Comet captured on camera streaking across night sky over Stonehenge ??https://t.co/m4oaqVw9Ha
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 12, 2020
It's hard to believe this has to be said, but unlike this president, I'll actually listen to the experts and heed their advice. Not silence them. https://t.co/AkLFevCI6b
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 12, 2020
Joe Biden is pledging to define his presidency with a sweeping economic agenda beyond anything Americans have seen since the Great Depression and the industrial mobilization for World War II. Biden also said his plan would address racism and inequalities. https://t.co/RzfYw6swhW
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 11, 2020
Trump’s drop in polls has confident Democrats sensing "a tsunami coming" in November https://t.co/MavUhtsjwX
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 13, 2020
Ignore the polls.
We’ve got work to do: https://t.co/GCxsKwFY4h https://t.co/fnJezEaAg5
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 12, 2020
Or…
larry that is our coronavirus graph https://t.co/AaRY42tPgq
— kilgore trout, suburban female understander (@KT_So_It_Goes) July 12, 2020
Seen some smart people speculate that Trump may have concluded he won’t win, so he’ll do whatever TF he wants even more than usual. Take it a step further: Trump may have been told Putin thinks he can’t win so Putin won’t do much to try to help Trump
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 13, 2020
It’s possible Putin is that bad at understanding US politics.
His KGB evaluation was that he was good at tactics but not at strategy.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 13, 2020
On The Road – Albatrossity – Coso Canyon
Geminid
The Russians never got the sanctions relief from Trump that they wanted, but as a disrupter he has repaid their investment in him many times over. And they got the benefit of the money-laundering to boot. I read that while Russian newspaper and broadcast media boosted Trump 2016-2017, they now are dismissive, even portray him as the buffoon he is.
mrmoshpotato
All pictures of Dump are disgusting. (Disgusting subject.) But the Post picked a particularly bad picture.
Bravo Washington Post!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So the other hidden whammy is laying in wait, like a tiger planning an ambush 10 feet away.
Our heroic conservatives are so confident in the idea of privation of the lumpenproletariat as a motivator for work that they’re going to incentivize that by refusing to renew the Pandemic Assistance at the end of the month.
It is going to be a fucking disaster with massive ripples throughout, and will boost the numbers of the unemployed to numbers hithertofore unseen, as essential retailers will face collapsing revenues. It’ll be an own goal headed into the election, and will be the final thing that ignites a deflationary spiral 3 months prior to an election.
Think people were weak before, when they had no more than a couple of weeks’ leeway regarding the initial shutdown? Imagine what that’ll look like now. I’m envisioning food riots by September.
Jeffro
I’m excited to see the pure, unadulterated loathing of Betsy De Vos emerge as a unifying and energizing force for Democrats. One that will surely last as we stumble into the fall. Thanks, Betsy!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
mrmoshpotato
BWHAHAHAHA! (Warning: She’s screaming text spam.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
I want it to be the final thing that shutters Scamway as well. In a better country, the DeVos family would be relegated to hawking shoddy goods at booths at state fairs.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yacht auction!
JPL
@rikyrah: Good Morning!
Jeffro
Also:
* Hugh Hewitt’s best argument against Joe Biden (in today’s WaPo) is that he’s ‘not the best choice to lead us through Cold War 2.0’. Oh, okay Hugh. Because trumpov’s a better diplomat, strategist, and LOLOLOL oh my. Next!
* I see that the Washington Football Team is retiring its name today – good! I’m not switching teams, but the various “REDWOLVES” jerseys and gear I’m seeing do look pretty cool. Hope that is the name that’s selected. ?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@mrmoshpotato:
Right? I mean, the whole Goddamn thing is a Ponzi scheme.
I can’t tell you the number of people I knew over the years that got seduced by that shit. Their only sales generally consisted of sales to the downline newbies.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
There is nothing more maddening — and counterproductive — to me than differentiating between the racists who vote for the racism, and the non racists who vote for the racism anyway because…. reasons.
