We are now a month into the Trump presidency, so that means you have now spent 30 days waking up every morning saying to yourself as you open your browser “Oh god what has he down now?” Is it possible that we are all going to have PTSD after his term?
Meanwhile, in Canada:
At Jarry metro today with @JustinTrudeau – a broken escalator makes it hard for some to get to their metro #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/J0OSXbpTZb
— Adam Scotti (@AdamScotti) April 16, 2014
I want Obama back.
MomSense
Didn’t 45 promise his super duper plan to defeat ISIS within 30 days? Has it been released?
schrodingers_cat
Well it could be worse, you could be a woman or an immigrant, or belong to one of the groups that T voters have a special hatred for.
TaMara (HFG)
It feels like 30 years and 1 day.
satby
I started suffering from that as of Nov 10, 2016.
Roger Moore
Those of us who survived the nuclear holocaust, anyway.
SWMBO
I’d settle for Trudeau. Unfortunately, he’s Canadian. But we let Ted Cruz run, so I think we should get a waiver and go for it.
Big Ole Hound
Hosers…having to walk and smiling about it
Mike E
They’re shitting the bed so hard that calendars are breaking…and stupid has become weaponized
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Anyone who does not love Trump is an Enemy of America.
I listened to (I think) a BBC news podcast recently. I have to go back and find it because I want to identify the Republican official or pundit who said that people from the heartland who dig in the dirt and grow stuff and live simple lives are real Americans, and that both coasts are filled with elites who hate America. And in this instance he was particularly singling out scientists, especially those who “believe” in phony climate change. Real Americans, apparently, aren’t smarty pants. They are simple people. Not intellectual. Not, certainly cosmopolitan.
Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Trump!
Ian G.
Speaking of Jarry Metro, Montreal was a bit of a siren call last summer when I visited, and that was when I expected Hillary to win. I probably shouldn’t travel to Canada or northern Europe anytime soon, as I may just overstay my visa and become an illegal immigrant.
SWMBO
I just realized that Justin Trudeau isn’t afraid of Canadians. He smiles, talks to them and helps where he can. Our politicians won’t even hold town hall meetings in safe districts anymore.
https://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei/videos/1288510071184449/?pnref=story
Brachiator
@Mike E:
Love that comment. Consider it stolen.
Mustang Bobby
Hey, he outlasted William Henry Harrison. Next goal: James A. Garfield.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
geg6
@SWMBO:
This.
MobiusKlein
@schrodingers_cat: We do belong to a special group, hated by T voters; the Democratic Party.
satby
@Brachiator: And that Republican obviously doesn’t know any real farmers, because they’re very aware of climate change and how that’s been affecting their crops and growing seasons.
Eric
@Ian G.: I was in Montreal briefly last summer as well. It was great…I’d definitely consider living there if they would have me. Plus, now that we won’t do anything to stop global warming, the winters soon won’t be a problem.
Brachiator
And I wake up and sometimes think, with a shudder, I cannot believe that Trump is president.
@satby:
True that. And farmers make use of science and the Internet and all manner of technology to help them do their jobs.
Yarrow
Not just us but our allies as well. He’s affecting how the rest of the world sees us and not in a good way. Will they ever trust that we won’t elect a crazy person again? We’re going to have to have something akin to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but in a political sense. Lock down some of the avenues to electing someone like him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@satby: one of trump’s standard lines on the stump was that he knew many many families who lost their family farms due to the estate tax. I always wanted someone to say, “Name two”.
IIRC, back in the 90s, Christie Todd Whitman kept a small herd of picturesque cattle in a corner of the family estate so that it would qualify as a farm for tax purposes.
LAO
I wake up every morning and check my twitter feed with a sense of absolute dread. Every morning. I should stop doing it, but it’s become a compulsion.
dexwood
Is it possible that we are all going to have PTSD after his term?
Hell, I have PPTSD now – Pre-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is, of course, a big lie.
hovercraft
@TaMara (HFG):
THIS.
We might need to coin a new time frame, Drumph years, where each month feels like 7 years, so by the time it’s all over, if he survives 4 years, let alone the rest of us, we’ll have aged 336 years. Oh shit, we’re all going to die, no one lives that long, not even if Thiel finds the fountain of youth.
Brachiator
@dexwood:
Post Trump Stress Disorder.
TaMara (HFG)
@LAO: I went on a news blackout the week after 9/11, but then when I gradually began to watch the news again, I found myself becoming compulsive – it had to be on in the background all the time. I NEEDED to know what was happening every moment. Then when my brother went to Iraq, well it really became obsessive – online and 24/7 news networks.
I moved away from that, a lot in part to Obama’s deft handling of every crisis that befell us and eventually left cable behind completely.
But now, I’m finding myself compelled to check online all day long again. I’m fighting it, but probably going to lose the battle.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
I honestly think that we have crossed a line. Having now elected a president who is so manifestly unfit for the office, and brazenly ignoring or setting aside all previous checks and balances in order to give Trump free rein, I think that the country may have no problem doing it again and again.
rikyrah
Everyday of their incompetence…that gets overlooked and excused..
when YOU KNOW what would have happened if the same things had happened during 44’s time…
That Yemen raid?
