687 Comments
Nov 3·edited Nov 3

Ignoring most everything else raised in this episode, i will forever hop on the drum beat of "woke is not dead"

Katie mentions "corporations are gutting their DEI departments" (paraphrasing), this is fundamentally wrong. Corporations are pulling back 20% on the crazy dial. They're more hesitant about bringing in whacko headliners for trainings, but the DEI policies are fully embedded in HR guidance and the like. I am still 4+ times a year subjected to the most inane trainings that are very obviously 95% pop-science nonsense (e.g. "unconscious bias afflicts us all, and these are the tools you can use to counter that and make an even playing field for our PoC", "here are all the tools to help your nonbinary coworkers feel included and elevated" and other thinly veiled attempts to favor certain identitarian groups) with the scientific rigor of mashed potatoes.

Woke didnt die. Woke won. Whacky near-obviously racist (but only if you use the old definition of racism) policies are entirely embedded at large companies now. I am a lawyer at a company who bumps up against the HR/employment lawyers setting policy on occasion, and have tried to very softly suggest liability associated with certain (woke) policies, and there is absolutely zero appetite to move the needle. As WPATH is to thoughtful care for trans (and non trans) youth, HR/employment attorneys are for adopting thoughtful policies to protect companies from liability associated with woke policies. In other words, both fail tremendously to do good work atop their inherent biases.

It works because white people don't sue for discrimination, and instead of a fully established cottage-industry of bloodthirsty plaintiffs lawyers who will take on any discrimination case (however meritorious) for PoC, you'd need to find a lawyer who is willing to nuke all social capital to bring a discrimination case on behalf of a non-minority.

I am glad the pendulum is swinging on wokeness. But the fact that it has slightly swung back doesn't mean anything -- because we are so so so far from the previous steady-state. People seeing the first "losses" of DEI in a few notable, distinct and highly publicized instances and running to call the race are doing all of us a disservice who have to deal constantly with woke policies in our day jobs.

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Yup. I wonder whether Katie keeps saying "woke" and DEI policies are on the wane because she hasn't held an office job since 2020. Which is great for her, no criticism from me, but it does mean she's not experiencing what a lot of listeners are at work.

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She's never really had an office job. The "stranger" doesn't count.

You can't have the opinions of Jessie and Katie without having luxurious work lives.

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We pay their salaries. Should we mandate dei trainings for them?

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Nov 4·edited Nov 4

And no kids. Just this year I had to explain to my elementary kid that a boy can’t just decide to be a girl and have babies.

*edit*

I did not raise this. She did from what she learned at school. She was genuinely confused, so like when she heard how babies were made on the bus we had to have a talk.

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Precisely. And it’s moved well past top down corporate DEI. A friend’s small business has the younger millenial and GenZ employees ASKING for this nonsense. He’s been asked if they can have a privilege walk (no) and told he should ask employees of color “how they are feeling” more often and give them extra days off when there’s some upsetting event in the news. Like in another state. It’s not just woke, it’s woke kindergarten.

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That could be true.

I have to say, I've worked at my large school district for over 11 years now, and I have never had any DEI trainings or woke bullshit foisted upon me. Nobody does pronoun signatures here.

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They are now illegal at public institutions in TX, which means employees no longer have to take the IAT, and universities can't require diversity statements in faculty applications. HOWEVER, at the university level, diversity-related positions have been rehoused in other departments, rather than eliminated, and I don't think hiring has been affected at all.

Public K-12 education in my district has never had a progressive vibe, I think because this is a politically mixed area.

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Florida? Texas?

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“Midwest Molly”

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Yeah...and my name is "Jackson" ;)

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You mean you just woke up one morning and decided ‘I’m going to Jackson’?

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but yeah just a moniker

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founding

I agree so much with this. So many of the assumptions baked into the woke worldview are just accepted now & no one says anything. Doing trainings on systemic racism are now something we all do like sexual harassment training.

Also, the Democrats tacking to the center seems to be a move like electing Biden as a moderate & then watching him pivot hard left in the direction we didn’t want to go in. The immigration tightening literally happened this year - after being an area of concern throughout Biden’s run—almost like a cynical election year ploy to get votes. Biden has been a consistently more moderate politician which makes me concerned about Harris’ direction.

I do think Harris aware of the vehemence many in this country view the identitarian drift of the Democrats so I do have some hope she might lead in a different direction despite being almost a symbol for the movement.

Devos’ Title 9 guidelines, which actually cut down on University lawsuits over discriminatory practices, were gutted by the Biden administration. So we’re back to the same authoritarian tribunals incentivized by federal money to prosecute men.

I wish I knew how to drive a stake in it but it is so wrapped up in people’s idea that it is a virtuous way forward & the people who oppose it are bad faith heathens with no moral compass.

I am a life long Democrat who happily rejected Trump the last few election cycles while watching the organizations get more and more radicalized, which was a trend even before Trump but his election did speed everything up,

I hate the way dissent is looked on these days as treasonous, I hate the way people attempting honest critiques get ostracized & threatened, this has happened to me & others, I’m a union steward & seeing workers trying to get their fellow workers fired over wrongthink is a new & gross trend that I am personally still witnessing in 2024.

If Katie & Jessie feel people are underestimating the institutional harm a Trump presidency might bring, I feel they are underestimating the institutional harm a further entrenchment of this identitarianism is doing.

One thing I liked about Musa Al-Gharbi’s analysis of Trump’s support was that it made the point that he’s the Republican candidate least supported by white people & most supported by people of color, he actually reversed the trend & has created a more integrated Republican Party.

Also on the we like Democracy grounds, Trump’s support is very grass roots in opposition to party machinations & Harris was almost completely elevated by the party machine rather than popular support.

Ultimately, I find myself unexpectedly leaning Trump despite all his deficiencies because it feels like we need to break from the path we’re currently on. This is despite our host’s concerns and the most profoundly powerful Harris endorsement I have heard from Mike Pesca https://open.substack.com/pub/mikepesca/p/the-gists-first-ever-political-endorsment?r=bwsd3&utm_medium=ios .

I also agree with others on this site that no matter who wins, there are so many drawbacks I can’t feel positive about either candidate.

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I think the Title IX thing is illustrative of how far down the rabbit hole we are. Sexual assault is a crime. Crimes are handled by police and prosecuting attorneys of the state. The actual law, Title IX of the Higher Education Act, says nothing about giving some random bureaucrat the authority to prosecute a crime. This has all been invented out of thin air.

It's true in some marginal sense that the regulations under the Trump Administration were better than the ones under the current administration. But there shouldn't be any regulations at all. Nor should there be any separate non-court court system. That's what I opposed about the Trump era regulations: they conceded that this insane, unconstitutional, bad faith process was normal, they just wanted to fix the process a less.

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It’s clear it is nothing more than universities covering up sexual assault under the guise of managing students.

Girls should be taught that if you have a crime, any crime committed against you the next action is 911.

The school has nothing to do with it unless they were negligent. Then they’re a defendant.

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My experience has always been that the school will do whatever is in its own institutional interests, or perhaps in the interest of whatever administrator is handling the case, completely irrespective of the actual facts of the case. They’ll cover up a real assault if it suits them, or they’ll ruin someone’s life over nothing.

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Nov 4·edited Nov 4

By definition, if a real assault doesn't go to the police and the courts it's been covered up (imo).

*edit*

Flip side of that is if it was NOT a real assault, but they didn't send it to the police and courts and just blacklisted the accused....it's also a cover up.

No police, no courts. Covered up.

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You’ll get no argument for me on that.

