#as power switched from trump to biden

[xclowniex]

The depressing thing about I/P is that it's shocking quite easy to take a stance on the matter without being viciously bigoted as hell, and yet people just swan-dived straight into vicious hatred and cruelty on pretty much the flip of a switch:

Netanyahu's government and Hamas are the main bad guys. The former because he was already a far-right wing crook who was in big trouble prior to all this, and now he's using the war to stay in power and out of jail. He's a genuinely evil man who needs to be in prison, and there are people within Israel trying to hold him accountable. Netanyahu absolutely detests Biden because the latter is less beneficial to him for his own cruel goals (Though justifiably your mileage may vary on Biden's actions and whether they're the right thing to do or not), and Netanyahu would greatly benefit from having Trump in power...which would be the exact opposite of helping Palestine.

Hamas is a terrorist organization being bankrolled by Qatar billionaires and who wouldn't hesitate to use Palestinians as cannon fodder for their goals. They aren't freedom fighters by any stretch of the imagination just because the government opposing them is led by an evil man and his far-right cronies, and regular Palestinians are being oppressed by them.

Both Israeli people and Palestinians have a long and complicated history that hasn't been resolved in centuries, and trying to pretend as outsiders that we somehow know the correct solution (of killing or driving out all of one side) is incredibly arrogant and extremely cruel, and basically turning two very diverse and complex peoples into props for our own ego trips.

Israel's and Hamas' governments have both committed immense atrocities and war crimes, and those involved DO need to be held accountable in order for a proper peaceful solution to exist, but that does NOT make their respective peoples responsible for their actions. So constantly trying to treat all Israeli and Jewish people as being responsible for genocide is stupid and grossly bigoted, especially given that in many other cases, we don't treat other nations who've committed similar crimes and evils the same way.

Likewise, Palestinians aren't people's personal props for their revolutionary fantasies or weirdly para-social guilt complex either; just because people in the West are deep in denial about their own nations' history of horrific mistreatment of minorities doesn't mean they get to turn two entirely different independent countries (with vastly different sociopolitical and racial histories) into a balm to sooth their own guilty consciences.

Like, this is still somewhat of a gross simplification, and feel free to correct me if I missed something, but it's still incredibly disturbing how many people can't seem to do this base level of thinking.

Nah you are so right anon

[porterdavis]

The difference-makers

I try to avoid sweeping generalizations like the plague but when facts are facts they're hard to avoid. The single biggest demographic switch from Dem to GOP was that of Latinos. As a group (I will stipulate there is no single 'identity') their vote for Trump increased by 13%, more than his margin of victory.

Don't misunderstand me, I realize white men and white women voted majority for Trump, while Latinos voted majority Harris, but the Harris Latino margin declined precipitously from Biden's. Why? Economic uncertainty is trotted out as the main driver, and while I agree Trump's relentless attacks on prices were effective, I suggest another, older prejudice was at work: machismo.

Latino support for Clinton was below trendline, rose significantly for Biden, then dropped markedly for Harris. The commonality is impossible to miss -- Latinos do not support women for positions of power. Don't come at me...as I said, the numbers don't lie.

Overall I believe the American voters chose based on latent misogyny and racism; all other issues seem to have played much less significant roles.

They will be surprised when the leopard eats their face too.

[correctopinionhaver]

if you're unhappy about the election results just do what i do and embrace the ideology of whoever's in power at the time. (i'm currently switching from biden democrat to trump republican as we speak) you can find convincing arguments for anything so it's not hard. that way you're never disappointed. it's literally that easy. you're welcome.

[lady-raziel]

So if the sniper hadn’t missed Trump and Biden dies from Covid, what would happen to the election? Would they postpone it or cancel it all together?

That's the thing...both technically and in practice, not really. Like a US presidential election has NEVER been cancelled or postponed. It's literally never happened--not during the Civil War, not during either of the World Wars, not after 9/11.

To change the existing election process, it is very, very difficult, because many of the stipulations come from the Constitution itself and long-standing election laws. Here's a good article about some of those requirements. Only new legislation passed by Congress could alter the existing dates when the election occurs, when the votes are certified, and when the terms switch over.

And yes, in the case that both major parties' candidates died, Congress could decide to attempt legislation that would change the election-- but it might be one of the most impossible legislative battles of all time considering the extremely divided House and Senate and the magnitude of the undertaking. When such legislation wasn't even considered during an active civil war or otherwise, it would be difficult to argue that the current situation, as unprecedented as it might have been, warranted such changes.

In practice, it would be more likely and more advantageous for both major parties to just choose new nominees as fast as possible and try to use the tragedies to their advantages. Which sounds so callous to say, but that just displays the truth of the political party structure-- these organizations, by nature, exist to gain power. Thus they will do anything that furthers that power and use any advantage that they can. Certain political figures might actually care about the common people, but the parties, both of them-- that is not why they exist.

So if both Trump and Biden were gone, both parties would just circumvent any democratic nominee selection process and pick whichever elite they thought would have the best chance of winning. And it would be ugly-- since in either party, no natural successor exists with the full support of all factions. There would be extensive infighting and dealmaking among elites, and in the chaos it would be a prime opportunity for international forces to strike.

