I have been hard on the New York Times lately, especially for their coverage of Joe Biden. Even before Biden’s disastrous performance in his debate with Trump in June, the Times was writing about Biden’s age as if it was the issue Republicans were then attempting to turn it into. After the debate, the Times went after Biden with brutal series of leaks and whispers about the man and his campaign in much the same way they did to the Clintons when somebody turned up a real estate transaction in Arkansas with their names on it, and “Whitewater” was born.
It's a very good time to re-watch "Hitler: The Last Ten Days." This is one of the best chronicles of a malignant narcissist in full collapse that's ever been put to page or film. And it very likely shows the trajectory of Trump's behavior as his final debacle rolls out over the next five months.
The arc of the film shows Hitler turning on first the German people, then his soldiers, then his commanders, then the people in the bunker with him, and finally those in his most intimate circle of all. None of his troubles are his fault; it's all because everyone around him has cruelly betrayed him. You watch him lash out; and it's clear that he takes this profound sense of betrayal to the grave with him.
Trump's in that same narrowing spiral now. The narcissist's bottomless hunger for attention is now mindlessly ravening as it searches for someone to blame for its loss. His donors aren't the first victims of this. Nor will they be the last.
When did Tiedrich post this? I must have missed it. I am distracted by trying to understand what is being said in German, and have to shut that part of my brain off. Still, even some of the things that "Hitler" is saying here are appropriately tantrum-my! He is a traitor. It was a command!
I think they are speaking truth writ large. However, as Jay Kuo says, a lot of the older people who voted for Trump in 2016 are dead because of old age and covid. They are replaced with Gen Z voters who are the most diverse group in our population. Perhaps that is part of what explains the Harris/Walz phenomenon in the face of the racist world that Trump promises. Those who are not Christian Nationalists, for whom who is president should not matter a whole lot since they believe End of Days is near, might care some about the policies if they read Project 2025, or have someone give them a more in depth explanation. Americans are not coming out of a war, unless we view Covid as a metaphor for that, and we have believed in a democracy for longer than Germany had experienced one in 1933 when Hitler rose to power. I really feel that we fail our students when our population becomes adult and have no knowledge of civics, history and terms to describe what has happened. Germans were under princes, dukes, monarchs for the majority of their history before Hitler came to power after 15 years of a failed experiment in democracy during the Weimar Republic. They had enormous economic problems after the war including having to pay billions in reparations for WWI on their own, even though they had not started the war, but entered it as an ally. They had no money to rebuild until the Americans lent it to them. But after the US stock market crash, the whole world was hurting and Americans called in their loans. So, Germans were back as bad off as right after the war, and that made them vulnerable to anyone who would tell them he would make them more prosperous. That being said, his party got 33% of the vote, and when Hindenburg was convinced by German elite to put Hitler in power they though he would be their useful idiot. Hitler quickly took over power for himself. What I have read Peter Thiel is planning in backing JD Vance is to have him claim Trump is unfit to lead using Article 25, and then he has backed the new US president. I am sure all of the people around Trump are keeping track of things that they can use as evidence that he is off his rocker. I assume this party will be just another thing used against Trump for when the time comes. But, that time may not come, because JD Vance is a nasty piece of work, probably wanting to live up to the expectations of the Tech Bros that back him. So, we have to hope that we can take advantage of Trump's spiraling before they do.
I think you are spot on with Tech Bros teaming up with the Heritage kids to pull off a coup using JD as a Trojan Horse. One of the problems they’re run into is that while Trumpy is as crazy as an outhouse rat, he can still figure out when he’s getting set up like a motherfucker. And nobody puts Trumpy in the corner. Need to drag Project 2025 out into the daylight and dismantle it piece by piece.
Agreed about Project 2025 and that like Hitler, Trump may not be the useful idiot of the Tech elite and the Heritage Foundation, just as the elite who put Hitler in power thought he would be their useful idiot and then he turned the tables on them. I have a group in Democrats Abroad that is reading P2025 as a book club. We are not reading it straight through but deciding what to read. So far, I have read the forward and 10 chapters, so I am about 1/3 of the way through it. It is certainly a slog, although as one reads more of these chapters one notices themes, subtexts, and contradictions. A lot of things said are unclear why they are important, or one thinks things like doesn't the military already do this. Still, the more daylight the better. Yesterday ProPublica published a summary of 14 hours of leaked P2025 training videos, with clips to illustrate points, and a link to the entire 14 hours at the end. Please share this link with others. People have a right to know what is planned. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election
The only part I'd question is "we have believed in a democracy," and my question is "Who's 'we'?" As long as "we" was white people, we believed in democracy, even when (under pressure) that "we" expanded to include women. Jim Crow did a masterful job of nullifying the 14th Amendment in the South, aided by the New Deal and all the economic and political interests responsible for redlining, employment and educational discrimination, etc. Since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, the white right has been showing its anti-democratic beliefs more and more blatantly, and from Citizens United onward the Supreme Court has been aiding and abetting them. The idea that "we the people" could elect a Black president freaked them out.
Susanna, I mean we as Americans have believed that democracy was something we want to strive for and be, not that everyone buys into us being democratic. It is a striving not a being. It is what excites me about Harris because she is not saying we are where we should be, but that we move towards it, and as a party we are trying to do that.
But that still avoids my question: Who's "we"? And at the same time what does "democracy" mean, especially to those who say the Pledge of Allegiance (with or without the "under God" part) and believe every word of it? ("Republic" is in the pledge. "Democracy" isn't.) A solid case could be made that the founders didn't fully include people of color, women, and those without property in their "we the people." They certainly didn't include the enslaved. And every attempt since to expand that "we" has met with resistance. That resistance has been ever growing since the mid-1960s. Many of those people think that the founders' vision wasn't multicultural at all, and that it had more to do with property rights than voting rights. As to the Democratic Party wanting to move toward democracy -- let's say I'm skeptical. Howard Dean's "50 state solution" in the mid-2000s was a step in the right direction. Obama squelched it. If the Harris-Walz administration brings it back, or something like it, I'll be relieved.
Some right wingers think Lord of the Rings is a blueprint for their movement. They are misled by superficials; it's based on Nordic (in their minds, white) mythology and Tolkien's devout Christianity. They don't get Tolkien's genius, that from those roots he wrote a universal story about the nature of good and evil, and they don't recognize themselves. Which is pretty funny, in a way.
