stevenkesslar

I'm bad at math. Let me see if I get it. Trump's bill is essential, and will lead to a Golden Era for America. First, it reduces government spending by throwing over 10 million working class and low-income people, many of whom are women and children and many of whom voted for Trump, off their health care plans. Second, this money is then reallocated to programs that are essential for America's future. Like giving a $300,000 a year tax break to the very richest Americans. Which is three times what the average American makes in a year. You can't have a Golden Era without tax breaks for rich Trump donors. Third, this is all cruel bullshit. But we will try to persuade you of the exact opposite. Am I pretty close to understanding? Asking for a friend on Tik Tok.

Good for you, Sis. I am proud of you, as always. If we define "woke" as "aware and concerned", I am with you. If the idea is that we are aware and concerned that Trump just won a victory that means throwing over 10 million people off health care and making women and children sicker, poorer, hungrier, or dead ................. all because they are unworthy and Elon Musk needs the tax cuts more ............ than I am definitely with you. When I use "woke" I mean it the way Ruy Teixeira does. Which is very different. I have posted many of his articles and praised Teixeira a lot. This guy is the liberal who, along with John Judis, wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority. While W. and the Iraq War were at their height of popularity. Everyone thought they were crazy. Judis used to write for In These Times. I've always viewed him as a democratic socialist. So these are not closet right wingers. They are left wingers who have an analysis I agree with about how college educated woke Democrats helped fuck up their Emerging Democratic Majority. In a sentence, focus on the working class. Focus on economic issues that help the working class. Don't get caught in culture war traps. Ruy Teixeira Asks Whether America Has Reached “Peak Woke” Note that was October 2022. If there is one phrase that sums up what is problematic with "woke" it is this: DEFUND THE POLICE. Few if any Democrats who wanted to actually win an election embraced that phrase. Biden ran from it. Which is partly why he won the 2020 primary. He said we need to FUND the police, but be thoughtful and fair about how we do it. I think we now know the answer to the question Teixeira asked in October 2022. We had not reached peak woke. Had we done so, 2024 was a close call. And it might have turned out differently. I think several small changes could have made a difference. Were Biden 20 years younger and fit to actually run again, I think running as the incumbent he might have won. Again, not the Biden of 2024. The Biden of twenty years ago, younger and sharper. Immigration was part of the woke thing. Both Trump and Chris LaCivita have said Trump won the 2024 election for two reasons: prices, and the border. We'll never know. But had Biden been Deporter In Chief, like Obama was, maybe that would have changed the outcome. It didn't help that Harris was easy to label as The Failed Border Czarina. For most of his second term, so far, Trump has had net approval on his border policies. They actually just turned net negative. So even on that people are beginning to feel they have had enough. But there is no question that "woke" immigration policies hurt Democrats in multiple elections. In talking with people about where Harris went wrong, most people feel like me. Given the circumstances and the time she had, she was awesome. Things would have been worse if Biden stayed in the race. Then they talk about The View and the "what would you do different?" question. My own 20/20 hindsight suggestion is she should have said, "You know, frankly, some of that woke bullshit just went too far for me." She might have talked about Latino rapists. She might have talked about how as a prosecutor she always was wary of Defund The Police. Her actual answer, "I'd change nothing," more or less, made a lot of people groan. If she had simply used the words "woke bullshit" I think for a lot of people it would have been a huge sigh of relief. In part because she was also Vice President Word Salad. And there is nothing word salad about "woke bullshit". I'll be curious to see how that plays out for Mandani. To me, immigration and ICE is one area where he sounds "woke" in a way that could blow up in his face. I hope not.

