Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In after Baud. Damn.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

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

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

In my day, never was longer.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: MAD = Mutually Assured Donald

Open Thread: MAD = Mutually Assured Donald

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Donald Trump is not that much older than I am; if he doesn’t remember the Cold War terror, the Cuban missle crisis in 1963, the security-theater ‘duck & cover’ drills, he’s completely senile. More likely, he’s just incapable of thinking beyond this very day’s assault on his overweening vanity — and / or convinced that ‘the end of life as we know it’ wouldn’t apply to really important, yuuge, the best most serious people, like Donald Trump.

And shame on Joe Scarborough (as if he were capable of feeling shame) for sitting on this news while Trump was “winning” for the Republicans.

Let’s just highlight that again, for the record…

*Now* he tells us. Gaia wept!

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  3. 3.

    Eric

    Politics is a game when you are in the tax bracket of the media elites. Insulated from the vagaries of an ordinary existence, who wins what and how is a fun game of poker. But when he realized this shit is real, and that HE might be affected, then he just had to go public. Coward.

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    I’m still pissed that after months of seeing vile, racist crap at der Trump’s rallies, it took a citizen journalist to tweet what was happening. Why did the embedded press decide not to report on the ugliness all around them??

  9. 9.

    Nom de Plume

    And shame on Joe Scarborough (as if he were capable of feeling shame) for sitting on this news while Trump was “winning” for the Republicans.

    He said he’d heard it “months” ago. Wasn’t that during the time when he was especially cozy with Trump? What a shitweasel. He knew the man was deranged, and still wanted him elected.

  16. 16.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    The duty officer asked General Ripper to confirm the fact the he had issued the go code and he said, “Yes gentlemen, they are on their way in and no one can bring them back. For the sake of our country and our way of life, I suggest you get the rest of SAC in after them, otherwise we will be totally destroyed by red retaliation. My boys will give you the best kind of start, fourteen hundred megatons worth, and you sure as hell won’t stop them now. So let’s get going. There’s no other choice. God willing, we will prevail in peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids. God bless you all.” Then he hung up.

  17. 17.

    Quinerly

    Steve over at No More Mister Nice Blog has my favorite theory so far. Trump had a meeting with Kissinger in May. The source is Kissinger. Kissinger has become disturbed by the Trump meltdown this week. He okayed Squint slipping this into conversation. Speculation? Yes! I like to be responsible, so I’m going with this for now.? Nice post up over there.

  19. 19.

    Truegster

    Problem solved – Someone needs to intercept the Nuke couriers. Trump is a child, tell him he can only communicate by courier. If you tell him it was his idea and have faith in his lack of attention span (he does not have a personal computer btw).

  21. 21.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Happy birthday Omnes. All the best people have August birthdays – we’re yuuuge, we’re the best birthday people.

  24. 24.

    JMG

    Mark Cuban, who is also a whack rich person but who has occasional flashes of insight and is pleasant, said that Trump voters were people who are disappointed with their lives. I have had failures and catastrophes (none TOO awful) in my life, which is now kind of long, and at least I recognize almost all of them were my own damn fault. Trump is the candidate of people who’d rather do anything than look at themselves.

  26. 26.

    germy

    @schrodinger’s cat: You’ve mentioned that before, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who is so offended by that. I watched her on the PBS coverage of the Democratic convention and she thought the whole process was just amusing.
    It irritates the hell out of me, and I’ve tuned out the snooze hour because of her amusement and because of Gwen’s horserace obsession.

    I remember one night on Washington Week In Review. The usual panel, but there was one journalist I didn’t recognize; he was new to the show. In response to a question, he began to comment on some actual issues and policy positions of the candidates. There was a brief, embarrassed silence, and then Gwen steered the conversation back to the horserace.

    I suppose he got a polite talking to after the show.

  27. 27.

    Arclite

    I remember waking up from dreams of being nuked with the flash caused by the morning sun on my face. I lived across the river from Groton CT home of the world’s largest sub base. THe USSR had at least a dozen warheads targeted at that base because the prospect of destroying several subs in dock was too enticing. Subs being the most stealthy of the nuclear triad.

