We should respond to El-Sayed's nomination the way we wish right-of-center Republicans responded to the nomination of Trump. What basis is there to castigate Republicans who "should know better" for enabling Trump while doing the same thing with those who pal with Hasan Piker?
| he will close out the most favorable years of his second term with few durable victories
That assumes his own self-enrichment wasn't his only true goal. I figure it was, is, and will remain. In which case, few presidents have done as well for themselves as Trump in 2026.
Which matters more to Trump, his historical image after he's dead (nearly certain within a decade or so), or raking in US$ billions?
The people? @#$% 'em! The war? @#$% it! Inflation? Suck it up, whiners! Epstein? Anyone who cares about that any more is a loser! Bring your elected King more Diet Cokes, peon.
Re cheap shots - call me dense, but why didn't Max Miller just get in his car, or call an uber and truck little blue bunny back to his daughter the minute he knew she was crying for her little friend? What a jerk. And there seems to be a bunny theme to our politics these days, little immigrants in bunny hats grabbed by ICE agents, Bad Bunny giving the right wing the heebie-jeebies, and now little blue bunny not able to go home because the designated mediator didn't show up. We need Harvey to stop the clocks, and comfort us with pat on the head and say"You poor, poor thing."
Now that AES has the nomination he needs give Hasan Piker the same treatment newly crowned Henry V gave Falstaff - "I know thee not [young] man." The reasoning is the same - once you have the crown, some of your old friends who helped you get there will only be an impediment to your further success, so dump them. Piker is toxic and will scare away the jewish voters that AES needs. AES should now flip his previous advice about wanting to put the head of a pro-Israel politician on a pike to warn the rest and put the head of a extremist anti-Israel agitator on a pike - put Piker on a pike (metaphorically of course).
Andrew, you wrote, “…If Trump loses the Republican trifecta this November, he will close out the most favorable years of his second term with few durable victories….”
How can he do that? Isn’t the trifecta the executive branch and two branches of congress? He is unlikely to resign or die.
What am I missing here? (Petty comment, I know. The editor in me keeps raising its pedantic head.)
If sitting Republican members and candidates for office (and a couple of Dems, too, to be fair) keep shooting themselves in the foot, I may have to rethink my stand on serious gun control legislation. Sorry, I know it’s in terrible taste, but I couldn’t resist.
Please try to prove any conspiracy theories about states that vote by mail without scorched earth policies that would take away state authority over elections.
It is right and classy to let Miller implode and to run your race especially since Democrats will be looking for more candidates like Poindexter in future and will be studying the race for lessons to be applied against a less deeply flawed candidate.
A question for the ages. How much political sway do on-line trolls and influencers have? Is there a way to reliably measure their effect on the electorate? How does RFK Jr going on Joe Rogan translate into actual votes? I would love to see some genuine scholarship on this. My own take is they have some sway on the margins but not as much as the attention given to them suggests. They are loud. I suspect volume isn't as powerful as is thought.
I cannot read Andrew any longer. His only objection to trump is his inability to act presidential. Meaning, if only he could be less obvious about his corruption and narcissistic acts, he could be like Reagan.
Andrew can recognize good things about trump, and will give him two positive points. trump gave us his one big beautiful bill and less border crossings. So it’s ok to add to the deficit, strip SNAP, Medicaid, and the ACA. That’s one point for trump apparently.
Less border crossings, yeah at what cost. Brutality, separation of families, asylum seekers not being recognized, the immigration bill in congress defeated for nativist reasons.
There is one positive point for trump. If he is still alive after leaving office, i have hope he will be charged in a court of law and charged for the damage he and his goons have done to America.
My impression is that you have misinterpreted Andrew’s overall view of Trump, but you nevertheless bring up a meta issue that I think is worth talking about from time to time. Why should people who tilt liberal or progressive support The Bulwark?
I would offer three reasons why I do:
1) The Bulwark gives me more bang for my buck when it comes to news coverage than some of the more left-leaning news outlets I could subscribe to. Here I’m talking both about their sheer volume of coverage as well as their level of analytical sophistication.
2) The fact that many Bulwark staff are disaffected Republican operatives allows them to offer more nuanced insights into the MAGA movement.
3) My guess is that it is going to take a broad, bipartisan coalition to defeat fascism, and The Bulwark is a significant voice for the never-Trumper movement.
