Volume 1 of President Obama’s memoir is coming out soon. Excerpts indicate he doesn’t just call Trump out as a racist huckster — he reads the entire Republican Party for filth. Good. Someone with his stature needed to say it out loud. Via CNN:
“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” Obama writes. “Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety.”
Obama discusses Palin’s rise in the 2008 race as sort of a preview of Trump:
“Through Palin, it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party — xenophobia, anti intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks — were finding their way to center stage.”
He generously speculates that if McCain had it to do over again, he wouldn’t elevate a kook who would drag his party (and country) down to that level. But alas, the genie was out of the bottle:
Trump’s antics were seen initially in the White House as a joke. But Obama writes he came to regard Trump’s media ubiquity and characteristic shamelessness as merely an exaggerated version of the Republican Party’s attempts to appeal to White Americans’ anxieties about the first Black president — a sentiment he said “had migrated from the fringe of GOP politics to the center — an emotional, almost visceral, reaction to my presidency, distinct from any differences in policy or ideology…
“In that sense, there wasn’t much difference between Trump and Boehner or McConnell. They, too, understood that it didn’t matter whether what they said was true,” he writes, adding: “In fact, the only difference between Trump’s style of politics and theirs was Trump’s lack of inhibition.”
Thwack! So true, and it applies equally to the timid Lil’ Marcos and screechy Matt Gaetz types. The whole bunch is rotten, and until there’s a reckoning, we’ll be fighting to keep the Orcs from the breeching the last wall full time.
Will there be a reckoning with our history, past and recent? Can America be saved? Obama is hopeful, but he doesn’t sound 100% sure. Here’s another excerpt via The Atlantic:
The country is in the grips of a global pandemic and an accompanying economic crisis, with more than 230,000 Americans dead, businesses shuttered, and millions of people out of work. Across the nation, people from all walks of life have poured into the streets to protest the deaths of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of the police. Perhaps most troubling of all, our democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of crisis—a crisis rooted in a fundamental contest between two opposing visions of what America is and what it should be; a crisis that has left the body politic divided, angry, and mistrustful, and has allowed for an ongoing breach of institutional norms, procedural safeguards, and the adherence to basic facts that both Republicans and Democrats once took for granted…
The jury’s still out. I’m encouraged by the record-setting number of Americans who turned out to vote in last week’s election, and have an abiding trust in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, in their character and capacity to do what is right. But I also know that no single election will settle the matter. Our divisions run deep; our challenges are daunting. If I remain hopeful about the future, it’s in large part because I’ve learned to place my faith in my fellow citizens, especially those of the next generation, whose conviction in the equal worth of all people seems to come as second nature, and who insist on making real those principles that their parents and teachers told them were true but that they perhaps never fully believed themselves…
To sum up, don’t boo — VOTE!
Really looking forward to this book, and I’m not usually a huge fan of the political memoir genre.
Open thread!
Binders Full of Women – Really!
Soprano2
I’ve come to believe that we will never solve the problem of race in this country because we are not permitted to talk about it openly and honestly. I’m not supposed to say that even if Trump supporters don’t believe they themselves are racist, they enabled racism by voting for Trump. How can we ever fix this if we can’t even talk about it? ETA – We can’t say that the reason Republicans are upset about this election is not only because Trump lost, but because way too many non-white people were able to vote, and that they are already scheming to find ways to prevent it from happening again.
I don’t mean that I can’t say it here, but I sure can’t say it on Facebook to any of my friends who voted for Trump, and even some who didn’t vote for him. It seems that for most white people being called a racist is worse than actual racism.
ETA again – I had a discussion with a man at the pub a couple of months ago where we talked about how government works. He used to live in Illinois, and he expressed that it was a big problem that Chicago and the area around it run the whole state. He said that was unfair. I said well, most of the people in Illinois live there, why is it unfair? He said it just was, but he would never give me a reason out loud. Of course, I know that the (unstated) reason is because in his opinion way too many of those people in and around Chicago are blackity-black and brown, while the good people in outstate Illinois are white, so the white people need disproportional representation in government so they can still control everything. I’m not supposed to even say this to him, it’s seen as incredibly rude. He’s allowed to talk all around the real issue without ever having to actually articulate what he believes the real problem is, it’s all just a “wink and a nod” kind of thing.
Obama’s book sounds great, and I hope it starts a good conversation, but most likely conservatives will howl with “righteous” indignation, and everyone in the press will rush to their defense, and nothing will actually be discussed in any depth. It’ll be “how dare Obama say those awful things about our good friends in the GOP”. Hate to be a downer, but I think I’m just being realistic.
Baud
Oh my. I might just have to give up my habit of not reading for his memoir.
Heidi Mom
As soon as I learned of the release date, I reserved a copy at my local bookstore. In fact, I may have started the reservation list there.
Aleta
Perfect timing for his memoir to appear.