I re-read it about a year ago for the first time in 10 years or so and was again struck by how beautiful and insightful it is. A relevant point, I think, is moral evil is concentrated in power centers, like Isengard and Barad Dur, while the nature of the moral good is diffuse; it's in the simple hobbits in their fields, the forgotten ancient Ents, the wild men of the woods, and even the star that insists on shining through Sauron's darkness. That's why evil calculates and thinks it has everything figured out but the good always has a surprise, something Sauron does not foresee.
Just like Sauron could not foresee that the free peoples would choose to destroy his ring of power and put no one in his place, the right wing could not foresee that Joe Biden would sacrifice himself, that none of the ambitious, qualified Democrats would choose to challenge Kamala Harris but line up solidly behind her, and that she would transform into the political heir of their most hated enemy, Barack Obama. Like Tolkien's heroes, we are still on a knife edge and there are travails in front of us. But, in a lot of ways, Tolkien's is not really a made-up world; it's the world we live in.
I wasn't thinking of one-to-one equivalents, but now that you mention it -- I can see Harris as a blend of Gandalf and Galadriel as she might have been if Tolkien's imagination hadn't been so sexist. Trump is looking more like Gollum by the day.
Let’s not get too carried away by The Lord of the Rings. Apparently the new right-leaning, anti-immigration president of Italy lives in an alternate reality peopled by characters from the trilogy by Tolkien.
Oh, the far right have adopted the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's fictional universe as providing useful symbolism relating to their belief systems, but I have read at least three different articles by professors and other lovers of literature explaining exactly why they have the wrong interpretation based on a more careful reading, and on Tolkien's own belief system.
I’m partial to Downfall. A breathtaking performance of the final days in the bunker with. Adolph, Eva, Goebbels, and the crew. Imagine Mar A Lago is kinda like that these days.
I don't know. Hitler's doctor, Theodor Morell was treating his depression with heavy, heavy duty drugs that I suspect contributed to his psychosis. In fact, I would credit his doctor with Hitler's death as much as anyone, maybe more so, even though he supposedly committed suicide. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15825245/
I disagree on one point- I don't think Trump is going to regain his footing. As the polling gets worse and worse for him he'll just become more deranged and more unhinged.
I usually avoid watching political speeches and debates. I made the mistake of watching the last one but I'm now looking forward to the next. A good prosecutor like Harris knows how to rile up a witness and Trump is particularly thin skinned. I can't wait to see her reduce him to a sputtering pool of covfefe.
I noted that hope among Trump donors that he'll 'regain his footing' with delight. I nearly laughed out loud.
I lost my mother & my mother in law to Alzheimers and my father & his mother to 2 other kinds of dementias. I'm confident that I know dementia when I see it, and that Trump's dementia isn't going magically reverse itself. I don't know what's causing his decline, and I don't care. Like all varieties of dementia, however, Trump's is only going to get worse, and in this instance I think that's just grand. When you add in the fact that Trump is a malignant narcissist quickly becoming widely regarded a pathetic loser, the butt of jokes — the one thing that sets him off more than anything else — and I think we have a formula for an implosion that those jillionaires of Bridgehampton may not even be capable of imagining.
If he had anybody in his life who cared about him — children, say, or a wife — they might be thinking of some kind of dramatic intervention to minimize the inevitable anguish. But that's not how that family rolls.
I saw a list of symptoms for frontotemporal dementia a year ago and an argument could be made that Trump had them all. Of considerable interest was the tilting forward stance that is very noticeable in Herr Bonespurs.
The electoral college is a legitimate concern, but I'm not as worried about it today as I was 3 weeks ago. We're one Taylor Swift endorsement away from a tsunami.
Well, I think there are many possible avenues to victory, with or without a Taylyor Swift endorsement. I just mean that if such an endorsement were to happen, it would be a really great thing & would definitely increase the chances of a Harris blowout.
His recent responses are more and more unhinged, cf his claim today that the crowd photos of her plane landing were fake and generated by AI, and of course the helicopter Sir story. He's in quicksand and flailing fast.
I cancelled the NYT before I canceled the WaPo. My disgust with the NYT is so great, and particularly with Sulzberger, that everyone I know knows how I feel. The friends that I have that still read it, try to avoid bringing it up, and no one will send me an article at this point or suggest it. I have to admit my life has been better for it. The journalists I like did not outweigh the anger the headlines gave me and I am so furious with Sulzberger and his ilk for setting us up to turn into Nazi Germany and potentially worse.
I have subscriptions to both for their Games, and the Times Recipes. The rest of it, sadly, I still see in my dear Boston Globe (which they own, alas), but their bylines appear less and less on the front page and now farther and farther back. I think the readers are starting to get the editor’s attention.
I don't understand the point of cancelling. It's not going to change the Times' policies, but it would deprive me of the things I like about it, such as Jamelle Bouie, Paul Krugman, and Charles Blow. Therefore, it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.
I would be financially supporting the destruction of my democracy if they got my money. An independent press is necessary for a healthy democracy, which we do not have on either count. I did not like how the Guardian was covering Biden, and was seriously thinking of not giving them money anymore, but I did write complaints. All of these lazy ass MSM did not bother to really cover Project 2025. If they had covered it as the story instead of Biden's age, we would be looking at a different election. I would guess that their journalists are not reading that much. I can tell even when articles are written about Project 2025 that either the full implications are going over their heads, or they heard this from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone, because I am reading Project 2025 in a book club, and while I have only read about 10 chapters and the forward so far, it is enough to have some idea of how much it would turn the US into a third world country. More violent than it already is, and with no education. One year, after I had finished grad school I taught in an international school in a third world country, so I have some idea of what things would be like. Also, my mom was born in Germany after Hitler came to power, and then, half my family was trapped in the DDR while that lasted, that is what Trump would do. So, I have a good idea of the life of people in what they want to turn the USA into, and given what I understand, though neither Hitler nor Mussolini destroyed Public education even though they destroyed their countries. If you put together what the Document is saying and the fact that Trump is planning this to please a group of people, Christian Nationalists who believe the End of Days is near, then you understand that the entire document really is set for doomsday to be soon. Environment does not matter because no one in their twisted religious beliefs believes we will be around much longer. That is why they don't teach their children math or history or science, because if the world is ending then you don't need to worry about that. So actually, not depriving oneself might lead to greater deprivation by supporting those who are helping our demise.
