It's too bad that all the people complaining about gas companies' profits don't also commiserate when the gas companies' profits are low. The fact is that oil companies profits go up when times are bad for other businesses and go down when times are good for other businesses.
The irony is that they caused this situation. These people demanded that Nixon's 55 mph speed limit be rescinded because they wanted to drive fast and didn't care about efficiency. They rejected high mileage cars and rejected mileage standards because they wanted big, powerful vehicles even when they had no purpose for them. They reject out of hand all environmental programs, claiming that the market, them, should deal with issues and now the market has resulted in high prices and they want the government to help them. Sad, little people.
Don't think he was exactly "chiding" Kass, but rather giving an example of a bad prediction from the Republicans. Eric in his commentary noted that he himself predicted a red wave, and that he had made bone-headed predictions many a time. He could hardly chide Kass for his prediction when he made the same one.
The chiding is based on the tone of his prediction, which was triumphant and snide. Trash talkers who are then humiliated deserve mockery. Those who say "Well, I think is what's going to happen," and then are wrong don't.
I tried to watch less news the week leading into the election. I didn't hear the term :Red Wave" until after results came in. The "static" leading into election day did give a sense of more R wins - but that may have just been the talking heads. What is almost as annoying now is Biden and Ds saying that "America has spoken, democracy was saved. With some many close races - neither party should be bragging on wins. Because 51% voted for you - 49% voted against you. You win but America is losing, divided still.
"The American people are fed up with (Democrats) and their media bullies that crush dissent. And the fed up Americans will hold them accountable"
This is the dissonance of the right. Conservatives claim that the Democrats "crush dissent" when they have done nothing of the sort. What law was passed to criminalize dissent to "cancel"? None. However, the GOP has worked hard to place conservative justices who would unconstitutionally infringe on a woman's innate, natural, inalienable and unenumerated right to end a pregnancy without state interference. There is no such power granted in Article III as explained by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist #84.
The GOP is authoritarian, the Democrats are not. Kass' and conservatives' problem is liberalism itself because it calls people out for not being fair, that's part of cancel culture, and they don't like being called out for "telling it like it is" while they enact laws that infringe on rights. They are hypocrites.
The Constitutionalist justices of the Supreme Court have not infringed upon anyone’s innate, natural, inalienable, or unenumerated rights, as you full well know. They’ve simply shifted a matter on which the Constitution is dead silent back into the realm of democratic decision making, where it always existed prior to 1973. And it case you haven’t noticed, that strategy is working quite well for supporters of abortion rights, as Kansas and Kentucky demonstrate.
The GOP is authoritarian and the Democrats aren’t? Uh, ok. I suppose you’d characterise Pritzker’s draconian dicta during the pandemic with some antiseptic euphemism like, “proactive public safety guidance”, or “equity based risk assessment “.
The conservative justices did in fact nullify women's rights in their unconstitutional Dobbs decision. They have no power to do that as Article III provides none as explained in The Federalist #84.
There's no equivalence with a mask mandate to fight a pandemic with an unconstitutional ruling.
At least Kass is following the culinary advice sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "If you have to eat crow, eat it while it's young and tender."
The polls were off, but not by much. If someone is projected to win by 2% with an error margin of 3%... nobody notices if s/he wins by 5% but everybody notices if s/he loses by 1%. Same error, different result.
Too many folks are unaware of the importance of Raphael Warnock beating Walker in the Georgia -- having 51 senators rather than a 50/50 split means the Democrats would chair all the Senate committees and control which issues/bills make it out of committee.
Daniel FitzSimmons
ps -- if you weren't able to get to Himmels Restaurant last year while spending time at the Old Town
School of Folk Music practicing for/performing in Songs of Good Cheer, I highly recommend you try it this year; it's a great spot featuring German & Italian dishes w/ a nice selection of German beers. It's on Lawrence just east of Lincoln.
