These “Trump supporters are sticking w Trump” article-supporting editors are sticking w “Trump supporters are sticking w Trump” articles. https://t.co/qLxlY573jo
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 26, 2017
Coming Wednesday: In the symbolic heart of Trump’s America, the president’s supporters stand resolutely behind him still, hopeful he’ll keep his promises to revive the coal business and the country. Read more in @AP’s Trump Country series: https://t.co/x4utyLE90u pic.twitter.com/nOcOKjNgkI
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 26, 2017
The suits assigning these articles are doing very nicely under the Trump Oval Office Occupation. The Media Village Idiots writing / mouthing the stories have all their deeply ingrained prejudices (not just about people of color, but about non-Ivy-League white people who can’t immediately tell you their SAT scores) reinforced by these stories. The moguls paying for the media are happy to assume these stories mean that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Whyever would they stop telling each other (and, incidentally, us) these heartwarming tales, just because they’re irrelevant to 97% of their supposed news “mission”?
at a certain point, we have to assume the media is intentionally running these to tell those of us in the blue america to go screw off https://t.co/ujzEAXLC6x
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) December 26, 2017
As a journalist I fear this is true… :-(
— Thomas Ley (@thomas_ley) December 26, 2017
I almost think interviewing Trump supporters has become the liberal journalistic equivalent of gawking at zoo animals … “look at these unusual vertebrates & their strange plumage”
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) December 24, 2017
I'm trying to figure why there is no challenge to the coverage. Is it about " balanced treatment?" Because since they never really cover Clinton voters, there is no " balance ". Is it because the press thinks their views are so self evidently wrong? I'm perplexed TBH.
— Shuan Rose (@shmr50) December 25, 2017
I think it's fairly straightforward. Trump voters are white and are therefore important.
— Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) December 25, 2017
It’s this unconscious sense that something has Gone Wrong when “ordinary” Americans feel “left behind”
PoC, immigrants, LGBT people feeling excluded and ignored — that’s normal and uninteresting https://t.co/tcH6tzG4Bx
— Arthur Chu (@arthur_affect) December 25, 2017
Hunter Gathers
These Cletus Expeditions cannot fail. They can only be failed.
Michael Bersin
March 25, 2017 – Pro-Trump rally and march at the State Capitol – Jefferson City, Missouri.
Mike in DC
“In urban America, Clinton voters still want Trump supporters to autofellate themselves”
BC in Illinois
WaPo Online, top “PostEverything” Article:
LongHairedWeirdo
Ordinary Americans have been getting left behind for a long time. I guess now they’re starting to see it. Interesting thing is, it’s Republican policies that encourage mass layoffs, offshoring, etc.. The latest tax “deform” bill takes a trillion dollars of money from the working stiffs and hands it to those who make money off of money, because that’s *important*, whereas just investing a lousy stinking 2000 hours of your life, per year, is seen as a meaningless gesture that should be subject to market forces, once those market forces are all tilted toward employers over employees, of course.
NotMax
Don’t discount sloth.
It’s not journalism, it’s filler.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve been told that to win anything, you must get all these WWC voters to vote for you; and, of course, Bernie would have totally won.
debbie
They’ll have to get busy with actual news reporting once the WWC supporters see how little change is reflected in their paychecks. Continuing layoffs will also be an issue at some point.
Emerald
Oh I think they did that with their non-stop email, anti-HRC “coverage” during the campaign.
The NYT shilled for the Iraq war because war sells newspapers. So does Trump.
That holds for all of ’em, I think. They did it deliberately–smeared Hillary constantly to try to get Trump into office, and it’s paying off handsomely for them.
I will never forgive them.
gene108
I think the media never took Trump seriously, even on November 8, 2016. And woke up on Nov 9. 2016 thinking WTF just happened.
In July 2015, when Trump announced they laughed it off. In August 2015, when Trump was polling ahead of everyone else in the GOP field, they laughed it off. When Trump started winning primaries, they kept thinking
Lindsey Graham,John Kasich,Marco Rubio,Ted Cruz, and so on would stop him.The spent damn little time actually vetting Trump. There are thousands and thousands of pages of court documents, depositions, bankruptcy filings, etc. that are public record concerning Trump. The best we got was Farenthold* pointing out his charity was a scam.
And now the media is trying to figure “what they missed”. It was pretty much out in the open, people were voting for Trump because he reinforced their racist views in a very open way, because Trump is just as or more racist than any of his supporters.
And what they are missing now is the righteous anger of the 65 million Hillary voters, who are on a NEVER AGAIN policy, with regards to Republicans in office.
* He did really good work, but it was not enough, given how long Trump’s been in the public eye.
