DL Open Thread Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024
Kamala Harris will name her choice for vice president today. Because American politics is essentially sports for the athletically disinclined, the bookies have Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulling slightly ahead of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as the betting favorite, and that’s considered a news story.
A couple of bad days for the stock markets was all it took for the business press to churn out its perennially favorite story: We might be heading for a recession. Here’s why I ignore most stories about what might happen: a 12% drop in Japan’s stock index last week triggered all this. On Monday, Japan’s stock index jumped 11%. Oh, well, be very afraid anyway, I guess.
In news of things that actually happened, Google lost an antitrust case over its search-engine dominance. As the judge wrote, “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” Even Google’s advertising-at-the-top algorithm had to let that one through.
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer worries that the story about the $10 million bribe the Egyptians gave Trump is being quickly forgotten. As Paul Campos noted over at LGM, the media barely reports on any Trump outrage anymore. People don’t click on those stories because nothing Trump does surprises them.
That Trump is openly bribing billionaires by promising to sell them the government and that he’s praising Putin for kidnapping Americans is at least getting a little bit of media attention, although hardly anything commensurate with the enormity of these acts. By contrast, at the end of his rally Saturday night Trump asked Georgia’s governor to intervene to drop the criminal case against him in that state, and this isn’t even being reported, because apparently that’s just Trump being Trump, plus there’s the dead bear cub that RFK was going to eat, and Simone Biles fell off the balance beam, and stocks are way down this morning so maybe you should rebalance your portfolio, and on and on and on (puts on Sinatra and starts to cry).
The press is doggedly pursuing a story they want to be true, though. Josh Marshall points out that they’re reporting that the Harris honeymoon is over despite there being no evidence to support this claim. They’re simply trying to wish – and propagandize – it into being.
The floor’s yours.
It’s Walz.
👍❤️
Walz is too liberal. Moderate swing voters will hate that he gave students free breakfast. By picking such a popular, nice guy, Harris is signaling that she is worried. Gays will be made that it isn’t a gay.
Sorry. I’m just working out the nonsense that we are about to hear from the NYT editorial board.
Solid joke, bro! 🙂
A great pick! He is the anti-Vance choice. A midwesterner, avuncular, a sense of humor, executive experience. A happy warrior.
I couldn’t be happier.
From AP:
Harris absolutely picked the best running mate. I could not be more thrilled!
I’ve just gone from voting Harris because she’s not Trump to voting Harris and loving that the first female president picked a progressive veep.
Something tells me this won’t wear well. From the Trump campaign:
“Donald Trump’s campaign was quick on Tuesday morning to attack Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, as a “radical leftist.” In other words, they had the press release ready to go a while ago and just plugged in Walz’s name.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate—Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” reads the statement, which was released on Tuesday morning. “Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
Tim Walz–San Francisco liberal extremist. Good luck with that.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the public’s appetite for four more years of empty insults instead of competent governance is as strong as the polls and media would have you believe.
Im guardedly optimistic about that.
Been watching the 538 polls during the last week.
She’s now led in every national poll for the last three days. Pretty decent margins (3-4 points) as well. And I think the polls are actually a lagging indicator.
How do Trump-Vance come back from that?
Listening to Josh Shapiro. Glad he’s not the nominee. He is shouting his speech. To me, looks like a disconnect between what he says and what, if anything, he believes.
Plus, it’s time for him to get offa the fucking stage!
Couldn’t ask for a better speech than what Tim Walz delivered. He’s out of VP central casting. HS teacher and coach, officer in the National Guard, great progressive record in Minn., but can’t really be effectively labeled as such, the Congressional sharp-shooting competition winner who pushes for strong gun and gun safety laws.
Even dropped in a Vance ‘get off the couch’ joke w/o feeling the need to underline it. He came up with the abortion tagline that I think will go viral:
“Mind your own damn business.”
I’m thinking landslide.
Talk me down.
C’mon, Jason, you’re always good at times like this…
The word landslide crossed my mind. The next 24-48 hours will reveal a lot. The GOP will be shocked, [SHOCKED!] at the divisiveness of the two speeches and alarmed at Walz’ lack of decorum for making that joke. The DC media will cover the GOP’s shock and alarm without irony.
Then it gets interesting. Do Chris Coons and Chuck Schumer get squishy and make statements agreeing that the GOP has a point, and maybe an apology is in order? Or do they and the nation continue to point and laugh at the angry weirdos?
I think it is possible that the Harris/Walz campaign can finally break the Democratic Party out of the cowering, battered-spouse role playing that has been its bread and butter for nigh on 30 years. If they can, then yeah… popular vote & EC landslides are on the table.
The media will do their
bestworst to keep it close.Paul Campos at LGM is feeling landslide-y
“…people are going to start voting for president just seven weeks from now in several states, and I think Trump is going down hard. Yes he has a floor of support that almost literally nothing can move, but his ceiling is about one Malkovich unit above that. And people outside his base of losers, cheaters, six-time users are just sick of the guy, because his act is stale and boring and not even vaguely amusing any more, which is a much worse sin in our infotainment culture than trying to overthrow the government or sell it off to rapacious plutocrats.”