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U.S. Politics: Contempt and the Courts


Zorral

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It is now 2:35 pm in Omaha. Since 11:57 am I have received 20 Trump emails. Some of that is because Trump seems to have sold his email list to the NRSC, but their emails are all about Trump and probably also written by the WinRed people.

Surely even a few of Trump's real supporters must be thinking that level of emailing verges on harassment. 

P.S. And by 3:05 I got another 6 emails. One of them was a "fake survey" where the email heading said "no donation needed", which was a baldfaced lie, since when I filled out the survey it would not accept it without my filling out the credit card information to donate. 

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3 hours ago, DMC said:

Republicans are more "bullish" on it because their base cares about the issue more.  That doesn't mean they are "winning" the abortion argument electorally.  And the Dems have been aggressive.  Again, the Virginia gubernatorial election is a perfect example - McAuliffe directly invested in making abortion the key issue of his campaign, being aggressive and messaging exactly how you'd want him to.  He still lost, and more Youngkin voters cited abortion as a top issue than McAuliffe voters.  Hopefully it gains more traction in November, but the point is you aren't suggesting anything that isn't already being done (and has been done for decades).

I'd push back on a few things. For starters, he misread the election. Second, while he was critical of Youngkin's abortions comments and position, I didn't see him framing it the way I'm suggesting. Think Sarah Marshall discussing Aldous Snow's tattoos. That's what I'm calling for and in all my time going to political debates and researching ads, I've only rarely seen candidates do it. And lastly, the most important number in that race was the massive enthusiasm gap. That makes it kind of hard to read too much into this one election.

And again, I'm not just talking about abortion. Dems need to do that across the board. It just serves as a useful example. 

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Ron DeSantis is following a trail blazed by a Hungarian authoritarian
The Florida governor isn’t doing “competent Trumpism.” He’s inventing American Orbánism.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian

Quote

These similarities reflect a certain ideological convergence between the post-Trump Republican Party and Fidesz: a belief in the central importance of cultural war and the need to wage it using state power. ....

 

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11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And again, I'm not just talking about abortion. Dems need to do that across the board. It just serves as a useful example. 

It really doesn't - in fact just the opposite.  The complaint "if Dems could just message correctly" is usually just people thinking there's a magical solution that doesn't exist, and that's definitely the case here.  Hell in this case you're passing off the messaging they've been using for decades as "new."  The Dems' messaging on abortion is perfectly fine.  Most voters agree with them, at least in winnable districts/states.  The problem is it doesn't appear that's going to convince swing voters nor boost turnout in November.  Obviously that could change (especially after SCOTUS presumably strikes down Roe with the Dobbs decision), and the Dems should at least try, but they are and they will.

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49 minutes ago, DMC said:

It really doesn't - in fact just the opposite.  The complaint "if Dems could just message correctly" is usually just people thinking there's a magical solution that doesn't exist, and that's definitely the case here.  Hell in this case you're passing off the messaging they've been using for decades as "new."  The Dems' messaging on abortion is perfectly fine.  Most voters agree with them, at least in winnable districts/states.  The problem is it doesn't appear that's going to convince swing voters nor boost turnout in November.  Obviously that could change (especially after SCOTUS presumably strikes down Roe with the Dobbs decision), and the Dems should at least try, but they are and they will.

What?!?!? McAuliffe did a copy and paste of old attack ads. I literally just said that's not what I would solely do.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What?!?!? McAuliffe did a copy and paste of old attack ads. I literally just said that's not what I would solely do.

His main attack ad was Youngkin admitting on tape he'd pass an abortion ban if he had a legislative majority, he just can't say so out of fear of losing independent voters.  That's about as good as you can get when it comes to "messaging."  McAuliffe's campaign had a lot of problems (for starters, its candidate was Terry McAuliffe), but abortion definitely wasn't one of them - neither in messaging nor in being "aggressive" on the issue.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

His main attack ad was Youngkin admitting on tape he'd pass an abortion ban if he had a legislative majority, he just can't say so out of fear of losing independent voters.  That's about as good as you can get when it comes to "messaging."  McAuliffe's campaign had a lot of problems (for starters, its candidate was Terry McAuliffe), but abortion definitely wasn't one of them - neither in messaging nor in being "aggressive" on the issue.

