Is it likely to put people off voting for them, though? Nothing has so far.
I was gonna say, taking your kids to Epstein Island AFTER the point you now claim to have realized what sorta creep Epstein was pretty much fits the definition of weird, but no one seems to remember that a certain member of Trump's inner circle did just that.
Long and the short, "it's the economy, stupid". Anything else that keeps Team Trump playing defense is definitely good to throw out there, but none of those is likely to give you the decisive pivot.
Is it likely to put people off voting for them, though? Nothing has so far.
It depends on the people in question and the election.
Probably nothing will keep the MAGA True Believers from voting for Trump. And while they almost certainly wouldn’t vote for a Democrat in other races, that they’ll vote at all when Trump isn’t on the ballot isn’t necessarily a given.
But they’re not really the voters who matter. The voters who matter are the swing voters—a remarkably narrow sliver of the electorate, but the ones generally needed to win. And a lot of what’s going on in the Trump White House does seem to be turning them off.
But as @stetson says, it’s the economy that’s likely to be determinative. And while that was long the one thing Trump was viewed most positively on, it’s not anymore.
The voters who matter are the swing voters—a remarkably narrow sliver of the electorate, but the ones generally needed to win. And a lot of what’s going on in the Trump White House does seem to be turning them off.
He's governing like it's the eternal return of Summer '84 in the economic realm, and he's got the personal popularity(and accompanying ability to skirt norms) of Ronald Reagan, multiplied by maybe three.
The voters who matter are the swing voters—a remarkably narrow sliver of the electorate, but the ones generally needed to win. And a lot of what’s going on in the Trump White House does seem to be turning them off.
He's governing like it's the eternal return of Summer '84 in the economic realm, and he's got the personal popularity(and accompanying ability to skirt norms) of Ronald Reagan, multiplied by maybe three.
It’s very weird to me. He seems to be aware that Republicans are likely to lose control of the House at the midterms, or at least he’s aware there’s significant risk of that. But he seems either unwilling or unable to be disciplined about what he does and says in order to try to avert or at least minimize Republicans losses in the House, and in the process he’s increasing the risk to Republican control of the Senate.
The voters who matter are the swing voters—a remarkably narrow sliver of the electorate, but the ones generally needed to win. And a lot of what’s going on in the Trump White House does seem to be turning them off.
He's governing like it's the eternal return of Summer '84 in the economic realm, and he's got the personal popularity(and accompanying ability to skirt norms) of Ronald Reagan, multiplied by maybe three.
It’s very weird to me. He seems to be aware that Republicans are likely to lose control of the House at the midterms, or at least he’s aware there’s significant risk of that. But he seems either unwilling or unable to be disciplined about what he does and says in order to try to avert or at least minimize Republicans losses in the House, and in the process he’s increasing the risk to Republican control of the Senate.
He seems to be hoping that he can prompt or provoke some big "event" that'll distract attention from the immediate state of the economy. See his failed attempt at getting a fourth meeting with Kim Jeong Un a coupla weeks back(*).
(*) The Guardian has a good piece on the geopolitical background between the USA, the ROK, and the DPRK re: to Trump's detentish endeavours.
Lake Ontario borders New York State on the north. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed that we will not call it that.
He's also posted an image of an eagle attacking what I assume is a Canada Goose. A beaver woulda been the more recognized signifier, but I guess he couldn't find one and didn't wanna ask AI.
Lake Ontario borders New York State on the north. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed that we will not call it that.
He's also posted an image of an eagle attacking what I assume is a Canada Goose. A beaver woulda been the more recognized signifier, but I guess he couldn't find one and didn't wanna ask AI.
The fantastic thing about that image is it's from a video where the goose fights back and drives off the eagle.
Or, maybe we should call the eagle a chicken. TACO.
He's also posted an image of an eagle attacking what I assume is a Canada Goose. A beaver woulda been the more recognized signifier, but I guess he couldn't find one and didn't wanna ask AI.
Apparently the longer series of pictures of the bald eagle versus the Canada goose has the goose surviving and the eagle retreating.
(Link - to 'Daily Beast' article talking about a recent 'Truth Social' post by DJT. I'm too tired to describe it to you, but it is SFW if you want to lose a little more morale yourself.)
(Link - to 'Daily Beast' article talking about a recent 'Truth Social' post by DJT. I'm too tired to describe it to you, but it is SFW if you want to lose a little more morale yourself.)
Some odd choices there, for Trump. McKinley is only average, when Trump has explicitly cited him as a model for re-working foreign policy and re-named a mountain after him?
And Coolidge is worse than Hoover? And Eisenhower is nowhere to be seen?
