Just got this alert. It’s live, but you can rewind to the beginning. In case you want to hear some common sense, no malarky talk.
Open thread
by TaMara| 218 Comments
This post is in: Biden For President, Open Threads, Politics, Joe Biden: President Mr. Rogers
Just got this alert. It’s live, but you can rewind to the beginning. In case you want to hear some common sense, no malarky talk.
Open thread
Comments are closed.
SiubhanDuinne
The contrast with the current occupant of the Oval Office is stunning.
PenAndKey
This is exactly what I needed to hear after the last week, and it’s essentially Biden serving as the shadow president that many have been calling for him to act like. The contrasting visions of this nation expressed by the two party leaders couldn’t be more clear
“I know what it feels like to feel like you can’t go on…” That really sums it up, and it’s a big part of why for all his flaws I have absolutely no problem backing Biden completely.
Elizabelle
Just tuned in. A calm voice will get a lot of traction in our times.
Elizabelle
He’s got a cold. Or dry throat. Or allergies. Please let that be all that it is.
PenAndKey
@Elizabelle: He’s old and talking a lot without drinking water. I sound pretty much the same at the podium and I’m decades younger. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Barbara
@PenAndKey: And I have no doubt about the sincerity of that sentiment, probably more than once, when his wife and baby died, and when his son Beau died as well.
SiubhanDuinne
This is a really well-crafted speech. And he’s delivering it wonderfully well.
TaMara (HFG)
“We are in a fight for the soul of our nation.” Preach it, Joe.
Elizabelle
Bull Conner. Tell it.
Biden has some excellent speechwriters. That was obvious with his first message on the George Floyd murder.
And he believes what he is saying. So he is authentic.
“His narcissism has become more important than the nation that he leads. …. Is this who we are? ….. Fear, anger, finger-pointing?”
Keith P.
I kind of remember these.
Elizabelle
@PenAndKey: Thank you.
Enough to worry about there already, right?
Baud
Why is Biden so invisible? #AfternoonTwitter
Elizabelle
Thank you, South Carolina Democrats.
SiubhanDuinne
“Selfishness and fear.” Enemies.
This is worthy of FDR.
SiubhanDuinne
“We will not let our exhaustion defeat us.” This is my biggest struggle these days. And Joe gets it.
TaMara (HFG)
I have got to walk the dogs before it gets too hot (it’s not even 8:30 yet) but Joe sure started the morning off right.
Elizabelle
“May God bless us [you??] all and may God protect our troops.”
That’s brilliant. Because they are OUR troops. Not Trump’s stormtroopers.
Princess
Biden has changed. My guess it is Beau’s death. He’s quieter, more soft spoken. Not so much in volume but in affect. I like it. He sounds self-possessed and in control and also gentle. I could do with President Mr. Rogers right now, telling all of us us he’s proud of us and happy we’re alive, and that we’re allowed to have feelings.
Matt McIrvin
His customary closing has a new dimension now. May God protect our troops from illegal orders to fire on Americans. Wouldn’t want to be in their place right now.
Elizabelle
I will enjoy reading that speech. Which Joe delivered, beautifully.
Also, Cuomo O’Clock today is likely to be lit.
Baud
@Elizabelle: True. But I think Biden concludes every speech that way in honor of his son.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Exactly.
That last line was a serious challenge.
MomSense
@TaMara (HFG):
This has been his consistent message – even when the pundits thought he was finished. Biden has been right this whole time. I think he is playing the long game and I’m here for it.
donnah
Sincere, heartfelt, soft-spoken. This is what a President looks like. Not inciting anger, but offering solutions to diffuse it.
I’m a Biden voter.
randy khan
Meanwhile, the Secret Service has announced that it’s closing all of the roads in a two-block square around the White House. I’m going to guess that this means they will be stopping any more protests in Lafayette Park, which would mean that Trump doesn’t have to see them and won’t feel a need to cower in his bunker.
If we weren’t in the midst of stay-at-home for most people in D.C., this would be a traffic disaster, as one of the closed roads is Constitution Avenue, and another is 15th Street, both major routes in and out of town.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Did not know. But it’s taken on new resonance, now.
Elizabelle
@randy khan: Eh, so protesters will be on the National Mall. Or wherever they set up.
That could work out in the protesters’ favor. Because they will still be on TV. Which, along with his gut, is the main source of Trump’s information.
And if that mall draws more and more and more people, day by day, and cameras record that ….
Lafayette Park is rather small, and it’s leafed with trees.
Taking the protest larger sounds OK to me.
MattF
As I’ve said, I think there should be a more formal ‘shadow’ government. Shadow cabinet, shadow NSC, shadow staff, shadow VP. It would solidify Biden’s position and generate news in a regular fashion.
TaMara (HFG)
@Princess: OMG, I’m going to make a tag for that and start calling him, President Mr. Rogers. That’s brilliant.
MomSense
@Princess:
He’s serving in a different role now. When you are the VP and VP nominee, part of your description is to be the one to attack and counter so the president can stay calm and measured. Now he is going to be the calm, measured one and his VP nominee and surrogates will be on the attack.
IMO Biden has been remarkably consistent temperament wise over the years – including his ability to process new information and change his views.
Omnes Omnibus
This is why I found myself gravitating to Biden once Harris left the field.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Also makes it larger than one man, and eventually, one pair of nominees.
Surrogates, to counter Trump’s deplorable and malodorous cronies.
Baud
@Princess:
“It’s a beautiful day in the United States of America.”
ETA: For inauguration day. Not today.
japa21
I never want to hear again that he is not inspirational. It always was a bunch of BS, but even more so now.
This is the Biden I supported from the second he got in the race.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I always thought Biden was a placeholder.
I was wrong.
Eunicecycle
Wonderful speech. He does have excellent speechwriters and he knows how to deliver it; Trump reads a speech like he hasn’t seen “words” before and has no idea what he is even saying.
Betty Cracker
A hopeful sign:
It sucks that folks like Dana Bash (and much worse) are gatekeepers, but here we are. If Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, etc., had read the same speech, I suspect we’d see a very different reception. Maybe the celebrity media bullshit will work in our favor this time.
