If MAGA doesn’t have T**** to vote for, don’t underestimate their ability to overcome cognitive dissonance to back another con man, regardless of what they’ve been programmed to think now. I observed this with RFK, jr. A “friend” of a friend suggested RFK, jr as a “compromise” candidate, then fully supported him once he joined the T**** camp. They honestly wanted a cookie for supporting a former “Democrat radical environmentalist.”
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If I understand it properly, 1 home and 1 car are excluded from the assessment. Of course, this generally means your home must be unfurnished, you must own almost no clothing or jewelry, minimal food, and, of course, no DME. It takes very, very little these days to account for $2k. he is an asshole. Period.
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Just being a conman isn’t enough - Trump was an outsider riding his popularity as a tv celebrity and fake genius businessman and came in to (their awareness of) politics running on racist policies. RFK was an outsider. Newsome’s already blown it by being not just a career politician, but the woke villain.
But my understanding is that bank accounts aren’t excluded, so forget paying rent, much less a mortgage. I guess you could live out of your car, though, if you were living sufficiently hand-to-mouth.
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Thinking of my desk at home – one older, but highly upgraded desktop computer and two decent monitors, and we’re probably most of the way there. Do they count books? Even though most of our physical book collection is at least a few years old at a $0.50 per book yard sale price, we’re easily over $1200 or more. Hell, my yard and home tools are probably more than $2K by themselves.
Gah.
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I truly believe he is part of the same team/think tank as musk and other technofeudalists under the California ideology. Rose by any other name.
That’s not bothsidesism because it’s not true of ALL democratic candidates.
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What pisses me off is that we shouldn’t have to chase moderates because unless the GOP runs a moderate then centrists and moderates kinda have no choice. Hold your fucking noses and negotiate with some one who is motivated to actually provide something for Americans besides the suffering of less popular Americans. It won’t kill you but the alternative literally wants to because, and I quote, “everyone dies” anyway.
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Yeah, that. chasing the moderate republicans did not help and the party (and people like Newsom) seem determined to take away exactly the wrong message.
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If our two front runners are a gay guy - who is married and has kids - and a progressive woman with Puerto Rican heritage - it’s not really so bad in my book.
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I’d take either one of those… the question is if the right flank of the party will actually support them. I’m really not confident of that, if either of them end up running in 2028.
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It took ~50 years of iterations and actions (civil rights movement) to get to the point where an African-American would be in the Oval Office. Now it seems we’ll have to start all over again and in a much stranger and dangerous environment.
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Yeah I agree that’s actually comforting, even if I get a bit deep in despair. It’s something that their names are even at the top of the list so early too, would be super encouraging the more the DNC treats them like insiders more as campaigns are being prioritized… I dunno because right now it’s just some polls and some names being floated. I’m more anxious about the DNC pushing hard for someone more like Newsom or Cuomo.
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If they put forth a Republican-in Dem-Clothing like one of those two, I am totally done. And this is from a dyed-in-wool “Vote Blue No Matter Who” kinda guy. If they can go through what the Orange Menace has put us through and then support someone whose platform is basically “Orange Turd wasn’t wrong, just uncouth about it,” they are lost.
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T**** was a Pro-Choice, registered Democrat until he was humiliated by Obama at the WH Correspondents Dinner. Why do you think he was there? Because he wasn’t busy on a Friday night? No, because he was invited as a Democratic donor.
Newsom is perfectly capable of bigotry - see his anti-trans work in California. He’s also very visibly against the poor and working class. He’s capable of much more subtle bigotry than T**** and after the shitshow that T**** has made of his administrations, it’s very feasible to convince MAGA that they need to follow someone with more political experience next time around.
The playbook is already laid out for him to seize the MAGA following once T**** is out of the way: demonize immigrants, go full bigot but in a way that’s deniable, and appease the TechBro money. It’s really not much of a stretch for him.