F them and U, CC.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The advertising is the product, and the product is the advertising.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
So chinchilla looks around the world and sees nothing more maddening than that? Interesting.
debbie
@Jeffro:
Hewitt’s trying to turn Trump into the Not Biden candidate. ??♀️
JPL
@Jeffro: Normally I don’t bother to read his columns, but I did today. It was interesting that he used Gates words against Biden, but didn’t include Gates criticism against trump. Maybe interesting isn’t the right word, since Hewitt is a political hack.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: To be fair, there were also fascists, pu**y-grabbing piles of shit, money-grubbing assholes who wanted a tax cut they didn’t need and Hillary haters who all went and voted for one of their own – a racist, fascistic, put**y-grabbing, money-grubbing, Hillary-hating asshole.
Barbara
@JPL: Hewitt seems not to have grasped that the “West” isn’t going to be following us at all in many areas over the next decade.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: He obviously doesn’t realize that the only problem in the country is INCOME INEQUALITY!
What a dope.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
PROFIT!
Baud
@Barbara:
He understands that. He just wants to blame Biden for it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: He just calls balls and strikes.
@debbie: All I can say is, “Thank you, Hugh.”
Barbara
@Baud: More like an admission of two things: he voted for Trump and he has been personally unaffected by the pandemic.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
The only real racial injustice is when Grandpa can’t feel confident that he can pepper his speech with references to the the N word or tell a funny old ethnic/racial joke without potentially getting stony glares or scolded.
Will no one think about his feelings? They’re all a bunch of PC snowflakes…
Baud
Readership capture.
Patricia Kayden
WereBear
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
When freakin’ FORBES is in favor of pandemic relief, a tide has sure shifted.
My own thoughts are that constituents need to HAMMER their GOP congresspeople about this so they can defy tRump and pass the HEROES act for their own election survival.
SFAW
Because I apparently felt the need to spike (in a non-football sense) my blood pressure, I somehow managed to bop over to Briahna Joy Gray’s twitter whatever-it’s-called. The anti-Biden/anti-Pelosi/anti-“establishment”-Dem hatred from her and her commenters makes me think they hate non-Berners more than they hate Trump and the Partei of Traitors.
When the Tritor-in-Chief enablers/supporters/voters get exiled/deported to Dumbfuckistan, can the same be done for those mooks? Asking for a
rational electoratefriend.Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Miami’s GOP Mayor is bucking Trump on CNN as he’s considering a shutdown.
Ken
That’s all right, we have Angela Merkel for a while yet.
Out of curiosity, who does he envision this Cold War being against? Surely not Russia, he’d have to be insane to want Trump to continue leading our Russia response.
Baud
@SFAW:
Be prepared for the fight to get real nasty once we have a monster win in November. They did it to Obama, it’ll be worse with Biden. But we are more aware now, and we’ll be ready.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WereBear:
It’s going to drain resources from the economy faster than the withdrawal of the surf line prior to a tsunami. I know for a fact that it’s been the only thing propping up what I have of my greatly diminished revenue, judging by the employment status reported by new clients.
When that drops out, its gonna be flat fucking frightening.
John S.
@Patricia Kayden: If Ron DeSantis isn’t a one term governor after this debacle, the people of Florida deserve all the pointing and mocking they are subjected to.
Now that we’re on track to run 100k new infections per week, and with Dipsh*t DeSantis failing the leadership test worse than his hero Trump, things are going to get much worse.
People need to remember that in 2 years and vote this monster out.