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I'm with you about 75%, but I think we part ways on this:

"But there shouldn't be any regulations at all. Nor should there be any separate non-court court system."

Universities have rules, they get to enforce those roles, so hearing officers and committees are an unavoidable part of that. To me, the problem is not that these things exist, but that they are untrammeled by any contemporary notion of due process. Having a hearing to determine if a student violated a university policy against plagiarism is fine, so long as that student is treated fairly, and according to a process that recognizes that he or she might actually not be guilty.

Where I think we *really* get into trouble is when these college tribunals are investigating offenses that are actually crimes, like sexual assault. In these cases, anything the student says or does in the hearing, where a student may lack protections against self-incrimination, is of course admissible in a court of law. So the university is really giving the prosecutor free discovery. Well, either that, or the student allows himself to be booted out of school in order to avoid compromising his own criminal proceeding.

I agree that the DeVos rules were fairer and more sensible than what Biden is doing, and what Harris will likely continue to do. However, just because I don't like the current rules doesn't mean I think there should be NO rules.

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Universities do have rules, but they don’t have the ability to conduct a criminal investigation, let alone adjudicate a criminal case.

With regards to criminal or even potentially criminal activity, it is entirely appropriate for the university to simply have a policy of referring all such cases to actual law enforcement officials, and cooperating with the investigation. This is how a lot of countries do it.

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I don't disagree with that, and it's my hope that increased litigation will make universities decide that they need to change their policies a bit, if only to reduce court costs.

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Universities have been fighting these court battles for 15 years. Particularly for state institutions, the rules are stacked in their favor. And even in the reasonably common event that students win, it doesn’t cause the change I think is necessary.

My hope is that the Supreme Court will eventually fix this. You can imagine that some of them are very sensitive to the issue.

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They’re totally unqualified to formulate an opinion on this as two self-employed people.

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Absolutely. Glenn Loury was doing this recently too, just as he retires from teaching at Brown. Could a thirty year old Glenn Loury get hired as faculty by Brown today? No chance.

Same think for J+K. They're doing fine here, but it's just bizarre they've accepted that as normal.

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Jesse also draws from his campus experience to inform his thoughts on current college events, forgetting that he's an old-ass bitch. (Said with affection, we're nearly the same age.)

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I’m in the same age bracket.

Thing is, my career path has led me to be in college most of my adult life. So I was an undergrad in 2004, but I was a grad student alongside of undergrads in 2023.

The difference is considerable.

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Oh interesting. Have you seen a considerable change on the campuses you've been on?

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Oh absolutely. People just talk casually about being “Title IX’ed” now. The administrative discipline, the possibility of being charged over saying something politically incorrect, is just ubiquitous now. In 2004, this stuff existed but it wasn’t the norm. Now it’s the norm.

Also, grade inflation has taken off. And various other forms of entitlement.

And the COVID era and zoom school particularly has just resulted in a lot of disengaged students and a lot of mental health issues. The visible fragility is mind-boggling. I had professors coming to me asking how to communicate with these students and I was like I’m not a Zoomer, I don’t really know.

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I have a monthly continuous DEI&B education

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I am only required one hour of DEI continuing education credits for my state bar, per cycle. I do worry that there will be exactly zero people in a position to successfully protest when that requirement inevitably expands ("what? Are you opposed to helping PoC?").

How it relates to lawyering, outside of employment specialists, is lost on me. And yet...

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It’s sort of like how crime is down, but from historic highs.

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Not to be a crime truther, but definitely not historic highs -- relative highs

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I just meant this as an example. I wasn’t setting it in any specific time or place.

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Example: "Down in 2023 from the 5-year high in 2022 (except for motor vehicle theft which is up)."

source: Crime in Washington 2023 report

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They should go back to college. Between my application process and classes and my son’s college applications, it’s like implicit bias and marginalized peoples are the only things that exist in the world. I’m keeping my head down because I just want to get a degree and a job, but it sticks in my craw.

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This was honestly super bad even 20-25 years ago and has only gotten much worse since then.

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I feel like my first time in college predated this (graduated in 99) so it came as a real shock. My son’s been bathed in it since at least middle school so he found it easy to write his essay on how he personally will ensure his college experience is inclusive.

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Yeah I think one of the reasons I didn’t get into as good a college as everyone around me expected was all tied up into exactly these things (HS class of 99).

Had a couple things going against me:

1). White male

2). Came from actual poverty so no connections or legacy or network to help me in.

3). Grew up in a rust belt town at the “poor kid” HS, so I didn’t understand that the essays asking about personal challenges I overcame or “who I was”, were supposed to be humblebrags about how underprivileged I was (which was true), and not actual answers to the questions.

Almost every school I applied to had 1 or 2 essays required and one of them was always basically “tell us why you are under privileged”, except as an actual underprivileged person I didn’t know that is what they were asking.

Two schools explicitly gave me this feedback (U NC and Berkeley).

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With regards to global warming, there is often an argument made that if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, the damage would already be done. The planet would keep warming.

The same is true with a lot of this ideological bullshit. Let's say that all of it disappears from education tomorrow (which it certainly has not yet). There are people who have graduated law school, medical school, have PhD's, who believe that a giant conspiracy of men (but only white men, and only straight men, and only men who are actually men) is meeting in secret and hatching a plan to keep everyone else oppressed forever by sitting with their legs slightly spread on the subway.

These are people who will be in charge of things. Will some of them grow out of their silly ideas? Sure. But we haven't seen anything of the damage that happens when the people that don't grow out of it get in positions of actual power.

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Exactly, you think the class of 2010 is a nightmare, wait until the class of 2020 is in management.

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That, and wait until we have a Zoomer president.

All this argument about “Kamala’s not actually woke, she’s just an empty suit”, well, okay. What if we had a president who actually paid Saira Rao to come to the White House and rant about whiteness to the entire cabinet for two hours.

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What the heck are you even saying with the first paragraph, it doesn't make sense. There has been permanent damage done to the climate, but things can always get worse. It's about keeping the rate of change manageable.

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Every year I have to take a training that informs me that it's racist to say that half-Asian babies are the cutest.

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Just as a random example. I was at a huge event of a big company tonight. A very white company with very white staff. The mc was black, the DJ was black, the music was "urban" and certainly out of step with the guests/vibe.

And there were multiple explicit speeches about racism/DEI/inclusivity that made it sound like the company is internally the 1960s south (which is absolutely not the case). There is a real constant intentional message.

The idea that "DEI is dead" is pretty silly. You literally have major totally normal companies basically repeatedly calling their employees and culture racist at what was supposed to be a fun celebratory event. It was crazy.

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Yeah … working with new college hires I can tell you bad ideas have consequences and a long half life

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Unfortunately, I agree with you 100%.

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I’ve always found it amusing that the training videos proposed solutions for implicit bias (that by definition we have no way of identifying) is explicit bias.

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Yeah but these are just data points.

Which is apparently Katie's way of rebutting reality

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Nov 5·edited Nov 6

Until Survivor Jeff goes back to saying ‘Come on in Guys’ it’s never over.

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“It works because white people don’t sue for discrimination.” Are you white? Put your money where your mouth is and sue, then.

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I think there's a difference between changing your views and flip-flopping. If you've sincerely changed your views, than that's great. But if you are just saying what you need to say to get elected, then the problem is that we don't know what you are going to do when you are actually in office.

In the case of Kamela, I think she genuinely doesn't have any deeply held beliefs on a number of issues - which kind of worries me because I think that it means that the extremists are going to end up in charge, because they are the ones most interested.

