Honestly, Nate Silver has a point. It’s not that DeSantis deserves the kid-gloves treatment, but the criticisms have become so reflexive and high-pitched that naturally, sometimes they are bound to be overwrought. If you crank the drama factor up to 11 every time, then any time DeSantis deserves only a level-7 response, you will be 4 notches too high. Here, you mention that “no one remembers” awkward presidential announcements of the past, but don’t consider that perhaps that’s because presidential announcements simply don’t matter very much in general. Of course, to admit that here would be seen as ‘practically an endorsement of DeSantis’… or something.
It’s the same problem that plagued Trump’s coverage by the media, the result of which was that his supporters could always point to recent examples of unfair coverage that painted every mid-level offense as the next holocaust (yes, hyperbole, for anyone tempted to take that literally). The point is that if you were a little more measured and a little less activist, people might take you more a more seriously.
I have had the same issue and am careful about where I shop. A guy in a motorized wheelchair was making everyone jump in Aldi’s at the beginning of the pandemic. No mask, very grumpy. Tradesmen who visited my house remonstrated about mask wearing, but covered their faces when I was in the room. Geez!
There are some “never-Trumper’s” who still support everything about “Trumpism.” Too many actually. The Bulwark stands by “never-trumpism” not just never-Trump.
Nate Silver is a good statistician and sports analyst. He's done some good things for America. But god help me, the man has the brain of an android.
Past a certain point, he simply does not understand human beings or what drives them, particularly when those things are principles-based.
Never Trump Republicans, pundits and voters alike, are perfectly capable of voting for a Democrat for principled reasons, or reasons that have nothing to do with "outcomes" or maximizing utility, or whatever. Quite a few Republicans voted for the Democrat both in 2020 and 2022, and seem to have vowed to do so until their former party comes back to something they can be proud of. One would think Nate would know this--either he doesn't quite grasp it, or he imagines DeSantis, by the numbers, to qualify as something a Never Trump Republican could be "proud of".
It's only "amazing" for Never Trump Republicans (for quite traditionally Republican reasons) to shun DeSantis for Biden, if politics to you is numbers on a page, or abstract beings from another galaxy. For all his gifts in data and numbers, people like Nate don't always grok politics or people.
It seems old Nate hit a nerve. I think that most people who write on politics for the Bulwark believe correctly that Donald Trump is a dangerous enemy of the republic and threat to the nation’s liberal order who should never become president again.. There are three ways to accomplish this. The first and easiest is for someone to prosecute and convict him of one his crimes before the end of the year or at least before the primaries. People should hope that happens, but things need to get moving for it to happen. The next way is for someone to defeat him in the Republican primaries and deny him the nomination. Ar present the person most likely to do that is Ron DeSantis. He is not my favorite. I would prefer Haley or Scott to him, but as long as he is the one with the best shot to take Trump down, I will support him, vote for him in my state’s primary, and try to talk others into doing the same. The final line of defense against Trump is for Biden to beat him in the general election. I don’t like the idea of having to bet the bank on a mentally fading eighty two year old who barely took Trump the first time and may be running next year with a recession hanging around his neck. It might work, but it would be better not to have to find out whether it would.
I understand that an important part of the Bulwark’s work is shilling for the Dems, and that Trump would be the weakest Republican candidate. But with the stakes such as they are now, I think it would be better to ease up on DeSantis and anyone else opposing Trump, and focus on the main task of stopping Trump, assuming of course that people at the Bulwark believe that is the main task.
I don't think you're listening to what they said. They have clearly stated Trump and Trumpism is the greatest threat to democracy and that they would pick DeSantis over Trump. But they also recognize that DeSantis is also a threat.
Yeah, they say that, but they don’t act like it. It’s like when dems say they think trump is the greatest threat and then spend money on ads to boost MAGA candidates. Some psychologists call it “revealed preferences“ and anyone who didn’t go full-Jen Rubin can see that their world has come to depend on the Republican Party being the party of Trump, so they’re not ready to see it gradually start to move away from him.
Some may. I think Linda Chavez would. But like I said, some have left never to return and have effectively recanted on much of their conservative ideology and policy views, not just their membership in the Republican Party. (I.e., Jennifer Rubin.) And in my view, that’s the path taken by Tim Miller, Charlie Sykes, Tom Nichols and others, to varying degrees.
I agree that the last few years have affected their thoughts on the Republican party's brand of consevatism, but not on conservatism itself. I think the agreement we see here between them and the Dems today is just a function of common opposition to Trump and Trumpism. I think it masks fundamental underlying differences in political philosophy.
I don't know who Jennifer Rubin is. Never heard of her.
I can see the argument for this view. But to me, it strikes me as being both too pessimistic and too clever by half.
