The greatest showman in politics spoke for 93 rambling minutes, but Republicans have serious momentum: Cool ads, Amber Rose, Tucker Carlson. It's compelling TV -- and very scary.
Really great discussion. Sarah’s dissection of the image & the vibe is accurate for me too (although the Reagan revolution had a parallel vibe). I also loved Nancy’s counter to all this. I sort of felt both ways myself—also Nancy’s rage at the big Biden lie helped me emotionally to hear. It’s cathartic at times to hear people I respect reflecting my own feelings on this stuff. Thanks Sarah and Nancy!!!
A story about Eric Trump. A friend of mine sent his kids to the Hill School (outside Pottstown PA) where Trump sent his boys. I don't know if that is where Ivanka went to school. In any case, when Eric Graduated (with my my friend's son), he was given a special honor that was made up just for him. It is assumed that a large donation allowed this to happen. Eric was a very unremarkable student and would not necessarily have merited an award.
Another great episode. I always push it to the top of the queue when it drops.
And I am truly politically homeless like so many here. I can't vote for either of these guys, or Harris. I'll probably write in None Of The Above.
1 - I'm a believing Christian, and I'll tell you what, if that bullet grazed my ear, I'd sure as heck be calling it divine intervention. Nancy, you ask why wouldn't God stop the shooter from climbing that roof (or something to that effect) and I can't answer that. Sometimes God intervenes, sometimes he doesn't. He usually doesn't. If he did, we'd just be robots. So I don't know why, and I just have to accept that. I think that's what makes it faith.
2 - Re: beauty. I also found myself just constantly thinking about Amber Rose - wow, she is beautiful! Like, how is someone that beautiful! And here's the thing, beauty isn't everything, and it's fair to notice that people get unfair advantage for it, and to discuss that. But the left, in this effort to not hurt people's feelings, have sort of tried to wish beauty out of existence, or to insist to everyone "this is what you will now find beautiful! and people will pretend for a while, but at some point they will understand that they are pretending. Similarly, the Biden fiasco has people realizing the danger of pretending. So now the republicans totally look like the sane ones!
I'm also a Christian, and I would not call it divine intervention if a bullet grazed my ear. Providence and divine intervention are things Christians have been debating for close to 2,000 years, as I imagine you know. :-) I'm in the fairly broad "It's hard to explain God, so I'd like to be cautious before asserting that I know what God is up to" camp. My dad probably would have been, too. But my mom is much more into making claims about divine intervention, as, I think, are a lot of American Protestants.
Yes! My dad was raised in a devout Catholic family ( as was I!). After dinner every night the family would do the rosary together, and they went to mass every day. He went to a Jesuit college and law school.
He loathed the idea of a God who intervenes.
He would ask if it meant all of the Jews in concentration camps didn’t pray to God hard enough.
When I worked on an oncology ward I lost my faith. I couldn’t reconcile the suffering I saw with a benevolent God.
Neither do I want to believe in a capricious God, giving out miracles like Oprah giving out cars to lucky audience members.
I loved this episode- I think you ladies have really found your groove. I too am so angry at Biden and the team around him. They have been playing us for fools.
I have been a democrat all my life. My grandpa, who lived with us, was a founding member of Ford Local 1- the first union at Fords. I was taught that Democrats are for the working people, the little people.
I don’t even know what the Democratic Party is today. I read the party platform online, and it reads like a DEI madlibs. I don’t agree with the party on women’s issues ( sex based rights), or on immigration, or the war in Israel, or the identity politics. The way it handled the build back better grants was terrible. It leaves me thinking that omg maybe I’m a Republican?!
And then I see the insanity at the RNC convention and lord I want no part of that.
I find myself in the middle. And it feels like this is where most people are hanging out.