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I think she’s most like to 1. Not appoint ultra right Supreme Court justices 2. Not sign a national abortion band 3. Not gut social security and Medicare 4. Not eliminate the ACA 5. Not implement more tax cuts for rich people.

She gets my vote.

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I get that you're voting for party and not person, but the almost gleeful way you report this unfortunate disaster for democracy is questionable.

Kamala is horrid as a politician and candidate.

We know Republicans suck and we oppose their policies, our own side is taking advantage of that loyalty to policy and using it against us to shoehorn in a superficial idiot and it sucks.

Your own side is abusing your good nature for profit...I get that you're choosing the lesser of two evils strategically, but don't insult us, yourself, and democracy by pretending it's an easy or good choice...and call out the fact that the DNC hates letting you pick your own candidate...something...

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It is an easy choice for me. Trump is so much worse in every way.

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I'm glad it's an easy choice for you.

For many people, it is not.

As a lifelong Dem who has voted Dem for president 7 times - I am disgusted by the party's current stance towards women. It is basically - "You better support men in your sports and bathrooms and prisons, or else the Republicans will not let you have abortions.".

It's completely sick. To me, abortion is not more important than freedom to speak the truth, and to have dignity and safety in certain spaces.

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But how can you think that trump is any better on free speech? His policy proposals are even more illiberal on this specific issue. He fully intends to silence his political opponents.

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Because conservatives are not the ones who are filing complaints against people for misgendering.

Trump is not better on free speech, you're correct. He's also horrible.

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Also, don't forget how in 2008 the Dem's had a majority in the House, Senate, and won the Presidency. They could have encoded Roe v Wade into law then, but they didn't so they could use it as a wedge issue and fundraise on it.

RGB herself even wrote that they should do it...but nope...

Democrats could've protected Roe in 2008, but they wanted to abuse your personal beliefs against you to drain you of money....

People need to remember...

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Yep. They will never do it, because if they did that they would have nothing to cudgel voters with.

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How many women have been harmed by having transwomen in bathrooms or prisons, or impacted by the less than 100 transwomen playing competitive sports vs the millions of women whose health is in danger because of abortion bans, which also are not related to science or biology?

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All those things are harmful to women. But, if you'd like to get a clue about trans harm to women, Reduxx is a good place to start - though they are mostly UK focused and do tend to focus on the most lurid cases - but at least they are reporting. And some truly horrific crimes are being enabled by letting men into women's spaces!!

Also - you think there are "100" transwomen in women's sports? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Ohhhh, my dude.

It's happening in middle schools, in high schools, colleges, at the masters level for adult competitors, and as weve now sees, in the Olympics and other top level competitions. It's easily in the thousands. I believe it's unacceptable for men to invade women's sports at ANY level. For more information check out @icons_women.

Not like you give a shit, you clearly know NOTHING about the issue.

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No Democrat actually cares about how Harris was picked. It’s simply concern trolling from you.

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That's not true...I'm a democrat and I def care, so do many others including Ezra Klein who wrote a spirited advocacy article for a true brokered convention.

smdh...the idiots now try to promote 'smoke filled rooms' above actual democracy..."concern trolling" he says...ffs I hate what politics has become

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Primaries are terribly undemocratic. If you’re not in one of the first 10 or so states, you have no impact on the candidate anyway

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I definitely DO CARE, and so does every even marginally intelligent Dem I know.

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I’ve seen your posts on here before and I doubt you’re even a Democrat

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Oh sorry sweetie, am I not toeing the party line well enough for you? Fuck off.

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Yes and I care more about social security being preserved than how I feel about how she was picked.

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If you care about social security being preserved you shouldn't vote for either of these parties.

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You're a dupe and a simpleton, in their mind...

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Thank you for not saying “sheeple;” that would have been gauche.

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lol

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I feel sometimes like you come up with an argument, and then you work backwards to see if it remotely applies to the comment that you are replying to.

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No, it was pretty easy to derive the fact that you are a dupe and a simpleton.

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Democracy has literally never meant everyone gets to pick their own candidate in a primary. That's not how it works in any country in the world. Modern US primaries are not that old, most elections in US history didn't include anything like them. The thing you are pretending to be mad about is completely made up.

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Ever heard of a presidential primary??

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As I said, didn't exist in anything like their current form for most of American history and they don't exist in any form in most democracies in the world. Having a presidential primary is not some prerequisite of a democracy. Nobody is genuinely mad the Dems didn't have one. The only people saying this are on the right and pretending they are mad.

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So you're fine with your candidate being chosen in smoke filled rooms?

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We’re not choosing between Harris and some ideal left wing candidate. We’re choosing between her and Donald fucking Trump. The choice is, in fact, easy. Any criticisms of Harris’s character are even more true of trump.

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I was excited about her as a candidate. I thought she was fine. Maybe because she was my DA and Senator for a while. Presidential elections are not about electing a candidate you are in love with. They are about electing a candidate you can live with. the less awful choice is still a hundred times better than trump. And yet every election left-leaning voters whinge that the candidate is not strong enough on x or y of their pet issues. It's a fucking politician. Of course they kind of suck. There has not been a president in my lifetime who didn't kind of suck.

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Harris has managed to say absolutely nothing, which I think is strategic. The Democrats are hoping to push her to the presidency by not being Trump. She is the ultimate empty suit and the perfect candidate for the deep state (the FBI, CIA etc, for those of you who pretend not to know what that means). She will continue all the wars and make more, when told to

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The current administration literally, and at significant political cost from the fervidly prowar media, ended a costly and pointless overseas war in Afghanistan that had been started 20 years earlier. As a result, we're not really at war with anyone; we're spending some money supporting Israel and Ukraine (justifiably in the latter case, not so in the former), but that's not the same thing.

This "Hillary the Hawk, Donald the Dove" stuff was nonsense on stilts in 2016 and it's somehow even dumber now.

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I agree it’s stupid to think of Trump as the peace President, but do you really think that we’re not at war? We’re in war by proxy at a minimum and we’ve already sent troops to Israel and both of these conflicts are likely to turn into hot, global wars any day now. North Korea has troops headed for Ukraine as we speak.

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Yes, I really think we are not at war.

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... yes?

The number of American soldiers killed in Israel in the last year is zero. The number of US or even NATO soldiers killed in Ukraine in the last year is zero.

The reason countries have historically financed proxy wars (Vietnam, 1980s Afghanistan, etc, and there are hundreds of examples from earlier in history if you want to look to them) is that it is an extremely effective way of weakening your geopolitical opposition at a relatively cheap cost and without a great deal of risk that you will yourself become embroiled. That's a long way of saying they work. It's an effective strategy.

Now, if you are some kind of religiously hardcore pacifist who thinks that we should punish any government that employs these strategies (even at the risk of enabling dictatorship here), then I guess you can use that as a mental fig leaf to not vote, or vote for some nonsense third-party candidate-- but that just means that you are being contemptible in an ideologically consistent way.

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This was a reasonable and informed comment right up until the shitty scolding at the end. So close, Z, so close.

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What is a zagrooba post without a scolding? Do you even love freedom??? #blessedbyzagarna

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A scolding by “the Z” is refreshing!

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Three soldiers died earlier this year in our ongoing operations against ISIS in Jordan. We're not "at war" because we stopped declaring wars, we're just on permanent roving expeditions that put our servicmen in the line of fire. IIRC there are hot conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Niger, Chad, Kenya, and I've heard reports that the Biden team (if they maintain continuity with Harris) want to go do a nation building mission in Lebanon.

