As to the effects of Biden’s “open border policy” on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
This statement just beggars belief. Biden invited the border rush during his campaign. He ended the Remain in Mexico program on day one. He refused to finish construction of the wall. He ordered no deportations in the first 100 days. His administration (Mayorkas) stated that the unlawful presence was not by itself a basis for an enforcement action. Forget the law. Mayorkas expanded parole unlawfully, extending it well beyond the statutory framework. CBP Mobile One anyone? Asylum lost its meaning. We all saw it. This was the top issue for a lot of voters.
I don't understand why you are playing cute with this one, Pro Bono. You acknowledge legal immigration was larger under Trump. Great. The issue is not legal immigration, which most Americans find unobjectionable and welcome.
As for Afghanistan, it was the execution of the withdrawal, as you likely know. There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it.
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
Well, at the risk of scoffing at Godwin's law, Hitler and Stalin were buddy buddy until they weren't. Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that's no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
One could say the same about Netanyahoo. He is on very good terms with Hungary's Orban and the Polish far right despite both using stoking antisemitism as a standard domestic tool (and His Orangeness has begun to more or less copy-paste Orban's anti-Soros talking points lies too). The important thing is that they are all fellow authoritarians.
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
"Elite", like "Woke", is a purposefully hazily defined word. Like woke, its used to denigrate a class of people as Them, the Problem. To obscure, rather than enlighten.
Elite does have a real definition, but its so broad as to be pretty useless. Its a sub-group of people with exceptional skill in some endeavor, but the usual meaning is a class of people with some combination of exceptional wealth, privilege, and status. Power is assumed in any combination. In this definition there is no single Elite, but the use of the word always implies it, because the point is to accuse The Elite of abusing their power for their benefit and the detriment of The Rest Of Us, the common clay of the West. Whether its a Harvard professor brainwashing midwestern students, movie stars sticking their noses where they don't belong, or a billionaire doing billionaire things, the Elite are shoving things down our collective throat.
Actual elites have power, whether through politics, wealth, or celebrity, though the 3 naturally go together. The people who can directly affect our lives from a distance, who convince us who we should trust and believe. The people we look up to, because we want to or we have to.
And Michael has some more measured points as well, which I will put here for reference
Is there an alternative? No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there. Parking a carrier in the Persian Gulf is at least impractical, and may not be able to fly everything we fly out of Qatar. Iran has already launched missiles at Qatar once because of our presence. That one was face-saving, but if you were Qatar, wouldn’t you want a “we’ve got your back” guarantee in the event of real attack? Even more pressing, perhaps, since Iran signed security agreements with Pakistan, who has nukes and ballistic delivery systems that can reach Qatar.
When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
The feds spent a lot of money under Biden. We took on a lot of debt. And for that, we came out of the COVID pandemic with a robust economy, much more so that peer nations. Big investments in infrastructure.
Trump is loading the country up with debt in the interest of making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. Qui bono? I mean, we'd all like more cash in hand at the end of the month, but what are we cutting to make that happen? If you're making a middle class wage and you end up with an extra 3% a year, but your local hospital closes and your health insurance premium doubles and your public infrastructure in general goes to shit, are you better off?
And FWIW, the highest level of debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years was first quarter of 2020 - 132.8%. Who was POTUS then? Also FWIW, I don't have a problem with the national debt spiking up 1Q 2020 because we were in the middle of a freaking plague. Nonetheless, those are the numbers.
When the nation borrows, what is done with the money? Are we investing in the future? Or are we starving the public sector and assuming the public sector will just pick up the slack? And if so, will it?
bc:
1) Legal immigration was lower under Biden than Trump. As to the effects of Biden's "open border policy" on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
2) Trump was and is keen on deficit-funded tax cuts. Biden was keen on deficit-funded spending. Biden at least was spending the money to boost an economy which had been depressed by COVID (and it worked). Neither should be attractive to a deficit hawk.
7) Yes, the US is a net exporter of natural gas, a net importer of oil. But the oil imports are not because of reduced domestic production - it reached a record high in 2023 (the last year I've found data for).
