NEW NORMALS: It's hard to know how this story will end!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2024

The world awaits news normals: We've been recalling what Viktor Laszlo says at one point in Casablanca.

Lazslo is an important, world-renowned freedom fighter. On the run from the Third Reich, he has landed in Casablanca—and, by happenstance, he has walked into a gin joint run by the sardonic man his beloved wife secretly loves.

The details of a complex love story slowly unfold from there. Midway through the film, Lazslo speaks frankly to the Bogart character, the man his beloved wife loves. 

Lazslo speaks to Mister Rick. When he does, he tells him this:

LAZSLO (1942): I know a good deal more about you than you suspect. I know, for instance, that you are in love with a woman.  It is perhaps a strange circumstance that we both should be in love with the same woman. 

The first evening I came into this cafe, I knew there was something between you and Ilsa. Since no one is to blame, I demand no explanation.

So says the freedom fighter, midway through the film 

By now, Lazslo has discerned the basic outline of what happened in Paris. He has asked his wife if she wants to tell him the story, but he hasn't insisted.

"No one is to blame," he now correctly says.

Casablanca places one of film's greatest love stories within the vastly larger context of a fight to save the world. The heroic Lazslo demands no explanation from the Bogart character. 

The brilliantly insightful story, leavened with spectacular uses of humor, continues on from there. With the help of the Bogart character, Lazslo escapes from Nazi-held Casablanca, still determined to save the world.

This very morning, we thought of what Lazslo said as we watched the Morning Joe gang giving voice to tribal regularity with respect to President Biden. 

President Biden has come under criticism for what happened this Tuesday. Early in Morning Joe's first hour, Mika demanded regularity from the Washington Post's Gene Robinson. 

We jotted down this part of their exchange:

MIKA (11/7/24): Was his presidency a failure?

ROBINSON: No. He was a very successful president.

In fairness to Robinson, Mika was plainly demanding that me make some such declaration.  Under the circumstances, Robinson may have felt that he pretty much had to comply.

That said, as in Casablanca, so too possibly here! In Casablanca, people like Lazslo (and his wife) were trying to save an existing world order as a slouching beast drew near. 

Imaginably, so too today, as the nation—and the world—await the highly likely unfolding of a whole new set of new normals.

What will President Trump do in this second term? There is no way to answer that question, Imaginably, though, prospects are remarkably dour.

In our view, major elements of President Biden's behavior helped bring us to this precarious place. That said, it seems to us that there's no one to blame—or at least, it seems to us that we can't blame President Biden himself, who seems to us to have undergone a loss of cognitive power.

Other people disagree with that assessment. To date, there has been virtually no attempt, within the mainstream press, to examine the question of President Biden's possible cognitive state.

Has the president been the victim of some sort of cognitive shortfall during his term in office? Is it possible that there was some attempt to hide some such state of affairs from the American public?

If you live in Red America, you've seen such assertions being made all through the past several years. If you live in Blue America, you've seen no attempt to address any such possible point of concern.

At some point, someone will probably venture forth with some reporting about this matter. We'll guess that Bob Woodward may be gathering information even as we speak—statements offered under embargo, awaiting some later release.

At present, some are saying that President Biden should have announced, after the 2022 midterm elections, that he wouldn't seek re-election. 

Our own frustration with the president's conduct is somewhat different. It involves his remarkable failure to confront the two basic issues which made it so hard for Candidate Harris to prevail as his replacement, once he'd been persuaded to step aside after his debate debacle in late June of this very year.

We refer again to President Biden's remarkable silence. To wit:

What explains President Biden's feckless behavior with respect to the southern border during the first three years of his term? As far as we know, the president has never made any attempt to explain.

(We'll be offering our own speculation within the next week.)

Also, what explained the economic situation which was confronting many voters as this year's election drew near? President Biden never made any serious attempt to address that situation either. In our view, the sitting president had virtually disappeared.

We're inclined to assume that President Biden was struggling with cognitive issues. (Others disagree.) This may explain why he made so little effort to speak about these major topics.

