Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Come on, man.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: Americans in General Not As Dumb As Trump Supporters

Open Thread: Americans in General Not As Dumb As Trump Supporters

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… Forty-seven percent of adults hold Trump responsible, while 33 percent blame Democrats in Congress, according to the Dec. 21-25 poll, conducted mostly after the shutdown began. Seven percent of Americans blamed congressional Republicans.

The shutdown was triggered by Trump’s demand, largely opposed by Democrats and some lawmakers from his own Republican Party, that taxpayers provide him with $5 billion to help pay for a wall that he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border. Its total estimated cost is $23 billion.

Just 35 percent of those surveyed in the opinion poll said they backed including money for the wall in a congressional spending bill. Only 25 percent said they supported Trump shutting down the government over the matter…

Democratic Representative Jim McGovern tried to interrupt the brief Republican-run session in the House of Representatives by offering a measure to reopen shuttered government agencies and keep them running through Feb. 8. But he was ignored and his microphone was soon cut off. The House session lasted less than three minutes.

“That was a legitimate request and I should have been recognized,” McGovern told reporters later. “They wouldn’t even recognize me. This is the way they’ve been running this place.” …

Heck, even some Trump supporters aren’t as dumb as the Media Village Idiots still hyping the Oval Office Occupant…

Meanwhile, Area Man who murdered parents demands clemency for being an orphan:

And, of course…

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  2. 2.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    My California driver’s license expires today (happy birthday to me, whoop-de-do). I have an appointment tomorrow morning at the DMV to finally get the ridiculous REAL ID, since I can no longer avoid getting a new license anyway. I collected all of the documentation required and am taking a few hours off work – and it looks like the Feds have pulled a bait-and-switch on California. I and a few million other people will have to do it all over again in a few years. I’m sure our votes in the presidential election had nothing to do with this – it’s all about “security.” I feel so much safer now.

    ETA: Fuckers.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    A Wall member? So he’s proposing to brick up his supporters or use them as rebar?

    Be right back, I’m off to make donations to Trump on behalf of certain other people. I’ve got a little list, they’ll be none of them be missed. And then, of course, I’ll reverse the credit card charges.

  4. 4.

    cain

    @Baud:
    No, we need to make sure that htey are very very afraid of us. Which means we call them and make threats. Then call the media and tell them that we are threatening Dem legislators and they should turn their spot light on us.

    They seem very enthusiastic about interviewing heartland trump supporters. Let them interview us for a change. Get Dems to say on TV that we are threatening them and they can’t make a deal. Keep repeating it. It is a really simple messaging and puts them off the hook. “Sorry guys, my base are threatening me, can’t negotiate a thing, you should ask them why!)

    For too fucking long, the media ignores us because apparently we don’t have great stories or something.

  8. 8.

    danielx

    We all knew Trump was gonna grab onto that wall-themed fundraising grift, right? https://t.co/X6EkJbTqM3

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 28, 2018

    And why not? It’s contributions for something he wants, ergo it’s his money – or so I would guess his thinking goes.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    I would bring a second address verification with you tomorrow — your car registration is one of the acceptable ones if that’s not the one you already planned to bring. I have an appointment to get my Real ID in February and that’s what I’m going to do.

  20. 20.

    cain

    @Baud:

    @cain: Doesn’t work, especially when they are already doing the right thing and we want them to continue doing it.

    Sure, but I know some of them could use the shot in the arm. But if we encouraged them to tell the press (eg camera hungry ones like Kamala) that would make them focus on us. It’s important that legislator create some drama around Dem voters.

  24. 24.

    TS (the original)

    Blame for shutdown
    47% trump
    33% dems
    7% republicans

    I blame republicans more than trump. They HAD an agreement and then the house GOP decided to fall on their hands in front of the moron. Why do the GOP ALWAYS escape blame for the government stuff ups they create? people still believe the myth that republicans can govern!!!

  25. 25.

    randy khan

    @Baud:

    One of the reasons I think the Dems need to schedule a quick vote on the clean continuing resolution or the clean CR plus disaster relief funding is to put the ball squarely in the Republicans’ court. Make it harder for the media to blame the Dems.

  27. 27.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    The media will put a lot of pressure on Dems to cave in January. We need to have their backs.

    More than that, we need to let them know by our calls & letters that we expect them to hold the line.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    What’s kind of fucked up is that almost five times as many people (33 percent) blame Dems as blame Rethugs (seven percent) for the shutdown.

    FTFTFNYT and the rest, because without their active Quislingness (Quislingitude?), the public would be informed enough to flip those numbers.

