Earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, through his spokesperson, told Buzzfeed they plan to reintroduce an embattled bill that barely gained a House hearing in 2015. But this time around, they said, the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) was likely to succeed due to a Republican-controlled House and the backing of President-elect Donald Trump.
FADA would prohibit the federal government from taking “discriminatory action” against any business or person that discriminates against LGBTQ people. The act distinctly aims to protect the right of all entities to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on two sets of beliefs: “(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”
Ironically, the language of the bill positions the right to discriminate against one class of Americans as a “first amendment” right, and bans the government from taking any form of action to curb such discrimination—including withholding federal funds from institutions that discriminate. FADA allows individuals and businesses to sue the federal government for interfering in their right to discriminate against LGBTQ people and would mandate the Attorney General defend the businesses.
On December 9, Sen. Lee’s spokesperson, Conn Carroll, told Buzzfeed the election of Trump had cleared a path for the passage of FADA.
“Hopefully November’s results will give us the momentum we need to get this done next year,” Carroll said. “We do plan to reintroduce FADA next Congress and we welcome Trump’s positive words about the bill.”
It’s time for us to revisit something.
Yarrow
This is only the first step.
Big Ole Hound
The “jesus freaks” are trying to make sure we all bow before their bible. NFW
Nora
From his grave, George Orwell is shouting, “Damn it, I didn’t write 1984 as an instruction manual!”
Villago Delenda Est
These people want civil war. That’s what they want.
Fuck them all.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Fuck them forever. They dedicate their lives to making innocent people miserable. I wish there was a hell for these assholes to go to (a sentiment that I did not feel before this election).
rikyrah
This is who they are.
Phuck every last voter for Cheeto Benito.
PHUCK YOU.
Yarrow
Hey! Does this mean that liberal entities can point at people and say, “You’re having sex outside marriage! I refuse service!” It’s not like they have to prove anything to refuse service to people. Just decide that’s what these people “look like” and send them on their way.
clay
Don’cha see? It’s not “identity politics”; it’s “economic anxiety”.
It’s just that “economic anxiety” means “anxiety that LGBTQ people might want to be a part of the economy”.
rikyrah
I argue that the entire Clown Car had no interest in actually DOING THE WORK.
Trump Wanted to Win the Presidency, Not Be President
by Nancy LeTourneau
December 21, 2016 3:28 PM
Let’s remind ourselves of a few things we’ve learned about Donald Trump over the last year or so. First of all, from Tony Schwartz (the ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal), we learned that the president-elect has no attention span for anything unrelated to himself.
That probably has a lot to do with why Paul Manafort – who was acting as his campaign manager at the time – said this in response to a question about what Trump would be looking for in a running mate:
During the campaign we also saw how the driving force for what motivates much of Trump’s behavior is his worldview that he must either dominate or is dominated.
schrodingers_cat
@Villago Delenda Est: They cannot be reasoned with.
rikyrah
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I hear you.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: He’s going to do the ceremonial stuff but none of the day-to-day stuff. We’ll see how well that works. I think it could wear a little thin rather quickly. One big crisis and it could all fall apart.
Brachiator
Oh, goody. Can we stone adulterers now?
Or better, exercise our 2nd Amendment rights and shoot ’em?
Yarrow
@Brachiator: I don’t think it even has to be proven. Just suspected.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s what they’ll fucking get. Good and hard.
rikyrah
WHY aren’t the DEMS pointing this out.
WHY aren’t they doing some sort of ad, going around that area, looking for unemployed AMERICANS that are being denied these jobs at Trump Winery?
Trump vineyard asks to have more foreign workers: report
BY JENNIFER CALFAS – 12/21/16 08:14 PM EST
A Virginia winery owned by President-elect Donald Trump’s son is seeking more foreign workers, according to a new report.
The Department of Labor petitioned for the winery, called Trump Vineyard Estates, to bring in six foreign workers using the federal government’s temporary work visa program known as H-2, BuzzFeed reported on Wednesday.
Brachiator
@clay:
Actually, a lot of the right wing don’t mind if gay people are part of the economy, as long as they are quiet and closeted. They just don’t want them to be formally accepted by and to be able to participate in society, or ever to be accepted as equal citizens.
BTW, I would really be curious to hear how Log Cabin Republicans defend these outrageous attacks on LGBTQ people.
tobie
@rikyrah:
We’re a leaderless party at the moment. That’s why.
hovercraft
That is so true, but to rebut the evil of the FADA, it’s hateful supporters, I am re-posting this from the last thread. New Yorkers showing who we are. Watch out for the onions, and allergens, they will cause your eyes to water.
Nora
@Brachiator: I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do both those things. Do we even need to claim we have a deep religious belief? I don’t think so.
And there’s a TON more about adultery than about homosexuality in the Bible. Also divorce. There are a LOT of people out there who should be refused service because they are divorced. Deep religious belief in the inerrancy of the Bible requires that we shun anyone who’s been divorced. And probably stone them if they commit adultery with other people to whom they were not originally married.
Hey, it’s their game, not mine. They want to play it that way, let’s go.
Weaselone
@Yarrow:
I think “You’re having sex with farm animals outside of marriage! I refuse service!” sounds better.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Why did the media not check whether T’s various holdings were upholding immigration laws?
Seanly
@Yarrow:
Yes, that is one of the intended issues with the bill. I think a bill in Mississippi (or was it Florida? Alabama?) died due to the same issue – it wasn’t just against LGBTQ but also unmarried couples.
As reprehensible as all of this is, it gets worse in my mind. I think it also institutes the perception of the discriminator as the arbiter. So if I go out to dinner with a fellow male we could be denied service whether we’re actually a couple or not. If my wife & I go to check into a hotel, would we need to have our marriage certificate with us or would our matching last names on our papers be proof enough? I would bet that this would get used to codify miscegenation.
The article also discusses the religious lawsuit against it – the law can be interpreted to saying that the proper religious view is to discriminate against LGBTQ and unmarried persons.
I can’t stand these hateful asshats.
This is just a horrible, horrible bill on many different levels.
kindness
Who is going to ask The Republican Log Cabin about their reaction to this? I for one want to know.
SenyorDave
@rikyrah: WHY aren’t the DEMS pointing this out.
WHY aren’t they doing some sort of ad, going around that area, looking for unemployed AMERICANS that are being denied these jobs at Trump Winery?A Virginia winery owned by President-elect Donald Trump’s son is seeking more foreign workers, according to a new report.
Completely agree, this should be a talking point for every Democrat on the Sunday shows, should be a radio ad, should even be a fucking television ad. Just once I’d like to see the Democrats play hardball. Start playing this sort of hypocrisy up, begin with Ohio.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
The thought..
