Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Republicans do not trust women.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

In after Baud. Damn.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Books are my comfort food!

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Performative Outrage

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Performative Outrage

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It’s the cat’s expression that makes the bit. Must you, human? Can I not have one unmediated moment of joyful creativity without your vulgar stalking? …

Speaking of which…

Within an hour of the networks’ at last declaring Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election, his campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon took to Twitter to celebrate. In contrast with what we’ve come to expect from those who serve in the current administration, she wasn’t gloating or triumphalist. She was honest, elated, and grateful. “We can do hard things,” she wrote, “and you just did!”…

… She is the first woman to manage a successful Democratic presidential campaign, the first woman to run a campaign that ousted an incumbent president, and of course the first person to spearhead a winning ticket in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic.

Her task since she joined the Biden team on March 12, 2020—less than 24 hours after Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive for Covid-19, the NBA suspended its season, and the World Health Organization designated the brand-new disease a global pandemic—has been to do the hardest possible things: Win a virtual election. Fight a cascade of misinformation. Keep hundreds of staffers and the candidate himself safe. Do not flinch.

After Biden is sworn in, O’Malley Dillon will serve as his deputy chief of staff—her first White House role ever after two decades in presidential politics. But in the meantime, with the tiniest bit of breathing room now that Donald Trump and the GOP have lost almost 60 court cases in their futile, craven efforts to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 race, O’Malley Dillon made some time to meet Doyle over Zoom and talk about—what else?—the hard things…

The scary pull quote, which seems extremely on-point for the campaign Biden just won:

That might be what we’re missing—is that redefining of compromise. That it is or it can be the ultimate victory.

Yes, exactly. And frankly, that’s what we need. The president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity. In the primary, people would mock him, like, “You think you can work with Republicans?” I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of fuckers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that. From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too.

Which is not to say it is easy. It is like a relationship. You can’t do politics alone. If the other person is not willing to do the work, then that becomes really hard. But I think, more than not, people want to see impact. They want to see us moving in a path forward. They want to do their work, get paid a fair share, have time for themselves and their family, and see each other as neighbors. And this overhang of this negative, polarized electorate that politics has created is the thing that I think we can break down…

But the Democrat lady said a Big SWEAR!!1!!…

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  2. 2.

    debbie

    I seem to remember the zero amount of outrage from other conservatives when Dick Cheney used the same word. Fuckem.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    According to the news, Wilmer read The Art of the Deal and now thinks he would have done a better job negotiating with Mitch.

  6. 6.

    satby

    And the correct response:

    Jane Lynch@janemarielynch

    If it walks like a bunch of fuckers and it talks like a bunch of fuckers it’s a bunch of fuckers.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Zoom will be lifting its 40-minute meeting limit for free accounts globally in recognition of several upcoming holidays…

    Here’s exactly when Zoom will be removing the 40-minute limit:

    10AM ET Thursday, December 17th, to 6AM ET Saturday, December 19th, for the end of Hanukkah

    10AM ET Wednesday, December 23rd, to 6AM ET Saturday, December 26th, for Christmas Eve and Christmas

    10AM ET on Wednesday, December 30th, to 6AM ET on Saturday, January 2nd, for New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the end of Kwanza Source

    Doesn’t specify but those times are probably Eastern.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    @a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2020/12/17/thursday-morning-open-thread-performative-outrage/#comment-8001209″>NotMax

    Senior moment (collect them all!). Eastern time is specified.

  14. 14.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I am as tired of Vt Jesus and his band of performance art ? progressives as I am of the Republican fuckers.

  16. 16.

    Van Buren

    @satby: Other possible response: ” I  would like to retract that. I misspoke. They are, in fact, goddam motherfucking nazi wannabees. I regret the error.”

  17. 17.

    Spanky

    Now wait a minute. She didn’t call them a bunch of fuckers. She said she’s not saying they’re NOT a bunch of fuckers.

