I harbor no illusions about how shitty the next year is gonna be with a declining and addled POTUS and his evil henchmen (are there any of the kind of henchmen) one mid-term electoral defeat away from an avalanche of oversight. But today we mark in celebration.
Zohran Mamdani has freedom that nearly every high-profile pol doesn't: he has no Presidential aspirations because he's ineligible to win the office. So he doesn't have to pander or triangulate. One of the remarkable aspects of his mayoral campaign in New York is the consistency of his messaging - perhaps matched only by his seemingly genuine affection for all the people of his city.
Here's the speech he gave after he won last night. You really should make time to watch it.
And for good measure, here's the righteous Billy Bragg sharing Woody Guthrie's evergreen message.
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one final virginia election note. every single county in the commonwealth moved towards the dems in the gubernatorial election as compared with 2021. virginia fucking hates trump.
ReplyDeleteI think a couple of the southside counties trended slightly trumpier, no? Still a pretty clear repudiation.
ReplyDeletewapo says every county shifted blue, even the deep red parts of the state. even if not, i choose to believe it.
ReplyDeleteI’m very pumped about the result, but every silver lining has a touch of grey, and now Virginia braces itself for the federal clampdown on our little commonwealth. Let’s see what you got, Donnie.
ReplyDeleteIn these days of evil presidents…
Anger can be power…
Working hard in Petersburg…
Henry Rollins was right, this is what Joe Strummer trained us for.
I still don't understand how so many people in 2024 looked back at 2020 and said "Yeah, I want four more years of that." And now they're surprised that 2025 sucks?
ReplyDeleteMy daughter’s middle school soccer coach decided to carry 21 players and thus has to play all of them for at least a little bit. This includes a backup goalie who has never played goalie and, to put it kindly, lacks effort. Said goalie and backups gave up two goals within 5 minutes of the half of a 2-2 game tonight. The coach promptly pulled the backups. Too late. Lost 4-2. Meanwhile the kids who just aren’t good enough (we were undefeated last year with a much smaller roster) have parents screaming about playing time. We are talking lots of screaming. This isn’t fucking little league.
ReplyDeleteIn better news, my kid was nails on defense. She’s not the biggest or the fastest but she’s strong as hell and ever increasingly comfortable with using that strength.
To expand on your point, z, I will be forever bumfuzzled that after Trump's first term, 11.3 million more voters said, 'Yes, sign me up for four more years of that' than voted for him in 2016. And 3.1 million more people voted for him in 2024 than in 2020.
ReplyDeleteAnd Mark, to echo rob and others, it would be a huge benefit if we could keep most parents away from youth sports.
Much better result tonight. The bench players played the entire first half so the loud parents were quiet, though we were only up 1-0 at half. Starters came in and mercy ruled the opponent in the second half.
ReplyDeleteI’d love to think the bench parents got a little clarity tonight but I know better.
Also, my wife is at Epcot food and wine for the weekend. Hopefully she doesn’t get arrested like Alex Morgan.
ReplyDeleteHope you don't have to post bail, Mark.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is my wife's birthday. We're celebrating by driving up to see FOGTB Weenie to look at a car. We thought our kid in Cincinnati would be able to manage via transit, but it's not realistic with his schedule.
He's got a used outback that we're going to look at, but we could end up on the slippery slope to buying a new car. I have lots of conflicting feelings about that.