  29. 29.

    Felonius Monk

    @Omnes Omnibus: I heard you are a Birthday Boy today. If I’m figuring correctly you are about one month younger than my youngest daughter, so Happy Birthday, Kid.

  33. 33.

    hovercraft

    Would everyone just calm the fuck down, Trump told us this evening that his campaign has never been stronger. The reason that Putin and him will get along is that Putin knows that Trump is not going to take any shit form him and he will nuke a muthafuckah to prove his point. Trump’s strong stance will bring in all those security moms that Bush won, they know that he’ll have no problem dropping nukes on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and Benghazi.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    You’ve previously mentioned a giggly person on SnoozeHour, but I don’t think you ever specified that it was Margaret Warner. I remember her from days of yore. Awful.

  36. 36.

    Truegster

    @dmsilev: OR you ixnay on the ubsay talk around Trump and tell him that he misunderstood – they’re “New Clear Subs” that are totally awesome, really, like glass bottom boats, but way more classy.

  37. 37.

    germy

    @Arclite: I remember Robert Klein’s monologue about being a child in the 1950s, and being told that the sirens meant that the Russians had begun bombing. But then they’d sound the sirens every day at lunch, scaring the hell out of him. He imagined the Russians saying “We’ll attack during lunch, they’ll think it’s just a drill!”

  38. 38.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    OT: Mr. Q has an old pal he now only sees on Facebook. The guy had a picture of him and some buddies in his timeline. Mr. Q comments “that guy to your right one over looks just like Walter White.” Pal responds “??” so Mr. Q says “the lead character on Breaking Bad. Surely I’m not the only middle aged guy who didn’t see that until it came to Netflix.” Pal casually answers “Oh, you mean Bryan Cranston. Yeah, that’s him.”

    Mr. Q laughed and laughed. And then told me, of course.

  40. 40.

    Steve in the ATL

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    All the best people have August birthdays – we’re yuuuge, we’re the best birthday people.

    Word to your mother. And to mine, who has an August birthday just like her august son, and apparently dozens of other BJ commenters.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    @MomSense: They didn’t say why it took so long to publish. Maybe they were holding out hope that somehow the GOP would manage to keep him from getting the nomination. I dunno. In any event, I’d urge people to watch it, but be warned that when it says ‘uncensored’, they aren’t screwing around.

  43. 43.

    raven

    @Arclite: It was fun being on the ground for this baby:

    In the tense aftermath of the Pueblo seizure, Pentagon war planners weighed using nuclear weapons to stop a possible communist invasion of South Korea, as well as mounting a massive air attack to wipe out North Korea’s air force. The nuclear option, eerily codenamed “Freedom Drop,” envisioned the use of American aircraft and land-based missiles to incinerate onrushing North Korean troops.

  45. 45.

    Tripod

    I’m not sure what you all are complaining about. He showed you his wife’s tits, and with another woman. I’m sure he’ll barf up plenty more by election day.

  48. 48.

    schrodinger's cat

    @SiubhanDuinne: Usually she is not giggly but today she was. Gwen Ifill and Amy Walters are the worst in the giggle department. Gwen seems to have toned it down a bit these days. May be she reads Balloon Juice, or may be its cray cray Trump.

  49. 49.

    PigDog

    The silver linIng is that there was a semi-coherent discussion of nuclear deterrence on Chris Hayes tonight. I can’t imagine that the news has covered that topic since the detente era.

  51. 51.

    scott alloway

    @Arclite: Hello fellow New Londoner. I remember the Cuban missile crisis well. I was at Bulkley Jr. High and we watched subs steam out. Scarey shit.

  52. 52.

    Steve in the ATL

    @dmsilev:

    The NYT today posted an uncensored video culled from Trump rallies. It’s pretty ugly

    Holy fucking shit. This is how America ends.

  53. 53.

    germy

    @dmsilev:

    The NYT today posted an uncensored video culled from Trump rallies. It’s pretty ugly.

    Every day I see people comment here that “angry old white men” will soon die out, and then we’ll have a good, liberal, progressive country.

