I’m so proud to be a Democrat today. We elected and then reelected President Barack Obama, a man whose vision, steadiness, wisdom and genuine human decency have inspired millions of people around the world (and personally restored my faith in politics and America). And now we’ve nominated and will work our asses off to elect Hillary Clinton, an incredibly intelligent, diligent, dedicated and supremely qualified woman who understands the nature of our opponents and knows how to keep us moving forward.
And as if that weren’t exciting enough, the combined forces of stupidity and hubris have bestowed upon us a comic book villain of an opponent in GOP nominee Donald J. Trump. A preening narcissist, vile racist, odious sexist, sleazy con man, bully and braggart — is Trump not the Platonic Ideal of the modern Republican Party, a hideous bastard born of an unholy, unspeakable three-way between David Duke, Bernie Madoff and Phyllis Schlafly? Plutocracy lickspittles like Paul Ryan and debauched patricians such as the Bushes may recoil in horror, but they built that.
But you know what? Democrats are always tasked with cleaning up Republicans’ messes, and who better than hardworking Hillary to take on the Herculean task of sweeping all that nasty Trump out the door? But damn it, people, we’ve got to help her get it done. Volunteer. Donate. Knock on doors. Persuade friends. Placate frenemies. Register voters. Enter data. Lick envelopes. Attend rallies. Above all, support Democratic candidates at the local, state and federal level.
Because Trump does not deserve to merely lose. He must be pantsed before all the world to wipe away the embarrassing stain of his nomination. When he takes the stage after the polls close in 152 days and does his Mussolini jaw-jut, I want to see his protruding lower lip tremble with incipient tears. I want to watch his insufferably smug sons sobbing into each other’s Armani lapels as they contemplate the extinction-level hit to the Trump brand. I want to see mascara streaks staining the cheeks of the Robert Palmer video-like female entourage assembled behind the humiliated candidate.
The Republicans embarrassed this great nation by nominating a clueless, vulgar buffoon to lead it. It’s up to us to make it right. So it’s on, people. We can do this. We must do this. We will do this.
wormtown
yay!
Stan
I have one nagging fear about this election: When Trump loses, he’s going to blame something or someone – obviously not himself. He’s going to say it was unfair somehow.
Which ONLY matters because some well-armed bunch of rightwing yahoos (like we saw in Oregon) (and I’m not picking on Oregon, sorry folks) is going to want to do something about that. If they do, they will not succeed at anything but they will hurt some people.
Loviatar
Human Rights are Woman’s Rights and Women’s Rights are Human Rights
h/t VOX
dedc79
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the Bernfeelers that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the Bernfeelers
who can be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
jeffreyw
I hope she keeps asking the Trumpster why he thinks America isn’t great. We are the Muhammad Ali of Nations!
Jeffro
FIRED UP
READY TO GO!
Btw despite last night’s “teleprompter” speech by Trump and promise to really rip the Clintons next week, Hugh Hewitt is out there calling for the GOP to deny Trump the nomination and have a do-over floor fight at the convention. Not that Hewitt’s the whole party, but there certainly will be others who join that call, and when a party PREFERS to have an anything-goes floor fight instead of just rallying behind the nominee…I like our chances!
rikyrah
Kay,
I think you commented that if Trump doesn’t get it together within the next couple of weeks, that they will try something at the convention?
I don’t see how they can.
but, I don’t care, because the best Trump Troller out there – President Obama – is about to be on the trail.
President Barack ” I have no phucks to give and no way in hell is that clown going to succeed me” Obama is about to hit the campaign trail.
He will troll the shyt of Trump, who will not be able to resist the bait.
Ryan
Have you considered a career as a warm up act on the Clinton campaign trail? This is the best post I can recall reading in quite awhile.
Jeffro
@Stan:
Obviously a very valid concern as Trump or no Trump, this is what right-wingers do. We’ll just have to press on and hope that our police, FBI, ATF, Secret Service, etc are up to the task.
gogol's wife
@dedc79:
Brilliant!
And Betty: “a hideous bastard born of an unholy, unspeakable three-way between David Duke, Bernie Madoff and Phyllis Schlafly” Why isn’t it you on the OpEd page of the New York Times?
dmsilev
@rikyrah: There’s one way that I can see, and it would have the side effect of fissioning the party. Game the Rule Committee. For instance, pass a rule saying that pledged delegates are now free to vote for whoever they want.
satby
As mentioned by others in the previous thread, I’m more moved than I expected to be by this moment. And glad to see this day come.
satby
@Loviatar: love that, thanks!
Patricia Kayden
“the embarrassing stain of his nomination”
Will Republicans ever live down this embarrassment? How do you explain that your base selected someone so overwhelmingly unqualified to be your nominee? Absolutely amazing that Trump was the best they could do in 2016. I shudder to think of who they will end up nominating in 2020 and beyond as their base shrinks and becomes even more fanatical and partisan.
Very proud to be a Democrat! Go Hillary!
Emma
Amen, sister. Amen.
germy
@Patricia Kayden: I’ve seen it argued on the RW blogs that he is not conservative ENOUGH, that he is a secret liberal, etc. When he loses they’ll double down and cough up a more RW hairball for 2020.
Kay
This is a lovely post, Ms. Cracker.
dr. bloor
That photo should be captioned, “…and if I find a whoopee cushion on the desk chair in the Oval Office next January, I’m going to hunt you down and kick your ass.”
Patricia Kayden
@Stan: Rightwing yahoos have always been a threat though. Not sure if they will be more of a threat based on a White woman winning than they were when a Black man won the presidency. I worry more about what will happen in 2018 and 2022 when Democratic voters sit out mid-term elections and turn the House (which may flip in November) and Senate over to Republicans, thus thwarting the progress of the Democratic President. Somehow, we must get our side to the polls for every election.
germy
OT
I found this so moving. A new documentary: “Presenting Princess Shaw”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMXGIch82ZU
schrodinger's cat
Great post! but I don’t know who Robert Palmer is. Is ignorance bliss?
amk
@germy: so peak wingnut has not arrived even with donald dreck?
Gin & Tonic
@satby: I, too, am more moved than I thought I’d be. And I have to sheepishly admit that a year ago, I was in the (almost) anyone but her camp. But I’ve seen her keep her nose to the grindstone, manage her message and her tactics solidly, and clearly deserve to win. Now, as the grandson, son, husband and father of strong, independent and ambitious women I’m, frankly, delighted we’ve come to this stage.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes.
sigaba
Sounds like some bizzaro-universe “Hamilton”.
rikyrah
TELL THAT TRUTH.
Amen.
germy
@amk:
No. Not until they find the monolith and nominate the Star Child.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: The “he’s wasn’t conservative enough” argument is silly given that the base could have voted for Cruz who is arguably the most conservative man in Congress. The man hates gays even moreso than The Donald. Why did the base reject him for Trump if they wanted someone who was a bona fide Conservative? Doesn’t make any sense.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: Peak wingnut is like absolute zero, we can approach it but never reach it. We are close to the limit right now.
Brendanyc
Gonna be hard to shake this image: “….an unholy, unspeakable three-way between David Duke, Bernie Madoff and Phyllis Schlafly….”
dr. bloor
@schrodinger’s cat: As it pertains to the particular segment of his career that Betty was referencing, yes.
Great musician, died in his 50’s a few years back.
Richard Mayhew
Brain bleach needed
germy
@Patricia Kayden: I tried pointing out their lack of logic. It didn’t work.
Roger Moore
@amk:
Peak wingut is a lie.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodinger’s cat: When you are bored, you should look him up on Youtube. He was an okay rock singer from England back in the 80s (I believe) whose videos featured dark haired women with carbon copied hairstyles gyrating behind him. He died rather young.
Raven
@schrodinger’s cat: might as well face it
dww44
What a great piece of writing, Betty! You should get the job of motivator-in-chief from now till November.
Travis
Awesome, totally awesome, description of the state of the election right now. Brilliant!!
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Conservatism can never fail; it can only be failed. The obvious conclusion is that no candidate can ever fail because he was too conservative, only because he wasn’t conservative enough.
