Marian and I were watching a program on Amazon Prime during dinner when it suddenly froze. When the show started back up the sound was muted and nothing seemed to fix it. So I gave up and shut it off.
When the TV returned to cable it was broadcasting the Republican National Convention. The headline speaker was Teamsters president Sean O'Brien and I felt like I'd been catapulted into a mirror universe.
He started out with the obligatory shout out to Donald Trump as a great human being, which I suppose is the price of entry. Then he switched to a fairly conventional union leader speech—but with subtle changes. The enemies he named were "elites" and "the media," not just big business, and that got the crowd cheering.
Fine. But then he took direct aim at big corporations. They cheat and prevent workers from organizing. Big cheers. Amazon refuses to negotiate. Big cheers. We need to do away with right-to-work. Big cheers. The Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce are the enemy. Big cheers. Unions are the only organizations that protect ordinary workers. Big cheers.
And I'm sitting there wondering: do these people on the convention floor know that they're Republicans? Because this is all stuff that Republicans have fought tooth and nail for decades. Organized labor is bad. The Chamber of Commerce is good. Freedom from union bosses is part of the Ten Commandments. As for right-to-work, Republicans wouldn't support a union shop if Jesus descended from heaven and ordered them to.
But no matter. They cheered for everything O'Brien said anyway. It was eerie. Do Republicans in the era of Trump even have any idea what they supposedly stand for?
No. They leave the "thinking" to their leader. if somebody praises him, they must be a friend.
A union leader speaking at the convention of an anti union party supporting an anti union candidate is as close to a twilight zone episode as you can get.
it's the teamsters.
their racism beats their solidarity.
I know this all too well. Racism isn't the only bias of many of my fellow teamsters. Not sure who is playing who here but I can guarantee union members are going to be the ones to suffer. Many of them are so wrapped up in they're own hate to think clearly.
These people have no idea what is being said. They’re just deliriously celebrating the prospect of another four years of straight white male “Christian” supremacy.
the hardhat riot piece.
"Republicans in the era of Trump" think today exactly what Trump thinks today and tomorrow will think exactly what Trump thinks tomorrow. It really is Brave New World, only without the automated creches. Unfortunately, the folks cheering for Dear Leader are all destined to be Deltas and Epsilons; they just don't know it yet.
We don’t have soothing soma everywhere yet. The country probably wouldn’t have a gun violence problem if the entire populace was on calming drugs daily.
Honestly this would not be the worst-case scenario at this point.
They don't think, they just take the words at face value, regardless of how much information to the contrary exists all around them: "Trump/someone who supports Trump said it so it is true."
I watched it on CNN. Their coverage was so completely in the tank for Trump I had to check and make sure I hadn’t tuned in to FOX by accident. They were pretty much anointing Trump as the new Messiah. Plus acting like Democrats didn’t stand a chance against this New Improved Trump who even democrats were flocking to in droves. You would think he already won the election.
@ iamr4man
Regarding this:
"Plus acting like Democrats didn’t stand a chance against this New Improved Trump who even democrats were flocking to in droves. You would think he already won the election."
The anti-Biden bias in the media has been building up since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and whatever dam was still maintaining even a semblance of restraint was utterly nuked by the first debate. At this point, the absolute mania to denounce, discredit, or in some way destroy the incumbent president is like nothing I have ever seen (and it eclipses the anti-trump sentiment of 2020 by lightyears).
"Elite" opinion simply no longer allows any "intelligent" people to continue supporting Biden. Even Kevin Drum has fallen victim to the hysterical groupthink demanding that the most successful president of the 21st century should step aside or - even more ridiculous - resign immediately.
Other people who I previously thought of as intelligent have completely discredited themselves in my view. Here's Matt Yglesias throwing a genuinely childish tantrum on Twitter after Biden refused to step aside:
"I think it’s unfortunate that Joe Biden has chosen to throw the election; but I’m leaning toward agreement that we may as well stop fighting that outcome at this point and just try to win House races."
My God what a maroon.
