It's reminiscent of LBJ on Gerald Ford. But the resonance is not quite fair since Ford was a graduate of Yale Law School and not stupid. He was a pretty good person. LBJ provides contrast on some fronts. LBJ dropped out of law school because he couldn't deal with it. You couldn't exactly call him a pretty good person either. Not to say LBJ didn't do some good as president.
LBJ was a brilliant, not to mention often ruthless, politician, and arguably not a nice person, but he did a bit more than "some good" as president: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were a huge step forward for U.S. democracy, and as such they prompted the white backlash that was fueled by Nixon's "southern strategy" and will probably culminate in either the death of the GOP or the end of multicultural, multiracial U.S. democracy.
LBJ paid a high price for his utter inability to fix the Vietnam mess he inherited—loss of the Presidency, the remainder of his life lived in disgrace while watching Republicans do no better at resolving Vietnam. Thanks, Susanna, for the reminder that LBJ's legacy consisted of more than the tragedy of Vietnam.
I considered that I was underselling it a little. On the other hand the Vietnam war looms large in his overall oeuvre. I tried to give him credit but be aware of the lurking critics.
the great contradiction (and tragedy) of LBJ was precisely that he managed to pass absolutely revolutionary domestic legislation while very stupidly promoting and committing to a war that made absolutely no sense. from my point of view, this makes him very human (which is to say, very flawed). dealing with LBJ's various legacies, therefore, demands some ability to deal with nuance and contradiction. in this current particular world, how many people are inclined to do so?
the NYT has been featuring this amazingly stupid "focus group" feature on the back of the Sunday Review section. every week, I tell myself to please not read it, then, naturally, I do so. today it's Wyoming voters opining on Liz Cheney. the resulting "feature" isn't exactly good news.
I tried for nuance. I mainly posted to (pedantically) note the resonance with LBJ's comment on Ford. And to further say that LBJ (if brilliant in his way as someone has posted) was talking about a Yale educated lawyer. I think he said Ford was a nice guy but he played football too many times with his helmet off. He also said he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Funny but not quite fair. They are good stuff and worth stealing. Now as to Herschel Walker...
LBJ helped integrate schools all over the country by telling school districts getting "Impact Funds" for teaching kids from military bases who weren't taxed locally.
My school, Baker High in Columbus, GA by Ft. Benning was such a school.
Gerald Ford was snookered by Richard Nixon and Nixon's advisors. A law school education, even from Yale Law School, could not compensate for a failure of imagination. Ford could not imagine the depths of Nixon's cunning and selfishness.
Failure of imagination may have been a factor, but I believe there was serious pressure on Ford -- and not just from Nixon loyalists -- to be magnanimous. From our current vantage point, it's hard to imagine, or remember, how earth-shaking the Watergate revelations and Nixon's resignation were at the time. No U.S. president had resigned in disgrace before, and not to forget that his vice president had resigned under a big cloud the year before. Those of us who hated Nixon's guts (myself included) were infuriated by the pardon, but it's still not hard to imagine that for many Americans at the time Nixon had suffered the worst humiliation a president can suffer and that was enough.
and it was probably was, THEN. a lot of people do think that the Nixon pardon cost Ford the '76 election. NOW is entirely different, but also much more dangerous. who could ever have conceived of this in 1974? certainly not me.
Definitely a possibility, but how to separate out the pardon from the debacle that was Watergate? The straw wouldn't have broken the camel's back if the camel hadn't already been groaning under the load. Ford was a less-than-inspiring candidate too, and Carter was from as far outside the Beltway as most of us could imagine at the time. I don't think I paid all that much attention to the presidential election that year -- I was up to my ears in the campaign to ratify the MA state ERA, and I still have several T-shirts to prove it.
I was working in the federal government during the Ford administration, and in 1975, I was detailed off to work on the Ford Presidential Clemency Board that the president announced off-the-cuff in September, more or less contemporaneous with the Nixon pardon. This was intended to 'heal the wounds' of widespread opposition to the Vietnam War. No forethought. No coordinated planning. No outreach to interested parties. No consideration for the consequences. Hastily arranged responses. No objectives. And what we got was a scattershot follow through.
The Ford clemency initiative turned out to be an utter fiasco. An almost complete public relations disaster. Check out a history written by its leaders, Chance and Circumstance, by Baskir and Strauss.
The pardon failed to identify the crimes Nixon was accused of committing; and no acknowledgment by Nixon that he did anything wrong. The Justice Department was reduced to arguing that Nixon's accepting the pardon implied his guilt.
Well, to be consistent with Trumpian politics, let's set up Trump Re-Education Camps (TRECs) where his followers can be subjected to such commie/Marxist/fascist things like American history, economics, civics, democracy, virology. You know, all of that subversive stuff that make the heads of Trumpers explode!
Ukraine bombed Russia’s Black Sea headquarters today. The RNC had around $127 million is their coffers to pay attorneys and lobbyists. They are now down to about $28 mil. in that so-called fund. Hmmm...think they might, just maybe, become a dying breed. The DOJ, the DA’s in NYC and GA, both strong and bold black females, have tied a proverbial rope around the many Trump loyalists neck. Befitting, don’tcha think?