ETA: Remember, these are the people who whined that Shrub wasn’t conservative enough.
Chat Noir
Great post, Betty.
Ruckus
@germy:
Among the many things conservatives don’t understand, one of the biggies is logic.
Partisan Cheese
Hooray! Time to forget about DNC corruption, a rigged primary, a candidate beholden to corporate interests, and lets cheerlead, cheerlead, cheerlead! This site is great.
I love also how people here still call the Daily Kos the GOS without irony, when Markos has become the biggest Hillary shill this election cycle. In fact, this website and DKs front page share a lot in common. Hostility/dismissal of Sanders policies and supporters, hey look at the republican clown car (heh, indeed), and basic cheerleading/ lack of any criticism of Clinton, the DNC, and corruption in the party, is what dominates the front page. Maybe it’s time for you guys to let the GOS back in. Haha never though, they are the worst amirite?
JCT
Outstanding post – Donald needs to be pounded into dust. And the Republicans should be cast out to wander the wilderness. They tried to break our govt and ended up breaking their party. Sad!
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden:
The Republican Party elites care about the slate of conservative-movement positions, especially the money-related ones. The Republican Party base really don’t give a shit about most of that, or are actively hostile; they are more racist, sexist and bigoted in other ways than anything else.
So from the perspective of a Republican pundit writing in the Wall Street Journal, there’s a real case to be made that Donald Trump isn’t conservative enough. What they’re dealing with now is that the voters don’t really care about their values so much as about kicking certain people in the face.
MattF
These days, you can get inventive anti-Trump rhetoric from right-wing sources. Forgive me, FSM, but I’ve started reading George Will:
ETA: No link. I still have some self-respect.
maryQ
@dedc79: Thank you for today’s Niebuhrian moment.
dww44
@Patricia Kayden: Because Cruz doesn’t have the so necessary “likeability’ factor. Think about the prior GOP Presidents and candidates.
Thank goodness that Cruz is deficient in likeability, although James Carville on MSNBC last night proffered the prediction that Trump’s campaign is rapidly imploding and that could pave the way for Cruz, as the other top primary vote getter, to become the party nominee.
Gex
@Matt McIrvin: One need look no further to see that the base doesn’t give a shit about conservative policies by the way they utterly dismiss Obama’s economic record. Deficit and debt reduction don’t actually mean shit to them if a black man/Democrat made it happen. It’s ALL identity politics for them.
Applejinx
@Partisan Cheese: She’s not necessarily beholden to corporate interests. There has to be a give and take and I don’t think most of the corporate interests are smart enough to handle that. As for DNC corruption, it wasn’t a problem and will continue to be cleaned up. Don’t be so negative :P
RSA
@schrodinger’s cat:
You be the judge.
Scout211
After yesterday’s results in California, I am now really glad that Bernie stayed in the race through yesterday. The turnout yesterday on the Dem side helped nominate two very good Democratic candidates for Senator Boxer’s seat. Typically, by our primary date there is very low turnout because the presidential race has already been decided and that can affect all the other state and local races.
Also, Hillary and Bernie together (so far, and counting) got over twice the number of votes that Trump did.
Matt McIrvin
@Patricia Kayden: Robert Palmer, or at least somebody named Robert Palmer (I think it was him), played percussion on Talking Heads’ Remain in Light. I find that amusingly incongruous, though maybe not all that incongruous.
gene108
@Patricia Kayden:
Yes Republicans will live this down.
By Hillary’s Inauguration Day the MSM and Republicans will have forgotten who Trump is.
Q (2/1/2017): Who did President Hillary Clinton beat to become President?
A: Bernie Sanders in a “rigged” primary, and NOBODY CAN REMEMBER WHO SHE BEAT IN THE GENERAL ELECTIONS!!!!!!!
For “Asterix” comic fans, the memory of Trump will be like the Gaulish memory of Alesia.*
* Alesia was a real battle, where Caesar defeated the Gauls.
J.
@dedc79: Amen.
Speaking of which, y’all see this piece in the NYT? Here’s the part I thought most instructive, though I doubt Bernie will follow suit:
Patricia Kayden
@Roger Moore: It appears that Ronnie Reagan was the Last Great Conservative according to the rabid Rightwing base. Oh well. That’s their problem.
gene108
@JCT:
I will count their Party broken, when Democrats retake Congress and several state governments.
aimai
@Stan: Of course Trump is going to blame everyone else–we already know who he’s going to blame (blacks, browns, wimmenz, everyone) but he’s also going to attack the Republican party for insufficient energy and oomph, and specific Republicans for disloyalty and ineptitude. So the first part (the Obama coalition and HRC’s voters) is baked in and won’t be harmed particularly. But the second part? Hoo boy when Trump goes down lashing out at every name brand republican its going to be a thing of beauty. I dislike it when Sanders is doing it to my party, but I’m going to have a good laugh and a glass of wine while Trump does it to the Republicans.
MattF
@gene108: From what I’ve seen, Republican apparatchiks are bitterly divided over Trump. Maybe they can overcome it– but maybe not. Politics does matter.
Matt McIrvin
How dare Hillary rig the election by getting more people to vote for her. This trickery cannot stand!
GOVCHRIS1988
@Partisan Cheese: I see from this point that your ass must still be sore from that beating your candidate took last night in Cali. Put some ice on it son, it’ll dull the pain.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Will never happen. He’ll retreat to seclusion – his ego will demand it.
It will be The Great Fizzle, like so many other evenings no doubt suffered by Melania.
cmorenc
FWIW Trump has definitely lost Joe Scarborough, who put on an epic rant this morning about the dangerous cowardice and short-sightedness of the DC GOP establishment (looking especially at Paul Ryan) in attempting to straddle Trump’s overt racism by condemning his remarks while sticking with their endorsement of him. He noted that their logic amounted to: between Clinton and Trump’s racism, they thought it more important to stick with Trump’s racism. He said they follow the principles of Trump’s “Art of the Deal” and overtly walk away completely from him, unless and until he could convincingly prove he had repudiated and apologized for his racist remarks – that they couldn’t have it both ways, doing so would lead to the destruction of the Republican Party.
YES I KNOW, Scarborough until recently was sort of a cheerleader for Trump, and often rather repulsive and stupid himself – but at least he’s openly horrified about the monster he did his bit in helping create, and not pretending any more that the monster can be easily housebroken to well-serve the aims of the conservative establishment.
aimai
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: How very right. You must have been seeing the same Melania I saw, standing next to him last night. She looked a cross between tense and horrified, like someone watching a bomb be armed by a mental defective.
MattF
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I agree that Trump will disappear, but because that’s the instinctive behavior of a con artist when the con is finished. Go hit the mattresses.
robert thompson
@dmsilev: This is how they’ll do it. If the candidate makes a few more unforced errors or nuclear fission racist remarks they’ll have the Hobson’s choice staring them in the face. Sure it will split the party 65-35 but otherwise what can they do?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@rikyrah: I hope Michelle joins in. I swear by the time the Obamas, Liz Warren and Hillz are done working Trump over with rhetorical 2x4s there will be nothing left but an orange tinged puddle with what looks like the world’s worst toupee floating in it. But Michelle especially, I think she could be devastating…I mean the image of Trump trying to bully her, well, lets just say it’s kind of laughable and not in a way that’s good for Trump.
aimai
I really want the Democrats/Hillary campaign to start a long term project. When you touch a voter, register them to vote, contact them at the beginning and end of the campaign you should try to get them to commit to voting in the midterms. I think it should have a catchy slogan (“Its so Nice/Voted Twice”) and a separate line item in the DNC budget for GOTV in the midterms. There should be one set of contacts devoed specifically to the national impact of local voting, tailored to each state. Why we need more governors (why the governor’s race in bumfuck whereveristan matters to the overall governance of the country) and why we need more congresspeople. Also, today I’m maxing out for Hillary.
Soylent Green
@Stan:
Not that we don’t have our share of rightwing yahoos, but they weren’t from here.
Ninety nine point whatever of the gun-toting militia types out there are just a bunch of little boys playing soldier in the backyard. It’s the lone wolf psychos like McVeigh we should worry about.
amk
@cmorenc: I give 24 hours before this corrupt clown starts singing different tune.
