Why you shouldn’t vote for Trump, according to JD Vance

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/16/2254701/-Why-you-shouldn-t-vote-for-Trump-according-to-JD-Vance?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_4&pm_medium=web

I want thank PERSONNELENTE whose post I got the link from. Link below. I hate the infighting from Democrats tearing Biden apart. He is old, but he has great ideas. The time to get someone else was back a year or more ago. Plus all these drop Biden people can not agree on who should replace him. If they try to pass over Harris then it is an automatic win tRump. We have to remember who we are facing, it is tRump we must defeat, not Biden. Hugs. Scottie

Some Thoughts On Trump

by Kaili Joy Gray
Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday, July 16, 2024 at 11:58:07a EDT

Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate

Donald Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate on Monday. The following article is composed of direct quotes from Vance about Trump, given in interviews, op-eds, tweets, and text messages.

I’m a “never Trump” guy. I never liked him.¹

I don’t know who I’m gonna vote for. I’m definitely not gonna vote for Trump because I think that he’s projecting very complex problems onto simple villains.² I quickly realized that Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.³

Trump instead offers a political high, a promise to “Make America Great Again” without a single good idea regarding how.⁴ [His] promises are the needle in America’s collective vein. … Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.⁵ Whether he wins or not, people are going to wake up and realize these problems are still there.⁶

Without some recognition that some of these problems in our community are not the fault of other people, they’re not going to be solved by a Mexican border wall or better trade deals with China. Without some recognition along those lines, I don’t believe these problems are ever truly going to get better.⁷

And if you think, as I do, that Donald Trump doesn’t necessarily have a good message either, that’s maybe not the best approach to politics. It’s not how you win these folks over. And if you’re worried about them being racist now, when you push them away and push them to somebody like Trump, you’re only going to make the problem worse.⁸

But I’m not surprised by Trump’s rise, and I think the entire [Republican] Party has only itself to blame. We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people in the process) or a demagogue would. We are now at that point. Trump is the fruit of the party’s collective neglect. … I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?⁹

The other big problem I have with Trump is that he has dragged down our entire political conversation.¹⁰ [He] is changing the way people think about other groups of people in a very negative way.¹¹ [T]here is definitely an element of [his] support that has its basis in racism or xenophobia.¹²

A lot of people think Trump is just the first to appeal to the racism and xenophobia that were already there, but I think he’s making the problem worse.¹³ There are people who are drawn to Trump because he says racially insensitive things.¹⁴ [He] still hasn’t apologized for suggesting that a disproportionate share of Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals.¹⁵

People listen to what their political leaders are telling them, and my view is both that Trump is tapping into some racially ugly attitudes, but also that he is leading people to racially ugly attitudes. … [He] is exploiting something but he’s also leading the white working class to a very dark place.¹⁶His rallies may be cathartic, as he screams and yells at conjured enemies, but he offers no solutions. His entire candidacy is an exercise in pointing the finger at someone else. In pointing that finger so repeatedly and enthusiastically, Donald Trump has debased our entire political culture.¹⁷

I can’t stomach Trump. I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.¹⁸ [He] makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.¹⁹

Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.²⁰

Andrew Mangan contributed research to this piece.

When Hatred of the Left Becomes Love for Putin

AZspot

“What’s more, the grievance and resentment at the heart of Trumpist nationalism in America is in some ways quite similar to the mentality of Putinist nationalism in Russia: One obsesses over losing the culture war and being disrespected by the “elites”; the other, over losing the Cold War and being disrespected by the West. Perhaps this explains other similarities in the two mindsets, from the penchant for provocation and in-your-face defiance of norms to the affinity for conspiracy theories. Too many American rightists look at the Putin regime and see kindred spirits.”

Is Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Over? Well, Here Is What Really Happened

Trump’s VP Pick J.D. Vance Is an Anti-LGBTQ+ Nightmare

https://www.them.us/story/jd-vance-trump-vp-running-mate-anti-lgbtq-record

The Ohio senator vocally supports anti-trans policies and opposed a law codifying marriage equality.

BY NICO LANG
July 15, 2024

Bloomberg

Donald Trump has chosen J.D. Vance as his running mate, the former president announced on Monday.

Vance, a first-term Republican senator from Ohio, was widely expected to be Trump’s vice presidential pick as the pool of potential hopefuls narrowed earlier in the day. Just hours before the announcement, several outlets reported that Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) were informed by the Trump campaign that they would not be on the 2024 ticket. Others previously thought to be on Trump’s short list included Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), U.S. House Rep. Elise Stefanink (R-N.Y.), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

In a post on his own tech platform, Truth Social, Trump lauded Vance as the “person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States.”

