NOW Dozens gather at AZ Capitol as Arizonans for Abortion Access delivers 823K voter signatures to put initiative on November ballot. Would protect reproductive rights in state Constitution. (Temp: 94 & climbing)
you know, trump already tried to do a lot of bad stuff in his first term but was stopped and we don't need to think this is hyperbolic when they are saying stuff out in the open like this. Not to mention that SCOTUS R majority has given trump a blank check to do "bold" things. Media will not talk about this but we will prevail, Ds will prevail, we have to.
Tweet seen... what the evil guy is saying:
Media Matters
@mmfa
Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be"
Carl Bernstein is going around gossiping and citing some fundraiser from June last year as when Biden had issues -- that he wanted to sit down! But take a look at Biden's Propublica interview from 9/2023
Bernstein is an old fart. Here is another “tell” - none of the people raising people’s anxieties more than is already there are offering up zero solutions. Not one of them. They aren’t going to be organizing some vision that they aren’t sharing for the chaos that they portend needs to happen. Who is he going to campaign for? Honestly, many have forgotten that a lot of people didn’t like the choices in 2020 either. More people voted than in the history of voting.
They have no solution. It is not easy to replace Biden at all. The process is full of risk and the media is ginning up this narrative without any regard to consequences with trump on the other side of it. I fear they will make this 'Biden is old' to become 'But her emails' and some voters will buy it.
Nicole Wallace is doing a fabulous segment on Project 2025 right now with panelists I like. There is so much riding on righting the ship that we don't have the luxury to complain about debates and Biden and his campaign and so on; please stop talking about Biden and start talking about trump, SCOTUS, his plans. This is not a normal election. It is on us to be savvy information consumers and spreaders and do the right thing for the country despite what Biden and his campaign do or don't, say or don't say. We need a trifecta, H, S, and WH. SCOTUS on trump side should wake every one up -- if we don't stop him, he and the SCOTUS will make sure that project 2025 happens in the first 100 days. #VoteBlue
Project 2025 and the Supremes are further proof the coup neither began nor ended on January 6. It's on-going.
I'm not much on conspiracies, but I've been wondering whether the Trump camp found some means to interfere with Biden before the debate began - why did he become more clear spoken and focused as the debate went on, as well as at the post debate rally?
He told his wife that he didn't feel well. Maybe we will get an explanation from the campaign for what happened but he was traveling a lot prior to the debate. I will give him a break about debate performance -- if I were standing next to that human scum spewing lies and exhibiting uncouth behavior, I would also feel disgusted that I have to go through with that debate. In that context, IDK how his campaign prepped him or not anticipate it all.
Frankly, I am not sure what is going on anymore other than one of the two political parties is trying to burn this fabulous country down. For what? To turn this country into a soft dictatorship like China or worse to benefit a few billionaire oligarchs and its corrupt dictator and his cronies like Russia? It is a concerted effort (when trump hosted Urban, he said (paraphrasing) how nice it would be to be unopposed). And Rs in SCOTUS with their immunity decision was the final blow. They made it easy for an autocratic president to happen in America, just in time.
This tweet with Hillary's premonition in the 2016 debate:
Once again, Jessica, thank you for the clarity. And you are so right: the "bedwetting" snarks from the Biden campaign are a terrible way to respond to justifiably terrified voters. I will vote for Biden if he's the one on the ticket, of course -- but I'll be doing so with white knuckles, and I'm already having nightmares about November.
• To preserve democracy — Vote for democrats, up and down the ballot.
• To destroy democracy and elect an authoritarian with 34 felony convictions, who was found guilty of sexual assault (which the judge in that case said is commonly called “rape”), who bankrupted his businesses multiple times (a casino, no less!), who is proud he didn’t pay his taxes and says that makes him smart, who pardoned his grifting cronies before he left office the first time, and to this day lies and says he won the 2020 election; a vote for him based on debate where he spewed magical thinking and lies about how great and record breaking he is — vote for the Republicans, they have shown us how cruel they can be but they’re not done taking away our rights.
I'm happy to hear that Texas has lost billions of $ because of their abortion bans. If I had daughters, I would NOT live in a state with bans. And I would not send my children to college there, either. Women must protect ourselves and our families against the cruelty of republican politicians, mostly white men, by the way. White men feel that they are being denied their RIGHT to rule over everyone else. We can show them the door in November!!! Vote blue!!
About Mark Robinson in North Carolina: have any NC journalists done a deep dive into why Robinson holds these regressive anti-woman views? He sounds like an extremely angry and personally insecure man.
