Professional Left Podcast Episode #775: Nikki Haley's Three-Body Problem

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” -- H. L. Mencken

All Hail Liz Cheney...

...is the title of a podcast I will be reviewing today.  

It's from those kooky kidz over at The Bulwark, and I patiently skimmed the "All Hail Liz Cheney" podcast (with MSNBC regular Tim Miller, and MSNBC regular Sarah Longwell, and Jonathan Last) waiting for what I knew would inevitably be there.  

Twas as if I were at a familiar fishing hole at dawn. It's cool. There's a little rain.  You know they'll practically jump into your net. All you have to do is put a line in the water and wait a few minutes..

First came the lavish praising of Liz Cheney.  She wrote a book!  Which is apparently a great thing because it "exposes" stuff.  Just like Mitt Romney's book.  And Adam  Kinzinger's book. And the other +2000 books about Trump.  

But of course they're not really "exposing" anything, are they?

ex·pose

/ikˈspōz/

verb

1. make (something) visible by uncovering it.

"at low tide the sands are exposed"

2. reveal the true, objectionable nature of (someone or something). "he has been exposed as a liar and a traitor"

(Kind of a cheat to use the word "reveal" to define the word "expose" since they mean virtually the same thing -- 

re·veal 

/rəˈvēl/

verb  

make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others. "Brenda was forced to reveal Robbie's whereabouts"

-- but whatever.)

Anyway, nothing mind-changing or soul-shifting is being revealed or expose in these books because, after all this time, who is there left to persuade one way or another?  

Nobody.  It's all trench warfare now.  A "game of inches" as the sports people say.

If you want to add one more books to the mile-hile pile of Trump books that have already been published because you have some fantasy that someday, some historian is going to paw through the billions of words written about Trump and the Republican party, find your particular book, crack it, read it, and say "Aha!  Now I get it!"...well, OK.  Great.

And of your pals at the Recently Former Republicans media corporation want to pimp your book, well that's fine too.  

But just between you and me and George Soros, everyone knows that there's nothing anyone can write -- no series of words, no matter how cunningly constructed -- that is gonna make anyone who is still a Republican jump the fence.  Or any committed Both Siderist climb down off that fence. Or open the eyes of any Liberal any wider about all the shit we already knew about the Republican party decades  ago.  

So all of that just breezed past me.  Don't care.  Don't care.  Don't care.  Well, 90% "don't care" and the other 10% is a kind of pity I guess.  After all, these people have had their noses rubbed in the reality that virtually every Conservative they have ever trusted, virtually every Republican political client they have ever worked for and pretty much all of their professional colleagues and friends...are scum.  Unprincipled cowards and grifters at best.  At worst, outright fascists.  And the base of the Party of Reagan?  A shitpile of bigots and imbeciles.

In other words, pretty much everything we Progressives had been warning them about all along.  

And they're all trying to find a way to square that with their own self-images as savvy, smart, insightful political professionals.  They want to mount a righteous high horse and scowl down at the ruins of their recently former party and shout "We told you so!  We warned you!" while at the same time retaining their contempt for us Progressives who have been shouting "We warned you!  We told you so!" at them for decades.

So if you do nothing more than wait at that fishing hole for not-very-long, eventually they'll get around to shitting on Progressives.

And thus it was that after all the lavish talk that medals be struck and paeans be penned and statues be raised to Liz Cheney in every Middlesex village and farm, Sarah Longwell took time to gripe about "Progressives" in the most Never Trump imaginable:  by calling out a specific Progressive by name and then very carefully skipping right over the actual issue that person raises.

Sara Longwell:  The question is, what does Liz Cheney do next? What... how does she try and defeat Donald Trump?   And I thing I... One of the things that's really complicated aout this moment is... Tim was talking about the Progressives who still kind of hold it against her.  Like Don Winslow or somebody, who just, like, re--lent--lessly pumping out stuff like, here's what she said about abortion and here's what she said about this.  And what's disappointing or, uh, um, I don't kinda know what to do with is what...what is the role of Liz Cheney next.  

This right here is absolutely Bulwark in-house policy.  I've heard many of them do it.  Hand-wave away what Liz Cheney said about Democrats and abortion without ever actually addressing what Cheney actually said.  Instead, it's airily dismissed as a mere difference of opinion, and then on to the ritual Slagging of the Liberals for not getting with the program and joining the Liz Cheney for Sainthood parade.

What the fuck is wrong with us that, for the greater good, we can't get past a little disagreement over policy?

This is  MSNBC contributor Tim Miller in conversation with Bulwark co-owner and fellow MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes more than a year ago on a different Bulwark podcast as documented by me because, as I said, the Slag the Liberals fish are always jumpin' down at the Bulwark:

Sykes:  Let's flip the card a little bit though.  How do you explain the psychology of -- and you... you... you... alluded to this -- the psychology Progressives activists including people like Don Winslow, who's a filmmaker, y'know, and, like, anti-Trump Progressive novelist and everything.  Y'know, big Twitter guy who is obsessively -- I mean obsessively -- attacking, right now, Liz Cheney.  It's like this is the moment when Democrats are facing a wipeout in the midterms... 

driftglass: What the hell does how the Dems may or may not do in the midterms have to do with Liz Cheney?

Sykes:  ... when we are facing this existential challenge of the coup... at this moment they've decided... 

driftglass:  "they've" decided?  Who is "they"?  Because the only person Sykes has mentioned is Don Winslow?

Sykes continues:  "No, we can't like Liz Cheney because, y'know, she's a Conservative Republican and pro-lifer and therefore we gotta make sure we tell all Progressives ...

driftglass:  "we gotta make sure we tell all Progressives"?  Who is "we"?  Because, once again, the only person Sykes has mentioned is Don Winslow? 

Sykes continues: ....don't give any credit to these folks who have thrown themselves on the grenade to protect democracy because X, Y, Z."

driftglass:   "these folks"?  Who are "these folks"? Because the only "folks" Sykes has mentioned is Liz Cheney?  Also more about this "X,Y,Z" bullshit at the bottom of this post.

Miller continues:  And... and... and the coalitions on the Left and on the Right.  There are more antibodies on the Left to the crazy and the rage.  That doesn't mean that there aren't also parallels...

driftglass: And then , after all the assurances that this is not an attempt to draw an equivalence, comes the equivalence.

Miller:  And what I write about in the backwards section of the book -- where I write about my complicity is working with Conservative media types -- is [long pause] this addiction.  To the rage juice.  Right?  This addiction to the daily outrage.  Where you are made to feel like you are good and your other... your fellow Americans as made to be seen as evil.

driftglass:  Let us pause to reflect on the fact that Tim Miller is whining about the insidious effects to the Outrage Media...on a media site that routinely carps about the Republican base being deranged, and 96% of Republican leadership as being either outright fascist or cowards or amoral opportunists willing to ally with fascist to advance their careers.

