America’s Hitler/JD 2024
Bronzer/Eyeliner 2024: MakeUp America Great Again
Consider this an open thread.
Links
Aaron Blake looks at how JD underperformed fellow Republicans in Ohio.
Robert Kuttner on JD’s false compassion.
A video with some of JD’s criticism from 2016.
This goes to a trusted Google page with tons of links on JD.
OK.
That’s a lede I did not know I needed.
I’m laughing like Christine Baranski and I need nothing more today.
Maybe one of her gummies…and this lamp…and this paddle game…*
*Steve Martin
The Jerk
I just got a fundraising text from Sherrod Brown re:Vance.
I donated with a “thx for not underbussing Biden/Harris”.
I can hear Peter Thiel laughing manically about the ROI of his legislative portfolio.
Vote like you mean it.
I speculated on the last thread that this is a play by Convict-1 for Thiel’s money, and perhaps that is Peter’s price.
Vance has the same lack of principles as a whole bunch of GOP senators and congresscritters. Given Convict-1’s well known aversion to facial hair, I guess that was set aside for the checkbook.
Let us not forget that Don Jr. has a beard, as do a good chunk of MAGA supporters.
The facial hair is almost like a uniform for these guys at this point.
on its face, it looks like the convicted Felon chose the most radioactive stooge possible.
all Biden needs to do is roll all the anti-orange turd comments made by mister destined for the noose “i smell a fart” vance
At least to me it’s not that hard to understand…Vance will be a reliable attack dog saying even more outrageous things and taking heat and spotlight away from TFG…will it work? I certainly can see pitfalls but it still requires the Dems to engage and join the fray…Biden needs an attack dog right now.
Honestly, if Vance ends up on TV more than Trump does, Trump is GOING to lash out at him. Trump doesn’t want his VP upstaging him.
You are assuming that voters who are still somehow undecided in this race will have the critical thinking to see through the inevitable “I’ve been able to learn more about Trump as a candidate and a person as well as how much the Democrats persecute him” pivot that is surely incoming from Vance if it hasn’t hit already. That is a strong assumption. Honestly, by this point, I’m not sure there IS messaging that would be a sure thing to convince these undecided unicorns.
They aren’t unicorns: https://www.newsweek.com/whos-still-undecided-about-2024-profile-americas-persuadables-opinion-1916786
And yes, many can be persuaded and encouraged to vote rather than sit it out. We can choose to take actions that help to persuade them and get them registered and voting.
I am familiar with Brady’s work, and I wholeheartedly support voter mobilization efforts, particularly among younger voters and anyone who voted for the first time in 2020 because of mail-in ballot expansion. I can also say in the European context where I studied voter behavior “undecided” was not uncommonly a proxy for “I don’t feel comfortable sharing but don’t want to be a ‘bad participant’ “. It’s also of note that Brady included “would consider voting for another person”, which can also be a proxy for either lack of comfort disclosing or overreliance on the trope of false balance. I strongly suspect the true number of unaware and undecided voters is much lower, and depending on their distribution across states, not an electorally significant bloc.
With that said, I do genuinely believe Project 2025 changes things. That such a clearly described extreme platform is likely to be adopted by a president who previously was not exactly known for strong stances (see the vacant 2020 GOP party platform) complicates the matter. And I definitely support informing a bunch of people who have already written Trump off as a jerk but the lesser of two evils just how much they potentially have to lose when his minions enact policies he literally may not even be able to understand.
Vance in 2016:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160704104446/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/
Sorry, I’d meant to post that as a stand-alone comment, not as a reply.
So Trump picks the even bigger, dumber phony than he is. Does he want to seem authentic by comparison? One advantage of Vance is that Trump holds so much material that is publicly available to shame his VP hopeful into perpetual obedience; we all know what Vance said about Trump before his Come To Jesus conversion, and if we don’t we’ll surely hear it in ads from the Biden campaign.
So much for “unity.” Vance is not about unity. Like Trump, he is about himself. I suppose we’ll see if all that Thiel money is worth this devil’s bargain.
