The hippies left their mark on society. We are a bit looser and less dogmatic than our parents. The bombastic nature and lawlessness of the MAGA people may learn to like a more gentle leader. I hope the MAGA anger will not be sustained. It is the seed of civil war
We need effective leadership like Biden’s. I have a difficult time in accepting campaign donations to pay legal fees. The MAGA folks are destroyers. They have infected SCOTUS and Congress.
Listen to the 9/11 families, people. It's a simple request. Censoring them has created a vacuum of information and rational dialogue in this country and created the opening for Qanon, the rise of which is part of what Jonathan had wanted us to discuss. One cause of Qanon's rise is staring us in the face--a population of people so self-absorbed and full of ego that they won't even listen to people who lost their loved ones on 9/11. We treat the 9/11 families whose grievances created the 9/11 Commission like pariahs when we're not openly mocking them. And the ignorance and sheer arrogance of this cruelty is destroying the country from the inside out. But don't give up, America. Listen to the families. They can help. So can The Bulwark. Thanks, Jonathan, always, and to the rest of the staff as well, for all your hard work.
TW, thanks for weighing in. I've not spread any "9/11 deep state conspiracy theories", just the opposite. My point is that, when the "deep state conspiracy theories" start in earnest from the MAGA crowd, talk to the 9/11 families. Jonathan V Last and the Bulwark staff well know which families I'm talking about, and anyone who doesn't merely needs to spend 90 minutes watching the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable, one of many effective sources. Remember, this isn't about you or your ego, so let your ego go, as you are quite obviously remarkably uninformed. That's OK. It happens. Listen to the 9/11 families. They know more about the deaths of their loved ones than you do.
Republican voters are terrible at politics and desperately want politics to be about culture instead. But, unfortunately for them, at the end of the day politics is about figuring out how to run the government, something Republicans are not good at, and it's why they'd rather tell everyone how to behave. Telling people how to behave requires no talent or brains.
So will we see a change to cultural codes being instituted in Congress instead of codes about how to manage this or that department or allocation, or whatever? While it's a messy dream of the right, reality says no.
Sometimes you can be too close to a subject and it obscures your ability to see.
Politics will be taken back by the politically minded. Republican voters have had great fun during the Trump years but now people are getting in trouble for things they did then and, more importantly, the voters have moved on. The ones who decide elections, that is. So Republican voters will create their own culture like American churches did in the past with their events and speakers and like-minded beliefs. What now passes for Republican ideas may indeed influence church more than politics in the future. Because they sure can't run a country.
Yes, there is still a lot of noise coming from the right and pockets of Republicans who think they still hold the relevant power and there's still a lot of political PTSD on the left, all of which can cloud clear sight. But the winds aren't blowing in the direction of Republican dominance. If your candidates can't win, you're not politically viable, and you'll have to get your money from the church folk instead.
When Owens and the rest of the MAGA crowd finally get desperate enough, they'll start talking 9/11 and WTC Building 7. The lies about 9/11 created the genesis of the MAGA movement to begin with, offering as they did the chance for Americans to deceive ourselves about the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act, the Forever War against "terror" and the Rubicon we crossed long ago. When the hour gets late, Trump and Owens and Carlson and these other MAGA cretins will seize on the truth as it's known to the 9/11 families and pretend they were with these families all along, that the 9/11 lies are coming from the "deep state" and the Democrats and on and on with whatever bullshit they can conjure. Don't let them do it, Jonathan. Don't let them do it. Talk to the 9/11 families. Don't let the truth these families have unearthed and so preciously guarded be used to attack them yet again. Don't let this happen, brother. The Bulwark is the only group of journalists who can handle this. When the time comes, stand with these families. THEY are the ones telling the truth, yet NO one else is going to be there for them but The Bulwark. Nobody else in America can take on this issue. And if YOU guys blow the 9/11 families off too? Then all is lost. You HAVE to be there for them, Jonathan. You HAVE to do this.
TW, thanks for weighing in. I've not spread any "9/11 deep state conspiracy theories", just the opposite. My point is that, when the "deep state conspiracy theories" start in earnest from the MAGA crowd, talk to the 9/11 families. Jonathan V Last and the Bulwark staff well know which families I'm talking about, and anyone who doesn't merely needs to spend 90 minutes watching the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable, one of many effective sources. Remember, this isn't about you or your ego, so let your ego go, as you are quite obviously remarkably uninformed. That's OK. It happens. Listen to the 9/11 families. They know more about the deaths of their loved ones than you do.
