The best way I can compare my mood right now is the trash compactor scene in Star Wars, where I am living in a fetid world of Trump shit, while the walls are closing in, I have a sick sense of impending doom, and the media keeps grabbing me by the ankle trying to pull me under into the noxious shit and choke the life out of me. I have never been as horrified and terrified by an election in my life. I feel like I am on death row, and the preferred means of execution is force-feeding me puke and bile and racist, sexist shit.
So here is something fun and sweet and nice:
I hope in 50 years, long after I am dead, these two kids are still besties like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and running around being like our Betty White for future generations.
Sufferin' Succotash
Don’t forget that hairy eyeball that pops up in the middle of the garbage.
cmorenc
Not only is the election terrifying, but thinking about being civil post-election to several neighbors with TRUMP yard signs is difficult as well – I could understand a Republican/conservative supporting Romney or McCain, but how can they support a temperamentally, morally unfit monster like Trump? Who’s dangerous for the country for the kind of person he is, completely aside from ideology? A man who lies constantly with his abundant contradictions not only recorded on video, but are the opposite of what he said just yesterday or last week?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I can’t believe Trump keeps bouncing back up. I mean, he says something vile, like how he likes to grab women’s pussies without their say so, and people are rightly horrified, and they back off. But then, after a few weeks, most of them drift back to him. Do they not understand that he’s the same guy as before, and he still said what he said? I don’t get it. If it was enough to turn you away from him three weeks ago, why isn’t it enough now? I just wish somebody in the F.B.I. would leak the shit they must have on him and get it over with. I can’t believe I’m rooting for the F.B.I. to do something that nakedly partisan, but, well, we have too much riding on next Tuesday…
Cermet
This election is not unlike the original civil war; the puss that formed around the wound is now oozing out and needs to be flushed down the toilet; hopefully, the economy lasts long enough that demographics drives a steak through the heart of the alt-right filth that so much of the white, entitled males think is their due right to support..
cmorenc
@Smedley:
The FBI already did something nakedly partisan last Friday. Comey could easily have clearly qualified that the re-opening of the investigation was solely in the name of completeness – that it didn’t necessarily mean there was any further damaging material, just that the FBI was going to look to make sure whether there was or wasn’t.
WereBear
They didn’t mind it being dog-whistled, so why should they mind their candidate saying it in their outside voice?
Xenos
I know who Maisie is, but who is that with her?
donnah
I felt like throwing up this morning when I read that here in Ohio, Trump has taken the lead in polls. It’s disheartening and frustrating. I voted on Sunday and the turnout was very high, so I’m still hopeful that the votes will come up. My husband and son have canvassed and will be going out again this weekend.
I watched the evening news (I know, stupid mistake!) and they were interviewing Millenials. One young woman said she was a Trump supporter because she values change. And then she trotted out an old chestnut, that Obama, as the first black president, had actually caused more racial unrest. I think she’s had too much Koolaid from the punch bowl, because that talking point has been around since she was in junior high.
Dunno, not feeling great, but not totally depressed. Yet.
cmorenc
@Cermet:
Among the key drivers of GOP extremism and Trump supporters is precisely awareness that the window is rapidly closing for them to hold power long enough to structurally build tall, thick walls against that demographic change and dismantle both existing progressive institutions and accomplishments and poison the earth against the possibility of their being revived or rebuilt for at least several decades. That’s why control of SCOTUS is so important to them. They have only one or two presidential elections left to accomplish this before all this becomes impossible.
Alain the site fixer
It could be so much worse. Imagine if Cruz was breathing down our neck instead of Trump. Even more frightening in so many ways.
@Cermet: we missed our chance in the 1800s and so the Confederate infection spread and took root throughout the country. It has infiltrated our culture and the hearts of men and women and we won’t see it extirpated in our lifetimes.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@WereBear: But they do mind it, enough of them mind it enough that he tanked in the first two weeks or whatever it was after they heard it. But a little time goes by, and it’s like it never happened. I don’t understand that.
SenyorDave
@WereBear: I can’t believe Trump keeps bouncing back up.
For me, it is the GOP women that shock me. I can’t believe that any woman would vote for him, and if they are doing it because he has an R next to his name I have to assume they would vote for anyone with an R next to their name. He bragged about being a sexual predator! It’s like an African-American voting for David Duke. If you’re a woman and you hate Clinton, then vote third party, write-in, etc., but voting for someone who not only admits to molesting women but is proud of it?
Not excusing the men who vote for him, but as far as I know he hasn’t bragged about molesting any men.
Chris
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
That’s a microcosm of how I feel about the GOP as a whole. Like, how many fucking times does it need to horrendously fuck up before the American public finally realizes that it needs to *not get voted in anymore?* But no, give it a couple years and it’ll have walked off everything shitty it’s ever done.