Miller:  And people like Don...and other Resistance media types...

Sykes [barely audible]:  This is so good.

driftglass:  Here comes another shot at fence straddling  

Miller: I do think there is a big difference between Left media and the Right media...

driftglass:   Golly, thanks Tim.

Miller: ...and there are some Left media who are being good and, y'know, are praising Liz Cheney, so it's not uniform like it is on the Right media.  

Translation:  I hope you don't think I'm talking about you guys on MSNBC. You guys are the best!  No, we're talking about all those other Progressive media outfits.  The ones who are naughty bad and don't have half the staff we have here at The Bulwark on juicy contributor contracts.  So don't give any of this a second thought.

driftglass:  And here comes the pivot...

Miller:  But there are people on the Left that use that same tactic on the Right.  

driftglass:  And here is where Tim Miller, confessional writer slips out the side door, and Tim Miller, veteran Republican hatchet, man slips in.

Miller:  The...no, you need to be mad at Liz Cheney because she was pro-life and she said this mean thing about Ralph Northam four years ago.  And, like, you need to be mad at Adam Kinzinger because he didn't vote for this bill.  And you need to be made at even Democrats...you need to be mad at Joe Manchin, mad at Kyrsten Sinema, and mad at Nancy Pelosi and mad at Chuck Schumer and mad at anyone who's not, like, walking the right line. 

driftglass:  And in the blink of an eye, Tim Miller escalates all the way from scolding people for being "mad at Liz Cheney" to scolding anyone who gets mad at anyone for any reason for being an Outrage Juice addict.  Which I'll remind him of in my calmest voice when the Supreme Cult comes for his gay marriage. "Hush now, Tim. That's just the Outrage Juice talking, and not your perfectly justified fury."...

Except this is not in any way just a spirited disagreement over Roe vs.Wade, or being mad at Liz Cheney for "being pro-life", and every one of these recently-former Republicans fucking well knows it.  They all know perfectly well exactly what Cheney said; they just don't own a sledgehammer big enough to pound the square peg of Cheney's utterly despicable comments into the round hole of their insistence on her unalloyed heroism.  So every time this comes up, they very deliberately skip over what she actually said and hurry on to the Slagging of the Liberals.

And when you hear what Cheney actually said, you'll understand why.  

It's not from way back when Liz was selling out her own sister to clamber a little higher up the greasy pole of politics, or ruthlessly defending her daddy's slaughterfest in Iraq.  This clip is from the House Republican YouTube channel.   It's from just four years ago, when Cheney was the third most powerful member of the Republican caucus and a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. It's entitled "Conference Chair Liz Cheney on Democrats’ Horrifying Pro-Abortion Stance".

This is not merely being pro-life, nor is it merely a "mean thing about Ralph Northam", nor is it whatever the fuck "X,Y,Z" means.  It is a full-on, Blood Libel attack on the "Democrat" party as a cabal of "pure evil" who sanction the murder of children after they are born.

In tone and intention, there is not a dime's worth of difference between Liz Cheney claiming that it is the policy of the "Democrat" party to murder babies after they are born and that Democrats are "pure evil", and Trump's branding us as lying, cheating "vermin".  

And Miller and Sykes and Longwell and all the rest of them fucking well know it.

I Am The Liberal Media

Ready For Yet Another Round of Democrat-Bashing By Your "Allies"?

Because that's what's on the menu over at The Bulwark.

At predictable intervals several times a month, Charlie Sykes' seething contempt for Democrats boils over, and that's when he invites some useful idiot like the American Enterprise Institute's token "Liberal", Ruy Teixeira, onto the podcast a little anti-Democrat political frottage.  

When he is not panic-peddling imminent Democratic party disaster for AEI, Teixeira writes garbage for Philip Anschutz's right-wing rag, The Washington Examiner and Rupert Murdoch's right-wing rag, The New York Post about how we ultra-Left progressives (who secretly control the Democratic party) have driven the real, salt-of-the-Earth "working class" Murricans out of the party, and continue to alienate them with our snobbery and by relentlessly pushing our crazy Commie agenda of [checks notes] lower prescription drug prices, reinvestment in manufacturing, trillions of spending on infrastructure and the massive decrease in child poverty, which was brought to you by decent Democrats and which was killed by 100% of the Republican party plus Sinema and Manchin.   

So you can see why Sykes fucking loves this guy and touts him as the greatest expert on the secret hopes and dreams of "working class" Murricans the world has ever known.  

Remember the New York Post's Salena Zito? She of the rats-nest hair and perpetual I-just-bit-into-an-overripe-persimmon expression who, after Trump was elected, suddenly became the go-to white working class whisperer for every pundit who couldn't afford to get to an Ohio diner personally? Ruy Teixeira is basically the male version of Salena Zito:  always on hand with the tattered remains of his "Liberal" credentials to kick the crap out of the Democratic party.

And if that were all Sykes and his lil' buddy were using their podcast to do, fine.  Given the priorities of the executives at CNN and MSNBC, the fight to keep clowns like Sykes benched and instead get actual, intelligent, coherent Liberal voices into "Liberal" media telling the true story of how the GOP lost its mind was over before it started. "They're our allies now," we were told.  "Quit carping about what they did and what they say," we were told.  "For God's sake, shaddap!  Democracy is on the line!" we were warned, and any salty comments of any kind  -- even from a tiny Liberal blog like this one -- even if they were true -- might tip the balance!!!  

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why it never works the other way?  

Why no one (but me) ever wonders where all that righteous scolding and tsk-tsking and "Shut up because democracy is at stake!" finger-wagging goes when Sykes and company are taking turns doing flying elbow drops on Liberal straw men?  

How is it that these people --  who lost an entire political party because they were too stupid or too complicit to notice what was going on all around them for decades -- have made a very profitable cottage industry out of shitting on the people who were actually right about the Right all along?  Out of endlessly, bitterly complaining that the Democratic party isn't hurry-up-quick transforming itself into a place where they feel more at home, where Joe Manchin is the ideological center of the party, and AOC and Elizabeth Warren have been broomed out the back door?  How is it that this is happening all the time now and nobody (but me) is out there asking why the Hell aren't they the ones being being told to sit down and shut up because, y'know, democracy is at stake!

But again...fine.  I was prepared to listen lightly in full "whatever" mode -- aware of but ignoring it like I learned to ignore the rumble of the "el" when I lived in a shitty apartment on Roscoe in Chicago that was flush up against Brown line tracks. 

