Boebert on Top

 

One of the primaries I was interested in this year was Lauren Boebert's primary in CO-4, having moved from CO-3 to get a better chance at keeping a seat. After all, her "theatrics" that got her kicked out of a musical last year weren't going to do her any favors, were they? 

What do you think? She beat out a field that included five others. 

This goes a long way to confirming my suspicion that Republicans want mascots, not serious people. Name recognition because of, not in spite of, her often childish and extreme behavior worked for, not against her. (And Twitter tells me a few people familiar with CO politics don't necessarily think there was a better candidate to get behind.) 

This is a GOP problem--it's just that when people get down to voting for literally anyone with an "R" after their name, well, they will, won't they? They can't get better candidates that way. But then again, they don't seem to want them. 

As Goes Ohio? Kansas? Arizona?

 

If Nikki Haley, who dropped out weeks ago, is pulling 20% in the GOP primary against Trump in Ohio--this is a worrisome thing for him. Here's what I'm thinking--it's well-educated and female voters who realize that Trump is an appalling person. Some of these people will end up voting for Biden. Some will stay home. But this is an issue that Trump actually CAN'T address. 

What do I mean by that? Take the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit. He counter-sued and lost, because what in the hell is the difference between assaulting someone digitally vs. with a penis? He's going back in against ABC and George Stephanopoulos because Nancy Mace kind of made him do it.  So we are now going to be talking about Trump's being a rapist and Trump INVITED it. 

We are going to go back to the Ukraine issue in the first impeachment because Trump invited that, too. We are going to se him condition Jewishness as it relates to Zionism, for a degree of Zionism that truly is anti-Palestinian. We are going to question what he REALLY wants done at the border because he stopped the border deal. We are going to question whether he understands foreign policy because after all--Russia is being expansionist, dare I say, imperialistic? And there's stupid tyrant fanboy Trump, wanting to be recognized by the Big Kids Dictator Club. 

Biden's Memory and Hur's

 

Memory is a motherfucker. That's something I picked up from Death and Other Details. But also from reality. Grief doesn't fix things into stone, like when you lost someone. You still have them, as a part of you, like a phantom limb, wearing their conversations in your mind. It can be a comfort and not a comfort all at once. You might know facts intellectually, but they don't exist in your lived reality. It's like two things, overlapping--what did happen, and what it feels like. 

Being human, being mortal, is weird. It just is. But the funny old thing is, Joe Biden is actually tracking quite well with reality. He has a lot of life experience. He can tell you about it in great detail. Damn near photographically. He also has had access to classified information and knows very well what to do and not to do with it. And his situation was not one damn thing like former President Trump's. There is no way to determine intentionality with what was retained by Biden, and some of what Hur looked at was diaries that were not a part of the PRA. Hur's characterization of Biden's memory was gratuitous and biased. 

The Nikki Haley Case

 

Trump says moderate Republicans are no longer welcome in the GOP: We are 100 percent MAGA now pic.twitter.com/Q2mvgGAR0x

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 3, 2024

Although Kristin Welker is in some ways, Chuck Todd but different, in addition to her idiotic claim this morning that Trump "allegedly" tried to overturn the 2020 election as if he didn't do it on live tv, she managed to tease out of Nikki Haley an admission of sorts that she might not support Trump for president despite the loyalty pledge the GOP imposed on its candidates. 

This is something I wanted to hear, not because I support Nikki Haley, but because I need to see Republicans walk away from Trump because our national security and national sanity depends on it. 

Trump said he didn't want Nikki Haley people to sign on to his campaign. They were "permanently barred." What is that supposed to mean? Is that like when Kari Lake said she didn't need the "McCain Republicans", lost her election, and then got so groveling she nearly begged Meghan McCain to not treat her like the dirt that she is? 

I feel like he gave her all the off ramp she needed to never do his business again. 

About Michigan

 

Just to get this out of my system even though everybody else has taken their swing at it--I can't help but note that if President Biden got about 80% in Michigan, and Donald Trump got 69%, then it translates to Biden having a better hold on his party. It just does. Biden's one competitor lost to literally "Nobody" and "Someone Who Dropped Out". Biden is overperforming polling and Trump is underperforming. 

