I’m pretty sure I am scarred for life by this administration. Any time I am aware from the internet or news for an extended period, about once every ten minutes I get this ball of anxiety in my stomach as I think “oh god what has fuckboy done now while I was not paying attention?”
Open Thread
by John Cole| 83 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
R-Jud
Don’t read this, then.
sukabi
You’re not the only one John. Fatbastard is stomach churning, as is what he’s released from the darkest pits of this country.???
Icedfire
Oh god the thought of the orange one as a fuckboy is revolting
danielx
Pretty much the same reaction I’ve had to every Republican administration ever, only cranked up to nauseatingly exponential levels.
Served
Mostly I’ve noticed how much worse of a person I am. I loathe this man and everyone around him. I loathe the people who voted for him out of spite for others, but now I am consumed by spite for them. I loathe them for wasting these four years, and setting us back untold decades that my generation will spend the rest of our lifetime correcting instead of moving American forward.
It is truly his gift that he corrupts and destroys everything, even at a societal scale.
I feel no pity for the farmers in my hometown who voted for him overwhelmingly, who will eventually face catastrophe from the tariffs. I feel no pity for the remaining manufacturing workers who will suffer as the tariffs eat into their employers’ profit margins to the brink of destruction. I might even feel glee from them getting what they deserve for voting for him.
Emerald
I’m even worserer. Not only has Orangymandius destroyed my country and slandered my state’s forestry management, but ALSO I finished season two of Norsemen on Netflix.
They killed off my favorite character.
I now have nothing to live for.
Waynski
I get the same feeling every time I open the paper or turn/click on the news. He’s killing us all slowly and trying to take away our healthcare at the same time. The man is pure unadulterated evil.
TenguPhule
Fuckboy is going to play Tariff man against Rocket Man.
I expect this to work out about as well as Superman v. Batman did.
ruemara
He scares me, but the ways Republicans react to losing – by doubling down on autocratic corruption and the fact that we’re losing the judiciary, the people are shrugging, even those who think it’s a problem – those scare me more.
A Ghost To Most
Mostly, what I am is pissed.
Really, really pissed.
TaMara (HFG)
Holy crap, agree with this. I get no phone service up in the mountains and instead of coming back relaxed and refreshed from my needed respite, all I can think is, “what has shit-gibbon done while I was off enjoying myself?”
HeleninEire
I’m not sure “scared” is the word/feeling for me. Embarrassed, yes. Mortified, yes. Confused, yes. Hating on 62,000,000 of my neighbors, for fucking sure.
But I’m not scared. So much so, that I’m coming (going??) back.
I miss y’all.
Amir Khalid
Maybe this video of a canine footballer doing a magnificent job of defending will cheer people up.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Walking a thousand miles in the shoes of the people who lived through the collapse of the Roman Empire into barbarism is not amusing at all.
dr. bloor
@TenguPhule:
You misspelled “Wile E. Coyote v. Road Runner.”
artem1s
@ruemara:
It’s the military that has bought into the Greatest Generation, Patriotism Kabuki and general war profiteering that scare me the most. Pretty soon 99.9999% of the budget is going to be controlled by the Pentagon and Homeland Security. Putin’s greatest triumph will be that he tricked the US into falling down the same rabbit whole the Soviet Union did. Every dime going into the military while our economy, infrastructure, and ecology erodes around us.
rikyrah
@Served:
Yep
Chat Noir
@A Ghost To Most:
Yup. Same here.
Ohio Mom
@HeleninEire: I am not particularly scared either. I have this sense that eventually, all will be righted. I don’t know why, I’m not by nature optimistic.
Certainly one of the images I hold on to is all the Irish women coming home to vote for legalizing abortion. It was a wonderful reminder that democracy can work.
Ferdinand
So say we all.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Another vote banked for Baud!
Welcome back!
Ohio Mom
I want to add that I occasionally find myself looking around at all my neighbors, say when I am in the line at the supermarket or Starbucks, and I narrow my eyes and curse them for being Republicans.
I really don’t belong on the suburbs.
Cacti
I’m not the most optimistic person in the first place, but the elevation of Trump (I won’t call it an election, because it wasn’t), was the first moment I felt with some certainty that the best days of the United States were behind, not ahead.
Trump is the human embodiment of all the worst cultural traits in America, with the reactive maliciousness of a sociopath. It will take a generation or more to repair the damage he’s done to norms of civility in this country, and our standing with the civilized nations of the world. And he still has 2-years left to make things worse.
Spanky
@HeleninEire: Welcome back.
Yarrow
We’ve been heading this way for decades. He’s horrible and I have to pace myself in hearing what he’s done next. Mostly I just read about it. I can’t stand watching or listening to him. But we wouldn’t have him had Republicans done their fucking jobs. They can stop him. They won’t because they need his voters and they love his policies. Put the blame where it belongs–on him but also his enablers.
Hungry Joe
UPDATE ON THE DOG ATTACK: We’ve had a rough week: not much sleep for us, way too much suffering for Alice the Dog. But today the vet removed the drain from her belly, and despite her horrific wounds — it looks like someone took a machete to her — there’s no sign of infection. She had to have intravenous fluids for the second time because she won’t eat or drink under the powerful pain meds, but we’re starting to ease up on them, so that shouldn’t be a problem much longer. My hand didn’t get infected, and I’ve regained most of the movement in my thumb.
I’ve learned that the dog that attacked Alice (this was the second time; the first time her injuries weren’t serious) has gone after at least one other dog, and threatened people, as well, though I’m the only one she’s hurt so far. The owner refuses to get rid of it, saying she’ll be more careful and the dog will never get out again. Right. She won’t even fence her yard, but the dog will never get out again. So that entire section of the neighborhood is now off-limits for our dog walks (when Alice recovers), because I’ve no doubt whatsoever that when that dog escapes again it will come looking for her.
Since mine was the first reported bite there’s little that Animal Control can do, so we’ve made it our mission to rid the neighborhood of this monster. I can’t comment any further on this part of it because it will soon be a legal issue, but I will say that we’re not fooling around.
Pete Mack
Been there done that. I was much more upset in the leadup to second Iraq war, when it was clear so many people were flat out lying about reasons we had to invade. The difference then is that plenty of Dems were going along with it, and I couldn’t understand why. No at least the opposition is acting as such.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Icedfire: I know, right? “Fuckboy” has a whole different connotation where I’m from, and the juxtaposition of that word with the idea of that sweaty, short-fingered ambulatory stringy-haired tumor made me throw up in my mouth a bit.
rikyrah
@ruemara:
I honestly think the reason why I’ve turned so hard, and have absolutely no patience, nor tolerance for ANYONE who made Dolt45 possible…his ridiculous cult…OR the enablers on the left..
IS because of the judiciary.
The ones on the left will NEVER EVER EVER be forgiven because of the Judiciary. Period.
I don’t walk around with a ‘ hair on fire’ attitude, but I am quite enraged at it.
When I say that they need to be dealt with accordingly, I mean it.
Which is why I will have absolutely NO PATIENCE for ANY Democratic Candidate thinking that we should waste 2 nanoseconds trying to appeal to Dolt45 voters.
rikyrah
@HeleninEire:
Welcome back…I understand your reasons..so Ireland’s loss is our gain.
tobie
@artem1s: Isn’t that the truth! We can’t have nice things because of our outsized miitaey budget. We hardly even put anything into the State Department any longer, much less environmental or social programs.
Mnemosyne
@Served:
William F. Buckley told them that conservatism was “standing athwart history and shouting, ‘Stop!’” but he never seemed to figure out that doing that never works. It only delays the inevitable while pissing everyone off.
eclare
@artem1s: bin Laden played a part in that too
HeleninEire
@Ohio Mom: That was, as they say here, GAS. So proud, so happy I was. It was my first (and maybe only) vote in Ireland. I cried at the polling place.
LuciaMia
Todays funeral hopefully kept him out of trouble for two hours. Hopefully.
And the markets were closed, so he has to wait a day before he can tank them again.
Yarrow
@Ohio Mom:
Me too. I feel like we’re at the “rip the band-aid off” stage of this crap. It’s awful, hurts like hell, maybe it even bleeds again but we have to do it to wash the wound and help it heal. We can’t heal our country by keeping the band-aid on everything. We have to do the tough work.
HeleninEire
@Baud: Well maybe. I can be bought. Whatta have? ;)
Mnemosyne
@Hungry Joe:
Yikes! I’m glad Alice survived and that you’re taking legal action. People who close their eyes to the dangerous actions of their pets really piss me off. Hopefully you’ll be able to take effective action before a human or animal gets killed, but if it does happen, at least you’ll know that you tried to prevent it.
Served
Also I was a pretty milquetoast liberal before, but I am positively radical now. W caused me to jump way left with the Iraq War, and now Trump has moved me 1000 times further left.
HeleninEire
@Spanky: Thank you.
Hungry Joe
@Yarrow: Republicans HAVE done their fucking jobs: They cut taxes on the rich, gutted environmental and financial regulations, packed the judiciary with Federalist Society nutjobs, shredded the safety net, blew up comity in the House and Senate, and subverted the democratic process on local, state, and national levels. Bastards have checked off damn near every box.
J R in WV
John, you are not alone.
I have prescriptions to allow me to sleep, and when I do sleep I grind my teeth, expensive caps are rounded off, I had a molar disintegrate a couple of weeks ago.
My diet of decades now seems to upset my digestion, same ingredients as always result in discomfort. I always enjoyed sleeping, now I have nightmares mostly, some good dreams, but rare.
The election helped some, especially with sleeping. But the loss of a fair and impartial judiciary, that’s hard to take. And the state legislatures trying to change the rules when they lose an election – that is NOT how it is supposed to work in a democracy — guess what, one of our two political parties doesn’t believe in our fundamental form of government any more!
Hey, John… how’s the fund for the rebuild coming? Keep us posted, please!
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
If folks who voted for Dolt45 are willing to admit that they did wrong and stand with the Democrats in 2020, they can. Otherwise, no sale. Voters who can’t admit that Trump is a disaster need to sit the eff down and stay out of the way of the cleaning crew.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Need a pardon?
jl
Funny, similar things happen to me. I’ll be out and about, my mind on other things. Suddenly remember Trump is in charge. Do a quick scan of the situation. Buildings and roads collapsing? Nn, OK.. good so far. Any panicked or angry crowds rampaging down the street? No… good, check that off. No mysterious booms in the distance or scary mushroom clouds rising over the horizon. Good.
Then nervously check the news for disasters.
I was expecting more GOP deviltry during the lame duck session. But Flake, so far, seems to have found some backbone in his small efforts to obstruct some stuff he doesn’t like, so we’ll see if our luck holds out there. And I guess with Trump WH, not enough organization from the top to go big time on sabotage. Trump gets distracted by stuff. maybe he was pounding his desk demanding a big forest floor raking program when Mitch and Paul came calling to plan deviltry.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Hungry Joe: I’m glad Alice is doing well. That dog needs to be gone. You can’t have a dog around if it bites.
Yarrow
@Hungry Joe: They are traitors and are not doing their actual jobs. They are working for their owners and doing the work they’re contracted to do, the work you described. They are not doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing.
HeleninEire
@rikyrah: Thank you. I moved here “forever.” I will be eternally grateful for all the fiends I made here. But damn I miss NY. There is a saying “Wherever you are, there you go.” Well. Here I am. I can be Helen anywhere.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Served:
The worst part? Some of them will never blame Trump for any of it. They’ll blame the wrong people, as usual, for it. It’s like getting mad at a rake handle for hitting you in the face after you stepped on the pointed end.
TenguPhule
@LuciaMia:
Europe and Asia say hi.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know. Could Trump exactly replicate how he won in 2016 in 2020?
HeleninEire
@Baud: Um. Maybe. Who have you been talking to?
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Time to invest in a plastic mouthguard.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
But W. Fucking B used all those big words and thought he was so fucking smart, meanwhile he was just another asshole refuckingpublican racist shit.
Baud
@HeleninEire: I just figured that anyone who posts here regularly must be in need of a pardon.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
If I get 10, is the 11th one free?
Ruckus
@Baud:
You post here often.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
But how will will we fix shit like the Wisconsin and Michigan power grabs?
HeleninEire
@Baud: @Ruckus:
Yeah. Projection, much?
Hungry Joe
@Yarrow: You’re right, of course. I simply meant they’ve done what they set out to do — not what they should have been doing.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ruckus:
That means he can self-pardon himself, silly!
JPL
@Hungry Joe: Please consider getting an atty. Insurance companies will not be happy if your neighbor keeps the dog.
I just read the last paragraph, and I’m pleased that you are serious about getting results.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
So what you’re really saying Scott, is that you don’t trust the voters of Wisconsin. I guess an authoritarian power grab is just “manufactured outrage” by the Dems.
If the Dems had won state office in Ohio, I think this would have happened here as well.
JPL
@Hungry Joe: A neighbor’s dog was often loose and would charge at people while barking, but so far has only barked. I wrote a polite but firm note and last weekend the owner stopped by and thanked me. He also wanted me to know they put up a fence.
You should not be prevented from walking in your own neighborhood.
Mnemosyne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Those power grabs are almost certainly not legal and will lead to years of lawsuits before they can be implemented. In fact, that’s exactly what the governor-elect and attorney general-elect in WI said before the vote was done: why are the Republicans going to waste the taxpayers’ time and money with legislation that’s not going to make it through the courts?
Though if OO has an answer for why people were better able to vote in 2018 but not in 2016, I would be curious to hear it. I’m not sure if it was a push to get folks their voter IDs, or voter registration, or if there were other factors we haven’t heard about. It seems like a pretty quick flip from R to D in only 2 years.
opiejeanne
@Emerald:
NOOOOO!!!
We stopped watching it after the second or third episode of season 2 because it just wasn’t as much fun, although the bit about trying to make new hands for the villain was entertaining.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Believing racist shit lowers the IQ in astounding ways, no matter where one went to school.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Or, to quote the inimitable Molly Ivins, who went to the same upper-class Texas schools that W did:
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Tried that. Doesn’t work for me… if you don’t sleep, you won’t grind your teeth, but you gotta sleep some. Can’t do it with that crap in my mouth. So…
My dentist made the same recommendation, I’ve spent a lot of money on different brands, no luck so far.
but thanks for the suggestion.
Doug R
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve theorized that a lot of unchecked dog aggression is the owner projecting their own hostility.
Brachiator
You see this cat Trump is a sad mother (Shut your mouth)
But I’m talkin’ about Trump (Then we can dig it)
He’s a simpleminded man but no one understands him but his daughter (Yuck, Trump!)
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: the only thing the Democratic Party should ever think about is how to destroy the Republican Party from the roots to the crown. Republicans don’t deserve civility or power, just contempt and legal punishment
geg6
@Ohio Mom:
That’s me. I don’t know what sins I committed in a previous life, but the fact that I’ve been stuck in the ‘burbs most of my life is all the evidence I’ve ever needed that it must have been horrible. I hate it here. And I despise most of the people here.
Ksmiami
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: lawyers, guns and money
trollhattan
@TaMara (HFG):
The dread level tuning in the car radio on the drive home after a six-day backpack last August was pretty damn high. We’d been playing “predict what he did” for about three days, which means I only forgot him for three.
This has to stop.
Steve in the ATL
@Served:
Moi aussi. Since 2000, I have been filled with righteous fury.
TaMara (HFG)
@Hungry Joe: I am so glad to hear you are taking legal action. I was horrified when I read your original post. I’m glad you and Alice are healing, but I know you have a long road ahead. Thoughts are with you. Having been attacked by a vicious dog – and having my dog defend me and then get blamed for it all, I understand a bit of what you’re going through. Hang in there.
eclare
@Hungry Joe: Glad to hear you and Alice are doing better, and good luck with your future legal actions. Best of luck, that neighbor is a menace
schrodingers_cat
I worry about my friends, the ones who have to deal with the USCIS. The rank and file career folks are mostly good and do the best with the resources they have but the political appointees are Miller-lite.
Pogonip
@Hungry Joe: I missed this—what happened? I’m happy you and your dog are recovering.
Hungry Joe
@Pogonip: A dog escaped from a house and attacked my dog (for the second time) and me while we were walking. Almost killer her; she needed hours of surgery. I was badly bitten. Owner refuses to to get rid of dog, says it won’t get out again. We’re taking action.
Scamp Dog
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: No legislature can pass a law that following legislatures can’t change, so as long as the incoming legislature is willing and able to repeal, it can get fixed. Will they actually fix it? Who knows, I’m not up on all those state legislatures.
Pogonip
@Hungry Joe: oh my! Where’s your original post? Good luck and sue the bastards, they deserve it!