Valued commenter Mustang Bobby notes that The New York Times is ignoring Donald Trump’s crude remarks about Hillary Clinton at a rally in Michigan last night. You’d think an incident in which the GOP frontrunner suggested that the Democratic frontrunner (a white woman!) was metaphorically shagged by an opponent (a black man!) and is “disgusting” because she pees would be worth a line or two in the paper of record. But not yet, anyway.
However, CNN wasn’t afraid to soil its dainty hands:
Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton in vulgar terms Monday night, saying that her bathroom break during the last Democratic debate was just too “disgusting” to talk about and then stating she “got schlonged” by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.
Naturally, the troglodytes at the rally made enthusiastic glottal vocalizations, twirled their loincloths and waved their clubs when Trump gave voice to their fantasies about dick-swinging conquests and vajayjay-cooties. But Steve M at No More Mr. Nice Blog speculates that Trump may have walked into a trap:
This is great for Clinton. This is Trump at his worst, the Trump that only his fans like… This makes Trump look infantile to the larger public and, probably, impressive to his idiot voters — so it’s a double victory for Clinton. She has him just where she wants him. She should just keep goading him.
I think Steve is exactly right. Next, Clinton should accuse Trump of providing recruiting fodder for white supremacists — citing evidence straight from the hood’s mouth-hole.
Mr. Longform
Trump, having never peed or pooped, finds going to the bathroom disgusting. It’s much better to hold it in until it comes out of your mouth. Not at all disgusting.
WereBear
Didn’t we all know Trump would go there? After all, he really rose to fame as a bully.
NorthLeft12
And cue the rise in his approval ratings from GOP voters in 3, 2, 1, ……….
Cervantes
Welllllll .. . It’s really only to Hillary’s benefit if he continues to poll strongly and then wins a lot of delegates. (Even better he should win the nomination but I still can’t see that.) It remains to be seen if it’s actually possible for F. von Clownstick to go too far.
dmsilev
Trump, for all his bluster, has a pretty thin skin if you attack him properly. Go back and watch the video of Obama mocking Trump to his face at that White House Correspondents dinner a few years ago; Trump looks like he’s about to pop a vein or something.
The problem faced by the other GOP contenders is that they can’t effectively attack him this way because large swaths of their base _agree_ with him. The general electorate is a very different story.
kindness
Over the weekend I had dinner with old college friends who are for the most part TeaHaddists. When I asked why they supported Trump (of course they do) they said it is because they trust Trump to ‘shake things up in Washington’. I then asked how they could ignore all the things coming from Trumps mouth. They said they don’t believe Trump when he says any of that and they believe he won’t govern that way.
And these are educated people. Stupid educated people. My Gob was smacked.
SenyorDave
@Cervantes: Not for his supporters. My stepson loves Trump, not just recently but for like 10 years. He thinks Trump’s bragging and bullying is just what this country needs. Doesn’t bother him in the least that Trump has no actual plans, and when I asked him if Trump as president would call Angela Merkel an idiot if she disagreed with him, my stepson replied its better than kowtowing like Obama does. There is no arguing with him, I just gave up (after pointing out that Trump is a racist pig).
WJS
This was Donald Trump’s Mandingo moment. It will make him really, really popular among people who respond to that kind of dog whistle. Yes, it was incredibly sexist but it had a racial connotation as well. It was like the perfect Donald Trump word salad–he hit every note and he probably expected everyone to congratulate him when he was finished.
WereBear
Trump is every guy who refuses to stop at the next rest area because he doesn’t have to go.
There’s a river deep, mountain high, vein of resentment to mine there, letmetallya.
Gin & Tonic
They finally have a story up: “Trump Goes Vulgar in Swipe at Clinton.” I won’t click over, so maybe somebody else can find out how they dance around the word “schlong.”
rikyrah
Not mad at them.
Not.at.all.
Fusion ✔ @ThisIsFusion
In response to numerous death threats, Muslims in Florida are arming themselves for protection
rikyrah
Sued Over Old Debt, and Blocked From Suing Back
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and MICHAEL CORKERY
DEC. 22, 2015
Clifford Cain Jr., a retired electrician in Baltimore, was used to living on a tight budget, carefully apportioning his Social Security and pension benefits to cover his rent and medication for multiple sclerosis.