I love this comment, and yes to most people hanging out in the middle. When the person (my brother) said two weeks ago, "We don't have a choice" - meaning between Biden and Trump - I didn't even respond, I found it sad and... brainwashed? We always have a choice, in that we can write and speak up as well as see the political system as rotted and sure, these people sway and decide some things but also, what does that have to do with me?: I think I've said on the show a gazillion times that I often feel as though I am standing on the sidelines watching people on the field tear each other to shreds, while right there on the horizon things are calm. Let's live there. But also! I find the current drama engaging and expect we will see more of it, Biden bowing out, almost certainly. But are we certain Trump will make it to the finish line? I don't mean this fatalistically, more that this season may have more in store - NR
I heard Kmele Foster give a really nice, short defense of the "God intervened" Christian viewpoint on the Megyn Kelly podcast yesterday. He said all the Christians he knows would say something similar if they escaped death, not meaning that God willed the death of the firefighter but recommitting themselves to doing something with the time they'd been allowed. I guess I didn't give Trump credit for that viewpoint because he's famously not interested in Christian theology, but maybe in not giving him credit I was too dismissive of the more devoted Christians who think similarly.
With the beauty thing and the left it makes me think of Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, where equality and equity is achieved by people becoming blobs in masks, helmets to make them less exceptionally intelligent and weights to slow them if they are athletic. We're not there but there is this strain of equity that almost seems to wish that dystopia into existence. https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
I am about to start this episode but wanted to get a suggestion in before I forget.
I love the guests you have had on, they're always fascinating and your skills at Q&A are exceptional. Always a compelling listen. But one glaring omission from perspectives is someone who might be labeled a conservative - who does not instinctively, reflexively reject the label instantly. I might be wrong, and if so, I apologize in advance, but I don't believe such a guest has been included.
Coleman Hughes remains my favorite, and he has been adorned with that label, which he rejects. I agree, the label does not fit him. There are certainly potential guests that exist who don't recoil at the label, and they tend to popular in the blog/podcast world.
Okay, request complete. Diving into this episode. :-)
How about an actual zero ambiguity, card carrying conservative like Jonah Goldberg or Kevin Williamson? Jonah has a whole theory about how some people in the ‘heterodox space’ are the new neoconservatives. He ran the idea by Caitlin Flanagan when she was on his podcast but she didn’t really bite. He’s repeatedly returned to the idea and I’m sure he’d love to discuss it with a receptive audience.
Nancy - you and I had a brief exchange about Rob Long recently - I nominate him! However, Jonah and Rob are both old school liberals, neither of whom will have anything good to say about Trump or the RNC. Kevin too, I think. Which is fine with me, I don't really either, but it doesn't seem quite in the spirit of what's being asked for here.
Goldberg identifies as a conservative and a classical liberal, and I think Williamson would, too. Weirdly, if one wanted someone to explain conservatism these days, one would be better off with any of the writers and podcasters at The Dispatch than somebody pro-Trump. Trump isn't really much of a conservative, which is why many former conservatives have spent years contorting themselves into ideological pretzels for Trumpism.
That's the conservativism I subscribe to as well, and I'm always happy for someone intelligent to come on and speak persuasively for it. It's just that if that's not what's on the ballot, it seems a little bait and switch-y, like, "I love what that guy says, I think I'll vote Republican" but that's not what you're voting for at all. I still didn't know how I'm going to vote.
This whole subject is really interesting. One could describe themselves as conservative if they-
1) support conservative policies
2) are committed to a conservative political philosophy
3) have a generally conservative temperament (I suspect there are plenty of center left democrats that fall into this category)
Some would check multiple boxes, others would check only one.
I tend to be most interested in 2 and 3. Sometimes things come up in a rapidly changing world where one has to actually interrogate their own ideological commitments in order to know how to react. It’s not always obvious.
In other words- much of what we’re dealing with in the 21st century with tech and the information landscape etc would not have made any sense if you had tried to explain it to someone in 1988. There is no precedent to lean on, and if there is, it’s not necessarily obvious. So, in certain cases, you might hear someone say “How, as libertarians, should we think about this?”
This is something that you get from Reason Magazine, for instance. And I appreciate that. There’s no pretense of objectivity, but rather a commitment to a set of principles based on a coherent ideology that is used to interpret events as they unfold.
The Remnant is a fantastic podcast, especially the solo Ruminents, where Jonah regularly gets deep into the weeds of political philosophy. It’s an opportunity to set the culture war aside and think about things in a more historical framework. I don’t agree with him about everything- he checks more of the previously mentioned boxes than I do. But I learn a lot when I listen.
I’d like to jump on the Jonah bandwagon. Not necessarily because he’s conservative but because he always makes smart, well thought out observations and isn’t afraid to call bullshit from whatever the source. And our current political landscape is a target-rich environment!
