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I’ve tried to engage the OTB-crowd about this and failed, but I’ll give it one more try, because I truly fear where this will end. My impression is that the US electorate once was spread on a Gaussian curve, with a big bump in the middle, and if you won over that bump you’d win a landslide. (“That’s what I learned in school today, dear little boy of mine.” Very old Pete Segeer reference, I know.) Like Johnson ’64, Nixon ’72 and Reagan ’84 (Macomb co. Reagan democrats etc. come to mind). But this is, it seems, no longer the American polity. Now it looks like the electorate is U-shaped, both sides guaranteed 47 % and the whole thing is decided by a basically uninterested couple of hundred thousand voters who go from soundbites on Fox (My fellow billionaires will hate me, I’ll make them pay so much, and by the way, no more stupid wars) to the voting booth. As an old time student of US politics, political science and sociology (we read Robert A Dahl of Yale, Reinhard Bendix of Berkeley, Parsons and Lipset et al. at the U of Oslo), I earnestly wonder how and if this is fixable. Best wishes from Norway.
@ScandiLib: I think that you are correct in the broad sense that in American politics, the center has been hollowed out to a degree that shocks me. Politics has always been hyper partisan and people choose sides early in life much of the time, but the past three Presidential elections have been all about following the “team leader” and almost not at all about policies or even actual performance in office.
And as our host Dr. Taylor keeps pointing out, the elected officials in the Legislative branch don’t appear to really care about what their constituents would like, they are consumed with scamming and performative playing to what they think of as “their” base voters, who you correctly point out, are often ignorant of what their Representatives and/or Senators are doing.
So four of us from my office went on a business trip, and two of us came back with COVID. One of which is me.
The other guy’s symptoms started a couple days before mine, so we’re tagging him as Patient Zero, but he has no idea where he could have gotten it. The other two guys, despite being in close proximity for three days of meetings and meals, don’t appear to have been infected. Weird.
My infected co-worker has been negligent with his COVID vaccinations (last one he got was late 2021), but I have not, my most recent was in September of last year.
My symptoms were minimal and have pretty much gone away after a couple days. Never had a fever, never lost taste or smell. Honestly I thought it was just allergies and wouldn’t have even tested myself had my co-worker not texted me to let me know he had tested positive.
The day we flew back, Patient Zero wore a KN95 mask the whole day, so even though he rode from the airport back to the office–a drive of over an hour–with the other two, they still didn’t get it. Masks work, of course.
But the most interesting thing–my wife hasn’t gotten it, despite sleeping next to me for four nights. Also weird, but maybe my vaccine-boosted immune system cleared enough of the virus fast enough that I wasn’t emitting enough to actually transmit it to someone else. She’s also had the same vaccines I’ve gotten (a total of six between January 2021 and September 2024).
I could probably have gone to work today but chose to stay out just for safety’s sake. I’ll wear a mask when I’m there the rest of the week.
@ScandiLib:
Over at Lawyers, Guns, & Money blog, Paul Campos cites an article in the NYRB by Marilynn Robinson asserting that rather than a U shaped divide, America is two separate societies:
Her thesis is persuasive, especially since the dividing issues are binary ones of identity and basic rights, which by definition have no middle ground. A trans person is either fully equal or they are not, immigrants either have due process rights or they don’t.
@ScandiLib: My read is that the historic tendency toward landslides wasn’t based on any one reason, but reflected various things happening throughout our history. To break it down:
(1) After Reconstruction, the Dems took control of the South with a vengeance and made it all but impossible for Republicans to compete in the region. The Republicans, meanwhile (and this is something that doesn’t get discussed as much, but which I read about in a fascinating book recently on the history of gerrymandering), ratified a bunch of low-population western states to accumulate power. The result, in the late 19th century, was a series of very close elections, with prominent third parties to boot (especially because the so-called GOP was still young).
2. When the century rolled around, Republicans became dominant everywhere but the South, leading to one Republican landslide after the next, only broken by Woodrow Wilson, who got in mainly because of a three-way race in which the Republican vote was split between President Taft and former President Roosevelt.
