by liberal japonicus
The title is from Michelle Obama's speech. Pretty powerful stuff. It is pretty interesting what different pieces take away as the key point. The whole process of a headline is pretty destructive to a speech that was a defense of Harris' qualifications, a call out of Trump, a call to arms for women, an address to men to step up and probably a few other things. I'm also wondering about the following:
-There was a lot of talk about an October Surprise, was it Trump is a fascist? It seems like Kelly's comments were anticipated by a lot of people in the media, and was more of damp squib.
-This MSNBC piece has the former GOP representative a 'whisper caucus' of GOP voters going for Harris, I'd love to believe this, but I don't know.
A open thread about the election as the last one is a week old.
At this point I'm preparing myself for a Trump victory. Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst and all that.
Posted by: LE | October 27, 2024 at 09:08 AM
On another website, someone commented that an "October Surprise" needs to appear in early September.
I complained that the holiday crap is getting pushed earlier and earlier. SHEESH!
Make sure your passport is current. Practice rifle marksmanship. Vote like your life depends on it.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | October 27, 2024 at 10:17 AM
But also keep in mind that the possession of a passport will make you a suspect and can be used against you.
Posted by: Hartmut | October 27, 2024 at 10:30 AM
Very good and interesting speech, thank you lj. I say interesting because what I think was the whole second half of it was explicitly aimed at men, presumably because the differential between female voting intentions and male ones is now viewed as one of the worst blocks in Harris's way. And not just aimed at men, but aimed at them on the grounds that they need to help safeguard women's rights and healthcare. That's obviously true and right, but there was something about appealing to men in that way that aroused strange and uncomfortable feelings, for me at least. And, in the news:
Shocking new directive: Today, the Taliban's Minister of Vice and Virtue announced a ban on adult women's voices in each other's presence. In August, the Taliban banned women's voices in public, deeming it provocative. Women protested to this ban by singing and poetry.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but when my late husband read the Handmaid's Tale, he clearly regarded it purely as creative dystopian speculative fiction, and was very shocked when I said that it filled me with a sense of dread, and that to me it seemed absolutely credible, in fact that versions of it were already happening in some parts of the world.
This speech, and the news above, suddenly reactivated some of the same kinds of feelings in me.
Posted by: GftNC | October 27, 2024 at 12:36 PM
Looking forward to my free "go back to where you came from" trip to Scotland, or maybe Ireland. Do I get to pick? But this may not come to pass as I believe Harris shall prevail.
I would encourage all of you to vote, but I suspect the overwhelming majority of those who drop by here have already done so.
Cross your fingers.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 27, 2024 at 12:40 PM
@bobbyp --
I have voted. Not as early as I meant to, but as soon as I could after the first day, which was Oct. 7 in Maine. In person at town hall.
*****
As to going back where we came from -- it's a topic interlaced with stupidities, as one would expect from Clickbait and his storm trooper followers.
My ancestry includes two widely divergent strands. (Well, widely only in the context of the fact they they're all European as far as I know.)
One strand came from Italy in the early twentieth century.
The other includes a line descended from an Englishman who came to Boston in 1637 on a religious mission. He and his group got into a quarrel with the religious people in Boston and removed themselves to Connecticut, where they helped found New Haven.
By the math, I have about a thousand ancestors in the generation that came over in the 1630s. (We have records for a couple of them.) Plus another thousand or so in the intervening generations.
Who knows where they all came from!
Not that I think Clickbait really means to deport people to any place in particular.
Also, no one ever mentions whether the countries he wants to deport people to will take them. Among other unmentionable aspects of the whole vicious notion.
Malevolent idiots.
Posted by: JanieM | October 27, 2024 at 01:45 PM
me: By the math, I have about a thousand ancestors in the generation that came over in the 1630s. (We have records for a couple of them.)
This is poorly worded; I don't mean to say that half my ancestors on the non-Italian side who were alive in the 1630s were on this continent. But at least four of them were... the two men we have records for, and their wives.
I really, really despise the yahoos who screech that they're going to "take America back." (A dissertation topic in itself, so fill in the blanks on your own.)
Fuck 'em. I hope they can be made to crawl back under their rocks ASAP, and that "we" are more diligent and successful than we've been lately (broadly speaking) in keeping them there.
Not hopeful on that score.
Posted by: JanieM | October 27, 2024 at 01:52 PM
I'm waiting for him to include Native Americans in his list of groups to be deported. Just to see where he proposes to deport them to. Not that I expect him to have a clue about reality there, since he doesn't on anything else....
Posted by: wj | October 27, 2024 at 02:36 PM
As for politics generally, I'm beginning to wonder about Texas. I've seen it described as a bluish-purple state where the Democrats (or Democratic leaning independents) don't turn out.
Looking at Harris' rally in Houston, I get the feeling that her campaign thinks she might actually have a shot.** Or, at minimum, that they think Allred has a good chance of taking down Cruz, if they can just GOTV there.
** If Harris takes Texas, not only is it game over this time. But it could be curtins for Texas Republicans generally going forward. Yes, I know that predictions of Texas turning blue have been recurring. And repeatedly wrong. Doesn't mean it won't happen eventually.
Posted by: wj | October 27, 2024 at 02:43 PM
Make sure your passport is current. Practice rifle marksmanship. Vote like your life depends on it.
I've thought long and hard about the rifle marksmanship thing, and the larger question of what resistance might look like in the America that The Husk aspires to force upon us.
The two historical examples that have rung most true for me have been the Norwegian (and Danish) Resistance to fascist occupiers, and the East German resistance. Neither one really had any use for rifle marksmanship.
