#what's important to gop voters

[thebreakfastgenie]

Talking about the 2016 and 2020 primaries is letting the devil win but occasionally talking about them with offline normie voters can be nice because you remember how many Bernie Sanders supporters were regular people who just liked him and voted for Hillary in the general without incident.

[odinsblog]

🗣️THIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1660846689450688514.html

[mariacallous]

I tolerate a lot from dems bc it's usually at least in the service of acquiring power/keeping the conservatives at bay, but how is the tiktok ban not a bad political decision? The users generating misinformation are just gonna flock to twitch/insta/joe rogan along with their audiences. Everyone knows the average voter is gonna see this as another mark against Democrats and won't blame the Republicans for actually introducing the bill. I don't have any stakes here I hate tiktok but I genuinely don't see the point, do you have any insight I might be missing?

Apart from the national security element, which is kind of important, most people are seeing that SCOTUS upheld the law and that it's now in the hands of Trump and the GOP, and there are plenty of Republicans who are opposed to Tiktok so it's another way to create tension in the party.

Additionally, tiktok amplifies and rapidly disseminates misinformation and that at least puts a dent and makes it more difficult to spread. Further, without the algorithm and post manipulation that we know happens, it further complicates things.

Twitch and insta have their own issues and challenges which limit the success of the rats fleeing, and there's a natural dissipation or falling away - it won't be a 1:1 follower/subscriber transfer.

It's funny that you're falling into the same thing you're saying you're worried about, which is blaming Democrats for something when they aren't the only party or individuals with agency or even primary and majority involvement. Everyone else is just reactive and going along with what's happening, buffeted by the tides and winds of fate and chance.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Petrella at Chicago Tribune:

Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday used his first-ever appearance on Fox News to take his criticisms of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs to the network’s conservative-leaning audience, labeling the Republican administration’s levies on imports “taxes on working families.” Pritzker, who has made frequent national media appearances since Trump retook the White House this year, is widely viewed as a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. And as “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream noted in the morning show interview, the billionaire governor has taken a more aggressive approach to criticizing the president than other Democratic governors who are also frequently mentioned in those conversations, including Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and California’s Gavin Newsom.

Illinois’ two-term Democratic governor wasn’t asked directly about his presidential aspirations, and he sidestepped a question about a Fox News poll that showed majority support for GOP positions on issues such as bans on transgender athletes, deportation of immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission and increased domestic oil production. Instead, the American people “want affordability to go up,” Pritzker said when asked whether Democrats are out of step with voters. “They want their costs to go down when they go to the grocery store. That’s the opposite of what this administration does. This administration says they’re for working families and then attacks working families with the biggest tax increase in U.S. history with these tariffs.” Pritzker’s roughly 10-minute interview followed a week when Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs roiled stock markets and left American investors, businesses and the nation’s trading partners perplexed about what the president is attempting to achieve. The governor’s Fox interview was immediately preceded on the TV program, which airs on Fox affiliates across the country, by a segment about support for tariffs in the shrimping industry in the South. Pritzker said the potential for tariffs to help certain industries that face competitive disadvantages is “an argument for targeted tariffs.”

“But that’s not what President Trump has done,” the governor said. “He’s put massive tariffs across the board, and that’s going to affect not only the cost for average working families going to the grocery store, but it’s also going to affect the sales of crops that we grow in the state of Illinois and across the United States.” Pushing the U.S. toward potential trade wars with some of its largest export markets is going to make it harder for highly productive Illinois farmers to sell their corn, soybeans, pork and beef, Pritzker said. “We’ve got to focus on targeted tariffs,” he said. “Good trade policy, I might add, is really about protecting U.S. workers, making sure that we’re expanding markets overseas, and focusing on lowering costs for American families. And none of what President Trump has done really does that.” Pritzker also pushed back on the argument that Trump’s use of tariffs is causing U.S. companies to consider building up domestic production or retain jobs here that otherwise might have gone overseas.

Some of those decisions already were being made as a result of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, while any possible significant increases in U.S. manufacturing and jobs as a result of steep tariffs would take years to materialize, “and we’re going to lose a lot of jobs and have a big recession in between,” Pritzker said. Pritzker also criticized Trump for using tariffs as a way of “punishing” major allies and trading partners, including Europe, Canada and Mexico, where the governor recently completed a trade mission and signed a memorandum of understanding with the state that contains Mexico City. “We’ve got a free trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States that should be strengthened, and we should continue to use that,” Pritzker said. “It’s one that President Trump put in place, President Biden abided by during his term, and now President Trump wants to blow all that up and re-trade the very thing that he negotiated.”