An excellent post, but it does not address my point that depriving ourselves of a subscription to the Times will make no difference. If there were an organized mass cancelling of subscriptions, it might make a difference, but that's not about to occur.
Henry, there are unorganized mass cancellations I am reading about people constantly saying this in all of my Substacks, but as long as there are people that feel like you, there will not be enough cancellations. It would be interesting to see the data on that. I assume Sulzberger does not actually need to earn any money to keep it going. Still, having no audience would take the power away from the publication.
After waiting a while to get to talk to someone to cancel my subscription I asked the (what sounded like a young) man if he was busy fielding cancellation requests. His response: “Are you kidding? Yes, it’s nonstop.” I didn’t pursue it beyond that. It would be good to know, although I doubt we ever will, how many cancellations they’ve had in recent months.
That is interesting Richard. The NYT does not have a MAGA audience. In fact in a Project 2025 training video clip in ProPublica this week, there is a man explaining that the conservative audience they are targeting does not trust MSM like the NYT and WaPo. So while these toys of their Oligarchic owners can afford to lose all the subscriptions in the world, their messages are diluted in strength if no one is reading them.
Ever since I cancelled my subscription to the Times I've been deluged daily with discounted offers to renew. I think they really are feeling the effects of lots of cancellations.
I find ways to read what I want but I seriously dislike giving those creeps the money that allows their lousy journalism. And I don’t like being “counted” among their “friends.”
I cancelled also after decades of subscribing, and I miss the columnists that I always read. I stopped reading their political coverage years ago, and definitely anything about Israel/Palestinians/Gaza/the West Bank. I got tired of paying for something that upset me daily. The Times needs a new publisher one whose name doesn’t end in Sulzberger.
Their coverage seems to have shifted lately since they no longer have Biden to pile on. More stories are calling out Drumpf's lies and JD's essential strangeness. They did a good job with the helicopter fable, now we'll see if they follow up to keep emphasizing that the promised flight manifests have never been produced, just like most Maga promises. In addition they had a good story today about Tim Walz' many trips to China as a teacher, his sympathetic reaction to the people, and realistic view of the restrictive government. I can skip over the columnists I don't like but I would miss the rest of the paper if cancelled.
Two rich bullies bullying each other. Trump is in the upper elite economically as is Sulzberger, whereas Biden is more Middle Class in his income. Trump threatening to sue the NYT in a rant may have turned the tide some, but it will be too little too late for me, with the overarching problem still there. My cancelling it because I got frustrated with the number of truly stupid people covering the election and editing and telling me that they were balanced when they are not. I have not kept the stupid letters from them in response to my complaints, but I cannot give my money to the entitled pricks I encountered.
I get the Times because a friend in NY who has subscribed for decades gave me a friend subscription. As long as she is subscribed, I can still use it. I don't very often, though. Just certain people, as you mention. And their games section. I could stop paying attention, but since I'm not paying them, I just read what I want whenever.
I wonder how many Times cancellers let their discontent be known in the comment sections that accompany new nyt stories. Chances are better your criticism will be passed upward there, even if not published, than discovered here. The Times even emails you to let you know they've accepted your comment and shows it to you on your screen.
A few years ago, the Times replaced most of its human comment moderators with a Google AI system named, you guessed it, Moderator. This system “pre-screens” all comments based on god-knows-what algorithm and refers only a small percentage of comments to the remaining human moderators.
I was once a top commenter on Times articles; I even received a thank-you email from the Times community editor congratulating me for being in the top 5% of “likes”.
Once Moderator was implemented I quickly understood that it did not care for my submissions, since roughly half of them would disappear into a black hole. I noticed that the unpublished comments were typically ones that did not agree with the article author.
It would seem that the Times has trained the algorithm to weed out certain kinds of criticism, so it's unlikely they're combing comment submissions for dissatisfaction.
I didn't suggest that Times execs pore over raw comments as a survey. Your experience is interesting as an anecdote; who knows how general the etfect was? As a one-time weekly paper editor, I can report that we considered letters to the editor, published and not, as a useful thermometer of reader sentiment.
Keep seeing the same wrong predicate for canceling or whizzing on the Times, their late June 2024 Joe Biden coverage. The NYT was 2 years behind the American people and worse, 2 years behind Murdoch's media empire. Not 2 days or 2 months, 2 years.
Restricting sources including media to a couple or t'ree is the the textbook definition of a bubble and in it an echo chamber. And is a tell of a bygone era when NYC was perceived as the center of the universe. It's not.
The world is constantly changing. Those who adapt move forward—those who don't look backward and insist time stands still.
People leaping from the left are following the lead of rightist readers who fled first. Speaking from experience, the absence of a trusted common source of information pens in conversation. But do not despair. You can always discuss what you ate for breakfast or the weather or what you did 50 years ago today.
am grateful for the two overlapping events (Kamala-Walz, The Olympics) in two different fields (politics and sports) in two different lands. Combined they have produced joie de vivre to replace the doom and gloom. Both need to be appreciated and celebrated.
For the life of me can't understand how canceling a newspaper subscription or casting unfounded aspersions on a newspaper for reporting the news fits in at all.
I canceled right after they screwed Biden! I was so pissed! A friend of mine said that they knew that Biden would have a difficult chance beating Trump. The Times still needs to call out Trump and Project 2025!
I will never feel bad for Donald, but agree that it is interesting for Lucian to give us a taste of Gossip Girl problems of the super wealthy. However, I was not clear why Miriam Adelson cares which super pac Ike Perlmutter supports as long as it all goes to Trump. Also, I would love to send all of them to Russia to mix among the other Oligarchs who share their political views of wanting to support Putin in destroying Ukraine and Europe.
I don’t know when I have been more angry,livid I guess is the word, at the past and recent performances of the NYT.I have said this before but when I saw them doing the” but her emails” schtick on Hillary,I was incredulous.Couldn’t believe that they were actually doing this thing.Thought they knew something that I did not.When it became apparent this time around that they were trying to”old” Joe Biden out of the race all the while ignoring or propping up Donald Trump’s pretty serious gaffes and incesssant lies,I knew what they were doing and it just p*ssed the hell out of me.I had been a faithful reader for over 20 years and felt a deep sense of betrayal which I still harbor.They have gotten into bed with Trump and I see more betrayal and angst from this union.I have since done a Pontius Pilate with them and their horrible rag and have washed my hands off their shoddy journalism and have not looked back.
