DL Open Thread Monday, Sept. 23, 2024
It was hard enough running for governor as a Black conservative, but a Black conservative sex creep? Mark Robinson’s task is well nigh impossible, especially now that all his senior staffers quit. Maybe he can ask Bethany Hall-Long for advice on how to run a campaign after your staff bails over your sketchy behavior.
Congress averted a budget shutdown with a three-month funding bill. Of course, that sets up the possibility of Republican fuckery during the transition period from Biden to Harris, so expect more motivated intransigence then.
Liberals are upset that Israeli forces raided and shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in the occupied West Bank. If they had just carried some of those exploding pagers that wouldn’t have been necessary.
In serious news getting less attention, it appears America’s students aren’t making up their COVID learning losses. The problem, as usual, is worse for the poor and disadvantaged, and it helps explain the growing trend toward cell phone bans.
Ezra Klein examines the tension between Trump and a MAGA movement that has grown beyond him, exemplified by Project 2025. As he explains, the plan is for a full takeover of federal bureaucracy – essentially the blueprint for a coup.
The MAGA coalition — particularly its elected officials and Washington staffer class — has grown beyond Trump. It has more views on more issues than he does. It has absorbed more specific and unusual ideologies than he has. It is more hostile to abortion than he is, or than he wants to appear to be. It is more committed to deregulating health insurance than he is, or than he wants to appear to be. There is a great gap between the MAGA leader who slept with a porn star and the factions in the MAGA movement that want to outlaw pornography, as [Heritage Foundation head Kevin] Roberts proposed on Project 2025’s first page.
Trumpism is whatever Trump says it is, but MAGA is whatever his movement becomes. This is why JD Vance has been a political liability to Trump’s campaign: Vance represents MAGA as it has evolved — esoterically ideological, deeply resentful, terminally online — unleavened by Trump’s instincts for showmanship and the winds of public sentiment. It is telling that it is Vance, not Trump, who wrote a glowing forward to Roberts’s forthcoming book. Trump is where MAGA started, but Vance and Roberts is where it is going.
Despite Trump’s blustery denials, these are the people who would staff his second administration.
The floor’s yours.
Israel has unleashed a series of bombing raids on Lebanon.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lebanon-israel-airstrikes_n_66f14fc5e4b0451ba1299341
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) said on Sunday that Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fired more than 8,000 rockets towards Israel [since the Oct.7 Hamas attacks]… The Israelis’ Friday strike followed Hezbollah launching about 140 rockets toward Israel,
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4893654-hezbollah-has-fired-more-than-8000-rockets-toward-israel-since-october-7-ambassador/
And everything Israel says is true.
I know, because you say the same old shit every time, and who am I to doubt you?
How much less than 8000 rockets do you think the real number is?
lets be honest. there are no more true conservatives like the old time. its just levels of lunacy and reality show stupidness
Conservatism is dead, the replacement is MAGA and it’s far worse, a classic case of “Careful what you ask for, you just might get it”. I expected this, Fascism does not just pack up and go home, also suspect the war to succeed Trump as “The leader” is well underway. The reaction of the Trump cult will be interesting.
I think it could go either way. The sane republicans are finished (unless they become democrats), but hard-core MAGAtry probably needs a simplistic cult leader like Trump to maintain enough enthusiasm. Actual political thinking is harder for them, even when the thinking actually supports their gut prejudices. If this new bunch does manage to get in, it might be more successful at fascism since Trump is an idiot,
“Ezra Klein examines the tension between Trump and a MAGA movement that has grown beyond him, exemplified by Project 2025.” Isn’t the simple existence of this document evidence of a conspiracy to end our constitution? In 1970, all would have been arrested and charged.
Project 2025 has been around since the 80s.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/13/project-2025-conservatism-heritage-foundation-00178808
Did you see President Nixon is opening a second front in Cambodia to end the war in Vietnam faster? Oh wait, I mean Netanyahu opening a new front in Lebanon. I’m sure it’ll work. Crackpot strategy of empire.
Meanwhile, Israel central bank is saying after hostilities cease the economy will be so bad they’ll need to do deep austerity.
Running a racist, ethno-nationalist apartheid state ain’t as easy as it used to be.
Even know leftist radical former CIA director Leon Panetta called Israel operations in Lebanon terrorism. That’s a great sign!
Israel is collapsing. Palestine will be free.
I was with you until the last paragraph. The government of Israel might be collapsing, but don’t kid yourself. The country won’t.
An invasion of Mexico might be an exciting feature we could look forward to in “Trump II – The Revenge”.
Perhaps not Mexico but somewhere. (Grenada?) Crackpot strategies for autocrats trying to hold onto power are evergreen.