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) rightly called out Donald Trump’s tariff tax hike an injury to “working families.”

From the 04.13.2025 edition of Fox's Fox News Sunday:

[lavaringx]

I know it's been said before, but the Electoral college is absolutely terrible. A few thousand swing voters in a handful of key swing states decide the election instead of the millions of people casting the popular vote. The only reason the modern GOP has gotten so radical is because they have been able to exploit the electoral college and the two-senators-per-state rule, the majority of the American people are not with them or their agenda. I know it's unrealistic to get rid of the electoral college anytime soon, but it sure would be nice if the American people actually got what the American people want on a variety of important issues like healthcare. The Overton window would be significantly to the left without it.

[centrally-unplanned]

A few eye-opening results from a recent CBS/YouGov poll show this: some 70 percent of Americans think Trump is keeping his campaign trail promises, and nearly half of Americans think he’s doing even more than they expected he would in the early days of his presidency. Among that subset of respondents, the vast majority like the fact that he’s exceeding their expectations. Looking specifically at the issues, Trump gets positive marks for his attention to immigration and the southern border and for cutting government spending and foreign aid budgets. Another poll, from Marquette University, shows something similar for two other areas: Trump’s executive orders and stance on transgender people, and his plan to expand oil and gas production in the US. Both enjoy double-digit levels of support.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be more specific on one of my recurring themes, voters just do not care about "checks and balances" or "rule of law" or anything like that. They do care somewhat! Many voters ofc care a lot. But on net, relative to other issues, they don't care enough. The will vote it away for issues they care more about.

I have begun calling it "the grand delusion" that they ever really did care. It will change back and forth in this or that era, but overall these systems are maintained by elite norms, not mass norms, and there is no out for that. But I have discussed that to death before.

The other side of the coin of this article is that this stuff is just very normal for a lot of people, but they don't take to the weird stuff:

Yet there are a handful of other eccentric and wacky Trump positions and priorities that don’t seem to enjoy the same level of approval — including one signature Trump position that carries pretty negative associations. It runs a bit counter to one of the theories for Trump’s success on the campaign trail: that his weirdness, his bluster, and his comedic celebrity were part of why voters liked him. That same Marquette poll that finds Trump’s immigration, transgender, and energy policies to be popular also finds some of Trump’s more random policy positions to be viewed quite negatively. “Taking back” the Panama Canal and pardoning January 6 rioters are both opposed by 65 percent of Americans, while renaming the Gulf of Mexico is opposed by a little more than 70 percent of Americans. “Trump’s more traditional executive orders are very positively received, as expected for a president in his honeymoon phase,” the election analyst Lakshya Jain, from Split-Ticket.org, said in a post reflecting on these dynamics. “One of the biggest strikes against ‘people love Trump’s weirdness’ is that renaming the Gulf of Mexico, taking back the Panama Canal, and pardoning J6 rioters all are incredibly unpopular actions, while GOP-orthodox policies on gender, immigration, and drilling are net positive.”

Which I do take for cautious evidence for the "normalism" understanding of politics - most voters don't see things like dismantling USAID and such as a big deal, that is normal because checks and balances aren't important to them, but they don't value all this weird New Right stuff. Which imo is pretty bad because most of this stuff is probably just blustering bullshit while dismantling USAID is actually awful; but such is the world.

[embracetheshipping]

IMPORTANT VOTING INFORMATION

Now more than ever, it is important to make sure that you are registered to vote and that you fully understand all the requirements for in-person, mail-in, and absentee voting. Double check your registration OFTEN to make sure nothing has changed. Don't give Republicans ANY reason to disqualify your vote.

The video below explains some concerning trends happening in swing states. And while her point about the Montana and Oklahoma issues may not be as nefarious as projected (there are articles online saying the issue in Montana was a glitch and the Oklahoma purge has been ongoing by independent auditors), the other ones are more credible as deliberate attempts to suppress voters.

Regardless, it is in your best interest to make sure you are fully informed of what is going on regarding voter registration and laws in your state.

Transcript:

So Trump is now saying he doesn’t want a second debate with VP Harris. And you could say that’s because he got shellacked in the first one and doesn’t want to embarrass himself again, but I think something more nefarious is going on.

Trump is not campaigning in swing states. He’s not trying to sway new voters. And he keeps going around saying he doesn’t even “need votes”, that they “have all the votes they need”. In fact, he just did an interview with Fox News where he said he “wouldn’t run in 2028 if he loses”, but then he said, “Let’s just hope we’re successful in this one.” Not, “Let’s hope we win this one,” “Let’s hope we’re successful.”