The Bulwark crew is taking the route of not thinking too hard about this. Specifically, they're not thinking too hard about how nervous they are about Biden's age, or how close the Electoral College was last time, or what the models/data/numbers are telling them about the chances of a party winning when it's populated with leaders they simply don't like, respect, or trust as human beings, whether on "conservative" principles or any kind of principles at all.
The article with the most views on the entire Bulwark website last year was titled "The West is Winning, Russia is Losing, and Biden is Doing a Good Job". Which sums it all up, both on principle and politics.
Basically, they're thinking that Biden's the sitting president of the United States, they think he's done a better job than anyone else would have done preserving American leadership in the 2020's so far, and domestic policy differences aside, they've come to like and respect him as a global defender of democracy. They think numbers and party loyalty aside, for their intepretation of conservative principles, supporting Biden would be the smart thing to do because it's (in their mind) the right thing to do.
Beyond that, they're making a tacit assumption that Americans dedicated to stopping Trump are doing so for reasons beyond just getting rid of one man, and that treating it as simply that would be a grave political error, not just a moral one. Taking down Trumpist poison, not just Donald himself, is their main task. If that makes sense.
Good luck with that. As a 26 year old medical student, I can say with a high degree of confidence that even the most politically engaged under-30 crowd is not a dependable voting block. In my view, that is a damn good thing. They are often really unserious and facile thinkers when it comes to politics, and if they weren’t too self-absorbed to vote regularly, they would elect all sorts of silly progressives that would make the squad look like normies. And that would benefit the Trumpists more than anyone.
I think kudos are in order for not even deigning to mention the "we broke the internet" spin attempted by the DeSantis team, even for mocking purposes. It really is THAT ridiculous. It's like holding a rally-style announcement but setting up only a few-dozen rickety chairs in the middle school gym. Then, when a *slightly* larger crowd than that turns out and the chairs all break and the fire codes are breached and no one hears the campaign announcement because the paramedics are too busy administering first aid... you claim you're so popular that you "broke the room."
Well, this is interesting. I guess there are still some things you don't do even if you're a Texas R: "NYT BREAKING NEWS A G.O.P.-led Texas House panel recommended that Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, be impeached for abuses of office."
So much good material to pundit about today! This was one of the best Morning Shots compilations by Charlie Sykes. Maybe it hit me that way because I can relate to the smile on my face when I read it to the smile that must have been on Charlie’s face as he was writing it. It blows my mind that America continues to idolize these juvenile delinquents with serious consideration to be the GOP nominee. It’s really everything culminating from the good thinkers and authors such as Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise.
I'm glad you guys pushed back hard on Nate Silver. We're not going to go easy on ANY of these people--not Trump or, as is said above, not the people people who constantly suck up to him, push all of his lies and try to mimic his extremism. Charlie describes the Bulwark as "a motley crew of independent and idiosyncratic thinkers", which I think is accurate. It's why left wing people are Bulwarkers even though the site has a goal of eventually getting back to being "conservative". Actual liberals in the real world--the ones Limbaugh convinced GOPers to reflexively and ignorantly mock as part of their sour grapes response to losing the election in 1992--actual liberals miss the substantive conversations and the good faith debates our Republican friends used to enjoy. But these friends couldn't handle losing, simple as that. Instead of self-reflection, our GOP friends proved they were willing to side with whomever it took to exact their revenge on us, and this pettiness eventually gave us Donald Trump, with whom most of these people still stand. We love them anyway. And we thank God for the independent Bulwark writers and their tremendous sense of civic responsibility and their world view that is as kind and caring as it is tough minded and realistic.
I like to think that the DeSantis DeBacle of last night was the world's way of crapping on his head for all of the bovine scat he has been spreading since his landslide reelection - which might have been a lot closer, or he even might have lost, had the citizens of the Free State of Florida known what he was planning to do.
Does anyone know if MTG knows how ridiculous she looks when she's held up for examination, or has McCarthy made her feel like she's actually worth listening to?
As far as DeSantis goes, I feel like he's turning to his advisors and saying a version of: "You told me he'd be in jail/wasn't going to run/would have endorsed me by now"! This feels like more than missteps, it feels like they expected for something to FINALLY take him down, and there they'd be, the largest troll standing.
Honestly, Nate Silver has a point. It’s not that DeSantis deserves the kid-gloves treatment, but the criticisms have become so reflexive and high-pitched that naturally, sometimes they are bound to be overwrought. If you crank the drama factor up to 11 every time, then any time DeSantis deserves only a level-7 response, you will be 4 notches too high. Here, you mention that “no one remembers” awkward presidential announcements of the past, but don’t consider that perhaps that’s because presidential announcements simply don’t matter very much in general. Of course, to admit that here would be seen as ‘practically an endorsement of DeSantis’… or something.