The Norwegian resistance was more about communication and coordination and sabotage. It was about eroding the illusion of control that authoritarians rely upon to enforce their will.
The East German resistance was even more subtle - rooted in widespread non-compliance with the demands of the party, and met with a shrug rather than open defiance. They simply refused to give the authorities what the authorities demanded.
I hope that we don't have to put either of these into practice, but I think they will be far more effective in the long run than wasting a lot of time and money preparing to shoot our way out of this crisis.
Posted by: nous | October 27, 2024 at 03:00 PM
Putting little holes in paper targets is FUN. And it's a good skill to have, like driving, riding a bicycle, skiing, sailing. Even if it's only used for recreation.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | October 27, 2024 at 03:13 PM
No argument from me that it's fun to shoot firearms, or that it gives you a little rush and a sense of power to watch your bullets hit a target. I'd do that more often than I do if I could find a place to do it that wasn't either inherently unsafe, or completely overrun by people who are actively practicing to kill the people I care about.
But I fully expect that if things do go south, the people in power are going to use their institutional capture of significant portions the military and law enforcement to try to enforce a police state, and they will have all manner of resources on their side to try to break any center of resistance.
Slow and low, that is the tempo - for the Beasties and for resistance alike.
Posted by: nous | October 27, 2024 at 05:38 PM
We'll be like the resistance in "Children of Men" (love that film).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men
But seriously, the problem is not so much US interior policy, but the Middle East (yes, it could get worse) Ukraine (and the rules based international order disappearing with it) and the environment (we're already facing a disastrous 3 degree rise).
God help us.
Posted by: novakant | October 27, 2024 at 06:00 PM
Well, novakant, I'm rather assuming that despite the great interest in and knowledge of world affairs shown by the the Americans on this site (the majority), their foremost problem or concern is US internal policy!
Not to downplay effects on the rules-based international order, and the environment, both of which are of enormous importance (to me, as I'm sure to all others), but the destruction of American democracy as well as the ongoing repercussions therefrom (see above) is almost unimaginable.
Posted by: GftNC | October 27, 2024 at 06:39 PM
Further to which, this from Andrew Rawnsley in today's Observer, mainly on the synthetic "controversy" about Labourites helping out the Dems, but my bold:
Only Americans get to vote, but the world will have to cope with the consequences if Donald Trump again darkens the door of the White House. The fate of Ukraine, the future of Nato, the stability of the global economy, the response to the climate crisis, the cohesion of the democracies in the struggle with an axis of autocracies, and plausibly even the freedoms of America itself, all this is on the ballot in 2024.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/27/be-under-no-illusions-keir-starmer-a-trump-presidency-will-be-a-harrowing-nightmare
Posted by: GftNC | October 27, 2024 at 06:48 PM
GftNC, the two are intertwined of course. The more Trump is able to remove checks and balances and establish something like an autocracy, the more extreme or just crazily random his foreign and environmental policies will be and the easier it will be for him to implement them.
Posted by: novakant | October 27, 2024 at 07:41 PM
All true, novakant. I only meant to say that it would be understandable were our American comrades to see the possible loss of their democracy and freedoms as their greatest problem.
Posted by: GftNC | October 27, 2024 at 08:48 PM
I wish I had immigrated somewhere forty years ago.
Posted by: wonkie | October 27, 2024 at 09:24 PM
The flood of racist garbage spewing forth from TheFuckingTrump rally at Madison Square Garden tonight was a sign of the depths to which the so-called "conservative movement" has sunk to.
They are racists.
They are misogyinistic.
They are authoritarian.
They are delusional.
Their statements reveal who they are. Believe them.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 27, 2024 at 10:21 PM
I'm waiting for him to include Native Americans in his list of groups to be deported. Just to see where he proposes to deport them to.
To India, of course! They're Indians, right?
The sad thing is, I can almost hear him saying it.
Nous, I would be interested in any layperson-friendly sources you might be able to point to on the general topic of resistance under authoritarian regimes.
Posted by: russell | October 27, 2024 at 10:26 PM
I wish I had immigrated somewhere forty years ago.
For some, if Trump wins, that may be the wisest choice. The US may see the sort of brain drain the Russia saw when Putin started (the latest phase of) his invasion of Ukraine. For others, that is not an option, for one reason or another.
When, very long ago, I joined the US Air Force, I took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." [Emphasis added] That oath didn't include an expiration date. So, wisely or foolishly, I'm not going anywhere. What, exactly I can do, in that worst case scenario, I do not know. I expect something will occur to me, should it become necessary.
Posted by: wj | October 27, 2024 at 11:17 PM
Some boring inside baseball stuff, barely worth linking. If the fascist loses this might be interesting. Or not.
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/26/harris-biden-grudge-revenge-election
Basically there is supposedly some resentment between some of Biden’s people and Harris and her people. I was hoping to see something about foreign policy or really, about any policy, but it all seems to be office politics and career concerns.
Posted by: Donald | October 27, 2024 at 11:23 PM
In the short term, we'll muddle through regardless of who's elected. But the politicians have kicked so many cans down the road there's a heap of them looming in the distance.
Posted by: CharlesWT | October 27, 2024 at 11:47 PM
In the short term, we'll muddle through regardless of who's elected.
What do you mean 'we' kemosabe?
