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About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
I’m watching McGyver on the classic MeTV, so I don’t have to ruin my upcoming night’s sleep.
Honestly, honestly, I loathe Trump with the fire of ten thousand suns. Watching him only makes me stabby.
I watched a few minutes at a time. He spent a lot of time on law and order and hate.
Chris Cillizza can hardly keep it in his pants.
It was a good speech, at least as good as Obama’s at this point. He made good points about illegal immigration, and he is building the case for healing the horrible abuses encouraged by Obama.
I have suggested in the past that the over-the-top Trump Derangement Syndrome is counter-productive. A speech like tonight’s will be used to respond to Dem lunacy.
Bashear is a great choice to respond to Trump, and he’s a great speaker. He is making good points. The Repubs are hugely in trouble with the ACA, and the Dems are playing it right. Bashear ran the program well in KY, and his example should be followed widely. Had this guy been listened to during the campaign, things might have turned out differently.
And mercifully short. A good speech, hitting the high points, and not bashing Trump. Too bad this guy didn’t run for POTUS
not for anything am I watching that. I’ll wait for you to tell me how awful it was.
Decided that was one viewing experience worth avoiding. SCROTUS has not said anything of value since he started on the campaign trail. If there really is something different from his usual schtick, I’ll catch it in my news feeds later.
I disagree.
He has talent.
Demagogic talent at the very least.
He bought himself a few more weeks or even months tonight.
The Dems looked like sitting
dorks…errr, ahhh…ducks. Pelosi particularly…lke everybody’s least favorite maiden aunt sniffing about how bad the holiday meal was.And the hustle continues,
AG
The outrage excess is increasingly legitimizing Trump. Much as the birther thing legitimized Obama, the pushing of the Trump Derangement Psychosis not to 11, not 12, but to 46, is making him more legitimate. In addition, the failure to hold the opposition until a problem REALLY occurs means that the Dems have fewer weapons. What happens when Medicaid block grants are put out there? the science budget is cut? Real problems are proposed?
The Democratic boy has been crying “wolf”, and the wolf is there, but he has not done anything wolf-like yet. When he does, the Dems will have no powder in the musket.
Because immigrants aren’t people to you, we are crying wolf.
You should realize that dataguy returns to the topic of illegal immigrants over and over and over because it gets people riled up….it’s sort of analogous to the way that many Republican voters don’t give a damn a policy as long as they’re pissing off Democrats.
Reminds me of these two cartoons from Flame Warriors.
In what way exactly did the birther nonsense legitimize Obama? There was some absurd fraction of GOP voters who swore to the end that Obama was a Kenyan Muslim socialist.
Opinion polls show more than 80% of Republican voters approve of Trump, just as an overwhelming majority of them voted for Trump. He was ALREADY legitimate in their eyes. Trump’s overfall approval rating is shit because only 5% of Democrats approve of him.
trayvon michael tamir sandra philando
Um, AG, didn’t they look like the GOP congressional delegation when Obama spoke?
Yes.
Precisely.
That’s the problem.
They don’t look intelligent.
They don’t look engaged.
They don’t even look angry.
They just look like dorks.
The Dork party.
Dorkocrats.
Sorry, but there it is.
Obama’s natural charm and intelligence put a coat of whitewash on this old, broken-down fence.
The charm is over.
We need a new party.
Now!!!
AG
I only listened to portions of the speech. But the after party is sort of unanimous that he did a good job and Van Jones said something like tonight he became a two term president. WTF?
Both CNN and MSNBC pretty much trashed Beshear, but I heard him and though he was pretty good. And for the portions of Trump I heard, I was not impressed – except he made me want to throw things. So I guess I am just not listening right. So there’s a few hours I won’t get back.
The reason they did this is it was an opportunity to win back some conservative eyeballs. They knew only Trump supporters would be watching, and skewed their coverage accordingly.