Cacti
Trump laid out the blueprint for a fascist takeover of America. The person who takes up his mantle will be more competent and dangerous.
Our Republic remains in mortal danger as long as the GOP exists in its present form.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2:
Oh you got that, did you?//
It’s like I always say – Americans have this uniquely awful stupid way of willfully mistaking symbol for substance.
LurkerNoLonger
Hopefully there’s an audio book version with Obama reading it. I listened to both “Dreams from my Father“ and “The Audacity of Hope”. They were great.
No One of Consequence
The man’s not wrong about Palin. I too noted amongst my own family the indefensible admiration for Snowbilly Snookie. Quote my brother in law: “Dude, she can field-dress a moose!”
Quote No One of Consequence, “Yes, I can see the appeal, seeing as how often that skill is called for in the White House…”
Though, one must consider an earlier entry: W’s response to the favorite political philosopher as Christ. While not technically false, that singular answer (imho) cemented the presidency of Dumbya. And a lucky response at that, for recalling from incommunicative grey-matter, a singular nugget for the moment, was the dry-drunk’s best hope at leveling perceptions of playing fields, whilst he jousted with his intellectual superiors.
YMMV, Peace,
NOoC
Cacti
@No One of Consequence: Gore completely stomped Bush into the ground on any point of substance.
But the only thing the librul media could talk about was what an elitist asshole he was for sighing at Bush’s stupidity.
Elizabelle
Just ordered the book. Out November 17th. I hope President Obama is brutally honest. The moment demands it.
SiubhanDuinne
I can’t wait! The day they announced the publication date, I pre-ordered the ebook version. It will arrive in my Kindle app next Tuesday at one minute past midnight, and I am counting down the hours.
At some point I’ll also buy a hardcover edition of A Promised Land, and assuredly I’ll want to hear President Barack Obama reading his own words to me, so that’s a CD album and/or an Audible file.
Felanius Kootea
What do people think of David Sirota’s piece in the Guardian about the Republicans’ behavior and the Democratic response?
Immanentize
Up top, Obama:
This is very encouraging — if Obama knows this, Biden also understands this.
Baud
@Felanius Kootea:
It’s David Sirota. Not worthy of discussion.
geg6
I believe this particular political memoir will be the best one since Grant’s or Churchill’s. Dude is simply an excellent writer. I have read his previous books and they are eminently readable for anyone, even those who don’t usually read such materials as avidly as I do.
zhena gogolia
@Immanentize:
OF COURSE BIDEN UNDERSTANDS IT
Bill Arnold
@Felanius Kootea:
I read the first sentence, and he’s an asshole and factually incorrect and has a much bigger platform than he deserves.
ETA his political instincts are shit. Success will be navigating to a Biden presidency without violence, without blowing the possibility of any cooperation from Republicans in the Senate if they old the majority, getting a majority if possible in GA, and a lack of violence.
Elizabelle
Oh gawd. I told you that “Confederate Avenue” in Richmond VA (home to Tim Kaine!) has been renamed North Laburnum Avenue. Decision taken this past Monday.
Anyway: I learn from Nextdoor that a woman has been sighted there this afternoon, trying to take down one of the street signs with a hacksaw. It is implied she is harvesting it as a souvenir.
And that other people have already been stealing the remaining signs. Richmond, oh Richmond.
Kay
This Republican screwed up all his courage yesterday and weakly admitted Biden should be receiving the security briefings that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are denying him.
But he must have gotten a message from The Party that he dare not cross Donald Trump, because now he’s walking it back:
They’re all such incredible cowards. Not a shred of character among them. They are too scared to defend a democratic election. Trump has forbidden it.
No One of Consequence
@Cacti: indeed. Bush was completely out of his league. However, adroitness with political argument, let alone knowledge of political philosophy has been absolutely lost on at least half (if not more) of our citizenry in recent decades — It was the Christ answer that got the fundies’ undies moist.
It is reaching the point where Idiocracy is less cautionary-tale and more documentary…
Peace,
NOoC
Kay
Donald Trump ordered the Republican Party to deny the results of a US election and they all complied.
You can’t trust these people to defend democracy! They failed. The one time they were tested, they all failed. Weak, corrupt and damaged.
Elizabelle
@Felanius Kootea: With this headline by The Guardian:
Foo on Sirota (not gonna read it) and foo on The Guardian. Which published a few columns touting Tara Reade’s lies a few months back.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Soprano2: Agreed. I hope there will be a day that being racist will universally be worse than being called a racist, but I’m not optimistic.
geg6
@Soprano2:
You’re allowed to say those things if you want. You just have to get to the place in your own head where you decide your own values are more important than their feelings. I am at that place in my life for sure. I have even called out people at work for saying the quiet parts not as quietly that they thought they had. And that also includes former friends and relatives. I just don’t give a shit about being called “rude” or hurting their delicate feelings. This is how we got Trump, by not calling this shit out and letting them think it’s okay. Fuck that noise. I’m done with it.
