It’s why they give the virtue-less GOP a pass, because they don’t understand that the GOP abdicating their social contract to society (responsibilities of not being bigots, caring about people, etc) is a bad thing.

I guess I’m not the only one having mac and cheese the day before election day (the fam is making some later)

As annoying as MSM would be if Jones loses, I pretty much salivate at the idea of watching them trip over themselves if Jones wins, and the heads actively melting if he wins relatively comfortably (meaning doesn’t underperform a ton and wins by 6+).

Also, because everyone is 12, having the simultaneous positions of “Israel is committing genocide, islamaphobia is bad,
and also nazi symbols and antisemitism are bad” are somehow too nuanced for people? Even though they are pretty clear normative statements?

I think part of why the Platner thing has turbocharged a realignment of truly arbitrary standards on where Nazi symbolism is or isn’t acceptable is because some people (ahem, idiots) find the very idea of living within a social consensus personally offensive.

Everyone is 12.

The great thing about engaging in lawfare against the current Republican Party is that many of them make it easier to prosecute them by doing genuinely illegal things!

A healthier approach is to accept the chaos and uncertainty for what it is (also go to therapy), and let candidates put their best foot forward. Their ability to earn and generate media and to make people like them will be more valuable in a general than policy positions.

But let’s just have a little perspective on how this is unprecedented territory for Democratic elected officials, and how much exposure to that territory is going to be different for some positions than for others. For now, I won’t count the governors out of 2028 yet (except Newsom).

To be very clear, I like AOC. She is the best communicator in the Democratic Party right now. I think she’s a great leader and would be a fine president, though I really want her to challenge Schumer to get more fighters in the Senate, which has been a thorn in Dem priorities for years.

I just don’t know how fair it is to say, “AOC-Van Hollen is my 2028 pick because Pritzker and Hochul did things she wouldn’t,” when she is not being given the same test they are. And if the positions were reversed, I think she would have a hard time with it too.

My point here is that while it’s sometimes fair to criticize what governors do or don’t do, comparing them to your favorite congressperson is a bit Apples to Oranges. AOC is not going to face the same tests or have the same responsibilities as Walz, Hochul, Pritzker, and to an extent, Mamdani.

Governors, by comparison, while they might have more individual power than a congressperson, that power stops outside their state borders. The supremacy clause applies, even if they *nominally* have armed goons of the state who report to them.

The only people who can bring ICE to justice with an equal claim to legitimacy are other federal actors (Inspector generals, federal judges, Congress), and voters can remove/change those federal actors through Congress.

Same “stack the deck” logic applies to who law enforcement and the military side with. Right now, they are more likely to side with the regime, because at the very least, they correctly believe the regime would “win” a direct confrontation.

And it’s not fair, but that’s what happens when Trump wins the Presidency! Maybe the public believes them, maybe they don’t. But you can’t guarantee they’ll side with Team Democracy, you can only do everything to stack the deck in your favor by making Trump/ICE/the GOP as unpopular as possible.