(And I guess if any outside destabilization was extreme enough, the Constitution could be suspended, so the rules about the election happening would be as well...but like when total martial law is in effect how likely is it that there's gonna be a free and fair election anytime soon...)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Whitehouse at MMFA:

MAGA figures are suddenly afraid that Trump will lose and are looking for someone to blame. On July 30, Project 2025 Director Paul Dans suddenly stepped down, even after promoting his work on War Room earlier in the day. The Trump campaign, in a memo signed by senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, celebrated, even claiming they would welcome Project 2025’s demise.

But outside of the right-wing bubble, the PR move seems to have failed in its attempt to distance Trump from Project 2025. As New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan noted, the Trump campaign reportedly has no transition plan — even compared to 2016 — and will need to rely on Project 2025 for staffing should he prevail in the election this fall. (This is also a reason why Project 2025 partner positions matter as much as what is in the official Project 2025 book: These are the people who would be in a position of power for staffing the federal government, especially if Trump follows through on threats to lay off thousands of federal civil servants.) Other journalists and analysts reported similarly.

Project 2025 is the policy platform and staffing database organized by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican presidential administration. The extreme policies have proved to be very unpopular with the American people, and this unpopularity seemingly led the Trump campaign to force Dans to resign. The situation was already a tinderbox since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, replacing President Joe Biden, since Trump’s campaign was reportedly designed to face Biden instead of Harris; switching MAGA’s messaging on a dime was going to be no easy task.  Before Harris took the reins, Trump had complained about Project 2025, even as Project 2025 contributors were invited to speak at the Republican National Convention, a key Project 2025 figure was appointed to the RNC’s platform committee, and Trump himself named the elected official perhaps most closely tied to Project 2025 as his new vice presidential nominee. Inside the MAGA bubble, recriminations and blame are growing as Trump’s electoral position apparently grows weaker.

MAGA influencers are in infighting mode already.

[godisarepublican]

They hit the kill-switch! Get ready for a cancelled election!

Biden was given "Covid" and a mysterious "Computer Glitch" has magicked inside of the financial networks... all in time for the election!

Is there ANYTHING the self imposed elite won't stoop to in their lust for power?

It's four years. Just thinking about how woefully inadequate that is, given how much reform we need. All it does is postpones the evil from the globalists for four years -- FOUR YEARS! -- and they'd STILL rather burn down everything than wait for Trump's retirement.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Unfit :: billboard project

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 3, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 04, 2024

Last night the Boston Globe published a leaked email from a top volunteer with the Trump campaign, former Massachusetts Republican Party vice chair Tom Mountain, telling volunteers that the Trump campaign “no longer thinks New Hampshire is winnable��� and is “pulling back” from that important swing state. He urged volunteers to turn their attention instead to Pennsylvania. After the story dropped, the Trump campaign cut ties with Mountain. 

Stephen Collinson of CNN and Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post reported today that Trump’s team has given up on trying to get Trump to talk about the economy and other issues voters care about. The former president has decided to spend the rest of the campaign attacking Vice President Harris to destroy her popularity and drive voters away from her, rather than trying to attract them to himself. The Washington Post reporters noted that likely voters view Trump unfavorably and his team has concluded that while he can’t improve his own standing, he can damage hers. 

Collinson dubbed Trump’s plans a “feral political offensive.”

It is not clear that this will work. As Collinson notes, Harris has refused to get dragged into the gutter with Trump, and Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who studies focus groups, notes that voters appear to want to put the nastiness of the past several years behind them. Still, the media-tracking company AdImpact reported that between August 23 and August 29, 57% of the total television spending for political ads was on Republican attacks on Harris.

Trump also continues to demand that Republicans support his attempt to suppress voting. Having failed to pass any of the necessary appropriations bills before going on August recess, Congress will be in a rush when it comes back into session next week. It needs to fund the government before the end of the fiscal year on September 30 in order to prevent a partial shutdown. Last Thursday, Trump told right-wing podcast host Monica Crowley that he would “shut down the government in a heartbeat” unless the government funding package includes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act—which would give credence to the idea that noncitizens are voting in national elections despite the fact it is already illegal—and a bill restricting legal immigration.

Zeeshan Aleem of MSNBC today took public notice of Trump’s “deteriorating ability to clearly communicate.” His speeches “seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day,” Aleem wrote. “Those speeches are making it hard, if not impossible, for people listening to them to understand what he wants to do with his power in office, and they’re reportedly turning off voters.” A reporter for The Guardian pointed out that attendees at Trump’s rallies are leaving as he rambles for nearly two hours, and complaining that he is “babbling.”

For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.’”

Aleem notes that this less-focused, less-capable Trump would be exceptionally dangerous in office a second time. And yet, he was dangerous enough the first time. Today Adam Klasfeld and Ryan Goodman of Just Security released a study showing at least twelve times that Trump used the power of the presidency to retaliate against his political enemies. They note that there is no evidence that President Joe Biden or anyone else at the Biden White House ever took similar actions.  

John McCain’s son Jimmy today announced that he has switched his voter registration from Republican to Democrat and will work to elect Vice President Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz in 2024. The younger McCain enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and is now an intelligence officer in the 158th Infantry Regiment of the Arizona Army National Guard. He said he is speaking out because Trump’s conduct at Arlington National Cemetery was a “violation.” 