Well, not quite, but nearly. The normally pretty astute Jones did get a bit weepy about the part where Donnie saluted the widow of the slain Navy Seal. Jones said “that was the moment when Donald Trump became president. … And if he can continue to have such moments in the future, we could be looking at a two-term president.”
CNN Snap poll
57 very positive
21 somewhat positive
21 negative
My guess is there so self-selection bias in watching the speech.
But those are pretty good numbers.
We are so fucked.
iirc, those marks seem to be in line with those that Obama and GWB got for SOTU addresses.
Always a bit of slobbering over what in IMHO is an essentially staged and dull speech, regardless of the elegance or craft of text. Just showing up and reading the damn thing seems to earn a B+. Objectively that should only earn a D.
Correct. Obama’s 2009 joint congressional address had 92% positive and 8% negative from CNN’s poll. Clinton high 70’s, same with Bush 43.
IIRC the President gets a bump in his approval ratings out of it.
I am curious to compare Trump’s numbers to the Clinton numbers in late May. Trump’s numbers are so bad (though whether you poll LV or Adults matters) there is no parallel really. But beneath the surface Trump is holding the GOP base better than you would expect given his overall number.
But why is that surprising? Bush’s shit approval held only because of GOP approval. He did not begin to hit 30’s until the GOP base started to waver, which didn’t happen until Katrina, and it didn’t bottom out to the 20’s until it bottomed out, as a result of financial crisis.
Until GOP base bottomed out*. And even then, it was still a majority.
Why wouldn’t he hold onto that base. No different from what the base of either party does in the early days of their guy in the WH. Doesn’t matter how many shit-sandwiches their guy serves up instead of the promised three course dinner. And to any intra-party or inter-party critics or naysayers, the response is always the same, give the guy a chance, but what’s added to the message for intra-party critics is “STFU.”
Congressional Democratic women demonstrated how lame they are with their “I’m with HER” white suit stunt. Never a good idea to wear a sore loser sign. Resistance requires valid substance. That’s what the birther and Benghazi nonsense lacked and what the Trump-Putin-Russia hysteria also lacks.
Because everything about Trump is different I guess.
Party ID of listeners according to Yougov (which has the same numbers as CNN)
39 GOP
33 Independent
23 Dem
Of the Dems who watched it 40% viewed positively.
https://www.scribd.com/document/340594301/CBS-poll-on-Donald-Trump-s-joint-address
After watching his press conference, not surprised that he would get decent SOTU marks for style. Assessing content requires knowledge beyond that of the average person. So, they rate all these addresses on style.
The basic “cowboy” American identity — as shrewdly suborned — prevents most rank-and-file citizens from seeing or acknowledging the basic illegigimacy of all of this.
So he’s unconventional–so what? So were Daniel Boone and Mark Twain and Roy Rogers.
If we’re going to get anywhere as progressives we’re going to have to overcome that basic, ingrained American impulse to trust the guy in the bolo tie to straighten out the “mess” the “elite intellectuals” created.
Pretty sure the anti-intellectualism and the racism go hand-in-hand.
No one will care in two days. Like usual. But especially with Trump after he has his next mishap.
Well, the tv pundits agreed he did a really good job. So, yeah, we may be fucked. But he goes out today for a campaign rally again. Let’s see if he can hold it together today and in the coming days when he goes to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Bernie’s response speech. Not flowery. Just the facts and most importantly, he defines real choices that Americans have. Not those fake choices we’ve been hearing from DC for almost forty years — the “cut taxes and everybody gets richer,” and “deregulate and more jobs will come your way.”
What could have been.
Not according to the owner in his recent lecture to Berniecrats. SHE was the most qualified and electable Democratic nominee in 2016 (or evah by the reckoning of her flock).
A majority of current Democrats (many who laughably claim to be progressives) have as much respect for and interest in the FDR Democratic Party as current Republicans have for the Roosevelt through IKE GOP. Hell, what they love about Clinton is that he shredded the New Deal coat. Clinging to an imaginary vision that if they keep moving right that the GOP’s countermoves further right will take the GOP off the cliff and never to return. heh — like their recent claims that Obama had permanently put the WH in the hands of Democrats. The reality is that they handed the WH to Trump, demonstrating that they failed to learn from their gross overestimate of President Clinton.
