Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

The revolution will be supervised.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Everybody saw this coming.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Republicans do not pay their debts.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

He really is that stupid.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / That’s It, I’m Done With Twitter

That’s It, I’m Done With Twitter

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Which of these tweets is more annoying- Major General Josh Trevino:

trevino

You can go to his feed where he repeatedly claims Bush won his war. I guess that means we can withdraw from Iraq now without being called traitors. Josh is now busy making fat jokes. All in a days work for the up and comers in the GOP.

Or this one:

justshootmenow

Twitter sure was a major victory for civilization.

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    I’m no ludditarian by any means, but I just do not get twitter. A medium that encourages you to mispell words to meet a random 140 count? To condense to the most banal?

  3. 3.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Obama just pissed on their permanent war wet dreams. For both Iraq and Afghan.. I could hear the collective wail all the way out here in Coyoteville NM

  5. 5.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Twitter sure was a major victory for civilization.

    Small quotes from small minds.

  7. 7.

    Blue Raven

    Please tell me that title for Trevino is sarcasm. If it isn’t, this civvy may have to smack a bird.

  9. 9.

    BruceFromOhio

    Twitter sure was a major victory for civilization.

    It only makes the stupid go faster when you read it. Would you want to dig into any of these mo’fuckas thoughts directly? Ick.

    Solution? Don’t read it.

  11. 11.

    demkat620

    What would have made them happy? That he announced he had just nuked the entire Middle East(except for BabyJesusland) and half of Asia?

    Cause I think that’s what it would take.

  12. 12.

    Bobby Thomson

    May I assume from this that Tacitus and Gun Counter Gomer don’t share similar views on the Confederacy?

  13. 13.

    Llelldorin

    You can go to his feed where he repeatedly claims Bush won his war.

    Seriously? And here I thought Afghanistan was Bush’s war.

  15. 15.

    Lyle4

    It’s very strange how Twitter has been co-opted by the right. The “trending topics” very often mesh with the what’s what Rethuglican talking point of the day.

    But I guess, when you think about it, putting their thoughts into tiny little 140 character barfnuggets is the one thing they excel at.

  16. 16.

    Jay C

    Pretty sad: I used to read Josh Trevino ever since his Tacitus days, and he used to be a fairly sensible and intelligent – if extreme-right – blogger: but ever since Obama got in, the ODS seems to have rotted his brain or something, and sent him right over the edge.

    At any rate, that retreat-vs-reelection comment neatly encapsulates the whole wingnut mindset (sic) in a nutshell – President Obama announces the biggest troop increase for Afghanistan in years, if not ever (a move they would no doubt have vigorously defended if made by GW Bush) – and all they can think of is to rag on him as some sort of defeatist. And in whiny petulant tones, at that.

    Maroons.

  21. 21.

    brantl

    There has to be some virtue in these guys being ineluctable fuckfaces in real time. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’m sure it will surface soon.

  22. 22.

    J.D. Rhoades

    I recently went through a merciless weeding of the people I’m following, then organized the survivors by category using the new tools Twitter’s put in place. Now I can just go to tweets of people I know, or people in the book business. I only drop into the ‘news and opinion” category when I’m damn good and ready.

  23. 23.

    Barry

    Jay C

    “Pretty sad: I used to read Josh Trevino ever since his Tacitus days, and he used to be a fairly sensible and intelligent – if extreme-right – blogger: but ever since Obama got in, the ODS seems to have rotted his brain or something, and sent him right over the edge.”

    I always felt that he was a nutcase from way back; he just understood how to express insanity in language which seemed less extreme.

  24. 24.

    Batocchio

    Since when have these assholes ever cared about troops’ lives? Unless they were criticizing the lack of a clear, achievable mission (or a mission at all) under Bush – let alone a war of choice sold with lies – they can go to hell.

    Also – Bush “won” “his war”? Like you say, great, let’s get out of Iraq then. But how does Afghanistan magically become not Bush’s war? These guys aren’t just assholes, they’re liars and/or morons. (Or should I say, morans.) It’s also nice how he ignores the latest report on Tora Bora.

  25. 25.

    tripletee

    The gap is papered over in lives.

