"It is the face — your friend confides in you: They did nothing. They go, bro... I didn't open the book. 'Cause this was me in school. Like I didn't open a book. And then they'd call me, and they'd be like: Mr. Dillon, what do you think? And I'd go: I'm trying to create an opportunity economy. Like, I'd say shit kind of like her. She still won't study. Like, she's running for president. She's still won't really even — which is what I like about it! If she was like really trying, I'd find it disturbing. The fact that she's kind of half-assing it on the biggest stage — there is no bigger stage.... She's kind of half-assing it on the largest stage. And... I wanna hang out with her. I wanna have drinks with her. I think she'd be a fun person. 'Cause a few years from now, she's just gonna be somebody fun in California.... She's gonna be like: Remember what I was? They tried to make me President. And we're all gonna laugh about it.... There's so, so much hot-under-the-collar anger at her... but we can't forget that this is essentially just a person who had no idea any of this was going to happen.... She never thought that it was going to happen the way that it happened.... And, she refuses to study. She will not open the book."
ADDED: I listened to that as I was out on a walk, but the post I had meant to write — just before I gave in to the whim to do a walk — was based on Maureen Dowd's new column, "Where Is the Fierce Urgency of Beating Trump?" (NYT). And now that I'm getting back to it, it feels like the same idea as Dillon's, just way more polite. Dowd says:
[Kamala Harris] needs to make the case for herself more assertively.It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done. The Vision Thing. Even when getting softballs from supportive TV hosts, Harris at times seemed unsure of how to answer.
ALSO: Here's the Tim Dillon monologue in video form:
Our youngest, just turned 34, tells me us old folk are WAY underestimating podcasts and other methods of reaching out to younger voters. He credits podcasts with WAY more power in voting than so-called "influencers". He also told me the Trump sneakers that were laughed at were a brilliant move. Apparently there are many thousand "sneaker heads" out there. And while many can not afford the top vintage Nikes OR Trumps golden kicks, they want them. He swears they will be valuable collectors items very soon. Laugh away old timers (like me). Trump was just on the "Flagrant" podcast. They are comedians by trade. Trump had them rolling.
There must be something that Tim Dillon actually cares about. Money, status, power, and pleasure, I suppose. Odd that he sees no connection between a potential Harris victory and significant problems with satisying his hungers for those things. I guess I'm just one of those "hot under the collar" types who harsh Timmy's vibe. We might just elect as President the laziest dumbest rock in the class.
Why would anybody be happy that someone they see as a total slacker is one of the candidates for the most important executive job in the country? He characterizes her as someone who refuses to do the studying needed to get the job, essentially a DEI hire who has never been required to do anything except show up as a woman of color. Maybe his perspective is, "Hey, I'm a screwed-up slacker, but I'm not as much of a screwed-up slacker as she is, and it will be entertaining to watch her screw up." Sadly, as we've seen over the past four years, having someone like Biden in the Oval Office has come at a dreadful cost, both to our country and the world, both in blood and treasure. Harris would be even worse, even if she was just another puppet for the Deep State.
Thanks for this tidbit -- its an interesting perspective I haven't heard before.
This blog is really extraordinary. Uniformly interesting bits and pieces presented with little or no rancor and steely honesty. There is almost nothing like it on the rest of the internet.
Young people have been told for far too long that the sky is falling. They’ve been fed a steady diet of ecological disaster doom and gloom since they were kids. Well if we’re headed for extinction, why not have some fun along the way?
It reads like Dillon thinks that Harris is self-sabotaging, and Dillon is perfect fine with that. My sense is that Harris is a nervous wreck and deep down she knows she isn’t up to the job of President and is just going through the motions.
Trump is known to eschew preparation for things like debates, intel and security briefings. He wouldn’t even read his daily intelligence briefs when he was president. Talk about not doing one’s homework. He’s claimed that all it takes for him to expound intelligently on any subject is just a few minutes of being exposed to the subject matter.
“Trump worshiper: The American people, I think, a lot of them want to know, how do you come by your decisions, and how do you manage in the Oval Office?
Donald: Well, I think that I learned, like I talked about the truckers, I learned about trucks and by talking to them, in five minutes I knew as much as I'm going to have to know to make decisions that are going to be earth-shattering for transportation, for moving cargo and moving a lot of other things.“
Eva Marie said... Young people have been told for far too long that the sky is falling. They’ve been fed a steady diet of ecological disaster doom and gloom since they were kids. Well if we’re headed for extinction, why not have some fun along the way?
Are young people being told something we weren't? It has always been doom and gloom. Sometimes in the past it really was. But on balance, things are better now than say in the last hundred years nevermind further past. In the meantime all of us individually headed for extinction so now and, lets have some fun on the way.
Inga I lived through eight years of Obama, four years of Trump and four years of Biden. Of the sixteen years, the Trump years were the best. The economy was far better, foreign issues weren't so acute, my taxes were lowered and by any objective economic scale my country as a whole was doing better. Tell me exactly why voting for Harris and Democrats is a winning move for the country as a whole when we have an immediate contrast between the two parties.
Harris is known in DC, even by Democrats, as being lazy and not putting in the work. It's why she can't even speak of her own policies without a teleprompter. And as I recall, Trump's foreign policy worked out fairly well.
Dillon is a slacker apparently relishing the look on the another slacker’s face when they’ve been called out. If you’re a slacker, it’s ok for you to embrace that joy, no matter the circumstances. Why would anyone want to graduate from middle school?