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 28, 2024 at 04:21 AM
There's a great Panorama episode on BBC iPlayer: "Trump: a Second Chance?"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024h6r/panorama-trump-a-second-chance
UK only (unless you're a bit tech savvy)
Nothing altogether new probably for the readers of this blog, but it's frightening to watch (though there's some hope as well). They also feature some of the "Front Row Joes" who follow Trump around as cheerleaders, which is interesting.
some takeaways:
- Trump has established a personality cult (initially drawing on wounded working class pride and people feeling left behind economically)
- Kamala changed the game, otherwise we would already have lost
- Trump's strongest motivation is to avoid prison time
- the Surpreme Court has already fundamentally changed the US with its ruling in "Trump vs. US", namely the principle that no one is above the law, i.e. the US is not a true democracy anymore
- Trump will use this if elected to turn the US into an autocracy
- if he is not declared the winner, he has dozens of lawyers in place who are already working on undermining the results, primarily at the state level
- it's a fundamental principle of the movement that the 2020 election was stolen and Trump and his base will do everything so it "won't happen again"
Good times!
Posted by: novakant | October 28, 2024 at 09:21 AM
if he is not declared the winner, he has dozens of lawyers in place who are already working on undermining the results, primarily at the state level.
And the Harris campaign already had hundreds of lawyers in place, with briefs already drafted, to counter them. Because it is, after all, soooo predictable.
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2024 at 09:36 AM
bobbyp:
Looking forward to my free "go back to where you came from" trip to Scotland, or maybe Ireland.
wj:
I'm waiting for him to include Native Americans in his list of groups to be deported. Just to see where he proposes to deport them to.
Why would "where you came from" have anything to do with it? More likely the constraint is "where can we land you?" My guess is that's someplace where the Marines can seize an airport and surrounding area, and control a flight path. Then the C-50s load up at the camps, fly to that airport, and the passengers are pushed out into whatever country that is. Somalia always comes to mind. Russia might be selectively interested in skilled labor.
Posted by: Michael Cain | October 28, 2024 at 09:53 AM
Russia might be selectively interested in skilled labor
Probably at least as much interest in additional meat cubes for infantry.
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2024 at 10:04 AM
Their statements reveal who they are. Believe them.
Will enough people care for it to matter? I hope so, but I wouldn't bet on it. That should-be-alternate-reality rally would serve as political suicide in a sane world. I'm starting to think a sane world is now the alternate reality.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 28, 2024 at 11:47 AM
One note of minimal hope: I don't think that rally is going to help The Husk's (TM: Nous Enterprises) chances in the election. If anything, it can only hurt. I can't imagine it will garner new voters to sign up for the dark world of MAGA.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 28, 2024 at 11:53 AM
The only upside, for Trump, is that it fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing The Garden. For him, that's what it was all about.
No idea what the folks running the campaign were thinking. They picked the speakers. They vetted the speeches that went onto the teleprompters. And it looked like an exercise in letting their freak flag fly. Without consideration of the impact on voters.
I agree that it won't bring Trump any new voters. What I think it will do is cause some "soft Trump" voters to do a rethink. In particular voters from, or with family in, Puerto Rico. Calling that "dumb" is a slur on dumb.
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2024 at 12:08 PM
I was going to ask Charles his definition of muddling through. But really, what's the point?
The appalling speakers at the Garden were one, hopefully damaging, thing. But more importantly, what did Trump mean by his "little secret" arranged with Mike Johnson??
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 07:10 PM
If anyone is interested in that BBC Panorama programme which novakant was talking about (I wasn't initially when I read his bullet points because they all seemed, as he predicted they might, so obvious), this is nonetheless a review of it in today's Grauniad, headed
From Front Row Joes wanting control to the leader of the Proud Boys wanting to ‘make America hate again’, this documentary interviews Trump fans – and takes more time than most films to show why his popularity runs so deep:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/oct/28/trump-a-second-chance-review-why-his-rise-and-his-return-make-total-sense
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 07:22 PM
what did Trump mean by his "little secret" arranged with Mike Johnson??
Most educated guesses have been that The Husk is hinting that they plan to engineer enough disputes over the elections to make it so that no one candidate has a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, triggering a Contingent Election and throwing the result to the House of Representatives to choose the President.
Posted by: nous | October 28, 2024 at 08:13 PM
Johnson might well not be Speaker by 6 Jan. Which (hopefully) will throw a big monkey wrench in their nefarious plans.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | October 28, 2024 at 08:20 PM
And I'm hoping that the Puerto Riqueñ@ vote goes all Hurricane Maria on their electoral hopes.
Posted by: nous | October 28, 2024 at 08:25 PM
Oh fuck (about your @08.13). Thanks nous. If that's true, is there a sense that forewarned is fore-armed? Can Harris use this possibility to try to GOTV even more urgently, or would it be viewed as paranoid fantasy, do you/we think?
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 08:41 PM
I think there are enough other, more concrete, GOTV arguments. No need to go into hypotheticals.
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2024 at 09:19 PM
I usually just go with: GOTV, because that's the only thing that we really have any agency over, and the only thing that will put bodies on the streets.
Posted by: nous | October 28, 2024 at 09:43 PM
Thanks, wj and nous. I realise I am panicking quite badly and unhelpfully....
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 10:07 PM
Anyone who's enough of a political junkie/nerd to know or care about the obscurities of the Electoral College process doesn't need to be "gotten out." And for everyone else (for that matter, for everyone), as wj suggests, there are plenty of bigger and more obvious reasons to go and vote. To put it the other way around, anyone who doesn't care enough about voting at this point to make sure to go and vote isn't going to be persuaded by the arcane, "inside baseball" rules around the EC vote counting. Abortion! Unions! Social security and Medicare! Voting rights! Ukraine! Dare I say "the economy"? And on and on.
Anyhow, thanks to a commenter at BJ, here's a reminder that the Speaker isn't the one who runs the process anyhow, the VP does. Plus, it's the new Congress that would do the electing if it came to that, not the current one, so it's not at all clear that Johnson will even be Speaker at that point.
