If you were as floored by this photo as I was, please support photographer @joshuabickel and the reporting of @Colebehr_report and @AnnaStaver (at the Columbus Dispatch @DispatchAlerts)
Original story here: https://t.co/8XfiwFqg9Y
— future canon (@futurecanon) April 15, 2020
its uncanny pic.twitter.com/anWmn9ufoh
— The Urban Hermit (@sssssparkers) April 15, 2020
I’m cheating a bit, because who could resist that visual? It was my former home state, Michigan, that was all over the news for the wrong reasons yesterday…
Did a coronavirus write this? https://t.co/HBhRY3BHl6
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) April 15, 2020
TL;DR — ‘Former’ GOP operative Tim Alberta wrote a preemptive ‘Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat, and also a woman, whom Biden might select as his veep nominee’ Politico profile last week. With Michigan fighting coronavirus stats almost as bad as New York’s, this seemed like a great time for the deVos family’s astroturf ‘Conservative Coalition’ to angry up their serfs and send them to the state capitol to make fools of themselves for the media…
Right wing Michiganders with a military background buying large amounts of fertilizer has been tried before. It didn’t turn out well. https://t.co/xob6DCKSTN
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 15, 2020
Chants of “recall Whitmer,” “USA” and “lock her up” outside Michigan Capitol. #OperationGridlock pic.twitter.com/7Q7niiNFUF
— Malachi Barrett (@PolarBarrett) April 15, 2020
Michigan Conservative Coalition was the main group, but there were several other smaller orgs involved.
— Malachi Barrett (@PolarBarrett) April 15, 2020
“An opinion poll released on Monday showed 71% of respondents in Michigan approved of Whitmer’s coronavirus response.” https://t.co/R2mlaY4q05
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 15, 2020
Photo from early on in the protest: pic.twitter.com/mn2VXrszVZ
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) April 15, 2020
— Fourteen macaws in a trenchcoat (@0xMatt) April 15, 2020
Guns and protests.
"Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine" protest in Lansing.
The group is upset with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's expanded stay-at-home order to contain the spread of the #CoronavirusOutbreak
?? Jeff Kowalsky pic.twitter.com/UrZqGyiPVS
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 16, 2020
MI’s Attorney General:
Using your right to peaceably protest in such a manner as to spread a virus which may endanger your life, the lives of your friends, family and neighbors, and the lives of countless food service, law enforcement and healthcare workers does not make you a patriot. https://t.co/umSTYecYhb
— Dana Nessel (@dananessel) April 15, 2020
Eh, overthinking it. Like just about everything Republicans do in Michigan, it was mostly the DeVos’s, probably with an assist from Michigander & RNC chair Ronna Romney WhateverHerAliasIs https://t.co/ksS08CmZmf
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 15, 2020
Gov. Whitmer is responding to today's massive protest of her "Stay Home" order: "I saw someone handing out candy to little kids, bare-handed…we know that this rally endangered people." LATEST: https://t.co/yfKpytShtr
— WWJ 950 (@WWJ950) April 15, 2020
Same day as the “open up Michigan” rally in Lansing https://t.co/EmUAWE1ADA
— Amy Chapman (@amyrchapman) April 15, 2020
Today's protest of the stay-home order by a conservative group comes as Michigan has at least 27,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,768 deaths — third-most in the U.S. https://t.co/Tm99j9CDbN
— David Eggert (@DavidEggert00) April 15, 2020
I know a few people in Lansing, and have watched over an hour of video showing the vast majority never leaving their cars. Found that here https://t.co/oKIsuiKgCI
— Jim Nunya (6 feet fucko) (@NunyaJim) April 15, 2020
Meijer’s in Michigan had seeds and their indoor garden center was open. People are lying about things not being available. Fertilizer is obtainable if you order online and pick it up in the parking lot. pic.twitter.com/daSWPgkkaw
— Brock_mom (@wearecorn) April 15, 2020
Speaking of Mr. Alberta…
When you've spent the last 3 weeks on the phone day & night hearing horror stories from your constituents — nurses w/out masks, kids w/out food, doctors racing between rooms to make sure someone's with a patient as they die — you're prone to taking dramatic measures. 8/
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) April 15, 2020
Oh, a final note, related to my skepticism of Facebook agitators:
I've gotta believe some Trump supporters, having monitored Whitmer's feud w/ POTUS — and having heard the VP buzz — were waiting for a reason to pounce on the governor. Her order gave them an opening. /end & end
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) April 15, 2020
‘It’s not MY fault if some people took advantage of my little hobby fire’ whines the arsonist. Keep an eye out for this guy, he’s got a future. Which I personally hope will involve stocking in an Amazon warehouse.
JPL
Compare that to Biden’s latest ad
RinaX
Our mayor abruptly decided to reopen the parks and beaches here in Jacksonville tomorrow, with social distancing in place.
Baud
An attempt to create Tea Party 2.0.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Where do you go with history repeating itself when the first time was already farce?
Gravenstone
My default greeting going forward is becoming “hello, you stupid fuck”. It quickly devolves from there. People like those featured in this post are the reason why…
gwangung
Your freedom ends at MY breathing zone. And I have every right to make you BACK OFF and not shed virus on me. And that includes 2nd Amendment rights
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RinaX: If they were only harming themselves, it would be one thing. But they’re not.
Elizabelle
These people are the opposite of patriots. They’re the seagulls in Finding Nemo saying Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine. They are the worst among us.
WaPost:
Why Fox News and Republicans are promoting a social distancing backlash
I hate that last sentence. It’s pundit-weaseling by writer Paul Waldman, and it really would be the end of the United States if that happened.
These are just the stupidest and angriest jackasses out there.
I truly doubt the Republicans are going to be able to persuade a lot of people to overlook Trump’s performance. Just the same jackasses that will always swallow the Kool-Aid.
You cannot expect critical thinking of people who are addicted to anger. It’s frightening.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
The Aristocrats?
debbie
They always seem to be such ugly people.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Black presidents are a legitimate grievance now?
Ksmiami
@RinaX: I hope everyone involved in this protest dies an excruciating lonely death
Sure Lurkalot
OT I got something new today… great niece #4. It’s cold and snowy in the square state but I’m warm and happy inside. Big glass of wine after the workout!
lgerard
and yet
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Congrats!
debbie
@Ksmiami:
Considering one of the guidelines is to reduce the space required for social distancing, they certainly will.
