The particularly nail-biting that I'm doing involves my younger friends who want to *send a message* but they were too young to have voted in the 2000 election (hi hello everyone who voted for Ralph Nader). Yes it would be nice to have a third party option right now (or a way to really protest vote), but we don't, and pretending otherwise is how we get a second Trump presidency.
Yeah, I mean I'm hopeful that Trump's antics in the fall will have a, uh, clarifying effect. But it has been 24 years, so there's a whole generation of voters with no memory of Nader vs Gore. That's a worry, for sure.
I was one of those youthful idealists who voted for Nader. At least I was in NY that was certainly going for Gore.
I remember there was the “Nader trader” effort online. Someone in (say Oregon) would promise to vote for Gore if they could find someone in (say NY) who would vote for Nader. I don’t think that worked out very well.
I have a hard time accepting the above description of "two conflicting narratives about government and governance" as the fundamental-level conflict. The right-wing "crooks and idiots" narrative described, while real, is at least 50% a cover for "the wrong people in charge are the Jews and Black people and their allies, and we must put our kind of white people back in charge."
Which you do gesture at with "bundle of simmering resentments". But those are the biggest ones.
The Republican Party is a big tent of racists, theocrats, and corporatists willing to sell their children into slavery for a Guilded Age 2.0. Assigning a single motive to that mob misses the big picture, which is that they all want to tear apart the government we have now to get what they want, and are willing to work with each other to do it. The people most passionate about Trump believe what he says, which is what they are desperate to hear, unvarnished and raw.
"The people most passionate about Trump believe what he says ..."
The people most passionate about Trump are virulent racists who only care about him attacking minorities. Basically the Republican party is composed of two types of people: (1) virulent racists, and (2) those who are comfortable hanging around with/have no problem with virulent racists.
If you think racism is the only motivating force you're not paying attention. It's a big one, possibly #1 on the Hit Parade, but there are other powerful groups with their own specific agendas. It's not the racists pushing a global ban on abortion or defunding the IRS or blocking aid to Ukraine. There's a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram of the Republican coalition, and they share a lot of common values, but the racists are shoveling coal in the boiler of the train and other groups are at the controls. Project 2025 isn't the wish list of racists alone.
"It's not the racists pushing a global ban on abortion or defunding the IRS or blocking aid to Ukraine. There's a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram of the Republican coalition ..."
Don't disagree. But the forced birthers, et al, are hot the hard core Trump supporters. As I said: "Basically the Republican party is composed of two types of people: (1) virulent racists, and (2) those who are comfortable hanging around with/have no problem with virulent racists." Trump's hard core supporters are the virulent racists -- those in the second group, like the forced birthers, are those with no morality (i.e., self described "Christians"), who have no problem palling around with the virulent racists.
The people insisting it should be a blowout, and it would if Biden would step down for Johhny Unbeatable, are refusing to face the fact that a third of voters absolutely want the chaos Trump is offering (as clearly as he can), a third don't want that, and a third don't know or care about any of it. The American voter refuses to stick to the script.
I'm cautiously optimistic about Biden winning, and more importantly, liberals and Democrats winning Senate, House, and state races. It's because the pollsters and pundits have been so terribly wrong in the prior elections. Young people are deeply frustrated and annoyed, and voting and getting involved like I've never seen before.
In 2018, 2020 and 2022 the Republicans did far worse than expectations pretty much everywhere. I think because pollster's assumptions that young people don't vote were wrong. And the expectation that older people would flip conservative was also wrong. Turns out people don't flip conservative when they don't have any money to conserve, so GenX and older Millennials are far more liberal than their parents were at their age.
that's why everything about biden and most of the current dem party falls flat. the idea that i risk everything is...embarrassing! it sucks seeing people i respect basically give up the idea that we deserve better representation or deserve more from elected officials. people who arent self serving, incompetent capitalists who throw minorities under the bus whenever it suits their particular needs. democracy on their terms only. or else a worse guy!
The point is that there are multiple issues your anodyne commentary fails to address. The significant assault on democracy by an Intelligence Community and Justice Department allying with the Dems in the Russia nonsense and on Hunter's laptop is arguably more dangerous than any actions by Trump to democracy; the direct and indirect censorship of social media by the government, which is now headed to the SCt after two Federal Courts have ruled such illegal activities to have occurred; the abysmal economy due to inflation; the open border policies of Biden; and the lawfare approach by the Dems to undercut a political opponent are but a few of the issues that keep Biden's poll numbers embarrassingly low. But you ignore the forgoing and declare Biden "sharp". Your analysis parrots the legacy media in its cheerleading Biden while ignoring that choosing between the lesser of two evils only promises to further erode the trust of the electorate.
Wow -- from Russia Today direct to your post. The only thing missing is hysterical screaming that the 2020 election was stolen by little green men from Mars.
The only thing missing is the realization on the part of the Biden supporters that the state of the union is made more perilous due to their blind allegiance to a failing establishment in the false hope that things will improve magically.
The particularly nail-biting that I'm doing involves my younger friends who want to *send a message* but they were too young to have voted in the 2000 election (hi hello everyone who voted for Ralph Nader). Yes it would be nice to have a third party option right now (or a way to really protest vote), but we don't, and pretending otherwise is how we get a second Trump presidency.