Baud
SFAW
@Ken:
What little I could stomach indicated he was talking about China. I think Hewitt is not quite so stupid as to use Russia as the boogeyman. Although he is somewhat of a moron, so maybe I’m giving him too much credit.
cmorenc
@OzarkHillbilly:
Exactly – at best, the portion of the 59 million Trump voters whom Cillizza alleges weren’t racists willfully ignored Trump’s blatant racism, because whatever else they thought they wanted or would get by voting for Trump rather than Clinton or 3P was so damn much more valuable and important that it was worth installing a racist as President in order to get it. Tax cuts? Conservative judges? Deregulation? Simply keeping the dirty, corrupt Clintons from re-occupying the White House? Well ok, for that last motivator they also had to willfully ignore the known shadiness of Trump – the fraudulent “Trump University” scandal was right in front of them, in a racist twofer with the allegedly biased “Mexican Judge” presiding over the fraud case.
How the fuck does Cillzilla still have a job at NBC?
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
NPR reported this morning that Florida was the fourth highest in the world after the U.S., Brazil, and (I think) India.
SFAW
@Baud:
I’m not worried about them in a post-Biden-win landscape, they’ll be (rightfully) ignored. It’s the Rethugs who are a much greater danger, of course, even if we take back the Senate.
debbie
@Baud:
Do we smell a bailout on the horizon?
Baud
@SFAW:
To be fair, I doubt Biden will be able to convince China to grant his family a single trademark.
Baud
@SFAW:
I’m not sure you can treat them as separate groups anymore. The enemy of my enemy….
SFAW
@cmorenc:
Meritocracy. Or certain photos of the brass.
Nelle
My Bernie-bro neighbor (and I thought they were mythical caricatures until I met him) tells me, with great condescension, that I only didn’t support Bernie because I am ill-informed. God no, he would never vote for Biden, sneering the name with contempt. It is obvious that even Trump is better than Biden. His wife looks cowed and she echoes him. She’s on my list for get out the vote Dems…I’ll try to talk to her away from him. He isn’t registered as a Democrat.
WereBear
You are suffering from the common misconception that his occupation is “journalist.”
His actual job, which he is doing, is that of “corporate propagandist.”
Patricia Kayden
SFAW
@Baud:
I hadn’t considered that, thanks for the insight.
Ken
@SFAW: China’s expanding their influence, but the US can’t realistically oppose them in a “Cold War 2.0”. Where would we get our socks, baseball caps, plastic toys, face masks, ….
Patricia Kayden
@Nelle: Thankfully, I have yet to meet a flesh and blood Bernie Bro. For your neighbor to claim that Trump is better than Biden says it all. Biden isn’t perfect but he’s better than Trump in every meaningful way.
SFAW
@Baud:
You can, but I can see why they might be considered as the same. Judean People’s Front? Or People’s Front of Judea?
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
In every meaningless way too.
Ken
@debbie: Those terrible second-quarter results were after the half-trillion-dollar “stabilization” bailout.
Also I note that their moaning is because profits are lower, not that they’re taking losses except for Wells Fargo – and does that really say Wells Fargo is taking a loss but only “slashing”, not eliminating, its dividend?
I wonder what they’re doing with executive bonuses? It would be nice if any further bailout requires no dividends and no bonuses until the money is repaid to the Fed, but that’s probably too much of a fantasy.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
What the fuck did they expect? Irony defined is a soulless bunch of banking ghouls – the ones who don’t have any mercy for personal circumstances causing brief interruptions in timely performance – not having the resources and wherewithal to deal with the consequences of a pandemic closure even though the Fed and the Treasury are dropping pallets of free cash on them.
Its monstrous.
When this thing started, I contacted my mortgage provider for CARES act deferral so I could conserve cash. They misrepresented the terms of the program, but I figured they’d catch up and took the deferral. They never called me in June as promised, so I initiated a call – I was supposed to get a call in 48 hours, nothing happened.
Next thing that happens is I get a default notice with some hairy assed application packet that I have to fill out for approval to get the delayed payments stuck on the back end of the note. Another call revealed no timeline for approval of the really onerous application, but I was assured that no credit negative was reported (I’m going to check that to be sure – some tweets indicates that they may actually be issuing negative references). Anyway, not trusting them, I simply took a deep breath and made the payment.
cmorenc
@debbie:
Is Florida only fourth in number of “Flori-duh men” among the population?