JMG
The Governor should have had cop cars block off every exit route for the protestors’ cars, then methodically go from car to car writing very expensive tickets. $500 would be a good number. These moron “patriots” would of course refuse to pay, resulting in default warrants that would kick in whenever they got another traffic stop, had to go to court for any reason whatsoever, applied for a hunting or fishing license, or a job, etc.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I know, but it was that predatory capitalism has gutted their towns and they cannot expect manly livelihoods and incomes any more.
I mean, it was predominantly Republicans that did this, but these people are long on grievance and short on thinking.
I know you’re snarking, but it is dangerous to us to ascribe this all to race and racism. That’s in there for many, but these people cannot adapt and are mad as hell at being left behind.
MattF
Yeah, well, 27% is a large number of people.
Ksmiami
@debbie: I am done with these stupid fucks. They are spiteful and pig ignorant and don’t deserve the blessings of civil society since their views of freedom are infantile. The sooner we allow Darwin to do away with them the better
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Double-Astroturf, you roll over the new layer without removing the old.
Elizabelle
Some of these fools may reduce their own numbers, or their family and community members’, but think of the law enforcement and others who were put at risk because these nasty ass crybabies had to get out in public and emote. Without sufficient social distancing.
Shouting carries the virus a fair distance. That was a sad lesson from the Washington state choir practice with a — what — 75% infection rate? from one gathering. These non-critical thinkers will not be able to apply that experience to their own.
West of the Rockies
Serious question: has it always been the case that approximately 40% (27-43%) of Americans are stupid/selfish/racist or has that number risen?
It didn’t seem to me that in 2nd grade or junior year of high school or 1st year on the job post-grad school that 40% of my classmates or coworkers were so loathsome.
RinaX
@Ksmiami: If only. Our local paper had an article today about how police are having difficulty protecting themselves while dealing with real crime. I doubt many of them want to deal with redneck jackasses crowding the beaches and park. The mayor apparently changed his mind after a conversation with Desantis.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
It’s not a “real movement” until the
fat ladyRick Santelli sings.MattF
So, if they get the virus and die, does that count as owning the libs? I suppose we’ll find out soon.
PenAndKey
I know it’s not a refined legal opinion, but I’m of the firm opinion that people who willfully block ambulances from access to hospitals should be removed by any and all means necessary. And yes, I’m including lethal force in that response.
When a persons actions display such a depraved indifference to the lives of others they should be considered a credible threat to public safety and be treated accordingly. This would end badly, because these people are fucking nuts and would cry victim while shooting up hospital workers, but their actions cannot be allowed to continue unpunished. If they’re not slapped down, and hard, they will continue to escalate.
khead
Be the FIRST person in your group of MAGA family and friends to nominate yourself for a 2020 Darwin Award!
West of the Rockies
@Elizabelle:
That “mine-mine-mine!” comparison is good. They are dull, greedy, unthinking Id-bots.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I think it’s dangerous to coddle them by suggesting they have a legitimate basis for their actions.
Elizabelle
@MattF: I want them owning the libs in the most fatal way possible.
I kind of don’t want to think of these asshats any more. And that old white Minnesota dude wearing a military style hat is the opposite of a patriot.
The zombie-wanna be’s in the top photo are protesting sane Republican governor Mike DeWine. Their rights!
RinaX
@MattF: Us libs have to grocery shop alongside these idiots, who also don’t bother with masks. I suspect they’ll happily die as long as they take a few of us with them.
Duane
@Baud: Very few of the protesters have a legitimate grievance. What they have is a shiity attitude about life. Theirs, yours, or anyone else.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
As always, this means the freedom to hurt other people without repercussions.
MattF
@Elizabelle: One wonders if there’s any dissonance in being both right-to-life and right-to-death. Hmm.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Baud’s right. It is all about race and racism. Also a third “r,” resentment.
TS (the original)
@JMG:
My part of the world the fines are over $1000 – one group of fools having a car rally – A whopping 58 fines at $1,334 each were issued last weekend at a car rally, where a large group of people were ignoring social distancing rules.
trollhattan
@PenAndKey:
There are laws regarding interfering with police and fire departments, and I’d think ambulance services could be lumped in with fire in at least some jurisdictions. I’m bored, too, but jumping in the car and recreating rush-hour traffic is bottom of my list of fun distractions. So much fun.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
Absolutely not. This has been studied again and again and again. A lot of research went into the freakout against Obama, and into who voted for Trump. Economic situations had nothing to do with it. The only consistent indicator for being conservative is racism. The ‘being left behind’ that they’re mad about is being catered to as the definition of normal, able to dictate whether minorities are accepted or abused based on their own feelings.
EDIT – tl;dr: ‘Economic anxiety’ has been thoroughly and even scientifically debunked.
Elizabelle
@Baud: They legitimately realize they done got screwed by the system.
They just have not done the actual observation and thinking to conclude who the actual villains were. They fall for cheap and false solutions.
Again, they are not adaptable. And that is white privilege on parade. Loud and stupid.
Many of them do have jobs. But their region is called the Rust Belt for a reason.
One aftereffect this virus might bring about: bringing some of the supply chain back to the US, for medicine and all manner of supplies we need in a crisis. So there may be some jobs that result from this.
Jeffro
Based on what I read in “Mindfuck” and the Mueller report, I’d sure love to know what has been percolating through these moron’s FB feeds.
This protest had the feel of a test run to me. The Ill Douche and his Russian puppeteer…I think they are just getting started.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Add another R for “replacement.” Their jobs did get outsourced, and manufacturing processes changed.
And the most deadly R (well, right there with racism): Republicanism.
Elizabelle
@Frankensteinbeck: I find that too simplistic. It’s more complicated than that.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
The problem with the argument he’s making is that it assumes people will be unswayed by the affect of Trump’s policy on the course of the epidemic. If the people complaining actually get their way and open things up again too soon, the results are likely to be catastrophic, and that’s naturally going to affect the survivors’ voting preferences. It only works politically if it’s pure theater that’s intended to fail and leave people blaming their local government for their economic problems rather than Trump.
Other MJS
@JMG: I wondered why Proud Boys were not arrested for blocking the hospital. Were police afraid of a shootout?
Elizabelle
@Frankensteinbeck: WRT Laura Ingraham: it is fascinating the way Fox News “personalities” and executives are able to protect themselves, while asking their stupido viewers to go mix it up in public.
Several stories about how the Murdochs have taken the virus seriously from the get go. But: protection for me, grievance and ugliness for thee. Liberty!
lgerard
#notthegreatestgeneration
Elizabelle
More from the WaPost article by Paul Waldman, on what Fox News (and others) are broadcasting to their audience of nitwits and grievance junkies:
Roger Moore
@lgerard:
That’s just breathtakingly awful. If businesses are only willing to open up if their employees can’t sue them for getting sick at work, it’s an admission they know the pandemic isn’t even close to over. But they want to open up anyway. These people need to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
Chief Oshkosh
@Elizabelle:
Why take a chance? Nuke ’em all from orbit–it’s the only way to be sure.
Croaker
14 days and counting….can’t avoid that nasty glass on the right…
L85NJGT
Michigan EMT LODD:
Elizabelle
@PenAndKey: Congratulations on your new baby daughter! Missed the thread where you announced her arrival.
Have you named baby P&K? Feel free not to tell us, but we rather like knowing that Psi’s daughter is “Violet.”
The Thin Black Duke
@Elizabelle: I’m sorry, but it is that simple.
Elizabelle
@L85NJGT: Oh, that’s sad. Headline on that article from Detroit:
I bet Mr. Novicki was in a lot better shape than a lot of those Mine Mine Mine protestors. But he got exposed to the virus, again and again.
I really do worry about law enforcement and first repsonders who end up with these selfish idiots on parade.
burnspbesq
I’m generally not in favor of cops engaging in indiscriminate violence against demonstrators, but I could make certain exceptions.
J R in WV
@Sure Lurkalot:
Congratulations !!!
I went to town to hit up Kroger’s, and I got a 6-pack of white wine, and for my next door neighbor, a big bottle of Jamesons Irish whiskey.Lots of good food, too!
To celebrate still being an old retired group staying alive!!
Ben Cisco
@Elizabelle: Baud is absolutely right, and has been proven so again and again and AGAIN.
What exactly would this lot have to do to convince some people of the obvious? There’s a scary thought.
EthylEster
@West of the Rockies: They might have been deplorable then. No way to know. But lots of folks feel empowered by Trump. “If HE can say these things, then why can’t I?”
The Thin Black Duke
@burnspbesq: It happens when the demonstrators are black.
L85NJGT
@Elizabelle:
It was a retirement gig:
Barbara
It is ironic that these protests took place on a day that seems to be bringing the grim reality to home for a lot more people. Washington Post tracker recorded close to 3000 deaths yesterday and more than 4000 today. I’d love it if Martin showed up to explain the latest numbers but I am finding them rather scary.
And I keep thinking about why Trump seems to want to do everything except more testing. Testing isn’t exciting, it doesn’t cure anyone, and it points out the depth of the problem so it doesn’t make him look good personally. That’s all I can think of.
Kent
I dunno. I have lived around a lot of these types of folks in Texas and have lots of MAGA relatives. Yes there are always multiple threads but race is always lurking in the background. It is just that people are [mostly] astute enough to understand you just don’t do blatantly racist protests anymore. So you latch on to other related issues to let your racist free flag fly.
Build the Wall. Fear the caravans. Opposition to mass transit. Opposition to social welfare programs. Opposition to public education. Opposition to expanded voting rights. Opposition to anything urban. Opposition to expanded health care. All of that has race at its roots.
Chyron HR
@burnspbesq:
I don’t think that “Attention protesters, if you do not disperse you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be shot.” is indiscriminate.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Our Governor, Ralph Northam, gave an order that we should all stay inside until June 10. That was two, maybe three weeks ago. And there haven’t been any throngs of angry, inbred yahoos pounding on the doors or the legislature or governor’s offices, demanding that they open the state up again. I’m proud that we here in Virginia seem to be taking this shit seriously.
debbie
@Barbara:
As he said some time ago, he likes his numbers low. Widespread testing would ruin that for him.
Duane
@lgerard: A lot of employees will have a legitimate grievance if they go back to work with unsafe conditions. New safety standards are needed in the workplace. Testing needs to be done or you’ll become a South Dakota meat plant.
Geminid
The Tea Party never ended. Trump took it over and turbocharged it. In Virginia they have teamed up with the Christian right to dominate the Republican party. The Country Club/Chamber of Commerce people who used to call the shots in the party have stepped back to watch the train wreck. I thought it was significant when wealthy republican businessmen Scott Rigel of the Tidewater 2nd congressional district and Robert Hurt of the central Virginia 5th both retired in 2016 after only two terms. They had seen Dave Brat knock out Eric Cantor in a primary in 2014; I think they decided they had better things to do than kiss tea party ass to get elected. In my own 5th district, one term congressman Riggleman is about to be bounced by a Liberty U. fundraiser. The party is going the caucus-convention route so the fanatics decide the nominee. A small tent strategy for small minded people. In 30 years the Virginia republicans have gone from dominant to competitive to marginal. Demographic changes account for much of this trend, but first Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and then the tea party have also thoroughly alienated moderates and moderate conservatives and independents. I expect to see a Democrat representing the 5th next year.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I think it’s going to get people in a lot of industries to reconsider the wisdom of just-in-time logistics. There are a lot of business that are in deep trouble right now because by design they can’t handle even a small disruption. It’s not just on the logistics side, either. Lean business practices in general are asking for trouble if there’s any kind of disruption. If you keep your supply stock to a minimum, you’re screwed if there’s a supply hiccup. If you keep your employees to a bare minimum, you’re screwed if too many of them get sick at the same time.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We should take their photos, identify them, and then refuse them medical treatment. Want to be free, motherfuckers? Fine. You’re free. Enjoy that.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore:
Agreed. It has been heartening to see conservative “principles” and MBA doctrine falling, domino after domino, under the stress of coronavirus.
Lot of pain in the meantime. Will make us all safer, in the long run.
neldob
Now we have an example of what we should do in DC if RBG dies and McConnell tries to fill her seat. My gun will have to be an old rusty pellet gun. And why don’t we have the tests yet? Buncha deplorable bungholes sponsored by De Vos.
ThresherK
It’s like those Michigan Fcknuts are “not here to have a conversation” but to “spread out”, “appear larger than their numbers” and “make themselves disruptive”.
Where have I hear that before?
Elizabelle
This article from December 2015 is very worth a click. Author is Janell Ross, whose beat was (still is??) race and demographics.
Obama revives his ‘cling to guns or religion’ analysis — for Donald Trump supporters
Candidate Obama, in 2008:
President Obama, NPR interview, December 2015:
I am going to pull out some of Ms. Ross’s analysis next but — in fairness — article is excellent and well worth a click.
