by day 64, Trump has seen travel ban halted, FBI probe his associates, top priority fail in Congress, rating fall to 37%. bleak opening act
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 24, 2017
Category error: Mar-a-Lago fees are up, Chinese trademarks approved, Trump hotel is booming, US government leasing space at Trump Tower, etc https://t.co/uLmUSoo5cH
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 25, 2017
.
What’s on the agenda as we buckle up for another week?
***********
17/Fortunately, there are a few small signs that the WWC is waking up to the fact that Trump isn't on their side: https://t.co/BQDnUu2Fgj pic.twitter.com/MGEzblqVNq
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) March 25, 2017
19/Now it just remains to be seen if Democrats can create a home for the WWC in their party without alienating their base. (end)
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) March 25, 2017
There’s plenty of housing available. Plenty of WWC already live there. It’s in racially mixed neighborhoods. Rest have to be ok living there https://t.co/HQl7bpXZDg
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 25, 2017
But it’s not on Dems to move non-whites out to make it OK for those who won’t live around people whose llook or speak or worship differently
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 25, 2017
bystander
The one and only attraction Trump has for the WWC is his racism. Why would we want them in the Dem Party? So we can have more Blue Dogs to dilute Dem ideas and goals?
germy
I don’t know if I really trust John Harwood. Is he rooting for a comeback for the comeback orange kid?
Felonius Monk
A more interesting graph would be “non-college whites with high school diploma” vs ” non-college whites w/o high school diploma”.
Mike J
@bystander: Would you prefer having a Democrat with whom you disagree filling the senate seats from, say, Alabama and Mississippi, and pushing us over 50 votes, or would you rather have ideologically pure Dems and only 46 seats? Having a majority doesn’t mean you can do everything you want to do, but it means you don’t have to fight rear guard actions every day.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m going to blame the all-voluntary military for this problem. A lot of WWCs don’t sign up for a tour, don’t get tossed into a barracks with mezkins, blahs, or others not of their kind.
Which is one reason why I’m in favor of national service with military and civilian options available…but national service where you get diversity crammed down your throat.
germy
Dan Stevens (from Downton Abbey) will be playing Charles Dickens in “The Man Who Invented Christmas”
http://screenrant.com/dan-stevens-charles-dickens-first-look-man-invented-christmas/
Written by a woman who worked on “Mozart In The Jungle”
Jay S
Whoa, CSPAN2 has KrisAnne Hall on giving a monolog on “Sovereign Duty”. States rights and nullification, presented without comment, apparently.
ruemara
Bring in those people ok with voting Trump. Fine, if they come in knowing this is a diverse coalition and that lovely dry hate they signed onto the Donnie campaign for has no place here. Woo these bastards and watch your base crumble. I like the guy behind Noah Opinion, but that point cannot be stressed enough.
WereBear
Man, I haven’t seen a nosedive like this since the premiere of Chevy Chase’s talk show.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Man, the damn non-college-educated WWC must really be skewing the polls upwards. 37% approval rating for Lumpy nationally. I wish they’d wake the hell up already.
germy
@WereBear:
Both very painful to watch.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep. Also how it keeps the wealthiest from contributing too!
https://www.amazon.com/AWOL-Unexcused-Absence-Americas-Military/dp/0060888601
Adam L Silverman
@Jay S: ugh!
germy
@Jay S:
Again with the russia stuff!
Anne Laurie
@bystander:
The most salient reason, IMO, is that ‘to hell with everybody who is not of our tribe‘ does not sit well with the basic Democratic mindset. (There are people would say that’s the difference between us and the Repubs, in fact!)
Since our overriding impulse (weakness) is the urge to help those in need — even deliberately ignorant racists who’d never return the favor, or at least the suffering families/offspring/neighbors of those people — I’d argue it’s better if we acknowledge that, and work with it. If we can’t dismiss every citizen of West Virginia or Mississippi out of hand (“let them move somewhere more liberal, if they want clean water / education / healthcare”), we need to find a way to invite them into our Democratic tent without letting the incurably ill-intentioned wreck the whole party (again).
raven
@Adam L Silverman: It’s been my impression (pushed by our buddy) that the combat arms, infantry in particular, is overwhelmingly white. Is that not the case?
Amaranthine RBG
@Villago Delenda Est:
Re-education camps would be more economical.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Interesting review taglines on that offering. Our top 1% more and more lack a common basis of experience with the rest, and it hurts both ways.
WereBear
@Anne Laurie: I think this week cut through the Faux Noise and pushed their faces into the fact that they want and need Obamacare.
And I’m okay with that.
Yarrow
@West of the Rockies (been a while): It’s going to take an economic downturn where those precious WWC Trump voters lose their jobs to make them think he’s not on their side.
I can also see direct evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians possibly influencing them, at least the older ones.
schrodingers_cat
@bystander: As I have said before the working class people I know personally are Dems. The out and proud T supporter I know is pretty middle class. T supporters are well off people who are anxious that they won’t be able to lord it over everyone else, soon.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
ESPN has a short vid on the first woman to run the Boston Marathon… I thought it was well worth watching. My Link Fu is weak; it’s Legacy of 261. As the father of a teen girl, I really dug it.
bystander
Malcolm Nance’s prediction that Flynn would be the first to turn may be right. Nance’s logic was that Flynn has clearly violated the law and there are witnesses.
AP report: CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem cited unnamed sources and the fact that Michael Flynn has not been called upon to testify under oath before the House Intelligence Committee as evidence that the former Trump adviser may have “cut a deal with the FBI.”
@Anne Laurie: I’m not rejecting every citizen. I’m rejecting the notion that we need to load a bunch of racists into the party. There’s a reason why the Dixiecrats deserted for the repub party.
Patricia Kayden
Houle:
This a million times. If these people were really suffering from economic anxiety (instead of racism and sexism), they would already be voting Democratic.
Amaranthine RBG
@Yarrow:
Most of the Trump supporters I talk to have swapped out China/Muslims/North Korea into the “enemies of America” slot. There is a fair amount of “Russia could be our partner against XXX” talk.
raven
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
“She registered under the gender-neutral “K. V. Switzer”, which she said was not done to mislead the officials. She claimed she had long used “K. V. Switzer” to sign the articles she wrote for her university paper.[9] Switzer was issued a number through an “oversight” in the entry screening process, and was treated as an interloper when the error was discovered.[10] Race official Jock Semple attempted to physically remove her from the race. Switzer claims he shouted, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.”[11] Switzer’s boyfriend Tom Miller, who was running with her, shoved Semple aside and sent him flying, allowing her to proceed. Photographs taken of the incident made world headlines.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGXvBAmTsY
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
My experience with T supporters are contractors I’ve hired over the past year. Roofer, carpenter, etc.
Here are two things they had in common: They all did shitty jobs, and wouldn’t let me make the check out to their company. The check had to be made out to their own name.
I had an electrician last month do some work, and he was proudly progressive. I noticed he printed out a real receipt, including taxes. When I told him about the other guys, he told me “They must be hiding money from the government.”
The electrician did a great job, by the way. Competent, polite and explained his work.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Yarrow:
Yes, I think a Trump/Russia connection once fully revealed should greatly erode his support. Of course, just as with the legacy of the junior Senator from Wisconsin, there will be those fifty years from now arguing he was a great man.
humboldtblue
This, right here.
Democrats are not secretive or hesitant to share their policy proposals. Hillary Clinton was quite explicit in where she stood on a hundred different issues and it’s not like the fight for those policy positions was just introduced in the last election. If you want equality for as many as possible, a living wage for as many as possible, a chance at fairness in the justice system for as many as possible, you vote Democrat but you have to want the same for as many as possible.
Despite what those graphs show above, I will still argue that the greatest electoral obstacle isn’t the uneducated white guy, it’s still the CoC white man and woman. I work for them and and am around them enough to know they aren’t going to change their votes because of some shit like low wages and health care. They are the ones who pay the low wages and who couldn’t drop employer health care quickly enough the minute the ACA passed.
Regular Joe dumbass may vote every now and then and may stand in the street with a pizzagate shirt on, but that’s not who wields that intermediate/local/state power, it’s the small business owner who wants lesser taxes, lesser burdens on running a business and the chance to get labor as cheap as possible. Combine that with a particularly entrenched form of racist-classism and you get Trump because they will never vote for the candidate with the D behind their name.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think I read someplace recently that one of the problems w/ an all-volunteer military is that a lot of the people signing up were actually neo-nazi/alt-right types joining just to get the weapons training…
Don’t know if that’s true but it sounds like it could be…
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: Yes and most of these people are not working class by any definition of the term. This is more a media meme than anything else. Most T voters make more than the national median income.
Seth Owen
@raven: Special operators such as Rangers, SEALs and Green Berets, yes. Regular infantry, armor, artillery, no, not in my experience, unless things have changed a lot recently.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Via the WaPo, Dolt 45 has visited one of his properties 1 out every 3 days he’s been in office.
raven
@germy: “Electrical work is not a hobby”!
