Rick, I’m sure you’re well aware of what’s going on over at Steve Schmidt‘s Substack site. All the Biden supporters have pretty much left (or so it seems), and it is now a lewd, rampaging mass of Biden haters all trying to one up each other in their comments. That man is doing more damage to this campaign than even the Republicans. Also, recently Adam Schiff (which I’m sure you heard) opened his big mouth to a group of donors, indicating that Democrats are going to lose both chambers of Congress and the presidency if Biden doesn’t step away. Why in the name of God would he make that announcement in public? AOC jumped on it and told him to retire because he is “functionally useless” to the American people. Good for her!!
I think Adam Schiff has done some good, but his betrayal of Biden was upsetting for me, because I always held him in high regard. In any case, on a much happier note, I just heard that voter registration in the United States has gone up significantly just in the past three days. I heard this NPR report on my car radio this morning, and most of the new registrations are for people between the ages of 18 and 34. This is very exciting news!!
It would be wonderful if we elected people from our communities that represent the majority of us. So many get elected because of their wealth and the money they can put into campaigns. It’s troubling having so many elites in the Senate and Congress. I think extreme wealth makes it hard for them to put others before themselves.
I always thought Steve Schmidt was a weird guy. He has a big vocabulary and a lot of historical knowledge but somehow manages to come across as marginally articulate. He's the guy who hooked McCain up with Palin, which for a Never Trumper has got to be Original Sin. He gets very uncomfortably self-righteous, like when the John Wheeler story broke and he told this anecdote of being hit on by a camp counselor like it absolutely annihilated his childhood.
I was very happy when LP cut him loose and haven't watched him since.
The Never Trumpers who are on this bandwagon have disgusted me and I've cut them all out of my media diet. No more Bulwark. But at least it's understandable because they're not Democrats and they see the Democratic Party as a means to an end. The Democrats, especially insiders like Schiff, are just unforgivable. They understand the process. If they think Kamala ought to be the nominee instead, they should say so but they don't. If they think throwing it open on the floor for a bunch of Democratic big guns, none of whom have expressed a desire to challenge Biden, wouldn't just create maximum chaos and alienate core constituencies of the Democratic Party, organized labor and older black people in particular, their naivete is simply not excusable. Gods bless AOC for being a team player. Bernie, too.
You know I'm a big follower of Keith Olbermann, even when he pisses me off sometimes. I think he's an honest broker and not a clickbait meister. My stance on Biden vis a vis the nomination is beginning to evolve. Hear me out:
I have an enormous personal affection for Joe Biden and as a fellow Irishman, I understand him deeply at a gut level. Politically, my support for Joe's presidency couldn't be higher. There hasn't been a single president of my lifetime (I was a toddler when JFK was assassinated), not LBJ, not Carter, not Clinton, not Obama, who I've agreed with more strongly and more consistently. Yeah, the Afghanistan withdrawal was a disaster but that's the only major mistake he made, not in the withdrawal itself but in its execution. He could have told the Taliban to give us more time. He gets a mulligan for it. It was a massively successful airlift overall.
Joe didn't turn out to be the dishrag centrist I had feared when I was backing Elizabeth Warren in '20. He turned out to be a damn progressive president (I'm very liberal but I'm not an ideologue so I accept that there were many progressive ponies not gotten, including kicking Israel to the curb). If it were up to me, there's nothing I'd prefer more than a Biden second term. His priorities are 100% right for us.
But I'm not a Joe Biden personality cultist. My main political loyalty is to the Democratic Party. And there are discussions going on between Biden and the Democratic leadership of both houses. They're presenting him with polls, commissioned by his own campaign, that show Joe losing badly and taking the party down with him. Joe and his campaign have to, at bare minimum, present a plan to turn that around. I'm agnostic on this because it's not my decision to make. I have absolute faith that Joe is not a megalomaniac who thinks this is all about him and won't bow to the better argument. If Joe does decide to step down, the only viable path forward is for him to hand the baton to Kamala, which presents its own set of challenges but also its own opportunities.
What I'm not agnostic about and have a very strong opinion of is that the Democrats cannot have an open convention without inviting the worst kind of chaos. And I'm hoping as hard as I possibly can that Joe can figure out a way to turn this around.
I saved a link to a Keith Olbermann rant that you posted, but I have not watched it yet. I’ve had a very busy two days and I will probably look at it tonight. As I glance through the news now, it looks like we’re reaching a crescendo of key Democrats asking Biden to step down based upon these recent polls. You and I think very much alike, Bob, and I am very much a liberal Democrat, but I am also not a cultist; and I believe that what makes the Democratic Party healthy is the fact that we are independent thinkers. I also agree that Biden pleasantly surprised me with his shift to the left, and I think this has a lot to do with Bernie Sanders, because they talk frequently. I felt that Biden should have stepped aside long ago rather than announced that he was running again. Once that ship sailed, I agreed wholeheartedly to support him. Then all this time went by and now at the 11th hour, we have to go through this shuffle, potentially, and it’s looking more likely every single damn day. The Washington Post printed a headline that went something like, “Democrats are walking deliberately into a disaster.” Since I haven’t read the article yet, I’m not sure if they mean that keeping Biden on the ticket is a disaster, or going through a switcheroo at this point is a disaster. Either option does not look good to me and I am petrified. I don’t often exhibit panic at political events, but the idea of another Trump term makes me feel physically ill. It must be stopped at all costs, and I am not smart enough to know which is the best way around this. With Biden now recovering from a mild Covid case (and ironically, I just got over Covid again), he has time to rest for a few days and think this out. I love Kamala Harris, but I worry that she cannot draw in the enthusiasm needed for this ticket. She would have to choose her VP very carefully. That’s all I have the energy for today, but I very much appreciate your enlightening posts.
