An icicle has a better chance in hell than me voting for a republican in November. There is nothing that would ever let me trust a republican ever again, not while Trump is the ringmaster of this circus sideshow.
Even after Trump has left the stage, consider how the Republicans (with some noteworthy exceptions) bent the knee to Trump. Do not ever trust those again, for they failed the test when it mattered.
I'd prefer a world where people didn't care so much about their own financial circumstances as they do about the fact that this president is throwing people in concentration camps, murdering people in boats, killing civilians in Iran, doing everything he can to ravage the environment for profit, making billions for himself and other wealthy scum through corrupt deals and stock-market manipulation, pardoning convicted criminals for pay, gutting health care and the social safety net, destroying once robust science programs, doing nothing to regulate AI, supporting white Christian nationalism, siding with violent authoritarians throughout the world and just generally promoting racism, misogyny, transphobia and cruelty.
Maybe ALL THESE HORRIFIC THINGS (and many I haven't listed) should be why people turn against Trump rather than paying a little more for gas or him insulting the pope. Honestly, some of the people in this country need to grow up.
I have a hunch, many people feel more comfortable declaring their choice is based on greed, than admitting the 'other stuff' makes them uncomfortable. People rationalize all the time, justifying their desired choices with more socially acceptable reasons.
But yes, too many are so confused and exhausted with the lies and attacks and counter attacks and don't have the time and energy to figure out what is real, so the focus on how they feel.
What most people talk around by saying 'affordability' is the fear of being replaced by AI and/or robotics or other software / automation. You can't afford much if you don't have a job, or you need to accept retraining / starting over in a new job / career, at the bottom. Less money means you afford LESS. THAT is the BIG fear, not ten cents more on a vegetable, but on whether they will have to move to something cheaper, sell the car they are making payments on, to buy a 'beater' without payments. People acquire 'stuff' over the years a nd grow to fill the place they live in. It is PAINFUL to shrink yourself down again, to do with much less. To barely survive, with worse health, more stress. People know this, and they FEAR it is coming for them. When a fear is that big, people don't want to admit to it. They don't want to 'make it real' by talking about it.
Yes, there are LOTS of horrible things Trump is doing ruining the lives of countless people, but let us welcome people who have had enough of Trump, and help them learn how to oppose him effectively. We need to be aware, that until we address the other problems, the financial ones that Trump did not create, but did make worse, that our society is going to get increasingly radical, flopping between the parties, because the stress is building and it will explode. It has happened before.
Heidi, I agree! You have stated my thoughts so aptly. I wanted the folks in my state who opposed the building of a "concentration camp" to have a higher purpose than any property values, nimby concerns 😟 😨
There are loads of people who do vote out of empathy for others and for the planet, but not near enough. It makes me very sad that we rarely read voter analyses based on how people feel about all this violence and cruelty.
With all the war profiteering while the rest of us pay rising prices for necessities, I don't know what to make of his approval rating being as high as it is. The list of GOP-enabling anti-American actions grows each day. The entrenched Democrats never seem to want to go on offense, and "punch 'em in the mouth twice as hard" as The Donald likes to say, and do. Let's turn up the heat. Make just one call, one email. Tell your representatives point-blank that if they don't take serious action now, then they're part of the scumbaggery who will lose their cushy seats. Don't deny yourself this simple pleasure of democratic citizenry. Make their day--it makes mine when I do it.
David, you are correct, as usual. It's his non-MAGA-cult supporters who worry me, especially the ones who live in swing districts. And they are the reason Canadian PM Mark Carney and his citizens, and Europeans, are turning their backs on us. It's the obnoxious, endangering, isolating "America First" propaganda that many of them are seeing and hearing. That's why I've started building into my schedule make-their-day moments, like calling, flipping something at my laptop screen, or better, doing something kind.
No wonder. I really dislike having to talk with people about this poison. I miss the days when my fightin' words were about whose regional BBQ is better, or whether former NFL QB Tom Brady really was all that.
Hmm, you’re lucky to have conversations at all! Trump has fundamentally altered, for the worse, the way we react to one another. We don’t talk, we shout. Bald lies are acceptable. Bad manners, acceptable. Name calling, acceptable. We are witnessing the real time destruction of civility and manners.
Well, he hasn't destroyed your civility and manners. And I refuse to let him steal my love of the color orange. Gotta leave for now, but I look forward to reading you here on P/N.
The first question of any voter should be, “Am I better off today than before?” Now the other question is how honest each voter is answering the question. Tax refund amounts are not a good barometer. Immigration numbers are not indicators of an improved personal life. Prices, costs, and even travel problems are always the measure people use. If a voter pays attention, and more are, there’s nothing better about life today than before (fill in the blank). Meh! Yuck! Eww! Sheesh! These are the words we need to pay attention to.