About to dive in as well. This comment struck a chord and I'm still figuring out how to reply. I more often hear liberal guests making sure they are not described as conservatives than I hear conservatives making sure they are not described as liberals. (As a libertarian, that's my perception. ) I was going to delete this comment, but -- Smoke 'Em is a friendly spot, so I'd rather post this and hear some corrective comments.
Maybe it's the professional waters many guests swim in? In many academic disciplines, for instance, it's the kiss of death to be called a conservative, so you have to rush to deny that you are one. Whereas you could respectably be a "liberal" in any sense without inciting ire, so you don't have to worry if people assume that's what you are. Journalism outside right-wing niches strikes me as similar.
Politics. Left, right. Conservative. Liberal. People act almost like they’re categories in nature. They aren’t. They are absurd, violently simplistic filters for a multiform reality. In what other realm do all individual phenomenon come in exactly 2 flavors? - Walter Kirn
No Political Party Will Ever Have My Undying Allegiance - Politically Homeless - Bridget Phetasy.
I read every Democratic presidential candidates memoirs in 2016. What struck me about Biden’s life story is that he has always been motivated by unbridled ambition and propelled by that more so than raw talent or a drive to help other people.
(I did vote for Biden.)
We are seeing this now in full force as he refuses to withdraw his candidacy. Joe Biden has always believed that he is entitled to power. The problem is, he has always lacked the charisma, intelligence, and authenticity to get where he has always wanted to be, i.e., the presidency. That he became the president of the United States by default when the Democratic Party was disjointed and directionless, on promises to be a “bridge to future,” is a remarkable example of someone failing upward.
The tragedy of Bo Biden’s death is that Bo was the only Biden who ever possessed the complete package required to be a political star. (or at least this is what everyone in his family always believed). If Bo hadn't died, he would've been president. This comes out in everything I've ever read about the Biden’s. Bo was considered brilliant, charming, hard-working, and authentic in a way that his father is not. He was the last great hope. So now Joe will not give up. It's tragic.
Obviously, Trump’s speech was ridiculously long. I don’t think this hurts anything because most people only watch the first few minutes and then fall asleep, like Sarah.
However, I’m surprised more people aren’t pointing out the intentionality of Trump filibustering for 90 minutes, likely setting the record for the longest presidential nominee acceptance speech. He was drawing a clear distinction between his stamina and Biden’s! This was on purpose. Biden can’t speak before a crowd or even one on one in an interview for more than 15 minutes these days. Can you imagine the guy trying to give an acceptance speech that lasted even half the length of Trump’s?
I think Biden‘s gonna be replaced, but Trump’s too-long acceptance speech was orchestrated to demonstrate the vast chasm in mental acuity and stamina between these two very old men.
It’s the biggest gaslight in the world. Trump and the evangelicals and Kid Rock will save democracy. He told people to fight or they won’t have a country, they tried to hang pence. They beat up my capital building. It’s mine too “whose house?”it’s my f ing house too.
Forget about all that, this is a new Trump. He’s going to save us all. He’s just a lovable grandpop. It amazes me that all the people following him now can just forget what they said about him previously, Nicky Haley, Vance etc
It’s a “ little bit culty” to quote another pod. Did we all forget about Qanon?
His granddaughter is 17, she did an amazing job.
The Dems suck !
I was thinking how is it we are at the mercy of these two parties.
My parents are rolling in their graves.
I love America too. I’m a patriot and I can be one and not agree with everything Trump says. (He’s not wrong on a few things, hey the border ?!)
I loved watching the apprentice too… I much preferred him as a reality show verses the freaking president.
I’ve read a few articles on how mental health will decline if and probably when Trump is elected. I believe that is true.
But how many people actually believe God saved Donald Trump? I'm sure there are some, but are there enough to affect the election? I just don't think so. If Trump wins, it will be due to the outdated electoral college, not God.