    Cyril Kornbluth is rolling over in his grave.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @cain:
    Most of us make sense. And we have enough differences that you actually have to talk and discuss issues with us. RWNJs just spout the same BS, as if in a chorus. Sure they sound (and are) nuts, but it’s always an easy and fast story to throw together. Bing, bang, stupid – and the article is written.

  35. 35.

    Creigh Gordon

    People who hate government like the Republicans do won’t feel bad about shutting down the government. They just blame Democrats because they always blame Democrats.

  37. 37.

    hells littlest angel

    BECOME AN OFFICIAL WALL MEMBER

    If you’re in a con game, and you don’t know who Mexico is, you’re Mexico.

  40. 40.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Baud: The carrot is tastier, b/c the alternative is the stick. I’ll certainly be calling every Dem rep to whom I donated, to remind them why I donated, and what I expect them to do. And of course, I’ll call my own Rep (Nancy SMASH!) to thank her for doing a great job *grin*.

  53. 53.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cheryl Rofer: Not in the same class, but one of the weirder things I’ve witnessed came in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when a mounted transformer some 20 yards from our front door blew up during the storm. Flames rising (another) ten feet in the air, while firemen in a cherrypicker tried to get their suppressing foam pumping hard enough to reach through the pouring rain. And, of course, we had a great view, because it was well after dark & the only illumination was from the floodlights mounted on the electric company’s vehicles…

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “The Democrats have made it clear they care more about political games than the safety of American citizens”

    Always projection with this vile asshole. Always.

  60. 60.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:

    The media will put a lot of pressure on Dems to cave in January.

    Nancy gives no fucks, thank goodness.

    @danielx:

    It’s contributions for something he wants, ergo it’s his money – or so I would guess his thinking goes.

    Sounds accurate to me. That’s how those justifications usually work, and he has a long history of raiding piggy banks like that.

  62. 62.

    Lyrebird

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: in the northeast you need separate proofs of every single bleeping thing. So proof of birth date can’t serve as proof of identity, proof of residence can’t either, ugh.

    I don’t know if it would help, but the New York State DMV has a handy interactive tool where you check off what you plan to bring (passport, ss card, etc) and it makes a little list for you to carry along and remember all of it.

  65. 65.

    B.B.A.

    Real ID was a Bush-era law that everyone hated at the time, and for the entire Obama administration states dragged their feet and DHS kept extending the deadline.

    The current occupying power is as inattentive as they are malevolent. DHS stopped doing the annual recertification that we weren’t ready for Real ID yet, so now it’s actually going into effect.

  66. 66.

    debbie

    I’m watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine, the episode where they get transported to San Francisco in the year 2024. Sanctuary cities, brown shirts, bullies. Kinda scary how close we are to this “fantasy.”

  67. 67.

    J R in WV

    That color of blue can only be coming from high voltage and very high current passing through a major installation. Quite a glow, like the Invasion of The Master Aliens From Mexico!

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    If people could only choose between Trump and the Republicans, I can understand why most chose Trump.

    Except it was a choice of three: Lying Littledick, and the two parties.

  75. 75.

    Lyrebird

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Always projection with this vile asshole. Always.

    Agreed. Maybe because he doesn’t care about of believe in the humanity of anyone not looking back at him from his own mirror. Not that I care about “why” in this case, I just want him indicted and preferably in prison. But I would settle for just having him resign and watch the tax fraud cases take away all his family’s ill-gotten gains.

    I was too late to contribute to the Sherrod Brown thread below, but one thing I don’t like about the “but he could beat T” argument is that it sounds so defeatist. Or blindly optimistic. If T is still in office and running for reelection in 2020, there will be so much more wrong than there is even now, things so chaotically wrong that whatever “electability” predictions people make now will probably need to be scrapped.

    I never got behind the “but it’s her turn” kind of pro-HRC argument, because she was a dem fine candidate who won the popular vote including lower-income voters tyvm. On the other hand, enough with the “but electability…” every time someone who is not white and male comes up.

    Comments aren’t syncing right on my browser, but I will see if this will post anyhow.

  76. 76.

    Raoul

    What I’ve been seeing, which I hope is what happens: as soon as the House is back in session Jan 3, as the 116th Congress, they’ll pass the bill that sailed through the Senate. Procedurally, I guess the Senate has to pass it again, but there should be hell to pay if what passed 100-0 doesn’t pass damn similarly (not that many seats turned over, and Mitch still won’t have his 60 to move something else).

    But Trump ain’t got sh*t in January. Being shut down these extra days to acknowledge reality is dumb. But everything Trump (and everything GOP) is dumb these days.

    If the Dems can’t run this play, then we should all just stand in an Astoria transformer farm and wait to be vaporized.

  78. 78.

