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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   20735 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Just a thought about Vance's chances for presidency. On the one hand his electoral chances are slipping. On the other hand he has the greatest opportunity anybody will ever have of becoming the "American Caesar": 25A Trump, attest to the foreign subversion of US government, invoke any and all power under the sun (all the ones Abraham Lincoln used, any new ones since then), ignore the courts, air out the dirty laundry to stir the masses, orchestrate mass FARA surveillance and prosecution campaign (remember FARA allows you to surveil anyone who is a degree of separation from the target), sue for peace with Iran with an offer that throws Israel under the bus.

It won't happen, but Vance actually has the crisis at his fingertips to become one of the great American historical figures. Instead he'll take the flak for the war and Rubio I guess will be the GOP nominee.

Basically nothing has happened but the commentariat has decided that Vance is a failure and doomed to lose. I don't know why. I think everyone must be bored.

Realistically, Vance is the heir-apparent to MAGA. Vance is popular, well-spoken, and ties together the different factions that make up MAGA. The only alternative at this time is Rubio and there's no indication that Vance and Rubio are even a little at odds.

Vance just has to defeat whoever the Democrats put up. Is the second rise of Kamala that threatening?

The fantasy you lay out is neither a credible path for Vance to take the Presidency, nor even to rank as a great figure of American history, but more likely to lead in him getting jailed or worse. "Sue for peace with Iran"? I think you should stop scrolling the timeline and pick up a book or something.

My impression of this forum is that it leans overwhelmingly anti-populist and technocratic. Some of the posters here may have supported Trump and Vance briefly as spoilers within their own intra-factional pissing matches, but they remained 'capital D' Democrats at their core. Now that they know that they may have handed 8 - 12 years of consecutive rule to the populist wing of the GOP the knives are coming out.

I expect many more posts here about Newsom's "inevitability" and how Vance, Rubio, Et Al. are dead in the water before November of 2028.

As an actual Democrat, I can tell you right now that Newsom is not inevitable; in fact, I'd be rather surprised if he wins the nomination. He does not have the support of any component of the Democratic base that I can think of. Black people don't like him. Older people don't like him. Progressive young people don't like him. Moderates don't care for him. Conservatives who dislike Trump don't like him. Try finding a forum online where people keep talking him up. You won't. Maybe people from California like him. He offers absolutely nothing. Okay, he's willing to stoop to Trump's level, and seeing a Democrat do that was entertaining for a while, but the schtick has grown tiresome. He's not going to turn out the base, or any subset of the base, and his crossover appeal is nonexistent. The only reason his name keeps coming up is because he's the governor of a large state and everyone knows who he is. The nominee is probably going to be someone like Shapiro or Beshear who has shown he can appeal to moderates and hasn't accumulated much political baggage.

Black people don't like him. Older people don't like him. Progressive young people don't like him. Moderates don't care for him.

How did Harris fair in that kind of estimation? I get the impression she also lacked a natural constituency, but she ended up a presidential candidate anyway.

She lost her primary. She was then appointed VP because she was nonthreatening and stumbled into a big girl presidential run.

Even she admits that:

Biden had won the nomination because Congressman Jim Clyburn, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, had thrown his support behind him. The Black vote in the South Carolina primary—especially Black women’s vote—had thrust him to victory. The pressure was on him to pick a Black woman running mate.

The press knew I was on the short list, so they had our DC apartment building staked out. When Doug and I stepped out to go somewhere, they’d follow. Occasionally I’d save them the trouble. I’d wander over to their van and say, “Doug and I are just going for coffee, can I bring you something?”

Honestly, I didn't expect much from this memoir when I bought it, but it's solid gold for an inside look at why it all crashed.

The prose here is extremely clunky and betrays a cringe personality but this anecdote betrays charm and an ounce of charisma. (That’s why it was chosen for the book, which is what makes it cringe.)

Wait till you get to the "charming" anecdote about how her staff threw her an impromptu birthday party but some misfortunate made the mistake of getting one of those balloons with the age on it.

Kamala does not like reminders of her age.

So she crushed the balloon saying "60" beneath her heel while looking at her staff. To me, that reads more like "this could be your head and will be if you fail me again":

That afternoon, when I climbed the steps to the plane, I discovered it had been decorated in streamers. My team on board were wearing gold party hats and presented me with a deliciously rich German chocolate cake, my favorite birthday cake. They had red velvet cupcakes for the press. There was also a big helium balloon with fat numerals: 60. My team knew that I stopped counting birthdays a long time ago. So I looked at them with a big smile when I landed my stiletto heel in the middle of that balloon. Then I went to find my Uggs.

And then she regales us all how she laid into her hubby dearest for not making special enough effort to celebrate her birthday. Oh yeah, "charming" is not the word I'd use. Imagine working for her. After reading this book, I now believe all the stories about how she was a terrible boss and the turnover in the VP staff was rapid and high:

He hadn’t put any thought into where we’d stay that night, so staff had picked a place for us that they thought would be a bit more special than the usual campaign hotel. It turned out to be a bland establishment whose red-and-black decor looked like it hadn’t been redone since the ’70s. The only distinguishing feature of the room was its larger size, but the curtains were broken.

Storm, knowing how much I love good food, had picked two possible restaurants from which to order dinner. She thought it would be nice if the meal was a bit of a surprise for me. So, on the plane, she knocked on Doug’s door to ask him to choose the menu. He’d shrugged and told her to ask me. So she picked the menu herself. Ordered a cake. Dressed the table with candles. My girlfriends had sent flowers.

Doug at least had thought to get a gift for me. It was a necklace by a designer I admired from Ojai, California, Jes MaHarry, the same designer who’d made the piece he’d chosen for my anniversary gift. This one featured a set of baroque pearls nestled in a gold setting. When I turned it over, I saw that the pearls’ backing had been engraved with the date. How thoughtful, to commemorate the milestone of my big birthday. But then I looked closer.

The date was not my birthday. It was the date of our wedding anniversary. He’d obviously intended to give me both pieces on our anniversary, until it occurred to him that by repurposing one piece, he could kill two birds with one stone. He could practice thrift and also save himself the bother of shopping for a birthday gift.

...I noted earlier that Storm speaks bluntly but always with correct protocol. The next day she told Doug, “Mr. Second Gentleman, you have to fix this.” She handed him a set of note cards. She’d numbered them one through five, for the nights we’d be apart through the end of the campaign. She instructed him to write a note on each one.

From then till the election, no matter what city each of us had landed in, at the end of the day I would find a note on my pillow, in Doug’s chicken scratch, telling me how much he loved me.

Yeah, I bet he remembered to leave her a card telling her how much he loved her. God Almighty, that's dog training, not how you treat a spouse.

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