No financial interest in the restaurant, just a fan of the food and vibes there.
I think that it’s misleading to suggest that Democratic election denial was limited merely to the voices of Clinton and Abrams. Denial of the the legitimacies of both Trump and W’s presidencies was and continues to be gospel among all the Democrats that I know, Trump because of supposed Russian meddling in ‘16, Bush because the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount in 2000. Sometimes they diverge from this path long enough to blame Jill Stein and Ralph Nader for swinging the ‘16 and ‘00 elections to Trump and Bush, but for the most part, they just insist that those elections were stolen outright by the Republicans. And while it’s true that the Democrats never did anything as extreme as siccing a zombie horde on the Capitol to overturn an election, I do recall that there was a lot of chatter within progressive echo chambers in the weeks following November 8th, 2016 in which it was being urged for electors to refuse to pledge their votes for Trump for certification. Not to resort to what about-ism, but it’s clear that election denial is not the exclusive domain of the MAGA bunch, and consistent refusal to acknowledge election results will only expedite our democracy’s demise. I didn’t want either Trump or Bush to become president, but I didn’t see the benefit of denying that they were once they were elected.
There was also the Trump Resistance Movement which stated, 'not my President' and 'we don't accept the president' and purportedly had members inside the administration that would undermine him and had at least one anonymous author that wrote an NYT essay and a book.
And I am glad that you mentioned the whole 'faithless electors' push that wanted electors to 'vote their conscience' and not follow the election laws of their states.
There was also the political touting of the 25th Amendment as a tool to oust Trump that cropped up in 2016 and 2017 and Pelosi's call for a commission in 2020 to see if the Congress could force the use of the amendment.
Hillary conceded. Gore conceded. Democrats believe there was Russian interference in the election and that it was at least meant to help Trump because that's true. Democrats think they got a raw deal in 2000 because it's at least arguable that they did. Nothing similar can be said on behalf of the brazen, made-up massive voter fraud horseshit Trump pulled out of his ass and made an article of faith across his whole scumbag movement. It really isn't the same, is it?
I am not defending Trump and Trumpians. I am opposed to political actions that undermine confidence in elections and institutions, or support methods of undermining them. The fact that some may find the stories more plausible, or that they are believed by fewer people does not change their nature. The political bent of the source of a doubt also does not matter. Claiming that the Russians can hack into voting machines supports claims that others might also. Distrust of institutions is cumulative and hard to redress.
You suggest that the plausibility or reasonableness of the charge makes no difference. On the contrary, it makes all the difference. I have no problem with someone objecting to an election outcome if they have a good faith, reasonable basis to do so. I don't hold the postmodern view you flirt with that there's no way to tell the difference, that it's all subjective. Some believe x; others y, whaddya gonna do? That's madness. When the evidence actually does support a charge of a stolen election, it is entirely fair and just and appropriate in every way for the victim of that theft and their supporters and the authorities to cry foul. Otherwise, we'd be defenseless, out of misguided civic mindedness, against such outrages when they actually occur. Your advice would defer to the bank robber who, when caught and charged, takes umbrage at the accusation: "How dare you undermine confidence in our banks!"
If various election deniers had gained control of state voting apparatuses, it was reasonable to publicly worry. In that case, it's not the worry that unduly undermines confidence but rather the fact that such loons -- quite open about their commitment to partisan ends -- might have been placed to go at least some way toward acting on their nutjobbery. Now, I think those fears are overstated, as I've argued before, because they neglect the role and reliability of courts. But let's stay clear-eyed. This phenomenon really was something new and alarming.
You also suggest that the scale doesn't matter. But once again, the scale surely does matter quite a lot if your concern is widespread "distrust of institutions."
I find the whataboutism on this particular point absurd. It is a point that nobody should muddy the waters on, because it's too important. I note your straw-manning by suggesting that the Russia stuff was about hacked voting machines. I heard someone on Bari Weiss suggest that Democrats "still believe" that Trump was a "Russian plant," ha ha. I was not referring to those notions, and I know nobody who believes them. No, I was basically quoting the Mueller Report.