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Until T, Rs had only used running for office as a grifting operation but he has done one better than say a Newt G or Herman C, he is using the office of the President to grift.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Patricia Kayden:
Absolutely! No one should give up their seat on the bus to make room for an unreformed bigot. Talk to them about genuine economic concerns and opportunities? Yes. Put up with bigotry? Hell to the no!
efgoldman
@Yarrow:
All those miners and steelworkers lost their jobs years ago, and no matter what the Deadbeat says, they’re not coming back.
WereBear
Yep. And upon retirement they will whine about having trouble living on their tiny Social Security allotment.
Major Major Major Major
Wrapping up the weekend chores. We went up to Sonoma (Guerneville area) with a few other couples, got an Airbnb, I got started on reading a new urban fantasy (Stiletto, the sequel to The Rook), and took some pictures!
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Yes and no. My understanding is the Army has demographic goals for recruiting, especially for the officer corps. So there are more white, male officers across all MOSes. And, of course, because women were prohibited from combat arms until recently, they were far more women in Intel, logistics and acquisitions, personnel, public affairs, Information Ops, PSYOPS, engineers, military police, medical, than in combat arms. The enlisted ranks, however, are more diverse.
raven
@Seth Owen: This was quite a bit ago when Obama visited Iraq and was in a facility with largely African American troops. This dude was going on and on about how the support troops were black and the grunts were white. He attributed it to the “issues” with A troops in the Nam. When I pointed out to him that AA troops were over-represented in the infantry in Nam due to “Project 100,00” he told me I was wrong before he told me I was right.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow:
Didn’t you make a comment on the thread, or two, below, about Trump & the Chinese?
I believe there was a statement in that now famous dossier about that… that Trump wasn’t worried about all the attention the Russian news was generating because it distracted from his potentially more troublesome dealings in other places, like China…
And just the other day it hit me… is there any relationship between Trump dropping out of the TPP so quickly and then the Chinese giving him the rights to 38 trademarks in China a few weeks later?
Wasn’t the TTP designed in part to hem China in economically in SE Asia? So wouldn’t it be to their advantage if we (the US) dropped out? Quid pro quo between Trump and the Chinese on that one?
Haven’t seen that one discussed in the MSM but it might have been pointed out here?
aimai
@Anne Laurie: I don’t understand how you think that happens without formally addressing the fact that they left the party because they preferred racism over, say, health care or education or anything else. Are you proposing that we run some faux populist working class white guy who will promise them that nothing he does will help refugees, immigrants, or POC? Because that really isn’t going to work. I mean–it will work at the state level and I have no trouble with individual democrats who want to run for the senate or the house on that platform, but when they make it to the big city they need to understand that they are in a party that is formally committed to, you know, equality and progress for everyone.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep.
WereBear
And the reason they are so desperate to cut corners is because they don’t have a population with money to spend on their business. Their customers are pinching pennies because of them.
Massive dumbasses. They will lecture you all day about “economics” but they don’t know how it works.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Some have. It’s a very small amount. A lot of them never make it through Initial Military Training. The Services know what to look for and are pretty good at screening/weeding them out.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: 3 Thursday supporters I know personally are well off, 1 extremely so.
aimai
@schrodingers_cat: Right: Trump has regular old upper class Republican voters all sewn up. They came for the tax cuts and they stayed for the racism. They will never join the democratic party because the Republican party they voted for is the party of oligarchs who do what they want by tossing the rubes anti abortion/anti woman/anti POC rhetoric and policies. So the moneyed republican voters are always going to vote for the R, and the impoverished, uneducated, and southern/christianist ones are going to vote for the R because they won’t vote for any democrat because babeez or obamaphones.
Just heard a guy talking bout his research on what causes white people to be for or against “pay for play” in sports teams–that is for or against the idea that student athletes should be paid for their sports time while in school. The number one issue: racism. Because if you are racist then any program that you think helps black people violates a basic, core, principal which is that black people are unworthy of money/time/advantages. And any policy that you think punishes black people is A-ok with you. There’s no more to it that than. If that is the basic principal of the WWC then any democratic policy that is egalitarian and helps everyone is going to be tainted, int heir eyes, because it helps black people.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: TRUMP supporter
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman: Well, that’s a relief to hear… it seems that every time I see a picture of one of our glorious, home-grown, uber-patriotic militias, I’m amazed at how many pot bellies and long, scraggily beards I see… in other words, these are NOT people I want to see well-trained in the use of high-tech weaponry…
Van Buren
@germy: Agree 100%. The Trump supporters that I know are pretty open about the fact that they cheat on taxes, so they don’t give a crap that Donald does too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Thru the Looking Glass…: LA Gangs were definitely sending members to get military training they could apply back in the ‘hood. Wouldn’t surprise me if others were as well, especially when the services started getting desperate for warm bodies to fill billets and lowered recruitment standards to meet that demand during the Great Mesopotamian Adventure.
Ladyraxterinok
@Mike J: No way PURE democrat wins in OK To think Fred Harris was once a senator from OK!!
Yarrow
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Yes, I linked to a tweet by Adam Khan:
I don’t think the Russia stuff is a distraction. I think they’ve been funding Trump for a long time. Decades, probably. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to see in his Chinese business interests. Follow the money. He’s probably breaking all sorts of laws there.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: There is a subset of Service members who leave and then migrate into these movements. I think some of it is they’ve done their time, they’ve seen a lot of war, and now they just want to be left alone. And one of the through lines of these groups is the radical, negative libertarian individualism of just being left alone.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh good Lord…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Yarrow: I remember that tweet… the more we learn, the more likely it seems that Trump in in this just to make as much money for himself as he can… given all we’ve heard about Putin and Rosneft of late, it makes me wonder just how much Vlad might have offered Donald for his services here…
humboldtblue
Wasn’t it Minnesota that raised the minimum wage and increased income taxes on high earners that washed away a deficit and improved consumer spending?
There was another story from a businessman out here in the West (I wanna say Oakland) who is arguing that higher wages means more spending money from the lower income brackets and that means a far more stable and profitable consumer and business climate.
raven
In 1994, blacks comprised nearly 25 percent of all Army infantry units. By 2009, that figure had dropped to 10 percent. Today, there are four times more blacks serving in administrative or supply positions in the Army than in infantry posts, according to service statistics. Marine Corps statistics show similar trends.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman:
Makes the first Rambo movie sound like a documentary that was simply ahead of its time…
raven
@Thru the Looking Glass…: We don’t got no RPG/s.
Frankensteinbeck
Throw me in for ‘This right here.’ Every Trump voter is welcome to vote Democrat. We will look after their economic interests whether or not they do. We are not going to stop openly fighting racism, sexism, and every other kind of bigotry. Confronting them is more important now than ever. And almost all the ‘Bring in the WWC’ arguments come down to ‘stop talking about racism.’ To repeat from an earlier thread: Fuck that sh it.
Anne Laurie
@humboldtblue:
Commentor Davis X. Machina introduced me to the term Poujadism. Read Wikipedia’s description and see if that doesn’t remind you of the “proud independent small businessmen” who provide the backbone of Trumpism — right down to accusing the national tax officials of being rapists & pederasts.
Kathleen
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Was it about Katherine Switzer? She was officially the first woman registered to run the Boston Marathon.
ETA: I see Raven beat me to it! That’s what I get for not scrolling before commenting. I recommend her book Marathon Woman (coincidentally I’m even wearing the shirt I bought from her booth at a 5K in St. Pete a few years back). The story of her running career is fascinating even if you are not a runner.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: The difference is the Russian money is all tied up with Russian organized crime, which is tied into Russian Intel, all of which is overseen by Putin who is the krysha. The Chinese stuff is much more straightforward. The state owned banks own a lot of his debt. Equally problematic. The former is sketchy, even if he’s just a private businessman. The latter is not. As an elected official, especially President, they’re both a problem.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Do you know who Poujade’s security chief was? That’s right, Jean Marie Le Pen.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
I just saw a video about that the other day in regard to ISIL ops in Iraq.
Adam L Silverman
@humboldtblue:
It’s almost like someone paid attention during their macroeconomics seminar.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman: Well… that’s reassuring…
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: While Rambo, in the original novel, was loosely based on a real person, Audey Murphy, my understanding is that the Trautman character in the movie was loosely based on Bo Gritz. And Gritz pretty much fits that bill.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@humboldtblue:
Gee… ya think? I’ve been saying this for years… if the rich want to pay less in taxes, just make sure the lower income brackets actually have enough income to pay taxes on… srsly…
Adam L Silverman
@raven: You want some? I know a guy…// ?
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Adam L Silverman: So it WAS a documentary…
humboldtblue
@Anne Laurie:
I am constantly lectured about how awful California is for businesses and how the tax burdens, the environmental burdens, the labor and work place safety burdens are driving hard-working-put-upon-and-fed-up business owners to flee the state in droves and set up shop in Nevada or Texas.
Funny, though, how for every business that leaves three others come in to take their shot at a massive and relatively well-monied populace.