However, right out of the box, Sykes starts in with this:

Sykes:  Okay. It is time for Tough Love. I know you didn’t wake up today saying, Hey, I hope the Bulwark podcast has some tough love.   I, you know, "I..I want more fan service. I///I want you to tell me that everything’s gonna be okay." Well, I’m sorry. To tell you, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. We are joined by my good friend Ruy Teixeira,, senior fellow with American Enterprises, where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions. Rui, you have been in progressive politics for a very, very long time. You bring a lot of street cred to this.  But as I was mentioning to you right before we started, there’s a lot of resistance, isn’t there?  To the tough love, trying to explain to Democrats why you have a problem on economics, why you have a problem when it comes to the working class. I... I just sense that there is this sense of denialism that’s kind of you know, built in, and we’re gonna get lots of comments saying, "Well, I don’t wanna listen to all of this because if we just put our heads in the sand, apparently the argument is. If we just put our heads in the sand about these difficulties, they will just go away. They will magically go away..."

And that's how the contempt for you and me and our political party always comes giftwrapped now by the recently-former Rush Limbaugh of Wisconsin.  As "tough love" that somehow only Never Trumpers are certified to deliver.  

But will we listen and heed this advice?  Nooooo.  Because, you and me and the 80 million rest of us are all in denial about what a fucking diagnostic genius Charlie Sykes is.  After all, he's on Liberal teevee and you're not, so shaddap!  

It goes on and on and on like that, and now were all the way back to the "economic anxiety" bullshit that pundits in 2015 and 2016 were slathering all over Trump and the Republican base to avoid talking about the fact that one of the pillars of the modern GOP is racism.  Hell, don't take my word for it.  I'm a Liberal, after all, and therefor notoriously elitist, snobbish and in denial.  Instead, let's ask veteran Republican strategist Stuart Stevens who wrote an entire book about it.

From Democracy, Now!:

Trump Is No Aberration: Veteran GOP Strategist Stuart Stevens Says Racism Is Party’s “Original Sin”

Or check out Mr. Stevens over at Mother Jones:

The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.

Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP. 

But that simple, obvious, factual diagnosis of Sykes' recently-former party completely fucks up Sykes' thesis that Liberal snobbery and Liberals "crying wolf" about the racism in the GOP is what caused the Republican base -- Sykes' former loyal listeners -- to spontaneously fling themselves into the arms of a bleating lunatic racist like Donald Trump and to stay dog-loyal to him no matter what.  

Which is why he brings on useful idiots like Teixeira. 

Sykes:  ...What role does race play in the alienation of the white and rural working class.

Teixeira: Right. Well, my view is that race has something to do with it, but it it’s vastly exaggerated. 

So he can get answers like this:

Teixeira:  So you’re asking working class voters who are already uncomfortable about a lot of the apparent priorities of Democrats in the sociocultural area. Where Democrats are significantly to the left of where most of these voters are and are sort of determined to implement this Brave New World, whether working class voters are for it or not.

What "Brave New World" would that be?  The Biden/Lefty Brave New World of...trillions finally invested in infrastructure after four years of Potemkin nonsense under Trump?  Of repaired alliances abroad?  Of lower prescription drug prices?  Of a Biden administration-led boom in manufacturing jobs?

Or could it be that what passes for "news" among these innocent "working class voters" consists of Fox News and Hate Radio taking a shit in their skulls day after day after day for decades?  Of them passing their toxic opinions around among themselves, like mutating strains of political Ebola, getting stronger and more deadly with each iteration? 

It went on like that, raging against us stupid Democrats and how, y'know, caring about people and reading stuff of course drove the Republican base mad with rage.  And what ninnies we all were for not admitting that and doing...something...about it.  No specific ideas.  No solutions to a problem that men like Sykes spent decades creating and now want to pin on you and me.  Instead it was just a long, grievance-fueled ramble through the imagined sins of imaginary Democrats, veering further and further into the anecdotal and ludicrous.  Like this:

Teixeira:  And I wrote this recent piece, which you saw about the Democrats Oliver Anthony problem.

Sykes: The country western singer.

Teixeira:  Yes. I detailed some of the reactions to his famous song, Rich Men, North of Richmond because there’s a line in it, which seems to be critical. The people are on welfare. And are like eating a lot and really aren’t actually, you know, disabled. This was piled on like a ton of bricks by a lot of Democratic commentators...

And that long, deep silence you hear?

That's the sound of the all the tone police and righteous scolds and finger-waggers staying as still as the grave and as quiet as church music as these "allies" of ours shit all over us Democrats on their Liberal media sponsored media platforms.  

For goodness sake, don't they realize that democracy is at stake!

Burn The Lifeboats

Chris Christie is Winning The Bulwark Primary

In case you missed it, on June 7, 2023, former New Jersey governor and failed 2016 presidential aspirant Chris Christie announced he was running for president.

Again.  

Because you're all so very smart, I'm sure all of you remember that Christie was Trump's first serious endorser in 2016, and was the political IED who cleared Marco Rubio out of the way in 2016 making Trump's nomination all but inevitable.  

And that is all Christie wants Republican voters to remember: that he was a big Trump guy in 2016, but that once he got a good look at him he realized how dangerous he was, and learned his lesson.

Except, of course, that's a lie.  Which is not surprising because Christie is a congenital Republican liar. 

The reason Christie caught COVID in 2020 and almost died was because Donald Trump lied about having COVID and gave it to Christie.  And the reason Christie was in such close proximity to Trump in 2020 was that Christie was Trump's 2020 debate coach.  

And did Christie vote for Trump in 2020?  

You're damn right he did.  From The Hill, October 20, 2020:  

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) confirmed Thursday that he voted for President Trump.  

Also this from Newsweek, November 23, 2021:  

Chris Christie Says He Will be First in Line to Support Donald Trump in 2024.  

Speaking about a previous interview on the topic, he said: "They asked me directly could I vote for Joe Biden and I said absolutely not.  I didn't vote for him in 2020 and I certainly couldn't vote for him in 2024."

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.  

I wanted to talk about how Chris Christie is running for president.  What sort of magic is he trying to weave that he hopes will be enough to snag him both enough friendly media to fuel his campaign, and enough Republican primary voters to clear the field of the rest of the pikers and pull him within killing distance of Donald Trump?

It's a campaign designed to appeal to the mainstream media and all the Never Trumpers who have colonized the media because it is rooted directly in their holiest of holy texts.

Can you guess what that it?

Here's a hint.  

When CBS's rapidly-aging-Sears-Boy's-Department-mannequin, John Dickerson,   covered Christie's announcement that he was running for president, this is what he said:

"Another candidate has launched his presidential campaign.  Former New Jersey governor and 2016 presidential hopeful Chris Christie started his campaign with a dig against the front-runner."

Then Dickerson ran a video that was very carefully cropped at this point.

Ooooh!  Christie came right off the blocks attacking Trump!  Cool! Fight! Fight! Fight!     

Except that is not where Christie started at all.