The mere thought…
that ANYONE other than a WHITE MALE
could utter this about the PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA..
and, be taken seriously……
WHITE PRIVILEGE.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
At first I was willing to not demonize his voters as pure evil, but every day they loo on as this evil takes a tighter and tighter grip on our country, and they say nothing, in fact it’s worse, they are cheering him on. So fuck em, they are just as evil as he is, I don’t care if they are stupid or naïve, they are going to get screwed even worse by him than we are, but they deserve it. Some of them are willfully blind, but the majority are just happy that he is screwing the people they hate, all in some never gonna happen quest to take their country back. Too late assholes, we’re here, we have a voice, and you may have won (stolen) this round, but this too shall pass. We have survived far worse than anything you can do to us now.
No sympathy for these morons.
Percysowner
@Brachiator:
“Do I get to pay less taxes? Then I can live with being treated as less than human. Plus I can call people n***ers, and c**ts. And I can make sure that women are lower status than me. All in all it’s a win.”
Honestly, I’m becoming more and more convinced that as long as they can degrade “lesser” people (either because of race, gender or religion) they honestly don’t care if their life goes to hell or if Trump kills the world. At least they’ll go out feeling superior.
Spanky (ex P-man)
Hmmm. Once upon a time we referred to Daily Kos as the Great Orange Satan (GOS). Nowadays the term is overloaded.
Anyway, from the WaPo by way of the aforementioned GOS:
It’s all smoke and bullshit with the Mango Mussolini.
patrick II
This. Republicans pracitce identity politics when the want to treat different groups such as women, gays, blacks, differently. Democrats want to treat people, when possible, in an egalitarian manner — as equals. What republicans call democratic identity politics is a reaction to their actual intolerance and identity politics and is our attempt to give everyone justice and the same opportunities. Call it aspirational non-identity politics.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
The irony of course is that ‘Red’ states have higher rates of teen pregnancies, STD’s, abortions, divorce, and basically every metric there is of sex outside of marriage. I’m not saying that we don’t have out of wedlock sex here in the ‘Blue’ states, just that when we do, we know enough to do it much more safely than they do. We believe that arming people with information reduces the chances of unwanted consequences. These moral crusaders don’t mind that people are being punished for their immoral behavior, even though they have no problem availing themselves of abortion services when they get in trouble, they just want to spread their stupidity to our godless states. No thanks, if I wanted to live in Mississippi I’d move there.
Brachiator
@Percysowner:
I don”t know. That’s why I would be curious to hear what they actually would say, not a projection of what we think they believe or would say.
SenyorDave
@Brachiator: BTW, I would really be curious to hear how Log Cabin Republicans defend these outrageous attacks on LGBTQ people.
I go to their Facebook pages sometimes, and they are easily able to rationalize supporting a party that actively demonizes them. Partially the taxes thing, but also they will take the few GOP legislators that don’t consider them subhuman and act like “both sides do it”, since you can find some Democrats who are anti gay rights. Bunch of kapos, IMO (and I don’t use that word lightly, being Jewish myself).
Yarrow
@Seanly:
What about spouses who don’t have the same last name? Even Ivanka Trump didn’t change her name.
@rikyrah: It’s not just white privilege, but specifically white male privilege. Hillary is white but no way she could ever do something like that. It’s reserved for white men only.
LAO
@patrick II: In law school, I was taught that “he who frames the issue, wins.” I’m perpetually gobsmacked that we (the left) let the right define equality as “political correctness” or identity politics. I don’t know how to fix this — it seems like the RWNJ always beat us to the message.
greennotGreen
On John’s revisitation: I think they hate us because they fear us. Their world view isn’t based on an objective reality but on a comforting (to them) ideology. Other people being able to thrive, love, grow while not obeying the rules of their ideology shakes them to their core.
Yarrow
Saw this headline:
That means it’s working, people. Keep it up.
tpherald
The entire Trump administration’s chief policy goal for the next 4 years will simply be guided by this principle: do whatever makes Libs, Dems and MSM the most unhappy. Full stop.
Weaselone
@rikyrah:
A white male democrat wouldn’t be able to get away with saying this crap despite his White Male Privilege. You have to be a White or Orange Male Republican to get away with this type of statement. Much like no democrat could get away with the slogan “Make American Great Again”.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@LAO: They own the media, and the medium is the message.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Brachiator:
Do Log Cabin Republicans function with a self-loathing dynamic or are they mostly greedy gay people who dig the Republican “protect the rich” mantra? Or are they something else? I genuinely don’t know. And I don’t mean to suggest they’re a monolithic group, but they aren’t millions in number. I am confused.
Mnemosyne
Your ad algorithm is ON POINT this morning: I’m getting a Nissan ad with a big rainbow that says “Nissan supports EQUALITY on every road you travel.”
I don’t need a car, but Imma click on that one as a reward.
Tokyokie
@hovercraft: I say we stone the adulterers, starting with der Trumpenführer and the Salamander.
Seriously, Democrats during the floor debate on this atrocity should start naming names of EVERY Republican supporter who’s ever been accused or suspected of gay or straight hanky-panky. And if that means outing a few closeted GOPers, too bad.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@LAO: keep in mind, LAO, that when we do call such actions hate-based or refer to its practitioners as deplorables, we’re utterly lambasted.
sherparick1
If you live in the 3rd District of Illinois, you might want to attend your Congressman Dan Lipinski’s townhall on January 7 at Oak Lawn Community high school and ask him why he is co-sponsoring this atrocity and what he has to say to his LBGT
constituents who will be reduced to second class status and get health care benefits for their family members.
According to former Congressman Steve Israel, nothing gets a Congressman’s attention then being addressed by a few hundred people at a townhall event.
https://lipinski.house.gov/press-releases/lipinski-invites-third-district-residents-to-upcoming-town-hall-meeting/wo%5Bn
azlib
If I recall, it seems the Supremes decided this issue with their LGBTQ ruling on marriage or am I missing something here?
sherparick1
@West of the Rockies (been a while): They are mostly greedy gay people who love low taxes more than they love their civil rights.
? Martin
@Seanly:
That’s how it used to work in China. I used to have a side hobby of forging marriage certificates for friends traveling to China – either to document that they were married or to document that neither of them was born in Taiwan.
Betty Cracker
Hate merchants indeed. When I asked one dimwit of my acquaintance who voted for Trump why he supported stripping family members of their rights as American citizens, he said Trump himself doesn’t hate “the gays,” so he wouldn’t sign legislation to that effect. Mo. Ron. Of course he fucking will. As some genius on Twitter put it, we’re in for a Pence presidency combined with a Trump Twitter account — the worst of both worlds. God, I hate these motherfuckers. They should all die in a fire.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Right wing zealots believe that proper “values” will solve all problems. In this, they ironically resemble those zealots who insist that adherence to Sharia law is the answer to everything.
sherparick1
@Yarrow: Yep, with so much help from Trump and the Trumpkins themselves, it is back firing so well that Trump has lowest approval rating in a transition in history. http://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-approval-rating-lowest-of-last-3-incoming-presidents-2016-12
Lizzy L
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I’ve met some Log Cabin Republicans. In my experience they are male, white, and wealthy, and like many (not all) rich people they believe a lot of the classic conservative mythology. I’ve got no time for any of them. One note: there are very very few of them.