Last Friday, just before the long weekend, Trump announced that he would vote against a Florida ballot measure that would essentially enshrine in the Florida state constitution the abortion rights formerly protected by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. When Trump had bowed to popular support for abortion rights and expressed uneasiness at the state’s current six-week ban—a cutoff reached before most women know they’re pregnant—antiabortion activists launched fierce attacks on him. So, on Friday, Trump switched his position and announced he would vote against restoring access to abortion in Florida. 

That announcement has given wings to the Democrats’ messaging about Republicans’ determination to end abortion rights. It did not help the Republicans that more videos have been unearthed in which Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance said that “a childless elite” is ruling the country. He went on to excoriate this elite for what he claimed was their pride that they didn’t have children and that they had abortions, and said “they look down on people who invest their time and their future in their children. And that is a dangerous place to live as a country.” Even a right-wing Newsmax interviewer suggested that he was “painting this group with perhaps a broad brush?”

On October 1, in Louisiana, a law will go into effect that reclassified the drug misoprostol as a controlled dangerous substance. Misoprostol can be used for abortion. It is also used for routine reproductive care and during medical emergencies to treat postpartum hemorrhage. It is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medications, a list containing those medications that are the most effective and safe to meet a health care system’s most important needs. After antiabortion activists targeted the drug, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed a law reclassifying it as a controlled dangerous substance. The reclassification means that the drug will no longer be easily available on obstetric hemorrhage carts. 

“Take it off the carts?” one doctor said to Lorena O’Neil of the Louisiana Illuminator. “That’s death. That’s a matter of life or death.”

The Harris campaign said: “Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is the reason Louisiana women who are suffering from miscarriages or bleeding out after birth can no longer receive the critical care they would have received before Trump overturned Roe. Because of Trump, doctors are scrambling to find solutions to save their patients and are left at the whims of politicians who think they know better. Trump is proud of what he’s done. He brags about it. And if he wins, he will threaten to bring the crisis he created for Louisiana women to all 50 states.”

Vice President Harris’s campaign started its “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour today in Palm Beach, Florida, where it drove past the Trump Organization’s Mar-a-Lago club. The bus will make at least 50 stops across the country. 

Pollster Tom Bonier today continued his examination of new registrants to vote. This time his focus was North Carolina. The pattern he has found across the country continues: “surges in registration are being driven by women.” In North Carolina, he writes, the number of registrants was almost 50% higher during the week of July 21 than in the same week in 2020, and the gender gap was +12 women, compared to +6 women in 2020. The new registrants were +6 Democratic, and 43% were younger than 30. 

The Harris-Walz campaign today joined the Democratic National Committee in announcing a transfer of nearly $25 million to support Democratic candidates in down-ballot state and federal races. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will get $10 million each in hopes of supporting a Democratic majority in each chamber of Congress in the new administration. 

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the organization devoted to winning state legislatures, will receive $2.5 million. The Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association will get $1 million each. 

Finally, today, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump campaign from playing the song he likes to dance to at his rallies: “Hold On, I’m Coming.” The estate of Isaac Hayes Jr., the artist who co-wrote the song, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Trump, his campaign, and a number of his allies, noting that they have never obtained a public performance license for the song although they have used it at least 133 times.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darkeagleruins]

Remember when the DOJ said there was no evidence to prove their #3 Matthew Colangelo coordinated with Biden’s team to get a job with the Manhattan DA’s office to prosecute Trump?

Turns out that was a LIE

Colangelo listed Biden’s now Chief of Staff as a job reference and the DNC Chair

2 of the most powerful Democrats in the US, but don’t worry this was just a “normal” job switch

Yeah right

This was coordinated from the top and now they’ve been caught

[hallowed-heratic]

personally while i think that racism and sexism were absolutely a factor in the results of the election, i think that the biggest factors were 2 things:

harris did not have enough time to make a solid campaign. she was tagged in like, what, 4 months before the election? that's NOWHERE near enough time to make a campaign.

harris didn't make her campaign around an issue. her whole campaign was "trump bad." her whole campaign was "we're not trump." she spent most of her time trying to appeal to moderates, which lost her votes from both right-leaning moderates who were on the fence, and leftists. she did not do a good job of making herself look like an exciting or fresh candidate, which is what people usually want.

people voting 3rd party were not a significant enough portion of the vote. if everyone who voted 3rd party had switched their vote to harris, she still would have lost. don't blame 3rd party voters, or trans people, or palastinian protesters. blame biden and harris for failing to run a successful campaign, and blame trump for being a fascist who's good enough at making people think that he cares about them to get them to keep voting for him. blame your shitty relatives who decided to vote for him. blaming your allies just because you have no power over what your enemy does is not productive and only sows more discourse when we need to be organizing and sticking together.

[hasufin]

Progress and Regress

I've been reluctant to say this, but... well, republicans actually just plain want to make the world a worse place.

I've tended to buy that their leadership wants to live in a feudal society; and that their followers want a hierarchical society as well, but they think it would be better than what we have now. And that they legitimately believe the world would be better if we didn't offer so much compassion to those in need, if we didn't protect the weak from the strong, &c.

But I think the Trump shooting proves otherwise. I hate to say it, but there it is.