Instead he started here.  With (sing it with me now) Both Sides Do It:

Because for the squealing, wretched, pinhead puppets of Gotham! reprogrammable meatbags of the Republican base, simply going after Donald Trump as the corrupt, lying, racist, scumbag, fascist loser that he so manifestly is never gonna fly.  After all, everyone in that audience, including Christie, voted for that corrupt, lying, racist, scumbag, fascist loser.  Twice.

No, the reprogrammable meatbags of the Republican base need a reason why voting for that corrupt, lying, racist, scumbag, fascist loser wasn't their fault.  Why they really had no choice, because the Kenyan Usurper and the dirty commie Liberals were the OG Destroyers of Worlds ... and Killery Clinton was so much worse than Trump ... and Joe "The doddering Marxist puppet of AOC" Biden was so much worse than Trump ... that both Chris Christie and the reprogrammable meatbags of the Republican base had no choice but to vote for Trump, flaws and all.

Twice.

But now those reprogrammable meatbags have a choice!

Yay!

 A choice who will unite the nation... even though they're positive that every Democrat is secretly a dirty commie Marxist who wants to destroy Murrica.

This guy!

This corrupt slab of New Jersey political flotsam, who has a "Both Sides Do It" answer in his back pocket for every occasion.  Like, f'instance, mass shootings.

You might remember that almost exactly a year ago, Christie was on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" where, after Christie bragging about New Jersey laws already being tough enough on guns, Stephanopoulos by very gingerly touched on the current state of Christie's Republican party:

Stephanopoulos:  It does appear that there's been a hardening in the Republican Party around this issue. 

Then, out of Christie's Lie Hole came the voice of two decades of David Fucking Brooks.  The inevitable all-occassion, Beltway-media-authorized get-out-of-accountability-free excuse for every Republican atrocity:

Christie:  Well, I think there's been a hardening on both sides. I think it's just a constant symptom of where we are in the country right now. This is one issue that that's an example of but there are many others where people in each party have decided that there's no compromise here because there's no one on the other side willing to compromise and they say that about each other and point fingers both ways.

And this is sum total of all the courage that Stephanopoulos could muster.

Stephanopoulos:  Is this really a 'both sides' issue though? 

Then Christie filibustered for what seemed like hour, tossing out every turd in the Both Siderist Turd Bag.

Because Christie knows the Magic Conjure Words that bring all the pundits to the yard.

Which brings us to The Bulwark, and the full-body massage Christie just recieved from Charlie "I'll Never Forgive Chris Christie" Sykes, who took time away from his busy schedule of appearing on MSNBC every five minutes --

-- to make sure everyone knew that he had definitely forgiven Christie.

Which, of course, we all must now do, because somehow the enemy of my enemy is now my supervisor.

Won't bore you with the whole thing.  Instead we'll go straight to the inevitable razors in the apple that you had to know was there even before you hit "play".

Christie:  I think quite frankly the criticism of the justice department under Barack Obama and Eric Holder is apt.  I think they used it to go after their enemies and I think they used it to look the other way with their friends most particularly in the Hillary Clinton situation. 

Zero push back from Sykes because why would there be.  After all, this is the same trash Sykes used to traffick in back when he was the Rush Limbaugh of Wisconsin.

Christie: I think the idea of of saying that, y'know, Trump should have been given a pass on these obstruction charges and the document charges because Hillary wasn't prosecuted that does nothing to restore the rule of law. Because Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and Jim Comey decided to abandon the rule of law doesn't mean that you're justified in abandoning it yourself.

Zero push back from Sykes.

Sykes then ask why the Republican party cannot quit Trump.

Christie: I think part of it is that there's been a divisiveness that's been  created in this country where people feel they have to wear their uniform 24 hours a day seven days a week and that

there can't be any objective evaluation of how people on our own team are doing or not doing.

Note the passive voice.  "Divisiveness" somehow come into being or its own accord.  Like El Nino or the next Transformers movie, "divisiveness" is a destructive forces of nature over which mere humans have no control.

And now, here it comes...  

Christie: And I think we see that in both parties quite frankly.  Because there really is no other explanation for the Democratic party being uniformly behind Joe Biden either. I mean every time you look at him you kinda know the guy's not up to the job but yet they stick with him.

Yeah.  That's the stuff.

Want more?  Well here you go.

Christie:  Because I think that the Republican base fears Joe Biden more than they are angry if Donald Trump were to lose the nomination.  I don't think there's any scenario under which this base, after how far Left Biden has gone in his tenure so far, would ever let him willingly become president.

Zero push back from Sykes.

Sykes: You've made it clear that you will not come around you will not support Donald Trump if he is the nominee.

Christie: That's correct

Sykes: Okay, so what will you do if he is the nominee?

Christie: Y'know, look, my guess is I probably wouldn't vote for president because I have to assume Biden's a nominee as well I couldn't vote for Joe Biden and so I probably would just skip that line on my, uh, on my ballot.

So, here we are.  And by the Iron Rule of Alliances that was drummed into my by all my Liberal betters, I now know that the enemy of my enemy is always my friend. under all circumstances, no matter how odious and out-for-my blood that "friend" clearly is.  And if I think otherwise, I'd best keep my fucking mouth shut because don't I realize that Our Democracy Is at Stake!!!

However, by the Commutative, Associative and Distributive laws of Alliances, to be a Good Liberal I'm pretty sure am now also required to sit down and shut up because somehow the second-cousin-(who-thinks-Joe-Biden-is-a-doddering-Marxist)-of-the-enemy of my enemy is now also my friend.

And if that is true, then I must also be required to remain seated and silent because somehow the-college-roommate-(who thinks Barack Obama was the real racist)-of-the-second-cousin-(who thinks Joe Biden is a doddering Marxist)-of-the-enemy of my enemy is now is now also my friend too.

And thus, as I warned long ago, if you give a Never Trumper an Ouchless Redemption Cookie even though they still hate you and everything you cherish...the next thing you know they'll have colonized the media.  

But don't worry your little Liberal head, because once they've colonized the media, you can trust that they'll never turn around and use those Ouchless Redemption Cookies -- which you gave them -- to try to absolve and rehabilitate a shitbag like Chris Christie.

Except sooner or later, of course they'll let Chris Christie waddle in.  Whereupon he will shit all over Barack Obama, call Joe Biden a senile Marxist and eat all the cookies.  

And fuck no, he won't vote for Biden if it's Biden versus Trump.  

And your job as an "ally" is to sit quietly and say nothing because, OMG, don't you realize that Our Democracy Is at Stake!!!

I Am The Liberal Media

Boom Times At The Absolution Factory Redux

And one or two of you might remember, I wrote a waaay TL:DR post back in '21 about how, now that our Never Trump "allies" had successfully colonized the mainstream media and rewritten the history of the GOP to valorize themselves once again, the next item on the menu would be to...well, let me just repost the last few paragraphs.

