Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Harris ‘closing argument’ speech next Tuesday on the mall" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started a week ago in anticipation of an address delivered by Vice President Kamala Harris last evening at the Ellipse on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In the style of a true Democrat, the original poster is fearful that Harris is taking a "big swing" that could miss. But the original poster does express interest in taking her daughter to see Harris speak. The first part of this thread is almost funny, marked by a discussion of electoral votes provoked by a poster who was unaware that the District of Columbia has three electoral votes. Moreover, several posters didn't seem to understand that this is an equal number of electoral votes to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska. Several posters questioned why Harris would choose D.C. for such an important speech given that she can already count on the District's votes. Once Harris began her address, however, the answer to that became obvious. Harris had several goals with this speech, but primary it was about sending a message. With the backdrop of the White House and staged in the same location from which former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump launched an insurrection on January 6, 2021, Harris positioned herself as the "adult" alternative to Trump. Harris' message was clear. Where Trump caused chaos and division, she would unite the country and solve problems. "Donald Trump wants to put his opponents in jail. I will give them a seat at the table", Harris said. The Doubting Thomases who seem to dominate the Democratic Party were hopefully assured by this address. Harris will never be an orator on the level of former President Barack Obama, but her delivery was competent and miles above what we've come to expect from Trump. In my opinion, the content of the speech was nearly perfect. With a crowd size estimated to be in the range of 75,000, this was easily the largest crowd of the campaign and puts Trump's crowds to shame. Personally, it is difficult for me to find much about which to complain. If I were forced to identify a fault, I guess I would point to the absence of any mention of the Middle East. But I am not sure that there would have been much value in reiterating another empty call for a ceasefire. This also draws attention to the fact that despite Harris' promise to give opponents a seat at the table, supporters of the Palestinians have repeatedly been refused such a seat. Other posters had a litany of complaints. As usual, Harris' voice and speaking style were criticized. Some posters wanted more policy details. But for the most part, critics were left with distortions of her words, claiming that she had neglected issues that she actually mentioned, or desperately trying to change the subject. Harris was never going to please everyone, but overall, I think she achieved everything that she set out to do with this speech. She left Democrats excited, full of hope, and reinvigorated.

The next two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. After those was another thread posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "Everyone, please comment on Bezos' piece in WaPo!". I've already discussed a thread about Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos' decision to prevent the newspaper from printing an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. We had at least four threads related to that topic. This thread was started after Bezos explained and defended his decision to stop the presidential endorsement in an opinion article in the Post. Bezos' argument is that newspapers are not trusted and that endorsements are a sign of bias. Therefore, stopping endorsements is a small step toward earning back the public's trust. Bezos also rejected suggestions that the move was part of a quid pro quo with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. Trump met with executives of Bezos' Blue Origin company on the day the endorsement was squelched, but Bezos claims to have been unaware of the meeting. While I agree with Bezos that presidential endorsements are of little consequence, Bezos does not seem to understand the significance of the timing of his decision to halt such endorsements. He puts that off as nothing but poor planning, but it is much more than that. The fact that decision-makers did not predict the impact of cancelling an already prepared endorsement, and therefore giving the impression that this move was aimed at Harris and practically equivalent to an endorsement of Trump, suggests that those folks simply don't know what they are doing. As such, I have very little hope that they will be capable of returning trust to the news industry. To be fair, the news industry faces an almost insurmountable challenge. As I have written several times, the country is not simply divided politically but, in many cases, the two sides are living in completely different realities. A huge reason for this is the reliance on separate news sources. The Post and most other mainstream media outlets want to position themselves in the middle but then, as Bezos did in his article, complain that they are speaking only to an increasingly smaller segment of the population. That's like complaining that an ice cube left out in the sun is melting. As I said when I discussed the earlier thread on this topic, Trump has created a situation that is not normal. Yet the Post, and news outlets like it, have attempted to cover politics as if things are normal. That is simply not working and Bezos gives no evidence that he understands that this is a problem. If he cannot identify the problem, I don't know how he can be expected to solve it. Cancelling endorsements is not simply rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, it is more like removing a champagne flute from a table on the deck of the Titanic. Except that Bezos chose the worst possible moment to take such an action and, therefore, increased the lack of trust that he claims to be trying to combat. If Bezos and the Post cannot figure out how to successfully operate in a period in which potential readers are living in separate realities, the Post's fate will also be to end up as a crashed hulk that is little more than an artifact of history.