No, you didn't. Why is it so hard for you to fathom that the 9/11 families know more about this than you do? You need to get past your ego. Listen to the families.
Hey JVL. Got to this late and haven’t read through all the comments. I agree that Trump’s successor will be a cultural warrior like Tucker or Candance. As you and all the other Bulwarkers have said numerous times the current Republican Party isn’t a true right of center “conservative” party anymore. It’s a Trumpist cult. And another shameless cult leader is who will rule the roost next.
I think you see the same thing with Candace that people saw with MTG originally (stay with me...I know). They bring people in by talking about "normal" things and then work in the crazy talk. CrossFit, Lizzo, yoga pants vs. dressing "up", these are things we may want to talk about. If you pull people in with the normal, it is easier to hit them with the nutty. That can be more dangerous than Trump being...well...Trump. And I do agree the next nominee (if Trump doesn't get into the WH in 2024 and declare himself king), will come from outside electoral politics. Some want a show...a reality show...that they can watch and tweet/talk/FB about every day. But the running of our country shouldn't be "Big Brother - the White House Edition" (or maybe more apt, Survivor). Running the country requires people to make tough choices that benefit their constituents. It is service and not fame. I wish people would remember that.
Figures like Candace Owens are “influencers” without experience or credentials to back up many of their views. Owens may have something to say worth listening to about lifestyle and parental practices, and a point of view worth considering on racial issues . . . but Ukraine? Climate change? Macroeconomics? Virology? On a barstool on Friday night, maybe, but in the sober light of day? Seriously?
Some of the most influential US opinion-shapers have been humorists (Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Mort Sahl, Stephen Colbert) and celebrity personalities (Charles Lindbergh, Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump), none of whom had as much factual grounding as a college junior or small-business owner about many of the issues they addressed.
That’s a price we pay for living in a democratic society, where people are free to think what they like, to dispute or ignore facts they don’t like, to choose sources of information they trust.
William F. Buckley Jr. famously said, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University.” This was long before the Internet and social media blew up the directory; now, the first 2,000 names, neither alphabetical nor geographical, are determined by our individual outlooks and prejudices, filtered through algorithms. (And how many of those 2,000 names are bots?)
To channel JVL, Tom Nichols, et al.: Owens & Co. are not the problem. The problem is their audiences’ inability or disinclination to distinguish information from entertainment, and fantasy from reality. If enough people in the voting population want politics and policy debates to be about “owning” opponents in verbal jousts, actual governance be damned, that’s what we’ll get. Unless enough more voters decide, “Those people are crazy,” and vote accordingly, year after year, for as long as it takes to re-establish contests between sane, reality-based parties.
Tim Miller has been doing heroic work in wading through the MAGA fever swamp. At this point, is he having second thoughts about moving from a place where reefer is legal to a place where it’s not?
One thing that caught my eye in Tim's article about Candace Owens is where she subtly suggesed awareness that the conspiracy "theories" she peddles are nonsense the "mental yoga" thing). With that she reminded me of William Dembski, another paranoid authoritarian who has been peddling evolution-denial for decades. More than any other snake oil salesmen he seemed to enjoy dropping occasional subtle hints that he knows he's "lying for the cause." In both cases, they are confident that their target audience doesn't care.
"And if you don’t think Candace Owens would have a shot at winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, then you are whistling past the graveyard."
Realizing that predicting the future, even what will happen next week, is not realistic, and before one can get to the first long shot (CO winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination), one needs to overcome the predictive hurdle of "Will there be a Republican party capable of providing a presidential nomination in 2028?" I know this is a hard one for those whose life has been the GOP (in its Reagan/Bush form), but you have to make a couple of assumptions to believe it will still exist past the elections of 2024 and 2026.
First you have to believe that the 2024 train wreck waiting to happen of nominating someone under numerous federal and state criminal indictments does not cause a Blue Wave up and down the ballot, washing what is left of the once-GOP into the sewer of history.
Second, you will have to believe that the fear of a Kamala Harris presidency in 2028 will galvanize what is left of the 2024-GOP to circle the Conservative wagons in 2026 ("C" for the pre-Tea Party/Newt Gingrich meaning of the word), and not nominate a pure populistic "Republican" who will go down for the fifth time in 2028 (2020/2/4/6/2028).
Finally, specifically, you have to believe that CO survives the cut-throat world of politics in general and the current White Nationalist Christian movement that has taken control of the GOP in particular to be a viable force in 2028. Methinks that is a prediction too far.