Posted by: JanieM | October 28, 2024 at 10:19 PM
I realise I am panicking quite badly and unhelpfully....
Like most of the world, you suffer from the fact that you will be seriously impacted by events here, events that you have no control over. You can just sit and watch. And pray.
Posted by: wj | October 28, 2024 at 10:53 PM
To put it the other way around, anyone who doesn't care enough about voting at this point to make sure to go and vote isn't going to be persuaded by the arcane, "inside baseball" rules around the EC vote counting. Abortion! Unions! Social security and Medicare! Voting rights! Ukraine! Dare I say "the economy"? And on and on.
I suppose I thought that there are people (actually I know some) who might not care enough about those issues (e.g. if they were sort of right wing and well-off, and isolationist), but who would be somewhat galvanised to vote if they thought that a plot was being hatched to actually out and out cheat via a pre-made deal between Johnson and Trump. But I do think I'm being much too nervy and panicky, so I'm trying to keep it down.
Just out of interest though, and on a point of fact about your second paragraph, Janie, wouldn't the new Congress have been elected on the same ballots as the Presidential? And if so, if the results were OK for the Congress, how would they be able to challenge them for the Presidential? But this is where my ignorance of the procedures really shows, and I suppose that didn't help in 2020.
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 11:02 PM
Gift link on the chances of and barriers to this kind of scenario from today's WaPo:
https://wapo.st/4f0hHd8
Posted by: GftNC | October 28, 2024 at 11:08 PM
Just out of interest though, and on a point of fact about your second paragraph, Janie, wouldn't the new Congress have been elected on the same ballots as the Presidential? And if so, if the results were OK for the Congress, how would they be able to challenge them for the Presidential?
If they create enough chaos, I have no idea what would happen. But two points:
1) Doubt about the ballots is a different issue from what happens if no one gets 270.
2) I can only guess what would happen if somehow or other the Rs prevent the new Congress from being seated. But in that case, I would bet all I have that the outcome isn't that the old Congress still keeps running things. At least not "legally" -- whatever that means in this scenario. That would be ... chaos, and/or a coup, in effect.
Posted by: JanieM | October 28, 2024 at 11:13 PM
Addendum on my point #1: although the two issues might be intertwined, if no one reaches 270 because of doubt cast on ballots. I just think that if the Rs have created that much chaos, and no one has been able to stop them, all bets of any kind are off. And for that matter, in that scenario, it won't matter if Harris has actually won by a landslide.
Posted by: JanieM | October 28, 2024 at 11:30 PM
I can only guess what would happen if somehow or other the Rs prevent the new Congress from being seated. But in that case, I would bet all I have that the outcome isn't that the old Congress still keeps running things.
Quite. The terms of the current Congress end at noon (EST) on January 3rd, so they are gone. The newly elected (or re-elected) Congressmen take office. At most some of them might end up taking their oaths of office somewhere other than the Capitol. Some might be prevented from physically getting to the Capitol. They are still the new Congress.
On January 6th, the Vice President stands before those who have arrived and publicly announces the Electoral College votes for each state. (Skipping, obviously, those states which have not sent in a certified statement of the Electoral votes in their states.) The candidate with a majority of those votes becomes President. Doesn't necessarily have to be 270; just a majority of those cast.
Posted by: wj | October 29, 2024 at 01:54 AM
This conversation about a Contingent Election and who would be in charge at the transfer of power has sent me down another whole series of rabbit holes, thanks to classes that I took in grad school with a major scholar of law and literature. At the center of this sudden flurry of reading is Lincoln's role as dictator during the Civil War what with the suspension of habeas corpus and his deep concern for the preservation of both the constitution and international law (the law of war) in his suspension of parts of the constitution.
I know that the right has been very active on this subject thanks to the massive expansion of presidential powers in the War on Terror. I also know that this discussion is deeply informed by readings of Carl Schmitt (who I've mentioned repeatedly here as part of the discussion of the illiberal right).
What I'm wondering is whether or not Biden could, through the powers granted to him by the recent SC decisions, pull something like a Lincoln suspension of congress in order to preserve the union and the constitution? Would such a move require that he declare non-cooperative states as belligerent parties under international law? Would he, like Lincoln, have to worry about foreign diplomacy to maintain recognition and prevent foreign aid to the opposing states?
Would the republicans attempt to pull their own version of the same thing? Lord knows the Neocons were deep in these waters during W's tenure, and I'm sure that there is some spillover amongst the think tank people who have embraced Trumpism as a vehicle to their own imperial desires.
Not imagining this as open warfare, but rather as lawfare.
All these questions are way out of my depth, having only a couple of grad classes that touched on any of this. I can already see that the reading list on all of this would be more than I can handle with a full slate of classes to teach.
But what a rabbit hole it is!
Posted by: nous | October 29, 2024 at 02:09 AM
Trump is invoking Eisenhower's deportation of Mexicans during his administration
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/11/455613993/it-came-up-in-the-debate-here-are-3-things-to-know-about-operation-wetback
https://www.history.com/news/operation-wetback-eisenhower-1954-deportation
I'm thinking it would be ironic if Biden did his own callback to Eisenhower
https://www.history.com/news/little-rock-nine-brown-v-board-eisenhower-101-airborne
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 29, 2024 at 04:47 AM
@nous, @lj -- this is fascinating stuff, and depressing. I just want to play with my grandkids... (A passage in LOTR comes to mind but today is in fact a babysitting day so I had better not sidetrack.)
I have been getting a bit hopeful about the election, and then last night I skimmed Silverman's Ukraine post at BJ, in which he added, for the umpteenth time, his thoughts on how we're headed for a Christo-fascist blah blah and no one has done anything about it yet, and no one is likely to. ("I hope I'm wrong," he always says.)