Look, one can strain to make a reasonable-ish argument that Trump was mostly outrageous in terms of style and various norms of presidential conduct and that none of that was exactly the end of the world. But there's at least one thing he did that you can't fit in that box no matter how hard you try, one thing that towers over his entire record of misdeeds and ludicrous character unburdened as it is by anything approximating even a single virtue: That is his refusal to accept the outcome of the election, without good faith basis even after all legal avenues had been exhausted, and his repeated insistence on that lie or delusion or whatever to his cult members culminating in January 6. It's not too much to say that his conduct in that regard was, in spirit if not by law, treasonous. You simply cannot say the same with Abrams or any of the other cases people on the right like to point to. No, they're not of the same "nature."
The Gallup pole that you cite Jake was taken three days after the 2016 election, well before Russiagate fever set in. Take the poll today and it would tell a much different story. And I have yet to meet a Democrat that doesn’t believe that Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the Supreme Court all colluded to have W. installed as president in 2000. This is election denialism.
True, but I'm open to other evidence. I couldn't find any.
Anyway, Russiagate was not election denialism. It was the charge that Trump's campaign in some way colluded with Russians to influence the election through their online misinformation campaigns, leaks of embarrassing emails, and so on -- a charge that was always plausible and merited investigation. We can debate the importance of the charge, but, honestly, would you have put it past him or his cadre of lowlife advisors? I wouldn't. It's not as though the man has a scruple of any kind.
That's not questioning the counting of actual votes. Trump's insistence that you can't trust the vote count is much different and far more insidious. It authorizes the view that no matter what actually happens, no matter what's reported, your guy won.
Your efforts to equate anger and dissatisfaction over Bush v. Gore with a nutty conspiracy theory don't hold up. You're straw-manning. The complaint was that the Court, under questionable legal theories, first stopped an ongoing recount and then held that no such recount -- ordered by the Florida Supreme Court -- could continue because it was too late. I think Bush v. Gore was a hard case and that it was not the Court's finest hour. It was reasonable for Democrats to think, as Gallup put it, that Bush won but "on a technicality."
I think you’re splitting hairs. Whether or not they were disputing the actual counting of votes (and they certainly were in Bush V Gore), most Democrats believe that both Trump and Bush attained office illegally and were illegitimate presidents.
I am delighted with the outcome of the election and hope that it marks the beginning of the end for Trump and any of his acolytes. But I wonder what lessons will be taken from the election by the various factions. I hope that the Democrats don't read the rejection of Trumpians as acceptance or satisfaction with everything Democratic and recognize a need to move to the center. I hope that the GOP takes the opportunity to quash the Trumpian mob and also moves back to the center. I hope the message that they all got was the need to move away from theater and towards cooperative/collaborative government.
Perhaps the vote was a rejection of the unfitness of Republican candidates, their lies and the overall tthreats to voting rights and women's abortion rights. It's not just about Trump, but the direction the GOP has taken since he took, and left, office. Can they ignore the Trump base and do what's needed to win elections in the future??
We shall see. It is possible that the party just needs to rot away or be replaced by a new party. They will have to pander to some, appeal to some, and I would hope that they can ignore and denounce the fringiest. I really believe that the middle 80% of the electorate are a lot less divided and more amenable to compromise than the media likes to portray.
Why do you frequently chide John Kass? It seems that you single him out as the target of your one-up-manship.
Kass is a blow hard.
It's too bad that all the people complaining about gas companies' profits don't also commiserate when the gas companies' profits are low. The fact is that oil companies profits go up when times are bad for other businesses and go down when times are good for other businesses.
