The 14th Amendment isn’t going to save us from Donald Trump. Nor is a ruling in New York state that he defrauded multiple banks and insurance companies over a ten-year period. Nor are the 91 charges against him in his four criminal indictments. Nor is another ruling by a New York judge that he raped E.
I really think that all the new young voters will be the blue wave we have been waiting for. Thank you Taylor Swift. trump's base is not that large anymore. Notice that they never show the crowd at any of his rallies His base is not who need to worry about. Leonard Leo and the Federalist society and their billionaire donors are the real threat. The supreme court and so many politicians are bought and paid for. If anyone remembers the original Roller Ball with James Caan that's the future they want. Hell it's already here.
Yes! The Republicans are mocking Swift big time now meaning they perceive her as a big big threat. Good. I'm so glad she's speaking out. If they do underestimate her, that fan base of hers is as devoted as that sad little fan base of Trumps and her messages are all the good ones.
A book to help us stay positive (but not complacent!!). The Lids Are All Left by David Faris.
“A brewing generational shift is about to change politics—and our country—forever.
A demographic apocalypse is coming for the Republican Party. The surge in young voters for Biden in 2020 was only the beginning. Not only do they overwhelmingly favor the left, but the margins are at such an unprecedented and overwhelming scale that these voters are poised to end the partisan gridlock that has characterized politics for over thirty years.”
Dang, I will likely miss most of this but I've been saying for several years now, it's up to the kids, the young people, because the old people have lost any sanity if they're in the Republican party, which is always party over country and more so now than ever.
I think this Country has been set back on a good course since Biden took office. He had a lot of ground to make up after the last guy set us back. I would love to see Biden take us as far as he can with some disaster mitigation aimed at climate change. I'm really curious to see how well the talks at Camp David with Japan, ROK, and the US hold up, and develop going forward.
I totally agree but my fear is they cheat their way back in, which most of us, probably rightly, believe that's how they win much of anything these days. I just don't want them to one more time undo all the good.
Agree. Pollsters don't poll those in GEN.Z coming up on voting age in 2024. Point being polling technology is outdated. By a lot. Been off since 2012 and keeps getting worse.
(1) The Electoral College, the 2Senators per state, and the failure to add DC and PR while merging ND&SD, N&S Carolina are more outdated. Anything outdated/past its useful life can be taken advantage and/or gamed.
)2) And down the road, other US Territories should be granted statehood as 1state. Much like Canada rather recently did with the NW Territories.
The goal is a more perfect Union, not 1frozen in time
2045? Every time I see a headline on an article I don’t read that says a version of, if Biden continues to be the Democratic candidate Trump is our next president. And my brain just starts to slowly heat up and my stomach twists and I feel like throwing up my life, at the thought of it. 2024 is the looming nightmare. It won’t matter past 2024 if white people are irrelevant in this country. What matters to me right now are all the Trump appointments, all the election deniers in a position to work the upcoming election. All the morons out there who simply can’t get it that the man is a fraud. I think our only hope is women, mostly young women who are appalled by what life is going to be for them now that Roe is gone and evil prevails as they’ve clearly received the message that the GOP white men want to throttle them That thought keeps me going
We Democrats do need to hear this from time to time, because Republicans tend to drown out any bad news that reflects on them.
The fact that Taylor Swift is actively asking her audiences to register to vote is a very encouraging sign, and I can bet she's not a Republican by any means of the word. She reaches millions of young people and if they love her (as they do) as much as anyone in the heyday of the Beatles did them, it's a great sign that our numbers are going up, not down.
We, the adults, though-have got to not sit down and ride this out. It is discouraging to hear all the nasty things the Republicans have been doing in various states, and lord knows it feels hopeless, but I'm sure that we can must enough energy to get out and vote-I just sent in for my absentee ballot for this year, which is not an election year, but an ordinary 'referendum' year in Maine-and I will do so again for next year as well.
There is really no reason for any educated and motivated voter to not vote. There are some states that are now doing voter registration automatically when you register your car, or get ID and that's a great way to get more voters into the game. Sure, there are a lot of gerrymandered states that the Republicans have been pushing to become all red, but it's been an uphill battle when the SC rules them down, as they did recently with Alabama.
But registering doesn't do shit until someone moves to get the ballot, mark it and then return it.
The vote is what counts. The act of voting counts.
Let's not allow the GOP to ever dominate our politics again. All they're capable of is disagreement and stupidity, and we're suffering from it right now as our government is about to shut down because a small number of stupid reactionary Republicans are having a hissy fit.