STILL would be talking about it.
The protocol faux pas with the Japanese PM’s wife?
STILL would have think pieces about it.
The ‘ All Lives Mattered’ of the Holocaust?
Same.
3 vacations in 30 days?
The lawsuit which admits that the First Lady WANTS TO MONETIZE THE OFFICE?
UH HUH
The SON-IN-LAW in the White House?
Uh huh
Bannon being in the White House?
Uh huh
I could go on and on.
This entire illegitimate Presidency is one long exercise in White Privilege.
That’s the salt in the wound for me.
Gelfling 545
Steve Benen has a post about Kaisch being at the Munich conference and doing various prepping for primary type things. I can see this happening. Voters who realize at last that Trump is a hot mess but don’t want to adnit they made a hideous mistake by voting Republican, well, here’s their opportunity to save face.
rikyrah
As his Trump rebukes intensify, what is John Kasich up to?
02/21/17 10:40 AM
By Steve Benen
For all the chatter about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) butting heads with Donald Trump, there’s another high-profile Republican who’s going much further to rebuke the president of his own party.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who refused to endorse Trump or even attend his party’s nominating convention in Kasich’s home state, had some more choice words for the president over weekend. The governor, speaking to the media from Germany, where Kasich was attending the Munich Security Conference, raised concerns about Trump’s criticism of a free press, questionable support for U.S. allies in Europe, and even the scandal surrounding Russia’s role in helping put the president in office.
Kasich added that he’d spoken directly with a variety of foreign officials, many of whom expressed concern about Trump and the direction of the United States.
And while the remarks were notable, let’s not skip past the setting: what was the governor of Ohio doing at the Munich Security Conference, speaking with foreign officials?
For a guy who’ll soon wrap up his second term – the governor cannot seek a third – Kasich seems awfully busy, weighing in on the health-care debate, attending a major international security conference, publicly taking issue with Trump’s bizarre antics, and according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer report, watching a new organization take shape around him.
rikyrah
And Cole…
Animal pictures are always welcome :)
dexwood
@Brachiator:
I hear that. A week after the inauguration, I saw my doctor for a check up, She said your blood pressure is a bit higher than usual. I told her I had PTSD – President Trump Stress Disorder. Got a hearty laugh from her.
Oatler.
Stupid Canadian Snowflake Cucks, with their socialized medicine and compulsory homosexual schooling where Christians are persecuted and soon we will conjeeezabuuuuliiialieuihkhMOM DON’T VACUUM IN HERE I’M WORKING
The Moar You Know
BUT, HER EMAILS
Hey, Obama did his time, I would like it very much if he could go and do something fun for a while, he and his long-suffering family deserve that. They owe us nothing more, he did his very best. We did this to ourselves, we don’t vote in midterms and pretend that third-party candidates are a viable choice. There was nothing he could or can do to fix that.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It’s Present Trump Stress Disorder.
No need to wait, it’s here now.
sherparick
@satby: My PTSD started with the election returns from Pennsylvania. Scott Pruitt immediately went to work destroying 100 years of conservation and pollution control work on his first day on the job at EPA. Assuming we avoid a nuclear war (which is far from certain under Trump), the biggest medium term catastrophe will be breaking up the U.S. post-war alliance system and post-WWII international structures. However, the biggest long term catastrophe will be Trump and the Republican Party not only blocking any attempt to reduce CO2 admissions but destroying 100 years of environmental and conservation law so that billionaires like the Koch brothers and have a few more billion dollars.
By the way one of the ways I know Peter Theil is evil is that while supporting Trump and the establishment of a authoritarian, feudal, racial kakistocracy in the U.S., he knows that this will ultimately cause an environmental catastrophe and expects to escape the consequential societal breakdown by escaping to New Zealand.
Kay
How’s Comey’s investigation into Russian interference in US elections coming? Trump wasn’t the last election (I hope)
Will Russia interfere in the next one too?
I’m not getting a real sense of urgency here. We know Russia interfered in Congressional elections and targeted exclusively Democratic lawmakers. That’s okay? We’ll just allow a couple more cycles to ensure a total Trump lock on all the branches?
It was of the utmost importance to pursue Hillary Clinton’s email server issue daily for 2 years. Can someone tell me why there’s this casual “oh, well” applied to non-Clinton issues? Should people bother to vote or is this thing a done deal?
PaulW
Meanwhile, the destruction of our public schools begins: HR 610 is out and it’s gonna kill school funding just so the charters and private schools can gobble up more taxpayer monies.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/610
Start calling the sh-t out of your House Congresscritter’s local offices.
Yarrow
@Brachiator: That’s why I said we need some equivalent of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but for politics. We need to clean our own house and a benefit of doing that publicly would be to prove to the world that we take this seriously and we can be trusted. That we can and will fix the problems that led to him being elected and the Russians hacking our government. Anything less than that is window dressing.
