Yesterday, David Roberts of the energy and politics newsletter Volts noted that a Washington Post article illustrated how right-wing extremism is accomplishing its goal of destroying faith in democracy.
Compare Rosalynn Carter's continuing compassion & intelligence throughout her life with the former FirstLady who promoted “I Really Don’t Care, Do You?” statement on her jacket while en route to the border in 2018. It is even more cringe-worthy five years later.
Your comparison encapsulates the horrible decline of America, though the fight to save it isn't over. We need, desperately, more Rosalynn and Jimmy Carters.
Side note: As a young reporter in 1976 during the presidential campaign, I interviewed the soon-to-be First Lady on a street corner in Thomasville, Georgia. She was gracious, warm, and without pretense. What a good life she lived.
"We need, desperately, more Rosalynn and Jimmy Carters."
Jimmy Carter was indeed, prior to Biden, the last good President of my lifetime.
However, he was also a one term President beaten out by a guy who proposed to turn the economy into a "trickle" down to the common man (while turning on a gusher upward).
Americans flocked to Reagan like flies flock to fresh, warm, cow dung. They did get their "trickle" and now they are all poor and unhappy about that and blame, yep, Biden. That is how dumb Americans are.
So, although we "need" people like Jimmy Carter in leadership, Americans prefer crooks, BS artists, and whomever Fox News likes.
Plus, now that the United States Courts have instituted Jim Crow 2.0, Republicans will win all elections.
And former First Lady Michelle Obama would probably have been a better President than her husband. I have since urged her to run.
The ONE disadvantage that the Obamas' had is that their race opened the door for the racist slime like Trump to give voice to the worst Americans there are. Hillary's "deplorables" are still deplorable and are still lined up behind that traitor.
Posts like this with unsubstantiated claims from “progressives “ are as damaging to Biden and the Democratic Party as is the MAGA far right. Most readers of HCR prefer evidence-based comments. The previous comment did not advance anything but the writer’s own ego.
Agenda 47 would consist of an end to birthright citizenship, further criminalizing transgender people and the LGBTQI community more broadly, expanding the thought crime and other censorship laws to end the teaching of "critical race theory" and to defeat "Woke" and "Black Lives Matter", attacking academic freedom and replacing it with "patriot education", implementing a national stop and frisk law, pardoning the Jan. 6 terrorists, putting homeless people in camps or some other designated area under threat of arrest, building high tech "freedom cities", ending the professional civil service and replacing it with right-wing political appointees and other such partisan agents, gutting the Department of Justice and other parts of the government that opposed Trump's attacks on democracy and the rule of law, executing drug dealers, starting a trade war with China, and making "peace" with Vladimir Putin by withdrawing support for the Ukrainian people and their freedom struggle. In many ways, Agenda 47 is a continuation of the fascist and other authoritarian policies Trump put in place during his first regime but now made even more extreme and cruel.
I believe professors in general are more concerned with fostering conversation, exchange knowledge and challenge one another respectfully if needed and desired. We are invited to join this pace to benefit from everything, including those comments we may consider not so "enlightened". Ultimately, the choice is ours as to which thread to follow, and respectfully comment on.
Heather doesn't cite a single example of "extremism or authoritarianism" to a point that is embarrassing. She just parades out a bunch "left wing extremists" as authorities and then doesn't bother to offer an of their evidence.
As Christopher Hitchens said "that which be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence"
The raison de etre every single day is simply "Republicans are evil and we are virtuous" End of story. No need for evidence, own up to our short comings, or to make a case. And how dare you question our sanctimony.
The polling for Biden is bad, no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig. Worst of all the drum beat for him to drop out is hard to ignore and its coming from his own party - look at articles in the NY TImes / Wash PO.
Michael I think on this often. When Obama was elected a huge swath of the American public construed that to mean racism is dead in America, or at least on its death bed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nope - that election result instead was like shaking a beehive. It brought out for all the world to see the nasty racist nativist vein in the American psyche. A character trait much more common than so many of us thought possible this late after the civil war. Obama's two terms are like a highlight reel - lots of great accomplishment in the face of tough opposition. But it spawned Trump and MAGA.
"Jimmy Carter was indeed, prior to Biden, the last good President of my lifetime." I've said this so many times. Before Biden showed his wisdom and courage I wondered if I'd ever see another President I could see with the same pleasure and admiration that I felt realizing I lived in the country that elected such a good man as its President.
Now, I console myself when I realize that the worst Presidents of the last 30 years were Electoral College Presidents, not popular vote ones. Yes, I know GW won the popular vote for a second term in 2004 when he had us next deep in an unnecessary war, a war that Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000, would never have started. The Electoral College is one of the albatrosses around the neck of the US democracy. The sooner it is no longer used to select the President, the better.
I believe the only thing that enabled GW's 1st popular Vote win (his 2nd Electoral College win), was Deputy Attorney General James Comey, FBI DIrector Robert Mueller III, and the 25 other DOJ and FBI top officials changing their minds about resigning following the Alberto Gonzales/Andrew Card Jr attempt to get the hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the domestic surveillance program (or at least some part of the secret Stellar Wind program).
Comey replying to GW Bush mentioning he would see him later after a morning briefing, said that he would not because he and others were going to resign. Comey was startled to realize that Bush had no clue about what Cheney (and Scooter Libby) seemed to be doing behind his back that involved Gonzales and Card.
Though the article claims Comey and other's threats to resign worked, I believe the more complete story was Bush was either unaware (or an incredible actor), of the treats to resign because Bush's Chief of Staff, Card, and White House Council, Gonzales in particular, and probably Cheney and Libby didn't bother to pass that on to him. It was just seemingly luck that Comey realized Bush had no clue, and if not for that chance realization, they would probably have resigned.
