And Biden didn’t do enough try to accomplish their goals with his divided congress, and razer thin edge in the Senate which includes Manchin and Sinema. So lets hand all power back to the party whose primary goal for the past 30+ years seems to be to do everything they can make sure the government will never accomplish any goals beyond perhaps spending money on the military, and now also seems to be to gut democracy. Because that will definitely make their situation in life better.
It continues to astound me how difficult “harm reduction” is to understand.
This is a super cynical take, but I think a lot of these folks are rich kids with very little experience dealing with real world consequences. Certainly not all, but a lot of them. And the reality is, even if Trump is elected, most of them will be fine, because they aren’t going to be the ones thrown into camps, or deported. They’ll have their parents’ money to support them. They won’t have cops shooting them for driving while Black. Things like the effects of climate change are abstract to them, even though they purportedly care about such things. And while they claim that Gaza is their #1 issue, the reality is that if Trump paves Gaza and puts up a parking lot, it’ll fall off TikTok and they won’t really give a shit anymore, because it’s on the other side of the planet and affects them literally not at all.
I do see the parallel. I think today’s media technology simply makes it more difficult to herd the cats in either party, the different subgroups can each organize a whole lot better and stand up to the main. And if the leader of a subgroup compromises, maybe some follow that leader, but the ones that don’t agree just coalesce around a new leader. And when things are really close (like in the House, or potentially in the upcoming election) that can make a pretty small group feel it has a chance to get a ton more than it ever had a chance at previously.
The problem, I think, is that the MAGA crowd holds more cards. They actually oppose federal control of most stuff, so blowing up the workings of the federal government or demonstrating to the public how hopeless the federal process is, these things theoretically could work for them. (Though I am far from sure that they aren’t going to get squished in the near future anyway. But that’s a different matter.)
But it seems to me that the left is playing a much, much longer shot. Where is the possible positive outcome? Trump loses and… it appears that, on the whole, the left was not needed. Trump wins and… I guess they can claim this proves how necessary they are to a winning Dem coalition – and young NYT type reporters write it up that way? But even if that worked – and let me tell you, the backlash within the Democratic party would be furious – there’s the small problem of the Dems regaining control of the government from Trump and the lunatics he allows into his administration. If this is their plan, I hope these people are still quite young, so they’re still around.
I know, I’m preaching to the choir here, but the whole thing just makes me shake my head. “Hey, I want progressive policies, so I’ll help elect Trump.”
You forgot about the ashes in what remains of his hair, dude. 
I’ve been a political junkie since I stuffed envelopes and made phone calls for Carter back when I was in college. Two pieces to it: one, I am fascinated by the tactics and strategy and look at a lot of it the same way I do in my military history studies. The other piece is the psychology of it all, though the two can go in lockstep. I remember when the internet first started to become widespread, the Usenet days, and thinking OK, now people will have almost unlimited access to information and it will become much more difficult to fool people. Obviously, I missed the outcome of that by a wide margin!
One advantage the Republicans have is they are very much aligned and in agreement on most things. The strength of the Democrats is also a weakness, which is their diversity. I remember being at a speech by Carville back when Dukakis was running against Bush. It was after the Democratic convention and Dukakis was up by a very large margin. Carville said it would take a huge amount of mistakes and breakdown of focus and direction for the Democrats to lose. He paused, then said, of course, the Democrats are uniquely capable of that.
I have zero agenda talking on here about my beliefs (fears) that Trump will win in November. I assumed after 4 years of watching Trump’s total idiocy, criminal behavior, blatant lies on top of lies on top of lies, stupidity, and mismanagement of the pandemic in such a way as to cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, Biden would win easily. Surely the American people would not want this guy in office another 4 years? And then Biden just barely won. I hoped that the GOP would be happy to not have the yoke of Trump around their neck again. Wrong again.
I had hoped that the party leaders would sit with Biden and he would agree to turn the reins over to a dynamic, young candidate like Mark Warner. Someone who would be such a contrast to Trump. Nope.
And lastly, I had hoped that Democrats and Independents would unite, young and old, to keep this corrupt, dangerously stupid fascist out of office, deciding no matter how much we may disagree with Biden on whatever, let’s keep Trump out of office and then deal with our differences with Biden over the next 4 years. I’m speculating that what will put Trump back in will be the GOP turning out in high numbers to vote GOP in their religious like fervor, while many Dems and especially Independents will just stay home. But, as one example, I live very close to Georgia and I remember the energy and excitement of the Democratic effort there four years ago. I’m not seeing or hearing anything at that level this year.