But there are others who haven't just discredited themselves; they have genuinely lost their mind. Here's an excerpt from the latest Weekly Dish newsletter by Andrew Sullivan:
"Two weeks ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign is over. It still is. The attempt these last two weeks to insist that the parrot is not, in fact, dead is Monty Python material ... So let us remind ourselves. The Biden campaign is no more; it has ceased to be; it is bereft of life; it has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed its last."
Meanwhile, back in reality, this is what the 538 website says:
“Biden wins 51 times out of 100 in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election. Trump wins 48 times out of 100.”
Biden, obviously, is not a guaranteed winner. But historical precedent indicates that an incumbent president with a booming economy, historically low unemployment, no major scandals in his administration (unless you consider age itself to be a scandal - but I don't), rising wages, a skyrocketing stock market, and no unpopular foreign entanglements is favored to win.
You could swap out Biden with a watermelon, and in this scenario I just described the watermelon would still have an excellent shot at victory.
So the hyperbole of elite opinion is beyond odd. I personally have never felt so completely at odds with "opinion makers" (including Kevin Drum) in my life.
And, yes, as you indicate, all the people "in the know" act like Trump already won the election because that is what they are more or less required to think at this point. Fortunately, however, voters can still think whatever they want.
Meanwhile, back in reality, this is what the 538 website says: “Biden wins 51 times out of 100 in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election. Trump wins 48 times out of 100.”
Meanwhile, back in actual reality, here's what Nate Silver says:
https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-democrats-should-do-next
It's not just Matthew Yglesias and Kevin Drum. It's also Paul Krugman ("Mr President, Do The Right Thing") Is he, too, discredited in your view?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/opinion/biden-trump.html
Nancy Pelosi is supposedly working the phones daily to ease Joe out. So is Hakeem Jeffries. And most Democrats want a ticket change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/11/poll-biden-drop-out-election/
In other words, you're in the minority for not wanting a different, more competitive ticket. Which is fine. You're entitled to your views! But it's not a good look to pretend that everyone else is nuts and you're the voice of clear-eyed reason. Calmly state your case, and spare the invective. We all just want to beat Trump, but have different views as to the best way to go about doing so.
By the way: WaPo's polling average shows Donald Trump leading in six of seven swing states (with zero leads for Biden: he's tied in Wisconsin). If you don't like them, look at CNN. Or RCP. They all say the same thing. But you cite a single polls that has a very pro-Biden model. Funny, that.
(And believe me, I would love it if 538 were right, because it's anybody's guess as to whether the effort to assemble a more competitive ticket will prevail. But it seems a bit risky to pin our hopes on the most Biden-friendly poll being right, and everyone else being wrong!)
The number of people who think "being down from two to five in July is justification to launch a bloody intra-party civil war to force out the nominee" is absurd.
There is.a difference between working to get / wanting Biden to step down and being completely defeatist like Matt Y.
Dems are such bed-wetting cowards.
And yeah: look at the models in 2016 for Trump's chances.
"grab 'em by the ..."
Except there's no open quotes from Pelosi.
It's 'behind the scenes'.
None of these people have a plan, and neither do you.
We have an administration, a ticket, and a constitutional method for replacing Biden should he fall.
The behavior on this (and similar) web sites really makes it clear just how Dem Politics has become essentially a religious exercise.
Utterly impervious to facts and reason, and certain that the way to win in 2024 is to scream at and demonize even more aggressively anyone who refuses to go along with the groupthink.
No longer interested in even the slightest reality of what the Republicans are proposing and why it might be appealing; no it's all just "fascism is nigh, Hitler has been reborn, the Handmaid's Tale is about to become reality".
It used to be the case that one could debate tactics and interpretations of US politics on a site like this. No longer. If you're unwilling to concede the "Progressive" stance 100% then you're doubleplus ungood.
Like I said the US far left has one, and only one, competence: being able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in election after election. Because they would FAR RATHER fight with people (anyone, everyone, people on their own side, people mostly sympathetic to their goals) than ever admit the slightest nuance, or the slightest concession.