@cmorenc:
Comey could also have said, if he absolutely had to talk about it, that this was an investigation into Anthony Weiner, since that’s what it is.
Instead, he specifically decided to announce “this is an investigation THAT MIGHT LEAD TO INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON!” – which is technically not a lie, but only in the sense that any investigation of anyone anywhere could conceivably happen to turn up data on Hillary Clinton (or any other unrelated matter). It’s a ridiculous, transparent, baseless, wild reach, but in our Twitterified news cycle, all that most voters will retain is “FBI reopening Clinton case!” Which of course is exactly what he wanted.
Poopyman
@Alain the site fixer: Well, aren’t you a little ray of sunshine!
Unfortunately, I agree 100%. Two little rays of sunshine.
Chris
@SenyorDave:
And I’m sure you could find a few of them somewhere. The only time I’ve actually been cussed out by a self-proclaimed proud Republican while canvassing, it was by a guy who, judging by his skin tone and his accent, will be one of the first people deported or interned as a terrorist threat to national security if his party wins this election.
There are idiots everywhere, sadly. If white men earning less than a million a year can delude themselves into thinking economic royalism is good for them, it’s no surprise that some female and nonwhite voters can reason their way to similar stupidity.
MomSense
I can’t believe the horrors that Trump is getting away with because our media seemingly refuse to hold him accountable on anything.
This is a fucking nightmare.
Signed up for an extra phone banking shift on Sunday. All we can do is GOTV.
NickM
Is 45% of the US racist sexist angry assholes? Do they really want the civil war they’re fomenting? It’s starting to look that way.
Chris
@NickM:
Yes.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Cermet: I’ve been thinking that for a while now. The Civil War happened because one side was happy enough to abide by the rules, and respect democracy, but only as long as they were winning. As soon as things went against them, they showed what they truly thought about democracy.
It’s the same now. Every day, the Republicans make their contempt for democracy ever plainer. They wanted to wait until the next president got elected before they’d confirm a Supreme Court justice, since we had to wait for “the people” to make their wants known. But now that it looks like they’re going to lose, and they tell us they’re willing to leave the seat open for four years, which means they don’t give a shit about what “the people” want, if the people don’t want them. They’re talking about impeaching Clinton already. They’re telling us as clearly as they can that democracy only counts as long as they win.
I’m beginning to sometimes wonder if they might try to just refuse to seat Democratic senators and congressmen in January at this point. The Constitution gives Congress the right to judge the qualifications of its own members, which means really, that they get to keep from seating elected senators. A year ago, I never would have thought of something like this, but why would that be any more over the line than what they’re already doing? They could just say, “We don’t recognize the legitimacy of the outcome in Pennsylvania or New Hampshire or Illinois or Wisconsin, so we can’t in good conscience seat these frauds.” I don’t think they could put Republicans who lost elections in office, but they could just keep the seats empty until Republicans win. This sounds so nuts I can’t really believe I’m saying it. But who would have thought a year ago that Republicans would be talking about keeping a S.C. seat empty for four years, either?
Some Dude
@cmorenc: Since Nixon placed three justices on the Supreme Court, it has basically been a reliable institution for Republicans. With the current vacancy, and the possibility that Hillary could seat two more during her term(s), there is fear that it will once again be a progressive institution for individual rights, and not a refuge for corporate moves (like Kelo v New London). Add to it the possibility that she could, fill the other court vacancies that the GOP has forced on the country, and you can see why they are desperate to delegitimize her Presidency even before it begins. What she could do with the courts alone will affect the country for decades, no matter who is elected after her. Angry old white males are seeing the end of their firm grip on the levers of power, and are doing everything they can to slow the inevitable.
Xenos
The issue of Trump came up at work about a year ago (I work in an office with 130 other people, and am one of only two Americans). An Italian colleague looked at me ruefully, and said “Welcome to the Bunga Bunga.”
I think the US is stuck with the Bunga Bunga even if Clinton wins. So many basic norms of comity, respect, and lawfulness have been systematically broken that there really is not a way of putting it back together. Trump may be just part of the ongoing process over decades, but this is a tipping point we will not be able to easily recover from.
And if Trump wins, this will not be a tipping point so much as a falling-off-a-cliff point. Bankruptcy is described as taking place very, very slowly, and then very suddenly and completely. Like the folks who walk backwards taking stupid selfies until they go right over the ledge, this would be the sort of mistake that countries do not survive, even though a narrow miss was possible until the very last moment.
daryljfontaine
@Xenos: That’s Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark).
D
max
I have a sick sense of impending doom, and the media keeps grabbing me by the ankle trying to pull me under into the noxious shit and choke the life out of me.
