US Politics, March 2024: The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.

has a prosecutor ever been president before?

Thomas Dewey came pretty darn close, but lost by a mustache whisker

I'm not sure what was funny about that, table

but he got like 10,000,000 new voters over 2016

culture wars, the war on woke, furries using classroom litter boxes.. it could be worse this time around

as unperson has repeatedly pointed out, dude lost last time and nothing he has done since then has gotten him a single new voter

This will make me feel better when is no longer polling ahead of Biden

I'm not sure what was funny about that, table

I appreciate your graciousness table. I’m know I'm an old conventional liberal and you don't think like me, but thank you for not chiding me for being a Harris supporter

but he got like 10,000,000 new voters over 2016

Not being in office is Trump's biggest advantage this year. There are some people who are sick of him, but they're not actively mad at him for the way things are. They might just not vote, but they might also vote for him just because on one level an election with an incumbent is always a binary change/not change choice. Which is of course one reason that an octogenarian incumbent with low approval ratings shouldn't be in the race, because if the Dem was someone else then Trump would be the most known-and-unloved candidate. But here we sit.

I appreciate your graciousness table. I’m know I'm an old conventional liberal and you don't think like me, but thank you for not chiding me for being a Harris supporter

thanks. I'm always eager to read your posts even when I disagree with them. They are a vital part of the conversation on this message board. Your posts in the books threads always make me think I should broaden my horizons

and I like you a lot, too!

John Fetterman and Bob Casey can eat shit.

https://www.phillyvoice.com/fetterman-removes-william-way-funds-from-senate-bill/

Fetterman is a disaster

Fetterman is a reliable Democratic vote.

he's a below replacement level democratic vote in PA.

Pennsylvania is West Virginia's forehead and a couple dangly Democratic earrings. Not sure what kind of ideal Democratic Senator you think is gonna win there.

Pennsylvania is West Virginia's forehead and a couple dangly Democratic earrings. Not sure what kind of ideal Democratic Senator you think is gonna win there.

Seriously. Philadelphia is to Pennsylvania as Austin is to Texas.

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-much-vaunted-guardrails-are-failing

I don't know that this necessarily needs to be shunted off to the containment thread, but it's been illuminating to see folks around me who don't seem to pay close attention to (or at least frequently talk openly about) politics expressing shock and despair that Trump is still likely to win. It's like folks have had this veil of denial or blinders on and, since Tuesday, are suddenly catching on that, "holy shit, this actually is happening again".

by "this" I mean more a sense of that he's actually going to have a legitimate shot at winning again, not necessarily that he will win.

it's basically been a 50/50 shot for a while now, but we're still a long way out from the election

It’s kind of, all of a sudden, “oh, right, national politics! That’s a thing that happens here…”

As has been noted, we don't have one election. We have 50something elections, which then get collated. Most of their outcomes are a foregone conclusion. New York is gonna New York; Wyoming is gonna Wyoming.

So once again We are essentially being ruled a coupla counties in Pennsylvania, Florida, etc.

xp - I think it's more just, "well surely something is going to happen before the general, he can't possibly just glide through unscathed again.. oh, huh, I guess he can".

All those beautiful indictments

Indictments coming up to me with tears in their eyes, saying "We're so sorry Joe Biden made us do this."

I'm in southeast PA right now. So far I haven't seen any political signs or bumper stickers at all anywhere, except for one roadside Kennedy sign somewhere. And half the people look like Fetterman.

Fetterman is a reliable Democratic vote.

so who do you support for the next PA Senate race that satisfies your requirements and can win the state

“who do you think is gonna blah blah blah be reasonable “

no.

"The choice was either to pull it or watch it get stripped out, attacked by Republicans, and ultimately killed," Fetterman said. "This is not the end of this fight and I am going to fight for William Way to secure their funding in the FY25 appropriations process."

I mean how true is this? Sure Fetterman is a disappointment (most senators are though), but everyone here is making it seem like he's doing this unilaterally and a Joe Manchin in sheep's clothing, which he's not from my view. He's not up for reelection this year so it doesn't seem like an action attempting to pander to centrists or the right, perhaps he's being pragmatic and picking his fights?

The Dems have given up on the gay vote afaic.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, March 7, 2024 12:32 PM (one minute ago)

I'm confused by this statement - Dems have the most pro-LGBTQ+ platform and legislative record (especially considering the amount of time they've been in divided gov or the opposition) of any major political party on Earth. And we're about to have the first Trans congressional rep in Delaware with Sarah McBride. Are they perfect? No, but considering how self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by ~9%, requiring Dems to win majorities of moderates, I consider that fairly impressive

xp
I guess my genuine q would be: what's the difference between pulling it and it being stripped out?

Perhaps it would be a better show of support to push for it knowing it will fail, and get Republicans to, once again, show off their prejudiced, hateful rhetoric in full view, but perhaps that is not the once winning strategy it used to be and that's the source of the pragmatism here? This subtly of "playing politics" I find very frustrating and distasteful (happens a lot here in California too, but with different issues and budget line items) but I also don't see why this should result in equating Fetterman to a Repub wolf in Dem clothing as others here paint him.

Fetterman is indeed unacceptable to those who prefer to stand in the voting booth and gaze enraptured at their own perfect political reflection in a hand mirror

medicare for all / social security = birth to the earth

xpost No when I stand in the voting booth I’m always in shorts and waving an Israeli flag over my head.

yeah come on let's not go too far. you can object to tables' scorched earth view without pretending Fetterman hasn't been disappointing as a public figure

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

What about Senator Connor Lamb?

I don’t think Oz is capable of disappointing me.

Well Lamb lost the primary so... he should have what, run third party and thrown the seat to Oz?

I guess I don't really understand this discussion

I mean these are dumb choices. Of course any dem is going to be better than any republican. Would a centrist hack like Lamb have been better than Fetterman? Possibly.

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, March 7, 2024 2:35 PM (eleven minutes ago)

Sorry, maybe this was a genuine, non-rhetorical question.

In which case: disappointing compared to what I thought I had learned about Fetterman and his politics (often through statements he made on social media or to the press) when he was running for office. I'd also say that I would be disappointed in any senator in any state who made a point of publicly counterprotesting an antiwar or anti-genocide protest -- that in my opinion goes beyond having views that differ from my own and into "this guy is scary" territory.

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

I disagree strongly with his support for Israel, but you can't say he didn't explicitly state he was pro-Israel during his Senate campaign because he did

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

What bill of goods did he sell? Did he take a position on Israel/Palestine during the campaign that he's now reversed himself on, that I'm not aware of? He was never anything but a working-class white Democrat, basically an east coast Jon Tester. Yes, he aligned himself with Sanders based on economic/class issues, and/but none of that has changed that I know of. People are making up a John Fetterman to fight with because they're mad about Gaza.

xp
yes, I meant to mention that part of the disappointment down to my not learning about his views in full. But that's why I included the bit about him counterprotesting. It's one thing for a Democrat to support Israel — that wouldn't surprise me — it's another to make a spectacle of yourself waving a flag at people protesting the deaths of civilians. I found that genuinely disturbing.

it ain't even just Israel. after calling himself a progressive for years, he then came out and said derisively that he wasn't a progressive, and started supporting anti-immigration measures he hadn't previously shown support for, even using the right-wing phrase du jour "there is a crisis at our borders"