Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Starlord]

Agree to disagree...Shapiro is much less progressive than Walz and Harris which helps with moderates and independents (the only group who still may have undecided voters out there).  He can bring you more important battleground states and he's far younger than Walz (60) so he can be a possible future candidate.

[Lord Liaden]

Of course, reasonable disagreement is civilized.

 

Looking at Shapiro's history in government, I don't see evidence that he's "much less progressive" than Walz. However, he's also a lawyer and former state Attorney General, just like Kamala Harris, which would probably open the ticket to accusations of elitism. Walz has a distinctly different background from Harris, which as I mentioned helps balance the appeal of the ticket to a broader group.

 

A lot of independent voters are progressives who haven't been excited by a centrist Democratic Party in recent years. And Walz being an older white guy carries a kind of implicit reassurance to moderates.   I'm not too concerned about Walz being a Democrat candidate for President in 2032. Historically there are plenty of occasions in which a VP didn't automatically stand for that office when his President ended his term. The party has so many young, smart, charismatic politicians in its ranks now, I don't think they'll have any trouble finding someone more exciting than Walz.

Edited August 6 by Lord Liaden

[Hermit]

Okay, I did not know Walz, but I like what I'm seeing of him!

[death tribble]

I saw Walz and immediately thought Christoph Waltz

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Hermit said:

Okay, I did not know Walz, but I like what I'm seeing of him!

 

I've read comments from some Democrat politicians in Minnesota that Walz was their "secret weapon," and they were hoping he'd stay under the national radar so they could keep him for themselves.

[Old Man]

27 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I've read comments from some Democrat politicians in Minnesota that Walz was their "secret weapon," and they were hoping he'd stay under the national radar so they could keep him for themselves.

 

Honestly my one problem with the selection of Walz is that he's so likable I hate to send him into the Beltway snakepit.  Poor bastard deserves better.

[Lord Liaden]

Twelve years serving in the House of Representatives, nearly twice as long in the National Guard. I'm not worried about Tim at all. He knows what he's getting into, and he's ready.

Edited August 6 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

Latest political joke I've heard: Unlike Trump, Harris has Walz.

 

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I'm not too concerned about Walz being a Democrat candidate for President in 2032.

 

Agreed.  That's MUCH too far down the line to be an issue.  If Harris can win in '24...disaster averted.  In '28...maybe, just maybe, that's time enough to start healing, and start seeing the attraction of Trumpism flame out.  (I think if Trump loses in '24, it's FAR less likely he'll be viable even in '28, and all of the younger sycophants like, say, DeSantis, seriously lack Trump's ability to appeal.)

[Clonus]

[Lord Liaden]

Kamala Harris' campaign raised $310 million in the month of July, biggest monthly amount by any political candidate in American history. Donald Trump raised &137 million over the same period. Two thirds of the Harris campaign's donations came from first-time donors.

 

Of course money isn't the end-all of campaigning, and it remains to be seen if Harris can maintain anything close to this pace in the remaining months. But as a metric for voter enthusiasm, it's encouraging.

[DShomshak]

Various pundits have opined that the "Trump is weird" line of attack will especially gall him because authoritarians are brittle beneath the bluster, with no sense of humor about themselves. This reminds me (again) of the Norwegian Joke Resistance to Nazi occupation. I photocopied an article about this years ago; here's a link to the article, though I'm not sure but you might have to pay to download a copy.

 

Heil Hitler; God Save the King: Jokes and the Norwegian Resistance 1940-1945 on JSTOR

 

Anyway, here are a few jokes from the Norwegian Resistance. The Nazis hated and feared these jokes so much that it was death to write them down and collect them... but Norwegians did so anyway.

 

Do you know the difference between the Nazis and a bucket of manure? --The bucket.

 

It's rumored that we're getting new stamps bearing Quisling's likeness, but distribution has been delayed because nobody knows which side to spit on.

 

A farmer received a threatening letter because he wasn't producing enough eggs. He wrote back saying, "Have submitted your document to the individuals concerned, but as they refused to comply, they have been put before a firing squad and executed!"

 

During Germany's campaign agains England, some Germans were sitting on the ferry to Laksevag singing "Wir fahren gegen England." The conductor came bay and rmarked, "Then you're on the wrong ferry. This only goes as far as Laksevag."

 

The fishmonger at the market was calling, "Big fish today, big fat fish, just as far as Goering."He was put in jail for two weeks. When he got out he called, "Big fish, big fat fish, just as fat as two weeks ago,."

 

A German asks a boy in Bergen: "Have you seen a car full of monkeys go by?" "Why, did you fall off?"

 

A picture of Hitler was to be hung in a government office. The official hanging the picture asked the cleaning woman working there if the picture was hanging straight. "I only work with the s*** on the floor," she said.

 

Major Quisling once visited an insane asylum; drawing an inmate into conversation, the Nazi puppet boasted, "I am Vidkun Quisling!"

"Never heard of him."

"What! Have you never heard of Vidkun Quisling, the greatest Norwegian since King Harald Fair Hair?"

