Preemptive submission. I continue to worry that this is not the most consequential election in America’s history. That was 8 years ago and America lost and exposed itself to something that is not curable.
Preemptive submission. I continue to worry that this is not the most consequential election in America’s history. That was 8 years ago and America lost and exposed itself to something that is not curable.
Yeah. Up until we realized that Trump was actually going to flip Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, I think everyone assumed that Trump was a buffoon who would come crashing back from political gravity. Indeed, we had assumed all three of those states were so safely blue that it is somewhat likely that this hubris contributed to Hillary’s defeat — in all three states, Jill Stein’s vote total alone was enough to flip the state if it’d gone to Hillary.
But the fact that he won once has only emboldened the monsters and encouraged the previously mainstream press to “sanewash” him in its usual horse race reporting. And that combination has been highly corrosive to our institutions in general.
This may well be Trump’s last campaign, win or lose. If he wins, the courts will PROBABLY rediscover their backbone and enforce the 22nd Amendment, as they refused to do for the 14th. If he loses, he will be 82 and probably be in federal prison four years from now, and will probably be unable to run, but he will likely be martyred to the far right and become a campaign slogan for future GOP candidates promising to pardon him.
Either way, I agree that the time to stop him was in 2016. Now we’re just running damage control from not having realized that the first time.
I agree, but only partly. We have definitely lost something that may be gone forever. But remember, it was always an experiment. And we always understood that wickedness is a real thing in politics and it never goes away.
So now we have to make some changes again. I hope the Bulwark will be a force for good whatever happens on election day. But Bulwark will have to transform from an anti-Trump coalition to something new in order to meet the problems we will face after the election. Even if Kamala wins, and she very well might, it’s not going back to pre-Trump days. We still have a two decades of absolutely horrible law from scotus and an electorate that, while post-identity politics in some ways, still frames up too many issues as “existential” or apocalyptic. When issues are defined that way, people will approach the problem with fanaticism.
Agree, Brad, except I think The Bulwark has been branding itself as part of the pro-democracy coalition. If Kamala wins, the anti-democracy minority will endure [it's been part of our history since the founding], and the pro-democracy majority will have a lot of work to do to de-fang it. I am expecting the Bulwark to be a leading voice in that work.
It's like what JVL said recently (at least I believe it was him). The conversation had turned to the idea that America needs some kind of catastrophe to shock it back to its senses. I myself had first thought that in 2022. What I didn't think about, what JVL pointed out, is that perhaps we DID have that catastrophe. It was COVID. And we failed. It has taken me a long time to come to grips with where we are. But I wonder if we're always just a bit behind the curve and by the time we understand what's happening, it's too late to do anything about it and it's already gotten worse than we know.
The lesson in all this is that anyone who ever believed that Conservatism as it was espoused from 1950 to the present was anything other than White herrenvolk democracy was living in a dream world. The truth is now out for all to see. We are not colorblind; we are not better than anyone else; we are not special; we are just a bunch of people, some good and too many bad.
My mother always said that racism makes you stupid. I never really understood what she meant until the last 10 plus years. White supremacy has turned otherwise decent people into indecent assholes. You have people with literally sub 100 IQs claiming that VP Harris is unqualified and a DEI hire. Every GOP voter is now a manager I once had as a teenager; they know everything because…….🤷🏽♂️.
This is why you have idiots on YouTube spouting absolute nonsense as if they are experts without any training or education. It has been especially impactful on young men, who by nature are prone to braggadocio and often look down on it outright bully intelligent people.
Literally Trump is Biff Tannen and his voters are gamblers at the casino.
A billionaire who relies on government/FDA approval to make his real money.
These guys bought media orgs only as play things, which will always come second to their main businesses. Now their decisions are rightfully leading to subscriber cancellations further dooming the industry.
Totally agree. People say JVL is dark when he talks about the upcoming election but the truly dark JVL takes that people seem to miss is the idea that we've *already* lost.
As a second generation American of Polish descent, the news about WAPO today made my Eastern European blood run cold. My wealthy white progressive friends refuse to discuss it and without this forum from the Bulwark I would lose my ever loving mind. It's a historic and scary time. It's OK to admit it. We've got to be prepared to mount a patriotic and faithful resistance if the burnt umber toned man manages to win. Lovers of the U.S. Constitution and our precious democracy must support one another however we can. I'm so grateful to the Bulwark for this forum.
Because they were manning the ramparts in 2016 and 2020 and got fucked over for it. Now that you can hear the jackboots around the corner if you listen closely enough why would they trust anyone else.
