2:00PM Water Cooler 9/30/2020

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142 comments

1. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 2:13 pm

   Wake up, Joe!
   1. jo6pac September 30, 2020 at 2:42 pm

      Why, I’m waiting for the update to happen;-)
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 3:50 pm

         It’s happening! In fact, it’s happened!
2. Samuel Conner September 30, 2020 at 2:22 pm

   Perhaps in the mind of establishment D policy maker’s the noun “option” in “public option” refers to policy options for the policy-makers, rather than medical care provision/payment options for medical care seekers.
   1. Pat September 30, 2020 at 3:22 pm

      Well “affordable” and “care” certainly had fluid to downright contrary definitions to what you find in the dictionary when used by policy makers for the AFFORDABLE CARE Act.

      Maybe we need to discuss the big lie theory of propaganda In reference to policy and legislation nomenclature.
   2. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 5:22 pm

      > Perhaps in the mind of establishment D policy maker’s the noun “option” in “public option” refers to policy options for the policy-makers

      That idea actually occurred to me, but I dismissed it as too insane. So, hat tip :-)
      1. RMO September 30, 2020 at 9:46 pm

         I would hazard a guess that answers to your questions about Biden’s statements about a public option are completely irrelevant as are any words about it from his campaign. Why? Because I don’t believe for a second that any of it is going to happen. At most, assuming he wins, the Dems will put on a show of trying to do something but will claim they will be unable to do so because of the GOP.
      2. Procopius October 1, 2020 at 8:21 am

         I think, but am not sure, this is a “greengrocers’ apostrophe.” I cannot parse the sentence if “maker’s” is a possessive instead of a plural. I’ve been seeing a lot of these lately. A LOT! Lambert even mentioned it a couple of days ago. I wonder what changed that caused this sudden outbreak.
3. Michael Hudson September 30, 2020 at 2:23 pm

   I agree that Biden won (say, 65/35), because Trump self-destructed with his constant interruptions. (I got very tired as a result.)
   But even when he was talking, he didn’t defend his positions well. He had the right basic IDEA: when asked about his income tax, he said that the laws had long been passed to benefit the rich. He could have made a populist stance. He could have said that his income-tax cuts did NOT benefit him, because he didn’t EARN any income — it was all “expensed.” He could have said that depreciation doesn’t mean losing money — it’s a free tax ride, etc.
   So Biden just let Trump self-destruct. Why interrupt him when he’s doing that?
   the advantage of all this is that Europeans and Asians saw how nutty the US political process is. The NY Times bewails that they will lose their faith in American leadership, and the world will fall apart.
   1. anon September 30, 2020 at 2:27 pm

      Neither side offered any real policy and solutions. Trump was loud and disruptive and by the end Biden looked old and tired and not fully with it. If they both loved the country as they claim they would both withdraw and allow two others to run.
   2. Robert Hahl September 30, 2020 at 2:42 pm

      Biden made Trump look young and vigorous by comparison. For instance Trump’s white shirt was whiter, and showed more under his jacket. Biden looked like an elegant, old, European man.
      1. Wukchumni September 30, 2020 at 2:49 pm

         Was it over when the Germans bombed as a loan harbor, Hell no!

         …nothing is over until we decide it is!
      2. John September 30, 2020 at 3:10 pm

         What’s wrong with that?
         1. Robert Hahl September 30, 2020 at 3:36 pm

            Europeans are unamerican. Here is Charles Boyer at about Biden’s age now. Except for the French accent and the mustache, that could be uncle Joe.
            https://youtu.be/DGsSJ6z9Hqc?t=1271
            1. flora September 30, 2020 at 4:02 pm

               Thanks for that. “I just never believed I could find you so little changed inside.” Boyer is still portraying the suave continental in old age. And why not?

               So easy to assume all old people are not what they once were, that they are only generic ‘old people.’ ( Tennyson knew better. See his poem Ulysses.)

               I remember the Trump of 25 years ago and I remember the Biden of 25 years ago. They are still their self same selves now as then, imo.
               1. Darthbobber September 30, 2020 at 6:14 pm

                  Yes, I think Biden is not notably worse than what I recall of his (admittedly unmemorable) stint on the campaign trail in 08.
      3. The Rev Kev September 30, 2020 at 6:59 pm

         ‘Biden looked like an elegant, old, European man.’

         Sure, why not? Elegant always works. Biden could even have his own song. It would fit his character-

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TqSyvdqn9c
         1. ShamanicFallout September 30, 2020 at 9:32 pm

            Elegant, old, European man… showing you to your seats at the Paris Opera
   3. flora September 30, 2020 at 2:52 pm

      If their talking style was couched in a painting styles framework, Trump would be impressionism – or maybe abstract impressionism, and Biden would be neoclassical realism. I can listen to both men and understand what points they’re trying to make.

      Hard for me to say who ‘won’. Joe didn’t fall over or drift off. Trump held the floor as much as possible.

      As for what’s in store for voters with either of these guys….
      1. John September 30, 2020 at 3:11 pm

         I would prefer Dada for Trump.
         1. flora September 30, 2020 at 3:37 pm

            Now that you mention it, Dadaism does work as a Trumpian style, which is pretty ironic.
      2. time2wakeup September 30, 2020 at 5:09 pm

         I’d opt for describing Trumps debating style as splatter art.
         1. flora September 30, 2020 at 6:20 pm

            Even with splatter art there’s a structure or gravity underneath it and organizing it. It’s not as random as it first appears. (As an aside: Basquiat’s art has the ‘bones’ or the architecture of the old masters’ or Picasso’s paintings underneath the surface, imo.)
   4. martell September 30, 2020 at 3:13 pm

      Won? Somebody won? That? It was like a fist fight between two deconditioned, diseased, old men neither of whom knows how to fight anymore (if they ever did). There was a lot of slapping and scratching and sometimes one or the other (or both simultaneously) would just lose balance and face plant. But I didn’t see either land a solid blow. That’s not the kind of fight you score. It’s the kind of fight you stop.
      1. flora September 30, 2020 at 5:42 pm

         But, however, in the meantime, so to speak … ” this could also be seen as a fist fight between two deconditioned, diseased, old men
         [ideologies] neither of whom knows how to fight anymore.
      2. chuck roast September 30, 2020 at 8:25 pm

         Really…imagine a championship fight with all the hub-bub, chatter and excitement in the arena. Cigarette smoke from the prelims rising to the rafters. Important people kibbitzing at ringside and beautiful women flashing their diamonds. Jimmy Powers gets ready to call the bout, and referee Arthur Mercante with his natty bow tie steps between the ropes.

         The crowd begins finding their seats as the murmur rises in anticipation of the boxers entering the ring. Heads turn and the boos contend with the cheers as the challenger comes down the runway, his wing-tipped entourage clearing the way. He looks good with his hair-plugs filled out matching his white silk robe and all white gloves. He looks like Mr. Clean. He enters the ring and his foot gets caught on the ropes. He stumbles forward but is rescued by his trainer Bundini Harris. As she picks him up she accidentally kicks him in the shin with her Timb. He howls in pain as the ex-Bush associates gather around to reassure him.

