Does Kamala Harris Put Dijon Mustard on Her Homemade Fries?

 

Apparently, Kamala Harris's husband back in 2019 revealed her French fry recipe.  Apparently it involves double-frying them in peanut oil and duck fat and seasoning them with home grown rosemary and sage. 

"As if I needed another reason to do all I can to elect her," gushed one fan.  "WE ARE NOT GOING BACK," proclaimed George Conway, showing a picture of McDonald's fries by comparison.  Which is funny, because I can distinctly remember the day when any candidate would have gone to great lengths to conceal such a shameful secret.  Harris also stopped by a high end spice shop to buy "Creamy Peppercorn Dressing Base, Fox Point Seasoning, Trinidad Lemon-Garlic Marinade, Turkish Seasoning, and Tuscan Sunset Salt Free Italian Seasoning," and the worst Fox News could find to say was that the chain where she shopped was overtly political in its opposition to Republicans.

You don't believe me?  Seriously, look up Dijongate.  The right wing worked itself into a tizzy when Barrack Obama ordered Dijon mustard on his hamburger.  Obama did not do himself any favors by trying to conceal his preference.  And a general uproar ensued over Obama's elitism in using fancy mustard.  And now a Democratic candidate is making homemade fries, double fried in peanut oil and duck fat and seasoned with home grown rosemary and sage?!?  To which I can only ask, does she put Dijon mustard on them?

I Don't Care if Trump Loses His Mind. I Just Want Him to Lose the Election.

 

George Conway, the Lincoln Project, and others are looking for more and more ways to torment Donald Trump until he completely loses his mind.  They use terms like "narcissistic injury" and "decompensation," but the ultimate goal is clearly to drive him around the bend. 

I have problems with this.  First of all, it's not nice to make someone lose their mind, even if that person is Donald Trump.

Second, and more important for our country's future, the goal here should not be to make Donald Trump lose his mind.  It should be to make him lose the election.  Trump's tormentors are forgetting this distinction.

Presumably they would say that making Trump lose his mind if the most effective way to make him lose the election.  I am not so sure.  After all, he has been ranting about Hannibal Lector and sharks and who knows what else for months without any serious political consequences.

If the goal is to make Trump lose his mind as a means to making him lose the election, at a minimum, he will have to lose his mind in public.  And somehow, no matter how nutty he acts, all it seems to provoke in response is a collective yawn.  Personally, I think he could jump up and down and squawk like a chicken and most people would just shrug and say, "That's Trump for you."

Second of all, would it matter?  I am with Bill Maher, who said he would vote for Biden's head in a jar of blue liquid ahead of Trump.  Presumably there are any number of people on the other side who would vote for Trump jumping up and down and squawking like a chicken over any Democrat.  

I am Gobsmacked That the Republicans Were So Gobsmacked

 

Let us concede that the Democrats, in swapping out candidates so late in the game, took quite a radical action and it was somewhat understandable that Republicans were thrown for a loop. 

What surprises me, though, is that Republicans still have not recovered from it.  Apparently they had no Plan B, which is surprising.

I can understand that they might believe Biden would not withdraw voluntarily.  Biden himself was doing his best to create that impression.  But if Republicans truly believed that Biden was as frail as they claimed, did it not occur to him that he might be involuntarily removed by events beyond his control?  

In the most extreme scenario, he might die.  Failing that, he might have a clearly incapacitating medical event.  Or the Cabinet might invoke the 25th Amendment.  Even if one assumes these things are unlikely, they were not so far-fetched that a sensible campaign would have disregarded the possibility.  A Plan B seems like so much common sense.

I can only assume that Republicans assumed that Joe Biden's removal as candidate would have been followed by a power struggle to be his successor that would have torn the Democratic Party apart.  If Republican planners wanted to be generous, they might even have assumed this was the reason why Biden would never voluntarily step down.