Next was a thread that is a sharp break from the political threads that have been dominating the most active list. Titled, "Gisele Bundchen is pregnant with baby #3!" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the title is self-explanatory. Supermodel and ex-wife of former NFL quarterback Tom Brady is pregnant at the age of 44. The father of the baby is a 35-year-old who was her and her older kids' martial arts instructor. I would say that there is no topic that generates interest among the entertainment forum posters more than a celebrity being pregnant, but that would be overlooking the British Royal Family threads. But, next to British Royal Family threads, pregnant celebrities are the next biggest thing. Regardless of the details, there will be posters who insist that the celebrity is too young, too old, the pregnancy is too soon in the relationship, or too late. No matter what, there will be a debate about how the child was conceived with a strong contingent that insists that artificial means are involved. While this is more common with older celebrities, it is also likely to happen in the case of a 20-year-old. Bundchen's situation is more or less the full enchilada. At 44, she is older than what many DCUM posters consider a prudent age for pregnancy. As such, there are all kinds of concerns expressed that Bundchen will be in her 60s when the baby is a teenager. There are warnings that pregnancies at such an age are likely to have complications or result in children with special needs. Posters have lots of anecdotes, sometimes including their own experiences, of moms in their 40s having children with a host of problems including various special needs. Other posters have an equal number of anecdotes of older moms having perfectly healthy children. Similarly, posters have contrary opinions about the father being a young instructor to whom Bundchen is not married. Some are quick to take issue with the situation, while others have no problem with it or are even supportive of the relationship. But regardless of whatever problems posters might have with Bundchen being an older mom or having a younger lover, there is general agreement that her wealth changes the equation radically. If the baby has special needs, no problem because the child will get the best therapies. Will Bundchen be too old to keep up with a child? Doesn't matter because she will have plenty of help. In fact, several posters say that if they had her money, they would also have another child at her age. Quite a few of them also wouldn't mind a young lover. There was also quite a bit of concern expressed about the impact of the pregnancy on Bundchen's other children. Many posters suspect that the older kids can't be happy, but others are less sure of that, suggesting the children might adjust easily. Despite Bundchen's claim that the child was conceived naturally, though unexpectedly, many posters insist throughout the thread that that simply could not be the case and IVF had to be involved.

Instead of finishing with another thread, I am going to discuss a topic that was the subject of several threads that I deleted. Last night, just after Vice President Kamala Harris finished her speech, my social media feeds were suddenly flooded by posts saying that President Joe Biden had called supporters of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump "garbage". Despite what you will hear from Trump supporters and an unfortunate number of members of the media, that is not true. The controversy resulted from a Zoom call that Biden had with members of Voto Latino. Referring to remarks by Tony Hinchcliffe during Trump's recent Madison Square Garden rally in which he referred to Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage", Biden said the following:

And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Well, let me tell you something. I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know — or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr- — in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.

Part of the problem here is that three words, "supporters", "supporters'", and "supporter's" all sound the same, and which word Biden used can only be determined by context. Unfortunately, Biden's stumbling and awkward speaking style makes that a bit of a challenge. However, Biden immediately followed the word 'supporters" (in either its plural, possessive, or plural possessive form) with the pronoun "his," which he repeated. "His" can only refer to either Trump or Hinchcliffe. But Biden was clearly talking about Hinchcliffe's "island of garbage' statement. This makes it obvious that "his" referred to Hinchcliffe. Biden clearly forgot Hinchcliffe's name and, therefore, referred to Hinchcliffe as "his (meaning Trump's) supporter". As such, Biden was obviously referring to Hinchcliffe's remarks, which Biden considers to be garbage. To clarify things further, the White House confirmed with Biden what he meant to say, and a statement explaining what Biden meant was issued. But none of that mattered to Trump supporters. Trump supporters are never so gleeful than when they believe that they have been insulted. Being called "deplorable" by Hillary Clinton has been the highlight of many of their lives. The suggestion that they had been called "garbage" by Biden provoked an explosion of joy that was almost unprecedented. Trump supporters nationwide were spiking footballs and claiming the game was now over and Biden had won it for them. This led to a rash of new threads on DCUM and a huge number of posts in existing threads. I have been removing those threads and posts. The reason is quite simple. DCUM is not going to play a role in MAGAs' manufactured outrage. For months, we heard that Biden is a senile old man who is incapable of composing a coherent sentence. Suddenly, his words are being treated as if issued from the Oracle of Delphi. Biden is not the candidate. He did not say what MAGAs are claiming he said. Posters are welcome to fake all the outrage they want to, but just not on DCUM.