… on the steps of the Wisconsin Capitol Building.
[Photographer Bennett Waara.]
Elites who read long eloquent essays in the Atlantic comparing George Washington and Donald Trump – the glorious first, the gruesome second – aren’t (if you ask ol’ UD) making very good use of their time, pre-electionwise. It’s by now a tired warhorse, the dangerous vileness of DJT, and one can certainly continue playing variations on it, as Tom Nichols has very prettily done all the way up and down the scale; but at this point the question is not How Existential a Threat is this Authoritarian to the American Republic? Or How Far Exactly Have We Fallen from George Washington?
The question is Why is Half of the Country Voting for an Authoritarian?
Refreshing. Hillary Clinton addresses thirty percent of our rapidly secularizing nation in her convention speech.
Amendment 4 … enshrine[s] the right to abortion in the Florida Constitution.
WUH OH!!!!!
Mamma mia. Even Trump-mad Floridians aren’t on board the whole no contraception no IVF no abortion get a whole shitload of knocked up to carry out your uterine duty AND safeguard THE DEMOGRAPHIC FUTURE OF THIS COUNTRY thing. Childed VP candidate Vance will drag his wife and kids down to Tallahassee early next week to announce she’s preggers again – with triplets! – and then she’ll take the stage and announce she’s abandoning her legal career which has been frying her fallopian tubes.
A scan of up to the minute news suggests Biden may soon drop out of the race.
But now that she’s done with high school she’s probably hoofing it out of there for a respectable college.
I serve with some real scumbags! Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.
A Texas Republican unburdens himself.
A whole new desert for Arizona, as California fast-tracks Arizona’s women’s health care providers to practice in that state instead of in the land of no abortions.
‘I am now hoping the country will become a more secular country, respecting human rights, women’s rights and childrens rights.’ Yesim Albayrak, Nurse [photo, bbc]
Score one — a big one — for our side.
***************
UPDATE: Given Mr Erdoğan’s grip on institutional networks of patronage and influence, consolidated over the course of more than two decades in power, it would be premature to see these results as marking a definitive turning point. But they offer considerable grounds for optimism among secular, liberal voters… [I]n a period in which a similarly authoritarian brand of politics is making inroads in countries around the world, a dramatic night at the polls is a cause for wider celebration.
UD will let everyone else make the obvious points about Biden’s state of the union: Aggressive, feisty, high-energy, confrontational, polemically sharp, etc.
UD will simply note that the dude is an inspiration to oldies everywhere. Eighty is the new fifty.
****************
From Heather Cox Richardson, via my pal Al S.:
… Trump’s team has dismissed Haley supporters, saying he doesn’t need them. In contrast, President Joe Biden continued to broaden the Democrats’ tent. Biden reached out in a statement, saying there was a place for Haley supporters in his campaign. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on,” he said, “But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”
… He asked Republicans to “speak the truth and bury the lies.” He urged them to “[r]emember your oath of office to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. Respect free and fair elections. Restore trust in our institutions. And make clear—political violence has absolutely no place in America.”
As Democrats stood to applaud, Republicans remained resolutely in their seats…
Age makes “certain things become clearer than ever before,” he said. “I know the American story.”
“Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future. My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.
“Now some other people my age see a different story,” he said, in a reference to Trump, who will turn 78 in June. “An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.”
“[T]he issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are,” Biden said. “Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas, but you can’t lead America with … ideas that only take us back.”
… [Republicans suggested that commentators describe their rebuttal choice] as “America’s mom.” [She gave the speech] in a kitchen.
‘[H]is high-decibel performance seemed to confound Republicans, who have spent years seeking to portray Biden as a near-catatonic dementia case.‘
LOL
*********************
OTOH…
Julia Ioffe, Washington correspondent for Puck News, said: “Imagine you’re sleeping over at a friend’s house and you get up in the middle of the night to pee and you hear a weird sound so you follow it to the kitchen, where your friend’s mom is drunk, crying, and rambling about the national debt. Those are the vibes from Katie Britt right now... “
“The acting chops … are somewhere between porn and high school play.”
*********************
And more porn! What exactly are people picking up on?
As someone who covers the far right and the Christian nationalist movement, Sen Katie Britt’s speech was the closest thing to porn they’ll consume.
*********************
“The sheer scale of her cringe became an instant legend.” Andrew Sullivan
*********************
**********************
Andrew Weissmann, MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, wrote: “I don’t think Katie Britt is going to get the lead in the school play this year.”
**********************
‘There’s nothing I can quote from Britt’s speech that can convey the strangeness of it — the mismatched emotions, the smiles in the wrong places, the jaw clenched when it shouldn’t have been — just the indescribable weirdness. It was something that had to be seen, but even then, couldn’t be understood — like postmodernism, avant-garde performance art or an involuntary behavioral science experiment... [S]he came off as the aunt who’s been spending too much time on Facebook, and if you don’t change the subject soon, she’s going to tell you about sex dungeons beneath the pizza parlor.‘
***********************
The MAGA reply from K. Britt
Hit home like a big piece of shit
She sat in her kitchen
Abitchin and bitchin
When she should have just read holy writ
Almost three-quarters of Iranians want a secular government instead of a theocratic dictatorship, an anonymous state-run poll has revealed.
The survey also revealed that less than one in 10 people think women should be forced to wear a hijab.
[The last survey] was in 2015.
[This one] shows a sharp uptick in demands for secular rule, up from 31 per cent to 73 per cent, indicating the push for secularism will probably grow in coming years.
… Only 7.9 per cent of respondents said they agree women must be made to wear hijab, down from 18.6 percent.
******************
The survey was apparently leaked.
… UD invites you to revisit my posts about a woman who indeed does seem to me too dangerous to return to a country she tried to destroy.
Her lawyers, I guess, will go to the Supreme Court, but they won’t get what they want there either.
Begum could have tried for Bangladeshi citizenship, but didn’t apparently bother to; her best move now is to gather a bunch of money from her supporters and try to buy citizenship somewhere.
UD’s old friend Peter argues that Begum should be repatriated to the UK here.