Yeah, I mean I'm hopeful that Trump's antics in the fall will have a, uh, clarifying effect. But it has been 24 years, so there's a whole generation of voters with no memory of Nader vs Gore. That's a worry, for sure.
I was one of those youthful idealists who voted for Nader. At least I was in NY that was certainly going for Gore.
I remember there was the “Nader trader” effort online. Someone in (say Oregon) would promise to vote for Gore if they could find someone in (say NY) who would vote for Nader. I don’t think that worked out very well.
I have a hard time accepting the above description of "two conflicting narratives about government and governance" as the fundamental-level conflict. The right-wing "crooks and idiots" narrative described, while real, is at least 50% a cover for "the wrong people in charge are the Jews and Black people and their allies, and we must put our kind of white people back in charge."
Which you do gesture at with "bundle of simmering resentments". But those are the biggest ones.
The Republican Party is a big tent of racists, theocrats, and corporatists willing to sell their children into slavery for a Guilded Age 2.0. Assigning a single motive to that mob misses the big picture, which is that they all want to tear apart the government we have now to get what they want, and are willing to work with each other to do it. The people most passionate about Trump believe what he says, which is what they are desperate to hear, unvarnished and raw.
"The people most passionate about Trump believe what he says ..."
The people most passionate about Trump are virulent racists who only care about him attacking minorities. Basically the Republican party is composed of two types of people: (1) virulent racists, and (2) those who are comfortable hanging around with/have no problem with virulent racists.
If you think racism is the only motivating force you're not paying attention. It's a big one, possibly #1 on the Hit Parade, but there are other powerful groups with their own specific agendas. It's not the racists pushing a global ban on abortion or defunding the IRS or blocking aid to Ukraine. There's a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram of the Republican coalition, and they share a lot of common values, but the racists are shoveling coal in the boiler of the train and other groups are at the controls. Project 2025 isn't the wish list of racists alone.
"It's not the racists pushing a global ban on abortion or defunding the IRS or blocking aid to Ukraine. There's a ton of overlap in the Venn diagram of the Republican coalition ..."
Don't disagree. But the forced birthers, et al, are hot the hard core Trump supporters. As I said: "Basically the Republican party is composed of two types of people: (1) virulent racists, and (2) those who are comfortable hanging around with/have no problem with virulent racists." Trump's hard core supporters are the virulent racists -- those in the second group, like the forced birthers, are those with no morality (i.e., self described "Christians"), who have no problem palling around with the virulent racists.
The people insisting it should be a blowout, and it would if Biden would step down for Johhny Unbeatable, are refusing to face the fact that a third of voters absolutely want the chaos Trump is offering (as clearly as he can), a third don't want that, and a third don't know or care about any of it. The American voter refuses to stick to the script.
"The people insisting it should be a blowout ... if Biden would step down for Johhny Unbeatable ..." never identify who this "Johnny Unbeatable" is.
I'm cautiously optimistic about Biden winning, and more importantly, liberals and Democrats winning Senate, House, and state races. It's because the pollsters and pundits have been so terribly wrong in the prior elections. Young people are deeply frustrated and annoyed, and voting and getting involved like I've never seen before.
In 2018, 2020 and 2022 the Republicans did far worse than expectations pretty much everywhere. I think because pollster's assumptions that young people don't vote were wrong. And the expectation that older people would flip conservative was also wrong. Turns out people don't flip conservative when they don't have any money to conserve, so GenX and older Millennials are far more liberal than their parents were at their age.
vote blue or lose democracy isn't exactly a complicated message lol
Except that the vast majority of Americans don't care about democracy ... they have no idea what it is and have no idea what the alternative is.
that's why everything about biden and most of the current dem party falls flat. the idea that i risk everything is...embarrassing! it sucks seeing people i respect basically give up the idea that we deserve better representation or deserve more from elected officials. people who arent self serving, incompetent capitalists who throw minorities under the bus whenever it suits their particular needs. democracy on their terms only. or else a worse guy!
https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/opinion/bidens-2024-advantage-an-alliance-of-elites-rigging-the-game/amp/
Was there a point here? (You could post from Brietbart or Daily Stormer or Pravda or Russia Today to convey the same message.)
The point is that there are multiple issues your anodyne commentary fails to address. The significant assault on democracy by an Intelligence Community and Justice Department allying with the Dems in the Russia nonsense and on Hunter's laptop is arguably more dangerous than any actions by Trump to democracy; the direct and indirect censorship of social media by the government, which is now headed to the SCt after two Federal Courts have ruled such illegal activities to have occurred; the abysmal economy due to inflation; the open border policies of Biden; and the lawfare approach by the Dems to undercut a political opponent are but a few of the issues that keep Biden's poll numbers embarrassingly low. But you ignore the forgoing and declare Biden "sharp". Your analysis parrots the legacy media in its cheerleading Biden while ignoring that choosing between the lesser of two evils only promises to further erode the trust of the electorate.
Huh. That's interesting. ...Y'see, I assumed you shared that link so we would all notice what a sloppy writer Martin Gurri is.
Guess I was wrong!
you were
Wow -- from Russia Today direct to your post. The only thing missing is hysterical screaming that the 2020 election was stolen by little green men from Mars.
The only thing missing is the realization on the part of the Biden supporters that the state of the union is made more perilous due to their blind allegiance to a failing establishment in the false hope that things will improve magically.