Some of the choices, eg. Washington great, Grant really bad, just seem to imitate the conventional wisdom up until the early C21 or so. I suspect someone just asked AI "Rank all the presidents from best to worst", and then re-worked it a little to make sure eg. Trump was at the top and Obama and Biden on the bottom.
Wikipedia suggests that Grant's role as Union general in the Civil War and in trying to enforce the rights of black Americans in the South as President has played a part in his low ranking by right-wing historians.
Wikipedia suggests that Grant's role as Union general in the Civil War and in trying to enforce the rights of black Americans in the South as President has played a part in his low ranking by right-wing historians.
Absolutely. Though moreso the civil-rights stuff than the ACW itself, since Lincoln was often venerated by the same right-wingers who hated Grant, see eg. Birth Of A Nation, where Lincoln is portrayed as the protector of the south against the Radicals.
Anyway, I just saw on another site that that chart is an AI slop of a ranking done by Life Magazine in 1948. Which explains the relative lacuna of post-FDR presidents.
Anyway, I just saw on another site that that chart is an AI slop of a ranking done by Life Magazine in 1948. Which explains the relative lacuna of post-FDR presidents.
So...someone added Carter to vilify him, quite intentionally.
I guess this is what those crazy guys call 'owning the libs'.
It feels like it might take quite a while to scrub all the shit off the surfaces he has touched. I don't know if this is just easier to think about than dead Iranian schoolgirls. I hope it's not that I care more about the internet bullshit.
Anyway, I just saw on another site that that chart is an AI slop of a ranking done by Life Magazine in 1948. Which explains the relative lacuna of post-FDR presidents.
So...someone added Carter to vilify him, quite intentionally.
I guess this is what those crazy guys call 'owning the libs'.
Partly, but even among the non-ideological, Carter tends to be certain generations' idea of the ultimate failed president. The hostages and the line-ups for gas.
Last year we went into a small place in York (the original one) where you could leave your luggage for the day. On one wall there was a large map of the world on which the owner had carefully divided the USA into South Canada and North Mexico. He told us it had attracted a lot of favourable attention.
I understand the Canadians have responded (presumably unofficially) by renaming Lake Michigan and the Niagara Falls?
I don’t know about Niagara Falls, but I read that Carney took a napkin, wrote something along the lines of “I hereby rename Lake Michigan Lake Wisconsin,” and then quipped “See, I can rename things too.”
That man is just giving me so many opportunities to use exclamation points these days.
TRUMP OPENS U.S. SPACE ACADEMY!!!
As someone who has long-thought awhile that the long-term sociopolitical implications of space exploration are pretty overstated(*), I'm tempted to shrug this off as a meaningless trophy project. Kind of assuming it's mostly a re-organization of existing bureaucracy, but I'm open to hearing from those with more insight.
(*) AI's certainly a thing, but I think it'll be awhile before we have to worry about it murdering astronauts near the moons of Jupiter.
I don't suppose I need to rehearse here how Carter lost heavily in the 'bombed schoolgirls' metric.
Though that's at least partly because Brzezinski prefered farming that sorta stuff out to US client states and factions.
Thanks for that name - some interesting wiki reading. I happen to have just finished reading 'The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Cooperative' by Leopold Tyrmand. It helps to get inside the head of a Polish asylum seeker in the US in the 70s - I am slightly surprised to see him (Brzezinski) described (alongside the less surprising "...hawkish or a "foreign policy hardliner" on some issues, such as Poland–Russia relations...") as "progressive".
Fundie watchers online have figured out that Natalie Harp was raised in IBLP [Institute for Basic Life Principles], an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist organisation run until recently by Bill Gothard - this is the organisation that the Duggar family belong to. It certainly explains the strangely childish tone of her letter.
Also wrt praying for someone's death - I think that praying for the death of an enemy is fully in keeping with the Psalms. I appreciate the legal issues for the Ship, but from a moral viewpoint I don't have an issue with it.
Also wrt praying for someone's death - I think that praying for the death of an enemy is fully in keeping with the Psalms.
It is, but it's harder to square with Jesus' words on the matter. Treating the OT as primary without filtering it through Jesus is the sort of thing I associate with, ironically, people who I would probably identify as my enemies.
Also wrt praying for someone's death - I think that praying for the death of an enemy is fully in keeping with the Psalms.
It is, but it's harder to square with Jesus' words on the matter. Treating the OT as primary without filtering it through Jesus is the sort of thing I associate with, ironically, people who I would probably identify as my enemies.
+1...
...although we had a preacher lately who preached on the psalm for the day (which is very unusual for us) in order to point out how unprogressive it all was, and how it ought to get God's Guardian subscription rescinded.
(She could have preached on the idea that scipture contains models of all our petitions to God, including the mad stuff when we really, really want to punch someone's face in - and that the Lord can take it. But Jesus suggests there is another way. I guess that's what you were saying.)