So Mr. Cain was puzzled when he suddenly could not make ends meet. Months later, he discovered why: A debt collector had garnished his bank account after suing him for about $4,500 the company said he owed on an old debt.
Mr. Cain said he never knew the lawsuit had been brought against him until the money was gone. Neither did other Baltimore residents who were among the hundreds of people sued by the collector, Midland Funding, a unit of the Encore Capital Group, in Maryland State Court. Some of them said they did not even owe any money, or their debt had long expired and was not legally collectible, according to a review of court records.
In any case, the Encore subsidiary was not licensed to collect debt in Maryland.
Yet when Mr. Cain brought a class action in 2013 against Midland Funding, the company successfully fought to have the lawsuit dismissed.
If the plaintiffs wanted to try to recover their money, they would have to do so in private arbitration. And because class actions are banned in arbitration, Mr. Cain and the others would have to fight the unit of Encore — one of the largest debt buyers in the country with vast legal resources — one by one.
“I can’t for the life of me understand how this is allowed to happen,” said Mr. Cain, who could not afford to pursue his case alone in arbitration.
In short, Encore and rival debt buyers are using the courts to sue consumers and collect debt, then preventing those same consumers from using the courts to challenge the companies’ tactics. Consumer lawyers said this strategy was the legal equivalent of debt collectors having their cake and eating it, too.
The use of arbitration by the companies is the latest frontier in a legal strategy orchestrated by corporations in recent years. By inserting arbitration clauses into the fine print of consumer contracts, they have found a way to block access to the courts and ban class-action lawsuits, the only realistic way to bring a case against a deep-pocketed corporation.
Their strategy traces to a pair of Supreme Court decisions in 2011 and 2013 that enshrined the use of class-action bans in arbitration clauses.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I don’t think that is what Florida Republicans had in mind with Stand Your Ground.
I really hope this doesn’t get uglier.
Keith G
That-a-boy, Donald. Keep on keeping on.
I did not think that this rascal would be still be sewing such fertile fields of chaos as the new year dawned. Good on him.
This from 538 yesterday.
Betty Cracker
@kindness: I’ve mentioned a Trump-curious uncle of mine who is also not an idiot or bigot; his reasons for considering Trump are very similar to your friends’, i.e., he’ll “send a message,” “shake things up,” “won’t really govern that way,” etc. It’s maddening.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: Here’s what the Times wrote:
I like that they felt it necessary to define ‘schlong’; I guess they know their readership.
patrick II
When I saw that both Hillery and Obama attack Trump at the same time I wondered if they were not trying to help him. When Obama thanks someone or compliments them its death to Republican candidate as mr. Huntsman found out. So I wonder if the reverse does ‘t work in a similar way — help him in the primary while getting good fodder for the general.
Mr. Prosser
Betty Cracker, liked your description of the Trump followers, I got a mental image of Il Douche and his followers in kilts waving their schlongs at the Libs.
MattF
A MoJo article about the 2000 debate between Clinton and Lazio. IMO, The Donald now has a big problem.
oldgold
I was watching the supposedly liberal leaning MSNBC last night and the shows all breezed right over Trump’s rancid rhetoric and focused on whether Trump was right to call Clinton a liar and demand an apology. Most specifically, Lawrence O’Donnell and his obtuse contributors all seemed to think she lied and should apologize to Trump.
Central Planning
What exactly does it mean to “get schlonged”? Being a schlong owner, I just don’t get how that phrase is supposed to work.
Even if it means “screwed”, I can’t use the property of equality to get that to make sense. Like, “Look at my screw”.
Engish – how does it fucking work?
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: It would also “shake things up” to elect Andy Dick, but I don’t see that movement happening. I think “shake things up” is something that people who support Trump have learned to say because it’s more polite than their real reason for supporting Trump, which is because they think he’ll kick ass. Why “kicking ass” is supposed to be a good idea is a question for them to answer.
MattF
@Central Planning: Trump does ‘stream of consciousness’ grammar. It’s his thang, so to speak.
FlipYrWhig
@Central Planning: For “schlonged” read “dicked.”
dmsilev
@Central Planning: You need to up the vulgarity, misogyny, and racism by an order of magnitude to understand Trump’s statement. Let me translate: “Hillary got fucked over by a black man”.
Gin & Tonic
@Keith G: ….you know, morons.
01jack
@FlipYrWhig: Or “penised.” Try pronouncing it Elizabethan style – with the accent on the last syllable.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: With respects to your family member…it depends on the definition of idiot.