Now that’s an impressive statistic to pull out out of the data.
debbie
@Ken:
Then “stabilization” must not have been large enough! //
Baud
@debbie:
A reduction in profit doesn’t mean insolvency.
Patricia Kayden
@John S.: My family in Florida are horrified by how DeSantis has mismanaged the Coronavirus crisis. They’re pretty much housebound as they wait for things to get better. I too don’t see how DeSantis wins a second term but who knows? I never thought we’d have another Republican President after Bush the 43rd and here we are.
debbie
@cmorenc:
In case you aren’t joking, Florida reported the fourth highest number of deaths in 24 hours.
debbie
@Baud:
Good luck telling the banks that!
SFAW
@Ken:
I think part of Biden’s recent statements included something about rebuilding manufacturing in the US. Extremely difficult to do, especially with so many Chinese agents* in the Senate. But it’s a worthy endeavor, and would reap multiple benefits.
* What, you think Russia is the only country for whom they’d betray us? Yeah, some of them are (probably) so racist that they wouldn’t act on China’s behalf, but for the right $$$, I bet they’d betray their own mothers. In Ted Cruz’s case, it didn’t even take $$$ to betray his own wife, so …
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: So a President who presided over multiple bankruptcies is now destroying our economy. Shocker.
OzarkHillbilly
My inner pedant is now assuaged. ;-)
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
But his supporters tell me/us that he was the most successfullest businessman EVAH!
I saw one WaPo commenter (a Trumpist troll) tell the rest of the commenters that (A) they were too stupid to understand how business works, so they shouldn’t bash Trump on his bankruptcies, and (B) start-up businesses fail, so it wasn’t the Grifter-in-Chief’s fault.
cmorenc
@debbie:
I knew that’s what you were implicitly referring to, but I ahm…took some liberties with your lack of specificity. :=)
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope you had tissues present after being “assuaged.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Patricia Kayden:
“Maybe we can divest ourselves of assets. Sell Hawaii; Obama claimed to be from there”.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Always. Don’t leave home without them.
debbie
@SFAW:
I wish someone would have pointed out to him/her that it was the “little people” like himself/herself who would have gotten screwed in the settlement. Would he/she still love Trump if he/she had not received payment for services rendered?
debbie
@cmorenc:
Too damn early for specificity!
rikyrah
DeVos is a phucking evil piece of shyt?
Betty Cracker
James Fallows tweeted the definitive rebuttal to Hewitt’s garbage column:
SFAW
@debbie:
It wouldn’t have mattered. Assuming he was a real person (as opposed to a Russian bot), he was a full-on Trumpista.
rikyrah
@SFAW:
They don’t want a Biden win.
End of the grift
Betty Cracker
Trump just retweeted a doctored video of Biden with this comment:
Is this real life?
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: As far as I know, Hewitt is still on NBC/MSNBC.
p.a.
Horrified to see the anti-American-economy animus among the doctors and scientists alleged by the tRumpublican party! Hidden all these years, just waiting for a pandemic to express itself by advocating best-practice policies agreed upon worldwide for decades. SMH ???????????
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Methinks “Biden will be boring” is not a great message for Trump.
rikyrah
@cmorenc:
They are phucking racists. With no character.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Telling the MSM that Biden would be bad for business for them.?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Guffaw. “Is this what you want?” Like a rejected bf.
