dickiddaveson.bsky.social
1,106 posts
54 followers
11 following
Discussion Master
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I do not, currently. A different quite liberal urban area (Denver).
I have a couple friends who live near Wall Street, though. As you might guess, they are over the moon.
(As are most of my chums here; for some reason, our own politics are too boring.)
Anyway, I think we “violently agree” here.
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He did live there, for a time.
Possible that scrambled his logic circuits a bit.
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I think his lingering animus was for Cold War liberalism tbh.
He never forgave the Democrats for Vietnam, or certain Dems for voting for Bush’s war in Iraq (reserving special hatred for Joe Lieberman), and to see them turn into the party of righteous opposition to Putin’s Russia drove him insane.
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The Trump White House intends to inflict epic suffering on New Yorkers—particularly working class ones—and to convince said working class to scapegoat Mamdani, and simultaneously his leftist, socialist base that he “didn’t keep his promises”.
It’s worked before. Hope he’s able to dodge that trap.
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True. I think the risk is more a matter of focus.
He’s got to make being a fighter against Trump central to his identity—something he likely doesn’t so much oppose, I think, as find generic and boring.
Though he’s is no Adams (a corrupt Trump ally) or Cuomo (a vengeful ass), it may be an issue.
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Being seen fighting back against that will determine the shape of his first term. If he gets one.
Again, something he’s probably not ready to face up to. Nor should he; he’s got an election to win.
But still.
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Trump and his tyrannical lackeys in DC plan to (metaphorically) burn New York to the ground, the more so if someone like Zohran becomes mayor.
Likely, given Trump’s economic agenda alone, Zohran’s idealistic policy plans are mostly irrelevant—whether one agrees or disagrees with them.
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He almost certainly doesn’t agree.
He would likely reflexively respond with “Dave, this is what made Dems lose to begin with; you have to have a positive vision, not just be anti-Trump!”
True. And likely irrelevant to his situation.
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The real worry, for me, begins after the election—if he wins.
He’s a good man. But he seems to be laboring under the usual notion that he’ll be judged by what he did to ‘materially improve people’s lives’, and such.
He’ll be known, rather, for what he did to defend his city from Trump’s tyranny.
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We were bored and addicted to drama on our phones. That’s likely what happened.
Many people who went “hellz yeah” at mass deportation had no idea of the reality of it. They saw the police thug-state now taking shape as no more real than a 2D mobile-game sprite on their tiny screen.
Oops. 😕
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Basically, he hated the CIA and the IC for actually telling the truth, more than he hated, say, Goldman Sachs for being a source of greed and corruption. Or Elon Musk, for that matter.
Taibbi will go down in history as an object warning to others.
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The fucked-up thing? Taibbi was still solidly anti-Trump at the beginning of Trump’s first term. (Greenwald became effectively MAGA earlier.)
He turned hard right when it became obvious what Russia had done, and that Democrats were going to become the party of robust national security again.
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Taibbi realizes he fucked up and pushed all his chips into the MAGA pile. Now he’s desperately scrambling to make waves and get his leftist cred back.
Too late, Matt. You were once the next Hunter S. Thompson. You’ll go down as Ezra Pound, if you’re lucky.
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Much of it is likely religious.
All those nice things they want to destroy were built by secular forces, they believe. And secular things are “of the Devil”, aimed at “sending souls to hell”.
Just enough voters like that joined forces with the racist, bored, and inattentive to ram this through.
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Apparently it was in a housing policy document on his website, which has since been removed.
(My point was that I don’t think such a thing is going to hurt him all that much anyway. Speaking as a “white voter”.)
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Yeah, and that’s not why he won, you fucking moron
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Agreed that putting “whiter neighborhoods”, in any context, in your campaign platform, is bad.
But in the broader context…yeah, I doubt too many independent voters (let alone white voters) are going to care much about it.
Such are the times we live in.
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As far as the “no, it’s going to be a liability for the Democrats writ large”counter goes…I wouldn’t be so sure of that, in 2025.
The current mayor (and president) are criminals; both are gearing up to burn blue America to the ground out of spite and autocratic malice.
It’s a brave new world.
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He’s mocking the notion that anyone of power and stature would be genuinely motivated by faith.
@jvl.bsky.social, tell Benjamin Parker he was right about this.
(I’d tell him myself, but I can’t seem to find him on Bluesky 🙃)
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Watching on silent.
He looks durnk.
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Maybe. Depends on how the candidate handles it.
I think, given Zohran’s skills, the makeup of his coalition, and the general wild hair-on-fire situation in the country in general, he might be able to brazen right through it.
He’s going to need to hire better staff, that’s for sure.
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(also, all his opponents in the general have worse, deadlier liabilities)
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Dunno, though. Zohran’s a charming fellow with a social battery like a nuclear reactor. He might be able to brazen right through it.