    They are, of course, a bunch of motherfuckers, so I think she pulled her punches here.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Couple of moderately entertaining recent finds on Prime.

    Not the best heist movie you’ll ever see but sufficiently distant from the worst – Logan Lucky. Stretches of adroit film making interspersed with stretches of goes-on-too-long time spent with characters (and plot) treading water.

    Lower key and strictly for gentle laughter is Make A Fake (originally Senza arte né parte). Italian hijinks poking a palette knife through the modern art scene. Trailer (no subtitles).

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    The “some advisors” who allegedly have the vapors over O’Malley Dillon’s language are probably the same tender blossoms who wanted to block Harris from the ticket because she threw some elbows during the primary. Ed Rendell and who else?

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    She’s not saying they’re a bunch of fuckers.

    But I am. They’re a bunch of deplorable fuckers.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    I wonder if this will be like “deplorables” with republicans proudly calling themselves “fuckers.”

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Reposted from below: George Pell: Trump is a barbarian, but ‘in some important ways’ he’s our barbarian

    In the book, Pell muses on his court case and current events in the Catholic church and around the world, and at one point says Trump is unfortunately “a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways, he is our [Christian] barbarian”.

    During the virtual press conference, Pell said Christians had an obligation to bring their values to the public sphere and said Trump had made a “positive contribution” particularly with his three supreme court picks, two of whom are Catholic.

    And some people think my hatred of the Catholic church is a bit too extreme.

  25. 25.

    ByRookorbyCrook

    Good morning! First real snow of the year in the wilds of Central New York. Poor Binghamton got almost 3 feet. My dogs and kids are happy.

    So ‘fuckers’ is just too much for some of our donors? She could have gone with seditious, obstructionist twits to spare feelings.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    Politico:

    On Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence will oversee final confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Then he’ll likely skip town.

    As vice president, Pence has the awkward but unavoidable duty of presiding over the session of Congress that will formalize Biden’s Electoral College victory — a development that is likely to expose him and other Republicans to the wrath of GOP voters who believe President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him.

    But Pence could dodge their ire by leaving Washington immediately for the Middle East and Europe. According to three U.S. officials familiar with the planning, the vice president is eyeing a foreign trip that would take him overseas for nearly a week, starting on Jan. 6.

    I wonder how much this trip will this cost U.S. taxpayers?

  29. 29.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    And our feckless beltway media corpse wonders why they’re so roundly despised?

    Oh wait, that would require introspection and analysis of their motives and operations.  Never happens.

  31. 31.

    RepubAnon

    Republicans know that the path to success is keeping their base fired up – which is why they try to make Democrats apologize for saying things that fire up Progressives.

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Pell left his job as prefect of the Vatican’s economy ministry in 2017 to face charges that he sexually molested two 13-year-old choir boys in the sacristy of the Melbourne cathedral in 1996. After a first jury deadlocked, a second unanimously convicted him and he was sentenced to six years in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal only to be thrown out by Australia’s high court, which in April unanimously found there was reasonable doubt in the testimony of his lone accuser.

  36. 36.

    raven

    Pretty cool

     
    They came like gifts from a Secret Santa, $20 million here, $40 million there, all to higher education, but not to the elite universities that usually hog all the attention. These donations went to colleges and universities that many people have never heard of, and that tended to serve regional, minority and lower-income students.
    On Tuesday, MacKenzie Scott, the world’s 18th-richest person, publicly revealed that she was the one behind the donations to dozens of colleges and universities, part of nearly $4.2 billion she had given to 384 organizations in the last four months.

  38. 38.

    sixthdoctor

    It’d be nice if someone in power pointed out publicly how these Republican fragile flowers, to a person, were happily dancing on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s grave three months ago.

  43. 43.

    Danielx

    I don’t know why people are so upset, she could have said they were pigfuckers. Which would be insulting to that noble creature the pig, I realize.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat: In the Covid thread, Van Buren had commented that, “I admit that I did not foresee that COVID would make strip clubs and churches allies against the government.”