I am so, so sick of his voice and the words he repeats over and over. His horrible “filler” words. Ugh. Just noise.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: There are videos and tweets showing Trump praising China specifically for its handling of the Coronavirus. Who is Hugh fooling?
narya
Kitchen update: My birthday present is . . . appliances! They’re all being delivered today, though I haven’t had a call yet about the time. Dunno if anything else is happening.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What makes everyone think Putin sees Trump as a prize? Putin wanted Trump because Putin needed the arms treaties renewed and Putin thought Trump would be easier to work with than Hillary, and of course Trump fucked that up.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
As the reanimated and rejuvenated Hitler says in one of my favorite episodes of “Supernatural” (produced a few months before 2016’s election), as he’s admiring a cellphone in his pocket:
”I sold 10 million copies of Mein Kampf. Imagine what I can do with Twitter!”
rikyrah
????
rikyrah
@narya:
?????
Jeffro
Against China, naturally @Ken:
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: cmorenc said
I let it pass because it’s just a silly mistake, one I am prone to make myself. However… After the 3rd or 4th person quoted cmorenc without noticing it, my inner pedant couldn’t take the torture anymore. (sorry cmorenc, not your fault) and had to post CC’s byline that is right at the top of his tweet.
It’s even funnier now that you thought I was referring to Hewitt. The human mind is a funny thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@narya: Are the cabinets in yet?
Jeffro
@SFAW: yeah but..,SIX TIMES?
Kay
DeVos was ordered to provide debt relief to student loan borrowers. She’s incompetent- she and her low quality hires barely show up for work- so she didn’t process any of the claims until she was 1. sued and then 2. held in contempt of court.
So she’s processing the claims- she’s denying all of them:
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: Only half of them. Apparently the order got screwed up a bit, so the ones from the sink/stove side are only partly delivered and not at all installed. The other side is in, though, so if the electrician finishes that side the fridge could (theoretically) be installed. I suspect I’m just gonna have lots of big boxes in the dining room for a few days. I did set it up so the contractor does the installation rather than the appliances folks, so that made precise timing less necessary.
JPL
@narya: That’s exciting!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: Geez, don’t do that to yourself.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, the best you could say for them is that racism wasn’t a deal breaker.
My web site is still broken. I’m supposed to talk to the guy I hired to fix it later today. The timing is bad since I just had The Wysman come out. OTOH, TW is once again #1 in a sub-sub-category on Amazon. It’s in a paperback category, which puzzles me since they’ve been out of stock on that for weeks, but I got a couple more reviews and maybe that made a difference. I don’t know what algorithm they use to decide rankings.
satby
@Kay: They’re not incompetent. They’re doing exactly what they were appointed to do: undercut the missions of their governmental departments.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: The current R administration shows why inherited rule is a bad idea, with De Vos as a prime example. Given how money works in the US, inherited wealth also turns out to be a bad idea since it lets people buy power.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
“How were we to know that a rainy day would come? I mean fuck, everything was going so well for us after Obama cleaned up our shitted-bed and then Trump just gave us free money. How could we have possibly guessed that the shit would ever hit the fan?”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
In my ideal world, she’s given 72 hours to purge her contempt, and is to personally appear and give a report. Should she fail to purge, she goes into custody, no releases, until it is done. She is to be allowed liberal phone privileges and will be allowed her cellphone in my commitment order.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Sounds like a tacit admission that the MSM is the only constituency that can save his sorry ass now.
@Kay: Exactly like a rejected boyfriend. Too bad America can’t request a restraining order. We’re gonna need one.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
You’re thinking like an actual rational human. This guy is a full-on Trumpista, Facts and reality don’t matter.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Chief Oshkosh:
These would be the same shitlords that never saw a temporary budget surplus they couldn’t use to justify a tax cut. “Rainy day fund? Piffle – unnecessary.”
OzarkHillbilly
That sucks, the thing one misses above and beyond everything else is the damn kitchen sink.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
I hate to be pedantic, but a rainy day fund doesn’t prevent a reduction in profit. Rainy day funds simply ensure that an entity has sufficient cash flow to make it through rough patches.
Kathleen
@SFAW: With well placed goats perhaps?
mad citizen
Reading about Biden’s plan harkens back to Elizabeth Warren (all those months ago in the Before Times).
