Your compromised freedoms are on the line in November People who don’t believe in democracy don’t believe in America. Nor in its founding principles. Nor in its founding documents. No amount of red, white, and blue garb, no number of oversized flags, decaled monster trucks, and boat parades can conceal that fact. If January 6th was not stark proof enough, where have you been? Vice President Kamala Harris is saying it without saying it. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.
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Before Tim Walz became a politician, he was a high school teacher. One of his passions as a teacher was the subject of the Holocaust. Walz wrote his masters’ thesis on “Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies in the American High School Classroom.” It argued that the way we teach the Holocaust and genocide in school was mistaken. Walz pushed for an approach that didn’t separate the Holocaust from other genocides and human rights abuses. He also insisted that it was a mistake to focus on the maniacal character of Hitler and the Nazis. Instead he argued for a more integrated, comparative, and historicist approach, incorporating factors such as colonialism, economics, and civil war, and connecting the Holocaust to the […]
Others would sign up to be cannon fodder The spouse the other day blurted out (re: the MAGA cult), “What are they so angry about? What about their lives in this country is so terrible?” It’s a fair question. These MAGA people’s lives look pretty un-terrible. What does a rig like that truck at the top cost? How oppressed are you if you can afford to own and operate vehicles like that (and these below), accessorized as they are? “Fully 83% of the arrestees resided in areas with an average annual per capita income between $20K and $50K,” reports one study of January 6 arrestees. Just a guess, but the boat parade and truck parade people are not likely to have family incomes as low as $50k. Nor the Texas women who chartered a private jet to attend the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, 2021. They aren’t that worried about the price of gas. You can call them many things, but just don’t call these adults weird. Nothing weird about adults wearing diapers (outside their clothes). The clip below speaks for itself, as does the former celebrity. Or these totally non-weird people.
Their reasons are not all meritless On the topic of the sort of “Hey, watch this!” idiots who’d run off when told to join the new Confederacy, The Bulwark cautions: WHEN 23-YEAR-OLD GAMER ADIN ROSS presented Donald Trump with a Rolex watch in a first-of-its-kind livestreamed interview on the platform Kick Monday, a tiny subset of the internet descended into blows over whether it was a campaign finance violation or not. The rest of the approximately 600,000 people watching thought it was hilarious and cool. And that, unfortunately, is a major problem for Democrats—the majority of whom were likely oblivious to the whole episode. Ross, who boasts 1.3 million followers, is part of a cohort of young hyperonline men who promote an unapologetically MAGA aesthetic and culture. He is a sycophant of the legendary king of the manosphere, Andrew Tate, known equally for his overt misogyny and the charges he faces for rape and human trafficking. These clowns are heirs to Gamergate, dubbed the “Barstool Sports generation” by Harvard youth pollster John Della Volpe.
Here’s Tim Walz: The reaction to that: The choice couldn’t be more clear. If American democracy produces a result that puts that freak Stephen Miller in power we’re probably doomed anyway.
It’s all good, from Shapiro to Harris to Walz. If you didn’t have a chance to watch, I highly recommend it. Amanda Marcotte went to both the JD Vance rally and the Harris Walz rally and they couldn’t be more different: He’s so weird! He’s so weird!” the crowd chanted in a sing-song, taunting voice that echoed across Temple University’s packed basketball stadium Tuesday evening. Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Penn., was the first person to mention Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, to the crowd that had packed the overflowing Philadelphia rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, as she introduced her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn. The spontaneous chant cracked Shapiro up, causing him to pause momentarily before laying back into the authoritarian threat posed by Donald Trump’s “weird” and beardy running mate. The chanters didn’t know the half of it. Hours earlier, I had been at a South Philly venue where Vance spoke briefly to about 200 supporters and a group of bored journalists.
This is huge: In a new poll released Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has taken an enormous lead on former president Donald Trump among independent voters. Harris is up nine points with that group (53%-44%) after being down 14 points with them when she launched her campaign just two weeks ago Kamala Harris and Tim Walz debut at Philadelphia rallyKamala Harris and Tim Walz debut at Philadelphia rally In early July, Trump was beating President Joe Biden by four points with independents. Overall, Harris has built a 51%-48% lead over Trump, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. That’s a four-point improvement for Harris, who became the Democratic choice when Biden bowed out. Harris maintains a three-point lead (48%-45%) when third-party choices are included. Harris leads by 13 points with women (55%-42%), but is losing men by nine points (54%-45%). Here are other breakdowns, according to NPR: Fueling her rise are Black voters, white women with college degrees and women who identify as political independents.
Providing tampons for high school students is something the Trump people seem to think is very weird. I think most people probably think it’s weird not to. Why do they care about this stuff so much? Former President Trump’s campaign and supporters are going after Vice President Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), dubbing him “Tampon Tim” in reference to a bill he signed last year requiring schools to provide free menstrual products in all public school bathrooms. The Minnesota law, which went into effect Jan. 1, mandates menstrual products — including pads, tampons and other items — “must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district.” State Republican lawmakers pushed back on the legislation at the time, but ultimately failed to amend the bill to apply only for girls’ bathrooms. […] The primary super PAC supporting Trump called Walz a “weird radical liberal,” as part of a new campaign ad against the governor.
Brian Beutler says moderates should stop worrying that the Real Americans are going to run for the hills: The implicit premise, familiar to every Democrat in politics, is that Republicans will declare all progressive ideas “socialism” whether their contents or proponents are socialist or not. One school of liberal thought holds that Democrats should thus downplay these kinds of ideas—avoid bad-faith GOP backlash and seize the center through the absence of controversy. Another holds that Democrats can defeat Republicans in a contest to define the issues. As a liberal politician, you can run away from the idea of universal school lunch, because Republicans will call it socialism, or you can run toward it, while persuading people that it isn’t socialism, it’s neighborliness. If you opt for the latter, you can go a step further by noting that stripping free lunch from hungry children, or making school lunch programs a source of stigma for the children of poor parents, are ideas that only animate people of troubling character.
I keep hearing that we needn’t take Trump and company seriously about this fascist stuff. Really? Maduro is not a right winger. This is not about ideology. It’s about authoritarianism. That’s what he cares about. So when you hear people saying that the “threat to democracy” isn’t worth talking about, keep this in mind.