Paul Waldman

@paulwaldman.bsky.social

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Columnist for MSNBC and Heatmap.news. Formerly: Washington Post, The Week, American Prospect. Co-host of the Boundary Issues podcast. Subscribe to The Cross Section: paulwaldman.substack.com

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Seems appropriate given our misdeeds

The selection of (ugh) JD Vance makes it seem increasingly likely that there will never be a Gen Xer in the presidency or the vice-presidency, and that Paul Ryan will end up having been the only Gen Xer on the ticker of either major party.

Attention Anaheim criminals: If the cops are chasing you, all you need to do is go on a dirt road or through a car wash and you'll be home free. Also the cops' vehicles might just fall to pieces on the road or burst into flames, anyhow your odds are pretty good

Cops want Cybertrucks. They serve no practical purpose and are an irresponsibly expensive misuse of taxpayer funds that have sacrificed much more beneficial public services…but cops don’t care about the communities they serve. www.404media.co/email/746a69...

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The GOP theory of voter fraud: Alien criminals are subverting American elections yet there isn’t a single GOP lawyer in the entire country with the rudimentary competence to find evidence of the wrongdoing and present it coherently to a court. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Republicans Can’t Stop Lying About Voter Fraudwww.bloomberg.com In its war on democracy, falsehoods about election integrity are among the GOP’s most potent weapons.

JD Vance career trajectory: 1. Writes book calling poor whites lazy and irresponsible 2. Becomes Silicon Valley venture capitalist 3. Wins Senate seat with $15 mil from Peter Thiel by telling poor whites the 2020 election was stolen and immigrants are coming to kill them 4. Vice president!

Good morning to my fellow lovers of LGBTQ flags and quinoa

LGBTQ flags and quinoa: The liberal Va. enclave where J.D. Vance liveswww.washingtonpost.com One resident said he’s okay with the senator living in the neighborhood because “it says a lot about Del Ray — he picked a place that’s a great place to live.”

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Day #2 of the Republican National Convention: You'd think that seeing their leader nearly die would be upsetting to Republicans. Not at all. We spoke with delegates and the mood here is giddy. In all forms, political violence helps the MAGA cause. www.salon.com/2024/07/17/m...

Republicans at the convention aren't upset over Donald Trump's shooting — they're giddywww.salon.com RNC attendees aren't worried about safety — they're stoked over an excuse to "fight fight fight!"

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Everybody also needs to watch this reel from “liberal redneck” comedian Trae Crowder who has some personal experience with Vance www.instagram.com/reel/C9febBe...

Trae Crowder on Instagram: "JD Vance hates hillbillies #traecrowder #sorryIfilmedthislastnight #seemelive #linkwherethelinksgo"www.instagram.com 3,678 likes, 141 comments - officialtraecrowder on July 16, 2024: "JD Vance hates hillbillies #traecrowder #sorryIfilmedthislastnight #seemelive #linkwherethelinksgo".

The credulousness reporters are displaying toward Republicans' alleged "populism" is just maddening. The GOP wants to: - Cut taxes for the rich and corps - Cut regulations on worker safety, environment, etc - Crush unions - Keep minimum wage low - Eliminate health coverage for low income people

Watching Ben Carson's predictably sleepy speech, I was reminded that he has this painting of himself and Jesus hanging in his own house

In addition to believing stealth fighters are invisible to the human eye, electric boats electrocute everyone in the water, and you can nuke hurricanes, Trump thinks that when you give a baby multiple vaccines, they're mixed together in a terrifyingly giant syringe. The man is a moron.

RFK Jr apologises after leaked phone call in which Trump seems to offer dealwww.theguardian.com Independent candidate’s son posts video online in which Republican also rambles about vaccines, horses and babies

JD Vance used to tell the white working class to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Now he's fighting a very different fight. From me and Tom Schaller at TNR:

How J.D. Vance Abandoned His Tough Love for the White Working Classnewrepublic.com He used to tell them they had no one to blame but themselves but he's found more politically palatable targets.

In his NBC interview, Biden may not have been all that articulate, but he did one good thing: he didn't let up on the argument that Trump is the one who uses violent rhetoric. And he mentioned the effect Trump has had on rural politics!

Opinion | Why Biden’s primetime interview with Lester Holt was so refreshingwww.msnbc.com Even something as disturbing as an assassination attempt shouldn’t make us forget what we’ve seen with our own eyes for so long.

This from Hamilton Nolan is the evisceration Teamsters head Sean O'Brien deserves for allowing himself to be used by Trump and the Republicans to advance the lie that they give a crap about working people

Dumbass. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/you-patsy

You Patsywww.hamiltonnolan.com We don't have time for this bullshit.

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Reply to

Michael Tae Sweeney

I think honestly a key to Trump's popularity. He inverted the theatrical aspect from one where the Meet The Press class were in on the joke and the conservative voters were the rubes, to one where the conservative chuds were in on the joke and the DC crowd were the rubes bsky.app/profile/rinc...

this is also why Trump broke the DC press so much, because as much as he was clearly our most pro wrestling president his version of kayfabe was clearly very different from agreed-upon elite DC kayfabe and they kept trying to put him in the latter box instead

Congrats to Marco Rubio for utterly beclowning himself in lickspittlery toward Trump in an attempt to become VP, only to be passed over. Well deserved!