Someone who chooses to ignore rational evidence which is easily available?
It never ceases to amaze me how predictable human political behavior can be. There seems to be, reinforced by evolution, a predisposition to give deference to a chest-thumping, big daddy, problem solver. Maybe initially falling in line with such a predisposition is only idiocy if not quickly dropped.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Interestingly enough, The New York Times has chosen not to dance around the word. It actually does use “schlonged”.
Poopyman
@Keith G:
Kudos for whipping out that Nate Silver quote in a thread on Trump’s use of “schlonging”.
Waldo
@MattF: I’d forgotten about that. Good reminder not to stray from one’s place on the debate stage — a move that also backfired for Gore and McCain.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Gin & Tonic: Common clay of the new west!
Percysowner
Well, unless she has 3+ peer reviewed studies proving it, Lawrence O’Donnell will go on and on and ON about how she should apologize to Trump because she doesn’t have proof and God Forbid! that Hillary tell a lie and lower the political discourse. Sorry, but I just started watching lat night’s Last Word and that was his first topic, how Hillary lied about Isis using Trump’s words to recruit for them. Oh he said eventually they WOULD use it, but since it wasn’t an established fact, Hillary owed it to “the voters” to apologize. This was after Chris Hayes discussed how Hillary saying “Hell No!” was totally equivalent to Trump’s language about Mexican’s being rapists, etc.
FlipYrWhig
@Percysowner: Lawrence O’Donnell goes into a weird bulldog mode on random things sometimes.
Satby
@Percysowner: Yeah, and those are supposed to be the guys on our side.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: This same uncle voted for Obama in 2008 and then for some libertarian fool in 2012. I would call his political expectations unrealistic and his voting pattern erratic, but he’s not an idiot in the sense that many Trump voters are, i.e., a racist tea party loon.
Gin & Tonic
@Percysowner: LO’D is insufferable, with an ego of almost Trumpian proportions. While he is sometimes on the right side of issues I care about, I cannot tolerate watching him.
BR
Given that Trump’s supporters are more than just “enthusiastic” as he likes to say, seems to me more on the left, at least, should be calling him out for encouraging domestic terrorism (and using the word):
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/william-celli-arrested-explosives-muslims
HRA
The days of the Lazio debate are long gone. Hilary absolutely was a different person then. She did not have to have notes to read from on her lectern then. This past Saturday she had to read notes.
It seems like the introduction of the ISIS video was an educated move IMO to restart the Benghazi video as a part of a discussion by her team. They know she is very able in handling it.
I don’t know why she went to the Pell grant in her talking point to have it used for housing when it is already used for it. It did surprise me.
Trump is an idiot. We woman know the advantage of being late. :)
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: Why doesn’t the AG go after them for breaking state law?! WTF!
Did corporations get “consequences” arbitrated out of their one-sided contract with America too?
Seriously, isn’t attempting to collect expired debt “fraud” and taking that to a court a whole bunch of other crimes?
Oatler.
Behold the Weimar journalists ignoring the Brownshirts.
El Caganer
@FlipYrWhig: I dunno about “shaking things up.” Wouldn’t you be more likely to “get schlonged” with a Dick?
Iowa Old Lady
@FlipYrWhig: LO’D is way too interested in buddying up to Hollywood.
debbie
@FlipYrWhig:
And not in a good way.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: So as much as I hate on GOPers with a bachelor’s degree, they aren’t as insane or scary as GOPers with no college, presumably mostly working stiffs who have overthrown class solidarity for race hate. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Hoodie
Trump seems to be saying that Obama raped Clinton and that she either liked it or was powerless to do anything about it. It’s interesting that no one in the GOP, including GOP women, appears to be stepping up to call out this disgusting misogyny and racism. Does imagery about interracial rape and female helplessness somehow strike a chord with GOP women? Trump is really providing an interesting case study in mass psychology.
Paul in KY
@kindness: Thank you for asking.
hellslittlestangel
I think right now Clinton is just taking a few exploratory jabs at Trump. She knows to stick to the issues and wait until the fool actually wins the nomination before she really comes down hard on him.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: We might get gun control!! Understand why they are doing that.
NonyNony
@Another Holocene Human:
To be fair, this is the USA. Class solidarity in this country generally only exists among the very rich.
