[Cause]

I know nothing about shapiro despite living in philadelphia but I do know that contrary to what Azath said he is actaully one of Pensylvanias most popular governors history in recent memory apparently. 49% Approval generally, 31% dissaporivoal. Apparently half of independants also approve him. Doesnt sound that amazing but I think that kind of support is actually considered impressive these days sad to say.

Also I dont understand people who will decide the American election based on Israel. Not voting for Biden and Now Harris because of Israel would lead to Trump. Trump is very pro-israel and the republican base is as well. So which candidates policies will imprive your life in the USA. A VP who is vocally pto-israel could allow Harris to distance herself more from Israel if it was seen as politically helpful.

Also the wierd attack line is gaining traction and resonating with voters. People have called out republicans as being insane and irrational and it doesnt work, however saying its wierd that white men are obsessed with feamle reproduction rights works. Its points out that its insane but has the right understatement that it lands succesfully. It works for so many of their 'policies' which are also often just cultural issues hiding as proposed legilsation.

This post has been edited by Cause: 31 July 2024 - 01:54 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 31 July 2024 - 01:50 PM, said:

I know nothing about shapiro despite living in philadelphia but I do know that contrary to what Azath said he is actaully one of Pensylvanias most popular governors history in recent memory apparently. 49% Approval generally, 31% dissaporivoal. Apparently half of independants also approve him. Doesnt sound that amazing but I think that kind of support is actually considered impressive these days sad to say.

That's because he's supported by about 35 percent of Trump voters in Pennsylvania. Progressives and yes many people in Philadelphia hate him.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 31 July 2024 - 02:39 PM

[Lady Bliss]

I’ve been hoping she would choose Pete buttigiege (sp?), but I’m sure him being gay would alienate evangelicals. I’ve been scratching my head on the perfect running mate. Sadly I think she needs to pick a white male.

[Cause]

Lady Bliss, on 31 July 2024 - 02:50 PM, said:

I’ve been hoping she would choose Pete buttigiege (sp?), but I’m sure him being gay would alienate evangelicals. I’ve been scratching my head on the perfect running mate. Sadly I think she needs to pick a white male.

A straight white man you mean.

They need to keep putting Pete on air though, actually they should have him run a course for the rest of the democrats on how to answer questions.

[worry]

Things are going great for Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.

[HoosierDaddy]

Lady Bliss, on 31 July 2024 - 02:50 PM, said:

I've been hoping she would choose Pete buttigiege (sp?), but I'm sure him being gay would alienate evangelicals. I've been scratching my head on the perfect running mate. Sadly I think she needs to pick a white male.

Pete had my primary vote in 2020 if it would have made it to Indiana. He is extremely intelligent, has a wonderful resume, and is great at communicating party positions in understandable ways (communication). However, he's not terribly charismatic (IMO) and definitely upfront with his family life.

What would be great is seeing JD Vance and Pete Buttigieg get into why Pete's adopted children that he couldn't have naturally (you know, the sexuality thing) don't allow his vote to count more simply because of his sexuality. Because people with children are more important and matter more than people who don't have children.

It'd be great drilling into the hierarchy of voting power with JD Vance and his ilk.

JD Vance's hierarchy of voting rights and weight:

White naturally born American citizens with kids (republicans surely!) 1 vote is actually 1 x amount of white kids
White naturally born American citizens without kids 1 vote is actually 1 vote x 2
Unborn Children (white)
White people with adopted children (preferably white!) (.5 per person)
Men of mixed heritage (must include 50% of white blood!) (.25 per person)
Women of mixed heritage (must include 50% of white blood!) (.10 per person)
.....

No one else need apply to vote.

I mean... counting approximations of people is in the Constitution and everything! Talk about originalism! Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would have a ball with that case!

I hate how this isn't fucking satire.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

HoosierDaddy, on 31 July 2024 - 07:37 PM, said:

Lady Bliss, on 31 July 2024 - 02:50 PM, said:

I've been hoping she would choose Pete buttigiege (sp?), but I'm sure him being gay would alienate evangelicals. I've been scratching my head on the perfect running mate. Sadly I think she needs to pick a white male.

Pete had my primary vote in 2020 if it would have made it to Indiana. He is extremely intelligent, has a wonderful resume, and is great at communicating party positions in understandable ways (communication). However, he's not terribly charismatic (IMO) and definitely upfront with his family life.

What would be great is seeing JD Vance and Pete Buttigieg get into why Pete's adopted children that he couldn't have naturally (you know, the sexuality thing) don't allow his vote to count more simply because of his sexuality. Because people with children are more important and matter more than people who don't have children.

It'd be great drilling into the hierarchy of voting power with JD Vance and his ilk.

