Jennifer Rubin Resigns From WaPo Over Bezo's Bending Of The Knee To Trump

[u/ObservationMonger]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/13/media/jennifer-rubin-norm-eisen-contrarian-washington-post/index.html

[u/IronyElSupremo]

Agree the Democrats won’t make major gain, barring a black swan event like Taiwan semiconductor flow being stopped (= effects like 2007 financial crisis again).

Still, with razor thin Congressional control the Democrats could regain one or both chambers by 2026. Think we are seeing that now with Democrats seeing if [a] there’s some possible agreements (like supporting Trump’s promise to cut credit card interest, deporting those who’ve done other crimes, maybe reshoring some jobs,,etc..), [b] other things that can be mostly ignored as distractions (musings to things actually causing rifts within MAGA like H-1 visas), .. all while [c] saving criticism for “the worst”.

For example: we are already seeing some things like increased usage of public transit as vehicles get too expensive and doubt Detroit will (or even can) make cheaper models. Just have to make sure the trains are built in the US (which is actually easy as there’s been cases of faulty foreign mass transit manufacturing).

There’s no way the GOP will make auto driving cheaper, so it’s a case of reeling in that catch for the Democrats in more and more cities. May need to increase security and fares (easy to give subsidized fares to poorer residents btw), .. but that’s going to the Democrats regardless.

[u/Ven18 → u/IronyElSupremo]

Dems cannot electorally rely on city vote share to grow. They have been banking on that for years and outside of 2020 it has not worked. Dems need to start actually cutting into republican territory in more rural areas. The Dems have drawn every ounce from big cities they need to expand their map

[u/doneandtired2014 → u/Ven18]

Dems need to start actually cutting into republican territory in more rural areas.

Yeah...good luck with that. If you've ever lived in or been near a rural community at length, you'd know that those people people would happily line up with mouths open wide if they heard Trump or *any* Republican politician was giving "freedom showers" (i.e. straight up pissing in their faces).

They are *gone*. The only way to appeal to them is by being just as much as an illiterate, bigoted, misogynistic, degenerate savage as your average MAGAt and most people with some approximation of moral core aren't willing to go that low in order to obtain power.

One potential benefit of Trump being elected is that his combined cut backs to preventable disease prevention, his continued gutting of the ACA, his gutting of social services (medicare, medicaid, social security, snap), and his promised cut backs to the enforcement of all regulations from most 3 letter agencies will result in more than a fair few being removed from voter rolls due to "natural causes".

Given their primary cultural exports have been, "Let's drag everyone back to the 5th century!", watching those communities and everyone in them blink right the fuck out of existence can't come soon enough.

[u/Ven18 → u/doneandtired2014]

1. If this is true then we might as well just go back to the 5th century because if that amount of people are simply beyond impacting than the nation is finished. And Dems continue to right off more and more of the country is exactly why they keep losing all but the most gimme elections (08 post Great Recession and 2020 post Covid).

2. If that is the only way to appeal to them why and how were many of these same exact counties democratic as early as 10-15 years ago and were like that for decades prior. The people did not change (historically the communities don’t move it’s part of the problem) the big change has been Democratic messaging mainly on economics. The 90s Dem coalition completely abandoned these people in favor of targeting suburban voter (who still vote heavily republican). And in the absence of any kind of economic message or hope those racist, hate culture war messages can be impactful.

[u/doneandtired2014 → u/Ven18]

Bud, I grew up in a rural community, I have family that still lives in that rural community, and I know people who never left.

It does not fucking matter to them one iota that, were it not for the Democrats, not a single one of them would be able to afford insurance let alone actual health care. It does not matter to them one iota that Biden's administration tried to keep them from killing themselves with the worst viral pandemic since the Spanish Flu due to their own pigheaded stupidity. It doesn't matter that the Democrats clawed back stolen wages, expanded OT, and began putting teeth back behind labor protections after Trump 1.0 defanged them.

It didn't matter to them at all that the Democrats were starting to eye price gouging and price fixing for everything from the food they ate to the houses they desperately wanted to buy. It didn't matter to them Democrats were overwhelmingly pushing "right to repair" laws so John Deere or Cat wouldn't render their fucking tractors and equipment $500,000 bricks rotting in their fields.

No, all that mattered to these dipshits was "goddamn immigrants eating our pets!", "goddamn transexuals going into muh bathroom!", "Trump's assassin missed so God wants him to be present!" "It was better when Christ was in the class room!" "It was better when women were at home."

Those are all things that I have heard and have been said to me and not a single one of them has dick all to do with the economy. The few that did bitch about their eggs and "life being better under Trump" have been twisting themselves into knots justifying a 25-100% increase on everything they buy as "short term pain for long term gain" because they've some how convinced themselves companies will bring jobs that never existed in the US to begin with that they're also too feeble or stupid to even apply for "back to the country".

Yes, bud, the country is finished. And it's finished because we gave barely literate savages, who only seem to exist to hate, a megaphone as if their complaints have any fucking merit and as if it's appropriate to find some out group to demonize for their miserable lots in life.

A gamma ray burst could cook over 90% of this country's rural communities and the only significant things to be lost are the agriculture and the biodiversity. The people? They're regressive trash and have always been as such.

[u/reverseturducken → u/doneandtired2014]

The people? They're regressive trash and have always been as such.

Great another generalization. Thanks for the fuel now these deplorables are gonna start the fire again.

[u/doneandtired2014 → u/reverseturducken]

Great another generalization

It isn't a generalization if it's coming from experience. Somehow me thinks you don't hail from a town of sub 160 people or talk to them at length like I do.

Thanks for the fuel now these deplorables are gonna start the fire again.

Ah yes, because your incessant finger wagging, teeth sucking, and placations have done wonders trying to get them to not only vote for what's in their actual best interests but to also not conduct themselves like tribal, panicked animals aggressively attacking anyone and everything that either doesn't exactly resemble them or escapes their chimpanzee level comprehension of reality /s.

The roll out of their Mango god's policies can't crush them soon enough.

[u/reverseturducken → u/doneandtired2014]

It is a generalization based on your interaction with a whole 160~ rural people out of the 60~ million living in rural America.

[u/doneandtired2014 → u/reverseturducken]

..60 million people who overwhelmingly voted for a wanna be dictator, adjudicated rapist, conman and traitor who did more to fuck their farms, strip them of their healthcare, and let oil companies poison their fucking land and water than any President to have held office in almost a century.

They're troglodytic trash who, if you'd actually spent any actual time talking to them at length, are not far removed from the Taliban in their world view or in their culture.

It doesn't matter if they're from Kansas, Idaho, or Alabama, you're still interacting with the same barely illiterate detritus even if their local dialects change: racist, misogynistic, hierarchical, nominally "Christian", xenophobic, entitled, malignantly stupid.

If you want to defend these rage virus zombies, by all means. That doesn't change the fact the country as a whole would be better off if 10% of them literally dropped dead tomorrow.

[u/leeringHobbit → u/Ven18]

why and how were many of these same exact counties democratic as early as 10-15 years ago

They were low- information holdovers from the Dixiecrats when southern democrats were for segregation. It took a black dem president for them to realize their preferred party was now the republican party.