         The Champ is now coming down the runway surrounded by imperious, attractive blondes and his coterie of trainers with their trademark four-day beards and greasy hair. He is wearing a gold robe with gold gloves. He looks way overweight, but who follows the rules anymore. He steps into the ring on his gold shoes, raises his gloves high and begins showing his moves. He is breathing heavily now with all the fancy moves, and he takes a seat in his corner.

         The mic drops down. The bell sounds and Powers introduces the fighters in the center of the ring. The champ, at around 315 pounds, does not look ready to go 15, and the challenger looks ready for a nap. There is a small rain of boos from the crowd as the pugs do not look up to a match for the championship of the world.

         Mercante checks the fighters gloves in anticipation of the start of the match. Wait a minute. He demands that the champ take off his gloves. Mercante is saying they weigh more than 16 ounces. The champ refuses, and all hell breaks lose in his corner. Finally, Mercante gets the champs gloves off and finds a roll of dimes in each of the champs hands. Mercante pockets the dimes and gets the champs gloves back on. And now the challenger has fallen asleep in his corner, and his cut man is frantically waving smelling salts under his nose.

         While they are trying to wake up the challenger, the champ walks around the ring chomping on a Whopper with cheese and waving to his fans. A can of cheese-wizz comes flying into the ring closely followed by cups of beer and boxes of Cracker-jax. The crowd is incensed. They want their money back. They are screaming “fake-fight”, “fake-fight”.

         There is pandemonium in the arena. The fighters are hiding under the ring in secure cordon of their handlers. The crowd refuses to leave and demands a real boxing match. Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson appear out of nowhere and take to the ring. Powers is effusive, “Skill, style, power, footwork, counter-punching, grit and determination. Everything that these two chumps were not.”
         1. Divadab September 30, 2020 at 8:39 pm

            Good one, Mr Roast!
      3. RMO September 30, 2020 at 9:50 pm

         “Won? Somebody won? That?”

         Anyone who didn’t watch it won on some level. Like most things to do with the election no matter which candidate can be said to have won or lost it’s the US as a whole that loses.
   5. Pelham September 30, 2020 at 4:14 pm

      Yep. Biden won as Trump boiled over in a nation-shaming 90-minute spectacle.

      However, I have an idea that could better serve everyone — the candidates, moderators and the public: soundproof booths, such as they had on the old TV game show “Twenty-One.” I’m completely serious. The contestants would be locked in with microphones that would be electronically controlled to cut off at precisely the allotted times — with no human intervention.

      I’ve longed for this solution many years now, but everyone I’ve spoken to about it thinks I’m joking. I will concede, however, that there is a small downside in that it would make politicians appear to be infectious lab specimens. If only Herb Stempel were running.
      1. flora September 30, 2020 at 4:37 pm

         If you buy B. Clinton’s formulation that “It’s better to be strong and wrong than right and weak.” I’d have to say Trump ‘won’. ( Why didn’t Clinton’s formulation include “strong and right”?)
      2. Kurt Sperry September 30, 2020 at 4:48 pm

         Anecdotally, this basic idea was killing it on my FB feed this AM and one of the Trumpers at the dog park this morning was even brave enough to admit that Trump’s debate performance was cringingly embarrassing to watch. I don’t think Trump’s tactic of bullying and constantly talking over Biden and the moderator will help him and even could hurt him, although I’m sure a portion of his base found it quite entertaining.

         Maybe the H.L. Mencken quote, “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” might have finally been plumbed to the depths sufficiently and found bottom.
      3. hunkerdown September 30, 2020 at 6:27 pm

         I’m almost with you, but I question the need for mics at all. To leave the sound on only encourages them.
   6. Darthbobber September 30, 2020 at 5:13 pm

      Even without Trump’s antics, the format virtually foreclosed the very possibility of anything that could meaningfully be described as debate. And this is by design. Actual debates can be risky things, and the handlers for the campaigns and their parties prefer to avoid that risk. Ever since the mutually agreed party coup that muscled out the LWV in 88, we’ve been steadily headed down this road.

      Voted today in Philadelphia, home of bad things happening. Relatively painless, except for looking at the depressing choices on the actual ballot.

      If the debate produced nothing beyond “bad things happen in Philadelphia” it would have been worth it just for the amusement it afforded the locals. T-shirts bearing the slogan are of course already available.
      1. WillyBgood September 30, 2020 at 7:49 pm

         Yes, a certain class of people were really pushing for Jerry Springer to moderate. Give ’em the circus, God forbid they start talking about bread and butter.
   7. anon in so cal September 30, 2020 at 9:29 pm

      Had Trump done his HW, he could have mentioned that Biden, too, has benefited from unfair loopholes.

      “The former vice president and his wife reported close to $10 million in income in 2017 from their two S-corporations, CelticCapri and Giacoppa. The entities reported $3.2 million in income in 2018.

      S-corp employee shareholders can collect a salary — which is subject to payroll taxes. They can also receive a distribution, which is deemed a tax-free reduction of basis.

      Business owners are subject to a self-employment tax of 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare.”

      https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/joe-biden-used-this-strategy-to-trim-his-tax-bill-you-can-too.html
   8. Procopius October 1, 2020 at 8:31 am

      Michael Hudson
      September 30, 2020 at 2:23 pm

      He should have pointed out that he actually paid over $25 MILLION in taxes over a period of several years because of the Alternative Minimum Tax. Why he didn’t do that is something I don’t care to know. I know why the MSM are ignoring it (according to Moon of Alabama the NYT had it in their report in the 78th paragraph (!)).
4. marym September 30, 2020 at 2:37 pm

   Re: Joe’s public option

   I did look at his website, and it’s worse than it sounds.

   There are at least 4 routes for enrolling and it’s not clear if it’s even the same program in each case – e.g “no co-payments for “primary care” ” for the first one and “premium free” and “full benefits of Medicaid” for the second

   – anyone if “your insurance company isn’t doing right by you” (folksy, huh?)

   – premium-free access to the public option for people who would be eligible for Medicaid but for their states didn’t expand, and making sure their public option covers the full scope of Medicaid benefits.

   – states that have already expanded Medicaid will have the choice of moving the expansion population to the premium-free public option as long as the states continue to pay their current share of the cost of covering those individuals.

   – automatically enrolling people making below 138% of the federal poverty when they interact with certain institutions like schools or programs like SNAP (there’s precedence for this – I don’t have links, but read something about some automatic benefit enrollment Trump was trying to curtail at the time).

   No wonder the poor guy can’t keep track of it!
   1. Arizona Slim September 30, 2020 at 2:52 pm

      Okay, show of hands: Who has a private health insurer that is doing right by you?