People should think it’s weird that Republicans don’t seem to care about how bad their candidate is. That they don’t seem to care that Project 2025 came out, and we can all read for ourselves how awful their plans for America are. And it’s weird that so many swing states are suddenly changing their election laws and purging voters, or making it harder to vote, or count the votes just weeks before the election.

Look at what’s going on around the country. The Secretary of State of Montana just “accidentally” left Kamala Harris’s name off the absentee ballot. They sent the ballots out to absentee voters without VP Harris’s name on it.

The Texas Tribune just announced that Texas officials have absolutely scrubbed their voter rolls, and people should go out and check it they’re still eligible to vote.

Oklahoma purged 450,000 people from the voter registration list last week. That is one-fifth of their state’s voters who have to re-register seven weeks before the election.

Georgia’s GOP Board of Elections just passed a whole slew of new rules, including the biggest one being that they have to hand count every ballot. But they already have a rule that says they can’t start counting ballots until Election Day. So counting 5.5 million votes is going to require a lot of time and a lot of staff that many local jurisdictions in Georgia simply don’t have. So when the votes can’t be counted on time, that’s going to give space for the MAGA lawyers to come in and claim the election is defaulted or fraudulent , and kick the entire election back to the state House, or subsequently, the whole state misses the deadline to certify the Electoral College votes, and they either don’t send electors from Georgia at all, or they potentially pick their own alternative slate.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just said that all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have to have the “correct handwritten date on the outside of the envelope, or the vote inside won’t count.” I mean, sure, check to see if your envelope is dated correctly, but why would the handwritten date on the outside of the envelope disqualify the vote inside? Doesn’t it have to be postmarked and / or received by an official agency before even being opened?

Republicans even tried to change the rules in Nebraska for how electoral counts would be awarded less than 50 days before the election.

You have to ask yourself, “what are they doing?” And why do they keep accusing Democrats of trying to cheat? Talk about projection. This is the same party that was pushing for the SAFE Act in Congress and threatening to shut down the government if they didn’t get it. Their claim, which luckily, we have currently moved on from, is that they were just making sure every voter was an American citizen, which of course is important. But it has never been a real problem, no matter what Republican propaganda tells us. But they conveniently forget to mention that the SAFE Act also said, if you didn’t have a passport, something that fifty percent of the population doesn’t have, then your birth certificate had to match your ID. Which of course, would be impossible for say, any married woman who took her husband’s name. And there are lots of people who say, “So just use your marriage certificate to prove that you changed your name,” but the SAFE Act says absolutely nothing about your marriage certificate or license to count as ID, and it takes time to find that document and submit it and process it when we only have weeks before the election.

We need to be incredibly clear. The Republicans were looking to outright disenfranchise the women of America, Republican and Democratic women of all ages, I might add. And it’s not just women they’re looking to disenfranchise, because while the gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson’s scandals have been sucking up all the air in North Carolina, the RNC was quietly trying to block the UNC students from voting. But they recently lost that lawsuit.

If you have to keep changing the laws to get elected, you’re not winning elections. You’re sabotaging elections. The whole thing reminds me of that quote by the Russian communist leader Joseph Stalin, who said, “The people who cast the votes don’t decide the election, the people who count the votes do.”

So look around at what’s happening in America right now. The Republicans aren’t trying to win. They’re trying to make sure the Democrats can’t win. And while that should freak you out, I sincerely hope it also inspires you to get your friends and family out the polls and vote wholeheartedly against this kind of behavior.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald

* * * *

Trump promises to eliminate future elections

July 29, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Last Friday, Trump told Christian rally-goers that “You won’t have to vote any more” if they elect Trump in 2024.

Let that sink in. A presidential candidate promised to eliminate future elections.

The media yawned.

Actually, the media ignored the story (except for The Guardian) until commentators on social media and the Harris Campaign shamed journalists into acknowledging Trump's antidemocratic threat—which they did in a dismissive, begrudging manner.

It is tiresome to highlight the media’s failings, but this incident is so egregious that it is important on many levels. Most importantly, it underscores that Democrats cannot relent in their effort to warn the American people that Trump hopes to end fundamental democratic norms—like the peaceful, regular transfer of power as prescribed by the Constitution.

Among the issues that should drive voters to the polls in 2024, Trump’s repeated promises to end democracy should be the most alarming. But concepts like “democracy” and “tyranny” strike many voters as “abstract.” Taking away the right to vote is not abstract; doing so would render all other rights illusory.

Let’s turn this incident against Trump by convincing voters that Trump really, truly wants to eliminate the right to vote after 2024. And we must not let him (or his surrogates) weasel out of the plain meaning of his words.

What did Trump say?

