"We are very divided right now"
Barack Obama says the US faces a huge task in reversing a culture of "crazy conspiracy theories" that have exacerbated divisions in the countryhttps://t.co/4qXjRHi96d pic.twitter.com/6SJuJ4Eokm
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 16, 2020
Some little treats, for a Monday morning. I suspect quite a few jackals already have their copies on order…
Nice freelance piece by an up-and-coming writer with tons of potential. Welcome to the Atlantic.https://t.co/5alxjgoEVL
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) November 12, 2020
"I'm more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion," Obama says of Trump’s baseless election fraud claims, adding it delegitimizes democracy https://t.co/33Nq9foOtR
— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) November 13, 2020
Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “tough” but “physically unremarkable” man, former U.S. President Barack Obama wrote in the first volume of his upcoming memoirhttps://t.co/zybWaa2dAQ
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 14, 2020
On The Road – Albatrossity – Fall in Flyover Country #2
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
I can’t believe Obama chose The Atlantic over Balloon Juice.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
Uh huh?
WereBear
Sanity will return when sanity returns. All these people living in QAnon denial qualify for a mental illness, no? Will we EVER acknowledge that and do something?
If it were a contagious virus who deranged people, we’d recognize it and do something.
But I repeat myself…
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
SiubhanDuinne
I expect to be reading it on my Kindle app in approximately 16h 7m from now.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s 6:54 on a Monday morning, Baby Girl time. :-) May you all have as good a day as I will, even tho you won’t.
rikyrah
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Awe????
NotMax
Something apolitical for variety. Keep on truckin’.
On the one hand can’t help but be impressed with the driver’s skills, on the other hand can’t help but wonder what megadosage of extra-strength blood pressure meds he or she is regularly downing.
;)
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Congrats Gramps!
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Putin is tiny (actual photo)
Baud
@rikyrah:
They should start hanging out in rural diners so the NYT notices them.
SFAW
@Baud:
He didn’t want to distract/detract from the Baud!
20202024! candidacy.Spanky
To be honest, I thought the title referred to Maggie.
Elliott
Here is the problem. When over 70 million Americans vote for fascism, we need to either disenfranchise them, accept little progress can happen in the face of this level of opposition, or rehabilitate some. I would love to Thanos snap them out if existence or have California secede or move to Canada, but those are just fantasies. Over 70 million voted for fascism (and without California, even the popular vote would have been within 0.5 percent).
satby
@NotMax: Damn!
Spanky
“Physically unremarkable”, ha! BHO sure has the gift of knowing where to stick the shiv in a most effective way.
satby
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: his entire life is short man syndrome compensation.
Aleta
SFAW
@Baud:
At the extreme risk of generalizing a demographic: I suspect/expect Black women have a gazillion better things to do with their time.
satby
I saw something cute for mousebumples. The rest of you may enjoy it too.
NotMax
FYI. Sadly, far from unexpected.
Spanky
@satby: I’ve heard that short people got no reason to live.
SFAW
@Spanky:
Relieved to see I’m not the only one.
Punchy
I would expect Qanon to have trouble continuing when the whole premise is built around Trump as president. Haha! Just kidding. Now it will be Sens Graham and (pick one) job to root out the gay pedos cannibals.
Betty Cracker
In the Goldberg interview, Obama says he’s not sure democracy can survive when people can’t reach consensus on facts, which is true and something he and other people have been saying for a long time. But now we have a situation when Trump is still tweet-screaming that he won the election, and the question is how many people really believe that and will act accordingly.
About a dozen or so crazies were back at the courthouse in my small town this weekend, denying the reality of the election outcome and waving their stupid signs at passing cars again. All middle-aged or elderly white people. Is anyone else seeing this?
The polling data (always suspect, but it’s what we have) indicates Trump’s lie is widely believed by Republican voters, and as long as that’s true, elected Republicans will be too cowardly to contradict Trump. It’s a bad situation.
Mathguy
@Spanky: That is probably the deadliest insult he could give to the Russian autocrat, whose skin is probably almost as thin as the shitgibbon’s. Loved it.
SFAW
@Elliott:
Your proposal is acceptable
SFAW
@Mathguy:
I seriously doubt that. It seems unlikely that someone could be that thin-skinned and rise to the top of the KGB/FSB (for starters).
Elliott
@SFAW: I’m all for it. How?
debbie
That tweet’s gonna bruise Putin!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It’s just nonsense that Republicans “can’t” denounce Trump’s lies. Where are far Right voters going to go? It’s an excuse for their personal cowardice and embrace of corruption.
If a majority of the GOP House and Senate came out and said Biden won where do Right wing voters go? They’d be over it in a month and screaming about something else and they’d all vote for Republicans in the next election because there is no other far Right Party. They are just groveling chickenshits by nature and they have decided to blame their failings on their base.
SiubhanDuinne
@Spanky:
Having spent just about all day yesterday bingewatching Season 4 of The Crown, which covers (among other things) the entirety of the Iron Lady’s premiership, it took me a couple of minutes to realise you were referring to Ms Haberman and not to Mrs Thatcher.
Leto
@Betty Cracker:
Not seeing it in meat space here in my corner of PA. Most of the Trumpers here have taken down their traitor signage, but in my video game there’s a vocal minority who spout a lot of the Fox bullshit, with a smattering of QAnon. The majority ridicule them, but it’s still irritating to see.
Amir Khalid
@satby:
Squeee!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elliott: they didn’t vote for fascism, they literally voted for their own deaths. These clowns just want to burn the country down rather than have to act like adults. Like John said, how do you compromise when the other person wants anthrax for dinner?
SFAW
@Elliott:
Reinstitute the type of “literacy” tests they the South used to give to Blacks back in the day. Well, actually, not the same; have them answer some critical-thinking questions. For example: “Are all Dems socialists?” “Were Hillary’s e-mails an actual scandal?” “Was Obama born in the USA?” “Do you get your news and information from Fox, OANN, Newsmax, or any similar organization?” You get the idea.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Punchy: That’s easily explained; Trump threw the election by pretending to get COVID (which is fake anyway) so he can enact a Cold War law that was writing in case of a Communist insurgency in the US that allows Trump to be secret president and fight the Pedo Conspiracy in exile.
mad citizen
@NotMax: Hey this is from the youtuber “actionkid”. I’ve been watching some of his livestreams lately where he walks around NYC (as well as some of this recorded streams).
I read a few of Obama’s paragraphs in a book excerpt in the New Yorker, and while I love the man I’m thinking the book is going to be boring as hell. Probably just me. I was on the fence about buying it (usually nice discount at costco), but think I have fallen into the “not” category
WereBear’s excellent comment at #5 is about all one needs to know about this time in our nation. It is a disinformation/stupidity virus. Question is what then to do?
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Was also binge-watching The Crown when my husband wasn’t hogging the TV to watch The Masters! What did you think of Anderson’s portrayal? I thought she nailed Thatcher’s lockjaw speaking style.