Okay, first: yes, it was timed such that it would give attention back to a particularly needy narcissist. However, the idea that it's a conspiracy just doesn't hold water. All the evidence so far suggests that the shooter was, well, the archetype of a shooter in America: a young white man, emotionally disturbed but not actually victimized, who had access to weapons of war and decided to make his life notable by ending the lives of many other people. According to the FBI he was considering going after Harris or Biden, and it just so happened that Trump was more available. In spite of the rightwing jumping immediately to blame him on leftist communist woke transgender activists, he was a registered republican and he didn't leave any particular manifesto. The only salient thing about him seems to be, he had the ability to do this and probably shouldn't.

Now, if this were Democrats - if the shoe were on the other foot - this would be a significant moment of reckoning. If, for example, a hitter for a Colombian Cartel tried to take out Kamala Harris, Democrats would be having a serious conversation about tightening border controls. Even though the actual motive would indicate she was doing a good job, it would make Democrats rethink their policies a little: "Hey, the stuff I'm doing is actually make us less safe, maybe there's another way we can do this?"

But not republicans. That is not their way. As one commenter noted: when Trump gets shot, they wear a bandage on their ear to show solidarity with Trump; when schoolkids get shot, they wear an AR-15 pin to show solidarity with the gun.

So you'd think they'd maybe care, right? In spite of never giving a single solitary fuck about little kids getting killed, in spite of mostly being motivated by a primal urge to hurt the Other... you'd think they'd at least care when there's a direct demonstration that their policies tangibly put their own guy at risk. This isn't even a case where you need empathy or compassion. One doesn't even need imagination. It's a thing that happened: young man had ready access to powerful weapons, young man used one of those weapons to try and kill the rightwing leader. It's very direct and simple.

And they are unfazed. It's horrible that Trump got shot, but wow how fast they switch to the passive voice on that. He wasn't shot by a person with a knowable motive, there wasn't anything that could have been done to keep it from happening. The shooter just spawned on that rooftop, the Secret Service failed to stop him, and that's it.

In fact, if anything I'd say the republican response has been one of glee. Their guy got a chance to look strong and be a martyr! They can fling blame around like a monkey with poo! Zero introspection, just blatantly exploiting a tragedy to claw onto more power. Even when the target was their own guy.

The truth is, they don't mind. They want the world to be a more violent, crueler, harsher place. They want people to suffer more. Themselves included. So long as they can have more power, they are perfectly pleased with this - even when it hurts them, just so long as The Other Guy is suffering more.

[mariacallous]

you don't have to answer if you think it'll give you too much blowback but I think Biden's Israel strategy is that he thinks Bibi is likelier to listen to him if he gives US support than if he pulled the plug on support entirely, and he thinks Bibi would be even more unhinged if the US turned on him, so it's a harm reduction approach to diplomacy . There aren't any good options so he's taking the option that'll lose him the least votes domestically and what MIGHT result in Bibi being less awful. People can disagree with this strategy but it's frustrating to see the people who call him Genocide Joe not reading the news stories of the Biden administration putting immense pressure on the Israeli gov't behind the scenes. like idk maybe real diplomacy might work better in foreign policy than performative slogans and speeches ...

Unfortunately I think that’s exactly the calculation, and I do also think that it’s probably the best option available. Netanyahu and his government have made no secret of how extreme they are, and how little they care, both about people they disagree with/are opposed to and things like norms and morals. His government is also one that is prone to disproportionate reactions, both militarily and otherwise. All of that is to say that the options available and the outcomes are limited.

The US has also very poorly handled things in the Middle East (huge “no shit” moment there, I know, and obviously not just in the Middle East) historically and recently, and between the Trump administration left things in general and their specific actions re: Israel, the cards the US holds are very weak, and completely pulling support for Israel and doing the political and policy equivalents of chanting “from the river to the sea” a) makes Netanyahu and his government even more extreme and unresponsive and therefore they *really* can just go off and do what they want, since any restraining or moderating influence is completely gone, b) pushes them even closer to Russia and other powers who would welcome that kind of realignment and split, c) will cause Iran and its proxies (Hezbollah and Hamas) to be even more active and empowered and violent and d) is completely unhelpful for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians who would suffer more.

Because of how Biden has been handling things, we’ve gotten more aid in to Palestinians, more pressure to stop harming them, and more credit and support among the Israeli citizens, which puts even more pressure from above and below on Netanyahu, and it’s being done in a way that makes it difficult for Netanyahu and his government to try to use it or publicize it, plus it’s a steady pressure.

Is there more he could and should be doing? Absolutely. More aid and support going to Palestinians. Pushing even more on Egypt to open relief corridors. Less military aid being sent to Israel currently. But there’s no button or switch that can be used which just stops what’s happening.

[chicknparm]

I think it’s deeply naive to earnestly believe that there is no meaningful difference between Harris and Trump. They both support some very monstrous policies, most unforgivably Harris’ continued ambivalence (at best) toward Gaza. The gap in domestic economic and social priorities is massive, however, and no I don’t think it is cowardly or immoral for an American in a precarious situation to be pulling for the candidate that will avoid their personal world becoming significantly more dangerous, if not outright deadly. I personally believe that the US would be unambiguously better with Harris at the helm vs Trump, even if only marginally.