If Biden does not graciously step out of the race in the near future (2 weeks ?) then he's probably not going to and I will get behind him 100% but that does not change the fact that I feel he should. I don't feel he should because he has been a bad President because I think he's been a remarkably good one. I feel he should step aside because I think that's the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump. People keep fixating on whether or not Biden lost a couple points in the polls since the debate. That's the wrong way to view this. Biden has been a very successful President. The only attacks the GOP can make are either easily debunked lies about the economy and the world around us (Crime is horrible !!!) AND Joe Biden looks, sounds, and indeed is old and frail and losing more than a step. If Biden were even as robust as he was in 2020 he'd be ahead in all the polls. His record is fine. The Democrats can win on that but I fear not with him on the ticket.
His record is excellent, but the lies about are emphatically not easily debunked. People persist in thinking the economy is bad and immigrants are taking all our jobs, despite record-low unemployment. They believe Trump would make the country more secure, despite his having rattled NATO allies and cozied up to Putin, while Biden has strengthened the alliance and united it against Putin’s imperialist war. They believe that TFG would manage the economy better, despite his favorite policy, tariff increases, would re-ignite inflation. These false beliefs won’t change just because Democrats change the nominee.
"Nancy Pelosi is supposedly working the phones..."
That supposedly is doing a lot of work.
538 is no longer using the predictive model that made them famous (and credible). That model is the IP of Nate Silver, and Nate left and took it with him.
At the moment, Nate's model puts Trump with a 72% chance to win.
Now, 72 is not 100. A Biden win is still possible. But stop pretending we're not in a hole here. Absent something else shaking up the race, we are praying for a systemic polling error in our favor, and those errors can cut both ways... and so can things that shake up the race.
so, biden has roughly the same odds of winning as trump did versus clinton in nate's model.
Correct. Basically 2:1 against him.
Of course he’s going to struggle to campaign effectively. He completely lost his straight thought was silent for multiple seconds during his Lester Holt interview. He is not going to be a great messenger for his own campaign.
Yes. And Trump was a lousy bet for Republicans in 2016. It happened to pay off -- just barely, by the skin of their teeth, and with the help of James Comey's October surprise -- but that doesn't mean it was a smart bet. Any other Republican would likely have won a solid victory against Clinton.
It's like I said: 72 is not 100. It is possible for Biden to win. But it's a lousy bet given the information available to us right now.
"we are praying for a systemic polling error in our favor"
There has been one for the last several elections. Since Trump won in 2016 polling has consistently said Republicans would do much better in elections then they actually have, yet too many supposedly smart people like Kevin, Krugman, Yglesias (funny how most of them seem to be pundits whose relevance hinges on clicks), are the ones treating the polls as the words of some never wrong prophet.
I'mma going to need a citation on that secrete sauce there.
Secrete sauce is like clam spunk with basil.
What do you mean by "secrete sauce?"
If you mean the statement that Nate Silver left 538 and took his model with him, here you go:
https://www.natesilver.net/p/some-personal-news
"Much of FiveThirtyEight’s vital intellectual property — such as the election forecast models — is merely licensed to Disney. The license term for these models expires with my contract this summer. I still own these models, and can license or sell them elsewhere."
(Note that this was from May of 2023, so when he says "this summer" he's talking about last summer.)
For the election forecast, it's on the same site behind Silver's paywall, which is $10/month.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model
If you mean the actual differences between Silver's model and what 538 is using now, he goes into some detail on that here (also paywalled):
https://www.natesilver.net/p/sbsq-10-everything-you-always-wanted
CNN gave trump so much free coverage during the runup to the 2016 election- just showing his rants uninterrupted by fact-checkd or editorializing- that it's a source I continue to mistrust, no matter how many times top management is changed.
The herd instinct prevails.
The MSM in general and CNN in particular has, from what I’ve seen recently, completely bought in to the “Trump is a changed man and ready to unify the country” theory. They were gushing over him like an infatuated teenager. It was disgusting and scary at the same time. When they spoke of Democrats it was with disdain. How blacks and other minorities are working people and are jumping on the Trump train because he speaks to them and is (somehow) one of them.
