AMA Thursday. By Brian Beutler

Read time: 2 minutes

AMA Thursday

Our last chat of 2023

(Photo by Carol Yepes)

Hello readers! Before we get to everything on my mind, I have a request: If you have a question that isn’t terribly timely, can you send it to me by email instead of dropping it in the thread or asking me in the chat? I’d like to put a mailbag together for all subscribers this holiday week, but it only works if enough people participate. Now to the business at hand:

Consumer confidence spiked in December, along with other economic-sentiment indicators, outpacing market expectations which were flat. What has been flat (steady might be a better word) is economic performance itself, chugging along as it has been for years now, suggesting that SoMeThiNg eLsE1 contributes to people’s impressions of the economy.

Donald Trump is still a specter haunting America, though, so it’s hard to imagine vibes improving that much…

On some level I think liberal resistance to vibes theory (vibeology?) is a little weird since liberals all seem to agree that Republicans are relentless about working media refs, and this often pays off for them in the realm of public opinion. That’s just commandeering the vibes machine! And given the revolution in news media over the past decade-plus, why wouldn’t we expect certain ideas (even false ones) about politics to become common knowledge?

If forced, I wouldn’t bet money on the Supreme Court doing the right thing and disqualifying Trump from federal office. But I do think the justices more cross-pressured than most observers realize, and anti-Trump forces should emphasize the upsides (for both GOP-appointed justices and the judiciary in general) of bringing the hammer down on him.

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I loved this rumination on the connection between Greg Abbott’s vile, cynical immigration crackdown and the founding, and the weak points in the founding that gave rise to the nullification crisis and Civil War. Powerful forces of reaction in this country have nearly brought us full circle.

Relatedly, Joe Biden has really stepped up his frontal attacks on Donald Trump in the past week or so, for engaging in insurrection and for his fun new fixation with Nazi language about immigrants poisoning the national blood.

Now that it’s a live question, and much turns on Trump’s culpability for January 6, a segment of the commentariat encompassing Trump supporters, anti-anti-Trump writers, and squeamish liberals has found utility in the idea that maybe January 6 wasn’t an insurrection after all! Problem solved! Take it up with Mitch McConnell and, well, people who have eyes.

Probably shouldn’t have put so many eggs in this basket.

This update from the U.N. is a bit frustrating to read; perhaps Biden should listen to the most high-profile Jewish politician in the U.S.?

Turns out Clarence Thomas may have set his bribery arrangement in motion near the end of the Clinton presidency by threatening to retire so he could get rich, prompting GOP officeholders (who feared an Al Gore presidency) to arrange for right-wing billionaires to open their wallets for him.