The times have morphed her catchphrase to: “We HAVE TO have a plan for that”
?BillinGlendaleCA
Liked the photo of Comet Neowise over Stonehenge, I saw the comet Saturday morning. It’s pretty bright once you get away from city lights.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Fox and Friends mentioned Goya beans more than they mentioned the virus. They are doing their best to help out, but trump is still down ten points. trump would be down twenty points if Fox were a news station.
Nicole
@rikyrah: That’s terrible news about Kelly Preston. :(
(And Obligatory Fuck Cancer)
germy
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Cold War with who? Russia? China?
Why does there have to be a cold War with anyone? Nations will be dealing with the pandemic for years. You can certainly make a case for a softer approach to foreign relations, even a reduction of the military.
Hewitt is still backing Trump?
I’m waiting for the right wing pundit class to admit that Trump is deranged and incompetent. Any positive assessment of Trump is instantly disqualifying.
Nicole
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, that’s good to hear! We’re going to take the kiddo to visit Ma Yea (Grandma) out in the ‘burbs this weekends, in the hopes of seeing the comet. Weather may be iffy, but I figure even if it’s too cloudy we can’t see it, there’s still Ma Yea. :)
cmorenc
@OzarkHillbilly:
What’s hilariously tragic is that it’s so easy for us to convincingly believe that it was Cillzilla rather than Hewitt that made the remark in question, how easy it was to misunderstand the intended target of your remark.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JPL:
Good luck getting your average Fox watcher to cook the type of food that would require Goya products.
Kropacetic
Perhaps he’s referring to the Cold Civil War that the scions of the lost cause have bee waging. Of course he doesn’t want Biden leading the US through this. He supports their cause and so does Trump.
I learned to cook from an avid Fox viewer and Goya products have long been a staple here.
TS (the original)
@Kay: Sure hope Biden has some workaholics for his cabinet positions. Every last one of them will have 4 years of no decisions/bad decisions to sort out as soon as they start work. Add in rebuilding department staffing & morale, a continuing pandemic to be addressed – 2021 is going to need massive effort from them all.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
Ah, then you should fight the urge!
And just to out-pedant you, I didn’t specify a rainy day fund. La Compte jumped to that conclusion. I myself was talking about lack of investment in umbrellas. Of course.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Very sad news about the passing of Kelly Preston. I guess the family had kept news about her illness quiet.
JPL
@germy: Why did they allow him to fly? I thought that airlines were private businesses and could remove unruly passengers.. hmmm
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nicole: Neowise should also be visible in the evenings starting this week, just after sunset.
Brachiator
@satby:
Exactly!
Parfigliano
@JPL: Hugh Hewitt is a loathsome piece of shit…feel free to pass this on.
OzarkHillbilly
@cmorenc: The ONLY evidence I have is that Cillizza did. (CC’s tweet which I linked to) Do you have something that counters that?
ETA: My comment #13
ETA 2: Which in your comment at #37 you said “How the fuck does Cillzilla still have a job at NBC?”
ETA 3 : DOH!! You have my most sincere apologies, I totally misread the intent behind your comment. My bad my bad my bad.
Sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I am already seeing panhandlers on street corners everywhere. Can you imagine trying to panhandle in a pandemic?
Parfigliano
@JPL: Hugh Hewitt is a loathsome piece of shit…feel free to pass this on.
Danielx
@Jeffro:
Wonder if Hugh knows that the general populace could give two toots on a flute about Cold War 2.0 at the moment.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW:
They always have. To this portion of the left, being a garden-variety liberal is absolutely worse than being an open fascist. Some are basically Strasserites, who still imagine there’s some sort of populist revolutionary streak in Trumpism that might be better than liberalism.
The curious thing is, they say the same thing about us, that we hate them more than we do fascists, and that’s why they hate us so much. There are memes.