3. The Republican domination ended with the Great Depression and FDR’s unprecedented four terms. While FDR maintained the South, the party began gaining support in other parts of the country. After his death and replacement by Truman, the cracks in the Southern wing began to show (it can be argued that 1928 was a precursor, when the Dems nominated a northern Catholic and lost five states in the old Confederacy), with Strom Thurmond’s third-party run in 1948. In the next few elections, the South became increasingly competitive. Eisenhower won two landslides in part on his being a cultural giant, but also ate into southern support due to being somewhat ambiguous on civil rights, a factor that would also carry over to the Nixon-Kennedy race in 1960. (There is a good book, Kennedy and King by Steven Levingston, that goes into the careful game Kennedy played in trying to attract supporters of civil rights while avoiding pissing off the Southern white supremacists too much.) The 1964 election was a landslide in which LBJ won in literally every state but five in the Deep South plus Goldwater’s home state of Arizona.
4. The Dems then got clobbered over the Vietnam debacle and white backlash over civil rights, leading to another Dixiecrat third-party challenge and the Southern Strategy of Nixon. In 1968 this resulted in a three-way race in which the South basically split between Nixon and Wallace.
5. The period from 1972 to 1988 was a nearly steady string of Republican uber-landslides resulting from the South shifting heavily toward the GOP (while still remaining strongly Democratic at the state level), without making up for it anywhere else. This was only broken by the 1976 post-Watergate election, in which Carter temporarily reconstructed the old Democratic South (he won every former Confederate state except Virginia) while losing California, Illinois, and most of New England–places that would eventually become Democratic strongholds.
6. This all ended with Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, which contrary to popular belief was not a result of Ross Perot’s third-party candidacy splitting the GOP (he took roughly equally from both parties, as well as drawing in many people who normally didn’t vote). In fact 1992 was in many ways the beginning of an era we’re still in today, in which there are deep regional differences that have stayed more or less intact: Republicans dominating the upper mountain states, the Great Plains, and (despite Clinton’s strength) the South. Dems, meanwhile, became dominant in the once-Republican Northeast and Pacific Coast, with presidential elections decided by a handful of states in the Midwest, the South, and the Southwest. In the 21st century these patterns have became strongly entrenched, leading to the very narrowly divided electorate we see today, where most states are either overwhelmingly Republican or overwhelmingly Democrat, and elections are fought at the margins in states that are roughly 50-50 between the parties.
The tl;dr is that there isn’t one single reason why landslides were once a lot more common than they are today. The entrenchment of the two-party system following the Civil War and Reconstruction; the string of massive social change in the 20th century, from the Depression to Civil Rights; and everything gradually falling into place during this century–that’s what brought us to where we are today.
Horrible ICE story of the day: a 75 year old Cuban immigrant who was paroled into the US 60 years ago dies in ICE imprisonment.
https://newrepublic.com/article/197409/cuban-man-dead-ice-custody
Also from the article:
Because to this crowd, the most serious crime is who you are, not what you’ve done.
@ScandiLib: There is lots of research showing that those who claim to be independents actually tend to consistently votes for one party. So it does look like we are more of a U than the classic standard deviation model. There are a couple of things that puzzle me. In the past it was pretty clear that most people were not that interested in politics. Most people were relatively uninformed. Yet we have fallen into these fairly rigid tribes which I dont think is what we should have expected if most people only casually follow politics. I am also still puzzled about the cult of personality to some extent. It’s clear that Republicans have always been enamored of the Daddy figure but I really didnt think that need would lead them to reject many of their long time values along with rejecting stuff like common decency and science.
Steve
Two kids screaming over backyard fence at each other. Lives hang in the balance.
I live in North Oakland County Mi. The county borders on Detroit and is one of the 3 or 4 counties in the Detroit area MSA. My wife has been attending Monday protests along M-59, a highway that bisects the country in the middle. North of this road is increasingly red and south of it is increasingly blue politically. These protests started out small and have grown substantially.
At first there was no issue. The protest was always well regarded and the honks and cheers were much more common than the boos and the occasional “Coal roller”. Some times MAGA’s would show up and try to “debate” but this was infrequent. The protesters limited themselves to the public walkway and were never rowdy, or did they block traffic. They also got permission from the businesses to park in a strip mall close to where they were protesting.
About 4 weeks ago they were told by a rep of the management company of the strip mall that they were no longer welcome to park there. They cited complaints from the businesses. One of the people in the protest knew the owners of two of the businesses and asked them about it. The owners were taken aback because they liked the traffic. Ask to ask some of the other businesses they did and the organizers were told that of the 5 businesses none of the owners complained. So they asked another business if they could part there and the owner said yes.
That lasted for two weeks and the owner talked to the organizers and told them the management company that they rent from told them to deny the protesters permission to park there. So they moved again and last night they were told the same thing after a week. But that wasn’t the scary part.