Maybe. When projecting the present into the unknown, if history teaches us one lesson it is to visualize a Tomi Ungerer VV poster: Expect the unexpected. Who predicted the surprises of even the current midterm? Anybody could have seen this crop of GOP candidates coming, but who actually forecast that their "quality" (thanks, MoscowMitch) could threaten destiny? Who saw the Alito timing and effect coming?
I see two future near-certainties: Roughly a quarter of U.S. citizens will continue to be AINOs—Americans in Name Only, posing as patriots while hoping to destroy every constitutional principle. And every word James Carville says will continue to be priceless (even when he's wrong, which does happen but, happily, rarely and not recently).
Yes! "As longtime Democratic consultant James Carville told The Hill, “The problem the Republican Party has is, they got really stupid people that vote in their primaries. And … really stupid people demand to have really stupid leaders. That’s where the Republican Party is now.” Asked about Walker’s candidacy in Georgia, Carville said, “Come on, man, that guy had an ill-fitting helmet. He’s not right. He’s not right at all.”
To me the issue is going to boil down to two issues relative to those who self identify as being on the “right” in Political terminology.
First, what percentage of them still are capable of seeing themselves as Americans first and Republicans second.
Second, what percentage of the shrinking group of “principled” Republicans like Liz Cheney still possess the common sense to understand a vote or two for Democrats along the way is a price you must pay to preserve the Republic and what is left of one’s own principles.
It is only going to take 5 to 10% of the old GOP to show up on Election Day to put a stake in the heart of Trumpism. Will they? That is the great unanswered questions.
I was once’s solid GOP voter. I came to realize what was happening when Newt Gingrich came along. Trumpism is simply Fascism Lite. No actual dyed in the wool Republican can support that.
That is the number no sane person connected to objective reality should ever forget. It's the scariest number, and it keeps me awake on some nights. How can it not? 81,000,000 voted the other way, and that's not enough if we're going to survive in some form of liberal democracy.
My sense is that the dynamics of a GOP without Trump will change only marginally. Just to parse out some among many possible speculative iterations:
We could see a roughly ten-percent drop in election participation; the elimination of maybe one media entity (Parler, OAN, or the like); the introduction of one or two insignificant transient splinter parties; etc. Someone, probably DeSantis, will step up to carry the dangerous ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-reproductive self-determination, anti-regulatory movement of hatred-and-fear forward. The miasmic personality cult of the moment will evolve to a more tempered bond among the party members remaining, but it will hold-- and continue to be a significant threat to democracy, as long as the successor - DeSantis, Thiel, T Jr., whoever' - continues to "deliver the goods." All that'll be needed are majorities in both congressional houses. Judicial branch capture and gerrymandering alongside ineffective news-media accounting and dark money from ultra-rich Randian-type cynical "Libertarians" - all already status quo - comprise the rest of the infrastructure needed for dominance.
Without Trump to animate Democratic party energy, I foresee a roughly analogous drop in DP participation, a wash. I think the violent, reactionary, anti-democracy movement will exert dominance for the reasons cited above for roughly another full generation, i.e., until the boomers and x-ers die off.
This is not cause to despair.
We still have to fight, for obvious reasons.
This too shall pass, like it did in the 1860s or the 1920s. There will be an eventual restoration to a semblance of homeostasis, until - presumably several decades, at least, down the road from then - things get terrible again. And, eventually, that too shall pass.
I’m wondering what the GOP does if, after the November election, they end up barely squeaking out a House majority. I’ve even seen that there’s a chance, slim probably, that the Dems maintain it. Do they keep on keeping on with the Orange Godking?
Stefanik is my rep. She endorsed and fundraisers for Paladino who recently said in a radio interview that Merrick Garland should be executed. Not long ago she was considered a moderate in the party and maybe still is.
Omg, Stefanik's district! Sympathies from the safe new 10th downstate. Paladino is so consistently vile a collection of his horrors is probably on the net somewhere. But Stefanik! Only she would treat him respectfully. Who could have imagined her ethical nosedive?
As for the House, my guess is that the GOP would use a new majority, however small, as hastily as the new SCotUS is doing.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and Herschel Walker will run for President in 2024! He seems as qualified as Trump. Fortunately, Wyoming was predictable. Their voters are a simple reflection of their leader. One issue alone. Liz, you tried to bring down our idol, the Donald. How dare you!
I believe that part of the GA GOP's strategy in running Herschel Walker was to buttress the conviction of racist white GA voters that Black people are buffoons incapable of self-governance. The extremely capable Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, Fani Willis, and others are in the headlines almost every day, giving the lie to the stereotypes. It would be extremely bad news for the GOP (and not just in GA) if too many white voters got the idea that Black officeholders are not only well qualified, they have the interests of their ordinary, working constituents at heart. So, everybody, please don't play into the ridiculing of Herschel Walker. The man needs help, and so far he's not getting it.
Interesting theory. I think it is simpler than that. Herschel Walker was the centerpiece of Trump's now defunct effort to start a professional football team to compete with the NFL. Walker was paid millions by Trump to jump from the NFL to the WFL. Walker was then, and continues to be, 100% loyal to Trump. Trump figured that name recognition in football nutso Georgia is enough to win. It seemed to work for the host of The Apprentice.
I’m trying real hard not to play into the ridicule, Susanna. However, all y’all who don’t live here need to understand something. That he was a star football player at UGa papers over a LOT of flaws for way too many voters here, regardless how he comes across in opposition ads. Damn Good Dawg is a high compliment, not a racist epithet.