The GoP isn't going to go anywhere soon unless Trump loses the GoP nomination and decides to blow it up through a third party/independent run or other means of sabotage.
Too many utterly safe seats that no non-R is going to win. They may lose on the margins, but a majority of the people currently holding seats in Congress and the Senate will continue to do so. They also still have a very good chance of winning the Presidency regardless of who they nominate (because our system works that way).
I agree that CO herself is not a likely nominee because she IS black and IS a woman... and because the racism and sexism in the GoP seems to be getting worse rather than better.
I do believe, however, that it will be someone like CO in a general sense (as I said in my own post)... an insurgent/outsider with media presence, who "gets" the GoP primary voter and is either authentic or very very good at faking it (which leaves out most of the politicians in the GoP right now, including DeSantis.
DeSantis is going to be history after 2024 and the end of his term as FL governor. He is neither likeable nor authentic.
None of the establishment GoP fit the bill regardless of how MAGA they try to be after the fact.
Cruz is so slimy NO ONE likes him.
Tucker would have been in a good position had he been able to not piss his bosses at Fox off and lose his job. He could potentially rebuild his position. The question is, would he actually want to go there (and I think not, actually). He strikes me as one of those people who is okay being a "kingmaker" and agitator, but doesn't want to be tied down to any actual responsibility.
I think the next "leader" is going to come out of the RWM at some point--but I do not see a clear candidate on the horizon atm. It might (and most likely is) someone qwho isn't even really on the radar at the moment.
I also do not think this leader is likely to appear as long as Trump is alive and probably not until the GoP goes through a period of chaos and infighting after Trump departs.
"Too many utterly safe seats that no non-R is going to win."
No issue there (although upsets do occur), and as long as the current districting is in place. We do have your margins (I like "fringes" better, but no matter) which would be swept away in a Blue Wave giving the D President (presumptively Biden, unless he has a "health event" after election night) a Congress who would be willing to repair some of the Mitch/Kevin madness of the four years past (in 2025), possibly even making the re-election of those safe-seaters questionable next time around.
Sure, upsets are possible... but you do not build strategy or long term success around them.
The major problem is that no electoral result within the next few election cycles is going to deliver 60 Senate seats to the Democrats. Without 60 dependable seats, there isn't much possibility of real repair.
None of the people with the power to change things is REALLY interested in changing things--because who si going to vote their own political power and safety away?
The REAL battleground is the states and any major changes in the states are going to be a function of demographic change rather than people changing their minds--unless there is some catastrophic event that upsets the apple cart--and Trump indictment and conviction for 1/6 is probably NOT that event--not for elections for state legislators and state offices.
All cogently argued, and I was not trying to build a strategy on upsets, merely pointing out that not all "safe" seats are. But your last paragraph is why Ms. Willis' charges and trials in Georgia are so significant.
Candace Owen's certainly has carved out a very lucrative and successful place in the MAGA universe. Her secret isn't a secret though and I am not sure she has "normies" for an audience, as it's quite clear she is in MAGA camp. She is not pretending to be a nice neighborly lady who sucks you with homemade bread and lemonade and then gently lures you into believing transgender people are mentally deranged gay men. I kinda feel like you have to already believe that something is wrong with transgendered people...and then her POV confirms that belief.
She to me falls in line with a "broken clock is right twice a day" idea. The problem with "conservative thoughts" as she espouses isn't that it all wrong or foolish. It is that it takes sentiments that can be agreed to like "embrace your natural beauty" and adds on the cruelty...embrace your natural beauty..unless you are overweight, or it involves wearing clothes not assigned to your birth gender". These positive affirmations are always conditional..women are blessed by God...until she does something ungodly like choosing not having children, or doesnt dress to please her husband, Then she is a demon sent from hell to corrupt little children.
What's amazing to me about people like her is that much of what she does...being in an interracial marriage, working outside the home, taking a podcast job away from a man,...would have her being in the "MAGA enemy camp" easily (in this sense how does she differ from say Megan Markle? Her husband isn't a prince but he is not a pauper) but for the fact she is willing to use her platform to keep others (black people and transwomen) in line. She is the very definition of a token....and IMO normies don't usually follow tokens or cult leaders.which is what makes them a normie.
When Professor Steven Jones of Brigham Young University proved in 2002 that the molten metal at Ground Zero was steel and not aluminum, thus indicating the presence of explosives, BYU should have contacted the national media instead of, eventually, accepting Jones' resignation. There was no reason to denigrate Jones' work or doubt his conclusions.
