MAGA-flation. Republican -flation. Trump is a lame duck, but MAGA will survive. Messaging that ties everything that Trump fucksup to him alone gives Republicans in 2 or 4 years room to duck the consequences (I didn’t do it, Trump did it, I don’t agree with everything he did, blah blah blah). We need to make sure to tie everything Trump does to the whole Republican party now, so they all pay the price for letting Trump take over their party and fuck the economy and everything else.

The fight for the midterms starts today. Remember that.

I’m not going to defend the DNC, and I know the “fight from the inside” line gets eye rolls. But look at what Trump did. He took over the Republican party. He represented what the grassroots activists and voters in Republican primaries wanted. It was ugly and gross, but that’s what they wanted. And Trump transformed the Republican party in his image. Traditional Republicans became refugees, “never trumpers”. The Paul Ryan’s and Elizabeth Cheney’s who were willing to go along, without adopting the new maga Republican line, were forced out. Now the old Reagan, country club, fiscal discipline, free trade Republican party is dead. The survivors are exciled to places like the Bulwark, like it’s Taiwan and they’re just waiting for the opportunity to take their party back, an opportunity that will never come because the grassroots won’t let them.

I’m not saying this is a model. It happened in large part because fox news let Trump run wild because he was good for ratings, and by the time they went to quash him with Megan Kelly as hitman during a Fox News debate, it was too late, the base was with him and it was Kelly who was sacrificed as appeasement. It was overall a hostile takeover of the party based on the force of personality of one person, not a takeover based on differing policy ideas or a general vision for the party and country. I don’t think we can, or should want to, replicate that. But still I think there might be something there, some nugget we can replicate, for the grassroots to force change from the inside.

It’s a whole lot easier to take over a party than to build a new one.

Yeah, I hope that’s not the case but I worry about it. I think the most hopeful take is Trump isn’t running again, he’ll be like 86, so he’s not going to give a shit what comes next. Why bother to use the power of the state to help dipshit Vance? If anything, Vance losing just reinforces how special and unique Trump was, inflates his own ego. In terms of elections, I’m more concerned with the midterms. Trump has an incentive to prevent Congress flipping.

But also remember, W. Bush also had a conservative supreme court willing to let him get away with war crimes. Fuck, he “won” in 2020 only because SCOTUS stepped in to hand him the win. W. Bush was more illegitimate than Trump. But we survived, and we got Obama after. So there’s hope here too.

Progressive spaces do not accommodate those supportive of genocide, even if you try to frame the genocide as “self defence”. The “majority” of Jews you describe are not shut out of progressive spaces, they have chosen genocidal revenge as their policy and have thus turned their back on ideals like protecting the “the least of us”. Remember, it’s not just progressives who are against the genocide supporting zonists, it’s basically the whole world who has rejected you. You are welcome in conservative circles only because Jewish control of Israel is a necessary condition for the Christian cultists doomsday proficiencies. They don’t care about Jews, they dislike Jews generally, they just support Israel because 1) a lot like ethno states and want to replicate Israels model, and 2) Jews need to be there so Christ comes back or whatever.

Jews are more than welcome in progressive spaces, and many are there, just not the ones cheering on the mass murder and starvation of civilians. Maybe take a hard look at yourself and why your on whatever side your on.

The first ballot I was old enough to cast was for John Kerry in 2004. After Bush lied about WMDs and got us into a pointless war, a torture program, mass surveillance of Americans, let alone shit conservative social policies. 4 years of that, and Americans knowingly reelected him by a wider margin than his initial election. This time he won the popular vote, which he didn’t do in his initial election. Any of this sound familiar?

But we survived, and we paid attention, and we organized, and by 2008 we had a (by the standards of the time) progressive candidate at the top of the ticket, offering “radical socialist” policies ideas like universal healthcare and just a general vibe of inclusiveness rather than division. The Democratic party rejected the establishment options and nominated the bold candidate, the black guy with the middle name huessain. And we worked our asses off, I was mostly working on local campaigns but did some door knocking for Obama in a swing state.

And we won. The same country that four years ago shrugged off concerns about a guy who lied to get us into a war, turned around and voted for the (comparatively) progressive black guy the right painted as an out and out socialist by a landslide.

It’s not just that we defeated Trumpism in 2018, and 2020, and to some extent in 2022. Democrats turned a country that voted for a moron with little to no respect for democratic norms and the rule of law by wide margins, into a country that voted for a progressive in 2008.

We can do it again. We can organize and fight and convince the working class Americans who are so fed up with the status quo that they are so desperate for change that they voted for Trump, that real change that actually benefits working people is progressive. We can do that.

Two conditions though. First, we can’t let the DNC force another moderate center right candidate on us. Second, we have to make sure elections are still a thing that happens in America come 2026 and 2028. Both are tall orders, but we can do it.

Great, now I’m at the point of the post election grief cycle where I’m getting a bunch of books to try to figure out what happened. I remember this phase from 2016. Thanks for the recommendation for my list!

Interesting issue. Does their belief in their right to power control? There’s that crazy lady in Canada who calls herself the queen of Canada and issues edicts and whatever every now and then (somehow connected to qanon, I don’t remember the details). Could a US official accept a “title” bestowed by her, since she claims nobility and authority?

