Just a short message that this is the last column for 2024. Hereâs hoping you have a wonderful holiday regardless of how or what you celebrate at this time of the year! We are spending time with family and friends accompanied by food, laughter, and strong beverages! Weâre also swapping presents on the theme that the gift should be a âpersonal guilty pleasureâ. That means Wrongoâs contains chocolate covered coconut pieces for the lucky winner. Theyâre delicious with single malt scotch.
The Christmas holiday is a time for reflection, and our focus is gratitude for having a large family and a few close friends that care so much about us, are so willing to help when needed, and who do it with a hug and a smile. Weâre also grateful for those who read the blog. Thank you for going out of your way to be a part of this effort.
The New Year is bound to bring us new challenges, certainly for Wrongo, and certainly politically. How is Trump spending the holiday? Trying to take back the Panama Canal.
Trump then upped the ante with an âoh yea?â by posting a photo of the Panama Canal under a US flag with the caption, âWelcome to the US Canal.â
It is beyond difficult to describe the idiocy of Trump’s suggestion to invade Panama in order to take back control of the Canal. Perhaps heâs engaging in  a PR stunt to draw attention away from the fact that heâs lost some control of the GOP to Musk. From the AP:
âSince Panama is clearly not willing to give back the Canal â which the country has controlled since 1999 and spent billions of dollars to improve, and is a source of great national pride â pretty much the only way Trump could take control of the waterway would be for the US to invade Panama (again).â
More:
âAlso, Trump still wants Greenland. In his announcement on Sunday nominating tech investor Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote that âFor purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.â
It is tricky to ascribe rational motivations to Trump’s actions. His administration is shaping up to be one of fiasco, farce and fuck-ups. Prepare for much more of the same in 2025.
Itâs going to be a crazy year, folks. All the best in your efforts to stay sane through it all!
Since the GOP won control of the House 2 years ago they have not passed a single appropriations package into law. Thatâs the primary job of the House of Representatives. Government has operated at funding levels set by Democrats two years ago via passing Continuing Resolutions every few months. This is not normal.
And it continued last week, just in a weirder way. From CNN:
âThe House has voted to pass a stopgap funding bill just hours before a midnight deadline to avert a federal government shutdown. The Senate must next take up the bill. The vote was 366 to 34. Thirty-four Republicans voted against the bill, and one Democrat voted present. The bill would extend government funding into March and includes disaster relief and farming provisions, but does not include a suspension of the debt limit, which President-elect Donald Trump has been demanding Republicans address.â
The Senate passed the measure as expected just after midnight. And Biden signed it.
But, just two days ago, Trump and Musk threatened to ensure a primary challenge for any House Republican who voted for a bill that didnât include a debt limit increase. On Friday, 170 of them took him up on just that.
Musk is now claiming that heâs really fine with all this. But back up two days to this from Robert Hubbell:
 âMusk ordered Republicans not to pass âany billâ until Trump is sworn in on January 20, 2025. If Republicans follow Muskâs command, there will be no government funding for a month (at least)–from Friday, December 20, 2024, through Monday, January 20, 2025. If that happens, chaos will ensue.â
And it got worse. Co-President Trump remained on the sidelines of the budget debate until after Musk tweeted âThis bill should not pass.â Trump then posted a curveball:
 âUnless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend the Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ’till the end.â
The end happened way before the end, though. Increasing the debt ceiling is something that didnât need to be done until June of 2025. But Trump didnât want a debt ceiling increase to happen on his watch. The reason that Trump wanted to force a debt limit increase under Biden is that Trump needs that increase to pay for the proposed extensions of his 2017 tax cuts for millionaires and corporations. From The Hill, Lawmakers caught off guard by Trump debt ceiling demand: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) accused Trump of wanting Democrats âto agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem.â….âShorter version: tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas,â he added.â
The chaos caused by Musk foreshadows a second Trump administration with unelected, unaccountable billionaires mucking about in our politics. What could go wrong? With this kabuki, Hubbell thought this:
Trump looked like he is subordinate to Musk.