6) (I left this out before because I didn't know about it). So far as I know, shoplifting is not a federal matter - it's nothing to do with the president.
I imagine we could get somewhere near a consensus on these things, if we discussed them for long enough. And that at most it would support Ackman's preference for some of Trump's policies where they favour the things Ackman likes, such as burning fossil fuels. And we could go through the whole list similarly.
The one thing I clearly agree with him about is his distaste for the Ds' nomination of Biden in 2024. That's a reason to vote for the obviously dementing Trump rather than Harris?
One more jab: (3) is ridiculous - he voted for Trump because Biden implemented the withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump had committed to?
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
Is there an alternative? No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there. Parking a carrier in the Persian Gulf is at least impractical, and may not be able to fly everything we fly out of Qatar. Iran has already launched missiles at Qatar once because of our presence. That one was face-saving, but if you were Qatar, wouldn't you want a "we've got your back" guarantee in the event of real attack? Even more pressing, perhaps, since Iran signed security agreements with Pakistan, who has nukes and ballistic delivery systems that can reach Qatar.
It seems weird to me to be discussing whether or not Omelas was in better shape under Biden or under Trump when the part of the story that is being ignored in order to make this response is that Trump has decided that too few children have been tortured in order to make Omelas great, and that Biden was a pussy for having not had the courage to grab more kids to torture in order to launch Omelas into high gear towards greatness.
Oh, and everyone else in the world sucks compared to Omelas and needs to jump on the kid torturing regime ASAP or else their countries are going to sink just like Omelas under Biden.
<i>What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?</i>
I'm going to lift up Michael's comment to the front page, with some comments from me. I think it is a very interesting topic and one that might bring out a lot of discussion.
I have a few questions about blog format that you mentioned bc, so I hope I can ask you later about that, but I did want to point out one thing
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump.
I'm guessing that COVID spending could be debited 50/50 to Trump and Biden, but the article doesn't mentions the CHIPs act or the Infrastructure Investment act. Also, I had to look, but another program that significantly increased debt was the PACT act https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
One has to wonder how all these things are going to fare after the DOGE CF.
So yes, all of these things increased the debt under Biden, but you can't wave your hand and have the underlying issues disappear. That heritage page is pretty disingenuous, imo.
I don't think your comments are as much wrong as ignoring the full picture.
1) Immigration. Immigration was higher in Trump’s first term than in Bidens. Ackman is wrong.
Immigration was higher? By what metric? Legal or illegal? I think naturalizations were higher under Trump in his first term, but illegal border crossings in the south were way up under Biden as soon has he changed remain in Mexico. He hid some of those by granting parole where it had not been granted before. And Biden changed course right before the election. See more here:
2) Trump in his first term showed himself to be indifferent to the national debt. Ackman is wrong.
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump. Frex:
Ben Meiselas pops on on my youtube list quite a lot, while I'm watching chess or cycling videos. I must click on enough of his stuff for it to keep being suggested to me.
But he's not really my cup of tea. Ever since the primaries he's been announcing several times a week that Trump is failing. It's not sufficiently contemplative for me.
bc: Criticizing a side for “othering” by what seems to be to be “othering” of another sort isn’t a winning proposition.
Criticizing Nazis for "othering" Jews by politely refraining from "othering" Nazis is surely a losing proposition -- if the audience is mainly Nazi supporters. People might support the Nazis for all sorts of reasons other than Jew hatred, you see.
I'm sorry to tell you, bc, that those of my fellow Americans who are indifferent to, never mind approving of, the Gestapo tactics of Dear Leader's brown-shirted (literally!) masked thugs will always be "others" to me. If they choose to shrug off fascism, how would you advise people like me to reason with them?
Whatever your advice might be, I say this much is true: they are more likely to listen to you than to me. We godless America-hating soshulist anit-fascists are automatically suspect. Assuming you are anti-fascist yourself, maybe you should caution them about "othering". Maybe you can point out to them that the fascism is part of a package deal with the tax cuts for billionaires (and whatever else) they voted for. If it turns out that doing that gets you "othered" by them, welcome to the club.