The casting people on that show are phenomenal, IMO. The guy who plays Charles gets his stoop-shouldered awkwardness perfectly, and the newbie who plays Diana is good too, I thought.
WaterGirl
@satby: I think that might be the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Elliott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m not talking compromise. I’m talking conversion. Somebody needs to figure it out. My solution is ruthless punishment until they decide mindless opposition is not a good idea, but the leadership of the Democratic party disagrees with me.
Kay
A stimulus package would have helped Trump – Trump clearly benefited from giving Trumpsters 1200 dollars and no one in their actual base gives a rat’s ass about the deficit, yet Republicans somehow found the will to block one.
But they cannot state the plain fact that Biden won the election or something very, very bad will happen to them. It’s another lie. I don’t know why they won’t admit Trump and the low quality hires are lying about the election, but it isn’t fear of their base. Their base has nowhere to go and the attention span of a fruitfly.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: True. I get enraged every time someone like Chris Coons says Republicans in the senate are asking him to congratulate Biden on the down-low (or describes another scenario where “Republicans privately say…”). I guess he means it to be reassuring, but it’s not. It makes Coons complicit, IMO. Out those fucking cowards!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I watched Barack Obama on 60 minutes, and I came away profoundly discouraged.
First time I have ever said that about Barack Obama!
Geeno
@SFAW: I also have the distinct impression that these reporters wouldn’t talk to a black woman if she were the only other person in the diner. They’d just move on to the next one down the road.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
Wonderful photos! There’s another gallery there of an adorable hedgehog camping out with his wee tent and tiny grill.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Why does everyone just accept this excuse? It’s obviously bad faith. It’s a lie. They haven’t made ANY effort to bring these people down soft- in fact, they have ginned up the anger every day since the election. Remember when they told us Trump people needed time to process? Okay, every day since that day the GOP has fed them slabs of red meat to keep them angry.
They’re lying. It’s not about their base. They’re absolutely afraid of Trump but it’s not because of voters. Trump’s an asshole and he collects information and they have given him a fuck ton of ammo. I bet he has something on every single one of them. This is about these individuals and their dishonesty and cowardice.
JPL
When President Obama compared trump to Richie Rich, not John Wayne, initially I smiled. Then I realized that trump would think it a compliment.
Unless we can agree on the facts, democracy will continue dying.
zhena gogolia
Windstorm last night knocked down the neighbor’s flimsy Trump sign. “WE BACK THE BADGE” still stands tall to remind us that our neighbors love to lick jackboots.
JPL
@Kay: That’s especially true with Lindsay Graham.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They set a fake deadline, some of them, weakly mewling about how they would stand firm at some point in the future. It was last Friday. They haven’t done shit. They’re hoping they can blackmail the country and run out the clock.
I hope they get their wish because I’m not as confident as they are that dragging the country thru this for another month is politically beneficial. Since we’ve already sustained the damage from their complete refusal to do their jobs I hope they fail to act long enough to create a backlash.
Kay
@JPL:
They were just re-elected! Yeah, right. Republican voters are going to hold a thought for the next 6 years and punish them. I don’t know what it’s about but it isn’t about their base. Perhaps they’re all corrupt as fuck and Trump has the goods on them. Ya think?
Elizabelle
WRT polarization: I don’t see how we do anything about it without taking Fox News/rightwing broadcasting — out of the mix. And carving back Facebook’s ability to disseminate lies.
These outlets are purposefully disinforming and radicalizing their viewers, and making this country, ungovernable. On purpose.
You cannot outprogram brainwashing and hysteria like this. They’ve got their own facts! They don’t need to hear yours!
narya
It is probably just me here among the jackals, but I almost never read autobiographies, even by people whom I like/admire. I need my reading to take me away to another space. I’m glad to hear The Crown is good; I’ve been saving up that and GBBS. Friend is off to look for Bambi’s grandfather in rural WI, then will need to quarantine, so no company for a month for me; fingers crossed that he doesn’t find the virus. He and the very few others who will be there are being super safe, but it’s just crazy now.
Sloane Ranger
@SiubhanDuinne:
Mrs Thatcher has now, thankfully, gone to her eternal reward afterspendingher finalyears sufferingfrom Alziemer’s. And I feel dirty being thankful for another person’s death.
Another Scott
@JPL: Relatively close elections and a bimodal electorate are nothing new. This election wasn’t especially close. We won. Don’t let a noisy minority let us forget that.
Uncle Joe has camped out in the center of the Democratic party for decades. Him moving left is a reflection of the country and the party moving left. That’s a good thing and a reflection of things slowly getting better after the disaster of Donnie and his minions.
The work never ends, but we’re heading toward a much better place.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
That’s a really important psychological insight. Makes the inexplicable “[white] people in a diner” stories more explicable.
It’s easy enough to remember and repeat, too. Props to Manjula Ray.
NotMax
@Sloane Ranger
Remains morbidly funny how many people totally freaked out about Cher at the time when they saw the hashtag @thatcherdead.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Or maybe they don’t care about who honestly won the election. They enjoy staging drama and being the center of attention. They also like weakening the incoming administration if they can do it.
RSA
@Kay:
True. The downside for individual GOP politicians is that they’ll be primaried from the right, so that while the party will survive, they might not. This tells us something about how they prioritize country, party, and person.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW:
Is your traitorous, orange god emperor a Soviet shitpile mobster conman who fleeced you dumb, racist, white trash bastards for all he could because your dumb asses hated having a black guy as President?
Sloane Ranger
@Kay: I think some of this has to do with keeping the anger level up at 11 to get the Republican vote out for the Senatorial elections in Georgia.
The other part has to do with fear of being primaried by Trumpster true believers. There are elections coming up in 2022 and Trump got over 72 million votes this election.
Bruce K
@Kay: Trump still has a hold on the neo-Klan voters, I think, and he could still turn them against the establishment GOP in a heartbeat out of sheer malice or petulance. It’s the devil’s bargain of the Southern Strategy coming back to haunt the GOP, and I’d be laughing at their predicament if it weren’t threatening to drive the entire country off the edge of a cliff along with them.
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
Reminds me of things a hundred years ago – you know, 2005 – when Dubya’s mideast policy consisted of “clap louder!”, and every six months was a Friedman Unit.
Good times.
SFAW
@Kay:
I don’t usually disagree with you, but: their base remembers every grievance, perceived (not necessarily real) slight, and “injustice” perpetrated by Teh Evul Demon-rats* upon them, going back to The War of Northern Aggression.
*Meaning modern Democrats, of course, since the Dems used to be their elected officials before the “switch” due to the Civil Rights Act. By the way, did you know Abraham Lincoln was a Republican? Not many people do.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: Do you think OAN and whatever other looney channels (Trump TV?) will weaken FOX? One advantage FOX has is that it’s everywhere. It’s part of most basic cable. If its audience splinters, will that help? They may still be getting crazy stuff but it won’t be a unified message?