“One of the most closely guarded and worst-kept secrets of Donald Trump’s presidency is his extraordinary laziness. Despite efforts to project a manly ardor, the current leader of the free world spends most of his free time tweeting, calling friends, and watching Fox News. Of his 745 days in office, Trump has spent 222 days unwinding at Trump-branded properties and 168 days golfing. According to the testimony of numerous West Wing staffers, he struggles to focus in meetings, largely ignores intelligence briefings, and tunes out policy minutiae. Once, according to former White House aide Cliff Sims, Trump literally got up and wandered away while Paul Ryan was in the Oval Office attempting to explain the Republican health-care bill. While Ryan was still talking, Trump walked down the hall to his private dining room and turned on the TV.“
The problem, Inga, is that Trump has been president and he did a good job of it. So these kinds of criticism are off the table--they're meaningless.
Harris has not been president and she hasn't succeeded in any notable way at anything she's done. So, for her, the laziness critique carries some weight.
It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done. The Vision Thing.
No, it’s not hard. Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t have a “Vision Thing.” Maybe she got where she’s at by being a loyal foot soldier with the right skin color.
Marvelous! Simply marvelous! A Peter Principle candidate who is a nervous wreck and possibly a boozer, might well become president while being a puppet to other DEI hires and incompetents.
[Kamala Harris] needs to make the case for herself more assertively.It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done.
There's two possible answers to that: 1: She's just another Jill Biden. She wants to ride around in the motorcades, flying in Air Force One, and be above everyone else.. She doesn't care about the actual "being President"
2: She knows what she wants to do. And she knows that telling teh truth would cause her to lose. So she can't answer those questions
Cubanbob on says: “Are young people being told something we weren't?” I think yes. It started with the population explosion destroying the planet and it hasn’t let up. Humans are bad for the planet has been the relentless message.
"There must be something that Tim Dillon actually cares about. Money, status, power, and pleasure, I suppose. Odd that he sees no connection between a potential Harris victory and significant problems with satisying his hungers for those things. I guess I'm just one of those "hot under the collar" types who harsh Timmy's vibe. We might just elect as President the laziest dumbest rock in the class"
It's like a high school student body election. Trump's the jock, and Harris is the "popular" gal.
Ever notice how when Inga can’t muster a coherent counter argument she reflexively reverts to the “Trump is a poopy-head” form of persuasion? She could easily be a Kamala strategist.
“ It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done.”
Dowd is laboring under the misconception that Harris is the one who gets to make those decisions.
After that steamy rehash the other day of Inga’s hornacious exchange with Ritmo (I think), Inga may be better suited to write shitty porn like Stacey “Tank” Abrams.
Dillon can't wait to have a drink with her in Cali. Implied is that he knows she won't win. Kamala is basically Travis Birkenstock, someone you like and pity at the same time.
"It reads like Dillon thinks that Harris is self-sabotaging, and Dillon is perfect fine with that. " People, people, people.... Dillon is a comedian. Read his words with that in mind.
JAORE “[Our youngest] also told me the Trump sneakers that were laughed at were a brilliant move. Apparently there are many thousand ‘sneaker heads’ out there.”
So yesterday’s Hummel figurine collectors have morphed into today’s Sneaker Heads.
When I was a kid, we practiced ducking and covering under our desks in school as a response to a nuclear attack. I don't remember this ruining anybody's life.
I think Kamala is the refinement of the Democrats way to win power. Run on vibes, good media support, don't worry about financial issues, just roll out money. Except this hasn't really worked very well. Run as moderates, but rule as extreme lefties. Infiltrate the institutions, so you don't have to actually do much, as they will run themselves very lefty. (This is great when they lose, because the institutions keep going left...DHS under Trump created the CBP One border app, for example. Do you think Trump or anyone knew about this?)
Trump also is doing some of this, too, throwing out gimme policies.
Because elections are additive. You need to take your base, and then add voters by going to the center. Trump pushes spending. Kamala pushes bullshit that she is pro-gun, or changed her mind on immigration, etc.
When they are elected the smoke and mirrors disappear, more or less.
This is why Kamala wanted to be vague. Because for Obama that worked really well. Each person could decide he was for THEIR policies.
Trump is also doing a little of this.
Its very normal centrist politics.
If you don't like this, its because you realize we're not in normal times, and we're probably entering a period where serious cuts or taxes have to be done. And probably cuts - you can't afford barnacles on your ship when its sinking.
@jaydub, yep. And the reality is that we do-called “Trump worshippers” agree that Trump is imperfect — we can stipulate that Trump is imperfect. But Harris is much worse. Much, much worse. She is not as intelligent as he is, she’s not able to deal with unexpected (or even unscripted) events, and her policies are more inimical to middle and working class families. There is nothing about her whatsoever to admire, or even to like.
"Once, according to former White House aide Cliff Sims, Trump literally got up and wandered away while Paul Ryan was in the Oval Office attempting to explain the Republican health-care bill."
Damn, Inga, you don't have to keep selling me on Trump- I and most of the commenters here are already voting or him!
"And, she refuses to study. She will not open the book."
This is exactly what I've been saying. She can't even be bothered to memorize the policies that her campaign is saying are "her policies." Whenever anyone asks her a direct question about what her policy on something is, she deflects and goes into word salad.
The attempts at calling Trump lazy are obviously contradicted by the evidence of our own eyes - the man's an irrepressible whirlwind. I can list several defects in Trump's personality, but laziness isn't on the list.
Party bosses picked her BECAUSE she could fill the role of empty headed incompetent figure head. It’s the one area where she shines.The last thing they was an independent thinking person who wouldn’t need them. That’s why Democrats weren’t allowed to choose their nominee.
tim maguire Tim Dillon wants the most important, powerful, and consequential job in the world to go to someone who wants it desperately and yet won’t work for it…
He sounds like the perfect Harris voter. 10/12/24, 3:11 PM
Nah, sounds like he considering running in 28. Kamala set the standard for qualifications.
Different survival responses. For Trump it's fight or flight. But for Harris it's the freeze response: stay immobile, hide or “play dead” until the danger passes.