      I’ll wait …
      1. Lee September 30, 2020 at 3:22 pm

         I did, quite some years ago. At the time my wife was a corporate exec. at a mutual insurance company. I don’t know if that secured us special treatment. As far as I could tell, the company, and the outside insurer they used, Aetna, seemed to do alright by their employees. As to how things stand these days, I couldn’t say.
      2. anon in so cal September 30, 2020 at 3:55 pm

         We actually do. Wish everyone had it. It’s insanely wonderful.
      3. richard September 30, 2020 at 6:39 pm

         no
         they are mafia. they do all right for themselves and that’s it. if they happen to do well by anyone else, it’s either an accident or they’re mafia too.
      4. McDee September 30, 2020 at 7:42 pm

         I did at one time. Back in the 90’s I got taken to the hospital by ambulance because of chest pains. They wheeled me on a gurney into a hallway. There were six or seven other people on gurneys n that hallway.
         Presently a man in a white coat came to me. “Thank God, a doctor”, I thought. No, the admitting clerk. First question: “Do you have insurance?” When I said Travellers (Railroad employees platinum plated health plan at the time) he waved and snapped his fingers and I was immediately taken to the ER. I wonder how long those poor wretches in the hallway had to wait?
   2. Katniss Everdeen September 30, 2020 at 7:47 pm

      So, the “plan” is to turn a purely public program into one that gives the “insurance” industry a cut? Automatically?

      Why am I not surprised? It’s joe biden, who never met a private profiteer he didn’t wanna stroke.

      PS. What’s the magic in the 138% number? I mean why not 139% or 182.37%? There’s gotta be some some sort of hand job there, but who could figure out what it is?
      1. John Anthony La Pietra September 30, 2020 at 11:01 pm

         Maybe it comes out to a round figure somewhere?
5. cocomaan September 30, 2020 at 2:44 pm

   At some point, I remember the late David Graeber saying that Occupy Wall Street was a not a movement, it was a warning. Wish I could find the citation.

   After my wife and I watched Occupy get bulldozed over into the dustbin of history (we were active in Philly), my wife and I made a choice to move out to the country, begin producing our own food, and generally preparing for the worst. It’s taken the better part of a decade but we’ve gotten to where we wanted to be when we made this move.

   I honestly just watch the debates now as comic farce, since the tragedy is going to only increase. This is dying empire-level nonsense.
   1. a different chris September 30, 2020 at 3:09 pm

      >Occupy get bulldozed over into the dustbin of history

      Not so fast. That’s not how history actually works. It looks that way in retrospect because nobody is going to write a textbook that spends 20 pages in between one event and another carefully describing how “nothing of apparent note happened and everything seemed to go back to normal.”

      You could have written the same thing about Colin Kapernick until suddenly he popped right back out of his particular dustbin again.
      1. jsn September 30, 2020 at 4:42 pm

         “And protest can have an invisible ripple-effect that lasts for generations. A small group of women from Iowa lost their sons early in the Vietnam war, and they decided to set up an organization of mothers opposing the assault on the country. They called a protest of all mothers of serving soldiers outside the White House – and six turned up in the snow. Even though later in the war they became nationally important voices, they always remembered that protest as an embarrassment and a humiliation.

         Until, that is, one day in the 1990s, one of them read the autobiography of Benjamin Spock, the much-loved and trusted celebrity doctor, who was the Oprah of his day. When he came out against the war in 1968, it was a major turning point in American public opinion. And he explained why he did it. One day, he had been called to a meeting at the White House to be told how well the war in Vietnam was going, and he saw six women standing in the snow with placards, alone, chanting. It troubled his conscience and his dreams for years. If these women were brave enough to protest, he asked himself, why aren’t I? It was because of them that he could eventually find the courage to take his stand – and that in turn changed the minds of millions, and ended the war sooner. An event that they thought was a humiliation actually turned the course of history.” Johann Hari about 10 years ago in The Independant
      2. cocomaan September 30, 2020 at 4:55 pm

         I appreciate your perspective Chris. I think it will mean something, but most people’s historical knowledge extends about the length of their lifetime. It will likely mean something to people sifting through this horrific era we’re in, though.
   2. Henry Moon Pie September 30, 2020 at 6:09 pm

      David Graeber is much missed.

      Perhaps it’s been linked before, but I came across a YT video today of a “debate” between Graeber and–wait for this–Peter Thiel. It was posted in May, but it’s obviously pre-Covid, sometime after Occupy. It’s about an hour.

      At several points, I wanted to ask Thiel just why he was so hot to get to Mars. Was he getting an urgent SOS from little green men: “Help! Peter! Come save us!”
      1. Cocomaan October 1, 2020 at 8:24 am

         Very cool will check it out
6. Oh September 30, 2020 at 2:52 pm

   I’m sick of people telling me who “won” the debate. All I know is that with these two running for President the people lose.
   1. Wukchumni September 30, 2020 at 2:57 pm

      It was strictly speaking, a ‘Fearic Victory’
      1. ambrit October 1, 2020 at 1:12 am

         It was actually a double “Pyritic Victory.” All flash and no value.
   2. cocomaan September 30, 2020 at 2:59 pm

      I’m also sick of hearing what is and is not unpresidential. Since 911, every one of our presidents has contributed to the cauldron of suffering that is the Middle East and North Africa. Every president has presided over the mass surveillance of his people. Every one of them has supported a financial sector that’s become fused to the Treasury through a skin graft of corruption.
      1. Wukchumni September 30, 2020 at 3:12 pm

         I’m sick of hearing too, so I cut my ears off and took up painting.
         1. cocomaan September 30, 2020 at 4:41 pm

            Try wearing a mask with no ears!
            1. judy2shoes September 30, 2020 at 6:49 pm

               There are masks with no ears? (((ducks for cover)))
         2. flora September 30, 2020 at 6:16 pm

            Vincent!
         3. Oh September 30, 2020 at 6:34 pm

            Hello Van Wuk!
7. zagonostra September 30, 2020 at 2:56 pm

   >Hillary Clinton cooked up Russiagate to smear Trump & distract from her own scandals, declassified docs suggest

   There was always a section of the public, myself included, that suspected that Russiaigate was the biggest redirection in the history of politics. Now there is proof that that is the case. However it seems to only garner a nonchalant yawn from the media and folks I talk to. Maybe it’s already be factored in and normalized in this crazy political environment.

   … Clinton OK’d a plan to smear then-rival Donald Trump with accusations about Russian election-hacking in order to distract from her email scandal, newly-declassified papers appear to show.
   

   https://www.rt.com/usa/502083-clinton-russiagate-obama-trump/
   1. Procopius October 1, 2020 at 9:01 am

      There are tens of millions of people who believe sincerely that Russian interference (along with treasonous Bernie Bros) stole the election from the best prepared candidate in the history of the country. They mention it frequently, and I’m surprised you don’t seem to be aware of them. What I see on several “progressive” blogs that I follow despite the dissonance I feel is active dogma that supports many other assumptions. The MSM rarely mentions it because it is so deeply ingrained that “it’s just something everybody knows,” but I’ll bet if you pay attention you’ll see it mentioned by somebody like Charles Pierce or Andrew Sullivan every other day.
8. Phillip Cross September 30, 2020 at 2:57 pm

   I prefer Trump’s 2015 campaign health care proposal!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPJfKdp3bDs

   “Reaffirming his long-held position on expanding the welfare state, reality TV star Donald Trump said that he wants to “repeal and replace” Obamacare with universal health care. “Who’s going to pay for it?” 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley inquired. “The government is going to pay for it!” Trump assured. “
   1. Procopius October 1, 2020 at 9:05 am

      I have long wondered why that quotation is so obscure. I would have thought the Democrats would have made it famous, but they, and their supporting media, have completely ignored it.
9. a different chris September 30, 2020 at 3:00 pm

   I thought this nifty confluence of text in your post was especially hilarious:

   The chaos that accompanied the federal and state response to COVID-19 was not only foreseeable, according to public health officials who saw their budgets cut year after year. It was preventable. We were warned.”