    In that clip, some of the noisiest folks at the rallies are really young. Really young. I reject the myth that racism exists in an older demographic on its way out. The alt right movement has shown that for every old racist that dies of old age, four more sprout up from his dust.

  54. 54.

    Carl W

    I like the daily summaries of election news at electoral-vote. Here’s a couple of pieces that show hilarious prescience.

    First, from yesterday morning:

    There aren’t too many sacred cows in American politics. Nonetheless, having made steaks of one of them this week (families of dead veterans), Donald Trump has now decided to make hamburgers of another: firefighters.

    …

    On the other hand, attacking veterans, or firefighters (or children, or pet dogs, or police officers, or Jesus, should Trump choose to move on to those sacred cows) is something that voters can and will take personally. Put another way, Trump is playing with fire here, and he could very well get burned.

    Then from this morning:

    “Actually I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here. I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking.” So, that’s another item off our list of sacred cows from yesterday. Now that Trump has gone after veterans, veterans’ families, firefighters, and children, presumably Jesus, or pet dogs, or pet dogs named Jesus will be next.

  56. 56.

    Hkedi

    @Quinerly: @MomSense:

    These releases personally tell me that the washington establishment FINALLY realises that the Trump is completely untamable, and that the “both sides” game could end with an untameable Trump presidency. It would be so bad that it would directly threaten THEIR power, so Trump has to go.

    Of course when I heard that Joe knew about this little bombshell for MONTHS! It made me sick. I’m still not 100% sure that the nuke story is true though (but it makes sense) Joe doesn’t seem to care much about telling the truth to the little people (you know, his viewers).

  58. 58.

    dr. bloor

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Gwen seems to have toned it down a bit these days. May be she reads Balloon Juice, or may be its cray cray Trump.

    Maybe Butterfly McQueen visited her in a dream and told her to quit fucking around because shit’s getting real.

  59. 59.

    germy

    @schrodinger’s cat: Gwen disappointed me. I remember when Don Imus said his bullshit, and Gwen gave a prepared statement about how he thought people who looked like her should be janitors. It was my first glimpse of her and I expected better things from her.

    She’s squandering her gifts with her preoccupation with the optics, and horserace, rather than exposing the issues and daily outrages.

  60. 60.

    Truegster

    @? Martin: For Fallout 4, I recommend solving it as pro-synthetic before you then solve it as pro-Brotherhood. Not a spoiler – it’s just the synth ending isn’t as dramatic. Also, if you play on PS4 and don’t update the patches, it has great exploitable bugs.

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    Ian MillhiserVerified account
    ‏@imillhiser
    This is your periodic reminder that Mitch McConnell is holding open a seat on the Supreme Court in the hopes that Donald Trump will fill it.

  63. 63.

    hovercraft

    @Nom de Plume:
    He says they’ve been friends for over ten years and the Trump he’s seen on display the last few days bears no resemblance to the person he knows. And this morning Mika and him both kept stressing that Trump is not a republican and never has been, they said you can’t take the democrat out of a person after 65 years of life as a democrat. So republicans should simply repudiate him and use Obama’s convention speech as proof that Trump is not one of them.
    The troller in chief has boxed them in, if they repudiate him they are bending over for the Kenyan dictator, if they don’t they are covering themselves with toxic waste.
    The mouth breathers will never believe Trump is not one of them, he speaks their language, and they are not letting him go.

  64. 64.

    Keith P.

    This is really screwing up the GOP something special. Trump is showing the whole country who really had principles and who just wanted to be able to tell everyone else what to do. A lot of people’s careers are going to be damaged; hopefully it brings in fresh blood rather than just rehabbing and recycling the same cast of characters we’ve seen since the 90s.
    The best part is that they’re basically locked in to their choice. If they change now, they look even more craven. But stay with Trump, and they own every damn thing he says.

  67. 67.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    My mother’s birthday was the 25th, mine is the 23rd, and my daughter’s is the 21st. I’ve never had my “own” birthday. [[sad face]]

  71. 71.