The dullard just cannot fathom how Trump made all that money in a competitive industry. Maybe he knows something about life ? Nah, that couldn't be it.
Inga simply is incapable of understanding how Trump made the country so good. It took the Chinese virus and "81 million votes" or at least 81 million ballots to end that good time.
No, imposter syndrome is when you actually are highly skilled but feel that you have been given a position without really deserving it. It's when the person is smart and talented but has self doubt because the job they are doing does not seem that difficult even though everyone else complains about how hard it is. It makes them think they must be doing it wrong, that they're a fake.
See - Inga can' find an upside to Kamalala. Willie Brown did. How is it that a Phd. research scientist's child had a 'working class' background? Anyhow, here's Judge Joe's take, and he lived it in L.A.
Mason G said: “When I was a kid, we practiced ducking and covering under our desks in school as a response to a nuclear attack. I don't remember this ruining anybody's life.” As a result, look how much fear and dread we instilled in our kids.
Well Inga, I'm sitting here remembering the rally push that Trump put out in 2020, when his animal energy was put to the task of cranking out rally after rally after rally after rally, and poor old Joe was hiding in his basement. And all of the people in the press corp couldn't keep up, and most of the people around him go out of the way to comment on his drive. You really do come up with the most crap. I guess you're just going to go on imagining things all the way to election day, but what will you do if he wins?
"The big names of the Democratic Party are not campaigning for her. Plenty of House and Senate members do not want to be seen with her. When she went on "The View" and was asked if she would have done anything differently than Joe Biden over the last four years, she said she would not. Her loyalty is commendable, but it just might cost her.
On Stephen Colbert's show, Colbert asked Harris how the next four years will be different from the last, and she gave the most convoluted word salad uttered by a presidential candidate since Ted Kennedy got asked by Roger Mudd in 1979 why he wanted to be President."
So, somebody else is saying that Trump did something that a third person found outrageous.
The track record on such derivative bullsh*t about Trump is running at about 5% proved truthful, and that's being generous, and 95% proven to be completely made-up to score political points.
Maybe Harris doesn't really want to win. I would assume that the understanding between her and whatever people are actually semi-running the country is that she would also be a figurehead. And given that there would be no changes in policy, a "President Harris" could end up being the face of an economic collapse, a civil war, and a nuclear war with Russia, while having no actual power to do anything about any of the three (and, to be fair, probably no ideas, either). What is the upside for her? If she doesn't win, she can make bank from a ghostwritten memoir and count on having media people fawn all over her for the rest of her life. Maybe Harris realizes that rather than being "positioned for success," she is being set up to be the scapegoat, the person responsible for the destruction of America as we know it and therefore viscerally hated by tens of millions of people (with no counterbalancing millions of people who love her), and no personal fortune with which to protect herself. I would find a way not to win if I were in her position. I wonder if Harris has come to the same realization as the director of the Secret Service*, who resigned, I think, because she realized that she had just come an inch away from never feeling safe for the rest of her life. Whatever she discovered in the first few days of the fake "investigation" convinced her that she'd been set up to take the fall for that extremely well-planned "incompetence" in Butler, PA, and only crazy good luck or a miracle kept hers from being the face of the institution that had deliberately brought about the death of a presidential candidate. She may have been an insufficiently qualified DEI hire, but she wasn't stupid, so she got out of Dodge as fast as she could.
*There's no evidence that she was forced out. Everyone was defending her in public, and none of the other incompetents in the Biden administration have ever faced consequences for any of their failures--not even the generals who left a billion dollars of equipment to the Taliban, or "Mayor Pete" who sucks so badly that people actually know who the Secy. of Transportation is.
I suppose if Taylor Swift or Patrick Mahomes were running for president, one could get away with saying "I like her/him. He/she makes me happy. He/she has my vote," but why support someone who's been in politics for years and has no achievements to show for it? You no longer have the excuse that Harris may have great political and administrative talents that she hasn't had the opportunity to use.
Maybe the key here is that Tim Dillon hates Trump, so anybody running against DJT gets his vote and the reasons come afterwards. Ten years ago, Donald Trump might have seemed as out of place in politics as Swift or Mahomes, but he wasn't Hillary Clinton, so he had my vote. I had other reasons for my vote other than just him making me happy, though.
At this point, the only people who think it's "fiercely urgent" to defeat Trump are Democrats, the permanent government, and the media. Recognize now that the reasons for electing Harris are so few and so frail that Trump might as well be the next president.
My weird informant, whom I don't trust completely (so YOU certainly shouldn't trust him), the person who told me that Harris has a serious problem with THC gummies, said that before the facelift/plastic surgery in 2020, Harris was really, really good-looking, one of those people who looks MUCH better in person than you expect from having seen pictures. If he's right, then her fundamental role is that of the Cheer Captain /Very Pretty Girl who has had so many things handed to her so frequently that doesn't realize how much has been handed to her. She won't crack a book to study or put in effort on the job because she has never had to before, and look where she is! Indeed, she is inwardly laughing at the friends and advisors for worrying too much. It will all work out (i.e., someone will give her what she wants) just as it always has. She thinks people have always been engaged by her half-assed efforts, her fake accents, fake empathy, etc., because they have always acted as if they were, but they were really just responding to physical beauty, which fades. I wonder if the addiction to gummies was not from post-plastic-surgery pain, but from how she looked in the mirror--remember how weird and puffy she looked when she suddenly had to go on TV in the aftermath of the Floyd Riots.
What Yancey said. I’m sure Trump figured Ryan out in about 20 seconds. It’s funny how the previous masters and killers of democracy are worshipped by the leftists bellowing for war.
What Yancey said. I’m sure Trump figured Ryan out in about 20 seconds. It’s funny how the previous masters and killers of democracy are worshipped by the leftists bellowing for war.