I don't know about you, but I'm heartily sick and tired of them holding us hostage to their whims, and if I were a voter in the states where they come from, I'd be voting to remove them from office.
Because we just can't afford any more of their stupidity. I've had it to my eyeballs, and I think a lot of people are feeling like me more every day.
2024 is going to destroy the GOP if they keep this kind of shit up and it looks like they will.
'
Let's pay them back in spades. It'll be worth the effort.
The column reminds me of a line from my favorite comic strip, Pickles. Earl says, “I want to be remembered as the stubborn old man who refused to die.”
Pretty sure I’ve seen studies where, even aside from Covid, life expectancy is lower in red areas. If they’re not going to believe authorities on a deadly virus why would they take their word on diet, exercise, smoking or anything else?
Life expectancy has actually dropped in the U.S. and this number was determined after COVID. And because of them, hospitals are closing in poor areas and women are really suffering in those anti-abortion laws states. Voting Republican is actually truly bad for your health.
Many of those rural hospitals have closed because they are required to treat emergency patients even if they cannot pay, and so many in red states do not have insurance or Medicaid. Other hospitals have closed their emergency rooms to avoid the losses, and others are now closing the OB-GYN wards due to stringent new anti-abortion laws that have the doctors and nurses scared. It will not end well for the citizens of those states.
It's a rolling disaster that cannot possibly end well. There is so much that's happened and happening right now at Republican's inept hands, I am getting afraid to read the gory details. It's mind blowing and horrendous. And DeSantis is extremely proud of the fact he wouldn't take the Medicaid offer. Why would anybody do that to their citizens or any human. I'm not sure their base is ever going to understand how much this will impact them in particular.
Demographics is a bitch for the GOP as their base refuses to adapt to the changing times and like Xerxes having the incoming sea whipped to punish it, they’re doomed to fail stopping progress and marching backwards to some bogus imaginary Beaver Cleaver-type white-dominated utopia. And to think that they’re doing it to themselves makes it somewhat more satisfying but for the fact that they’re damaging the country while lashing out in their death throes.
2 quibbles. 1) The Republicans are attempting to lock in permanent minority rule. Wisconsin is the worst example currently available, I think .2) You cannot entirely count on nonwhite groups to be liberal. Plenty of evidence. The poor ones can be just as gullible as anybody and the rich ones decide that they are Republican because they have arrived. One non-quibble: There seems to be growing evidence that the new youth are not trending conservative as they age. I guess the example they've seen of Republicans is so horrifying that they're immune to turning to I Got Mine Thinking.
Its so frustrating that our only strategy to defeat Maga is to wait until they gradually die off. How do you persuade people though who are impervious to reason, to voting in their own self-interest, and who prefer a dictator to democracy? I'm starting to understand how Chairman Mao came to embrace the re-education camps. Of course that will be Trump's next plan once the shoplifters have all been shot and his political opponents locked up. Stephen Miller likely has a binder with the plans already drawn up.
In Isabel Wilkerson's great book" Caste" and Nancy Maclean's "Democracy in Chains". The strategies for minority rule going back to Brown V Board of Education are laid out pretty clearly. The flip side of your optimistic column is that our institutions may not survive long enough to reflect the demographic changes. Another sad but true reality is that many immigrant groups (particularly from Venezuela, Cuba, Africa and Eastern Europe) have no cultural affinity for democratic values. I live in Miami where the educated middle class of some of these countries are comfortable with dictators. Many laugh at Trump as a lightweight. Our current "leaders" are (for the most part) ineffective old white men clinging to power by spending hours every day fund raising, unable and unwilling to confront the realities that threaten a free society. The embarrassment of what they called a debate Wednesday is more evidence that help is not on the way. 45% of likely voters still find Trump acceptable. There may be more of us than them but we are on a razor's edge.
We're on the same page, sir, and I'd add that plenty of native-born USians don't have much affinity for democratic values either. White evangelical Christians, for instance. They'll support democracy if it gets them what they want, but if it doesn't -- getting what they want is more important than supporting democracy. Hierarchical religions that stress obedience over independent thought have at best an uneasy relationship with democracy. On top of that -- well, I don't think that most of democracy's loudest supporters realize just how demanding democracy is. So we'll see, I guess, won't we.
To address an immediate crisis, we also have the numbers in the House to prevent a government shutdown. Combine the Democrats with the more reasonable Republicans and that combination far out numbers the crazy MAGAts in the House. So why are the Dems not pushing MCCarthy to pursue that combination and prevent a shutdown? Why is everyone letting the minority MAGAt group, with the the likes of Gaetz and MTG, dictate what happens to the entire country?