“J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association,” he said, adding that he “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”

The choice of Vance, who rose to fame as the author of the controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was likely intended to help Trump shore up support among white, lower-income voters in the Midwest, where President Joe Biden is considered vulnerable in the 2024 race. According to poll averages from FiveThirtyEight, Trump leads Biden by more than nine points in Vance’s home state of Ohio, and Biden also trails in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden would likely need to win all three of the latter states to stave off a second Trump term, with swing states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada also looking vulnerable in 2024.

A former critic of Trump who recast himself as a politician in the MAGA model, Vance’s LGBTQ+ record differs very little from the man at the top of his ticket. During his two years in the U.S. Senate, Vance opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal same-sex marriage rights in the event that Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2004 ruling legalizing marriage equality, is repealed by the Supreme Court. He also authored the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would make it a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to provide gender-affirming surgery to trans minors. (This despite the fact that transition surgeries are rarely offered to patients under the age of 18 and only in cases of extreme medical need.)

Additionally, Vance is a supporter of the so-called “parent’s rights” movement, which advocates that LGBTQ+ students be outed to their parents and seeks to remove queer-affirming resources from classrooms. He has repeatedly referred to opponents of those actions as “groomers,” such as in an April 2022 post on X. “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children,” he wrote at the time.

The 39-year-old politician has also opposed diversity and inclusion in the U.S. armed forces, suggesting that he is likely to support re-banning trans servicemembers from the military should Trump be elected. “American political leaders should stop using America’s military as a social justice side project,” his 2022 campaign site reads. “Troops don’t need to focus on diversity or equity or any other progressive buzzword; they need to focus on fighting and winning America’s wars.” The removal of trans troops from the military is a major component of Project 2025, a set of far-right policy proposals shaped and promoted by the anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation, which Trump has sought to distance himself from in recent days.

Vance’s anti-LGBTQ+ background also includes claiming that Biden supports Ukraine because Russian President Vladimir Putin is anti-trans and blaming the “childless left” for America’s decline, specifically citing U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Furthermore, he once accused U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) of making up the term “Two-Spirit,” which is broadly embraced by LGBTQ+ Native Americans to describe their identities. “Would love if progressives just stopped inventing words,” Vance posted on X in February 2021.

In repeatedly opposing LGBTQ+ equality, Vance has found a perfect match in Trump, whose administration was responsible for more than 200 attacks on queer rights in four years, according to GLAAD. These assaults included repealing protections for trans students, removing resources for LGBTQ+ Americans from federal websites, decimating funding for global HIV/AIDS prevention, and appointing a record-number of judges opposed to LGBTQ+ equality. His administration also made it harder for marginally housed people to find safe shelter and opposed workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees.

Trump, whose own supporters threatened to kill his last vice president for refusing to support Trump’s 2020 bid to remain in office, is likely to resume many of those policies if reelected in November.

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Report: Staggering Number Of Palestinians Have And Will Die Because Of Israel Since Oct. 7th

Gaza BOMBSHELL Report Ignored By Mainstream Media

This Lancet article by three medical experts is absolutely chilling – and yet largely ignored. That tells you all you need to know.

Until the Violence Stops, We Need Pride

Ukraine children’s hospital hit by Russian attack | REUTERS

Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in a rare daytime attack, killing at least 20 people across the country and hitting a key children’s hospital

The Loudest Pundits Don’t Talk to Voters, I do…

https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/the-loudest-pundits-dont-talk-to?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

This was from a link from Ali. I have asked Ali to be an author on the blog, she could then post these links she feels are important. This should put to rest the idea of replacing Biden. Even progressives I follow and love can not see that their denigration and desire to replace Biden is hurting the democrats, helping to elect tRump. Look, it is too late to change horses in midstream. This is being pushed by the news media because they want more advertising money and more of a horse race. Hell one station I just heard a clip from suggested Hillary Clinton to replace Biden? Why would they claim or say that?. It is a wish and daydream. None of the major democratic players and big money donors want the same candidate. I love the VP, and yet big money and democratic leaders are suggesting other people. Hugs. Scottie

JESS PIPER

JUL 06, 2024

Tysons, Virginia. Wasting time waiting for my Uber and my late flight out after speaking at an event the night before. I was in the lobby of the fanciest hotel I’ve ever stayed in — The Watermark. I sat in the lobby workstation watching a breathtakingly beautiful young woman take professional photos for her new career and trying to hide my excitement each time she came out in a new outfit. The photographer showed her each pose and then the young woman would imitate her. Sometimes with a laptop or a book in her lap.

She is going to have a beautiful LinkedIn profile.