Have to say, from my perspective, the blue wave is huge and progressive. I am looking at the REAL polls, in the 2025 elections and special elections, the general impression of people regarding the things Trump has done, the reasons people voted Trump in this time... and now they see him MUCH more clearly than in his first term.
Sorry, but people are seeing him as MUCH worse than in his first term. He no longer has the much more competent and ethical cabinet that he had his first time around (most of which he fired or chased away), not saying they were great, but they were MUCH better than this current cabinet. This is a very different presidency from his first, and the promises he ran on, well they were varied. The ones he kept were the mass deportations, using the military (ICE was his substitute for most of it) to 'address' the Democratic cities, going after his political opponents, TARIFFS. Yeah, everybody seemed to ignore those promises, But those were the ones he actually meant. Stopping the wars (No), Not starting new wars (No), Lowering prices (No), Not messing with Medicare (No), Bringing jobs back to the US (No), Reveal the Epstein files (No, but it happened some despite his efforts)...
So much more that Trump has done this time: MASS MAJOR Corruption, more than has ever been seen before (He is truly historic). Kicking Ukraine to the curb. Kissing up to the Oil Royalty in the Middle East and accepting their bribes. Pushing our military back 80 years in making use of women and gays and blacks... Back to the days of WW2 when women were nurses, blacks were not allowed to work with Whites in anything other than menial jobs. Yes, some did serve actively but only in their segregated units... Racism and Misogyny were rampant and encouraged from the top.
While some people are upset over the 'Woke' movement, it has pretty much quieted down. The vast bulk of people are comfortable with competent people of ANY color or ANY gender, doing their jobs. Gay marriage is old news now. Transgenders are fine, except for a handful of athletes in amateur sports. Most people have never had a bad experience with an immigrant.
The abrasive culture wars today are coming from MAGA, and Trump's administration and Republican politicians elsewhere catering to the same shrinking MAGA base who have always been the haters, with the same hate list as the Islamic Terrorists they hate so much.
The opposition to Trump is powerful and motivated, whereas the support for Trump is softening and shrinking every month.
It HAD to get WORSE before it could get better, and it will continue to get worse. Trump can't help himself, and neither can his Republican Congress. Democratic politicians are waking up that the old institutions have been corrupted or destroyed, and that the problems were major BEFORE Trump got elected. It is time to embrace a new 'New Deal', similar in range, scale and scope as the one FDR made happen.
The Republican Congress, if they try to pivot after the primaries (their historic habit) the MAGA base will turn on them, or not vote. They trust Trump, not his lackies. The voters are less likely to trust them. Typically most voters do not clue in until shortly before a presidential election, around August at the earliest. Look at the undecided in most of the polls, it has essentially disappeared. the voters are already tuned in, and remembering. Trump truly is historic...
Trump's self-destructive behaviors harken back to a 1948 Jimmy Cagney movie called "White Heat" in which he, like Trump, plays a mob boss whose insatiable quest for power was his undoing. At the end, standing atop a huge fuel storage tank surrounded by police, he shoots into the tank, yelling "Top of the World!" as the tank incinerates him. Megalomaniac mobsters refuse to accept defeat, so in the end, the only person powerful enough to dominate them is themselves - thus suicide seem to them like a logical course in the face of defeat.
As our president, whom I refer to as Don Dementiano, is clearly out of his mind, blowing up the entire world likely seems to be a logical response to failure. It is unfortunate that he is taking the entire world down with him instead of just the MAGAs.
Time for some of the states to secede as the king, uh, I mean president, no longer represents us anyway. I am all for it. I think a divorce due to irreconcilable differences would be appropriate. That way we can start over with a modern constitution and structures based on what we have learned over the past two and a half centuries. Let the fascist states see how they do without the ones funding them.
Our local dems raised the issue of the importance of asking for a Democrat ballot in our upcoming primary here in our red-ass state. Folks, what Paul Waldman wrote in this piece says it well.
What I read suggests a lot closer election than this headline forecasts. Brown is behind in Ohio, Minnesota Senate is close, the BWCA vote pretty much ensures my rep, Pete Stauber, will win reelection, etc, etc. Dems probably will win House, but not Senate.
An icicle has a better chance in hell than me voting for a republican in November. There is nothing that would ever let me trust a republican ever again, not while Trump is the ringmaster of this circus sideshow.
