Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Let’s finish the job.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

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

I really should read my own blog.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

You are here: Home / Ain’t no drag

Ain’t no drag

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Commenter muddy says Jon Stewart used the word totebagger last night And there’s a video on YouTube that uses the word “totebagger” and captures the ethos perfectly.

I’d like to take credit for this, and frankly I do think I deserve some, but I heard the word from my friend CP a few years ago. And this blog devoted to all things totebagger began in 2005, when I was still just a gleam in John Cole’s bloodshot eye.

Also too, talk about whatever, especially any new phrases or expressions you’ve heard the kids saying.

Update. Reader JB sent this in a while ago.

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    Shouldn’t we be showing solidarity with the soon-to-be-fired Big Bird and Jim Lehrer by declaring that “today we are all totebaggers” and coloring the blog in a subdued but tasteful shade of plaid, or something?

  5. 5.

    Comrade Mary

    Cute kids, but “The” Cosmos? THE Cosmos?

    Also: Matt Smith announces that if he had a real TARDIS, he would “go see music – the Beatles at their height, or Woodstock, or Kurt Cobain live. I’d love to see Arcade Fire in a room somewhere. And Sinatra when he was with Dean Martin.”

    Time to die.

  6. 6.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ:

    Are the totebaggers using Facebook and Twitter to organize?

    As soon as their new iPhones arrive, yes. But for now, they’re reduced to signalling each other with coy yet meaningful glances exchanged over the NYT crossword puzzle while standing in line at the Starbucks.

    The Revolution will be 12 letters across starting with ‘A’ and rhymes with the name of a 19th Cen. polar explorer.

    ETA: catclub’s version is much better.

  10. 10.

    BGinCHI

    When the Walkman came out I was like, “why can’t this be smaller and play music “digitally” [using my fingers for air quotes] and have a touch screen?”

    Then one of my friends gave me a wicked charlie horse and I never, ever spoke of the future again.

  12. 12.

    Foggy F Follansbye

    This blog needs more annotations than a Danielewski novel. I have to decipher every comment. What is this, the bloggy equivalent to The Waste Land?

  14. 14.

    beltane

    My mother is kind of a totebagger. When I mentioned to her that Jim Lehrer might be getting too old to moderate debates she objected, pointing out what a nice, fair man he is.

  15. 15.

    Violet

    DougJ, are the first link and the “2005” link supposed to be different? They’re the same.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    @Metrosexual Manichean Monster DougJ: You’re welcome. Thanks for the link to the blog–funny:

    The thing about Strunk & White is that no one in their right mind would want to read anything that conformed to its prosaic strictures. One writer who knew this was, well, E.B. White. The fundamentalist evangelist of prose has been caught in the back of the limo with the hookers and cocaine of prescriptivism: adjectives and adverbs.

  22. 22.

    Anoniminous

    If the “totebag ethos” is watching science and technology shows/documentaries then I’ve been a totebagger my whole life.

    Plus, since they don’t have James Burke’s Connections on the list they are obviously full of it.

  23. 23.

    catclub

    @BGinCHI: I think I had recently learned about md5sum. (the application is left to the student.)

    In other words, I should have been working.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m still bitter that I never managed to popularize the phrase “shrine of the Money God” as a nickname for the ATM, despite trying off and on for some 20 years. (Y’know, you approach the thing, which looks like a small shrine, and then you perform the rites — which are kind of prayer-like, when you think about it — to get it to disgorge cash for you… )

  28. 28.

    catclub

    @Amir Khalid: Probably too close to true and insulting to the users, to be popular.

    Boob tube works, but a reference to worshiping it would not, for TV. Plus TV is kind of short, already.

  29. 29.

    Keith G

    Many of the folks I know who you might call totebaggers have been volunteering in the community and donating money to important causes for decades. They are among the most dependable votes the Democratic party has. One of them talked me into becoming a precinct judge for Democratic primaries many years ago. Another volunteers for both the local PBS station and an inner city AIDS clinic. That’s where I met her as she helped me adjust to being a patient.

    I am not sure where this need to bolster one’s theoretical superiority by criticizing good people comes from but I guess it serves as some sort of balm.

  30. 30.

    slag

    I’m such a totebagger that, not only do I watch all that stuff they discussed in that video, I knew that their video producer’s name was the same as that of the producer for This American Life. Damn. I gotta get me a tote bag from somewhere.

    So, is a tote bag just like a regular bag or does it have a special quality of which I am unaware? Do reusable shopping bags count? (Not that I would ever use such a thing, of course, because everybody knows that wantonly wasting resources is how the cool kids roll, so that was just an academic question.)