Well! I'd barely heard of this Ben Meiselas guy before, but it looks like he may be getting the message across - bigger audiences than Joe Rogan apparently. What do any ObWi people think of him?
Give me a shiny plane and I’ll let you build a base in Idaho.
The request for a training facility was made in 2017, shortly after the Obama administration approved selling current versions of the F-15 Strike Eagle to Qatar. Like most military base construction, there's a ton of hoops to jump through. Not long ago the final environmental impact statement was finished, so they announced the training facility. Badly. Horribly. Using terms that don't describe things accurately.
Singapore already has a training facility at the same air base for their F-15 pilots and mechanics. And a facility at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for their F-16 pilots and mechanics. Both planes are supersonic; neither Singapore nor Qatar are big enough (in square miles) to support a supersonic practice range. Mountain Home is close to the Utah Test and Training Range, and Luke to the Nevada Test Site, where low-level supersonic flights are allowed. And it's easier to house a few of the exact planes you're buying in the US than try to ferry some in over great distances.
Meanwhile, someone watching Trump's speech in Israel just called me; apparently he turned to Keir Starmer and called him the President of Canada. That should go in a showreel along with the war he settled between Cambodia and Armenia. Talking of calling a spade a spade and getting it across to the wider electorate...
Every other President in my lifetime has represented himself as serving in the interests of all Americans: this one is for his people only.
He's not even doing that, at least if equate "his people" with people who voted for him. His tariff war is seriously damaging for a variety of farmers. Cutting the ACA market subsidies will do particular damage in red states that haven't expanded Medicaid. The Medicaid cuts are going to exacerbate the financial problems facing rural hospitals.
When I was on the budget staff for my state's legislature, from time to time I heard members from rural areas say, "The Front Range urban corridor has declared war on rural Colorado." My job was understanding the state's cash flows. I was always tempted to say, "No, they haven't. You'll know they've declared war when the subsidies for your schools, roads, health care, electricity, and phone service stop."
. The call a thug a thug post was about how DEM POLITICIANS need to speak, not individual MAGA voters , The communication needs to be directed toward independents, new voters, nonvoters, people who previously haven't followed politics much etc to keep them from failing for the Noise Machine bullshit.
Yes, it is true that the cult isn't ideological of philosophical in nature. It is the result of decades of smears, defamation, lies, and other "Othering" techniques intended to polarize for the purpose of creating a base that will vote R no matter how bad R policies are out of a conviction that everyone who isn't an R is an existential threat to real true good American values. Remember wedge issues? Framing complex issues as simplified good versus evil dichotomies? Republican party leaders did that purposefully to convince Republican voters that the Democratic party had bad values and was a threat to their good values. While Rove was creating polarization through good/bad framing . other Republicans were spreading outright defamation such as the Swift Boat Liars. It was all Othering. Tactical, not philosophical. And the hate and fearmongering directed by the Republican party toward the rest of America has been going on for years and years and years.
Of course the whole time the Republican party/Faux/etc propaganda network was in high gear, the propagandists used faux victimization whenever anyone criticized them. How dare anyone call the Swift Boat Liars liars? How dare anyone criticize the content produced by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin. That's cancel culture! It has been normal for decades for elected Republicans to engage in the promotion of hate and division while Dems were not supposed to object because to do so was supposedly to be engaging in divisiveness.
If people want to spend time talking actual policy with MAGA voters they can do so and maybe they will be able to break through sometimes. But the evidence of voting patterns shows that r voters usually vote R even when they are aware that they are voting for policies they oppose. Heck they kept on voting R even when their majour news sources Faux and Newsmax were revealed as liars. They even re-elected TRump even though Trump instigated a violent attack on Congress. Most R voter vote R no matter what. Some examples: in an interview with the head of the farmers' soybean special interest group, the head said that Trump's tariffs were bad but he'd vote for Trump again. Walz spent time talking to white union guys who nodded and agree on lots of issues but said they were voting for Trump. Biden bailed out union pensions, supported strikes, raised union wages, and lost the white male union vote. I read an interview with a R pol from Louisiana who was mourning the toxic wastes that had been spread around the state by floods. He told the reporter that he knew the state party was bad on environment issues, but he had to vote R because Republicans, he said, were Christians.