Mike in NC
@Patricia Kayden: Their 2020 nominee will be an albino serial killer.
gene108
@MattF:
After February 2009, Republicans were considered to have totally distanced themselves from Bush, Jr and his policies / legacy, as well as their role in government from 2001-2007.
I do not see them taking that long to wipe the Trump crap from their shoes this go around.
hamletta
@schrodinger’s cat: No! He was a fantastic singer. His ’70s stuff is beyond compare. Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley is a masterpiece.
He made one cheesy but iconic video in the ’80s with a bunch of models behind him, and people unfamiliar with his other work thought he was some half-assed lounge lizard.
He was a terrible live performer, though.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Republicans are in total disarray. I’ve never quite seen anything like it, ever. They’ve all been exposed as total principle-less frauds, whose only commonality is that they hate that uppity ni**er in the White House. That became the definition of what it meas to be conservative, and after 8 solid years of it, they’ve totally lost the plot without Obama, who has cleaned all their clocks. Hence, Trump. It’s over, Republicans. There is no there, there, there hasn’t been for a long time, and they know it now. Just in time to watch Hillary take the keys to Obama’s car that he’s got running nice and smooth no thanks to any of them. LOL, it’s really karma time, bitchez.
Hillary Rettig
Loving this prose A LOT:
“Because Trump does not deserve to merely lose. He must be pantsed before all the world to wipe away the embarrassing stain of his nomination. When he takes the stage after the polls close in 152 days and does his Mussolini jaw-jut, I want to see his protruding lower lip tremble with incipient tears. I want to watch his insufferably smug sons sobbing into each other’s Armani lapels as they contemplate the extinction-level hit to the Trump brand. I want to see mascara streaks staining the cheeks of the Robert Palmer video-like female entourage assembled behind the humiliated candidate.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Republicans are in total disarray. I’ve never quite seen anything like it, ever. They’ve all been exposed as total principle-less frauds, whose only commonality is that they hate that uppity ni**er in the White House. That became the definition of what it meas to be conservative, and after 8 solid years of it, they’ve totally lost the plot without Obama, who has cleaned all their clocks. Hence, Trump. It’s over, Republicans. There is no there, there, there hasn’t been for a long time, and they know it now. Just in time to watch Hillary take the keys to Obama’s car that he’s got running nice and smooth no thanks to any of them. LOL, it’s really karma time, bitchez.
Hillary Rettig
@gogol’s wife: concur!
Applejinx
@RSA: I can do better than that.
Sailin’ Shoes/Hey Julia/Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley
Now he’s never been the most enlightened dude, but dear lord could the man sing his ass off.
And this is my wish for all Balloon Juice: Pressure Drop
D58826
Ouch. According to his home town paper the Des Moines Register there are invertebrates with more back bone than Sen. Grassley has shown in standing up to ‘old little hands’
robert thompson
@aimai: True that, but unfortunately it seems like Americans need a world class disaster, like the Great Depression, to make a sticking coalition. Not that Southern Dems and Urban Dems was an excellent coalition, but everybody got an ass-whuping from event. Share croppers fled to California as did Kansas farmers and the urban class just starved. That lesson stuck for awhile.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I hope Obama trolls Trump relentlessly on the birther issue. It reinforces so many of the negatives about Trump that currently have the GOP crapping its collective pants: It’s undeniably racist, and Trump’s actions during that episode reveal him as a clueless clown, full of bluster but unable to deliver on his outlandish, fraudulent claims. Oh, and it’ll give the networks an excuse to air footage of Obama’s epic pantsing of Trump during the Correspondents Dinner, which will drive Trump insane with rage.
amk
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yup, the kenyan was the root cause of this unprecedented thugs’ melt down. It started in nov 2008. So, I balme him.
Applejinx
Oh, and a more obscure Robert Palmer: one of the most insane funk grooves I’ve ever heard :)
Some People Can Do What They Like
They sure can…
Humboldtblue
@schrodinger’s cat:
Robert Palmer
robert thompson
@Hillary Rettig: God Help me I must know if Trump wears silk boxers or briefs and does he have a truss?
MattF
@gene108: Well, we disagree. In 2009, Republicans were able to join together to try to frustrate the ambitions of that person now occupying the Oval Office. But in 2017 Republicans will have to deal with the fact that HRC saved the country from Der Trump. It’s a different narrative. And I also think that real damage is being done to the R party. But we shall see.
chopper
what you said.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
Problem is that you could obviously see what drumpf was when this started. Their horror that he’s the nominee is far overshadowed by the fact that people like Joe supported him, gave him the air time and played right into drumpf’s bullshit from the start. The media created this as much as the republican party of the last 40-50 yrs. Now they are crying in their beer that drumpf is horrible and they are caught between a rock and a pile of shit.
Eric U.
@RSA: I think the video to “Simply irresistible” is the one that everyone is comparing to trump
nonynony
@Stan:
I expect a lot of lawsuits to be filed by him against media organizations and against anyone who said anything negative about him at all. In states without SLAPP laws, of course. A lot will depend on how much his media cache holds up after the election is over, though – if he’s still a ratings draw he’ll be on the press circuit constantly criticizing Clinton and talking about how much better he would have been as president.
Eh. This has been the story since the 90s. Right wing yahoos have been arming up into militias for over 20 years now, and nothing stops them or really encourages them either. They get louder when there’s a Democrat in office and I expect that they’ll be just as bad or worse under Clinton as they were under Obama. Will we get something as bad as the Murrah Federal Building massacre? Hopefully not – the FBI has actually managed to prevent major acts of domestic terrorism in the past few decades, and the worst organized right-wing domestic terrorists got under Obama was the stupid bird sanctuary siege. At least nobody but one of the yahoos got killed, and I suspect he was itching for a suicide by cop martyr moment from the way he talked. We’ve had a lot more “stochasitc” terrorism (nutjobs with arsenals getting wound up and going out to shoot a bunch of people without any planning) but the militia movement seems to be pretty much in check these days and that isn’t the kind of thing that the FBI is well equipped to prevent given our gun laws.
Marjowil
Betty: best post EVA
Patricia Kayden
@Mike in NC: Not conservative enough!!
Gin & Tonic
@aimai: My wife said pretty much the same thing – someone waiting in horror and anticipation.
Trinity
Dammit Betty…thank you so much for this. Onward!!
cmorenc
@amk:
Scarborough was so spittle-spewing emphatic and unambiguous that it will be impossible for him to walk his rant back without the kind of overt gigantic sea change in Trump that Trump is extremely unlikely to be capable of. Scarborough’s loyalty these days is more to his MSNBC contract than to the GOP establishment, even though he remains almost as big a dick himself as ever.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
She didn’t call them Uday and Qusay, though. I was disappointed.
oldgold
Television loves video.
That love leads matters that include video to be over-reported and assigned greater news value.
BS’s rallies produced beautiful video full of color and passion. Accordingly, television over-reported them and gave these events too much value.
While these picturesque rallies were taking place, HC’s worker bees were in crammed – crappy offices, far from the cameras, doing the unglamorous work of seeing to it that early ballots were being mailed in.
Because there was no captivating video of this arduous work, television ignored it. Yet, it was the real story that led to HC’s big victory in California.
robert thompson
@MattF: I am reminded by your comment of Driftglass’ epic parody of Dr. Seuss and all the Bush ’04 supporters who suddenly and quite grass-rootlessly became the T-Party.
Redshift
I’m looking forward to Election Night, when instead of giving a concession speech, Trump will whine about being treated “very unfairly” BY US!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Since the question about the troll filter on a mobile browser was asked on a now-dead thread, I’m also answering it here.
I’ve successfully run both cleek’s filter and Troll-B-Gone on Firefox for Android with the add-on usi (User|Unified Script Injector).
I’m not an iThing user, but a quick google doesn’t reveal any way to run a userscript on them without jailbreaking.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@MattF: I also wonder at what point they’ll start to question Yertle’s strategy of total obstruction. I mean, they’re in their 8th year of following that directive and it hasn’t gotten them much – if they lose this election cycle, some of them may start looking around for a new leader with a better approach.
