Malloy saying they had picture of him in bathroom at MMFA to remind to wash hands.

OK, a lot of deplorables being selected for Trump admin of course, but this Hegseth one is the first to really plunge me back into catastrophization mode. We'll see how it falls out, but clearly signals the intention for a direct assault on the military as currently structured. Will be illuminating/frightening to see how this plays out with the "pragmatic" R crowd like Graham. (But no matter what they think they've effectively neutered themselves--and I suspect if Rubio becomes Sec State it will be to get a bigger loon as Florida senator, and Rubio would be impotent as Sec State). I'm sure it is getting some real notice in NATO and the world in general if not, it should be. Not this one guy of course, but a confederacy of these toxic dunces.

Fucking hell.

But adult in the room Susie Wiles fresh off helping run his most "disciplined" campaign will make sure the loons don't get to Trump. So there's that.

Hegseth is freakishly horrible but also a political and bureaucratic virgin who is likely to be ripped apart by the DOD's vested interests while he's still finding the Pentagon cafeteria and trying to memorize his password. Waltz is more likely to be effective, having actually done something in his life that wasn't being on tv, and somewhat less horrible, so probably worse in terms of horribleness multiplied by effectiveness.

Musk seems to have been completely diddled by Trump, handing over a ton of actual cash money and going around making a monkey of himself at rallies and getting...the right to shoot his mouth off about wastefraudanderror without a budget, staff, or any legal authority to do anything. Which he had already. Which you have already. Which I have already and I'm not even American!

268: Here's hoping on Hegseth, but I think the bigger thing is the clear signal on intent. Not sure exactly who will be the effective means of accomplishing anything.

Guy has a big "Deus vult" cross tattoo on his arm

Well, that's the Joint Combined All-Domain Command and Control System fixed, to say nothing of the procurement of the AN/APQ-701B for, ahem, Country.

There's no way the CIA will have to use the same one as the Marines if he's got tats.

Hmm, I thought chest, but that seems to be another distinctive cross tatoo. Turns out he was part of Minnesota Nat'l Guard and not allowed to go to Biden's inauguration with them as he was considered an extremist. (Not sure if that is just his version of the story.)

so in the Senate a win for the "pragmatic" faction with Thune winning. And probably more telling was Scott not even making it to the 2nd round, it was Thune v, Cornyn. Scott got 13 votes.

Now thinking a 5 or 7 seat R house margin.

Guys like Hedspeth might be more symbolic or the might be part of an actual effort. Finding out which is half the fun. Probably a little bity of both.

264 is one of the funnier things I've read today!

In re Hegseth, I'm kinda with Alex here in thinking that the bureaucratic infighters in the Pentagon are going to fleece him but good. As for his Crusader's tattoo, I guess that's for everyone who thought Harris would be bad for Palestinians and the Muslim more generally and was willing to let Trump win over it. As is Huckabee saying there's no such thing as the West Bank, there's only Judea and Samaria.

Adding in the past hour criminal Gaetz in Justice and Russian asset Gabbard as DNI, this really seems like the chaos term. People who would cheerfully order reprisals, but not obvious they will know how, or can even in some cases get confirmed.

Gaetz as AG is just absolutely bonkers. Starting to feel like the Senate may actually not confirm some of these.

Has he nominated anyone smarter than himself yet? Feels like not.

Excuse me, pedophile Gaetz.

Also looking increasingly possible that he appoints enough House members to lose the majority.

At least temporarily. Gaetz's district, e.g., is very conservative and a Republican would definitely win a special election. But there's going to be a period of time before that happens and they need every seat they can get.

That at least would be temporary, no? They're not from swing districts mostly.

Do you know why Trump chose Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General?

Because Jeffrey Epstein died.

Huh. According to the Washington Post, "there is an acknowledgment by many House Republicans that the most they could have is 221 seats". Majority is 218. He's already nominated three sitting representatives, although Gaetz and Stefanik I guess can wait for confirmation to resign? But a single more appointment from the House and things will be pretty shaky.

John Bresnahan: "Safe to say that GOP senators are stunned - not in a good way - on Matt Gaetz... Chuck Grassley was so exasperated by Gaetz questions that he stopped talking to reporters & stood there stonefaced for 30 seconds."

They're probably going to insist that Trump find a better qualified pedophile.

this really seems like the chaos term

Now that I no longer care about anything, his could all be funny.

I think there's a decent chance Hegseth can't get through the Senate. Todd Young will be a guy to keep an eye on there (Navy grad, 10 years in the Marines, anti-Trump, and generally effective at legislating). I think there's some senators who don't want to let Trump fuck with the military, question is just how many of them.