I wouldn't consider the OT to have primacy over the Gospels but neither would I consider it to be subservient - rather that the Psalms contains a particular group of human experiences, and that the experiences in the Gospels are different. I don't see them as being in conflict with one another.
Also wrt praying for someone's death - I think that praying for the death of an enemy is fully in keeping with the Psalms.
I'd say the Psalms portray for the death of an enemy as a human thing to do. But as others have said, that very thing was the subject of one of Jesus’s “you have heard it said . . . , but I say to you . . . .”
I wouldn't consider the OT to have primacy over the Gospels but neither would I consider it to be subservient - rather that the Psalms contains a particular group of human experiences, and that the experiences in the Gospels are different. I don't see them as being in conflict with one another.
They clearly are here. Praying for someone's death and loving them are rarely compatible.
I don't know. What about all his victims? What's the most loving thing to do for them?
I wouldn't pray for the death of an enemy myself, but I can see where Pomona is coming from. Also I don't think Trump dropping dead will cause an immediate improvement in the situation, because all his enablers and handlers will *still be there* - and some of them are crazier than he is.
I don't think Trump dropping dead will cause an immediate improvement in the situation, because all his enablers and handlers will *still be there* - and some of them are crazier than he is.
I was quoting, for the purpose of mockery, his own self-description that he trotted out a few years back to justify his supposedly hilarious pro-pedophilia jokes.
Yeah, I'd heard he was later claiming he had "converted" to heterosexuality.
I think I was highlighting a dimension of the BBC story and perhaps another surprising aspect of his own self-description, rather than attempting to rebuke you. Sorry if it came over wrong :-)
I suppose this is the weakness of democracies. If Trump can get elected in a given environment then a very similar individual is likely to replace him if he is removed. At least a good honest revolution against a dictator can totally change the nature of the leadership.
My greatest fear is that one of his despicable sons, or his equally despicable son-in-law, will run for office.
I would like to say most Americans are so tired of the Trump family and associates.
I am looking forward to the next two years of impeachments and the ensuing trials, not that he will be convicted, but at least we will have the chance to examine what has happened during his tenure to make laws to counter people like him.
That said, it will take many years to restore our country as well as our relations with the rest of the world.
Sorry for the double post. I am not going to be surprised when the Seneca Nation and other Native American confederacies sue Trump for violating treaties signed with them naming the big, beautiful lake "Ontario." Just saying.
Kash Patel has loosened FBI recruitment standards to no longer bar people who admit to commiting bestiality, as long as it happened when they were minors.
The jokes just kinda write themselves on this one.
I suppose this is the weakness of democracies. If Trump can get elected in a given environment then a very similar individual is likely to replace him if he is removed. At least a good honest revolution against a dictator can totally change the nature of the leadership.
Well a revolution may do that. But then also very often it may not. I think the chances of positive change are at least as great in a democracy.
I suppose this is the weakness of democracies. If Trump can get elected in a given environment then a very similar individual is likely to replace him if he is removed.
At this point this is something that all allies of the US need to bear in mind for the future.
Comments
I was gonna say, taking your kids to Epstein Island AFTER the point you now claim to have realized what sorta creep Epstein was pretty much fits the definition of weird, but no one seems to remember that a certain member of Trump's inner circle did just that.
Long and the short, "it's the economy, stupid". Anything else that keeps Team Trump playing defense is definitely good to throw out there, but none of those is likely to give you the decisive pivot.
Probably nothing will keep the MAGA True Believers from voting for Trump. And while they almost certainly wouldn’t vote for a Democrat in other races, that they’ll vote at all when Trump isn’t on the ballot isn’t necessarily a given.
But they’re not really the voters who matter. The voters who matter are the swing voters—a remarkably narrow sliver of the electorate, but the ones generally needed to win. And a lot of what’s going on in the Trump White House does seem to be turning them off.
But as @stetson says, it’s the economy that’s likely to be determinative. And while that was long the one thing Trump was viewed most positively on, it’s not anymore.
He's governing like it's the eternal return of Summer '84 in the economic realm, and he's got the personal popularity(and accompanying ability to skirt norms) of Ronald Reagan, multiplied by maybe three.
He seems to be hoping that he can prompt or provoke some big "event" that'll distract attention from the immediate state of the economy. See his failed attempt at getting a fourth meeting with Kim Jeong Un a coupla weeks back(*).
(*) The Guardian has a good piece on the geopolitical background between the USA, the ROK, and the DPRK re: to Trump's detentish endeavours.
Lake Ontario borders New York State on the north. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed that we will not call it that.
He's also posted an image of an eagle attacking what I assume is a Canada Goose. A beaver woulda been the more recognized signifier, but I guess he couldn't find one and didn't wanna ask AI.