If they had resigned and Bush lost 381,000 votes in Florida alone, Bush would only have 264 Electoral College votes to Kerry's 259, so neither would have had the necessary 270 and the House (with 1 vote per state) would have to vote for one of the top 3 candidates by electoral votes, and need an absolute majority, currently 26 votes . The Senate (all 100) would vote for the Vice President from the top 2 electoral vote recipients and need 51 Senate votes to be elected Vice President.
If the mass resignations had cost Bush 380,979 votes in Florida and 262,218 votes in Virginia, Bush would still have won the popular vote by 1,725,774 (if all the other states stayed the same), but lost the Electoral vote since Kerry would have had 291 Electoral votes (20 more than he needed to win), to Bush's 246.
I found it interesting that if Gore had gotten 538 more popular votes in a fuller recount in Florida in 2000 (same number of Electoral Voters), he would have won with 291 Electoral Votes to Bush's 246.
Notice there was only 537 Electoral votes cast in 2000, D.C. elector Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained though she was pledged to vote for Gore, she chose it as a form of protest of the lack of voting status for DC in the House. It would only have brought Gore's total to 267.
The electoral college is way too much of a wild card in determining a winner and can make it even wilder by throwing it to the House where each state only gets one vote for President, with only 26 required to win, no matter how badly a candidate may have lost the popular vote..
I would also add that the Reagan campaign pulled a major fast one with Iran, basically scuttling the progress Carter had made with freeing our hostages. And thereby dooming his chances for re-election.
No but understanding how dirty politics is, I might hazard that George Washington had arranged to cross the Delaware with the British in order to give him a boost in popularity. lol.
I was thinking about the irony of Mrs. Carter's involvement in helping the mentally ill vs Reagan's overturning her progress and putting mentally ill people on the streets.
Again you revive my hope and belief that WOMEN’s Intelligence and Innate desire to support Humanity through Education and Good Will (nurturance of life on our Earth) will overcome ignorance and hateful actions which in this Moment, even here, are fogging our thoughts, hopes, wishes & dreams of EQUALITY for ALL in our battered United States of America.
I sure agree. Americans are quite a dumb bunch. I’ll harken back to Plato’s remarks that Tyranny follows Democracy. It just may be the ending of an interesting experiment. Freedom requires much responsibility and we don’t have it. The struggle ultimately is over money. No morals no ethics. It’s about money through power.
WHat delusional planet do you live on? Jimmy Carter?
However the Biden to Jimmy Carter comparison is a good one. Both had
high inflation, poor foreign policy, and brought on by higher energy costs. The big difference is that Biden energy prices were self inflicted. Between egging Russia into war with Ukraine, and crippling US oil production it was self inducted. Add 6-7 Trillion in deficit spending delivering higher inflation.
The good news was Carter was wiped out in a landslide. The same is coming for Biden.
I fell a thrill reading that you had met First Lady Carter, and, as a young person, you recognized her personal qualities. Thank you for sharing that moment.
I agree about the average American engaging, but respectfully disagree about the Carter’s…the world needs as many people like the former President and First Lady as it can get.
I concur. The humility of the Carters has been unmistakable. People I know who visited the White House when they lived there reported how approachable they were. One told a funny story about the President working the line while they were waiting to use the rest room. Another, the wife of a prominent Black official, told of being treated to lunch in the Carters' personal quarters. She got a peek at Amy's bedroom, where there was a hula hoop like the one her own daughter had. When the Carters stayed at the presidential library in Atlanta, they sleot on a pull-out couch, and when they moved back to Plains, the house they lived in was typical of the small brick "ranch houses" popular in rural Georgia. You'd have to go back to the Trumans to find a presidential couple that modest.
As a volunteer at The Carter Center for 15 years, I had the pleasure of seeing Jimmy and Rosalynn often. When he ate lunch in the Copenhill Cafe along with volunteers and staff, he always carried his own tray of food. Both of them were unpretentious and down to earth. The exact opposite of DJT and Melania.
Please do not conflate the former guy with a body part that evolved so that our ancestors could run, and that later evolved into a secondary sex characteristic that is often attractive on both genders. It's like using the c-word for female genitals as an epithet. Words for sex-related body parts should not be used as epithets.
I think that you misunderstand who Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were both before, during, and after their time in the White House. I think that they were the "average American people with...integrity, endurance, and care..." that you're looking for.
If they do tune in to broadcast media, all they will hear is that Biden is old, really really old, and his poll numbers are terrible. I cut the cord a couple of years ago but still hear enough on public radio to make me furious. I'll listen until I hear the word "polls," which I do more and more lately. No one is going to be the first to stop so now not even PBS News Hour is "safe." I really wish all reporters and hosts and guests would say aloud and frequently: the only polls that count are the ones where we cast our ballots.
"If they do tune in to broadcast media, all they will hear is that Biden is old, really really old, and his poll numbers are terrible."
Mainstream media, having watched Fox grow its profits and its audience, are playing to the American audience. If the media start listing all of the good things that Biden is doing, then, the audience will switch to Fox News.
With all due respect (and I have a lot for you and our fellow substackers) - here is my optimistic weekly spiel about polls and media.
If the polls meant anything, Hillary would be completing her second term. I think their methodology is questionable at best. Who answers a land line?
MSM is a factor for this group - but not for two whole generations who have cut the cord or never used one. The only people I know who watch TV news are close to retirement or deep into it.
I suspect (and hope) as Trump and MAGA fascist plans and doublespeak are more widely understood, a majority of Americans would vote for Jaba the Hut over a wanna be dictator who will trash democracy.
Apology for delay in response. Thank you for your always good and well reasoned perspective. I completely agree polls are almost always wrong now mostly because they rely entirely on a "home phone number" which nobody under 40 has.