 At a rally in Florida on Friday, Trump said,

Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians. I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

See The Guardian, Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’.

Like most of Trump's statements, it is simultaneously inscrutable and blazingly obvious. He is promising the end of democracy if he is elected. “In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”

The same words uttered by most other politicians might be susceptible to innocent interpretations. But those words uttered by this president can mean only one thing: He wants to eliminate elections in America. He tried to override the will of the people in 2020 by canceling their votes through coup and insurrection. He says he will do so again if he is re-elected. We should believe him.

To repeat: A presidential candidate has promised that 2024 will be the last time that Americans will vote because “everything will be fixed.” That is the equivalent of a five-alarm fire for democracy.

How did the GOP, the media, and the Harris campaign respond? You can probably predict their responses, but let’s look for ourselves.

The GOP response

In typical GOP fashion, the GOP response was (a) he didn’t mean what he said, (b) he said the opposite of what you think you heard, and (c) Trump says weird things all the time, so chill out!

The typical Republican response was delivered by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who laughed off the statement by saying, (a) it was “hyperbolic,” (b) Trump was trying to make the point that “We want everyone to vote in all elections,” and (c) it was a classic “Trumpism.”

Saying that the statement was hyperbolic and “a Trumpism” are. not serious responses because they do not address the substance of what Trump actually said. Trump incited an insurrection by telling people to “Fight like hell” moments before the attack on the Capitol.” We are long past claiming that Trump's words should not be taken seriously and literally.

Claiming that Trump's statement means the exact opposite of what Trump said is depraved. Sununu’s interpretation of “We want everyone to vote in all elections” vs. Trump's “You’re not gonna have to vote again” is depraved. The depravity of Sununu’s perverse interpretation is not diminished because Sununu delivered the lie with a hearty laugh.

Other Trump apologists (on social media) argued that Trump was saying only that Republicans would not need Christian evangelical votes after 2024 because Trump would do such a great job of fixing all problems in America, “you’re not gonna have to vote.” That explanation makes no sense; even if Trump “fixed” all the problems in America in the next four years, the Constitution still requires an election in 2028.

There is simply no reasonable interpretation of Trump's words other than his declaration that in four years, he intends to eliminate elections (if he can).

The media’s response

As noted above, The Guardian gave serious coverage to Trump's statement. US media outlets, not so much. See, for example, Lucian K. Truscott IV’s description of the NYTimes’ pathetic response. As Truscott notes in his Substack, the Times relegated the statements to “a few lines in a wrap-up piece about what’s happening in the presidential campaign . . . and they buried it on the Times website.” The Times then breezily moved on to pedestrian coverage of the campaigns as if they were reporting the details of an itinerary rather than one of the most shocking statements ever by a major-party candidate for the presidency.

Perhaps even worse was the pathetic interview of Chris Sununu by Martha Raddatz on ABC. Raddatz asked Sununu, “What the heck did he [Trump] mean there [in the statement]?” As noted above, Sununu responded,

(a)  The statement was hyperbolic; (b)  Trump meant that everyone should vote in every election; and (c)  That statement is a Trumpism.

Sununu’s pathetic response was enough to satisfy Radattz, whose follow-up question was, “Ok. Let's turn to President Biden and Kamala Harris.”

I won’t pick on Raddatz (much). Almost every journalist on mainstream media is as pathetic as Raddatz. The inability to ask follow-up questions to ludicrous rationalizations of attacks on democracy is staggering. Most are entertainers, not journalists. Their presence on “news” shows is insulting to their viewers.

Raddatz’s failure to challenge Sununu’s answer and her immediate transition to a question about President Biden and Kamala Harris demonstrates the media’s dangerous addiction to mindless “balance” and false equivalency. Nothing Kamala Harris did over the weekend deserves to be in the same news block as a story about a presidential candidate promising to end the need for elections. Nothing.

Having watched the media fail miserably for seven years with Trump, nothing should surprise us. But the guy tried to overturn one election already and is saying he will do it again. What will it take for the media to realize that Trump is a unique threat to democracy who deserves coverage that applies only to aspiring dictators?

Even if the Times and Raddatz believed that Trump's remarks had a benign explanation, they failed to acknowledge the more plausible, malign interpretation. Instead, they were willing to assume that Trump's remarks were harmless “Trumpisms.” They are not. We saw what happened after Trump told his followers on January 6, 2021: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

So, continue writing those letters to the editor and comments to stories highlighting the media’s failings. And become a messenger for Harris by amplifying her campaign’s messaging. Read on!