Musk hasâfor nowâseized momentum from Trump as the dominant political force in the second Trump administration.
It is difficult to see how Mike Johnson survives as Speaker….Johnson has been humiliated and back-stabbed by Trump and Musk. Mike Johnsonâs credibility with his own caucus and Democratic counterparts is non-existent. And some of that showed in the bill that was passed on Friday.
If youâre looking for a way to combat this, Democrats should publicly embarrass Trump about Musk. Call Musk the President-elect. Or the richer & smarter co-President; the one people really want to talk to. Trump will HATE it and might eventually ‘fire’ Musk. Remember, you canât spell FELON without ELON.
Weâre more than a decade now into the GOPâs performative politics of destruction. It gains power by touting its aim to break stuff and then runs into a brick wall when itâs forced to make the hard choices that come with holding power. Any GOP effort to govern at least temporarily is susceptible to being undermined by its many bomb throwers, now including Musk, who can exert leverage by striking a purer âblow it all upâ posture than the rest of the GOP.
The events of the last week should give us hope that there are limits to the delusional, performative, grandiose claims and threats being peddled by Musk and Trump. They were losers in their first attempt of a smack-down with Congress. The lesson that the deficit hawks in the GOP should take from the tussle is that Trump and Musk are not as tough as they think.
In fact, it may signal the start of Trumpâs âlame duckâ presidency.
Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews accurately summed up the chaos we now find ourselves in. The question is whether non-elected officials should control funding the US government:
âThe owner of a car company is controlling the House of Representatives from a social media app.â
What does it say about America that Elon Musk had to pay $44 billion to buy control of Twitter, but only $250 million in campaign contributions to Trump to buy control of the U.S. government?
This country is falling apart. Kind of like a Cybertruck.
âI believe Harris is speaking but perhaps not loud enough or Gen Z isnât listening. Her plans do include downpayment money for new housing, tax incentives for builders to sell to first time home buyers, 3 million new homes constructed, business startup credits, earned income credits for low wage earners, newborn tax credits, food price regulations, and reduction of medical debt. Maybe you can say it wonât be enough or that some of these things canât be implemented but nonetheless they are in âthe planâ. Perhaps if her message was stronger on social media, as you mentioned in another column, the âZâersâ would listen.â
Heâ s right but Harris like most Dem politicians, isnât offering sufficient “feel your pain” context to get people to listen. Obama was one of the few Democrats to place policy in a human context, but most of the time, the Democrats are relying on a laundry list of policies that may or may not ever be enacted.
America had good economic news yesterday, but no Republican was willing to cede that to Biden or the Democrats. Sen. Rubio (R-FL) claimed in a post on Twitter/X that the great jobs numbers were âfakeâ because past months had to be revised (most jobs reports are revised in subsequent months).
Itâs true that the economy added jobs. But most were low-income service jobs. Meanwhile, the pathways to the middle class, manufacturing and white collar jobs, actually shrank. The Gen Z and younger workers suspect that the American Dream is fading because middle class jobs are going away, and theyâre precisely correct in that intuition.
The GenZâers canât square their lived reality with the commentary that comes from on high, particularly regarding the economy. Over time, theyâve come to distrust institutions. Thatâs true at a social levelâlevels of trust have cratered over time. And this is a key reason why this gulf between what young people live, experience, feel, and the skin-deep recitation of the miracle of the âBooming Economyâ. It doesnât reach deeply enough into their lives.
Harris shouldnât cede any of this ground to Trump. Wrongo quoted Vance during the VP debate:
People are struggling to pay the bills. Times are tough.
The American Dream is fading, and feels unattainable.
We should stop shipping jobs offshore.