Football is a huge factor (yuge!) for sure -- think Tommy Tuberville for a recent example. He can't hold a candle to Doug Jones either. I guess the question is how many flaws it can paper over, along with how race factors into it. I haven't seen any of the ads running in GA, but I have seen a few news stories. They suggest that Walker is not a well man.
I agree about what you have said. Herschel definitely has a mental problem. He’s abusive and he's trying to keep that a secret but oops! His ex-wife certainly has let the truths out about their relationship and his fixins’ with other women. He is not a formidable candidate against the Rev at all.
Some polls show Warnock a few points ahead, and some commentators believe this is at least partly due to more revelations about Walker's history of abuse. Keep in mind that (1) the general election is still 2 1/2 months away, and, probably more important, (2) none of the polls I've seen put Warnock at over 50%. GA is a runoff state, and anything can happen in a runoff -- as was demonstrated when both Warnock and Ossoff won theirs in January 2021 and changed the course of history in the process. But there's no guarantee that a runoff will break that way this time. So until most polls start showing Rev. Warnock polling above 50% -- ideally well above 50% -- no way is this anywhere close to in the bag.
I see Liz Cheney's defeat in her primary election as something of a liberating moment. Having been tossed out of office by the collective stupidity of Wyoming MAGAhat voters, Cheney is now privileged to work for the betterment of a reconstituted Republican Party whose loyalties are tied to the Constitution instead of the parochial interests of Donald Trump. Nobody said that it was going to be easy, but now is the time to lay the groundwork for a reconstituted Republican Party that prides itself on principled politics and decision-making. It may well happen that Cheney and others like her will need to withdraw from electoral politics until they get their intellectual house in order.
Congressional salaries aside, there is no particular reason for Cheney or Adam Kinzinger to be a member of the House of Representatives, with the exception of their committee assignments on matters in which they have demonstrated both interest and competency. For my money, I would take both of them and find endowed chairs at premier universities, with offshoots to NGO think tanks; and I would make sure that the people who are currently members and staff assistants at the January 6 committee maintain liaison with them to further the interests of reinvigorating democracy here in America. This is too good an opportunity to waste; and the members' continuing need to do fundraising and electioneering every two years has a distracting effect on thinking through, and scoping out, possible scenarios about how the future should work itself out.
Ideally, Cheney and Kinzinger would be in positions to influence their former colleagues in whatever measures they may be considering to strengthen democracy and election integrity away from the authoritarianism that the Trump Republican Party has wedded itself to. In terms of matters of governance, Cheney and Kinzinger are closer to the Democrats than they ever were to the congressional Republicans.
The Constitution was designed for a functioning Congress, and an executive that is subordinate to congressional policy choices. About the judiciary, the Constitution says almost nothing at all. Strengthening Congress by erecting guardrails and putting steel in their spine should be the first order of business. If I were a member of the Democratic delegation, I would be working my ass off to keep Cheney and Kinzinger in the loop. Their passion and patriotism as well worth the effort. I would also be pumping them dry for ideas that make eminent good sense. Their cooperation and input would be invaluable.
This would be similar to what the United States Government did during the war years of 1941 through 1945, when United States hosted substantial numbers of formally well-placed Europeans marking time until the tide of war changed and they could return home. Developing and maintaining ongoing dialogue with them was an important way of shaping our own understanding about what needed to be done in the postwar world. We could say much the same about having Cheney and Kinzinger as close confidants in planning for a post-Trump era. You want people who can make the case to their former constituents. The present situation is unstable. I do not expect Democratic hotheads like AOC and several of the other Left-wing personalities being able to speak to the needs and understandings of Trump voters; but Democrats need to again be able to walk in the shoes of hourly workers whose alienation attracted them to Donald Trump in the first place. The old verities are gone, but our need to negotiate a peace settlement is stronger than ever. We need to do better than was done during the Reconstruction of the former Confederacy after the Civil War.
I'd be curious to hear which Republicans are better equipped to speak to "the needs and understandings of Trump voters" than AOC. Did any of them get elected to Congress straight from a job like hers, tending bar? Seriously. Never mind a comparative tally of wealth on each side of the aisle—far too much on both.Who on the right has ever walked in the shoes of hourly workers or ever done an honest day's blue or pink collar work? Not that Trump voters could have been attracted by any "work" he did before becoming known as a mean-spirited reality tv celebrity who, like them, enjoyed owning libs.
Fox et al. have made a routine of bashing AOC and her caucus so relentlessly, hour after hour, year after year, it's no wonder the only people who know who they are are the constituents who keep reelecting them. It took corporate Democrats and the DNC to defeat hothead Bernie, who set the party that's not even his back on course anyway. Only voters of all (non-corporate) political persuasions like Bernie.
Once voters get a load of plans to restore traditional GOP goals—e.g., sending Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, equitable taxation/wealth, and a balanced SCotUS to rest alongside Ivana and Roe at Westminster cemetery—I doubt they'll be in a hurry to abandon MAGA. Workers already survived Reagan's and two Bushes' coldhead economic and social policies—barely. Enough!
Trump's followers are largely policy free. Its a lifestyle issue: 'Home on the range' versus 'Sidewalks of New York' It's tone and texture. Looking to municipal services versus communities pulling together and passing the hat.
