In several ways, this clip of former NSC official Fiona Hill being questioned by House GOP Counsel Stephen Castor is the perfect microcosm of our national political moment:
Castor opens by trying to get Hill to deny that she was upset with Bolton and “the way things were going.” Hill gives a forthright account of her anger at Sondland, owns up to being “a bit rude” to him and talks about how commonly women’s anger is misunderstood in professional situations.
Hill then throws the flaming bag of shit right back at Castor, noting that Sondland’s testimony convinced her she was angry at Sondland for the wrong reason. Sondland was following Trump’s orders on a “domestic political errand,” which put his actions at odds with those of Hill and the rest of the State Department’s Ukraine team, who were executing “national security foreign policy” at the moment its objectives diverged from Trump’s political goals.
It was a remarkable moment, but it won’t matter. As I’ve complained in this space before, having a leering misogynist like Trump in the White House is a daily insult to women, a constant reminder of our second-class citizenship that is made even more painful by the complicity of so many (mostly white) women who elevated that buffoon to the office. But it’s not just Trump.
It’s the brisk, no-nonsense, intelligent competence of Fiona Hill vs. the smirking and mugging of large check-writer Gordon Sondland. It’s the bravery of Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony contrasted with the angry public tantrum thrown by Brett Kavanaugh. It’s Nancy Pelosi’s resolve to follow the Constitution juxtaposed with Mitch McConnell’s bottomless cynicism.
And the worthy, competent, intelligent women might win the battle, but they lose the war because that’s the way the game is rigged. I’m pretty goddamned sick of it. That is all.
Open thread.
khead
Yeah, this.
debbie
FIST PUMP! HELL, YES!
germy
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Big reason why I want Warren to win. She has a slight edge in my mind over Kamala but it’s pretty slight. I’d be damned happy to watch either of them step into that office, fumigate it, and start setting heads to rolling. I think I mean that figuratively.
I would vote for a Constitutional Amendment that took the vote away from the Masters of the Universe class for a couple of decades. That should give the women time to fix things.
germy
This thread:
OzarkHillbilly
As one who is rooting for Team WoCIW (Worthy, Competent, Intelligent Women) I am optimistic that they will rise above any setbacks and continue fighting until the battle is won because that is just what worthy, competent, intelligent women do.
They. don’t. give. up.
geg6
Fuckin’ A, Betty. Tell it.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: No edit button. Meant to add that the war is never over. Always there is a group of troglodytes who want to drag things back a century or 2 to an imagined time when men were men and women were cowed but sheep weren’t nervous, no never that.
debbie
@germy:
I read threads like that and my hatred grows even huger.
BBA
Ever think about how infinitely better off the world would be if every white man were to die in his sleep tomorrow night?
I do. A lot.
Signed, a white man.
MattF
Yes, and note that three of the public hearing witnesses were immigrants (Hill, Vindman, and Yovanovitch). Not an accident.
germy
@debbie:
I know, right? I’m concerned about my blood pressure at this point.
different-church-lady
It’s also the horrible knowledge that Trump get his support not despite the fact that he’s an awful person but because he’s an awful person.
Amir Khalid
@BBA:
I would expect no overall improvement, because then some other group would step up and become the new heavies.
Baud
@different-church-lady: This is correct.
geg6
@different-church-lady:
Yes. It’s goddamn infuriating.
OzarkHillbilly
@different-church-lady: Truer words never spoken.
bbleh
@OzarkHillbilly: This does seem to be more and more the case, and that more than anything is what could change the game.
IMHO, women “lose the war” because men — specifically, male politicians and the bureaucrats beholden to them — don’t fear them enough, yet. And that in turn is because there aren’t, yet, enough women in positions of power.
But that’s changing. And I think one clear sign of that is that the misogynist rhetoric has got a lot louder. They’re getting nervous.
“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.” (Not Gandhi but a leader of a clothing workers’ union.)
Mary G
I have been in a fairly constant state of rage since election night 2016 and hearing that Hillary said something like “they were never going to let me be president.” Watching the media ignore Kamala and Amy this time hasn’t helped.
Yet I look at the NRA, which for so many years was considered invincible, and the massive number of women elected in the midterms and I still have hope. Twitler is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with our society’s assumptions about rich white men who are held up to be MOTUs when they are really large adult children who shouldn’t be allowed within a mile of the responsibility of managing more than a lemonade stand.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: The pardoned war criminal / budding Fox News celebrity is a recent proof point. Wingnuts don’t forgive him for using Iraqi schoolgirls and grandpas for target practice — that’s what they admire about him.
khead
@different-church-lady:
This too. I see it. A lot. Tired of this shit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: The sheep were ALWAYS nervous.
rk
@BBA: @BBA:
Not true I’m afraid. You only have to look at the rest of the world to see how men all over the world have fucked things up (with the support of women). Korean Kim, Saudi moron, racist thug in India, the rape love in the Philippines and numerous others. It’s just humans doing what they do best, destroy and hurt.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady:
@Baud:
@geg6:
@OzarkHillbilly: He hurts the people that his “fans” think need to be hurt, so they love it. These people might be called deplorable*.
*I think I may have heard this term used in the past.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
His Atlantic piece that he links is pretty good. Sorry I missed it at the time. Deep State!
Trump Is Winning His War on the FBI -Within the bureau, there’s an asymmetry that even those who seek to play by the rules cannot ignore. (September 6, 2019, Adam Serwer)
(Private window if one has used up free articles)
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The one thing I’ll give Trump credit for is that he didn’t hide who he was in the 2016 campaign. Balloon Juice got it, but too many people who should have gotten it didn’t.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Never in my decades of voting did it ever occur to me to see “awful” as a positive. //
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yep, it’s the libtards they want to hurt, even as the corporations are destroying them and their futures. //
EmmaAnne
I am so not a violent person but if anything could drive me to irrational violence …
West of the Rockies
@BBA:
Every white man? Oh, FFS.
planetjanet
@germy: That article is enraging. The next President needs to clean house in New York.
