DCUM Weblog

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Olympics Opening Ceremony" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture". This thread started without much drama. Posters seemed to enjoy the opening ceremony, though a few were put off by the beheaded Marie Antoinette that appeared at the beginning of the Gojira musical segment. While there was considerable praise for Lady Gaga, there was considerable criticism of Kelly Clarkson and Peyton Manning. Celine Dion was a big hit among posters whereas Snoop Dogg seemed to elicit nothing but criticism. But, then, there were rumblings of dissatisfaction. A rumor that American conservatives were bothered by what they thought were Satanic references in the ceremony. Then complaints that gay people, drag queens, trans gender people, and other colorful personalities had been included in a mockery of "The Last Supper" painting by Leonardo da Vinci which portrays the Biblical Last Supper. Soon this had turned into a full-blown avalanche of resentment. This was a mockery of Christianity, argued poster after poster. They would never do this to Muslims said posters who know absolutely nothing about French-Muslim relations (I suggest that they look into the National Rally party and its current popularity in France). Posters were certain that the French had intentionally gone out of their way to insult Christians, and American Christians in particular. It was a full-blown freakout. Posters were swearing off both the Olympics and France and condemning their infection by the "woke mind virus". There was so much talk about Satan that I assumed that he must be participating in one of the sports. But other posters assured us that he does not exist. Some posters argued that it was not "The Last Supper", but rather the Festival of Dionysus that was depicted. Another poster explained that it portrayed a painting by Jan van Bijlert named "Le Festin des Dieux", which depicts various Greek gods participating in a banquet on Mount Olympus. But, the outraged posters were not about to stop being outraged and simply would not accept this explanation. Moreover, they soon found an additional controversy concerning whether one of the participants in the Last Supper/Le Festin des Dieux event had displayed a private part. At least one poster who was initially convinced that this was the case later agreed that it was more likely a tear in his costume. But, generally, the opinion of upset right-wing Christians is that the Olympics had been turned into a global grooming event aimed at turning children trans and mocking Christians. If being outraged were an Olympic event, MAGA Christians would have taken the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals.

The first two most active threads yesterday were Vice President Kamala Harris-related threads that I've already discussed and, therefore, will skip today. The third most active thread was titled, "Horrible dorm assignment!" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her child is going to college in southern California and, despite requesting a roommate, was assigned a single room in the basement of a building without air conditioning. The original poster is quite unhappy, believing that the school can easily afford to install central air conditioning in the building, and says that the experience has soured them on the university before school even started. A large number of the responses are from posters who also lived in college dorms that did not have air conditioning. Because they survived it, they don't have much sympathy for the original poster's child. Moreover, several posters point out, most students would love to have a single room. Therefore, they suggest the student should be able to trade rooms with someone else fairly easily. Other advice is to open a window and use a fan and that the warm weather will only last a couple of months. A number of those responding are either from California or have spent time there and they explain that temperatures cool off at night and it is not as humid as DC. Therefore, the nights are comfortable and the lack of air conditioning won't be a problem. The attitude of a lot of the posters is that freshmen year dorm experiences are almost always bad and something about which it is normal to have concerns. But, the original poster's child will survive it and she shouldn't worry. Other posters argue that if comfortable dorms were a priority, the original poster should have researched that ahead of time and chosen a college that has nicer dorms. In contrast to the "suck it up" crowd, a number of posters have advice about how to facilitate a room change. Some of these strategies are fairly elaborate with one poster even suggesting that the student grow mold in the room and then justify a room change because of the presence of mold. Much later in the thread, the original poster insisted that the lack of air conditioning was not the most important issue. Rather, her child is going cross-country to school and would now be living in a single room in a corner of the basement and somewhat isolated from other students. The original poster thinks that all of this combined is not conducive to an enjoyable college experience. She was hoping that her child would have a great experience at the university and this has tarnished things. It's possible that the concerns about the room are more on the part of the original poster and perhaps not shared by the student.

