I know we’ve discussed the NYT’s nice young Nazis article already, but I keep coming back to it in my mind. The NYT felt the blow-back from what was widely panned as a puff piece on Ohio Nazi Tony Hovater, his idiotic wife and their scumbag friends. The Times changed the title of the article from “In America’s Heartland, the Nazi Sympathizer Next Door” to “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland.”
The author of the piece, Richard Fausset, admitted that “there is a hole at the heart” of his story about Hovater. In Fausset’s telling, the article’s flaw is that it fails to answer the question: “What makes a man start fires?”
That’s not the question the piece raised for me. The normalization of the Ohio Nazis reminded me of the dog in the famous meme below (representing, in this case, the NYT), and my question is, why do you think the fucking fire is fine?
It’s not that Fausset and the Times are sympathetic to Nazis; I really don’t think they are. But they’re ignoring the implications of the fact that people like Hovater feel emboldened and empowered by the Trump administration.
Jasmin Mujanović, an expert on Balkan politics, identifies the “hole at the heart” of Fausset’s piece in a series of tweets, reproduced below:
The NYT Nazi fluff text is only further proof that, at a fundamental level, large segments of the US intelligentsia do not appreciate the existential crisis now facing their republic. In short, they’re not actually concerned — and they really should be.
You can only really write pieces like that if you’re convinced that the violence which these extremists represent, and engineer, will never touch you. Likely because you’re white, wealthy, and mobile and they’ll probably target vulnerable, static “minorities”.
The form is very familiar to me from the Balkans. It was rampant during the 1990s: Karadzic gave interviews to Western media every other day, there’s hours of footage. In the meantime, he was murdering thousands. But hey, dead Bosnians are so “other” and his English was great.
Now the fascists are in the US, they’re in the UK, they’re in the EU and sober ur-journalists roll their eyes at the alarmists who tell you that the normalization of extremism, illiberalism, and violence never ends well — not even in established democratic regimes.
But trust your gut: trust that sick, queasy feeling you’ve had for months, trust your anxiety, and trust the fear you see in your neighbors eyes. All is not well, and everything won’t be OK. Not unless both ordinary citizens and responsible politicians act today.
“That sick, queasy feeling” — yes, that’s it exactly.
Meanwhile, Trump again endorsed the child molester in the Alabama senate race via Twitter today, though he was too cowardly to do so by name. The NYT explains it as “cold political calculus” or maybe sympathy for a fellow sexual predation accusee.
It’s not so much the fire; it’s the “This is fine.”
Trentrunner
What, exactly, would “this is NOT fine” look like?
Well, it doesn’t help when Pelosi calls accused harasser John Conyers an “icon” on MTP today.
Normalizing, normalizing everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Corner Stone
Part of this is accurate. I do trust the anxiety I have felt since the R’s nominated Trump. But in my case at least I also trust the glee and malice I see in my neighbors eyes.
Major Major Major Major
@Trentrunner: is there a child you could be discouraging or something instead of bothering us here? Just spitballing.
germy
Corner Stone
Conyers has always looked to me like he’d be a real asshole to be around and try to deal with.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: not my literal neighbors (though there are a couple soft libertarians like we have out here) but I agree and think that it’s much more troubling.
lowtechcyclist
Exactly. It’s the lack of concern, let alone alarm, that this might represent a threat to our democracy.
Betty Cracker
@Trentrunner: In the case of the NYT article, a “this is NOT fine” approach would have focused less on Hovater’s pets, wedding registry, affection for the “Seinfeld” series and “Twin Peaks,” etc., and more (or at all, really) on the fear he and his ilk are sowing. We know fucking evil is often fucking banal, or at least we used to know that.
debbie
The importance of a good headline can never be underestimated.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: It was more of a metaphor, as my direct neighbors are majority minority nowadays. And all seem like good people for the minimal interaction I have had with them. I do wish, however, they would teach their damn kids to not come flying down the driveway and rocketing into the road between two parked cars at the curb.
But my white crusty ass neighbors in the area – hooboy are they loving it.
Cheryl Rofer
Looks like Pelosi did it (more or less) right.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: he likes twin peaks? I suspect he may have mis-viewed it.
(No, I have been refusing to read the piece)
Yoda Dog
@Trentrunner:What does Pelosi have to do with any of this? Nothing. It’s not an open thread.
Major Major Major Major
@Yoda Dog: well, it’s labeled as one. Trent seems to have gone full troll recently.
Corner Stone
I don’t know why Dem people always try these half-measures to salvage a bad situation. Now that Conyers has stepped down as ranking Dem, does he think it’s going to stop the bleeding? Why doesn’t he know this will embolden the people calling for his head? It’s not going to end well, it’s just going to end.
MattF
So, you’re saying that fire is hot and destructive. Burns things.
Major Major Major Major
My favorite version of that cartoon I saw this year is the dog saying “the real story here is the smoke alarm.”
aimai
Ok but I want to tell you all that one thing has gone very, very, right for me today! I just used the Pie filter for the first time and pie’d Trentrunner and my mood has improved SUBSTANTIALLY!!
Major Major Major Major
@aimai: that’s what it’s there for! Actually it’s there for TenguPhule but you get the idea.
CaseyL
Trump and Brexit: two examples of cataclysmic voting which will destroy the countries that approved them.
To me the question is, why did people in US and England fall for propaganda that was obviously false? And why, in the aftermath of both votes, with the ruin happening so fast, do people cling to their lies and their votes?
I’m aware of the psychological and sociological explanations. But it’s strange to see such a large percentage of the population be caught up in a self-destructive, self-deceptive spiral and insist on doubling down every chance it gets.
Is it a perfect storm of ignorance, delusion, and sabotage? Or is there some kind of subconscious species suicidal impulse at work?
“Metavirus” is a term for mental delusions that spread through a population just like a physical epidemic. I’m thinking about that all the time now. So many instances in history of entire societies marching deliberately into ruination; what historian Barbara Tuchman called “The March of Folly” but on a grander scale.
I wish there was an equivalent wide-spectrum antibiotic for metaviruses.
MomSense
I saw a side by side comparison of how the NYT compared Michael Brown with this Nazi next door and it made me want to smash things.
The NYT is garbage.
WaterGirl
@aimai: He was my first, also, several weeks ago.
MattF
@aimai: Yes, the pie filter is excellent. I strongly recommend using it when necessary.
aimai
Can we stop letting right wing assholes drive the conversation about sexual abuse? When talking politics–talk policy, tactics, strategy and, above all, winning. When talking about sexual abuse, which is rampant in our society, focus on actual crimes, like: criminal crimes and abuse of power not just uncivil, boorish, or mean behavior. Dems will never win any votes being purer than the republicans, being more moral, more cautious, or less corrupt. Why? Because voters only pretend to care about that shit. They care about winning and they care about whatever their pet cause is that is socially acceptable and emotionally resonant for them in the moment. If NO VOTE IS HAPPENING not politician on the democratic side should step down. Whatever they have done is not as important as their vote for democratic causes. IF an election is imminent for a given politician maybe the calculus shifts but its always a calculation, not a hysterical rush for the exits in search of the next pure soul to carry our banner aloft.
Yoda Dog
@Major Major Major Major: It is? Where?
Regardless, he just wants to troll with that comment. Go take that garbage to twitter or something..
ETA: Im going to find and try this pie filter thing now. Sounds lovely.
Lapassionara
There are several good threads on Twitter about the effing NYT story, including one that shows stories the paper ran in the 20’s, downplaying Hitler’s antisemitism, and one counter-pointing selections from the Times story with facts about specific atrocities Jews suffered at the hand of Nazis. I am not good at linking to other sites, and I apologize for not having the ability to lead you to these threads. This Times piece just enrages me.
aimai
@WaterGirl: You never forget your first.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL: almost half the population has a double-digit IQ.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Hey Pinch & Baquet, just in case you’re reading this almost-top-10,000 blog: Try seeing how your story reads once you replace every variant of “Nazi/White nationalist” with “child fucker.”
And throw yourselves into a woodchipper.
Major Major Major Major
@Yoda Dog: it’s one of the categories.
ETA needs more kitteh
Cheryl Rofer
Open thread, right? Here’s something to cheer us up a little.
germy
@MomSense:
And the funny and/or sad thing is, if you mentioned the nytimes to the average trumpvoter, they’d spit on the ground and call it the librul media.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
I will support any Democratic candidate for New York governor who promises to make their first act burning the FTFNYT office to the ground. Or at least firing Pinch & Baquet into the sun.
B.B.A.
There are important questions to be asked about Nazis. For instance, is it better to bash their skulls in with a crowbar and leave them to bleed to death on the sidewalk, or to shoot them? I see strong arguments on both sides.
Schlemazel
@Cheryl Rofer:
NOT GOOD ENOUGH!! The purity ponies insist Pelosi flay him with a dull butter knife on Morning Joe then set herself on fire for the sin of not being pure enough. Only then will the Democratic Party be worthy of their support
Darkrose
So happy I can pie from my phone.
Major Major Major Major
@Yoda Dog:
Just below the comment button, unless your browser isn’t compatible.
Yoda Dog
@B.B.A.: Let them bleed.
Schlemazel
@Major Major Major Major:
the problem with these trolls . . . well, one of many problems with these trolls . . . is that it has become impossible to differentiate between the Putin Paid Putz and the truly ignorant pony
Amaranthine RBG
The NYT was simply reporting facts.
Believe it or not there are hundreds of millions of people in this country who don’t spend several hours every day dressaging their purity ponies in political blogs
Should the NYT not report about the normalization of far right ideology? Or should they be sure to explain in such articles that “Nazis are really bad”?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
What do nazis have to do here? Threaten reporters specifically? ’Cause I think maybe they’ve already even done that. Why is that not enough to get the serious [sic] people in the press to sit up and take note here? Do they have to begin killing them before they think this might be a worry?
eclare
@MomSense: Saw that too and forwarded it on….one was “no angel”, the other is a Nazi
Yoda Dog
@Major Major Major Major: Yea i found it and it was just as satisfying as advertised. Have some pie, TR.
MobiusKlein
@aimai: Re: Pie – why is a cheesecake not called a pie? It’s nothing like a cake, and has a crust on the bottom.
I say cheespie?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: damn, I knew she was nutty, but I didn’t think she’d be in a first class seat on the Economic Anxiety Express
So… she’s willing to forgive her disappointing friends who think trump is worse than Hillary. Big of her.
Schlemazel
@Darkrose:
You can? I should look that up as I was never able to get pie filter on my chromebook. Maybe it is now possible?
Chyron HR
@Amaranthine RBG:
I agree, Bernie’s stance that gun control laws should only apply to black people is a masterful compromise (but not the kind of compromise that neoliberals engage in, which is pure evil).
Yoda Dog
@Amaranthine RBG: Oh shit, you need some pie too! MMMMM-MMM!
Felonius Monk
@B.B.A.: Hanging and a burning tire necklace are also viable options.
Yoda Dog
@Schlemazel: I’m on a chromebook. Eating pie.
Major Major Major Major
@Schlemazel: not a coincidence! And depending on how you feel about the Chinese Room thought experiment there may no longer even be a meaningful difference to find.
hueyplong
So today we are treated to the not-so-shocking news that the FTFNYT and Susan Sarandon are both very slow learners.
As some one likes to say: Uh-huh.
At least Jill Stein appears to have dickered over the price and got one she wanted.
Major Major Major Major
@Schlemazel: it’s built into the site below the comment button.
Amaranthine RBG
@Chyron HR:
You might want to think about focusing on the future instead of rehashing the 2016 democrat primary.
It’s funny, I don’t think I have raised Bernie in a thread in over a year- yet he still owns you.
trollhattan
@germy:
Jesus. Shut the fvck up stupid lady!
aimai
I pie’d Amaranthine RBG too. What a great day for me, as a reader of Balloon Juice!
On the topic at hand I could not agree more with the original post about how the NYT article was a particularly malevolent version of “this is fine.” Nazism is not an acceptable “lifestyle choice” in which Joe Schmoe’s advocacy of the genocide of all non-white people in the US is treated as normal and his right to have hishumanity recognized and respected is paramount while the concerns of the entire rest of the country, his potential victims, and all us subhumans are treated as hypothetical or not at risk.
This guy and his friends are not just cosplaying evil, they are not toddlers who don’t know what they are doing, they are actively pursuing a serious political agenda which ends in deportation, death, and ruination for women, POC, immigrants, liberals, and, ultimately, humanity. Reporting that does not reflect that or explore that is a crime against reporting and humanity at the same time.
jeffreyw
@Major Major Major Major:
Moar Kitteh, as per your request.
Bjacques
(Snerk) This didn’t take long:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/11/a-nazi-cooks-pasta/546737/
schrodingers_cat
WP experts, what stops someone from using an old nym. When they post the first time it goes to the spam filter when the nym and address don’t match but once such a comment is freed from moderation, they can troll to their heart’s content using the assumed nym of an older, more established commenter.
Trentrunner has been relentlessly anti-D since he has reemerged.
ruemara
@germy: jesus. She is detestable.
schrodingers_cat
@aimai: And people think I am being shrill when I call it Vichy Times. The name is well deserved. They have been Nazi shills.
eclare
@jeffreyw: Those eyes!
Adam L Silverman
@Trentrunner: He can both be a Civil Rights icon, which he is, and have feet of clay and have done something unacceptable, if not criminal, as well. They are not mutually exclusive categories.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: They have been the biggest enabler of the person in the WH.
Amaranthine RBG
@schrodingers_cat:
You’re silly.
Schlemazel
@Major Major Major Major:
I had not seen that before. I’ll try it – THANKS!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amaranthine RBG: Steve….
WaterGirl
@aimai: hahaha
eclare
@Bjacques: That is great, forwarded on!
Betty Cracker
@aimai: The current occupant of the White House has demonstrated conclusively how much character (or in his case, lack thereof) matters. No, there shouldn’t be a hysterical rush for the exits in response to wingnut hit jobs. Yes, things besides political outcomes matter.
zhena gogolia
@Bjacques:
Haha, that’s very good. Now I can certainly continue not to read the original article.
debbie
@MomSense:
Did the NYT article on Michael Brown come out before or after it was reported that the cigar incident wasn’t a strong-arm robbery, but payment for a drug deal done for the store owner?
Corner Stone
Tom Nichols can go somewhere and find a goat to blow.
Suzanne
@Trentrunner:
I have news for you: men sexually harassing and abusing women IS normal.
Major Major Major Major
@jeffreyw: so handsome!
WaterGirl
@germy: Went to a movie with Susan Sarandon over Thanksgiving ((not my choice) and I can’t even stand seeing her now, even in a movie. Ugh.
Amaranthine RBG
@debbie:
So Brown was an enforcer for a drug dealer, not a run of the mill thief?
Do you have a link for that?
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: that does seem to be a bridge too far for some on the left. Don’t tell them about MLK failing at keeping it in his pants.
debbie
@Amaranthine RBG:
No, he was the runner. And no, I have no specific link. It was reported by many sources.
Amaranthine RBG
@debbie:
I missed those stories. It does add another layer to the story.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: I would assume based on my work with the API here that you have to have the same email address, but WP’s inner workings never cease to be counter-intuitive, so who knows.
Chyron HR
@WaterGirl:
Couldn’t you have just told her you were waiting for it to come out on Netflix?
Uncle Cosmo
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t think it’s particularly shrill, but I prefer “Herrenvölkischer Beobachter” in my own posts.
Ladyraxterinok
@Schlemazel:Remember Obama and Jeremiah Wright in the 08 election. I thought Wright made good points. Yet it was clear that the media were never going to let up on the story, dragging it out and reading ever more negatives for Obama into it.
So Obama totally cut all ties to Wright. It upset me that his action seemed to support the negative view of Wright (and Black Liberation theology – see Hannity’s reving up for Hannity’s massive diatribes on the topic).
Yet relatively soon the topic faded off the front page for pundits.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
To put it crudely there are reporters we are talking about – it’s historically been a job for working class types who could write.. WWC meets WWC and doesn’t see anything wrong shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Hoodie
The Times article is an example of viewing politics as just another atomistic consumer choice. I really don’t give a rat’s ass about the Hovaters’ consumer habits, because I’m not interested in selling them anything. We put Nazis in the dock at Nuremberg; we didn’t offer them free shipping. The only reason to analyze their consumer preferences is to figure out their likely meeting locations so the FBI can track what they’re up to.
This time of year is depressing enough when buried in an avalanche of consumerism, I guess the Times can only have so many stories about gift choices for the investment banker in your life.
WaterGirl
@Chyron HR: It was a family outing and when I suggested Murder on the Orient Express I was told that my the host that they had already promised the kids we would all go to Bad Moms 2 Christmas (or something like that). So I didn’t get a vote at all.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: me and my parents saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mo. last night, very good, highly recommended.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mar-a-Ranting SOB: You & Turdreamer above need to enroll in a class that teaches how to fire a loaded shotgun with your big toe with the end of the barrel firmly in your mouth. A short class, with the final exam a demonstration of mastery.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@CaseyL:
The US was colonized by people who literally believed the streets were lined with gold in the Americas. Supposedly John Smith had to threaten the Jamestown colonist with murder to get them to farm so they didn’t starve to death because the colonist were so convinced they would make the big score and retire rich. The Puritans of Plymouth had to be bailed out by the Native Americans because the Puritans were to busy building their dream Madras rather than bother with the basics like what will they eat. Fantasy thinking is in the DNA.
Uncle Cosmo
@WaterGirl:
No shit! Why didn’t you do the world a favor & dump rat poison into her popcorn? :^D
Adam L Silverman
@Uncle Cosmo: Perhaps there is a way to express your displeasure without advocating that the commenters you don’t like kill themselves?
Ladyraxterinok
@ruemara: Nowadays Hoover wouldn’t collect stuff to try to blackmail MLK. He’d just leak it in driips to the pundits. And make sure the politicians showed up on all the talk shows.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Had never heard of that movie, but I just googled and read a very positive review. Doesn’t sound happy/fun, but it sounds very good. Did they figure out who did it?
WaterGirl
@Uncle Cosmo: Phrasing.
fourmorewars
Everybody normalizes the fucking right. Was it just me, or did anybody else notice this strange phenomenon in those two much-talked-about studies that came out at the start of the Obama administration, regarding the threats from right- and left-wing homegrown terrorism? Of course, the main reason everybody remembers the reports is that the right wing pissed and moaned long and loud about the one analyzing the right, and managed to almost universally ignore that there was one about the other side. But beyond that, there was this – read the government’s summaries at the start of each: you’ll see in the opening of the right-wing report a list of what their grievances might be, why they might feel alienated from their government. You see no such thing in the report of left-wing groups. It skips right to their nature and numbers and the threat they might pose. I don’t remember it being harsher on the left than the right from that point on. But one of the two reports is simply, glaringly, missing a feature the other contains, namely, a kind of hand-holding, we-understand-where-you’re-coming-from pov. It’s pretty startling.
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: I’m not going to spoil it!
ETA and it is fun, in a very dark way. I smiled and laughed, take that how you will. McDormand is great.
Feebog
@Major Major Major Major:
Second you recommendation of “Three Billboards”. Frances McDormand gave an Oscar level performance.
PIGL
@aimai: thank you. Why these elementary tactical considerations escape so many is a mystery. And I say “tactical” advisedly: you don’t court-martial a soldier in the middle of a firefight.
Villago Delenda Est
Nazis are bad.
This is as close to a universal truth as you’re ever going to find.
PJ
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This was historically the case up to the 1960s, which served the republic pretty well. Since then, and particularly since Watergate and the advent of Masters degrees in Journalism, journalists have seen themselves as professionals on par with doctors, lawyers, etc. and have adopted appropriate attitudes to go along with it. Particularly noxious is the desire to be accepted as peers by the politicians and business people they report on, which means that they are reluctant to write anything critical of the subjects they cover, or simply to point out the obvious implications of the statements and actions of politicians and business people. That’s why we have the culture of journalist as stenographer, or as fawning PR agent. This country would be in a hell of a lot better place if journalists actually did think of themselves as working class and were unafraid to report the plain truth, a practice which has been on the run since before the Reagan era.
Amaranthine RBG
@Uncle Cosmo:
You seem unbalanced.
Feathers
@Trentrunner:
I’ll feed the troll. That is called shade. An icon is what you call an aging diva who can’t hit the notes she used to and whose dress sense now seems merely odd. It’s framed as an compliment, but also falls under the “if you can’t say anything nice…” rubric.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Amaranthine RBG:
Not really. People like you are scum and the world would be a better place without you
Villago Delenda Est
@Feathers: Trentrunner is not exactly the sharpest spoon in the drawer.
No Drought No More
“This is fine.”
Lest We Forget: It was obvious at the time that profound ramifications were in the political cards after the leadership of both major parties supported the Bush/Cheney plot to war. Furthermore, that those ramifications were all bound to be ugly.
Americans were lied into waging war, and they understand that terrible truth only too well. But to this day not a single prominent member of either party is willing to speak of that great treason, or even allude to that rude truth in passing. It’s as if the 2003 War in Iraq was more or less an historical dictate, and somehow inevitable. Lest We Forge: it was no such thing. That political silence is an obscene taboo. It will continue to enfeeble the democratic party until its rank and file summon the common sense to acknowledge the party’s acquiescence as the catastrophic decision it was. The democratic party must shoulder its share of the responsibility for the great war crime, but no more than that. It would be a display of moral courage befitting a great party, and, needless to say, would be a vote getter and a smart move for that reason, too..
Corner Stone
@No Drought No More: Do you read the things you type here to yourself before you hit “Post” ?
woodrowfan
1st World White Peoples’ Problems: When a favorite movie star reveals themselves to be total twits, thus ruining you being able to enjoy a favorite movie. Now known as the Sarandon Rule
woodrowfan
@WaterGirl: GAD. “Let’s skip the intelligent drama that involves actual problem solving and go take the kids to see mindless crap!!”
OK, I like mindless crap too sometimes, but some crap is just too, well, too crappy!!!!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
The Times and their fellow travelers are COMPLICIT. Not clueless, not unconcerned, COMPLICIT. They will push any and every narrative that keeps supremacy in place, kicks any Dem in the nuts, and lets them off the hook for 2016 coverage. The sooner people wake up to that fact, and quit making excuses to keep throwing money at them, the better off we’ll all be.
Mr. Wu's Pigs
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you for posting this! UC’s comments on this thread have been quite the homicidal tendency :(
James E. Powell
@MobiusKlein:
Kenny Bania thinks that gold, Mobius, gold!
J R in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
I like your ability to rename a turdblossom like that !
If a boss had called me that, he would only have done it that one time.
rikyrah
@aimai:
Amen.
The pie filter is wonderful
CapnMubbers
The pie filter does not stay in place since Firefox 57.0 (on an iMac). When I leave the page, the pie list disappears. I miss the filter VERY MUCH.
Tehanu
@aimai:
This, a thousand times this. The tell for me in that stupid and contemptible comment was: “Well, it doesn’t help when Pelosi calls accused harasser John Conyers an “icon”…” Accused is not proved, it is not convicted, it is not anything except “This should be investigated under the fkg presumption of innocence, or what is the goddam Constitution for?”
Tehanu
@PJ:
And if people, including journalists, stopped repeating the crap about economic anxiety and the poor, downtrodden, put-upon white working class. I keep saying this, so forgive me for repeating it again: Every letter in the L.A. Times that supports Dump is from Pacific Palisades and Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills. Trust me when I tell you that those are not working-class neighborhoods. Dump won EVERY white demographic, including college-educated women who should know better. I have so had it with these people.
J R in WV
@CapnMubbers:
I’m running Firefox 57 on an Acer with Linus 14.04 and it works fine for me. Here’s my list:
1. 279
2. Amusing Ourselves to Death
3. Balconesfault
4. Ben from Virginia
5. LanceThruster
6. NR
7. Partisan Cheese
8. Procopius
9. RS
10. Sloane Ranger
11. cumbucotrader
12. goblue72
13. sylvania
I took Amaranthine RBG out of the list briefly, now I’m going to add him back, and that Trent guy too.
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
What have you got against Sloane Ranger? She (I think it’s a she) seems like an amiable, inoffensive sort.
Sloane Ranger
Late to the party as usual but just noticed that I’ve been pied by at least one commentator. I hadn’t realised that anyone had noticed me enough to take such a step but I’d really like to know what I said to warrant such a reaction. I haven’t pied anyone, no matter how strongly and regularly I disagree with them and don’t plan to do so.
chopper
what the fuck is a “democrat primary”?
r€nato
Americans are still living in a bubble (even the liberal ones, though to a much lesser extent than the conservative/right-wing ones) of childlike belief in American exceptionalism and believe “it can’t happen here” because #Murca.
It IS happening here. Right now. Wake the fuck up, Americans.
J R in WV
@Sloane Ranger:
Well, it must not have been that bad, because I don’t remember why. I get irritable sometimes late at night. Whatever it was, I forgive you and remove you from the list!
Matt
@CaseyL: IMO it’s the same pathology as seen in “family annihilators” but on a national scale.
Stan Denski
It’s all about SPORTS. Sports have become the metaphor for everything. If your team’s quarterback is a wife beater, if he runs a dog fighting ring, if he drives drunk out of his mind….. IT DOESN’T MATTER because it’s YOUR TEAM and the only important thing is that your team WINS!!! Even if you know that, after your team wins, there will be a tax increase that will hurt you in order to build the billionaire who owns your team a new stadium with special deluxe boxes you will never get to sit in rather than have him pay for it himself… it DOESN’T MATTER because it’s your team!
momus
Trump considers Jackson a personal hero, this was malice, not stupidity.