JD Vance's hierarchy of voting rights and weight:

White naturally born American citizens with kids (republicans surely!) 1 vote is actually 1 x amount of white kids
White naturally born American citizens without kids 1 vote is actually 1 vote x 2
Unborn Children (white)
White people with adopted children (preferably white!) (.5 per person)
Men of mixed heritage (must include 50% of white blood!) (.25 per person)
Women of mixed heritage (must include 50% of white blood!) (.10 per person)
.....

No one else need apply to vote.

I mean... counting approximations of people is in the Constitution and everything! Talk about originalism! Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would have a ball with that case!

I hate how this isn't fucking satire.

Obviously they should just automatically count the unborn child's vote for Trump... and that includes eggs and sperm!

[Cause]

What amuses me about JD vances position is his argument followed to its conclusion is that seniors should lose their vote, their interests are too short sighted and that we should potentially lower the voting age as well. Both would destroy the republican party as it exists today. Both are also long standing debates.

He somehow found the only way to voice it that also ties into the idea of people should be incentivized to procreate, abortion is murder and the family should be nuclear. In divorced homes who gets the extra voting power the mother, the father? Should it be settled in court?

[HoosierDaddy]

Hahaha... you think that divorce is legal in the Dystopian States of America? Divorce is a product of equal rights for women... they are coming for the 19th amendment as well. It was a mistake, you know.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 31 July 2024 - 11:10 PM

[Mentalist]

I'm obviously biased, but Kelly is the one of the most vocally anti-Russian Dems, and. He spearheaded the F16 training for Ukrainian pilots. So quite obviously I'm hoping he's the one who gets picked

[HoosierDaddy]

So it's Harris/Walz and Trump/Vance.

I guess the Walz pick will energize most Democrats, and evidently and more importantly, won't alienate the progressives like Shapiro or the young people like Kelly would have.

We'll see. Interested in seeing what Walz has to say on a national stage.

[worry]

Hopefully that these creepy weirdos want to control people's bodies (including but not limited to a federal abortion ban), want to cut school lunch programs, want to burn books and arrest librarians, want to curtail voting rights (or voting all together), and are all around authoritarian sickos. Pretty easy case to make when your opponent is JD Vance.

[HoosierDaddy]

worry, on 06 August 2024 - 02:27 PM, said:

Hopefully that these creepy weirdos want to control people's bodies (including but not limited to a federal abortion ban), want to cut school lunch programs, want to burn books and arrest librarians, want to curtail voting rights (or voting all together), and are all around authoritarian sickos. Pretty easy case to make when your opponent is JD Vance.

Speaking of Vance, I listened to The Daily's podcast about his queer friend from Michigan in law school. After having listened to it, I'm of one of two minds about Vance:

1. He has no actual ethics, just ambition. He'll "believe" what he needs to in order to get what he wants.
2. Fatherhood changed him so utterly, that the society around him that he had been intellectually curious and compassionate about became an overwhelming danger to his kids.

I just don't buy the second. Somewhat with the sort of compassion he seemed to have at one time doesn't have that suppressed by fatherhood. I think it's pretty obvious he'll say and "believe" in whatever he needs to get ahead.

I'm not an expert, but telling multiple people you think Trump is America's Hitler and then saying, oh well, you know Hitler had some good ideas doesn't track.

[worry]

I tend to agree with you. I've seen some of the interviews his college friend Sofia Nelson has been doing. She's the one who released some of the old texts/chats of what he was like in college, in contrast to his present policy positions. Usually I wouldn't think it was ethical to do that kind of thing, but I'd say it's fair game with politicians. I think your #1 is correct, but I also think his ambition was met with people who knew how to woo and manipulate that ambition, such as Peter Thiel. Whether he's fallen down a right wing rabbit hole, or he's just a bought and paid for suit, he's a willing co-conspirator either way.

[amphibian]

Vance goes where the money is - Thiel, making up stories about hillbillies, marrying a Telugu lady who realized she'd get much farther clerking for very right wing judges post law school than she would being herself.

There's a grift always happening with that family and there's not much genuine belief in what they're saying beyond "let's get power and let's control society like the 1910s and 1950s".

[HoosierDaddy]

I still use Twitter, mostly for breaking news. I occasionally read replies because I'm bored.

Shockingly, the NYT and WaPo had critical pieces up about Walz within an hour on a now right wing social media platform. And I made the mistake of clicking on the replies and followed that back to twitter bios...

Either some people spend all day everyday copy and pasting talking points provided to them, or the bots are running Twitter.

I'm genuinely unsure because some people might actually be able to do that... but I'm guessing it's primarily Russian/anti-American bots.

I hope its bots.

Please be bots.