I hope you are correct that "a majority of Americans would vote for Jaba the Hut over a wanna be dictator who will trash democracy"
I will keep your statement in my pocket for those days where I think Americans, umm, cannot find their way out of wet paper bag on a warm sunny day.
Bill, I must be the lone person on earth still using a landline (cable-based, as the old time “real” AT&T landline got ridiculously expensive), albeit with cordless handsets (better sound quality, etc). I would answer if the caller ID clearly identified the caller as a poll taker. Alas I get so many telemarketing calls, I wait to see if the caller begins to leave a msg (a “real” caller) before I pick up—98% click off once they connect to my voice mail. I DO have a cell phone, a horrible flip phone (the shift to 5G made my preferred prior cell phone obsolete & this was the bottom-of-the-drawer choice provided despite heroic efforts to upsell me something I did not need & would pay much more for by requiring a new plan)….as it is I only pay $5 month for my prepaid plan cuz I rarely use it & mostly just carry it for emergencies whilst out & about. Being retired & of very modest means I am not chasing the current iterations of phones, micro computers really. That’s what I have my iPad for! Guess I’m a Luddite after all….heh, just ask me about my vehicle!
You nailed it again. I view all the media today as strictly "click-bait". There is good media out there but it too must compete for the average American's attention. Good luck with that.
The deficits rise under GOP presidents, because they reduce taxes on the wealthy and the incredibly wealthy.
Inflation, and the deficit are down under Biden.
As much as I like Biden--he's definitely the best president of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration--we've had a lot of open borders under his administration. (I just testified before a Massachusetts joint committee on labor affairs in favor of E-Verify.)
And according to two experts in the field, both female European doctors, there is far too much "gender affirming" surgery, too early in peoples' lives (it shouldn't happen until early adulthood, they say).
Do you tell the leaders of your local public broadcasting station, or your local newspaper (if your town still has one) to mend their ways? I regularly post comments on NYT decrying editorial choices. They don’t always make it into print, but someone at the paper reads them.
Totally agree I wish the media would stop news on tofg. he loves to see his face everywhere. I remember when Oprah stopped showing a base of one of the criminals in the past because she said it’s like giving him free press.
No YOU ARE DELUSIONAL. You offer no proof other than your opinion.
Polls are based on SCIENCE. As usual leftist only believe "science" when it
mirrors their opinion.
The truth must be harsh for leftists to fathom. Maybe Americans don't love
DEFICIT spending. Or love open borders? Endless wars and stupid foreign policy? Or energy dependence? Or the assault on free speech and censorship? Or sexualizing
children with TRANS grooming? Or endless illegal immigration?
Maybe a Waaaaambulance should be called to take him to get help. Sorry, just being snarky now, so I’ll just skip his posts (I do like to read differing opinion/ideas, but screeds/misinfo/rants not so much).
That's the right idea. Live in a bubble of self delusion.
If Biden were ahead you couldn't get enough. It must be hard when you can't get the confirmation bias you so badly want.
Even worse, after all the sanctimony and lecturing, it must be brutal to come to terms with the idea that everything that comes from the Democrats is NOT virtuous and beautiful.
Polls are the delusion. What I want from our *free press* is issues, full stop. The media has long since turned the presidency into a four year race that starts the day after an election and continues with increasing relentlessness focusing on polls and personalities until the next one. As for Democrats being virtuous or beautiful, who said we are? We're flawed but striving human beings. What differentiates Democrats from Republicans at this hour is that the former is interested in improving the lives of all human beings and the latter is only interested in power. Newt Gingrich broke American politics in 1995. The GOP has become ever more ravenous for power and ever more hateful toward the government they run ever since. The Republicans who wrote the GOP platform in 1956 wouldn't recognize what's become of their party. Sad that. Our two-party system cannot long survive if one side is as off the charts extreme as House Republicans.
A quick check of human history should answer the question, what happens
when a party aggressively pursue "improving the lives of its citizens" UTOPIA?
A lot of death. That was the lie that was sold to Soviet and Chinese citizens.
120 Million murders later?
The perfect example American example.
The COVID pandemic was a POLICE STATE imposed on Americans under the name of compassion and "making our lives better"
How did that end? The government lied about vaccine efficacy. They lied about mask efficacy. They lied about booster efficacy. They about the origins of the vaccine. They enriched the political class, and fired and censored anyone who disputed their claims.
HELL NO. I don't want or trust a leftists desire "to make anyone's life better"
Guilty. I am one who has tuned out the politics. Fatigue? Yes. However, I do notice more courtesy. Drivers pausing to let others in. Today, two lanes of drivers pausing to allow a U-turn!! So my sense is that people are becoming kinder... and I reinforce that kindness with "thanks, you are very kind" it always draws a smile. All that and I never miss an election. I believe that Americans are much more homogenous than reported.
Kindness is my religion, under severe trial right now. UU sermon was on radical kindness yesterday. “…I have learned kindness from the unkind…” from Khalil Gibran
That wonderful Golden Rule, my favorite. Most religions seem to have some semblance of it. Wonder why it’s not a main tenet “The Golden Rule is the Doctrine of this church”.
Heard it from sermon in UU church. May have been from The Prophet, husbands’s “Bible.” Looked it up in A-Z quotes. “I learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, kindness from the unkind. Yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
"Last week the Texas legislature passed a bill to seize immigration authority from the federal government in what is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, and yesterday, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that he was “proud to endorse” Trump for president because of his proposed border policies (which include the deportation of 10 million people)."
This may seem like changing the subject, but the key phrase here is "a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution." That's something that the Carters and so many other caring American citizens would never do. Who do they think they are to violate the one thing that protects all of us? How can they violate the Constitution while still being supported by more blue state tax federal dollars than all the red states combined? How can "thanks you are very kind" be said to all the Greg Abbots among us?