Personally, I think that on some preconscious level they’ve absorbed the conservative demonization of liberals as weak and hypocritical that has been central to right-wing rhetoric since Nixon and culturally mainstream since Carter vs. Reagan 1980, and they don’t even realize that’s what’s happened to them. They’re grooving on right-wing ideas and they still think they’re left-wing revolutionaries.
Fortunately, they’re increasingly irrelevant this time around. I know a lot of 2016 Bernie supporters, but they’re not these types. They mostly supported Warren or somebody else in the 2020 primary, they’re disappointed that Biden is the nominee and are still grousing about it, but they’re not going to stay home or vote third-party. Getting rid of Trump is still job 1.
Danielx
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am back to March/April protocols now – carry masks, gloves, Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer in car all the time. Never did stop wearing masks, but lightened up on other stuff. No more….
SFAW
@Kathleen:
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Captain C
I suspect most this is true for many, if most non-Americans, with one of the biggest misunderstandings being not getting that (other than kidnapped African Americans and Native Americans) pretty much every American’s ancestors was getting the hell out of where they came from for reasons of either complete lack of opportunity, severe oppression, or both. Also, as a nation, we seem to have a rather large contrarian-for-the-hell-of-it streak.
Ironically, you could make the same evaluation about the Nazis when they invaded the USSR. Or pretty much any of Germany’s moves after they conquered France. (I suspect this was good tactics on the part of the generals subsumed by really dumb strategy on Hitler’s part.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Danielx:
“I’m super worried about Chinese claims in the South China Sea, an area in which predessassor governments have had claims and significant involvement for 1500 years. Let’s do war over it!”
Captain C
@OzarkHillbilly: All of Trump’s 59 million voters may not be (blatantly) racist, but for none of them was the blatant, violent racism a deal-breaker. You don’t get a ribbon for not being as hateful as the people and policies you vote for.
Captain C
@Patricia Kayden: But Trump will make sure that Ordinary Working People are centered, not those icky Identity People who should just keep being patient, stay at the back of the line, and not ask for too much, as the Revolution(TM) will automatically see to their needs, even if it’s by ignoring those needs.
Uncle Cosmo
Sorry, OH – SillyZilla’s stopped clock is right for a change.
There is nothing more maddening – and counterproductive – to me than supposedly intelligent progressives dismissing out of hand a rather large section of the electorate that could with a bit of modesty and effort be swung our way.
Agolf Twitler has made bigotry and neofascism acceptable in rational society. We need to make them unacceptable again. To do that we need everyone this side of the crazyfied 27% with us. We don’t get that & those ideas will continue to fester, waiting to slither out from under the rocks that we are simply too lazy & self-absorbed to guard with the necessary diligence (& even if we did it would probably just release our inner Bolsheviks).
But hey, it’s so much easier to demonize them & slap a simplistic sticker on their foreheads (BIGOT. RACIST. NAZI.) so we can forget they’re actual human beings (who BTW each get exactly the same number of votes as each one of us does). Let’s just win the White House and the Senate by razor-thin majorities & then pack the courts & kill the filibuster & go to town.
Anyone with any political understanding at all** can easily see what that will get us down the line: At best TeaParty 2.0 in 2022, cleverer fascists controlling the Federal government no later than January 2029, & Goodybye Constitution. At worst it gets us Civil War 2.0, where the enemy is around the corner or down the block & has all the police, most of the military & the great preponderance of lethal weapons.
You talk a tough game, OH, but are you really ready for a few hundred thousand bodies in the streets? Including, perhaps, everyone you care about, including yourself?
Didn’t think so.
** Based on the political commentary I’ve seen for years here, that excludes the great majority of Jackals, whose median quantity of political understanding could be printed on the head of a safety pin with a paint roller. This place is by & large Leftish Dunningkrugerland. Thankfully, no Jackals have any significant influence in political campaigns above the office of County Dogcatcher, or the Republic would be in real trouble.
chopper
@OzarkHillbilly:
c’mon, cillizza. saying that 18% of americans are racist? that’s a stretch for you?
VOR
We laugh, but remember when he actually canceled a trip to visit Denmark’s leader after they laughed at the idea of selling Greenland? And it has been reported Trump floated the idea of selling Puerto Rico. I bet there are some other US Territories or possessions which have been raised as possible profit-taking opportunities.
I remember back during the 2016 campaign it was clear Trump didn’t understand the difference between the accumulated US debt and the trade deficit. He seems to think NATO members owe dues which they aren’t paying. He keeps getting the state of US-China trade wrong. The “successful businessman” is an economic illiterate.
Anything is possible, we are thru the looking glass.
SFAW
@Uncle Cosmo:
For someone who seems to fashion himself as a deep political thinker, this seems to be astonishingly naive. Or maybe your definition of “rather large” means three percent?
That 135,000-plus deaths is what it took to drop his support from 46 percent to 41 percent (assuming the 41 percent is an accurate assessment of his electoral support) is appalling, but even more appalling is that his support is as high as 41 percent. So what does that leave, re: the “mind” set of his remaining supporters? Oh, right, the “economically anxious white working class.”
Be that as it may: you, as well as I and numerous others here, have been curmudgeonly (so to speak) for some time. Being a curmudgeon is not a bad thing. But lately, it seems like you’ve turned your “dickishness” gene up to 11. Not sure why that is, but it’s not an endearing trait, nor does it increase the “truth value” (so to speak) of your pronouncements.
catclub
also in Forbes: In favor of protecting investors from the wolves of wall street. The federal government… not so much.
artem1s
@Ken:
The GOP wants the US to turn into an oligarchy. So anyone that will enable that would be my guess
rikyrah
@Danielx:
WHERE do you find Lysol wipes?
I look for wipes anytime I actually step into a store.
Dmbeaster
Comet Neowise peaks in brightness on Thursday, July 23. It is also sweeping behind the Sun now, and will reappear in the sunset sky shortly. On July 23, look west 90 minutes after sunset. It will be below the Big Dipper which is nicely displayed in the west this time of year. On July 23, a thin sliver of the waxing Moon will also be visible adding drama to the scene, but not enough light to disrupt comet viewing that much. The Moon will set (a little after 10 p.m.) before the comet, which sets later at 1 a.m., which means best viewing is around 11 p.m. Be somewhere dark as its not a real bright comet.
Then turn around and look east at the very close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. They should be rising in the east next to the Teapot in Sagittarius, and will be visible all night. If you go out again at 4 a.m., you can see Venus and Mercury rising in the eastern pre-dawn sky, and Mars straight overhead as it rose around midnight. All five planets are visible at that time – not a common occurrence.
tam1MI
@SFAW: It is probably because he has seen this movie before and knows how it ends. Sometime in the summer, a Dem candidate establishes a healthy lead over the Repuke. And like Pavlov’s dogs, Dems do the equivalent of throwing their hands up in the air and soaking in the adulation of the cheering crowd as they trot along in their victory lap – only to be shocked and dumbfounded when the Repuke zips past them to win, because they saved their big kick for when it counted. It has happened over and over again- Hillary Clinton. John Kerry. Michael Dukakis. Let’s not add Joe Biden’s name to that sorry list.
artem1s
@SFAW:
Maybe, maybe not. Typically, I find the folks arguing this way are saying we need to give up on women’s reproductive rights or LGBT rights or racial justice issues, because those issues aren’t worth losing elections for – that stuff is just too icky or hard to settle. The Democratic Party made a decision to jettison the Dixiecrats back in the 70s and 80s. We tried to compromise on gays in the military, same sex marriage and reproductive rights throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s and the line just kept getting pushed back further and further – and no votes came our way no matter who we got thrown under the bus because white people think some people need to wait for the next election to get their civil rights promise fulfilled.
SFAW
@tam1MI:
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying, but what I think is probably immaterial.