The irony is that they caused this situation. These people demanded that Nixon's 55 mph speed limit be rescinded because they wanted to drive fast and didn't care about efficiency. They rejected high mileage cars and rejected mileage standards because they wanted big, powerful vehicles even when they had no purpose for them. They reject out of hand all environmental programs, claiming that the market, them, should deal with issues and now the market has resulted in high prices and they want the government to help them. Sad, little people.
Don't think he was exactly "chiding" Kass, but rather giving an example of a bad prediction from the Republicans. Eric in his commentary noted that he himself predicted a red wave, and that he had made bone-headed predictions many a time. He could hardly chide Kass for his prediction when he made the same one.
The chiding is based on the tone of his prediction, which was triumphant and snide. Trash talkers who are then humiliated deserve mockery. Those who say "Well, I think is what's going to happen," and then are wrong don't.
Yeah, but give him credit for ordering the crow.
I tried to watch less news the week leading into the election. I didn't hear the term :Red Wave" until after results came in. The "static" leading into election day did give a sense of more R wins - but that may have just been the talking heads. What is almost as annoying now is Biden and Ds saying that "America has spoken, democracy was saved. With some many close races - neither party should be bragging on wins. Because 51% voted for you - 49% voted against you. You win but America is losing, divided still.
"The American people are fed up with (Democrats) and their media bullies that crush dissent. And the fed up Americans will hold them accountable"
This is the dissonance of the right. Conservatives claim that the Democrats "crush dissent" when they have done nothing of the sort. What law was passed to criminalize dissent to "cancel"? None. However, the GOP has worked hard to place conservative justices who would unconstitutionally infringe on a woman's innate, natural, inalienable and unenumerated right to end a pregnancy without state interference. There is no such power granted in Article III as explained by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist #84.
The GOP is authoritarian, the Democrats are not. Kass' and conservatives' problem is liberalism itself because it calls people out for not being fair, that's part of cancel culture, and they don't like being called out for "telling it like it is" while they enact laws that infringe on rights. They are hypocrites.
The Constitutionalist justices of the Supreme Court have not infringed upon anyone’s innate, natural, inalienable, or unenumerated rights, as you full well know. They’ve simply shifted a matter on which the Constitution is dead silent back into the realm of democratic decision making, where it always existed prior to 1973. And it case you haven’t noticed, that strategy is working quite well for supporters of abortion rights, as Kansas and Kentucky demonstrate.
The GOP is authoritarian and the Democrats aren’t? Uh, ok. I suppose you’d characterise Pritzker’s draconian dicta during the pandemic with some antiseptic euphemism like, “proactive public safety guidance”, or “equity based risk assessment “.
The conservative justices did in fact nullify women's rights in their unconstitutional Dobbs decision. They have no power to do that as Article III provides none as explained in The Federalist #84.
There's no equivalence with a mask mandate to fight a pandemic with an unconstitutional ruling.
Eric, how can I contact John Kass and offer my sincere condolences at his epic misread of the tea leaves?
At least Kass is following the culinary advice sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "If you have to eat crow, eat it while it's young and tender."
As the polls were so very wrong about the election, why would anyone believe that Biden's ratings are so low?
The polls were off, but not by much. If someone is projected to win by 2% with an error margin of 3%... nobody notices if s/he wins by 5% but everybody notices if s/he loses by 1%. Same error, different result.
Instructions in the trash and “cooking” in those boxers - that’s me.
Too many folks are unaware of the importance of Raphael Warnock beating Walker in the Georgia -- having 51 senators rather than a 50/50 split means the Democrats would chair all the Senate committees and control which issues/bills make it out of committee.
Daniel FitzSimmons
ps -- if you weren't able to get to Himmels Restaurant last year while spending time at the Old Town
School of Folk Music practicing for/performing in Songs of Good Cheer, I highly recommend you try it this year; it's a great spot featuring German & Italian dishes w/ a nice selection of German beers. It's on Lawrence just east of Lincoln.
No financial interest in the restaurant, just a fan of the food and vibes there.
