stevenkesslar

This is what I love about you, Sis. As young girls in prep school, you were always the one better at deep throating the boys. So from an early age, I always had to accept that I was the realist. I had to think incrementally. You always went all the way. I went inch by inch. So, yes. I wish they had gone all the way, and taken his entire cock. In this case, I mean just chop it off, as legal punishment. I'm guessing Melania wouldn't mind. But let's be realistic. I won't repeat what i said in my post on another thread. But it applies here, too. The funny thing now is that maybe 44 % or so of Americans say they'd vote for Trump. Which is more than say they'll vote for Biden, in at least some polls. We know Trump got 46 to 47 % in two national elections. Meanwhile, depending on how the question is asked, a majority of Americans basically think he's a criminal who belongs in jail. So how could a guy like that get elected again? My answer is that I hope in November 2024 Americans are thinking recovery and rape. As in the Biden recovery. If instead we are in the Biden recession, they may overlook the rape. I think this verdict is more important than Stormy Daniels or a doorman saying something. Hush money to a hooker is one thing. Rape and sexual abuse is another. Who wants to feel raped? Or even just abused? Actually, truth be told, most of the MAGA folks seemingly do. As you said, they don't care. But IMHO Trump raped them. Trump raped the 2020 election. Trump raped the Capitol. Trump raped Kevin McCarthy on Jan. 6th. Kevin was screaming "Rape" (almost) on the phone to Trump as it was happening, and literally screaming "Stop it now!" Trump rapes, and rapes, and rapes, and rapes, and rapes. And usually gets away with it. I'd rather we are taking about how he raped Georgia and raped the Capitol and raped the cops he says he loves and raped these voting machine companies in Summer and Fall 2024. Not now. That's when the verdict from the most important jury will likely be formed. For now, I'm glad we can call Donald Trump, an abusive loser, what he is. AN ABUSER! A LOSER! Please bring on the indictments. And let's spend a year and a half talking about all the crimes of this loser.

Yes, but .............................. If I had to bet, I'd bet there will be two more indictments. I'm not a lawyer. But I am a political whore. Of course, you know that, my dearest Sis. So my reading of the tea leaves is they will indict. Arguably, it's a good thing they are taking their time to build their cases. This may be off topic, but here's a scary thought. Not at all surprising to me, but scary: That's from an article reporting that Biden's approval rating in a new ABC/WaPo poll has hit a new low (36 percent). And that Trump is beating him 44/38 in their latest horse race poll. Unlike Biden, Trump has never won more than 47 % of the vote. And, unlike Biden, he's never gotten above 47 % approval as POTUS. So my guess is Biden could snap back easier than Trump. But both are kind of in a race against time. I mean that, literally, because they're both old. But Biden will either look better, or worse, depending on the economy. Right about now in 1983 Reagan's approval rating in the polls was in the 30s. And polls said Mondale would kick his ass in 1984. The Reagan recession ended in Nov. 1982. So he had two years to recover. It seems like the polls tend to mirror inflation. The high percentage of people who say we're on the wrong track, or their personal financial situation is worse off, peaked last Summer with inflation. And the negativity about the economy has declined gradually as inflation has waned. But it is still largely negative feelings. If there is no recession and inflation has gone down more in a year, that will help Biden. If there is a recession in Summer 2024, lots of people may hold their nose and vote for Trump. Trump's race is basically a race against the law. This quote from an article about how DeSantis is a "really weak option" summed it up nicely: That pretty much captures how a lot of people will feel. Which is why all these horse race polls show so many people are undecided. Or none of the above. That quote was from a business guy. So he focused on taxes and regulations Which I doubt are the priority for most people. I'm pretty sure the broadest perspective is what I focused on above: it's the economy stupid. And we're not happy with the inflation. There's no way of objectively knowing how voters holding their noses weigh these things. But an ex-POTUS who lied about losing in 2020 and started a riot in 2021, and who is twice impeached and maybe three times indicted, could be a hard choice even for people who are holding their noses. I'm hoping, at least.

I think that's the issue, in part. The polls show clearly that phrases like "defund the police" and "socialism" scare and annoy people. That said, the murder rate in my state is way higher in Kevin McCarthy's Bakersfield than in blue LA or Pelosifrisco. Like I said, some of the "extreme: stuff is real stuff - like "defund the police." Some of it inflammatory bullshit. In 2022 there were lots of pictures of Kevin McCarthy standing next to cops. But Senator Gary Peters, who ran the Senate Democratic campaigns, had a great line. He said, other than photo ops, Republicans didn't really offer much. They didn't do so well, he thought, because they mostly focused on telling people about problems they already knew they had. What happened to McCaskill in Missouri is a cautionary tale. At least in my liberal mind, it aligns with this idea that UMW Democrats in Kentucky became Trumpers overnight. How exactly do you stop that? The crude way I think of McCaskill's fate is that she lost because Trump rallied the Testicle Vote against Christine Blasey Ford. I was contributing to McCaskill and Heitkamp, because i want moderate Democratic Senators. The polling was pretty clear that White men turned against both of them, and Donnelly, when things got polarized around SCOTUS. Which I guess is a form of culture war. I think Ruy Teixeira, who I cite a lot, is right that Democrats need to tone down some of the culture war stuff and focus on economic populism. Trump is, at heart, an economic populist. But one with authoritarian tendencies, to put it politely. I really don't buy the idea that third party campaigns help drive debates on anything that really matters. I think Lichtman is right about that. (By the way, I was mistaken above. His Russian buddy was a world renowned predictor of earthquakes, not volcanoes.) I think the idea that a surging third party movement reflects a potential political earthquake is coming makes sense. Just like, for example, huge losses in midterms reflect seismic political rumblings. But it's hard to identify any policy outcome from third party candidates of the past. George Wallace was basically defending Southern Democratic racism. But he ended up flip flopping and apologizing. What did John Anderson get done? My own view is that Ralph Nader and Gary Johnson and Jill Stein basically helped elect W. and Trump. The one person who was both amusing and maybe effective was Ross Perot. You could argue he helped put a focus on deficits, and the need to control them. But I'd argue what did that even better was the 1994 midterms. Arguably, Clinton had no choice but to negotiate with the Gingrich conservative insurgents. Although I think Clinton was inclined to want to reduce deficits, anyway. But if Manchin or Lieberman or any of these No Labels people run, I don't see how that moves the dial. What I am hoping Biden does is move the dial and cut a deal regarding deficits. The fact that he is dragging your Senator, McConnell, into it may be one good sign. As McConnell himself said, those two know how to negotiate. So does McCarthy, for that matter. If they pull a Clinton and put us on a path to deficit reduction, that would help. But I have more faith in Biden, Schumer, McConnell and McCarthy to do that than I ever would in Joe Manchin.

Fair enough. This article notes that the biggest political factor in KY, like in the US, is the growth of Independents that don't align with either party. I know I took up my bandwidth already above. But if the question is: what do Democrats need to do to win in red states, that's a great question. And Kentucky offers a particularly good answer. Kentucky’s Beshear Ranks as America’s Most Popular Democratic Governor Ahead of Re-Election Bid Six in 10 Kentucky voters approve of Beshear’s job performance, while 34% disapprove I singled out health care as an issue that was a plus, but not enough, for Democratic Senators who lost in Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota in 2018. I'd single it out as something that helped Beshear win in 2019. And health care will be one of the factors that helped if he does win re-election in 2023, like his Dad managed to do. KYNect was wildly popular, and successful, until Republican Gov. Matt Bevin took an axe to it. I recall reading stories about voters saying they were on KYNect, and it's great. But they hate Obamacare. (It's the same thing.) I agree with you that Democrats have an obvious problem in red states. And it is due to both the perception and reality of extreme positions. My main point, as a Democrat who would like to win more often in red states, is I don't think the solution is we need more Joe Manchins to run in states like West Virginia. Or for President. I think we need more Andy Beshears to run, and win, in states like Kentucky.

