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Chaos Convention
Jul. 19th, 2024 07:55 pmIt's been a quiet two weeks without Erica away with grandparents, and now I have the place to myself a bit while Julie goes to pick Erica up and spend a long weekend hanging out with her family. So I have a moment to write and too much to note.
The news is all bad news, it seems.
Some crazy person took a shot at Trump (apparently a right-wing kid with the seeming motive of "wants to assassinate someone and it might not matter much who"), which is the sort of thing that inevitably makes a bad situation worse. I mean, it could have been even worse; little comfort for the loved ones of the bystander murdered in cold blood for absolutely no reason.
Judge Aileen Cannon took Justice Thomas's unsolicited advisory ruling in the Trump immunity case and ran with it, tossing the whole "Trump walked off with boxes and boxes of top secret documents and refused to return them" case on the basis of "special prosecutor, what's that, clearly not a thing". That will get overturned on appeal, but it's more delay.
The media has been fawning all over the Party of Trump's presentation of "unity" at their convention (the first in-person after Trump's utter takeover of the party was complete), without any context of how they're unifying: e.g. Haley utterly falling in line as a Trump loyalist, nothing material having changed about her view of Trump's utter unfitness for office and general moral turpitude, nothing motivating the change of heart except the exigencies of defeat. Trump picking J. "Trump is America's Hitler" D. Vance as his running mate. Vance once called out Trump as a con man, now he wants in on the con. (I called the Vance nom before it was official, the rest of the short list was too normal. "Normal" being very relative in this case. Trump doesn't mind taking someone who formerly had harsh words for him in that way, he likes to be magnanimous. He likes them debased.)
(Vance is a dangerous guy, too. He explicitly said he would have, if in Pence's shoes, which he's attempting to step into (why does this Trump guy need a new VP again?), just gone ahead and thrown out the votes of for starters everyone in Pennsylvania, plunging the US into (no exaggeration) the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War. He also advised Trump during his first term to fire vast swaths of civil servants and replace them with toadies, and to defy SCOTUS when it told him that was unlawful. Of course, that's now officially on the Trump "Project 2025" agenda and the "defying SCOTUS" part is a bit of a moot point because they've now explicitly said they're okay with it.)
Or what they're unifying behind: Literally holding up "Mass Deportation Now" signs, among other things. These are unimaginative people, but it's terrifying to imagine with any accuracy what the implementation of that plan would actually be like, or what would likely follow.
(Well, it was all fawning until Trump's speech, lol. Though he still got glowing reviews from some media outlets who apparently fell asleep for the second half. Like much of the audience.)
Meanwhile, the punditry is still salivating for a trip back to '68 on the Democrat side, which I maintain is still an insane reaction to "President is old and like 2% behind in the polls". Okay, maybe Biden will step down, and never bet against Pelosi, and Biden got COVID again (which I don't think is like "oh he got sick he's going to drop out" but it certainly could turn into something). Still, as the incumbent President and the person who won the primary, who can force Biden out? Will it really be a Party coup against the incumbent President by his own delegates? Sounds insane. Some of this is my anti-contrarian streak, "nothing ever happens", all this "who will be the nominee?" hand-wringing seems very late after the primary election. "How can Biden stay on after this, it's logically impossible!" The "Biden is nominee" betting market odds have bounced back up to 30% from a low of sub 20% as of now but that still seems insanely low to me. (Of course, maybe he'll drop tomorrow and I'll have to eat so much crow I'll be shitting feathers for weeks!)
That was all this week!
And then today like every Windows computer in the world crashed, bringing all the airlines etc. to their knees. That was also a thing.
The news is all bad news, it seems.
Some crazy person took a shot at Trump (apparently a right-wing kid with the seeming motive of "wants to assassinate someone and it might not matter much who"), which is the sort of thing that inevitably makes a bad situation worse. I mean, it could have been even worse; little comfort for the loved ones of the bystander murdered in cold blood for absolutely no reason.
Judge Aileen Cannon took Justice Thomas's unsolicited advisory ruling in the Trump immunity case and ran with it, tossing the whole "Trump walked off with boxes and boxes of top secret documents and refused to return them" case on the basis of "special prosecutor, what's that, clearly not a thing". That will get overturned on appeal, but it's more delay.
The media has been fawning all over the Party of Trump's presentation of "unity" at their convention (the first in-person after Trump's utter takeover of the party was complete), without any context of how they're unifying: e.g. Haley utterly falling in line as a Trump loyalist, nothing material having changed about her view of Trump's utter unfitness for office and general moral turpitude, nothing motivating the change of heart except the exigencies of defeat. Trump picking J. "Trump is America's Hitler" D. Vance as his running mate. Vance once called out Trump as a con man, now he wants in on the con. (I called the Vance nom before it was official, the rest of the short list was too normal. "Normal" being very relative in this case. Trump doesn't mind taking someone who formerly had harsh words for him in that way, he likes to be magnanimous. He likes them debased.)
(Vance is a dangerous guy, too. He explicitly said he would have, if in Pence's shoes, which he's attempting to step into (why does this Trump guy need a new VP again?), just gone ahead and thrown out the votes of for starters everyone in Pennsylvania, plunging the US into (no exaggeration) the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War. He also advised Trump during his first term to fire vast swaths of civil servants and replace them with toadies, and to defy SCOTUS when it told him that was unlawful. Of course, that's now officially on the Trump "Project 2025" agenda and the "defying SCOTUS" part is a bit of a moot point because they've now explicitly said they're okay with it.)
Or what they're unifying behind: Literally holding up "Mass Deportation Now" signs, among other things. These are unimaginative people, but it's terrifying to imagine with any accuracy what the implementation of that plan would actually be like, or what would likely follow.
(Well, it was all fawning until Trump's speech, lol. Though he still got glowing reviews from some media outlets who apparently fell asleep for the second half. Like much of the audience.)
Meanwhile, the punditry is still salivating for a trip back to '68 on the Democrat side, which I maintain is still an insane reaction to "President is old and like 2% behind in the polls". Okay, maybe Biden will step down, and never bet against Pelosi, and Biden got COVID again (which I don't think is like "oh he got sick he's going to drop out" but it certainly could turn into something). Still, as the incumbent President and the person who won the primary, who can force Biden out? Will it really be a Party coup against the incumbent President by his own delegates? Sounds insane. Some of this is my anti-contrarian streak, "nothing ever happens", all this "who will be the nominee?" hand-wringing seems very late after the primary election. "How can Biden stay on after this, it's logically impossible!" The "Biden is nominee" betting market odds have bounced back up to 30% from a low of sub 20% as of now but that still seems insanely low to me. (Of course, maybe he'll drop tomorrow and I'll have to eat so much crow I'll be shitting feathers for weeks!)
That was all this week!
And then today like every Windows computer in the world crashed, bringing all the airlines etc. to their knees. That was also a thing.
