GOP governors get away with it because the MAGAts are all for it, UNLESS and UNTIL they perceive it to be hurting themselves.
Back in the Dec 22, 2018 - Jan. 25, 2019 government shutdown, local news channels across the country interviewed locals who were impacted. Without fail, everytime a MAGAt was interviewed, they all said the same thing - we LOVE trump, we SUPPORT trump, but this is hurting US and OUR families....
As long as they perceive it to be hurting immigrants, communities of color, the disadvantaged and especially the LIBS, they are fine with it.
In terms of DeSantis - he knows what he's doing - nothing takes effect until final decisions late into 2023 - well after the 2022 elections, well before any economic impact on jobs or county financial obligations, when they can quietly let the whole thing drop and hope Disney and others learned a lesson....
Polls in Texas show Beto O'Rourke in a statistical tie with Abbot. If he could succeed in turning Texas blue, it blunts a whole helluva lot of electoral harm the GOP has been churning out. I live here and I donate, but it's one race others might want to give at a least a few dollars to.....
Hi Charlie, to echo my own comment from yesterday and A.B.'s note today that "this isn't hard", I think it's critical for the Democrats to take a page from the GOP playbook and have some scorched earth ads that highlight the real threat to election integrity, namely today's GOP itself. If you want secure elections, who are you going to trust? Republican Mark Meadows? He was registered to vote in three states at once. Republican Tina Peters? She had security cameras turned off and then brought in a conspiracy theorist to make copies of voting machine hard drives. Republican Steven Hotze? He was just indicted on two felony charges for hiring a private investigator who held an innocent AC repair man at gunpoint. You want election integrity? Vote Democrat.
Regarding the Utah Dem party getting behind an independent candidate:
I think this could work in Wyoming also for Cheney but needs to be executed in the primary. Wyoming is not going to elect a Dem to congress in the general, so get behind Liz in the primary and make sure she wins. She's a staunch conservative but at least she defends democracy. The alternative to Liz Cheney is absolutely frightening.
I always run all stuff through the filter "never attribute to evil when stupidity will suffice".
Another example, Last year on the 4th of July to give my pup a break from the neighborhood fireworks I did a 2 lane hyway tour of Kansas and Nebraska. Western kansas is totaly dependent on beef production. From the mega slaughtering facilities around Dodge city to the numerous feedlots that supply them, to the surrounding farms that supply feed to the feed lots and so on down the line. Western Kansas is sparsely populated. There is not enough local labor to operate the mega slaughter facilities they are totally dependent immigrant labor. It is a hard job so there is a lot of turn over so they always need new immigrants.
Kansas's new Senator is from western Kansas, lives in the middle of this and is a full anti immigrant MAGA Trump Republican. The voters of Western Kansas fully support him.
For me, the "willingness to do harm" extends all the way back to when the GOP embraced supply-side economics and giving tax breaks to the rich and big businesses from the 1970's forward. In doing so, they were allowing the wealthiest people to buy decadent households that raised the cost of living on everyone else through property value increases while buffing big business over the small businesses that employ over 70% of the national workforce. Since that time, it's been a rat race for everyone else just trying to keep up with the inflation that is at least in part due to costs rising through economic inequality. That was the hidden tax they were willing to foist on everyone else just to buff the donor class's pockets who already had it good. It's only gotten worse since then with the consolidation of income and education in dual-degree households in the upper-middle class. The working class, the lower middle class, and small businesses have gotten the shaft from the conservative pro-big business and pro-wealthy crowd for at least five decades. Rising tides don't lift all boats when half the boats in the harbor have holes punched into the sides of their hulls by the wealthiest Americans.
Both Abbot and DeSantis are not acting as governors, they're running for president. Even if they harm their supporters, their supporters will see it as being victims of the woke, commie, socialist, groomer left.
MTG's "Marshall Law" remark, which is illustrative of the conspiratorial right, ie, most of the right, shows how a lot of these election deniers think: If it feels true, then it must be true. In her remark, MTG says that "they," whoever that is, stole the election, and we all know this. Then, the next thing she says is to please tell Trump to declassify as much as possible. So she knows it for sure, but Trump needs to declassify the evidence, so how does she know it? And it's not just her; she says "several members." These are the geniuses Republican voters have burdened us with in the highest echelons of our Federal Government. These are people who struggled to figure out the potty, and it was all downhill from there, and they're in Congress.