Democrats, meanwhile are acting like losers. When you act like a loser you will lose. When it happens there will be a lot of finger pointing but it won’t matter. Our country will join the rest of the world’s autocracies and our liberal democracy will die.
The only way a psychotic like Trump can change is for the worse. He's completely locked in to who he is and what he's all about.
The media, across the board, love TFG for what he does for their bottom lines. The ‘today Trump became truly Presidential’ theme is their dream of being able to assuage their guilt about putting profit above responsible journalism.
They're a habituated TV-watching studio audience. They're responding as a crowd, and half of them are either partway sloshed or oxygen-deprived, down there on a packed floor. When a speaker's cadence and timing signal the obvious applause lines, they applaud and cheer.
They're responding to the packaging, not the contents. Don't expect them to tell you in a day or two what they were cheering for.
By coincidence though I was just reading that Vance has said he's all for collective bargaining. Is this a trend? Or should I be cynical and instead point to Biden's positioning as a pro-union man, the first president who's actually been with a picket line? And conclude it's the Rovian tactic, attacking the opponent's strength, and otherwise mostly just fog to confuse the media into headlining the umpteenth "new direction" trump is embarking on?
Don't expect them to tell you in a hour or two what they were cheering for. Most people today don’t listen to anything deep enough to stick in their brains.
People who have bee convinced that bone-spur trump is a patriot because they are more impressed by the number of flags surrounding him than how he has treated our Uniformed Services personnel - both the "quick and the dead," the injured, and their survivors - amaze me. There have to be quite a few veterans who don't see him aa J.D. Vance does.
They can cheer for whatever they want, but we know the story about the frog and the scorpion.
Also worth noting, having been around numerous web news sites now, I've seen hardly any coverage of what MTG said as one f the early speakers on-stage (this comes from Deadline, doing better work apparently than most other outlets):
“For far too long, the establishment in Washington has sold us out,” Greene said. “They promised unity and delivered division. They promised peace and brought war. They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday,” Greene said. Then she added, “And let me state this clearly, there are only two genders. And we are made in God’s image. Amen.”
She then blasted Democrats, saying then “ripped open our borders and allowed millions of illegal aliens to pour in, driving up the cost of housing and health care while slashing American wages and eliminating jobs….The Democrats’ economy is of, by and for illegal aliens.”
She also chided Democrats for spending “over $175 million, of your tax dollars, to secure Ukraine’s borders, but they tell us the border wall is too expensive?”
CNN carried Greene’s speech; MSNBC and Fox News did not.
is marjo saying that god is intersex?
It’s an accomplishment to make FDR and Reagan roll over in the grave simultaneously
It's the Spock with a beard universe.
They'll be for whatever Trump tells them they should be today. if tomorrow he tells them the opposite they'll switch stance as if that had always been their own. If one day Trump comes out and tells them breathing is all a liberal hoax, the entire cult will happily hold their breath until they all pass out.
Similarly, Eastasia has always been our enemy, except now the history books claim Eurasia has always been our enemy.
The Trumpublicans have pretended to care about things they don't care about for decades.
It isn't even a new scam for them to pretend to have the working man's back. At most they're testing the waters on how dishonest they can be about it; they have learned from Dumpster that there are unplumbed depths of passable (to some people) dishonesty that they have left unexplored.
i always loved how right-to-work never covers non-competes
so it's more like 'right-to-work when our corporate donors say you can'
it's also funny for teamster sean to say this in wisconsin, where the proto-maga tea party came alive when scott walker & republicans in the state legi crammed act 10 down our throats.
It does when Biden got involved in regulations.
And non-competes aren't okay is California, either.
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trump is now in the 'say anything to get elected' mode since it's the only thing that will keep him out of jail
a half dozen plausible lies will get him an additional 3% at the polls
I'm not surprised. Big business is "woke." They love unions as long as it's the image of a middle-aged white guy without a college degree or a cop.