My wife, while driving home, picked up a tail of a big black pick up truck with two men in it and followed her home. She was terrified and tried to ditch them by driving into neighborhoods and waiting them out. She did this twice and when coming out of the neighborhood the truck was there and continued to follow her. She was finally able to ditch them in a subdivision that had a back way out. When she came home she was scared shitless. She couldn’t get a license plate number because MI only requires back plates and they were always following her. But I’m sure they know hers.
Shit is getting real out there, and the more I see what is going on, the more I am convinced that there will not be any midterm elections. The republicans seem to be acting like they don’t care that the bill is just getting less and less popular by the day. The organized backlash is getting downright sinister. The strong arming of businesses, the organized scare tactics, and a SCOTUS that is willing to back Trump in literally subverting democracy.
I hope I’m wrong but I think we are past the time when this can be stopped. By this time next year Trump will be trying to stop the midterms citing whatever.
Sure tell me I’m overreacting, tell me I’m hysterical. But this administration has been bulldozing every guard rail with the Supreme Court more than will to let him. For the first time in my life I am actually contemplating getting something for home protection.
Well, I just did my civic duty and called the offices of Sen Cruz and Cornyn to voice my objections to the disastrous tax cut bill. This was in addition to the emails I sent early yesterday morning.
Not that I think it does a bit of good. The thing about it is that, as a senior, I will probably benefit from it. I feel like I’m helping those who won’t help themselves. On odd days, I say screw it, working Texans will get what they voted for and will get it good and hard.
@Rick DeMent: I have my up days and my down days. Today is one of the down days. Lately, there is obsequious chatter on how Trump will be considered one of the most consequential Presidents. I guess so, if you consider James Buchanan consequential. In a similar vein, John Roberts reminds me of Roger Taney.
If we are two countries I much prefer the coastal liberal country. The MAGA country is sick and cruel and stupid. But that doesn’t mean I am in love with the liberal/progressive end of the spectrum which is tedious and censorious. A pox on both, but with the pox being leprosy for MAGA and a miserable, hard-to-shake head cold for ProgWorld.
I hope I’ll prefer expat life in Cascais, Portugal. In fact we just got the rental contract for a house in Estoril (basically Cascais but with fewer tourists) ten minutes walk to the beach, views of the Atlantic, a pool and a surprising number of terraces. It’s much more house than we need, but we can turn one of the bedrooms into a studio for Zooms and videos, and another one into an office. And we are not in denial about our ages – if not now, when?
We won’t be fully over til October but I am looking forward to it, even with the multiple logistical nightmares. We had some doubts whether being out of the country would really afford a sense of distancing or disengaging. After three weeks in Portugal I can report that yes, even with the omnipresent internet, I can dial America down by 25% or so. Less USA is a good thing for my mental health.
@ScandiLib: What you’re perceiving is more a change in the media presentation than a change in reality. There’s more polarization at the fringes and way more coverage of it.
@Rick DeMent:
What happened to your wife is extremely scary.
@Rick DeMent: If there are midterm elections will you calm down, or just assume the fall of democracy is still on the horizon?
After Offer of Back Pay, Only 13 COVID Vaccine Refusers Returned to Military Service
I suspect the COVID vaccine deniers were basically malcontents anyway. And shitty troops.
@Scott: or people who found new jobs in the past 5 years
@Fortune:
Truer words were never spoken. It sells, and feeds the red meat to the partisans.
@Rick DeMent:
You’re not overreacting. The foolish response is to underreact to anonymous goons snatching people off the streets to disappear them, malign politicians blowing through the Constitution and the laws, stochastic intimidation with the threat of violence, continued weakening of already decrepit democratic institutions, escalating assaults on truth…Any of these alone would be horrific, but the larger, conspicuous pattern is vastly worse.
@Kylopod: Excellent summary. Let me confirm one small detail. I was born and raised in ND. At the time they had a really good state history course that noted Dakota Territory was split into two states explicitly to create an additional pair of Republican senators.
@Connor:
Hey, now that it’s all over for now, are you able to man up enough to express an opinion on bombing Iran?
@Connor:
I’m curious if you two consider yourselves partisans who are also consuming said red meat or it’s just us leftists sheeple who are the only marks.
Or are we all smart marks with game recognizing game?
Have we heard from Beth lately?
@Fortune:
Doofus here seems to think POTUS is the fringe.
@Fortune: Not really because I know they will go right back to subverting democracy the next day. It’s like Pinky and the Brain, it’s what they do every night.