Which of course, in addition to being JVL fallback position, Pessimism 101, it also is BS since no one has a crystal ball. Bezos may be hedging his bets, but if he sees what he did was surrender to the wrong horse after all, he will do everything he can to get back in the ruling power's graces.
Just remember that Bezos threatened to move out of Seattle when they tried to impose a modest headcount tax. For Bezos, it is all about the money and the power. And for most of the oligarchs, it’s all about the money.
What Rupert Murdoch has done to the majority of white adults in our country is simply a refined version of what Hitler did in the 1930s to his fellow Germans. Oh, that’s right, he was an Austrian!
I would love to think that Kamala is going to win and have a Democratic majority in the Congress. That looks less and less likely. All of it!
We have to seriously think about what we’re going to do to take back our country. I’m not ready to talk Civil War, but we have to figure this out.
I really think that all is not lost. My niece is running for state rep in Tennessee. She said that Montgomery County had super long lines in early voting. This county has had the lowest voter engagement in the history of the state. TN has very low voter participation, much of the reason is that so many republicans run unopposed in their districts. This cycle, Democrats really kicked up their "Run for Something" campaign there for the local offices and state house. The abortion ban is a huge motivator there as well as the way that Lee and the state house have run roughshod (see the Tennessee three). I am not saying that TN will flip Blue but that there is a higher chance of making inroads and increasing the ratio and turning TN purple.
The city backed down. I think the amount of the head count tax was $250 per employee per year. Given the fact that Washington state doesn’t have an income tax, this seemed very reasonable to me. I just can’t understand why people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and now even Warren Buffett, who recently said he doesn’t endorse candidates, seem so hell-bent on not paying taxes. How much money does one person need anyway?
Well, if Kamala loses, even Musk might have second thoughts about staying on this planet when he realizes what his "donations" have bought, and in light of his recent Booster Recovery success. And you know a flight to Mars will not be cheap for the others (he, of course, flies for free; he owns the forking company).
No matter who wins, i will stop my WaPo subscription. I expect rigour and fidelity from news sources, not cowardice and submission. I will miss some of the journalists, but WaPo - and others - have missed the mission of the fourth estate. Clearly they no longer understand a democracy needs voices that can explicitly advocate and implicitly frame political issues. WaPo and others who will not educate and opine on political issues shamefully abdicate their responsibility!
That is how I understand the purpose of freedom of the press in the Constitution, to keep a watch on the government. If the press is not independent, it can't do its job.
But that's because he KNOWS he doesn't have to fear retribution from a Harris/Walz administration. It doesn't mean that he will even consider that he "backed the wrong horse." Americans definitely need to get over the idea that just because some guy found a way to make a lot of money, he is some kind of paragon of virtue or leader of society.
The press is collapsing to corporate billionaires, which is another sign we’ve already lost. Half of the voting population wanting this dark leadership is just the finality of it all
I think the answer is to outlaw the business model of free services in exchange for mining our data for advertising. The practice of keeping us online to gather data points on us and sell us things needs to end.
Yes, but that was when he really wanted and expected glory and love just by being president. Now he wants a hot revenge and make everyone fear him. I mean,really fear him. He is going to use the worst of his goons to go after anyone who dared to humiliate him. Flynn, Miller, Stone, etc., can’t wait to make people suffer.
Trump is a coward and he has a dead slow brain that gets winded trying to catch up to the sap. The main worry is the Christofreaks who are using him to try to blow it all up and destroy the economy. They will cut him loose then! Then we have even more suffering as they fail trying to control what they can’t master. What a mess. Counting on the voter turnout to derail round 1 of the Christian dominion nutcase rebellion.
Exactly….. it’s another story in world history of religious zealots overpowering the majority….. the sinners and those who think they are saints, all evil joining together to gain power
Preemptive submission. I continue to worry that this is not the most consequential election in America’s history. That was 8 years ago and America lost and exposed itself to something that is not curable.
Yeah. Up until we realized that Trump was actually going to flip Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, I think everyone assumed that Trump was a buffoon who would come crashing back from political gravity. Indeed, we had assumed all three of those states were so safely blue that it is somewhat likely that this hubris contributed to Hillary’s defeat — in all three states, Jill Stein’s vote total alone was enough to flip the state if it’d gone to Hillary.
But the fact that he won once has only emboldened the monsters and encouraged the previously mainstream press to “sanewash” him in its usual horse race reporting. And that combination has been highly corrosive to our institutions in general.