As it was explained to me slowly and repeatedly as if I were a child, we were gonna let the Never Trumpers temporarily join our team, because "All hands on deck!" and so forth.  However, since bringing up their bloody, complicit past made our new Never Trump allies feel icky, we were also going to agree not to rudely mention their bloody, complicit past or hold them accountable for any of the horrible things they had said and done. 

Then, after we had disposed of the existential threat that their party had inflicted on us,  we would somehow take control of our national political narrative back from the Never Trumpers and all of that pre-2016 stuff would be litigated.

Which was such a criminally foolish thing for otherwise sensible adults to believe that it sometimes left me breathless with despair.

Now that Trump has gone, as I look out across the vast wasteland of the American political media, I do not see the true history of the Republican Party -- the long, public decent into madness and fascism that ended with Donald Trump -- being discussed all day, every day by Liberals (and supplemented by a few chagrined Never Trump volunteers) on cable news and on the opinion pages of every major American newspaper.  

In fact, I don't see that story being told anywhere, by anyone.  Except, perhaps, by the same rag-tag group of Liberal bloggers who have always told that story, and have always been despised for it.  

Instead I see an American political media which has now been completely colonized by men like Rick Wilson and a handful of his fellow Never Trumpers.  Men with deep contacts in the media who, with the help of my team,  have insinuated themselves into every media outlet -- op-ed pages, books, writing gigs at major American publications, and appearance agreements on cable news where their books and podcasts and marketing companies are valorized to the tune of millions of dollars worth of free publicity every day -- so thoroughly that if you flip on MSNBC at pretty much any hour of the day you will find a Never Trumper there, on set, telling their story, nor ours.

So as tens of millions of racist Republican shitheads scramble to once again escape responsibility for yet another catastrophe they created, be prepared for your Never Trump friends to use the credibility and moral authority which our Liberal elite handed over to them free-of-charge to open their own, branded Indulgence factory and get into the Mass Absolution Business big time.

And here is The Bulwark's own Charlie Sykes today, taking a rare break from appearing on MSNBC every five minutes:

Happy Monday.

As I’ve warned you before, the new anti-Trump coalition will require a healthy gag reflex because it could include many of Trump’s worst enablers. But we don’t always get to pick the army we go to war with, do we?

In case you missed Bill Barr’s takedown of DJT on Sunday, the former AG has followed up in the Free Press with a scorching critique of the Trumpian defenses, rationalizations, suck-ups, and spin surrounding the indictment...

It goes on like that.  And on.  And on. Various Trump suck ups and scumbags who now think maybe Trump is naughtybad (of course, they don't rule out voting for him.)  And because they opened their yappers and called Trump naughtybad they instantly became despised, sellout, RINO filth in the eyes of Republican voters who, as I may have mentioned once or twice, are nothing more than reprogrammable meatbags.

From Sykes again:

A caveat: Despite their prominence, it is unlikely that any of these officials have the political juice or media influence to break Trump’s hold on the MAGAverse. Some of them (FFS) refuse to rule out voting for him if he wins the GOP nomination.

But that does not mean that they are irrelevant, because — unlike other critiques from the Resistance or Never Trumpers who have essentially become Democrats — these voices are coming from inside the house. In theory, they could create what we euphemistically call a “permission structure” for other Republicans to say out loud what they claim to be saying in private.

Also the title of Sykes' Bulwark podcast today is:

Will Saletan: Welcome to the Resistance, Bill Barr

And so we arrive at the place where I warned we would end up and I never wanted to be.  Smack in the middle of Monty Python's The Visitors sketch.

First, Never Trumper Arthur Name ("Name by name but not by nature") bulldozes his way into the party and begins rearranging things to his liking.

Then the doorbell rings and...

Arthur Name: I'll get it.  That'll be friends of mine  I took the liberty of inviting them along.

And hey look!  It's Chris Christie!  And right behind him, Bill Barr!  

And so on, and so on, and so on.

And before you know it, we Democrats aren't calling the shots anymore.  In fact, we've become  unwelcome guests in our own fucking home because this is now the "Never Again Trump" Republican Reputation Rehabilitation and Normalization Project.

And if you Liberals have a problem with that, well then go ahead and scribble about it on your silly little blogs.  

There are still blogs, right?  

Because now that the American political media has been completely colonized by a handful of Never Trumpers, well golly kid, there doesn't seem to be any room left at the Adult's Table for whiny Liberal dissenters like you.

Or I suppose you could plead your case directly to those Never Trumpers who have colonized the media.  You could ask them why the Liberals who have actually been right about the Right all along -- who were right long before Bill Kristol told us it was OK -- have no place in the Never Trumper's own "We Told You So" Hall of Heroes.

Go ahead and ask them, and then watch what happens:

No Half Measures

No Fair Remembering Stuff: Representative Glenn Grothman

Meet Glenn Grothman, the Republican representative from Wisconsin's 6th district.  Here 

Grothman: They left low income housing untouched. I think as far as discouraging work and marriage, I think low income housing is a more dangerous program than food stamps. pic.twitter.com/XpgiREMlAy

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 30, 2023

"They left low income housing untouched. I think as far as discouraging work and marriage, I think low income housing is a more dangerous program than food stamps." 

So how did this slab of putrid Wisconsin cheddar ever get elected to the House of Representatives?

He had powerful friends in Wisconsin media who loved his brand of "kick the poor" Conservatism.

Friends like "Wisconsin's Rush Limbaugh" Charlie Sykes.

Here is Sykes caping for Grothman in 2014, just months before the 29-year Wisconsin conservative radio veteran suddenly discovered that the Republican party was full of bigots, imbeciles and vicious, weirdo yahoos like [checks notes] Glenn Grothman.

"...as a frontline conservative there's no contest in terms of Grossman, and people around here in southeastern Wisconsin know that." -- Charlie Sykes, 2014

Sykes is the giant Armillaria ostoyae fungus of depraved Wisconsin politics. Dig one inch below the surface of any of Wisconsin's worst Republican scumbags and you'll find their roots all trace back to Sykes.

I Am The Liberal Media

"Imagine There's No History, It's Easy If You Try" By Charles Sykes

 From The Atlantic: 

America’s Lowest Standard 

 

Try to imagine anyone like Trump surviving in any other segment of our society—business, entertainment, sports, the military.

By Charles Sykes

I dunno.

I can very easily imagine Donald Trump not just surviving but thriving in both Conservative media and in Republican politics, because Trump did and does thrive in both Conservative media and in Republican politics.

And you know who else thrived in both Conservative media and in Republican politics?

Charlie Sykes.

For thirty years.

Where he and Rush Limbaugh and all of their hundreds of Hate Radio and Fox News brethren and sistren across the land labored mightily(and profitably) making the Republican party into the perfect feeding ground for a lying, racist thug like Donald Trump.