In that sense, there may be no one to blame for his failure to speak. No one to blame except, perhaps, the people around him.

That said, those of us in Blue America now face a dangerous state of affairs. We were sorry to see the way the Morning Joe gang seemed to feel they had to persist with the mandated statement about what a remarkably successful presidency this president has performed. 

Was President Biden a remarkably successful president? There may be no one to blame, but the extremely strange fourth year of his presidency has left the nation and the world in a perilous state,

In the past twenty-four hours, we've heard a lot of insightful assessments of how those of us in Blue America managed to get to this place. We'll start to review those assessments next week. 

Right now, on this very day, we'll merely offer this:

There may be no one to blame for the mess which finally became impossible to deny during that June 27 debate. There may be no one to blame for what may have happened to President Biden. 

Beyond that, no one knows where Tuesday's result will in fact lead the nation and the world. That said:

In our view, the nation is now in the hands of a badly disordered group of people. An obvious question remains in search of an answer:

"How did it [ever] get this far?" How did we ever get to this place?

This is a story without an ending, the Bogart character says at one point, midway through Casablanca

It was a story without an ending. So too today, as the nation, and the world, await an array of new normals.

This afternoon: Landslide elections v. this

81 comments:

  1. Re Trump’s election, it’s worth recalling the words of H. L. Mencken:

    “As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Forgive Trump, and wink at…I don’t know…Ginni Thomas.

      Delete
  2. Another Mencken quote that seems appropriate:

    “ Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    ReplyDelete
  3. New normals? No. Why is Somerby trying to normalize Trump?

    ReplyDelete
  4. A brief conversation with two liberal friends illustrates the difference between news sources. I mentioned DEI and race preferences. I said they were widespread. I said every government department had a DEI unit.

    One friend said that he understood that DEI was over. The other friend denied that race preferences exist.

    Note that we did not express disagreement regarding the desirability of preferences. We disagreed on what's happening in the real world -- something mostly based on what our media tell us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So it’s white male rapists, felons, and pathological liars forever. Hooray.

      Delete
    2. How much longer will it be till we see the 2024- Russia Did It conspiracy theory? Russia did it with the enlistment of white moms. Russia did it via Elon Musk’s mom. Anonymices must be clamoring for marching orders. . What’s taking the overlords so long?

      Delete
    3. Says the man pretending to be a woman. A man filled with hate even after their hero thoroughly “owned the libs”. A man whose undying urge for dominance is never satisfied. A tragic wounded lost soul, desperate for attention, out to spread the same misery they themselves suffer from.

      You put a serial rapist/sexual assaulter/failed businessman snake oil salesman in the office of our presidency. You own that, so enjoy the ensuing chaos.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 11:19am, are you so de-energized that you are recycling posts from several years ago?

      Delete
    5. Why you mad, bro?

      Delete
    6. DEI installed Kamala into the Vice Presidency and is also the reason Democrats were forced to allow her to lead the ticket this year.

      The collapse of the entire enterprise was the result, which should teach us all we need to know about DEI.

      Delete
    7. lame response Cecelia.

      Delete
    8. I believe the vote was rigged. Prove me wrong, Cecelia and DiC.

      Delete
    9. 2016 136.6 million
      2020 Over 144 million
      2024 140.6 million

      @10:40 Why would the total number of votes go up by a huge amount in 2020 then decline in 2024? I suspect 5 million bogus votes were included in the 2020 total. Prove me wrong.

      P.S. Quaker presented safeguards that are used to protect voting by mail or by dropbox. Note that these safeguards were not universal in 2020.

      Delete
    10. voter suppression, Dickhead.

      Delete
    11. Anonymouse 11:37am, you’ve made assertions based upon extrapolations and bargain basement political polemics and then you say “prove me wrong”. You’re not wrong or right. You’re mouthing off.

      Delete
    12. @11:59 Voter suppression doesn't account for the big drop in number of voters in 2024. Wasn't there also voter suppression in 2020? In fact, since Trump was President in 2020, wouldn't you think there might have been more voter suppression in 2020 than in 2024?