And Republicans understand the task at hand is to peel younger voters in swing states away from Harris. FWIW reports that a constellation of Right-wing groups are spending millions online to get their messaging in front of swing state voters. Probably the biggest line of attack being used against Harris has to do with inflation and the state of the economy: (brackets by Wrongo)
âFor example, Duty to America is specifically targeting Gen Z and Millennial men in battleground states with ads bemoaning the state of the economy, saying: âAccording to…Harris, the economy is fixed [repaired]âŠat our age, our parents owned a home, had kids, saved for retirement, and we can barely buy groceries, gas, or pay our rent.ââ
More:
âThis ad is running across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google, but also on Roku devices and streaming services where young people actually watch TV shows. Duty to America has spent the majority of its ad dollars targeting Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.â
More:
âSimilarly, Preserve America is running direct-to-camera video ads on Facebook and Instagram from a trio of white women who are complaining about high inflation and grocery prices, sometimes tying the issue to illegal immigration. You can browse through some of those ads here.â
FWIW adds a chart about ad spending: (note that the red and blue here are 100% pro-Trump spending)
A few other groups have also emphasized economic attacks among younger members of the electorate. One from Our American Century says âKamala Harris thinks young people are stupidâ when it comes to the economy, and Right for America is also running with the âstupidâ line.
FWIW notes that Harris is outspending Trump on Facebook and Instagram: Harris spent $8.1 million to Trumpâs $1.1 million between September 21 to 28. Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $40.3 million on Google and YouTube ads last week, with Harris and affiliates spent $10.8 million to Trumpâs $2.8 million.
Hereâs a recap of spending by both campaigns:
The Democrats instead should invest more money where the young people are. They should challenge the Republicans by admitting that things look pretty dire for Gen Z and younger people. That over time, the American Dreamâs faded. That times are rough. That people are struggling.
They should use exactly those words like Vance did, because theyâre the ones that count. They resonate. You have to hope that the Harris brain trust will match Trump’s initiative by spending some of this money targeting Gen Z and younger voters with empathetic messaging like the Republicans are already doing.
The policy details can come once they’re listening.
On Friday, Kamala Harris secured enough votes in the DNCâs âvirtual roll callâ of delegates to secure the Democratic nomination for President. Sheâs was only a candidate for ten days in July, but she raised $310 million, the largest single fundraising month for any presidential candidate ever. Importantly, two million donors gave for the first time to the presidential race.
And Harris dominated the news cycle for two weeks, something that hasnât happened for Democrats in a long time. That is, until Trump played the race card against Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, saying in his tone-deaf way that she turned âBlackâ. That will haunt him throughout the election cycle.
But Harris returned to a prominent place in the news cycle with the prisoner exchange with Russia. That deal was brought together by multiple countries over two years. The WSJ has a detailed story.
Itâs interesting that on the very Sunday Biden announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy for President and endorsing Harris, the negotiations on the prisoner swap were coming to a head. We wonât know exactly how involved Biden was for several years, but we do know that Kamala Harris also played a part. She made the final pitch to Germanyâs Olaf Schultz to release his prisoner, a Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov, who was jailed in Germany, and without whom, the deal would have fallen apart. She also briefed the Slovenian officials regarding the deal at the Munich Security Conference.
Overall, prisoners from the US, Germany, Slovenia, Norway, and Poland were sent to Russia. The dealâs done, and Trump is grumpy. This is a huge improvement over where we were before Biden pulled out of the race. On to cartoons.
Thereâs good news and bad news for the Russians heading home:
The âWeirdoâ charge seems to be sticking:
Orange is the new weird:
Painting a happy face on the Trump train is about all thatâs possible:
Their words show the disconnect from the rest of us:
MAGA has been reduced to a fairy tale:
Finally, an interesting piece of music played on an instrument that is rarely heard. Take a few minutes to watch and listen to Brandon Acker performing the early 17th-century piece “Canario” by G.G. Kapsberger (1580-1651). The instrument is called the Theorbo, a type of lute:
Mark it down as something Wrongo never thought he would see: Snoop Dogg as a commentator for the Olympics. The rapper helped host the opening ceremony with NBC Todayâs Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, NBCâs Mike Tirico, singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson, and former NFL player Peyton Manning.