"Take it easy, old man," said the inmate sympathetically. "That's how it started with me, too."

 

(Adapting to Trump and Vance left as an exercise for the reader.)

 

Dean Shomshak

Edited August 8 by DShomshak

[Lord Liaden]

This will get your adrenaline flowing:

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

Well, there have been massive anti-racism protests in various places in the UK tonight.

 

This picture is clever as the local football team plays in black and white and the town is famous for it's brown ale.

 

This is a small number of potential racists being shielded from the much larger counter-protests.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

I believe the majority of people in the developed world are tired of fear and hatred. You can only push that narrative so long, before people start to long for a message of hope and compassion.

Edited August 7 by Lord Liaden

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

I believe the majority of people in the developed world are tired of fear and hatred. You can only push that narrative so long, before people start to long for a message of hope and compassion.

 

I hope you're right...and you may BE right.

 

The problem is, if one person in 1,000...a teeny, tiny minority...wants to bring the fear?  They can do a very deal of damage.

 

But I'm also afraid you're optimistic.

https://www.politico.eu/article/mapped-europe-far-right-government-power-politics-eu-italy-finalnd-hungary-parties-elections-polling/

[unclevlad]

Project 2025 might be becoming an albatross for Trump.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/us/politics/project-2025-book-jd-vance-delayed.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BU4.jUJf.gPUU8peSUlAU&smid=url-share

[wcw43921]

Dad Jokes About Tim Walz

[DShomshak]

20 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

This will get your adrenaline flowing:

 

 

Notice how at the start, Wa;lz spends two minutes saying nice things about Gov Shapiro. Takes a while before talking about himself. And while he puts his best foot forward -- this is a job interview, after all -- it isn't in the bombastic, megalomaniac way Trump dopes.

 

Dean Shomshak

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

Notice how at the start, Wa;lz spends two minutes saying nice things about Gov Shapiro. Takes a while before talking about himself. And while he puts his best foot forward -- this is a job interview, after all -- it isn't in the bombastic, megalomaniac way Trump dopes.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

His style is also pretty much the diametric opposite of Vance, who is pretty much the Sarah Palin Attack Dog part of the ticket, part deux.

 

EDIT:  on the climate front, this is terrifying.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07672-x

[Sociotard]

So, what are the odds the excellent Kursk invasion will galvanize Russian support to allow the mass draft he needs to win?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/s/IIBTQInCWE

[DShomshak]

Lately, the coverage I've seen about the Harris campaign has been mostly positive, while there are stories about Trump flailing. Now, I can believe that Trump and his people are genuinely confused about how to run a campaign against Harris instead of Biden, and that Trump's mind is disintegrating. But I suspect there's also a degree of Shiny New Object at play. The media (and editors) run with whatever's most dramatic; Harris doing well, and Trump suffering reversal, is the most dramatic story, so that gets pushed.

 

If my hypothesis about media motivations is correct, though, Harris will only get a month or two of positive coverage before the script flips again. I expect that sometime in September, we'll start to see stories and op-eds asking if the Harris campaign is running out of steam. Every awkward statement or mistake by Harris or Walz will be heavily reported. Polls will be reported in such a way as to suggest Trump is pulling ahead, or at least that Harris is faltering, regardless of what the numbers show (and there are so many polls it's easy to find one that gives the result you want). Stories about Trump and Vance speaking to cheering crowds, making him again seem like the most likely winner. Appalling, but ahead.

 

Not lying, exactly (except for Fox News, where one should expect it), but curating the torrent of available information to suggest the reversal -- and so make it happen.

 

I will be watching to see if this is how it plays out. It's possible this is what really does happen... but if it does, I will be suspicious.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Ranxerox]

That tracks.

[Iuz the Evil]

 

Whoa. That’s a New York Times opinion piece, but I do wonder how many conservatives he is channeling with that. Harris is a clear favorite in Vegas at the moment, this is a massive sea change from a month ago.

[unclevlad]

The Lincoln Project has been opposed to Trump for some time, so French isn't anywhere near first to the table.  It might be the first time I've heard the reasoning he used, or at least explicitly so, by conservatives.  Because it's certainly been an argument the liberals have made.  

 

That said, his concluding paragraph is compelling to me.

 

Quote

The only real hope for restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates real compassion and defends our foundational constitutional principles isn’t to try to make the best of Trump, a man who values only himself. If he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the Republican Party. If Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin, and conservative Americans will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in American life.

 

As I've said, my concern is that non-validation isn't enough to trigger the change away from the Party of Trump.  It needs to be a broad repudiation, IMO.

 

One of the wrinkles about Harris passing Trump is the significant shift of Kennedy voters.  From FiveThirtyEight, before Biden dropped out, it was Trump 43.5, Biden 40.2, Kennedy 8.7.  Right now, it's Harris 45.7, Trump 43.4, and Kennedy 5.1.  Trump remains the same (as if that ever needed to be said), 3.6% pretty much say they had no faith in Biden at all, arguably picking Keneddy for None Of The Above.  Harris also picks up about 2% of the unaccounted...which I'd read as people who may not have voted at all.