Quotes of note:

[Crafty_Dog]

"Amazing how the septuagenarians and octogenarians in the Democrat party are willing to break faith on a decades-long commitment to the security of Israel because a bunch of know-nothing college kids and chuckleheaded academics have joined with a small foreign contingent in the party -- many of whom can't even vote -- to mau-mau them into obedience."

My understanding is the larger factor is the substantial arab/muslim vote in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey.

[Body-by-Guinness]

"Amazing how the septuagenarians and octogenarians in the Democrat party are willing to break faith on a decades-long commitment to the security of Israel because a bunch of know-nothing college kids and chuckleheaded academics have joined with a small foreign contingent in the party -- many of whom can't even vote -- to mau-mau them into obedience."

My understanding is the larger factor is the substantial arab/muslim vote in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey.

Perhaps for Biden and those who count electoral college votes for him, but congress’s concerns are far more parochial and hence far more likely to be impacted by the local Mau-Maus.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Matt Taibbi was asked “why doesn’t he pay much attention to the sins (or threats) from “the right”?”

He gave a great answer:

Why I don’t spend a lot of time on the Republicans:

1) There is a enormous army of MSM reporters already going after them from every angle, with most major news organizations little more than proxies for the DNC, to the point where stations hire Biden spokespeople as anchors;

2) The Republicans have very little institutional power nationally. It’s not their point of view prevailing in schools, on campuses, in newsrooms (where over 90% of working reporters vote blue), and especially in the intelligence and military apparatus, which has openly aligned itself with Democrats. Even if Donald Trump were a “threat to Democracy” he lacks the institutional pull to do much damage, which can’t be said of Democrats;

3) The Democrats’ ambitions are significantly more dangerous than those of the Republicans. From digital surveillance to censorship to making Intel and enforcement agencies central players in domestic governance — all plans being executed globally as well as in our one country — they are thinking on a much bigger and more dangerous scale than Republicans. I lived in third world countries and the endless criminal indictments of people like Trump and ongoing lawfare efforts to prevent even third party challenges are classic authoritarian symptoms. The Republicans aren’t near this kind of capability;

4) Last and most important, the Democrats are being organized around a more potent but also much dumber, more cultlike ideology. People like Yuval Harari and his Transhumanist “divinity” concept scare me a lot more than the Rs, and I was once undercover in an apocalyptic church in Texas. Ask your average Russian or Cuban what overempowered pseudo-intellectuals are capable of.

I have a pretty good record of picking dangerous phenomena ahead of time. I feel confident on this one, and that’s before we get to the demographic/class shifts in the parties.

Full piece here:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/matt-taibbi-was-asked-why-doesnt-he-pay-much-attention-to-the-sins-or-threats-from-the-right/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=matt-taibbi-was-asked-why-doesnt-he-pay-much-attention-to-the-sins-or-threats-from-the-right

[Body-by-Guinness]

Samizdata quote of the day – the toppling of the woke authoritarians

Wokeism. Climate extremism. Kindly authoritarianism. This is now the operating system of Western, ‘centrist’ politics. Take Joe Biden, America’s somnambulant president. At the 2020 election, even anti-woke liberals insisted this scion of the old Democratic establishment – a man so old he can’t even be slurred as a Boomer (he’s actually Silent Generation) – was the man to return America to normality, before the BLM riots and MAGA mania. ‘If you hate wokeness, you should vote for Joe Biden’, declared a piece in the Atlantic, arguing that Trump is to the culture war what kerosene is to a dumpster fire, fueling the woke extremes. That take has aged like milk. On his first day in office, Biden signed sweeping Executive Orders on ‘racial equity’ and gender ideology. He later tried to apportion Covid relief on the basis of race. He’s a Net Zero zealot. He has allowed the justice system to be weaponised against his opponents. He invited Dylan Mulvaney to the White House, FFS. Biden’s return to ‘normalcy’ has been so successful millions of Americans are starting to wonder if Donald Trump might actually be the saner choice.

https://www.samizdata.net/2024/05/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-the-toppling-of-the-woke-authoritarians/