JCT
@gene108: That’s the goal and I’m looking forward to participating in my red state.
Rand Careaga
@gogol’s wife: The three-way sounds good, but Madoff is too young plausibly to have been Trump’s father, and Duke was born in 1950. I’m thinking Schlafly got it on with Strom Thurmond and Charles Keating.
hovercraft
A fully positive take on Hillary, a feel good read about our nominee.
Lizzy L
Woke up this morning to HRC’s solid and unambiguous win in California. Yay! Happy Lizzy L is happy. I don’t feel like gloating, and once DT is beaten, I plan to give his very existence no more attention. Don’t care. Gonna work like hell to get Hillary and more down-ticket Democrats elected.
aimai
@MattF: They will never admit that Obama had to clean up W’s mess, and Hillary is going to have to come in and struggle to clean up Ryan and McConnell’s mess. Remember the Onion Headline “Black Man Given Worst Job in the World?” Hillary’s nomination has that kind of feeling to it. “Woman Called In To Clean Up EVeryone’s Shit.”
hovercraft
From the link in my comment above from Ezra Klein at VOX
Jeffro
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
AY-MEN. I think they’ll all be devastating in their own way, and as long as they remind people they have to get out and vote, we’ll all be ok in Nov.
Bill Arnold
Betty @OP; that was great to read. Will be smiling all day.
Jim C.
Hill’s got no chance here in Idaho, but I’m sure that there will be phone banks here calling voters in swing states that I’ll be able to participate in.
Kay
@aimai:
You’re winning when your opponent adopts your attack:
I have a tip for him! Don’t put ERRATIC and VIOLENT in ALL CAPS
The “temperament” thing sticks to Trump because it is 100% true.
Shell
Well, thats a given. Hmmm,How many more ethnic groups can he scapegoat?
And Betty, thank YOU for the Robert Palmer video mention. Thats all I could think of during his little speech last night, “Who are these chicks?” His sense of the optics is as warped as what comes out of his mouth.
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: That’s a TERRIFIC article. Thanks for the link!
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
I am so looking forward to B. Obama’s involvement in the campaign. He often surprises us (or at least me) with the elegance of his attacks (and support); surprises there will be.
Redshift
@Jeffro: Based on that commencement speech last weekend, Michelle is already in. She’s playing good cop, and she’s really good at it.
cmorenc
@Ruckus:
Yes, but Dr. Frankenstein should have been able to clearly see that the monster he was creating would prove to be not just something he couldn’t control, but well…an monster dangerously out-of-control. But he didn’t and plunged forward with the project anyway. Just like the GOP and their media enablers with Trump.
JenJen
This might be my favorite post ever. I’m still laughing as I write this. “Robert Palmer video-like female entourage” Bwaaaaaaah!!!
robert thompson
I apologize in advance if this sounds sexist but Klein is right when says that while our collective notion is that women struggle at getting elected they are usually, by and large, better at governing than men and thats why I voted for Hillary yesterday. Along with my son whose first vote was cast in this bad clown act that was the primaries.
Kay
@robert thompson:
My eldest son is an enthusiastic Clinton supporter and I’m oddly proud of him. It goes against “type” or what we’re told is Clinton’s “type” He thinks she’s tough and he admires that. It’s just that simple.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Jim C.: Even Idaho can send progressive pols to the state house and in other positions. Someone has to take Frank Church’s torch…and it all starts somewhere.
Jeffro
@Shell:
It’s funny you should ask that, because an Iowa state senator – a Republican, no less – is asking the same thing, comparing Trump to Hitler and changing his party ID(!!)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/07/david-johnson-iowa-state-senator-leaves-republican-party-trump?CMP=fb_us
WOW
Could this be the ‘break in the dam’?
I thought the “teleprompter speech” solved everything???
LOL
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
100,000+ former Digital Equipment Corporation employees wish they didn’t, either.
robert thompson
@Kay: He felt the Bern was a little down this morning. Our collective choice for Senator, Loretta Sanchez, did not make it. I had to explain a little Party politics to him and I probably should not say this; I voted for Gerald Ford the first time I voted.
Jeffro
@Redshift: Great point. All the Dems have to do is act like the grown-ups that they are, and the rest will fall into place.
Well, unless Trump gives another magical teleprompter speech that is (NOT)
Bex
For the Hillary/Hamilton folks: “Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now…”
SFAW
@Shell:
Albanians — if Peter Falk were still here to make it work.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Patrick Nagel was the inspiration for the first of the famous Robert Palmer videos. (Front page is OK: gallery at that link is NSFW.)
After the enthusiastic response to the first one, they had fun with the concept, ratcheting it up in each of the following videos until they hit truly ludicrous.
schrodinger's cat
@Shell:
All of them Katie.
catclub
@nonynony:
I have written before. Berlusconi owned the media in Italy, but Trump depends on free media, which can turn on him.
schrodinger's cat
Thanks guys for the Robert Palmer, exposition. I has been educated.
bemused
@cmorenc:
Just NOW they are totally freaking out?! Where have they been, under a rock? It seems so. Decades of focus only on obstructionism, getting their way, winning at any cost and utter denial of their ability to prevail over rapidly changing demographics (ignoring their own 2008 election autopsy for one) has shattered the GOP, hopefully for a long, long time to come. They have no idea how to get out of this mess.
Jeffro
Btw folks if I seem to be harping on the “Trump-teleprompter” thing, it’s because a) it was a little jarring seeing Trump speak in coherent sentences for once, and b) I’ve had a few relatives crowing about how “Trump’s getting it together (by using the ‘prompter) and is really gonna get Hillary but good” this morning. Of course he is never going to ‘get it together’ – he’s the most mentally unstable candidate I’ve ever seen run for office, but still, it’s aggravating.
(And never mind that the same Trumpkins who cheered when Trump made fun of ‘prompter-using politicians are now cheering that he’s using one to make his speeches semi-coherent…they are consistently inconsistent in all things save their love of a strongman)
I think it’s making me ‘project’ a bit that next time around – or even if Trump is replaced at the convention this time around – a slightly nicer, slightly-better-spoken clown is going to be glossed over as some sort of moderate and/or a step up for the GOP, with all the media fawning and excuse-making that would entail. Ah well – time to enjoy the blessings we have (8 years of Obama, with Clinton following) and save my energy to help with GOTV.
Tenar Darell
@MattF: *snort* You’re a terrible person to make me read something by George Will which I actually had to agree with.
Betty Cracker
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I once broke up with a guy I was dating when I saw he had Nagel prints in his apartment. We’d only been out a couple of times, so neither of us was that invested. But when I saw that shit on his wall, I understood immediately there was no point in continuing the relationship.
dr. bloor
@Shell:
Pro tip: the youngest one is always the wife.
robert thompson
@Jeffro: Yeah, but I am taking away his bonus points for not coming over to the salvation side and 30-plus years of dog whispering apparently give him a no clue the GOP had an “innate bigotry” problem that he assigns to Trump’s voters.
NotMax
@Kay
What’s the skinny on Warren Davidson?
trollhattan
Can’t find a direct link but Geena Davis did a hilarious SNL skit called “The Palmer Bunch” where the Bradys were all Palmer girls. He was a hell of a singer who died too young.
As to the election, wish it were tomorrow.
Eric U.
@robert thompson: yeah, a Republican politician that is just now realizing that racism exists in the republican electorate is not the sharpest tool in the shed
Frankensteinbeck
@nonynony:
The Secret Service had better be eating their Wheaties. I expect much more violence directed against Hillary personally, including assassination attempts. Threats went up by 400% when Obama became president. I expect that to explode further. It’s not because women are hated more than blacks, but because that is how it’s expressed in the public sphere.
@cmorenc:
Sir, you are deeply unfair to the monster. Frankenstein should have realized he had created life in his own image, and that if he rejected and disrespected the monster as cruelly as he did, it would respond with the same callous, ruthless, obsessive lack of empathy that marked his own personality.