Meh. October 26th, 2001. And a number of earlier dates. It’s like people have never heard of that Oliver North dude.
I have never been as horrified and terrified by an election in my life. I feel like I am on death row, and the preferred means of execution is force-feeding me puke and bile and racist, sexist shit.
The low/medium-grade bastinado – how’s your pain tolerance? How good are you at resisting torture?
max
[‘Valuable information you can use.’]
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Xenos: I have the exact same question as you.
Some Dude
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Just ask Senator Al Franken. After the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld his victory, it wasn’t until July of that year that he was sworn into the Senate. So for more than six months he was unable to participate in the office he’d been voted into.
p.a.
1: The Princeton Election Consortium (Sam Wang et al) has been the most accurate in recent elections, and shows HRC with a pretty safe lead.
(Unfortunately they’re predicting a 50/50 Senate, nothing better.)
2: Remember the superiority of the Dem/Clinton ground game v the Rep ground game; I don’t say Rep/tRump ground game because tRump doesn’t have one.
I keep focusing on these positives. But I, too, still need a stiff drink.
Old Dan and Little Anne
This election is going to put my wife over the edge. She is terrified of Trump winning and I have been talking her down from the ledge on a daily basis for weeks. I am confident Hillary will win. Thank dog I found this place a bunch of years ago. I can’t wait for Tuesday night when Madame President finally becomes a reality. Down with drumph and his fucking asshole followers.
Joel
I was kind of wondering, isn’t she too young for that?
Maisie Williams in 19(!) years old!
I’m starting to feel old.
Ian
Something nice? Colorado Dems are now hitting C0-4 (Ken Buck-R) woth massive airwaves. If we can get CO-6, CO-3, and CO-4 then Colorado will have brought us 1/10 of the way to a Democratic house.
MuckJagger
I’ve got a lot of friends that are voting for Trump, but I refuse to believe they’re *all* bad. They seem to be able to disconnect things to the point where A does not lead to B.
For example, I have a cousin in California — very right wing — who claims to support the Standing Rock Sioux. When I pointed out that the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners had contributed to Donald Trump’s campaign, and that Trump has somewhere between $500,000 and $1M invested in Energy Transfer Partners, and that “you don’t say you get to support the Standing Rock Sioux if you’re voting for Trump,” she basically answered with “Well, Hillary won’t stop the pipeline either.”
The next day, *another* pro-Standing Rock Sioux post from her.
John D
@p.a.: You misunderstand what PEC predicts.
The *median* result is 50/50 split. The next most likely is 51/49 R, followed by 51/49 D, 52/48 R, 52/48 D, etc. The sum of the probabilities predicts that an outcome of 50/50 or 51/49 D+ is about 66%.
srv
Comrade Vlad is pals with actors too:
Major Major Major Major
That seems about right.
WereBear
Link from a friend who studies cult issues:
The Cult of Trump
She’s right. This is why the whole Trump thing makes no sense. Sense has nothing to do with it!
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
And our salvation hinges on Undecided Voter C-3PO waking the fuck up in the nick of time. God help us.
dnfree
What if the Ricketts family (owners of the Cubs) wins the OTHER game they have put big money into?
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2016/10/25/can-cubs-fans-bleed-blue-while-seeing-red-over-the-ricketts-familys-support-of-trump
Betty Cracker
I’m still confident we’ll win this thing. But I’d be lying if I said the anxiety about it isn’t overwhelming sometimes. Tuesday can’t get here fast enough for me.
WereBear
@WereBear: Also from the article:
Betty Cracker
@srv: That makes perfect sense since Steven Seagal is a self-aggrandizing wingnut douchebag who once accompanied America’s favorite racist sheriff on a reality TV-staged raid that killed more than 100 chickens and a puppy.
Botsplainer
@srv:
Fuck off. Die.
Your call, not that I give a shit.
waysel
One or two people here have posted a list of things, in list form, that will be gone if Trump wins. Could you please re-post? I’d like to copy and paste it to my FB page, daily. I know a few leaners, people here in Florida toying with third party but not rabidly so. If I could flip a few votes it might make a difference.
D58826
This article on the daily beast makes me sick. Rudy, ex FBIer james Kallstrom and some of the FBI agents in NY are in an incestuous relationship to get Clinton. One of Trump’s few donations went to Kallstrom’s charity.
Even if Hillary wins there will be an active 5th column movement amount rogue FBI agents and the GOPer’s in Congress to destroy her presidency and the welfare of the nation be damned. .