Here's an entertaining question, that partly depends on your ideology. Which is more extreme? A: Dramatically reducing child poverty in West Virginia by 50,000 kids; or B. Intentionally saying, "Let's spike child poverty up by 41 %. We need more poor White kids in West Virginia!" Of course, Joe Manchin didn't literally say that. And I personally don't view him as a cruel sadist. But the reality is the child tax credits, which in the Clinton era were more or less bipartisan, did dramatically reduce poverty in West Virginia and nationally for a year or so. And Manchin did intentionally kill them, it seems. He had to know the impact of his actions was going to be driving lots of his constituents' kids back into poverty. Is that extreme? Or is lifting them out of poverty extreme? The reductions in poverty were dramatic and across the board for White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian families. But what I read suggests the group it helped the most was working class Hispanic families with lots of kids. Is that an extreme idea? Should the Democratic message be: We want the children of working class Hispanics to be poor? Child poverty is good for Brown kids, and good for America! Obviously you can tell what my ideology is. But, that said, speaking as liberal Democrat, I have a love/hate relationship with Joe Manchin. Speaking of extreme, he is an extremely brazen political whore. Even by the standards of any other US Senator with deep ties and endless pipelines of money from special interests, like Big Coal and Big Pharma. But it's clear that when he takes on liberal Democrats, his popularity in West Virginia soars. And when he gets in bed with Biden on things like green energy subsidies, his popularity in West Virginia plummets. So if Democrats want to win in West Virginia, they do need to listen to Joe Manchin. Arguably, getting in bed with his own party on the Inflation Reduction Act will cost Manchin his Senate seat. Which might explain why he wants to run for President. I thought this was an exceptionally good Politico article that put Manchin in a broader context, and addresses the question of what is extreme: The Revolution Joe Manchin (Probably) Can’t Stop That article nailed it. Manchin is an important voice. But a losing voice. Objectively speaking, West Virginia is now at an extreme. As in an extremely pro-Trump state where Democrats would need to be pseudo-Republicans, or Trump suck ups, to win. That won't happen. That Politico article was written in the middle of the Build Back Better shit show. Manchin could and did slow down "the revolution." But he didn't and won't stop it. Instead, he'll just lose in 2024, most likely - whether he runs for Senate or President. And I think Politico is correct that "the revolution" isn't Bernie, or socialism. It's Biden, and his reverence for The New Deal and LBJ and MLK and all that. Which child tax credits to cut child poverty in half are actually a very good example of. That said, the polls showed that Americans were split down the middle on child tax credits. The main issue, which is what Manchin clearly was concerned about, is whether we could afford them. That debate is far from over. And the overwhelming consensus among Democrats is we'll fight for these past victories like Medicare and these next victories like child tax credits. That's Biden. If we need to raise taxes on billionaires to help poor Hispanic kids, we'll do it. And at least on that part of his message, I think he's got a winner. Democrats, my team, have a big problem. Because if we ever want to bring back those child tax credits, to cut child poverty in half, we are going to have to be able to elect people like Claire McCaskill in Missouri, or Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, or Richard Donnelly in Indiana. I'm of course referring to three actual Democratic Senators from "red" states who lost as recently as 2018. If those three Senators had won in 2018, and instead Manchin had lost in 2018, Build Back Better would be law, for better or worse. Democrats would have had a 52-48 Senate majority. So BBB would be law with probably a vote or two to spare. And while I can't point to polling, I don't think cutting child poverty in half is the kind of extreme thing where people in Missouri and Indiana would so, "Oh, no! We can't have that. We want our White rural children to be poor." What the polling actually showed is that McCaskill and Heitkamp were ahead in Summer 2018. And their positions on affordable health care were a big driver putting them in the lead. McCaskill said the minute Anthony Kennedy resigned and it opened up a SCOTUS seat, she knew she was in big trouble. It changed the debate in "red" states like Missouri. And especially working class White men, who might have agreed with McCaskill on health care, turned against her in a big wave. So Democrats do need to worry about the working class White men Manchin often says he speaks for. Did I mention these three seats are up for grabs again in 2024? I'm happy to lose Manchin. On a list of states Democrats should try to win, West Virginia is arguably now dead last. Speaking as a pragmatic Democrat, I'd rather figure out how we can elect people like McCaskill in Missouri, Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Donnelly in Indiana. That will require some moderation. But NOT Joe Manchin. The best sitting example today is Jon Tester in Montana. Sherrod Brown in Ohio is another. They keep winning, but NOT by acting like Joe Manchin. Those five Senators are perfect examples of Democrats who managed to win elections repeatedly by avoiding being seen as extreme AOC-type Sandernistas with crazy liberal ideas. To Politico's main point, they could win elections based on an agenda that could be called New Deal Lite. I'll end by giving a nod to Allan Lichtman's Keys To the Presidency again. And by noting that a Joe Manchin third party campaign would most likely help elect Donald Trump. One of Lichtman's 13 keys is whether a third party is able to get 5 % or more of the vote. He says history suggests that's a sign the incumbent party is in trouble. 2016 is a perfect example of the danger for Biden. Lichtman has called every Presidential race since 1984 right, in advance. When he called it for Trump in September 2016 he said it would be close. And it could change, he said. Because one of the reasons Trump would win is the third party candidacy of Gary Johnson would be a nail in Hillary's coffin. If those third party votes move to Hillary, that could be her margin of victory, he said in that hyperlinked article. As it turned out, the third party candidates combined got just over 5 % of the vote, which is Lichtman's threshold. So no can say this for a fact. But I think most people who dug into the data think Johnson and Stein helped Hillary lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. A Joe Manchin candidacy, if it could draw away 5 % or more of the electorate, might well do the same. Third party candidate John Anderson (6.6 % of the vote) helped Reagan win in 1980. And as was noted above, Ross Perot (18.9 % of the vote) helped Bill Clinton win in 1992. 1968 (George Wallace got 13.5 %) was another example where a strong third party showing signaled the defeat of the (LBJ/Humphrey) party in power. The one recent exception was 1996, when Perot got 8.4 %, and the incumbent (Clinton) won, anyway. But The Keys system says it's a combination of factors. I think Lichtman would say in 1996 it was the economy, stupid, that was the biggest thing Clinton had going for him. That April 1996 article spelling out which 4 keys Clinton had working against him is worth a look if you want to consider how Joe Manchin could be the nail in Joe Biden's coffin. Lichtman and his Russian academic partner (who was an expert at predicting volcanos) argued that when a President has 6 or more of those Keys working against them, it's just a historical fact that they will lose. So the 5th key that ended up working against incumbent Bill Clinton in Fall 1996 was Perot. That's 5 keys, which is not enough. Biden right now has three of the same keys against him that Clinton did: 1 (midterm losses), 11 (no foreign policy victory), and 12 (no charisma). Unlike Clinton, Biden has 7 (mostly popular major policy changes) working in his favor. (Biden's argument is, "Let me finish the job.") So then the question is which three additional keys could turn against Biden and bring back Trump? My argument would be the two economy keys. Like we are in a recession in Fall 2024. And the sixth and fatal key could be a Joe Manchin (or Joe Liberman) candidacy. If it gets enough traction to siphon away Independent and moderate Republican votes from Biden. This is especially true, I think, if Trump is the nominee. We know for a fact the strongest thing Trump has going for him is an almost fanatically loyal base. If Joe Manchin changes the math so that Trump only needs 46 % of the vote to win, we know Trump can do that.

Very thoughtful essay. Thanks for posting that. A few big pieces of data to add, none of which are surprises. War in Ukraine widens global divide in public attitudes to US, China and Russia – report “Mega-dataset” of public opinion covering 97% of the planet finds a “world divided” between liberal US-backing populations and illiberal nations favouring China and Russia. It is now clear that we live in a multi-polar world. With lots of big countries like India not wanting to take sides. I don't blame them. When the US was closest to being a unilateral world power after the breakup of the USSR and into the early 21st century, arguably the two biggest things we did were: 1) the Iraq War, and 2) the global financial crisis. One was based on a lie. And the other originated in misplaced faith in the idea that American mortgages are rock solid and a safe bet. We kind of fucked it up. To me, a riot at The Capitol is child's play compared to the Iraq war and the GFC. This is the most humbling statistic in that report: Speaking as an American, we're outnumbered. That said, this Voice of America article adds some important balance. While all these unaligned countries in places like Africa view China and Russia favorably, they also view the US slightly more favorably than China and Russia. When asked whether they would rather China or the US be the world's superpower, overwhelming majorities would prefer the US to be superpower: 59 % in South Africa, 77 % in Nigeria, 80 % in Kenya. Maybe the US is pushier about our values and systems. But those numbers suggest our values and systems don't suck in the eyes of the nonaligned. I think Dalio hit the nail on the head regarding the dilemma most countries and leaders are feeling with this comment: What I found slightly surprising in Dalio's comments is the sense of how China is perhaps not very well prepared. First, if I buy what he says, they don't want war. Second, they are years behind on things like AI. Third, they are feeling increasingly threatened not only by the US but by other regional powers allied with the US: Australia, Japan, South Korea. Dalio is right that how those relationships shake out when the going gets tougher will be critical. Add that China, not the US, is the nation with the demographic time bomb. I know Dalio is talking five months or five years out. Not fifty years. But I can buy the sense Dalio expresses that if anything China feels like it is being baited into a war - economic or military - it does not necessarily want. Oh. And one other teeny, tiny little thing. With all due respect to the 6.2 billion people in the world who mostly respect China and Russia, if you look at a trade map China is fucked. No wonder they don't want to be baited into a global economic war. The US has 10 times the trade clout of Russia. Take that Vlad. Australia has the same $48 billion in trade Russia offers. Saudi Arabia may be China's great new pals, with oil aplenty. But The Netherlands alone does five times as much trade with China. Chips, anyone? 😉 Yeah, I'm bragging a little. But I also find this comforting, since like everyone I don't want WWIII. In the 30's, in the run up to WWII, two of the fastest growing economies in the world were Germany and Japan. Because they were militarizing and preparing for war. The run up to war was basically an economic growth engine for them. China today is more like the opposite, at least based on trade. They have a lot more to lose than to gain - even moreso than the US. Dalio's comments based on his relationships there suggest the Chinese know it. Hopefully the US does, too.