LAO
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I know — that’s insane — we have let them (the right) control the political narrative and rendered our (the left) complaints and criticism as shrill.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: Smart businesses long ago realized that a gay dollar counts as profit just the same as a straight dollar. That genie’s not going back in the bottle.
Weaselone
@LAO:
Of course they do. The right dominates the means of getting out the message. The left can’t frame something effectively because the Republican framing gets repeated half a dozen times for each time the Dem framing is repeated. Let’s apply this to a court case. It’s like the prosecution gets to present their case 6 times. The defense is permitted to present their case only once. The defense is only allowed to object during one of the prosecution’s turns. The defense has 1 minute for their closing argument. The prosecution has unlimited time.
El Caganer
Since Pence is actually going to be running the country (MAGA Man will be too busy holding rallies around the country), this shit will be the norm. No doubt Pence is totally on board with this POS legislation.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Ooh! I love it when you talk all rhetorical-questionny like that!
hovercraft
@Nora:
Francine Prose in the Guardian is pointing to a different Orwell prediction.
Truth is evaporating before our eyes
schrodingers_cat
@Seanly: My husband and I don’t have the same last name, so do we have to show our marriage certificate to show that we are married?
David Hunt
@Tokyokie:
I guess I’m not up on current nicknames. Which one of the deplorables is the “Salamander?”
schrodingers_cat
@David Hunt:I am guessing Newt.
Yarrow
@El Caganer: Trump still has to sign the legislation into law or sign the signing statement or whatever. Pence can’t do that for him. They can put all the crappy legislation in front of him they want he still has to sign it. If there’s enough uproar about it, Trump’s need to be loved is going to be a stumbling block to getting him to sign it. Depends what it is, of course, but his need to be loved and respected is a big weakness. Let’s use it.
J.
@Nora: There’s now a sequel in the works with the working title “2017.”
RoonieRoo
Honestly this is the thing that I’m most worried about. Medicare, SS, all the other rot has me pretty sick but this one freaks me out the most. The main reason is that my favorite cousin, whom I adore, and her wife, who is my favorite family spouse are gay. I am completely torn up over this on their behalf. These two women are the sweetest, most amazing people who have been together (married as soon as they could) for over 20 years. Their marriage/relationship is more solid than a lot of heterosexuals I know. I’ve been privately making sure I have a plan in case things turn sideways to help them.
The potential threat to my cousin is part of why I’m not able to deal with any Trump voters in a civilized manner regardless of their personal views. Their personal views on LGBTQ doesn’t matter as they knew what they were voting in.
Brachiator
@SenyorDave:
Of course, this is especially stupid since the official Democratic Party platform is not anti-gay. It is a sad, stupid dodge to try to suggest “both sides do it” just because you can find a bigoted Democratic politician.
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Don’t know. And I don’t look to them for any coherent policy positions. But it has got to be … I don’t know … weird, odd, insane, to support politicians who would demonize you and those you love.
? Martin
California will fight this.
David Hunt
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, of course. obvious once it’s pointed out.
Yarrow
@hovercraft:
That’s all well and good until bridges collapse or houses that never flooded begin flooding all the time. They can argue the reason why, but people won’t go across a bridge that isn’t there. People will move from places that flood too often. At some level a fact is a fact.
Alesis
Opposing ” identity politics” as a principle is simply a restatement of an age old playground bullying rule.
“No fair hitting back”
? Martin
Hold on – does that include grabbing women by the püssy or not?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@LAO:
Yup. They complain with righteous indignation; we’re whiny social justice warriors.
They just want their country back; we’re engineering social change based on political correctness.
They’re just so tired of being shamed for saying exactly what grumpy grampy used to say at the old pickle barrel; we’re the thought police.
We gotta change the damn narrative!
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
North Carolina is willingly sacrificing its economy in order to retain anti-gay bigotry in its very recent refusal to reconsider its idiotic bathroom law.
hovercraft
@sherparick1:
Why are posting links to polls that are wrong? The polls all said that Hillary was going to win, they were all WRONG, Hair Furor WON, in the biggest LANDSLIDE evah ! America is ecstatic about the result of the election, they have taken their country back from the liberal elites and given it back to the people.
Tokyokie
@David Hunt: The Newt. I believe he was the first person in his family to be named for a vertebrate.
Alesis
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Absolutely and it starts by not apologizing for what we believe in. We believe in justice. In equal opportunity in action it just in words.
The Thin Black Duke
@Yarrow: Reality Doesn’t Bullshit.
trollhattan
@LAO:
Conservative brains are wired different and respond best to simple ideas, not nuance. That’s how a guy whose platform fits on a hat was just elected. Frank Lutz figured this out awhile back.
HeleninEire
@hovercraft: This
Spanky (ex P-man)
@hovercraft:
Newt said that? Did anyone not point out when the last time Mr. Candidate actually won an election?
Clem
What we really need is to expand and greatly strengthen our nuclear arsenal until the world comes to its senses–Donald Trump’s latest twitfit.
rikyrah
@sherparick1:
Thanks for this.
Tokyokie
@Brachiator: I always thought the Log Cabin Republicans (and the name itself conjures images of rough sex in a shack without utilities) accepted all facets of the GOP platform except, you know, the parts about how they want to exterminate gays. And if you’re gay, and one party wants to exterminate you, then pretty much all the rest of the platform doesn’t mean shit, no matter how deeply your taxes are cut. They make about as much sense as Jews for Hitler.
amygdala
@Brachiator: Adulterers? There may be a few prominent Republican politicians in that group, no?
? Martin
@Brachiator: Fine. We’ll take those jobs and spending in California.
Mike in Pasadena
Perhas the bill should require business owners who want to discriminate against certain others to post a sign clearly stating that they refuse service to gay people. I do not want to give hard-earned cash to such business owners. If somebody else already posted this earlier, my apologies. I have not read the whole thread.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@? Martin: Not so fast. I’ve come up with a new slogan for my state:
ETA: Obviously we’ve got the added advantage of advertising right in the local (DC) market where Congresscritters can’t avoid it.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
For physical structures maybe, but as the New York woman in the article says, “it depends on where you get your facts.” We are at the point where the definition of the word “fact” itself is at issue. Then again we still have a sizable portion of our population that disputes the fact that the primary reason for the Civil War was in fact slavery. The great recession was caused by Bill Clinton forcing banks to lend money to black people, and Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya-Indonesia (new country). Facts are ephemeral.