A lot got made of the Democratic "Uncommitted" votes, and I've got one good thing and one bad thing to say about that. First, I get that 13% isn't far off from previous Michigan primaries, and you can't really tease out the extent to which this is a protest vote for the primary only, having no bearing on whether these voters will commit in the general election--that that's the good part. But on the other hand, the fact of an organized protest vote bothers me in ways even disingenuous or "op" candidates do but more so--

A "put-up" candidate can, in the flesh, be disappointing. A vote for an ideal, or what a voter has been convinced is a cause? That's different. Now, I think using voting this way is just absurd and nonstrategic, and if voters are being given the impression that voting for absolutely nothing is getting them their goals--as in, they think a ceasefire specifically will result from this sort of thing, yikes. 

TWGB: It Should Cost Him More

 

The news that the jury in Trump defamation trial of E. Jean Carroll came back fairly swiftly with a verdict in the amount of $83 million gave me a sense of deja vu--it hadn't taken that long for a jury to decide the first defamation case in Ms. Carroll's favor, either. Now, our scandal-ridden former president owes her nearly $90 million. His not-especially good lawyer, Alina Habba, says they will appeal.

I don't think they should. I think they are the most unappealing bunch imaginable. 

Maybe delay has been a key strategy of Trump's with respect to his legal woes during an exceptionally legally contentious life, but this is wearing thin and is bound to have diminishing returns. Can he put up the bond for the amount of his judgments? Is he as liquid as he said he was (considering he's got the likely 9-figure judgment in his NY civil trial coming up)? And isn't he just bringing more and more attention to his miserable behavior?

As I've long covered here, his behavior doesn't diminish him in the eyes of the true MAGA believer. They can dismiss that Trump is a life-long sex pest because the real problem they have is with someone pointing it out. Take Elise Stefaniak or Nancy Mace--they don't care. And maybe TrumpWorld doesn't bat an eyelash that Trump's defenders include Matt Schlapp and Rudy Giuliani*--both under scrutiny for sexual misconduct. 

Does Dean Phillips Have a Path?

 

Andrew Yang tantalizes us with this question: Does Dean Phillips have a path to the Democratic nomination?  The answer is something like, Dean Phillips plays hockey and will feel familiar to people in Michigan. I don't know what that has to do with politics. Andrew Yang doesn't know what that has to do with politics. Andrew Yang doesn't get politics, and I don't think Dean Phillips does either. Dean Phillips is carbon-based and bilaterally symmetrical. It feels familiar. Is that something? 

Being 51 years old doesn't qualify you for president. I mean, it's older than the requirement to be at least 35 years of age. I'm 51. Dean Phillips, Andrew Yang, Nikki Haley, Beto O'Rourke, and all the members of Green Day are around the same age. So's Elon Musk. The idea that politics is about demographics and branding feels really business school and dumb. So are the packaging ideas:  I do a sport, so I'm relatable. I wear a vest. I have a haircut. I look presidential. 

The lesson of New Hampshire should be--Dean Phillips doesn't have a path, because there were no delegates to be awarded there but 1) $5 million got spent on him and 2) a mostly grassroots write-in campaign said "drop out Dean" and he got hammered and he isn't dropping out. Clue-having he isn't.

Trump Is Enjoying His Primary Win in a Normal Way

Trump: You can’t let people get away with bullshit. And when I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy pic.twitter.com/OFvJwbNLq2

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 24, 2024

Was it a little too close? I think it's funny that Trump had to trash, of all things, Nikki Haley's clothes. MEOW! How catty! He also threatened her a little bit, saying:  

Addressing a crowded hotel ballroom in Nashua, he gave Haley a dark warning: “Just a little note to Nikki. She’s not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes, and I could tell you five reasons why already.

“Not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, that she will be under investigation within minutes, and so would Ron [DeSantis] have been, but he decided to get out.”

"By those people"--hm? And he could tell you five reasons why! Is he saying he has some dirt on his former UN Ambassador that just might get loose? The skulking little extortionist, Trump!  He's clearly a bit bothered, don't you think?

For her part, she says she's staying in until Super Tuesday, which means going through a likely more depressing loss in her home state of South Carolina--but I think I can see why she's taking the gamble. Trump isn't inevitable, and he might even know it. He's showing clear signs of accelerating wear, and who will be left?  He's threatening her, when like an out-of-control manbaby he can't seem to stop going on rants about E. Jean Carroll--in the midst of his defamation trial? The man is a demented liar!

The trick is--after depicting him as demented liar (which was, let's be honest, always a fair description of Trump), coming back around to endorse him in the event he keeps winning without a major blow-up will be...fraught. 