@Chip Daniels:
Lost me at this. Looking at the power of wealth over political party, media, legislation — no way this characterization of our predicament rings true
@becca:
Not for several days.
@ScandiLib: One of my fellow writer friends is a Norwegian lady. On her recent visit to us, I told her to keep an eye open for rental housing in her town. We might have to move at some point, depending on how bad the situation becomes.
@becca:
I last saw her on the Signal OTB group last Wednesday.
@becca:
They haven’t commented since June 18th’s open thread. I think it was a frustrating experience for them and they might be taking a break.
@Rick DeMent:
Yep. There’s no coming back to a “power sharing” arrangement after doing things like revoking citizenship from naturalized citizens and suspending habeus corpus.
They’re assaulting long held bedrock values of this society. They told us who they are with Project 2025. Are we listening yet?
Trump’s comments on “alligator alcatraz”, the new ICE detention facility:
“”I guess that’s the concept,” Trump said. “This is not a nice business. I guess that is the concept.” The president then joked that immigrants will need to learn how to run away from alligators if they escape. “Don’t run in a straight line,” he said. “Run like this,” he added, while hand-motioning a zig zag. “And you know what, your chances go up by 1 percent. Not a good thing.”
The Florida GOP is selling merchandise like T-shirts and hats with “humorous captions”, its like a big joke, to them.
Godwin’s Law posited that if you bring up Hitler and/or Nazis as a comparison to something you’ve lost the argument. But he has since made exceptions, mostly related to Trump or his minions. This seems like a prime example. People’s misery and misfortune is something to be made light of.
I’ll say it again, what a revolting piece of shit. We are talking about people here, in some cases children. And in case anyone forgot, some of the people who will be there in detention are people who were in this country legally until they suddenly weren’t, like Haitians who were in the country under TPS.
How did we get into a situation where we elected the worst of the worst? He wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected to my condo board, he’s too stupid and too nasty. When he expires I’m getting my best bottle of wine, some Laderach chocolate (milk chocolate with hazelnuts, its like food of the Gods), and a Cuban cigar (I don’t smoke cigars, but I’ll make an exception in this case), and toast to better times ahead.
Welp, did it again. Today is our 46th anniversary, a fact which we have never remembered without our kids reminding us. Our youngest just texted us.
@Michael Reynolds:
“And we are not in denial about our ages – if not now, when?” Right. A healthy perspective, and I wish you the best. No snark.
“Less USA is a good thing for my mental health.” Just less USA?? Or general mental health.
“The MAGA country is sick and cruel and stupid.”
The scary thing is I think you mean/believe that. Yet, its absurd on its face and that description just doesn’t fit 50% of the country. In fact, not 80%. As the saying goes: “when you are having issues with most people around you maybe its time to look in the mirror.”
@Lucysfootball:
It’s all so stupid… the references to a maximum security prison for what should be a minimum security detention area, the diversion of disaster relief resources designed for rapid emplacement and relocation for their indefinite camp, and with the hurricane season just starting.
@gVOR10: “Dakota Territory was split into two states explicitly to create an additional pair of Republican senators”
Although it didn’t work for about a half century from the 1960’s to the 2000’s, during which one or both US senators and the one US rep were often democrats. My experience was, a generation ago, that a lot of ND voters were proud ticket splitters, or perhaps not extremely partisan, and not political cultists.
@Connor:
You could at least pretend to have some intellectual independence, but you are what you are, a coward and a toady. And yet you think yourself a man.
ETA: Oh, I have a follow-up. Presented with Elon Musk’s ass and Trump’s ass, whose do you kiss first?
@Rob1:
I take that to reference the fact that while billionaires do in fact control the government, about half of the electorate gives their approval to that fact.
@Eusebio: The Dakotas, for a long time in the late 1800s/early 1900s, were practitioners of “Prairie Socialism”. Very similar to that in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Farmers and laborers against railroads and banks.
@Mikey: First, I hope you get over it soon! Sounds like you’re on the mend.
Did they test, and have it come back negative, or are they just not experiencing any symptoms? When my husband and I finally got covid, our symptoms were so mild that I never would have guessed we were sick. The only reason my husband tested was we had just flown, and he was heading out to see his aging mother, so decided to err on the side of caution. We were both surprised at our positive tests. I remain convinced that some people get infected and never experience symptoms.
It’s also possible that both of the two unaffected coworkers had already had this particular strain.
@Michael Reynolds:
You’re an asshole! That’s a mental image I can’t. unsee. Damn you to HELL, Reynolds!!!!!
What is wrong with you??????