SenyorDave
Anyone watch shitgibbon’s speech at the African-American Museum? I’m wondering if he was going to ask April Ryan to mop the floor or get him a drink? Or maybe he’ll ask her if she knows Frederick Douglas, and maybe she can set up a meeting between the two of them. Because Trump hears that Douglas is doing great work.
Smiling Mortician
I don’t even make it to my browser. Every morning I wake up with that sick, embarrassed, worried feeling: What happened? How will I ever fix it?
Tired of living this way.
Kay
Trump really does benefit from the soft bigotry of low expectations. I knew he would. He appointed ONE qualified person and they’re all rushing to shower him with roses.
Did you catch the standard they’re using? “Safety”. Trump now gets kudos for catastrophes NOT happening.
I knew it would be race to the bottom and it is. He gets an award every day there isn’t a massive self-induced fuck-up.
Boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: The thing I HAVE seen is family real estate sold on transfer because the new holder couldn’t pay the property tax. But that’s a phenomenon of STATE PROPERTY TAXES, not federal estate tax.
Of course, explaining that to the average tRumpet is a bit like explaining relativity to a six year old. All they hear is “tax” and immediately respond “See? We told you: Taxes R Bad.” without bothering with the context.
amk
PTSD ? present trump suffocating drowning?
sherparick
@Brachiator: This is a lie that all the Republicans tell now once Grover Norquist and Rush Limbbaugh made it official doctrine. As Kthug says, what we get in Trump is the unvarnished Republicanism spoken on Talk Radio and Fox News these last 25 years. Except for using the blowhorn as opposed to the dog whistle regarding race and religious bigotry, Trump is a typical Movement Conservative Fundy Republican, circa 2017.
Trabb's Boy
I miss Obama so much, and one of his speeches about the long game and hope and hard work and what we all share would do all our souls a world of good. But he’s going to stay completely out of the public eye, because there is nothing that feeds the monster more than having a target. Except having a black target. That is better than them.
LAO
@TaMara (HFG):
I’ve lost that battle. On a similar note, I have a good friend who’s mother has just had surgery. The mom (a proper lefty) has become obsessed with CNN and MSNBC and cannot turn off cable news. She’s already fairly high stung and getting worse. Drastic measures were taken — my friend and her father disconnected the TV in the bedroom in an attempt to limit mom’s access. It hasn’t worked, but I understand the impulse to limit her access to cable news.
Boatboy_srq
@amk: Perpetual Trump-generated Stress Disorder.
rikyrah
Russian confirmations complicate dubious White House denials
02/21/17 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen
The official White House line on pre-election contacts between Team Trump and Russia has been consistent for months: there were no communications. Any suggestions to the contrary, Donald Trump and his aides have insisted, are completely wrong.
There are some problems with this posture. For one thing, many U.S. intelligence officials have suggested Team Trump’s claims aren’t true. For another, some Russian officials have confirmed that Team Trump’s claims aren’t true.
The New York Times picks up today on a story I’ve been emphasizing for months: despite the White House’s denials, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak have both said, on the record, that Vladimir Putin’s government was in communications with the Trump campaign before Election Day in the U.S.
As the Times’ report makes clear, the communications wouldn’t necessarily have to be seen as scandalous.
That’s entirely correct. Team Trump could’ve said from the beginning, “Sure, during the campaign, we heard from foreign officials from all kinds of countries around the globe, but the communications were always routine and part of standard diplomacy.”
But no. Instead, the president and his aides said the opposite, insisting that there were literally no talks until after Election Day. In other words, Team Trump would have us believe the Russian officials are lying – even though they have no incentive lie.
Kay
A lot of BJ’ers work in education and you can help with this:
I see these people in my office. You would be enraged if you heard their stories. Advise them. They’re first generation college students and they don’t know what they don’t know. They will listen to you. Steer them away from these places. If you don’t they will get screwed for life and I do mean “life”- this debt cannot be discharged.
Beg them not to sign up and help them with alternatives. They need competent advice from a party who is NOT self-interested. It’s the best volunteer work you’ll ever do.
ruemara
He’s done so much damage, so quickly, that time seems to be moving both faster & slower. The only good thing is on major stuff, he and his administration are both evil and incompetent. We can’t rest though. They learn. The addition of Senator Sessions as AG means many things that were inexpertly done in EOs will be rewritten to be more legal.
Edited to add: Yes, Trump voters, really, plain old GOP – hate Democrats. But if you think you get the entire brunt of their hate like minorities do, you’re wrong. This isn’t oppression olympics, stop trying to compete.
oldster
In Roman history they talk about the “Last Good Emperor,” usually picking Marcus Aurelius.
I’m afraid that future historians are going to use that phrase of Obama.
I have never, ever, in a long long life that saw Watergate, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11, and 60,000 US troops killed in Vietnam, been as worried about the future of the United States as a viable political project.
Thank god that my fellow citizens are fighting back, protesting, and resisting.
A Republic, if you can keep it, said Ben Franklin.