   Followed immediately by your standard blurb:

   “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

   Humans, not just Americans, always meet Churchill’s complaint about not doing the right thing “until exhausting all other options”. Well, maybe except for Ms. Arden and her little band on what may become Noah’s Ark for repopulating the world.
   1. Noone from Nowheresville September 30, 2020 at 5:39 pm

      The issue is always who has the ability to do the right thing on a system-wide basis and how many are punished for doing the right thing even on a limited basis?
10. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 3:06 pm

    I am late with the update because I found an issue with the Proud Boy’s part of the transcript that I needed to resolve. Which I have just done. Please stay tuned!
    1. JohnMinMN September 30, 2020 at 3:36 pm

       I was going to mention…Wallace was first to mention the Proud Boys. Just before Trump.
       1. JohnMinMN September 30, 2020 at 3:39 pm

          Or was it Biden?
          1. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 3:45 pm

             It was Biden!
             1. richard September 30, 2020 at 6:47 pm

                what struck me was Biden not being able to even say black lives matter. Couldn’t even say the name of the movement that his party won’t quit virtue signaling about.
                I thought i heard (i was watching the chapo stream and they were talking too loud the f*&^ers) Trump lavish praise on Rittenhouse, and Biden doing nothing at all to push back on that. Like the protestors Rittenhouse murdered weren’t worth defending.
                turnout will be lower than you expect, joe
    2. Darthbobber September 30, 2020 at 6:18 pm

       The Proud Boys, like QAnon, are froth kicked up by the waves. They are not blowing the wind or raising the waves.
    3. Acacia September 30, 2020 at 6:25 pm

       Wallace and Biden’s move here was to try to snag Trump in his own laziness and feed the “he’s a closet white suprematist, signaling to his troops” meme. Trump has since clarified on Fox News that the Proud Boys “have to stand down”.

       BTW, regarding Biden’s comment that Antifa are “not an organization”, guess where the web address antifa.com takes you? Just for fun, try it and see.
       1. barefoot charley September 30, 2020 at 6:37 pm

          What a corpo-joke. Dumpster Burners for Biden!
       2. Brad Neufeld October 1, 2020 at 3:37 am

          Hah! That is curious indeed.
          I checked out the whois page ( https://www.whois.com/whois/antifa.com ) and it was even more surprising. The site has been registered since 2002, is anonymous, and the contact information indicated is apparently from Panama.

          None of which explains a doggone thing to me but that is the way it goes sometimes.
       3. Will S. October 2, 2020 at 11:18 am

          To be fair, “antifa” isn’t an organization, any more than “socialism” is an organization. Biden attempting to co-opt the brand is just more of the same old, same old; just like how there was no group named Black Lives Matter, just a whole bunch of unassociated people espousing similar beliefs, until a democrat grifter made one up to scam people collect donations.
11. Jay Martin September 30, 2020 at 3:12 pm

    After the pandemic started and could no longer coast to victory, if Trump wanted to win reelection he should have shiv-ed the Republican Party in the back by circling back to left economic populism like he used in 2016. His mindless bog standard economic libertarian Republicanism talking points that Biden is Chairman Mao is just ridiculous. Debate proved that he will not attack Biden from the left and thus his campaign is doomed.
    1. Kurtismqyfield September 30, 2020 at 6:51 pm

       I agree that attacking the Senator of MBNA, Dupont, and Purdue as some crazy leftist is just bizarre.. but his base thinks anything that is not absolute fealty to their vision is socialist communist fascism. But like the Henckel quote above, you have to remember how short the people’s memory are.

       I had to remind two avid Dems today that Biden is nowhere near a Leftist, and is closer to a Corporate stooge than they would like to admit. They did not remember that Wilmington is the credit card capital of the US, nor Bidens support for the Bankruptcy bill. It is strange that we have gotten this far away from reality and a memory of what these politicians actually stand for
       1. John k September 30, 2020 at 9:47 pm

          There are capitalist, or corporatist pols, and there are a very few labor pols. The debate was between two from the majority that don’t actually disagree on any policy except foreign wars and foreign trade. Biden is to the right of trump on those issues.
12. Lee September 30, 2020 at 3:12 pm

    “Who is Hispanic?” [Pew Research]. “Only 23% of U.S. adults who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the term Latinx, and just 3% say they use it to describe themselves, according to a bilingual survey of U.S.

    If we keep inventing identities, pretty soon everybody will have one.
    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

    But every scientific development is eagerly gobbled up by the investment community.

    Then, based on the following, go long sub-Saharan Africa:
    Neanderthal genes increase risk of serious Covid-19, study claims
    1. Di Modica's Dumb Steer September 30, 2020 at 5:33 pm

       Regardless of how you feel about it, the whole Latinx thing is made even weirder if only because of the fact that Spanish is not a gender-neutral language, even if you stick to the plural forms (ellos/ellas) like you can with English (they/them). In practice (my experience only), it makes one have to jump through linguistic hoops in order to make words more neutral, and in practice just comes off stilted, not flowing very well. Maybe I need more practice. I’m not ruling out the very likely possibility that I’m at fault.

       More interesting, though, is that the local University had hired a ‘Latinx Inclusivity Director’ (or some such title). I didn’t know it was a thing, but I did wonder where they sat in the administration’s ever-bloating org chart. The position certainly hadn’t been there 5 years prior.

       Maybe more Hispanic people would connect with the term if it didn’t seem like a naked marketing stunt.
       1. Lee September 30, 2020 at 6:37 pm

          Pronouns are far from issues of gendered social power relations, so far as I can tell.
          1. Di Modica's Dumb Steer September 30, 2020 at 10:33 pm

             Sure, and this is where I think I missed something obvious. When I first came across ‘Latinx’ (the term), it seemed to appear fully formed out of nowhere. It wasn’t really explained, either, so I just figured it was a non-gendered way to refer to Hispanic folks (vs. Latino or Latina). I can’t really speak to its correct usage or meaning because, much like what Pew found, I’ve never heard it outside of a PMC context.

             It has the smell of focus group all over it. The fact no Hispanic person I’ve ever met refers to themselves in a singular, all-encompassing group or class (Latinx) versus their original country of origin (Mexican, Argentinian, Puerto Rican) makes it feel like no one actually asked Hispanic people before labeling them.

             Might just be me, though.
       2. Gc54 September 30, 2020 at 7:05 pm

          Gotta be at least a vice chancellor these days to even appear in the cluttered chart
       3. jr September 30, 2020 at 10:06 pm

          I’m quite convinced that idiocies like “latinx” and all the other word games are specifically designed to confuse and alienate people as well as support in-group cohesion with a special, magical language of their very own. I’ve noted this here ad nauseum.

          I’ve also become convinced that the true power of Cri-dentitarianism is literally how stupid it is. In the big LEGO set of ideas, it is those clunky, chunky blocks for younger kids that seem to fit but fall off when any weight is applied. The goal is vapidity, it gleefully spins pinwheels of arguments that melt like tinsel in the fireplace. And it doesn’t care.