It's pure accident he even ended up in politics. That is not his background. He was a factory employee. But yet NC voters put him in Lt. Governor spot.......and recent primary made him the R nominee for Gubernatorial election November 2024. It's so outrageous.
He's quotes Hitler, wants to repeal women's right to vote, very ANTI-LGBTQ, wants full ban on abortion (even though his girlfriend had one years ago after he got her pregnant). He is a misogynistic fucking prick.
Very proud of the New Hampshire teacher who FOUGHT BACK against the Education Commissioner. These misogynistic assholes have been getting their way for too goddamn long. Fuck them! I hope he loses his job for not getting the facts straight.
I hesitate to even bring this up for fear of inspiring some asshole, but I see a real risk of the other side sabotaging petition efforts by signing and then claiming they want to withdraw their signatures, just to stir up trouble. Sure, it’s dishonest and unethical, but that doesn’t appear to be much of a problem for “God’s warriors” these days.
It’s a delusional pipe dream to think (1) Biden will step down and (2) if he did, Democrats could coalesce around a new candidate. And if he did step down, how would a new candidate be chosen? Primaries already took place - so would the delegates just get to make the decision according to their own heart’s desire? Gonna poll the Democratic electorate to try and be principled about it? Gimme a break. The reproductive rights organizations are clear eyed on this. Biden is the only choice available and every minute we freak out is a gift to Trump and Republicans.
Republicans are f-ing nuts but in my opinion (a lot of but not all) Democrats are being f-ing dumb. Life isn’t fair. We have an 81 year old candidate. Get him into office or we’re fucked.
I don’t see why when the candidate hasn’t been nominated yet we wouldn’t be open to a conversation. Biden could endorse Harris, Biden could be Harris’ VP. There are options here.
Biden barely won in 2020 the worst year in American history by far he barely beat the incumbent by 43k votes. He has done a phenomenal job with legislation, but imo a terrible job for four years as a public communicator or a candidate.
And here we are.
This was almost the worst possible outcome for that debate. The Biden team **initiated an early debate** which **emphasized everything voters were concerned about** — and now they are mocking those voters’ concern. That is clinical.
We need to be talking about why our pro Choice platform is better than their insane platform and why our SCOTUS picks will be better than their insane picks, not trying to wrestle back the 72% of voters who think Biden doesn’t have the mental fitness for office.
This is not an easy choice and I really appreciated the most recent Pod Save America back and forth about the choice and I recommend it.
That 72% poll was an online poll where people just go on and click yes or no and can do it as many times as they want. That's a non-scientific polling structure and basically, not fair or balanced. Other polling has shown a slight improvement for Biden holding the course, considering the alternative. Harris, sadly, is not yet considered a strong candidate, although I would love her as a President in a heartbeat. She has Biden's back. I'm not worried.
This avalanche video is how I view how I think about disasters: https://youtu.be/cjLjgjlqfIQ . There is this moment of “wow this is really bad” and then realization that it’s way worse than what you ever expected.
Covid: it’s coming here, wait no it’s already everywhere and millions are dead.
It’s the same with these SCOTUS rulings, it will take decades before/if people realize how bad they really are even with whip-smart dissents.
I don’t know how to prepare. As you’ve said, it’s going to be national. So prepare to be jailed? Prepare to watch my queer friends tortured? Prepare for “get out and vote” to potentially become meaningless as our country becomes more like the deep south and anathema to the world? I don’t know how to prepare for that.
I won't pretend that I know how to prepare for that either. That video is a perfect representation by the way. I'm just urging everyone to expect them to take power and try to do those things, and start thinking now about what might throw wrenches into their plans. They've been planning this for decades, ever since Brown v Board of Education really, and I honestly don't know how comprehensive their blitzkrieg will be or how well it will work. A lot of things could go wrong for them. And it's our job to make sure they do. We need to be thinking about that now, not after November 5th, and certainly not after January 20th. The American people have the power to fight this off, but it's going to take more than just voting. I do expect as soon as the Republicans have complete control of the federal government, the public will have no one else to blame anymore, and that may be the step we need that we're missing now. The regime will have plenty of bogeymen, but they will have been elected reluctantly, not enthusiastically, so I don't expect it to particularly work beyond their base. I would expect the public to get angry fairly quickly. (Unless the Republicans don't do the things they say they're going to.) There is not widespread support for further restrictions of human rights and civil liberties. Nor for further redistribution of wealth towards the already wealthy.