I left my phone in the Airbnb for the weekend, and looked at it as I was getting ready to head home. While that was a fun surprise vis a vie my airtravel and the 14 hours that followed, what really got my attention is that folks STILL seem to be under the impression that people are going to express their anger at the ballot box instead of the streets. It seems to me the media (and increasingly alt-media as well) is really not picking up the vibe that is pretty obvious to me. Regardless of the election results, there is going to be a release valve opened. I doubt it will even wait for the election, but team red almost lost their guy, and team blue is waking up to the fact they never really had their guy, and they both are going to come together and agree they got scammed at some point here. For my part I think casting a vote isn't going to scratch the itch both groups seem to feel at this point. People keep talking about points in states and candidate speeches, rhetoric, and imagery or anecdotes from Uber drivers and relatives who are "pretty red / blue" but next time you are in a store or waiting in line somewhere, just mention something like "politicians are the worst" and then listen to what comes back. As a non-sports ball fan if I am feeling this actively aggravated (slipping away from the previously comfortable resignation / frustration) I can only imagine vibrating high pitched "fuck this shit" a lot of folks are feeling in this moment. I guess we will see how its all gonna go at the DNC, it will be the opening band IMHO instead of the main event people seem to think it will be. I hope I am wrong as shit, hell I might even pray I am wrong, and as far as I can tell ain't no one taking my calls on that score. But hey, any port in a storm. :D
I was shocked to hear about Evan Wright - I devoured Generation Kill after watching the miniseries, and I hunted down the rest of his books quickly after that. I loved his writing and perspectives.
Sarah - If you read Hella Nation (by Wright), you’ll learn this - he was the pseudonymous Harold Hecuba in DFW’s story Big Red Son. The more you know!
Really great discussion. Sarah’s dissection of the image & the vibe is accurate for me too (although the Reagan revolution had a parallel vibe). I also loved Nancy’s counter to all this. I sort of felt both ways myself—also Nancy’s rage at the big Biden lie helped me emotionally to hear. It’s cathartic at times to hear people I respect reflecting my own feelings on this stuff. Thanks Sarah and Nancy!!!
A story about Eric Trump. A friend of mine sent his kids to the Hill School (outside Pottstown PA) where Trump sent his boys. I don't know if that is where Ivanka went to school. In any case, when Eric Graduated (with my my friend's son), he was given a special honor that was made up just for him. It is assumed that a large donation allowed this to happen. Eric was a very unremarkable student and would not necessarily have merited an award.
Another great episode. I always push it to the top of the queue when it drops.
And I am truly politically homeless like so many here. I can't vote for either of these guys, or Harris. I'll probably write in None Of The Above.
Sorry for your losses, Nancy. <3
Just finished. Awfully tough to lose a friend unexpectedly; especially one you were just texting with recently. I can't imagine. Condolences.
Good discussion, despite the less-than-excellent audio.
The news is changing so fast these days, who knows what's coming up next. Thank you.
Two things:
1 - I'm a believing Christian, and I'll tell you what, if that bullet grazed my ear, I'd sure as heck be calling it divine intervention. Nancy, you ask why wouldn't God stop the shooter from climbing that roof (or something to that effect) and I can't answer that. Sometimes God intervenes, sometimes he doesn't. He usually doesn't. If he did, we'd just be robots. So I don't know why, and I just have to accept that. I think that's what makes it faith.
2 - Re: beauty. I also found myself just constantly thinking about Amber Rose - wow, she is beautiful! Like, how is someone that beautiful! And here's the thing, beauty isn't everything, and it's fair to notice that people get unfair advantage for it, and to discuss that. But the left, in this effort to not hurt people's feelings, have sort of tried to wish beauty out of existence, or to insist to everyone "this is what you will now find beautiful! and people will pretend for a while, but at some point they will understand that they are pretending. Similarly, the Biden fiasco has people realizing the danger of pretending. So now the republicans totally look like the sane ones!
I'd like to think the left will learn something from it - but I'm not even a little bit confident. Sarah Haider just wrote a short piece about this: https://newsletter.sarahhaider.com/p/1-why-hasnt-the-bubble-popped?r=7fxu7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web.
I'm also a Christian, and I would not call it divine intervention if a bullet grazed my ear. Providence and divine intervention are things Christians have been debating for close to 2,000 years, as I imagine you know. :-) I'm in the fairly broad "It's hard to explain God, so I'd like to be cautious before asserting that I know what God is up to" camp. My dad probably would have been, too. But my mom is much more into making claims about divine intervention, as, I think, are a lot of American Protestants.
