Some people hate Donald Trump. I don’t. He’s just a wanker. Donald Trump is president because of what I call toxic centrism, a nihilistic and cynical reflex in establishment media and elsewhere to blame everything on “both sides” while not giving a fuck about the effects that policies have on people’s lives. When you’re voting today, remember that after we’re done running up the score against Dolt 45, we’re still going to have to deal with these clowns:
Founded in 2013 as an offshoot of the nonpartisan group No Labels, the Problem Solvers Caucus has touted itself as the cure to a polarized Washington.
The Problem Solvers group kicked off on the Hill with a series of meetings between members of Congress and outside experts, including David Brooks…
[….]The caucus’s Republican members have on average voted in line with the White House’s position 93 percent of the time, according to calculations based on FiveThirtyEight’s vote tracker, with at least nine Republicans in the group doing so more than 95 percent of the time.
schrodingers_cat
Both-Sides-Do-It and singing paeans to bipartisanship are methods to browbeat Ds to do what the Rs want.
ETA:Meanwhile, its Diwali so light a lamp and vote blue.
The Moar You Know
+1 for the whole post. Bothsiderism will be the death of us all if it is not stopped. And, of course, Trump is an incredibly effective distraction from the real problem; that sixty + million people were on board for fascism because of a media that’s conditioned people to see both parties as irredeemably bad.
I know how you solve this but there would be serious constitutional objections in doing so, some of which are valid.
Doug!
@schrodingers_cat:
I’d argue it’s even worse than that. It’s to encourage everyone involved to screw over the 99% in favor of the pet policies of the 1%.
Mary G
Well, considering Brooks an expert tells you they are idiots right off the bat. I agree. I loathe Trump, but he’s a symptom, not the disease.
zhena gogolia
You don’t hate Trump? Have you been paying attention?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Greg Sargent and John Harwood were tweeting about this earlier
I’d only argue that they don’t pretend not to hear it, a lot of them just can’t, the Broderist mindset is so deeply ingrained. Even on the “liberal” MSNBC you almost never hear anyone talk about trump’s campaign promises to protect the social safety net and create broader health care access– “it’ll be easy, it’ll cost less, believe me”. The professional reward system in the Beltway is geared toward people who believe, with all the unwarranted and pompous confident of the quietly odious Tom Brokaw, that we’ve got to “get serious about entitlements”, which means cut them
Mary G
Some excellent numbers from early voting:
They look great in every state, but Tennessee shows the power of Taylor Swift:
The Moar You Know
@zhena gogolia: Pretty sure he has, as have I. Trump is simply not the problem. If he retired tomorrow nothing would change.
HIS VOTERS ARE THE PROBLEM.
Fixing that will take years, and every election for the next twenty years is going to have to be fought like this one or harder.
If you’re focusing on Trump as the problem you are responding exactly as the people who put him in office intended.
geg6
I hate Trump. I hate everyone who ever voted for him. I hate No Labels wankers. I hate them all. I have enough pent up hate to hate all of them and Susan Sarandon, Bernie and Jill Stein all at once! Turns out, I’m more motivated by hate these days than I ever would have guessed.
cmorenc
Now that’s reassuring – David Brooks will keep ’em all straight. BTW: the next meeting of the Problem Solvers is at the Applebee’s in Arlington, Va. They’ll have both sides of the salad bar open for this event. The keynote address will be: “harnessing your inner sophomore to achieve wise political results”
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
As I say in #9, spread the hate around! You can hate more than one person/actor at a time!
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: The children separated from their parents sitting in cages, beg to differ.
West of the Rockies
@geg6:
That’s what I signed up for… Ted Nugent is a wanker. Trump makes choices that kill people not in the national defense or to combat crime, but in the pursuit of praise, dollars, and petty, petty grievances. Trump is much worse than a mere wanker.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Eliminate the SS earnings cap.
There, I’ve fixed “entitlements” for the next 75+ years. Pay me a million bucks.
JR
@The Moar You Know: trump normalized their worst instincts. Getting rid of him doesn’t solve the problem but it ameliorates them. Brooks et al. are also a symptom. They are the spear point used by the right to pry off disaffected moderates. Their efficacy is waning especially as the republicans have gone hard right.
Caravelle
What is David Brooks an expert *on* that they’re meeting with him about, exactly?
James E Powell
I guess I’m lacking in something that makes people better, or at least less aggravated & aggravating. I do hate Donald Trump. I hate his whole family. I hate everyone who works for or with him. I hate everyone who does not work against him. I hate his supporters. I want them all to suffer a crippling disease or devastating injury and be turned away from the hospital by a callous white guy who calls them losers. I want their dogs to turn on them. I want their cars to break down on the freeway at rush hour. I could go on like this for a while, but I have to get back to work.
Luthe
It is pissing down cold rain here in CT-5 today, but I’ll go going with my dad to vote shortly and then taking off for a wet afternoon of knocking on doors. And my Tumblr meme about voting is up to 875 notes. :)
geg6
@James E Powell:
I feel ya, James. I feel ya.
CindyH
@geg6: hear hear!