I used to work with a very conservative woman. She thought every union was full of lazy bums who got paid to do nothing...except the guys working in her husband's unionized workplace. They were uniquely hard-working and underpaid. The real kicker is that he worked for government! (Transit)
I'm sure Trump can manage a few visits to factories. The media will love it. No one in his administration will actually do anything to support unions (beyond making it harder to prosecute cops who commit crimes, of course).
The average voter will have no clue anyway. What average person pays attention to what the NLRB does? Or knows who voted for right-to-work laws?
>> She thought every union was full of lazy bums who got paid to do nothing...except the guys working in her husband's unionized workplace.<<
I worked in a California government agency. You’d be surprised at the large number of state employees who are Republicans and think like that woman. Government employees are lazy and paid to do nothing except for our office where everyone is overworked and underpaid.
reuters:
Billionaire Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month to a new pro-Trump super political-action committee
i was thinking about the news reports that Crooks was a registered republican but gave a few bucks to actblue
the timing of the donation seems odd since it was made when biden was inaugurated, well after the election cycle was over
i'm thinking this kid might have been a conservative who was repulsed by the jan 6th bullshit and became a 'never trumper'
the actblue donation turned out to be another guy. same name, but different person.
That actually confirmed by anybody?
This isn't true at all. It's been debunked so many times.
snopes says it was the shooter
The full address associated with the donation appears within a February 2021 FEC document (page 189,746) listing all of Act Blue's donations during the previous month. That street address and ZIP code match the home of the shooter, according to a public records search and photos of police searching the home.
Considering that address match, and the fact that the location on the in-question FEC filing does not exist in Pittsburgh, evidence favors the conclusion that the shooter made the donation — not someone else with the same name.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-shooter-donation/
The fact that a registered Republican is the reason we get four more years of Trump is pretty ironic. Thankfully though. The hatred on the right for the other is pretty high already.
It’s entirely possible to donate in someone else’s name, address, etc. Given that the amount was so low, it’s also believable something like this could’ve happened. For example, after an abortion argument with my Catholic uncle, my cousins (his daughters) gave money to planned parenthood in his name, to embarrass him and get him on their mailing lists. It’s not totally unheard of, especially in easily affordable amounts, and it’s a great way to make sure they’re inundated with junk mail and solicitation phone calls for issues they absolutely hate.
Never mind the donation or being a registered Republican. The guy was a gun nut active in the gun community. That crowd is a hard core conservative (a claim also made by people who knew him). Him being batshit crazy also tracks with being a conservative.
Trump was shot by one of his own.
And the fact that he had just purchased 500 rounds of ammunition the morning of the rally seems to indicate that he planned more thsn an assassination.
He'll be labeled a never Trumper. Trumps comments about people exercising their 2nd amendment rights in regards to politics will be forgotten or ignored.
Republicans used to be an uneasy alliance of big business with the white working class. They served up cultural conservatism for the voters and economic conservatism for the donors.
This worked for a while, but Republican voters got increasingly unhappy as the economy turned more and more against them. Then Trump came along. Trump gives zero fucks about policy; he says whatever gets the biggest cheers at his rallies. Suddenly Republican voters had a candidate who was speaking to them on both axes, cultural and economic. In retrospect, it's not surprising they flocked to him. Republican rhetoric followed his lead.
Trump's first term was a mix of conventional corporate Republican policy (tax cuts for the rich) and Trumpian populism (tariffs and trade wars). It wasn't coherent, but it coincided with an economic boom that had been building for years, and that served as proof to his supporters that he was delivering on his promises. This was bolstered by generous government aid during COVID, where Trumpian populism and conventional liberalism joined forces.
The effect of all this has been to a) bolster Republicans with their voters and b) weaken them with big business. Increasingly we have seen the business elite edging toward Democrats in recent years, and party rhetoric is adapting on both sides. So now Republicans are touting unions, and cultural concerns (which don't threaten profits) are getting a big boost in Democratic discourse over economic concerns (which do).