I agree with 99.9% of what you say! I think for me it seems clear he won’t step down and he can’t be forced too so the conversation can only hurt us. Our conversation becomes great attack ads and sows doubt in the undecideds who could be persuaded. But there’s obviously a vigorous public debate in the party on this right now regardless of what I think!
One more thought- bc I think Biden won’t step down and can’t be forced too then it’s clear that the conversation just hurts us. Republicans (and Fox News and other right wing media) have spent the last four years giving conservatives reasons to vote for Trump despite his absolute heinousness. I think Democrats should be responding to the debate by giving voters an explanation for why they should forget the debate. Here’s why Biden’s performance doesn’t matter. Just like you said, here’s why our platform matters, why our justices matter. I think that message is instead being subsumed in a massive shout of “Biden is old!!”
I’m 99.9% with you here. We won’t know for 2-3 weeks how the debate actually affected things and it doesn’t make sense to publicly go out and emphasize failure. But! (1) I expect real serious conversations happening right now behind closed doors and more eg https://wapo.st/3L8KwXE and (2) I expect the campaign to not blowoff or minimize anyone over their concerns. Listen, acknowledge, address.
The people freaking out the most (on media) are never Trumpers & relatively new to the D party. All this hand ringing click bate is helping their ratings (they think) but the utter hypocrisy of not calling for T not run after all of his batshit crazy tweets, rally comments, Covid debacle, Jan 6, etc etc etc should concern a lot of you & also wake you up to their perceived concerns. I’m willing to give the man who hasn’t lived on a golf course, refused to return national security documents, overturned Roe & cheated on every wife & girl friend he’s ever had a 90 minute slip up. Too many are feeding into Rs hands and too many of these TV personalities don’t know a damn thing about running campaigns. Get to work, concentrate on bashing the Rs who quite literally want to fundamentally take us back 60 plus years. Pick a team & quit bashing the one you claim you are on. He will be the nominee.
I said what I said. You can respond to a strawman version of that and do exactly the opposite of what I said above in #2 but it will not be persuasive. Minimizing how people feel and telling them to “get in line” or challenging whether they’re really on your side or committed isn’t an effective strategy to build the large tent coalition that Biden needs to win.
Biden won by only 43k votes against a loser incumbent president during a pandemic — that he tried to cover up — where a million Americans died, the stock market was doing loopty-loops, the country was literally on fire, George Floyd and protests in every city, he deployed the military against protestors in DC for a Bible photo op, and he told an obscure white supremacy group to “stand by” after flouting the rules and infecting everyone around him with an — at the time — untreatable, possibly fatal disease.
Since then — and Trump’s fucking 6 Jan attempted coup which he is now calling those lunatics “warriors”— Biden has become more unpopular. In spite of passing what was considered impossible legislation Biden was able to get more Covid relief, infrastructure, computer chip manufacturing, gun reform, and a massive climate and health and tax reform bill while avoiding a recession, fighting for low insulin prices, fighting junk fees, keeping our government funded and debts paid, ending the 20 year war on terror, and working with Nato to respond ahead of a Russian invasion and avoid WW3.
And after all that Biden is *less popular* and *less trusted* than ever.
**I am eyes wide open to where we are**. I am allowed to express concern in a sub-comment of a comment in a subscriber only comments section of a progressive pro-Choice newsletter. My comment will be read by almost no one and it won’t hurt anyone. Please don’t question my loyalty. We are not a cult.
We’ll see what comes next. I would love to find out the debate which was watched by 50 million was a non event but I’m not there. We’ll see what July brings. These kinds of events take time for people to piece together and understand what actually happened.
Primary elections are not legally binding, they are not a legal institution at all and merely a gratuity extended to qualifying political parties by government.
True. But it’s the system we’ve chosen for better or worse. Again, my opinion is it’s a delusional pipe dream to think at this stage Biden could step down, hand the torch, and the resulting chaos and in-fighting - which would certainly be IMMENSE - would somehow put the Democratic Party on firmer footing to defeat Trump.
I think back to when my clerkship on the 11th circuit a few years ago. I was at a cocktail party with judge’s and clerks. I ended up in a little convo circle with several conservative judges, including recent Trump appointee. They talked about how god awful Trump is and how he was terrible role model and they told their children he was awful. But they still voted for him!
. I look at Democrats who are very publicly stroking out over a debate and I think what are we doing??