    Schlemazel

    @Keith P.:
    November 9, 2016
    “Trimp was never a Republican”
    “Donald wasn’t a conservative he fooled us all”
    “The GOP was conned & those people were not Republicans”

    It will be the “I was Not a Nazi Polka” and they will fall back to simple dog whistles. Bookmark it libs!

  74. 74.

    redshirt

    Trump’s got a point: Why are we wasting all this money on nukes if we don’t use them? Either use them or stop spending money on them!

  75. 75.

    MomSense

    @Hkedi:

    The media have failed us dreadfully in this election. I wish someone would ask him why he sat on this information for several months. BTW he spent the last several months harping incessantly about the fucking emails. It’s sickening.

  77. 77.

    Truegster

    Ok, I am going to have to reveal that I have the coolest birthday here –

    October 31st Halloween.

    Seriously fun and crazy shit, I dress up every year. I was Mad Office Max last year, real leather biker jacket, one sleeve cut with a chrome stapler instead a shotgun and a bandolier of sharpies, glue sticks…you get the concept.

  78. 78.

    hovercraft

    From the FOX News poll tonight:
    Are you familiar with Trump vs Khan 77 % yes 22 % no
    Trump response in or out of bounds 69 % out 19 % in
    Even FOX has rigged polls.
    Sad.

  81. 81.

    different-church-lady

    The poster frame on that last video is ripe for a “THAT LOOK WHEN…” meme.

  90. 90.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    All the Republicans have to do is wiretap Trump tower and learn that his name is really “Trumpelstiltskin”, and when they confront him with that he’ll lose his temper and run away and never come back.

    Geez nobody reads political theory anymore.

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @Eric:

    .Politics is a game when you are in the tax bracket of the media elites. Insulated from the vagaries of an ordinary existence, who wins what and how is a fun game

    Reporters are not all rich or insulated. Not by a long shot. But they often are cynical and detached. The attitude comes with the territory. But this sometimes makes it hard to separate the charlatans from the dangerous fanatics.

  93. 93.

    Ajabu

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:
    My August birthday is even more significant than most.
    I share it with David Robinson (Spurs star), Andy Warhol, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum and a shitload of famous young people I never heard of.
    It also coincides with the Hiroshima bombing and Jamaica Independence Day.
    And, incidentally, Marcus Garvey died in Jamaica the same day I was born.
    Coincidence? I think not.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @redshirt:

    My favorite person in the entire world shares your birthday!

    I thought Paul LePage’s birthday was in October, not August?!

  97. 97.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Trump ran for president since at lest 2006 and he doesn’t understand the concept of MAD?

  99. 99.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @MomSense: It’s somehow comforting in a continuity-affirming way that through it all, Trump, all the other elections, all the unpredictable twists and turns over the years, that one constant in a sea of change is that Joe Scarborough is a douchebag.

  101. 101.

    jl

    Saw a Politico story saying that, ‘gosh golly gee, what Trump is saying is not so different from current US policy’.
    So Politico is even worse than Jughead over at Mornin’ Joe or they are as dense as Trump.

    My understanding is that it is true that the US has not explicitly ruled out the first use of nuclear weapons. We have been sort of ambiguous about it.
    But the US policy I think is very clear that nuclear weapons are not just like a bigger bazooka that we will use when convenient. Seems very clear to me that Trump views them as just a bigger bazooka. It’s right there in the Matthews transcript when Trump says he won’t take them off the table for problems in the Middle East. So, Trump is thinking ‘Shit, why hot just take care of ISIL strong holds. Nuke ’em. Problem solved.’

    Now put that together with not understanding how NATO works. Like I said in previous thread today, Trump is very clearly in Goldwater dangerous category.

    But, also true that there has long been a place for this kind of irresponsible and very dangerous nonsense in reactionary circles. The late Bill Buckley held a similar view. In fact maybe worse. I remember watching a clip of him saying that if we decided to quit diddling around in some trouble spots and solved the problem with some right-sized nukes, besides getting shit done, it would keep people on their toes, right?