Proving yet again that brilliant minds think alike. But we knew that already. I think what saddens me the most is here we have an example of a father with big balls. And a son with even more enormous testicles. Both willing to speak truth to corrupt media power and leftist hate. And in a moment like this, no surprise, we have RINO liars who suck up to the MSM. They just want to spread lies and hate to undermine Tucker. Anonymously, of course. It really pisses me off that spineless pussy RINOs can get away with saying this shit about one of the great minds of our time. That's such bullshit. Losers! At least winners like Kari Lake will speak the truth.

I'm posting a few pieces that are an interesting point/counterpoint about the looming Trump/DeSantis catfight. And what follows that. As a partisan Democrat, I take them to be mostly good news for Biden. First, a piece from Jeff Greenfield about why Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee. Second, a piece from Steve Kornacki about why that more likely than not means Trump loses, yet again, in 2024. The Real Reason Trump Might Win the Nomination He’s still the president of Republican America. I buy what Greenfield is saying. It's backed by polls. For the majority of Republicans, they'll back Trump for the reason Democrats will back Biden. He's the President. And he's a winner. If you're a typical Republican, Trump actually won twice. Biden never won. He's just a liar. You can pretty much stop there, perhaps. Greenfield adds all the caveats. Will a second or third indictment be the charm? Probably not. What if more leading Republicans point out more often that nominating Trump means losing? I just read an article about the rut DeSantis is in, in which one of his backers pointed out that in some poll of Nevada, Trump would lose to Biden by a few points. Whereas DeSantis would beat Biden. As I documented above, almost every poll of every swing state this year shows DeSantis would probably do a better job taking out Biden than Trump, usually by like 3 to 5 points. This seems to have absolutely no impact on Republicans whatsoever. Maybe it's that simple. Trump is President. Why switch, any more than we would have in 2020? Let's add a new one. Will the Dominion lawsuit and Tucker's firing convince more Republicans that Tucker cheated on them? Probably not. No offense, Tucker. But they married Trump. Not you. You were just like the flower girl at the wedding, if we're being honest. It sure was pretty to watch you blossom on Fox, though. At least as of now, it looks like being indicted is actually helping Trump consolidate his hold over the GOP. Which makes sense. If you are running a grievance campaign, being indicted by a Black New York City liberal in a baseless political witch hunt is a very nice political cross to bear. How many times does Don, Jr. have to point out that at some point his Daddy deserves a break? You know those evangelicals. They're all about more empathy, and less abortion. This is a good marriage for them. And yet .................. I love the ambiguity of that piece. Kornacki is right. A Biden/Trump rematch will be wildly unpopular. A lot of people will say it is de-energizing. Especially on the Democratic side. At least Trump fires up his base. Which is the main reason Republicans like Rich Mitch and Tucker Carlson tolerate a guy they hate passionately. A lot of Independents will react in horror, since the polls already make it clear they want neither. Democrats should be scared shitless. If you stop watching Steve's number crunching about halfway through, we have a POTUS who is pretty deep underwater. Here's one poll Steve didn't mention: we also have an economy that most voters say is on the wrong track. That said, when pressed by Morning Joe - who relentlessly points out every chance he gets that Trump led Republicans to defeat in 2018, and 2020, and 2022, after losing the popular vote and barely winning in 2016 - Kornacki goes through the reasons why Biden is probably under rated in the polls. Trump is clearly NOT like the others in those favorability polls. 48 % of Americans feel badly about Joe Biden. 46 % feel badly about Democrats. 43 % feel badly about Republicans. So far, there's only large minorities that feel badly about the sitting POTUS, or either US political party. Meanwhile, 53 % feel badly about Trump. He's the odd man out. A majority of Americans actually don't like the guy. And simply do not want him to be President. How do you overcome that? The same is true if you look at the favorables. At 38 %, Biden is actually viewed more favorably than Democrats (36 %), Republicans (33 %), or Trump (34 %). He'll be the Democratic nominee because people will do what he keeps asking them to do: judge me against the alternatives, not The Almighty. (Or Kamala. But Biden wins that race, too.) The fact that maybe 38 % of Americans actually feel good about Biden matches with his low baseline in these horse race polls. Once you get higher into the 40's, and then get past 50, to one degree or another people are probably voting for Biden as the lesser of evils. But, unlike Trump, he doesn't have a majority who actually kind of see him as evil. We've tested the reliability of these numbers in both the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections. And the outcomes are pretty much what a Kornacki or Morning Joe number geek would expect. The thing that was interesting about the 2016 horse race polls, as RCP showed them every day, is that out of roughly 500 polling days between June 2015 and Election Day 2016, Trump was ahead of Clinton in the polls for maybe one week's worth of days. I kept wondering: how likely is it he'll be ahead of Hillary on the one day that really matters, Nov. 8, 2016? Call me dumb. Because having lived through Bush/Gore, I should have remembered that you don't have to be ahead in the polls, or even in the actual votes, to win. Trump himself allegedly said that if you'd held the same election a dozen or so times on the same day in 2016, he would have lost most of them. It was kind of a statistical fluke. There was divine intervention, of course. Thanks to The Second Coming Of Comey. To be very specific, Trump won with 46.1 % of the vote in 2016. Which is pretty close to what you'd expect is the best he could do. Since about 53 % of Americans really don't like him. And don't want him to be POTUS. That number seems to be incredibly sticky. We have almost a decade of RCP polling on Trump's favorability. There's actually NEVER been a day that fewer than 50 % of Americans viewed President Trump unfavorably. Not one day. There were a few days in late 2016, after he won but before he was inaugurated, when feelings for Trump were the least bad they've ever been. Call it hope. There were a few days in early 2022 when his horrific unfavorable ratings after Jan. 6th slid back down to about 50 %. Call it boredom. But whenever Trump is in the news - Mar A Lago, indictment, running for POTUS again - his unfavorables always spike. It is like political gravity. In 2020, he got 46.8 % of the vote. 53 % of people who vote just don't want him to be President. And the fact that older voters who are dying like him the most, and new young voters like him the least, won't help him much in 2024. Biden's numbers in 2020 also make sense. He won with 51.3 % of the vote. So he can clearly get a majority of voters on his side on the day that it really matters. (Arguably, he did it twice as Veep, too.) And that matches with Kornacki's number, that about 48 % of Americans feel badly about Biden. That leaves 52 % for Biden to get. And, in 2020, he got most of them. Biden's unfavorable ratings are of course upside down now, with 54 % of Americans not approving of the job he is doing. But 54 % of Americans did approve of what he was doing for some of his Presidency. And much of his Vice Presidency. There's no evidence that a majority of Americans are hard set against Biden - every day, every year. Like they are against Trump -every day, every year. My guess is that indictment hurts Trump's favorables. It is scary that there is an obvious groundswell for Trump right now. And since most people have come to see polls as bullshit, knowing that DeSantis would actually do better than Trump in Nevada isn't much consolation. But if and when indictments come down for how Trump tried to steal an election in Georgia, or stop a peaceful transfer of power by tossing rioters at cops at The Capitol, there's no reason to think the 53 % of Americans who feel very badly about Trump, and have for a decade, will change their mind. What is scarier to me is this idea: To get to something like 51 %, Biden has a long way to crawl back. He needs to get almost everyone who doesn't feel badly about him to actually vote for him. He's been there and done that before. But can he do it again? One way of looking at it is that when Biden is running against Barack Obama, or even Michael Dukakis, maybe he doesn't look so good. When he is running against Donald Trump, he really is an attractive enough lesser of evils. At least in 2020 and 2022. Third time's the charm? If there is a third party candidate, it's also not clear that either Trump or Biden need anything like 50 % of the vote to actually win. My guess is a third party helps Trump, by potentially lowering the winning percentage to something like 47 %. But if Trump himself is the third party candidate, that's a whole different thing. My mind was settled on this pretty much the day Biden won in 2020. Allan Lichtman is my guy. So he argues that by virtue of Biden being the incumbent, and avoiding a party food fight, Democrats already have an advantage in 2024. So then it pretty much comes down to the economy, stupid. Why would a small chunk of the 53 % of Americans who kind of detest him vote for Trump, anyway? A really bad recession and stock market crash would probably do it. Or maybe a humiliating loss in Ukraine? I definitely agree with Lichtman that Americans will vote in 2024, like they do in every Presidential election, on things that really matter. If the economy and stock market are in recovery by November 2024, as I think most economic talking heads project, it will be much easier for Biden to persuade the 53 % of Americans who don't like Trump to vote for him instead. Probably even moreso if Trump is the most impeached and indicted man in America, ever! Jim Clyburn, co-chair of Biden 2024, was on Morning Joe this morning. He has a much simpler explanation than mine. He says politicians win when voters feel them, as opposed to seeing them or hearing them. Biden is under rated because polls can't measure that Biden comes across as a normal, boring guy who is like you and me. Maybe, maybe not. I'll go with Kornacki. What we do know is that a slight majority of Americans DO NOT detest Biden, the way they seem to detest Trump. That is sufficient to explain to me why Trump will kick Ron's ass. And then Joe and Kamala will kick Trump's ass, again.

