Early in my ROTC program, we had to fill out a security and background questionnaire. It asked whether I was an agent of any foreign government (though not a specific one prompted by my ethnicity).
It also asked a ridiculous choose-your-own-adventure of a question about substance abuse. It went something like: “Have you ever bought, trafficked, abused, injected, inhaled, [twelve other verbs…] alcohol, illegal drugs, non-prescription medications, household cleaners, glue, [eighteen other nouns]?” One of my fellow cadets said he had to answer “yes”, because one of the possible instantiations of the sentence was, “Have you ever bought glue?”
I got the same questions when I became a federal employee — “have you ever been a member of the Communist Party,” “Have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization,” etc. The differences are: 1) They already know who Josh Shapiro is — he’s not a stranger, and 2) Nobody asked me about a specific government based on my ethnicity.
God save the autists! That man deserves a gold star for being special. Was he always like that?
The military once commissioned a video game, set to be "as realistic as possible." The game designer merrily created a game that was nigh impossible to play, as blood loss and shock and all of that were put into the game. Only one of the colonels realized they'd been trolled (they still paid for the game, just didn't use it as Public Outreach), and told the game designer, "Well played, sir."
I'm Canadian, and once flew to Mexico when I had family living down there. I had a layover through Seattle, so I had to clear US customs. I was asked the usual question of the purpose of my visit to Mexico, to which I said "vacation and seeing family." The next question I got from the customs agent was: "are you planning to commit any terrorism?" I had to wonder whether any low level incompetent Al Qaeda operative was once like "yes- oh shit, shit, I mean no. No!" because I question how that has ever worked on anyone.
Funnier side note for those unfamiliar with Canada: unlike other countries, we clear American customs in Canada. So to recap, I am being asked about terrorism in the U.S. while on Canadian soil en route to a brief layover to Mexico. Throw in the fact I was hungover and hadn't slept, and it was an all-timer.
I was terrified of New Zealand customs when I visited there in 2004, so marked yes on some intake boxes. Most of my group walked right along but I ended up in the close screening line.
In front of me, a man in a beautiful suit pulls his massive suitcase onto the table and opens in. Customs agent sees like a half dozen balled up grocery store plastic bags. “What’s this, sir?”
Man replies, “Mostly heroin.”
Customs: “What? You can’t have that in New Zealand.”
Man: “No, it’s ok, I’m a prince.”
Customs: “What, no it’s not ok. Hold on.” Looks at me: “What’s in your bag, then?”
Me: “Hiking boots. I thought they might have mud.”
The only time I’ve been disappointed to get sent away from a screening.
How could you be afraid of New Zealand customs? I mean, yeah, they're law enforcement, but the accent.
I'd also say you couldn't have been that terrified if you were whipping out some (legitimately good) bits while going through the process, but I know that is a way some people work through terror.
I remember when I went to the US in 2012, a question on the ESTA was "were you involved in the activities of the German government between 1933 and 1945?". I had to translate that question to a 25-year-old friend.
I think I read somewhere that the dumb “don’t plan to terrorize anybody on this trip” question was designed to stack the deck if you catch somebody planning a terrorism.
The idea is that lying to the customs guy is by itself reason to trigger an expulsion, so if they catch you mid plot they don’t need to convict you in a court of law to expel you; they can just say “we ASKED you bro and you lied” and that’s the end of it.
I have no source for this thing, just heard it somewhere.
I think part of it is, if you say no and then are caught in something like that, now you've not only committed one crime, you've also lied to immigration!
Oh it was very fun to get interviewed over and over again for school friends applying to various three-letter agencies. I am FAIRLY sure I got them all passes without committing any federal crimes myself.
Wow. And I thought us Catholics had it bad when people said we took our marching orders from the Pope.
Now they just wonder how horny we are and if we drink a lot.
I just wonder how young that staffer was and what "elite" college the staffer (I avoid pronouns-too dangerous) graduated from. Those "elites" are ruining everything.....
I think the funniest thing about all this was that the only people who would consider Shapiro's views on Israel to be a non-starter were the people already calling her "Holocaust Harris" and saying they wouldn't vote for her.
It's not even that the Democrats cave to progressives. It's that they've tried to cave to ones who clearly don't like them (and live in deep blue areas for the most part), sometimes at the expense of votes that could actually be won.
Anti-Democratic leftists are really good at attacking liberals using our own values, and making us question everything we believe, and for some reason it can make us desperate for their approval.
I've been a victim of that impulse! I cannot explain it, but I know what ended it - consequences. Seeing how politically worthless (or worse) they really are. I can only hope that liberals' overall stance towards that crowd is trending towards "vocal loathing" as strongly as mine has.
Luckily anti-democratic leftists like the DSA's neo-communists don't have values, unless someone believes that illiberalism, authoritarianism, racism, antisemitism, misogyny and the worst economic ideas in the universe are values. I have no idea at all why any progressive would take policy and moral cues from them, but this is probably why I'm not a progressive.
I literally left a rally in honor of Renee Good when one of the speakers (representing the PSL) began blaming Obama, Biden and Harris for ICE disappearing people and murdering Good, because they all promised 'law & order.' As if any of them would have ever had a policy of kidnapping people, shipping them to random countries and shooting soccer moms in the face. Conflating basic immigration enforcement with what Stephen Miller is doing is beyond vile and disingenous - and they just don't care.
The irony is that Democrats associating themselves more with the idea of "law and order" would've prevented Trump, or anyone like him, from even being President! But the kind of activists you cite above slandered Obama for his immigration enforcement - recall the regular interrupted events - and ultimately pushed him to downplay his success. That was a miscalculation Obama's part, not really something his hand was forced on, but his logic is easy to follow.
And then the same crowd comes up with the gold nugget of "defund the police" and throws it all over our party like a bucket of paint, while every elected official in the party scrambles to clean up the political mess.
I like Shapiro politically, I just wish he were a better public speaker. He just reads as too boring and reserved to be a successful public figure writ large. But Bill Clinton gave poor speeches earlier in his career, maybe Shapiro can improve. I like Yang too, all the people I like seem to be missing the schmooze gene lol. I want anyone who can pull the party to the sweet spot between Clinton and Obama. Someone who recognizes that while America has its problems, if you happen to live in the country with the most wealth, power, and political freedom, for decades on end, then probably you don't need a "revolution" from the left or right, especially since the most salient aspect about "revolutions" is that they involve a lot of people killing each other.
That's how "democratic" socialist should have to end each speech. "We're going to have a Revolution. And just as a reminder, in history a 'revolution' means a bunch of people killing each other. So...... hope you're cool with that. Also we don't believe in the military individual complex so ......you know.....B.Y.O.G."🤔😂😂
Shapiro is your best case for a primary winner who isn’t progressive. But if Rahm Emanuel could draw enough independents to offset the loss of progressives, then that’s your guy.
Wow you're the first person aside from myself that's hopeful for a serious Rahm Emanual candidacy and backing. He cuts through the BS and that's what we need imo.
You and I might think a lot alike. I have a lot of respect for both Shapiro and for Emanuel. If they end up with the Dem primary win, there is some upside. But am not hopeful for their candidacy. I am tentatively hopeful for a Warren or AOC, maybe Newsome primary win. This is because I am a Republican.
Because I left the Republican Party when they coalesced behind that clownstick ten years ago and I became a Democrat when Republicans refused to impeach that treasonous piece of shit five years ago.
Your turn, champ. Don't think we didn't notice your refusal to answer the question. Why are you in a party of fascists in 2026?
"Boring as hell" seems to be the prerequisite for most vice presidential candidates. That was pretty much everyone's running joke about Al Gore in the 90s!
Shapiro gives his speeches in the form of an Obama impression and while it's better than Fred Armisen's, it's not nearly as compelling as the real deal. (Jay Pharaoh and Jordan Peele have better impressions, as does, surprisingly, The Rock.)
Around the time of his vetting, someone unearthed an old college op-ed where he described himself as a "past volunteer in the Israeli army." He's explained it since then and it seems like he was just overstating some community service (as 20 year olds do).
If someone has described themselves volunteering for a foreign military, it seems reasonable to ask many questions about their relationship with that military. I'm sure the Harris campaign worried about the possibility of someone turning up a photo of a teenage Shapiro in an IDF uniform or something like that, so wanted to make sure that Shapiro's context for previously describing himself as as "a past volunteer in the Israeli army" was airtight.
edit: Also relevant is that Shapiro literally worked for Israel at one point. Sure, it was only 6 month stint at the embassy, but I've kept in contact with people from my first job out of college. It's entirely possible that Shapiro kept in touch with someone he met there and ended up later working with someone that could be viewed as controversial. This would also be possible if he worked at any other embassy. A candidate that had previously been employed doing public relations at the Turkish, Chinese or Indian embassy would face similar questioning. This doesn't mean that any American working at an embassy is some sort of double-agent, just that it's possible they have some experiences that could force awkward conversations. :edit
Other candidates were similarly asked about foreign ties:
Which was probably good. Walz did get (unfairly imo) attacked for Chinese ties so it was prudent that the campaign made sure there were no surprises.
With the context of Shapiro's past claim of volunteering for the IDF and similar questions to other candidates, do you think the Harris campaign treated Shapiro unfairly?
It would be absolutely horrible if there was a picture of Shapiro in an IDF uniform as a community service volunteer! A real good candidate would have pictures of supporting an Islamist terrorist organization, like Mamdani has. Now that's a VP - rich kid, nepobaby, Hamas supporter, neo-Communist _and _ antisemitic conspiracy theories. Chef's kiss of progressive approval!
It was amusing that your "oh no!" gotcha is Shapiro at 20 painting rocks on an IDF base, while the progressive wing has fully supported a neo-Communist from a different party (last I remember the DSA is a separate entity) for mayor of the largest city in the US.
Yes, finding reasons why Shapiro should be questioned about The IDF, while terrorist supporting neo-Communist Mamdani is considered a normal candidate is pretty hilarious.
The point of the vetting is to find the "oh no" gotcha before it's a gotcha so it's not a surprise. If you read carefully, you'd see that my example was Shapiro previously describing his community service in a misleading way. That self-description in an op-ed seems like something that would have affected the campaign if it came up at an inappropriate time.
I understand that this is a somewhat confusing idea as it requires theory of mind. I'm not saying that you personally would consider it a negative if a VP was a volunteer with the IDF (or that I consider it a negative or that it's a negative in some sort of objective way), but that some potential Harris voters(who are not you or me) might. It would also require Shapiro to either defend the behavior or back away from it, possibly alienating some pro-Israel voters.
A good Mamdani focused comparison might be something like his college application:
If someone was vetting him, they'd probably deep dive on if he's ever done anything else like that. Even something as innocuous as a 17 year old's college application can get written up in the times and force a candidate into an awkward conversation. Bringing up some other details from opposition research (rather than things that you believe Mamdani openly supports) would show that you have a good understanding of this concept.
It really doesn’t. Jeff Maurer was correct in mocking the absurdity of Harris’s retarded progressive staffers, and your theory that it was proper opposition research is laughable considering Walz was the eventual pick. Nobody did any serious opposition research - they were opposed to him being a Jew who isn’t an Anzi. What it did help do is convince people like me to never again vote for a progressive.
You are very close, but keep in mind that Harris wasn't doing opposition research. She was vetting in preparation for opposition research by her opponent. That's a little different.
I don't think they found much on Walz actually(although maybe they should have). I think they mostly went with "soft on crime" for attacks but never mentioned the fraud that's recently in the news. Here's a typical example from that summer:
It'd be great to compare this to anti-Shapiro attack ads, but we'll never know what they are.
I think a good response to this would be pointing to an effective attack ad against Walz, using something that should have been uncovered during vetting but was actually uncovered by opposition research during the campaign. (Remember, this is different from pointing to something that Walz says openly, but you dislike. And it also refers to something during the campaign).
I'm also confused by your writing. When you say "What it did help do is convince people like me" what's "it"? Are you saying that Kamala's vetting process (which was only revealed recently) is what convinced you to change your voting pattern?
I'm surprised you voted for progressives before. Who was the last one you voted for? Since you only refer to news from this month as a reason for the change, you could have voted for Kamala.
Finally, I should probably clarify that I wouldn't disagree with most criticism of the Harris campaign. I only argued that Shapiro's experience being vetted was not due to his Jewish identity as Walz (who is not Jewish) faced similar questions about working with a foreign government.
Seemingly he got asked if he was a spy for China, since he had visited/lived in China (I'm unsure of the exact details).
Harris covered some of this in her book "107 Days" (which I would recommend as a fun read as to exactly *why* her campaign exploded and why she lost), and I think it's clear that Shapiro is getting some of his own back in his own memoir. Harris was pretty obvious about she thought he was too ambitious so she was not going to pick him, and some of the little jabs she puts in are both catty and hilarious - ol' Josh there was measuring for new curtains already (as it were) for the VP residence before he'd even been interviewed. I'm not surprised Shapiro is taking the opportunity to get some of his own back:
"When [Shapiro] learned [Storm Horncastle] was the residence manager, he peppered her with questions about the house, from the number of bedrooms to how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists’ work on loan from the Smithsonian."
- Because she had a good chance to win and being Vice President raises your national profile significantly,
- He really, really wants to be President. 15 of 50 Vice Presidents have become President, and the current VP could easily make it 16. It's even happened to Vice Presidents automatically eight times!
LOSING at running for Vice President has certainly been a kiss of death for quite some time, though. Last one to even pick himself off the mat for a second was Mondale and he got put back down pretty hard. Losing as a VP candidate probably isn't the reason Paul Ryan's career totally crumbled - that was larger party forces, the same ones that brought down his biffles Cantor and McCarthy - but it didn't help.
The obsession with demographics is approaching the elusive goal of all assholes since the dawn of civilization: bigotry against everyone.
It's dispiriting because I have a hard time blaming "the left" in the sense I usually do, meaning tedious, antisocial Marxist ANTIFA cosplayers; it was my beloved Democrats and liberals who got the ball rolling on this. Largely because of hyper-fixation on demographics as core to electoral strategy, which predictably led to ossified overgeneralizations about groups of people. And then those overgeneralizations end up in the hands of the illiberal left, who drive the demographic division into overdrive.
Slippery slope arguments can easily be overstated, so I don't want to act like it's an automatic outcome, or promote overwrought and dishonest "anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party" narratives, but it doesn't take THAT much to go from a campaign strategist saying "Jewish voters are like [blank]" in a dispassionate way to an activist saying "Jewish people are like [blank]" with some malice behind it.
I think it was revolting the questions Harris team asked Shapiro. I don’t ever want to see her run for any office ever again. I wanted him to be her running mate. This country is so fucking prejudice against different religions and people of color I don’t know how to share this country with such evil.
With the benefit of hindsight, nothing the Democratic candidates said or did would have changed the votes of more than a small percentage of the electorate, like low single digits. And of course, if less than 5% of the electorate changed their votes, it would have no effect at all on the outcome of the 2024 election, or any national election, right? right??????
Walz was put onto Harris' ticket because of the multibillion dollar corruption scandal, and the attendant kickbacks. It meant a slush money pit that she could pull from, to outspend Trump. Which she did, by over three to one.
It seems people like "Garbage Man Trump" a lot better than they like the PDiddy Confessional (oh, sorry, "let's get all of hollywood to endorse Harris.")
I do wonder exactly how much anyone knew of the Minnesota scandal(s), but it's rather plain in her memoir that she picked Walz because he'd be a lapdog. Shapiro was too openly ambitious, Kelly would outshine her due to his record, but Walz was happy to stand there in the background and do what she told him to do and not even dream of having his own views and opinions on anything at all.
Like I said, her book is hilarious as she even rips into Walz, the guy she picked for being a marshmallow basically, being too dang nice and getting fooled and bamboozled by that evil shapeshifting J.D. Vance in their debate 🤣
"But J. D. Vance is a shape-shifter. And a shifty guy. He understood that his default meanness wouldn’t play against Tim Walz’s sunny disposition and patent decency. Throughout the debate, he toned the anger and the insults way down. As Van Jones later remarked, he sane-washed the crazy. There were no cat ladies, no pet-eating Haitians, no personal insults. Just a mild-mannered, aw-shucks Appalachian pretending he had a lot of common ground with that nice Midwestern coach.
When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at J.D.’s fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, “What is happening?”
I told the television screen: “You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”
10/10 can recommend the book for entertainment value, by the end you too will be cheering for her inevitable loss as she is just so full of herself.
Well, to be fair, given Biden campaign's collapse so late in the day, there really wasn't much choice other than Kamala Harris. So they rammed it through as a fait accompli picking her as the nominee, then her campaign staff and what was left of Biden's campaign staff clumped together, and some very unfortunate choices in that campaigning were made (she should have gone on Rogan, for one; there's a part in the book that addresses this by basically calling Rogan a liar in what he said and claiming they would have loved to have done it but it wasn't possible because he wouldn't be flexible, but I tend to believe Rogan about how they wanted every possible inch of control).
Picking Walz was something they did as "we need a white guy who can appeal to the rednecks" (oh dear) plus it's also clear from the book that she thought Shapiro was way too ambitious and would be putting himself forward rather than supporting her, and Kelly had too glamorous a record by contrast with her (ex-astronaut!)
She does herself no favours with the bit about Pete Buttigieg which does come down to "I didn't reject him because he was gay - but it was because he was gay and that would have been too hard a sell alongside me, First Asian-African-American Female President".
Mostly it's "she got picked as VP because Biden had to pay back Jim Clyburn for the favour of getting black support behind him, it had to be a woman, so they needed a black woman and they picked Kamala". Why Kamala over other black women possible choices is another question but that's for another day:
"Biden had won the nomination because Congressman Jim Clyburn, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, had thrown his support behind him. The Black vote in the South Carolina primary—especially Black women’s vote—had thrust him to victory. The pressure was on him to pick a Black woman running mate."
It's why they really do need to get it right in 2028, and why right now the choices are looking very muddy.
There's the debate about "should the Democrats move more to the centre or double down on the progressive issues?" and waiting to see the midterm results, where the expectation is that they will do well and maybe win the House. If they do that, then the pressure will remain on for "keep tacking left".
Newsom seems to be positioning himself for a run, but again - how well would he do outside of California? And given that on social media he seems to have adopted the Trumpian approach, how aggressive versus conciliatory would he be?
There's a lot could happen between now and the election, and trying to figure out who would best appeal to the American public on the issues two years from now will be tricky.
Early in my ROTC program, we had to fill out a security and background questionnaire. It asked whether I was an agent of any foreign government (though not a specific one prompted by my ethnicity).
It also asked a ridiculous choose-your-own-adventure of a question about substance abuse. It went something like: “Have you ever bought, trafficked, abused, injected, inhaled, [twelve other verbs…] alcohol, illegal drugs, non-prescription medications, household cleaners, glue, [eighteen other nouns]?” One of my fellow cadets said he had to answer “yes”, because one of the possible instantiations of the sentence was, “Have you ever bought glue?”
I got the same questions when I became a federal employee — “have you ever been a member of the Communist Party,” “Have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist organization,” etc. The differences are: 1) They already know who Josh Shapiro is — he’s not a stranger, and 2) Nobody asked me about a specific government based on my ethnicity.
God save the autists! That man deserves a gold star for being special. Was he always like that?
The military once commissioned a video game, set to be "as realistic as possible." The game designer merrily created a game that was nigh impossible to play, as blood loss and shock and all of that were put into the game. Only one of the colonels realized they'd been trolled (they still paid for the game, just didn't use it as Public Outreach), and told the game designer, "Well played, sir."
I'm Canadian, and once flew to Mexico when I had family living down there. I had a layover through Seattle, so I had to clear US customs. I was asked the usual question of the purpose of my visit to Mexico, to which I said "vacation and seeing family." The next question I got from the customs agent was: "are you planning to commit any terrorism?" I had to wonder whether any low level incompetent Al Qaeda operative was once like "yes- oh shit, shit, I mean no. No!" because I question how that has ever worked on anyone.
Funnier side note for those unfamiliar with Canada: unlike other countries, we clear American customs in Canada. So to recap, I am being asked about terrorism in the U.S. while on Canadian soil en route to a brief layover to Mexico. Throw in the fact I was hungover and hadn't slept, and it was an all-timer.
I expect some people do answer “yes”
I was terrified of New Zealand customs when I visited there in 2004, so marked yes on some intake boxes. Most of my group walked right along but I ended up in the close screening line.
In front of me, a man in a beautiful suit pulls his massive suitcase onto the table and opens in. Customs agent sees like a half dozen balled up grocery store plastic bags. “What’s this, sir?”
Man replies, “Mostly heroin.”
Customs: “What? You can’t have that in New Zealand.”
Man: “No, it’s ok, I’m a prince.”
Customs: “What, no it’s not ok. Hold on.” Looks at me: “What’s in your bag, then?”
Me: “Hiking boots. I thought they might have mud.”
The only time I’ve been disappointed to get sent away from a screening.
How could you be afraid of New Zealand customs? I mean, yeah, they're law enforcement, but the accent.
I'd also say you couldn't have been that terrified if you were whipping out some (legitimately good) bits while going through the process, but I know that is a way some people work through terror.
No plans. I like my terrorism to be spontaneous.
I remember when I went to the US in 2012, a question on the ESTA was "were you involved in the activities of the German government between 1933 and 1945?". I had to translate that question to a 25-year-old friend.
Not yet, but I will be.
I think I read somewhere that the dumb “don’t plan to terrorize anybody on this trip” question was designed to stack the deck if you catch somebody planning a terrorism.
The idea is that lying to the customs guy is by itself reason to trigger an expulsion, so if they catch you mid plot they don’t need to convict you in a court of law to expel you; they can just say “we ASKED you bro and you lied” and that’s the end of it.
I have no source for this thing, just heard it somewhere.
I think part of it is, if you say no and then are caught in something like that, now you've not only committed one crime, you've also lied to immigration!
Oh it was very fun to get interviewed over and over again for school friends applying to various three-letter agencies. I am FAIRLY sure I got them all passes without committing any federal crimes myself.
Wow. And I thought us Catholics had it bad when people said we took our marching orders from the Pope.
Now they just wonder how horny we are and if we drink a lot.
I just wonder how young that staffer was and what "elite" college the staffer (I avoid pronouns-too dangerous) graduated from. Those "elites" are ruining everything.....
So…. ??? C’mon, you’re not really gonna leave us hangin’ like that are you?
How horny are you?
Way too much for my own good lol.
Papist bastard!
It’s a long game. Have all those kids in preparation for the installation of a president loyal to Rome
Darn it! I missed that meeting
(Too busy having kids).
Judging by the "The Loophole" song, we're wondering why in GOD's Good Name you paid comedians to try to prevent underage sex.
(The song is hilarious, sure, but... you paid money for that?!)
I think the funniest thing about all this was that the only people who would consider Shapiro's views on Israel to be a non-starter were the people already calling her "Holocaust Harris" and saying they wouldn't vote for her.
It's not even that the Democrats cave to progressives. It's that they've tried to cave to ones who clearly don't like them (and live in deep blue areas for the most part), sometimes at the expense of votes that could actually be won.
Anti-Democratic leftists are really good at attacking liberals using our own values, and making us question everything we believe, and for some reason it can make us desperate for their approval.
I've been a victim of that impulse! I cannot explain it, but I know what ended it - consequences. Seeing how politically worthless (or worse) they really are. I can only hope that liberals' overall stance towards that crowd is trending towards "vocal loathing" as strongly as mine has.
Luckily anti-democratic leftists like the DSA's neo-communists don't have values, unless someone believes that illiberalism, authoritarianism, racism, antisemitism, misogyny and the worst economic ideas in the universe are values. I have no idea at all why any progressive would take policy and moral cues from them, but this is probably why I'm not a progressive.
I literally left a rally in honor of Renee Good when one of the speakers (representing the PSL) began blaming Obama, Biden and Harris for ICE disappearing people and murdering Good, because they all promised 'law & order.' As if any of them would have ever had a policy of kidnapping people, shipping them to random countries and shooting soccer moms in the face. Conflating basic immigration enforcement with what Stephen Miller is doing is beyond vile and disingenous - and they just don't care.
The irony is that Democrats associating themselves more with the idea of "law and order" would've prevented Trump, or anyone like him, from even being President! But the kind of activists you cite above slandered Obama for his immigration enforcement - recall the regular interrupted events - and ultimately pushed him to downplay his success. That was a miscalculation Obama's part, not really something his hand was forced on, but his logic is easy to follow.
And then the same crowd comes up with the gold nugget of "defund the police" and throws it all over our party like a bucket of paint, while every elected official in the party scrambles to clean up the political mess.
I like Shapiro politically, I just wish he were a better public speaker. He just reads as too boring and reserved to be a successful public figure writ large. But Bill Clinton gave poor speeches earlier in his career, maybe Shapiro can improve. I like Yang too, all the people I like seem to be missing the schmooze gene lol. I want anyone who can pull the party to the sweet spot between Clinton and Obama. Someone who recognizes that while America has its problems, if you happen to live in the country with the most wealth, power, and political freedom, for decades on end, then probably you don't need a "revolution" from the left or right, especially since the most salient aspect about "revolutions" is that they involve a lot of people killing each other.
That's how "democratic" socialist should have to end each speech. "We're going to have a Revolution. And just as a reminder, in history a 'revolution' means a bunch of people killing each other. So...... hope you're cool with that. Also we don't believe in the military individual complex so ......you know.....B.Y.O.G."🤔😂😂
Shapiro is your best case for a primary winner who isn’t progressive. But if Rahm Emanuel could draw enough independents to offset the loss of progressives, then that’s your guy.
Wow you're the first person aside from myself that's hopeful for a serious Rahm Emanual candidacy and backing. He cuts through the BS and that's what we need imo.
You and I might think a lot alike. I have a lot of respect for both Shapiro and for Emanuel. If they end up with the Dem primary win, there is some upside. But am not hopeful for their candidacy. I am tentatively hopeful for a Warren or AOC, maybe Newsome primary win. This is because I am a Republican.
Why are you still a Republican in 2026?
I could easily ask you why you’re a Democrat in 2026.
Here’s some fun insight : two reasonable and thoughtful people can assess the same set of facts and come to two opposite perspectives.
Childish behavior in response to this does not make you more convincing. That may be an element of Maurer’s contention here.
Because I left the Republican Party when they coalesced behind that clownstick ten years ago and I became a Democrat when Republicans refused to impeach that treasonous piece of shit five years ago.
Your turn, champ. Don't think we didn't notice your refusal to answer the question. Why are you in a party of fascists in 2026?
If you're a MAGA republican, we probably don't have as much in common as you think. Otherwise we might.
He won't even answer why he's a Republican in 2026. He's a magat.
"Boring as hell" seems to be the prerequisite for most vice presidential candidates. That was pretty much everyone's running joke about Al Gore in the 90s!
If people aren't seeing the upside of boring Presidential candidates by now I don't know what it would possibly take.
Shapiro gives his speeches in the form of an Obama impression and while it's better than Fred Armisen's, it's not nearly as compelling as the real deal. (Jay Pharaoh and Jordan Peele have better impressions, as does, surprisingly, The Rock.)
Fantastic piece
This is why I sacrifice my $5 a month.
Around the time of his vetting, someone unearthed an old college op-ed where he described himself as a "past volunteer in the Israeli army." He's explained it since then and it seems like he was just overstating some community service (as 20 year olds do).
If someone has described themselves volunteering for a foreign military, it seems reasonable to ask many questions about their relationship with that military. I'm sure the Harris campaign worried about the possibility of someone turning up a photo of a teenage Shapiro in an IDF uniform or something like that, so wanted to make sure that Shapiro's context for previously describing himself as as "a past volunteer in the Israeli army" was airtight.
edit: Also relevant is that Shapiro literally worked for Israel at one point. Sure, it was only 6 month stint at the embassy, but I've kept in contact with people from my first job out of college. It's entirely possible that Shapiro kept in touch with someone he met there and ended up later working with someone that could be viewed as controversial. This would also be possible if he worked at any other embassy. A candidate that had previously been employed doing public relations at the Turkish, Chinese or Indian embassy would face similar questioning. This doesn't mean that any American working at an embassy is some sort of double-agent, just that it's possible they have some experiences that could force awkward conversations. :edit
Other candidates were similarly asked about foreign ties:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/19/politics/tim-walz-kamala-harris-josh-shapiro
Which was probably good. Walz did get (unfairly imo) attacked for Chinese ties so it was prudent that the campaign made sure there were no surprises.
With the context of Shapiro's past claim of volunteering for the IDF and similar questions to other candidates, do you think the Harris campaign treated Shapiro unfairly?
It would be absolutely horrible if there was a picture of Shapiro in an IDF uniform as a community service volunteer! A real good candidate would have pictures of supporting an Islamist terrorist organization, like Mamdani has. Now that's a VP - rich kid, nepobaby, Hamas supporter, neo-Communist _and _ antisemitic conspiracy theories. Chef's kiss of progressive approval!
Do you think Mamdani is relevant to either this post or my response? How?
It was amusing that your "oh no!" gotcha is Shapiro at 20 painting rocks on an IDF base, while the progressive wing has fully supported a neo-Communist from a different party (last I remember the DSA is a separate entity) for mayor of the largest city in the US.
Yes, finding reasons why Shapiro should be questioned about The IDF, while terrorist supporting neo-Communist Mamdani is considered a normal candidate is pretty hilarious.
I think you're confused.
The point of the vetting is to find the "oh no" gotcha before it's a gotcha so it's not a surprise. If you read carefully, you'd see that my example was Shapiro previously describing his community service in a misleading way. That self-description in an op-ed seems like something that would have affected the campaign if it came up at an inappropriate time.
I understand that this is a somewhat confusing idea as it requires theory of mind. I'm not saying that you personally would consider it a negative if a VP was a volunteer with the IDF (or that I consider it a negative or that it's a negative in some sort of objective way), but that some potential Harris voters(who are not you or me) might. It would also require Shapiro to either defend the behavior or back away from it, possibly alienating some pro-Israel voters.
A good Mamdani focused comparison might be something like his college application:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/nyregion/mamdani-columbia-black-application.html
If someone was vetting him, they'd probably deep dive on if he's ever done anything else like that. Even something as innocuous as a 17 year old's college application can get written up in the times and force a candidate into an awkward conversation. Bringing up some other details from opposition research (rather than things that you believe Mamdani openly supports) would show that you have a good understanding of this concept.
Does this make sense?
It really doesn’t. Jeff Maurer was correct in mocking the absurdity of Harris’s retarded progressive staffers, and your theory that it was proper opposition research is laughable considering Walz was the eventual pick. Nobody did any serious opposition research - they were opposed to him being a Jew who isn’t an Anzi. What it did help do is convince people like me to never again vote for a progressive.
You get how that worked out, right?
You are very close, but keep in mind that Harris wasn't doing opposition research. She was vetting in preparation for opposition research by her opponent. That's a little different.
I don't think they found much on Walz actually(although maybe they should have). I think they mostly went with "soft on crime" for attacks but never mentioned the fraud that's recently in the news. Here's a typical example from that summer:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/us/politics/trump-tim-walz-attack.html
It'd be great to compare this to anti-Shapiro attack ads, but we'll never know what they are.
I think a good response to this would be pointing to an effective attack ad against Walz, using something that should have been uncovered during vetting but was actually uncovered by opposition research during the campaign. (Remember, this is different from pointing to something that Walz says openly, but you dislike. And it also refers to something during the campaign).
I'm also confused by your writing. When you say "What it did help do is convince people like me" what's "it"? Are you saying that Kamala's vetting process (which was only revealed recently) is what convinced you to change your voting pattern?
I'm surprised you voted for progressives before. Who was the last one you voted for? Since you only refer to news from this month as a reason for the change, you could have voted for Kamala.
Finally, I should probably clarify that I wouldn't disagree with most criticism of the Harris campaign. I only argued that Shapiro's experience being vetted was not due to his Jewish identity as Walz (who is not Jewish) faced similar questions about working with a foreign government.
Did Tim Walz get asked if he was a spy for Miracle Whip?
Seemingly he got asked if he was a spy for China, since he had visited/lived in China (I'm unsure of the exact details).
Harris covered some of this in her book "107 Days" (which I would recommend as a fun read as to exactly *why* her campaign exploded and why she lost), and I think it's clear that Shapiro is getting some of his own back in his own memoir. Harris was pretty obvious about she thought he was too ambitious so she was not going to pick him, and some of the little jabs she puts in are both catty and hilarious - ol' Josh there was measuring for new curtains already (as it were) for the VP residence before he'd even been interviewed. I'm not surprised Shapiro is taking the opportunity to get some of his own back:
"When [Shapiro] learned [Storm Horncastle] was the residence manager, he peppered her with questions about the house, from the number of bedrooms to how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists’ work on loan from the Smithsonian."
I think the spat makes them both look bad. Take it to Bravo.
They probably asked him what he thought of Raymond Shaw.
The question for Shapiro is whether he would have run with Harris and, if so, why?
- Yes.
- Because she had a good chance to win and being Vice President raises your national profile significantly,
- He really, really wants to be President. 15 of 50 Vice Presidents have become President, and the current VP could easily make it 16. It's even happened to Vice Presidents automatically eight times!
LOSING at running for Vice President has certainly been a kiss of death for quite some time, though. Last one to even pick himself off the mat for a second was Mondale and he got put back down pretty hard. Losing as a VP candidate probably isn't the reason Paul Ryan's career totally crumbled - that was larger party forces, the same ones that brought down his biffles Cantor and McCarthy - but it didn't help.
“Run with Harris? Hahahahahahahaha…”
Correction: It's Chuck Schumer that's known internationally as "The Blue Falcon". Josh Shapiro is "The Crimson Hummingbird".
The obsession with demographics is approaching the elusive goal of all assholes since the dawn of civilization: bigotry against everyone.
It's dispiriting because I have a hard time blaming "the left" in the sense I usually do, meaning tedious, antisocial Marxist ANTIFA cosplayers; it was my beloved Democrats and liberals who got the ball rolling on this. Largely because of hyper-fixation on demographics as core to electoral strategy, which predictably led to ossified overgeneralizations about groups of people. And then those overgeneralizations end up in the hands of the illiberal left, who drive the demographic division into overdrive.