TaMara (HFG)
@MattF: Agreed. It’s time to start acting like Jan 2021 is a given (although we will fight like it’s not, because…)
WereBear
Thank you Joe Biden. He actually made me feel better, and that’s a big hill.
Elizabelle
@Baud: You know, we are absolutely at a hinge in history. Trump’s whole horrid presidency has been one.
So much talk about “consent of the governed.” Trump is failing and flailing, and dangerous.
I am not going to be cynical. Trump could come down, and swiftly. I am going to hope that we get him out well before January, and maybe before Election Day.
He is dangerous to rank and file Republicans now. That has got to be incentive to them, as well.
Barbara
@randy khan: You mean it isn’t enough to close parts of 16th Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, NW and E Street (which Bill Clinton was finally forced to do). BunkerBoy, whose bunker needs to be the equivalent of six or seven city blocks. Oh yes, that inspires so much confidence in his ability to meet the moment.
ETA: The area is larger than it sounds because the White House grounds and the expanse around them are large — they already constitute a few city blocks.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Fuck Dana Bash.
She is a huge problem. What a half-assed narrative.
An almost 80 year old man has just found his voice? After almost half a century in politics?
Spare me the fuck, Dana Bash.
ETA: But Betty, your last line: ” Maybe the celebrity media bullshit will work in our favor this time.” I think you’re on to something.
zhena gogolia
I’m glad it went well. I’ll try to watch later, too much work.
I was for Harris, but I’m happy and proud to support Biden. I wish it could happen NAOW
Princess
@MomSense: I find him different from his different iterations running for president too. It’s like he has nothing else to prove any more, he only needs to act. He’s transformed from being Gandalf the Grey and become Gandalf the White.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Eunicecycle: Trump was using an evangelical preacher voice yesterday.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Princess:
I love that
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: “Trump’s deplorable and malodorous cronies” is nice wordsmithing. I like.
But for really topnotch burn, here’s Charlie Pierce:
Greatest sentence ever, or greatest sentence of all time?
randy khan
@Barbara:
I wasn’t a fan of the decision to close off Pennsylvania Avenue when it happened, but in practice it’s been a good thing – that block has turned into sort of America’s front yard, with lots of people there, including tours, street performers and one-off protesters (plus, lately, Jehovah’s Witnesses). Also, it’s much more convenient for tourists than in the old days, when you really had to be on a strip of sidewalk to see the White House from that side; now the whole street is available.
I’ve noticed – not that this is a surprise – during the Trump era that there are many more closures of that space than under previous Presidents, and they’ve also closed off the north side of E Street for pedestrians, which pushes people another 30 feet away on the south side. In addition, there seem to be more general closures of Lafayette Park, E Street, and the Ellipse (which almost never was closed off before). The Secret Service always wants to expand the cordon around the White House, and I expect that Trump is the perfect President for them from that perspective.
kindness
Uncle Joe is our ray of hope. God speed Joe
What is really going to be terrifying is the 2 months between the election and the swearing in ceremony. Republicans will run wild during that space of time. We need to prepare how we will deal with them.
randy khan
@SiubhanDuinne:
George Will, of all people, raised the bar yesterday, so it’s good to see Mr. Pierce stepping up.
But I think I’ll wait for David Simon before declaring Charlie the winner.
CaseyL
Excellent address, and desperately needed. The GOP Regime is a nightmare we can’t wake up from fast enough.
lee
@Princess: Oh that’s a good one. I’m so stealing it (sorry not sorry).
Princess
@lee: Take it!!!
Elizabelle
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
One of the benefits of the Trump occupancy might be demonstrating the absolute hypocrisy and complicity of the evangelical set in supporting the most immoral, false, and mendacious “president” in history. They should be discredited, widely.
Sinclair Lewis may not have actually spoken or written the famous quote attributed to him, about fascism arriving wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. But that was the takeaway from several of his passages. Which were less succinct.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Not hardly. Way too many words. I prefer succinct daggers.
Immanentize
@Princess: ?
With his “new found piety” as Saruman sneered. But it really is true — some kind of honest civic piety in Joe.
Barbara
@randy khan: I mostly agree, though at the time I was one of the people who was most affected because I worked on one side of the White House and my husband on the other. Picking him up from work became a real ordeal, so he started walking over to 19th Street to meet me.
Ladyraxterinok
@PenAndKey:
Did Obama make his speech on race during the 08 primary in Philadelphia as well?
Elizabelle
Hate to turn a thread about the President Mr. Rogers [presumptive] nominee Biden to one about the odorous Trump.
But: did you see the love letter from Susan Glasser in the recent New Yorker? It’s her “Letter from [Trump’s] Washington.”
The Most Mendacious President in U.S. History
On Trump, his Twitter lies, and why it’s getting worse.
SiubhanDuinne
@randy khan:
I saw the George Will piece. He’s always had a kind of glib facility with words, but yesterday I got a sense that there might be an actual human person behind that chilly, bow-tied façade.
Not familiar with David Simon, I’m afraid.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: I am so old that I remember Mrs. Peter Baker’s theater criticism of Mueller’s testimony before Congress. Peter and Susan have a lot to answer for.
randy khan
@SiubhanDuinne:
David Simon is the guy responsible for The Wire, among other things. He has a mean (and I use that literally) Twitter game, and he has a television writer’s facility with invective.
Honestly, mostly it’s funny. You almost can picture him cackling as he comes up with new ideas for nasty adjectives.
japa21
@SiubhanDuinne: I think he stole that from our very own Betty Cracker. Definitely written in her style.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
He’s not for everyone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne:
You remind me of a line from the 90s, I’ve forgotten who said it or in what context, but someone wrote about some popular politician or policy, “George Will might turn up his icy blue nose, but…”
creator of The Wire and foul-mouthed (foul-fingered?) twitter virtuoso
SiubhanDuinne
@japa21:
Just what I was thinking!
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. They certainly do.
Matt McIrvin
This is how Obama handled the 2008 crisis, though that came later in the campaign cycle. Just step in and start acting like a President. In that case, neither contestant was the incumbent, but he could and did challenge McCain as to what exactly his plan was.