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Re: ISIS. Yeah, but that's pretty much what the voters asked for. Keep us safe, but no major intervention. As way back as the 9/11 commission, they determined that we can't give terrorists unlimited space to plan; if we leave them alone, they will come to with a plan so terrible we will never see it coming. At the very least, we need to disrupt their plans and keep them on the run. So we will be sending Special Forces, CIA, etc, in to periodically kill terrorists until there is an end to fundamentalism, hunger, poverty, and so forth. Basically, forever. It is what it is.

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You strike me as the type of guy who needs a scientific study to tell you that junk food is bad for you. No offense.

We’re closer to WWIII than we ever have been. A proxy war is still a war. A Cold War is still a war. We’re still threatening Russia enough that Putin is threatening to retaliate against US if we deploy long-range weapons to Germany. We have 2 active fronts of hostility between the Axis of Resistance (yes, Gaza and Lebanon are sacrifice zones for Iran v. Israel/US) - and we’ll have a third if China invaded Taiwan.

War isn’t measured by soldiers killed - it’s measured by a complex geopolitical apparatus that suggests from all sides that we are at war, and even though we’re positioning ourselves as defenders, it is war nonetheless.

Also, how did our proxy war with Russia in Afghanistan work well strategically, in your estimation? We armed an entire country which then retaliated against us, embroiling us in a hot conflict with them 20 years, helping mold an (accurate) image of destructive US imperialism that persists and animates our adversaries to this day.

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Sorry, meant to write “Axis of Upheaval”.

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But pussyfooting around may very likely be the reason these 2 wars started at all. Trump is fucking crazy and talks a lot of shit and I do firmly believe that prevents wars.

Biden was a mealy mouthed chicken shit and we have wars we are now funding.

He did end one war though, to his credit. In the stupidest way possible, but he did it.

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Lots of people in these comments must think the Cold War was a giant misnomer.

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Also it's one of the most unpopular things Biden did in office, and it was extremely unpopular with the "deep state". The sitting president took a massively unpopular moral stand against foreign wars.

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dumb comment...the most unpopular thing Biden did is let tens of thousands of illegals in to our country.

Biden's worst policy was immigration, by far...second was how we exited Afghanistan...third is the woke/DEI bullshit enshrined in policy

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Ah I see you are in fact a really passionate Biden supporter who was so truly deeply upset your primary vote didn't count. You are a very earnest and serious person

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“Deep state” lol. I think what you mean is “Government.” You know, that giant, annoying organization of people that actually makes every town, city, and state work. Like, everywhere in the world. Throughout history.

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No. By ‘deep state’ I mean the unelected people in government who call the shots most of the time, which is what that term means. Trump is a threat to them because he doesn’t always let them control him

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Again, ‘deep state:’ an essentially meaningless term, QAnon certified and pure Trumptastic bullshit. “Unelected people in government who call the shots most of the time” Again, this is called “Government”. It’s how everything “happens.” Unelected people do shit. I.e., “reality”. Do better please!

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Dear god, seek help. For your own good

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That term was invented by trump and the right wing media to described civil servants who pushed back on trump's illegal bullshit.

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The “deep state” doesn’t refer to the FBI or CIA. It refers to the federal bureaucracy that doesn’t turn over between administrations.

If you’re going to make conspiracy claims, at least learn your terms.

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I know what it means, the fact that you think the FBI and CIA aren’t part of it tells me you have no idea what it means

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You're trolling...you know you are wrong, but are manipulating words (beyond all credulity) to twist ideas to make yourself look right.

You are wrong, stop trolling. Think about your life and change.

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You're one of those guys who watches South Park and sides with Cartman, aren't you?

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Being a ditzy airhead is not "strategic" it's an example of the sad state of affairs in an anti-democratic DNC

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I think it IS a strategy. By not stating positions on policy, Harris won’t alienate potential voters who might vote for her simply because she isn’t Trump.

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Strategy requires choice....Harris didn't *choose a strategy*...

If Harris was a competent, well-spoken, right-thinking politician AND they chose to have her not say anything about policy, that would be a "strategy".

Harris is a horrid empty shell of ambition with no ability to campaign or lead effectively...they didn't "choose" they had no choice!

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"continue all the wars" is some MAGA-level bullshit.

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What is “deep state” about our intelligence agencies? They’re just the regular old state.

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(I feel like I’m gonna want to write this for every other comment here today, so I’m just gonna say this once, here and now: “Yeah, but Donald Trump is 1000x worse!!!”)

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I know! Hearing people complain about Harris believing in nothing and not like reflecting on how incoherent and full of shit Trump is is truly amazing.

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The left needs to fail in order to be fixed....perhaps you and those like you have your head in the sand as to how bad the Democratic party itself has become.

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So you don’t think the right has problems and needs to do the same thing?

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lol everyone look at this person, they think speaking facts about Harris is advocacy for Trump

you have a long way to go before you are well...stop posting and think about your life

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Sounds like you can’t answer a direct question

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Okay, sure, I agree. The “left” in this country doesn’t align with my values entirely. But Harris’s policy positions are *closer* to mine than Trump’s. We only get to vote for the two candidates who are actually running.

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I didn't say vote for Trump.

I think the idiot left needs to fail, I'm voting third party for president and for for centrist Democrats in state-local elections.

I know Harris losing means Trump winning, but I think the left is now worse than a Trump presidency. I surmise that things are so bad, it would be better to lose nationally than win, for the good of my part and country.

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On the other hand, if politicians change their views to align with massively popular policies, that’s just good leadership (unless we’re all in favor of mandatory ball-shaving for single men, you know, something terrible). I don’t want them hanging on to policies no one wants just because it makes them moral people.

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CNN just ran a story about Kamala’s team running Palestine sympathetic ads in Michigan at the same time that they’re running Israel sympathetic ads in Pennsylvania.

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I haven’t seen the ads, but also…

I’m Palestine sympathetic *and * Israel sympathetic. Why can’t she be too? She may genuinely think her approach will help Palestinians *and* Israelis.

Like the “Great Taste, Less Filling” wars of whenever the fuck that ad was, is it possible she thinks her policy is just that same beer? One ad for people whose pants are maybe a bit tight, one ad for… I don’t know, people who like stuff that tastes good? Same same though?

That’s not lying (unless the policies she’s advertising are incompatible).

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Yeah, I think what I’d say to that is she hasn’t articulated her policies beyond whatever J’Biden’s policies have been. It’s empty signaling to different bases.

The one tailored to the Jewish constituents edited out the sentence in the middle about Palestine deserving self determination.

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You’re probably right. Like I said, I haven’t seen the ads. I was really just saying that merely pitching your policies to two different audiences from two different angles wasn’t *necessarily* suspect.

Of course, it very well might be.

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https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/video/kfile-different-messages-harris-campaign-israel-gaza-ebof-digvid

You might come away from it with a different impression than me, but here’s the CNN segment.

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Most normal people want to reduce casualties in Palestine and are concerned about the actions of the Israeli government AND want to defend the existence of the state of Israel.

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The Israelis are trying very hard to reduce Palestinian casualties - they seem much more concerned about it than Hamas is.

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Yikes. I meant align with nationwide popular policies, not do the middle school “in this group I’m a goth” “in this group I’m a jock” thing.

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Yeah, she’s doing some of that too. But you add it all together and it equals an empty vessel that is frankly not very good at selling any of this.

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I’d be more than happy (ecstatic, even) with a president with strong executive skills and no strong positions beyond respecting the rule of law and due process and defending against our enemies. Coming out of California I feel like I have seen this heavy emphasis on having strong all-or-nothing opinions on every last issue, and it really doesn’t make anything better, just makes the races, especially the primaries, nastier.

