I know it’s great hearing so many people trash Trump, but we need to be realistic here. They’ll condemn, condemn, condemn, they’ll issue statements, they’ll make serious faces and muster their “gravitas” voice and mouth platitudes about no place for racism in society, but none of them will do a fucking thing about Trump. Not one Republican in the House or Senate will do a GOD DAMNED thing about it. They won’t refuse to do business until he fires Bannon, Miller, Gorka, and his wife. They won’t refuse to legislate until the funding to study white supremacist groups that Gorka’s wife had removed is reinstated.
They’ll hoocoodanode like crazy:
And they’ll make serious statements:
We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) August 15, 2017
But they won’t even mention Herr Gropenfuhrer by name.
And they never will, because this is who they are. They knew his true colors last year- EVERYONE KNEW- and they rallied round him because winning is the only thing that matters to them.
Gary Cohn is so disgusted by Trump's behavior that he will get up today, go to work at the White House and hope to be appointed to the Fed
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) August 16, 2017
The only thing that motivates them is their hatred of you. We’ve been over this before. That’s why they love this “both sides” shit. They know that white supremacist and Nazi associations make them look bad, but they will court their votes because they hate you more. They’ll keep running guys like this:
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, a Republican, embraced the Confederate flag and Virginia’s history of defending slavery on Saturday, using multiple phrases that indicate his appeal to white supremacist voters.
Stewart championed Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and repeatedly emphasized Virginia’s “heritage.”
“It’s the state of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That is our heritage. It is what makes us Virginia,” Stewart said, speaking at the “Old South Ball” in Danville, Virginia, in a video posted by Blue Virginia. “If you take that away, we lose our identity.”
Maintaining white identity has been a theme of white supremacist movements.
He barely lost the primary a couple months ago, and just the other day the Virginia Chairman of the GOP had this to say:
“You can’t emphatically enough denounce these groups,” Whitbeck remarked. “I mean, you have to be as unequivocal as you can be. Our party has always stood for equal justice. And our Republican elected officials and our party leaders have been saying this message all along as Americans, as Virginians.”
Blitzer reminded the state GOP chair that the hate groups have been drawn to Charlottesville due to the pending removal of the Robert E. Lee statue.
“That has become a big issue. Where do you stand?” Blitzer asked. “Where does the Republican Party of Virginia stand on that Robert E. Lee statue?”
“I think our nominee for governor, Ed Gillespie, has spoken about this,” Whitbeck stuttered. “And we stand will our nominee 100 percent.”
“What is he saying?” Blitzer wondered.
“He has said he supports the history of Virginia in all its forms,” Whitbeck admitted. “You can’t just eradicate the bad parts of our history by just taking down statues. I think he’s right.”
Apparently he has never met Corey Stewart.
Hell, they just spent the last nine years riding the racist rump of the tea party to victory as they barely were able to control themselves from yelling N*GGER at President Obama at every step. So if you think this means anything, or that the Republican party will change after seven decades of the southern strategy and giving reach-arounds to the klan, fuhgeddaboudit. This was obvious to me when I left the Republicans a decade or more ago, it’s obvious now. It’s who they fucking are.
Hell, anyone want to bet that Trump’s approval rating with Republicans won’t increase in the next few days? It’s who they are, for fuck’s sake. There will be no mass resignations. There will be no mass defections from the party. There will be no direct action or consequences for Trump. They know that a racist tide lifts all GOP boats, so they’ll talk a good game while publicly distancing themselves so they can keep going to the fancy parties in polite society.
The only questions are whether the media will let them get away with this and the Democrats can stop squabbling internally and stop them in 2018. I’m not hopeful on either account.
Ugh
Agree.
lamh36
FYI…seems Lindsey actually just issued a statement directly calling out Trump by name.
lamh36
Per CNN, Majority Ldr McConell is “privately” upset by President Trump’s statement yesterday…smh
Sure…
ET
HAHAHA MSNBC is reporting Hope Hick may be the interim WH Communications Director. I guess maybe they are having trouble finding someone that is even remotely qualified do this job who would be willing to work for tRump.
Gator90
Many Republicans do, I (optimistically) assume, genuinely disapprove of Nazism. But they hate liberals more.
lamh36
???Jimmy Kimmel GETS IT RIGHT!!! Trump voters need to just admit they were WRONG!!!
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/1656406194452428/?hc_ref=ARQmssfY8ikELLhlWUPjmByfK1fKRQ9U2fDT0z4LprFdzoxustjAF0YQkgqU7Q3R_AM
(don’t love the shots at HRC, but still his point is a good one)
lamh36
rikyrah
Don’t disagree with you Cole.
Doesn’t mean that we can’t keep their feet to the fire, and keep on bringing this up
BRING.THOSE.RECEIPTS.
Yarrow
Yep. I’ve posted below about this, but Kasich was on the Today Show this morning. He brought The Outrage about what Trump is doing but crumpled when Lauer asked him what he was going to do about it. “I’m here speaking out as aggressively as I can.” He can do more. He won’t.
rikyrah
On Primary Day in Alabama, things don’t go GOP leaders’ way
08/16/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican leaders, including Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, had a plan for Alabama’s U.S. Senate special election: go all in for appointed Sen. Luther Strange and propel him to victory on Primary Day.
GOP voters in the state had a different plan.
Moore and Strange will face off again in six weeks, in a Sept. 26 primary runoff.
And that makes Republican leaders nervous for a reason. Roy Moore, who was twice removed from the state bench for ethics violations, would be a constant source of annoyance for the Senate GOP, which is largely why McConnell and his team have worked so hard on Strange’s behalf. Nevertheless, the former state Supreme Court chief justice now looks like the favorite.
Villago Delenda Est
If you don’t support the removal of ALL Confederate statues, you are in essence as guilty of treason as they were.
John is correct. They won’t go there. They can’t. They’re enslaved by their own drooling monster base they’ve been cultivating for 50 years.
Patricia Kayden
“He has said he supports the history of Virginia in all its forms,” Whitbeck admitted. “You can’t just eradicate the bad parts of our history by just taking down statues. I think he’s right.”
Taking down offensive statues/monuments to treasonous bastards is not erasing history. Germans don’t have statues/monuments of Nazi scum up and yet they certainly remember the bad parts of their history. Are Americans so uniquely stupid that they need Confederate flags, statues and monuments to remember slavery and Jim Crow? What a stupid argument.
rikyrah
What Trump struggles to understand about Confederate statues
08/16/17 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump unleashed several tirades yesterday in defense of racist protesters, but he seemed especially interested in expressing support for torch-wielding activists who rallied in support of a Robert E. Lee statue. From yesterday’s unhinged press conference:
This president doesn’t just draw an equivalence between racists and their opponents, he also draws an equivalence between America’s founders and those who went to war against the United States.
rikyrah
An important ‘Obamacare’ problem starts to disappear
08/16/17 10:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican opponents of the Affordable Care Act thought they’d finally identified a serious problem with the current system: several U.S. counties found themselves without a private insurer participating in exchange marketplaces. Some began calling it the ACA’s “bald spot” problem: consumers in those areas might be ready to buy coverage, but their options no longer exist.
As of yesterday, however, what was poised to be a big problem became a much smaller one. The New York Times reported:
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Strange is awful. Moore is awful. Sessions is awful. I enjoyed my (business) trip to Mobile but boy do they have some awful reps.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Uh huh
Phuck.outta.here.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear a furrowed brow while mewling whimpering sounds of concern.
MJS
“The Republican President supports Nazis, the KKK and other white supremacists. Republican candidate X supports the Republican President” should be included in every ad for every Democratic candidate for every office, starting now.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: That’s great news. Notice how derogatory Trump was yesterday when asked about McCain’s definition of the alt-right? Pretty much said that because McCain voted against the “skinny repeal bill”, McCain was dead to him.
rikyrah
Why Governor’s Races Will Be Crucial in 2018 and 2020
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 16, 2017
Those of us who live in Minnesota got a great reminder a few years ago about how a governor’s race can be crucial to a state.
Back in 2010, the entire country experienced a wave election that favored Republicans at both the national and state level. Like many states across the Midwest that had traditionally been blue (or purple), that meant that Republicans gained control of both houses of the Minnesota legislature. But Tom Emmer, a right wing extremist who went on to win Michelle Bachmann’s seat in Congress, was the Republican nominee for governor, prompting a more moderate Tom Horner to run as an Independent. That meant a three-way race with Mark Dayton as the Democratic nominee. The election was decided by the tiniest of margins with Dayton winning by 0.4%…and it determined the fate of our state over the next eight years.
Shortly after the election, Republicans went to work all over the country to gerrymander legislative districts at both the state and federal level in their favor. Minnesota was no exception. But Governor Dayton vetoed their plans—sending the redistricting efforts to a neutral court to decide. In 2012, Democrats regained control of both the state House and Senate. In U.S. House races, Democrats picked up one seat, but it wasn’t related to redistricting.
What that meant for the state is that during his first two years in office, Governor Dayton had to deal with a Republican legislature. You might remember that it led to a short government shutdown when they failed to agree on a budget. But two years later, with a Democratic legislature, a lot of positive things happened for the state. Here’s how Patrick Caldwell summed it up in 2015:
FlipYrWhig
@ET: Seems like they’re always giving a lot of hope to hicks.
Doug!
In fairness, RedState has been fairly tough on Trump. Probably tougher than the publisher of The Nation.
John Cole
Rikyah just give a link to the washington monthly site instead of every damned story ffs
JCJ
@lamh36:
My wife saw a clip of Trump speaking yesterday with Elaine Chao (McConell’s wife) standing nearby. As appalled she was about what Trump said she could not believe that a non-white person could be there with him. Chao (and my wife) might not be at the top of the list for Trump’s supporters, but I doubt that they are very far down.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: So what? Who cares if he is privately upset? These people are such cowards. He certainly didn’t hide how he felt about President Obama though.
hueyplong
Having someone else note that you’re “privately upset” is so far removed from actual condemnation in your own public words that you can’t see it from here. What it means is that you aren’t upset at all. It means you’re on board with the Nazis and Confederates. As if we ever thought otherwise.
What Yertle is “privately upset” about is that Orrin Hatch’s brother fought on the wrong side in WWII, and Gen. George Thomas fought on the wrong side in the Civil War.
I grow impatient over Mueller’s progress.
Yarrow
@rikyrah:
This headline is wrong. Trump doesn’t “struggle to understand” anything about this issue. He is a racist and white supremacist, willfully chooses to support his people (racists and white supremacists) and thus supports keeping statues in honor of them. Suggesting he’s “struggling” with it is not just misleading but wrong. Nothing exists to show he’s “struggling” with this issue.
Patricia Kayden
@John Cole: Why are you so ornery today? LOL
John Cole
@Patricia Kayden: fucking nazis
sorry rikyah, my bad
rikyrah
Trump Just Left Me Speechless With Grief for Our Country
by Nancy LeTourneau
August 15, 2017
can’t even count how many times I’ve written about the fact that our current president is a mentally unstable man with a long history of doing and saying vile racist and sexist things. But honestly, I have no more words after this rant from Trump at the press conference today.
This WHOLE exchange is a MUST WATCH:
In case you have any doubts on what that was all about, here’s a clue:
After that, I’m frankly speechless for the moment. It’s not that I am surprised or shocked. It’s that I am overwhelmed with grief that the leader of our country is such a vile human being. And I want to assure anyone who feels the same way that you’re not crazy…nor are you alone.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@rikyrah:
After reading that (maybe Vox?) piece on the Trump supporters in Alabama, I worry a lot about Moore getting elected to the Senate. While he’s a goddamned nutjob who you could point to repeatedly in election cycles after, he can reinforce and magnify the now weaponized stupidity of white conservative voters. Nonpsychotic would be helpful.
lamh36
hueyplong
@Yarrow: Agreed. It’s the one thing Trump seems to understand very well (other than his infatuation with himself).
Patricia Kayden
@hueyplong:
Stephanie Miller mentioned on her talk show that Mueller has received thousands of resumes from folks willing to volunteer to help him move his investigation along more quickly. Not sure if she was joking but I would gladly volunteer spare hours for such a worthy cause.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Yarrow:
He is truly Fred Trump’s son.
rikyrah
@John Cole:
Sorry Cole.
Joe Falco
Man, I don’t go around saying my state is the home of past serial killers and claim that’s a part of the state’s heritage because that’s stupid. And I wouldn’t say the same of past traitors that came from my state and claim it’s just heritage for the same reason.
lamh36
Bush 41 & 43 issued joint statement
Yarrow
@hueyplong:
It’s hard to wait for him to finish his investigation, but I’d rather he get it right so he can nail these motherfuckers.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@MJS:
Exactly. Tie the GOP to Nazism and domestic terrorism. It can happen anywhere. Dems will keep you safe.
Patricia Kayden
@John Cole: I know how you feel. The only reason I’m not more depressed is that I know so many of us are resisting the monster in the White House. But I have to admit, this is a rough time for our country. Trump feels worse than Bush and I didn’t know any President could be worse than Bush.
Deep breaths, everyone.
lamh36
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
Beg to disagree here.
I think the Confederate monuments should remain in Richmond, VA, which was home of the Confederacy.** Use it as a teachable moment. Beautiful long stretch of Monument Avenue, filled with an incomplete history, amid genteel homes and parklike setting.
I think the rebel statues should be joined by other monuments, to those who fought against slavery, and for civil rights. There are plenty of Virginia and Southern heroes there that one could and should celebrate.
But it’s time for this “Lost Cause” and “Moonlight and Magnolias” whitewashing to land in the dustbin. It’s all built on unfree labor, and the South is still not down with paying labor what they’re worth.
** could stay at Appamattox too, and carefully curated sites. But not all over the place, wherever white supremacists threw them up years ago.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@lamh36:
The Turtle is upset, you say… wouldn’t have known that from his smiling wife standing shoulder to shoulder with Trump.
A Ghost To Most
@Yarrow: Yep. January 2019 will do.
“We’re going to give you a fair trial, followed by a first-class hanging”.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Yeah. And I hope Mueller implicates McConnell, Ryan and a lot of GOP for accepting tainted money, particularly if they knew it was tainted (and that can be proved).
Take out the whole rotten GOP leadership edifice.
The Moar You Know
My dad, one of the biggest #NeverTrump Republicans I know, is getting me to grind my teeth to stubs. He insists that Trump is the issue, not the GOP, just get him to “go away” and everything will be OK. He’s also convinced (understandable as he’s an Alabama native) that the Stars and Bars is history and not racist.
I get it. Most of us are never unable to unlearn, good or bad, the lessons from our childhoods. And it’s important to get the larger picture: a lot of these guys are not really “on our side” in any way, they just want the Orange Menace gone as he makes them look bad.
A Ghost To Most
@Elizabelle: only if part of the maintenance of the statues is a daily dowsing with blood.
Roger Moore
They rallied around him because their only point of disagreement with him is how explicitly to say what he was saying.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Elizabelle:
They should perhaps set aside some land for a special park or garden dedicated to giving the statues context. They should be removed from normal public spaces, which are reserved for persons and causes of real honor.
The Moar You Know
@lamh36: Jimmy Kimmel gets it wrong, because that is not going to happen. Seriously. Explain to me how any Trump voter realizes they were wrong. Then, after that impossible task, explain how they can force themselves to admit it.
May as well ask me to admit to my alt-right relatives that I was wrong about Obama. I’m sure a case could be made. But I’m not going to do it, no matter what you put in front of me, because I wasn’t wrong.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Huh.
Doctor Saint President Village Councilwoman Jill Stein blocked me on Twitter. Last thing I’d noticed was that she no longer seems to do anything but post retweets. Can anybody check for me?
Can anybody check what the pathetic incompetent is saying and hearing now?
ET
@rikyrah: This was the basis for Tucker Carlson’s show last night I think. I caught a few seconds and this was the track he was taking. Fox News better have a come to Jesus Moment about their future if they want to be considered a going concern in 10+ years because their hard core baby boomer audience is going to start dying at higher rates.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@lamh36:
Meh… boiler plate treacle.
Jeffro
@lamh36:
Head of the Army has issued a statement just like the Marine Corps’ commandant’s…’hate and racism have no place in the armed forces’. Good for them. Keep it up. #Resist.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Any pro-Confederate monuments should be taken off of public land. I don’t care where they end up because I won’t be visiting them but my taxes shouldn’t go towards paying a penny to maintain them.
rikyrah
“We Just Feel Like We Don’t Belong Here Anymore”
Think it’s hard for the white working class in rural America? Try being a person of color.
BECCA ANDREWSAUG. 16, 2017 6:00 AM
…………………………………….
Since Trump’s election, there has been ample coverage of white people—the rise of white nationalism, the white working class that makes up Trump’s core constituency, the 53 percent of white women who voted him into office. Much less has been written about the people of color who live and work amid the rising tide of white nationalism in rural red states.
I grew up in a town called Bells, one of the five small towns that make up Crockett County in West Tennessee. The county is 83 percent white—I am also white—14 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. (For comparison, according to 2016 Census data, Tennessee’s population is only 17 percent black and 5 percent Hispanic.) The median household income is $35,000, and 19 percent of the county’s 14,411 residents live below the poverty line. Most of the people I went to school with are still there. The area is deeply rural—the main highway that winds through the county is framed by cotton fields and pastures where cows keep a lazy watch over passing cars. Friday night football reigns supreme; game attendance is only second in importance to church. Many families have been here for generations, passing down their farmland and businesses to their children and grandchildren.
It can be a lovely place to live, but in counties like Crockett, it’s hard to be anything other than white. So I decided to go back home, and talk to the people I should have been talking to all along—people of color who live and work and go to school with white Trump supporters. They told me how it feels to live among neighbors who voted against their best interests, and—worst case—their basic existence.
Madyson Turner: “With the way it’s going now, I’m actually scared that I won’t make it.”
I remember high-school Madyson Turner as a vibrant young black woman with a sense of humor that could dissipate tension in any room. (Turner’s name has been changed here to protect her privacy.) But when we meet up in a Subway sandwich shop in Alamo, there’s a new weight to her shoulders, and her infectious laugh doesn’t come quite so easily.
When she first began to see reports about the violence in Charlottesville, Turner thought it was a tasteless joke. Then she saw videos of the clash on Saturday, and her phone rang—her boyfriend was calling to check on her and process what was happening. He sounded upset. What he said tore at her: “I would rather the world end instead of us having to keep dealing with this stuff.” What hurt her more was the realization that she agreed with him.
“With the way it’s going now, I’m actually scared that I won’t make it,” she said to me in a text message.
Turner tells me in the past year, life for her family has changed. She hints that her parents have been in West Tennessee long enough to know which families fought against civil rights “back in the day.” Since Trump’s election, they’ve warned her to steer clear of a list of people that is too long for comfort.
The day after the November presidential election, Turner went with her mother to the store, and they both kept their heads down. “We just feel like we don’t belong here anymore,” she says.
Turner’s mom, who cleans houses in town for a living, went to work a couple days after that, and her employer, an older white woman, brought up the results of the recent election. The two had talked politics before—Turner’s mom is a Democrat, and her employer is a Republican. “Well, you might as well come and live with me now,” the employer said. “You gonna be mine eventually.”
She called her daughter in tears. Turner immediately got in her car and picked her mother up to bring her home.
Last year before the election, a young woman Turner described as one of her best friends casually mentioned she hoped for a Trump victory so that he might “do away with some of these African-American people.” She quickly clarified that she wasn’t referring to Turner’s “type,” but when Turner sharply asked her what she meant, she couldn’t answer. Another friend assured her that it would be OK if Trump won the election because she would convince her parents to purchase Turner’s family as their new slaves. In a place where a few large plantation-style houses remain scattered through the county, the “joke” feels a lot like a threat.
“I saw a lot of true colors from a lot of people since the election—down with African Americans, down with Hispanics, build the wall, even for the legal ones,” she says. “It really hurts.”
A Ghost To Most
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Ken Ham’s Talibangelical water park. Send all the statues to him.
Elizabelle
FWIW, I think this is bad, bad, bad and I disagree that the GOP won’t do anything. Whether they’re successful, I cannot say.
But Trump is bad for the GOP brand. I’m pretty sure the majority of them realize that, even if they lack the cojones to say it in public.
(I’d suspect that tax cut is DOA. Anything the GOP tries to do can be laid at the feet of white supremacy and their big money founders now.)
Trump’s ascendance is in large part the fault of our complicit mainstream media, which is waking up way too late. High schoolers could have done a better job. Middle schoolers too, maybe.
lamh36
ICYMI: Stephen Colbert’s monologue from last night, rewritten after hearing Trump’s presser yesterday
Take A Side, Mr. President: Nazis Or Not Nazis https://youtu.be/Q4sCA3QFqT8 via @YouTube
eclare
@Elizabelle: As someone who lives in a city with prominent statues of Forrest and Jefferson Davis, disagree. Melt them down. Curiously, the state passed legislation taking the decision to remove the statues out of local control, it now has to be approved by the state. Just a matter of time til the powder keg explodes.
ETA: being sarcastic when I said “curiously”
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: People do admit they’re wrong every now and then. GWB got to a 25% approval rating at the end of his term somehow. Sure, some people aren’t redeemable, but we don’t need them anyway.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: To be fair, Bush 43 spoke out against Islamophobia after 9/11 which I’ll give him credit for. And I’ll give the Bushes applause for vocally opposing Trump’s election by explicitly stating that they did not vote for him. Having said that Bush 43 was an awful President in too many ways. Our 8 years of President Obama was such an oasis.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: I like your idea about public land. I concur.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah:
What the ever-loving fuck?!
trollhattan
@A Ghost To Most:
Deliver them out the back of a Herc, from 5,000 feet.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Why did she block you?
Here’s a recent comment:
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah:
Wow. Yet the media doesn’t give a dang about such people and what they’re going through. Everything is focused on the poor White voters who voted for a racist madman because they’re the only working class which matters.
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
They literally say “Trump’s taking the effort to speak to everybody, not just one side. I never heard Obama do that.” There’s no way to penetrate that. None.
Timurid
@Elizabelle:
These last few days have made me lose hope for the Mueller investigation. The problem isn’t that he’s not doing his job (he is) but that whatever horrors he uncovers, none of it can be worse than what Trump has done this week. So we already know what the GOP will do if and when Mueller drops an atom bomb on the President… furrow their brows furiously and then close ranks.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Either the world’s weirdest sense of humor or a profound visit from Dr. Freud.
SatanicPanic
@germy: This from the lady who was saying that Hillary’s alleged neo-liberalism and Donald’s neo-fascism were the same thing.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle: should we add James Earl Ray statues around the country too to augment MLK monuments and make them more educational, or does this idea only go in the direction of keeping statues of murderous traitors up for educational reasons rather than erecting new ones?
Frankensteinbeck
It’s a little more complicated than that, John, as you ought to know. Trump represents the majority of Republican voters, and they will never, ever leave him. They completely agree with him that Black Lives Matter is way worse than Nazis. But the support of those people isn’t enough. Republicans are already in a position where they have to cheat to keep power. They can’t afford to lose anybody. Every conversion like yours is a blow. Every potential voter who stops thinking both sides do it and goes ‘Holy shit, Republicans support Nazis!’ is a blow. Every previously uninvolved liberal who loses their shit over Republicans trying to kill them with Deathcare and becomes an activist is a blow. Every country club Republican who is too embarrassed to show up and vote is a blow. Those little hits keep coming, on and on, degrading a knife edge victory margin.
And there is one hit that would not be small. Republicans have relied on a heavily biased media environment blinded by white privilege for decades. Trump is bludgeoning them, over and over, with the truth that racism is real and powerful in America. Some of the press are starting to see, and once that happens you cannot unsee. They are actually asking hard questions about Trump’s support of white supremacy and persisting when they get brushed off. When have you ever seen that before? If the mask falls and the media becomes willing to openly discuss racism, Republicans are fucked with all the squishy voters.
And the Republican congress hates him. Right now, they want the myth of legitimate power enough they won’t act against him, but if their cost/benefit calculus changes, they will turn on him in a second. Hell, their party is already paralyzed. They got the perfect storm of cheating and luck to secure all the branches of the federal government, and they’re achieving fuck all except the damage they can do by neglect.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Hey Kay, the NYT is playing their games for the Trumps again.
trollhattan
Trump is Twittering.
Mighty white of you, sir.
Her mom’s address is quite something.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
✔
@maggieNYT
Don’t misread this – Ivanka Trump angrier than anyone over current events, per multiple sources.
Oh look the NYT playing PR games for Trump again.
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan:
People are hearing about her more and more.
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: “angrier than anyone”–Maggie’s phrasing, not a quote. God she’s awful.
Yarrow
Not sure everyone knows about the National Military Park in Vicksburg, MS. It has a lot of statues and memorials to “both sides.” Link.
From their park history handbook:
Baud
We need more Baud statues.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: Christ thank you been bitching about this for a while. I love Rikyah and her posts, but damn, if I wanted to read the Washington Monthly site I’d be there, not here.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, I agree. It upsets me when people conflate fighting and losing.
Baud
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: The NYT is garbage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: @ maggieNYT
Don’t misread this – Ivanka Trump angrier than anyone over current events, per multiple sources.
Thrush typed up some of Javanka’s people’s PR yesterday and got flamed so bad he acknowledged it. I guess his frequent co-byliner doesn’t follow him.
Or is “Don’t misread this” supposed to mean “I’m not falling for it, just reporting it”. Maybe a better way to frame that is an on-going look at the Kushner PR offensive, which journalists it targets and how everyone’s laughing at it?
Amanda in the South Bay
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: well if history is any indication they are due for several front page stories on Hillary’s emails.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Maybe then don’t report it.
The Moar You Know
@lamh36: See, Nazis? It’s not that hard. It’s not like the guys who bought us Willie Horton and the mass drowning of the Ninth Ward aren’t on your side – they are! You just need to not kick the shit out of people and not make a scene. Behave like civilized folk is all the GOP wants. They’ll handle your white supremacy in quiet rooms, in the back.
SiubhanDuinne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
For some reason (probably because of his retrograde views on, well, everything) I’ve always been under the impression that Roy Moore was a good 10-15 years older than I am.
Just looked it up. Nope. He’s five years younger. He’s 70. If he gets to the Senate and lives as long as Strom Thurmond, he could do three decades of damage.
Baud
@The Moar You Know: Nobody puts Nazi in the corner.
Yarrow
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ve been mulling this over. If the Republicans somehow get rid of Trump will the media declare racism is over? Or will it be, as you say, that they “cannot unsee.” I suspect the former.
Baud
@Yarrow: Only one way to find out.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
She was gazing up at him and smiling like a goopy Nancy Reagan wannabe.
chopper
@lamh36:
wow, a real profile in fucking courage, that guy.
Patricia Kayden
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: LOL!! Per “multiple sources” like Ivanka and Jared? I cannot today with these idiots.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Thanks for the link
debit
@rikyrah: You have nothing to apologize for. Keep doing what you’re doing. I can’t always comment, but I always read your articles and links.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: I’d be fine with those being on public land since Baud is such a noncontroversial, inspirational, unifying leader. Future generations may not feel the same but they can always tear them down.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, but the majority of GOP voters aren’t content with that anymore. Why would they be? Four decades of polite Reaganism, and what has it gotten them? A black president, being told to their faces that black lives matter, and having to hold back on the things they want to say lest they face public ridicule. The voters are the party, and they chose Trump over all the polite racists. I can’t see those voters getting anything but more extreme, and the backlash against racism coming out into the open keeps building. This is a dispiriting position for the polite racists to be in.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Also, a UVA librarian was attacked Friday by a tiki torch wielding Nazi, he had a stroke and is now in the hospital.
rikyrah
@Frankensteinbeck:
I just wanted to say Bravo to your entire comment. Didn’t want to copy it all, but it was absolutely on point.
hueyplong
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I might be willing to be that Trump will criticize Putin before the NYT criticizes Trump’s daughter.
Patricia Kayden
@trollhattan: But according to his logic, Ms. Heyer was part of the bad alt-left which didn’t have a permit to march and opposed some of the good people on the alt-right side, right?
rikyrah
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
STOP WITH THIS BULLSHYT.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Moar You Know:
Exactly. I have a friend who’s actually owns a Republican direct marketing firm and he spouts this shit constantly. They’re all experiencing driftglass’s ‘Republican Detachment Disorder’ and refuse to acknowledge that the Popular Vote Loser is simply the id of their party.
This friend didn’t vote for the Slovakian Mannequin and her orange furby but I know he voted for people like Jim Gilmore when he ran for governor in VA.
They are no political friends or allies of ours.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: How very brave! Maybe someone can ask why she blocked Marlee Matlin over a tweet condemning nazis
Frankensteinbeck
@Yarrow:
Depends on how soon they do it, and how much the base keeps acting up and the establishment are forced to coddle them. Think of it like waking up. The media really, really wants to go back to sleep. Right now they’re peeking out from under their bedcovers. But the noise keeps going on, and if they wake up enough they won’t be able to sleep anymore, no matter how much they’d like to. Again, once you notice racism, you start noticing it everywhere and it’s hard to stop.
Yarrow
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Maggie Haberman is Jewish or was at least born into a Jewish family according to Wikipedia. Maybe she should have done some on the ground reporting last weekend in Charlottesville. She be less willing to carry water for the Javankas. If Ivanka is so angry about this, she could do a lot more than have other people claim she’s angry.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Well, that just prompted a call to Johnson’s office. One ring and straight to voicemail. Fucking coward.
cmorenc
Surprise! The member comments over at RedState overwhelmingly blame Obama for causing the racial turmoil in this country, and also the left are the real thugs and racists who have kicked up vastly more turmoil and violence than the alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville… A repeated refrain is that they could see this coming from the start of Obama’s presidency, way before Trump ever came along.
The amoral sickness at the heart of the GOP’s core base is impossible to reach, unless and until a clear majority of the American public actively makes them into shunned outcasts, the way we at least thought Klansmen and Nazis have been for several decades.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Pigeonproof.
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major:
LOL. But you do raise a great point.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne:
Poco does love a good long piss on a park statue. Baud/Poco2020!?
Josie
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you for this. It is important to keep our balance in such awful times, and what you write gives me hope. It won’t be easy to overcome the hatred, but maybe it is possible.
Frankensteinbeck
@SiubhanDuinne:
All of Baud’s statues open carry.
Spanky
@Baud:
How many damn garden gnomes do we really need?
A Ghost To Most
@Patricia Kayden: Curmudgeon is curmudgeonly. Rock on, rickyrah.
Spanky
@Frankensteinbeck:
Alcohol, certainly.
Quinerly
@John Cole: I for one like the way she posts the Washington Monthly pieces and Steve Benen’s pieces. I read Washington Monthly fairly regularly but her blurbs help me skip through what I don’t want/need to read. But your blog, your rules. (her postings to Benen that way are especially helpful?)
Villago Delenda Est
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: They’ve done this in Russia with statues of Lenin.
Seems like a decent compromise.
But the effigies on Stone Mountain must go.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Brilliant! Thank you.
that’s the only form in which I could watch any of it
LOVED the note at the end
sherparick
@lamh36: Unfortunately, the Republican Party in Wisconsin is pretty much a union of Libertarians (Corporate Feudalists) and White Supremacists Theocons. Scott Walker has won three elections, Ron Johnson has won 2 elections. Dave Clark keeps getting elected county sheriff of Milwaukee County, heavens to Betsy!! They were all narrow wins, but economic bitterness and decades of scapegoating by right wing media of minorities has created a festering soup of racial resentment. Charlie Sykes is playing the Walrus to Scott Walker’s Carpenter about creating a Republican Party ready to tear apart a century of progressive state Government for the cause of racial resentment, but he was a key figure to blame the dislocation and deindustrialization of Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin on “those People on Welfare” in Milwaukee. This is the saddest thing about Charlottesville, that the Republicans by their dog whistles and scapegoating and lying, all to serve the cause of lower taxes and concentration of power in the business class, have now created a mass movement of white nationalism, which could easily end in a second Civil War, far worse than the first.
scav
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: well, of course Ivanka is madder than anyone: Daddy’s forgetting there was a microphone there is just ruining her brand, it’s so un.fair!
zhena gogolia
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
BLECCH! I HATE THEM!
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
I like the excerpts you post. I can’t look at twelve websites every day.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
I’ve been … harsh … about her role in the state of things.
Westyny
@Elizabelle: I would like to see a statue to Generals Sherman and Grant on Monument Avenue.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m thinking that the bad relief on Stone Mountain would make a fine gravel layer in septic tanks.
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major:
A serious response: I think in the long run most of the great Lost Cause Confederate statues will come down, many possibly surprisingly soon.
Now: WRT Richmond, Virginia: timing is everything here. I will agree, the Lost Cause sympathizers pretty much have made Monument Avenue into a Confederacy theme park.
Richmond museum staff, academics, and residents have worked diligently to broaden the history taught, to make it more inclusive, and representative. They are very upfront about what actually happened, as opposed to the myth. And, maybe 20 years ago, a [regrettably, rather ugly] statue of local hero Arthur Ashe went up at the end of Monument Avenue’s statuary, to great controversy at the time.
Also consider: Virginia is a purple state. While we have more and more blue Virginia voters, they DON’T TURN OUT TO VOTE as much as they should. Sadly, our red state Virginians turn out for elections. Rabidly.
Retrograde Confederate Corey Stewart nearly won the GOP nomination for governor this spring, running on Trump and support for rebel yell history. Came quite close to knocking off Ed Gillespie, who is positioning himself as a tax-lowering small businessman. (Being more up on current events, we recognize him as the former RNC chairman and consigliere to Bush the Lesser. The Tea Partiers here are no doubt aware of Gillespie’s true colors, too.)
This election is Democrat Ralph Northam’s to lose, and I cannot think of a controversy that could play out worse than making this fall a referendum on Confederate statues.
In the long run, the Confederates will lose. Again. Finally, for good. The Lost Cause should never have had as long a “victory” run as they’ve gotten. Revisionist history is deadly.
But don’t forget how Trump pulled out a ridiculous win. (I would say illegitimate, but the moron is sitting in the Oval Office.)
Since we have such a gerrymandered GOP legislature, the governorship is the ONLY thing that protects Blue and Purple state Virginians. So, I would tread carefully here and look at the big picture and the greater goal.
You have got me curious what Governor Terry McAuliffe is saying or will say about this.
This whole thing is a welcome conversation we need to have; I hope we will. But I think some patience will be required too.
Now, you can call me an appeaser.
Elizabelle
@Westyny: They are my heroes, too.
Just bought postcards of Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln, at Harper’s Ferry a weekend or two ago.
Quinerly
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t want to beat it to death but I second what you said. I was a religious reader of Washington Monthly but when they changed their website it made it harder, more time consuming to read on my phone. Rikyrah’s links and intros to the articles solved the problem. I often forget about Benen daily since he’s now at MSNBC. Those links with the intros are great too.
lgerard
@Patricia Kayden:
?
One of the more bizarre aspects of trump’s tirade…..that citizens somehow need “permits” to walk around their own city
WaterGirl
@lamh36: You know, I didn’t like them either, but the digs at Hillary might actually get some people to actually listen to what he’s saying.
edit: forgot to say how great that was!
TenguPhule
@Timurid:
Talk about Optimistic. The month isn’t even over yet.
TenguPhule
@lgerard:
No, its just very old code.
“Papers Please!”
schrodingers_cat
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Maggie is T’s steno, and NYT is his personal leaflet.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
With one bronze foot at the neck of a Confederate general lying on the ground.
Quinerly
Trump has disbanded that economic counsel. Looks like the scathing Campbell’s statement put him over the edge.
I can’t find the Campbells statement. Did I hear the news correctly? 3 M quit this AM.
MisterForkbeard
I’m in late to this thread, but did anyone actually read the Red State article in question? It’s insane: “The only people warning about this were upstanding people like Rick Perry, who two years ago delivered the best speech on race that’s ever been given. If only the media had played this speech for weeks on end, we’d be in a better spot today.”
I like that the author ignores both that Democrats were first talking about Trump and the Republican Party’s racism for a long time, and the Democrats in particular forcefully made the point that Trump was a racist and sexist nutjob… and the Republicans voted for him anyway. And then she ignores that Rick Perry is working for Trump today, so he’s clearly not that bothered by white nationalism.
dww44
@Elizabelle: Great comment and with which I fully agree.
Quinerly
@Quinerly:
Linky: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-disbands-jobs-panels-charlottesville
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Yarrow: Virtually all Civil War battlefields that are now national historic sites–I believe the NPS refers to them as “Military Parks”–have monuments from both sides, often on the ground a specific unit fought on–you can trace part of the battle line at Chickamauga by monuments, for example. I can see the argument that those do help people understand the events of the battle, while statues to Confederate leaders do not,
By the way–most of the metal public statues are made of bronze, and rather thin bronze at that. Did you know bronze can be significantly corroded by application of the acid in concrete cleaning products sold at place like Home Depot, and that drug-store grade hydrogen peroxide supposedly helps the process along?
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Westyny: Elizabeth Van Lew. She was a local girl, after all. Let’s have some hometown love for her!
Elizabelle
Whoa. Massive update on Virginia politics. The Democratic nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, just came out for taking down Confederate monuments all over the Commonwealth. Including on Monument Avenue in Richmond, capital of the great Lost Cause confederacy.**
Northam released the statement following Heather Heyer’s memorial service. And this position is beyond that of Richmond’s newly elected mayor, Levar Stoney, an African American.
From the Richmond Times Disgrace.
** ETA: Although he would defer to local authorities.
I will excerpt the article further. The gubernatorial campaign just het up on cultural issues.
louc
Several ministers engaged in non-violent counter-protests in Charlottesville describe how the antifas saved their lives.