  33. 33.

    muddy

    I just watched it again, it wasn’t *exactly* totebagger, but he called Rmoney “Totebag Johnny”. Last night’s show.

    Sorry that I was not exact.

  37. 37.

    catclub

    @Keith G: I think the criticism comes _BECAUSE_ these people are so often so good, and yet they still seem to be incredibly benighted in some of their blind spots. No one blames a scorpion for doing what it does.

  38. 38.

    slag

    @Keith G:

    Many of the folks I know who you might call totebaggers have been volunteering in the community and donating money to important causes for decades….I am not sure where this need to bolster one’s theoretical superiority by criticizing good people comes from but I guess it serves as some sort of balm.

    I think one problem that DougJ is reacting to (without actually articulating or understanding, of course) is that community service has by and large devolved into philanthropy. And that’s because we, as a society, don’t condescend to pay a decent wage for community and social services, and thus it becomes primarily (though definitely not exclusively) the province of well-off people. If you’re volunteering, you’re probably not also working two jobs to feed your family of four. And you can also afford to donate to PBS. So, it becomes a closed circle. The community service that gets done the best is the community service that well-off people want done the most–presumably like funding Big Bird.

  40. 40.

    Keith G

    @slag:
    Gosh, I volunteer at an AIDS hospice and I qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Not coincidently, helping the poor to not die alone has become important to me lately.

    Broadly categorizing the complexity of humans is something the other side does in their corrosive arrogance. I wish we would be a bit better.

  41. 41.

    muddy

    I liked Stewart last night showing what Obama should have replied, he just points and yells Liar Liar Liar over and over, while checking his watch to see if he has time left. That’s what I would do, which is why I can’t run for office.

    And Colbert had a split screen, one side had Obama, and sometimes Lehrer, with various expressions. The other side just had Rmoney with his super creepy fake smile the entire time.

  42. 42.

    slag

    @Keith G: I wouldn’t worry too much. DougJ’s attacks of unadulterated hackery have subsided in the past. Though they do seem to be getting closer and closer together these days while lasting longer and longer. Still, there’s always Kay and Tom Levenson to hold on to. For now, anyway.

    ETA Though I should qualify my response with, on a broad brush level, DougJ is, indeed, on to something. Even if he doesn’t have a clue as to what it is. Our Gilded Age-style approach to community and social services is deeply, fundamentally flawed. I call it the “if you can’t buy it at the Apple Store, it’s not worth paying for” problem.

  43. 43.

    cyntax

    @realbtl:

    I hadn’t thought of that. The amount of alcohol consumed in each work should play into the decision though.

    Which reminds me: must get more Racer 5…

  44. 44.

    Keith G

    @Keith G: I need to edit my comment for accuracy. It’s likely that a recent employment change will make me ineligible for food stamps – Praise Hera.

    Its a service I never utilized since I don’t have extra persons to feed and since my departure from a professional income, I have worked for a local cafe and as a freelance cater cook. Eating isn’t a problem :)

    But I do feel bad for those of you who have encountered those herds of totebaggers disturbing your ch’i. That is just not the type of community centered people (who might actually own a true totebag) that I have come across.

  45. 45.

    gocart mozart

    I had the idea for a black president back in the 90’s man! I said to my friend, “Friend, wouldn’t it be totally cool if we had a black president?” and he agreed. It took over ten years for the idea to catch on, but sure enough, eventually it did. So, you’re welcome.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Keith G: I am not sure where this need to bolster one’s theoretical superiority by criticizing good people comes from but I guess it serves as some sort of balm.
    Don’t do a lot of self-awareness, do you?

  47. 47.

    presquevu

    It’s too bad that Truthers is already taken, it’d be a great label for the tribe of liars Mitt represents. Canardians also seems to be spoken for. Maybe just Flaneagans.

    Is there any video of Mitt telling the truth to use as a baseline for search for tells in his debate video? I guess the look-up-and-to-the-right before lying dilly doesn’t work if it’s memorized made up shite he’s blurting.

  49. 49.

    Larkspur

    @Foggy F Follansbye: I’m with you. I could apply myself and look up stuff and ask questions and just try harder to understand this thread, but I’m lazy and not that bright, for Pete’s sake.

  50. 50.

    Gromit

    Watching Netflix folding laundry. These folks have me pegged. I recently rewatched “Cosmos”, and goddamn is it good, and still mostly holds up after all these years. This is one instance where they really don’t make them like they used to. Today’s science documentaries seem to all go for that hyperkinetic editing style, with lots of swooshing sound effects, crazy camera angles, and over-the-top graphics. I just can’t watch them.

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