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Cake day: July 20th, 2024

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  • This was also my takeaway from the debate. Trump looked weak from the jump when he let Harris take the lead in shaking his hand. He was on the defensive all night. All this capped off by a cringe-inducing “I saw people on television talking about it” when fact-checked on the immigrants eating cats and dogs comment (which was also batshit insane enough to lose some of the 67 million watching). Truly an “okay, let’s get you to bed, grandpa” moment.

    The substance behind his words has never mattered to his supporters, no matter how vile or dissembling, but the vibe absolutely does. They won’t turn around and vote for a Black woman, but there has to be a loss of enthusiasm that comes about from this, if not breaking the spell entirely for a few people. He looked old, small, and weird.












  • The difference between Roe and progressive policies is that said policies are broadly popular with the electorate. Making durable, unpopular changes under minority rule is virtually impossible with our federal legislature, and the right had to finally luck out and enact them by installing enough Supreme Court justices willing to upend the system. From a long-term view, Roe wasn’t a sustained effort, or at least not a successful one until very recently. The evangelicals had been losing support on the issue every year and exploited a crack in the system that McConnell exposed in 2016.

    The GOP and the conservative coalition within the Democratic Party can’t afford to allow significant progressive policy through even once because it becomes political suicide to repeal without years of propaganda and budgetary ratfucking. Obamacare is the latest example. It’s not even close to the same effort level.

    A second New Deal Congress is coming within our lifetimes. The demographics say it’s inevitable (as long as we have elections, anyway). Yes, it will take work, and it starts in the primaries.




  • Killing the GOP is in your best interest if fracturing the Democratic Party is what you want. Progressives have been ready to bail since 2016. It’s not likely to make American politics any less statist, though.

    Significant electoral reform is the only other path, and any constitutional amendment is not happening without a major cultural shift in partisanship.

    By the way for anyone reading that wants the end of the Trump era, I’m also in a 0% chance state, and this will be the first time I vote for the Democrat on the presidential ticket since moving here, and I encourage others in similar positions to turn out and do the same. I always vote third party to give them extra relevance, but this is a year where the popular vote total will matter. Running up the score will be necessary to make false election integrity claims irrelevant.