Hildebrand
@dmsilev: Bingo. Being offended or mad at Trump doesn’t work – that’s his oxygen. Mocking him? Taking the piss? Putting him into a situation where he is offended and is demanding an apology? That’s the way to do it. Trump can handle anything but people laughing at him.
Another Holocene Human
Why is schlong a “boorish” word for p*n*s (fywp)? It’s straight out of German (“snake”, i think?). Yiddish in its expressiveness has multiple words for male genitalia. I feel like the preferred term for a man’s actual primary sex characteristic (fywp) is shmeckele, which roughly* means “the dear old family jewels”.
*roughly, my friends
Paul in KY
@Mr. Prosser: How would we be able to see them?
WereBear
@rikyrah: I have had such traps laid for me, and I was able to sidestep them with legal help, but this takes it to a whole new scary level.
Another Holocene Human
@Hildebrand: So true. Insanely thin-skinned about that.
01jack
@Another Holocene Human: Of course, usage rules over origins. Boorish is as boorish does.
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
“Won’t really govern that way”, eh?
From what I can tell, Trump’s hard core supporters want him to govern exactly that way. For chrissakes, Mein Kampf said exactly what Hitler believed too. He tried to carry it out and came close to succeeding. I know, Godwin’s law and all that, but when a pol – especially one with a documented history of making insane fascistic statements and fanatical supporters – says what he wants to do, I have no choice but to take him at his word. Even when, or maybe especially when, his statements are based on total horseshit.
More or less the Republican modus operandi for the last few decades; Trump has just cranked it up to ten.
Iowa Old Lady
Clinton’s spokesperson, Jennifer Palmieri, tweeted
Brachiator
The NBC site headline made it explicitly clear that Trump’s remarks were abhorrent., and the lead paragraph made it quite clear what the remarks were.
@NorthLeft12:
And cue the rise in his approval ratings from GOP voters in 3, 2, 1, ……….
Maybe. But Trump’s bluster may finally be losing steam.
I say, let The Donald be The Donald. Encourage his outrages. To paraphrase Chuck Berry:
Oh Donald, don’t let them ever change your ways,
Utter something crude, baby, do it every night and day.
Goblue72
@kindness: Your friends are assholes.
oldster
Follow-up questions for Trump:
In the coming primary elections, do you plan to schlong Carly Fiorina? Do you plan to schlong Chris Christie? Ben Carson? Jeb Bush? Which of your rivals do you most look forward to schlonging? If, heaven forbid, you lose the primary, who would you most like to get schlonged by?
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony: I just don’t get being invited to lick a billionaire’s bootheels and actually lining up to do it, as these people do. The guy is a con and a fake and his buildings suck. I could understand the Steve Jobs worship more even though I wouldn’t even join in. Hell, if you’re a dick, I could understand worshiping Bill Gates. (This sort hates him now, though.) Gates was a poker player and he was very, very good at it. Would be gazillionaires could learn a lot from that guy. (Step one: be born into very comfortable white upper middle class family.)
Another Holocene Human
crud, my post got disappeared because I said Bill Gates was a good p0k35 player.
FYWP!!
scav
I failed to immediartly visualize a heffalump or toothed man-trap when reading the thread title. Somehow “Trump Trap” brings to mind something of the S- or J-bends for plumbing, and one clearly not working as the sewer gasses are obviously making it through.
Goblue72
@Another Holocene Human: What class solidarity? At its peak, unionization rates in this country topped out at 35%.
Another Holocene Human
@01jack: The statement is what was boorish. It was a boorish thought. Very Wall St thinking, if one wins and the other loses, the one ass-raped the other. But what kind of idiot could look back at 2008 and consider that a zero sum game for the Democrats? Only someone with no understanding. Perhaps the same idiot who would actually believe Barack Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii.
mclaren
@kindness:
Why is it stupid not to believe a pol when he says things nowadays?
Bill Clinton ran as a progressive and wound up balancing the budget, gutting welfare and ending Glass-Steagal.
Dubya ran as a compassionate conservative and ended up lying us into an illegal war of aggression and blowing up the economy.
Obama ran as a reformer and ended up signing off on extending Dubya’s tax cuts for the rich, prosecuting whistleblowers, and drone-murdering wedding parties.
Why would Trump be any different?
And does anyone think Hillary will give a shit about inequality if she gets elected?