I lived in Paris for a year when I was 12. I didn't understand why the French seemed not to like Americans. Prior to that year, I'd go up to foreigners in Harvard Square, and ask them questions about themselves. No-one in Paris was doing that with me.
I sure as hell got to understanding why in the '90s. The Parisians didn't like Americans because there were so many of us. Our country absorbed 40 million immigrants between 1990-2020--the population equivalent of two NY States. The Census Bureau projects another 68 million--nearly 3 1/2 NY State equivalents over the next 40 years.
Here in Massachusetts, our shelter system, which was set up for American citizens, is now overrun with migrants, with many Americans being left out on the street. (We have a "right to shelter law.)
Democrats are in denial about immigration in the same way GOPers are in denial about global warming. Here's Ruy Teixeira on the Dems' immigration problem
I'm thinking perhaps we have to try to stay positive in this American crisis. I believe Joe Biden is trying to stay focused and benevolently positive in spite of all the slings and arrows heading his way from Fox, tfg, maggots, cultists, and the misinformed who believe authoritarians will somehow make life better for them. Here. Destroying democracy. Ignoring the Constitution.
What should be normal has been turned into survival. But if the ones tuning out are the ones who could help save democracy, then it’s not survival they will get. How soon we forget.
I rise to disagree; the more fundamentally good, modest, earnest and tireless leaders we can find, the better. We also need that for which you are advocating as well.
They were extraordinary in so many ways. Two things from their long life stand out: 3-year-old Jimmy met Rosalynn just after she was born because his mother had delivered her. Then there's Jimmy risking his life from exposure to extreme levels of radioactivity to prevent a reactor from exploding. I think people mistook their mild manners for dullness when that placid affect hide steely resolve.
His mother's a nurse and a midwife and his father is a big deal in Plains but I don't think he was that successful that anyone knew him at the state level. Jimmy and Rosalyn made the farm a success after he left the Navy.
They did extraordinary things but they didn't come from wealth or privilege.
So when someone says they want more regular people in politics, the Carters were regular people.
And the American people chose a B List actor instead.
Carter had the nerve to ask us to make some small sacrifices for the common good. He may have been using FDR's fireside chats as a model.
But we were already on the way to being a "me" country as opposed to a "we" country. The qualities that Carter exemplified were at one time the core of "Christian" belief. They still are for some. But too many have embraced the dark side - rejecting the idea of putting on a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat seems to me to be emblematic and the launch of the extreme selfishness that would follow.
Imagine. Yes! Imagine if we had been inspired by other nations in terms of social responsibilities. Healthcare, childcare, education, retirement planning. Excellent how to do it examples all over the world. But, Nooooo. We are exceptional!
And yet. Here we are. Millions of jobs unfilled. Millions of projects not completed for lack of workers. And millions of people applying for work. This is a big Duh. I guess hating is more fun than solving problems - for some.
My thoughts so often. Jimmy Carter was so far ahead of the curve he left the average American standing alongside that B class actor, smiling and saying he was going to "make America great again". BTW, you did know that Trump stole that line also. Well, he did and what is really hilarious is that neither Trump nor Reagan even know what "greatness" is.
And slowly but surely they have been dumbing their followers down. The wilfully ignorant aren't able to understand that they will soon loose all their rights because they are "too dumb" to vote or "too dumb to know what they want". It's already happening and only when it's too late will many of these "loyalists" realize what they have done by blindly supporting faciast cult leaders.
Yes, it roars even more, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine. Crap on you and yours. The haughtiness of the selfish disregard has always shocked me. That it can be admired is an indictment of republicans everywhere.
And will Heather & Buddy have to load up his boat & head for Canada?" Probably before the inauguration. I need to look into transferring my accounts with a U.S.-based firm to a foreign one. I already have permanent residency rights in a foreign country.
Compare Rosalynn Carter's continuing compassion & intelligence throughout her life with the former FirstLady who promoted “I Really Don’t Care, Do You?” statement on her jacket while en route to the border in 2018. It is even more cringe-worthy five years later.
Your comparison encapsulates the horrible decline of America, though the fight to save it isn't over. We need, desperately, more Rosalynn and Jimmy Carters.
Side note: As a young reporter in 1976 during the presidential campaign, I interviewed the soon-to-be First Lady on a street corner in Thomasville, Georgia. She was gracious, warm, and without pretense. What a good life she lived.
"We need, desperately, more Rosalynn and Jimmy Carters."
Jimmy Carter was indeed, prior to Biden, the last good President of my lifetime.
However, he was also a one term President beaten out by a guy who proposed to turn the economy into a "trickle" down to the common man (while turning on a gusher upward).
Americans flocked to Reagan like flies flock to fresh, warm, cow dung. They did get their "trickle" and now they are all poor and unhappy about that and blame, yep, Biden. That is how dumb Americans are.
So, although we "need" people like Jimmy Carter in leadership, Americans prefer crooks, BS artists, and whomever Fox News likes.
Plus, now that the United States Courts have instituted Jim Crow 2.0, Republicans will win all elections.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/20/us/politics/voting-rights-act.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE0.-2rr.GMfl46UomObP&smid=url-share
Mike S I agree. But Obama was a very good President as well.
And former First Lady Michelle Obama would probably have been a better President than her husband. I have since urged her to run.
The ONE disadvantage that the Obamas' had is that their race opened the door for the racist slime like Trump to give voice to the worst Americans there are. Hillary's "deplorables" are still deplorable and are still lined up behind that traitor.