As the years have gone on, the evidence of explosives in the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 has only grown stronger, as is effectively demonstrated in the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable and elsewhere. But the mainstream media continue to mock anyone who points this out, ungenuinely conflating informed citizens with conspiracy theorists and wigged out tin foil hat fabulists.
This is enraging, of course, for grown men and women to be treated with this measure of silliness regards to such an important issue. Mocked by our own professional journalists, people who should know better and are paid to know better. Mocked by professional journalists whose lack of responsibility and flat out reckless reaction to the 9/11 attacks has caused untold damage to Truth itself, hence the need for The Bulwark.
For some people, this is all too much to bear. They can't believe our national media could be that incompetent, that afraid or simply that unable to speak truth to power. The idea that our journalists are just as vulnerable as everybody else gets lost on them.
Our journalists won't even talk to the 9/11 families whose activism created the 9/11 Commission, people like Bob McIlvaine, who sat in the gallery for every session of the Commission. He lost his son in the attacks, but that has never stopped our professional media from mocking and marginalizing him, even though HE is the expert and THEY are functioning as accessories after the fact to the men who planted the bombs.
The ignorance and arrogance of the cruelty on the part of our professional journalists toward these families is as breathtaking to behold as it is appalling. People can't believe our media would just naturally be that weak or that mean. They think you guys must be "in on it" rather than that you're helpless on the outside of all of this wondering what to do like everybody else.
And people can't believe our journalists would continue to CHOOSE to be so weak and so mean, to just continue on and on. Mocking the 9/11 families. Mocking widows. People figure there must be some greater explanation than that our media are simply uninformed or that they're afraid or that their hands are tied and they don't know how to untie them.
People look for a complex explanation for our media and their feckless behavior regards to 9/11, but the truth is likely that our journalists simply fucked this up so badly 22 years ago that now they just don't know what the hell to do about it.
And so, again, this is all too much for some people to bear, it's so tremendously heartbreaking--the sheer selfishness and incompetence of our journalists and the rest of our considerably privileged American celebrity class when it comes to the issue of 9/11.
The cowardice breaks people's hearts. It breaks their hearts, and some can't take it. Some look for ANY rational explanation for the cruelty of our media and our celebrity class toward these families. And they can't find it. So they turn to Qanon.
Thus the very capable Bulwark staff need to sit down and talk with the 9/11 families. The plague of disinformation afflicting America isn't going to subside until you do. And no one else is going to take this on. This is a job for The Bulwark, a job for which you all stand uniquely qualified.
It occurs to me that if either Owens or Gabbard were Trump's VP pick, as women they would have lots more political leeway than male Republicans to go after Kamala Harris (and anyone who defended her) hammer and tongs. Which as a mobilizing tactic would certainly be nothing to sneeze at.
Of course Trump might let the GOP Convention stage a Greene-Boebert cage match for the running mate spot instead, but I suspect he would faint at the sight of that much blood.
I agree re: leeway to take on Harris. yet I wonder if the whole Walker to take on Warwick race in GA (along with Palin to counter Hilary) has dampened some of the power of using some one of the same race/gender to go after another. It's so obvious that this would be what is happening that reeks more of desperation than a true power play. It would only fool people that want to be fooled, and they are already all in.
Plus the VP position for a Republican was weakened by Pence so badly....it now requires a total and complete toady, someone with almost psychological need to be humuliated, who isnt interested in ever being president. Which of Tim's article is to be believed doesn't seem to be Owens. Maybe that Gov. Noem....though I am not sure Trump sees women as people enough to even embrace them as a token help mate for electoral purposes. I wouldn't be surprise if he ran with no VP on the ticket at all.
Vice Presidents had very little cachet before Dick Cheney, so Pence - at least until January 6 - arguably represented a return to normalcy. (John Nance Garner, FDR's first running mate, famously described the office as "not worth a bucket of warm piss.")
It's certainly plausible that Trump now cares nothing at all about a running mate, but since attacking Harris is one of his few potential appeals to swing voters, he'd be foolish not to make the most of it.
The hippies left their mark on society. We are a bit looser and less dogmatic than our parents. The bombastic nature and lawlessness of the MAGA people may learn to like a more gentle leader. I hope the MAGA anger will not be sustained. It is the seed of civil war
We need effective leadership like Biden’s. I have a difficult time in accepting campaign donations to pay legal fees. The MAGA folks are destroyers. They have infected SCOTUS and Congress.