Yeah, Janet, you've always been one of my favorite people to post to here. We tend to have these long exchanges that sometimes veer off topic but that are always enjoyable and edifying. I do think you and I are political kindred spirits.
My advice on the WaPo: Don't read the fucking thing. Seriously, they're just stirring the pot; there is nothing they or we can do about what's going on with Biden and the Democrats. So we have to let it play out without getting ulcers.
I think Bernie (and Liz) have had an influence, but I don't think they've had the primary impact on Joe. I think that since the rise of social media, the financial meltdown of '08, the obscene rise of wealth inequality and then Trump as the rancid cherry on top of this fetid sundae, the world changed around Joe Biden and he stuck to his lifelong Democratic principles. Most people described as "centrists" (Bill Clinton is a notorious example) shift with the wind and do the thing they think is most popular. If it means kicking the poors in the teeth by "ending welfare as we know it," well, he'll do that, even if it means buying into the bullshit Republican bootstraps framing. Joe is just standing up for the people he's always stood up for. That's an example of great character.
As for Kamala, I think she's an underpriced stock and she has a great upside potential. Far from not generating enthusiasm, she's been on fire on the stump recently talking about the ending of Roe and the war on women's' rights. She's not reflexively looked at askance by millennials and gen z the way she is by older generations who squick at an uppity WoC. As a former prosecutor and Senate hearings superstar, she's in an ideal position to take it to Trump. There are potential pitfalls to be sure and I'd still prefer Joe at the top of the ticket, but losing Joe to Kamala would decidedly not be a fate worse than death for Democrats.
I do think Kamala Harris can pull this off if Joe Biden decides to step down due to pressure. I’m trying not to ruminate about too many scenarios because, like you said, it’s best to avoid an ulcer over this. I never went back and read that WAPO article and I deleted it from my inbox. I didn’t even want the reminder that it was there. I’m going to have a pleasant evening away from politics and that will probably be the case for tomorrow too. With Biden hibernating while he gets over the virus, it will probably be a few days before we hear anything. There was some news that surfaced indicating that Pelosi was close to convincing Biden to step down. I’m now beginning to think that’s the more likely scenario, and as of last week, I really felt democrats were going to unify and stop this; but that appears to not be the case now. Have a pleasant evening.
You are a genuine piece of shit. You MUST know that on a gut level.
Not long ago u said the donor class must "put a bullet in Donald Trump."
Still stand by this, Sloth? (Google Goonies if ur confused)
C'mon, tough guy! Double down!
You CERTAINLY weren't on the list of people trying to feverishly re-attach their mask of decency, declaring "pOlItIcAL vIoLeNcE hAs nO pLacE.." & wishing DJT a "speedy recovery", right?
C'mon! Say something else so funny &edgy then blame what happened on anything but the"DJT is LITERALLY HITLER rhetoric ofbthe last 9yrs (and we allll know the thought exercise about what u would do if u had a chance to k**l baby Hitler, right? I mean even if it's a baby at the time.. I mean.. ITS HITLER!!)
If I went back in time I wouldn't kill baby Hitler. I'd _kidnap_ baby Hitler and raise him humanely in a foster home to give him the love and understanding he never got from his uptight, rigid parents. I wouldn't encourage him to have a career as a fine artist, though. I mean, he kinda sucked at that ;)
It's really funny to see somebody who thumb types like a teenager after too much Mountain Dew invoke masks of decency. Speaking of masks, maybe you ought to try to put a bag over your head. Who knows, it might improve your social life, LOL
Sean, if I were you, I wouldn't even bother. You are hopelessly outclassed here. Political rhetoric has been filled with combat metaphors from sports and warfare since politics existed. I'm going to bestow upon you the dignity of assuming that even _you_ are not stupid enough not to know that. You're welcome in advance ;) Rick has never advocated for political violence _literally._
Trump is a Hitler wannabe. His first wife Ivana wrote in her book that he had a book of Hitler's speeches on a table by the bed. Chief of staff John Kelly has noted the times he said that Hitler did "good things for Germany" and claimed that he wished "his" generals would be as loyal as Hitler's were. Which produced HOWLS OF LAUGHTER from historians who note how many goddamn times Hitler's generals tried to assassinate him ;)
Trump is a Hitler fetishist who craves absolute power. Facts.
You know me, Janet, I live for friendly, vigorous debate and discussion with people. Even when I strongly disagree, like I do with Rick on guns, I like to keep it entirely civil and in good faith. But I also _adore_ me some good ol' fashioned troll thwackery ;)
"Sean" made it so easy. When your profile is an eighth-grade insult of Rick Wilson that you butcher with a typo, I mean, that's just comedy gold ;)
I did read his bio and I was in pain laughing. I feel a certain amount of sadness for people like this. Apparently, Rick is living rent free in his head and causing brain worms.
You knew he wouldn't be back. There was one who was much worse, "Jack" over on the last thread, who sounds like a refugee from Schmidt's substack and wrote long disquisitions laced with passive aggressive ad hominem about how Biden has no choice but to drop out. I get very easily sucked into putting way too much time into responding to those.
I started responding to his last post by quoting whole paragraphs and taking them on point-by-point. The response was going to be absolutely enormous and I figured I'd post it on my substack. But Chrome is weird; if you click back to a tab not exactly in the right place, it will close and I lost a good 45 minutes of work. Which, actually, was a good thing. Just let that big, insufferable post stand there at the top of the thread with no responses.