He should have added: and if it starts to slip away, then fight like hell to get it back.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
Unfortunately, it’s true that far too many people who don’t live in the cities are dumb an uniformed. I used to say just unfortunately, the last 17 years have convinced me they are dumb. They let W and his crew convince them that just because a group of assholes managed to fly 4 planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and kill 3000 people, we needed to give up our civil liberties and embark on 16 years of pointless wars. They barely elected Barrack Obama after W and his crew wrecked the world’s economy, ( yes I know that that clusterfuck has a 1000 fathers, but it happened on his watch, and he just sat there shitting the bed as the worlds economy unraveled), McCain lost by just 7 points, with Sarah Palin as his running mate, are you fucking kidding me? Yes he’s black but seriously McCain/Palin! Then they bitched about everything for eight fucking years, it was like a two year old with no fucking attention span, the economic meltdown was forgotten, and suddenly people who bitched for years about rising health costs, forgot all about that and the cause of the increases became Obamacare years before it was implemented, dumbass mofos. They hate socialized medicine and yet demanded that the government keep their hands off the most socialized part of our medical system, definitely not smarty pants.
We have far too many people who are still taking out their high school resentments on the kids with the best grades in the class. They were not the brightest lights in the class back then, but at least they had teachers trying to force feed them knowledge and information, now they are all lined up in Jones Town to drink the kool aid of ignorance. They are simply dumb people who are reveling in their ignorance and stupidity.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Thanks for this, Kay.
rikyrah
@Kay:
And, he had to take the job because he was Active Military.
Kay
@rikyrah:
There are volunteer organizations that help people file taxes. Why isn’t there a volunteer organization to steer first generation college students away from blatant rip-offs? They’re not in high school. They don’t have a guidance counselor and they don’t even know anyone who went to college. It’s like lambs to slaughter.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: The military people seem to vary on their interpretation of whether he had to take the job or didn’t have to take the job. Best as I can tell, he didn’t have to take it, but being active military made it harder for him to turn it down. Also his rank is lower than others in the administration, which adds a significant level of difficulty to the situation.
hovercraft
Alt-right editor challenges journalists to visit Sweden
21 February 2017
Paul Joseph Watson, the UK-based editor of far-right conspiracy website Infowars, has donated $2,000 to one of the hundreds of reporters who took him up on his Twitter offer to pay “any journalist claiming Sweden is safe” to stay in Malmo.
The donation comes after Sweden was thrown into the spotlight by US President Donald Trump’s reference last week to a security incident which did not actually happen.
President Trump has since sought to clarify his remarks, stating that his comments were “in reference to a story that was broadcast on Fox News concerning immigrants and Sweden”.
After many social media users ridiculed the American leader using the hashtag #lastnightinSweden, Mr Watson issued a challenge to journalists.
The Sweden argument from the right is a very lazy re-write of the Chicago propaganda narrative. Yes there’s crime, yes there are hate crime problems, yes the new immigrants and native Swedes may be having trouble adjusting to each other.
And definitely, there is a right wing in the US that wants to make up a scary story about an invasion of non-white criminals who want to kill you in your bed.
Infowars has apparently found a reporter — we’ll see whether he winds up working for the trip’s sponsors or actually tells a more complete story. In any event the reporter has a willing tourguide in the city’s deputy mayor:
Hello, @PrisonPlanet. I’m a deputy mayor in Malmö. I would be happy to meet with any journalists you send here to ser for themselves.
— Nils Karlsson (@FilosofenNils) February 20, 2017
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: I realize you hedged that with “far too many,” but it still stung when I read it. It’s hard to know how to comment about blocs of voters who consistently vote R–old people, rural dwellers, whites, men. There’s the truth that they do vote that way. And there’s the truth that generalizations can deteriorate into stereotypes. Just saying.
Jack the Second
Obviously, we need Speaker of the House Obama and a double-impeachment in 2018. He won’t be elected a third time, so it’s totally Constitutional.
aimai
Just got out of my (wonderful) class on Immigrants and Refugees as subjects of clinical social work intervention. Our topic of the day: Trauma and Trafficking. One of the points the professor made was that to do this work at all you have to realize that you are personally going to be suffering an enormous, ongoing, trauma yourself from being in this work in this world when you are surrounded by people (aka trump supporters or just regular old americans) who “don’t see what all the fuss is about” or who absolutely applaud the anti-immigrant and anti-muslim and anti-refugee/asylum policies of the trump regime. You have to manage yourself and your emotional burden so that you can serve this client population and help them through their trauma–because this is an ongoing trauma for everyone who cares about other people. I really don’t know how we will get through four years of this and stay active, engaged, and not suicidal. I’m thinking about taking up buddhism and letting go of a lot of sense of agency and political rage in favor of everyday work and efficacy in the here and now. Thinking about what might have been and raging against what is is a very hard stance to hold while you are trying to do this work.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: As Twitter Richard Nixon always says, “Watch Kasich” And not in a good way. Kasich wants to be the GOP’s default should the Russia scandals take down Pence and Ryan along with Trumpov.