Listen to the 9/11 families, people. It's a simple request. Censoring them has created a vacuum of information and rational dialogue in this country and created the opening for Qanon, the rise of which is part of what Jonathan had wanted us to discuss. One cause of Qanon's rise is staring us in the face--a population of people so self-absorbed and full of ego that they won't even listen to people who lost their loved ones on 9/11. We treat the 9/11 families whose grievances created the 9/11 Commission like pariahs when we're not openly mocking them. And the ignorance and sheer arrogance of this cruelty is destroying the country from the inside out. But don't give up, America. Listen to the families. They can help. So can The Bulwark. Thanks, Jonathan, always, and to the rest of the staff as well, for all your hard work.
TW, thanks for weighing in. I've not spread any "9/11 deep state conspiracy theories", just the opposite. My point is that, when the "deep state conspiracy theories" start in earnest from the MAGA crowd, talk to the 9/11 families. Jonathan V Last and the Bulwark staff well know which families I'm talking about, and anyone who doesn't merely needs to spend 90 minutes watching the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable, one of many effective sources. Remember, this isn't about you or your ego, so let your ego go, as you are quite obviously remarkably uninformed. That's OK. It happens. Listen to the 9/11 families. They know more about the deaths of their loved ones than you do.
Republican voters are terrible at politics and desperately want politics to be about culture instead. But, unfortunately for them, at the end of the day politics is about figuring out how to run the government, something Republicans are not good at, and it's why they'd rather tell everyone how to behave. Telling people how to behave requires no talent or brains.
So will we see a change to cultural codes being instituted in Congress instead of codes about how to manage this or that department or allocation, or whatever? While it's a messy dream of the right, reality says no.
Sometimes you can be too close to a subject and it obscures your ability to see.
Politics will be taken back by the politically minded. Republican voters have had great fun during the Trump years but now people are getting in trouble for things they did then and, more importantly, the voters have moved on. The ones who decide elections, that is. So Republican voters will create their own culture like American churches did in the past with their events and speakers and like-minded beliefs. What now passes for Republican ideas may indeed influence church more than politics in the future. Because they sure can't run a country.
Yes, there is still a lot of noise coming from the right and pockets of Republicans who think they still hold the relevant power and there's still a lot of political PTSD on the left, all of which can cloud clear sight. But the winds aren't blowing in the direction of Republican dominance. If your candidates can't win, you're not politically viable, and you'll have to get your money from the church folk instead.
When Owens and the rest of the MAGA crowd finally get desperate enough, they'll start talking 9/11 and WTC Building 7. The lies about 9/11 created the genesis of the MAGA movement to begin with, offering as they did the chance for Americans to deceive ourselves about the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act, the Forever War against "terror" and the Rubicon we crossed long ago. When the hour gets late, Trump and Owens and Carlson and these other MAGA cretins will seize on the truth as it's known to the 9/11 families and pretend they were with these families all along, that the 9/11 lies are coming from the "deep state" and the Democrats and on and on with whatever bullshit they can conjure. Don't let them do it, Jonathan. Don't let them do it. Talk to the 9/11 families. Don't let the truth these families have unearthed and so preciously guarded be used to attack them yet again. Don't let this happen, brother. The Bulwark is the only group of journalists who can handle this. When the time comes, stand with these families. THEY are the ones telling the truth, yet NO one else is going to be there for them but The Bulwark. Nobody else in America can take on this issue. And if YOU guys blow the 9/11 families off too? Then all is lost. You HAVE to be there for them, Jonathan. You HAVE to do this.
Ted, I can save you some time and frustration... This isn't fertile ground for spreading 9/11 "deep state" conspiracy theories.
TW, thanks for weighing in. I've not spread any "9/11 deep state conspiracy theories", just the opposite. My point is that, when the "deep state conspiracy theories" start in earnest from the MAGA crowd, talk to the 9/11 families. Jonathan V Last and the Bulwark staff well know which families I'm talking about, and anyone who doesn't merely needs to spend 90 minutes watching the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable, one of many effective sources. Remember, this isn't about you or your ego, so let your ego go, as you are quite obviously remarkably uninformed. That's OK. It happens. Listen to the 9/11 families. They know more about the deaths of their loved ones than you do.
I tried.
No, you didn't. Why is it so hard for you to fathom that the 9/11 families know more about this than you do? You need to get past your ego. Listen to the families.