Posts like this with unsubstantiated claims from “progressives “ are as damaging to Biden and the Democratic Party as is the MAGA far right. Most readers of HCR prefer evidence-based comments. The previous comment did not advance anything but the writer’s own ego.
https://www.tbsnews.net/world/agenda-47-what-trump-has-promised-if-he-wins-2024-658382
Agenda 47 would consist of an end to birthright citizenship, further criminalizing transgender people and the LGBTQI community more broadly, expanding the thought crime and other censorship laws to end the teaching of "critical race theory" and to defeat "Woke" and "Black Lives Matter", attacking academic freedom and replacing it with "patriot education", implementing a national stop and frisk law, pardoning the Jan. 6 terrorists, putting homeless people in camps or some other designated area under threat of arrest, building high tech "freedom cities", ending the professional civil service and replacing it with right-wing political appointees and other such partisan agents, gutting the Department of Justice and other parts of the government that opposed Trump's attacks on democracy and the rule of law, executing drug dealers, starting a trade war with China, and making "peace" with Vladimir Putin by withdrawing support for the Ukrainian people and their freedom struggle. In many ways, Agenda 47 is a continuation of the fascist and other authoritarian policies Trump put in place during his first regime but now made even more extreme and cruel.
I wish I could like your post 100 times. Thank you!
I believe professors in general are more concerned with fostering conversation, exchange knowledge and challenge one another respectfully if needed and desired. We are invited to join this pace to benefit from everything, including those comments we may consider not so "enlightened". Ultimately, the choice is ours as to which thread to follow, and respectfully comment on.
Heather doesn't cite a single example of "extremism or authoritarianism" to a point that is embarrassing. She just parades out a bunch "left wing extremists" as authorities and then doesn't bother to offer an of their evidence.
As Christopher Hitchens said "that which be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence"
The raison de etre every single day is simply "Republicans are evil and we are virtuous" End of story. No need for evidence, own up to our short comings, or to make a case. And how dare you question our sanctimony.
The polling for Biden is bad, no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig. Worst of all the drum beat for him to drop out is hard to ignore and its coming from his own party - look at articles in the NY TImes / Wash PO.
It was opinion.
Michael I think on this often. When Obama was elected a huge swath of the American public construed that to mean racism is dead in America, or at least on its death bed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nope - that election result instead was like shaking a beehive. It brought out for all the world to see the nasty racist nativist vein in the American psyche. A character trait much more common than so many of us thought possible this late after the civil war. Obama's two terms are like a highlight reel - lots of great accomplishment in the face of tough opposition. But it spawned Trump and MAGA.
A lot of accomplishments? Name one?
He was a terrible president by every metric.
BTW America is the least racist nation in the history of the world. And
today in America nothing is stopping any AMERICAN regardless of gender or race from achieving their dreams.
ITS A LIE to call America racist.
So was Clinton despite human fault!
Agree!!
Agree. Obama was very good UP to the point where he gave away the Treasury to big banks.
Mike S, The crash happened in September 2008 when George W Bush was President, and Henry Paulson was the Treasury Secretary.
"Jimmy Carter was indeed, prior to Biden, the last good President of my lifetime." I've said this so many times. Before Biden showed his wisdom and courage I wondered if I'd ever see another President I could see with the same pleasure and admiration that I felt realizing I lived in the country that elected such a good man as its President.
Now, I console myself when I realize that the worst Presidents of the last 30 years were Electoral College Presidents, not popular vote ones. Yes, I know GW won the popular vote for a second term in 2004 when he had us next deep in an unnecessary war, a war that Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000, would never have started. The Electoral College is one of the albatrosses around the neck of the US democracy. The sooner it is no longer used to select the President, the better.
I believe the only thing that enabled GW's 1st popular Vote win (his 2nd Electoral College win), was Deputy Attorney General James Comey, FBI DIrector Robert Mueller III, and the 25 other DOJ and FBI top officials changing their minds about resigning following the Alberto Gonzales/Andrew Card Jr attempt to get the hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the domestic surveillance program (or at least some part of the secret Stellar Wind program).
Comey replying to GW Bush mentioning he would see him later after a morning briefing, said that he would not because he and others were going to resign. Comey was startled to realize that Bush had no clue about what Cheney (and Scooter Libby) seemed to be doing behind his back that involved Gonzales and Card.
See https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/lets-check-james-comeys-bush-years-record-he-becomes-fbi-director
Though the article claims Comey and other's threats to resign worked, I believe the more complete story was Bush was either unaware (or an incredible actor), of the treats to resign because Bush's Chief of Staff, Card, and White House Council, Gonzales in particular, and probably Cheney and Libby didn't bother to pass that on to him. It was just seemingly luck that Comey realized Bush had no clue, and if not for that chance realization, they would probably have resigned.
If they had resigned and Bush lost 381,000 votes in Florida alone, Bush would only have 264 Electoral College votes to Kerry's 259, so neither would have had the necessary 270 and the House (with 1 vote per state) would have to vote for one of the top 3 candidates by electoral votes, and need an absolute majority, currently 26 votes . The Senate (all 100) would vote for the Vice President from the top 2 electoral vote recipients and need 51 Senate votes to be elected Vice President.
If the mass resignations had cost Bush 380,979 votes in Florida and 262,218 votes in Virginia, Bush would still have won the popular vote by 1,725,774 (if all the other states stayed the same), but lost the Electoral vote since Kerry would have had 291 Electoral votes (20 more than he needed to win), to Bush's 246.
I found it interesting that if Gore had gotten 538 more popular votes in a fuller recount in Florida in 2000 (same number of Electoral Voters), he would have won with 291 Electoral Votes to Bush's 246.
Notice there was only 537 Electoral votes cast in 2000, D.C. elector Barbara Lett-Simmons abstained though she was pledged to vote for Gore, she chose it as a form of protest of the lack of voting status for DC in the House. It would only have brought Gore's total to 267.
The electoral college is way too much of a wild card in determining a winner and can make it even wilder by throwing it to the House where each state only gets one vote for President, with only 26 required to win, no matter how badly a candidate may have lost the popular vote..