This may well be Trump’s last campaign, win or lose. If he wins, the courts will PROBABLY rediscover their backbone and enforce the 22nd Amendment, as they refused to do for the 14th. If he loses, he will be 82 and probably be in federal prison four years from now, and will probably be unable to run, but he will likely be martyred to the far right and become a campaign slogan for future GOP candidates promising to pardon him.
Either way, I agree that the time to stop him was in 2016. Now we’re just running damage control from not having realized that the first time.
Our democracy was lost when the Courts ruled in favor of Citizens United and then rolled back the Voter's Rights Act
I agree, but only partly. We have definitely lost something that may be gone forever. But remember, it was always an experiment. And we always understood that wickedness is a real thing in politics and it never goes away.
So now we have to make some changes again. I hope the Bulwark will be a force for good whatever happens on election day. But Bulwark will have to transform from an anti-Trump coalition to something new in order to meet the problems we will face after the election. Even if Kamala wins, and she very well might, it’s not going back to pre-Trump days. We still have a two decades of absolutely horrible law from scotus and an electorate that, while post-identity politics in some ways, still frames up too many issues as “existential” or apocalyptic. When issues are defined that way, people will approach the problem with fanaticism.
Agree, Brad, except I think The Bulwark has been branding itself as part of the pro-democracy coalition. If Kamala wins, the anti-democracy minority will endure [it's been part of our history since the founding], and the pro-democracy majority will have a lot of work to do to de-fang it. I am expecting the Bulwark to be a leading voice in that work.
I remember John Podhoretz’ tweet the morning after in ‘16. It said simply, “It’s over.”
Trump is still going to come after Bezos. Bent knee or not.
It's like what JVL said recently (at least I believe it was him). The conversation had turned to the idea that America needs some kind of catastrophe to shock it back to its senses. I myself had first thought that in 2022. What I didn't think about, what JVL pointed out, is that perhaps we DID have that catastrophe. It was COVID. And we failed. It has taken me a long time to come to grips with where we are. But I wonder if we're always just a bit behind the curve and by the time we understand what's happening, it's too late to do anything about it and it's already gotten worse than we know.
Oh yeah, by the time we recognize what's happening, it's too late.
The lesson in all this is that anyone who ever believed that Conservatism as it was espoused from 1950 to the present was anything other than White herrenvolk democracy was living in a dream world. The truth is now out for all to see. We are not colorblind; we are not better than anyone else; we are not special; we are just a bunch of people, some good and too many bad.
My mother always said that racism makes you stupid. I never really understood what she meant until the last 10 plus years. White supremacy has turned otherwise decent people into indecent assholes. You have people with literally sub 100 IQs claiming that VP Harris is unqualified and a DEI hire. Every GOP voter is now a manager I once had as a teenager; they know everything because…….🤷🏽♂️.
This is why you have idiots on YouTube spouting absolute nonsense as if they are experts without any training or education. It has been especially impactful on young men, who by nature are prone to braggadocio and often look down on it outright bully intelligent people.
Literally Trump is Biff Tannen and his voters are gamblers at the casino.
This is something I think about too.
LA Times pulled the same stunt. Also owned by a billionaire.
A billionaire who relies on government/FDA approval to make his real money.
These guys bought media orgs only as play things, which will always come second to their main businesses. Now their decisions are rightfully leading to subscriber cancellations further dooming the industry.
Totally agree. People say JVL is dark when he talks about the upcoming election but the truly dark JVL takes that people seem to miss is the idea that we've *already* lost.
No JVL is right, it’s just that too many Bulwarker’s, including, sadly, many of its contributors, refuse to recognize the threat.
I have found that too many White people have a hard time accepting the threat that is upon us.
As a second generation American of Polish descent, the news about WAPO today made my Eastern European blood run cold. My wealthy white progressive friends refuse to discuss it and without this forum from the Bulwark I would lose my ever loving mind. It's a historic and scary time. It's OK to admit it. We've got to be prepared to mount a patriotic and faithful resistance if the burnt umber toned man manages to win. Lovers of the U.S. Constitution and our precious democracy must support one another however we can. I'm so grateful to the Bulwark for this forum.
I don't understand why wealthy, white progressives refuse to discuss it. Do you?
Because they were manning the ramparts in 2016 and 2020 and got fucked over for it. Now that you can hear the jackboots around the corner if you listen closely enough why would they trust anyone else.
Which of course, in addition to being JVL fallback position, Pessimism 101, it also is BS since no one has a crystal ball. Bezos may be hedging his bets, but if he sees what he did was surrender to the wrong horse after all, he will do everything he can to get back in the ruling power's graces.