Villago Delenda Est
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Log Cabin Repugs are basically your Kapos for the Vernichtungslagern for fags that Pence wants to set up.
bjacques
@Tokyokie: They’ll be executed last, but if a lynch mob turns up because they didn’t get the memo, hey, what happens, happens.To be safe, the LCRs should wear a badge to identify themselves–something triangular, maybe.
For the GOP, reality is automatically the opposite of what liberals say. It’s time to start talking up again the dangers of cleaning your gun while drunk and texting in your car that’s idling in a closed garage. For extra laughs, suggest it’s not wise to invest in low-lying beachfront property in the Gulf of Mexico.
Bobby D
@sherparick1: Hmm. His Chief of Staff is a very close friend of mine from our college days. He worked for Cynthia McKinney right out of college, then some other positions on the Hill after McKinney was out of Congress. Oddball trivia, he’s ( the COS) from Newtown, CT (and I’ve been there with him, which made that school shooting especially difficult to get my head around). Might be time to make a phone call.
JMG
@hovercraft: People will believe what they believe, which is why con artistry is the world’s second oldest profession. But the rules of the game allow reality to have the last at-bats. Always.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
Well, it would certainly take care of a lot of Rethuglican “leadership,” from top to bottom.
The Thin Black Duke
@hovercraft:
Until the next Katrina happens. Do you want to bet that Trump brings back Mr. “Heck of a Job, Brownie”?
SFAW
@Brachiator:
Why? You know they will, what does it matter how they twist their “logic” to accommodate their self-destructive behaviors. (“Behaviors” meaning support for Rethuglicans, of course.)
? Martin
@Spanky (ex P-man): That’s catchy. You need a jingle.
WereBear
I think they have come out of the closet enough to declare themselves as gay; but still wish to conform to that country club image Republicans like to all pretend they are.
My gay friends consider them still partly closeted, on this basis. They want to be something they are not and will never be.
debbie
Shame on people like my family members who, as good Jews, know it is wrong to discriminate against anyone, yet will likely support this bill which legitimizes the right of some to discriminate against others. Fucking hypocrites, all.
SFAW
@azlib:
After Trump names Newtie or Roy Moore to SCOTUS, they’ll be seeing the mulligan with a year or two.
Which reminds me of the fucking moron Dem voter interviewed by NPR a week before the election, who demanded that Hillary supporters give her a reason to vote for Hillary, other than “SCOTUS” and “fear of Shitgibbon.” If I recall, she was still “well, I don’t know …. I just have CONCERNS about Hillary.” I hope that fucking moron is the first one executed per the Cruz/Lee law. Fucking moron.
NR
@SFAW: Keep blaming voters instead of the candidate and the party. After all, it’s been working out so well, why stop now?
Yarrow
@hovercraft: That’s why at some level I’m glad they own all the government now. Let everyone see what it’s like. I’m not really happy about it – it’s terrible and we’ll all suffer. But at least it’s something. Maybe we can make something from it. There’s a ton more opposition to them now than there was in 2000. I’m slightly encouraged by that.
James E Powell
@Yarrow:
How is that any different from the Bush/Cheney Junta? I don’t recall him doing any day to day preznitin’
SFAW
@hovercraft:
I KNEW there was a simple explanation. Don’t you “people” feel bad about doing that to the country? [“People” is in quotes because I don’t know how to truncate “people” to three-fifths of it — it’d be something like 3.6 letters.]
Is Katrina your fault, too? I mean, it was Obama’s fault, and all blacks are alike, so …
Oh, wait .. wasn’t Katrina the fault of Teh Gheys? I can never keep it straight in my mind which hated-by-wingtards group is responsible for each particular crisis.
And the worst part of all this is that, in two years — assuming we still exist — we’ll look back and say “And we thought THEN that it couldn’t get much worse. Boy, were we wrong.”
hovercraft
What the lynching memorial will force us all to face
By Jonathan Capehart
December 21 at 2:45 PM
In the acclaimed documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” director Raoul Peck takes the words from an unfinished book by legendary author James Baldwin and gives them life in the voice of actor Samuel L. Jackson. And there is a jarring moment in this stunning 93-minute examination of race in the United States that has stayed with me since I saw it at a screening last month.
A rosy-cheeked, perfectly coiffed Doris Day frets in her kitchen with champagne glasses and a bottle of bubbly in the 1961 movie “Lover Come Back” while a sentimental song about love plays in the background. But as the lush music continues, the scene fades to a succession of harrowing black-and-white photos of lynched black men and a black woman. What made these gruesome murders all the more grotesque were the white onlookers posing for pictures under trees festooned with “strange fruit.” Those faces peer back at you as Jackson speaks Baldwin’s powerful words.
You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming something monstrous yourselves. And, furthermore, you give me a terrifying advantage. You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
……..“I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about slavery, are afraid to talk about lynching and segregation because they fear they will be punished,” Stevenson said on “PBS NewsHour” on Dec. 19. “We don’t have an interest in punishing America for this history, but we don’t believe we can be free until we acknowledge this history.”
………“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America,” Jackson says, employing the eloquent words of Baldwin. “It’s not a pretty story.” But it is a troubling and complex one we all must know and do a better job of understanding…….
Lizzy L
@NR: Please just go away.
Dear All: Can we not turn this thread into the 2,374th rehash of the election? BORING, and it attracts the trolls. Please.
mai naem mobile
@SFAW: I want Moore in the Senate. This country might be majority ChriStian but Roy Moore would be the total poster boy of the GOP to run against.He looks and sounds like a crooked sheriff from the South in a Hollywood flick. Especially with Lumpy in the WH,people are not going to want another angry old white man in the Senate.
Yarrow
In case anyone missed this. From the morning thread.
Trump voters are super educated about where their candidates stand on the issues. How could they have know? It’s not like Trump and Pence and all the other Republicans talked about doing this at all. it’s a complete shocker.
Cacti
Senators Cruz and Sanders agree that identity politics are bad.
The horseshoe theory strikes again.
Yarrow
@James E Powell: I think the difference is that Bush seemed to have an ideology. No one knows what Trump believes.
SFAW
@NR:
Fuck off, Nearly Russian.
Hillary got 2.5-plus million more votes than your boy did. And it’s always been tough to fight cheaters, because they always find new ways to cheat before the protectors can catch up.
James E Powell
@hovercraft:
I heard/read more of them blaming Jimmy Carter and, for reasons that made sense to them but no one else, Barney Frank.
SFAW
@mai naem mobile:
Good one! I needed some comic relief.