Cleos
@aimai:
In that case, Melania is somewhat more qualified to run than her husband.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: Strange how they made so much fun of President Obama for allegedly being overly reliant on teleprompters but are ecstatic that their candidate had to rely on one just to be coherent. Funny that, huh?
@robert thompson: If Trump’s voters have an innate bigotry problem, what does that say about the state of the Republican party? Shouldn’t that be cause for concern among sensible, more moderate Republicans? That’s an indication that something is seriously wrong with your party which needs to be addressed and changed pronto.
Tractarian
Epic rant.
Matt McIrvin
@Soylent Green: McVeigh had at least one collaborator, and friends in the militia movement who at the very least looked the other way.
SFAW
Many years ago, my brother described to me the political cycle that went on — and perhaps still goes on — in Nassau County [Long Island]:
1) Republicans get elected to County Executive and various count-related positions
2) They proceed to wreck the County’s fiscal (etc.) health
3) Voters get pissed, elect Democrats to replace the Republicans
4) Because the Republicans had left the County in such a shambles, the Dems need to take drastic measures (e.g., tax increases) to fix things
5) Voters get pissed that their taxes get increased, or services get cut, or both
6) Return to Step 1
Repeat until the voters learn not to keep electing the Destroyers a/k/a Republicans.
If the electorate were smart enough, the above phenomenon could be pointed out on a national scale, and Rethugs would never get elected again. (And if I were a foot taller, 40 years younger, had some actual athletic talent, and were willing to work at it for six hours a day, I could be a half-decent hoopster.) Fortunately for the Rethugs, their 30-year plan to destroy (or at least, seriously weaken) public education has worked fairly well.
Matt McIrvin
@Cleos:
It would be difficult for that not to be the case.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
You-know-who was here last night conflating the TelePromptEr with a “FLAMETHROWER.” The kabuki of anticipating the Next Secret Weapon for a full five months is going to be exhausting, while team Hillary will do retail politics using modern tools in a way befitting her thirty years of experience. Boo-yah.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
BTW – I picked up my four tix to the Ali memorial this morning. Got there at 6:15, they opened the windows about 8:30 am. Still wound up with seats in the rafters.
The Other Chuck
Let me get this straight: Trump is being praised for using a teleprompter?
Just when I thought wingnuts couldn’t get any more stupid or less self-aware…
rikyrah
The key detail Ron Johnson hopes Wisconsin won’t remember
06/08/16 10:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Sen. Ron Johnson (R), running for re-election in Wisconsin, is one of Congress’ more vulnerable Republican incumbents, and polls show him trailing the Democrat he defeated in 2010, former Sen. Russ Feingold (D). Johnson, however, is flush with cash, which he’s eager to put to use.
And while not every campaign commercial deserves special attention and scrutiny, the Wisconsin senator’s newest spot is amazing for an important reason. Roll Call reported:
That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. The Republican’s re-election ad is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that he’s not already a senator.
In the spot, Johnson makes literally no references to any work he’s done while in office; he doesn’t identify himself as a senator; he doesn’t note any Senate achievements; and he doesn’t mention that he’s running for re-election.
Raven
@Frankensteinbeck: whatever, do you find some value is such statements? You think they don’t know?
Kay
@robert thompson:
My daughter and younger son voted for Bernie- PA and OH, respectively. My daughter will happily vote for Clinton but my middle son is a tough sell. He’s impossible to read though – the only reason I knew he early voted for Obama in ’12 is because he answered the door to a canvasser and told her. He’s quiet so he let her do her whole spiel. I told him he could save her time by just answering the implied question :)
He lives in a college town in what is a “bellweather” county in Ohio so he will be courted so often by Clinton they’ll bully him into voting. It’s a county everyone watches.
Mary
@Patricia Kayden: I think gyrating is far too strong a word. More like stepping back and forth, sometimes while holding instruments.
Fair Economist
@Scout211:
I am so stoked about this. Consider the effect on Republican turnout: at the top of the ticket, the Republican is Donald Trump, but if that doesn’t excite them they have a choice for Senator – one of two Democrats.
This is very good for picking up House seats in November. Because of districting reform in Cali a few years back we have pretty good districts, with a wide range of leans, and a lot of Republican Congressmen could get swept up by a big swing – including the reprehensible Issa.
GregB
@schrodinger’s cat: In the 70’s his big hit was Every Kind of People, in the 80’s it was Addicted to Love.
Frankensteinbeck
@Raven:
Do I think they don’t know? I do think they know. Did the issue of political violence come up? Yes, and I expressed the direction I think the violence will go. So, yes, I think there was value in my statement.
Raven
@Frankensteinbeck: well good for you swami
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
Something at Josh Marshall’s place about Rethug Rep. Lee Zeldin (from NY 1st), who said that the Dems are also racist. Regarding Trump’s racist statements, he said “Being a little racist or very racist is not okay, but, quite frankly, the agenda that I see and all the microtargeting to blacks and Hispanics from a policy standpoint, you know, that’s more offensive to me.”
They revel in being racists, and, as always, they project their racism onto Dems.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: Too funny. While I didn’t read the ‘flamethrower’ reference last night, it’s clear that Rs will grasp at anything at this point. I wish them luck, ’cause there’s going to be lots more grasping for the next five months.
I mean, Trump (finally) saying he was “misconstrued” re: Judge Curiel while also telling the GOP Establishment that they need to “get over it” with his remarks…that is the least bad outcome his ego could personally manage, both for himself, and the party. How many more ‘Curiel cycles’ will the GOP manage to whip through/bleed support through before coasting to a humiliating end in November?
robert thompson
@Patricia Kayden: Yes I was relying to Jeffro’s gracious link to the Iowa state senator who suddenly saw the light and had his “come to Jesus” moment but just barely before he achieved salvation backslid and proclaimed himself to be of no particular party. So, he gets no Brownie Points. None.
geg6
@Patricia Kayden:
That segment of his career does not do him justice. He was a really great singer, especially some of his more R&B, bluesy stuff.
robert thompson
@SFAW: Yes, representing a constituency of color or ethnicity is always racist, while representing the white plutocrats is not. It’s simple.
Kay (not the front-pager)
ROARRR! Lets do this!
Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to do as much as I hoped this year. I have to have surgery in July (my third this year – getting old sucks), but I certainly can make calls, enter data, donate, register, and anything else that doesn’t require a lot of walking.
I am fired up and ready to go!
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: That’s another reference I don’t get.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Fair Economist: Not unless we get redistricted. I got thrown into his district six years ago during the last one. Before that in Bilbray’s, also a GOP piece of crap. Born and raised here, been watching that felon at work for most of his life. I can tell you this right now: the district is +4 R (bad but maybe not impossible) but he is so loved by the seniors and knuckleheads who comprise most of his district that I don’t see him ever getting voted out. He didn’t even bother to campaign this primary, and won’t in the general either. He doesn’t need to and knows it.
Iowa Old Lady
@Jeffro: I believe that Iowa legislator became an independent, which is certainly a step up from Republican. He’s not from my district so I don’t know a lot about him.
ruemara
@schrodinger’s cat: No! In this case, it is not. A better example of blue eyed soul is rare. Gone far too soon.
I wish I could join in the deep feelings. Don’t get me wrong, I have no Bernie prefs. Got over that by last November. I’m just not feeling much about it. Maybe after she wins the presidency I’ll breathe deeply and have a rush of relief & then some sort of pride or something. I just care about winning as much as we can, as decisively as we can. Glad to focus on the general.
SFAW
@robert thompson:
On the plus side, at least Zeldin didn’t talk about the Dems targeting “Chico Escuela, Juan Valdez, and Speedy Gonzalez.”
aimai
@SFAW: They’ve been saying this a long time, and they ramped it up when Obama got in. The real racists are people who talk about race at all. The real non racists are people who pretend not to “see race.” Obama was wrong from the get go by running as a black man when he should have run as a white man and never allowed people to even notice his race or that of his family. So Trump’s remark was absolutely not surprising. Its not just that its projection. Its that they really believe that whiteness is an unmarked category and everything that draws attention to it, or attention away from it, is definitionally racist.