I agree emphatically. This one is a bit painful for me. I said that I joke with friends that I am the problem, because I am a liberal Democrat. But my real point is that, for the most part, I've never been a big fan of what is now easy and popular to label as woke bullshit. Right now I am a huge fan of Ruy Teixeira, who is absolutely and relentlessly ripping the shit out of college-educated woke Democrats for fucking up his Emerging Democratic Majority. I don't fully agree with him on every point. That said, right now I wish Democrats would do 100 % of what Teixeira says. Don't even think about it. Don't debate. Just do it. I make a big distinction between family and friends. This is one where my Trump-supporting nephew and I can vibe easily and genuinely. Years ago he would teasingly joke about how it's fun to pick on White men, like him. But he is high up in a company that took DEI seriously, and still does. I have a Gay Pride button he gave me that I cherish. And he is at heart a Romney-type guy who wants to meet in the middle and get along. So now he can say, with a slight air of smugness, that maybe my company went a bit too far with this DEI stuff. But I'm glad we did. And he means it. He knows of course that the pendulum has swung hard one way right now, but it will swing back. And I validate it by saying, sincerely, that some of the woke bullshit just went way too far. I partly blame myself for losing Republican friends over this. I was the one that broke the ties, not them. Most of those people were clients I was close to who were moderate Republicans. So it was always kind of a business relationship and kind of a friendship and easier to put an expiration date on. But in several cases for something like 20 years we could easily talk and joke about our political differences. For me it was actually more interesting than debating liberals who agreed with me. And I do think that all reflects the way politics used to work in America. I will spend a few paragraphs on an anecdote that I think reflects the emotional complexity of this. In 2012 I was in Puerto Vallarta with a moderate Republican client on election night. I mistakenly mentioned that Obama had just won a few states. He got pissed at me and walked out of the condo. Later he apologized and said he is perfectly fine with losing. But he doesn't want the play by play while it happened. fair enough. Fast forward to 2016. I told him if we go to PV we can NOT talk about the election. So we are sitting in a restaurant and I say, "Trump is going to win." We go back to the condo, turn on the TV, and talk about what this means all week long. For me it was interesting. Right after I got home I talked to a liberal friend who was in trauma who said, "Oh my God. That must have been horrible." And I said, no, it was kind of interesting. So my point is I think in some ways I was a better sport than the moderate Republican was. From 2016 to 2018, I was proud of the fact that I was just going to overlook those things. During that week in PV in 2016 there was a line I will never forget. "I want two, and three if that bitch dies." This Republican was for some reason very interested in SCOTUS and law. So I knew what he meant. Two SCOTUS seats, and three if that bitch RBG dies. Which, of course, she did. So my point is where I went over the edge and bailed ship on these Republican friends is 2018 during the Kavanaugh shit show. I'm not sure why. But that was for sure one huge culture war moment that was very divisive. Charlie Cook at the time said Trump is a "color intensifier". And that SCOTUS fight was a textbook example of it. He makes red states redder, and blue states bluer. In some ways it is like this inexorable force tearing at the fabric of the body politic, and tearing us apart. Which, of course, is not entirely coincidental. Putin has to be absolutely thrilled. Let democracy destroy itself. That is his long game. One other anecdote, involving two of these Republicans. In Fall 2016, before Trump won and while everyone thought he would lose, I had dinner with two of these Republican friends. We all lamented the fact that someone like John Kasich was NOT the Republican nominee. The unspoken context was these two moderate Republicans were saying with someone like Kasich, unlike Trump, they could probably beat Hillary. What I was saying is I admire Republicans like Kasich. And if he beat Hillary I could live with it. It's a democracy. Kasich is very much a principled conservative who loves to meet in the middle. So my point is I blame this first and foremost on Trump. As Cook's "color intensifier" comment implies, Trump is a master at divide and conquer. I view him as symptom, not cause. He was there at just the right moment in American politics. He has won barely, twice, by fanning culture war and playing divide and conquer. It does come with consequences. A Republican like Kasich can and does brag that in the 1990's he was one of those deal makers that helped get us to a budget surplus, driven of course by Bill Clinton. Trump will instead drive us closer to bankruptcy, while he inflicts pain on working class women and children who will lose their health care. Kasich barely won his first Ohio Guv race. He was re-elected in a 2-1 landslide. Because a lot of Democrats like me respect him, or at least can tolerate him. Trump can't do that. It is always divide and conquer. It is always narrow wins. And just like in 2018 and 2020 my college-educated guess is there will be deeper and deeper disgust. And he will get his ass kicked. Did it have to be this way? Who knows. That is an interesting question historians will fight over for a long time. But I blame this on Trump, first and foremost. In fairness, Biden deserves some blame, too. Temperamentally, he is is the Democratic version of John Kasich. Meet in the middle. He did not really govern that way. This is where I would argue AMLO was just a better leader. He is more left wing than Biden. But he focused like a laser on the economy, stupid. And instead of falling into woke traps like Biden did - immigration especially - AMLO like Trump championed culturally centrist or even conservative views. A lot of college-educated liberals in Mexico despised AMLO. So I'm not proud of my own decision to cut ties with Republicans. But at the end of the day I don't blame myself. They embraced Trump, not me. It is on them. And they are clearly proud of it. Good for them. Happy 4th of July. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Actually, you just made my point. AMLO was the Mayor of Mexico City. Obviously the biggest city in Mexico. That gave him a big lab to experiment in. It also gave him legitimacy when he said I want to take the show to Broadway now. Many of the things that have worked on the Big Stage were things he tried in Mexico City: old age pensions, social programs. Mamdani wants free child care and city-run grocery stores. Sounds crazy! Sounds socialist! Is it crazy? Ask AMLO. AMLO left Mamdani a very specific playbook on how to pull this off as a Mayor. Mamdani is a smart and eloquent guy. I hope he reads the playbook. I can see why his schtick on affordability worked - especially if the alternatives were Cuomo and Adams. Speaking of New York, it is questionable who likes Rudy Ghouliani more, Trump or AMLO. Back in the day, Rudy was America's Mayor, and he was tough on crime. People loved it. AMLO hired Rudy to help him develop a zero tolerance for crime policy in DF. People loved it. Point being that AMLO grew up in a poor part of Mexico and has always been intuitively good, better than Trump even, at understanding and playing to the centrist sensibilities of the working class. Take notes, Democrats. These days I joke with some friends and family members that I am the fucking problem. If you need to understand what is wrong with Democrats, blame me. I am a liberal Democrat. I am college-educated. But I would not describe myself as a woke liberal Democrat. My biggest mentor, my college professor Paul Wellstone, wrote the textbook on how to overturn a Republican lock on the Senate (in Minnesota) by being VERY attentive to the sensibilities of the working class. It was intuitive for him. Tim Walz, who represented the purple district I went to college in and also went to Camp Wellstone, could write the same textbook. Although, in my view, Harris/Walz 2024 was a bit too woke. Where the fuck were the White men, other than Walz's own son in that wonderful tear jerking moment? Did we REALLY need that commercial on toxic White males? Who, by the way, said FUCK YOU I'm voting for Trump. They should have had moderate Democrats who were White football players and were trained by Coach Walz everywhere, singing the fucking national anthem. I think that would have helped. So as I just indicated, I am not a woke Democrat. As far as I am concerned, it is open season on woke Democrats. Which is a problem. Because Mamdani also kind of sounds like a woke Democrat to me. So we'll see. But his challenge is to figure out how to focus on working class affordability, while he actually manages a city well if he wins (my advice: make deals with billionaires to promote affordable housing, like AMLO did), and IF he can avoid falling into the woke bullshit traps that have badly hurt Democrats. It's on us, Sis. I have always been proud of you. I think we can do it! 😀