Trump definitely didn't get hit by a bullet & it's doubtful he got hit by glass, either. There was practically no damage to the ear. Probably none at all. It was all an act. No red stain anywhere besides his ear & a bit of his right cheek. He was covered by the Secret Service so that no one could see Trump as they applied the red liquid to his ear & face. No one was concerned about his condition or safety. Shoes, a fist pump, photo ops & his calls of "fight fight fight" took priority.
Keith Olbermann says that according to Ronny Jackson -- not exactly the greatest source to be sure -- he treated Trump afterwards and said that his outer ear was damaged by a bullet shard. We don't have to take his word for it (and who would want to) because it's empirical. Either Trump takes off the bandage in a few days and his ear is ripped or else it's nonsense. If it's not nonsense then he'd have to take some time off the trail for cosmetic surgery.
Ooh look, everybody, a _troll_ to play with. A troll whose profile announces "I am a troll. Please kick me in the nuts." No, it's you annelid brains who don't accept empirical reality. If Trump's ear was torn we'd go, okay, Trump's ear is torn.
That's how it works in RealityLand. You ought to visit sometime ;)
Oh, and you meant to write in your profile "a stubbed toe" not "stubbed to." You're welcome ;)
Many People saw the man on the roof with a long gun. Probably not the bullet but glass from teleprompter hit Trumps ear, he was awfully defiant in the face of a shooter (but wouldn't be unusual if he knew there was going to be a fake assassination attempt), the other bullets hit people not where you would expect.... But either way, Vance wants to be president and thinks Trump is an idiot but an useful idiot. If Vance is VP to Trump and Trump dies, then Vance has the presidency. What do others think?
The "fake assassination" is an unhelpful conspiracy theory. It doesn't remotely stand to reason. If that were actually planned, they wouldn't rely on a gun nut kid with an AR but a highly trained professional with a sniper rifle who would also be skilled at evading law enforcement.
Trump's defiant gesture was pure lizard brain reflex from someone who values image over all.
what do you (Rick / anyone) think of a unity ticket / Kamala Harris & Adam Kinsinger ? Something that dramatic would grab the momentum back from crazyland, and Rep. K has got serious credentials ...
Oh, no way. Kinzinger is a great defender of democracy but he's an ideological conservative (have you ever heard him talk policy? He disagrees with most things Biden stands for) and this would alienate the Democratic coalition. We'd lose organized labor and that's only the start of it.
There are just not enough cable watching Never Trumpers to make making Never Trumpers perfectly happy the point of the campaign.
We're still in the dark about this kid's motive and ideology. On my substack, I speculated that maybe he's a Never Trumper (perhaps rebelling against his MAGA parents?) but that's too glib. He must've known this was a suicide mission and people who choose to die for a political reason usually have a massively encrusted ideology. But there's no manifesto and practically no social media presence.
To follow Rick's broken young man theory and call it pure nihilism, it's hard to see this as a target of opportunity. There are plenty of shopping malls, parks, entertainment venues if he wanted to do the mass shooter thing. For that matter, why didn't he just spray Trump's crowd with bullets? He clearly intended to kill Trump and the three other victims were collateral damage from missed shots.
If he was a Never Trumper, if he loathed Trump and thought he was such a danger to the republic he needed to be taken out, why does no one in his orbit know of this? If he was just another sicko mass shooter whose personal motives are practically irrelevant, why go through all the trouble at the rally?
From what Rick wrote yesterday, I think the shooter just wanted to become “famous”. He was a registered Republican but, maybe that was part of “trying to belong to male oriented MAGA” but he wasn’t that thrilled with Trump after all the stuff that’s come out on Donnie dearest. So, with access to the rally and access to a firearm, the guy devised a plan to go down in the history books - and he succeeded. His name and picture are everywhere and Trump has even more press!
He must've known that he had a 99% chance of committing suicide-by-Secret-Service and furthermore, he had no idea how easy it would be to scale that building and remain unmolested (if not undetected) by law enforcement long enough to get his shots off. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but it seems certain there was a massive security failure, the Secret Service blaming the local cops, the local cops saying the Secret Service had the rooftops covered. So he must've thought at the outset that he had a very small chance of pulling it off before being either shot first or roughed up badly and taken into custody. If the guy just wanted to go out in the proverbial blaze of glory, why not just shoot up a shopping mall? Why take such an enormous chance to off Donald Trump?
The only pure nutcase who shot a president was John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Every other presidential assassin and would-be assassin have been hardcore ideologues. But this guy leaves nothing like the footprint of an ideologue. So Rick is leaving it with the broken young man theory but I'm not quite satisfied with that. He took enormous risks for something with very little chance pulling it off. That implies some kind of concrete motive to specifically shoot Donald Trump. But what motive is that?
We need a palate cleanser right now. I'm not the biggest fan of New Wave, but this is a great song. I think the chorus should've been in 7/8 instead of 4/4 but that's ... me ;)
Well done Rick. Now is not the time to quiet legitimate political discourse. Trump is a menacing con, a dictator wannabe by his own words. We have our constitution to defend along with equality before the law. Violence is not the means to that end. We must condemn it. But that does not mean to be quieted by those who would make a mockery of representative democracy.
Rick, my brother in arms, I'm gonna argue with you on this. I am one of those liberals who blames it on guns. I think I am right and I think you are wrong and I've got tons of backup for my position.
I am so sick to death of the broken young men narrative. It's a global problem and its causes are overdetermined. To me, it sounds like "thoughts and prayers." You know where there's a lot of broken young men, Rick? France. France is an unwinding former colonial empire. European politics is a heckuva lot more ideological than American politics; in France they have a Communist party that's not fringe, but that participates in coalition governments. Every blessed election in France, protesters battle it out with police in the streets. And guess what? NOBODY GETS SHOT. Gee, I wonder why.
