Pun Salad

First, a quick aside on the miracle of free-market capitalism quickly responding to perceived consumer needs: When looking for appropriate Amazon Product Eye Candy this morning, I discovered that there are already scads of signs, buttons, and stickers you can purchase saying "Don't blame me, I voted for Kamala". And various variations thereon.

But the main reason I was searching Amazon was to find something to illustrate our lead item. It's from Jeff Maurer, who is Playing the Blame Game to WIN.

Jeff (I call him Jeff) is particularly bemused/amused at:

It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.

While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.

And they’re right. pic.twitter.com/lM2gSJmQFL

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 6, 2024

He comments:

I swear that Jeff Maurer is just an ideological smidgen away from becoming a contributor to Reason, National Review, or the Wall Street Journal.

Also of note:

• "Cool, I broke his brain." I doubt that Trump reads Jonathan Rauch, and I doubt he could do a decent Bart Simpson impression. But I can fantasize his response to Rauch's recent screed on Tuesday's Moral Catastrophe. Sample:

  We on the liberal-democracy side need to recognize the implications. We lost more than the election. We also lost the standing to claim that our values represent the moral mainstream. We now must function in a world where MAGA not only controls the country’s government but defines its norms—more, at least, than we do.

  This will make it harder to hold ground from which to criticize Trump and MAGA, no matter what they do or say. When we protest the latest Trump outrage (and there will be many), we will be accused of elitism and irrelevance. “If you’re the moral arbiters,” MAGA’s allies will say, “why can’t you persuade anybody? Why is it that no one cares about your indignation? Might it be because the public is tired of your moral grandstanding? Might it be because you’re wrong?” We’ll have to fight for moral oxygen these next few years, and it’s a fight we might not win.

  Complicating matters further: In the teeth of the election’s permissioning of grotesque political behavior, those who have stood firm against MAGA’s depredations will feel even more pressure to give way or stand down. Some will lack the energy to keep insisting that MAGA is not morally normal; others will conclude that criticizing MAGA is futile or counterproductive, and also potentially dangerous; yet others will, as Tocqueville warned, internalize the electorate’s verdict, concluding that the majority of American voters can’t be wrong. However it happens, we must expect a struggle to maintain our own moral confidence—again, a fight we might not win.

  If you browse the Twitter fever swamps, you will have already seen a whole bunch of videos of Kamala supporters breaking down, screaming, and crying. Rauch provides a more respectable text version of the same.

  And, yes, he sure says "MAGA" a lot.

  The funny thing (for sufficiently small values of "funny") is that Rauch is very good when he's not doing politics. When I read his book The Constitution of Knowledge a couple years ago, I observed that, yes, Trump broke his brain. And, as a result: "[he's] strident, unbalanced, and didactic when [he] should be mellow, even-handed and persuasive."

  For example, I don't think he's sufficiently critical of the illiberalism of the people on his political side. Some examples at the link above, but also…

• AKA, destroying the village in order to save it. Robby Soave visits Progressive MediaLand, and discovers: To Fight Donald Trump, the Media Contemplates Vast Censorship.

  The explanation that Harris lost because the voters are too racist to accept her will always have a certain amount of appeal among the progressive pundit class. Of course, this theory runs into obvious trouble: Harris seemingly lost ground with virtually every demographic, including black and Latino voters. As for the argument that the electorate is biased against woman candidates, there may be some underlying truth to that—but it's important to note that Harris lost even more spectacularly than Hillary Clinton. Either the voters became much more sexist—not entirely persuasive—or there is something else going on.

  What is that other thing? The explanation likely to receive star billing from progressives is an increasingly familiar one: social media misinformation. MSNBC host Jen Psaki cited the dangers of disinformation and propaganda on X—the site run by ardent Trump backer, adviser, and billionaire Elon Musk—as a reason to fear Musk's influence over Trump. And earlier in the week, before she knew Harris would lose, Psaki advised Democrats to take action against social media companies in order to "limit the lies that they can spread."

  The hosts of The View sounded a similar note on their postelection episode.

  "It would help if we could regulate social media," said Sara Haines. "DC and Congress have not been able to do one thing in regard to the rogue corporations of social media."

  As evidenced by this clip, the stridency was strong:

  The View: We must censor social media to prevent this from happening again pic.twitter.com/JjwM8YQwqN

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 6, 2024

  Robby Soave notes the self-serving nature of the pleas from "legacy" media pundits, who are typically being paid by corporations (like Disney/ABC) operating under the umbrella of the First Amendment, wanting to deny that protection to people saying things they don't like.

• Plenty of blame to go around. Nick Catoggio, the onetime Allahpundit, analyzes the "it's all Biden's fault" claim: Burning the ‘Bridge’. It's a long, meandering, look at the Rube Goldberg machinery that brought us to Trump II. But:

  Culpability for Trump’s victory lies not with Biden or Harris, but with the unserious, irresponsible, malevolent American voter. Some supported Trump’s fascist vision of government enthusiastically because they believe in it, while others supported it reluctantly because they believe they’ll fare better economically under it. But everyone who cast a ballot for Trump did so because they’re comfortable with the high likelihood that he’ll abuse his powers as president unlike anyone before him.

  I'm a fan of voter-blaming, too. We could be looking forward to Nikki Haley's inauguration, but… voters said no.

• Missing some data points, I'm afraid. I used to read William A. Jacobsen's Legal Insurrection blog, but it dropped off my radar for some reason. I was called back due to its appearance in my Google LFOD News Alert mail which pointed me to this article from Mike LaChance:. It’s Time to Accept the Fact That New Hampshire is a Blue State.

  I was one of the people holding out hope that New Hampshire would go red in the 2024 presidential election. The state has not done so since the 2004 election of George W. Bush. If ever there was a year when the Granite State might go red again, this was it.

  But no. Kamala beat Trump here (according to the Google as I type) 50.9%-48.2%.

  Yes, Republican Kelly Ayotte beat Democrat Joyce Craig (53.6%-44.3%). That proves nothing according to LaChance, because she's "moderate". Doesn't count.

  Unmentioned by LaChance:

  • The NH Executive Council remains 4-1 in favor of the GOP.
  • Republicans, who already controlled the Senate 14-10, will now hold a 16-8 majority.
  • In the 400-member General Court, it looks like Republicans are going from a slim majority (201-199 at one point) to a stronger 222-178 majority.

  This is not what a "blue state" looks like.

  New Hampshire voters are pretty good at ticket-splitting. Sorry.

  I left a comment on the article at Legal Insurrection, but… now I'm beginning to realize why it might have dropped off my blogroll.