Concerning Kushner and his taking bribes, and his not being able to get security clearrence, but getting classified information anyway, (am I the only one getting a connection here); I would have assumed this would be a concern to Republicans with loyalty to our country and personal integrity. I see now that there are no honest and patriotic Republicans. I'm terrified as we sit back and watch them take over.
A polity descends into tyranny when the leadership concludes that government (sustainable rule by law) is no longer feasible.
They come to this conclusion when they believe their peers either can not or will not cooperate to control wannabe tyrants. At this point the "wise man" has but three choices: abandon public life and seek safety in hiding; join up with a hopeful wannabe and seek safety in his entourage; or roll the dice and strike for the imperial ring themselves.
At this point the wise must not even entertain, much less try to act, any quixotic fantasies like duty, morality, probity, compassion, mercy, or pity. Some of the wise may even wish the world otherwise, but since it ne'er can be thus again, to refrain from doing harm makes as much sense as refraining from breathing.
Paul Ryan is in the first group, a coward who fled the field to wait out the end -- hopefully a comfortable natural death that occurs before Caesar sooner or later sends a centurion to terminate his retirement more directly. To them, the death of the res publica is a real loss, but must be accepted with an emotionally detached philosophical calm. No falling on swords, no rage against the dying of the light for them.
McCarthy, Graham, and the countless rabble of their ilk obviously fall into the second category. To them, the change in polity from government to rule is merely a change in weather, necessitating only attention to choosing the correct protective garment for themselves, and no occasion for concern or thought about how others will fare. To them, the res publica was like water to fish -- invisible, and really when it came down to it, nothing they ever really gave any attention to one way or other. Real, sort of, but not important.
The third group, of course, is the Abbots and DeSantises. They realize that very idea of a res publica is contemptibly stupid, a folly of follies tolerated only for gulling the credulous. To the DeSantises and Abbots, the joys or sufferings of their compatriots are of no more moral account than are the guards in movies whose sole function is to be snuck up on and killed by the hero-- Osrics, Rosencratnzes, and Guildensterns,--fictional inhabitants of a kingdom that doesn't even exist.
There is of course a fourth choice, but that is only open to fools and losers: stand at the bridge, oppose the inevitable, and perish. Or, perhaps, the same folly, but in the other direction: become a believer, and love big brother.
Charlie, great talk with Chef Jose, truly a man of action and in it for all the right reasons. Pretty sure Team Bulwark is going to Moskva the $5k goal.
Regarding the Utah Senate race. As a Dem, not in Utah, I applaud their decision to form a coalition to get rid of the seditionist Mike Lee. But I am still concerned about the McMullin Senate race. Has he said who he will caucus with? If he votes for Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and committee chairs for the likes of Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson, how much better off will we be, really? Unless it's a 51/49 Senate and he can be the Joe Manchin to the GOP, I don't see it as much of a gain. He and Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski can't be chairs of all the committees.
Any thoughts on the implication that Musk will now own all the unsecured Twitter DMs? Twitter's user base is heavy on "elitists" so this could be a motherlode of oppo that he could either sell or leverage to influence elections he's personally invested in. This one sounds conspiratorial/paranoid to me, but then again they could be out to get us after all.
Also, I've read a few takes on Musk's free speech initiatives urging calm, that content moderation is too hard and he'll eventually settle on something like the status quo out of exhaustion. I'm not 100% sold on this. I feel like we're focusing too much on content moderation and not enough on what he (or at least his followers) believe is really the problem with free speech as it's practiced among private actors: it's not enough to be allowed to speak but you should be forced to listen too.
So true, Matt. The Democrats have got to understand what is at stake in this election, and that their typical campaign strategies will not cut it. I think their only choice is to go negative and pound home to voters the awful, country destroying things the
current crop of Republicans are doing to us. As the saying goes, "these are not your Father's Republicans"! It's being delusional to think or do otherwise.
Charlie, could you please invite Ben McAdams on your podcast to talk about the decision by the Utah Democrats and what other Dems should be doing to reach out to Reps who still believe in democracy?
GOP governors get away with it because the MAGAts are all for it, UNLESS and UNTIL they perceive it to be hurting themselves.