Othering is when a group of people is smeared with a false negative generalization. Kirk was othering when he said that white people were targeted for attack by roaming bands of black men. Elected Republicans nationwide are othering now when they say the No Kings Day even is a "hate America" event. Othering is when the Republican party decided to claim to be "pro-life" as opposed to the babykilling Democrats.
Othering is so common from Republicans and their media that it is normative. And no it is not othering them to say that--because othering is a false generalization, not an accurate one.
So how should a Dem politician run for office in this toxic polarized society created by Republican propaganda? Step one is to communicate reality clearly to the people not in the cult. Give voters a choice and make the choice obvious. Do it with humor as when Dem Sen Wyden said that Cosplay Cop Kristie was afraid of a man in a chicken suit or do it with moral outrage like Pritzker or stand up in public and say, in effect, bring in on while flooding the zone with lawsuits like WA Governor Ferguson. But do not treat propaganda from the Republicans as if it is good faith ideas for discussion.
I agree: what Pro Bono said. And on his last bullet point, about the SCOTUS, it's going to be interesting to see if this makes any difference (my guess is not, but I suppose it could give a bit of cover in case any of the disgraceful 6 is starting to feel uncomfortable)
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
As to the effects of Biden’s “open border policy” on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
This statement just beggars belief. Biden invited the border rush during his campaign. He ended the Remain in Mexico program on day one. He refused to finish construction of the wall. He ordered no deportations in the first 100 days. His administration (Mayorkas) stated that the unlawful presence was not by itself a basis for an enforcement action. Forget the law. Mayorkas expanded parole unlawfully, extending it well beyond the statutory framework. CBP Mobile One anyone? Asylum lost its meaning. We all saw it. This was the top issue for a lot of voters.
I don't understand why you are playing cute with this one, Pro Bono. You acknowledge legal immigration was larger under Trump. Great. The issue is not legal immigration, which most Americans find unobjectionable and welcome.
As for Afghanistan, it was the execution of the withdrawal, as you likely know. There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it.
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
"
Well, at the risk of scoffing at Godwin's law, Hitler and Stalin were buddy buddy until they weren't. Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that's no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
"
One could say the same about Netanyahoo. He is on very good terms with Hungary's Orban and the Polish far right despite both using stoking antisemitism as a standard domestic tool (and His Orangeness has begun to more or less copy-paste Orban's anti-Soros
talking pointslies too). The important thing is that they are all fellow authoritarians."
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
On “Brought to you by your latest captain of industry”
"Elite", like "Woke", is a purposefully hazily defined word. Like woke, its used to denigrate a class of people as Them, the Problem. To obscure, rather than enlighten.
Elite does have a real definition, but its so broad as to be pretty useless. Its a sub-group of people with exceptional skill in some endeavor, but the usual meaning is a class of people with some combination of exceptional wealth, privilege, and status. Power is assumed in any combination. In this definition there is no single Elite, but the use of the word always implies it, because the point is to accuse The Elite of abusing their power for their benefit and the detriment of The Rest Of Us, the common clay of the West. Whether its a Harvard professor brainwashing midwestern students, movie stars sticking their noses where they don't belong, or a billionaire doing billionaire things, the Elite are shoving things down our collective throat.
Actual elites have power, whether through politics, wealth, or celebrity, though the 3 naturally go together. The people who can directly affect our lives from a distance, who convince us who we should trust and believe. The people we look up to, because we want to or we have to.
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
And Michael has some more measured points as well, which I will put here for reference
Is there an alternative? No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there. Parking a carrier in the Persian Gulf is at least impractical, and may not be able to fly everything we fly out of Qatar. Iran has already launched missiles at Qatar once because of our presence. That one was face-saving, but if you were Qatar, wouldn’t you want a “we’ve got your back” guarantee in the event of real attack? Even more pressing, perhaps, since Iran signed security agreements with Pakistan, who has nukes and ballistic delivery systems that can reach Qatar.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there."