    I wish Twitter had been around in 2004-2005 so we could go back and look at all of Josh’s very concerned tweets about soldier’s lives being endangered by Bush administration policies.

    I’m a little surprised that Trevino has been able to squeeze his unmistakeable brand of pretentious douchenozzlery into 140-character bursts, but he’s managed to do it.

  26. 26.

    MikeJ

    As I said the other day: if Obama can produce a body that plausibly belongs to bin Laden, he can bring the troops home the next day and start worrying about how to campaign against the Whig party because the GOP will cease to exist.

  28. 28.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @tripletee:

    I’m a little surprised that Trevino has been able to squeeze his unmistakeable brand of pretentious douchenozzlery into 140-character bursts, but he’s managed to do it.

    Pretentious Douchenozzlrey is a compact essence that fits quite nicely within 140 characters.

    It doesn’t take a novel to be an asshole. ;)

  29. 29.

    Cain

    @MikeJ:

    As I said the other day: if Obama can produce a body that plausibly belongs to bin Laden, he can bring the troops home the next day and start worrying about how to campaign against the Whig party because the GOP will cease to exist.

    The collective look of chagrin on their faces would be awesome.

    cain

  30. 30.

    Wile E. Quixote

    Josh Trevino is a lying, ignorant sack of shit. If he knew anything about George McClellan, which he obviously doesn’t, he’d know that McClellan explicitly renounced the Democratic party’s peace platform in 1864, writing the following in the letter he sent to the party accepting the nomination.

    Let me add what I doubt not was, although unexpressed, the sentiment of the convention, as it is of the people they represent, that when any one State is willing to return to the Union it should be received at once with a full guarantee of all its constitutional rights. If a frank, earnest, and persistent effort to obtain these objects should fail, the responsibility for ulterior consequences will fall upon those who remain in arms against the Union, but the Union must be preserved at all hazards. I could not look in the face my gallant comrades of the army and navy who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors, and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and wounded brethren, had been in vain, that we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often periled our lives. A vast majority of our people, whether in the army and navy or at home, would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of peace on the basis of the Union under the Constitution, without the effusion of another drop of blood, but no peace can be permanent without Union.

  31. 31.

    beltane

    @MikeJ: If Bin-Laden or his remains are found, expect to see Dick Cheney on TV turning red, with his wires popping out, as he is transformed into a little black bat that will go flying of into the night.

  34. 34.

    Kennedy

    I was disappointed when you announced your use of that site to begin with. I hate Twitter and think it is the most inane, useless goddamned thing ever.

  36. 36.

    joe from Lowell

    Good.

    I hope the entire Republican Party starts partying like it’s 2002.

    All of the conservatives I’ve seen comment on the speech seem determined to roll out the same arguments that failed so miserably, and that same line of strategic thought that was so thoroughly discredited by their handling of the Iraq War, and the broader response to 9/11.

    John McCain is making the same idiotic argument about setting a timeline that failed so miserably during the election. How’s Iraq, Senator, since we signed that SOFA? Collapse yet? How about those enemies? Did we embolden them?

    No? You’ve spent the last year bragging about how great things have turned out in Iraq?

    So…you were saying?

  37. 37.

    kay

    I think the better question is why Afghanistan wasn’t “Bush’s war”.

    If Bush won Iraq, did he lose Afghanistan?

    He started two but only participated in one?

  39. 39.

    RedKitten

    John, you’re blaming the medium, not the message. Josh Trevino would be a douchenozzle whether he chose to communicate via Twitter, dead-tree newspaper, smoke signals, or interpretive dance.

  41. 41.

    JK

    @RedKitten:

    Josh Trevino would be a douchenozzle whether he chose to communicate via Twitter, dead-tree newspaper, smoke signals, or interpretive dance.

    Telex, morse code, and semaphore flags, also. Interpretive dance is very rich. I’m trying to erase the image of Josh Trevino doing pirouettes from my mind.

  44. 44.

    tripletee

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    It doesn’t take a novel to be an asshole. ;)

    True – any random comments thread here is proof of that – but Trevino’s longer-form writing is so needlessly ornate that I didn’t think he’d be able to adequately convey just how big an asshole he is in a medium like Twitter.