Bye.
Thanks again for the dialogue, TW. Listen to the families, my friend. The 9/11 families know what they're talking about here. And you do not.
Hey JVL. Got to this late and haven’t read through all the comments. I agree that Trump’s successor will be a cultural warrior like Tucker or Candance. As you and all the other Bulwarkers have said numerous times the current Republican Party isn’t a true right of center “conservative” party anymore. It’s a Trumpist cult. And another shameless cult leader is who will rule the roost next.
Candace Owens is a white nationalist/neo-Nazi who happens to have brown skin. That's all the explanation needed.
I think you see the same thing with Candace that people saw with MTG originally (stay with me...I know). They bring people in by talking about "normal" things and then work in the crazy talk. CrossFit, Lizzo, yoga pants vs. dressing "up", these are things we may want to talk about. If you pull people in with the normal, it is easier to hit them with the nutty. That can be more dangerous than Trump being...well...Trump. And I do agree the next nominee (if Trump doesn't get into the WH in 2024 and declare himself king), will come from outside electoral politics. Some want a show...a reality show...that they can watch and tweet/talk/FB about every day. But the running of our country shouldn't be "Big Brother - the White House Edition" (or maybe more apt, Survivor). Running the country requires people to make tough choices that benefit their constituents. It is service and not fame. I wish people would remember that.
Figures like Candace Owens are “influencers” without experience or credentials to back up many of their views. Owens may have something to say worth listening to about lifestyle and parental practices, and a point of view worth considering on racial issues . . . but Ukraine? Climate change? Macroeconomics? Virology? On a barstool on Friday night, maybe, but in the sober light of day? Seriously?
Some of the most influential US opinion-shapers have been humorists (Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Mort Sahl, Stephen Colbert) and celebrity personalities (Charles Lindbergh, Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump), none of whom had as much factual grounding as a college junior or small-business owner about many of the issues they addressed.
That’s a price we pay for living in a democratic society, where people are free to think what they like, to dispute or ignore facts they don’t like, to choose sources of information they trust.
William F. Buckley Jr. famously said, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University.” This was long before the Internet and social media blew up the directory; now, the first 2,000 names, neither alphabetical nor geographical, are determined by our individual outlooks and prejudices, filtered through algorithms. (And how many of those 2,000 names are bots?)
To channel JVL, Tom Nichols, et al.: Owens & Co. are not the problem. The problem is their audiences’ inability or disinclination to distinguish information from entertainment, and fantasy from reality. If enough people in the voting population want politics and policy debates to be about “owning” opponents in verbal jousts, actual governance be damned, that’s what we’ll get. Unless enough more voters decide, “Those people are crazy,” and vote accordingly, year after year, for as long as it takes to re-establish contests between sane, reality-based parties.
Tim Miller has been doing heroic work in wading through the MAGA fever swamp. At this point, is he having second thoughts about moving from a place where reefer is legal to a place where it’s not?
One thing that caught my eye in Tim's article about Candace Owens is where she subtly suggesed awareness that the conspiracy "theories" she peddles are nonsense the "mental yoga" thing). With that she reminded me of William Dembski, another paranoid authoritarian who has been peddling evolution-denial for decades. More than any other snake oil salesmen he seemed to enjoy dropping occasional subtle hints that he knows he's "lying for the cause." In both cases, they are confident that their target audience doesn't care.
I hope it's not Candace but what the GOP needs is an Obama to come out of left field and snatch the nomination
"And if you don’t think Candace Owens would have a shot at winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, then you are whistling past the graveyard."
Realizing that predicting the future, even what will happen next week, is not realistic, and before one can get to the first long shot (CO winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination), one needs to overcome the predictive hurdle of "Will there be a Republican party capable of providing a presidential nomination in 2028?" I know this is a hard one for those whose life has been the GOP (in its Reagan/Bush form), but you have to make a couple of assumptions to believe it will still exist past the elections of 2024 and 2026.
First you have to believe that the 2024 train wreck waiting to happen of nominating someone under numerous federal and state criminal indictments does not cause a Blue Wave up and down the ballot, washing what is left of the once-GOP into the sewer of history.
Second, you will have to believe that the fear of a Kamala Harris presidency in 2028 will galvanize what is left of the 2024-GOP to circle the Conservative wagons in 2026 ("C" for the pre-Tea Party/Newt Gingrich meaning of the word), and not nominate a pure populistic "Republican" who will go down for the fifth time in 2028 (2020/2/4/6/2028).