@Jen:
I too tested positive for Covid after being vaxxed, but was always asymptomatic.
@EddieInCA:
That image is engraved on my mind as well. Eeeuuu.
on personal matters, I had a better, yet worse, vacation than in May.
Better, my mom has been pretty stable, and things seem on track to replace the prosthesis, again, starting around July 15…
Worse:
The attempt at pan pizza was less than successful. I really need to learn to make a better dough. I think I need a kitchen scale to measure more precise quantities, and maybe a hook attachment for the stand mixer. My sauce recipe was good, but I used too much of it. the notion of placing caramelized onions was a good idea, but I need more onions. The supermarket mozzarella cheese was disappointing. The pepperoni, though, was great.
I made a fair start on “Betrayal,” but then realized I was locked into dialogue, with people arguing about politics and negotiating or pretending to negotiate. I thought about it, and decided I need to try a different approach. I’m still trying to think one up so I can proceed to plot the story. This took up the whole second week, and didn’t go well at all.
So, either I come up with something, or put it on the back burner and proceed with another story, namely “The Third Necropolis.”
I’ve also been bingeing on For All Mankind. I find their choice of space vehicles more than a bit frustrating. And this notion that fusion gets developed in the 1980s is just ludicrous.
@CSK: @Kathy: @Matt Bernius:
I think Jax stays in touch. If Beth is taking a minute, maybe Jax has some reassurances that’s the case.
@gVOR10:
Absolutely. It is the epitome of state-level gerrymandering. Unlike the Carolinas which had been divided into north and south for more than a half century before becoming states (they were two of the original 13 colonies), Dakota was a single territory until Republicans basically decided out of the blue to make them two separate states.
What amazes me is how these Republican power grabs in the late 19th century still have ramifications in the present day. While the partisan lean of many states has changed drastically over time (Utah was originally Democratic-leaning; Colorado started out strongly Republican), a lot of these states have seemingly stayed the same over the past century and a half, even as other regions of the country have done 180s (the South and Northeast basically swapped places, party-wise). When people today sit and wonder why Republicans today seem to have overwhelming control of all those giant-ass blocs of mostly uninhabited land in the West, it’s largely due to those Republican power grabs in the 19th century.
@EddieInCA:
Hey, I could have gone with balls rather than asses.
@Rick DeMent: You’re not hysterical or exaggerating. Not at all. What you’re going to need to consider about getting non-passive “home protection” (if that is what you’re considering) is that it’s success will depend on your willingness to use it to maximum effect before you have completely assed the threat and the necessary response.
I think I’ve been oblique enough to avoid having my comment sent to Coventry, but I expect that you “get it” all the same. ( And yes, I am willing to believe that more of you are going to be facing the same alternatives as the destruction of our social contract continues.)
@Michael Reynolds:
I was in Estoril last fall. Lovely place.
I especially appreciated all the little pockets of culture and community sprinkled about. Morning beach exercise classes amongst the older folks. Sunset at the Parque das Gerações skatepark.
Good vibes. And as you note, nicely removed from less good vibes.
Congratulations on the move.
@Michael Reynolds:..balls
You would be assuming anyone in that equation has any…
@becca: Instagram claims she was active 19 minutes ago.
I checked a few days ago, and was relieved that she was just taking a break (or has abandoned us forever), and then did nothing. I went in a loop of thinking “she would be glad someone cares” and “I don’t want to accidentally guilt trip her into popping into otb when she’s clearly decided for mental health reasons not to” and “I’ve never messaged her before, is that my place” and “maybe Jax will take care of it”. I have issues. Let’s just say I decided to give her her space.
@Michael Reynolds:
What would you like to know?
@Michael Reynolds:
Name calling. So clever. That’s why I said, you need to rid yourself of the anger. Not a good look. But informative.
@Michael Reynolds: For what it’s worth, I liked expat life just fine. I’ve often said that I’d go back to Korea tomorrow if I could. Alas, I’m one of the low-income rich (statistics tell me that my reserves lift me into the top quintile of people my age, maybe even decile), so I probably won’t flee the country unless forced. Maybe not even then. I’d perish quickly in a camp.
@ScandiLib: I think you would need at least one more dimension to represent people who don’t bother to vote. Elections are won by activating the reluctant or lazy voters as much as by winning over the middle.
I actually find the voter participation angle comforting, as otherwise I have the terrible idea that the future of our country is ultimately decided by people who can’t decide between fascism and freedom and so base their decisions on who looks better with a tie.