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UPDATE: I guess news moves at the speed of light and I just missed the headline about his tax platform language yesterday. Oops.
I suppose that is the biggest weakness about candidates like him: Attracting genuinely wild-eyed commie staff who imagine writing stuff like that for him is “helpful”.
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Nah. This won’t last a second.
Right now they think of Zohran as some wild-eyed commie socialist who is “useful for dividing the Democrats” or whatever. They’re a bit behind the developing reality of the situation.
The instant they realize his Obama-level political skills…ugh. Watch out. 😕
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I doubt Amy Coney Barrett was thinking about any of that when she wrote her stupidass ruling.
Likely the only thought going through her august judicial head was “The libs…the LIBS. Such sour grapes they have over ME GETTING THIS JOB. Well…I’LL SHOW THEM.”
Really.
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You’re probably also young, so I’m not surprised on either count
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Dude’s insecure AF. He takes every challenge or pushback as an attack.
As well he should. He’s unqualified to be a GS-6 at DoD and he knows it.
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oof
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That’s not to say we shouldn’t stop warming and tyranny and plutocratic policies. They are bad.
They just likely have fuckall to do with declining birthrates, except at the margin.
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We do rationalize the reason as “WELL, if the Earth weren’t warming and tyranny weren’t increasing and government policy weren’t so plutocratic” and blah blah blah.
Heck, sometimes I do. And it’s exactly as BS an excuse as people who elected Trump again over the “dEpReSsEd eCoNoMy”.
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There are so many more entertaining, invigorating, fulfilling things the average, modern adult can do with themselves in their spare time now.
Having kids is both increasingly optional and a barrier to that fun stuff.
True in the U.S., in Hungary, and globally. Hence, fewer kids.
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Devil’s advocate: I don’t think “the world is going to hell” is what’s pushing birth rates down.
Perhaps it *should*, but it likely doesn’t. It didn’t in previous “hellscape” eras of history.
Birth rates are going down because people increasingly don’t enjoy having kids.
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He hates being ordered around and barked commands at by moral degenerates, more than anything else on Earth.
Not sure what gives him that inherent integrity. Maybe, weirdly enough, having a famous dad and pedigree gave him more spine than others.
Or maybe you never can tell.
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Yup, indeed he did.
And again: She refused under the mistaken assumption that Hillary Clinton would almost certainly nominate her replacement, and that the Senate, D or R, would confirm them.
An assumption shared, at the time, by most of the political class in America.
In retrospect, oops.
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Ginsburg was simply blindsided by the lightning speed of America’s political devolution, lIke so many.
Likely she even comforted herself with the “rule” that Democrats would be able to filibuster anyone too extreme, if necessary.
Yup. 😕
Like I said—Understandable assumption. Though mistaken.
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Counterpoint: No one in 2013-2015, at all, seriously contemplated the notion that a Republican Senate would simply refuse to confirm any and all nominees by a Democratic president whatsoever.
Ginsburg herself was confirmed 96-3.
You can understand, if not approve of, her disconnect there.
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She assumed that Hillary Clinton would be there to replace her and gambled everything on that assumption.
Lots of people did. Hell, I did.
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Definitely the latter. They don’t want to “make enemies”, as the excuse goes.
You see it in every profession. Even the anodyne sentence “That’s not true” is considered risky and “rude”. I’ve been called out for using it in my own field of work.
Power intimidates, I guess.
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I mean, he wrote the first one 🤷♂️
Not sure what harm directing it in addition would do.
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lol Mamdami won the Wall Street precincts
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It’s for a foreign as well as a domestic audience.
I have a buddy from South Asia who genuinely believes—with apparent joy—that Iran ‘destroyed half of Israel’s infrastructure’. Or some crap.
He has a PhD in engineering. Education is no barrier to propaganda, or wanting to believe it. 😕
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That’s true. Because they’re not going to exist.
I take him neither seriously nor literally on this.
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True; he thankfully never got the opportunity. 😁
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Likely why Trump picked him
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Counterpoint: Mamdani is not Jeremy Corbyn
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I blame Wagner
He started this shit 😐
m.youtube.com/watch?v=JWhR...
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I’d be willing to bet a lot of younger Jewish voters pulled the lever for him.
Besides, this was effectively a choice between a telegenic, talented, somewhat-stubbornly-naive 33 year old and a corrupt, nasty old dude whose time had past.
Yeah, not a hard choice.
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Colorado Republicans are more a militia than an actual, competitive political party anymore
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To an extent. MAGA has something else beyond the Internet, though. People gather and bond and celebrate in-person at scale to celebrate far-right politics, well beyond rallies.
Maybe what the far left needs is the equivalent of an evangelical church. I nominate MC5 concerts.