Finally, specifically, you have to believe that CO survives the cut-throat world of politics in general and the current White Nationalist Christian movement that has taken control of the GOP in particular to be a viable force in 2028. Methinks that is a prediction too far.
The GoP isn't going to go anywhere soon unless Trump loses the GoP nomination and decides to blow it up through a third party/independent run or other means of sabotage.
Too many utterly safe seats that no non-R is going to win. They may lose on the margins, but a majority of the people currently holding seats in Congress and the Senate will continue to do so. They also still have a very good chance of winning the Presidency regardless of who they nominate (because our system works that way).
I agree that CO herself is not a likely nominee because she IS black and IS a woman... and because the racism and sexism in the GoP seems to be getting worse rather than better.
I do believe, however, that it will be someone like CO in a general sense (as I said in my own post)... an insurgent/outsider with media presence, who "gets" the GoP primary voter and is either authentic or very very good at faking it (which leaves out most of the politicians in the GoP right now, including DeSantis.
DeSantis is going to be history after 2024 and the end of his term as FL governor. He is neither likeable nor authentic.
None of the establishment GoP fit the bill regardless of how MAGA they try to be after the fact.
Cruz is so slimy NO ONE likes him.
Tucker would have been in a good position had he been able to not piss his bosses at Fox off and lose his job. He could potentially rebuild his position. The question is, would he actually want to go there (and I think not, actually). He strikes me as one of those people who is okay being a "kingmaker" and agitator, but doesn't want to be tied down to any actual responsibility.
I think the next "leader" is going to come out of the RWM at some point--but I do not see a clear candidate on the horizon atm. It might (and most likely is) someone qwho isn't even really on the radar at the moment.
I also do not think this leader is likely to appear as long as Trump is alive and probably not until the GoP goes through a period of chaos and infighting after Trump departs.
"Too many utterly safe seats that no non-R is going to win."
No issue there (although upsets do occur), and as long as the current districting is in place. We do have your margins (I like "fringes" better, but no matter) which would be swept away in a Blue Wave giving the D President (presumptively Biden, unless he has a "health event" after election night) a Congress who would be willing to repair some of the Mitch/Kevin madness of the four years past (in 2025), possibly even making the re-election of those safe-seaters questionable next time around.
Sure, upsets are possible... but you do not build strategy or long term success around them.
The major problem is that no electoral result within the next few election cycles is going to deliver 60 Senate seats to the Democrats. Without 60 dependable seats, there isn't much possibility of real repair.
None of the people with the power to change things is REALLY interested in changing things--because who si going to vote their own political power and safety away?
The REAL battleground is the states and any major changes in the states are going to be a function of demographic change rather than people changing their minds--unless there is some catastrophic event that upsets the apple cart--and Trump indictment and conviction for 1/6 is probably NOT that event--not for elections for state legislators and state offices.
All cogently argued, and I was not trying to build a strategy on upsets, merely pointing out that not all "safe" seats are. But your last paragraph is why Ms. Willis' charges and trials in Georgia are so significant.
Candace Owen's certainly has carved out a very lucrative and successful place in the MAGA universe. Her secret isn't a secret though and I am not sure she has "normies" for an audience, as it's quite clear she is in MAGA camp. She is not pretending to be a nice neighborly lady who sucks you with homemade bread and lemonade and then gently lures you into believing transgender people are mentally deranged gay men. I kinda feel like you have to already believe that something is wrong with transgendered people...and then her POV confirms that belief.
She to me falls in line with a "broken clock is right twice a day" idea. The problem with "conservative thoughts" as she espouses isn't that it all wrong or foolish. It is that it takes sentiments that can be agreed to like "embrace your natural beauty" and adds on the cruelty...embrace your natural beauty..unless you are overweight, or it involves wearing clothes not assigned to your birth gender". These positive affirmations are always conditional..women are blessed by God...until she does something ungodly like choosing not having children, or doesnt dress to please her husband, Then she is a demon sent from hell to corrupt little children.
What's amazing to me about people like her is that much of what she does...being in an interracial marriage, working outside the home, taking a podcast job away from a man,...would have her being in the "MAGA enemy camp" easily (in this sense how does she differ from say Megan Markle? Her husband isn't a prince but he is not a pauper) but for the fact she is willing to use her platform to keep others (black people and transwomen) in line. She is the very definition of a token....and IMO normies don't usually follow tokens or cult leaders.which is what makes them a normie.