That being said, it was people who withheld their vote and support from Biden that got him to drop out. It would take a similarly massive campaign to push Harris to divest from Israel and its military. Dems seeing our votes as a given is what got us into this mess. The switch to Harris was a rare acknowledgement that they need to work to earn votes, and that work shouldn’t end there. But the focus should be on putting pressure on Harris and other Dems. We’re already seeing it work, just a few weeks ago most Dems were extremely passive and seemingly waiting for outrage to blow over vis a vis Gaza, and now prominent members of congress are boycotting the War Crimes Address and demanding justice. Politicians work for us, and now is the time to remind them of that.

And THAT being said, people on all sides of this are being cruel and condescending and talking past one another. You’re not going to convince the coconut emoji crew to boycott anything, or to withhold their vote. You’re not going to convince the uncommitted protestor to jump into the khive. If you want to rally votes then phone bank or canvass in swing states or get involved in local elections and stop harassing people who are justifiably appalled by what the US continues to support. And if you’re firmly in the uncommitted campaign stop arguing with liberals on social media and continue directing your focus at the people in power. For any decent outcome to be possible we need to both avoid Trump and also push the Democratic Party to break from its unconditional support of the Israeli government. Kamala isn’t going to call for an end to occupation unless she’s forced to, but Trump is interested in literally nothing except lining his pockets and punishing his enemies, and literally everyone involved in this conversation is his enemy. There needs to be coalition here but nobody is interested in multi-pronged approaches, everybody just wants their way to be the right way, to be the only way. Twitter fights are a waste of time. Block and move on. And don’t fucking give money to the democrats they don’t need it, people desperately trying to survive do.

[xxdrowninglessonsxx]

The switch up of y’all is so funny. I understand now why other communists like me say they can’t stand libs. You libs were so against the Biden/Harris campaign until Joe dropped out, and suddenly y’all want to vote for her even when she’s complicit in a literal genocide. Make that make sense.

“She’ll keep our government from reverting!” Okay? Our government has been reverting, and it wasn’t good to begin with. This is a country built on the backs of black and brown people. This is a country that was stolen from indigenous communities. She’s not the savior you prayed for. She’s a human being with flaws, and we shouldn’t ignore those flaws.

The caste system will continue to be enforced, and the people who live paycheck to paycheck will continue to struggle to survive. Also, what about Palestinian lives? Do they suddenly not matter? Not saying I’m not going to vote for her, but you can’t just sit there and ignore the fact that she’s a warmonger like every other US president. (I honestly don’t know if I will vote, but I was intending on voting 3rd party as I did in the primaries.) Nothing is going to change until the people actually step up, and if you think this system can be “fixed,” it won’t be until it’s torn apart and rebuilt by the poor.

It’s like what Malcom X said, “If something is yours by right, fight for it or shut up.” Until you people start rioting and get fed up with what the government is doing, you won’t see change. I’m not talking about peaceful protests. I’m talking about riots. Riots and protests are the only thing that have changed the outcome of anything in this country because the people outnumber the 1%. They’re so scared that they have to send the pigs out to handle it. Yes, I said pigs. It’s time to wake the fuck up and take the power into your own hands.

Not to mention prisons are legal slavery, but I don’t see any president or senator taking about how they’re going to change that. You know why? Because our government officials benefit from it. Not to mention, black people have the highest incarceration rate, but I don’t see that as a talking point. The right to abortion is already threatened if not totally banned in many US states. Not to mention the Project 2025 bullshit.

I understand why voting for her is appealing, as if there’s no other option. Do you really think she will win though? Let’s be real. When has this country ever elected a woman, let alone a woman of color? She’s entered the race very late, and Biden already wasn’t going to win, and if you thought he’d win, you’re very stupid. Why would his Vice President win when everyone hated him? The vote is already going to be divided, and as we all know the electoral college loves to take liberties. I believe you democrats are getting your hopes up. Do you forget that Trump already went against a woman before, and many (stupid) people are going to want him in office purely because of gas being cheaper when he was in office? (It was mostly due to Covid and the stay at home order, which is why it was cheaper.)

The fact that we have pick and choose a “lesser evil” is just one example of how fucked up this country is. We are not a true democracy. Kamala Harris is not going to wave a magic wand and help you keep your rights. She will probably sit idle in the Oval Office and do nothing because the president doesn’t care about you. No government official cares about you. Bernie Sanders, a millionaire does not care about you. (This one’s for the republicans!) Donald Trump, as well, does not care about you. They care about power.

What we need to focus on is community because if she doesn’t get elected, and Trump wins, which is still entirely possible because of the shooting. We need to focus on actually organizing and demanding change. Not asking politely. Demanding. He’s already stacked the Supreme Court with people of his choosing which caused the overturn of Roe V. Wade. Even with Kamala possibly becoming a president, we need to organize to stand an actual chance against this tyrannical government. Our rights in West Virginia are already been threatened due to incompetent politicians, but I’m sure none of y’all voted in the primaries, right?

Also, if you libs suddenly decide not to care about the genocides that the US continually funds just because a woman is in charge, it will just show how performative you people are.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on for hours if I had to, but I’ll stop here.

Here’s some books you should read if you agreed with anything I just said:

Capital by Karl Marx

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

On Palestine by Noam Chomsky

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcom X

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X

Here’s a link to The Marxist Internet Archive

Also, I’m still learning about communism and anarchism, so if any comrades want to correct me on anything I said, feel free. Idc what libs have to say.

