US Politics, May 2024: They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?

So Greg Abbott seems to have discovered a new way to be terrifying shitbird, pardoning the ex-cop and pedophile who shot and drove at BLM protestors in 2020.

gonna be a lot of conflicted pro-Palestinian stoners out there

https://media.tenor.com/guFGO3iDp_EAAAAi/sex-emoticons.gif

NEW: Democrats gear up to overhaul the Senate filibuster for major bills if they win in 2024

Manchin & Sinema are retiring.

Remaining Dems + new candidates roundly favor piercing 60-vote rule to pass abortion and/or voting rights.

Biden favors it, too.https://t.co/TRZBtR0Do9

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 17, 2024

tough road to win though

Would have to be a Dem landslide

of course they are planning to do this, they know they won't be in a situation where they can be held to following through

Excellent motivational too.

Alfred gets it.

they're going to take the house. the presidency is a tossup. losing only WV in the senate is a stretch but it's not completely out of the question.

unless you think what happened in 2020 was a landslide, it doesn't need to be a democratic landslide.

I imagine this will continue to be true

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/18/trump-biden-2024-campaign-spending-00158758

dunno how good this poll is but Ruben has been claiming he's "slightly behind" for a while now in order to fundraise, lol

https://i.imgur.com/eyfYGTE.jpeg

Democrats received welcome news on Friday that the odds in the hotly contested Arizona Senate race shifted in their favor as the party fights to keep the Senate majority.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, changed its prediction from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat” due to the candidate quality of Republican front-runner Kari Lake against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

so strange to me that polls rn show Trump winning swing states easily in the same places Dems are leading senate polls. Could Arizona really have a large number of Ruben Gallego-Trump voters?

there was an article somewhere— can’t find it at the moment— that showed that some voters will either split their votes as you mention, or simply vote for down ballot races and not vote for president.

yeah it makes sense there are some who'll do either of those things. But that YouGov poll has Trump 52-47 and Gallego 49-36...I just find it hard to believe both those numbers could be right.

i'm kinda glad that opinion polling has become increasingly difficult, expensive and unreliable. campaigns need to concentrate much more on communication of issues and organizing GOTV. I've concluded that voter opinion polls have detracted from political effectiveness. They over-emphasize short term gains and create distractions from the real work of growing grassroots.

Sometimes I think the absolute funniest outcome would be Trump as President and a Dem majority in both houses but he’d probably just have them murdered.

that YouGov poll has Trump 52-47 and Gallego 49-36...I just find it hard to believe both those numbers could be right.

Probably not, BUT it is not at all good for Biden (or the rest of us) that he's running behind Democratic candidates in multiple states.

He's a bad candidate, a weak and unpopular incumbent, and there is no changing any of that now. We can only hope he somehow rides it out, that distaste for Trump chaos overwhelms dissatisfaction with the status quo. Nothing I would bet money on at the moment.

The entire Trump agenda for his second term could be written on the head of a pin: stop trials, stay out of jail. beyond those specifics it's just the grift-of-the-day.

*cough* Project 2025 *cough*

that's not his agenda, just the agenda of some of his backers

the blithe lack of concern around P25 really troubles me, case in point

Like he wouldn't sign some or all of it. xpost

(what Alfred said, too)

the blithe lack of concern around P25 really troubles me

there's no reason to pick it out specifically because it is subsumed into the general concern over the massive acceleration toward unblushing fascism that would result from a Trump victory.

you keep proving my point!

if your point is that I would be blithely unconcerned by the implementation of P25, then I think you're not reading my posts correctly.

No, Aimless, no one's accusing you of anything. sleeve is saying that Project 25 is the product of what you correctly call unblushed fascism. They're synonymous.

I think his very definite agenda will be the Michael Corleone agenda: not wiping out everyone, just his enemies. (I.e., everyone.)

ty Alfred

I’ve told the story about one of the p25 writers trying to move next door to me, right? He’s the one who wants Sunday to be a mandatory day of rest

omg Heez tell us more

by the way, how come none of you told me Marianne Williamson was on the Democratic primary ballot for president? I feel like we've failed to mock this enough.