The “I worked for all I have and built this business with my own sweat” guy is almost ALWAYS (not every time) but almost ALWAYS the legacy owner of a business established by a dad or grandad. I run into that shit all the time up here. The men and women who actually do the building from the ground up most likely took advantage of silly liberal programs like economic development grants and local and county tax incentives and employee training initiatives to ensure they had a ready pool of workers they could hire.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus:
humboldtblue
@Omnes Omnibus:
.
Well got-damn, the things I learned today.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: I have friends who are otherwise fine progressive types but who buy into the WWC “economic anxiety” angle and don’t want to listen to the racist/sexist angle, because yes, it’s uncomfortable. I just don’t tolerate that attitude, because I have lived and worked side by side with the objects of white male racism and I refuse to let it slide…I know that people are just people, and must be appraised individually, not as a group. Trump’s supporters don’t want to be bothered with that level of detail, because they are lazy, and because they are assholes.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Someone in one of the Syrian rebels groups managed to get sights on an entire group of Hezbullah militia. Just standing around out in the open. So they shot a RPG at them.
Baud
@Anne Laurie
This explains why I lost the primary.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@humboldtblue:
Right… and that’s why California, on its own, is only the world’s 6th largest economy…
Villago Delenda Est
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Some obscure, little known, and infrequently read Scottish guy figured this out 240 years ago, you know.
Baud
@Baud:
Oh sorry. Hope an admin can fix that.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: done
Kathleen
@raven:@raven: Have you seen Free To Run, a history of modern running movement? I saw it on Spectrum/TW On Demand. I highly recommend it. Evidently it was illegal for women to run in some road races as late as the 60’s. We older runners (60 & 70 somethings) agree that had we been able to compete as young women we wouldn’t still be able to run in our advanced ages.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Villago Delenda Est: Well that explains the problem… the idea hasn’t been around long enough…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@humboldtblue: And about half of those that leave end up coming back.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: TRUMP [email protected]Thru the Looking Glass…: After OKC bombing, former student in army told me there were many RW people lat and around his base in KS.
WereBear
@Thru the Looking Glass…: Marker for Republican thinking: wanting things both ways, always.
humboldtblue
@Villago Delenda Est:
I wish I could find an article I read about five weeks ago. I got the link from a reddit thread and it was a fascinating interview with a white woman who has been running seminars directed at we whites and what racism and white privilege mean and how it affects us and those around us. It was a very interesting and for me in particular, poignant and personal. I like to think I am enlightened when it comes to race (primarily due to my rather diverse clan and extended web of friends) and most of the time I’m just as full of shit and blind as the next motherfucker.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Over at Politico, there’s an article up that quotes Trump’s budget guy, Mulvaney, as saying the latest push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act had failed because Washington was “lot more rotten” than the Trump administration had thought…
In other words, It’s NOT our fault!
I’ve seen this blamed on Obama… Pence tried to claim the ‘status quo won’… Trump said it was the Dems fault for not helping at all…
Amazing…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@WereBear: No shit…
Ladyraxterinok
@Adam L Silverman: Whatever happened to the rallying cry of the GOP of the 50s and 60s better dead than red?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes, the Russian stuff is illegal on a lot of fronts and it puts him in the vicinity of treason even if eventually that is not one of the charges against him.
The Chinese stuff may look more above board, but the Chinese are well known for “helping their ‘friends'” (other countries) and then shockingly getting a good deal from their “friends” with something they want in return. They’ve been doing this all across the African continent for decades now. It’s particularly evident in the oil producing African countries like Angola and Nigeria where they come in the build hospitals and roads and then ask for and get a better deal with the oil. The also don’t subscribe to the same restrictions with regard to bribes that American companies are held to by US law. It’s complicated, as you know.
It’s not at all surprising that China let some of Trump’s business deals go ahead after he became president–ones that had been held up for years. They’ll want something for that. It’s not out of the goodness of their hearts.
The Chinese ties are perhaps not as bad as Russian mob involvement but I doubt it’s as straightforward as clean banking deals. And the Chinese have their own ways of making people uncomfortable if necessary.
D58826
@Villago Delenda Est: As I’ve said before, and over generalizing a bit, coming out of the WWII military its a bit harder for the 10% to look down on the 90% when the pilot of the b17 depends on the gunners from the 90% to protect his tender 10% hide.
Thru the Looking Glass...
I gotta go, folks… later…
raven
@Kathleen: Ooo, I’ll look for it. I was a late joiner in running, I had no interest while I could still play hoop. I started when I was about 40 and ran for 10 years, now it’s just swimming.
Do you know about the The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei?
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Rather have my old 14 back.
Villago Delenda Est
@humboldtblue: Yeah, I constantly remind myself that I too can be full of shit and try to check myself whenever I can. Eternal vigilance! White privilege is real, and we don’t notice, like fish, that we’re swimming in water.
rikyrah
He’s behind the times. Folks have been there BEFORE the election, and totally are there since November 8th.
New York MagazineVerified account @NYMag
Democrats need to stop trying to feel everyone’s pain, and hold on to their own anger, writes @frankrichny
Baud
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I thought only Trump could fix it.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: I think that’s a legit point of view, myself. There are precious few officers now who come from the 1%. I knew one guy who was heir to some fortune who signed up (as an officer) because first, he needed something to do, and second, it was a way to pay back society for his great fortune in falling out of the right womb.
Mary G
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And most of the other half complain about the weather where they moved to and wish they could come back.
El Caganer
@Adam L Silverman: There was much discussion on this when the gov’t was trying to bail out the economy back in 2007-9. The proponents of big tax cuts had their noses seriously put out of joint when it was disclosed that the type of stimulus that generated the greatest dollar multiplier benefits in local economies was SNAP. People who don’t have much spend on what they need – they don’t hide money in their mattresses, let alone in the Cayman Islands.
BBA
@Villago Delenda Est: Honestly? I don’t think it’s possible to overcome. I think all we white people can do is sit down, shut up, and vote Democratic.
Adam L Silverman
@Thru the Looking Glass…: A month ago Mulvaney was one of the leaders within the Freedom Caucus in the GOP majority House of Representatives.
Adam L Silverman
@Ladyraxterinok: It died. After turning red.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
And they’re coming from the same people who a few years ago were saying the problem with the Dems is that they try to tell everyone they’ll do good things for them, but they don’t convey that they stand for anything, and real Murkins will support someone who is strong and wrong over someone who is weak and right.
Funny how clearly standing against racism/misogyny/bigotry and for everyone paying their fair share didn’t magically bring them over. Guess they’ll also support someone who is strong and wrong over someone who is strong and right, as long as it’s the preferred kind of “wrong.”
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I’ll make a call…//
D58826
After following the various thread and articles that are linked on Twitter, just a general observation. Not only is the Trump admin. corrupt to the core and probably guilty of treason but so is a good bit of the GOP. The gang of 8 on the Intel. committees, the leadership – ZEGS/Turtle – all get some, if not all, of the intel. that POTUS gets. Turtle refused to let Obama make some of this public last fall. They voted for one cabinet officer with a string of insider trading deals (Price), another (Ross) with ties to a bank in Cyprus suspected of laundering money for the Russians, an incompetent Sec of ED (DeVos) whose brother is Eric Prince of Blackwater fame, the incompetent HUD sect. (Carson) and they were willing to over look as Nat. Sec. Adviser (Flynn) some one with obvious ties to Putin.
So in a CYA effort they are at best slow walking the investigations and at worst (Nunes) actively sabotaging them
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Hmm another Irishman in T’s circle. I wonder what the gravitational pull T has over these guys, or is it the other way around.
Redshift
@El Caganer: Yeah, and the administration included tax cuts even though the knew they wouldn’t work, to try to get Republican support, and still got none. And now it’s an article of faith among the wingnuts that they didn’t even try to work with Republicans.
Baud
@Redshift: Agree.
mainmata
@Villago Delenda Est: Agree, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa (Ethiopia). I wasn’t a racist to begin with so the experience was, at the time, more a matter of going from the 20th century to, like the 15th century given the environment in which I found myself. And I was the better for it (and it affected my entire future life). I generally think that national service is probably the only way this country can create a national identity in an otherwise increasingly fractured country. It would also reduce the influence of the oligarchs that are manipulating the racists and misogynists to get their own agenda into law: one that would really hurt the racists.
Redshift
I think the significance of the drop in T’s support among non-college whites (and thus Republicans overall) is not so much that they’re now ripe targets to become Democrats as that it reduces other Republicans’ fear of a backlash from his supporters if they turn against him. The argument for why the Congressional GOP has been in lockstep with him is that while his approval overall is dismal, he still had 90% approval among Republicans. Now he doesn’t. If it continues to slide, how many GOPers will start to be less sure it’s a good idea to risk their own necks providing cover for his Russian entanglements?
TriassicSands
After the week that Trump has had, you’d expect his ratings to have plummeted to a new low. But this is 2017 America (back on the road to greatness) and Trump’s supporters are not ordinary, rational supporters.
In the Gallup daily tracking poll, Trump hit his low of 37% a week ago on 3/18. What followed had to be one of the worst weeks in presidential history. Trump went all-in on what could be the worst piece of legislation ever put together in the House of Representatives. The CBO’s scoring of the AHCA was devastating. Trump was all over the news being hailed as the great “closer.” In the end, Trump failed to deliver, Ryan pulled the bill when in faced certain defeat, and Trump immediately went to work blaming anyone but himself for the disaster.