WaterGirl
Betty, there was so much basic truth in what you wrote that it brought tears to my eyes. I could never have written what you wrote, even though I know it to be true with every fiber of my being. We all revere you as a great writer, but you are also a great conceptual thinker. We are so lucky to have you here.
Another Scott
Well said BC, but the war isn’t over. It’s never over. Progress in the US is a struggle and will be for the foreseeable future. Even when she wins the White House in November and we flip the Senate, the battles and the war won’t be over.
Hang in there, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: It’s true that Trump put being an offensive asshole at the center of his campaign. He lied plenty about what he’d do as president, though. Will the populist election lies vs. plutocratic governing style cost him support in 2020? The “economic anxiety” excuse was mostly garbage, but is it 100% garbage? My guess: it’s at least 85% garbage.
Mai naem mobile
Watching the SNL skits about the Democratic debate , anybody notice how they make the female candidates look vapid? Bernie get the old cranky Jewish man treatment but he doesn’t look stupid. Even Cory Booker isnt made to look stupid. Even Joe Biden looks like an out of touch old white guy but not stupid white guy.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Well, gosh and aw shucks, thank you. :)
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Ironically, their economic anxiety has grown hugely since the election, and if they reelect him, they’ll be in far, far worse shape. Assholes.
West of the Rockies
@Betty Cracker:
Anyone who still supports Trump is either irretrievably stupid or a racist, bigoted, homophobic, misogynistic, greedy asshole.
mg_65
Thank you for this, Betty. Absolutely precise.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
He said he wasn’t going to touch entitlements, which he hasn’t, but that’s because the Dems took the House.
He campaigned on tax cuts to the rich, and he delivered.
He campaigned on hating immigrants, and he’s overdelivered.
He campaigned on tough trade talk, and he’s delivered, although that disproportionately hurts his supporters instead of (as one of them recently put it), not the people he’s supposed to hurt. That may cost him some support.
He hasn’t delivered on the Wall, but I don’t think that’ll cost him anything.
I think the people who care about plutocrats never supported him in the first place. For most of his base, the plutocrats are allies in the fight (against us.)
ETA: Forgot the most important one. He’s delivered on his campaign promise with respect to judges.
Currants
Thank you, Betty. Agreed on all counts and hearing (reading) your comments about it make me fell better/less alone.
Baud
@Mai naem mobile: They made Steyer look stupid.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I don’t think “professional disagreement misunderstood as out of control anger” is something peculiar to women, it’s something peculiar to dickheads bosses like Sondland with any subordinate, male or female. The crises of the age is the elite instance they only have to deal with yes men and the resulting damage that does. Maybe a man can get away with it more with a dickhead boss because a dickhead boss is like any bully, a coward at heart, so they are afraid of a physical confrontation from an “out of control subordinate”
Another Scott
@Mai naem mobile: I noticed. I really don’t like the way they treat Democratic politics overall (and didn’t like the way they treated Hillary either). They made Kamala look like a fool (and I normally like Rudolph). Booker looked insane. Biden looked demented. Bernie was treated with kid gloves. Steyer was appropriately mocked, though. ;-)
And don’t get me started on Che in most of his WU bits on Democrats. Grrr…
Oh well.
Cheers,
Scott.
scav
There’s a lot of basic truth, but there’s also some in she persisted and why the hell that so matters as a virtue. Note the hill, swear vigorously, but don’t lose track of the backpack and boots.
AM in NC
Thanks Betty. I’m a woman who is your age, and the only way I get through all this crap is with the help of a group of amazing women friends. We went to the Women’s march in DC (from North Carolina), and EVERY day since we have continued to text each other with the latest news/outrages, words of support, funny Tweets we’ve seen in order to keep our spirits up, etc. We have also become much more involved in local and national political volunteering. We have seen a huge groundswell of people out there (overwhelmingly other middle-aged women) sick of this shit and putting in the work to change it. We are all married, and none of our husbands feel the urgency (or do the volunteer work) that we do. They are all Democrats, and will absolutely vote for whichever Democrat is nominated, but they just do not feel the direct threat from the GOP that we do. What you described in this post helps explain why, I think. It can be hard to see what you just don’t experience, and women (and non-white people) experience this shit all the time.
Madeleine
Dr. Hill’s response to Castor in the video clip has struck me, having watched all the hearings, as the clearest statement of the two-policy situation that Trump created. In her admirably self-disclosing account of coming to an understanding of the divergent policies, she also provided a temporal frame—at least for me— within which to place the many events described by witnesses. And she expresses just how serious this mess is for this country. I am furious, in physical turmoil that this brilliant analyst, this no-nonsense woman, is so ruthlessly disrespected by Trump’s supporters. And I might say this about all the women who testified.
Mandalay
@BBA:
Oh FFS. Ever think about how if you had put “black” or “Jewish” or “gay” in that sentence instead of “white” you’d surely have got a BJ timeout for a grossly offensive post?
I’m not sure why you think it’s automatically OK to wish death on hundreds of millions of people as long as you are going after white men, and you are a white man.
How about not wishing death on any group of the population?
BBA
@Amir Khalid: @rk: I didn’t say utopia, just much, much better than what we have now.
jeffreyw
Maybe OT, but the refresh button takes me back to where I was when I pushed it instead of upthread somewhere random. I can follow a commenting thread by clicking on the @nyms to the beginning of the thread and then reliably return with the back button to the spot I was when “I wonder what that was all about” prompted me to go look.
I hope it lasts! Yay Watergirl and the anonymous devs.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
Happy birthday, geg6! Hope you are celebrating in a strong, competent, intelligent way :-)
trollhattan
Hope you’re sitting down, because Sondland turns out to be exactly the douche you thought he was. A profile from somebody who knows him. A sample:
Chyron HR
@Baud:
No, campaigned on middle/working class tax cuts, and explicitly boasted that he wasn’t going to cut the taxes of rich people such as himself (allegedly), then did the exact opposite.
He also made grandiose promises with regards to cheaper, better health insurance which were flagrant lies.