Why the Pro-Hamas Crowds Pickets Democrats -- The Same Reason Ultra-Maga Harasses Republicans

 

There has been talk about why the pro-Hamas protesters showed up in force in Chicago and tried to disrupt the Democratic convention while leaving Republicans alone.  After all, Republicans are clearly more obedient to Israel and less friendly to the Palestinian cause than Democrats.  But really this is no different than why ultra-MAGA harasses and threatens Republican, but not Democratic, law makers.

An important caveat is in order here.  We have at least some idea who these pro-Hamas protesters are because they show up in person.  Their leadership appears to be Palestinian, while the rank and file are mostly college students and generic progressive activists seizing onto the cause of the day.  Most of the pressure the far right exerts against Republican officials takes place out of the public eye, by threats by email, phone and the like.  As such, it is not clear who are making the threats -- militia members, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, or Three Percenters, or just the more hard core MAGA "normies."  

But the threats are real.  Many Republican office holders are being intimidated into supporting Trump, not just by the threat of a primary challenge but by actual physical threats as well.  Mitt Romney famously pays $5,000 per day in security because of these threats and can recount other Republicans who don't have that kind of money falling into line.  In 2020, Republican state legislatures expressed similar fears when Trump pressured them to appoint alternate slates of electors.  Rusty Bowers (Arizona Speaker of the House) and Brad Raffensperger.  Democratic law makers have not been targets of this sort of threats, although Democratic election officials have.*  And the reason is clear.  These hard core MAGA members believe that election officials are committing criminal fraud and therefore feel free to threaten them.  They expect Republican law makers to be in the tank for Trump and to vote for his certification regardless of election outcomes.  The do not expect Democratic law makers to be in the tank for Trump and therefore do not regard them as traitors for not voting to certify him.  

Or, put differently, ultra-MAGA are not currently seeking to take over the country.  They are seeking to take over the Republican Party as a prelude to taking over the country.

Something similar applies to the pro-Hamas crowd.  They know Republicans are in the tank for Israel and do not expect to have any sway with them.  Their fury is directed at Democrats, who they do expect to sway.  Or, put differently, they see Republican supporters of Israel as mere enemies and Democratic supporters of Israel as traitors.  And they are attempting to take over the Democratic Party, presumably as a prelude to taking over the country.

Of course, there are differences as well.  MAGA has been much more successful at intimidating Republicans into submission than the pro-Hamas crowd has been at intimidating Democrats.  The primary reason for this, I assume is that MAGA is much larger than the pro-Hamas crowd -- large enough to form the majority of a party, versus a minor faction.  

I also suspect that the ultra-MAGA tactic of staying in the shadows -- of making secret anonymous threats or harassing people at their private residence -- is more effective than the highly public and obnoxious actions of pro-Hamas.  If ultra-MAGA took their worst actions in the public eye, I have little doubt they would alienate public opinion enough to undermine their power. But private threats and harassment do not make it onto the public radar screen, and create they impression that there is a violent and authoritarian Left threatening the fabric of our country, with no equivalent on the Right.  The real difference is that the violent and authoritarian Left has been kept marginalized, while the violent and authoritarian Right is integrated into the mainstream.

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*Also school board members.  

Why Republicans Are So Weirded Out at Being Called Weird

 

It appears the Republicans are totally weirded out over being called weird.  The obvious question is why.  After all, on the total scale of political invective, "You're weird" is about as mild as it gets. Republicans are used to being called racists and fascists and regularly call their opponents Communists, terrorists, radicals seeking to overturn our country and so forth.  What is the big deal about weird.

One part of it, no doubt, is that Republicans cannot invert the accusation.  If they try calling Democrats weird, Democrats will cheerfully own their weirdness and proudly flaunt any number of harmless eccentricities.  

But I don't think that is all of it. Some people have suggested that "weird" is code for "creepy." There may be something to that, but I don't that that is the main reason "weird" is drawing blood. David Frum suggests that:

"Weird" is code for "expresses obsessive hostility to women, including the women in his own personal life" - and because MAGA Republicans don't get the code, they don't understand why they are losing the argument.