Looking forward to the SOGC show on 12/11
I think that it’s misleading to suggest that Democratic election denial was limited merely to the voices of Clinton and Abrams. Denial of the the legitimacies of both Trump and W’s presidencies was and continues to be gospel among all the Democrats that I know, Trump because of supposed Russian meddling in ‘16, Bush because the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount in 2000. Sometimes they diverge from this path long enough to blame Jill Stein and Ralph Nader for swinging the ‘16 and ‘00 elections to Trump and Bush, but for the most part, they just insist that those elections were stolen outright by the Republicans. And while it’s true that the Democrats never did anything as extreme as siccing a zombie horde on the Capitol to overturn an election, I do recall that there was a lot of chatter within progressive echo chambers in the weeks following November 8th, 2016 in which it was being urged for electors to refuse to pledge their votes for Trump for certification. Not to resort to what about-ism, but it’s clear that election denial is not the exclusive domain of the MAGA bunch, and consistent refusal to acknowledge election results will only expedite our democracy’s demise. I didn’t want either Trump or Bush to become president, but I didn’t see the benefit of denying that they were once they were elected.
There was also the Trump Resistance Movement which stated, 'not my President' and 'we don't accept the president' and purportedly had members inside the administration that would undermine him and had at least one anonymous author that wrote an NYT essay and a book.
And I am glad that you mentioned the whole 'faithless electors' push that wanted electors to 'vote their conscience' and not follow the election laws of their states.
There was also the political touting of the 25th Amendment as a tool to oust Trump that cropped up in 2016 and 2017 and Pelosi's call for a commission in 2020 to see if the Congress could force the use of the amendment.
There's no equivalence. Per Gallup, 76% of Clinton voters accepted Trump as the "legitimate president" after the 2020 election.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/197441/accept-trump-legitimate-president.aspx
About a third of Republicans, if that, accept Biden as legitimate.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/197441/accept-trump-legitimate-president.aspx
Hillary conceded. Gore conceded. Democrats believe there was Russian interference in the election and that it was at least meant to help Trump because that's true. Democrats think they got a raw deal in 2000 because it's at least arguable that they did. Nothing similar can be said on behalf of the brazen, made-up massive voter fraud horseshit Trump pulled out of his ass and made an article of faith across his whole scumbag movement. It really isn't the same, is it?
I am not defending Trump and Trumpians. I am opposed to political actions that undermine confidence in elections and institutions, or support methods of undermining them. The fact that some may find the stories more plausible, or that they are believed by fewer people does not change their nature. The political bent of the source of a doubt also does not matter. Claiming that the Russians can hack into voting machines supports claims that others might also. Distrust of institutions is cumulative and hard to redress.
You suggest that the plausibility or reasonableness of the charge makes no difference. On the contrary, it makes all the difference. I have no problem with someone objecting to an election outcome if they have a good faith, reasonable basis to do so. I don't hold the postmodern view you flirt with that there's no way to tell the difference, that it's all subjective. Some believe x; others y, whaddya gonna do? That's madness. When the evidence actually does support a charge of a stolen election, it is entirely fair and just and appropriate in every way for the victim of that theft and their supporters and the authorities to cry foul. Otherwise, we'd be defenseless, out of misguided civic mindedness, against such outrages when they actually occur. Your advice would defer to the bank robber who, when caught and charged, takes umbrage at the accusation: "How dare you undermine confidence in our banks!"
If various election deniers had gained control of state voting apparatuses, it was reasonable to publicly worry. In that case, it's not the worry that unduly undermines confidence but rather the fact that such loons -- quite open about their commitment to partisan ends -- might have been placed to go at least some way toward acting on their nutjobbery. Now, I think those fears are overstated, as I've argued before, because they neglect the role and reliability of courts. But let's stay clear-eyed. This phenomenon really was something new and alarming.
You also suggest that the scale doesn't matter. But once again, the scale surely does matter quite a lot if your concern is widespread "distrust of institutions."