The Harris Campaign’s response

Kamala Harris’s campaign organization has been reacting to Trump's missteps and threats like a rapid response force to each. Early Saturday morning, the Harris campaign posted a clip of Trump's comments and attached the following statement:

Statement on Trump's Promise to End Democracy When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America. Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear —this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

The Harris campaign’s statement is spot-on for several reasons. First, the campaign issued the statement just after noon on Saturday morning, showing a willingness and ability to rebut Trump quickly. By responding within the same news cycle, the Harris campaign shaped the social media response, which ultimately prodded the major media to acknowledge Trump's threat.

Second, the Harris campaign identified Trump's threats in plain language, including

“Trump's Promise to End Democracy.” “Last election Trump sent a mob to overturn the results.” “He has promised violence if he loses” “He has promised the end of elections if he wins” “He has promised to terminate the Constitution” “To become a dictator” “To enact dangerous project 2025”

Dangerous threats demand plain language. The Harris campaign rose to the challenge.

The campaign’s statement was strong in another respect: In identifying Trump as a threat to democracy, it identified Kamala Harris as the point of unity to stop Trump. A very smart move! Kamala Harris is giving Democrats the antidote to Trump's cult of personality. The campaign is fashioning Kamala Harris as a champion of democracy. And it is working!

Concluding Thoughts

Trump's threats present a dilemma. Should we take them seriously? Or does our attention give them credence and heft they do not carry on their own? As with most things in life, there is tension in truth. We must take Trump's threats literally and seriously. But we must not ascribe superpowers to Trump or self-executing inevitability to his threats. By taking his threats seriously, we can prevent them from coming to fruition. So, do not despair or cower in fear. Raise the alarm as we work to defeat Trump and stop his dark plans.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to rally around Kamala Harris. She held her first fundraiser in Pittsfield, MA at the Colonial Theatre. The event was sold out, with an overflow crowd in front of the theater. Kamala Harris spoke after an all-star warm-up that included former Governor Deval Patrick, Senators Warren and Markey, Rep. Neal, and Heather Cox Richardson.

According to those in attendance, the evening was “electric.” The crowd was so enthusiastic, Kamala Harris had difficulty quieting the cheers so she could say “Thank you.” She gave a great speech and pumped up the crowd even further.

In eight short days, Kamala Harris has unified and inspired Democrats in a way that has defied expectations of pundits and career politicians. She is doing so at the precise moment that Trump's veneer of invincibility is cracking. We need to sustain the wave of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and spread it to others—so that we can push Trump’s downward trajectory past the tipping point of no return. We can do that!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[vintageandroid]

More Actionable Things You Can Do

I just want to mention Jay Kuo's substack The Status Kuo, which not only updates on current events with the Federal Government and context, but also, critically, shares things that can be done and specific issues to address with your representatives, and also highlights things that are being done or have been done.

Mostly I wanted to link to his most recent one, which is lengthy but ends with some serious suggestions of things citizens should speak to their reps about.

tl;dr: put the blame on Musk right now and not Trump; urge your Dem congress members to join Senators Schatz and Kim:

[explanation + scripts below the "keep reading" cut, for both Dem reps and GOP reps.]

The second tactic is one suggested by the recent statements of Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey. Both senators focus on the fact that while the Democrats are out of power in government, they are not without power to slow or even stop the seizure of the financial levers of the government by the Trump White House. Sen. Schatz declared last week that he would use his right to withhold unanimous consent on all new state department appointees unless and until USAID was restored as an agency. This was a tactic used by Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville to stall Biden-era appointments. Such a move would force each and every Trump appointment to go through a full round of regular process before the Senate, instead of batching groups of appointees through. It would mean the GOP Senate would have to decide between using its time to pass things like the budget or get appointments through. Other Democratic senators should be urged to join Schatz in his protest so that he is not a single target who is easier to bombard. Sen. Kim also drew attention by suggesting over the weekend that he’s open to shutting down the government in order to protest the takeover of government systems by DOGE and the shuttering of whole agencies like USAID. Normally, it is the GOP that has threatened shutdowns when it didn’t get its way politically. Here, all the Democrats would have to do is pledge to do nothing—not lift one damn finger—to help the GOP pass its budget or lift the debt ceiling… unless the White House backs off of its attempts to shut off the money and furlough government workers. The government faces a March 14, 2025 deadline to enact a new budget. Barring something truly wild, it almost certainly will have to lift the debt ceiling to do so. Hardliners within the GOP inevitably will use the opportunity to try and extract concessions by way of drastic spending cuts to popular programs. If the Democrats band together behind Sen. Kim’s call to “Just Say No,” as it were, then the budget disaster will be entirely in the hands of the GOP.

(Excuse the long-ass excerpt; there's even more in the link above.)