Or, maybe we should call the eagle a chicken. TACO.
Apparently the longer series of pictures of the bald eagle versus the Canada goose has the goose surviving and the eagle retreating.
(Link - to 'Daily Beast' article talking about a recent 'Truth Social' post by DJT. I'm too tired to describe it to you, but it is SFW if you want to lose a little more morale yourself.)
Some odd choices there, for Trump. McKinley is only average, when Trump has explicitly cited him as a model for re-working foreign policy and re-named a mountain after him?
And Coolidge is worse than Hoover? And Eisenhower is nowhere to be seen?
Some of the choices, eg. Washington great, Grant really bad, just seem to imitate the conventional wisdom up until the early C21 or so. I suspect someone just asked AI "Rank all the presidents from best to worst", and then re-worked it a little to make sure eg. Trump was at the top and Obama and Biden on the bottom.
Absolutely. Though moreso the civil-rights stuff than the ACW itself, since Lincoln was often venerated by the same right-wingers who hated Grant, see eg. Birth Of A Nation, where Lincoln is portrayed as the protector of the south against the Radicals.
Anyway, I just saw on another site that that chart is an AI slop of a ranking done by Life Magazine in 1948. Which explains the relative lacuna of post-FDR presidents.
So...someone added Carter to vilify him, quite intentionally.
I guess this is what those crazy guys call 'owning the libs'.
It feels like it might take quite a while to scrub all the shit off the surfaces he has touched. I don't know if this is just easier to think about than dead Iranian schoolgirls. I hope it's not that I care more about the internet bullshit.
Partly, but even among the non-ideological, Carter tends to be certain generations' idea of the ultimate failed president. The hostages and the line-ups for gas.
They should rename the whole continent Greater Canada.
Presumably, French was spoken in South Canada, and Spanish in North Mexico...as well as English, of course...
Mind you, it would still be possible to have, in addition, an independent California.
Milo Yiannopolous has been detained by ICE!
Wonder if they'll be enchanted with his self-announced "gay, British sass".
TRUMP OPENS U.S. SPACE ACADEMY!!!
As someone who has long-thought awhile that the long-term sociopolitical implications of space exploration are pretty overstated(*), I'm tempted to shrug this off as a meaningless trophy project. Kind of assuming it's mostly a re-organization of existing bureaucracy, but I'm open to hearing from those with more insight.
(*) AI's certainly a thing, but I think it'll be awhile before we have to worry about it murdering astronauts near the moons of Jupiter.
Though that's at least partly because Brzezinski prefered farming that sorta stuff out to US client states and factions.
'Ex-gay', please. BBC link here. Thanks so much for posting this - it's really cheered me up this morning.
Thanks for that name - some interesting wiki reading. I happen to have just finished reading 'The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Cooperative' by Leopold Tyrmand. It helps to get inside the head of a Polish asylum seeker in the US in the 70s - I am slightly surprised to see him (Brzezinski) described (alongside the less surprising "...hawkish or a "foreign policy hardliner" on some issues, such as Poland–Russia relations...") as "progressive".
It is, but it's harder to square with Jesus' words on the matter. Treating the OT as primary without filtering it through Jesus is the sort of thing I associate with, ironically, people who I would probably identify as my enemies.
+1...
...although we had a preacher lately who preached on the psalm for the day (which is very unusual for us) in order to point out how unprogressive it all was, and how it ought to get God's Guardian subscription rescinded.
(She could have preached on the idea that scipture contains models of all our petitions to God, including the mad stuff when we really, really want to punch someone's face in - and that the Lord can take it. But Jesus suggests there is another way. I guess that's what you were saying.)
They clearly are here. Praying for someone's death and loving them are rarely compatible.
I wouldn't pray for the death of an enemy myself, but I can see where Pomona is coming from. Also I don't think Trump dropping dead will cause an immediate improvement in the situation, because all his enablers and handlers will *still be there* - and some of them are crazier than he is.
I was quoting, for the purpose of mockery, his own self-description that he trotted out a few years back to justify his supposedly hilarious pro-pedophilia jokes.
Yeah, I'd heard he was later claiming he had "converted" to heterosexuality.
I would like to say most Americans are so tired of the Trump family and associates.
I am looking forward to the next two years of impeachments and the ensuing trials, not that he will be convicted, but at least we will have the chance to examine what has happened during his tenure to make laws to counter people like him.
That said, it will take many years to restore our country as well as our relations with the rest of the world.
The jokes just kinda write themselves on this one.
Well a revolution may do that. But then also very often it may not. I think the chances of positive change are at least as great in a democracy.
At this point this is something that all allies of the US need to bear in mind for the future.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/26/paper-product-toilet-paper-tariffs-us-canada