I find the whataboutism on this particular point absurd. It is a point that nobody should muddy the waters on, because it's too important. I note your straw-manning by suggesting that the Russia stuff was about hacked voting machines. I heard someone on Bari Weiss suggest that Democrats "still believe" that Trump was a "Russian plant," ha ha. I was not referring to those notions, and I know nobody who believes them. No, I was basically quoting the Mueller Report.
Look, one can strain to make a reasonable-ish argument that Trump was mostly outrageous in terms of style and various norms of presidential conduct and that none of that was exactly the end of the world. But there's at least one thing he did that you can't fit in that box no matter how hard you try, one thing that towers over his entire record of misdeeds and ludicrous character unburdened as it is by anything approximating even a single virtue: That is his refusal to accept the outcome of the election, without good faith basis even after all legal avenues had been exhausted, and his repeated insistence on that lie or delusion or whatever to his cult members culminating in January 6. It's not too much to say that his conduct in that regard was, in spirit if not by law, treasonous. You simply cannot say the same with Abrams or any of the other cases people on the right like to point to. No, they're not of the same "nature."
The Gallup pole that you cite Jake was taken three days after the 2016 election, well before Russiagate fever set in. Take the poll today and it would tell a much different story. And I have yet to meet a Democrat that doesn’t believe that Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the Supreme Court all colluded to have W. installed as president in 2000. This is election denialism.
True, but I'm open to other evidence. I couldn't find any.
Anyway, Russiagate was not election denialism. It was the charge that Trump's campaign in some way colluded with Russians to influence the election through their online misinformation campaigns, leaks of embarrassing emails, and so on -- a charge that was always plausible and merited investigation. We can debate the importance of the charge, but, honestly, would you have put it past him or his cadre of lowlife advisors? I wouldn't. It's not as though the man has a scruple of any kind.
That's not questioning the counting of actual votes. Trump's insistence that you can't trust the vote count is much different and far more insidious. It authorizes the view that no matter what actually happens, no matter what's reported, your guy won.
Your efforts to equate anger and dissatisfaction over Bush v. Gore with a nutty conspiracy theory don't hold up. You're straw-manning. The complaint was that the Court, under questionable legal theories, first stopped an ongoing recount and then held that no such recount -- ordered by the Florida Supreme Court -- could continue because it was too late. I think Bush v. Gore was a hard case and that it was not the Court's finest hour. It was reasonable for Democrats to think, as Gallup put it, that Bush won but "on a technicality."
https://news.gallup.com/poll/4687/seven-americans-accept-bush-legitimate-president.aspx
I think you’re splitting hairs. Whether or not they were disputing the actual counting of votes (and they certainly were in Bush V Gore), most Democrats believe that both Trump and Bush attained office illegally and were illegitimate presidents.
I am delighted with the outcome of the election and hope that it marks the beginning of the end for Trump and any of his acolytes. But I wonder what lessons will be taken from the election by the various factions. I hope that the Democrats don't read the rejection of Trumpians as acceptance or satisfaction with everything Democratic and recognize a need to move to the center. I hope that the GOP takes the opportunity to quash the Trumpian mob and also moves back to the center. I hope the message that they all got was the need to move away from theater and towards cooperative/collaborative government.
Perhaps the vote was a rejection of the unfitness of Republican candidates, their lies and the overall tthreats to voting rights and women's abortion rights. It's not just about Trump, but the direction the GOP has taken since he took, and left, office. Can they ignore the Trump base and do what's needed to win elections in the future??
We shall see. It is possible that the party just needs to rot away or be replaced by a new party. They will have to pander to some, appeal to some, and I would hope that they can ignore and denounce the fringiest. I really believe that the middle 80% of the electorate are a lot less divided and more amenable to compromise than the media likes to portray.
Thank goodnesss the nasty arrogant silliness of J. Kass no longer has a platform in the Tribune