      Delete
    13. Anonymouse 11:40am, do you know why no one has asked you to prove your own charge? Because we understand that you’re just being a jerk.

      Delete
    14. No, Dickhead, the president doesn't control the state elections. That is why he was so pissed off in 2020. Because of Covid the states expanded mail in votes and early voting. States like GA and NC had a lot of time to fix that little problem. It's funny why trumplicans like you are always trying to suppress voting. I wonder why that is.

      Delete
    15. Trump and Republicans claimed fraud in 2020, and kept claiming it right up until Tuesday. And this after dozens of failed court cases trying to claim voter fraud, and outright lunacy, like space lasers and Chinese bamboo. DiC expressed doubt the other day that he could ever believe elections weren’t rigged…until the day before yesterday. I don’t see why Democrats shouldn’t simply adopt the gop strategy of making earnest/bullshit claims that the election was rigged, since debasing our institutions seems to work for the GOP. So when I say “prove me wrong”, I’m adopting the Trump/GOP stance, which was a genuine campaign tactic.

      Delete
    16. Except Bob called it the delusions of a pitiable mentally ill man.

      Delete
    17. The 2020 increase was due to less restrictions on voting via mail in ballots, a result of the pandemic being worse than it should have because Trump dismantled Obama's pandemic preparedness and pontificated insanely on lights and cleansers "being brought into the body".

      Republican's usual interference of voter suppression was nullified.

      This time around, Trump could not even match his vote count from 2020, when he lost badly, so this was a curious election driven primarily by EXTREMELY LOW AND ODD turnout by Dems.

      The Republicans won, yet the trolls here are still all butthurt, still not getting that emotional hit they ache for.

      Sadly, what they can get here is the attention they desperately seek, we really should be more disciplined about not responding to them, they will just fade away.

      Delete
    18. 11:37am, you’ve made assertions based upon extrapolations and bargain basement political polemics and then you say “prove me wrong”. You’re not wrong or right. You’re mouthing off.

      Cecelia, DiC has been saying some version of those words for the past 4 years and you never had shit to say about it. You apparently missed the irony. You are not too swift, eh?

      Delete
    19. Anonymouse 1:54pm, that’s very likely because I wasn’t interested in the subject under discussion or was having a back-and-forth with someone else.

      There’s also a difference between making a claim based upon what you find to be compelling fact/s, from making an accusation of malfeasance/criminality and then saying “prove me wrong”.

      Delete
    20. Are you dense, Cecelia? That is precisely what Dickhead in Cal has been saying for 4 years.

      Delete
    21. Anonymouse 2:32pm, I suspect that David has not been making charges of criminality and then shouting “prove me wrong” with nothing other than “.he/she/it sucks and this is what they always do”. I recently DID ask him to give evidence of claim he made, that he then admitted was mistaken. So there.

      Delete
    22. David has been telling us to prove the criminal acts of stuffing the ballot boxes didn't happen. Many times. You're full of shit.

      Delete
    23. Anonymouse 2:48pm, I don’t follow all your fights with David. I generally notice your cap filled, obscenely-laden ranting, and roll my eyes and move on. It is interesting that you get no chiding for THAT behavior, but “pull your panties out of your crack” is pornographic to anonymouse phonies.

      As to moving on from your psychotic raving, I’m going to keep doing that.

      Delete
    24. David presented 2000 Mules as evidence.

      Cecelia, stop calling other people psychotic and either discuss the topic or shut the fuck up.

      Delete
    25. Premature, David.

      The votes are not all tallied yet. I expect there will be something of a decline from 2020, but the precise size of the difference can't be known yet.

      Delete
    26. Good point, Quaker. When all the votes are tallied, it’s conceivable that the ultimate 2024 vote total might turn out to be as large as or larger than 2020.

      Delete
    27. Today's WaPo addresses the question:

      As of writing, Donald Trump’s lead in the national popular vote sits at about 5 million votes. This, combined with the fact that support for the Democratic candidate for president plunged from 81 million in 2020 to about 68 million — again as of writing — has triggered head-scratching among some supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. Was there something funky about the voting process after all, as Trump has suggested about 2020?