Does this mean a second Trump administration will be fully pro-union and pro-worker? Unlikely. It takes a while for policy to catch up to rhetoric. But, sooner or later, it does. People are drawn to a party by its rhetoric, and when those people climb the ladder into power, they implement policy to match. The Republican Party is going to look very different in twenty years.
None of which means we should be okay with a Trump restoration *this* year. Economics are all very well, but Trump's assault on democracy and the rule of law is a whole other matter.
if trump is returned to the white house this year, donald, jr., or barron will be president in 20 years, as head of the partido republicano institucional.
No, it doesn't. Republicans have been speaking about freedom while bringing tyranny for longer than I've been alive.
Don't know how long you've been alive, but I was born in the Eisenhower (Republican) administration. He wasn't the most enlightened American president, but to say he was bringing tyranny is simply a lie.
That's a long time ago. Further from the start of Kevin's blogging career than the start of Kevin's blogging career is from today.
Freedom for me, not for thee.
He's pandering to unions. The fact that the leader of the teamsters went along with it is sickening. Trump is as much against unions as is the average Republican politician. Not sure what game O'Brien is playing but he's foolish to underestimate Trump.
I sometimes see references to Haidt saying years ago he’d done a study that showed conservatives could predict how liberals would react better than the other way around. Conservatives don’t know what conservatives believe, how the hell am I supposed to?
Starting with Ronald Reagan, the Republican party became the party of tax cuts for the wealthy, but it obviously can’t win with just the votes of people in the top one percent. So it falls somewhere between
1) A coalition party which supports cutting taxes and other interests, and
2) A grifter organization which promises voters whatever will get the votes, and then ignores those promises and votes to cut taxes on the rich.
Currently, the Republican party is trying to appeal to white working class voters. If Trump wins, we will see how much he actually does for those voters.
How much did he do for working class voters when he was in office? Why would you expect it to be different?
Bupkis except bigotry, of course.
& ultimately he didn't hurt the people he needed to be hurting while the people who wanted him to hurt those people got hurt themselves.
That’s a good point. Also, I looked at Project 2025, and while I don’t understand all of the intricacies of labor law, it doesn’t seem particularly friendly towards unions. It opposes “card check,” which is something unions have been pushing for for years. It proposes eliminating the “contract bar rule,” so that union decertification votes can be held at any time. It is truly hostile to public sector unions, and says that Congress should consider banning them.
Republicans believe in bullshit. I don't mean that Republicans believe things that aren't true. They believe in bullshit as a way of life.
A unionist wants to advocate for an anti-union president? That's catnip to the Republican rank-and-file.
"Do Republicans in the era of Trump even have any idea what they supposedly stand for?"
Winning. They'll sort out the details later. Or let Trump and his people do it. My impression is they see themselves more like a community than like an interest group.
It continues to be disheartening to see an unthinking mob responding enthusiastically while getting a speech from someone they would normally attack with baseball bats. I have to wonder, though, what Sean O'Brien was promised other than an opportunity to speak. Did Chris LaCivita threaten his family?
Obviously, the Republicans are trying to cut into Biden's labor support, but I think the Democrats can easily counter with visual facts about who really supports workers as long as there's money for the ad time.
The biggest thing to remember is that authoritarians want us to shut up and accept our fate even though they know we outnumber them. They can't win otherwise.
I'm not shutting up and I'm not giving up. And the weenies that are worried about Biden need to get over it and support him.
Conversation between two delegates leaving convention:
"Hey, George. I'm a little fuzzy on what went on, but were we cheering an end to right-to-work laws?"
"I think so."
"But we love right-to-work laws!"
"I know. I don't know what got into us."
"And what's with the 'down with corporate fat cats?"
"Did we say that?"
"Pretty sure."
"But WE'RE corporate fat cats!"
"I know!"
"Only one explanation. The deep state put something in the water."
[nods head]
One wonders what the Heritage staffers thought ab out the union leader's speech and the response to it...
BTW I thought this thread was about the bizarre spectacle of a union leader giving a speech to a GOP crowd....