She’s pro ceasefire in Gaza, not so funny. I voted for her in my state primary (not Maryland) since there wasn’t an “uncommitted” option.

She’s pro ceasefire in Gaza, not so funny. I voted for her in my state primary (not Maryland) since there wasn’t an “uncommitted” option.

And did you feel enfolded in the warm embrace of the Goddess's benevolence after?

Project 2025 is real and worrying and of course Trump will try to do many terrible things in a second term, and will succeed at some of them. He can/will do real damage (as obviously he’s already done).

I just think it’s also useful to keep in mind what we know about him as a leader and administrator, and he’s very very bad at those things. He’s inconsistent, incoherent, moody, obsessive, vain and not actually very ideological — he’s not running for president to put any grand scheme or vision into place, he’s running to be important and powerful and get back at all of his enemies (and to stay out of jail). That’s bad! But it’s also a little different than “He’s running so he can do Project 2025.”

And also of course some of that agenda, like the total upending of the federal civil service workforce, has serious legal obstacles and could easily get drug out into the 2028 election cycle, by which point Trump will be even more unpopular than before because people will be SO SICK of him. So, there’s plenty to worry about, but all of the serious fights will be hard and also there aren’t many of them he probably really cares too much about.

re: Williamson, sure she is a stopped clock with some decent positions by default, but the fat-shaming and anti-vax insanity cancel it out for me

She’s not on the ballot in all states. In mine it was just Biden and Dean Phillips.

oh interesting, yeah it does not surprise me that she got enough signatures in Oregon

In Montana you can choose Biden, "No Preference," or write someone in. Interestingly, Tester has a primary challenger — Michael Hummert, who I'd never heard of until the ballot landed in my PO box this week. Based on this guide to his positions, I won't be voting for him. TL;DR: balanced budget amendment, term limits, Biden should step down in favor of Harris, we should seal the southern border completely and bring all US troops home from abroad to guard it...

_She’s pro ceasefire in Gaza, not so funny. I voted for her in my state primary (not Maryland) since there wasn’t an “uncommitted” option._

And did you feel enfolded in the warm embrace of the Goddess's benevolence after?

I'll say it again I really think Trump is gonna have an enthusiasm problem he just straight up does not have a campaign message. in 2016 he at least ran on stuff, stupid stuff maybe but I think he did a good job making those things sound like the biggest problems in the world to his base, which maybe led directly to them developing their own set of made up pet issues, like now with all the wokeness and groomer shit, only problem is Trump never really talks about that stuff, he's always off about windmills and electric cars and how many golf championships he won

he did a good job making those things sound like the biggest problems in the world to his base

As president Trump learned to delegate. The job of making up dire national problems and selling them to voters now belongs entirely to FOX NEWS, OAN and what's left of Q-ANON. He can't be bothered to talk about much besides how unfairly he's being treated.

As president Trump learned to delegate

sorry we're gonna need some actual citations and evidence for this claim

Trump's a racist asshole so the build the wall/immigrant demonization schtick came naturally but his heart definitely isn't in it when he has to cater to the insane evangelical brain worms crew.

yeah see back then he thought it was the biggest problem in the country now the biggest problem in the country is Donald Trump's felony charges

There's a narrow point of divergence somewhere in the late '90s that gets us here instead of him being an elderly man enjoying weekly drag brunches at Mar-A-Lago.

its crazy there were people saying tabloids like the National Enquirer were the sign of a civilization in decline and they turned out to be 100% right

trump's whole platform is: biden is destroying the country. i'm the only one who can save it.

its marvel movie shit. do or die. the fate of the country is in his hands. and his fans love that. everything else is just...stuff.

i mean he says it over and over week in and week out. and they cheer like crazy at the rallies when he does. and kinda fall asleep when he talks about anything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)