Also apparently Mr. Sykes is unfamiliar with the number of misogynist scumbags and techbro Libertarians who have been doing just fine at the pinnacle of American business since forever.

Or the number of high-profile television executives and celebrities who have been outed recently as a depraved sexual predators.  Some, like Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Eric Bolling, Mark Halperin, Harvey Weinstein, Leslie Roy Moonves, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, and on and on and on, lost their jobs over it.  Other suexual predators like, say, Donald Trump, was nominated and elected by Charlie Sykes' recently-former party.

I'm not sure which category disgraced Lincoln Project co-founder John Weaver or still-employed sex pest Matt Schlapp or Don Jr.'s squeeze Kimberly Guilfoyle  fall into, but they have certainly each been successful in their own right 

Next Gingrich is undoubtedly one of the all-around worst human beings walking the Earth, and he was made Speaker of the House by Charlie Sykes' recently-former party back before it was Sykes' recently-former party.

Tom Delay?  Ring any bells?  Anyone?

And "sports"?   No one like Trump could succeed in "sports"?  Are you fucking kidding me, Mr. Sykes?  Or are you only counting curling and pro-am badminton as "sports"?

In fact, the whole predicate of the column is so aggressively myopic and profoundly stupid, I'm stunned that it wasn't the lead op-ed at The New York Times.

I Am The Liberal Media

When Your Allies Refer To You As "Cancer", Maybe They're Not Really Your Allies

Two of MSNBC's most ubiquitous Never Trumpers had their own colloquy at their own clubhouse this week, and the subject of you and me came up. 

(Obligingly-but-not-surprisingly, it just happens to fit hand-in-glove with a TL;DR post I've been fiddling with for a week and published earlier today entitled "The Seven Horcruxes of True Conservatism".)

 This is a free-sample snippet of  the Bulwark's "Just Between Us", subscription podcast.  The snippet is entitled “Cancer Versus Heart Attack".

Charlie Sykes is reporting back from a conference held at "an undisclosed location in Phoenix, Arizona" last week, but which my sources tell me was something called the "Patriots & Pragmatists conference".   Which is described by The New York Times as a coalition of “leading donors and operatives from the right and left", and which, according to one of the many organizations which gives them large sums of money is...

"...a fiscally sponsored project of Policy Impact, is a cross-ideological network and convening space through which civic leaders and influencers debate, envision, and realize a brighter future for American democracy. The project was founded on a simple proposition: that people of goodwill from across the political spectrum could put aside their differences to explore together how to address the various challenges facing American democracy. Intentionally curated and well-facilitated convenings, along with active network weaving, are the centerpiece of the project’s work, enabling participants to build deep and lasting connections across ideological and disciplinary lines."

Which is more fizzy, frothy, empty consultant-speak than I've heard since days when I was in upper management at the City of Chicago.  I mean, doesn't "intentionally curated and well-facilitated convenings" sound like something that'd run you $50 extra on the charcuterie board of the most pretentious restaurant you've even been to?

Anyway, both he and fellow-Bulwarkian Mona Charen attended and this was their takeaway.

Charlie Sykes:  How do you defend liberal...

Sorry, I've gotta stop for just a moment to explain a thing.  Whenever Mr. Sykes talks about "liberal democracy", he gets very worried that someone out there somewhere might think he was defending icky liberals like me and you, so he always stops to make it very clear that he is not an icky liberal.

Sykes: ...We talk a lot about democracy.  What we really mean is liberal constitutional democracy... So it is about small "L" liberalism when we're combatting the rampant illiberalism that we're seeing around the country.  And... and the point was raised by many of the people there, including me, that you cannot defend liberalism against illiberalism if you ignore the...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Sykes: ...if you ignore the illiberalism on the Left. 

And there it is!

Sykes:  Not this is not to say that they are equivalent...

Except that is exactly what you're about to do.

Sykes:  ...but we have a two front war here.

Weird that our "ally" thinks of us as one of the enemies in a "two front war", don'tcha think?

And then, Sykes mounts his High Horse and we're off to the Both Sides Do It races.  There is the usual yadda yadda yadda, and then:

 Sykes:  And the best analogy -- the best analogy -- was this description of this.  And I've been trying to find out whether anyone has written it, so this is why I wanted to ask you [Mona Charen] about it, because you would know about this.  Was to compare what is the, uh, various threats.  The dealing with the anti-democratic illiberalism of the MAGA Right is a heart attack.  But the illiberalism of the Left is more like cancer. 

This is who we are supposed to treat as our ally, kids.  Who we are told to defer to and if we find any faults with them, for God's sake, shut the fuck up because democracy is at stake!  Which is passing strange considering that Sykes is never rebuked for shitting on us, which he does on a daily basis from a platform vastly larger than any Liberal will ever have.

 Sykes:   So they're both serious, but in terms of what you need to focus on right now, we need to focus on the heart attack.  When someone has a heart attack, you don't worry about chemotherapy.  You just... you save the patient.  [yadda yadda yadda Donald Trump] But it's naive to think that we don't have a problem [on the Left.]

Sykes then lapses into his "Unnamed Liberal Person Who Might Object To My Bullshit" voice.  And if you listen to him for any length of time, you'll notice that none of the objections to his obviously biased bullshit come from any actual Liberal with names and voices.  Instead they all come from same, lazy "some people say" slop trough where Donald Trump finds all those sweaty, bald men wo are always coming up to him to tell him that he's a fine, upstanding, Christian man who was the Best President Ever.

Sykes:   Now for the people who are saying "Well, you're Both Sidesism!"  or, y'know, "You're drawing a moral equivalence!", no we're making a distinction here. 

He says this very slowly because, as you know, we are all very stupid and do not understand what words mean.

Sykes:  Between what we need urgently to focus on, but also acknowledging that this thing is real [whatever "this" is] and I... and I think it's a problem for some of our more progressive listeners and readers that sometimes they pretend as if it doesn't even exist.  So we don't even talk about it.

Except you and your Never Trump friends talk about it incessantly.

Well OK, Charlie, I have an easy way for you to find out what Liberals really think.  Instead of limiting your interactions with icky Liberals to a cage-raised, milk-fed, Bulwark-housebroken "I agree with everything you have to say, Charlie" 'liberal' like Will Saletan...go toe-to-toe with Digby.  

I dare you.

Or Allison Hantschel.

Or Brother Charlie Pierce.

Or Brad Friedman

Or my wife.  

Have some of those "more progressive" people over for a live, on-the-air chat or two.  I guarantee you it would be...lively.

Mona Charen:  Oh yes!  Members of my family, actually, even, um, y'know, argue that it's waaay exaggerated and it's not really an issue.  And there are a number of ways you can track that it is an issue.  One of them is, when you look at polling, y'know, of young people, and, well, Americans in general, but even of college students and others, who say, "How often do you self-censor because you're afraid that you can't say what you think without fear of retribution?" and it's very, very high.

