Axios’s “Vibe Survey” found that people are feeling quite good about the economy. Imagine that: Americans overall have a surprising degree of satisfaction with their economic situation, according to findings from the Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll. That’s in spite of dour views among certain subsets of the country — and in contrast to consumer sentiment polls that remain stubbornly weak, partly because of the lingering effects of 2022’s inflation. The Axios Vibes poll has found that when asked about their own financial condition, or that of their local community, Americans are characteristically optimistic. It’s broadly understood that economic well-being influences electoral outcomes. By the same token, however, political affiliation influences the responses that Republicans, in particular, give when they’re asked about the economy. So asking about personal finances rather than the broader economy can reveal optimism not seen in consumer-sentiment polls.
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As the judges at The Hague deliberate on South Africa’s indictment of Israel, a lawsuit against senior U.S. officials for supporting genocide is set to begin in federal court.
The post The Legal Case Against Joe Biden for Enabling Israel’s Genocide Against Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
For the royalists always ye have with you At Saturday’s Martin Luther King prayer breakfast here I spotted a local Republican, a former elected, who sometimes commented back in the day at Scrutiny Hooligans (my Asheville group blog, RIP). When in 2011 I posted a piece titled “Colonist or Royalist” likening corporate Republicans and T-partiers to those who backed King George III, the British East India Company, and other elites who “don’t care about your jobs or your economy, and they don’t care about you,” it really got under his skin. Too close to the bone? He stopped coming. I kept using royalists. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (speaking of Iowa) said this in 2017 about eliminating the estate tax (Des Moines Register): “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” My 2017 post on this continued: In Iowa and in other Republican primary states to come, cosplaying patriots are lining up to crown a king. Or a dictator. Whatever. Because freedom.
The first irrelevant primary is over. More to come, unfortunately. 14% of Republicans came out to caucus last night. It was one of the lowest turnouts in history. Sure, it was cold, but this was low even taking that into account. Enthusiasm? Yeah, sure. Also: I’m looking forward to when this little superfluous pageant is over. Lol:
There is so much talk about the Trump economy being the best the world has ever seen and it’s mainly because Trump just keeps saying it over and over again. It was good but it wasn’t great and on many metrics Biden’s is better. But, of course, we’ve been hearing nothing but gloom and doom about the economy for the past three years so people aren’t hearing that. Here’s some reality from Krugman: Now that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee — I know, it’s not official, but let’s get real — we can expect to hear a lot about how great the economy was on his watch. Which is strange, because he was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came in. What’s happening here is that Trump has been given a mulligan for 2020. And to be fair, the huge job losses that took place that year were caused by Covid-19, not Trump’s policies. What’s really odd, however, is that this mulligan appears to be highly selective.
Zeynap Tufekci studies authoritarian movements around the world. She took a look at the MAGA movement for the NY Times and it’s quite interesting. (Gift link, here.) An excerpt: Cheryl Sharp, a 47-year-old sales associate who was among the many Iowans turned away from a filled-to-capacity Trump rally last month, sounded pretty confident she knew why Donald Trump was so appealing to many voters. For her and many others, she said, his most important quality was strength: He had the fortitude to keep the country safe, avoid new wars and ensure the economy hummed along. “You want someone strong, globally, so that it creates mutual respect with other countries, and maybe a little bit of fear,” she told me. “Yes, it’s true, not everyone likes him. It’s good not to be liked. Being strong is better.” Sharp readily conceded that not everything Trump said was great, but she saw that as part of the right personality to be president. “You gotta be a little crazy, maybe, to make sure other countries respect and fear us,” she said.
Bravo. (In case you haven’t seen it, this ad is sending up a viral video shared by Trump all over social media.)
Remember when Ann Coulter used to ecstatically describe Donald Trump as an “alpha male” who was going to set the country straight? She even wrote a book called In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! Well, she’s been off of him for quite some time because he failed to build the wall. And she doesn’t seem to believe him when he and his henchman Stephen Miller promise to deport millions of people who look like they might not be citizens. She’s going after him and his voters on twitter and it’s kind of hilarious. She doesn’t think he can beat Biden: “How many people who voted for Biden in 2020 have since switched to Trump?” If there are ANY, it’s a lot fewer than: 1) those who voted for Trump but who’ve since died (older white people);2) immigrants who turned 18 in the last 4 yrs and will vote (minorities);3) Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020, but have since changed their minds over, e.g.
We are a role model. Unfortunately. From @capitolhunters: A right-wing party loses a free & fair election, claims election fraud, and refuses to certify the results – first the US, then Brazil, today it’s Guatemala. No armed militia but still chaos at the Capitol – pushed by the same people who pushed Jan 6. Anticorruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo was fairly elected. The losers then blocked the peaceful transfer of power. The NYT shamelessly finds a new low in how to trivialize this attempted coup: “Tempers Flare as Guatemala’s Presidential Inauguration is delayed”. One difference: in Guatemala the people in the streets with flags are the winning party, those trying to preserve democracy. As on Jan 6, everyone knew what was coming and converged on the Capitol. The rise of authoritarianism is a global issue. The Biden administration has been quietly working to convince the losers in Guatemala to leave. Sen. Mike Lee (UT), who knew Jan 6 plans, is pushing for the coup – and Ric Grenell is there in person to cheer it on.
They have become completely un-moored from principles and morals: More than 6-in-10 likely Republican caucusgoers — 61% — say that it doesn’t matter to their support if former President Donald Trump is convicted of a crime before the general election, according to the latest numbers from the new NBC News/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa. By comparison, 19% of likely Iowa caucusgoers say a Trump conviction would make it more likely that they’d back Trump, while 18% say it would make them less likely to support the former president in the general election. As with the other findings from the Iowa poll, the likely caucusgoers backing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — half of whom are independents and crossover Democrats — have far different perceptions about Trump and his legal challenges than other GOP caucusgoers. Among Haley’s supporters, 56% say a possible conviction of Trump doesn’t matter to their Nov. 2024 vote choice, but 41% say it would make them less likely to back Trump.