MattF
@randy khan: I’ve walked around that area at various times, and it’s not too bad. Lafayette Park is lovely, and there’s lots of disoriented tourists wandering around to supply amusement. That said, it’s a sort of ‘empty quarter’ in terms of urban life, and the sense of being watched is unpleasant.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I think Charles Pierce has been insightful and ahead of the crowd on a lot of Trump observations. He is a good man. I don’t have a sub to Esquire, so miss too much of his work.
But sometimes his writing is way too florid and preaching to the choir. Drunk on his own supply, even as he can turn some wicked phrases.
Less can be more.
FWIW: Granted, it was George Will. But I think his column yesterday would have been even more deadly if he lost about 50% of his rhetorical flourishes. Yes, you are clever and have apparently read a lot, George. We get it. I guess Will’s column was written more as a warning to other Republicans, and suspect it hit its target there, whether they change their behavior or not.
I love Jennifer Rubin. She was earlier to the cause, and she is an assassin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: I’m so old I remember Glasser accusing Obama of “spiking the ball” after the OBL raid and compared it (what, I can’t imagine, as I remember it was an East Room announcement that lasted less than five minutes) to Dumbya’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That would explain it. Haven’t seen The Wire, and don’t use Twitter.
MattF
@Elizabelle: Pierce loves the sound of his own voice. Suggests that he’s not really paying full attention.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
Did you ever see Homicide: Life on the Street? That’s his, too. One of my favorite shows of all time.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
No argument.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia: Nope. Sorry.
Elizabelle
Link to George Will’s column yesterday. WaPost:
Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.
Still the top-read article from their Opinion section.
Will must see a blowout for the Republican enablers, and wants to go to the head of the line of pundit observers.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think his and his administration’s constant lying is helping us with independents. People didn’t know they lie all the time in 15 and 16. Now they do. To non-Trumpists, they’re not credible and that applies to smearing Biden too.
Credibility is like a bank account. You put it in so you can draw on it when you need it. Trump, of course, is a bankrupt so he doesn’t have any left to draw on. People are really pretty generous. They’ll give you the benefit of the doubt a long time. They’re not rabid partisans, they want the President to be “Presidential” (vaguely) and “successful” (vaguely) – they’ll bend over backward to pretend he is. He pissed thru that in no time. Spent it. He didn’t even have to do that much to keep it, because he inherited the respect that comes with the office. He just had to NOT lie all the time. Too much for him.
SiubhanDuinne
@randy khan:
Thanks. I doubt I’ll ever watch The Wire, but I might check out his Twitter feed.
Barbara
@MattF: Lafayette Park used to be protest central — There were people protesting nuclear proliferation and homelessness for decades, 24/7, on pallets that were approved for the purpose of not being considered tents (which were prohibited). It was a good place to go and vent your negative feelings (for instance, if you had a completely vindictive and crazy boss) because you would be seen as just another crazy person screaming invective among all the others. Its character changed a while ago, but it was the site of the rally to end the incarceration of refugee children.
Kay
I feel like the master strategists of the Trump Administration (aka- Jared) are in a box now. They claimed victory over the protesters. Now they have to continue to lie and claim victory if the protests continue which makes gassing any more members of the public unnecessary.
Barbara
@Kay: Bankrupt in so many different ways, financial, moral, credibility . . .
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bringing Obama down to Bush’s level was a common cultural theme during the Obama years.
hedgehog mobile
Damn, that was powerful. Can it be November yet???
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Definitely worth a follow, even if “The Wire” isn’t your thing. Every now and then he pulls a comment from a MAGA numbnuts out of his mentions and humiliates the author so thoroughly that he (almost invariably a he) can’t delete his account fast enough. That’s a rare talent.
SiubhanDuinne
@Barbara:
I’m pretty sure that raven has posted photos of himself in Lafayette Park, marching and protesting the Vietnam War.
SiubhanDuinne
Cuomo up, talking about leadership right off the bat.
Kay
These are the real Trumpsters in my county and putting them in a “religious” group is wrong, IMO. What they are is “believers”. What they MOSTLY believe in are get rich quick schemes, seminars on the Rules of Success, buying distressed real estate, selling essential oils on Facebook, etc. For whatever reason I know hundreds of them and that’s who Trump appeals to. Don’t think of a church- think of The Secret.
That’s the real Trump demo. To a man or woman they are Trumpsters. They are the exact people who get involved in multi-level marketing, which often has a blatant appeal to religion or is marketed overtly as Christian. It’s not anything as organized as “Prosperity Gospel” but it’s all like that, but more woo-woo. If the Lincoln Project people want to reach Trump voters that’s where they are.
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, it’s always been one of the terminal locations for protests, but during the 80s and 90s, there were people basically living there. There was a lawsuit over whether they could erect tents, and the Supreme Court upheld the NPS’s decision to prohibit tents on the grounds. So people built pallets, basically, a four foot long frame with two five foot high plywood “feet” that displayed political messages. They squatted there, but since they weren’t “tents” no one could make them leave.
artem1s
@randy khan:
I seem to remember W (Darth Cheney) shutting it down for the duration of his administration after 9/11? Also,too because he got eggs thrown at him during his inaugural parade.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: We were on the sidewalk in front of the White House so across the street. My wife actually did a thread painting from the photo. The big VVAW encampment was actually close to where the Wall is now.
Baud
@Kay:
Sounds like we should have taken Marianne Williamson more seriously.
Betty Cracker
The Trump campaign spokesperson (Pierson) just released a statement on Biden’s speech and denied that the cops violently ejected peaceful protesters to clear a path to the church yesterday. We all saw it with our own eyes, but she casually denied it and said the cops had no idea Trump was about to walk to the church, implying that they just decided to clear a path of their own volition, prior to curfew, for no particular reason. If you’re not already in the cult, you’d have to recognize that as a steaming load of horseshit, right?
Barbara
@Kay: So, basically, the Republican message appeals to approximately the same demographic that thinks they can be the outlier who actually make money through a multilevel marketing business.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
So who are they going to fire for that breach of trust?
TaMara (HFG)
@Kay: Wow, that’s a pretty broad and cynical brush and not my experience at all. Trumpers here are not of that vein at all. They are ranchers, gun humpers and definitely mega-church goers. But then I live in one of the capitals of woo-woo (as we are New Mexico adjacent) and I doubt you’ll find anyone selling sage and essential oils who is not straight-up liberal and waaay to the left.
randy khan
@Barbara:
They’re still there, at least the proliferation people (although the protest has diversified and now covers a lot of different topics). Both of the original vigil sitters have died, but other people have taken up the cause.