Yes! My dad was raised in a devout Catholic family ( as was I!). After dinner every night the family would do the rosary together, and they went to mass every day. He went to a Jesuit college and law school.
He loathed the idea of a God who intervenes.
He would ask if it meant all of the Jews in concentration camps didn’t pray to God hard enough.
When I worked on an oncology ward I lost my faith. I couldn’t reconcile the suffering I saw with a benevolent God.
Neither do I want to believe in a capricious God, giving out miracles like Oprah giving out cars to lucky audience members.
I loved this episode- I think you ladies have really found your groove. I too am so angry at Biden and the team around him. They have been playing us for fools.
I have been a democrat all my life. My grandpa, who lived with us, was a founding member of Ford Local 1- the first union at Fords. I was taught that Democrats are for the working people, the little people.
I don’t even know what the Democratic Party is today. I read the party platform online, and it reads like a DEI madlibs. I don’t agree with the party on women’s issues ( sex based rights), or on immigration, or the war in Israel, or the identity politics. The way it handled the build back better grants was terrible. It leaves me thinking that omg maybe I’m a Republican?!
And then I see the insanity at the RNC convention and lord I want no part of that.
I find myself in the middle. And it feels like this is where most people are hanging out.
I love this comment, and yes to most people hanging out in the middle. When the person (my brother) said two weeks ago, "We don't have a choice" - meaning between Biden and Trump - I didn't even respond, I found it sad and... brainwashed? We always have a choice, in that we can write and speak up as well as see the political system as rotted and sure, these people sway and decide some things but also, what does that have to do with me?: I think I've said on the show a gazillion times that I often feel as though I am standing on the sidelines watching people on the field tear each other to shreds, while right there on the horizon things are calm. Let's live there. But also! I find the current drama engaging and expect we will see more of it, Biden bowing out, almost certainly. But are we certain Trump will make it to the finish line? I don't mean this fatalistically, more that this season may have more in store - NR
Oh I agree, it doesn't mean He DID intervene, but I'd be so emotional about it, and let's just say, I'd make some changes in my life 😊.
I heard Kmele Foster give a really nice, short defense of the "God intervened" Christian viewpoint on the Megyn Kelly podcast yesterday. He said all the Christians he knows would say something similar if they escaped death, not meaning that God willed the death of the firefighter but recommitting themselves to doing something with the time they'd been allowed. I guess I didn't give Trump credit for that viewpoint because he's famously not interested in Christian theology, but maybe in not giving him credit I was too dismissive of the more devoted Christians who think similarly.
I'll look for that - thanks!
With the beauty thing and the left it makes me think of Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, where equality and equity is achieved by people becoming blobs in masks, helmets to make them less exceptionally intelligent and weights to slow them if they are athletic. We're not there but there is this strain of equity that almost seems to wish that dystopia into existence. https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
I am about to start this episode but wanted to get a suggestion in before I forget.
I love the guests you have had on, they're always fascinating and your skills at Q&A are exceptional. Always a compelling listen. But one glaring omission from perspectives is someone who might be labeled a conservative - who does not instinctively, reflexively reject the label instantly. I might be wrong, and if so, I apologize in advance, but I don't believe such a guest has been included.
Coleman Hughes remains my favorite, and he has been adorned with that label, which he rejects. I agree, the label does not fit him. There are certainly potential guests that exist who don't recoil at the label, and they tend to popular in the blog/podcast world.
Okay, request complete. Diving into this episode. :-)
How about an actual zero ambiguity, card carrying conservative like Jonah Goldberg or Kevin Williamson? Jonah has a whole theory about how some people in the ‘heterodox space’ are the new neoconservatives. He ran the idea by Caitlin Flanagan when she was on his podcast but she didn’t really bite. He’s repeatedly returned to the idea and I’m sure he’d love to discuss it with a receptive audience.
I like Jonah and his writing and have been on his podcast with him. I'll be happy to have him on - NR
Nancy - you and I had a brief exchange about Rob Long recently - I nominate him! However, Jonah and Rob are both old school liberals, neither of whom will have anything good to say about Trump or the RNC. Kevin too, I think. Which is fine with me, I don't really either, but it doesn't seem quite in the spirit of what's being asked for here.