Very sad what's happening but I'm still hopeful there will be enough of us to stand up and do the right thing! Vote for sanity!
I would also add that the Reagan campaign pulled a major fast one with Iran, basically scuttling the progress Carter had made with freeing our hostages. And thereby dooming his chances for re-election.
Same as Nixon with the Paris Peace Talks. It’s done more often then anyone thinks.
Those two come to mind. Any others you can think of?
No but understanding how dirty politics is, I might hazard that George Washington had arranged to cross the Delaware with the British in order to give him a boost in popularity. lol.
I was thinking about the irony of Mrs. Carter's involvement in helping the mentally ill vs Reagan's overturning her progress and putting mentally ill people on the streets.
The GOP has been disgusting ever since.
Thank you Heather, Professor Richardson!
Again you revive my hope and belief that WOMEN’s Intelligence and Innate desire to support Humanity through Education and Good Will (nurturance of life on our Earth) will overcome ignorance and hateful actions which in this Moment, even here, are fogging our thoughts, hopes, wishes & dreams of EQUALITY for ALL in our battered United States of America.
I sure agree. Americans are quite a dumb bunch. I’ll harken back to Plato’s remarks that Tyranny follows Democracy. It just may be the ending of an interesting experiment. Freedom requires much responsibility and we don’t have it. The struggle ultimately is over money. No morals no ethics. It’s about money through power.
God, I hope you are wrong!!’
WHat delusional planet do you live on? Jimmy Carter?
However the Biden to Jimmy Carter comparison is a good one. Both had
high inflation, poor foreign policy, and brought on by higher energy costs. The big difference is that Biden energy prices were self inflicted. Between egging Russia into war with Ukraine, and crippling US oil production it was self inducted. Add 6-7 Trillion in deficit spending delivering higher inflation.
The good news was Carter was wiped out in a landslide. The same is coming for Biden.
James A.
I get it, you are unemployed and have a LOT of free time to troll websites that matter. Nice!
You are totally wrong, I pray!!!
I fell a thrill reading that you had met First Lady Carter, and, as a young person, you recognized her personal qualities. Thank you for sharing that moment.
I agree about the average American engaging, but respectfully disagree about the Carter’s…the world needs as many people like the former President and First Lady as it can get.
I concur. The humility of the Carters has been unmistakable. People I know who visited the White House when they lived there reported how approachable they were. One told a funny story about the President working the line while they were waiting to use the rest room. Another, the wife of a prominent Black official, told of being treated to lunch in the Carters' personal quarters. She got a peek at Amy's bedroom, where there was a hula hoop like the one her own daughter had. When the Carters stayed at the presidential library in Atlanta, they sleot on a pull-out couch, and when they moved back to Plains, the house they lived in was typical of the small brick "ranch houses" popular in rural Georgia. You'd have to go back to the Trumans to find a presidential couple that modest.
They are the epitome of good Christians and the opposite of deluded Donald’s self-righteous mobs
The opposite of the “Christian” Jackson’s and their ilk.
As a volunteer at The Carter Center for 15 years, I had the pleasure of seeing Jimmy and Rosalynn often. When he ate lunch in the Copenhill Cafe along with volunteers and staff, he always carried his own tray of food. Both of them were unpretentious and down to earth. The exact opposite of DJT and Melania.
MissingInArizona - "respectfully disagree about the Carter’s…the world needs as many people like the former President and First Lady as it can get."
Which former President and First Lady are you referring to?
I responded to a comment regarding the Carters. Didn’t think it was necessary to clarify which “former” I was referring to.
He was referring to the Carters.
If you’re talking about tRump, hell NO
For pity’s sake, there are 45 “former” presidents.
And the one your mind goes to first, is the Least qualified for the title??
I was responding to a comment that was speaking of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, which former I was referring too, should have been obvious.
Please do not conflate the former guy with a body part that evolved so that our ancestors could run, and that later evolved into a secondary sex characteristic that is often attractive on both genders. It's like using the c-word for female genitals as an epithet. Words for sex-related body parts should not be used as epithets.
I think that you misunderstand who Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter were both before, during, and after their time in the White House. I think that they were the "average American people with...integrity, endurance, and care..." that you're looking for.
If they do tune in to broadcast media, all they will hear is that Biden is old, really really old, and his poll numbers are terrible. I cut the cord a couple of years ago but still hear enough on public radio to make me furious. I'll listen until I hear the word "polls," which I do more and more lately. No one is going to be the first to stop so now not even PBS News Hour is "safe." I really wish all reporters and hosts and guests would say aloud and frequently: the only polls that count are the ones where we cast our ballots.
If we are allowed, it will not only take a village, it will take a swarm.
"If they do tune in to broadcast media, all they will hear is that Biden is old, really really old, and his poll numbers are terrible."
Mainstream media, having watched Fox grow its profits and its audience, are playing to the American audience. If the media start listing all of the good things that Biden is doing, then, the audience will switch to Fox News.
Hi Mike,
With all due respect (and I have a lot for you and our fellow substackers) - here is my optimistic weekly spiel about polls and media.
If the polls meant anything, Hillary would be completing her second term. I think their methodology is questionable at best. Who answers a land line?
MSM is a factor for this group - but not for two whole generations who have cut the cord or never used one. The only people I know who watch TV news are close to retirement or deep into it.
I suspect (and hope) as Trump and MAGA fascist plans and doublespeak are more widely understood, a majority of Americans would vote for Jaba the Hut over a wanna be dictator who will trash democracy.
Bill,
Apology for delay in response. Thank you for your always good and well reasoned perspective. I completely agree polls are almost always wrong now mostly because they rely entirely on a "home phone number" which nobody under 40 has.
I hope you are correct that "a majority of Americans would vote for Jaba the Hut over a wanna be dictator who will trash democracy"
I will keep your statement in my pocket for those days where I think Americans, umm, cannot find their way out of wet paper bag on a warm sunny day.