I remember in 2004, the media kept asking “who would you rather have a drink with?” and the American people chose the guy who doesn’t drink.
Jimmy Swaggart is dead at 90. Given the landlord’s policy on commenting on such things, I’ll refer you to LGM.
@Connor:
Interesting tell. You think I’m angry because that’s what you’re hoping to evoke because you think that gives you power.
Wrong emotions. I’m sad for the enshittification of the country. And I’m somewhere between contempt and nausea regarding people like you because, see, there was this one time, when I was ten or eleven years old, that I did a small but cowardly thing and 60 years later it still bothers me. I could never live with the level of greed, dishonesty, cruelty and above all groveling cowardice that define you and your MAGA pals. Toadies make my skin crawl. I mean, I was an actual criminal and no moral paragon, but I’m not a fucking coward and I kiss no ass.
I have been extraordinarily lucky, undeservedly lucky, and not a day goes by that I don’t remind myself of that. I am grateful every day, that’s my default emotion. Great marriage, great career, health (touch wood) and according to a gorgeous much younger woman at the Philadelphia Ritz-Carlton last week, I’m even handsome.*
*No, I don’t buy it, but I am absolutely taking it onboard just the same.
@Michael Reynolds: You seem angry.
Murkowski on the One Big Beautiful Bill To Destroy America:
She voted for it.
@Michael Reynolds: Happy anniversary!
@Jen: I don’t know if they tested, I’ll ask them tomorrow, but I know they have no symptoms.
It really does amaze me a little that we were in a conference room with 12 people (the four of us and eight others) for the better part of two business days, and only two of us have exhibited any symptoms at all. And then I got home and neither my wife nor my son have gotten it either, and my wife has tested to make sure she’s not just asymptomatic.
Seriously, it’s the weirdest disease sometimes.
I wouldn’t miss the childish, ad hominem exchanges if they went away.
My personal recollections of the 1960s is that the country was bitterly divided. You were for the war in Vietnam or opposed, no middle ground. You supported the civil rights movement or were opposed, again no middle ground. Political leaders were being assassinated, and high position was no shield. There were racial riots in Detroit, Los Angeles, Harlem. Campus unrest at Columbia, Berkeley, and Madison was on every newspaper headline. Young people were offending their elders by their hair styles, use of dope, and playing that music. Etc, etc.
This is just my personal recollection and not a scientific survey, but I don’t recall a smooth transition like a Gaussian distribution implies.
I’m the same age as the President. Draw your own conclusions.
I messaged her on Signal, no response yet. Sometimes the time difference has us lagging on responses.
@just nutha:
“…before you have completely
assedassessed the threat and the necessary response.”My bad…
@gVOR10: Allow me.
“Suffice it to say that no one sums up the grotesque ridiculousness of modern TV evangelicalism more than Swaggart.”
Nailed it, Loomis! Great job!
@Fortune: Lots of things are not what they seem. You, for example, seem a little dull and unable to form fully elaborated thoughts.
(Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best example.)
@Kingdaddy: Sadly, as long as there’s an Internet and there are crackers (plural), there will be childish ad hominem attacks. But at least they are bipartisan.
@Kingdaddy: Send your complaints to Daryl and Michael Reynolds.
@ScandiLib: I have lots of thoughts about this, but I think that major problem with simple median voter theorem approaches is that we have no national elections and elections for both the House and especially the Senate do a very poor job of bering representative.
I do think, BTW, that the curve has two bumps. I think that our institutions do a terrible job of providing choices and reflecting actual preferences.
@Kingdaddy: Truly horrific and the kind of thing that I wish Trump voters would note as they contemplate the wisdom of their choices (both now and in the future).
@Michael Reynolds: You were married on my 19th birthday. Now I can remind you, too.
@Kingdaddy: Agreed.
@Rick DeMent:
I will tell you this: this is exactly the reaction they want you to have.
I also don’t think you are overreacting, but I think you will be proven wrong. MAGAs dominance hangs by a thread. It’s brutal, nasty, terrible, and incredibly brittle. It will do a lot of damage before it collapses, and it will do a lot of damage as it collapses.
Between razor thin margins, and a load bearing octogenarian, I just don’t think it lasts.
In five to ten years, I think a lot of people will be looking at old photographs of themselves with the MAGA hats and claiming (even to themselves) that they didn’t really support it, and it was all in good fun until the movement got taken over by the crazies.
Seems like a good time for that.
It occurs to me that given a choice between freedom and security, Americans have managed to choose none of the above.
Kind of impressive. That’s American Exceptionalism right there.
