I know your point, but boy the first half of this reads like an Onion article:
"I sympathize with conservatives, they're in a tough spot. I mean yes republicans in congress sit idly by as Trump tried to destroy one of the oldest democracies in the World, and started an unnecessary war we're now losing and they won't make any effort to stop and while he murders people in boats illegally, and destroys the economy through tariffs they're supposed to be in control of, and makes a mockery of America around the world through his corruption and plastering himself all over government building and money, but other than that they're doing a great job pretending to be pro-life (despite the war, murders, and rising abortion rates) and keeping trans women off swim teams, so ..."
My perhaps fantasied hope is that we don't need the 60 million. We just have to peel off enough flip-floppers and for enough of the rest stay home to grab congress.
Yes, we’d better hope that’s what happens, because I believe Jay is right that GOP voters aren’t going to vote for Dems in any significant numbers. However, I would go beyond Jay’s explanation—they support GOP policies—and say that for most of these voters, it’s less about policies and more about identity. The modern GOP identity is built around the belief that Dems are traitors that are hell-bent on destroying the country and must be opposed at all costs. This message is repeated on a daily basis by GOP-aligned media, and a lot of GOP voters have internalized it. It’s frankly absurd to think people who believe this are going to start voting for Dems because they’re mad about the price of gas. My hope for the upcoming elections is that (1) swing voters swing hard against the GOP over prices, (2) Dems turn out in large numbers, and (3) GOP who are unhappy about prices but aren’t about to vote for Dems stay home. And this is looking like an increasingly plausible scenario, fortunately.
For a long time, many of Trump’s supporters have been insulated from the effects of his predations and appointments. Some of that insulation is wearing thin in places. When rural hospitals close, people are hurt whether they voted for Trump or not; when truckers are paying more for fuel, they are hurting whether or not they voted for Trump. The litany is fairly obvious. The local cafe pays much more for coffee. The local diner pays much more for ground beef. The person in Congress stops showing up for town halls. Hating immigrants only goes so far when construction workers stop showing up and nobody comes to pick the fruit and the day care program is short of workers.
What the Democrats need to do is run candidates in every district who will show up and talk to people about community and what can be done to work together for some actual solutions, not battles for retribution and not screaming school yard insults at each other.
I have plans that are designed to make common cause between the liberals and at least those sixty million conservatives. It would punish not just this awful administration, but also the Congress that failed in their Constitutional duties to check the power of the Presidency, and the sham of a Supreme Court that they allowed into power, as long as my movement is capable of gaining enough momentum.
It's exactly as you say: "The world has awakened to the fact that America cannot be relied on as an ally, that it can too easily be ruled by a madman." Right now, America's reputation is in shreds.
I'll answer your quote with one of mine, from my launch article going out two weeks from today: "In any of these futures, America loses any remaining influence (other than military) over global politics. The United States will never be trusted by any other nation, because we will have shown ourselves to have no consistent national identity."
The only way that we can retake the global stage is if we find a heretofore-unknown unity and use it to force our government to reshape itself—if we can tell the world that the American people ourselves are the last-resort measure against a government that has gone off the rails. I'm trying to lead that charge, mainly because I haven't seen anyone else doing it yet.
I'm sure other people have done the same math I have and are coming up with their own plans to fix this, but I mean, my project has been six months in the making. I'm painfully aware that these things don't take shape overnight!
Right. What we need is a full reset of the game board. The Democrats in Congress bear just as much responsibility for the shape of things as the Republicans. The SCOTUS has become a joke. We need to reassert control of our country, and we need to do it while enough of our government still believes in the rule of law.
This is the best account I’ve come across summarizing Trump’s 2nd term corruption. It was written before the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was announced. (And while that’s now been withdrawn, apparently the no-future-IRS-audits provision for Trump, his family, and “related entities” for past tax returns is still in place.)
The only thing I take issue with in your piece Jay is your comment at the end of your CNN interview that something was “…beneath even Donald Trump.” There’s no bottom.
Oh there is literally some new abomination he does everyday that can go on the list. In keeping with the spirit of the article I will list the things that used to piss off conservatives:
Pardoning Chinese billionaires (binance)
Pardoning j6 who assaulted cops and caused worse vandalism than anything BLM ever did
Accepting a qatari jet and then keeping it
Running the debt to $40 trillion
Tariffs
Unnecessary vanity projects like the reflecting pool
Making the 250 anniversary a maga rally and not promoting "unity"
Golfing nearly every weekend including while soldiers were dying from the Iran war
Allowing 500,000 Chinese students to study in America
Establishing red lines and then TACO
Saying he literally doesn't care about affordability
Threatening tariffs to help Hollywood
Soviet style military parade
Sending in national guard troops to us cities over objections of the governors
Directing the DOJ to indict comey over a tweet
Interfering with the Netflix WB deal
Picking industry winners by paying off off shore wind to not build
Naming a battleship after himself
Creating a commerative dollar coin with his picture like a king
Driving up fertilizer prices for farmers
Hanging giant posters of himself all over the outside of federal buildings
Abandoning hurricane relief for red states
Pretty much everything sec noem did with the $250 million commercials
[Bonus, technically part of campaign]: used Arlington cemetery as a prop
I know your point, but boy the first half of this reads like an Onion article:
"I sympathize with conservatives, they're in a tough spot. I mean yes republicans in congress sit idly by as Trump tried to destroy one of the oldest democracies in the World, and started an unnecessary war we're now losing and they won't make any effort to stop and while he murders people in boats illegally, and destroys the economy through tariffs they're supposed to be in control of, and makes a mockery of America around the world through his corruption and plastering himself all over government building and money, but other than that they're doing a great job pretending to be pro-life (despite the war, murders, and rising abortion rates) and keeping trans women off swim teams, so ..."