      Get the latest election news and results
      The answer now, as it was then, is no. The current vote totals are an artifact of the slow rate of vote-counting in California where millions of ballots remain to be tallied. The University of Florida’s Michael McDonald, who tracks turnout, estimates that the total number of votes will eventually land north of 158 million, about where it was four years ago.

      Delete
    28. "I suspect 5 million bogus votes were included in the 2020 total. Prove me wrong."

      David, they don't call you Dickhead-in-Cal for nothing. It's been proven, to the extent that a negative can be proven, over and over and over and over and over and over and over (repeat 27 more times) again.

      I linked you to the Pa. Sec. of State site that spelled out their security procedures.

      That you refuse to accept the evidence is disgraceful. You may be a fine and decent person but you think like a toad.

      Delete
  5. It’s the turnout, stupid.

    Typically, every subsequent presidential election entails a substantial increase in the number of voters voting, something around an increase of 7-10 million.

    This is primarily due to the fact that humans enjoy fucking over pretty much anything else, reasonably so (humans are innately more like bonobos than chimps). Fucking, fyi, can often lead to reproduction (one of the reasons why abortion is a moral imperative for a healthy, happy society). Stop the presses!

    This election, it seems like Trump won’t quite match the number of votes from 4 years ago, but Harris got 15 MILLION less votes than Biden did 4 years ago.

    There’s something fishy about that, to be sure, but notably, 4 years ago the barriers to actually vote were dramatically lessened, due to Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic leading to widespread use of mail in ballots.

    Most Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen, and are having trouble explaining why this election was not similarly stolen.

    There were a lot of bomb threats to voting outlets that lean heavily Black, although Harris got roughly the same percent of the Black vote that Dems traditionally get.

    There was no significant vote switching, persuasion played no role; Trump did not motivate a landslide, he could not even muster the same enthusiasm of 2020, when he resoundingly lost.

    Seemingly, Dems just did not go out and vote. Shenanigans? Probably. Republicans have been running on a platform of voter suppression/dirty tricks for decades.

    Could this circumstance possibly arise out of Biden’s supposed “feckless behavior” on immigration and lack of addressing economic concerns? Anything is possible, but Brother, please. This is a silly notion, offered with zero evidence or substantiation. (In reality, Biden was vilified by Republicans for doing TOO MUCH on immigration, Republicans even blocking their own legislative bill out of spite; furthermore, Biden oversaw one of the most significant economic recoveries in our lifetime.)

    It seems like Somerby has personal issues with immigration and the economy, but has yet to offer any explanation of his issues, just vague finger wagging.

    Somerby wants to blame Biden’s supposed cognitive decline, yet the candidate that suffered the greater and more obvious cognitive decline, won.

    Right wingers are captivated by a notion of cycles, of coming turmoil. This is because they are vaguely aware of their own circumstance of living off inherited generational wealth, and suffering from cyclical and generational trauma, that was put upon them, that then they turn around and put upon others.

    Society and humanity will continue to wallow in misery until this cycle is broken for good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I miss the marginally sane Marxist polemists of my youth. These new ones are complete goofs.

      Delete
    2. Lame response Cecelia. You don’t address a single point made by 11:04.

      Delete
    3. Anonymouse 11:42am, you aren’t making any points. You’re riffing. So am I. The difference being that I ascertain what constitutes riff.

      Delete
    4. There’s no riffing, just your noise. You have nothing to say.

      Delete
    5. Anonymouse 1:14pm, it’s all riff. It’s all prefaced on vague allegations of voter suppression, subjective feelings as to Trump’s actual appeal, some sort of Republican shenanigans, Bob not recognizing that Trump’s cognitive decline is worse than Biden’s, right wingers and generational trauma.

      How does anyone argue with this? You’ve put 2 + B together and equaled %#!. Duly noted.

      Delete
    6. 11:04's comment is based on data and science, which is why Cecelia can only offer bluster and ad hominem attacks.