Back in the Dec 22, 2018 - Jan. 25, 2019 government shutdown, local news channels across the country interviewed locals who were impacted. Without fail, everytime a MAGAt was interviewed, they all said the same thing - we LOVE trump, we SUPPORT trump, but this is hurting US and OUR families....
As long as they perceive it to be hurting immigrants, communities of color, the disadvantaged and especially the LIBS, they are fine with it.
In terms of DeSantis - he knows what he's doing - nothing takes effect until final decisions late into 2023 - well after the 2022 elections, well before any economic impact on jobs or county financial obligations, when they can quietly let the whole thing drop and hope Disney and others learned a lesson....
Polls in Texas show Beto O'Rourke in a statistical tie with Abbot. If he could succeed in turning Texas blue, it blunts a whole helluva lot of electoral harm the GOP has been churning out. I live here and I donate, but it's one race others might want to give at a least a few dollars to.....
Hi Charlie, to echo my own comment from yesterday and A.B.'s note today that "this isn't hard", I think it's critical for the Democrats to take a page from the GOP playbook and have some scorched earth ads that highlight the real threat to election integrity, namely today's GOP itself. If you want secure elections, who are you going to trust? Republican Mark Meadows? He was registered to vote in three states at once. Republican Tina Peters? She had security cameras turned off and then brought in a conspiracy theorist to make copies of voting machine hard drives. Republican Steven Hotze? He was just indicted on two felony charges for hiring a private investigator who held an innocent AC repair man at gunpoint. You want election integrity? Vote Democrat.
Regarding the Utah Dem party getting behind an independent candidate:
I think this could work in Wyoming also for Cheney but needs to be executed in the primary. Wyoming is not going to elect a Dem to congress in the general, so get behind Liz in the primary and make sure she wins. She's a staunch conservative but at least she defends democracy. The alternative to Liz Cheney is absolutely frightening.
I always run all stuff through the filter "never attribute to evil when stupidity will suffice".
Another example, Last year on the 4th of July to give my pup a break from the neighborhood fireworks I did a 2 lane hyway tour of Kansas and Nebraska. Western kansas is totaly dependent on beef production. From the mega slaughtering facilities around Dodge city to the numerous feedlots that supply them, to the surrounding farms that supply feed to the feed lots and so on down the line. Western Kansas is sparsely populated. There is not enough local labor to operate the mega slaughter facilities they are totally dependent immigrant labor. It is a hard job so there is a lot of turn over so they always need new immigrants.
Kansas's new Senator is from western Kansas, lives in the middle of this and is a full anti immigrant MAGA Trump Republican. The voters of Western Kansas fully support him.
(insert head shake here)
Why???
For me, the "willingness to do harm" extends all the way back to when the GOP embraced supply-side economics and giving tax breaks to the rich and big businesses from the 1970's forward. In doing so, they were allowing the wealthiest people to buy decadent households that raised the cost of living on everyone else through property value increases while buffing big business over the small businesses that employ over 70% of the national workforce. Since that time, it's been a rat race for everyone else just trying to keep up with the inflation that is at least in part due to costs rising through economic inequality. That was the hidden tax they were willing to foist on everyone else just to buff the donor class's pockets who already had it good. It's only gotten worse since then with the consolidation of income and education in dual-degree households in the upper-middle class. The working class, the lower middle class, and small businesses have gotten the shaft from the conservative pro-big business and pro-wealthy crowd for at least five decades. Rising tides don't lift all boats when half the boats in the harbor have holes punched into the sides of their hulls by the wealthiest Americans.
Both Abbot and DeSantis are not acting as governors, they're running for president. Even if they harm their supporters, their supporters will see it as being victims of the woke, commie, socialist, groomer left.
MTG's "Marshall Law" remark, which is illustrative of the conspiratorial right, ie, most of the right, shows how a lot of these election deniers think: If it feels true, then it must be true. In her remark, MTG says that "they," whoever that is, stole the election, and we all know this. Then, the next thing she says is to please tell Trump to declassify as much as possible. So she knows it for sure, but Trump needs to declassify the evidence, so how does she know it? And it's not just her; she says "several members." These are the geniuses Republican voters have burdened us with in the highest echelons of our Federal Government. These are people who struggled to figure out the potty, and it was all downhill from there, and they're in Congress.