Gin & Tonic
@geg6: And then Trump will respond. I’m on pins and needles waiting for his memoir.
Kent
The problem with talking about race in this country is that people conflate racism with racial hatred, which are not the same thing at all. A reasonably small portion of the population is really of the racial hatred, white supremacist, neo-Nazi ilk. And a lot of ordinary white folks think that if they aren’t actually actively HATING on black folks then they aren’t racist. My extended family are full of Trumpers who think like this.
O course racism isn’t about cross burnings and KKK hoods. It’s about indifference and allowing/expecting the structures of power to simply advantage white people in ways like how school district boundaries are made and how zoning laws segregate by income. That’s the conversation that is really difficult to have.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I just finished The Mirror and The Light audiobook on my walk, and was wondering what’s gonna take its place as ear content.
@Cacti:
I have a theory that both HRC and Gore paid a price for the Beltway’s anger at the power of Bubba’s slick charms, including their own inability to to resist them.
Miss Bianca
@Felanius Kootea: David Sirota’s suicide note where he confesses how fucking wrong he is about everything, but especially Democrats, is the only piece of writing he will ever do that I have any interest in reading.
Barbara
@Felanius Kootea: What I think is that every time I consider contributing to the Guardian they come out with a piece like this and I decide not to. David Sirota will always be the Disaffected Democrat whose main purpose in life is to shit on people actually trying to get stuff done.
Kay
The regime ordered Republicans to demonize and smear this Republican, and they all went along:
They can’t defend anything or anyone. They’re too weak. They won’t defend the United States. They’re too frightened to even defend dissenting members of their own party.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
YUP. I have been told that saying someone did something racist is “a really terrible thing to say”. I replied, “it’s a really terrible thing to do“. This is why I don’t have lots of friends, BTW.
I preordered the book from Amazon. Can’t wait.
Kent
I avoid reading anything by Sirota.
And I think Biden and Harris are setting exactly the right tone of inevitability and competence.
geg6
@Felanius Kootea:
Sirota? Seriously?
Alison Rose
Pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced and will probably shift my reading plans for the month so I can pick it up right away. Good timing too since on the bookish internet, it’s #nonfictionnovember :)
Immanentize
@Baud: I really dislike that Sirota so and so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle: the trouble with the gun and knife language is that there are no guns and no knives. There are votes. Votes in elections and then votes in the House and Senate. We didn’t take the Senate, so McConnell and Graham et al feel safe if playing along with trump. If Schumer were about to become Majority Leader, they’d probably be playing a different game.
The Moar You Know
@Felanius Kootea: Fuck Sirota and extra-fuck the Guardian. I’d be likelier to get the truth out of Fox News than them.
Immanentize
@Kent: @geg6:
It kind of makes me wish I could buy a dead tree version of that edition with that article in it so I could line my cat’s litter box with it.
Nora Lenderbee
@Elizabelle: That’s gotta be a misdemeanor at least, right? All Crimes Matter.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Come sit by me, 6 feet and all that.
Immanentize
geg6
@Immanentize:
I wouldn’t subject my poor Cleo to such crap.
mrmoshpotato
Calling the entire Rethuglican party a bunch of Trump trash racist shitpiles – because they are.
Bravo Mr. President!
Suzanne
@Kent:
Yes this. No one wants to think badly of themselves. I have to say, I think the approach taken by people like Robin D’Angelo, in which she tells white people that it’s going to be hard and they’re gonna feel BAD as they learn to examine their white privilege, is not really the most effective strategy…. if the goal is really to change minds. I think it’s important to tell people that the white power structure exists whether or not they feel any personal animus, and as such they didn’t create it, but they benefit from it. Therefore, the goal isn’t to make them feel shitty about themselves, but rather to engage them in the work of dismantling the power structure via voting and creating an equitable society. People are really, REALLY resistant to thinking badly of themselves and their families.
pamelabrown53
@Gin & Tonic:
re: Trump’s memoir. I wonder who would have the audacity to ghost write it?! any ideas? :D
Immanentize
@geg6: I am trying to subject Sirota to the cat’s crap!
Elizabelle
@Nora Lenderbee: Some neighbors were suggesting the time-honored way to steal a sign is to knock the pole down with your car first.
Immanentize
@pamelabrown53: J.D. Vance
Suzanne
@geg6: I don’t know about that. I’m not very nice. ;)
Jeffro
Love the guy to pieces, but…he’s a little late to some of these realizations, it seems.
(I also don’t need two massive volumes adding to my already too-tall reading pile)
Thanks President Obama – you really set the example! Here’s hoping the younger generation takes up the mantle…and hurries like all hell with it. Our democracy is running out of time.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop eating tide pods
geg6
@Suzanne:
Neither am I.
pamelabrown53
@Kent:
Exactly. It’s a total repudiation of the existence of systemic racism. If they can deny systemic racism, then they can pretend they are good people, who are egregiously wronged for their enabling behaviors/votes.