For most people, government is coercive, hassling people who are just getting by. Rural poverty is largely hidden out of sight. Public services are minimal and poorly funded.
Food banks and food insecurity versus Doordash. Many families supplement their food budgets with hunting, just as their grandparents and earlier generations had done.
Agricultural labor, low-pay service industries, telephone call centers. Small towns and high school football.
Small town churches with active congregations and fervent believers.
These people are used to accepting much more on faith, simply out of exhaustion and inconsistent sources of information. They believe in an America that looks and acts mostly like themselves. They don't make the connection between Reaganomics and the Bush tax giveaways and the worn out and shabby towns they inhabit. They know the good jobs went away, but they don't know why. Unions disband because collective bargaining is not working in a largely retail economy that's fueled by consumer spending. For them, the local economy is largely a zero sum game, and the wealth ends up somewhere else.
Trump exploited them, but they don't see it because stolen wealth is out of sight. The have the same standard of living that more or less existed in the mid-1950s, but now there are many more empty storefronts. Big box stores offer cheap stuff made overseas, and shopping malls are half empty. This is the politics of frustration and failure.
The continuity within this thread eludes me, but that's an eloquent description of Trump supporters' situation. I recognize cousins of mine here and there.
There is a discontinuity that I intended. What wr see are the shambolic effects of a hollowing out of American society. This isn't neverifies. William Jennings Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' speech at the Democratic Convention in 1896. Rural America always got shafted by business and banking interests, but they were forever fooling themselves about why this was happening, and who was responsible for their plight. Barack Obama was spot on correct about these people taking refuge in their guns and religion. It was impolitic to say so, but look where we are. They will believe anything Trump, or someone like Trump, tells them. They're impervious to facts and rational argument because they've wrapped themselves in the flag and their cultural verities. Blaming the victim is not a way to make friends, but a great many people instinctively make poor choices out of a need for companionship and solidarity with their kith and kinfolk.
The subject is vast. Geographic isolation, education, substance abuse, and easily available reliable news sources often factor in. Financial situation is not necessarily determinative, and I've seen affection defeat bottomless political differences. Nor is agreeing with Trump required; for many, just enjoying the way he owns smartypants snobbish elites (abbrev libs) is more than enough.
Trumps base is desperate whites struggling to stay afloat in the tech culture of the 21st century. Get away from the urban coasts and you see thousands of towns in decline. Democrats recognize that a lack of stable income creates political anger. Trump will fail if Democrats raise wages and offer better health care. Trump plays to white rage but that is not enough as 2020 proved. . The media games Trump because he's the only real noise in America right now.
The current collection of self-serving Repugnantcans is much like the ancient mob hollering, "Give us Barrabas!" despite the better-qualified candidate. Their unwavering public support aligns them with the English Colonial Puritan demands to orthodoxy and absolute conformity in all matters or pay the consequences. For Colonials who disagreed with the self-proclaimed Puritan "saints" and their colonial Theocracy, that price was banishment from the colony, and it's no different now; banishment from the party. When, as stated, "their political drug of choice is no longer available," the most vocal Repugnantcans (ie: R. DeSantis) who say little against Trump, but do not genuflect to him, will try to seize the party's lead. Those Repugnantcans who were not the most publicly prolific in their support will wring their dirty hands and ask, "who?" like he never existed. They will then attempt to reform the "party," but the damage is done. The party of xenophobic hate for all but white Christian males is now permanently solidified in American political reality, based on 6 January, the second date that will live in infamy. There is no way to alter, appease, or calm that base that wants blood in the streets. The damage is done. Time, though, being the final arbiter, can play a monumental unanticipated role at any time. If it does, that will be the show to see.
LOL! Yes, Mr. Leydegraf, a tourist attraction, much like meandering idly through the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Louvre, Paris (not that any of them would be caught in ether place - no guns allowed). If their claim is true, then they forgot to set out the red-checkered tablecloths on the grass for the family picnic. Thank you for your response. Have a great day!
talk about debasement...the republican party, such as it is, is gonna have a long dig out from the bunker.(they are in the basement, get it?) a whole party based on vengeance and get the libs? what a platform.
Loved Carville’s quote about Walker!
It's reminiscent of LBJ on Gerald Ford. But the resonance is not quite fair since Ford was a graduate of Yale Law School and not stupid. He was a pretty good person. LBJ provides contrast on some fronts. LBJ dropped out of law school because he couldn't deal with it. You couldn't exactly call him a pretty good person either. Not to say LBJ didn't do some good as president.
LBJ was a brilliant, not to mention often ruthless, politician, and arguably not a nice person, but he did a bit more than "some good" as president: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were a huge step forward for U.S. democracy, and as such they prompted the white backlash that was fueled by Nixon's "southern strategy" and will probably culminate in either the death of the GOP or the end of multicultural, multiracial U.S. democracy.
LBJ paid a high price for his utter inability to fix the Vietnam mess he inherited—loss of the Presidency, the remainder of his life lived in disgrace while watching Republicans do no better at resolving Vietnam. Thanks, Susanna, for the reminder that LBJ's legacy consisted of more than the tragedy of Vietnam.