My perhaps fantasied hope is that we don't need the 60 million. We just have to peel off enough flip-floppers and for enough of the rest stay home to grab congress.
Definitely true! And encouraging.
Yes, we’d better hope that’s what happens, because I believe Jay is right that GOP voters aren’t going to vote for Dems in any significant numbers. However, I would go beyond Jay’s explanation—they support GOP policies—and say that for most of these voters, it’s less about policies and more about identity. The modern GOP identity is built around the belief that Dems are traitors that are hell-bent on destroying the country and must be opposed at all costs. This message is repeated on a daily basis by GOP-aligned media, and a lot of GOP voters have internalized it. It’s frankly absurd to think people who believe this are going to start voting for Dems because they’re mad about the price of gas. My hope for the upcoming elections is that (1) swing voters swing hard against the GOP over prices, (2) Dems turn out in large numbers, and (3) GOP who are unhappy about prices but aren’t about to vote for Dems stay home. And this is looking like an increasingly plausible scenario, fortunately.
For a long time, many of Trump’s supporters have been insulated from the effects of his predations and appointments. Some of that insulation is wearing thin in places. When rural hospitals close, people are hurt whether they voted for Trump or not; when truckers are paying more for fuel, they are hurting whether or not they voted for Trump. The litany is fairly obvious. The local cafe pays much more for coffee. The local diner pays much more for ground beef. The person in Congress stops showing up for town halls. Hating immigrants only goes so far when construction workers stop showing up and nobody comes to pick the fruit and the day care program is short of workers.
What the Democrats need to do is run candidates in every district who will show up and talk to people about community and what can be done to work together for some actual solutions, not battles for retribution and not screaming school yard insults at each other.
I have plans that are designed to make common cause between the liberals and at least those sixty million conservatives. It would punish not just this awful administration, but also the Congress that failed in their Constitutional duties to check the power of the Presidency, and the sham of a Supreme Court that they allowed into power, as long as my movement is capable of gaining enough momentum.
It's exactly as you say: "The world has awakened to the fact that America cannot be relied on as an ally, that it can too easily be ruled by a madman." Right now, America's reputation is in shreds.
I'll answer your quote with one of mine, from my launch article going out two weeks from today: "In any of these futures, America loses any remaining influence (other than military) over global politics. The United States will never be trusted by any other nation, because we will have shown ourselves to have no consistent national identity."
The only way that we can retake the global stage is if we find a heretofore-unknown unity and use it to force our government to reshape itself—if we can tell the world that the American people ourselves are the last-resort measure against a government that has gone off the rails. I'm trying to lead that charge, mainly because I haven't seen anyone else doing it yet.
I'm sure other people have done the same math I have and are coming up with their own plans to fix this, but I mean, my project has been six months in the making. I'm painfully aware that these things don't take shape overnight!
Yet, I don't want communists like Mamduki and Bernie bringing our country down. We know it doesn't work.
Right. What we need is a full reset of the game board. The Democrats in Congress bear just as much responsibility for the shape of things as the Republicans. The SCOTUS has become a joke. We need to reassert control of our country, and we need to do it while enough of our government still believes in the rule of law.
https://www.readtangle.com/the-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-corruption-story/
This is the best account I’ve come across summarizing Trump’s 2nd term corruption. It was written before the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was announced. (And while that’s now been withdrawn, apparently the no-future-IRS-audits provision for Trump, his family, and “related entities” for past tax returns is still in place.)
The only thing I take issue with in your piece Jay is your comment at the end of your CNN interview that something was “…beneath even Donald Trump.” There’s no bottom.
Thanks for that! As you know, I love comprehensive lists of all the horribles and that is indeed the best I've seen. Brilliant/Awful.
Oh there is literally some new abomination he does everyday that can go on the list. In keeping with the spirit of the article I will list the things that used to piss off conservatives:
Pardoning Chinese billionaires (binance)
Pardoning j6 who assaulted cops and caused worse vandalism than anything BLM ever did
Accepting a qatari jet and then keeping it
Running the debt to $40 trillion
Tariffs
Unnecessary vanity projects like the reflecting pool
Making the 250 anniversary a maga rally and not promoting "unity"
Golfing nearly every weekend including while soldiers were dying from the Iran war
Allowing 500,000 Chinese students to study in America
Establishing red lines and then TACO
Saying he literally doesn't care about affordability
Threatening tariffs to help Hollywood
Soviet style military parade
Sending in national guard troops to us cities over objections of the governors
Directing the DOJ to indict comey over a tweet
Interfering with the Netflix WB deal
Picking industry winners by paying off off shore wind to not build
Naming a battleship after himself
Creating a commerative dollar coin with his picture like a king
Driving up fertilizer prices for farmers
Hanging giant posters of himself all over the outside of federal buildings
Abandoning hurricane relief for red states
Pretty much everything sec noem did with the $250 million commercials
[Bonus, technically part of campaign]: used Arlington cemetery as a prop
DOJ requesting voter rolls