Yesterday was another day dominated by presidential politics. The most active thread was the thread that I've already discussed about Vice President Kamala Harris running for president. After that was a thread titled, "Harris vs Trump poll numbers" which was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started the thread with an excerpt from a National Public Radio story discussing a new poll that it had conducted along with PBS and Marist. The results showed that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump led Harris by a single point and in a five-way contest that included the minor candidates, Trump and Harris were tied. A significant change from previous polling was a large increase in the number of undecided voters which the original poster suggested was a good omen for Harris. Any polls at this time need to be taken with a grain of salt. While the latest polls were conducted after President Joe Biden withdrew as a candidate, they still covered days in which his replacement by Harris was not a sure thing. Moreover, she has not yet selected a running mate, a decision that will likely have an impact. Also, as the original poster points out, national polls are not all that significant. Of more importance are polls of battleground states. These caveats, along with the immense desire of some posters to engage in advocacy instead of analysis, leads posters to generally interpret the data according to their partisan perspectives. Some posters argue that polls are useless altogether and have been consistently wrong, something that is not actually true. Others see what they want to see in the data and interpret it thusly. One thing that is clear in the early polling — and explicitly stated in the excerpt included by the original poster — is that Harris has caused a reset of the election. She clearly has momentum and I believe it is beyond dispute that she has a much greater upside than either Trump or Biden. Whereas voter opinion about the older candidates was fairly well set, Harris has shaken things up. More importantly, there is enthusiasm for her among groups that had been luke warm, if not outright hostile, to Biden. A major topic of discussion in this thread was the importance of Harris' choice for Vice President. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was suggested repeatedly on the basis that he might help Harris carry the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. Others suggested that he would be just as helpful if he remained as governor. U.S. Senator Mark Kelly was similarly proposed based on his presumed ability to help carry his home state of Arizona. Because of the perceived importance of the VP selection, the thread devolved into a debate mostly about that topic. In addition, a number of posters are disappointed, either in Harris or the method by which she replaced Biden. These posters seem to show up in every thread and disrupt it with their off-topic rants. Polling results mean nothing to these folks because they have everything figured out already. But, for the rest of us, we will probably have to wait a bit longer for things to shake out and for the polls to provide more useful results.

Yesterday's most active thread was the Kamila Harris thread that I discussed yesterday and will skip today. After that was a thread that was created back in April 2022 but was revived recently due to renewed interest in its topic. Titled, "What the hell happened to JD Vance?", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster expresses surprise that J. D. Vance — at that time known mostly as the author of "Hillbilly Elegy" — had turned full MAGA during his Senate campaign. The renewed interest in the thread is obviously because Vance was recently selected as the running mate of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I didn't read this thread when it was originally created and looking at it now, the first thing I noticed is how much the discourse surrounding "Hillbilly Elegy" had changed between the time it was published and 2022. When the book originally gained popularity, it was overwhelmingly praised. So much so that, as I wrote in an earlier blog post, when I discussed the book on DCUM I was half convinced that something was wrong with me for not being impressed by it. The posts discussing "Hillbilly Elegy" in this thread generally contained thoughts much closer to mine and the unvarnished praise that originally greeted the book was gone. More importantly, posters were frequently able to discern signals in the memoir that suggested that Vance was perfectly capable of making the transition from "intelligent, reasonable Republican" to MAGA cultist. Nobody seemed to believe that Vance's conversion was authentic. Rather, the general feeling was that Vance understood that turning MAGA was a political necessity. The more generous of the posters suggested that Vance might actually act more responsibly once he was in office. Now, two years after this thread was created, it is even more difficult to determine who is the real J. D. Vance. Vance was never the son of Appalachia as his book led many to believe. He grew up in suburban Ohio in a middle class neighborhood. Far from being a defender or advocate for those trapped in poverty in the mountains, Vance held them in disdain, viewing them as being responsible for their own failures. The people of Appalachia were little more than a prop that Vance used to promote the right-wing ideology favored by his billionaire mentor Peter Thiel. Now, in his new MAGA persona, Vance portrays himself as the proponent of the poor and working class that many wrongly assumed he was when "Hillbilly Elegy" first came out. But whereas this may have been believable back in 2016, despite his memoir demonstrating otherwise, few seem to believe it now. The opinion of Vance most frequently presented in this thread is that he is a valueless opportunist who will do whatever is necessary to gain power.