          It’s an easy sell to modern students on the go, a mental dalliance reminiscent of diving into a pool full of multi-hued rubber balls as a kid at Chuck E. Cheese. A suitable madness for the age, chock full of thought stoppers like the nerve grinding “Words have power!” That actual phrase has lost power because it has been used so much but no one seems to notice. Or when a Wokel screams at you accusingly that “THIS IS NO LONGER A CONVERSATION!”

          Cri-dentitarianism’s unintentional and unreflective knowledge claims are so bloated with meaning as to have none at all. It offers the tawdry glitter of pseudo-rationalism with it’s own nifty secret code folded into the nebulous coherence of a fluid identity. Plus, it’s a light load. How do you not get an “A” on every single motherf***ing test in Critical Theory if every motherf***ing thing is relative? Or an “F”? Or both? Could you sue the professor because tests are an artifact of white cis-male domination? I write that and realize it’s probably already happened.

          It is the ideology of the mediocrity: a theory of knowledge that proclaims that theories of knowledge are passé with the sassy, clueless smile of a teenage dropout who is moving to L.A.; shifting blobs of subjectivity that fail to grasp, either by design or dullness, that subjectivities mold themselves around objectivities, which is why every far flung culture, spectrum of genders, and sparkling human snowflake that ever existed has had to eat.

          I grow weary, beating this drum now for a good chunk of a year, and not. one. single. response. from the intellectual beanbags hiding out there in underbrush, chittering amongst yourselves. I know you are reading this, I know you are angry at the things I say, yes, there were some flutterings a few weeks back (and I didn’t miss that starvation comment) but where are your champions? Or even the village roughneck? Anything. I ache to hear what they have to say.

          And don’t give me any crap about “Oh but my friends are Woke and they are nice folks.” I suspect they don’t really know what the ideological baggage they shoulder when they plant their flag there. And if they don’t know they are planting a flag, you should tell them.
          1. CoryP October 1, 2020 at 6:09 am

             Point well taken. ( I’m not the opposition you seek. )

             But I do have to wonder if it’s all just PMC… I find it hard to believe that all of these leftoid youth arguing about this stuff on Twitter are necessarily part of that class.Maybe their parents are. I guess what I’m saying is I think they may have been infected (unkind word, but my brain isn’t working right now… spellcheck said ‘enculturated’ isn’t a word) with it from the Internet/social media, not necessarily higher education.

             But the reason I say that is that I hardly got a whiff of this stuff in university 10 years ago, and I’m gay, so I would have thought I’d have a bit more exposure to hyper-PC than the average person. But maybe I’m just old and things have gotten much worse for undergrads in the intervening decade.
             1. Procopius October 1, 2020 at 9:20 am

                I think the word you were trying to remember is “acculturated,” but it might have been “socialized,” which refer’s to the educational establishment’s goal of producing nice obedient workers.
             2. jr October 1, 2020 at 11:06 am

                I agree, the kids are “soaking in it” as they used to say. Most of my ire is directed at the intellectual hacks who dreamed this crap up and their progeny, as well as the bobble heads in the MSM who burble it out like Animatronic mannequins…
13. FreeMarketApologist September 30, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    “LOOK MA, NO HANDS”

    My little 20 year old Craftsman riding mower has a cutoff switch that kills the motor if it’s in gear and I get out of the seat. How is it that Tesla wasn’t required to have a similar switch, at a minimum.
    1. Lee September 30, 2020 at 3:32 pm

       Your mower had what’s called a dead man’s switch. So what do you call a machine that kills for lack of a dead man’s switch? An “oopsyborg”, perhaps?
    2. Angie Neer September 30, 2020 at 3:41 pm

       This confuses me, as well. I always thought automobile safety features were very tightly regulated. But not if you’re a Heroic Disrupter?
    3. hunkerdown September 30, 2020 at 3:41 pm

       The answer is in the predatory precariat Twitter thread: “anyway the point is the seduction of not just power, but not having to take responsibility for your actions is the reason there is so much corruption in the world. which is of course the entire point of power in the first place”

       da Vinci was a defense contractor too.
    4. Oh September 30, 2020 at 3:47 pm

       If Hans were driving the Tesla, it’d one day be “Look Ma, no Hans”.
       1. edmondo September 30, 2020 at 5:55 pm

          It should have been, “Look officer. No seat belt.”

          Someone has a lot of trust in an egomaniac businessman who does stock manipulations without penalty. I wonder if he’s voting for Trump.
          1. Acacia September 30, 2020 at 6:30 pm

             Elon Musk Admits He Might Vote For Donald Trump, Says He’s Waiting For Debates To See If Biden’s “Got It Together”
    5. RMO September 30, 2020 at 10:04 pm

       Teslas do have systems which are intended to prevent this sort of thing from happening but (like the kill switch on your mower) they are very easy to defeat. Tesla also has a CEO who has repeatedly said that their cars already have all the hardware needed to be fully self driving and only need a software update (when it’s ready), claimed that by now Teslas would be on the streets in the thousands functioning as fully robotic taxis and they’ve been offering a “Full Self Driving” package for years now (which is essentially pre-paying for the vaporware future software update in advance for a discount). The result being there are quite a number of lack-wit Tesla owners out there who think it’s OK to defeat the minimal safeties and let the car drive itself.
14. Pekka Oksa September 30, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    I’m a Finn but I’m a desperate politicsaholic so I got up at 4.00 to watch this live. For the last many weeks / months on a lot of websites I follow there have been reports or comments that Joe Biden is completely dementic. I did not see that at all in this ‘debate’. Mr Biden called President Trump a clown but sure they are both clowns and the whole production was laughable — except, I suppose, if you are American and this is your destiny. ‘Onnea matka’, as we would say here.
    1. Mason September 30, 2020 at 5:33 pm

       It was earlier in the campaign when he was talking about hairy legs and corn pop. Then there were moments where he couldn’t string a coherent idea for entire paragraphs while speaking. So it was getting very worrisome. Biden dialed back the public speaking and probably got a little more sleep. Then they probably gave him Adderall so he looks better.

       I don’t think he can stand up to the rigors of the presidency. Neither man is fit.
    2. Henry Moon Pie September 30, 2020 at 5:42 pm

       “Onnea matka”

       Is that “You’re screwed!” in Finnish?
       1. hunkerdown September 30, 2020 at 6:33 pm

          Something more like “bon voyage”, according to the Goog.
       2. The Rev Kev September 30, 2020 at 7:07 pm

          I think that it is Finnish for ‘Have you stopped your country and tried re-starting it?’
15. Lambert Strether Post authorSeptember 30, 2020 at 3:47 pm

    Please refresh your browsers. I’ve straightened out the Proud Boy’s transcript and that took awhile; then I ahd to add some additional material because of the moral panic on Twitter. Sorry!

    I’d also like reader reaction to the Proud Boys material. I do tend to lean against the wind, and it’s possible to carry a good or necessary thing too far.
    1. Pat September 30, 2020 at 4:18 pm

       I come at it sideways as well.

       1. Biden did try to seize an opportunity. Not sure it would have worked without the assist from Wallace.
       2. I do not think it was effective. No denunciation would have been enough for the Biden leaning. Any real denunciation would have undercut Trump’s position. He managed to tell the only group Biden could come up with to stand down but remain on alert. Never gave on the left being the problem. And ridiculed Biden ‘s defense of the left even if accurate.
       IOW it was a draw. Neither won new voters neither alienated their current voters.