NR
@SFAW: “My boy” was Hillary Clinton, bud. But keep acting like everyone who doesn’t buy into your narrative is a Republican or a Russian. It’s a useful illustration that Trump supporters aren’t the only ones who live in a bubble.
Hsquared
Along with everything else, they’ll at least destroy the notion that there’s not much difference between the two paries.
Hill Dweller
The third and final installment of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ interview with President Obama is out(at The Atlantic). I highly recommend reading the entire interview, but for me, it just reinforces the stupidity of electing Trump.
SFAW
@NR:
Fuck off.
Your “boy” was Trump, as you’ve made clear with your multitudinous “I fucking hate Hitlary” comments.
hovercraft
We are responsible for all the ills that befall America and it’s true rulers the GOP. Katrina was the fault of Ray Nagin for not evacuating the city, and Kathleen Blanco (I think that’s her name), both democrats. But of course after them the two biggest culprits were the blacks, who were too lazy to not let themselves be poor with no transportation, and the gays who flaunt their gayness, and brought on the good lords wrath.
P.S. you don’t need to write that we’re 3/5 ths, everyone just knows it, it’s still there in the original constitution. Remember they are ‘originalists’.
ETA: this is a reply to @SFAW
SFAW
@Hsquared:
Another jokester!
Gin & Tonic
@James E Powell:
Because he’s a fag. Duh.
Mnemosyne
@Seanly:
That exact thing happened to my friend and her sister when they were looking for an apartment in Texas back in the early 1990s. One landlady refused to rent to them because if two women were living together, people might think they were lesbians.
It gets extra gross when I tell you that my friend and her sister looked so much alike at that point that they could use each other’s IDs. So this landlady is looking at two young women who could be twins and taking about how other people (not her, of course) would think they were lovers.
SFAW
@hovercraft:
OK. Was just trying to be helpful.
NR
@SFAW:
No, he wasn’t, and no matter how many times you repeat that line of bullshit, it won’t make it true.
Not everyone who’s unhappy with the Democratic establishment is a Trump supporter. The sooner you get that in your head, the better off you’ll be.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
You are right. Totally White Male Privilege.
They would NEVER have accepted that from anyone NOT a White Man.
SFAW
@NR:
Which is actually a pretty good assessment of your own comments.
WereBear
I remind myself this is why they are so stupid: they are afraid of their own brains.
HeleninEire
So I am sitting in a Dublin pub. Having dinner. Yeah let’s go with that. There’s a table behind me filled with a buncha 20 something drunk Dublin boys. They are trying to sing Santa Baby along with the radio and are failing miserably. I can’t stop laughing.
rikyrah
@LAO:
It’s not political correctness.
I’ll say it again…
NOBODY is taking away your freedom of speech. You can say anything you want.
you don’t want Freedom of Speech. You want FREEDOM OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF SAID SPEECH.
THAT is what they want.
Those videos going around, with the Cult 45 supporters being heinous to ‘ the others’. See, that’s what they want to be able to do, without CONSEQUENCES.
They want the possibility of ‘rolling up on the wrong one’ to be eliminated.
Naw, muthaphuckas.
NR
@SFAW: Har de har har.
LABiker
Great, now they’re going to have to find another country to hold the NCAA tournament.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
They are White men who resent that they can’t have all the privileges of White men, so they excuse anything to be in the group.
Tax cuts vs. being with people who hate your very existence….
yeah, I can see the positive in that tradeoff.
lips pursed.
hovercraft
@Yarrow:
Fuck em.
The President of the United States of America, is the most powerful person in the world, they are elected once every four years, the campaign lasts almost two years, and you couldn’t be bothered to find out basic “facts” like Mike Pence believes that you must hold a fuckin’ funeral for miscarried and aborted fetuses, and the other moron spouting shit like a woman must be “punished” for having an abortion. If you are that ignorant and uninformed, then just stay home and let the grown ups handle this.
I wonder how many of this type of moron will claim by the time that this is all done, that they were part of the majority that voted for Hillary. This will probably be the first time ever that more voters deny that they voted for the candidate who “won.” Usually people lie after the fact to say they were on the winning side. This time they will al be running away from him.
OT The other day I mentioned an acquaintance who was pleased with the openness to his opponents and adversaries the PEOTUS has so far shown. So yesterday she was at it again, this time she was lamenting the disinformation that is everywhere, she wants a neutral news source that will just report the news, FOX is a mouthpiece/cheerleader for him according to her, and CNN is just a mouthpiece for his critics, all they do is criticize him. Why can’t there just be straight news. But hey she’s not a supporter, she didn’t vote for him. I believe her, totally.
WASF
MomSense
Ted Cruz and the rest of the Talibangelicals hate us for our freedom.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@WereBear:
Consider this
stolenappropriated.greennotGreen
@Hsquared: A woman who does some part time work for me has railed repeatedly about how all politicians are liars, there’s no difference between parties, Hillary lied just as much as Trump. I replied, no, Hillary barely lied at all, Trump lies all the time. “Well, she lied about her email.” I said, “Not understanding servers and technical issues is not the same as lying.” She: “Well, they’ve been after her for years; there must be something there.” I countered, “Jews have been targeted for centuries, from the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust…” Then she said, “They brought some of that on themselves.”
I guess that’s what it finally comes down to. The victims of hate are responsible for the hate.
Of course, there is one case where that’s true: my utter contempt for Trump voters. They earned it fair and square.
eclare
@SFAW: I remember that, she couldn’t “visualize” herself voting for HRC. What an entitled moron…
Bobby D
@NR: I’d say you need to pull your head out and stop blaming the candidate and campaign, that scored more votes than any white man in the history of this nation, including the PEOTUS.
Train your rhetorical fire where it belongs, James Comey and the lickspittle MSM that rode that fake email “scandal” like a three dollar whore.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but WTELBEF?
Where in the FUCK does this FUCK-ELECT come off “warning” the CURRENTLY-SERVING, ONE-AND-ONLY PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES about FUCKING ANYTHING??
‘Scuse my shoutiness, but this just FUCKING INFURIATES me. We have one POTUS at a time, and Trump ain’t it. Not for another 29 days. He has no call to “warn” or “advise” or in any conceivable way even think of telling the Obama administration what to do about anything.
Fuck that. Fucking fucker can go fuck himself.
MomSense
@hovercraft:
Yes, the onions definitely got to me. I noticed something interesting and that is that someone had to go first. People were standing there in a group but it wasn’t until one woman walked over and touched his hand that other people felt comfortable joining.
