Reader J sends in an interesting story about a seemingly sane winger friend of his:
But shortly after Halloween this dude blindsided me. He showed me a picture on his phone of a father and son trick-or-treating as a bottle of Jack Daniels and a pack of Marlboros. I smiled politely (the costumes were well made but, meh? who cares?) and handed his phone back to him and he said, “Can you imagine them showing up at Nancy Pelosi’s house? Can you imagine how she would react” And here he breaks into something like the old dowager from the Marx Brother’s films, “Oh no! Oh god no!” And then just shaking with his own merriment.
The winger stereotype of Nancy Pelosi is so strange to me. They talk about her like she was, I don’t know, Ruth Marcus.
Some of it is pure sexism, they (they’re usually men) feel dominated by their wife or ex-wife, whom they see as a mirthless harpie who won’t let them smoke and drink and watch porn, and they project that onto Nancy Pelosi, Hillary, etc. And then Rush and Fox reinforce the stereotype.
Some if it is the strange need for conservatives to feel transgressive, the way Sully does when he goes white supremacist with IQ.
Bago
F.E.A.R is an inculcuulated response to new data.
Hawes
Nancy Pelosi is the CEO of findhisporn.com. True story.
Martin
Err.
A little too small-world for my taste.
But that aside, yeah, the need for people on the prove their superiority by putting others down/pissing others off is really quite sad to observe.
Nathaniel
@Hawes: Cool story bro.
Hunter Gathers
Guys like that remind me of the frat boys that I used to steal beer from in college proclaiming, ‘Why won’t any of you bitches suck my cock?’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Just this.
I can’t comprehend that attitude at all, really. Why do you need to put others, who you have never met, down? Are you that uncomfortable with yourself that you feel such a need?
I mean, what did Nancy Pelosi ever do to him?
DougJ
@Martin:
I never thought Elvis Costello would stoop to that.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DougJ: And I vote Lenny Kravitz of Ireland, speaking of singers.
Mark S.
Does the average American have very strong feelings one way or the other about Nancy Pelosi? Wingers think the mere mention of her name causes all Real Americans to shake with uncontrollable rage. I think most people’s reaction is just a shrug, like you just said “Jeff Bingaman” in a menacing voice.
DougJ
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I thought about it some more, and that may even be unfair to Lenny. Is there a U2 song as catchy as “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over”? I think not.
Cat Lady
The Mirthless Harpies would be a great name for a band.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DougJ: Oh, good point.
Three-nineteen
Nancy Pelosi is Italian and was a teenager in the 1950s. I’m sure she has had no contact with either alcohol or cigarettes.
Redshift
@Mark S.:
Of course not. Wingnuts only have strong feelings about her because once she became Speaker she became the evil bitch-queen 24/7 on right wing radio and TV.
It’s like the way they say “teleprompter!” and assume everyone will understand and agree, rather than just looking at them funny. It’s wingnut code, all part of the bubble.
General Stuck
A little off topic
Even the wingers are feeling the snarkmentum a Newt frontrunner brings. And stepped it up a notch.
Allahpundit
This could be the funnest election in like evah.
Soonergrunt
They feel emasculated by a strong, competent woman.
She’s not just a strong, competent woman, but a woman from San Francisco! These are the same shitheads who always go on and on about Obama shoving things down their throats. The sexual victimization imagery from these guys is very telling.
Janus Daniels
“… the strange need for conservatives to feel transgressive, the way Sully does when he goes white supremacist with IQ.”
Most plausible speculation on Andrew Sullivan’s dementia that I’ve ever read.
Mister Papercut
@Redshift:
Also too: “57 states LOLZ!”
dead existentialist
Two brands of crap in their respective commodities.
Give me Stokkebye’s “Amsterdam Shag” and Clan McGregor, and damn the name recognition.
*cough, cough, hic!
gnomedad
Wingers could all move to another planet and nothing would change for them — they’d still be making shit up about “libs” and freaking about it. Unfortunately, they still live here and vote.
gnomedad
@Redshift:
Heh, it’s like the old jokes about prisoners telling jokes by numbers.