Again, I completely agree with you. In part because it is the 4th of July, I'll muddy the waters. I do think we can still be proud of being a democracy. We are for sure a democracy under stress. As are many democracies right now. But if you buy the concept of checks and balances and blah blah blah, that was always baked into the cake. For me, it is also helpful that Trump won a plurality in 2024. He did not win a majority. He got 49.8 % of the vote. So, right out of the gate, this is not some mandate, like what Reagan clearly got in 1980 and 1984. This is America deeply divided. The one place I do disagree with you a little is on tactics, maybe. It is not like Democrats did not speak up about the dangers of Trump. Part of the righteous indignation of good God fearing MAGA folk is this. You told us we were Nazis. You told us we were racists. You told us we were fascists. You told us we only care about rich people and their tax cuts. You told us we are horrible people. Well fuck you. You are the assholes. So go fuck yourselves while we love our country as it SHOULD be. Okay. Well then. Again, we have seen this movie before. It is almost a repeat, really. You can even track it in Trump's disapproval ratings and how they gradually and incrementally grow. So especially in the sequel, I think it is going to have to involve letting people absorb all the shit "they" voted for. Again, as you say, "they" is maybe 30 % of actual Americans. But in 2024 he did get more votes than Harris. And Pew says if everyone voted, Trump would have actually won by a slightly bigger margin. Who knows. But it is a democracy. And Trump won. So we can all sit with the consequences for four years, while the world laughs at us or feels sorry for us, and see how we feel. I think we can make an educated guess how the movie ends. But then again, that just makes us those awful college-educated elitists. So who knows? Where is our AMLO? Who is our AMLO? To me, that is the most important question. AMLO is some dude who, like Trump, will not stop and just keeps fucking fighting endlessly. It took AMLO several elections to win power. But once he did he had a clear mission and a plan to help the Mexican working class. And it won't last forever. But he now has a political coalition that is - for now - unstoppable. Mostly because it produces results for the working class. So they want more of it. That is what Democrats need most now. Where is our AMLO? Where is our Claudia?

Russia hits Ukraine with massive aerial attack after new Trump-Putin call Moscow will not retreat from its war goals, a Kremlin aide said after the presidential discussion. Facts are facts. Peace is breaking out everywhere. If you live in Gaza, you can go get food or sit in an internet cafe and be bombed or murdered by a Genocide Jew. Peace! If you live in Iran, we will gently bomb you and your leaders will declare we won't attack America but we will keep enriching uranium. Mission accomplished! Now, some of you peace haters may say Trump promised to end the Ukraine War in 24 hours, and he didn't do that. But that is only because he is a genius. He is seeking agreement with Putin to identify the root causes of this conflict, which caused Putin to invade in the first place. What's the problem with that? Peace is everywhere! Thanks to President Donald Trump. Please give this man a Nobel Peace Prize.

I completely agree with everything you said. But I'll muddy the waters. It's the 4th of July, and a good time to think about what makes us Americans. Or unites or divides us. On an emotional and family level, the hardest thing for me right now is that I have a niece and a nephew who I love and spend time with. And they are both Gen Xers who, like much of their generation, are the political backbone of Trump and his worldview. I just spent time in a red state with one of these people and his extended family at a really fun family event. Which included some really conservative discussions about how Jon Ossoff is an asshole and even Brian Kemp, who I see as a relatively effective and pragmatic Republican Governor, is a country boy asshole because he doesn't suck up to Trump. It gave me a good taste of MAGA. Not that I needed it. And, again, Rule #1 for me is this is family and I love family. So I have now read several articles, all from conservatives, about this new Gallup poll that shows Republicans are prouder of America than ever. And in one way or another every one of these right-of-center articles argues that this is because Republicans are good people who care about principles. And Democrats are bad people who care about politics. The one that is furthest out there is mostly about how Republicans go to church, and fear God, and don't abort their babies. Which has exactly nothing to do with patriotism, or the questions Gallup asked about patriotism. But the argument is this is why Republicans are good, and Democrats are bad. Also, every one of these right-of-center articles doesn't even mention the fact that patriotism among Independents has dropped like a rock in the last 25 years. You can see above the big drops in patriotism among Independents occurred when W (the Iraq War) and Trump have been President. I am curious about that. If it were only partisan Democrats like me, I would say maybe it's fair to say this has something to do with Democrats or politics. But for whatever reason, which I am actually curious about, Independents are less proud of America. Especially when Trump is President. One wonders why. Isn't MAGA curious? (LOL. Of course not.) For me, especially now that America kinda sorta barely chose Trump twice, it actually helps for me to think of these people as family members I love. Because some of them are. And, to go to the extreme, are these people Nazis? No. Are they rounding up Jews and Gays and Communists and putting them in concentrations camps? No. They are rounding up "illegals", and are happy and proud Trump is doing it. And they fear God, and they go to church, and they don't abort their babies. And they do feel that they are the better Americans, who have good God fearing principles. It is what it is. In a way I can say I am happy for my niece and nephew. And if they love America for what THEY want it to be, well good for them. Meanwhile, what that poll says loud and clear is that most of America - Independents and Democrats - are building a reaction against this. This is not the America we want. So we'll see. It is a new civil war, I believe. But at least we are (mostly) not killing each other.