Haydnseek
@schrodinger’s cat: Fer cryin’ out loud. You obviously have a computer. Wikipedia is your friend.
RSA
@Applejinx: The man had talent, I agree.
@Eric U.:
I wondered about that. I went with the one I remembered seeing first.
rikyrah
Hatch wants us to ‘be nice’ to flailing, amateurish Trump
06/08/16 10:02 AM
By Steve Benen
Just about every Republican in Congress has been asked for some kind of reaction to Donald Trump’s latest racial controversy, and there’s been no shortage of colorful responses. But my personal favorite came by way of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), described yesterday as an “increasingly enthusiastic Trump supporter,” who assured the public that there’s no cause for alarm.
“My experience with Donald Trump is he doesn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body,” Hatch said.
Perhaps the senator was thinking of a different person named Donald Trump.
Hatch went on to make an appeal on behalf of his party’s presumptive presidential nominee. The L.A. Times reported:
.”
The GOP senator may have been trying to be funny, but it prompted the Huffington Post’s Igor Bobic to note, “Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, but members of his own party keep excusing his outrageous behavior as if he’s a pre-adolescent whose cognitive functions and sense of right and wrong haven’t fully developed.”
mzinformation
@gogol’s wife: I SO agree with you!! I love everything Betty writes. Actually, I love this blog. Thanks to you all for the sanity.
NotMax
@SFAW
Flashback to WKRP’s Les Nessman’s sports report on “Chye Chye Rodrigueeze.”
Reupping
I admit I had tears in my eyes last night witnessing the history of this moment.
momdino
Deep Lurker coming out of Lurkdom to say Wow, Betty, awesome post! And yes, we will do this!
Jeffro
TPM has the President’s take on things this morning – note last paragraph of the statement:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/statement-released-by-president-obama
Bobby Thomson
@cmorenc: the preferred nomenclature is creature. Spoiler: Dr. Frankenstein is the real monster.
robert thompson
@aimai: President Obama should have ran as “well tanned and ready” or maybe Polynesian but they probably hate them as well.
SFAW
@aimai:
Yeah, I know. I guess it’s just that I’m still sometimes amazed at how (A) un-self-aware or (B) brazen they are. Actually, I guess the best descriptor is chutzpah.
Their collective behavior(s) is/are also the greatest refutation of the idea that there is a just God.
aimai
@ruemara: I don’t know if you are feeling this way but even though I’m excited for Hillary I have some of the same feelings. For me its kind of the emotional exhaustion of having watched this shit show before. I was thrilled by Bill Clinton breaking the Republican dominance of the White House, and then had to sit through eight agonizing years of the most vile personal attacks (and unforced errors) on Bill and Hillary. Then we went through the cycle all over again with Obama. You get a great, charismatic, brilliant, thoughtful, guy into the White House and from day one they attack him, smear him, threaten him, and block him. I’m proud of Hillary for being willing, always willing, to step up and work at a job in politics knowing that she will be personally pilloried and attacked all day long, for four to eight years. But I’m not looking forward to it hopefully, joyously, naively, as I did with Barack Obama’s election.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Thanks for the reminder (and the associated smile).
ellie
@Kay: Hi Kay- Is that Bowling Green and Wood County you are talking about? I went to BGSU.
Citizen_X
@Betty Cracker: God! Was there anything so cliched in the 80s as the goddam Nagel prints? With their bland, cookie-cutter “sexy” women? If you should ever stage a scene in some office or apartment in the 80s, and want to signal that the guy’s a douchebag, just put a Nagel print on the wall. Done!
As for the Robert Palmer videos, they were done with no small amount of humor. Kind of mocking the entire esthetic.
sherparick
@cmorenc: I was reading about this on TPM. Does anyone think it strange that the host of major Cable News Network morning show basically announces that his condition for “supporting” the Republican nominee is a major change in rhetoric or behavior (not particularly different then the candidate’s language, rhetoric, or behavior over his 40 years of public life, or his one year as candidate for the nomination) and indicating he would be inclined to support/endorse said candidate from his perch on his morning show but for the said language, rhetoric, etc.? Imagine if Savannah Guthrie or even Rachel Maddow made a speech about supporting Hillary? Our conservative friends would go ballistic about media bias. The so called “liberal” MSNBC is not so liberal.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Outstanding. I am hopeful that Bernie gets on board before the convention.
Chris
@gene108:
This reference is why we need a “like” button.
(Ever read the one where an outsider tries to replace Vitalstatistix as chief, they hold an election, and Geriatrix ends up as the Le Pen/Trump figure, rambling loudly about foreigners and saying things like “I don’t hate foreigners, some of my best friends are foreigners, but those foreigners aren’t from around here?”)
NotMax
How low is low?
aimai
@Chris: I have the latest one, about wikilieaks. I have adored asterix since I was a kid, and still read them in french.
robert thompson
@SFAW: That man ( Zeldin ) has no idea how many Hispanic chicken pluckers work in the chicken plucking factories in the Midwest, or perhaps he does. Your comment was funny because I could actually picture Juan Valdez, his burro and bag of coffee slung over the burro in a Republican commercial. Kinda like the “Taco Bowl” incident.
dmsilev
@Kay: Holy Christ on a crutch, our recently and repeatedly banned troll is actually Donald Trump himself.
It explains so so much.
Chris
@aimai:
Same here, to both.
I find the later ones kind of hit or miss, but the Wikileaks one was a very palpable hit.
Miss Bianca
@J.:
Nice reminder
@Betty Cracker: “And I am…the Lion King”!
Kay
I’m pleased the NYTimes used the word “triumphs”. If there is anyone who deserves a victory lap it is Hillary Clinton and I was afraid they weren’t going to give her one.
LesBonnesFemmes
@dedc79: I am so sharing that. Thank you.
Kay
@dmsilev:
One of my sisters is a Trumpoligist. She’s obsessed with his horribleness. She once sent me a photo montage of unflattering poses with no words at all. It’s so nice to have someone who is completely willing to abandon any pretense of the high road :)
low-tech cyclist
One great thing if Hillary wins, is that she won’t have to put most of her energy into cleaning up after the fuckups of GOP Presidents, like Obama and Bill Clinton had to do.
Fair Economist
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
+4 R isn’t much, and remember there’s been some demographic shifting since the last election. Are the knuckleheads going to be eager to vote for Trump and Sanchez? I don’t think so. If 10%, maybe even 5%, of them stay home Issa loses.
amk
@low-tech cyclist: great point.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Trump: Stop using my words to lie about stuff you say I said.
So. Weary. Of. This. Guy.
SFAW
@Rand Careaga:
I gotta ask: in your “day job,” are you one of those “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” guys? Because that comment was cruel and unusual punishment.
wuzzat
@Patricia Kayden:
An unexploded nuclear bomb?
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker: Very good post!
Here’s a link to a little something that you might want to use or to refer to if November turns out as well as we all hope. There might even be an update to this inspiring Smithsonian article.
Fair Economist
@Citizen_X: What is with the hate that anything really popular gets? Nagel prints were great; he did amazing things with very simple lines. Also, it wasn’t Palmer that super-popularized them, it was Duran Duran.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
Martin Short did a character like that — denied everything. Don’t remember the character’s name.
schrodinger's cat
@Haydnseek: That’s no fun, though. Balloon Juice is bettah than the dry Wikipedia exposition.
SFAW
@Fair Economist:
Not an art critic, don’t play one on TV, but from what I understand from Wikipedia, his technique was to start with a photograph of a woman, and remove a bunch of lines. I guess that can be considered “art” at some level, but I’m not sure it’s especially creative.
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: too true. Clinton’s current woes stem from GOP conviction that Bill “stole” HW’s well-deserved second term (“he won the Gulf War!”), and Obama has been faced with the same claim by McCain in ’08 and Rmoney in ’12. Remember how thoroughly flummoxed the entire GOTea machine was in ’12 when their square-jawed All-Ahmurrrrcan He-Man got trounced at the polls despite all their “unskewed” polls predicting a GOTea sweep. The only thing that’s New this time around is that the loss is due to Trump and to now-obvious GOP policy planks, not to “Beltway insiders” or lack of conservatism.