NR
@MomSense: Yep.
hovercraft
@SFAW:
We have a nice marina in Perth Amboy, and sometimes I go down there for lunch, it’s quiet, outdoors, and the view across the water is to a State Park on Staten Island, and you see all kinds of water crafts, giant tankers all the way down to jet skis, so a nice way to spend your lunch hour. I sit on a bench, and then walk around. I’m not the only one, there are a lot of other people who do the same, but with the cold here now, most of them stay in their cars. I am 49, 5’2″ and a woman, but as I walk around, I keep hearing the locks being engaged as I approach the occupied cars. Believe me, I have no need for reminders. Or maybe I’m the one with blinders, and all these nice white people in their cars are just being helpful, reminding me that I’m a scary black woman.
tobie
@greennotGreen: “I countered, “Jews have been targeted for centuries, from the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust…” Then she said, “They brought some of that on themselves.”
This reminds me of my mother’s haircutter in Florida who asked her if she knew when the Jews stopped doing human sacrifices. My mother said they never did human sacrifices and this was a terrible slur. The woman was genuinely confused since this contradicted what her pastor told her. Hard to process the level of ignorance and craziness taking hold of people.
NR
@Bobby D:
That’s great, except it doesn’t determine who wins the election.
It was the candidate and the campaign’s job to secure the votes necessary to win the Electoral College. They failed to do so, and I won’t give them a pass for that. And it’s extra special stupid to blame voters for that.
Bobby D
@rikyrah: Thank you! This is exactly right, “you don’t want Freedom of Speech. You want FREEDOM OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF SAID SPEECH.”
Spanky (ex P-man)
@SiubhanDuinne: Whoa! Whoa! Careful with that blood pressure! “Warn” is the word employed by the WaPo flack who reported on yet another late-night Twitler tweet. IOW, same shit different pre-dawn day.
tarragon
@greennotGreen:
Where there is smoke there is someone blowing smoke up your ass.
Bobby D
@NR: As you conveniently ignore the point, to train your fire on the people that maliciously interfered, not our flawed candidate that, IMO, overperformed given the decades of fake scandal baggage she was toting.
WereBear
I am heartened by one of my current reads: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63.
One black activist was framed for the theft of a few bags of chicken feed, and got seven years on a chain gang. Dr King himself was facing ten years in prison on a trumped up tax charge, and escaped only because he kept a meticulous diary and that seemed to impress an inexplicably justice-minded jury of white people.
That same mindset is abhorrent to most people in this nation. The very fact of our tremendous progress on many fronts is what has thrown up this hairball of an election. But even with the cheating, we must try to outthink and out-maneuver these assholes. Because right is on our side, and so is most of the electorate, even if they sat on their ass at a very bad time.
At least they didn’t turn out for Trump. They are reachable.
mai naem mobile
@hovercraft: you forgot the other GOP fact – great recession was also caused by Jimmy Carter. The five GOP POTUSES – channeling my Colonel Klink – had nahtheeng to do with it.
Mnemosyne
@greennotGreen:
I keep telling people on the left that they never realized what the con was. It was:
The fact that (some) lefties only fell for the first part of the con doesn’t mean they actually saw through the con. They still got conned, they just had second thoughts before totally cleaning out their bank accounts.
Mike J
@tobie: Which leads to a Bad Jackie problem. If you learn that something you always knew was true about your enemies if actually false, is that a cause for celebration or retrenchment?
Spanky (ex P-man)
@Spanky (ex P-man): SiubhanDuinne, if you insist on elevated BP, here’s an excellent substitute:
The gray adder
@Yarrow: I can see it now. Business owner kicks out some open carry asshole not for bringing his AR15 with him, but because said business owner thinks people who carry guns in public are fags. Let’s see how high that one flies in court.
schrodingers_cat
I got my daily dose of rubbish from my cray cray friend. Apparently climate change is caused by solar and volcanic activity. I am thinking of delegating all her emails directly to the spam folder to save myself aggravation.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@mai naem mobile: That was Sergeant Schultz.
dww44
@SiubhanDuinne: I get as mad as you and I have to go find an outlet. This screaming out loud in my car with the inanity that is to be had via the Nice Polite Republicans station is driving me over the top. But just now, there was this headline on the bottom of the CNN screen: Trump wants to increase/develop/add to our Nuclear weapons arsenal. Our real worry is not just our respective blood pressures but whether we shall all of us survive his 4 years.
That we have to endure this makes me really angry at a whole list of responsible entites and individuals.
Spanky (ex P-man)
@Spanky (ex P-man): But wait! There’s more!
NR
@Bobby D: I suggest you read this article.
WereBear
It’s only about a third of the Old Testament about Jews being persecuted for only sacrificing goats or whatever. But then, so many “bible believers” never crack the thing for themselves.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
Both of the shouty septuagenarian white men agreed.
Hillary was the devil.
If an old white guy shouts it, it must be true.
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky (ex P-man):
The NYT flack said Trump “publicly pressured President Obama.” Either way, it is unacceptable for an incoming President to openly and publicly admonish the current POTUS on any subject. That shit needed to have stopped with the end of the campaign.
Oh wait….
IdahoFlanuse
@Mike in Pasadena: I posted a similar suggestion on FB. In short, in order to obtain the “protection” of this new law the store/business must post on the front door in letters at least 2 inches high “What Would Jesus Do: Discriminate” I want to know exactly where not to shop.
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky (ex P-man):
@dww44:
@Spanky (ex P-man):
W
A
S
F
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
If a white guy says that he was ignored by the Democrats and that’s why he didn’t vote for Hillary, he gets all the attention.
If a black guy says that he was blocked from voting because of voter suppression laws and that’s why he didn’t vote for Hillary, no one gives a shit.
It’s almost like people are privileging the opinions of white guys over everyone else’s opinions, innit?
Bobby D
@dww44: Will be funny when they realize “oh shit, all those scientists we drove out of the DOE National Labs were the ones we needed to pull of this nuke stuff”. I’ve got a close friend that is transitioning to retirement from Livermore, and morale there just went off a cliff. The damage from this administration is going to take generations to repair.
Bobby D
@NR: Jacobin? No thanks. I’d rather guzzle paint thinner.
Mayken
@Brachiator: They think they are “on the inside” and Trump won’t let this kinda stuff happen. But don’t take my word for it. You can read for yourself:
http://www.logcabin.org/pressrelease/a-message-from-log-cabin-republicans-president-gregory-t-angelo-my-conversations-with-the-trump-transition-team/
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/18/the-incoming-vp-now-works-for-a-pro-gay-boss-gay-republicans-say-lgbt-fears-over-trump-and-pence-are-overblown/
NR
@Bobby D: Good to see that willful ignorance isn’t a trait solely limited to the right.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby D:
I know a young and brilliant chemical engineer who just took a job at Livermore (my brother’s goddaughter).
Of course, she’s also a Latina, so she’s probably sending her resume out to new jobs already.
Kristin D
I thought right wingers were the toughest people around. And, yet, people merely living their lives in a way that differs from their beliefs throws them into a tizzy so bit that they have to make a law about it. Wussification of America, indeed.