Thank you Michael. That makes sense, and I appreciate your calling it out.
"
"I think Biden was far worse than Trump."
When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
The feds spent a lot of money under Biden. We took on a lot of debt. And for that, we came out of the COVID pandemic with a robust economy, much more so that peer nations. Big investments in infrastructure.
Trump is loading the country up with debt in the interest of making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. Qui bono? I mean, we'd all like more cash in hand at the end of the month, but what are we cutting to make that happen? If you're making a middle class wage and you end up with an extra 3% a year, but your local hospital closes and your health insurance premium doubles and your public infrastructure in general goes to shit, are you better off?
And FWIW, the highest level of debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years was first quarter of 2020 - 132.8%. Who was POTUS then? Also FWIW, I don't have a problem with the national debt spiking up 1Q 2020 because we were in the middle of a freaking plague. Nonetheless, those are the numbers.
When the nation borrows, what is done with the money? Are we investing in the future? Or are we starving the public sector and assuming the public sector will just pick up the slack? And if so, will it?
"
bc:
1) Legal immigration was lower under Biden than Trump. As to the effects of Biden's "open border policy" on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
2) Trump was and is keen on deficit-funded tax cuts. Biden was keen on deficit-funded spending. Biden at least was spending the money to boost an economy which had been depressed by COVID (and it worked). Neither should be attractive to a deficit hawk.
7) Yes, the US is a net exporter of natural gas, a net importer of oil. But the oil imports are not because of reduced domestic production - it reached a record high in 2023 (the last year I've found data for).
6) (I left this out before because I didn't know about it). So far as I know, shoplifting is not a federal matter - it's nothing to do with the president.
I imagine we could get somewhere near a consensus on these things, if we discussed them for long enough. And that at most it would support Ackman's preference for some of Trump's policies where they favour the things Ackman likes, such as burning fossil fuels. And we could go through the whole list similarly.
The one thing I clearly agree with him about is his distaste for the Ds' nomination of Biden in 2024. That's a reason to vote for the obviously dementing Trump rather than Harris?
One more jab: (3) is ridiculous - he voted for Trump because Biden implemented the withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump had committed to?
"
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
Is there an alternative? No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there. Parking a carrier in the Persian Gulf is at least impractical, and may not be able to fly everything we fly out of Qatar. Iran has already launched missiles at Qatar once because of our presence. That one was face-saving, but if you were Qatar, wouldn't you want a "we've got your back" guarantee in the event of real attack? Even more pressing, perhaps, since Iran signed security agreements with Pakistan, who has nukes and ballistic delivery systems that can reach Qatar.
"
It seems weird to me to be discussing whether or not Omelas was in better shape under Biden or under Trump when the part of the story that is being ignored in order to make this response is that Trump has decided that too few children have been tortured in order to make Omelas great, and that Biden was a pussy for having not had the courage to grab more kids to torture in order to launch Omelas into high gear towards greatness.
Oh, and everyone else in the world sucks compared to Omelas and needs to jump on the kid torturing regime ASAP or else their countries are going to sink just like Omelas under Biden.
"
<i>What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?</i>
I'm going to lift up Michael's comment to the front page, with some comments from me. I think it is a very interesting topic and one that might bring out a lot of discussion.
"
I have a few questions about blog format that you mentioned bc, so I hope I can ask you later about that, but I did want to point out one thing
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump.
I'm guessing that COVID spending could be debited 50/50 to Trump and Biden, but the article doesn't mentions the CHIPs act or the Infrastructure Investment act. Also, I had to look, but another program that significantly increased debt was the PACT act
https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
One has to wonder how all these things are going to fare after the DOGE CF.
So yes, all of these things increased the debt under Biden, but you can't wave your hand and have the underlying issues disappear. That heritage page is pretty disingenuous, imo.