It annoys and terrifies me, so mostly I avoid him. But obviously he has a point, related to what we're discussing here. Even if Harris wins, we're very very far from out of the woods. And what I've just been thinking about is: if we had the resources (legal, strategic, etc.) to deal with Clickbait, the Project 2025 menace, our own oligarches, etc., then we wouldn't be where we are even now. That Clickbait has been poisoning us with his ugly mug and ugly rhetoric for all these years already doesn't speak well to anyone having the secret sauce to getting rid of him.
On the other hand (trying to be hopeful again), Biden has been pretty effective in certain ways, and I think Kamala, as a former prosecutor and AG, has notions up her sleeve that she is obviously not going to talk about at the moment. I would love to see Biden take advantage of the immunity ruling.... and I had forgotten about the Civil War actions Lincoln took.
Apologies for haste. Gotta go do my current most pressing duty, which is also the best fun I've had in ages. :-) (People of the future....)
Posted by: JanieM | October 29, 2024 at 09:16 AM
Who would have guessed such a thing could happen?
From lj's NPR link, this is in reference to the Depression-era precursor to Operation Wetback:
And this about the operation itself:
including this quote from the piece:
I'm sure a tRump administration would be very careful, humane, and competent in executing such a program and would avoid any such undue harm.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 29, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Complexifying: I think the immunity ruling is an abomination. But if Biden were to take advantage of it in a crisis, sort of like Lincoln's war measures, and then steps were taken to get rid of it, that might be okay. The balance of powers is rather unbalanced these days, or at least dysfunctional, and the Supreme Court is its own mess.
Posted by: JanieM | October 29, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Even if Harris wins, we're very very far from out of the woods.
On the other hand, we are at least on a path, however long and winding, out of the woods. Instead of careening towards a cliff edge that seems all too close.
I think Kamala, as a former prosecutor and AG, has notions up her sleeve that she is obviously not going to talk about at the moment.
Quite. Few things are as irritating (note: not rising to infuriating, which is its own category) as the people loudly complaining that she hasn't publicly "broken with Biden" over whichever policy is their particular fanaticism. Damnit, she's the VP; she can't do that! On some points, she may agree with Biden, and they can go back to complaining after January 20th. On other points, she may have different ideas. We won't know which those are until after the Inauguration. Possible several weeks later. (Because, another irritation, there simply isn't time to do everything in 24 hours. Trump's promises to the contrary notwithstanding.)
Posted by: wj | October 29, 2024 at 01:00 PM
There are a number of radical actions that Biden (or Harris) could take, based on the Supreme Court's recent idiocy. If only to satisfy everyone's curiosity as to how they might reverse their field if it was a Democratic President breaking the law. Not that consistency has been a hallmark of the current Court; just wondering what kind of unpersuasive figleaf they would try.
The use of Lincoln's actions as precedent is, I think, a shakier foundation. At least as I recall, his suspension of habeas corpus, for example, was later ruled to have been illegal/unconstitutional.
Posted by: wj | October 29, 2024 at 01:06 PM
...just wondering what kind of unpersuasive figleaf they would try.
"Well, see, that isn't among the official duties we had in mind, so the immunity thing doesn't apply here."
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | October 29, 2024 at 01:21 PM
"shakier foundation" --
We're in shaky times.
Government and the law aren't exact sciences; what we're experiencing is proof of that. Clickbait's antics and indeed, his entire life history, have exposed exploitable weak points and contradictions in our system. I'm not saying "our side" should be just as brazen in flouting the law, but maybe we SHOULD be bolder than we have been in exploiting gray areas and little cracks through which light might shine.
Posted by: JanieM | October 29, 2024 at 01:34 PM
If it's a choice between an (R) dictatorship and a (D) dictatorship, I know which one I prefer.
Posted by: CaseyL | October 29, 2024 at 05:22 PM
Okay, one quick peek down the rabbit hole for everyone:
That Schmitt, a proponent of a strong central government, would want to believe this view of the American scene is not surprising. But much more important than Calhoun for his interventions into German debates was Lincoln. In Die Diktator, Schmitt provides comprehensive historical analysis of the constitutional dictatorship from the time of the Romans to the early twentieth century alluded to by Burgess. He distinguishes between a kommissarischeDiktator, one who suspends the constitution in order to restore it, and a souverdneDiktator, one who suspends it to change it. If Cromwell is a prime example of the latter, the advocate of government of the people, by the people, and for the people is the prime, recent example of the former. Lincoln believed he had to suspend civil liberties because people intent on destroying the Constitution evoked its protections to further their aims. Convinced that Germany faced a similar situation, Schmitt felt that Lincoln was perfectly justified in suspending the Constitution in order to save it. Whether Lincoln acted as Schmitt thought he did is open to debate. Most of Lincoln's defenders today deny that he actually suspended the Constitution. Schmitt, however, was relying on views held by some of the most respected figures of the time. For instance, in his influential American Commonwealth, Lord Bryce cites a widely circulated statement Lincoln allegedly made to Salmon Chase, who would later become Chief Justice and write the minority opinion in Milligan: "These rebels are violating the Constitution to destroy the Union. I will violate the Constitution if necessary to save the Union; I suspect, Chase, that our Constitution is going to have a rough time of it before we get done with this row." Similarly, Dunning in Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction devotes an entire section to "[t]he Presidential Dictatorship," adding later, in an uncritical tone, "In the interval between April 12 and July 4, 1861, a new principle thus appeared in the constitutional system of the United States, namely, that of a temporary dictatorship." Dunning even anticipates Tushnet's claim, inspired by Schmitt, that restraints on executive power during a state of emergency come from public opinion, not rule by law. The only "limit" on Lincoln's dictatorial power, Dunning observes, "was not the clear expressions of the organic law, but the forbearance of a distracted people." (255)
Thomas, Brook. "Reconstructing the Limits of Schmitt's Theory of Sovereignty: A Case for Law as Rhetoric, Not as Political Theology." UC Irvine Law Review, vol. 4, no. 1, March 2014, pp. 239-272.
