Althouse

From his new book, "Cinema Speculation" (boldface added):

[T]he Pod People transformation is closer to a rebirth than a murder. You’re reborn as straight intellect, with a complete possession of your past and your abilities, but unburdened by messy human emotions. You also possess a complete fidelity to your fellow beings and a total commitment to the survival of your species. Are they inhuman? Of course, they’re vegetables. But the movies try to present their lack of humanity (they don’t have a sense of humor, they’re unmoved when a dog is hit by a car) as evidence of some deep-seated sinisterness. That’s a rather species-centric point of view. As human beings it may be our emotions that make us human, but it’s a stretch to say it’s what makes us great. Along with those positive emotions—love, joy, happiness, amusement—come negative emotions—hate, selfishness, racism, depression, violence, and rage....

Imagine in the fifties, when the [first "Body Snatchers"] film was made, that instead of some little town in Northern California (Santa Mira) that the aliens took root in, it was a horribly racist, segregated Ku Klux Klan stronghold in the heart of Mississippi.

Within weeks the color lines would disappear. Blacks and whites would be working together (in genuine brotherhood) towards a common goal. And humanity would be represented by one of the racist Kluxers whose investigative gaze notices formerly like-minded white folks seemingly enter into a conspiracy with some members of the county’s black community. Now picture his hysterical reaction to it (“Those people are coming after me! They’re not human! You’re next! You’re next!”).

The post title is something a disappointed voter said, in tears, in 2012, after the failure of the effort to recall the duly elected Governor of Wisconsin.

You can see video of the desolate man here, embedded in a post of mine from 2017. I used it in one of my 6 reflections on the Washington Post's new motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness."

I'm steeling myself for the emotionalism of the day. There will be winners and losers, but how desperately mournful will the losers be?

If you actually believed in democracy, you wouldn't assert that if you don't win, democracy has died... especially if you'd spent the last 2 years denouncing those who won't acknowledge the legitimacy of their own defeat.

Said President Biden in his speech last night. 

I'm reading the transcript. He's talking about the midterm elections and he's saying the main issue is — not the economy, not crime, not abortion — but democracy itself, as if we can vote for democracy.

We participate in democracy when we vote. But how do you vote for democracy? Is he trying to say a vote for a Democrat is a vote for democracy, and a vote for a Republican is a vote against democracy?

We the people must decide whether the rule of law will prevail or whether we will allow the dark forces and thirst for power put ahead of the principles that have long guided us.

Is that on the ballot? I'd like "a republic where reality is accepted," but my President is raving about "dark forces." I presume he means that anyone who questions the accuracy of the voting procedures and vote counts is failing to "accept reality" and maybe also that people who think like that are part of the "dark forces."

As for the "thirst for power," isn't every candidate thirsting for power? I'd say yes, and that's a "reality" I simply "accept," but I don't think the elections next week are about which candidates are thirstier. It would be silly — and not reality-based — to vote based on which candidate seems less thirsty and less dark. It's like we're in a comic-book movie. Biden purports to call us to well-grounded sanity, but he speaks a language of free-floating fantasy.

Biden proceeds to blame Trump: "American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refused to accept the results of the 2020 election."

Every legal challenge that could have been brought, was brought. Every recount that could have been undertaken, was undertaken. Every recount confirmed the results. Wherever fact or evidence had been demanded, the big lie has been proven to be just that, a big lie.

I agree that the result should be accepted for the good of the country, but not that following the available legal procedures proves that the conclusion reached in those procedures is the same as what we'd get from longer, more nearly perfect procedures. It's an American tradition to go on inquiring into the results of concluded legal proceedings, even as we are also realistic about the practical need to accept court judgments and move forward.

This isn't the first time the Hitler-coined term "the big lie" has been used against those who still question the results of the 2020 election. If Biden really wanted to call us to sanity and calm reasonableness, would he speak to us this way?

With democracy on the ballot, we have to remember these first principles. Democracy means the rule of the people.... Autocracy... means the rule of one, one person, one interest, one ideology, one party.... Make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us.... Because democracy is on the ballot....

He keeps saying it, "democracy is on the ballot." It's not true, but I guess his people liked the sound of it. It would make more sense to say "democracy is the ballot."

"Democracy is on the ballot" is a way to say — without saying — that you ought to vote for the Democratic Party candidate. But Biden keeps it superficially nonpartisan: Just vote and then peacefully accept the results that emerge from the existing legal process.

A vote is not a partisan tool to be counted when it helps your candidates and tossed aside when it doesn’t... We don’t settle our differences, America, with a riot, a mob, or a bullet, or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the ballot box....

 And don't be violent:

There’s an alarming rise in the number of our people in this country condoning political violence, or simply remain silent because silence is complicity.... All of us who reject political violence and voter intimidation, and I believe that’s the overwhelming majority of the American people, all of us must unite to make it absolutely clear that violence and intimidation have no place in America.....

I agree, of course. But questioning the announced results of elections is not violence. It is part of freedom of speech, and active, non-violent protesting is part of the American tradition. I lived through an especially vivid example of that here in Wisconsin in 2011, when protesters stormed the state capitol and chanted "This is what democracy looks like." Democracy wasn't just the election and the announced legal result, it was all the pressure the losing side could exert. 