Or, worst of all, deficit hawks to a man.
Bit really only deficit scolds when the democrats want something, for Trump, bet not so much.
They couldn’t dig up another old fossil that wouldn’t lead by saying “I’m a proud Republican, and Democrat?” With a southern twang, boasting that he’s a son and grandson of Baptist preachers. As if it was the south that denied HER the WH. While it’s true that Mr. Clinton carried AR, KY, LA, MO, and TN, he didn’t need those states and he lost all of them for at least a generation while in office.
Guess the formal Democratic opposition has yet to notice who beat them in November.
No kidding! I heard Beshear’s speech. It was ok, but I cringed at the fawning over Baptist Preacher forebears. I heard that the “audience” with him in the diner were all white people.
As they say in the south: Why Hooooow Nice!
Feh.
Symbolically, for the current Democratic Party, Beshear was perfect. Trying to replicate Carter’s 1976 election campaign but with speakers a generation older than Carter then was. If I were a Republican (god forbid), I would be laughing at this regressive DP tactic.
Steve Schmidt was basically insulting when dismissing this old has been.
Actually, I sort of liked him. The preacher comments were just throw aways for me.
Wait, wait a minute. I thought we were supposed to be reaching out to these WWC voters, the forgotten coal miners of Appalachia. Seems to me a guy who won two statewide elections in such a place would be the perfect choice.
No, that’s only if the Democrats aren’t currently doing it. If they are doing it, then that becomes wrong also. The point is that the Democrats are wrong, because that’s always the point in all circumstances.
Watched only a few minutes and a few of the late post-game. Both 2-pence and especially Ryan sat back there with creepy frozen half-smiles throughout.
Msnbc had Michael Moore and some other liberal celebs a few hours later (possibly to balance a lotta Gooper analysts earlier), hosted by the always annoying Chris Matthews who rarely allowed his guests to finish a thought, let alone a sentence.
Moore noted how it seemed pundits were lowering the bar for Donald (as they did for W), how not making a complete fool of yourself for an hour now means a job well done. He said that Donald had made it a point to note the very long standing ovation for the Navy Seal’s widow might have set a record and how happy the killed Seal must be hearing it from heaven (my paraphrase of Moore’s), and how weird it was at that point to be talking records.
Also a point from Moore or Kathy Griffin about how shamelessly exploitative it was for Trump to use the very recently widowed wife as a prop for political gain. That DT tried to blame the mission gone awry on Obama and then on his generals. The parents of the dead Seal are demanding an investigation, something viewers would not be aware of watching the speech unless they’d been following the news.
Charlotte Greensit
Glenn’s response:
These cheap and/or disgusting SOTU stunts are part of the stage show. Although to be fair, unlike GWB and Trump, Obama special guests didn’t include the parents or widows of dead soldiers.
Good grief — the infection of stupid just keeps spreading:
Is Bernie that last sane person standing in DC?
Yeah. If you end your sentence with the word “period” as if you’ve just uttered a profound, undebatable truth, you’re pretty much an idiot. He did it twice here.
That Idiot defined himself with that comment. Will they keep him around? Prolly bit he lost me.– again,
Sadly, not an uncommon lapse into idiocy for someone that’s ambitious, has been shunted aside by those more like him, and the power has shifted considerably to the opposition. However, it’s rare to see such a large leap. Is he auditioning to become the next Chris Matthews? As it that role shouldn’t begin and end with Matthews.
Matthews is another one who needs to go away. He seems to float from side to side depending on his guests or who is winning this minute.
I haven’t seen it mentioned, here or in the other thread. This creeped me out more than the other garbage he was spewing. And he felt the only crime victims worth mentioning were those that were killed by immigrants.