Goldberg identifies as a conservative and a classical liberal, and I think Williamson would, too. Weirdly, if one wanted someone to explain conservatism these days, one would be better off with any of the writers and podcasters at The Dispatch than somebody pro-Trump. Trump isn't really much of a conservative, which is why many former conservatives have spent years contorting themselves into ideological pretzels for Trumpism.
That's the conservativism I subscribe to as well, and I'm always happy for someone intelligent to come on and speak persuasively for it. It's just that if that's not what's on the ballot, it seems a little bait and switch-y, like, "I love what that guy says, I think I'll vote Republican" but that's not what you're voting for at all. I still didn't know how I'm going to vote.
This whole subject is really interesting. One could describe themselves as conservative if they-
1) support conservative policies
2) are committed to a conservative political philosophy
3) have a generally conservative temperament (I suspect there are plenty of center left democrats that fall into this category)
Some would check multiple boxes, others would check only one.
I tend to be most interested in 2 and 3. Sometimes things come up in a rapidly changing world where one has to actually interrogate their own ideological commitments in order to know how to react. It’s not always obvious.
In other words- much of what we’re dealing with in the 21st century with tech and the information landscape etc would not have made any sense if you had tried to explain it to someone in 1988. There is no precedent to lean on, and if there is, it’s not necessarily obvious. So, in certain cases, you might hear someone say “How, as libertarians, should we think about this?”
This is something that you get from Reason Magazine, for instance. And I appreciate that. There’s no pretense of objectivity, but rather a commitment to a set of principles based on a coherent ideology that is used to interpret events as they unfold.
The Remnant is a fantastic podcast, especially the solo Ruminents, where Jonah regularly gets deep into the weeds of political philosophy. It’s an opportunity to set the culture war aside and think about things in a more historical framework. I don’t agree with him about everything- he checks more of the previously mentioned boxes than I do. But I learn a lot when I listen.
Yep, I think of myself as a moderate or liberaltarian on most issues, and/but I love The Remnant and Reason for the same qualities you mentioned.
I’d like to jump on the Jonah bandwagon. Not necessarily because he’s conservative but because he always makes smart, well thought out observations and isn’t afraid to call bullshit from whatever the source. And our current political landscape is a target-rich environment!
You three would be so great together.
About to dive in as well. This comment struck a chord and I'm still figuring out how to reply. I more often hear liberal guests making sure they are not described as conservatives than I hear conservatives making sure they are not described as liberals. (As a libertarian, that's my perception. ) I was going to delete this comment, but -- Smoke 'Em is a friendly spot, so I'd rather post this and hear some corrective comments.
Mark - i always read your posts. Your contributions are always appreciated. ;-)
Thank you!
Maybe it's the professional waters many guests swim in? In many academic disciplines, for instance, it's the kiss of death to be called a conservative, so you have to rush to deny that you are one. Whereas you could respectably be a "liberal" in any sense without inciting ire, so you don't have to worry if people assume that's what you are. Journalism outside right-wing niches strikes me as similar.
Walter Kirn and Bridget Phetasy come to mind! - NR
Okay now I've finished the episode. You two are sooo good together. Fantastic episode.
Politics. Left, right. Conservative. Liberal. People act almost like they’re categories in nature. They aren’t. They are absurd, violently simplistic filters for a multiform reality. In what other realm do all individual phenomenon come in exactly 2 flavors? - Walter Kirn
No Political Party Will Ever Have My Undying Allegiance - Politically Homeless - Bridget Phetasy.
https://www.phetasy.com/p/no-political-party-will-ever-have
I understand they have some tendencies, like Coleman… but I’m fairly confident they would reject this characterization.
But I could be wrong.
I read every Democratic presidential candidates memoirs in 2016. What struck me about Biden’s life story is that he has always been motivated by unbridled ambition and propelled by that more so than raw talent or a drive to help other people.
(I did vote for Biden.)
We are seeing this now in full force as he refuses to withdraw his candidacy. Joe Biden has always believed that he is entitled to power. The problem is, he has always lacked the charisma, intelligence, and authenticity to get where he has always wanted to be, i.e., the presidency. That he became the president of the United States by default when the Democratic Party was disjointed and directionless, on promises to be a “bridge to future,” is a remarkable example of someone failing upward.