Bill, did I recently correctly read that Faux News, cable leader, only has 2 million viewers?
Bill, I must be the lone person on earth still using a landline (cable-based, as the old time “real” AT&T landline got ridiculously expensive), albeit with cordless handsets (better sound quality, etc). I would answer if the caller ID clearly identified the caller as a poll taker. Alas I get so many telemarketing calls, I wait to see if the caller begins to leave a msg (a “real” caller) before I pick up—98% click off once they connect to my voice mail. I DO have a cell phone, a horrible flip phone (the shift to 5G made my preferred prior cell phone obsolete & this was the bottom-of-the-drawer choice provided despite heroic efforts to upsell me something I did not need & would pay much more for by requiring a new plan)….as it is I only pay $5 month for my prepaid plan cuz I rarely use it & mostly just carry it for emergencies whilst out & about. Being retired & of very modest means I am not chasing the current iterations of phones, micro computers really. That’s what I have my iPad for! Guess I’m a Luddite after all….heh, just ask me about my vehicle!
Great comment Bill Alstrom! I wish I could like it ten times!
You nailed it again. I view all the media today as strictly "click-bait". There is good media out there but it too must compete for the average American's attention. Good luck with that.
What god things? Name one?
Higher Deficits? Inflation? Open borders? Endless migration? Crime? Censorship?
Trans Grooming?
BTW What is a women?
Get a job James. goodness. wayyy to much free time you have
The deficits rise under GOP presidents, because they reduce taxes on the wealthy and the incredibly wealthy.
Inflation, and the deficit are down under Biden.
As much as I like Biden--he's definitely the best president of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration--we've had a lot of open borders under his administration. (I just testified before a Massachusetts joint committee on labor affairs in favor of E-Verify.)
And according to two experts in the field, both female European doctors, there is far too much "gender affirming" surgery, too early in peoples' lives (it shouldn't happen until early adulthood, they say).
Do you tell the leaders of your local public broadcasting station, or your local newspaper (if your town still has one) to mend their ways? I regularly post comments on NYT decrying editorial choices. They don’t always make it into print, but someone at the paper reads them.
Corporate money controls the media; and that includes NPR/PBS.
Only one way to throw off that yoke: MoveToAmend.org
Totally agree I wish the media would stop news on tofg. he loves to see his face everywhere. I remember when Oprah stopped showing a base of one of the criminals in the past because she said it’s like giving him free press.
No YOU ARE DELUSIONAL. You offer no proof other than your opinion.
Polls are based on SCIENCE. As usual leftist only believe "science" when it
mirrors their opinion.
The truth must be harsh for leftists to fathom. Maybe Americans don't love
DEFICIT spending. Or love open borders? Endless wars and stupid foreign policy? Or energy dependence? Or the assault on free speech and censorship? Or sexualizing
children with TRANS grooming? Or endless illegal immigration?
You just hate polls that don't confirm your bias.
Are you an adult or Alice in Wonderland?
James,
waaahaaahaaa. cryin like a baby we are today are we not?
Maybe a Waaaaambulance should be called to take him to get help. Sorry, just being snarky now, so I’ll just skip his posts (I do like to read differing opinion/ideas, but screeds/misinfo/rants not so much).
That's the right idea. Live in a bubble of self delusion.
If Biden were ahead you couldn't get enough. It must be hard when you can't get the confirmation bias you so badly want.
Even worse, after all the sanctimony and lecturing, it must be brutal to come to terms with the idea that everything that comes from the Democrats is NOT virtuous and beautiful.
Its most hateful and Anti American.
Polls are the delusion. What I want from our *free press* is issues, full stop. The media has long since turned the presidency into a four year race that starts the day after an election and continues with increasing relentlessness focusing on polls and personalities until the next one. As for Democrats being virtuous or beautiful, who said we are? We're flawed but striving human beings. What differentiates Democrats from Republicans at this hour is that the former is interested in improving the lives of all human beings and the latter is only interested in power. Newt Gingrich broke American politics in 1995. The GOP has become ever more ravenous for power and ever more hateful toward the government they run ever since. The Republicans who wrote the GOP platform in 1956 wouldn't recognize what's become of their party. Sad that. Our two-party system cannot long survive if one side is as off the charts extreme as House Republicans.
Your opinion about polls isn't an argument. ITS DELUSIONAL.
Improving the lives of human beings? Really with censorship? Open borders?
Inflation? Deficit spending? Endless wars? Trans grooming children? Endless illegal migration?
A quick check of human history should answer the question, what happens
when a party aggressively pursue "improving the lives of its citizens" UTOPIA?
A lot of death. That was the lie that was sold to Soviet and Chinese citizens.
120 Million murders later?
The perfect example American example.
The COVID pandemic was a POLICE STATE imposed on Americans under the name of compassion and "making our lives better"
How did that end? The government lied about vaccine efficacy. They lied about mask efficacy. They lied about booster efficacy. They about the origins of the vaccine. They enriched the political class, and fired and censored anyone who disputed their claims.
HELL NO. I don't want or trust a leftists desire "to make anyone's life better"
They are corrupt and worst incompetent.
There should be a screen for the unemployed on substack to take out these nutty posts.
Guilty. I am one who has tuned out the politics. Fatigue? Yes. However, I do notice more courtesy. Drivers pausing to let others in. Today, two lanes of drivers pausing to allow a U-turn!! So my sense is that people are becoming kinder... and I reinforce that kindness with "thanks, you are very kind" it always draws a smile. All that and I never miss an election. I believe that Americans are much more homogenous than reported.
Kindness is my religion, under severe trial right now. UU sermon was on radical kindness yesterday. “…I have learned kindness from the unkind…” from Khalil Gibran
I can relate Jeri, my religion is to treat others the way I want to be treated.
