Comically minimal ego-stroking

An Associated Press article posted to Daily Kos adds more detail to what I wrote about the nasty guy being booted from the primary ballot in Maine. This is the important part that I didn’t know about before:

The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows' decision to Maine's state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation's highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot there and in the other states.

Yesterday I also wrote about candidate Nikki Haley avoiding saying slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed why she did it.

But Haley is not running for the post of presidential historian. She is attempting to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, and she faces the daunting obstacle of winning over a Republican primary electorate almost completely in thrall of Donald Trump. And like the other Republican hopefuls Trump has left floundering in the detritus of his wake, she knows that her only path lies in somehow distinguishing herself in the eyes of those voters. And if that means pandering to their fantasies about themselves and their forefathers’ motivations, then so be it. ... More to the point: Haley’s clumsy effort to whitewash the history of slavery in this country is emblematic of a deeper rot suffusing the modern Republican Party to this day, one that instinctively seeks to blur, and ultimately obscure, the pervasive racism still so prevalent among its rank and file voters.

It’s important to ask and easy to answer: Why do they want to obscure the pervasive racism and the slavery that was a part of it? Because they want to keep doing it. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several reactions to Haley’s comments. A couple of those reactions: Sarah Longwell tweeted: “The people who don’t want to acknowledge slavery already have their candidate in comfortable racist Donald Trump. Nikki needs the other people!” Politico reported Haley accused the person who asked the question of being a Democrat plant out to embarrass her and other Republican candidates. In the comments the first cartoon is by Mike Luckovich showing a scene from Wheel of Fortune. The question is “What was the Civil War fought over?” The solution so far is:

__ __ A __ E R Y

And Haley guesses: “Drapery.” Which, for a few people, brought to mind the scene from the old Carol Burnett Show titled “Went with the Wind” which is worth the 9 minutes. Alas, the image and sound quality aren’t very good. Alas, it looks like You Tube is cracking down on those who don’t subscribe yet block ads. Remember all those votes Republicans took in an attempt to overturn Obamacare? There were at least 50 such votes. Joan McCarter of Kos reports Republicans have a new Obamacare, a law they hate as much as that health plan. The new target is the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. There are several components of the bill they are trying to repeal. The piece most frequently in the news is the additional funding for the IRS to hire agents to go after rich tax evaders – precisely why it is a Republican target. There’s also Greenhouse Gas Reduction, High Efficiency Electric Home Rebates, greener energy codes, and much more to save the planet. They do like to brag about the infrastructure projects in their districts they voted against. An AP article discussed the impact AI deepfakes could have on elections. We’ve already seen fabricated images used in campaigns. There will be more plus fabricated candidates saying fabricated things. There’s an effort in Congress to regulate AI images, but no bills yet. Some states are trying to fill in the gap. Another problem is the “guardrails” on social media are fading. The biggest part of that is Elon Musk and X where one of the things he did was gut the teams that fought against misinformation. Also, Meta has removed policies that protected against misinformation and laid off content moderators. Add to that the nasty guy’s front-runner status. He’s known for creating and spreading misinformation, especially the claim elections must be rigged if he didn’t win. The good news is election officials around the country are working hard to get correct information in the public’s hands so misinformation can’t take hold. A second AP article discussed more election threats. There are foreign threats, especially Russia, China, and Iran. The Russian threat is the most obvious – Putin has a better chance in Ukraine with the nasty guy in office. But China and Iran are also trying to disrupt things – consider the mess if a ransomware attack hit voter rolls just before the election. Our adversaries are serious and well-funded. Another challenge is two-thirds of county clerks are new since the 2020 election due to retirements and threats prompting resignations. And some of those new people are election deniers. Because of those threats many election workers are building up their defenses. More are shifting to paper trails rather than relying just on the electronics. Alas, there are places like Hinds County, Mississippi where the just don’t have the money for improvements. Kos of Kos wrote that Taylor Swift is one of the biggest threats to conservatism. Of course, I’ve heard of her and I know her tour is called “Eras” that she’s making a lot of money from. But I know little of her music because I don’t listen to popular music. Why is she a threat to conservatism? She’s quite successful – Kos lists details. And she’s a successful woman. Then add in this:

The ideal Republican voter is a white, married male with no college education. And their biggest nemesis? A single, college-educated young woman. And who does Swift speak to? Young, single women. And what does she preach? Personal empowerment and political participation.

Her songs are about political activism, the double standards women face, that she’s not a big fan of marriage, and the songs show a strong personal identity. Conservatives are afraid of her because she has a strong fan base and what if she convinces them to vote? Since she’s not married conservatives use that against her, and “unmarried,” already used as a slur, devolves into “promiscuous.” But the more they go after her the more likely her fans will defend her and heed her calls to vote. She has plenty of time for those calls between now and the election. A while back I wrote about liberal women not wanting to date conservative men and how one pundit saw that as a threat to the institution of marriage and someone (not the men) had to change. Kos filled in how widespread the problem is of liberal women rejecting conservative men. Dating apps are more than three-quarters men, so the odds are bad in general. Dating sites report two-thirds of women won’t date someone with opposing views on abortion. Reaction to those stats in conservative media are, of course, over the top. Add into that conservative dating apps that flop because women don’t want to be associated with it. Kos included the story of a woman who used a dating app to get a couple men to confess to being a Jan 6 insurrectionist. She used “comically minimal ego-stroking” to get their story, just a bit of “Then what?” It worked because so many of these men are so desperate to have a woman talk to them.