Good rant, Victoria. I do wonder, though, whether they got in bed with Trump or whether they put Trump to bed with them. Either way, it's certainly is not in service to a free press that helps protect our democracy. Bread and circuses, soap operas, lullabies.
I'm old, and I feel lucky about that. But I'm writing postcards because I have a daughter and two grandchildren who will have to live a long time in this nightmare, this hellscape, if Harris and Walz do not win the election. Democrats up and down the ballot must win.
I can't believe how many people still think it's a horse race of no consequence. I talked to two of them today. They scoffed and laughed. They think Trump is funny still. They think Kamala is stupid. If I had a gas oven, I'd put my head inside.
Please be kind to yourself.I live in the reddest county in red Ohio with Trump flags a’ fly in’ from trucks and poles everywhere.I know we have a lot of bad apples out there but I am encouraged by the new joy that I am seeing.I even had the balls to put up a Sherrod Brown yard sign yesterday with no reaction so far.
tRump is truly flailing - and it can't be disguised. He can't match the jubilant, enormous crowds of the Dem candidates, nor, even with his gazillionaire buds, can he match the donations. And the Zoom calls! A stroke of genius he would never have imagined nor could he duplicate. He is the Don-old candidate now and with some 20 million Maga seniors having died and been replaced with young voters he is staring into the abyss. His whiny, always a victim schtick has grown old and stale - people have moved on and joy has replaced grievance. His VP is the most disliked candidate in decades, maybe ever, and in this Coach vs Couch match he is a drag on the tRump party. He is close to his expiration date. We need a Toto to pull back the curtain and reveal Don-old the grifter and felon...
You’re tops at keeping tabs on squirrels and deciphering who and where the nuts are. Seeing an article from you show up is a source of relief and often therapy. Today’s is both. Thanks to Traci and all critters who support you.
Maybe the Harris/Walz campaign agreed to an exclusive interview. One, this is consistent with the "Tarnished Lady," she is transactional, loyalties and integrity are for suckers. Two, this is a once great paper that now employs as editor, Joe Kahn, who believes that "defending democracy is partisan. " Well, in that case, canceling the New York Times is a vote for democracy.
You’re older and wiser than I and probably right, but I’m not so sure he’ll regain his footing. He’s been more than a little reminiscent of King Lear for a while now. I think he might at last be going completely mad, howling on the heath of Truth Social and the arenas he can no longer fill.
King Lear to the very end was capable of speaking in complete sentences and reflecting on his current condition. So were Macbeth and his lady. I rest my case.
I skipped school when it was murder and dissect a frog day in Biology. Don’t regret it one bit.
But do love the message here Lucien. I’ll use a throwback from 1970s New York (i may be off a decade), but I’d call Haberman & Co: bicycle seat sniffers. NOT journalists.
Since I've canceled my subscription to the Grey Pussy, I'll leave it up to you to keep me informed on what garbage they are spewing about the election. My only hope if Orange Jesus wins is that he goes after the NYT so they can see what trying to appease him gets you.
Recognize that the Times is no longer a newspaper but a website playing by website rules. Trump has no rules just SELF. He is in self destruct mode because he only listens to voices in his head. Getting beaten in crowd size by a black woman is more than he can handle.
Look, I have no truck with Haberman or Swan, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, and I have to say, my schadenfreude that they are on Trump's shitlist knows no bounds, but they have pointed out the obvious finally. Trump lies about everything so why didn't he lie about the hacking, the helicopter, etc. And any feud between billionaires in the Hamptons is the fodder for a Bravo reality show. But the bottom line is clear. Trump is toast. He knows it. The donors know it. The corporate media knows it but won't admit it. Fox Propaganda knows it too. But that does not mean we should be overconfident, the Electoral College may yet save him unless we fight a 50 state strategy (enabled by Dobbs, rapist Trump and couch f'ker Vance) and win where we can, run close where the MAGA shitbirds bring out more voters than the normies. The bigger the win, the less chance SCOTUS fucks us all and hands the White House to the rapist fraud felon.
Lucian did recently write about the alternate Repub plan and how much further advanced they are in it then the trial balloon version after 2020. If it works, winning the vote won't be the end game. Just sayin'
I'm fascinated by this, in a "can't look away from train wreck" way. I dumped the NYT after 2016 and will dump WaPo when my sub runs out. The MSM has mastered "can't see the forest for the trees -- or it is the twigs they're focused on?" and where does that leave most of us, who don't have the access that they do? Substack and other alternative info sources have their challenges, but on the whole they're keeping me informed about what really matters better than the MSM is. Because the MSM has mostly lost sight of *what really matters."
It's a very good time to re-watch "Hitler: The Last Ten Days." This is one of the best chronicles of a malignant narcissist in full collapse that's ever been put to page or film. And it very likely shows the trajectory of Trump's behavior as his final debacle rolls out over the next five months.
The arc of the film shows Hitler turning on first the German people, then his soldiers, then his commanders, then the people in the bunker with him, and finally those in his most intimate circle of all. None of his troubles are his fault; it's all because everyone around him has cruelly betrayed him. You watch him lash out; and it's clear that he takes this profound sense of betrayal to the grave with him.
Trump's in that same narrowing spiral now. The narcissist's bottomless hunger for attention is now mindlessly ravening as it searches for someone to blame for its loss. His donors aren't the first victims of this. Nor will they be the last.
You might appreciate this:
https://youtu.be/WiEO9p8OVMQ?si=8_DdJyruE6kmET_N
beat me to it!!
The first time I watched it I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe
Let's go with that lady who shot her dog.
I sent this around two days ago. Was howling after I saw it. Whoever did this, is brilliant!
When did Tiedrich post this? I must have missed it. I am distracted by trying to understand what is being said in German, and have to shut that part of my brain off. Still, even some of the things that "Hitler" is saying here are appropriately tantrum-my! He is a traitor. It was a command!
It was at the end of his post from August 9th
Thanks Greg. I have to go back and read that post. I might have been on a tram and then did want to watch videos because of the sound.
