A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[Dark Jaguar]

Tim Walz was an excellent pick.  There was no candidate Harris could have chosen that wouldn't have been labelled a "left wing extremist".  We all know this to be a fact.  As evidence, they're calling HARRIS a left wing extremist, and she's anything but!  It didn't matter who she picked as far as Republican narrative goes.  All she needed to worry about then, the one thing she COULD affect with her choice, was countering impressions of "elitism".  This guy is far from that, and he's a populist.  A REAL populist, representing the will of the people.  It's a wonderful selection.  Don't misunderstand.  I don't think this guy is an "ultra leftist", but he is left of center, and further left than Harris herself, and I appreciate that.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this guy.  VPs tend to get the VIP pass to presidential picks down the line after all, which is another reason I'm glad this guy was the pick.

I keep seeing people ask "but, does the VP pick REALLY matter?".  I would like to remind those people being paid MILLIONS to comment on national news that they are asking if KAMILA HARRIS' VP pick matters.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, he seems like a solid choice.  I was leaning Shapiro because winning Pennsylvania is the most important thing, but Walz will be fine and seems good at coming up with attacks that the right hates -- his "they're weird" line is really annoying them, which is nice.

[Dark Jaguar]

Shapiro's policies are very disappointing, and he would have been the worst choice for that.  Picking him was never necessary to win over a state anyway.  That state can be won over in other ways.

[A Black Falcon]

I'll be honest, I did not see "the moment she became nominee Harris' approval ratings and vote share vs. Trump would skyrocket upwards and now it's a Dem-leaning race in the polls" coming, but that's what happened... huh.

[Weltall]

Trump is promising a collapse of the economy and widespread devastation, the end of the country, quote unquote. Which, to those of us who don't fall into the Hanlon's Razor trap, reads as a threat of what he expects his brainwashed minions to bring about if Democrats win again. Those outcomes, after all, would be the result of a successful attempt by these evil losers to start a civil war, or at the very least, widespread violence.

I hope he suffers a massive coronary thrombosis the day after he loses. I hope it ends with a load of shit in his pants and the cameras rolling. I don't want him to rot in prison, I don't want him to suffer, or to die by violent means. I just want this to be definitively and forever behind us.

[Dark Jaguar]

The best think Trump could do for the country would be to join the Hermit's Union and seal himself into a cave out in the woods, alone, for the rest of his horse-blooded unnatural life.  His brush with death didn't change him at all.  He's not Scrooge, he's just Trump.

In either case, Harris is raising in popularity, and picking Walz seems to have given her a massive bump.  We have a singularly odd moment in history, where Trump picked the LEAST popular vice presidential candidate in living history, and Harris has managed to pick the MOST popular VP candidate.  That may actually be enough to win this, but we have one big thing left.  There's a very good chance that at the convention, since the VP reveal has already been done, they will be focusing on party platform as their big convention surprise.  They've revealed a number of good policy decisions, and they are likely to keep that momentum going.  Again, good decisions, not great.

No taxes on tipping?  Good.  I say that minimum wage should be universally required for jobs like waiting tables and bartending, as well as significantly raising said minimum wage so that we can abolish the tipping practice altogether like other countries, but this is still a good start.

...

But can we at least work in some requirements that someone has to actually be working a service job like that to get tipped?  I foresee landlords pushing the concept of "tipping" them or corporate executives sneaking in "tips" to themselves from each other in order to evade taxes.

Not saying it's a bad idea because of those things, as a middle of the road measure, it's an important one, it just needs some loopholes closed.

Other matters are generally favorable, and Walz is more open about the atrocities taking place in Gaza right now.  Harris, of course, as the CURRENT VP, can't really go against Biden at the moment, but we'll see.

[A Black Falcon]

Don't make any mistake, despite the good feelings, this race is still really close and either candidate can win.  The polls in the key states are slightly in our favor but not by much...

[Dark Jaguar]

As if I could make that mistake, but so far the convention is going well.