Soonergrunt
@gnomedad: 31!
31!
Dude, some people just can’t tell a joke.
(another) Josh
gnomedad, I like the version of that joke where the prisoners laugh riotously at “Number 644!” and explain to the confused novice, “That’s one we’d never heard.”
Mike Goetz
Wingnuts are the ultimate Leninists, because everything, absolutely everything, in their lives must relate back to politics. They do nothing because they want to; only because they think somebody else does not want them to.
MattF
There’s also the business where wingers maintain that because Pelosi is both wealthy and liberal, she’s a hypocrite. I recall Steve Benen ran over that one a couple of weeks ago with a “the meaning of the word hypocrite” post. But, still, it’s what they think, so it’s not going away.
Sly
Pelosi is perhaps the most effective party leader, and Speaker of the House, in a generation. Of course they hate her. She kicks their ass.
Yutsano
OT: stuck in a parking garage in Pioneer Square after a Seahacks game. I’m settling in, this could take awhile.
Gex
Reminds me of the guy in our neighborhood with a “My SUV offsets your hybrid” bumper sticker. He doesn’t really like pollution. He doesn’t really like how much he pays for gas. But by golly, he’s not going to acknowledge any of that if it puts him on the side of lie-bruls.
Educated elitists are concerned with the health effects of drinking and smoking. Therefore you dress up like those things. That’ll show ’em!
Petulant children the lot of them.
RareSanity
What has been said, by front pager and commenter alike, they have literally, created their own alternate reality.
It’s like what one of the hosts (I think Adam?) says, during the opening of Mythbusters, “I reject your reality and substitute my own…”
A couple of weeks ago, when Cain was on the rise (heh), I remember our wingnut VP saying, “We gotta get that guy out of office”, in the most disgusted tone.
All I could think of was, “Can you name one thing, that President Obama actually did, that is worthy of this level of contempt?”
They have somehow slipped into a parallel universe, but can still interact with this one. Can somebody get Neil Degrasse Tyson on the phone to explain this cosmic phenomenon?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
something tells me that somewhere between Baltimore and Marin County Nancy D’Alessandro encountered a dirty ashtray or two, and even poured a few drinks for the likes of Jack Murtha.
The flip side of their frat boy like need to see themselves as transgressive is their fetish for the puritanism of certain of their own. The fact that Karl Rove is a teetotaler was frequently held up as proof of his fundamental decency.
priscianusjr
@Mark S.:
aimai
My grandmother smoked like a chimney and also drank bourbon–she was also a lifelong democrat, the daughter of a well known anarchist, and an intellectual. I have no trouble at all assuming Nancy Pelosi can knock one back with the best of them.
aimai
Nutella
“the strange need for conservatives to feel transgressive”
Yeah, it is very odd that there are people whose attitudes are throwbacks to the 50s and 60s and think that’s bold and daring.
r€nato
@RareSanity: in some degree, it’s petulance over the fact that Bush was the most reviled president since Nixon, compounded by how Bush so closely mirrored their Platonic ideal of the perfect president.
about 70% of the nation loathed their idiot idol for his last three years in office, and he was none-too-popular before then either. So, they’re going to pay us back, regardless of the fact that while it’s perfectly reasonable to dislike Obama’s policies, the notion that he’s the WORST PRESIDENT EVER is fucking stupid beyond belief.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: Molly Ivins used to patiently explain to wing nuts that not only did she like smoke and drink (she eventually chose to stop) and fish, she even enjoyed hunting.
catclub
wasn’t there a smart post about people who are happy that concentrate on what they love to do and whom they love.
Concentrating on the opposite is a recipe for unhappiness.
I am not sure, but although the wingnuts described here may be unhappy, it still does not say good things about us, either.
The posts about getting out and doing something good do not get as many hits as the ones like these. [yes, I am preaching,. but as much to me as anyone else.]