The tragedy of Bo Biden’s death is that Bo was the only Biden who ever possessed the complete package required to be a political star. (or at least this is what everyone in his family always believed). If Bo hadn't died, he would've been president. This comes out in everything I've ever read about the Biden’s. Bo was considered brilliant, charming, hard-working, and authentic in a way that his father is not. He was the last great hope. So now Joe will not give up. It's tragic.
It's really nice that you talk about Joe Biden like he's a human being
Obviously, Trump’s speech was ridiculously long. I don’t think this hurts anything because most people only watch the first few minutes and then fall asleep, like Sarah.
However, I’m surprised more people aren’t pointing out the intentionality of Trump filibustering for 90 minutes, likely setting the record for the longest presidential nominee acceptance speech. He was drawing a clear distinction between his stamina and Biden’s! This was on purpose. Biden can’t speak before a crowd or even one on one in an interview for more than 15 minutes these days. Can you imagine the guy trying to give an acceptance speech that lasted even half the length of Trump’s?
I think Biden‘s gonna be replaced, but Trump’s too-long acceptance speech was orchestrated to demonstrate the vast chasm in mental acuity and stamina between these two very old men.
It’s the biggest gaslight in the world. Trump and the evangelicals and Kid Rock will save democracy. He told people to fight or they won’t have a country, they tried to hang pence. They beat up my capital building. It’s mine too “whose house?”it’s my f ing house too.
Forget about all that, this is a new Trump. He’s going to save us all. He’s just a lovable grandpop. It amazes me that all the people following him now can just forget what they said about him previously, Nicky Haley, Vance etc
It’s a “ little bit culty” to quote another pod. Did we all forget about Qanon?
His granddaughter is 17, she did an amazing job.
The Dems suck !
I was thinking how is it we are at the mercy of these two parties.
My parents are rolling in their graves.
I love America too. I’m a patriot and I can be one and not agree with everything Trump says. (He’s not wrong on a few things, hey the border ?!)
I loved watching the apprentice too… I much preferred him as a reality show verses the freaking president.
I’ve read a few articles on how mental health will decline if and probably when Trump is elected. I believe that is true.
Glad smoke ‘em IS a safe space.
Nancy I’m so so sorry for your loss.
What is foolish about handjobs tho
But how many people actually believe God saved Donald Trump? I'm sure there are some, but are there enough to affect the election? I just don't think so. If Trump wins, it will be due to the outdated electoral college, not God.
I left my phone in the Airbnb for the weekend, and looked at it as I was getting ready to head home. While that was a fun surprise vis a vie my airtravel and the 14 hours that followed, what really got my attention is that folks STILL seem to be under the impression that people are going to express their anger at the ballot box instead of the streets. It seems to me the media (and increasingly alt-media as well) is really not picking up the vibe that is pretty obvious to me. Regardless of the election results, there is going to be a release valve opened. I doubt it will even wait for the election, but team red almost lost their guy, and team blue is waking up to the fact they never really had their guy, and they both are going to come together and agree they got scammed at some point here. For my part I think casting a vote isn't going to scratch the itch both groups seem to feel at this point. People keep talking about points in states and candidate speeches, rhetoric, and imagery or anecdotes from Uber drivers and relatives who are "pretty red / blue" but next time you are in a store or waiting in line somewhere, just mention something like "politicians are the worst" and then listen to what comes back. As a non-sports ball fan if I am feeling this actively aggravated (slipping away from the previously comfortable resignation / frustration) I can only imagine vibrating high pitched "fuck this shit" a lot of folks are feeling in this moment. I guess we will see how its all gonna go at the DNC, it will be the opening band IMHO instead of the main event people seem to think it will be. I hope I am wrong as shit, hell I might even pray I am wrong, and as far as I can tell ain't no one taking my calls on that score. But hey, any port in a storm. :D
I was shocked to hear about Evan Wright - I devoured Generation Kill after watching the miniseries, and I hunted down the rest of his books quickly after that. I loved his writing and perspectives.
Sarah - If you read Hella Nation (by Wright), you’ll learn this - he was the pseudonymous Harold Hecuba in DFW’s story Big Red Son. The more you know!