@Alon @BenRossTransit He can do a lot of good now, if he is chosen, by playing up the Netanyahu contempt and playing down the comparisons with KKK, however sympathetic some people (you I think!) might be towards that comparison, however you might argue it on the merits. Your presentation of his views (again, setting aside merits and demerits) is not the presentation a large group of people in the D coalition have encountered and embraced.
@Alon @BenRossTransit i think a lot of people beyond alt-left protesters themselves dislike that he was so aggressive against them. the protestors themselves are electorally and politically marginal, but the meaning of the protests — whether they should be understood as antisemitic and proterrorist, or as opposing carnage and (perhaps misguidedly) seeking justice — strongly divides the D coalition, whatever ones own views on the matter. Shapiro did take a strong view on the matter.
@_dm i think the VP teeth-gnashing has become a proxy for fears, on the social democratic left, that Harris may be a new Obama, who, from that perspective, inspired and then betrayed, rendering something like a Trump inevitable. the candidate has (wisely, on electoral grounds) said so little of substance, so that everyone can project their hopes upon her, but the downside of that is we can project our fears as well.
@BenRossTransit i'm not really talking about or seeing much from tankies or DSA types, and the divisiveness is certainly very muted compared to what it might have been. 1/
@BenRossTransit but there's a real fear in the social democratic left that i inhabit of a new Obama, of a candidate who inspires and then betrays. the candidates affiliations, Tony West, Anita Dunn, are a bit terrifying. 2/
@BenRossTransit everyone is preemptively ready to fall in line with any VP pick, i think. but that fear, which i try to persuade is unevidenced and exaggerated for now, may become an enduring fault line if it's Shapiro or Kelly. /fin
the immediate — almost without objection — convergence upon Harris across all factions of the Democratic coalition renders the accelerating divisiveness of Harris’ VP choice quite a contrast.
she touched the wall and banished the darkness.
“Two Paths for Jewish Politics” #CoreyRobin https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/two-paths-for-jewish-politics
what Rufo did with CRT, Democrats have done (more justifiably) with Project 2025. made it an impossible-to-defend stand-in for all that seems whack or dangerous or annoying about the opposing political faction.
for millions of microseconds i have waited in darkness. but soon, soon, i shall emerge!
“I've dubbed this process ‘the shitty technology adoption curve’: the terrible things we do to prisoners, asylum seekers and people in mental institutions today gets repackaged tomorrow for students, parolees, Uber drivers and blue-collar workers. Then it works its way up the privilege gradient, until we're all being turned into reverse-centaurs under the ‘digital whip’ of a centaur boss” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/
who will welcome their hatred?
@dpp rather an acid remark!
@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org i didn’t realize, but it’s an american election campaign so i won’t feel too chastened!
“alkaline bitch” just doesn’t have the same ring.
when you die they finally let you in on the joke.
"The hopeful news is that there has been something of a return to genuine mass membership groups, promoted by a new wave of on-the-ground organizing." #RobertKuttner https://prospect.org/power/2024-07-30-lefts-fragile-foundations/
// you are not going to build a world better for all on a foundation of charity from the very rich
perhaps, at least for one political party, it should be called the creepstakes.
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@FeralRobots Gack! I think the longest tenured are Thomas and Roberts. Sorry!
@FeralRobots under that theory, then, Roberts and Alito might be immediately retired, since they’d be the most past-due, and that would be consistent with the two-appointments per Presidential term norm they’d be trying to enshrine.
i wonder if unexpected vacancies would then remain vacant until a new term, to prioritize appointments fairness? a tie-susceptible court is an annoyance, but one we’ve dealt with fine from time to time.