Do you have a source for Harris's plastic surgery? I have a memory of seeing her bandaged up because she was unexpectedly called on to comment on some breaking news, perhaps the Floyd riots?
"Maybe Harris doesn't really want to win." I don't think she even wanted to run. When Joe was exposed, the Democrat 'braintrust' descended into DC from Hawaii, Chappaqua and Cali, and they all locked onto Kamala. I can just hear them insist 'we'll help you, Kam, A - Z, blah blah even after you're elected'. All bullshit, but there she is, all alone, clueless and panicked.
"She's kind of half-assing it on the largest stage . . . she refuses to study. She will not open the book . . . hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done . . . Harris at times seemed unsure of how to answer."
Right. Even progs recognize the vacuous vapidity. The emptiness, the unseriousness is all there is. But it is an advantage: she's easier to manipulate as figurehead by serious progs, and it allows nice anti-Trump voters to project their preferences onto her.
Harris is an empty suit. And always has been. She got zero votes in 2020 primaries and was handed the Calf Sentate seat and AG job on a silver plater in one-party, deep blue California. She's been AWOL as VP for 3 1/2 years. Unlike Obama, who went to Columbia/Havard Law (Yale?) Harris went to Howard and UC-Hasting Law school. And was not a brilliant student at either place.
She's an affirmative action baby. That's reason 1 why she's not more "assertive". The 2nd is she's a leftwinger, San francisco variety, and if she was more vocal about her policies, she would lose votes. So, the MSM protects her, writes puff pieces, and they keep her under wraps. Look for all the dumb independents who vote for her in November, to be gnashing their teeth in 2025 when the "real Kamala" has power.
I only watched a minute or two, but it seems like the criticism that Dillon is supporting Harris is simply wrong. He's pointing out, with some amusement, that she is a pretender, and not even a very good one. She gets away with it because she's pretty and the cool kids like her.
He's a comedian who comments on politics. If Jon Stewart said the same thing, and made one of his faces, the implication would be obvious.
Harris reminds me of a LOT of people of her cohort - prosperous progressive liberal middle-aged folks - who are mediocre pencil-pusher middle-management executives who don't produce or effectively improve any product, system, or service. For example, a college administrator, earning 6-figure multi-benefit salary, responsible for political correctness in curriculum or institutional policy, attending meetings, conferences, and conventions, overseeing studies and reports, all ultimately meaningless, or worse, promulgating more middle-management administrators to further stymie actual productive GMP growth.
Dillon's observation that Harris doesn't seem sufficiently motivated to win presidency seems accurate assessment. Harris, as others note, is innately lazy person who has benefited from traditional sugar daddy favoritism and enacted progressive DEI policies.
As a black Stanford professor's daughter, Harris failed to gain admission to Stanford, whether on the weighted preference of racial minority, legacy admission, or professor's offspring. Nope, she went to Howard, which is a 3rd-tier college, then to UC San Francisco, a 3rd-tier law school. She's no intellectual, and by demeanor, neither a "smart" nor "serious" person. Harris strikes me as the Stepford Wife candidate, the middle-aged trim tennis-mom of upper-middle class suburbs across America, another AWFL, touting her progressive-liberal sound-bites as political policy dictum without understanding how to implement nor govern.
Former Illinois resident wrote: "...mediocre pencil-pusher middle-management executives who don't produce or effectively improve any product, system, or service." This is spot on. Harris perfectly represents the sort of people who have destroyed / are destroying our institutions: middle-management intelligence (or lower), middle-management vision (or narrower) but promoted into upper management jobs that they can't perform. They all jabber out similar word salad whenever under the slightest bit of stress, too. The fundamental problem is that they have no synthesizing ability, so they just cannot be made to understand the concept of trade-off. They will therefore latch on like a limpet to some overly simple slog or metric or policy and destroy the institution because the ONLY move they know is to double down on what wasn't working in the first place. These are the people who fired all the art museum docents for being middle-aged white ladies (working for free!) and then discovered that there wasn't a queue of diverse people lining up to do the work for free, and that they'd managed to make things worse for EVERYONE (including the people they supposedly wanted to benefit). They are the same people who spent the decade leading up to Covid insisting the students be accommodated for every imaginable behavior quirk in addition to every possible illness but then dropped ALL of that "sensitivity to difference" stuff when it came time to insist that people slap masks on their faces (autism, hypersensitivity, breathing issues or no) and get inadequately tested shots (auto-immune diseases, sensitivities, previous bad reactions be damned).
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We live in a world of idiots who become famous for nothing.
Our youngest, just turned 34, tells me us old folk are WAY underestimating podcasts and other methods of reaching out to younger voters. He credits podcasts with WAY more power in voting than so-called "influencers". He also told me the Trump sneakers that were laughed at were a brilliant move. Apparently there are many thousand "sneaker heads" out there. And while many can not afford the top vintage Nikes OR Trumps golden kicks, they want them. He swears they will be valuable collectors items very soon.
Laugh away old timers (like me).
Trump was just on the "Flagrant" podcast. They are comedians by trade. Trump had them rolling.
democrats …
We are no longer a serious country. Hard times are coming, no matter who wins the election.
There must be something that Tim Dillon actually cares about. Money, status, power, and pleasure, I suppose. Odd that he sees no connection between a potential Harris victory and significant problems with satisying his hungers for those things. I guess I'm just one of those "hot under the collar" types who harsh Timmy's vibe.
We might just elect as President the laziest dumbest rock in the class.