I definitely don't think it is that.  I think that Republicans understand the code very well.  That is why they are so threatened by it.

Quite simply, "weird" is code for "doesn't share the values of ordinary Americans like you and me."  No wonder Republicans are so outraged by the accusation.  It comes right out of the Karl Rove playbook of hitting your opponents where they are strongest.  Because Republicans' great claim to legitimacy has always been that they speak for Authentic Real Americans everywhere, while their opponents are just A Handful of Out-of-Touch Elitists.

The assumption that liberals are, by definition an out of touch elite, has reached such levels that it is now Republican doctrine that one cannot be simultaneously conservative and part of the elite.  No matter how rich, educated, powerful, politically connected, and privileged a Republican, they can never be part of the elite because they speak for the values of ordinary Americans.  Tucker Carlson's father might be an ambassador, director of the Voice of America and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; his stepmother might be an heiress to the Swanson fortune; he might have attended exclusive boarding schools and asked Hunter Biden to give his son a reference, but none of this makes him part of the elite because he is right-wing and therefore shares the values of ordinary Americans.  

Of course, at some level the Republican, um, intellectual leadership (mustn't call them elite) must have known that they do not, after all, speak with the values of ordinary Americans.  After all, they have long been committed -- on paper at least -- to rolling back the New Deal, a project that finds no support among the general public.  But Republican elites thought leaders could take comfort in the thought that the American people were poorly informed, and that if they only understood the peril that Social Security and Medicare were in, they would support, if not rolling them back altogether, at least plans to turn Social Security into a 401-k and voucherize Medicare.

Presumably the first clue that ordinary Americans did not necessarily agree with Republican elites activists must have come when the Supreme Court repealed its protection of abortion and turned the matter over to the states.  It soon became apparent that most Americans wanted abortion to remain legal. 

But Project 2025 has been devastating.  Most Americans may not know exactly what is in Project 2025, but they know it does not represent their values -- and the Republican elite leadership knows it too.

This is potentially a valuable moment for the Democratic Party.  Abortion won one election cycle (2022), but it can hardly be enough to sustain the Democrats for long.  But the discovery that out of touch elitism is not a liberal monopoly -- that there are conservative elites at the Heritage Foundation and elsewhere who do not share ordinary Americans' values -- can be the basis of Democrats' appeal for another generation.

PS:  Here is a clue.  Any political movement that uses "normie" as an insult clearly does not represent the values of, well, normies.  Sooner or later, someone was going to point that out.

Hello, Again

 

So, there has been quite a gap since my last post, even as Biden has dropped out of the election and Harris has pulled ahead.  

I will have to say, it has been hard to post about domestic politics even as the Middle East looks ready to blow up any day.  That makes anything in domestic politics look very much like a fragile construction that could be totally upended at any moment -- much like Trump's lead when Biden dropped out.

It also seems self-centered to view the prospect of all-out regional war from the prism of domestic politics, but I can't help it.  What would be the results of all-out war in the Middle East?  Presumably skyrocketing gas prices and mass riots by the pro-Hamas crowd.  That should be enough to put election out of reach by the incumbent party and hand it to Trump.  

Nor are my fears limited to the US.  In Europe as well, and possibly Latin America, two decades of democratic back sliding are finally beginning to show signs of reversing.  And mass riots by Muslims across Europe could very well reverse the reversal and bring the anti-democratic far right to power.  

And yet all the accounts I follow seem to be focusing on our domestic politics and treating that Mideast as, at most, an afterthought.  So let me do a few domestic posts as well.

Trump's Upcoming Pick for Vice President

 So, apparently Donald Trump now has a list of eight potential candidates for the Vice President slot -- Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, Elise Stefanik, Byron Donalds, and Ben Carson.