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Yeah, I’d be happy with that. Boy would I like to be choosing between Nikki Haley and Josh Shapiro.

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So has Trump— I’m in Dearborn and get so much political shit to sway the vote here

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Yeah, Trump went to Dearborn to kiss babies, didn’t he? The Arab + Trump alliance seems more like a protest vote to me, but what do I know.

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But also a protest vote is dumb when the guy you are voting for has precisely the political stance that you are protesting against.

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I’m going to attempt to read minds, here.

They see themselves as part of the democratic constituency that’s been ignored. So even if Donald Trump would be slightly worse for their cause than “genocide Joe,” voting for him would send a message to the Democrats that their vote isn’t a given and they need to be listened to.

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Yeah, it’s weird and now people are boycotting my favorite lunch place bc he visited it, which I also think is stupid.

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Ooof. You never want your wife to see the valentines card you got for your mistress.

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This is a false dichotomy that exists only on the internet. It’s perfectly possible to want the best for people in both Israel and Palestine.

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Putting this comment on the internet is going to open a black hole.

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I mean that is sadly politics 101. Even sainted people like Wellstone, who was supposedly super principled. Well if you paid attention he mostly told audiences whatever they wanted to hear in speeches.

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The stakes are a bit high to be playing that tune though, right?

She’s now switched to a strategy of not saying what she does or doesn’t support because it’s too close to the election.

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They are all a bunch of dishonest jackals and this is frankly a shitty way to pick leaders that is almost designed to produce shitty ones.

How many actually good presidents have we had out of the last 10. 2, 3?

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I'm sympathetic to this concern. At the same time, my understanding is that if you tally up campaign promises and compare them to what candidates actually do while in office, most politicians follow through on the large majority of their promises. Not sure if this holds true for candidates that have a track record as flip floppers though

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Yeah, that’s long been a complaint about crooked politicians. Not a defense, lol.

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Maurer had a good piece on why it’s a problem that Kamala just can’t bring herself to say she/Biden made a mistake. It would go a long way toward making her “flip flop” more convincing as a “change of heart” if she would stop pretending (or bluntly insisting!) that her positions haven’t changed.

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If you are just saying what you need to say to get elected, you are probably just going to try to do what you need to do to get re-elected. It's not inspiring, but it's not unpredictable, either.

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Jesse says that Harris sounds good except when asked about policy. You can’t make this shit up

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Why do you see this as some kind of gotcha? It’s very true that Harris gets lost in the weeds when explaining policy. I don’t see this as a deal breaker and neither do most people, because almost no one votes on policy anyway. They vote on the big picture stuff. Trump’s success should make that obvious.

There are only a handful of politicians who can explain policy effectively. Literally. It’s like Obama, Bill Clinton, Buttigeig and maybe Elizabeth Warren? The GOP has Vance, and it’s too bad he’s tied himself to Trump because that lane was totally open for him.

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What the fuck are you going on about?? Harris hasn’t said what her policy will be. She only speaks in platitudes and nonsense. And you defend her like the tool of the powerful that you probably are

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(Shit. I vowed not to repeat this, but here I have to: “Yeah, but Trump is 1000x worse.”)

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Trump says what he thinks, agree or not. Harris thinks nothing and says what she thinks will win her votes. Also, Harris will undoubtedly do the bidding of the military industrial complex

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But what he “thinks” is so very often literally insane, if not just embarrassingly moronic and childlike. Just sayin.

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OMG, for real?? Is it insane or, like, *literally* insane????

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"neither do most people" - many many people have a problem with this. And as people get older and wiser, they often do start voting on policy, not vibes.

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Hurts when your faves think differently than you.

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More like it hurts when you’re expecting an intelligent reasoning on the commentary podcast you pay for

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You should only subscribe to people that think like you do— very heterodox.

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I can’t tell if you’re purposely misinterpreting what I said or not.

I don’t subscribe to this because of the personalities although they are a bonus well Katie is. I am a fan of the intelligent discussion that is normally brought to the table of the show and the willingness to debate and talk about topics that the media doesn’t cover properly.

The original comment is criticizing Jesse’s lack of well thought out arguments and I would assume that that’s not what most listeners want

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I find a lot of people on here consider an intelligent discussion being something that confirms their priors.

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Sounds like a bunch of humans!

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Also Rachel Levine, who was part of the pressure campaign to hide study results because they weren't amenable to their preferred policy... is still in a serious position of power.

Yes, progressives will abandon their craziest (sex changes for kids and functionally open borders) policies when an election is on the line, so they can impose them again another day when they have a stronger position.

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Nov 3·edited Nov 3

I caught that line as well, that Levine “tried” to influence WPATH. Tried? Succeeded, actually: I remember SOC 8 had age minimums for a minute before being rereleased without them. And Levine is still in that position. Whatever political moves Biden made it was not a break with the pro-affirmation position.

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Yeah, Katie says they did a good job retconnning Kamala, but I think Kamala and Katie apparently think voters are dumb. The only conversations I have heard on this topic from people (who aren't ardent Harris supporters) is about how unconvincing she is about why she "changed her mind." I'm guessing no one on the fence is persuaded by this. Ok, Harris owns a gun, I don't think any gun nuts are suddenly going to change their votes.

It's obviously bad that the federal officials jumped in to influence the wpath guidelines, but I've been a little unsure about the reason. A lot of people imply that Levine did not want age restrictions because it would prevent youth from getting treatment. I thought that the age restrictions were so low that people would be shocked and upset. So it was better to have none listed than openly admit how young kids getting the treatments.

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Seriously the thru line is right there and they just miss it

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This is a mistake. They should stay out of the election directly. And Jesse is going to sound like a smug liberal.

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It’s his Twitter addicted brain as usual. Funny how many times not only Katie, but other listeners jokingly comment about his Twitter addiction without realizing that it’s real and dangerous to his thought process.

I’m wondering how much of it is going to slip into his new book. I also feel like given what his Twitter feed looks like today if Trump wins he’s gonna have an irrational man baby breakdown that his publishers probably won’t look favorably on.

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He called Biden - I shit you not - ‘the only moral choice’ after the 2020 election 😆

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How’s it wrong?

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Joe Biden is a vile person who was clearly deranged, to boot.

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Less deranged and less vile is still the moral choice

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Wait when? Regarding running him again for this election? He said if Harris loses, the fault lies squarely with all the r-words (my paraphrase) who covered up Biden's cognitive decline and ran him as the Dem candidate again.

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He said Biden was the only moral choice in the 2020 election against trump. It’s not that controversial.

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And he’s totally right about that.

I was relieved that he came around on the cover-up thing.

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Appreciate the obligatory (superfluous) election ramble pod. It's quite funny seeing the 4:1 election poll result given how MAGA the commenters are. Seethe more I guess?

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If you think any comments here by conservative-sympathetic disgruntled liberals are MAGA, I'd encourage you to visit the parts of the country that may decide this election.

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There are some conservative-sympathetic disgruntled liberals, but there are also some absolutely hysterical red-pilled freaks with obvious (and sometimes disclosed) mental illness struggles. It's a spectrum.

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What is it with podcasts vs commenters? Free Press is centrist sliding fast towards purely conservative but their commenters are *crazy*. Like actually actually believe democrats are commie Marxist socialist facists (apparently all evil but interchangeable meaningless terms) who really really do want America to crumble.

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I actually do wonder about this and it concerns me. Not sure how these places avoid, I don't know what to call it, it's worse than audience capture. It's the audience leading the content creators? I feel like you're right about Honestly, and I have to wonder if it's the influence of the listenership.