It's just that the voters we need aren't in any way analogous to the people at that cocktail party. The vast majority of Democrats will vote for Biden. That's not the problem.
I agree. Solid partisans are gonna vote the partisan ticket. I guess it’s just not obvious to me that undecided voters will naturally view old age/the debate as worse than lies/felon status/insurrection status/etc. But certainly the fear that it will makes me utterly depressed.
Right. But that's why we take polls. The polls have been consistently telling us the same story about this election for a long time, and that was before the debate. Democrats are dangerously close to shooting the messenger.
And yes it may already be too late. Which is why I recommend everyone expect and prepare for a Republican regime, unconstrained, on January 20th. There won't be time for any false moves.
If you are going to rely on polls, then dig around in the weeds of them. Read the phrasing of the questions, what the possible answers were to choose from, how they found respondents. Who is advertising it the most. Then decide if you believe that poll. SCOTUS may have overplayed their hand, even though they have done some serious damage. They are basically teeing up Project 2025 now. I think many are going to figure that out once they learn about Project 2025, which everyone should be talking about. It’s the easiest comeback to your T supporting friends.
So happy to see this post. I’m fed up with Democrats handwringing, including many of the MSNBC hosts who gave seemed downright hysterical since the debate. You’re right: Democrats are going to ignore all the votes already cast for Biden in the primaries. Who does that remind you of?
Democrats need to toughen up and do the work to take back the House, hold the Senate or even expand their majority, and elect Biden. Right now we have system that works. If we don’t strengthen it, then we lose it. I really have no more patience for handwringing. Get to work!
In regard to the debate, I would like to know WHY Donald Trump, a convicted felon and sexual predator, as well as a terrible businessman, does not face calls to withdraw as a candidate.
As for the repellent actions of the Iowa Supreme Court, I sincerely hope that the entire Midwest becomes a maternal desert.
I am done with compassion and empathy for women who knowingly vote for anti-choice politicians.
Right. But regardless of what the exact outcome is, we can be pretty certain Biden is going to win among women and Trump is going to win among men. My half of the population is, as always, by far the bigger problem.
I would strongly advise everyone to do whatever you can to prepare yourself for 2025. The lesson of the past eight years is however bad you think it's going to be, it's always worse.
I strongly suspect that many of the people who are deeply concerned about Biden as a candidate (myself included) will still vote for him in November if that’s what it comes down to. But that debate totally rattled me and I can’t pretend otherwise. If he’s going to stay in the race, which I assume he will, his administration needs to get all hands on deck to introduce the American people to his *team* and to put them in contrast to what a GOP project 2025 team is going to do. They need to do this aggressively. It can’t just be about Biden anymore. It needs to be bigger than that.
Usually I have the opposite problem, when I have a reply post as a general comment. You won't get as many views if you're hidden under me :)
I agree we are in a very bad situation. The warning signs have been there all along, and it may just be too late. Women suffered the most from Trump in 2016, and women will suffer the most from Trump in 2024. 💔
I've been ignoring the news for the past few days to try and avoid having a fucking stroke, but I want to be crystal clear. I would vote for Joe Biden's corpse over any single Republican, much less Donald Trump. ESPECIALLY after today's absolutely insane and lawless ruling by the Supreme Court, basically endorsing the idea that [Republican] presidents are kings and rubbing our fucking faces in it.
Yes, they are teeing up the ball, and depending on us all being as fickle as their voters. They are telling us exactly what is at stake, if the Orange Oompa-Loompa wins!
AZ ballot initiative:
Brahm Resnik
@brahmresnik
NOW Dozens gather at AZ Capitol as Arizonans for Abortion Access delivers 823K voter signatures to put initiative on November ballot. Would protect reproductive rights in state Constitution. (Temp: 94 & climbing)
https://x.com/brahmresnik/status/1808527445009825795
Easy to read but long thread on Project 2025:
https://x.com/GalvinAlmanza/status/1807195762192724403
or this threadreader app link for the same:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1807195762192724403.html
you know, trump already tried to do a lot of bad stuff in his first term but was stopped and we don't need to think this is hyperbolic when they are saying stuff out in the open like this. Not to mention that SCOTUS R majority has given trump a blank check to do "bold" things. Media will not talk about this but we will prevail, Ds will prevail, we have to.