[yourreddancer]

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

September 3, 2024 (Tuesday)

Last night the Boston Globe published a leaked email from a top volunteer with the Trump campaign, former Massachusetts Republican Party vice chair Tom Mountain, telling volunteers that the Trump campaign “no longer thinks New Hampshire is winnable” and is “pulling back” from that important swing state. He urged volunteers to turn their attention instead to Pennsylvania. After the story dropped, the Trump campaign cut ties with Mountain.

Stephen Collinson of CNN and Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post reported today that Trump’s team has given up on trying to get Trump to talk about the economy and other issues voters care about. The former president has decided to spend the rest of the campaign attacking Vice President Harris to destroy her popularity and drive voters away from her, rather than trying to attract them to himself. The Washington Post reporters noted that likely voters view Trump unfavorably and his team has concluded that while he can’t improve his own standing, he can damage hers.

Collinson dubbed Trump’s plans a “feral political offensive.”

It is not clear that this will work. As Collinson notes, Harris has refused to get dragged into the gutter with Trump, and Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who studies focus groups, notes that voters appear to want to put the nastiness of the past several years behind them. Still, the media-tracking company AdImpact reported that between August 23 and August 29, 57% of the total television spending for political ads was on Republican attacks on Harris.

Trump also continues to demand that Republicans support his attempt to suppress voting. Having failed to pass any of the necessary appropriations bills before going on August recess, Congress will be in a rush when it comes back into session next week. It needs to fund the government before the end of the fiscal year on September 30 in order to prevent a partial shutdown. Last Thursday, Trump told right-wing podcast host Monica Crowley that he would “shut down the government in a heartbeat” unless the government funding package includes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act—which would give credence to the idea that noncitizens are voting in national elections despite the fact it is already illegal—and a bill restricting legal immigration.

Zeeshan Aleem of MSNBC today took public notice of Trump’s “deteriorating ability to clearly communicate.” His speeches “seem to be growing more discursive and difficult to comprehend by the day,” Aleem wrote. “Those speeches are making it hard, if not impossible, for people listening to them to understand what he wants to do with his power in office, and they’re reportedly turning off voters.” A reporter for The Guardian pointed out that attendees at Trump’s rallies are leaving as he rambles for nearly two hours, and complaining that he is “babbling.”

For his part, Trump says his wandering speech is deliberate. He calls it “the weave.” I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together, and it’s like, and friends of mine that are, like, English professors, they say, ‘It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen.’”

Aleem notes that this less-focused, less-capable Trump would be exceptionally dangerous in office a second time. And yet, he was dangerous enough the first time. Today Adam Klasfeld and Ryan Goodman of Just Security released a study showing at least twelve times that Trump used the power of the presidency to retaliate against his political enemies. They note that there is no evidence that President Joe Biden or anyone else at the Biden White House ever took similar actions.

John McCain’s son Jimmy today announced that he has switched his voter registration from Republican to Democrat and will work to elect Vice President Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz in 2024. The younger McCain enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and is now an intelligence officer in the 158th Infantry Regiment of the Arizona Army National Guard. He said he is speaking out because Trump’s conduct at Arlington National Cemetery was a “violation.”

Last Friday, just before the long weekend, Trump announced that he would vote against a Florida ballot measure that would essentially enshrine in the Florida state constitution the abortion rights formerly protected by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. When Trump had bowed to popular support for abortion rights and expressed uneasiness at the state’s current six-week ban—a cutoff reached before most women know they’re pregnant—antiabortion activists launched fierce attacks on him. So, on Friday, Trump switched his position and announced he would vote against restoring access to abortion in Florida.

(HOW CAN HE VOTE? HE'S A CONVICTED FELON!!!!!!)

That announcement has given wings to the Democrats’ messaging about Republicans’ determination to end abortion rights. It did not help the Republicans that more videos have been unearthed in which Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance said that “a childless elite” is ruling the country. He went on to excoriate this elite for what he claimed was their pride that they didn’t have children and that they had abortions, and said “they look down on people who invest their time and their future in their children. And that is a dangerous place to live as a country.” Even a right-wing Newsmax interviewer suggested that he was “painting this group with perhaps a broad brush?”

On October 1, in Louisiana, a law will go into effect that reclassified the drug misoprostol as a controlled dangerous substance. Misoprostol can be used for abortion. It is also used for routine reproductive care and during medical emergencies to treat postpartum hemorrhage. It is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medications, a list containing those medications that are the most effective and safe to meet a health care system’s most important needs. After antiabortion activists targeted the drug, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed a law reclassifying it as a controlled dangerous substance. The reclassification means that the drug will no longer be easily available on obstetric hemorrhage carts.

“Take it off the carts?” one doctor said to Lorena O’Neil of the Louisiana Illuminator. “That’s death. That’s a matter of life or death.”

(THEN WHY DOESN'T THE AMA SUE LANDRY AND ALL THE LEGISLATORS WHO VOTED TO BAN IT FOR PRACTICING MEDICINE WITHOUT A LICENSE???)

The Harris campaign said: “Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is the reason Louisiana women who are suffering from miscarriages or bleeding out after birth can no longer receive the critical care they would have received before Trump overturned Roe. Because of Trump, doctors are scrambling to find solutions to save their patients and are left at the whims of politicians who think they know better. Trump is proud of what he’s done. He brags about it. And if he wins, he will threaten to bring the crisis he created for Louisiana women to all 50 states.”