It could be worse.  Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Steve Miller, and Joe Arpaio are all mercifully absent.  Presumably Trump fears they would cost him votes.

Look, I know it is customary to analyze the potential picks from the candidate's viewpoint and list their pros and cons as potential vote getters.  But I am not going to do that.  The Vice President might have some influence on Trump and might take over if he passes his sell-by date while in office.  So, for the sake of the country, how do I evaluate them?

My somewhat unorthodox approach is that I prefer a knave to a fool. In other words, when candidates say something completely nutty, I would rather have one who knows it is a lie told to fool the gullible rubes than one who actually believes it.  Certainly, many people I respect disagree with me on this point.  And I recognize that the one who is knowingly lying is more morally culpable than the one who truly believes.  But it is also true that the deliberate liar is reality-based on the whole and can be rational when it is in his/her interest.  And the true believer will often cross lines that the liar would not.

Consider the 2022 election.  While the vast majority of Republicans who lost conceded defeat, there were two notable exceptions -- Kari Lake and Solomon Pena.  Lake knew perfectly well that she lost, but put on a show of challenging the results, made speeches denouncing the election as rigged, and sued to overturn the results.  At the same time, she knew perfectly well that the result would fail and did not make a serious attempt to overturn the results.  She was simply being performative.  Pena, by contrast, genuinely believed those stories, made complaints to a wide range of election officials and, when they did not take him seriously, started shooting at their houses.  It seems a safe assumption that Lake would never go so far.

Lou Dobbs also comes to mind.  There is a reason he was the only Fox host fired over the 2020 election.  The others knew perfectly well that they were recounting lies and could stop when the directive came down.  Dobbs believed and had to be fired.  Likewise, Newsmax hoped to outflank Fox on the right, but found it did not have deep enough pockets to withstand the sort of libel verdicts Fox could absorb.  As a result, it had to cancel Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and others who refused to shut up because they truly believed.

So, with that in mind, what would be my order of priority among the Big Eight?

Knaves but not a fools.

Doug Burgum

1.  Doug Burgum.  Two-term governor of North Dakota and businessman.  Burgum seems to be a basically, sane, normal, decent person whose politics I don't like.  He clearly knows he is lying and makes only the minimum effort necessary.  If he ever did come to power, I think he could be trusted to govern in a rational manner, even if I did not care for it.  The big question is whether the governor of a state with a population under 780,000 is qualified to be President.  To which I can only answer, that Burgum is almost certainly better qualified than Trump.

Tim Scott

2.  Tim Scott.  South Carolina Senator since 2013, formerly House of Representatives, South Carolina legislature and Charleston City Council, served on the Banking and Finance Committees, author of Trump's proposed police reform bill, voted to certify Biden as President.  He appears to be both qualified and rational, and basically normal and decent.  He is also absolutely shameless in the lies he is willing to tell to get the slot.  Like Burgum, Scott really doesn't seem to care that everyone knows he is lying. So why do I prefer Burgum?  Mostly because of his role a a governor.  A governor really has to deal in reality or he/she will not be successful.  We could use more governors running for President for that very reason.

Tom Cotton

3.  Tom Cotton.  Arkansas Senator, one of the Big Three most conservative along with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, but he broke with them to agree to certify Biden as President, apparently after hearing the take recording of Trump's conversation with Brad Raffensperger.  Also a Russia hawk who voted for aid to Ukraine, definitely reality based, and tough enough to maybe have some sway with Trump and keep him at least somewhat grounded in reality.  So why do I prefer Burgum or Scott, neither of whom shows that kind of toughness?  Well, unlike Burgum and Scott, Cotton does not come across as basically decent.  His enthusiasm for waterboarding and eagerness to declare martial law during the 2020 riots suggest that Cotton is an authoritarian himself, albeit, a more reality-based authoritarian than Trump.  However, I am open to persuasion that Cotton might be preferable to Scott because he is tougher and better able to keep Trump grounded.