I considered that I was underselling it a little. On the other hand the Vietnam war looms large in his overall oeuvre. I tried to give him credit but be aware of the lurking critics.
the great contradiction (and tragedy) of LBJ was precisely that he managed to pass absolutely revolutionary domestic legislation while very stupidly promoting and committing to a war that made absolutely no sense. from my point of view, this makes him very human (which is to say, very flawed). dealing with LBJ's various legacies, therefore, demands some ability to deal with nuance and contradiction. in this current particular world, how many people are inclined to do so?
the NYT has been featuring this amazingly stupid "focus group" feature on the back of the Sunday Review section. every week, I tell myself to please not read it, then, naturally, I do so. today it's Wyoming voters opining on Liz Cheney. the resulting "feature" isn't exactly good news.
I tried for nuance. I mainly posted to (pedantically) note the resonance with LBJ's comment on Ford. And to further say that LBJ (if brilliant in his way as someone has posted) was talking about a Yale educated lawyer. I think he said Ford was a nice guy but he played football too many times with his helmet off. He also said he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Funny but not quite fair. They are good stuff and worth stealing. Now as to Herschel Walker...
I thought the actual quote was that he (Ford) couldn't fart and chew gum at the same time.
LBJ helped integrate schools all over the country by telling school districts getting "Impact Funds" for teaching kids from military bases who weren't taxed locally.
My school, Baker High in Columbus, GA by Ft. Benning was such a school.
Gerald Ford was snookered by Richard Nixon and Nixon's advisors. A law school education, even from Yale Law School, could not compensate for a failure of imagination. Ford could not imagine the depths of Nixon's cunning and selfishness.
Failure of imagination may have been a factor, but I believe there was serious pressure on Ford -- and not just from Nixon loyalists -- to be magnanimous. From our current vantage point, it's hard to imagine, or remember, how earth-shaking the Watergate revelations and Nixon's resignation were at the time. No U.S. president had resigned in disgrace before, and not to forget that his vice president had resigned under a big cloud the year before. Those of us who hated Nixon's guts (myself included) were infuriated by the pardon, but it's still not hard to imagine that for many Americans at the time Nixon had suffered the worst humiliation a president can suffer and that was enough.
and it was probably was, THEN. a lot of people do think that the Nixon pardon cost Ford the '76 election. NOW is entirely different, but also much more dangerous. who could ever have conceived of this in 1974? certainly not me.
Definitely a possibility, but how to separate out the pardon from the debacle that was Watergate? The straw wouldn't have broken the camel's back if the camel hadn't already been groaning under the load. Ford was a less-than-inspiring candidate too, and Carter was from as far outside the Beltway as most of us could imagine at the time. I don't think I paid all that much attention to the presidential election that year -- I was up to my ears in the campaign to ratify the MA state ERA, and I still have several T-shirts to prove it.
I was working in the federal government during the Ford administration, and in 1975, I was detailed off to work on the Ford Presidential Clemency Board that the president announced off-the-cuff in September, more or less contemporaneous with the Nixon pardon. This was intended to 'heal the wounds' of widespread opposition to the Vietnam War. No forethought. No coordinated planning. No outreach to interested parties. No consideration for the consequences. Hastily arranged responses. No objectives. And what we got was a scattershot follow through.
The Ford clemency initiative turned out to be an utter fiasco. An almost complete public relations disaster. Check out a history written by its leaders, Chance and Circumstance, by Baskir and Strauss.
The pardon failed to identify the crimes Nixon was accused of committing; and no acknowledgment by Nixon that he did anything wrong. The Justice Department was reduced to arguing that Nixon's accepting the pardon implied his guilt.
Ford got played for a sucker, pure and simple.
Thanks much for the backstory!
Well, to be consistent with Trumpian politics, let's set up Trump Re-Education Camps (TRECs) where his followers can be subjected to such commie/Marxist/fascist things like American history, economics, civics, democracy, virology. You know, all of that subversive stuff that make the heads of Trumpers explode!
Brilliant!😄👏🏼👏🏼
How about Gravy Seal weight loss centers?
Ukraine bombed Russia’s Black Sea headquarters today. The RNC had around $127 million is their coffers to pay attorneys and lobbyists. They are now down to about $28 mil. in that so-called fund. Hmmm...think they might, just maybe, become a dying breed. The DOJ, the DA’s in NYC and GA, both strong and bold black females, have tied a proverbial rope around the many Trump loyalists neck. Befitting, don’tcha think?
Maybe. When projecting the present into the unknown, if history teaches us one lesson it is to visualize a Tomi Ungerer VV poster: Expect the unexpected. Who predicted the surprises of even the current midterm? Anybody could have seen this crop of GOP candidates coming, but who actually forecast that their "quality" (thanks, MoscowMitch) could threaten destiny? Who saw the Alito timing and effect coming?
I see two future near-certainties: Roughly a quarter of U.S. citizens will continue to be AINOs—Americans in Name Only, posing as patriots while hoping to destroy every constitutional principle. And every word James Carville says will continue to be priceless (even when he's wrong, which does happen but, happily, rarely and not recently).
Stealing it: AINOS. Perfect.
You're welcome. Run with it!