RareSanity
@r€nato:
I can buy that, to a certain degree.
I would add that I also think that it is a longing to feel like their support, for such a disaster of President as Bush, wasn’t just them being stubborn or blind or stupid. If they portray Obama as just as bad as Bush, then it makes supporting, what “the other side” calls a terrible President, normal.
Wingnuts have got to be some of the most insecure people on the planet.
Jerzy Russian
@Gex:
I am a liberal, and I really hate it when people cut off their own peckers. I can’t tell you how much this angers me. I am sure it angers other liberals also. I heard Al Gore’s next film project will highlight the dangers of cutting off one’s own pecker.
TG Chicago
Thought experiment: if it was a black man with his child dressed up in the same costumes, what would the reaction of conservatives be?
Cathie from Canada
Children have Imaginary Friends; Republicans have Imaginary Enemies.
Rush Limbaugh used to sell (maybe still does) orange t-shirts on his website that celebrated Gitmo. His listeners would send in photos of themselves and their children, wearing the t-shirts and standing outside the offices of Democratic politicians — from the tone of the comments, they seemed to think this was extremely courageous and daring, and they were striking some great blow for “freedom” or “patriotism”.
Bizarre, just bizarre.
Martin
@Gex:
My teatard neighbor has a sticker like that on his hummer with the wee pickup bed in the back. I make a habit of ‘offsetting’ my dogs shitbags in the back of his truck.
Looking forward to election sign season. In 2008 I taught the dog to piss on all of the ‘Yes on 8’ signs.
Martin
@TG Chicago:
Follow-on thought experiment: Would it matter what the costumes were? After all, it’s a minority coming to your door at night begging for food. I suspect in Texas that’s grounds to shoot to kill.
brettvk
@General Stuck: I’m usually satisfied when valiant bloggers summarize these sites, but I let your link tempt me. I really am on a different planet than the GOP stalwarts. Just,…golly.
Martin
Oh, and the dad with the kid in the costumes, met with glee by the right, should be contrasted will Will Ferrell’s ‘Landlord’ video that sent the wingnuts into fits of apoplexy and cries of “Will nobody think of the children!”
Maybe next year we can convince all of the wingnut dads to dress in flammable rags and have their kids come armed with actual lighters as the worst possible thing that liberals would want to see at their doors.
Joel
I think it’s more of the transgressive thing. In layman’s terms, I would call this “bullying”.
Mark S.
@brettvk:
Hot Air? Yeah, it’s not a good idea to wade into the comments.
Martin
@General Stuck:
I agree. Remember the Wassup ad from 2008? There was some clever stuff last cycle.
If Newt is the nominee, I can’t wait to see the Newtcare ad where every time one of his family members gets sick, he divorces them and replaces them with a healthy one to keep costs in line.
Samara Morgan
he and TNC kissed and made up.
ahhh, TNC, we will always have the tesseracts.
;)
General Stuck
@Martin:
Yup, and apparently there is a GOP baby jeebus sanctioned statute of limitations on those previous acts of craven debauchery, that seems to have run out, about now.
FlipYrWhig
This one is particularly inexplicable because at no point that I can recall has Nancy Pelosi said or done anything to suggest that she’s prim and proper or a buzzkill or something. When the stereotype was attached to Hillary Clinton it was unfair, but it had a certain logic: Bill Clinton is a good ol’ boy with a shit-eatin’ grin, gettin’ into trouble, so it completes the picture for Hillary to be the long-suffering, censorious wife with a stick up the ass. But Nancy Pelosi, if her name had any connotations at all, would be–you’d think–ballbuster, the lady boss who makes you work hard. The stereotype on which the joke is based doesn’t match the person at whom the joke is aimed. It’s like mixing and matching stereotypes out of nowhere. It’s like, it would be a decent wingnut joke to say, “We should dress up as hamburgers and go trick-or-treating at the White House,” because of the Michelle Obama nutrition initiative. But this is based on nothing. It’s just odd.