Tweet seen... what the evil guy is saying:
Media Matters
@mmfa
Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be"
Carl Bernstein is going around gossiping and citing some fundraiser from June last year as when Biden had issues -- that he wanted to sit down! But take a look at Biden's Propublica interview from 9/2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZFeBHWtgzs
Bernstein is an old fart. Here is another “tell” - none of the people raising people’s anxieties more than is already there are offering up zero solutions. Not one of them. They aren’t going to be organizing some vision that they aren’t sharing for the chaos that they portend needs to happen. Who is he going to campaign for? Honestly, many have forgotten that a lot of people didn’t like the choices in 2020 either. More people voted than in the history of voting.
They have no solution. It is not easy to replace Biden at all. The process is full of risk and the media is ginning up this narrative without any regard to consequences with trump on the other side of it. I fear they will make this 'Biden is old' to become 'But her emails' and some voters will buy it.
Nicole Wallace is doing a fabulous segment on Project 2025 right now with panelists I like. There is so much riding on righting the ship that we don't have the luxury to complain about debates and Biden and his campaign and so on; please stop talking about Biden and start talking about trump, SCOTUS, his plans. This is not a normal election. It is on us to be savvy information consumers and spreaders and do the right thing for the country despite what Biden and his campaign do or don't, say or don't say. We need a trifecta, H, S, and WH. SCOTUS on trump side should wake every one up -- if we don't stop him, he and the SCOTUS will make sure that project 2025 happens in the first 100 days. #VoteBlue
Project 2025 and the Supremes are further proof the coup neither began nor ended on January 6. It's on-going.
I'm not much on conspiracies, but I've been wondering whether the Trump camp found some means to interfere with Biden before the debate began - why did he become more clear spoken and focused as the debate went on, as well as at the post debate rally?
He told his wife that he didn't feel well. Maybe we will get an explanation from the campaign for what happened but he was traveling a lot prior to the debate. I will give him a break about debate performance -- if I were standing next to that human scum spewing lies and exhibiting uncouth behavior, I would also feel disgusted that I have to go through with that debate. In that context, IDK how his campaign prepped him or not anticipate it all.
Frankly, I am not sure what is going on anymore other than one of the two political parties is trying to burn this fabulous country down. For what? To turn this country into a soft dictatorship like China or worse to benefit a few billionaire oligarchs and its corrupt dictator and his cronies like Russia? It is a concerted effort (when trump hosted Urban, he said (paraphrasing) how nice it would be to be unopposed). And Rs in SCOTUS with their immunity decision was the final blow. They made it easy for an autocratic president to happen in America, just in time.
This tweet with Hillary's premonition in the 2016 debate:
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1807845775445000329
Once again, Jessica, thank you for the clarity. And you are so right: the "bedwetting" snarks from the Biden campaign are a terrible way to respond to justifiably terrified voters. I will vote for Biden if he's the one on the ticket, of course -- but I'll be doing so with white knuckles, and I'm already having nightmares about November.
We cannot afford a brokered convention. In Chicago. Again.
Jessica, thank you! Your coverage is essential and I just upgraded my subscription!
The election boils down to this:
• To preserve democracy — Vote for democrats, up and down the ballot.
• To destroy democracy and elect an authoritarian with 34 felony convictions, who was found guilty of sexual assault (which the judge in that case said is commonly called “rape”), who bankrupted his businesses multiple times (a casino, no less!), who is proud he didn’t pay his taxes and says that makes him smart, who pardoned his grifting cronies before he left office the first time, and to this day lies and says he won the 2020 election; a vote for him based on debate where he spewed magical thinking and lies about how great and record breaking he is — vote for the Republicans, they have shown us how cruel they can be but they’re not done taking away our rights.
Three casinos actually. And he was using them to launder Russian Oligarch dirty money. But otherwise perfectly said.
I would believe Donald Trump guilty of any crime that does not require courage. He is a despicable grifter with no shame or conscience.
Preach!
Exactly.......well said
I'm happy to hear that Texas has lost billions of $ because of their abortion bans. If I had daughters, I would NOT live in a state with bans. And I would not send my children to college there, either. Women must protect ourselves and our families against the cruelty of republican politicians, mostly white men, by the way. White men feel that they are being denied their RIGHT to rule over everyone else. We can show them the door in November!!! Vote blue!!
About Mark Robinson in North Carolina: have any NC journalists done a deep dive into why Robinson holds these regressive anti-woman views? He sounds like an extremely angry and personally insecure man.
Maybe "Small dick" energy?
It's pure accident he even ended up in politics. That is not his background. He was a factory employee. But yet NC voters put him in Lt. Governor spot.......and recent primary made him the R nominee for Gubernatorial election November 2024. It's so outrageous.