I encourage you to call or write to your senators, especially if you have dem senators, and encourage them to unite with these two.

Let me give you a simple script.

If you're calling, begin by stating your name and your zip code, and if you're leaving a voice mail, include your address and, perhaps, a phone number. Then, choose one of the bracketed sections:

As a constituent, I urge Senator [Name] to band with [Senator Schatz]/[Senator Kim]'s call to [withhold unanimous consent]/[shut down the government] in protest of Musk's attacks on government agencies. Voters want to see you taking action right now. Thank you for your time.

That's it! That's all you have to say! You can reword that to suit your preferences better, but the important thing is, you don't have to be eloquent, you just have to tell them what actions you want them to take.

Calling is usually better than emailing, but a) the phone lines are melting to bits because they are getting 1500 calls a minute instead of the usual 30-50 and b) emailing is better than nothing. If you can, call, but if you can't, email! Simple as that.

If you have a Republican senator/rep, your focus should be on Musk. This isn't a perfect script, but let me try. Again, if you're calling, give your name and zip code (and if it's a voicemail, your address and maybe phone number), and then:

I want to express to Senator/Representative [whoever] that I believe Elon Musk has too much influence over the current administration given that he was not elected and his actions seem largely self-serving. I urge Senator/Representative [whoever] to take action against his rushed and clumsy dismantling of government agencies. Thank you.

Again, feel free to reword that and if anyone has a better script with more specific actions, feel free to add that.

Also, please remember to be polite to staffers and to be brave and do the thing! As I said in my 5Calls post last week, feel free to let me know you contacted someone and I'll tell you how cool you are for it.

[tomorrowusa]

« Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his administration will soon be bathing in it. We need to reveal the populist Trump as a plutocrat. The hypocrisy will be there in the upcoming tax legislation and slashed regulations for the powerful — all paid for by the middle class. With everyone from Big Oil to Big Pharma lining up for their share of the spoils, we will need to be strategic in how we strip away Trump’s populist veneer. By returning to our roots as the voice of the middle class, we can unite both moderates and progressives in a fight against the well-heeled and well-connected. »

— Rahm Emanuel at the Washington Post (archived).

Some people may screech "OMG, Rahm Emanuel!". But he and his frenemy Howard Dean were the co-architects of the 2006 blue wave landslide which saw Dems flip both the US House and Senate.

2004 had been a worse year for Dems than 2024. George "Dubya" Bush had gotten re-elected and is still the only GOP presidential candidate to get a majority of the popular vote since 1988. Dems lost four seats in the Senate including that of their leader Tom Daschle; Dems lost 3 House seats and were down to 202.

In 2005, Dubya thought he had a "mandate" from his re-election. In a fit of overreach, he went gallivanting around the US to push his plan to privatize Social Security. But his proposal was so unpopular that even local Republican members of Congress found excuses to miss Bush when he came to their states.

By November of 2006, Dems were in the ascendancy. And Rahm, who was in charge of the House campaign committee, deserves credit for that along with DNC Chair Howard Dean with his "50 state strategy". The two politicians were occasionally at odds but they paved the path to a victory which set the stage for the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

If different wings of the Democratic Party could work synchronously in 2005-2006, the same can be done now. The bickering inside the party needs to cease.

My own takes are that we need to personally engage with the communities we live in rather than rely on social media. And we need to listen to those people more than preach to them to understand what voters themselves consider important. Personal interaction is a strong way to get around MAGA media dominance and to fine tune our message.

So in the words of George W. Bush (which he never followed himself), be "a uniter, not a divider" to achieve victory.

[saywhat-politics]

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) seemed to support President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal during an interview Monday on Fox News. (Watch the video below.)

Host Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump adviser, asked Blackburn to walk viewers through some of Trump’s recent musings on Truth Social and “why they’re important.”

In the last few days, Trump again suggested he wants the U.S. to purchase Greenland from Denmark and operate it for defensive purposes. He also threatened to take back the Panama Canal from Panama over “exorbitant prices” for passage.

Blackburn appeared to give preliminary backing to the president-elect on those matters.

Trump had received a “mandate” from voters to transform President Joe Biden’s “America-last policy” into one that puts America first, she claimed.

“So when it comes to dealing with the Panama Canal and making certain that China is not being advantaged in this, and America disadvantaged, of course, let’s put this issue on the table and talk about it,” she said.

[lifewithchronicpain]

I said live/vote because some people are registered to vote in one place but are not living there for various reasons such as being military posted abroad.

I’m from a deep blue/red state, why should I vote?