That wonderful Golden Rule, my favorite. Most religions seem to have some semblance of it. Wonder why it’s not a main tenet “The Golden Rule is the Doctrine of this church”.
Where did the Gibran quote come from?
Heard it from sermon in UU church. May have been from The Prophet, husbands’s “Bible.” Looked it up in A-Z quotes. “I learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, kindness from the unkind. Yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
"Last week the Texas legislature passed a bill to seize immigration authority from the federal government in what is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, and yesterday, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that he was “proud to endorse” Trump for president because of his proposed border policies (which include the deportation of 10 million people)."
This may seem like changing the subject, but the key phrase here is "a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution." That's something that the Carters and so many other caring American citizens would never do. Who do they think they are to violate the one thing that protects all of us? How can they violate the Constitution while still being supported by more blue state tax federal dollars than all the red states combined? How can "thanks you are very kind" be said to all the Greg Abbots among us?
Why is the rule of law not being I forced?? Maybe I'm just naive
I lived in Paris for a year when I was 12. I didn't understand why the French seemed not to like Americans. Prior to that year, I'd go up to foreigners in Harvard Square, and ask them questions about themselves. No-one in Paris was doing that with me.
I sure as hell got to understanding why in the '90s. The Parisians didn't like Americans because there were so many of us. Our country absorbed 40 million immigrants between 1990-2020--the population equivalent of two NY States. The Census Bureau projects another 68 million--nearly 3 1/2 NY State equivalents over the next 40 years.
Here in Massachusetts, our shelter system, which was set up for American citizens, is now overrun with migrants, with many Americans being left out on the street. (We have a "right to shelter law.)
Democrats are in denial about immigration in the same way GOPers are in denial about global warming. Here's Ruy Teixeira on the Dems' immigration problem
https://substack.com/inbox/post/137887616
Maybe because this will bring the masses out to the polls to vote for Biden? Then we can thank the Abbots for their egregious act.
I'm thinking perhaps we have to try to stay positive in this American crisis. I believe Joe Biden is trying to stay focused and benevolently positive in spite of all the slings and arrows heading his way from Fox, tfg, maggots, cultists, and the misinformed who believe authoritarians will somehow make life better for them. Here. Destroying democracy. Ignoring the Constitution.
Yes, but people like Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter provide role models for others to emulate or at least aspire to.
What should be normal has been turned into survival. But if the ones tuning out are the ones who could help save democracy, then it’s not survival they will get. How soon we forget.
I rise to disagree; the more fundamentally good, modest, earnest and tireless leaders we can find, the better. We also need that for which you are advocating as well.
The Carters weren't extraordinary when they started.
They only look that way in hindsight.
They were extraordinary in so many ways. Two things from their long life stand out: 3-year-old Jimmy met Rosalynn just after she was born because his mother had delivered her. Then there's Jimmy risking his life from exposure to extreme levels of radioactivity to prevent a reactor from exploding. I think people mistook their mild manners for dullness when that placid affect hide steely resolve.
Yes, but that's who they became.
His mother's a nurse and a midwife and his father is a big deal in Plains but I don't think he was that successful that anyone knew him at the state level. Jimmy and Rosalyn made the farm a success after he left the Navy.
They did extraordinary things but they didn't come from wealth or privilege.
So when someone says they want more regular people in politics, the Carters were regular people.
And the American people chose a B List actor instead.
So true!
Carter had the nerve to ask us to make some small sacrifices for the common good. He may have been using FDR's fireside chats as a model.
But we were already on the way to being a "me" country as opposed to a "we" country. The qualities that Carter exemplified were at one time the core of "Christian" belief. They still are for some. But too many have embraced the dark side - rejecting the idea of putting on a sweater instead of turning up the thermostat seems to me to be emblematic and the launch of the extreme selfishness that would follow.
Can you imagine where we would be on energy if we had switched to solar and wind in the 80s?
Or what immigration would look like if we had continued to fund family planning and good government in Central & South America?
Imagine. Yes! Imagine if we had been inspired by other nations in terms of social responsibilities. Healthcare, childcare, education, retirement planning. Excellent how to do it examples all over the world. But, Nooooo. We are exceptional!
And yet. Here we are. Millions of jobs unfilled. Millions of projects not completed for lack of workers. And millions of people applying for work. This is a big Duh. I guess hating is more fun than solving problems - for some.
My thoughts so often. Jimmy Carter was so far ahead of the curve he left the average American standing alongside that B class actor, smiling and saying he was going to "make America great again". BTW, you did know that Trump stole that line also. Well, he did and what is really hilarious is that neither Trump nor Reagan even know what "greatness" is.
I thought they were most unusual in The political arena, hadn’t been long since Dickie left…
And slowly but surely they have been dumbing their followers down. The wilfully ignorant aren't able to understand that they will soon loose all their rights because they are "too dumb" to vote or "too dumb to know what they want". It's already happening and only when it's too late will many of these "loyalists" realize what they have done by blindly supporting faciast cult leaders.
Rosalyn said she thinks we’ll be OKAY. I think she’s right.
Yes, it roars even more, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine. Crap on you and yours. The haughtiness of the selfish disregard has always shocked me. That it can be admired is an indictment of republicans everywhere.
The comparison goes without saying....
Dewey, I wonder, if TFG regains the presidency, how many of us will come back onto a forum such as this one and speak our minds openly.
And will Heather & Buddy have to load up his boat & head for Canada
Carole, you wonder: "
And will Heather & Buddy have to load up his boat & head for Canada?" Probably before the inauguration. I need to look into transferring my accounts with a U.S.-based firm to a foreign one. I already have permanent residency rights in a foreign country.
I am pursuing my juris sanguinis via Italy