It’s all just talk, and your friends know it.
JPL
@oldster: schlonging and Christie is just wrong… ick
Another Holocene Human
@Goblue72: What a silly argument. Do you mean 35% of entire workforce? This was during the era when companies had armies of middle managers and knowledge workers, the majority of which were never unionized.
eta: and who besides a propagandist for free market capitalist would consider middle class white collars (very white) the same social class as the blue collars?
You’re also ignoring the very successful drive to make it impossible for the private sector to unionize (even as public sector were steadily gaining the right to unionize and unionizing for the first time … a trend which in fact continues). There are lots of private sector workers who want a union, but can’t get one.
Outsourcing the factories has been a problem, too, as retail and fast food have proven very difficult to unionize.
Brachiator
@danielx:
Great summary of the Dick Cheney approach to governing.
Oh, wait….
catclub
@Hildebrand:
Especially when you say no and then ask, so what is he going to do about it? Whine? Cry?
Goblue72
@Brachiator: @Another Holocene Human: Yes, 35% of the workforce. That’s what “unionization rate” means. Today it’s around 7%.
Your head is in the sand. Or elsewhere. You don’t get a 7% unionization rate because of evil Bosses. You get it because the myth of class solidarity is just that – a myth.
jc
“Clinton should accuse Trump of providing recruiting fodder for white supremacists.”
And Trump will come back by completely ignoring the specific charge she makes — he’ll just say, can you believe THAT? Would you want THAT in charge?
Amir Khalid
@Another Holocene Human:
The German for snake is die Schlange (feminine noun). The German vulgarity for the male member is der Schwanz (masculine) which in polite usage means “tail”. Schlong is the Yiddish vulgarity, as has been pointed out. I think every language has alternative names for male and female genitalia, ranging from the term one’s doctor uses to those heard in less-than-sober company.
Brachiator
@Goblue72:
I agree that the notion of class solidarity, especially when race is taken into account, is a myth.
I am otherwise unclear why you include me in your “head is in the sand” remarks. I did not make any comment here about unionization.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Another Holocene Human: I think you’re operating under an illusion – there are plenty of college educated people capable of race hate. It’s not the exclusive province of the working class.
The Thin Black Duke
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yep. And what usally happens is the racist college educated guys are the bosses who hire the racist working class guys to do the dirty work.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: “I’ll just hire half the working class to kill the other half.”*
*Jay Gould
Brachiator
@kindness:
From a recent Kenny Rogers profile in the Guardian:
scav
Holy Hypothesis! It’s almost as though class solidarity was an abstraction in a simplified model of how society works! And reality fails to exactly comply with theory!?
Goblue72
@Brachiator: Fat fingers on the phone. Not sure how you wound up in my reply.
sigaba
@Goblue72: “Your head is in the sand. Or elsewhere. You don’t get a 7% unionization rate because of evil Bosses. You get it because the myth of class solidarity is just that – a myth.”
That’s not completely fair, there’s absolutely wealthy class solidarity.
sigaba
@Brachiator: Sounds like Trump would make a great country/folk singer, like, say, Kenny Rogers.
Far be it for a President of the United States to “owe” anything to anybody or have any encumbrance upon doing whatever or saying whatever he wants at any moment. The logic seems to go like this: “Trump can tell anybody he wants to eff off and he can do whatever he pleases. Therefore, he will do exactly what we want him to do.”
J R in WV
@Goblue72:
I disagree. You get 7% unionization rate by forcing NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) decisions to allow people to get fired for union support first, and then have to sit unemployed while the NLRB fails to make a ruling on the firing for 4 years.
You get a 7% unionization rate by twisting existing law in judicial decisions which whittle away at union’s rights in the workplace, “right to work for less” laws in many states which force unions to represent non-union members for free, and on and on.
Management is allowed to pull workers together for meetings where the company line is pushed and anyone with a question gets put on the fire-soonest list. If you’re dumb enough to call attention to yourself in a “meeting” like that. All the advantages are reserved for management, and organizers working for the union aren’t allowed onto company land, ever.
And jobs where unions are typical all get moved to Mexico, or Viet Nam, or wherever, no unions there!
And that’s how you get 7% unionization rate. People electing anti-union politicians to important government jobs doesn’t help either!