DCUM is a Washington, DC-based forum and Washington, DC, as the center of the federal government, is a political city. Nevertheless, it was still a bit surprising this morning when I looked at the list of yesterday's top 10 most active threads and discovered that 9 of the 10 were political. The most active was the thread about President Joe Biden's announcement that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for President. I discussed that thread yesterday and will skip it today. Not surprising, I guess, is that the next most active thread was titled, "Kamala Harris for President". The thread, of course, was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. In another thread over the weekend someone asked if Vice President Kamala Harris could defeat former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I responded saying that not only did I think that she could, but should do so fairly easily. I was then asked to explain why I felt this way. My argument was that Biden has done a fairly good job as President. Inflation is under control, unemployment is low, the stock market is at near record highs, and the economy is growing. Biden has a fantastic record of passing legislation, something is even more impressive in light of the difficult political environment on Capitol Hill. As a result, if Biden were 20 years younger, this election would not even be close. Kamala Harris is not a 20 year younger version of Joe Biden, but she is as close as we are going to get. As Biden's partner during his administration, she can claim partial credit for his successes. While Biden achieved a lot, he believes that there is more to do. Harris will be the one to do it. Despite holding this position, I was still surprised by the wave of enthusiasm Harris' candidacy has met. As the original poster of this thread described, fundraising since Biden stepped down has been at record-breaking levels. Perhaps even more importantly, there appears to have been a massive psychological change among Democrats. Over night, a pessimistic, almost depressed, and — let's face it — kind of sour group has been transformed into a hopefull, enthusiastic, and excited bunch of believers. It will take a few days for the polls to catch up, but I expect huge poll shifts in favor of Democrats. In several states, Democratic Senate candidates have been over-performing Biden. I expect Harris will close that gap and maybe even exceed the Senate candidates in some cases. Meanwhile, it is now Trump — the oldest presidential nominee in history — who is old, confused, and worn out. He is still "truthing" about Biden and clearly has no plan to take on Harris, already trying to find an excuse not to debate her. To make things worse for Trump, early indications are that his vice presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, is a dud. In his first solo outing Vance practically put the audience to sleep before musing over whether he would be accused of racism for drinking a Diet Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew has long been associated with Appalachia and Vance was probably attempting to fake authenticity by choosing it as a drink. But the soft drink has also been blamed for tooth decay throughout the region — Vance even discussed "Mountain Dew mouth" in his novel, "Hillbilly Elegy". That probably explains why Vance chose the inauthentic, but less dentally problematic, Diet version.

The most active thread over the weekend probably comes as no surprise. Titled, "Joe is out", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, this thread was created minutes after President Joe Biden posted a letter on X (formerly known as Twitter) announcing that he would stand down as a candidate for President. The thread has already reached 133 pages, making it among the fastest-growing threads in DCUM history. Because Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris within minutes of announcing that he would no longer run for President, most of the thread is about Harris rather than Biden. With regard to Biden, posters mostly praised him for putting the interests of the country above his personal interests. For the most part, posters had only good things to say about Biden's record as President. There were a number of complaints that Biden was being pushed out in an anti-Democratic manner. This concern extended to Harris' likely selection as Biden's replacement. I think that this is a situation in which two things are both simultaneously true. Clearly there was a group of wealthy donors whose interest in removing Biden from the top of the ticket was in good faith. Several of these individuals have their own agendas and the best interests of the Democratic Party and not necessarily part of those. The New York Times also played a particularly active role that often went well beyond it's mission as a provider of news. On the other hand, polling data, along with simple anecdotal evidence, shows that there has been significant grassroots support for replacing Biden. Democratic Members of Congress have reported strong constituent pressure to find an alternative to Biden. As such, I don't think Biden stepping down can accurately be described as solely the work of the rich and powerful or as only the result of an upswell of grassroots activity. It is a combination of both. With regard to Harris, the primary function of a vice president is to serve in the case that the President is unable. In this case, Biden appears to be unable to continue the campaign and, hence, the Vice President should rightfully step in. Those who voted for Biden in the primary elections were voting for a ticket that included Harris. As such, it can be argued that voters have cast ballots for her. The reaction to Harris, of course, included both support and opposition. I want to focus on the opposition because it is likely indicative of what we will see in the future from Harris' opponents. While a few posters based their opposition on policy grounds such as Harris' performance on border issues, it was much more common for criticism to be based on sexism and racism. I think that it is undeniable that the next several months will be filled with sexist and racist attacks on Harris. In terms of sexism, the most common attacks were lewd, often explicit sexual references. There is a sizable contingent of — I assume men — who cannot stop themselves from sexualizing women. The same posters who excuse former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's sexual escapades with a porn star while his wife was home caring for their newborn child are quick to condemn a relationship that a young Kamala Harris had with Willie Brown. "Slut shaming" will clearly be a mainstay of conservative opposition to Harris. Racism in the thread was demonstrated most often by claims that Harris is a "DEI" candidate and with questions regarding her legitimacy as a candidate due to the fact that her parents were immigrants. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has become one of the lastest conservative bugaboos, apparently replacing "CRT" in the conservative lexicon of evils. Obviously, Harris' race and gender played a role in her selection because Biden promised to selected a Black woman. But Harris was, and is, a qualified Black woman. Indeed, at the time she was chosen by Biden, her qualifications were far stronger than those of the current Republican nominee for Vice President. Given that being a White male was almost certainly a requirement of his selection, J. D. Vance is as much of a DEI candidate as Harris. Attacks on citizenship only seem to be made against people of color. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, was born in Canada, yet his eligibility for president is not questioned. Some posters seem to fear that sexist and racist attacks on Harris are a reason to choose someone else. That rewards misogynists and racists. It is better to simply prepare for such attacks and defeat them as they arise.