My hope is we somehow have a Democratic House and Senate but I’m not seeing numbers (at this point) that give me a lot of optimism. Trump with a Democratic House and Senate would be much less scary than one with a Republican Congress. The other sliver of hope I hold is that Trump has already done the one thing a President can do that is not “fixable” in a decent amount of time, which is pack the Supreme Court and the Federal courts. That’s unfortunately irreversibly already done. So my hope is that Trump somehow, if he gets the White House, somehow is so emboldened he damages the GOP in ways that finally cripples that party for a long time. Unfortunately, he’s already taught the GOP that they don’t have to be subtle and sneaky and they don’t have to worry about consequences, they can just put it all out there with no real consequences to them.
I’m an old guy. I remember relatively minor mistakes and indiscretions take a politician down. I still find it completely surreal someone like Trump, who, in another time, would be dumped by the party as unelectable for even one of his actions/crimes, can sit in the White House.
/vent off
It’s a good post, but of course quibbling must commence!
I don’t actually think this is true anymore. See the clownshow that is the Republican majority US House of Representatives. Outside of Trump(and the small, more unified Supreme Court Justices), I think the party machinery is actually pretty fractured and the Trump takeover has made it even more corrupt. Yes, they’ll all fall in line behind Trump, that’s true. But I still think Trump’s goals are way more limited to personal things than most people seem to. If you are his political enemy, he takes that personally and wants to throw you in prison or have you executed. Some other stuff maybe he’ll pay a bit of attention to if he thinks his fans will love him for it. Or maybe someone said some really nice things to him and also asked him to do a thing. That may work. Or he gets to bomb some general and look tough. He likes to look tough! Oh sure, he did make some crazy promises and maybe if it doesn’t take too much work to do he’ll try that too until the next distraction comes along.
Of course if they control the entire government there’s a not-insignificant amount of things that will fall into those buckets. And with most of the Republicans that won’t fall in line behind Trump now out of national politics, there is likely to be a John McCain moment in Trump’s #2 term. But I’m adamant the key word to describe his term will be chaos and not orderly fascism with trains running on time.
Also the RNC is now Trump’s piggy bank, and he is draining it fast to pay his legal bills. Dems have and are raising a lot more money than the Republicans.
Also, the Dems getting control of Congress won’t matter if Trump wins. It’ll definitely be a “how many legions does Congress have” kind of deal.
That’s a good point. I believe the reason a lot of people in the GOP congress don’t vocally oppose Trump is their fear of being primaried by MAGA. They’re a minority, but they show up in big numbers in primaries and GOP congress members are scared to death of losing their seats due to MAGA. I mistakenly thought that when Trump lost, the GOP would quickly move on; hey, the guy couldn’t win! Of course the Big Lie (it still makes my head explode that so many people believe that when there is such complete evidence and data it’s a lie) was the answer to that.
Same. I was pretty confident the stink of defeat would be the end.
Alright Grampy Joe, now we’re getting somewhere
lol If that thing is real, in this timeline I honestly cannot tell which side would have put that out there!
DeWine is despicable on many levels, but he does have a shred of decency and fair play buried in there.
MAGA with a human face
Who did it skin to get the face?
Oh you like that! Here’s more.
Biden’s administration has been more active in anti-trust than any administration since the progressive era.
The approving reception for such anti-immigrant messaging was particularly striking in New York, a sanctuary city that has over decades built a reputation as a beacon for immigrants.
Some in the crowd said they were immigrants but were quick to clarify that they had crossed the border legally and that they disapproved of those who did not.
“I understand this country is built up of immigrants,” said Indiana Mitchell, 47, who said she was from the Dominican Republic. “But I came to this country in the right way. I didn’t come in through the backyard, I came in through the front door.”
There are a lot of people in NYC, and some portion of them are Trump supporters, and they’re going to show up at a Trump rally and say Trumpy things.
After Nikki Haley’s loyalty pledge, is she back in the running for VP?
In my mind his best chance of winning the election is with Haley as his VP. To save his own skin he may even do this and then clown her as bird brain every chance he gets post election. I would much rather him select someone more pure that would turn off more voters though.