Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Elizabeth Warren And The DFHs

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 24, 2024

A memo went out Thursday night

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts holds back tears Thursday night in Chicago.

An old speaker’s trick at the end introductory applause is to settle one’s hands on the sides of the podium to quiet an audience and signal time to begin speaking. When Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tried that on Thursday night, the cheers seemed for a moment as if they might subside. But Democratic National Convention delegates packed to the rafters in Chicago’s United Center were not having it. The cheers swelled anew, and louder still. Overcome with emotion, Warren pulled back from the podium a half step and wiped away a tear.

Warren’s ovation was the loudest and longest of any speaker save for President Joe Biden’s hero’s welcome late Monday night, and Vice President Kamala Harris’s on Thursday as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. President Barack Obama’s matched Warren’s welcome in length but not in intensity. It was immediate and rapturous, as if springing from delegates’ hearts and souls. 

Joe Biden’s and Nancy Pelosi’s legacies will not be fully appreciated until historians weave together how their personal stories and battle scars, legislative accomplishments and deep political skills, built the country this generation’s children will inherit.

Nevertheless, what we witnessed in Chicago was not only a generational passing of the Democratic Party’s torch from Biden to Harris, but the passing of an entire generation of Democratic establishment, though they may not yet know it. 

The term netroots gained traction in the early aughts as a label for progressive bloggers and activists who found each other and built community on the Internet. The annual activist conference that became Netroots Nation sprang from that community in 2006. (Warren has been a regular speaker since before becoming senator from Massachusetts in 2013.) A running joke was that the Democratic establishment considered them “dirty hippies.” DFH is the family friendly acronym the community adopted for how establishment Democrats really saw the upstarts without saying so out loud, at least in public.

As brusque congressman and then Vermont senator and presidential candidate, independent Bernie Sanders championed their progressive policy goals. But Warren’s ovation reflects how firmly her warmer populism has taken root in the wider party and won Democrats’ hearts.

The DNC convention’s message was clear, US editor Betsy Reed writes this morning in The Guardian: “this is Harris’s party now.”

But is it?

Democratic Socialists of America candidate, former bartender Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then 28, came from nowhere in 2018 to upset Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in his Bronx and Queens district after outraising her 10-1. The veteran Crowley, leader of the local Democratic machine, was seen as possible next in line to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He’s gone. DNC delegates chanted A-O-C when she took the stage on Monday night.

Harris has moved left since arriving in Washington, but despite Donald Trump’s branding her far left, she is not. But if Warren’s stunning welcome was any indication, Harris may be lagging somewhat behind the party she now leads. If progressive politicos are DFHs, the United Center was filled to the brim with them on Thursday night.

This is no longer Sens. Chuck Schumer’s or Dick Durbin’s Democratic Party, nor even Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s. Did they get the memo?

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on August 23, 2024

Wolf pups!

When we visit dens, we try to count the number of pups in the den. However, we often cannot see all the way in the den so we set up trail cameras at the den to see how many pups are in it.

Sometimes the trail camera footage verifies our initial pup count and other times we realize how many pups we “missed”. E.g., when we visited this den a few weeks ago we counted 5 pups. When we checked our trail camera footage, we realized there were actually 8 pups!

Thought And Prayers

Published by digby on August 23, 2024

There’s a lot of that pearl clutching on the right today. But I think every official in the Democratic party sent their thoughts and prayers right after it happened and now it’s passed through the memory hole. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?

Real America Gets Smaller By The Day

Published by digby on August 23, 2024

Now this is funny:

That’s right. Minnesota is teeming with foreigners and Tim Walz is a Chinese agent. You heard that right. James Comer has sent a letter to FBI Director Wray telling him that his committee is conducting a big investigation into Chinese political warfare and has some questions about Walz:

It has come to the Committee’s attention that Governor Walz has longstanding connections to CCP-connected entities and officials that make him susceptible to the Party’s strategy of elite capture, which seeks to co-opt influential figures in elite political, cultural, and academic circles to influence the United States to the benefit of the communist regime and the detriment of Americans. Reporting about Governor Walz’s extensive engagement with CCP officials and entities while serving in public office raises questions about possible CCP influence in his decision-making as governor—and, should he be elected, as vice president.

FFS. Public Notice has Walz’s story and it’s actually pretty great:

In 1989, when he was all of 25-years-old, Walz spent a year teaching high school in China. He went on to lead many student trips to the country, something Comer and his fellow goons have tried to spin as nefarious.

Comer got some help spreading his latest innuendo campaign Monday evening from Fox News’s Jesse Watters.