"
Pro Bono:
I don't think your comments are as much wrong as ignoring the full picture.
1) Immigration. Immigration was higher in Trump’s first term than in Bidens. Ackman is wrong.
Immigration was higher? By what metric? Legal or illegal? I think naturalizations were higher under Trump in his first term, but illegal border crossings in the south were way up under Biden as soon has he changed remain in Mexico. He hid some of those by granting parole where it had not been granted before. And Biden changed course right before the election. See more here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/02/11/trump-biden-immigration-border-compared/
2) Trump in his first term showed himself to be indifferent to the national debt. Ackman is wrong.
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump. Frex:
https://www.heritage.org/debt/commentary/the-lefts-7-trillion-lie-biden-far-outpaces-trump-racking-the-national-debt
7) The USA has been a net fossil fuel exporter since 2019. Ackman is wrong.
Well, there is a difference between coal, LNG and crude oil, right? The US is still a net crude oil importer. It was headed down until 2020.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
Ben Meiselas pops on on my youtube list quite a lot, while I'm watching chess or cycling videos. I must click on enough of his stuff for it to keep being suggested to me.
But he's not really my cup of tea. Ever since the primaries he's been announcing several times a week that Trump is failing. It's not sufficiently contemplative for me.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
bc: Criticizing a side for “othering” by what seems to be to be “othering” of another sort isn’t a winning proposition.
Criticizing Nazis for "othering" Jews by politely refraining from "othering" Nazis is surely a losing proposition -- if the audience is mainly Nazi supporters. People might support the Nazis for all sorts of reasons other than Jew hatred, you see.
I'm sorry to tell you, bc, that those of my fellow Americans who are indifferent to, never mind approving of, the Gestapo tactics of Dear Leader's brown-shirted (literally!) masked thugs will always be "others" to me. If they choose to shrug off fascism, how would you advise people like me to reason with them?
Whatever your advice might be, I say this much is true: they are more likely to listen to you than to me. We godless America-hating soshulist anit-fascists are automatically suspect. Assuming you are anti-fascist yourself, maybe you should caution them about "othering". Maybe you can point out to them that the fascism is part of a package deal with the tax cuts for billionaires (and whatever else) they voted for. If it turns out that doing that gets you "othered" by them, welcome to the club.
--TP
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
Well! I'd barely heard of this Ben Meiselas guy before, but it looks like he may be getting the message across - bigger audiences than Joe Rogan apparently. What do any ObWi people think of him?
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/11/podcaster-ben-meiselas-on-taking-on-the-maga-media-and-winning-the-ratings-battle
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
The request for a training facility was made in 2017
Noted, and a fair call. I stand corrected.
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
"
Give me a shiny plane and I’ll let you build a base in Idaho.
The request for a training facility was made in 2017, shortly after the Obama administration approved selling current versions of the F-15 Strike Eagle to Qatar. Like most military base construction, there's a ton of hoops to jump through. Not long ago the final environmental impact statement was finished, so they announced the training facility. Badly. Horribly. Using terms that don't describe things accurately.
Singapore already has a training facility at the same air base for their F-15 pilots and mechanics. And a facility at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for their F-16 pilots and mechanics. Both planes are supersonic; neither Singapore nor Qatar are big enough (in square miles) to support a supersonic practice range. Mountain Home is close to the Utah Test and Training Range, and Luke to the Nevada Test Site, where low-level supersonic flights are allowed. And it's easier to house a few of the exact planes you're buying in the US than try to ferry some in over great distances.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
Meanwhile, someone watching Trump's speech in Israel just called me; apparently he turned to Keir Starmer and called him the President of Canada. That should go in a showreel along with the war he settled between Cambodia and Armenia. Talking of calling a spade a spade and getting it across to the wider electorate...
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
Every other President in my lifetime has represented himself as serving in the interests of all Americans: this one is for his people only.
He's not even doing that, at least if equate "his people" with people who voted for him. His tariff war is seriously damaging for a variety of farmers. Cutting the ACA market subsidies will do particular damage in red states that haven't expanded Medicaid. The Medicaid cuts are going to exacerbate the financial problems facing rural hospitals.