Amir Khalid
@West of the Rockies:
Warum nicht die beide?
Raoul
Apparently the right wing media has characterized what Ms. Hill said as “a domestic errand”. But editing out the word political (and not even showing that has been edited), they are downplaying the gulf of difference she so clearly lays out in that clip.
She was doing foreign policy. Sondland was doing 2020 fatfucking.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: During the campaign, Trump he’d cut taxes for working people and make sure the wealthy paid their fair share, which was a lie. He campaigned on great, cheap healthcare for all, which was another lie. He said factories would be coming back to the US, a big fat lie. He campaigned on “draining the swamp,” possibly the biggest lie of all.
I’m not defending the morons who voted for Trump. At the very least, racism, sexism and xenophobia weren’t a deal-breaker for them, which is functionally equivalent to holding those views themselves, IMO. But I do suspect there’s at least some people who voted for the fool to burn everything down and have been disappointed with the results. Democrats shouldn’t cater to those assholes, but I think they do exist.
Nancy
@different-church-lady: Infuriating and true.
MomSense
What I also find infuriating is that white women voters haven’t had the backs of other women and especially women of color. We have only voted for the Democratic candidate for President twice since 1952. In 1964 we voted for Johnson and in 1996 we voted for Clinton. That means we voted for Nixon, Ford, Reagan twice, Bush, W Bush twice , McCain, Romney, and Trump.
Baud
@Chyron HR:
@Betty Cracker:
Every tax plan he put out massively cut taxes for the rich, but I grant that he lied about it.
As far as the rest, those weren’t promises so much as throwaway lines. To the extent people believed them, I think it’s because they wanted to believe them. I don’t think anyone seriously concerned about the rich would have given them a second thought.
Amir Khalid
@BBA:
I think what rk and I are trying to say is that the white man’s impulse to dominate and exploit is not unique to white men, but common to all groups. If you eliminate one class of overlords, you do not destroy overlordship itself; and I know of no reason to believe a new overlord class would be any kinder, or any gentler, or any less keen on lording it over the rest of us, than the last.
tobie
I’ve never really liked the argument, “What would have happened if a woman had done X,” since counterfactuals are such a slippery thing, but some times you just can’t help yourself. If Fiona Hill or Marie Yovanovitch had screamed and wailed like Kavanaugh and derided Republican members of the committee, we would be hearing non-stop about how unstable, unhinged, unprofessional, and unseemly Democrats are. If Jackie Speier had an outburst like Lindsey Graham, she’d be forced to announce her resignation the next day. This has been on public display again this week. It’s striking because the female witnesses are all so intelligent and dignified.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Only if you don’t realize that “draining the swamp” meant getting rid of liberals and Democrats and replacing them with corrupt Republicans who would do Trump’s bidding.
I mean, yes, the wording is the exact opposite of what was done, but Republican voters understood that the “swamp” was those nasty Democrats, most of whom weren’t even white, which was what made them a “swamp.”
Brachiator
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I don’t believe in the magical power of a matriarchy any more than I believe in the magical power of patriarchy.
Betty’s post is powerful. But the sad fact is that the Trump criminal enterprise is full of women who daily do everything they can to prop up and protect their Dear Leader and to do harm to this country. There are also, of course, some true believers in whatever crabbed version of conservative values they hold dear. And there are, strangely enough, women eager to join Trump’s malignant crew whenever openings occur.
Competence, honor, integrity has been swept aside as we descend into a crass sour orange republic.
I do hope that the anger of righteous women, and men, will overturn this madness.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I agree that people who identify “wealth inequality” as their top issue didn’t vote for Trump, but rage at “elites” is populist fuel too. Trump isn’t the first elite fat-cat who tapped into it, nor will he be the last.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: Immigrants often seem to be more attuned to what the Founders intended that those born in the USA. Definitely applies to every MAGAt out there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: One name, for an example.
Kelly Anne Conway
MomSense
I’d rather have a Congress full of men like Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, and John Lewis than women like Blackburn, Collins, and Stefanik.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Yup. Being female does not provide inherent immunity from being a crappy human.
Society may limit opportunity for that proportion so inflicted to demonstrate or exercise with any such crappiness, but that’s a different lane on the racetrack of life.
Kay
We see so few exceptions to this we’re able to name all the exceptions and they become well known.
tobie
@Bill Arnold: Thanks for the excerpts from that article. I will go read it. It has bothered me that there’s been so little attention given to IG Michael Horowitz, who strikes me as a Rod-Rosenstein kind of figure. He’ll do what he needs to do to placate his Republican masters. His conduct during the review of Andrew McCabe was very questionable. His report on Comey found fault with former FBI Dir for penny ante shit. And now it looks like his report on the Russia investigation, while clearing the investigation, will point to minuscule and insignificant errors so he can satisfy the mantra “Both sides” and believe he’s a shining example of Solomonic justice. Meanwhile the NY FBI Office’s active meddling in the 2016 election goes unexamined. This is infuriating.
Lee
Off topic:
Are we doing a calendar this year?
Did I miss a thread about it?
glory b
@MomSense: I was thinking just this. The majority of white women voted gor him, and quite a few deep dives show that the primary motivator for Trump voters was racism.
Lots of white allies, even some here, say they kind of shrug their shoulders and won’t challenge freinds and family members who vote R. So what could the rest of us do?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe I’m cynical or just wrong, but I don’t think rage at elites is a unifying principle. It’s useful for motivating people who already are or lean progressive.
Kay
Trump isn’t an intelligence test, he’s a character test. I’m sure Hill is very smart and experienced but that isn’t the test she passed to testify honestly. She’s of good character- she’s ethical.
Sondland could be smart – I don’t know- but it doesn’t matter- he’s a liar and a self-interested hack. Education and experience won’t fix that. He could go get degrees in international relations and stay at the job for 20 years and he still would not have what she has. She came in with it.
laura
Men hate women. They hate them because they fear them. They hate them because of their power. And so they must deny their power, deny them agency, deny them the right to define their individual right to live outside of a male-dominant world. Men. Hate. Women.