Addison Sweetwater
@Jerzy Russian:
As an arugula-eating, freedumb-hating liberal, I agree 100%. I really, really hate it when Real Americans exercise their constooshnal right to enjoy a penis avulsion.
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig: I note that liberals write better wing nut jokes than the wing nuts themselves do.
Of course, most good comedians are liberal, anyway, but I disgress…
Peter A
“Some if it is the strange need for conservatives to feel transgressive, the way Sully does when he goes white supremacist with IQ.”
I’m not sure that is really an accurate description of what Sully is up to. Sully is English after all. In my experience, many Europeans actually believe sincerely that black people are not as intelligent as white people and think that Americans are being either naive or lying when they refuse to accept that.
PIGL
Being a Republican is a personality disorder….multi-polar, some cases more harmful or dangerous than others, some cases being manageable, others veering into mental illness reminiscent of schizophrenia.
Your friend is on the manageable end of ths spectrum, for the moment….like a toddler who proudly covers himself in his own poo, he’s probably not ready for day care, though, and should be kept at home.
Ian
@gwangung:
Its that whole open mind thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@RareSanity:
Bingo.
Rick Massimo
@RareSanity:
He won. That cannot stand.
He is one of Those People. And he was elected largely from the votes of Those People. And even if you’ve been born and raised and lived here your whole life, if you’re one of Those People you’re only in this country because the Real Americans let you. The fact that Those People got together to elect one of Those People President could tend to give Those People the notion that they’re Americans too.
And that cannot stand.
As for the thread topic: The day after Election Day 2008, two of my co-workers were giggling like schoolkids over a picture one of them had just printed out.
I asked them what they were laughing about. They looked at each other with concern, and finally with great reluctance they decided to show me what they’d been laughing at. But first they assured me that I was going to find it deeply offensive and would be very, very upset about it.
It was a picture of them and another co-worker gathered around a picture of Obama and all holding packets of Kool-Aid. I shrugged my shoulders and said “Yeah, whatever.” I’m fully confident that after I left they high-fived each other and exchanged observations about how outraged I REALLY must have been underneath my calm exterior.
(And actually, that was paradoxically the BEGINNING of my political conversations with one of those co-workers, which lasted until he retired a couple of months ago and ended with us understanding each other a lot better.)
Yeah, they really do make their decisions based on what will gall the imaginary enemies in their heads.
Yeah, well, if my entire philosophy on how the world should operate was given a 30-year practical test and was found to be a complete and utter failure in absolutely every measurable respect, I’d be pretty insecure too. I’d like to think I’d find a better way of dealing with it, though …
bjacques
@FlipYrWhig:
Not so odd. I’d chalk it up to Rep. Pelosi (here’s hoping that’s Speaker again) being a female boss, period.
And liberals are against fun, so there’s that, and as House Speaker, Pelosi was Queen Of All The Liberals.
Essayist-Lawyer
When I get in the nasty, eliminationist mode, I think that what we should really do is start a campaign against shooting yourself through the head. Give it a gun-hating undertone and throw in every offensive cultural cue you can possibly think of, all delivered in your most nauseating tone of intellectual and moral superiority.
Thewingnuts will have no choice. They will just have to shoot themselves through the head, just to piss off the libruls.
Essayist-Lawyer
When I get in the nasty, eliminationist mode, I think that what we should really do is start a campaign against shooting yourself through the head. Give it a gun-hating undertone and throw in every offensive cultural cue you can possibly think of, all delivered in your most nauseating tone of intellectual and moral superiority.
Thewingnuts will have no choice. They will just have to shoot themselves through the head, just to piss off the libruls.
burritoboy
It’s by no means certain that wingnuts can distinguish between one prominent female California Democratic politician and another. The “joke” actually does make small bits of sense if applied to Feinstein (it’s still a stretch, but marginally makes more sense due to Feinstein’s promotion of record labeling back 5-15 years ago). Maybe they can’t tell the difference between them.