In other words, when I read people like Andrew, I am not expecting him to align with all of my liberal stances. Nor do I necessarily agree with some of The Bulkwark’s more optimistic takes on how much electoral power the never-Trump movement possesses. However, I think that The Bulwark does consistently valuable work that deserves support.
Would it be possible for States to individually or collectively contract with FedEx, UPS or DHL to send out their mail in ballots, and either set up a universal collection day (similar to how rubbish and recycling is collected on a specific day each week), more drop boxes, or some other method to economically collect them? {I would also suggest Amazon, however, they are apparently in the pocket of the current administration, and would not want to be seen as working against the wishes of the current President.} We know FedEx and UPS are going by almost every voters house virtually every day. Is it time to cut out the USPS, and remove this option to interfere in the mail ballot issue from this administration?
Frankly, it may be time to shut off the USPS anyway, and develop a more efficient service - I could place a garbage can under my mail slot, and would miss very little - almost everything I receive through the postal service is marketing material or solicitations or yes, still a few catalogs. I say this as someone who actually sends approximately 100 birthday or other greeting cards via snail mail every year - it may be time to change, and take away this source of leverage from the US Government (of course, apologies to the classic film, "Miracle on 34th Street" - USPS does play a pivotal role in the culmination of this story...).
As far as the mail in ballots, the US Constitution gives the role of the elections to the states and Congress. No role for the president, Supreme Court, or Postal Service. The postal service is legally required to deliver mail. While Trump’s executive order is absurd, unfortunately, we operate on the Roberts Constitution. The Roberts Constitution states that Republicans and Trump have special powers and benefits.
“In a normal world, with normal people in charge, the “there’s no non-insane way to try to do this” line of reasoning would make me pretty confident the federal government wouldn’t try.”
When insanity is outlawed, only outlaws will do insane things. Conversely, when insanity is the only remaining path to gaining or retaining unprecedented political power, well Bubba, hold my beer…
Hasan Piker is the southern end of a northbound horse. I wish he'd shut the hell up, but of course he won't. He will contribute in every way he can imagine to purifying El-Sayed's base of support by refining it down to the few, the ideologically pure, in the process insulting Stevens voters and alienating independent voters so that only the True Believers and the Saved remain.
Alas: it's up to the voters now. They can ignore Hasan Piker, or they can let him make their decisions for them. Given how these things work, it's depressingly likely that a subset of voters--possibly a large subset--will either refrain from voting altogether, or will vote for Rogers on the grounds that Hasan Piker is a jerk. It's a lousy justification for turning the country over to an authoritarian cult, but hey: it is what it is.
Back at the dawn of time the original Star Trek had an episode in which a disembodied alien called the Beta XII-A entity manipulated the crew of the Enterprise and a group of Klingons into conflict. They descended into paranoia and violence.
As it turned out, Beta XII-A needed these dark emotions to sustain it; much like Hasan Piker and Jesse Watters, it fed upon conflict.
Once Kirk and the Klingon commander figured this out, they hashed out a truce, and ordered their crews to tease, laugh, tell jokes, and otherwise demonstrate camaraderie.
That was it for Beta XII-A. Starved, it fled the Enterprise, and everyone lived to laugh another day.
This is why I like the Bulwark's approach to covering the right (especially Will Sommers). Others cover the right in a hysterical tone saying these people are scary - but that is exactly what the right wants, you to be scared of them. Will, Sam, and Tim just laugh at them and point out how ridiculous they are. This hurts the right more than anything.
'After all, polling is broken and the world is crazy.' Andrew, I am happy you said this. I have never understood the time and money wasted on polling, but I do not have politics in my blood so what do I know. What I do know is I cannot tolerate one more pointless, endless discussion about polling results. I love the Bulwark, but my teeth will be ground down to the gums if I force myself to listen to yet another futile discussion about polling results.
We've been talking about the Orange Old Man's polling numbers/approval ratings for OVER A DECADE and it is time to devote that energy to something more productive. Please.
Andrew, please keep sounding the alarm. That people still have their heads in the sand about the coming election, after J6 and everything that's happened since, is mind boggling and infuriating.
AND...the elections themselves are just one piece. There will be all kinds of efforts afterwards to ensure that the will of the voters does not prevail.
I think there are people who must be aware that Trump's election denialism begins with his narcissistic pathology but they're happy to play along with it to serve their political agenda - in the same way they're happy to exploit his amoral disdain for rules and norms as a way of plowing down obstacles.
Perhaps we could stop sneering at "HR ladies"?