Schlemazel
@Mike in DC:
NOT TRUE! We want Dump voters to use running chainsaws as suppositories.
eclare
@BC in Illinois: Saw that article’s headline, and it made my blood boil. First, Trump supporters “think”? Assumes facts not in evidence. And second, as we saw in VA and AL, getting people to the polls beats all.
tobie
@BC in Illinois: I don’t agree with the first part of the headline but the second part,
strikes me as true. Trump’s diehard supporters don’t care what he did. It’s a badge of honor to anger “libtards.”
germy
gene108
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Too many parts of the country are made up of 85%+ white people. You want to control the Senate, for example, you need to win in Montana or West Virginia, which has plenty of WWC’s and very few urban areas full of POC.
Now, if they’d increase the number of members of the House of Representatives to keep pace with the current population, we’d see a shift towards a more urban oriented representation in government. It’d give more districts to more populated areas, as well as change the EC votes to better reflect the population distribution of the country and would lessen the likely hood the popular vote loser would win the election.
Arm The Homeless
@NotMax: Liberals keep clicking the articles to tell the author they’re fucking trash, which gooses the stats and encourages editors of mayonnaise complexion to keep going to that well.
When your family includes these cultists, it’s a form of catharsis to explain why these voters are simply feeling left behind, and aren’t simply mean, dumb and authoritarian.
“Grammy hates them naggers, but she’s so nice to me…”
germy
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
If we were like republican ratfuckers, we’d send them postcards telling them their polling places have changed, or the wrong election day.
BC in Illinois
@tobie:
The subheading . . .
. . . causes me to grumble about the uses of the word “Populist.”
JMG
Old white people are the core demographic of both print and TV news, especially the latter. They are never gonna tell America’s “heartland” that it’s really the national “colonland.”
Cheryl Rofer
To add to your collection of tweets, Anne,
Another Scott
@gene108: I agree with much of what you say – e.g. the MSM not taking Trump seriously, but their loving the fact that his trainwreck of a campaign drew eyeballs and clicks.
And yes, too much of the MSM doesn’t want to do any work. They take whatever the NYTimes and the WaPo and NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox decide is the important news of the day and run with it. That’s why half-a-dozen reporters who cover national politics have outsized influence around the country – everyone else runs with their stories. At least part of that is a result of The News being a cost center rather than a public service… Grrr.
But we have to make sure we don’t learn the wrong lessons. Trump winning was a fluke, helped by Vlad and Citizens United and incompetent opponents in his party. He didn’t win a majority of GOP votes in the primaries (though he did win a plurality) – most GOP voters didn’t want him during the primaries. In November 2016, the Democrats picked up seats in the House and Senate. Hillary got more votes. Etc., etc. November 2016 wasn’t some giant wave of racist voters swamping all the good people of America – it was a fluke.
It only takes flipping a few seats in the national legislature to turn the ship of state. You’re right about the righteous anger. We have to do what we can to turn that anger into action and flip every single seat possible at every level of government
to flip more than a few seats. We are the majority, but it’s past time that we remember that politics doesn’t lead to inevitable outcomes. We have to fight for every seat and turn around the tremendous damage the Trumpers and the Teabaggers are doing (and have done for far too long).We can do it – and we must.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108:
Both of those delegations are split.
Fair Economist
They’re not being lazy. If they were lazy, they’d interview more Clinton voters than Trump voters because there *are* more Clinton voters. They’re easier to reach too, since they’re more likely to be urban.
Fortunately polling booths are doing interviews too, and they say “Clinton voters are furious at Trump and determined not to let democracy get perverted again.” And that’s the hiring interview.
lamh36
Alright…hows about some non-politics, entertainment fluff stuff.
Let’s talk about the newest Black Panther movie spot..
I can’t wait for the BIG PR push to start for Black Panther. I suspect after the New Year, at about the 6 week pre-premiere mark, for the PR to hit ultra-drive for the film…and I can’t wait!
kindness
Some thing has gone wrong.
Yes, the MSM is filled with dolts who will write what their bosses say and they are lazy and glob on to memes. Yes right wing ‘Americans’ are not the patriots we were hoping for.
Shocked!
lamh36
ThresherK
@germy: Because of the Republicans’ Fifteen: Any R with X approval gets the same narrative of success a Democrat does at X+15 points.
Scotian
@gene108:
While I wholeheartedly agree with the entire comment this is excerpted from, this is the point that most infuriated me in real time. I understood people not taking DJT too seriously at the outset, but by the time he started winning primaries the vetting machine should have been engaged, and once he was the clear favourite to win the GOP nomination it should have gone into overdrive. Instead I was subjected to hours and hours and hours of how EMAILZ!!! have bad optics, how they may imply wrongdoing (never shown of course, always implied) on the Clintons behalf (this despite no charges ever even filed, let alone litigated aside from Bill’s blowjob back in the day) there was never any evidence of criminality in any form with HRC, which is why they only talked “optics” about her, but she had to be “extreme vetted” to her political death, while a racist sexist POS, whose entire life was about being that in public, does not deserve any serious vetting until after he is elected?!?!?!
THAT was the moment when I gave up on the last hope of any sane political journalism at the national level anymore in the USA. When they could not even consider vetting the GOP nominee while hounding the Dem one into oblivion for “optics” alone, when DJT’s financial issues, his sexist issues, his racist issues, were all out there in the public domain screaming for vetting, it shows a political press culture totally dominated by one side’s PR, and no, I am NOT talking FOXNEWS here but CNN and company at the major networks and papers (such as are left)..
What is really freaking me out is I am coming to the belief that DJT as President is a good thing, because it is exposing some things so clearly to the wider public that the years, decades really, of how only the GOP is responsible and reliable and for the little guy while the Dems/left want to turn America into USSR2 mythmaking by those with money supporting those that favour money (GOP) can no longer gloss over. I’ve been watching energies build for decades as the GOP kept going further and further down the road of anti-governing and pumping up the rich and the expence of the poor while blaming the other side. I think DJT, and the GOP supine prostration to him as shown this year may be the neutronium straw that does not just break the back of the metaphorical camel but the foundations of the current American political reality.
I still would have preferred HRC of course, but we know that the GOP Congress was ready to impeach her from day one. They never had any plans for a Trump Presidency though, and the way they have essentially rolled over for him this year, well it shows a lot of naked greed at a time when the economy is running hot, but income disparity is worse than ever, and a tax plan that can only further make things worse. I will find it the most ironic political development if in the end the legacy of DJT is the destruction of the decades long GOP plan to reshape America into its worst self where greed and indifference to anyone not white enough is concerned.
That is my Christmas wish this year above all others.
germy
@lamh36: I’m looking forward to this film; also my wife wants to see Proud Mary, the new Taraji Henson film.
SgrAstar
I agree with you all, that the media are lazy and often click-driven. I’d just like to note that the coverage of trump voters allows us to see them exactly as they are: ill-informed, vindictive, stupid. Nothing can change that. Fortunately, we don’t have to. Get out the vote, provide and fund solid candidates, and we can win in 2018.
germy
germy
Trump Issued a 3-Sentence Happy Kwanzaa Statement, and I Don’t Think He Wrote Any of It
bluefish
I’m always amazed to see the Don’t Tread On Me license plates attached to fine SUVs at Harris Teeter, Trader Joe’s and Giant. It does happen and why not? I wonder who exactly is doing all this treading while they walk back to their fine, spacious autos carrying bags filled with, I dunno, toasted sesame seed oil, organic this and that, and gluten free everything? It’s a puzzlement. Some of these folks appear to have what’s called a legitimate gripe — cue what’ve become fairly or not the usual suspects. The solution they seem to be looking to doesn’t make much sense to me but that’s the way it goes. For the rest, I’m bewildered and am left to conclude that these are selfish folks, living well, who don’t think they ought to pay taxes — And who don’t much care for minorities. And who for whatever reason thrill to the prospect of chaos, mayhem, and out and out craziness. How does Don’t Tread On Me turn into being basically kinda sorta OK with the USA becoming a Russian subsidiary? Whole lot of stupid with a large dash of craven. And of course unless escorted out the door Betsy DeVos and folks of her ilk will be certain to continue eroding and undermining our public school system — Future generations of the ill-informed to keep stoking the fires.
mai naem mobile
These people are stupid. I tried after the election to force myself to listen to RW opinion but, fuck that,no mas… I can’t handle it any more. They don’t make sense. No logic. Self contradictory crap. My brain can’t handle.it.anymore.
germy
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’ve said before that there’s some logic to this. Obama was clearly interested in implementing liberal policies and looking out for the interests of traditional Democratic interest groups. He ran on things like Obamacare and the Lily Ledbedder act, and he followed through. Liberals sticking with Obama was a dog bites man story. In contrast, Trump is not a working class white guy, and he’s doing a terrible job of following through on his promises to look out for the interests of working class white people. It’s therefore at least somewhat interesting that his voters are sticking by him even as he implements policies that are obviously detrimental to them. That’s a man bites dog story.
Of course the real problem with all these stories is that they don’t get at the core reason that Trump voters are sticking by him: white identity politics. I don’t know if it’s because the reporters and editors are afraid to say that, or if it’s because they’re so wrapped up in white identity politics themselves that they’re incapable of noticing it, but it’s the obvious explanation.
Kristine
@lamh36: I am so looking forward to that movie.
Patricia Kayden
Noah Berlatsky
✔
@nberlat
Replying to @Lollardfish @shmr50
I think it’s fairly straightforward. Trump voters are white and are therefore important.
QFT
oatler.
Same ole same ole: suck the Trump Cock, kill The Other.
germy
But… but.. but.. WHATABOUT? HUH?
lamh36
@germy: I def want to see Proud Mary…I’m hoping it’s better than the trailer. The trailer doesn’t feel “big action” enough to me, but I love Taraji and I love a good shoot ’em up hired killer action flick…so I’ll def have it on my radar
Chyron HR
@germy:
So, like, what happens if you try to explain to him that Snowden was not, objectively speaking, “Imprisoned”?
germy
debbie
@germy:
No way. He don’t talk that good.
germy
@Chyron HR: He’ll simply change the subject.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: That is so lovely. It’s always great to hear about what President Obama is up to. He’s such a warm, friendly person.
fuckwit
@Patricia Kayden: yep. White America won’t face the reality if racism. Straight up denial.
jl
@BC in Illinois: Thanks for the link, which makes some interesting points. I don’t think anything will work with two-thirds to three quarters of the people who voted for Trump. There is hard core Trump base that is racist, nativist jingo and deeply authoritarian, and nothing will work with them. But we don’t need them in in 2018 and 2020, so the reasonable approach might work with the minority that is salvageable. HRC won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, Trump has gotten less popular since then, and seems like the corporate news media can’t wrap their heads around that fact.
Laziness,obsessive shilling for cheap clicks from gullible people, and cowardly, unhinged fear of any criticism from reactionaries drives it, I guess.
AnotherBruce
Shorter corporate media. Fascists are fascinating.
B.B.A.
@germy: Churchill cancelled elections for the duration of the war. This was allowed under British law, and precedented – Asquith had done the same during the first world war – but here’s hoping Trump doesn’t get any ideas.
Chyron HR
@germy:
Who can forget Churchill’s rousing declaration that many of the nazis are very fine people?
Mike in NC
Here’s just hoping that Robert Mueller and his team will have a very happy and extremely healthy 2018.
Hungry Joe
I’m starting to think that I could get rich quick by opening a diner/coffee shop in Appalachia or the semi-rural Midwest and taping a hand-lettered “Trump voters welcome” to the window. Political feature writers would descend on the joint to interview locals sitting around sipping coffee in their gimme caps. I could charge $14.75 for eggs & grits — they’d just expense it.
This … could … work. Hmmmmm …
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Snowden was indicted for committing crimes the last time I checked. And who are the “others”? There is no comparison between the Trump and Obama administrations and Greenwald can go beep himself.
Patricia Kayden
@Cheryl Rofer: Great question. I would honestly love to see the answers to that question from the NYT especially since it is supposed to be the paper of record.
debbie
@B.B.A.:
I think that might be a bridge too far for the establishment GOP.
germy
Currently re-reading The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage.
(goodreads)
B.B.A.
@debbie: The lesson of 2017 is that there are no bridges too far for them.
cmorenc
@Scotian:
The run of fundamental progressive dominance that began with FDR in 1932 began significantly eroding in 1968 – and the current conservative period of dominance that began in 1980 is now about the same age, and may be at the beginning of an interim of substantial erosion toward a clear flip back to progressive dominance. In the case of the last progressive era, the erosion took 12 years before Reagan’s win clearly indicated the change of dominance – let’s hope this time the erosive period is much shorter and more dramatic, as in 2017-2020, only three years instead of twelve.
History doesn’t necessarily run in exact parallel cycles, but this could be the beginning of another seismic shift to the better side, albeit we still have many dark days ahead until the change becomes unmistakably clear, and won’t happen without some work on our part.
J R in WV
Surely these crack reporters could go out into middle America and dig and root and find one of the white folks who voted for the woman in the race, instead of the America-hating racist baboon. I know we’re out there, the post-election analysis counted a big handful of white folks who haven’t lost our minds~!!
jl
Listening to a lot of news radio while driving (since necessary in SF Bay Area traffic) listening to actual cable TV in hotel rooms and lobbies. Reminds me of how worthless the corporate news media is. I am lucky that the local CBS news station is better than most, but not by much.
The new fascist friendly corporate news media line is that Democrats face a dilemma and will be in disarray over whether to support Trump and GOP on supposedly upcoming infrastructure bill next year. Because, you know, the Trump economy is just booming. Manufacturing and coal jobs are coming back (huh?), stock market booming like nothing seen recently (100 percent wrong), real hourly compensation finally rising at a respectable rate (OK, that is just 100 percent opposite of the truth).
So, what the heck? I guess this is due to laziness and catering to gullible idiots who want to hear feel good news.
I don’t think continued economic growth (which so far is slightly sub-par compared to Obama) will save the Trumpster or the GOP. I think the 2016 election was a demand for big changes in economic conditions for working and middle class in the US, and the status quo was not acceptable. So far, Trump is delivering a slightly subpar status quo, with some nasty hits for ordinary people that will become apparent next year. The corporate media can pump out fraudulent BS for its economic news all it wants, people will know whether their ordinary lives are changing for the better or not.
One thing to watch for is the effect of new tax bill. if the corporate tax rate cuts works to cause of flood of overseas investment, the immediate effect under current economic conditions will be a big increase in trade deficit. The GOP hucksters better be correct that it will cause a huge boom in productivity immediately (it won’t) or labor market won’t get better next year.
Patricia Kayden
@jl:
Democrats should only support such a bill if it coincides with their agenda. They have absolutely nothing to lose by opposing a President who is unpopular (the most unpopular in decades) and who has insulted them and acted like an incoherent toddler on so many occasions. They owe Trump nothing. The MSM must be missing the fact that Trump is so unpopular that there is no downside in opposing everything he promotes. Look at what just happened in Virginia and Alabama.
AliceBlue
@lamh36:
Here’s how much of an Old I am: When I heard about this movie I thought “Who’ll play Stokley Carmichael? Eldridge Cleaver? Angela Davis?
AnotherBruce
@NotMax: It primarily is laziness, but as you say, “Don’t discount sloth.” I say don’t discount cowardice. The right wing has successfully frightened a lot of so called journalists They are afraid to criticize the right wing because that’s where the money is. They know the corporate media is right wing. And they don’t want to lose their job. Sloth and fear work very well together.
jl
@Patricia Kayden: I agree. Just to be clear, your excerpt from my comment was a quote of dingbat political pundits I heard on cable and network news.
If the GOP won’t allow Dems to have meaningful participation in negotiations, and if the Dems don’t get at least, at the very least, half a loaf in terms of real public infrastructure program, as opposed to a privatization looting scam, then they should oppose it adamantly. And every time the the GOP uses the deficit not to do something, then the Dems should scream bloody murder over the miserable tax scam heist.
Hard for me to believe that the current GOP can do any kind of negotiations in good faith, and Trump can’t even focus. I notice from the very ample TV coverage of his every single idiot tweet, that he is spewing random bullcrap about what should be next on the agenda.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s more than just whiteness, since there are plenty of white Clinton voters to interview, too. It’s that Trump voters represent a stupidly idealized “Real America” of middle and working class whites from the suburbs and rural areas who count more than urban dwellers.
Matt McIrvin
@AliceBlue: Well, they put a bit of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in the trailers for some old-time cred.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
Busy, also, too.
Honus
@tobie: “defeat” assumes Trump actually has a broad base of support. The fact is he won the EC by a razor thin margin in the popular vote in a few states. You don’t have to disillusion or win over any significant number of his core supprters. If he loses only a few percentage points of support, or if there is only a modest increase in turnout in democratic voters, Trump loses the EC badly. That both happened simultaneously in Virginia and it resulted in a huge democratic shift in even the grossly gerrymandered general assembly. And in an off year to boot.
Citizen Alan
@cmorenc:
I think about 1968 and the years that followed constantly now. Nixon came to power in large part because Humphreys wasn’t pure enough for the Pampered a lefties who did everything they could to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention. And then the Republicans spent the next four years doing everything they could to make sure the most Ultra left-wing person available was the 1972 Democratic nominee and was subsequently crushed in the Electoral College. That’s why whenever anyone talks about Wilmer being the front-runner for 2020, I suffer paroxysms of Rage.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@fuckwit:
But some of their best friends are PoC! There’s that black guy who works at the grocery store they say hello to, and, um, the Mexican lady who makes tamales…. so how can they be racist?//
TriassicSands
They’re also “important” because they won.
Additionally, the media may be fascinated with people who aren’t even as smart as many of the zoo animals. And these critters can talk. (Sort of)
Cacti
@TriassicSands:
Even when they lost, they had elevated importance to the national media.
Obama won easily, twice. But “he lost working class wypipo”.
Roger Moore
@TriassicSands:
That same logic applied to the Obama voters who they consistently failed to interview during the Obama presidency.
Faithful Lurker
I’ve been trying to make a plan for political action for the coming New Year and have run into some major snags. Helpful suggestions would be welcome. We live in a solidly blue portion of a big western state. All of our elected pols are democrats and pretty liberal dems to boot. Our county Democratic org has been taken over by Bernie bots and others who think Bernie isn’t purely progressive enough. I really don’t want anything to do with them. We can give money, and will do so to the man running against the evil Paul Ryan, and others. There’s are several Indivisible groups around but they’re very polite. We’re willing to make phone calls but am not sure how to connect to a national organization. Any suggestions?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Citizen Alan: Quite alot about the 2016 race reminded me of 1968, except the assassinations of course.
jl
@TriassicSands:
” They’re also “important” because they won. ”
Might be something to that. So much of corporate media consists of corporate hacks for whom the brute short run ‘win’ (whatever the cost’) means everything. But, then, that does not explain the dearth of coverage of anyone who backed the winners in VA or AL, African-Americans, millennials, college educated whites, progressive grass roots organizers (many of whom were HRC, as well as BS, supporters). So, maybe something to other commenters’ views that these groups are just not ‘real Americans’, because not ignorant, bigoted an angry all the time.
OTOH, it could be a sinister Deep State liberal media plot. Trump won by less than 100 K deluded voters in 3 rust belt states, less than 200 K if you throw in Florida. Trump lost by almost 3M popular votes nationwide. Maybe the liberal media keeps publishing these things to keep Democrats perpetually enraged in order to increase 2018 and 2020 Dem turnout. I’ll look forward to the Trump tweet denouncing liberal fake news slobbering over poor lost and alone Trump voters. I’ll be in more hotel rooms after today, so I’ll see it for sure. Seems like half of US political news and analysis is obsessing over Trumpster BS.
Ydobon
@Citizen Alan: Why are you comparing Slick Wilmer with one of the finest Americans who ever lived? McGovern was a real war hero to boot but never wore that on his sleeve. a man of letters who never showed off, and so much more. Wilmer, on the other hand, …
Gravenstone
@Chyron HR: At this moment in time, I’m fairly convinced ‘Edward Snowden’ exists as nothing more than a name and portfolio to be used for propaganda purposes. Whomever the actual person was is long since disposed of, having completed their mission.
Dmbeaster
Greenwald probably thinks that Obama’s alleged venality matters more because Obama is falsely portrayed as a good guy. Trump is known scum but is being unfairly hounded by the same dark forces, so his behavior allegedly matters less.
I have met journalists who believe that the unexpected matters more, as if there is no objective truths. That seems to be Greenwalds logic, unless he believes that Obama is worse than Trump.
Emerald
@Citizen Alan:
Fear not. Wilmer will not run in 2020. If he shows any sign of doing it, the dreaded establishment of the Dem party will acquaint him with the massive opposition research that is out there on him. Hillary had it but never used it.
When threatened with losing his purity halo he’ll find a reason not to run.
He will, however, continue sniping at the Democrats until they finally take him down with the oppo information. Which I wish somebody would start doing, soon.
Cacti
@Dmbeaster:
Or Greenwald’s a Kremlin asset.
Roger Moore
@jl:
It’s not about being angry and bigoted. There’s been a big anti-urban bias in American politics at least as far back as Jefferson, and the desire to focus on rural and small town voters today follows the same trend. It’s no coincidence that this also tends to favor exactly those bigots who left big cities during the decades of white flight, since the anti-urban groups have also typically been anti-minority, too.
Another Scott
@Faithful Lurker: My assumption is that nothing matters more than showing up. If the Bernie Bots have taken over, you’ll have to weigh whether it makes sense to battle them, or to try to get more like-minded people to show up with you to vote them out, or to try to reason with them to make the organization more effective (and less “purity”-driven). Ultimately, it’s the people who show up who matter when it comes to direction and leadership.
But I’m no expert.
The Obama for America and Democracy for America groups supposedly have grass-roots training and might be able to offer some advice, but might not want to get involved.
Given the increasing revelations about Vlad’s activities (having his trolls publish articles on lefty sites, etc.) it seems important to consider these battles with eyes wide open. The Bernie Bots probably aren’t NKVD/FSB trolls, but you might have to battle them as if they are. (After all, if you and like minded people were running the county party, you wouldn’t want some new group trying to throw you out either.)
HTH a little. Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Gravenstone:
I think they occasionally trot out the actual Snowden for an interview or some other PR stunt, but anyone who thinks he is allowed to speak his mind freely needs to reacquaint themselves with how Putin’s government works. I assume he can’t say anything without Russian approval, and I wouldn’t be the least surprised to discover all his social media accounts are run by the Russian government without the tiniest input by Snowden himself.
Roger Moore
@Emerald:
I think they should simply demand he release his taxes before he’s allowed to rejoin the party and run for the nomination. I’m still pissed off they weren’t able to force him to release them in 2016.
hueyplong
Every time I see the name “Greenwald” I think “Quisling.”
Thinking of sending the Mueller gang a shit ton of Red Bulls for New Years.
Seanly
@BC in Illinois:
That lede may or not be true. However, I can assure you it is not true for Trump. He is not a populist. He is a con man, a flimflam artist, a grifter who spouts what an easily distracted and, frankly, stupid group of people want to hear. At a certain point though, the grift plays out. Some of the marks will realize they’ve been had. I see the votes in VA & AL as a sign that some of the marks are waking up.
We shouldn’t take the implications of these stupid articles as a sign that Democratic and progressive candidates need to be more like Trump to win elections. We need to be a clear alternative. Of course, another favorite kind of article will be how the Democratic party isn’t for anything – they rolled that BS out on Clinton even though she discussed issues extensively and had lots on her website.
Mnemosyne
@BC in Illinois:
One would think that supposed journalists would notice that their “populist” isn’t very popular. That’s what makes him a demagogue, not a populist.
danielx
The phrase “white working class” does frost me. Hey, I’m white, I work, I live in a red (purple?) state and I think Trump is a human shaped stack of human waste; why aren’t David Brooks and his ilk coming around to ask about my views? The problem with those people is that while they know they have problems, they are blaming and always have blamed their problems on the wrong people and the wrong forces.
Short of banning the use of natural gas for energy production, nothing is going to restore the coal mining industry (to name but one example) to the place it held fifty years ago – not Trump, not less regulation, not energy companies or anything else.
jl
@Seanly: I’d argue that you misread the article. One way or restating the article’s point is that mere shaming and accusations actually end up playing the demagogue populist’s game, and one that increases chances of failure. My take on those links is that Democrats need to argue a clear alternative.on policy that takes a step back from judging or antagonizing Trump voters and Trump sympathizers.
I may be overly sympathetic to those views because I just got back from Trump country in red California. For those people whom I talked with, their perception is very much an unalterable reality. The theory that Trump is ‘really’ a populist who wants to work for the common man is still out there, but he is being sabotaged by a corrupt GOP and Democratic Party establishment. People talk about some kind of weird coup going on. These are not informed thoughtful people.
Only way I could get beyond antagonism was to agree that both Democrats and GOP are deeply corrupt parties, and gee… if only that poor Trump only had more support for good policy from the GOP establishment, he would have made more progress. That way, I found out that a lot of Trumpsters are very upset about the tax scam heist. They feel like the rotten corrupt GOP really took poor Trump the cleaners on that one.
I think Dems can make strong clear and principled policy proposals that will both skim of a few 2016 Trump voters and increase Democratic turnout in 2018 and 2020.
But I completely agree that trying to cater to the hard core Trujmpsters that appeals in any way to their bigoted ignorance, resentment and fear is a total mistake. Dems can win by an historic landslide with 60 percent of the vote. If the hardcore Trumpsters want live forever in their nightmare fantasy world, really nothing anyone can do about it. Just lick ’em next time at the polls is all that we can do.
rikyrah
@tobie:
Which is why I don’t give a phuck about reasoning with them. Phuck them.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
There was this weird meme when Obama was first elected that he was an introvert, but he’s very obviously not — he’s an extrovert and he loves crowds of regular people. He really seems to enjoy going out and glad-handing in situations like that.
What he doesn’t like is hanging around with politicians and journalists and pretending he thinks they’re important. That’s why the press and political hacks hated him. They thought that he’d rather talk to a guy working on the assembly line at a factory than to a journalist or politiican, and they were right.
Honus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: exactly. In all but a very few states republicans are far from a lock in statewide elections. They haven’t won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009, but the state is so Gerrymandered from the 2010 election that the congressional delegation is 8-3 republican.
jl
@Mnemosyne: The GOP ran every BS meme that they had portraying Obama, being a non-reactionary and a Democrat, as weird, creepy, had some kind of mystery kooties that made him not a real American.And our worthless media ran with every one. Sadly, the racism and xenophobia turned out to be by far the best lines of attack, so we get the racism and birther nonsense for four years.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I saw the long trailer in 3D at a movie screening a couple of weeks ago.
Day-um. The audience actually applauded.
Honus
@ThresherK: yeah, and also where are all the calls for the popular vote loser to “reach across the aisle” that Obama repeatedly got after winning by seven points?
TriassicSands
@jl:
@Roger Moore:
But there was no reason to interview the Obama voters since there was no reason to assume or even question whether his voters still supported him. Meanwhile, we’ve got the Trump freak show in full bloom and it may be hard to believe that anyone with even three or four functional brain cells would still support him after what he’s done this year.
What I don’t understand is why the media still haven’t realized that true Trump supporters are not going to abandon him — anyone stupid enough, ignorant enough, or sufficiently evil (racist, e.g.) to vote for him isn’t going to stop supporting Trump just because he’s lied about virtually everything, supported legislation that royally screws many of his supporters, and acts like a drunken, brain-damaged frat boy who was raised by a team of weasels and parasites. I just don’t see the story. Idiots Stick With Idiot. Not news.