       In truth from the parts I have read if anyone lost ground it is Biden. It is likely neither won over undecideds. Trump may have antagonized fence sitters more but lost no one. Biden didn’t give fence sitters anything more than I am sedate and not Trump. And he continued to push the left away for probably little or no gain. It may not be much, but some green new deal supporters may no longer hold their nose to vote for Biden.
    2. KevinD September 30, 2020 at 5:40 pm

       I don’t know the individual stories of those involved, (It would be edifying to know) so i can only speculate. Perhaps they are some of the many who have seen their jobs go away, their healthcare costs rise, their wages stagnate and joining a group like Proud Boys makes them feel empowered – it gives them a feeling of self worth that has been denied them – a testosterone release.

       Scanning pictures on the internet, the gatherings are certainly not even “big”, and although you see lots of camo – I see very few holding weapons. Perhaps yet another case of the media creating monsters where only shadows exist.
    3. CoryP September 30, 2020 at 9:30 pm

       I frankly have no idea what’s going on and I’m trying to make peace with that.

       I’ve been enjoying the show of America 2020 and then I periodically feel guilty for that and so try to get into the mindset of those who actually feel very threatened. Since I personally am not— I’ll be in the last lines of the Niemoller poem. At which time as long as they give me a swift death, it may come as some relief since I’m never going to be able to retire anyway.

       I felt silly using the “f-word” in a comment yesterday since it’s either an overly specific or overly broad concept that my normally intelligent mind can’t grasp properly.

       There does seem to be something sadistic and gleeful about Trump’s attitude to the populace being at each others’ throats. The degree to which they actually are… who knows since it’s all mediated through the outrage machines.

       Whether his approach is meaningfully different than off-shoring/imprisoning/cutting the safety net in the Clinton years… I also don’t know. When one has a disdain for the life of little people I’m not sure if one’s outward attitude matters. Thinking about things in terms of personality rather than systems is super unhealthy and we’re encouraged to do so for a reason.

       I will return to my sit back and enjoy the show mentality even if I feel uneasy about it and the luxury I have of doing so. I have little power and why spend my days amped up on pointless adrenaline?

       Enjoy the commentary here as always.
    4. dk September 30, 2020 at 9:43 pm

       Well I enjoyed reading it and the JJ McNabb stuff is good.

       But I wonder how US Americans define fascism and what they will call it when they see it first hand. Will it be thought distinct and uniquely American because of some cultural tone or catch-phrase? We’re used to having faces and talking points and such. Those political gestures aren’t really essential to fascism in practice. When your neighbor gets hauled off or one of their kids is shot or disappears do you go out (or online, the other/new “out”) and ask “who did that?!?!” or do you feel that asking for specifics might get you shot yourself? Maybe you just keep your ear to the actual/virtual ground (not coincidentally when one’s ear is to the ground one’s head is down).

       The most obvious kind of fascism is a police state, and these generally have a strong local component. I spent a little time (few weeks here and there) in Italy in the ’70s, living among indigenes (not “touristing”). There the Carabinieri state police were either overtly Fascisti in the ideological sense, or there was some kind of mob familia that had captured local LEOs to significant extent, or both (the point being that a local police office can be fascist and not mob controlled). Also visited family and hosteled “behind” the Iron Curtain here and there. I’ve watched cops shake people down and had the occasional own interaction (gun in face etc.). Like most real politics (realpolitik? academic terminology is above my class) it has some gestural components, “I’m with X,” “Y knows me,” “Z told me to…,” (Pro Tip: “Hey W told me about you” is a kind of passive aggressive move that can be very effective, as can “Eff off, don’t you know who I am” but timing and demeanor are everything, “My mom knows your mom” is nice too but you need to know their mom’s name).

       Bulgaria and Yugoslavia had black markets, but you had to have someone vouch for you and they had better be legit. In Italy I (unintentionally) ended up with the BR (Red Brigades) and when the Carabinieri came I either ran with the others or flaunted my US passport, or spoke German and convinced them I was touristi. Half of the BR thought I was “chia” (CIA) so that wasn’t fun, the lesson there is that being in a/the Resistance is no picnic either, suspicion and paranoia is pervasive and potentially deadly.

       Growing up in Queens NY in the ’50s-’60s, about 20% of police precincts were effectively run by one or another mob family (through the fraternal orgs). Robberies didn’t happen in the precinct without sanction, and the family got a cut, or the thief was either sacrificed to the courts, or turned up dead; the cops were the enforcers. This was never well documented because reporters were told by their editors (whose families were threatened) to stay away from these stories. IIRC Serpico’s book discusses this but it’s only briefly mentioned in the movie.

       To the point that PBs are not well trained or regimented, LEOs are. They even pay their membership! They have unions/fraternal orgs! Taking PBs too seriously may be missing the lantern fish’s maw for the luminous lure. Fascism without a police element may not be real fascism at all. Of course, social media isn’t real community either, but it’s come to partially fill some of that human need and role (and threaten the real thing, is that what Lambert meant by “inoculation”? I don’t think it’ll work that way, community is a common, police state fascism is proprietary).

       So we can ask, are PBs (now or in the future) willing or unwilling foils for LEOs? Consider the anti-authoritarian Boogaloo element(s), this is not necessarily a clearly delineated groups with consistent alliances, and the more strategically thinking LEOs (and political operatives) must recognize this. Importantly, local PB/similar membership may be very small or non-existent, or just ad hoc opportunism by indigenous crooks, the people who steal cars, fence goods, run drugs). I think JJ McNabb and others have found significant overlap between LEO and “professional security” and right wing quasi-fascist groups. Garden variety police corruption may include involvement with shady businesses and intra-/inter-state networks (like biker gangs of yore).

       To summarize, 1) Fascism without a police component is kind of unusual and may not be actual fascism. 2) PBs may travel and not be a constant local presence, at least at this time (carpetbagging fascists? I’m skeptical). 3) Consolidation of permanent local grassroots fascists can’t persist long without some kind of LE alliance.
16. EarlErland September 30, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    I listened to the debate via NPR. Two observations: Wallace was trying to carry Biden over the finish line; Suburban Republican women do not vote for someone like Biden. They arrange for Elder care.
    1. notabanker September 30, 2020 at 6:43 pm

       Wallace help Biden? He merely mentioned he had spent a lot of time researching his platform and reminded him what it was, bullet point by bullet point. He does his homework!
17. Annus Horribilis September 30, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    I imagine the subjective experience moments before death is like the two empty podiums of the Presidential debate stage bathed in a mic’d ambient hum before a subdued audience. The body firing off signals without reciprocal response from the two hemispheres. But in a reversal of cascading brain failure, the candidate lobes take the stage, and it is clear one lobe is acutely injured, synapses just firing away into semi-consciousness.