Again, I know I'm posting a lot. Yesterday was a fun day. I wish somebody like Tucker got fired every day in America. 😍 I was baiting one our esteemed posters to rebut my optimism. Since he didn't take the bait, I'm going to have to drag in a couple heavy hitters to make the argument for cynicism. Tucker Carlson's Exit Shows Who's The Real Star At Fox And there ya have it. Nothing will change. Some new demagogue will be hired to spout more lies. And goose ratings around brand new mountains of bullshit, as far as the eye can see. Rupert wins again. As he always does. But if we really want to bring in the heavy hitters when it comes to Fox News cynicism, why not just go to to the source (other than Murdoch himself)? What do you think, Bill? You certainly have some experience on this matter. I'd like to commend Chris Cuomo for having the balls to ask the hopelessly naive question: Bill, does this mean that perhaps Fox will tone down the intentional flame throwing and "acidic" tone when they replace Tucker? Like, maybe with someone more "analytical"? To which O'Reilly obviously answered: No, of course not. It's about the money and the ratings, stupid. And right now the money includes this thing about really pricey lawsuits. If you think any of this has to do with actual journalism, think again. Call me naive, but I actually found it ironic that O'Reilly was making this argument. My prediction is this: Fox will hire someone more analytical to replace Tucker. Come to think of it, probably someone like a younger Bill O'Reilly. But don't take my word for it. Ask Bill O'Reilly, circa the dawn of the Trump Era. Shortly before Trump took Obama's place, and Tucker took O'Reilly's place. You may not want to watch that whole "analysis" of Obama's Presidency, to quote that word Cuomo used. But O'Reilly's piece actually is .................... what's the word? Analytical? No mention of how Jan. 6th was a patriotic picnic. Or how Trump's election was stolen from him. The controversy here is why Obama didn't drive the poverty rate lower. Like, is that what news is? Really? I mostly agreed with O'Reilly, or at least thought he had a really good point, maybe about a third of the time I watched him. Which is pretty good, for a lifelong liberal like me. I genuinely found him thoughtful. His rants, while being rants, were usually full of facts. On the other hand, I rarely enjoyed listening to Tucker. That was more like eating shit. I did it because I felt like it made sense to know why so many MAGA people had come to the conclusion that shit tasted good. I picked that clip as a blast from the past for a few reasons. O'Reilly himself noted, probably truthfully, that a lot of Fox viewers (aka MAGA folk aka birther folk) thought O'Reilly was soft on Obama. But mostly I picked that clip because O'Reilly, as he said at the end, focused on analysis and fact. As he said, "nothing to do with ideology or wishful thinking." Well, okay. I'm not really THAT naive. Of course it had to do with ideology. In this case, Rupert Murdoch's ideology. There's not much point in fact checking what O'Reilly said about Obama in early 2017. Other than to point out that O'Reilly usually argued based on facts. Of course, he was selective in his facts. Examples: He actually seems to be wrong when he says there was more poverty in the US in 2017 than when Obama took office. If you care to compare, here's a very fact-oriented report card on Obama from Factcheck.org. Obama lowered poverty, despite inheriting The Great Recession freefall from W. Black and Hispanic poverty were both at record lows (18.2 % for Blacks, compared to a prior low of 19.3 % in 2000 under Clinton) the day Trump took office. O'Reilly states, correctly, that health insurance premiums went way up (by 42 %) under eight years of Obama. He fails to mention that 15 million fewer Americans were uninsured, thanks to Obamacare. Or that Obama created 12 million jobs on his watch. And the S & P went up 166 % in his stagnant economy. Those are just small little things, of course. My point is that 2017 is not all that long ago. O'Reilly spun his ideology by choosing the facts he wanted, just as any debater does. But mostly he argued based on facts. What O'Reilly didn't really spell out completely in that Cuomo interview is that Murdoch's money problem is truly a fact problem. To play off a great piece Medhi Hasan just did on Murdoch, it turns out it's okay if Murdoch helped push lies about WMD, or Brexit. The ratings and money went way up for Murdoch news outlets on those issues. And the chickens never came home to roost. Hassan stated that, even today, 52 % of Republicans still think we found WMD in Iraq. Good job, Rupert. Rupert's problem now is that the chickens, in the form of BIG LIES, are coming home to roost at Fox News itself. If the lawsuits are about lies, and the purge is to stop the lawsuits, that actually means they have to stop the lies. At least the lies that result in them continuing to lose big lawsuits. O'Reilly wasn't canned because of ratings, or lies. He fell to MeToo, basically. And lawsuits. It's those God damn lawsuits, every time! So, yeah, Fox will find probably find someone else who is a demagogue. And maybe even a sexist. (Although Megyn Kelly would do in a pinch.) But my prediction is they will stop firing people for accurately reporting news. Like how Joe Biden won Arizona. And when they hire Tucker's replacement, they will hire someone who is much more careful about facts than Tucker was. They don't want more lawsuits. I know. Poor baby. It sounds awful, doesn't it?

I know I'm posting a lot. It is a good time to be asking, what is Fox (or Murdoch) thinking? So here are a few different shots at Tucker coming from INSIDE the Republican/conservative/Fox tent. One as reported by CBS, one by CNN. The CBS reporting, regarding Tucker's complete bullshit about how Jan. 6th was a patriotic picnic and the rioters were actually the victims: CBS also reports on the other lawsuit against Tucker, again from inside the tent. This time from one of his own producers. Now, go ahead. Call me naive or worse, for actually believing what a former Fox producer says. But here we are .... I'll add what Grossberg's lawyer said. How naive is this? Perhaps my most naive belief is that Tucker's worst crime, as reported by CNN (and pretty much everyone else) is that Tucker actually went on a rampage because Fox News had the audacity to report Joe Biden's win in Arizona accurately. WTF!!!! Why would anyone think Fox would ever do that? Yes, Tucker, we are playing with fire. For real. As a consolation, I'm willing to pay for your journalistic tombstone. Inscribed with the words, "You played with fire. And ended up engulfed in your own flames, and ego. Sorry, dude." At the very least, it will make others at Fox think twice before attacking their own producers and executives for accurately reporting the news, I hope. I'll add a bit more on a personal note. I talked about my college-educated conservative corporate executive niece in a post above. We can talk about politics, but it is borderline. I could always talk with my Reaganite Dad about politics, and we rarely disagreed about facts. So the frustration for me, these days, is how many actual facts are in dispute. As recently as a month ago, when she was visiting me, she was singing Tucker's praises. And I'd say she is a "soft" believer in the lies about the 2020 election. She won't go with some of the more fabulous lies. But she'll still say that there seems to be smoke (generated by Tucker, of course) so therefore there must be fire. So I wouldn't bet on what impact firing Tucker might have on her. For sure, it goes further than settling a lawsuit out of court. Add the fact that, as a woman in corporate America, she has her own views about what it means to be a woman in corporate America. So I'm guessing, if she bothers to read about this stuff, that some of it resonates. At the very least, she may wonder why Tucker abandoned her - after cheating on her.

Fine. I already told you I thought it was a spoof when I read the first post. Pretty much for the reasons you suggest. Why would Fox News actually want to be fair and balanced? That sounds so ................. you know ................. uninformed, naive, or worse. So why do you think Fox fired Tucker? Inquiring minds want to know. Share your information and wisdom with us, please. As a footnote, I'm still catching up reading stories about the firing, and speculating. I had not heard this one before: Arguably, that's even worse than hating Trump passionately. If Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee, we also have to assume a majority of Republicans - especially those who watch Fox - will just overlook all his lies and alleged criminal behavior. Not to mention his fun, patriotic cop beating. And then in the middle of that his main cheerleader in the run up to the 2024 GOP convention is a guy who is now on record as thinking Trump is "a demonic force, a destroyer" ? Tucker's bullshit and hypocrisy did catch up with him, I think. The funny thing is that when members of a minority that is losing circle their wagons, it is usually to defend themselves. In this case, so far they appear to be setting their wagons on fire. This ain't good news for either Tucker or Trump.

What a weird combo. His ex-VP prays for him. His next VP hates him passionately. Melania is the smartest guy in the room. She just keeps her mouth shut. (Or not. But what her mouth does in private is really TMI for me.)