Those who watched the opening ceremony saw Snoop carry the Olympic torch like it was a giant marijuana joint, chat with Simone Bilesâ family, and set the mood for the 2024 Olympic Games by busting out dance moves while wearing his Olympic outfit:
This edition of the Olympic torch looks very blunt-y. There were a few cartoons that referenced the Olympics, along with many that documented the state of play in the US presidential election. On to cartoons.
View from the Rancho Nicasioroadhouse, Marin County, CA – July 2024 photo by Dave Alvin
Did Wrongo miss anything? From here, it seems worth noting that the attempted assassination of Trump has landed like a rock in a pond; it made a big splash and then sank to the bottom. Even the press seem to be realizing “wait, nobody cares? For real?” Itâs largely in the rear view mirror, if Trump could leave it there.
The shooter has given the press and Republicans nothing to chew on (no manifesto, nothing on social media, no obvious radical affiliations, nothing more than a party registration and an old donation). Perhaps weâve become so normalized to the lone shooter in America that weâre at the point where we say, “oh yeah, some dude just took a shot at Trump.â And people say: âOK, makes sense“, like saying âstranger things have happened“.
And JD Vance as the GOP VP candidate also makes sense, because Republicans always buy into bad stereotypes about poor White people. Vance capitalized on the fact that White people, especially suburban, rich ones who buy books, are mostly out of touch with the realities of rural, poor White folks and are disdainful towards them. He sold White America a story of helplessness/failure to âbootstrapâ that spoke directly to their stereotypes.
His book asserts that because one person made it out of “broken” Appalachia, everyone should be able to do the same. Its primary argument is that poor people suffer because they don’t know any better. From NY Mag:
“Vance says he is fighting a class war on behalf of workers, but his record suggests otherwise. When he does intervene in matters of class, itâs often on the side of the elites. He showed up to a UAW picket line in Ohio, but opposes the PRO Act, which would shore up collective bargaining rights for millions of workers….”
And what have Vance and the GOP actually done for rural folk? They cut off their healthcare. They eliminate government services, and refuse to pay for their educations. They now want to force them to have babies against their will. What else will Vanceâs âhelpâ do for them if he’s elected?
And did Trumpâs acceptance speech help him? It doesnât help when you have the longest recorded acceptance speech by a major Party nominee in our history. His chat wound up being more than 12,000 words and clocked in at an interminable 92 minutes. It broke the record for longest acceptance speech in history by 18 minutes. But that shouldnât have been a complete surprise since the second and third longest acceptance speeches in history are Trumpâs from 2016 and 2020.
The WaPoreported that toward the end of his speech a woman sitting with the Illinois delegation was heard saying, âWrap it up, Don!â The only real surprise is that he gave a MAGA rally speech at a moment that should have been tailored to a bigger and less unhinged target audience.
âTheodore Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee, just a mile from where the GOP Convention took place. The assassinâs bullet went through Rooseveltâs eyeglass case and the text of a 50-page speech (TR was long-winded, too…) and lodged in his chest. Because he didnât cough up blood, the former president finished his speech before receiving medical attention.
Roosevelt, too, was attempting a comeback four years after he left the presidency….He was the popular candidate of the Progressive âBull Mooseâ Party, and many of his supporters believed his life had been spared by divine providence.