My recollection on the emoluments issue was SCOTUS punted in the same way they did with respect to Trump’s ability to run for office after the insurrection - Congress must declare the violation, and the remedy is presumably impeachment. So the practical effect is zero, since Congress would never take this up, let alone impeach and remove. I’d love if Dems did though, it would be fun seeing Republicans defend their justice receiving nighthood from some weird ass secret society thing.

Very real. We know that we have cancer, the question is whether it’s in remission and we’ve got a chance to finally rid our body of it, or has it spread and metastisized to the point that it’s terminal. Can’t wait to find out! I’m sure I’m going to have a very productive day at work with this hanging over my head!

Thanks for sharing this. It is a fantastic endorsement. It goes to the heart of everything wrong with the Trump Republican party in a way I haven’t seen the thousands of political commentators be able to do. It’s also just well written, a nice balance of reasoned journalism, humor, and outrage. This is probably the best thing I’ve read this election cycle.

Biden Admin: Israel, you must improve the humanitarian conditions in Gaza in 30 days, or else…

Israel: Designates the main aid organization, a UN organization no less, as a terrorist organization and bans their activities, violating international law in the process.

Biden Admin: …sigh…the US commitment to Israels security is ironclad…

Bezos has tons of federal government contracts. When Trump was president last time he went after Amazon and others he disliked to get their contracts cancelled. Bezos is concerned that if Trump wins, Trump could fuck with his contracts.

That’s the reason. It’s fucked up and more evidence of why news media shouldn’t be owned by fuckhead billionaires. Shameful day in WaPos history. Cowardice. Grovelling to placate Trump for the benefit of the paper 's owner.

Tin foil hat: I am somewhat concerned that our oligarch overlords seem to be hedging in a way that they think Trump might win.

Just a guess, but it’s probably a combination of two things. First, if we say a self driving car is going to hit an edge case it can’t resolve once in every, say, 100,000 miles, the number of Tesla’s and other self driving cars on the roads now means more miles driven more frequently which means those edge cases are going to occur more frequently. Second, people are becoming over reliant on self driving - they are (incorrectly ) trusting it more and paying less attention, meaning less chance of human intervention when those edge cases occur. So probably the self driving is overall better, but the number of accidents overall is increasing.

When you get past the gross stuff, you can see the Biden admin wants to use this as an opportunity to force Israel to a cease fire. Good luck with that though, Israeli defense minister already declared the war will go on indefinitely. To Israel, there is no day after short of ethnic cleansing. But hope and ignorance spring eternal for Biden:

Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.

I will be speaking soon with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.

There is now the opportunity for a “day after” in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.  Yahya Sinwar was an insurmountable obstacle to achieving all of those goals. That obstacle no longer exists. But much work remains before us.

Interesting, thank you for the response. I’ll give that book a read, and I appreciate the direct link!

Genuine question from someone socialism curious: my understanding of petite bourgeoisie was they were upper class but non capital owners, like doctors and lawyers, but i guess business owners and landlords fit too. But Trump’s support is largely non college educated white men. When I think of a Trump supporter I think a mechanic in Pennsylvania. I am thinking of the majority of teamsters based on their internal poll. To put a finer point on it, fascism under Trump seems to be driven by the proletariat. The petite bourgeoisie, if anything, is solidly in the Harris camp precisely because of its concern about fascism.

It’s even simpler than that. We’re four weeks to the election, everyone in the house of reps is busy campaigning for reelection. Nobody wants to go to DC and work, letting the campaign challengers run around your district unopposed.

And what would be the point if they did come back? Johnson couldn’t get his party to pass a continuing resolution to find the government Republican sweeteners attached (voter id law). How the fuck is he going to get his party on board for “government handouts” without the freedom caucus making some asinine demand that tanks the whole thing. Johnson certainly doesn’t want to remind voters of the shit show of distinction that is the Republican controlled House weeks before an election.

Pull all your vulnerable members off the campaign trail in the final weeks so that you can put on a fuck fuck circus generating daily headlines about how Republicans can’t govern? Fat fucking chance.

And if Biden calls a special session, Republicans are going to say it’s political to make them look bad, cause they can’t govern.

There is a significant difference between proxies and a direct missile attack launched by a nation-state. Just as there is a significant difference between the US arming a genocidal state, and the US actually dropping bombs directly on civilians. Not to say Iran and the US are not blameless for the actions of their proxies, but there are degrees here that are significant. You kneejerk “Iran bad, Israel good” view of the world is devoid of nuance. Maybe you should get yourself a twitch stream.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari just held a televised address.

In it, he said the Israeli military is “fully prepared to defend and retaliate” to the Iranian attack, stressing that it would be in a “timely manner”.

Hmm…

The Washington Post is reporting, citing three anonymous Pentagon officials, that American troops in the Middle East were not targeted during the Iranian missile attack in Israel.

Iraqi group linked to Iran have previously fired rockets at military bases housing US soldiers in Iraq and Syria.

Another sign that Iran is trying to respond, as a deterrent, rather than with an intent to escalate. At least that’s what it seems like so far.

Iran’s IRGC say attack on Israel response to killing of Nasrallah

Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the missile attack under way on Israel is in response to the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week as well as that of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh earlier this year.

“In response to the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and (IRGC Guards commander) Nilforoshan, we targeted the heart of the occupied territories,” the IRGC said in a statement.

So seems like Iran intends this to be a one and done response for everything Israel has done the last few months.