Vice President Harris’s campaign started its “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour today in Palm Beach, Florida, where it drove past the Trump Organization’s Mar-a-Lago club. The bus will make at least 50 stops across the country.

Pollster Tom Bonier today continued his examination of new registrants to vote. This time his focus was North Carolina. The pattern he has found across the country continues: “surges in registration are being driven by women.” In North Carolina, he writes, the number of registrants was almost 50% higher during the week of July 21 than in the same week in 2020, and the gender gap was +12 women, compared to +6 women in 2020. The new registrants were +6 Democratic, and 43% were younger than 30.

The Harris-Walz campaign today joined the Democratic National Committee in announcing a transfer of nearly $25 million to support Democratic candidates in down-ballot state and federal races. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will get $10 million each in hopes of supporting a Democratic majority in each chamber of Congress in the new administration.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the organization devoted to winning state legislatures, will receive $2.5 million. The Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Attorneys General Association will get $1 million each.

Finally, today, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump campaign from playing the song he likes to dance to at his rallies: “Hold On, I’m Coming.” The estate of Isaac Hayes Jr., the artist who co-wrote the song, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Trump, his campaign, and a number of his allies, noting that they have never obtained a public performance license for the song although they have used it at least 133 times.

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

Smith recounts these facts to establish Trump’s motive and intent on January 6

December 5, 2023 (Tuesday)

A new filing today by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the case United States of America v. Donald J. Trump for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election shows Smith’s office establishing that Trump has a longstanding pattern of refusing to accept election results he dislikes.

As early as 2012, the filing notes, Trump baselessly alleged that voting machines had switched votes intended for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. In the 2016 campaign he “claimed repeatedly, with no basis, that there was widespread voter fraud,” and publicly refused to commit to accepting the results of that election. This pattern continued in 2020, but in that election he took active steps to seize power.

The filing introduced information that Trump, an agent, and an unindicted co-conspirator tried to start a riot at the TCF Center in Detroit as vote counting showed Biden taking the lead. As Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo points out, this scheme sounds much like the Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000 that stopped vote counting in Miami-Dade County in Florida. Roger Stone was a participant in the Brooks Brothers Riot; in 2020 he was working to keep Trump in office.

Smith’s team shows how this pattern continued to play out in the 2020 election, with Trump urging supporters like the Proud Boys to back him, falsely asserting that the election had been stolen, and attacking former supporters who denied that the election had been stolen. The pattern has continued until the present, with Trump calling those who were found guilty of offenses related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol “hostages” and claiming they were “treated horribly.”

Smith recounts these facts to establish Trump’s motive and intent on January 6, but his identification of a longstanding pattern indicates it would be a grave mistake to think Trump has any intention of campaigning fairly or accepting any result in 2024 other than his return to the White House.

New House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has endorsed Trump for president and was a key organizer of the congressional effort to keep Trump in office, has promised to release all the surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Trump supporters insist that the full tapes will reveal that the attack was not as bad as the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol showed. Johnson said that the tapes must be shared publicly for “transparency.”

Today, Johnson supported Trump’s message about January 6 when he said that he was making sure the faces of rioters are blurred in the surveillance footage. "We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ [Department of Justice] and to have other, you know, concerns and problems," he said. Johnson’s spokesperson quickly walked back the comment, saying Johnson meant to say that faces were blurred to prevent “all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors.”

Also today, Kash Patel, who served on Trump’s national security team and is widely expected to return in a second Trump administration, expanded the authoritarian threats Trump people have been making to include the media. On former Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast, Patel promised that the Trump team would fill government positions from top to bottom with loyalists and would use the Department of Justice to go after those perceived to be Trump’s enemies.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections���we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Yesterday, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is promoting her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, called out Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for his continuing hold on military appointments that kept more than 450 routine promotions from taking effect over the past ten months. Tuberville claimed his refusal to permit the nominees’ confirmations was an attempt to change Pentagon policy of permitting leave for service members in states that ban abortion to obtain abortion care elsewhere. But on NPR yesterday, Cheney wondered: “Why is Tommy Tuberville doing that? Is he holding those positions open so that Donald Trump can fill them?”

Today, under great pressure from members of his own party who worried the Democrats would change the rules to weaken the power of the Senate minority, Tuberville released his hold on most of the nominees. The Senate promptly confirmed 425 of them.

Still, Tuberville retained holds on 11 officers of the most senior rank. According to congressional reporter for Punchbowl News Andrew Desiderio, the positions left vacant are commander of Pacific Air Forces, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Air Component Command for the United States Indo-Pacific Command, commander for Air Combat Command, the head of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program, the head of Northern Command (which defends the United States and coordinates defenses with Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas), the head of the U.S. Cyber Command, vice chief of staff of the Army, vice chief of staff of the Air Force, vice chief of Space Operations, and vice chief of Naval Operations.

Last night, Cheney explained to political commentator and television host Rachel Maddow exactly what a second Trump presidency would look like, Cheney said: "He would take those people who are the most radical, the most dangerous, who had the proposals that were the most dangerous, and he will put them in positions of supreme power. That's a risk that we simply cannot take."

Mark Joyella of Forbes took note of Maddow’s introduction last night, in which the host stressed the importance of protecting democracy. She began by emphasizing how much she and Cheney disagreed about everything in politics, so much so that it was as if they were on different planets at war with each other.