Australia, like the US, is a frontier society. Its wilderness is much more forbidding than our own, with lethal critters that embarrass those in Texas and Florida. Every reason in the world for citizens on the fringes of this wilderness to own long guns for self-protection. Then the Port Arthur massacre happened and the Australian government changed its gun laws with a buyback and amnesty program for people to turn in their semiautomatic long guns. Aussie political culture is very much like our own, with a high value on freedom and self-reliance. But somehow they didn't freak out about this. The Christchurch massacre in New Zealand happened and Jacinda Ardern did the same thing.
Tristan Snell was beginning to drill down on this when Rick interrupted him to give his usual defensive response whenever this issue comes up. _Rick's_ guns are as secure as Fort Knox. Well duh, Rick, you're everybody's beau ideal of the responsible gun owner. But it's like a driver who points to his spotless driving record and demands to own a car without seat belts and air bags. Rules aren't designed for the exception; they're designed for the mean. And most gun owners just aren't as relentlessly well-trained and knowledgeable about guns and gun use as Rick Wilson.
I don't know if Joe's desire to ban "assault weapons" (assault-style semiautomatic long guns) again is workable. It surely isn't workable without a buyback as there are so many of these damn things in circulation -- many more than in the 90s before the militia movement got off the ground. I don't even know if that would be the best solution. I favor licensing gun owners and registering weapons, with an internal signature that can't be erased without melting the receiver, and I'm sure that's technically possible now. I certainly don't want to take Rick's Glocks and Sig Sauers away, which he very clearly needs for self-defense in an ever-expanding threat environment; Rick is more than qualified to handle them. But I certainly share Chief Justice Burger's analysis that the Second Amendment is to give states priority over the federal government for civil defense within their borders, and I reject in the strongest terms Scalia's ahistorical and atextual neutering of the amendment's first clause. The NRA's argument that gun registration is only the first step to government tyranny is the same bogus slippery slope argument that says same sex marriage is only the first step to old ladies marrying their cats.
Rick is a peerless tactical mind and an invaluable asset for our side as well as being an all-around good guy. As much as I'd hate to admit it, he's probably more right on the politics of guns than I am. But this issue, to me, is such a colossal no-brainer.
Every country in the developed world is teeming with broken young men. The reasons for this could fill a volume.
But only the US has a problem with gun violence that puts us next to Somalia.
What you say here about the “broken young men“ problem is true, and it makes sense even without a deep analysis. Young people of both sexes go through troubled times, but only young men seem to act out in violent ways most of the time. And yet we don’t see gun deaths like this anywhere else in the western world; and when we do, per the examples you mentioned, those governments do something about it without their people flipping out. Australia and Canada have similar frontier mentalities, and there aren’t mass shootings every week in those countries. This is a uniquely American problem.
Mental health is (to use the Brit slang) the bog standard deflection pro gunners use every time (all-too-bloody often) an incident like this happens. It kind of bugs me because I think this is special pleading on Rick's part. He's an avid firearms enthusiast and has invested countless thousands (tens of thousands) of dollars in his hobby. He not only has multiple gun safes, he has a gun room with a lock keyed with his thumbprint. This is _well_ beyond the pocketbook of the middle class dad of Thomas Crooks. I think his theory of the case about Crooks' motives may well turn out to be right, that like John Hinckley and Arthur Bremer, his motives weren't primarily political, although it's still possible he wanted to kick off a civil war that the right would win because they have most of the guns, but we won't know until the FBI reveals what they've been talking to his parents (both mental health professionals, sheesh) about.
But if you look at it through the lens of assault-style semiautomatic rifles and who should be allowed to own and carry them, the motive kind of fades away into irrelevance, doesn't it.
Yes. I say this all the time. (I started as Cat Cafe on some innocuous site and then just got exhausted at the thought of having to come up with a new moniker, haha. I was "Dr. Ohm (unit of resistance)" on Twitter for a while, but haven't been on there since Elon took over.
I agree with you about Rick--he's a great tactical mind and wonderfully direct. But I think far too many people turn a blind eye to the incredibly obvious reason we have so much gun violence.
I always say this: my husband and I were in Paris during an actual terrorist attack and I still felt safer than I ever feel in the U.S. (The terrorist attack was confined to one area, and immediately dealt with; meanwhile, of course, the Parisians continued to go about their early-evening activities, Gauloises figuratively dangling from their blase lips, no one changed a single thing other than the one area being cordoned off. People sat in cafes, did errands, went to dinner.) I never had to worry that some random person, broken or otherwise, would gun me down.
Even here in deep blue California, it's something you have to be aware of literally all the time. I think too many Americans are so inured to it that they have forgotten that it truly doesn't have to be like this.
Totally agree. The rationalizations around an issue so simple at its core are so thick, the deflections (broken young men, family values, secularism, etc.) so automatic that it's like auto-induced Stockholm syndrome.
Let’s not forget the take that Trump paid off some kid to off some of his supporters to make him look like a hero. He’s a fucking fascist people
That take is eminently forgettable. You're gonna trust the shot not to hit you from a kid who didn't make his high school rifle team?
Rick, I’m sure you’re well aware of what’s going on over at Steve Schmidt‘s Substack site. All the Biden supporters have pretty much left (or so it seems), and it is now a lewd, rampaging mass of Biden haters all trying to one up each other in their comments. That man is doing more damage to this campaign than even the Republicans. Also, recently Adam Schiff (which I’m sure you heard) opened his big mouth to a group of donors, indicating that Democrats are going to lose both chambers of Congress and the presidency if Biden doesn’t step away. Why in the name of God would he make that announcement in public? AOC jumped on it and told him to retire because he is “functionally useless” to the American people. Good for her!!