“If an American goes to China 30 times in the ‘90s, they have surveillance footage of him,” Watters vamped.

“China thinks long term,” Comer agreed, affecting grave concern while invoking old-timey Orientalist stereotypes. “It’s very possible that China would be grooming an up-and-coming rising star in the political process to try to have a foothold in our government.”

How wise of the CCP to have noticed this high school teacher 35 years ago and intuited that he would one day be the vice president!

“When you look at Hunter Biden’s ties with Communist China, it was for money,” Comer went on. “It looks like Walz’s ties may be for ideology. And this is something that we should be concerned about.”

From Walz’s 24-year military service and his career as a school teacher Comer deduces that the governor harbors communist leanings.

“If you look at Walz’s background, if you look at his ideology and the things he talked about when he ran for attorney general and he ran for governor, this is a guy that really has embraced China’s view of the world,” he went on, despite the fact that Walz is not a lawyer and never ran for attorney general.

But that didn’t stop the intrepid congressman from denigrating a lifetime of public service and a modest bank account as red flags for Red China.

“We have a guy who’s never been in the private sector, he’s worked for the government his whole life, from looking at his financial background, it doesn’t look like he owns any stocks, his retirement’s in a government pension plan,” said Comer, who has held public office since 2001 when he was 28-years-old and will collect both state and federal pensions. “This guy’s very dependent on the government, and I believe he thinks that the business model that China’s had may be the ideal business model for the united states.”

The usual suspects profess to be very disturbed.

“Tim Walz owes the American people an explanation about his unusual, 35-year relationship with Communist China,” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio went even further, calling Walz “an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders” to “push for policies that allow China to steal our jobs & factories & flood America with drugs.”

In reality, Walz has been a steadfast critic of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, while at the same time advocating for greater engagement with the Chinese people. He’s met with the Dalai Lama and accused the CCP of ethnic cleansing of minorities, including the Uyghurs.

“What I saw was not just modernization. I saw the cultural shift, or the culturacide, if you may,” then-Rep. Walz said at a 2009 congressional hearing on Human Rights and the Law in China.

None of which is going to please the Chinese government or allow Beijing to “steal our jobs & factories & flood America with drugs.” But that will not stop the GOP from pretending the former football coach and National Guardsman, who retired and then re-enlisted after September 11, is a Chinese spy.

Sen. Ron Johnson further condemned him for getting married on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. Seriously.

Walz is a very interesting person who is not only a salt-o-the-earth guy who spent his life in public service. Hes also a sophisticated man of the world who has spent time outside the country and understands how the world works. We should value these things in our leaders instead of extolling phonies like Orange Julius Caesar whose entire worldview was formed by watching Larry King back in the 1980s and reading the NY Post.

Tim Walz’s knowledge and experience in China are a huge asset. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. .

No Complacency In 2024

Published by digby on August 23, 2024
“That” night 2016

I don’t know if its 2016 PTSD or simply a recognition that almost half the country is still in thrall to a con man but it’s obvious that the Democrats. as giddy as they are after a successful convention, are not going to take anything for granted this time.

Brian Beutler has a good piece on this in his excellent substack newsletter Off Message today. An Excerpt:

In his speech to the convention Wednesday night, Bill Clinton alluded to two elections it must have killed him to see Dems lose: his vice president’s and his wife’s. “We’ve seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn’t happen,” he warned, “when people got distracted by phony issues or overconfident.”

Overconfidence and phony issues alike derailed Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Bill Clinton was not alone worrying they could overtake Harris’s too. Michelle Obama articulated more precisely how the early Harris momentum might slip.

“No matter how good we feel tonight or tomorrow or the next day, this is going to be an uphill battle,” she said. “We cannot be our own worst enemies. No. See, because the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. And we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.”

This, too, was about 2016—about the likelihood that Republicans will stumble upon a line of attack that turns out to be sticky, or that Harris takes a position that some of her natural allies view as too extreme or too conservative. Beating Trump is more important than that everything is just so.

Against the backdrop of a four day party, this was the flipside of mobilization: insurance against demobilization.

Barack Obama’s role, by contrast, was persuasion—to widen the party’s appeal by depicting it as an organization that will generously welcome all people of good faith. “We’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices,” he said. “If we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process. After all, if a parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe, we don’t automatically assume they’re bad people. We recognize that the world is moving fast, that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up. Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they’ll extend to us.”

In past elections, particularly in 2016, progressive Democrats would grouse about the party’s willingness to share the stage with Republicans. This year, there was much less complaining. For one thing, progressives are now among the leaders in the party, and can expect prominent speaking roles without having to fight for them. But Democrats understand the assignment better now.