Baud
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Great question. A journalist should get to the bottom of it.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: It’s conceivable that someone mentioned where they were going, but– there’s an institutionalized short attention span, engineered to match that of the Supreme Leader.
Elizabelle
Facebook friends: I have a fabulous meme on my page right now. (I did not create it.) It is shareable.
Archon
How can anyone vote for Trump over Biden and believe they are the good guys in America’s “story” which is commonly told as a morality play?
Are conservatives more nuanced them I give them credit for? Do they think about that? Are they cool with being future historians bad guys?
I don’t understand.
Baud
Someone made a gif. (Via Reddit)
Kay
@Barbara:
There are millions of those people. Tens of millions. Scott Adams, famous Trumpster is one. He thinks he had a magical woo-woo experience that guaranteed success. It’s a quasi religion. It has no moral or ethical aspect at all. So if you say “but SHOULD you sell your drug addicted, poverty stricken sister a 300 dollar starter pac just to meet you sales goal?” the answer is “yes! Because it’s an opportunity for her!”
randy khan
@artem1s:
Speaking as someone who has worked within blocks of the White House for my whole career (my current office is about a five minute walk away if, you know, I was in my office instead of my living room right now), I don’t recall a general shutdown of the area during the Bush II Administration. There definitely were some individual shutdowns, and around 9/11 big chunks of DC were off limits (like the Capitol grounds), but everything did open back up.
What I do recall (in part because I know people who work at the museum on the corner of Pennsylvania and 15th, which was affected by this) was that there were a lot more unannounced, sudden, but brief shutdowns of even pedestrian access to Pennsylvania Avenue during those years. But it would be hours or a day, not days or weeks at a time.
cmorenc
@Elizabelle:
Republicans had ample chance to firmly reign in Trump last summer and fall, supported by crystal-clear evidence that Trump was willing to subvert US international interests to blackmail Ukraine into concocting smears on the D (Biden) Trump considered his strongest opponent in the upcoming presidential election. They balked on even supporting a resolution of censure or disapproval.
It’s way too late for GOP Senators and Reps to grow sufficient “incentive” now to do anything to effectively reign him in. Stern off-the-record asides to reporters how troubled they are with his behavior just don’t cut it, and aren’t worth a bucket of spittle, unless and until they take firm, drastic *public* action to reign Trump in. Which most of them are too afraid of Trump’s hold on his loyal base to do.
randy khan
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, sure. That definitely explains the acting head of CBP boasting about having cleared the path for Trump.
Served
@Kay: I’ve noticed this overlap of mentality as well. The cult mindset of it. And if you aren’t able to meet the sales goals (because the product is crap, the margins are thin, you are at the bottom of the pyramid and the market is flooded with the crap), then it’s your fault for not hustling enough. They do more talking about how hard they work than actually working!
Kay
@TaMara (HFG):
I don’t know any of them but this group is defined by also identifying as fundie Christians, but not belonging to any church or practicing any of the rest of it. The most extreme example would be Q people. Same idea.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Your whole comment was spot on. Agree that this is hitting hard with independents. Even with those who voted for “a change” and got … Trump. Wake up, sheeple.
Another Scott
@randy khan: He also eviscerated (fairly? unfairly?) Martin O’Malley for his time as Mayor of Baltimore, and probably helped do in his campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination before it got any traction at all.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Served:
This was a really good podcast on them because it’s not snobby or judgmental. It’s her family members. She understands them and is not sneering at them.
Steeplejack (phone)
In contrast:
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: It may be too late, and they may not try.
But maybe they will astonish some of us, and the better ones among them will act. I guess acting in a gesture that will turn out to be futile might be their style, but it gives them deniability.
I think there are a lot of deplorables elected to national office as Republicans. But that is not all of them.
And they have wives and children and friends and community members they might be listening to.
I prefer hope to cynicism.
Barbara
@Kay: If you have not already and have time, the podcast “The Dream” is a great exposition of these ventures. It is very fair — the woman who wrote and produced and narrated has friends and family members who have tried MLMs and she has a lot of sympathy. Many, of course, are SAHMs trying some way to contribute income. The wife of our former, now disgraced governor, Bob McDonnell tried to make money selling cosmetics through one of these. The best episode, for me, was the one where she recounted some of the personal experiences that she had asked listeners to send. In one case, a man recounted that he asked his father in law for help in reconciling with his wife, and FIL invited him to his home and basically began shouting that he was a lousy provider and that if he wanted to improve his marriage he should sign on to start selling Amway immediately. I mean, that is a seriously sick mindset. Needless to say, the marriage did not survive the son in law’s refusal to sell Amway.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kay: Got it. Just Amway by a different name. I don’t pay much attention to the fundie crowd down in Colorado Springs and I can imagine them doing that (Mormons, too), but up north, spirituality is taken very seriously by even the most staid business person…and it’s more in the liberal sense – take care of one another, feed the poor, shelter the needy, Buddist beliefs and unity kind of stuff. I’m never surprised anymore walking into a client’s business and seeing the signs of it. So that’s why I bristled a bit.
I guess like real practicing Christians get when they see those mega-church services devoted not to Christianity but to the almighty dollar.
sdhays
@Kay: When you were describing these people, Scott Adams was who came to mind. I used to read his blog sometimes, but when he started talking about his positive thinking and how Dump was a master at this and that’s why he would be President I just couldn’t anymore. It was like reading someone in a cult.
He also talked about how he’s not a misogynist because he had women working for him, because that’s how that works.
Served
@Kay: YES! These scams destroy entire families. And of course Trump’s attempt at one failed and the DeVos monster is part of the cabinet.
PJ
@MattF:
@randy khan:
@Barbara:
For me, closing off Pennsylvania Avenue was one of Clinton’s bigger mistakes. Pennsylvania Avenue had been a major thoroughfare through the city – the closest thing to a Main Street in DC. Closing it (which didn’t protect the White House from anything – any truck bomb on the street would be too far away to make any impact on it) was a symbolic gesture to the fear prevalent after the Oklahoma City bombing (“We’ve got to do something!”) which said, instead of stepping up law enforcement and rooting out racism, Your Government is going to cower in its bunker and further cut itself off from real public life in the country (and further remove itself from real life in the District, which is filled with real people who are systemically screwed by the Federal Government in so many ways). The White House survived the War of 1812, the Civil War, WWI and WWII, but under Clinton it only took a few racist assholes to cut it off from the city. That separation got even worse under Bush after 9/11 (when the siloing of Congress became complete).