A billionaire like Adam Schiff shouldn’t even be in congress.
I think Adam Schiff has done some good, but his betrayal of Biden was upsetting for me, because I always held him in high regard. In any case, on a much happier note, I just heard that voter registration in the United States has gone up significantly just in the past three days. I heard this NPR report on my car radio this morning, and most of the new registrations are for people between the ages of 18 and 34. This is very exciting news!!
It would be wonderful if we elected people from our communities that represent the majority of us. So many get elected because of their wealth and the money they can put into campaigns. It’s troubling having so many elites in the Senate and Congress. I think extreme wealth makes it hard for them to put others before themselves.
I agree!!
I always thought Steve Schmidt was a weird guy. He has a big vocabulary and a lot of historical knowledge but somehow manages to come across as marginally articulate. He's the guy who hooked McCain up with Palin, which for a Never Trumper has got to be Original Sin. He gets very uncomfortably self-righteous, like when the John Wheeler story broke and he told this anecdote of being hit on by a camp counselor like it absolutely annihilated his childhood.
I was very happy when LP cut him loose and haven't watched him since.
The Never Trumpers who are on this bandwagon have disgusted me and I've cut them all out of my media diet. No more Bulwark. But at least it's understandable because they're not Democrats and they see the Democratic Party as a means to an end. The Democrats, especially insiders like Schiff, are just unforgivable. They understand the process. If they think Kamala ought to be the nominee instead, they should say so but they don't. If they think throwing it open on the floor for a bunch of Democratic big guns, none of whom have expressed a desire to challenge Biden, wouldn't just create maximum chaos and alienate core constituencies of the Democratic Party, organized labor and older black people in particular, their naivete is simply not excusable. Gods bless AOC for being a team player. Bernie, too.
All of this!!
You know I'm a big follower of Keith Olbermann, even when he pisses me off sometimes. I think he's an honest broker and not a clickbait meister. My stance on Biden vis a vis the nomination is beginning to evolve. Hear me out:
I have an enormous personal affection for Joe Biden and as a fellow Irishman, I understand him deeply at a gut level. Politically, my support for Joe's presidency couldn't be higher. There hasn't been a single president of my lifetime (I was a toddler when JFK was assassinated), not LBJ, not Carter, not Clinton, not Obama, who I've agreed with more strongly and more consistently. Yeah, the Afghanistan withdrawal was a disaster but that's the only major mistake he made, not in the withdrawal itself but in its execution. He could have told the Taliban to give us more time. He gets a mulligan for it. It was a massively successful airlift overall.
Joe didn't turn out to be the dishrag centrist I had feared when I was backing Elizabeth Warren in '20. He turned out to be a damn progressive president (I'm very liberal but I'm not an ideologue so I accept that there were many progressive ponies not gotten, including kicking Israel to the curb). If it were up to me, there's nothing I'd prefer more than a Biden second term. His priorities are 100% right for us.
But I'm not a Joe Biden personality cultist. My main political loyalty is to the Democratic Party. And there are discussions going on between Biden and the Democratic leadership of both houses. They're presenting him with polls, commissioned by his own campaign, that show Joe losing badly and taking the party down with him. Joe and his campaign have to, at bare minimum, present a plan to turn that around. I'm agnostic on this because it's not my decision to make. I have absolute faith that Joe is not a megalomaniac who thinks this is all about him and won't bow to the better argument. If Joe does decide to step down, the only viable path forward is for him to hand the baton to Kamala, which presents its own set of challenges but also its own opportunities.
What I'm not agnostic about and have a very strong opinion of is that the Democrats cannot have an open convention without inviting the worst kind of chaos. And I'm hoping as hard as I possibly can that Joe can figure out a way to turn this around.
I saved a link to a Keith Olbermann rant that you posted, but I have not watched it yet. I’ve had a very busy two days and I will probably look at it tonight. As I glance through the news now, it looks like we’re reaching a crescendo of key Democrats asking Biden to step down based upon these recent polls. You and I think very much alike, Bob, and I am very much a liberal Democrat, but I am also not a cultist; and I believe that what makes the Democratic Party healthy is the fact that we are independent thinkers. I also agree that Biden pleasantly surprised me with his shift to the left, and I think this has a lot to do with Bernie Sanders, because they talk frequently. I felt that Biden should have stepped aside long ago rather than announced that he was running again. Once that ship sailed, I agreed wholeheartedly to support him. Then all this time went by and now at the 11th hour, we have to go through this shuffle, potentially, and it’s looking more likely every single damn day. The Washington Post printed a headline that went something like, “Democrats are walking deliberately into a disaster.” Since I haven’t read the article yet, I’m not sure if they mean that keeping Biden on the ticket is a disaster, or going through a switcheroo at this point is a disaster. Either option does not look good to me and I am petrified. I don’t often exhibit panic at political events, but the idea of another Trump term makes me feel physically ill. It must be stopped at all costs, and I am not smart enough to know which is the best way around this. With Biden now recovering from a mild Covid case (and ironically, I just got over Covid again), he has time to rest for a few days and think this out. I love Kamala Harris, but I worry that she cannot draw in the enthusiasm needed for this ticket. She would have to choose her VP very carefully. That’s all I have the energy for today, but I very much appreciate your enlightening posts.
Yeah, Janet, you've always been one of my favorite people to post to here. We tend to have these long exchanges that sometimes veer off topic but that are always enjoyable and edifying. I do think you and I are political kindred spirits.
My advice on the WaPo: Don't read the fucking thing. Seriously, they're just stirring the pot; there is nothing they or we can do about what's going on with Biden and the Democrats. So we have to let it play out without getting ulcers.