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Are you guys all Free Press subscribers? I'm not and can't see the comments.

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That that poll really really goes to show the commenters aren't representative of the audience. This is one of the worst comment sections on the internet

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Worst on the internet? Have you been basically anywhere else on the internet?

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Yeah you're right I exaggerated, there are way worse ones. but this one does suck a lot.

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I dunno, its not that bad. There was some pretty terrible apologia for the UK race rioters but other than that I've found it pretty civil.

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Agree to disagree

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Sure! But now I'm curious whether you find the comment section too Trumpy or too Democratic, or if its something else entirely that's annoying you

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BARPOD right-wing commenters are more basic-bitch conservative than MAGA. Ya know, the type who repeat whatever is trending on convervative media at the time. There are also the Libertarians, the "I am a Free Thinker who Thinks Free Thoughts. Which is why I vote straight down the GOP ticket, like my fellow Free Thinkers."

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“Stealth MAGA,” I calls ‘em.

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This pissed me off far less than I thought it would. Jesse does sound like a finger-wagging liberal sometimes and they never effectively steel-manned any Trump voter points, but I didn’t really expect them to.

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How can you steelman idiots? They learned nothing and never see any flaws in him?

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Nov 3·edited Nov 4

I think you’re looking at this wrong. In negatively polarized politics, people are typically voting against someone a lot more than they are voting for someone. Democrats are saying “how could people vote for HIM!” And a lot of people aren’t. They’re voting against a party who…

Is disproportionately propped up by mainstream media.

Engaged in what a lot of people consider lawfare against their main political opponent.

Oversaw a border crisis.

Kept the big lie about the mental condition of the president going for so long that we’re stuck with Kamala Harris, a very unpopular politician.

And we’re in power during high levels of inflation. (I don’t blame one side more than the other here, this was bound to happen. But if you’re in power during inflation, your opponent gets easy votes.

Not to mention all the other lefty weirdness that is just baked into democratic politics right now.

Before the election cycle started, both Trump and Biden’s favorability scores were polling pretty low, whatever that’s worth.

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This is a good comment.

I still feel upset when I think about how gaslit I felt when anyone who was worried about Biden’s mental fitness was called a right wing nut. The days before the first debate saw the White House claiming “deepfakes and cheap fakes” and then, suddenly, a complete about-face! And they didn’t even acknowledge they lied before regarding those “deepfakes and cheap fakes.” It was as if it never happened.

I guess it’s naive of me to think they would do otherwise. :-/

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Hey, you’re not being nice to Trump supporters. That’s so mean. Boo!

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Nov 4·edited Nov 4

Being kind isn't what they're asking for. They're being asked to be taken seriously. And you people consistently don't. You don't even know what they believe and then condescend against them for believing things you put in their mouths. You people are idiots and it's your fault if Trump wins again.

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Agreed. I found the conversation much less annoying than I thought I would. I think it was the proper amount of annoying. I never want to hold my podcasters in too high esteem.

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Trump supporters don’t bother “steel manning” his points either. Why should liberals do it for them?

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So you’re comfortable putting Jesse and Katie on the same level as Trump supporters?

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I have no idea how could you interpret my comment that way.

I'll reiterate: why would Jesse and Katie be expected to bend over backwards and give the most favorable possible argument for Trump's positions (which is what steel-manning is), when Trump and his supporters never bother anyway?

Like with the Tariffs. Oren Cass (not a Trump supporter, but also not a liberal) has defended Trump's proposed tariffs as something of a necessary evil; it will hurt Americans in the short term yes, but we need to suck it up for national security reasons.

Whereas Trump just lies and says he's going to be charging "China" huge amounts of money, so much that maybe he can get rid of income taxes.

And you step in this mess and go "It really would be nice if Jesse and Katie would ignore what Trump says and say something that makes the tariffs sound good instead". To which I say, again, why should they bother? Trump isn't proposing tariffs for strategic reasons that can be debated, he's just a very stupid person who has fixated on this idea and can't be dissuaded of it.

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Let me put it this way- I can see why someone would vote in any direction (or not at all) in this election, and I expect people in a pluralistic society to be able to do the same without becoming condescendingly “disappointed” in their friends.

Something a lot of people miss is that our negative polarization cuts both ways. There are a lot of people holding their nose and voting against Trump. There are also a lot of people who are holding their nose and voting against the Democratic Party right now, and it’s not necessarily about “wokeness.”

As a dyed-in-the-wool-Democrat, I don’t think that’s something Jesse is considering. There are a ton of reasons to vote against the Democratic Party that have nothing to do with Trump’s dumbass tariff plan.

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Trump supporters are people too! (They’re all actually really nice and reasonable folx, not brainwashed idiots at all!!!)

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They’re not all nice people, but they are all people. You shouldn’t dehumanize your political opponents, and neither should they.

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You are going to ensure Trump wins again. Congratulations.

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I expected more of Katie in that regard.

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She’s been re-blue pilled by Musk’s Twitter by her own admission. I wish they at least touched on the way Democrats have been using institutions.

You can give the devil his due and he’ll still be the devil, after all.

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“I’m so smart, I NEVER get influenced by online politics, but it definitely explains the behavior of everyone who makes a different decision than me”

Can we drop this pilled discourse? It’s immature.

Katie has been extremely consistent in her views. She votes for democrats almost all the time because she mostly disagrees with republican policies and mostly agrees with democrats.

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Nov 4·edited Nov 4

She said herself that she swayed right after 2020, and swung back left, influenced by the dipshittery of right wingers on Twitter after Musk took over.

I’m just taking her at her word. Not passing judgement on Katie.

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Not everything can be steelmaned. I’m frankly tired of heterodox liberals bending over backwards to defend conservative positions that they, deep down, don’t agree with. I found the honesty in this episode pretty refreshing.

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That's fine, and since that's how Jesse feels, that's what I want him to say.

"I can't imagine why half the country isn't voting the way I'm voting" displays a failure of imagination, to me. Jesse and Thomas Chatterton Williams calling out K'Mele Foster and Coleman Hughes for not affirmatively casting their performative deep-blue state votes in favor of Harris strikes me as silly.

But Jesse literally cried the last two times the Democrats lost, so he's obviously deep in the bag for his party.

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Probably will skip this one. Politics is not an area of expertise for Katie and Jesse, and there's already an ample supply of politics podcasts.

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Jesse never sounds dumber than when he tries to talk politics.

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That’s not nice! Boo!

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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You can skip to about 35:20 for a ramble about the use of LatinX before the Michigan DEI story at 46:10ish if you want the non-election stuff.

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awesome thank you potato queen!

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I'm not a US citizen and so this election on isn't really my business, but I have listened to other podcasts and have heard the reasons people are voting for Trump and Katie sells them short, by saying the good reasons to vote for Trump are if you want to ban abortion and deport illegals. Perhaps they don't want the title IV changes that Biden signed off which forces schools and colleges to recognise a boy as a girl, and all the consequences that come from that. Or perhaps they're upset by the horrific rapes and murders by illegal immigrants let in over the last four years (or the shooting of a Jew in Chicago) which comes from unvetted migration of people with violent, criminal histories. Perhaps they believe Trump will be a stronger world leader who will not project weakness to the tyrants of the world. There are many more reasons people cite for voting Trump, as there are many reasons people want to vote for the Democrats and Kamala, I guess it's just about what your priorities are. Even on free speech, Trump says a lot of crazy, illogical stuff, but you have four years of his presidency to look at, did he clamp down on free speech? His number one supporter (Elon) has taken over twitter and given the biggest free speech platform in the world, so I think supporting free speech seems like a very good reason to vote for Trump, if you look at actions and not words.