Matt McIrvin
@low-tech cyclist: She’s inheriting a landscape in which getting major legislation passed is impossible, though, and she has to deal with the consequences of that. There’s going to be another recession sometime in the next couple of years, and she’ll probably have an obstructionist Congress that doesn’t allow her to do anything on the level of the 2009 stimulus (especially if she has the usual big midterm loss first). It will stick to her.
CONGRATULATIONS!
There sure is. This area’s gotten wealthier, whiter and more conservative.
@Fair Economist: Sanchez, no. Trump…I’ll bet his core constituency in the Vista/Escondido/San Marcos area went 90+% for Trump. So yes. They’ll show up. They always fucking show up. They’ll crawl over broken glass to show up for this one. You know who has never shown up consistently in this district? Dems. And when they do, they fuck up so badly they lose no matter their merits.
Let me give you an example. We have a county supervisor’s race that the GOP wants to turn from 80% to 100% GOP owned. The sole Dem, Dave Roberts, has been outspent probably 10:1 for the seat. So he comes back with a barnburner of a direct mail piece, one that ties his GOP opponents to Trump and is probably the best and most effective piece of mail campaigning that I’ve ever seen. It showed up in my mail on Election Day. At 5pm (when our mailman usually comes). AFTER I and all my neighbors have been to the polls.
The time for that piece was six weeks ago when everyone got their mail ballots, not late afternoon on Election Day.
Nothing but incompetence here. That, perhaps, is what keeps Issa in office more than anything else. Sheer Dem incompetence. And the local party organization is like a non-stop civil war, they can’t get anything done to save their lives, so anyone who runs is pretty much on their own.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Great article and photo — thanks!
@Matt McIrvin: I share those concerns but plan to jump off that bridge when I come to it.
Brachiator
@Patricia Kayden:
There are a number of fissures in the Republican Party. They are not a monolith, or a hive mind.
Trump’s most vehement supporters know that he is not a “true conservative.” They don’t care. They want something done to fulfill their wishes, someone to make good on the empty promises that the mainstream Republicans kept talking about, but never doing anything about.
They don’t care that what they want may damage the country, or are a mishmash of incoherent and inconsistent pseudo-goals. Somebody promised them happiness and prosperity, dammit, and they want what’s theirs right now.
The old style Republicans, with their quaint muttering about “true conservative values” are, right now, just along for the ride, hanging on for dear life.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin: The only thing that gives me hope for the Hillary Presidency is that all the same crummy things would happen to any other Democrat who gets in against this kind of Republican obstructionism. But of all people in the world who could have run for President this time around Hillary is at least the best prepared to handle it. To handle the insults, the attacks, the obstructionism, the hatred, and I’m just talking about the democratic voting public!
boatboy_srq
@MattF: Wasn’t Will himself responsible for some of that “pornographic” political journalism especially re: certain documents?
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I think the Mustache of Understanding is right there with you over at the NYT today…holy cow…here’s a sample (coming in just after he’s made a plea for a ‘center-right New Republican Party’):
He then goes on to name names as to who’s excluded from the NRP (’cause you can’t have an exclusive club if you don’t exclude folks): Palin, Norquist, Hannity, Limbaugh, Big Oil(!), the NRA(!!!), and so on. Wow.
Maybe we need a “Civil War: keeping score” thread, to keep track of who’s on which side at this point?
Cacti
@aimai:
Yep.
In becoming POTUS, Hillary will have defeated angry white male demagogues of both the left and right wings.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, Republican intransigence has done themselves well, insofar as preventing the president from presidenting in the usual way; what Obama leaves Hillary is a toolkit for doing endarounds and getting things done (e.g., via the EPA and other agency actions along with executive orders ).
McConnell is going to regret blocking Garland.
rikyrah
Booman has a post up today about the GOP’s California Woes.
Someone earlier mentioned Issa.
Here’s what he had to say about it:
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: OMG, how sweet would it be to see Issa tossed out on his ass?
Cermet
Congrats to Hillary Clinton – it was well deserved and I am glad that Sanders helped keep her left; however, its time for him to concede and fight to defeat the forces of real darkness – i.e. tRump.
Jeffro
@trollhattan:
Assuming Rs stay in charge of the Senate – a proposition growing dicier by the minute – I can see The Turtle scrambling to figure out why he can’t confirm President Hillary Clinton’s SCOTUS selection, either. Maybe waiting for the 2018 midterms or something like that? Is there a shorter way to say “moving the goalposts, perpetually, until my kicker takes the field”?
And all apologies to Judge Garland, I sincerely hope President Obama pulls Garland’s nomination ten seconds after the networks declare HRC the president-elect. After all, McConnell & Co said they wanted the “will of the people” to weigh in on this…
Gavin
Hill may very well be considered inevitable, but the only way she isn’t… is if Hill’s team stops trying and declares victory long before November.
Keep grinding – instead of simply winning, set the bar at no EV’s for Ku Klux Hairpiece.
nutella
@J.:
Maybe Gore should make a call to Bernie Sanders today. If Politico can be believed, Bernie still thinks he’s got all the power in the Democratic party. Usually losing an election means less power but apparently somebody’s going to have to explain that to him.
robert thompson
@Kay: I really enjoyed the experience of voting this time as I was seeing through him. As long as he votes D I am happy. He has a few RW fiends.
boatboy_srq
@[email protected]: Brilliantly put. Spot on.
My one worry is how far the GOTea malaise has spread. The party made crass self-aggrandizement laudable, and the FundiEvangelicals’ Prosperity Gospel made it righteous. Trump is the logical result: coarse, classless, clueless nouveau riche with a chip on his shoulder and the means to do something with it. We should expect more tRumps, not fewer. And the only question is how deep the simultaneous perversion of social mores and Christian doctrine has gone.
grandpa john
@rikyrah: Hatch is one of the most vile despicable backstabbing pieces of human excrement to ever slime up a seat in in the senate
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: @Betty Cracker: Deeelish. More of this please.
MattF
@boatboy_srq: Yeah, Will is horrible. I’m not absolving his past sins– I don’t have that power in any event. And I’ve generally agreed with Krugman that Ryan’s a fraud. But the eye-watering anti-Ryan rhetoric from Will is significant, and, incidentally, entertaining.
boatboy_srq
@grandpa john: Yes: but he does it so nicely.
boatboy_srq
@MattF: Something tells me buyer’s remorse is finally visiting the bowtied buffoon.
boatboy_srq
@robert thompson:
That does explain a lot.
Kay
Some of this feels like they needed a “high road” reason to back away from him, to me. They need to make a big pronouncement on “principle” and dumbo handed it to them. It gives them an out with the GOP base- “my HONOR was at stake!”
Jeffro
@MattF:
And best of all, Ryan’s going to get it from both sides in the GOP, as almost 2/3 of GOP voters think what Trump said about Judge Curiel wasn’t racist(!)
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/06/08/slim-majority-americans-trump-comments-racist/
Ernest Pikeman
@aimai:
This. Obama had to be the bridge builder and the reasonable man to a fault. Part of it is his temperament. And he may even have been a bit naive in believing “reasonable” could swing the needle on the R side. And of course, he stepped in when the economy was teetering on the edge. Which is my long winded way of saying that his “action space” was limited even for the brief period when he had a favorable Congress.
And Hillary? Has any modern candidate openly called their opponent “temperamentally unfit” in the modern era? Even LBJ just implied it. Don’t think this is a triangulating Clinton.
robert thompson
@boatboy_srq: They of course are ammosexuals and he has kinda fallin’ in with that crowd, even though he has no weapons and as long as his Mom terrifies him he ain’t getting any, but on his own he selected Sanchez which is about as liberal/progressive as it gets around here.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Haydnseek: Or, yanno, check out the comment Betty was replying to that linked to a gallery of Nadel’s work.
It mostly reminds me of the fashion sketches of the same period.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Was it the lack of taste, or the objectification of women, that was the deal-breaker there? Nagel in ’81-82 was cool: Nagel ’84 and beyond was just…. well… um…
boatboy_srq
@robert thompson: Um, “fiends” was a typo, yes? Although it’s much more fun using that term than the one with the added “r”.