Why would anybody be happy that someone they see as a total slacker is one of the candidates for the most important executive job in the country? He characterizes her as someone who refuses to do the studying needed to get the job, essentially a DEI hire who has never been required to do anything except show up as a woman of color. Maybe his perspective is, "Hey, I'm a screwed-up slacker, but I'm not as much of a screwed-up slacker as she is, and it will be entertaining to watch her screw up." Sadly, as we've seen over the past four years, having someone like Biden in the Oval Office has come at a dreadful cost, both to our country and the world, both in blood and treasure. Harris would be even worse, even if she was just another puppet for the Deep State.
Thanks for this tidbit -- its an interesting perspective I haven't heard before.
This blog is really extraordinary. Uniformly interesting bits and pieces presented with little or no rancor and steely honesty. There is almost nothing like it on the rest of the internet.
Young people have been told for far too long that the sky is falling. They’ve been fed a steady diet of ecological disaster doom and gloom since they were kids. Well if we’re headed for extinction, why not have some fun along the way?
It reads like Dillon thinks that Harris is self-sabotaging, and Dillon is perfect fine with that. My sense is that Harris is a nervous wreck and deep down she knows she isn’t up to the job of President and is just going through the motions.
Tim Dillon wants the most important, powerful, and consequential job in the world to go to someone who wants it desperately and yet won’t work for it…
He sounds like the perfect Harris voter.
Harris is the person everyone with Imposter Syndrome thinks they are, but for reals.
Second this observation. Thanks for being interesting all these years.
Trump is known to eschew preparation for things like debates, intel and security briefings. He wouldn’t even read his daily intelligence briefs when he was president. Talk about not doing one’s homework. He’s claimed that all it takes for him to expound intelligently on any subject is just a few minutes of being exposed to the subject matter.
“Trump worshiper: The American people, I think, a lot of them want to know, how do you come by your decisions, and how do you manage in the Oval Office?
Donald: Well, I think that I learned, like I talked about the truckers, I learned about trucks and by talking to them, in five minutes I knew as much as I'm going to have to know to make decisions that are going to be earth-shattering for transportation, for moving cargo and moving a lot of other things.“
She’s just waiting to finally be positioned for success
Is Trump too lazy to be president again, considering the four years he was president?
Eva Marie said...
Young people have been told for far too long that the sky is falling. They’ve been fed a steady diet of ecological disaster doom and gloom since they were kids. Well if we’re headed for extinction, why not have some fun along the way?
Are young people being told something we weren't? It has always been doom and gloom. Sometimes in the past it really was. But on balance, things are better now than say in the last hundred years nevermind further past. In the meantime all of us individually headed for extinction so now and, lets have some fun on the way.
Agree. Credit to Althouse for creating a unique space on the Internet.
"Where Is the Fierce Urgency of Beating Trump?" (NYT)
Crunch time, and it's sinking-in widely that Trump is the better choice, even if he isn't the perfect choice.
She's already done the yellow legal pad thing. Her Item No. 1 -- Riches and Power.
The rest of the page is blank.
“Sinking in widely”? I don’t think so. Sounds like wishful thinking, but we shall see.
Inga I lived through eight years of Obama, four years of Trump and four years of Biden. Of the sixteen years, the Trump years were the best. The economy was far better, foreign issues weren't so acute, my taxes were lowered and by any objective economic scale my country as a whole was doing better. Tell me exactly why voting for Harris and Democrats is a winning move for the country as a whole when we have an immediate contrast between the two parties.
Wince writes, "Crunch time, and it's sinking-in widely that Trump is the better choice, even if he isn't the perfect choice."
I'd listen closely and respectfully to Wince's idea of the perfect choice.
Harris is known in DC, even by Democrats, as being lazy and not putting in the work. It's why she can't even speak of her own policies without a teleprompter. And as I recall, Trump's foreign policy worked out fairly well.
Dillon is a slacker apparently relishing the look on the another slacker’s face when they’ve been called out. If you’re a slacker, it’s ok for you to embrace that joy, no matter the circumstances. Why would anyone want to graduate from middle school?
When was the last time we had a choice between good and perfect? I only hope my grandchildren actually get to have such a choice.
Count me in as well
Apparently she has a lock on the grifter vote.Yay!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/the-worst-kept-secret-of-trumps-presidency
“One of the most closely guarded and worst-kept secrets of Donald Trump’s presidency is his extraordinary laziness. Despite efforts to project a manly ardor, the current leader of the free world spends most of his free time tweeting, calling friends, and watching Fox News. Of his 745 days in office, Trump has spent 222 days unwinding at Trump-branded properties and 168 days golfing. According to the testimony of numerous West Wing staffers, he struggles to focus in meetings, largely ignores intelligence briefings, and tunes out policy minutiae. Once, according to former White House aide Cliff Sims, Trump literally got up and wandered away while Paul Ryan was in the Oval Office attempting to explain the Republican health-care bill. While Ryan was still talking, Trump walked down the hall to his private dining room and turned on the TV.“
The problem, Inga, is that Trump has been president and he did a good job of it. So these kinds of criticism are off the table--they're meaningless.
Harris has not been president and she hasn't succeeded in any notable way at anything she's done. So, for her, the laziness critique carries some weight.
It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done. The Vision Thing.
No, it’s not hard. Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t have a “Vision Thing.” Maybe she got where she’s at by being a loyal foot soldier with the right skin color.
"She'll probably lose but she makes me happy." That will make me happy too.
Marvelous! Simply marvelous! A Peter Principle candidate who is a nervous wreck and possibly a boozer, might well become president while being a puppet to other DEI hires and incompetents.
Yes, I'd be a bit lost without this blog.
“The problem, Inga, is that Trump has been president and he did a good job of it.”
81 million Americans disagreed with this.
Harris is lazy and of average intelligence. It’s why she flunked the bar. She can’t wing it. Trump can wing it.
[Kamala Harris] needs to make the case for herself more assertively.It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done.