I'm aware and maybe I haven't been clear enough. That is another example of Dems saying you can't trust Republicans to be in charge because they'll go after abortion rights. I want someone to instead go after the heart of the entire prolife movement and all of their bullshit. And I want them to do the same on a number of issues, be it the environment, taxes and the wage gap, education, etc. Undercut everything they're talking about and make them fight on your ground. Playing defense on their terrain is giving them an advantage they shouldn't have, but as we both know, Dems, generally speaking, are cowards. 

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Playing defense on their terrain is giving them an advantage they shouldn't have, but as we both know, Dems, generally speaking, are cowards. 

They aren't "playing defense" on abortion and they aren't "cowards," at least when it comes to this issue.  Never been a fan of this term, but your argument is classic "Green Lantern" thinking with the added absurdity of acting like your proposed "messaging" is in any way new when it's actually what they've been using for decades.

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8 minutes ago, DMC said:

They aren't "playing defense" on abortion and they aren't "cowards," at least when it comes to this issue.  Never been a fan of this term, but your argument is classic "Green Lantern" thinking with the added absurdity of acting like your proposed "messaging" is in any way new when it's actually what they've been using for decades.

Yes they are. So many Democrats are afraid to loudly support the right to chose when popular support is overwhelmingly on their side. And again, I'm using this issue as a stand in. It's true of so many other issues as well. 

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yes they are. So many Democrats are afraid to loudly support the right to chose when popular support is overwhelmingly on their side. And again, I'm using this issue as a stand in. It's true of so many other issues as well. 

What the hell are you talking about?  There are less pro-life Democrats today than there have been since...well since abortion became a partisan issue.  And the few that are afraid to "loudly" support abortion rights are obviously doing it because they have constituencies where popular support isn't on that side.

And I get that you think it's "true for so many other issues as well," but this is the one you're talking about.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

What the hell are you talking about?  There are less pro-life Democrats today than there have been since...well since abortion became a partisan issue.  And the few that are afraid to "loudly" support abortion rights are obviously doing it because they have constituencies where popular support isn't on that side.

And I get that you think it's "true for so many other issues as well," but this is the one you're talking about.

Yes, there are not that many pro-life Dems anymore, but not many pro-choice Dems want to make a full throated case for abortion being legal nor do many want to completely lay out why the entire pro-life movement is utter and complete bullshit unless they're in super safe districts. I have been in so many private meetings with elected officials and state party leaders who behind closed doors want to do what I'm advocating for, but then publicly don't want to talk about the subject much outside of saying they support Roe. That's what I'm calling out, the overall spinelessness of the party. They don't want to throw haymakers despite having the public support. If you want to change it to another subject, go after the right on gun control. Again, what Dem leaders say in private is not what they're willing to do in public, for the most part.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

They don't want to throw haymakers despite having the public support. If you want to change it to another subject, go after the right on gun control. Again, what Dem leaders say in private is not what they're willing to do in public, for the most part.

LOL, yep, you're the only one who's ever figured out Democrats should emphasize issues in which their positions are popular.  Great contribution!

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11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

You seem to be missing the point. This is an effective way of undercutting their moralizing and it denies their attempts to establish the high ground. If they turn around and say Democrats aren’t pro-choice on everything, they’ve already lost the argument. And personally I would laugh if someone tried to use anti-life with a straight face. It’s completely moronic from a messaging standpoint.

 

Darkseid can and does.

Darkseid is.

 

(Too deep of a cut...?)

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14 minutes ago, DMC said:

LOL, yep, you're the only one who's ever figured out Democrats should emphasize issues in which their positions are popular.  Great contribution!

Lol, I'm also saying be more creative when doing so. Repeating lines and themes heavily used for ages grows stale. And while you laugh, it's hard to ignore Dems often times can't even be relied upon to the basic shit well.

This has run its course. If I @ you in the NFL thread, Deebo got traded. Still got some time for a first this year. :P

10 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Darkseid can and does.