WaterGirl
@Felanius Kootea: I didn’t read it, but I’ll share what I think about the premise of the dems bringing a knife to a gunfight because of Biden’s measured response to Trump.
It’s hard to wait, but it’s much smarter to let the silence fill the air, and to force decent Republicans, and hopefully the media, be the ones who confront Trump on this and call out the risk to our democracy.
Don’t make it easy for the Rs and the media; the silence from those who know better will be painful, and we are already seeing a few step forward.
What Trump and his stooges are doing is abhorrent, and dangerous, but I think Biden’s measured response will help set the stage for a more effective presidency. Biden is playing the long game while Trump thinks one minute ahead.
Betty Cracker
@Felanius Kootea: I’ll skip the part about the messenger and focus on the message. The sufficiency of the Democrats’ response depends on how seriously you take Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. Sirota believes the threat is real. Most Democrats don’t, so they’re not responding as if it were. I think they’re right; this contested election garbage is just the latest tawdry scam. It’s alarming as hell that virtually every elected Republican is giving credence to this madness, but Joe Biden will be sworn in as president on 1/20, end of story.
Jeffro
@Felanius Kootea: I think this is key:
It seems to be working. I’m sure we’ll find out in years to come if Biden/Harris had a ‘plan B’ that involved them and the Dems going nuclear if the GOP did anything more than humor trumpov for a little while.
Elizabelle
LOL. Satire by The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz:
Biden Could Receive Classified Intelligence Just by Hanging Out in Mar-a-Lago Dining Room
I look forward to the next dumping on Trump by the “Deep State”/intelligence community.
different-church-lady
@Felanius Kootea: Must I have thoughts about it?
catclub
@LurkerNoLonger: Hopefully there’s an audio book version with Obama reading it.
How about Gillbert Gottfried?
Uncle Cosmo
@Felanius Kootea: Fuck Sirota with a rusty anthrax-dusted chainsaw. His body deserves to be found next to Greenwald’s in a Rio dumpster.
Kent
Yes. And I actually have family who will say things like. “If we focus all our attention on systemic racism and it doesn’t exist, then we will be mis-diagnosing all of the real reasons for why the Black community isn’t succeeding at the same pace as whites. Like low marriage rates, teen pregnancy, poor choices, etc. etc.”
They truly think that the entire concept of systemic racism is a liberal plot to divert attention from the “real” problems and dysfunction in the Black community.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But neither did they, right? Aren’t we at 48-48? With 3 outstanding? (GA, GA, AK) Wait, the only adds up to 99. What am I missing?
Suzanne
@catclub: Have you heard Gilbert Gottfried reading “Fifty Shades of Grey”?
It’s even funnier if you picture him as the parrot from Aladdin or the Aflac duck.
kindness
There will never be a reckoning in the Republican Party. Look how many people voted for Trump this time. No, they will always be there I’m sad to think. And since so much of the party is built on unwarranted grievance, anger and a lust for vengeance against their ‘enemies’, it won’t end. Ever.
Hate is easier to sell than love.
catclub
@Suzanne: I have not heard the reading, but I did read about it.
JPL
Since I ordered a hard copy, it suddenly occurred to me that I no longer have a book light. Thank you amazon for sending it the same day as the book.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: Alaska is in, R won — It is 50R – 48 D in the senate right now.
M31
@No One of Consequence: yeah, and when Bush said Jesus was his favorite philospher, how come he wasn’t asked RIGHT THEN ‘Jesus said to sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, did you do it?’
of course, the fundies aren’t interested in THAT Jesus (you know, the real one)
Tony Jay
@Felanius Kootea:
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it, because it’s oh so true. The Guardian desperately wants to be the British version of “even the Liberal” New York Times. In its US coverage it promotes the Bernie-adjacent wing of the Democratic Party and the likes of Sirota because that’s what it thinks its UK readership wants, and because there’s bugger all chance of them ever becoming more than a fringe element in any any Democratic Government and maybe promoting tax policies that would discombobulate the Guardian’s hedge-fund owners. It’s basically virtue-signalling at its most cynical. Corporate decision-making to “enhance the brand”.
tl:dr – The Guardian is a cynical and manipulative pile of shit platform specialising in misinformation for profit that just poses as a liberal-leaning broadsheet.
taumaturgo
Is this a wink to the younger AOC’s of the party?
catclub
@WaterGirl: 1. Alaska senate race has been called.
2. We must actually be at 50(GOP) – 48, or is there an
independent – Angus King in the mix?
Suzanne
@kindness: Well, the downwardly mobile GOP Party doesn’t want to hear about white privilege, since they have it and have still managed to become nothing.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Dammit! Off to see how close we came.