Oh, and in your eloquent address you left out Genocide Israel, Sis. Although there are so many reasons to lament on the list. I was listening to an interview with John Mearsheimer yesterday that sounded a lot like your tone. Trump can basically do whatever he wants on Iran and Israel, Mearsheimer argued. Because Trump has no sense of constraints. And people won't care unless Americans start to die. Which is why, as you note, they will care about the Medicaid and safety net cuts. People will lose health care, get sick, go hungry, and die. As the barking dog notes above, this is all so that America can achieve goals essential to the survival of our nation. Like more tax cuts for Elon Musk, and Trump's loyal ultrarich donors. Back to Israel, Mearsheimer argued that Trump thinks he is the genius in control. But Genocide Jews like Bibi The Bitcher will go to Washington and slather praise on Trump and tell him how grateful Genocide Israel is. And Bibi The Bitcher will probably succeed in luring and leading our narcissistic POTUS - who by the way deserves a Peace Prize for bringing peace to Ukraine, within 24 hours no less - into a new forever war in Iran. And yeah, hunger in America sucks. But stop whining. In Genocide Israel they starve women and kids in Gaza, force them to go to public stations to get food, and then murder them there. At least we don't have that in America yet. Will Trump get a Peace Prize for arming and supporting Genocide Jews like Bibi The Butcher? And maybe for starting a new forever war in Iran?

Good evening. This is an important public service announcement. If you are one of the over 10 million Americans who will soon lose affordable health care thanks to Donald Trump, here's what you need to know. First, you are a worthless piece of shit. And you don't deserve the health care you have, you lazy working class loser. Second, someone more worthy than you deserves health care. You are a working class or low-income loser. And, no. We have power now. We could give a flying fuck if you voted for Trump. Third, we also have to pay for Elon Musk's tax cuts. How the fuck else were we supposed to do that, loser? You are undeserving. Can you fucking grasp that, loser? Be glad we don't deport you. Or send you to jail for waste, fraud, and abuse. Or whatever the fuck your problem is. Three reasons why Republicans cut Medicaid And there ya have it. They swallowed deeply and fully and obediently the raw and cruel shit streaming out of Trump's ass and mouth. Just like our obedient MAGA puppy would. And what they will now regurgitate is that we love mothers and children. Even though they are about to make lots of mothers and children sick, poor, hungry, and in some cases dead. Thanks, fellas! Even if you buy their argument, as quoted above, the message to low-income and working class Americans who Trump promised to lower prices for is crystal clear. I promised to lower your prices. And your price for one of the very most important things, health care, is about to go way up. If you can afford it at all. And the reason why is simple. You don't need it the most. You don't deserve it. Not as much as Elon Musk or my loyal donors, at least. These cruel pieces of shit who betrayed their constituents, just like this article says and like Thom Tillis said in anger and frustration, can now enjoy all the cruelty and bullshit that Trump successfully shoved down their throats. If any of you Republican assholes find yourself choking on all Trump's raw sewage you swallowed and about to spew to defend your cruel and betraying and worthless asses, I hope you have a good hospital to go to. I'm sure with your Congressional health care, at least you'll be able to afford it.

Great idea. Or, they'd make a charming couple in a Viagra commercial. 🤢

This is mostly repeating one of my greatest hits I have posted elsewhere. As far as Mexico goes, I now think there is a KISS principle involved here. Are we too stupid and arrogant and gringo to learn from them? As I said in a recent post Pew just found that 90 % of Mexicans give Trump's America a vote of no confidence. America's image is declining in most of the world. But Mexico is the off the charts leader of that. So I think it destroys this theory that there is maybe something about Latinos or Mexican Americans or whatever that draws them to Trump. The ones who live in Mexico simply think he is an asshole. And my interpretation of this fact is they have a wildly popular political model and a wildly popular leader that is all based around one question. To oversimplify: how do we help the Mexican working class? So if Democrats can learn from that, it is a model that arguably could work here. I would love the irony of that. Deport Mexicans, import their political model, kick Trump's ass, and help the US working class. Works for me. Meanwhile, the one thing I hope we can count on Trump for is to not start another Iraq War, like Bush did. At first it seemed like Trump could at least do that much. After he decided to bomb Iran, now we have to worry whether he will fuck that up , too. Just what America needs after abandoning Ukraine. Another forever war, but one Trump can call his own. As you said. Clearly, the damage is done. Putin must be thrilled.

And I just fact checked myself, and learned a point I made above is incorrect. Which I think confirms my main point. Until recently on RCP Trump did have net approval for his immigration policies. For months, that is what people like best about what he is doing. But now even that has turned negative, at 47 % approve/50 % disapprove. His handling of inflation is particularly unpopular. 39 % approve, 59 % disapprove. Again, I think it confirms my main point. With facts like these to explain, it may well be why Trump prefers lies.

Wow. I have to say I am impressed. I watch these videos occasionally. I think in part so I can know that I am not just categorically rejecting something because of who posted it. Or because it praises Trump. Or because it is Fox News. At least in my eyes it is just an objective fact that most of the time watching these videos makes me a little more stupid. And often they feed me misinformarion that I immediately cross-check to learn that - Yup. It's just bullshit. So this was impressive. Over three minutes of actual facts, from a CNN reporter no less. There is obviously a case to be made for Trump. And a lot of his supporters use the same line. We know he's an asshole, but we like his policies. So it makes me wonder why his supporters don't actually do this more often. Just focus on facts. Perhaps it is because many of Trump's supporters are like Trump himself. The man really does seem to prefer lies and bullshit. But I think the main reason is voters are not stupid. And the problem for Trump actually is the facts. Like right now the polls make it clear people tend to approve of most of what he is doing on immigration. And meanwhile his Big Beautiful Bill is very unpopular. Especially the toxic parts about what they will do with Medicaid. So the facts are the problem.