And between 3/18 and 3/25, Trump’s approval went UP from 37% to 40% (actually hitting 41% on 3/23 and 3/24.
Is it possible that Trump has a new, much higher never-say-die support group? W bottomed out at about 27%. Trump is doing a much worse job than W ever managed, yet he is more than 10 points higher. Does it require more time for the awfulness of Trump to sink in or will it never sink in for what must be the dumbest and most ignorant constituency an American president has ever assembled?
WereBear
@D58826: I had a hunch this was so. Which means when the dominos fall, it will be one of those epic things that wind up on Youtube.
FlipYrWhig
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Mulvaney was first elected to Congress in the Tea Party year of 2010. He knew full well of and contributed personally to the current state of Republican rot.
Hal
One of my favorite comic book panels is also a fitting summary to the AHCA…
GOP health care in summary
WereBear
@mainmata: The Job Corp program was like that. In this country.
Iowa Old Lady
@Redshift: And that the Ds “jammed the bill through.” I don’t even know what that means. That thing took forever, with multiple hearings, testimony from stakeholders, negotiations, concessions, and a major speech by Obama. And then I seem to recall it passed the Senate by 60 votes.
efgoldman
@humboldtblue:
But (a really important but): Recognizing that is 80% of the battle.
geg6
@rikyrah:
I loooooooved that column and agree with him 100%.
D58826
@efgoldman: I realized in my early 20’s, after arguing with my Granddad, that it’s my facts and his opinions or was it his facts and my opinions. I always got confused about which was which but that insight has helped me try and keep things in perspective and give a fair and respectful hearing to what the other side has to say. Doesn’t mean that I have to agree but just accept the fact that I might not know everything
Ruckus
@D58826:
This is true. Being in tight spaces and suffering the same slings and arrows does have an equalizing effect.
efgoldman
@Redshift:
Plus (and this is WAY more important than most people realize) you don’t try to push congress around and step on their prerogatives. That’s WORSE than a rookie mistake. No matter how weak and ineffective the “speaker” is, s/he’ll ALWAYS get preference over the WH.
patroclus
@TriassicSands: No, Bush was far worse. He invaded the wrong country based on bald-faced whoppers, he was responsible for the worst terrorist attack on the U.S. since Pearl Harbor, he presided over the worst financial crash since the Great Depression, he tried for months to destroy Social Security, he failed miserably to respond to a hurricane, he instituted torture and extraordinary rendition as instruments of U.S. policy, he outed undercover CIA agents and then commuted the sentences of those directly responsible, he appointed terrible USSC Justices, he blew up the deficit with tax cuts solely for the wealthy, he ignored financial regulations, defunded the SEC and allowed rampant greed to take over Wall Street and that’s just the start. Trump is a far worse person, but he hasn’t actually done all that much in 7 weeks and he’s so incompetent that most of his major initiatives are fiascoes. Give Trump 8 years and he might exceed Bush-level bad, but not yet. Bush was the worst ever and it’s not close.
efgoldman
@TriassicSands:
Early days, yet. People are loath to admit they made a mistake, just like it takes months and months for your uncle to admit he bought a lemon of a car.
dm
I lost all taste for my fivethirtyeight.com addiction on November 8. But now it’s tracking the Trumpster-fire’s (un)popularity, and all of a sudden it’s interesting again.
Kinda wish they still had state-by-state numbers, but no one’s polling that way.
piratedan
@Major Major Major Major: that’s a good read imho
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
Are you saying that racism is a much stronger force than money? Cause it sure sounds like it.
BTW if you are, I agree with you.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@patroclus:
Give Dolt 45 a chance, he’s only been there 65 days or so; Shrub had 8 years to fuck everything up.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I find the cut of your jib most acceptable.
Major Major Major Major
I think the “but I didn’t expect the leopards to eat MY face” metaphor might be the defining one of this political era, assuming the species survives it.
workworkwork
@germy: He also does a great job as David Haller on the FX series Legion.
D58826
@patroclus: Think of the past 7 weeks as Der Fuhrer’s spring training. Once opening day arrives I’m sure he will make W look good in comparison.
I did see one Tweet that said the only POTUS who had a worst first month actually died. So I guess you can chalk ‘not dying’ as an achievment
Major Major Major Major
@piratedan: interesting to see the other side so far. I am still very upset by the first scene. ~100 pages in
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
No. Not 8 yrs. I don’t think I can live through 8 yrs of this shit.
And of course it didn’t take GWB the entire 8 yrs to fuck up most of the stuff patroclus listed. He did that rather early on. And on, and on, and on…….
Let’s just say that of the first 3 presidents in the 21st century, the 2 republicans are going to have to be listed in the worst 3 or 4 and the democrat is going to the other end of the list. That’s a pretty bad state of affairs for the republican party, or at least it should be.
mainmata
@schrodingers_cat: Speaking as an Irish-American, I thoroughly despise the Hannitys, O’Reillys and the many other rightwing Irish Americans out there but I wager there are even more that are liberals.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to solidify a democratic voting pattern in millennials, but we shall see. Maybe age turns you republican. I personally think the turn towards conservatism in the boomers is because a lot of them were never actually liberal, they just opposed the war and enjoyed the parties associated with the movement, then when that was all over they got swept up in Reaganmania.
All my fellow millennials that I know are pretty well to the left of the Democratic Party except for a few libertarians, but I have a weird sample.
D58826
The lede on a Huff. post story
The second sentence is really depressing. Not surprising but depressing none the less.
Equally depressing is according to Gallop Der Fuhrer’s approval rating jumped from 37% to 40%.
El Caganer
@patroclus: You’ve set a high bar for Trump, but you’ve given him something to aim for!
Ruviana
@Thru the Looking Glass…: I just finished David Cay Johnston’s book on Trump–interesting if depressing now. Johnston notes that Trump was talking about running for President as far back as 1985, with a goal to use it as a profit-making venture. And what we’re seeing now is him doing that.
Michael Bersin
On Saturday afternoon we covered a pro-labor rally in the Capitol rotunda in Jefferson City. There was also a Trump teabagger rally held outside in the rain.
We stopped for pizza and beer (a pitcher of Boulevard Wheat) at a pizza joint across from the front entrance after the labor rally. As we exited the pizza joint the Trump teabaggers started their march around the Capitol grounds. It’s a Saturday in Jefferson City – there’s no one around to watch. We dropped our camera bags and tripods, reconfigured our cameras/lenses and grabbed some stills as they marched by.
You got that right
They wear their sense of entitlement and injury on their t-shirts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: I think that’s a pretty good take on Boomers. Yeah, they didn’t want to go to ‘Nam, they liked all the free love and the dope, they got married, had kids, and turned into their parents without even noticing it.
Elie
@aimai:
Totally.
Instead of trying to get these WWC racists to join our party, our best bet is to energize and engage the non voters who aren’t mired into racism. I don’t know how many we are talking about but if we can get our own people out and not wasting their votes on “false prophets” such as Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, and energize the youth and new voters, we can just leave the WWC that want to stay left behind, well, where they are. Sometimes the survival of the species requires that certain groups must die out because they cannot or will not adapt. Democrats will have to work hard and maybe spend some time in the wilderness in some geo-regions, but trying to incorporate the bigots is a fools errand and waste of time..
Lizzy L
@patroclus: This is a good reminder. Bush was an awful president. But I think most people here would agree that Trump has the potential to exceed him, and that it won’t take eight years for him to do so. Executive incompetence and the Republicans’ internal issues may result in no major legislation being passed this year — no tax reform, no infrastructure bill, no budget — and should that happen I would expect (I do expect) a serious reaction on the part of the financial markets, though probably not something big enough to rival 2008’s nosedive. [Warning: I am NOT an economist.] Trump is certainly capable of reacting insanely to a military provocation, something scary from NK for example, and I don’t see the Rs in Congress trying to hold him back. If we have another hellacious hurricane; well, the current head of FEMA, Robert Fenton, is actually experienced and competent. Terrible SC justices: have you met Neil Gorsuch? No, neither have I, but he’s absolutely in the Alito mold and Trump may well get a 2nd nomination, even a third. Trump probably won’t try to destroy Social Security, I’ll give him that. Torture: who knows? I suspect it depends on James Mattis. Anyway, you get my point.
The good news is: these guys really are incompetent, and the resistance is awake and paying close attention.
japa21
@mainmata: Speaking as an Irish Catholic American I second that and through in Paul Ryan and Steve Bannon who are doing their best to give Catholics a bad name. And please, don’t go there.
sukabi
@Michael Bersin: looks like a “crowd” of 10 or so. That’s actually encouraging. They’re getting way more coverage than they deserve.
efgoldman
@Iowa Old Lady:
Umm… you really should know by now that to expect a rational, meaningful statement out of the RWNJs (and not just Henna Hairball) is a fool’s errand.