Ed Kilgore is always astute. See his NYmag 19 August column, EARLY AND OFTEN, "For the MAGA Right, Democracy Itself Is a Fraud": https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/08/trump-maga-democracy-fraud.html
Yes! "As longtime Democratic consultant James Carville told The Hill, “The problem the Republican Party has is, they got really stupid people that vote in their primaries. And … really stupid people demand to have really stupid leaders. That’s where the Republican Party is now.” Asked about Walker’s candidacy in Georgia, Carville said, “Come on, man, that guy had an ill-fitting helmet. He’s not right. He’s not right at all.”
That was so great by Carville. He nailed him!
Trump and the New Jersey Generals...and Herschel.
Got get 'em, Lucian!!!
To me the issue is going to boil down to two issues relative to those who self identify as being on the “right” in Political terminology.
First, what percentage of them still are capable of seeing themselves as Americans first and Republicans second.
Second, what percentage of the shrinking group of “principled” Republicans like Liz Cheney still possess the common sense to understand a vote or two for Democrats along the way is a price you must pay to preserve the Republic and what is left of one’s own principles.
It is only going to take 5 to 10% of the old GOP to show up on Election Day to put a stake in the heart of Trumpism. Will they? That is the great unanswered questions.
I was once’s solid GOP voter. I came to realize what was happening when Newt Gingrich came along. Trumpism is simply Fascism Lite. No actual dyed in the wool Republican can support that.
So, 74,000,000 spoke once...
That is the number no sane person connected to objective reality should ever forget. It's the scariest number, and it keeps me awake on some nights. How can it not? 81,000,000 voted the other way, and that's not enough if we're going to survive in some form of liberal democracy.
Don’t forget that 1 million met their demise (still doing so) because of the recklessness by their esteemed leader.
To the Modern day GOPthat is known as collateral damage.
My sense is that the dynamics of a GOP without Trump will change only marginally. Just to parse out some among many possible speculative iterations:
We could see a roughly ten-percent drop in election participation; the elimination of maybe one media entity (Parler, OAN, or the like); the introduction of one or two insignificant transient splinter parties; etc. Someone, probably DeSantis, will step up to carry the dangerous ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-reproductive self-determination, anti-regulatory movement of hatred-and-fear forward. The miasmic personality cult of the moment will evolve to a more tempered bond among the party members remaining, but it will hold-- and continue to be a significant threat to democracy, as long as the successor - DeSantis, Thiel, T Jr., whoever' - continues to "deliver the goods." All that'll be needed are majorities in both congressional houses. Judicial branch capture and gerrymandering alongside ineffective news-media accounting and dark money from ultra-rich Randian-type cynical "Libertarians" - all already status quo - comprise the rest of the infrastructure needed for dominance.
Without Trump to animate Democratic party energy, I foresee a roughly analogous drop in DP participation, a wash. I think the violent, reactionary, anti-democracy movement will exert dominance for the reasons cited above for roughly another full generation, i.e., until the boomers and x-ers die off.
This is not cause to despair.
We still have to fight, for obvious reasons.
This too shall pass, like it did in the 1860s or the 1920s. There will be an eventual restoration to a semblance of homeostasis, until - presumably several decades, at least, down the road from then - things get terrible again. And, eventually, that too shall pass.
And so it goes.
The flaw in that scenario is this it doesn't—can't—take the unexpected, foreign and domestic, into account.
You and I are in complete agreement there.
I thought my this: "...some among many possible speculative iterations" implied that, but if not, I happily stand corrected, ma'am/sir.
Excellent column, Lucian.
I can almost hear Machiavelli licking his lips.
I’m wondering what the GOP does if, after the November election, they end up barely squeaking out a House majority. I’ve even seen that there’s a chance, slim probably, that the Dems maintain it. Do they keep on keeping on with the Orange Godking?
Stefanik is my rep. She endorsed and fundraisers for Paladino who recently said in a radio interview that Merrick Garland should be executed. Not long ago she was considered a moderate in the party and maybe still is.
Omg, Stefanik's district! Sympathies from the safe new 10th downstate. Paladino is so consistently vile a collection of his horrors is probably on the net somewhere. But Stefanik! Only she would treat him respectfully. Who could have imagined her ethical nosedive?
As for the House, my guess is that the GOP would use a new majority, however small, as hastily as the new SCotUS is doing.
LATER: Politico's NY newsletter looked at Stefanik-Paladino Friday night: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/newyorkplaybook
Stefanik is a witch, an effing nightmare! Used to be rather practical, but not since Qevin ousted Liz and put Elise in her place.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and Herschel Walker will run for President in 2024! He seems as qualified as Trump. Fortunately, Wyoming was predictable. Their voters are a simple reflection of their leader. One issue alone. Liz, you tried to bring down our idol, the Donald. How dare you!
I believe that part of the GA GOP's strategy in running Herschel Walker was to buttress the conviction of racist white GA voters that Black people are buffoons incapable of self-governance. The extremely capable Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, Fani Willis, and others are in the headlines almost every day, giving the lie to the stereotypes. It would be extremely bad news for the GOP (and not just in GA) if too many white voters got the idea that Black officeholders are not only well qualified, they have the interests of their ordinary, working constituents at heart. So, everybody, please don't play into the ridiculing of Herschel Walker. The man needs help, and so far he's not getting it.
Interesting theory. I think it is simpler than that. Herschel Walker was the centerpiece of Trump's now defunct effort to start a professional football team to compete with the NFL. Walker was paid millions by Trump to jump from the NFL to the WFL. Walker was then, and continues to be, 100% loyal to Trump. Trump figured that name recognition in football nutso Georgia is enough to win. It seemed to work for the host of The Apprentice.