He's quotes Hitler, wants to repeal women's right to vote, very ANTI-LGBTQ, wants full ban on abortion (even though his girlfriend had one years ago after he got her pregnant). He is a misogynistic fucking prick.
He’s the quintessential Christian Nationalist.
Sounds like he needs to be neutered, in more ways than one.
There's a lot of men out there that need to be neutered- any man that votes for Republican needs to be neutered. Lol
Abso-fucking-lutely!
Very proud of the New Hampshire teacher who FOUGHT BACK against the Education Commissioner. These misogynistic assholes have been getting their way for too goddamn long. Fuck them! I hope he loses his job for not getting the facts straight.
I hesitate to even bring this up for fear of inspiring some asshole, but I see a real risk of the other side sabotaging petition efforts by signing and then claiming they want to withdraw their signatures, just to stir up trouble. Sure, it’s dishonest and unethical, but that doesn’t appear to be much of a problem for “God’s warriors” these days.
Yeah, I have thought the same.
The good (?) thing is there's nothing any of us can say that the depraved denizens of the other side haven't already thought of.
Sadly true, Zach.
It’s a delusional pipe dream to think (1) Biden will step down and (2) if he did, Democrats could coalesce around a new candidate. And if he did step down, how would a new candidate be chosen? Primaries already took place - so would the delegates just get to make the decision according to their own heart’s desire? Gonna poll the Democratic electorate to try and be principled about it? Gimme a break. The reproductive rights organizations are clear eyed on this. Biden is the only choice available and every minute we freak out is a gift to Trump and Republicans.
Republicans are f-ing nuts but in my opinion (a lot of but not all) Democrats are being f-ing dumb. Life isn’t fair. We have an 81 year old candidate. Get him into office or we’re fucked.
Thank you!
I don’t see why when the candidate hasn’t been nominated yet we wouldn’t be open to a conversation. Biden could endorse Harris, Biden could be Harris’ VP. There are options here.
Biden barely won in 2020 the worst year in American history by far he barely beat the incumbent by 43k votes. He has done a phenomenal job with legislation, but imo a terrible job for four years as a public communicator or a candidate.
And here we are.
This was almost the worst possible outcome for that debate. The Biden team **initiated an early debate** which **emphasized everything voters were concerned about** — and now they are mocking those voters’ concern. That is clinical.
We need to be talking about why our pro Choice platform is better than their insane platform and why our SCOTUS picks will be better than their insane picks, not trying to wrestle back the 72% of voters who think Biden doesn’t have the mental fitness for office.
This is not an easy choice and I really appreciated the most recent Pod Save America back and forth about the choice and I recommend it.
That 72% poll was an online poll where people just go on and click yes or no and can do it as many times as they want. That's a non-scientific polling structure and basically, not fair or balanced. Other polling has shown a slight improvement for Biden holding the course, considering the alternative. Harris, sadly, is not yet considered a strong candidate, although I would love her as a President in a heartbeat. She has Biden's back. I'm not worried.
I’m glad you’re not worried. I wish I could be there with you.
Depends. So long as not worried doesn't preclude fully preparing for what January 20th might bring, then I would agree.
I don’t know how to really prepare.
This avalanche video is how I view how I think about disasters: https://youtu.be/cjLjgjlqfIQ . There is this moment of “wow this is really bad” and then realization that it’s way worse than what you ever expected.
Covid: it’s coming here, wait no it’s already everywhere and millions are dead.
It’s the same with these SCOTUS rulings, it will take decades before/if people realize how bad they really are even with whip-smart dissents.
I don’t know how to prepare. As you’ve said, it’s going to be national. So prepare to be jailed? Prepare to watch my queer friends tortured? Prepare for “get out and vote” to potentially become meaningless as our country becomes more like the deep south and anathema to the world? I don’t know how to prepare for that.
I won't pretend that I know how to prepare for that either. That video is a perfect representation by the way. I'm just urging everyone to expect them to take power and try to do those things, and start thinking now about what might throw wrenches into their plans. They've been planning this for decades, ever since Brown v Board of Education really, and I honestly don't know how comprehensive their blitzkrieg will be or how well it will work. A lot of things could go wrong for them. And it's our job to make sure they do. We need to be thinking about that now, not after November 5th, and certainly not after January 20th. The American people have the power to fight this off, but it's going to take more than just voting. I do expect as soon as the Republicans have complete control of the federal government, the public will have no one else to blame anymore, and that may be the step we need that we're missing now. The regime will have plenty of bogeymen, but they will have been elected reluctantly, not enthusiastically, so I don't expect it to particularly work beyond their base. I would expect the public to get angry fairly quickly. (Unless the Republicans don't do the things they say they're going to.) There is not widespread support for further restrictions of human rights and civil liberties. Nor for further redistribution of wealth towards the already wealthy.