So will I. Honestly, when I first read @reader's post, I thought this had to be a spoof. There's just no way. So I think you got your apology, sis. Although this is so much better than an apology. The interesting question is: why Tucker? This CNN story (ironic I chose CNN, I guess) confirms Tucker was their top-rated host. And that Fox Corp's stock tumbled on the news (down 5 % the article says, but it was a 3 % decline by market close. The stock is worth less than when it listed in 2019, so it's not exactly been a barn burner.) Hopefully this does mean, as the CNN story speculates, a "culture change" at Fox. They will still be right-wing. But maybe less inflammatory. What set Carlson apart is how much delight he took in throwing bombs. I do think the hypocrisy of learning that Tucker hates Trump "passionately" and that so much of what he peddled on TV was bullshit for ratings and fame simply created a very bad look. Maybe Rupert felt Tucker cheated on him, too! The other thing curious minds want to know is whether it was just a coincidence that Lemon was thrown overboard on the same day. If there's a specific reason with Lemon, it's his comments on women. And in his case his ratings weren't great. But they also weren't bad, by CNN standards. I didn't see Lemon as someone who intentionally threw bombs. But he was someone who was easy to nail for spending too much time on his own (mostly liberal) opinions, as if they were news. The thing about women being in their prime was a great example of Lemon peddling opinion. Although in that case it stood out for being so illiberal. Hopefully it means both networks will focus more on news and less on propaganda. It may also be a good day for women who report the news. Who maybe are a bit less likely to say the things that got Tucker and Don in trouble. I have to say, though. It hurts to see both men go in their prime! 😉

Farrow is my cup of tea, as I indicated above. And I agree with you that his work on Weinstein was fantastic. Kudos to him. When I was referring to nuanced, I was referring to the Amanpour interview about the racism of Trump supporters. And I stand by what I said in that quote. While I completely agree with Farrow's work on the Jan. 6th nuts, which is why I posted it, it's a mixed bag. As is the whole debate about MAGA racism. I like Farrow's nuance because he is not painting with broad strokes and stereotypes. Regardless, Team MAGA has clearly circled the wagons. So now, unless you have proof that they actually lynched a Black man, the reaction is, "No. YOU are the racist. Democrats are the racists." Weinstein is actually an interesting contrast. Farrow had so much on him, and worked on it long enough, that even though Harvey tried to defend himself, like Trump does, he failed. I wish it were that easy to make this stuff stick with Trump. But, as we're seeing, with the Bragg indictment it has clearly rallied a lot of Republicans around him. Bragg's indictment probably won't help him in the general election, if he's nominated. And hopefully it will hurt him. But we don't know that for sure yet. Same with that. Again, I agree with both you guys. Thankfully, as that poll I posted said, about 57 % or so of Americans agree that an indicted Trump should not be President. But I'll repeat the other side of the same coin: an even bigger majority do see the Bragg indictment as political, not legal. So there's a lot of people in the middle somewhere between "throw Trump in jail" and "this is a political witch hunt." I'm glad Democrats, starting with Biden, are staying quiet. It seems pretty clear from polls that the people in the middle, many of whom do think Bragg is on a witch hunt, are making distinctions between different Trump indictments for different alleged crimes. My strong hunch is they care more about big lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6th attacks on the Capitol than they do about whether Trump has a love child, and paid people to cover it up. My hope is they all end up being nails in his coffin. Some ((like Jan. 6th) bigger and more fatal, others (like the doorman) smaller and not effective in and of themselves. But still helpful to put Trump to bed, finally. Or in jail, ideally. 😊 Again, just so it is completely clear, I myself like the doorman article, and am glad you posted it. I think Farrow does awesome work. And I added that other interview with him as another example.

I read the article, and it was good. But I'll make the devil's advocate argument. I think one reasonable response to the whole Bragg thing, including among voters who are not Trump supporters, is: so what? Who cares? Donald Trump had a love child. Donald Trump grabbed pussy. Donald Trump and his cronies paid people money to shut up. So what? Who cares? Like Donald Trump is the only celebrity or politician who does this stuff? Give me a fucking break. That's probably the way a lot of people who don't feel strongly about Trump one way or the other feel. When we start to talk about actual Trump supporters, it quickly becomes fuel for the feeling that he is being singled out and persecuted. It clearly has helped him in Republican primary polls, even as it doesn't help or perhaps even hurts him in general election polls. I think two things about the polls on this are right on. First, by a huge margin, 57 to 38, Americans think criminal charges should disqualify Trump from running for President. I take that to mean that Americans don't say which criminal charges. They don't think like lawyers. My guess is the basic idea is more like, "People who do lots of criminal stuff shouldn't be President." That's not a radical concept. What makes sense about Bragg's case to me if that it is one nail in the coffin. It reinforces lots of other things we know about Trump. But if this alone was supposed to be the entire coffin, I'd be against it. The second poll finding that makes sense is that by an even bigger margin, 62 to 38 percent, people think this is mostly motivated by politics, not the law. If Trump weren't running for President, this wouldn't be happening. So, obviously, there are a lot of people in the middle who do see this as a nail in the coffin. And maybe it means Trump should not be President. But, at the same time, it's a political witch hunt because he's running for President. If this were choregraphed by the Secret Deep State of Democrats and child blood eaters that exists in America, I would have preferred they didn't lead with Bragg. You'd think Democrats who drink the blood of Republican children would know better than to lead with the weakest nail. But the point is there is no Secret Deep State of child blood eaters. If there were such a thing, that would be a much bigger scandal. Even though many extremists think there are. And these extremist themes are regularly used in subtle ways in Republican attacks ads. So instead we have, as Farrow documents, a prosecution that to some people who are not partisans looks like a disorganized mess. What I find encouraging about the polls is, on a very simple level, something like 57 % of Americans think, "Donald Trump sounds like a criminal who should not be President." Mostly I hope Team Biden keeps their mouths shut. Which they are. And just lets the nail be one nail doing its job. Because a lot of people are also predisposed to think maybe this is just a witch hunt. I'm assuming other indictments will come down. If and when that happens, we'll get a better picture of what the coffin looks like, and whether these nails are holding. Those indictments Include things a vast majority of Americans agree about. Like lying about and trying to steal the 2020 election was wrong. Fomenting a riot at The Capitol to hang Mike Pence or seriously injure lots of cops or whatever that whole thing was about was just very wrong. Period. I'd rather focus on that, and a consistent pattern of criminal behavior, than some doorman who got paid to cover up something that nobody can prove happened. And that most people don't care about - and may see as a witch hunt - even if it did. It's not great news that right now Trump and Biden are tied in national polls. So how does 57 % of Americans thinking criminal indictments disqualify Trump square with him being in a toss up with Biden if the election were actually held today? The numbers actually match pretty well. In its horse race average, RCP says Trump and Biden both get in the low 40's right now, give or take. So a majority of people don't want either. But may have to choose one, it looks like. If and when that 57 % solidifies into a solid majority that really feels, "Trump is a criminal and should not be President," that really is Trump's political coffin. I don't think we are there yet. Oddly, Trump "won" with 46 % of the vote in 2016 (versus 48 % for Hillary) and "lost" with 47 % of the vote in 2020 (compared to 51 % for Biden). Maybe if there is a strong third party in 2024 he could win with 44 % of the vote. Clinton actually won with 43 % in 1992. But that's a stretch. If indictment and criminal behavior are big potential nails in Trump's 2024 coffin, I think the big and obvious potential nail in Biden's 2024 coffin is a recession. If I believe the experts, in 18 months Trump's legal problems will be bigger. But the economy will be better, and the stock market will be much higher. We'll see. (Glenn Neely, the wunderkind who was ridiculed when he said after the 1987 crash we'd have a massive bull market, which we did, is now saying by Summer 2024 we'll be at S & P 5500. Don't hold your breath.) We do know that the one time Biden actually ran for President, he could win over 50 % of the vote. Even if many of those Biden voters were voting for the lesser of evils. If they can do it once, and we're not in a recession, they can probably do it again. The other way I think about Stormy and Pecker and the doorman and that gang is the way I think about Hunter Biden: so what? I think I posted here back in 2019 or so that all the Hunter Biden mess is a good reason not to nominate Biden. I stand by that. That said, we Democrats did nominate Biden. And Biden did win. And Hunter is still a big fucking mess, in all sorts of ways. That said, probably most parents can relate when Joe responds by saying, "I love my son." And if we want to talk about Biden and nepotism and Ukraine, how about that $2 billion those guys who chop up journalists invested in Jared? Who was not just Trump's son-in-law. He was one of Trump's top advisers and diplomats. What was that about? Which is why I assume most Americans aren't going to support a witch hunt on Joe Biden simply based on the sins of his son. Good for them. That's not a criticism of Farrow. The opposite. For liberal Democrats like me who like to read the New Yorker, the more of that stuff the better. Like I said, it was a good article. Thanks for posting it. I'll throw that in as another example of Farrow's work that I think is excellent. But is also a very mixed bag. I don't think it's a problem to attack Facebook these days for how they feed people lies and bullshit and extremist ideas in order to make money. That's a good place to go. What I find most interesting about what Farrow's investigations of Jan. 6th uncovered is that these people Facebook basically helped organize to riot are not all from really weird sects that live in some remote war camp in Idaho. A big chunk of them were White business owners and professionals who live in America's suburbs Especially the suburbs that are changing. And they don't like the way they are changing. Farrow says you don't have to peel very much below the surface to find these Whites harbor deep racial animus. So it's not a huge leap from there to, "All Trump supporters are racist." And that leads us pretty quickly to Hillary and "deplorables." Which most people now think was a big mistake to say. That's not what Farrow is saying. My point is I think he does an excellent and nuanced job here, which is why I am posting it. But it's very easy to dismiss this and say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all you got. You think we're all racist and ignorant. Fuck you." Which is why this stuff is appropriately placed in The New Yorker or Christine Amanpour. My hope is that if Democrats just let the nails do their work, perhaps most importantly the nails Trump manages to nail into his own coffin himself, the majority of Americans will decide this guy is a criminal who should not be POTUS. Something in that ballpark happened in 2000.