From last week - Vance rejects the notion that America was built on ideals. For him it's all blood and soil.

Some real blood and soil shit here from J.D. Vance, future VP candidate twitter.com/DonaldJTrump...

Donald Trump Jr. on X: "Stop what you're doing and watch this right now if you want to know what America First is all about🔥 “America is not just an idea. America is a nation. America is a group of people with a common history and a common future.” - @JDVance1 https://t.co/1zQEv9u1Mm" / Xtwitter.com Stop what you're doing and watch this right now if you want to know what America First is all about🔥 “America is not just an idea. America is a nation. America is a group of people with a common history and a common future.” - @JDVance1 https://t.co/1zQEv9u1Mm

Here's something I wrote on why JD Vance was the most dangerous of Trump's potential VP picks. The reason - and why I think he picked him - is that JD won't go soft like Pence. He has no conscience to rediscover, and he has his own authoritarian motives.

Opinion | Why J.D. Vance is the absolute worst pick for Trump’s vice presidentwww.msnbc.com Trump wouldn’t have to cajole or beg or threaten Vance to subvert democracy. He’d eagerly say yes.

Trump had a message for his supporters as he was hustled off the stage: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” That portends nothing good. paulwaldman.substack.com/p/fight-figh...

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"paulwaldman.substack.com The hum of anticipated violence grows louder.

Of all Trump's criminal cases, this was the one where his criminal guilt was most unambiguous. There's no serious dispute that he refused to return documents he had no right to possess, and took steps to obstruct the government from retrieving them.

Trump appointee comes up with new legal rationale to declare investigation of his misdeeds as unconstitutional, dismisses case. If special counsels now have to be confirmed by the Senate, they will become less likely to be appointed and slower in their operation. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/u...

Party whose core supporters regularly attend protests outfitted like this demands that Democrats stop saying Trump is a threat to democracy lest violence ensue

Whaddya know, requiring Medicaid recipients to navigate a bureaucratic obstacle course to get coverage turns out to mean almost nobody gets coverage. Not a bug, a feature.

Can a Medicaid plan that requires work succeed? First year of Georgia experiment is not promisingapnews.com By now, Georgia officials expected their new Medicaid plan to provide health insurance to 25,000 low income residents.

Two months ago Greg Abbott pardoned a murderer who texted a friend "I might go to Dallas to shoot looters" then drove into a BLM protest in Austin and killed a protester. The universal response from conservatives to the pardon was "Yeah! Woo-hoo!" Now they say liberals should turn down the rhetoric

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I’ll say one other thing; I don’t care how many hours have passed since the assassination attempt, there are just some people I’m not willing to take lessons on violent or irresponsible rhetoric from, or hear them out in good faith ever on this issue. Get fucked, fuck off, next.

apnews.com/article/jan-...

Trump posted what he said was Obama's address, prosecutors say. An armed man was soon arrested thereapnews.com Federal prosecutors say former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was the home address of former President Barack Obama the same day a man with guns in his van ...

Sad to see Dr. Ruth died. What a lady, just made the world better all the time. Gotta put her on my Top 10 Jews list (in case you're wondering, Sandy Koufax is #1)

Is it necessary for swing-district Democrats to trash their party? Maybe it does more harm than good. Also, if you were wondering about my thoughts on table saw safety, you’re in luck!

Do Swing District Dems Have to Trash Their Party?paulwaldman.substack.com Maybe it's not necessary. Also: We talk table saws.

If your goal is to communicate youth and vitality, you definitely want to tell the story of the time you met with Golda Meir in 1973

Explain to me how a bunch of Chinese swimmers test positive for PEDs and the sport's governing bodies say "Eh, don't worry about it" and this kid is banned for 4 years, I just don't understand how this works

Teen sprinter sues Gatorade over doping ban that cost him an Olympic spotwww.washingtonpost.com Issam Asinga, a teenager who once beat Noah Lyles in a race, was elated when Gatorade honored him. Now he says the company is responsible for his banishment.

OMFG, just say "We licked inflation!" They're so afraid that someone will object that they can't take credit for their own successes. This is how you ensure that no one knows anything about your accomplishments.

"Significant progress" is a line lifted directly from the FOMC's description of what they want to see before easing; IOW this is chosen to emphasize that they need to cut now. *BIDEN: CPI REPORT SHOWS SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS FIGHTING INFLATION

What do Trump's potential VP choices think about climate change? There are some important differences, but none of it is good. I explain at @heatmap.news

Trump’s Likely VPs All Have Different Bad Ideas About Climateheatmap.news Though not, perhaps, the bad ideas you might expect.

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the state of journalism.

If you're going to Netroots Nation, I'll be speaking on this star-studded panel tomorrow on why Democrats should campaign against the Supreme Court