aimai
@rikyrah: It is extra enraging to remember back to the massive, press fostered, disrespect offered to the Obamas as first family. But I have to say that the deep hatred and attack on Bill and Hillary as “bubbas in the white house” who didn’t know “how to treat the servants” and who were “déclassé” was also quite intense for all eight years. Both of them were pilloried for their appearance, their style in the white house, their friends, their assistants, their use of presidential privileges/travel, their eating and spending and pretty much everything else. It was extra horrible heaped on the Obamas but this kind of critique of the performance of being a president has been aimed at Democrats ever since Carter, souped up under Clinton, and was inherited by Obama.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: @Jeffro: most interesting thing about Kasich, to me, was his recent defense of Medicaid expansion. 20 years ago, he would’ve been all about block grants and bootstraps. I’m sure he would say it’s part of his reborn XIanity, I wonder if he just isn’t following his erratic and prickly personality into becoming a gadfly to his own party, Trump and Ryan.
cmorenc
@Mustang Bobby:
Let’s hope he doesn’t make it to the William McKinley goal:
1) McKinley was six months in to his SECOND term when he died;
2) Trump’s vice-president ain’t exactly Teddy Roosevelt, but more like the antonym of T.R.
Jeffro
In “water is wet” news today, David Brooks is lying to cover for the 1% today. I know, I know, you never would have guessed.
He gives Nicholas Eberstadt AND Tyler Cowen (ugh) big bear-hugs today as they collectively try to Kochsplain that our REAL problems, economically speaking, a) start in 2000, and b) involve much of America slacking off. Too much TV and opiates, apparently. Who knew?
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Perhaps. A cynical person might also say that Kasich could see that Medicaid expansion is cheaper than what we were doing, and is a nice way to keep the masses’ medical needs addressed on a very basic level while the real looting continues…
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
I know, as someone who is judged first on what I am rather than who I am, I know it stings. But at this point, it is hard to avoid this conclusion, these people vote consistently for people who lie to their faces every election, if they are not stupid why don’t they recognize that Brownback and his posse are destroying everything in Kansas, why would Kentucky vote for Matt Bevin, who promised to destroy Kynect and them turn around and be shocked that he’s doing what he said he’d do. The moron in WI, is probably going to run for a third term, and he has a good chance of winning, all the while people are bitching about wages and their economy lagging behind neighboring states. I understand that it’s hard to overlook the cultural aspects of voting republican, but that doesn’t explain Twitler and all the ways he should offend those values, and the fact that he lies so blatantly and in such obvious ways. Stereotypes are harmful, but my problem here is that these voters are doing everything in their power to live up to this one. I’m not the stereotypical black woman portrayed in film and movies, but people still comment about how well spoken I am, and they say I’m not what they expected, and how I’m not typical. As you said offensive, but that is in large part because I don’t behave like the stereotype says I should. These people are living up to the horrible stereotype that “coastal media elites” and pointy headed coastal liberals said they behaved, there is a cost for that.
None of us is exempt from being stereotyped in some way, a sad fact of life, if we go out of our way to model the stereotype, then we have only ourselves to blame for being stereotyped.
p.a.
DON’T CALL THEM DUMB! They know they’re dumb, but if we remind them then the .0005% of them who don’t want to be dumb will never undumb themselves and vote Democratic. Fight for the .0005% I guess…
Brachiator
@oldster:
You may very well be correct here.
Rome had several periods of bad emperors. Among the worst:
Ben Cisco
@hovercraft: THIS. ALL OF IT. TIMES INFINITY.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: Of course he does. And I’m surprised we haven’t seen Jeb! out on the interview trail reviewing his tape of how he said Trump would be chaos. They all will be elbowing each other to be the GOP default when Trump/Pence goes down the toilet.
Problem is, their voters wanted Trump. They don’t even want Pence, except for the evangelicals. They’re going to have to figure out how to get those voters to vote for them.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
Has he looked at the productivity numbers for the US workforce? Does he know how many hours we spend working, commuting to work, and how little paid time off the average American worker gets?
Paging K-thug, or maybe David K Johnston to tell him what’s what.
Asshole, maybe since he doesn’t have a real job, and he only produces what two columns a week he thinks the rest of us just sit around eating bonbons watching soaps all day.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
I hear what you say, but I also think that conservatives want to create a false mythology of pure, rural, common sense white America.
Here in California, the dumbest people I run across live in cities, often have college degrees, and consider themselves to be sophisticated. There are also auto-didact libertarians.
And despite the wider availabilty of educational opportunities, there are many people who use ideology and religion as barriers to keep themselves uninformed.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
No, of course he hasn’t done any of those things. He knows what he knows, the rest is just justification for what he wants to do (or rather, have the Randians do).
Go take a look. HIs dates and numbers are so cherry-picked that…I’m in search of the appropriate metaphor to describe it. A “more entrepreneurial, less static, more innovative” metaphogrrrrrrrrFUBROOKS!!!!!!!!!