    Panic, the self realizing something is catastrophically wrong. Chris Wallace cast as the medulla oblongata jammed in a feedback loop. [CW: Surely Mr. President, you don’t support genocidal paramilitary groups. Let me finish, I’m lobbing the biggest softball down the middle – DT: Brownshirts, attack! – CW: wait, what?!] Patient America is coding, fear bleeds through the chiaroscuro pumpkin spice make-up. The wings snapped off but, instead of pulling the ejector seat, DT augers his presidency in, his homage to Italo Balbo’s memorial.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Balbo#/media/File:20161118_Balbo_Tripoli.jpg
18. anon in so cal September 30, 2020 at 3:54 pm

    Biden shaking hands with Svoboda’s Oleh Tyahnybok. The Svoboda party a fascist, anti-Semitic, even Neo Nazi, organization, empowered by the 2014 Obama Biden Nuland McCain coup in Ukraine.

    https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1112498132489814017?s=20

    Maybe Dems are OK with empowering fascists as long as they’re distantly removed?
    1. km September 30, 2020 at 4:27 pm

       Svoboda were unapologetic NeoNazis and nobody pretended otherwise.

       Until they proved themselves useful to the Empire in the coup in Ukraine in 2014, whereupon Svoboda mystically morphed into high spirited young patriots.

       Of course, Trump could have rid of us these cretins and disengaged from Ukraine, starting on Inauguration Day, 2017. In fact, he is the only person who has the authority to give the order to do so. Trump has failed in that regard.
       1. rowlf September 30, 2020 at 5:54 pm

          Of course, Trump could have rid of us these cretins and disengaged from Ukraine, starting on Inauguration Day, 2017. In fact, he is the only person who has the authority to give the order to do so. Trump has failed in that regard.

          Didn’t Trump have to go through a minder or gatekeeper named Colonel Vindman to alter anything about US-Ukraine policy? Who is Trump’s new minder?
       2. anon in so cal September 30, 2020 at 9:33 pm

          Wasn’t Trump impeached because of a 5-minute hiccup in US funds / weapons to the Ukraine “forces”?
    2. Annus Horribilis September 30, 2020 at 10:50 pm

       I think Biden shook hands with every Ukrainian Presidential candidate in 2014, Oleh Tyagnibok included. I doubt the provincial Blumenthal could recognize photos of any Ukrainian politician, so one wonders, “Who provides Max his background info?”

       Another name of which Blumenthal should be aware is “William Joyce” who was hanged in 1946. Joyce was better known as Lord Haw-Haw, an exception to the conventional wisdom that propaganda is much more effective, more persuasive, when delivered by a frank adversary struggling with the language, such as a Russian national, as opposed to a converted spokesperson in the native tongue. Yes, Blumenthal is a Brooklynite, but his apparent conversion appears suspicious, a betrayal even, where trust and rapport are impossible build. [Why does Blumenthal despise Tyagnibok, yet supports Bashar al-Assad, who is at war with the Jewish state? What makes Russian nationalism more acceptable than Ukrainian nationalism? At least Ukrainians are a historically subjugated people, while Russia has pursued an empire for centuries.]

       The whole point of Lord Haw Haw persona was to establish a line of reasoning independent from the German government’s position. The theatrical sleight of hand was in Lord Haw Haw’s belief in his own line despite finding himself on the wrong, and increasingly losing, side [“The Germans aren’t that bad. See? I’m ok over here. Better to sue for peace.”]
19. skippy September 30, 2020 at 4:09 pm

    I think Trumps ploy is directed at a demographic that operates from belief alone, completely consumed by a narrative regardless of its conflicts with reality E.g. he’s saying they can rest assured, as in various groups, that whatever mental – emotional attachment they have to some narrative will not be – ***taken*** – away.

    In my knowledge and experience with such groups or individuals the thought of others not operating in such a manner, even if other narratives conflicts with theirs but use the same methodology, because such views actually threaten the methodology they use, hence invalidating it in toto – you might as well pull the universe from underneath them and sentence them to drift aimlessly in a void for eternity.

    It has to be at minimum a thousand times people have started with the perspective … what do you believe in … when informed that is not how I arrive at anything … the reflection of mental processes as they wash over their face is astounding and by the time they speak its apparent from the heightened emotive state some very strong core psychological positions do a massive knee jerk.

    Everything else goes out the window and they endlessly demand that I have to agree with how their world view is arrived at, there can be no other possibility. Its like watching someone get blow out an air lock in space.
    1. Yik Wong September 30, 2020 at 5:06 pm

       Leaving any cult, even when the cult is so large it becomes normative(Catholic Church, Dems, Repub, CCP, etc.) can feel just like being blown out an airlock, even if there is life on the other side. All that is familiar is lost. For social creatures that’s a lot to ask to openly reject any boundary premise. However within the cults defined boundary, intense argument takes place, just like last night.
    2. flora September 30, 2020 at 6:13 pm

       erm, not disagreeing necessarily, but, my experience with uni folks is they think anyone without a degree or advanced degree is ‘stupid and ignorant’. They discount the ways of ‘knowing’ that don’t require a formal degree and discount that understanding as a kind of superstition instead of knowledge from experience outside of the academy. That’s a mistake, I think.
       1. Lee September 30, 2020 at 7:05 pm

          The phonetic alphabet was the invention of Canaanite miners who were illiterate so far as the dominant form of writing of their time, hieroglyphs, were concerned. Just one indication that there’s all manner of uncredentialed genius at work in our lives.
       2. skippy October 1, 2020 at 4:45 am

          Its irrespective of level of education flora.
20. clarky90 September 30, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    Re covid 19: Remembering the AIDS pandemic.

    “As of 2018, about 700,000 people have died of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, and nearly 13,000 people with AIDS in the United States die each year. With improved treatments and better prophylaxis against opportunistic infections, death rates have significantly declined.”

    en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki › AIDS_i…
    HIV/AIDS in the United States – Wikipedia
21. ewmayer September 30, 2020 at 4:48 pm

    Thanks to all those who watched last night’s ‘debate’ and commented on the live-blog page, so the rest of us were spared the agony of the former task. Only thing out of Cleveland I watched last night was the home-team Indians getting pasted by the Damn Yankees in game 1 of their best-of-3 AL wildcard-round mini-series, which sounds – and I speak here as a long-suffering Indians fan by way of having grown up in NE Ohio – like it was distinctly less depressing than the ridiculous political spectacle going on not far away.

    But, again thinking of Trump as a pro-wrasslin Heel POTUS, in terms of that framing, I can’t help wonder What Might Have Been:
    
    “…and Trump is again distracting the referee arguing with moderator Chris Wallace, and – what’s this? From out of the wings comes Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris, carrying a metal folding chair … and while Biden’s attention is fixed on the Trump/Wallace mini-debate, Kamala – in a shocking turn from Face to Heel – comes up behind him and whacks him over the head with it! And down goes Biden!! Down goes Biden!! A gloating Kamala is now standing over his prostrate form, there’s a large puff of smoke, and … all that’s left of Biden is an empty suit, a white-haired peruke, and a set of gleaming white fake teeth!!! The crowd of 20 to 30 socially-distanced cardboard cut-outs is going wild, none of us can believe what we just saw!!!!
    1. notabanker September 30, 2020 at 6:51 pm

       I swear I refrained from a comment last night that the only thing that could have made that spectacle worse was if they were in wrestling suits. Mean Gene would have been a serious upgrade though.
    2. richard September 30, 2020 at 7:07 pm

       lol
       another legendary betrayal in the squared circle
    3. Oh September 30, 2020 at 8:14 pm