@Steven L. Taylor:
This statement strikes me as some sort of rhetorical error, but as I write this, I realize that it may be just a blurring of future tense with subjunctive mood, and therefore unavoidable. Care to elaborate?
@just nutha:
Point well taken. I don’t own a gun now and haven’t for a while but in my younger days I was a range rat and a damn good shot. I also used to change targets for Law enforcement at the gun range they used in our area for many year in the summer and picked up a lot of tips there as well.
I am also one of those people that think you should actually be required to pass a rigorous test to prove you can shot straight, hander the weapon safely, and know the rules of engagement before you can carry a firearm in public. Michigan still makes you get a CCW permit, but the process is woefully inadequate. I also believe that the 2nd amendment does not prohibit this requirement for carrying in public because public safety overrules individual rights most of the time.
@Gustopher:
I hope you are right.
@Gustopher:
Repeated for emphasis. Good catch!
@Rick DeMent: As long as you remember that the only thing a gun can make someone be is dead…
@Rick DeMent: I used to live near the intersection of Square Lake and Rochester Rd.
I don’t miss a lot about that area, but where I am now has no place like Nino Salvaggio’s.
@Kathy:
A note on onions.
My current partner’s mom is allergic to onions. Almost can’t take her to any restaurant because asking for “no onions” doesn’t typically result in a meal without onions in there somewhere. People put them into everything, it seems.
What I discovered after nearly a half-dozen dinners at her folk’ house is onion are unnecessary. They are avid fans of Italian and I find that eating there is something of a culinary revelation. All the sauces are onion-free and somehow the better for it. Garlic is all they need.
@dazedandconfused:
Other than desserts, there are very few dishes I do that don’t have onions. Most have at least one whole onion in them, which is not a good measure given how they vary in size.
It’s not a matter of whether the dish needs them or not. It’s a matter of I like onions.
I put a lot of garlic in the sauce.
@dazedandconfused:
That’s interesting, because don’t garlic and onions belong to the same family, allium?
@CSK:
According to Wikipedia, allium includes, among others, onion, garlic, scallions, shallots, leeks, and chives.
At a guess, they don’t produce all the same proteins. Proteins are what tend to trigger most allergies. So there should be some that are particular to onions, and/or which don’t occur in garlic.
Musk went berserk today tweeting out vehemently against the BBB Act. Trump threatened, in turn, to deport him back to South Africa and DOGE his federal subsidies.
Elon meet Ernst. Rohm that is.
@Kathy:
Her nose can detect the presence of onion when nobody else’s can and with great certainty, anyway. Her husband told me he half didn’t believe it at first and once slipped a small piece of onion into a gallon of stew as a test, but she knew it after one sniff, even after it being slow cooked in a crock pot for several hours.
@The Q:
This is one case where mutually assured destruction would literally not be MAD.
@dazedandconfused:
I don’t know about being able to sniff what, but even a tiny amount of allergen can trigger a severe reaction.
@Rick DeMent: If Trump we’re a younger man, I would not be so optimistic — not that I’m painting a particularly rosy scenario.
Trump is an absolutely amazing communicator. Incredibly charismatic.
As inspiring as FDR’s “there’s nothing to fear except fear itself” was, it is matched by Trump’s “there is nothing to fear except hordes of brown people swarming over our borders, raping our women and eating out pets.”
He doesn’t have lofty speeches, he has rambling vibes. He hates his supporters the same way they hate themselves, and that’s very affirming. And he hates brown people more.
He simply cannot be replaced when he inevitably drops dead. There are lots of people who can be as mean or as cruel or as hateful, but there’s no one who can be as fun.
If he died in an freak accident involving an electric toothbrush and a spool of dental floss tonight, I think the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would fail, and that the entire far right structure would start crumbling before our eyes.
Alternately, I would give it even odds that the Supreme Court would greenlight a third term. (When the Amendment was written, the authors were thinking of FDR, and DJT simply not FDR. Or no one has standing. Or time is but an illusion…)
@The Q:
And Kristi Noem says a cannibal started eating himself while being deported.
@Gustopher:
Are you exaggerating or do you really think so?
@Fortune: what do you think the odds would be? And is it more or less tha odds of overturning birthright citizenship?
@Kathy:
In some allergies. Others, not so much.
@Gustopher: There’s a historical and legal argument for overturning birthright citizenship, whether or not you or I care for it. What’s the argument for a third term?
@dazedandconfused:
I’ve heard of this. I’ve also read about what an anaphylactic shock is. I’d just as soon not take chances.