Even after Trump has left the stage, consider how the Republicans (with some noteworthy exceptions) bent the knee to Trump. Do not ever trust those again, for they failed the test when it mattered.
Agreed🎯
Excellent analysis. Trump, along with every elected Republican enabling his corruption, are cementing a simple phrase in voters' minds this November:
OMG
GOP
WTF!
I'd prefer a world where people didn't care so much about their own financial circumstances as they do about the fact that this president is throwing people in concentration camps, murdering people in boats, killing civilians in Iran, doing everything he can to ravage the environment for profit, making billions for himself and other wealthy scum through corrupt deals and stock-market manipulation, pardoning convicted criminals for pay, gutting health care and the social safety net, destroying once robust science programs, doing nothing to regulate AI, supporting white Christian nationalism, siding with violent authoritarians throughout the world and just generally promoting racism, misogyny, transphobia and cruelty.
Maybe ALL THESE HORRIFIC THINGS (and many I haven't listed) should be why people turn against Trump rather than paying a little more for gas or him insulting the pope. Honestly, some of the people in this country need to grow up.
I have a hunch, many people feel more comfortable declaring their choice is based on greed, than admitting the 'other stuff' makes them uncomfortable. People rationalize all the time, justifying their desired choices with more socially acceptable reasons.
But yes, too many are so confused and exhausted with the lies and attacks and counter attacks and don't have the time and energy to figure out what is real, so the focus on how they feel.
What most people talk around by saying 'affordability' is the fear of being replaced by AI and/or robotics or other software / automation. You can't afford much if you don't have a job, or you need to accept retraining / starting over in a new job / career, at the bottom. Less money means you afford LESS. THAT is the BIG fear, not ten cents more on a vegetable, but on whether they will have to move to something cheaper, sell the car they are making payments on, to buy a 'beater' without payments. People acquire 'stuff' over the years a nd grow to fill the place they live in. It is PAINFUL to shrink yourself down again, to do with much less. To barely survive, with worse health, more stress. People know this, and they FEAR it is coming for them. When a fear is that big, people don't want to admit to it. They don't want to 'make it real' by talking about it.
Yes, there are LOTS of horrible things Trump is doing ruining the lives of countless people, but let us welcome people who have had enough of Trump, and help them learn how to oppose him effectively. We need to be aware, that until we address the other problems, the financial ones that Trump did not create, but did make worse, that our society is going to get increasingly radical, flopping between the parties, because the stress is building and it will explode. It has happened before.
Heidi, I agree! You have stated my thoughts so aptly. I wanted the folks in my state who opposed the building of a "concentration camp" to have a higher purpose than any property values, nimby concerns 😟 😨
There are loads of people who do vote out of empathy for others and for the planet, but not near enough. It makes me very sad that we rarely read voter analyses based on how people feel about all this violence and cruelty.
Republicans in congress let tRump redefine their party, so they deserve to be annihilated at the voting booth.
With all the war profiteering while the rest of us pay rising prices for necessities, I don't know what to make of his approval rating being as high as it is. The list of GOP-enabling anti-American actions grows each day. The entrenched Democrats never seem to want to go on offense, and "punch 'em in the mouth twice as hard" as The Donald likes to say, and do. Let's turn up the heat. Make just one call, one email. Tell your representatives point-blank that if they don't take serious action now, then they're part of the scumbaggery who will lose their cushy seats. Don't deny yourself this simple pleasure of democratic citizenry. Make their day--it makes mine when I do it.
Re: the approval rating—the cult will always have his back.
David, you are correct, as usual. It's his non-MAGA-cult supporters who worry me, especially the ones who live in swing districts. And they are the reason Canadian PM Mark Carney and his citizens, and Europeans, are turning their backs on us. It's the obnoxious, endangering, isolating "America First" propaganda that many of them are seeing and hearing. That's why I've started building into my schedule make-their-day moments, like calling, flipping something at my laptop screen, or better, doing something kind.
Agreed! Is it any wonder that Trump disparages education so? He wants voters as ignorant as he.
No wonder. I really dislike having to talk with people about this poison. I miss the days when my fightin' words were about whose regional BBQ is better, or whether former NFL QB Tom Brady really was all that.
Hmm, you’re lucky to have conversations at all! Trump has fundamentally altered, for the worse, the way we react to one another. We don’t talk, we shout. Bald lies are acceptable. Bad manners, acceptable. Name calling, acceptable. We are witnessing the real time destruction of civility and manners.
Well, he hasn't destroyed your civility and manners. And I refuse to let him steal my love of the color orange. Gotta leave for now, but I look forward to reading you here on P/N.