I live in Massachusetts, my state will undoubtedly go blue for Harris and re-elect Senator Warren. Still, I will happily vote, not only to show my support for Harris and Warren, but also because there is so much more on your ballot and it’s just as important as the presidential election. You should vote because:

1) The House of Representatives is up for reelection every 2 years. While gerrymandering helps the GOP gain a majority, there are still many districts where they could flip blue if more left leaning voters turned out. In order for Harris to implement many of her promises, she needs a Democratic House to pass them.

2) 1/3 if all Senate seats are up for reelection. Once again, Harris needs a Democratic Senate to pass the bills with her plans in them.

3) Every state has local elections where maybe you won’t influence congress or the presidency, but you can still help elect progressive local candidates. In fact, these are some of the most important races. They pass laws that directly affect you, and for things like Secretary of State, they handle all elections. If your state is gerrymandered to hell and back, a progressive Secretary of State would be one way to combat voter suppression by the GOP.

4) Every state has ballot questions that directly impact your lives. Right now, 10 states have abortion questions on the ballot: (AZ, NV, CO, MD, NY, FL, MO, MT, NE, & SD) Ohio has a referendum that could end gerrymandering. They are one of the direct ways you can impact life in your state.

5) Last, but not least, even if you’re not in a swing state, every single vote still counts towards a popular vote. While it doesn’t decide the election, Trump is such a self absorbed ass that a huge popular vote against him will hurt just as much as losing the election via the electoral college. Vote to bruise is massive ego.

Vote.org is a wonderful site that can help you register, check that you are registered (been a lot of voter purges lately), see what’s on your ballot and more. Remember, if your vote didn’t matter, then the GOP wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop you from voting!

[mariacallous]

You outlined this in another ask but I think it’s important that Nancy Mace especially wants the attention with this bathroom bill publicity stunt. She wants to be seen as a less-insane MTG. I don’t wish for McBride to be harassed and bullied, obviously, but I don’t think a lot of her detractors right now understand the last thing you want to do for Nancy Mace is give her the time of day. McBride is between a rock and a hard place and I don’t blame her for not giving Mace the attention she desperately craves directly.

She's absolutely going like cocaine-nuts over this shit and is desperately seeking attention and wants this to happen, and I think that the House GOP were planning on doing this regardless, tbh, because they think transphobia is a real winner and resonates with the voters and/or just makes them look very Traditional and Conservative.

I mean, Mace tweeted she was "Full TERF" like come the fuck on.

By not giving them what they want, it'll drive them mad and may also cause the issue to die down and then they back off.

I think it sucks and is basically a no-win for Sarah McBride but I also know that it's 2 months until the new Congress and administration, and Johnson's majority will be very thin as it is (1-seat).

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

As Americans grow more fearful that President Donald Trump's nonsensical tariffs will lead to needless economic hardship, House Republicans are not trying to fend off that economic doom—instead, they’re passing a bill to formally rename the Gulf of Mexico. The House passed Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's "Gulf of America Act" on Thursday by a vote of 211-206, with every Democrat and just one Republican voting against it.  The bill "renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and directs federal agencies to update their documents and maps to incorporate the new name"—as if it matters to most voters what that body of water is called. Greene, who stood alongside an image of the Gulf of Mexico with a giant "Gulf of America" text over it, said on the House floor that she introduced the bill because "[t]he American people deserve pride in their country, and they deserve pride in the waters we own." In the real world, voters don't give a shit what the Gulf of Mexico is called. A February poll from Marquette University Law School found that 71% of Americans opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico, as Trump said he wants to do. Instead, voters desperately want Trump to lower inflation—the most important issue to voters, according to a new YouGov poll—and disapprove of Trump’s tariff plan, which is expected to do the opposite.

Where’s your priorities?! The GOP House majority voted almost party line on codifying Donald Trump’s masturbatory fantasies about renaming the Gulf of Mexico 211-206, with one Republican (Don Bacon) voting against.

See Also:

The Guardian: US House approves ‘dumb’ legislation renaming Gulf of Mexico ‘Gulf of America’

[bakafox]

"Vote Blue No Matter Who" is triage, not a panacea.

Granted I only am on this one hellsite, but I have yet to see anyone who's saying "Vote Blue" claim that that's all we need to do to fix things or even to staunch the bleeding that the US is doing.

I seem to see people claiming that people are saying that is the only answer, and not a needed part of the jigsaw puzzle that is living in this godawful timeline.

I am just a middle-aged person who is tired all the time, and triply, doubly, tired of what looks like absolutely pointless infighting on the left, from 'just left of center' to much farther that way.

The GOP holds all the power it holds and wins elections because the die hard republicans don't quibble all that much over candidates, and are happy to be single issue voters.

