Also, those "dinosaurs" have built up a lot of power in the party in a way that young politicians just can't have. Biden and Hillary have had 30+ years to build up power in the party. Pelosi, too. They have a chance to put some thumbs on the scale about how the nominee is decided. And I don't mean by like some shady back room dealings, though I'm sure those happen, too. But by things like who gets good cabinet posts, who gets to speak at the State of the Union or party convention, whose campaign gets a boost from a visit from a popular President, etc.

EDIT: Just to pick a name out of a hat - look at Buttigieg. He got some traction but a decent chunk of people gave him pause because people didn't want someone to go from mayor of a small town to President (yes, there were a lot of other reasons, too, but for a number of people, that was a big deal). He's viewed as a rising star so he gets a cabinet post so that next time he can claim some national experience. Obama was pushed for the Senate seat in Illinois because the Dems thought they had a rising star there. On the other hand, no one was claiming Hillary wasn't qualified as a Senator, Secretary of State, and active First Lady and she's had a lot of time to build up a political machine within the party. But there are only so many plum spots to go around and some go to up and comers while others go to payback for folks who helped elevate others in the past.

SI

I wouldn't take Hillary at 1000 to 1. She isn't going to be the nominee. She won't run. If she runs, she won't win.

If that person exists they will be the nominee over Biden anyway.

How about you give me 50-1. She doesn’t get it I send you $100 the next day. She gets it you send me 1k a year for 5 years.

Nominating Clinton would be a great way to hand the GOP a strong trifecta where the feds can pass all those extreme laws that state legislatures love.

Mark Kelly is the best possible candidate the Democrats could trot out and it is not particularly close.

I like Mark a lot and feel he has done a good job here for the entire state. Just think 2024 will be too soon because he doesn't have recognition country wide, because he just quietly goes about.......Doing his damn job, novel concept.

I'll go with the boring answer.

If Biden runs, he will be the nominee.
If Biden doesn't run, Harris will be the nominee.

My wife visited her family in Texas for a week recently. They've moved on from Trump and are all in on Desantis. They also want Tulsi as his VP.

It was an interesting trip for her. It was her first time visiting since Trump was elected and listening to her describe conversations that took place was incredible. All the more interesting since she's moved from Center-Right to Left since we got married (5 years) and her family has moved further to the right since 2016.

He's 58, so I think the sooner the better. I think his short time as a Senator has advantages. No real terrible votes on his record.

It would require an effort from the Democrats to promote him and build a narrative around him. Something they are not going to do. But if they wanted to win, that would be the way to go.

DeSantis has done a masterful job of trying to pretend to be Trump without the crazy person while still maintaining the crazy policies. He's set himself up as the heir apparent.

SI

He's mastered the authoritarian look that rallies the based knowing it won't get past the judicial system. Throw the red meat to the wolves, let it get national attention, and then it gets shot down in the courts and you can blame the woke judges.

It was interesting, though, that they had no interest in seeing Trump run again.

Probably wishful thinking, but I guess we can hope the Trump wing of the party declares civil war on itself and a candidate a bit closer to sanity emerges? Feels like we are too far gone for that to be a realistic scenario, but it might be our last hope to salvage the next few election cycles.

It's not that tough to appeal to the base while not repeatedly punching yourself in the balls like Trump. Desantis beat Hawley and a couple of others to that mantle. They are way more dangerous because they seem smart enough not to make Trump's unforced errors.

None of that will do shit. Just cut them off from SWIFT and see how quick sentiments change.

If I read that correctly Biden responded to Russia's language by sanctioning parts of Ukraine.

I'm sure the people who have shit their pants on foreign policy with Russia for the past 30 years will figure this out.

I'm thinking Putin is winning this game of chicken so far.

Yeah, I'm sure I've written on these pages that it's not Trump who will be the most dangerous but the person that Trump paved the way. Trump's more like fascist John the Baptist.

SI

This is absolutely crazy.

Florida 'Don't Say Gay' bill amendment would force schools to out students

There is no bottom.

Germany halting Nord Stream 2 is pretty massive. Word had been that was never an option even with an invasion. Maybe the sanctions from the West will have some teeth.

$20 says we'll eventually find out that DeSantis is a bottom.

One of the common elements of many of the new GOP bills dealing with different topics is weaponizing the citizenry as snitches and providing private causes of action for this sort of thing. We're seeing it with gay rights, CRT, abortion, etc. This goes hand-in-hand with stuff like giving private gun owners LEO status. It's fearmongering and legally incentivizing turning one segment of our population against another. It certainly appears to be part of a grander scheme to further divide the country to impose the laws/morals they want by intimidation (or worse).

At the risk of Godwin'ing the thread, it's the same stuff we were taught at kids that made the Nazis and the Communists the really bad guys. Or it's what made the intro to Christoph Waltz's character so brilliant in Inglourious Basterds. It wasn't that there was some giant elite government force that kept the people down. No, they turned their own people's worst tendencies against each other to enforce the hate.

SI

Sorry we don't want him or Lindsay Graham either

Fuck them all, so this is the same state that bans books and teaching kids about, you know all history, doesn't want teachers to form their own curriculum, but insists they get involved in a social/personal issue over a child's sexual orientation, which they also can't talk about in class, but outing the kid to their parents is okay.

Guess what we won't be able to teach in schools soon.

To be fair, when I was growing up, we also glossed over the part where we did that in the US like with Japanese internment or the Red Scare.

SI

Yep. 8thing or 15thing this or whatever we're on now. None of the school's business.

UK sanctions are extremely light. Not a huge surprise as they are so intertwined with Russian oligarchs and money laundering. Germany is really the only one that has shown some teeth so far.

Did find this an interesting use of parliament. Can't be sued if you have parliamentary privelege.