Just remember that Bezos threatened to move out of Seattle when they tried to impose a modest headcount tax. For Bezos, it is all about the money and the power. And for most of the oligarchs, it’s all about the money.
What Rupert Murdoch has done to the majority of white adults in our country is simply a refined version of what Hitler did in the 1930s to his fellow Germans. Oh, that’s right, he was an Austrian!
I would love to think that Kamala is going to win and have a Democratic majority in the Congress. That looks less and less likely. All of it!
We have to seriously think about what we’re going to do to take back our country. I’m not ready to talk Civil War, but we have to figure this out.
I really think that all is not lost. My niece is running for state rep in Tennessee. She said that Montgomery County had super long lines in early voting. This county has had the lowest voter engagement in the history of the state. TN has very low voter participation, much of the reason is that so many republicans run unopposed in their districts. This cycle, Democrats really kicked up their "Run for Something" campaign there for the local offices and state house. The abortion ban is a huge motivator there as well as the way that Lee and the state house have run roughshod (see the Tennessee three). I am not saying that TN will flip Blue but that there is a higher chance of making inroads and increasing the ratio and turning TN purple.
Greg, I live overseas and do not recall, if I ever knew, what happened to Bozo's, I mean Bezos', threat?
I appreciate your punctuation correction [I'm a Grammar Girl].
The city backed down. I think the amount of the head count tax was $250 per employee per year. Given the fact that Washington state doesn’t have an income tax, this seemed very reasonable to me. I just can’t understand why people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and now even Warren Buffett, who recently said he doesn’t endorse candidates, seem so hell-bent on not paying taxes. How much money does one person need anyway?
Well, if Kamala loses, even Musk might have second thoughts about staying on this planet when he realizes what his "donations" have bought, and in light of his recent Booster Recovery success. And you know a flight to Mars will not be cheap for the others (he, of course, flies for free; he owns the forking company).
No matter who wins, i will stop my WaPo subscription. I expect rigour and fidelity from news sources, not cowardice and submission. I will miss some of the journalists, but WaPo - and others - have missed the mission of the fourth estate. Clearly they no longer understand a democracy needs voices that can explicitly advocate and implicitly frame political issues. WaPo and others who will not educate and opine on political issues shamefully abdicate their responsibility!
That is how I understand the purpose of freedom of the press in the Constitution, to keep a watch on the government. If the press is not independent, it can't do its job.
But that's because he KNOWS he doesn't have to fear retribution from a Harris/Walz administration. It doesn't mean that he will even consider that he "backed the wrong horse." Americans definitely need to get over the idea that just because some guy found a way to make a lot of money, he is some kind of paragon of virtue or leader of society.
Yeah that is where I am. If we are in a place where it is this hard, we’ve already lost.
The press is collapsing to corporate billionaires, which is another sign we’ve already lost. Half of the voting population wanting this dark leadership is just the finality of it all
The internet pretty much destroyed the business model for a news publication. I don't know what the solution is, but this is the cause.
I think the answer is to outlaw the business model of free services in exchange for mining our data for advertising. The practice of keeping us online to gather data points on us and sell us things needs to end.
Agree. If it's a tie, he wins.
I agree. ☝️
8 years ago Trump pulled an inside straight and everyone convinced themselves he's some asshole whisperer now.
But he's not. He's a giant ass loser who keeps on losing and managed to eke out a coward's victory even while losing back in 2016.
Any power he has is because folks have convinced themselves that he is something that he is not.
Yet, we allow him to keep whining about a “rigged election” instead of continually pointing out that he was fired by the American voters
Trump’s loser-dom is his attraction.
Yes, but that was when he really wanted and expected glory and love just by being president. Now he wants a hot revenge and make everyone fear him. I mean,really fear him. He is going to use the worst of his goons to go after anyone who dared to humiliate him. Flynn, Miller, Stone, etc., can’t wait to make people suffer.
Trump is a coward and he has a dead slow brain that gets winded trying to catch up to the sap. The main worry is the Christofreaks who are using him to try to blow it all up and destroy the economy. They will cut him loose then! Then we have even more suffering as they fail trying to control what they can’t master. What a mess. Counting on the voter turnout to derail round 1 of the Christian dominion nutcase rebellion.
Exactly….. it’s another story in world history of religious zealots overpowering the majority….. the sinners and those who think they are saints, all evil joining together to gain power
When Harris wins and is sworn in, she needs to appoint a badass AG and keep Lean Kahn and go after these MFers.
BINGO!!!