There's two possible answers to that:
1: She's just another Jill Biden. She wants to ride around in the motorcades, flying in Air Force One, and be above everyone else.. She doesn't care about the actual "being President"
2: She knows what she wants to do. And she knows that telling teh truth would cause her to lose.
So she can't answer those questions
Now do Biden, and Harris
Trump's slowed down compared to 2016, no question about that.
But he's still doing far more campaign appearances than Harris.
So if "any is bad", Harris is the worst
And yet, even with Trump's apparent indolence, the country was flourishing and the border was far more secure.
"Wandering off while Paul Ryan was talking." I already told you I am going to vote for Trump. You don't have to sell me.
Cubanbob on says:
“Are young people being told something we weren't?”
I think yes. It started with the population explosion destroying the planet and it hasn’t let up. Humans are bad for the planet has been the relentless message.
Kamala can’t blow enough guys to get ahead anymore
Kamala can’t blow enough guys to get ahead anymore
Emotipolemics
Ampersand said...
"There must be something that Tim Dillon actually cares about. Money, status, power, and pleasure, I suppose. Odd that he sees no connection between a potential Harris victory and significant problems with satisying his hungers for those things. I guess I'm just one of those "hot under the collar" types who harsh Timmy's vibe.
We might just elect as President the laziest dumbest rock in the class"
It's like a high school student body election. Trump's the jock, and Harris is the "popular" gal.
Ever notice how when Inga can’t muster a coherent counter argument she reflexively reverts to the “Trump is a poopy-head” form of persuasion? She could easily be a Kamala strategist.
Now, she wants other women to take a knee for progress, and men of black in prison in retributive change for her past kneeling.
“ It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done.”
Dowd is laboring under the misconception that Harris is the one who gets to make those decisions.
This is a choice between bad and worse. I am going with bad.
Harris is far, far away from her past with Willie and she just doesn’t have it in her anymore.
“She could easily be a Kamala strategist.”
After that steamy rehash the other day of Inga’s hornacious exchange with Ritmo (I think), Inga may be better suited to write shitty porn like Stacey “Tank” Abrams.
"Even when getting softballs from supportive TV hosts, Harris at times seemed unsure of how to answer."
"Seemed"
Dillon can't wait to have a drink with her in Cali. Implied is that he knows she won't win. Kamala is basically Travis Birkenstock, someone you like and pity at the same time.
Limbaugh once posited that what she actually wanted was to be AG.
"It reads like Dillon thinks that Harris is self-sabotaging, and Dillon is perfect fine with that. "
People, people, people.... Dillon is a comedian. Read his words with that in mind.
JAORE
“[Our youngest] also told me the Trump sneakers that were laughed at were a brilliant move. Apparently there are many thousand ‘sneaker heads’ out there.”
So yesterday’s Hummel figurine collectors have morphed into today’s Sneaker Heads.
When I was a kid, we practiced ducking and covering under our desks in school as a response to a nuclear attack. I don't remember this ruining anybody's life.
I think Kamala is the refinement of the Democrats way to win power. Run on vibes, good media support, don't worry about financial issues, just roll out money. Except this hasn't really worked very well. Run as moderates, but rule as extreme lefties. Infiltrate the institutions, so you don't have to actually do much, as they will run themselves very lefty. (This is great when they lose, because the institutions keep going left...DHS under Trump created the CBP One border app, for example. Do you think Trump or anyone knew about this?)
Trump also is doing some of this, too, throwing out gimme policies.
Because elections are additive. You need to take your base, and then add voters by going to the center. Trump pushes spending. Kamala pushes bullshit that she is pro-gun, or changed her mind on immigration, etc.
When they are elected the smoke and mirrors disappear, more or less.
This is why Kamala wanted to be vague. Because for Obama that worked really well. Each person could decide he was for THEIR policies.
Trump is also doing a little of this.
Its very normal centrist politics.
If you don't like this, its because you realize we're not in normal times, and we're probably entering a period where serious cuts or taxes have to be done. And probably cuts - you can't afford barnacles on your ship when its sinking.
@jaydub, yep. And the reality is that we do-called “Trump worshippers” agree that Trump is imperfect — we can stipulate that Trump is imperfect. But Harris is much worse. Much, much worse. She is not as intelligent as he is, she’s not able to deal with unexpected (or even unscripted) events, and her policies are more inimical to middle and working class families. There is nothing about her whatsoever to admire, or even to like.
"Once, according to former White House aide Cliff Sims, Trump literally got up and wandered away while Paul Ryan was in the Oval Office attempting to explain the Republican health-care bill."
Damn, Inga, you don't have to keep selling me on Trump- I and most of the commenters here are already voting or him!
It’s just a different medium. If Rush Limbaugh was starting today he probably would be a podcaster.
"And, she refuses to study. She will not open the book."
This is exactly what I've been saying. She can't even be bothered to memorize the policies that her campaign is saying are "her policies." Whenever anyone asks her a direct question about what her policy on something is, she deflects and goes into word salad.
The attempts at calling Trump lazy are obviously contradicted by the evidence of our own eyes - the man's an irrepressible whirlwind. I can list several defects in Trump's personality, but laziness isn't on the list.
Party bosses picked her BECAUSE she could fill the role of empty headed incompetent figure head. It’s the one area where she shines.The last thing they was an independent thinking person who wouldn’t need them. That’s why Democrats weren’t allowed to choose their nominee.
tim maguire
Tim Dillon wants the most important, powerful, and consequential job in the world to go to someone who wants it desperately and yet won’t work for it…
He sounds like the perfect Harris voter.
10/12/24, 3:11 PM
Nah, sounds like he considering running in 28. Kamala set the standard for qualifications.
Harris supporters' arguments are always how bad Trump was, never about how good Harris is.
Different survival responses. For Trump it's fight or flight. But for Harris it's the freeze response: stay immobile, hide or “play dead” until the danger passes.