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/03/meet-donald-trump-s-top-fbi-fanboy.html
Librarian
I’m pretty confident about the presidential election. What drives me crazy is the Senate. We have so many great Democratic candidates running against right wing hacks, and yet, all of them, except for Duckworth, seem to be either tied or behind. I’m at the point of saying, fuck it. If Nevada wants to give Harry Reid’s seat to Joe Heck, then let them. I give up.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Polls are garbage. Overweighted for white people, like they do every cycle. It’s all about the ground game. GOTV.GOTV.GOTV.
Botsplainer
Oh, God. My coffee shop’s music system rotated to Groban wailing “You Raise Me Up”, and I have nothing sharp or pointy to jab into my ears.
And instead of yesterday’s hottie who gave me a really warm and inviting smile and look before exiting my life forever, the place is a neckbeard sausagefest this morning.
Olivia
This explains so much…
WereBear
@MuckJagger: I have never understood people who act like different parts of their brains never touch each other.
Dr. Robert Altemeyer’s work on Authoritarianism is the best explanation I’ve found.
Jeffro
@NickM: as Chris noted, ‘yes’. So let’s GOTV like mad, mad I say!
Interesting piece by Jamelle Bouie over at SLATE: Trump can happen again. Only it should probably be titled, Trump Will Happen Again.
I have to say, I’m okay with that. If Trump 2 takes the GOP further down its death spiral, as its constituents continue to die off and Dem-leaning youth continue to enter the voter pool…I’m okay with it. Keep making all these explicit appeals to racists, keep excusing predatory behavior, keep it all up, GOP. I’d almost rather you not learn from your mistakes.
ETA: what people have noted before, and it’s more true than ever – the Tea Party successfully absorbed the Republican Party, not the other way around. Likewise, Trumpism has absorbed quite a bit of the conservative movement. The few who refuse to be absorbed will eventually become reluctant members of America’s small-c conservative party…the Democrats
T S
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Yeah, people are horrible. I’m not saying I’m so cynical it doesn’t horrify me terribly, but nothing about Trump’s resilience surprises me.
At least we don’t have to breathlessly keep asking, oh, how did the German people let Hitler take power? We are getting our answer. People are dumb and horrible and easily manipulated. It’s no more complicated than that.
enplaned
Right there with you, Cole. But for some reason, though the days since the Comey letter (and the ludicrous media reaction) have been fucking awful, this AM I’m feeling a bit more hopeful, as if the light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible, and yes, it looks a bit more like daylight than an oncoming Trumptrain. Which is not to take anything for granted.
Maybe my natural endorphins have simply kicked in to spare me the pain. Whatever, I’ll take it.
Go work on your house and take care of your pets. That’s what they’re there for.
japa21
@Old Dan and Little Anne: Same with my wife. Plus, she reached the point where she couldn’t watch the game last night. She is a die-hard Cubs fan.
I told her this morning that there is a real comparison between the Cubs and Clinton this year.
Both started the year as real prohibitive favorites to win. Both pretty much cruised until July-August when there was a temporary blip.
Both righted the ship and appeared ready to cruise the rest of the way. In September (for the Cubs) and October (for Clinton) there was some additional stumbling, such as the Cubs going into a state where they were expected to win easily (Wisconsin) and getting whacked.
Then it came down to a nail-biter and the Cubs pulled it out, as will Clinton.
Amir Khalid
@Botsplainer:
Groban is that singer who looks like Ross Geller with somewhat longer hair, isn’t he?
Joel
@MuckJagger: The Standing Rock Sioux have actually managed to earn a lot of support from the right-leaning libertarian crowd that I have transient interactions with. They are Johnson voters, though, last I checked.
Botsplainer
@D58826:
Next GOP nominee will be even worse, based on history. Those who ran this time have loser stink – they’ll gravitate toward Gohmert, Steve King, Blake Fahrenthold, Sid Whathisname (TX ag commissioner) or some Tennessee state legislator next time for some real, true heartland conservatism.
T S
@WereBear: I read that book a few years ago. Seems right on target.
Hal
I’m not worried. Hillary is going to win. That whole fundamentals is sound and all of that. Trump is a terrifying candidate, and I’m as cynical of this country as all get out, but I’m still confident Hillary is going to win. As confident as I was of Obama in 12 and 08 and John Kerry (I knew he was going to lose so I just went to bed). Not that my opinion is scientific or anything.
But to go completely gut feeling for a moment, I just don’t believe Trump is going to end up doing as well nationally as some of these polls indicate. He can’t get past 45/46, and he has shit for a campaign ground game, and GOTV apparatus. Trump is under water with women and minorities, and young people. Neck and neck with Clinton on older to middle age set, and ahead with older white men. Yeah, it’s enough to win, but only if Dems don’t show up.