In other news, President Biden won NH via write-in vote and didn't campaign there at all, at all. 

Nikki Haley and the Senile Racist

 

I was honestly just going to post about the weirdness of trying to pretend this is a not-racist country when one's former boss calls you out as "Nimrada" (is that an upgrade from "birdbrain"?) and for a second act, practices birtherism against you. She knows exactly what's up--he wants to disqualify her because of her race and gender because he's legit scared she actually is capable of challenging him. In fact, maybe her race and gender make him more afraid, because it challenges his entire world view. 

(Does that worldview, that by now so many on the right wing of the aisle have signed onto, have a name? Might it rhyme with "face-ism"--which is the thing of when other folks' faces just make you want to start a whole political movement against them? Is it just a "complexion problem" or something worse?)

He upgraded his play on her name to "Nimbra". It's not hard to see he avoided a nickname that ended in a hard "r". It could have easily been "Nimber". Just as with "Ron DeSanctimonious", he's losing his edge. He could have just called Ron, "Nose-Picker." He always seems to be digging in his faceholes. 

But just a minute ago, he forgot who his Ambassador to the UN and current primary opponent was and accused her of being the head of security during 1/6--the usual target for that still-wrong claim is Nancy Pelosi. He mixed up his Nancy Pelosi grievance for the new female threat to his supremacy?  Honestly, Haley should be flattered by the comparison, but I don't think it's that, any more than it's a metaphor of any kind when Trump mixes up Biden and Obama. 

You Really Can't Fake Smart

At the rape defamation trial today, Alina Habba demonstrated that you can't fake smart in front of actually smart people. This isn't to say that she's dumb, but she was just not ready for this trial. Now, maybe recently departed counsel Tacopina was supposed to take point on this and looking the whole thing over, realized there wasn't a great case when there was nothing left to do but try to mitigate harm to the client, and Trump insisted on showing his ass up and not being remotely helpful, but I think she is trying to help create the illusion of Trump as the victim here in a way that isn't especially sympathetic. 

The argument that the plaintiff is just a fame whore who wanted this attention might be what Trump wants to convey, but the "she wanted this" part is...fraught with the idea that she, as a victim of sexual assault, wanted something from her attacker. 

Juries sometimes surprise, though. I find the argument appalling, but then again, I'm a feminist with a real problem with rape culture. And yet, it is all around us. 

This is one of those moments where the idea that Trump makes good choices or picks the best people wears thin, though. He talked to no one in particular during the trial (where he is not compelled to attend, which is why he has no especial need to be there if he has a funeral or any other pressing matter to attend to) and was advised by the judge that he could be tossed from the proceedings because he couldn't control himself. 

I like Talenti Gelato, I guess?

As U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips launches a Democratic primary challenge against President Biden, Black political experts warn it will be a distraction they fear could hand Donald Trump the White House for another four years.

Read More 👇🏿https://t.co/lpMaGgHz3v

— theGrio.com (@theGrio) October 30, 2023

The first thing I ever heard about Dean Phillips at all was that he was challenging our current president right here, right now, when foreign policy (Biden's wheelhouse) is crucial and the argument this dude is bringing is: Biden is old and I'm chronologically younger. 

My Democratic bona fides are impeccable and I'm even younger than Dean Phillips. I don't look like someone ordered David Duchovny from Wish. I also too, have had jobs that don't have a thing to do with electoral politics--except I have twenty-five years of civil service. I sort of qualify too for running for president? (Hell naw! Let's don't be ridiculous about what it takes! You have to get set apart and be at least a little famous and capable of 1) raising money and 2) getting elected )

I like some of what Dean Phillips has done--he's not a bad guy, I just don't know what he thinks he's doing now since it isn't necessary, and I don't think there's a really great call for it. I know what Steve Schmidt thinks he's doing--making bank.  He likes the sound of his own voice once he gets jumped-up enough, and here's his thing:

He thinks Biden ish but younger takes away the argument that Biden is old. Whev. I think the fun thing to fuck around with is Trump is old and out of his fucking mind. Doesn't know where he is and is legally fucked round the bend anyways. We don't need a better man to beat Trump--we just need every outlet to get more scrupulous about who Trump really is. 

So, I don't care for this Dean Phillips thing. But I do have an out-sized craving for gelato. 

That opinion isn't really a money-maker. But I would rather eat gelato and stand with Biden than try some other guy just because we got all wobbly about the age thing. And I say that with the likelihood of earning nothing from it at all.