I thought this was a well written and sad lament for Thom Tillis. And a politics of "meet in the middle" deals and compromise that used to be the way that politics worked much of the time. It explains better than my parody why Independent-minded people, like the author, may feel like this is not America at its best. Thom Tillis and the Painful Truth About Swing State Politics Even the most competitive and evenly balanced states are infected by the same contagion as the hardened one-party states.

I have been wondering why the mindless barking dog is suddenly barking incessantly again. By the way, here's a treat, pup. Good doggy. Good pup. In fairness, the fact that a mindless dog is mindless is more than enough reason to explain the barking. But that's unfair. Our special pup has also proven again and again that he is a smart impulsive dog. He responds well to Pavlovian prompts. As well as a cruel doggy who likes it when people experience pain. So I wondered if perhaps there is some cause to this. What would excite him and his love of being a smart and cruel and obedient pup? I thought the answer might be obvious: the Big Beautiful Bill. There is certainly a lot of activity that would make an obedient MAGA pup bark. And it is literally joyous. And it keeps getting better. Elon Musk will get his massive tax cuts. That's worth a chorus of barking alone. Better yet, it almost certainly comes at the cost of millions of Americans, many of whom voted for Trump, losing their affordable health care. What could be better? Or course, this is being said by moderate Republicans. Who knows if those traitors can be trusted? The best part is Republican Senator Thom Tillis. I mean, the man is a traitor and a worthless piece of shit. He opposed Trump and lost. So now he is going to quit. The fucking loser. Our dog loves cruelty. So this is no doubt worth a lot of very loud barking. Even better, Tillis is quitting because he says Trump and Republicans are betraying their promise to millions of Americans who entrusted them with power. And this will badly hurt the health care of working class people. I'm not even a dog. And I would bark in joy at that! Tillis says over 600,000 people will be kicked off their health care plan in North Carolina alone. Think of how awesome this is. Is it too much to hope that tens of millions of working class Americans will lose health care? Think of the tax benefits to Elon Musk. Not to mention Donald Trump. Even though it is unpatriotic to think Trump would do anything for himself! The only thing that could make this better is if Trump could find a way to deport Tillis to South Sudan. Is that possible? Come to think of it, Trump was publicly floating the idea of assassinating the leaders of Iran. Would it really be a problem for Trump to gently float the idea of assassinating Tillis? He is a traitor, after all. So all of this more than explains why a good and loyal and true and obedient and cruel MAGA puppy like @Barknaway would be barking up a storm. Good puppy! Here's another treat. Go bite Thom Tillis! But come to find out there may be an even better explanation for this loud endless barking: patriotism, and cruelty. All wrapped into a beautiful puppy treat! American Pride Slips to New Low Pride among Democrats tumbles, while independents also hit new low, more than offsetting increase among Republicans Now, I have to admit. I am not an expert in dog psychology. Let alone the unique brand of loyal cruel Trump-like MAGA dogs @Barkaway aspires to be the very best of. But even the dumbest dog could understand this. It is awesome. Doesn't get better. A loyal dog conditioned to obey Trump will immediately know that he is good and loyal and patriotic. In fact, he is more patriotic than ever. Woof! Now, it is true that maybe a lot of Democrats and Independents are less proud to be American than ever. You can see on the chart that Trump's first and second Presidencies are precisely when pride among Independents fell hard. And maybe in their mind they are like Thom Tillis. Maybe they think this is not what America should stand for. Maybe they think this is a betrayal of the trust and health care of millions of good working class Americans. Maybe they think it wasn't the goal of The Founders to promote oligarchy and tax cuts for Elon Musk and Trump's other ultrarich donors. In other words, what I am really trying to say is these Independents and Democrats are losers. And traitors. They really should be deported to South Sudan or somewhere. Is it legal to do that? Can we find a way to make it legal to deport them? At the very least, these people should be surveilled by DOGE or Palantir or whoever is putting together all this private information and dossiers on every US citizen. Can't we at least take their Medicaid or SNAP away? This all has to be like fentanyl for a loyal and true and good and cruel MAGA dog. He knows he is being patriotic. And he knows most people who are not MAGA are stupid, and deserve to suffer. And will, thank God. America is awesome. Thank you Donald Trump. How could America ever be better? This is OUR GOLDEN AGE.