Maddow made that point, she said, because “in civic terms, in sort of American citizenship terms, I think it's really important how much we disagree. It's important how far apart we are in every policy issue imaginable. It is important that Liz Cheney is infinity and I am negative infinity on the ideological number line. It's important because that tells you how serious and big something has to be to put us, to put me and Liz Cheney, together on the same side of something in American life.”

The Rachel Maddow Show was the most watched news show on cable television last night, with 3.15 million viewers. The Fox News Channel’s show Hannity, hosted by personality Sean Hannity, had just under 2 million viewers.

It seems clear Americans are waking up to Trump’s threats to stack the government with loyalists, weaponize the Justice Department and military, deport 10 million people, and prosecute those he perceives to be his enemies in politics and the media. Interviewing Trump tonight, Hannity tried to downplay Trump’s statements about his authoritarian plans for a second term by getting him to commit to staying within the normal bounds of a president should he be elected in 2024. The first time he was asked, Trump sidestepped the question. So Hannity asked again. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” he asked.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded.

Source: Heather Cox Richardson 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Corn at Mother Jones:

It is hardly surprising that a political movement that has as its godhead a convicted felon and inveterate liar who attempted to overturn an election and incited a violent assault on the US Capitol to retain power would within nanoseconds exploit the assassination attempt at a Donald Trump rally that left one attendee dead. But the utter brazenness of this effort has been stunning. Before crucial details were known—who’s the shooter? why did he do this?—MAGA was out in full-force to blame President Joe Biden, Democrats, and progressives for this shooting by stirring up anti-Trump sentiment. Leading the way in unhinged right-wing responses, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) called for Biden to be arrested for “inciting an assassination.” Even after it emerged that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the alleged shooter, was a registered Republican (who apparently made a $15 donation to a liberal political action committee in 2021), the crap kept coming. Sean Parnell, a right-wing commentator who in 2021 suspended his Senate campaign in Pennsylvania after his wife accused him of spousal and child abuse, tweeted at Biden: “It happened because of this sort of BS rhetoric from you & the rest of your party. It’s sickening. It needs to stop.”

At this point, there was not yet any indication the shooter had been influenced by anything any politician had stated. J.D. Vance, the ultra-thirsty Republican senator from Ohio who is angling to be Trump’s veep pick and who once compared Trump to Hitler, said the same: “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” On CNN, GOP consultant Scott Jennings remarked, “The rhetoric around him over the last few weeks, that if he wins an election our country will end, our democracy will end, it’s the last election our we’ll ever have. These things have consequences.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) quickly proclaimed that Biden “is responsible” for the shooting. She then went further than blaming the Ds for their anti-Trump rhetoric and retweeted a post from a MAGA activist who explicitly accused the Democrats of being behind the shooting: “The Dems realized it’s too late to switch out their candidate so they attempted to kill ours instead.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene voiced the same dastardly message: “Democrats wanted this to happen. They’ve wanted Trump gone for years and they’re prepared to do anything to make that happen.” Greene’s remark suggested the Democrats were somehow involved in this attempted assassination. These comments from the Republicans and MAGA extremists were reckless and absurd. For years, Trump has been pushing an ugly narrative: Joe Biden and the Democrats are in league with antifa, Black radicals, and communists to destroy the nation. Trump has said this zillions of times. In both the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, he has exclaimed that if Biden is elected “we may not have a country anymore.” He has repeatedly preached an apocalyptic sermon casting his political rivals as bent on annihilating the United States. He has depicted Biden and his allies as an existential threat to America.

And, of course, Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence—most infamously on January 6. But with this shooting his MAGA allies quickly spotted an opportunity for a rubber-glue propaganda campaign to characterize the Dems as the true threat to democracy and civility and concoct a massive deflection. One of Biden’s chief lines of attack on Trump is that he presents a danger to the republic. Now the Trump crew had a chance to turn the tables and they eagerly grabbed it. Ultimately, the MAGA crowd doesn’t have to win the argument that Biden endangers democracy. They merely need to use it to muddy the waters and undercut the Democrats’ main case against Trump. [...] The attempted assassination of Trump was a horrific event that claimed the life of one person and further traumatized American politics. It also triggered a flood of bullshit. The MAGA world rushed to take advantage of the shooting to remake Trump, who has essentially condoned political violence by vowing to pardon January 6 rioters, into a martyr of political violence and to portray Democrats as the perpetrators of such violence. It is a foul act but a true reflection of the black-is-white reality-denialism of Trump and and his MAGA following.

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump brought out a boatload of bad faith claims from right-wing media pundits and GOP politicians such as J.D. Vance, Mike Collins, Scott Jennings, and MTG falsely blaming the Democratic Party, progressives, President Biden, and/or the media for the attempted assassination.

See Also:

Lucid: MAGA Narratives about the Trump Assassination Attempt

Mediaite: Rep. Lauren Boebert Flat Out Declares ‘I Do Believe Joe Biden is Responsible for the Shooting’ in Stunning Interview

HuffPost: After Assassination Attempt, Republicans Say It’s Out Of Bounds To Call Donald Trump A Threat To Democracy

Vox: Heated rhetoric is dangerous, but honest disagreement is necessary for democracy