We should respond to El-Sayed's nomination the way we wish right-of-center Republicans responded to the nomination of Trump. What basis is there to castigate Republicans who "should know better" for enabling Trump while doing the same thing with those who pal with Hasan Piker?
| he will close out the most favorable years of his second term with few durable victories
That assumes his own self-enrichment wasn't his only true goal. I figure it was, is, and will remain. In which case, few presidents have done as well for themselves as Trump in 2026.
Which matters more to Trump, his historical image after he's dead (nearly certain within a decade or so), or raking in US$ billions?
The people? @#$% 'em! The war? @#$% it! Inflation? Suck it up, whiners! Epstein? Anyone who cares about that any more is a loser! Bring your elected King more Diet Cokes, peon.
Re cheap shots - call me dense, but why didn't Max Miller just get in his car, or call an uber and truck little blue bunny back to his daughter the minute he knew she was crying for her little friend? What a jerk. And there seems to be a bunny theme to our politics these days, little immigrants in bunny hats grabbed by ICE agents, Bad Bunny giving the right wing the heebie-jeebies, and now little blue bunny not able to go home because the designated mediator didn't show up. We need Harvey to stop the clocks, and comfort us with pat on the head and say"You poor, poor thing."
Now that AES has the nomination he needs give Hasan Piker the same treatment newly crowned Henry V gave Falstaff - "I know thee not [young] man." The reasoning is the same - once you have the crown, some of your old friends who helped you get there will only be an impediment to your further success, so dump them. Piker is toxic and will scare away the jewish voters that AES needs. AES should now flip his previous advice about wanting to put the head of a pro-Israel politician on a pike to warn the rest and put the head of a extremist anti-Israel agitator on a pike - put Piker on a pike (metaphorically of course).
Nothing says politics like this.
Andrew, you wrote, “…If Trump loses the Republican trifecta this November, he will close out the most favorable years of his second term with few durable victories….”
How can he do that? Isn’t the trifecta the executive branch and two branches of congress? He is unlikely to resign or die.
What am I missing here? (Petty comment, I know. The editor in me keeps raising its pedantic head.)
If sitting Republican members and candidates for office (and a couple of Dems, too, to be fair) keep shooting themselves in the foot, I may have to rethink my stand on serious gun control legislation. Sorry, I know it’s in terrible taste, but I couldn’t resist.
Please try to prove any conspiracy theories about states that vote by mail without scorched earth policies that would take away state authority over elections.
It is right and classy to let Miller implode and to run your race especially since Democrats will be looking for more candidates like Poindexter in future and will be studying the race for lessons to be applied against a less deeply flawed candidate.
A question for the ages. How much political sway do on-line trolls and influencers have? Is there a way to reliably measure their effect on the electorate? How does RFK Jr going on Joe Rogan translate into actual votes? I would love to see some genuine scholarship on this. My own take is they have some sway on the margins but not as much as the attention given to them suggests. They are loud. I suspect volume isn't as powerful as is thought.
I cannot read Andrew any longer. His only objection to trump is his inability to act presidential. Meaning, if only he could be less obvious about his corruption and narcissistic acts, he could be like Reagan.
Andrew can recognize good things about trump, and will give him two positive points. trump gave us his one big beautiful bill and less border crossings. So it’s ok to add to the deficit, strip SNAP, Medicaid, and the ACA. That’s one point for trump apparently.
Less border crossings, yeah at what cost. Brutality, separation of families, asylum seekers not being recognized, the immigration bill in congress defeated for nativist reasons.
There is one positive point for trump. If he is still alive after leaving office, i have hope he will be charged in a court of law and charged for the damage he and his goons have done to America.
My impression is that you have misinterpreted Andrew’s overall view of Trump, but you nevertheless bring up a meta issue that I think is worth talking about from time to time. Why should people who tilt liberal or progressive support The Bulwark?
I would offer three reasons why I do:
1) The Bulwark gives me more bang for my buck when it comes to news coverage than some of the more left-leaning news outlets I could subscribe to. Here I’m talking both about their sheer volume of coverage as well as their level of analytical sophistication.
2) The fact that many Bulwark staff are disaffected Republican operatives allows them to offer more nuanced insights into the MAGA movement.
3) My guess is that it is going to take a broad, bipartisan coalition to defeat fascism, and The Bulwark is a significant voice for the never-Trumper movement.