There were concrete practical problems that resulted from shutting off Pennsylvania Avenue, as Barbara raised – Pennsylvania Avenue ceased to be a thoroughfare, commercial activity was curtailed, rendering the area around the White House and the Mall more of a dead zone, and it made living and working in the District more of a pain in the ass. But the biggest problem was that it was the first step in physically and symbolically cutting off the White House from real life and people. There are a whole host of other problems that have led us to where we are today, with Trump bunkering himself further and further down, but shutting down Pennsylvania Avenue was one step on the way.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack (phone):
On review, book in Hitler’s hand might be Photoshopped.
Barbara
@Kay: Oh, I see! Our comments must have crossed. I second that it was a really good podcast.
sdhays
Hell, if they had just joined Democrats in disallowing his disgusting abuse of the National Emergency statute to steal funding for “Wall”, he would have been more cautious – maybe to the point of not having the call he was impeached over.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: More on David Simon: former Baltimore Sun reporter, who took his experience and wrote Homicide: Life on the Streets (definitely not a love letter to Mobtown). Homicide turned into a series, he became Executive Producer/showrunner. Went on to pitch, write, and run The Wire.
James E Powell
I remember saying, back in the early part of the primary campaign when Joe Biden’s pros & cons were under discussion, Trump and the Republicans have no answer for Funeral Speech Joe.
PJ
@Barbara: It’s been years, but punk rock protest shows (notably, Fugazi) used to happen in Lafayette Square.
Barbara
@PJ: Personally, I think shutting E Street was the bigger loss. I think having a pedestrian zone around the White House is okay, but E Street was basically the way you got across town south of the White House, without having to navigate the crazy traffic patterns to get to Constitution Avenue. It’s pretty far from the White House, further than Pennsylvania Avenue.
TaMara (HFG)
The Moar You Know
@TaMara (HFG): Here in SoCal the essential oils crowd are mostly (not all but mostly) Republican and – all of them – anti-vaxxers.
Kay
@Served:
The best depiction of it I have ever seen was in “Big Love” (about fundie Mormons). The writers on that show got the whole thing completely. The Big Idea behind the crap they were selling had something to do with Africa.
It’s like if you took a normal salesperson and said “oh, and also? God wants to you to sell a lot of these” – just takes that whole hustler mentality to a whole nother level.
randy khan
@PJ:
I didn’t like it when they did it, and thought the security issues were overblown. (A truck bomb never was going to be close enough to the White House to do any damage, and other kinds of dangers, like shoulder-launched missiles, weren’t really going to be addressed by it.)
But, entirely by accident, it created a great public space where there wasn’t one before. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve appreciated pedestrian spaces in big cities more and more, and have come to think that they’re often worth the cost in traffic issues. (I say this as someone who has had to fight traffic in D.C. for decades.) And while Pennsylvania Avenue was a common cross-town route, it wasn’t actually particularly important compared to a lot of other routes (notably, it isn’t a major way into or out of town), and people adapt to these kinds of changes. So I’ve decided it actually was a good idea, even thought I hated it at the time.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: I agree. The contour from thumb to heel of hand is congruent to Trump’s
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
The anti-vaxxers here are also anti-Covid testing. Of course! Because it leads to a vaccine. I was informed of this obvious thing yesterday. God, Covid has them in an absolute tizzy. It’s tailor made for them.
Benw
@PJ: I miss Fugazi.
PJ
@Barbara:
Practically, yes, closing E St. was also a clusterfuck, but for obvious reasons it doesn’t have the symbolic resonance for me.
TaMara (HFG)
@Kay: OMG, I KNOW these people and I wish I could say they were all right-wingers. Crazy comes in all flavors, unfortunately.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: Oh. Wow. Every time I think “well, this can’t get any worse” some group of wonderful American citizens manages to prove me wrong. Again.
Well, the sad part is that most of them will live and pass on their stupidity to future generations, as COVID is just not lethal enough to wipe out entire groups of idiots before they can breed.
Barbara
@Kay: No doubt, they are using essential oils and whatever else to help build the kind of immune system that will protect them from the ravages of infectious diseases. This is one kind of person I know I couldn’t be friends with. It’s just equal parts of stupidity and narcissism, although in the end, the narcissism is usually what predominates.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG): That’s great. This one hit mainstream (and hereditary) Republicans, a lot of them, right where they live.
They are not down with Trump fucking with the Episcopal church.
James E Powell
@Elizabelle:
Glasser says:
But she really doesn’t get after the press/media who have been covering for him since 2015. This McSweeney’s list is on point and it really applies to more than the New York Times.
PJ
@randy khan: Well, New York Ave., which is one of the major routes coming into the city from the East, used to feed into PA Ave, and from there you could continue on to Georgetown.
But you may be right. I stopped going down PA Ave. because of the shut down (it was my way to work at the time), and so after that rarely actually went near Lafayette Square except to go to the Renwick.
Booger
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would pay good money to see Gandalf the White washing his camaro in the White House driveway.
trollhattan
@randy khan:
Piggybacking, David Simon has been responsible for several amazing series, beginning with “Homicide, Life on the Streets,” “The Corner,” aforementioned “The Wire,” “Generation Kill,” “Treme” et al. One reason he’s so accurate in his portraits is having been a Baltimore Sun reporter before getting into television. You know, the same city that forged Nancy SMASH.
Betty Cracker
@James E Powell: Perhaps more importantly, the media gatekeepers eat it up with a spoon. Here’s hoping that continues for the next 5,000 months or however long it is until the election.
Raven
@raven: It was the South Lawn so, no, it wasn’t by the park.
Fair Economist
@Kay:
I am really curious how they pick the tokens for their scam. The last time I paid attention to essential oils, they were hippy-dippy stuff. Now it’s a critical item in the RWNJ scamatorium. How did that happen?
Elizabelle
Oh Gawd. WaPost 15 minutes ago — at top of their page: Trump and Melania visited a conservative Catholic icon’s shrine today. Look out, Greek Orthodox!
Kay
Can you imagine? They were going to seize the police department.
Jared has so many great ideas, and it’s tough for him, not being familiar with the laws and norms of the United States and all. He’s very innovative!
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: I always thought the Pope after “John Paul the first” should have decided to call himself “George Ringo.”
Another Scott
@randy khan: I remember being in DC in the late ’80s walking around with some friends from a conference and coming across a temporary street closure. We waited a couple of minutes (as we didn’t want to have to make a big detour to get to where we were going) and saw some burly Russian-type folks walk out of a building and then the street was opened again after they passed. It was kinda surreal.
The things that Donnie is talking about doing are a whole ‘nother level.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
I don’t have a dog in the pro or con essential oils pitch, but yes, they’re all Right wingers here because most people are Right wingers here. They also sell CBD oil. To me, except I won’t pay for it so they have to give it to me free or I’m not trying it :)
I’m a sucker for things like that so I was disappointed. “I’m not any…happier”
They made it illegal in Ohio a while ago so they were all up in arms. Pulled it off shelves. It may still be illegal, I don’t know.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Won’t this get the fundies up in arms that the preznit is consorting with Papists?
Elizabelle
How strange. WRT George Will’s column from yesterday, which is the most read article on the WaPost website at present:
Looking at the link, the original WaPost title might have been “No one should want four more years of this taste of ashes.” And then they changed the headline and made it way more direct.
It’s now:
Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.
The WaPost is learning, unlike the FTF NY Times (which may not be learning, on purpose). The headline should say what the article says, and this one was loud, clear and unequivocal.
Democracy dies in darkness. And obfuscation. Learn up, you cowards at the NY Times.
Darkrose
@Barbara: My wife recommended that podcast to me; she’s gotten into a lot of the anti-MLM vloggers on YouTube. Thanks to her I’ve been teetering on the edge of that rabbit hole. I’m especially fascinated by LuLaRoe because their clothes are so incredibly ugly—how was that ever a thing?
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Maybe it will. He is going for the deplorables of all religious stripes.
I really think this is going to go bad for Trump. Soon.
I also never call JP2 “Saint”. I think the conservative Catholics — the Ratzinger wing — pushed that hard and fast to try to protect him against continuing fallout from the sex abuse scandals, and whatever else it is they have hidden under their cassocks. Should it be uncovered and come back to roost. “How can you say that about a Saint?”
You will recall they threw in Pope John XXIII — who really was a good man — in as a two-fer, when they canonized them.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: Imagine the Va police department there under mutual aid, who was used for the assault on the protesters will be happy to publicly refute that line of bullshit. They were so pissed off at what transpired that the officers were recalled and aid ended.
cmorenc
@Elizabelle:
You are placing a huge bet on Mitt Romney here. And which other national GOP officeholders are on your hope list to leap across the moat filled with MAGA-gators to take public action to responsibly restrain Trump? Susan-Collins-style expressions of “concern” unsupported or contradicted by action don’t count.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
Perhaps an inevitable extension of their surprising success peddling vitamins et al? If Alex Jones and Jim Bakker can do it….
It was interesting to discover the Mormons are hip deep into the supplements industry, much of which comes from Utah.
Kay
Told ya. They all do varieties of this- they pick and choose. This is a particularly fraught protest because it’s ABOUT police misconduct and the cops are actors in it. IMO that makes it tenser than other protests. There’s no getting around it- it’s about them.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Fingers crossed. Republicans who aren’t snorting bath salts surely know he’s dragging them down with him and the longer it continues, the deeper and longer-lasting the damage.
Plus, he’s already filled their goodie bags to overflowing.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
Such a great show. Loooved the journalist arc.
“A lie isn’t the other side of the story. It’s just a fuckin’ lie.”
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I wonder if the church was a mistake. They probably could have pulled it off if they had chosen a monument. I love how they didn’t tell them. If nothing else it’s just incredibly bad manners.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I do not condone a widespread protesters’ slogan I am seeing constantly this round.
ACAB.
Means All Cops Are Bad.
I think it should be ACAC. All Cops Are Complicit.
There are some good ones. A lot of good ones. Give them cover to act agains the bad cops in their midst. Police know who among them are the dangerous and the mediocre.
And pay them more and train them better. More de-escalation techniques. More community policing. Recruit from the social worker and soft skills ranks.
James E Powell
@Served:
I’ve always thought they were like drug addicts, but maybe it’s working on the same part of the brain. A very close friend of mine lost everything he had – his home, an inheritance, small rental properties – because his wife he would not say “no” to was addicted to the MLMs. I don’t know how else to put it. I knew of at least seven of them that she was doing. Their garage & basement were filled with the stuff.
Once he asked me to along with them to an introductory meeting to be like a counter to her enthusiasm. I had a hard time keeping a straight face. It was transparent bullshit and not all that slick. His wife, though, had a look of ecstasy on her face and the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.
Afterwards I went through the presentation, pointing out the holes, the things very unlikely or impossible to believe. His wife was furious. I didn’t get invited over there for years.
L85NJGT
@Fair Economist:
I believe they call it pushing downmarket. Once upon a time Cole had a post about how haute couture brands end up in the discount racks of Appalachia.
Barbara
@Darkrose: Because I have always worked full-time I have not really run into this phenomenon, but one of the “other” mothers in my kid’s social group told me that MLMs are like an epidemic among her SAHM friends, with joining the PTA being a prime recruiting opportunity. PTAs have had to step in because mailing lists are being misused by so many. She said that she dreads invitations to social events because they almost always include recruiting pitches, and more than a few people are evasive about their intent. So you show up for lunch or coffee and have to spend 20 minutes hearing about the wonders of some product you don’t care about. Several times I have received emails from some of her mom friends, who have my email because I was included in an invite through her — people I barely know otherwise and who never ask me to true social events — but they include me in their invitations to a purchasing party. And the worst of them aren’t even mollified by your willingness to buy something — no, they need you to sell the products as well and buy your own inventory and recruit your own friends and family. But no, never, ever call it a pyramid scheme.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
Which ones? Opus Dei are every bit as wackaloon, and a lot more entrenched.
James E Powell
@Another Scott:
I doubt that David Simon had that much influence with Iowa caucus goers.
Kathleen
@frosty: He was also Executive Producer of HBO’s Plot Against America which was stellar.
Radio is playing SamCook singing A Change Is Gonna Come. Tearing up.
narya
Dave Barry once described George Will as looking like someone who had inadvertently licked bus station plumbing; I’ve never been able to dispel that image.
Pierce has kept me closer to sane these past three years than any other site except this one.
rikyrah
@Princess:
love that imagery
Gandalf the white :)
MattF
Just read Anne Applebaum’s essay in the Atlantic, in which she draws a detailed comparison between Republicans who cooperate with the Trump regime and East European collaborators with the Soviets, as well as collaborators with other authoritarian regimes. It’s edifying and depressing. She notes that collaboration is much more common than resistance, and goes through a long and detailed list of excuses that politicians make for collaboration with authoritarianism.
I’ll note, just… incidentally, that reading the essay may be easier if your browser is in ‘private’ mode.
Betty Cracker
Regarding MLM: Once my sister and I received an invitation from the father of a childhood friend asking us to stop by for a chat. Our friend was gravely ill at the time, so we assumed it was something to do with that. So, we arrived all apprehensive, expecting to be told something terrible about our friend’s health.
But to our relief/horror/extreme discomfort, the father tried to sell us Amway products! Unfortunately, we have this horrible tendency to get the giggles in awkward situations (it has gotten us into so much trouble over the years). It was terrible.
Turns out the father had browbeaten all of his children to give up their friends’ contact information. And the bastard (our friend) didn’t even have the courtesy to give us a heads-up! Anyhoo, it was a short-lived thing. Their garage probably still has boxes of that shit.
Calouste
@Kay: It seems like a mistake, same with the visit today. He pisses of the Episcopalians and Catholics and it doesn’t really do much to shore up the Evangelicals.
Also, have you ever seen someone hold a bible like that? It’s like someone holding the first copy of a book they have written.
L85NJGT
@Calouste:
Maybe if it was 1972, and it was anyone but Trump.
Served
@James E Powell: They truly move from one to the next to the next to the next. Each time it’s “This company has a MUCH better compensation plan and I am the CEO of my own BUSINESS!”
L85NJGT
@Betty Cracker:
When the social safety net is beneath you, shake down friends and family with garbage for easy money!
Matt McIrvin
@Archon: Fred Clark has written a lot about how abortion became the moral get-out-of-jail-free card for the modern conservative movement. If the opposition is literally killing millions of “babies”, basically anything is allowed and you’re still the good guy.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I love that the premise doesn’t make any sense. They’re such ordinary supermarket products. It’s like selling cans of green beans individually, door to door. Why? Essential oils are at least exclusive to that sales method. Laundry detergent? Wouldn’t it be easier for me just to pick it up with my other shit rather than traveling to your garage?
Another Scott
@Immanentize: rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Thanks for the correction.
Soprano2
@Kay: Some of the LuLaRoe people are in this category. I bought a few things from one of them, but all I have left is a dress. When they told me I couldn’t order anything, all I could do was pick from what they had that day, I thought that was an insane way to sell clothes.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
I hope someone posts that as a comment on one of the short-fingered vulgarian’s tweets. Hilarity will surely ensue.
Kay
@Calouste:
They’re just dumb if they didn’t know they’re brainy liberals. Everyone knows that.
Fair Economist
@MattF: One thing that frustrates me about the collaborators is how unaware of history – and even current events – they are. Authoritarians turn on their own supporters in a trice. Consider the Night of the Long Knives. Or all the Hungarian businessmen getting notices they can either sell their businesses to Orban’s cronies or be destroyed by the corrupt judicial system. Or, heck, Everything Trump Touches Dies, if you’re too provincial to look outside the States. Evil people are evil to everybody – history has proven this over and over again. It’s like the sparrow rod proverb, but with the difference being how long before you get chopped.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I actually met a successful saleswoman for them. She used to be my babysitter and I don’t think she was lying. So funny though- she stopped and went to work for an eye doctor. I said “but you were doing so well!” She said “those things are fads. You have to know when to get out”. A SAVVY mlm.
My assistant loves the clothes. I think mothers of small children like them. They seem to sell or trade them used, like baby clothes.
Barbara
@Calouste: He is holding it as if he knows someone had taken it into the bathroom at Brentano’s . . .
sdhays
@Kay: Didn’t the church even split over gay marriage, taking out the more conservative elements?
Kay
@sdhays:
I don’t know. I thought that was the Methodists. It is the Methodists, but maybe them too.
Another Scott
@James E Powell:
I remember attending my mother’s church and the preacher was giving a “prosperity gospel” type sermon. One of the lines he had the congregation recite was: “I deserve to be rich”. I looked around, and it was just like you said. People were ecstatic in buying the message and internalizing it…
:-(
Too many humans are too susceptible to turning things that they want to believe into the core of their being – independent of all reason and evidence. It’s a sickness, whether it’s in politics, religion, business, etc. The savior of humanity will be the person who figures out how to counter-act it (and gives it to all of humanity, rather than trying to bottle it for profit).
Cheers,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@Kay:
According to many of the ex-MLMs I’ve read and spoken to, even the “successful” ones aren’t very successful. “Successful” basically means “actually makes money” but generally not much, little enough that an ordinary job is better.
It would be very typical of such a person to make up an excuse to pretend an exit for financial reasons was really an attempt to “get ahead of a trend”. Successful MLMers are all about creating an image of success, wisdom, trendiness, etc.
Barbara
@Soprano2: Same with the clothes party I was invited to. Apparently, this is a real complaint among the sellers as well, that they cannot provide a lot of the products that are being advertised.
Amir Khalid
I’ve just listened to the whole of Biden’s speech. How I’ve missed hearing the sound of a truly presidential speech these past few years.
sdhays
@Kay: I think the conservative parts of the church are now “Anglican”.