Actually, they are not that young. The nieces and nephews that are the most Republican are the oldest ones, who are Gen X. That fits with that generation. The theory is they grew up under sunny Reagan optimism. For whatever reason, Gen X is and has been Trump's most solid supporters for a decade. Since older people tend to vote more, what I do wonder is whether Gen X will become marginally more powerful. Simply because as they age they are more likely to vote than younger generations who are at least somewhat less conservative. The people I'm talking about are now about 50ish. So they have lots of solid Republican voting years still ahead of them. What I bitch and moan about to my youngest nieces and nephews (Millennials mostly) is their cynicism. Their rap is that maybe government worked well when Reagan or Clinton ran things. But that was so 20th century. They feel they got 9/11, the global financial crisis, COVID, and all kinds of nasty shit. I think it's a crock of shit, personally. My Dad's generation got World War II. My older siblings got Viet Nam. So what my Millennial nieces and nephews have had to go through is basically nothing like that. And they are representative of their generations: Gen X is better off than Boomers at the same age, Millennials are better off than Gen X at the same age, and now Zoomers are better off than Millennials at the same age. Nobody in my family is hurting. So I don't think the problem is that things really suck bad for middle class (mostly suburban) America. I think the problem is young people tend to be cynical. Then again, the young people who just handed the primary to a democratic socialist in NYC are hardly cynical. So what the fuck do I know? But there are a lot of cynical young people who Democrats maybe thought they could count on who helped elect Trump in 2024. I'm not sure I buy that. It is a fact that Trump got a higher percentage Latino vote than he did in 2020 or 2016. So maybe there is a working class realignment to Republicans. I definitely buy the argument that lots of working class Latinos are culturally centrist. And they think woke Latinx bullshit is out of touch to their needs. It's the economy, stupid. But mostly what happened in 2024 was inflation and high rent and high mortgage rates led to a strong working class reaction that is not necessarily an endorsement of Trump or MAGA. Before Harris, the POTUS to win the lowest percentage of the Latino vote was Jimmy Carter in 1980. Another election driven by inflation. Different pollsters put different numbers on the share of Latinos Harris got. But Carter and Harris both seem to have gotten somewhere in the low 50's of the Latino vote. In both elections lots of working class Latinos were pissed about prices. So, like in 1980, this may be a low water mark for how bad things can get for Democrats with Latinos. And in 1980, Democrats did get clobbered horribly. 2024 was a close race. So if the needle moves back, it would not take a lot for a Latino Democrat like Ruben Gallego, who is my poster child for how to be an effective coalition building working class Latino guy, to win in 2028. Speaking of Latinos, Pew also did a new study of the image of the US around the world in the era of Trump and tariffs. Who'd have guessed the image of the US has declined? What a shocker! U.S. Image Declines in Many Nations Amid Low Confidence in Trump What jumped out at me in this chart is how wildly unpopular Trump is in Mexico right now. It is off the charts. 91 % no confidence in our cabron. More than any other country. But, hey, Bibi the Butcher likes Trump. Surely that counts for something. Somehow, Mexico has managed to have the successful left-wing version of economic populism that Bernie Sanders and friends tried to bring to America. And failed. We got the right-wing version instead. My guess is that some of it is that Mexico actually is more working class than the US. But I think a lot of it is leadership. The MAGA folks love Trump just as much as the working class in Mexico loves AMLO and his movement. Not coincidentally, both AMLO and Trump play hard to the centrist - and sometimes conservative - sensibilities of these working class voters. So the big job for Democrats, in my view, is not to blame Latinos or figure out what is wrong with them. The big job for Democrats is to figure out how we fucked up. While a huge working class movement that has made life better for the Latino working class in Mexico swept to power. And is wildly popular. And apparently hates our MAGA pendejo more than anyone else on the planet!

Well, sorry. I'm now just gonna have to fuck things up. I know the rules here. When Bucky is barking, we're supposed to do one of two things: 1) Say something funny and stupid, or 2) Say something stupid and fact free. So I'm going for boring facts instead. I know, I know. I always fuck things up. I do watch some of the Tik Toks. And I find them kind of educational. Kind of like eating feces educates me on what I don't consider a tasty part of my diet. I've never actually ingested Trump's semen, like NATO is doing now with their grand public Trump cock sucking. But I imagine it has the same effect. Behind Trump’s 2024 Victory, a More Racially and Ethnically Diverse Voter Coalition So what this made me think about is that Pew just came out with a new voter study a few days ago. No real news. But it further confirms what a lot of good boring analysts have come up with already. The part that involves Tik Tok is this: In fact, as that chart shows, if more nonvoters voted it probably would have helped Biden win by more in 2020, and Trump win by more in 2024. No shocker, since the nonvoters are all over the map. But they tend to be the kind of people who watch Tik Tok videos and pretty much get their political perspectives from that. Who cares if any of it is true? Trump sure doesn't. He loves Tik Tok now. This handwriting was on the wall last Fall when the annual youth voter survey John Della Volpe does came out. The less young people were likely to vote, and the more turned off they were by politics, they more likely they were to favor Trump. So somehow he got enough of them to vote. Thank Tik Tok, Joe Rogan, and the Nelk Boys. Trump did. The question for 2028 is whether this problem solves itself. This is the crowd that elected Biden in 2020. But then they got big spikes in rent, big inflation, lockdowns, and all kinds of nasty shit they didn't like. And toxic masculinity. I don't really think Tik Tok did a thorough job of analyzing any of the things I just mentioned. But they did play to the idea that shit sucks. And Trump is bad ass. That only takes Trump so far when it comes to actually governing, as his mounting disapproval ratings show. The Tik Tok crowd could easily flip again by 2028. Or, maybe Democrats will get better at social media, as some guy who just won a primary for Mayor of NYC proved is possible. Being a democratic socialist turns out to be bad ass, too. So Trump better not count on ignorance. Although, if we are strictly dealing with facts, what else has he actually got going for him? 🤔 Although the really funny part is our barking dog just loves to eat shit, anyway. I think it makes him feel bad ass. I find that pretty hilarious. 😋

Yeah. But at least it is the God's honest truth. Every word of it. And these are the kind of important facts that you can't get anywhere else!