Lapassionara
Just returned from a Resistance demonstration outside of Roy Blunt’s office in Clayton, Missouri. The organizers expected around a 100 people, but we estimated around 50 to 60. Rainy weather no doubt affected attendance. The crowd was mostly old, as to be expected at 10 am on a Tuesday morning. One African-American, rest white. Some had signs, some clever, some wordy. We were asked to chant, but ours chants were pretty lame. Hard to find words to rhyme with “healthcare.”
We learned after about 30 minutes that Indivisible was planning a similar event at noon. So that was an interesting coincidence. A young person there handed out flyers printed up by Move-on.org. So maybe I will get a check from Soros!
I was glad to do this, but we need better chants, scheduling that works for more people, and a clearer focus. But, every bit helps in my view.
Lots of cars went by, honking support and holding thumbs-up. Where were they on Election Day? Sigh.
Jeffro
@Brachiator:
Libertarians are truly at the top of the scale when it comes to ‘educated dumb people’. It’s like an up-front admission that they’re hovering in the high 80s/low 90s.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: I’m not. JEB! understands that Trump is the kind of guy who would rage-order him killed, and could easily find a useful idiot to do so. JEB! is going to keep his stupid mouth shut for the next four years, and frankly, it may be the only public service Trump will ever perform for this nation.
hovercraft
The Anne Frank Center is not impressed.
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect called President Donald Trump’s comments denouncing anti-Semitism Tuesday “a pathetic asterisk of condescension.”
Trump made his most direct condemnation of anti-Semitism yet in an interview and remarks at the National Museum For African American History and Culture in Washington.
“The President’s sudden acknowledgement is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration,” a statement posted to the Anne Frank Center’s Facebook page read. “His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Antisemitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record.”
I’d say that would leave a mark, but these people are too arrogant to notice. Unfortunately for them the rest of us will remember, moving the embassy to Jerusalem if it happens will not get them the Jewish vote. People who have been the targets of racist, ethnic, sexual orientation, and or religious attacks tend to have a better bullshit detector than most, we have to.
Mnemosyne
@Lapassionara:
One that people really seemed to like at the last protest I went to was, “This is what democracy looks like.”
Spanky
@hovercraft: I wish to hell they were uninformed, but they’re not. They’re mis-informed, by the monetized propaganda machines of Limbaugh, Murdoch, and their ilk. They’re not smart, like a lot of people they do not think critically when they bother to think at all. And the propaganda machines use this feature to great effect. And profit.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
I hear you too, we have stupid everywhere, just like every group has it’s morons, the difference is that in the cities and the suburbs around them there are enough non morons to drown the morons out, we can overwhelm them. That is one of our biggest challenges in taking back congress, even without the gerrymandering small town America is more conservative and republican than the cities, we’ve self segregated, for the most part people who live in rural America do so because they don’t want the crowding and cosmopolitan lifestyle offered by the cities. We simply have different priorities and outlooks. What we need is to recognize that both lifestyles are fine, to each his or her own, the biggest difference is that in the cities we’ve been forced because of the population density to live with people who are vastly different from us in every way imaginable, and we’ve accepted that. Rural communities are still made up of mostly people with similar backgrounds and values, so they don’t have to make many adjustments to different lifestyles.
Pseudo intellectuals are annoying and dangerous, they know just enough to initially sound well informed, but not enough to be informed. I’d say Twitler is like that, but I question whether he is educated at all, and he knows nothing about anything.
hovercraft
@Spanky:
Point taken, but it helps that the propagandists are starting with a blank slate. They were never informed to begin with, so they provided fertile ground for the right to plant it’s bullshit and lies, sorry is that redundant?
Timurid
@Jeffro: They were writing the same op-eds in Victorian England. I’m pretty certain they were writing them in Ancient Rome. “The unexpected and negative consequences of this major structural change can be blamed only on the lazy poors!”
MCA1
I wake up every day with two competing thoughts.
The first is the despondent one, the only conclusion that I can come to when faced with the simple fact that this irredeemable, hateful simpleton is our chosen leader and spokesperson and example we hold up to the world: we are broken. Media evolution, combined with growing levels of self-isolation and self-segregation, have led to a society in which we create our own reality, and 30 years of rightwing vitriol have created a bubble which cannot just be popped. By reason, or by emotional appeal. We are hardwired for extreme polarization, and those who escape it to the middle think Democrats are acting hysterical right now because they’ve swallowed both-sidesism for so long they literally can’t believe their eyes and ears, and goddamn do they resent the shit out of it when we point out to them that this is markedly different and wake the fuck up. Republicans raced to the bottom and found it, but the problem is that bottom is endless and the pendulum can’t just swing back anymore, because it’s reinforced by all the meta-narratives they’ve been chasing all these years, most of which tap some sense of aggrieved resentment at something – lost jobs, condescending liberals, wasteful big government, lowered social status, lowered standing in the eyes of the world. Whatever it is that’s driving them, half the country either don’t see how awful this miserable cretinous traitor in the White House is, thinks we’re being too aggressive and making them feel bad about it, or straight up revel in our angst and are enjoying this as some sort of comeuppance while foolishly ignoring all the damage being done. Because they’re ignorant, and hopelessly so, and intentionally so. They will refuse to connect the dots.