It doesn’t “mean” anything, except “we are a bunch of dumb fucks, who couldn’t organize breakfast; we have no goddamned idea what we’re doing, but if we can hurt people it’s a win, and if the ni[clang] did it, it’s wrong.”
See? Simple. Doesn’t require any real interpretive skill at all.
schrodingers_cat
@mainmata: True that’s been my experience IRL too. I guess Rs attract reactionaries of all communities, Dinesh D’souza and Ramesh Ponnuru come to mind.
opiejeanne
@Mary G: We knew several people in the 70s and 80s who just hated how liberal California was, couldn’t wait to move back home to Georgia or Texas, etc. Most were stationed at March AFB near Riverside. They were all back in CA within six months, complaining of how narrow-minded people were in their old hometown/state.
Lalophobia
@BBA: Hell, I can manage that!
efgoldman
@D58826:
As long as the “other side” is willing to do the same, and as long as they have a rational argument. Sex trafficking in a pizza parlor is not a rational argument. Evolution isn’t real is not a rational argument. Women can’t get pregnant from rape (or conversely, if they do, it’s a blessing from magic sky buddy) is not a rational argument.
Shall I go on?
Fuckem
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: I heartily approve.
Iowa Old Lady
@efgoldman: You are so right, and yet I never seem to give up hope that I can find meaning in the string of words they produce. I need to level up in cynicism.
efgoldman
@Villago Delenda Est:
I fucking noticed!
WereBear
Erich Fromm:
mainmata
@Ruckus: That was also true of the 20th century. Only TR, Eisenhower and Bush 1 were competent Republican Presidents and they would be utterly condemned by the modern GOP. Taft, Coolidge and Hoover were do-nothings. Harding was utterly corrupt as was Nixon. Reagan, was an incompetent ideologue who really depended upon Congress when he wasn’t committing treason.
Michael Bersin
@sukabi:
There were more than ten, probably fewer than fifty. They had an extensive sound system at their rally site on the Capitol grounds. They were playing “Ballad of the Green Berets” as they marched around. I kid you not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Michael Bersin:
WTF?!
Suzanne
@TriassicSands:
I’m going with the latter.
I also think it’s worthwhile to give up on ever returning/bringing these people to the coalition. The diehard sTrumpets don’t deserve to have their interests catered to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Michael Bersin: ZOMG. “Ballad of the Green Berets”. Yikes. Surprised they weren’t playing that Lee Greenwood atrocity.
efgoldman
@Iowa Old Lady:
That helps, but really all you need to do is think of it as Snowbillie Snookie or Cantaloupe Cankersore word salad, with slightly better grammar.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Here’s the thing to remember: Even if the Dems “jammed” ACA through, it was something that the GOP proved unable to accomplish. They are the chumps they’ve said the Dems are.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Some of it might be where you live.
I don’t think you become conservative or more so due to age, I think the boomers had a run of shitty liberal politicians back 30-50 yrs ago. But that’s as no never mind, can’t change the past. A lot of the old farts that I know are liberals, not conservative in the least. No, I think it’s racism. The republican party has been racist all my life, they are just letting their freak flag fly higher now. It’s also faux news and the coordinated strategy to use/bring that as their party cornerstone. It used to be just one of legs of the table. OK it was a 2 legged table, reduce taxes and racism but now….
NuetronFlux
@Villago Delenda Est: Correct
Michael Bersin
@Villago Delenda Est: That, too.
efgoldman
@Suzanne:
If you mean racism, sexism, xenophobia etc you’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, their more general interests – affordable medical care, decent jobs, decent wages, good schools, safe neighborhoods, safe food and water supply, etc – are our interests, too.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Quoted out of necessity.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: like I said, no doubt I’ve a skewed sample. I also don’t think you get much more conservative as you age, but the world can lose the sheen of idealism and you turn to cynicism. Might be what happened with Gen X. Millennials seem to be mostly right thinking and hard working about fixing what’s wrong, the ones I know and have known since high school (in Denver).
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
If you’re my age, and I think you are, that’s flat not true. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts would not have passed without significant support from Northern and Midwestern Republicans. Most of the Warren court was Republican. That they morphed into what they are now over roughly half a century is one of the great tragedies of US politics.
Belafon
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s not like we’re asking these people to give two shirts to the next homeless person they meet. They just have to stop being racist. If that bar is too high to clear for them, then they can’t be in the party.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
I’m gonna’ get me one of them Chinese copyrights.
Ruckus
@mainmata:
Of course you are right.
I was just trying to limit myself to the worst of the worst and notice that in this century 100% of republican presidents have been/are fucking shit. And not only that but it appears that not only are they fucking shit but they get even worse as time goes on. Both major fuck ups in every way and yet their popularity is above 5%, which is far more than either of them deserve.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Villago Delenda Est: Supposedly the Bush Administration lowered standards, to meet goals during the Global War on Terror.
chris
@schrodingers_cat: Which reminds me, again, of Sikhs for Trump. Still shaking my head over that one.
efgoldman
@Belafon:
And I just have to stop being short, and old.
For 99%++, it’s baked in. To mix terrible cooking metaphors, you can’t unboil an egg.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Fine. Let them go along for the ride and get the good stuff. Fuck them for their views about fucking over anyone who doesn’t look like them or pee in a urinal.
Belafon
@efgoldman: Being short and old is like being black. No, you can’t change those. But, I’ve watched my parents, grown up in Abilene, TX types, change from thinking gays are sinners to supporting gay marriage.
Another Scott
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Dunno. We should recall, though, that Donnie said he could run for President and make a profit. He’s obviously trying to do the same being President.
Reuters:
Cui Bono? is always a good question to consider when it comes to Trump. In most cases, the answer is “DJT” – or at least, that’s who he’s trying to make sure benefits.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Gen X was always cynical. One of their hallmarks.
Another Scott
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Dunno. We should recall, though, that Donnie said he could run for President and make a profit. He’s obviously trying to do the same being President.
Reuters has quotes from Stabenow, Cardin, and Blumenthal where they argue that it’s more to do with a shot across the bow about the One China policy and his currency manipulation charges.
Cui Bono? is always a good question to consider when it comes to Trump. In most cases, the answer is “DJT” – or at least, that’s who he’s trying to make sure benefits.
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@Yarrow:
I find that very doubtful.
WereBear
The difference is the kind of person they want to be.
When the election happened the press was highlighting this sociological study about how all these Trump voters felt minorities and women and all these Others had “jumped the line.” That it was supposed to be Their Turn.
Guess what? It was never going to be their turn. They could have gotten an education, bettered themselves, or at least not been ignorant, spiteful, delusional, and mean.
No one took their turn. They sent themselves to the back of the line.
chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Good thing it wasn’t all of us, the world’d be in a right pickle now. Oh…wait
Villago Delenda Est
@Michael Bersin: It is not possible, even with Anglo-Saxon vulgarities, to fully express my loathing of that song. It was forced on me in the Army and I’ve never forgotten it. The brass liked it because it reassured the troops that there were people out there who were cloyingly grateful for their service. This place goes bonkers on Veteran’s Day with folks wincing away from “thank you for your service” platitudes. I’m always one of the bonkers.
Cain
@germy: all the contractors I’ve hired here in the Portland metro area have been out and out Democrats.. we usually have a great conversation and as you say, they don’t do any funny business and care about their jobs and the quality of their work.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Representative Howard Smith, a Democrat and avid segregationist from VA, chairman of the rules committee promised to keep it from being voted by keeping it bottled up in committee. In the senate the southern dems were the ones keeping it from being passed with a filibuster of 60+ days.
So you are right about the parties. My bad.
In the over all scheme of things we are about the same age. But if we are counting you have a couple of years on me.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: from birth though?
schrodingers_cat
@efgoldman: Hasn’t the Republican party been anti-immigrant right from its inception, though?
patroclus
@Yarrow: You’re just saying that because it’s in your interest to say it. Like you’d really say something truthful. :-)
Aleta
Chris Steele supposedly, asked by Dems, going to testify informally for them for the Senate IC.
germy
@Cain: I envy you, quite frankly. My experience has been the opposite, except for an electrician and a plumber. The roofer and carpenter were insane.
Jeffro
@chris:
Hey as long as there are two, they can use the plural…never mind that there were likely the ONLY two…
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve had one person who worked at the VA thank me for my service.
I didn’t say anything, but I think the look on my face must have been priceless because she’s never said it to me again. Depending on the tone that goes with the words tells me what I need to know about why they are saying it. Most are not genuine at all, some are. But I often wonder when I was in public in uniform and never once heard it, why it’s so important to say it now.
germy
@Jeffro: What is the deal with the Blacks For Drumpf people so visible during rallies? Someone here said they were part of some cult? (and not Cult 45)
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Never studied on it, but all the industrialists who brought over Chinese and Irish to build the railroads, and who hired all those immigrants from everywhere to work in the factories and mills, I’m guessing were Republicans. I’m sure they thought that ethnics generally, and new immigrants specifically, were lower forms of life.
No less than Ben Franklin wrote a terrible screed about how German immigrants were going to be the death of the country.
