The past week or so has brought a never-ending stream of gaslighting good advice from helpful conservatives who want Democrats to understand better how they can win in November.
Central to that advice has been to respect the people who voted for Trump. Or, conversely, Democrats have been attacked as coastal elitists who look down on the mid-Americans who are the salt of the earth.
Blessings on Paul Waldman.
But the mistake is to ignore where the belief in Democratic disrespect actually comes from and to assume that Democrats have it in their power to banish it.
It doesn’t come from the policies advocated by the Democratic Party, and it doesn’t come from the things Democratic politicians say. Where does it come from? An entire industry that’s devoted to convincing white people that liberal elitists look down on them.
It’s more than an industry, actually; it’s an industry, plus a political movement. The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity.
He goes into detail on the respect shown white working class voters by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as opposed to the repetition of a very few slips on their part by that gigantic media apparatus.
In the world Republicans have constructed, a Democrat who wants to give you health care and a higher wage is disrespectful, while a Republican who opposes those things but engages in a vigorous round of campaign race-baiting is respectful. The person who’s holding you back isn’t the politician who just voted to give a trillion-dollar tax break to the wealthy and corporations, it’s an East Coast college professor who said something condescending on Twitter.
So what are Democrats to do? The answer is simple: This is a game they cannot win, so they have to stop playing. Know at the outset that no matter what you say or do, Republicans will cry that you’re disrespecting good heartland voters. There is no bit of PR razzle-dazzle that will stop them. Remember that white Republicans are not going to vote for you anyway, and their votes are no more valuable or virtuous than the votes of any other American. Don’t try to come up with photo ops showing you genuflecting before the totems of the white working class, because that won’t work. Advocate for what you believe in, and explain why it actually helps people.
Finally — and this is critical — never stop telling voters how Republicans are screwing them over. The two successful Democratic presidents of recent years were both called liberal elitists, and they countered by relentlessly hammering the GOP over its advocacy for the wealthy. And it worked.
As they say, read the whole thing.
Edited to bold the most important sentence.
Baud
Hallelujah!
ETA:. Can I get an Amen, brother?
Corner Stone
And, as noted on Cole’s twit feed, ignore the fuck out of NeverTrumpers who are being so very helpful telling us how to win elections.
wvng
Exactly right.
Patricia Kayden
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
This. A million times.
geg6
Exactly. So, so sick of all the concern trolling. Eyes on the prize, people. GOTV.
khead
Tire rims and anthrax.
arrieve
I wish this piece would get half the attention Bari Weiss and her “you’re basically FORCING people to vote for Trump” crap got. But it’s sensible and true, and goes against the prevailing narrative.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Very good advice and something I’ve said here many times. Never stop repeating the message that Repukes suck (it’s true) and that your policies are great how they will help. I would also add that expanding the numbers of registered voters and party members as well as protecting voting rights is key to winning elections now as well.
Corner Stone
@arrieve: You see what you’ve done? Now I’m forced to vote Nazi. Thanks a lot.
Corner Stone
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
This…this is GENIUS! So simple. So straightforward. It’s almost impossible to believe it was right in front of our faces this whole time!
geg6
I got to vote for Conor Lamb here in my new non-gerrymandered district. If he wins the primary (and I think he will), he’s going to take on the odious Keith Rothfus. I want him to win so bad, I can taste it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Reminds of the time I asked a wingnut coworker “What kind of a horrible monster would give a child health care? I mean that’s one sick freak isn’t it?”
MattF
Really, there’s been a continuing, unending stream of this lately. Fox has a lot to do with it– it’s a central part of the RW bubble that’s concentrated there.
My own favored response is to keep harping on Trump’s lies. Trump lies about everything, all the time. It gets tedious to say this over and over and over, but it’s the basic Trump-fact that has to be repeated.
MomSense
@Patricia Kayden:
Fuckem
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the problem is more basic than that, somehow people convinced themselves that attacking someone’s position is the same as attacking that person themselves. There is nothing wrong will ridiculing, mocking and sneering at ideas.
Mary G
I love Paul Waldman. He’s also so hard-working. He writes for WaPo, the Week, and American something or other.
dmsilev
@arrieve:
It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: Weiss’s column and associated arguments are the sort of language that abusers use to rationalize beating the shit out of their victims. “It’s your fault. See what you _made_ me do!”.
MattF
Oh, and btw, is someone claiming that RW opinionators aren’t elitists? Seriously, folks.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Corner Stone:
Sarcasm aside, it is very straightforward and simple. Not necessarily going to be easy, but simple and straightforward. History shows that the more people who vote, Democrats (liberals) tend to win. The gains by conservatives (fascists at this point, if the GOP candidate for OK gov is anything to go by) have to be reversed for the sake of American democracy itself. The GOP, over the course of several decades, have become increasingly authoritarian.
This trend increased greatly within the last 20 years or so. If they continue to win expect to become Russia 2.0.
Manxome Bromide
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Let’s be real. We’re attacking the Deplorables themselves. We’re not just saying their ideas are deplorable. The comment right above yours isn’t about their ideas.
The evidence that we aren’t just their mirror image is that we can barely keep up with the firehose of daily new atrocities, while they’re still nursing grievances from comments from a decade ago.
Baud
@MomSense: Why did you hijack MomSense’s nym, efgoldman?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In the linked piece, Waldman refers to a new book co-authored by trumpster-whisperer (and fanatical rightwing Catholic) Salena Zito. If you don’t know her name, this bit from a review of the book tells you pretty much everything you need to know about her, and her book
Zito is tweeting gratefully for this “nuanced and thoughtful review”, which is in fact too nice about pointing out her lazy, bigoted dishonesty
debbie
Ah, much better.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
TPM is reporting that a judge named Jackson upheld Mueller’s right to prosecute Manafort for his activities in Ukraine. Is this the judge that gave Mueller’s guys so much trouble a week or so ago, making the Rs very happy?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): No, different judge.
Kay
This is good, Cheryl. Thank you.
Also “respect them” is bullshit advice. It doesn’t mean anything and no one will know how to start doing it. “Respect them” how? As a collective? Individually? Do they require more than ordinary civility, and if so, why?
I feel like it’s intended to be useless as advice- that it’s complaining disguised as advice. I prefer just straight complaining, myself.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@geg6:
Speaking of Lamb and the topic of this post:
Baud
@Kay:
Think, “respect my authoritah.”
gene108
Disagree with this. The Senate is designed to over represent small and low population states, which are mostly conservative and overwhelmingly white.
If Democrats want to control the Senate the need the votes of folks, who will vote Republican for President.
It gives outsized importance to rural, mostly white voters, but that is the way the government was designed.
The impact wouldn’t be so bad, if they increased the number of seats in House beyond 435, so urban areas could get more representation. But for whatever reason, the House has chosen not to do this for the past 100 years.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Baud: Shoot
Cacti
Stupidity isn’t worthy of respect, and ignorance isn’t a point of view.
Brachiator
Looking forward to reading this stuff in greater detail. Again, my thing is that the Dems need to just point out GOP failure and to note what they will do better. It ain’t hard.
Scotius
And if you want Swiss Cheese on your Cheesesteak, have fucking Swiss Cheese on your Cheesesteak.
Baud
@gene108: The Senate was desgned in the 1780s. There was no issue of white vs. not white voters then.
Aleta
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): The other judge is in Virginia, where he faces a second indictment, also by Mueller.
Major Major Major Major
Sounds good to me.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@gene108:
Maybe we can change that if things go well enough this November. We should have done it last time we had control.
Aleta
SiubhanDuinne
And I am right, I think you’ll say,
To argue in this kind of way;
And I am right, and you are right,
And all are right, too-loo-ra-lay!
hitchhiker
Nothing has changed since the early 90s, when Gingrich persuaded a whole generation of Republicans that being ugly & dishonest was just fine.
This didn’t happen by accident; it was carefully planned and thought through and implemented in a million tiny ways.
Every single Democrat running for office should –imo– be saying, I’m for good jobs, and innocent kids being able to eat, and sick people being able to buy medicine. I’m against dishonesty and corruption and poison of all kinds, whether it’s in the water or in the conversation.
For strength. Against poison.
And every bloody time one of them injects a falsehood or a diss (coastal elites hate you!) I’d call it out as poison. Arguing about whether it’s factual or not seems pointless. It’s poison. People recognize the feeling of not having enough air, or being nauseated, or feeling dizzy — we should be saying that the poison has got to stop, or there’s no point in talking.
Vote against poison. Vote for strength.
Cacti
Gavin Newsome showed a marked lack of respect in his response to an NRA questionnaire:
Aleta
Louisiana State Legislature Senate & Government Affairs Committee
RE: HB265 Voting Rights
Dear Chairwoman Carter-Peterson and Members of the Committee,
May 15, 2018
We, Benjamin Watson and Demario Davis, both live and work in Louisiana, home to both the greatest football team but also to the world’s highest incarceration rate. We have both spent the last several years learning about the criminal justice system and advocating for reform. We have sat in courts, met with police, met with impacted communities and advocated in legislatures and with prosecutors for change. As in so many other states, what we have seen in Louisiana has been more than concerning.
As athletes and community activists, we have been particularly struck by the way our system continues punishing people long after they have served their time – sometimes through extensive supervision, but here, in Louisiana, through felon disenfranchisement. People can return to their community, own businesses, become faith leaders, but they cannot exercise the most fundamental right: the right to express political will at the ballot box. This right is fundamental to personhood and to democracy. It is how we hold elected officials accountable to all of the community, not just a select few. We should not take it away after someone has already paid their debt to society.
We therefore write to extend our deepest support for a bill (HB 265) that will restore the most fundamental right of democracy to thousands of people in Louisiana. Voting is essential to individual citizenship, human dignity, and collective democracy. The legislature should pass this bill with all speed.
As Americans and Christians, we believe in justice, forgiveness, and restoration. We are also students and devotees of the long legacy of Civil Rights struggle. That is why we are working on issues of mass incarceration and reentry, and are determined to work on these issues in our home of Louisiana. Felon disenfranchisement is part of our country’s ugly racist legacy, a sinister law that harkens back to a time where this country did all it could to keep Americans of African descent from expressing a fundamental freedom. Louisiana need not have this stain on its conscience.
(There’s more in the letter.)
They play for the Saints.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: Amen! Waldmen preaches truth!
Annie
This is so true. My late uncle, a Republican all his life, would sometimes ask me, “you liberals, you all think X” — X being something absurd. Turns out he was quoting Rush Limbaugh or somebody else who either caricatures liberals or flat out lies about us. It’s like Trumpers need an abstraction as an object of hate; it’s a way to vent the hate they already have inside them.
jc
I’m sorry, but Trump voters have earned my disrespect.
I’m amazed that 90% of Trump voters *still* don’t realize what total ‘marks’ they were and continue to be. What explains it? Information malnourished? Civically illiterate? Dunning–Kruger effect? Poorly educated?
I think the Republican party needs to hold itself to much higher standards. But I’m not holding my breath.
trollhattan
Why did Trump fire Barron? Did he not finish his peas and burnt steak? Who is going to do the cybers? Who?
hellslittlestangel
What Democrats need to say, over and over, to the common clay of the old west is that they are being lied to by people who think they’re stupid.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I’ve tried this “respect them” idea in conversation. It’s very hard because they’re working from a different set of ‘facts’, and respecting them involves refuting each one individually and without what they may perceive as condescension.
There’s a threefold problem with this:
* Someone who is CONVINCED that Obama was secretly trying to destroy America and also targeted Conservatives for any number of things isn’t particularly well disposed towards facts and reason to begin with.
* Refuting every argument is difficult, as it’s a giant firehose of nonsense. So even if you want to politely argue with them about their assertion that Trump is historically service minded while Obama was horribly corrupt, knocking down each component assertion takes so long and involves unpacking and disproving so much that you never get to argue about anything else.
* If you’re continually proving someone wrong, they believe that you think they’re an idiot. I saw this with even some leftbro relatives of mine – even respectful correction causes them to get really angry at you.
hellslittlestangel
@Annie:
Goldstein!
Mary G
Welp, I’m going in – starting my ballot for the CA primaries. It’s YUGE. Any recommendations accepted for the lower offices.
?BillinGlendaleCA
(I mentioned this on the early morning threads last week…)
For those of you who told me to sell my pics, you’re in luck! Click on my nym and you’ll find my portfolio website. There are only 6 Galleries up right now(Downtown LA(day and night), Milky Way, Sunsets, Yosemite, and the Huntington Chinese Garden), I’ll be adding more in the near future.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Amen.
TenguPhule
@hellslittlestangel:
“Stop trying to confuse me with stupid facts! The Republicans have a good firm handshake and the look of an honest man!”
/Paraphrasing an actual Republican
r€nato
great comments, I can boil it down to three words:
Wage. Class. Warfare.
Democrats lose when they let Republicans mau-mau them into not being Democrats.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I blame Gingrich.
SiubhanDuinne
I may explode from fury any moment here! FB friend (an experienced college/university professor, with a Ph.D. and everything) is talking about her late mother-in-law and how the “internment” went well.
My cousin makes the same mistake about her own family’s ashes.
It’s interment, goddammit. Not internment.
FFS.
Platonailedit
It’s all fine to lecture/piss and moan about the dem pols, but what about the responsibilities of the lazy ass dem voters with their eternal piss poor turnout ? Most of them do not turn up on the days that count unlike the deplorable racists who do at every level. Showing up is half of winning.
TenguPhule
@Scotius:
Hey now, let’s not get carried away here.
r€nato
@Corner Stone: I cannot think of a single NeverTrump’er who disagrees with the substance of the Trump-era GOP agenda. It is 100% about style. Trump is a gauche fascist, they want slick and polished fascists.
Frankensteinbeck
@Annie: and @jc:
Hate is a drug. People will believe the damnedest things to get a fix.
@hellslittlestangel:
But they don’t want to believe that. Even more, it won’t make a difference. The facts, even the facts they know, do not connect to who they trust.
This is basic psychology, a kind of rationalization, but let me spin the tale of how I first met with it in its most blatant fashion. In high school, my friends and I liked the game Diplomacy. My best friend Alexei had a moderate talent for strategy, and a lot of charisma. I had a huge talent for strategy, but no charisma. I was probably an arrogant little shit, but if anything that reinforces the point of my story. We split up on the opposite sides of the map, because if the two of us teamed up we’d always wipe the board. We were each other’s best enemies, and it helps that as best friends we never took it personally.
So, diplomacy is a huge part of the game (thus the name) and people would generally take his side. The thing is, charismatic as he was, he was a flagrant liar and backstabber. Arrogant little shit I probably was, I was the kind who believed in scrupulous honesty in treaty making as a matter of utility. But people always sided with him. So I asked one of my friends one day why she took his deal, when he was sure to betray her. She said “I know he’s lying, but I trust him.”
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@gene108: There’s also the option to add a few new states, which won’t have lily-white electorates.
r€nato
@MisterForkbeard: my stepfather is a Trumper. He’s called 44 a “ni&&er” more than once, in front of me. He believes Obama had zero to do with the capture of Bin Laden, and ridiculed my uncle for thinking otherwise. He also thinks Obama was a Muslim because of a ring he wears or some nonsense like that. He says this shit with a straight face. One time he came oh-so-close to calling me an idiot for my liberal beliefs. And yes, he devours a non-stop diet of Rush Limbaugh, hate radio and Fox News Channel. He thinks this makes him well-informed.
I will talk about anything but politics with him, because if we were to talk about politics it would take far less than sixty seconds for him to say something so aggressively motherfucking stupid I would have no choice but to inform him that only weapons-grade fucking idiots believe this shit. That’s before I even take into account his profound arrogance about his political beliefs.
No, I ain’t ready to make nice with these motherfuckers. “Be respectful of them” = shut the fuck up about their delusions. Hell. Fucking. No. They sure don’t mind mouthing off about what they think, why should those of us in the reality-based community unilaterally disarm?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
I don’t know the particulars of the ballot, but once you’ve narrowed it down to Ds, then go for the women and go for the people of colour!
different-church-lady
As I recall, a very recent candidate did this very thing, and it got her less than nowhere.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: Good story. In some ways, the story of my life.
NotMax
The
cupboardoffices are bare.Patricia Kayden
@MattF: Or that Trump, Devos, Pruitt and other Republican bigwig millionaires aren’t elitists. What a joke.
West of the Rockies
Where are all the damn articles extolling conservatives to reach out to liberals? Why is this a one-way street?
Baud
@different-church-lady: People are “woke” now.
r€nato
@NotMax: you mean pissy, childish tweets aren’t a plan?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@different-church-lady:
She was historically unpopular and had a lot of baggage (fair or not), had to deal with sexism, as well as Russian interference. Hopefully, most of these factors won’t be in force next time.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Unless they dragged the corpse into the pokey.
;)
Yarrow
@SiubhanDuinne: If it’s ashes they’re talking about instead of a corpse, it’s probably more accurately inurnment .
MisterForkbeard
@r€nato: Pretty much. We had to tell my parents-in-law to never talk about politics around their grandkids. If they start talking about how great Trump is around my daughters, they’re removed from my daughter’s lives. They’re still little, but I don’t ever want them exposed to the fact that their grandparents supported a serial sexual assaulter and continue to do so. Because they hated the woman in the race just that much.
Patricia Kayden
@different-church-lady: Email servers! Benghazi! Charitable foundation!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Platonailedit: When you have 2 jobs and kids to take care of, and there’s only one place to vote in your county which is 30 minutes away, and there’s an hour wait when you get there, it can be REALLY HARD to vote. Instead of blaming the victim, let’s remove the barriers! That’s why I support vote-by-mail.
NotMax
@r€nato
Baldrick was more adept at planning.
:)
/Blackadder
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: I was wondering if she was Japanese-American.
Chip Daniels
Trump voters don’t want to be respected.
They want us to tell them they are superior and anything less is disrespect.
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
He could do amazing things with a turnip.
Sloane Ranger
@TenguPhule: So, to paraphrase even further, white and male then?
Juice Box
@Mary G: IIRC, you’re in the 49th too. I’m waiting until the last minute to vote for Rep. Any of the front runners would be fine with me and I want at least one of them on the ballot in November. I’m going to vote for whomever is leading in the polls.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
A lie will run around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on.
And Trump has multiplied the lies to Goebbel’s level.
TenguPhule
@Sloane Ranger: Close enough. Asian & male. And deeply religious.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Arrogant little shit or charming backstabber?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Why not both? :)
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
This is just fine. //s
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: just ordered 2, a sunset and a Milky Way. So looking forward to them!
MisterForkbeard
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: >She was historically unpopular and had a lot of baggage (fair or not), had to deal with sexism, as well as Russian interference.
Granted, the first one was a result of all the rest of them. A few years before the campaign, she was actually very popular: in 2012, she was at around 60% approval rating. At then you had 4 years of puke-funnel targeting, bogus investigations and an overly credulous media obsessed with her and with “both sidesing” everything, and you get the final result.
What I’m getting at is that they can do the same thing to any candidate, especially if that candidate is female.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Only with certain segments of the population.
Who should never be allowed to vote ever again.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
20 times?
That’s a lot of panic for an innocent person.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ooh I’ll have to take a look tonight.
TenguPhule
@satby:
Sound like a drink mix.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck:
Wasn’t your friend admitting that she was a gullible idiot to you who never learns?
Frankensteinbeck
@NotMax:
The US’s foreign policy is going to be sitting on its ass twiddling its thumbs for the rest of the Trump presidency. We will withdraw from treaties and not replace them, not really do anything but half-heartedly and without any strategic focus continue what military conflicts we’re already in. There may be some Fun With Tariffs, but I suspect that’s already biting Trump enough in the ass he’ll give up on them as well. We’re going to have to accept that state of affairs.
Shana
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: How did your coworker respond to that? I’m actually curious.
Baud
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Hey! You’re not wrong, but, hey!
Frankensteinbeck
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
She was admitting she hadn’t overcome a basic human thought process. We are all like that. All of us. Some of us have developed the skill to overcome Truthiness part of the time.
NotMax
Quick salivation interlude.
Smell of baking challah loaf in the super duper bread machine is beginning to waft throughout the abode. Added some poppy seeds to this one for a change of pace.
Mary G
@Juice Box: I am still a bit up in the air about that. Sarah Jacobs has annoyed me with her resume-padding, massive overkill of mailers, commercials, and web commercials ALA Meg Whitman, and “I’m the only woman running” which doesn’t play any better with me than it did when Sarah Palin tried it. Mike Levin seems too liberal for my area. Applegate did a great job last time and why not give him another shot?
I’m not all that worried about Republicans getting in. Nancy Harkey has a huge following up here in the northern part of the district and Rocky Chavez same in the San Diego area.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not enough left of the State Department to find an available pair of thumbs.
Our policy is going to be set by fucking tweets.
Steve in the SFO
@SiubhanDuinne: Viking funeral solves this problem
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Thanks, I get email notifications on orders. Excellent choices, the suicide bridge(Sunset) and Lockwood Valley(Milky Way).
condorcet runner-up
This is a fundamental truth.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Please do, next up will be the Japanese Garden at the Huntington and Infrared.
Steve in the SFO
@Frankensteinbeck: I loved Diplomacy too. Turkey FTW!
Shit, I just outed myself as a nerd….
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck:
No offense to your friend btw.
Gelfling 545
This idea that you should be respected when you are not behaving respectably – is this some sort of conservative participation trophy?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Baud:
I calls’em as I sees’em bit boy :)
NotMax
@Steve in the SFO
Convoy!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the SFO:
You comment here, Steve.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@NotMax:
You sunk my battleship! Wait, wrong game…
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Did kids of your vintage play board games?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the SFO: I always chose Turkey and then tried to ally with Russia.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@NotMax:
Oh yeah. Late-millenials, at least the ones I know, still liked playing with actual physical toys, even ones that had electronic components in them. Kids these days, all they want are iPads and video games. We played video games too, but they weren’t everything. This partly why Toysr’ us is closing. I still get goosebumps from the loading screens on the PS1 and PS2. Ah, memories.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Way back when (50s), had an electronic version of Concentration. One got quite the tingle if touched both metal probes to a finger.
Then there was electronic tabletop football…
Steve in the SFO
@Omnes Omnibus: nerd!
But that’s unbeatable if you can do it.
Steve in the SFO
@?BillinGlendaleCA: d’oh! I get so tired of you coastal elites looking down on salt of the earth people like me.
Alain the site fixer
@SiubhanDuinne: yeah, internment is what’s coming to immigrant children swept up by the Feds. In military camps/facilities. Fucking monsters in charge right now. Savages too.
J R in WV
@different-church-lady:
Beg to differ!! It got her a 3,000,000 vote win is all it got her. The Republicans cheated to win as much as they did, which was only enough because of people willing to back stab the popular vote winner.
I was amazed by Bush’s lack of honor when he stole his first election! No more, they are an honor free zone.
laura
@Mary G: john Chaing for Governor.
Work horse not show hourse.
Not a fan of Villaraigosa, but will support the nominee in the general.
Uncle Cosmo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Gah, I remember having this problem when I was a college freshman in an undergraduate poetry seminar. Foolish me, I thought the idea was to welcome tough criticism in order to write better poems, & was shocked when the upperclassmen scratched each others’ backs with meaningless mealymouthed praise & then turned on me as a body because I dared to point out what didn’t work in their stuff. They could not separate the work from the person who produced it. (ETA: & therefore treated any criticism as a personal affront – even though most of ’em couldn’t write competent directions for putting a trash bag in a dumpster.)
The other side of the coin, in contemporary politics, is giving someone a pass for objectionable behavior or beliefs because “s/he’s a nice person.” Yeah, well, Hitler loved dogs & small children. “Nice people” who believe & espouse horrible things need to be called on those beliefs in spite of (maybe because of) the “niceness.”
If someone, however nice or nasty they are otherwise, shows or tells me that they believe some proposition, I will respect that that is in fact what they believe. I do not have to respect the substance of what they believe. Nor must (or should) I refrain from disputing what they believe if I believe it is wrong. Especially if they’re loudly trying to convert others to their view. You don’t want your beliefs challenged? Stop shoving them in the faces of other people. You don’t like your beliefs revealed as illogical, unintelligent, inhumane, or hateful? Try believing something that isn’t any of those.
lurker dean
@?BillinGlendaleCA: just seeing this – really great pics, bill!
JAFD
Good morning, everyone !
In Pennsylvania primary news, friend of mine, one of the ‘moderate Republican’ dinosaurs, was running for precinct committeeperson, against a Trumpster, in her exurban Philly neighborhood, and lost :-( (One of those suburban places where the GOP’s been in power since the Whigs, she signed up with the party hoping to end up as a judge, finds the ground shifting underfoot and the Dems winning elections…)
Anyway, at the last NYC jackals meeting, was some interest in an ‘introduction to 21st century boardgames’. I’ve just acquired _Ticket to Ride_ and _Puerto Rico_, and should anyone know of a place with big clean tables, reasonable quiet and lack of interruptions, would be happy to show them off.
Vhh
@TenguPhule: ie they are white and male.