I agree with 99.9% of what you say! I think for me it seems clear he won’t step down and he can’t be forced too so the conversation can only hurt us. Our conversation becomes great attack ads and sows doubt in the undecideds who could be persuaded. But there’s obviously a vigorous public debate in the party on this right now regardless of what I think!
The truth never hurts.
One more thought- bc I think Biden won’t step down and can’t be forced too then it’s clear that the conversation just hurts us. Republicans (and Fox News and other right wing media) have spent the last four years giving conservatives reasons to vote for Trump despite his absolute heinousness. I think Democrats should be responding to the debate by giving voters an explanation for why they should forget the debate. Here’s why Biden’s performance doesn’t matter. Just like you said, here’s why our platform matters, why our justices matter. I think that message is instead being subsumed in a massive shout of “Biden is old!!”
I’m 99.9% with you here. We won’t know for 2-3 weeks how the debate actually affected things and it doesn’t make sense to publicly go out and emphasize failure. But! (1) I expect real serious conversations happening right now behind closed doors and more eg https://wapo.st/3L8KwXE and (2) I expect the campaign to not blowoff or minimize anyone over their concerns. Listen, acknowledge, address.
The people freaking out the most (on media) are never Trumpers & relatively new to the D party. All this hand ringing click bate is helping their ratings (they think) but the utter hypocrisy of not calling for T not run after all of his batshit crazy tweets, rally comments, Covid debacle, Jan 6, etc etc etc should concern a lot of you & also wake you up to their perceived concerns. I’m willing to give the man who hasn’t lived on a golf course, refused to return national security documents, overturned Roe & cheated on every wife & girl friend he’s ever had a 90 minute slip up. Too many are feeding into Rs hands and too many of these TV personalities don’t know a damn thing about running campaigns. Get to work, concentrate on bashing the Rs who quite literally want to fundamentally take us back 60 plus years. Pick a team & quit bashing the one you claim you are on. He will be the nominee.
I said what I said. You can respond to a strawman version of that and do exactly the opposite of what I said above in #2 but it will not be persuasive. Minimizing how people feel and telling them to “get in line” or challenging whether they’re really on your side or committed isn’t an effective strategy to build the large tent coalition that Biden needs to win.
Biden won by only 43k votes against a loser incumbent president during a pandemic — that he tried to cover up — where a million Americans died, the stock market was doing loopty-loops, the country was literally on fire, George Floyd and protests in every city, he deployed the military against protestors in DC for a Bible photo op, and he told an obscure white supremacy group to “stand by” after flouting the rules and infecting everyone around him with an — at the time — untreatable, possibly fatal disease.
Since then — and Trump’s fucking 6 Jan attempted coup which he is now calling those lunatics “warriors”— Biden has become more unpopular. In spite of passing what was considered impossible legislation Biden was able to get more Covid relief, infrastructure, computer chip manufacturing, gun reform, and a massive climate and health and tax reform bill while avoiding a recession, fighting for low insulin prices, fighting junk fees, keeping our government funded and debts paid, ending the 20 year war on terror, and working with Nato to respond ahead of a Russian invasion and avoid WW3.
And after all that Biden is *less popular* and *less trusted* than ever.
**I am eyes wide open to where we are**. I am allowed to express concern in a sub-comment of a comment in a subscriber only comments section of a progressive pro-Choice newsletter. My comment will be read by almost no one and it won’t hurt anyone. Please don’t question my loyalty. We are not a cult.
We’ll see what comes next. I would love to find out the debate which was watched by 50 million was a non event but I’m not there. We’ll see what July brings. These kinds of events take time for people to piece together and understand what actually happened.
Primary elections are not legally binding, they are not a legal institution at all and merely a gratuity extended to qualifying political parties by government.
True. But it’s the system we’ve chosen for better or worse. Again, my opinion is it’s a delusional pipe dream to think at this stage Biden could step down, hand the torch, and the resulting chaos and in-fighting - which would certainly be IMMENSE - would somehow put the Democratic Party on firmer footing to defeat Trump.