Это курам на смех
@NR: Well, you guys sure taught the Democratic establishment a lesson. Give yourselves a big pat on the back.
Kristin D
@Mike in Pasadena: Agreed. I hope they all go out of business, especially since they are so obsessed with the “free market” curing all.
NR
@Это курам на смех: Actually, they taught themselves the lesson. Along with the rest of us, unfortunately.
In any case, I voted for Clinton.
Major Major Major Major
I guess I wasn’t really going to travel outside of coastal California anyway.
@NR: Want a fucking cookie?
NR
@Major Major Major Major: Only if I can get it from a bakery that doesn’t refuse to serve gay people.
Librarian
@NR: You must be really fun at parties.
schrodingers_cat
I see that Nasty Republican thread killer is here.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: “Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.”
Brachiator
@Mayken:
Wow
From their fund raising letter:
This is some serious delusion. I almost feel sad for them.
From the Salon article, it was revealing to see a gay Republican fuck over women:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Weaselone: I know at one point the creatards tried pushing prayer in School in California back in the ’70s and it got dropped in hurry when the Pagans and Satanists said “boy howdy, we’re on board with that!”
Sounds like a time for the “Open Carry led’s to effemancy in men” movement make a stand.
EBT
The only answer left is violence. Lots of it. Kill the conservative.
NR
@Brachiator: “I believe [Trump]”
Well that was his first mistake right there.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft: You see, there you go quoting facts and not Truthiness.
But I would love see Trump up there going on about the need for sexual morality and the sancity of marriage.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I just woke up and I’m already out of fucks for this shit! I can’t even
@EBT: cleansing cleansing fire
I’m just going to get a burger and play Skyrim
Miss Bianca
@Mike J: You know, I keep forgetting how truly awesome the Slacktivist is. And then I keep getting reminded!
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: that story is strongly contradicted by the science, though. We’re all Bad Jackie.
Miss Bianca
@Bobby D: I used to read Jacobin and liked some of their articles a lot. However, I soured on them pretty fast when it finally occurred to me that their disdain for Clinton and her alleged “neoliberalism” seemed spurred more by unexamined lefty-boy misogyny than anything actually factual. I lost a hell of a lot of respect for the “Crooked Timber” commenters over that, as well. Funny how some white male lefty academics are so reluctant to acknowledge that race and sex, rather than just “class”, might actually play some role in holding down the proletariat – particularly that segment of the proletariat that happens to be non-white and non-male.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: I recently got grid cartographer and have been meaning to try out Wizardry 6.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: No, I would contend that most, if not all, of us start as Bad Jackie and some of us – either by dint of ruthless self-examination or ruthless ridicule by our peers, or both – progress to Good Jackie. And that many of us are either Good Jackie or Bad depending on stakes and circumstances.
ETA: And maybe *that’s* the difference between the scientific method and the religious one right there! ; )
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: ooh, cool. I started writing a MUD the other day to brush up on my skills with Go.
@Miss Bianca: Our default state is Bad Jackie. It can’t be trained away, but you can get faster at catching it when it happens.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I am wearing my “Hamilton” hoodie from Tee Fury even as I type this.
Mike G
I’d like to see Manhattan Mussolini sign this, with his history of fucking everything that doesn’t move away from him fast enough.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Ah. So, we have “Bad Jackie” and “Good…ish” Jackie? Or would that be “I’m Getting Better!” Jackie?
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Ah, so the “Hamilton” bat-signal was received! Eeeeeexxxcelleeent….
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: it’s also reductive, the notion that one is either bad Jackie or good Jackie, and makes it sound like you can’t get better!
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: I feel like it’s mostly pose-striking. It’s actually really easy to play-act the revolutionary intellectual, because you’re never going to see anything you profess to believe get attempted in the actual world. So it can’t be disproven. It’s just a recent branch of the old radical’s argument that ACTUAL communism has never been tried, but if it were, it would totally work.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: yeah that’s basically what Jacobin is.
The Truffle
@NR: Aw, bless your heart.
SFAW
@hovercraft:
I can’t imagine how it would be, going through that shit (that you experience) every day, just because one is the “wrong” color.
SFAW
@NR:
Self-awareness is not one of your strong points, dimwit. Or maybe you’re just as much into projection as your Shitgibbon idol.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike G:
Miss Bianca
@SFAW: @hovercraft:Oh, I can *imagine* how it would be – but just barely. I am just so sorry that anyone in America still has to live with it every day. God, Whitenuss just sucks. : (
@FlipYrWhig: Ding, ding, ding, the lady (or gent) wins the Kewpie doll!
NR
@SFAW: Well when it comes to talking about bullshit, I’ll defer to your expertise on the subject.
gvg
@IdahoFlanuse: there aren’t THAT many businesses that want to discriminate. These laws are being proposed by legislators who mostly don’t own any businesses. The original NC law was in response to a city making a popular law about non discrimination. A lot of business left town too, conventions and events I mean.
They live in a bubble and don’t let themselves find out that most people don’t want this kind of law.
NR
@The Truffle: “We started pissing in the soup, and our customers stopped buying it! Fuck our customers! It’s their fault we went out of business!”
SFAW
@NR:
Well, I can certainly spot yours a mile off. But then again, most people here can spot your bullshit 10 miles off, so I’m nothing special.
You just keep getting sillier and sillier, it’s an amazing talent of yours.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
That certificate won’t help you at all – obviously forged by the same shop that did Obama’s Birth Certificate!
FlipYrWhig
@NR: When was this prelapsarian moment when the Democratic Party was liberal and pure? If it got adulterated by the establishment corporatist neoliberals who proceeded to ruin it, it must have been pretty awesome before. Was it when David Boren, Richard Shelby, and John Stennis were party stalwarts? Those glory days before all that soup-pissing?
Elizabelle
@FlipYrWhig: Thank you. Well done.
J R in WV
@Clem:
But once Trump is president, he can actually use nuclear devices on anyone he desires, and they will be landing and exploding before anyone even knows he has done it. There are no checkpoints on the use of special munitions. None!
This is because, during the Cold War while Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD, no, really, it won the Cold War for us!) kept the world from being destroyed, we needed to be able to launch the entirety of our nuclear arsenal between the time we detected incoming missiles and the time those missiles arrived on target.
So, 15 minutes, more or less, from decision to launch, until it’s all over but the keeping score. Nil-Nil in a flash!
NR
@SFAW: Oh good god, what’s next from you? “I know you are, but what am I?”
NR
@FlipYrWhig: I never said the party was perfect before. There has been no point at which the Democratic party was perfect. But it was much better on economic issues before it fell in love with corporate $$$. And it won a hell of a lot more elections back then, too.