Mary G
Just preordered the Audible version, which he does indeed narrate himself, all 29 hours of it.
Catherine D.
@LurkerNoLonger: There is an audio book. I just pre-ordered all 29+ hours of it.
ETA – Mary G beat me to it ?
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2:
Oh we could become our own state – as many downstate would like – but then bye bye to Illinois’s economic engine, and enjoy your two Rethuglican Senators who will fuck you over repeatedly.
We’ll keep Durbin and Duckworth as the state of Chicago’s Senators.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Me too — so I can piss on it after I set it on fire out in the driveway. But only if I can get a copy remaindered for $0.15~!!~
Mary G
@catclub: I believe both Angus and Wilmer are included in the D’s 48, because they caucus with them. The best we could do is a tie, and even that seems unlikely.
Immanentize
@catclub: Technically, two Independents who caucus with the Dems:. Sanders and King.
Those irascible New Englanders!
What MaryG said!
Mary G
@Catherine D.: Jinx!
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
Not just the Dems. A blatant coup will result in massive unrest, and at least a low-grade civil war (with significant politician/judge casualties) if the unrest is suppressed, and a pariah-state international treatment.
It would mean laughing at a 5-6M Biden popular vote majority, and a substantial de-facto electoral vote majority (without against-the-will-of-the-people EV fuckery.)
Catherine D.
@mrmoshpotato: Ah, yes, the same thing upstate NY woodchucks want. Math is not their strong suit.
Yutsano
@Felanius Kootea: Well I’m not going to get on you for posting Sirota. I read it so y’all don’t have to. He thinks talking to some perfessor that isn’t Dr. Levenson gives him some kind of credibility here. And said prefesser has his hair on fire because “public perception” will convince the Republican legislatures to overturn the will of the people. It’s about as stupid as it sounds, and Sirota is being a total idiot by buying into this shit. So yeah, it’s about as dumb as everyone was expecting here.
Dan B
@Immanentize: I met David Sirota. He is very handsome.
End of story.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
Suzanne, you have a TON of friends right here. I will come up to P’burgh if you need emotional support. Cole would help paint and decorate! I could help pick colors with you…
No hugs, though, not until The Trump Plague pandemic is wound up tight. So just talking and emotional support like that.
As much as I would like a bunch of hugs with jackals! Later on, though.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Why does that seem unlikely? We could win both seats in GA, or one seat, or no seat?
I keep seeing this. Why are people assuming that we don’t have a good chance in GA?
MattF
OT. The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. Featuring, e.g., ‘The Wall of Criminality’.
Hunter Gathers
I hear this shit all the time in my neck of the woods in downstate Illinois. My response is always the same: “Then move to Indiana, you fuck stick.”
pamelabrown53
@Kent:
We must be related!
oatler.
https://www.mediamatters.org/infowars/militia-leader-stewart-rhodes-says-he-has-men-stationed-outside-dc-ready-engage-violence
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Don’t know. GA will be about turnout, and the GA Dems (specifically African American Dems, female) built and operated an impressively competent turnout machine for the Nov 3 election.
TaMara (HFG)
Obama better still have hope because if he’s lost it, well we are sunk.
jayjaybear
@Soprano2: See, I’m absolutely done with tip-toeing around people like this. I retired on disability 2 years ago so I don’t have to make nice for work, and I’ve pruned my friendships and relatives that I keep in contact with of Trumpie types, so I can be as honest with these racist idiots online as I want (in person, I really only interact with my immediate family and my dialysis clinic workers). I’m a white people who recognizes that we really treat minorities like crap in this country (helps that I’m a non-racial minority and know how I get treated for THAT).
Kay
Donald Trump and the Republican Party succeeded in throwing out some votes today:
They hoped to throw out more ballots and just seize power, but so far they have been thwarted in that goal but they did defeat these citizens and successfully block their votes.
Suzanne
….now I’m wondering…. is tRump going to write a presidential memoir? On the one hand, I can’t imagine him passing up an opportunity to cash in. OTOH, I can’t imagine that the MAGA crowd is really inclined toward reading for pleasure (is this bigoted of me?).
Would it be a picture book? Maybe one of those adult coloring books?
pamelabrown53
@Suzanne:
Ooooohhh…scortchingly accurate.
catclub
I would start recommending citizens in unrepresented
blue states no longer pay income taxes, and their states support that decision.
Bill Arnold
@oatler.:
In a sane country, that man would be locked up as a major threat to public safety and law and order.
JPL
@Bill Arnold: Stacey Abrams is amazing and she might be able to pull it off.
Suzanne
@J R in WV: A meetup will happen, in the After Times. Fun. I miss fun.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Dump’s memoir will be his tweets. Though they might think their followers are stupid enough to buy it – and they might be right – if they package all the tweets into a book.
catclub
@Kay: so those were the basiccally affadavit ballots where you have to take your ID in to the elections clerk within a few days. I would suspect about 10% of those cast get confirmed, the rest just say fageddaboutit
Suzanne
@Hunter Gathers:
I tell people that all the time. “Liberty” means your ass can move if you don’t like it.