Cain
@Hal:
Ah yes, jwz.. he used to be a part of our free software project and then turned against us when we started doing real software engineering. Then again jwz isn’t that clever by half. Good cartoon though!
zhena gogolia
I’m getting ads for Trump International hotels.
efgoldman
@germy:
I don’t ever, ever discuss politics or economics with the craftspeople. I’m sociable, but i want them to do the work without philosophy.
If I were a bartender these days, I’d have to find a new line of work.
germy
@efgoldman:
In the 1931 Marx Brothers film “Monkey Business” Chico lets loose a long burst of nonsense, and Groucho breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience “That’s my argument; restrict immigration.”
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@patroclus: Absolutely true. Trumplethinskin is awful and has the potential to be the worst ever, but in terms of what he’s actually accomplished, not so much… yet.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: aren’t they the Yahweh Ben Yahweh people?
germy
@efgoldman: I never bring up the subject, but some of them insist on being outspoken.
I think it was bad because it was an election year, and they were bursting with what they’d heard on their truck radios on the way over.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: No. It wasn’t.
This is the Republican Party’s 1856 platform.
germy
@Major Major Major Major: So they hope drumpf will hasten the apocalypse?
efgoldman
@germy:
The signs were visible because the campaign placed them there.
Most or all of the people holding them were white.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: I don’t think I’ve ever had it said to me at the VA, except when I’m profusely thanking some VA worker for doing their jobs well, for me in particular, and they just shrug me off and say that they’re there to serve vets who actually had to put up with so much. People bitch about the VA, but my experiences with them over the years have nearly always been positive.
aimai
@efgoldman: I watched a little clip of Trump explaining, during the campaign, that he would get rid of the “catastrophe that was obamacare.” In this rally he is positioned in front of four black people–they are on various sides and behind him. When he said “catastrophe that is obamacare” the black guy behind him wearing a blacks for trump t shirt puts his hand to his mouth in absolute shock and looks nervously at the black woman standing behind Trump.She looks away and holds her sign so she doesn’t have to applaud. It was pretty funny.
Ruviana
@Major Major Major Major: Liberal at age 11. Liberal today at 65. Just sayin’.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruviana: I didn’t mean everyone.
cokane
if Trump and Republicans continue to alienate college educated whites, midterms could look strangely rosy from the Democrats. Low education folks don’t turn out in high numbers in midterms anyways, and there’s a solid chance Trump’s base and NeverTrump conservatives could be totally demoralized by the end of 2018.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
How did you post the video?
germy
efgoldman
@Ruviana:
When I was a kid, going to cowboy movies on a Saturday afternoon, I’d get upset when the bad guy got killed instead of getting arrested and tried.
I couldn’t have been ten yet. I have no damned idea where I got it, except I read a ton, and I had no TV available in those years.
StringOnAStick
@Ruviana: Yep, same here. As soon as I can remember, I was a liberal and still am as I approach 59. I even read Pogo as a small kid and though I didn’t get the politics, I knew there was something there that I was interested in. How I ended up liberal with John Bircher parents is a question though.
Baud
@germy:
Uh huh.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: He has ungodly Front Pager powers that allow him to post stuff like that directly, that are denied us mere mortals.
Baud
@Ruviana: Getting more liberal as I age. Mostly because I’ve learned who isn’t entitled to good faith.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Um, yeah, yup.
I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, I’m going to assume Donald will behave badly. It’s what he’s best at.
efgoldman
@germy:
Haha right. Like president Bannonazi would allow that!
Sab
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Unless you or a loved one is an undocumented immigrant.
lollipopguild
@Omnes Omnibus: A lot of German immigrants who came over in the 1840-50’s joined the Republican Party.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est: Trump can show his good faith by nominating Merrick Garland.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it was a reflex saying on her part.
I’ve only heard it one other time at the VA. Was sitting waiting for meds from the pharmacy and a huge guy sits down opposite me. We strike up a conversation, he asks my branch of service, I respond then ask him. He didn’t serve, not in the military, he did 30 yrs in Rikers Island, for a capital crime. I didn’t ask. I think he’s in some federal program and gets meds from the VA pharmacy is why he was there. I got up when my name was called and he thanked me for my service. I let it go.
Omnes Omnibus
@lollipopguild: Further down in my first link is a breakdown of immigrant groups’ party choices.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: @Baud: I think Chucky is playing with T like a cat plays with a mouse. Open dissension in R ranks will be fun to watch. He is using Chanakya Niti.
efgoldman
@lollipopguild:
And fought for the Union in the War of Southern Treason over Slavery.
lollipopguild
@Baud: You are a VERY funny person.
StringOnAStick
@Baud: Why should Democrats help Drumpf with tax cuts, so we can take the “OMG deficit!” fall? Screw that, let him dance with who brought him to this party.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed, CS should give him a list of demands.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: When did Corner Stone get involved? Is he even clothed?
Jeffro
WHOA – Seth Abramson mega-thread going on Twitter as of an hour or so ago – notes that Michael Steele (MI6 guy) compiled the Trump dossier, and that despite his sharing it with several people (including reporter David Corn and Sen. John McCain) no one noted in the dossier as a source was harmed…
…at least not until after it had been shared with the FBI, Giuliani, and Erik Prince (brother of Betsy DeVos; head of Blackwater). And then a lot of people started catching bad cases of “dead”.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve been impressed with Schumer so far.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope.
Corner Stone
Now. About that back scratching.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
Maybe it was your parents, maybe not.
Mine were dems from the git go and I’m pretty damn liberal. Mom shook Bill Clinton’s hand once, she considered him above god.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Some situations call for a combative son of a bitch.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: OMG Corner Stone is Chuck Schumer, who would have thunk?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I regretted the question the moment I hit the post button.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: True, but he also seems politically savvy to me.
dm
@schrodingers_cat: Certainly a chunk of it has been — among the threads that formed the Republican Party were the Know Nothings (formally, the Native American Party, but known as “Know Nothings” because part of the party was also a secret society about which members were to say “I know nothing”). This was an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti-slavery party (immigrants and the existence of slavery depressed wages for free labor).
I once had a summer job helping a teacher work on her Master’s Degree in history. I spent that summer in the Iowa State Archives reading newspapers from the 1850s in which one of the big controversies was whether English should be the state’s official language, or if state publications should also be printed in the major languages of the immigrant population (at that time in Iowa, Germans).
It’s kind of amazing how little has changed in 170 years.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t think I want to know.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro:
Holy shit. Former Lt Gov of MD and RNC Chairman also worked for MI6?
Shit just got real, son.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus:
That’s an unlikely story. Riker’s is for pre-trial detention and short sentences. To serve long sentences you go upstate.
SFAW
Apropos of nothing in particular, but I was remiss earlier this month. Specifically, I forgot to note that Dead Andy Breitbart has been Dead Andy Breitbart for five years now, as of March 1st.
May he continue to burn in Hell.
We now return to our regularly-scheduled deprogramming.
ETA: Also: apologies if someone already noted this earlier this month.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I know. I apologize.
Gin & Tonic
@Jeffro: Christopher, not Michael.
schrodingers_cat
@dm: Indeed! I was thinking of the 1920s Reed-Johnson act that is the Holy Grail for immigration restrictionistas. Both Reed and Johnson were Republicans.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Not that hard to understand when you look at your list of who read it and don’t see a name that has any morals or is not corrupt.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I believe that immigration was probably more of a regional issue than a partisan issue for most of US history.
dogwood
@Baud:
Schumer’s competent. He’ll serve us well overall. Trump saying he’ll start working with moderate republicans and democrats is meaningless. There aren’t any moderate republicans. He’s just saying that shit to piss off his own party. But he should keep it up because the media love that stuff. Trump will never change, but he might change tactics if it gets him some good press. I suspect that the fact he didn’t go on a twitter tirade after the healthcare debacle is the reason his numbers actually rose a bit.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Didn’t know that. All I know is that it’s a prison in NY. I do know where San Quentin is, I used to drive by it somewhat regularly.
In any event he didn’t seem like someone I wanted to carry on a conversation with.
StringOnAStick
@Ruckus: One of the highlights of my political life was seeing President Obama speak here in my small town on a gorgeous fall day. He asked the crowd how we ever got anything done living in such a beautiful place, and it was genuine, not “I just flew in from Philly and boy are my arm tired”.
My political leanings have been a constant source of friction with my parents; I never bring it up but they can’t let it go. Now that my mom is quite senile, all she wants to do is pick fights (thanks no doubt to watching faux news constantly). My dad’s always been a rageaho!ic. He also used to hate Russia with a passion but of course voted for T because he had an R behind his name.
Baud
@dogwood: I would think the last thing Trump needs is for the Freedom Caucus to get on board with the Russian investigation.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: @Gin & Tonic:
Ack! Christopher! That’s what I meant. =)
JPL
@Jeffro: McCain shared it with Comey.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Interesting perspective. I need to read up more on the history of this issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Years ago, my dad was at a Laotian house party and he got seated next to a Cuban guy (probably because they the two white guys there). The guy turned out to be a Marielito who bonded with the Lao community over anti-Communism. At one point, the guy pulled out a huge knife and said to my dad, “The night is my friend.” Dad made his excuses shortly thereafter.
efgoldman
@StringOnAStick:
My parents are gone a while, and we never discussed politics much, but if my mom had an occasion to mention Reagan, if she could have spit, she would have. She hated W and voted for Obama when she was 90.