Bernie pushing from further left helps to counter the ridiculous notion that Harris is some radical progressive.  The window of "the center" has always been a moving target.  Stillness is a synonym for death, life is change.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm surprised this isn't getting reported on more, but it's interesting to see this coalition of republicans from across multiple decades all come together to point out that yes, the Republican party leadership has significantly changed and no longer reflects classic republican values.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, the overt patriotism, the 'USA' chants, and the quite a few Republicans speaking for Harris because of Trump's threat to our democracy were great to see for sure!  It's really important to defeat him for our democracy, and it's fantastic that a few Republicans realize that.   I read that somehow Fox News avoided showing even a single one of those speeches... can't imagine why.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure if you saw this, but the so-called "fact checkers" seem to have decided to openly support Trump with false fact checks of Democrats in his favor, as the number of times during the convention that multiple different fact checkers wrote articles making openly false claims in the name of "fact checking" the Democrats is insane.  Here are a few examples:
- You can't say that Trump will refuse to accept the results of the election, we don't know that.  "He just hasn't said that he would accept.  And he has previously said the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat", to quote the fact checker.
- You can't say that Trump said that women who have abortions should be punished even though the words are a direct quote, that is misleading because his campaign retracted the statement later that day.
- Biden was misleading when he said that during his 4-year term Trump added more to the national debt than any other four-year term because more money was added to the debt than that during Obama's eight-year term.
- It is unclear how much of Project 2025 Trump supports and how much he doesn't.  (This is true, but we all know he would sign anything that comes to his desk so it doesn't matter.)
- Bill Clinton said something true but left out important context when he accurately said that Democratic administrations have created 50 million jobs total since 1989 while Republican administrations have created 1 million jobs total. What is this context he left out that is oh so important?  Well, that most of the major job-losing events since '89 have happened during Republican administrations, mostly.  I'm sure there is no reason for this beyond luck, implies the fact-checker.  Also the labor market is affected by factors beyond just who is president, surely this is all just a coincidence!  It's only a margin of 50 to 1, Republicans do just fine on the economy, vote Trump!

https://presswatchers.org/2024/08/fact-c...ace-plant/  This article covers a bunch of these examples and some more.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's not that they're trying to be "in favor" of Trump, they're just terrified of not looking "balanced".  Like CNN, they are trying to stay "in the middle" and not get accused of favoritism.

Two things wrong with that.  First, "the middle" is a moving target.  By chasing the "middle", you inherently move yourself further right.

Secondly, their job isn't to provide "balance", it's to fact check.  It's a silly little joke, but it's very true these days.  Reality has a leftist bias.  An honest fact checker would acknowledge that we can predict future behavior based on past behavior and conclude that Trump is doing exactly the same thing he did LAST election and that it's up to him to prove he WON'T deny the election results at this point.

[A Black Falcon]

I know that what you say is the most likely explanation for this kind of utter nonsense, but I am not convinced that it's as benign as that...

[Dark Jaguar]

Politico has never had a heavy conservative bent.  Listen, I understand your temptation to presume a conspiracy is going on, but we don't have reason to think that.  This isn't "benign", don't get me wrong.  It's horribly harmful, but it's easily explained by basic corporate greed influencing editorial decisions.  In fact, I've found that a lot of otherwise unexplainable corporate decisions make a lot more sense if you assume the people in charge are amoral and greedy.  It's cartoonish, like Captain Planet level stuff, but if the past 8 years have taught us ANYTHING, it's that Captain Planet villains exist in the really real world and we owe that cartoon an apology.  Sometimes, real people are one dimensional and real world world building sucks.

So in this case, when you have SO many people threatening en masse to stop buying this newspaper or stop watching that network, they make the corporate decision to hedge their bets towards some imagined middle ground to "do the least harm" to their bottom line.

That said, sometimes conspiracies actually happen.  The key is, I just need evidence of it, and saying "they're all acting weird" isn't evidence.

[A Black Falcon]

Dick Cheney is voting for Harris, the Democrat.  Now that's an insane sentence that nobody would have ever believed had you told them 20 years ago!

[Dark Jaguar]

Dick Cheney is voting for Harris, the Democrat.  Now that's an insane sentence that nobody would have ever believed had you told them 20 years ago!

Not even close to the only republican voting for Harris, and not even close to insane either.  I mean take a look at everything Trump says and does.  Frankly, it's a shock they weren't abandoning him in droves eight years ago, but better late than never.  Also, keep in mind the election is still close, very close.  It would be so easy for this to flip on a dime if we're not careful.  The only poll that matters is on election day.  Remember that.

[Dark Jaguar]

The ACTOR?!



Yes, the actor, the actor who's very existence cut the spine out of the democratic party and gave the republican party license to be their worst selves, and basically resulted in modern politics as we know it today.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Also Newt Gingrich. He's responsible for a great deal of dysfunction and refusal to work together that we still see today. McConnell abusing the filibuster to grind things to a halt is another big factor.

Fuck all three of them, though!

I haven't posted since the Biden debate debacle so I might as well say, thank goodness all that gloom and doom has ended! Him stepping down went almost as well as it could have. As well as it could have would be for everyone, save for Trump's most slavering devotees, to flock to Harris in a landslide. Polls are looking pretty good but for the love of god, keep that foot on the gas until the last vote is counted, until his last frivolous lawsuit is thrown out, and we can flush that turd down into the toilet once and for all.

[Dark Jaguar]

Just keep in mind Trump's going to break every norm all over again.  Yes, he said he might "disappear" if he doesn't win, but he said that last time.  Expect another attempted overthrow, and expect constant legal challenges until the day he dies.  He's publicly stated that he doesn't like self reflection because he "might not like what he sees".  This is a shallow man who's only purpose in life is stepping on other people.  He is living proof that shallow two dimensional villains actually are realistic.