The first question of any voter should be, “Am I better off today than before?” Now the other question is how honest each voter is answering the question. Tax refund amounts are not a good barometer. Immigration numbers are not indicators of an improved personal life. Prices, costs, and even travel problems are always the measure people use. If a voter pays attention, and more are, there’s nothing better about life today than before (fill in the blank). Meh! Yuck! Eww! Sheesh! These are the words we need to pay attention to.
Have to say, from my perspective, the blue wave is huge and progressive. I am looking at the REAL polls, in the 2025 elections and special elections, the general impression of people regarding the things Trump has done, the reasons people voted Trump in this time... and now they see him MUCH more clearly than in his first term.
Sorry, but people are seeing him as MUCH worse than in his first term. He no longer has the much more competent and ethical cabinet that he had his first time around (most of which he fired or chased away), not saying they were great, but they were MUCH better than this current cabinet. This is a very different presidency from his first, and the promises he ran on, well they were varied. The ones he kept were the mass deportations, using the military (ICE was his substitute for most of it) to 'address' the Democratic cities, going after his political opponents, TARIFFS. Yeah, everybody seemed to ignore those promises, But those were the ones he actually meant. Stopping the wars (No), Not starting new wars (No), Lowering prices (No), Not messing with Medicare (No), Bringing jobs back to the US (No), Reveal the Epstein files (No, but it happened some despite his efforts)...
So much more that Trump has done this time: MASS MAJOR Corruption, more than has ever been seen before (He is truly historic). Kicking Ukraine to the curb. Kissing up to the Oil Royalty in the Middle East and accepting their bribes. Pushing our military back 80 years in making use of women and gays and blacks... Back to the days of WW2 when women were nurses, blacks were not allowed to work with Whites in anything other than menial jobs. Yes, some did serve actively but only in their segregated units... Racism and Misogyny were rampant and encouraged from the top.
While some people are upset over the 'Woke' movement, it has pretty much quieted down. The vast bulk of people are comfortable with competent people of ANY color or ANY gender, doing their jobs. Gay marriage is old news now. Transgenders are fine, except for a handful of athletes in amateur sports. Most people have never had a bad experience with an immigrant.
The abrasive culture wars today are coming from MAGA, and Trump's administration and Republican politicians elsewhere catering to the same shrinking MAGA base who have always been the haters, with the same hate list as the Islamic Terrorists they hate so much.
The opposition to Trump is powerful and motivated, whereas the support for Trump is softening and shrinking every month.
It HAD to get WORSE before it could get better, and it will continue to get worse. Trump can't help himself, and neither can his Republican Congress. Democratic politicians are waking up that the old institutions have been corrupted or destroyed, and that the problems were major BEFORE Trump got elected. It is time to embrace a new 'New Deal', similar in range, scale and scope as the one FDR made happen.
The Republican Congress, if they try to pivot after the primaries (their historic habit) the MAGA base will turn on them, or not vote. They trust Trump, not his lackies. The voters are less likely to trust them. Typically most voters do not clue in until shortly before a presidential election, around August at the earliest. Look at the undecided in most of the polls, it has essentially disappeared. the voters are already tuned in, and remembering. Trump truly is historic...
Trump's self-destructive behaviors harken back to a 1948 Jimmy Cagney movie called "White Heat" in which he, like Trump, plays a mob boss whose insatiable quest for power was his undoing. At the end, standing atop a huge fuel storage tank surrounded by police, he shoots into the tank, yelling "Top of the World!" as the tank incinerates him. Megalomaniac mobsters refuse to accept defeat, so in the end, the only person powerful enough to dominate them is themselves - thus suicide seem to them like a logical course in the face of defeat.
As our president, whom I refer to as Don Dementiano, is clearly out of his mind, blowing up the entire world likely seems to be a logical response to failure. It is unfortunate that he is taking the entire world down with him instead of just the MAGAs.
Time for some of the states to secede as the king, uh, I mean president, no longer represents us anyway. I am all for it. I think a divorce due to irreconcilable differences would be appropriate. That way we can start over with a modern constitution and structures based on what we have learned over the past two and a half centuries. Let the fascist states see how they do without the ones funding them.
Our local dems raised the issue of the importance of asking for a Democrat ballot in our upcoming primary here in our red-ass state. Folks, what Paul Waldman wrote in this piece says it well.
Rather amazing, the Republican Party now serves only one person … who gives FA for the nation.
What I read suggests a lot closer election than this headline forecasts. Brown is behind in Ohio, Minnesota Senate is close, the BWCA vote pretty much ensures my rep, Pete Stauber, will win reelection, etc, etc. Dems probably will win House, but not Senate.