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So, that’s not entirely accurate. The assets that are countable are assets that are liquid assets, or assets that are easily converted to cash. This means bank accounts, investment accounts, vacation homes, etc. The primary home is exempted, except in the case of spend down to qualify for Medicaid coverage for nursing home care in situations where there isn’t a spouse remaining in the home and the person isn’t expected to return home at some point. Anyway, personal items, including clothing, jewelry, appliances, electronics, and DME are exempt. They are not countable assets for the purposes of spend down requirements.
ETA: Some other miscellaneous bullshit about this system, which I abhor. If you liquidate assets so that you can spend down to qualify, you have to sell those assets at fair market value, and the government looks back 5 years. So, this means a couple who is about to go into a nursing home can’t keep the family home in the family by “selling” it to Junior for $10. So this system also makes it harder for poor and middle class people to generate generational wealth. Now, you can still do that as long as you do it at least 5 years before you plan on going into a nursing home, but that also requires a tremendous amount of trust in Junior. I have read horror stories of parents signing their homes over to an adult child, and then the kid sells the home or has them evicted. People suck.
There is a whole “industry” of lawyers and financial planners who advise people on Medicaid spend down strategies, and help them find ways to protect assets. Some people consider this work to be unethical. My Elder Law professor asked us if any of us thought such work was ethical, and I quickly raised my hand. She asked me why, and I said something to the effect that “We have this system that forces older people to spend themselves into abject poverty just to help pay for the nursing home care they need. Meanwhile, rich people have tons of legal and financial tricks they can take advantage of to protect assets and get richer. You’re damn right I don’t have any ethical problems helping poor and middle class people with this stuff.”
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Yeah, but he always played both sides of the fence, a donor for whoever was in power - supporting both Democrats and Republicans (Reagan, for instance and, very vocally, Obama’s opponents), and openly had presidential ambitions outside the Democratic party. First trying to get on a Republican ticket starting in the '80s, then as an actual candidate for the right-wing Reform party (until, ironically, he was afraid to be associated with the virulent racists in it). Which meant he absolutely was not associated in people’s minds with the Democratic party, and certainly wasn’t seen as being left-wing, and definitely wasn’t some liberal boogeyman for the right.
What he was, in the popular imagination, was a successful businessman and tv celebrity, presenting himself as a political outsider. This combination is the basis for his success, and what other would-be grifters have found impossible to replicate, particular anyone with an existing political career. Newsome has his whole political career working against him - and it doesn’t matter how right-wing his positions become, it’s not how the right views him. That’s what’s so absurd about his right-ward drift - the right won’t notice; he’ll still be the “woke California governor” whatever he does.
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Are you sure that he was invited as a Democratic donor that year? This article says he came to that dinner as a guest of the Washington Post. (Not a well-received decision among the Post’s reporters) He’d already been a guest at CPAC and the main public face of the birther movement at that point and I’m not sure he was still making donations to Democrats at that time.
Your point still stands though. There’s been a ton of gross and cynical interaction between rich folks and Democratic politicians who are way too friendly with each other given their public stances on issues. (The Clintons attending Trump’s 3rd wedding, for one icky example.)
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Trump’s political affiliations through the years:
| Political party | Republican(1987–1999, 2009–2011, 2012–present) |
|---|---|
| Other political | |
| affiliations | * Reform (1999–2001) |
- Democratic(2001–2009)
- Independent(2011–2012)|
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Newsom still sucks but I have to give him some credit for how he’s handling the T**** administration’s illegal and unconstitutional actions in LA.
Now, that said, there are things he’s done badly in this situation. His stupid toxically masculine posturing telling them to arrest him was cringey. He’s failed to address the violence by LAPD against protesters. But the TRO is a good move.
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The Beast and The Smiler.
You can trust Trump to be a hatefilled, hateful, corrupt, demented, lying rapist. You can trust that to the ends of the earth.
I wouldn’t trust Newsom if he told me the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning.
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