       You forgot the part where Hillary joins the fray to mud wrestle Kamala with Bill ogling the cardboard cutout blonde.
22. dcblogger September 30, 2020 at 4:55 pm

    Investigations launched after Atikamekw woman records Quebec hospital staff uttering slurs before her death
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-atikamekw-joliette-1.5743449
23. Lee September 30, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    Life on Mars? Little green microbes, no doubt. Best leave them be. We’ve got our hands full with the ones already here.
24. KevinD September 30, 2020 at 5:15 pm

    Hannah Arendt on Loneliness as the Common Ground for Terror and How Tyrannical Regimes Use Isolation as a Weapon of Oppression

    Excerpt:
    Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men* as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
25. Pookah Harvey September 30, 2020 at 5:19 pm

    “The Proud Boys, “committed” and “nationalist” (and vile) hough they may be, are not in any sense “militant” as were the defeated German (and Italian) soldiers returning defeated from the carnage of the trenches of World War I, nor “militant” as were the defeated Confederates who built the KKK and Jim Crow in the Reconstruction South.”

    Here’s a video from the BLM protest in North Idaho a few moths ago. Make your own determination on the anti-protesters being “militant”. The armed anti-protesters outnumbered protesters several times over. They haven’t abandoned democratic liberties at this point. Who knows if that can or will happen.
    If progressives protest the neo-liberal privatization of social security under Trump, who can easily convince his followers that it’s for the good for the country, where will these militia members stand?
    If progressives protest the same action under Biden how do you think the militia members will react?
    Do progressives want allies or antagonists?
26. hemeantwell September 30, 2020 at 5:40 pm

    Thanks, Lamber, for JJ McNab’s thoughts on the Pboys, I’m going to try to keep up with her.

    Your comparison with the vast post-WW1 reservoir of ex-mils is also on point, but I think we then lose track of other ways they could be a serious threat. En masse they’re not much of a mass, but distributed around the country they could work to provide an excuse for state repression. It might make sense to think of them as functioning like a kind of right wing version of the German RAF who, as best as I can make out, thought that they could radicalize people by forcing the FDR to adopt more repressive measures. That would make the RAF relatively more savvy than white supremacists here who hope to foment a “race war.” But I can imagine some supremacists trying to set off state action that would stop or at least delay a transfer of power to the Dems.

    For a an idea of what serious fascist militia activity was like, Tosca’s “The Rise of Italian Fascism” is very good. Most important, he outlines the left social forces that the fascists were fighting — workers occupying factories and estates, strong left parties — and were in a sense the reciprocal of. Nothing like that here, and so their capitalist paymasters will likely just keep their money in the stock market.
27. chris September 30, 2020 at 6:08 pm

    I didn’t see this study in any if the links today because it came out today, but I think it’s a good article for the commentariat. If these results are directly applicable to our population in the US it means we’re not going back to schools for a long time :(
    1. notabanker September 30, 2020 at 6:57 pm

       Well, there is the rational approach to considering the potential harm a policy may have, including how many reckless deaths, which would lead one to believe that schools should not be back. But then there is the “we’ll just see what happens because it’s too inconvenient to change society” approach that the US seems to be enamored with. As long as wealthy people don’t get sick, it’s all good.
    2. Gc54 September 30, 2020 at 7:16 pm

       Need to train many covid-19 sniffing dogs, new school mascot.
28. tongorad September 30, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    I guess I shouldn’t have turned the debate off. When I was watching, Biden made me uncomfortable – I’m no fan of the guy, but I felt overwhelmed by sympathy and pity. Triggered perhaps?
    My parents put my grandmother in a rest home when I was young, and Biden reminded me of some the faces I’d see there when I went to visit.
    He actually scored points against Trump? I’m shocked to read about it.

    All this to install the execrable Kamala Harris.
    1. Lee September 30, 2020 at 7:17 pm

       A comment above:

       EarlErland
       September 30, 2020 at 3:48 pm

       I listened to the debate via NPR. Two observations: Wallace was trying to carry Biden over the finish line; Suburban Republican women do not vote for someone like Biden. They arrange for Elder care.

       Ouch!
29. Robert Dudek September 30, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    A second major outbreak in a place that has already had one would do fatal damage to the theory.

    Madrid?
30. The Rev Kev September 30, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    “ABC’s Martha Raddatz says she didn’t see a lot of ‘enthusiasm for Joe Biden’ in cross-country trip”

    Not to be snarky about it. No, wait, I will be snarky about it. So this Martha Radatz goes on a 6,000 mile road trip and reports back to The View on what she saw. These wealthy women, including millionairess Whoopi Goldberg, are surprised that ordinary people are worried about the economy when they have no such worries at all. They are also surprised that people in the hinterlands do not see that the answer to their problems lay in a geriatric, war-mongering, plagiaristic, female molesting, racist, lying candidate. I’m shocked, shocked. How are they ever going to be able to go back to brunch?
    1. anon in so cal October 1, 2020 at 12:58 am

       +1
31. Big River Bandido September 30, 2020 at 8:01 pm

    ‘It’s a tough year for me this year,’ said Swenson, a self-described fiscal conservative and social moderate…..

    Oh, such pity. That whole ideology of hers is what destroyed the public commons. And I’m supposed to feel sorry for her? Piffle. Show me a believer in that “fiscal conservative/social moderate” crap, and I’ll show you a chump and a right wing tool.
    1. ObjectiveFunction September 30, 2020 at 9:44 pm

       Wow, you might want to dial back the instant contempt here. She’s probably working class too (much of the ‘salaried’ until-lately-cubicled precariat is now effectively working class), and I didn’t hear ‘libertarian.’

       … Show such people universal concrete material benefits (without the giant PMC means testing bureaucracy).

       For most ‘fiscal conservative/socially liberal’, it isn’t about not spending anything ever and gittin one’s own. That’s the libertarian view. It’s about getting something meaningful for it for society (and therefore oneself), other than “BS Jobs” for soi disant grievance studies apparatchiks.
       1. ObjectiveFunction October 1, 2020 at 1:35 am

          …. I should add, revolving door BS PMC jobs that conspire to cartelize the *supply* of essential services (and inflate supplier margins), as opposed to mobilizing and, when needed, wielding! citizen buyer power on the *demand* side!
32. The Rev Kev September 30, 2020 at 8:26 pm

    ‘Fox News anchor Chris Wallace says he’s disappointed on behalf of America after a disastrous first debate between Trump and Biden, but says he’s fine with his performance as moderator’

    Well bully for him.

    https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chris-wallace-biden-trump-debate-went-off-tracks-2020-9
33. ObjectiveFunction September 30, 2020 at 9:18 pm

    I remember a similar feeling though after the first Clinton-Trump debate in 2016, that Trump had basically exposed himself as the incoherent hollow blowhard he was, and it was over.

    While the ‘exposed’ part was true, the electorate did not agree on the ‘over’ part. This isn’t done yet.
34. richard September 30, 2020 at 11:59 pm

    Is there any kind of collection of how votes are counted by country, like the spreadsheet on voting equipment? Maybe I’m missing something, or it’s implied by equipment or something, but I didn’t see it there.

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