    Satby replied, ” Why not? They both use women’s bodies to service and gratify men.”

    And then I saw the article which was kind of the bow on the wrapping of that discussion.

  55. 55.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I wonder how much this trip will this cost U.S. taxpayers?

    Depends on if it includes a return ticket, doesn’t it?

    (After all, we’ve established that he doesn’t have a house in Indiana, or perhaps thinks he’s still the governor.)

  59. 59.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    These guys can’t help declaring every time that they have a problem with competent, ambitious women. They all need to shut up and sit down.

    I’ve taken to saying “bunch of white guys” when I see pics of Republicans on the TV. Poor Mr DAW.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: And exactly why are Pence and his ball&chain getting the vaccine now? Neither are in any way essential.

    But Pence is the one who needs to pardon trump, the very definition of essential.

  64. 64.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:

    Wait — Ikea is an actual girl’s name? I remember an episode of Friends where Phoebe was pretending to be Swedish. The only name she could think of for her Swedish persona was, well, Ikea, and nobody was fooled.

  65. 65.

    raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: “Officials in other big states such as Florida and Illinois also have reported being notified of reduced quantities of the vaccine through the federal government’s distribution plans”

  66. 66.

    JMG

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ll venture a guess the feds overpromised Michigan and a bunch of other states, say 49 others, on times and volumes of vaccine deliveries and are now admitting they can’t cash that check.

  71. 71.

    raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think an effort of this magnitude is bound to have issues.

     

    The incident came to light as the first hiccups in the distribution of the vaccine in the U.S. emerged on Wednesday, including a holdup in delivering 3,900 shots to two states and the announcement that Pfizer would deliver about 900,000 fewer doses next week than are set to ship this week.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:@raven:@JMG: Pfizer reported a problem with getting some raw materials and requested the admin invoke the Defense Authorization Act to get those to them. Supposedly the issue has been resolved. This may just be the lag on that hiccup in production.

    ETA <a href=”#comment-8001288″>@raven</a>: I suspect that comes from the same article I read. No doubt why the word ‘hiccup’ got stuck in my brain.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I have no use for Nina Turner, but the primary for that seat will not have a runoff, so she may be able to pull off a plurality win in a four or five candidate race. She’ll have plenty of money since she is a hero to many on the left. Some of them are lamenting that Turner is running as a Democrat after delivering such a forceful speech at the recent People’s Party convention. But these folks want power, so I think they’ll fall in line behind Turner’s Inside/Outside strategy.

  76. 76.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax: I’ve heard that Tikhanovskaya has been invited to Biden’s inauguration, but can’t confirm that. Maybe Fisher could wait and present credentials when the latter comes to DC?

  77. 77.

    burnspbesq

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Which is a reminder of just how high a standard “beyond a reasonable doubt” can become when an appellate court wants a powerful defendant to skate. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think Pell did the things of which he was accused.

  78. 78.

    Peale

    @JMG: I’ll venture to guess that the COVID team spent all of 30 seconds on the problem of manufacturing and just assumed that a vaccine is just like shopping for clothing. The stores they shop at are never empty. Things just magically appear when you want them.

  81. 81.

    JAFD

    @Chyron HR: Being on first cuppa, and not having read the article yet, would speculate that either A – she got married and add husband’s name to hers, or B – her parents did.

    As she’s a distant relative of myne, HURRAH !

    meanwhile, the weather in New Jersey has gone from 60 F and folks riding around in top-down convertibles Sunday to 30 F and 8″ of snow on ground this morn.  That kind of temp change me old bones do not like.  Blech.

    Stay healthy and keep warm !

    (I originally typed ‘and keep worm’ – problem with Dvorak keyboard is it’s easy to make ‘mistakes that seem to make sense’ – thot of leaving it in, seeing how yon jackals would react…)

  82. 82.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    “Overpromising and Underdelivering as a Means to Profit” should be one of the chapter titles in “Art of the Deal”.

  83. 83.

    sab

    @rikyrah: Nina Turner announced she wants to run for Marcia Fudge’s congresss seat. Then Emilia Sykes (Ohio Senate minority leader) announced she is thinking about running for same seat. This makes me happy. I really like Emilia Sykes.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @sab:

    Nina Turner announced she wants to run for Marcia Fudge’s congresss seat.

    I received e-mail from DKos asking me to “sign up” to help her. My reply was, in effect, “only if she were running against Louie Gohmert or Matt Gaetz or someone similar.”

  87. 87.

    Immanentize

    Re, “not saying they are not fuckers” comment, my favorite clapback so far has been:

    That’s just how women talk in the locker room.

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: I read some of Turner’s interview with Democracy Now yesterday. I get that people who are running for office will make unrealistic promises and stake out stretch positions, but she’s not even in the vicinity of reality.

    One of the interviewers asked her about a recent interview with AOC in which AOC talked about Dem efforts to get another $1200 stimulus check for Americans without McConnell’s liability shield. Turner basically went off on the idea of a $1200 stimulus check, insinuating that it’s an insult that wouldn’t help anyone and that Dems need to go for a basic income program instead.

    #1, I’d like to see her tell actual working people that $1200 is nothing, and #2, has she met the U.S. Congress?

  91. 91.

    zhena gogolia

    Contrarian here, I wish she hadn’t said it. Why was it necessary?

    ETA: Reminds me of Tlaib. Just because we’re all thinking it, you don’t have to yell it in public.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And some people think my hatred of the Catholic church is a bit too extreme.

    Not me. We could get together and argue over which of us hates those fuckers more properly, and neither of us could possibly be too extreme.

    I was going to list some of their perversions, both current and historical, and quickly saw it would be way too long a comment, and so gave up that goal.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: According to the news, Wilmer read The Art of the Deal and now thinks he would have done a better job negotiating with Mitch.

    You don’t come back from being told to look out the window.

  97. 97.

    artem1s

    Love that Biden’s Deputy Chief of Staff has Rs pining for the good old, nice polite days of Rahm Emanuel.

  100. 100.

    sab

    @SFAW: dKos wanted Ohioans to vote for Paul Hackett instead of Sherrod Brown back in the day, so I am skeptical of their recommendations. They don’t do their homework.

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @zhena gogolia: Maybe in perfect world every political operative will always say exactly the right thing.  We don’t live in that world, and this is, at worst, a Kinsley gaffe.

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    From upthread — seems like my Mom’s town got about 3 feet in upstate NY. We have about 10 inches here north of Boston so far. It’s beautiful and silent out.

    When the Immp arises -. Fire in the fireplace.

  103. 103.

    Immanentize

    Hive mind question.  My receiver has a built in phono pre amp that works with MM style phono cartridges, but not MC (moving coil) cartridges.  So, I need a phono pre-amp!  Any suggestions?

  105. 105.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Obama told this great joke once, “when Rahm lost his middle finger in an accident he lost half his vocabulary”  – it brought the house down because it was true, all Rahm does is swear.   But it’s okay if you have a brother who is one of the most feared, popular and powerful media agents.

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    Suck an ass’s ass, you traitorous, seditious, Russthuglican Trump trash who slurp Kremlin assholes!

    Cry harder!

  107. 107.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Immanentize:

    From upthread — seems like my Mom’s town got about 3 feet in upstate NY. We have about 10 inches here north of Boston so far. It’s beautiful and silent out. 

    Hot diggity dog!  Also green with envy.

    I thought pining for the storm was a little boy thing. Glad to see I'm not alone. https://t.co/8dPOVkyyeJ— Neil Steinberg (@NeilSteinberg) December 16, 2020

  108. 108.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: I think the response should be this:

    “What word would you recommend to describe the person behind all the obstruction, behind all the harm that has been done to millions of Americans, behind the indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, what word to people who have totally abdicated their responsibilities to our country and to democracy?”

    “Find me a better word than “fuckers”, and I will be happy to use it.”

    I hope there is no apology issued for this one, I don’t care how many politicians have the vapors.  It’s time to tell the truth, even if I wish she had taken a more judicious approach.

  116. 116.

    Gin & Tonic

    @WaterGirl: Here’s a good take, from someone we know

    Are we really talking about the f word in any context other than the f-ing people who stood by Trump as he boasted about “grabbing women in the pussy”, smeared “shit hole countries” called black NFL players “sons of bitches” and assaulted our democracy while ignoring covid?
    — Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) December 17, 2020

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    @sab: Sykes is awesome! I hope she runs. I attended virtual Ohio Dem Party Convention and was impressed by the event and the exposure to young talented Dems in other parts of the state. Sykes was one of them.

  123. 123.

    dnfree

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: my husband has to put up with similar comments, but he fortunately doesn’t take it personally because he’s not a Republican, and he knows it’s been true for too long.

  125. 125.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Betty Cracker: I bet he makes it longer than a week.  As long as it he makes it back before the 20th, his trip will be paid for. As for benefits from the the trip, it isn’t likely to be any.  Foreign powers know that he can’t deliver on any promise he makes, and are waiting for Biden Administration personnel and policies.

    But he’s far away from angry magats, which is what he really wants and needs.

  126. 126.

    lowtechcyclist

    @SFAW:  I received e-mail from DKos asking me to “sign up” to help her. My reply was, in effect, “only if she were running against Louie Gohmert or Matt Gaetz or someone similar.”

    Maybe I’m just weird, but I want the most liberal Democrat in each district that can consistently be re-elected there. OH-11 has a D+32 PVI, so the Dem representing that district should be pretty damn liberal.

  128. 128.

    Miss Bianca

    @lowtechcyclist: Maybe I’m just weird, but I want the most *effective* Democrat to win, not the most “liberal”. I have yet to see any evidence that Turner really understands or cares how our government actually works. She appears to be more interested in…well..performative outrage than anything else. In that, she’s pretty much just like your average Republican these days. I’m going to be “represented” by one of these right-wing purity ponies for at least the next two years, so I may be uniquely out of patience here with this notion that the candidate with the most ideologically pure distillation of grievances “deserves” to win.

  129. 129.

    J R in WV

    @Mike in NC:

    Toxic and dysfunctional sounds like a good start in describing Trump’s time in office. Illegal, treasonous, hmmm, lots of words for what he did.

    We should have a pool for how many listening devices they find in the White House…

    ETA: maybe none, they just used his phone…?

  130. 130.

    Geminid

     

     

    @lowtechcyclist: I have often heard the general principle you express. You have an excellent opportunity to assess its value as applied to this actual race. Just look up former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner and current State Senator Emilia Sykes, a likely competitor. Read a few articles about each, like you live in the district and want to know who to vote for. It wouldn’t take long..                           I have a hunch this won’t be the last time this race will be discussed here.

  131. 131.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Miss Bianca: I don’t know Nina Turner from Tina Turner, but what I was hearing was ‘she’s bad because she’s a Berniecrat.’  Berniecrats cover an awful lot of ground; IMHO most of them want a better Democratic Party, while those who want a revolution and don’t care what gets burned down in the process get all the attention.

    And with respect to effectiveness, the vast majority of Representatives aren’t going to be majorly effective.  I’d love a House full of Katie Porters, but realistically if you’ve got a few dozen of them, you’re doing pretty good.  Most of them, you just want them to vote the right way.

    And for me, that means shifting the balance so that more liberal, less centrist outcomes become possible.  For instance, I want a House Democratic Caucus where defending Rep. Richard Neal, who has been keeping surprise billing alive in his capacity as Ways and Means chair, isn’t something that Dem leadership can get away with anymore.

    And the way you make it hard for them to get away with it is to increase the proportion of the caucus that don’t think that shit is acceptable.  Personnel is policy, and all that.

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