Doc K - I agree. I tell myself if KH wins, the bright side is she and the Dems might get blamed for the "shit hitting the fan".
"Yes, I'd be a bit lost without this blog."
Me too
You lost me at "Maureen Dowd". She's on my not-on-more-second list.
Imposter Syndrome it's called.
The dullard just cannot fathom how Trump made all that money in a competitive industry. Maybe he knows something about life ? Nah, that couldn't be it.
So Harris cannot even voice why she wants to be president, but like the lemmings they are she will vote for them anyway.
Inga and her "81 million votes" disagree.
Inga simply is incapable of understanding how Trump made the country so good. It took the Chinese virus and "81 million votes" or at least 81 million ballots to end that good time.
Exactly !
No, imposter syndrome is when you actually are highly skilled but feel that you have been given a position without really deserving it. It's when the person is smart and talented but has self doubt because the job they are doing does not seem that difficult even though everyone else complains about how hard it is. It makes them think they must be doing it wrong, that they're a fake.
See - Inga can' find an upside to Kamalala. Willie Brown did. How is it that a Phd. research scientist's child had a 'working class' background?
Anyhow, here's Judge Joe's take, and he lived it in L.A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmcqcbC16OU&t
Mason G said:
“When I was a kid, we practiced ducking and covering under our desks in school as a response to a nuclear attack. I don't remember this ruining anybody's life.”
As a result, look how much fear and dread we instilled in our kids.
Tucker Carlson says happy people have kids. Boomers and the generation that followed didn’t raise happy people.
Well Inga, I'm sitting here remembering the rally push that Trump put out in 2020, when his animal energy was put to the task of cranking out rally after rally after rally after rally, and poor old Joe was hiding in his basement. And all of the people in the press corp couldn't keep up, and most of the people around him go out of the way to comment on his drive. You really do come up with the most crap. I guess you're just going to go on imagining things all the way to election day, but what will you do if he wins?
Erikson was wondering along similar lines on Friday...
"The big names of the Democratic Party are not campaigning for her. Plenty of House and Senate members do not want to be seen with her. When she went on "The View" and was asked if she would have done anything differently than Joe Biden over the last four years, she said she would not. Her loyalty is commendable, but it just might cost her.
On Stephen Colbert's show, Colbert asked Harris how the next four years will be different from the last, and she gave the most convoluted word salad uttered by a presidential candidate since Ted Kennedy got asked by Roger Mudd in 1979 why he wanted to be President."
So, somebody else is saying that Trump did something that a third person found outrageous.
The track record on such derivative bullsh*t about Trump is running at about 5% proved truthful, and that's being generous, and 95% proven to be completely made-up to score political points.
Maybe Harris doesn't really want to win. I would assume that the understanding between her and whatever people are actually semi-running the country is that she would also be a figurehead. And given that there would be no changes in policy, a "President Harris" could end up being the face of an economic collapse, a civil war, and a nuclear war with Russia, while having no actual power to do anything about any of the three (and, to be fair, probably no ideas, either). What is the upside for her? If she doesn't win, she can make bank from a ghostwritten memoir and count on having media people fawn all over her for the rest of her life.
Maybe Harris realizes that rather than being "positioned for success," she is being set up to be the scapegoat, the person responsible for the destruction of America as we know it and therefore viscerally hated by tens of millions of people (with no counterbalancing millions of people who love her), and no personal fortune with which to protect herself. I would find a way not to win if I were in her position.
I wonder if Harris has come to the same realization as the director of the Secret Service*, who resigned, I think, because she realized that she had just come an inch away from never feeling safe for the rest of her life. Whatever she discovered in the first few days of the fake "investigation" convinced her that she'd been set up to take the fall for that extremely well-planned "incompetence" in Butler, PA, and only crazy good luck or a miracle kept hers from being the face of the institution that had deliberately brought about the death of a presidential candidate. She may have been an insufficiently qualified DEI hire, but she wasn't stupid, so she got out of Dodge as fast as she could.
*There's no evidence that she was forced out. Everyone was defending her in public, and none of the other incompetents in the Biden administration have ever faced consequences for any of their failures--not even the generals who left a billion dollars of equipment to the Taliban, or "Mayor Pete" who sucks so badly that people actually know who the Secy. of Transportation is.
Or like when the friend could memorize how to do something, but not understand it at all.
I suppose if Taylor Swift or Patrick Mahomes were running for president, one could get away with saying "I like her/him. He/she makes me happy. He/she has my vote," but why support someone who's been in politics for years and has no achievements to show for it? You no longer have the excuse that Harris may have great political and administrative talents that she hasn't had the opportunity to use.
Maybe the key here is that Tim Dillon hates Trump, so anybody running against DJT gets his vote and the reasons come afterwards. Ten years ago, Donald Trump might have seemed as out of place in politics as Swift or Mahomes, but he wasn't Hillary Clinton, so he had my vote. I had other reasons for my vote other than just him making me happy, though.
At this point, the only people who think it's "fiercely urgent" to defeat Trump are Democrats, the permanent government, and the media. Recognize now that the reasons for electing Harris are so few and so frail that Trump might as well be the next president.
There are many people in my life that bring me joy, and they have no business being President of the United States.
Loudogblog broke the code!
My weird informant, whom I don't trust completely (so YOU certainly shouldn't trust him), the person who told me that Harris has a serious problem with THC gummies, said that before the facelift/plastic surgery in 2020, Harris was really, really good-looking, one of those people who looks MUCH better in person than you expect from having seen pictures.
If he's right, then her fundamental role is that of the Cheer Captain /Very Pretty Girl who has had so many things handed to her so frequently that doesn't realize how much has been handed to her. She won't crack a book to study or put in effort on the job because she has never had to before, and look where she is! Indeed, she is inwardly laughing at the friends and advisors for worrying too much. It will all work out (i.e., someone will give her what she wants) just as it always has. She thinks people have always been engaged by her half-assed efforts, her fake accents, fake empathy, etc., because they have always acted as if they were, but they were really just responding to physical beauty, which fades.