[worry]

HoosierDaddy, on 06 August 2024 - 05:18 PM, said:

Shockingly, the NYT and WaPo had critical pieces up about Walz within an hour on a now right wing social media platform.

Lol democracy dies in darkness indeed.

Anyway, yeah, Twitter replies are mostly bots and blue check marks, which even if they're real people, behave like bots. It's basically unusable as a social or public forum, outside of any niche you've already carved.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

She picked up the evil sword, and best be prepared to ride the Leviathans it may morph into.

In all seriousness though, I hope this forces Walz to clearly, succintly, and repeatedly explain why particular ways in which Trump and Vance (and MAGA) are weird are bad. As opposed to all the good or neutral ways in which people and ideas can be (at least initially, to those unfamiliar with them---and even if irreducibly still) weird.

Complaining---as Walz did---that Trump's weird because he's "talking about Hannibal Lecter, and shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind" falls a little short: the fact that Trump has made his jokes about "the late great Hannibal Lecter, blah blah blah, he'd love to have you for dinner" a regular part of his rally routine isn't in itself bad. (Some people would say any mention of Hannibal Lecter is bad, but they tend to be the same sorts of uptight close-minded conservatives who would say we're weird in a bad way for liking tMBotF.) What's bad is Trump's implication that immigrant asylum seekers are like Hannibal Lecter. Whether or not Trump is actually confusing "asylum seekers" confused with "insane asylum"---though he's probably trying to make the connection in the minds of his listeners. Granted, he gets closer with the part about saying "just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind"; although that is obviously a substantial part of his appeal, on several levels: it's entertaining (or at least used to be, before it became too repetitive); it makes him seem unfiltered and therefore (to many people who don't trust the media, etc.) "honest"; and it suggests to many that he may be open-minded enough to embrace innovative and effective solutions, even if they seem "weird" and "crazy" at first. And with Hannibal Lecter and the "would I rather die from electrocution or by shark" Trump is trying to associate the people and technologies he's attacking with "bad weird" (the sharks are part of a story about why electric power is bad---in his telling, a heavy electric battery would cause the boat to sink and then electrify the water---like the pit and the pendulum, but with sharks). As in so many fantasy stories, Trump frames his weirdness as that of the "good weird" righteous Chosen One battling against the "bad weird" of immigrants, "woke" liberals (who of course he's called "sick" and "crazy" ad nauseum), transgender people, etc.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 August 2024 - 07:55 PM

[amphibian]

The reason why most of the same editors, pundits, and producers who wanted a Midwestern white guy to be the Democrat nomination are against Walz is because what they want isn't a particular person, they want a close race to cover.

That means that whatever happens, the idea is to tip the race to be close. That also means that most of them are so insulated and so certain that their money is going to stay their money that none of this is particularly real to them.

There's a crappy game or race aspect to this that makes this irksome to live with. This stuff is real and there are big time consequences to who gets elected and whether access to medical care is maintained or whether taxes are appropriately collected or whether enough housing gets built to give people a break on rent etc.

[worry]

Again, Walz is often pretty specific what he means by weird, which is creepy and intrusive into everyday people's lives. He talks about how it's weird to be against school meal programs. How it's weird to go after libraries. How it's weird to want to ban IVF, and he relates that to his own life:

Quote

"This gets personal for me and my family," Walz said Tuesday in a Philadelphia rally alongside Vice President Kamala Harris just hours after being announced as her running mate. "When my wife and I decided to have children we spent years going through infertility treatments. And I remember praying every night for a call for good news. The pit in my stomach when the phone rang, and the agony when we heard that the treatments hadn't worked. So this wasn't by chance that when we welcomed my daughter into the world, we named her Hope." The Walz family's use of fertility treatments also isn't lost on Harris, who highlighted their fertility journey Tuesday. Harris has been a vocal advocate of reproductive technology, as well as women's access to abortion.

"Governor Walz and Mrs. Walz have two children, Hope and Gus," the Harris campaign said in a statement. "Governor Walz and Mrs. Walz struggled with years of fertility challenges and had their daughter, Hope, through reproductive health care like IVF — further cementing his commitment to ensuring all Americans have access to this care."

Walz voiced concern about Americans' access to IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos made through IVF are children under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, sparking fears that women's fertility treatments could be placed in jeopardy.

So the thing you're asking to happen already is, and has been, happening to a pretty decent degree alongside the electrified sharks and Hannibal Lecter stuff. I've seen the same to be true for Buttigieg whenever he's on FOX News or the Sunday programs. And I know time dilates, but it's been barely two weeks since Biden pulled back and it was literally today that Walz was chosen as running-mate. I think there are gonna be occasions to elaborate at length what he means to a broader national audience, that weren't exactly open to him before.





Meanwhile, this is what DJT had to say today: