The last two Republican presidents, Trump and W, are among the worst in American history. I’d say that in terms of qualifications and intellect, they are probably the two worst candidates to be nominated by a major party since World War II. There’s no way a Democrat like Trump or W would ever be nominated, let alone elected.
The Republican health care bill is a joke, and it was designed by the man the media holds up as the leading intellectual light of the Republican party. If the Democrats put a bill that bad, they’d be crucified.
How much of what’s going on with the Republican party is the result of the low standards they’ve been held to for the last 25 years (or longer) by establishment media? I don’t have the most generous view of human nature, and I think that if people can skate by with bullshit and shoddy work, they usually will.
I realize the dynamic is somewhat complicated. Democrats became the party of reality-based policy making, so of course most journalists end up favoring Democratic policies. Then they bend over backwards to be nice to Republicans to prove they don’t have teh bias. And then on top of that you have a conservative media that is totally unhinged that Republicans can run to if they get asked tough questions by regular media, and that makes regular media double down on lowering its standards for Republicans.
Is there anyway this turns around anytime soon? I just don’t see it.
Ten Bears
There’s a regular media?
Hunter Gathers
Nope.
Remember when being a Nazi was a deal breaker?
JPL
After the tax cuts have been passed, the bridges and roads privatized, and folks can no longer afford health care, then maybe.
Baud
No, because people aren’t going to treat us better than we treat ourselves, and we treat ourselves like shit and we don’t want to change.
Noel
The soft bigotry of low expectations indeed
Ed Zaitz
“Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Amerikan Reiches und Volkes Donald Trump, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen.”
Downpuppy
Standards for Republican politicians have been low since Mark Hanna was picking them, but total collapse is easy to date : 1980.
OzarkHillbilly
You forgot Reagan, who initiated this downward spiral.
Cacti
All of it, Katie.
No matter how ridiculous the Republican party gets, the media still treats them seriously and acts like their ideas should be taken seriously.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You’re too easy on Bush and Trump. They are the worst. Only James Buchanan can really even play in the same league, and they wipe the floor with him.
germy
@Downpuppy: Not Nixon?
Chyron HR
Sure, you can turn it around. Just stop letting “Identity Politics” vote in the primaries and turn the Democratic party back into the party of the white working master race.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Nixon was corrupt but competent. Reagan made “incompetence with a smile” not just acceptable but desirable.
rikyrah
Bullies like Trump Don’t Get Comeback Stories
by David Atkins
May 28, 2017 4:14 AM
Trump badly needs a change in narrative. But he’s not going to get one.
With Russia scandals looming over his personal family, his policy agenda in tatters and his main defender Fox News cratering in viewership, Trump is blaming his communications apparatus and considering a major overhaul just a few months into his presidency. His approval rating sits at an average of 39%, a record low for this point in a presidency–and shockingly low given the state of polarization in the modern electorate.
Under normal circumstances, the media would be inclined to grant him one. There are few things Americans like better than a comeback kid, a story of trial and redemption. To the annoyance of media critics on both left and right, troubled and even disgraced politicians and celebrities are often granted new leases on public life. Presidents feeling the pinch of high unpopularity are given innumerable chances to better their standing: when the public soured on Bill Clinton and Democrats took a beating in 1994, Clinton stormed back to success on the back of a media eager for a counternarrative. At least until Katrina and even afterward, seemingly every week of the George W. Bush presidency was supposed to be the beginning of the cowboy president’s return to grace.
This is partly because the media and the public tire of boring narratives. By the same token, successful and popular individuals from Washington to Hollywood to the sports stadium are scandalized and laid low simply to create excitement and remove their shine. Every month the press seemed to uncover something that might have been “Obama’s Katrina.” It’s just how life the in 24-hour media cycle works. The troubled are lifted up, even as the mighty are dragged down.
But Trump won’t likely get the benefit of that dynamic. The one great exception to the redemptive narrative is the unrepentant bully. Mark Sanford and post-Lewinsky Bill Clinton were able to survive by virtue of public prostration and at least the appearance of shame and humility. Even Richard Nixon regained some respect and public acclaim as an elder statesman, but only after a long period in the wilderness.
lollipopguild
I keep waiting for someone on the right to openly advocate for bringing back legal slavery. It will be talked about by some in the media because it’s “out there” and needs to be discussed. If that does not happen they will go for bringing back legal segregation in some form. “religious belief” will be used to justify legal discrimination against people because of their skin color or ethnic background. This will also be used against Gays and Moslems and any other group that they do not like. Freedumb!
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
Europe Needs a Containment Doctrine — Toward America
Europe must act swiftly to shield itself from erratic and incompetent leadership in Washington.
by James Bruno
May 28, 2017
As Donald Trump finishes his first overseas trip as president, a nine-day whirlwind tour of Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, a G-7 meeting in Italy, and a NATO summit in Brussels, policymakers back home fret whether they witnessed a diplomatic drive-by shooting more than a series of state visits. Europeans — having sweated through their own elections threatened by right-wing nationalism — were justifiably anxious about receiving an erratic U.S. president who has dismissed NATO as obsolete, the EU as irrelevant, and the Russian threat as not credible. As America wallows in mass hallucination in the era of Trump, a case can be made for a containment doctrine by our allies — to protect themselves from the United States.
George Kennan, the father of the containment doctrine against the Soviet Union, wrote, “who can say with assurance that the strong light still cast by the Kremlin on the dissatisfied peoples of the western world is not the powerful afterglow of a constellation which is in actuality on the wane?” Seven decades on, America may be the 21st century’s death star, a great body casting a bright glow, but whose moral core is dead, whose political and social dynamics risk exploding at any time, thereby endangering its partners.
A mere four months into his administration, the new president is saddled seemingly daily with new scandals and a stalled legislative agenda. President Trump has been dismissive of the post-World War II security order that helped bring down communism, averted another global conflagration, and stimulated prosperity through liberal trade. He’s dissed our closest allies while cozying up to authoritarian strongmen in Russia, Turkey and Egypt. And he refused to commit the U.S. to collective defense under NATO — a bedrock of the transatlantic alliance. His secretary of state is the phantom captain of a ghost ship; key department positions go unfilled and officials fly blind lacking guidance, while Rex Tillerson has missed meetings with visiting heads of state and other foreign officials, has little contact with his own bureaucracy, and treats the news media as if it were plague-infested.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Yup. Trump is not only going to rid us of Obama policies, but he’s targeting the EPA also. That was established during Nixon, unless I’m mistaken. I’m grilling so I’ll check later.
germy
I don’t see it either, although I really try to stay positive (see Cole’s previous post about the NJ middle-schoolers who wouldn’t be a photo op with Ryan).
What discourages me is this: the cheaters have figured out they can get away with cheating to win.
Whether it’s voter suppression, or corporations trying to end net neutrality (Half a million fake, identical anti-Net Neutrality comments were posted on the FCC’s docket on killing Net Neutrality, using identities that appear to have been stolen from a voter registration breach) or mercenaries targeting Standing Rock water protectors with anti-terrorist tactics, the reactionaries have learned that cheating is the best way to get stuff done.
And our side stands there blinking and confused, holding a book of rules in our hands hoping to fix things.
And it doesn’t help that in four years this blog will be flooded with ponies insisting whatever Democrat we’ve nominated for president ISN”T PURE ENOUGH, or bots trying to tell us there’s no point in voting.
rikyrah
Never Abet a Monster to Protect an Institution
by David Atkins
May 27, 2017 8:00 AM
Both James Comey and the Republican Party are learning an important lesson: never abet a monster to protect an institution.
If it weren’t for the continuing insanity surrounding the White House, the revelation that James Comey knowingly highlighted false “intelligence” planted by Russia in order to protect the FBI’s sources and institutional credibility would be the scandal of the year. Given that Comey’s press conference on Clinton in the last week of the election almost certainly tipped it in Trump’s favor, that would make the Russian plant one of the most brazenly successful hostile intelligence operations of the last century.
I’m sure it seemed like the best move for Comey at the time: Clinton seemed assured of victory, and it was more important to him to protect the FBI’s institutional assets and preserve it from Republican accusations of favoritism once Clinton won.
Obviously, that’s not how things turned out. Now the consequences are dire.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Nope. This isn’t about who we hated at the time, or hate in retrospect. It’s about, as Doug! said in the OP, “qualifications and intellect.” Nixon, for all his faults — and they were legion — met the basic standards. He had held several elective offices and had an awareness and ultimate respect for the norms and institutions of governing, even as he abused them. He was smart, canny, and well-educated. I’m not here to defend Nixon or his presidency, god knows, but he doesn’t belong in the same category as GWB or the current incumbent.
Derelict
There a bit more than just the media dynamic at work, though I do not discount its influence. When I did political consulting, the one thing I learned about the average citizen is that they really don’t want to think about government. At the end of the day, what they want is to know that tings are being taken care of and they don’t have to do anything at all about anything at all.
Republican methods play directly into this. Big-daddy will take care of [fill in pesky problem here–immigrants, minorities, high taxes, ineffective federal government, etc]. Simple slogans that don’t require much more than a nod of the head, and promises to deliver what’s yours back into your hands–Joe Average doesn’t have to think very hard at all about what “tax cut” means (even if he’s not getting one).
So when a Democrat starts talking about how he or she has a policy that directly addresses [fill in pesky problem here], people’s eyes glaze over. “You mean I have to listen, pay attention, and then think about what you’re saying?!?!?!” says Jane Average. Joe and Jane just want to get on with the process of barely scraping by. Simple slogans. Simple slogans.
SatanicPanic
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I still give it to Andrew Johnson. His shutting down Reconstruction set the stage for 100 years of apartheid state in the south. To me that’s worse than being in over your head like Buchanan. GWB and Trump are second from the bottom right now for Iraq and corruption, respectively. If Trump was colluding with Russia then I think there’s a solid case for the top spot, especially if Republicans don’t do anything about it. That’s how democracies end.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
You’re right, it was. Established by Executive Order in December 1970.
ruemara
This election has been triumph of the mediocre white man. In fact, that’s an insult to mediocre white men. These are failure white men and women led by a 320lb sack of fail in an ill-tailored suit. All because they lost the right to be assholes and cut in front of the line.
rikyrah
Kyle GriffinVerified account @kylegriffin1
Clapper on Russia: “They are only emboldened. They are going to continue to interfere in our political process.”
rikyrah
Rick WilsonVerified account @TheRickWilson
Never forget; your President literally called reporters using fake names to spin about his sex life.
…
John HarwoodVerified account @JohnJHarwood
to be more specific, Trump claimed that Carla Bruni dumped Mick Jagger for him
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: I usually agree with you, but imagine you’re back in 1968, but the age you are now. You (unlike many voters) are aware of the stuff he did in the 1950s. His dirty, dishonest campaigns. I remember the Herblock cartoon of Nixon in a muddy gutter, grabbing at ankles. People who paid attention back in the late’50s/early ’60s knew what he was.
You wouldn’t have thought “Well, he has basic respect for the norms of governing” etc. In 1968 you would have thought “I can’t believe they elected this obvious crook.”
Another Scott
Dunno if the conclusion follows.
As I said yesterday, I think too many people – journalists included – have bought into non-sensical economic arguments that leads them to conclude that it is too dangerous for Democrats to have sufficient power to implement their policies. Yeah, the Teabaggers are stupid and dangerous, but Democrats will Bankrupt the Country!!11
I think that explains a lot of the BothSiderism, also too.
:-(
How to fix it? It’s a long, painful struggle. We have to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
God damn but I hate James Comey.
I guess that is a triumph of the Trump admin. I have never hated specific other human beings with the intensity I find spreading nowadays.
mike in dc
Things that might turn this around:
1. Collapse of Fox News(this is now a non-zero possibility)
2. A massive scandal bringing down a LOT of people, including the current POTUS(also a non-zero possibility)
3. Victory over the forces of voter suppression, long enough for demographic changes to force the issue with the GOP on race(i.e., force them to pivot away from race-baiting, at least at the national level)(long term inevitability but we really need it sooner than that)
If there are cracks in their propaganda apparatus, and their base is shaken and demoralized by a terrible betrayal/scandal, and the writing on the wall says sticking with the prejudices of the base will doom them, then there MIGHT be some movement towards compromise on policy here and there, and some movement away from a tribalistic and nihilistic approach to governance.
Short term, not optimistic. Medium term, cautiously optimistic. Long term, boldly confident.
hovercraft
@JPL:
I applaud you no your optimism, but I don’t see the GOP ever coming back without something drastic happening. Fo the last 50 years they have been getting worse, after Nixon it was assumed they’d be chastened, but they weren’t, Ford pardoned him so there was no accountability, Reagan’s crimes were worse, Poppy pardoned that crew, which also meant absolving himself. Where to begin with the Shrub, too much to enunciate. Every time we and the media say/think that will be chastened, they just go further into the abyss. I use the world abyss because at this point there is no coming back, as much as the media would want to give them a pass for their insanity, their voters are rabid morons, they will not accept normality because for them this is the new normal. They are pissed that GG apologized for assaulting a reporter, many wish he had done real damage. Many of them are beginning to realize that Twitter is a moron with no more idea of how to run a country than they have, and also realizing that it may actually be more complicated than “I run my household”, they will never give the democrats the satisfaction of saying we were right, let alone their votes, but they may become depressed and disillusioned enough to stay home.
So I think the only hope for these people is for us to get our shit together and get out and vote. The people who came out of the woodwork are never going to change, all the talk about appealing to them is bullshit, fuck all the people who claim that they voted for him “in spite” of all his crass “isims”, they are lying they voted for him because of them, they are afraid that all of us others are taking over, and they are afraid that we will treat them the way they’ve treated us.
rikyrah
Caroline O. @RVAwonk
Dmitry Popkov, a Russian journalist who reported on corruption and abuse of power, was just murdered.
gene108
@JPL:
It is never enough. After tax cuts, privatized bridges and roads, a healthcare system measured on profitability first, etc. there is still rolling back environmental laws, child labor laws, work place safety laws, minimum wage laws, and so on.
The greedy assholes running the Republican Party will never be happy. They want it all and more.
Also, I remember the early Republican Presidential debates, in 2015, and one of the themes was “are you bought by a billionaire” and part of Trump’s early appeal was he is so rich he cannot be bought.
It ends, when Democrats crush Republican in elections for decades.
Given the forces arrayed against us, it will be very, very hard.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: As I said yesterday, I think too many people – journalists included – have bought into non-sensical economic arguments that leads them to conclude that it is too
Alex Wagner used to do a panel show on MSNBC, and in the early throes of the Great Recession they were discussing what the gov’t could/should do, and Jim Van Dehei of (then) Politico just randomly bellowed “Spending! Gotta cut spending!” while others were talking. He thought he was being both funny, and smart.
See also. Ron Fournier, whose years of endless blather about Obama needing to show “leadership” all boiled down to “entitlement reform”.
germy
@mike in dc:
I used to think it was just fox news until I had a job where I spent many hours on the road, and I tuned into my car radio.
The amount of rightwing hate on FM radio is disgusting.
Local jocks as well as nationally syndicated hate spewers.
One day I switched to an oldies station for respite (this was during the Obama admin.) and after hearing “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper the DJ came on and asked if there was any way we could get rid of this horrible president trying to raise all our taxes. It sounded to me like a dogwhistle begging for assassination.
El Caganer
@ruemara: Donald Trump: The Whale of Fail!
Mai.naem.mobile
My niece’s orthodontist,several years ago, was talking about how only property owners should be allowed to vote. He also said some other garbage. That kind of crap is out there and I can’t believe even if he thought that he would say it out loud at work even though he owns the business.
rikyrah
John Weaver @JWGOP
This was no “back channel” request. It was an ask to use the equipment, means and operation of our adversary to hide from USA officials.
CarolDuhart2
During the decade that Shrub and Orange Cheeto were born, women of a certain class drank their lives away feeling neglected and trapped. I believe this is the difference right there. Their sons not only got neural deficits, but the feeling they were abandoned as well. The two Democrats were working class kids whose parents had to stress education for whom a two-drink minimum life was simply impossible to maintain.
DougJ
@ruemara:
Yeah it has
gene108
@hovercraft:
After every loss by the non-crazy right-wing candidate, the rabid, evil, right-wing parasite of Movement Conservatism, within the Republican Party sees a weaker host and grows a bit more, until we get to today wherein the parasite has taken over the host.
If Trump and current crop of Republicans get shown the door, God only knows how crazy the rabid, evil, right-wingers will become.
gene108
Rupert Murdoch is a curse on the English speaking world. The U.K., Australia and the USA are much worse off because he wasn’t strangled in his crib.
germy
@Mai.naem.mobile: Orthodontists and orthopedic surgeons.
burnspbesq
@mike in dc:
I think you’ve got that backwards. Trump supporters aren’t going to be demoralized by an impeachment and conviction. They’re going to be outraged, and that outrage will find expression in widespread violence. Pence will be “forced” to “reluctantly” federalize the National Guard to enforce martial law in NYC, LA, Chi, Hou, SF. And it clearly won’t be possible to hold elections in 2018 or 2020.
D58826
@rikyrah: So Gen Kelly has no problem with comrade Jared using a secure Russian telephone to talk to someone in Russia. All the talkers today agreed that we need more info and innocent until prove guilty. Both of which are 100% valid but HER EMAILS!!!!!!!!!!!
cokane
I’d say Goldwater was arguably worse than W, but it’s definitely debatable.
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
And Trump at the NATO meeting literally reclaimed that right, for all the world to see.
Yoda Dog
@burnspbesq: No it won’t. They are all cowards to the core. There may be great poutrage across the land, but they won’t do shit.
James Powell
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nixon’s competence is overrated. I don’t know if it’s because he appears so by comparison with the Republicans who came after him or if the widespread belief in his competence was the result of the relentless PR campaign to rehabilitate him somehow someway in the years after he resigned in disgrace.
SiubhanDuinne
@CarolDuhart2:
Wow, that is a brilliant observation! And both Mary Anne Trump and Barbara Bush would be in that class of women (no idea about either of their personal drinking habits of course).
James Powell
@lollipopguild:
They are already doing this with voting rights. Public schools re-segregated a long time ago and DeVos will make allowing separate but equal the official policy of the Dept of Education.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: I have read that Bar is not unfond of gin, but that may well have been internet snark
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Journalists go into journalism to avoid math. Economic, even basic Econ 101, requires a little math.
There journalists just can’t be arsed to learn anything basic about the topic, but still report on it.
I am not saying you need Paul Krugman level understanding in the field, but if the understood Price Elasticity of Demand, they would quickly see the flaw in treating access to healthcare like any other commodity or service, which Republicans keep proposing.
The demand for healthcare is not based on price, the consumer is generally never going to have enough info to make a decision, without an expert (i.e. a doctor) telling them what do, and in most cases the choice to not purchase is not a real option. You either buy the healthcare you need or suffer bad outcomes. You are a captive consumer.
The demand for healthcare does not react to changes in price. It will always be there.
If journalists understood this Republicans would be laughed off every appearance, when they talk about choice.
germy
@James Powell: 98 percent of voters have no idea our sec. of education is related to the mercenary.
My wife and her sister, who both are progressive as can be, had no idea until I told them.
James Powell
@rikyrah:
I don’t think either learned a damned thing. They are sitting on top of the world. Sure, Comey got fired, but it’s not like he’s going to want for money. He can go around giving speeches on integritudity and write a book about how he saved the country from a wretched woman who used a private email server.
The Republicans are on the brink of doing everything they wanted to do for the last 20 years. Their going to appoint the next supreme court justice and hold the majority there for 25-35 years. The Dems can’t do anything to stop them.
The only thing they learned is that being evil and ruthless puts them in power.
mike in dc
@burnspbesq:
Nah. Civil wars are very bad for business. I also think that the upper class isn’t uniform with regards to a preference for autocracy and restrictions on civil rights. Not all conservatives have lost their goddamn minds(well, obviously, most of them have, but enough haven’t that you can’t really seize power without encountering a lot of resistance).
Aleta
nightranger
The US is no longer a properly functioning democracy. It’s a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy. This decline has been going on for several years so nothing is going to change in the short/medium term.
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/26/one-study-says-the-united-states-is-no-longer-considered-a-full-democracy/
rikyrah
State of the UnionVerified account @CNNSotu
.@ninaturner: “No one in Ohio is asking about Russia … they want to know about jobs, they want to know about their children.” #CNNsotu
Marcus H. JohnsonVerified account @marcushjohnson
I was in Ohio last week talking politics and everyone was talking about Russia @ninaturner
…
Connie SchultzVerified account @ConnieSchultz
I live in Ohio & regularly hear about Russia, including from strangers who approach during my errands. We are a big & complicated state.
…
diane @diane_o
I’m in Ohio. Sure, we want to know about jobs & our children..but everyone I know is asking about Russia.
…
Tom WatsonVerified account @tomwatson
Bullshit. I personally know Ohioans worried about the end of the western alliance and Russian interference in election. This line is poison.
…
Melico @melico24
They’re not even unrelated. A administration corrupted by Russian influence won’t do anything about jobs or children in Ohio.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: Nina Turner knows Ohio so well she only lost a statewide race by 20 points.
I’ve been deeply skeptical of the idea that Russia reached into the Wilmer campaign, but… maybe they didn’t even need to?
Elizabelle
Laughing at this blogpost title.
Will catch up on the comments later.
Baud
@rikyrah:
A majority of Ohioans didn’t want to vote for those things, however.
James Powell
@rikyrah:
Reports from the front rarely give an accurate picture (except in hindsight, told-you-so stories) because very few people have political conversations with people who are not like them.
Those of us who are blessed/cursed with RWers in our families can gain some insight at birthday parties and holiday dinners, but we rarely get the full fever swamp version of what people who vote for Republicans are thinking and saying.
My own anecdotal RW family love Trump now more than they did before the election, when they did not expect him to win, but loved him for saying what needed to be said. They admire him for standing up to the hated liberal media that are treating Trump worse than they ever treated anyone in the history of the world. They believe he is building or already has built the wall, lowered their taxes, ended Obamacare, brought jobs back to the US, told off any number of foreigners, and re-established America as the pre-eminent world power. The only reason he has not yet rid the world of ISIS and terrorists is because liberals, the media, and wimps in his own party won’t let him, but by God he is going to do it real soon.
There is nothing anyone can do or say to disabuse them of these beliefs. I’m pretty sure they are ordinary Republicans.
Ladyraxterinok
Many democrats rejoiced when Clinton was elected and then didn’t pay much attention. We’ve only gradually and painfully learned that we have to constantly pay attention. But we have personal and family lives and problems demanding our time and energy. ‘Eternal vigilanice is the price of liberty’ is an extremely difficult way to live!!
Chyron HR
@rikyrah:
I guess that explains the repeated electoral failures of a certain progressive politician who only talks about Clinton and Obama’s speaking fees, right?
Scotian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I have always thought that is there was any direct Russian influence within the Wilmer campaign it was a very light touch, their own various issues combined with all the pump priming via RT was enough there to suit Russian interests. I’ve generally assumed they were another set of useful idiots from the Russian POV in this matter, unlike with team Trump where I have always believed there were far greater Russian connections from the outset, if only because of how he ran his businesses both prior to becoming a political figure with his rants on birth certificates as well as during until declaration of campaign.
Sadly, too many in the Wilmer campaign clearly were brainwashed by anti-Clinton fake news/false facts/derangement syndrome to start with, so the Russians really didn’t need much if any direct internal involvement in team Wilmer, what they were able to feed and pander to just with their media campaigns was (frustratingly especially those of us watching it happen in real time in shock, disgust, and anger when abused for trying to point this rather important little fact out) enough. You do not take insertion risk without enough cause, and frankly I never saw the Wilmer campaign as meeting that level.
What and how team Wilmer has acted since the election though, makes one wonder…it really does at times.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Go with Connie Schultz in regard to Ohioans’ thoughts.
RobNYNY
@Ed Zaitz: It’s “amerikanischen,” with a small “a.” Otherwise correct.
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
Assholes usually know they are assholes and don’t care. They get away most of the time being assholes but they know what it is that they have done. They just don’t care. Until, as you said, someone gets to treat them like they treated everyone else. Assholes really don’t want that. But you have to be an asshole to treat people like that. They just have no concept of not getting what they deserve. As I said they know what they have done and they know (or at least think) they’d retaliate. They don’t understand being better than that. If they did they wouldn’t be assholes in the first place. But they don’t and they are.
Ruckus
@germy:
So many of those radio stations are owned by one or two entities that it isn’t a tidal wave of right siderism, it is right wing asshole media consolidation. Clear Channel or whatever they call themselves these days was one of them. I recall a cross country trip I took a number of years ago, a tour of Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. Came across a loose letter sign, like you see in businesses, in MO, with big letters “FUCK CLEAR CHANNEL.” Made my week as I had to work with a division of theirs and every single management goon were complete fucking assholes. If I was just a slightly worse person, I’d wish they all die of cancer, after 3-4 yrs of chemo.