She goes on to explain that a group called "people" feel "stifled" because of a regime of "rigid censoriousness" that we Liberal ruthlessly enforce using our mighty Liberal thought-control powers.

Which is fucking hilarious: believe me, I try to conjure our mighty Liberal thought-control powers every day, and I have yet to notice anyone at The Bulwark or The New York Times or The Atlantic hesitating to share their ridiculous opinions far and wide.

I think a big part of the problem is that elite media bubble creatures like Mona Charen have no clue that people out here in the Real World self-censor all the time for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with our mighty Liberal thought-control powers.  

Trust me, I'm self-censoring like a mother right now.  

I was tossed in Twitter jail four times over nothing, and Twitter-banned for life over less-than-nothing.  When I went back to school as an adult and found myself in classes where I was smarter and more accomplished than the fragile, suspicious manchild who was teaching a course in research, damn betcha I kept (most) of my opinions about his qualifications to myself. 

You know who else self-censors out here in the real world?  Anyone with a job with an shitty boss, who wants to keep that job.  Anyone who goes to church and doesn't get up and shout "This is all bullshit!" when the pastor dips into Leviticus, even though they know it's Bronze Age theocratic garbage.  And Liberals, living in Trump country -- out here where there's racist wingnut sewage vomiting out of the radios 24/7, and the assholes are rage-drunk and armed to the teeth.

You know who doesn't self-censor out here in the real world? 

The racist troglodyte at the end of the bar who will begin loudly sharing his rustic views on "the coloreds" after a couple of beers.  

Also those aforementioned assholes out here in Trump country, two-count-'em-two of which I clocked at the hardware store yesterday, each proudly wearing a different "Trump 2024" cap, and staring daggers at everyone in the store, practically daring someone to start something.  

Also the occasional customers at my stepson's cashier job who feel the need to spontaneously share with everyone in line whatever it was they sopped up on Fox last night.

I can personally attest to these examples and a hundred more because, like the Scarlet Pimpernel, by day I can move among them without causing their "Obummer-loving libtard" alarms to go off.  I look like them.  I'm a bald white guy with a beard and a ball cap.  I wear Carhartt flannels and jeans.  And to get along out here in the real world I self-censor every day, even if it's just taking care not to break out any big vocabulary words when I'm out and about, because that's a "tell".

As I wrote earlier today...and have, in a sense, been writing for the past 18 years:

So...with six of the seven True Conservative horcruxes stripped away and destroyed either by the indifference of the GOP base or by the catastrophes created by True Conservatives actually getting their dearest wishes granted, what, at last, is left to sustain the rapidly disintegrating True Conservative soul?

Just two things. Their hardwired sense of moral superiority/contempt for dirty Liberals like you and me. And, of course, the all-powerful, all-occasion conjure words that keep this last, mingy fragment of their soul from turning to ash: Both Sides Do It...

Except, of course...

Both Sides Don't

Listen My Children and You Shall Hear...

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to a just couple of minutes of conversation between two paid MSNBC contributors who are all over that cable news outlet every single day like a rash.

And while you're listening, keep in mind these facts about these two men.

First, both of these men have been lifelong Republicans who held positions of genuine prominence and influence in their party and spent their entire adult lives cold-bloodedly advancing the agenda of that party.

Second, both of these men, in their own way, are materially responsible for the devolution of the GOP into the fascist shithole it is today.

Third, both of these  men aggressively ignored the every warning, every flashing light and every .alarm bell that something was drastically wrong with their party and was getting worse.

Fourth, both of these men mocked and dismissed as alarmist Liberal crackpots anyone flashing those warning lights and sounding those alarms that something was drastically wrong with their party and was getting worse.

Fifth, once the devolution of their party into a fascist shithole became too much for them to ignore, deflect (Both Sides!) or paper over, both men expressed complete shock at what was happening to their Republican party and continue to insist that it all happened spontaneously and with no warning due to some mysterious Trumpian hoodoo, and that no one coulda seen it coming.  

Sixth, each of of these men were (depending on who you ask) were either tossed out or driven out of the party whose monstrous agenda they had spent their entire adult lives relentlessly advancing.

And seventh, each of these men were immediately snapped up by "Liberal" MSNBC where their pasts were whitewashed away and where they now both make a very fine living warning that something is very wrong with the Republican party.

But when the MSNBC cameras are not around, and their just kicking in the safe-space of Charlie Sykes' reconstituted-Weekly-Standard-but-now-it's-called-The-Bulwark tree fort, here is what Sykes and Michael Steele have to say about people like us.  

People like us...who didn't work hard all of our live to turn our party turn into a fascist shithole and then lied about it.  People like us...who didn't lose our party to a lunatic like Donald Trump.  People like us...who have actually done extremely well in almost every election since 2018 despite the incessant carping and bitching of men like Sykes and Steele who are very put out that Democrats stubbornly refuse to become Republicanish enough to suit their taste.  People like us...who have held this tattered nation together despite the fact that we lack the kind of million decibel megaphone which the Right spend decades building and which men like Sykes and Steele were only too happy to use to tear this nation apart.

Or, if you're rather not listen to these two goofs who let their whole political party go to shit right before their eyes complain about how bad Democrats are at politics, here's a rush transcript, with a few of my own remarks salted in there.

Steele: Because Democrats don't know how to get out of their own way.  They're the most politically inept people I've...I don't even know how they survived this long in politics.  

driftglass: Says the black guy who hired himself out to front for the Party of Bigots and Imbeciles until that party decided it didn't need him anymore and tossed him aside like a used condom.  

Sykes:  Hehehe.

Steele:  I just don't.  I mean you know when your political opponent is digging a hole you don't get in it with him.  Let him keep digging by himself.  When your political opponent is going out saying all all kinds of badshit crazy stuff you don't get in the way of that.  You don't set up an administration that comes in the door with the winds of democracy in its sails and spend the first 18 months talking about filibuster rules...

Sykes:  Oh my God no you go back to that first two years and the amount of time they spend fighting one another...

Steele:  Yes!

Sykes: ...the amount of energy that was spent by Democrats attacking other Democrats while all of this was going along it was almost like, OK, Trump is gone... uh the... the coup failed let's go on and and we're going to scratch other issues here.  And... and they really squandered two years.  

We interrupt this piss-and-moan session about how awful Democrats and how this administration, with the "winds of democracy in its sails" to drop in this from a much longer article in Vox:

Joe Biden has been a pretty good president

...The most basic reason for a president to decline reelection is if they’re doing a bad job and are calamitously unpopular — if they’re overseeing a brutal war like Johnson and Truman were, or surging inflation or joblessness, or some other kind of disaster.