As Brian Schatz noted Wednesday, “Our message is simple. We can fight about the rest of it later. We can fight about the size and the scope of government later. We can fight about libertarian issues or social issues later. We have freedom and democracy to preserve together, and there are certain principles that are bigger than party politics.”

He also noted that, to be truly effective, the proposition has to come from Republicans, like when Adam Kinzinger spoke Thursday and said of Harris, “whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle, of decency, and of fidelity to this nation… to my fellow Republicans, if you still pledge allegiance to those principles, I suspect you belong here too.”

(Consider subscribing to read the whole thing. It’s very good as are all of his writings. )

He’s right about this. There are many things that could happen to derail us. If there’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way over these past few years (decades, actually) it’s to never assume you have it in the bag. Too many times I’ve sat up on election night staring blankly at the returns, feeling like I’ve been hit over the head with a 2×4. Elections are almost always close these days and you just can’t assume anything.

The Democrats have been given a second chance in this election and they know it. Let’s hope everyone can just keep their heads down, get out the vote and be prepared for what the GOP has in store for election day and beyond.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Published by digby on August 23, 2024

This was heartwarming for me to see:

The convention was extremely respectful and appreciative of women and elder statesmen and it was really good to see. An it was especially welcoming to progressive champions like Warren which has not happened much in the past. The unity was not feigned. It was real and it was sincere.

The Critic

Published by digby on August 23, 2024

Trump attempted to live tweet Harris’s speech last night. Here are some ofhe highlights:

He called in to Fox immediately after the speech. Sad!

After Fox hustled him off he called Newsmax:

He’s fine. Nothing to see here.

Weirdo Alert

Published by digby on August 23, 2024
Who wouldn’t want that guy’s endorsement?

Apparently RFK Jr is dropping out and is going to endorse Trump today. And Trump is welcoming him with open arms.

Though his odds of victory were quickly diminishing – a recent CBS News poll measured his support at just 2% – Kennedy’s decision to bow out 74 days before the election nevertheless presents another twist to a race already unlike any other. And amid a momentum shift that has catapulted the newly installed Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, into close contention with Trump, there is hope within the former president’s operation that Kennedy’s exit could prove decisive if certain battlegrounds are decided by thousands of ballots, just as they were in 2020.

It’s hardly certain what Kennedy’s backers will do. Whether many of them ever intended to vote for him or at all is difficult to gauge, and some may choose to sit the election out without an alternative on the ballot.

Still, the Trump campaign has long worried that Kennedy’s campaign, built on conspiracies and anti-vaccine rhetoric, pulled directly from their side, especially in a handful of key states. Trump’s advisers now see an opening to court some of Kennedy’s voters, particularly those Americans who sit at the overlap between supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ past presidential campaigns and the GOP’s anti-establishment right wing. There is a presumption among Trump’s team and his allies that conservative-leaning mothers – a demographic the Republican nominee has struggled to win over – could also be swayed. Women were more likely to support Kennedy than men, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, though other polls haven’t shown a meaningful difference.

It’s another Don Jr. special like JD Vance:

As it became clear that Kennedy’s days in the race were numbered, several of Trump’s top allies, including his son, Donald Trump Jr., have maneuvered behind the scenes to arrange for an endorsement. Meanwhile, the former president has showered Kennedy in overtures, telling CNN he might find a place for his onetime rival in a future Cabinet.

“If he endorsed me, I would be honored by it,” Trump said Thursday on Fox News. “I would be very honored by it. He really has his heart in the right place.”

Good luck with that. It certainly provides lots of fun and fodder for the libs.

Sounds good.

Update:

A J6 Gala

Published by digby on August 22, 2024

From Meidas Touch:

Trump will be hosting a “J6 Awards Gala” at Trump Nation Golf Club Bedminster on September 5th. Attendees have a chance to win a plaque commemorating the fact that MAGA folks bought a bunch of copies of his J6 “song” called Justice for All earning him a fleeting spot on the Billboard music chart. 

A flyer for the “J6 Awards Gala” shows Trump has been invited to speak and also shows indicted co-defendant Rudy Giuliani will be there. Trump is not only hosting the event at his property, but there is a good chance he will be speaking at it too.

A promotional video for the event shows Trump calling J6 rioters, “peaceful,” and “J6 hostages,” promising pardons, and calling for them to be released. The video has audio of Trump claiming, “There has never been a group of people treated so harshly or unfairly.”

It’s possible Trump won’t speak at this event. It’s a fundraiser and he may not have to be there. But it’s at Bedminster and it has his imprimatur.

Remember: