#like he’s doing more genocide than Trump. the guy we supposedly need to stop from committing genocide!

[whitehotharlots]

Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary

Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.

Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit. 

The “top tier”

While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination. 

Kamala Harris

Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle. 

Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds. 

Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store. 

Andrew Cuomo

Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin. 

Joe Biden

The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man. 

Wild Cards

These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben. 

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist. 

Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny. 

Gavin Newsom

Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men. 

Larry Summers

I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier. 

Jay Inslee

Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career. 

AOC

I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.

Larry Hogan

Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry. 

The Losers Bracket

These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.

Joe Kennedy

The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run. 

Mayor Pete 

I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!

Stacy Abrams

Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.

Elizabeth Warren

Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around. 

It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure. 

Amy Klobuchar 

Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable. 

Martha Coakley

She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties. 

[emletish-fish]

Worst Prisoner: Omahsu notes.

ff.net

Ao3

Notes: In these rambles I will mention

Aang and the mind-fuck passage of time.

Zuko has too many feelings and none of them are good.

My theory about the White Lotus

So I'd like to ramble about Aang and the passage of time.   He woke up from a nap one hundred years later.

The only person alive from Aang's past used to be the same age as him and is now ancient! That is brain wrinkling. I always thought seeing Bumi as such an old guy would have really thrown Aang for a massive loop and I wanted to explore his feelings a little bit.

I'm still sticking to my theory that Zuko is re-incarnated Kuzon. I think it explains a lot, such as  why Aang really gravitated towards Zuko, and his first instinct, even despite everything that had happened was 'lets be friends'. Also the timeline fits better, their names are practically anagrams, we were going to have an episode about Kuzon. But for re-incarnation to happen Kuzon had to die.  Sorry mate.

The line “if life is a race, she beat me to the finish – but if it is a boxing match, I'm the last man standing” - is from Woman in Gold, a movie that I really enjoyed, even if critics didn't like it much. I also thought it would fit what I imagine would have been a very loving, but very belligerent friendship between Kuzon and Bumi after Aang. - Gosh I have so many head canons for what those two got up too after Aang.

I'm going to drop one on you now.  My Theory is: The White Lotus isn't an ancient organisation. It's a fairly new secret society/spy/resistance network that was initially created by Bumi and Kuzon and monk Pasang (one of the survivors from Aang's temple) against Firelord Sozin, to help hide and protect surviving air nomads and be a nuisance to the Fire Nation's military plans.

The White Lotus is all about 'maintaining balance'. There is no greater way of maintaining balance than ensuring the survival of a crucial quarter of the four elements.  I think as teens/young adults Bumi and Kuzon got up to shenanigans trying to smuggle, hide and protect survivors of the genocide - and there would have been survivors – the Air Nomads are nomadic people, who's gut instinct is to run away and avoid conflict, with forewarning that the Fire Nation is planning some nasty stuff.

Totalitarian regimes never jump straight to genocide normally. There is a propaganda period, where smaller injustices become 'acceptable' – such as forbidding hosting Air Benders at home. Sozin would probably trump up some reason for this – health most likely. Say the Air Nomads had a plague and you're endangering everyone if you let it spread to the Fire Nation. The Young Sozin Society is my ATLA version of the Hitler Youth.

So Bumi and Kuzon would make fake identities, help move the air benders, and set up little enclaves of survivors. There would have been the need for utmost secrecy, obviously.  They would have been very sneaky. Maybe this trait from his past life is where Zuko gets his affinity for being a sneaky ninja.

But I think there would have been other sympathetic people out there, and they would have become members and branches would have rapidly grown. They would have communicated through 'Pai Sho' strategies, because it would have been an easy way to relay complex information.  I think Bumi would have been the first 'Grand Lotus'  as it would have been easier for him to liaise with all the cells in the EK, but he would have handed this responsibility over after a period.

Why is Tom Tom so ridiculously the favourite as per Mai's tacked on tragic backstory? I mean there had to be a reason. I feel like the most logical reason for him being doted on more is a combination of being a later in life baby and a bender.  So he is.

It also let me include a scene that was inspired by one of my lovely reviewers. Someone (sorry I can't remember who, but shout out to you for this great observation!) said that the way people treated Zuko in book 1 was really unfair, because he was just a fairly innocent kid and he wasn’t even doing anything bad. They compared it to ganging up on a baby.

I kind of wanted to hammer that point home with Tom Tom.  I wanted to show how deep the prejudice the nations feel for each other is, because those soldiers do hate that baby for being a firebender as a result of all the evil done to them by firebenders – but it also highlights how far Sokka and Katara have come in their attitude towards the Fire Nation. They aren't governed by blind hatred and can clearly recognize it in their 'allies'.

So, I also included a little Aang jealousy here. I think Aang gets maternal and romantic love mixed up (and isn't it a shame that he never gets to learn the difference either). Aang was raised by mostly celibate monks, and never really hung out with girls before the iceberg. Katara has a whole lot of maternal loving for him. He has a crush on her and so he reads her attention as romantic. Seeing her display similar affection to Tom Tom would have made him a little jealous, but he is nowhere near understanding why or labelling it as that. Without being anti-Aang, because I love him, I just wanted to make it clear that the Kataang dynamic is beautiful as a familiar relationship, but unhealthy as all get-out romantically.

Here’s another yikes gif.

Katara calling the baby 'sweetie' is a deliberate dig at the comics, because I have petty moments too, okay.  Also I consider sweetie a maternal term of endearment and use it with children when I momentarily blank their name.  

So Zuko is at a very low point at the moment, even lower than in the show, because he doesn't even have the vague, nebulous goal of 'regaining his honour' and going home to devote his energy and brain-power too. No, he's sitting on his butt all day. He'd be bored out of his mind. Also Zuko was never really idle, I don't think he knows what to do with himself if he doesn't have a goal to work towards. Nope, all he's got at the moment are maudlin thoughts and beating up bullies.  He’s a little sad ball.

I actually think that after all the things he suffered, it would make sense that his season three storyline, of his firebending getting weaker because of a loss of driving motivation, would happen a lot earlier. At least he'll have Iroh to help him through it this time – if he talks to his Uncle and stops sassing him about the flower friends that is.  This would be his face whenever Iroh brings up the flower friends.

Lastly, Mai recognised that knife. She knows who it belongs too. She also thinks Zuko got eaten but the Water Tribes, so Katara is not her favourite person at all.  Azula hasn't told Mai that he is alive and they are also hunting him along with Iroh. Azula has her reasons, trust me. But Mai being so cheerful about hunting Zuko was something I just couldn't get behind, even for them being friends, let alone paired romantically. The 'love interest' is happy that she has to hunt down someone she supposedly cares about – blargh to that! So it doesn't happen in my story. Mai will retain her deadpan awesome, but I don’t want her to be a sociopath.

Next up – The swamp shows us people we love, people we lost. Katara remembers happier times in the north. Aang and Avatar Kyoshi have an enlightening conversation.

Til then.  

#the worst prisoner #worst prisoner #Emletish rants #emletish fic #emletish writes #zutara #Zuko #Katara #Sokka #Aang #Azula #Bumi #Iroh #Uncle Iroh