Unless some billionaire liberal buys FOX, I don’t know what else to do. Sometimes going after advertisers seems to help.
jonas
Remember when American presidents used to be literate enough to write a memoir on their own once they were out of office? I’m sure Regenery will find a ghost writer for Trump willing to translate four years of fascist cosplay into something resembling English, but it will quickly end up in the remainder bin as not even his most loyal fans are really interested in reading.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: There’s an interview with Obama in The Atlantic where he talks about this. He says Iowa is the same state with the same people he won in 2008, but he identifies the collapse of local papers and nationalization of political coverage as a factor in increased polarization. Fox News and the wingnut online ecosystem existed in 2008, but the latter wasn’t as prevalent and micro-targeted as it is now.
I think there’s something to that. It has huge implications for national elections, obviously, but also local coverage of corruption, etc. Maybe a stimulus program to resurrect local news? Unlike, say, coal, it’s essential to a functional democracy. I don’t know how that would work.
Absent that, it also made me wonder if there’s more state and local level Dems could do to benefit from nationalized elections on the playing field we find ourselves in. We tend to take the a local good policy approach, and that works for people like Katie Porter. But I think there’s a lot more we could do to brand Republicans as corrupt crooks who shovel money at rich people.
Dorothy A. Winsor
WereBear’s post about surviving NaNoWriMo is up on my blog today. I found it helpful.
Skepticat
You may very well be right, but I doubt he could have anything worse than what they’re doing right now.
jonas
@Bruce K: The “establishment” GOP is defunct and now goes by the moniker “NeverTrumpers”. The current GOP has been fully assimilated to the Trumpist borg.
Geminid
@Kay: I think most republican voters will stick with the party. But there is a significant minority of trump fanatics who are liable to walk away. They’ll go to their grave grumbling, “we were going to make America great again. But then the RINO’s and the globalists stabbed us in the back.”
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
Too many words/syllables for them to respond with anything other than “Wh-u-u-u-t?” Outside of that: it nicely aggregates a number of test questions into one.
jonas
It’s an uphill battle. Conservative voters have no problem seeing rich people suck at the government teat. They’ve proven themselves worthy of graft by virtue of being wealthy and white. What they hate is Democrats shoveling money at regular people. Now there’s your corruption.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Likewise! I thought Gillian Anderson* was amazing — better (and, obviously, more sustained) than the great Meryl Streep’s “Iron Lady” (and it feels like high treason even to write that!)
Just about all the characters are well cast, and some (Erin Doherty as Princess Anne, for instance) are truly inspired, although I confess I haven’t cared for either of the actors who’ve played the Queen Mother.
*I found out just in the last few days that Gillian Anderson and The Crown’s creator/writer/show runner Peter Morgan have been romantic partners for several years. They apparently agreed before filming began that he wouldn’t comment on her portrayal of Thatcher and she wouldn’t comment on his writing of Thatcher’s lines, in order to keep a clear, bright line between the personal and the professional.
Another Scott
@SFAW: We shouldn’t forget that most incumbents (IIRC) beat back Donnie’s attempt to primary them from Q-land. There are a few exceptions, but it’s always really hard to beat the incumbent. Even with God Emperor Donnie.
He’s only going to get weaker out of office.
Chin up, everyone. We’ve got a strong team and will get good things done while the Teabagged have their drama.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Dunno whether or not you’re familiar with one of Lenny Bruce’s routines.
:)
Baud
73 million voted for Trump because 78 million voted for Biden. It’s impossible to activate our side without activating theirs. And Trump activated our side.
p.a.
@Kay: It’s not all cowardice; some significant % of surviving teaturds in Congress are true believer/idiots.
The question (way above my pay grade) is how tRumpist voters (’16 and ’20) break down re: previously apathetic non-voters who came out when R’s began saying the quiet parts out loud vs. Fux News/hate radio/MoralMajority (wayback machine!)/Talibangelical long time psy-op’ed voters.
The formerly apathetic can maybe be kicked back to stay-at-homes with more Dem successes, and that may be the best key to recurring electoral success. Maybe anger over R abandonment of tRump could turn them off too. Don’t think there’s many ‘persuadables’ in the tRump camp w/o a completely unacceptable Dem turn to the right.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sloane Ranger:
Oh, I know Thatcher had dementia and that she’s been dead for years. I just couldn’t think of another Maggie for a couple of minutes there.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: “Is your orange god really Russkie trash?” :)
Dorothy A. Winsor
Have you all seen this? (It’s possible I found the link on BJ in the first place. I can’t remember. I am old.)
Just Chuck
@Kay:
That suggests that were he to not have this blackmail material, they would have done otherwise. I find that a dubious claim. I think the more likely answer is that they are simply craven fascists at heart.
Soprano2
If reporters had real balls, they would ask every one of these Republicans who is supporting Trump’s idiocy if they think all the down-ballot Republican gains were also the product of fraud. If we throw out the results of the presidential election, we have to throw out the results of all the elections, because if the ballot is fraudulent it means everyone who was voted for on that ballot has a fraudulent vote! Make them squirm at this idiocy, dammit!
Betty Cracker
@jonas: I don’t think that’s universally true. Here in Florida, in the same election Trump won by a bigger margin than he did in 2016, voters passed a $15 minimum wage ballot initiative over the dire warnings of Republicans at every level. It’s not a corruption issue, but a $15 minimum wage is a liberal policy, and it got more than 60% of the vote, which means a lot of Republicans voted for it.
Trump’s tax cut for the rich was unpopular with Republican voters. I think everyone hates corruption and lots of people of both (and no) parties see the wealthy buying influence and don’t like it. The problem is, they think it’s a both-sides thing. It’s a fact that Republicans agitate cultural fights as cover to enact a plutocrat-friendly agenda that is broadly unpopular. I think it would be good to point that out more.
ByRookorbyCrook
We aren’t doing anything until January 20, 2021. I can’t even suss out how to deal with the 71 million proto-fascists citizens we reside with. The GOP is content to delegitimize the United States Government at this time until they go into full opposition mode again? The government may not be small enough to drown in a washtub, but it may be weak enough.
There is no compulsion or leverage for full red states. Wyoming, Alabama, and the other Elephant Dementia Virus states can drill through bedrock in the depths they will sink and not have it affect their electoral chances. The counter to this security would be to cut federal funding to these leeches as a stick, but I am not sure it would budge them. The intransigence of Deep Red reps and senators encourages the GOP in purplish states to adopt their brazeness even if it costs them their post. Primaries reinforce this and remove any moderating candidates who can’t deliver the Flavor-aid.
Rational argument will not work. Giving the racist authoritarian lovers a new elderly white daddy to follow isn’t mollifying them. Hopefully, it will become more palatable than following Orange Julius Q-in-Exile. If the Right Wing feels threatened by Joe Biden, how is there any compromise?
I am glad, in a way, Trump is being a tantrum-throwing twit and not conceding. The slow exsanguination of any illusion of dignity from his enablers can put things in stark relief. The Proud Boys have pulled their white robes out of the closet and thrown off the thin veneer of ‘Not KKK’ the media gave them. Joe continues to show calm capability with little drama. This gives the country a cooling off period. Maybe. But if Senator Yertle decides his ultimate mission is to make
Barack ObamaJoe Biden, a one-term president, where do we go? We fight for 2022, but 2 years of COVID fatigue and economic recovery will be fodder for the media narrative of ‘Why isn’t it fixed yet, Dems?’So we chunk it up. For now, we fight for Georgia. For Senators Warnock and Ossoff. We counter the BS among our voters and demotivate theirs. After Jan 4th we can see the lay of the land to where we need to focus.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Didn’t know about that bit.
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
He was never at the top of the KGB. Far from it.
He has pretty damn thin skin, but not as thin as Trump’s, of course.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
I knew Gillian Anderson was going to be an acting legend nearly 30 years ago, when I saw the pilot episode of The X-Files.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t disagree. But to be fair, we are pushing issues, like racial justice, that make GOP and GOP-curious voters uncomfortable. It would be great if people prioritized the issues Dems are strong on, but evidence suggests that many do not. And we’re not going to abandon our voters by putting “cultural” issues on the back burner.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
Really? OK, thanks for correcting me.
Damn, I hate it when I fuck up like that.
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2:
And then slap them with a cold fish while they stand there slack-jawed. (It’s only logical.)
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good question about OAN and others cannibalizing Fox News’s audience share/attention.
@Betty Cracker: Interesting point about local newspapers. Also about tying the GOP to corruption (and cowardice, frankly). They make their points for us, daily. The GOP sure succeeded in painting some vulnerable Democrats with “Defund the Police” and “Socialism.”
Politics is best approached by thinking people. We need to figure out something to get people to think again. It’s become tribal, and along the lines of sports betting.
And I am delighted to see young people, people of color, suburbanites and sane rural folks flocking to vote for Dems.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Vlad throwing Dumpian Twitter tantrums would be something!
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that Anderson must have loathed Thatcher. She plays her so perfectly, but you don’t detect any humanity in her portrayal. Maybe I a projecting my own feelings, but she even manages to make one of Thatcher redeeming qualities, her love for her son, into something repellent. I thought Anderson was brilliant.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s what the locals call “wicked pissah funny.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Have never seen that series.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elliott: Have you ever tried to have a conservation with one of these people; the micro second they encounter something that’s not part of their dogma their brains shut down and they start screaming out some programmed rant like’s a prayer. Most of the time you can avoid abstract issues like human origins but how do you agree to disagree on things like the4 pandemic?
And even then, this election is just the outrage of the day, it will morph into something else soon enough once the thrill is gone.
There are signs this might be easing up; the explanation I have heard for the Wingnut Extra Stupid Hive Mind is AM radio. Wingnut Media has that all to it’self for the while now but there is a combo of Rush Limbaugh is dying from cancer and advertisers not wanting to have their names associated with outright racism that is forcing AM away from wingnut talking heads shows.
Geminid
@Another Scott: I think only 3 republican Congressmen were successfully primaried. One was my 5th Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman, replaced by the loathsome Bob Good. Scott Tipton was knocked out of his CO3d seat by pistol packin’ Lauren Boebert. And a third congressman in north Florida was also successfully primaried by a right wing challenger. But I think that at least in Virginia it is a real fear among incumbents, especially because right wingers can win control of county and district commitees, and then decree a caucus and convention model for candidate selection. That’s how Good beat Riggleman.
I always thought that Scott Rigell (VA2nd) and Robert Hurt (VA5th) retired in 2016 because they saw what happened to Eric Cantor (VA7th) in 2014. That’s just speculation, though. Rigell and Hurt never explained why they had retired even though they were relatively young, but just returned to their prosperous businesses
Skepticat
Just read that Paul LeRAGE is going to run against Janet Mills in an attempt to return as governor of Maine. That ruined my day.
Jeffro
Not really happy with this headline: With Pandemic Raging, Republicans Say Election Results Validate Their Approach
I probably would have gone with, “Republican Candidates THRILLED to Know That Their Base Is Willing to Die for The Economy, GOP Electoral Fortunes”
Leader signaling is a POWERFUL thing…powerful enough to get the Covidiot masses to die for their stupid and evil elected officials. Let’s not wait to 2022 or 2024 to start pointing out that the GOP brought all this disease and death upon us, Dems.
SFAW
OT, but: just read (via a DKos mailer) that Paul LePage has moved back to ME, and is making noises about running for governor. His current attack line is not dissimilar to the “Gretchen Whitmer is a dictator” insanity.
MomSense will be thrilled to hear that, I’m sure.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
There’s a not-entirely-rational faction among the X-Files fandom who insist against all the evidence that, because Mulder and Scully were such a compelling couple on that show, Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny must be a couple in real life too. This information will be a great shock to them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup. In her portrayal, at least (and the script makes this explicit), she is far more tearful and emotional at being chucked out of leadership than she ever was over her missing son or her semi-estranged daughter. The various parent-child dynamics throughout The Crown are fascinating. I’d say more, but I’ll save my thoughts for a time when spoilers aren’t quite as much an issue as they would be now.
Baud
@Jeffro:
At least now we should have no problem ending Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status in the primaries.
geg6
@Leto:
Same here at the other end of the state. There is one house down the street that still has it’s sign up, but it’s looking pretty sad. Looks like people have been throwing rocks at it, it’s so beaten up. SAD!
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Hahaha! Although I never saw so much as one episode of The X-Files, it was enough of a cultural phenomenon that even I was aware of the rumour about Anderson and Duchovny.
gene108
@ByRookorbyCrook:
In AL, and MS a lot of federal funds – SNAP, WIC, etc. – go to African Americans, who have been, and currently are disadvantaged in those states. You cannot target a reduction in funds in those states without impacting them.
gene108
@ByRookorbyCrook:
In AL, and MS a lot of federal funds – SNAP, WIC, etc. – go to African Americans, who have been, and currently are disadvantaged in those states. You cannot target a reduction in funds in those states without impacting them.
mad citizen
@SiubhanDuinne: Never watched more than a few minutes of an X files, but watched a funny Kimmel clip the other night with Duchovny and Anderson talking about the rumor of why they came to have friction (or hated each other) on the X Files. Seemed to center on how long it took Anderson (and her hair) to get ready for scenes and takes, and Duchovny’s a-hole reactions.
I have been confused lately watching Gillian Anderson interviews that she speaks in an English accent; yet other times she goes with American. Wiki tells me she is both, but I find it odd when someone employs an entirely different accent for themselves. Maybe she’s more British and American now?
The Thin Black Duke
@Amir Khalid: Incredibly, the producers of The X-Files we’re planning on firing Anderson for some stupid reason during the first season. (It didn’t help that David wasn’t supportive of her as he could have been) Then the amazing “Down By The Sea” episode happened. After that, Anderson wasn’t going anywhere.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
I recommend it for a binge-watch. It is one of the great TV shows of all time and remains influential to this day. There is also a thing called the Scully effect that might interest you.