It’s the same problem that plagued Trump’s coverage by the media, the result of which was that his supporters could always point to recent examples of unfair coverage that painted every mid-level offense as the next holocaust (yes, hyperbole, for anyone tempted to take that literally). The point is that if you were a little more measured and a little less activist, people might take you more a more seriously.
David Frum always has the most brilliant metaphors.
I have had the same issue and am careful about where I shop. A guy in a motorized wheelchair was making everyone jump in Aldi’s at the beginning of the pandemic. No mask, very grumpy. Tradesmen who visited my house remonstrated about mask wearing, but covered their faces when I was in the room. Geez!
Oh, the humanity!
There are some “never-Trumper’s” who still support everything about “Trumpism.” Too many actually. The Bulwark stands by “never-trumpism” not just never-Trump.
Nate Silver is a good statistician and sports analyst. He's done some good things for America. But god help me, the man has the brain of an android.
Past a certain point, he simply does not understand human beings or what drives them, particularly when those things are principles-based.
Never Trump Republicans, pundits and voters alike, are perfectly capable of voting for a Democrat for principled reasons, or reasons that have nothing to do with "outcomes" or maximizing utility, or whatever. Quite a few Republicans voted for the Democrat both in 2020 and 2022, and seem to have vowed to do so until their former party comes back to something they can be proud of. One would think Nate would know this--either he doesn't quite grasp it, or he imagines DeSantis, by the numbers, to qualify as something a Never Trump Republican could be "proud of".
It's only "amazing" for Never Trump Republicans (for quite traditionally Republican reasons) to shun DeSantis for Biden, if politics to you is numbers on a page, or abstract beings from another galaxy. For all his gifts in data and numbers, people like Nate don't always grok politics or people.
It seems old Nate hit a nerve. I think that most people who write on politics for the Bulwark believe correctly that Donald Trump is a dangerous enemy of the republic and threat to the nation’s liberal order who should never become president again.. There are three ways to accomplish this. The first and easiest is for someone to prosecute and convict him of one his crimes before the end of the year or at least before the primaries. People should hope that happens, but things need to get moving for it to happen. The next way is for someone to defeat him in the Republican primaries and deny him the nomination. Ar present the person most likely to do that is Ron DeSantis. He is not my favorite. I would prefer Haley or Scott to him, but as long as he is the one with the best shot to take Trump down, I will support him, vote for him in my state’s primary, and try to talk others into doing the same. The final line of defense against Trump is for Biden to beat him in the general election. I don’t like the idea of having to bet the bank on a mentally fading eighty two year old who barely took Trump the first time and may be running next year with a recession hanging around his neck. It might work, but it would be better not to have to find out whether it would.
I understand that an important part of the Bulwark’s work is shilling for the Dems, and that Trump would be the weakest Republican candidate. But with the stakes such as they are now, I think it would be better to ease up on DeSantis and anyone else opposing Trump, and focus on the main task of stopping Trump, assuming of course that people at the Bulwark believe that is the main task.
I don't think you're listening to what they said. They have clearly stated Trump and Trumpism is the greatest threat to democracy and that they would pick DeSantis over Trump. But they also recognize that DeSantis is also a threat.
Both of those things are true.
Yeah, they say that, but they don’t act like it. It’s like when dems say they think trump is the greatest threat and then spend money on ads to boost MAGA candidates. Some psychologists call it “revealed preferences“ and anyone who didn’t go full-Jen Rubin can see that their world has come to depend on the Republican Party being the party of Trump, so they’re not ready to see it gradually start to move away from him.
They were Republicans before Trump. I think they will very happily be Republicans after Trump. If only the party would get rid of him.
Some may. I think Linda Chavez would. But like I said, some have left never to return and have effectively recanted on much of their conservative ideology and policy views, not just their membership in the Republican Party. (I.e., Jennifer Rubin.) And in my view, that’s the path taken by Tim Miller, Charlie Sykes, Tom Nichols and others, to varying degrees.
I agree that the last few years have affected their thoughts on the Republican party's brand of consevatism, but not on conservatism itself. I think the agreement we see here between them and the Dems today is just a function of common opposition to Trump and Trumpism. I think it masks fundamental underlying differences in political philosophy.
I don't know who Jennifer Rubin is. Never heard of her.
I can see the argument for this view. But to me, it strikes me as being both too pessimistic and too clever by half.
The Bulwark crew is taking the route of not thinking too hard about this. Specifically, they're not thinking too hard about how nervous they are about Biden's age, or how close the Electoral College was last time, or what the models/data/numbers are telling them about the chances of a party winning when it's populated with leaders they simply don't like, respect, or trust as human beings, whether on "conservative" principles or any kind of principles at all.