In other words, when I read people like Andrew, I am not expecting him to align with all of my liberal stances. Nor do I necessarily agree with some of The Bulkwark’s more optimistic takes on how much electoral power the never-Trump movement possesses. However, I think that The Bulwark does consistently valuable work that deserves support.
Would it be possible for States to individually or collectively contract with FedEx, UPS or DHL to send out their mail in ballots, and either set up a universal collection day (similar to how rubbish and recycling is collected on a specific day each week), more drop boxes, or some other method to economically collect them? {I would also suggest Amazon, however, they are apparently in the pocket of the current administration, and would not want to be seen as working against the wishes of the current President.} We know FedEx and UPS are going by almost every voters house virtually every day. Is it time to cut out the USPS, and remove this option to interfere in the mail ballot issue from this administration?
Frankly, it may be time to shut off the USPS anyway, and develop a more efficient service - I could place a garbage can under my mail slot, and would miss very little - almost everything I receive through the postal service is marketing material or solicitations or yes, still a few catalogs. I say this as someone who actually sends approximately 100 birthday or other greeting cards via snail mail every year - it may be time to change, and take away this source of leverage from the US Government (of course, apologies to the classic film, "Miracle on 34th Street" - USPS does play a pivotal role in the culmination of this story...).
Just a thought...
As far as the mail in ballots, the US Constitution gives the role of the elections to the states and Congress. No role for the president, Supreme Court, or Postal Service. The postal service is legally required to deliver mail. While Trump’s executive order is absurd, unfortunately, we operate on the Roberts Constitution. The Roberts Constitution states that Republicans and Trump have special powers and benefits.
“In a normal world, with normal people in charge, the “there’s no non-insane way to try to do this” line of reasoning would make me pretty confident the federal government wouldn’t try.”
When insanity is outlawed, only outlaws will do insane things. Conversely, when insanity is the only remaining path to gaining or retaining unprecedented political power, well Bubba, hold my beer…
Hasan Piker is the southern end of a northbound horse. I wish he'd shut the hell up, but of course he won't. He will contribute in every way he can imagine to purifying El-Sayed's base of support by refining it down to the few, the ideologically pure, in the process insulting Stevens voters and alienating independent voters so that only the True Believers and the Saved remain.
Alas: it's up to the voters now. They can ignore Hasan Piker, or they can let him make their decisions for them. Given how these things work, it's depressingly likely that a subset of voters--possibly a large subset--will either refrain from voting altogether, or will vote for Rogers on the grounds that Hasan Piker is a jerk. It's a lousy justification for turning the country over to an authoritarian cult, but hey: it is what it is.
Frankly, Hasan Piker should be kicked to the curb.
Or laughed into oblivion.
Back at the dawn of time the original Star Trek had an episode in which a disembodied alien called the Beta XII-A entity manipulated the crew of the Enterprise and a group of Klingons into conflict. They descended into paranoia and violence.
As it turned out, Beta XII-A needed these dark emotions to sustain it; much like Hasan Piker and Jesse Watters, it fed upon conflict.
Once Kirk and the Klingon commander figured this out, they hashed out a truce, and ordered their crews to tease, laugh, tell jokes, and otherwise demonstrate camaraderie.
That was it for Beta XII-A. Starved, it fled the Enterprise, and everyone lived to laugh another day.
This is why I like the Bulwark's approach to covering the right (especially Will Sommers). Others cover the right in a hysterical tone saying these people are scary - but that is exactly what the right wants, you to be scared of them. Will, Sam, and Tim just laugh at them and point out how ridiculous they are. This hurts the right more than anything.
'After all, polling is broken and the world is crazy.' Andrew, I am happy you said this. I have never understood the time and money wasted on polling, but I do not have politics in my blood so what do I know. What I do know is I cannot tolerate one more pointless, endless discussion about polling results. I love the Bulwark, but my teeth will be ground down to the gums if I force myself to listen to yet another futile discussion about polling results.
We've been talking about the Orange Old Man's polling numbers/approval ratings for OVER A DECADE and it is time to devote that energy to something more productive. Please.
Andrew, please keep sounding the alarm. That people still have their heads in the sand about the coming election, after J6 and everything that's happened since, is mind boggling and infuriating.
AND...the elections themselves are just one piece. There will be all kinds of efforts afterwards to ensure that the will of the voters does not prevail.
I think there are people who must be aware that Trump's election denialism begins with his narcissistic pathology but they're happy to play along with it to serve their political agenda - in the same way they're happy to exploit his amoral disdain for rules and norms as a way of plowing down obstacles.