PenAndKey
@Elizabelle: Thanks! It’s been a roller coaster of excitement and new baby sleep scheduling but everyone is healthy and doing well. As for her name my wife’s family has a long tradition of using Norse folklore and mythology for names since they have strong roots to their Viking ancestry. We settled on Saga for the little pipsqueak.
I doubt I’ll be on as much as I normally would be, but… Well… Newborn. :)
Elizabelle
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I regret to say that we had a wingnut eruption in Richmond today, too. Idiots even brought their young children.
From the Richmond Times Dispatch:
UPDATE: About 50 people gather at Capitol Square to protest Virginia’s stay-at-home order
Citizen_X
In earlier times, I would have said these people are, unfortunately, fellow Americans. But now they are threatening my life, your lives, the lives of people we love. So fuck them. They are the enemy. And, given that, while they live, they will go on to infect innocents, I hope that as many of them are killed by the virus as possible.
RSA
@lgerard:
Using terms they’re familiar with, that sounds like a pretty significant distortion of the free market, doesn’t it? Maybe it could be countered by adjusting the laws for justifiable homicide to cover labor-management disputes.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
To put it another way, there’s no good, non-racist reason for protestors in Michigan to be carrying the Confederate battle flag at their protests.
Mary G
@Elizabelle: Gotta respectfully side with the disagreers. The minute it became widely known that more black, brown, poor, and old people were dying, a certain subset of middle-aged white people started to resent being inconvenienced just to save what they consider people who have no real value. The racism also comes with a side of sexism; the biggest protests are of a female governor.
Butter Emails
I’m missing the massive and thousands part of this protest in the pictures I see. It looks like a stretch to even call it hundreds based on the number of cars shown and the pictures of the Michigan Capitol. Liberal protests an order or two in magnitude larger than this dog ignored by the national media.
Mike in NC
Screaming white people wearing MAGA hats and waving Confederate flags. A lot of economic anxiety on display there. Seriously, FOX News and Republican pols are going to try to organize these protests from coast to coast. Nobody is buying their bullshit. Just how many people will get infected that didn’t have to be?
mrmoshpotato
The Kraken went full Driftglass!
cmorenc
@West of the Rockies:
Even in one of the biggest landslide elections in US History (1936, FDR (D) v Landon (R) – Alf Landon still won 36.5% of the popular vote. In 1932 FDR (D) v Hoover (R, incumbent) at the bottom of the Great Depression, Hoover still got 39.7% of the popular vote.
So the answer to your question is unfortunately “Yes”.
chris
I ran across the zombie picture earlier. This one come s with a quote from Carl Sagan on bamboozling.
Martin
@Elizabelle:
I doubt it. What it has revealed is that US supply chains, where they even exist, are completely unmanaged. And the companies that are doing okay in all of this, are the ones that are least dependent on US supply chains – because other nations are doing a much better job at managing theirs.
Look at the food supply – something we are a net exporter of. We’re great at growing food. And yet we have shortages and farms plowing under produce at the same time.
We’ve massively, massively underinvested in infrastructure and man is it showing up now. And the result of this will be a further underinvestment because I guarantee that unless Dems run the table in November and get veto-proof majorities, it’ll be brutal levels of austerity for the next decade.
Elizabelle
Mind you — while these jackholes are protesting at Richmond’s Capitol Square, a very few miles away is the Canterbury Rehab & Care Center, which has had 45 deaths. Topped the Washington State care center’s total, and rapidly. Henrico County is right across the line from the city of Richmond.
Article source is ABC affiliate, Channel 8 in Richmond. Should be a free click.
They did not have sufficient testing. It was taking 11 days; now down to 2 to 5. They don’t have enough protective gear. One of their physicians self-quarantined and was out of action when they needed him. The center’s medical director brought his wife — also a physician — in to help staff.
Roger Moore
@RSA:
A modern conservative is someone who can simultaneously believe:
Elizabelle
@Martin: Yes. This demonstrates the peril of a complete lack of infrastructure and having a president and Senate who are pathological and do not believe in government for the public good — just what they can grab and get.
We have to do better. You’re right about the austerity threat. And the GOP will try to foist that on any Democratic administration, so we are just going to have to outvote them and protest and advocate.
delk
I like the 2nd amendment idiots. Those camo cosplay outfits really help you blend into a crowd of grunge flashbacks.
Howard Appel`
They should have towed and impounded their cars and arrested anyone interfering.
dmsilev
@Barbara:
It’s not quite that bad. What happened is that some states, especially New York, have retroactively classified earlier deaths as due to COVID-19. Given the huge shortages of tests earlier on (as opposed to the mere serious shortages now), some people were never tested even though they were dying. There was guidance from the CDC on how to count such people, and it resulted in that spike.
Or, if you’re either a Fox News idiot or Donald Trump (but I repeat myself), it’s a sign of a conspiracy to inflate the numbers
Edit: https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily gives today’s total still in the 2000-ish range, so in line with the last several days. Not great, but at least it isn’t growing exponentially like it was a couple of weeks ago.
Archon
@Elizabelle:
The next crisis that conservative principles has an answer to will be the first.
Darkrose
@Elizabelle: You left out the best part. Waldman writes:
Amazing how the white working class has no agency or responsibility when it comes to voting for Republican candidates who cut taxes for the rich and pass “right to work” laws that eviscerate unions, and then lose their damn minds when a black man tries to give them affordable health care.
lgerard
@RSA:
oft overlooked footnote in The Wealth of Nations:
The invisible hand always fondles the job creators
Elizabelle
@Mary G: I am not discounting racism. Clearly it’s there. There were Confederate flags at the Michigan protest, and elsewhere. (MY personal favorite is a Confederate flag with an assault rifle on it and the slogan “come and get it” — which amused me because that did not go so well for Johnny Reb the first time. At least not militarily.)
But, I am saying there are other factors too. Ignore them at your peril, even if you’re pretty sure most of it is white grievance — specifically, white male entitlement. Again, a lot but not all of the motivation.
Elizabelle
@Darkrose: The best part is that Janell Ross article from 2015. You will be reading it and going “oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.”
ETA: and the fact they can’t figure out that they have shot themselves in their own feet by voting Republican — and now their solution will be — voting Republican. SMH.
Darkrose
What they don’t want to admit is that they done screwed themselves by voting Republican consistently. They’re proving the truth of LBJ’s famous dictum that “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The majority of white voters in this country have been frantically emptying their pocked for the Republican party for over 50 years. The Southern Strategy worked.
Elizabelle
@Darkrose: Agreed. They want to look anywhere else but in a mirror.
I guess maybe if
lessfewer of them are able to fog one …Honus
@Gravenstone: I agree. For me these days “patriot” = “shit for brains”
Also, they’re weak. I admit, I’m a boomer, child of the 60s. Call us names , but when protesting we got shot at, beaten with clubs and tear gassed. I don’t see these fat ass old white people getting any of that.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I think the best way of looking at this is to see a situation and a response to it. The situation is really bad: the economy really is stacked against the little guy, and white men have been losing ground compared to women and minorities. They deserve to be upset, and I think most liberals are sympathetic to the idea that they’ve gotten a raw deal.
The criticism is how those people have responded. They could have showed solidarity with other working class people, supported unions, and generally tried to work toward a more equitable society. Instead, they voted for people who make things objectively worse for them because they promised to be even harsher on Those People. That’s all on them.
Honus
@Elizabelle: 50 people in downtown Richmond? More than that came to see my band at bars in the Fan in 1975.
The Thin Black Duke
@Darkrose: And Darkrose drops the mic.
Baud
@Darkrose:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/political-cartoon-of-reconstruction-or-a-white-mans-news-photo/517357776
LongHairedWeirdo
@Baud: Trump talked a good show about offshoring, manufacturing, etc.. He was promising a land paved with gold, based upon the standard, incorrect GOP talking points about immigrants and regulations.
If you weren’t well informed, you could listen to him, think he was on your side, and decide you don’t agree with all the BS he spouts, but, you’re behind the goals he claims to care about.
If you get you news from places like Fox, what he said had plenty of support; you had reason to think he was saying sound, intelligent things, because the liars at Fox are the ones who fed him his talking points.
Now, is it not true that bigots of all forms seem to love them some Trump? Sure. And is it not true that many of his followers have racist ideas that they’ve been told are true (“but the politically correct elite will say they’re bunk”)? Sure, absolutely.
But it’s possible for a decent person to think Trump makes sense, because there’s an entire industry committed to making it seem like his ideas (for want of a weaker word) make sense.
Honus
@Elizabelle: I’m a West Virginia native and central Virginia resident for the past 48 years. And I understand your point, but I think it is undermined by the overwhelming and enthusiastic support of predatory capitalists and racists by these people. As you say, they are long on grievance , and they direct toward their allies.
The Thin Black Duke
No, that’s not true. For example, anyone who laughed the time Trump mocked a handicapped reporter at one of his rallies was never a “decent person” to begin with.
Baud
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I disagree. Decent people don’t think Trump makes sense. Decent people don’t watch propaganda networks that make it seem like Trump is making sense. Trump’s steady 40% approval rating prove that his supporters weren’t fooled. They see clearly and approve.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Oh if only Dump’s election would’ve harmed his racist, fascist, pussy-grabbing, and greedy assholes wanting a tax cut supporters…
ETA – and that’s being nice because I’m fed up with everyone who told Hillary to get fucked.
Ben Cisco
@Darkrose: It is the strangest thing, isn’t it?
Almost as though there were something else in play, canna put my finger on it…
Geminid
@Geminid: in my post about the decline of the Virginia Republican party I forgot to say that the 2nd and 7th congressional districts formerly held by republicans Rigell and Cantor were flipped in 2018 by Elaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger. What with Jennifer Wexton flipping the 11th and the excellent Donald McEachin winning the redrawn 4th district in 2016 the Republicans went from 8-3 in Virginia congressional seats to 4-7.
CaseyL
@Roger Moore: IIRC, the GOP has for many years larded national office elections with initiatives guaranteed to bring out their voters. The plethora of anti-gay, pro-gun, and anti-tax ballot measures succeeded in driving up turnout of Republican voters. So while they were voting to enshrine their bigotries into law, they were also electing as Representatives and Senators people who were happy to sell their constituents down the river by passing trade laws and economic policies that impoverished them. But as long as the GOP could stoke voters’ fears and hatreds, the voters only saw that; they didn’t see, or didn’t comprehend, or didn’t care, that their states’ economies were on the chopping block.
Ksmiami
@Citizen_X:Nah the Confederate cosplay zombies that protested are literally dead weight- time to cut them loose
Poe Larity
QAnon an Quarantine start with the same letter – coincidence?
Elizabelle
@Honus:
Oh yeah. They are their own worst enemies with their voting behavior, and they’re looking for fresh scapegoats.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Baud: Let’s dispel with this fiction that Dump’s base doesn’t know what he’ doing. They know exactly what he’s doing
Elizabelle
@Poe Larity: From the Richmond Times Dispatch link on the the “groups” protesting at the Virginia capital today:
Fuckers gonna try to kill us all.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This sort of feels to me more like they are getting desperate to keep the jackasses on board with Trump threw social isolation from collective guilt by acting like idiots. I mean what sane person, right or left is going to go near these protestors now?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
The approval ratings of Governors are in the mid 70s to mid 80s. Meanwhile, Dump is back to his low 40s.
Mary G
Elizabelle
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Yes, but I don’t think they quite expected all the winning they actually got.
The Facebook meme from a few days back:
columbusqueen
The dumb bitch on the left hand side of the Dispatch photo is of actually running for the Ohio state Senate this fall. Think about that now.?
Martin
@Elizabelle: I mean, there is no such thing as predatory capitalism. There’s just capitalism. And workers need to understand that and maintain their own agility.
The abuse of workers under capitalism is little different than the abuse of workers under socialism. Either government works for the citizenry or it doesn’t, and the underlying economic system really doesn’t matter all that much in terms of whether workers are getting fucked over or not – all economic systems benefit from fucking over workers. The question is whether government is complicit in that, or a countervailing force against it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@RSA: Lawyers are already saying how difficult it is to prove a person was infected by the virus due to the long period before systems show. However, as we saw with that Sioux Falls meat packing plant, people aren’t going to die for the bottom line, the workers start getting ill the rest of the staff will bail.
Not to mention with a business with staff under 100 people, someone dying is a serious hit. We have had two people die at work over the last three years and that caused all kinds of chaos in the departments they worked for.
If they really wanted to help small businesses they would get these small businesses the solutions they need to be able to open safely.
Another Scott
This sounds like a big deal:
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and Moscow Mitch is gumming up the works again. It sounds like remote proxy voting is a decent compromise for the House for now (if they won’t go to full virtual meetings and votes soon).
Cheers,
Scott.
SFBayAreaGal
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree with you 100%. It is that simple.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Regulated capitalism can prevent predatory capitalism. It is what Elizabeth Warren (and all of us here, likely) are for.
Germany is doing so many things right. We could learn from them (among others). Remembering the experience of the German auto company whose executives were astonished to find their employee pinheads in Tennessee or wherever voting against having employee representatives on the management board.
Gin & Tonic
@Honus: For years my old college roommate carried around in his wallet a clipping of a photo from the front page of a major daily newspaper that showed his arm at the business end of a police dog during an anti-Vietnam-War protest (he was wearing a heavy coat, so no damage to him.) I’d love to see the police with dogs after some of these pasty lardasses.
LongHairedWeirdo
@The Thin Black Duke: Um. So, every single Trump supporter laughed? Not a single Trump supporter said “I don’t like him, but he’s the only person who speaks to my values (however tainted by propaganda they may be)”? And people are incapable of changing, and learning, and growing?
Me, I’ll believe my friends and neighbors aren’t intrinsically never-decent. If you think that 40-some percent of this nation is that awful, I’d honestly – I mean, sincerely, and honestly – ask whether you’ve thought about finding another country, because if *I* believed that those people were lost, and couldn’t find their way back to humanity, I’d know that the culture could never survive.
Maybe I’m too optimistic, but it’s the only assumption that allows me to hope for America’s future.
@Baud: Wow. I didn’t know every decent person had to be unable to be swayed by propaganda, and immune to logical fallacies. However, you do realize the contrapositive shows you to be not decent, since your logic is fallacious, right? ( “Decency=> no logical fallacies” is equivalent to “logical fallacies => not decent”. Don’t blame me – that’s basic formal logic.)
chris
@Mary G: Chortle! Thank you!
SFBayAreaGal
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree with you 100%. It is that simple.
Martin
@Elizabelle: But you aren’t changing the nature of capitalism, you’re changing the nature of government. Capitalism will not evolve into a different, better form – it will continue to act in their self interests.
We need to make clear that it’s a different view of government, not of capitalism. I make this point because it seems to be a significant failure of pro-socialism advocates – to recognize that if anything socialism is more inclined to abuse workers. If you can solve the worker situation under socialism, you should be able to more easily solve it under capitalism.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Point taken.
SFBayAreaGal
Is LongHairedWierdo a troll? Telling someone they should leave the country sounds like a right wing wierdo.
Elizabelle
Looking at the photos of the 50 or so people protesting at the Virginia capitol today.
(1) Not every wingnut can spell tyranny properly.
(2) A photo of the media watching and photographing the protest, through a fence. Media is all wearing masks. Protestors: nope.
ltelf
@Mary G: I honestly never thought about it that way, but yeah.
Ruckus
@Baud:
The Aristofucks.
Elizabelle
@Mary G: I slid right past everything beyond your first sentence, and you are right there. People who assume it is “the other” whom the virus will fell. And “the other” has no worth.
It’s appalling. You’re right about the sexism too. They are taking their cue from Trump, who hates powerful women. Although that’s currency in his base of deplorables, too.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Ya gotta give um credit for a total lack of logic, rational thought, humanity, or even give a fuck.
dexwood
@Mary G: So right. Biden should hire you. No snark. Respect for this insight.
MomSense
Holy shit. Just watched Blow The Man Down and it definitely captured the area where it was filmed. So strange to see places I know well.
The accents were off, more Massachusetts than Maine, but worth watching.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore: I’ve been noticing the Hard Right doing Double Speak that even a communist from the ’30’s would blush at.
Another Scott
Reuters:
(Emphasis added.)
Hmmm…
Testing sick people is important, but it doesn’t tell us the extent of who has the virus. It’s looking for one’s keys under a light post because the light is better there.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
The wealthy republicans are not the 27-40%, they are a minority of a minority. They are not economically afraid, they are massively greedy. The concept that the republicans are economically insecure isn’t the issue, they are economically insecure because they have been told and told others that the cause of their economic insecurity (and every other “problem”) is minorities and the government/democrat approval of minorities. It is racism. It exists as it always has, as someone to blame when someone else is screwing you. Economic insecurity is the rational given but it is the base racism that is the issue. And unfettered capitalism has been sold by the extremely wealthy because they think it makes them richer, but it actually endangers them by creating a massive awareness of their corruption.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: I was wondering when someone else was going to make those connections. Yeah, the biggest protests are the ones where they get to chant, “Lock Her Up”. Mm-hm.
And your other insight is right on, too.
Ah, Michigan…so glad I left that fucking state behind.
Gretchen
The woman on the far left is running for State senate in Ohio.
CarolPW
@SFBayAreaGal: My initial reaction would have been no, merely often unpleasant. But telling a Black guy, whose ancestors were probably here through no choice of their own and who then were forced to build much of the infrastructure and financial assets of this fucking country moves the needle off the meter in the wrong direction.
Gvg
@SFBayAreaGal: I pied him a long time ago. He showed up and was offensive right off the bat. I thought he was a troll and comments improved immensely by pieing him. Life is too short. Just do it.
The Pale Scot
The way to deal with these people is to invalidate their health insurance. Allow Insurance companies to use proof of not distancing like videos and FB posts to exempt them from having their medical bills paid. You don’t adhere to state proclamations, OK, your on your own Bud. We need the funds to treat people with functioning forebrains.
artem1s
@lgerard:
that right there is the first sign this is all being paid for and driven by some think tank like the Heritage Foundation and not related to a grass roots movement of any kind. Tea party 2.0 indeed.
artem1s
@Roger Moore:
W.T.F.?
The Pale Scot
@Elizabelle:
That gear they’re wearing ain’t cheap, the rifles start at 800.00, the pistols they’re carrying at 400.00. I have firearms. They’re all vintage, bought a long time ago. When my circumstances were marginal, I wouldn’t have considered blowing a months rent on a rifle. These people are spendthrifts. The meme about an $80,000 truck parked in front of a 30,000 prefab dwelling is true. My neighbors here in FL buy and sell boats, trucks, motorcycles and guns but don’t have shit in the bank. They work for Raytheon for Christ sake, they’re in a union. But they are still morons
The Thin Black Duke
I think most of us here are tired of hearing these bigoted white motherfuckers whine about how unhappy they are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a good thread on the resentments of people like those in the photos featuring Joy Reid and Tom Nichols
catclub
DeSantis wants to grant sovereign immunity to Assisted Living facilities and Nursing homes in Florida… to protect them from lawsuits for incompetence and endangering lives.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The US Treasury is his campaign fund
pay-walled article at the Daily Beast
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wall will stop the Rona, it’s science.
burnspbesq
@The Thin Black Duke:
point taken, but these demonstrators appear to be overwhelmingly white. We cool to proceed?