Biden would be acting as a kommissarischeDiktator, and the US that was defined by the constitution would be restored after the state of emergency had passed, where Sharky (or Wormtongue, or whoever else Project 2025 coughed up to be their Red Caesar once the deal was done) would be acting as a souverdneDiktator, and there would be no restoration of the constitution, but rather a new sovereignty replacing the old after a state of emergency.
Posted by: nous | October 29, 2024 at 06:03 PM
,/i>Think I blew up the italics again...
Posted by: nous | October 29, 2024 at 06:05 PM
Dammit.
Posted by: nous | October 29, 2024 at 06:06 PM
Every once in a while it is as if I surface for a few seconds, and find the things we are seriously discussing here completely surreal. How in God's name did it come to this?
(Rhetorical question, obviously.)
Posted by: GftNC | October 29, 2024 at 07:26 PM
(Rhetorical answer:-):
The times we live in have become a bit surreal. At least from the perspective of those of us who grew up in the middle and late 20th century. How things look to those coming of age in the last decade is another question -- young people are flexible, and tend to see their surroundings as normal / just the way the world is.
Part of what college does for many of us is expose us first hand to the reality that there are other "normals" in the world. In fact, it occurs to be that this may explain some of the education-based bifurcation in our politics. Certainly, some people get a college education without getting their horizons broadened. And some who don't go to college are exposed to enough variety in their coworkers and neighbors to broaden their view. But the correlation remains.
I think it is that difference in perspective which accounts for much of what we see around us today. (At least in the parts of the world where most of us live.) It comes down to how comfortable an individual is with someone who is different, and how much difference that comfort level embraces,
Posted by: wj | October 29, 2024 at 07:53 PM
This is a gift link to a very good piece by the retired (and apparently much respected by Republicans) judge Michael Luttig. Who can forget his ponderous but impressive delivery as he spoke before the panel in the January 6th hearings - it gave new meaning to the term gravitas! Alas, one has to bear in mind that the kinds of people who can be swayed by this kind of reasoning have already repudiated Trump. Short extract follows, to give a sense of it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/opinion/donald-trump-oath.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE4.J7TN.HOhEICK2zy2z&smid=url-share
We Americans live in faith with our Constitution and with the past generations of Americans who swore to protect it and fought to defend it. One week from today, we will decide whether Donald Trump is fit to be president of the United States again. He is not. When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us. Campaigning for the presidency again, he now promises to exact vengeance against his fellow Americans whom he deems “the enemy from within,” those who have dared to challenge his betrayal, an enemies list that includes Republicans and Democrats alike.
There could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate a man who betrayed the nation when he was previously entrusted with the highest office in the land and now threatens the persecution of American citizens who have crossed him. In the almost 250 years since the founding of the nation, no president before Donald Trump has ever so betrayed America.
This is not a difficult decision for voters, though my fellow Republicans and conservatives will finally have to decide what they have long hoped they would never have to decide — whether to put their country above their party. Republicans and conservatives have always proudly claimed they would be the first to put the country above all else when the time came. That time has come. If Republicans are unwilling to put America before their party now, they will never do so.
Posted by: GftNC | October 29, 2024 at 08:27 PM
Here's an article about the stuff we've been talking about (Clickbait's chances of being able to fuck up the election results). I don't take hardly anything I read at face value these days, but the article does touch on a lot of aspects of the situation.
Posted by: JanieM | October 29, 2024 at 09:30 PM
Did Biden HAVE to call Trump voters "garbage"? This isn't helping.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/30/politics/biden-garbage-gaffe-analysis/index.html
I know he probably didn't meant to, but nobody cares now.
Posted by: novakant | October 30, 2024 at 06:42 AM
I know he probably didn't meant to, but nobody cares now.
Watching the video it's not clear what he intended to say. I'd give him a pass.
Posted by: CharlesWT | October 30, 2024 at 07:52 AM
Unfortunately it doesn't really matter what we think, but rather how this will be perceived and spun. I think it's devastating, undermining Harris' attempt to reach out to Trump voters.
Posted by: novakant | October 30, 2024 at 09:44 AM
I think that, at this point, "Trump voters" are pretty much locked in. At most, his Madison Square Garden fiasco may cause some of them to just not vote. What's left are the still undecided voters. They are the ones Harris is trying for at this point, and I don't see Biden's comment having an impact on them.
Trump, on the other hand, seems to not be bothering. Beyond, maybe, some bandwagon effect by claiming he's winning big. And since he's been saying that forever, not sure it will have an impact now.
At this moment, a week before the election, I think we are down to GOTV. Short of a major gaffe by Harris (or maybe Walz) personally, that's all there is.
Posted by: wj | October 30, 2024 at 10:40 AM
I really hope you're right, wj.
Posted by: novakant | October 30, 2024 at 11:41 AM
At this moment, a week before the election, I think we are down to GOTV.
I've seen multiple estimates now that 35% or so of the likely total votes nationally have already been cast.
Posted by: Michael Cain | October 30, 2024 at 12:24 PM
Harris - "I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/30/harris-breaks-bidens-garbage-remarks-trump-supporters/75937830007/
Which fits with the tenor of her speech in a way that Mopey Dick's (thanks, Colbert) speech and history makes it hard for him to create any distance.