Darkseid is.

 

(Too deep of a cut...?)

Considering I'm on maybe my fifth comic ever, I'd say yeah, probably so.

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18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Repeating lines and themes heavily used for ages grows stale.

Thing is, calling Republicans "anti-choice" and emphasizing the hypocrisy of the GOP "pro-life" position are repeating lines and themes heavily used for ages.

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The notion that messaging of any sort - particularly messaging showing the other side being hypocritical - matters at all is so...well, quaint. messaging hasn't mattered a ton, but it especially doesn't matter now. Policy barely matters. 

What matters most is anger, hatred, partisanship and charisma. Everything else is desperately hoping for some pretty day in the past that didn't really exist then either.

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I say go to a birth control clinic…if there still are any…have a clip board and politely ask all the protesters if they will contribute to “ the heart beat fund”. They will contribute to the wellbeing of the mother through pregnancy and a school voucher program for the children. A sum will be collected every month. I will have my fees deducted and my relatives will get speaking engagements. Everybody wins.

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The two authoritarian ideologies current in the USA, according to Heather Cox Richards in her sub letter.

Quote

 

.... Trump’s election brought a new right-wing ideology onto the political stage to challenge the rule of law. He was an autocrat, interested not in making money for a specific class of people, but rather in obtaining wealth and power for himself, his family, and a few insiders. ...

.... his deliberate destabilization of faith in our democratic norms is deadly dangerous, creating space for two right-wing, antidemocratic ideologies to take root. ....

One is pushed by Texas governor Greg Abbott, who is embracing a traditional American states’ rights approach to attack the active federal government that has expanded equality since World War II. The Trump years put the states’ rights ideology of the Confederacy on steroids, first to justify destroying business regulation, social welfare legislation, and international diplomacy, and then to absolve the federal government from responsibility for combating the coronavirus pandemic. Then, of course, the January 6 insurrection saw state legislatures refusing to accept the results of a federal election and rioters carrying the Confederate flag into the United States Capitol. 

That Confederate impulse has been a growing part of the South’s mindset since at least 1948, when President Harry S. Truman announced the federal government would desegregate the armed forces, and white southerners who recognized that desegregation was coming briefly formed their own political party to stop it. ...

.... The other new ideology at work is in the hands of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who, as Beauchamp pointed out, is trying to recreate Orbánism in the U.S. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has eroded Hungary’s democracy since he took power for the second time, about a decade ago. Orbán has been open about his determination to overthrow the concept of western democracy, replacing it with what he has, on different occasions, called “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy.” He wants to replace the equality at the heart of democracy with religious nationalism. 

To accomplish his vision, Orbán has taken control of Hungary’s media, ensuring that his party wins all elections; has manipulated election districts in his own favor; and has consolidated the economy into the hands of his cronies by threatening opponents with harassing investigations, regulations, and taxes unless they sell out. Beauchamp calls this system “soft fascism.”

DeSantis is following this model right down to the fact that observers believe that Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill was modeled on a similar Hungarian law. DeSantis’s attack on Disney mirrors Orbán’s use of regulatory laws to punish political opponents (although the new law was so hasty and flawed it threatens to do DeSantis more harm than good). DeSantis is not alone in his support for Orban’s tactics: Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson openly admires Orbán, and next month the Conservative Political Action Committee will hold its conference in Hungary, with Orbán as a keynote speaker. 

Trump’s type of family autocracy is hard to replicate right now, and our history has given us the knowledge and tools to defend democracy in the face of the ideology of states’ rights. But the rise of “illiberal democracy” or “soft fascism” is new to us, and the first step toward rolling it back is recognizing that it is different from Trump’s autocracy or states’ rights, and that its poison is spreading in the United States. 

 

 

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And when it comes to shoggoth sorts of crime and punishment, never punishment, never even a trial.

Likelihood of Trump Indictment in Manhattan Fades as Grand Jury Wraps Up
The Manhattan district attorney is continuing to investigate Mr. Trump, but knowledgeable people say charges are unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future, if ever.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/nyregion/trump-investigation-alvin-bragg-grand-jury.html


 

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