I was invited to speak at a summit just outside of DC, and just got back a week ago. The Women’s Summit is a large annual conference hosted in part by Network Nova. I have to tell you something: the message from rural America never fails to captivate an audience. Especially an audience filled with activists in a solidly Democratic city and region.

But I am not writing to tell you what I spoke about. I am writing to tell you what I heard when I listened to the voters and activists in the room.

What you’ll hear me say is not at all what the pundits are saying about Biden after the disastrous debate. It is the opposite of the narrative being furiously flung at us each day by everyone from MSNBC to CNN to the New York Times to the nightly news to opinion pieces across the country.

I speak to actual people…the pundits feed off each other. I work with grassroots organizers to spread Democratic messaging…the pundits write clickbait headlines and stoke fear.

The debate.

First of all, I did not watch but a few minutes of the debate live. I chose to watch it in clips and videos afterward. I was horrified. I felt like I was watching a trainwreck in slow motion. Biden performed terribly and Trump lied continuously.

Honestly, I wish Biden had never accepted the debate premise because it’s pointless to debate a liar. It just gives Trump the runway to lie even more, and without pushback from the moderators, the debate went nowhere.

The voters and activists I listened to in Virginia weren’t wondering if Biden should step aside and none of them were kidding themselves about what they witnessed during the debate. They are solidly behind the Biden administration. Solidly.

The summit in Virginia was diverse. Hundreds of women gathered and many were Black women. I like to hear the viewpoints of folks who are neither rural nor white — I am not in enough diverse rooms. I get a different POV and that’s important. What I heard was real and heartfelt. They are behind Biden.

I listened as several Black women spoke about their admiration for Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, but how pundits holding them up as replacements for Joe Biden is condescending and irritating. Joe Biden has a Vice President. A Black woman — Kamala Harris. The women wondered aloud if there would be such a push to replace Biden on the ballot if his VP were not Black.

Same.

They wondered why journalists and politicos demand that Biden step down, but not Trump. They wondered why so many articles are being written about Biden’s age and fitness, but not the same about Trump. They wondered why Democratic strategists are making voters fearful instead of leading with a steady hand. They wondered why Biden is taking all the hits while a felon with a rape conviction, his opponent, is not even addressed.

Same.

The biggest takeaway from the folks outside DC is they are angry that the “same shit” that happened in 2016 is rearing its head again. Several stated they are tired of the line “The DNC chose Biden.” They reminded me that primary voters picked him…Black voters picked him. They are sick of repeating it.

These voters and activists did not waver when they repeated over and over again that they have no hesitation in voting for Biden in November.

From that group of over 600 suburban folks to a group of about 20 rural Dems…

You know I am rural and I often speak in rural spaces. Most of these spaces are older and White. When I listen to voters in these spaces, they have zero doubt about who their candidate is…even after the debate. Do they doubt that it was an awful showing? They do not. They watched it with their own eyes. Do they wish Biden performed better? Seemed younger? Spoke more clearly and concisely? Yes. Will they still vote for him? Also yes.

Not one rural person I’ve spoken with wants to remove Biden from the ballot in favor of another candidate. They believe in the administration and they are fearful of another Trump presidency. They think Biden can beat Trump.

This is what rural voters have told me: Biden has been good for ordinary people. He’s worked for public schools and the LGBTQ community and student loan forgiveness and infrastructure and rural broadband. They’ve seen highway projects funded. They remember that Biden curbed COVID deaths and consistently pushes for union jobs. They know he will not sign away reproductive rights.

Leave a comment

Listen, I am not paid by the DNC and I don’t earn a dime from my state party. I am a Democrat because the party aligns with most of my views, but I am not a party first person…I am a country first person. I can see with my own eyes what the Republicans are about and I already know what a Trump presidency will bring. We all know what it will mean.

I will never forget the maxim: Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line. I know many of us are not in love, but can we come together to beat a certain autocrat? To overcome the fascism and Christian nationalism creeping in?

I was as scared as any of us after the debate. I had a feeling of doom bearing down on me. After talking to so many voters since, even after reading so many terribly divisive pieces, I feel more calm. The voters I’ve listened to are not doing what the pundits claim they are doing. They have said that replacing Biden on the ticket will almost certainly divide the party. They have faith in the Biden administration. They have faith in his VP.

I am tired of pundits creating a narrative that I don’t see in real life. I don’t know why they do it? For clout? For clicks?

I hate that each of us is exposed to the fear every single day. I hate that many in the media are driving a wedge between Democrats with this incessant message of doom and gloom and the need for a new nominee.

I have no crystal ball, but I do have neighbors and friends and I know organizers across the country. I hope we can make it through this with a nominee intact and a win in November. I hope we can listen to our neighbors and mute the pundit-class.

Our country can’t manage another Trump presidency.

~Jess