I think back to when my clerkship on the 11th circuit a few years ago. I was at a cocktail party with judge’s and clerks. I ended up in a little convo circle with several conservative judges, including recent Trump appointee. They talked about how god awful Trump is and how he was terrible role model and they told their children he was awful. But they still voted for him!
. I look at Democrats who are very publicly stroking out over a debate and I think what are we doing??
It's just that the voters we need aren't in any way analogous to the people at that cocktail party. The vast majority of Democrats will vote for Biden. That's not the problem.
I agree. Solid partisans are gonna vote the partisan ticket. I guess it’s just not obvious to me that undecided voters will naturally view old age/the debate as worse than lies/felon status/insurrection status/etc. But certainly the fear that it will makes me utterly depressed.
Right. But that's why we take polls. The polls have been consistently telling us the same story about this election for a long time, and that was before the debate. Democrats are dangerously close to shooting the messenger.
And yes it may already be too late. Which is why I recommend everyone expect and prepare for a Republican regime, unconstrained, on January 20th. There won't be time for any false moves.
If you are going to rely on polls, then dig around in the weeds of them. Read the phrasing of the questions, what the possible answers were to choose from, how they found respondents. Who is advertising it the most. Then decide if you believe that poll. SCOTUS may have overplayed their hand, even though they have done some serious damage. They are basically teeing up Project 2025 now. I think many are going to figure that out once they learn about Project 2025, which everyone should be talking about. It’s the easiest comeback to your T supporting friends.
So happy to see this post. I’m fed up with Democrats handwringing, including many of the MSNBC hosts who gave seemed downright hysterical since the debate. You’re right: Democrats are going to ignore all the votes already cast for Biden in the primaries. Who does that remind you of?
Democrats need to toughen up and do the work to take back the House, hold the Senate or even expand their majority, and elect Biden. Right now we have system that works. If we don’t strengthen it, then we lose it. I really have no more patience for handwringing. Get to work!
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Sorry, meant to say
Democrats can’t ignore all the votes…
Wish we could edit these posts…
In regard to the debate, I would like to know WHY Donald Trump, a convicted felon and sexual predator, as well as a terrible businessman, does not face calls to withdraw as a candidate.
As for the repellent actions of the Iowa Supreme Court, I sincerely hope that the entire Midwest becomes a maternal desert.
I am done with compassion and empathy for women who knowingly vote for anti-choice politicians.
It’s not the women voting that’s the issue.
I don't assume that all women are pro-choice, or that all women voters place reproductive rights as their priority when they vote.
Women aren't a monolithic voting bloc. Think of Kristi Noem, Kim Reynolds, Joni Ernst, Marsha Blackburn.
AGREE! Some women have put forth the worst bills & it’s mainly women running anti-abortion groups.
Right. But regardless of what the exact outcome is, we can be pretty certain Biden is going to win among women and Trump is going to win among men. My half of the population is, as always, by far the bigger problem.
Next year the entire country is going to become a maternal health desert, because the federal government doesn't discriminate among states.
I would strongly advise everyone to do whatever you can to prepare yourself for 2025. The lesson of the past eight years is however bad you think it's going to be, it's always worse.
I strongly suspect that many of the people who are deeply concerned about Biden as a candidate (myself included) will still vote for him in November if that’s what it comes down to. But that debate totally rattled me and I can’t pretend otherwise. If he’s going to stay in the race, which I assume he will, his administration needs to get all hands on deck to introduce the American people to his *team* and to put them in contrast to what a GOP project 2025 team is going to do. They need to do this aggressively. It can’t just be about Biden anymore. It needs to be bigger than that.
Whoops didn’t mean this to be a reply to your comment, Zach! Was just a general comment.
Usually I have the opposite problem, when I have a reply post as a general comment. You won't get as many views if you're hidden under me :)
I agree we are in a very bad situation. The warning signs have been there all along, and it may just be too late. Women suffered the most from Trump in 2016, and women will suffer the most from Trump in 2024. 💔
I've been ignoring the news for the past few days to try and avoid having a fucking stroke, but I want to be crystal clear. I would vote for Joe Biden's corpse over any single Republican, much less Donald Trump. ESPECIALLY after today's absolutely insane and lawless ruling by the Supreme Court, basically endorsing the idea that [Republican] presidents are kings and rubbing our fucking faces in it.
Yes, they are teeing up the ball, and depending on us all being as fickle as their voters. They are telling us exactly what is at stake, if the Orange Oompa-Loompa wins!
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Amen to THAT, Victoria!