The competing silver lining is the 38% approval rating after just one month in office.
The problem is that I’m just not anywhere near convinced that means people will change their behavioral patterns. W was a colossal box office failure by the end of his second term, but there was basically zero change in the underlying dynamics. This empire’s on the downward slope, perhaps irrevocably. We’re stupid, we have lost all sense of social contract or community or civic interaction, and we have crowned self-interest as our king and designated monetary wealth our greatest virtue. So I eventually go right back to despondent.
Lapassionara
@Mnemosyne: we used that one, and I like it a lot. We were there to try to get Blunt’s attention, so we also had some chanting of “where’s Roy,” and we had some about all being immigrants. But I wish I could get a good one about finding out who Trump owes money to, etc. I am sure someone more clever than me will figure it out.
japa21
Gallup’s latest findings on Americans’ Favorable Ratings of Putin, by Party
2015 2017 Change
Republicans 12 32 +20
Independents 12 23 +11
Democrats 15 10 -5
Kelly
@Jeffro: I spent my career in IT which is overrun with autodidact libertarians. Most are completely convinced that they can do the job of the folks they write code for better than the the folks actually doing the work. Funny thing is they are touchy about other autodidacts encroaching on their turf.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
They truly believe in ponies and unicorns.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
truth.
complete truth.
Spanky
@hovercraft:
Nope! And I’ll go you one further. They bought into a propaganda that helped crystallize their existing, murky world view.
I’d rather they had been left with that murky world view, whether it was accurate or not. At least they wouldn’t have such focused hate.
Monala
@Kay: There are nonprofit programs such as AVID and government-funded programs such as TRIO and GEAR-UP that do just that, but they’re not available in all communities. And with deVos at the helm at DoE, who knows what will happen to the latter two. (Or the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program you mentioned in your comment, which is funded by the IRS).
rikyrah
@MCA1:
The behavior pattern that has changed is from OUR SIDE.
By our nature, we’re the ones who try and find common ground.
By our nature, we’re the ones who have consistently tried to understand ‘ the other side’.
THIS election has changed that.
Maybe, not for all.
But, for a large enough group, that they ARE taking notice.
The MSM is confused, let alone the GOP.
Kay posts all the time, the demands from those people that we need to ‘ respect the level of the office’.
People have posted here about folks on social media talking about ‘ he won, and we should come together.’
and, they’re shocked, when a nice chorus comes back at them, telling them, PHUCK YOU and the horse you rode in on.
They haven’t gotten it.
This isn’t 2000.
Or 2004, after Shrub had lied us into 2 wars.
This is a whole other level, and there’s a nice chunk of folks, saying, ‘ Phuck you, I’m not compromising with you on SHYT, because everything you believe in REPULSES ME…along with the person YOU VOTED FOR.’
The more I say and write it, the more comfortable I become in my position.
Don’t be despondent.
Be angry and revel in the anger.
Those people are repulsive, and they are SO not used to people NOT bending over backwards to ‘ understand them.’
‘Understand them?’
PHUCK THAT.
Florida Frog
Just got back from an Indivisible protest at Rubio’s office. About 80 people. It was a cheerful group. The leadership passed out copies of about 30 chants so we had a good variety. It was very well organized and friendly. Lots of friendly honks and waves from cars and a polite, helpful cop. Every week there is one lone Trump supporter who gets in the middle of the group and tries to shout and airhorn us down. Aggressive ignoring of him works well.
The Moar You Know
@MCA1: This is lovely, and true. Sadly, it’s also most people. And they get angrier when it’s challenged than Jesus freaks do when they discuss religion with atheists. Seriously. I’ve had some great conversations with people about atheism and faith. You try to challenge the “both sides do it” paradigm and people are screaming at you within seconds.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
This is what is confusing them, they are so used to democrats just saying” thank you sir, may I have another”, that the thousands of people saying go fuck yourself is disconcerting to them. Democrats are supposed to just bend over and take it, we’re supposed to apologize for winning, we are not supposed to fight back. Obama fought back and they hated him for it, the media and the GOP kept trying to bully him into not doing what he thought was right, Obamacare, Syria, Detroit, but he held his hand out to them and when they bit it, he just carried on without them, he did it his way, and at the end of 8 years we were measurably better off than we were when he took office. That was his biggest victory over them, all their dire predictions failed to materialize, he forced them to contort themselves into pretzels, and know that they promised their base all of this fantastical bullshit, they are flailing.
After all he and the democrats did for us, they had the gall to elect a rage filled pustule of ignorance, and resentment, and you expect us to sit quietly and accept this? Hell no, you spent the last 8 years raging, now it’s our turn, and the easy thing for us, is that we don’t have to make shit up, the reality is more than horrifying.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hovercraft:
Voting Republican in Kansas is a legacy of the Civil War.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: U.S. Cities are Home to 62.7 Percent of the U.S. Population, but Comprise Just 3.5 Percent of Land Area
Good to know that all those city-dwellers in the Heartland and in the Rugged American West aren’t Real Americans™, amirite?