One more thing. I said before my cousin who has never voted for a Dem is voting for Hillary and my mother, who says she hates Hillary, said the other day she doesn’t know who she’s voting for anymore because Trump is so loathsome. I just have to wonder if certain numbers of women saying they will vote for Trump to their families, significant other etc and voting for Hillary when they are alone in the booth.
MJS
Okay, I’m now starting to go full conspiracy theory, and I really need someone to talk me down off the ledge. My conspiracy theory is this – given his penchant for projection, and inability to keep his mouth shut, Trump is signaling that the election really is rigged. But it’s rigged on his behalf. The polls are accurate, but that won’t matter when Trump’s Russian supporters, with the assistance of the FBI and Wikileaks, hack voting machines on election day and change actual results. The current sewage coming out of the FBI is not intended to actually sway voters and swing the election to Trump. Instead, those “developments” will be useful for the media when they are looking for a reason why the polls were all so wrong.
Somebody please tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the Russians don’t have the ability to do this. Or tell me that if they do have the ability, they can’t do it undetected, and that the media will actually care and investigate. Tell me Republican administrations in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere will blow the whistle if it happens to their voting machines.
I’m really losing it.
enplaned
@Jeffro: Trump can happen again. The saving grace is that the Trumpanzees skew old and over the next two decades a big chunk of them will die — whereas the yoot of today actually believe the equality stuff way more. So, we just have to hold it together for a decade or so and this shitshow will recede. Indeed, one of the reasons for frantic nature of many Trump supporters is they know that the US is slipping away from them, and in an election or three it will be well nigh impossible for them to regain it.
Botsplainer
Here’s a fun question:
chopper
I’m not worried about the election tho i am sick to death of it. i’m down over the fact that almost half the country are willing to vote for that piece of shit and are still going to be around after it’s over. and they have the house.
trump winning would be the apocalypse but it’s not like the next 8 years is gonna be wine and roses. it’s gonna be like the last 8 but with the dial cranked so hard it broke off.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Steven Seagal also has a lot of narcissistic traits along with the wingnut ones… coincidence, or explanation?
If they are developmental toddlers, it would explain a lot about them. And the more fundagelical someone is, the more they have suppressed their natural mental & emotional maturation.
Jeffro
@Botsplainer:
See my note at #47 above – yes, the next one will be at least as bad if not worse (and without some of Trump’s obvious negatives). Cotton and Ernst probably lead that pack. It will be interesting to see what happens to Ben Sasse if he tries for the GOP nom in 2020…my guess is, he’ll be questioned about his dedication to ‘working class Americans’ (i.e., aggrieved white people) and defeated by the angrier elements in the party such as Cotton and Ernst.
JMG
@MJS: Almost impossible to do that, because voting machines aren’t connected to the Internet. It’d take an army of hackers/riggers. If you want to freak out, focus on how the vast majority of Republican voters fell into line behind Trump, just as they would have for Bush, Cruz, Kasich, etc. THAT’S the problem. Tribalism has replaced conscious thought. We are essentially a 50-50 nation, so the side that’ll stay unified come what may has a huge advantage.
FlipYrWhig
@NickM:
Anyone who has driven a car on a road in the United States in the past, say, 40 years knows the answer to that is “sounds a bit low.”
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly.@WereBear:
Trump voters being in a cult makes sense to me. I’m calling them Trump moonies from now on.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
How To Survive the Last Week of Election 2016 by James Wolcott.
PROTIP: It includes Propane Jane, and not Nate Silver.
Rob in CT
@chopper:
The House, and the Senate is a real possibility too. And a ton of state houses/governorships.
It’s deplorable, is what it is.
Major Major Major Major
@MJS: I was just about to post what JMG said @62.
Comrade Scrutinizer
For those yesterday asking whether NBC addressed the Katy Tur incident, assuming that I didn’t mess up the link.
bystander
@srv: Steven Seagal is to acting the same as Trump is to politics: a virulently untalented infection. So they have that in common with their love of Vlad, too.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
This is the final Senate tally I saw from another think tank in DC that a conservative millennial I know works at, and tweeted out Tuesday night. He said to take it to the bank.
NickM
And they’re starting to talk that fascists from a bad WWII movie. Mitch McConnell said that people should vote to make Trump the “most powerful Republican” in the land. WTF?
oldgold
Last night during the locker room presentations, I heard no tRUMPIAN talk.
If you are a Cub fan, this utube will cheer you up.
http://youtu.be/nApTGkLd2hs
the Conster, la Citoyenne
This is the final Senate tally I saw from another think tank in DC that a conservative millennial I know works at, and tweeted out Tuesday night. He said to take it to the bank.
Latino J
The bubble will burst Tuesday. A good deal of nonsense will be exposed. And it might just be possible that the Democrats playing the long game will pay off.
“But, but, but…”. I get it.