The Gallup Daily Trump Approval was at 33% on 12/1 and the latest number is 39%, the highest it’s been since September. They’re sticking with him and it should be obvious, almost a year in, that there really isn’t anything Trump can do to make that 35% (plus or minus) stop supporting him. At least nothing that we can imagine Trump doing — like coming out in support of the strongest possible protections for Dreamers, calling for unlimited Muslim immigration from Arab countries, or publicly admitting that the real dreamers are the rubes who think coal will once again be king.
I think the appropriate headline to a story about Trump supporters would read something like this:
TRUMP SUPPORTERS AS STUPID AS THEY ARE LOYAL (OR VICE VERSA?)
Mnemosyne
@Faithful Lurker:
Have you looked into Swing Left? I’m going to try and get involved with our local effort to flip CA-25 and toss Steve Knight out on his ear. They’re already doing door-to-door canvassing and postcard efforts for November 2018.
The sneakier thing I’ve been advising people to do is to go to the local Democratic Party meetings, scope out the non-Sandernistas who are looking disgruntled, and invite them all over for coffee to talk about starting your own Democratic group. There’s no rule that I know of that says there can only be one group per area, and if you peel off enough people, you can become the de facto Democratic Party in your area.
J R in WV
@Faithful Lurker:
I think you need to get into it with the “county” bernie bots, and make them realize that their guy isn’t a member of the Democratic party, and won’t win the nomination for any office the Democratic party has to offer. The Bernie Bots need stepped upon, and then the shoe needs to twist, hard.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I keep thinking about the transgender woman who successfully ran for and won a seat in the VA House of Delegates in November. From what I can tell, her campaign was basically, Yeah, I’m transgender, but we really need to talk about how terrible our county’s roads are. And that concentration on local issues won the campaign for her.
We should run both/and campaigns. The Republicans keep telling people that they have to choose between diversity and good roads, but they don’t. Democrats are offering both!
J R in WV
@Cacti:
NO!! Really?!?!? Who told ja that? Or was it as obvious as the beady eyes and lying smile??
As transparent as the morning glow, Greenwald’s working for the Russians!
Honus
@Citizen Alan: and “the most ultra left wing person available” was a WWII B-24 pilot who flew 35 missions over Germany, was awarded the DFC, and was described by RFK as “the most decent man in the senate”
And the American people voted overwhelmingly for Nixon, who ran an overtly racist campaign.
Honus
@Mnemosyne: the really amazing thing is she beat Bob Marshall, a seriously bigoted republican fixture who had been there for over two decades.
Mnemosyne
@Honus:
Marshall was apparently one of the co-sponsors of VA’s bathroom bill, too. But his local and constituent services sucked, so that gave her a chance to make her case that roads and other local issues were more important than who uses which public bathroom.
Honus
@jl: actually closer to ten years since it started before he took office and in fact continues today. Didn’t Trump tweet some birther shit just last week?
Honus
@Mnemosyne: I guess that’s true (about the roads) but I still can’t believe the people who consistently voted for Marshall over the past 25 years actually listened to reason and logic. He’s literally the ideological equivalent of Roy Moore, and as such a respected republican elder statesman in the Virginia house of delegates. I thought that with his seniority and the republican majority he must have gotten something done for his constituents since 1992.
Faithful Lurker
Everyone, thanks for the advice. You’re right…I just need to put on my big girl pants and engage the true believers, even though they scare the shit out of me. COURAGE and engage the honorable fight.
I really dislike Bernie. I’m really tired of being lectured by old men.Being an old woman, it seems like they’ve been telling me what to do my whole life.
rikyrah
@Another Scott:
Amen Scott.
Tehanu
@tobie:
They voted for him after they saw him make fun of a disabled person. The only possible response is, “Shame on you.” I suppose I could ask them if they tell their kids how proud they are of them when they mock handicapped kids, but I’m afraid they’d say they do.
@Mnemosyne: What you said. And TV “journalists” are the worst.
evodevo
@bluefish: In my Ky county, Toyota is the biggest employer, and I can safely say almost ALL of them I know personally are Trumpkins … they are prosperous, SUV owners with a Friend of Coal sticker on the back (even though NONE of them has been within a hundred miles of a coal mine) and the requisite Don’t Tread On Me stickers all over the bumper … now, when Toyota starts laying off after the Trump recession hits, like they did in ’08 during the Bush Recession, we’ll see how Trumpy they really are. They are uniformly white lower middle class. Right now, it’s just plain IGMFY, combined with barely concealed racism, fueled by talk radio and Fixed News.
SteveNKY
@evodevo: Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties are no different. It stuns me daily how difficult it is to deal with friends, family and the parents of my son’s classmates. My wife and I are those liberal Catholics.