Four flailers flailing

benfell

The flailers include Liz Truss, Vladimir Putin, Doug Mastriano, and, to my surprise, John Fetterman.

Twitter

Dana Milbank, “Introducing the all-new Tesla Model Q: Join the conspiracy,” Washington Post, October 14, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/tesla-qanon-elon-musk-satire/

Residential schools

Matthew Brown, “Native Americans recall torture, hatred at boarding schools,” Associated Press, October 15, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/religion-native-americans-south-dakota-762797ee44f94d06e2f7776599bef374

(dis)United Kingdom

Prime minister


Fig. 1. President Reagan on the South Lawn during the arrival ceremony of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom. U.S. Government photograph, November 16, 1988, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Between 15 and 20 former ministers and other senior [members of Parliament] have been invited to a “dinner of grown-ups”, convened by leading supporters of Rishi Sunak, to plan how and when to remove [Liz] Truss and install Sunak and fellow leadership contender Penny Mordaunt as a unity pairing.[1]

What it must be like to be a dead woman walking. And to know it, as apparently Liz Truss does.[2]

Nick Gutteridge, “1922 Committee rules: How Tory MPs could oust Liz Truss,” Telegraph, October 13, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/13/tory-mps-plotting-coronation-new-leader-replace-liz-truss/

Nick Gutteridge, “The runners and riders for PM if Liz Truss is ousted as Tory leader,” Telegraph, October 13, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/13/runners-riders-pm-liz-truss-ousted-tory-leader/

Eleni Courea and Esther Webber, “Furious Tories conclude that Liz Truss is finished,” Politico, October 14, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-prime-minister-uk-conservative-party-finished/

Szu Ping Chan, “Kwasi Kwarteng cuts short Washington trip as axe looms over mini-Budget,” Telegraph, October 14, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/14/kwasi-kwarteng-cuts-short-washington-trip-axe-looms-mini-budget/

Larry Elliott, “Kwasi Kwarteng dashes home early from US amid tax U-turn chaos,” Guardian, October 14, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/14/kwasi-kwarteng-dashes-home-early-from-us-amid-tax-u-turn-chaos

Steve Goldstein, “Kwasi Kwarteng says he has accepted decision to stand aside as chancellor,” MarketWatch, October 14, 2022, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kwasi-kwarteng-says-he-has-accepted-decision-to-stand-aside-as-chancellor-2022-10-14

Ben Riley-Smith, “Liz Truss clings to power after axing Kwasi Kwarteng,” Telegraph, October 14, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/14/liz-truss-clings-power-axing-kwasi-kwarteng/

Toby Helm and Michael Savage, “Senior Tories hold talks to discuss ousting Liz Truss to ‘rescue’ party,” Guardian, October 15, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/15/tories-talks-ousting-truss-rescue-party

Ukraine


Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[3] fair use.

Since the [Russian missile] onslaught began on Monday [October 10], more than three dozen people have been killed and scores more wounded. Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure appears to be the main target, meaning that some residential areas have been plunged into darkness, leaving civilians confronting the possibility of facing winter without power.

But conditions on the battlefield continue to favor the nimbler, more highly motivated and better armed Ukrainian military, which seems likely to retain the advantage over Russia’s lumbering, poorly equipped and exhausted army, at least for the foreseeable future.[4]

Remember what I said about Liz Truss and flailing? How flailing rarely turns out well for the flailers?[5] It’s the same with Vladimir Putin in his war on Ukraine. Almost nothing is going right for Putin[6] and it’s increasingly clear that he continues the fight merely out of delusion.[7]

What’s interesting is to see the tankies come out of the woodwork on Twitter. Now that Putin is losing and losing badly,[8] they are desperate for a ceasefire, to “save lives,” they say. I’ve previously noted that they seem only to object to U.S. imperialism, not to anybody else’s imperialism and tyranny.[9] Now we’re seeing that they actively support and embrace Russian imperialism, support and embrace Putin’s tyranny.

To my great dismay, this appears to include the Green Party in the U.S., leaving me no one on the Pennsylvania ballot to vote for, only a smorgasbord to vote against: Democrats for neoliberalism, Republicans for white Christian nationalism, capital-L Libertarians for capitalist libertarianism, and Greens for being, well, tankies.

Liz Sly, “Russia’s escalation won’t turn tide of the war, analysts say,” Washington Post, October 15, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/ukraine-military-situation/

Pennsylvania

2022 election


Fig. 1. There’s much too much of this kind of thing to be seen around Pittsburgh. Photograph taken by author through his windshield, May 17, 2022, just outside Braddock, Pennsylvania.