I know it is also a question of the deal
McCarthy made with the devil and that he doesn’t want to lose his Speakership - but still, where is the integrity in such public servants? Sorely lacking.
Yet another superb article by Lucian. It's as encouraging as anything I've ready in the past year. Now, to make it actually happen, we ALL have to get out there & vote. You know it, I know it, but there may well be some like-minded folks who don't know or truly understand the importance of voting. Show them this article so they can understand how important it is to get out the vote. It's the only way to save our democracy and rid ourselves of the autocrats and morons who are dead set on destroying it.
Funny or Die is a webb comedy site founded by Will Ferrell although it has now changed hands. I think he is still connected in some capacity. They did several parody's on Republican behaviour, a couple I was in was one about them hiring a guy (for a disgustingly small fee) to be the Republican Bruce Springsteen. In another one 8 years ago we played GOP senators angry about the Iran nuclear agreement shooting the agreement to shreds with automatic weapons. , I'll post the link to that one (I'm on the far right near the end of the skit as you face the screen). https://youtu.be/kj2xlf3g9bs
Guns don't vote. They do kill and wound much like COVID.
And a close look at the concentration of firearms in deep red states (CSA-whether Confederate or Christian) reveals "they" would be likely to kill their own first and fast for not being MAGA enuff. As Trump is fond of saying, bullets going both ways.
Like mainland China, the US Republican Party is in a demographic spiral, which they are speeding up with their very unpopular political agendas. If we can just outlast them for another 10-15 years, we should be able to codify into law the things that have made this country what it was for so many people (and make it better for those left behind in past times). We can make this country what it should have been from the beginning - it is waiting for us in the ballot box.
I really think that all the new young voters will be the blue wave we have been waiting for. Thank you Taylor Swift. trump's base is not that large anymore. Notice that they never show the crowd at any of his rallies His base is not who need to worry about. Leonard Leo and the Federalist society and their billionaire donors are the real threat. The supreme court and so many politicians are bought and paid for. If anyone remembers the original Roller Ball with James Caan that's the future they want. Hell it's already here.
Yes! The Republicans are mocking Swift big time now meaning they perceive her as a big big threat. Good. I'm so glad she's speaking out. If they do underestimate her, that fan base of hers is as devoted as that sad little fan base of Trumps and her messages are all the good ones.
Sartre, the French philosopher of the absurd, famously wrote “Hell is other people!”
Wow, Roller Ball? I do remember that movie, guess I'm pretty old. Thanks for the memories.
Is everyone on this site an old fart? As an Aged Boomer, I suppose I’m included in that description.
Me too, it's Great, getting older.
It certainly is. considering the alternative.....
yep, but there is a certain kind of freedom that comes with age.
Same here, katy, but I know I’m old. 😉
A book to help us stay positive (but not complacent!!). The Lids Are All Left by David Faris.
“A brewing generational shift is about to change politics—and our country—forever.
A demographic apocalypse is coming for the Republican Party. The surge in young voters for Biden in 2020 was only the beginning. Not only do they overwhelmingly favor the left, but the margins are at such an unprecedented and overwhelming scale that these voters are poised to end the partisan gridlock that has characterized politics for over thirty years.”
https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Are-All-Left-America/dp/1612198201/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3R1VWV2BGQ5E1&keywords=the+kids+are+all+left&qid=1696085042&sprefix=the+kids+are+all+%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-1
Dang, I will likely miss most of this but I've been saying for several years now, it's up to the kids, the young people, because the old people have lost any sanity if they're in the Republican party, which is always party over country and more so now than ever.
I, too, hope I live long enough to see this country set back on a good course.
I think this Country has been set back on a good course since Biden took office. He had a lot of ground to make up after the last guy set us back. I would love to see Biden take us as far as he can with some disaster mitigation aimed at climate change. I'm really curious to see how well the talks at Camp David with Japan, ROK, and the US hold up, and develop going forward.
I totally agree but my fear is they cheat their way back in, which most of us, probably rightly, believe that's how they win much of anything these days. I just don't want them to one more time undo all the good.
Putie will again try to help his favorite clown steal the show.
Agree. Pollsters don't poll those in GEN.Z coming up on voting age in 2024. Point being polling technology is outdated. By a lot. Been off since 2012 and keeps getting worse.
(1) The Electoral College, the 2Senators per state, and the failure to add DC and PR while merging ND&SD, N&S Carolina are more outdated. Anything outdated/past its useful life can be taken advantage and/or gamed.
)2) And down the road, other US Territories should be granted statehood as 1state. Much like Canada rather recently did with the NW Territories.
