Hold it. Exhale slowly. Get busy. Here in still-purple North Carolina, the 2024 election clock ran out at 7:30 pm last Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean we’re done. We’re in overtime. The contest to hold the critical seat of state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs is razor thin and closing as local boards of election count more absentee and provisional ballots. We’re out on the streets urging voters (friendlies, we hope) whose absentee ballots need defects corrected, or who need to present acceptable IDs at their local Board, to git ‘er done. The “curing” deadline is Thursday, close of business. So I’ve got to get rolling. As pundits from the Church of the Savvy blame Democrats for the American carnage that comes next and treat Donald Trump’s 75 million voters as having clean hands, let Stuart Stevens you offer some reassurance. (You already know what I think.) [Emphasis mine] I’ve been involved in winning presidential races and races that lost. One common thread is that everyone seems to have a reason why you won or lost which usually reflects a personal perspective or agenda.
Uncategorized
Hannity can see that this (apparently drunk) guy is going to be a nightmare for Republicans, not to mention the country. But there’s nothing he can do. These people won’t see it coming: Watch to the end of this too. These voters are deluded: Then read this about some undocumented workers who themselves don’t believe they will be deported. Sigh. I assume that some Latino Trump voters are fine with deporting undocumented immigrants. That’s an old story: pulling the ladder up behind them. But there are an awful lot of stories out there just like these folks who think that if you’re a good person and “haven’t done anything illegal” and happen to be undocumented that they aren’t going to come after you. No. They consider undocumented people to be criminals and they are going to deport them. Sure they say they’re coming for the gang members “first” but let’s be clear. Gang members and criminals have always been deportable.
Oh great: Just hours after Donald Trump won the election, Elon Musk was already flexing his power over the new administration, joining a phone call with the man he helped elect to office and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Axios reported that the world’s richest man made a guest appearance on a phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy on Wednesday, even chiming in at several points during the discussion… Musk’s surprise addition to the call is a troubling sign, to say the least. Like Trump, the billionaire has a close relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. A bombshell report last month revealed that Musk is in regular contact with Putin, and the Kremlin may have even implicitly threatened him. That could explain his past refusal to let Ukraine use his Starlink internet network to carry out a surprise attack on Russian forces, or his public ridicule of Zelenskiy’s requests for aid. They report that Trump and Musk didn’t tell Zelensky to get ready to capitulate but it’s just a matter of time.
“The spectacle of cruel laughter” It’s likely most of the Monday-morning quarterbacking on why Trump won last week is little more than speculation based on pundits’ existing biases. What novelist Joseph O’Neill offers The New York Time Review of Books is as good as any. Maybe better for being skeptical of conventional wisdom: The current prevailing theory about Trump’s victory is that most Americans, irked by an unpleasant encounter with inflation, cast an anti-incumbent vote without giving much thought to the consequences of that vote for US democracy. I don’t totally buy this whoops! theory. My sense is that, in this era of the Internet, there are millions more fascists in this country than people think, young men in particular. And I believe that many more millions are fascinated by Trump not for his supposed business prowess but for his transparent wish to hurt others. He is an evil guy, a villain—and many Americans are excited by it. Harris and the Democrats, by contrast, are boring, boring, boring.
He’s not alone Had dinner out with friends last night. There was a lot of half-serious “where can we move” banter. A gay couple in our party (men) are worried what could happen to them under an even uglier Trump 2.0 administration. They’re not alone in their concern by any means. ICYMI (reaction in Scotland): Patrick Harvie has condemned First Minister John Swinney’s decision to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the US presidential election. The co-leader of the Scottish Greens described the president-elect as a “misogynist, a climate denier, a fraudster, a conspiracy monger, a racist and a far-right politician”. Mr Harvie said Scotland must stand in solidarity with the communities he said are threatened by the incoming Trump administration in America. Speaking during First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood on Thursday, Mr Harvie said: “Yesterday the First Minister offered his congratulations to the convicted felon Donald Trump on his re-election.
Sadly, I suspect most Trump voters agree with this, even the women: Elon Musk has used his large platform on X to promote a theory that a free-thinking “Republic” could only exist under the decision-making of “high status males” – and women or “low T men” would not be welcome in it. On Sunday, Musk re-posted a screenshot of the theory – which appears to have been conceived on 4chan in 2021– on the social media site. The theory, written by an anonymous user, suggests that the only people able to think freely are “high [testostrone] alpha males” and “aneurotypical people”, and that these “high status males” should run a “Republic” that is “only for those who are free to think.” “People who can’t defend themselves physically (women and low T men) parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism,” the post reads. “Only high T alpha males and aneurotypical people (hey autists!) are actually free to parse new information with an objective ‘is this true?’ filter,” it adds.
From historian Nicole Lee Schroeder It is a really jarring moment to be a historian. To know what might be coming is alarming. To realize that no one around you sees it or acknowledges it is a weird place to be in. Its like time traveling without time traveling. I study the 19th century and the 2020s look a lot like 1820s. Frequent epidemics? Check. Inflation? Check. Xenophobia and deportation schemes? Check. Womens rights losses? Check. Rampant backlash against womens economic freedoms and jobs outside the home? Check. Growth of carceral facilities? Check. Legislation to forcibly institutionalize disabled people? Check. Targeted attacks on Indigenous peoples? Check. Extreme religious fervor? Check. Efforts to shape public school curriculum with religious rhetoric? Check. Tariffs? Check. The antebellum era was a time of progress, but it was also a time fuelled by hate. Slavery fuelled the economy, and antislavery efforts were not very radical on the whole. Hatred against immigrants was widespread and poverty was extensive. Everything we are seeing right now happened in the early 1800s.
As long as they win
He’s powerful but he’s not the superhero juggernaut they say he is: Trump cannot claim is a landslide victory, although that’s how he will describe it. As of Saturday, Trump is winning the popular vote with a little more than 74 million votes, although millions of votes have yet to be counted in California, Washington and Utah, among others. The final 2024 popular vote tally likely won’t be known until December. When he lost convincingly in 2020, Trump got a little more than 74 million votes. So while it’s true that much of the country moved to the right in this election, it’s also true that there was some voter apathy if, at the end of the day, turnout is down from 2020. […] In terms of the Electoral College, Trump is on track to win 312 electoral votes if his lead in Arizona holds. It’s a solid win, but in the lower half of US presidential elections. It would be a better showing than either his or Joe Biden’s 306 electoral votes in 2016 and 2020, respectively. It would also outperform both of George W. Bush’s electoral victories in 2000 and 2004.
Trump has a real rapport with these guys. For obvious reasons: The Taliban has congratulated Donald Trump on winning the presidential race, saying they hoped it marked a “new chapter” in relations with the United States. The Afghan government, which has not been recognised by any state since they swept to power off the back of an offensive surge in the months and weeks leading up to the US withdrawal, appeared buoyed by the election result, which has seen Trump take 294 electoral college votes so far. On X, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi expressed hope that a future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”. He underscored that during former president Trump’s first term in power he presided over a peace deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the US withdrawal in 2021 “after which the 20-year occupation ended”.