    Clearly I was wrong.

  46. 46.

    Ian

    @kay:

    He started two but only participated in one?

    No. no no no! He did not do any participating. He only gave out the orders for others to die.

  47. 47.

    Xanthippas

    Wow. What a backhanded way to criticize Obama. But a typical right-winger. Even 150 years ago, exercising political expression in running for office is tantamount to treason.

  50. 50.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    This Josh Trevino?

    Trevino wrote on Twitter, “Dear Border Patrol: my red hair and pale skin IS my passport, bureaucrats.”

    Why the fuck were you following this pustule on a dog’s dick in the first place? I mean, what the fuck did you expect, mon ami?

    Jesus Cole, with all the tweets from the twittering twats you inflict upon yourself I’m starting to suspect your household accidents are the sign of underlying masochistic tendencies.

    @gbear: OK, that would be a little too cruel.

  51. 51.

    kay

    @Ian:

    Hah! They’re very different than us. Obama’s wrong. There’s no common ground.

    I could not write the words “Bush won his war” the day that Bush’s successor lays out the plan to rescue Bush’s Afghanistan effort from certain failure, but that’s me.

    Just ignore that big ‘ol other war. I don’t think I could write that.

  52. 52.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @JK:

    Telex, morse code, and semaphore flags, also. Interpretive dance is very rich. I’m trying to erase the image of Josh Trevino doing pirouettes from my mind.

    OK, there is some serious win there.

  53. 53.

    Dirk

    One should never deviate slightly from the view that Trevino is utterly pointless and contemptible.

    If it were merited, one might appreciate the exquisite agony the creep must feel when Moulitsas appears on TV or among his peers, the movers and shakers of politics. One shouldn’t, of course. That sympathy is entirely unearned.

  54. 54.

    Leelee for Obama

    Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick, Nagl, the COIN author, just said, flat out on Maddow, that we need to increase our military and that would have a profound impact on unemployment in this country.

    Think maybe that was part of the plan for never-ending war? Make sure we had lots and lots of unemployed people? Hey, it seemed to work for Louis the 14th. He died regretting it, but what that hell. Maybe the almost a Depression was a feature, not a bug for the Bush-Cheney Crime Family

  56. 56.

    Martin

    @Leelee for Obama:

    Turning the unemployed into soylent green would reduce unemployment as well.

    But the problem with the idea is that the military has been trying to recruit for years – there aren’t enough takers – even with the unemployment. The only way it would work is a draft.

  60. 60.

    4jkb4ia

    I am not on Twitter because it is a damned waste of time, but it is a good theoretical place for random sports observations :)

  61. 61.

    4jkb4ia

    I also notice that EW uses Twitter as a place for things that are too short or impulsive for a post. That’s EW. You can imagine what less rigorous others would do with this medium.

  62. 62.

    tomvox1

    Twitter boils everything down to snark. It’s like bathroom graffiti: sometimes it’s pithy and sometimes it’s vaguely clever but always it’s disposable.

  65. 65.

    jcricket

    This kind of idiocy is the only thing that gives me hope for our democracy. Democrats kind of suck lately (esp. the centrists), but Republicans are so determined to march rightward like lemmings off the cliff of irrelevance that they’re doing our opposition research/attack ads for us.

    I wish Democrats would figure out that today’s “Republicans” represent less than 30% of the population. The other 70% is in play, and that’s more than enough. Stop acting like we need 100% (or that it’s even achievable) or that you’re “not real Americans” if you’re not buying Sarah Palin’s latest lie.

  68. 68.

    Elie

    Red Kitten:

    Yeah, interpretive dance! I would LOVE to see that — hardy har har!!!

    thanks for the yuks

  69. 69.

    Elie

    kommrade:

    “Jesus Cole, with all the tweets from the twittering twats you inflict upon yourself I’m starting to suspect your household accidents are the sign of underlying masochistic tendencies.”

    another hardy har har!! You guys are tearing me up tonight…

  70. 70.