Slippery slope arguments can easily be overstated, so I don't want to act like it's an automatic outcome, or promote overwrought and dishonest "anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party" narratives, but it doesn't take THAT much to go from a campaign strategist saying "Jewish voters are like [blank]" in a dispassionate way to an activist saying "Jewish people are like [blank]" with some malice behind it.
Of course he's never feasted on Palestinian flesh - they don't have nearly enough meat on their bones, not since Dov Weisglass "put them on a diet"!
Don’t knock goyish appendage until you’ve tried it. I prefer mine lightly braised with horseradish sauce. Yummy!
I think it was revolting the questions Harris team asked Shapiro. I don’t ever want to see her run for any office ever again. I wanted him to be her running mate. This country is so fucking prejudice against different religions and people of color I don’t know how to share this country with such evil.
You nailed it, Jeff. Thank you!
Non-snarky question - with the benefit of hindsight, was there any Harris VP pick that would have made a difference?
With the benefit of hindsight, nothing the Democratic candidates said or did would have changed the votes of more than a small percentage of the electorate, like low single digits. And of course, if less than 5% of the electorate changed their votes, it would have no effect at all on the outcome of the 2024 election, or any national election, right? right??????
JD Vance?
Walz was put onto Harris' ticket because of the multibillion dollar corruption scandal, and the attendant kickbacks. It meant a slush money pit that she could pull from, to outspend Trump. Which she did, by over three to one.
It seems people like "Garbage Man Trump" a lot better than they like the PDiddy Confessional (oh, sorry, "let's get all of hollywood to endorse Harris.")
I do wonder exactly how much anyone knew of the Minnesota scandal(s), but it's rather plain in her memoir that she picked Walz because he'd be a lapdog. Shapiro was too openly ambitious, Kelly would outshine her due to his record, but Walz was happy to stand there in the background and do what she told him to do and not even dream of having his own views and opinions on anything at all.
Like I said, her book is hilarious as she even rips into Walz, the guy she picked for being a marshmallow basically, being too dang nice and getting fooled and bamboozled by that evil shapeshifting J.D. Vance in their debate 🤣
"But J. D. Vance is a shape-shifter. And a shifty guy. He understood that his default meanness wouldn’t play against Tim Walz’s sunny disposition and patent decency. Throughout the debate, he toned the anger and the insults way down. As Van Jones later remarked, he sane-washed the crazy. There were no cat ladies, no pet-eating Haitians, no personal insults. Just a mild-mannered, aw-shucks Appalachian pretending he had a lot of common ground with that nice Midwestern coach.
When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at J.D.’s fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, “What is happening?”
I told the television screen: “You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”
10/10 can recommend the book for entertainment value, by the end you too will be cheering for her inevitable loss as she is just so full of herself.
I’m sorry i ever supported her. Jesus
Well, to be fair, given Biden campaign's collapse so late in the day, there really wasn't much choice other than Kamala Harris. So they rammed it through as a fait accompli picking her as the nominee, then her campaign staff and what was left of Biden's campaign staff clumped together, and some very unfortunate choices in that campaigning were made (she should have gone on Rogan, for one; there's a part in the book that addresses this by basically calling Rogan a liar in what he said and claiming they would have loved to have done it but it wasn't possible because he wouldn't be flexible, but I tend to believe Rogan about how they wanted every possible inch of control).
Picking Walz was something they did as "we need a white guy who can appeal to the rednecks" (oh dear) plus it's also clear from the book that she thought Shapiro was way too ambitious and would be putting himself forward rather than supporting her, and Kelly had too glamorous a record by contrast with her (ex-astronaut!)
She does herself no favours with the bit about Pete Buttigieg which does come down to "I didn't reject him because he was gay - but it was because he was gay and that would have been too hard a sell alongside me, First Asian-African-American Female President".
Mostly it's "she got picked as VP because Biden had to pay back Jim Clyburn for the favour of getting black support behind him, it had to be a woman, so they needed a black woman and they picked Kamala". Why Kamala over other black women possible choices is another question but that's for another day:
"Biden had won the nomination because Congressman Jim Clyburn, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, had thrown his support behind him. The Black vote in the South Carolina primary—especially Black women’s vote—had thrust him to victory. The pressure was on him to pick a Black woman running mate."
The more I learn the angrier I get about how it was all handled. Terrible, terrible candidate & there really wasn’t a choice
It's why they really do need to get it right in 2028, and why right now the choices are looking very muddy.
There's the debate about "should the Democrats move more to the centre or double down on the progressive issues?" and waiting to see the midterm results, where the expectation is that they will do well and maybe win the House. If they do that, then the pressure will remain on for "keep tacking left".
Newsom seems to be positioning himself for a run, but again - how well would he do outside of California? And given that on social media he seems to have adopted the Trumpian approach, how aggressive versus conciliatory would he be?
There's a lot could happen between now and the election, and trying to figure out who would best appeal to the American public on the issues two years from now will be tricky.