J.D. Vance is infinitely smarter than Trump. We’ve yet to see whether he’s smart in a Frank Underwood way, or a Kris Kobach way. Given his recent nomination as VP, I’d say the former.
Naturally, he’s been in government so short a time he knows SFA about governance or the USG. But that’s not his mission. He’s there to give us a distillation of Koch, Mercer, Crow, and Musk and pour it into a decanter in the Oval Office.
Here’s something that might be useful. It was reposted by Dan Gillmor:
https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/112775039324717683
Jul 12, 2024, 14:55
Once Vance saw his savior’s orange halo up close he dropped to his knees and begged forgiveness for telling the truth.
MAGA
My Acolytes Grovel Always
A chicken in every pot, a $5 billion in every Rot(h).
https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank
It’s a workers’ party now.
J.D. Vance is a creature of private equity. He shares its ruthless, hard right, psychopathology. He will use it without restraint to further an agenda farther to the right than Donald Trump or the Heritage Foundation. He is the perfect billionaire’s courtier. Meanwhile, he will encourage his boss to double down on those McBurgers and fries, as he dreams about what lies ahead. A House of Cards.
As an aside, despite the themes of Vance’s oddly best-selling book, he grew up in Middletown, OH, frequently cited as one of the nicest home towns in Ohio. Like tens of thousands of others, he went to the Ann Arbor of Ohio and then to Yale Law School. If he’s a hillbilly, Yale is a community college.
And Donald Trump is a populist who sticks up for the working stiffs.
Vance previously compared Donald Trump to Hitler (his exact words). The “Hitler” label ought to be used over and over by the Biden campaign and other Democrats, as they highlight the fact that even Trump’s own running mate thinks he’s a sociopath.
Trump’s choice of JD Vance doesn’t help Trump in any way shape or form, and selecting Vance gives the Dems and ol’ Joe so much material to work with.
Trump’s incompetence knows no bounds, and he probably thinks that selection Vance was a “very smart move.” This self-inflicted political sabotage is par for the course for a loser like Trump.
Since JD Vance called Trump, “America’s Hitler”, I guess that makes Vance, “Himmler”.
More like Goering, before Goering’s life went south due to his morphine addiction (a result of the serious injuries he suffered during the Beer Hall Putsch.) Himmler was a useful idiot, in the non-Communist sense of the phrase, Goebbels was a very useful genius in a narrow field. Goering actually did stuff as a pilot in WWI, shooting down 22 Allied planes and winning the Blue Max, and was a real asset in the early days of the Nazi party. He had talent, skills, and brains, but, fortunately for the rest of the world, it all slipped away from him over the years.
The Vance quote is:
> “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
So he didn’t quite call Trump “Hitler”. The difference is significant.
Although the guy who thinks another Nixon might be OK or good, still gets no votes from me.
But to put political strategy in a courtroom drama mindset more fitting for this forum: “Your Honor, the defense opened the door when they referred to their own client as Hitler”
On Sunday Morning political roundups the day before SCOTUS burped up the immunity ruling, Vance made the rounds talking almost word for word what SCOTUS said the following day. I had distinct feeling Vance (and who knows who else) received a preview. These people are scary, in same way Gestapo was scary.
Absolutely lovely.
hmmm…thanks for mentioning this.
I wonder if we could find some possible linkages…clerks or spouses..?
I’m assuming you know, but for those who don’t, Vance’s wife clerked for Kavanaugh (pre-SCOTUS) and Roberts.
No, I didn’t know that. Thx.
I was real active here for approx. last 7 months of ’23. Close to end of December, Marcy was shining bright light on fissures in Hunter’s “case”, demonstrating convincingly (at least to me) Hunter’s devices had been tampered with.
That, along with a lot of other stuff (not least Trump’s increasingly revealing of fealty to Putin/Orbon) I was beginning to think what until that point I would not allow myself: that being MAGA/Federalists and a lot of dark money players (whoever they are) are coordinating their efforts in increasingly bold maneuvers.
I got flamed pretty good here, don’t think I mentioned it here.