So this is getting weirder and weirder on the Republican side. And probably better and better for Joe Biden and Democrats. Did anybody notice when exactly Donald Trump become the reasonable and moderate Republican in the race? The GOP’s Moderate Frontrunner If you want a Republican who won’t touch entitlements or start foreign wars, Donald Trump is your man. That quote sums up the weirdness I'm feeling. This article makes almost exactly the same points, arguing that Trump sounds like a Democrat on entitlements. It adds a detailed polling history of how Trump helped change the GOP. Since his rise in 2015, Trump has been very clear and consistent about how you don't fuck with Social Security or Medicare in his blue collar workers' party. It's a bit harder for me to buy that Trump is the voice of moderation on abortion. Seeing as how he rallied the Testicle Coalition around Kavanaugh, treated Dr. Ford like a dirty lying whore, and appointed the three judges that killed Roe v. Wade. But Trump will say, persuasively enough, that just because he's not for Roe v. Wade doesn't mean he's for the opposite extreme. Which is another broad point about Trump. As a political gadfly, he has always been exceptional. He has helped to reshape the Republican coalition into something at least more like a working class party. At least with his mouth, and his bile. His policies? Not so much. Tax cuts to billionaires did not help the working class. Or get factories built. (Score so far. Net loss of 100,000 factory jobs from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2021 under Trump. Net gain of 800,000 factory jobs since the month Biden became POTUS.) Trump was never more unpopular, especially among have not Republicans, than when he was trying to repeal Obamacare. Which Trump himself, allegedly, said was "cruel." So Trump is good with his mouth. Had he been an LBJ or Reagan or Clinton, and been able to turn rhetoric into policies and laws that built a winning political coalition - for a while, at least - he might have actually won in 2020. Biden, by the way, has done better than average in turning his senile ideas into laws and policies. I'm guessing by November 2024 there will be at least 1 million factory jobs created on Joe's watch. I'm guessing he will bludgeon Trump with that fact, since Trump was a factory job loser. If it were just about his policies, though, I can buy that enough people would say, "Yeah, but the economy was just better under Trump." And ignore the hog feed to billionaires. And almost repealing Obamacare. And injecting Clorox in your body to fight COVID. The thing that really resonates about that quote above is that the biggest problem with Trumpism has always been Trump himself. I'd argue that was true even in 2016, when he got 3 million fewer votes than Hillary. It was certainly true in 2020, when he lost by 7 million votes. Which led to his fake win, Hang Mike Pence, and a string of losses among Senate and Guv candidates who pushed his lies and authoritarian bullshit. And it is true right now. Almost every single poll of every single swing state so far in 2023 shows that DeSantis would do at least 3 to 5 points better than Trump against Biden. In a bunch of swing states that means Ron is currently ahead by a few points, whereas Don is behind Joe by a few points. If the problem is Republicans need Trumpism without Trump, this shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. Steve Bannon could do the job. (And probably is, for Trump, privately.) DeSantis needs to be the moderate and competent Governor who knows how to win. MAGA lite, but win big! So why is that not happening? It was never clear that DeSantis had great political judgment. He barely won in 2018. And I completely agree with @Mavica, personally, that DeSantis looks like an extremist. And, I'd add, a bully. Now Trump is happy to make Ron look like an extremist on Social Security and Medicare, too. And it's working, it seems, based on the latest polls. As that article above points out, Ted Cruz did win the very conservative vote in 2016. So maybe Ron is going for that. But as the article also says, that's why Cruz lost in 2016. Because Trump won moderate and somewhat conservative Republicans. Why is Ron letting him do it again? I'd guess Ron might have calculated that he'd win the moderates, simply because he was not the toxic guy in the race. And he'd win the most conservative Republicans by being Cruz Lite, rather than Toxic Mini Me. And that may still work. No one is voting for a long time. Prosecutors and Democrats may still do Ron's dirty work for him. But what's looking more and more likely is that Trump will do Biden's dirty work for him. He'll take out the guy that polls say is more likely to actually beat Biden in Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, or Arizona, or Georgia. Leaving Biden to run against the toxic reboot himself. My spat with @Mavica isn't about whether Ron seems like an extremist to us. Of course he does. It's about the polls, really. I'm assuming that DeSantis is doing better than Trump against Biden in these swing states because most people have no clue he just signed a six week abortion ban. I'm guessing mostly they've heard he's the competent guy in white boots who did a good job recovering from a hurricane and won big in Florida. If Trump wants him to be the extreme lunatic pushing Granny over the cliff and killing pregnant Moms, instead, please. Help Biden win. I will say one other thing, sincerely, in DeSantis' defense. He is not an authoritarian, at least so far. Like every other red Governor in a blue or (arguably) purple state who did really well last year (Kemp, Sununu, DeWine, DeSantis, Phil Scott), Desantis has not embraced the myth that Trump won in 2020. He may have a gerrymandered rubber stamp legislature. But they were all elected. And DeSantis did win by almost 60 % of the vote, unlike Trump in either 2016 or 2020. So he can argue this is democracy, not dictatorship. The verdict (not to mention several indictments) is still out. If DeSantis is nominated, it will be because Republican moderates ultimately decide Trump is just too toxic. So far, that ain't happening. Sorry, Governor DeSinking. 😯

So to the degree that we actually have facts about this, they are interesting. Both good news and bad news. The good news is that the studies that have been done suggest lots of independent thinkers watch Fox. And it actually does change their mind, and the way they vote. The bad news, speaking as a partisan Democrat, is that Fox is particularly good at persuading viewers to vote Republican. A stunning new study shows that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined So I'll say this. That long Vox article refers to various studies. And it has the feel of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. I'd take all of it with a grain of salt. I don't believe, for example, that but for Fox News John Kerry would have won in 2004. And Barack Obama would have gotten 60 % of the vote in 2008. That seems like a huge stretch to me, based on estimates by academics. That said, I definitely buy the idea that Fox News manages over time to turn people who mostly vote Democratic into people who mostly vote Republican. It is an effective ideological machine, as the author and studies document. So then it depends on what the meaning of "independent" is. By definition, if you are persuading voters to switch from supporting Democrats to Republicans, those voters are at least somewhat independent thinkers. Then again, if they are switching because they are being subjected to constant lies and ideological ranting, maybe they are not so independent. Further complicating matters is there is (or was) the Fox News of Shep Smith. Leftie Bernie and Good Gay Guy Mayor Pete made a point to do town halls with Fox News in 2020, since they insisted they had good arguments to make to Fox News viewers. Which they did have, and did make. I watched the town halls run by Brett and Martha and I thought they were really well done. So the Fox News of Shep, Brett, Martha and (used to be) Chris Wallace is NOT the Fox News of Tucker, Sean, and Laura. Even though these studies sound to me like they go too far, I do buy the basic idea. I think it is pretty plain and clear. While most Fox viewers are solid Republicans, not all are. And, over a period of time, Fox has been able to move the dial by relentlessly subjecting those "independent" viewers to "facts" slanted very heavily with conservative ideology. To the point where you can question whether they are even "facts" at all. That said, as a viewer of CNN and MSNBC, I would argue - as the studies do - that they do the same thing. Just not as effectively. That chart that shows Fox going hard right while NSNBC went hard left for over a decade does help to explain the growing ideological divide in America. We all tend to believe what we hear in the ideological silo we choose to live in. Where's Walter Cronkite when you need him? To bring it back to the BIG LIE, all of this has to be bad news for the folks at Bullshit Mountain, as Jon Stewart called it. If anything at all in these studies is correct, it has to be based on the idea that somewhat independent viewers can actually trust Fox News to be "fair and balanced." We now know that Sean and Tucker are cheating lovers who tell you one thing to woo you, and then dump you like a stupid whore when they privately text each other. It's just very bad news for the lying whores who lost. They get rich and powerful sucking Donald Trump's gross and nasty cock, even though they have now said they hate it passionately. Even Stormy Daniels wouldn't do that. Sorry, Tucker. You're still a great guy and all.