SFAW
@mad citizen:
Even though I was born and raised on Long Island, I sometimes write with a Boston accent.
trnc
Another fantasy – that significant numbers of them want to be united with liberals. Biden says he’s going to unite the country – nice thought, but he really needs to explicitly point out that there are many people with official power and/or deep pockets who have a vested interest in division, and they clearly are good at creating and maintaining it. It needs to be repeated constantly, and dems need to recognize our mandate and govern over the next 2 years like it’s all we have.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t know if I’d go as far as “all-time great,” but it was a pretty good show. For some bizarre reason, I especially liked “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” and I also like “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” (with Alex Trebek and Jesse Ventura as Men in Black). But that’s because I’m weird. Lots of the shows, including the underlying thread, were excellent.
ETA: Had not heard of the Scully effect, thanks for the info.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Such rumors have been abundant since television became a mass medium.
Lucy/Desi and Ozzie/Harriet have much to answer for.
As for Bonanza, well….
;)
lowtechcyclist
There’s these things called primaries. When Eric Cantor was successfully primaried, it demonstrated pretty clearly that the base would punish the least hint of reason or compromise.
The GOP base is getting crazier by the day, and they’ll kick out the GOPers who don’t keep up.
Elliott
@SFAW: he was the director of the FSB which was a successor to the kgb.
Amir Khalid
@mad citizen:
She was born in Chicago, and then her dad went to work in Britain, so she spent her first 12 years in London. She went back to London in 2002 after the ninth season of The X-Files, and has been working from there ever since. Her English accent is the real thing, and so is her American one.
taumaturgo
@Betty Cracker: History tells us that during the height of the French Revolution when the discussion turned to continue with a monarchy or constitute a Republic there were peasants who supported the king -mostly religious Catholics – even after having lived during the misery the monarchy and elites imposed on them. Were they traitors to their cause? Did they see themselves inherently inferior to the elites? Did the circumstance and conditions shape their minds to be blind to the possibility of a future without a god-king? After all, the elites made sure the lower class and the poor knew their place. The rivers of blood that came afterward attest to the maxim that hate begets hate, violence begets violence and no one is immune. Is there space for truth and reconciliation in our country?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: It’s so often posed as an either or thing — Dems can emphasize economic issues or civil rights. I understand how that thinking emerged since the party splintered along that fault line in 2016. But I believe it’s a false dichotomy. (Not saying YOU are peddling that line, but it’s prevalent.)
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: Eric Cantor lost his seat in 2014 to Tea Partier Dave Brat, an Ayn Rand-loving divinity graduate who was an Econ prof at Randolph Macon. Brat held the seat for four years, and was then defeated by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who has successfully held the seat for a second term. Brat is now Dean of the Business School at Liberty University (Falwell-Land).
The district changed a bit — thank dog it no longer includes any share of blood red Hanover Country, and Abigail is a formidable — and centrist — candidate with national security cred (former CIA officer).
My point being: yes, sometimes the Congresscritter gets primaried and loses to a far right challenger. But that makes that rightwinger more vulnerable to a Democratic pickup, as the district changes.
I will be interested to see what happens with Virginia’s 5th, which elected a Liberty U official over an incredibly appealing young Black physician-attorney, Cameron Webb. I hope we see a lot more of Dr. Webb. District has Charlottesville and Lynchburg (Falwell-Land); talk about a difference in academic institutions and base.
snoey
@SFAW:
Pissah is an adjective, not an adverb.
It’s both wicked pissah and wicked funny.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Good. I don’t have to get mad at you then. :)
Yes, I agree.
This is where the noise machine comes in. If Dems spend 75% of their time talking about broad economic issues, and 25% on more base-specific issues, the media, especially right-wing media, will invert that to 90% or greater base-issues.
I recall an apocryphal story from 2016 where some Midwestern Dem said he wished Hillary would stop speaking about trans bathroom issues, when she in fact avoid the topic completely or almost completely.*
And to be a bit introspective, a lot of us are to blame. I can’t recall how many times over many years I’ve heard “Why won’t Dems do X?” shortly after I’ve just seen Dems do X. If we’re ignoring what Dems are actually doing, then we can’t expert the normies to be aware of it.
*ETA: To update this to 2020, very few Dems endorsed “Defund the Police” and Biden clearly walked away from that, but the noise machine made it seem like it was standard Dem policy. I saw a random comment the other day (not here) about how the Dems supported “open borders,” which no Dem does, to my knowledge.
Kristine
@SFAW:
Those are two of my favorites as well. I also loved “Bad Blood,” the Chaney TX vampire episode.
“Home,” otoh, I could watch only once, then never again. Full marks for horror, but still.
Suzanne
@Leto: I took my kids to the playground yesterday after that crazy storm yesterday (Allegheny County). Someone who is clearly economically anxious had defaced the slide, spray painting “FUCK BIDEN”. I am waiting to hear the right wing denounce this sort of behavior. After all, they told me destroying property is the same as police shooting black people.
I have to say that I am enjoying the flavor of the newer Cletus safaris. The ones I have read in recent weeks have been really, really contemptuous, in a subtle way.
My copy of the book should be here tomorrow!!!
Luciamia
@SFAW: Hell, just ask them to define ‘socialism.’ accurately. That should stop them right there.
egorelick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My solution is to cut them off. I won’t talk to them if they act like that and will call them names. Sometimes I do it civilly; sometimes I am a jerk about it. I have that luxury. I also would have left the country if Trump was reelected – again, luxury. But something’s got to give because democracy is barely holding on and GOTV helped hold the line, but we did NOT make forward progress. I’ll have more hope if we win the Georgia Senate seats (and I think the pundits are underrating our chances although underdogs, I think 35 to 40 percent is closer to the true probability than longshot). Someone who is paid to do this needs to figure out how to convert these brainless zombies. Rational argument is a losing idea so I don’t try it. Arresting and prosecuting GOP politicians seems reasonable, but risky and party leadership will balk. Compromise is ridiculous and a losing plan anyway. We need some other answer.
lowtechcyclist
No question about it, but the Congresscritter who got primaried in the first place is still out of Congress and is no longer important.
That’s what the GOP electeds are afraid of, and what happened to their district afterwards doesn’t change that.
NotMax
Wondering whether the publishers tried to convince Obama to title it The Art of the Real?
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
A few of my favourites are the three-part episode that bridges seasons two and three, Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip; Memento Mori from season four for Scully’s unforgettable opening monologue; and the season four-season five bridge Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Cantor also didn’t do anything for his district and camped out at DC fundraisers once he got into leadership. He thought that raising a bunch of money and having slick TV ads was all that he needed to do, and paid the price for it.
Lots of GOP people learned the wrong lesson from Cantor’s loss.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Kristine:
Home was not aired in Malaysia; too many pigs in sight. Although it has this marvelous moment where Scully tries to control a herd of pigs by saying “Baa Ram Ewe!”