The most active thread yesterday was the one about the Republican National Convention which I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip today. After that was a thread titled, "NYT and WaPo report Biden is close to stepping down" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster overstated things in the thread's title. The two articles to which he linked were not as definitive. One, in the Washington Post, said that U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi had told members of the House that President Joe Biden can be persuaded fairly soon to leave the presidential race. The second, in the New York Times, reported that people close to Biden have said that he has begun to accept the idea that he may have to drop out. There have been multiple reports that Pelosi is now leading the effort to convince Biden that he cannot win the election and that he should leave the race. My assumption is that leaks that lead to articles such as these are part of the process. Going public with expectations that Biden will soon agree to drop out is probably aimed at creating an air of inevitability that will lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy. This effort has been mishandled from the beginning. In the aftermath of Biden's disappointing debate performance, Democrats were really faced with two choices: 1) accept that Biden had had a bad night but rally around him nevertheless; or 2) launch a full-court press to replace Biden. But Democrats split between the two option and some chose a third alternative of simply giving up altogether. What resulted was a continual trickle of Biden opponents calling for him to withdraw and, as I described it before, subjecting Biden to a death of a thousand cuts. That many of the first to publicly call for replacing Biden were wealthy and elite only made matters worse. Those statements got publicity, but only made Biden and his supporters even more determined to resist. This soon developed into a worst-case scenario for Democrats who face going into their convention completely divided. Pelosi, the adult in the room if you will, apparently decided it was time to step in. It may have been true the day after the debate that Biden still had a chance to defeat former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The argument can be made that those calling for him to be replaced jumped the gun. Regardless, I am fairly confident that Biden has been so seriously wounded by the ongoing public efforts to convince him to step down that whatever chances he may have once had have evaporated. Regardless of whether those initially in favor of replacing Biden were prescient or have simply created enough damage to make their desire inevitable, we are at the point where a continued Biden candidacy is untenable. As the posts in this thread demonstrate, there is considerable frustration that we have arrived at this point and quite a few posters are clearly not pleased. Others, however reluctantly, accept that it is time for Biden to step down. Others are happy and predict that this will give the Democrats their best chance of defeating Trump. If the Band Aid could not have been pulled off quickly in the first place, let's hope that the process will not be drawn out very much longer.

Yesterday was another day in which politics dominated the most active topics. In fact, eight of the top ten most active threads were political. One of the two exceptions, however, was actually the most active thread of the day. That thread, titled, "Dad leaves toddler to die in hot car while he plays games on Play Station", was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to an article about an Arizona man who was charged with murder after leaving his 2-year-old daughter in the car. After several hours in the hot Arizona sun, the child died. The father apparently had a habit of leaving his kids — he has three including the child that passed away — in the car. While he would leave the air conditioning running, it would stop after 30 minutes and he routinely got distracted and forgot about them. In this instance he is alleged to have been playing video games and putting away groceries. The original poster is critical of the father due to his irresponsibility, but also blames his wife who was aware that he frequently left the kids in the car but still allowed him to care for them. The original poster believes the mother had a duty to make alternative arrangements due to her husband's negligence. I'm a bit surprised that this thread — which is currently 22 pages long — has received so much engagement. Of course everyone is appalled by the father's behavior. Several posters say that they are generally sympathetic towards parents whose children die after being inadvertently left in the car. But they consider this instance to be different because the father purposely left the child behind and neglected her for so many hours. There is some difference of opinion about the mother's culpability. Many posters agree with the original poster that she should also be charged. A number of posters say that women like the mother in this incident who have irresponsible husbands are in a no-win situation. If the couple divorced, the father would likely have at least part time custody and the kids would be in even more danger of his neglect. Staying together allowed her to have more responsibility for the children, but she appears to be the family bread winner and, therefore, needs to work. As such, the mother was left with no good choices. However, because the mother has strongly defended her husband in court, several posters are unsympathetic to her and more willing to see her punished. A lot of the discussion in this thread approaches the story as if it were a soap opera. Posters dig into court documents to learn that the father has children with a previous wife and has apparently stopped paying child support. They speculate that he is a "stay at home dad" only for purposes of avoiding child support payments. Posters explore the couple's lifestyle, determining that they appear to have plenty of money. Other posters discuss how technology might help to prevent children from being left in cars. But others argue that since in this case the child was left intentionally, such systems would have been overriden.