Concerning Kushner and his taking bribes, and his not being able to get security clearrence, but getting classified information anyway, (am I the only one getting a connection here); I would have assumed this would be a concern to Republicans with loyalty to our country and personal integrity. I see now that there are no honest and patriotic Republicans. I'm terrified as we sit back and watch them take over.
About "Marshall Law" and "Gazpacho Police": I'm surprised she didn't write "Marshmallow Law."
A polity descends into tyranny when the leadership concludes that government (sustainable rule by law) is no longer feasible.
They come to this conclusion when they believe their peers either can not or will not cooperate to control wannabe tyrants. At this point the "wise man" has but three choices: abandon public life and seek safety in hiding; join up with a hopeful wannabe and seek safety in his entourage; or roll the dice and strike for the imperial ring themselves.
At this point the wise must not even entertain, much less try to act, any quixotic fantasies like duty, morality, probity, compassion, mercy, or pity. Some of the wise may even wish the world otherwise, but since it ne'er can be thus again, to refrain from doing harm makes as much sense as refraining from breathing.
Paul Ryan is in the first group, a coward who fled the field to wait out the end -- hopefully a comfortable natural death that occurs before Caesar sooner or later sends a centurion to terminate his retirement more directly. To them, the death of the res publica is a real loss, but must be accepted with an emotionally detached philosophical calm. No falling on swords, no rage against the dying of the light for them.
McCarthy, Graham, and the countless rabble of their ilk obviously fall into the second category. To them, the change in polity from government to rule is merely a change in weather, necessitating only attention to choosing the correct protective garment for themselves, and no occasion for concern or thought about how others will fare. To them, the res publica was like water to fish -- invisible, and really when it came down to it, nothing they ever really gave any attention to one way or other. Real, sort of, but not important.
The third group, of course, is the Abbots and DeSantises. They realize that very idea of a res publica is contemptibly stupid, a folly of follies tolerated only for gulling the credulous. To the DeSantises and Abbots, the joys or sufferings of their compatriots are of no more moral account than are the guards in movies whose sole function is to be snuck up on and killed by the hero-- Osrics, Rosencratnzes, and Guildensterns,--fictional inhabitants of a kingdom that doesn't even exist.
There is of course a fourth choice, but that is only open to fools and losers: stand at the bridge, oppose the inevitable, and perish. Or, perhaps, the same folly, but in the other direction: become a believer, and love big brother.
Charlie, great talk with Chef Jose, truly a man of action and in it for all the right reasons. Pretty sure Team Bulwark is going to Moskva the $5k goal.
Regarding the Utah Senate race. As a Dem, not in Utah, I applaud their decision to form a coalition to get rid of the seditionist Mike Lee. But I am still concerned about the McMullin Senate race. Has he said who he will caucus with? If he votes for Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and committee chairs for the likes of Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson, how much better off will we be, really? Unless it's a 51/49 Senate and he can be the Joe Manchin to the GOP, I don't see it as much of a gain. He and Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski can't be chairs of all the committees.
Any thoughts on the implication that Musk will now own all the unsecured Twitter DMs? Twitter's user base is heavy on "elitists" so this could be a motherlode of oppo that he could either sell or leverage to influence elections he's personally invested in. This one sounds conspiratorial/paranoid to me, but then again they could be out to get us after all.
Also, I've read a few takes on Musk's free speech initiatives urging calm, that content moderation is too hard and he'll eventually settle on something like the status quo out of exhaustion. I'm not 100% sold on this. I feel like we're focusing too much on content moderation and not enough on what he (or at least his followers) believe is really the problem with free speech as it's practiced among private actors: it's not enough to be allowed to speak but you should be forced to listen too.
So true, Matt. The Democrats have got to understand what is at stake in this election, and that their typical campaign strategies will not cut it. I think their only choice is to go negative and pound home to voters the awful, country destroying things the
current crop of Republicans are doing to us. As the saying goes, "these are not your Father's Republicans"! It's being delusional to think or do otherwise.
Hi Charlie, Thought you’d enjoy this story:
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/26/1094740651/florida-man-asks-schools-to-ban-the-bible-following-the-states-efforts-to-remove
Charlie, could you please invite Ben McAdams on your podcast to talk about the decision by the Utah Democrats and what other Dems should be doing to reach out to Reps who still believe in democracy?