Musing on Vance as the VP choice for Trump, and on his drastically shifted rhetoric over the past eight years… which reaffirms an observation that perhaps the most impactful dynamic of the last decade isn’t the top-down radicalization of the electorate, but the bottom-up radicalization of “elites”.
The meekest immigrant doing the most humbling manual labor is just trying to improve his life and support his family. It’s the same reason Vance degrades himself before a man he knows is a fraud, and who seems to enjoy humiliating him.
The difference is that there’s honor in manual labor.
But the link is there, and it must be acknowledged. "When people feel, right or wrong, that our system fails to deliver justice or hold the powerful accountable, some of those people resort to violence. That happened on January 6, too. But it's wrong in all cases, and it's not the American way."
They need to get up on the air with "will you apologize to Nancy Pelosi" type ads within a week, though.
1) hard, and specific condemnation
2) montage of trump, other republicans, joking about Paul pelosi
3) "there's only one person in this race who thinks political violence is always unacceptable
Before starting his prison sentence, Steve Bannon gave a press conference ending with the shout, “Victory or death!”
This, uh, this doesn’t make sense if you are about to start a prison term, right? Isn’t this like shouting “never surrender” before turning yourself over to the police?
“Mr. Rundell also acted as the go-between for the purchase of a horse farm in New York’s Hudson Valley for another of Mr. Schmidt’s girlfriends, Lisa Shields.”
What’s with tech billionaires and buying girlfriends horses? First Elon and that flight attendant, now this?
https://apple.news/AqUGKfvRARzSEdXnXXgxuJQ
‘The couple told the paper a woman passerby had intervened to help and, querying the weight of the bags, had asked them "What's in them? Bodies?"’
“Mr. Musk has volunteered his sperm to help seed a [Martian] colony, two people familiar with his comments said.”
Strangely far from the weirdest thing he’s ever said or done.
Of course the reality is that if Biden stays in the race and loses, people are going to blame him (and his enablers). And if he bows out and his successor loses, people are going to blame him (and those who pushed him out).
Yet, in all probability, Trump wins in either scenario.
Things are pretty fucked up and the future is uncertain — probably the worst in my lifetime (perhaps excepting 1969 before I can remember). When it’s like that, I like to think about my grandparents and what they faced and got through with the Great Depression and WWII.
/1
I will say, if the Supreme Court goes through all these intellectual gyrations only to have Donald Trump die on the toilet in the first week of October, I am gonna laugh and laugh.
This thing about whether official acts can be used as evidence when prosecuting unofficial acts--and Barrett's dissent--seems similar to the bit with Sen. Menendez and the Speech & Debate Clause.
Seems crazy that if I pay off a politico to do something, their doing it cannot be used as evidence.