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I mean yes, if you hold fundamentally false and/or bigoted views about the state of the world, then you might act on those false beliefs. It's unclear to me why a podcast should validate those views, however. The fact that you, personally, might happen to think that Trump will stop the chemtrails and use his new dictatorial powers to put an end to child sex trafficking in pizza parlors just means you're an idiot, not that you have a valid reason to vote for him.

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Nov 3·edited Nov 3

You sound lovely! Are you one of the kind and caring democrats I’ve been hearing so much about?

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Don't worry, you sound like an asshole too.

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I have to laugh at the part about Trump standing up to tyrants. He'll be kneeling, sucking off his favorite Strong-men.

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That’s… maybe not the best analogy to use to support Kamala Harris.

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he can jerk two off at the same time, as he shows us at every rally he does.

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Hey guys, totally not a Trump supporter here but [long list of Trump talking points].

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I think she was just saying there were reasonable reasons and named the two most common—without being exhaustive

That’s how I heard it

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Nooo you guys were so close

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Yes! Finally! Even though I’ve already voted I can’t wait to hear the opinions of two blue pilled liberals as they navigate the election which can lead to the “End of Democracy!”

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Nov 3·edited Nov 3

I am beginning to think that comment sections are not a representaitve sample of anything and should not be taken seriously.

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I demand you take this comment seriously.

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Just a sense from the commenters here. Do you feel:

1) there’s one true appropriate candidate for the whole country and everyone and if you don’t vote for that candidate you are wrong

2) everyone has a handful of issues they really care about, it might not be the same as yours, and they should be able to vote for whichever candidate is closest to those things

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I’m more like 3) they’re both so absolutely appalling and the situation is so bad that I can’t really blame anyone who weights the tradeoffs differently than I do. So basically 2, but more pessimistic. 😅

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This is _exactly_ my feeling. I've made my choice, but I can't blame anyone who votes for the other candidate, and I will be equally disappointed no matter who wins.

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This. It's a douche vs. a turd sandwich.

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But … which is which?

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Take a bite and find out!

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Ooh, I change my vote. 3.

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It’s not clever to whine “both sides are soooo bad though”. It’s lazy. Have some more respect for your intellect.

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This feels glib to me. Is one of these candidates NOT bad? I’ve voted in 7 POTUS elections and while there are obviously always flaws on both sides (I don’t think you can raise to that level without being a narcissist), it’s never felt more pronounced to me how terrible both of these candidates are. I can’t feel good about either one. It’s a calculation of damage control — figuring out which one will do the least damage to the things I care about most.

I’m sort of with Kmele Foster in that I hope for gridlock. If Harris wins, I hope the House goes R. If Trump wins, I hope the House goes D. Best case scenario is that either of these administrations isn’t able to get much done.

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Has any election not been this?

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Yes other elections have had much better candidates. Both Obama elections, 1992, 1996. I would say most of them generally.

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I don’t think this level of navel-gazing is necessary when one of the candidates is a convicted felon, life-long con man, who instigated a deadly insurrection.

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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading these comments right now. Like Kamala might be a forced uninspired candidate but are we really overlooking Trump and the genuine stuff he and his corhort want to do?

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I feel the same way reading your comment! And we probably agree on 90% of policy issues.

How can you just fall in line with a DNC that hates you and wants to subvert your ability to choose your own candidate?

I get voting strategically, but I think it's wrong to pretend voting for Kamala is a 'good' choice in any way. I personally think the Democrats are so broken they need to fail to be fixed. You may disagree, but it's irrational to ignore the facts...Kamala is a disaster and anyone who chooses to vote for someone else can have good rational reasons for doing so.

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> How can you just fall in line with a DNC that hates you and wants to subvert your ability to choose your own candidate?

NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS. Jesus Christ.

Harris is as popular as Obama with Democrats, for fuck's sake. This is pure concern trolling.

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I care a great deal about being ratfucked out of the ability to participate in a primary, thank you very much.

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I doubt you’ve ever voted in a primary in your life.

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If you are just a plebe who follows orders, that sucks but it's a free country...but the rest of us want our country as intended...where we choose the candidates

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You are very very wrong about this. People care about this a lot, and they should.

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No, they don't. As I said earlier, Harris is as popular as Obama among Democrats. If anyone actually cared about this, it would show up in polls. That's how I know you're just bullshitting.

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But the DNC did respond to rank and file democrats demands to remove Biden.

Do I think they Should have responded earlier by allowing a genuine open primary process given Bidens unpopularity? Sure. But they didn’t because doing so would have overturned decades of precedent that if the incumbent wants the nom (and Biden did) he gets it.

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They responded bc he was going to lose

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ha WRONG...that's like saying, "the thief didn't take everything in my house so he should get the charges dropped"...

the DNC didn't "respond to rank and file democrats" they messed up and desperately (and ineffectually) reacted

the DNC hates the idea of us choosing our candidate and you need to understand this if you want to contribute to this discussion

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l…what?

I don’t know a single democrat who was not PLEASED AS PUNCH once Biden backed out of the race.

Like Biden in 2024 Trump didn’t have an open primary in 2020. That didn’t mean he was stealing anything - that’s just how it works and everyone knows.

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Yeah, it all would have been different if he didn’t run again, but he did, and so everyone’s choices got much crappier from that point. It would have been way worse to put someone else in his place when the VP is right there (we did choose her when we voted for their ticket in 2020), and they didn’t have time to rerun the primaries. Of all lousy options, this was the least lousy. I really hope I don’t regret saying this on Wednesday morning. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because what else could they have done?

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They could have had a fucking primary!

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Tangentially, this election feels like a huge shadowboxing exercise - a lot of people are fighting their own foes. I’m not American but I’m certainly pulled into the election vortex and I’m not liking what it’s bringing out in me. It’s all me too - it’s not Biden or Trump or Harris or my own stupid country’s politics.

I had the absolutely chilling experience of someone going totally dark - like pure, shaking hatred- when someone mentioned they would support Trump if they were American.

If you’ve ever seen hate in someone’s eyes due to politics, it’s the scariest shit ever. We are so close.

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I have some reasonable, educated, thoughtful people I know who are conservatives, but never Trumpers, who I agree with on 90%+ of things, who really seem to believe that like 90%+ of his voters are outright evil racist hick people.

Politics will make people believe weird things. I am no big fan of Trump, but I try to explain to them all the reasons people might not be those things and support him and they just cannot see it.

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I’m having a hard time figuring out my politics, mainly I think because I’m reacting to my crazy DEI work environment. Recently, my left-of-left longtime friend and her partner have been calling for more understanding of the other side (in a non self righteous way). She was always like that but I realized her other circle of friends had tried to silence her too.

If it means anything, I admire what you both are doing

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I agree that the Dems deserve to fail here. Maybe it's because I feel so betrayed by them and I'm taking it too personally - but I want them to get a big slap in the face this week, so they can spend the next couple years extracting their heads from their own asses and come back to us with something more reasonable next time.

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This is accelerationist bullshit. Electing trump won’t get you the political outcome you want.

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I think if you’re asking which candidate would be less horrible I think it really depends on which policy and aspect of government you’re talking about. On the balance I think Harris would be less horrible, but that isn’t the same thing as saying she’d be good.

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AKSHUALLY He is not a convicted felon until sentencing, which has not happened. And given the nature of that case, you really shouldn't use it as a talking point. All it does is strengthen the Trumpian arguments about him being targeted by a corrupt system.