Thanks for the clarification. Now I know exactly what you mean. As the liberal still standing, I'm not going to disagree with your criticisms of DeSantis. Given that you live in Florida, I'm guessing you vote there. And I'm guessing you probably did not vote for DeSantis. That said, almost 60 % of people who voted did. He actually got about 600,000 more votes in 2022 (4.6 million) than he did in 2018. When, as you noted, he was expected to lose, and barely won. I'm guessing that DID NOT happen because most Floridians like extremes - in the leaders, or hurricanes. One of the real joys in life is watching Anna Navarro, who despises Charlie Crist, go into her rant about how happy she is that she got to vote against Crist as a Republican, and vote against Crist as an Independent, and vote against Crist as a Democrat. So she would probably agree with you that Crist was unelectable. That said, he actually was elected Governor in 2006. Granted, a long time ago. But he won two House races as well. So that makes him seem more electable than poor Andrew Gillum. I think one huge difference between 2022 and 2018 is in 2018 the Democrats had an anti-Trump wave pushing them along, at least in blue states. In 2022 there was a red wave, in red states. I agree with you that Democrats should not write off Florida in 2024. That said, I got the fundraising appeals from Val Demings. And I was not going to send a dime. I sent my money, I think wisely, to Warnock and Fetterman and Barnes - two of whom won close races. Demings was not even in the ballpark, sadly. Even with ACT Blue, donor pockets are not bottomless. So there's a separate and complicated debate about how much money Democrats should waste on causes that are probably lost. (Amy McGrath in Kentucky and Jaime Harrison in South Carolina in 2020 come to mind. Both sucked up tens of millions I think, and didn't come even remotely close to winning.) As far as Ron's pragmatism goes, I'm basing my statements on the fact that that he won re-election by about 60 % of the vote. And that seems to be because he is widely viewed as a competent, if conservative, Governor. I'm not basing that on ignorance. I'm basing it on polls. Here's one from 2019. Which, granted, was early days. But I'm including it since it is the only one I could find that has an ideological breakdown. His overall approval was 64 %. Among conservatives 82 %, moderates 62 %, liberals 37 %. Speaking as a liberal, those are not bad numbers for a conservative Governor. I'd actually be curious whether that has changed as DeSantis has been using his national platform to paint himself the way you described. Although I doubt most Florida conservatives, or even moderates - based on 2022 election results - view him as an extremist. My comments on Ron beating hurricanes were also based on polling, not ignorance. I don't live in Florida, so I can't ask my neighbors like you can. I cited it early in this thread. But this Fall 2022 poll was the most specific I could find about how Floridians feel about Ron's actual policies and performance as Governor. What jumped out at me is he had a massive 72 % approval rating on his handling of Hurricane Ian. A separate poll around the same time noted DeSantis had built a large lead over Crist, again citing "strong approval ratings, particularly for his response to Hurricane Ian." The second poll also added this quote about it: A Newsweek poll also noted that DeSantis got good (54 %) approval ratings from ALL Americans on Hurricane Ian. Although Americans overall didn't rate his response any better or worse than that of the (Biden) federal government. So my strong impression based on both polling and election results is that both moderate and conservative and even many liberal Floridians thought DeSantis was competent and pragmatic when it came to actual Governor stuff. Like dealing with a horrific hurricane. But check with your neighbors and let me know whether that is the most ignorant remark they've ever heard, too. 😉 The converse that is striking is that DeSantis doesn't seem to get high or even good approval ratings for any of the "extremist" or "authoritarian" behavior you went after. Which I agree with you about. That same USF poll that says he gets 72 % approval from Floridians for the hurricane says he gets 48 % approval for immigration and 43 % approval for climate change. The polls I've seen suggest a solid majority of Floridians, maybe up to 60 %, do not approve of the six week abortion ban. So if you want a truly ignorant remark, I will give you this: "Governor DeSantis is pushing a right wing culture war agenda hard, like six week abortion bans and going after Blacks on CRT and going after Gays on everything. He is doing this because it is wildly popular among Floridians." THAT would be a truly ignorant statement, based on lots of polls. Culture War Ron is NOT wildly popular among Floridians. Or among Americans. As several pundits just noted, right after he signed a six week abortion ban he went to a conservative venue and said nothing about a six week abortion ban. Is it ignorant to assume he knows the bill he signed is unpopular, both statewide and nationally? So I think you have actually confirmed my main point above. Again, the polls very strongly suggest most Floridians see DeSantis as a pragmatist who did a good job dealing with a horrible hurricane. Even though the same voters don't particularly approve of his views on climate change. Which many people would argue helped make the hurricane so horrific. Why is DeSantis going out of his way to do very unpopular (and, I personally agree, extreme) things, like six week abortion bans, in the run up to a likely Presidential race announcement? Is it too ignorant to think he feels like he has to play to the extremist, right wing MAGA base? And that if he just runs as a competent and compassionately conservative Governor (like W. did in 2000) it ain't gonna work with the base? Romneyite and Never Trumper Republican Stuart Stevens made a comment a few years ago that has stuck with me. He usually is measured in interviews. And doesn't come off as the crass political hack he probably is. But he said something about "compassionate conservatism" in a way that really rubbed me wrong. He said getting a Republican in a position to beat Gore in 2000 was "the whole point" of compassionate conservatism. He didn't say, "Look, asshole. We just fucking wanted to win. Get it? We're not compassionate. And we could give a flying fuck about what being compassionate to some poor Black slob on welfare would even look like. We just wanted to fucking win, okay?" Again, this is not what Stevens said. But in a candid interview, it's the way it came off to me. That was the Rove/Stevens/compassionate conservative playbook. The reason it's stuck is that DeSantis represents almost the opposite approach. Even more than Trump, it seems like he want's to come off as MAGA's culture warrior and bully - to liberal me, at least. Ignorant or not, I assume he has exceptional skills at sucking the cock of Trump. And, now, Trump supporters. Even Trump has said Ron sucked his cock really nicely, back in the day. When Ron was kind of a petty and needy whore, grubbing for endorsements. (Not to be blunt. But that makes DeSantis a lot like Gillum, as far as whoring goes. Speaking as a former whore myself.) So I have to assume that is why DeSantis wants to be a bully. It is how he thinks you win the Republican nomination in 2024. If you see it as authoritarianism and extremism, which you do, it only reinforces my view.

You don't think he is (often) pragmatic? You don't think he beats hurricanes? Or you don't think the MAGA base will let him run and win as a conservative pragmatist? Inquiring minds want to know. Since David Pecker is in a bit of hot water, I figure somebody needs to do the National Enquirer's job. 😉

My theory of the case of the 2024 election seems to be playing out according to plan. DeSantis is in a rut. His trek to D.C. didn’t help. At a big moment for him, the Florida governor was overshadowed by rival Donald Trump’s string of endorsements. Before I trash the lack of pragmatism and ideological fervor among MAGA Republicans, let me trash myself first. I did vote for Bernie in the 2020 primary. I did so fully aware that more pragmatic Democrats, like Jim Carville, thought nominating Bernie would be suicidal. That said, like many Californians I waited to return my mail ballot to see how Super Tuesday turned out. There was a tidal wave for Biden. So my vote for Bernie assumed Biden would be the nominee. It was basically to say, "Lean left, Joe. Lean left." Which he has. The evidence suggests most young voters see it the same way. They defended Team Biden (and abortion, and other progressive policies) in 2022 where they actually had the numbers to do so. So I can't blame Republicans, and the MAGA sect, for wanting to lean right. It's no time for Mickey Mouse policies in America. And Ron knows it! There are two things I see as fatal for Ron. The first is Trump. But I think he could get around that. The fact is, as Carville argued in 2020, political gravity actually does exist. The 2024 version of that is that running an indicted liar who most Americans see as a crook and a liar is just a bad idea. At least if the point is winning. Enough Republicans think that way that, if Ron ran on that, I think he could beat Trump. He needs to be the competent conservative Governor who takes on Black Democrats, and even hurricanes, and wins. The second thing that I think really kills DeSantis is the MAGA movement itself. Thanks to MAGA he has to say and do lots of stuff that I think gradually turns the majority of Americans, including Floridians, off. Like a six week abortion ban. Like guns. Like Gays. Like constantly needing to own the libs. How is that different than Trump? As the author above argues, how does it make sense to say Trump was a great President, but we need to move on? It might make sense if you said Trump was a great President, but he simply can't win in 2024. But if DeSantis is making himself unelectable in 2024 while he's saying that, how is he better? The polls still show very consistently that in every swing state, DeSantis is a somewhat better choice than Trump if the goal is to take out Biden. An April 11-13 poll shows DeSantis three points ahead of Biden in Pennsylvania, while Biden is four points ahead of Trump. This has been the pattern so far all year, in EVERY swing state. But I don't think the people in the middle prefer DeSantis because he's the Guv who wants a six week abortion ban, and cuts to Social Security. It's telling that right now the person framing the Republican debate is .............................. Joe Biden??? Honestly. Right now Trump and DeSantis are having a food fight (literally involving pudding) over who won't cut Social Security more. Why is the senile old POTUS who ranted at the State of the Union framing the debate? Who's senile now? That's a really interesting theory. Who knows what will happen in 2024? So speculating about 2028 is even more ridiculous. That said, I agree with the first part of this theory, but not the second. I think Republicans and MAGA do not to get through Trump's "comeback" first. Ron could stop Trump. But he probably won't. I don't agree that this most likely outcome sets up Ron for 2028. First, everybody who ran against Trump in 2016 and lost - Little Marco, Lyin Ted, and of course Jeb! - was somehow less of a man afterward. If Ron loses to Don, I don't think it helps Ron politically - in Florida, or anywhere. Second, I think if Trump is nominated and loses it does mean Republicans move on. But not to Ron. Who will look kind of like the Trump mini-Me that failed. I know it sounds crazy now, but Trump losing in 2024 would likely lead to the nomination of a pragmatic unifier like Tim Scott, or some pragmatic Republican Governor, in 2028. I think DeSantis is popular in Florida because he is (often) pragmatic. And he does beat hurricanes. But the MAGA base just won't let him run and win on that, it seems.