I’d managed to overlook that Doug Mastriano has a Ph.D. It seems, however, there are serious problems, including alleged academic fraud, with his dissertation, one of his committee members claims not to have signed off on it, and the University of New Brunswick is investigating.[10]

We can be reasonably confident Mastriano will not win. He remains behind Josh Shapiro in results of a bogus methodology by double digits but, more significantly, continues to campaign only to his white Christian nationalist base.[11]

Mehmet Oz, however, is another story. This is a race that was John Fetterman’s to lose, he suffered a stroke, has struggled to regain momentum, and it’s showing up in the results of a bogus methodology.[12] This is intuitive, but I’m just not sensing the feedback I expect to feel for a Fetterman victory. The pit of my stomach, rather, tells me he’s toast, or that, at best, he prevails by only a slim margin.

William Bender, “In a rare rebuke, two retired War College professors say Doug Mastriano is unfit to be governor,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-war-college-biddle-coplen-alvin-york-20221016.html

Gilead

Competitive authoritarian regime project


Fig. 1. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Clarence Mitchell during signing ceremony of the voting rights act. Yoichi Okamoto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A number of scholars are attacking Doug Mastriano for threatening the integrity of the election system and for backing Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud.[13]

William Bender, “In a rare rebuke, two retired War College professors say Doug Mastriano is unfit to be governor,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-war-college-biddle-coplen-alvin-york-20221016.html

  1. [1]Toby Helm and Michael Savage, “Senior Tories hold talks to discuss ousting Liz Truss to ‘rescue’ party,” Guardian, October 15, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/15/tories-talks-ousting-truss-rescue-party↩
  2. [2]Toby Helm and Michael Savage, “Senior Tories hold talks to discuss ousting Liz Truss to ‘rescue’ party,” Guardian, October 15, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/15/tories-talks-ousting-truss-rescue-party↩
  3. [3]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q↩
  4. [4]Liz Sly, “Russia’s escalation won’t turn tide of the war, analysts say,” Washington Post, October 15, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/ukraine-military-situation/↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “John Fetterman might be losing a race that was his to lose,” Irregular Bullshit, October 14, 2022, https://disunitedstates.com/2022/10/14/john-fetterman-might-be-losing-a-race-that-was-his-to-lose/↩
  6. [6]Liz Sly, “Russia’s escalation won’t turn tide of the war, analysts say,” Washington Post, October 15, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/15/ukraine-military-situation/↩
  7. [7]David Benfell, “If Vladimir Putin doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t make sense, and he cannot last,” Not Housebroken, October 12, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/10/10/if-vladimir-putin-doesnt-make-sense-he-doesnt-make-sense-and-he-cannot-last/↩
  8. [8]David Benfell, “If Vladimir Putin doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t make sense, and he cannot last,” Not Housebroken, October 12, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/10/10/if-vladimir-putin-doesnt-make-sense-he-doesnt-make-sense-and-he-cannot-last/↩
  9. [9]David Benfell, “The desperate attempt to blame anybody else for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” Not Housebroken, March 3, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/03/the-desperate-attempt-to-blame-anybody-else-for-vladimir-putins-invasion-of-ukraine/; Roane Carey, “Don’t Be a Tankie: How the Left Should Respond to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” Intercept, March 1, 2022, https://theintercept.com/2022/03/01/ukraine-russia-leftists-tankie/↩
  10. [10]William Bender, “In a rare rebuke, two retired War College professors say Doug Mastriano is unfit to be governor,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-war-college-biddle-coplen-alvin-york-20221016.html↩
  11. [11]William Bender, “In a rare rebuke, two retired War College professors say Doug Mastriano is unfit to be governor,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-war-college-biddle-coplen-alvin-york-20221016.html; William Bender and Jonathan Tamari, “As campaign struggles, Doug Mastriano plans ‘40 days of fasting and prayer,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 28, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-fasting-prayer-campaign-rally-struggling-20220928.html; Ron Kampeas, “Critics compare salutes at Trump and Mastriano rallies to Nazi ‘Sieg Heil,’” Times of Israel, September 20, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/critics-compare-salutes-at-trump-mastriano-rallies-to-nazi-sieg-heil/; Dana Milbank, “And on the eighth day, God said: Let Mastriano win Pennsylvania,” Washington Post, September 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/09/doug-mastriano-prophet-julie-green/; Tina Nguyen, “Doug Mastriano’s Snowflake Strategy,” Puck News, September 14, 2022, https://puck.news/doug-mastrianos-snowflake-strategy/↩
  12. [12]Gillian McGoldrick, “Fetterman’s lead in U.S. Senate race is shrinking as Oz wins over GOP voters, latest poll shows,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 29, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/election2022/2022/09/29/fetterman-vs-oz-poll-franklin-marshall-college-republican-support-pa-senate-race-mastriano-vs-shapiro/stories/202209290087↩
  13. [13]William Bender, “In a rare rebuke, two retired War College professors say Doug Mastriano is unfit to be governor,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/news/doug-mastriano-war-college-biddle-coplen-alvin-york-20221016.html↩

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