My dad was born in 1915, so grew up in the depression, in tenements in Boston’s West End. He and his brothers were part of the generation that broke the Jewish quotas (and also the first generation of commuter students) at Harvard. I’m sure his whole family were huge FDR fans. A lot of the Jewish kids in the 30s and 40s at Harvard were commie-curious.
Jeffro
As penance for screwing up Michael vs Christopher Steele, I offer this little gem:
Ted Koppel tells Sean Hannity to his face that Hannity’s bad for America.
Oh, and also Fox News reported to its viewers that – no joke – Trumpov was working at the White House all weekend. It’s weird how that seems like the final step over into Pravda-like territory…something so small, yet so huge in its own way…
Iowa Old Lady
@efgoldman: My grandparents were Depression Democrats. FDR’s picture hung on their wall right next to Jesus.
JPL
@Jeffro: lol It depends on the meaning of work. They didn’t report about his have meetings earlier in the day.
Baud
@Jeffro: I really can’t relate to people who trust Fox News.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
I’d bet my bosses 91 yr old mom voted for drumpf as well. And she’s not senile but she’s been a republican for ever as far as I can tell. As was her husband. I don’t ask about politics at work, I’ve been asked a few questions, and I know there it one trumpette in the crowd, but I like my job and don’t think bringing up politics is a good idea. The boss made a point of that one day before the election when he admonished his mom “We don’t discuss politics at work.” She was sitting next to me at lunch and started to say something that I’m pretty sure would have pissed me off. At her husbands funeral, in the church, she said something about President Obama that almost made me get up and walk out. I wouldn’t mind so much if she didn’t vote but I’m pretty sure she does.
efgoldman
@Iowa Old Lady:
No Jesus in my grandparents’ house for obvious reasons. I don’t remember FDR’s picture, but he died shortly before I was born.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My only grandparent who made it into this century voted for Obama twice and would quickly change the channel when W came on because “he makes me sick.”
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
I retired in July 2015, so I didn’t have to deal with it, but Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC actively encouraged political contributions and participation, but actively discouraged any discussion of politics in the workplace. People have to work together and trust each other.
JPL
@Baud: It’s a sickness.
Is Hannity still pouting about Ted Koppel telling him that he’s bad for America.
Jeffro
@Baud: me either? But it’s another sign of where the right is at this point in time. Between Fox and the National Enquirer, Trump is working hard all weekend at the White House, after single-handedly unmasking that Obama-planted Russian spy, Michael Flynn.
dogwood
@Baud:
I don’t see any republicans actually giving any more than lip service to the Russian investigation. Most of the FC are in very safe seats. They’ll continue to thwart Ryan and Trump on most everything, but they will stay loyal when it comes to Russia.
Omnes Omnibus
I feel abandoned. More than 4 1/2 hours since we had a new thread.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: Probably stomping his widdle feet, too.
Jeffro
@JPL: Yes – check out the link at #260 if you haven’t already.
Naturally Hannity tweeted back later trying to defend himself by daring…DARING…CBS News to release the whole unedited interview. No word yet on whether or not Koppel or CBS News gives a shit what Hannity dares them to do.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: I blame Obama.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
After Vietnam clearly turned into a clusterfuck, my mom hated anybody who got kids killed. Even though my dad did 22 years active. She hated, hated, HATED being the “Army Wife.”
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Go to youtube. Get the video you want. Below the video on the right is an arrow curving up and to the right. Click on it. Then click on embed. Click on copy. When the code is highlighted in light blued, I right click and hit copy. Come to the comment box and paste. Hit return. Hit post comment. Voila!
Chet Murthy
@Amaranthine RBG: Oh puhleeez. Stop, Boris. Just stop.
Gvg
I think waiting till people are old enough to serve is way too late. We need to integrate the schools. Has anyone noticed they have been slipping back into segregation? I grew up with minority classmates and then went right into the workforce and I am sure it made me better. We have magnet schools with special talents and concentrations but they are run as separate classes within other schools with poorer scores which always means poor minorities and that is used to fluff the scores of the school even though the “regular” classes may be far less successful. This is the only way to keep teacher pay of all up because the legislature cuts funding of poor scoring schools instead of “throwing money at the problem” the horrors. The poor classes resent the elite classes and fight so the schools keep them apart. If you don’t know this, you can choose a house in a troubled district and not know. The standards are higher every year as if kids are a better product every year and teachers just have to try harder which implies they didn’t’ used to. It’s an excuse to be cheap and make racism worse. They also change the theory behind the text books every few years for no scientific reason that I can see.
laura
@Major Major Major Major: “He left Monte Rio son, just like a bullet leaving a gun . . .”
I worked at the old and new Safeway in Guerneville and can laugh and cry about the times – and the wild and fun times and the plague years and the flood years.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m here with you. I am naked, but still. Here with you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: What was the middle part again?
Chet Murthy
@Patricia Kayden:
PK, this a million times, times your million times.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: It should work for everyone. And I’m not ungodly, I’m more like aggodly. Might be, might not be. Who’s to say?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I am vaguely uncomfortable.
D58826
@Villago Delenda Est: I remember arguing with my Grandad in the late 60’s about that.He swore the boomers were going to h*ll in a hand basket. And just as you say we turned into our parents. I always found that disappointing because we swore that we would change the world for the better. Well the world changed to many of us and we started on the path to Trump when to many of us voted for Reagan. Funny thing is with a bit of trying we could have made the world that better place even as we turned into our parents.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: The Athasastra!
amk
To all these clowns who ‘advise’ dems to woo wwc, how?
D58826
@efgoldman: True. it has to work both ways
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Adam L Silverman: Only if you got keys to the joint, I believe. I blame Obama.
I’m headed off to read the Seth Abramson mega thread on twitter than Schindler (that asshole) referred to.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
You don’t think 1200 miles is far enough?
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I think that’s a jump. Senator McCain gave it directly to Director Comey. Director Comey would have given it directly to the Interagency counterintelligence investigative task force. Not to the NY Field Office. Other people had the dossier. Almost every journalist and political operative had had it shopped to them by late Summer/early Fall.
Aleta
Vermont media vs Bernie Sanders
http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/the-media-bern-sanders-keeps-vermont-press-at-arms-length/Content?oid=4715938
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: So I guess my comments about typing with one hand are right out, too.
amk
@Baud: Exactly. A show of faith that twitler supports preexisting condition.
debit
@Omnes Omnibus: I know. I keep having to get up and do stuff. Jeez.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I find it odd that you know how far CS and I live apart.
efgoldman
@amk:
Gold doubloons? Free pork rinds? Trucknutz? MAGA hats? F’bawl tickets? Shitty panther piss beer? Extra crispy with extra cholesterol on the side?
I dunno’.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: You have reasons. How are you doing?
D58826
@Baud: Would be nice if true. Unfortunately leadership controls the legislative calendar so unless ZEGS and Turtle agree to the coalition nothing will happen. Now if that D and reasonable GOOPER coalition voted to replace the current leadership then maybe you have something.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s hardly a secret around here that you live in Madison and he lives in Metro Houston. Google maps is your friend.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. Feeling no pain, I’m guessing? Hope the surgery went well.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Powerful narcotics help. In truth, the pain is, most of the time now, background noise. Wearing 10+ pounds of plaster and bandages that go from the palm to just about the shoulder is pretty annoying. In about a week and a half I’ll get the first inkling of whether this is going in a positive direction.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Gin & Tonic: I hope you’re high AF and feeling no pain.
lollipopguild
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the tip on videos. Always wanted to do that too shy to ask how.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Best of luck.
randy khan
@amk:
I think I’m pretty much on the record as saying I’m happy to welcome any of the WWC voters who want to come to the light side, but don’t want the party to change substantively for them.
So the answer, to my mind, is about messaging, about emphasizing the parts of the Democratic platform that matter to them. At least some of the non-racists will be amenable to that approach; the racists won’t. We don’t need them all, but if we 10% of them things will go way better.
lollipopguild
@Gin & Tonic: Are you watching “movies” also?
debit
@Gin & Tonic: I hope you have something to help you sleep.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks for asking. It went fairly well – bone grafting wasn’t needed, but some extra pins were placed to immobilize the radius and ulna with respect to each other in the rotational axis so as to allow the ligament damage more time to heal. Those pins are scheduled to stay in for about six weeks.
Omnes Omnibus
@lollipopguild: The dude broke his wrist while skiing. Had surgery this past week. But do make your joke.
Gin & Tonic
@debit: I do, but it’s still tough. I don’t get more than four hours at a time.
schrodingers_cat
This whole thing about being welcoming to T voters, why do they need a special invite. Isn’t the Democratic party membership open to everyone? Do they need a cookie ? Why do I see these BS stories day after day and week after week in the so called prestige media outlets.
lollipopguild
@Omnes Omnibus: I understood from the thread that he had surgery.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: No harm, not everyone reads every thread.