      Delete
    7. You couldn’t accept that Biden had any appeal in 2020, so you and your Republican cohort invented vote-rigging conspiracies for 4 years. That is, unless you genuinely believe that our elections can be rigged. In which case, you very much should entertain the notion that voter suppression took place. That is, if you aren’t a hypocrite.

      Delete
    8. Comment at 1:39 directed at “Cecelia.”

      Delete
    9. Anonymouse 1:37pm, there’s not clear point to any of this blabber, let alone data and science. Maybe you could clean it up for her so it’s evident what all the heck she’s saying.

      Delete
    10. Cecelia putting his head in the sand, any of those points in that comment can be easily googled.

      All Cecelia has is bluster and ad hominem.

      Delete
    11. Anonymouse 1:39pm, I have always said that no evidence has been presented for voter fraud in 2020. That is true. Have I ruled out any possibility of it in my heart. I go back and forth occasionally. Have I made jokes based on the possibility of it. Yeah, it’s ripe for jokes. Do I find it compelling when you write that I “should very much entertain the notion that voter suppression took place”. No. There’s not a soul on earth who didn’t know that charge was coming.

      Delete
    12. So, based on your “vibes”, we should simply not examine the possibility of suppression or fraud in this election. OK.

      Delete
    13. Anonymouse 1:59pm, if you’re asking if could possibly entertain it if someone made a coherent and fact-based argument for it. Yes. Would I automatically assume that the suppression was caused by political plotting without that argument being based upon appeals to anything other than evidence? No.

      Delete
    14. It would have been nice if the majority of the Republican Party had demanded evidence for Trump’s claims of fraud. But the days of demanding facts from your Leader are gone. At least until a Democrat gets back in office.

      Delete
    15. The fact of vote suppression is obvious in the results themselves. They question is how and why it happened, not whether it happened. I can't tell if Cecelia understands that or not. Did people suppress their own votes by staying home, was it the bomb threats, or voter roll purges right before the election, or something else, and if so what?

      Cecelia, you do not need to participate in this conversation if you have nothing to say.

      Delete
    16. Anonymouse 3:11pm, I did/do have something to say and I answered direct questions that were put to me. If you object to sarcasm, oh, well.

      Delete
  6. 30% of black men in Texas voted for Trump.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How does that change anything? TX is red anyway.

      Delete

  7. "What will President Trump do in this second term?"

    What a stupid question. He'll make America great again; what else?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump will make Russia great again, at the expense of the US and the rest of the world, which is why the trolls are so gleeful.

      Delete
    2. First he will appoint a corrupt AG who will then dismiss the felony indictments he is fucking out on bail on. Then he will go about corruptly using the unlimited and thanks to the corrupt SC6 unchecked power of the presidency to revenge on his enemies. the end of democracy was voted in

      Delete
  8. The Daily Howler obliterates the boundaries between self and world by crushing the self besieged by the presence-absence of the world and it obliterates the boundaries between true and false by driving all lived truth below the real presence of fraud ensured by the organization of appearance. One who passively accepts his alien daily fate is thus pushed toward a madness that reacts in an illusory way to this fate by resorting to magical techniques. The acceptance and consumption of commodities are at the heart of this pseudo-response to a blog without response. The need to imitate which is felt by the reader is precisely the infantile need conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession. In the terms applied by Godel to a completely different pathological level, “the abnormal need for representation here compensates for a tortuous feeling of being on the margin of existence.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you don't know what you are talking about, please don't comment.

      Delete
    2. Anonymouse 2:03pm, I will when you will.
      You didn’t even read her post all the way thru.

      Delete
    3. The name Godel is mentioned once, but that doesn't explain what the paragraph is about. I think it is AI-generated gibberish, but it seemed polite to ask first. Cecelia grabs the appearance of that word and assumes something about Godel -- is it about him or did he write it, or what? That is incredibly lazy thinking, of the sort that Somerby himself does when he grabs out of context quotes and muses about them, like his reference to Casablanca today -- which has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 3:08pm, Bob has written many posts on Gödel and incomprehension as to his writings. It was joke as to that. I shouldn’t have made assumptions as to the length of your time here.