    West of the Rockies

    @cain:

    Anger and emotion sells. There was a mother who lost a child to gun violence being interviewed on TV a while back. Her outrage was visceral, palpable, and compelling. She wanted something done about guns NOW. We need more of that.

    Republicans are all about rage, so the media pays attention.

    No, we shouldn’t abandon reason and evidence-based logic, but getting a bit angry might help.

  80. 80.

    Marcopolo

    Apparently Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of Prozac Nation, just discovered at age 50 that the man who she’s believed was her father for her entire life was not. She wrote a powerful piece about this discovery which I recommend folks read, if only because of her amazing writing & imagery. The kicker is it was her dysfunctional relationship with her now not-father and trying to figure it out that led to her writing career. Life is fucking weird much of the time.

    Life is just a shock to the system.

    It turns out that the man I have spent 50 years believing to be my father is not my father.

    My mother lied to me about who my father is. My father is Bob Adelman, the photographer, who most famously caught Martin Luther King Jr. in profile having a dream on the Lincoln Memorial. You know the shot. You know many of Bob’s pictures. When they say something is iconic, they just mean everyone knows it. Bob was early for history.

    Have a great weekend everyone.

  82. 82.

    Raoul

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If you have a valid US Passport you don’t need a “Real ID.”

    While this is correct, I personally don’t want to take my passport with me on domestic trips. I don’t do too badly on keeping track of things (except nightlights — those get left in hotel bathrooms too often. Pesky things turn off when the lights are on, we we forget to pack ’em!). Me, I’d hate to have to spend the time and money on a replacement passport because I didn’t get a $30 Real ID.

  84. 84.

    Chetan Murthy

    @SFAW: Uh, wha? I don’t understand. When it came down to the general, it was Littledick(GrOPer) or Hillary (Dem). In the GrOPer primary, it was Littledick against a field of GrOPers, and absolutely that was a binary choice.

    But in the general? It was a binary choice. I mean, uh, Duverger’s Law, eh?

  85. 85.

    plato

    The totus turd touch at work again.

    The political paraphernalia on display, which Mr. Trump appeared to encourage during his speech by referencing the caps he had signed, has raised questions at the Defense Department about violations of military protocol by the troops who greeted him. One woman in uniform at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, for instance, welcomed Mr. Trump with a “Make America Great Again” flag, according to a photograph posted on Twitter by a Bloomberg News reporter who accompanied Mr. Trump on the trip.

    A directive from the department prohibits active-duty personnel from engaging in “partisan political activities” and advises that “all military personnel should avoid the inference that their political activities imply or appear to imply DoD sponsorship, approval or endorsement of a political candidate, campaign or cause.” Defense Department and Army regulations also prohibit military personnel from showing any political leanings while in uniform, Mr. Hertling said.

    An official said the department was aware of the situation and “trying to figure it out” by tracking down photographs of troops holding red caps and campaign flags, and piecing together where the campaign paraphernalia came from.

  87. 87.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Raoul: There’s also a “passport card” which IIUC is valid for re-entry to the US, domestic air travel, but not accepted by other countries. You can get that in addition to your regular passport.

  88. 88.

    Yarrow

    @Jay: You have no proof “it’s a Russian of some kind.” Your speculation is just that, like everyone else’s. Selfies can be sent anywhere to anyone.

    Grossest speculation I’ve seen about it: Roger Stone. Ewwwwwwwwwww!

  90. 90.

    FlyingToaster

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: You don’t need to carry your passport everywhere.

    RealID is there so that people who don’t have passports or Global Entry cards can get onto commercial planes and enter federal buildings. The only people who will ask for RealID are federal employees.

    @NotMax: Nope. Nobody will care but the Feds. At the Mass RMV website, they have a Q&A that notes that if you have a passport, you don’t need a RealID.

  92. 92.

    MobiusKlein

    @Adam L Silverman: How about this hypothesis:
    Somebody got a hold of Anthony Weiner’s outgoing feed, and was using it as blackmail / bait / etc, and it was found on some person’s device, like Roger Stone’s.

  94. 94.

    Jay

    @Yarrow:

    Concord Management’s role is as the “bank” for the IRI, not part of the Trump/Russia cooperation team or the Emailz/Hack/Wikileaks crap.

    Because of that, it’s highly unlikely to be anyone from Trumpistan.

    But speculate away,

    Just remember, repeated applications of brain bleach damages the fibers.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    @Flying Toaster

    Mandatory to have if don’t happen to be carrying a passport in order to enter any federal building beginning October 2020.