I think this is in the category of you can fool some of the people all of the time.
this guy is whistling past the graveyard. the Chevron decision is going to decimate collective bargaining in America for decades. OSHA and other government regulatory bodies will be gutted.
MEOOOOOW!!! The Republicans just don't get it. They are being lead by a whore monger off the cliff to HELL.Something wicked this way comes..an something is getting closer.!! Kitties know.
"do these people on the convention floor know that they're Republicans"
Uh, Kevin, and what do we conclude from this?
I have tried to point out for YEARS on this website that the Republican party of today is not the Republican party of 20 years ago. The issue is not whether this is "good" or "bad"; the starting point for any intelligent discussion of US politics is simply to appreciate that this IS.
Romney/Ryan was the "elite" of the Republicans giving the Tea Party what they thought they thought the base wanted. (Or perhaps what they thought they could compel the base to want.) It didn't work, and now the Tea Party has what it (thinks it) really wants.
Parties have changed before! Was the Democratic Party of Carter the Democratic Party of Robert Byrd?
There is a grand reconfiguration of the parties already in place; the only people who can't see it are people so "smart" that they know everything about the past and *nothing* about the future.
Now, if you're capable of actually thinking independently rather than as a zombie repeating the slogans and hysteria of the 2000 campaign, ponder the meaning of why Vance was chosen as VP pick... Once again there's a structure that's part of this reconfiguration of the parties.
If you are trying to make a case that the GOP is becoming the party of the working class, point to deeds, not words. I can point to opposition to minimum-wage increases, easing child-labor restrictions, opposing any regulation by OSHA, relaxing wage and hour rules, and more. All they have done is appeal to the white working class on culture-war issues, and fictitious anti-white discrimination.
America is the richest country on earth, by far, and this includes its working people. The miseries of the underclass in America, even more so than in other countries, are almost totally not caused by lack of money or lack of opportunity, they are caused by cultural pathologies.
If you accept this diagnosis (and yes, I am well aware that you probably don't, but large numbers of people do, including at least some members of these various underclasses) then the most important thing that can be done to help America's underclass is to tamp down these cultural pathologies as much as possible, rather than encouraging, enabling, and exacerbating them. The party that does this, as best it can, is the best party for the underclass in the US, regardless of the issues you raise.
For an example of the sort of point I am making, from
https://mattlakeman.org/2020/01/22/hill-billy-elegy-the-culture-of-white-american-poverty/
"
Vance consistently stresses that by raw material standards, nobody in Middletown was doing that badly. Yet they were miserable, depressed, addicted, and hopeless anyway.
For instance, when Mom was with her first husband, the toothless hillbilly guy, they could be considered solidly middle-class. Mom was a nurse, her husband was a truck driver, and together they made over $100K per year with two kids in a low-cost-of-living region of America.
And yet financial problems were always one of the biggest triggers of family screaming matches. They were deeply in debt because both Mom and the husband bought multiple new cars per year, they ate out every day instead of cooking, and they purchased a below-ground swimming pool. The house was already mortgaged, but was falling into disrepair due to lack of upkeep, while they repeatedly crashed new cars, and burned through meager savings with credit card fees.
"
And yes, you can argue that this is the result of "capitalism" or (a somewhat smarter, IMHO, analysis) "technology". Either way it's the world we have, with real problems that are no longer the problems and issues of the 1990s. That's my *point* about realigned parties.
Interesting. I’m curious how you see a government role in situations like the one you describe.
Attempted assassination lowers Trump's lead in polls,
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-polling-shooting/
Biden within one point, with a two point margin of error.
Trump has a demonstrably hard ceiling that he will never breach. Biden has plenty of space to move up.
biden has responded to the situation professionally & empathically.
he's also the only major party candidate who called the family of the dead firefighter. (she rejected the call, because "fuck joe brandon"; her husband wouldn't have wanted her to talk to our supposed president.)
That illustrates well how MAGA aren't really part of society, while claiming no one else is part of their society.