2024 US Presidential Election

That pretty much covers the ground on candidates, no quibbles.There are other headwinds against the GOP. In addition to candidate weakness and toxicity, Reps will be running with a Supreme albatross around their necks; inflation is cooling, and the economy is perking right along. The legislation Biden got through a divided Congress invests trillions into infrastructure and new industrial plant: this is starting to sink in, even across red states. Also, as you suggested, Republicans seem incapable of swearing off nuttery and thuggery. They just sound pig-eye mean.Given all that, as well as the ongoing background demographic changes -- more young voters, more college educated voters, perhaps even the increased mortality in red states (because duh) -- I see a good chance for a Democrat trifecta.Barring intervening black swans, definitely looks like Biden v. Trump again, ageing sanity and competence v. ageing psychopathy and incompetence.. Biden will beat him like a drum.

The Democratic Party is a center left party: the furthest left of them, like AOC and Sanders, are social democrats, no more alarming than the average elected politician in Europe.Fanatical, cultish, violence-threatening extremism is all on the right. That may be the most salient fact in 2024.GOP candidates are now toxic to both independents and Democrats -- the latter even seem to have overcome their emergent property (as a coalition party) of circular firing squadism.I sympathize with your fears, but I'm more confident about the national future than I've been for years. Maybe you should practice saying President Harris until you don't stutter.

Should I set my hair on fire?What do you conclude about the average elected politician in Europe based on events in France?

That's an extraordinary statement.Could you elucidate the legal troubles facing Biden that you equate with Trump's pile of indictments?Maybe it's not extraordinary; maybe it's just lame.

It's the perfected intra-conspiracy discipline that impresses me most.Not one renegade cell of apparatchik scientists has spilled the beans. Not one of the scores of GOP-appointed judges who ruled against Trump and his patriots has broken in the heat of shameful betrayal to confess all.The largest and most disciplined conspiracy ever must loom like the death star.But most GOPers don't believe in the conspiracy. It's very absurdity is a feature, not a bug. Like hazing rituals, or ceremonies of mutually witnessed defilement to enter secret societies, the conspiracy embrace says I am one of the tribe, I pledge my loyal belief in the absurd and corrupt behavior, against all reason, evidence, and decency.It is social madness. It is fascism.

So Trump's presence on the 2020 ballot meant he had done well for 4 years?I'll move on when Trump passes on.I watched SCOTUS steal the 2000 election -- after busloads of GOP operatives staged mini-riots to block completion of the vote count, giving SCOTUS the opportunity to rule there was no time for all that.I watched Comey flip the 2016 election to Trump by announcing -- unilaterally, against DOJ policy -- the "reopening" of the FBI investigation into Clinton's email practices (sounds almost quaint now) just days before the vote.I sat down to watch Biden's certification, anticipating the massive sense of relief to come; instead, I watched Trump cultists profane our democracy.The DOJ had to be shamed by the Jan.6 committee into investigating Trump; FBI agents and supervisors initially refused to serve subpoenas or search Marawhatever.While recovering from a stroke through the winter of 2016, I swore I would not die before I pissed on Trump's grave. My docs think my return to robust good health since was remarkable. I think the FBI and SCOTUS are our most GOP-occupied institutions, and the DOJ remains much too timid. It's far too soon to relax and die.So, like Dylan with the Masters of War, I'll stand by his grave till I'm sure that he's dead.Then I'll piss on it. And move on.

Likewise.I've also never heard anyone to the left rant about rural folk the way I hear about "cidiots" throughout the local Trump country.The hatred and contempt for urban life are palpable; Fox and the right wing echo chamber have convinced them that this is the appropriate response to urban elite snobs.I've lived and worked in many American cities, running the gamut from Chevy factory in the midwest to grad school in Boston, and that anti-rural picture just ain't so.Before MAGA I'd have described the urban view of the country as a bit fantasist and wistful. Now it's tinged with fear, puzzlement, and a slow swell of anger.

Somebody worse always comes along.But the dread of worse shouldn't stop resistance to bad.

As a wolf fan, personally acquainted with many individual wolves (who know and reply to my howls), I am proud to say, yes. I would with pleasure rend Trump with my teeth.A wolf of Trump's ilk, inconceivable as that is in that magnificently social species, would be driven from the pack.So I accept the compliment."Rabid" is just calumny.

Research 'flipping the script'.

Thank you, dwise1. Your posts often remind me how important it is to do the work

Thank you, dwise1. Your posts often remind me how important it is to do the work

I hope he was -- all the candidates should face sharp questions--like yours--from the public. His was pretty keen, and those party-curated crowds won't ask them..Denying that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War is common on the right -- it is a necessary tenet in their myth of the honorable Lost Cause in the face of the Yankee War of Aggression. It's complete nonsense, but it's foundational.She knew the cause of that war, but she didn't want to say it, trying to hold on to that further Right. That alone sounded the dog whistle. Sure, she said the bad/true thing, but the media had to make her. Then her spin is spun (yes of course slavery ... Iwas after someting more profound about the future). That's not nearly as harmful on the right flank of her candidacy as coming right out with it.And if too many pundits call her out, she'll be a MAGA-martyr.That's GOP politics now.

If a Democrat of sufficient stature was ready and willing, they would have emerged months ago. Politicians aren't shy.It bears repeating that the Democratic Party is a coalition party: nobody gets everything they want, and there are always intraparty recriminations and threats to abandon the party.As the campaign heats up, the notorious circular firing squads may form. I hope not -- this may be the first truly existential election in my 72 years.
​

Not even close -- we've been hearing it for years.Are you praying for an economic collapse? MAGA would prefer it much sooner than in four years. For the greater good, of course, and the glory of Jesus. And if we have to sacrifice Ukraine to Russia and families to the Rio Grande to prove that Biden is bad news, so be it. Amen.How about you, Phat? What do you pray for?Are you lusting for righteously bad things?