I think Biden's remarks will have no real effect on the outcome. The same cannot be said for the MSG remarks, which have already sent a jolt through the GOP efforts.
Posted by: nous | October 30, 2024 at 12:41 PM
I really hope you're right, wj
It matters for GOTV, I think, that the Republicans have trashed their in-house GOTV infrastructure. And GOTV seems to be one of those things for which outsourcing doesn't work well.
I've seen multiple estimates now that 35% or so of the likely total votes nationally have already been cast.
This is actually a big plus for a well run GOTV effort, because it reduces the number of potential voters who need to be contacted.
Posted by: wj | October 30, 2024 at 01:04 PM
Good read (below should be a gift link from the NYT) on the "border crisis" and what the Biden administration has done about it. Good public policy in the face of obdurant politics is painstaking, but not impossible:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/opinion/biden-harris-border-immigration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WE4.I_wN.0FvtBEIZwBra&smid=url-share
Posted by: bobbyp | October 30, 2024 at 01:59 PM
I'd give him a pass.
Agree with Charles. This is fart in a whirlwind stuff.
Posted by: bobbyp | October 30, 2024 at 02:01 PM
Meanwhile, the partisans in the SC are doing what they can to whittle down the vote margin:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/30/supreme-court-virginia-voter-registration
Virginia does not have to restore the registrations of 1,600 voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly removed, ahead of next week’s election, the US supreme court said on Wednesday.
The court made the decision on its emergency docket and did not give a rationale for its decision, which is customary for rulings on an expedited basis. All three liberal justices on the court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said they would not have halted a lower-court ruling earlier in October ordering the state to restore the voter registrations.
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
They are the hollow men.
Posted by: nous | October 30, 2024 at 02:21 PM
They are the hollow men.
Yes.
I really hope you're right, wj.
And so say all of us. (I assume.)
Posted by: GftNC | October 30, 2024 at 05:33 PM
Virginia, which is predicted to vote for Kamala Harris this fall, provides same-day voter registration, allowing anyone who was wrongfully removed to re-register at the polls.
Presumably that's only if they know they were removed, and that would mean that anyone who had voted by mail would not turn up at the polls and discover it.
Posted by: GftNC | October 30, 2024 at 06:14 PM
There are ways to check whether your ballot was accepted, although I don't know how savvy people are about it, or how reliable the methods are. Some states want you to get to vote, and others, of courfse, are trying hard to put as many barriers in front of you as possible.
Someone did a lot of work to put this site together.
Some BJ people are phone banking to tell voters that their ballots need to be cured. The FSM bless 'em.
Posted by: JanieM | October 30, 2024 at 08:05 PM
Presumably that's only if they know they were removed...
From memory, so suspect, but the same federal law requires that the state provide notice when someone is removed. Anyone know if Virginia has been ignoring that part of the statute as well?
Posted by: Michael Cain | October 30, 2024 at 08:08 PM
Michael - It was part of the circuit court's injunction that the state notify those affected. I do not know if that part was followed through upon before the emergency appeal was heard or not.
I have seen, though, that some of the affected voters have re-registered.
Mostly, though, this is a fight over principle and precedent, because 1600 ballots are not going to swing a 6% Harris advantage the other way. It's just typical ratfucking and chickenshit from the party that doesn't believe in liberal democracy anymore.
Posted by: nous | October 30, 2024 at 08:36 PM
ICYMI - Musk's America PAC GOtV effort is back in the news:
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-blitz-canvassing-michigan-uhaul/
America PAC [subcontracted] door knockers were flown to Michigan, driven in the back of a U-Haul, and told they’d have to pay hotel bills unless they met unrealistic quotas. One was surprised they were working to elect Donald Trump.
So very on-brand for the lot of them.
Posted by: nous | October 31, 2024 at 12:29 AM
Presumably that's only if they know they were removed, and that would mean that anyone who had voted by mail would not turn up at the polls and discover it.
I haven't dug into the gory details of this case. But it seems like, if they got removed, they wouldn't have received a mail ballot. So would be going to the polls. Problematic for those unable to do so, but I don't know what fraction of those removed that would be.
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2024 at 10:45 AM
Mostly, though, this is a fight over principle and precedent, because 1600 ballots are not going to swing a 6% Harris advantage the other way.
Might, however, have an impact on local races. It seems quite possible, depending on how these things work in Virginia, the the county registrars removed them for the sake of those, down ballot races.
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2024 at 10:49 AM
For those who appreciate it, xkcd has weighed in:
https://xkcd.com/3005/
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2024 at 12:06 PM
For those who appreciate it, xkcd has weighed in:
Bezos's Blue Origin is getting ready for the first launch of their heavy-lift New Glenn rocket in the next month or two. They plan to try and land the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic. An opportunity for a new member of the "try to land a rocket and go BOOM!" club.
Posted by: Michael Cain | October 31, 2024 at 12:58 PM
Always easier when someone else has done the proof of concept run. Or, at least, less nerve wracking.
Posted by: wj | October 31, 2024 at 01:57 PM
The Harris campaign probably should not use senile genocidal racists like Bill Clinton to win votes in Michigan.
And yeah, they are links but I might post them later. I also saw a clip of his statements on Twitter. Worthy of Madison Square Gardens. He justifies Israel’s response to Oct 7.
He then goes on to say that Jews were in Judaea and Samaria first. That’s nice. Let’s have a contest to see whose ancestors lived there first in the Bronze Age. ( from what I have read, it is a tie, not that it matters.)
I am wondering if they just do not care about the votes of people who think it is wrong to mass murder Palestinians and are going for the votes of people who would applaud what Clinton said.