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“Actually,” typical of all boot-licking Trump apologists, everything you said is a lie. A lie told to do nothing but everyone’s waste time by soliciting good-faith rebuttals:

“Conviction - When the court enters a plea of guilty or a finding of guilt by a jury or the Court.”

https://ww2.nycourts.gov/COURTS/nyc/criminal/glossary.shtml#:~:text=Conviction%20%2D%20When%20the%20court%20enters,a%20jury%20or%20the%20Court.

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You need to read that definition very carefully. The Court has *not* yet entered a finding of guilt by the jury. To "Enter a finding", the Court files a written (efiling is common these days) order with the Clerk of the Court. That has not happened in Trump's case, full stop.

I encourage you to read the actual transcript from the verdict being read. The Court made no verbal judgement of guilt anywhere in that transcript, and he certainly hasn't filed any written order since:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/4895a9bd-45b7-4550-9e68-b87c8886cce9.pdf

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Notice this is separate from and independent of a sentence:

“Sentence - A punishment prescribed by law and imposed by a judge following a conviction.” https://ww2.nycourts.gov/COURTS/nyc/criminal/glossary.shtml#:~:text=Conviction%20%2D%20When%20the%20court%20enters,a%20jury%20or%20the%20Court.

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People don't like it when you take democracy away from them.

The DNC hates the idea of you choosing your own candidate. How can you rationally expect people to just fall in line with that?

I want to punish the DNC and leftists generally...my side has gone off the rails and I believe it needs to fail completely to be fixed, due to how entrenched this bullshit has become.

I want my party to work as it is supposed to and if I need to break it to get that then so be it.

I am fine with you voting strategically, it's rational at least, but don't insult us by pretending it's an easy or inherently 'good' choice.

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I am in perfect agreement with this comment. I hate these people, want to see them suffer for their arrogance, and if it takes yet another Trump term, so be it. (They won't learn, though not for lack of opportunity.)

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It's an easy choice for any real leftist. Trump is so fucking terrible for everything. How will it "punish" the Democrats? This isn't a game. If you want to change the party you have to actually participate.

Kamela is milk toast. She'll be boring but effective.I have to wonder if you're another GOP troll account the way you rant about the primary.

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It's an easy choice for a slave. Some of us haven't given over our higher brain functions to the Democratic party influence machine yet.

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People also don’t like it when you make stupid, bad-faith arguments

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Exactly

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Have you looked at the felony case? Setting aside Georgia that one doesn’t do much but bolster the idea of him being persecuted in my mind.

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I can't imagine anyone who actually believes those things are true is comparing Trump/Harris on the issues. You have to have a significant issue with the truth of those points to even consider Trump, right?

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For me it's about ending rot in my own party. I think Woke/DEI bullshit must fail, publicly and definitively, for my party to get back to where it was just 10 years ago.

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I think one sane argument for Trump is that he will likely fight with congress and the federal staff, and not actually get much done similar to his first turn. Harris on the other hand will have support of much of the federal staff and can more effectively get her policies enacted.

So if you think they both have garbage policies, you might think electing the one less likely to be effective is the right choice.

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Exactly. I am really tired of this ecuvcation. Harris is a politician who I think is cringe and too much of a spineless centrist. I’d rather have Bernie. But trump is a fucking lunactic.

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I don't believe in truly appropriate candidates but I do believe in truly inappropriate candidates. If you're voting for Cornel West (to pick one example of many) I think you're objectively doing politics wrong. Unless you're doing it as some kind of absurdist art project, in which case you're still doing it wrong because you could be voting for Vermin Supreme

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Dammit, I had my Vermin Supreme response cocked and ready before I got to the end of your comment.

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A tyrant that you should trust. And remember, a vote for Vermin Supreme is a vote completely thrown away!

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I’m just here for my pony, man.

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I miss Sister Boom-Boom.

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Vote for peanut the squirrel!

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Ok, he’s on the ticket with Deez Nuts, right?

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There should be certain meta-issues which are red lines that no voter should cross, and "wanting to abolish democracy and replace it with playacted authoritarianism" is one of those issues, because once you go down that road #2 ceases to be a relevant consideration.

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I mean, I think Trump sucks but people have the right to vote for who they wants.

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The righteous mind pops into my head daily these days. Such a useful book for election seasons.

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Man, people are going nuts. We are going to be okay and this isn’t the apocalypse. Tell someone that though and they’ll think you’re Hitler.

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OH SO YOU DONT THINK DEMOCRACY MATTERS??????

I’m just exhausted by being told NO THIS ONE FOR REAL IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION. Isn’t anything happening in the present by definition the most important one given that it’s the only one presently happening?

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I get it for kids where this is the first go around, but when it’s another forty year old? Man, it’s rough.

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We are too old for this shit.

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2. I’m really trying to be understanding of how people vote this election. I think it’s gonna be a shit show either way and people need to vote for their top issues.

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That’s the thing I always completely respect. You should have total right to vote your issues and not someone else’s issues. We can all have a debate and explain but at the end of the day you have the right to do what you think is best.

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People are going to say number two. But. You never know how they really feel.

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I want everyone to passionately support their candidate while understanding there are reasons for other people to feel differently.

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Sure, I do too. I’d also like people to do what I want them to do. It’s a real conundrum sometimes.

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Well it’s a fight between my heart and my head. So basically it’s 3) All of the above.

But 2 is the correct answer.

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Dos

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If I hear how horrible Jan 6 was one more time… I remember that day and the barely hidden glee we — I wasn’t politically unhoused yet — felt. That would put Trump away die site, worth a mob and if a few senators got hurt, big deal.

Now everyone is clutching 300lb pearls

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It's clearly #2

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I don’t see how those two things are in conflict. I don’t think anyone should vote for trump. I think his policy positions are bad.

But I think people should be allowed to vote for him. People shouldn’t be barred from making bad decisions.

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Surprised a bit at the blowback here, given the poll results.

I'll just say I'm with Jesse that Jan 6, the Georgia call, the false elector plots are head and shoulders more important and disqualifying than anything else either candidate has done. It would be the same if the tables were reversed and the candidate with my preferred policies did that sort of thing.

And I was happy to hear Katie say what I've been thinking: we have a representative democracy but part of that is we want representatives who are responsive to what the people want. Maybe it'd have been preferable that our chosen candidate _always_ had the right opinion, but that's virtually impossible. The next best thing is that they're willing to listen to the public.

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I mean, a consistent theme would this podcast is loud sections of online commentariat isn't representative of the broader audience. Seems that holds on true on Substack as it does on Xwitter.

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founding

I think among Problematic folks, there is an enthusiasm gap between Trump supporters and Harris Supporters this go around.

People who used be democrats and are still democrats are like "yeah, another imperfect candidate who wouldn't have been my first choice but whom I expect will act like an adult and uphold the rule of law. Ok, fine."

People who used to be democrats and just came around to the notion of voting for Trump are like people who've recently discovered veganism or CrossFit.

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Katie: I can't get away from all these podcasts all talking about the election

Jesse and Katie: Let's do a podcast about the election!

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Yeeeeah, I totally agreed with Katie's comment about being tired of trying to listen to podcasts and finding them all talking about the election. Please go back to your regularly scheduled Internet bullshit, Katie and Jesse!

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Pussy hats are transphobic. We will never see the likes of them again.

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founding

I’m not so sure. As we speak a skilled team of knitters is working to stitch together the first neopussy hat.

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If you don't wear it every day, does it eventually collapse?

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