softlynow

Todd clearly failed to impart focusness. With that we can overcome all else. Do we even have a focusness QC coach?

I now want to see Stephen Miller, Ivanka and Jared try to Weekend at Bernie’s Don-don before this chapter closes.

Of course it makes sense. Tribalism is innate, rational decision-making is not. When your sense of self is shaken, instinctive drives take over. Many of those folks don’t feel they belong in a country where a black man can run things.

Democracy is hard, and we’re just not up to the task.

That does need to happen. That process begins by winning everywhere. Statehouses, governorships, both houses of Congress and the WH. And when you win, take note of how the GOP got us here. DO NOT handwring over the excesses over your base/fringe. Allow the radicals to flank the old center. After you win, then you can consider the excesses of radicals. Not until you win, though. The neoliberal order is being drowned by a populist wave. Ride that to victory.

On immigration, his views should be the center. On taxes, no, the center should be on the side of at least trying to hold the deficit in check. His regime failed in that regard. On foreign adventures, fuck no. In short, I very much disagree.

It's also yet another instance of the snowflake mentality of today's "conservatives." For a group that loves to thump the personal responsibility line, they sure do blame a bunch of things on others. What it really hammers home to me is that modern conservatism has been revealed to be nothing other than greed and naked self-interest dressed up to look like a high-minded ideology.

I have heard of those sayings. Other groups are maligned as greedy, hence the way I phrased my post. To take her tweet as a slur is to say you can never claim that the motives of Jews may be economic self-interest. That’s absurd. Now, is she an anti-Semite? Maybe. I’m not well versed in her career. I’m only commenting on her tweet in isolation. I do so because, at the time it was a news story, it was complained of as anti-Semitic in and of itself, and not in the context of her previous utterances.

The conservative bench on these boards was thinned considerably the last several years, as it became clear that the bases for their views were being totally betrayed by the pols who claimed that mantle. After Trump's nomination, really only Escriva and Tahoe remained. When brisket and GOLL stopped going to bat for GOP positions, it really weakened the discourse from the Right on here and Shaggy. Of course, that reflects our national dialogue as well. The Weekly Standard wouldn't convert to Trumpism, and folded. Those "conservative" outlets that remain hold nothing like the views of Buckley, Will, Friedman, Kirk, Noonan, etc. It makes sense that the Right complains of persecution, because we're here every day accusing them of having nothing of substance to say.

I still don’t get that one. Greed isn’t a trait peculiar to a negative stereotype of Jews. I get that they’re associated with money-exchanging occupations, but it just seems too much of a stretch to say that tweet was a slur.

Damn, the Metropolitan Correctional Center isn’t on 5th Ave. I was hoping for a prophesy come true.

You actually think all those voting machines without paper backup will accurately reflect the votes cast? I don’t. We’re not even in Act II of this epic. We’ve a long way yet to go before this crisis ends. Trump will retain power and the republic may have run its course. I want to be wrong.

To be fair, his life has been pretty well catalogued as well.

Just wait til the primaries are over and Trump is trailing the Dem nominee by 7-9 pts in September. We’ll look back fondly to the time when each of these events made national news.

While the above is true at times, it isn't here, and is irrelevant in a discussion of DOTUS crisis of the week episode 127.

The “grass on the field” defense will keep the 40% like jhawk in line.

President Harris should just issue an executive order in January ‘21 invalidating the ‘20 census and starting a new one. Then we will all agree this form of government is broken, and yell endlessly at each other with no effect while democracy dies.

That busing answer sounds like something Striker from Airplane! would say. It’s also in Yogi Berra’s wheelhouse.

You want real change? Run up the score, don’t look for progressive purity. You could get the leftiest lefty in the WH, but jack shit changes if you’ve got a tiny majority in the house and turtle still obstructs everything in the senate. Run with the one whose coattails are the longest. And for fucks sake, drop this no pac money bs. Movement conservatives got the changes they wanted back in the ‘50s by first capturing the GOP then using every available resource, from legitimate and semi-legitimate to outright criminal over the following decades to get where we are. Dems need to stop deluding themselves that what’s right or good for regular folks will win out. Take the bad men’s money, get power and fuck em. Warren can play logic games about having corporate money? Great! That’s the kind of fuckery you need to win. Biden and Sanders need to go away. Biden as nominee means less base enthusiasm. Sanders means defending the constant professorial dive into why socialism shouldn’t be a bad word for white collar workers who grew up in the Cold War, thus a real chance to leave them to be picked off by trump. Buttigieg, I’d love to see make his run, but I think he’d also be less likely to lead a wave in Congress, for the obvious reason. Anyway, I feel differently than y’all who’re interested in the exact plans 46 has for us. I just want a Dem with a cushion in Congress. We got Obamacare knowing it would end the careers of some in Congress. You need those kinds of numbers for real, immediate change. Otherwise you’re just hoping to strike a few deals with the current Trump-enabling assholes who know any thing they vote for will be looked at as an opening to be primaried. Give me the most inspiring choice. I’m looking at Warren and Kamala right now, but maybe someone down the list can break out in the next 3-4 months. If the pecking order is similar in the late fall, I hope it’s Warren or Kamala who grab the early momentum in Iowa and NH. I think either of them could offer the right mix of being inspirational to the base and non-threatening to fragile, centrist white males. Long term, the Dems could do with a better messaging apparatus. But that’s been true so long, it’s hardly worth hoping for. Label your ideas better before Pubs have a chance.

The fantasy of a return to 19th century laissez faire governance wets the panties of upper middle class white males who have no clue why their lives are so easy.

Will there be long-winded examples involving widgets and nazi rocket scientists, and the benefits of the totally not racist Robert E. Lee Day celebration? If not, out.

Long-term, some of those people will go back to voting their interests, but Dems have to offer them that choice again. They’ve had the choice of pain or pain and the promise of sticking it to [insert group they hate], and really made the obvious choice for the latter.

Nope. The cure is winning. They’re impervious to reason. Get the 2008 base back out and hope enough sensible Pubs stay home.

It’s not that they’re idiots and suckers (those too), it’s that Trump is inflicting pain on those they don’t like (browns, libs, statists, etc.). Many of them know exactly what’s going down. They feed off of our disdain, and they get the added sense of belonging to team deplorable. They could be the person he shoots on 5th Ave. and they’d be grinning ear to ear for being a part of showing us how totally owned we are.