J R in WV
@NR:
There were only two candidates in the recent election. You obviously didn’t and don’t support Hillary Clinton, so, you are by definition, a Trump supporter.
Really, you are. I suspect your thinking is so broken you don’t actually realize that you are supporting Trump with every word you post, but to anyone NOT a Trumpette, it’s just so, so obvious!
So quit doing that to us, and go to Chuck Johnson’s RWNJ blog and do your preaching to that choir, because there is no choir here interested in listening to you.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: NR has previously contended that the Democratic Party was riding high in 2008 and then frittered it all away by neoliberal-ing it up. The way I see it, a bunch of Democrats got elected to national and state-wide office _as moderates_ throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with a surge in the 50-state strategy years of 2006 and 2008, and that’s who proceeded to get replaced by Republicans since then. We know who these people are. They’re not hypotheticals. The Democrats who got exchanged for Republicans are largely people like the senators from the Dakotas, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Heath Shuler, Steve Beshear, Phil Bredesen, and Mike Beebe. They were moderates before Obama came along. They ran that way and won that way. I don’t know how any of that could possibly mean that people in the plains, midwest, and Sun Belt crave more liberalism. Would that it were so!
FlipYrWhig
@NR: The party used to win more elections “back then,” meaning as recently as the 1980s, because it was still filled with Southern racists who kept electing the same people due to old habits, family dynasties, and patronage. Kim Davis was a Democrat until, like, last year. Those are the people who elected politicians who you think were “better on economic issues.” This is why your theory is such a mess.
FlipYrWhig
Addendum: @NR: You’re not wrong to say that Democratic moderates are no longer winning. However, you are wrong to offer a hypothesis that counts on political time beginning in 2008. They were running as moderates for 20 years before that, as for instance in the Al Gore 1988 campaign. It was a successful formula. They need new formulas. They need new formulas that fit the current reality.
{Apologies for possible duplicate comment}
J R in WV
@NR:
“Go read Jacobin…”
@Bobby D:
The fact that Newly Russian wants us to read that Jacobin filth just shows what a dolt he is. And too stupid to know that what he’s writing here proves his dolt-hood.
Amazing! Pretty funny, too, in a skewed way!
SFAW
@NR:
You really need to try some new stuff.
Here’s something right up your alley: “If only the Dems had run a better candidate than Al Gore in 2000, he would have beaten George W. Bush in a landslide! So fuck the Dem party establishment!” Or, if that’s too recent for you, maybe you can replace Gore/2000/Bush with Carter/1980/Reagan. Either way, you won’t have compromised your oh-so-precious (in multiple senses of the word) principles, and still feel warm in the knowledge that, no matter the year, you’re a de facto Rethug supporter.
But you are absolutely right about Jacobin! He was outstanding in “I, Claudius.”
FlipYrWhig
@SFAW: Bob Somerby once said of Jonathan Turley that there’s never been a president he didn’t think deserved to be impeached. I think for NR there’s never been a Democratic candidate who didn’t deserve to lose because of sucking so bad and so neoliberally. Except for those ones from the glory days of the Democratic Party before it succumbed to the Clinton influence and got too corporate, like
Michael DukakisWalter MondaleJimmy CarterGeorge McGovernHubert HumphreyLyndon Johnsonumm…NR
@J R in WV:
Hey, by your logic, since I didn’t support Trump, that makes me a Clinton supporter! Good to know. I mean, I voted for her anyway, but it’s nice to have some more reinforcement.
Seriously though, no. Talking about the problems with Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic party does not make someone a Trump supporter. It makes them someone who wants to see the Democratic party become a force that can stop people like Trump again. Because right now, it sure as hell ain’t that.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: And once again, it’s not always about ideology. I’ll remind you that 70% of Americans wanted a public option in the ACA, which was a much more “liberal” element than the Democratic establishment saw fit to give us. You don’t get to 70% support for something in America without pulling in at least some people who call themselves conservatives. So maybe we should consider the idea that a lot of voters out there don’t think in terms of what’s liberal and what’s conservative, but rather what kind of policy will make their lives better. If Democrats would make that kind of case for liberal policy, they’d see a lot of success. After all, it’s worked in the past.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: I guess you’ll have to get all the segregationists back on board, then, because that’s who made up half the party in its heyday.
NR
@J R in WV: You know, you’re no better than all those Trump supporters who say “I’m not gonna read that shit because it’s from the evil librul media!”
I’d like to see someone actually engage with the content of the article instead of just shitting on the source.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Find me one candidate who wins in hostile territory by being an awesome populist who helps people, and then Democrats will copycat that strategy forever. But it kind of hasn’t been working since the days of Huey Long.
NR
@SFAW:
That’s pretty funny. You realize that if I was a Rethug supporter, I’d be cheering you guys on, right? I mean, you guys have an overwhelming record of electoral failure going back years. If I was a Rethug supporter, why would I be trying to get you guys to change things? I’d be here saying “Attaboy everyone, great job, keep doing exactly what you’ve been doing!”
Kind of weird how I’m not doing that, eh?
NR
@FlipYrWhig: We can pull together a majority without segregationists today, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve had a black president for the last eight years.
SFAW
@NR:
No, what’s “kinda weird” is that you don’t realize you’re a walking, talking (figuratively speaking) example of Dunning-Kruger. But, as I have said before, self-awareness is not, shall we say, your strong suit. But, thank FSM that no one dare question the purity of your soul — what with your hating every fucking “non-liberal” that’s ever run as a Dem — because THEN what would you have left?
By the way, how’s your Mumia sweatshirt doing? Taken it out for a spin lately?
NR
@SFAW:
And yet, I’m not the one with a record of failure a mile long. That’s you.
Dunning-Kruger, indeed.
SFAW
@NR:
Your prophetic (and projection-laden) “I know you are but what am I” BS has now made its anticipated appearance. The only “record of failure” is the broken record of morons like you who are bigly into all sorts of “both parties are the same” variants.
You’re like the unlamented Reggie M, whose entire purpose for coming here was to (figuratively speaking) scream at the top of his lungs “YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK AND I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!! Now why are all you assholes being mean to me?” You’re not quite as obvious as he was. Sort of like how Jeff Sessions is not quite as obvious as David Duke.
Of course, you ARE obviously a Trumpette, despite your protestations. And not a very bright one at that (although I guess that’s redundant for Trumpettes.)
NR
@SFAW: Actually, the record of failure rests with you and your continued embrace of the Democratic establishment that has lost the entire country to the Republicans.
And like I said, if I was a Trumpette, I’d be cheering you guys on, encouraging you to keep failing the way you have been for years now. In fact, it’s more likely that you’re a Trumpette than I am, because unlike you, I actually want the Democratic party to change its approach so it can succeed again. You want it to keep failing. You sound a lot more like a Trumpette than I do.