(not all men, but too damn many.)
MomSense
@glory b:
I don’t see about 90% of the privileged crap I think, feel, or say. The fact is that unless we are actively listening to BIPOC and their critiques of us we are not being honest about our part in perpetuating white supremacy. And unless we confront friends and family, pundits, blue checks, even random people on the inter webs we are not being good allies. I do think the first step is to acknowledge that white women are a huge part of the problem.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Are you saying rage at elites only motivates progressives? If so, that’s spectacularly wrong, IMO. Rage at elites — whom they hate for looking down on them — forms the grievance core of every Trump supporter I’ve ever met. It’s a staple on Fox News too, along with racism and boobies.
Patricia Kayden
Mike J
@trollhattan: On twitter last week, someone ( I forget who) said the two most famous Seattle Republicans are Sondland and Ted Bundy.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
No. I’m saying that it’s not a unifying force and it’s helpful to us only in possibly motivating progressives.
The right wing base also rages against the elites, but they are concerned primarily with the liberal elite like you and me. I’m sure they don’t like Wall Street per se, but they like that Wall Street money supports their party and their movement.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan:
He didn’t leave a scintilla of doubt in my mind that he was a douche after I listened to his testimony and watched his demeanor. When Maloney chain-sawed him I was so, so happy and thrilled.
Of the testimony I was able to watch large chunks of, these are my impressions —
Kent: Adorable, brilliant, sardonic
Taylor: Adorable, solid, courageous
Yovanovitch: Admirable, solid, courageous
Vindman: A STONE HERO
Volker: Disingenuous weasel
Morrison: Disingenuous weasel
Jennifer (can’t remember her name): Seemed too honorable to be working for Pence, but I didn’t catch all her testimony
Sondland: Smirking douche
Holmes: Solid professional, disgusted with Drumpf
Hill: Very strong, very intelligent, but I wish she hadn’t given the Rethugs the talking point that the Russians are trying to delegitimize Drumpf just as they would have done with Clinton. Yes, of course they would have tried to delegitimize Clinton, but THEY PUT TRUMP IN OFFICE AND HE IS ILLEGITIMATE.
patrick II
Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 1996-1999 testified before congress that derivatives needed to be regulated or it could bring down the economy. Alan Greenspan, and Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers disagreed with her, and thought regulations would interfere with the free market. During congressional hearings, when Ms. Born gaver her testimony that derivatives needed to be regulated, Larry Summers sat next to her, turned towards her, leaned in and glared at her as she gave her testimony. I have never seen such an obvious attempt to intimidated a government witness. I don’t believe Summers would have done that would do that with a man — at least without getting an elbow to the nose.
Anyhow, it turned out Brooksley was correct, derivatives destroyed the economy, in 2008 Born was asked by Speaker Pelosi to be part of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and you haven’t heard of her since.
Larry Summers, who was absolutely wrong, went on to be the Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, where he and Geitner proscribed no penalties for Wall Street, just send them unmanaged money, which has left Wall Street with the feeling of invulnerability it has today.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Excellent point.
Shakti
That’s a word, Betty.
@germy: It’s probably a giant honking coincidence I’ve been on and off blood pressure meds since the 2016 elections. Sure I could blame heredity and my suboptimal exercise and eating routines but it’s not like this constant stream of breaking bullshit helps either.
OzarkHillbilly
@West of the Rockies:
What’s this “or” shit?
kindness
I think now is about the time our Intel agencies release the data on the financial ‘arrangements’ the Trump family and the Republican machine have with Russian Oligarchs/mob going back to the 90’s. A lot of them are right wingers and don’t want to hurt the party but I still believe they love our country more than the 2 bit mobsters running things now.
rattlemullet
Spot on with your analysis of the man that to me represents the epitome of everything that is wrong with the male portion of the human race. The shear volume of the vomit of lies is alone should be enough to run him out tarred and feathered. The utter disdain, degradation, and sexual predation he manifest toward women on a daily basis is beyond reprehensible. He has never been faithful to any woman he’s married, but that never has been important to conservative christians. One of my personal grievances is that he dose not pay contractors for work performed without litigation. Among his completely fraudulent behaviors a minor thing I know. Filed over 4,000 lawsuits. Do I remember a time when conservatives disdained the use of the courts for shitty reasons. Greed, my god the greed, cheating veterans out of donated monies and false promises. He enriches himself with tax payer money but that SOP with republicans, that’s one reason why he is idolized. It is smart to cheat and beat the government. The public servant is for the bus to believe. I’m done only partly of my gripe today.
By the way BJ community your new site is great to a lurker like me. Thank you all for your hard work and daily post and your great kindness to pets. I look forward to reading all of you everyday.
Baud
@Shakti:
I’ve noticed my smile muscles have become weaker and my frown muscles stronger.
Momentary
@BBA: How about you take that to your therapist instead of diverting the thread into reassurance for white men?
bemused senior
I think fixation on broad demographic categories (“white women”, “boomers”) is not helpful in getting political change. It is more useful to go after specific behavior of particular people. Racist comments made in your presence; failure to follow up when injustice occurs in your neighborhood or town. We don’t consistently do that because it is much harder and riskier, speaking for myself.
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not saying there are not some bosses who are like this, basically equal opportunity jerks, but when women and minorities, but especially Black men, express anger or other strong emotions, even positive emotions, they are classified in ways that hew close to the most cliched stereotypes — the angry black man, the hysterical woman. Women who speak up at all are often accused of interrupring or being rude by men who have never noticed how often they interrupt women and men, and are interrupted by other men. For any woman in doubt, it is still better to speak up, lest you be accused of not “adding value.”
OzarkHillbilly
@jeffreyw: Assuming you mean the return button, it still doesn’t work for me. On the off hand chance that you didn’t mis write, I tried the refresh button. That doesn’t do anything at all.
Shakti
@MattF: One of the sticking points for me is the constant unrelenting crapping on immigrants. I’m just done with half the country, quite honestly.
OzarkHillbilly
@trollhattan: I am sooooo surprised.
Jay
MomSense
@Baud:
I decided early after the 2016 stolen election that one of the ways to resist is to just be nice to people IRL. Sometimes it takes people off guard when you just walk down the street smiling and say hello. We have to find the things that keep us human.
Not there with MAGAts though. I try to engage without yelling or being violent but I’m definitely not sugarcoating my disdain.
MomSense
@BBA:
No. WTF
206inKY
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: This is the same reason I support Klobucher over the scrum of men who are positioning themselves as moderates. She basically came out and said what Betty wrote, and she’s right. I would like to see others praise Pelosi for her spine. I think Betty is absolutely right that Hill’s answer epitomizes the Trump era. As does the women’s march even though it feels like ages ago. Disgust with the obscenity of the whole situation—electing someone who brags about sexual assault—seems like the single most important force driving the educated suburbs blue.
Baud
@MomSense:
Good advice. They feed off our misery.
Jay
NotMax
@MomSense
Niceness can be infectious.
More’s the pity that ethics aren’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: What I’ve found that does work…if you hit the time stamp on the comment before following the link to the comment being replied to, the back button will return you to the original comment. But you have to hit the timestamp first.
Parfigliano
@BBA: Hate youself much?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Sounds like you need a pretty picture to put that smile back on your face.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw:
Not a bad band name.
MomSense
@Baud:
On Election Day I saw this guy standing outside my polling place with a trump sign asking people to sign something to qualify trump for the Republican primary ballot. I asked him something like “you still support him? Really? He said yes and then I asked him why. Wowza. First reason is that he’s doing a great job with our economy and handling the crisis st the border. Then he told me that he’s a very religious man and that trump has done more to end abortion than anyone else. Oh and he loves that our embassy in israel was moved to Jerusalem. I have a hunch that is a pretty accurate set of reasons people support him.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
?
MomSense
@NotMax:
Agreed. That’s why I think arts and literature are so important.
MattF
@Jay: Reminds me, as my dad used to say, “Rich or poor, it’s nice to have money.”
JaySinWA
@debbie: There is a old definition of awful that was used in literature https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awful
So awful cuts both ways//
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am wondering what you mean by that. Does hitting REFRESH in the white bar not initiate a refresh? So you can’t see the refresh happening in your browser? In Safari I get the blue status line, and in chrome I get a little icon near the URL that spins as it’s refreshing.
Not sure of the details in every browser, but I imagine they all show a refresh in progress in some way.
Or maybe you mean that hitting REFRESH doesn’t make a recently made, but not yet seen, comment visible for you?
Baud
@MomSense: Trump’s done a lot for conservatives. It’s wrong to portray him as a failure.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: As a raging libtard living among them who tells everyone exactly what I think without ever saying a word about it, if I didn’t nod, smile and ask how the MAGAts days are going, I’d be a raging asshole for far too much of the day. It also puts the lies they tell themselves about us to the test and leaves them wondering what happened to their FOX informed world. I can see the wheels turning as they try to make sense of it.
Kent
Is this thread still alive?
Anyone else read this ridiculous pile of crap published in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/24/elizabeth-warren-not-progressive
Who the fuck is Nathan Robinson? Another Sandernista apparently. Although he doesn’t attack her “likeability” It seems that Warren is untrustworthy because her domestic proposals are too pragmatic and will therefore, stave off a progressive revolution. Really, he wrote that. And her foreign policy is suspect because she doesn’t sufficiently support Maduro in Venezuela and didn’t sufficiently support Morales in Bolivia.
Okay…I’m not totally sold on Warren yet, but these are more reasons for me to support her.
debbie
@Baud:
Only because conservatives have lost their principled beliefs. They’ve become fascists, so of course Trump appeals to them.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanx, I’d have never figured that out, never even paid any attention to the time stamp.
Baud
@Kent:
Guardian has a Wilmerian outlook.
WaterGirl
@MomSense:
Those were the two reasons my right wing super-religious sister gave me before the election. I call that “never let the truth stand in your way”. Hillary goes to church, at least sometimes, and I doubt the same can be said of the dumpster. And anyone who believed his stated position on anything was an idiot. Maddening, absolutely maddening.
Betty
@tobie: Well said.
Just Chuck
@Betty Cracker: They love the lies, as long as they get him elected. The more lies the better. They are a cult.
NotMax
Coincident to the topic, yesterday put the documentary Hotel Coolgardie into my Prime queue.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, I hear you.
Amir Khalid
@JaySinWA:
These days “awful” with a positive meaning has largely faded from use, presumably to avoid confusion. If in the 21st century you called a person or something they did awful, they would not take it kindly.
That said, I do see possibilities for mischievously exploiting the existence of these conflicting meanings.
MattF
@Kent: It’s not so much pro-Sanders as hard-core leftist. One will see that in the Guardian from time to time.
Jay
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
That works, but did you figure that out???
Just Chuck
@zhena gogolia:
She said they’re trying to delegitimize the Presidency. Which they have done very effectively, with the willing and active participation of the Republican party.
Shalimar
@glory b: It isn’t always a matter of not being willing to challenge MAGA family members. How do we challenge them in ways that help them change at all? Nothing seems to get through, and challenging them frequently makes them worse. And that isn’t even getting into many of them having gun fetishes.
BBA
@Parfigliano: Very very much.
And to the rest here, I’m sorry for my partial threadjack. This felt like a “let’s dunk on white dudes” thread and I guess I dunked a little too hard. Back to the penalty box I go.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: I’m praying that at least some of those lies are catching up to him, and I figure the KY election might be a good omen…
re: “I’m pretty goddamned sick of it. That is all.”
You have every right, as I couldn’t stomach a tenth of what you watch and comment on for us. On the other hand, I hope you get to talk with some older women like my mom and her friends, who are seeing so much progress since the Nixon trials. One woman key player, mostly because she was so loyal to Nixon. Nothing like Hill, Amb. Y, etc.
Sigh, now I am missing efgoldman.
Brachiator
@MomSense:
And this gives Trump an advantage with his supporters and with certain swing voters.
Some people want simple solutions. They saw, for example, Congress struggle with the issue of immigration and got angry and frustrated that Congress seemed to discount their fears and desires. Same with the Middle East. They see Trump as cutting through diplomatic fog and clearly and decisively supporting Israel. And they like this, especially because they don’t particularly care about Palestinian grievances.
To be clear, Trump’s ignorant policies will blow up in his face in the long run, are founded on cruelty and ultimately endangers this country instead of making things more secure. But his brand of bullshit is easy to sell, especially when backed up by the GOP leadership and right wing media. And on the surface, it gives his supporters what they want.
Fortunately, some people are beginning to see through this and are pushing back. It may be that even some Trump supporters are feeling the pinch despite Trump’s empty assurance that all is well. And those who always knew better are rallying for a fight.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Well, we can click on it, so it must do something. I guess Bill just tried it and saw what happened.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I may have misunderstood Jeffreyw’s comment, but I am speaking of when somebody replies to a comment made by another, say you replying to Betty C, if I click on Betty C’s nym I go to her comment, but I would be unable to find my way back to your comment. Hitting the back arrow at the top (in Firefox) would take me someplace else entirely, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
BillinG’s tip about clicking on the timestamp first works so I now have a workaround for that particular issue.
This is still happening to me and it doesn’t matter whether I am commenting in the Visual or the Text box. It isn’t that big a deal for me but I was gonna let you know via proper channels because it seems to be happening more and more often. I don’t know if anybody else has noticed it or if it is just me. Either way I thought it worth passing on.
I hate complaining about stuff, especially if it appears I am the only one having the problem because it’s usually my own damned fault. Besides, you’re probably working too damn hard on all this crap already.
Which is my way of saying I really appreciate you.
Jay
OzarkHillbilly
@Kent: As a faithful reader of the Guardian I have learned to just skip certain articles. The tell is usually in the headline and it certainly was with that one. I didn’t need to read it to know the author was an idiot.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I see I left the word “how” out. Some days …
Kent
After living a decade in the south and paying close attention to a lot of my MAGA extended kin, I’ve come to the conclusion that religion in general, and abortion in specific, has more or less become code for racism. The connection may not be obvious at first glance. But essentially you have a tribe of people who primarily define themselves by race (the modern working-class GOP). Except that they largely know they can’t really say that. At least out loud in mixed company.
So you find issues that (1) are 100% guaranteed markers of tribal identity, and (2) that unlike racism, we always give a pass to. No one really ever questions the sincerity of statements of religious belief. And since abortion is 99% a GOP issue it is even more reliable than Christianity in identifying the MAGA kin. So, for example, I had a ton of male co-workers in Texas who were right wingers. They were smart enough to not mention race so they would say things like. “We just gotta support x-candidate because he is pro-life.” When I know damn well they rarely ever go to church and almost certainly don’t give the slightest shit about abortion. It’s basically become the pro-Republican argument that you can’t really argue with because we can’t question the sincerity of religious beliefs in this country
Fleeting Expletive
SNL ridiculed Amy K’s hair because it sort of trembled throughout her debate appearance, giving an impression that she has a tremor. She later appeared on Laurence O’Donnell’s show without an apparent tremor, but her hair sort of bobbed from time to time. Her helmet hair is held together with some industrial-strength fixative and it moves as a solid brown bubble. I don’t know much about hair products, and it could be just the style reminiscent of Veronica Lake, something’s not working for the candidate there.
I like Amy K a lot and think she is eminently qualified. I suppose if it hadn’t been hair it would’ve been some other inane nothingburger.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I spoke to my son in Denmark today and he said “what is it like, living there during this?” I said “it’s like this- it’s becoming very simple. Electeds and government officials are self-sorting into two groups- those who lie constantly and those who won’t. And you would be shocked to see that it’s 50/50. HALF are liars”
I was naive. I would have said 10%, tops 20%. It’s fucking 50% or better. We have a much, much bigger problem than Donald Trump.
Kent
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes, this train of thought among a certain strain of the dilettante left that we have to “let things get much worse so that people will be ready for the revolution” is what makes me understand how people wind up getting lined up against a wall and shot.
Mandalay
O/T, Trump crumples like a cheap suit:
Folks are starting to tell Trump GFY despite the personal costs involved, and beating him. It makes the craven behavior of the Republicans in Congress all the more contemptible.
Jay
Constance Reader
@different-church-lady: This. This right here. His supporters will never waver because he is doing everything they would do if they could. They are living vicariously through him.
bluefish
Great piece. Thanks. It’ll matter.
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
Yep. It is good to see this defiance.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It blows me away because anytime you have a top half you also have a bottom half.
But THIS bottom half is so low. What we really have is a top half and then a huge empty space and all the GOP are clustered in what should be the bottom 10% for “ethics and character” but is instead 50%.
They REGULARLY lie under oath now. They lie boldly and blatantly on national television, nearly all of them. Every fucking day. And it doesn’t matter what they were before! Mayor of NYC, federal prosecutor. He lies all day everyday. They had a systemic ethical collapse on the Right, and it plowed thru the ranks like a raging infection. They had no defenses. They were ripe for a Trump infection and when it hit they all caught it.
tobie
@Fleeting Expletive: I don’t agree with Klobuchar on lots of things but I deeply admire that she says what she thinks, even if it’s not what the audience wants to hear. (I remember in her CNN Town Hall, she was asked by a Bernie supporter if she supported free college tuition and instead of side-stepping the issue she bluntly said no and then explained why.) Post-Trump we’re due for a painful reality check. I don’t want a Pres who seems needy.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
The masters of the universe shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of any more than breathing. They will somehow fuck up a lemonade stand.
I know there is a lot of distention right now, and there should be, there is a lot of good reason for it.
But bigotry is bigotry and I know a lot of white men who are not misogynistic, bullying assholes.
Life is complicated, mostly by asshole bigoted humans and we will never get rid of all of them but we should be able to live reasonably together if we can actually look and see what causes them to be misogynistic, bigoted assholes in the first place, the root cause, if there is one and fix that as best as possible. I’m not sure what that is but I’d bet that money and possibly culture have a hell of a lot to do with it. And it isn’t even just money, just the love of it that is at that root. Money is nice, having some is better than none, having a bit extra is soothing and enjoyable, having more than a lot of countries total money is wrong, having a lot more than some countries is worse and a lot having none while a few have far more than they can ever spend is the worst.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
When Trump said he would drain the swamp, what he meant – and what his audience understood – was that he would get rid of people like us and replace them with ignorant bigots like them. Trump supporters have no problem with old-school corruption or self-dealing.
Jay
MattF
@Mandalay: One is pretty much forced to the conclusion that Republicans, in Congress or elsewhere, are using Trump as an excuse to do what they want to do.
Kay
@Jay:
Facebook hired Campbell Brown to run its news division. She is now and has always been a Right wing activist- it’s just that she used to be a Right wing activist on CNN before her career ended there because not enough people watched her show. People can go back and watch clips of her work on CNN. She attacked Obama every day she on the air.
They never pretended to be anything but what they are. It’s a Right wing platform. I feel sorry for their employees who deny this and have complained that they are uncomfortable with it but I would suggest that maybe the pay packages are obscuring their vision.
Brachiator
@Kent:
I think that you, or someone else, has made this point before. Thing is, it’s not as though these people are talking about being anti-abortion and then voted to defend Planned Parenthood. There is an attack on the reproductive rights of women. All women.
And backing Trump’s wicked immigration policies lets many of these people be as racist as they wanna be.
And of course, sadly, many women Trump supporters actively support policies that hurt women.
All in all, these people seem to have got their code words confused.
Barbara
@Kent: It is stuff like this in the Guardian that makes me hesitant to throw money at them. It makes me realize what a gulf there is between UK and US conceptions of left and right.
Mai naem mobile
@Another Scott: I was bothered the way they treated Kamala Harris in the first skit they did on a Dem debate. It was either right after the Biden affirmative action debate or the following debate . Harris looked like a bimbo. I also like Rudolph so that was disappointing.
Kay
I feel like it was inevitable on the Right. If all you value is money/power everything else will come second. The ideology dictated the end result. It couldn’t end any other way.
I was reading Guiliani’s panicked tweets last night and he’s a person who is watching everything he ever said or did slip away. And for what? For his stupid fucking 6 tacky houses? Was it worth it? He can’t even stay married and his son is only employable as a wingnut welfare recipient. What a colossal waste.
glory b
@Shalimar: Yeah, the gun thing is a deal breaker.
But I was hoping maybe somebody had an idea or two.
Another Scott
@laura: Yup.
True, and unfortunately it’s been that way for a very long time, especially since the time of the Romans.
Smithsonian Channel – Sacred Sites: Egyptian Priestesses is a good show.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
What we are pissed about is trump trying to make the worst humans and the worst traits in them, normal, accepted, worshiped actually. We’ve seen over the ages “leaders” who wanted money, fame, control over everything, but trump is new in this field, he is trying to make being a white, male, true shithead, like himself, the norm, the recognized, the praised and admired in the world. This is about him being shit for his entire life and now being revered for that. Proving that he hasn’t been wrong since day one. When it is obvious that he has been. Everyone like him is wrong and a shithead. We will never get rid of them, but we can not let another one of them every have the power to even attempt to prove that they are the norm. We have to change that norm
So to follow my comment above, how many of the super wealthy are trying to prove that they are exactly what the guy who tried to be make believe wealthy has been trying to prove, that they are the cream of the crop. They aren’t of course most of them are useless, horrible human beings – that’s often how they got the money to attempt to prove that they aren’t what they actually are in the first place.
Jay
Mai naem mobile
@Mike J: I think he is an Oregonian so Maybe Bob Packwood would be The other most famous Republican.
Kay
What has been hard for me to deal with has been what I consider the lack of connection between the lying and the radicalization of the GOP.
The lying is the problem. It’s the source. Pretending that they can go anywhere else but straight down on this course as long as they all continue to lie is a fantasy. This is no longer an ideological debate. It’s a debate about character and whether that matters at all, and there are only two sides. You have to pick one.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Yes it’s true that all women are affected, but poor women are affected more. But the real argument here, I believe, is that “family values” as a class of political positioning arose as civil rights and integration became the default status for mainstream politicians, as a way of criticizing oerceived pathologies among African American families. Just one small example: Think about what it means to push “abstinence only” education among classes with a significant population of children whose parents are not married. This is a way of saying, “I don’t hate you ’cause your black but because you are immoral.” What they didn’t contend with but that William Julius Wilson foresaw was the degree to which white working class population would express the same family structures over time. This is one reason why the “family values” crowd has lost so much amplitude in the last decade. It is no longer a way of distinguishing races by coded language about marriage and family.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
My “pissed off eyes” muscles could lift a fully-loaded semi.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Yup, that was exactly the thing that terrified me in despondency on election night: the horrible realization that my belief of our society being made up mostly of decent people was a terrible delusion.
Ruckus
@Patricia Kayden:
That arrogance is the root of the problem.
That wealthy arrogance is what makes the problem worse.
Trump is the perfect example of the worst of the worst. He was close enough to the wealthy arrogance to see that he was supposed to fit in there but could never actually make it work, because he’s too unintelligent to see how. So he lies and does the opposite of what a normal, reasonable human would do. It never ends up working well because he always does the exact opposite of what is necessary to get what he wants, acceptance. Of course he gets acceptance from the rest of the total rejects of life.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks for the pointer. I haven’t tried it yet, but the inconsistent (and incorrect) behavior of the back arrow/keyboard-previous-page shortcuts is annoying. It’s nice to know that there’s a work-around.
Cheers,
Scott.