The first thread that I will discuss today was actually the fourth most popular because the three more active than it are ones that I've already discussed. The thread was titled, "Official RNC convention thread" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The thread started with the original poster noting that among the first night's speakers at the Republican National Convention was Amber Rose, an OnlyFans creator. The original poster finished by sarcastically saying that she can't wait to see what else is in store. The second post of the thread complained about the presence of Dana White, CEO and President of Ultimate Fighting Championship, who in 2022 was filmed hitting his wife after she slapped him. This led to jibes about a stripper and a wife beater starting off the conference. More seriously, it provoked one poster to launch a strident defense of White and claiming that he had the right ot hit his wife because it was self-defense. What has occurred since then is basically a running commentary about the various speakers. Democrats generally pan them while Republicans praise them. This thread also demonstrated the speech restrictions that Republicans are hoping to assert over Democrats. When a poster embedded a video showing several trucks apparently deployed by Democrats that had the message "Dictator Day One" on their sides, Republicans criticized Democrats for "having no shame". Apparently the message, which directly quotes former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump, is considered unacceptable in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump. Meanwhile, within in the convention hall, Republican speakers were free to be as inflammatory toward Democrats as they wished. One speaker who the was subject of considerable discussion was Sean O’Brien, President of the Teamsters union. O'Brien had asked to be speak at both party conventions and has been granted the opportunity. Speaking at the RNC, O'Brien did not endorse Trump and he made a number of statements that were very much out of place in a gathering of Republicans. Within the thread, his speech was quite divisive. Republicans interpreted it as shift by labor towards Republicans. Democrats, generally seeing it similarly, saw O'Brien as betraying the Democrats who had supported his union. O'Brien's presence highlighted a reality of the Republican party that is often ignored. The Party's agenda clearly favors the wealthy, promising tax cuts to corporations, reduced regulations, and — despite the invitation to O'Brien — opposition to labor unions. But the voters to whom Trump and, even more so his pick for Vice President J. D. Vance, attempt to appeal are the working class. Whether O'Brien's speech will cause workers to wrongly believe that the the Republican Party is friendly to their interests or, instead, highlight the fact that Republicans represent owners and management rather than labor, will be interesting to see.

The most active thread yesterday was once again the thread about the attempted assassination of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. But I'll skip that thread today because I have already discussed it. After that was a thread that was also Trump-related. Titled, "Official Trump VP thread", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was created back in January to discuss potential candidates to be Trump's vice president. The original poster provided a list of frontrunners for the position and third on that list was J. D. Vance, the junior Senator from Ohio. Yesterday Trump announced that he had picked Vance to be the Republican candidate for Vice President. Nearly 40 pages were added to the thread after that, consisting of sometimes heated back and forth about Vance. Vance first gained public stature due to his book, "Hillbilly Elegy". When the book was first published, my Twitter feed was filled with praise making it sound like one of the most enlightening analysis of recent times. When I read it myself, I found the book to be severely lacking and was confused that so many who I believed to be more knowledgeable than me were impressed by it. I wrote a very cautious review of the book on DCUM in which I outlined some of my criticisms. Now, years later, I believe that I was correct in my judgement and that I was far too tempered in my review. My criticism, in short, is that Vance took an ideological framework and fit the facts of his life — sometimes with a bit of artistic license — into it. In other words, he made the facts fit his conclusion rather than the other way around. In doing so, he put far too much blame on individuals while ignoring the external influences that impact their lives. I think that it is somewhat ironic that Vance's thesis in the book, that hillbillies suffer because they make poor choices, is at odds with the MAGA ethos that the plight of the White working class is caused by immigrants, coastal elites, the government, and "globalization", or almost exactly the opposite of Vance's earlier position. To the extent that Vance may have values and beliefs, they are far from rock solid and extremely flexible. Also of concern with Vance is his relationship with billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel contributed $15 million to Vance's Ohio senate campaign, a record contribution at the time. Thiel has been unabashed about his political leanings, once writing that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." Vance appears to be quite sympathetic to this viewpoint and is an admirer of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both of whom represent this "freedom through dictatorship" style of governing. Vance appears to be primarily focused on self-promotion and willing to contort himself as necessary for personal advancement. Having once suggested that Trump might be an "American Hitler", it is really no surprise that Vance would seize the opportunity to serve as Trump's vice president. Vance's ambition is such that advice I read saying that, if Trump wins the presidency, Vance should not be allowed to have sharp instruments in Trump's vicinity is not much of an exaggeration.