Well he spent years on SNL making fun of himself, I’m sure there’s plenty of material out there. The Russians would enjoy spreading Jack Handy memes.
Yes. No one is immune, and at this point the hardcore right are blind to the intricacy of the gymnastics. They just see the end result (‘antichrist’).
The first time I really understood this was when John Kerry got swiftboated. I thought, “Dubya got a plum stateside gig, whereas Kerry was an actual war hero who risked his life in combat before leading anti-Vietnam protests. How can he be assailed on his war record?” My God, I was so naive.
What Franken does have going for him is that he’s more personally likeable than Hillary, so that might sway some in the middle. Since Have-A-Beerism seems to be the most important qualification for Leader of the Free World. (Although, who the fuck would want to have a beer with Trump? For one thing, I guarantee you you’d wind up stuck with the tab.)
Good point. Passing the torch, maybe?
Also Trump doesn’t drink, so it would probably be a really weird experience, you’d be trying to enjoy a beer while he just stared at you and talked about how he won the election by just a huge margin.
My GF attributes on of my character flaws as being able to slowly kill people by, “Cheers,”-ing them to death. I don’t care if they have an alcoholic beverage or not, I find it my duty to ensure everyone is drinking and enjoying themselves.
Trump would hate the shit of out that, I’m pretty sure. Even if it was him being forced to drink along with his diet coke.
Oh yeah, I always forget that.
Dunno. But I’m not seeing how a bill that’s essentially a symbolic one at this point needs Kamala Harris and Corey Booker as co-sponsors.
Both Harris and Booker get more out having their names listed in co-sponsorship than the bill gets from them.
EDIT: It’s almost as if Bernie read my post above and said “Fuck you, triggercut. I’m going to let two potential 2020 candidates who are desperate to shore up their progressive bonafides jump on board my single-payer bill as co-sponsors. How ya like me now, bitch?”
Merkley on board. As Dave Wiegel would say … he’s running (which would be great imo.) Man are we going to end up with like 2 dozen candidates? :/
2020 could be the Dems’ clown car year. That’s fine with me.
LEAKS! Someone here is leaking.
Gillibrand and Leahy both signalling they’ll be named as co-sponsors on this tomorrow.
Big turn for the Democrats to single payer. Have to wonder if Baucus’s comments urging consideration of single-payer basically was him playing John the Baptist on this thing.
How many heads would explode if Trump came out in favor of Medicare for all? I mean, he’s completely distanced himself from Obamacare repeal and he hates Mitch McConnell…
That was the master plan all along. Blow up the traitorous GOP, unite the country against Nazis and racists, pass single payer healthcare, then quit while you’re on top. Trump goes down as the greatest President in history.
Someone get this idea in his happy folder.
I think Bernie would rather be kingmaker than king- it’s about the movement for him.
Also, if the insurgent field gets split early, Bernie could throw an early endorsement and make sure the establishment Dems can’t play divide and conquer. The 2020 Dem field is going to be a clown car, with tons on both sides.
That said, I kinda expect it to end up a proxy war between the DNC and Bernie, with each picking a candidate early and everyone else being cleared out fast. Each side of the Dem party wants to beat the other side almost as much as they want to beat Trump.
With Duckworth it would be attacking a wounded veteran, a very symbol of American pride and sacrifice. Add in the fact that she’s female, Asian-American and a bonafide badass and there is literally nothing they could do that wouldn’t come off as grade-A douchebaggery.
With Franken it’s more along the lines of him using his wit and comedic background to defuse practically anything they throw at him that’s moderate…and anything more than that exposes them to charges of anti-Semitism. While the alt-right is obviously not afraid of being seen as anti-Semitic, the rest of the right would have an image problem with that, especially in light of recent events.
Basically a Franken/Duckworth ticket gives all those people who, in 2016, just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary, a FAR more likable ticket, while at the same time presenting the GOP with a difficult duo to assail on anything but the issues without looking like complete douchebags at best, or racists and anti-Semites at worst.
All that said, I doubt it will happen simply because I don’t believe Al Franken has the desire to take on the Presidency. He’s said in the past he feels like he can accomplish a lot right where he is. And honestly, I feel like we NEED Franken and Pelosi to stay in the Senate and be the responsible adults, especially if Democrats actually manage to win back the White House and Congress by 2020.
Get ready to hold some beer.
Also, in the modern GOP, ‘grade-A douchebaggery’ is a feature, not a bug. I dare say it’s the raison d’etre.
Oh I’m not saying it won’t happen. I expect the right will make themselves look very ugly against a ticket like that. That will, in turn, push more of those people in the middle, the segment that voted Trump or didn’t vote at all because “they just couldn’t pull the level for Hillary” back onto the proper side of the spectrum. It’s less about fighting the Conservative stupidity and more about letting the stupidity flow unabated, and reaping the rewards as a result.
I hope you’re right. After 60 million Americans decided Trump wasn’t ugly enough to push them the other way, I have simply lost all faith in the wisdom and ethics of the American electorate.
The Republicans successfully Swift-boated Max Cleland, a triple-amputee veteran. Going after Tammy Duckworth in a similar fashion won’t be any great shakes.
There’s an underlying assumption to this, which is that there are enough people who would object to the stupidity.
I mean, instinctively, you’d think that it’s a good plan to let things get uglier and uglier until ‘people’ won’t stand for it anymore. But who are those people? What people? And specifically what will they do short of storming the White House, at which point an equal number of people (plus the Army) would be ready to oppose them? We marched in our millions with pink hats but Trump is still the president because the power is vested in government, not mass protest. The very fact that he holds office normalizes him. Even the Washington Post, which daily writes screeds against him, still has to call him ‘President Trump,’ an innately normalizing phrase, and one that I personally can’t utter without an inward shudder of disgust and shame.
I’m sorry to Godwin again, but I keep thinking of Germany 1930s (I know, I know, there are many differences between the two times and places). I just ask myself, how much did people shelter in the idea that “sooner or later ‘the people’ won’t stand for all this nonsense” and “when the ugliness is extreme enough, the Nazis will be unmasked for what they are and the nightmare will end.”
When the ugly ones are in power it takes immense personal courage to stand against them. The instinct to “lie low and hope for the best” takes over, becomes almost overpowering.
We literally have a President who won’t disavow Nazis and White Supremacists, and yet every day in ‘liberal’ rags like the Washington Post and the New York Times he is legitimized, normalized, and rhetorically reinforced, because the only way you could do otherwise is actually to advocate overthrowing the government. And even those newspapers won’t go that far, nor will I, nor will most people.
We’ve painted ourselves into a pretty corner and I’m rather pessimistic about whether we can paint out of it.
/paranoid rant over