The article with the most views on the entire Bulwark website last year was titled "The West is Winning, Russia is Losing, and Biden is Doing a Good Job". Which sums it all up, both on principle and politics.
Basically, they're thinking that Biden's the sitting president of the United States, they think he's done a better job than anyone else would have done preserving American leadership in the 2020's so far, and domestic policy differences aside, they've come to like and respect him as a global defender of democracy. They think numbers and party loyalty aside, for their intepretation of conservative principles, supporting Biden would be the smart thing to do because it's (in their mind) the right thing to do.
Beyond that, they're making a tacit assumption that Americans dedicated to stopping Trump are doing so for reasons beyond just getting rid of one man, and that treating it as simply that would be a grave political error, not just a moral one. Taking down Trumpist poison, not just Donald himself, is their main task. If that makes sense.
Please encourage the 18-25 year olds in your communities to vote!! They showed up more in 2020 than in '16 so we clearly need their voices/votes.
Good luck with that. As a 26 year old medical student, I can say with a high degree of confidence that even the most politically engaged under-30 crowd is not a dependable voting block. In my view, that is a damn good thing. They are often really unserious and facile thinkers when it comes to politics, and if they weren’t too self-absorbed to vote regularly, they would elect all sorts of silly progressives that would make the squad look like normies. And that would benefit the Trumpists more than anyone.
I think kudos are in order for not even deigning to mention the "we broke the internet" spin attempted by the DeSantis team, even for mocking purposes. It really is THAT ridiculous. It's like holding a rally-style announcement but setting up only a few-dozen rickety chairs in the middle school gym. Then, when a *slightly* larger crowd than that turns out and the chairs all break and the fire codes are breached and no one hears the campaign announcement because the paramedics are too busy administering first aid... you claim you're so popular that you "broke the room."
Well, this is interesting. I guess there are still some things you don't do even if you're a Texas R: "NYT BREAKING NEWS A G.O.P.-led Texas House panel recommended that Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, be impeached for abuses of office."
So much good material to pundit about today! This was one of the best Morning Shots compilations by Charlie Sykes. Maybe it hit me that way because I can relate to the smile on my face when I read it to the smile that must have been on Charlie’s face as he was writing it. It blows my mind that America continues to idolize these juvenile delinquents with serious consideration to be the GOP nominee. It’s really everything culminating from the good thinkers and authors such as Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise.
I'm glad you guys pushed back hard on Nate Silver. We're not going to go easy on ANY of these people--not Trump or, as is said above, not the people people who constantly suck up to him, push all of his lies and try to mimic his extremism. Charlie describes the Bulwark as "a motley crew of independent and idiosyncratic thinkers", which I think is accurate. It's why left wing people are Bulwarkers even though the site has a goal of eventually getting back to being "conservative". Actual liberals in the real world--the ones Limbaugh convinced GOPers to reflexively and ignorantly mock as part of their sour grapes response to losing the election in 1992--actual liberals miss the substantive conversations and the good faith debates our Republican friends used to enjoy. But these friends couldn't handle losing, simple as that. Instead of self-reflection, our GOP friends proved they were willing to side with whomever it took to exact their revenge on us, and this pettiness eventually gave us Donald Trump, with whom most of these people still stand. We love them anyway. And we thank God for the independent Bulwark writers and their tremendous sense of civic responsibility and their world view that is as kind and caring as it is tough minded and realistic.
RE: DeSastor's Presidential Come-On Blowing up like the Hindenburg
O, the Humanity:
https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/oh-the-humanity-herbert-morrison-and-the-hindenburg/
Yes, for the people who died on the Hindenburg. For Ron, I wish many more "Hindenburg" moments.
I like to think that the DeSantis DeBacle of last night was the world's way of crapping on his head for all of the bovine scat he has been spreading since his landslide reelection - which might have been a lot closer, or he even might have lost, had the citizens of the Free State of Florida known what he was planning to do.
fnord
Does anyone know if MTG knows how ridiculous she looks when she's held up for examination, or has McCarthy made her feel like she's actually worth listening to?
As far as DeSantis goes, I feel like he's turning to his advisors and saying a version of: "You told me he'd be in jail/wasn't going to run/would have endorsed me by now"! This feels like more than missteps, it feels like they expected for something to FINALLY take him down, and there they'd be, the largest troll standing.
McCarthy has already said he'll take care of her. Too much to hope this is what he meant? Give her enough rope to hang herself.
He's reportedly not that bright.
True.
Let’s put ole “Puddin”’s big reveal in perspective, shall we?
April the Giraffe giving birth netted over 1M viewers on livestream.