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
@Goblue72:
A great and sad story, from the NY Times, on how unions betrayed and exploited nonwhite workers for decades:
The black, white and Hispanic craftsmen toil amid the bones of New York City’s unfinished office towers, threading air-conditioning ducts through ragged walls and ceilings, guiding the gleaming metal tubes from one set of hands to another.
Their union, Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers, was featured this year in advertising highlighting the changing face of the construction industry. “Opportunity. Diversity. Middle class careers,” reads one of the ads run by the city’s building trades association. “This is what union construction looks like.”
But the multiracial tableau obscures a stark racial divide: The union’s white members have received more work and larger pensions, data show. In contrast, minority members, who have lagged for decades, often struggle to find steady jobs and to earn enough credit to retire on time with full pensions.
Last month, the union began paying the first installments of $12.7 million in back pay to hundreds of black and Hispanic members in a partial settlement of a bias lawsuit decades old — the oldest such case in the hands of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Zinsky
Trump wishes he had a “schlong” like Obama. I’ll bet the raccoon-haired degenerate Trump is hung like a hamster.
Heliopause
Maybe the strangest part of this Prez race is that “got schlonged” barely got a raised eyebrow out of me when I read it this morning.
If Clinton wins then what will the prospective GOP challengers have to come up with in the early parts of the 2020 cycle to get some momentum? If mere vulgarity isn’t enough then what next? I’m having “fun” pondering this question.
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Kenny Rogers, the roast chicken guy?
rikyrah
@kindness:
They are White.
Must be.
The entire, ‘ but, I don’t believe they’ll do what they TELL ME what they’re going to do.’
Non-White people don’t have the luxury to gamble on that.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Yep.
You got to know when to roast ’em,
Know when to fold ’em
chopper
“Schlong” was also a pretty rad punk rock band from the day. did an epic full version of west side story as well. utter brilliance.
Chyron HR
@Brachiator:
Well, the things Trump says sure scare the hell out me. I rate Rogers’ claim “Partially True”
WereBear
@rikyrah: Privilege in a nutshell.
ruemara
@Goblue72: exactly.
Goblue72
@J R in WV: You completely dodge that even when unionization peaked and unions were at peak power, the majority of the country was not unionized. And yes, those things you mentioned are obstacles.
But it’s not all the reason. And there is a strain in the white working class that is anti-Union. The myth of class solidarity amongst the working class is a myth. There’s a reason that the Communist leadership during the Russian Revolution was disproportionately composed of intellectuals.
sigaba
@Goblue72: why would a majority of the country have to be unionized, in order to prove that the working class had labor solidarity ? The working class isn’t necessarily a majority of the country.
The proportion of the country, people who are not rich, is definitely a majority. But that doesn’t really constitute a “class” in the Marxist sense.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: You gotta know when to roast them,
Know when to toast them…
goblue72
@sigaba: Declining public support for unions: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/20/for-american-unions-membership-trails-far-behind-public-support/
I am not saying the issue is not complicated. Only that the myth of class solidarity of the working class is a myth. There is no division between the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat. They are all showing up at Trump’s rallies.
Howlin Wolfe
@Betty Cracker: I would ask those people: If you think the problem is with Washington being full of assholes who are in it for themselves, why would you think an even bigger asshole who is in it for himself is the answer?
sigaba
@goblue72: well “myth” is a pretty broad term. It’s absolutely a sociological phenomenon that’s had (and continues to have, in many places around the world) a profound effect on politics and culture.
Wether it’s some essential, metaphysical idea intrinsic to the human condition, yeah it’s a myth, but by those standards what isn’t?
Even if class solidarity doesn’t “really” exist, it were just an apparent phenomenon (and I do not concede his here), the idea is still very influential and important.
J R in WV
@goblue72:
You are the only person who has brought up the concept of the unity of the working class, so I don’t know why you make a big deal of other’s opinions about it. I didn’t say a work about working class solidarity.
I’m not a Marxist at all, even though I believe unions protect workers when they have any penetration into the workplace at all. They have lawyers familiar with employee law and state and federal protections for workers, if nothing else. I also believe in more socialism, if only by vastly increased government regulation of any business that hires people who don’t have ownership in the business. Which still isn’t really socialism, merely protecting workers against predatory management.
RaflW
@Keith G quoting 538:
Really? The party elders are doing their best to avert Trump’s damage to the brand? I knew the GOP was incompetent, but if what we’re seeing is their best effort, sheesh.