Yes he did
The Intercept wrote an article titled "Racism is Why Trump is So Popular." https://theintercept.com/2024/08/10/republicans-trump-vance-racism-white-nationalism/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
I think they are speaking truth writ large. However, as Jay Kuo says, a lot of the older people who voted for Trump in 2016 are dead because of old age and covid. They are replaced with Gen Z voters who are the most diverse group in our population. Perhaps that is part of what explains the Harris/Walz phenomenon in the face of the racist world that Trump promises. Those who are not Christian Nationalists, for whom who is president should not matter a whole lot since they believe End of Days is near, might care some about the policies if they read Project 2025, or have someone give them a more in depth explanation. Americans are not coming out of a war, unless we view Covid as a metaphor for that, and we have believed in a democracy for longer than Germany had experienced one in 1933 when Hitler rose to power. I really feel that we fail our students when our population becomes adult and have no knowledge of civics, history and terms to describe what has happened. Germans were under princes, dukes, monarchs for the majority of their history before Hitler came to power after 15 years of a failed experiment in democracy during the Weimar Republic. They had enormous economic problems after the war including having to pay billions in reparations for WWI on their own, even though they had not started the war, but entered it as an ally. They had no money to rebuild until the Americans lent it to them. But after the US stock market crash, the whole world was hurting and Americans called in their loans. So, Germans were back as bad off as right after the war, and that made them vulnerable to anyone who would tell them he would make them more prosperous. That being said, his party got 33% of the vote, and when Hindenburg was convinced by German elite to put Hitler in power they though he would be their useful idiot. Hitler quickly took over power for himself. What I have read Peter Thiel is planning in backing JD Vance is to have him claim Trump is unfit to lead using Article 25, and then he has backed the new US president. I am sure all of the people around Trump are keeping track of things that they can use as evidence that he is off his rocker. I assume this party will be just another thing used against Trump for when the time comes. But, that time may not come, because JD Vance is a nasty piece of work, probably wanting to live up to the expectations of the Tech Bros that back him. So, we have to hope that we can take advantage of Trump's spiraling before they do.
I think you are spot on with Tech Bros teaming up with the Heritage kids to pull off a coup using JD as a Trojan Horse. One of the problems they’re run into is that while Trumpy is as crazy as an outhouse rat, he can still figure out when he’s getting set up like a motherfucker. And nobody puts Trumpy in the corner. Need to drag Project 2025 out into the daylight and dismantle it piece by piece.
Agreed about Project 2025 and that like Hitler, Trump may not be the useful idiot of the Tech elite and the Heritage Foundation, just as the elite who put Hitler in power thought he would be their useful idiot and then he turned the tables on them. I have a group in Democrats Abroad that is reading P2025 as a book club. We are not reading it straight through but deciding what to read. So far, I have read the forward and 10 chapters, so I am about 1/3 of the way through it. It is certainly a slog, although as one reads more of these chapters one notices themes, subtexts, and contradictions. A lot of things said are unclear why they are important, or one thinks things like doesn't the military already do this. Still, the more daylight the better. Yesterday ProPublica published a summary of 14 hours of leaked P2025 training videos, with clips to illustrate points, and a link to the entire 14 hours at the end. Please share this link with others. People have a right to know what is planned. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election
We should forward the link over to the NYT. Would make for a more informative story than Kid Rock’s White Trash Woodstock.
I sincerely doubt NYT would publish it. The Guardian would be a better choice, imho.
The only part I'd question is "we have believed in a democracy," and my question is "Who's 'we'?" As long as "we" was white people, we believed in democracy, even when (under pressure) that "we" expanded to include women. Jim Crow did a masterful job of nullifying the 14th Amendment in the South, aided by the New Deal and all the economic and political interests responsible for redlining, employment and educational discrimination, etc. Since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, the white right has been showing its anti-democratic beliefs more and more blatantly, and from Citizens United onward the Supreme Court has been aiding and abetting them. The idea that "we the people" could elect a Black president freaked them out.
Susanna, I mean we as Americans have believed that democracy was something we want to strive for and be, not that everyone buys into us being democratic. It is a striving not a being. It is what excites me about Harris because she is not saying we are where we should be, but that we move towards it, and as a party we are trying to do that.
But that still avoids my question: Who's "we"? And at the same time what does "democracy" mean, especially to those who say the Pledge of Allegiance (with or without the "under God" part) and believe every word of it? ("Republic" is in the pledge. "Democracy" isn't.) A solid case could be made that the founders didn't fully include people of color, women, and those without property in their "we the people." They certainly didn't include the enslaved. And every attempt since to expand that "we" has met with resistance. That resistance has been ever growing since the mid-1960s. Many of those people think that the founders' vision wasn't multicultural at all, and that it had more to do with property rights than voting rights. As to the Democratic Party wanting to move toward democracy -- let's say I'm skeptical. Howard Dean's "50 state solution" in the mid-2000s was a step in the right direction. Obama squelched it. If the Harris-Walz administration brings it back, or something like it, I'll be relieved.
WOW! Sounds scarily feasible and probable and possible!
It's also, I'm discovering, a good time to be rereading _Lord of the Rings._ Sauron was a lot smarter, but there are grounds for comparison.
Some right wingers think Lord of the Rings is a blueprint for their movement. They are misled by superficials; it's based on Nordic (in their minds, white) mythology and Tolkien's devout Christianity. They don't get Tolkien's genius, that from those roots he wrote a universal story about the nature of good and evil, and they don't recognize themselves. Which is pretty funny, in a way.
I re-read it about a year ago for the first time in 10 years or so and was again struck by how beautiful and insightful it is. A relevant point, I think, is moral evil is concentrated in power centers, like Isengard and Barad Dur, while the nature of the moral good is diffuse; it's in the simple hobbits in their fields, the forgotten ancient Ents, the wild men of the woods, and even the star that insists on shining through Sauron's darkness. That's why evil calculates and thinks it has everything figured out but the good always has a surprise, something Sauron does not foresee.
Just like Sauron could not foresee that the free peoples would choose to destroy his ring of power and put no one in his place, the right wing could not foresee that Joe Biden would sacrifice himself, that none of the ambitious, qualified Democrats would choose to challenge Kamala Harris but line up solidly behind her, and that she would transform into the political heir of their most hated enemy, Barack Obama. Like Tolkien's heroes, we are still on a knife edge and there are travails in front of us. But, in a lot of ways, Tolkien's is not really a made-up world; it's the world we live in.
Kamala is Frodo?
WE the People are Frodo. Kamala is Aragorn. We must all do our part to labor up Mt. Doom and vote to destroy Trump.
That makes sense!
I wasn't thinking of one-to-one equivalents, but now that you mention it -- I can see Harris as a blend of Gandalf and Galadriel as she might have been if Tolkien's imagination hadn't been so sexist. Trump is looking more like Gollum by the day.