    Ross

    Waltisfrozen is the guy behind The Talent Show, and a liberal. Like very left. His point wasn’t to bash gays it was a very valid point that Obama has repeatedly backed away from specific promises while, as we’ve seen, not doing the same for conservative war hawks. In other words, he doesn’t want the gays to die, he’s wondering why the right wingers get their fondest wishes fellated first.

    Seriously, say what you want about Trevino, but WIF is one of the good guys.

  71. 71.

    RadioOne

    @tomvox1:

    this goes for almost everything the news media reports on a daily basis as well, so does that make Twitter a genuine 21st century new medium?

  72. 72.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    It’s very strange how Twitter has been co-opted by the right.

    No it’s not. The wingularity thrives on sound bites and doesn’t do nuance, hence no need for more than 140 characters. If they are accused of comments lacking any substance it gives them the excuse of ‘what do you expect for 140 characters?’, then the wingnut proceeds to ‘inform’ the questioner using the usual growling and barking sounds they thrive on, never answering the criticism.

    In the meantime they can generate sound bites in the hope that something sticks to the wall. If they do come up with something true and that takes hold, rather than using the ‘squirrel/nut’ luck explanation I will go with the monkeys/shit/wall analogy.

    If the foo shits, wear it.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Kevin

    There’s a guy on twitter, I think it’s @Cynicor, who does a good, amusing job of mocking these right-wing knuckleheads, within the 140-char limit.

    Isn’t that limit based on how long a cell phone text message can be?

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    I figured that twitting would be like being in jr high all over again, clicks that I don’t belong to, limited vocabulary and just pure bull shit that I didn’t care about. At least I got one new thing right in my life that I didn’t have to even give a second thought to.
    So let me try one here.

    Twitting is a complete waste of time, energy and electrons.

    A complete thought and not close to the limit.

  75. 75.

    D-Chance.

    I figured that twitting would be like being in jr high all over again, clicks that I don’t belong to, limited vocabulary…

    FAIL.

    And I fail to see the difference between a tweet and a typical Atrios or Instapundit posting. Some are long-winded gasbags (Greenwald or Larison); some are able to get to the nugget in one shovelful. Heck, half of Cole’s posts are under 140 characters of original material.

  79. 79.

    Sab

    Like others have written above, Trevino’s reputation from Tacitus years ago is undeserved. He’s an arrogant wingnut hack who seems fond of the idea of empire, the “clash of civilizations”, anti-Islamic bigotry, and other odd and uncomfortable notions. During the Tacitus years he was usually able to hide it better than most right-wing bloggers by using dense and wordy prose and keeping up a pretension of civility and moderation. However, during previous Presidential elections and now, with Obama in office, the facade breaks down and what is revealed isn’t much different than most other right-wing frothers, especially when he’s limited to 140 characters.

  80. 80.

    ricky

    The best thing about Twitter is that it will make confessions easier when the suspects are rounded up.

  81. 81.

    Sour Kraut

    And Trevino is now attacking Oliver Willis.

    I guess that makes Oliver the stand-in for Steve Gilliard.

    Josh ‘Dolchstoss’ Trevino, pretentious reactionary and owner of the world’s only semen-stained thesaurus, has been performing his utterly predictable rightwing schtick for ages. Which Trevino Move is next? Will it be the long-winded rhetorical misdirection, the ludicrous historical analogy or will he simply make another baseless claim to occupying the moral high ground?

  82. 82.

    GranFalloon

    Props to everyone who has noted that the Wingers thrive on Twitter because they like to keep it short and simpleminded.

    Another key concept is, I believe, the Wingers love the “proclamation.” They thrive on declarative sentences that unambiguously assess fault and/or draw a brightline of right or wrong. There need be no discussion.

    Finally, let’s not forget the fascination with simply seeing something in print (or onscreen). The gravitas they impart to something spelled out – which is then run back-and-forth through the mill, cross-cited, etc. – is what they base their arguments on.

  84. 84.

    liberal

    Isn’t he the douchebag who goes on and on about civility, yet onetime “outed” Billmon’s real name?

  85. 85.

    Sean

    I have a twitter account so I can follow what my boss shares with the world (I can’t say tw**t because it is fucking weak). I did, however, break my absolute twitter silence to call Josh Trevino a fucking cock.

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