I wonder if the addiction to gummies was not from post-plastic-surgery pain, but from how she looked in the mirror--remember how weird and puffy she looked when she suddenly had to go on TV in the aftermath of the Floyd Riots.
All it’s got is Trump is a poopy head as stated above.
What Yancey said. I’m sure Trump figured Ryan out in about 20 seconds. It’s funny how the previous masters and killers of democracy are worshipped by the leftists bellowing for war.
What Yancey said. I’m sure Trump figured Ryan out in about 20 seconds. It’s funny how the previous masters and killers of democracy are worshipped by the leftists bellowing for war.
Do you have a source for Harris's plastic surgery? I have a memory of seeing her bandaged up because she was unexpectedly called on to comment on some breaking news, perhaps the Floyd riots?
"Maybe Harris doesn't really want to win."
I don't think she even wanted to run. When Joe was exposed, the Democrat 'braintrust' descended into DC from Hawaii, Chappaqua and Cali, and they all locked onto Kamala. I can just hear them insist 'we'll help you, Kam, A - Z, blah blah even after you're elected'. All bullshit, but there she is, all alone, clueless and panicked.
"She's kind of half-assing it on the largest stage . . . she refuses to study. She will not open the book . . . hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done . . . Harris at times seemed unsure of how to answer."
Right. Even progs recognize the vacuous vapidity. The emptiness, the unseriousness is all there is. But it is an advantage: she's easier to manipulate as figurehead by serious progs, and it allows nice anti-Trump voters to project their preferences onto her.
You have to open the book to turn the page.
If only dancing on Ellen was still a thing.
Harris is an empty suit. And always has been. She got zero votes in 2020 primaries and was handed the Calf Sentate seat and AG job on a silver plater in one-party, deep blue California. She's been AWOL as VP for 3 1/2 years. Unlike Obama, who went to Columbia/Havard Law (Yale?) Harris went to Howard and UC-Hasting Law school. And was not a brilliant student at either place.
She's an affirmative action baby. That's reason 1 why she's not more "assertive". The 2nd is she's a leftwinger, San francisco variety, and if she was more vocal about her policies, she would lose votes. So, the MSM protects her, writes puff pieces, and they keep her under wraps. Look for all the dumb independents who vote for her in November, to be gnashing their teeth in 2025 when the "real Kamala" has power.
Exactly. I remember being depressed during 7th grade Earth science class, watching films about how we’ve destroyed the earth. I’m Gen
I think Harris is just drinky
That's his act. He's mocking her.
Thank you. Somebody gets it. Don't take him literally. He's mocking her. That's his schtick.
I only watched a minute or two, but it seems like the criticism that Dillon is supporting Harris is simply wrong. He's pointing out, with some amusement, that she is a pretender, and not even a very good one. She gets away with it because she's pretty and the cool kids like her.
He's a comedian who comments on politics. If Jon Stewart said the same thing, and made one of his faces, the implication would be obvious.
Harris reminds me of a LOT of people of her cohort - prosperous progressive liberal middle-aged folks - who are mediocre pencil-pusher middle-management executives who don't produce or effectively improve any product, system, or service. For example, a college administrator, earning 6-figure multi-benefit salary, responsible for political correctness in curriculum or institutional policy, attending meetings, conferences, and conventions, overseeing studies and reports, all ultimately meaningless, or worse, promulgating more middle-management administrators to further stymie actual productive GMP growth.
Dillon's observation that Harris doesn't seem sufficiently motivated to win presidency seems accurate assessment. Harris, as others note, is innately lazy person who has benefited from traditional sugar daddy favoritism and enacted progressive DEI policies.
As a black Stanford professor's daughter, Harris failed to gain admission to Stanford, whether on the weighted preference of racial minority, legacy admission, or professor's offspring. Nope, she went to Howard, which is a 3rd-tier college, then to UC San Francisco, a 3rd-tier law school. She's no intellectual, and by demeanor, neither a "smart" nor "serious" person. Harris strikes me as the Stepford Wife candidate, the middle-aged trim tennis-mom of upper-middle class suburbs across America, another AWFL, touting her progressive-liberal sound-bites as political policy dictum without understanding how to implement nor govern.
Tim should have a big scoop of icecream. That will bring him joy without annoying the rest of us.
Former Illinois resident wrote: "...mediocre pencil-pusher middle-management executives who don't produce or effectively improve any product, system, or service."
This is spot on. Harris perfectly represents the sort of people who have destroyed / are destroying our institutions: middle-management intelligence (or lower), middle-management vision (or narrower) but promoted into upper management jobs that they can't perform. They all jabber out similar word salad whenever under the slightest bit of stress, too. The fundamental problem is that they have no synthesizing ability, so they just cannot be made to understand the concept of trade-off. They will therefore latch on like a limpet to some overly simple slog or metric or policy and destroy the institution because the ONLY move they know is to double down on what wasn't working in the first place.
These are the people who fired all the art museum docents for being middle-aged white ladies (working for free!) and then discovered that there wasn't a queue of diverse people lining up to do the work for free, and that they'd managed to make things worse for EVERYONE (including the people they supposedly wanted to benefit). They are the same people who spent the decade leading up to Covid insisting the students be accommodated for every imaginable behavior quirk in addition to every possible illness but then dropped ALL of that "sensitivity to difference" stuff when it came time to insist that people slap masks on their faces (autism, hypersensitivity, breathing issues or no) and get inadequately tested shots (auto-immune diseases, sensitivities, previous bad reactions be damned).
Not bad idea
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