If you’d told me the day after the 2004 election that we’d have 50 state same sex marriage, close to national healthcare, a flawed but existing climate agreement, a deal curbing Iranian nuclear expansion, and that a Democrat was the odds favorite to go into the White House for a 3D term and to provide us with a real leftist majority in the SCOTUS, I’d called you a liar.
Pushing the country leftward is tough. And as leftist ideas become normalized, the right will always find new ways to stay relevant. So, we’ll always feel like we’re trying to bathe a rabid feral cat. It is the price progressives have always paid.
Chris
@Jeffro:
It is now Trump’s party. I’d argue it has been that since long before Trump (at minimum since 2008 when the Bushies went away and left the teabagger hordes holding the bag), but now it’s pretty much official. Which should be terrifying considering that sooner or later they will get back in the White House – voter fatigue, shitty candidate, unlucky season for Democrats, wev.
Amir Khalid
@NickM:
“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
— The Joker
geg6
@daryljfontaine:
Glad you cleared that up because I was sitting here thinking what asshole lets their kids dress up like that. I hope they are adults. I don’t watch the show, so I have no idea, but they look like they are about 8 and 10 years old.
Cacti
@bystander:
Steven Segal got choked out and made to soil himself on a movie set by Gene LeBell, a real martial artist.
Story
bystander
@Latino J:
Let’s ask OzarkHillbilly about that one since he knew how to move a coop full of chickens.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@MJS: Suggestion for you: Get Depends.
CaseyL
I’m doing some phone-banking tonight. This is Washington, and we’re focusing on Congressional races, calling swing districts.
I continue to be sickened by the filth Trump’s candidacy has brought to the surface. When (please let be when not if) Hillary wins the White House, it looks like she’ll have a completely obstructionist Congress to deal with, that definitely won’t confirm any SCOTUS justices and might not confirm any of her Cabinet picks.
As I’ve said before, I wish/hope/pray Hillary is one half as ruthless, merciless, and bloodthirsty as her foes paint her, and that she turns that dark energy on the GOP.
JJ
I’m going to vote today and I have a four hr drive- (I’m away from home). My precinct is in Shagri-La, Blue State. I wish it was Arapahoe Cty, CO but it’s not. I anticipate some welled-up eyes in the booth. I never dreamed I’d be able to vote for a woman, the right woman, who’s one badass motherfucker. Someone said it here, “let’s step over his bloated carcass and into history.” I.will.not.pantswet.today.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
“Lex Luthor used to run the GOP. Now the Joker does.”
– Me, upon the teabaggers’ takeover.
bystander
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Thanks for the link. Wolcott’s first recommendation is the best:
daryljfontaine
@geg6: Maisie Williams is 19 and Sophie Turner is 20. They started their roles at 14 and 15, playing characters who were considerably younger in the Game of Thrones books (9 and 12, roughly?) but aged upward for HBO. I’m with John on this one, though: they apparently have become BFFs, and it would be neat to see if their friendship persisted throughout the ages.
D
D58826
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Saw a tweet with Trump’s tag in which he asks the question ‘why the bimbo is asking presidential questions’. attaches a photo of a scantly dressed woman. It might or might not be Katy Tur but that isn’t the point. This is the usual scum bag behavior of Trump and 45% ofthe voting public is ok with it.
Geoduck
@Amir Khalid: It was Alfred who said that, not the Joker. Though he’d probably agree with the sentiment.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Cermet:
Yes, it is a lot like the 1860 election with screaming rage on one side and the utterly fed up on the other, but the real parallel is in 1860 the South realized it couldn’t elect a president and now the GOP is realizing it can’t elect a president. The big difference is the slavery was an economic as well a social problem, now the Republicans just need to stop running their party as a grift.
donatellonerd
@daryljfontaine: thanks
Amir Khalid
@Geoduck:
I sit corrected. Thank you.
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@Cacti: Steven Seagal is an authentic Aikido expert, and that qualifies as “real”, generally speaking. I’m not going to get into the battle of “oh it’s all fake” because the students in Aikido demos are given more opportunity to protect themselves from injury.
I took a long time to get off the Seagal fan club because of that. The incident with the choke out happened because of asshole bragging and overestimation of his abilities. His assholery is not in keeping with the Aikido teachings.
I will remain convinced that O-Sensai, Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, could indeed have broken that attack and won that encounter. At 80 years of age.
Mike E
@daryljfontaine: I thot she plays Arya, not Sansa
Matt McIrvin
@enplaned: My cohort, the middle-to-older GenXers who came of age during Reagan and Poppy Bush, are more right-wing than the Silent Generation and Boomers who are currently dying off. Maybe slightly less racist, but more Republican. And we’re getting into prime voting age.
On the bright side, there aren’t as many of us as there were of the Boomers (the thing that was originally considered distinctive about us).
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
@daryljfontaine: Not a Thrones-watcher so I don’t know these characters, but it reminds me of the book by Alison Arngrim, who played the mean girl who hated Melissa Gilbert’s Laura on “Little House on the Prairie”. In reality they were BFFs, and her description of their friendship is really charming.
Seanly
@cmorenc:
The problem for the right leaning people is that the demographics are against them. Building a wall and chasing out the (what they term) undesirables won’t work. The USA is already much more demographically diverse.
I live in Boise, ID which is about as white as it gets. Even here there is a significant Hispanic population – both recent immigrants and long-time Basques (descendants of shepherds brought over in 19th century). While there are few African Americans, the tech boom and the increased size of Boise State mean immigrants and students from MENA and Asia. Some churches are also sponsoring refugees.
It isn’t 1962 anymore, even here in Idaho. Those old solutions won’t work. I don’t see the diversification of America as a problem. I too am sometimes scared by the change I see, but on the whole, it is a good thing.
Cacti
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
No disrespect intended to any true Aikidoka.
Steven Seagal ceased to be a true martial arts practitioner when he started believing the bullshit he did in movies was somehow reflective of real life, or a real fight.
Hence him being choked out by a man old enough to be his father.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike E: pff. Like a girl needs a name.
daryljfontaine
@Mike E: Maisie Williams (left, Arya Stark) and Sophie Turner (right, Sansa Stark)
D
The Moar You Know
@Cacti: Good. He’s seriously injured several of his co-workers over the years because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He also can’t play guitar worth a shit, but has a notorious collection of irreplaceable vintage instruments – that should be in the hands of good players instead of this hack – valued at several million dollars. I met him at the last NAMM show I ever went to. He’s a full-throttle asshole. Only guy I’ve ever seen who bought a security detail to NAMM.
gogol's wife
@Latino J:
Great comment.
Seanly
@Hal:
I am totally convinced that your last paragraph is a thing. I’ve described here a couple of times how I used to work with folks who said it was a Big Family Tradition for the Man of the House to sit the Little Lady down & tell her who to vote for come Election Day. My first reaction matched my wife’s when I told her – fuck that shit.
liberal
@waysel: federal land all gone, given to the states.
gogol's wife
@bystander:
Haha, I was hoping you’d seen that.
waysel
@MJS: If the vote seems at all fishy post election, after Trump wins, I’m confident the FBI will investigate, impartially.
kindness
Brownie uniforms seem to have changed since my sister was one. Of course, that was the 60’s so, yea….of course they’ve changed.
T S
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I will grant you, the conspiracy theory you are responding to is a bit unbelievable and MJS is maybe overreacting, but the pantswetting insults…why has that become the tired cliche we have to hear over and over? Why are we split people who are justifiably worried about a Trump regime and people who are can’t admit that his winning is possible to the point they lash out angrily at the worriers with various accusations of pantwetting? I don’t know if you do that consistently around here, but some people do, and to them: at least switch it up a bit and come up with new invectives. It’s become a stale red flag for a nasty personality. Also, it’s very clear that it’s about fear for the name-callers too. It’s just a coping mechanism.
Mike E
@Major Major Major Major: heh, we now have a little Sansa in our family… my new baby niece!
@daryljfontaine: I sit corrected, thx
Peale
@Seanly: I don’t know. They like to talk about how they’re all against “illegal” immigrants, but the Syrian refugees are here legally and they’ve certainly been trying to make claims that they don’t belong here and will be rounded up and sent back post haste when Trump is elected. They can change the rules to slow the growth of demographic change. Stop the flow in, and make it really hard for immigrants to get permanent residence and citizenship. Stop renewing Visas. Also ending birthright citizenship for anyone whose parents aren’t already citizens. I wouldn’t put it past them to change a lot of rules, especially the types that would turn a lot of currently legal immigrants into illegal ones.
Spider-Dan
@Jeffro: I’m not okay with another Trump, because the next Trump is likely to have Trump’s dangerous qualities (his appeals to racism, bigotry, and xenophobia) without the electoral vulnerabilities (his rank incompetence and childish ego).
The next Trump will likely be the Ted Cruz-model: a purely-distilled essence of white nationalism with the polished sheen of media respectability. Think of how the media treats Mike Pence when he talks about The Gays… the entire framing of the discussion will be the concerns of white working-class voters, and the media will wring their hands and declare the solemn importance of respecting the views of this important constituency.
Imagine a version of Trump who wasn’t obsessed with sex; immediately, 70% of the media scandals go out the window. Now imagine that this same person has the basic political awareness not to publicly attack POWs, Gold Star families, and the disabled, and simply toes the GOP line on foreign policy. What remains? Do you expect the equivalent of the Trump Foundation or Trump University to sink such a candidate?