      Delete
    5. Could I get some croutons to go with that?

      Delete
    6. QiB, I am clued in on a specific Bobism that the anonymouse might not know about.

      Delete
    7. Somerby whispering again.

      Delete
    8. Anonymouse 6;39pm, Bob has never whispered when he has directly said, many times, that Gödel is almost impossible to comprehend in his books.

      You never read Bob’s blog, so you didn’t know.

      Delete
  9. Yes, the media really is the "enemy camp".

    Yesterday an anonymouse posted
    Trump said: “I told JD to go into the enemy camp. He just goes: OK. Which one? CNN? MSNBC? He’s like the only guy who looks forward to going on, and then just absolutely obliterates them.”

    Trump is exactly right. Vance often faced interviewers who tried to embarrass him by asking adverse questions, based on false premises or other curve balls. Each time, Vance hit the ball out of the park. He clearly explained the flaw in the question, explained the real situation, and turned the discussion to where he wanted, the economy.

    These interviews were popular on YouTube. It was like watching someone fight back against a bully and defeat him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you like what’s coming, David, because you’re going to get it, good and hard.

      Delete
    2. Anonymouse 1:26pm, what do you mean?

      Delete
    3. For one thing, yet another recession brought to you by the Republican Party, same as usual.

      Delete
    4. The Mencken quote I posted above: “ Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

      Trump’s “plans” or “concepts of plans” will devastate the economy, among other things. His threats to businesses to fall in line, of which DeSantis/Disney and the caving of Bezos re his refusal to allow the Post to endorse a candidate (it would have endorsed Harris), are precursors of the fascism to come.

      Delete
    5. And to add to 1:51, one can hardly call it "democracy" with so few people voting.

      Delete
    6. I wonder if David receives social security. That might be one of the things Republicans attack.

      Delete
    7. Oh, don't worry, Dickhead in Cal has been collecting SS checks for close to two decades. He's not worried because he knows any cuts coming won't impact those already on SS. He is in favor of cuts for everyone else.

      Delete
    8. To tell you the truth. I favor cutting Ss benefits for all, or at least stop increasing them. My wife and I receive enough SS to support a family. This money comes directly from working people, who are less wealthy than retirees on average.

      Delete
    9. There goes the middle class, David. Most retirees are not wealthy, and you oppose the idea of cost of living increases?

      Delete
    10. Cut the bullshit, Dickhead. You and I both know it is politically impossible to cut current retiree's benefits.

      By the way, I have been meaning to ask you since you live in NCAL, do you know where that giant faucet is that trump has been whining about? Go fuck yourself, Dickhead. You have voted for fascism. Ironic, isn't it?

      Delete
    11. How will it be politically impossible if Republicans gain control of both the House and Senate?

      David is wrong that social security comes from working families. It comes from the payments we made when we were working ourselves. How the government has played games with those funds over the years is their business and a separate issue.

      If young families had to support their grandparents and deal with the medical needs of the elderly, yes they would have built-in babysitters for a while, but ultimately it would be an unsustainable drain on everyone, to the point where paying for the needs of children and homeownership and living expenses would be greatly impacted. David IS a grandparent so he wouldn't care, but younger people should.

      Delete
    12. "David is wrong that social security comes from working families. It comes from the payments we made when we were working ourselves."

      Mark down this day as historic, for I shall make a pronouncement never before made in these pages. Ahem:

      David is right.

      What you speak of is the Social Security trust fund. It does indeed contain billions of dollars of credits for payroll taxes collected in excess of expenditures over many years.

      That said, it does not fund all of, or even the majority of current benefit payments. That comes from current workers and taxpayers.

      Now as far as David's suggestion that all Social Security recipients should see a reduction of benefits, I have to disagree. While David and his spouse may have other resources to fund a comfortable lifestyle, the same can't be said of everyone who gets a monthly check.

      The idea of means testing has been floated for years, but it always runs up against resistance, usually from folks in David's income bracket who may not need the extra income but who feel as if they deserve it in return for taxes paid during their working years.

      Anyway. Carry on.

      Delete