God do some people lack imagination! I mean, this is a GAY website. GAY GAY GAY! And let's be honest. We cum here to do important stuff. Like suck guys' cocks. I mean, at least that is what my sensible Sister In Cock and I are mostly interested in. So what do we have here? One of the greatest exercises in public and glorious cock sucking in history. Not only does Trump like to get his cock sucked. Constantly. In public. We now know he is super into this whole Daddy thing. Who's your Daddy? Have you been a good boy? Do you want Daddy to cum in your mouth? Yum yum! (Try not to visualize that, even if you are a super loaded to bursting MAGA type. 🤮) I mean, the folks at NATO ain't the brightest. Seeing as how it only took them until Trump's second term to figure out a little public cock sucking goes a long way with our vain old leader. The Divine Miss Graham, a true bottom, had that figured out at the start. But better late than never. Now suddenly Trump is horny for NATO. Kind of like that, myself. Sorry Vlad! But you still get sloppy seconds. Not to spoil the fun, guys. But I was curious about how my Daddy, realist John Measrheimer, thought about this whole Iran thing. So here we go. Here's my Daddy. Truth is, anyone can guess whatever they want. For sure, I would rather have Trump at least try for a "one and done" bombing, as incomplete or ineffective as it may have been, rather than start a new forever war. But I agree with Mearsheimer. At best it is a distraction, and at worst it stirs up a bigger hornet's nest. For sure, the lesson of the century is clear. If you want to be invaded by Putin or bombed by the US, it's simple. Don't have nukes. If you want to be a totalitarian piece of shit and get away with it and be untouchable, all it takes is a nuke or two. Just ask Krazy Kim. So my bet on this one is that realist Mearsheimer is being very realistic. There was no imminent threat that suggested we had to bomb Iran now. Just murderous Bibi The Butcher wanting more death and agony. But Trump just gave Iran a big incentive to keep pushing for nukes in the long term. To be continued.

Not to be too much of a bitch. I mean, Trump has style and class. A bit more gold would do, maybe. That said, it feels like a cheap remake.

One can only hope he rearranged it fashionably. But with Trump, there's not much hope of that, sadly.

I love how the Pentagon, let alone all kinds of other people who would know something about bunker busters, have already walked back his "obliterated" phrase. Nobody knows the amount of damage done at this point. Or at least they ain't saying. Other than, as you note, our Liar In Chief. I am surprised the stock market seems to have written it off, so far. They're not as easy to hoodwink as I am. 😉

I'm shocked! Trump would lie? 🥱 The new "hoodwinked" question is whether Trump is lying to us about how "obliterated" these sites are. I'm the last person in the world to understand the capabilities of a bunker buster bomb. So all I can do is rely on what the supposed experts say. And, sorry Mr. President. You are a moron. Not an expert. So I don't trust you any more than Dick Cheney on matters like this. Israel's President probably was being honest when he said nobody knows yet how much damage was done. Some Iranian officials are saying the damage was superficial. As always, Fareed Zakaria is on point in saying that even if this is a severe setback, it's up to Iran to decide whether they just keep building a nuclear program, like they have been since the Shah. First we have to find out how many Americans and Jews die because of retaliation. And whether we have a new forever war. Woo hoo! Bibi The Butcher is a murderous thug. He dragged the US into tacitly supporting a genocide in Gaza. And now he can take credit for talking Trump into bombing a country that did not pose an imminent threat to the US. Certainly not an imminent nuclear threat. What a genocidal monster. The next time we have a Democratic President the debate about the US bombing Israel needs to begin. Republicans will just pander to The Butcher's every genocidal instinct. The polls have shown especially sinze the Gaza genocide started that Democrats are increasingly becoming pro-Jew and anti-Israel. This is why. This also shows just how deep the new MAGA doctrine of "no forever wars" goes. My gut feeling for years has been that they are still the war party. But they simply decided that all the focus now needs to be on China. But as I argued above, it makes sense that any upstart who wants a nuke will be the target of the war party as well. This demonstrates that for sure.

I am definitely tired of Trump. But that is ancient history. What's new? 😉 In terms of being hoodwinked, the better question is whether he is hoodwinking his fragile "winning" coalition. And, yes. I am mocking "winning" for two reasons. First, Trump himself is a lying raping cheating stupid loser. More important, they lost one House seat in their 2024 landslide, and managed to win 49.8 % of the vote. Not even a majority hanging on by a thread. Did I mention the Democrats are slightly ahead in the generic Congressional vote, despite supposedly being dead? So on Iran he is threatening to split his barely winning not winning maybe winning by a hair coalition. How fucked up is that? I INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT. MR, PRESIDENT, YOU ARE A TRULY STUPID MORON. YOU KEEP SAYING AND DOING STUPID SHIT THAT NOT ONLY DIVIDES AMERICA, BUT ALSO DIVIDES YOUR OWN COALITION. CAN YOU TRY HARDER TO BE LESS STUPID AND ERRATIC? Okay, Sis. Sorry. That just came in over the wire and I had to get it out right away. What were we talking about? Big juicy cocks or something? Oh. Right. The asshole. 🙄 Of the three things you mentioned, I'd say the immigration thing and the "tax cuts to his billionaire donors" thing are actually going down pretty well. Meaning his base loves the attacks on immigrants and government. Which is what animates the moron. He loves having California and Newsom for a foil. God bless him. Have to interrupt again. I was sitting in my nephew's kitchen recently (in a red state) surrounded by good Trump folk who are mostly his wife's family. There was one other token liberal there, who happened to mention how her father turned out to be a crossdresser. And she literally showed pictures off the internet of Daddy showing off his bung hole. Needless to say, this did not go down well with the local TEAM MAGA reps. So I took the opportunity to say, "I am truly fucked. I am Gay. I am liberal. I am a Democrat. And I even live in fucking California! How fucked is that?" Everybody laughed. So pissing on LA and Newsom and THE BROWN PEOPLE WHO WANT TO RAPE AND KILL YOU turns out to light up TEAM MAGA with smiles. Of course, when they figure out it will fuck up their health care, or maybe somebody they know who is just hard working and has no plans to kill them gets deported, they may have some minor regrets. On the tariff shit show, you are exactly right. Even Trump's base doesn't like the idea of paying more for those exotic foreign made candles my rich MAGA niece loves. Of course, most of his base is more worried about what peanut butter and steaks cost. Either way, the moron has at least figured out tariffs are not popular. With his base. Or with our allies who he likes to piss off. So he may be trying to distract from that. Until he goes postal on tariffs again. Which he will. Morons never change. I'd say you are simply giving a moron more credit than he deserves. There is no strategy here. Just an old stupid moron. That said, I'm a pragmatic whore, as you of all people know. So if the moron can avoid starting a forever war with Iran and get Bibi The Butcher to tone down his genocide a bit, I'd even go for giving Trump the Nobel Peace Prize. Remember, Obama got it for doing nothing. Since Trump is our Moron DEI President, some old White moron should at least get the same. If it prevents a war, maybe it will actually do some good.

