We need to worry about motivation, not polls. Very few people will change their minds about the candidates, but many of them will change their minds about voting. Some percentage of likely voters will always stay home. That percentage is going to be much lower for people whose candidate survived an assassination attempt.

“Listen Jack, the thing about America is… what you gotta understand, is when the British, with the tyranny, I mean, c’mon…you can’t just fascism.”

Bending the truth is pretending that Biden didn’t insist that the filibuster was important and refused to call for it to be abolished for a full 2 years into his presidency. He spent the first two years convincing himself he was a brilliant negotiator who was going to break through partisan gridlock, and when he finally realized he couldn’t get voting rights through (because of course Republicans don’t want voting rights) he finally called for it to be abolished…sort of, because he still wanted the verbal filibuster to be an option. Probably because he watched too much West Wing and thought it would make a cool Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-like scene.

This is 100% the problem. Remember when Biden said that once Trump was out of office, the GOP would become more reasonable because, “the fever will break?” Remember when Nancy Pelosi said we need a, “a strong Republican Party?” They’re saying that Trump is an existential threat to democracy, but they’re not acting like they believe it.

They don’t offer any solutions other than, “vote harder.” Can’t reach the 60 vote threshold to get legislation through the senate? Well, eliminating the filibuster is too extreme, you’ll just have to vote harder. The Supreme Court is remaking the country into a fascistic theocracy? Well, stacking the court would go against tradition, you’ll just have to vote harder.

Even now, after the Supreme Court has granted the President unprecedented powers, Biden is more concerned with preserving norms. As he said:

I know I will respect the limits of the presidential power, as I have for three and a half years.  But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.

So this is the message: “I have been granted insane amount of power, but I won’t use it because that would be irresponsible. However, my opponent, a convicted felon who instigated an insurrection, will use that power to do awful things. Guess you’ll have to vote harder!”

Republicans aren’t decent people with differing beliefs, our system of checks and balances is falling apart, and a rousing speech is not going to change anyone’s mind. The Democrats need to do whatever it takes to win, even if it means dumping Biden, and wield what power they have now, before they lose it forever.

You ever feel like you live in some sort of Murphy’s Law parallel universe, where the worst possible outcome of every major event happens?

I would say the argument against Biden is that he will lose. If he came off the debate and turned in performance after performance like the State of the Union, this would have gone away. Instead, he did some teleprompter speeches, an interview, and a press conference that were passable at best. I think if we stick with him, he’ll keep sounding borderline senile for the next two months, the questions will die down but not go away, and then he’ll probably get curb-stomped again in the September debate.

Yeah, the prevalence of credit cards make hiding all your tips, or even most of your tips, basically impossible now. Even if you did only declare your credit card tips, it’s super suspicious to average 20% on cards and 0% on cash. Since your employer has to track tips, they usually want you to report something that’s at least plausible.

No, it’s really not whataboutism. I first heard about it from the QAA Podcast, which examines at right-wing extremism with a focus on QAnon, in about 2017 or 2018 (EDIT: actually, now that I think about it, it was probably closer to 2021/2022). They did an episode examining BlueAnon grifters and how they employ the same basic strategies as the the QAnon influencers that used to, “decode,” Q posts. Since then, I’ve heard BlueAnon or Blue MAGA come in and out of fashion a few times.

Disinformation will spread in any echo chamber, which is why it’s always important to examine if what you believe is true, or just something you’d like to believe. For example, my post explaining Blue MAGA has been downvoted 19 times, but you are the only one who’s attempted to refute what I’ve said, and your response has been to call Blue Anon a right-wing psy-op and imply I’m a Russian agent, without evidence for either claim. Does that seem like reality, or a narrative you’ve constructed to reject reality?

It depends on the establishment. Some places will ask you to report legitimately, while some will let you work off the books illegally and not even record you as an employee. My last boss wanted realistic numbers, so I put in about 80% of my tips.

Blue Maga or BlueAnon is the phenomenon where die-hard liberals sometimes fall into similar cult of personality, rejection of reality, and conspiracy behaviors that Trump supporters engage in. It’s not an entirely fair comparison, since MAGA is way more delusional, but the parallels are definitely there.

For example, a recent BlueAnon phenomenon I’ve seen is people claiming that the press is manufacturing the concern over Biden’s debate performance while ignoring recently released Epstien documents that show Trump assaulted a teen girl. In reality, the documents are from an 8 year old lawsuit that was dismissed, and the reaction to Biden is pretty organic. So, it’s not as delusional as QAnon’s satanic pedophile cabal, but it’s still pretty detached from reality, and demonizes the press.

The Mueller investigation was when Blue MAGA peaked. BlueAnon peddlers like the Krassenstein brothers breathless reported on how Mueller had evidence that Putin had crafted Trump into the perfect Manchurian candidate, and it would soon be the beginning of the end for Trump. These outlandish claims, which often got reported by MSM outlets, made the actual Mueller report (which didn’t prove a Trump/Russia connection, but found President could be charged with obstruction of justice) seem underwhelming, which is why it was eventually labeled a, “nothing-burger.” This Louise Mensch tweet from 2017 is a great encapsulation of Blue Maga:

And he already told us he doesn’t believe the polls, so we’re fucked.

If you’re going to complain about the DNC playing kingmaker, I hope you’re equally outraged about Hillary’s campaign being given financial control of the party before the 2016 primary, or Obama convincing multiple candidates to drop out and give Biden enough room to beat Bernie in 2020, or the DNC making the South Carolina primary the first on the calendar to sure up support for Biden in 2024. If that doesn’t outrage you, you might consider the possibility that you don’t actually care that the Democrats pick kings, just that your preferred candidate might not be crowned.

Well, that started very bad, got a bit better in the middle, and then fell apart at the end. What I’m worried about is that he did just well enough to convince himself not to drop out. I doubt anyone feels much better after that though.

He’s kinda lost the plot this answer…he’s just rambling about Putin now.

Not a great sign that this praise sounds like the doctor’s notes from my toddler’s last check-up.

Did he just get heckled or did he get distracted?

Well, started real bad, but it’s starting to stabilize…

Third one is going…OK.

OH DEAR.

Oh dear…