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est:
FTFY. The MAGAs are definitely on board with the slavery, racism, sexism, and oligarchy that the Founders intended.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Delegitimizing trump is the next step in vlad’s plan to destroy our desired way of life, thereby gaining acceptance of his dominance of the world. vlad is not really different from trump except for one trait. He’s not dumb. He has a strategy to win, trump just blunders from one disaster to creating another but that’s what gives vlad a place to always work from. vlad is using trump to do what he could never do militarily, or even monetarily.
Calouste
@Kent:
The Guardian’s opinion section is called “Comment is Free”. You get what you pay for.
different-church-lady
@MomSense: Every one of those “reasons” has the cart in the wrong position relative to the horse.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mai naem mobile: Lorne Michaels. He’s never really changed.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Same here.
Some days it’s difficult but I keep at it because it helps. And every little bit adds up. And yes most of my “humor” is very little bits. But still, it changes a day for the ever bit better.
Mandalay
@Kent:
He is an English pundit on the left, and clearly a Sanders supporter. Smug and pompous (like most pundits), but not completely clueless (unlike most pundits).
Here’s a sample youtube video: Current Affairs Editor: In Bernie Sanders vs Elizabeth Warren crucial distinctions must be made
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Mission San Gabriel?
Ruckus
@Kent:
She’s my #2 but I’ve had the same feeling. I think though that the people that say crap like this are so far to the left that they have the support of people who think we should all be farmers, except that the dirt part is yucky, that we should all share all the money, except that they want a range rover to get to the best parties, put on by the people who didn’t share the money…….
Barbara
@Mandalay: It irks me when UK pundits whether left or right are so obviously obtuse about the distorting impact of seeing us through their own lens. It is one reason why Andrew Sullivan is unreadable on the issue of race. He is mostly insufferable in any event, but he us especially nasty when it comes to race.
mrmoshpotato
@Mandalay:
Good. Should’ve been on election night 2016 instead of too many people not wanting ‘Hillary stink’ on their voting records, but hopefully we continue righting the ship next year.
J R in WV
@MomSense:
Great reasons to support a career criminal, money laundry for Russian mobsters kind of guy. Wowza indeed.
debbie
@Mandalay:
And he doesn’t realize he’s now doubled down on the bad feelings toward him. Those who wanted Gallagher to go and had condemned Trump for pardoning him plus those who wanted Gallagher to stay in the Seals and had praised Trump for the pardon.
Keep it up, dumbass.
Aleta
Well said. To me that’s huge — abusing the laborers and contractors who built the things he takes credit for. It’s physical abuse to not pay what he owes and psychological abuse to keep them in court and threaten them until they’re forced to give up. And his murderous attitude toward women and minorities is harming the whole country, fcking up its future, and crippling the minds of children who see him on TV.
debbie
@Aleta:
I’d be curious to know how many of those 4,000+ people who sued Trump ended up voting for him. Hating libtards is a very powerful drug.
Ruckus
@Kay:
They were ripe for a Trump infection and when it hit they all caught it.
They have, like you stated been primed for this for decades. Conservatives do not want a government because it gets in the way of their desires. The hard core conservatives have been paving the way to get where we are today and vlad is actually a conservative marker post. He’s extremely wealthy. + He’s extremely powerful. + He’s “helping” them. + (actually he’s helping himself but they are too stupid to see that….) They think they are using him to get what they want. What is happening is he is using them to get vlad wants. The US out of the way, as a power, as a light as to what is better, vlad being rich and powerful or the US being closer to the concepts that our founders fought for, even if they subverted some of those concepts for their own enrichment.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
I don’t know. If there are no abortion providers in a state, or only one, I would think that this would be a huge obstacle that affects all but the most prosperous women. If doctors are hamstrung by laws which require that they lie about health outcomes to pregnant women, the health of all women who live in a particular state are at risk. The same is true of laws that might prevent a woman from making an early or timely decision about her pregnancy.
Certainly, poor women are greatly affected by this, but I don’t see that middle income women have an easy escape hatch.
Abstinence education pretty much fails everyone. So again, even if white conservative hypocrites use the rhetoric of abstinence education against black people, if they themselves act on these foolish principles, they end up hurting themselves.
So I guess, again, even if they are using coded language to separate themselves from groups they disdain, the actual policies they support hurt their own families. I don’t know. Maybe they are too dumb to see this.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
I used mine on Friday.
Got the reaction I expected. Yea!!
Immanentize
@MomSense: Hi!
Brachiator
Hill then throws the flaming bag of shit right back at Castor, noting that Sondland’s testimony convinced her she was angry at Sondland for the wrong reason. Sondland was following Trump’s orders on a “domestic political errand,”
Dr Hill’s clear summary of this mess reminds me of a line from Apocalypse Now:
neldob
I haven’t read all the comments, I will later. Just wanted to say that we had better be ready if RBG dies suddenly. MM and his Frankenstein army will try to jam through another right wing jerk wad, ahem, I meant another activist judge. We should be ready to flood the internet comments sections on as many fronts as possible and if possible go to DC or Kentucky and shut down McConnell’s plan. Am I reasonable to be this alarmed, or is it the coffee, or just the state of my life?
glory b
@neldob: No, be alarmed. But, I don’t think there is anything we can do about it. I’ve been mildly jumped on for this before, but it was enormously stupid for her not to have retired during Obama’s first term, when we had a majority.
Barbara
@Brachiator: The political positioning on these issues preceded the dramatic change in mores among whites. Middle class white women have much greater access to contraception than poor women.
mrmoshpotato
@glory b: Good point. The Senate had a Democratic majority after the ’08, ’10 and ’12 elections.
opiejeanne
Me too, but it may be partly because I don’t live in SoCal any more. After nearly 10 years in the PNW I can feel myself losing my ability to smile, again. Nearly lost it entirely when I lived in NorCal for 9 years.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Rain, Rain, Go Away
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Kalispera!
neldob
@glory b: I guess I differ in that I think we can do something about it and that her ambition and drive got her where she is and that is pretty well ingrained by her age.