So I will take this to go off on a rant that I having been working on all year, as I talk with people about what Trump is doing with NATO or Ukraine or Israel. Short version: be careful what you wish for. I like this new supposedly non-warmonger version of the GOP. At least better than the W/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal that dragged us into Iraq with a bunch of lies. So if Trump is going for diplomacy, I'm with him on that. And I think the US mostly used to be a place, when I was young, where politics stopped at the nation's border. Of course, I was too young for Vietnam, which was a whole different matter. But my point is that we started out united on Ukraine, and now we are not. That does not make me proud of my country. That makes me feel like we are weak, and half-hearted. And proving it to the world week by week. If anything happens in Iran, we will start out divided. Even MAGA will start out divided. Trump has proven to be better at politics than anything else. Including rape and crime and bankruptcy. So he knows this. Hopefully that means nothing will really happen in Iran. Although Bibi The Butcher would no doubt love it. Since Trump is publicly threatening to take out Iran's leader, why doesn't he also threaten to take out the old hateful and murderous piece of shit Israel keeps electing - barely? At some point this year I came up with a formulation that more than anything is a way of thinking about my extended family. I decided my Dad, who was a WW2 veteran, was part of the generation that did sacrifice and set the stage for the US to ascend as a global superpower. And it was a vicious thing. My Dad loved Truman for having the guts to nuke Japan. He'd argue that they started it with an unprovoked attack on us at Pearl Harbor. And that a land invasion of Japan would have been deadly to many Americans - not least to him, since he was stationed in the Pacific. What the US did after that brutal nuclear attack, all over the world, was equally brutal. But it worked. Mostly. My Dad's grandchildren simply don't seem to care. The ones who are Democrats are not particularly into what many Democrats like me value, which is defending democracy from Putin in Ukraine. The younger MAGA-ish cohort in my family very much are in the Bannon/Tucker mindset that we don't need to be waging forever wars all over the world. America First! There's a few anecdotes of moments with a MAGA-supporting niece and nephew that stand out to me as representative of much bigger things that are at play here. My most MAGA-ish niece and I were shopping in a store one day when she saw some expensive imported candles she liked. She said, "This is why everyone wants to kill us." It made no sense at first. But the weird idea in her mind is that because America is a place where people like her can spend a lot of money on things like fancy candles, people all over the world are jealous and want to kill us. I lectured her, no doubt uselessly, about how they don't want to kill us. They want to BE us. She at least agreed that there was a reason the best and brightest were trying to get OUT of Russia, and INTO the United States. About a year later I mentioned this anecdote when the same niece and I were together with one of my nephews. He is very successful and very diplomatic. But at core quietly subscribes to pretty much every key MAGA principle, as far as I can tell. So I told him this anecdote. And he immediately agreed with my niece that "they want to kill us." It's almost unfathomable to me. Since they are both ardent global travelers, both for their corporate jobs and for play. Why go on vacation to places like Mexico, where people want to kill us? (In fact, my niece's husband announced at some point he will no longer vacation in Mexico.) I think this is at the core of what a lot of MAGA folks believe. And not just "rednecks" from Appalachia. JD Vance is living proof that you can go to Silicon Valley and be Vice President and still nurture the same worldview. So the thing about Iran is perhaps simple, in the minds of many. They want to kill us. I think the only question in play is whether the price of killing them instead is worth it. There's a poll question The Economist keeps asking that sums this up. People are asked to choose whether they see the world as a mostly friendly place, are a threatening place where people do bad things. Trump supporters tend to see the world as a dangerous place. Democrats, not so much. It follows that Trumpers tend to think we don't have to worry about foreign aid of compromising with allies. Democrats want a leader active in world affairs and building alliances with other countries based on common interests. I just spent a very nice long weekend with this nephew, whose extended family on his wife's side are charming, caring, and loving people. And as MAGA as one can be. So at one point I got into it with my nephew and his mother-in-law. If we piss off every ally we have, either with tariffs (which he supports) or whining about what they spend on NATO or being half-hearted on Ukraine, what happens when we need help again? His answer was simple, and arguably simple-minded. We have a nuclear deterrent. If anyone seriously fucks with us, we nuke them. In a way this is the opposite of everything my Dad stood for, and fought for. He loved NATO, and Reagan, and Navy guys like McCain. And the idea that the US was a shining beacon with a global coalition of like-minded allies around us. My niece and nephew, not so much. If they fuck with us, we simply nuke them. Scary idea. Then again, in a way they are both just like their grandfather. He was all for nuking Japan, as I said above. Mostly, I think this all speaks to American decline. Oddly, another person I don't particularly like, Mitch McConnell, nailed it recently when he chided Trump by saying, "We don't need a President to preside over the demise of America." I think Mitch is right. I think that is what America First and Trump are doing. Whether they actually intend to do it or not. It makes sense that in a world where you tell all your allies, "America is first. You are second." that the one thing that might be worth a big fight is if a country like Iran has the ability to nuke us back. I guess that is what Trump is trying to figure out in the next few weeks. Donald Trump! God help us!