Out with folks and had everyone give 3 guesses for AG and one of them nailed Gaetz.l

Gaetz won't be confirmed by the Senate, and probably not Hegseth and Gabbard. They won't have to be. The Senate will call a recess in January, and they will get recess appointments.

So apparently Gaetz has already resigned, effective immediately?

That's not great for the majority!

https://x.com/davidgross_man/status/1856869540652626376?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

Idk if anyone is up for it, but can one of you explain to me whether a literal Russian asset is being put in charge of the CIA? Or is there some exaggeration?

Nope. You've pretty much got it.

Via wikipedia, here is the 2019 reporting on Hillary Clinton calling TG a Russian asset... or not... but I think her meaning is pretty clear.

"I think they [the Republicans] have got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians. They [?] have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up. Which she might not, 'cause she's also a Russian asset."

Surely the "also" at the end gives away the game?

289, 290: not sure exactly of all the moving pieces but; Apparently there was to be a vote on Friday with regard to making public a report from his Congressional ethics investigation.
And I assume the resignation is not biding for the next Congress.. So there may be some attempt at 11-dimensional chess here where his nomination is withdrawn at some point. I have no idea what it accomplishes.

I suspect there is very little chance he actually has a Senate confirmation hearing, either a recess appointment, or withdrawn as part of some protection strategy. But how wrong I have been on various things? Very, very wrong.
If he does go through a confirmation hearing it will be a complete loyalty test for Senate Rs. Which fuck if I know, T might relish.(Although the Senate majority vote might give him pause.

But actually, I just can't see a hearing. I also touted the Selzer poll.

Out with folks and had everyone give 3 guesses for AG and one of them nailed Gaetz.

I hope you weren't out in a bar. If she nailed Gaetz she's probably too young to drink.

Last week, I resolved to care less about all of this and decided to pick up a new hobby to help with that. I didn't make an explicit checklist or anything, but I wanted whatever it was going to be to be local, physical, potentially social, and contributing to the creation of beauty in the world. Then I went to see a performance of Mahler's second symphony on Thursday, and as a result now I'm starting trombone lessons. Thanks, Kamala Harris. (I'm still allowed to care about all this for a few days because I don't have the horn itself yet.)

The idea of taking up beginner trombone as a means of adding beauty to the world made me laugh.

Just kidding! I'm sure you'll be great.

Actual lol, jms.

I'm thinking of subscribing to the paper version of the The Onion. It would be nice to have a paper-based subscription again and I really enjoy that they bought the InfoWars name.

The idea of taking up beginner trombone as a means of adding beauty to the world made me laugh.

Understandable misreading. He has been playing beginner trombone for the last six years. The new decision is to start taking lessons and abandon the previous approach of simply trying to work out how to play the trombone from first principles.

The adding beauty part is a longer-term goal. I'll definitely be counteracting existing beauty for a while.

Just as the American economy in the next few years will undergo some temporary hardship to ensure long-term prosperity, even so will my family undergo my trombone learning curve.

re: 304

Maybe you'll turn out to be a trombone prodigy, and there'll be sublime trombonic sounds in your household.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMLyUp-fF0I

I recommend learning through use of the Think System. (Hill, H., 1962). You'll be playing the Minuet in G in no time.

A trombonigy.

Are those even legal in Texas these days?

As a longtime woodwind player, I have made my share of bone jokes at low brass players. Now I will get to be the daddy with the big long slidin thing.

I was a remarkably bad clarinet player in my youth.

There was a college student practicing trombone in our neighbor's backyard for a few weeks, then it stopped. We were worried that he had been discouraged from playing trombone in the backyard, so we made a sign saying "More trombone!" and put it up over our shared fence. Later, the mom told us that the kid was mostly away at college (in the band at UC Merced) but that they had liked the sign a lot.

We still have it and would put it up for you, Kymyz.

311: Aw, thanks Megan! One of my neighbors also plays trombone. I don't know if it's the same guy that helps choreograph the university's marching band shows or one of his housemates, but this feels like a safe space, trombone-wise.

305 is a nice piece of music, lush

It crosses my mind that Vance is no Pence. I bet Vance is greedy and ambitious and not so religiously obedient as Pence was. I fully believe Vance would shiv Trump in the back if he got the chance, which Trump's dementia may allow. If Vance does make it to president, he might not want to be on Thiel's leash anymore. I think Trump needs to watch his back against Vance and I suspect that Trump always worries about betrayal underlings anyway.

I'd enjoy if Vance tried for Trump, whether he succeeds or not. I'd also enjoy if Trump yanks Vance back into line.

It'll be interesting to see how much of a second-term effect there is. Traditionally, presidents can't keep their party in line when everyone knows they're not running again. But with non-consecutive terms and a guy who will probably *try* to run again, who knows.

I was going to grow a beard this winter, but not now. I don't want someone to try to think I'm looking like Vance.