When Professor Steven Jones of Brigham Young University proved in 2002 that the molten metal at Ground Zero was steel and not aluminum, thus indicating the presence of explosives, BYU should have contacted the national media instead of, eventually, accepting Jones' resignation. There was no reason to denigrate Jones' work or doubt his conclusions.
As the years have gone on, the evidence of explosives in the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 has only grown stronger, as is effectively demonstrated in the William Hurt produced documentary The Unspeakable and elsewhere. But the mainstream media continue to mock anyone who points this out, ungenuinely conflating informed citizens with conspiracy theorists and wigged out tin foil hat fabulists.
This is enraging, of course, for grown men and women to be treated with this measure of silliness regards to such an important issue. Mocked by our own professional journalists, people who should know better and are paid to know better. Mocked by professional journalists whose lack of responsibility and flat out reckless reaction to the 9/11 attacks has caused untold damage to Truth itself, hence the need for The Bulwark.
For some people, this is all too much to bear. They can't believe our national media could be that incompetent, that afraid or simply that unable to speak truth to power. The idea that our journalists are just as vulnerable as everybody else gets lost on them.
Our journalists won't even talk to the 9/11 families whose activism created the 9/11 Commission, people like Bob McIlvaine, who sat in the gallery for every session of the Commission. He lost his son in the attacks, but that has never stopped our professional media from mocking and marginalizing him, even though HE is the expert and THEY are functioning as accessories after the fact to the men who planted the bombs.
The ignorance and arrogance of the cruelty on the part of our professional journalists toward these families is as breathtaking to behold as it is appalling. People can't believe our media would just naturally be that weak or that mean. They think you guys must be "in on it" rather than that you're helpless on the outside of all of this wondering what to do like everybody else.
And people can't believe our journalists would continue to CHOOSE to be so weak and so mean, to just continue on and on. Mocking the 9/11 families. Mocking widows. People figure there must be some greater explanation than that our media are simply uninformed or that they're afraid or that their hands are tied and they don't know how to untie them.
People look for a complex explanation for our media and their feckless behavior regards to 9/11, but the truth is likely that our journalists simply fucked this up so badly 22 years ago that now they just don't know what the hell to do about it.
And so, again, this is all too much for some people to bear, it's so tremendously heartbreaking--the sheer selfishness and incompetence of our journalists and the rest of our considerably privileged American celebrity class when it comes to the issue of 9/11.
The cowardice breaks people's hearts. It breaks their hearts, and some can't take it. Some look for ANY rational explanation for the cruelty of our media and our celebrity class toward these families. And they can't find it. So they turn to Qanon.
Thus the very capable Bulwark staff need to sit down and talk with the 9/11 families. The plague of disinformation afflicting America isn't going to subside until you do. And no one else is going to take this on. This is a job for The Bulwark, a job for which you all stand uniquely qualified.
It occurs to me that if either Owens or Gabbard were Trump's VP pick, as women they would have lots more political leeway than male Republicans to go after Kamala Harris (and anyone who defended her) hammer and tongs. Which as a mobilizing tactic would certainly be nothing to sneeze at.
Of course Trump might let the GOP Convention stage a Greene-Boebert cage match for the running mate spot instead, but I suspect he would faint at the sight of that much blood.
I agree re: leeway to take on Harris. yet I wonder if the whole Walker to take on Warwick race in GA (along with Palin to counter Hilary) has dampened some of the power of using some one of the same race/gender to go after another. It's so obvious that this would be what is happening that reeks more of desperation than a true power play. It would only fool people that want to be fooled, and they are already all in.
Plus the VP position for a Republican was weakened by Pence so badly....it now requires a total and complete toady, someone with almost psychological need to be humuliated, who isnt interested in ever being president. Which of Tim's article is to be believed doesn't seem to be Owens. Maybe that Gov. Noem....though I am not sure Trump sees women as people enough to even embrace them as a token help mate for electoral purposes. I wouldn't be surprise if he ran with no VP on the ticket at all.
Vice Presidents had very little cachet before Dick Cheney, so Pence - at least until January 6 - arguably represented a return to normalcy. (John Nance Garner, FDR's first running mate, famously described the office as "not worth a bucket of warm piss.")
It's certainly plausible that Trump now cares nothing at all about a running mate, but since attacking Harris is one of his few potential appeals to swing voters, he'd be foolish not to make the most of it.
Is the Tuesday livestream going to be a podcast, as usual? (Sorry, off topic)