Adam L Silverman
Fresh open thread up. Have at it!
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Dood. What?
Chet Murthy
@Villago Delenda Est: I remember watching Forrest Gump, and being -enraged-, just -enraged- by the way that it invited everybody watching who had never participated in a single of those pivotal moments, to pat themselves on the back for them all. Royally pissed off.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Omnes Omnibus:
We just traced the text….
He’s in the house!
Villago Delenda Est
New, fresh, baby pygmy hippo thread!
(the baby pygmy hippo has bigger hands than Donald…)
Gin & Tonic
@lollipopguild: Here’s a movie.
amk
@schrodingers_cat: Yup. What exactly do they not like about the dem party?
Chet Murthy
@efgoldman: efg, I agree with you that in principle, Trumpists have those goals too. But they expect them to be pulled out of the ass of their Magic Sky God. They DO NOT allow the possibility that regulation, redistribution, taxation, or any other Big Government initiative will be needed.
They’re all against that.
So no, I’m still at fuckem. Wishing for clean water is like wishing for a pony, when you actively sabotage the EPA.
Chet Murthy
@Ruckus: (begin snark) You left out RoNnIe RaYgUn. The shitbird started his campaign in Philadelphia, MS. (end snark)
But seriously, you’re right. Sadly, the trail of racism didn’t start in 2000. Ah, well.
amk
Looks like eewropeans are finally breaking out of the rw swamp fever.
Thanks
obamadonnie dick.Chet Murthy
@chris: Hoooley moley. Is that some backwards-Cthulhu (“Pray he eats me last”)?
Chet Murthy
@germy: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/the-blacks-for-trump-guy-at-florida-rally-is-former-yahweh-ben-yahweh-cult-member-8843111
mai naem mobile
@Major Major Major Major: A good part of Gen X started their working lives in a really bad economy(GHW Bush recession.) The boomers at least had some good years pre-Reagan. The Gen X-rs pretty much have had all their working lives with much weaker unions/weaker workers’ rights with much fewer jobs with good benefits/pensions. The cherry on top was the 08 crash whicheck cost you another 5 at least another 5 working years to make up.
El Caganer
@Gvg: Some places are already doing it – and doing it well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/betsy-devos-wants-school-choice-but-all-kids-need_us_58d41f49e4b002482d6e6f90
Ruckus
@mai naem mobile:
Cost me 7 yrs to get somewhere back to normal. Then in yr 8 my 19 yr old van died and I had to buy a car. Oh well I’ll catch up when I’m dead. Cause it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way.
No One You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: I used to work with a group that supported academic research in various areas, including sociology. One researcher from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor presented detailed findings that showed the people at equivalent ranks in multinational corporations had more in common politically with each other and agreed measurably more easily with their peers, both within a given multinational and between several selected multinationals, than they did with demographically matched nationals of their own country.
Multinationality is the flagless country.
That was some years back. Makes me wonder who is more like me, the Russian marching in street, or the American Trump voter, all other things being equal?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Arthashastra
Arth == Finance.
Chanakya was also know as Kautilya.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Sab: Point taken.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: *known.
J R in WV
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
The problem with that for white supremacists is that they have to live cheek-to-jowl with blacks, and Mexicans, and people from all over the place, and work with them. Without working together as a team they can’t succeed.
They even have to work closely with the women, many of whom will out-rank them. Think of that! Born and bred to be superior white guys who disrespect, loath, even, people of other races and sexes. But forced by the military culture to show respect and obedience to members of other races who out-rank them!!
The gall, it burns! I doubt if many of them can complete schools, especially if they get a DI who is a mean big black senior Sgt.
Jean
@Iowa Old Lady: So were my grandparents, and my mother said too that FDR’s picture hung right next to Jesus’s.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Cheek to jowl.
Bet you remember nuts to butts.
TriassicSands
@efgoldman:
I won’t even admit I have an uncle.
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
I agree, Suzanne.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
Racism v. Money
It depends on the person and the circumstance, but at its root, I think you’re right, right, racism wins.
TriassicSands
@patroclus:
I’m not talking about who accomplished more bad stuff — Bush had eight years and with the assistance of some astoundingly bad people (some of whom were competent at wrecking the world) he did an amazing amount of damage.
I’m considering incompetence and there, I don’t care what the time frame is, Trump is the clear winner. If his incompetence keeps him was surpassing W, all the better, but I I agree that Trump is a worse person than Bush and if he ever gets his act together (and brings in competent accomplices) there is no limit to the damage he could do.
And the wild card in all this is something that wasn’t on people’s minds back during the reign of W — that the president would blunder us into a nuclear war. Are there institutional safeguards to keep Trump from doing that? We have to hope so.
BCHS Class of 1980
@StringOnAStick: We all learn from our parents. How much is by example vs by counter-example is the question.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
Well my reasoning is that you can find racists in any economic group you want to name. As well as in any country on this rock. I think we have to learn not to be racists or at least not be raised by them. And a lot of that learning depends on our parents and cohorts. I was lucky to have a great man who happened to be black, working for my dad when I was starting out (12-13 yrs old) who took me under his wing and showed me that the color of your skin (or other traits such as the shape of your eyes) has no bearing on your humanity. I don’t know if he knew he was doing this or was just a good guy but the reason didn’t matter. And because I was a young dipshit I didn’t know all of this till a few yrs later. But the lesson was received and it has served me fine for decades.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
My mother was from the South and was a “benign” racist. I don’t believe there is any such thing as benign racism, but I used that term to differentiate her from people who were overtly and even violently racist. My mother’s racism was of the kind where blacks went to the back of the bus and she never questioned it. She loved her mother’s black housekeeper, but wouldn’t think of her as equal in any way to the whites. My mother’s excuse was always, “But that’s what everybody — thought, did, said, etc.
I pointed out to her that there were abolitionists before the Civil War and people working for equal rights long before she was born and that wasn’t what they — thought, did, said, etc. She simply went along with what the majority did and in the South the majority was racist.
I never heard her use the word N___er, but she knew if she did her children would be all over her with condemnation.
My father was probably a very low-level racist. But you’d never find any evidence of it in anything he said or did. However, it was impossible to talk politics with my father — he was conservative and his kids were growing up liberal and since he took any disagreement personally, political discussions always deteriorated into hurt feelings on his part followed by silence for a week or two. It was very sad. He was a very intelligent man, but he’d had a bad news mother and a screwed up childhood and he carried the scars with him his whole life.
My nephew just married an African American woman a couple of weeks ago. My mother would have been horrified had she lived to see it.
jl
HRC won by 3 M votes. And she was not the best electoral politician, to put it very very politely. And knucklenead WWC who voted for Trump just to shake things up and hit the ‘establishment’, and told themselves he didn’t mean all the vile and nutty things he said, they will come along with a good progressive policy platform that has good, specific, proposals to help out the WC. Don’t need to do anything special for them. Anybody who wants special White Working Class psychological therapy as part of a political pitch to get their vote are not gettable by any respectable Democrat. They are bigots, some consciously so, others not. So, I don’t see the need to cater to them.
Edit: Democrats desperately do need a better policy pitch to the working class as a whole, people of all ages, faiths, race/ethnicities, urban/rural. Better to aim there than worry specifically about White Working Class whatever.
TriassicSands
@jl:
There’s the working class and then there’s the whiny white working class that voted for Trump. That isn’t to say there are no legitimate complaints, but voting for an unqualified sociopath is not a reasonable approach to solving anything.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
I’ve long thought there are levels of racists.
Benign is also my lowest level. Wouldn’t go out of their way, might actually know a black person and think of them as just lovely, wouldn’t use the descriptive word that Richard Pryor upon going to Africa, said he never heard. It’s a white world word, a word of hate.
Next up is closet racists and that involves talking amongst white people and maybe even using that n word but not having any desire to do anything physically harmful. In more rural areas they wouldn’t call the police if they knew about a lynching, for 2 reasons. The police might be involved and they really didn’t give a shit.
Next level is openly racist. They proudly wave the stars and bars, these days they belong to chat groups, white power groups. They might not actually be physically involved in a lynching, but they’d watch to make sure it was successful.
The last is pretty much self explanatory. The are the assholes who would buy the rope, and actually use it.
Now why do I think it’s important to have distinctions like this? The first group might possibly be able to be educated as to their behavior and change. The second group is not saveable but other than being major fucking assholes they are probably not a physical threat. It’s the last two groups that pose a way too real and dangerous threat to life and humanity and the only difference is if they lead or follow.
I think this works for all kinds of bigotry. There are leaders, followers and doers. Now how this does anything or helps in any way I have no idea. And it may be demeaning to some that haters can be categorized or that someone thought to do this at all. I think I figured this out as a way to eliminate people that I deal with because while all of them are bad there are some situations where you don’t really get to choose every person you deal with and being able to shut them off and out when they go from benign to any thing higher is helpful and I’ve actually been able to use this in the job I had in professional sports.
AxelFoley
@Adam L Silverman:
Testing…
AxelFoley
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Sheet metal and Quonset huts!!! Just like West Virginia!!!!!!