The 37% of the population that doesn’t live in cities are the only people who count. Good to know.
:-/
We must fight them every single day…
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Timurid: You mean endless lines of Roman Senators raging about how “Bread and Circuses are destroying Rome, yet the hell I will allow anyone to break up the corprorate farms so it will be viable to be a peasent farmer in Italy again”?
StringOnAStick
I just heard a local radio program discussing how the ACA saved so many rural Colorado hospitals from closing, and how 1/3 of the rural hospitals in the entire nation are in the same boat (something like 668 rural hospitals will close nationally). In many of the CO small towns, the hospital is the largest employer and as the interviewee said, once these close, the MD’s, PA’s and NPs are gone and won’t be coming back, so the economic hit to these small towns is going to be huge. One town they focused on in eastern CO is in a county that went 78% for Drumpf, because of course they did.
Mnemosyne
@Florida Frog:
I cringed a little when I saw that the organizers had brought a tambourine to the LAX protest I went to, but it was actually really helpful in getting people to stay on the beat with the chants.
dianne
We no longer say “good morning” – it’s “what’s he done now? ” to the first person up and sitting at the computer.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow: I’ve read quite a bit of very detailed material about Drumpf’s ties to Russia, especially Russian/FSU (Former Soviet Union) gangsters, and it appears he’s filthy w/ connections… don’t know how much of it is criminal on Drumpf’s part but to say the least there are probably some severe ethical problems there… and if he is guilty of some criminal acts, money laundering seems the most likely…
As far as ‘illegal leaks’ go, some material reaching the US media might be coming from foreign govt, like the Baltic states, who are scared of Russia and routinely eavesdrop on Russian comminucations and just happen to hear things about and involving Drumpf… Donald can scream all he wants about illegalities, but if our media gets the info from foreign govts, it ain’t illegal and he can’t stop it…
Don’t know if what I just said is true but it seems highly likely, from what I’ve read…
And given just how much info is building up on Drumpf’s Russian connections, I find it impossible to believe the GOP didn’t know SOME OF THIS before the election… so, in effect, they had NO PROBLEM backing such a compromised candidate…
There is so much there, I don’t see how the GOP can keep it all hidden, indefinitely… they’ve hitched themselves to this shit train… let’s see where the end of the line is…
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: Word. The Yemen sweep-under-the-rug is particularly pissing me off.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@dianne: No shit… almost every conversation I have these days is political… and I’m not exaggerating…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@rikyrah: Just keep talking about ALL of it… do whatever you can to keep as much of it as you can on peoples’ radar… over and over and over again…
MCA1
@rikyrah: I agree with much of what you’ve said, and you make good points, esp. re: the behavioral pattern changing on this side of the aisle, where it’s like a white blood cell reaction to cancer instead of an internalization of whatever the latest evil is. I do hang on to the anger, and have not yet given up, but I don’t share much optimism these days beyond the short term. Our pushing against Drumpf and his minions is bearing some fruit, in terms of waking up the media and the GOP establishment, etc. But I don’t know how we reverse the structural problems here, because they’re deeply rooted in individual psyches.
Maybe we’ll get to the point where we have a repeat of the end of the Gilded Age, with another couple of Roosevelts and and rejection of extreme economic disparity and all that goes with it (shitty education for a majority of the population, no power amongst labor, etc.). But maybe not. Organized labor is pretty much dead, education is being privatized and no one seems to care, more and more wealth continues to concentrate upwards and our reaction is to lower regulations and tax wealth at significantly lower rates than labor and cry at the mere suggestion that this might not be a good idea. I certainly don’t wish for another depression or world war to get to the point where a New New Deal would become palatable, but that feels like what it would take.
I just don’t know that the American Experiment has that long to go before it collapses of its own weight. We set up a system in which independence and the individual were idolized, and now they’re fetishized. And we topped it off with an organizing document that was state of the art and revolutionary at the time but, because we’ve fetishized that, too, it’s basically not been touched in 225 years, gives way too much power to rural parts of the country (through Senate representation) while our population has become more and more concentrated in urban areas, etc. This all worked for awhile, and then it almost tore us apart through slavery and a civil war, then got a new life and almost fell apart again before WWII saved us, and then we had a run at the top of the global food chain for about 35 years while the rest of the world rebuilt from rubble. But rebuild it did, and we moved to an asset stripping economic model around the same time we suddenly had competition again. And now here we are, in a new gilded age when we’re not even f’ing talking about inequality. Instead, the portion of the population most in need of some help willingly voted for a person who is the quintessence of that inequality, who then goes and installs a bunch of billionaire asset strippers in his cabinet and no one outside of Democrats cares or makes a peep. It’s not a particularly just society for a large portion of its inhabitants at this point, and a substantial part of the population is too educationally or morally destitute to even consider what a just society is anymore, much less do anything about it.
Of course, it’s Tuesday and I’m grumpy about being back in the office after a long weekend, and it’s cloudy out. So take all that with a grain or two of salt.
Malovich
@Brachiator:
Peasants. The world you’re looking for is peasants.