I know I'm on a rant. But it's fun to make fun of Tucker Carlson. In fairness, let me now take on Jon Stewart for a bit. There's been a few thoughtful "be careful what you ask for" pieces about Stewart's legendary Tucker take down. This Politico article is the most explicit about the point. It argues Stewart was wrong. In retrospect, even if it was crappy respectful political debate, at least with Crossfire we had respectful political debate. Until Stewart called Tucker a dick on TV. (Tucker does look like a dick, of course. But that's only after Stewart branded him as such.) But this Atlantic article, which is more a reflection on why Stewart is well past his expiration date, has a great one paragraph explanation of why Stewart was wrong: With all due respect to Barack Obama and Jon Stewart, I think it's too simple to blame either of them for creating conservative rage and drama. Even if they both did make two of the nicest conservatives in America look like total dicks in public. Trump and Carlson created themselves on their own. That said, you can also blame both of them on the right wing cesspool they were forced to simmer in for, well, decades. There's the time Tucker actually defended both The New York Times, and facts, at CPAC. Defending one of the two might have been forgivable. Defending truth and The Times? That's unforgivable. It's quant, in retrospect, that the audience merely scolded him. If they had that CPAC meeting today, in Florida, some sensible conservative with an AR-15 would have simply taken out Tucker's brain and spleen. You can now do that kind of thing, pretty much legally, in Ron's Florida. Just don't get raped and try not to have a baby. This is what decades of Tucker, with four years of Trumpism slathered all over it, have brought us to. What's my point? I think this is the official heads up that Tucker has reached his expiration date, too. Like Jon Stewart, he can and will still talk. I adored Stewart, and watched him daily, and laughed. I still do. People will watch Tucker and get outraged about the pussies and the Biden Crime Family running America. But it won't be the same. They really will all know that Tucker cheated on them. At least Jon Stewart didn't cheat on me. He gave birth to Trevor Noah, who I loved just as much. Even if both, in their own ways, helped put more nails in the coffin of respectful political debate.

I think the fuel is more like anger and outrage, as opposed to hate. It has been pretty well documented that outrage and anger leads to more clicks for Facebook, and more viewers for Fox. Facebook and Fox are both good at building indignation. So it's kind of sad, and kind of funny. Part of my point is that my niece and I have a loving relationship. So I think there is some limit to how far even Fox and Facebook can push outrage. I think for most people it stops well short of hate, thankfully. They do have to make you feel justified in your outrage. My niece does feel like, as a conservative, she is in the Silent Majority. Which is perhaps true in Ohio. But that's thanks to Republicans like DeWine and Kasich, not Carlson and Hannity, who are pushing moderation and at least trying to get along together. The funny part, to me, is that while it may work well for Facebook and Fox, it's not really a plan to win a majority. Let alone be able to govern as a majority. I cited Democrat Joe Trippi above, who noted that the contrast plays well for Biden and Democrats. At least so far. If we are in the middle of a recession in November 2024, that could be the kind of thing that would lead a majority to vote for a restoration of the drama and lies. Hoping that at least they get the economy of 2019 back in the deal. (Did I mention the unemployment rate is lower now than under Trump's best month, and child poverty hit unprecedented lows in 2021 thanks to Biden's child tax credit?) More likely, the majority will vote for normal and boring in 2024, just like in 2020 and 2022. I feel for you, my beloved and better Sister In Cock. You have always liked it raw and hard and in your face. Let's face facts. I've always been the more delicate flower. I need it to be given to me subtly, rather than shoved down my throat. I wish I could somehow enable you to feel the subtle orgasmic joy I feel when I watch Tucker on TV, elegantly playing the role of a doofus.

I wouldn't be so sure. 21% of Fox News Viewers Trust Network Less After Texts Revealed in Dominion Lawsuit: Survey VIP+ Analysis: Exclusive data reveals how private messages from Carlson, Murdoch impacted audience opinions about election fraud. I briefly referenced and hyperlinked that poll in a post above. But in this post I'll focus on it. There's a few interesting things in there. As the headline says, presumably 1 in 5 Fox viewers trust what Fox says less thanks to Tucker's cheating on his viewers. It's also interesting that, whereas a plurality of 42 % of all adults don't trust Fox (compared to 16 % of all adults who do), even 10 % of Fox viewers say they don't trust Fox. I can buy that. I would not call myself a regular Fox News viewer. But when something big happens, like Trump's indictment or any big election, I watch the opinion talking heads like Tucker and Sean and Laura enough to get the Murdoch spin. Even though I don't trust it. And then some of them, like Brett Baier, I think are just good reporters who I'd watch anyway. It helps me that I have several family members who are moderate to hard core Trump supporters. At least one of whom is also a pretty devoted Tucker fan, as far as I can tell. What's helpful is that instead of stereotyping "these people" as ignorant fanatics, I can think of it in terms of, for example, a niece I love. Far from being ignorant, she's a well educated corporate executive. That said, it surprised me that in addition to calling Gov. DeWine, a RINO, she did not know he was running for re-election last year. Which was interesting, since she lives in Ohio. If I were her, I'd like Republican Governors like DeWine or Kasich. They governed well enough, and reached to the center enough, to win re-election in landslides. It fits with this MO that several times I sang the praises of Tim Scott as the kind of Black conservative Republican who could build a winning Presidential coalition based on a sunny Reaganite message, I think. Her reply, several times, has been "What do you think of Candace Owens?" So, on the one hand, the vibe I get is that she likes Tucker and Candace because she likes in your face flame throwers who take on left wing "pussies." (Her word, not mine.) But I know she's a critical thinker. And I'm pretty sure she would notice that what Tucker says in private makes him seem like a hypocrite, in it for the power or money or ego. Once in a while - like when her more conservative hubby suggests they have to get completely out of their mutual fund because the Biden Crime Family is going to force mutual funds to invest in red China - she openly expresses doubt about what I personally view as some of the nuttier right wing ideas flying around social media. Which her hubby consistently works himself into a lather about. So my guess is she'd be a candidate to be in the 21 % who feels less trusting after finding out about Tucker cheating on her. Not that Tucker isn't a great guy, and all. What I find most helpful about these kinds of personal interactions, which I am fully aware I am interpreting based on my own liberal biases, is that it helps explain why 2024 is likely going to be a shit show for Republicans. I think she probably is like a lot of Fox News viewers. She seems to be less interested in what a DeWine or Kasich might do to engineer a Republican landslide in a state like Ohio. And more interested in how Fox owns libs, and fights pussies. Not to mention the Biden Crime Family. It's probably a recipe for Republicans losing more seats they could win in 2024, just like in 2022 and 2020. And Fox and Tucker are in large part the architects of that. Even if it because they have to suck Trump's cock, which Tucker turns out to hate passionately. Poor guy. Which makes you wonder whether Murdoch is the horse, or the cart being led by what he has to do to keep appeasing his viewers. Either way, I wouldn't bet on that horse to win.

I'm guessing Dominion feels the same way. 😀 Fox Dominion payout becomes largest media settlement in history Payout is 10 times Dominion’s valuation in 2018 Here's something else interesting: Geez. Maybe it's the start of a trend! As several analysts have noted, Alex Jones will never pay that money. Since he is now basically ruined. Dominion, on the other hand, will actually get their money. And now for a contrarian opinion, Politico's media critic Jack Shafer opined that Murdoch "wins again" and this settlement is "just the cost of doing business." True enough. But I don't think anyone ever thought this would drive Fox out of business. If anything, the idea was that Team MAGA would just march all over Dominion (and Hugo Chavez, oddly) for the greater good of making America great again, somehow. Plan A failed miserably, I guess. It may not drive Trump out of business, either. But it's another nail in his coffin. Some poll said that after Tucker and Sean's private texts were released, maybe something like 1 in 10 Americans who believed the Big Lie about election 2020 stopped believing it. Maybe. I'll stick with the Maria Shriver analogy. It won't drive Fox out of business. But many people who watch Fox now know that Tucker and Sean cheated on them. And they seemed like such nice, honest fellas!

I mostly agree. If you mean dedicated (or fanatical) FOX viewers, or Trump supporters, I would definitely agree. But I think what Dominion actually got, beyond the important things you noted - money and protecting their own brand - was better than an apology. I'm not sure how you get that out of your mind. Even if you like Tucker. It's a little bit like leaning your husband fucked the housekeeper. Maria Shriver probably isn't the only woman that would leave a marriage over that. But even viewers who stay in the marriage with Tucker will always know there was a certain infidelity. I suspect Tucker's sway has peaked, and he's now on the way down. Much like Donald. But a bunch of Independents have clearly been figuring it out on their own. I loved this article about how Democrats should just shut the fuck up, focus on getting shit done, and let Republicans have their shit show. I think the same principle applies to Fox, and Tucker. Tucker has a beautiful head of hair. Why not let him keep setting it on fire? Nor does it end well for Fox. Even though @Mavica is correct that a dedicated core of Fox/Trump supporters will circle the wagons. Just like when the Senate censured Joe McCarthy. McCarthy lost that fight overwhelmingly. Despite the fact that he had half the Republicans on his side. When you look at the 2020 election, the 2022 election, and the polls, it's been very consistent. Independents view this stuff like nails on the chalkboard. But don't just take my word for it. Let's check with the fake media, and fake polls: So I'm with Trippi. I don't think this ends well for Republicans. Or Tucker. Poor thing.