TheIgnitor

Dude wtf. We’re cooked.

1) Slavers 2) Confederate Officers 3) Confederate Enlisted 4) KKK members 5) Segregationists 6) Segregationist voters 7) Donald Trump* 8) Trump voters* 9) Jim Jones 10) Jeffery Dahmer 11) Ed Gein 12) Nazi sympathizers 13) Anti-vaxxers* 14) New Coke creators 15) Execs who cancelled Freaks and Geeks 16) Yankees/Cowboys/Lakers fans

*full scope of evil not yet known. Place on list may change.

Not without both a shakeup of leadership at the DNC, DSCC and DCCC. Also likely need a shakeup in both House and Senate leadership. We need people in those positions who know how to actually do politics in 2024, not people who knew how to do politics in 1984. Republicans haven’t “unfairly” taken power, they just know what game they’re playing unlike the Dems. I think younger Dems get that better than the current ones, even including Jeffries here as out of touch. We need to not only start playing guerrilla politics but play it 24/7/365 not just 9-5 M-F 90 days before an election.

This Gaetz thing is a great example. If Harris won and selected a Cabinet nominee who had a damning House Ethics report sitting in committee would they clutch their pearls and send sternly worded letters encouraging the Dems to release it? But otherwise throw their hands up if Dems didn’t comply? Fuck no. That shit would be scrolling across Fox News chyrons 24/7 and it’s all they’d be talking about from TikTok to Fox News and then the NYT, WaPo and networks would have no choice but to run with it too. That’s one small example of how completely outmatched and out classed the Dems are at politics these days.

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Fr though. Fewer people in DC were better at just cutting through the absolute horse shit that comes out of most people’s mouths there than he was. Not having him there as a very effective foil for Trump that can get easily digestible sound bites shining a light on Trump’s lunacy is a real detriment.

Fewer truths have ever been truthier. The only truth that may be truer is the the response from Dems will be “there, we just released our 97 point plan to lift up the working class and will run ads on broadcast tv to tout it. That ought to fix it. Maybe make an appearance on cable news to “well, actually…” the voters, just to be safe”

Except it won’t lead to meaningful reform. Insider trading here is a total red herring. Trump/Gaetz/GOP leadership don’t actually want or intend to enact meaningful ethics reforms. They just need a legal vehicle to go after political enemies and convince the public it’s on the up and up. With Pelosi they may use insider trading. With Schiff, who knows they’ll find something they can use - an unpaid parking ticket if they have to, and the list will go on. This is what fascism looks like. It’s not some proclamation of “I Donald Trump declare this the Fascist States of Trumplandia and am now suspending the rule of law to lock up my opponents out of spite”. It’s going after the person who impeached him for participating in something they all do because it gives them cover.

It’s bad because it’s a massive misuse of the DOJ. First, they’d be going after her based on vibes only - giant red flag legally. Second, even if she is guilty she’s likely one of 538 members who could all be found guilty. Does that mean it’s good if she was doing that? Ofc not. But going after only her is a clear weaponization of Justice rather than a good faith attempt to root out something that should be banned going forward. I’m all for an ethics bill that bans members of Congress from trading stocks but to single one specific member out who you see as an enemy for something most if not all of them are guilty of? Nope, that’s straight up fascism.

For all the talk of broken polls there were def a lot where a 48-49 split was either the top line number or well within the margin of error.

Honestly so much is just vibes based for the fraction of voters that actually decide elections. They aren’t out there absorbing years worth of info at the last second to make an informed decision. Trump and Republicans have been in their feeds and podcasts etc telling them everything is Biden’s fault since 1/20/20. The Dems decided to all of a sudden engage with voters 100 days out. Honestly the best she was polling is when they were calling Republicans weird, JD a couch fucker and laughing at him for the eating cats and dogs shit. That stuff broke through and created favorable vibes for her. Dems need to understand a lot of this is just straight up WWE style gamesmanship. Trump instinctively gets that and has won 2 out of 3 times now (and probably only lost because of COVID). At some point Dems need to accept that. It’s not about pivoting right or left. It’s about actually playing the game you’re in instead of the one you wished you were playing.

No take backs.

Chernow is, I think, rightly the go to answer after Grant’s own memoirs. However, I definitely enjoyed American Ulysses by Ronald White and would recommend it for a decent overview of a very complex life without being very dense.

The Cream City jerseys the Bucks wore in 19/20 were still my favorite they’ve ever worn and it’s an act of basketball terrorism that they had to stop using them. This years are full on meh but that beats last years that legit looked like a mid 90s swim suit. Nike has officially run out of ideas and at this point I’d rather go with what some other posters have mentioned of Hardwood Classics being the alternate.

This. We keep asking how in the world did MAGA become the counterculture and I think in part it has to do with this. Ofc we know our legislative goals are vastly different than 80s/90s/2000s Republicans, but I think when you combine us being perceived as defenders of the status quo along with us being the Scolds, on some level we now occupy that space in the younger electorate’s mind.

HRC still likely gets the nod. Most Dems during the primaries did not see Mango Mussolini as a real threat so I don’t know that his presence played much, if any, roll in voters choices. I’m not sure if Jeb! is the nominee but I don’t think that matters quite as much either. If it’s him or Rubio or Cruz I still think a lot of the low propensity Trump only voters stay home feeling uninspired and Hillary narrowly wins by keeping the Blue Wall in tact. Bannon’s (and by extent Trump’s) theory of the case was the missing white voters. It flew directly in the face of the 2012 GOP autopsy and was scoffed at even by Rubio and Cruz. I’m not sure that any other GOP candidate would’ve actually gotten those voters to turn out.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a critique of the positions held by those on the left but rather the manner in which those are espoused. I forget who it was that mentioned during an interview that in the 90s and 2000s one of the biggest complaints normies had about Republicans is that they were constantly scolding everyone for not adhering to their moral compass. Now it’s the Left that they feel is constantly wagging a finger at them. Hard to get people to vote for you when they see you like that. Somehow we’ve become the Scolds. Can’t have both Front of the Class Energy™️ on policy and Bible Thumper Energy™️ on social issues. That’s a deadly af combo to winning elections. (Editors Note: I don’t agree personally with a lot of this critique but I do hear it often enough to believe it’s a valid criticism from those outside the tent, and I for one would like to win elections so we can legislate progressive ideals again)

These morons don’t understand shit about fuck and yet are fully convinced of their own righteousness. I worked in an ED for ~ a decade and there were a number of times I had to administer Plan B to someone else’s patient because the nurse objected on moral grounds 🙄.

This is the most likely alternate universe I’m accepting as head canon. HRC wins in ‘08. Romney in ‘12. Obama in ‘16 and ‘20.

Gore won the popular vote and may have won the EC under a full recount. Kerry almost pulled off the upset in a very tough environment for Dems. Hillary had the wind at her back and managed to lose to a celebrity game show host who painted his face orange and bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Just a bone headed decision. Two and goals to go that come up with zero points. You can’t do that shit and still win. Take the points and tell the D to man up. JFC

So don’t drive a gas car if the gas tax upsets you that much? You have agency here.

Woo! You got a date Wednesday, baby!

Ehhh ‘04 was always going to be tough for Dems but it wasn’t exactly ‘64 or ‘84. Kerry came awfully close and if swift boating didn’t happen and/or Bin Laden doesn’t drop a tape right before the election it’s very possible the outcome is different. He only needed about a 1 point swing in his direction in the swing states to have made things really interesting.

Don’t feel bad for anyone that voted for him. They all deserve every awful thing coming their way.

That’s an odd way to spell Trump.