I’m trying real hard not to play into the ridicule, Susanna. However, all y’all who don’t live here need to understand something. That he was a star football player at UGa papers over a LOT of flaws for way too many voters here, regardless how he comes across in opposition ads. Damn Good Dawg is a high compliment, not a racist epithet.
Plus name recognition.
Football is a huge factor (yuge!) for sure -- think Tommy Tuberville for a recent example. He can't hold a candle to Doug Jones either. I guess the question is how many flaws it can paper over, along with how race factors into it. I haven't seen any of the ads running in GA, but I have seen a few news stories. They suggest that Walker is not a well man.
I was in Georgia for incredible year, 1980.
Bet that kid from Tennessee is still seeing stars.
Poor Herschel, back to the plantation with the slave masters.
I agree about what you have said. Herschel definitely has a mental problem. He’s abusive and he's trying to keep that a secret but oops! His ex-wife certainly has let the truths out about their relationship and his fixins’ with other women. He is not a formidable candidate against the Rev at all.
In qualifications, character, and everything else, he sure isn't -- but the race still seems to be neck and neck. That's sobering (and infuriating).
It does? I read Warnock has pulled away from him and Lord knows, GA needs to keep the Rev right where he is!
Some polls show Warnock a few points ahead, and some commentators believe this is at least partly due to more revelations about Walker's history of abuse. Keep in mind that (1) the general election is still 2 1/2 months away, and, probably more important, (2) none of the polls I've seen put Warnock at over 50%. GA is a runoff state, and anything can happen in a runoff -- as was demonstrated when both Warnock and Ossoff won theirs in January 2021 and changed the course of history in the process. But there's no guarantee that a runoff will break that way this time. So until most polls start showing Rev. Warnock polling above 50% -- ideally well above 50% -- no way is this anywhere close to in the bag.
Ugh
Speaking of Herschel Walker being President, have you ever watched Idiocracy?
But Terry Crews was acting. 😉
Idiocracy has existed since TFG pulled his ultimate con.
He is the poster child!
WhyOming?
I see Liz Cheney's defeat in her primary election as something of a liberating moment. Having been tossed out of office by the collective stupidity of Wyoming MAGAhat voters, Cheney is now privileged to work for the betterment of a reconstituted Republican Party whose loyalties are tied to the Constitution instead of the parochial interests of Donald Trump. Nobody said that it was going to be easy, but now is the time to lay the groundwork for a reconstituted Republican Party that prides itself on principled politics and decision-making. It may well happen that Cheney and others like her will need to withdraw from electoral politics until they get their intellectual house in order.
Congressional salaries aside, there is no particular reason for Cheney or Adam Kinzinger to be a member of the House of Representatives, with the exception of their committee assignments on matters in which they have demonstrated both interest and competency. For my money, I would take both of them and find endowed chairs at premier universities, with offshoots to NGO think tanks; and I would make sure that the people who are currently members and staff assistants at the January 6 committee maintain liaison with them to further the interests of reinvigorating democracy here in America. This is too good an opportunity to waste; and the members' continuing need to do fundraising and electioneering every two years has a distracting effect on thinking through, and scoping out, possible scenarios about how the future should work itself out.
Ideally, Cheney and Kinzinger would be in positions to influence their former colleagues in whatever measures they may be considering to strengthen democracy and election integrity away from the authoritarianism that the Trump Republican Party has wedded itself to. In terms of matters of governance, Cheney and Kinzinger are closer to the Democrats than they ever were to the congressional Republicans.
The Constitution was designed for a functioning Congress, and an executive that is subordinate to congressional policy choices. About the judiciary, the Constitution says almost nothing at all. Strengthening Congress by erecting guardrails and putting steel in their spine should be the first order of business. If I were a member of the Democratic delegation, I would be working my ass off to keep Cheney and Kinzinger in the loop. Their passion and patriotism as well worth the effort. I would also be pumping them dry for ideas that make eminent good sense. Their cooperation and input would be invaluable.
This would be similar to what the United States Government did during the war years of 1941 through 1945, when United States hosted substantial numbers of formally well-placed Europeans marking time until the tide of war changed and they could return home. Developing and maintaining ongoing dialogue with them was an important way of shaping our own understanding about what needed to be done in the postwar world. We could say much the same about having Cheney and Kinzinger as close confidants in planning for a post-Trump era. You want people who can make the case to their former constituents. The present situation is unstable. I do not expect Democratic hotheads like AOC and several of the other Left-wing personalities being able to speak to the needs and understandings of Trump voters; but Democrats need to again be able to walk in the shoes of hourly workers whose alienation attracted them to Donald Trump in the first place. The old verities are gone, but our need to negotiate a peace settlement is stronger than ever. We need to do better than was done during the Reconstruction of the former Confederacy after the Civil War.
I'd be curious to hear which Republicans are better equipped to speak to "the needs and understandings of Trump voters" than AOC. Did any of them get elected to Congress straight from a job like hers, tending bar? Seriously. Never mind a comparative tally of wealth on each side of the aisle—far too much on both.Who on the right has ever walked in the shoes of hourly workers or ever done an honest day's blue or pink collar work? Not that Trump voters could have been attracted by any "work" he did before becoming known as a mean-spirited reality tv celebrity who, like them, enjoyed owning libs.