    Hope the issue of how awful Trump is on national security and foreign affairs will get more attention now. I’m still surprised that his insane comments on NATO didn’t get more attention. And I have long been a critic of US NATO policy and expansion, but we are where we are. I may disagree with our current policy, but recognize that there are a lot of alternatives that would be disastrous. You want other NATO members to contribute more, there are responsible ways to negotiate changes from where we are now. But, then there is batshit insane irresponsible nonsense. So surprising that Trump would go with the latter, right?

    Edit: forgot to add that I see from the Matthews transcript that Trump can do an interview on national TV and bald face lie about his opposition to the Iraq invasion and not get called on it. Trump did not oppose the Iraq war into about a year in and he got gosh darn carnsarned that it might be too expensive.

  103. 103.

    jl

    @MomSense: I think that commenters are saying that it was Jughead who was sitting on the info about Trump’s. ‘do it with nukes the quick and easy way’ national defense policy. Is that right? What dishonest jerk who pretends to be some kind of journalist. That crumb bum I call Jughead, Mornin’ Joe, is known as ‘squint’?

    I learn so much on this here blog.

  104. 104.

    hovercraft

    @Brachiator:
    I think that most of the villagers we see on TV are in the higher income brackets, they may not all be making the millions that idiots like mornin joke and Tweety get paid, but even the lower paid hacks on cable are making $200,000. Now I know they’ll tell me that in DC and NY that is not a lot of money, but that’s only when they compare themselves with the lobbyists, contractors and Wall St. types, to most regular people that’s good money.
    PS I live in greater NYC, and know how expensive it is here, but many people around here are living on minimum wage with those same high prices.

  105. 105.

    SFAW

    @redshirt:

    WRONG! Eli Manning is my favorite person in the world. ;)

    Right. And you’re going to vote for Gus Hall in November, I’m sure.

  107. 107.

    MomSense

    @jl:

    We are practically thought leaders on this blog. If only Davos allowed dogs, it could be a balloon-juice affair.

  109. 109.

    Mr. Mack

    Apologies if this has been discussed upthread…I just finished watching the softball lobbing Libertarian town hall on CNN. Suddenly my Book of Faces feed was full of posts celebrating these two grown ups for the viewpoints. What??? They gave the safest possible answers possible. Hell, I’d like to rake in a million a month by taking advantage of a divided electorate! Think I can get Baud on board?

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    You know, I was concerned as the malassministration of the deserting coward and the Dark Lord was coming to a close, and the only toys in the military toy box that the deserting coward hadn’t had a chance to play with were the nukes.

    Teh Donald obviously is not going to wait long to get his tiny hands on the launch codes.

  111. 111.

    jl

    @Mr. Mack: Put the Baud! Mark 2016! into bot mode and he can repeat all the slogans you want very mechanically. Go over great as a libertarian. This is his chance.

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    I was at a friend’s New Year’s Eve party, he has a construction company with young men working for him. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m 65 and saw Jim Crow driving to Florida as a youngster..

    I was horrified to overhear one of the younger equipment operator guys going on about how “I just hate the ni**ers, I can’t stand to be around them…” He went on for a while, and it was despicable. This kid probably makes $60K working when the sun shines, and has nothing to bitch about.

    And I’m sure this fellow never has been around black people, as there are probably only 3 or 5 in the whole county. So where did he pick up that kind of hate? I’m glad I worked with lots of black guys in the Navy, as well as in summer jobs in junior high and high school. I never caught that disease, thank FSM!

  117. 117.

    J R in WV

    @planetpundit:

    I was 11 for the Cuban Missile Crisis, and tried very hard to dig a shelter in our basement. We lived on a ridge top, and that meant that our house was built on cap rock, the hard stone that kept the ridge from being eroded away. All I had was a pick, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow, and I chipped away at that bedrock for a long time, long after the “crisis” was over.

    Years later, I went back home, and Dad had told the plumbers putting in his new furnace to use that little space I excavated as they built a concrete pad in the space under the house. They used a compressor/jackhammer to do the work I was doing by hand back in ’62.

    Seriously, nightmares about the flash of a “device” in the near distance, even tho we lived 80 miles away from the nearest secondary target. So Trump can eat a sack of salted dicks for talking about using nukes on anyone!