Ruckus
@cokane:
Goldwater was more evil, shrub is far less smart. But Goldwater was never president and shrub was.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@gene108:
-G.K. Chesterton
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
Warren Gamaliel Harding.
Loomis has a bit about him at LGM this morning.
Ryan
Fire Andy Lack. Make MSNBC Great Again!
eldorado
there are lots of ways to turn this situation around quickly but they are almost all outside constitutional authority and most of them come with side effects that are probably much worse than the current situation.
Doug R
That Nazi analogy is actually spot on.
It’s all “white” identity politics, the rest just flows from the entitlement, privilege and self loathing.
Raoul
I wasn’t really joking when, shortly after the election, I said here and elsewhere that this could be the end of the Enlightenment.
Now, I know that the Enlightenment is seen as ending quite some time ago. But I mean that this could be the end of the human arc supported by all that was built in the Enlightenment. There is no particular reason in human history to think that we’ll come out of this easily.
A global-scale social collapse isn’t out of the question. And Trump is just the sort of man and movement to increase the risk of such.
Greg in PDX
Oddly, I was asking myself a similar question this morning. Why do Republicans admire and celebrate stupidity? Why do they hate education, especially higher education? Today Red State had glowing praise for Matt Bevin, quite possibly the worst KY Governor ever. They still heap praise on Jindal and Gohmert and Joni Ernst and Michele Bachmann. And yet they make fun of Al Franken, Obama, Warren, and any liberal who is actually well-educated and intelligent. And they absolutely loathe people who read books. I lived in TX for three years and was horrified at the complete ignorance and lack of desire for knowledge that permeates the culture there. Their schools teach actual lies about things like history, especially Texas history. They say with a straight face that CA, OR and WA are examples of “failed states” and hold up actual failed states such as KS, OK, MS and AL as examples of excellence that the rest of the nation should follow. I give up. I don’t care about them anymore. I live in the failed state of Oregon, which is tied with California for being the fastest growing economy in the nation. If they want to live in a backwards ass hellhole, well, that is no longer my problem.
donnah
@Corner Stone:
It’s so very true for me, as well. But for me, it didn’t start with the Trump administration, it was Cheney. I depise him with the fire of a thousand suns and I always will.
But yes, this current crowd of despicable, deplorable monsters is beyond compare. I loathe every one: Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Ryan, Bannon, and more. And Trump, most of all, is beyond the limits of my tolerance. He and his minions have literally NO redeeming qualities. The represent the worst aspects of humanity.
I’m not a religious person, so the term “evil” isn’t one that I throw around much. But these folks defy any measure of compassion. I hate them all and what they are doing to the rest of us.
Ruckus
@Greg in PDX:
The best explanation that I know is they want to be Puritans. And remember, the Puritans didn’t come to this country because they were being prosecuted, they came here to prosecute freely.
They aspire to be leaders of men, which they would never be without money and it’s worship of. And they have no scruples. None. And they have seen that people getting things like healthcare, unemployment, welfare, education allows those they feel they are better than to be their equals or even far surpass them. They don’t understand modern education, something their parents didn’t have a lot of, which takes actual work and thought, and look how well they did. They pine for a world that never existed and never will. One of purity of genetics, one of purity of religion, one of purity of education. They elect people with education, as long as those people don’t actually use what they supposedly learned. The world has passed them by, like it always does to all of us sooner or later, and yet a political party has embraced them, because no one else will, and they can vote.
In a very twisted way you have to admire the republican party. They were on a steep downhill curve, so they came up with stupidity and lying as a means to power. All they needed was enough of the population to buy into stupidity and lying and you have political power. They bought it, they broke it, they own it. Only problem is we all have to live with it.
TenguPhule
@eldorado:
That’s what you think. Remember, Trump has barely gotten started.
BruceFromOhio
Conditions will change. Whether for slightly better or a whole lot worse remains to be seen.
BellyCat
@germy:
Word.
ETA: And Bill Clinton, more than any other Dem in recent times, understood this completely.