Hereâs how the story ends: The shooting took place less than three weeks before the election. By the time Americans went to the polls, it was old news, and Roosevelt finished 14 points behind the winner, Woodrow Wilson.â
Finally, Kamala Harris. CNN has a piece today that says the Democrats are actually coming to a consensus that Kamala Harris has to be the nominee if Biden steps aside:
How and if that happens is still (weeks later) dependent upon Biden deciding to step aside. But as Tom Sullivan says:
âAdmit it. Youâd love to see the Democratic former district attorney debate the helmet-kissing, multiply convicted, sex-offending, Republican presidential candidate currently out on bail in three jurisdictions.â
âRepublicans are bracing for the fact that Harris will be a more effective campaigner than Biden and certainly a better debater. And they think that should Harris ultimately become the nominee, she will be awash in positive media coverage from outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, which Republicans believe have been on a crusade to replace Biden. The positive media coverage will likely result in a modest polling bump for Harris â but Republicans believe it will only be a temporary one.â
Trumpâs proclivity for spouting racially coded and misogynist comments would be on full display daily if Harris became the nominee, further turning off college-educated voters and women.
On to cartoons. Another terrible display of hive thinking by Americaâs cartoonists, but hereâs the best: Still the state of play for Democrats:
Judge Cannon is on the case:
Trump and Vance have something in common:
Tech billionaires rush to help the GOP:
On to the weekend! With the Republican convention behind us, we can get back to picking tomatoes from our backyard garden. Not only did the Trump fever break, but the weather has turned cooler here on the Fields of Wrong. So grab a chair outdoors in the shade.
Since weâre going to war for the soul of our democracy, watch and listen to Richard Wagnerâs âDie Walkure â The Ride of the Valkyriesâ performed here in 2016 by Jaap Van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
But surely, music isnât politics, itâs simply art! Wrongo is of an age that when he hears this played, he sees Huey gunships and Robert DuVall assaulting a Vietnamese village:
Every cartoonist tried to pile on the âBidenâs too oldâ story this week. Some were ok, most were obvious and mean-spirited, including many depicting the First Lady as the power behind the throne, manipulating a doddering Biden.
Yesterday, Wrongo said that since the election will be determined by turnout of a very few votes in a very few states. He likes this question from Robert Kuttner: Do the Democrats have the energy to turn out enough voters for down ballot races? Will those voters also vote for the top of the ticket?:
âThink of it as reverse coattails. One impressive feat, especially since Trumpâs election in 2016, has been a massive effort to increase the size and turnout of potential Democratic voters. Most of this has been done outside the institutional Democratic Party, though in a few states such as Wisconsin the party has been a major force.â
Better turnout on the Democratic side, especially among âlow-propensityâ groups, such as young people and voters of color, far more than trying to win over swing voters, was key to helping Biden win in 2020. It also allowed Democrats to do better than expected in the midterm elections of 2018 and 2022. It can work again.
On to cartoons. The last convention that Chicago hosted wasnât a win for the Dems:
Itâs no surprise that all of the cartoonists arose from their slumbers to draw various scenes of
the Biden and Trump debate and its aftermath. In most cases they magnified Joeâs decrepitude or show streams flowing from Trumpâs mouth. Few are genuinely funny.
But before cartoons, a few more words about the debate and where we are going. The NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results, by those same people who weâve been saying for months that we shouldnât trust their numbers.
Thatâs the dilemma facing Democrats. Interestingly, Bidenâs poll numbers went into positive territory in a post-debate poll yesterday and he had his best fundraising day ever. The viewing numbers show that only about 30% of those likely to vote this fall watched or streamed the debate on Thursday night.
That historically small audience was likely comprised mostly of partisans on both sides, particularly given that CNN allowed Fox to run a simulcast of the debate on its network, giving Trump supporters a safe space to watch.
That so few undecided or persuadable voters checked into the debate could explain why a new 538/Ipsos poll taken entirely after the debate, found little movement from a previous poll of the very same people. Note: Biden leads today by 2.7 points, 46.2%-43.9%:
Why is it that Democrats collapse in terror when their guy gets a cold? Republicans rally around their guy when heâs found civilly liable for sexual assault; when he tries to overthrow the government and loses more than 60 lawsuits before doing so; and when heâs convicted of a felony based on his desire to conceal paying off a porn star that he had at least somewhat coerced sex with, while his wife was recovering from childbirth.