I think Bernie (and Liz) have had an influence, but I don't think they've had the primary impact on Joe. I think that since the rise of social media, the financial meltdown of '08, the obscene rise of wealth inequality and then Trump as the rancid cherry on top of this fetid sundae, the world changed around Joe Biden and he stuck to his lifelong Democratic principles. Most people described as "centrists" (Bill Clinton is a notorious example) shift with the wind and do the thing they think is most popular. If it means kicking the poors in the teeth by "ending welfare as we know it," well, he'll do that, even if it means buying into the bullshit Republican bootstraps framing. Joe is just standing up for the people he's always stood up for. That's an example of great character.
As for Kamala, I think she's an underpriced stock and she has a great upside potential. Far from not generating enthusiasm, she's been on fire on the stump recently talking about the ending of Roe and the war on women's' rights. She's not reflexively looked at askance by millennials and gen z the way she is by older generations who squick at an uppity WoC. As a former prosecutor and Senate hearings superstar, she's in an ideal position to take it to Trump. There are potential pitfalls to be sure and I'd still prefer Joe at the top of the ticket, but losing Joe to Kamala would decidedly not be a fate worse than death for Democrats.
I do think Kamala Harris can pull this off if Joe Biden decides to step down due to pressure. I’m trying not to ruminate about too many scenarios because, like you said, it’s best to avoid an ulcer over this. I never went back and read that WAPO article and I deleted it from my inbox. I didn’t even want the reminder that it was there. I’m going to have a pleasant evening away from politics and that will probably be the case for tomorrow too. With Biden hibernating while he gets over the virus, it will probably be a few days before we hear anything. There was some news that surfaced indicating that Pelosi was close to convincing Biden to step down. I’m now beginning to think that’s the more likely scenario, and as of last week, I really felt democrats were going to unify and stop this; but that appears to not be the case now. Have a pleasant evening.
THANK YOU, MR. WILSON. I AM RELIEVED TO HEAR YOUR CLEAR THINKING. THANK YOU.
You are a genuine piece of shit. You MUST know that on a gut level.
Not long ago u said the donor class must "put a bullet in Donald Trump."
Still stand by this, Sloth? (Google Goonies if ur confused)
C'mon, tough guy! Double down!
You CERTAINLY weren't on the list of people trying to feverishly re-attach their mask of decency, declaring "pOlItIcAL vIoLeNcE hAs nO pLacE.." & wishing DJT a "speedy recovery", right?
C'mon! Say something else so funny &edgy then blame what happened on anything but the"DJT is LITERALLY HITLER rhetoric ofbthe last 9yrs (and we allll know the thought exercise about what u would do if u had a chance to k**l baby Hitler, right? I mean even if it's a baby at the time.. I mean.. ITS HITLER!!)
If I went back in time I wouldn't kill baby Hitler. I'd _kidnap_ baby Hitler and raise him humanely in a foster home to give him the love and understanding he never got from his uptight, rigid parents. I wouldn't encourage him to have a career as a fine artist, though. I mean, he kinda sucked at that ;)
It's really funny to see somebody who thumb types like a teenager after too much Mountain Dew invoke masks of decency. Speaking of masks, maybe you ought to try to put a bag over your head. Who knows, it might improve your social life, LOL
Sean, if I were you, I wouldn't even bother. You are hopelessly outclassed here. Political rhetoric has been filled with combat metaphors from sports and warfare since politics existed. I'm going to bestow upon you the dignity of assuming that even _you_ are not stupid enough not to know that. You're welcome in advance ;) Rick has never advocated for political violence _literally._
Trump is a Hitler wannabe. His first wife Ivana wrote in her book that he had a book of Hitler's speeches on a table by the bed. Chief of staff John Kelly has noted the times he said that Hitler did "good things for Germany" and claimed that he wished "his" generals would be as loyal as Hitler's were. Which produced HOWLS OF LAUGHTER from historians who note how many goddamn times Hitler's generals tried to assassinate him ;)
Trump is a Hitler fetishist who craves absolute power. Facts.
Bob, it’s wonderful of you to take time to speak to the brainless now and then.
You know me, Janet, I live for friendly, vigorous debate and discussion with people. Even when I strongly disagree, like I do with Rick on guns, I like to keep it entirely civil and in good faith. But I also _adore_ me some good ol' fashioned troll thwackery ;)
"Sean" made it so easy. When your profile is an eighth-grade insult of Rick Wilson that you butcher with a typo, I mean, that's just comedy gold ;)
I did read his bio and I was in pain laughing. I feel a certain amount of sadness for people like this. Apparently, Rick is living rent free in his head and causing brain worms.
You knew he wouldn't be back. There was one who was much worse, "Jack" over on the last thread, who sounds like a refugee from Schmidt's substack and wrote long disquisitions laced with passive aggressive ad hominem about how Biden has no choice but to drop out. I get very easily sucked into putting way too much time into responding to those.
I started responding to his last post by quoting whole paragraphs and taking them on point-by-point. The response was going to be absolutely enormous and I figured I'd post it on my substack. But Chrome is weird; if you click back to a tab not exactly in the right place, it will close and I lost a good 45 minutes of work. Which, actually, was a good thing. Just let that big, insufferable post stand there at the top of the thread with no responses.
Excellent ! Thanks 🙏
Trump definitely didn't get hit by a bullet & it's doubtful he got hit by glass, either. There was practically no damage to the ear. Probably none at all. It was all an act. No red stain anywhere besides his ear & a bit of his right cheek. He was covered by the Secret Service so that no one could see Trump as they applied the red liquid to his ear & face. No one was concerned about his condition or safety. Shoes, a fist pump, photo ops & his calls of "fight fight fight" took priority.
Keith Olbermann says that according to Ronny Jackson -- not exactly the greatest source to be sure -- he treated Trump afterwards and said that his outer ear was damaged by a bullet shard. We don't have to take his word for it (and who would want to) because it's empirical. Either Trump takes off the bandage in a few days and his ear is ripped or else it's nonsense. If it's not nonsense then he'd have to take some time off the trail for cosmetic surgery.
Even if he did u clowns would never accept it.
Ooh look, everybody, a _troll_ to play with. A troll whose profile announces "I am a troll. Please kick me in the nuts." No, it's you annelid brains who don't accept empirical reality. If Trump's ear was torn we'd go, okay, Trump's ear is torn.
That's how it works in RealityLand. You ought to visit sometime ;)
Oh, and you meant to write in your profile "a stubbed toe" not "stubbed to." You're welcome ;)
Many People saw the man on the roof with a long gun. Probably not the bullet but glass from teleprompter hit Trumps ear, he was awfully defiant in the face of a shooter (but wouldn't be unusual if he knew there was going to be a fake assassination attempt), the other bullets hit people not where you would expect.... But either way, Vance wants to be president and thinks Trump is an idiot but an useful idiot. If Vance is VP to Trump and Trump dies, then Vance has the presidency. What do others think?
The "fake assassination" is an unhelpful conspiracy theory. It doesn't remotely stand to reason. If that were actually planned, they wouldn't rely on a gun nut kid with an AR but a highly trained professional with a sniper rifle who would also be skilled at evading law enforcement.
Trump's defiant gesture was pure lizard brain reflex from someone who values image over all.
And it was a very important message indeed!
https://x.com/saverdemocrazy/status/1813179400944558337?s=46&t=km52-onEtKkOfYwkvUwJFQ
Here’s why, in spite of all the weirdness, I don’t think it was staged: that bullet came awfully close…
#Trump #TrumpAssasinationAttempt #Project2025
what do you (Rick / anyone) think of a unity ticket / Kamala Harris & Adam Kinsinger ? Something that dramatic would grab the momentum back from crazyland, and Rep. K has got serious credentials ...
Oh, no way. Kinzinger is a great defender of democracy but he's an ideological conservative (have you ever heard him talk policy? He disagrees with most things Biden stands for) and this would alienate the Democratic coalition. We'd lose organized labor and that's only the start of it.
There are just not enough cable watching Never Trumpers to make making Never Trumpers perfectly happy the point of the campaign.
We're still in the dark about this kid's motive and ideology. On my substack, I speculated that maybe he's a Never Trumper (perhaps rebelling against his MAGA parents?) but that's too glib. He must've known this was a suicide mission and people who choose to die for a political reason usually have a massively encrusted ideology. But there's no manifesto and practically no social media presence.
To follow Rick's broken young man theory and call it pure nihilism, it's hard to see this as a target of opportunity. There are plenty of shopping malls, parks, entertainment venues if he wanted to do the mass shooter thing. For that matter, why didn't he just spray Trump's crowd with bullets? He clearly intended to kill Trump and the three other victims were collateral damage from missed shots.
If he was a Never Trumper, if he loathed Trump and thought he was such a danger to the republic he needed to be taken out, why does no one in his orbit know of this? If he was just another sicko mass shooter whose personal motives are practically irrelevant, why go through all the trouble at the rally?
This is driving me a little nuts ...
From what Rick wrote yesterday, I think the shooter just wanted to become “famous”. He was a registered Republican but, maybe that was part of “trying to belong to male oriented MAGA” but he wasn’t that thrilled with Trump after all the stuff that’s come out on Donnie dearest. So, with access to the rally and access to a firearm, the guy devised a plan to go down in the history books - and he succeeded. His name and picture are everywhere and Trump has even more press!
He must've known that he had a 99% chance of committing suicide-by-Secret-Service and furthermore, he had no idea how easy it would be to scale that building and remain unmolested (if not undetected) by law enforcement long enough to get his shots off. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but it seems certain there was a massive security failure, the Secret Service blaming the local cops, the local cops saying the Secret Service had the rooftops covered. So he must've thought at the outset that he had a very small chance of pulling it off before being either shot first or roughed up badly and taken into custody. If the guy just wanted to go out in the proverbial blaze of glory, why not just shoot up a shopping mall? Why take such an enormous chance to off Donald Trump?
The only pure nutcase who shot a president was John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Every other presidential assassin and would-be assassin have been hardcore ideologues. But this guy leaves nothing like the footprint of an ideologue. So Rick is leaving it with the broken young man theory but I'm not quite satisfied with that. He took enormous risks for something with very little chance pulling it off. That implies some kind of concrete motive to specifically shoot Donald Trump. But what motive is that?
I found a theme song for JD Vance—“Rent” by the Pet Shop Boys.
We need a palate cleanser right now. I'm not the biggest fan of New Wave, but this is a great song. I think the chorus should've been in 7/8 instead of 4/4 but that's ... me ;)
MELT THE GUNS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPWEiqHVFGI
Well done Rick. Now is not the time to quiet legitimate political discourse. Trump is a menacing con, a dictator wannabe by his own words. We have our constitution to defend along with equality before the law. Violence is not the means to that end. We must condemn it. But that does not mean to be quieted by those who would make a mockery of representative democracy.
Keith O is spittin' fire on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUU3au-OuY
Rick, my brother in arms, I'm gonna argue with you on this. I am one of those liberals who blames it on guns. I think I am right and I think you are wrong and I've got tons of backup for my position.