    The Department of Homeland Security has mandated that all driver’s licenses used as identification to board flights and enter all Federal buildings must bear the gold star by October 1, 2020. Passports can be used as alternate identification to board flights. Source

    Won’t be long until mission creep sets in and some states follow suit.

  99. 99.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Gin & Tonic: Board a domestic flight, enter a federal building, or enter a military base.

    ETA: Thanks for the wishes of luck, Costco apparently has a different model number and Best Buy(spits) won’t price match. No Galaxy Watch for me today, I’m pissed.

  101. 101.

    FlyingToaster

    @NotMax: Unlikely that states will require their own residents to have RealID. It *might* be an issue if you’re coming from another state. But probably not for normal stuff (renting cars, municipal or college parking permits, etc.).

    Hereabouts some bars/liquor stores don’t accept out-of-state IDs (due to lack of competency with detecting fakes); they might be forced to accept RealIDs. First-World College-Town problem, I guess.

  105. 105.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Steeplejack: O.I.C. But isn’t it obvious that the Dems are responsible? After all, only Dems have agency. [Murc’s Law]

    One of the reasons I’m glad Nancy SMASH is in charge, is that we at least have a -chance- of pinning the blame for this on Shitler. I’m quite convinced that if Schumer were one in charge, we’d have *already* surrendered.

  107. 107.

    FlyingToaster

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: And that’s the kicker that I didn’t think of.

    Although I’m pretty damn white for a mud-person, and HerrDoktor and WarriorGirl are nearly glow-in-the-dark white; the rest of my family (people married to or descended from my sibs) are anything but. And I know BIL carries his passport when in-country (he lives and teaches in “the other Cambridge”), and still gets given shit at ports-of-entry.

    We live within 100 miles of a “Border”, i.e., 11 miles from Boston Harbor or the Atlantic Ocean, so CPB wanders around here like Gestapo-wannabes. So yeah, if you’re not lily-white or nearly so, it might be worthwhile to buy one of these damn things. GRRRRRRR.

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Can you take the gift card to a grocery store that sells those things and exchange it for one at CostCo? Or Amazon? I know that in Florida that Publix grocery stores will exchange them, as long as they’re for same value and, of course, haven’t been used.

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    No Best Buy here. Visited the one at Roosevelt Field on Long Island when at Mom’s and was mightily underwhelmed by the variety, depth, and value of what they offered. Hope the one near you is better.

    Maybe you can find a better price or selection at Best Buy online?

  114. 114.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @NotMax: Prices online are the same, I’ll wait for a sale and see what happens. I’m pretty disappointed, but not entirely surprised(I read up last night and knew this was a possibility).

    @Adam L Silverman: I scratched off the thing over the card number to find out how much it was worth, so probably not an option.

    ETA: The only place you can get Costco Cash is Costco.

  117. 117.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Yarrow: Might work, but they probably would just give me another card. I’ll just wait.

    It was a bit weird, I saw the sale price at the local Costco last night, but the price at Costco Burbank was the regular price tonight, but I drove back to the local Costco and they still had the sale price posted.

    ETA: It’s not unusual for Costco merchandise to have different model numbers than other stores, sometimes they have extra stuff in them.

  120. 120.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: If you renew your passport, get the “passport card” that is the size of a credit card. It is for travel between the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. However, doesn’t it also meet the need for a “real ID”? At least with the passport card, I think you don’t have to carry the passport just to fly between Boise and San Jose. Have I got that right?

  122. 122.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mike in Pasadena: Yeah, the “real ID” does pretty much the same as a passport card. It just verifies that you’re a citizen. Madame and the kid have both. BUT if you have neither the “real ID” driver’s license OR a passport card, you’d need your VALID passport to travel domestically. When Madame applied for her ‘real ID” DL, they said that an expired passport would be acceptable, when she got to the DMV that proved not to be the case, so she had to go home and return with her naturalization certificate.

  123. 123.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Villago Delenda Est: My problem is with the federal government requiring states jump though hoops on this crap, I’ve never had a problem with a national ID card(we sort of have one with a Social Security card anyway). But if the federal government wants to put restrictions and make requirements, they should fund it and do the job themselves(would help with the voter ID problem too). A driver’s license is so that you are certified to drive a car PERIOD.

  124. 124.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If you have a valid US Passport you don’t need a “Real ID.”

    I know, I know. In fact, I’m bringing my passport card as one of my forms of ID. But I have to get a new license anyway – I’ve run out of automatic renewals – and sooner or later they’re going to make all of us jump through this absurd hoop, so I might as well get it out of the way.

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Ugh, no kidding. The Feds are making this hard on purpose, to put a burden on the states.

    Thanks for all the birthday wishes – just back from a lovely dinner en famille at a great little French restaurant. I should get older more often.

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