Posted by: Donald | October 31, 2024 at 08:56 PM
" ... people who think it is wrong to mass murder Palestinians ..." are numerous. Also, diverse. Some of them might think He, Trump would protect the Palestinians (whether they like it or not) by telling his buddy Bibi to "knock it off, or else". Some of them might decide that abstaining from voting is the only virtuous thing to do. And some of them might figure that voting for Harris is about the only way to give the Gazans a chance to survive. I have no clue which is the wisest course.
All I am sure of is that fundamentalist bible-thumpers, lusting for the Apocalypse, see their Orange Jesus as the one god anointed to convert-or-kill the Jews as soon as Greater Israel is re-established. And the sooner the better.
What all that says about the fate of Arab Palestinians is hard for me to figure out.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | October 31, 2024 at 10:15 PM
Clinton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBCBP9mwTG4
Such an empathic person. He gets why young Palestinian Americans are upset. But he is going to explain to them why they are wrong.
Hamas— pure evil . Israel— apparently represented by families of slaughtered peace advocates who now feel Hamas forces then to slaughter civilians to defend themselves. At the end Clinton says he doesn’t think the two sides can murder their way out. But he forgot to explain why not. There is nothing stopping Israel from defending itself until nobody can live in Gaza. When you tell Israel they are justified in doing what they are doing, there is no reason to stop.
I am not going to get into what a bad faith piece of apologetics for war crimes this is. I do wonder if it is a deliberate Sister Souljah aporoach. It sure looks like it.
I hope he is just a stupid old man.
Posted by: Donald | October 31, 2024 at 10:24 PM
Hoo boy...don't know if this is sincere or if this is the start of a new grift along the lines of Mike Warnke and other Christian charlatans, but...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/tucker-carlson-demon-attack
Tucker Carlson, the former CNN and Fox News political chat host, has said he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago, in an assault that he says left him bleeding and with scars from “claw marks”.
Reminds me of John C. Wright of Science Fiction Sad Puppy fame, who had a near death conversion complete with visions of The Virgin, and is now a right wing reactionary catholic, except that Wright's embrace of religious extremism seems sincere and not opportunistic.
Posted by: nous | November 01, 2024 at 08:10 PM
he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago, in an assault that he says left him bleeding and with scars from “claw marks”.
Tsk, tsk. A demon which only left claw marks?
"It's just so hard to get competent help these days!"
Posted by: wj | November 01, 2024 at 08:36 PM
Carlson's talent is spotting grift trends and jumping on them. On the Capehart and Brooks tete a tete on PBS newshour
Brooks says this
5:20
I was at a church in Tennessee. I decided it'd be interesting to go to a Christian nationalist church. And so I went to this. And I have to
say the congregation was sincere in its faith. Sometimes, you think Christian nationalism is all about politics. These people were clearly moved by their faith. But the pastor up there in the pulpit is calling Kamala Harris satanic. There's crudity. It's just like, I was at that church. I thought, Donald Trump fit into something. And it wasn't only a professional wrestling. It was in churches. It was preexisting in the churches and the neighborhoods. And it was just this culture of the narcissistic cult leader. And I saw it at the church, and I think Trump is a version of that.
Setting aside Brooks' sudden realization, you have to assume that Carlson sees a bandwagon to hop on. I hope it runs him over.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | November 01, 2024 at 10:04 PM
Carlson goes to bed with four dogs, and can't figure out how he got claw marks?
Posted by: russell | November 01, 2024 at 11:50 PM
'Cause he's not very bright.
Posted by: wj | November 02, 2024 at 12:20 AM
Well, it's hell-hounds not devil-dogs or luciferian labradoodles, so how should he expect anything wicked.
My first guess would have been cat but then the guy seems not to be the typical cat person (he's no childless lady after all).
Posted by: Hartmut | November 02, 2024 at 02:29 AM
This isn't about Gaza. Given my usual posts, you might think that and normally you'd be right, but I have linked to a pretty reasonable explanation of why Trump is doing so well. written by Matt Y (not someone I would normally be happy to cite, but his argument makes sense.) basically he says that you see incumbents in trouble everywhere, whether center-left or center-right, and it is because people everywhere were unhappy with that burst of inflation which hit pretty much everywhere. People think that any salary increases they received were from their own hard work, but price increases are the fault of government. So if anything, the thing that needs explaining is why Trump isn't way ahead, but the answer to that is that not everybody is willing to support a crazed lunatic with fascist leanings. (Very last part is me, not Matt, though perhaps he'd agree.)
So that is encouraging, though if Trump wins it will be cold comfort.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/opinion/trump-harris-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU4.qEaw.ljyYKfKJZV5O&smid=url-share
Free NYT link
Posted by: Donald | November 04, 2024 at 03:01 PM
Posted by: CharlesWT | November 04, 2024 at 03:15 PM
Which turned out to be loans to be paid backed with an inflation tax.
That's the opposite of how debt works under inflation. The dollars you borrowed are worth less when you have to pay them back.
But maybe that wasn't what you meant and you were blaming inflation itself on the injection of COVID payments into the economy. That would make more sense, but still would be only a small part of the inflation story.
Either way, it probably beats an economic-collapse tax.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | November 04, 2024 at 04:43 PM
But maybe that wasn't what you meant and you were blaming inflation itself on the injection of COVID payments into the economy.
A good part of it. There was storage of goods and services due to business closures, reduced production, and supply chain disruptions. Printing and dumping money into the economy bid up the prices of what goods and services were available. Though many people did what I did - used the money to pay down their debts.
Posted by: CharlesWT | November 04, 2024 at 08:06 PM