SFAW
@The Thin Black Duke:
I was under the impression that being a demonstrator is not a prerequisite.
The Thin Black Duke
@SFAW: Really? Thank you, I wasn’t aware.
Mandalay
@catclub:
It’s not just DeSantis. There’s a concerted effort to “to enact stronger liability protections to better protect those on the front lines of the coronavirus response efforts“.
RWNJs Grover Norquist and Stephen Moore behind this vile nonsense, ensuring that they never let a crisis go to waste.
Viva BrisVegas
In North Korea perhaps, but in Sweden?
There is no pure socialist government on the planet. There are many governments that use elements of socialism to counter market failures. They are usually termed mixed economies.
The USA is one.
The argument is never about socialism or no socialism, it’s about how much socialism you want and where you want it.
SFAW
@LongHairedWeirdo:
It’s not as if there was a lone instance of the Murderer-in-Chief being a vile pig. His mocking of Serge Kovaleski was only the (currently) most memorable. His misogyny, racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, sexual predation, bigotry, and all-around piggishness was evident throughout his campaign. [And I’m not even including his constant lying, which should be enough in and of itself.] At some point, if you continue to ignore it or make excuses for it, then you lose the right to be classified as “decent.” [The “you” is the general ‘you,” not you (LHW), of course.]
SFAW
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yes, I know you’re aware. I guess I should have resisted the urge to make a cynical comment. It was not aimed at you, but I guess I could have done better. Sorry.
hueyplong
Just once I’d like to see someone other than Matthew Brady take a picture of some fuck with a Confederate flag getting what’s coming to him.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: A long, long time ago, I said that Republicans had lost the benefit of the doubt with me. I stand by that. If someone votes GOP, they have a really long row to hoe to prove to me that they are not a selfish racist.
OT: This is my first comment with my shiny new computer. Does it look any different?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“Dr” Phil
I knew he was kind of a dick (and according to Kathy Griffin, a horny fraud), but I had no idea he was this far gone. Is he still on TV?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, but the comment has that new computer smell.
SectionH
Well, I wish we were shorn of morans of that ilk.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Honus: Well I hope they can eat their grievance, since those that they have been spitting at decades have been trying for decades to help them are all out of sympathy, Since we need to save those who actually listened to us first.
Kattails
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Seriously? So I didn’t realize that swimming pool deaths were all that prevalent or that they were catching. We regulate cars, you need a license, inspections, we have speed limits, if you get caught driving while impaired you get fined and your license pulled, we eliminated smoking from public spaces like restaurants–at least up here years ago–people used to fire up anywhere, myself included. I saw Doc Phil a couple of times and was deeply underwhelmed.
As for the protesters, not to mention Donny, I’ve been thinking of a quote from a book about abusers: “He’s not abusive because he’s angry. Lots of people get angry without becoming verbally or physically abusive. He’s angry because he’s abusive.” (sorry about the masculine pronoun guys). That’s Trump. That’s his followers. They are abusive, entitled personalities and will use any excuse they can gin up to justify and act on their abusive mindset. The slightest disagreement is seen as war; they will belittle you, twist you words and then use that to attack you. And on and on. I dealt with this shit years ago, did some reading to spot the patterns.
Off to bed before Ozark gets up and gives us his morning blech.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We enforce social distancing for cigarette related deaths. Well, in sane states anyway.
James E Powell
This may be a dead thread, but I wanted to say something and it just doesn’t belong in the respite thread above. I’ve decided that if our country ever has one of those all crimes are legal for 12 hours holidays like in the move The Purge, I am going to beat the shit out of David Brooks. The thing is, in a just world, that might not even be a crime.
AxelFoley
@Elizabelle:
They’re mad as hell at being left behind, but they blame their lot in life on black folks, Mexicans and gays instead of the Republicans who fucked them over. Sorry, Elizabelle, but it IS the racism. And sexism. And homophobia.
AxelFoley
100% agreement.
Jinchi
Putting aside that I’m not worried that I’ll drown if I walk by Dr. Phil wearing a bathing suit.
About 2,500 people died in the U.S. yesterday and we’ve had the equivalent of 10 years of unintentional drownings in a month. And if we hadn’t shut down the country, it would be 10 times that number.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Probably better to say authoritarianism Socialism is worse than authoritarianism Capitalism because the socialist will convince themselves they have a utopia and not a kleptocracy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Try the entire population infected in 20 days and 1-3% of the population or 3-9 million Americans dying in the next month after that.
rikyrah
@RinaX:
?????
SFAW
@Kattails:
Although it makes for an interesting aphorism (or whatever), that’s about as far as it goes. The irrational anger comes before the abuse starts, not the other way around. Whether the abuse takes the form of wife-beating, or child abuse, or sexual predation, or shooting immigrants/refugees/brown people, the anger is there before those actions are taken. Now, the abuse might reinforce the anger, but the anger still comes first.
SFAW
@James E Powell:
I refuse to give the FTFTFNYT the satisfaction (so to speak) of registering, but I take your word that his latest word-vomitous ramblings is worthy of it. Or maybe you’re talking about his entire oeuvre? With which I wholeheartedly agree. I only ask that that you leave some for the rest of us. Or at least get passed a law legalizing it.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: This is way late, but I get tired of this argument so I didn’t respond last night. I grew up right in the heart of the rust belt, right in the middle of its decline. My home town, Pittsburgh, has regenerated itself better than most, but it still makes me sad when I go back because it is so different from what it was when I was a kid, and it’s more than just me being an adult looking at it differently. The towns along the river, which typically had one very large anchor company employing many with other businesses basically serving that company’s employees, have not recovered. They can be bleak. Let gvg6 tell you all about that, because that was never really my world.
But here is the thing: predatory capitalism did hurt some of these towns, but they were also hurt by lower demand (Europe recovered and rebuilt its steel capacity); lighter materials (cars used to be built with steel bodies, now they aren’t); automation and new, much less labor dependent technologies; and yes, the rise of internal capacity in developing nations like India, which also exported to us.