Just been back in US about 5 weeks, been working in SE Asia prior. Been following this stuff from afar, but not nearly as thoroughly as last year. This episode, SCOTUS immunity (and Chevron) and plenty of other stuff has me believing what I mention above at this point as a given. Especially with 2025 and stuff they’ve been saying lately.
I’m well aware this sounds like black helicopter stuff, but I see a lot of other people and some fairly mainstream media people saying the same thing now. So I think what I said about Vance getting a preview is/was valid AND likely influenced in my thinking by this “black helicopter” stuff, I’ve rarely bought into that kind of thing in my life and arrived at this place now very, very deliberately in step by step observations of Marcy’s work the last year or so, but a bunch of other things I’ve watched carefully as well.
So, I just wanted to explain my mindset w/notion in mind that quite a few other folks are arriving at a approximately similar conclusion.
Well, I did NOT know that, but it certainly isn’t surprising. Thanks.
Perhaps this vp pick will do at least as much for Trump as picking Sarah Palin did for McCain.
‘TAINT what you do, the way that you do it!
its NAZI wut you do the way that u do it!’
itsa the all new Republican shitfucking new campaign tune!
Ella sings it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8fCXNTCWig
the swing kids piss on nazis while singing it out! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_47juPGglyM&pp=ygUbc3dpbmcga2lkcyBwaXNzIHNjZW5lIG1vdmll
and for the other Ella not-fans, Funboy 3 version from 81(like me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd5R80LkEjA Swing Kids is a fab film!
shout out to Sy Oliver, Trummy Young, Ella and all the other jazz and swing kids who were shim shamming and kicking the fascist pricks since before Joe Biden was born!
After the shooting, Vance blamed the Biden and the Dems for their violent rhetoric that amped up the shooter.
Does that mean that Vance blames Trump rhetoric for January 6th?
Indeed.
“More fundamentally, though, it is absurd for an ardent supporter of Donald Trump to feign a principled opposition to incendiary rhetoric.
The former president has likened his political enemies to “vermin,” accused Joe Biden of trying to “overthrow the United States” by orchestrating mass immigration, and said that if the Democrat wins, “our country doesn’t stand a chance.”
Eric Levitz
“Yes, it’s still fair to call Trump a threat to democracy
The attempt on his life shouldn’t cow his critics.”
Vox
7/14/2024
https://apple.news/AGO4NkLE6RYWA_MHMLdpF0w
I confess I have never seen this Vance person in a video. Just the captions warn me that he is not worthy of my attention. I don’t really know who he is. I was not aware that he was in Congress until today. I just thought he might be some kind of radio-tv Rush Limbaugh kind of radical bloviator. Maybe, y’all shouldn’t give him so much oxygen. He is visually unattractive, and if reports of his rhetoric are true, vile in what comes from his mouth. Trump will not be elected and this would-be Nazi enabler won’t get anywhere near the White House.
We’ve been here before with the George Wallace-types. He didn’t win, either. Enough water has run under the Trump bridge that folks won’t be fooled again, especially, with a nutcase like this. Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.
He wrote Hillbilly Elegy, as bestseller as I recall.
A book about Hillbillies would not be in my radar sights. I’m attracted to more elevated topics, such as the History of the US Constitution by such scholars as Professor Akil Reed Amar, from Yale University. (I wonder, did Vance take any of his courses when he was a student there?)
It was purportedly about his childhood. A lot of cultural anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists read it, among others, looking for insights, I guess, about the trump appeal.
Replying to harpie
July 15, 2024 at 6:15 pm
“The facial hair is almost like a uniform for these guys at this point.”
…as ubiquitous as the ‘Hitler Youth’ haircuts on SS Agents.
Yes, exactly.
“As a parent of young children and a nationalist who worries about America’s low fertility I can say with confidence that daylight savings time reduces fertility by at least 10 percent.” JD Vance in 2020
Comment: Huh
When the biggest proven issue to GOTV for over half our population is reproductive autonomy, go with this guy:
“If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”
@JDVance1
10:37 AM · Jun 26, 2022
To which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez replied:
“We cannot allow this ding-dong who doesn’t seem to know the typical American seeking reproductive care is already a MOTHER, & who also thought fertility had to do with Daylight Savings become the next US Senator for Ohio,”
Yes. His wife was a corporate litigator for the prestigious law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, until today.