Suzanne
@Baud:
Yup. This is 100% true.
The big question I have is, once Trump is gone from the scene (whenever that is), will the GOP be as cohesive? In short, are they a tribe or a cult of personality? I think there’s a small but statistically significant chunk of the electorate that is only here for Trump. He is a uniquely potent avatar for a lot of shitty people. And I don’t see a likely successor, and I also don’t see any evidence that Trump would want to transfer his people to anyone else, anyway.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
The only episode for me, offhand, which hasn’t over time become part of a generalized blur with all the others is Ice. Probably more because it happened to be the first one I saw than for any other reason.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: LOL. “The Art of the Real.” We can call it that!
Someone needs to use that title.
cain
He started with “Dream of my Father”, to “Nightmares of the Orange Menace”
Hoodie
@Suzanne: They aren’t mutually exclusive. A portion of Trump’s electorate are cult of personality types who may not turn up in an election in which he’s not personally on the ballot. The rest are “normal” Fox viewers (Fox existed before Trump) or Republicans by family or other affinity. Trump and his followers are both pretty self involved. 2018 is evidence that the whole Trump coalition may not show up for elections in which he is not personally involved and Trump does not go out of his way to help GOP candidates in these or other circumstances because it’s all about him. The only thing that might change that calculus is if Trump develops a media network, which might cause him to become personally involved in helping 2022 candidates. However, I can’t seem him being inclined to do that, he’s too lazy and unfocused. He’s not really doing anything for Perdue or Loeffler right now. He’d rather play Twitter games and golf.
cain
@rikyrah:
Or they are in fact racist themselves.
Elizabelle
Yikes. Hurricane Iota has strengthened to a Category 5. Expected to hit Nicaragua overnight.
Second major hurricane in two weeks for central America.
Thank dog they will have President Biden in office for relief efforts, and not Loser Trump to pitch rolls of paper towels at them.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Cameron Webb was beaten by Bob Good in a district designed by the republican General Assembly to favor a republican. The 5th will be redrawn more neutrally by 2022, and I think Webb will beat Good in a neutrally drawn district. I just hope that Webb’s Albemarle County and Good’s Cambell County are still in the same district, so there can be a rematch. I think Cameron Webb has a bright political future ahead of him.
mad citizen
@egorelick: There should be consequences for their behavior. “Don’t believe in vaccines?” “Don’t believe COVID is real?” Fine, then no treatment for you when you get it. Etc. The old economist free market theory stuff I learned says the markets will take care of all of this–markets of information should have the truth to rise to the top–but again there are not enough consequences to those not living in reality. Of course we hit on the media a lot here as well because they are part of it for not telling it like it is.
WereBear
The Trumpers don’t want politicians. They want a circus. The R’s will coalesce around a new circus performer. If need be.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Please, no. We don’t need Barack Obama, or his book, to end up being tied to Trump. That just elevates Trump more, and drags Barack Obama down.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Those were all great episodes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Suzanne: Trump is also been working on his Fake Successful Businessman image since the 80s. The only other person I could think that would replace Trump would be Rush Limbaugh and he is dying of cancer
@WereBear: Sure, they want a circus clown, but which clown of the many, many wingnut media clowns out there? The Right is up against the same thing with the rest of the media, market fragmentation from the internet.
Steve in the ATL
@narya:
Concur. I read to escape from the real world.
NB: for the limited purpose of this post, I am including Balloon Juice in the real world. I promise not to make a habit of it.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Cantor probably brought a Rolls Royce jet engine plant to Richmond, maybe other industry. But the people who knocked him out in the 2014 cared about ideology and hot-button social issues, not practical matters like economic development, which in that area is taken for granted.
Immanentize
@SFAW</a
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
been a minute, but in real time wasn’t the rumor that in spite of their on-camera chemistry they didn’t much care for each other in real life? I never saw X-Files, but Anderson was great in Bleak House and The Fall.
germy
mad citizen
@germy: Our power grids are not ancient. Billions of dollars of new stuff comes online every year; a significant portion is replacing he old stuff (end-of life projects).
germy
@mad citizen:
Ivan X
I recorded a one-minute song yesterday about our loser-in-chief’s refusal to concede, called GTFO. I’m pleased with myself, and want to share it with you all. YouTube or Instagram .
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Yeah, well, as my daddy always used to say, “it all depends on whose ox is being gored…”
I happen to live in one of the “exceptional” Congressional Districts that just got a Q-Anon nut Representative over the bog-standard-evil Republican who had been representing us for 10 years, so I am not inclined to take comfort in the notion of “oh, well, it’s just a few crazies out there, nothing to worry about!”
Kay
Another week where we’re paying the hundreds of low quality Trump hires to not do any work.
They’re blocking the transition because allowing the transition to go forward would mean they have to do some work. Instead they’ll just run out the clock while continuing to get paid until someone turns off the spigot.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: Condolences. I understand the dangers of kooks. But we’ve always had them.
Father Coughlin.
Red-Baiting
Joseph McCarthy
Etc.
Yes, we have to fight them.
Cheers,
Scott.
mad citizen
@germy: Local results may vary do to bad actors, but even PG&E is only a part of the Western Interconnection. It’s sad since the Cali rates are around twice as high as most other parts of the country. Good thing the weather is good there in terms of cooling/heating degree days.
Patricia Kayden
zhena gogolia
@Ivan X:
Nice. I “liked” it on YouTube.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: Well, we can hope. I guess I will have to get more involved with state-level Democratic politics again. (not as a candidate, mind, altho’ there are times when I think, “fuck it, the Democrat is going to lose anyway, might as well have some performance-art level fun saying all of OUR quiet parts out loud, for a change!”)
germy
Obama the writer had to deal with an editor
Patricia Kayden
Geminid
@Another Scott: well, I looked up that Rolls Royce jet engine plant and saw that it closed this summer. I always thought they wanted an American foothold north of Richmond because it was Cantor’s district. Big companies like to have big politicians in their corner, if not in their pocket. I remember wondering why Boeing would move their corporate headquarters to Chicago. Then I realized that two Senators plus two Senators equal four Senators.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Gillian has described their relationship as friendly, but not really intimate. They had some moments of friction as work partners will always do, she says, but generally got on fine. Apparently they still keep in touch. In the early years Duchovny was a bit more famous than she, and so the Fox Network regarded him as the star and paid him like four times what they paid her (being sexists). But I think that got evened out over time.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: re Boeing: and they got their two extra Senators, and divorced the engineers from the decision-makers, and Boeing brought a world of trouble and death upon its head with the Max8.
That move to Chicago was egregious, as was the company’s takeover by the beancounters and rapacious executives.
Cautionary tale there.
Also: thanks for info about the fifth. I will be bullish on the fifth too (Virginia’s Fifth Congressional district, including Mr. Jefferson’s home, now represented by a Biblethumper).
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Ohhhh. You could make an excellent candidate. Hold that thought!