The pundits would have you believe that Democrats have to âacknowledge reality.â Instead, that says Democrats are cowards looking for a place to hide from the big, bad NYT. It doesnât matter if the Dems replace Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what.
So circle the wagons and not the firing squad. The administrations of both of these two men have track records that are easily predictive of future performance. Make this a choice between one or the other of them rather than the mediaâs default position of it being a referendum on Biden. Discipline yourselves and focus on what is really at stake. This election isnât a casting call for a reality TV show. Itâs an election where the candidates represent fundamentally different visions of the American future. And those visions are the only thing that matters. On to cartoons.
Contrasting platforms 2024:
The only choice?
What happened to the Bidenâs taking drugs narrative?
Monday will bring new horrors:
How it really works:
Few things are as difficult to swallow as Louisianaâs new policy:
Scrawling by a pavement Plato telling us what to do this fall:
Wrongo was asked if he thought the presidential debate would be watched by many Americans. Hereâs a report by CivicScience about the expected viewer demographics that show many will be tuning in:
âExclusive data from CivicScience reveal that just over 4-in-10 US adults plan to watch or listen to some or all of the debate as it broadcasts live on CNN next week, with an additional 12% intending to catch the debate after it airs. That brings total intended viewership to just over half of the population. The other half is split between those who will be following coverage of the event in the news and those who donât plan to follow the debate at all.â
Hereâs CivicScienceâs chart:
Note that there is zero data above for Independents or moderates. More from CivicScience:
Consumers who prefer to watch CNN for national news are the most likely to follow the debate live (59%), although Fox News viewers are not far behind (56%).
Wealthier earners ($100K or more yearly) are significantly more likely than lower-income earners ($50K or less yearly) to watch the live debate or follow the debate at all.
Americans who are concerned about inflation are twice as likely to tune into the live debate compared to those who are not concerned, ranking as the top election issue voters are following.
Less than a third of undecided voters (particularly younger ones) plan to watch the debate live, while a larger share will rely on social media clips and news coverage afterward. All that means is their perspective on the debate will be shaped by the people and outlets who curate their news for them. Thatâs the nature of politics today.
Younger audiences (under 35) are more likely than older adults to have cut the cord on cable for streaming, so they are the least likely (by a narrow margin) to watch the debate live. In fact, the percentage of the under-35 crowd who will watch or listen to the debate after it airs, or just plan to follow news about it instead, outnumbers those who plan to watch it live (see red dotted line box:
On to cartoons. Debate preview:
Should the GOP maybe reconsider their Biden attacks?
(There will not be a Monday Wake-up Call column this week)
The WaPo wrote about a recently-retired DC Circuit judge David Tatel, who had some harsh words for the current justices on the Supreme Court. Tatel says that he stepped down from the US Court of Appeals in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed:
â….by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which Iâve dedicated my life….It was one thing to follow rulings I believed were wrong when they resulted from a judicial process I respected. It was quite another to be bound by the decisions of an institution I barely recognized.â
More:
âTatelâs commentary is notable because he only recently left the bench, and because he prided himself on judicial restraint and for his friendships with judges nominated by Republican presidents while serving on the influential federal appeals court in DC.â
The majority of the justices on this Court have lost most, if not all, of their credibility. When you take money from vested interests with issues before the court, fly partisan flags on your homes and blame it on your wife, or when you state you will not overturn judicial precedent in your confirmation hearings, and then turn around and do just that – that is when you lose all credibility.
On to cartoons. It is difficult to know which is more stunning, the hypocrisy or the ignorance:
But letâs cast a vote for hypocrisy:
And still more hypocrisy:
Must keep our priorities in order:
If only:
Few of the WWII vets remain:
We may never again see this kind of heroism or putting country above self:
