Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Bark louder, little dog.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

“But what about the lurkers?”

Tick tock motherfuckers!

People are complicated. Love is not.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / I’d rather be a free man in my grave

I’d rather be a free man in my grave

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I couldn’t have said it better:

This is very good too:

You know what? I don’t even care if attacking Trump hurts liberals politically. I say fucking do it anyway, on general principle.

We heard the same shit in 2004, how if we didn’t very civilly and politely bow down before the cowboy king and his mandate, we’d be doomed to never another win election. The conservatives thought they had their thousand year Reich in 2004 and they think they have one now.

They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. And they’re wrong because we’re not going roll over and take it, no matter how much Ron Fournier thinks we should.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  2. 2.

    Steve!

    I don’t even care if attacking Trump hurts liberals politically. I say fucking do it anyway, on general principle.

    Fuck yes. I will never stop hating Nazis or criticizing Trump, because both of those things are the correct things to do.

  3. 3.

    mike in dc

    We need to convey that message to Sen. Schumer, in the strongest possible terms. Of course, we only have to pass, what, two bills in order to distinguish ourselves from the GOP under Obama?

  7. 7.

    donnah

    I want every cartoonist, comedian, late night talk show host and pundit to pour it on. I want the thin-skinned asshole to be humiliated at every possible moment. I hope he lives in shaming hell and it spoils each day for him.

    He cannot tolerate being laughed at or mocked. Let’s do it.

  8. 8.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    Fuck Matt Bors too, for shitting on Clinton all through the election. He’s not talking about John Podesta anymore.

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    As I just mentioned down below, over the weekend some whiny jackass decided to scream at the cast of Hamilton in Chicago for three songs before the cops were finally able to drag him out.

    This really is classic abuser behavior — if the object of the abuse (wife, child, etc.) does something, the abuser will imitate the behavior but escalate it far beyond what’s normal. So if the abuser’s wife slaps him, he beats her unconscious because she started it.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    I don’t even care if attacking Trump hurts liberals politically. I say fucking do it anyway, on general principle.

    YES. Let them own their failure 100%.

  12. 12.

    RaflW

    Ron Fournier blocked lowly me (w/ 300 followers) on Twitter a couple years ago because I tweeted two, count ’em two, messages that poked at him a bit.

    Turns out he did me a huge favor because I never see anything retweeted from him!

  13. 13.

    Mike J

    From the previous thread, compare and contrast with first tweet:

    BBA says November 21, 2016 at 11:32 pm block
    They’re Nazi cosplayers, and not even particularly convincing ones at that. Calling them “Nazis” just makes them happy. I’d deny them even that pleasure.

  16. 16.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)

    I’m watching Charlie Rose interview Tom Friedman right now, and the only thing that I can think is if Johnny Cash’s estate can sue the Moustache of understanding and force him to wear clothing that isn’t black. And I’m wondering that if the Cash estate has no standing, does the Blue Man Group?

  22. 22.

    Lizzy L

    They’re Nazi wannabees, and they need to be ridiculed and laughed at, not put on fucking CNN, and not shamed, because they don’t feel shame. Who needs to be shamed is the news media that treats the appearance of Nazi wannabees as an occasion to play BothSidesDoIt Bingo. Trump has nazis and the Democrats have Harry Reid, who wrote a nasty letter about Donald Trump so BothSides!

    But when I say the Nazi wannabees should be ridiculed, I don’t mean they should not be taken seriously. They’re as serious as Ebola. They need to be called out and resisted every place they show their malignant heads. Not this time, motherf**kers. Not this time.

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    Was thinking about it in the car coming home this evening.

    168 years ago, my ancestors risked everything to get to this country.

    They knew what tyrants looked like. They would recognize Trump for what he is.

    I dishonor their sacrifice if i take this shit lying down, and I’m not doing that.

  25. 25.

    Bob Westal

    Just wanna say, thanks, Doug! Balloon Juice in particular needs more of the fighting spirit and less of the Doom-and-Gloom circular firing squad.Frankly, many of the posts and comments I’ve seen here and elsewhere have me ready to spend a little quality at wherever it is that Kanye West checked himself into. Less gloom, more fight, please! Despair is, and will always be, the enemy.

  27. 27.

    Bailey

    And they’re wrong because we’re not going roll over and take it, no matter how much Ron Fournier thinks we should.

    For what it’s worth, Ron Fournier—at least on Twitter, and at least at the moment–seems to not be rolling over at all and is pushing back hard. For now.

  28. 28.

    jacy

    Fuck them all. Trump and every single person who voted for him. Mock them, ridicule them. Never normalize it. They need to own it all, every day.

  32. 32.

    RaflW

    So here’s something I’d like us to consider: we need to press the Sunday shows to have Evan McMullen in regular rotation on their shows. He’s kinda perfect for them: conservative, former CIA, ran for President.
    I say kinda perfect because he isn’t a grifter, which seems to rank people higher with the bookers, but he’s independent-conservative in a way that should appeal to them.
    But he also knows the score (his twitter acct is on fire), and isn’t taking one iota of Trump’s bullshit.
    Sorry to drop this and go, but I need sleep. Now.
    G’night y’all.

  33. 33.

    Lizzy L

    @burnspbesq: Yes. I was thinking the same thing today. My great-grandparents escaped pogroms and vicious persecution to come to this country. They knew what Cossacks looked like. Fucking Trump was made an honorary Cossack two days after the election. He can choke on it.

  34. 34.

    GrandJury

    Hillary up by over 2.6million votes has kind of put the wind back in my sails. She has gotten about the same number of votes as Obama did in 2012. Pours a lot cold water on the Sandernistas and wingnuts arguments.

    Yea, it’s all academic at this point but I don’t care.

  35. 35.

    Bailey

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Oh, go blow a goat.

    Oh, look it’s that guy who has absolutely nothing of value to contribute at any time, showing off his amazing intellect again. Hi, you!

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @GrandJury:

    Nate Silver ‏@ NateSilver538 3h3 hours ago
    Clinton, despite substantial Electoral College loss, may win popular vote by a similar margin to Bush ’04, who claimed to have a mandate…

  37. 37.

    Bailey

    @GrandJury:

    Hillary up by over 2.6million votes has kind of put the wind back in my sails. She has gotten about the same number of votes as Obama did in 2012. So it’s pouring a lot cold water on the Sandernistas and wingnut arguments as well. Yea, there are more voters now but still kills most of the arguments that she couldn’t energize the base.

    Yea, it’s all academic at this point but I don’t care.

    She’s not up by 2.6 million votes. About 1.7 million as far as I can tell.

    Voter turnout as a percentage of voting population was a 20-year low this year.

  41. 41.

    Lizzy L

    And in other news, there’s this from the NYT:

    A panel of three federal judges said on Monday that the Wisconsin Legislature’s 2011 redrawing of State Assembly districts to favor Republicans was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, the first such ruling in three decades of pitched legal battles over the issue.

    It won’t change anything now, but it could have a huge impact in 2020. Someone has come up with a mathematical formula to measure partisanship in a gerrymandered district. This appears to be a BFD.

    That’s assuming we have an election in 2020.

  42. 42.

    Bailey

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hi, you too. How well are you paid?

    I could point out how consistently wrong you are on just about everything for free. The fact that you like to keep publicly announcing yourself at how wrong you consistently are is just bonus for me.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @Lizzy L:

    California law changed a few years ago to require nonpartisan redistricting and we are now a liberal blue state from top to bottom at the state level.

    This is not a coincidence.

  47. 47.

    Bailey

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Not an answer.

    Hmmmm….either:

    1. You can’t read for comprehension (that’s truly possible)
    2. You are too distracted by your goat-fucking which was clearly top of mind for you, that you missed it
    3. You are irretrievably stupid.

    Take your pick.

  49. 49.

    GrandJury

    @Bailey: The story I read was that she had the same number of votes as Obama did in 2012. I thought it was 2.6 but I guess it’s 1.6. Maybe up to 1.7 now. With any luck it could get up to 2.

  50. 50.

    Bailey

    @efgoldman:

    Looking in the mirror, are we?

    Oh, damn, son, you just stung me with some sweet variation of the old “I’m rubber, you’re glue” argument. Sick, sick burn.

  51. 51.

    Tom Q

    @Bailey: Numbers aren’t final yet; there are millions more to come from Clinton-rich CA. Wait till they’re all in before making comparisons.

  57. 57.

    TriassicSands

    @GrandJury:

    I still haven’t heard of any journalist asking Trump about his claim that the “Electoral College is a disaster” for American democracy.

    You’d think that it would be interesting to hear his opinion now since without the EC he’d still be nothing but a reality show clown.

    I guess it’s too “dangerous” to ask Trump such an impertinent question. After all, access.

  58. 58.

    GrandJury

    @Omnes Omnibus: Can someone here with admin access please ban this idiot. Clearly this person has some sort of mental instability.

    It’s like this comment board is the only thing this loser lives for to be so obsessed by what I have to say….lol.

  59. 59.

    Bailey

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Okay. What and who was the winning play this year? Support it with data. Or go blow a goat.

    I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m so distracted by your fascination with ruminant fellatio. Jesus, have you spoken to anyone about this?

  64. 64.

    Bailey

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Not an answer.

    Hey goat-fucker, question for you: how smug and up your own ass do you have to be to even suggest that you’re laying out intelligence worth paying some poster to infiltrate? Do you really think there’s high value in diving deep into an echo chamber of neoliberal group think? Do you honestly think you’re worth paying for? I’ve seen some crazy delusion on display, but this is possibly the most inane of all. That you think you are saying something, anything, of value that would be worth a ticket to admission.

    Back to your animal fascinations.

  65. 65.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bailey: Looking in the mirror again, are you? I see efg beat me to it.

    The nothingness, and yet the self-importance, of you!I’m not sure a goat would hold still long enough for you to blow it. They have a low tolerance for bullshit, goats.

  66. 66.

    GrandJury

    @MisterForkbeard: Maybe that’s where I got that number from.

    Fells kinda good. Every time they throw Dr. Orange in my face I can just hang that number around their necks. “She won by 2.6million votes my wingnut friend”. Maybe taunt them with that “no mandate” bullshit they always throw at us when Dems don’t win a supermajority….or even when they do.

  67. 67.

    Bailey

    @Miss Bianca:

    Looking in the mirror again, are you?

    They sure don’t get too much smarter here. Are you able to even slightly differentiate your comments from previous posters? No? Just parroting nonsense? Okay, then. (PS – How’s your anger management problem going these days?)

  70. 70.

    Bailey

    @efgoldman:

    You were a troll last spring, you were a troll last summer, you were a troll last fall, and you’re still a troll.
    You’re like the one klown in marching band who steps off on the wrong foot and argues that s/he’s right, and the other 100 people are wrong.
    Protip: when you invade a space full of regulars who’ve been around long enough to remember when Cole was a Republiklown, and were talking to each other while you were still learning to spell your name, it’s like walking into a bar or a party full of people who all know each other, enjoy speaking with each other, and don’t care to be interrupted by a puerile 12-year old.
    Run along now, boring mindless child. Go indulge your masturbatory fantasies that you told US off, dammit!

    Wait, to be clear, you’re the 70-year-old? (I mean, throwing forth truly childish responses, but seriously? Eight decades on earth and this is it?)

    (PS–I really don’t care much about your decade-long circle jerk, however proud of that you are.)

  71. 71.

    Ron

    Trump won because his jibes were persuasive. When he called Jeb “low energy”, it clicked. Nothing Jeb could do short of a personality transplant would change that perception thereafter. When he named “Lying Ted”, it clicked. No amount of truth telling could change it. “Crooked Hillary” could never prove she wasn’t crooked. Calling Trump racist is something he will be able to disprove very easily with his policies, if he follows through. Calling him or his staff anti-Semitic hasn’t stuck and never will. Same with homophobic. You will have to be cleverer.

  72. 72.

    Tehanu

    Bailey, if this is such an echo chamber and we’re all useless, why are you here? We don’t hang out on the neo Nazi porn sites you obviously learned your writing skills from.

  73. 73.

    Bailey

    @Tehanu:

    Bailey, if this is such an echo chamber and we’re all useless, why are you here?

    Because I’m actually interested in winning elections in the future. That will require a whole lot of less “Democrats” holding themselves in their own high regard in echo chambers.

    We don’t hang out on the neo Nazi porn sites you obviously learned your writing skills from.

    Um…you know the quality of the writing featured on Nazi porn sites because why? First the goat-fucking, now the German Scheizer Porn. Yes, this blog needs some serious airing out.

  74. 74.

    Gretchen

    @Bailey: I originally thought the idea that you were being paid was hyperbole, but considering your remarkable persistence while having absolutely nothing to contribute, wins me over. With EF Goldman, I wonder how much they have to pay you to spend your evenings here when you’re obviously not enjoying it.

  75. 75.

    Bailey

    @Gretchen:

    I originally thought the idea that you were being paid was hyperbole, but considering your remarkable persistence while having absolutely nothing to contribute, wins me over. With EF Goldman, I wonder how much they have to pay you to spend your evenings here when you’re obviously not enjoying it.

    1. Clearly was not hyperbole. Some brain trust here obviously thinks that’s a realistic assumption to make.
    2. Who said I wasn’t enjoying it?

  76. 76.

    Peanut Gallery

    @efgoldman:

    You were a troll last spring, you were a troll last summer, you were a troll last fall, and you’re still a troll.

    Indeed. A Troll For All Seasons.

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Mnemosyne: What I like about that is that their choice was not to gerrymander the state to the hilt for Democrats. They could have done that (Democrats certainly do it elsewhere; Republican ascendancy in gerrymandering exists mostly because they happened to have more state legislatures at the moment when really good software tools became available). But that way lies madness. I hope that once the nonpartisan commission gets established at the state level, it sticks through any party transitions that occur.

  78. 78.

    Darkrose

    @RaflW: Yes. Also David Frum. In this case, the enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but we can still make common cause.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Darkrose: Frum has, in the past, been sympathetic to Trumpian nativism when it comes to European governments. I’m not convinced he’s reliable. One terrorist incident and he probably flips.

  81. 81.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    You know what? I don’t even care if attacking Trump hurts liberals politically. I say fucking do it anyway, on general principle.

    A big hell yes.

    Just don’t play the fucking victim. Make them scream and howl while your the cool one. You hurt hide it. When they hurt, gloat.

    Dress like Donald Trump and scream insults at him. It’s absurd and dumb and that’s the point, Trump is absurd and dumb.

  82. 82.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Further, keep in mind these people are bullies – they are scared of someone who is willing to fight back. It’s like that “Fuck your feelings” t-shirt couple – they basically stating “I will break down and cry if anyone talked to me the way I want to talk to them”

  83. 83.

    LAC

    @Bailey: “hi you?” You waving in the mirror now? Because unless this about WWC “economic anxiety” , what the everliving frig are you contributing here?

  84. 84.

    Citizen_X

    @Matt McIrvin: Just Johnny. Who, admittedly, was the band leader and kept the whole shebang together all those years. But Joey was openly liberal, and sometimes seemed to write lyrics meant to needle Johnny. (Who also stole his girlfriend, which was another source of friction.)

  85. 85.

    LAC

    @Bailey: and seeing that all you do is repeat the same tired fucking lines in every goddamn thread, the irony, like your skull, is thick. I tried with you earlier, but I can see that you are just another troll. In time for thanksgiving, I would love the pie filter recipe so that I can never see your needy ass on my screen. Link anyone?

  86. 86.

    Bailey

    @LAC:

    “hi you?” You waving in the mirror now? Because unless this about WWC “economic anxiety” , what the everliving frig are you contributing here?

    Trying to determine what person would go through the tortured effort of using a phrase like “everliving frig”—particularly when the topic of the thread is courage in fighting back.

  87. 87.

    Justin

    Lots of great points made here and I look forward to putting up a relentless, unyielding front of resistance for the next 4 years. One question for the OP and some commenters here, re: “You know what? I don’t even care if attacking Trump hurts liberals politically. I say fucking do it anyway, on general principle.” This is the part I don’t quite get. I mean, I DON’T think attacking Trump hurts liberals politically, so I’m all for it, absolutely 100%. But what do people mean when they say they don’t care if it hurts us politically? Is that meant literally? Are people here seriously saying they don’t care whether we win or lose? I’m sorry if I’m being obtuse and I do have a tendency to interpret things overly literally, so I apologize if this is an annoying question, but it’s kind of throwing me for a loop and I would appreciate some clarification. I’m a “winning matters a lot” kind of guy, and I know there are some people who aren’t on that page and it always sort of confuses me, especially given that, well, not winning is the whole reason we’re in this awful position in the first place. Hope I’m not stepping on any toes with this question.

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