Even the current totally incompetent buffoon is within striking distance of the White House. The next Trump should fucking terrify any rational American (or resident of Earth, really).
bystander
@gogol’s wife: Wolcott doesn’t post often enough for me to remember to check in. I’ve had to stop watching Joe for the duration.
JGabriel
@cmorenc:
We must have different experiences with Conservatives. I had some trouble – not a lot, but a little trouble – understanding how they could support McCain and Romney, yet none at all about them supporting Trump. Trump is pretty much exactly like every conservative I’ve ever met, only with a lot more money and a just little more narcissism.
But, then again, I am from the Northeast – New York by way of Pennsyltucky. Maybe Conservatives are different in other parts of the country. I kind of doubt it, but maybe.
Blue Galangal
I don’t know if this is any help, John, but the college kids I work with are extremely cynical about the FBI and emails thing – maybe that’s the good part of their generation, they’ve got a cynicism it’s taken me years to develop. I was really worried that I’d come in to work Monday and they’d be all, “oh, she lies, what’s the use,” and instead they’re mad, and organizing voting parties to go early vote and stuff. *crosses fingers*
Lizzy L
Thanks for this post, John. I’ve been countering the nerves by phone banking, AND by hanging out here, taking courage and comfort from some of our more stalwart cohorts who just say flatly, “She’s gonna win.” Visiting PEC helps too. But last night my fears got the better of me, and I actually had nightmares, which is not something that happens much. My first-order fear is: I fear that Trump will win. My second-order fear is that even if Trump loses, we will not win the Senate — I’ve never believed we’d win the House, though we may dump some horrible Republican House members on their butts, looking at YOU Darrell Issa — and I fear the level of obstruction and insanity that not taking the Senate will mean for the country. I do believe that as the boomers die (I’m a boomer, first year of the baby boom) things will change, the Rs will grow more and more marginalized, but I fear the damage that will be done to the country and to vulnerable people in it in the meantime. My brain says It’s going to be okay, but the thought that Trump might win just ties my emotions into knots.
Spider-Dan at 110 enumerates some of my third-order fears, but those are all way on the back burner. I can’t worry about the next election or the next smooth-ass-evil Republican because I’m focused on this election and Trump.
And shomi or GrandJury or whatever your current nym is, you can just STFU in advance, ‘kay?
I’m still phone banking for Hilz. GOTV GOTV GOTV.
JGabriel
@WereBear:
That’s why I try to avoid arguments with Trump supporters (except occasionally online, but that’s just for shit & giggles). Any support for Trump is inherently irrational, mostly based on racial revanchism, and you can’t successfully make a rational argument against the irrational. Rationality – i.e. sense – has nothing to do with it.
That boat sailed months, years, maybe decades ago.
Ruckus
@Chris:
If we are for equality of race, gender and all the rest then stupidity has to be on the list.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Hard to get through to cultists. Even when they want to escape. They surround themselves as much as possible with other cultists so that the noise from the outside has little chance to penetrate. Any escape has multiple minefields of stupidity to run through.
This applies for scientology and tRumpism.
Aaron
Trump is Cleeks Law personified.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale:
They decide who is legal, like Karl Lueger decided who is a Jew.
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
Really? This doesn’t explain why Trump has been disavowed by many conservatives, or why so many conservative newspapers risked alienating their already dwindling readership by endorsing Hillary and in general a Democrat for the first time in their history.
If he’s just like any other conservative, then it wouldn’t matter much if he got elected. Wouldn’t he be just like the Republicans we’ve seen in the past?
But I don’t believe that for a minute. Nor do I believe that Trump’s problem is just his supposed narcissism. He is ignorant, vindictive, nasty in a way that I have not seen before in most politicians of any ideology.
trollhattan
@srv:
Heh, you called Seagal an “actor.” Adorable.
Miss Bianca
@Ian: From your mouth to God’s ear (phone banking in CO this weekend!)
@Chris: OK, that riposte wins the Internets for today!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Botsplainer: There’s always Tom Cotton and that nice Jeremy Durham from Tennessee, too. And Jodi Ernst. My money is on Cotton. Of course, the secretary of state of Alabama has burst into the running by telling us yesterday that he wants to make it harder to register to vote, ’cause “just because you turned 18 doesn’t give you the right” to vote. Uh, yeah, assbag, it does We even have an amendment that says so. He also says that making it too easy to vote “cheapens” the work of those who died and got beaten half to death to get that right. It goes without saying, though I’ll say it anyway, that if he’d been there at the time, he’d have been cheering the beaters on, if not taking part himself…
Theodore Wirth
You are the man John Cole.