The goal is a more perfect Union, not 1frozen in time
2045? Every time I see a headline on an article I don’t read that says a version of, if Biden continues to be the Democratic candidate Trump is our next president. And my brain just starts to slowly heat up and my stomach twists and I feel like throwing up my life, at the thought of it. 2024 is the looming nightmare. It won’t matter past 2024 if white people are irrelevant in this country. What matters to me right now are all the Trump appointments, all the election deniers in a position to work the upcoming election. All the morons out there who simply can’t get it that the man is a fraud. I think our only hope is women, mostly young women who are appalled by what life is going to be for them now that Roe is gone and evil prevails as they’ve clearly received the message that the GOP white men want to throttle them That thought keeps me going
We Democrats do need to hear this from time to time, because Republicans tend to drown out any bad news that reflects on them.
The fact that Taylor Swift is actively asking her audiences to register to vote is a very encouraging sign, and I can bet she's not a Republican by any means of the word. She reaches millions of young people and if they love her (as they do) as much as anyone in the heyday of the Beatles did them, it's a great sign that our numbers are going up, not down.
We, the adults, though-have got to not sit down and ride this out. It is discouraging to hear all the nasty things the Republicans have been doing in various states, and lord knows it feels hopeless, but I'm sure that we can must enough energy to get out and vote-I just sent in for my absentee ballot for this year, which is not an election year, but an ordinary 'referendum' year in Maine-and I will do so again for next year as well.
There is really no reason for any educated and motivated voter to not vote. There are some states that are now doing voter registration automatically when you register your car, or get ID and that's a great way to get more voters into the game. Sure, there are a lot of gerrymandered states that the Republicans have been pushing to become all red, but it's been an uphill battle when the SC rules them down, as they did recently with Alabama.
But registering doesn't do shit until someone moves to get the ballot, mark it and then return it.
The vote is what counts. The act of voting counts.
Let's not allow the GOP to ever dominate our politics again. All they're capable of is disagreement and stupidity, and we're suffering from it right now as our government is about to shut down because a small number of stupid reactionary Republicans are having a hissy fit.
I don't know about you, but I'm heartily sick and tired of them holding us hostage to their whims, and if I were a voter in the states where they come from, I'd be voting to remove them from office.
Because we just can't afford any more of their stupidity. I've had it to my eyeballs, and I think a lot of people are feeling like me more every day.
2024 is going to destroy the GOP if they keep this kind of shit up and it looks like they will.
'
Let's pay them back in spades. It'll be worth the effort.
Vote!
What and How We Did in Michigan!
Redistricting – Voters Not Politicians https://votersnotpoliticians.com/redistricting/what we did in Michigan!
://www.michaelmoore.com/p/when-will-america-look-like-michigan?utm_campaign=email-post&r=7ygy0&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
You go, Mary!!😁
The column reminds me of a line from my favorite comic strip, Pickles. Earl says, “I want to be remembered as the stubborn old man who refused to die.”
Pretty sure I’ve seen studies where, even aside from Covid, life expectancy is lower in red areas. If they’re not going to believe authorities on a deadly virus why would they take their word on diet, exercise, smoking or anything else?
Life expectancy has actually dropped in the U.S. and this number was determined after COVID. And because of them, hospitals are closing in poor areas and women are really suffering in those anti-abortion laws states. Voting Republican is actually truly bad for your health.
Many of those rural hospitals have closed because they are required to treat emergency patients even if they cannot pay, and so many in red states do not have insurance or Medicaid. Other hospitals have closed their emergency rooms to avoid the losses, and others are now closing the OB-GYN wards due to stringent new anti-abortion laws that have the doctors and nurses scared. It will not end well for the citizens of those states.
It's a rolling disaster that cannot possibly end well. There is so much that's happened and happening right now at Republican's inept hands, I am getting afraid to read the gory details. It's mind blowing and horrendous. And DeSantis is extremely proud of the fact he wouldn't take the Medicaid offer. Why would anybody do that to their citizens or any human. I'm not sure their base is ever going to understand how much this will impact them in particular.
I agree completely.
I knew that it had to be Mary Virginia.
Demographics is a bitch for the GOP as their base refuses to adapt to the changing times and like Xerxes having the incoming sea whipped to punish it, they’re doomed to fail stopping progress and marching backwards to some bogus imaginary Beaver Cleaver-type white-dominated utopia. And to think that they’re doing it to themselves makes it somewhat more satisfying but for the fact that they’re damaging the country while lashing out in their death throes.