Yes. He's a wannabe Sauron but can't come close. Gollum is perfect. He wants attention (the ring) desperately and can only whine.
Hmmm, I don't see my copies at the top of the bookshelves in my living room. I think this is a very good recommendation.
Let’s not get too carried away by The Lord of the Rings. Apparently the new right-leaning, anti-immigration president of Italy lives in an alternate reality peopled by characters from the trilogy by Tolkien.
Oh, the far right have adopted the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's fictional universe as providing useful symbolism relating to their belief systems, but I have read at least three different articles by professors and other lovers of literature explaining exactly why they have the wrong interpretation based on a more careful reading, and on Tolkien's own belief system.
Really? That could be pretty sad. Which characters???
I’m partial to Downfall. A breathtaking performance of the final days in the bunker with. Adolph, Eva, Goebbels, and the crew. Imagine Mar A Lago is kinda like that these days.
I don't know. Hitler's doctor, Theodor Morell was treating his depression with heavy, heavy duty drugs that I suspect contributed to his psychosis. In fact, I would credit his doctor with Hitler's death as much as anyone, maybe more so, even though he supposedly committed suicide. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15825245/
Maybe I can watch this tonight. Thank you.
The entertainment value of the last chapter in the American experiment in better living. Read Timothy Snyder’s history books, but not at bedtime.
Thank you for the advice. I've been sticking to Michael Klare recently, since I'm so interested in responses to the climate crisis.
Is that the one that has all the parodies with the weeping women in the hall? Here we go, the latest I've seen....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiEO9p8OVMQ&t=167s
I disagree on one point- I don't think Trump is going to regain his footing. As the polling gets worse and worse for him he'll just become more deranged and more unhinged.
I usually avoid watching political speeches and debates. I made the mistake of watching the last one but I'm now looking forward to the next. A good prosecutor like Harris knows how to rile up a witness and Trump is particularly thin skinned. I can't wait to see her reduce him to a sputtering pool of covfefe.
I noted that hope among Trump donors that he'll 'regain his footing' with delight. I nearly laughed out loud.
I lost my mother & my mother in law to Alzheimers and my father & his mother to 2 other kinds of dementias. I'm confident that I know dementia when I see it, and that Trump's dementia isn't going magically reverse itself. I don't know what's causing his decline, and I don't care. Like all varieties of dementia, however, Trump's is only going to get worse, and in this instance I think that's just grand. When you add in the fact that Trump is a malignant narcissist quickly becoming widely regarded a pathetic loser, the butt of jokes — the one thing that sets him off more than anything else — and I think we have a formula for an implosion that those jillionaires of Bridgehampton may not even be capable of imagining.
If he had anybody in his life who cared about him — children, say, or a wife — they might be thinking of some kind of dramatic intervention to minimize the inevitable anguish. But that's not how that family rolls.
I saw a list of symptoms for frontotemporal dementia a year ago and an argument could be made that Trump had them all. Of considerable interest was the tilting forward stance that is very noticeable in Herr Bonespurs.
I think you're right about his dementia, but that could take some time. I'm still counting on a stress-induced cardiac arrest.
It's already here.
Agreed. If it weren't for the electoral college I'd be sure he's toast.
The electoral college is a legitimate concern, but I'm not as worried about it today as I was 3 weeks ago. We're one Taylor Swift endorsement away from a tsunami.
Jesus, if that what it takes, we really are in trouble.
Well, I think there are many possible avenues to victory, with or without a Taylyor Swift endorsement. I just mean that if such an endorsement were to happen, it would be a really great thing & would definitely increase the chances of a Harris blowout.
Fingers crossed.
There's been a possible shift for the better in EC news too: "Harris may need less of popular vote to win electoral college" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/09/harris-popular-vote-electoral-college/
Hm. Michigan is a bit of a problem: Gaza. This will be a real bail-biter if it turns out to be the tipping point state.
His recent responses are more and more unhinged, cf his claim today that the crowd photos of her plane landing were fake and generated by AI, and of course the helicopter Sir story. He's in quicksand and flailing fast.
It's going to be fun to see how Trump handles Harris and also fun to watch Vance and Walz!
I totally agree with your disagreement.
I cancelled NY times twice in two years. Last month most recent when I read about their clickbait style. I wish I could cancel again.
I cancelled the NYT before I canceled the WaPo. My disgust with the NYT is so great, and particularly with Sulzberger, that everyone I know knows how I feel. The friends that I have that still read it, try to avoid bringing it up, and no one will send me an article at this point or suggest it. I have to admit my life has been better for it. The journalists I like did not outweigh the anger the headlines gave me and I am so furious with Sulzberger and his ilk for setting us up to turn into Nazi Germany and potentially worse.
I still have the Washington Post.
I have subscriptions to both for their Games, and the Times Recipes. The rest of it, sadly, I still see in my dear Boston Globe (which they own, alas), but their bylines appear less and less on the front page and now farther and farther back. I think the readers are starting to get the editor’s attention.
Same.
Jamelle Bouie's the only one I miss at nyt (thought I'd feel the same about Prof. Krugman, but getting by just fine!).
Gordon, Krugmen is carried elsewhere in addition to the NYT so you don't need to do without. Just
https://www.seattletimes.com/author/paul-krugman/
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/author-PaulKrugman-5781
I cancelled a few weeks ago, and I started subscribing in the 1980s. If I could cancel every day, I would.
I don't understand the point of cancelling. It's not going to change the Times' policies, but it would deprive me of the things I like about it, such as Jamelle Bouie, Paul Krugman, and Charles Blow. Therefore, it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.
I would be financially supporting the destruction of my democracy if they got my money. An independent press is necessary for a healthy democracy, which we do not have on either count. I did not like how the Guardian was covering Biden, and was seriously thinking of not giving them money anymore, but I did write complaints. All of these lazy ass MSM did not bother to really cover Project 2025. If they had covered it as the story instead of Biden's age, we would be looking at a different election. I would guess that their journalists are not reading that much. I can tell even when articles are written about Project 2025 that either the full implications are going over their heads, or they heard this from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone, because I am reading Project 2025 in a book club, and while I have only read about 10 chapters and the forward so far, it is enough to have some idea of how much it would turn the US into a third world country. More violent than it already is, and with no education. One year, after I had finished grad school I taught in an international school in a third world country, so I have some idea of what things would be like. Also, my mom was born in Germany after Hitler came to power, and then, half my family was trapped in the DDR while that lasted, that is what Trump would do. So, I have a good idea of the life of people in what they want to turn the USA into, and given what I understand, though neither Hitler nor Mussolini destroyed Public education even though they destroyed their countries. If you put together what the Document is saying and the fact that Trump is planning this to please a group of people, Christian Nationalists who believe the End of Days is near, then you understand that the entire document really is set for doomsday to be soon. Environment does not matter because no one in their twisted religious beliefs believes we will be around much longer. That is why they don't teach their children math or history or science, because if the world is ending then you don't need to worry about that. So actually, not depriving oneself might lead to greater deprivation by supporting those who are helping our demise.