Immanentize
@Kay: Those votes were just thrown out under PA law, not because of the lawsuit, no?
Baud
@Kay:
Net change: zero.
Suzanne
@Kay: I was scared of that shit! So I voted in person, since I was a first-time PA voter. Next time, I’m all about the mail.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: I read somewhere that people at Trump rallies already have bound copies of his tweets and sell them to the rubes. I should have thought of that!
catclub
@WaterGirl: because, with the recent exception of 2018, our voters don’t turn out for elections out side of presidential. If 2018 is repeated,
that would be amazing – although the 2018 result in Ga Governor election is not that encouraging.
catclub
@Baud: I wonder what the Qanon explanation is for Trump losing but GOP senators keeping their wins.
Actually, I probably don’t want to know.
Immanentize
@catclub: The 2018 election in GA involved massive voter suppression. 2020 GA republicans couldn’t do that trick again because purged voters re-registered.
J R in WV
@Tony Jay:
Yes, all of that is true… But still, is the Guardian the best newspaper in Britain??? Which paper should we poor colonials read to learn about the colonies?
Not to mention the motherland… or whatever Britain thinks it is now.
Will we need visas to travel from the US to GB?
What about from GB into Europe if we start a long trip in Britain?
;~)
Baud
@catclub:
Did that happen anywhere except Maine?
Aleta
@Immanentize: There’s always T shirts and commemorative red plastic cups.
mrmoshpotato
@No One of Consequence: Ahhhh……fuck John “Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” McCain for introducing her to the other 49 states and the world.
And fuck him and Ted Cruz for saying they’d hold Scalia’s seat open if Hillary had won.
Aleta
From the Post
Immanentize
@Aleta: oooo. Red cups with Trump tweets…. Sell to frat boys. Me likey.
ETA. They could have one of his recent tweets on one side with his prior exact opposite tweet on the other?
Lapassionara
@Kay: So those votes were never included in Biden’s totals, as I understand it. And I just saw that Arizona has reached the point where Trump cannot overtake Biden.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Seconded! Now that Chris Chinchilla over at CNN…
Elizabelle
From the front page of the Washington Post:
germy
How Societies Go Backward
by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
debbie
I know it’s Politico (Garrett Graff) and it requires thinking Trump is an evil genius (is he?), but this interview with Terry Gross implies all kinds of worrying things could happen to our country.
catclub
On the bottom, get more messes that way.
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV:
@Tony Jay:
I dunno, JR, maybe TJ can weigh in on just when It All Went to Crap, but all I can say is that The Guardian *used* to be great.
At least, I thought so. Back in the 1980s, when it was still The Manchester Guardian.
Aleta
@Immanentize: yes! And sell paintings of photos of the dual cups as art.
debbie
I was just out on my walk and saw that a manager (based on her power suit) was delivering the mail. I told her I was glad to see the post office had survived the craziness and was still able to deliver the mail. I got a sincere thanks from her.
Just Chuck
@No One of Consequence:
Which itself was almost certainly a lie. She hardly struck me as a rugged hardy outdoorsy type, just standard-issue trash from a run-down town with a single digit number of stoplights and a meth epidemic.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know about that. He loses his special Twitter status in January and so will have disavowed the platform by the time the memoir would be published. I’m inclined to think it will be a coffee table-type book of the paintings that clown does where Trump is handsome, trim, and a time traveler back to the days of the Founders.
germy
@Elizabelle:
Adelson looks like a Ralph Steadman cartoon.
Uninvited Guest
@Jeffro:
Okay this. This right here? Really annoys the shit out of me, because it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone who says this that maybe the black dude, who saw good and well what happened when he commented on a cop arresting a man for trying to get into his own home, knew all this all along and also knew he couldn’t say anything about it without making things worse for himself and other POCs. Presidenting while black is a thing that does not get factored into Obama’s presidency as much as it should.
TaMara (HFG)
@Uninvited Guest: This.
Elizabelle
@germy: He is hideous. Even compared to Trump.
@debbie: Heard some of that Terri Gross interview in the car. Was not liking what I heard, about Trump being a kingmaker and power player, and doing deals around the world.
I rather hope he will be confined to the USA (hand over his passport; jerk’s a compleat flight risk) while he prepares for his starring role as perp/defendant in a long series of criminal and civil cases.
Immanentize
@Aleta:
Very meta.
TaMara (HFG)
@Betty Cracker: I agree with this. Biden treating it like a joke keeps it from being legitimized. The moment we treat it like it can happen, Trump will run with it. Treat him and the scam as a joke and it just drives him over the edge. (his twitter feed proof of that)
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Soprano2:
The way I heard it best expressed was something like, “Racism is so ingrained in American culture that when you talk about dismantling racism many folks mistake it for an attack on America itself”.
germy
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
A lot of it is “My parents were racists! You hate my parents??”
Immanentize
@catclub:. Leave the tweets on the side, but on the bottom, put a vote possibility — A or B tweet. But you have to punch out a hole in one or the other, not just mark it.
japa21
@Uninvited Guest: 3 stars out of a possible 2
Jeffro
@Suzanne: in finger paint, maybe??
Immanentize
@catclub:. Leave the tweets on the side, but on the bottom, put a vote possibility — A or B tweet. But you have to punch out a hole in one or the other, not just mark it.
frosty
I’ve been reading it hoping to get some US news from a different perspective. I’ve noticed the pr-Bernie slant and avoided it when I see it. But is there ANY news source that’s reality based and not trying to spin me one way or another?
debbie
Huh, when you’ve lost Grassley…
Ridnik Chrome
Personally I think Biden and the Democrats should be coming down a lot harder than they have been on Trump and the Republicans for refusing to concede the election. This kind of crap needs to be stopped hard and fast, otherwise the Republicans will pull it every single time they lose.
germy
He seems nice.
Immanentize
I have a totally confusing yet utterly serious consensus slogan proposal:
REFUND THE POLICE!
Aleta
@Immanentize: And on the bottom a sweepstakes number. You go to the site, enter your number and answers to questions, pay a processing fee, and you could win a burger.
persistentillusion
@Bill Arnold: You are correct. Sirota is a hack’s hack. The fact that The Guardian has published he and GG makes me want to rethink my long term support for the paper.
Dogs, fleas.
ETA, and Tony Jay’s brutal yet accurate assessment of their bias has confirmed my feeling.
Tony Jay
@J R in WV:
Once the vast rewards of Brexit start impacting across the UK the only use most Brits will have for newspapers is as kindling, and a year after that you won’t need a visa, because the surviving cannibal bands will be so crocked with brain-worms you can just walk in and grab yourself a nice country spread.
And the Guardian will still be a pile of shit.
frosty
@Suzanne: If a WV-PA meetup happens, I’ll hit the Turnpike for it.
Immanentize
@Aleta: Or or or — after you put the 12 letter and number combo into the computer (with your name, email, credit card, etc. It just says:
JOE BIDEN IS STILL PRESIDENT.
germy
Emma from FL
@taumaturgo: It’s most likely a wink to all those young, engaged, passionate volunteers he meets.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: I have some others, per our conversation of days past on this very topic:
Defang the Police!
Define ‘Police’!
Miss Bianca
@germy: This. This right here. Looking at YOU, Tom Nichols!
Ridnik Chrome
@germy: I would think a statement like that would be sufficient to get someone arrested, given the circumstances. I am really sick of seeing these people treated with kid gloves.
Ksmiami
@Ridnik Chrome: Agreed- it’s not a joke. Treat this as such.
Tony Jay
@Miss Bianca:
It appears to have coincided with the change of ownership and huge numbers of lay-offs in the journalistic staff. Then the Labour Party membership went and elected a leader who backed the conclusions of the Leveson Inquiry and it all went rapidly downhill.
I read it online for the football coverage and to see what today’s narrative is, but I wouldn’t trust its overall political coverage to tell me the time correctly.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I think the idea that Biden is engaged in a “passive” strategy is wrong. He isn’t running around like his hair is on fire, but he’s doing everything he can to push the image of him as already anointed as the next president. Those stories about him taking calls from foreign leaders, establishing a transition team, making early appointments, etc. aren’t things that are just happening. They’re part of a concerted media strategy to focus the story on him as the winner moving on with the normal work of the President Elect.
Getting that image out there is actually a big part of the battle. Presenting the image of being the legitimate winner and his opponent the person desperately trying to steal the election was a huge part of what won things for Bush in 2000. Biden is playing from the same playbook, and he’s doing it in a very media savvy way. He’s making sure to give the media easy stories every day that focus on him doing ordinary President Elect stuff. Even better, doing that plays into the media’s long-standing desire to present things as basically OK and normal. It also helps to feed their newfound willingness to present Trump’s behavior as flailing and not normal.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
Honestly? I can’t think of one.
God, that’s depressing.
gwangung
@Ksmiami:
I think people are thinking on one dimension.
Biden and his team are thinking on multiple tracks.
Biden isn’t treating this seriously.
But his team is
@Roger Moore: Exactly. Multi-prong strategy here. Top of the team treats himself as the legitimate leader. The lieutenants are treating seriously and swatting the Trumpers down.
Brachiator
Obama discusses Palin’s rise in the 2008 race as sort of a preview of Trump:
Damn!
I was talking about just this the other day with a friend, explaining why I didn’t believe that Trump supporters would disappear after Trump finally let go of the presidency. This noxious bigotry has been around for a long time, but it arose above the surface again with Palin and intensified under Trump.