I am so sick to death of the broken young men narrative. It's a global problem and its causes are overdetermined. To me, it sounds like "thoughts and prayers." You know where there's a lot of broken young men, Rick? France. France is an unwinding former colonial empire. European politics is a heckuva lot more ideological than American politics; in France they have a Communist party that's not fringe, but that participates in coalition governments. Every blessed election in France, protesters battle it out with police in the streets. And guess what? NOBODY GETS SHOT. Gee, I wonder why.
Australia, like the US, is a frontier society. Its wilderness is much more forbidding than our own, with lethal critters that embarrass those in Texas and Florida. Every reason in the world for citizens on the fringes of this wilderness to own long guns for self-protection. Then the Port Arthur massacre happened and the Australian government changed its gun laws with a buyback and amnesty program for people to turn in their semiautomatic long guns. Aussie political culture is very much like our own, with a high value on freedom and self-reliance. But somehow they didn't freak out about this. The Christchurch massacre in New Zealand happened and Jacinda Ardern did the same thing.
Tristan Snell was beginning to drill down on this when Rick interrupted him to give his usual defensive response whenever this issue comes up. _Rick's_ guns are as secure as Fort Knox. Well duh, Rick, you're everybody's beau ideal of the responsible gun owner. But it's like a driver who points to his spotless driving record and demands to own a car without seat belts and air bags. Rules aren't designed for the exception; they're designed for the mean. And most gun owners just aren't as relentlessly well-trained and knowledgeable about guns and gun use as Rick Wilson.
I don't know if Joe's desire to ban "assault weapons" (assault-style semiautomatic long guns) again is workable. It surely isn't workable without a buyback as there are so many of these damn things in circulation -- many more than in the 90s before the militia movement got off the ground. I don't even know if that would be the best solution. I favor licensing gun owners and registering weapons, with an internal signature that can't be erased without melting the receiver, and I'm sure that's technically possible now. I certainly don't want to take Rick's Glocks and Sig Sauers away, which he very clearly needs for self-defense in an ever-expanding threat environment; Rick is more than qualified to handle them. But I certainly share Chief Justice Burger's analysis that the Second Amendment is to give states priority over the federal government for civil defense within their borders, and I reject in the strongest terms Scalia's ahistorical and atextual neutering of the amendment's first clause. The NRA's argument that gun registration is only the first step to government tyranny is the same bogus slippery slope argument that says same sex marriage is only the first step to old ladies marrying their cats.
Very well put and very well expressed, Bob.
Well, and I love kitties, too ;) Thanks.
Rick is a peerless tactical mind and an invaluable asset for our side as well as being an all-around good guy. As much as I'd hate to admit it, he's probably more right on the politics of guns than I am. But this issue, to me, is such a colossal no-brainer.
Every country in the developed world is teeming with broken young men. The reasons for this could fill a volume.
But only the US has a problem with gun violence that puts us next to Somalia.
What you say here about the “broken young men“ problem is true, and it makes sense even without a deep analysis. Young people of both sexes go through troubled times, but only young men seem to act out in violent ways most of the time. And yet we don’t see gun deaths like this anywhere else in the western world; and when we do, per the examples you mentioned, those governments do something about it without their people flipping out. Australia and Canada have similar frontier mentalities, and there aren’t mass shootings every week in those countries. This is a uniquely American problem.
Mental health is (to use the Brit slang) the bog standard deflection pro gunners use every time (all-too-bloody often) an incident like this happens. It kind of bugs me because I think this is special pleading on Rick's part. He's an avid firearms enthusiast and has invested countless thousands (tens of thousands) of dollars in his hobby. He not only has multiple gun safes, he has a gun room with a lock keyed with his thumbprint. This is _well_ beyond the pocketbook of the middle class dad of Thomas Crooks. I think his theory of the case about Crooks' motives may well turn out to be right, that like John Hinckley and Arthur Bremer, his motives weren't primarily political, although it's still possible he wanted to kick off a civil war that the right would win because they have most of the guns, but we won't know until the FBI reveals what they've been talking to his parents (both mental health professionals, sheesh) about.
But if you look at it through the lens of assault-style semiautomatic rifles and who should be allowed to own and carry them, the motive kind of fades away into irrelevance, doesn't it.
Yes, it does fade into irrelevance; also I did not know that both of his parents were mental health professionals. Holy crap.
Yep, both therapists. Holy crap, indeed.
Yes. I say this all the time. (I started as Cat Cafe on some innocuous site and then just got exhausted at the thought of having to come up with a new moniker, haha. I was "Dr. Ohm (unit of resistance)" on Twitter for a while, but haven't been on there since Elon took over.
I agree with you about Rick--he's a great tactical mind and wonderfully direct. But I think far too many people turn a blind eye to the incredibly obvious reason we have so much gun violence.
I always say this: my husband and I were in Paris during an actual terrorist attack and I still felt safer than I ever feel in the U.S. (The terrorist attack was confined to one area, and immediately dealt with; meanwhile, of course, the Parisians continued to go about their early-evening activities, Gauloises figuratively dangling from their blase lips, no one changed a single thing other than the one area being cordoned off. People sat in cafes, did errands, went to dinner.) I never had to worry that some random person, broken or otherwise, would gun me down.
Even here in deep blue California, it's something you have to be aware of literally all the time. I think too many Americans are so inured to it that they have forgotten that it truly doesn't have to be like this.
Totally agree. The rationalizations around an issue so simple at its core are so thick, the deflections (broken young men, family values, secularism, etc.) so automatic that it's like auto-induced Stockholm syndrome.
Thank you, Rick. My husband and I deeply appreciate your courage and clarity. You continue to be a Light in the darkness. ♥️