An excellent post, but it does not address my point that depriving ourselves of a subscription to the Times will make no difference. If there were an organized mass cancelling of subscriptions, it might make a difference, but that's not about to occur.
Henry, there are unorganized mass cancellations I am reading about people constantly saying this in all of my Substacks, but as long as there are people that feel like you, there will not be enough cancellations. It would be interesting to see the data on that. I assume Sulzberger does not actually need to earn any money to keep it going. Still, having no audience would take the power away from the publication.
After waiting a while to get to talk to someone to cancel my subscription I asked the (what sounded like a young) man if he was busy fielding cancellation requests. His response: “Are you kidding? Yes, it’s nonstop.” I didn’t pursue it beyond that. It would be good to know, although I doubt we ever will, how many cancellations they’ve had in recent months.
That is interesting Richard. The NYT does not have a MAGA audience. In fact in a Project 2025 training video clip in ProPublica this week, there is a man explaining that the conservative audience they are targeting does not trust MSM like the NYT and WaPo. So while these toys of their Oligarchic owners can afford to lose all the subscriptions in the world, their messages are diluted in strength if no one is reading them.
Ever since I cancelled my subscription to the Times I've been deluged daily with discounted offers to renew. I think they really are feeling the effects of lots of cancellations.
I find ways to read what I want but I seriously dislike giving those creeps the money that allows their lousy journalism. And I don’t like being “counted” among their “friends.”
I cancelled also after decades of subscribing, and I miss the columnists that I always read. I stopped reading their political coverage years ago, and definitely anything about Israel/Palestinians/Gaza/the West Bank. I got tired of paying for something that upset me daily. The Times needs a new publisher one whose name doesn’t end in Sulzberger.
Their coverage seems to have shifted lately since they no longer have Biden to pile on. More stories are calling out Drumpf's lies and JD's essential strangeness. They did a good job with the helicopter fable, now we'll see if they follow up to keep emphasizing that the promised flight manifests have never been produced, just like most Maga promises. In addition they had a good story today about Tim Walz' many trips to China as a teacher, his sympathetic reaction to the people, and realistic view of the restrictive government. I can skip over the columnists I don't like but I would miss the rest of the paper if cancelled.
Two rich bullies bullying each other. Trump is in the upper elite economically as is Sulzberger, whereas Biden is more Middle Class in his income. Trump threatening to sue the NYT in a rant may have turned the tide some, but it will be too little too late for me, with the overarching problem still there. My cancelling it because I got frustrated with the number of truly stupid people covering the election and editing and telling me that they were balanced when they are not. I have not kept the stupid letters from them in response to my complaints, but I cannot give my money to the entitled pricks I encountered.
When I canceled, they asked me why and I told them. Yeah, I won't be getting some of the editorials I like as above but I was angry at them!
I get the Times because a friend in NY who has subscribed for decades gave me a friend subscription. As long as she is subscribed, I can still use it. I don't very often, though. Just certain people, as you mention. And their games section. I could stop paying attention, but since I'm not paying them, I just read what I want whenever.
I wonder how many Times cancellers let their discontent be known in the comment sections that accompany new nyt stories. Chances are better your criticism will be passed upward there, even if not published, than discovered here. The Times even emails you to let you know they've accepted your comment and shows it to you on your screen.
A few years ago, the Times replaced most of its human comment moderators with a Google AI system named, you guessed it, Moderator. This system “pre-screens” all comments based on god-knows-what algorithm and refers only a small percentage of comments to the remaining human moderators.
I was once a top commenter on Times articles; I even received a thank-you email from the Times community editor congratulating me for being in the top 5% of “likes”.
Once Moderator was implemented I quickly understood that it did not care for my submissions, since roughly half of them would disappear into a black hole. I noticed that the unpublished comments were typically ones that did not agree with the article author.
It would seem that the Times has trained the algorithm to weed out certain kinds of criticism, so it's unlikely they're combing comment submissions for dissatisfaction.
I didn't suggest that Times execs pore over raw comments as a survey. Your experience is interesting as an anecdote; who knows how general the etfect was? As a one-time weekly paper editor, I can report that we considered letters to the editor, published and not, as a useful thermometer of reader sentiment.
Keep seeing the same wrong predicate for canceling or whizzing on the Times, their late June 2024 Joe Biden coverage. The NYT was 2 years behind the American people and worse, 2 years behind Murdoch's media empire. Not 2 days or 2 months, 2 years.
Restricting sources including media to a couple or t'ree is the the textbook definition of a bubble and in it an echo chamber. And is a tell of a bygone era when NYC was perceived as the center of the universe. It's not.
The world is constantly changing. Those who adapt move forward—those who don't look backward and insist time stands still.
People leaping from the left are following the lead of rightist readers who fled first. Speaking from experience, the absence of a trusted common source of information pens in conversation. But do not despair. You can always discuss what you ate for breakfast or the weather or what you did 50 years ago today.
am grateful for the two overlapping events (Kamala-Walz, The Olympics) in two different fields (politics and sports) in two different lands. Combined they have produced joie de vivre to replace the doom and gloom. Both need to be appreciated and celebrated.
For the life of me can't understand how canceling a newspaper subscription or casting unfounded aspersions on a newspaper for reporting the news fits in at all.
I canceled right after they screwed Biden! I was so pissed! A friend of mine said that they knew that Biden would have a difficult chance beating Trump. The Times still needs to call out Trump and Project 2025!
Thanks for relaying this deliciousness, Lucian. So sad when billionaires fight amongst themselves. 🤣
I almost feel bad for Donold tho. He went from spastic squirrel to dead frog in a paragraph.