And on the left, people are big mad about whether or not 'harm reduction' is an actual thing that needs to be an important part of any movement, and making bad faith readings and arguments right and left.

I may have made a bad faith reading myself tonight, over what looked on my reading like the umpteenhundredth post about how only privileged and self-centered people can think 'vote blue no matter who' will get anywhere, and making it sound yet again like that's being said as some kind of magical coda that is all that's needed to fix things, when I have never seen anyone claim it is.

I see posts noting that voting is like doing the dishes or laundry, I do not see posts saying it's the only action that matters and all action stops there.

There may be posts like that out there, but I'm maybe naive enough to think it's a great minority and also probably also psyops to a degree.

Unfortunately I do see posts that seem to say that trying to triage the US and that saying "Vote Blue No Matter Who" is a stance of traitorous elites and imperialists who care only about their own skins and that it's mostly ignorant white people using the phrase.

....Despite knowing I follow a number of nonwhite people, some of whom I would call legitimate activists, (unlike myself,) who are saying it's what's needed to try and buy us a little breathing room.

It is breathing room. It's putting the oxygen mask on first before helping the kid in the next seat. It isn't a permanent answer, but in today's time and place, with how the two-party system is rigged, it is the immediate bandage. It's the pressure on the wound.

But the pressure will have to be kept up, yes. People will have to call their representatives and write their representatives and vote in every election they can vote in for even the most incremental change if there isn't a valid miracle option, and right now there is no valid miracle option. People will have to donate time, donate energy, donate funds to causes while also voting.

Someday I hope we have better candidates and a ranked choice voting system with nobody disenfranchised from voting, but the only way to get there is to vote, because bloody revolution is not a tenable option. The left is not organized enough and there's too many people with too many axes to grind against imperfect allies for there to be the right focus on the actual enemy.

There's too much historical record of revolutionaries turning on their own and becoming another bad status quo that needs to be dealt with again somehow, for it to be trusted over incremental change as long as incremental change can be made before taking some bigger leap.

There has to be a running start. Not a jump from a dead stop.

There's also just the sheer technology and arms gap as well as distance gap between what any cells of leftist 'freedom fighters' in the US versus a fully Republican controlled military. The tactics would be hell even if somehow everyone could be provided immediately with weapons and training and that the idea of having to live in a world where everyone has to be willing to use weapons and take lives is kinda hellish in and of itself.

What countries are we going to get aid from? What governments are promising the US left help if Trump wins?

Vote Blue No Matter Who rhymes, it's catchy, maybe that also leads to people distrusting it. I don't know. But it is one step to take, and an important one until there is enough of a shift, and both sides are not the same. They just aren't.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

And yes, the Trump campaign is pretty clearly committed to stealing the election by crying foul about voter fraud, declaring victory on election night, pretending that the slow process of counting all the votes is somehow illegitimate, and working with his co-conspirators in the GOP House to steal it away in some sort of post-election coup that Trump couldn’t help but teasing as a “little secret” of theirs.

Luckily, the Democrats seem to realize these things will assuredly happen and have said they’re ready to respond and push back immediately when they do. 

But things would be even better off for the Harris campaign, obviously, not just if she pulls out a clear win, but if she pulls out an overwhelming win. The larger the margin of the popular vote nationwide, the harder it will be for Trump’s lackeys to pretend the election was “stolen” from them. And the broader the electoral map is for her, the harder it will be for Trump’s lawyers to subvert the results. (When it all hinged on Florida in 2000, it was relatively easy to flip. When they had to reverse several states in 2020, it became impossible.)

So that brings us back to what you can do this weekend. And that’s do whatever you can to help get out the vote, to make sure the Democratic ticket runs up the numbers and not just wins, but wins convincingly. 

In general, check out the Harris-Walz campaign GOTV page which has a number of links for checking registrations, volunteering, canvassing and phone banking. Even if you can just do a day or an afternoon or an hour, that’s better than nothing, and I mean that in terms of helping the campaign but also channeling your nervous energy into something useful. 

[…]

Anyway, check out state and local resources. For instance, here’s a ballot curing operation in Pennsylvania that starts up [today]. And here’s another for Michigan that targets absentee ballots after the election. And North Carolina. This is an incredibly important role and one you can do from home. Look for places to help out here.

I keep thinking about how I felt the first week after the 2016 election, a bit dazed but mostly angry with myself for feeling I hadn’t done as much as I could have to keep a psychopath out of the presidency. I’m sure you felt something similar. Let’s do what we can to make sure we don’t go through that again, and a whole lot more.

Run through the tape.

Stop worrying about what might happen. Make the future you want actually happen.