James E Powell
@Served:
I think Fitzgerald nailed it:
Barbara
@Fair Economist: The Dream interviewed a woman who was making money through her MLM, and noted that the key to success was often just getting in early enough so that not many people get a cut from your sales, and you get a cut of a lot of other people’s. And even then, yes, the lady wasn’t making that much, but she was able to operate a business from her home and that was her goal. Nearly everyone else in her territory was not making money. One woman said that she quit because she just became overwhelmed at the idea that she had to meet targets every month and that what was supposed to be a part-time business venture ended up consuming her life.
Steeplejack (phone)
@MeidasTouch strikes again.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: A friend in high school’s mother loved Amway detergent. I looked at the label once and it had about 30% (exaggeration, but a lot!) phosphates – stuff that normal detergents had to remove because it was killing all the lakes and streams.
So, it worked really well, but was illegal (or should have been). I never did figure out why it was allowed to be different (maybe it was a regional regulation thing – dunno).
Later, my friend tried his hand in a couple of the MLM things, but his heart was never really in it. Maybe because he was wrangled into selling wreaths and other stuff for his church and hated it. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Drdavechemist
@Another Scott: Someone here the other day came up with a nice umbrella description for the mlm types, the fundamentalists, and the other zealots (on both sides of the aisle): they believe in Magic. No science, no cause and effect, you just chant the mantra and if you really believe it’s sure to work this time!
Hoodie
@Fair Economist: MLM and similar schemes peddle an illusion of autonomy and a practically nonexistent chance to generate your own leverage in place of providing actual pay and benefits to market and distribute products. It’s just the old “independent contractor” ploy dressed up in self-help jargon. Amway pioneered the gig economy.
Stacib
@japa21: Raising my hand. Me too!!! Biden was always my choice, and I had some really stressful moments thinking he couldn’t hold on until SC could come to the rescue. I’m super happy with Biden.
Matt McIrvin
@Calouste: Actually, I have seen someone hold a Bible like that. It was an evangelical youth pastor who was waving it around while shouting that it was the only thing you needed to live right. Not so much a book to read as a magical talisman.
The Moar You Know
@Another Scott: Commercial-grade detergent (like for restaurants, for example) has no limits on phosphate content. So I’m sure that’s what they classified it as.
Does a hell of a job cleaning your dishes. It really does.
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: The thing about MLMs is that as with any pyramid scheme, if you manage to colonize a virgin territory full of potential suckers, you can actually make a lot of money, and if you don’t think too much about what just happened you’ll probably end up a true believer. The people in your downline won’t do so good, of course.
evodevo
@Elizabelle: He was a political force in Delaware for many years…they love him there because he comes from working class people and could talk kitchen table issues with voters. He was in the Senate from 1972 – 2009 and knows his stuff. I’ll crawl over rocks and broken glass on my bad knees to vote for him…
Soprano2
@Kay: The people who like those clothes subscribe to Facebook pages of multiple sellers, since you never know who will have something in a style and pattern you like. The clothes were OK, but the fit was weird – in one style top I’d wear a medium, in another style an extra large! There was no rhyme or reason for it. I’ve read it was started by Mormon women, which explains a lot about it I think
I’ve got another Facebook friend who was quite successful selling Park Lane Jewelry, which is actually a quality product. She quit when they did away with their lifetime guarantee. She’s selling some kind of nutritional supplement or diet now, which I’m staying miles away from!
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I would definitely recommend watching The Wire.
Due for a rewatch up here at the Mountain Hacienda.
Barbara
@Soprano2: Mormon women are the target sellers for MLM merchandisers. A lot of the newer MLM companies are based in Utah, including the larger essential oil vendors. The New Yorker had a good article on essential oil MLM outfits.
Amir Khalid
@Matt McIrvin:
What I remember about Amway, from knowing people who were into it pretty deep (yes, in Malaysia — I think the bigger MLMs are all global) is that there were groups within the MLM structure, each touting its own surefire path to success and riches at the top of the pyramid. These groups had a cultish fervour to them that feels rather creepy to me nowadays.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Hell, it hit me where *I* live, and I haven’t willingly gone to church in 40 years!
It just might be time to reclaim my heritage as one of those Episcopalians you don’t fuck with.
Jeffro
AND help the Biden Administration get off to a running start
AND help Americans compare and contrast…half of trumpov’s cabinet is “acting” at this point, right? The other half are crooks.
Jeffro
@Kay: Wait…isn’t that how everyone buys green beans?
Oh, I am so ashamed.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: If I still had any organized religious bent, I would be an Episcopalian. They’ve had a woman as bishop; they have women as clergy, and allow married clergy.
They are what the Catholic Church should be, if it did not have the Ratzinger/OpusDei/Scalia jackholes dragging it back to the 19th century. If not earlier.
The Catholic Church is deeply anti-woman and misogynistic. Do not let their veneration of Mary and the women saints disguise that. Women are allowed a very restricted role (breed, kneel, teach, donate), and it is crippling the Church itself.
I hope Pope Francis understands that, even while he has not (to my knowledge) come out for women in the priesthood.
The Catholic Church is all about money and power and real estate and history and its pageantry and imagery, with Pope Francis and the liberal idealistic types along for the ride.
evodevo
@Barbara: Yes. Exactly that demographic. I know a LOT of them, and they are also right wing racist Xtians….who think they can make a fortune selling Mary Kay….or whatever the herb of the week is…Note: being a fundie Xtian goes a long way in overcoming any rational thinking that might warn them about falling for a sucker ploy…
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Yes, my father once memorably snarked that the only difference between us and the Catholics was that we didn’t believe in either transubstantiation or the infallability of the Pope. But snark aside, I came to realize that there was more to it, much more.
evodevo
@Kay: Yes. What was the name of that “juice” or whatever Margene was into selling?
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: I gave up on the Catholic Church. We only get one lifetime. They left me. There was a chance for real reform in the 1960s; it was denied and it’s been rot ever since.
Not religious, anyway. Beyond being grateful for what’s good and beautiful, and nature.
Felanius Kootea
I didn’t know how much I needed to hear Biden’s speech until just now. My husband and I spent part of our lunch break listening to it and I was moved almost to tears. It’s been a rough three and a half years. I didn’t think Biden was the right person for these times, but now I’ll gladly admit that I was wrong.
dnfree
@Barbara: spoiler alert if you haven’t read the “Educated” book—essential oils and such concoctions is what her family eventually wound up doing.