As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America, for governor, congress, attorney general, secretary of state, who won’t commit, that will not commit to accepting the results of the election that they’re running in. This is a path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful, and it’s un-American....

They only need to commit to refraining from calling for violence. The rest — the protests, the dogged sticking to a losing position — is absolutely not unlawful — it's free speech — and absolutely not un-American. 

Biden ends with an idea that — at long last — translates "democracy is on the ballot" into something that does make sense:

This year I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote and how you vote. I hope you’ll ask a simple question of each candidate you might vote for. Will that person accept the legitimate will of the American people and the people voting in his district or her district? Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose? The answer to that question is vital. And, in my opinion, it should be decisive.

"Democracy is on the ballot" = Vote against any candidate who would not make the promise to accept the results of the election.

So I get what he's saying. I wouldn't base my vote on the failure of a given Republican to take an oath foisted on him by Democrats, but perhaps the President's words will motivate some voters.

Overall, 27% of registered voters say they are extremely enthusiastic about voting this year, down from 37% just ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, and the decline in enthusiasm comes almost entirely among Democrats. Four years ago, 44% of Democratic registered voters said they were extremely enthusiastic about voting; now, just 24% say the same. Among Republicans, the number has dipped only narrowly, from 43% to 38%.

I wouldn't say a loss of 5 percentage points is "narrow," but the Democrats have lost 20 percentage points. That's enormous. What's going on?!

It could be simply that the economy is the biggest issue and people who like Democrats still don't trust them with the economy. Even if you love profuse spending, inflation hurts you every day, and at some point your own pain overshadows your self-image as a person of empathy. Maybe just stay home and disconnect. This election's not for you.

Similarly, a Democrat might abstractly endorse more empathy-oriented policies about crime but worry about their personal safety and the safety of their family. It may not be enough to flip them into voting for a law-and-order Republican, but it might induce abstention. I'll just turn away and let you rougher folks do things that might be needed.

But let's talk about abortion. When the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, Democratic Party politicians thought this was the issue that would rescue them from the red wave that had seemed inevitable. They pushed that issue hard and strongly identified themselves with a plan to pass statutes guaranteeing access to abortion. 

The CNN article tells us that abortion is the top issue for 15% of likely voters and for 29% of Democratic likely voters. But I want to know about those unlikely voters. I'm thinking that when abortion was understood and protected as a constitutional right, voting for the Democratic Party did not seem to have a direct causal connection to abortion. Now, the moral problem is stark. The Party is actively calling attention to the voters' role in making abortion available. 

I would think some people, in that situation, would distance and disconnect. Let others decide. Indeed, the erstwhile constitutional right represented the idea that the other should decide. That is, the woman who is experiencing the pregnancy makes the decision, and that is her right. But the decision-making is now in the political sphere, and those who want to stay out of the decision-making — who were adjusted to Roe — can refrain from voting.

There was no bigger roar from the crowd during the speech than during the following section, and there was no bigger shit-eating grin on his burnt-toast face than the one that came following the roar: 

I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first getting millions and millions of more votes than in 2016. And likewise getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far. . . .  And now we may have to do it again. We may have to do it again.

Shit-eating grin on his burnt-toast face.... We need to get rid of Trump and return the GOP to the more civil, mature adults in the party. You know, the ones who say things like "shit-eating grin on his burnt-toast face." 

I became immersed in the poetry of "shit-eating grin on his burnt-toast face." Because if Trump is the one doing the eating — shit-eating — then why is he simultaneously a food substance — burnt toast. Does food eat? I began to think of the shit as a Nutella-like spread for toast. Do you picture the shit-eater eating it plain, like pudding, or using some medium, as with the legendary shit sandwich? Did you ever think deeply about the shit sandwich? Was it on toast? Was the toast burnt?

I'm so glad the excitable Tim Miller, from the illustrious Bulwark, gave me something to think about, this Monday morning. Some days, your food for thought is a shit sandwich... on burnt toast.

The man speaking to an adoring crowd at CPAC... owns an entire new crop of succubus surrogates....  His hands may be tiny and soft, but his grip on the party is pretty tight.

Let's see those hands:

I’m here to tell you tonight, we believe we’re on track to win this election. We knew because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted. But we’re feeling good. We’re feeling good about where we are....

As I’ve said all along, it’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who’s won this election. That’s the decision of the American people. But I’m optimistic about this outcome.... Keep the faith guys, we’re going to win this.... Your patience is great.

Does he really believe it's not his place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who’s won this election? 

Just yesterday, I read in Axios: "If news organizations declare Joe Biden the mathematical president-elect, he plans to address the nation as its new leader, even if President Trump continues to fight in court." That's not leaving it to "the American people," but to the news organizations who have been bending over backwards to help Biden. 

Unlike Trump, Biden doesn't need to declare his own victory. 

The elite media will declare it for him if they can, but Biden wasn't planning to wait until the entire process of ballot-counting ended. He was planning to seize strategic advantage in the ballot-counting battle and "address the nation as its new leader" — and that's more than Trump has done.