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: Say rather that those 2/3 don’t consider racism inherently evil (unless it’s Those People oppressing white folks).
robert thompson
@boatboy_srq: Egads I did not notice! I give them some slack as least they are safety first and chaperoned and weirdly go to the same art school my son attends.
Betty Cracker
@boatboy_srq: Both. And this was in the early 90s, so there was really no excuse.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Patricia Kayden: Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
ruemara
@aimai: Yeah. Combined with the unveiling of younger people (at least those I know) and some older ones who should know better as being ahistorical, susceptible to all sorts of propaganda and just plain non intersectional BY CHOICE, for the right person, I’m pretty bernt on the left. This will take a while to process. I’m still biting my tongue online from my Hillary is a warmonger friends who think a SoS declares war unilaterally and that Bernie’s votes for war & war funding and pro-gun votes were somehow less bloodthirsty.
Miss Bianca
@ruemara: I think the appalling ignorance about the process of government is what depresses me so much. I keep thinking leftists are supposed to be smart enough to remember their civics classes from high school – or at least “Schoolhouse Rock”, for God’s sake.
schrodinger's cat
@boatboy_srq: To many folks, racism is how things ought to be, just like patriarchy. If everyone knew their place, things could go back to being wonderful, in their minds.
smith
@Miss Bianca:
Throughout this process I have been struck by how many people mistakenly believe that national politics is a game of chess, and to win you only have to take the king, and not most of the board. A lot of the passion on the part of Sanders supporters seems to stem from the idea that having him sit in the Oval Office would be a giant step towards solving the problem of economic injustice, when, in the absence of a friendly Congress, it would be the tiniest of baby steps. Trump supporters, and Trump himself, also labor under a delusion of president = monarch.
cckids
I haven’t read the thread yet, but just saw this, and now I’m laughing so hard my cats are all staring at me.
Whine away, Deadbeat Donnie! Welcome to the big leagues, indeed.
gogol's wife
@Bex:
Yay!
cckids
@Kay:
My middle son’s the same way, though he was somewhat Bernie-curious until Bernie came to the University of Reno, and he got to deal with the campaign and supporters (he works at the print shop there) They were such aggressive assholes, closed down the shop (costing the students hours they needed), wouldn’t accept help with equipment they didn’t know how to use, and left the place in a mess. This, coupled with the NY article, just turned him around completely.
Betty Cracker
@cckids: Alas, it’s a spoof account (check the spelling of “Donald”), but Trump’s actual tweets are damn near as whiny.
cckids
@aimai:
Oh, yes. I laugh at myself, looking back, but one reason I chose Obama over Clinton last time was the visceral hate the R’s had for the Clintons, & I thought it would be better with Barak.
Hahahahahaha!! Yes, I was that naive.
Kay
@cckids:
My middle son may vote for Clinton, but he just likes to remain mysterious. He’s in the IBEW and he told me the union people told the apprentices they should vote for the Dem nominee and the guy next to him told him “that’s some Nazi shit right there”
Everyone is a special snowflake. It’s exhausting. No one political party could possibly meet all these needs! :)
Party Of One.
cckids
@Betty Cracker: Dammit. Trump is just impossible to parody, isn’t he?
The Golux
@Applejinx:
More obscure, more funky, more better.
cckids
@Kay: That’s funny.
My daughter turned 18 just barely in time to vote for Obama in 2012, and she was determined to vote in person ON ELECTION DAY. We’re in Nevada, and the GOTV here is massive and quite impressive. We had 1-2 visits a week asking if she was going to vote (the spouse & I voted early like sensible people). Kept telling them she was waiting for the big day. On election day, we had 2 visits before noon (does she need a ride to the polls? She is aware that today’s the day?) I finally pushed her ass out the door & told her to not come back until she’d voted.
The organization and absolute persistence of the GOTV volunteers was amazing. And fun.
Trollhattan
@Kay:
The only organized union presence at last Sunday’s Clinton rally (California) was SEIU. There may have been others but I didn’t see them if there were. Considering how powerful our state’s “union thugs” are in the view of letter writers and columnists in the local paper, they sure weren’t bothering to thug it up that day.
The Golux
@cckids:
This is exactly the way I felt, too. Now I know it doesn’t matter which Democrat is in the White House, and no one has been toughened by experience more than Hillary. Bring it on, assholes.
Kay
@Trollhattan:
Hah! They are having their own elections right now, too. My son’s “tool partner” is running. That’s what they call the journeymen. My son was teasing him because he gave out pencils with his name on them and wrote a nice bio about how he came from nothing. His opponent had a keg party. My son’s like “I’ll pass out these pencils at the keg party? Because that’s where they’ll all be”
Applejinx
@Cermet: In fairness, Sanders did not keep Clinton left.
Sanders made it possible to document HOW left the electorate really is, in clear and measurable terms. That he did.
Clinton has CHOSEN to run left thanks to this documentation, even knowing that some of ’em get all worked up in the heat of battle and claim they won’t support her (or believe her choice). That should count for something. It’s Hillary’s choice, not Bernie’s. She could just as easily have tacked right and tried to appease disaffected Republicans, but she didn’t want to do that and won’t have to.
Applejinx
@Gavin: I like that. Let’s shut Trump out. NO electoral votes.
Applejinx
@The Golux: NICE. Thank you. Y’know, my fancy pants producer friends love Robert Palmer as well, and who could doubt it: imagine, it’s pretty much the same thing as the studio recording, but they’re playing that live!
And on ‘Sneakin’ Sally’, for just a moment you get a hint of the 80s snare reverb to come ;)
rikyrah
@Kay:
you mean the base THAT VOTED FOR TRUMP?
ruemara
@Applejinx: Your interpretation is noted, but HRC has held left positions all her life and frankly, Sanders’ “left” proved to be both authoritarian & remarkably minimal in it’s diversity with less discussion of leftist proposals and policy than I would’ve thought possible.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Well, yeah. They can’t say “you chose an unqualified dope”. They need a Noble Reason.
People always think there’s a “turning point”, a defining event where people can then judge “character”. I actually think it’s more cumulative than that- it’s a series of bad impressions- and people just need a jumping-off point so they can gracefully exit while still believing they are good judges of character. “He was fine UNTIL..” when really they were pretty blind all along.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SFAW: Tommy Flanagan and his beautiful wife, Morgan Fairchild, perhaps?
Cheers,
Scott.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Only Nagel originals could be forgiven at that point, and that’s questionable even with proof of authenticity.
boatboy_srq
@schrodinger’s cat: Indeed. That’s the Trumpery in a nutshell.
Admiral_Komack
MEH.
I am gratified you said so many nice things about President Obama; I have noted that it hasn’t always been the case at Balloon Juice. President Obama has been called everything BUT a child of God.
I find it interesting that President Obama will have to energize the base, since Trump is racking up votes in the group Hillary wants to attract: the hard -working white voter.
It should be an interesting summer.
Betty Cracker
@Admiral_Komack: Good Christ, as if Bernie or Bust Butthurt Brigade wasn’t enough…
Admiral_Komack
@Betty Cracker: The truth hurts, don’t it?
Fuck Kumbaya.
Original Lee
@Miss Bianca: Enough people didn’t get a very good civics education that they are now influencing how things are supposed to go. Robert’s Rules of Order, for instance – not many people know how they should be used any more. Our pool association meeting dissolved into chaos last year because the chair pro tem and a number of attendees had no clue and got all upset when one veteran member kept raising points of order that prevented them from just voting on the budget already.
Betty Cracker
@Admiral_Komack: Sounds like you wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the nutsack. Got no time for that brand of stupid.
SFAW
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
No, Flanagan was Jon Lovitz. Short played this guy, usually smoking a cigarette, usually in close-up, who would dent he ever said/did something outrageous, and even when evidence was presented, he continued to deny. He was a character that Short played a number of times in SNL sketches. His Ed Grimley (I think was the name) was a dorky kind of guy; this other character was more of a corporate type.
Steeplejack
@SFAW:
Nathan Thurm.