Marco Rubio

4. Marco Rubio.  Florida Senator, part of the Tea Party class, contender for President in 2016, voted to certify Biden.  It won't be Rubio for a simple reason.  The Constitution does not exactly say that the President and Vice President must be from different states, but it does require electors to vote for a ticket that includes at least one person from a different state.  This means that if Rubio joined Trump on the ticket, Florida's electors would be disqualified.  In a close election, that just might cost Trump victory, so I think we can rule out Rubio.  Nonetheless, if he were to move to another state, that would be a sort of ultimate act of self-abasement.  Rubio ran as a hawk in 2016, but voted against aid to Ukraine.  In short, he has abandoned his principles beyond what is absolutely necessary for the slot.  Somehow that just strikes me as particularly distasteful, although I am open to persuasion either way whether he might be preferable to Tom Cotton.

Elise Stefanik

5. Elise Stefanik.  House of Representatives from Upstate New York since 2014.  Originally ran as a moderate, elevated to chair of the House Republican Conference mostly so a woman could take Liz Cheney's place when Liz Cheney refused to acknowledge Trump as winner of the 2020 election.  Stefanik has since sought to advance herself by abject deference to Trump.  So what makes her any worse than Burgum, Scott,  Cotton, or Rubio?  Look, I prefer a knave to a fool, but I prefer a lesser knave.  The others at least have some sort of distinction other than shameless opportunism, but Stefanik has built her entire career on that.

Purely a fool.

Ben Carson

6. Ben Carson neurosurgeon, served as Donald Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, noted for bizarre beliefs like that the pyramids were really granaries and not tombs.  Kevin Drum described Carson's previous claim to fame as a neurosurgeon and crackpot and described him as being crazy but not scary.*  To be clear, just because Carson is a fool does not mean he is lacking in intelligence.  He is a literal brain surgeon, after all.  Nonetheless, we have had 46 Presidents of varying quality, and not one was ever qualified to perform brain surgery.  Conclusion:  Being a President and doing brain surgery are two separate and unrelated skill sets and having one by no means ensures the others.  Also, Carson is nutty enough to maybe actually believe about the stolen election.  But he seems like a decent enough guy other than that.

Knaves and fools.

Byron Donalds

7. Byron Donalds.  Elected to the House in 2020, almost certainly not qualified to be President.  But unlike Burgum, who appears to be reality based and willing to listen to sensible advice, Donalds appears to have made a career out of being as outrageous and obnoxious and possible.  This includes saying things like that Black people were better off under segregation and other such bomb throwing.  Unlike Scott, Cotton, or Rubio, Donalds voted not to certify Biden's election, which should itself be disqualifying. Does he actually believe the outrageous things he says?  I am inclined to think that Donalds resembles Trump in being a master of doublethink, about to believe or not believe whatever is most expedient at the time.  And to Donalds, expedient means outrageous.  Differs from the others in that he does not appear to have any interest whatever in governing and solely want to provoke.  Fortunately, Donalds has the same incurable defect as Rubio.  He is from Florida.

8. J.D. Vance.  Ohio Senator, elected 2022.  Combines all the worst traits of a knave and a fool.  Once harshly critical of Trump, now supports him down the line.  And it is hard to tell, but Vance appears to be a true believer who supports Trumpism with all the zeal of a convert.  He is definitely opposed to aid to Ukraine and believes that the working class is not served by the current international order.  (How does the working class benefit from more countries invading their neighbors?).  Vance knows perfectly well that the 2020 election was not stolen and does not seriously argue that it was, but does seriously argue that voters going to the polls and casting their votes for President should be a empty formality and that Congress should be allowed to throw out the election at will. In short, a Trumpist true believer who just might have the intelligence and competence to pull it off.  

And naturally, current signs point to Vance.

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*He questionably characterized Steve Bannon as scary but not crazy and gave Michael Flynn the dubious distinction of being the only member of Trump's original Cabinet to be both crazy and scary.