Fox et al. have made a routine of bashing AOC and her caucus so relentlessly, hour after hour, year after year, it's no wonder the only people who know who they are are the constituents who keep reelecting them. It took corporate Democrats and the DNC to defeat hothead Bernie, who set the party that's not even his back on course anyway. Only voters of all (non-corporate) political persuasions like Bernie.
Once voters get a load of plans to restore traditional GOP goals—e.g., sending Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, equitable taxation/wealth, and a balanced SCotUS to rest alongside Ivana and Roe at Westminster cemetery—I doubt they'll be in a hurry to abandon MAGA. Workers already survived Reagan's and two Bushes' coldhead economic and social policies—barely. Enough!
Trump's followers are largely policy free. Its a lifestyle issue: 'Home on the range' versus 'Sidewalks of New York' It's tone and texture. Looking to municipal services versus communities pulling together and passing the hat.
For most people, government is coercive, hassling people who are just getting by. Rural poverty is largely hidden out of sight. Public services are minimal and poorly funded.
Food banks and food insecurity versus Doordash. Many families supplement their food budgets with hunting, just as their grandparents and earlier generations had done.
Agricultural labor, low-pay service industries, telephone call centers. Small towns and high school football.
Small town churches with active congregations and fervent believers.
These people are used to accepting much more on faith, simply out of exhaustion and inconsistent sources of information. They believe in an America that looks and acts mostly like themselves. They don't make the connection between Reaganomics and the Bush tax giveaways and the worn out and shabby towns they inhabit. They know the good jobs went away, but they don't know why. Unions disband because collective bargaining is not working in a largely retail economy that's fueled by consumer spending. For them, the local economy is largely a zero sum game, and the wealth ends up somewhere else.
Trump exploited them, but they don't see it because stolen wealth is out of sight. The have the same standard of living that more or less existed in the mid-1950s, but now there are many more empty storefronts. Big box stores offer cheap stuff made overseas, and shopping malls are half empty. This is the politics of frustration and failure.
The continuity within this thread eludes me, but that's an eloquent description of Trump supporters' situation. I recognize cousins of mine here and there.
There is a discontinuity that I intended. What wr see are the shambolic effects of a hollowing out of American society. This isn't neverifies. William Jennings Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' speech at the Democratic Convention in 1896. Rural America always got shafted by business and banking interests, but they were forever fooling themselves about why this was happening, and who was responsible for their plight. Barack Obama was spot on correct about these people taking refuge in their guns and religion. It was impolitic to say so, but look where we are. They will believe anything Trump, or someone like Trump, tells them. They're impervious to facts and rational argument because they've wrapped themselves in the flag and their cultural verities. Blaming the victim is not a way to make friends, but a great many people instinctively make poor choices out of a need for companionship and solidarity with their kith and kinfolk.
The subject is vast. Geographic isolation, education, substance abuse, and easily available reliable news sources often factor in. Financial situation is not necessarily determinative, and I've seen affection defeat bottomless political differences. Nor is agreeing with Trump required; for many, just enjoying the way he owns smartypants snobbish elites (abbrev libs) is more than enough.
No Trump...no qualified Republican opponents.
The cheapest election in history!
Trumps base is desperate whites struggling to stay afloat in the tech culture of the 21st century. Get away from the urban coasts and you see thousands of towns in decline. Democrats recognize that a lack of stable income creates political anger. Trump will fail if Democrats raise wages and offer better health care. Trump plays to white rage but that is not enough as 2020 proved. . The media games Trump because he's the only real noise in America right now.
The current collection of self-serving Repugnantcans is much like the ancient mob hollering, "Give us Barrabas!" despite the better-qualified candidate. Their unwavering public support aligns them with the English Colonial Puritan demands to orthodoxy and absolute conformity in all matters or pay the consequences. For Colonials who disagreed with the self-proclaimed Puritan "saints" and their colonial Theocracy, that price was banishment from the colony, and it's no different now; banishment from the party. When, as stated, "their political drug of choice is no longer available," the most vocal Repugnantcans (ie: R. DeSantis) who say little against Trump, but do not genuflect to him, will try to seize the party's lead. Those Repugnantcans who were not the most publicly prolific in their support will wring their dirty hands and ask, "who?" like he never existed. They will then attempt to reform the "party," but the damage is done. The party of xenophobic hate for all but white Christian males is now permanently solidified in American political reality, based on 6 January, the second date that will live in infamy. There is no way to alter, appease, or calm that base that wants blood in the streets. The damage is done. Time, though, being the final arbiter, can play a monumental unanticipated role at any time. If it does, that will be the show to see.
Don't forget, they think 1/6 was a day in the park.
LOL! Yes, Mr. Leydegraf, a tourist attraction, much like meandering idly through the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Louvre, Paris (not that any of them would be caught in ether place - no guns allowed). If their claim is true, then they forgot to set out the red-checkered tablecloths on the grass for the family picnic. Thank you for your response. Have a great day!
talk about debasement...the republican party, such as it is, is gonna have a long dig out from the bunker.(they are in the basement, get it?) a whole party based on vengeance and get the libs? what a platform.
Don't forget, to them we are the traitors.