I will never feel bad for Donald, but agree that it is interesting for Lucian to give us a taste of Gossip Girl problems of the super wealthy. However, I was not clear why Miriam Adelson cares which super pac Ike Perlmutter supports as long as it all goes to Trump. Also, I would love to send all of them to Russia to mix among the other Oligarchs who share their political views of wanting to support Putin in destroying Ukraine and Europe.
I don’t know when I have been more angry,livid I guess is the word, at the past and recent performances of the NYT.I have said this before but when I saw them doing the” but her emails” schtick on Hillary,I was incredulous.Couldn’t believe that they were actually doing this thing.Thought they knew something that I did not.When it became apparent this time around that they were trying to”old” Joe Biden out of the race all the while ignoring or propping up Donald Trump’s pretty serious gaffes and incesssant lies,I knew what they were doing and it just p*ssed the hell out of me.I had been a faithful reader for over 20 years and felt a deep sense of betrayal which I still harbor.They have gotten into bed with Trump and I see more betrayal and angst from this union.I have since done a Pontius Pilate with them and their horrible rag and have washed my hands off their shoddy journalism and have not looked back.
Good rant, Victoria. I do wonder, though, whether they got in bed with Trump or whether they put Trump to bed with them. Either way, it's certainly is not in service to a free press that helps protect our democracy. Bread and circuses, soap operas, lullabies.
I'm old, and I feel lucky about that. But I'm writing postcards because I have a daughter and two grandchildren who will have to live a long time in this nightmare, this hellscape, if Harris and Walz do not win the election. Democrats up and down the ballot must win.
I can't believe how many people still think it's a horse race of no consequence. I talked to two of them today. They scoffed and laughed. They think Trump is funny still. They think Kamala is stupid. If I had a gas oven, I'd put my head inside.
Please be kind to yourself.I live in the reddest county in red Ohio with Trump flags a’ fly in’ from trucks and poles everywhere.I know we have a lot of bad apples out there but I am encouraged by the new joy that I am seeing.I even had the balls to put up a Sherrod Brown yard sign yesterday with no reaction so far.
You're a STAR!!!!!!
tRump is truly flailing - and it can't be disguised. He can't match the jubilant, enormous crowds of the Dem candidates, nor, even with his gazillionaire buds, can he match the donations. And the Zoom calls! A stroke of genius he would never have imagined nor could he duplicate. He is the Don-old candidate now and with some 20 million Maga seniors having died and been replaced with young voters he is staring into the abyss. His whiny, always a victim schtick has grown old and stale - people have moved on and joy has replaced grievance. His VP is the most disliked candidate in decades, maybe ever, and in this Coach vs Couch match he is a drag on the tRump party. He is close to his expiration date. We need a Toto to pull back the curtain and reveal Don-old the grifter and felon...
In the end, when push comes to shove, more people want to feel happy than not. The anger/fear/grievance thing is wearisome.
Positive news but a long way to go before they get my subscription reinstated
Ditto. The bastards.
You’re tops at keeping tabs on squirrels and deciphering who and where the nuts are. Seeing an article from you show up is a source of relief and often therapy. Today’s is both. Thanks to Traci and all critters who support you.
Maybe the Harris/Walz campaign agreed to an exclusive interview. One, this is consistent with the "Tarnished Lady," she is transactional, loyalties and integrity are for suckers. Two, this is a once great paper that now employs as editor, Joe Kahn, who believes that "defending democracy is partisan. " Well, in that case, canceling the New York Times is a vote for democracy.
You’re older and wiser than I and probably right, but I’m not so sure he’ll regain his footing. He’s been more than a little reminiscent of King Lear for a while now. I think he might at last be going completely mad, howling on the heath of Truth Social and the arenas he can no longer fill.
King Lear to the very end was capable of speaking in complete sentences and reflecting on his current condition. So were Macbeth and his lady. I rest my case.
A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Now I'm trying to imagine Trump saying anything of the sort. <g>
Love the analogy! He is Shakespearean, isn't he? Can you see Tom Stoppard with this?
Did Shakespeare write any tragic farces?
I suppose that depends on your definition of farce. 😀
I skipped school when it was murder and dissect a frog day in Biology. Don’t regret it one bit.
But do love the message here Lucien. I’ll use a throwback from 1970s New York (i may be off a decade), but I’d call Haberman & Co: bicycle seat sniffers. NOT journalists.
Disgust anyone? You’re supposed to be.
I did that too! And a friend of mine changed her major from psychology because she couldn't stand the idea of dissecting animals. Good for you!
Since I've canceled my subscription to the Grey Pussy, I'll leave it up to you to keep me informed on what garbage they are spewing about the election. My only hope if Orange Jesus wins is that he goes after the NYT so they can see what trying to appease him gets you.
Schadenfreude can be sweet. Somehow I missed this but it makes me smile.
Recognize that the Times is no longer a newspaper but a website playing by website rules. Trump has no rules just SELF. He is in self destruct mode because he only listens to voices in his head. Getting beaten in crowd size by a black woman is more than he can handle.
Yes! Less a newspaper, more of a general interest magazine. Clicks are currency of the realm.
Look, I have no truck with Haberman or Swan, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, and I have to say, my schadenfreude that they are on Trump's shitlist knows no bounds, but they have pointed out the obvious finally. Trump lies about everything so why didn't he lie about the hacking, the helicopter, etc. And any feud between billionaires in the Hamptons is the fodder for a Bravo reality show. But the bottom line is clear. Trump is toast. He knows it. The donors know it. The corporate media knows it but won't admit it. Fox Propaganda knows it too. But that does not mean we should be overconfident, the Electoral College may yet save him unless we fight a 50 state strategy (enabled by Dobbs, rapist Trump and couch f'ker Vance) and win where we can, run close where the MAGA shitbirds bring out more voters than the normies. The bigger the win, the less chance SCOTUS fucks us all and hands the White House to the rapist fraud felon.
Lucian did recently write about the alternate Repub plan and how much further advanced they are in it then the trial balloon version after 2020. If it works, winning the vote won't be the end game. Just sayin'
I'm fascinated by this, in a "can't look away from train wreck" way. I dumped the NYT after 2016 and will dump WaPo when my sub runs out. The MSM has mastered "can't see the forest for the trees -- or it is the twigs they're focused on?" and where does that leave most of us, who don't have the access that they do? Substack and other alternative info sources have their challenges, but on the whole they're keeping me informed about what really matters better than the MSM is. Because the MSM has mostly lost sight of *what really matters."
Our WaPo runs out in Sept. Not renewing.