When I was on the budget staff for my state's legislature, from time to time I heard members from rural areas say, "The Front Range urban corridor has declared war on rural Colorado." My job was understanding the state's cash flows. I was always tempted to say, "No, they haven't. You'll know they've declared war when the subsidies for your schools, roads, health care, electricity, and phone service stop."
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. The call a thug a thug post was about how DEM POLITICIANS need to speak, not individual MAGA voters , The communication needs to be directed toward independents, new voters, nonvoters, people who previously haven't followed politics much etc to keep them from failing for the Noise Machine bullshit.
Yes, it is true that the cult isn't ideological of philosophical in nature. It is the result of decades of smears, defamation, lies, and other "Othering" techniques intended to polarize for the purpose of creating a base that will vote R no matter how bad R policies are out of a conviction that everyone who isn't an R is an existential threat to real true good American values. Remember wedge issues? Framing complex issues as simplified good versus evil dichotomies? Republican party leaders did that purposefully to convince Republican voters that the Democratic party had bad values and was a threat to their good values. While Rove was creating polarization through good/bad framing . other Republicans were spreading outright defamation such as the Swift Boat Liars. It was all Othering. Tactical, not philosophical. And the hate and fearmongering directed by the Republican party toward the rest of America has been going on for years and years and years.
Of course the whole time the Republican party/Faux/etc propaganda network was in high gear, the propagandists used faux victimization whenever anyone criticized them. How dare anyone call the Swift Boat Liars liars? How dare anyone criticize the content produced by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin. That's cancel culture! It has been normal for decades for elected Republicans to engage in the promotion of hate and division while Dems were not supposed to object because to do so was supposedly to be engaging in divisiveness.
If people want to spend time talking actual policy with MAGA voters they can do so and maybe they will be able to break through sometimes. But the evidence of voting patterns shows that r voters usually vote R even when they are aware that they are voting for policies they oppose. Heck they kept on voting R even when their majour news sources Faux and Newsmax were revealed as liars. They even re-elected TRump even though Trump instigated a violent attack on Congress. Most R voter vote R no matter what. Some examples: in an interview with the head of the farmers' soybean special interest group, the head said that Trump's tariffs were bad but he'd vote for Trump again. Walz spent time talking to white union guys who nodded and agree on lots of issues but said they were voting for Trump. Biden bailed out union pensions, supported strikes, raised union wages, and lost the white male union vote. I read an interview with a R pol from Louisiana who was mourning the toxic wastes that had been spread around the state by floods. He told the reporter that he knew the state party was bad on environment issues, but he had to vote R because Republicans, he said, were Christians.
Othering is when a group of people is smeared with a false negative generalization. Kirk was othering when he said that white people were targeted for attack by roaming bands of black men. Elected Republicans nationwide are othering now when they say the No Kings Day even is a "hate America" event. Othering is when the Republican party decided to claim to be "pro-life" as opposed to the babykilling Democrats.
Othering is so common from Republicans and their media that it is normative. And no it is not othering them to say that--because othering is a false generalization, not an accurate one.
So how should a Dem politician run for office in this toxic polarized society created by Republican propaganda? Step one is to communicate reality clearly to the people not in the cult. Give voters a choice and make the choice obvious. Do it with humor as when Dem Sen Wyden said that Cosplay Cop Kristie was afraid of a man in a chicken suit or do it with moral outrage like Pritzker or stand up in public and say, in effect, bring in on while flooding the zone with lawsuits like WA Governor Ferguson. But do not treat propaganda from the Republicans as if it is good faith ideas for discussion.
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I agree: what Pro Bono said. And on his last bullet point, about the SCOTUS, it's going to be interesting to see if this makes any difference (my guess is not, but I suppose it could give a bit of cover in case any of the disgraceful 6 is starting to feel uncomfortable)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/us/politics/originalism-trump-supreme-court-unitary-executive.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tE8.z6ee.Bseton8hbgR1&smid=url-share
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* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.