This started happening in the early 60s and continued onward so that by 1982, when I left for good, the city was much, much smaller. That was 38 years ago. NAFTA didn’t happen until 1993.
Only the crudest kind of logic could blame African Americans or immigrants for the loss of jobs that occurred almost as a contemporaneous phenomenon to the civil rights movement and yet, that’s essentially the sentiment that Trump is stroking.
I would also say that for many, who are retired or close to it, a lot of the anger isn’t for their own economic distress but for the fact that their children left and went elsewhere. They are now places that people leave.
I will call their grievances “legitimate” when they find the wherewithal to articulate them logically and with solutions in sight. I am not doing the heavy lifting for them.
GeriUpNorth
@Another Scott: Kevin Drum posted a chart a while ago showing numbers of people testing positive for Covid-19 in Italy and South Korea. Italy was only testing people sick enough to go to the hospital, and showed very few people in their 20s as positive. South Korea tested everyone, and showed a huge number of positives in people in their 20s. Just another data point supporting the need to test everyone because of asymptomatic young people.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
The US was not the only manufacturing nation 100-140ish years ago. But many of the nations of the world did not have a manufacturing base but a more agricultural/gathering system. Because manufacturing before that was craft work, one at a time effectively. Mass production grew as all the industries that support it developed but in WWII we didn’t lose our production capability and many of the other developed countries lost significant to most of theirs. That is changed now and the means of production are produced in large numbers by many countries now. The US got over confident and let money grubing do all the talking, all the decision making. Labor cost is a huge part of manufacturing so out sourcing that, importing big (and small) ticket items made off shore. Where are our clothes made, where is a good percentage of our cars/car parts made? Who makes every day dishes/utensils? Furniture? Computers/phones? Wire? Ships that haul it all here? TVs? Bicycles? Musical instruments? Bedding? And on and on. The world has grown up, we mostly have not. 40% or our country is fighting the outside world, and one of the few companies exporting expensive stuff is Tesla. Another one, Boeing, has shot itself in the foot trying to do development on the cheap. Because our economy runs mostly on keeping the extremely wealthy “earning” big bucks at the expense of labor – and everything/everyone else. We’ve made medical care a profit centered business, with a layer of profit providing insurance, so that many can not afford it. We have a large segment of the population that believes it’s all about who gets the few shitty jobs/prestige, while the leaders of that side of the aisle get paid a lot for keeping their rich benefactors getting richer. Our country is about who can afford the good life and fuck everyone/everything else. It’s untenable and unsustainable.
Barbara
@Ruckus: I am not doing other people’s heavy lifting for them. Until someone who voted for Trump articulates those sentiments I am sticking with my own plan under the theory that they really, really don’t like me and don’t give a flying fuck what I think they should be complaining about.
ballerat
No. Most assuredly it’s not.
One, do not over complicate it. These are not complicated people. Don’t give them cover. They wanna hate who they wanna hate, and hating certain people is a large part of their identity.
Second, they have had multiple opportunities over the last 40 years to vote for themselves what they want. Especially over the last 3 1/2 years. They don’t want a safety net or health care or strong unions – unless it’s for whites only. They are mostly anti-union because they already got a 40 hour work week with overtime pay and multi-week vacations. They see unions now as the means by which Those People can get the same. And they are against it.
They have in fact voted for themselves exactly what they wanted. They have not been voting against their self interests. Because what interests them above all is maintaining their white male privilege.
As one BJ commenter once put it, they are perfectly happy if they end up living under a bridge roasting a pigeon on a curtain rod, just as long as Those People have to live under a bridge too, and have no curtain rod nor any pigeon to roast.
Third but by no means last, anectdata but some family members live in Michigan. And among my degenerate relatives it’s very much bigotry not economic anxiety. They all make comfortable incomes. They were all doing quite well in the Obama economy. They just refuse to consider a woman (esp a female democrat) to be legitimate head of government. They hate minorities, lgbt and especially immigrants. And they are hostile to women who get above themselves, which means leadership roles.
One family member actually wanted to take part in the neo-nazi parade that was this protest in Lansing. He describes himself as bigot and is proud of it. He never went to college. He has a very well paying secure blue collar job that earns him, according to him, a 100k a year. And that’s probably true as he was able afford marriage and a big house and kid in his 20’s (ask any recent college grad if marriage, children or buying a house are options). His wife never had to work, he can afford new cars, he bought a big-ass camper and a big rig to tow it, and has lots of guns (I could pay off a year of my college education for what he’s spent on guns and AR’s and tactical crap).
He’s an uneducated man who has made it. One would think he would think life has been good to him.
But no. He’s a tightly wound bundle of grievance and resentment. So mad. Because Those People are taking his money. That’s what he’s mad about.
In his world African-americans have their place. Hispanics have their place. “Illegals” even their children are fair game to abuse and hurt. Women have their place. They all must be subservient to guys like him, the Real Americans, the white men.
I asked him why he wanted to protest the stay-at-home order no. He said it’s to assert his freedom, but I finally got him to say what really ticks him off is that a woman doesn’t get to tell him what to do. That’s the core of it.
When Obama was president, his biggest grief was that a n-clang was getting to tell him what to do. Same thing. Those People do not get to be the boss of me.
It’s ALL about the white male privilege. It’s ALWAYS the bigotry.
It’s racial anxiety not economic anxiety.
It really is that simple.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Sounds far more than fair. Sounds very reasonable.
Please understand I’m not actually directing anything your way, just responding generally about what you said.
I was just explaining that if they would pull their heads out of the hole they have stuffed them in and look at the not even all that much bigger a picture, but just the world right around them they would see that they have been played, used and abused, not for their gain but for their stupidity. Of course that last word might keep them from ever understanding or grasping the concept…….
Most of us here have our heads on a swivel so it’s easy to see the world and an explanation of why/how our system has been perverted to server the few, the wealthy, the takers, who have gained/never lost control of the rest of us and have fucked this place up. With the world population, with the limited resources, the pollution, the arguments of who can steal the most, the closeness we have to live in, the ability to rapidly transmit some pretty shitty diseases, those of us without the foresight to plan for more than our selfish selves and our limited time, things are coming to a head. I’m old, my time is limited even if I live to be very old. I’d like to leave a better place when I’m gone, less of a mess for the next, and the next and the next….. and that there is a next and a next and so on. Perfection isn’t possible but better is and that’s what I’d like to see, better, not worse.
r€nato
I am surely far from the first person in this thread to say this about the Michigan freedumb protesters:
I’m rooting for natural selection.