Kay
There is no vaccine plan. They’re all terrified that professional people from outside the Trump cult compound are going to come in and find out that none of them do any work.
germy
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: They cannot let go of Hilary Clinton.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
2016 was the highlight of their miserable existence.
mrmoshpotato
American Nuremberg trials even without this fucking pandemic, but now we’re going to need bigger courtrooms.
laura
@mad citizen: I had a fellowship at the CPUC for my LLM in 2001 in the Admin Law Division and was tasked with reviewing all generating capacity divestiture contracts to determine if they were reversible. All the CA companies including PG&E sold their Golden gooses for multiple times the amounts of their book value. Even I, inexperienced in the ways of free market capitalism could see that the buyers intended to jack the price of electricity to the stratosphere. Regarding PG&E – those fuckers immediately ring fenced the corporate entity that remained very profitable and created new, broke ass broke divisions that forced the rate payers to pay the new significantly higher costs that they were promised would not happen. In a just society, some PG&E executives would be prison bound for these deaths to send a message.
In one of the last 2 public sector contracts I negotiated – both small water districts, the District manager had been the DM in Paradise. He moved his family to western Sonoma County. Fire followed along with workforce covidiocy.
mad citizen
@Geminid: Dying thread, but according to their website Rolls Royce in thriving in (my place) Indianapolis (all those red-state workers, ha ha!):
Rolls-Royce Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana
Rolls-Royce has become a leading industry supplier in the U.S. with a significant and growing presence. Today, more Rolls-Royce products are built in Indianapolis than anywhere else in the world. Approximately 4,000 employees work in Indianapolis in manufacturing, assembly, test, engineering and a variety of staff support roles.
Indianapolis businesses includes: Defense, LibertyWorks, Civil Small & Medium Engines, Marine and Helicopters.
We recently completed a $600 million investment to modernize equipment and technology at our Indianapolis facilities. This marks Rolls-Royce’s single largest investment in the U.S. in 25 years.
Kay
@germy:
It’s a cult. Political mechanisms weren’t designed for this and they can’t take care of it. They need some kind of psychological intervention- not that they’ll get it and I’m certainly not going to try to persuade them to avail themselves of it. But “politics” won’t fix this.
mad citizen
@laura: Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Midwestern regulatory staff here. One of our long-term practices has always been to observe what California does and see if it makes sense, or not. It used to be that Cali rates were around 3 times most of the country. But forcing us in the midwest to pay for polluting made our rates go up, so now only half as much as California. A fairly prominent researcher from there told me at a conference a few years back that the actual cost in California would be about 8 of the 24 cents if you took out all the BS–like you describe. I believe one term is “securitization”, and the topic has come up now as a way to retire some coal/nuke plants early, but still pay the owners the rest of the cost, etc. You know the game.
Kay
What’s the political response to people standing outside Hillary Clinton’s house chanting “lock her up”?
There is none. It’s the wrong tool to address what’s wrong with them. They’re in the wrong forum. I don’t know what the right one would be but there is no one outside Dear Leader who can address these peoples’ problems.
laura
@mad citizen: why, yes, that game indeed. SONGS – the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station built on an earthquake fault line comes to mind, along with my local SMUD nuke power plant that the rate payers demanded be shut the hell down. Good times, good times. I’m still very interested in all things infrastructure/interdependence. Buoyed by the “what could be” and perpetually pissed off by the “what we must do what we’ve done” social and environmental good be damned.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay:
There is a desperate need to expand the mental illness treatment provisions of the ACA?
Yarrow
@Kay: Agreed. We need professional cult deprogrammers to help Democrats come up with a good strategy. What we’re doing isn’t working.
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Fucker Carlson is the only plausible potential heir to tRump that I can see. But the movement is less potent the second time around, see also, Sanders, Bernie.
Yarrow
@Steve in the ATL: Just FYI, it is very difficult to get mental health treatment under the ACA. There are few providers who are on exchange medical plans. If they are there they aren’t taking new patients. The ACA may be require mental health to be covered but they can’t make providers sign up with the plans. So they don’t and options are very limited.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy:
they’re enraged about… winning
so much to unpack there
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Loudspeaker trucks repeating “Blow yourselves!”?
A plan for the orange shitstain in his second term. Oh wait…
Geminid
@mad citizen: Rolls Royce’s Richmond plant had only 280 workers. It seemed almost a nominal operation in an unlikely place.
Kathleen
@Baud: The MAGA’s and the Media’s. Sounds like a cheesey 70’s comedy about blue collar family who wins the lottery and moves next door to a bank president in a snooty old money neighborhood.
Kay
This is the worst scandal in Ohio history, narrowly beating out what is now the second worst scandal in Ohio history, the 70 million dollar charter school scandal, which happened two years ago:
Corruption would be a great issue for Democrats, should they ever decide to take it up. Just sitting there waiting for them.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: eh. He comes off as a smarmy, douchey rich kid. Probably because he is one. He doesn’t have the faux-macho appeal of trump. Also, he didn’t squander his giant inheritance and have to turn to laundering Russian money, which is apparently super popular with republicans.
frosty
@Leto: There’s only one Trump sign gone on my street. I suspect my neighbor’s “No More Bullshit” sign will be up until it’s in tatters.
Kay
A Republican operative went to the FBI about the Republican nuclear bailout scandal. It was too corrupt even for him, and he was getting paid to participate in it. He didn’t want Ohio Republicans to sully his reputation as a sleazy political operative with their outright theft of taxpayer funds.
There are limits, I guess.
germy
“I hope Trump goes back to hosting celebrity apprentice but this time whenever he tries to fire anyone, they sue him and refuse to leave.”
(Sarah Cooper)
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
Do you think if we take Medicare For All off the table the people standing outside Hillary Clinton’s house chanting “lock her up” will be persuaded?
Student loans- think they’re open to negotiation there?
They’re just no longer within the realm of “politics”. I mean, once they no longer accepted election results I feel the chances of our reaching compromise on the….. filibuster went down. Maybe it’s just me and others are more optimistic but I’m not seeing them as real partners in “getting things done”.
germy
@Kay:
This story should have its own thread. Maybe one of the front pagers will pick up on it.
germy
@Kay:
No, but the insurance companies will be happy.
Kay
@germy:
The FBI/informant part is really amazing. He showed up: “they’re stealing and I would like to wear a wire”
Easiest scandal bust in history.
zhena gogolia
@Steve in the ATL:
He couldn’t get past the first round of Dancing with the Stars.
Kay
@germy:
How nuts is it that President Trump promised them he would lock Hillary Clinton up, failed to lock her up, so they are now petitioning Hillary Clinton to lock herself up.