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Crawfish étouffée. The Cajun/Creole takeout place offers two versions: Extremely Hot or Too Hot to Eat. I went with the THtE version. Yummy.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @Miss Bianca:

    Nine months before August is the middle of winter, the winter solstice, coldest time of the year in North America and the shortest day, time to snuggle, dark early and stays dark late.

    So there you go. Simple math can explain so much!

  122. 122.

    catclub

    @Baud: I was thinking that after all the righ wing loonies worried that Obama is the anti-Christ, Trump comes along and causes armageddon in the middle east. Ironic.

  127. 127.

    Original Lee

    @J R in WV: We lived not that far from Chicago, which was, I think, a secondary target. My high school physics teacher, who had served in the Navy in the Pacific during WWII, would frequently tell us, in those times when he decided he needed to impart wisdom instead of knowledge, that if a nuclear weapon ever hit Chicago, he would jump in his car and drive straight towards the mushroom cloud. He told us all about what happens to you when you are too far away to be killed by the immediate blast but too close to avoid the high radiation levels. I used to have nightmares about puking up my own guts.

  128. 128.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I am quite drooling with envy. : )

    @efgoldman: Yeah, I’m thinking, I’m thinking about it…

    your little 3-year-old love bug knows the word “puce”? And that it’s a color? Tell her that it means “flea-colored” – she ought to love that!

  129. 129.

    karen marie

    @Arclite: My father was a union electrician and in the mid ’80s worked for a while on some project next door to Groton. An electrician friend of his at Groton gave him tickets for us to go to a submarine launch. This was during the Reagan administration, and I was sure he was going to get us all killed. I couldn’t believe the size of the submarine. It was scary to contemplate, up close and personal, such a terrifyingly huge machine of war that Reagan could direct be used for its intended purpose – grievous bodily harm on a massive scale. What is it about Republicans that makes me fear for my life and that of others?

  130. 130.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @J R in WV: Sorry, Sparky, totally bogus. Nine months from even late August is Thanksgiving, a month away from that winter solstice.

    “Simple math can explain so much”? If it’s done correctly. Try it sometime, why doncha?

    ETA: I see now that OO already covered this in #125 supra. Pardon me for piling on (not!).

  131. 131.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus: MARTINMAS REPRESENT!

    In the Northern Hemisphere, the hard work of harvest season is finally wrapped up, the extra livestock have been slaughtered (have to eat up the leftovers while they’re fresh), the nights are getting longer…

    (It’s kind of charming, actually, that our deep primate conditioning holds true even in this modrun age of artificial lighting & year-round food abundance.)

  132. 132.

    Arclite

    @scott alloway: I was in high school in the 80s. I knew that the chances were slim there’d be a war, but I also knew I was at ground zero. The only more important target to the Soviets than Groton was DC itself. And I often thought, maybe DC isn’t number one. Maybe, due to the 24-48 ICBMs they can take out in one shot, that this is #1. World’s largest sub base, GD shipyard building subs, Millstone plant. That’s a lot of nuclear stuff. No wonder I ended up with thyroid cancer.

    Anyway, glad that the world is a safer place. Will stay that way as long as Hillz gets elected.

  133. 133.

    Arclite

    @karen marie: Probably because most of the Americans who kill are Republicans? All of those stand-your-ground people, all the cops killing unarmed me, most of the soldiers, I don’t think they vote Dem all that often.

    All that being said, I don’t think that a Republican president is any more likely to launch a nuclear strike than a Dem one. Granted, there’s not a lot of data to go on.

    Lastly, I’d like to point out that The Donald isn’t a Republican. He’s a Trumpian.

  135. 135.

    No One You Know

    Turn the argument the other way, and I see a less dramatic but equally dangerous possibility.

    Trump loses the “rigged” election, starts Trump Media, and turns himself into the most poisonous radio show host ever, on the model of Father Coughlin, Rush Limbaugh, et al.

    He already has the audience, and from that point can show dragon’s teeth in any demographic that loves to hate.

    The Trump lovers will not only never die out, they will be primed for the next psychopathic, narcissistic, and Machiavellian from any party.

    And they aren’t all stupid.

    If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it’s about to get an inflationary boost, I think.

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