The Twilight Zone Version of Independence Day, 2024

I don’t know if I can “celebrate” July 4 this year. 

Maybe I should be mourning the death of the republic, founded after some radical-thinking colonists declared their independence from England. It’s certainly been less than perfect, but it’s never stopped evolving. Until now.

I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I had upon learning that Donald Trump had prevailed in the 2016 election.

Over the past 24 hours, there has been a shift in the Zeitgeist concerning the poor debate performance of President Joe Biden. Members of the Chief Executive’s own party have either thrown in the towel (saying Trump will win) or expressed support for a one term presidency.

The New York Times reports that Biden told an associate that he’s considering all options, including stepping down.

• Mr. Biden is slowly reaching out to Democratic elected officials and has a meeting with Democratic governors at the White House scheduled for Wednesday evening. He is also continuing to reach out to people he has long trusted and has told at least one person that he is open to the possibility that his plans to move on from his debate performance — and flip the focus back to his challenger, Mr. Trump — may not work.

• Several allies of Mr. Biden, who has huddled with the family and advisers since the debate on Thursday, have underscored that the president is still in the fight of his political life and largely sees this moment as a chance to come back from being counted out, as he has done many times throughout his half-century career.

• But he is also cleareyed, they said, about his uphill battle to convince voters, donors and the political class that his debate performance was an anomaly.

The White House says this isn’t true. And let’s face it, the Times isn’t exactly a friendly outlet.

The nation’s governors are headed to the Oval Office for a confab that logically would end with a circling of the wagons in support for the Biden/Harris ticket. 

On his way out the door, California Gov. Gavin Newsom dropped his support for an anti-crime measure that was supposed to take the sting out of an opposition blitzkrieg set to be used as a lever against Democrats. It was a half-assed measure purporting to address a law-enforcement (mostly) manufactured crisis.

Our gov. was supposed to be headed to New Hampshire on Monday to campaign for President; now there may be a change in the plan.

The Supreme Court’s expansion of executive authority to potentially include actions otherwise considered criminal and the declaration of victory by the man leading the 2025 project, coupled with the less-than-implicit threat of bloodshed bode poorly for the American Experiment is sickening.

Here’s the relevant quote from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, which came at the end of federal prisoner Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast:

• …And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.

Personally, I’m glad that Project 2025 is getting in front of the American people. Given that the right‘s candidate has no substance when it comes to policy matters, this document is a lot more concrete than name-calling.

Again, I feel the need to inject class considerations, like the fact that one wealthy crackpot (Tim Melon) has contributed nearly half of MAGA’s PAC funding, nearly all of RFK Jr’s war chest, and financial support for the group doing the actual work on Project 2025. 

Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby turned over this rock at Popular Information.

• According to a 2020 article published in the Washington Post, Mellon writes that Black people have become "even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations" after social safety net programs were expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. Mellon writes that they are now "slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam." 

• Mellon also derided programs intended to lift people out of poverty as "Slavery Redux." Mellon claimed that in exchange for "delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on." According to Mellon, who inherited his fortune, "[t]he largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass.”

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The President’s polling sucks, and has sucked for a while now. Concerns about his age were widespread prior to the debate. The argument that voters had already factored age into their thinking about the election rings true to me.

We’re in the Twilight Zone of politics, as Matt Stoller says, while pointing out that the Federal Trade Commission is moving ahead with antitrust actions against a vertical merger in the sleep economy ( a $4 billion merger of the world’s largest mattress maker, Tempur Sealy, and the nation’s biggest mattress retailer, Mattress Firm):

• The stock market hit an all-time high, inflation is down, people are eating, shops are full, so in a sense things haven’t gone haywire. Yet, there seems to be little we can count on, whether it’s who leads us, how they lead us, or even the basics of how the government or law works. Anything feels possible, as long as it’s weird and ominous.

Politico’s morning newsletter expresses the notion that Vice President Kamala Harris is having a “moment,” and raises talking points on why she should be the Democrat’s choice. It’s bullshit, of course, because these center-right/more-right types want to talk past the rising tides of misogyny and racism. 

• Were Biden to step aside, the appetite for a knock-down, drag-out fight culminating in a contested convention will be limited, Democrats told us. For the vast majority of delegates, Harris is a known quantity who has already been tested at the highest level of national politics.

• “The more people understand the physics of the nomination fight, the stronger her candidacy becomes,” said JAMAL SIMMONS, Harris’ former communications director. “It's delegates, it's the racial and gender dynamics. … And she also is the most vetted of the people right there. There are no more shoes to drop with her.”

I like the Vice President, understand her limitations, have and would vote for her. At this point in time she’s number two on the ballot and this sort of insider gossip borders on hallucinatory. 

I also understand that much of the leadership of the Democratic party is so focused on winning that they’re capable of dumping out the baby with the bathwater. And pundits are going to seek clicks.

None of this is reassuring. For the time being, the best I can do is keep my powder dry and hope the opportunity emerges to take aim at the real bad guy here, namely the program designed to install an autocracy. 

How can you not run against a Supreme Court decision ending the rule of law? Seventy percent of Americans think this is just plain wrong.

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Wednesday News to Peruse

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Ford CEO calls out America’s love for ‘monster vehicles’ with smaller $30,000 EV coming via Electrek

• “We are just in love with these monster vehicles,” Ford’s CEO said at the Aspen Ideas Festival Friday. And although Farley agreed, “I love them too,” he acknowledged they are a major issue due to their weight.

• Ford’s CEO added, “We have to start to get back in love with smaller vehicles. It’s super important for our society and for EV adoption.”

• After Farley revealed earlier this year that the company had been secretly working on a new EV platform for smaller, low-cost EVs, Ford is doubling down.

Editor’s note: Ford lost $132,000 on every one of its electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024.

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AI stole my book and sold it online via Lyz at Men Yell at Me.

• I’m not exactly outraged by what appears to be a copyright violation. I am not clinging to my words at night sobbing, “My precious sentences! How dare they!” (I am not above that kind of behavior, and have in the past gone to the mattresses with editors over wording choices.) 

• But I am not angry about this. It seems almost inevitable. 

• Given that our timeline is a shitty rewrite of the past with only a few minor words changed, a shitty regurgitation of one of my books is just par for the course.

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Minneapolis cat tour started as joke, now draws hundreds of admirers via The Washington Post

• Now that the event has grown considerably, Edwards requests that residents who want to feature their felines in the tour register in advance. This year, there were about 22 stops along the one-hour tour, though there were several “bonus cats” (as Edwards calls them) whose owners saw the commotion outside and decided to bring out their furry friends to join in the fun. There was also a memorial for a former tour cat named Princess Pickles.

• While many cats remain inside their homes, others come out to mingle. The large group blocks traffic, but drivers don’t seem to mind.

• “It really is just getting together with your neighbors, going for a walk and looking at cats,” said Taylor Dahlin, who lives in a nearby neighborhood and has attended five cat tours over the years. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. It’s just such a fun way to spend an evening.”

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This will (probably) be my last column until July 8. I’m taking a few days off, just because.