It may subside somewhat, but it will be waiting for another right wing ghoul to resurrect it.
germy
@Ksmiami:
I have to assume he’s being watched & monitored closely.
Maybe I shouldn’t?
japa21
@Miss Bianca:
I love this one actually. Before any attempts are made to reform police departments, it is important to define what policing is. What does it mean “to serve and protect”? What is the end goal of policing? And particularly, what does policing NOT mean?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Agree.
japa21
@gwangung:
I think Biden is taking it very seriously. He just isn’t acting like his hair is on fire. I think, as to most others here, apparently, that he is setting just the right tone. And yes, his staff is gaming out all the scenarios.
evodevo
@Just Chuck: Yes…This…in one of her “interviews” or on her little weird reality show, she was handling a rifle…badly…and I said then that she was a fake…
japa21
Geez, I thought Covid was going to disappear 11/4. I am sure those 150K diagnosed today tend to disagree.
rikyrah
@Baud:
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca:
Refuse the Police
boatboy_srq
So even Obama himself recognizes that it was all, always, TABMITWH.
Geminid
@Yutsano: Sirota may buy into the notion that the republicans have a real chance to overturn Biden’s election. He might not, though, but knows that the credulous do, so he’ll follow his typical practice of using any occasion whatsoever to undermine confidence in the Democratic party and it’s leadership. Sirota may make a good faith argument now and then, but that’s by coincidence.
boatboy_srq
@frosty: Ditto. Not so terribly far for me. I’ll even carpool with anyone else who wants to head in that direction: i have spare sterile masks and sanitizer aplenty.
cain
@Baud:
He is the distillation of an exploded whale on a beach.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
The British papers, including the Guardian, seem to relish in being partisan and often so crudely biased that you cannot rely on them for much of anything.
But they seem to be like Fox News here. The network winks at being “objective,” but exists solely to give its viewers a place to loll in their biases and prejudices.
You can sometimes piece together some political insights if you compare various stories and opinion pieces, but no one has the time for that.
I am not saying that American newspapers are all that much better, but no one reads the UK Daily Mail thinking that it is going to be fair and unbiased.
Aleta
Reuse the police
Ian
@Felanius Kootea:
Sirota isn’t entirely wrong, but as usual the arrows he shoots seem to miss their mark.
This right here is Sirota in a nutshell. He picks up USA today, doesn’t see the Democratic party doing exactly what he thinks they should do about ‘issue X’, and then issues blistering condemnations of what the Dem party is or isn’t doing based on the most brief analysis possible of facts.
One day David Sirota will hit an apple on top of a person’s head. I just wouldn’t want to be the training practice dummy until he gets it right.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
Yup. The British Media is a sewer. Everyone says so, and it’s only got worse.
We’re soon to get a couple of far-Right TV ‘News’ channels dumped on us, one Murdoch owned, the other owned by God knows who, probably a Trust fronting for an investment fund with zero transparency. Both of them openly touting themselves as a British Fox News.
The fact that the existing UK Media are not only shrugging at the news that Britain is getting a Fox style Infotainment outlet for Right Wing propaganda, given what they all know about Fox bias, but are seemingly excited about it, tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the state of play in British journalism.
Just to clarify that point. Most British News outlets are happy to say that Fox News made Trump possible, but they have no problem at all with the same thing happening over here.
Seriously. This country is so far down the pan we’re sharing space with albino alligators.
Felanius Kootea
Thanks everyone for your responses about Sirota and Tony Jay for your explanation that the Guardian is a Bernie-left leaning paper. I wasn’t really familiar with who Sirota is; the article was forwarded to me by a relative who doesn’t live full-time in the US and was worried about what looks from the outside like a serious coup attempt.
AxelFoley
@Uninvited Guest: Thank you. I get so sick of that shit.
sgrAstar
@persistentillusion:
Tony Jay is hardly credible re The Guardian. They didn’t support Corbyn- hardly surprising as no one else did either. The G has given the world tremendous reporting in many domains. As far as their political coverage goes, their stuff is just another contribution to the discussion…to be taken or left as you will.
?
AxelFoley
@Roger Moore: Exactly this.
Elie
@Kay:
You got that right Kay. I hadnt thought of it that way but you are right on. They can’t defend the US against their own PARTY– much less any external foe. My contempt is huge but my sadness for that reality is boundless. Think of that. The only thing I can think of is that many of these people have already walked away from this country’s values and the constitution. That is the only way they can sleep at night. You cannot betray what you truly love to this degree… They are treasonous traitors and can only be thought of that way…. and without mercy. They are not part of us and we must not want them to be…
AnotherBruce
@mrmoshpotato: Are you crazy? You want to appoint 2 more Senators in a state that is already blue. Let the downstate people move to Kentucky if they dont like it.