@Fortune: What’s the argument for a third term?
Whatever pops into their head, because you will go along with it no matter how ludicrous the argument is.
@Mikey:
I’m with you on this. I know a hadful of people who in the past 18 months traveled domestically and overseas … and contracted Covid.
A couple of points:
(1) A few months ago, while going through my annual physical, I asked my primary care doctor if we’re at the point where getting an updated annual Covid vaccination will be viewed in the same way that we get annual flu shots. She thought we were probably close to that point.
(2) The virus is changing, so for the past 2-3 years now I get Covid boosters especially in connection with my plans to fly to the East Coast and Europe.
@dazedandconfused: Have had allergies all my life. Being able to recognize the aroma of an allergen is not particularly unusual. I could recognize peanut even with my nose clogged by hay fever.
@ScandiLib:
The fundamental problem is not the electorate or the American people. At 330+ million in one of the most diverse countries on the planet, there is a wide variety of perspectives and interests. The unfortunate reality is that complexity gets forced into a binary choice in our politics. And for a variety of reasons that can’t be explained quickly, that binary choice has, in recent decades, become less representative of America as a whole due to changes in how our two political parties work and operate.
Our system previously worked much better because parties were actual parties with the authority that a political party is supposed to have. They operated as “big tent” parties that allowed a diversity of political and ideological opinions and managed internal conflicts. Now, our political parties are little more than brands without the ability to do what political parties everywhere else in the world can do, such as selecting candidates, defining and promoting agendas, policing membership, and managing disputes within the coalition.
Our political parties are highly democratic (not a good thing), which means agenda-setting and candidate selection come from the small minority of unrepresentative Americans who vote in primary elections. This is especially true for a Presidential primary, because once a candidate wins the Presidential primary, the party conforms to the candidate’s agenda and vision, not the other way around. This makes our parties extremely vulnerable to what we saw in 2016 with Trump. The establishment couldn’t stop him from winning the primary, and he has since remade the GoP in his image. Parties here have very little institutional power. There is no ability to kick anyone out of a party, or prevent anyone from adopting the brand.
This is the system the average American has to contend with when voting – often poor choices where the decision on who to vote for is as much about opposing one of the candidates as it is about affirmative support. As I’m sure Dr. Taylor will point out shortly, most Americans tend to align with one party or another; however, the depth of support is often shallow, as the motivation is often driven by negative partisanship.
In my own case, I voted for Harris not because I think she’d be a great President or because of her purported policy positions, I voted for her to oppose Trump, since Trump was the only other option and I thought it was important to keep him out of office.
Americans are frequently frustrated and dissatisfied with the political options they are given, which is not surprising, given the large and diverse nature of the country, the flaws in candidate selection, and the limited number of real choices.
By contrast, in Norway you have many parties to choose from with a population of about 5.5 million – a bit more than Cook County, Illinois (where Chicago is located). Imagine taking all your parties, squishing them into only two, and then multiplying your population by 60 to imagine a taste of what it’s like here. And that’s before going into the peculiarities of our federal system.
@Fortune:
That the amendment only applies to consecutive terms, if I remember correctly.
What is the “better” argument for overturning birthright citizenship?
@Kathy: I understand his doubt. It’s a rare allergy. One that made for some rather awkward moments in restaurants. Here was a dish in which nobody could detect onion, the restaurant is swearing to high heaven there are no onions in it, but she would tell them there were. Moreover, he knew that she had a rather mild reaction to this allergy, just nausea and intestinal discomfort.
She cooks by far the best lasagna and spaghetti and meat balls with marinara I have ever had. Her lasagna is especially addictive, with both hot and sweet sausage. Tastes even better on the second day too.
@Fortune:
Given that the text and the congressional record is incredibly clear that it was meant to apply to anyone born in this country, even the children of Chinese laborers in California, I find that doubtful.
Let me repeat that for emphasis: Even the children of Chinese laborers!
For a finding a third term constitutional, I think the options are:
– clearly they meant consecutive, despite that not being in the congressional record
– Congress never wrote enabling legislation (precedent: the insurrectionists can’t hold office case against Trump)
– No one has standing to sue to deny him that right, except maybe Congress (if there’s a majority of both houses in a full moon…) (precedent: Obama birth certificate case).
– Political question doctrine, where the remedy is Congress impeaching a president who does not meet the qualifications. (I think one of the others would be more appealing)
All of these are wildly bad faith arguments, but we’ve had recent court decisions citing Witchfinders.