Layla Moran uses parliamentary privilege to name 35 Russian oligarchs that she thinks should be sanctioned. �� pic.twitter.com/zTqeD8GmsK

— Haggis_UK ���� ���� (@Haggis_UK) February 22, 2022

This GOP complaint that Biden is weak because he turns around and walks out of press briefings is the fucking stupidest thing in the universe.

And it will probably lower Biden's approval rating.

Looks like Biden might get a US-Iran deal done. Devil is in the details but read it will probably include "prisoner/hostage" exchange. Nice win for him but unfortunately Ukraine is dominating the news right now.

Iran's foreign minister says new nuclear deal "has never been closer" | Euronews

Tucker: It may be worth asking yourself… why do I hate Putin.. Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? pic.twitter.com/0jlXfS0PYy

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 23, 2022

This encapsulates something that I've had trouble articulating to myself about the MAGA right. But I think this gets it. 50% of this country has a politics that says that if someone calls you, personally, a racist, they are worse than Putin.

It's the selfishness that I was missing. The idea that you, personally, are so precious and important that someone literally calling you a name is worse than someone committing actual genocide.

I'm not sure how Biden competes with that. The current Democratic party requires sacrifice and working together--the whole "we are the change we've been waiting for" thing.

He simply can't pander as much as the GOP can. And, as a moral matter, he should not. People who think that their neighbor who looks at them funny is literally worse than Putin are horrible selfish people who don't deserve to be pandered to. But, as a political matter, it will get him killed in 2022.

Polls aren't really backing up what Tucker is saying though. 50% of even Republicans favor economic sanctions against Russia (Democrats at 59%, so there's not much of a partisan split). No recent polling on Putin that I can find, but among Republicans as of last summer he had approval in the high teens and disapproval over 60% among Republicans.

When asked what side the US should favor, it's consistently something like 4-5% that say we should support Russia. The others are roughly split between favoring Ukraine and staying out of it. While I think that's scary on it's own, Tucker's (and Trump's) position is interesting because there simply isn't this groundswell of pro-Putin or pro-Russia support.

Let's see where those poll numbers move in the next month once the Fox News ecosystem starts promoting it

They've done a light touch on it over the last 4 years as Trump helped soften up people on Putin. But now that they can rail on it as something Biden is doing wrong, there's a good chance those numbers move.

SI

Not for lack of trying!

It really is weird. You have part of the GOP complaining that we aren't moving fast enough toward harsher sanctions, part complaining that we are even concerned with what's going on over there at all, and part seemingly siding with Russia.

As to the last, I can't tell if it's because they have some direct ties to Russia or it's simply a "take the opposite side of the Dems" reflex that has to be adhered to at all cost. Because when you constantly call your neighbors evil, it's hard to say "but we generally agree on this" about anything.

My point isn't about what percentage of GOPers agree with Putin (but with both Trump and Carlson rooting for him, I'd expect it is a higher percentage than we'd like to admit).

My point is that a valid GOP response to Putin is "You think this guy is bad? What about that time someone called you a mean name?"

It's fucked up.

Assuming you're referencing the YouGov poll, that same poll showed Putin had a higher approval rating among conservatives than Biden which backs Albion's point. Putin may be a psychopath that's murdered countless people and is in the early stages of starting the largest war in Europe in several decades but he hasn't done anything mean to me while this Biden guy wants me to wear a mask and get a shot.

I think some would like us to become more like Russia. A sort of soft fascism. Don't forget that Fox ran a long puff-piece about Hungary too. And the party platform for Republicans keeps edging closer and closer to it.

As for the people, many probably just do as Tucker tells them. Some instinctively are built to go against anything Democrats support. They're useful idiots for the people in charge and will just end up serfs under the system they will ultimately support.

I also think some of it is to just glorify authoritarianism in general. Dance around actually supporting Russia, but making it seem like Putin is doing great things for the country. If only we could have a strong dictator....errr President, we can do great things too.

It is almost like these are the things that they believe made America great in the past and want to bring it back to make America great again.

On this, it's been discussed on this board before but this is not new. It goes back decades and has practitioners of both parties (with Republicans being decidedly worse in recent years).

I would also say being called a racist is a little worse than 'a mean name'. For most people who aren't racists, it's one of the worst things you can accuse them of.


I don't see how it does any of that. When the poll last summer was taken, Ukraine wasn't even on the radar. Or are you talking about a different one possibly? There's also a big difference between what albion said and what you're describing, so ... yeah.

democrats i talk to think the fall of 22 election will shape up as about R+6... meaning that being an R will be worth about 6 points, generally speaking, in effectively every race

Yikes. I hope you're/they're wrong about that.

He's not. Between the imbalance in representation between the least and most populous states, and the gerrymandering involved its right on. I read that eventually it's predicted to hit R +10 from as cities get bigger.

Of course, more people will vote for D candidates than R candidates, but the R will control 75% of seats or something across the country. It's amazing that they have built the most insane minority rule system in the world.

Now showing in theatres in US and Europe ... Cold War II starring Biden & Putin.

I don't see how Biden comes out looking good here unless Putin withdraws from all of Ukraine. At the very least, he's going to keep the couple Russian friendly regions he already has.

News article insinuated that Taiwan is at risk as China assesses their chance for an invasion. I have faith that Taiwan will be a tougher battle (e.g. island fortress ) but that one has a fair chance of US troops involved which will be really bad. Think the odds are low for this though.

Reminds me of Civ VI. In the early game, I always get attacked if I don't have at least 1 warrior/archer in each city and a couple additional floating around for good measure. They know when you're weak.

Sorry Ukraine, count me in as "minor role". EU should be taking the lead here with US supporting.

America’s role in the Russia and Ukraine situation - AP-NORC