DL Open Thread Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024

When Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, many pundits pointed out that what seemed like a truncated campaign, a three-month “sprint” to Election Day, was the full length of campaigns in most Western nations. Skip ahead two months, and with six weeks still to go it already feels like it’s been going on forever. I blame the media, which I tend to do anyway, but they deserve it. They’re the ones who’ve continued to report every chunk of logorrhea that spills from Trump’s face sphincter for the past four years, which is why Kamala Harris has been able to treat Trump as if he’s the incumbent.

You don’t have to look hard to find articles that will reinforce, or challenge, any future you care to envision, and you’re going to get six more weeks of them. The only thing you’ll get more of is appeals for money from candidates who have your phone number and email address. No wonder people watch football games.

I’m so old I remember when God directed his wrath, expressed as hurricanes, on one state at a time, but Trump voters are such raging assholes that he sent Helene to inundate the entire Southeastern U.S. in a probably futile bid to show them the error of their ways. That bit in Genesis about never destroying Earth in another flood? You shouldn’t bet your house on it. Oh, wait…

Democrats are slow learners. Two decades after Howard Dean, the Patron Saint of Delaware Liberal, showed the wisdom of the 50-state strategy, the Democratic National Committee will, for the first time ever, send money to all 50 states to support down-ballot races. I don’t know whether to applaud on bang my head on my desk.

An Israeli airstrike on the Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut killed the militia’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The IDF used one-ton bunker buster bombs to destroy the subterranean complex, located beneath an apartment complex that was destroyed in the attack. No matter how many militia leaders they kill, I recall the adage attributed to various French generals: The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

The floor’s yours.