Biden is not in the strongest position you can imagine for a president seeking reelection; he’s less popular than the last three presidents to win reelection were at this point. But he’s more popular than Ronald Reagan was at this point, which — given that Reagan went on to win 49 states in 1984 on his way to reelection — tells you a bit about how poor an indicator approval ratings are this far from Election Day.

But Biden is not at all in the position that Johnson or Truman were in. He is not prosecuting a war with US troops; in fact, he ended the war in Afghanistan after 20 crushing years (a move that, somewhat ironically, marked the beginning of a prolonged dip in his approval ratings). And while the way that withdrawal happened left a lot to be desired, nothing like the sight of US troops being slaughtered during the Tet Offensive (as preceded Johnson’s decision not to seek election) is happening now.

Nor, contrary to much speculation, is the US economy in recession. The economy grew at a steady if unspectacular 2.7 percent last quarter; unemployment is the lowest it’s been since 1969 (LBJ’s war was bad for humans but great for jobs in defense industries); inflation is elevated but falling, or at least relatively stable. Wages are rising quickly, especially for less-educated workers in service and manual labor jobs. You have to go back to the dot-com boom of the late ’90s to get a better economic picture than the one Americans are enjoying right now, and this one is arguably more equitable.

Biden deserves a lot of credit for that state of affairs — more than the credit or blame that presidents usually deserve for the state of the economy.

Learning from the overly tepid fiscal stimulus enacted by the Obama administration in response to the 2007-2009 recession, at the start of his term Biden ushered through a massive $1.9 trillion package, the American Rescue Plan, that kept progress on jobs and wages from stalling out as Trump-era measures faded.

The package overshot significantly; he made the opposite mistake that Obama made in 2009. But his was the better direction in which to err: the inflation that resulted, while painful, was less painful than the many years of excess unemployment and depressed demand that resulted after 2009. In the meantime, the measure plunged child poverty to a record low by expanding the child tax credit.

Much has been made of the ways in which moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) frustrated Biden’s grander ambitions. It’s certainly true that Sinema blocked his plans to tax high earners more heavily, and Manchin kept the child tax credit improvements from being made permanent.

But looking at what actually did pass during Biden’s first two years, one gets a different picture. Biden signed the largest investment in R&D and deployment of clean energy in US history into law; the head of the International Energy Agency termed it the world’s most important climate action since the Paris accords.

Separately, Biden signed into law hundreds of billions in new science funding, passed on a bipartisan basis as part of an effort to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing. After the Trump administration’s famous failure to pass an infrastructure bill, Biden did it.

Looking abroad, the administration’s handling of the Ukraine war has been outstanding. Choosing to release intelligence showing Russia’s invasion plans in the weeks leading up to the attack was a masterstroke, denying Russian President Vladimir Putin any ability to claim that Ukraine provoked him. Biden has kept his G7 counterparts aligned in imposing sanctions on Russia, denying it oil revenue, and supplying weapons to Ukraine.

The result is a war that is already vastly more costly than Putin bargained for, without US or NATO troops being dragged into the conflict, and backdoor progress on something US presidents had been fruitlessly pursuing for years: increased European military spending.

Biden does have some notable failures, most importantly the continuing massive death toll of Covid-19. In his first year, he mobilized the largest vaccination campaign in our history to face it, with shots going from coveted and hard-to-access to ubiquitous and available at any pharmacy in a matter of months.

But the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to allow a vaccine mandate for most employers slowed adoption, as did partisan resistance to the shots among conservatives. The emergence of the more transmissible delta and omicron variants meant the disease surged even as vaccines were readily available

While it is unclear how much the administration could have done to encourage more mitigation steps, like funding for better ventilation systems, Biden once said in a debate with Trump that anyone responsible for 220,000 dead Americans “should not remain as president of the United States of America.” Given that the US Covid death toll currently stands at 1.1 million, it’s fair to say he hasn’t fared much better.

Taking the good with the bad, Biden looks like a fairly successful president, overseeing an unusually good economy without US troops in danger. That’s not normally someone you want stepping aside.

 We now rejoin Sykes and Steele pissing and moaning about how yadda yadda yadda...

Sykes:  I mean maybe they'll get it back at some point you know but counting on the Republicans to do it for them...

We interrupt Sykes commentary about how Democrats are lazy dumbasses who are "counting on the Republicans" for whatever with this clip from the 2023 SOTU of Diamond Joe Biden head-faking the entire Republican party into publicly supporting his position on Medicare and Social Security in front of an audience of millions:  

 

We now rejoin Sykes whinging about how progressives live in a bubble too!

 

Sykes: ...uh... I know it's tempting, and I know that they, uh, live in their own...  And, see this is the thing about it.  I mean you and I both know that the Fox folks live in a bubble.

Steele:  Yes!

Sykes: I'm not sure that progressives fully understand and how they live in a bubble as well.

Steele: Yeah they don't they don't.

Sykes: They don't. And there's not much we can do to tell them about it except, hey, we have these podcasts this is what we do.

driftglass: The only "bubble" progressives have is a tiny corner of one cable news channel which, over the past seven years, has been completely colonized by an army of recently-former Republicans like Sykes, and still-Republicans-because-God-knows-why like Steele.

Steele:  That's why we're here baby! 

Sykes: Michael Steele it is always great to have you. Michael Steele is host of the Michael Steele podcast also a political analyst for MSNBC... 

And just for fun and at no additional charge, here's little background on Sykes from a 2017 Urban Milwaukee article on "The Many Faces of Charlie Sykes":

...I can only imagine how hard it must have been for someone like Charlie, always deeply cynical and Mencken-like about the intelligence level of the great unwashed masses, spending day after day — for 24 years — stoking the anger and wing-nut conspiracy theories of his listeners.
But the paychecks were great. Between his radio gig and right wing dollars for his books from conservative groups, Sykes did very well. And he had the power to help elect and defeat candidates, and make friendships with heavyweights like Gov. Scott Walker, House Speaker Paul Ryan and the conservative Bradley Foundation’s president Mike Grebe.

By 2016, however, Sykes must have gotten sick of it all. Sources tell me he applied for the position of president of the Bradley Foundation after Grebe announced his resignation, and Sykes was never seriously considered for the job. After all he had done for the right-wing cause. That had to be infuriating. (And yes, there has always been some anger fueling Charlie’s views.)

So Sykes fell back on his well-practiced turn as the enlightened political turncoat who has suddenly — and ruefully, wittily, quotably — seen the error of his former ways. Rather than become king of the nation’s biggest conservative foundation, Sykes maneuvered to become the titan of talk radio traitors, getting coverage in the Politico and National Public Radio, and winning a position as contributor to MSNBC... 

 

...As former Wisconsin Democratic Chairman Mike Tate put it to Barabak, Sykes is like “a guy who slowly fed poison to his dog for 10 years then, when the dog dies of poisoning, throws up his hands and says, ‘My God, how did that happen?’”

 

Burn The Lifeboats