Spanky
The Republicans over the past 10+ years have taught me that my hate is boundless. But I still prefer to concentrate it on Mitch McConnell. I’ll dance the Macarena in the streets the day he dies.
dmsilev
Trump is a symptom, but not of bothsiderism. He’s a symptom of the racist and dare I say deplorable underbelly of this country, the sort of people that the David Brookses of the world pretend to extol but really just regard as useful idiots. There are far more of these people than we’d like, and they’re the ones who gave us Trump, not the ghost of David Broder.
reid
@The Moar You Know: I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, but I think it’s possible to think that way and still hate Trump. He’s not the main problem, but he’s still a horrible person.
boatboy_srq
@Gin & Tonic: That only works until the Reichwingnuts realise there’s an even bigger find to raid for more wars and clean coal bailouts and tax breaks for Hummer-driving dentists.
khead
@dmsilev:
This. Toxic centrism is a bullshit side show.
boatboy_srq
@Caravelle: Why, Bothsiderism, of course.
Spanky
Jesus!!! They can’t even wait until the results are in!
(WaPo link)
cleek
if there was ever someone who deserved to be hated, it’s Trump.
[oh good. FYWP hates me again]
Doug Gardner
@James E Powell: I’m Doug and I approve this message. Every.Fucking.Word.
janesays
@The Moar You Know: How do you solve this (and what are the constitutional barriers)?
Mary G
Doug!
I think W did more damage to the country that Trump ever will. I think Rubio or Walker would have done more long-term damage than Trump if they’d been elected in 2016.
boatboy_srq
If Lord Dampnut were truly the symptom of the larger malaise, he would have walked and talked exactly like Rmoney, Cruz or any of the other dozen candidates of GOTea primaries past. He represents instead the lizard id of the racist sexist GOTea awakened in 2008 by the realisation of TABMITWH and discovering that the pseudopolite dogwhistle of Atwater’s day did not adequately express their loathsomeness. Removing him muffles that execrable segment. Ignoring him in favor of the Bothsiderists and the conventional GOTea machine risks solving the bothsider issue while enabling the raw fascist core to survive and fill the gap. What we need is to address both ills at once.
Cheryl Rofer
I have been interacting with a No Labels friend on Facebook, and I am that far ? from unfriending her. A week or two ago, she came on to a thread about the anti-Soros business.
No, doesn’t look like antisemitism to her, both sides have billionaires, so terrible we can’t have civility.
Last night she posted an op-ed from the New York Post headlined something like “Don’t join the Women’s March unless you’re an antisemite.” I threw some of her what-ifs, both-sides back at her, and she was totally unable (or unwilling) to look at her inconsistencies.
I’ve muted her. I hate to unfriend people, but she is testing me mightily.
jl
We’ll find out in the next few days whether the Problem Solvers Caucus is a more honest name than No Labels. If the elections go in the way of good sense and decency, will be a bigger problem for crooked pols on the take running the long con.
Glad they are turning to people like Brooks for advice. That should set them back a few steps.
They are reduced to spitting out bald face lies, and incoherent nonsense that contradicts itself from one sentence, one phrase, one word, to the next.
See clips of Trumps Toxic Nonsense Tour on Josh Marshall’s twitter feed today.
Turns out Obama’s time machine could go to the future as well as the past, and he spent a lot of time zipping into Trump’s first term and stealing it’s historic successes!
Jeffro
Anything David Brooks is for, I am against.
“Both sides” is just a rearguard action for Repubs until they can put the next smiling idiot up as the ‘compassionate conservative’ face of their party.
And Greg Sergeant’s note about John Harwood – that Dems actually inhabit the middle ground on so many issues in America – is THE defining truth. Today’s Dem party *is* the center option.
Ian G.
I hate Donald Trump and hope he drops dead of a stroke tonight. That being said, he’s a symptom of a larger disease (or set of diseases) rampaging through American society. Both-siderism is one, but also celebrity worship, anti-intellectualism, and access journalism replacing real journalism are also hugely responsible for this mental patient holding the office of the presidency.
MattF
@Mary G: There was a line at my voting place, which I’ve never seen before in 20 years of voting at that location. A LONG line. And this is in the rain, in a solidly blue precinct.
Yarrow
Guys, we have a Juicer who is in the hospital in Houston, TX who wants to vote. Keith P has been posting about his problems getting what he needs to vote. Let’s see if we can help him. Front pagers, can you contact him and see if we can find a way to help him. If we can find out his district we can maybe contact the campaign offices of his Rep or his Rep’s Dem challenger. I asked if he has friends or family who can run the paperwork back and forth but so far he hasn’t responded.
He said he planned to vote straight ticket Dem. I HATE to leave votes on the table when every vote counts, especially in Texas this year. Let’s figure out how to help him!
jl
I voted the old fashioned way, at the polling place just after it opened this morning at 7.
In SF Bay, but there were a couple of races where important to get in my say. And I got a cool sticker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Doug!: I agree, but I don’t think any non-trump Republican could have won in ’16 because they couldn’t have successfully sold themselves as defenders of the New Deal like trump did, or persuaded the exurb bubbas to get out of their lazy boys and go vote their hatred
none of the other ’16 Rs could match trump’s (simulated) machismo
also, “he’s a businessman” thing they saw on the TeeVee that Rubio and Walker didn’t have (just as phony as his machismo).
Ridnik Chrome
@Doug!: I think so, too. If we were going to have an ignorant fascist troll as president, we were lucky to get a lazy, incompetent one.
Manyakitty
@geg6: Yup. Spent the last two years in a black rage. Never knew how angry I could get.
Cacti
Trump has radicalized a violent personality cult that has murdered 15 Americans in the past two weeks.
I’d say that qualifies him as more than just a wanker.
Just One More
In what alternate, bizarre universe is David Brooks considered to be an expert in anything
Manyakitty
@Doug!: I blame Newt.
gvg
You have it backwards. Trump (and the GOP party) is the problem and deserves the majority of the hate. The bothsides idiots are the sideshow. They don’t have numbers and they often act out by not voting which is easier to deal with than the reflexive cultist always voters.
rumpole
May he and Bret Stephens be stuck for eternity on a cross-country motorcycle trip with Ted Cruz, Eric Jr., and an armed Che Guevera.
zhena gogolia
@Cacti:
Right.
zhena gogolia
@Doug!:
You are nuts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Just One More: tote-baggers and Whole Foodsers, also
as Joe Biden, or his father, or grandfather, might say, “God love him, old Joe hasn’t been paying a lot of attention for the last twenty years.”
The Moar You Know
@janesays: Start pulling broadcast licenses under the (legit) claim that the public airwaves are not being used in the public interest (which they are required to be). AM radio first, as that has the most impact. TV a couple of years later.
Jay C
@Caravelle:
Sopressata.
Frankensteinbeck
@Caravelle:
Brooks is an expert at making greedy bigots feel like they’re Mature and Wise and responsible.
@Spanky:
Mitch McConnell will go down in the history books as one of America’s most evil villains. He was the epicenter of the racist obstructionist freakout when a black man was elected president. No one has done more to destroy the systems of our government and fuck over the population in the name of greed, cruelty, and power. Trump is a piker in comparison.
jl
If the candidate doesn’t win, do we get our contributions back?
Asking for a friend, who dumped a pile into this election.
He didn’t read the fine print.
West of the Rockies
@dmsilev:
Well said. And I do not blame both-siderism for our national mess. That engine has been chugging away for decades.
The problem is Institutional Racism, many aspects of our patriarchal society, selfishness, greed, and proud, proud ignorance.
Tens of millions of people in this country fear and loathe intellectualism. They do not believe in science. They cling feverishly to superstition. Evangelicals (The Moral Majority with its smug, self-righteous “family values”).
Trump is now, somehow, their leader. His passing from power (and this mortal coil) will not vaporize all those things I’ve listed above. But he has coalesced them. He is vile and dangerous.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m very fond of Joe Biden but he’s so beloved now because he was Obama’s VP. If he runs on his own in 2020 hes going to end up where he has before–going out of the contest early.
gene108
I think worse than both-sides-do-it drivel is what-about-isms.
For example, Democrats denounce Trump for hateful rhetoric, but the guy who shot up the GOP baseball practice supports Bernie Sanders. Why aren’t there similar calls for Democrats to tone it down?
Never mind that GOP politicians have spent years talking about Second Amendment remedies or the 2A isn’t for hunting, but defending yourself from a tyrannical government. And right-wing media, such as Fox News, rushed to turn Cliven Bundy into a folk hero because of his armed stand off with the Feds.
Amir Khalid
Comment deleted for redundancy.
different-chuch-lady
Trump is not president because “both sides do it.” Trump is predent because HILLARY AND ONLY HILLARY DOES IT!!1!
You’re usually not this dumb. The problem has moved so far past centrisim it’s got a spectoral shift.
The Moar You Know
@Yarrow: He no longer wants to vote as “the Democrats have let him down”. Figure it out, dude.
Kay
Not forgiven.
West of the Rockies
@boatboy_srq:
We have a winner.
different-church-lady
@Cheryl Rofer: A reminder: Facebook is designed to create conflict.
Eljai
I heard yet another ridiculous piece on polarization on NPR this morning about how moderate voices get drowned out online. Did you know that there are Republicans who are in favor of gun control? Why yes, NPR asshats, I did. Did you know that the Democratic position on gun control IS the middle now? Jeebus!
Yarrow
@The Moar You Know: Yeah, I saw that. He’s pretty sick and it’s hard to be enthusiastic about much of anything when your’e sick. I would like to help him if we can but he’ll have to decide if he wants us to do that. I guess he doesn’t. :(
Kraux Pas
@geg6:
Sounds healthy…
ETA: As long as it gets you to the voting booth and it doesn’t manifest more dramatically than complaining online and hopefully wonderful voting results
Ksmiami
@Frankensteinbeck: if I ever get a chance to be in the same room with McConnell, my fist goes straight for his glasses. There is no one in America who has done as much damage as that pos
TomatoQueen
@Yarrow: In 2004 I was able to vote from my hospital bed with the assistance of the hospital’s patient advocate, who was plenty busy that Tuesday but got me a ballot before the morphine took hold and assured me it was submitted. It’s do-able.
Kay
I would. Please sit down, Mr. Comey. We’re going to be here for a while. On or about June 12, you….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TomatoQueen: I was going to say the same thing. Next time a nurse is in, ask for the advocate or a social worker
Timurid
@Kay:
Is he looking for another Archduke to shoot?
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: IIRC, Keith P’s had some major health issues for quite some time, resulting in some pretty bleak posts. I’m glad you’re trying to help. I hope it can succeed.
chopper
@Caravelle:
humility?
unknown known
@zhena gogolia: It’s a line from Trainspotting. Scottish narrator:
“Some people hate the English. I don’t. They are wankers. But we were colonised by wankers.”
West of the Rockies
@Ksmiami:
I don’t know… No Newt maybe means no Mitch. Thoughts?
Kay
@Timurid:
He’s looking for approval. I think he’s going to run for something as a Democrat. Yuck.
Kraux Pas
@chopper:
Which he will be sure to extol himself for until everyone knows.
Yarrow
@TomatoQueen: Every state is different and Texas makes everything as difficult as possible. I’d like to help him but it looks like in the previous thread he’s lost interest in voting. Ugh.
Manyakitty
@Kay: I’d pay to watch you rip that poseur a new one!
Manyakitty
@West of the Rockies: Thus, my assertion that the blame falls on Newt.
Platonailedit
@James E Powell:
What he said.
West of the Rockies
@Manyakitty:
He was the chief architect of so much excrement.
J R in WV
@jl:
Backwards… you get all the donations back after the WIN — if you’re willing to steal and con the government and your candidates were crooked Reicht Wing Nuts.
Manyakitty
@West of the Rockies: Yes, he was. He also exponentially increase partisan division. Pretty sure McConnell would not be where he is otherwise.
Platonailedit
@Doug!:
Really? The openly racist pos literally tore away kids from their parents and yet he did not do ‘much damage’? That’s mighty white of you.
Carol Crump
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but thinking of Trump as “just a wanker” is pretty breathtakingly oblivious.
unknown known
@boatboy_srq:
Don’t you go slandering that truly noble drink now.
schrodingers_cat
Concern troll of the year award goes to James Hohmann of Washington Post
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady:
No it’s not.
Raoul
If David Brooks is an ‘expert’ in anything, we should all just light this nation on fire.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: OMG, you’re probably right, what with the book and now this door-knocking business. I figured the book was just ass-covering, but it was ostensibly about “leadership,” wasn’t it?
I suppose there are people LESS qualified to opine on leadership — Trump, for example. But Comey may have inadvertently destroyed American democracy because he couldn’t control his own fucking NY field office. I’d also pay to watch you confront that particular door-knocker and question him about how well his actions matched up with his job description. :)
@Timurid: LMAO! I’m so stealing that!
J R in WV
@Yarrow:
I have to say, if the guy didn’t ask for help from local people in business to help voters who are trapped BACK ON THE FIRST DAY of Early Voting, I’m not sure he will be able to fill in the circles, mark Xs in the little squares, or do whatever TX voting schemes require.
Like any big league candidate, like Beto’s crowd, or the local Democratic party committee, or the League of Women Voters (which helps anyone, not just women, in a bi-partisan way) !! Or even the Republican committee, he doesn’t have to tell them how he filled out that absentee ballot.
I’m about out of Fucks to give for people who can’t figure out how the post office works, what a postmark is (Gen X who doesn’t know how to Google? Yes!) or that you’re gonna need help getting to vote absentee if you’re in Fkin Hospital ~!!~ But my better nature would help out if it wasn’t in TEXAS, where I plan to never go again.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Like Susan Collins he is so fervently yearning for the reality of yesteryear that he he is willing to overlook the actual conditions on the ground in the here and now. “Just close your eyes and repeat after me, ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,’ and soon enough you will be home!” Yeah, okay, that worked for Dorothy because she was DREAMING but wishing and hoping won’t make the current chaos go away.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: Comey may have no idea how angry Democrats are at him.
Barbara
@J R in WV: Keith P is on the edge financially and due to significant health problems which have been exacerbated in just the last few days. Let’s show some mercy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The all time low for both-sidism was when someone clown tried to claim that the Pittsburgh massacre was the result of both sides. So I asked this guy if he felt those elderly Jews should have had more empathy for Neo-Nazis. He didn’t have a reply.
rp
If you don’t hate Trump I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Hoodie
Have to disagree. Trump is an evil, racist, misogynist sociopath, certainly deserving of whatever hate is directed at him. Bothsiderism is an enabler of that evil, because it undermines the moral foundation for calling out that evil in favor of a lazy tactical pose by comfortable people like Brooks who go to meaningless conferences about “meaning.” It’s disgusting and cowardly, but not as evil as Trump. It’s the German upper class that kept their servants but did not actually gas Jews, Gypsies or other undesirables.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: McConnell isn’t hated NEARLY enough. Maybe it wouldn’t move the needle in any election but I’d *love* to see ads morphing $STATE_Republican_Senator into Mitch McConnell and saying that every vote for a Republican Senator is a vote to give more power to a malevolent homunculus.
FlipYrWhig
@Yarrow: I think he’s trying to do the John Warner thing where the straight-arrow Republican decries what has become of his party and its virtuous and radiant integrity… that never really existed in the first place.
tobie
I’m texting for the Missouri Dems and I get this screed from one purity pony:
Does this woman not see the irony that I’m a volunteer, working my butt off to fight fascism while she’s sitting in her armchair and texting the most ludicrous and insubstantial shit? If she’s so angry, why doesn’t she get off her duff and run for something?
catclub
@Doug!: Me too. so far, Trump has far fewer deaths on his watch, in spite of his efforts.
Yarrow
@J R in WV: I’m not sure what his story is but I think I remember he’s got kidney issues. He ended up in the ER over the weekend. I don’t know why he didn’t vote early but I think he said he was released from the hospital so maybe that’s where he was during early voting but he thought he’d be released in time to vote today.
As you know, having health issues can really mess you up in a lot of ways. If he doesn’t have support around him then he’s got a lot harder hill to climb. I am greatly sympathetic to that, having found out the hard way in 2016 that the support I thought would be there for me when I needed was not there when I needed it. It sucks. Everyone needs help from time to time.
I do not get this at all. There are many very tight races in Texas where if the Dem candidate wins it can benefit all of us. Why not help a voter in Texas who wants to vote for Democrats when you too will benefit from a Dem House and a Dem Senate? I want to hep every Dem voter I can.
JeanneT
@Yarrow: If KeithP gets back in touch, the Houston LWV has an all day phone bank to answer voting questions. They might know if anyone has extra volunteers who could be Keith P’s personal voting assistant. I imagine he’s not getting responses from the folk he called already because they are currently out in the precincts with helping people get to the polls AND doing poll watching AND door knocking/phone calling their voter lists.
But the League has live people waiting to answer questions and might have some contacts who can help. Anyhow, here’s the info:
LWV Houston voting day phone bank. Open till 7:00 p.m.
English: 713-778-8920
Spanish: 713-778-8930
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Guffaw
Mary G
I think I smell blood in the water:
Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill have some skills considering where they are running.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
oh my
FlipYrWhig
@tobie: I also guaran-fucking-tee you that that person hasn’t the foggiest idea what “corporatism” means.
ETA: Also, “make my daughter and her stupid friends stop being stupid” kinda seems like more of a parent’s job than a campaign volunteer’s job.
Uncle Cosmo
@TomatoQueen: People posted links for the PatientVoting website yesterday. Either he couldn’t find the post(s) or he ignored them. I posted the link again on the previous thread. And I’ll post it again here: https://www.patientvoting.com/texas
He needs to (1) print out a copy of the request for an emergency absentee ballot, (2) fill it out, (3) have someone take it to the Early Voting Clerk by 5 PM & obtain an emergency absentee ballot, (4) fill that out, and (5) have someone return it to the Early Voting Clerk by 7 PM.
If there is a jackal with a printer who can perform (1) & then get to whatever hospital he’s in (FPer should have his hame & could query him for location & room #) & carry the form & then the completed ballot to the Early Voting Clerk by the deadlines, problem solved. If he’d rather beeyatch than vote, so be it.
rikyrah
Phuck them.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nope.
You don’t get to tell Dems what they need to do.
Uh uh .
No way in phucking hell.
Platonailedit
@tobie:
Justice dem is the new progressive?
Manyakitty
@tobie: Did you reply?
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: BS bros and their female counterparts are the worst. I have come across some Indian-American ones too. *Head meet desk*.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If we wish hard enough, one day Democrats will come up with a slogan that’s something like “Stronger Together.”
rikyrah
@geg6:
One thousand claps…
and then a thousand more.
Spanky
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Hey, hey now. This place isn’t Facebook, ya know.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Hmm, you mean a good solid uplifting message like, “Stronger Together?” Or maybe a more assertive one like, “Yes we can!” That sort of thing, right? David Brooks will have to die a thousand deaths and deliver a million apologies before I deign to take instruction from him.
SenyorDave
I hate Trump. As POTUS, he has gone to places no POTUS in my lifetime has gone. Overt, 100% in your face racism. He is a totally worthless human being, I hope he strokes out on the crapper one day, and his miserable kids have to take care of him for the rest of their lives (I can almost imagine Ivanka arguing with Donny Jr. over whose turn it is to wipe down the Donald). That being said, the problem is the people who support him, especially the 75% or so who support him because he is a racist. I can’t imagine them ever changing their minds, but there may be some percentage (25%?) who can be saved.
FlipYrWhig
@Platonailedit: WHY ARENT DEMOCRATS RECRUITING MORE FLIPYRWHIG DEMS PROBABLY ITS CORPORATISM AND NOW FLIPYRWHIGS ARENT VOTING FIX THIS FAST I AM NOT A CRACKPOT
zhena gogolia
@unknown known:
I guess I’m just not hipster-in-the-know enough. I just hate him.
JR
@tobie: Ignore her
alternatively forward her address to her local Jacobin Society branch.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Platonailedit: Yup.
zhena gogolia
@catclub:
SO FAR
You do realize that GWB was in office for eight years and DJT has only been there for two and IS STILL THERE, don’t you?
Yarrow
@JeanneT: Thanks. I’m going to post that in the previous thread in case he checks it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as Twitter Nixon might say, “Is he still here?”
efgoldman
Is it too soon for indictments to start dropping?
Platonailedit
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Ah, the ugyur tribe of turks. It all makes sense now.
Another Scott
ICYMI – James Comey canvassing for Jennifer Wexton in VA – http://bluevirginia.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aaroncomey.jpg
Cheers,
Scott.
Spanky
@efgoldman: Yes. Wait till after the polls close.
Hey dude! How’s it goin’?
Uncle Cosmo
@Uncle Cosmo: ETA: Let Keith P. ask a patient advocate at the hospital to print him out a request for an emergency ballot & fill it out. I have a hard time believing he couldn’t find someone there willing & able to do that. Then if he can’t get someone on the spot to carry it to the Early Voting Clerk, let him PM one of the FPers who can then put out a request for a volunteer to do the hand-carrying. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Barbara
@Another Scott: I just can’t even.
Platonailedit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s been more than a decade now and they are still young?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@tobie:
Oh right. The “Justice Dems”. That’s a product of Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk and I think Cenk of TYT. They’re nobodies. Kyle Kulinski is a dudebro socialist who hates “SJWs” and all that “political correctness”. I used to watch him around 2014-2015.
PJ
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Here are a few articles about how the algorithms that Facebook runs are geared towards stoking outrage (not quite the same thing as conflict, but part of the fuel that keeps it going), since that increases user clicks, which increases advertising dollars: https://qz.com/1039910/how-facebooks-news-feed-algorithm-sells-our-fear-and-outrage-for-profit/
and https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/the-problems-with-facebook-are-inherent-in-its-design-but-that-can-change/
and https://www.wired.com/story/the-problem-with-me-too-and-viral-outrage/.
unknown known
@Mary G: Maybe.
But here’s a blog post at 538
In slightly more reassuring but still gut-wrenching news, their final predictions are:
Odds that R’s control house & senate: 14%
Odds that D’s control both: 18%
Odds that D’s get house, R’s keep senate: 68%
Odds that D’s get senate, R’s get house: 0.2%
so on the one hand, an 82% chance of a good outcome. On the other hand, it’s one roll of the dice, and, basically, if it lands on ‘1’, then we are utterly screwed. That’s not a recipe for unclenching one’s gut for another good few hours..
Kay
@Mary G:
Claire McCaskill has always been very good at getting elected but she gets no credit because she’s female. If she were a man they’d all be ooing and ahhing over her strategic skills. Instead they treat her like the assistant manager at the DMV. She’s a great strategist! She could win wars and things.
Mary G
@Another Scott: If I was the candidate, I’d tell Comey thanks, but no thanks. If he came to my door, I’d yell at him as long as he let me. He is really thirsty for attention, though, isn’t he?
Uncle Cosmo
@rikyrah: Brooksie is a barely-literate imbecile & immoral degenerate in a Mover&Shaker suit he rented from a costume store decades ago & still hasn’t returned (or cleaned). Fuck him with a rusty chainsaw oiled with a suspension of Clostridium perfringens.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: Yes, maybe tomorrow.
Uncle Cosmo
@Platonailedit: Just FTR, “Cenk Uygur” is Turkish for “Young Turk” – Uygurs being a Turkic people situated well to the east of Turkey proper. /pedant
Miss Bianca
@tobie: Because working for the change you want is HAAAAARRDD, and Both Sides and argle-bargle fucking BS. If I were you, I’d be writing back something like, “I am working MY ass off to save YOUR dumb ass from the consequences of your fucked-up purity ponyism. Don’t bother to thank me.”
But *I* am thanking you. ; )
Doug!
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I see, if you think another Republican would have lost, then the Trump phenomenon really is bad. I think another Republican would have won by more. There’s no way to know of course!
unknown known
@zhena gogolia: I’m no hipster. I was just the right age cohort to have seen the movie
(and also read the book of Trainspotting, which was difficult, because he writes out all the dialogue phonetically, and the characters all have thick glaswegian accents. So it’s stuff like “Ah dinnae ken wha happen to the bairn”. I had to read it under my breath to hear the words to understand them. Which was mildly embarrassing when I did it on public transit.
Kay
The voting situation in Georgia looks genuinely bad. This is a job for the federal government. This is exactly when they’re supposed to step in, when a local corrupt pol violates civil rights. But they won’t because Trump hires low quality people who are bad at their jobs.
I hope someone is filing something. They need to keep the polls open later to make up for these manufactured 4 hour delays. A decent federal court will step in, hopefully, if a competent volunteer lawyer can get something filed. This is a tragedy. They need to intervene.
khead
@tobie:
I’d like to drop her ass into the middle of Ceciltucky.
Ruckus
@geg6:
I agree. Yes drumpf is a symptom of a greater problem. He is also a lothsome asshole. And I loth him massively. I also loth the people who put him where he is. I thought all the republican presidents back to and including raygun were as bad, and in their own ways, they were. But this one, this one is special. He’s not just obnoxious, he’s hurtful, harmful, hateful, dangerous, vindictive, selfish, self centered, bigoted, stupid, and an asshole.
Domestic short hair tabby (fka vheidi)
@Yarrow: not surprised that Dem offices couldn’t help, but very disappointed in his hospital social worker
Mary G
@Kay: I know! She gave Orrin Hatch a pantsing at one of the hearings on healthcare and the media ignored it. Also, she plays hard, such as propping up Todd Akin by supporting him financially at the same time saying he was the opponent she least wanted to face, so the deplorables of course voted for him and he tanked.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
This gets a massive up vote.
Seeing as it’s vote day.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
More info on the Justice Dems from Wiki:
Platonailedit
@Doug!:
Good joke.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I’ve got my beefs with McCaskill, but a year ago I thought that if she survived this round she’d be a strong contender for the Dem nom in 20. Now I tend the party has moved to a place where her Blue Dogginess would hold her back, but there’s no doubt she’s impressive.
Kay
It might help some if people who are on Twitter amplify the black voters in Georgia who are saying they are running into 4 hour waits and polling places with 3 machines and hundreds of voters. If it’s big on social media it may force media to cover it and they can get some election lawyers going to file in federal courts for emergency relief. There are provisions in election law one can use to get immediate action. A federal court could order Kemp to do this or not do that but there isn’t that much time.
Platonailedit
@Kay:
Are there any voting shenanigans going on in GA?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think they should use her as a strategist. She can replace Chuck Schumer in that role. He’s terrible. She should have had the job years ago- the only reason she doesn’t is she’s female.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Fucking figures Kulinski would. I sense theme with these freeze peach advocates.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Do you still have your FP keys? All first page posts on the blog are directly broadcast on John Cole’s Twitter feed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: now that’s an interesting idea
tobie
@Manyakitty: I’m supposed to reply and be polite to everybody, so I bit my tongue and wrote the following:
The point was that if she’s going to rail against the party she should actually try to do something to change it. Of course, I wouldn’t vote for this woman in a second.
cynthia ackerman
I’d like to see Bothsiderists not have a fit when Joy Reid and Don Lemon get on stage with Stacey Abrams.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Platonailedit:
There was apparently a polling place that was closed and moved from a predominantly Af-Am area so that they would have to walk 40 minutes to vote. Many don’t own cars.
Kay
@Platonailedit:
It looks bad to me. The GA voters are saying hundreds are leaving, they’re waiting so long. Someone needs to file in a federal court. Democrats raised 35 million dollars to subsidize state races this cycle. Get some lawyers down there. Help those voters. Their state government failed. This is exactly the situation federal voting protections are intended to address- failed and corrupt state government.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I remember Rachel Maddow touting a McCaskill run several years back — and McCaskill either being genuinely surprised by it or very good at seeming so. I really hope she pulls off another win. I agree she’s out of step with the current party zeitgeist, but as you say, she’s impressive, and if she wins again in that state, no one can doubt her ability to outflank the GOP.
tobie
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I don’t think Ayanna Pressley would call herself a Justice Dem or an Our Revolution candidate, even if she received their endorsement. She’s worked in Mass Democratic politics for years.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
In Southern California, maybe some other places, Halloween, The Day of the Dead, and Diwali kind of flow into each other as one long mega holiday.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t I’m sorry. They changed it when they redid the site and I can’t find it.
I know a great election lawyer. I’m going to call him. Can’t hurt and maybe he knows others in Atlanta or whatever. This shit makes him livid.
Sister Golden Bear
@Spanky: Dems in pre-disarray!
tobie
@khead: Ha ha!
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I’m trying to imagine an alternate universe in which I gave a shit what Cenk Uygur had to say about anything. I’m coming up empty, though.
Gelfling 545
I voted at about 1030 am and business was brisk at my polling place. More than is usual for that time of day. I expect there will be lines tonight though I only had about 5 or 6 people ahead of me with about the same number coming up after. The restaurant where I took my granddaughter is in Chris Collins district and people were chatting about how busy their voting places were. If turnout does it, we’ve got this.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker:Did you see Kay’s request? Can you FP what Kay’s saying about Georgia, since all FPs are broadcast via JGC’s Twitter, you could post it on your Twitter feed too.
Thanks.
Mary G
Houston Chron: Poll worker directs racist language at a north Houston voter:
Platonailedit
Fuck roberts. Wish dems get in front of these voter disenfranchisement tactics of thugs with a dedicated state party wing.
Mary G
@Kay: I keep tweeting @GOP can only win by cheating every time I see one, and there are several so far.
Barbara
@Platonailedit: Roberts is the worst kind of white supremacist: the one who denies racism not because he knows any black people, but because he doesn’t, and therefore, black people are totally invisible to him.
Citizen Alan
@The Moar You Know:
Truth. I don’t hate Shitgibbon nearly as much as the people who voted for them. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else just as bad. When the Fascists are ready, the Fuhrer appears.
Mnemosyne
@cynthia ackerman:
Here, let me pre-channel them for you:
“I thought liberals believed in diversity, but there’s no diversity on that stage! Clearly liberals are only paying lip service to what they claim to believe.”
Suzanne
Hold me. I need to be held.
If I didn’t have a stack of crap to do, I would take the afternoon off, go home, and hide in bed and watch game shows. And order enough chow mein for all of my feelings.
Manyakitty
@tobie: That’s a nice way to say what you really meant! And yeah, stop bitching and RUN if that’s how you wanna be.
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: yeah. Wish I could get my crap done. I should probably just give up and go home, but there’s only two hours left of work today, anyhow.
Mary G
Brachiator
Bernie! Bernie Sanders! Is that you?
glory b
@geg6: Come sit by me.
And because I’m working in Butler today, I’m probably closer than you think!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@unknown known:
It’s not a roll of the dice, it’s 550 rolls of the dice.
nasruddin
Sometimes you get rid of a disease one funky tissue at a time.
wuzzat
@Kay: At the very least, someone needs to get a news crew out there. This is what voter suppression looks like.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: David fucking Brooks said that on last week’s Snooze Hour that Ds ought to stand for diversity
satby
@schrodingers_cat: late but Happy Diwali!
Kraux Pas
@schrodingers_cat:
Did he forget to add that they should do it without embracing identity politics?
schrodingers_cat
@satby: Not late at all. Diwali is celebrated over a number of days. Its a cluster of related celebrations. This year it goes on till Friday. Thank You for the Diwali wishes.
Suzanne
Also in voting shenanigans, a polling place in my suburb was apparently foreclosed on overnight and no one notified the Board of Elections. So people showed up to vote and the doors were locked and poll workers couldn’t get in. They have opened the site elsewhere on the property but there was a delay. Plz remember that it is still north of 80 degrees in PHX and public transportation is crappy, so things like this either force people to wait outside for long stretches, which can be dangerous, or they are disenfranchised.
rikyrah
@Spanky:
Why? They would have won in a non-Presidential year.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Looks like the problems in Georgia are getting attention from high profile news orgs, including the Atlanta stations and papers, the NYT, AP, etc., which is good. There are similar problems reported in Texas — quelle surprise! People should absolutely go to jail over this shit. It’s outrageous.
karensky
@Mary G: Ditto.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: We need UN observers to monitor elections run by Banana Republicans.
ETA: In my blue state tiny town, there is less than a 5 minute wait. I voted early at the Town clerk’s office and it was so easy, unlike those poor people waiting for 4 hours.
zhena gogolia
@unknown known:
I wasn’t calling you a hipster — just Doug.
Mel
As per local media outlets in Hamilton County, Ohio there are problems with inconplete ballots getting rejected, and with poll workers giving incorrect instructions to voters. The voting machines apparently initially reject any ballot that does not have a selection made for every office and issue on the ballot.
A voter has two choices at that point: go back and fill in the race or issue for which they had not filled in an oval to make thrir selection, OR press the button to “accept ballot” a second time, at which point the machine is supposed to then accept the partially completed ballot.
Here’s the problem: voters were not instructed that a) the machines would initially reject a partially completed ballot , and that b) the problem could be remedied by pressing the same accept ballot button a second time, and re-feeding the ballot into the machine.
So, voters had no idea why their ballots were being rejected, and went to ask poll workers what to do. Poll workers in one location are reported to have forced at least one voter to fill in choices that he did not want to make, and told him that they could not accept his ballot at all unless he made a choice for every issue.
Another report was apparently made about the same issue and same response from poll workers at s second polling location.
Election officials have issued a statement saying that the system was designed simply to alert voters that their ballot did not have a selection made for every issue to be decided. However, voters are reporting that there were no instructions /no explanations given, either verbally or posted in written form, to warn them about the ballot rejection and to explain how to successfully re-submit the incomplete ballot. Election officials are stating to local media outlets that they will reach out to poll workers and inform them to accept partially completed ballots.
Not sure if it’s really an honest error or not, but voters should certainly have been informed of the issue, and poll workers should have been informed and properly trained, instead of threatening to reject registered voters’ ballots. Yikes.
Mel
Here’s the link for the snafu described in the preceding comment.
Mel
Drat. Link won’t post. Info is on the WCPO Cincinnati website.
cynthia ackerman
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, good point, and a big part of my observation.
But my main complaint is that no Bothsiderist would accept any progressive candidate and/or sane journalist the same way they shrug off Hannity, Pirro et al. campaigning for our Culture-Warrior-in-Chief.
Origuy
@unknown known: That’s not phonetic spelling; it’s the correct spelling of Scots, either a dialect of English or another language descended from Anglo-Saxon, depending on who you ask.
Granted, it’s hard to tell when a Glaswegian is speaking Scots and when he’s speaking English.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Sorry to disagree: Trump has hired people who are doing exactly the job he wants them to do. They may well be low quality, but they’re performing according to the boss’s wishes.
Kathleen
@Mel: This happened to a co worker of mine this morning. She also said the poll worker was very nasty about it. I don’t think they were informed either.
unknown known
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: but only the collective outcome of those 550 rolls matters… and those collective results have a 1 in 6 chance of coming out Armageddon.