2 quibbles. 1) The Republicans are attempting to lock in permanent minority rule. Wisconsin is the worst example currently available, I think .2) You cannot entirely count on nonwhite groups to be liberal. Plenty of evidence. The poor ones can be just as gullible as anybody and the rich ones decide that they are Republican because they have arrived. One non-quibble: There seems to be growing evidence that the new youth are not trending conservative as they age. I guess the example they've seen of Republicans is so horrifying that they're immune to turning to I Got Mine Thinking.
Its so frustrating that our only strategy to defeat Maga is to wait until they gradually die off. How do you persuade people though who are impervious to reason, to voting in their own self-interest, and who prefer a dictator to democracy? I'm starting to understand how Chairman Mao came to embrace the re-education camps. Of course that will be Trump's next plan once the shoplifters have all been shot and his political opponents locked up. Stephen Miller likely has a binder with the plans already drawn up.
Stephen Miller OMG Please no!!!
I think he is really the one texting on Truth Social along with Big Mouth. I wouldn’t put anything past Miller.
Agree. Takes one sociopath to know another sociopath, or is it psychopath?
In Isabel Wilkerson's great book" Caste" and Nancy Maclean's "Democracy in Chains". The strategies for minority rule going back to Brown V Board of Education are laid out pretty clearly. The flip side of your optimistic column is that our institutions may not survive long enough to reflect the demographic changes. Another sad but true reality is that many immigrant groups (particularly from Venezuela, Cuba, Africa and Eastern Europe) have no cultural affinity for democratic values. I live in Miami where the educated middle class of some of these countries are comfortable with dictators. Many laugh at Trump as a lightweight. Our current "leaders" are (for the most part) ineffective old white men clinging to power by spending hours every day fund raising, unable and unwilling to confront the realities that threaten a free society. The embarrassment of what they called a debate Wednesday is more evidence that help is not on the way. 45% of likely voters still find Trump acceptable. There may be more of us than them but we are on a razor's edge.
We're on the same page, sir, and I'd add that plenty of native-born USians don't have much affinity for democratic values either. White evangelical Christians, for instance. They'll support democracy if it gets them what they want, but if it doesn't -- getting what they want is more important than supporting democracy. Hierarchical religions that stress obedience over independent thought have at best an uneasy relationship with democracy. On top of that -- well, I don't think that most of democracy's loudest supporters realize just how demanding democracy is. So we'll see, I guess, won't we.
To address an immediate crisis, we also have the numbers in the House to prevent a government shutdown. Combine the Democrats with the more reasonable Republicans and that combination far out numbers the crazy MAGAts in the House. So why are the Dems not pushing MCCarthy to pursue that combination and prevent a shutdown? Why is everyone letting the minority MAGAt group, with the the likes of Gaetz and MTG, dictate what happens to the entire country?
I know it is also a question of the deal
McCarthy made with the devil and that he doesn’t want to lose his Speakership - but still, where is the integrity in such public servants? Sorely lacking.
Yet another superb article by Lucian. It's as encouraging as anything I've ready in the past year. Now, to make it actually happen, we ALL have to get out there & vote. You know it, I know it, but there may well be some like-minded folks who don't know or truly understand the importance of voting. Show them this article so they can understand how important it is to get out the vote. It's the only way to save our democracy and rid ourselves of the autocrats and morons who are dead set on destroying it.
Funny or Die is a webb comedy site founded by Will Ferrell although it has now changed hands. I think he is still connected in some capacity. They did several parody's on Republican behaviour, a couple I was in was one about them hiring a guy (for a disgustingly small fee) to be the Republican Bruce Springsteen. In another one 8 years ago we played GOP senators angry about the Iran nuclear agreement shooting the agreement to shreds with automatic weapons. , I'll post the link to that one (I'm on the far right near the end of the skit as you face the screen). https://youtu.be/kj2xlf3g9bs
A bang-up job of pulling facts and stats together. Mr. T.’s column today supports Walter Shapiro’s kicker in a recent TNR column: “The party’s over.”
It is devoutly to be wished, even if it should have happened sooner.
They’ve got the guns but we’ve got the numbers
Guns don't vote. They do kill and wound much like COVID.
And a close look at the concentration of firearms in deep red states (CSA-whether Confederate or Christian) reveals "they" would be likely to kill their own first and fast for not being MAGA enuff. As Trump is fond of saying, bullets going both ways.
Who has the canolas?
You give me hope here. Because I know it’s the truth.
Like mainland China, the US Republican Party is in a demographic spiral, which they are speeding up with their very unpopular political agendas. If we can just outlast them for another 10-15 years, we should be able to codify into law the things that have made this country what it was for so many people (and make it better for those left behind in past times). We can make this country what it should have been from the beginning - it is waiting for us in the ballot box.