I’m beginning to think this is a gift.
JD Vance was said to have been a protege of Amy Chua, the “tiger mom,” at Yale Law, the same school that gave us Brett Kavanaugh who likes beer. Ah, the benefits of an Ivy League education, well, at least one of the “major” Ivies, as Ted Cruz would say.
Not to change the ugly subject, but I also read that RFK Jr was meeting with Trump today to discuss “Unity.” Such a bunch. JD Vance seems to me to have very low appeal, visually or otherwise.
One doesn’t need much experience in government if the intent is to destroy it. And foreign policy chops are important if we will be outsourcing that to Putin.
I wonder if Vance is the billionaires’ succession policy.
ABSOLUTELY. I would be very cautious if I were Trump. He might want to hire a court taster, now that he is vying for King.
Vance knows that he will be no ordinary Vice President. The principal job of the VP is to act as an understudy. It has no official duties, except occasionally to preside over the Senate, in a legislative, not executive branch, capacity as its president. The VP normally ends up doing a lot of grunt work the President isn’t interested in. (I think Biden and Harris have arranged the job differently, to great effect.)
But what Vance, his backers, and most of the pary’s movers and shakers know is that Trump is unlikely to have the normal shelf of a sitting president. He’s one slip, one McBurger away from a stroke or heart attack. And, boy, does that open up possibilities for a guy steeped in private equity, like Vance.
Trump is also one hamburger away from a Court judgement assigning him to a jail cell during his first months in Office. He can’t pardon himself for State crimes, can he?
Trump’s a menu away from being incarcerated for his 34 felony convictions. For starters, first-time non-violent felony convictions rarely serve time, though Trump has worked hard to force the judge into making him the exception.
Then there’s that the convictions are not final until sentencing, which has been delayed for several weeks. Judge Merchan needs time to consider the impact of the immunity decision. Most of the counts should survive, under the principle of harmless error. But it seems unlikely Trump would serve a custodial sentence, even house arrest, until his appeal to the Appellate Division is sorted out.
Not much is gonna happen before election day. And I’m taking no bets that, if Merchan wants to put him in jail for a few weeks, the Supremes won’t step in and invent a way for the feds to stay a state court judgment that concerns the ability of their man to be the feisty, aggressive chief executive they want him to be.
And traumatic events, particularly those with a physical “reminder” to them, make the slips more likely and the McBurgers more deadly, especially among older adults. After very recent events, I suspect the only question is whether or not the VP will be eligible for 2 terms after they finish up the rest of the TFG’s.
Pence was a pick by a novice Trump to build consensus among conservatives.
Vance is a pick by a seasoned Trump to enforce his will.
This is not good for America
Does the J.D. pick make it less likely a 2nd term Trump would be impeached?
IMHO, “the J.D. pick” makes it “less likely [to be] a 2nd term Trump”.
Among other things, the fundamental, internationally recognized right to reproductive autonomy is a big fecking deal to a majority of Americans and Gen Z in particular.
Open thread? OK!~
Tim Snyder on the Trump assassination attempt:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/political-violence
Ryan Grim on the “Democratic PAC” that Crooks donated $15 to:
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trumps-shooter-gave-15-to-a-progressive
(Dropsite is a new collaboration between Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim, who
have amicably separated themselves from the Intercept)
https://bsky.app/profile/donmoyn.bsky.social/post/3kxe5ac46m22j
Jul 15, 2024 at 6:32 PM
Links to:
Make America Hungary Again
MAGA’s obsession with Orban reveals they want authoritarianism, not greatness
Don Moynihan Mar 13, 2024
Wow…so, it seems this particular VP choice fits right in a TL I’ve been working on here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/15/the-taiwan-snub/#comment-1060622
Also more here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/12/transitive-transatlantic-authoritarianism-heritage-orban-trump/#comment-1060342