Shouldn’t they be at the White House demanding the arrest of their political enemies? Once again- in the wrong place.
germy
@Kay:
They’re too busy at the White House:
mad citizen
@Kay: Ruh Roh! Such a stupid scandal too. Economics are powerful in the wholesale power markets. Speaking of California-style deals, one of my colleagues once remarked how the Ohio ratepayers had paid for the same power plants 3 or 4 times over. Restructuring and retail competition is complicated and provides lots of opportunities for gaming things.
mad citizen
@Kay: Remember Pelosi’s great comment that trump is “self-impeaching”? So funny. I think she should make some initial moves to impeach him again just to F with him for a few weeks.
Kay
I’m in favor of complaining if any of these people get jobs that are all vulnerable to public pressure not to hire them. She’s harming the country with her protection of Donald Trump’s ego and we’re paying her salary. I think there should be reputational harm that comes from doing that.
Kay
Emily Murphy is not doing her job and we are all paying her. That should be bad when a future employer considers her. As it is now she does nothing for the next 2 months and we continue to pay her for doing nothing. That isn’t fair to the public.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: Rick Wilson said last week that John Kelly was surprised at the paucity of jobs (sinecures) available to him when he left the White House. Good.
I think Miles Taylor actually lost a couple of gigs when he revealed he was “anonymous”. Again, good.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kelly repulses me. I think he has genuine malice towards immigrants. Just a terrible person. I hope he never works again.
Everyone is so, so mean to conservatives, Part 671:
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Really? I missed that. Do you have a link? I’d love to read more.
Kay
I don’t believe there are any “vaccine distribution plans” because the low quality hires are both lazy and incompetent, but can you imagine the nerve of these people? We’re paying them for this. They are under the mistaken impression that they and the Trump Family own what we already paid them to do.
Again, not that they did it! I think the big reveal for the Biden transition team is none of these people have done a lick of actual work since January, but it’s the attitude that kills me. Entitled.
sdhays
@Kay: I absolutely believe that whatever they’ve done to prepare for vaccine distribution is woefully inadequate and incompetently planned. We already know that they haven’t bother funding themselves adequately; the details probably aren’t even fleshed out – just a long list of TBD’s. That’s just how these people operate.
And I think they will use whatever tool they have at their disposal to cover that fact up for as long as possible before it becomes Biden’s stinking pile of shit to clean up.
debbie
@Kay:
Then I hope the Biden administration makes that well known.
Another Scott
@Kay: But, but, they do so have a plan. They talked about it a Heritage in October:
It’s the well known pushme pullyou approach, coupled with the “always tell me where every single thing is” approach. What could go wrong??
Cheers,
Scott.
Ivan X
@zhena gogolia: thank you!!
PJ
@Suzanne: Carlson is smarter than Trump, but he doesn’t have the narcissistic bully appeal that Trump has. I don’t think he would get the same amount of traction as Trump has. And as long as Trump stays alive to either run again in 2024, or to anoint whoever ends up being the GOP nominee, who will have to kiss Trump’s ass, I don’t think Trump would let him get close.
lethargytartare
Obama tried. Then the media spent two weeks talking about his gaffe and our side fretted over his inelegant phrasing.
Uncle Cosmo
Amen. But I will guaranfuckingtee you one thing: The program of conversion will start by stomping down hard on anyone this side of the aisle who calls them “brainless zombies.” To the point of running them out of the movement if necessary.
C’mon, man. Do you really expect to win someone to your point of view by calling them names? By pointing and mocking and ridiculing them? If you do, you have even less understanding of human nature than the ones you despise.
We just tried that: We denigrated their champion at every opportunity. We cranked out at least two dozen dismissive nicknames for him. And whenever we ran into one of his followers, we pulled out a Sharpie & a pad of Post-It notes & slapped a nice neat label on his/her forehead: BIGOT. NAZI. MISOGYNIST. TRUMPANZEE. Hey, it beat having to look any deeper – to consider that there might be something more than a tar-black mass of steaming hatred underneath.
If we are going to chip away at the opposition – and FTR that’s how it’s going to start, chipping away at them in ones & twos – it has to start with looking underneath and trying to empathize.
Not agree. But get some sort of idea how that person got to where s/he is, & what keeps them there.
And there has to be a basic respect. Not of what they believe, or espouse, but of how what they believe drives their actions. (As an unbeliever & former Catholic, when I meet religious folks, I respect that their beliefs motivate them even though I disagree strongly with most of those beliefs.**)
One thing all of you should understand: Trump supporters do not generally “hate” people from other tribes. They feel like they are in competition with them for the good things in life, and they want to win that competition. They reserve their deepest hatred for people like “the white Jackaltariat” (including me). We are identified (by dint of skin color, native language, etc.) as part of their tribe; we have more power than they (by dint of education, credentials, position, etc.). In their minds, we should be protecting their (white) tribal privileges. Instead we tax them, fine them, regulate and restrict them, and (worst of all) what we take from them we give to “the undeserving” – i.e., members of those other tribes they are competing against. They hate us as race-traitors.
Finally, we talk at length about “a government of laws, not men” – but for many of these people laws are things that constrain them while the bazillionaires and corps walk freely (if necessary paying tiny fines out of pocket change), Much of their lives, much of their chances for success or betterment, depend on people, like the traffic cop who lets them off with a warning, the supervisor who winks at them showing up a little late or taking a long lunch or a “sick day” the day after payday, the neighbor who finds the parts to fix their car in exchange for help putting in a deck…
There’s a lot more that might be said, but at day’s end, if we want to convert any of them, we need to understand where they’re coming from, in order to engage with them. I grew up with people who are mostly Trump supporters now; in the years B.P. I’d have lunch with some of them every few weeks; and I tell you the vast majority of them would never dream of marching with tiki-torches shouting anti-Semitic slogans, much less chaining an old man to the back of their pickup and dragging him to his death or going out with a shotgun looking for a jogger of the wrong skin color to blast away at. Many of them can come to agreement with us, in some things if not everything.
But if we choose to keep mocking them and slapping simplistic labels on them, and count on winning elections by razor-thin margins & then imposing our programs until they are reversed by the courts or the next election, we’re just setting ourselves up for Civil War 2.0, where the other side has most of the weapons and police and armed forces, and an eventual United Fascist States of America.
/rant
** There’s an old Christian trope that has some bearing here: “Hate the sin, not the sinner.”
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
for real???
rikyrah
@Kay:
I have come to the belief that there not only is no vaccine plan.
there is no COVID-19 plan.
Chris T.
@Kay: I’m sure this is a dead thread, but I’ll put in my theory (about “Trump has the goods on them”): It goes back to the Russian Kompromat. The Russians got the same data from the RNC that they got from the DNC. The DNC’s, er, “juicy details” were not sufficiently compromising (no real juice there), so they dumped it all out in 2016 and we got Podesta Polenta and such: everything we saw back in 2016. The RNC stuff, on the other hand, is probably stuff that would set hair (and careers) on fire.
So, the Russians gave some of that to Trump. He used it to turn enough of the establishment around as needed. They—the Repukes—think he still has it. He probably never had the raw data. Whatever the Russians gave him, he’s probably incompetent enough to have lost it all anyway. But the Repukes are still afraid, and that’s enough.